#31 Drooling Grimace Face

I learned something new the other day. Not sure how true it is, but seems plausible. I learned that how you sleep (physically...as in what position you sleep in) affects how well you age (physical appearance...as in how you look in your 30's, 40's 50's). Meaning: if you sleep on your stomach where your face is mashed sideways into your pillow causing 8 hours of drooling grimace face to be etched into your skin, there is a better chance of those lines becoming more and more permanent as you get older. This would explain how come the bitter beer face guy has so many lines and wrinkles in his face.

I sleep on my stomach, and I am pretty sure my face is pressed into my pillow drooling grimace style. So, I tried falling asleep on my back, with my face relaxed and smoothed as much as possible.

Not sure that it is working because I always wake up with my face mashed into my pillow. All of this to say that I am slightly concerned that I will turn into the bitter beer face guy, and I don't like it.

#30 A Date Update

Friday night L. and I accompanied Stephen and Krystal to an Italian food restaurant in Tyler called Fiore. I am sorry to report that nothing interesting or humorous occurred during the evening. We ate pasta and talked about work, movies, food, family, and all manner of other things people talk about while eating a meal. Stephen played it cool, which was smart for a first meeting. And at the end of the night he set himself up nicely for a second date...this time alone. When I know more, you will know more.

# 29 A Date

One thing married life affords me (thank god) is the fact I no longer have to date. Instead of working up the courage to ask a girl out and then trying to impressive her with my creative, seductive charm, I now only have to accompany friends and family on double dates...where I get to watch them impress girls with their creative and seductive charm. So far, my resume consists only of Britt putting the moves on a local reporter here by the name of Danielle, not to mention a couple of years back hooking him up with a young girl from the ad agency I worked at. I think I also set him up on a date with the lead singer of the band I played in. Not sure if anyone knew Tiffany had gone out with him, but she did. None of the experiences went well for him, though I got drunk and had fun all three nights.

Well, I am going on another date tomorrow night and am excited about it. My brother, Stephen, moved to Tyler and is going to meet a young woman who works at the station. I will watch closely as he molds typical conversation into humorous anecdotes, or perhaps executes a well timed wink, point and smile. I am going to sit back and drink whiskey drinks, occasionally making note of a particular gesture or phrase so that later I can say to L., "Remember when Stephen did that!"

So, everyone needs to wish Stephen luck. Not only must he meet this girl for the first time and hope to impress her, he must do these things with his goofy, inebriated, older brother watching him.

# 28 Tyler Obama Love

Here are a couple of the ridiculous things I have heard from people in Tyler recently concerning the President Elect:

* Hide your guns!
* He is going to change the American Flag and the National Anthem.
* He wants to turn our country into a socialist regime where everyone is equal, even if they are too lazy to work for themselves.
* Our terrorist enemies are going to see that he is weak and will thus attack our country within a year.

Obviously these claims are ridiculous and it is impossible to argue with people who cannot see how crazy these statements are. Politics are complex and confusing, and sometimes it is difficult to make sense of all the information fired at us. I also accept the fact that democrats are guilty of ridiculous comments too (Whoopi arguing with McCain that he is pro-slavery because he is a constitutionalist), but here in Tyler I do not hear those, so do not have examples to mention here.

At lunch on Monday three people at our table complained that Obama plans to address all of America's problems and by so doing will spread his efforts too thin to do any good. Essentially their complaint was that he wants to do too much good for our country, and he is not yet in office. I told them to give the man a chance before condemning his efforts. They froze and one of them said, "Oh my God! Did you vote for Obama?!"

The entire table (14 people) stopped talking and looked at me. I explained that the odds were unfair for a political discussion, but that I did in fact vote for Obama. So many people at the table started yelling at me from different angles that I could not defend myself. I took it all in and wondered how so many people could be so against something that would help them. The people yelling at me, except 1, make less than $50,000 a year and have chilren. They would benefit from tax breaks to the middle class and their children would benefit from new schools and hospitals. Yet they claimed that all of their money was going to be taken from them and given to bums too lazy to work for themselves.

I explained that Obama is not in favor of increasing taxes so that he can give free money to bums. They shook their heads and told me that is what socialism is: taking money from the hard working people and giving it to the lazy people. I told them that Obama is not in favor of socialism and they laughed at me. They called me brainwashed by the Democratic machine.

Only 1 person at the table made sense. He was the one who makes 6 figures. He said, "Hardy, one of these days you are going to be making a lot of money and you will not want the government to tax you extra."

This is at the heart of all the issues. People who make a lot of money do not want anymore taxed from them. I get that. But there are changes that need to be made. The longer things are ignored or kept at status quo, the more difficult it will be to fix them. And no matter how many problems we have, I would rather our president hope to fix them all and run the risk of spreading his efforts too thin, than have a president who does not attempt at all.

Sorry for the rant, even though this one is pretty harmless.

My husband's true love

# 27 The Coolest Superhero

Dorky people argue endlessly about which of the many superheroes is the coolest. Superman can fly, but is rendered completely useless by kryptonite, which seems to be readily available. Spiderman can shoot cool webs but has been lamely protrayed by Tobey Maguire. The Wolverine is cool and tough, but he must feel intense pain each time his claws come out. There are many superheroes to choose from and just as many arguements supporting or declining their respective rights to that coveted "Coolest Superhero" award.

I have the answer. I know who the coolest superhero is, and I have undeniable proof. Last Friday was Halloween and we prepared by purchasing much candy to give out. We parked in a straight line so that children would have easy access to our front door. We turned on our porch light and opened all our blinds. We dressed in our costumes and put Polly in the backyard. Ultimately...we waited.

No trick-or-treaters came to our house. We checked every few minutes for kids walking down the street. We paced around our front door munching on Reece's Peanut Butter cups and Twixs. We walked out to the street to see if we mught expect any kids eventually. Finally we put on a scary movie all but giving up hope that children would visit our house for candy.

And then the doorbell rang. L. jumped from the couch and adjusted her ladybug wings. I grabbed the dog. She grabbed the bowl of candy and opened the front door to find Batman standing on our front porch. Batman said, "Trick or Treat", holding out an orange pumpkin container.

Batman was the only superhero and only trick-or-treater who cared enough to visit our home for Halloween, and has thus been crowned "The Coolest Superhero".

#26 A Gamble

I walked into the office bathroom to take care of some business and noticed the roll of toilet paper to be considerably thin. I glanced around for backup rolls and discovered there to be none. I eyed the roll more closely, gauging whether or not there was enough TP for me to make a commitment, or if I needed to walk to the upstairs bathroom. I decided quickly there was enough and locked the door behind me.

I sat down and started reading my Cowboy's article (discussing whether or not to bench Johnson). The meager roll of TP caught my attention and I started second guessing my decision to commit to this bathroom. I realized what I had done. I had decided to gamble. On one side things would go smooth and I could leave the bathroom unscarred, leaving the problem of no TP for the next person to deal with. On the other side, however, I could have put myself into a world of hurt.

Imagine, what if there was not enough TP. I would have been forced to do something no man should ever do:

1) Use my hand, washing after every wipe. That would have caused me to throw up and every hand I shook afterward would have been mean and unforgiving.

2) Use the cheap paper towels. This would have been no bueno para me culo.

3) Knock on the wall and ask Jai (the girl who can hear everything in the bathroom) if she can get some TP and throw it to me. This would have been embarassing and I am not sure I know anyone at the station well enough to call for TP.

4) After the last sheet of paper, regardless of how clean I was, I pull up my pants and drive home to take a shower and change my clothes.

The whole point of this story is to ask why would I put myself in that situation? I could just as easily walked to the upstairs bathroom. Why make this sort of gamble? Gambling money is one thing. Gambling sanity, embarassment and disgust...that is something else.

#25 Auto Presentation

During these rough economic times we, as TV Account Executives at KLTV, have been given categories for which we must become experts. Our goal is to learn as much as possible about a particular business so that we can present to the team tips on closing similar businesses. We are also supposed to make ourselves available to accompany other execs on pitches within our realm of expertise. I am an expert in 2 categories(so they tell me), Automotive Repair & Plumbing.

I delivered my presentation on Automotive Repair last week. As I learned in high school speech, it is good to begin a presentation with an attention getter. Considering myself a humorous and witty individual, I usually choose a joke of some kind. Now, I stay away from silly riddles or dirty jokes. Instead, I use subtle humor that is often missed by individuals not interested in paying attention to a presentation.

For my Automotive Repair presentation I began by saying a line similar to, "The automotive repair industry is complex due to the increasing technology used to design and build today's cars. So, I have decided to start with the engine." I clicked my power point presentation to slide number 2 where I had a diagram of an engine. The diagram explained the basic physics of internal combustion. I continued my presentation, "The gasoline travels into this chamber here, where it mixes with oxygen. As the spark plug fires a great deal of pressure is released..."

At this point in the presentation I looked up, expecting to see the pleasant expressions of our execs who understood my fake presentation into the mechanics of an automobile. However, this is not what I saw. Instead, I saw: My bosses confused face. Three execs not even paying attention. One exec with a smile and an understanding nod. And a couple of others from our support staff reluctantly waiting for more information on the pistons causing the drive shaft to spin. I said, "Just kidding," and mumbled something about that being my attention getter before starting on my marketing presentation.

The attention getter was a complete failure and did nothing but make me look dumb. The presentation was a good one, and afterward my boss said, "That was extremely informative. I liked it all, except for the crap at the beginning."

Incidentally, our presentations are forwarded to our VP of Regional Marketing, who used to be the GM of our station. He presents it to all the other sales teams within our corporate umbrella (in this case something like 53 stations). I did not know this happened until he came in my office and said, "Your presentation was very good. Except I did not understand the slide with the engine on it. Can you explain to me what that was?"

This failure reminds me of a class I took at Baylor on Robert Browning. Our professor centered our grades on 2 presentations we gave throughout the semester. One of those presentations I gave with Chris. Using my high school speech once again, Chris and I put together a small skit which was to be used as our attention getter. I cannot remember the specifics of the skit, but I remember one guy in our class getting the subtle humor and laughing. His name is Cliff and he has a high pitched laugh. Everyone else just ignored it, forcing me to mumble, "that was our attention getter..."

Anyway, now I am wondering what sort of attention getter I will prepare for my Plumber Presentation.

#24 Sicko

L. and I watched Sicko last night. I know many of you do not like Michael Moore because he is overly anti-republican and can be somewhat of an ass. And I know you guys are skeptical of documentaries in general because the filmmaker has the ability to tailor the facts to fit an agenda. However, Sicko is worth watching. It may not be 100% accurate about everything, but it certainly brings up some interesting points and follows a couple of compeling stories. The documentary opened my eyes and forced me to think about aspects of our system of life that I had not done before.

Afterward, be careful about bringing it up to me because it is possible that I talk your ear off. So watch it and think to yourself, unless you feel like hearing me on my soapbox. If that is the case, just tell me you disagree with our country's need for some form of universal medicine.

On another note, it has been awhile since I have done a superstar showdown. I have an important one for you this week. I want to know which of the two 80's swimsuuit models had more influence on you when you were growing up. This is a tough matchup because there really is no wrong answer.

We have Kathy Ireland v. Elle MacPherson



Versus



I have thought about this matchup for the last couple of weeks without being able to make a firm decision. I just like both of these girls so much and both had much influence on my growth as a young person, that I cannot bear to call one of them a loser. But since the rules of the Superstar Showdown require that I choose, I must choose Kathy Ireland.

Her many appearances on the cover of Sports Illustrated solidified in my mind the superior beauty of women, and caused me to thank god many times for being a boy. She single handedly made sure that my subscription to SI was annually renewed. And I credit her for my love of bikinis, because I am pretty sure it is because of her I like to see L. in a bathing suit even to this day.

And Elle, even though you lost, I will leave you with one positive note. Of all the swimsuit models of the 80's, you wore the topless bikini the best, and I will never forget you for that.

#23 Domesticated Man

I realized last night that I have been domesticated. At one point in my life the little things in life did not matter too much to me. As long as I had a bottle of whiskey, a TV, a soft pillow and toilet paper, I could survive anywhere. This is no longer the case. I have become a domesticated man. Here are a few of the products I have in my house that I can no longer live without. Please post any I may have forgotten, or do not know about, as I would be happy to buy more crap for my house.

* Electrosal Powerball- This chalky cube of chemicals works magic in the dishwasher. Much better than normal or even liquid dish soap. If you have not tried it, go buy it. The gel pouch is even better!

* Lysol wraps- I use these cleansing moist towelettes for everything: the kitchen counter, the oven top, the bar, our TV trays, cat vomit, cat shit smeared on the walls (yes this happens...and you wonder why I want to get rid of them), wine droplets on the tile floor. Everything.

* Magic Sizing- This can of spray is used to iron shape into your clothes. Not as strong or as chemical as Starch, but works well on wrinkled clothes.

* Bath and Body Works Hand Soap- I love this stuff. I wash my hands and suddenly feel like I have been transported into the lushest fields of moonlight dafodils...or something like that.

* Scented Baby Powder- I won't say what I use this for, but trust me, it works. And I no longer need Corn Starch!

#22 Movie Quote Game

The station held a sales retreat Friday lasting all day. On Thursday at 4:45 my boss asked that I come up with a game using movie quotes (I have a dry erase board in my office where I post movie quotes for people to guess. As a result I have developed the reputation for being a movie quote guy... aka loser).

L. and I spent a good amount of time organizing the quotes and writing them on a giant pad. L. was extremely helpful in this process. A couple of times I got stuck on what lines to use. We ended up watching about 40 minutes of Pulp Fiction and about an hour of Dumb and Dumber.

The format of the game is easy. I have three quotes per film ranging from obscure to obvious. I reveal the quotes one at a time. I got the GM of the station (the big dog) to do his best impressions of each quote as I revealed them and people could guess the movie at any time. Here are some funny tidbits.

* The GM of the station/Quote Reader had not seen Dumb and Dumber. The quote was, "Big Gulps, huh? All right. Well, see you later." Jim Carrey says this outside a quicky mart in a dorky sounding voice. Our GM read the thing in a brooklyn tough guy accent, thinking it was a gangster movie. No one could guess the movie.

* The sweetest woman working for the station remarked after the third movie, "I don't understand this game." I explained it to her again. She said, "well, I don't watch any movies, so I guess I can't win, can I?" I shrugged and said I included a movie she would definitely get (The movie was the Wizard of Oz). She smiled and said, "Okay." The next movie quote to be revealed was, "Well, actually a pretty nice little Saturday. We're gonna go to Home Depot. Buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring stuff..." The sweetest woman jumped from her chair and screamed, "Old School!" She was very excited.

* Another woman announced that she did not like this game. She said, "Who remembers the crappy lines from crappy movies, anyway?" Everyone looked at me and I raised my hand. She said, "I'm not trying to be rude, but this game is dumb." Three quotes later she got Wizard of Oz and announced that she liked the game, she just needed to understand the point better.

Les Bos, Scissoring & Monkey Holes

#21 A Nice Hug From A Stranger

Our station partnered with The Boys and Girls Club of Tyler to host an event this past weekend called A Day For Kids. I worked our Kid's Cast booth where we allowed kids to act out 30 seconds of a news cast and we recorded it onto a DVD for them to take home. Craig called during the day to ask me which good books I'd recently read because he was at a bookstore and wanted something good to read. I suggested Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted and Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, both of which are interesting and different, and worth reading. He settled on a book called Apathy and Other Small Victories.

While on the phone with Craig a familiar looking woman passed within my view with a young child. She seemed to recognize me and I could not place how I knew her. She approached the booth and began talking to Cory, a young man and a friend of mine, working the booth with the rest of us. As Cory took the child into his arms I realized the woman was his new fiancee, who I know fairly well, and that I had not congratulated her on her recent engagement.

I hung up with Craig and put my arm around Cory's Fiancee and said, "Meredith, I haven't seen you in awhile. Congratulations."

The young girl turned around and said, "I'm not Meredith." When she turned I could see that she was not Meredith, but she looked a lot like Meredith and she had with her Meredith's child, who she brought for Cory. I was confused. I froze.

Before I could think of anything to say or do Adam approached the group with a big smile on his face. Adam is our Operations Manager and close friend to Cory. He pulled the girl into a hug and said, "Man, it's great to see you. How have things been?"

The girl let herself be hugged. She said, "Things have been good. But I'm not Meredith." Adam stepped away and laughed, thinking this was some kind of joke. He took a good look at her and realized it was not Meredith, that it was in fact someone different. However, the girl looked so much like Meredith he did not know what to say. He froze.

The young girl understood the problem and said, "My name is Allison. I am Meredith's twin sister." Adam and I nodded our heads calmly as if that were the obvious answer. Adam said, "I'm sorry I hugged you." She said it was okay, that it was a nice hug from a stranger.

#20 BBQ Sauce...

I visit the McDonald's by my house for snack wraps whenever possible. I order the Crispy Ranch snack wrap and ask for 2 sides of Chipotle BBQ sauce. The to go person at this McDonald's never knows where the BBQ sauce is located. Incidentally, I do. It is above their head just to the right of the window. I guess they do not get enough people asking for the sauce, so they are not comfortable finding it.

Anyway, the other day I went through the drive through and when I asked for the Chiptotle BBQ sauce the guy looked at me as if I were speaking another language. He said, "2 sides of what?" I repeated, "Chipotle BBQ sauce." "What?" he repeated.

Apparently I mispronounced the name. I called it Chipolte BBQ when he was accustomed to calling it Chipot-LE BBQ. In a smug voice he said, "Ohhhhh!, Chipot-LE BBQ sauce. I see what you want now." And then he looked around the register and among the condiments for the sauce and could not find it. He had to get the manager, who promptly reached above the window to the right.

#19 Ike and Cadet Jones

On friday night L. went to Shreveport for a bachelorette party, leaving me to entertain myself alone in Tyler. I watched a documentary we recorded on our DVR called White Light/Black Rain. It told the story of many survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.

After the documentary ended, and as I sat reflecting on the atrocities of atomic warfare, L. sent me a text message. It said something like, "We are at a comedy club watching the guy who does all the sound effects from the police academy movies. And he is not funny,"

First of all, she did not know his name. That hurt. And then she did not think hearing a guy make creaking door sounds, machine guns, laser guns, the beeps, creeps and bleeps, and finally the kung fu movie sound effects was not funny? I do not understand this.

I expressed my jealousy and told her that Michael Winslow is more than just the "police academy guy." He is also the spaceballs guy as well as the voice of Gizmo, and she should understand that. She called me a dork for knowing his name.

Of course, all of this happened while Hurricane Ike pummeled Houston. I was distraught at the documentary and disappointed that my wife did not appreciate Michael Winslow, but the real struggles occurred in Houston where rain and wind flooded and destroyed much of the landscape. Chris has been without power since Friday night at 1 am, and he is not sure when it will be restored.

For those of you who read this and still do not know who Michael Winslow is, here are some pics to help, and for pete's sake watch some police academy movies (I say, stick with the Police Academy 1-4. 5, 6 and Police Academy: Moscow are not nearly as good).

#18 Girl on the Corner

I pulled up to an obscure 4-way stop intersection behind my office building this morning. A young girl stood on the corner talking on her cell phone. When I came to a complete stop and looked to the right I noticed she was about 10 feet away from my car and she was visibly upset. I needed to turn left so I was watching as a line of cars came from that direction, waiting for my chance to pull into traffic. The girl thought I was staring at her, which I was not. She took the phone from her ear and started yelling at me. I could not exactly hear her, but she said something like, "What the hell are you looking at! Get out of here!"

At first I was not certain she was talking to me. I kept my attention focused past her at the traffic so I could make my turn. Then it became obvious she was talking to me. She approached my window crying and cussing.

I was not sure what to do. I could not pull out into traffic and I was not going to back up. I did not want her to start hitting my car, but I was also not going to get out and explain to her that I was monitoring traffic for a safe entrance into the street, not staring at her emotionally distressed phone conversation.

I pointed to the traffic and yelled, "I'm just trying to drive here! Chill the f--- out!" She did not hear me. She yelled at me for a few moments until I had an opening and I drove off. I looked into my rearview mirror and she had the phone back up to her ear, no doubt explaining to the person on the other end what a piece of sh-t I was.

# 17 Basketball Memory

In junior high Craig, Chris and I tried out for the basketball team. I cannot remember if Dugat did or not. Anyway, during one of the drill's Craig shot the ball and it went clean over the backboard. Everyone laughed. Later we shot free throws and Craig shot an airball. Everyone laughed. After the first day of tryouts Craig decided not to come back, even though we told him he should. He recognized his lack of basketball talent and cut his losses early. Chris and I stayed through the rest of tryouts and had to learn the hard way that we were not going to make the team.

After the teams were posted on the coaches door Chris and I discovered that Bill Going made the team. This is ridiculous because Bill Going was not a good basketball player and only made the team because of his twin brother. The unfairness was difficult to endure.

Speaking of Bill, he contacted Chris through facebook. He requested to be his friend. I think this is funny. It is our junior high dances all over again. He always seems to find us. So, fair warning for all who read this. Be careful of Facebook. You may reveal yourself to the likes of Bill Going.

#16 Worst Thing Ever

L. and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather Tyler has been having. We took Polly for a walk around our neighborhood. Things started out pleasant enough. We passed a few couples with their pets, trying to explain to them that we were not mean parents, just that our Daschund whined all the time. We saw kids playing in the street, and occasionally we would hear one of them yell "Hey, there's a weiner dog!" That was nice.

But then we came across the worst thing ever. It was a sight that angered me so much that I had to spit out the whiskey and coke I had just been sipping. It was a group of four defenseless kittens sitting near the steps of one of our neighbors porches. They looked similar to the ones featured here, just a few weeks younger.

Just looking at this picture makes me mad. And I do not understand why our neighbor must have 4 of them running around my neighborhood. It is disgusting and inconsiderate.

#15 Bathroom Trouble

At a work party a couple of weeks ago an employee joked about how she shares a wall with the men's bathroom, and how much of a problem that is. She basically determined that men are gross and she hates that throughout her day she is forced to hear the worst possible noises. We laughed at her and I said something gross about how I was going to yeehaw next time I went to the bathroom so that she would know it was me.

I was in the bathroom today (#1, not #2) and I sneezed. I heard her say through the wall, "Bless you."

Here is the dilemma: There is a phenomenon that occurs for men in public bathrooms. When someone else is within earshot of a man's exrecmentation, that man's ass makes a lot of noise. If a man is alone at home, there is silence. I am not sure why this is the case, but it is truth. I was fine using the bathroom before because my ass did not know there was someone within earshot. Now I know and I worry that I will be forced to yeehaw next time I go to the bathroom.