On Unintended Plagiarism

I was listening to one of the comedy channels on iTunes the other day at work when I heard a bit of stand up by Dennis Miller. I am not sure what year this particular special was taped in, but it certainly made me mad. I enjoy Mr. Miller's stand up, as well as his TV show and his work on SNL, but in this set Dennis ruined my imaginary stand up career.

For years I had an idea for a little comedy bit. It wasn't a huge shtick (That's what she said!), but I told it to several people and usually got a good laugh from it. The more I told it, the more I tweaked it so that everything would be just right. I even said to myself that if I ever got the intestinal fortitude to go to an open mic night and do some stand up, this little routine would be in my set.

I have always loved stand up, but listening to a diverse selection of performers is a fairly new thing for me. When I was a kid I remember finding a Bill Cosby record in my parents' very eclectic music collection and listening to it over and over again. (I can still hear Bill making the sawing sounds as Noah was building the Ark.) As I got older, I can remember enjoying Eddie Murphy (Delirious and Raw, before he sold his soul to Disney... not that I'm judging), Sam Kinison and Andrew Dice Clay. (Yes, as loathe as I am to admit it, I remember loving the Diceman when he first came out. After hearing him at age 40, I can't understand what I ever found funny about the guy.) But it was only the comedians that were big at the time that were available for me to listen to. The Internet has allowed me to experience so many more artists. Thank you, Al Gore!

I used to go to comedy shows up in college, but I unfortunately went to St. Lawrence University, a small private school in the middle of nowhere. The college did not draw any big name comedians and the ones it did draw were probably rethinking their choice in agents after the show. I went to as many shows as I could, and even got pulled up on stage and got to pretend to be Tina Turner at one. The highlight of my collegiate stand up viewing was when Jay Mohr performed and I got to talk to him a little bit after his performance. He was still hosting Lip Service on MTV back then, so I guess there was little chance of his career sinking any lower! He was a pretty cool guy, from what I remember (which isn't much).

Throughout all of this, I never even had a chance to listen to any of Dennis Miller's material. Well I did catch him on the Weekend Update and on his HBO show, but not any of his stand up specials. Therefore, it was a bit of a shock when I heard a routine of his that was almost identical to the little bit I had created. I first heard this similar routine about a year ago and I know this special is older than that. There are some slight differences in our two pieces, but if anyone had heard both bits, I would surely have been accused of stealing his material.

There is a tiny chance that I heard his bit and liked it so much that I somehow unintentionally stole it. Maybe I repeated it and completely forgot the joke's origin. I am not sure when he first did this material but it was probably before I first came up with my routine. Even if I had come up with my stand up before he did his, I doubt he got it from me. (Gee, you think?) Unless he got it from some sort of nine degrees of separation scenario. If that was the case, maybe it passed through Kevin Bacon at one point? I truly think we just had the same idea and got to the same comedic place. You know what they say about great minds!

What is the routine you might be asking yourself? Well now that I have built it up it will probably not be nearly as funny as I always thought it was. This is how I used to tell it....

I was watching the Wizard of Oz the other day and it got to the end, after Dorothy risks life and limb to save the day and ends up missing the balloon back home. The good witch floats down and tells Dorothy, "You have had the power to go home all of the time!" If I was Dorothy I would have punched her right in the face and said, "Yeah bitch? I've had the power to go home all this time? You had the power to tell me this three hours ago!" I would have called her the "Not so Good" Witch of the North and a master manipulator as well. She lures Dorothy to Oz with the intent on having her kill off her witch competitors, which Dorothy does with a house and a bucket of water. I mean, how many witches were left after Dorothy's assassinations? Dorothy even "killed" the wizard, the ruler of Emerald City, in a sense. There was a serious power vacuum generated from all of Dorothy's "work," and only one witch to fill the void. It all sounds very suspicious to me.

I had another bit I had been working on as well, and was ready to use it when I thought I would do a Google search to see if there were any other skits similar to it on the Internet. Yep, once again, someone else shared the same thoughts that I did. Two people watched the same movie and saw something that made them laugh. (There are more than us out there, I just don't have the time or energy to do the research.) I must admit, the article that the other person wrote went into a lot more detail than mine and mentioned scenes throughout the movie. This is how my other little routine went...

The other day I was watching the classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. (No wonder I haven't had a lot of time for blogging; I have been watching all of these films. LOL.) I am not sure if I am the only one who feels this way but in my opinion, Grandpa Joe is an asshole.

You may be saying to yourself "Grandpa Joe, Charlie's lovable grandfather, an asshole? No!"

"YES!!"

Let me tell you why I feel this way. When we first meet the Bucket family, all four grandparents are bedridden. We never find out what exact ailment has confined them to their beds, but it is certainly implied that they are stuck there. I mean, if they could, they would surely be helping the family somehow. Charlie's mom is sweating over hot laundry vats, washing other people's clothes, and doing what she has to to provide for the family. Even Charlie is selling papers, to bring in more cash to support everybody. But the grandparents? They are too sick to work or even get out of bed.


As if earning enough money to get food on the table (or bed trays) for six people wasn't enough, they give Grandpa Joe an allowance for tobacco? Seriously? Are we supposed to feel like he is this wonderful grandparent for stopping his vice and using the money to buy Charlie a chocolate bar for his birthday? Has anyone else realized that this was probably Charlie's money to begin with? Despite all of the odds, Charlie finds the last Golden Ticket and brings it home. The next thing you know, not only does Grandpa Joe get up out of bed, but he starts dancing around the room. Dancing? Really? He goes from freeloader to Fred Astaire in less than a minute. All this time he could have gotten up and done something to help the family, maybe even allowed Charlie to be a normal kid and not have work selling papers, but nope. Why ruin a good thing?! What would have been nice, is if they got to the Chocolate factory and the whole thing was just an elaborate ruse. Willy Wonka paid Charlie a large some of money and Grandpa Joe was forced to work in the chocolate factory for the rest of his days.

Comedians are often accused of stealing material from their peers and are usually hammered unmercifully for it. I am not going to say that this doesn't happen, but I certainly think that it is possible for several different people to see or experience something and find the same humor in it. There are only so many experiences and situations that are shared by all of us, and only so many ways they can be made funny. Unintentional plagiarism seems like a plausible excuse. So the next time that you hear a comedian and think that their routine sounds a bit familiar, try and give them the benefit of the doubt. But if they suck, let them have it!

I can not guarantee that all of my musings are unique and have never been written nor thought before by someone else. I can only promise that I am sitting on the toilet, in the car, on the bed - wherever I am writing - and spewing forth the craziness as it comes into my head.

On Lawn, Tag, Porch, Garage Sales

Summer is here and it is Garage Sale time again.  It's that time of year when people gather up all of the stuff that is cluttering their houses/closets/garages/basements/attics, put these items out in their yards and try to pawn them off on their neighbors for profit. I am a huge fan of "Saleing," as I like to call it, and looking for treasures in other peoples "trash." When it comes to having kids, there is no better (and by better, I mean cheaper) way to clothe and toy them. Since kids outgrow clothes almost as fast as you buy them, it is nice to find a place where you can pick up name brand clothing for under a dollar.

Toys have almost a higher turnover rate than clothes. Kids are constantly wanting new toys, and who has the money to buy everything they want? Whenever a new movie or TV show inspires a new exciting toy, the kids have to have it. Lawn sales may not contain the newest of the new, but you can usually find the last new big thing and that usually works at distracting the children, at least for a while. And did I mention that these toys are a fraction of their original cost? (You may be sensing a pattern here.)

I would like to take a few moments to talk about the things that drive me nuts about lawn sales. First of all, and this may be a ridiculous complaint (but then again, do any of my complaints ever end up not being ridiculous?), but if your signs say lawn or yard sale, it better be on your lawn or yard. If you say garage sale, I want your garage to be involved at some point during my shopping experience. It truly annoys me when I go to a "garage sale" and the people don't even have a garage, or they have everything on their driveway. Call it a driveway sale! Come on people, all I am asking for is a little venue truth in advertising!

Another thing that drives me nuts is not with the proprietors, but the lawn sale customers. Does something about the yard sale sign make people forget basic road/driving/parking rules? People will just see a sign, slam on their brakes, and barely pull off the road to go to a sale. Signals? Who needs them? I saw an artificial Christmas tree that we could use this coming Christmas. It looks like a few branches are missing but we can just put that side in the corner. I know most people try to avoid parking on other people's yards, but you actually have to get off the road far enough so you don't block traffic. And then when people park on both sides of the street, you can barely squeeze through. This is especially frustrating at busy intersections. Aaaargh. It is the only time in my life I wish I owned a monster truck and had a very good lawyer. No parking sign? No problem! Those pesky traffic rules only apply to those people who aren't "saleing".


Just as annoying as the people who don't think when they park, are the drive-by oglers. They are the ones who slow down and drive 5 mph so they can see if there is anything worth stopping for. Seriously, just stop, get out and look. Or better yet, use your signal, pull off to the side of the road and ogle away. It would take less time than your turtlesque drive-by and reduce the chance of an accident (or vehicular homicide by me).

And here is some advice to you people who plan on having a lawn sale: spring the extra 2-3 dollars and buy some poster board. Take the poster board and do your signs up right. Do you actually think people can read your little tiny signs traveling 55 mph from their cars? I can't even read them traveling through town at 30 mph, yet you expect me to get all of the information you have crammed on your little 1' x 1' sign and still find your home? People put their addresses, the days and times they are open, and arrows pointing in the direction of the sale, but it is all completely useless... unless you are walking or have one hell of a keen eyed co-pilot.

One more thing about signs (I said the same thing once as a Facebook status and I will repeat it here): If you put up a sign, you need to take it down when the sale is done. If you don't, I believe it should be legal for someone who follows your sign and finds that your sale was actually two weeks ago, to come into your house and take one item of their choice for free. After stories spread about someone losing their 50" Plasma HD super talking TV, maybe people will remember to take their damn signs down!

Another thing I hate is when nothing at the lawn sale has a price on it. Is it that hard to put out a price? I know those stickers are expensive (Sarcasm New Roman Bold), but they are worth the expense. I don't know if people are lazy, maybe trying to size you up to see how much to charge, or are just  in love with haggling. All I know is I have walked away from lawn sales before -- even though there were a few things I was interested in -- just because things weren't labeled. And not everything needs to be individually labeled. Put a little sign that says all clothes in this box are a quarter, items in this area are 50 cents. I even saw a garage sale where they had the prices written in chalk on their driveway. High marks for creativity! All I am saying is just have a price on your stuff, it is that simple.

One last pet peeve, or maybe it is just an observation: what happened to everyone's stick-to-itness? I see some lawn sales are beginning on Fridays -- weird but okay -- but it is getting to the point where a lot of sales are done by about 2 pm on Saturdays and not even open on Sundays. Lawn sales used to be Saturday to Sunday, 8 am to at least 5pm. Come on people! If you want to get rid of your junk, you need to commit to it. I hate driving around and finding the free pile at the end of the driveway. Not that I mind free stuff, but it is seldom anything good. And I always wonder what prizes have slipped through my fingers. Though I have often wondered if you just went around collecting all of this free stuff, could you sell it on EBay or something.

When it comes to being a customer, I am a great shopper. I always have a pile of change in my pockets and usually stop and get a coffee for my wife before we start, to break up any big bills. Having conducted a few lawn sales in my life, I know how frustrating it is to have someone buy an unused George Foreman Grill for 3 dollars and give you a 20 dollar bill. Usually this happens on a Sunday when the banks are closed and you are alone so you can't run to the store and break the bill. I also don't haggle. I will pay the price that is marked on the item I want, unless I don't have enough cash to cover the whole thing, then I might see if they will take a little less. And most sellers will.

I find that usually there are two types of people who hold garage sales. The first kind is the person I love the most -- the people that just want to get rid of their stuff. They aren't out to make a million dollars, they just want to make room so they can acquire more stuff. (I feel I am touching upon a great Carlin routine here.) The more you buy, the less they have to haul to the Salvation Army, Goodwill or wherever they go to get rid of their leftover stuff. Their items are marked to sell, and you can make out like a king!

The other type of person is the one who is trying to make back some of the money they spent on their stuff. The prices are usually high and they aren't going to come down very much. You will see a jacket for 50 dollars and the person will tell you (or sometimes a little note will say) they paid 100 dollars for it and barely wore it. I'm not saying someone wouldn't pay $50, I'm just saying that most people don't go to lawn sales with hundreds of dollars in their wallet. People go to lawn sales to buy stuff cheap! Price accordingly!

There is a third type of person: they are a fringe group, but I will mention them. They are a bit of a mix of the first two types, with a good range of prices but definitely trying to make some money. They are the people who have the all-summer garage sale. I am not judging them at all, but how many weeks can you keep a lawn sale going? Are you getting more inventory? Do you have that much extra stuff? Are they taking my idea and gathering all of the free stuff and reselling it? I give them all the credit in the world because that is a whole summer commitment. All day, Saturday and Sunday, being there to deal with shoppers. It's almost like a job, without paying any taxes.... hey, could that be it? A gift shop that has no sales tax or any income to report? That just may be genius!

Sorry to do this, but I thought of a second fringe group that I want to mention and I really hate these people. Okay, hate may be a bit strong, but I feel quite a bit of annoyance toward them. They are the antique dealers who lure you in with garage sale signs. As I said before, I don't have a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket to pick up an antique night stand, and if I was looking for antiques, I would be "antiquing," not "lawn saleing". I understand the whole no tax thing, but I really hate the use of the garage sale sign. It's a classic bait and switch. There is usually a few useless trinkets on a table that are a feeble attempt to legitimize the use of a garage sale sign. You can't fool me! I know a lawn sale when I see one! Where are the coffee cups? Where are the little wooden shelves? The old Christmas wreaths? The incomplete silverware sets? Assorted porcelain figurines? How about the picture frames that were bought but never filled with photos?

The last thing I have to say about this topic is that my wife and I are talking about doing a lawn sale later this summer and I guarantee I will follow my own rules. I will use large signs that can be easily read. On the signs will be the dates and hours of our sale and we will be open on those days and for those hours. The signs will be taken down when the sale is over and disposed of properly. Things will be priced to sell, and clearly labeled. No one will have to ask how much anything is (unless the sticker fell off). And lastly, I will be finding something else to do for that weekend and letting my wife handle it because I haaaaaate having lawn sales!

On My Cat and Technology

Let me start this by telling you a little about my cat. His name is Dipsy Russell and he is a Tabby. He was one of many kittens that were wandering around the yard of the house me and my ex-wife were renting several years ago. Over the brief time that we lived there, there were a bunch of different cats and kittens that hung around the house. I always attributed this to the barns that were nearby, and the fact that I would throw food scraps out to them. (What can I say? I am a big softy.)

At first his name was Tigress as my older daughter was/is obsessed with the Kung Fu Panda movies. We didn't realize he was a boy for some time later (I did not spend much time inspecting his undercarriage, if you know what I mean.) and when we discovered it, his name had to be changed. There was a Tabby that came before Dipsy that was with us very briefly and may even have been a sibling. The first cat - we called it Trouble - would run up to the car whenever we got home, start purring and demanding our love and attention. It would even follow us into the house if we let it, or if we left the door open too long. We were forced to chase it out several times. I began to think someone just dropped off their house cat.

Well, one day this first cat stopped coming around. I thought this was odd and as more days passed I began to fear something was wrong. Sure enough, I decided to give the area a little search and I saw a little pile of fur in the ditch by the side of the road. I knew it was the cat before I even got close. I buried it, told the kids that it must have just found another home and left it at that. I don't know if the older two believed me, but I didn't have the heart tell them the truth.

The cat that would become Dipsy was not quite as friendly or as bold as that first cat but he was close and soon became a friend of the family. Our landlord did not allow pets, which is why we didn't officially make him part of the family. The kids named him Tigress and we snuck him into the house a few times. When I decided that I had enough of being unhappily married after 15 years, and got the strength to leave, I kept the cat when I moved out and found my first apartment. In fact, I specifically picked an apartment that accepted cats, so I could keep him. I guess the thought of being alone in my apartment was not something I was looking forward to. By then, I realized he was a boy and the name Tigress just didn't fit. Far be it from me to force gender roles on a cat, but I just couldn't keep up the illusion. I did not want to call him Tiger, as that name had been done to death with Tabbies, but started referring to him by the way he behaved: Dip Shit.

It was a bit of an adjustment for him, getting used to being an indoor cat against his will. After the first cat died I refused to let Dipsy be an outdoor cat anymore. Despite the house arrest, we got along great. I would share my food with him, and let him jump right up on the table to eat with me. (Which my wife doesn't seem to appreciate, as the cat still jumps up on the table regularly looking for a snack.) I would play rough with him and get him all riled up and then he would chase me around the house trying to wrap his legs around one of mine to bring me down. He obviously knew nothing about basic weight to size ratios because there was no way he was taking me out, but I'll give the guy an A for effort. Soon a friend told me that I could not keep the name Dip Shit (Why not? To me, it would have been the same as if I called him Cat.) so I twisted this into Dipsy. Now being me, I could not just call him Dipsy, I had to put a little spin on it.

One of the first things I did when I split with my wife was to call an old college friend I had not talked to in 7 years. The reason we hadn't spoken for so long was the fact that my ex had become convinced that there was some shenanigans going on between us (this friend was of the female variety, in case you hadn't figured it out). I had told my ex that I had a crush on this person in college (maybe that was my big mistake) but nothing ever happened between us and we were just really good friends. Besides, she lived in Seattle so I would have to be pretty skilled at deception to pull that affair off (especially with the tight leash my ex kept me on.) I gave her my password and let her read our emails but she was still convinced there was something going on between us. We actually ended up going to marriage counseling over this woman. There is more to this story, I did some stupid things, and eventually I ended up promising not to talk to her again. (Of course, that agreement was gone as soon as we split.) Apparently my ex saw something we didn't because after I called my friend we ended up dating (very long distance), getting married, she moved to NY to be with me and then we had a child.

One of the first things I remember about first meeting my wife (the new one) was the fact that she killed a joke that I liked to make. It wasn't much of a joke but it went along the lines of me saying that I thought the only thing Nipsey Russell ever starred in was the 10,000 Dollar Pyramid. I caught these stars in the autumn of their careers. All the actors that showed up on the game shows I watched as a kid were from shows that weren't on the air anymore. I guess it would be like the way some reality shows and game shows work today. Those waning celebrities who want to stay in the public eye and cling to any bit of fame can whore themselves out wherever they can. (Just ask David Hasselhoff.) In response to my "joke" about Nipsey Russell, my future wife fired back with Car 54 Where are You? (She was a big fan of Nick at Nite she explained later). Well that ruined my joke, and instantly gained my respect for her, as a fellow TV connoisseur. And that is why I decided to give my cat the name Dipsy Russell.

Well now that I have told you about the cat, let me tell you one more thing before I get to the actual story. Our living room and dining room are basically one long extended area, separated by two little half walls that stick out maybe about two feet. These half walls have pillars on them giving it a Greek feel. Now that my daughter is becoming more mobile we bought a super sized gate with a little door in it to separate the two rooms. The living room was baby proofed so she was content to crawl around in there. The cat, however, had no easy access to the room. He would therefore jump up on the little half wall, between the pillar and the actual wall and walk onto the couch.

I know you probably cannot handle one more lead-in story, but here it is anyway. A couple of years ago my wife bought a nice laptop with her tax return. She actually thought of me when she got it, making sure it could handle the latest version of the World of Warcraft. We had it over a year when the plug/brick stopped working. We bought a generic charger from Best Buy which had multiple fittings to accommodate many different brands of computers. It never fit quite right, but we used it anyway. Well a few months later our battery died. The battery would not accept the charge, so we were forced to have the laptop plugged in whenever we used it. (WoW had to played!) We eventually bought a new battery and life was good again. (I could bring the laptop with me onto the toilet once again!)

Well one day recently, the battery started to do the same thing it did before. Ooooh great. Another 50-70 dollars down the drain for a new battery. More importantly, however, was the fact that this meant something was wrong with the computer. Why are the batteries dying? They should last longer than a few months. Until we got the money to take it to the Geek Squad to get it looked at, it was back to plugging it in.

One day I was using the computer, WoWing or blogging, can't remember which (or maybe obsessively checking Blogger stats to see how many people were viewing my blog) when I had to get up for something. I set the computer on the arm of the couch and went into the kitchen. If you have been paying attention, you may see what is coming.

Crash! Yep, the noise of falling technology and hundreds of dollars in repairs came from the living room. Dip Shit had knocked the laptop off of the arm of the couch.  Aaargh! Stupid cat! Wait, maybe it should have been stupid human! Who was the real Dip Shit? I left the laptop right where he usually entered the living room, on a surface that wasn't even flat. It was balanced precariously and I just assumed it would be all right there for a few minutes. We all know what happens when you assume!(You end up buying a new laptop in this scenario.)

Well I fired up the computer, not very optimistic about the outcome. Much to my surprise, it fired right up. From the noise it made when it fell, I was sure we were going to have to buy a new laptop. Not only did it fire right up, but the battery was actually working again! The cat just fixed our computer! Wow! I can't even imagine how much money he saved us. Instead of having to buy a new battery or paying for a professional to look at the computer and make the necessary repairs, we ended up paying for a can of moist cat food to thank him. And to show you how cheap I am, I got him a generic beef flavored can. Not even Fancy Feast or some other more expensive brand.

Now I am in no way saying that you should bring your computers over to my house to have Dipsy look at them. Nor am I suggesting that you should let your animals try and repair your electronic equipment. But, if my laptop or any other electronic device starts acting up again, I will seriously consider leaving it up on the arm of the couch and seeing what happens. What can it hurt?

On Being a 3 Year Old... Again!

I often make jokes about how immature I am. I have developed a little concept that I call the apparent maturity factor. It is kind of like the wind chill factor in that it is a perceived, not actual figure. This is how I calculate it: I take the age that I am (41) and average it with the age that I act (15) and come up with an apparent maturity factor of 28. I still laugh at a good fart and chuckle when someone says something like "That's a nice piece of wood."(So maybe 28 is still to high.) But when I was playing Legos with my 15 month old daughter the other day, I realized my apparent maturity factor should actually be about three.

We were on the floor playing with her Legos, the big ones of course -- the little ones would be a choking hazard. I decided I wanted to make an airplane. Not just any airplane, but a Super Awesome Airplane that my daughter would love to play with. I started gathering up the required pieces and assembling my plane. Well wouldn't you know it, before I could finish the SAA (Super Awesome Airplane) my daughter started grabbing my pieces. MY pieces! There was a whole box full of blocks, yet she had to have mine.

I tried to distract her, pointing out the large box full of Legos. I attempted to hand her pieces out of it saying things like  "Use these honey," and "These are Daddy's pieces, and these are yours," but daughter was relentless. She had to have my pieces. I mean, there were literally 100 other pieces she could have used. All the same colors and sizes. There were even more interesting pieces than the ones I was using. We picked up a Go Diego Go block set at a lawn sale recently and there were animal pieces, parts to a vehicle, even a Lego rope ladder.

I even tried blocking her from my Legos with my body, using it as a shield. "That will keep her from my blocks," I thought. Nope! She climbed right over top of me to get at my pieces. And what did she do when she got them? <insert dramatic pause here> She chewed on them, or banged them against other blocks. Sometimes she just gave them a little toss. I think she did it just so I couldn't have them!

At this point I started stealing them back when she wasn't looking. "Aha! That will show her!!" But it didn't. She stole them back. It was almost like it was a game to her. She didn't seem to understand that I was making this Super Awesome Airplane for her! And in a crime even more hideous than the theft of my Legos from my scrap pile, she would try to take them directly off of my -- I mean her -- airplane. "How dare you?!?!"

So there I sat, using my legs as a little barrier, blocking off my Legos and my construction from my daughter's little thieving fingers. I fended her off with one arm and despite her cries of displeasure, I swiftly brought my creation to life! Propellor, wings, tail fins, even a little place for a Lego person to sit! It was marvelous! Boeing would have been proud! I handed it to my duaghter and said, "Here sweetie. Daddy made you an airplane!" She took it in her hands, held it reverently for about an eighth of a second. And destroyed it.

I tried to grab it and scold her for destroying my creation when it dawned on me: "What the hell am I doing?" I had become a three year old again. Instead of just having fun playing with my daughter, I was steadily getting more annoyed with her as we battled for the Legos. Where did this reaction come from? Is it just me? I have always considered myself a fairly reasonable, in-control kind of dad. I am certainly not the kind that would actually get angry at my daugther over Legos. Angry may sound a bit exaggerated, but I was certainly getting there. But then again, I'm sure that my daughter probably just thought we were playing get the Legos.

My only conclusion is that it has to be the Legos. Legos are not the fun, educational and imaginative toys I was led to believe. Legos must be pure unmitigated evil, placed upon the earth to spread discord and disharmony. Just like the game Monopoly.


All kidding aside, it boils down to two things. First is that you need to have realistic expectations for your children. Did I really think that she would swoosh the plane around the house making airplane sounds? She just started walking and has no idea what a plane is yet. Of course not. She is only 15 months old.


The second thing is recognizing how your feeling or reacting, analyzing it and and adjusting your behavior accordingly. I may have faltered a bit with this Lego session but next time we play, I will not react the same way. Aware of how ridiculous I was being, next time I will have a much more enjoyable experience! But I tell you now, so help me God, if she keeps turning off the TV while "we're" trying to watch The Backyardigans, I am going to put her in her highchair and.... okay, maybe I am not quite there yet.

On the Olympics and Wedgies

I was sitting in bed the other night and thought I would do some blogging. (Yes, you caught me, not all of my blogs are written on the toilet. The first stall is where I usually gather my thoughts and think about new subject matter.) In the middle of working on a piece about my cat, I looked up to see what was on the television. My wife had put it on NBC but was on her Kindle Fire (Product placement! Where's my money? Cha-ching!) and not paying a lot of attention to what was on.

When it comes to television I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. (In this case, an HD flame.) And it doesn't matter what is on or where I am, I will start watching. My wife has learned that if we go out to a restaurant like Applebees, There's No Place Like The Neighborhood (cha-ching!), she needs to keep my back to the TV. (It could be a Women's Blind Midget Ping-Pong Tournament and I would watch it. Actually, I would probably watch that anyway!)  She left the TV on the Olympic trials. Women's gymnastics was on and I began to watch.

The athletes were amazing! The acrobatic feats they were pulling off were awe inspiring, yet, as you have come to expect from me, that was not the first thing that caught my attention. These young women were jumping, leaping, flipping, tumbling and all I could see were the wedgies they were sporting. When I say their wedgies caught my attention, I do not mean this in any sort of sexual way. These girls are all still in their teens and if I was in anyway aroused, I would not be blogging about it. I would be seeking some therapy. All I could think about was how uncomfortable those wedgies looked.

A wedgie is not a very comfortable thing and something most people try to avoid whenever possible. I was not subjected to any of these as a child, nor did I give any to anyone, as I feel this falls into the cruel and unusual department. The fact that the sport requires you to perform it with the uniform wedged in your ass crack is probably one of the main reasons I never became a female Olympic gymnast. (Well, maybe that, but the penis and the years and years of hard, physical training had something to do with it as well.)

I missed most of the earlier events but started with a little bit of the balance beam and the uneven bars. On a bit of a side note, why is it that I instantly become an expert on whatever event I am watching? As the gymnasts are on the balance beam I find myself saying stuff like, "Oh she needs to focus. That wobble is going to cost her some points. That was just sloppy. You call that a landing?" Who am I? I don't watch gymnastics, ever, and have no idea how they even score these events. Not to mention the fact that I couldn't do what they were doing on the ground, whereas they are doing it 4 feet off the ground on a 4 inch wide beam (Thanks Wikipedia, yet again.) yet here I sit, critiquing their performances, like I have been doing it my whole life.

I did the same things when watching the floor exercises. Forget the running, doing thirty jumps and flips in the air and landing perfectly within the appointed boundaries. I was focusing on the non-tumbling parts of their routines. Yet again, I had transformed into the fourth or fifth judge (too lazy to look up how many judges there are for this event). "That choreography stinks. She looks like she is trying to do the robot. Where is the grace? Where is the fluid motion?" I was turning into Bruno Tonioli from Dancing With the Stars. This, however, is gymnastics, not ballroom dancing. I am sure the gymnasts get points for the "dancing" part, but I bet those flips and tumbles are the biggest part of their scores. Besides, have you ever seen me dance? Holy crap! I'm surprised people don't try to put wallets in my mouth. And I can barely do a cartwheel. Where do I have the chutzpah to judge anyone on this event. Not only are these girls doing incredible routines, but they are doing them with their uniforms riding high and barefoot. They aren't even wearing a nice pair of Sketchers or Nikes (cha-ching, cha-ching).

Yet despite my attempts to be a judge or an assistant coach from the other side of the television screen, it was still the wedgies that concerned me the most. These athletes must either have special suits or the TV station must have perfected the art of switching cameras, because I seldom see them digging their suits out from between their butt cheeks after a routine. Why are the outfits so tight? Does it help with their routines? I get swimming uniforms being skin tight as every tenth of a second counts but does it really matter in gymnastics? I could see not wearing anything too long or loose. I mean, if they were wearing a full length gown they could easily step on it and end up doing a face plant in the middle of their tumbling run. Do they have to be THAT clingy though? Can't they design a leotard that comes down a bit further like bicycle shorts or something? I am just thinking about the comfort of these poor young women.

I give all the credit in the world to any Olympic athletes. So much of their lives have to be set aside for training and such. It seems hard to imagine that these "kids" have much of a life, especially the female gymnasts, being as young as they are. It is not just the Olympics either, these athletes also compete in a variety of competitions all over the world. Do they ever get to sit back with a nice refreshing Pepsi (cha-ching!) and catch a movie like Warner Brothers Pictures new summer blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises, starring Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman (big cha-ching!)?

And on a side, side note with the very nature of this sport, gymnastics does not seem very useful beyond the competition circuit. I mean, you aren't going to get a call from a friend saying, "Hey! I  just set up the balance beam in the garage. Grab your skin tight leotards and we'll do some tumblin'. Yeah and bring a shoe horn, I feel some serious wedgies coming on." At least the Olympic ice skaters have the Ice Capades and Disney on Ice to fall back on. What do gymnast have? Cirque du Soleil? But then again, maybe this is all just training for those who aspire to where thongs when they grow up.

The last thing I wanted to say is that I am sure this will not be the last post you get from me about the Olympics, so stay tuned. Good luck to all the athletes and let's hear it for the red, white and blue (which should cover a large percentage of the worlds flags)! Now I think I will head over to Burger King and try their new Carolina BBQ WHOPPER®, just one of the items on their new summer BBQ menu. The Carolina BBQ WHOPPER® Sandwich is a ¼ lb of savory flame-broiled beef, topped with naturally smoked thick-cut bacon, pepper jack cheese, freshly cut iceberg lettuce, red onions and ripe tomatoes, smothered with a sweet southern sauce and the tang of Carolina BBQ sauce, all on a warm, toasted sesame seed bun. Uuuuum I'm lovin' it. Ooops wait wrong one. Do I still get the cha-ching?