Category: General Musings

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!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
First let me give a quick disclaimer.  This blog does not relate to all old
people, even though the end of the blog groups them all into one category. 
For instance, I’m instantly taking my mom and dad out of the suggestion at the
end of this blog because, well, they’re my mom and dad.  And then there are
many of the nice, older folks that I have run into that don’t deserve the end
fate.  But of anyone deserving of the recommendation of the song I list at
the end of this blog, it is the following old person.

I found myself yesterday
morning at our local Secretary of State’s Office, about fifteenth in line, just
as the office opened, to get a license plate renewal taken care of.  It’s a
simple procedure, but I wanted to get it done early in the day.  There were
another half a dozen people behind me in line, all of us patiently waiting our
turn, and I was feeling good about life because I probably saved the life of a
wayward toad earlier in the morning.

Suddenly this older lady, I would put her
maybe early to mid sixties, seemingly fully able-bodied, starts excusing herself
through the line, her license renewal slip in her hand.  She excuses
herself past me, and I think to myself "Self, maybe her daughter or son got in
line early to save her a place in line.  I’ll let her slide."  And she
kept moving forward, and moving forward, and moving forward, until she found
herself at the front of the line, the next to be served.  She then turned,
looked back at the rest of us in line, and said, in a squeaky, condescending
voice, "I’m a senior citizen."  Then turned back around.

I know there is
no way to sound politically correct about this, and I don’t give a damn, but
this woman, and I don’t care how old she was, had absolutely no right to cut in
line because she was "a senior citizen."  In my book I’ll give you cuts if
your aren’t able-bodied, but she had no trouble walking, no problem standing in
the cashier line, no problem with attitude, and just came off as a bitch,
thinking she now deserves the world because she is qualifies for an AARP card. 
The dude behind me, upon the hearing the "senior citizen" comment sort of gave a
"Huh?," and I turned to him and said "And I’m 39.  Does that mean I can cut
in line, too?"  We both chuckled at the audacity of the woman, but in my
head, she gave a whole lot of old people a bad name.

And then it hit me, a
song I had heard on the
Jonathon
Brandmeier radio show years ago.

It was a song about old people.  It
was a song by No Time.  And the song is simply called "Eat
All the Old People."  It’s a lovely song about what to do with the
elderly people starting to take over the nation.

Now, like I said, I suppose
all old people don’t deserve the fate of the song, but that older lady just
reminded me that at any age, some people think they deserve better than you. 
In thinking about it I should have excused myself to the front of the line,
excused myself in front of her, turned around, and said "I’m thirty nine." 
Then again, she looked like she could have kicked my ass.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
First I have an announcement to make.  After much soul-searching, and
trying to attempt this on my own, I have come to the decision that the only shot
I have at being a loser is to open myself to the total ridicule of not being
able to be one.  With that, if you have been reading my blogs or listening
to our podcasts, you know I am obsessed with the TV show "The Biggest Loser,"
and have been trying to have it inspire me to enter the next phase of my losing
weight.  So far the show isn’t enough, and so I must take it the world. 
For more on this, whether to make fun of me or see if I make any progress, check
out my MySpace page at
www.myspace.com/thedudeontheright (and be my friend) which is where I will
be updating my progress, or just letting everyone know I’m giving up.  I at
least hope to get through day one, tomorrow.

On another note, thanks to a

Richard Roeper article and in keeping with my next attempt to lose weight,
I’m through with the McDonald’s Monopoly game.  Just like most everyone
else I didn’t pay attention to my odds of winning anything cool during the game,
although I’m sure there will be a winner or two, here and there, but for the
most part, play as you will, and you have an okay chance at a breakfast sandwich
with your pull-off tickets, or maybe a ringtone if you also play the online
game, but if you are lucky enough to win the $5,000,000 million dollar prize,
paid over 20 years at $250,000 per year, you beat the odds, as Mr. Roeper
pointed out, and as listed in the official rules for the game, of 1 in
41,497,391,309.  To help you with all of those commas, that is nearly 1 in
41.5 billion.  To put that in a little perspective, and from their
websites, your odds of winning the Mega Millions game is only 1 in 175,711,536
(a little under 1 in 176 million), while the Powerball is even a little better
at 1 in 146,107,962 (a little over 1 in 146 million).  Don’t get me wrong,
I love McDonald’s and still think you can eat healthy there if you try, but I’ve
probably bought about 10 extra hash browns I didn’t need so far this month for
my calorie intake ($10 better spent on lottery tickets according to the odds),
and a few extra Diet Cokes that fine, didn’t add to my waist-line, but did dip
into my pocketbook and didn’t get me any closer to getting that elusive "Short
Line" and "Reading Railroad" to get me retired before the age of 40. 

Have fun pulling off those little game pieces, if you will, but for me I’m
done and plan to spend the money I would have spent on hash browns on something
I actually have a chance at winning:  The Lottery!  Hopefully it will
help me lose weight.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
I have to start out this blog by simply saying that I hate Stu Gotz.  Fine,
maybe it is really Mama Gotz whom I hate, because she first suggested this, but
Stu brought up something in the last couple of weeks that right now, well, it’s
the last damn thing I need.  Hopefully I’ll remember to have it out with
Stu on Monday when we do our Weekend Wrap-Up and let the world know why I now
hate Stu Gotz.

But I did find something I love today, and it was in a quest
for a telephone that I found it, and that is the store Fry’s Electronics, or
Fry’s, or whatever the hell it is really called.  All I know is I planned
on going for a walk today, on a warm, fall day, in the Forest Preserve near the
Dude-Pad, where the fall weather is bringing beautiful colors to the leaves, but
instead I found myself in a different kind of heaven, where I was able to find a
battery for the stylus of my Palm Pilot, a new phone for a client, the DVD of "Thank
You for Smoking," and had I already won the McDonald’s Monopoly game, there
would have been a whole lot of more spendin’ going on.  But I held back,
didn’t buy the HD TV I’ve been looking for, nor the combination bread-bagel
toaster that also cooks an egg, nor the refrigerator with the TV in it, nor the
CB antenna that I don’t really need right now, but as my Dad always says, "It’s
better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."  Fry’s is
a store all about that quote.

Oddly enough going to Fry’s and walking around
for over an hour went totally against my movie viewing, although I did get the
exercise I wanted.  Heading to the theater this morning I intended to see "The
Departed," you know, the Martin Scorsese flick which is getting a lot of
critical acclaim, but the running time was over two hours.  This being one
of the last, warmer weekends here in Dude-Town, I said to myself, "Self, what a
waste to spend so much time in a movie theater when you could be out enjoying
Mother Nature!"  So I opted to see "Employee of the Month" today to cut my
time stuck indoors.  Then I went to Fry’s and spent the afternoon, well,
you get the point.  So much for Mother Nature, but I did see some fantastic
TVs that would look great in my living room, or my bedroom, or my office, oh
hell, they’ve got a butt-load of TV’s for every room, and some of them even had
Mother Nature scenes playing, so my getting out in the open air wasn’t a total
loss, even without seeing the beautiful colors of the leaves.

Now, as much as
my screwing up seeing Mother Nature today happened, tomorrow brings future
dilemmas because I am behind on my animating of our next episode of "Stu & The
Dude Reviewin’ the Movies for You," that being "Jackass Number Two," would like
to see "The Departed" and write a review for that movie, have seen "Employee of
the Month" and have to write a review for it, have a good twenty movie previews
to type, want to review the new X-Men DVD I have and the "Thank You for Smoking"
DVD I picked up today, and the Dude-Pad could really use a good, fall, cleaning
to get me to spring.  And to top it all off, The Chicago Bears play
tomorrow, trying to keep their undefeated season in tact, and to top it on top
of that, I still need to catch last week’s episode of "The Biggest Loser" which
might hopefully get me inspired to quit playing the McDonald’s Monopoly game.

So many things to do, and there never seems to be enough time, and with tomorrow
being probably one of the last, nice, weekend days to get out of the house, how
the hell do I figure out what to do?  It was easy in college, we would just
go up on the roof and get a suntan and drink maybe one or two beers.  It
sucks being older.

And to top all of that I had a dream the other night
involving a good friend of mine whom I’ve known for just about forever, where in
the dream she kept kicking me in the ass to get shit done that I haven’t gotten
done yet.  I suppose I should just listen to her and get shit done and quit complaining about it.

This Dude’s life is so complicated.

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