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Maconism #763
I see Holly Hunter playing the lead role in this one:
Mom
threatens
Chuck E. Cheese
A teenager dressed as Chuck E. Cheese was pelted with pizza and threatened with a beating Sunday by an angry parent who said the restaurant mascot wasn't paying enough attention to her child, witnesses told Macon police.
The incident took place at the Chuck E. Cheese at 3375 Mercer University Drive, according to a police report. The 17-year-old was in costume as the pizzeria chain character - a gray cartoon-like rodent with large front teeth - when the 31-year-old Macon woman threw a piece of pizza at her, the report stated.
The woman then allegedly threatened to "whip" the girl when she changed out of the costume.
No charges have been filed in the incident.
Macon Telegraph - 6/30/04
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I can hear it now...
"I'mah gone-uh whup yoh azz, if'n yoh dahn't cuhm ovah hee-uh and plah wif mah yung-uhn-- yuh hee-uh?"
I'm sure the woman was just drippin' with class.
Actually she was later charged with using pizza as a weapon of mouse destruction.
6/30/2004 11:16:44 PM
"Take me to the river, drop me in the water"
"Dip me in the river, drop me in the water"
D. Byrne - December 1983
Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense
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I've been sitting here trying to write about this past weekend now for the better part of two hours and I can't really get a good flow going so I'll just do that "stream of consciousness" thing and see what falls out of my head. My apologies in advance if you came in search of anything remotely literate.
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We're back from the river, had a fantastic time.
We packed Thursday night. We left Friday morning, late. Stranded on Interstate 75 around Tifton. Midday. Summer. South Georgia. Heat. Sticky. Sweat. Gnats. Ugh.
Death. Accident with fatalities. Sad. Yeah somebody rolled their SUV, died. Leslie had a really tough time with that. I felt all pragmatic and logical about it. Sad circumstance, even stranger emotions on my part. I'm not sure what to make of that.
After the accident delay, we were back on the road. 85 - 90 mph. Invincible. What wreck?
We get to the cabin and size it up for the better part of eight minutes and then head for the dock. The river's beauty? I want to say breathtaking, but that'd be hokie. The river was beautiful. I step in, I'm up to my "turtle" in silt. The water is cold, but more of a refreshing cold. The heat index is around 100 degrees. The water...72. It reminds me of ice water poured down my back at an Atlanta Braves game one July day when I was fourteen. Spiteful, but welcome.
We snorkle (or is it snorkel?). We swim for hours. Underwater, just below the surface anyway. Exploring. Flying in the current. The current is so strong it makes my skin ripple. That ripple effect reminds me of that Closer video... "You Get Me Closer to God". Jeff breaks the surface and says he's found a fossil. The first of many.
Later on we're back at the cabin. Dinner. We are so tired. We sleep early, fast and hard.
Leslie and I, tangled in a double bed with our feet hanging off, snuggled together like we never do in our bed at home. There's a joke in there somewhere, I just don't want to dig it out.
Saturday back in the water- tubing. The scenery is something out of a fever, the saturation of the colors, the shapes. The cypress trees with their bell bottom trunks give the whole place a fairytale feel. Cathedral like.
Click on the picture for more.
We're back swimming. Jeff readies the scuba gear and goes down. Only bubbles surface. An hour later, he's up... Now I get a chance to dive. I get weighted-down, belted-up, hosed all over. I haven't been diving since I got certified. I loved diving. I just didn't go back. Know what to drop if, what to let go of... if you get into trouble! Remember not to panic- you've got 60 seconds. All this is racing through my head as I'm getting ready.
Then I slip underwater.
Quiet.
Bubbles.
I play with a fish. Relieved it's not an alligator.
Quiet.
I find a fossil, then another. Then another, then a tooth! How cool is that?!
Quiet. Only bubbles.
6/28/2004 09:15:08 PM
Blue Monkey World Tour Pictures Are Up.
Click the picture.
If you're scratching your head as to what the Blue Monkey Tour is click here.
6/28/2004 08:27:41 PM
Why God Why?
Oh the humanity!
(Got the link from BlueishOrange)
6/24/2004 06:41:22 PM
"TMI, Dad. TMI!"
We're heading off on another extended weekend adventure tomorrow. "We" being Leslie, RZ, The Joneses, and me. No wild Blue Monkeys to speak of this time, got the kids-in-tow if you know what I mean.
We're going to Ichetucknee Springs Florida to tube/raft/scuba/snorkel the nipple-popping, ice-cold, blue waters of the Ichetucknee river. When I say cold, that's putting it lightly. I actually mean cryogenic. Supposedly the water is 72 degrees year round, but it feels like minus 12. I went hypothermic there once. It's brutal cold water. Fun, but brutal all the same.
The other day Leslie and Janice were making plans and talking about the trip. Then they started talking and laughing about the "Turtle Effect" cold water has on us guys.
Later on that night RZ and I were watching tv together. During a commercial RZ looked and me and asked, "Dad, what's that turtle thing Mom was talking about earlier?"
Ok, here I am faced with a Father Know's Best styled dilemma. Do I lie and screech off some bullshit story about that turtle in Finding Nemo, or do I face the music and tell the her truth? What would Robert Young do? WHAT WOULD HE DO?!
Truth.
I answer, "When a man gets into really cold water his penis shrivels up... kinda like when a turtle pulls his head into his shell." She stares at the tv, stunned because I just said the word "penis". She utters "...oh." followed by "umkay, that's enough about that." We go back to watching Nick-at-Disney-Toon Network.
Can you tell me why do I have to be the one that tells my daughter about the turtle effect? Isn't that what Internet porn is for?
Gah!
6/24/2004 05:13:09 PM
Artsy-Fartsy Geek Stuff...
Microsoft has released Creature House's Expression 3, free!
Expression is an awesome, vector-based, natural media paint program kinda like Corel's Painter program. But, the really cool thing about this program, since it's vector-based, it allows you to edit your artwork like you would an Adobe Illustrator (or CorelDraw) file.
I bought (yep, actually spent real money on it and everything) the first version of Expression several years ago, used it often and loved it.
If you feel so inclined: download it, play with it and let me see some of your work! Or if you feel like I'm spamming you let me know that too.
By the way, it's offered as a Mac or PC download.
6/23/2004 02:14:08 PM
Wisdom Pearl #421
Never fart while in the barrel of an MRI.
6/22/2004 06:14:58 PM
In the Limelight.
As the applause dies down I realize it's my turn.
"All right Mark. You're up. You can do this!
Streetlights blind my eyes through a shade
that's halfway pulled
Cracklin' right side interrupts the radio in my head
Speeding through a familiar town that I don't know all too well
I find a glimpse of you outside my home.
The rythym is in me. I'm hitting every note, every cymbal crash- perfect! Damn, I'm Good! I'm on fire! The crowd loves me.
Ok. Time for the second chorus. Sing your heart out man, make 'em feel you...
If you ever want to come home from Chicago
And leave the things that habit made you love
I'll be there to await your arrival
To give you a life you'll never know
DAMN. PERFECT! They're eating out of my hand. Supah-STAH!
Alright, you're coming up on the last line of the song. Give it all you've got, both barrels!
This time I think I'll share my life with you!
Nailed it! My GOD that was awesome.
I Ruuuuuule!!!"
As I finish up my finest moment, the teenage girls in the car next to me are cracking up laughing, pointing, and clapping.
Busted.
The venue: intersection of Log Cabin Drive at Mercer University Boulevard.
My stage: the driver's seat of my Honda.
My instruments: lead vocals, air drums.
Song: Ingram Hill's "Chicago".
The limelight: traffic signal.
Dreams of stardom: shattered.
6/19/2004 10:13:46 PM
A not so rare moment.
Date:
Thursday June 17th, 2004 10:38 PM
The scene:
Leslie and RZ laying on the couch, watching TV.
Action!
Leslie: "Let's watch a comedy, see what's on."
RZ scrolls through the menu with the remote.
Leslie: "Hey!!! Let's watch Punk Dee. I like Ashton Kutcher! He really get's 'em."
RZ: "AAAAAHAHOOHHMMMAAAHGGGAAAHHHAHAHHHHAAAAA -Punk DEE- AAAHAHAHA!!!"
RZ rolls off the couch onto the floor laughing.
RZ: "It's "Punked". P. U. N. K. D. Gaaaaaaahhh MOM!!!"
Dog 1 slowly looks over at Dog 2, then sneezes. Dog 2 turns and stares at the wall.
And... Scene!
6/17/2004 10:39:46 PM
Mantrip 2004
THE BLUE MONKEY WORLD TOUR
Yep, Blue Monkey.
This year's Mantrip will be known as the The Blue Monkey World Tour. Only because on the drive up we got into conversation and during that conversation I said something about "...greasy, sweaty, blue monkey sex..." to illustrate a point. Who knows what the point was, for that matter nobody can even recall what the conversation was about. But the Blue Monkey was the recurring theme throughout the rest of the trip.
We even started playing Six Degrees of Blue Monkey Seperation. Where in you relate a celebrity back to a monkey. Bruce Willis? Easy! Bruce Willis starred in that movie 12 Monkeys. Yeah that was easy, but try Greg Allman. Try Clint Eastwood. Try Bogart. After a few drinks I ask "How can I tie Annie Lennox to a monkey?" That question was met with bourbon shooting out of everybodies nose at the same time.
Early on I had my doubts about this year's trip. Initially we had 14 guys confirming that they were going to go. One by one, that number got whittled down to five. A few months ago I had rented a cabin that would sleep eighteen, since we had 14 going, it made sense at the time. But now there were only five us and it was too late to get a refund on the cabin. So we "made do" in (what I term) the half-million dollar castle away from home. The place was incredible! Everybody had their own bed! Their own room! Their own john! Their own TV! Their own remote! The place had a spectacular view of the Tennessee River as well as the mountains. It was so cool!
Let me tell you, the doubts I had early on faded quick. This has been called the best Mantrip ever. I agree. I'll post the pictures soon.
The setting for this year's trip was Chattanooga Tennessee's Riverbend Music Festival. We saw Michelle Branch (who fervently sucked) on Friday night. Opening for Branch was a band I had never heard of-- Ingram Hill. Ingram Hill was phenomenal! I would've thrown my underwear onstage if I had remembered to pack another pair*. After their set "Big Funny" and I went and plunked down cash for their CD... I felt like a girl, a grrrly girl even. Seriously, those guys were good.
After the concert on Friday night we walked over to a Mexican restaurant to eat before we headed back to the ManVilla. The guys were fairly well toasted and they (we) were having a ball. I was the designated driver so I was the relatively sane one of the crowd. Anyway, we go into this place and these guys are a.) acting like they own the place and b.) delusional in thinking that every woman there wants to spawn... with them. We walk in and they start hitting (all in play mind you) on the hostess. She laughs it off as she pours the Manly Men of the Mantrip into the booth. Then she intros the waitress, then she (the hostess) exits stage left. The waitress, a slight girl, all of twenty-two, seemed kind of shy, even a little nervous around our noisy asses, asks for our drink orders. Of course all of the guys are hamming it up. I order up a water. "Hippie" gets a beer. "The Barrister" gets a beer. "Big Funny" beer. Then "The Mogul" asks for a shot of tequila. While the waitress is nervously writing down the drink orders the guys start rattling drink/shooter names back and forth. "I've had Sex on the Beach... You ever had one of those?" and "Yeah, and "I've had a Buttery Nipple!" and "I've had a Red-Headed Slut, aahhhhhahhhhahhhhaaa!" The drink names bounce around like a beachball at a Grateful Dead concert. While this banter is going on the waitress quietly chimes in...
"I've had a Wet P*ssy."
(silence)
Hippie's green cloth napkin goes airborne.
(pause. pause.)
The whole place erupts.
Match. Set. Point.
The waitress walks away. Confident, almost cocky. She just trumped the whole table.
And made one hell of tip in doing so.
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Speaking of trumping...
I learned how to play poker on the trip. It's that celebrity, Texas Hold'm, version of the game.
When I was growing up, card playing was considered "of the devil" so to speak, so I was never really exposed to cards or other games of chance for that matter.
Anyway, The Mogul taught me how to play. I thoroughly enjoyed the game even as a gracefully lost hand after hand.
At one point I had a great hand. The betting started. I opened the bet, but I was conservative early on. Then the betting got heavier. Hippie folds, as does The Mogul and Big Funny.
Now it's down to me and The Barrister.
He bets. I call his bet and consistently raise.
Back and forth.
Finally, I scrounge up the courage to bet everything (don't worry Leslie it was all of five dollars).
Time to show our hands.
The Barrister is holding a pair of sevens.
I'm holding three of a kind.
As I'm reaching for my winnings he says "what are you doing? You ain't got a hand!"
I proudly announce that I've got "three of a kind-- Three Diamonds!"
"MWAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAAA!!!"
They're laughing their asses off at me. The Barrister is drooling he's laughing so hard.
Who knew? Hell, it would have been a great hand, if we were playing Go Fish!
Did I mention that I'd never played before.
God, I'll never live that one down.
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*Yeah, Mr. Organization that I am, forgot to pack underwear and socks. I had to go and scope out a Blue Light Special (at KMart) the next day. ~Bawnk on the forehead!~
6/17/2004 05:13:32 PM
Hetero Seating Rules* Apply!!!
Let me be the first to tell you that I'm completely secure in my manhood.
As witness to that statement, I'm about to embark on another Annual Mantrip tomorrow. The Mantrips are times when I get away from the drone of the daily nine-to-five, the family, and basically everything that keeps me together as a happy, well-rounded, contributing,(read trembling, depressed, sleepless, over anxious, slightly schizoid) member of society.
For the next four days I will not be focused on work. I won't be thinking about design. I won't be wondering about code. I won't be dreaming of the next great project, that never seems to materialize. I won't be considering anything about a client. I won't be trying to figure out why I'm nearing fourty, and not bathed in millions. Ok the last one is a bit of a stretch, I pretty much know why I'm not up to my buttcrack in money, but I'll save that for a later post. I digress. From tomorrow (Thursday) morning at 10:30am until Monday morning at 10:30am I will not produce.
I will consume.
I'm not sure how I feel about that. But then again for now, I don't care. Be assured details will soon follow.
While we're on the topic of my manhood, have I ever mentioned that I'd make a great wife? It's true. Actually, I'm referring to the occassional role reversals Leslie and I share here at the R80o Shack.
Early on in our relationship we decided to throw general conventions to the wind when it came to "his" and "hers" duties, responsibilities, and certain roles around our house. It works beautifully.
Example: I hate yardwork. Despise it. If it was up to me I would pave our yard, paint it green and live merrily ever after. Flipside of that, Leslie loves tooling around in the yard. She gets a certain pride out of a freshly mowed and edged yard, to the point of tongue-in-cheek arrogance.
Example: Leslie hates to cook. She knows how, she just hates it. Leslie's idea of a meal is very simple, very mid-western... Just a meat-like substance and something vegetable-ish. Sometimes it's not even that, it's just a bowl of cereal. Opposite that, I rock the kitchen. The other night we were trifling through our somewhat bare pantry looking for something to call a meal. What followed 30 minutes later was referred to by Les as "A Stoner's Delight**". I had made shrimp cheese grits that had me considering driving over to my parent's house and slapping my mom. Those puffy, yellow, clumps were truly, angels on high-- ART. For those of you who may have never had grits, or had them and they tasted like shit, my condolences.
Example: Left up to me, I'd balance the checkbook every April. Conversely, Leslie likes to pay the bills and know, to the penny, what's in the account at given time.
Example: This is less of a role or duty and goes more to personality traits. Leslie is a jock, a sports freak. She can rattle off player stats and histories on just about any player in major league baseball AND pro football. She can recite benign, miniscule details from college games that happened fifteen years ago. Otherside? Me? I can "gussie up" (I CANNOT BELIEVE I JUST USED THAT TERM!) a room/porch as good as any of those designers on Trading Spaces. You get my drift.
You'd get a kick out of the effect all of this has had on RZ over the past few years. Then again, later post.
Don't get me wrong, we have our traditional roles as well. Leslie does the laundry, I fix stuff. She vacuums, I kill bugs. I'd like to say all duties were shared 50-50, but honestly I know she does WAAAAYYY more than I.
I don't know where I'm going with all of this. Frankly, I'm not sure how I ended up here.
I just hope none of the MANLY MEN that are going on the Mantrip read this post. They might call me... uh... uh... WOMAN.
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*The Hetero Seating Rule is the understood rule that there must be an empty seat between each man in a movie theater. Not to be confused with the Hetero Standing Rule where as there must be at least one (and preferably more) empty urinals and no eye contact between men in public restrooms. I titled these unspoken rules a long time ago, but I think they're still appropriate.
**To add just one more little bit of gayness to this post... How 'bout I share the recipe?
My Very Own Stoner's Delight Shrimp Cheese Grits
6-7 packs of Instant Grits(yes instant, 'cause I'm lazy and they work)
2.5 cups of water
.25 block of Velveeta Cheese (actually it's between a quarter block and a huge freakin' hunk)
1 Vidalia onion diced
2 hawnkin' huge tbls butter/margarine
1 Pack of Hidden Valley Italian Dressing Mix
Lots of Garlic Powder
1-1.5 pounds of small/salad pre-cooked shrimp
Mix everything (except the garlic powder and the shrimp) in a microwave bowl. Nuke it for 10 minutes.
Boil the shrimp in a garlic powder/water brine for five minutes. Drain.
When the grits have served their time in the microwave, stir in the shrimp.
Wah-lah.
Now go slap your momma.
6/9/2004 11:45:36 PM
I'm here. I swear.
I'm here. I swear.
Been slammed lately.
I hope you like the "Wife Approved" new look.
6/6/2004 10:49:47 PM
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