February 2007 Archives

I have this "supposedly" terrible habit of not checking my mailbox. I know when my bills are due, and I pay most of them online, so there's better things to do with my time than walking to the end of my block to get mail I won't look at anyway. Well, this habit nearly landed me in jail for contempt of court.

Tuesday night, I made the trek to get my mail, knowing I had a slew of bills due at the end of the week. It had been two weeks since I'd been to the mailbox. Well, sometime in that span, I'd been delivered a JURY SUMMONS from the Fourth Judicial District of Nebraska. In a rather ominous headline, it informs you that "You have to fill out the questionnaire and return it in a pre-paid envelope within 10 days of receipt". There's a pretty good chance I didn't meet that deadline. Oops.

Not checking my mail more than twice a month is a jail-able offense. Brilliant!

Being government, I know damn well they won't process the forms in a timely manner, and therefore when my questionnaire gets there a whopping two days late it isn't going to be an issue. My gut tells me the 10 day rule is a necessary guideline that is really only on the books in the event your actual report date comes, and you don't send in the form AND don't show up. But my gut could be wrong. We'll see. 

Do you remember when baseball card companies had to use an airbrush to make alterations to a photograph? I used to love the botch-jobs Topps in particular would produce, with completely fake-looking jerseys and helmets painted onto players who'd been traded after their photo was taken.

And sometimes, they would go NUTS and airbrush more than just the cap. Check out this sweet 1978 Dave Kingman Topps card, wherein the graphic designers at Topps airbrushed his cap, jersey, hair, neck, and shoulders, as well as the background. The only thing real in the entire photo is his face. The result is a cartoonish-looking hodgepodge that, if one did not know better, could be mistaken for a mash-up of parts of other photos. Let me guess: Ryne Sandberg's nose, Ron Santo's eyes, Greg Maddux's jaw, and Kingman's eyebrows? I'm right? Hilarious.

You know what else was dominant? When there would be an error in the photo, like the infamous Billy Ripken "F*** Face" card.

Only at a Packers Bar.

After a pitcher or three at the Interlude Lounge on Wednesday night, where the stories people chose to tell painted me as a David Spade/Rules of Engagement-esque character (the single guy whose escapades allow his married friends to live vicariously), we headed for late dinner at Danny's on 72nd and Blondo. Good place.

I'm not sure if it still is, but back in the day, this was the big Green Bay Packer bar in Omaha. That emperor of good taste, AP, used to go there to watch games often. One Monday night, Green Bay played Mike Holmgren's Seattle team for the first time since he left the team, and I accompanied them to the bar. After Seattle summarily demolished the Pack, AP did AP things and began drinking heavily and engaging in violence. Seriously, drinking so much that you become violent? That's not cool.

But that was part of the bargain with that guy. If you went to the bar with him, he was going to drink too much, he was going to pick a fight, and he was going to hate you for either intervening and preventing him from throwing a punch or for breaking up a fight. Good times. Yeah, I don't miss that at all. Nobody needs that kind of "excitement".

Anyway, on this night, he was being AP and drinking beyond the normal human consumption rate again. After leaving the bar at 1, our Designated Driver (who doubled as Designated Zookeeper and was charged with keeping AP out of trouble) was taking us home. Well, AP decides that to take out his frustrations, he needs to steal a "No Trespassing" sign from the chain link fence in front of an abandoned factory somewhere in North Omaha. He jumps out of the car and starts prying the giant metal sign off the fence. I get out of the car to coax him back, hopefully sans sign, and as I approach AP, I notice the car slowly pulling away.

Nice prank, guys. They'll pull around the corner and come back, I figured. I had bigger problems anyway. AP was loose.

I managed to calm AP down, but not before he had removed the sign entirely from the fence. It was at this point that I noticed why they had pulled away -- a police car had turned onto the street two blocks behind them. It was now following the car. When the cop flipped the cherries on and pulled them over, I ordered AP to drop the sign and run.

Although we'd really done nothing wrong, try explaining that to cops at 1:30 am. Right. So we sprinted almost 2 miles through some shady neighborhoods, down Cuming Street, and to the safety of Creighton's upperclassman dormitory, where I knew a resident who let us in. I say "I" because the old man couldn't run that far, and I really didn't like the guy that much anyway so I just left him hunched over gasping for air a mile in.

Freaking AP. The story with the cop pulling over the car turned out OK, because the driver was a DD and although they ran all manner of tests, he was completely sober and they could not get him for anything other than stupidity.

That's my last experience with Danny's, seven years ago. But I didn't come here to tell you that story. I came here to show you the Specials Board for Ash Wednesday:

So you have a Specials board for Ash Wednesday, and the first three items are club steak, ribeye steak, and prime rib. Then and only then, fourth on the list, is the Fish Sandwich, followed by the Shrimp Basket at #5. That's hilarious.

You can't make this stuff up.

A couple of weeks ago at the Creighton-Evansville game, sustained furious clapping left me with a pretty nasty gouge on my arm. See, I get pretty intense at games, and because I prefer to wear my watches one size too big so they can breathe and move around, if you're clapping (or doing any other hand movements in rapid succession) the watch can cut your arm.

Ordinarily, I just take my watch off during games, for this very reason. Also because the only clock that matters during a Jays game is the game clock -- time of day becomes irrelevant.

But on this night, I did not do so, and didn't think anything of it. Then I was driving home, and at a stoplight, happened to glance down and notice my left shirt sleeve had a reddish hue that it did not possess earlier in the evening. Dammit!

The gouge began the process of healing itself and formed a half-inch scab right where your watch would rest on your arm -- and for the last two weeks, I've had to go watchless. This is the first time in 20 years that I had gone more than one day without wearing a watch. From the time I was 8 years old, I've worn a watch of some sort every single day.

Given the choice between wearing boxers or wearing a watch, my answer might surprise you. Ordinarily, I would sooner go commando than go without a watch. I'm serious. If you go commando, sure, you might be uncomfortable particularly in tight jeans, but the comfort of always knowing what time it is supersedes all other uncomfort. Likewise, for me at least, wearing boxers might be comfortable but with no watch, something just doesn't feel right.

I understand this is weird, I know you think I'm completely nuts, but its the truth.

You bet.

Over the years, I've participated in my fair share of "Hey, lets call Mr. Tights and leave him a message telling him what a great party he's missing out on!" This pretty much happens once a month, if not more often. So when the favor was returned over the weekend with no fewer than EIGHT calls in my "Missed Calls" ledger and THREE voice mails from 10:33 PM to 12:49 AM, well, I had to laugh.

They're just going to have to trust me when I say that there was a good reason for my absence and for ignoring the numerous calls. Two good reasons, actually. And we'll just leave it at that...

You bet.

Thursday night, after work we headed to Jobbers Canyon downtown for some drinks. Its always great when you go into a bar during daylight, and come out in complete darkness the next day (after midnight). There was almost 20 people in our group, so we had several tables pulled together. I'd forgotten that on Thursday nights, Big Sports 590 does their "Creighton Sports Hour" live from Jobbers, where they interview coaches and take phone calls. I say this only because of the 20 people sitting within 12 feet of the mobile radio booth, there was exactly one with any interest at all in Creighton sports -- me -- and I've never listened to the show before.

Later in the night, Dick Herculanuum stopped by after he was finished teaching his night class, and with Gilby and others, we had some good laughs about how much it must suck to live in Omaha but be closer to Lincoln than to the Old Market. I can get downtown in 20 minutes from my house, but a friend of ours, Mr. Tights, lives so far out west that it takes him almost 45 minutes. Ouch. Needless to say, and with good reason, he did not join us.

As the people in our group slowly headed out one by one, eventually the group was thinned out enough to move to a smaller table. Dick and I moved to a booth in the corner, ordered one of everything from the "Reverse Happy Hour Appetizer" menu, got a couple of drinks, and argued about which QB you would rather have: David Carr or Jake Plummer. Also, we argued about what Boomer would do on CBS now that he couldn't rip Dan Marino by calling Peyton Manning "This generation's Marino".

There was a lot of people in the bar, and I'm not going to lie to you, I was spying looks at the ladies around us. About 12:30, two cute college girls approached the table with the following line: "Hey guys, can we sit down?"

I hate the word "resolution", particularly as it pertains to New Years. The word itself sounds more like something government leaders from warring nations announce as the end to their squabble. Besides, nobody keeps New Years Resolutions; that's why they're lame.

If you're the sort of person that makes New Years Resolutions and calls them such, it does not make you inherently lame. But it probably does. Publicly, I will deny it, but privately, I will ridicule you.

Seriously, when you make goals like that any other time of the year, they're called just that: goals. The tyranny of having to call any goal set around the first of the year a "New Years Resolution" is weak like the Ukraine.

Many years ago, I had a class in college where the professor asked us if we had set any NY Resolutions for the year. I told him with a straight face, "I like the girls with the boom, so this year I want to get busy in a Burger King bathroom." Sadly the joke was lost  on him, and instead of laughter I got a stone-cold punkdown.

This is not to say that I do not have goals for the year. I do.

Turns out that taking two days off sets you two days PLUS behind, but never fear, I'm back online today and with a vengeance!

Sunday night, I'm sitting on a barstool at the island in my kitchen, eating some delicious Univers Family Recipe Swiss Steak. This dish has always been called Beef Stroganoff in our family, when in reality its a red sauce thus making it closer to Swiss Steak. I was blissfully unaware of this fact until I started working at the Hy-Vee Deli when I was 16, and the head chef told me he was making Beef Stroganoff. When it was a white-sauce dish, I made an ass of myself by telling him it was wrong.

When I told my grandmother this story, her answer was "Yeah, it is, but that's just what its always been called."

Well, it stops now with this generation. I am renaming it Univers Swiss Steak. Beef Consummate, Tomato Soup, Round Steak, Flour, Assorted Spices. Simmer for 1 hour over medium heat. Serve over mashed potatoes. Enjoy the deliciousness.

So as I'm sitting there, I flip through the TV, curious what is actually on Sunday nights now that there isn't football games. I find the Grammy Awards, and luckily, they're just starting. The Police!

My buddy Cliff Glypha, as you know, loves the show Heroes. Even blew off a party in his honor to watch a marathon of the show. As part of his ongoing campaign to win others over to "Heroes" fans, he brings up the fact that super-hot Ali Larter plays a stripper with super powers.

See, here's the thing. She already had a WAY more heroic role, and I can watch it anytime I want to on YouTube. No amount of saving cheerleaders to save the world can be more heroic than this ad, which my senior-in-high-school eyes LOVED in 1996.

Remember "Designer Imposters" body spray? The naked girl in the ads with the strategically placed censor bars? Yeah, you bet you do.

Now, tell me again why I should watch "Heroes"?

As usual, real names have been changed to protect the wild, the innocent and the E Street Shuffle...

Thursday, our local chapter of the professional organization for design held our kickoff event for the new year, and as Membership chair, I was the event chair. We brought in one of the biggest names in the industry, Joe Ducky, and as I hoped would happen, we got a SRO crowd of 135 people. I learned a long time ago from a guy who is otherwise a moronic idiot that "perception is nine-tenths of reality". That's why for events that I run, I always make sure there are roughly 25 fewer chairs than what I estimate the attendance will be. This way, late arriving people stand around the back and sides, giving the illusion of a packed house.

Think about it. If you get 135 people in attendance, and there's 150 chairs, what do people think about the crowd? That there were a few open chairs. But if you get the same 135 people in attendance, and there's not only no chairs open but lots of people standing in the back, what do they think about the crowd? That it was SRO. A Fire-Marshal Special. And that's always more impressive.

This is why I reserved 100 chairs. Perception is nine-tenths of reality. That's a free lesson in event planning.