Halloween

Halloween was a big deal for me when I was a kid. I lived out in the sticks, so on Halloween we would drive into the nearest small town and make it our purpose to trick-or-treat at every house in town. Not that it was too difficult since this was a really small town. The difficult part was creating a costume as my parents were too frugal (cheap) to purchase costumes. We would hunt around the house for old cloths and try to come up with something creative. I typically failed miserably, as being visually creative is not my strong suit. .
One particular Halloween we ventured into an apartment building. Actually, in a town this size it was the only apartment building. We knocked on the first door and a guy in his early twenties answered. He was obviously not expecting trick-or-treaters as he had no candy. He invited us in (and we obliged because we were dumb country folk) while he rummaged through his refrigerator. The closest thing he could find to candy was a couple pieces of cheese. We left the apartment building and headed toward the next house when it dawned on us that we would have a lot of questions to answer if we came home with sliced cheese. The obvious solution would have been to throw the cheese in the nearest bush, but instead we decided to destroy the evidence by eating it. Sometimes I'm amazed I lived to adulthood. page Read more on this article...

Las Vegas Trip Report-September 06

This trip report is essentially what not to do when traveling to Las Vegas. I had been to Vegas twice before this trip and I was already hooked. Once was for a work conference, which left me very little time to have fun. The other time was with my family and was very brief, so again I didn’t get the full experience. On this occasion I traveled with my wife and I made the grave error of not doing any research before planning this trip. I discovered Trip Advisor after returning, at which point I realized exactly how many mistakes I had made.
I booked this trip as a package deal through Allegiant, so it was non-refundable. We went over Labor Day weekend and stayed at the craptacular Riveria. As you can see, I made about 8 mistakes before we even got there..
Day 1
Our flight on Allegiant departed about an hour late, at which time were informed the plane would have to refuel in Lincoln, NE. The runway at Eastern Iowa Airport and Hair Salon was under construction, so the plane had to be lighter at takeoff because of the shortened runway. So they put enough fuel in to get us to Lincoln, where we could refuel and continue on our way. Needless to say, that made us a bit nervous since I can get to Lincoln in my car without needing to stop for gas.
We were supposed to arrive at approximately 9pm Vegas time, it was close to 11 when we touched down. I was catching my second wind because I was pretty jacked up. We battled through the throngs to get our luggage (Labor Day weekend crowds) and made our way into the blast furnace that is Vegas in early September. I opted for the shuttle because, once again, I’m an idiot. We were told the shuttle would arrive momentarily, which apparently means at least 30 minutes. Since we were at the Riviera, we had a nice long ride to the hotel and were greeted by another long wait to check in. This was in spite of us not arriving at the Riv until after midnight. If you’re ever wondering what the functionally illiterate do for work, you can wonder no more. They work the graveyard shift at the Riveria.
We made our way to our room, which had a fabulous partial view of the worst pool in Las Vegas. We dropped off our luggage and made our way downstairs to find some food. Have I mentioned yet that the wife was pregnant? At this point she had gone a very long time without food, so we settled on the first place that was open. We ate at Katy’s diner and it was actually better than expected. The graveyard shift specials were in full force so we spent less than $10 total and were stuffed. The wife settled in for a good night’s sleep, while I went downstairs to check out the casino. It was largely forgettable, and that night was one of the few occasions I gambled there. My lasting memory was cashing out something in the range of $15, and having to wait an extremely long time for an attendant to refill the machine. No TITO at the time for the classy Riviera.
Day 2
I bounced out of bed Friday morning and walked a block down the strip to the nearest CVS to grab some water. The wife questioned if we’d really need 15 .5 liter bottles of water for essentially 3 days. We ran out the night before we left, score one for me. We had a couple of specific items on our agenda for this trip, and the first was The Drive at the Sahara. We walked over to the Sahara early to beat any potential crowds, but we soon discovered that was unnecessary. There was almost no one there except for us. This was great because there were no lines, but it sucked that we were the focus of a barrage of desperate sales people working on commission. The Drive was GM’s way of sucking people in to try to sell them financing, cars, key chains, hair dryers, and live ammunition. Ok, I have no idea what there were trying to sell me, I just wanted to drive a Corvette.
The Drive didn’t disappoint us at all. We both drove a Hummer H2 on the off road course and we each rode when the other drove. The instructor suggested my wife drive first, because she might back out if she goes second. It was a bit of a sexist comment, but it was right on. It didn’t help that when she asked if anyone had ever rolled the H2 on this course, his response was “Not yet.” The off-road course was comprised of driving on a 45 degree side hill, up and down a 60 degree hill, then over some logs. It didn’t take long to finish the course, but we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
After the off-road track with the H2, we went over to the road course. There were several sports car options and we both drove Corvettes. Since it’s a 2-seater, we drove separate. The wife treated it as a Sunday drive, I wanted to see how fast I could take the first hairpin turn. Her co-pilot had to remind her that she could drive it as fast as she wanted, and despite my best efforts I was unable to make the tires squeal. I really wish GM still had The Drive in Vegas, it would be a must on every trip.
Since I was all jacked up about driving a sports car I’ll never be able to afford, my wife decided it’s time for us to go shopping. We took a leisurely stroll to Fashion Show Mall and I spent a couple hours following my wife through children’s clothing stores. It’s one of my least favorite pastimes when I’m not on vacation, so naturally I was less than excited about spending quality gambling time in a mall. We had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. I followed the wife around the mall for awhile longer and then we headed back to the Riv so I could gamble and she could rest.
That evening we had tickets to Bite at the Stratosphere. Since I’m a bad husband and I enjoy walking, I suggested we walk. We arrived with a lot of time to kill, which is a bad idea at the Stratosphere. We did some gambling, grabbed some below average pizza, and headed to the show. I think we paid about $25 per ticket, and for the money I thought it was a good show. Of course, the fact that it is a topless review may have contributed to my enjoyment. Proving once again that I’m a bad husband, I suggested we walk back. It was probably about 11pm when w left the Stratosphere, and the fact that I’m writing this review proves that nothing too terrible happened, but that probably wasn’t a great idea. There was a reasonable amount of pedestrian traffic at the time but there were a couple areas where I was a bit nervous. That, and when I got back the Riv I noticed a used hypodermic needle sticking out of my calf. Just kidding.
Day 3
Saturday was a college football game day and I set out early to find somewhere to watch my favorite team, Iowa. There was no line on the Iowa game because the team they were playing was in a lower division, so I knew it would be difficult to find. I checked at the Riv, Circus Circus (I think they were showing SpongeBob Squarepants re-runs) and TI before I finally found it on a small TV at the Mirage. I’m fairly sure this has changed by now, but at the time I got served drinks without drink tickets or even showing a betting slip. Ah, the good old days.
I talked the wife into going down to the south end of the strip late that afternoon. We took the Deuce (which was packed since it was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend). We both enjoy Rainforest Café, so we had dinner there before wandering around the south strip. We wanted to hit all the touristy attractions on the way back, so we started with the lions at MGM. As is typical for lions, they were doing absolutely nothing. I’ve never really understood our fascination with lions. They are quite possibly the laziest animals around.
The next stop was the Bellagio to see the fountains. The strip was packed and I felt like a salmon swimming upstream. It was 5 deep all the way around the fountains, but we managed to find a decent viewing spot. It was the first time either of us had seen the fountains and we were very impressed. We walked around the Bellagio afterwards, and then headed toward the Mirage to see the volcano erupt.
I guess the key to a good fake volcano show is to make it look real. The Mirage doesn’t exactly succeed in this regard. We left there with the knowledge this is one fake volcano show that we probably don’t need to see again. After the Mirage we continued fighting our way upstream to see the pirate show at TI.
By the time we made it to TI, it was about 11 pm. My pregnant wife had been on her feet for entirely too long and she wasn’t interested in trying to fight for a good spot to watch the show, especially since the crowd was already spilling out onto the sidewalk. Also, the temperature had to be well into the 80s. We decided to skip the show and we headed for the nearest bus stop to get us back to the Riv.
Any time you really need a bus, you can count on not seeing one. I take that back, we did see a few but none of them stopped. The busses we so full that several dozen weary tourists were clinging to the side with many more bumper skiing. We waited for 15 minutes and finally conceded that we needed to suck it up and walk the rest of the way back to the Riv. We were about a block from the Riv when we spotted a nearly empty Deuce roll by. My wife was less than amused.
Day 4
Sunday rolled around and it was abundantly clear that I was on my own, which was fine with me. She headed down to the pool to soak up some rays and do some reading. I had scouted out a no limit hold’em tournament at TI that had a good payout with a reasonable buy-in, so we went our separate ways. The tournament was uneventful, I didn’t get enough good hands to put up a fight but I did finish in the top half. A finish barely in the top half of the entrants does not pay out anything, but I didn’t feel too bad considering it was my first tournament experience.
After the tournament was over, I went back to see how the wife was doing at the spectacular pool area. It was packed, and my one lasting memory of a guy in his mid-twenties with absolutely no sense. It was obvious he was hung over and decided to not use sun block. And he was fair-skinned. Or at least he was before he decided to sun bathe. At the time I saw him, he was virtually purple.
We lazed around the rest of the afternoon and didn’t feel like going far to catch some dinner. We settled on Katy’s Diner again, and it wasn’t long until we regretted it. I don’t recall what I ordered, but I do recall that it wasn’t very good. It was, however, better than the service. Ordering was slow, water refills were slow, and the food was slow. I also witnessed our waitress do something I have never seen a waitress do before. Toward the end of the meal, my wife requested more water. Our waitress proceeded to go to a table near us that was vacant but had not been bussed yet. There was a full water pitcher on that table, so the waitress picked it up and brought it to our table. I don’t consider myself a germaphobe, but I have no idea what those people might have done to the water and I was pretty grossed out just thinking about it.
Day 5
After our experience at Katy’s the night before, we went the safest route possible for breakfast and had McDonald’s. Vegas is great for people watching, and McDonald’s is no exception. While enjoying our egg mcmuffins I noticed an Asian girl that couldn’t have been more than 4. She was wearing a green t-shirt with the caption “Kiss Me, I’m Irish.” I’m not sure why, but this struck me as hilarious.
We got in our shuttle back to the airport and had no issues getting to our gate in time. Our flight left on schedule and we returned home so my wife could tell the world how I made her walk the strip even though she’s pregnant. It’s been over 2 years since this trip, and I still get grief about it. page Read more on this article...

Practically Joking

I'm the type of person that enjoys a good practical joke, especially if it's played on someone that needs to loosen up. I was at a birthday party yesterday for my one-year-old niece. My sister is a bit anal-retentive, as she has logged everything that has gone into or come out of my niece. Think about this for a minute. An infant goes through a couple thousand diapers in the first year and has even more bottles. Every one of these events has been recorded in a notebook. My sister made the mistake of leaving this notebook out where I could find it. I added a couple entries, including "2 grams of black tar heroin" and "I pooped my pants." I haven't heard from her yet, which could mean several different things. It's possible she didn't notice, which would piss me off because I spent at least 30 seconds playing this prank. Maybe she noticed and is really angry and never wants to talk to me again. Or, she saw it, thought it was funny, but isn't going to tell me about it so I won't have the satisfaction of pulling one over on her. Damn her. Read more on this article...

Talent Show

I was recently witness to the root of all that is wrong with this country. Some friends of ours have 2 girls that are the same age as our girls. They go to different schools and their friends had a talent show for the before and after school program.

Our definition of talent has changed. When I was growing up (there I go sounding like my parents) a program like this was the result of hours of practice and a significant amount of coaching from the adults in charge. What I witnessed tonight was devoid of structure and adult intervention. They bragged that it was entirely done by children, meaning the skits, sets, design, etc. all originated from the “creativity” of the children. Here’s a quick synapses of what I saw:

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The show started out with a four boys lip synching to a KISS song. I take that back, 3 boys were standing around pretending to play instruments, while the 4^th lip synched. Of course, lip synching implies your lips are in synch with the music. That didn’t happen. I’m not sure the boys knew the words to the song. When I saw the KISS banner, I was expecting some interesting costumes. Would they be KISS with or without the makeup? The answer is neither.

Sadly, the boys destroying a classic rock band like KISS wasn’t the worst demonstration of talent. It’s difficult to pinpoint the worst act, but the kid “impersonating” James Bond has to at least get honorable mention. I put impersonating in quotations because his act consisted of running across the mat and rolling. And I’m not talking about tumbling, it was rolling. I have a one-year old son that could roll when he was 4 months old. It never crossed my mind to put him in a talent show.

Another favorite of mine was the puppet show. It consisted of 4 girls with hand-drawn puppets on popsicle sticks. Here’s my recollection of the skit:

Crappy puppet #1 that looks like cat with elephantitis: Let’s go get ice cream.

Crappy puppet #2 dog in the advanced stages of radiation sickness: What kind of ice cream are you getting?

Crappy puppet #1 that looks like cat with elephantitis: Fish ice cream

Crappy puppet #3 animal (?) that looks like a cross between a zebra and a duck: They don’t have fish ice cream

Crappy puppet #1 that looks like cat with elephantitis: Then let’s go on the Ferris wheel.

So maybe I shouldn’t fault the kids for making crappy puppets. After all, I can’t draw for shit. However, the writing is fair game. Only someone on acid could find the script mildly entertaining. But that is what’s wrong with this country. We continually reward mediocrity.

A lot of what went wrong with the talent show should be blamed on the parents. I truly believe most kids have some kind of talent; however it is typically not entertaining. Some kids are great readers, some are good at math, and some are really awesome at running the vacuum. But you shouldn’t put your kid that runs a vacuum in a talent show. One kid was trying to play the snare drum to Queen’s “We Will Rock You.” It’s quite possibly the easiest song ever to keep time to. He managed to get off beat at least 4 times in less than 2 minutes. A deaf kid could have done as well. To add insult to talentlessness, someone (probably his parents) wrote “AC” on one cheek and “DC” on the other with the trademark lightning bolt on his forehead. He didn’t facepaint himself, so who the hell would put AC/DC on a kid attempting to play a Queen song?

Another skit was human dominoes. They came up early in the show, so I still held out some hope that it wouldn’t be a complete train wreck. Their act consisted of (you guessed it) falling down one after another. It actually looked a bit painful, because they were falling on top of each other. And they did this several times. I have to give them a little credit for being tough.

Several skits involved kids playing sports. The show (notice I left out talent) took place in a gymnasium so at least 3 groups shot baskets. One kid shot solo and he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. My oldest daughter is in the same age range as these kids and she can sink more than 4 out of 20, which is what this unfortunate kid achieved. Another group threw around a football, and I’ll admit they had some talent. The ball never hit the ground in the 15-20 passes thrown. But this goes back to my earlier point. Watching kids warm up to play sports isn’t entertaining. If it was, I’d go to football games to watch warm-ups and leave before the game started.

No “talent” show is complete without music. A few kids played the piano; one of them was actually pretty good. A couple boys separately screeched out a song that was vaguely familiar, with one playing the cello and the other the violin. Then for an encore (which no one called for) they teamed up for a song that I assume was titled “Cat dying a slow painful death.” It’s hard to tell if they were in synch with each other since it all sounded like a lot of screeching.

As the show was wrapping up I tried to convince myself that it was all a joke. The program leaders and the kids would come out laughing hysterically screaming “April Fools!” and then break into a perfect rendition of “We Are the World” just to prove they do have some talent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a big joke. Now I’m left to find a way to get out going to next year’s show. Maybe I’ll fake radiation sickness.

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Homecoming

Homecoming season always reminds me of the funniest float I have ever seen. At our high school (and, I'm guessing, most other high schools) it is tradition for the students to construct floats for the parade. In addition to the individual classes building floats, several of the extra-curricular organizations would enter floats into the parade. The floats typically started with grand ideas and a low budget, and ended with an unspectacular entry that looked underfunded. One year the FFA (Future Farmers of America) came up with an outstanding float idea. They towed an empty hayrack with the caption "WE SCARED 'EM ALL AWAY." This groups creativity was only exceeded by their laziness. Read more on this article...

Worst Commercials Ever

Remember when commercials were wholesome, like when Mr. Whipple snuck squeezes of Charmin like a common pervert? When product attributes were clearly stated and no one felt deceived? Ivory soap admitted to only being 99.32% pure, leaving us to wonder exactly what made up the other .68%. Remember how we used to have to watch commercials because we were too lazy to change the station by hand and there was no TiVo? I get the feeling the advertising agencies realize no one watches commercials (except the Girls Gone Wild commercials, those are awesome) so they’ve given up. .
Brian Alvarez stars in one of my favorite crappy commercials. Brian proudly states he uses a Bowflex for 20 minutes, 3 times a week. He’s now tan, has a hot wife, perfect abs, and never has to wear a shirt. He’s also a giant douchebag and a tremendous liar. Face it, there is no way anyone gets that fit by exercising for one hour per week. It’s physiologically impossible. My favorite line of the commercial is when Brian tells us he “gave all of his fat cloths to his fat friends.” Let’s dissect this a little, shall we? First, if he calls his friends fat, they’re not his friends. They are a bunch of slightly overweight guys that barely know him but are going to kick his ass. Second, guys don’t give other guys their hand-me-downs. I would never walk up to a friend with a pair of pants and say “You’re fatter than me now since I have a Bowflex, how about you squeeze your huge ass into these.” To recap, Brian is a liar, a douchebag, has no friends, and creeps everyone out by trying to give them pants.
With a name like Blue Hippo, you expect this company to sell huge pants to Brian’s “friends.” But no, they sell computers. The schtick seems normal enough. They help people with ridiculously bad credit own computers, probably by charging them an outrageous interest rate. Things get interesting when they tell you that your credit problems are not your fault. Excuse me, but whose bleeping fault are they? Did that douchebag Brian Alvarez buy too many bowflexes on your credit? No Blue Hippo, people have bad credit because of their own doing. Don’t make stupid excuses for them. And quit calling yourself Blue Hippo, it sounds asinine.
The last commercial on my favorite commercial list needs to be handled gently, much like the male member it’s rubbed on. The commercial never comes (hee hee) out and says it, but it’s fairly obvious that Maxoderm is over-priced Jergens lotion. I get a kick out of the sophisticated older gentleman, probably in his 50s, giving the look to the 30-something hottie (presumably his wife?) and the two of them heading out to make it. Does this old dude really stand a chance with the hot blonde if he has problems getting the soldier to salute? And their tag line is classic. “Prescriptions are one thing, Maxoderm is totally different.” Of course it’s totally different, no one needs a prescription for hand lotion.
So what have we learned today from my favorite commercials? If you dial within the next 10 minutes, you can become a ripped douchebag like Brian, own your own computer, and make it with the hot blonde because of your magic hand lotion. Or if one of your friends dial, you might get some free fat pants.

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What are you feeding me?

This is my son, Zach. Sometimes he likes what we feed him, sometimes he doesn't. Can you guess which it is on this occassion?

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