Things that make me look bad #1

Me: *Buuuuuuurp*

Wife (walking into burp): EEEUCK! Why does your burp smell like shit?!

Me (with a pause for thought): Oh... I farted and burped at the same time, sorry.

Wife: JESUS!! FUCK!

kooky?

clarinet teacher

full of crazy ideas

make the emails stop

I recently took lessons to better myself on clarinet. Yes, I play clarinet. Yes, I care enough about the clarinet to pay a teacher to try and get me better at playing the clarinet. Dorky, I know. Shut up. Anyway, the teacher turned out to be a little kooky. He had helpful things to say, but sort of just said them out of order, like some crazy professor chatty-kathy doll. Every time I went into a lesson I didn't know how he would be, or how he would react to me. I tried being serious, funny, awkward, and confident, but none of those proved to get a good response out of him. I settled on apathy and went on with my life. (You have to know that most of the lesson involved learning the proper attitude I should have about music, not really how to play it).

So, having moved on, I get a tad annoyed with all of his emails that he sends to the clarinet students. Yes I know I could email him to remove me from his mailing list, but considering how difficult it was getting him to put me on, I would rather just read them and marvel at the kookyness. Here is a little taste of the last one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OQ5HrOwbTo&feature=related

I will give a hundred dollar bill to any student who gets this music to me,
WITH PARTS and complete SCORE ...ACCURATELY NOTATED, in a WEEK!!!!

When I first got this piece of spam I had two thoughts, first was "Hey, he isn't trying to get me to vote for Obama again, cool." and the next was that I might be able to do this and get a hundred bucks! It would be worth it to write out any piece of music for a quick benjamin.

THEN... I clicked the link. Go ahead if you haven't already, click it.

You know when you eat something really tasty and you say "mmm" to yourself without even thinking about it? I said "What the fuck" before I even knew I wanted to give a WTF.

The emails are like a car wreck. I want to avoid them but I can't help but stare.

Integration, Baby!

the old becomes new

lots of stories, some unseen

go ahead and read

I have managed to pull all of my old posts out of my MySpace Blog and into this one. Please check them out, my favorite being the story about being sprayed in the face with pepper spray :D One of those things you can laugh at when its happening to somebody else. Enjoy.

Claps or Steaks

the first of many

writing relaxes the soul

like many rain drops

I have been meaning to create a blog for a long time now and have met the challenge with mixed results ranging from procrastination to blogs that have been abandoned just after their creating. I feel pretty sad for these blogs-that-never-were and hope that this one goes on to live a long a fruitful life. My wife came up with a pretty neat name for the blog, so I'll go with it :D

Today was great, I mean really great. After spending the morning with my kids, I left for a gig in Marriana, AR. Oh wait, you didn't know that I am in a band. Well, now you do :D  Anyhow, you have to know that the population of Marriana is like 50 and they were mostly all there to watch us. It kills me to work up a show and play my heart out to a crowd that sort of stands there with a blank look on their face.  Next time you go to some kind of concert... clap. If not for the performer, then just for common decency. Non-clappers should all be shipped off to Antarctica where there isn't shit to clap for anyhow.

Well, funny story about the gig. One of the big-wigs in charge of the band was talking with one of the wigs who set up the show we were playing at, asking where the last place was we performed.  He told her and mentioned that one of the bandsmen had eaten a whole lot while we were there. She asked him what he ate and he replied telling her that the venue had provided us with steaks.  It was very true, they fed us steaks, good steaks.  She sort of looked at him sadly and said, "All we have is sandwiches for you, maybe next time we'll have steaks!"

Either clap or give us steaks, we'll take either >:0

Oh My God It BURNS!!

stinging of the eyes

brutal, everlasting pain

smashed sand in the eyes

I won the Darwin Award today.

At the base where I am stationed we have something lovingly referred to as "ASF" or "Auxiliary Security Force". This unique program allows all sorts of people to be trained as security guards for the base. Trained is the weakest and most polite word I can use to describe what happened to me today.

If you are wondering, the Darwin Award is given to those members of a population of living beings that fail to meet basic survival requirements, and through sheer acts of stupidity, manage to make themselves extinct (thus evolution. thus Darwin). I volunteered for this program, keep this in mind as I describe today's events.

It began with a written test, something I was completely unprepared for, taking only a courtesy glance at the study material ten minutes before it started. Whatever, it was all pretty much common sense. Don't shoot yourself with your gun. Maybe a jaywalker shouldn't be clubbed with your baton. Self Defense actually means defending yourself. I pass the test, no sweat. What do I win for completing such an arduous assignment?

** Phase 1 OC Spray Confidence Course ***

OOOooo Sounds exciting. Lets play. First a definition:

Pepper spray is a non-lethal chemical agent which is used in riot control and personal self-defense. The active ingredient in pepper spray is capsaicin, which is a chemical derived from cayenne, paprika, or chilies. Pepper spray is also known as OC spray (from "Oleoresin Capsicum") or OC gas. The excessive use of pepper spray has been linked to lasting injuries and fatalities. See also tear gas, chemical weapon.

The scoville rating for pepper spray can be as high as 5,300,000 for police grade and much lower for civilian grade.
We used police grade of course.

I stand three feet from a man I will forever remember and secretly resent. He asks, "Are you ready?" I reply with, "Yes", just as I notice the base photographer getting herself into a prime spot for the photo op. Her camera was the last thing I saw for the next forty minutes.

The spray came fast and strong, a surprise even though I knew I was ready. The bastard hit me with a stream across the eyes and then decided that he missed, giving me another burst straight in the middle of my face. I open my eyes and shout how many fingers the sprayer is holding up (a deceptively sinister part of this entire test, meant only to force you to open your damn eyes) then *> BAM <* my eyelids SLAM shut and remain uncontrollably closed in pure agonizing pain. I'm not saying that I couldn't open them because it just hurt too bad, my eyelids were as good as fuzed together, and impossibly they would not comply with my commands to open them. Opening my eyes would have been very helpful, as the next station had me "running" (more like prancing like a six-year old girl who thinks boogers are gross and just found one on the back of her hand) up to an "assailant" and putting him in a MACH 2 takedown (a stupidly intricate take down maneuver that requires complete cooperation from the bad guy for it to really work.) How did you see him? Impossible, your eyes at this point are useless. I used the sound of his voice and commands to get right up on him, grabbed what I hoped was his arm and carelessly slammed him into the ground, shouting "GET DOWN" like it was all HIS fault I was in this idiot of a predicament. 

Station Two rewarded me with my weapon, Excalibur! This small foam baton is used as a training device to mimic a police baton. It was all I needed to enact my enraged revenge. This little stick of foam would be my key to freedom and my newest best friend. I use excalibur to beat the crap out of my next invisible enemy, still unable to open my eyes I used his screams as a compass, my map to my salvation. Are these the roots of police brutality? 

I stumbled to Station Three and found myself completely at a loss as to what I should be doing. Nobody was shouting commands and I couldn't remember ANYTHING about what I was supposed to be doing, only the fire from my eyeballs remained in my mind. I stood there listening to the faint cheers and jeers from my friends waiting their turn, waiting for some sort of audible cue as to what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to be doing it. Then it came, a tap from the back from an officer holding a practice pad. I laid into the sonvabitch like he had stole my lunch money. THEN. A tap from the front, they were trying to tag team my ass! Then I remember, front strike, rear jab. I became an animal, throwing everything I had against my two assailants. I soon heard the instruction to move on. 

Station Four had me in front of our instructor, a retired Gunny. "High Block!" he yelled and I blindly threw up my baton just in time to meet the attack. "Low Block!" "Strong-side Block!" "Weak-side Block!" all of met with sightless precision. "Go!" he said and I painfully ran in a random direction. 

"Wrong Way!" Ooops, I turned around and ran, managing to blink my eyes open just enough to see the man wearing the padded gear or "Red Man Suit" as it is called. He grabs my weapon, my only link to self defense. I rip it from his grasp with a stunning "Flying C" (Don't judge, I made up the name of that move, but I think it sounds better than "Make a C to disengage the attacker") I then beat the crap out of him with Excalibur, shouting "Get Down!" "Get Down!" The assailant gets on the ground and I sort of forget to stop hitting him. "Stop hitting him!" the instructor shouts, and I give him the rest of the commands, "Face away from my voice", "Put your hands out", "Palms up!", "Cross your legs!" "Bring your feet up to your butt". Problem is the pain was so great, all of this came out more like, "Get down! Face Away! Put your hands up! Palms! Cross your butt!!!!" I managed to scream "butt" the very loudest and in a moment of perplexing clarity found this strange and funny. The test was over. I won. I remember spending the next 35 minutes drowning myself on the end of a garden hose, doing everything I could to get my eyes to open. This will forever be the most painful thing I have had to endure, all for the sake of the spirit of volunteerism. What was that Navy stands for? Never Again Volunteer Yourself? Maybe I should at least proceed with caution before throwing my hand up in the air. 

***Update: It's been over 12 hours since I got nuked and it still hurts like a sunburn and cutting onions*** 

Moral: If ever staring down the bottle of a small red canister, RUN. Don't think, just run. 

***Update: I just posted the video of the encounter. Check it out!***

OC Spray

Magic 8-Bible

an old crazy coot?

a mystical book of truth?

shake it and find out

My grandmother once told me that any question you had in life could be answered by the bible. At first I took this as metaphoric, knowing that people find hope and answers to life's many philosophical questions about faith and all-the-such. Her statement was fine enough for other people, and since I didn't really have those deep thoughts at the time, never really effected me.

Then, out of the blue, she told me mysteriously of how the bible works in ways we could never hope to figure out, and that if we really have a problem or question in our life, then we could just turn to the bible for answers. Fed up with her mysticism, I asked her to explain further. She did. Apparently you can flip randomly through a bible and find an appropriate answer to your question.

I find this fucking absurd.

NOTE, I do believe that the bible IS important and provides great stories and guidance for the faith-hungry part of us all, but to use it as a Magic 8-Ball in times of personal confusion? Ridiculous.

Here I would like to try it out, give it a true test of it's ability to answer my every question. I challenge you to do the same, it might just be fun. I will ask a random question and flip randomly through the bible and provide you with a random biblical answer. Please post YOUR finding :D

Question: I have a hard time waking up early to go work out. Please help me, oh bible, to find a way to work out more!

Ok... Moment of Truth...

Answer: AGAINST Moab thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Woe unto Nebo! for it is spoiled: Kirithaim is confounded and taken: Misgab is confounded and dismayed. - Jeremiah 48:1

Sorry, Grandma. I don't think it works like this. Unless by Moab the bible means obesity, and by Nebo the bible means laziness. Maybe Kirithaim means Gatoraid, and Misgab is more like my PT Coordinator...

Either I'm missing grandma's point or the metaphors are just too deep.

Post yours! :D

My First Album!

a really cool trick

go and try it for yourself

you will be amazed

I know everyone wants to know what their first album cover will look like, Please follow these simple instructions I found on Kerry's Blog :D

STEP 1 The first article title is the name of your band.

STEP 2 The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

STEP 3 The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

OK! Now here is my first album cover!

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Here is Tara's first album cover!! :D

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

What is yours?