jack mcdoer's best of 2006

drum roll, please ...

top 10 records of 2006

1 - m. ward - post-war - strangely familiar, folksy singalongs. easily the best thing i heard all year.

2 - yo la tengo - i am not afraid of you and i will beat your ass - musically, it's all over the place, and that's a good thing. their best since i can hear the heart beating as one. and the best album title of the year to boot.

3 - tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain - the most challenging record of the year. i bought it last week and it's already up to 3. think what it could have done had i bought it last month.

4 - sparklehorse - dreamt for light years in the belly of a mountain - the comeback record of the year. 5 years is way too long.

5 - gob iron - death songs for the living - jay farrar's quietly on a roll. the best folk record of the year.

6 - the hold steady - boys and girls in america - i have to admit it's the best rock n' roll record of the year. it beats lucero's rebels, rogues & sworn brothers and the dram's jubilee dive hands down.

7 - hank iii - straight to hell - kicks my ass every time i listen to it. the best (anti-) country record of the year.

8 - robert pollard - from a compound eye - the best robert pollard record of the year! love is stronger than witchcraft!

9 - jenny lewis with the watson twins - rabbit fur coat - sorry neko, this is the best female indie country record of the year.

10 - the raconteurs - broken boy soliders - the best supergroup record of the year. doesn't it seem like jack white makes the top 10 every year?

top 10 songs of 2006

1 - m. ward - post-war - chinese translation

2 - the flaming lips - at war with the mystics - free radicals

3 - gob iron - death songs for the living - hard times

4 - tv on the radio - return to cookie mountain - wolf like me

5 - jenny lewis (featuring ben gibbard, conor oberst and m.ward) - rabbit fur coat - handle with care (traveling wilburys cover)

6 - paul westerberg - open season soundtrack - love you in the fall

7 - yo la tengo - i am not afraid of you ... - mr. tough

8 - hank iii - straight to hell - pills i took

9 - robert pollard - ... compound eye - dancing girls & dancing men

10 - grant lee phillips - nineteeneighties - age of consent (new order cover)

top 5 movies of 2006

1 - borat: cultural learnings of america for make benefit of glorious nation of kazahkstan

2 - casino royale

3 - the departed

4 - little miss sunshine

5 - rocky balboa (i haven't seen it yet, but it's gotta be in the top 5)

top 5 tv shows of 2006

1 - the office

2 - heroes

3 - big love

4 - entourage

5 - how i met your mother

men at work

we've received a lot of holiday cards in the mail lately. pictures, letters, seasons greetings, etc, etc. we thought about sending out one of our own, you know, with chompers sitting on santa's lap, but we couldn't get it out fast enough. nope. iwannabeyourblog will have to do. but anyway, i was opening the mail a couple of days ago, sifting through the bills and holiday cards, when i stumbled upon one i didn't recognize.



it read: "Wishing you a joyous Christmas. Gene, DeWayne and Huggy at Defenbaugh."



"honey," i shouted, "who are the defenbaughs?"



my wife hollered, from downstairs, "they're our trash men."



our trash men? our trash men! that's when it hit me. defenbaugh ... i get it ... they want a tip.



so here's my holiday dilemma: do i tip the trash men? if so, how do i do it? and how much do i tip them? do i tip them at the same time that i set out lots of crap that they wouldn't normally take, you know, like lattis work from the deck, my old barbecue grill, etc, etc, or do i wait until the week after i tip them? if i don't tip them, will they be even more strict about what i set out and when i set it out? i mean, i've had my share of rejected trash items the past few months. tree limbs that weren't bundled. a cheezit box from costco? shards of glass. was all that because the people i bought the house from refused to tip? or maybe they didn't tip enough? do i put a little note with my tip telling them that there's more where that came from if they help me out with the big ticket items?




any and all comments would be much appreciated.

death to pink bear

yes, it's been a while since my last post. and yes, chompers is definitely the reason. i've cut back on just about everything - eating, sleeping, working, blogging, even personal hygiene - to spend more time with my sweet girl, chompy chomps, or mrs. chompersworth, as my wife likes to call her.

i think chompers is really adjusting to her new home. she sleeps through the night on her new bed. she stays in her kennel, playing with pink bear and chewing on her everlasting bone, during the day. we go on long walks every night. and then she snuggles up with us on the couch as we watch real world denver before we go to bed.

things haven't been perfect, though. chompers has had her ups and downs of late.

she's been waking us up more and more in the middle of the night, wanting to go potty-potty. i think it's because she doesn't like cold or snow and doesn't want to go potty-potty before bed even though she knows it's a good idea.

chompers has been eating a little bit of food off of the kitchen counter too. we can't prove it yet, but we know it's happening.

she also got into a fight with my stepsister's dog. of course, chompers easily won the contest. the other dog was crying, even though he was twice as big as she was, although i think she bit him in the ear. i don't know if that's a cheap shot for dogs or not? anyway, my wife made me take her home right away and put her in the kennel and act angry, but secretly, inside, i was a proud papa.

and yes, today i got a frantic call from my wife. she said i needed to come home right away. chompers had somehow banged her head against the kennel so hard that she wedged the door shut and couldn't get out. and, even worse, she tore her beloved pink bear to shreds.

i don't know what got into her, but we still love her.

decoration day

today was decoration day at the mcdoers. we dug all of our holiday boxes out of the basement, put up our tree and listened to lots of christmas music.

since chompers is the newest mcdoer, we tried to get her in the spirit as well. she played along at first ...

but became increasingly annoyed with us ...

and this will be the first of many, many posts where i dress up the dog when the creative well runs dry.

it's a girl!

meet chompers, the newest addition to our family ...

we adopted her on november 18th, 2006 from a shelter (after some evildoer abandoned her). she's a collie mix, weighs 46.5 pounds and is approximately 2 years old.

and she's the sweetest, bestest thing that's happened to us in a long, long time.

top ten

i'm back from nyc & boston! did you miss me? did you at least miss iwannabeyourblog?

in honor of the mcdoers' trip to the late show with david letterman (yes, we had front row seats, and yes, rachel weisz is HOT, HOT, HOT), here are the top ten things that happened to me this month (i haven't written much of any substance lately, it's time to summarize):

10 - working on the deck with my dad during a thunderstorm. nothing says father-son bonding like using power saws in the pouring rain!

9 - touring the u.n. mrs. mcdoer asked questions about secretary general kofi annan. i asked questions about nicole kidman and kazakhstan's representative.

8 - speaking of kazakhstan, seeing borat, THE BEST MOVIE EVER!!!!!!!!!! is sexy time, yes?

7 - opening my door at 7:40 a.m. to find a chimney sweep wearing a top hat. no explanation necessary.

6 - hearing gob iron. get it. got it? good. i've heard a lot of cds lately, a lot a lot, but nothing tops jay farrar's and anders parker's take on traditional folk songs.

5 - buying a rolex, albeit a fake, in chinatown. that's how i roll!

4 - not having our new house pumpkin-smashed, egged and/or vandalized in any other way while we were out of town. thanks, mom, for setting out that candy on halloween.

3 - seeing gunther von hagen's body worlds 2: an anatomical exhibit of real human bodies at the boston museum of science. donate your body for plastination after death at http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/bodydonation/body_donation_program.html!

2 - love and marriage. seeing our lost lost friends, ellen and the hawk, and, in this world of divorce and decay, watching love birds katie and dave tie the knot.

1 (tie) - going on vacation to nyc & boston.

1 (tie) - getting paid while we were on vacation. easily the best part of being an adult.

1 (tie) - seeing rachel weisz, up close and personal. damn, she's HOT. is sexy time, yes?

tongue

rather than post you tube videos, i figure i'll post something of substance this morning. and, since my wife told me last night that i always say the wrong thing and never seem to make sense (i like to say that it's because i have so much going on upstairs), i'm going to give you a rundown of some of my more recent slips of the tongue:

#1 - i think i've complained to a lot of you about my neighbors' neighborliness, or lack thereof. i mean, no one's come up to me while i'm out in the yard and said "hello, neighbor" or knocked on the door and welcomed the mcdoers to the block with banana nut bread. not one single neighbor. when i moved into prairie dog estates, i thought it'd be different. i imagined friendly waves, joggers stopping to talk about the weather and neighborhood carnivals. anyway, that's not the way it's turned out. and the more i think about it, the more i realize that it may have something to do with my one and only encounter with a neighbor. i was moving boxes in and out of the new house, sweaty and tired, when a woman pulled up in the driveway next to ours. i walked over and introduced myself, blah blah blah, and she told me that she was a teacher and that she had a 10 year old son who loved to learn about geography. then, drum roll please, i asked her what her husband did. before she answered, i knew i had said something wrong. her face contorted and changed shape several times, and she said i'm not married. yikes!

#2 - this probably qualifies as more of a "never makes sense" than a "always says the wrong thing," as does example #3, but, as you all know by now, i've been obsessed with a little o about watering the lawn lately. and yes, it has led to an argument or three about chores in the 50/50 democratic style, as opposed to the 1950's housewife standard, mcdoer household. my wife has started complaining that i'm not doing enough, and i usually kick and scream and moan and groan about the fact that i'm in the yard sprinkling two hours every night and shouldn't have to do anything else. so, anyway, we were having one of those arguments, i think she wanted me to rinse off my dishes and load the dishwasher (i don't like that), and i didn't want to. so we screamed and hollered, and i stormed downstairs toward the garage, yellling "i'm not going to do the ****** ******* dishes, i'm going to go water the garage." oops. she told me that i could go ahead and water the garage and find some place cozy to sleep out there too.

#3 - last, but not least, we went out to dinner the other night with my wife's work friends. i, of course, got the obligatory be appropriate and keep it clean speech on the car ride over. and i did. i think. but i guess i didn't make sense. after a few awkard hellos and grumblings about the weather, i decided to break the ice and tell everyone how excited i was about our newest purchase, devo. now we were going to be able to record our favorite tv shows, like laguna beach, and even fast forward thru commercials! they all looked at me kind of funny though. i said, c'mon guys, you know, devo, time warner sells it, you can rewind live tv. devo. then they all burst out laughing. my wife turned to me and said that we bought dvr, not tivo, and that we most certainly didn't buy the band devo. then i went to the bathroom.

even cooler than jeff tweedy punching a wilco fan in the face

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5262605431678339596&hl=en

i am trying to break your nose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wmAvy7C2co&eurl

avatar awesomeness

jack mcdoer's cartoon doppelganger ...

jack pancake ! ! !

be careful what you ask for ...

Anonymous said ...

I'm telling you ... you only get good comments when you put half naked chics on the screen, even if a cartoon!

right to arm bears

my wife and i watched little kids not once, but twice, this weekend. yes, you heard it right, twice.

we took our 5-year-old niece to the royals game on saturday, and despite the fact that our boys in blue gave up 10 runs in the first inning, i had a whole lotta fun.

quite frankly, when i woke up in the morning, i thought to myself, jack mcdoer, it wouldn't be so bad to have a little jack mcdoer the sixth running around and waking me up to go get donuts.

i'm not ready to start a family, am i?

well, thankfully, the answer is still no. my step-sister brought my 7-month-old niece over in the afternoon. i thought it'd be fun to sit and play with her by the tv and watch football. there were some great games on, you know. colts vs. jags. steelers vs. bengals.

let's just say the day didn't go as planned. my little niece is the cutest little thing in the whole wide world, but between the shrieking and crying and pooping and shrieking, i didn't see a single peyton manning pass or a chad johnson touchdown celebration.

after her parents came and took her back, i turned to my wife and told her there was no way i was ever having a child. never ever.

later that night, we got into a little fight about who-knows-what, but i huffed and puffed and screamed and shouted, and she told me i was a small child, and i stormed out and got into my car and sped to best buy (why do i always go to best buy when i'm upset).

i came back a few minutes later, with a heart-felt apology and a cd i had bought myself - the open season soundtrack. in all fairness, it's a paul westerberg album. i mean, he wrote and performed all the songs. anyway, she laughed at me and told me that i was still a small child but that she loved me. and then we danced to "meet me in the meadow" and "right to arm bears."

dreams can come true ...

the rainmaker's coming ... to soak us with water

judging by the number of comments i've been getting lately, i figure i can write about anything i want. sports, music, life, it doesn't really matter. but rather than try to spice things up to attract new readers, or any readers for that matter, i'm gonna stick with what i do best. complaining. so instead of posting nude pictures of the girls of the big 12, i'm gonna write about watering my yard. yeah, you heard me, watering my yard.

you all know by now that we moved into a new house, but i'm not sure you knew that we had a mud field for a yard. we uprooted something like seven trees (we're clearly dinks, and not tree huggers) and now we're in the seeding state. not the garden state. i hate that movie.

they tell me i'm supposed to water morning and night. for 3 weeks straight. wet, but no puddles. moist, but not muddy. damn, do they know how hard it is for me just to figure out how to actually get water to every fucking square inch of my yard?

the first time after "the seeding" (that sounds like a good horror movie title), i must have spent 3 hours in the dark yelling at the sky, cursing the new sprinklers that i bought, and kicking the hoses in disgust. i think i had a nervous breakdown. yep. my wife was sick in bed, and i'm pretty sure i stormed upstairs, with mud on every inch of my body, carrying a busted sprinkler and shouting for her to get out of bed and somehow fix everything.

you probably think i'm joking.

god i wish it would rain. a little, but not a lot. for three weeks straight. wet, but no puddles. moist, but not muddy.

hail to thee, my alma mater

i'm a jayhawk.

my wife's a terrier.


obviously, ku is the finest university in all the land. bu's pretty good too.

but both of our beloved schools have been in the headlines lately, and not for good reasons. i'll let you decide which is worst.

at bu, "under a new campus policy, anyone caught swearing or taunting the opposing players with racist or sexist chants during games face ejection, and repeated offenders could even be banned." according to the dean, "we wanted to make clear that games should be spirited and lively, but standing and shouting obscenities does not have a place. i don't equate school spirit with the yelling of obscenities." that's a shame, cuz i do. fuck mu!

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/news/story?id=2584380

at ku, on the other hand, a freshman made history - becoming the first male on the rock chalk dance team. regarding his gender difference, the freshman states “ i had to keep true to myself and keep doing what i love to do. i never felt restrictions because i'm a very strong-willed person.” he understands that people may be hesitant, but confidently proclaims "i know how to perform, i know how to get the crowd going.” wow. if i said what i'm thinking, i'd be thrown right off of bu campus!

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/aug/11/

bring on the major leagues

it's been a long time since i've written anything. and it's been an even longer time since i've written anything about sports. i figured everyone knows by now that i am an elite basketball player (despite the fact that cobra kai only won one game in its first two seasons) and a special volleyball talent (regardless of whether the "serve aces" lost to an all-girls team last nite). but i'm excited about sports lately - the chiefs' season kicks off this weekend, my jayhawks are going to be ranked in the top 5 come november, and my fantasy football team looks quite promising - and damnit, i'm gonna write about sports in this post.

i've been to two, count em, two, different baseball stadiums this past month (three if you count the "k," where the lowly royals are fighting not to lose one hundred games rather than fighting for the wild card).

first, my dad, brother, step-brother-in-law and i went to chicago to historic wrigley field, where this beautiful picture was taken:

i made the mistake of sending it to my co-workers, who promptly ordered copies on shutterfly.com to decorate their offices and create t-shirts and coffee mugs with.

second, i went to brand-new, state-of-the-art, busch stadium in downtown st. louis. here's a picture of me outside the park:

nice, huh? when my wife was taking this picture, people all around where whispering and pointing. i'm pretty sure they thought i was someone famous or something.

at the game, albert pujols hit three home runs. he almost hit four.

he's as good at baseball as i am at basketball and volleyball.

it's been a long time, where the gangstas at?

i know, i know, you've been checking iwannabeyourblog every day only to see a broken grill. it's been a long time, and a lot has changed, but i'm still blogging and i'm still grilling.

what have i been doing all this time, you ask. grilling is all, really. (although i also finished my shower - freedom at last, went to chicago to see a cubs game, and got a new haircuit too). i've been grilling lots. i've made steaks from hell, salmon kiev, grilled mussels ("fingerburners" they call em), bacon wrapped cheeseburgers and uraguayan stuffed pork tenderloins. i'm like a cross between hell's kitchen, chef boyardee, emeril and all the winners of iron chef. booyah.

my friend al has challenged to me a grilling contest. ha. he won't even know what hit him. but it'll be hard for him to stay mad at me for long, even when i beat him down like a red headed stepchild (wait, i'm a red headed stepchild), once he gets a taste, no, just a whiff, of my tender meat, no, that sounds bad, once he gets a taste of my grilled goodness. what's uuuup? who let the dogs out?

before & after

before - busted & broken!


after - grilled to perfection!

you want the truth? you can't handle the truth

i finally have an excuse for taking my sweet ass time to post. i took my first deposition this week! i was up late all week thinking about the depo, writing out questions for the depo, and then worrying about the depo some more. i had no time to think about this blog. but lucky for me, and lucky for you, i have a topic for this post - my first depo, or at least the thirty minutes leading up to my first depo.


i woke up early the morning of to read over my questions. i hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, i'd written out my questions til 1 or 2 am, then worried about the questions, and the gutters, and the microwave, til about 3 or 4. i was obviously tired and i couldn't concentrate at home, so i drove to work with a 44 oz big gulp hoping to read over my questions there.

i got to work, but i couldn't stop pacing around the hallways, getting more and more coke, wiping the sweat from my face, and generally doing whatever i could not to lose it. finally, i told myself, jack mcdoer, you've got to sit down and read over your questions. you've got to prepare yourself.

so i went back to my office, plopped myself down in my leather reclining chair, propped my feet up on the desk and started to read through my questions. and i'll tell you what, i was starting to feel comfortable, starting to calm my nerves. no more than a minute later, though, i leaned back just a little bit more, and BOOM, my chair flipped right over and i went flying thru the air. the back of my head caught the edge of my credenza and i landed on the floor with a resounding thud.

i'm not sure i blacked out, but when i realized what had happened, the first thing i thought (besides wow, my head hurts) was how i was going to explain to my boss, at 8 am, that i couldn't do my first depo because i had fallen at the office, couldn't see straight and was gushing blood from my head. i ran to the break room refridgerator, and since they didn't have an ice pack, i just grabbed someone's weight watchers turkey casserole frozen lunch and put it on my head.

i tried to sit down and read my questions, but i just couldn't concentrate, i don't know whether it was the shooting pain in my head or the nerves. no more than a minute later, though, i got sick to my stomach and had to run to the bathroom. this was not going well.

by the time i got out, i had to jump in my car and head to the other lawyer's office. i kept the frozen lunch over my bump, darted in and out of traffic, illegally parked my car, grabbed my briefcase, ditched the frozen lunch and made it to the 10th floor just in time.

the depo went great. the bump on my head, however, still hurts.

jack is the walrus

contrary to recent blog comments, i'm not dead. i'm just not finished unpacking yet. my last post apparently didn't pull or even tug at many heartstrings. lol.

i love our new house. it's just a lot bigger than our old house. and there's a lot more to do. and a lot more to fix. we've already repaired the garbage disposal, replaced the washing machine hookups and retiled my wife's leaky shower, and we don't even have blinds up yet (although i'm getting kind of used to prancing around naked in the house for all the neighborhood to see) or furniture for our formal living room.

don't get me wrong. i don't mean to complain. there's a lot of great things about our new house. the ping-pong room is a big improvement. it's much better lit and it's even carpeted. i'm 5-0 against my wife on our new turf. can you say domination?

the move went well, all in all, except for one horrible, disastrous moment. my brother borrowed a friend's pickup truck so that we could take my mom's spare table and chair over to the new house. everything was going according to plan, we had the furniture with room to spare, and i suggested that we stop by sears and grab the grill that my wife had bought me for my 300th birthday. i hadn't seen it yet, but it was a thing of beauty -four burners, stainless steel, it even had a griddle so i could make mcgriddles. anyway, it was all put together and my brother and i loaded it into the pickup truck and wedged it (upright) between the table and chair. it was only five minutes to my house, and we made it four and a half minutes with no problem. on the turn into my new neighborhood, prairie dogs, however, we went a little too fast and the grill flew out, end over end, and crashed into the street and split in half. no more steakburgers.

i do want to end this post on a better note because i've been in generally good spirits. my wife will say that i still worry about gutters, and she's probably right, but still my basketball team, the mighty cobra kai, finally won a game! after reeling off 11 straight losses, we hung on to beat a very good buffalo team by three points. i, of course, was only there in spirit, since i was in the middle of moving, but a win is a win, and i'll take it anyway i can get it.

pack and/or move and/or unpack

my wife and i have been packing for a week now, and i'll tell you what, packing if FUN. that's right, FUN. we tell jokes, listen to cool music, eat pizza and drink beers while we box up assorted clothes, kitchenware, picture frames and office supplies.

in fact, packing is so FUN, i think i'd rather pack than go out to a nice dinner, catch a movie, see a royals game at the K or even play games at dave and buster's.

for those of you want to join in on the FUN that is packing, we'll be doing it this weekend. for those of you who already have plans, don't worry, we'll be moving on thursday, may 29th and friday, may 30th and unpacking the rest of that weekend. moving and unpacking are almost as FUN as packing.

better than broken

sorry it's been so long. there's been a lot going on lately. a lot. a lot.

i'm somewhere between bargaining and anger in the seven stages of grief.

my wife and i celebrated three wonderful years of marriage together. i can't believe she's put up with me this long.

i turned another year older. hertz donuts.

after a lot of wining and dining, i rejoined the volleyball team. our once-struggling team has started off 6-0. coincidence? i think not.

i also stayed on the basketball team. i really want to be there for our first win and my man boobs could use the exercise.

i got my first sports-related injury. i got fouled and my shoulder made a funny noise and hurts a little. it was after i swished a three pointer, of course.

we move in less than 2 weeks. my wife's packed most of the house, while i've packed most of my cds.

i'll write more later.

get out!

there's no turning back now. my wife and i sold our current house and bought a new one. our bank account be damned!

that's our new house, to your left, with my wife and i in front. it's got double the bedrooms, double the bathrooms, and double the horror!

as many of you know, my wife (of three years, tommorrow) is slightly scared of houses, so this new one's going to take some getting used to.

the seller's disclosure statement said that it makes strange noises at night and may in fact be haunted. our realtor, however, told us it was OK since a priest has performed an exorcism on the house.

with all the new space, we could get lost inside. we're just hoping that we don't also get possessed!

there's a hidden room in the basement, just off the laundry room, that we're already calling the texas chainsaw massacre room. it's even got a deep freezer!

in all seriousness, it's a great house, and we're really excited. we're closing on both houses at the end of june. in the meantime, we've got a lot of packing and furniture shopping to do.

there'll be a great big housewarming party when we're all moved in. you're all invited, as are all the house's demonic inhabitants!

pretty pathetic

so it's been a loooooooong time since i wrote. pretty pathetic. one loyal reader asked me if i was ever going to write again. i guess this is her answer. it's an update on my so-called post-vacation life:

my belated basketball team, cobra kai, lost our last basketball game of the season by 37 on a sour note when our center got flagged with a technical foul with only 3 seconds remaining. we thus finished 0 for 8 and in last place (i believe) in the league. i, myself, much like michael jordan after his stint with the white sox, am considering retiring and returning to the sport in which i am a superstar, volleyball.

my wife and i have been house-shopping during non-working hours almost non-stop. i won't lie and say it's been fun, although i do like looking at people's pictures, as well as their crazy home-decorating styles and unhealthy kitchen cabinets. the house pictured above is the future house of mcdoer, as long as the seller meets my outrageous demands.

can you say reunion? we caught the smoking popes on the comeback trail in lawrence, ks and stayed out way past our collective bedtimes. they kicked ass, i sang along, and they reminded me that i still need my rock n' roll batteries recharged every now and again.

we also saw the turdbirds host their in-state rivals (are they really rivals anymore?), the st. louis cardinals at busch stadium west. there was way more red in the crowd than powder blue, and i'm pretty sure i was harassed at my own stadium for wearing a kc trucker hat. the mighty albert pujols hit a towering home run while my wife, of course, was in the bathroom.

last, but not least, my little brother's coming home from tropical hawaii, where he went after finishing his third year of college in sunny arizona, to visit for a few weeks before he skips across the ocean to london, where he's spending the summer. it doesn't seem real fair, but i'm excited to see him nonetheless.

back to life, back to reality

i'm back. did you miss me? probably not, but i'll blog anyway. i have a lot to write about for a change.

we had a wonderful, and much-needed, vacation. work had been getting the better of both of us. we needed to kick back, relax and eat seafood, so we headed east, first to boston, then to nantucket.

this was no ordinary mcdoer family vacation either, ryan and gina came along, and although there were times i thought of ditching them (mainly gina) on the side of the road, we decided that they are good trip-mates and that we would like to take them with us to exotic destinations throughout the world.

in boston, we caught up with my wife's college friends and ate canoles, celebrated easter, rooted on runners in the marathon (yes, we did see shit and piss running down their legs), and shot lots of pool.

in nantucket, we walked the town's cobblestone streets, went up a lighthouse, picnicked on the beach and were waited on hand and foot and fed ridiculous amounts of seafood and continental breakfast by mr. and mrs. gina.

unfortunately, my wife isn't finished with her pictures and comments (you'll be getting the email soon). although she claimed they were "her thing," she did grant me permission to use some of the "average" pictures from our vacation:

when we got back home, i was greeted by a storm of activity at work and lots of rain. we were also greeted, however, by heather and al's second child, avery. which made things better.

and, to top things off, we sold our house. my wife's still in shock, or maybe sadness, but i'm sure we'll find something that makes both of us happy. so that's exciting. and scary. we have to be out by the end of june.

as we go up, we go down

i ran frantically from one end of the court to the other, my finger pointed high in the air, and leapt into my brother's arms. as the buzzer sounded, i had to look at the scoreboard a second time to make sure it wasn't all a dream. cobra kai, 30, fighting artichokes, 27. we'd done it! we'd really done it! i looked all around me, to soak in the moment. two of my teammates were embracing, one looked like he was about to cry. they were tears of joy, tears of disbelief. another teammate stood on the bench, shouting to the crowd. we proved everybody wrong. we believed in ourselves when nobody else did. i turned to my brother and told him that it doesn't get any better than this.

of course, we lost our legs, our jumpshots quit falling, our defense struggled, and we lost our halftime lead and the ball game, 60-47.

my whole week's been a lot like thursday's basketball game. there's been a lot of ups, but there's also been a lot of downs.

i got a big bonus ... but i have to pay it all (and them some) to the good ole' US of A (and the fine states of Kansas and Missouri).

i got to grill out on a wonderful spring evening with my family .... but when i bit into my hamburger, it was like taking a bite of raw ground round ... and i had to eat it ... and pretend to like it.

i get to go on vacation next week ... but my wife and i have to work 80 hours a piece this week just to be able to do so.

not everything's up and down, though. i'm really looking forward to a much needed vacation. we're heading to boston for a few days, then sailing down to nantucket. ryan and gina are coming along for the ride, so it should be lotsa fun. i know you're anxiously awaiting the pictures (with captions) from my wife.

and who knows, maybe cobra kai will pull out a win while i'm gone? their chances are certainly better without me.

just what i needed

much like UCLA, my basketball team was run right out of the building (79-22 for all you scorekeepers out there), and i've been way down in the dumps ever since. we got out-scored (obviously), out-rebounded, out-hustled and out-played in all aspects of the game. it was UGLY. i won't lie. ryan, gina and my wife were all in attendance, and all they could do was laugh. and look away.

so, to cheer myself up, i did what i always do to cheer myself up - cue the music - "doo doo, doo doo, doo doo, i guess you're just what i needed" - and went to circuit city (ok, i really went to best buy, but they don't have a cars' jingle) to pick up some new records.

i started my all-out shopping spree with rhett miller's new album, the believer, and it was the first one i unwrapped (damn, it takes a long time) and listened to when i got home. don't get me wrong, i love the old 97's, always have and always will, but the album wasn't exactly what i needed to hear after getting my face kicked in by a bunch of 35-year-old men. the songs sound like a man dying to get his songs played on elevators. here's a sample lyric for ya - "i've been living on the memory of a dream i once had/you gave me the reason for feeling like i do/you gave me the reason /i'd like to thank you." it's catchy, but i felt like i was a gayboy when i was singing along. and what's he wearing on the cover, anyway?

my next album was josh rouse's brand new, subtitulo, a record he wrote after packing up his things and moving from nashville all the way to spain. again, it wasn't really what i needed to hear after getting dunked over and air-balling several three-point attempts. it's good, but it sounds like a man who's in love, sitting on a beach in europe, writing songs on his acoustic guitar. here's an idea of what i'm talking about - "often times i sit and wonder/as i gaze out over yonder/i'm so crazy about you, so crazy and it's true /i think you're wonderful, don't change." blah, blah, blah. shoot me in the head.

why am i suddenly drawn to 30-something, senstitive, artsy-fartsy singer/songwriters, anyway?

the last album i bought, straight to hell, put my fears that i was going soft to rest. a country album with a parental advisory warning, now that's what i'm talking about! hank iii, the grandson of country legend hank williams and the son of mr. monday nite football himself, is a self-proclaimed country outlaw and one helluva badass. the kind of guy that wouldn't let a team of graying old men walk all over him. he'd beat em down, and kick em in the teeth, all while drinking, drugging and getting lapdances from topless women.

the album's not half-bad either. highlights include "satan is real/straight to hell," "the pills i took," and, of course, "dick in dixie," in which he proclaims - "so i'm here to put the 'd**k' in dixie/and the 'c**t' back in country/cause the kind of country i hear now days/is a bunch of fuckin' shit to me/they say that i'm ill-mannered/that i'm gonna self-destruct/but if you know what i'm thinkin'/you'll know that pop country really sucks."

now that's just what i needed.

country feedback

michael stipe CLEARLY wants the audience to start giving more feedback, comments, and even critiques. he's rooting for cobra kai after reading "tears only run one way," but doesn't understand why they're not everybody's favorite team. he loved jack mcdoer's optimism in "march gladness," but doesn't feel that readers are matching his emotional openness. he didn't really care for "hoop dreams" or "for sale by owner," but it's ok, i didn't like "what's the frequency, kenneth" or his last two records for that matter.

tears only run one way

we lost our first game in a heart-breaker, 57-30. i was 1-4 from behind the arc, with 2 rebounds, 0 assists and 5 turnovers. the rest of the cobra kai squad wasn't much better. we were down 23-9 at halftime, and after 20 minutes of running up and down the court, several players, including myself, were panting, coughing, and doubled-over in pain. the second half wasn't much better. we did well just to get a shot off, especially if it hit the rim. we might've had 40+ turnovers, and i'm not sure we ever got an offensive rebound. by the end of the game, the other team was running circles around us, making one lay-up after another. my brother's legs buckled underneath him twice in the last few minutes, and the other team called a time out with 5 seconds to play so they could score on us one more time. i was devastated, and coach K could do nothing to console me.