The wife and I celebrated our fifth anniversary by going out to dinner with friends, then going to see Avatar in 3D. Between those events, though, we had some time to kill. Positioned geographically between the Olive Garden and the movie theater megaplex, there was a place that the wife has been wanting to check out for the last few weeks: The Burlington Coat Factory. I thought we might get to see the factory floor and, hope beyond hope, a few coat-making robots, but, alas, it was a department store. To waste some time we tried on coats, many of which made me look like I was attempting to wear an already-inflated life raft. The wife ended up buying a purse, because she absolutely gay for purses like that.
And then she found the hat section. Disappointingly for me, there were only women’s hats. She tried on a few and asked me to take a few pictures with her camera phone. So I did.
Then she informed me that it was my turn. I told her to forget about it, that I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by trying on what were clearly women’s hats, and that IF I tried on ONE hat for her pleasure (sicko) and she took a picture? Well, that the picture would never ever make it online, no way, no how, not in a million years. I shall NOT be made a fool in front of the Internets!
That was, of course, before I saw how the picture came out. I don’t usually like how I look in photographs, but this one? Weapons-Grade Hawtness. Seriously. Yellow is the new R-Pattz.
After that fun, we went over to the cinemas and saw Avatar in 3D. After all the hoopla and what with the phrase “game-changer” being thrown around so much, I was disappointed that it didn’t completely change my life, make my hair grow in thicker, and give me clear, beautiful skin. It was pretty damn good though and I think the wife may have summed it up best when she turned to me as we walked out of the theater and said, “I want to be a blue cougar-person! ME! I WANT THAT! ME ME ME!”
There certainly was a lot of blue skin in that movie. And there were flying raptors. With so many reviews out there and the fact that it’s already come and gone from the public eye, there’s not much else to say. Was it worth seeing? Definitely. Were the effects really that great? Heck yes, they were amazing, the best I’ve ever seen. Was the story epic? Eh, no. It was predictable. Were the female Na’vi sexy? Disturbingly so!
A good time was had by all. The spirit of adventure that night was not only followed; it was captured, skinned, and is now a decorative throw-rug in the bathroom. After five years, I’m still totally gay for my wife. Marriage, dear Internets, is a helluva drug.
I’ve been working (writing articles) so much that the outside world feels shocking and new to me again. The air is crisper, the car engines are throatier, and the roaming gangs of turkeys in my neighborhood? Well, they’re warblier than ever.
I’ve been mostly writing for Demand Studios lately, which I really enjoy as it gives me the chance to make a decent living while indulging in my favorite pastime: being wickedly obsessive over things for a short burst of time, learning everything possible about it, then filing it away in the back of my brain. Then, later, topics bubble back up to the surface of my brain and come right out of my mouth with very little realization on my part. Like the time when I explained to the bag-girl at the local grocery store about how to bore-sight a bolt-action rifle. In retrospect, I don’t think she was very interested.
I’ve also been working on a multi-part article for EmailServiceGuide.com on Email Marketing. My latest post (Part 2) is a review of MailChimp, ConstantContact, EmailBrain, and LetterPop and a few reasons why it’s better to go with a third-party email marketing website than just trying to do mass-email blasts yourself.
The holidays are done and gone, and yet the most important days of the year for me are still to come. The wife was born on Valentine’s Day, which makes that date particularly important for us. We’ll be going out to Dim Sum and possibly minigolfing for that occasion. Because what else says “Happy Birthday” and “Let’s Get It On” like minigolfing, right? And, in addition to that, our five year wedding anniversary is on Feb. 11th! I keep telling the wife that five years is the “wood anniversary” but she’s just not having it. We’ll probably be doing dinner and a movie that night, nothing huge, just some quiet time to enjoy each other’s company. And then we’ll probably just come home and pwn some noobs on Halo 3 until the wee hours of the morning.
On the blog-front, I’ll be moving my little Geek Sauce webcomic over to its own domain in the next few weeks (www.geek-sauce.com), so it’ll have a new home. Check back next Friday for the third episode.
Hey! Do me a solid and visit my blog. I know I've had visitors but my stats are reading zilch. http://www.chrishokeblog.com#
Nope? No one's going to visit my blog to help me determine if my stats are broken? Okey-dokey, then. #
Looking for contributors to write for an already-made blog about sex. Any takers, message me. The blog: http://www.savvyissexy.com Plz RT. #
I should rephrase that: I am looking to hand over a ready-made blog about humor and sex (http://bit.ly/7lgNvT) and split profits. #
@jillesta Thanks! No, for some reason, WP Stats still not registering. Ah, well, thanks anyway. Will wait a few days before panicking. in reply to jillesta#
@pafford Friend of mine bought expensive copper Mule cups through the internet. When they arrived, they were lined with steel. LOL. in reply to pafford#
@pafford Bartender wanted collateral? Crazy. First I heard about the drink was my friend's mishap. And I'm no stranger to drinks. in reply to pafford#
Days where I get virtually no new email make me suspicious. #
Debating whether or not to use the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dancing banana image to divide blog entries on my main page… hmmm. #
@DMBarlow That's my current normal state, though. Except replace "shotgun" with "dull vegetable peeler". I may need to upgrade my weaponry. in reply to DMBarlow#
Wow. That was a crazy holiday season, huh? I’m just starting to recover from the eating, the drinking, and the fact that they don’t make Crocs in a size 14. Some highlights from my holiday include my second RT from Brent “I Was Data” Spiner of Star Trek fame over Twitter…
…then Rob Corddry from The Daily Show stole one of my jokes (also on Twitter)…
…which is just awesome. I think Rob Corddry is hilarious and I’m happy to have tweeted something funny enough to be retweeted by him. My invoice is in the mail.
I received many gifts from family and friends, including a clove-infused Miswak (a stick for the brushing of teeth) from Speedicut, a bottle of expensive and excellent vodka, a dried fruit platter, a sticky-dart gun, bubbles, and a DIY sock puppet kit. I also received one light-up toy sword from the wife along with many other present of both tangible and intangible nature. Like the gift of love. And a massage.
Anyway, I’m back with a Futurama/Fifth Element Mashup. Sadly, only the image exists. Let me be clear, this is NOT A REAL THING, not soon to be coming to a television or theater near you. It IS an AWESOME THING, though. I LOVE CAPS TODAY.
Occasionally, when I’m staring at the computer screen, working on an article, or perhaps just reading a fellow blogger’s most recent posting, a string of thoughts will flash across my mind’s eye in a manner that unearths a memory long buried in the wet folds of my noggin. It rises steadily, bubbling up from beneath a melange of informational flotsam, making it’s journey upward from between bits of information such as the secret opening-screen code for Street Fighter II on the Super Nintendo, the current location of my car keys, a recipe for some truly excellent beef stroganoff, my 8th grade girlfriend’s astrological sign, and various Quantum Leap episode plots.
The most recent memory occurred as a result of a long but interesting posting by Wil Wheaton on the subject of butternut squash soup. (Ostensibly, I should say, it was about squash soup. Wheaton’s real fans know it was really about the reunification of Germany.) Wil talks about the soup and how he made a big mess of things because he was in a rush to eat the soup so he put too much of it in the blender and it became a scene that resembles, in my imagination, something like that infamous internet picture of “Tub Girl”.
Please, I beg of you, don’t search for that photo. You’ve been warned. If you’ve already seen the photo, I pity you, but you know exactly what I mean.
Anyway, it reminded me of two times that I made a mess of things. The first time of which I’m thinking is when I was twelve and it was Nacho Night. We, my family and I, were all in the kitchen and putting whatever condiments we wanted to on our respective plates of nachos. I reached for the Costco-sized bottle of salsa. I noticed, perhaps for the first time in my life, that the bottle said “Shake Well” on it. Well, I’d never shaken it before and, to the best of my knowledge, no one had used the salsa yet that night. It had just been taken out of the refrigerator. So, I gripped it firmly and gave it a good shake. In a matter of moments, I was covered from head to toe in salsa. Someone had taken the cap off and then just laid it back on top of the bottle without screwing it down at all.
“Who does that?!” I remember asking my family, to be roundly greeted by a bunch of blank stares. “Who would do something like this? I mean, it says ‘Shake Well’ right there, so this was just inviting disaster, people! Who would do that?”
To this day, no one will admit to having done it. It doesn’t matter, it’s in the past. It was a long time ago, it’s just… It’s just the principle of the thing, damn it all.
The second, much more recent time memory, happened only a few months ago. The wife and I had gone to the local theater in our sleepy, hippy town, to see some highly forgettable film. We made the mistake of going to the main evening show on the night the film, a blockbuster of some sort, was premiering. The theater was packed with teenagers, who are undoubtedly the worst type of people with which to see a film. The younger, the worser, too.
Earlier, in the lobby, I’d bought a medium popcorn for the wife and a gargantuan-sized Dr. Pepper for myself because there’s something about my body that requires a huge infusion of liquid refreshment every other hour. I can be full, having just consumed Thanksgiving dinner, and yet if you ask me if I’d like a glass of iced-tea, I can’t say no. It’s my alien DNA, I’m pretty sure.
We sat down in the only seats available, in the middle of the theater, in the middle of the center row, with people on all sides of us. We could not have been more centered in the theater if we’d used a mathematical formula. People quickly filled in any single available seats around us.
I’m sitting there, holding my enormous drink, which is almost literally like a wading pool full of Dr. Pepper with a flimsy plastic top and my wife asks me if I’d like to put the drink in her cup-holder.
“No, I’m alright. I’ll put it on the floor.” I said.
“You’re totally going to spill that thing everywhere if you put it on the floor,” she sagely predicted.
“I’m not going to spill it. Anyway, the movie’s starting,” which wasn’t part of my argument. I was just being observant.
The first movie trailer plays and then the second. Midway between what I think was the fourteenth and fifteenth movie trailer, while trying to remember what movie we were about to see, I began to feel parched. So, I reached down to get my drink. Here, I’ll slow down the tape so we can all see exactly what happened.
I leaned forward to reach my Dr. Pepper.
I got a good grip on the drink, despite the beads of condensation that had formed on the outer surface of the cup.
I began to lift the drink.
The lip of the drink caught on my pants pocket and the entire drink inverted itself in my hand.
The drink slipped out of my hand.
The drink, not unlike Michael Jordan, achieved the illusion of “hang time”, hovering before my eyes, about level with my face, for a long, tragic, helpless moment.
The drink began to fall back toward the floor, upside-down.
The drink hit the ground.
The full contents, probably around 40 oz., of Dr. Pepper erupted like Old Faithful, in a fine and majestic spray, that covered the bare leg of the girl sitting next to me, my left leg, and the several rows in front of me with a sticky, sweet mist.
The girl next to me was in shock, my wife was attempting to hide her face in her purse, I was mortified, and the rows of young people in front of me were sort of unclear as to what had just happened. I immediately mouthed the words, “I’m so sorry,” at the girl next to me, as she wiped her leg off with my offered napkins. Amazingly, she coolly played it off like it was nothing, like I hadn’t just covered her in Dr. Pepper. The people in front of me collectively inquired aloud, “What the fuck was that?” Only through my profuse apologies and turning on the old charm full-blast, was I was able to quell, just barely, what I’m pretty sure would have been known in following day’s paper as the “Great Dr. Pepper Riots”.
After I’d smoothed things over as best as I could, I ducked down in my chair, and stayed there for the length of the film, thirsty, and wading half-an-inch deep in what was once my frosty, and, like everything consumable at a movie theater, unduly costly, Dr. Pepper.
Later on in the parking lot, my wife, probably sensing my deep shame in the incident, waited an entire three seconds before she began dancing to a song she had just made up, entitled (or so I gathered from the lyrics) “I Totally Told You So And You Didn’t Listen”.
Is there a moral to these stories? Should you always check the bottle of salsa before shaking well? Should you listen to your spouse’s advice regarding cup-holders? Should you buy the small size of Dr. Pepper, so as to minimize potential damage? Should you be more careful, more mindful, when handling large quantities of liquids?
No. If there is any moral that can be taken from these stories, it is this: The ability to be charming can save your ass from a sticky situation. And, even if you’re completely sure about it, tighten the lid on anything you’re about to shake vigorously.
As Halloween approaches, my mind becomes filled with memories of the holiday as a kid. Visions of free candy, pumpkin carving, haunted houses, Christian protests, and potentially razor-blade laden caramel apples dance through my head. The leaves of the neighborhood trees are doing the color-changing thing now, the vibrant greens of spring and summer giving way to the autumnal colors of… autumn. I begin to think about dusting and cleaning out the small wood stove that keeps my home toasty warm while the wind and rain whip up a frenzy outside, but then I end up just stocking up on schnapps instead and cooking with the oven open.
And, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably anticipating that hallmark of this time of year, that tradition upheld in many households all across the globe, observed by members of many faiths and races, regardless of animosity between them the rest of the year, that tradition that brings us together in the name of a higher power… yes, I speak, of course, of the watching of the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween Special.
When I was in elementary school, there was probably nothing cooler to be talking about than The Simpsons. My parents, having previewed one of the first episodes, forbid me to watch it. If I knew then about my parents what I know now, I would have outright blackmailed them. Alas, I was naive and they were the tyrannical rulers of my tiny world.
Years passed and I endured the slings and arrows of really lame fortune, as my friends spoke ceaselessly about this great show, this king of cartoons, about which I knew nearly nothing. I feared being ostracized, at the tender age of ten, cast out from my geeky little niche and for what? Because my parents chose one particular moment to be prudish? I mean, they were otherwise pretty liberal about my upbringing: they let me try sushi just as it was gaining steam here in the States (I loved it), they let me engage in violent athletics (I participated in a Kempo Karate sparring league when I was nine, where we beat the snot out of each other every week) and they let me watch incredibly frightening movies without batting an eye (well, I thought The Dark Crystal was pretty scary…). Well, damn them, I had a plan.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a kid. Actually, as far back as I can remember in my childhood, which is only since my seventh birthday (I think I might have been brainwashed. “Good heavens what kind of sicko would brainwash an infant?”), I spent nearly all my younger life with my grandparents.
Usually, in the evening, my grandparents would settle into their easy chairs in their apartment’s living room, my grandfather with a glass of bourbon and 7-Up in hand, and turn on the television to watch KQED, channel 9. This was the only remotely educational channel on TV back then, and that was what they watched, or more frequently didn’t watch because they busied themselves instead. My grandfather would read Dante, and my grandmother would do needlepoint. And so I’d be stuck with a choice between reading, doing a puzzle I’d done a Brazilian times before or watching a program on the daytime habits of red squirrels.
But, sometimes, perhaps less frequently than every blue moon, my grandfather would pick up the remote and he’d look for a Tom and Jerry cartoon, and it was upon this fact that my plan hinged. The man had a soft spot for Tom and Jerry and, while it wasn’t my favorite cartoon, it was preferable over having to learn something at that point in my life. When he’d find one, it was like Christmas morning.
No, wait, it was better than Christmas. It was like Mega-Christmas, where you get everything you ever wanted, plus things that you were going to want in the future and duplicates of everything in case something breaks within the first five minutes, because you know it’s going to happen, stupid mass produced G.I. Joes…
Well, one evening, with my grandparents all settled into their chairs, and the hour of 8 o’clock just a moments hence, I put my plan into motion. It went something like this:
“Grandfather (yes, I called him grandfather), there’s, umm, this program, umm, a cartoon that I’d like to watch. It comes on soon and it’s on channel two and, umm, I’d really like to watch it,” I articulated.
“A cartoon? This late at night? Well, that’s new. What’s it called? Does it involve a cat and mouse?” he asked.
“The Simpsons, I think. It’s about a family… and I think there’s a cat and mouse, too…” I trailed off.
“Oh, it’s a family show? Well, that sounds fine with me. Where’s that remote?”
I couldn’t believe it worked. As he blew the dust from the remote control, I prepared myself to absorb every single frame of the show with my eyeballs. I would be a sponge, I would take notes, and I would prepare an opinion for school the next day.
The channels flicked by and rested on “2″ and here’s exactly what played:
(Note: If this clip gets taken down, it was The Simpsons episode “A Streetcar Named Marge”.)
Needless to say I only made it up to about 48 seconds in, where Bart calls Boswell (the man behind those Worst Dressed Lists) “such a bitch”. Really, Simpsons? The first time I’ve ever heard bitch uttered in television, let alone in a cartoon, had to be the first episode of The Simpsons that I ever saw and right in front of my grandparents?
My grandparents looked at me as though I had written and drawn the episode myself. They held me personally accountable for the swearing and it was a long time before I saw anything other than educational television in their home again, aside from watching Victor Borge a few times, whom I grew to love.
Of course, that sort of edginess was what made The Simpsons so damned cool to begin with. Bart is subversive, radical, and he plays out our inner desires for us. He is the Jungian archetypal trickster. When we watched Bart telling Principal Skinner to get bent, WE were telling off our own principal, in a way. When Bart called someone a bitch, well, we were kind of doing that, too. Which, come to think of it, may be why my grandparents held me responsible after all. Harumph.
A few short years later, after buying a television at a garage sale and hooking it up in my room all by myself, I was free to watch whatever I wanted, free to stay up late drinking Jolt cola, eating Pop-Rocks, and watching offensive cartoons all night if I pleased. And, you know how sometimes you wait for something for a really long time, you look forward to being old enough to take part in it or you hype it up in your own mind for months and months and then, when you finally get it, when you finally watch it or possess the thing you once wanted with all your being, it’s not nearly as amazingly mind-blowingly awesome as you thought it might be?
Well, I’m not going to lie to you, Marge: this totally wasn’t one of those times. The Simpsons WERE exactly as awesome as I thought they’d be, even better in some episodes. The jokes showed insight into human nature, the plots were well-written, and the show left no pop icon un-skewered, even itself on occasion.
Amazingly, the older episodes have held up over the years pretty damn well, too, considering how idiotic other shows have become after a few years (Beavis & Butthead, namely). And, what’s more, it’s been around long enough now that several generations have grown up with it playing in the background. I can talk to my nephews about the Simpsons, tell them about older episodes they should check out online, and impress them with my Comic-Book Guy impersonation.
It has become a widely regarded part of our culture, this crazy cartoon show, and it has spawned so many derivative shows that you simply can’t keep up with them. And the best part of it is that you can still watch new episodes, every Sunday, just like when I was a kid. The saying “they don’t make them like they used to” doesn’t hold up in regards to Homer and Marge and Bart and Lisa. It’s a testament to the greatness of the show that it’s survived through several presidential administrations, persecution by cuckoo conservatives who think it’s destroying society, and the fleeting attention spans of today’s medicated youth.
It gives me hope that, maybe someday, I will be able to sit down in the TV room with my own kids, on a Sunday night, a big bowl of popcorn within arm’s reach, and not let them watch it either.
All week long I’ve been worried about my Dad. Last weekend, during a monthly sonogram, he found out that he had fluid around his heart. He’s been getting sonograms regularly since he had a valve in his heart replaced with a porcine valve, which is why his new nickname is “Pig Valve”. Yeah, we’re a creative bunch.
The girl giving him the sonogram suddenly started emitting a panicked vibe during what was a pretty routine examination and excused herself to speak with a doctor.
“Ruh-roh,” said my Dad.
My Dad’s doctor, who is literally the nicest guy in the world, came in and started asking my Dad all sorts of questions about how he was feeling. Anyone with half a brain knows that, in these circumstances, this is a bad thing.
“So, how ya doin’, old boy? Any discomfort in your chest area? No? Really? Wow, that’s amazing. I mean, that’s good. I think. None, really? No stabbing sensation or a feeling that you can’t breath? Nothing? Huh.”
Finally, my Dad asked him what was wrong with him.
“Well, you’ve got some fluid around your heart, in your pericardial sack (hehe). Now, this sack (hehe) is filled with fluid and we’re worried that it could be putting pressure on your heart. Sometimes this can happen when you’ve had heart surgery. So we’re going to run a few more tests and then, well, we’re going to puncture it and drain off the fluid, alrighty?”
Oh, yeah. Sure. No problem. Just pass me the tube, I’ll get it started. No scalpel? Oh, well, I’ll just pop my heart-sack with this pencil. I guess I’ll know I’ve hit the right spot when I black out from pain.
About this time, I arrived at the hospital. I came in to find my Dad waiting in the Cath Lab (named for the famous Dr. Lab), with my Mom. We joked.
“Isn’t there supposed to be fluid around your heart? I mean, it ain’t supposed to be dry, right? An important muscle like that, you’ve got to keep moisturized.”
“The doctor says the fluid might have built up because your heart shrank. Your heart was working overtime before you had the valve replacement, Pig Valve, and now it’s shrunk because it doesn’t have to work as hard. Other reasons for shrinking include ‘hating every last Who in Whoville’.”
After another test, they performed the procedure, which turned out fine, and oddly impressive. The drained over a liter of fluid from around my Dad’s heart. Now, my Dad’s a healthy size, but a liter is quite a bit of fluid. They left the tube in (as in, sticking out of my Dad, like a straw stuck in a Tropicana orange) and the next morning they moved him around and drained another liter from him. That’s, like, two liters! (Yay, math!) Think a two liter bottle of soda! From around his heart! That’s a lot of soda! I do declare!
They had him stick around the hospital for the next day and night and then let him go home. I visited him and he let me check out his bruising and the little slit where they stuck in the drainage pipe. I asked him how we was feeling and he said he was tired.
“Drained?” I helpfully suggested. Har-har, he said. “Do you feel like you’ve gotten something off your chest?” Really, he said, you can stop anytime. ”
He told me that when they finished draining the fluid, his doctor seemed rather surprised.
“Have you ever drained two liters of fluid from a pericardial sack (hehe)?” my Dad asked, to which the doctor shook his head, no.
“How about one liter?” Again, the doctor shook his head. My Dad thought about this for a second.
“I’m going to have a book written about me, huh?” This time, my doctor nodded.
“Cool.”
They still don’t know exactly what caused the fluid build-up, but they’re confident that it can be managed with medication (one of which my Dad says makes him feel “amped up”, which can’t possibly be good news for my Mom) and he’ll be going in to get checked out more regularly. Right now, everything is stable, everything is good, and life resumes.
I’m, of course, happy to have my Dad back from the hospital, but, as it is when anyone you care about is in trouble, you feel like you’re going through it with them. Their worries become your own, their physical pain becomes your mental pain, and their relief is, luckily, something you share in, too. As a son and someone who doesn’t play doctor anymore (not since my license was pulled in grammar school for examining the girls a little too thoroughly), I felt anxious, sympathetic, and more than anything, I felt helpless.
I sucked it up, though, for my Dad. I tend to think that when you’re laying in a hospital bed, you need someone who’ll put on a brave face, someone to tell you that they’re sure that everything will turn out fine and make some bad jokes with you. That’s what I would want. Also, a cool nickname like “Pig Valve”.
