CB’s House of Porn and Pancakes

So today I read this article about the free agents out there, there is a blurb on Looper who has been very servicable with the Cardinals these past years, especially in the rotation.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/9176710/

Well apparently the Cardinals aren’t interested in him for the reason they are out of money. I’m wondering why they are out of money. A little while ago they went on and on how there’s plenty of money freed up and off the books now that Mulder and Edmonds are done. It’s not like they had any major signings this year. There weren’t any high caliber players like Fuentes or Ramirez added to the team. Instead we have Green, who I admit has a lot of upside, but then we have a left handed pitcher for the bullpen that gets killed by left handed batters and a couple of other unmentionables. Granted Ankiel and Ludwick are going to get deservably paid. But we have Duncan for fuck’s sake! The guy that is worse in the outfield than I! I was the kid that was out in right field that paid more attention to planes flying overhead and birds soaring around than the game itself. (I told you I was a born spectator) I just hope Rosenthal is wrong about this. But if he isn’t, then here’s what I have to say to the Cardinals:

So I have Exercise Induced Bronchial Spasms, for this I use a rescue inhaler in case an attack sets in. I was diagnosed with this condition about 20 or so years ago. For that time the inhaler has done it’s trick, usually take it usually 20 minutes before I work out, etc. Well they changed the inhaler propellant to make it “more environmentally friendly” but honestly a cow fart does more damage to the ozone than my inhaler and I think my lungs are a little more important. I noticed the change the first time I used it, the change I noticed was a full on attack setting in. In the past when that happened, I would take the inhaler and it would clear within seconds, now it takes minutes. On top of that, inhalers went from being $10 to some are about $100, depending on your insurance. So now I have to adjust how many puffs I need to take to prevent an attack from happening. So, with all of that, I would like to show my thanks

So I’ve been on hideous since October, call it taking a break, call it being lazy or maybe I had a helmet on hiding from whatever ‘07 decided to throw at me…… Let’s take a look back at a year that I will always fondly look back and want to shoot the bird at………

Jan

- It started out so great, a busted NYE trip to Big D was salvaged with going to Mandarin, kissing the Playmate of the Year from 1986 at midnight, yup I was 11 when she posed, ole!

Feb

- February brought Back to the Cause 80’s Trivia night, my brother Pat threw down the gauntlet saying he was going to beat our table, we took first!

- I buy my first gun, a Ruger .22 Pistol and join the NRA
March

- Literally the next day I was in hell, literally as a water pipe in the server room burst over most of our production servers and dev servers. Worst case scenerio I’ve ever run across. Lots of cursing , sleep deprivation and a great team effort, we pulled through and was able to keep the company functioning. That week was a lot of stress, but then as everything stabilized, I was able to go on my trip I had planned weeks before, went to Florida to visit my parents in Florida and catch the Cards/Twins Spring Training game in Ft Meyers. As I sat in my seat before the game started, it sank in, I could unplug, I couldn’t be called into work, the weight of the world lifted off me. I spent a week doiwn there, helped me regain my sanity. The return trip home was a punch in the face back to reality as thanks to US Airways, I spent the night on Charolette, NC’s airport. Sad commentary, the Starbucks was more organized than they were. I missed a friend’s wedding the next day, but hey, US Airways sent me a letter to make amends, $25 voucher for my next flight with them, yeah, it’s still posted on my refrig with the letter, no plans on using that anytime soon…..

April

- Opening Day rolls around, I go to the first 2 games, the Cards get shelled and do not look like the defending World Champions. It’s ok, baseball is here and I’ve got all sorts of collectible stuff (a schedule refrig magnet from opening day and a replica WS ring) The first 12 games I go to, the Cards don’t win, Mulder blows out his shoulder and is done at one of the games I attended. When I don’t go, they win, I’m starting to get a complex……

- I saw my buddy I had been sponsoring into the Catholic Church be baptized and get his First Communion to become a full Catholic

- My bday rolls around, it’s the Shaq year! Good times had by all as the Birthday Week Celebrations carry on another year….

May

- Cardinals are in a tail spin and my brother in law side swipes my car, I don’t know which is worse…….
June

- The company I had worked with for over 4 yrs, decides they want to make a change and let me go. Thanks again for the paid vacation
- Cards can’t decide if they want to win or lose as injuries keep piling up

July

- We do a party at the Top of the Met to watch the fireworks at well, eye level. This is literally 3 days after my firing, it’s open bar, wasn’t driving, so I indulge in the open bar. Drinking double and seeing triple, I had a fun night!
- Start the interview process, have an interview mid month with a company that would become my next job, a company called Lexiter Technologies, they are part of Software Plus, a big, $300 million company. I went in for the initial interview, it was supposed to be 30 minutes but ended up being 2 hrs. I left, the interviewer said he’d be in touch in about 2 weeks and said “Hope you are still available”

- Spend a lot of time at the range when I’m not doing contract work for AJ or interviewing. AJ has me going to prisons to fix machines that update prisoner records

- Road tripped to Memphis for Sleazy’s bachelor party

August

- Get a call from Lexiter, they want a second interview. Have a second interview also with Bunzl. Then I’m off to Big D. Lexiter called with a verbal offer when I was at a Gentleman’s Club…… So I let it go to vmail and called the next day…..

- Started at Lexiter, was doing internal infrastructure stuff for their corporate network and datacenter, backing up their NOC Manager and was also doing external consulting

- Cards showing some life

September

- Nothing of note, got into the groove of working at Lexiter

- Football is here! Damnit Rams still suck……  Double Damnit! Raiders are still horrible also….. But I still have the Huskers, son of a…..
Oct

- Bought an AK-47

- Cards get within a 1/2 game of first and then just give up, finish 3rd for the season, Cubs get thumped in the playoffs, all is right with the world

- Bagger’s Bachelor Party

- Closed Innsbrook for the Season

- A soccer mom shears off the back of my car as I’m backing out of a parking space, the cop assigns fault to me, no ticket and I end up with a KIA rental car while mine is getting fixed. I hear God laughing at me
Nov

- Hit with I need to get my MCSE by the end of the year from my boss
- Pass first test, I’m an MCP now

Dec

- Another successful Holiday Party on Wheels, we hit F15teen and Jive and Wail, apparently Old Rock House was to cool to call me back, so we passed on going there, it’s cool, the other two bars benefited

- Get the news, Software Plus is sold, we are losing our jobs at Lexiter, God hates me

- Out of work for a day and a half, talked to two companies, got two offers, took the one that made more sense for me

- Had my first trip to Highland for Ski Cola (pretty much puts Mountain Dew to shame), Deer Sausage and Poker. Post poker we hit a couple of the local bars, word to the wise, bucket races not a good idea at 1am…….

- Worked a dinner for Lumiere Place on NYE and then went to Mad Art Gallery to meet up with friends and ring in the New Year!

All in all ‘07 was quite a roller coaster, times I ended up on my feet, other times I ended up on my face, would I change it? Probably not, would I do it again, f’ no! But it did help me grow and am a better person for going through it, just don’t want to do that again….. My goal for 2008, having one job…..
Here’s to 2008!

Sucked! David Chase you owe me an hour and five minutes…… Just because you couldn’t come up with ending you can’t take the artsy interpret your own ending…….. Ass

I wrote you earlier (see earlier post in archives), thankfully you listened a little and put an end to the Ben Aflleck/Jo Lo movies, I am forever grateful. Though for some reason you keep giving Afleck more work, please stop. Additionally I have another complaint, please don’t bill something as “The scariest movie ever made” such as you did for Hostel. I grew up with the slasher movies and most of the great horror movies. Hostel was mostly boring, I called it midway through what was going on. Where’s my gold star or cookie? It was gory, but that’s about all it had going for it. Additionally please be original, this is the summer of sequels, with the exception of only a few movies. Can you come up with something original? Thank you for not listening and over charging at the box office, you and the record industry must be best friends

So I was walking my dog tonight, ran into a guy walking a husky mix. He stopped asked if my dog was friendly I said “Yes, she loves other dogs.” He said “Same here” Keep in mind my dog plays regularly with 2 labs and a pitbull, she can rough house if need be. So she’s sniffing the other dog, her ears were relaxed, but the other dog didn’t look right, before I could pull her away, the other dog snapped, snarled and lashed out. before I could do anything, the hackles on Bailey’s back flew up and she pounced on the dog taking it to the ground, she backed off when I snapped the collar and recalled her with my voice, the guy was having trouble controlling his dog, but Bailey was out of striking distance but still lunging, snarling and snapping herself, I commanded her to stop, she stopped and her ears dropped. So I took her away, the guy was said “Sorry” I just walked away. I look up and everyone is looking at us, I’m thinking “Great, my dog looks like the A-hole, yet didn’t do anything but defend herself.” She was a little jumpy the rest of the walk, when I car door would close, she would spin around to see what that noise was……. What was interesting was the fact she’s been nipped at and bitten a few times by smaller dogs but never really did much, this dog was bigger and she went right after it, I guess she knew she had to defend herself.

This past weekend was Cards vs Cubs. Now all my Cub loving friends were touting all week about how the Cubs were going to sweep the Cards again, yada yada yada. This is also with the knowledge of Derek Lee (their offense) is out for 2 months and Z (their only other pitcher besides Maddux) was not scheduled to start…. So I went to Friday’s game, the Cardinals manhandled poor Williams who was pulled before he could bat, but when you give up 7 runs, there’s not much left to do but the crying….. And for Cub fans, that’s about all they got…… (HEY OOOOOOOOOO) First game goes to the good guys. Wasn’t at Game 2, but the good guys came from behind to win again. With that win, we took the series, with the first win we avoided a sweep. Sunday’s game, Game 3. The bad guys win. My Cub loving friends (The communist that they are!) Start to gloat about the win. Until I reminded them:

a) You can’t win when you have 3 errors

b) You can’t win when your pitcher lets up 5 hits, of those 2 are HR’s

c) We knocked you down in the standings so now you are a ½ behind us

Go Cards!

So I go up to the local Bread Co today with Cosmo Boy, we grab lunch, afterwards we run next door to grab cigars for tonight’s bachelor party (be sure to check back later for that story), after that Cosmo Boy heads home, I decide to run through the craft fair in the CWE. To say it sucked would be a compliment……. Absolutely, positively nothing of interest there….. On my way out, I got intercepted by the MOPIRG people. You know, the young idealogist that want to hug mother earth, but still cruise around in their gas guzzling cars and are just as wasteful as the rest of us….. but I digress. So this girl asks if I want to sign some petition to save the environment, yada yada yada. I politely said “No.” She asked if I cared about the environment, I said “Yes, but I don’t like/agree with your organization.” I left her stunned in her Birkenstocks………..

My hatred with MOPIRG goes back to my days at SLU, they were put on our tution bill, if you wanted to donate to them, you would check the box. I would be ok with that, but the way it was carried out was wrong, originally it said “If you care about the environment, check here.” Or it would say something like “Check here to support the environment”. So ontop of the big bill you’d get from SLU, you would get dinged for more money for MOPIRG. Thankfully that lasted 2 of the years I was at SLU and MOPIRG was thrown off the tution after the students rose up against it………

To quote the movie Friday “Are you f’n with my money???”

It’s my blog, I’m entitled to political rants periodically, this one always gets me going………

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8863425/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8871545/

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,165124,00.html

Ok, so there weren’t any woodland creatures injured in this post or over the weekend, it did sound kind of funny though……..

Friday night brought back a great time in American History, 80’s Night at ten-14, I went with some co-workers and some younger “kids” (hey, I’m 30, anyone younger is a kid to me……) It was a fun night, good music (minus the Kenny G), good people and some interesting dancing styles on the dance floor…….. It wasn’t a true 80’s night, there was some hard house and a lot of the 90’s songs mixed in. Though when Paper Boy was dropped in, that was HOT! (Go ahead and bill me Paris……..) My biggest gripe with ten-14 is service. I waited FOREVER for 2 drinks at one bar, the one bartender, she was just helping her friends and flirting with a bouncer…… The guy bartender wouldn’t only serve you if you had boobs, granted mine are only an A cup, I guess it wasn’t enough……… So I bounced over to the other bar, the guy behind the bar was on his cell phone and ignoring me……. Finally get his attention, he tells me to go to the other bar, I told him, I was waiting an insane amount of time with no luck…… He asked me what I wanted, I said ” 2 orange Grey Goose and tonics”, he said he didn’t have goose at his bar, so I pointed to the bottle and he hung up his cell phone and served me…….. Ridiculous I tell you. This isn’t an isolated incident with this place, it’s pretty much standard…….. We closed down ten-14 and headed home because Liz had to work early the next day.

Saturday brought a new round of drinking, went to Sub Zero to meet up with Amit & co for some cocktails……. About a 1000 Hangers and Tonics and there were some house shots involved…… The waitress was awesome, she gave one of the guys a “Big Girl Straw (it’s was a curly straw)” My buddy replied “Can I just have the big girl?” That brought on the laughs…….. We closed down Sub Zero and called it a night

Sunday brought on the Nectar premiere party…….. Nectar is next door to The Pepper Lounge (it’s the old rocket bar). The night was full of VIP Areas, Stoli, the roaming mad camera man, DJ Andrew Mullins on the ones and twos…. and unmarked bathrooms….. But seriously they did a good job with Nectar, completely different from Rocket Bar, very nice high end bar, my biggest gripe is the price points, $4 beer is pretty rough, it’s 16 oz, but still, this is the lou….. All in all, a great night! The bottle service helped me almost go blind from the vodka…….. Chatted it up with a girl I hadn’t seen in awhile, our group moved the after party back to the Chase were the Grey Goose flowed like water……… Around 4am, the girl I had been talking to was on her phone for a long long time………. At that point, I ran out of steam…….. I tapped out like someone caught in the Walls of Jericho………. The quote of the after party was “I’m out, I can’t compete with the 4am booty call, I’m sticking with strippers and gambling, it hasn’t misled me so far………”

And with that, I’ve spent today catching up on missed tv and generally rehydrating……… Have a happy and safe fourth!!