Category: General Musings

By:

The Dude on the Right
Much of my life is about dilemmas, or at least the dilemmas I personally create
in my life.  My latest dilemma is coming up in trying to see four new
movies opening this weekend in a span of two days.  If I accomplish this
feat I will have spent a lot of time sitting on my ass between seeing the
movies, driving to the theater, and writing my reviews.  Man, my dilemma’s
are tough.  But what kind of dilemma would the FCC have found themselves in
if our Congress had passed the original version of the "Broadcast Decency
Enforcement Act," President Bush had signed it, and our networks were covering
said President Bush’s attendance at the G8 summit lunch, live, with his
discussion with British Prime Minister Tony Blair being aired with an open
microphone, and, well, President Bush saying the word "Shit."

The original
version of the "Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act" looked for a two-fold fine –
One against the company who aired it, and the other against the person who said
it.  Congress, later, removed the portion fining the individual (although
some companies seem to be trying to make individuals sign agreements saying that
if there is a fine levied, the individual will have to pay the company back, but
that’s another story for another time. I’m sorry, I digress), but Congress did
raise the fine to something like $325,000 with some kind of cap.  But if
that original bill went through the process of "I’m just a bill, Yes, I’m only a
bill, and I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill," to "He signed you Bill!  Now
you’re a law!", right now The President of the United States should be faced
with a fine nearly wiping out one year of his salary.

For me, I don’t know if
that is irony, or a bummer.  I seem to get those things confused ever since
that Alanis Morrisette song, because I think all of her ironies are actually
bummers, but in this case, would the FCC actually, under that original version,
fine "The President of the United States?"  The second question is this: 
Even if the Big Four Broadcasters, over the open airwaves, namely CBS, ABC, NBC,
and FOX, had been airing that luncheon, live, without delay, because, well, who
would assume that the S-Bomb would be aired at this summit, and they let the
"shit" word fly, would they all be subject to a fine, in all of their markets,
if I set up a campaign of complaints via e-mail?

I’ve written a few blogs
about my thoughts on the FCC and what their role in indecency should be, and my
thought is that they should have no authority over indecency because the
airwaves regulate themselves, via their ratings and their advertisers.  But
right now had Congress approved that first proposal, and President Bush signed
it into law, our President might be out nearly a year’s pay.

How fucked up is
that?  And do any of our lawmakers actually realize this?

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
It’s hot here this weekend in the Chicago area, so of course all of the local
news stories are about drinking a lot of fluids, checking on the elderly, and
creative ways to beat the heat.  Some try to blame global warming, and I’m
not dismissing the notion of global warming because I do think we are messing up
our environment, but for the most part, lost in all of these stories, is the
fact that there have always been hot spells from time to time, but maybe we have
just lost our ability to adapt as the weather changes,  maybe lost some of
our connection as family because we no longer necessarily live near our loved
ones, and we also no longer really give a damn about our neighbors.  I for
one thank, I mean blame, one man for this, and his name is
Willis
Carrier, and he is considered the man who invented air conditioning.

There
was a time, and I don’t remember it, when air conditioning in your home, in your
car, at work, at the store, didn’t exist.  You didn’t live your life to be
at a comfortable 70ish degrees, you adapted as the temperature outside got
higher.  You learned how to get a breeze through your house when it worked
to your advantage, you kept the windows closed for a time because the coolness
of the night was still trapped inside.  But your body knew things were
getting warmer, because, well, it had been doing so in the weeks leading up to a
hot spell, it didn’t have the benefit of getting out of the heat for most of the
day, and you adapted.  And if you were older, your kids probably lived
nearby.  Nearby so much that they, or at least your grandkids, stopped by
to say "Hi Grandma!" at least once a day.  And when they did, and Grandma
didn’t have her fan on, they would say, as kids are want to say, "Grandma, can
we put on the fan?"  And when they also came over Grandma would offer them
something to drink, probably lemonade, and you know what, Grandma would have
one, too.  Getting the elderly to put on a fan and have something extra to
drink were done because we were close enough to visit.  Everyday.

And you
also probably knew your neighbors because, in a worst case scenario, at the end
of the day, when it was cooler outside of the house rather than inside the
house, you went outside, and constantly reunited with your neighbors.  And
back then, neighbors always being nosey yet still being friendly, they would
wonder why "Mrs. Thompson" hasn’t come out of her house yet, and would actually
go over to her house, knock on the door, and politely ask, in that nosey kind of
way "Emma, are you all right in there?"  If Emma didn’t answer, well, her
door wasn’t locked, and they might find her crying in the kitchen because her
husband…, well, in any case, they would get her outside of the house, into the
cooler night air, and not to get her out of the stifling hot house, but to just
get her out of the house.

This is how I, a Dude who doesn’t know life without
air conditioning, sort of sees how lots of people in your city didn’t die
because of the heat, because, back then, I bet it wasn’t news that told you to
keep cool.  You just learned to adapt, and you either had children or
grandkids close enough to visit, or at least neighbors who cared to do the same. 
And you always had some lemonade and stoop to sit on in some cooler night air.

And as much as I like to think of those simpler times, thank you Willis Carrier,
because it was 100 degrees here outside the dude-pad today, but inside it was
nicely in the 70’s.  And I even picked up some lemonade at the grocery
store because, well, it’s summer, and what is summer without lemonade?  And
you know what, maybe I should get to know my neighbors?

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
This past week or so something came back up in my life that I would really like
to research, really would like to find out the answers to, and would really like
to figure out a great way to document things, both the good and the bad, but
sadly the time to find these things are slipping away.  It’s my Dude
genealogy. 
I
got into it a bunch of years back, but it started again over the 4th of July
weekend, when I was starting to clean the Dude-Pad, and I found a place to hang
some older paintings of some of my elders that would actually sort of work in
the decorative scheme of my Dude-Pad.  I was pretty sure the one picture
was of my Grandma, but didn’t really know who the other dude was.  So I
e-mailed my mother, and for the photo to the right I was able to confirm that
the painting of the girl was my Grandma, at age 16, and that the painting of the
dude is my Great Uncle Edward.  From my Mom’s memory, he died in World War
I, was declared missing, then my Great-Great Grandma went to France to see what
is his grave.  I have never known the man, but we are related, and thanks
to my Mom, I have a story to tell about him, the man in the painting.  And
that’s the thing we seem to miss about our ancestors, accurate stories to tell.

The sort of bummer side of this is that my Grandma always had stories to tell,
and I was a lot younger at the time, so most of them are in fragments.  I
remember her stories about her coming over on a boat, and the boat had trouble
getting here, and still remember that she made the best toast, with the pat of
butter that didn’t melt so when you got to the middle of the toast you got
squished bread with a big pat of butter.  My Grandma aside, in the grand
scheme of things, my mother had a plan to record our history, especially since
this was the donning of the age of cassette tapes:  Visit Grandma and let
her record her stories.  But my Grandma was not really one for technology,
didn’t want to "tell her stories to a tape recorder," and for most of the times,
unless those memories pop up for whatever reason, most of her stories are lost. 
As I’m writing this blog, two of her stories pop back into my head, and they are
two of my favorites, never to be forgotten, but my dilemma in this blog is how
to start to record these things I find, or remember, and try to find the best
way to document them.  And now my self-diagnosed OCD kicks in because as
much as we don’t want to admit it, all of our families are fascinating, from the
good to the bad, and in this day and age, when we can easily record our history,
we still forget to.

71ish
years ago a woman named Miss Burrell put a simple quote in an autograph book of
my Aunt’s.  Back then, girls kept autograph books, and my Aunt had a book,
which I now have.  The quote was this:  Happiness is an excellent
remedy and keeps people in better health than any other medicine.  I don’t
know where Miss Burrell got this quote, or whether she made it up on her own,
but it’s a quote that still fits with life today.  The autograph book I
have isn’t that big, but it is filled with lots of other quotes, sayings,
things, that shouldn’t be lost.  And as I hold it, it is at least 71ish
years old.

And as my OCD continues to kick in, the oldest thing that I know I
have is a silver dollar coin from 1878.  It’s not worth much money because
most of all of it is worn, but the date is there, a mere 13 years after Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated.  My Grandma on my Mom’s side was born a mere 20
years after that coin.  And I’m not even going to get into my Dad’s side
right now because otherwise this blog will get really too long.

I guess I got sort of melancholy over the last weekend, but realized again
that all of our lives are fascinating, and should be shared, to at least our
families, and it shouldn’t just be the good, but it should also be the bad, so
that we can, and our siblings can, know where we come from, and learn.  I
guess I’m such a dork sometimes.

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

For this podcast, The Dude on the Right wonders about team mascots, is still looking for a PG-13 movie with 2 “F” Bombs, hopes he doesn’t get old like a dude at the Post Office, and prays his sister doesn’t find a treasure chest of information that would ruin his life forever.

By:

The Dude on the Right
I hope you are having a nice 4th of July weekend here in the United States, or
at least just having a nice time if you aren’t from the United States.  I
give some breaking news about a mascot gone wild, and I wonder if there is
video.  I also saw that "Be
Cool" was on cable recently, and it gave me a line I have become obsessed
about, namely that if you utter the F-bomb more than once in a movie you get an
"R" rating.  I have yet to find an instance where this in not true, yet. 
I also find it sort of funny that those folks who can promote censorship can’t
take it when they think religion is involved, and blame getting a PG rating on
religious censorship (even though it’s not), at least when it comes to the movie
"Facing the
Giants."  I also had an incident at the Post Office which makes me hope
I don’t get like this when I get older.

But as I was cleaning the dude-pad I
found something that my sister, and probably my niece, would find as a treasure
chest (although not of a monetary value) of things to make fun of me for the
rest of my life.  I have to decide if burning this treasure or buying a
super-duper safe to protect it is more appropriate.  All I know right now
is that I need to find a better hiding place, and as I’m writing this, I know I
found it.  My new hiding place is not talked about in this podcast, but now
I’m almost tempted to invite my sister and niece to Chicago for a weekend just
to see if they can find this treasure.  My guess, they won’t, because,
well, it’s not gross (like waterproofed in a toilet), actually very clever, and that’s all I’ll write.

This
podcast summary has gotten too long, so I’ll just leave it like this…

Thanks for listening.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
Sometimes I wonder how some people still have their jobs.  No, wait, I
suppose that’s really not it.  I suppose I wonder how, after years at being
on a job, they still seem like they are new on the job, and they also still have
their job yet their hygiene leaves a lot to be desired.  My case in point
is a dude who works at a local grocery store, manning the register in the liquor
department.

Every now and then I am want to purchase some liquor, and there
have been two, regular, check-out folks who have been working the register for
years.  One is this nice, older lady.  She doesn’t remember your name,
but she does remember your face, and is always there with a "Hello" and a "How
are your today?"  She is also able to run people through the line like
nobody’s business.  Scan, bag, scan, bag, scan, bag, scan, sticker, scan
frequent shopper card, punch the right buttons, and you’re out the door.

The
other is this middle-aged dude where if the line is just two people deep you
might as well hoof it to the normal check-out lines because your trip will
probably be quicker.

And somehow, after working for years in the checkout lane
and stocking shelves in the same liquor department, he still has a job, still
hasn’t seemed to figure out how it works, and well, taking pride in one’s
appearance doesn’t seem to apply.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

First off
the dude is way fat.  Don’t get me wrong, I need to lose some weight as
well, and even some of the most obese people can at least be one with their
obese selves and make it work for them.  Not this dude, he is pretty much,
for no better term, a fat slob.  He is also sort of surly, never greets you
with a smile, and doesn’t seem to know how to wash his clothes, or at least to
know when it’s finally been too many days wearing the same shirt.  He also
doesn’t seem to remember anyone who comes through the line, because as much as
I’ve seen him over the years, he still doesn’t seem to recognize me.  But I
can get past the initial gross-ness issue of the dude, what really blows my mind
is after all of these years the dude still doesn’t seem to be able to put
together how all of this technology works, even though he also helps stocks the
shelves in the liquor department.  In front of me is a wine person, with a
dozen bottles of wine.  For every bottle, even if they are multiples of the
same bottles of wine, check-out dude looks to find the bar-code before running
it over the scanner.  Yes, that’s right, after all of these years he still
hasn’t seemed to figure out the bar-code is on the back label of the bottle of
wine and you don’t really need to look for it.  And both you know and I
know that on those cases of beer, the bar-code is on the bottom.  Not him. 
He has to look on all four sides, then do the "head tilt" to look at the bottom
and realize that "Aha!  There it is, that pesky bar-code!"  Lighting
quick.  And still, after all of these years, you would have thought he
would have some technique to actually put the items in those plastic bags, but
no, not this check-out dude, because somehow he labors at still trying to figure
out how those bags actually work.

And then comes the actual payment procedure.

So your items have all been scanned, he has scanned your frequent shopper card,
and it’s time to pay.  I would say 95% of the folks coming through this
line know how to scan their credit card through the scanner and punch the
buttons, or if they are paying with cash even better, but it’s not the
purchasers having the problem, it’s check-out dude.  From what I can tell
there are a couple of buttons to push depending on your method of purchase. 
To me it sort of seems like it would be redundant – If they pay with cash, hit
these buttons;  If it’s a debit card, these buttons;  Credit, it’s
these.  – and after years with the same cash register system (I know it’s
the same because when the grocery folks switched the cash register system a
bunch of years ago, the nice, older lady, took a little more time, explaining
they switched the system), you would actually get used to what buttons to push,
but not this check-out dude.  Nope, from day one, until day, well, it’s
have to have been over 500 on the job, check-out dude still works those buttons
like it was day one.

And so I just wanted to vent about this dude who still
has a job I think he should be much more familiar with because, thanks to my
fault, I didn’t listen to my normal rule today, and that is to head for the main
check-outs if two people are ahead of me when this dude is running the liquor
check-out.  There I stood, for about 15 minutes, waiting to pay for my
twelve pack of Heineken Light (my diet starts tomorrow), and not really
wondering how this dude still had a job, but how this lazy, fat, slob, still had
a job that after all of these years he still hasn’t figured out how to do it at
least somewhat efficiently.  Thank you for letting me vent.

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

For this podcast, The Dude on the Right congratulates his sister, has some movie viewing dilemmas for “Superman Returns” and “The Devil Wears Prada,” and is psyched about “Spider-Man 3” even though it won’t be released for 11 months. He also isn’t worried about the asteroid coming near Earth over the 4th of July weekend, unless, well, those tracking it forgot to convert Metric to English, or vice versa. And then he just babbles for no apparent reason because he can never really figure out how to close out these podcasts sometimes.

By:

The Dude on the Right
Yes, I blew our "Stu & The Dude Weekend Wrap-Up" this week, but no worries, I’m
here for a podcast about a whole bunch of stuff.  I give props to my sister
who is a champion, I have a dilemma on how to see "Superman
Returns," and am actually looking forward to seeing "The
Devil Wears Prada."  But Superman and Prada aside, I am now totally
psyched for "Spider-Man
3" even thought the movie is 11 months away.  And as we look forward to
celebrating this 4th of July weekend, don’t worry, the asteroid that is a
half-mile wide won’t be that close, only as close as a lot of those space
modules in the

Apollo series.  I just worry if those watching this asteroid paid
attention to their English to Metric conversions, and vice-versa.  I hope
so, because it wasn’t such a success story for a

Mars Probe.  And although I comment about it, sometimes a fifteen year
old dudette, even if she is your niece, deserves getting "the finger."  I’m
claiming "Road Rage Syndrome."

Thanks for listening.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
Okay, I’m a day or so behind.  I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, until the
next time.  Anyway, I made it back to my old country, and back to my
current country, actually forgot to get together with Stu to get a podcast done
today, but thought I would at least start things back up with some blog talk of
my trip home.

Well, my trip home reinforced
my continuing belief that those who aren’t used to driving on a three-lane
highway have absolutely no clue on how to drive on a three lane highway, how my
old country town is letting its resident’s learn what it might be like to drive
on the moon, how
sleeping in a basement has some benefits in a house of older parents, and how my
sister, and I hate to proclaim this, but my sister is a champion.  I will
not really elaborate at what my sister is a champion of, but in all of my life,
no one, and I have been around the best of them, has ever accomplished an
accomplishment such as hers.  I might talk to Stu about it when we actually
get together to do a podcast,
and let him know he used to be a contender, but he has now fallen so far below
the bar, well, there is no getting back in contention.  I will just say
these things right now:  I think my sister’s husband would be proud (at
least that’s what my sister said), my nephew should be glad he wasn’t in Ohio
(nor in any adjoining states) at
the time, and my niece is still in awe that I survived.  My sister’s
championship aside, I have finally been able to combat my fear and sleep in my
old, country home, basement, alone.  I’m thinking The Boogeyman that lives
in the laundry room was caught off-guard with my coming home, and especially my camping out in the basement by myself.  Had he have known I was coming
home, and sleeping alone in the basement, he probably would have wrestled up a
bunch of his friends to spook me, but by the time I left it was too late for him, and I
actually got an extra hour of sleep!  I suppose I should explain these last
couple of sentences a bit.

When I was a youngin’ there was one room in our
house that creeped me out because I thought The Boogeyman lived there. 
That room was our laundry room in the basement.  I don’t know why, I’m sure
there is some repressed memory that made it that way, but for whatever reason,
whenever I had to go downstairs, I had to turn on all of the lights so I
wouldn’t be afraid of what might jump out of the laundry room.  Even as I
got older, and more rational that there wasn’t actually a boogeyman living in
the laundry room, every time I would walk down the stairs to the basement, and
even today, I couldn’t help but remember how the laundry room spooked me out. 
But this past weekend I won!  While at home I slept in the basement, in the
dark, and no boogeyman attacked me, even in a completely dark basement, and I am
confident that the next time I go home, and down those basement stairs, I am
sure I will still wonder if The Boogeyman still lives in the laundry room, and
that he has now just grown into a slacker in his boogeyman ways.

The Boogeyman
aside, and being at home in the old country, I
didn’t take pictures again because, well, sometimes I’m a slacker, and for this
weekend I was a slacker.  I wanted to do a blog or two but didn’t, was
going to do a podcast but am using the excuse that since neither my sister nor
my niece wanted to do one, well, I didn’t, and in some simple honesty, it was
nice to just get away and watch some baseball, and I don’t think those podcasts
would have proved that productive because I would have just made fun of my
sister or flipped-off my niece again.  I’m such a bizarre brother and
Uncle.  I was also going to try to do a movie review about "Click," but
didn’t.  I saw the movie and give it 1 1/2 stars out of 5, but that review
will wait.

And my drive back to my country was actually uneventful for a change.  Getting
out of Ohio still showed that those folks don’t know how to drive on a
three-lane highway with a speed limit of 65, I am liking Indiana with their
speed limit of 70 (those people seem to know how to drive it, even with two
lanes), and in Ohio, near Toledo, this spot (the picture to the right) always, and on every trip back
and forth, somehow brings my spirit up.  For the last bunch of trips I have
kept trying to get a picture of this shed with my cell phone, and this time I
finally got one, and for the life of me, I’m really surprised I got it.  It
came up quick, I said to myself "Shit, here comes the ‘Smiley Face’ shed!" 
I pulled my camera phone out of my pocket, set it up, and luckily snapped this
picture, which I haven’t been able to do before.  The rest of the pictures
I tried to take on my way back to my dude-pad came out lousy, but for some
reason the "Smiley" picture worked.  Weird how things happen like this
sometimes.

So, I officially made it back to my Chicagoland pad.  The 4th
of July Weekend is coming up for all of us, in whatever way for you, and me. 
Me, I’ve got to deal with Ozzie Guillen and White Sox, Dusty Baker and his
issues with Cubs, and keep betting with my Mom and the Indians.  I would
like to get together with Stu to do a podcast, but if not, one should be coming
tomorrow night.  My Dixie Chicks CD review is almost done, I am psyched
about "Superman Returns" (but torn on where to see it first), and if I do write
a review of "Click," spoilers will abound because the movie just pissed me off.

As much as it was good to be back home in the old country, and I sort of felt
bad for flipping off my niece, but I’m claiming "Road Rage Syndrome," it is good
to be back in my normal country.  I’m thinking one more night in the
basement and The Boogeyman would have figured out I was down there.  I can
think of nothing worse than a 39 year old screaming up the basement stairs that
"The Boogeyman" is coming to get me.  Oh wait, I can think of something
worse, and that is why my sister is a champion.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
I ended yesterday’s blog, Part 1 of my "A
Haircut Gone Wrong" episode with the simple line, "I miss seeing Vita." 
If you wonder why, read yesterday’s blog first, otherwise, here is Part 2 of the
installment, the actual haircut experience, gone wrong.

… As I was heading
home to the dude-pad, it was finally time to get that almost desperately needed
haircut.  It’s probably been about two months since my last haircut, which
is sometimes long in haircut time, but I’ve gone longer, I think around four
months has been my record.  Vita had a field day making fun of me when I
came in for that haircut.  But Vita was not in this equation, I headed back
to the same place that left me with two decent heads of hair with two different
stylists.  I walk in and there she is, "Piercing Girl," and this time I had
my contact lenses in so I wouldn’t be blind during my haircut.  I tell the
dudette at the desk that I’m looking for a haircut and a blow-dry, but I wasn’t
paying close enough attention because Piercing Girl was just finishing up with
her client, so I didn’t say I would wait for her, and all of a sudden I was with
"I’ve Got Better Tools Girl."  I should have sensed there was a problem
when, as she was washing my hair, she commented how she prefers to get her hair
cut with whomever cuts her hair because it is in the haircutter’s basement and
she doesn’t have to "wait in line" to get a haircut.  I guess what she was
telling me was that coming here was a mistake.  This time she was right.

With my hair all washed, and me seated in her cutting chair, it occurred to me
that she was a little too short.  Now I’m not a tall dude, but the haircut
chair wouldn’t go low enough so I had to crouch down a tad for her to be at a
comfortable height.  And here is where I really knew things would be going
wrong.  I have a simple haircut, at least so I think.  It’s parted on
the side a bit, and generally when I get a haircut I’m looking for it cut to the
top of my ears, with no sideburns, with a square cut in back, slightly above the
collar.  She went to cut the hair on the sides, first trying to line up the
scissors for a straight line getting rid of my "sideburn" hair, but somehow
couldn’t just cut the hair in one nice clip.  Nope, she tried to do a
series of clips, leading to a jagged look for the side hair.  At this point
I could tell she was really pretty new to this haircutting thing, and I was her
latest guinea pig, but at least she had the cool clippers.

So she quickly
abandons the side of my head and heads to the top of my head where she grabs a
lock of hair and asks "Is this short enough?"  I tell her just a little
more, which for her ends up being about a finger and a half worth of hair, to
which I say, "A little less."  With my patience in full patience mode, I
knew I was in for the full ride, and a ride it was.  I’ve seen Vita cut my
hair a lot of times, and even the other girls at this place had the "grab first
batch of hair here and cut to appropriate length, grab another batch of hair off
the newly cut hair a bit and match the length, but adjust for the shape of the
head and haircut" maneuver.  This girl, though, couldn’t.  She would
miss her mark where she made the first cut, thereby grabbing a handful of hair
with no reference where to cut next, and continued.  With the top of my
head not that bad, she now moved to the back of my head, and I could still see
her struggling.  The right side wasn’t too bad, she would try to flip up
some hair with the comb, and oh, did I mention that she already dumped two combs
onto the floor by this time?, and then clip some of it.  She didn’t really
seem to have a game-plan, just trying to make it shorter, and around the ear,
but not really having the ability to just make a decision and cut.

But it was
the left side of my head that, for some reason, just gave this girl trouble.

Now since I hadn’t gotten my hair cut in a while, and as it got longer I skipped
the mousse portion of my morning regimen, so my hair on the sides sort of
trained to "flip" out a little bit.  And she had the hardest time with
this, especially on the left side.  She would flip up some hair with her
comb, try to cut it, but because it was already dry it would fall before the
scissors got there, then she would try again, and each time catching just a
little tuft of hair.

My guess is that for this haircut chain, they will give
you the basics, some combs, scissors, but for the most part, if you want cool
stuff, you are on your own.  This girl had the cordless trimmer thing,
which one of her colleagues borrowed earlier, and it is a cool thing if you can
use it right, but I’m thinking she had it just because whomever cuts her hair
has one, because she couldn’t use it right, especially for the side of the head
hair.  There is sort of an art to using the cordless trimmer to sculpt the
hair.  You use the comb to line up the hair, and this only works if the
hair is sort of damp (mine wasn’t), then you nicely trim the hair along the
teeth of the comb.  You move the comb a little (keeping some of the other
cut hair for some reference) and do it again.  She kept trying, especially
on the left side of my head, but forgot the hair needs some wetness to keep it
pointing out of the teeth of the comb.

My hair is finally a little shorter,
and in the meantime, the two other dudettes cutting hair have already gone
through their next batch of clients.  At this point my dudette actually
told me she couldn’t figure out how to get the hair on the left side of my head
to go how she wanted, and by this point, I knew I was just better off getting
out of there without hurting her feelings, and without her cutting any more of
my hair.  As I was looking in the mirror it didn’t look like the back of my
hair was that straight, I could see that the right side wasn’t too bad, and that
the left side had some slight gouging which I figured I could cover up with some
mousse and a blow dryer.  And as I fibbed to her that "Everything looks
fine," I still couldn’t help but wonder how you can’t at least get the first
cut, leveling out the hairline with the top of the ear, to be level.

And so
ends this episode of "A Haircut Gone Wrong."  Look, I realize the dudette
was probably kind of new at this haircut thing, and that’s sort of why I didn’t
want to wail into her while I was there, or even show her how to use her crazy
clipper thing.  Maybe I should have inquired how long she has been cutting
hair, and if it’s been over a year, maybe it might be time for her to look for
new work.  But I didn’t, and now I sit with a haircut I have to try to work
with in the morning to make sure it doesn’t look like a haircut the previous
girl who cut my hair would make fun of.  Me, I’ve got a couple of months
before I need another haircut, as messed up as this one is, and then the dilemma
comes up:  Do I risk it and try to get "Piercing Girl" to cut my hair
again, or do I just try to plan a trip into Chicago and call Vita?  As much
as "Piercing Girl" is nice on the eyes, I’m thinking it might be nice to talk
with Vita again, who’s also nice on the eyes, and give her my family update, and
see how hers is doing as well.  With getting a haircut from Vita I’ve got
to plan a little bit better in getting said haircut in a little bit better
fashion, but I know what I’ll get – A decent haircut, and comfortable
conversation, and isn’t that what we are always looking for?  But then
again I might just be to lazy and pray I get Piercing Girl the next time around.

Sometimes I’m such an idiot.  Happy Haircutting!

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