Brilliantly Ranting

I'm a pretty calm guy, but I've been known to write a pretty good rant or two in my day. I do enjoy doing some bitching for fun, and it's especially good when it gains enough momentum to develop into a full-fledged rant. However, I have never -- ever -- managed to write one that was quite as good as this. Simply marvelous.

Superstition Ain't the Way

If you are at all like me, that title will leave you no choice but to sway your head back and forth while singing along with Stevie Wonder. If you're not like me, you are likely wondering what the hell I'm talking about. If this is your first time here, I'm sorry. Otherwise, you're probably used to it by now. While it is probably my favorite song of Stevie's -- I love the bass guitar in that song -- that's not the point right now.

What is the point is that I'm not generally a suspicious person. Sure, I've been known to go in for the whole "It's 11:11. Make a wish," thing, but I think that might be I kind of like making wishes. [Aside: I've recently been informed that I've been doing it completely wrong for years, which may explain why none of those wishes have come true. But I can tell you that revelation was a rude awakening. Who knew there were rules to be followed after making the wish?! And why isn't this information included in the training?!] Plus, when my Hoosiers quickly squander a big first half lead early in the second half as they try to get going after apparently doing shots of Jägermeister in the locker room, I've been known to do some serious bitching at someone watching with me for having the temerity and stupidity to have changed seats. I've even been known to explain in no uncertain terms that I will be forced to thrash them if they don't move back RIGHT NOW.

Other than that, though, I don't go in for the whole superstition thing. I don't throw salt over my shoulder if I spill it. I don't do ... other things supersitious people do, none of which occur to me at the moment. Still, superstition has been dogging me since Friday. Friday night, I received two pieces of bad news. One was from a dear friend and one was about my dad. Everyone's still alive and everything, but the news was anything but pleasant in both cases. In neither case am I able to really do anything to help, as I live hundreds or thousands of miles away. I can't even offer the standard but powerful Abs Hug of Comfort. It's a total bummer.

On top of that, I had all these fun things planned for the weekend, and Mama Abs pragmatically insisted that I still do them since there was nothing else I could do anyway. So I did them, traveling to UVA for a football game, playing golf on Sunday morning, and playing football on Sunday afternoon. But the bad news out there was kind of messing with me the whole time, sort of like a sibling playing that oh-so-hilarious "I'm not touching you" game when you're trying to do something.

Exacerbating the situation has been the nagging thought that bad things happen in threes. I don't even know where I heard that, but it's just there, like "the little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can't." So I was kind of waiting for that third piece of bad news all weekend long. Still am, really. It kind of messes with me, and it is definitely not good times. Plus, after dealing with a weekend like that, it has to be Monday today. Totally not cool.

Maybe I should pay less attention to the bass guitar and more attention to Stevie's lyrics.

My Kind of Yardwork

There's absolutely no question about it: I loathe yardwork. I realize there are people who turn their yards into hobbies, lovingly fertilizing, mowing, raking, mulching, pruning, planting, and watering. That sounds like at least the Fourth Circle of Hell to me. I also realize there are people who do this because it is on The List that their wives make for them every weekend, and even that doesn't sound a whole lot better to me. Luckily for me, my new place is a condo/apartment and thus has no yard. My last place was the same. That was a Good Thing. The place before, where I lived for 6 years, had postage stamp front yard and a vine-covered forest floor out back. There was very little to do. The tiny yard had to be mowed, but it only took 20 minutes. The leaves had to be raked once in a great while. The bushes could be trimmed from time to time. But I still bitched every time I had to do it. Hated every second of it. I only trimmed those bushes twice in 6 years, and I didn't even attempt to fight back the vines from encroaching on the walkway behind the house once. I just didn't go back there, and neither did my roommates. I often thought that a concrete slab would be far more useful out front than a yard. That way, I could put up a couple of basketball hoops, and yardwork would become fun. I know, I probably have some sickness, and I'm willing to admit it. However, I'm apparently not the only one who has no practical use for yardwork. The real beauty of it is that she's way funnier than I am. I hope you enjoy it. I sure did.

How to Worry Me

Be my wallet. As I open you to stuff in a few bills I received as change at lunch, blithely show me that my most-used credit card is not in its usual slot. Hesitatingly prove that you aren't hiding it in any of your other credit card slots, either. Show me that, no, you are not trying to perform an oh-so-funny disappearing credit card magic trick by continuing to not have the credit card regardless of how many times I open and close you. Leer at me as I call the last place I used the card (two nights ago!) only to find out that they don't have it either. Make me think of all the things someone who picked it up might have bought with it in the last 36 hours. Quietly chuckle at me as I put you back in my pocket and drive home to see if it is in my other pants, knowing full well that is not and that I will have to call and report it lost. Sit there smugly and quietly as I go through each and every pocket in the pants I was wearing the last time I used the credit card, failing to turn it up. Don't say a word as I sigh and start to head out the door back to work. Then -- and only then -- turn on the light bulb over my head, suggesting that I look in the pocket of the shirt I was wearing when I last used the card. Shruggingly accept the card as I slide it almost gleefully back into its normal slot.

How to Have a Good Restaurant

Make the place look nice. Have pleasant lighting. Make the seats comfortable. Offer hush puppies and fried pickles as appetizers. Offer strange assortments of salads and meats as entrées. Give those who buy meat dishes a knife more suited to lamb slaughter and other forms of murder than to cutting food into bite-sized pieces.

With all those things, it doesn't even matter how good the food is, as they will inspire conversation.

But don't try to spice up the hush puppies. They are one of the few things on Earth that really shouldn't be messed with.

Shhhhhh ... Moving in Progress

I know I've been quiet lately, but it's not my fault. I moved this past weekend, and it's been a tad brutal. I certainly haven't had a chance to say much here. Of course, it's been waaaaayyyyy better than it might have been because Mama Abs came out to help me pack, move, and unpack. That's a little misstated, too, since she did almost all of the packing and has done almost all of the unpacking so far. She's good to me. Some of you might think it's sad that an adult male can't even handle packing and unpacking by himself and needs his mommy to help him. All I can to that is this: your jealousy is completely transparent to me. And this: neener, neener, nyah, nyah, nyah.

The best part of all of it is that I got an email from a friend today in response to telling folks my new address. It said something like this:

You didn't move there, did you? I used to live there, and it was the worst place ever. You will hear everything the people above you do and say in startlingly lurid detail. It'll be like they're in the room with you. I used to be able to hear everything they said, and don't even get me started on how they regularly woke me up with the vocal and guttural stylings of their frequent early weekend morning sexcapades. I thought I would go crazy if I had to hear "Oh, yeah! Give it to me Daddy!" from them one more time. It was depressing when I tried to shut out the sound and roll back over to try to go back to sleep in my bed by myself. That's why I moved out.

That's not what an unattached guy (except for my girlfriend, of course) who just signed a year-long lease wants to hear about his new place. Especially when he's a notoriously light sleeper. In fact, I'm not much of a worrier, but it worries the ass out of me. It also makes me wonder why it is that we test drive the hell out of cars before we buy them, making sure to drive them on the highway, in stop-and-go traffic, on fun curvy roads, sit in all the seats, check out the trunk size and pickup with the AC on, etc., but we sign up for a house or apartment after spending, at most, a few hours there and -- if it's required to get a mortgage -- getting an inspection performed. We need to be able to spend a couple of days to a couple of weeks there first -- a test live for housing, if you will. When I'm in charge ...

Sigh. I guess it's only a year.

Restricted Commentary

I didn't want to, but I thought it was appropriate. I've set things up so that you can kick back a bit when I Kick the Chronicles by leaving comments. While some of you may not even know that you can leave comments, most of you choose not to, and that's fine. [Aside: I know you're out there. Lurking, reading, watching. Really, I'm glad someone checks it out once in a while.] Those of you who just read the feed don't see them at all. Still, I've had enough instances of comment spam now that I've turned on word verification. It just attempts to keep automated comment spamming software from putting up garbage that I don't want to see. Your comments, though, are usually appreciated.

Juxtaposition

Earlier today, I stopped in the neighborhood market to grab a couple of things suitable for my day of lounging. I couldn't help but shake my head as I paid for the stuff: a 2-liter of Diet Coke and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch. What's that about? And if I finish both of them by the end of the day, do they cancel each other out? Or I will I just be a tad fatter and unable to sleep? These are the questions that consume me.

Sports and Beer

This weekend has been pretty good, really, as it had a lot of a few of my favorite things. It started with the best seats I've ever had at a baseball game on Friday night. 10th row, behind home plate. We were actually able to see how the batters would get fooled on the breaking balls and argue about whether or not pitches caught the corner of the plate. It was marvelous. Plus, they let us get into the diamond club, which has a free buffet. The beer's not free, but, as Larry likes to say, it's kind of hard to bitch about the food with your mouth full. Interestingly, it seems like it's actually more difficult to get beers in the fancy seats. Instead of having the push approach where vendors carry around cartons full of cold beer and sell them to people, these fancy seats go with a pull technique. They have the same types of people walking around with cartons of stuff, but they're rarely full. That's because you have to order what you want, like in a restaurant. Now, maybe the people who will pay $90/ticket for the whole season don't want to drink whatever beer happens to be going by. Maybe they don't drink beer at all. But it seemed like most of the folks who were there on Friday would have been quite happy to. It seems like a less efficient ordering model to me. Plus, the vendor guy has to sit down and write down what you want, possibly distracting you from the grand slam that is being hit at the time. A little hi-tech action would make that a lot better. On-demand beer and hot dogs ... mmmmmmm. But it wasn't really a bad thing. When I run the world, they'll get that distribution model right, though. Props to the BHK for taking me. If he could work out a win for the Nats next time, it would be even better.

Saturday, I got up and headed down to the Charlottesville area for the first home football game of UVA's season. I first went to hang with the fellas at college roomie Tim's house. College roomie Dave and bestest buddy pal Lawton came over, too. Interestingly, it seems like "the fellas" is expanding to include Tim's little boys. Actually, I have more to tell about that, but that will come in another post. Anyway, we had standard guy time, which is to say that we hung out and drank beer and BS'ed and made fun of each other. Good times. Then, Lawton, Dave, and I headed to the stadium for some tailgating. The weather was 10 degrees beyond (or a bunch of clouds short) of perfect, but it was awfully nice for a Virginia Saturday, and it was excellent to get back to the tailgate. We hvae a satellite dish, a generator, a grill, some tables for our food and drink, about 8 coolers, a flagpole, and a whole mess of people. Marvelous. And there is always fried chicken! After a couple of hours of food, beer, sun, and fried chicken, we went in for the game. The Hoos limped in with a victory. It was good to get a win, but they didn't play well, the starting running back hurt his foot in the first quarter, and they kept trying to give the ball away. We'll see how the rest of the season goes. More than anything, it was good to have the Sports Doldrums officially over and to have Lawton doing the color commentary with me again after missing every single game last year.

Sunday, I spent a few hours doing some preliminary work for next weekend's move, then played golf with Tom and Al. I didn't play that great, but my temperamental boomstick was being pretty nice to me. I hit at least 3 drives of 290+ yards, including my first ever legit 300-yarder on number 18. That sent me home feeling pretty good. If I could figure out how to putt, I might be able to improve my scores. But since we're not playing for money, I like to stick with the "drive for show" thing. Sunday night, I went to a cookout at a friend's house and drank many beers.

All in all, it was quite the good weekend. Friends, sports, beer, and some quality outdoor time (sans the standard sunburn). The best part of it is that it's not even over. I still have a whole day left. I hope your weekends were as good.

Let's Be Nice

I know this is out of character for what we do here, but there's nothing for it. The way I see it is this: it's sort of like a friend got stalked by this Katrina chick, and she ended up going turbo-bunny boiler on him (or her), blew up his house and tried to kill him and his family. They survived, but they're not in a happy place right now. So I reckon this is where they need some friends' help. I'm thinking we can be those friends. I'm not typically big on trying to appeal to anyone to give money or take up the fight, but this is an unusual case. That Katrina was one seriously crazy bitch. Maybe we can lend a hand, or at least a few bucks. The Red Cross makes it easy to donate with a credit card on their web site, or you can call 1-800-HELP-NOW.

If nothing else, I reckon I can stay in for a night and give them the money I would have wasted at the bar. If Diddy and Jay-Z can be open their wallets for these folks, then I can at least give up a bar tab. And since I was there, anyway, this page has a nice list of places to make donations and/or help out.

That said, I hope you all have a great holiday weekend.