Dude what happened to you?

You used to be pretty cool.  So easy going and carefree.  Now, well...now you're just kind of a dick.  I mean seriously, what happened?

I remember when I first met you man.  Freshman year in college.  You were dating that girl.  What was her name?  She was your high school sweetheart.  You had been together since the 8th grade.  God I suck with names.  Lisa, yeah that's right, Lisa.  You guys had been dating forever, well that is until she met me and then I started dating her.  That's how we met. You remember that?

And for the first 9 months that Lisa and I dated, do you remember how we let you tag along with us on our dates to the drive-in movies?  You remember that don't you?  You were quiet as a church mouse in the front seat of that car while Lisa and I made out in the back.  I'm sorry what was that?  Oh yeah well I guess it was your car but we didn't have to let you come along.  And we most certainly wouldn't have if you would have been the grumpy old pain in the ass that stands before me today.  Nope, back then my nickname for you was "Cool Breeze".  Nothing seemed to bother you.  I liked that about you.

Oh and do you remember that time that we all went down to Tijuana and got hammered drunk?  And we all swore an oath to go get a tattoo of Falkor from "The Neverending Story"?  You remember that don't you?  And you were so into the idea that you wanted to go first but by the time that our turn had rolled around, we had sobered up and completely chickened out.  God that was hilarious.  The look on your face.  And the shit that you got from your old man on Parents Weekend?  Wow he really dressed you down.  But it all just seemed to roll off you like water off a duck's back.  I'd have to imagine that if that happened today, you'd be a fucking baby about it.

Hey I was going to ask you, did you ever find your dog?  No?  I feel awfully bad about the whole situation but like I told you, I came over here to take him for a walk, like you asked.  I went in the front door just like you asked and he just ran right past me.  It was an accident.  Why didn't I chase after him?  Dude I was wearing flip flops, have you ever tried to run in flip flops?  It's damn near impossible.  Plus you look like a jack ass doing it.

So anyway, I really just came over here to say that I know we've been through a lot together, but in light of your recent attitude change, I just don't think that we should hang out anymore.  Well yes I do remember that you and I have those court side seats to the game this Friday that you bought. Seems to me the only right and proper thing to do would be to let me have them.  Especially after considering all that I have done for you.  Besides you don't even like basketball.  And I swear, this time I'll pay you back.  I get paid next week.  You're cool with that right?

Parents just don't understand.

Out and about this past weekend I noticed a rather disturbing trend.  Everywhere we went, we saw parents carrying their children.  Carrying them in strollers, rolling buggies, backpacks, front packs, wagons, carrying them like monkeys.  Any which way you can think of to carry these pint sized free loaders, we saw it. Can you believe that shit?  Lazy is the word that comes to mind but I don't really think that even begins to scratch the surface.  I was perplexed as to why all of these parents felt the need to mollycoddle these shiftless, lazy little future burdens of society.  And get this, even the parents that were making their kids walk on their own would pick them up after only a few short moments.  It would seem that whining, jumping up and down, and reaching for the sky is kid speak for "I'm indolent".  Are you kidding me?  The more I saw of this, the angrier I got until finally, I had to say something.

"Excuse me Sugar, can I ask you a question?"

"Sugar?"

"Shut up for a second will ya?  I am not a parent so I don't profess to know anything about parenting but don't you think you should put that kid down and let him start doing things for himself?"

"He's 4 months old, are you serio..."

"Listen lady.  I believe the children are our future.  Teach them well and let them lead the way.  You continue carrying him around like that and we are all going to grow old in a society that can't wipe its own ass. What's that teaching him???"

"...."

"Well?  I'm waiting."

"I'm calling the police."

A typical response from a typical overprotective mother.  Bottom line, these idle little grub worms are going to be living at home for their entire lives and when they do our society is going to crumble down around us while they are still suckling from their mama's teat.  It's all so sad.  And it's not as if I am expecting them to go out and find work in a factory stitching soccer balls somewhere.  I'm not a monster for Christ sakes.  I'm not Nike.  All I am saying is that these kids have legs and they should be using them.  These parents are not doing any of us any favors.  God I weep for our future.

I'm not topping this one for a while.

"Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."  - William Shakespeare


Take a look at the photo below:

What you are looking at is my house on a sunny June afternoon taken from Google Street View. Now let's take a closer look, particularly focusing on the lower right hand side and tell me what you see:

If you had guessed me giving the knuckles out devil horns to the Google Street View car, you'd win a prize.

The devils horns with the knuckles out. The universal symbol for I fucking rock!!! Due to my face being blurred, what you unfortunately can not see is my tongue sticking out, Gene Simmons style circa 1977. It was an all around one two punch of awesomeness. Now it's neither here nor there how this came to pass. In this particular case it's not about the journey.  I had maybe a second to react upon seeing the Google Street View car and this was the result. I think I made the correct choice in my actions.

Side Note #1:  You also may have noticed that I am not wearing any shoes.  We have a strict no shoes policy inside our house.  I have extended that policy to a 50 foot perimeter surrounding the house.

Side Note #2:  After carefully studying my picture, I sadly came to the conclusion that it bares an eerie similarity to the picture below:

Look at it.  Same awkward, lumbering gate.  Same slightly hunched over posture.  Same hair cut.  Same somewhat startled look on both of our faces.  Just as Bigfoot was not expecting some rube with a camera to be in the woods that day, I was equally not expecting a hipster in a Prius with a 7 foot camera attached to the roof to go driving through my neighborhood. 

My dog has more heart than you.

Look at him. I know you sense it. He's 10 inches tall from the ground to the tips of his ears, weighs less than 12 pounds and has more heart in his tiny little tail than you do in your entire body. In all the time that I have known him he has never backed down from a fight. Ever. Even when facing an adversary thrice his size, he has never backed down. Unlike you who would run at the first sign of trouble. Hey you know what else my dog would never do? He would never let Bob in accounting return his expense report because he filled in the wrong cost center. Nope he would sit there and stare at Bob with his pasty outstretched hand and he would say nothing until Bob would finally get the hint and slink away.

I remember once my dog and I were out walking around in his neighborhood when nature called. After he was finished I pulled out a baggy and started to pick up the mess.

"What the hell are you doing?" he barked.

"I'm being a responsible d..." I tried to reply.

"You're being a f*****g pansy is what you're doing. Now put that shit down and let's go chase some squirrels."

And I did, because he was right. I was being a f*****g pansy. You see I've learned in life, that the world is covered in bullshit and when you scrape away that bullshit, all that you really have left is heart. With some folks, you scrape away the bullshit and there's nothing left. But with my dog, there is no bullshit. There's absolutely nothing to scrape away. He's all heart. Just look at him, you know it's true.

Brad Wesley was a f*****g bad ass.

If right now you are asking yourself “Who in the hell is Brad Wesley?” shame on you. If you don’t know who Brad Wesley is then there probably isn't a whole lot that I can do to help you. You see I am a student of life and I have spent my time here on this planet studying the masters and their work. Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and of course, Brad Wesley.

So why was Brad Wesley such a f*****g bad ass? First of all, take a look at his name. He has two first names and as you can probably tell they are not the traditional tough guy names. I know a little something about this as my name is Kris…spelled with “K”…enough said. So how does this qualify him as being a f*****g bad ass? It’s the Johnny Cash theory (also know as the Boy Named Sue Theorem) which states: "A man with a girly sounding name is more than likely a bad ass having grown up constantly trying to protect himself because of said girly name." I have no doubt in my mind that Brad Wesley spent a good number of his days as a youth beating the crap out of guys named Biff and Chet and believe me when I tell you, those guys had it coming.

Second, Brad Wesley collected animals as trophies. You know who else collected animals as trophies? Predator. I don’t really think I need to further elaborate on this point.

Third, Brad Wesley owned a monster truck. Think about that for a second and let it sink in. How impractical is owning a monster truck? Yet Brad Wesley beat the holy hell out of that kind of logical thinking and got himself one for his henchmen to drive. Only a true f*****g bad ass would think that his henchmen driving around town in a monster truck would be a great idea. And as we saw, that monster truck came in handy when Brad Wesley ordered O’Conner to drive it through Stroudenmire’s Ford dealership for being all uppity and holding out on his protection money payments. I wonder if Stroudenmire felt the sweet kiss of irony as he watched his Ford dealership destroyed by the very Ford monster truck that he had sold to Brad Wesley only a few months earlier.

But wait, Kris, didn’t Dalton beat up Brad Wesley? Dalton? That guy from Dirty Dancing? Look just because you are f*****g bad ass doesn’t mean you don’t make mistakes. Brad Wesley’s mistake was that he personalized his beef with Dalton by killing Wade Garrett. Had Brad Wesley just ordered O’Conner to drive his monster truck through the Double Deuce, Brad Wesley would still be alive today, rich and getting richer off the backs of the townspeople of Jasper. We all make mistakes, it doesn’t diminish the fact of what Brad Wesley was, a f*****g bad ass.

My blog….exciting and new.

….come aboard….we’re expecting you. ALL THINGS BLOWHARD!!!! Soon I’ll be writing another blog….All things blowhard…maybe I'll write it about my dog???

So I moved my blog. There are a few reasons why that you probably don’t care about but I’m going to bore you with the details anyway. Besides I like the drama of making this sound like a really huge decision that required the buy in from a bunch of different people when in actuality it was just me and my imaginary friend Gitmo that decided to pull the trigger on this baby. So without further ado…

Reason 1: LiveBlog on Facebook sucks. Currently anyone who wants to read my blog (which I peg that number at 174 which is the current number of friends I have on Facebook) has to install the LiveBlog app on their Facebook profile and that’s stupid. I never install apps on Facebook. I have so many vampire mafia war zombie farming requests sitting in my Notifications area right now, I ignore them all. It would seem a tad silly of me to force that upon others.

Reason 2: I now have a kick ass url. I was at a BBQ a couple of weekends ago when my beautiful wife mentioned to some folks that I had a blog. Of course everyone instantly wanted to know about it and how they could get to it. Coyly I said that it was on Facebook and that was the only way that it could be accessed. I felt pretty stupid. That would be like someone saying I was an awesome photographer (which I am by the way) and when everyone would ask to see some of my work I would respond “Well I could show you but you would need a View-Master…and some of those little disk thingies...which I think have a couple that slipped between the back seat of my mom’s car….DAMMIT.” You get the picture (wink).

Reason 3: I can now access my blog via my mobile cellular telephone device. Wow. How cool is that? Let’s say I’m at Taco Bell on my lunch break (like I am every day) and the line is super long (like it is every day) and I am waiting in that line for like 20 minutes and when I finally get close to the front of that line the guy in front of me doesn’t know what he wants. God. First of all dude, we were in line for like 20 minutes, figure it out!!! Second, just get what I get every day, 5 Volcano tacos and call it good. Jeez. Well now I can blog about that while it’s still fresh in my mind.

“Excuse me sir, can I take your order.”

“In a minute, can’t you see I’m doing something important here?”

So those are my reasons. If you are wondering if I’m going to move all of my old blog entries off of Facebook over to here. No. No I’m not.