The Umbrella Under the Urinal

Has it really been a year?

2010-12-30T20:08:00.003-07:00

I was sitting here, freezing my balls off, when I thought, "Man, it's been a while since a posted. I think I will post something." I had no idea it has been over a year. At least I will have one post in 2010.

Update: My cancer is in remission, my band is kicking ass and taking names, and my kids are not driving me insane. That's the good news. However, this has been a pretty shitty holiday season.

Last Monday, I went over to my lady friend's house. When I got there, she informed me that we are no longer a couple. Well that was fun. Then, as I was driving home pretty pissed off, my car decided to break down. It was only $1200 in damage, and a few days of riding the bus. Yay!

Then on Wednesday, while doing my Christmas baking, I got distracted and managed to set my kitchen on fire. Luckily, damage was minimal. Then, I found out a friend of mine had a heart attack and died on Christmas Eve. So this has pretty much been the worst Christmas ever.

Umbrella's guide to holiday viewing

2009-12-06T22:15:00.005-07:00

I'm a little late with this, but in case you've never seen the holiday programming, may I suggest you get a TV? For you frekas, here's a guide to decide what to watch this year. The scale is from one to five egg nogs, with 5 being the best.

It's A Wonderful Life (1946) - The movie that spawned so many imitations. Yeah, it's kind of hokey, but I love this flick. Jimmy Stewart rules, and that is not open for debate. Mary is pretty hot for a 1940's chick. It was the inspiration behind Ernie and Bert. And as a bonus, you get to see the dude who was Alfalfa in this movie (he's the guy that opens the pool so everyone falls in at the dance). Still, I have to dock it some points because it's a proven fact that every kid in old movies has to be annoying as fuck. 4.5/5 egg nogs.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) - Not bad, but I have some problems with the movie. First of all, does anybody really believe that was Santa? I think if a parent let some crazy old dude take care of their kid these days, CPS would get called. Then, the lawyer gets "Santa" off on a technicality, creating more distrust of laywers. Plus, I just can't get over the feeling that this was an early infomercial for Macy's. 2/5 egg nogs.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (1964) - This one is considered the Rankin/Bass classic, but it's never sat real well with me. First off, Rudolph's parents are assholes for mocking his birth defect. Can you imagine if Corky's parents teased him on "Life Goes On"? People would be losing their minds. Yet with Rudolph, it's OK. I don't get it. And I hate that fucking elf who wants to be a dentist. What a little bitch that guy is. Who wants to go from making kids happy to inflicting pain? Yukon Cornelius is a badass though, and I will give bonus points to the squirt gun that shoots grape jelly. That thing rocks. I wish I had one of those. 2.5/5 egg nogs.

A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) - Another classic. However, I think this one misses the mark a little bit. Why would Charlie Brown get all discouraged about Snoopy's awesome light display on his doghouse? I mean, which would you rather see, a tricked out doghouse, or an anemic little Christmas tree that dies when you put an ornament on it. No contest. Also, Linus gets a little too preachy for me. Hey Linus, maybe we would pay a little more attention to you if you didn't completely ruin your credibility a couple of months earlier with all that Great Pumpkin nonsense. 1.5/5 egg nogs.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) - OK, the Grinch is pretty awesome. Boris Karloff does his voice, and narrates, which automatically gets bonus points. Plus, whoever that dude who sings about Grinch has the coolest deep voice. Eat your heart out Barry White. And for anyone who thinks cats are cooler than dogs, the dog in Grinch will end that argument. Loyal, hard working, and can see no fault in the Grinch? Yep, sounds like every dog I know. I can't give it 5 egg nogs for two reasons. One, the people in Whoville are a little on the Stepford side for me. Second, it spawned a terrible Jim Carrey flick. 4/5 egg nogs.

A Christmas Story (1983) - Now we're talking. A gun is the focal point in the story. The queen mother of all curse words. A double dog dare. Chinese turkey. Major awards. I OWN this movie, and it is the only must watch on my list every year. Jean Shepard is a terrific writer, and the film is a great adaptation of his work. My lady friend doesn't like this movie. That's because she is a freak. Plus, this movie has life lessons in it. For example, when Ralphie gets busted for cursing, he immediately blames Schwartz. The lesson in this? Blame the Jews. 5/5 egg nogs.

Football (every year) - I realize some of you would argue that this isn't holiday programming. To you people, I say "Move back to France!" It's on in December. Bowl games are on Christmas day. And on the rare occasions when Christmas is on Sunday, it is like the birth of Jesus is being witness by our generation. Plus, December football is either bowl games (college) or playoff pushes (NFL). 5/5 beers (only a pussy drinks egg nog while watching football).

Back out of my cave, with a shameless plug.

2009-11-04T15:24:00.005-07:00

So between my illness, the band, and a freaking month long business trip, I've been too tired to post. Mostly because I've been using my creative juices to make mashups. My daughter has been trying to get me to try and make one, so I decided what would be the most ridiculous pair of artists to try and mash. Mission accomplished.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Where have all the bass players gone?

2009-09-03T17:24:00.003-07:00

It lives. Yes, I'm still around. I've been concentrating on getting healthy, my paying job, and my low paying job (the band). That sucks all of my energy I have.

The new band is kicking ass. We've played a few gigs, and are starting to build a little following. Unfortunately, we are doing it without a bassist. I have never been in a band having this much trouble getting a bass player to stick. It's pissing me off. They are like the drummers in Spinal Tap.

So if you're a bass player in the Tucson area, and want to play in a kickass punk/jazz/hardcore hybrid that is made for moshing, let me know.

Kickass toys, and how poor kids played back in the 70's

2009-07-06T09:45:00.003-07:00

As part of my ongoing childhood memories tour, here is a list of toys from my youth. Some of these I owned, some of them I didn't. But just because we were poor, didn't mean we couldn't have fun. Here is a list of shit we used to do.

1. Caps - I never owned a cap gun. However, we could go down to TG&Y's and get a giant roll of caps for about a dime. Who needed a cap gun when you had a rock? We would sit and bash the pockets of gunpowder all day. Yeah, the sidewalk would be covered with scorch marks, but who cares? Cheap explosives rule!

2. Evil Knievil motorcycle - To a boy in the 70's, Evil Knievil was the baddest man on the planet. For you whippersnappers out there, it might be hard to believe that some dude jumping over shit on a motorcycle was prime time TV, but his stunts were a ratings bonanza. I never got to own this toy, but one of my friends did. We would jump over everything with it. We tried to jump his dog (eww, that sounds gross) but the damn mutt would never stay still (and that sounds even grosser). To this day, this is still the toy I'm bitter about never owning.

3. Stretch Armstrong - I got this for Christmas one year. We need to start a poll. How long did you own this toy before you cut it open to see what was inside? I think I made it about a month. As an added bonus, this toy made a great weapon. I knocked my brother into near unconsciousness by hitting him in the head with it.

4. Slime - What the hell was this stuff? According to wiki, it's made of guar gum. I still don't know what it is. All I know is that it was pretty cool for a little while. Then eventually you would forget to put the lid on tight, and it would dry out and be useless. Everyone I know pretended it was snot to gross out our moms.

5. Army Men - Another TG&Y classic. You could get a giant bag of these dudes for about a buck. The dude with the bazooka was badass. My brother would get pissed at me because I would always give him the pussy that was talking on the radio. We would set up these big elaborate battles, and then throw rocks at them to try and "kill" them by knocking them over. I never really liked the guy who was lying down with his gun. You couldn't knock him over. In the provided link, it looks like he's standing up. I think that is photography magic. One time a buddy of mine came back from Mexico with a bunch of bottle rockets, so we shot a bunch of them into space. The other thing we used to do is throw them in a fire, and pretend they were torched by a flamethrower.

6. Slip N Slide - Do they still make these? I never owned one proper, but never underestimate the ingenuity of a poor kid. One time we were wandering around the back of some industrial complex, and came across a roll of thick plastic. Being the little shitheads we were, we made off with the roll. Add garden hose, and presto, instant Slip N Slide. We would play pickle with it, where we would have spectacular slides to avoid the tags. One of the worst times I got in trouble as a young kid was because of this. We set it up at my buddy's house, and played for about 8 hours. The hose was running the whole time, turning his front yard into a marsh. Plus, with all the sliding and everything, we tore up most of the grass as well. When his folks got home, they lost their minds. They ended up having to tear out and redo the entire yard.

7. Star Trek gun - I didn't watch Star Trek, but I liked guns. This was another cheap TG&Y toy you could get for a couple of bucks. They shot these little plastic discs that kinda hurt when you got hit with them. However, you would lose the discs pretty quickly as you can imagine. We discovered they shoot pennies pretty well, and the ammo packed more of a wallop.

8. Big Wheel - Best. Gift. Ever. I finally got one for Christmas one year, which probably extended my belief in Santa for another good three years. Fuck I loved that thing. We would go around trying to see who could do the baddest skids. The problem is, I was growing so fast at that time that I couldn't fit in it anymore. Yeah, it had an adjustable seat, but that would only get you so far. However, I was a problem solver. Just grab onto the handle bars, put one foot in the seat, and treat it like a scooter. No wonder I have back problems now. Unfortunately, that method would usually result in cracking the middle of it, rendering it useless. That is, if the plastic tires weren't flat already. I'm pretty sure I cried when my mom finally got rid of its broken, faded shell.

9. Tennis Ball - Probably the most versatile toy on this list. You could find one of those lying around by the high school most of the time. I can't even begin to count the number of games that we could play with a tennis ball. See #6, the pickle was done with a tennis ball. Probably our favorite game to play was "Butt's Up". All you need is a tennis ball, a wall, and some kids. The linked version I've listed is actually pretty close to how we would play, except we would try to hit the runner instead of the wall. We'd play for hours. Heck, I'd still play that today if I could find any takers.

10. Water Rocket - This thing was pretty cool. You'd fill it full of water, and then pump it with air pressure to get it to launch. The trick was to see how much pressure you could get. Since we were kids, we weren't that strong, so we would all gang up to get that thing pumped up. Eventually, we broke the pump. Apparently, it's all educational as well. Whatever, we just wanted to see how high we could get that fucker to go. Surprisingly, we never actually shot it at each other. Even with our violent tendencies, we knew that would probably fuck someone up pretty bad.

A somewhat serious post

2009-07-01T14:50:00.003-07:00

I'm sure all 6 of my loyal readers have been noticing the severe lack of posts lately. I somewhat addressed it in my last post, but I guess I should come clean. I have been diagnosed with cancer.

I have debated back and forth whether I should mention it on my blog. Hell, I debated whether or not to keep it from my friends and family. However, the chemotherapy is kinda kicking my ass, so I figured I better tell people since they would notice I wasn't myself. Plus, if someone I cared about kept it secret from me, I'd be pretty pissed off about it.

However, on a blog, you can't see me or my actions, so I could have kept it a secret. What I don't want is for this to become a mopey, woe-is-me type of thing. Life can be shitty enough without another depressing blog out there. Plus, my chances for a full recovery are good, so this isn't going to get all morbid or anything like that.

So why come clean? Well, if you haven't noticed by now, a lot of my posts are me ranting about things that piss me off. And this definitely pisses me off. So I may decide to rant about it in the future. I really want to keep a sense of humor about all of this, so I may look at this from a different angle.

Plus, I am being forced to face issues that most of us don't like to think about. I'm sure this is leading to some of my reminiscing posts. Those posts are kind of fun to do anyways, so chances are good that I'll keep doing those.

And finally, my energy is absolutely shit these days. By the time I get home from work, I just want to sleep. This means I don't feel like posting, for all of you mensas out there.

So there it is. Don't feel sorry for me, because that will just piss me off. I like challenges, so this is how I'm approaching things. And because I'm me, we started a pool at work for what date I will shave my head when I start losing my hair. I don't know the dates anyone picked, and the only way we decided I could be eligible for the pool was for me to pick that I won't lose my hair at all. Nothing like gambling on your own body.

OK, enough of that crap. Your regularly scheduled immature posts will return shortly.

Celebrity death match

2009-06-29T16:40:00.003-07:00

No, the Feds didn't get me. Life gets complicated, and then I don't blog. Simple as that.

But of course, while I was in hiatus, famous people started dieing left and right. First, we had Ed McMahon. Most people remember him as Johnny's sidekick, but I remember him as a man ahead of his time. Remember Star Search? That's America's Got Talent, but 20 years earlier. Dude was a visionary, and nowhere near as annoying as David Hasselhoff.

Then Farrah. Yeah, I knew she was really sick, but she was my first pinup, so I was bummed out. You know the poster. I won it at the state fair by popping balloons. I think I was 10. My mom wasn't too thrilled, but I was. Several years later, I was working graveyard shifts at a 7-11. I was working there when she appeared in Playboy. That's when I discovered the truth behind the most famous part of the poster.

And then Michael Jackson. I was in high school when he became really big. Let's face it, he made MTV what it is today. Well, aside from the fact that they don't show music videos anymore. I wasn't the biggest fan, but I respect his talent, at least before he went completely insane. So I'm not really that emotionally involved with his death like a lot of people are.

At least I wasn't, until I heard his dad talk. For those that don't know, Joe Jackson is a piece of shit who did God knows what to his kids. It's no coincidence that every one of those kids is fucked up. So what does he do when addressing the public after Michael's death? He pimps out his new business ventures. I don't know why this pissed me off so bad, but it did. I just can't imagine losing one of your kids, and taking the opportunity to promote yourself. I just don't see how someone could put their own financial gain over the well being of their kids.

It's like the whole John and Kate fiasco, but at least those kids aren't dead yet. Although with Kate parading those kids around at every opportunity, I'm predicting that one of the girls will end up in porn. You heard it here first. It will be called John and Kate Plus Eight Dicks in Her Mouth, or something clever like that. End the fucking show, and take care of your kids. I've been through a divorce, and had young kids when it happened. It's a messed up situation, and I don't need a camera in my face while it's happening. Those kids don't either.

Sheez, with all the celebrity talk, this is turning into a gossip blog. I think I'm about two posts away from drawing dicks on celebrity pictures in Paint.

The Feds will be coming any day now

2009-06-10T10:08:00.004-07:00

I've talked in the past about my superhuman powers to affect things outside my influence. Usually it only affects me, or it affects sports. No big deal, right? However, for the first time, my powers have hurt someone else. I think I killed David Carradine.

I was driving with my daughters the other day, and there was some old lady walking along the side of the road. Well actually, she was more IN the road than on the side of it. I told my daughter in the passenger seat to get the door ready, and take her out. When she didn't, I told her, "Man, that was a lot of points you just gave up." She looked at me like I was an idiot. I said, "C'mon, Death Race 2000". She still didn't know what I was talking about.

I have a little pride in the fact that I am doing a good job of raising my daughters. However, the fact that neither of them knew about Death Race 2000, perhaps the greatest B movie ever made, showed me I was an utter failure as a father. [Note: while getting the IMDB link for Death Race 2000, it claims that the movie's popularity is up 264% this week. Why must we have tragedy to appreciate things we already have?] I started explaining to them the concept of the movie. Since they are smart, they realized that this movie sounded awesome. My youngest daughter told me that it was probably on YouTube. Yeah right. There is no way that A) an entire movie would be on YouTube, and B) even if it was, someone wouldn't have taken it down, claiming copyright laws or some such bullshit.

We got home, and I was going to try and find some clips of the movie to show them. However, the youngest was right! The ENTIRE movie, cut in bits, was on YouTube. I was amazed. [Another note: the movie has since been removed. Fucking lawyers.] We ended up watching the movie, and they thought it was awesome, in spite of the very dated 70's attire. They also thought it was pretty funny that this movie was supposed to take place in 2000.

This happened on June 2. David Carradine died the next day. I haven't even thought about this movie in years. Coincidence? I think not. So I give my sincerest apology to the Carradine family and all of his fans. Just because I have these powers, doesn't mean I know how to harness them properly.

And if any lawyers are out there (just kidding about the "fucking lawyers" bit, heh), when the Feds come to take me away, do you think I can plea down to manslaughter? It was completely unintentional.

Blasts from the Past (AKA midlife crisis post)

2009-05-26T15:01:00.005-07:00

I still haven't gotten over the fact that my daughter is now a high school graduate. Combine this with the fact that I was thinking about old TV shows during the live blog, and receiving a "You know you were a child of [insert era here]" email, and I've been spending some time thinking about my youth. So in this post , I'm going to remember things as a kid growing up in the Phoenix area. I realize that this won't resonate with 99.999% of you out there. Good way to keep an audience.

1. Wallace and Ladmo. If you were a kid living in the Phoenix area before about 1990, you know and love this show. I've heard it was the longest running kids show in US history. To a kid, this show kicked ass. Ladmo was hilarious, they showed cartoons, and they gave away stuff. They had these skits in between cartoons which was when I would get ready for school. As I got older, I decided it wasn't very cool to watch a kiddie show like this. However, in high school, I rediscovered the show. The skits, which I always thought were lame, turned out to be the best part of the show. These weren't meant for the kids. They were adult humor that went right over the kids' heads. No wonder it lasted over 35 years. Now I understood why my mom would laugh at this show as well. When Ladmo died, the entire state mourned. And of course, to answer the question that ALWAYS gets asked when talking about the show: No, I never got a Ladmo bag.

2. Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour. Hands down, the best place ever for a birthday party. This place served ice cream, ice cream, and more ice cream. I can't remember if they served anything else. If they did, it wasn't ever ordered. The place had an old-timey feel. All of the employees looked straight out of a barbershop quartet. For parties, they had the Farrell's Zoo, which was a GIANT tub of ice cream, with little animals camped out all over it. When one was delivered, they would bang a big drum, and bells and sirens would wail as the waiters ran around the restaurant with the Zoo on a stretcher. Absolute chaos, and I loved it! After you would gorge yourself on ice cream, the only way out of the restaurant was through the best candy store I've ever seen. You name it, they carried it, along with a bunch of other stuff I never saw anywhere else. A dentist's nightmare, but a kid's dream.

3. Big Surf. Apparently, Big Surf is still around, although under different ownership. This place was pretty awesome as well. It had a wave pool that you could actually surf on. As far as I know, it is proprietary, and nobody has been able to replicate it. They would have concerts at night. I remember as little asshole kids, we would try and snatch the girls' bikini tops off as they went by on the rafts in the wave pool. Fun fact: Remember that movie Just One of the Guys? The "famous" prom scene at the beach were the chick reveals she's really a chick by showing her boobs was filmed at Big Surf. Plus, I knew some of the extras in that movie. And as an added bonus, there was a drive-in theatre across the street. In high school, this was a good capper to a summer day. Speaking of high school...

4. Valley Art Theatre. This was an old theatre in downtown Tempe, on Mill Avenue, before they cleaned up the area and turned it into a franchisee's wet dream. I personally prefer the old Mill Avenue. It had one screen, and a balcony. The theatre would show the indie type films, cult films, and midnight movies. I'm pretty sure nobody in there was ever sober. I know I wasn't. The first time I ever did shrooms, we went there and watched Alice in Wonderland. Plus, they had all you could eat popcorn. When you were high, this was a godsend. The place would get shut down from time to time for showing porn. I don't know if it is still there or not.

5. Happy Trails/Trails. This was a head shop on old Mill Avenue. It was originally called Happy Trails, but I think Roy Rogers filed a lawsuit, so they just changed their name to Trails. A cool place to burn away a few hours. The Mill Avenue cleanup got rid of this place.

6. Pete's Fish and Chips. Man, this place was a dive. We used to joke that the place was awesome as long as you didn't watch them prepare your food. Greasiest place I've ever been to, and that's saying something. The main draw was the price. You could get a Monster Burger (1/3 pound burger with the works, including Tabasco sauce), large fries, and a tub of soda for a couple of bucks. This place was always packed with broke college students and high school kids. Strangely enough, I don't know anyone who has ever had the fish there. We always ordered burgers. Another casualty of the Mill Avenue cleanup. Can you figure out where I used to hang out yet?

7. Elroy "Buzz" Towers. I think this dude started as a fake helicopter traffic reporter, but I'm including him on this list for his TV show. They used to show these awful B movies, and he was the host. Think of Elvira, without the wig and boobs. My brother and I would watch these terrible movies, and make fun of them. All of our friends loved our bits. Little did we know there would be a market for people doing that. We were seriously bummed out we realized it. Plus, it was on his showed that I discovered the cinematic masterpiece which was Basket Case, AKA The Most Underrated Movie of All Time. Seriously, a movie about a Siamese twin which was some kind of mutant, removed at birth but lives, and then goes on to rape his brother's girlfriend? Oops, I should have made a spoiler warning. How did this not win an Oscar?

8. Hand printed driver's licenses. Back in the day, in Arizona, when you went to get your driver's license, you would fill out the information on the application. And then they would use that information directly on your actual license! In your own handwriting! A direct copy! I love exclamation points! It took us all of about 3 seconds to realize what this meant. We could write our birth dates in such a way that we could alter it immediately when we got our license. 1967's became 1961's, 1968's became 1963's, and so on. Which made the drinking age go from 19 to 16 in a hurry.

9. The Cine Capri. Simply put, the baddest ass movie theatre I've ever been to. You can click the link for all the history and stuff, but my memory of it was going to see Star Wars there. My grandmother took us to see it. It was the first theatre I remember that had Dolby surround sound, and grandma thought it was way too loud. So she decided to stuff Kleenex in her ears. My brother and I didn't think too much of it, as Star Wars at the Cine Capri was like a cinematic orgasm to a kid. But as we were leaving, we realized she still had Kleenex hanging out of her ears. As mentioned before, we were little assholes, so we never told her. We just giggled about it all the way home.

10. Bill Johnson's Big Apple. One of the few places on this list still going strong. I remember thinking how cool it was that sawdust covered the floor. My mom told me they used it to soak up the spit in the old cowboy days. Big mistake, as I spent the rest of the time spitting on the floor every time we went. It's known for it's BBQ, and don't get me wrong, the BBQ is very good. But my memories are of the breakfasts. They were huge southern style breakfasts, and they were delicious. My lady friend and I were back in the Phoenix area not too long ago, and looking for a breakfast spot when we went past one. Of course I had to check it out. It was as good as I remembered. What I didn't remember was how cheap it was. We got more food than we could eat for under $20, after tip. We were so full, we didn't eat lunch, and even had a light dinner.

Live blog, interleague style

2009-05-24T13:00:00.066-07:00

Or is it intraleague? I can never remember. Let's go to the game. As an aside, I'm also keeping track of the UCLA-Missouri softball game, as the winner of this series will face the Devils in the Women's College World Series.

Top of 1st: Lopez was hurt in last night's game, so Augie gets the start at 2B. Ryan Roberts gets a rare start at 3B, and leads off with a long fly ball. Parra batting 2nd, and I am loving this guy. He just got called up from the minors a few games ago, and has been just tearing it up. Some dude named Outman (good pitchers name) is pitching for the A's, and his socks are ridiculous. Old school, 70's style socks. Parra continues to be awesome, and draws a walk. Upton is the DH today, batting 3rd. Outman struggling with his control early, and gives up a hard line drive on 3-1 count. Upton with the double, runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Stephen Drew, hitting under .200, batting cleanup. Hinch is a genius. Oops, my bad, he's hitting .203 after a good game last night. He hits a dribbler to short, but it's enough to score the run. Special K is up, and he's been pretty good this year. He hits a grounder to end the inning, but the D-Backs are up 1-0.

Bottom of 1st: UCLA up 1-0 after 2 innings. Hey, it's Mr. Agility pitching today. He's been OK this season. His ERA isn't so hot, but for whatever reason, the team seems to hit for him. Drew throws Cabrera out on a nice play. Kennedy hits a little blooper in the Bermuda triangle to get to first. Byrnes the Clown is playing left, and bobbles a routine fly ball, but holds on for the second out. Did you see that play the other day when he "tossed" the throw into the left field bullpen. Awesome. That guy is a disaster in the field. The phone rang and I missed the third out.

Top of 2nd: Snyder leads off with a high fly ball to left. Byrnes the Clown hits a little broken bat blooper to left, and hustles to get to 2nd. I have to give props, that was good hustle. Hey, it's Augie!! RBI opportunity here, but he's been a little cold of late. Augie crushes one, but it's hit right at the CF. 2 outs. Young continues to struggle with a fly out to Buck (former Devil) in right.

Bottom of 2nd: UCLA still up 1-0. Maybe my timing is bad, but there's been a serious lack of hotness in that game. I expect more from UCLA. Giambi up, and I haven't noticed how gray his beard is. Is that a side effect of steroids? He grounds out to first. Speaking of gray beards, now they're showing Tony Clark in the dugout. Actually, it's more of a gray Fu Manchu. I sense a theme. I have a gray beard too. Well, I did, but I shaved it. And now I'm boring myself. Back to the game. Sweeney just about takes Mr. Agility's head off with a line drive up the middle. Buck bunts, and almost beats the throw, but Mr. Agility lives up to his nickname and makes a nice play. Leave it to the Sun Devil to put his team ahead of his stats. Crosby draws a walk. Man, I need one of those voice recognition things so I can just say my thoughts and it types them for me. This is a lot of work. Powell, hitting under .200, draws a walk to load the bases for Cabrera. This is trouble. Yikes, he drives Byrnes the Clown to the track, but it stays in the park. I think I'm going to shorten Byrnes the Clown to BTC. My goal is the have a nickname for every player on the team before the season is over.

Top of 3rd: I think everyone on this team is trying to hit a home run. Roberts hits yet another fly ball to start the inning. Parra hits one as well. Can Upton complete the trifecta? Nope, infield single. Upton has been playing well. How will Drew disappoint me today? Routine grounder to 2nd. Darin Sutton is already getting on my nerves. I see a MUTE button in the near future.

Bottom of 3rd: Mr. Agility strikes out Kennedy to start the inning. I'm having some difficulties, as I am typing with one hand right now. No, I'm not jerking off. I'm lying on the ground, leaning on my other arm. Both are poor excuses. Hmm, should I be lazy, or a pervert? I could be both, but that wouldn't leave me any free hands to type. Cust hits a high fly ball, and BTC makes it adventure, but gets the 2nd out. Holliday gets a single. This guy kills us. I'm glad he's out of the NL West. Holy crap, they have an amazing shift on for Giambi. Why don't these guys ever bunt? If it stays fair on the third base line, he's safe easily, even as slow as he is. It doesn't matter, as Giambi draws a walk. Christ, this game is BORING. I'm doing more surfing than watching right now. My ESPN streak is now a 3 game losing streak, which is the longest I've ever had. I think I'll pick a NASCAR event. That should keep the losing streak going. I don't know shit about NASCAR. My mom is a redneck NASCAR fan. D-Backs record third out. And fuck, what the hell is this? D-Back to basics? Imagine unfunny dudes trying to be funny while teaching baseball tips. Awesome. It's like a poor man's Baseball Bunch. Hold these thoughts, the inning has changed.

Top of 4th: Crap, my NASCAR pick didn't take. I guess the race started. I guess I'll pick Cleveland to beat Orlando. Special K draws a walk. I didn't know the Baseball Bunch was filmed in Tucson. Man, I used to watch that show religiously when I was a kid. The kids on the show were annoying as fuck, but Johnny Bench was my favorite player, so I was a regular viewer. Plus, it had the San Diego Chicken, before he became just the Chicken. And for your pleasure, check this out...

Is Tug McGraw high in this? Probably. It doesn't matter, I loved that show. Back to the boringness of the D-Backs game. Another walk. BTC does his speciality, and pops up. And Augie hits into a double play. Dammit Augie, if you don't quit sucking, I'm going to change my loyalties to Parra.

Bottom of 4th: Buck pops up. This game is two fucking hours old, and we are only in the 4th inning? In a 1-0 game? What the fuck is taking so long? Crosby grounds out. Wait, Mr. Agility has a little circle band aid on the back of his neck. What's that about? Did he get nicked getting a hair cut? Powell grounds out. I picked a real doozy to live blog.

Top of 5th: UCLA up 4-0. Looks like they will go to a deciding third game in that series. D-Backs are going to sit on a 1 run lead. Bad idea. Young leads off with a pop up. This offense is horrible. They just said that Young is twice the league average on pop ups. I wonder what BTC's average is. Roberts grounds out to the pitcher. I think I'm going to surf youtube for more blasts from my childhood. But wait, Parra is up. Not for long, as he grounds out.

Bottom of 5th: I always thought Electric Company kicked Seseme Street's ass. Two quick ground outs. I've officially lost interest in this game. BTC makes a diving catch, and the ball pops out when he hits the ground. He didn't need to dive, watching the replay. The ball hit the heel of his glove. THAT'S the BTC we've come to grow sick of. By the way, that was Cust. If they didn't have that ridiculous shift, Drew could have gotten to that pop up. Cust gets a double out of that. Holliday draws a walk. Back to Electric Company. I knew Irene Cara was one of the kids on that show, but here's something I didn't know. She was replaced by the actress who played Violet in the Willie Wonka movie that didn't suck. She was kind of a cute kid. I wonder if she's hot now. This will be my mission, since the game sucks. Giambi flies out.

Top of 6th: The actress' name is Denise Nickerson. According to IMDB, she played Lolita in a Broadway musical. I told you she was a cute kid. I feel like I need to put a disclaimer on this conversation, or else Chris Hansen is going to show up. Upton fouls out, and Drew walks. Special K hits into a double play. Sigh.

Bottom of 6th: I think this is a picture of modern day Violet. She's kinda old, but then I remember that the movie is probably close to 40 years old, so she's probably in her 50's. Sweeney leads off with a single. Here's another pic. Is she rocking the femullet? So I guess the verdict is - NOT HOT. But to be fair, I didn't realize how old she was. Well, that killed some time. I love the internet. Buck pops up. Crosby hits a single to right, and Parra almost gunned down Sweeney at third. Holy crap, that was a throw! A's got something going here. And fuck, wild pitch ties the game. Zavada, our newest minor league call up, is warming in the pen. Powell just blasted a 2 run homer to give the A's a 3-1 lead. Damn. Zavada has the coolest moustache in baseball right now. It looks like one of those old timey Civil War moustaches. Cabrera pops out, and Parra makes a diving catch to end the inning. Hey BTC, that's how you make a diving catch.

Top of 7th: That was Powell's first career home run. Great. UCLA up 5-0. Snyder leads off with a walk. BTC promptly hits into a double play. This offense sucks so bad, I can't think of a word stronger than suck. Augie tries a drag bunt, and barely gets out. We have 3 hits in 7 innings.

Bottom of 7th: Missouri trying to make a comeback in the last inning, as it's now a 5-2 game. Oh boy, here's Slaten. He just got called back up too. Cust strikes out, and Holliday grounds out. And because it's absolutely impossible for Slaten to get through an inning without giving up a run, Giambi hits a bomb. Sweeney pops up to end the inning. 4-1 A's. How many pop ups is that?

Top of 8th: Young actually gets a single. Who will hit into the double play this time? Roberts tried to, but it got by Cabrera. E6, Young to third. Parra comes up as the tying run. Oh, there's the double play. At least the runner on third scored. I guess it's back to thinking about childhood shows, and which girls grew up hot. Remember Little House on the Prarie? Laura was pretty fugly, but I always thought Mary was pretty cute. Yes, she's probably in her 50's too, but I've got to do something to pass the time during this snoozer of a game. That didn't take long. Yep, she still looks pretty good, although a lot of freckles. Man, I'm such a pig. One of the great things about being a guy. Upton strikes out.

Bottom of 8th: Slaten still pitching. Buck flies out to BTC, and that's it for Slaten. Vasquez in to face Crosby. He flies out. Powell draws a walk, and then Cabrera singles. And another wild pitch puts runners on 2nd and 3rd. Kennedy singles, driving the runners in, but gets thrown out at 2nd. 6-2 A's.

Top of 9th: Ziegler in to pitch. Drew grounds out. Special K with one last chance to keep his hitting streak alive. No such luck, as he lives up to his nickname. Tracy hits for Snyder, and gets an infield single to prolong my misery. Montera pinch hitting for BTC. Montero gets a single as well. Augie is up, and let's see if he can keep this going. He pops up to end this game fittingly. Good, this was a long game that was boring as well.

A graduation letter to my daughter

2009-05-15T14:59:00.005-07:00

My oldest daughter is graduating high school next week. I'm a guy who keeps his feelings pretty close to his vest, so I wanted to let her know how I really feel. I'm planning on giving her this letter on graduation day.

It’s hard for me to believe that you are actually graduating high school. Wait, that sounds bad. I don’t mean I’m surprised you can do it, I mean it doesn’t seem possible that it has happened so soon.

I remember when I got the telegram on the boat that I had a baby girl. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I got the telegram in the middle of a drill, and was getting scolded for not taking the drill seriously, but I didn’t care. I was on cloud nine the entire rest of the patrol, and couldn’t get home soon enough. And when I finally got home, I remember thinking you were one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. I still feel the same way eighteen years later.

I remember holding your hand with you as we walked to school on your first day of kindergarten. I was wondering if you would be one of those kids that would cry and carry on. Nope, you couldn’t run into the classroom quick enough. I guess I should have realized even back then that it was a sign of your maturity and independence. I still see a lot of that in you today.

I remember when your mom and I split up. [Your sister] was always crying and upset, but you never let on with how you felt. I know it hurt. I could tell by how you always wanted to wear black, and with your poems. I wish I could have done a better job of comforting you two, but I was going through my own hurt as well. I know it was a horrible time for all of us, but I learned something about you during that time. You showed considerable poise and grace during a difficult time.

But I want you to know, you don’t have to be that way with me. You will always be able to tell me anything, and I promise I won’t judge you. I can’t promise I won’t get upset, but I can promise I won’t judge, and will do my best to help out however I can. Besides, there’s only room for one person in this family who hides their emotions, and I was here first.

And that’s why I’m giving you this letter. I wish I had the courage to be able to say these things to your face. But that’s not me. I’m not a lovey-dovey kind of guy. I’m sure you figured this out by now. I never had a role model on how dads were supposed to act. With you, it was definitely on-the-job training. I’ve joked about how with you, I did all my screw ups, so with [your sister] my parenting will be better. I think even though it’s a joke, there’s a little truth to it. I’ve learned a lot with you.

When I got mad and took away your bedroom door, deep down I was wondering if I had gone too far. When I give you crap about your hair, I wonder if I’m going about it the right way. When I argue with you about the clothes you wear, and make you change into something different…well in this case I KNOW I’m right, so I don’t wonder about it at all. ;)

I guess this is just a long way of getting to a point I’m trying to make with you. Everything I’ve ever done, whether it was good or bad, whether it worked or not, was because I wanted to make sure my kids turned out better than me. It was because I wanted to make sure neither of you girls got hurt. And it was because when this day came, I wanted to make sure you were ready for it.

And you are ready for it. Whenever I sit and wonder if I’ve done a good job of raising you, all I have to do is look at the lady you’ve become. If I had screwed up too badly, there is no way you would be as intelligent, thoughtful, creative, funny, and loving as you are.

I don’t tell you this anywhere near enough, but I am really proud of you. I absolutely adore the woman you have grown into. I love you so very much, and that is why today is one of the best days of my life, and also one of the toughest. It’s one of the best, because you are now ready to get out there and take on the world, and I know you can do it. But it’s one of the toughest because I am going to miss you terribly when you go away to college.

So make sure you do great in college. I’d hate after writing all this sentimental stuff to have to go up there and kick your butt.

I love you.

Dad

So is this a bad idea? It is so out of character for me, but I want to make sure I give her something to remember on her grad night. Those of you who are daughters, any thoughts?

More proof I'm easily amused

2009-05-14T16:49:00.002-07:00

OK, since my last post was so bitchy, let's lighten things up. I have a confession. I'm a youtube junkie. I'm always looking for stupid shit, and this gave me endless amusement for some reason. I'm not ashamed to admit I watched this about 30 times. First, I'm actually going to enter the 20th century by embedding a video. Yay technology! Take a look, and then I'll dissect it like the Zapruder film. Should I say "Spoilers below"?

OK, this was pretty funny on first glance, especially since I'm a sadist. But on further reviews, this thing got better and better. First of all, I've seen this contest done quite a few times at minor league games, but never with a pitcher warming up. When I saw the title of the video, and the pitcher throwing, I was expecting big trouble. Kids running into each other = funny. Kid getting skulled by a pitcher = not funny.

Even on first viewing, I laughed at the guy saying "That happened yesterday too" right after the collision. Really? And nobody got sued? Maybe there's some hope for this country after all. And like I said, I've seen this done numerous times, and usually one kid smokes the other one. To have back-to-back collisions? That rules.

The next thing I noticed on the next viewing was the catcher. Check him out a few seconds before the collision. He's looking at both of the runners, and you know he's thinking "Oh shit, this is going to end badly." Damn that was awesome.

Another funny thing is the crowd reaction. You can hear them getting excited as the kids approach the plate, and then a big "Oooooooh" after the crash. Even better is the PA announcer in his super happy voice yelling "It's a tie!" Yeah, I'm sure that made the kids feel better.

At the very end, check out the dude in the black shirt and jean shorts. You know he's praying nobody is bleeding. And then, once he realizes everyone is OK, he starts waving his arms to pump up the crowd. Classic.

Finally, let's give some serious love to those kids. THAT is some competitive spirit there. Fuck letting up, I'm going hard all the way to the plate.

Life as an AZ sports fan

2009-05-14T15:38:00.005-07:00

Hey all. It's been a while. Let's catch up real quick, then on to my point. Work still sucks, I've got a new gig in a old school punk band, and my daughter turned 18/went to prom/graduating high school all in a 10 day span. Things are pretty crazy in umbrella land.

However, I'm here to talk sports. I'm watching the NBA playoffs, yet the Suns aren't involved. Steve Kerr and Robert Sarver have ruined this team. Now Alvin Gentry is the new coach. Next year will suck too.

The Coyotes look like they're leaving town. They've pretty much sucked as long as they've been in Phoenix. I'd like to be more upset about this, but it's hard to get irate when the team you stole from another city leaves. It's like getting upset when your wife cheats on you, but forgetting that you started fucking her when she was still married to her first husband.

But the real pain for me is the Diamondbacks. The 13-22 Diamondbacks. Let's have a contest in the comments section to come up with the best two word phrase to describe this team. Unmitigated disaster. Underachieving mess. Giant clusterfuck. All of these work.

We've had injuries. Brandon Webb, Stephen Drew, Tony Clark, and Connor Jackson have all been on the DL this season. But that's no excuse. The real culprit is the offense. It's horrible. It's so bad, that from now on, I'm calling them the Diamndbacks. No O, get it? Thank you, don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Let's take a look at the numbers. Out of the 30 teams in baseball, here's where they rank. Batting average, 30th. Runs scored, 29th (San Diego has one less run). Hits, 28th. On base percentage, 30th. Slugging percentage, 24th (this surprised me). Average with runners in scoring position, 30th. Scoring position with two outs, 30th. And my personal favorite: six of the position players who started opening day are batting .215 or less. SIX!!

As awesome as Augie is (hitting .310 in limited playing time), he can't do it all himself. The manager, Bob Melvin, was justifiably fired. However, they hired some front office puppet who has NEVER managed a game at any level in his life. Genius.

Esteemed leader, or chess team star?

I'm so disgusted, I can't even do any live blogs. This team has openly quit on its manager, and the fans are letting them know. I went to Monday's game against the Reds, and I have never seen a crowd that small. And everyone there was in a foul mood. I didn't know such a tiny crowd could boo so loud. Worse thing is, it's only May.

You know it's a cold day in Hell when the Cardinals are the best franchise in town.

Shit sandwich

2009-04-27T16:49:00.004-07:00

Instead of turning this blog into one of those whiny emo discussions I hate, I'm taking the approach that when life shits on you, make a shit sandwich. The fact it reminds me of Spinal Tap doesn't hurt either.

I've had to travel a lot for work, and my project I spent the last couple of months on was cancelled. But hey, I got paid for all that meaningless work. Mmmm, shit sandwich.

The fact that I'm bandless means I've been searching around on Craigslist trying to get a new gig. But I get to meet all kinds of interesting people this way. Kinda like going to the fair. The shit sandwich is so moist.

Plus, I've been fighting a stomach problem the last few days. I guess this is a literal version of the shit sandwich.

Seriously, I've been getting kicked around a little these days, so I'm not feeling real humorous right now. I'm sure I'll be back to my infantile style of humor in a few days. Until then, enjoy this picture of a cool explosion.

The day the music died

2009-04-21T12:08:00.003-07:00

After much soul searching, I decided to leave my band. It's one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make. I just have a different vision of what I want than the rest of the band.

Unfortunately, when I told them Thursday that I was done, all hell broke loose. They were pretty upset with me. They didn't want me to leave, then they didn't care if they ever saw me again, and pretty much everything in between. I guess you could say it got pretty emotional.

So it's over, and it was my decision, and yet I feel horrible about it. I've joked that a band is like a marriage, except with more people, and this feels like a divorce lite. I know I made the right decision, but I'm still pretty bummed out. I've put so much time and energy over the last three years into this group. It's really hard to walk away.

The thing that has me pretty pissed off though, is that all the problems I was complaining about, they are addressing with their "new" group. I'm thinking, "If you guys would have done these things earlier, I wouldn't have left." So I'm kinda upset about that, but oh well.

I'm hoping to hook up with some new people and get a new band going. I'll definitely make sure we are all on the same page before we begin. Maybe some new blood will get my mojo going again.

I know, I'm sounding like a whiny gash, and not being very humorous. Sue me. This has really gotten me down right now.

A blog that actually made me think

2009-04-13T08:08:00.006-07:00

A commenter who has some insight on our last Golden Umbrella winner has told me that he probably won't accept the award. If that is the case, this will be a first. Honestly, I'm surprised how good of sports everyone up to this point has been so far. This whole thing started as a way to give some recognition to blogs out there that I think have been more entertaining than 99.9999% of the blogs out there.

And Midtown Miscreant didn't fit the profile of any of the other winners. Most of the winners were silly blogs, and very humor oriented. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I like humor. His, while it had some gallows humor in it, was of a more serious tone. But it struck a nerve with me. And the reason it did was because I realized while reading it (and I damn near read every post), under slightly different circumstances, this could have been written by me.

I've made a couple of references to my "wild past", but never in any detail, and always in passing. I was not a good kid, and I certainly didn't grow up in any idyllic TV sitcom type situation. I was shuttled around between family members (a clue to why my grandmother was so important to me). I've had immediate family members in jail. I've been surrounded by addiction and violence since I was a baby.

I was also a really bright kid, which got me into even more trouble. I found that I had an ability to get others to do things that I wanted to do, even if it wasn't in their best interests. A lot of times, these things were not legal. When I was about 14 or 15, I had a scam going which was ripping off some small time businesses. I was pulling in about $1K a week, which is pretty good money to a kid. One night, one of the guys doing the grunt work for me got caught. I was scared shitless. The gig was up, and I knew it was a matter of time until the cops showed up for me. However, he was very loyal to me, and kept his mouth shut. He got sent to juvie for his efforts. Nothing happened to me. And when I was reading the second half of this post, it really hit home, except I was the one on the other side of the story. The guy who got caught has been in and out of trouble his whole life, and I'm the one doing well.

Most of the money I was making back then was going towards drugs. We all know that drugs are a one way street towards trouble. Even while I was involved, I knew that, but I didn't know how to get out of there. Rehab was for the wealthy. I was stuck.

And then, I came to a crossroads. When I was 17, I got myself involved in a situation that I realized was WAAAY over my head. I knew that was the point in which there was no turning back. And for whatever reason, I had a moment of clarity and realized I didn't want to live this way. So I joined the military, and got as far away from the situation as I could. To this day, I believe this was the smartest thing I've ever done. I never went back.

Every once in a while, I come across a name from my old crowd. It's never good news. They've been arrested, or they have died. I've attended three funerals in the last three years of guys who I used to hang with. I go to them, but not to show respect. These guys were not good people, and even though they were my friends, I don't really respect them. I go to constantly remind myself of what my alternatives could have been.

I used to think that the reason I never got caught was because I was smarter than the average thug. It's probably debatable whether or not I was smarter, but it isn't the reason I never got caught. The reason I never got caught is because I was lucky. I don't care how good you are, you will get caught eventually. And I wasn't anywhere near as good as I thought I was.

MM had another post that also made my think. I'd link to it, but I can't seem to find it now. He was talking about how with the current economic situation, how easy it would be to go back to some old habits. His argument is that once you cross that line, it is really easy to cross it again. This is one that he and I differ on. I understand where he is coming from. The first time you do something, whether it is shoplifting, or getting high, or whatever, there is some nervousness. However, it gets easier and easier, and the stakes gradually get higher and higher. I knew what I was doing was wrong, I just didn't care. That being said, I don't think I will ever cross that line again. And the biggest reason is my kids. I don't think he has any, so that is where we differ. I don't want my daughters to ever go through those things. And I want to show them a good role model. My dad was a violent addict who has been in and out of trouble forever. I don't want to be that guy.

All of these old memories came back while reading his blog. Most of the people I hang with these days have no idea about my past, which is fine by me. I don't advertise it. But while I'm not necessarily proud of my past, as weird as it may sound, I don't regret it either. Everything that happened has made me into the person that I am today. And while I'm pretty rough around the edges, I think I turned out OK. I'm a good dad, and I feel like my kids are going to turn out better than I am. That's all I can ask for.

I guess the whole point of this long winded ramble is this. MM, if you even read this, and you want the award, great. If you don't want it, no sweat off of my back. But I just wanted to let you know that there is one guy out there in this wide wide world of webs who was really moved by your blog. And I just wanted to let you know that. We all like to be recognized for our efforts, and this award, while it may be silly, is my way of saying "Well Done".

BEAT LA! BEAT LA! (another D-Backs live blog)

2009-04-10T18:49:00.087-07:00

Coming to you live from my living room, and missing the top of the first inning. We pick up action with Lopez leading off bottom of the 1st.

Bottom of 1st: Um, didn't I just say that? Still no start for Augie. I think he might be the only guy on the roster without a start this season. James McDonald pitching for LA. And a strikeout to start the game. Fucking Lopez. Byrnes bats 2nd. Yes, the 4th different lineup in 4 games. Melvin's a genius. Weak groundout for the 2nd out. Drew, one of the only guys hitting well right now, grounds out. BTW, this is McDonald's first career start. If we can't hit him, it's going to be a long season.

Top of 2nd: Garland, the D-Back's newest acquisition, is pitching tonight. He got through the first inning walking Manny, and then a botched pickoff, but that was it. Back in real time, Drew makes a fantastic diving stop, but Tracy can't pick the bounced throw. Kemp hits a ground ball to Lopez, but they can only get the out at 2nd. Again, where's Augie? He would have turned two. Kemp steals second, and Lopez can't make the tag in time, although it looked like they got him to me. And the replay shows the ump blew this call. Even they hate Lopez. On a side note, Matt Williams is doing the color for this game. This guy has as much personality as a soap dish. I think it's time to start drinking. Garland walks Blake to give runners on 1st and 2nd with one out. Ausmas finds a hole between Lopez and Tracy, and Kemp scores. 1-0 Dodgers, and the fans start to boo already. However, this whiskey sour I made is freaking AWESOME. See, I can be positive. Now the pitcher is up, trying to bunt, and Garland can't throw a fucking strike. It's only the fourth game, and this team is killing me already. However, with a 3-1 count, the pitcher swings (?) and hits into a double play. I'm chanting "ROOKIE" while my daughter looks at me like I'm an idiot.

Bottom of 2nd: The announcers are just as confused as I am on that last play. They are showing Joe Torre, and for some reason I am immensely amused by the fact that his bald spot is peeking out below his cap. Connor flies out to start the inning. Tracy grounds out, and now Reynolds is up. His nickname is The Sheriff. After last season, I call him Special K. Guess what he did? 6 up, 6 down, to a guy making his first career start. Fuck me.

Top of 3rd: I love ESPN's streak for the cash. I have my best streak ever going right now at 8. I picked the Suns to beat Memphis. I can't believe this is going to end my streak. Phoenix sports is absolute shit right now. The Cardinals are the best team. Unbelievable. I missed the first out during this. FSN is smart, and is talking about Pat Tillman right now. Even they know this game sucks. Orlando Hudson, a guy who should have been replaced by Augie, draws a walk. Is it time for Manny to get us? No, he hits a grounder to Reynolds. However, he bobbles it and can only get the out at first. Not an error, but another miscue for Reynolds. Let's see, he set a record for strikeouts, led the league in errors. Yep, that's our guy. For those that don't know, he came straight from AA to the majors. He started out pretty well, but makes way too many mistakes. That's what happens when you skip AAA. Ethier grounds out to end the inning. Good, that guy always kills us. He's a Sun Devil, of course he's clutch. 1-0 Dodgers.

Bottom of 3rd: It's a final, Grizzlies 106, Suns 89. Way to compete. Sad thing is, I was second guessing this pick, thinking the Suns might not have much intensity after being eliminated from the playoffs. But then I remembered the Grizzlies are horrible. Way to be professional, Suns. I blame Steve Kerr. Chris Young just blasted one over the left field wall to tie it up. Atta boy Chris, THAT'S how you welcome someone to the big leagues. Snyder flies out. I think Manny Ramirez should just go all out and have a dread beard as well. Wow, they just showed some chick in the crowd practically dry humping the guy next to her. Yeah, she was holding a beer. Dude thinks he's getting lucky tonight, but it's only the third inning. She doesn't know how to pace herself. I hope he likes puke. Garland just walked. OK Lopez, get a hit here, and I will not give you any crap for the rest of the game. Matt Williams just gave us some awesome insight by saying "I'd bet the farm a changeup is coming here." Fastball. The worst part about Matt Williams is that I have a man-crush on Mark Grace, so this is adding insult to injury listening to him instead. Lopez walks. Not a hit, so let the crap continue. Byrnes gets hit with the first pitch he sees, and now the bases are loaded with Drew coming up. They just showed a stat saying Drew hits .182 with the bases loaded in his career. Yikes. McDonald definitely showing some nerves here as the count goes to 3-1. Drew fouls off the next pitch, and the first BEAT LA chant starts. Ball four, walked in a run. Four straight batters reach without a hit. McDonald throws a 55 foot curveball, which prompts a visit to the mound. He's definitely rattled. Jackson needs to make him pay. Action in the bullpen as the count goes to 3-1. Jackson pokes a shot into right which scores two runs. 4-1 D-Backs. That's it for McDonald. And a perfect time for me to piss. Trancoso in relief. Tracy hits a deep fly ball out to center to score Drew from 3rd. Reynolds up, and I'm predicting his 2nd K to end the inning. Jackson steals 2nd, which will make the impending strikeout a little more painful. I was wrong about the strikeout, weak dribbler to the pitcher instead. Good inning though. 5-1 D-Backs.

Top of 4th: FSN is showing commercials for Digger merchandise, that fucking rodent that they use as a mascot for NASCAR. Seriously? Do people really buy that shit? I know a few people that watch NASCAR, and they all think he's annoying as fuck. Is there even such a thing as a casual NASCAR fan? Some questions may never be answered. Loney grounds out. OK, time for a rant. They have the AFLAC trivia question, and then the announcers answer it before the viewers can guess. This drives my batty. Give me a fucking chance, OK? Rant over. Kemp hits it pretty hard, but right at Chris Young. Blake flies out to Byrnes, who manages to stay on his feet for the catch.

Bottom of 4th: I picked out a great femullet in the last crowd shot. It's a gift of mine. Rain Man can count shit, I can find mullets in a crowd. Someday I'll figure out how to profit off of that. Chris Young leads off with a double. Looks like he's breaking out of his slump. Snyder pops up, and now it's time to see what they do with Garland. I'm not sure how many at bats he got in the AL. He's swinging. I think this is the right decision, even though it probably won't be pretty. Matt Williams is killing me. He's claiming since Garland is tall, he's probably played some basketball, so he has agility. Uh, Matt? Gheorghe Muresan was tall. You're an idiot. Garland grounds out advancing the runner to third. Lopez gets a hit to drive Young home. Byrnes drives one off of the pitchers mound, causing a weird bounce away from the second baseman. Lopez advances to third. I may have to start pushing for Augie to play third if Lopez keeps playing well. Drew grounds out to end the inning. 6-1 D-Backs.

Top of 5th: Hey look, it's Gretzky. I forgot to mention the Coyotes when talking about how much Phoenix sports suck. Ausmas grounds out, and then Trancoso strikes out. Furcal hits a weak grounder by the pitcher to first, and Tracy throws it about 7 feet in the air. Good thing Garland is 6'6" tall. He snares it with a nice reach. What agility. Or is it height?

Bottom of 5th: I had some Vietnamese vodka with dinner tonight. Not bad. However, the combination of the vodka and whiskey has given me a nice buzz. My focus will not be as good, so deal with it. Jackson grounds out. Shot of the folks at the pool. No, that's not a euphemism. Why is it that whenever anyone is at the pool, they have to act like total douchebags? Tracy flies out. Special K comes up and gets a single up the middle. Hmm, he hasn't struck out since I gave him a derisive nickname. Coincedence? Chris Young is up, let's see if he can keep his good night going. He scorches one down the line, but the third baseman makes a great stop. Not so great was the throw, which went into the dugout. Score it a hit and an error. Runners on second and third. Make that bases loaded as Snyder draws an intentional walk. OK, here comes Mr. Agility. You know, I have to admit, his swing is pretty nice. He doesn't swing like a pitcher. However, he hits like one, as he strikes out on a couple of nasty curveballs. 6-1 D-Backs.

Top of 6th: I think Stuart Appleby should beat Ryuji Imada in the Masters tomorrow, don't you? Time to start a new streak. Hudson grounds out. Not his best return so far. Manny hits one past a diving Drew. Ethier hits into a double play to end the inning.

Bottom of 6th: Lopez grounds out. The crowd is doing the stupid dance I hate. I don't know if it has a name or not, but it looks like they are jerking off a couple of horses. Sexy. Byrnes and Drew fly out to end the inning. Still 6-1. Time for more whiskey.

Top of 7th: Loney flies out as I enjoy my next whiskey sour. I hate places that use Minute Maid to make whiskey sours. Does that make me a snob that I have to ask if that's what they're going to do when I order one? Kemp laces a double to left. Mr. Agility has been pitching well today, hopefully this isn't a sign that he's tiring. Question answered as Blake blasts one over the left field wall. And now, the bullpen is active. Byrnes tracks down a deep shot by Ausmus. That almost sounds dirty. I think for the bottom of the 7th, I am only going to speak in sentences that sound dirty. A little exercise to increase my writing creativity. Hopefully it's a quick inning. Pinch hitter with a Polish name that I'm not even going to try and spell in my current state. Mr. Agility gets the pinch hitter to fly out to end the inning. 6-3 D-Backs.

Bottom of 7th (the innuendo inning): Mota coming for Trancoso. Connor takes a couple of balls before grounding out. Tracy sends a screamer to Ethier. Blake gobbles up Special K's ball to end the inning.

Top of 8th: That was difficult. I'd like to say because I have problems resorting to toilet humor, but that's just not the case. Pena comes in for Mr. Agility. Nice debut for the D-Backs against a tough lineup. Hey look, Augie's at third! MVP! MVP! Is Bob Melvin reading my blog too? He's being pretty discreet about it. Furcal leads off with a double. We might have Meatball Tony today. Hudson hits a high chopper that Drew makes a nice play on. Furcal to third. C'mon Augie, distract him and then get the pickoff. You can do it! Manny hits one up the middle to make it a 6-4 game, and now Ethier is up. The D-Back killer at the plate as the tying run. Fuck. That's it for Pena, definitely Meatball Tony today. Oh goodie, Schoenweis is in. He gets Ethier to ground to first, Manny advancing to second. Loney to the plate. If Schoenweis gives up the hit here, he is officially the Jewish Mike Myers. Myers was our last lefty specialist, and the only thing he specialized in was giving up hits to lefties. It got so bad he would get booed when he was warming up. Loney works a full count. Maybe Manny will space out and leave on the pitch. Nope, a hard ground out to second. I'll have to come up with a new nickname for Schoenweis.

Bottom of 8th: Another reason Augie should be starting in front of Lopez is that Augie doesn't have a ridiculous chinstrap. I hate those things. Chris Young up, and needs a triple for the cycle. I'm not holding my breath. Mota walks him. Snyder is bunting. Makes sense, I assume with the double switch that Augie is on deck. Get that runner in scoring position. Snyder gets the bunt down successfully, and it's AUGIE TIME!! And of course, he drills it to right, scoring Young. MVP! MVP! Why isn't he starting? Unfortunately, that single knocks his slugging percentage to 1.500. But like the team player he is, he doesn't worry about stats, he just needed to get that extra run home. And the crowd is changing BEAT LA again. Augie's drawing throws to first. Smart move by Mota. Can't forget about Augie. He can beat you in so many ways. Lopez sees that his starting job is in jeopardy and hits a deep double. Augie flies around the bases, scoring another run. Lopez spent too much time admiring his shot, and should have ended up on third. And this time I'm not being snide, he really thought it was gone and was jogging. Byrnes draws a walk, and I can't believe Mota is still in there. I spoke too soon, here comes Torre. Ohman comes in to pitch, and almost picks Lopez off of second. Drew pops up for the second out. Jackson is now up. I like Connor, even though he looks a little retarded. Not as bad as Tyler Hansborough, but still. Jackson comes through with an RBI single. Tracy grounds out to end the inning. 9-4 D-Backs.

Top of 9th: Qualls, the closer, comes in. He spent a LONG time warming up in the bullpen last inning. Hopefully it doesn't affect him. He strikes out Kemp to start the inning. Blake takes a called third strike for the second out as the BEAT LA chants are getting louder. Ausmas fights off a pitch and gets a seeing eye single to right. Loretta coming in to pinch hit. He grounds out to Drew to end the game.

Season stats for Augie: AVG 1.000, SLG 1.500, OBP 1.000, OPS 2.500, 1 RBI, 1 R. More importantly, the record when Augie plays is 2-0. When he doesn't, 0-2. I think that should tell you something.

Golden Umbrella winner, accidental find style

2009-04-10T13:48:00.005-07:00

Based on my posts, I'm sure most of you think I'm some sort of neanderthal idiot. While that may be true, I like to think of myself as all intellectual and shit. Which is why I have a weakness for nonfiction.

Right now, I am reading The Gulag Archipelago. It was written by some Russian dude who spent quite a bit of time in the gulag, or Russian prison system. It's a pretty interesting read.

Part of my job at work involves running parts through a machine and taking a shitload of data. It's simple work. Mostly babysitting a machine, and changing parts every five minutes or so. It takes anywhere from 8-16 hours to complete. It's easily the most mind numbing portion of my job. However, it makes for some good internet surfing.

So in light of my reading, I was surfing around and learning about Russian prison tattoos. Very fascinating stuff to me. Well, as surfing tends to do, one link led to another, and I ended up reading a blog series called Prison for Dummies. It was really interesting, and it was part of a blog called Midtown Miscreant. Yes, we finally have a new Golden Umbrella winner.

Midtown Miscreant is written by Midtown Miscreant. Kind of like that song Talk Talk by the band Talk Talk, except the blog doesn't suck. MM is a dude who spent his early years running on the wrong side of the law, got caught, and did some time. Most of his blog is his takes on crime, and related topics. Believe me, it is way different than you expect. He's got the unique insight from his time on the inside, and it makes for some really interesting thoughts. I've spent a good chunk of my afternoon reading it. I can't give a bigger endorsement than that.

All right MM, here comes the rules. In order to be added to my esteemed 'Winners of "Umbrella's Blogs That Don't Suck" award (AKA the Golden Umbrella)' list, you must make an acceptance speech in the comments section. You can also post the picture on your website to let anyone who might stumble on to your site immediately know you are awesome.

A nice addition for your new digs.

Little league mentality in the majors

2009-04-09T12:16:00.002-07:00

Augie Ojeda's MVP quest is not going so well. His numbers are phenomenal, he just isn't getting any playing time. However, Bob Melvin can't ignore him forever.

What I have a problem with is Melvin's lineups. Three games, three different lineups. I don't get it. He got the nickname "The Mad Scientist" after his first season. He juggled his lineups constantly, and seemed to do well. However, last season, he did the same thing, and the offense was horrific.

Fast forward to this season. Game one, nine runs scored. Hey, let's mix things up. Games two and three, two runs total scored. Note that Augie didn't play in either of those games. I don't think this is a coincidence.

I just don't know why he feels the need to play so many players. This isn't little league. Everyone doesn't have to play. Why not stick with the hot hitters until they cool off? He's got to know that our bullpen is horrible, and we are going to need to score runs to account for that. Our starting outfield yesterday is hitting a combined 1 for 24. Yuck.

Here's my idea of the best lineup, at this point.

C - Snyder
1B - Clark
2B - Ojeda (obviously)
SS - Drew
3B - Tracy
LF - Jackson
CF - Young (He's slumping, but his defense keeps him in)
RF - ???

Upton and Byrnes have both been struggling. Unfortunately, the D-Backs only have four outfielders on their roster right now. There was talk that Upton would begin the season in AAA after a poor spring. Maybe that's not a bad idea. Of course, now that the AAA team is gone from Tucson, I haven't been able to see them in person like I usually do.

And yes, I realize the season is only 3 games old. However, I've seen this drill all last season, and my patience is thin.

Drunken bracket, the epilogue (AKA how to turn a negative into a postive, degenerate gambler style)

2009-04-07T16:43:00.004-07:00

I had to work a bit late last night, so by the time I got to see the game, it was already into blowout mode. Fitting. Since Michigan St. didn't win, my drunken bracket finished 8th. My sober bracket finished 10th. Middle of the pack for both. My conclusion, it doesn't make any difference if I'm drunk or sober, I'm still mediocre when picking brackets.

However, I'm not mediocre when it comes to gambling. I had two entries in our pool, at $5 a pop. There were 20 people, and it was winner take all. So if Michigan St. won, my $10 would have turned into $200. Not bad.

But deep down, I just didn't see Michigan St. winning that game. So I hedged my bets, to make sure no matter what, I was going to win a little bit of cash. And this is how I introduce my new class, Sports Gambling 101.

There were only two possibilities for this game. Either North Carolina would win, or Michigan St. would win. As I mentioned above, if Michigan St. wins, I win $200. But if North Carolina wins, I lose $10.

So I covered my bets by making a bet on North Carolina. If you ever go into a sports book in Vegas, you will see all sorts of funny symbols. It can be confusing. But that is why you are here, to learn how to read these things. In basketball and football, you will see something that looks like this...

Michigan St North Carolina
+7(-110) -7(-110) 153

The first number is the point spread. This means that the folks in Vegas expect North Carolina to win by 7 points. If you take Michigan St., you get to add 7 points to their score, and if you take North Carolina, you subtract 7 points from your score. This bet pays even money, which means if you bet $20 and win, you win $20. This is probably the most popular of the bets. But betting North Carolina on this bet wasn't the smartest move for my situation. If North Carolina wins by 3 points, I lose my bet, as well as losing my pool. Bad move.

The next number is for a straight up win. -110 means that I have to bet $110 to win $100. Now we're talking. If this were legal (ahem), I would have called my bookie and bet $110 on North Carolina to win. Let's see the possible scenarios:

Michigan St. wins - I win $200 in my pool, I lose $110 on my bet, for a net profit of $90.
North Carolina wins - I lose $10 in my pool, I win $100 on my bet, for a net profit of $90.

The last number is the over/under. This is the combined total points in the game. For the game last night, the final score was 89-72, for a total of 161 point. Since 161 is over 153, the over bet wins.

So by making that alleged bet, I win $90 no matter what happens in the game. Yeah, it isn't big money, but in case you haven't heard, the economy sucks right now, and I'll take what I can get.

I think someone else is reading my blog

2009-04-07T16:33:00.003-07:00

During yesterdays live blog of the D-Backs game, I mentioned how my boss talks like a fucking baby whenever he is talking to his wife. I've been bitching about this forever. Last night, my lady friend tells me about a SNL skit that mirrored my frustration. Take a look.

I live this every damn day. Well, at least the beginning part. Apparently a SNL writer is checking out my blog as well.

Augie for MVP (and opening day live blog)

2009-04-06T12:42:00.077-07:00

Today begins Augie Ojeda's quest for MVP. Yes, the fellow on my avatar will rise up and shock the world this year. I thought it would be fun to track his progress as the season goes along. Unfortunately, when I talk about Augie, the most common response is, "Who?" This is un-fucking-acceptable. I will use my blogging powers to educate the world of his greatness. This will be awesome! And as an added bonus, I will be live blogging opening day for you. I tune in to opening day on the radio when I hear...

"Batting first, at 2nd base, Felipe Lopez."

Wait a minute, where's Augie? WTF? This is bullshit! I'm now pissed off, and we haven't even thrown a single pitch in the season. How can I blog the awesomeness of Augie if he isn't even playing? Lopez better fucking bring it.

Bottom of 1st: Lopez leads off the game with a home run. Bah, it was a bad pitch. Augie would have hit it further.

Top of 2nd: I didn't think it was possible, but I hate Bud Selig more than ever. I have to work from my desk for the rest of the afternoon, so I can't listen to the radio in the lab today. However, I can listen online. I find the station, and it tells me that due to MLB rules, they can't do streaming of the D-Back games. So I check out MLB.com, and they want to charge me to listen to the game. Fuck you Bud! Gametracker is now on.

Bottom of 2nd: Check out this article. Hopefully MLB won't charge you to read it. Looks like I'm not the only one unhappy with the starting lineup. Still don't know why they didn't mention Augie. Also, Chris Snyder just doubled home Connor Jackson to make it a 2-0 game. He crushed that ball. Actually, I don't think crushed balls and Chris Snyder should be mentioned together. And Lopez leaves Snyder stuck on second to end the inning. Choker.

End of 2nd: D-Backs lead the Rockies 2-0. Why aren't the Rockies considered our big rival? It makes sense. Both of us are young teams. We're in the same division. And all the California teams all hate each other more than either of us. Seriously, this could be a big rivalry. I could learn to hate Denver. They've had two of the biggest whiny bitch QB's in Elway and Cutler.

Top of 3rd: Lopez's choke is apparently affecting Brandon Webb. Runners and 2nd and 3rd, one out. Groundout to 2nd, runner scores. Augie would have used his big guns to get the out at home. This second choke job of the game has Webb really rattled, as he's walked the bases loaded with Hawpe coming up. And Hawpe just cleared the bases with a double. It says he advanced to third on the throw. I bet Lopez missed the cutoff. Webb gets the third out, but the damage is done. Rockies lead 4-2.

Bottom of 3rd: My boss' cubicle is right next to mine. He is talking to his wife on the phone. Whenever he talks to her, he uses baby talk. It's disgusting. He uses this sing-song voice, makes his R's sound like W's, and his S's sound like SH's. So when he says "I'm really sorry", it sounds like "I'm weally shorry" in a stupid voice. I have to listen to this crap, but I can't listen to the radio. Sigh. D-backs making some noise, runners on 1st and 2nd, nobody out, Chad Tracy up. I like Chad. He was really cool when I met him in AAA ball here in Tucson. I can't wait to go to another game. Oh wait, we don't have a fucking team anymore. And Big Red comes through with a single, scoring our Chris Young. 4-3, runners on 1st and 3rd, and Eric Byrnes coming up. This is the perfect spot for him to hit a pop up to third. I'm wrong, as he hits a fly ball to center, scoring Drew. Tie game. No pitching today. Tony Clark hits a two run bomb, making it 6-4, and making my lady friend very happy. Clark is her favorite player. And that was the last straw, as the Rockies make a pitching change. Sorry Rockies, we just shelled your ace. Rusch comes in as relief and ends the inning.

Top of 4th: For fuck's sake, what is going on? Tulowitzki leads off with a homer. Did they shorten the fences? And then Iannetta follows with another shot. Tie game. Webb is sucking today. I think they need to pinch hit Augie for him. Webb finally settles down and retires the side.

Bottom of 4th: Lopez leads off with his 2nd homer of the game. He must have realized Augie is lurking right behind him on the depth chart. The rest of the side goes down in order. 7-6 D-Backs.

Top of 5th: Oh God, Slaten relieved Webb. I hope my lady friend isn't watching. Every time he pitches while she is watching, he gets shelled. It's gotten so bad that as soon as he comes in the game, she leaves the room. I think my superstitions are rubbing off on her. Maybe she doesn't realize it's a day game. Hawpe has been nails today as he drills a two out double. He's 3-3 with 3 RBI's. Nice start to the season. Crap, she must be watching. A two out rally scores a run, tying the game. And that's it for Slater. Nice to see he's picked up where he left off last season. Billy Buckner comes in, and I'm realizing we are in huge trouble if our starters don't pitch complete games. This bullpen is bad. And right on cue, Buckner throws two wild pitches to advance the runner to third. Right as this is going on, my phone rings. It's my lady friend. Her words? "Why do they keep bringing Slaten into close games?" I knew she was watching. Buckner manages to keep the runner on third by striking out Tulowitzki. 7-7 game.

Bottom of 5th: Byrnes strikes out swinging for the second time. He's in mid-season form. Clark hits his 2nd bomb of the game. When it comes to my lady friend, he is the anti-Slaten. Congrats Tony, you've just chased the second pitcher of the game. The rest of the inning is uneventful.

Top of 6th: I think I've figured it out. They should bring Augie in to pitch. He can't do any worse than anyone else right now. Unfortunately, Buckner is back out there. He promptly confirms my fears by walking the first batter. BREAKING NEWS: CBS is claiming that Memphis announces Josh Pastner as their new basketball coach. The reaction from Umbrella? BWAHAHAHA. OK, back to the game. My gametracker has been stuck on a 1-1 count for several minutes now. This is not good. It just unfroze in time to see that the inning is over. Way to go Billy.

Bottom of 6th: I just looked up to see when Billy Buckner was born. It was before the Red Sox-Mets World Series. Damn, I can't blame his parents for the name. Do you think that is why he goes by Billy, instead of Bill? I personally would stick with William. Ryan Roberts (who?) pinch hitting for Buckner. Where the fuck is Augie in this situation? It's only a one run game, let's get the future MVP in there. I had to look Ryan Roberts up. This is his second career at bat. However, he makes the most of it with a leadoff single. Augie would have stretched that into a double. Lopez is up to bat, and he caused my gametracker to freeze again. I'll bet he started a brawl. And now, we've reverted back to the top of the 6th, where it was frozen before. This sucks. Gametracker is fucking up now. I think Lopez is on first, with Roberts on 2nd, but I'm not sure. Young lines out to third, and Roberts gets doubled off of 2nd. THAT'S why you don't throw guys with one career at bat into close games. Augie would still be on 2nd base. Embree comes in as the new reliever, and gametracker shows him wearing an A's cap. I blame Bud Selig for this. Lopez gets thrown out at 2nd to end the inning. First inning the D-Backs haven't scored this game. This inning also showed how important Augie is to this team. Bob Melvin better figure this out quick.

Top of 7th: Gametracker is showing an ad for MLB.TV during the break. I am continuing to get pissed off over this. Some dude named Schoeneweis is now pitching for the D-Backs. I've never heard of him. Gametracker doesn't even have a picture for him. Before I can look him up, he promptly gives up a lead off home run. This is followed by a single. According to the wiki, he's been around a bit. Why doesn't gametracker have a photo for him? Also, he has only given up one career home run to a lefty. In one at bat with the D-Backs, he's doubled that. Perfect. He was also named in the Mitchell report. Looks like I have another reliever to hate. He gets a couple of outs, and is relieved by Tony Pena. Which Pena are we going to get today, Nasty Tony, or Meatball Tony? Pena gets a K to end the inning.

Bottom of 7th: For the 7th inning stretch, I decided to take a shit and missed the bottom of the 7th. It looks like Chad Tracy hit a home run, and nothing else happened. 9-8 D-Backs.

Top of 8th: Tracy's home run was the fifth D-Backs homer in the game. I looked up what the team record is, and that one tied the record. I can't find what the combined team record for the D-Backs is, but we're currently sitting at 8. Pena retires the first two batters. Hoping I don't jinx him, it looks like we've got Nasty Tony today. He strikes out Barnes to end the inning.

Bottom of 8th: I'm really hoping for some insurance runs here. I haven't seen any spring training games, so I'm not sure who the closer is, but I'm assuming it's Qualls. I don't have a ton of confidence in a one run game. Pitcher's spot is due up 2nd this inning, so here's hoping for an Augie at bat. Snyder flies out, and coming up to bat is...AUGIE!!! Hell yeah! And what do you know, he doubles to left. MVP! MVP! As long as Lopez doesn't choke, and puts the ball in play, Augie will probably score that much needed insurance run. Lopez grounded out, but Augie still hustled his way to third. This guy can do it all. Unfortunately, Young strikes out to end the inning. Augie's teammates let him down again. Let's hope they do the double switch and leave him in the game at 2nd.

Top of 9th: Gametracker still showing MLB.TV ads. Just rub our noses in it. This is like giving out Ding Dongs at a weight watchers meeting. Top of the order coming up for the Rockies, and it is indeed Qualls as the closer. And hey, Augie stays in at third base. He's so versatile, he can play any position, including pitcher and catcher. Qualls retires the first batter. The second batter grounds out, and it is up to Helton. He grounds out to end the game. D-Backs win a 9-8 slugfest.

Season stats for Augie: AVG 1.000, SLG 2.000, OBP 1.000, OPS 3.000. Hall of fame numbers.

Apparently, I have a famous reader

2009-04-06T11:58:00.004-07:00

Not long after my last post, sources reported that Sean Miller changed his mind, and will accept the job. I apologize to my fellow Devils fans for convincing him to come to Tucson. I have to remember that I have no idea who my readers are.

Arizona's coaching search

2009-04-06T09:55:00.003-07:00

As an ASU fan, I am thoroughly enjoying this debacle known as the Arizona basketball coaching search. We are rapidly heading towards them having more rejections than wins this year. However, I have some compassion. So with all due respect to David Letterman, here is Umbrella's top ten list on why coaches should take the Arizona coaching job.

10. Winning the press conference guarantees at least one win.

9. They will have better hair than Herb Sendek. (This excludes Seth Greenberg).

8. If they put "coaching the Wildcats" on their resume, maybe people will assume they were at Kentucky.

7. Two words, David Hasselhoff.

6. When they get booed, they can convince themselves the fans are chanting "Luuuute"!

5. They won't be as hated as John Mackovic.

4. They will never have to pay for a meal due to the loyalty of the fans, as long as they show up at Furr's Cafeteria on Senior discount night to cash in.

3. Josh Pastner won't be around to hog all the camera time.

2. The new ad campaign: "At least we didn't hire Reggie Theus".

And the number one reason why they should take the Arizona basketball job...

1. If they aren't successful, Steve Kerr will hire them for the Suns job.

Drunken bracket is still alive

2009-04-05T19:58:00.002-07:00

Miracle of miracles. I have a chance to win my pool with my drunken bracket. I was the only one to pick Michigan St. to win it all. However, sober Umbrella doesn't see it happening.

That being said, GO SPARTANS!

How to tell if a city sucks, in under 5 minutes

2009-03-26T21:47:00.004-07:00

I travel quite a bit. For work, I'm travelling often, and in my free time, I enjoy going to new places. And I've discovered something. You can determine what a city is like solely by its airport.

It's true. Fly into JFK, and you'll see it's dirty and crowded. Tucson's airport is small, and has a distinctive Mexican flavor. San Jose is clean, crowded, and full of cool tech stuff. Sky Harbor in Phoenix is big, crowded, and full of chain restaurants, just like Phoenix.

I always test this theory when flying to a place for the first time. This last week, I flew to Little Rock. The airport was pretty small, very clean, closed early, and had very friendly employees. Little Rock was pretty small, very clean, closed early, and had friendly people. The theory works again!

Try this out for yourself and let me know if it's true for you as well. Oh, and if you get mugged at the airport, get your ass back on the plane and get the hell out of there. The city will be much worse.

drunkent bracket, what remains after the first weekend

2009-03-24T05:57:00.002-07:00

Sorry for the slow updates. My travels through the south have slowed my blogging down to a crawl. So here is the update after the first weekend.

Drunken bracket - 49 points. A terrific second round after a horrible first round. This is good enough for 7th place.

Sober bracket - 46 points. 10th place.

So what is this telling me? I don't know yet. The real problem with my drunken bracket is my final four. No #1 seeds are there. This will be a problem, I think.

Drunken bracket, heartbroken edition

2009-03-22T12:02:00.003-07:00

Damn. Syracuse is an absolute nightmare matchup for the Devils. The better team won this morning.

That being said, here is the drunken bracket update, from SEC country, with the remainder of the early games in progress.

37 points (1 point for first round, 2 points for second round). 8th place in my 20 person pool. Not bad.

My real bracket? 38 points. Good for 7th place.

Drunken bracket update #2

2009-03-19T16:08:00.002-07:00

5 of 8 correct. Tied for next to last in my group. Sad thing is, I'm tied with my sober picks.

Drunken bracket update #1

2009-03-19T11:48:00.003-07:00

After the first games, the drunken bracket has one correct pick. However, I compared my drunken bracket with my "real" bracket, and the picks are the same for the first seven games today. This means there are two early possible conclusions to this experiment...

1) Alcohol doesn't affect my thought process at all when it comes to picking teams.
2) I'm as stupid as a drunk when it comes to picking teams.

More to come.

Retarded experiments, March Madness style

2009-03-18T22:02:00.004-07:00

As I stated earlier, I am on vacation for a bit. Since I don't have to work tomorrow, I am getting drunk tonight. And now, in the never ending quest for drunken knowledge, I am trying something new.

I decided to fill out a bracket completely hammered. I already filled one out while sober, so this will be interesting to see what happens. Can a drunk Umbrella pick as well as a sober one? I'll post my findings later, once games have actually happened.

Even in good times, I find a way to screw up

2009-03-17T13:18:00.009-07:00

My Sun Devils are in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2003, and only the third time since 1981. I am a HUGE college hoops fan, so this thrills me to no end. Well, the sucking doesn't thrill me, the fact we're actually in thrills me. Which is why this post is so painful.

In the winter, my lady friend and I decided to make a trip to go see her son. He is a pitcher playing for a college team in the south. She's not wealthy, so she doesn't get to see him play very often. I've watched him grow up, so I wanted to go as well. We made our plans, and she's real excited.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize the weekend we were going was the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Fuck me. Well, it's not the end of the world. As long as ASU plays Thursday, I'll get to see the game. And if it's the evening games on Friday, I'll still be able to see it.

Friday morning, 11:45 Arizona time. Shit!

I checked my itinerary. OK, all is not lost. I have a layover in St. Louis. Maybe I can catch the end of the game at the bar in the airport. Hopefully no Big-12 teams will be playing at the same time.

Missouri-Cornell, noon Arizona time. Shit! Shit!

OK, don't panic. CBS claims they will offer free live streaming of all tournament games. I'll just bring my laptop, and when we land, I can watch it online. Surely, they have Wi-Fi at an airport as big as St. Louis, right?

They do. Yay! $7.95/hr. Shit! Shit! Shit!

This is bullshit. According to this site, it is the second most expensive hourly airport Wi-Fi in the country, behind only University Park State College, wherever the fuck that is. Seriously, eight bucks an hour? That's almost an airport beer!!

And to top everything off, it looks like it is going to rain this weekend, which means he might not even have any games. This is turning out to be a giant Hungarian clusterfuck.

Fuck You, I'm Irish

2009-03-17T12:42:00.006-07:00

OK, I'm not really Irish. But my "Fuck You" to St. Patty's day still stands.

I have quite a few problems with St. Patrick's Day. Yeah, there's at least one redeeming quality: an excuse for heavy drinking on a weeknight. But the negatives outweigh the positives.

First, this whole "You have to wear green" bullshit. Green is a shitty color for clothes. That's why I don't own anything green. Yet all day today, people are giving me shit for not wearing green. What is this, first grade? These are the same people that wear costumes to work on Halloween. I wonder, can I bust the next asshole who pinches me because I'm not wearing green for sexual harassment? And for those of you who either forgot to wear green, or don't really care enough to go out of your way to wear green, don't puss out by trying to find one small speck of green in your underwear's elastic band. If somebody is giving you crap for not wearing green, tell them you have some on your back pocket. When they're down there looking for it, fart in their face.

Second, I love how all of a sudden, everyone becomes Irish. Look, if your grandparents were born here, you're American. This is not open for debate. Just because my ancestors came over here on a boat from Scotland in the 1600's, and my last name begins with Mc, doesn't mean I'm Scottish. Seriously, these peeholes walking around with gay ass Lucky Charms hats, and "Kiss me, I'm Irish" pins, who couldn't name ONE FUCKING CITY in Ireland (I know this is true, I'm the type of dick who asks questions like that) can kiss my ass.

I wasn't always this jaded towards St. Patrick. Back in my younger days, I decided to celebrate this holiday like any good American, by drinking green beer. However, I was underage, so I had to make my own. I "acquired" some beer, bought some green food coloring, and I was well on my way. However, I was also a moron. I poured all the beer into a big pitcher, and added a few drops of coloring. No change. A few more drops. No change. What the hell? I said "Fuck it all" and dumped the whole bottle of coloring in the beer.

The beer changed from its normal brown to black. Oh shit, I think I overreacted. It looked like soy sauce. It still tasted like beer, so we dove in. Our lips, tongues, and lower mustaches (for those who had them) were a very dark shade of green. Then, to complete the night's festivities, one of the guys at our party decided to OD. Here we are, drunk, under aged, and literally green, and this asshole is convulsing unconsciously on the floor. We were afraid to call 911 because we knew we would be busted, so we decided to drink and drive his ass to the hospital instead. Like I said, I was a moron.

His girlfriend stayed there with him at the hospital while the rest of us bailed before we got in trouble. Not a good night at all. And to top it all off, I shit bright green for two days. That is a bit disconcerting.

Tales of the wind

2009-03-10T15:43:00.011-07:00

Wow, three posts in one day? I must have a severe case of bloggerrhea. Known causes: boredom at work.

In my last post, I mentioned a fear of farting while doing yoga. Here is some insight into Umbrella's brain. I will mention something, and then obsess about it for hours. So I have spent most of the day thinking about farts.

I don't embarrass easily. Lack of pride will do that to you. But for some reason, I have a real tough time farting in front of people. Anyone who knows me would be shocked by this admission, but it's true.

The last time I blushed was about a year ago. I was grocery shopping, and I could feel some pressure building up in my gut. Luckily, it wasn't the "OMG, I'm gonna shit myself" pressure. It was the "pass gas" pressure. For most people, no big deal, but for me, I was sweating. I found an aisle that was empty, and proceeded to relieve the pain.

The problems started immediately. Problem #1 was that it was quite a bit louder than I expected. Problem #2, it stunk pretty bad. Problem #3, and this was the doozy, was a really attractive woman came around the aisle right as all of this happened. Shit!

My first instinct was "Maybe she didn't notice." This thought instantly disappeared when I saw the look on her face. If there was ever a way to say "You nasty fuck" with only facial expressions, she nailed it. At this point, I was lost. There was no save. I sheepishly pushed my cart away and got the hell out.

However, my best (or worst, depending on your point of view) fart experience happened on Halloween several years ago. The girls were still pretty young and into trick-or-treating. My ex would take them out, and I would stay at home and give out candy. My ex really got into Halloween, and our house was the coolest one in the neighborhood.

So like every year, I was at home, drinking beer, and scaring kids. The girls got home, and I proceeded with my fatherly duties of going through their candy. Neither of them liked peanuts, so I was digging around trying to find all the Snickers, Mr. Goodbars, Paydays, etc. I started scarfing them down in earnest.

Finally, my ex decided it was time to gather the decorations. We learned the hard way that if we left things out on Halloween night, they would get destroyed. So I began my husbandly duties of tearing everything down.

At this point, I think the combination of beer and peanut-infested candy formed some sort of unholy union in my gut. No biggie, I'm outside, in my own yard. I let it fly.

It didn't take long to realize this wasn't any ordinary fart. Not only did it assault the normal senses of sound and smell, I'm pretty sure I felt it, tasted it, and even saw it hanging in the air. Usually people don't mind their own brand, but this one was beyond disgusting. Luckily, the women were inside putting stuff away when this happened.

My daughters were the first to open the door. I yelled at them that they might want to stay inside. My children are intelligent, and turned right around.

My ex, on the other hand, didn't heed this advice. She came outside, and it hit her. She gagged, and barfed in the yard. It's tough to explain my emotions at this point. One the one hand, my wife is puking, and is REALLY pissed off at me. On the other, I may have created the world's most awesome fart. It's a toss up.

She started yelling at me when I tried to cut her off at the pass. I told her that I warned her not to come out here, and she chose to ignore me. She responded that she didn't think it was possible to ruin the outdoors. It's a good point, and up until then, I didn't think it was possible either. I do know that her yelling at me wasn't helping my issues with farting at all. I wonder, are these issues are related to my fear of shitting in public restrooms? I guess that is analysis for some other time.

Holy Shit!!! A Golden Umbrella winner!

2009-03-10T13:30:00.009-07:00

I've been having mixed emotions about the Golden Umbrella award recently. Finding a good blog in this wide wide world of webs is like trying to pick corn out of shit. I was going to take this analogy further, but I didn't like where it was going.

The point is, it's really hard to find good blogs. So instead of making this a Friday feature, I'm just going to give them out when I find them. And amazingly, I found a worthy recipient.

The latest winner (man, it is hard not to type "weekly winner") comes to us by way of Minnesota. She likes bacon, yoga, and sports. I like bacon and sports, and maybe I would like yoga if I didn't have an innate fear of farting during a particularly difficult pose, ala Johnny Knoxville. She also is a fan of naming people in the mode of Blanky McBlankerson, of which I am frequently guilty. Jess is the author of the very coolly named blog I Was Told There Would Be Bacon. Like all the other winners, this has no theme, just her somewhat warped view on life around her, with an emphisis on her bathroom at work. A worthy recipient.

So Jess, here are the rules that we've come to admire. In order to be added to my esteemed 'Winners of "Umbrella's Blogs That Don't Suck" award (AKA the Golden Umbrella)' list, you must make an acceptance speech in the comments section. It would also be nice to proudly display this accomplishment on your website. This isn't required, but why in the hell wouldn't you? It's accepted as the biggest accomplishment in interweb history, and probably North American history as well. But don't ask me how to do it, because I'm retarded. Enjoy!

Ah, the long lost award is back

Umbrella's guide to March Madness

2009-03-10T11:05:00.008-07:00

When I was in college, I took school extremely seriously. Probably because I was married and had a kid, so I couldn't screw off as much as I would have liked to. I only intentionally skipped class a total of eight times in four years. They were the Thursday/Friday of the first weekend of the NCAA tournament each of the four years.

I love March Madness. I'm a sports junkie, and it is my favorite sporting event, bar none. Even the Super Bowl takes a back seat to this.

Every year at this time, you will see a bunch of articles floating around the interwebs to tell you how to win your NCAA pool. This will have some of that, but this is a guide to help beginners and experts alike. This guide is not necessarily aimed at how to win your pool, but how to get the most enjoyment out of it.

ALL PLAYERS

1. Join a pool. This is brought to you by the editors of DUH magazine. If you work anywhere with more than 5 employees, chances are good that someone will start a pool. It doesn't matter if you don't know crap about basketball. You can still have fun.

2. Know your reasons for playing. "Jeez Umbrella, this is stupid. I'm playing to win!" Maybe so, but if that is your reason, prepare to be disappointed. If you are playing in a pool with 20 people, do the math. Winning is nice, but if that is why you are doing it, you will not have fun. Good reasons are A) Talking shit to your coworkers/friends/family. B) Being able to have discussions with the cute girl you would never normally talk to. "Hey, nice pick with Central Michigan there. What made you pick them?" C) Having a long four hour lunch on Thursday with your boss at the bar. I've pulled this off. Bonus points for having him pick up the tab. I haven't pulled this off (yet).

3. Come up with a system. It doesn't matter what the system is. It doesn't even have to be logical. I've seen all kinds of crazy systems win. One time, a lady picked teams based on which one of their mascots would win in a fight. I saw an engineer who knew nothing about basketball come up with some elaborate mathematical formula based on the seeds. If it works, you'll feel like a genius. If not, then you are lumped in with everyone else who didn't win.

4. Pick some upsets. There is always that one person who picks nothing but the higher seeds. That person is a douchebag. Yeah, they'll usually finish near the top, but they never win. Besides, nobody will remember that you finished third from last when your picks don't work out. But everyone will remember that you were the ONLY person to pick Siena. Especially when you remind them constantly.

5. Don't be afraid to pick a team for a stupid reason. Maybe you have an ex that went to Kentucky, and you want them to lose every game. That's a good enough reason to pick against them. Maybe you like Michigan's uniforms. Go ahead, pick them. Maybe you think Jim Boeheim looks like an alien. Pick against Syracuse in an upset.

6. Make sure there is money involved. If you've got a few bucks riding on the games, they will become a lot more interesting. However, watch out for the pools where some jackass is just trying to rip you off. I can't see any reason to have more than a $20 entry fee, and even that is pretty high. Usually $5 is a good number. It will get the casual fans to play, and yet there will still be a nice payout for the winner.

7. Talk shit if you are doing well. This goes back to rule #2. Chances are, your good luck will end soon, so make sure you rub it in while you are winning. However, don't be a pussy if people talk shit to you when you struggle after that. You've got to take the bad with the good. On a related note...

8. Give props. Make sure you give someone a thumbs up if they pick an upset correctly. That way, you won't get everyone to hate you during your shit talking. Remember, constant shit talking = asshole. Shit talking mixed in with appropriate compliments = passion.

BEGINNER ADVICE

This section is for those of you who don't know anything about basketball, or how the tournament works. This advice is to keep people from laughing at you like an idiot.

9. Pick the #1 seeds to win the first game. The #1 seed has never lost to a #16 seed. Granted, it will probably happen someday, and if you pick it correctly, you will be a legend. More likely is you will be wrong, and everyone will mock that pick.

10. Pick a #12 seed to win. Every year, a #12 seed beats a #5 seed. You have at least a 1 in 4 chance of picking the right #12 seed. See rule #4.

ADVANCED ADVICE

11. Know who you are playing with. I live in Tucson, so everyone around me is an Arizona Wildcat fan, and Pac-10 fans to a lesser extent. That means they will pick these teams to advance too far. Even in a down year, I guarantee there will be multiple people picking UCLA to go to the final four. I will use this knowledge against them.

12. When looking for upsets, find little teams that can shoot 3-pointers. When the upsets happen, it is almost always because some team gets hot shooting the 3. Those are the candidates to keep an eye on. Especially if the team they are playing is a zone defensive team.

13. Ignore the "experts". I hear the same expert advice every year. Pick teams with senior guards. Pick teams who are hot coming into the tournament. Pick teams from power conferences. This is all bullshit. I overanalyze my picks to death, so I know these are complete non-factors. Your first hint that these guys are full of shit is after the first round of the tournament when they are all moaning that their brackets are in shambles. It's because they can't pick any better than the secretary who made her picks based on uniform color schemes.

14. Keep an eye on location. This can be big. If Ohio St. is playing in Dayton, that is essentially a home game for them. I'm surprised how often people don't look at this. Generally, if an upset is happening, the entire crowd pulls for the underdog. This will not happen if Duke is losing in Greensboro.

I can't emphasize enough how much fun this can be. I've been doing pools for close to 30 years, and everyone who has played ALWAYS comes back the next year. Most of them don't do it because of winning. They do it because my pools are a blast. I encourage shit talking. I encourage coming up with systems to use. And I can get an entire office of people who wouldn't give two squirts about college basketball for 11 months to spend Friday morning at the water cooler talking about that amazing finish to the Mississippi game last night. So if nobody in your office has a pool, start one. Promote it. Know your workers, and play to their interests. It will make the next month fly by.

Porn stashes: Why they're GOOD things for women

2009-03-09T15:16:00.006-07:00

So you've probably noticed my infrequent updates. I am travelling quite often for work these days, and I just don't have a lot of computer time. And what little free time I have, I prefer to search for porn instead of good blogs. Hey, life gets lonely on the road.

Which leads me into today's topic. Why do most women get so upset when they discover their man's porn stash? Though the technology changes, throughout my entire life, I've had a porn stash of some sort or another.

It starts as a kid. When I was young, I will never forget the discovery of porn. It happened to me twice, and both times I was taking out the trash. We had a community garbage dumpster, and I am assuming some poor schmuck's wife/girlfriend/mom found his porn stash, and he was forced to dispose of it. For a kid, that was like finding the golden ticket. You were suddenly the most popular kid in the neighborhood.

Unfortunately, as a kid, you don't have a lot of creativity when it comes to hiding places. Eventually, that genius hiding spot under the mattress gets discovered when mom changes the sheets. There is nothing worse than coming home, only to realize the magazines are gone. Of course, you can't go "Uh, mom? Did you accidentally move something when you were changing the sheets? Huh, oh, no reason." Asking your mom for your porn back is like asking her the size of her vagina on the awkwardness scale.

Eventually, the time comes when you can acquire porn legally. That's when the stash starts in earnest. Hopefully by this point, you have your own place, and can stash it more safely. This era, usually in your early 20's, is the golden age of porn. However, pretty soon you will get a steady girlfriend, and she will spend more and more time at your place. And then there will come the day when the stash is discovered, and you have to try and convince her that you're not some sort of pervert.

Now, we have the interwebs, and this ups the ante considerably. There are options out there I could never have dreamed up. OK, I have dreamed them, but I never had access to it. Until now. It's incredible. But this in itself poses new problems. Daniel Tosh has a great bit about this. Sadly, this scenario has come true with me. My kids and my lady friend sometimes use my laptop, so I have to be careful about deleting any incriminating evidence. Yes, even the new virtual stash can get discovered.

My question is, why is porn considered bad? I've heard the arguments. It's demeaning to women. Bullshit. If you think it's demeaning, don't do it. It's that simple. Another argument I've heard is that it will create a society of perverts and sexual deviants. Yeah, these are the same idiots that think Marilyn Manson was the reason Columbine happened. If anyone has a good reason, I will listen. I just haven't heard one yet.

However, I never hear the arguments why porn is good. Until now. Ladies, I am now going to clue you in on why you should look the other way when your man is checking out porn.

1. Porn prevents infidelity. Yep, you heard it here first. Not only does it not make him a pervert, it will keep him faithful. Whether you want to admit it or not, guys like variety. There is a reason sex sells. However, contrary to popular belief, most guys are pretty loyal to their women. So how does a guy get some strange, yet still be faithful? You got it, porn. We can let our imaginations go wild, and have sex with someone new without really having sex. And on a related note...

2. Porn prevents you from doing things you are uncomfortable with. Let's set up a hypothetical situation. Let's say your guy really wants to do anal with you. However, for whatever your reasons are, having something stuck up your ass isn't really your idea of romance. Fine, it's your body, and I'm not going to tell you what you should do with it. So now we're at a impasse. Checking out some porn, while not the ideal situation, is the next best thing. You can use any fetish you want for this example.

3. Porn prevents cancer. What? I know what you're thinking; That's a reach Umbrella. No it's not. It's been shown that masturbation helps prevent prostate cancer. Here's some proof even. My guess is that this study was done by men.

4. Porn makes better lovers. I realize this headline is misleading. I'm not saying that guys should slap women's asses while fucking them. I'm saying that porn can help a guy that suffers from coming too quick. Remember the scene in Something About Mary involving "cleaning the pipes"? That's what I'm referring to.

5. Porn minimizes STD's and unwanted pregnancies. I'm on the road, and I'm horny. I can get a hooker, find a bar floozy, or cuddle up with my porn. Which one do you think is the safest?

Now I'm not arguing that if you're in the mood for some loving, and your guy would rather be online, that's a good thing. Obviously, that's a problem, and that's waaaay above my expertise as an online shrink. But I am saying that if you should be on your guy's laptop, and you see something in his history where he was checking out gianttitsonbucktoothedwomen.com, don't freak the fuck out. Especially if you're a flat chested women with a perfect smile. Sometimes guys like a little strange.

Arbitrary requirements for Golden Umbrella Award

2009-03-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

In my (what seems like) never ending quest to find Golden Umbrella winners, I'm running into a brick wall. I'm starting to think I'm being too stringent on my completely arbitrary requirements. At this point, these are...

1. The site doesn't suck. This eliminates 99.9999% of the sites I have seen. This is non-negotiable.

2. The site should be funny. This is not really a requirement, but a VERY strong preference. I've yet to find a site that wasn't funny, yet interesting enough to be a viable candidate.

3. The site is written by an adult. This one I don't want to bend on. The youth of America are corrupt enough without me adding to the mix. Or even worse, an angry parent takes action because I was blogging about lesbian butt sex, and their kid was reading it. Keep in mind, I never said write LIKE an adult.

4. The site has semi-frequent updates. Hopefully once a week. Maybe less frequently if the content's exceptional.

5. The site has been around for a little while. I don't want to give props to a site, and then have it stop two weeks later. There are a few sites I have an eye on, but they've only been around a short time.

This last requirement has me perplexed. What exactly is a little while? If someone is just starting out, and they're good, would winning the most prestigious award on the internet propel the writer to continue on to greatness? Or did they blow their wad, and have nothing funny left to write, cheapening the award down the road?

I have other steps which will probably eliminate your site, even if it meets all the requirements above. As soon as I notice these, I immediately move on. I'll number these in Roman numerals as to not get them confused with the requirements. Plus, it makes me look smarter.

I) Music playing. At best, it will annoy me. At worst, it will suck so bad I will make nasty comments about your site.

II) Connected to Digg. I understand you want people to give you props. However, this always freezes up my shitty computer, and pisses me off very much. At this point, I'm leaving as soon as it is unfrozen.

III) Dark font on dark background. C'mon, I'm getting old. I don't need to work to read your writing.

IV) Too snooty to accept the award. First of all, this is the greatest award a blogger can receive. Who the fuck do you think you are, George C. Scott? You're not.

OK, now get out there and create something awesome. I know it's in you.

Unexcused absences

2009-03-05T12:13:00.002-07:00

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of updates, but a perfect storm of events happened to prevent any posts.

1) My wireless broke.
2) I went on a business trip.
3) I'm lazy.

Luckily, two of these problems are solved. However, the third one isn't so unless a miracle happens, there will be no golden umbrella award this week. Again. I know, I suck.

Retarded experiments, from the archive

2009-02-24T17:05:00.006-07:00

I have a pretty strong curiosity. I wonder about something, then obsess about it until I find an answer. Been that way my whole life. In these wonderful days of the interwebs, I can usually find an answer pretty quick. But sometimes, there are questions that mankind has yet to answer. This leads me to doing some pretty stupid things, which I like to call Retarded Experiments.

For example, one time in high school chemistry class, we were doing some experiment that involved these little beads. Calcium something-or-other. These things were super absorbent, and if you left them sitting out, they would get little pools of water around them from absorbing the moisture from the air.

So the young curious Umbrella was wondering something. No, not what would happen if you stuck them up your ass. But now that you mention it... No, I wondered what would happen if you immersed them in water. This had the potential for awesome written all over it. I asked my teacher, and he said, "Why don't you try it and see?"

Hell yeah. This is why chemistry class ruled. You could blow shit up. So I grabbed some of the beads, and put them in a beaker with some H2O (that's water for you non-geniuses).

They just sat there. No explosions. No boiling. Nothing.

That was anti-climatic. But, what would happen if you put them in hydrochloric acid? My teacher was on the other side of the room, but I'm sure he would have said, "Why don't you try it and see?" So I did.

It happened instantaneously. I didn't know so much smoke could come out of such a small beaker. Plus, it was pretty stinky. I was praying it wasn't toxic, and had to get rid of the evidence. I quickly dumped it down the sink, and turned on the water.

This just made everything worse. At this point, the gig was up. The room was full of this smoke, and we were forced to evacuate. Just one of my many one-day suspensions in the science wing of the school.

However, that's not a true Retarded Experiment. Most average people don't have access to hydrochloric acid and whatever those beads were. No, a true retarded experiment can be conducted by any idiot with an unhealthy imagination. And alcohol. Usually a lot of alcohol is involved.

The one I want to discuss happened at a tailgate. We were drinking, grilling, throwing the football, and generally having a good time. It was starting to get close to kickoff, so it was clean up time. We were getting ready to dump the coals from the grill, when I wondered...

What would happen if you put an unopened ketchup package on hot coals?

We had forgotten to bring ketchup to this tailgate, so someone had made a run and taken some from a nearby McDonalds. I asked my question aloud, and suddenly, everyone wanted to know the same thing. In my mind, I could see the ketchup getting hot, boiling, pressure building inside the packet, and then BOOM, an awesome explosion of molten ketchup flying everywhere. This was gonna rule!

Now I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid. I know that molten ketchup will probably hurt like hell. So I made sure everyone stood back a bit. I didn't want my curiosity to maim anyone but me. I threw a packet on the coals, and waited for the awesome to begin.

I waited. And waited. And waited some more. No explosion. Apparently, whatever they use to seal the package shut has a lower melting point than the boiling point of ketchup. So all it did was ooze ketchup all over the coals. You could feel the disappointment hanging in the air.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing hanging in the air. One thing I didn't account for is what ketchup burning on hot coals smells like. It's hard to describe, but my guess is that if Satan was lactose intolerant, and ate a bunch of lasagna, this is what his toilet would smell like. Horrible. Now everyone was pissed because these stink molecules were stuck in their noses.

To this day, I'm not allowed to get near the grill with ketchup. And that happened over five years ago.

Remember to always check your D cells

2009-02-24T13:45:00.011-07:00

Work sucks, and is kicking my butt right now. I'm trying to make up for the unpaid days off. So I was working pretty late last night. I'm tired, I head out to my car, turn the key...

Dead silence.

Once again, I am the master of the self-jinx. Earlier in the day, I was discussing my daughter going away to college. We decided it would be best if she left her car with me while she is gone. I mentioned it would be good since I only have one car, and if anything happened to it, I would be screwed.

Same. Fucking. Day.

I was the only car left in the parking lot, so finding a jump was out of the question. I ended up hoofing it home. An hour and a half.

I wake up this morning bemoaning how out of shape I am. I wasn't about to do that walk again. So I went back to my roots (i.e. poor) and got on the bus. And that's when I remembered that being poor sucks. I used to ride the bus when I was a kid. You get to meet some really cool people. By cool, I mean freaky, and by people, I mean mongoloids.

The guy who decided to carry on a discussion with me this morning was one of these. He was wearing a shirt that was a spoof of the Survivor logo, but it said Redneck instead. Outhunt, outdrink, outburp indeed. It's not like I couldn't tell from your dental work. He had only one front tooth, which was several shades whiter than the rest of his teeth, and stuck out at about a 45 degree angle. I am not making this up.

You may think I'm being some sort of elitist with this talk. Well, for your information, I was born in the Ozarks. I've got enough hillbilly blood in me to be my own cousin. However, I got away from all of that.

To complete my white trash morning, I went to Wal Mart to get some baking soda to clean my terminals before I put the new battery in. Any day I end up in Wal Mart is a bad day indeed. There's a reason Wal Mart bingo was invented.

I found 12 of these in about 5 minutes.

I was worried that my comments and email would be filled with angry rednecks over this, but then I remembered that they don't know how to use computers, so everything's good.

Golden Umbrella, the hangover edition (AKA meandering and slow to the point)

2009-02-19T21:16:00.009-07:00

On the 2nd day of my unpaid vacation, I decided to be productive in a different manner, and start searching for the newest winner of the Golden Umbrella award. As painful as this process is under ideal conditions, doing it with a headache, and a hangover that got worse as the day progressed, it was a chore. Apparently my proclamation of my good health was premature. Plus, my internet decided to choose this exact time to act like a giant turd. Which reminds me...

One thing I didn't factor in is that if you spend a day intaking nothing but fluids, then the output of your body will be pretty fluid as well. I discovered this fun fact at about 1:00, 1:20, 1:45, and a few more times after that. My body obviously didn't approve of this experiment.

As for the award, I was thinking about changing it to something a little less wordy, like the Gumbies or something like that. But the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. First of all, it reminds me of a time when Eddie Murphy was still funny, which makes me depressed. Second, I absolutely HATE the trend of throwing a "-y" or a "-ie" at the end of a word, and voila, instant award name. Since we have determined through extensive scientific research that this award stands head and shoulders above all other awards out there, it should stand apart in name as well. So you're stuck with the lengthy name.

As a little look behind the curtain, here's how I try and find winners. I do searches for people's interests which would theoretically make for good writing. However, this is not the case. You would be surprised at how many people who list "being awesome" as an interest are anything but. One guy actually had "air guitar" listed as an interest right before "being awesome". Unfortunately, he didn't list irony as an interest.

So let's get to a site that is indeed "being awesome". This weeks winner is a tag team effort written by a couple of dudes named Cheez and B Harris. The blog is called Arguably Useless. First off, the banner is a pic from The Big Lewbowski, so that is a giant plus right off the bat. They discuss things like music, sports, and movies. I like all of those things. I'll even let it slide that they didn't list Nation of Millions as one of the best rap albums.

And now for the rules that we all know and love. In order to be added to my esteemed 'Winners of "Umbrella's Blogs That Don't Suck" award (AKA the Golden Umbrella)' list, you must make an acceptance speech in the comments section. I've been pleasantly surprised by the speeches so far. I shouldn't be, because this is pretty much the biggest award you can win on the interwebs. But I'm glad the winners are enjoying this prestigious award. So congratulations Cheez and/or B Harris. Here is your award. Feel free to put it on your site.

Even the Dude would be honored with this

Retarded experiments, the day after

2009-02-19T08:02:00.005-07:00

Well that was interesting. My mother used to always say that boredom was the sign of a weak mind. In other words, find something to do. So while I was sitting at home, I decided to see what would happen if I combined an all day bender with no food. Kind of like a science experiment. It takes a lot to get me drunk. I can go all day if I maintain a steady pace, and just keep a nice buzz going. Will the lack of food change things? I would say let's go to my notes, I gave up on my notes early.

So for anyone who wants to try this at home, here are my observations. First of all, the buzz came much quicker than normal. Granted, I was drinking bourbon first thing in the morning, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not. However, it took quite some time before I felt shitfaced. This surprised me. It was probably about 6:00 before I really felt drunk. However, when the drunk hit, it hit hard. That was probably the drunkest I've been in several years. It's been a long time since the bed was spinning.

Interestingly, I didn't feel hungry all day. It wasn't until I went to bed that I felt hungry, but I didn't want to get up. Also, I woke up in the middle of the night starving, and with bad chest pains. I'm assuming this was some sort of indigestion. Either that, or I had a heart attack.

Amazingly, I'm not in too bad of shape today. I have a splitting headache, but after a little breakfast and coffee, I'm not on top of my game, but I'm certainly functional.

So my conclusion is that short term, it doesn't make much of a difference. However, by the end of the day, you will definitely feel the effects.

Retarded experiments

2009-02-18T23:14:00.003-07:00

As part of the failing economy, everyone at my office is required to take 5 unpaid days off this quarter. I took one today. Because I have nothing better to do, I decided to see what would happen if I didn't eat anything all day, and drank a bunch. I'm pretty fucked up. It took me about 20 minutes to type this, including editing. I'm going to hate life tomorrow. Why did I do this? Fuck if I know.

The first step is admitting you have a problem

2009-02-16T15:15:00.011-07:00

I have a confession to make. I am a reality TV junkie. I know, someone of my intelligence should be above this. But this stuff is like crack to me. I watch the good ones, the bad ones, and everything in between.

The reason I bring this up is because people that know me know I watch this crap. And last night, the new season of The Amazing Race started. I really dig this show. I get to travel vicariously through it. And it's always good for a few mind fucks along the way. (Side note: Blogger's spellchecker informed my that mindfuck is actually two words. Who knew?) Anyhow, there was a pretty awesome scene in the opener. And the people I work with were claiming that it was the funniest thing the show has ever had.

That's a mighty big claim. And it got me thinking. What are the best ever scenes, in terms of hilarity? I could do some research, but that involves work, so these are just off the top of my head. Keep in mind, my sense of humor may differ, but here is Umbrella's list of the six best moments from The Amazing Race, hopefully with linked video awesomeness.

6. The Broken Ox. Colin and Christie were fucking machines this season. They were absolutely dominating this season. Yeah, Colin could be kind of a dick, but most champions are. However, this task destroyed him. One of the great epic meltdowns. This caused them to finish last on this leg, and spawned one of the best lines in the show's history.

5. Everything's Better With Midgets. Yeah, I'm going to hell for laughing at this, but if you don't want to be mocked, don't go on TV. Hell, I was laughing again watching it just now. This might be rated too low.

4. Jackasses Leading Jackasses. OK, apologies for the clip. Go to the 2:45 mark to begin the awesome. If you haven't figured it out yet, introducing animals usually brings comedy gold. Seriously, pissed off donkeys rule. Especially when they're pissed off at people who are dickholes.

3. The Cheese Stands Alone. From last night's episode. Pretty funny, but only third on my list. This is only a partial clip. Seriously, were those carriers made of balsa wood? Having the locals drinking beer and laughing their asses off was a nice touch as well.

2. A Complete and Total Barf-O-Rama. My brother will argue to the death that not only was this the greatest Amazing Race moment, but the best reality moment as well. It's definitely a contender. It builds the drama. It has comedy on several levels. And just when you think the joke is done, BAM, the epic punchline. Bonus points for Jon being from my hometown. And, it gives me another excuse to use the PUKE label.

1. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. But for my money, this is the best. A classic meltdown. People chucking food. I think I would have lost it too. This was just a purely evil mind fuck. Seriously, if you ever want to see two people simultaneously have nervous breakdowns in completely different fashions, this is it. And some of those people had deadly shots.

There you go. If you watch the show, and you can think of one I forgot, let me know.

Honorable mentions without clips: The Jewish frats marching, the dye fight (a blatent ripoff of the tomato fight), Mirna's accents.

People that annoy bar bands

2009-02-16T09:31:00.009-07:00

As my loyal readers know, I play in a band. This is my 3rd band I've been a part of, and we are beginning the process of playing in dive bars. I have no delusions of glory. I enjoy playing the dive bars. However, as with any job, there are occupational hazards. So next time you go out to your local club to see live music (and I know you will, because you are cool like that), don't be one of these guys.

1) People who yell "Freebird" - Aaahahahaha. That's hilarious. It's still as funny the 1000th time I've heard it as it is the first. It doesn't matter if I am playing punk, techno, hip-hop, someone will yell this before the night is done. I've used a new technique to head this off at the pass. I just say "Sure, here is our version of Freebird", and play whatever song is next on the set list. Note: If you are in a biker bar, this may be a serious request, not a hacky joke. Tread carefully. On a related note...

2) People who yell "More cowbell!" - Seriously, you guys are so funny. A real knee slapper, that one. I actually want to get a cowbell, and let the idiot who yells this play along. You know he will act like Will Ferrell and look like a total douche. If I ruin his chances of getting laid, then that's a good thing. I don't want people like that even having the tiniest of possibilities of reproducing.

3) People who spill drinks on our gear - Yes, I realize that the speaker looks like a table. Bonus points for those who bitch about wasting five bucks. I feel really bad that our $300 monitor, which is now smoking and arcing, just put you out $5. How inconsiderate of us. Next time we'll bring coasters.

4) People who want to come up and stage and sing with the band - I used to be OK with this, as long as it was a hot chick. Then I discovered that they are even more annoying than anyone else. Look, there is a reason we are up here, and you are down there. You suck. I'm not drunk as you are, so you will have to trust my judgement. I'm pretty sure the people came to see some decent music, not a drunk frat boy. Also, anyone who starts coming on the stage, I don't know what your agenda is. You may be a harmless drunk, you may be a psycho. While I am playing, that is my house, and I will treat you like an intruder.

5) People who want requests, but don't know the song - I love this one. Here's the scenario. Random drunk person comes up, asks us to play some song. I don't know the song, and I tell them as much. They are convinced I know the song. They sing the first line, hoping to jog my memory. I still don't know the song. I ask for more words. They repeat the first line, as it's the only words they know. Or better yet, they try and hum some of it. Most of these people couldn't even hum "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and make it recognizable. Look, you can ask me 100 times, but if I don't know the song, I don't know the fucking song.

6) People who treat the wait staff like dicks - We get invited back if people are spending money. Also, the managers usually aren't there late at night. Therefore, they get their feedback from the crew working. If you piss off the staff, they will be mad, and we may not get a favorable review. Why do you think every hack band on the planet asks you to tip well? Out of the goodness of our hearts?

7) People who get all chatty while we're trying to get our gear off the stage - This is a tricky situation. On the one hand, fans are what make or break a local band, so they have to be treated well. On the other hand, there is another band playing after us, and they are waiting for us to get our shit out of there so they can get going. You don't want to get the reputation as a difficult band to work with. Our band alleviates this by having me, as the singer, mingle with anyone who wants to talk while they get the gear off the stage. However, this is how singers get tagged with the DIVA label. Screw it, I was a drummer in my last band, I've done my share of carrying shit.

8) People who ask for free shit - There is a reason we are selling CD's, T-shirts, stickers, etc. This is how we make money. Bars don't pay crap. We sell more stuff at shows than at any other time. It's how we pay for that amp that just got a pint of beer spilled on it. Our buddy at the merch table gave that hot chick a free shirt because he's delusional and thinks it will get him laid. Besides, we're gonna take that out of his pocket. You are not a hot chick. Just because you are dressed like a slut, doesn't mean you are hot. It's not going to work.

I'm sure there are a million other things, but these are ones I have encountered multiple times. I could make a separate list about club owners and their clubs, but only 0.1% of the population would get it.

Golden Umbrella go Braugh

2009-02-13T08:23:00.006-07:00

I'm coming to you live from Not Tucson to bring you this week's award. Yes loyal reader, even though I am miles away from home, I am using my break time to lug my laptop around looking for a wireless connection and post this. That is the type of dedication that you have come to deserve, and I intend to deliver. Unfortunately, I don't think you deserve the dedication that involved me getting up earlier than the 3 fucking o'clock I had to get up and post this. That's just crazy.

Speaking of dedication, I don't think you realize what the average nomination process involves. It goes something like this...

1) Check emails and comments for good candidates.
2) See emptiness.
3) Cry.
4) Grab bourbon.
5) Start looking through hundreds of blogs.

This is where I want to stop. Have you ever looked through this many blogs? It sucks. Most of them are horrible. It just sucks the soul out of me. It would probably break a lesser man. That is why step 4 is so important. But you know the old saying, "You've got to kiss a lot of frogs to find one who will suck your dick." I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.

Which brings us to this week. In honor of my traveling on the day of the award ceremony, we are going to have a first. That's right, the Golden Umbrella is going international. This week's winner comes from the country that gave us red headed boxers, potato famines, and whiskey. Mmmm, sweet whiskey. Buckle up people, we're going to Ireland.

Govstooge is the author of the autobiographical blog The Uncivil Servant's Rant. It's a blog about her trials and tribulations at work. Seeing as my own blog got its humble beginnings as a blog bitching about work, I can relate, even though I have no idea what a civil servant is. It's very educational. For example, I am learning how to swear and insult in Ireland from this site. I'm just dying to call someone a luddite today. Plus, she brings the funny in her posts. A very worthy winner.

So back to the rules. As usual, in order to be added to my esteemed 'Winners of "Umbrella's Blogs That Don't Suck" award (AKA the Golden Umbrella)' list, you must make an acceptance speech in the comments section. You can look at the past winners to see the type of quality you are up against. But you wouldn't have won if I didn't think you were up to the task. So congrats Govstooge, and stop by to accept your award.

This will look good surrounded by green

At last, my weakness revealed

2009-02-12T13:36:00.007-07:00

My boss decided to show up at work today at 1:00. He's never been the model of early arrivals, but this is pretty late even for him. His mom has been very ill lately, and I guess he was at her place cleaning up her puke.

I've got a pretty iron stomach. I can brush mold off of food and eat it with no problems. I can drink an insane amount of alcohol, and keep it all down. Changing nasty diapers doesn't bother me in the least. But the slightest hint of puke, and it's game over for Umbrella. I am a classic sympathy puker.

As an example of this Achilles heel, let me tell you a story. Quite a while back, when my oldest daughter was pretty young (5 or so), we were driving to northern Arizona to spend Christmas with my ex's family. When the oldest was young, she had a horrible problem with getting car sick. Every trip was an adventure. One of the things we read was that sitting the child in the front seat will help prevent them from getting sick. It makes sense, it's hard to throw up when you are being smothered by an air bag.

So she was sitting in the passenger seat, I was driving, and my ex was zonked out in the back. We were approaching Flagstaff right as an old fashioned blizzard was hitting town. I don't drive in snow very often, so I was driving a bit slow, and really focusing on the road. All of a sudden, my daughter turns to me, says "Daddy, I'm going to be sick," and before I could respond, promptly barfs all over me.

I reacted as if someone threw acid on me. Warm, stinky, bile-filled acid in various states of digestion. I did everything I could to create a multi-car pileup as I swerved off of the highway. Apparently, the yelling and reckless driving woke my ex up. She must have thought she lost her mind as she woke up to me jumping out of the car, stripping on the side of the highway, in a blizzard, no less, while my daughter was crying. I had chucked my clothes as far away from me as I could, as I washed my skin with the snow. By this time, she had gotten out of the car, and was looking for clean clothes for my daughter. She looked over at me and asked if I was OK. Let's see, I'm standing on the side of the road, wearing nothing but boxers in the middle of a blizzard, while fighting my gag reflex and/or frostbite. I think it's safe to say, I'm pretty fucking far from OK.

It was pretty much a recreation of this scene, except with puke. And in the snow. And I probably overreacted more. And I'm way sexier. But other than that, it was exactly the same.

Also, as an aside, I am going on a business trip tomorrow, so I don't know if I will get a chance to post the Golden Umbrella before I go. I have to admit, the pickings have been slim this week. But I do have a frontrunner. If anyone wants to nominate a worthy site, let me know via comments or email.

Loose ends

2009-02-11T07:40:00.003-07:00

This isn't going to be a very coherent post. I'm just updating some things that are still hanging.

It appears that my brilliant idea for my profile picture isn't going to work. I began some investigative research, and I have yet to find a urinal high enough that I could squeeze under. All of the other concerns are still in play. I may have to break down and get photoshop to do some 21st century magic to make this work.

For only the second time in the history of this blog, I wrote a post that got an unexpected amount of feedback via email. The first one was my rant about blogspot, which apparently touched a nerve, both positive and negative, with a lot of people. The second one was my recent tales about my daughter's Academic Decathlon. I checked my email yesterday, and found quite a few comments about this post. "Oh great" I thought. "I've got a bunch of irate parents and/or kids pissed at me for making fun of the dorks." However, I was quite wrong. They were from parents of a team in California, and they really LIKED it. And this isn't just any team, it's only the defending national freaking champions.

So I was very pleasantly surprised by this turn of events. But then I got to wondering. How in the world did they find my site? I know, you're thinking "Umbrella, you have readership in the thousands, the odds are high that one of them would have a kid involved." Ah loyal reader, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but my readership is not as high as the quality of this site would indicate. I don't advertise my site around, so I'm quite clueless as to how they stumbled upon this particular rant. Let's face it, parents of genius children are not exactly the demographic that my writing is slanted towards. So if any of you have stuck around and are still checking this out, let me know how you found this site either via comment or email. The curiosity is killing me.

How to be a TV weatherman in three simple steps

2009-02-10T08:42:00.005-07:00

With the current economy and job situation, I will provide a public service. Yes, I am going to give you the skill set needed to be a TV weatherman. Follow these steps, and you're well on your way.

1) Look pretty.
2) Act so perky that even Rachel Ray will ask you to tone it down.
3) Be a complete fucking idiot.

For three days, all I have been hearing on the local newscasts is that it was going to snow this morning. Look, I understand being a weatherman in Tucson must suck. You have to come out every day and say "Sunny, nice weather", and make it sound interesting for 10 minutes. That's why they all use all those meteorological vocabulary words to explain what is going on. Complete waste of time. Just let me know if I need a coat, an umbrella, or if the wind is going to make me sneeze. That's it. Quite wasting my time and let's get to sports.

Last night, it was the lead story for the third straight night. I wasn't falling for their ploy. I remembered back when El Nino was going to devastate Tucson. They were trying to get us to get sandbags, and to board our windows, etc. I was actually worried about this. Then they day of the storm came, and we got a little wind. No damage reported, nothing. To quote Jay, "TV weatherman are so full of shit."

So I wasn't biting this time. My lady friend still watches TV news. I don't. I usually get all my info off of the interwebs, like God intended. But my kids were with their mom this weekend, so I spent the weekend hanging out with her. This involved my subjection to the TV news. I told her that they were full of shit, and she disagreed. She argued that would be unethical. I countered with "This is local TV news, ethics are the least of their concerns." Seriously, they dangle this shit out in front of us like worms, waiting for the baby birds to snap it all up.

So I wake up this morning, ready to check out the layer of frosty white goodness (ew, that could be misinterpreted as something gross) straight out of a Bing Crosby music video. Heck, from the sound of what was hitting my roof all night, these must have been the biggest snowflakes in history.

All I saw was wet. Yep, nothing but rain. It really wasn't even that cold. I turned on the TV with the sole purpose of them saying "Hey, we fucked up. Sorry." Of course not. They were still pimping that there was going to be rain/snow all morning. Give it up dudes. You're not fooling anyone. It was sunny, and somewhat cool. Not exactly a blizzard in the making.

The thing that made me laugh the most was when they were talking about school closures. They said that there weren't any yet, but they would let us know if there were any. If any of the schools closed because some dipshit on TV said it was going to snow, then I think the people in Washington that want to blow up the public school system may have a point. Luckily, our educators are not as stupid as the TV media.

It's actually tough always being right. It takes a lot of surprise out of my life.

Tampon jokes + Eazy E reference = Golden Umbrella award

2009-02-06T07:41:00.013-07:00

Folks, it's that time again. I am marvelling at my own consistency for keeping this up for two consecutive weeks. Yes, it is Friday's awarding of the Golden Umbrella award.

I think I sold myself short last week by comparing it to the Golden Globes. I think it is actually bigger than the Nobel Prize. Seriously, think about it. The winner of the Golden Umbrella doesn't have to fly across the world and spend several hours in a monkey suit surrounded by pretentious assholes just to get the award. As far as I'm concerned, you can accept it drunk in your underwear. The defense rests.

Before I get to the winner, I have some announcements to make. Paul, last week's inaugural winner, showed what true champions are made of. Not only did he make a nice speech, he upgraded my award. Now THAT is what I'm talking about. Since my HTML/Photoshop skills are horrible, I'm stealing his work. That's what the interwebs are about, right?

This is me while trying to do that fancy blogging

So thanks to the efforts of Paul, I'm going to add a new requirement to the winners. Before I add you to my esteemed 'Winners of "Umbrella's Blogs That Don't Suck" award (AKA the Golden Umbrella)' list, you must make an acceptance speech in the comments section. I don't care if it's as simple as "Thanks" or "You suck", or you want to express your views on the forced occupation of Tibet. It's your moment of glory, and as the winner, I know you have the ability to string a few words together to form an interesting/funny/ridiculous thought.

Without further ado, let's get to this week's winner. I've spent an embarrassing amount of time going through blogs, and the success rate has been very poor. However, I found one that has Golden Umbrella potential. This weeks winner is GynaGirl, author of The Wacky Adventures of GynaGirl. GynaGirl was a tax collector, but gave up that life of gluttony to make the world a better place by becoming a nurse. That act of philanthropy is why she is this week's winner.

Yeah right. I could care less if she ate babies. She wins because she brings the awesome to her posts. Tampon jokes? Check. Poop references? Check. Plus, she's a musician, which will automatically earn bonus points. My only complaint is that she doesn't post very frequently. I guess she is choosing quality over quantity. Whatever, I was not put on this earth to question genius. I was put here to find it, and spread it to the masses.

So congratulations GynaGirl. Please stop by and accept the new and improved Golden Umbrella award.

How can you turn down something with "Prestigious" in it?

Revenge of the Nerds (an epic tale, or just a long winded ramble)

2009-02-05T09:37:00.007-07:00

I mentioned that I was busy last Saturday which prevented me from making the Super Bowl party as awesome as normal. The reason was that I was at my daughter's Academic Decathlon competition. And let me tell you, what a way to spend a Saturday.

What is Academic Decathlon? Well, it is a competition involved ten events, but they're all academic. I'm not going into all the details. If you're interested, look here.

My oldest daughter went through a goth phase when she was in junior high. She didn't want to participate in anything, her grades sucked, wore black, the whole nine yards. I'm pretty sure a lot of this was her response to my ex leaving, and the subsequent divorce. But I didn't like it at all.

When she was ready to start high school, I was determined to put an end to this. I told her that she was required to join at least one school event every year she was in high school. I didn't care if it was a sport, band, debate, chess club, whatever. I wanted her to get involved. I thought this was a brilliant plan.

She had other ideas. She complained, bitched, moaned, and generally acted as if I had asked her to prostitute herself so I could have beer money. However, I am a rock, and I didn't budge on my stance. In her final act of defiance, she decided to pick something she would be an utter failure at, in hopes I would change my mind. The club she picked, you guessed it, Academic Decathlon.

But a funny thing happened on the way to showing up her old man. The subject matter that year was the Renaissance. One of the by-products of her goth phase was that she gained an interest in art. Slowly, she started getting into the studies for this topic. And because the club was fairly new for her school, they only had seven kids in it (nine is a regulation team), so she automatically made the team. She worked pretty hard at it, and off they went to the regional competition.

Both she and her team got slaughtered.

Sophomore year, and the subject was China. She had been getting into Asian cultures for the last couple of years, so she decided to stay on board for this topic. Once again, she worked hard, studies vigorously, and had high hopes going into regionals.

Both she and her team got slaughtered.

By her junior year, she had grown out of her goth phase. She was growing into a woman, and even joined a couple of other clubs at the school. She played one sport, and her grades were starting to come up. The topic this year was the Civil War, which is something I studied extensively. Finally, something I could help her with. She and her team would come over to my place, we would order pizzas, and they would study while I helped them out. Their goal was to have someone, anyone, win an individual medal in any event. We were confident that this was the year.

Both she and her team got slaughtered.

Senior year, and the topic is Latin America. Once again, everyone is working hard. Once again, confidence is high. She and her best friend had been at this for four years, and they were sure a Hollywood ending was in store for them. And it seemed to me like a million years ago when I had that youthful optimism, instead of my bitter pessimism. Tucson sure isn't Hollywood.

So that is where I was sitting on Saturday, for the fourth year in a row. I love my daughter, and I will support her in damn near anything she wants to do, as long as it is legal, but I have to say that I would rather spend a day getting my teeth drilled than sit through that freak show. It starts off with something called Super Quiz, which isn't too bad. It's kind of like a game show. Each team member sits at their table, and they ask a multiple choice question. If they get it right, their team gets a point. Each member gets five questions, and for the whole team, it is a total of 45 questions.

However, these questions are damn near impossible. I graduated college summa cum laude with a degree in electrical engineering. I am far from stupid. But listening to these questions make me feel like an absolute moron. It amazes me how many these kids get right.

Most of the kids dress like idiots. They wear stupid hats. I've seen kids with Spock ears. I've seen guys wearing hula skirts. Imagine a room full of Urkels. I'm not even exaggerating, this is what it's like. It's absolutely ridiculous. I'm just grateful my daughter and her school don't do this.

Then they have a couple of hours of break while scores for all the events are tabulating, and the awards are determined. We usually bring some cards, and play cards while this is going on. The kids are usually burnt out at this point, since they've spent the last two days taking tests, giving speeches and interviews, and writing essays for the competition.

Then it's back for the awards ceremony. There are ten events, 3 divisions, and the top three in each division get a medal. Yes, that's 90 awards given out. Consider the fact that the one school in our region that has won every year (and even went to nationals last year) wins about 80 of these medals, and it makes for a long day.

So I was watching Super Quiz this year, feeling stupid, when I noticed something strange happening. Her team was doing OK. The kids were getting 3-4 questions right per turn. They were lurking near the top. However, the team that wins every year pulled away at the end, my daughter's team struggled late, and when the final results were shown, they finished tied for fifth. Considering the highest the school had ever finished was 15th, this was a major accomplishment, and the kids were thrilled. Unfortunately, only the top three teams in this event get an award, so they were still shut out.

On to the awards ceremony. My chronically messed-up back was starting to rebel after sitting in the bleachers for so long. I was zoning out while the annual parade of winners from the school that always wins was going on. Then something bizarre happened.

They called my daughters name!

Her team was sitting on the other side of the gym, directly across from us. It was funny to see all nine of their jaws drop in unison. They were looking around in complete disbelief. She told me later that they were also zoning out, and they weren't sure if they misheard it. Since nobody was going up to the podium, she finally headed over there. Yes, my daughter, the poor grade having, school hating, social misfit, had just won the first medal in her school's history. I was completely speechless, and I don't think I've ever been happier for her in my life. Heck, even typing this now several days after the fact is making me giddy. She had won a silver medal for her interview.

She had a huge grin that couldn't be blown off of her face with a grenade. All of her teammates were just as excited. I was trying to be cool, but I was so excited, so I was fidgeting around like a toddler with a bladder problem. It just couldn't get any better.

Except it did. A little while later, she was announced as the silver medal winner in the math category. It was so cool to see the bounce and confidence in her step as she went to the stage a second time. It truly was like something had changed in her. I just wanted to yell to everyone, "That's my kid!" One of my all time great moments as a parent.

We went out to dinner afterwards, and she was absolutely beside herself. It was really strange to see her all giggly, and smiling, and genuinely happy. I can honestly say I haven't seen this side of her since she was a little kid. It's such a nice change from the moody, gloomy teenager.

So I guess I need to change my disclaimer. This is about as happy feel-good story as it gets.

Thoughts from a broken hearted sports fan

2009-02-02T08:18:00.011-07:00

My first words after the game ended? "We should have went to the sports bar."

Yes, I chose to have a Super Bowl party at my house last night. My friends and family put undue pressure on me, and I caved. Unfortunately, I caved on Saturday, not giving me much time to prepare. I had previous commitments on Saturday (which I may post about later), so I had to get everything ready on Sunday morning.

I got up early, and headed to the grocery store to get the necessary goodies. I wouldn't be cooking this time, since I usually prep everything the night before, so my guests would have to suffer with pre-packaged snacking. Sucks for them.

The first thing I noticed was that the store was FILLED with people wearing Cardinal gear. Let me state, I have lived in Tucson since 1996, and lived in the Phoenix area for many years before that. Of all the time I've lived in Tucson, I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen people wearing Cardinals crap. On the one hand, I guess it's good that after all these years, people are starting to support the team. On the other hand, I hate bandwagon fans. If this were an SAT question it would go along the lines of "Bandwagon fans :: Sports fans as Child molesters :: Prison inmates". They're all members of the same group, but the second ones want to anally rape the first ones. I guess I just feel like these new fans haven't suffered through the shitty times to be able to truly appreciate the good time (singular) with this team.

Secondly, I made a couple of errors in execution of my shopping plan. The first one was listening to my kids, who insisted that you can buy white board cleaner at the grocery store. They were wrong. The second one was my fault completely. A classic rookie blunder. I was loading up the cart with various beer and alcohol when one of the stockers came up and asked, "Is it almost 10 yet?" I thought to myself, "What a weird time to end a shift", and responded, "You've got a couple of hours still." He continued to look at me like I was a retard when it dawned on me. In Arizona, you can't buy alcohol on Sunday before 10:00. I completely spaced this one, and now I was going to have to go back out on a second trip.

After the post-10:00 alcohol and office supply run, I set up our gambling board. This is another Umbrella Super Bowl party tradition. I go to the websites of the casinos, and come up with the ridiculous prop bets they have, and write them on the white board. All the guests pitch in some money, we all make our bets, and winner takes all. Even the casual fans really get into the game when a bunch of money is to be won.

People showed up, and I was a wreck. This was as nervous as I think I have ever been for a game. That is very unlike me, and it was pissing me off. Unfortunately, I think it was pissing everyone else off too, because I was pacing around like a caged tiger on meth. Obviously, I needed to drink more.

As for the game, unfortunately, it went as I thought it would. I thought the Cardinals would play tough, but the Steelers would win it. It still sucked, knowing that it was THIS close. The play at the end of the first half was a killer, and everyone that watches football knew it immediately when it happened. It was a pretty somber halftime at the Umbrella house.

We all know how the game ended, and I was unusually bummed out by this. And somehow, apparently my cable company showed about 30 seconds of porn right after the Fitzgerald TD, and I missed it. I had a house full of people, and nobody saw it? How is that possible? (Edit: I found out it was only on the standard definition signal. Us high-end HD bitches missed the fun). To add salt to my wounds, I ended up getting 2nd in the gambling pool. The winner? One of my older daughter's friends, who's hair coloring scheme reminds me of Pepe Le Pew. And to top it all off, after everyone left, I managed to blow my diet for the first time ever by downing a bag of Doritos (who had the best commercial, BTW). Oh well, at least I learned a lot about the Power Up Gambia mission from the back of the bag.

New Friday Feature. Family Fun!

2009-01-30T12:50:00.011-07:00

Back when I started this blog a couple of years ago, I was using that "NEXT BLOG" button to check out other people to see what was going on. It's a cool idea, but lacking in execution, as I wrote about.

Fast forward to 2009. I decided to go through this exercise once again. Much has changed since then, but not necessarily for the better. It turns out I have a new list of problems with this method.

1) Blogs not in English. This is a big problem for me. I realize that in many other places, English is not the first language of choice. However, I am an ugly American, and have not bothered to learn any other languages. Can't I get an option to exclude other language blogs?

2) Blogs that are just pictures. This is stupid. There is already a site designed especially for this.

3) Sites that steal my awesome URL. Yes, I realize I've already mentioned this. And no, I didn't find this using the NEXT BLOG button. I'm just still upset.

4) Sites that don't have the "NEXT BLOG" button. These are always a subset of #1. After clicking that button like a tweaker for fifteen minutes in hopes of finding something that doesn't absolutely suck, I get into a nice rhythm. Don't screw me up by actually having to move my mouse to back up to the previous crappy blog.

This method has yielded absolutely NO sites worth mentioning by name. It's pretty discouraging. That being said, I have ultimate willpower, and will prevail. I WILL find good blogs out there, written by average schmucks like me.

That being said, I am starting a new feature. It is the esteemed UMBRELLA'S BLOG THAT DOESN'T SUCK award. Seriously, this is probably bigger than the Golden Globes. As of now, there are two members of this prestigious club.

SINISTER COFFEE - This blog wins the lifetime achievement award. Phraink was one of my first loyal readers from back in the day, and he's still going strong. Good enough to make my list.

The first winner however, goes to Things That Annoy This One White Kid In Particular. Paul E. Wog is a dude from my town here who let's everyone know his thoughts on various crap. No nepotism here, I've never met the guy. But he is funny, and some of his rants hit pretty close to home. He's not PC, so if you are easily offended, you might want to stay away. However, if you are easily offended, you probably aren't reading my blog in the first place, so no worries.

Congratulations Paul, and keep up the good work. You can now accept your award.

The prestigious Golden Umbrella award

If anyone has any nominees, let me know via comments or emails. Heck, you can even nominate yourself. Hopefully I will have a new one every Friday, but so far, the pickings have been slim.

I have a dilemma

2009-01-26T13:41:00.005-07:00

I have been bragging about how I am the one solely responsible for the Cardinals making the Super Bowl. Pretty much everyone who knows me accepts this as fact. However, I have run into a problem because of my stupid superstitions.

For the game against the Falcons, I was doing some running around, and realized I wouldn't be able to get home in time for kickoff. So I decided to stop inside a sports bar and watch the first half, and head home at halftime. What can I say? I am the master of improvisation.

It had been a while since I've watched a local team in a sports bar, and I forgot how much fun it is. Friendly folks, alcohol, good food. What more can you ask for? I ended up ditching the "go home at halftime" part of the plan, and stayed for the whole game.

Fast forward to the Panthers game. I was telling my lady friend how much fun I had last week, and we decided to go there to watch the game. As fate would have it, the only open table was the one I sat at the previous week. I commented on that strange fact. And wouldn't you know, the Cardinals crushed the Panthers in a game none of us saw coming. Some higher power was obviously at work here.

Ahead one more week. I grab the kids and my lady friend, and off we go to the bar. Some might question my parenting techniques here, but fuck 'em. The kids have never been exposed to this, and they had a blast. The crowd was rowdy, tons of food, good times. And for the third straight week, the Cardinals pulled the upset.

So now, I have to go there for the Super Bowl, right? And here is where conflict sets in. One of my friends informed me that if I am taking responsibility for them going to the game, I have to have the Super Bowl party to finish the job. Damn good logic, if you ask me. So now I'm conflicted. The 2008 NFL champion will depend on this decision. It is not to be taken lightly.

Here is my list of pros and cons to each approach...

Pros of going to sports bar
1) Fun atmosphere with lots of hardcore fans.
2) Good variety of food.
3) No post-game cleanup required.
4) No shopping, cleaning and preparing food.
5) No worrying about people trashing my shit.
6) Hot waitresses in football jerseys.
7) Don't have to worry about my drunk friends driving home.

Pros of having party at my house
1) Much cheaper.
2) Surrounded by friends.
3) Not potentially surrounded by drunken idiots. (Not entirely true, but at least they are MY drunken idiots)
4) Don't have to go to bar 3 hours before kickoff to make sure I get the lucky table.
5) Kids and lady friend prefer this choice.
6) Won't have to deal with any asshat Steeler fans.
7) Can get as drunk as I want without worrying about driving home.

I'm torn. If anyone is reading this, let me know what you think the right decision is.

Did I jinx myself? Probably.

2009-01-23T09:41:00.004-07:00

Back in the old days, everyone liked my bitter posts much better than happy ones. So I would focus on the crappy things that would happen, and spin it to make it funnier than it actually was. It was a successful formula.

That's why I don't think it was coincidence that the day after I post something good that happened, I went through my own personal hell. Yes, I'm referring to the joy that is passing a kidney stone.

This was not a new experience for me. Almost a year ago to the day was my first experience with the stones. I woke up that day feeling like I had to take the worst piss ever. I raced to the bathroom, and manages to squeeze out a couple of drops. I knew right away something weird was going on.

Not long after that, I had a dull pain on the right side of my back. Still, I didn't realize anything. And then it hit. The "Holy fuck, I think my insides have just exploded, and I'm gonna die" pain took over. I staggered to my car to go to the hospital, but I was in so much pain, I couldn't even get out of the driveway.

I called a coworker, and asked if he was on his way to work yet. He said he was almost there, so I asked him if he could drive me to the hospital. At this point, I figured my appendix had ruptured. If he couldn't take me, I was ready to call 911. Luckily he showed up pretty quickly.

I've got a reputation as a daredevil with little regard for my well being, and an extremely high tolerance for pain. So he was pretty shocked to see me lying on the floor in the fetal position, unable to form complete sentences. He helped me stagger into the back seat of his car, where I resumed the position, telling him I would pay for any speeding tickets he might get, but to hurry the fuck up.

He helps me stumble into the emergency room, where they actually get to me immediately. One of the first things they ask is "On a scale of one to ten, what is your pain at?" I would like to say right now, this is a stupid fucking question to ask someone in misery. Luckily, I've had quite a bit of experience with pain. I played football on a broken ankle. I've left giant chunks of skin on the pavement trying a foolhardy bike trick. I've been car surfing, with disastrous results. I jumped off of a roof and missed my target, hitting the ground and breaking ribs. This was worse than all of them. Was it as bad as being burned alive? Probably not. I said 9, mostly so I wouldn't look like a total pussy if this turned out to be indigestion or something.

They did a scan on me, gave me some morphine, and told me I was passing a kidney stone. At least I wasn't dying, so that was good. They were pretty sympathetic, and told me that it is pretty excruciating, so getting the painkillers alone was reason enough to come to the ER. Unfortunately, they said I still had two stones, and it was anyone's guess if or when they would pass.

Fast forward to this Tuesday. I wake up having to piss badly, and can't. Uh-oh, I know what this means. Here comes the back pain again. At this point, I know my day is about to suck really bad. I call in sick to work, and brace myself. I know it will hurt, but I can handle it.

Then the real pain came. My inner dialog was going between "It didn't last this long last time, something's wrong" to "Yes it did, shut up, quit being such a whiny bitch". Then I started puking. That didn't happen last time. Game, set, match, whiny bitch. I called my next door neighbor for a ride to ER.

Now it has just occurred to me that you might not understand how kidney stones work. I didn't until I got them. So I'm going to clue you in on this. I know what you're thinking. "What, actual educational information Umbrella?" Shit yeah! I'm making the world a better place today.

There is a little tube from your kidney to your bladder, called a ureter. It is very tiny. Stones can build up in your kidney due to diet, not enough water, or even your shitty family history, as is my case (although my shitty diet didn't help). The lack of piss is because the ureter can get clogged by the stone. The back pain, and then the "holy fuck" pain is from trying to get that stone through the ureter. I always thought that the sucky thing would be pissing out a stone, but in reality that's not bad at all. Once the stone is in the bladder, it's all downhill. OK, enough of this vocabulary word shit.

As it turns out, I get to the hospital, same drill, and to the scan I go. Only this time, the stone is a bit bigger, and has gotten stuck. Wonderful. Plan A is to pump me full of fluids and let the pressure push that thing through. That sounds fun, doesn't it? So I've got an IV, and I think I'm gonna burst. Still no luck.

On to plan B. This involves stick a tube up my pee hole and blasting the son of a bitch with some sound waves or something. They explained it to me, but I was pretty high on morphine at this point, so things are a little hazy. This worked. However, there is still one stone left, so I'll get to do this again at some point.

And that concludes my report on "How I Spent The Most Significant Inauguration Day Of My Lifetime".

Best. Weekend. Ever.

2009-01-19T11:58:00.005-07:00

Here I am, on my lunch break, still a little hungover, and on the high of an epic weekend. On Friday, my oldest daughter's team makes the city championship for the first time in school history. My youngest daughter tells informs me that she was named student of the month at her junior high. Naturally, I'm pleased. And yet, this was just the beginning.

Saturday, I watch my Sun Devils gut out a tough OT win over UCLA on national TV. (Oh, and Verne Lundquist, if I ever hear you say Ruksiks again, I'm going to jump on a plane and choke your Scooby Doo talking ass). That evening was followed by yet another epic UA meltdown against USC. The weekend is going great.

But nothing compares to watching the Cardinals go to the Super Bowl. I'll have more thoughts on this when the reality of the situation sinks in, and I can respond without sounding like a 12 year old fan girl (OMG! This is so awesome!!!1!!)

Then, at 10:00 last night, still pretty drunk and euphoric, I get a knock on my door. My lady friend decided that I was going to be her booty call. Yep, I feel so cheap. Seriously women, quit complaining about that, it was an amazing finish to an amazing weekend.

Can I have a URL intervention?

2009-01-16T12:09:00.005-07:00

My URL is stupid. I added a "24" to the end of "umbrella" because umbrella by itself was taken. OK, I can live with that. They were there first, sucks for me. However, check out the site that is keeping my good URL.

Are you serious? One freaking post about how retarded you are and can't even post correctly? Can't I just take this URL over, kinda like eminent domain?

Also, I want to get a new picture for my blog homepage. I thought it would be kinda cool to have a picture of me, sitting under a urinal, holding an umbrella. Maybe even an appearance with the rally plunger. However, there are some problems associated with this. Here are my concerns, in order from least to biggest...

1) I haven't taken any measurements, so I'm not sure if it is even physically possible to fit myself with an open umbrella under a urinal.
2) I need to find a good location to accomplish this photo shoot. I don't have a urinal at home, and my office bathroom is unisex, so work is out of the question as well. I don't know anyone who owns a restaraunt, so I'll have to be a ninja to get this done.
3) The thought of sitting under a urinal is pretty gross. I guess this is what they mean by suffering for your art.
4) I still want to remain anonymous. If I get someone I know to take a picture of this, I'm sure there will be plenty of questions. And as good of a bullshit artist as I am, for the life of me, I cannot think of one single way to spin this without looking like a total freak.

So this is where it stands. Until I figure it out, you'll have to be content with this picture of Augie Ojeda at BOB on 80's night.

If the Cardinals make the Super Bowl, you can thank me

2009-01-14T08:20:00.008-07:00

Football has been my favorite sport for most of my life. I went through a phase when I was a kid where baseball was king, but it was short lived. Growing up in Phoenix, I loved the Sun Devils, but we never had a NFL team, so I usually cheered for whoever had the most ex-Devils.

Then the Cardinals came. My dreams had come true. I finally had a real team to cheer for. I had been waiting my whole life for this. But I failed to account for one small factor.

The Cardinals sucked. Bad.

Still, I'm not one of those lame fair-weather fans. I wore my gear around. I went to games. I was there for Timm Rosenbach's debut against the Elway-led Broncos in a beatdown of epic proportions, where the highlight of the game was almost starting a riot by leading an enthusiastic "Chip Elway's Tooth" chant while surrounded by Bronco fans.

I was there for Jake Plummer's debut against the Titans, where he had more interceptions than that asshole in Seattle who cockblocked me all night (you know who you are). I sat through a rainstorm while watching Herschel Walker, right after he was traded to the Vikings, shred the Cards defense. I called in sick to work to watch a game that set football back 50 years as the Bucs and Cardinals battled in an epic 3-0 shootout.

Even after I moved to Tucson, I tried to attend some games, but not with the regularity I did before. The last game I went to in Sun Devil Stadium was when they beat the Lions, one of only two wins I've witnessed in person. When they moved to the new stadium, tickets were harder to come by, and I've only managed to go to one game there.

I must sidestep for a moment, and let you know that since 1991 (last year excluded, more on that later), I've thrown a Super Bowl party at my house. This thing has taken on a life of its own. We all usually get pretty hammered, gamble on everything, and generally have a blast. Even the weekend before we moved to Tucson, we had our last Phoenix party, and everyone sat on our boxes. My ex-wife was pretty pissed, but this was tradition, dammit! That was the year Michael Jackson was the halftime show. I was pretty wasted by halftime (Cowboys were beating up the Steelers pretty good), so I was grilling, and started singing "We are the World" in my best king of pop voice. My friend Oz yelled at me, "If he sings that, I'll suck your dick!" It couldn't have been more than five seconds when MJ raises his hands and starts wailing "We are the worrrrrld". Biggest cheer of the night in my house. Bastard never did fulfill his obligation.

One of the drawbacks to my parties is my TV isn't very big. Every year someone tells me I need to get a big screen TV. I have a good job, I can afford it, so I have no reason not to. However, every year I respond with, "If the Cardinals go to the Super Bowl, I'll get a big screen." And we would go another year with my crappy small TV.

Fast forward to 2008 and the weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLII (that's 42 for those of you who don't speak Roman). My lady friend brings up something. Her son was playing in a baseball tournament in Vegas on the Thu-Fri-Sat before the Super Bowl. Add on the fact that the Super Bowl was just before her birthday, and I've always wanted to go to Vegas for the Super Bowl, this was a no brainer. Party in Vegas this year.

Gambling on the Super Bowl was like my degenerate gambling wet dream. I was betting on every stupid prop bet I could find. I didn't even care how much money I lost, I just wanted to be ridiculous. However, something funny happened...

I was winning.

All these stupid bets kept coming through. It was highlighted by me predicting Plaxico Burress would have the last score in the game. Truly my crowning achievement in gambling history. I even took a picture to commemorate the moment.

all the winners, thanks to the last Giants TD

I ended up making a nice chuck of change that night. So what did I do with all the winnings? I bought a 70" HD TV. Good times.

So it appears I was incorrect. For all these years, I should have been saying, "If I buy a big screen TV, the Cardinals will go to the Super Bowl". However, now that I've posted this, I probably jinxed the team, and they will lose Sunday.

Three-and-a-half year update, in trendy FAQ style

2009-01-13T08:21:00.007-07:00

I decided to answer all the burning questions from my loyal readers about my long absence. OK, my loyal readers probably don't know I'm back yet, but if they did, I'm pretty sure these are the questions they would ask.

Q: Did you ever get the hobbit fired?
A: Hell froze over long before the Cardinals were hosting the NFC championship game. Upper management finally had enough, and the big boss came down to fire the hobbit in person. However, in true Bilbo fashion, he chose that day to call off of work, since he had to finish some yardwork. Classic. Needless to say, the big boss was pissed, and ended up changing all our locks. Bilbo came in the next day, rattled the locked door a bit, left, and was never heard from again.

Q: How about your lady friend? She got mentioned all the time. What's up with her?
A: Amazingly, we're still together. Although she is pushing hard for marriage, so I think the "rock or walk" speech is right around the corner.

Q: What about your daughters?
A: Both of my daughters are now teenagers. It's known in my house as the estrogen nightmare. My oldest one is graduating high school this year, which is somewhat bittersweet for me.

Q: You mentioned a jam session in one of your posts. Did anything become of that?
A: Long story short, we had a blast, and three-and-a-half years, several people, and many, many beers later, we have a full fledged band on our hands. We are hoping to release our first album this year.

Q: Mmmmm, beer. Any new ones for us?
A: Um, funny you should mention that. I turned 40 during the hiatus, and you know what that means. Yep, physical time. Dr. Jellyfinger beckons. So it turns out that all my years of hard living have been doing a number on my body, and I had to make some major changes in my lifestyle. I'm not afraid of dying, but that doesn't mean I'm trying to hasten it along. One of those changes involved eliminating beer from my diet. I'm still mourning.

Q: What? No beer?
A: Sad but true. However, I am learning to appreciate some of the other alcohols. Whiskey sours are my current drink of choice.

Q: Do you still have the rally plunger?
A: Yes I do, and it still has not touched the inside of a toilet. I mean, would you use Excaliber to butter bread? Of course not. I still haven't figured out all of its powers. It doesn't seem to respond to football or basketball. Baseball is inconsistant. Maybe it only works in person, but I haven't had the guts to try it live again.

Q: What about your grandmother? That was the last post before you left.
A: Unfortunately, she passed away shortly after that post. When I'm feeling sentimental, I'll give a proper post for her. She doesn't deserve my normal snarky commentary.

There you have it. I'm sure there are other questions from my loyal readers, but I'm not a mind reader.

Back from the abyss, again (DISCLAIMER ADDED)

2009-01-12T18:02:00.013-07:00

So, after an extremely long hiatus, I'm back, with a disclaimer. Back in the day, I made a post about psycho bitches. I referenced a character which consisted of some of the worst traits from several of my ex-girlfriends in one character. However, one of my ex-girlfriends found my blog (as she said, "How many people are called Umbrella?") and hilarity ensued, as noted in this post.

She recognized a lot of herself in the character, and was understandably hurt by the post, so I removed it. Then my grandmother got ill after that, and my posting days ended. When I started this blog, I wanted to remain anonymous (which is why I didn't tell anyone about my blog), because I wanted to be able to vent about things that piss me off. What are the main sources of my annoyance?

1) Significant others
2) Daughters
3) Mom
4) My co-workers

As you can see, the closer people are to me, the more likely they are to piss me off. That doesn't mean I don't care for them. However, I felt like I couldn't vent honestly anymore without hurting people, or worrying who might stumble across it, so I lost my motivation for blogging.

Lately, people have been suggesting I should write some of my stories and experiences, because they like the way I talk about little things that happen in my life. Little did they know I used to do that. And I realized I missed telling my little stories, even though my readership was pretty small. So now I'm back, with a disclaimer....

IF YOU KNOW ME PERSONALLY, AND YOU DON'T WANT TO GET OFFENDED/ANNOYED/DISGUSTED, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T READ MY BLOG!!

You can tell I'm serious because I used TWO exclamation points. Hopefully I can update my six loyal readers on everything that has happened during the hiatus.

Extremely quick update

2005-08-19T07:45:00.001-07:00

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. Not yet anyhow. My grandmother had a fairly severe heart attack. She is now stabilized, but the problem is that her brain went without blood for a bit, and now she is fairly nutty. It is pretty sad to see. Sometimes she knows who I am, sometimes she thinks I am someone else she knows, and sometimes she has no clue who I am. So I have been driving up to Phoenix almost every night after work to check on her, and to give my mom a sanity break. By the time I get home, I am beat, and don't feel like posting.

The new "hobbit" policy

2005-08-08T17:38:00.001-07:00

Yet another new policy has been implemented at work. From now on, if anyone has not shown up by 10:00, they will be asked to just go home, and be forced to use a vacation day. I can't wait to see how this plays out, for two reasons. One, the hobbit WILL show up after 10:00 at some point this week. Two, my boss, who made this decision, is a big pussy, and I can't see him actually telling the hobbit to beat feet. We have a little bet going at work on what will actually happen. My bet is that the hobbit will be late sometime this week, and will get off with just a warning. I have $10 on each part of that, so I'm pretty sure I will make $20 before the week is over.

Can you hear me now? Hell no!

2005-08-02T07:28:00.001-07:00

My cell phone sucks. There is no way to sugar coat this, it flat out sucks. I can't use it in my house, and I can't use it in my office. So about 95% of the time, I have problems. Otherwise, it is pretty good. It has become a running joke with my friends and family at this point. At work, everyone laughs when I am racing to the door to get outside before my call drops.

The reason I bring this up is because I spent a good portion of yesterday on my cell phone. Because it is such a piece of shit, that means I spent a good portion of yesterday outside. This is a problem, because it is about a million degrees out there, with high humidity, and I got sunburned to shit, along with smelling like a pig farm when I was done because of all the sweat. Then, for good measure, I split my pants. This may have been karmic retribution, but that is another story for another time.

I come back into the office, drenched, red, and leaving no doubt as to the color of my boxers. I was immediately met by the hobbit, and another coworker. Let's tune in on the conversation...

Hobbit: Jeez, did you go for a jog or something?
Umbrella: It is a fucking sauna out there.
Hobbit: What were you doing out there?
Umbrella (still holding phone in hand, and showing it to him): My phone sucks.
Co-worker: Two words for you, conference room.
Umbrella: I've got two words for you, my phone sucks ass, and I need to get a new one.
Hobbit: That isn't two words.
Umbrella and Co-worker: Shut the fuck up, Bilbo.

(For maximum effect, make sure you read that last line like John Goodman's character in "The Big Lewbowski".)

I would normally use the conference room phone, but the hobbit has even ruined that. We work in a cubicle farm, so there isn't any phone privacy. So whenever the hobbit is talking to his wife, which is about 40 times a day, he goes in there. Unfortunately, they are one of those couples that cannot have a conversation for more than 30 seconds without getting into a fight. So now the whole office has to listen to him screaming at her over some bullshit. Not good times.

Now I am going to be a redneck, literally, for a couple of days. Good thing I have a semi-dark complexion anyhow. If I were one of those pasty white guys, life would not be too good right now.

Vince Vaughn is back to his roots

2005-07-31T21:41:00.001-07:00

I am not much of a movie person. I would much rather go to a ball game than a movie. That being said, I saw "Wedding Crashers" this weekend. It was pretty funny, although I don't know if it lived up to all of the hype.

The thing I noticed right away is that Vince Vaughn is playing almost the same character he played in "Swingers". I mentioned that to my lady friend after the movie, to which she surprised me by saying that she had never seen "Swingers". So we went and rented it, and watched it after the movie.

My favorite scene in "Swingers" is when they are all playing the hockey video game. I have played this version of the game, and my friends and I acted exactly like those guys, even to the point where threats were made to do physically impossible insertions to each other. I was cracking up during that scene, while my lady friend looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. Oh well, must be a guy thing.

Anyhow, I am glad Vince Vaughn is back to doing comedies. He is much better suited for that. Besides, an Academy Award is overrated.

Jam session

2005-07-27T07:18:00.001-07:00

Tonight, I am starting a new adventure. I am playing in a new band. Yes, this old geeky guy plays in a band. And no, I don't play accordion. I used to play in a band a couple of years back. Unfortunately, one of the guys in the band had a kid, and since we practiced at his pad, the band kind of fell apart.

Even though I haven't been playing regularly, I still write music. I like writing the music more than the lyrics, so most of the songs have catchy tunes, with bizarre words. For example, one of my songs is about my theory that you can't run very fast with a hard on. Paul Simon, watch out.

So tonight, we are going to have a little jam session. Both of the guys are guys I have played with before, so we know each other. But the three of us have never played together all at once. It should be interesting. If nothing else, my bass skills should start getting better once I start playing regularly.

Oh, and for the record, the hobbit showed up at 11:30 yesterday.

The Hobbit Update

2005-07-26T07:51:00.002-07:00

Remember the hobbit? I posted about him here, here, and here. So far my attempts to get him fired have been fruitless. I am convinced he has pictures of someone important in a compromising position.

He has been told constantly about his late arrivals. We now have a policy that everyone has to be in by 10:00. Why? Because he never comes in until the afternoon. This policy has been in effect for about a month. During that time, he has come in before 10:00 twice. Twice! That is it.

My director had a talk with him last week, telling him to get it together. So take a guess what time he shows up, the first day after being talked to? 10:42. My boss is the biggest pussy in the world. He won't fire him, and the hobbit knows this.

Consider the fact that the hobbit is also the most annoying fuck on the planet, asks questions about EVERYTHING, and is worthless, and you can understand why I want him fired. The questions thing has become a running joke around the office. He asks questions that don't need to be asked. He is the true antithesis of the statement, "There is no such thing as a stupid question."

Just yesterday, I overheard this conversation between him and one of our co-workers.
Hobbit: I am going to Office Max, does anyone need anything?
Co-Worker: Could you pick up a couple of rolls of tape?
H: Scotch tape or packing tape?
CW: Now when have you ever seen me use packing tape?
H: How many do you need?
CW: (getting frustrated) Let's see, last time I checked, a couple meant two.
H: Do you want the dispensers, or just the refills?
CW: Shut the fuck up Bilbo, and just get me the goddamned tape!

Multiply this conversation about 100 times per day, and you will understand why we have such a short fuse with him.

I am keeping a spreadsheet on what time he shows up since he had his talk. At this point, I don't care if it makes me a snitch. I want him gone.

Blogs I Hate

2005-07-25T07:48:00.003-07:00

From time to time, I like to use the "NEXT BLOG" button on the upper right and just go surfing away. I am hoping to find blogs I will add to my esteemed "Other Blogs I Like" list, but I usually find just a bunch of crap. So for the truckloads of people out there who are dying to make this list, let me give you some hints on what irritates the shit out of me with certain blogs.

1. Changing the cursor. This shouldn't bother me so much, but it does. What is wrong with the little arrow?

2. Those stupid message boxes. This is just retarded. I remember a website someone sent me to once that you had to click the message box about a hundred times. Now, even once, and I am looking for a flamethrower. If the message is so important, make it the title of your blog.

3. Blogs that play music. This might not be so bad, except the type of people that do this are the type of people that use the theme song to the Smurfs, or a crappy MIDI of The Cure as their music.

4. Blogs that are just advertisements. Which is about 80% of the blogs on Blogger. Do these things work? I find that hard to believe.

5. blogz that think they rool This drives me nuts. No caps, purposefully misspelled words. Shut the fuck up you l33t motherfuckers. I know this makes me sound like an uncool old guy, but I AM an uncool old guy, so fuck you.

6. Dark text on a black background. I know, I know, you are just showing your uniqueness. Your individuality. Whatever. I could shit in the middle of my living room. That's unique, but it doesn't mean you should do it.

7. Blogs that are just link lists. Once again, this probably wouldn't be so bad, if the links were interesting. But no, the links are generally to Yahoo news stories. Try telling me something I don't know. Maybe a link to, I don't know, I site I never heard of. Hint: I know about Google as well.

8. Whiny, depressing, "the whole world hates me" blogs. You know the type. These are the ones usually written by 13 year old girls, moping about some guy who doesn't even know they exist. These usually go hand-in-hand with numbers 1, 2, 3, and 6.

I am sure there are many, many more, but these are the ones that popped into my head. And I am sure there are things about my blog that annoy the piss out of people. Heck, there are things about my blog that annoy the piss out of ME! If I knew how to change it, I would, but I am HTML illiterate.

Giveaway night at the ol' ballpark.

2005-07-04T09:10:00.001-07:00

One of the conditions of my divorce is that my ex and I split which person has the girls on each of the holidays. In other words, she gets to have the girls this year for 4th of July. However, it was my normal weekend this weekend, so I had a plan. We have a local AAA baseball team here. They don't play tonight, but they played last night. Every year, they have a big 4th of July night (this year being on the 3rd), where they have a big fireworks show at the end of the game. It is one of the better places in town to watch fireworks. Every year for as long as I can remember, I have taken my daughters to the ballpark to watch the fireworks display. They love it, and so do I.

We went to the game last night. For whatever reason, I decided to buy a program. This was strange, because of the probably 50 times I have been to this ballpark, I never bought a program. There has been a lot of movement of players between the AAA club and the major league club, so I just wanted to see what the current roster was.

I was leafing through the program, when I noticed this...

There was a player's autograph on the ad. I got excited, because about three times per game, they announce "Turn to page so-and-so in your program. If you have so-and-so's autograph on the whatever ad, you win!" However, it being a Rooter King ad, I was a little wary about what the prize would be. I figured it would be some sort of a gift certificate to get work done. While maybe not the ideal prize, I suppose I could use some work. One of my toilets has been a little sluggish lately, so it wouldn't be a total waste.

Sure enough, in the fifth inning, they called out my ad. My youngest daughter and I excitedly went to guest relations to claim our prize. I felt like the dad in The Christmas Story, waiting to see what the fantastic prize was. Then, the lady gave me my prize. Here it is, in all its glory...

That's right, I was the proud winner of a plunger. Not just any plunger, a Rooter King plunger. I walked back disappointed to my seat. I finally win something, and it was a freakin' plunger. (Side note: The blogger spell checker wanted to replace freakin' with foreskin. I found the thought of a foreskin plunger very funny. Yes, I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old. Sue me). The people around me thought this was the funniest thing ever. It did, however, have that nice new plunger smell. Which I can assure you is MUCH better than used plunger smell.

Fast forward to late in the game. The home team was losing by three. They weren't hitting the ball at all. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It was at that point that I had a stroke of genius. Yes, it was time to bring out...

THE RALLY PLUNGER!!

I grabbed the plunger, and began to wave it around, cheering loudly. Everyone around me thought that I had lost my mind. My oldest daughter was predictably mortified, while my youngest thought it was kind of funny.

But strange things started happening. The first batter walked. Then the second batter got a hit, advancing the runner to third. I started making more noise, and waving my plunger around. Then, the next batter hit a pop up a mile high. I was jumping around, waving my plunger at the second baseman, making what can best be described as plunging sounds.

He dropped it!

Now everyone in my section was taking notice of the rally plunger. That ball never gets dropped. Never. Bases were loaded with no outs. Others around me were telling me to keeping plunging. The next batter gets a hit. Two runs score. We are now down by one, with runners on first and third, and nobody out. The other team changes pitchers. At this point, I have made my entire section believers in the power of the rally plunger. The stadium organ would play the CHARGE song, only we would all shout PLUNGE! And no, I wasn't drinking. I can't speak for the rest of the section, though.

The next batter hit into a double play, which wasn't good, but the runner on third scored, tying the game. Two outs, nobody on base. The crowd was going wild, at the nice comeback. Our section was going even wilder, due to the absurdity of the rally plunger.

At this point, I had an interesting conversation. A guy walking by sees my waving the plunger, generally going nuts. The conversation went like this...

Guy: What is that?
Me: It's a plunger.
(pause)
Guy: You brought a plunger to a baseball game?
Me: No, I won it.
(longer pause)
Guy (incredulously): You WON a plunger at a baseball game?
Me: Hey, I don't pick the prizes, I just win 'em!

The next batter comes up, and cranks it over the left field wall. Game over, comeback complete. The fans in my section all wanted to touch the magical rally plunger, but I kept it safe. Like King Arthur and Excaliber, only I could harness the powers within the rally plunger. In the wrong hands, it could be used for the powers of evil. However, unlike Excaliber, it doesn't have a catchy name. I might have to work on that one.

Umpires don't have a sense of humor

2005-06-29T18:09:00.001-07:00

Nothing much new to post. We had the all-star tournament last weekend. Unfortunately, our team got smoked. Even more unfortunately, it wasn't a surprise. However, I did almost get tossed out of the game. We were down to our last batter, and losing 6-0. We had runners on 1st and 3rd. The other team had their closer in, and she was throwing harder than I can. Remember, these are eight year olds.

The pitcher threw a bullet inside, and my girl jumped back to get away. No such luck, she got absolutely drilled. The runner on first started trotting to second, and the batter starts trying to walk it off. Then the ump calls time, and sends the runner back to first. I go out there to find out what is going on, and he tells me she didn't make an effort to get out of the way.

I had a few issues earlier in the game with this ump's calls, but nothing major. This time, I blew a gasket. I was all over him. I won't go into great detail, but he just kept saying "She didn't make an effort to get out of the way" to everything I said. Which was bullshit, but he was sticking to his story.

Finally, one of the other coaches came out and told me to let it go. So I went back in the dugout, and was still steaming. The very next pitch, she cranked it down the left field line. A big puff of chalk went up when the ball hit the ground, and we avoided the shutout. Or so I thought.

I see the ump waving his hands, and yelling "Foul Ball!!" I was already upset, and this pushed me over the edge. I didn't cuss, and I didn't get physical, but for the first time in my life, I questioned an ump's integrity to his face. I was absolutely furious. At this point, I was trying to get tossed. I told him real loud so everyone in the crowd could hear, "Let me guess, the ball hit the line, but since the line didn't make an effort to get out of the way, it doesn't count." Everyone in the crowd started laughing, and our side of the crowd started cheering. This must have embarrassed him, because then he told me, "One more word, and I will toss you." Since I was trying to get the boot, I had to reply to that. I asked, "What, you are going to toss me because of your own incompetence?" He was gutless, and wouldn't toss me out. She ended up striking out on the next pitch.

On brighter news, I got a new tattoo on Monday. It turned out pretty good. It is Chinese characters, and I am not saying what it means. If I wanted everyone to know, I would have printed it in English.

I've got Pabst Blue Ribbon on my mind

2005-06-13T22:15:00.001-07:00

OK, I am hoping someone out there in blogland can help me out. Here is the story.

My lady friend and I went to see Whiskey Bitch on Saturday night. By the way, they are playing their last show ever in Phoenix this weekend before they break up. If you like old fashioned ass kicking punk/metal, I would go check them out. Anyhow, at the bar, it was pretty crowded. I looked over, and noticed some guy was drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I was drinking Bass, which is my normal beer of choice. Yes, I am a bit of a beer snob. Sue me. It wasn't always that way though. I was poor, and used to drink the poor man's beer. You know, Milwaukee's Best, and that sort of stuff. However, even when I was poor, or desparate, or both, nobody I knew would be caught dead with PBR. It was the old man, white trash, redneck beer.

I was chuckling to myself that someone was drinking it. Then, as I was looking around, I saw more people had it. And as the place filled up, more and more people were drinking it. I am guessing close to half the bar was drinking that crap. I was absolutely stunned.

Either one of two things happened. It was on sale for about a dime a can, or everyone is in on the joke but me. When did Pabst become popular? Am I missing something here? I was telling one of the guys I hang with about it, and he is telling me that white trash is in right now. Is this true?

I have discovered what Hell will be like

2005-06-09T21:09:00.001-07:00

I don't worry about cold and flu season. I never get sick during that time. However, beautiful sunny weather, no sickness in sight, and I am in trouble. Somehow I managed to get the flu. Combine fluids coming out of both ends with a stuffed up head, and misery ensues. Then, for good measure, I managed to fuck up my back again. Puking with a bad back is definitely what Hell is all about.

After the debacle to see Troy's Bucket last week, my lady friend and I were going to go see Tucson's farewell performance of Whiskey Bitch this weekend. But I better get well quick for that to happen. I am hoping I turned the corner today.

The whole damn world is against me

2005-06-04T08:31:00.001-07:00

Last night had the makings of an epic night. I was going out to dinner with my lady friend, then we were going to head over to a club to catch Troy's Bucket, then to her place, and whatever happens, happens. I mentioned Troy's Bucket in an earlier post, and this was going to be my first chance to see them since then, and I was really looking forward to it.

We get to the restaurant, which is pretty close to the club. I saw a whole slew of police cars up the street, so there was obviously an accident. However, it was still a little ways before the show, so I didn't think too much of it. How wrong I was. We came out of the restaurant, and the road was still blocked off. She knew a back way to get to the club, so off we went.

The back way was blocked as well. So was the side way, the up way, and I am sure if there was an underground tunnel, it would have been blocked as well. I went to find a number for the club, to see what was going on. It turns out that there was an accident, and some guy crashed into a power line, and took out power to the area. The club was part of that area, and so there would be no show.

I was pretty bummed out by that, but we decided to try and make the best out of a bad situation. We decided to go to her place and fool around a bit. However, about two minutes after we get there, her son comes home. He was supposed to be at work all night, so this was a pleasant surprise. Of course, he decides he is just going to hang out there all night instead. Now I am starting to get pissed.

We decided to grab a Tucson Weekly to see if any other places had any good bands playing. Saturday, there were tons. Friday, pretty much just the show we wanted to go to. As an added bonus, there was a little article about one of the other local bands I really like, Whiskey Bitch, who is breaking up and playing their last show in Tucson next weekend.

Plan D involves renting a movie. We go to get one, and now we can't agree on anything. I want to get some goofy comedy, she wants a chick flick, and things are spiraling out of control. Finally, she recommends getting "Without A Paddle", which looks like a comedy, and I am tired of being there, so I agree to it.

She tells me there is no soda in the house. For the record, I am a Dr. Pepper fiend. This stuff is liquid crack to me. I can't get enough of it. So we hit the convinience store on the way home to get some. Can you believe that they were out of Dr. Pepper? I was speechless.

To cap off my wonderful evening, "Without a Paddle" sucked so much ass, I think there was bits of colon stuck in its teeth. We didn't even make it through the movie.

New blog name, at last!

2005-06-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

Add a couple of words, shift the order around a bit, and presto! A new blog name. As many times as life pisses on you, this kinda makes sense. Or not, I'm not sure. If I ever learn anything at all about HTML, hopefully this blog can be a little less generic.

The story behind the umbrella

2005-06-01T22:23:00.003-07:00

I just realized, I promised a long time ago to tell the story of Umbrella. Keep in mind that it is pretty retarded, and I think it is a "you had to be there" moment.

Waaaaay back in the day, when I was a young and somewhat wild and rebellious lad, my ex-wife had a fairly important party she had to attend for work. All of the bigwigs from her work were there. I hate bigwigs. A bunch of dorks standing around thinking they are God's gift to women because they are rich, telling stupid jokes, and generally getting on my nerves. I tried like hell to get out of it, but trying to give all of the potential babysitters polio didn't work. Damn vaccines.

Plan B involved getting drunk to the gills to dull the pain. However, when I am drunk, I tend to get... well let's call it brutally honest. In other words, I would be asking her boss if he ever used that tooth of his that stuck out sideways as a can opener. She quickly informed me that my alcohol intake was going to be monitored closely. Great, so I was going to be bored and sober.

We went to this party, and it turned out I knew very few people there. I am generally pretty quiet when around people I don't know. Combine this with the fact that when I do talk, I am pretty blunt and crass, and I was told to be on my best behavior. A recipe for a miserable evening. I basically just leaned up against a wall and didn't say anything all night.

My ex was drinking, so pretty soon I was being scolded for not mingling enough. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. So I started hanging on the outside of conversations. I soon found out that I was the only one there who was probably legal to drive, which was pissing me off even more.

There was one small group of people talking that didn't look like they were total losers, so I wandered over and began listening in. Turns out, they were fairly drunk, and were talking about sex. More specifically, the wierdest stuff they had done. I think the question was what was the kinkiest thing you ever did. Now this was something I could probably get into.

Unfortunately, most of this stuff was lame. They were talking about doing it in a car, doing it in their parents bed, stuff like that. One girl mentioned that she once had sex in a closet. I must have been making faces that showed how weak I thought this was, because she looked at me and asked, "Don't you think having sex in a closet is kinky?" I answered, "I suppose it depends on whether or not you keep your umbrella in there." She got kind of flustered, and everyone else started laughing. From that point on, much to my ex's chagrin, I was always known as the umbrella guy to all of her work.

So no groundbreaking stuff, like I invented the self-drying umbrella, or anything like that. And in the early days where most people used screen names like BobR123, Umbrella was a little different. So that has been my internet identity ever since.

The dumbest waitress ever

2005-05-26T22:01:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. My boss has been on vacation, and I have had to run the show. Plus, I have been working overtime trying to get the hobbit fired. So far, no luck. Add to that the fact that my daughter made all-stars in softball, and I was named a coach, and there is absolutely no free time in my life right now. I know, cry me a fucking river.

Today, I had an experience that I just had to share. I do believe I may have found one of the dumbest waitresses in America. This is one of those restaurants where you pay at the counter, then they bring your food out. My total was $8.06. I had a ten dollar bill, and didn't want all that change. Unfortunately, I didn't have a nickel, so I gave her a dime and a penny. She was absolutely lost. I finally told her the change just to get the line moving.

My two buddies and I go sit down and wait for our food. After a few minutes, she comes out with a tray with our sandwiches. There were only about 6 tables with people at it, and we were the only ones without food. That didn't prevent the confusion. She ended up going to some other table where two guys were sitting. I couldn't hear the conversation, but obviously they were trying to tell her that it wasn't their order. I think the fact that there were three sandwiches on the tray for two people might have clued her in. Either that, or maybe the fact that the two guys were already eating might have helped.

The best was yet to come. My friend finally yelled out to her to come over. She sees us, and heads over. My buddy and I both got a French dip, while the other guy got something else. She gives us the sandwiches, and tells us the turkey club is on its way. We all had sandwiches, and tried to tell her we didn't order a turkey club. She gets confused, and then asks if these are our coffees. Now it was our turn to be confused, until I realized she was talking about the little bowls of au jus for the French dips. I told her that wasn't coffee, it was for the French dips. At this point, she gets all indignant, and says "Well, I think I would know coffee if I saw it." I said, "Yeah, you would think," and just told her they were ours.

Normally, I wouldn't make fun of the stupid. OK, yes I would, but at least I would feel bad about it. However, when you get all bitchy about it, when you are an obvious dumbass, then all bets are off. At this point, we start asking for cream and sugar for the coffee, asking if we can get free refills, wondering where the handles on the coffee cups were, that sort of thing. I have a feeling she won't be lasting long at that place.

No Internet!

2005-05-11T06:41:00.001-07:00

The hobbit at work has cost us all internet access. He spent most of the day doing day trading, so now we all get to pay. My infrequent updates will be getting more infrequent. Why can't we just fire the choad?

Mothers and Daughters

2005-05-05T07:04:00.002-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posting. It has been an interesting week, to say the least.

I got a call from my teenaged daughter the other day. She was asking if she could spend the night at my house. I told her sure, and asked what was up. She told me she was at a friend's house in my neighborhood, and just wanted to crash here. I told her it was OK with me, as long as it was OK with her mom. She assured me it was.

About 15 minutes later, I get a call from my ex. She was absolutely livid. She was carrying on about some tile or something, and how she gets no respect from her kids, and they walk all over her, and blah-de-dah. She had a weird relationship with her mother. They were best friends. Heck, her mom was the maid of honor at our wedding, if that gives you any idea. She always thought that was the norm, and would get mad at me when I told her that nobody else in the world is that way. Bottom line, she feels like she and her daughters should be buddies. Gee, I wonder why her kids don't respect her. She always does whatever the kids want, and then I was always the disciplinarian. Lucky me. So while she was going on and on with her rant, I just wanted to say "Maybe if you spent more time trying to be their parent then their best friend, they would respect you more," but I bit my tongue.

Whatever it is my daughter did not only got her KFMA ticket thrown away (KFMA day is a giant day-long concert), but it got her thrown out of the house. So she has been staying with me. From a selfish standpoint, it has been great. My oldest and I get along really well. She has been helping me around the house, and it is nice to have some company. However, I need to find out what is going on.

Last night, after dinner, I ask her what the deal is with her and her mom. She insists she doesn't know. All she knows is that her mom is furious with her, and she has no clue why. I was married to that woman for 13 years. There has been more than one occasion I was sleeping on the couch, and didn't have any idea why I was in trouble. So it is entirely feasible that my daughter doesn't know what she did wrong.

She has a dentist appointment today. Her mom is taking her. This will be the first time they have talked since the blowup. I told my daughter to find out why she is in trouble, and that it is her responsibility to correct the problem. And maybe, if she does, she might get to go to the concert after all, but don't count on it. We'll see what happens.

What is the deal with mothers and daughters? I grew up with all boys in my family, and I don't remember all this drama. Oh well, I only have about 4-5 more years of this, then I get to go through it with my younger daughter. Woohoo. Still, it feels good to know that she is still willing to come to me when she has problems. I hope that continues.

This concludes the Dr. Phil segment of my blog. We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

A Nation of Millions

2005-04-28T12:13:00.001-07:00

I went to Zia's at lunch yesterday. For those that don't know, Zia's is a music store that trades albums, and you can find some obscure stuff pretty cheap. I decided to check out the bargain bin, and see if anything good was in there. I came across a new copy of Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back".

As a white kid growing up in Phoenix, I didn't have a lot of exposure to rap. However, when I joined the navy, my company in boot camp had about 20 guys from New York City, the birthplace of hip hop. I immediately became enthralled with their rapping and beat boxing.

The first two rap albums I ever really listened to were "Paid in Full", and "It Takes a Nation of Millions". So to see it in the bargain bin in part was nostalgic, and in part really pissed me off. I mean, how is one of the most influencial albums of all time sitting on the same level as "Elmo's Christmas"?

I ended up buying it with damn near pocket change. I listened to it all night, and had forgotten how much I enjoyed that album. It reminds me of that angry young man who wanted to change the world in what seems like a different lifetime. I think tomorrow I am going to go look for "Paid in Full".

Nothing new

2005-04-26T09:22:00.000-07:00

There has been a lack of updates because life has been incredibly uninteresting. I know, that is nothing new. Although I did get my redneck on, and went to a demolition derby at the county fair this weekend. Oh, and Cheap Trick was there. I don't know which surprised me more, the fact that they are still touring, the fact that they have a new album coming out, or the fact that they still have all of their original members.

Water balloon warfare in the 21st century

2005-04-21T10:25:00.002-07:00

I coach girls softball. I have done it for 9 years. Growing up as a jock, I always envisioned having the superstar son, and all that. Cut ahead, and two daughters later, that obviously didn't happen. However, I still have a huge love of sports, and both of my daughters enjoyed softball. So here I am.

As Tom Hanks can testify, coaching girls is quite a bit different than boys. For example, screaming "Grow a set of balls!" doesn't work as well. But I am getting off topic.

It has been really hot here, and we are at about the mid-season point, so I decided to shake things up at practice last night. I decided to make a bunch of water balloons, and have a giant water balloon fight. I figured it would be fun, and loosely could justify it by saying it was a throwing/running drill. On paper, it was a great idea.

I ended up leaving work early yesterday to go home and make the balloons. I haven't done this since I was a kid. Either my technique sucks now, or the balloons have gotten worse. After a half hour, I had a total of two balloons, and was completely soaked. I guess I was overfilling them, because they were exploding all over the place.

Being a reasonably intelligent person, I decided not to fill them as much. This seemed to work. After about an hour and a half or so, I had a couple of coolers filled with water balloons. At least 300 balloons, I am guessing. I was ready to rock.

What I hadn't counted on is how heavy a cooler full of water balloons is. I am not a weak man, but damn if those didn't weigh a ton! So I am grunting and groaning trying to carry them from the back yard out to the van. Then, when I got to the practice field, it was even a longer haul. By the time I carried both coolers out there, I was half dead.

The girls show up, and see the two coolers and are intrigued. Me, being the sneaky and somewhat evil type that I am, invited them to come over and see what was inside. When they came over, I completely ambushed them by firing about three balloons in rapid succession. However, in my attempts to not have the balloons explode while filling, I erred too far in the other direction, and didn't fill them enough.

Unfortunately, my accuracy is still pretty good, and all three balloons hit their intended targets. None of them exploded on impact though, and so I had knocked three girls over. One had the wind knocked out of her, and the other two were rubbing their heads. The initial excited looks on the girls were quickly replaced by a "This guy is fucking crazy" look. I decided I had better not throw any more balloons, and just let them have their fun.

For the record, between bending over for two hours filling balloons, and lugging those damn coolers around, my back has decided to check out for the day. I can barely move. Getting old really sucks.

A new kind of pain

2005-04-19T08:19:00.001-07:00

I had to come in to work pretty early this morning for a meeting involving Italy. Damn time zones. I was half asleep, on cup of coffee #1, and generally an unhappy camper. I decided to get a good stretch in before getting down to business. However, one of my armpit hairs somehow got caught in my shirt. As I raised my arms for that cleansing stretch, a pain shot through me as the hair must have just been plucked right out. I gave out a little yelp, and jerked my arms down. Everyone in the conference room just stared at me like I was insane. I started to explain what happened, but decided it just wasn't worth it. How the hell do you get an armpit hair caught in a shirt? It's not like I have snaps in the pits, or anything like that.

Anniversaries are overrated

2005-04-17T22:19:00.003-07:00

I went out to club crawl last night with my lady friend. (Side Note: If you get a chance to catch Troy's Bucket, do it! Those guys rocked!) Anyhow, she ended up staying the night at my place. So this morning, I was awoken by her, serving me champagne and chocolate covered strawberries in bed. Of course, I am thinking that I must have completely rocked her world last night. Like an idiot, I asked what the special occasion was. Big, big mistake.

It turns out today was the one year anniversary of the first time we ever went out. I can barely remember when my birthday is, much less this. Needless to say, she wasn't real thrilled that I didn't remember. So the question is, am I a schmuck for not knowing this? I mean seriously, how many people know the exact date of the first time they ever went out?

I couldn't think of a real graceful save from this one, but I went with "A year?!? That's not possible. It feels like we just met." I don't think that worked too well, so I went to plan B, and took her out to a fancy dinner tonight. She seemed pretty happy when I took her home, so I think I may be off the hook. So I guess I better remember today. What's the date again?

Back from the abyss

2005-04-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

I have survived my business trip, although my sleep schedule is completely screwed right now. Tonight, I am going out partying with my lady friend. Should be fun.

As for the blog name update, I am still deciding. Nothing jumps out as the one, although I have to admit "My umbrella, your vagina" made me laugh aloud.

New blog name update

2005-04-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

I am back from the cruise. It actually was pretty fun. My mom and I decided that we would each do our own thing, and so I barely saw her, except for dinners. No gin, but I had some really good tequila in Ensenada, and many many beers.

It turns out that I have a business trip to go on next week, so I have two days at home. Lucky me. So that means I will have another week to get blog name requests. The leading candidate right now is The Umbrella Corporation.

And Mike, when I get back from Northern California, I'll tell the story of Umbrella. It's not great, but then again, many nickname stories are pretty stupid.

My blog name needs work

2005-04-01T14:30:00.002-07:00

Somehow, it slipped out at work that I was going on the cruise with my mom. Hoooo boy. Talk about throwing meat to the lions. At this point, I think I have heard every Oedipus and/or incest joke in the book.

So I am hiding in my cubicle, surfing. Screw it, it's Friday, and I have worked almost 60 hours this week. I decided to google "Under the Umbrella", just to see what I would find. The results were not very good.

First off, there is an actual site with a URL of Under the Umbrella. They sell vases that you put under those outdoor lawn table umbrellas. There were also a few blogs with that in their title. Most of these were the types of blogs that feature bad poetry written by depressed teenage girls. Between seeing this, and being harassed by my coworkers for the last half hour, I feel like my manhood is slipping away.

So here is my challenge. I need to come up with a new blog name. My nickname is Umbrella, and that isn't going to change. Maybe I'll tell that story on a later date. But I would like to keep the umbrella concept in there, with a more manly and/or humorous approach. Under the Umbrella was something I just came up with off the top of my head, and the more I think about it, the worse it sounds. So all of my loyal readers, who have been here the whole day of this blog's existence, submit any ideas!

Gin, beer, and other painkillers

2005-04-01T13:31:00.002-07:00

I received my first comment (woo phraink!), and I was going to respond in the comment section, but decided to milk another post out of it. The comment offered advice to deal with my mom on the cruise by drinking heavily, preferably gin. Not bad advice, and honestly, that was my Plan B. Well, all except the gin part.

You see, I really hate gin. I never really liked the taste of it, but I don't think that is the big issue. Heck, I hated the taste of beer initially, and now I am in the running for a lifetime achievement award at a local brew pub. No, my problems with gin are more deep seeded than that. I joined the navy as a very young lad. During that time, we did the stereotype sailor thing, go drinking every weekend. One of my buddies was a gin and tonic man. But to use an old phrase, "He loved gin, but gin didn't love him".

Gin would mess with his gastro-intestinal system something fierce. I didn't have to go out with him to know what he was drinking the night before. Right around 10:00 the next morning, his bowels would trumpet with the announcement of the previous nights drink of choice. In other words, this guy had the worst gin farts in history. They were BAD! Clear the room bad. Noxious cloud of haze bad. Couldn't stand his own bad. Bad.

So I stay away from gin. Even someone suggesting playing a quick game of gin rummy send my thoughts back to that guy and his rancid gas. I would much rather stick with tequila. Mmmmm, now we're talking!

The bowl is washed

2005-04-01T09:00:00.002-07:00

I forgot to bring my camera in to work. Just as well, because the bowl was washed. However, I think the coffee stained it, because there is a gross brown ring around the perimeter. I still need to get a picture of the hobbit hole, just to show how much food he has in there. I don't think people would believe it unless they saw it.

And just to show how much of a loser I am, I am going on a cruise next week. That's not the loser part. My lady friend was supposed to go with me, but her boss nixed that idea at the last minute. I tried to get the dates changed, but it was waaaaay too late in the game for that. So I had to use the 2nd ticket, or eat the cost. The only person I know that could go on short notice...my mom. Yep, I am taking a cruise with my mom. What a dork. Oh well, she thinks I am the greatest thing since sliced bread right now. But the thing is, if I spend more than about 3 hours straight with her, we end up fighting. I have a feeling I will be spending a lot of time in the shipboard casino.

I think I found my purpose here!

2005-03-31T14:28:00.001-07:00

This blog will be used to let me vent about the injustices of the world. You know, famine, acts of aggression, poverty. Just kidding, I want to bitch about my coworkers.

We have a guy here. He's pretty short, about 5'4", pretty hairy, and has a rather large protruding forehead. Naturally, we call him Bilbo or Frodo, depending on our mood. This guy could very well be the most annoying guy on the planet. Anyhow, he keeps more food in his cubicle than most restaurants. Seriously, this guy is ready for the apocalypse.

He usually eats a can of soup for lunch out of his stash. We have a small kitchen in our breakroom, and he always leaves his damn dishes in the sink!! This absolutely drives me, and most of my coworkers, insane. Monday night, as I was leaving, I was rinsing out the coffee pots, when I saw his bowl in there. I have asked him numerous times to please not leave his dirty dishes in there. So, acting like the 12 year old I can be sometimes, I dumped all the coffee in his bowl.

My coworkers thought this was pretty funny, as they can't stand him either. However, today (Thursday) I go in the break room to get some water, and his stupid coffee filled bowl is still in there! And trust me, it is looking nasty. I think I might bring my camera in to work tomorrow, and take a picture of it, as evidence.

First Post

2005-03-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

On to create my blog. I will be using this to share the ramblings of a middle aged divorced father of two. I've never done this before, so this will be a bit of an experiment. I have no idea where I will go with this.