entertainment ave!

As a proud member of the fraternity of mascots, I have much respect for everyone who dons the giant costume in support of their team/business/cause, and maybe not as much respect for those who just put on the costume to be freaky, but I do understand the physical challenges of trying to accomplish normal tasks with a giant, costumed head on. I bring this up because although tax season has been over for a few weeks, driving past the Liberty Tax shop the other day I thought about how they hire the people to stand on the side of the road in the Statue of Liberty outfit. Granted the outfit is fairly simple, basically just a robe and a cheesy crown, but they get the kids out there, on the side of the road, trying to lure people in to get their taxes done their and not at the H&R Block down the street.

Having worn a mascot costume before, I have also become a person of mascot envy at times. This stemmed from a stint at a trade show where I found myself in this weird world of the mascot “holding” area, a back suite of offices where all of the various people donning the mascot suits could get set up so as not to freak out any kids that might be around, thus perpetrating that the mascots are actually real characters. The envy stemmed from when, as my costume was made of a giant, plaster head and a body suit that is more like the material from a quilt, thus creating a sauna effect which although good for a Bikram yoga workout, turned me into a sweaty mess, I came across other mascot outfits made of lightweight plastic for the head, complete with a fan, and a body suit made of lightweight fabric that could actually breath. I quickly had dreams of modifying my costume trying to figure out how to put a fan in the head and come up with a cooling suit for underneath the body of the costume. In the end, though, the costume remains the same, and is a good way to drop some water weight when need be.

Back to the Statue of Liberty people.

Driving past, not that tax season is over, I did feel a little bummed because the kids aren’t on the side of the road, because I’m one of those people who always wave at the mascot on the side of the road. I don’t go crazy and honk my horn, well, not always anyway, but driving by I’ll give a quick wave, and feel their pain. I also wondered how many other people wave at the mascots, and so I plight: Do you wave at mascots on the side of the road?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

I think I can officially say I now floss my teeth. Okay, I suppose I should clarify that a little. I think I can officially say I usually floss my teeth. Okay, I suppose I should define my version of “usually” for this, namely that I floss my teeth, on average, four days a week. Not the greatest, but a start.

It started after my latest dentist visit when, as a non-flosser, the technician girl mentioned that I should floss (as does the dentist every time I get my teeth checked), talked to me about heart disease and some other useless nonsense (at least in my head), but then, the next morning, as I looked in the medicine cabinet, I thought of my mom, an avid user of the dental floss, and how she managed to get through her 70+ years and was buried with her natural set of teeth. No dentures for mom, nope, one of the things she was always proud of was her teeth, and she attributed some of this to flossing. So I grabbed the dental floss, that “Glide” stuff now preferred by dentists instead of the minty-flavored string that my wife had left in the medicine cabinet, and flossed my teeth.

The scary part? The next day I did the same thing, but then came the weekend. I realized I’m kind of like Vivian from “Pretty Woman” in that I don’t like to floss in front of my wife. It reminded me of the scene where Vivian is in the bathroom after eating strawberries, flossing her teeth, and Richard thinks she is doing drugs. Vivian says “You shouldn’t neglect your gums”…”Are you gonna watch?” and for whatever bizarre reason in my head I just won’t floss in front of my wife.

Admittedly I don’t floss every day (weekends are pretty much out as we get ready in the bathroom together), but for the most part I’m averaging about four days a week, usually during the weekday, which is better than zero days a week I suppose. It was the other morning, however, while flossing, that I wondered about most people, and decided I would plight: “Do you floss your teeth?”

That’s it for this plight! I”m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

It appears that the Easter Bunny really loves me as there was an Easter basket left for me, filled with tons of goodies, most of which aren’t part of my losing weight plan, but that’s okay because upon seeing the basket I figured I would have enough goodies for weeks. Then yesterday came, I got back from the road, and staring at me were the Reese’s peanut butter cup eggs along with the chocolate covered fruit things from Trader Joe’s. And they stared. And they stared. And they stared. They finally stared enough saying, “Dude, you know you want to eat us. You know you do!”

I couldn’t let the candy down so I decided they shouldn’t last for weeks, maybe just a few days, and then proceeded to eat enough to almost give me a tummy ache.

Tummy ache aside, and knowing I blew my allowed food for the day in one shot, they we so good, but I knew that the next day I’d be back on track because, well, it doesn’t hurt to throw caution, or a food eating plan, out the window every now and then.

As my tummy was happily filled yet turning somersaults, I wondered and I plight: Did you eat too much Easter candy?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Going to Easter mass led to its share of normal Easter observations. Of course that is that initial observation of “Where are all of these people going to church today the rest of the year?” As a person who used to be an Easter and Christmas kind of church-goer, I understand, but even when I was that kind of guy I always wondered what kept all of the people away during the rest of the year, or is it mostly just the laziness attitude like I had back in the day. Oh well.

The next observation is the general Easter outfits. Sure, there are some people who don’t dress up, sometimes wearing jeans, but at least usually not any t-shirts with sayings like “I’m with stupid!” on them, but I also don’t think God is that concerned with your getting all gussied up to pray to him. I think he would rather you be a good person rather than worry about what clothes you are wearing. There were also the share of a little more inappropriate outfits, usually worn by the high school girls, teetering on, or actually crossing the line, into skanky, and as these girls aren’t normally prostitutes, I’m not guessing these are there normal outfits and are actually out for a little bit of shock value.

However, nothing was as shocking as looking down on the floor after a I say in the pew. As you can probably guess from the question for this poll, I looked down and there it was, a nicely clipped fingernail. As I usually am when I see those dental floss thingies on the ground, seeing fingernail clippings just seems a little gross, let alone on the floor at church. Now sure, I know sometimes there are fingernail emergencies, but maybe about a foot or two away from what looked like it was a pinkie fingernail clipping, there it was, the thumbnail fingernail clipping, and all I could think about was the person sitting in church, maybe waiting for mass to start and finished reading their Sunday bulletin, and deciding “You know what? My fingernails need to be clipped. Now where did I leave my fingernail clippers.”

Sure, there is the theory that maybe they actually clipped them into a tissue, and then when fishing said tissue out of their pocket that the fingernail clippings inadvertently fell to the floor, but now I’m getting the queasies just thinking about the used tissue in their pocket.

And so, in the spirit of Easter mass, I plight: Would you ever clip your fingernails in church?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

By now, by my unscientific method, 90% of you who filled our March Madness brackets are already out of the office pool, and in fact were probably out of the running before the Thursday evening games even started. Me, as I’m typing this before the tournament starts, still have hope right now, but will probably post a comment later announcing my super picks are still in the running.

Whether or not you are still in the running, and especially if not because you have some slim hope you will be able to make a comeback, I’m also using a totally unscientific guess thinking that part of your paying attention to March Madness happened in the workplace. There might have been a quick online search to see who won that afternoon game, maybe you had score alerts sent to your smartphone, or you are hardcore and had a window on the computer with the games running, easily hidden for if the boss walked by, or had an app tracking each shot. I will not lie, I will, undoubtedly have checked on things while I should have been working, but I plight: Did you waste any time at work following March Madness?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

It’s March Madness, Baby! Yup, it’s that time of year when millions of men and a lot of women will look at this big bracket of college teams, some they have never heard of, and believe that they have a system for picking the team that will eventually become the National Champion, the best college basketball team in the nation, or at least the team that was somehow able to beat Gonzaga. Others, myself included, will search out the online contests where if you can somehow pick all of the winners of the tournament you will win $1,000,000, believe you have the brackets that will accomplish this task, and then, undoubtedly, but about two hours after the tournaments begin, be out of the running and have your bracket already busted.

Countless numbers of others will join office pools, that bastion of illegal gambling that rears its head for March Madness and the Super Bowl, and waste millions of hours of work staring at their computer screen, waiting for scores to upload, in the hopes of winning about a hundred bucks but more importantly, have office bragging rights because you picked the winning team based on the color of their uniforms and not because you have the ultimate faith in Coach K.

It will be fun, by sometimes Thursday I’m pretty sure I’ll be out of the running, but I plight: Will you be filling out March Madness brackets?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Yesterday my shoe came untied. I suppose that’s not a monumental revelation but there I was, taking out the garbage this morning, and inside my shoe I felt the lace under my foot and it reminded me that I noticed it was untied the day before when I was walking Milo. That also means that I didn’t re-tie my shoe at the time, and as I was walking back from putting my trash at the curb I also made the conscious decision not to re-tie my shoe until after I got in my car and ended up where I was driving. Alas, I needed gas and at the fill-er-up station, with some time to kill, decided it was finally time to re-tie my shoe. In doing so I thought about shoe tying, about how I struggled as a youngster to learn how to tie my shoes (or at least my perception was that I struggled), and then, one day, my little fingers all worked together, and I could magically tie them. Then, through the years, much to my Mom’s dismay, I turned into a “slip off my shoes without untying them” person, much like many people are nowadays. Granted with my dress shoes and my boots there is tying and untying involved, but for my gym shoes rarely a time will come when I will untie them, and when I do have to re-tie them, as was the case today, I am very careful not to make them too tight so as to make the slipping off of the shoe relatively easy. So, as I was tying my shoe this morning I plighted in my head: Do you untie your shoes when taking them off?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

The other day I was coming upon a railroad crossing with a few cars ahead of me. This event will usually harken me back to saying in my head “Eighty-eight. Red Ball Freight,” but that’s another plight for another time. This time the crossing lights started flashing, the gates came down, and I whispered to myself, “Shit. Train. Now I’m going to be late.” As the line of cars approached the lowered gates, and the train was ambling by, I took my spot and put my car in “Park.” Sitting back, looking at my iPhone to kill some time, I finally glanced up and noticed that the brake-lights were still glowing a bright red on the car in front of me. There I was, relaxing, foot off the pedals, just waiting for the train to go by, and I tried to think back to when I was taught to put my car in park at a train crossing when waiting for the train. I’m going to guess it was my Mom or Dad who instilled this habit as usually, back in those days when parents had to entertain their kids and not leave them in the back seat with an iPad to play with or video to watch, getting stopped by a train usually meant waving at the engineer out the window, counting how many train cars there were, admiring the various types of train cars, and eagerly waiting for the caboose . It wasn’t like there was any hurry to get back across the crossing, I mean, you still had to wait for the gates to go back up which left plenty of time to put the car back in “Drive,” but for me it also, always, seemed safer to put the car in “Park” while waiting for the train to go by. For whatever reason I just always saw badness happening if you didn’t put your car in “Park,” like your foot would slip off the brake pedal and onto the gas, and if you were the lead car, there you were, smashing through the gates and slamming into the side of the train.

Eventually the train finally made its pass, I observantly watched the car in front of me to see if maybe they just were extra safe with their foot on the brake and car in “Park,” but alas there was no “flash” of the “reverse” lights. I envisioned, one day, that driver screwing up and slamming into the side of a passing train when their foot slipped, and then plighted to myself: Do you put your car in “Park” when stopped by a train?

That’s it for this plight! I”m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

I guess, for this plight, I’m just wondering how the readers and visitors to Entertainment Ave! are doing today. I was going to write about my thermostat obsession, farts, or butt-dailing your phone, but I’m going to hold those plights for another day. As I’m typing this my day has been all over the place, kind of grumpy, kind of good, and maybe it’s because my body-clock is still getting used to the change to Daylight Saving Time or the gray day with a damp rain, but I just can’t get into things today. When the plight gets posted, however, things could be totally different so my actual answer might be different.

Here’s hoping your day is going great, or if crappy so far that it turns to great, and if it’s just kind of normal, here’s hoping it at least stays that way and doesn’t get crappy. And so I plight: How is your day going?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

As much as I like the switch to Daylight Saving Time it’s always that first night and first morning after the time change that are the tough part. First off, I have enough trouble trying to fall asleep, but with the time change, at least until I get used to it a bit, trying to get to bed an hour earlier than I’m used to kind of sucks. Even though I’m falling asleep at the same time that I used to do body-clock wise for a few days, this isn’t a huge problem, I suppose. The real problem is the waking up the next morning because work calls and it doesn’t really care what time you went to bed. Sleep aside I’m usually pretty good at changing all of my clocks (although I am a little less obsessive about all clocks being exactly the same, down to the second, as I was in college), but today I actually forgot to change my watch so when someone asked what time it was, for a few seconds I looked at my watch and was confused. Eventually things clicked, I was able to add the hour the time on my watch, and then thought I would plight: Did you remember to Spring your clock forward for daylight saving time?

That’s it for this plight! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!