nos-tal-gia: 1. a wistful or sentimental longing for places, things, acquaintences, or conditions belonging to the past...

Climb.

deep woods
OLD MAN IN GRIEF _ Vincent van Gogh

to suffer

my self portrait _ 2nd grade

Warewolf fighting vampires... This is what women want? Really?

It is a well documented fact that I am a man and as such incognizant of femenine dealings. I have been single most of my life and have lived with the opposite sex (sisters don't count because they are like untouchables) a mere 9.6% of my life. In fact, prior to Ashlee beleive it or not, I had neither a wife, nor a girlfriend, nor any other kind of woman in my life that ever ammounted to anything more than "dating" which is really just a 3 month wait for the facade to come crashing down. As such, there is a long list of things that are now (thanks to marriage) present in my life which were absent before. A quick list would include:

Matching dinner plates

Food Network television and HGTV

Cute Christmas decorations

A working vacuum

Scented candles

Scented anything. Except fabric softener. I've always loved fabric softener.

Before Ashlee, I had lived with my male friends in very male houses / apartments. I've probably lived with 20 or more of my bros over the last 10 years and my point is this: I understand guys. I know how we think. I know what we like. And I know why we think about the things we think about and I know why we like the things we like. The inverse of that demographic, which involves women on the other hand, has always been a mystery to me. That’s not to say that I'm a complete idiot when it comes to ladies. I have a decent understanding of the farer sex, I think, but I try to be reasonable and that has unfortunately never put me in touch with the feminine population.

So ladies I'm asking for help with this one:

What is the deal with Twilight?! I mean just look at this trailer! What are you thinking?! I never would have thought that ever woman age 12-35 in the State of Utah (and the country for that matter) would have been consumed by this. You have been standing in line for the release of this movie like a shaky drunk on Election Day. If every Enrichment Night continues the way they've gone for the past month, I supsect the 2009 Relief Society photo will look like this.

Is this really what you want in life? To be rescued by a bloodless, pale vampire that can apparently fly? And since when can vampires fly? I thought they had to turn into bats first. Why does gravity not apply to the undead? I'm really confused by all of this. If I was told that a romance novel would grab the attention of the collective subconscious of every young female in America I would never guess that the storyline would include a family of vampires living in Forks, Washington. Fabio's not even on the cover.

My initial instinct is to mock and deride this absurd storyline and ridicule the fans for wallowing in cultural mediocrity. But that would be kind of hypocritical thing for a guy who got equally excited about the Star Wars prequils. Even after I knew they were junk, I still got up for them. There’s nothing wrong with embracing naive pleasures so ladies, enjoy your movie.

And instead of further alienating myself from my wife, who I am in fact very interested in, I figure I am going to take advantage of this anomaly to gain some insight to the female mind. Ladies and gentlemen, today I declare that I will read the first Twilight book. I figure I’ll get some inside information. Like looking at the enemy’s battle plans.

Pastel Portrait

I've seen them before.

. . . . During misty, winter nights:

. . . . . . . . . . . . a
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . smear

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . of
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . wet
. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . snowflakes

. . . . dripping whiteness across the black, flaming sky.

as of 12/18/2008 (3:44PM): 11,997

Only three more to go and I've got 12,000 hits on my blog!? What do you people do all day? Surely its horrid... why else would you resort to this?

We were so close.

Apparently I am some kind of callused, insensitive jerk (Will someone second the motion?... Any opposed?).

I happened upon this article and read about how the lead singer of The Barenaked Ladies survived a plane crash and my immediate response wasn't, "Glad he's okay" or "Thank goodness the three other people on board are alright". Nope. It was more like "Dangit! We were so close to getting rid of that band forever."

Now before you gasp at my lack of empathy and condemn me with biblical triumph by asking how I would feel if I were in a plane crash, let me just make a few things very clear;

Number one: If I survived a plane crash I would be BRAGGING about it. I mean who can top that!? You've just earned yourself the mother of all trump stories pal.

Number two: I hate The Barenaked Ladies and not just because of the name mind you...but partially so. Any organization that tries to catch the attention of potential buyers with nothing more than a "naughty" little title (akin to Fuddruckers) should expect a boycott. You shameless marketers. Quit creating enterprises by trying to draw out the dirty side.

Oh man, I hate The Barenaked Ladies (food for thought: what if I had a million dollars and hired an assassin to take out this band?). When I hear that song I think to myself, "Oh Canada... how is it that you and I are of a common mother?". We'll take your Shatners and your Akroyds. We'll even take your Alanises (Alanisi?) and we might even take your Martin Shorts - but only when he is funny (which happens only on occasion and by "on occasion" I mean The Three Amigos and nada mas).

How exactly does Ed Robertson walk away from a plane crash and meanwhile Buddy Holly remains dead? There is no justice.

Now, I don't want to kill the Barenaked Ladies. Nor do I overtly wish that they were dead. But if they were to die, I really wouldn't shed many tears. To be honest, depending on the means of death, I might even giggle. Is that too harsh? Probably.

See, what I really want is for them to just go away quietly because if they were to die in a plane crash, then they would be memorialized ad nauseam. CNN would be playing their crappy music and Larry King would put his suspenders on again and do an interview. Then a producer would release a greatest hits tribute album and the tone deaf fans who made them popular to begin with would put them back on the charts. And worst of all, they would enter the fraternity of "musicians-who-have-died-in-a-plane-crash". Can we really tolerate the Barenaked Ladies to be mentioned in the same breath as wait... take another breath first... Buddy Holly, Ronny Van Zandt, Richie Valenz, The Big Bopper, Randy Rhodes and John Denver? And though some of the aforementioned are better musicians than others, they are all still "one million" times better than Bare-friggen-naked Ladies.

I just convinced myself that it is a good thing this guy wasn't hurt. Now, let's all do our part in making this crappy band disappear. Let them never be spoken of again.

Note: I'm not going to put up any pictures of the entire band for two reasons; 1) they don't deserve my effort in finding them and 2) there is no way I am going to do a Google Image search for "Barenaked Ladies" at work. I'm dumb, but not that dumb.

An open letter to the NBA.

Ashlee and I watched a Jazz game Friday night with what started out as 12th row seats.

By the end of the second period, my wife had winked and batted her eyes long enough to the right peeps and we ended up sitting courtside by half-time. Yah you heard me. COURTSIIIEED!

I felt like Seinfeld with that super hot girlfriend who could get him into crowded clubs, invite only events, out of speeding tickets and whatever other shenanigans he got himself into and all because of her good looks and warm smile.
It's just too bad she was staring at Korver all night.

That's when I realized that my wife will never have as big a crush on me as she does on Korver. Here. I'll show you:

See that look on my face? That's me realizing I will never be as handsome as Kyle Korver.

Now look at her face. That's Ashlee realizing I will never be as handsome as Kyle Korver.

No bother. I'm still far more good looking than the growing harem of greasy Eurotrash playas who are infecting the NBA with their socceresque basketball. You know who you are. You're the ones promoting the I-got-lost-without-a-shower-during-my-long-search-for-Middle Earth look. Listen. You are NOT one of the Riders of Rohan! You are an ogre paid to entertain the rest of us by running up and down a wooden plank throwing a ball through a circle. And to you I declare this:

If you make your living by sweating profusely on national television, keep yourself groomed. Contrary to what you might think, the whole long-hair-scruffy-beard thing does not make you look like a big strong Viking pillaging and plundering your way through a village. No. It makes you look like the unwashed armpit of a hobo. Not a good look. For anyone. Ever. Especially not you guys; Anderson Varejao, Jorge Garbajosa, Fabricio Oberto, Luis Scola

So just do us a favor and cut your hair. Those little, gay soccer player rubber band things aren't working either. Besides, if you really want to hold your hair back and keep it back, you should get a scrunchy?

See, the thing with the disheveled, half shaven beard and the oily hair is this; no matter how clean you may be in reality, you look like you reek. Just look at this picture of Pau Gasol. Man do I hate Pau Gasol. Filthy, dirty Lakers! But look at this picture long and hard. Now close your eyes and smell. Are you like me? Do you smell a bouquet of rotten cabbage drenched in man sweat, mixing with Ax body spray? That, my friends, is the suggestive power of the moistened half beard at work. Now, Gasol may very well be a sanitary man, but I have no evidence to support such a claim. All I know is what I see and what I fake smell.

Of course there are those who will go to the other extreme. They go to the feminine extent to take extra good care of their flowing man locks. Take Sasha Vujacic. Note the stupid little hair band thing. Dangit man! You are a professional athlete! You should not be packing a flat iron with you on road games. Is it not enough that your name is Sasha?

So look fellas. With the long hair, you either end up an unkempt bum or a metro looking d-bag. It’s a lose / lose scenario. So avoid the dilemma all together and Detlef Schrempf it off, you dang hippies!

I would like to make one more thing clear. The short hair principle only applies to white guys.

(stop your whining!)

The black guys can grow their hair out as long as they want because the NBA needs more Ben Wallace fro's.

What else do you say?

I stayed up late last night watching Tron. Yah that's right, I said Tron. And I'm not ashamed of it.