I totally have no work to do this evening. Yup, just gonna take it easy, kick back, maybe finally post an entry here. After, of course, I get dinner for the kids. Then I have to walk the dog because we don't currently have a yard for him TO POOP ON (news on that in a moment) and get him dinner. Then it's bath time for babies, followed by playtime in their room and then getting them settled for bed. Then I have to water the non-yard (in a moment I said!) and walk the dog again because he refuses to pee in the driveway. Yup, just gonna do nothing and HOLY SHIT IT'S 10:45 AT NIGHT ALREADY MY GOD HOW DO I EVER GET ANYTHING DONE EVER??!?!?

I am the sort of person that rents movies and returns them unwatched because I never got around to it. King Kong sits on my dining room table, taunting me. You know how primates taunt, right? They fling their turds at you. Kong taunty-turds are big enough to knock over grain silos. I'm running out of silos! Dammit monkey!

Looks like I'm going to be a suburban slave. You might know what I'm talking about- those poor bastards who spend hours a day watering and preening their stupid grass on their postage-stamp plot of land so it is more lush and green than their neighbor who is out doing the exact same thing. I swore that I would never become beholden to my lawn because I hate yardwork and I hate keeping up with the Joneses and I'm allergic to all that's green and flowering. But now we have this brand new lawn coming in that I had a landscaping company install partially out of shame, since we had maybe the worst burnt up weedy mess on the street, and partially out of desire to have someplace where the kids could play without getting shredded up by thorns and nettles. Every day I've got my garden hoses and my sprinklers working early in the morning and late in the evening, the symbols of my new indenture to the tiny bright green filaments that are starting to pop out of the muck. I can't stop sneezing. I don't plan on being able to do this as well as most of my neighbors who are all retired and have nothing better to do all day than make their lawns glisten like perfect fucking emeralds in the noonday sun. I must say I'm making lots of friends though. I think it must be like this for women after they have a baby, it's like they've joined some exclusive club and suddenly are friends with all the other mommies and have so much to talk about. I stand out front with my hose in my hand like the chain around my neck it is and wave to all the other jackasses who will also be watering their lawns every day until they drop. I don't like these guys at all. But I can't stop watering, the grass will die!

Baxter can't touch his back yard, let alone pee on it, for like weeks. I've got a run set up in the driveway for him, but that isn't sitting well at all. He sulks all day. {Frowny face goes here.}

Happy! FINALLY my Venture Bros. Season One DVD's showed up from Amazon! They were held up in shipping, and it was just killing me. I will make time to watch these- life can go on hold for a while. This and Veronica Mars are the first teevee shows I've thought enough of that I needed to own them. I'm considering buying Battlestar Galactica too, but probably not. It's fun to watch and all, but I don't think I'll get that much more out of it through repeated viewings. I was really amazed at how much more I caught watching Veronica Mars' first season again knowing the eventual outcome. That show is amazing. Plus I have deep, sticky feelings for Kristen Bell. I was so relieved to learn that she's a 20-something that only plays a teenager on TV, because for a while there I was feeling guilty about the filthy, awful things that I was thinking about her and what I made the naked voodoo puppets I fashioned in our images do. Those puppets- they're insatiable.

Ooooh- in that world where there are no pants and I AM KING OF ALL I SURVEY.

Alternate caption #1: VOODOO!

Alternate caption #2: guh whoaa momma

Anyone heard this song by B.R.M.C.? It's The Balls.

Yes AMY, my kids are fronting an indie rock band. Actually, the fact is that I cut some of their hair like a year ago and by Becky's reaction you would have thought I'd chopped off their fingers. I totally didn't! It was just some hair! Jesus- never again. They will be some shaggy lil' devils.

Tags: Pictures I Am Professional What? Kids Movies Tunes T.V. Veronica Mars Kristen Bell Pretty Girls

Is it just me, or does it seem like the country we actually should be thinking about going to war with we can't go to war with because we're already fighting a war with a different country that we shouldn't have started fighting a war with (for the second time) in the first (second) place? Does that about nail it? I've been listening to NPR lately, and they get me ALL RILED UP. This is dismaying because I just know that we'll be fighting a war against one or more middle eastern countries for a long, LONG time, and I've got boys who will be draft age in seventeen years (if the government waits eighteen years to take 'em in the future, maybe we run out of eighteen year olds and they gotta start hitting them that just got eligible to drive), and haven't we learned from the Germans that you can't win a land war fought on two (or more) fronts?

Well.

My Cavs won their first round playoffs against the Washington Wizards in dramatic and intoxicating fashion. They're getting hammered in the second round by Deee-troit, but that's okay because there's no shame in getting whipped by the team that will go on to be the Champs. Nobody's gonna beat those guys, they're AWESOME. Next year, though- it'll be ALL CAVALIERS- BANG-POW!

I took a picture! Actually, lots of pictures! On Sunday when I was supposed to be working I went down to the 10 story LeBron James banner Nike has plastered all over the building across the street from Quicken Loans Arena. It is hard to take pictures of yourself and stuff behind you when that stuff is like a million blocks away. WE ARE ALL WITNESSES to my patchy stubble and greasy hair.

It is HOT at work- our AC kicked back in my department, and we have no windows or ventilation of any sort. Today I was very moist and uncomfortable in all my Bad-Touch areas. Swampy.

Anybody hear the new Pearl Jam yet? Any good? I've heard it may be good, but I can't trust the word of strangers- I only trust the pretend people who live in my computer and occasionally leave comments.

Tags: Pictures Sports What? Tunes

Just do it. Are you saying Aretha hasn't earned your dollar? She's the hardest working portly woman in show biz. And so funky. FUNKY.

Rock Steady.

Tags: Tunes

I wrapped up a project at work half an hour before quittin' time, and since it is Friday and since I like to goof off and get paid (like you don't), I decided, instead of starting the next project, to continue my recent (half-assed) crusade to check up on old pals that I've let go un-checked far too long now*. This has been an only sorta successful campaign, mostly because I am easily sidetracked by life these days. Not to mention how amazingly, incredibly stupid I've become in the last couple years. I've never been under the impression that I was any smarter than anyone (and certainly not most of my net pals, who are some of the sharpest knives in the drawer), but at least I could keep up, you know? These days, not so much. It's actually been very frustrating- but that's another post. A sad post. One that I'll never make, because we don't do sad posts here at Cranky Matty's O.P., we only preach the Truth. The Truth is that I'm feeling very retarded! Maybe I had a stroke that I didn't notice. They hit quick, you know; and not just old fuckers- super young and pretty people like me can be cut down in the prime of life by a debilitating stroke. Billy Squier sang a song about it. You should check that out and take precautions, because you could be a winner boy- you move quite well.

I sent a PM to my (our) friend Chandler, who's real name is not Chandler, but she would not appreciate my revealing her trade secrets here so I won't. First of all, I was afraid that she had disappeared off the board (the Watcher's Diary over at Buffyguide, for those of you who don't know me from there), and that would have been just devastating. She let her very neglected blog dry up quite some time ago, and if I couldn't get her through the BG I'd have to just assume something terrible had happened, because I am a worrier. I'd have to write a letter or something, and Channy lives in Israel. Can you imagine the fricking postage? What, am I made of money, Chandler? Okay, I would have stolen the postage from the meter at work, BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. You had me very worried young lady- I hope you'll act more responsibly next time.

As it turns out she still logs into the BG enough so her online persona hasn't been dispatched to the ether. Bitchin'! I sent her a completely trivial and nonsensical PM which I'm certain she will enjoy whenever it is she gets to look at computers in that strange land of hers.

Basically, it just said that I haven't shaved in a few days, and betwixt that and my unkempt, spikey hair I look like I might be prickly to the touch.

That's the message I greet her with after almost no communication in two years. My social skills are just amazing! See all those spots swirling before your eyes? That's your sense of bewilderment! Wooooo! Or carbon monoxide poisoning! GET OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW.

Tonight! I am baby free until at least eleven o'clock p.m. as they are with Mommy visiting the sibs at Ohio State. What to do? WHAT? Thar be TiVo t'be catchin' up on (hours and hours!), and certainly I could do some work as I have Monday deadlines. And billing! I need to bill things for the people to send me money. Or clean- shit is PILING UP. Could definitely clean up. Or I could drink beer and type. Drink and type. Type and drink. That does have a certain appeal.


*Don't feel left out if I haven't included you in my Grand Crusade yet. My Grandness has thus far consisted of a few very desperate seeming PM's to Merope. I guess that makes it more of an Exploit than a Crusade, but "exploit" is a weak little sister of a word. "Crusade" is very George W. Bush-ian.

Tags: I Am Professional Kids Tunes Pals Internet TV

Tonight during 24 I saw the new ad for the Nissan XTerra. They're using "Set You Free" by local band (well, Akron, that's close enough) The Black Keys for the background music. Nice!

Quick Black Keys story- the band is comprised of two regulars, the singer/guitarist and the drummer, who is the gangliest motherfucker ever. That freak can play the hell out of some drums, so more power. Anyway, the guitar guy is sort of average looking, nothing special. Before they got signed he'd been dating his high school sweetheart for several years. After signing some record deal and a European tour later, he comes back with a Dutch (French? Whatever) lingerie model. My brother-in-law, who used to fix guitars for them, asked him what was up with that? He said, "Dude- I'm famous in Europe!"

Tags: Tunes T.V. Good Times

Since Dee brought up the totally sad fact that she has all Journey's records on vinyl (something she should never, ever tell anyone ever again, even if it isn't true), we should discuss the fact that they had really cool album covers. But not nearly as cool as Asia's. Check these things out! I think they had some other ones too, but for most of these I believe they never actually recorded any new songs for. They just shipped empty album covers. Nobody complained as that was all anyone bought these records for anyway.

Tags: Tunes Pals Internet

Here I set this thing up with the full intention of flooding the market with daily updates, and then the world went all kablooie on me and shit needed done. Who gets the call when shit needs done? Me, that's who. I carry the shit doing stick, which is what God used to dig canyons and stuff like that. "Shit Doing Stick" is the lamest name ever for any tool, but it was named by the Almighty, and who am I to mess with that? He'd be the first to admit He isn't good with making up names for things.

Okay, enough of that. I'm here to today to talk about Journey, which (for you children out there) was a very famous rock band (a so-called "supergroup"!) back in the late 70's through the mid 80's. They did some stuff after that which was all horrible, so people my age pretty much just pretend the band died in a plane crash somewhere outside Topeka in 1986. These guys were so frickin' huge they even had their own Atari game in '82 called "Journey Escape", perhaps the lamest Atari 2600 title ever produced. That's really saying something, especially if you were one of those suckers who shelled out 50 bucks for the E.T. game.

Anyway, I don't want you to think I'm some huge Journey fan. I appreciate bigtime their '80's cheese factor, which is completely unparalleled. I was one of the seemingly billions of people who bought the Journey Greatest Hits CD when I was in high school, which like several notable greatest hits collections* didn't actually contain their only good songs. (Note: the following contains iTunes links) Those songs, of course, are "Stone in Love" and the classic 2 song arc, "Feeling That Way/Anytime". Even with these glaring omissions, this CD is one of the biggest selling disks of all time, and from royalties alone Steve Perry is able to swim naked in piles of money every morning like Scrooge McDuck (which always bothered me- wouldn't he get some sort of metal poisoning from always being immersed in filthy gold coins?).

But here's the thing, see- I have this joke. It's my big running gag, the one that I have had going for fifteen years. The one I will see pass on into perpetuity through my progeny. Journey gets played a lot on the radio, even to this day. Tune into any adult contemporary or lite rock station & you're bound to hear some shitty Journey song sooner or later. 80's Flashback Weekend? You better BELIEVE there will be Journey. Don't stop believin'! (TEE-HEE thud)

Whenever this happens, be it in the car or at work or during some lame wedding reception, when any Journey song starts playing I turn to whoever I'm nearest- friend, wife, stranger, random hitchhiker, grocery store clerk; doesn't matter; and I say, "It's about time they played something good."

I don't care if we've been listening to the voice of God doing spoken word poetry being backed by a chorus of angels all day- if "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" comes on I'm saying to somebody in a loud voice, "It's about time they played something good."

Look, this may not seem funny to you, but that's just 'cause you haven't heard me do it like a thousand times. Trust me, over the course of a lifetime, by the 800th or so instance I look over at you and say "It's about time they played something good." when that shitty piano heralds the beginning of "Open Arms" you'll laugh your ass off. Or you'll roll your eyes while I laugh my ass off. Whatever.

But the first time I hear lil' Tyler or tiny Casey say, "It's about time they played something good," when we hit a Journey classic on the iPod will be the proudest moment of my entire life. My heart will grow two sizes that day, I swear.



*I'm looking right at you, Cars Greatest Hits. No "Bye Bye Love"? No "Moving in Stereo"? "Cars Greatest Hits" my fucking ass.

Tags: What? Tunes Good Times Kids