Category: General Musings

By:

The Dude on the Right
Do you make resolutions or goals for the New Year?  I make goals, with one
being to get organized (again), yet I’m having issues with my old Palm Pilot,
calendar programs, and to-do lists.  This simple goal is becoming more
complicated than I planned.  I also made a goal to get postings more
consistent here at Entertainment Ave!, starting with a redesign of the review
pages (give me your opinions, if you will, if you like the page design of

"Rocky Balboa" vs.

"Dreamgirls" vs. our old design at

"The Pursuit of Happyness," and our new concert review design for an old

Bob Seger review).  We also hope to have a new feature, sort of, in the
next couple of weeks.

I’m also happy because I found a place to relive my love
for "Calvin &
Hobbes" (use the "Tools" link to add the RSS feed to your favorite reader),
wonder if it really matters that
Barack Obama tried
cocaine when he was younger in his maybe bid for the Presidency (maybe he could
use my slogan when I run for Governor of Illinois in a few years), and am
rethinking my goal to lose weight since wearing a

mansiere might also save my life.

Thanks for listening and your comments.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
In the immortal words of Nanga Eboko, exchange student from Cameroon, "Merry New
Year!!!!!!"  Sure, it’s a few days early, but I doubt I’ll be doing a blog
on New Year’s Eve night, even though I really don’t have anything planned
except, thanks to the NFL, watching the Chicago Bears play the Green Bay Packers
in what a lot of people say might be
Brett
Favre’s last game.  Thankfully our local radio station pops a little
delay on the broadcast and it synchs with the cable TV broadcast so rather than
hear John Madden wax poetic during the entire broadcast that this might be Brett
Favre’s last game, I’ll get to yell "Ball" with

Tom Thayer of the WBBM broadcast team (along with Jeff Joniak) every time
there is a fumble.

But yelling "Ball" at the TV screen is the least of my
worries, right now, because I think I am suffering from reality TV withdrawal. 
My main symptom of my malady – multiple dreams in one night of me in reality TV
shows.  The scarier part?  They weren’t even real TV shows.

In my
first dream last night I found myself in a sort of "military boot camp" reality
TV show.  I was in a big room, with a lot of people I didn’t know, and all
of us were dreading the "training" we were going to have to endure.  I
wanted to quit before the filming even got started, but as dreams sometimes take
a life of their own, all of a sudden this one turned into something about one of
the dudes swinging the driver from his golf bag around, as we all started
ducking for cover, and me wishing I had brought my golf clubs so I would have a
weapon, only I kept knocking over other golf bags before realizing I did bring
my clubs, but I woke up before I could pull out my driver and join in the fight.

So I woke up, drained the main vein, and headed back to sleep wondering "What
the hell was that?"  And no sooner do I remember that than I kicked into a
dream even more all over the place.

It started at a basketball court, where
the players seemed to be committing a lot of hard fouls (this might have been
spurred by the news coverage of the Chicago Bulls’ player that got hurt the
night before), one that even took Joakim Noah (although he wasn’t in a Florida
Gator’s uniform) to the floor where he broke his arm and dislocated his shoulder
and kept rolling around and screaming while his arm flopped around like a fish
out of water and it took most of his teammates to get him to stay still so as
not to hurt himself any more than he already was.  At this time me and my
buddy (even though I didn’t know who he was) were on the court watching this
happen when a security guard escorted us outside, where we kept insisting to let
us watch the rest of the game and that we wouldn’t go on the court, but he kept
saying we were needed for something outside.

So there we were, and then a big
group began to congregate, complete with buddies I knew, namely The Dude on the
Left, Aquaman, and Big Cooter, and they wouldn’t stop talking amongst
themselves.  We found ourselves being separated into two football teams,
only I didn’t hear my name called the first time and had to run through the
crowd when our jerseys were being handed out, in total fear I was going to be
yelled at by our coach for not hearing my name the first time.  But joining
with my team proved just as daunting as my friends wouldn’t shut up and I feared
us getting yelled at (I suppose that sort of reminds me of a night class I had
in college when T.P.’s friend decided to join us for class), and with their
talking I couldn’t hear what our "coach" was saying.

But that didn’t fluster
me as much as trying to put on my jersey.  For whatever reason there were
pads on the inside of the jersey, and it was a couple of sizes too small, so I
kept trying to stretch one arm open a little more to get one arm in…

And
then, wouldn’t you know, my phone rings, waking me up as I struggled to get my
jersey on, AND IT WAS THE WRONG FREAKIN’ NUMBER!

So now I won’t really know
why I was supposed to be in a "military boot camp" nor a "weird football game"
reality show.  But what really bummed me out the most, after I woke up, was
that I wasn’t able to flip the switch while I was dreaming, to realize I was
dreaming, and take control of the dream.  That is the coolest thing about
my dreaming when I can make it happen.

So on this eve of the eve of New Year’s
Eve, for Joakim Noah’s sake, I hope my dreams aren’t premonitions.

And if my
dreams are premonitions, all I ask if for one of them to give me the winning
numbers for the lottery.  Is that too much to ask for the New Year?

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
The Godfather of Soul James Brown died, President Gerald Ford died, but who will
be #3, because deaths come in three’s, right?  My guess is Saddam Hussein. 
Anyway, thanks to the grand opening of the
House of Blues in Chicago I have a James Brown story for this podcast, and it
goes along with the picture posted here.  Staff member, The Mystery Dude,
also reviewed that show we saw back in

November of 1996.

But this podcast isn’t only about death, it’s also about
things like why I will never buy a Kia vehicle, a rant about the NFL and their
network, and my debating whether or not to invite any of my friends to see my
Christmas display, mostly out of fear of ridicule about my window treatments.

But the most important thing about this podcast might be that I found the best
version of "O
Holy Night," ever, thanks to one of the bulletin boards that I read. 

I hope you are having an okay holiday season whatever you are celebrating, or
might not be celebrating.  If I get the gumption I might do another podcast
before the end of the year, but if not, good luck with picking your resolutions
that you will probably break during the first couple of weeks of the new year.

Thanks for
listening.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
You know how the holidays are supposed to be about getting together with loved
ones, or at least your family?  Well, I think I’m done with that. 
It’s not that I don’t love my family, in fact my favorite nephew is, or should I
say was, so high up on the list that I offered to pick him up at the airport
(and on a quick side note, the airport in question was Cleveland Hopkins
International Airport, which I must say is a whole hell of a lot smaller than
Chicago’s O’Hare Airport).  And sure, I complained a bit about the fact
that his flight was getting in at 6:40 AM Cleveland time, which is 5:40 AM Dude
time, which means waking up at about 4:30 AM Dude time to pick him up, yet there
I was, at baggage claim #9.  There he was, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
as he was getting in from a red-eye from Las Vegas, so I let him nod off a bit
on the ride back to my folk’s house, and tried to keep quiet at home so he could
take a nap.

Now, in my preparation for coming home for the holidays, one of
our traditions is to see a movie on Christmas Day, but since I might be
traveling back to the dude-pad that day, I figured wouldn’t it be great to head
to the movies with my nephew on Friday evening, and maybe hit the bars
after,where he could give me the hip ways to pick up college dudettes these
days, and I could show him that his uncle has no right trying to pick up college
dudettes.  Oh, wait, he’s not 21 yet, but I did hold off on my seeing
"Rocky Balboa" before he showed up, thinking that would be our movie to catch
this weekend in pseudo-tradition for Christmas.

But alas, this afternoon, in
telling some of his exploits in Sin City, it came out that he had already seen
an aged Rocky try to re-claim his glory.

And so, figuring that, for a change,
I wouldn’t have to go to the movies alone, and remembering what our staff
member, Whammy, once said, "Only losers go and see movies alone," well it looks
like tomorrow I’ll be a loser.  At least my favorite niece might have been
fast thinking enough to lie about what movies she has seen so as not to ruin
Christmas Weekend.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
My
2006 Christmas display is done.

Thank God.

And I may never do it again.

I
finally got all of the fake snow I needed, but I think I overdid it.  I
broke the head off of my new horse riding dude, but luckily it was a clean break
since I don’t have any glue – His head rests gently on his body.  The train
doesn’t work like it should (damn cow-catcher keeps catching on the track joints
and derailing it, and the tracks need a good cleaning so even when the train did
run it didn’t have a lot of umph).  The windmill bent so it doesn’t rotate. 
I think I had some soap residue in the cup I used to fill the wood mill scene
because it bubbles a bit.  And I couldn’t find a sniper dude to man the new
mountain post (and it just occurred to me that I should have gone to the toy
store and picked up some green toy soldiers – that would have worked perfectly).

I should have picked up some more "flat" snow to cover my window blinds.  I
broke the head off of Sally from Peanuts, one of my Christmas Tree decorations,
when the tree was "side heavy" and fell over a bit when I was trying to plug it
in.  The addition of the waterfall didn’t come out nearly as cool as the
waterfall I had when I was managing a Radio Shack.  And as I look at the
waterfall backdrop now, it looks like a crazed animal, ready to eat my village. 
The "mountains" I made aren’t very sturdy, so I can’t run the ski-lift. 
And yet, another issue…

Some
of my friends say they want to come and see my Christmas display.  Sure,
the Christmas display looks cool, but now I have to clean the rest of the
Dude-Pad before any invites are sent.

My Christmas decorating used to be very
simple.  I bought a fake tree one year, decorated it, and carried it up the
stairs, to my spare bedroom, still decorated.  The next couple of
Christmas’ my decorating took about 10 minutes – I would move an end table in
front of the window, go upstairs and grab my "decorated tree," carry it down the
stairs, put it on the end table, and my decorating was done.  Then, for
whatever messed up reason (I’m blaming a friend from high school), I decided to
start my own holiday village, and now, rather than taking 10 minutes to be
festive, it takes me days.  And it never goes as smoothly as I think it
will.

That’s
why I’m thinking of taking a wide-angle picture.

Yup, getting back to my "lazy
days of Christmas decorating," I’m thinking of taking a nice wide-angle picture
of my Christmas display, getting it enlarged to about 10 feet wide, and next
year, instead of all of this "decorating" crap, just hanging the picture at the
end of my living room, and suddenly the dude-pad will be festive.  No more
broken heads, no more trains that derail, no more lame waterfalls looking to eat
my village.  Nope, just a giant photograph to unroll at Thanksgiving, and
roll back up again after Christmas.

Life seems to have been so much simpler
when I was young.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
Yes, I admit, it’s been a while since my last blog.  It is, for me, that
time of year when the holidays seem to get in the way of consistency, but from
tonight until the Christmas/New Year’s time frame, I’ve got a couple of weeks of
trying to get back to normalcy, only to have it thrown out the window for a
couple of weeks at the end of December, and then comes January, the "New Year,"
when we are supposed to start again, come up with new goals, and screw them up
within about a week.

Such is life, except my last week.

My last week of not
getting things posted was about seeing friends, and isn’t that what the Holiday
Season is about?  Now, because it is a Sunday evening after a long, weekend
reunionish thing, I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things, and I
will list a bunch of topics that I may not revisit, which seems to bug the crap
out of my sister, who still wants me to explain the resolution of
my
mom’s issues in buying a new microwave.  So, here we go, with some
topics from this past weekend which will probably fall by the wayside.  If
you would really like an explanation, use the comment link at the end of this
blog, and maybe those might get to a higher priority of explanation.  So
here’s some things from my last week:

–  I met someone who might be the
great or just grandson of Colonel Sanders in an elevator.  He was wearing a
nice skull-cap and had a very cute dudette with him (I hope this doesn’t get him
in trouble if it wasn’t him, or if it was him, and his normal dudette wasn’t
with him in Chicago last weekend, well, hell, I don’t know, like I said, it
might be the great or just grandson of Colonel Sanders, or just some dude with a
skull-cap with a very cute dudette).  She was skittish about being in an
elevator, and he liked to joke around by faking jumping up and down in said
elevator.  As do a lot of my other friends.  But not me.  We all
survived the elevator ride.

–  The reason I might have met the great or
just grandson of Colonel Sanders is because of dude named Lonnie, who seems to
know about everyone, or has one of the smallest degrees of separation I have
ever encountered.  Kevin Bacon might have six degrees of separation, but
Lonnie seems to have about two or three.  And that now includes some rugby
team members.

–  Tequilya:  Is that a good or bad way to start a
weekend of being with friends?  And Karen, or maybe it was Caron, or maybe
it was Carin.  All I know is she had a fantastic smile and nice boobs.

– 
Farmers vs. Dudettes in Short Skirts:  Who is sticky-shocked?

–  A
friend of ours got married, and no one seemed to know it.  It was a small
ceremony, only family, so should your life-long friends, or just people you now
just seem to know, feel slighted that they weren’t invited to the ceremony? 
I say, "No," but someone else I know says they should have been invited.  I
just hope my pledge-bro is happy, and like the heathen I am, I wouldn’t have
made the ceremony anyways.

–  Should smoking be banned from bars and
restaurants, or should you at least voice your objection to people you know whom
you wish wouldn’t smoke?

–  If you were in a bar, and really, really,
really, really, wanted to hear a song, would you drop three bucks into a virtual
jukebox to get it to the head of the line. (I have my answer.)

For those of
you out there in internet land, if it were up to me I’d like to explain the
entire Colonel Sanders story, but if you you really want to know about "Farmers
vs. Dudettes in Short Skirts," that story is great, too.  At least if I
ever get to it.

In the end, I had a great time this "Holiday Weekend" with
friends.  I hope you do/did, too.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
I seem to have painted myself into a dilemma corner of prioritizing.  It’s
early Saturday evening and I’ve recently gotten back from visiting the old
country and an interesting Capon Day holiday.  I would say Turkey Day, but
instead of turkey for Thanksgiving, Mom decided to revert to the old days when
we always had a capon for Thanksgiving instead of turkey.  Back in those
days turkeys tended to come out very dry, or at least I think I remember that is
what Mom told us, so we had capon instead. We didn’t care that a capon was a
castrated rooster, mostly, maybe, because we didn’t really know what a capon
really was, but it was always tasty and moist, like chicken (duh).  Then,
for whatever reason (I guess man perfected the turkey so that when cooked, it
was juicy instead of dry), we switched to turkey.  And for the past bunch
of years, turkey was the meal, and I always butchered the shit out of it while
trying to do my best at carving.  This year my butchering the shit out of
the capon was no different than my butchering of our turkeys, although the capon
seemed to come out a hell of a lot more greasy than juicy than I remember.

But
that’s not having anything to do with my dilemma of prioritizing…

My dilemma
of prioritizing comes because of things like this:

–  Stu wanted me to take a picture while I was at home, sort of a homework
assignment, and instead of one I took a few, all having to do with this picture
at the right.  Now I’m supposed to write a blog about my photos.  But
when?

–  I would like to get in the Christmas spirit by getting my
display and tree put up, but do I do that and sacrifice postings to
Entertainment Ave!?

–  I would really like to do some cleaning around the
Dude-Pad.

–  I have to do some Christmas shopping.

–  My
movie-viewing is all screwed up because of both Thanksgiving Day weekend and
this upcoming weekend when some of my friends are having a Christmas Party
Weekend.

–  I came up with a blog idea about a funny story at home this
past weekend.

–  I also came up with a blog idea about porn and the
computer industry, over 25 years old.

–  I also came up with a blog idea
about when you play a "bad photo" trump card.

–  I also have some
consulting work to do before the end of the year.

–  And Lord knows with
everything else getting in the way, I’m wondering when I’m going to find the
time to catch up on my TV watching.

–  And, oh yea, I have a blog about
how I’m a bad Uncle.

–  And, oh yea again, there are the Chicago Bears to
watch.

So many things to do, so little time, and that’s not even bringing up
the fact of trying to write a review of "The Pick of Destiny," let alone doing a
Stu & The Dude Movie Review of the movie, nor I have a couple of new CD’s to
review.

November and December are so complicated.  I just don’t know
where to start.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
I’m having a lousy week this week, especially with Edyta being voted off of
"Dancing with the Stars."  Okay, fine, it was Joey who was voted off, but
Edyta wears the better outfits, not like Joey could wear any outfit to make me
look at him.  I was also saddened to hear of the passing of Ed Bradley from
"60 Minutes."  For whatever reason, I just really liked the dude.  And
my exercising and dieting has been thrown into comfort mode for a few days.

But the important thing about this podcast is my opening up an exploratory
committee to maybe announce my throwing my hat into the ring, so to speak, of my
intention to run for a political office.  My accountant, Dewey, hasn’t told
me what office I should run for, but hell, if I’m going to run for office, I
might as well announce my candidacy for President of the United States.  Of
all of the offices it has the best song.

Thanks always for visiting, and thanks for listening.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, and I can’t exactly figure out why.  I
try to break it down in this podcast, and it varies between my problems getting
our review of "Jackass: Number Two" done, the fact I slammed my hand in a car
door, maybe I killed my anemone, or how I screwed up on seeing "Roger
Clyne & the Peacemakers."  Maybe, though, it’s the negative political
ads spanning the airwaves, but I also think it might have to do with Bob Barker. 
Listen and psychoanalyze me at your will.

Thanks always for visiting, and thanks for listening.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
You could say that I never learn, but I think I just like being able to buy a
boat-load of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for next to nothing.  It was
another Halloween.

Year after year after having moved into my Dude-Pad, I
wonder about Halloween and just how many kids I will get visiting my doorstep,
dressed in those cute costumes that look so much more comfortable than the ones
I had (those plastic masks with the stretchy band holding it on your head had to
be the most uncomfortable thing in the world, but as a kid, I didn’t care
because I was transported into a world all my own.  Anyway, I digress.) 
But year after year I buy the Peanut Butter Cups, and year after year, I only
get visited by a few kids.  There was, of course, the one year, when the
high school crowd crashed our townhouse area and I was able to unload most of my
stash, but it felt wrong since none of them were wearing costumes and their
"candy bag" usually was a pillow case.  But in that year I was on a diet
again, and the last thing I needed were extra Peanut Butter Cups around, so the
teenagers were getting three or four at a drop.

Each year I expect an
onslaught of kids, especially the year 2004 when Halloween was on a Sunday and I
would actually be present for the entire "Trick-or-Treating" period, but even
that year the number of visitors was pretty small, and I don’t really know what
I was expecting, but when I was at my local grocery store the other day, there
they were, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup bags, at 2 for $4, so of course, expecting
an onslaught of kids, I bought four bags.

Wow, was that an over-calculation.

This year I’m on a diet again.  I’ve been doing doing pretty well on the
exercise side, but the food side has been up and down, and I just want to know: 
WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING WHEN I BOUGHT FOUR BAGS OF PEANUT BUTTER CUPS? 
Why do I ask that?  Because I had one trick-or-treater visit the Dude-Pad. 
He was a little vampire, probably about 7 years old, and thinking about it know
I should have given him four bags of Peanut Butter Cups.  No teenagers
dressed as teenagers carrying pillow cases I could have unloaded candy to, no
college kids Trick or Treating for UNICEF so I could have given them a buck and
5 peanut butter cups.  Nope, I had one little boy show up and now I have
pretty much four bags of candy to try not to eat all at one time.

I hate
Halloween.

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