52) Is Mopering A Word?

While waiting for the elevator this morning I noticed the security guard eyeing two girls as they entered the building. His eyes drifted from their faces to their bodies. His head turned with them as they passed and his eyes drifted low as he watched them walk toward the elevators. Now, I like to check out hot chicks as much as the next dude, but this entire ordeal was shameless and awesome.

I can't help but wonder how come this sort of behavior is so heavily one-sided. How come girls do not stand around in public environments shaking their heads at the mere thought of what they could do to the guys who walked by? Think of how different the world would be. And each time I caught a girl staring at me and thinking dirty thoughts (which would happen frequently) I would stop and say, "Damn right!"

Oh wait. I think I just answered my own question. Girls shamelessly checking out guys only encourages guys, and this is something most girls do not need more of in their lives. Ok, I get it.

Writing this post reminds me of watching Revenge of the Nerds on HBO when I was in 4th grade. I watched it with my dad in Fort Hood, TX. There is a scene in the middle of the movie where Booger talks with a cop about a man arrested for mopering. Booger asks, "What is mopering?" The officer explaining it to Booger says, "Mopering is when you expose yourself to a blind person."

After this scene aired I asked my dad what exposing yourself means. He explained it, and to hammer home his point he said, "How would you like it if a girl came up to you and showed you her naked body?" Even at the tender age of 9 I did not shy away from seeing a naked girl.

So, the moral of the story is: Guys are shameless and girls unfortunately must deal with it.

51) March 24, 1986

Do you know what you did on March 24, 1986? I am certain most people do not know what they did on this particular day. But I do, because while I sifted through a giant rubbermaid container filled with old writing a couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon an important treasure. I found my first journal. Jeanne took me shopping and suggested that I start my own diary. She took me to K-Mart and led me down the school supply aisle. I have no idea how come I chose the most grandma-looking of all the diaries available. Isn't this the strangest thing for a 9 year old boy to pick out?



















Here is the first excerpt. As I read through this thing I may post other entries. Maybe not, depending on how "personal" they are. As you probably know, a young boy's heart is a deep ocean of secrets. Did I just steal that line from Titanic? Anyway, hopefully there will be plenty to enjoy as I read through my very first journal.

March 24, 1986

Today I ate yucky beans. I threw up one of them. I saw It’s a Wonderful Life for the hundredth time. Today I got a haircut and new sunglasses. I played Mr. Ed with my dad and I just found out what etc. means. I had to read a stupid manners book. I got in trouble just because I said, “Gosh!” Tonight I had to read because I was scared. But I had a good dream.

Today I met a kid called Mike. He babysitted me. He’s real nice. We play with his video set. Dad and I played catch and played cards. I had two popcycles. I had real fun today.

50) Sanford and Son (Chris, Craig & Hardy Style)

I have organized a weekend visit to Houston in a couple of weeks with 2 friends that date back to elementary school. I see these guys frequently, so it is not a completely special occasion, though I am looking forward to it immensely. A couple of weeks ago I came up with a strange idea to take an old TV show and dub all the audio using cartoony voices for the purpose of posting the new episodes online. This would be similar to Mystery Science Theater 3000, but instead of making fun of the shows we would try to duplicate the acting and let the show make fun of itself. I suggested this to Chris and Craig. They thought the idea (and I) was strange, but they would attempt it as long as we could drink heavily while producing it.





The first show I chose was Mr. Ed, only because I want to do the voice of the horse and I think Chris would be great doing the voice of Wilbur. However, blockbuster online does not have any Mr. Ed seasons available. The second show I thought would fit this exercise was Sanford and Son. To my delight the second season was available, and eventually was sent to my house.


To execute this idea properly much work need be done on the front end, including: finding an episode with a good story, writing the script out, making a list of all the sound effects we would need to record on top of the dialogue, digitizing the episode into a computer that also has access to a good editing software package. After getting to Houston we would have to set up a computer with at least 2 microphones, and we would have to watch each scene of the episode several times before recording it. We would have to practice each scene, and hope that we would not be embarrassed by Chris's wife wondering what in the world we were doing. I started thinking about all the work going into this stupid project and called Craig, to make sure the end result was going to be worth the effort. He said, "I don't think so."















I must say, I totally agree. But the fact that I thought of this idea and started the front end work is funny to me, and I want to make sure it is cataloged somewhere so that I can look back at this near disaster and laugh.

49) Alice In Slippers

Fate sometimes intervenes in life. When it does, I feel strongly it is our duty to allow fate to exercise its will on our destiny. Wednesday night, while I lay in bed, I perused my phone to see if Alice in Wonderland was still available in movie theaters, hoping L. and I might go out on Saturday night. I discovered that Thursday night was the last night the film could be seen in the nice theater closest to our home. Generally I do not like seeing movies in the theater because they are too expensive, and I do not like seeing movies during the week because I like to relax at home. However, L. and I wanted to see this movie in the theater and Thursday night was our last chance to do so.

On Thursday a coworker approached my desk and asked me if I planned to attend the vendor meeting he'd planned for us. The vendor: NCM (National Cine Media). NCM sells commercial space in many theaters across the country in the space right before the film starts. Her presentation included a montage of big budget movies now in theaters. Alice In Wonderland owned a good 20 seconds of the montage.

At the end of her presentation, the NCM rep handed each of us gold passes to any AMC theater. The theater closest to our house happens to be an AMC theater. I sent L. an email asking if she would be interested in a spontaneous trip to the movies, that fate intervened in our lives and we had a responsibility to embrace this opportunity.

L. and I work hard, and often late. AMC scheduled the final showing for Alice In Wonderland at 7:55p. L. generally gets home (on good days) between 7:30p and 8p. She felt she could take off early from work (6:30p) so we could eat something quick and make it to the movie in time. The plan seemed to work smoothly. L. arrived about 6:45. We ate dinner and left for the movie promptly at 7:40 in order to make it to the theater and into our seats by 7:55p. We did not, however, account for Mall parking lot traffic. We pulled into the Park entrance hoping to get a spot near Dilliards. The road at the entrance forks, forcing L. and I to choose between the right and the left parking lots. I chose the right, thinking that the lot outside of Dilliards is always clear and easily accessible. My thinking was right. I pulled to the right and discovered the lot to have empty spaces from which I could choose.

It was at this point that L. looked down at her feet and discovered she wore her pink, fluffy house shoes. She said, "Oh no! I'm wearing my house slippers!" She got home from work, changed into a nice dress and decided to wait until the last minute to put on her shoes. The last minute turned out to be after we already arrived at the movie theater.

The big question arose: Do we go home and get sensible shoes but perhaps miss the first part of the movie? Or do I make L. see Alice in slippers?

What would you have done?

48) Domesticated Answer: Fitted Sheets

I know you can relate to many of the issues I address in my previous post (43) and so I am glad to bring to your attention an article I found in a magazine. I hope this helps.

47) Search Trends 4/12

Here are a couple of snapshots of the top ten searches from this week. Some of these confuse me. The Beatles made all three lists, as did the KFC Double Down (which looks disgusting by the way...the sandwich uses ck patties as bread, and cheese/bacon as the inside of the sandwich). Apparently there is an upsurge of searches on basketball wives as well as Steven Segal making it all the way to number 2. I wonder how many searches it takes to make the top ten.

46) Sewing Machine Redemption

3-4 years ago L. talked about wanting to learn how to sew. She wished to learn how to hem her own pants, make curtains, or fix small issues with torn blankets caused by our cats. It was an innocent remark that led to me buying her a nice sewing machine for Christmas to show her I was listening. I wanted to show her I support her in the endeavors she wishes to pursue in this life no matter how much I like or dislike them.

The sewing machine, as well as my attempts to show her how much I cared, completely underwhelmed her. She responded like Wayne and Garth when they visited green-screen Delaware. She said, "Hey look. A sewing machine. Thanks. I don't know what I will do with it, but thanks. Does this mean I have to start sewing stuff? Merry Christmas to you too, I guess..."

I saw her disappointment and apologized, explaining the comments and thoughts behind the present. And for the last three years, while the sewing machine collected dust in our guest room closet, she would add disclaimers when talking to me. She would say things like, "I like the sweet potato fries at Jake's Hamburgers. But hey, you don't need to get me gift certificates to the restaurant for Christmas this year, okay?" Or, "I wish I could speak another language. Oh, but please don't sign me up for a class this year for Christmas. Thanks."

This past weekend L.'s mother visited from Houston. Yards of cloth littered our living room because of a recent project we were working on to protect our new couch from our cats and dog. D. asked what we were up to and L. answered, "We are hand sewing covers for our couch cushions, because we were stupid and bought a white couch. It has taken us 3 weeks to finish 2 1/2 cushions!!!"

D. responded, "You should get a sewing machine. You could be done in a couple of hours, if you had one of those."

Liz laughed and took yet another opportunity to point out what a foolish Christmas present I purchased 3 years ago, explaining to her mother that we do have a sewing machine, but we could not get it to work properly. D. asked if she could see it. She offered to help us finish our couch cushion project if she could figure out how to make the machine work.

And she could. They assembled the bobbin, ran the thread, adjusted the stitch settings and grabbed a phone book to hoist the foot pedal. Each time the digital screen blinked an error message they consulted the manual and untangled any issues they encountered. A couple of hours later they finished the first cushion cover. L. ran into the living room where I watched basketball and hugged me, exclaiming how happy she was to have a sewing machine. She said, "Look at these stitches! This is much better than hand sewing. And you know what? Now I can hem my pants, or make curtains for our living room. I could even make a wiener dog pillow cover!"

I said, "You know, I think you owe me an apology for all the shit you've given me the last three years for this present."

She smiled and said, "You're right. I'm sorry for all the shit I've given you. I love the sewing machine and can't wait until I am better at using it. Thanks."

And though I am happy the present turned out okay, I must admit I am still somewhat of an idiot for getting her the the sewing machine. No matter what is said, if she got me a hedge-trimmer for Christmas so that I could more easily trim our front bushes, I would probably unwrap the present and say, "Hey look. Hedge-trimmers. Thanks. I don't know what I will do with this, but thanks." And perhaps three years down the line when our bushes are completely out of hand I could trim them and be thankful...