The golden ratio

From Friday evening to Sunday night, this weekend was a conglomeration of bell-weather days that we will forever use to measure our summer of 2009 by. When we think of the year, these events will be a part of those memories. They were the last days of the season; the winding down period before my wife and daughter will have to return to school and begin the cycle of work and study all over again. We used them well, going from place to place and totally having the most awesome bitchin’ time with one another that we’ve ever had. We rock!

It all began at the close of the work week when my wife and kid came up to meet me and pick me up outside of my office for an event that we were attending. They were having a belly-dancing competition down the street you see, and Dana wanted to get a look at the caliber of shimmy that befitted those who had already made it to the big times. She’s just recently started practicing this ancient and mysterious Middle Eastern art-form and she’s eat up with becoming educated regarding everything about it.

Most days, I feel like a Sultan listening to my wife talk about what she’s learned and seeing all of the accoutrements of the genre that she brings home from the studio. At this point, I’ve had to give out three of my best camels in order to provide for her lessons but “Praise Allah!” it’s worthy of their sacrifice for it makes her REALLY, REALLY happy. This belly-dancing competition was for her and I was merely the beleaguered but devoted husband who sat patiently by her side and watched as hundreds of half-naked women writhed and twisted themselves provocatively upon the stage before me.

 

Of course I jest but seriously, this event was SIX HOURS LONG! I don’t know how our daughter kept it together for the whole thing because honestly after the forth hour, all I could think was that if I had to see one more woman shake her breast and ass in my face then I was going to cry. Even my wife admitted that the event was truly an endurance challenge in belly-dancing spectatorship.

We stayed until the very end at 11:30 and really, I’m glad that we did. They handed out awards after the show and it was fun to see the happiness and pride reflected on the girl’s faces who’d won them. I’ve never belly-danced in my entire life and, even though there were a few men in the competition I don’t see myself taking it up anytime soon. Still, I can appreciate the fact that it’s scientifically impossible to move boobs, hips, and legs in certain ways, yet these people did it a number of different times and made it all look so easy.

On Saturday morning I was up inexplicably at 5:00am so I figured why not go out and jog a 5K. I had read earlier in the week about one that was scheduled to be happening at a park nearby my house so I put on my running shoes and headed off in my truck to participate. I hadn’t run in probably about two years so at the very least I expected to get a few laughs at my out of shape efforts to finish without having some kind of massive and painful heart failure.

Ironically, the joke was on me even before I’d had a chance to exert myself to the point of suffering a tragic, ghastly death. As I pulled my truck into an empty parking lot I realized that I must have completely misread the news article about the run. It had happened last weekend instead of this one and those who had run in it had long ago finished leaving me as the only dumbass that morning that was standing around there wearing his jogging shoes.

In the end, it didn’t matter. I queued up some Fleet Foxes on my iPod and, as the sun came up, I enjoyed a perfectly delightful 2 mile run along the Trinity. I wish I would have had gone an entire 5K but seeing as I’m still sore while I type this two days later, I’m still proud of what I did. I mean, I could have just as easily slammed a beer while mowing the grass and called that my weekends exercise. Trust me; it wouldn’t have been the first time.

That night, we went to a Fort Worth Cats game and I don’t think that I’m being at all presumptuous when I say that THIS WAS THE BEST CATS GAME IN THE HISTORY OF TIME!!!!! True, most of it was dominated by a losing score and lackluster hitting but still, everything about the experience was true ballpark magic. For instance, I’ve seen them win Championships and I’ve been at the stadium during some other fine baseball moments but Saturday night was the first time that I’ve ever seen my kid run onto the middle of the field during the visiting team’s warm-up.

It all began with Dodger… the Cat’s mascot and most beloved figure of my daughter’s little three-year old world. He was back after winning the Mascot Olympics in Orlando, Florida and both of them were incredibly amped to be reunited with one another. In fact, Dodger was so enthused that he invited Elissa out onto the field to dance with him during the game’s 7th inning stretch.

It probably would have all worked out great and been little more than a footnote event important only to my wife and I had they not let her walk out there on her own accord. As it was, she basically bolted past Dodger and started running the bases (as she’s done after games dozens of times) while the crowd of 4,100 people erupted with laughter. I know I should have been mortified but I tragically lost my ability to be embarrassed during an awkward adolescent incident that I suffered back when I was in high school. I was just happy that my little girl was having such a wonderful time and bringing so much joy to the crowd.

Once Dodger had caught her on the field and danced with her down the first baseline, he stopped right inside the gate and gave her the biggest hug that I’ve ever seen him give my little girl. I don’t know what he was thinking inside that big cat head of his but it looked to us like our daughter’s status had gone up by about a thousand points in his regard. I’ve always loved that crazy mascot, and even though I thought that my little girl would love him too back when I first introduced her to his catness, I had no idea that they’d become such an item. It’s wonderful when I big, plush, baseball-loving cat loves your family!

To make the whole occasion even more memorable, the Cat’s 3rd baseman finished the night with a two out, full count, two run walk-off homer in the 9th. I’d pretty much given up hope of us getting a win and was sitting there just waiting for the final out when I saw the ball leap off his bat and over the fence out in left field. I almost didn’t believe my words when I turned to Dana and said: “They’ve just won the game!” If it’s possible to have a baseball related orgasm… in that instant, I had one.

On Sunday, we went out to eat at this funky little restaurant named The Rocket that’s just opened up down the street from the Cat’s stadium. It didn’t have much on the menu for vegetarians but the scene was awesome and they gave us free beer so I’ll happily give it my endorsement for the best place for my family to dine-out forever. I’m so jazzed that Fort Worth continues to get these interesting hole-in-the-wall type establishments which the main stream has yet to discover. Sometimes, I think that the best kept secret in Texas is that this town is like Austin used to be before it got littered with yuppie scum and aging Gen X’rs.

Once that was finished, we headed out to the stockyards where frontier justice and cheesy fun is still alive and well. Most people who live in this area look on this part of town as either a tourist trap or an avenue that’s littered with expensive western wear shops and overpriced honky-tonks but I see it as a great place to take a three-year old who loves horses and being the center of attention. As an example, one of the deputies stationed out by the old pig and sheep barns questioned her just to make sure that she wasn’t looking for any trouble… and she LOVED it. She probably wanted to steal his horse and ride it around all over the street.

Even thought she’d made trouble at the baseball game the night before, I could have told the man my daughter was no outlaw. She was just there to see the Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show where they’ve got trick riders, trick shooters, trick ropers, and this guy standing on a horse and swinging a lariat rope around it and another one that’s riding by his side. You know, when I see something like this I think about all the years that I’ve wasted being an accountant. True, I hate country music but I could have been a damned good rodeo star! I’m sure of it!

Up until yesterday, I had never been to a wild-west show and now that I have, I think I’ll just make them a staple of my life forever.   I’ve been to lots of rodeos and I’ve seen plenty of cowboy movies but never before have I seen a guy do flips on a horse or tear up a newspaper with a whip. According to the singing, buckaroo that was narrating the whole extravaganza these events were all once a part of official rodeo competition. My question is, why’d they ever get rid of them in the first place? Come on! I like seeing people ride bulls just as much as the next guy but a dude shooting a balloon over his shoulder while using a mirror? How can you compete with that?

The answer is that some things you just can’t compete with. Some weekends will just be better than others even though there’s no one big event to mark them as such. Like the golden ratio first discovered by Pythagoras they are defined not by any singular aspect but by several simple but perfect components which come together to make them more memorable than most. From the belly-dancing event, to the baseball game, to the western show, everything that we did this weekend doesn’t amount to much when taken separately. It’s the fact that they all worked so well together which allowed true universal serendipity to be achieved and a gnarly good time to be had by my family.

Facebook

Let me be perfectly frank with you… I HATE FACEBOOK! 

I hate everything about Facebook!  I hate the way it looks with its stupid blue and white color scheme and everyone’s stupid little face next to their stupid little status updates.  I hate the very idea of it; the way it presupposes that I would be interested in answering a questionnaire to tell me what color I am.  I already know what color that the internet thinks I am.  That info came pre-printed on my AOL membership card back in the ‘90’s.  It was stupid back then and it’s still stupid today.  I hate Facebook. 

I hate the way that everyone who’s known you throughout your entire life will constantly pop up on Facebook just to tell you that they’re tired / going to lunch / eating spaghetti / hating Mondays / buying organic cucumbers.  I hate those inane little quizzes and all of the useless polls that they have on there.  I hate how these stupid applications do nothing to tell you anything worth knowing about a person.  I hate the fact that people are so ignorant that they think that I would care what type of howling wolf that Facebook considers them to be.  It’s stupid and shameful and I hate it.  

I hate how the entire structure of Facebook seems designed to give people an outlet for their unoriginal exhibitionism and pointless, banal narcissism.  I hate how it forces their egocentric behavior upon my dashboard by littering it full of their idiotic, self-absorbed trophy-collection of personal achievements no matter how miniscule they may be.  I hate how the comments section of every “I’m  sleepy!” or “I’m great!” statement boils down to nothing more than a bunch of redundant and endless chants of “Me too!” and “You go girl!”.   I just really, really hate Facebook! 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to social networking, it’s just that Facebook is so horrible at it.  Web communities should offer more from their members than just a barrage of information that’s only skin-deep and an embarrassment to read.  There are tons of useful sites out there that give you some kind of edification for the time spent on them.  There are plenty of places where you can learn something about people without having to endure 20 posts a day about how GrandMASTER-B: “Has another meeting to go to ” or MOMMYJACK:  “Is at the video-store renting movies for the kids!”.  That’s the kind of stuff that is contextually known in the study of human interaction as complete and total bullshit.  It’s stupid and it’s all over Facebook and I hate it! 

With Facebook you get status updates, links and notes to share yourself with.  If you’re really just a horrible attention whore, then the notes function gives you ability to tag as many people as you have on your friends list in order to make them all read the latest “25 Things About Me” drivel that you’ve written to define yourself. That way, if your lame, egocentric ass couldn’t tell everyone in the over 9 million status updates per day that you post, everything there is to understand regarding you and your favorite salad dressing then they have no choice but to be forced to endure it in an itemized form.  Facebook is shallow and it’s mostly used as communication forum which is directed outward with little circumspect or contemplation.  It’s soooooo stupid. 

I prefer blogs to every thoughtlessly formulated notion that I’ve ever seen posted on Facebook.  Blogs would be useful if the people that I know would ever care to explain or give context to why they think that it is important that a stupid quiz told them that they were the color Pink and a Super-Star-Sparkle Howling-Wolf.  All I know now is that they’re an ass for taking the quiz in the first place.  (CLICK HERE FOR THE REASON WHY I USED TO TAKE THEM) Why’d they take it?  Why are they tired?  Why do they hate Mondays, and why are they buying organic cucumbers? With Facebook there are no answers.  Everything just gets put up onto World Wide Web with no pretense like it’s a fucking space launch or some other thing that’s so HUGE that it needs no further explanation. 

These days, I get one or two emails a week from people asking me why I haven’t been on Facebook in so long.  The reason is because it’s stupid and I hate it. This blog is where I’ll be for a while and I’m not going to personally tag everyone I know just to make sure that they read it.  The thing is, I can’t conform to a status update to tell them what I’ve been doing all the time and I’d like to hear more about them than what’s on their too do list everyday. 

I hate Facebook.  Seeing the people that I know use it for self-aggrandizement or to document the trivial details about their lives without reason or explanation makes me hate them too.  It’s so, so horrible.  It’s causing me to think that everyone I know is stupid.  I hate it!

La Terrible Aquatique

Have you ever made a mistake and then, once you’ve committed yourself to the error done everything that you can (continuing down the path of regret) towards milking the situation for all that it is worth?  This weekend my family and I made one of those mistakes and, as with so many things, it was a pizza that broke us of our will to continue painting false smiles upon our faces.    We took one long look at the sign that read “PIZZA AND A LARGE DRINK – ONLY $40” said “Fuck this.” and ditched all pretence that any one of us was having a good time at the Six Flags water park named Hurricane Harbor. 

From the fat, obnoxious crowds (most of them with questionable grooming habits) to the rude employees, to the price of everything; all that there was to behold about Hurricane Harbor seemed to be designed just to snuff out your will to live.  We were there for almost a quarter of the day and I’m personally impressed that we were able to fake it for that long.  When Dana called bullshit on their overinflated pizza prices we left and were much happier at home doing nothing.  It’s no wonder that the company that runs it is currently under financial duress.     

Like Jesus, I’m largely without sin where this one is concerned.  I love the beach but I really dislike the very notion of getting wet.  I must have been born a cat in a previous life because I’d rather sit out in the heat for hours on end wearing a sweater than dip myself in the cool embrace of a pool of water.  I don’t know why I’m such a negative killjoy when it comes to swimming and sliding but I’ve always been that way.  Whatever the reason, I’m thankful for it because up until this point (except for one other occasion when I was much younger) it’s saved me from the experience of having to go to Hurricane Harbor.   

Dana, on the other hand can’t get enough of anything that requires swimming.  She loves to slide and splash and generally just gets herself all kinds of wet as her version of summertime fun.  That being said, she can’t be blamed for the horribleness that was our trip to Hurricane Harbor either.  She took one look at the crowds and said that we should go another day… and then the kid started to cry. 

So we’ll just blame our daughter for everything that sucked about Saturday.  It’s Elissa’s fault that we spent $100 to get in and she’s the reason that Dana only got to ride maybe three rides the whole time that we were there.  It was her selfish crying which was the only motivation for me to have to sit in water for three hours thinking: “This Park doesn’t have near enough restrooms and yet still, there’s never a line for them.  Where are all these icky, tattooed slobs peeing?”  

I feel like congratulating myself right now because, despite my personal issues with water and sanitation, I did manage to put on an outstandingly affable game-face while we were there.  I think I offered one unsolicited quip about having to pay extra to rent a tube (which is just fucking retarded) when we first got inside but other than that, I smiled and acted like it was the best place that I’d ever been.  Only when the shine began to fade from my wife’s face did I fully unleash the total and abject hatred that I felt for everything there.  

You see, my wife had come to slide (as a reward for finishing her class) and since most of the rides there require more than one person to go on them she couldn’t.  True, she might have managed to ride more if I hadn’t been watching the kid or, if the employees were doing anything to match up un-partnered guests with one another but none of that was happening.  Instead the people working there were just generally yelling at patrons for either moving too slow or too fast and I was sitting at the kiddy pool worrying about the amount of human urine in the water. 

In the end, I’m glad that the company that runs Hurricane Harbor currently has to file for bankruptcy.  I’ve never had a good time at any one of their attractions both there or across the freeway at the amusement park that they run.  My general party-pooper mindset has nothing to do with this either because I thought that Schlitterbahn was pretty nice when we went there last year and I’m practically gay when it comes to the affection that I have for Disney World.  Six Flags?  They treat their customers like crap and charge $40 for pizza and drinks.  They can go suck a dick.  

On Sunday, we went to go see a movie that I wanted to go see.  I have to use that quantifier because, since the kid was born I’ve seen exactly two types of films at the theater, one being cartoons and the other being Harry Potter.  It’s not that I especially have to go see a movie that is specifically of interest to me but it’s just really, really, nice when that happens. 

We saw 500 Days of Summer which was a film that I had at first liked only for its outstanding soundtrack (yes, everything that I knew about the movie before Sunday was based on the fact that it’s music was total hipster twee) but, after seeing it came to really appreciate for the story.  It’s not the kind of movie that you’re going to walk away from with any deep and profound insights on but it is refreshing in that it’s not just another modern day take on The Taming of the Shrew with Sandra Bullock cast in the lead.  It’s got elements drawn from that story but the ending is much more realistic… and the soundtrack kicks ass! 

I’ve got mixed emotions about seeing the music that I care about set to what is in essence a standard Hollywood love story made slightly more interesting by the ending that it possesses.  Part of me really wants the rest of the world to share in my taste in melody while the other side feels that what I love is too important to be made available to everyone.  I’m so protective of my favorite songs that I don’t even play half of what I listen to for my wife.  It’s weird.  It’s like some compositions are simply too special to me to risk having another person give me their opinion on them.  

There was a scene in the movie where the main character is telling Summer about a band that he likes and she tells him that she’s never heard of them even though it’s revealed later on that he included them on a mix-tape that he gave her.  I felt his pain in that scene.  I mean, I realize that you can’t force someone to like the same things that you like but when you give them something that speaks directly to your soul and they don’t even hear it… that stings.  I love my wife too much to put her in that same predicament.   

Anyway, all Junior High-School level musical musings aside, I’m glad that we ended our weekend with this movie.  It was good enough to at least partially make up for the metaphorical ass-rape that was Hurricane Harbor and it made me feel less like a freak because of my semi-obscure taste in song.  I’m glad that I was there with my wife because, even though I’m often reluctant to give her total access to my iPod, she’s the only one I know who would have probably understood that scenes effect on me.  

That’s just one of the 500 reasons that I love her.

Zoolanderz

Okay, now that I’ve gotten my total disdain for everything about Starbucks out of the way, I suppose I should finally get back to writing about what I did last weekend.  I’d probably just skip it at this point but I’m OCD and EVERYTHING MUST BE DOCUMENTED!  That way, when my daughter’s grandchildren are surfing the cached web pages of their ancestors with futuristic mind control implants one day, they’ll see how hilarious their great grandfather was and it’ll instill hope in them and the spirit to rise up against their robot oppressors. 

On Sunday, Dana was of course studying, so the kid and I went out and paid a visit to the Fort Worth Zoo.  They’re celebrating their 100^th anniversary this season for which the wife and I have been member’s 99 of those years.  We’ve seen it change and grow in popularity, slowly morphing from a little visited spot of tranquility within the city towards a packed and terrifying place that’s filled with so many families who say things like:  “Look at that big hippo!” while pointing at the rhino that it can literally make your head feel like it’s going to explode. 

I’m happy for their success and even though the crowds make me feel uncomfortable these days, I still have many good memories associated with the place.  Dana and I went here on our first date and we took our daughter to her first Halloween at this zoo.  Together over the years we’ve thrown so much money towards this entity that perhaps I feel entitled to be allowed to enjoy it now without having to listen to people tell their kids all the wrong names for the animals… especially when I’m standing there trying to educate my daughter by actually READING THE FUCKING INFO THAT’S PRINTED ON THEIR EXHIBIT! 

At any rate, my kid is three and much like the average 35 year old she doesn’t give a shit what kind of animal that she’s watching.  All that she wants to do it go there, see some wildlife and have some fun!  It wouldn’t matter if she were holding an alligator or a parakeet, she just loves the fact that she’s getting to interact with a living creature that she considers both fascinating and adorable.  In her defense, she does have a healthy dose of intellectual curiosity for her age, but that often loses out when something colorful and moving is stuck in front of her face. 

One of the great things about the Fort Worth Zoo is that they actually allow you to touch many of the more docile, non-human-eating animals that they have on display there.  It’s not a full on petting zoo by any stretch of the imagination but they do offer that aspect if you should feel so inclined to poke a chicken with your finger or comb a goat with a brush.  It’s not something that holds much allure for me, but for children (and some 35 year olds) it’s like the best experience that they’ve had since the last best experience that they had when they got to do something awesome like… maybe ride in a car-shaped grocery cart or play dolls in a Dora tent.  They’re so easily amused.    

It was hotter than a very hot thing on Sunday so I made sure to keep my kid hydrated and cool.  I was happy that she found some water dripping from an ornamental cistern there and didn’t get too freaky about playing in it.  She did, once she was finished, start yelling at me that she was soaking wet and wanted to go home but I fooled her into forgetting about it all with my sinister mind game of:  “Hey, look at the otter swimming over there!” after which she was refreshed and unflappable in regards to her condition. 

We actually spent a lot of time at the fish and otter exhibit.  You see, since I built a pond of my own I’ve found that I have a new kind of respect for this sort of thing.  I no longer look at them and think thoughts such as, “Fish.  They swim.” but rather now, I’m more prone to be all technical and nerdy.  I’ll sit there and analyze the pump system for hours on end and wonder what methods they’re employing to keep the algae down.  While this is going on my daughter is of course getting antsy and generally tired of the whole scene but that’s okay…   I guess I’m pretty easily amused too. 

In the end, I think that we spent about four and a half hours at the zoo on Sunday.  We arrived during the heat of the day, visited everything that they had to offer and left at closing time.  That may be too long for most people but we were just trying to stay out of my wife’s hair long enough for her to finish up with this hellish class that she’s been in.  BTW… she did. 

Congratulations Dana!  I’m looking forward to doing stuff with you for the remainder of the summer.  It’s nice to have you back!

I wonder if Starbucks will read this?

Dear Starbucks, 

I am writing to your company not only to lodge a formal complaint regarding one particular establishment operating under the umbrella of your chain but also to point out the varying ways that I see your organization drifting further and further away from cafe culture as a whole.  While I understand the need to provide a service of which most consumers demand, I see no reason why this service has to come at the expense of the base clientele that was there for you in the beginning and who in essence created you.  In other words, sugary snacks and milkshake flavored coffee drinks can and should be sold to those people who need to shove candy in their mouths constantly however it is a fallacy to assume that their business is mutually exclusive to those of us who simply desire a place to enjoy a warm espresso in a comforting atmosphere while being surrounded by the sounds of intelligent conversation and discourse. 

The branch that provoked my ire enough to inspire this critical missive is located at The Parks Mall in Arlington, Texas.  Mind you, this letter is not in regards to the one that you have there inside the Barnes and Noble on the second floor, nor is it concerning the one across the street that is inside the Target.  It’s also neither of the two which sit directly on the opposite side of the freeway from the mall, the first one being just off the Cooper Street exit and the second one an almost equal distance away from the next exit at Matlock Road.  Each of these sucks balls in their own unique and varied ways but none of them suck balls as hard as the shop that you have on the lower levels of the mall nearest the playground and movie theater.  It’s the location where I most often buy my drinks while visiting during the hottest months of the summer in order to let my daughter play. 

I go at night, after work and apparently at the time that the fattest people in the world have been called by the cacophonous harmonies of a quarter of a dozen blenders churning out an endless stream of blubber sustaining lard-fuel’s made of ice, chocolate, espresso and milk.   They crowd around the barista’s bar taking up almost every bit of space in the stores closet sized lounging area.  Sometimes they buy cream-cheese covered pastries and chocolate flavored snacks.  When their drinks are served they leave, happily saying things like “This is going to ruin my diet.” and carrying what amounts to a bag of donuts and a convenience store slushy in their pudgy little hands.  They are awesome!  God bless them, for they have become your core customer as you continue to move your business model more towards the likeness of a fast food chain and less about the rare and cherished place that you once offered for sane people to drink and converse about matters other than the effect that eating tons butter might have on the size of their asses. 

Me?  Well when I visit this or any one of your establishments, I’m usually prone to order a simple cup of coffee just as I have since the first branch opened in my area back in the mid 1990’s.  Since I most often go at night, I prefer decaf, of which your stores never have brewed even though it’s always the evening and the sign says that they serve coffee.  As a substitute, I have learned to order a Café Americana which cost about $0.70 cents extra but can be made in a mere fraction of the time that it takes to procure a cup of drip, both of which taste exactly the same.  This is a compromise that I have grown willing to accept rather than stand around uncomfortably amidst the crowds of bubble-shaped humans and the roar of the blenders while waiting for my drink to finish percolating. 

Now to be honest with you, I do find your coffee to be somewhat bitter tasting if taken straight however, I love the flavor that it possesses when a liberal amount of non-fat milk is used to cut it.  Not too long ago, your company trusted me enough to allow me to add my own milk to the drinks that you prepared for me but now, because everything about your organization sucks balls these days, I’m rarely able to find a carafe that is available for me to use.  When I do it is always 100% empty all the time and that’s just mean and disheartening.  I have found this to be true at this particular store at the mall as well as most others and I hate it Starbucks.  I really do… I just hate it so much. 

If I happen to point out the carafe’s need of replenishment to the barista, they usually pour a small cup for me from behind the bar with an expression that seems to indicate that they’d rather I choke on a bag of hot dicks than have to trouble them for a little bit of milk.  It’s humiliating not be bequeathed with the responsibility of handling the creamer at your stores anymore and it’s uncomfortable to be looked at like you should choke on a bag of dicks but sadly I’ve found this degrading situation to be a necessary evil which must be endured.   The alternative would be to pay out an extra dollar for a Café Latte ($3.40) which tastes exactly the same as a Café Americano ($2.40) or Café Drip ($1.70) just to have milk added to my drink.  That’s just dumb and crazy, dudes. 

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that in writing this I may come across as a bit of a cheap-skate or perhaps a freeloading bum.  After all, I seem on the surface to be the kind of person who expects to just walk into one of your establishments and purchase a meager coffee that I would in turn use to cheat the system by dastardly loading it up with tons of free cream.  Perhaps this is true but in this economy expecting me to pay $3.40 just to have milk added to my coffee is akin to all the bad guys of the world anticipating that Mister T will hug them with loving form of American justice rather than just give them a bunch roundhouse kicks to the head.  I pity the fool!  

Coffee and cream has been a time tested and inseparable complement to one another’s flavor in café’s all over the world!  Why don’t you trust me with the cream anymore, huh Starbucks?  Your primary competitors in the fast food and convenience store marketplace all seem to provide free cream and they sell their coffees at lower prices.  Why should I have to choke on a bag of hot dicks just to be a satisfied customer at your store?  What are you hiding your creamers for?

Also, I’m not such a terrible spendthrift (and Goddamn you for even thinking that) to where I’ve only ever ordered just coffee from your stores!  If you would take the time to really look at my purchasing habits at Starbucks throughout the years, then you would see that I used to be a customer several times week and often multiple times a day.  I would get a coffee and a pastry in the morning, a latte at lunch, and then a decaf to drink while talking with my family or visiting with friends in the comfort of your shops during the evening.  Decaf was always brewed in the good old days and you never had to ask for non-fat milk to put in it.  I really did love Starbucks back them.  We were an item.  

This was of course before all of your branches became drive-thru’s and every bit of the tiny sitting space that you gave people with which to relax inside suddenly got taken up by fatties buying junk food and laughing about how you were ruining their diets.  As you’ve slowly grown into a McDonalds, I have found that paying a visit to any one of your establishments is like choking on a bag of hot dicks.  To adequately describe the experience and the way that it makes me feel, I would have to somehow make up an entirely new word that would punch you the face as soon as you read it.  I just really hate you now Starbucks!  

Seriously Starbucks, WTF?  I once was able to buy this great zucchini nut bread from your stores and now all that I can find at the one at the mall as well as most of your other locations are things stuffed with cheese or covered in coco and butter.  I ask you, are not the loudly blended milkshake drinks that you serve all the time and forever, enough to satisfy the eat-reflex of your present demographic?  Can you not provide just a small portion of your menu for something that isn’t birthday cake flavored?  I would gladly show you how not cheap I am (you presumptive bunch of bastards) if you’d just give me something to buy that I couldn’t find sold elsewhere with a free toy inside. 

I’m sure that your reply to my list of complaints would be to dismiss me as a person who is adamantly against chains and one who wouldn’t be satisfied ever in giving their business to an icon of mass consumption.  I’ll concede that this is probably true but honestly, I like a lot of the crap about Starbucks that’s not related to them sucking balls.  At your core I think that you are a good company and have simply allowed yourself to be swayed by the demands of people who want only to eat and run and spend and eat and eat while overlooking us snobbish book-reading dandies who might actually be willing to savor what you offer in all manner of food, drink and ambiance. 

For instance, if I can hear it over the blenders and all of the fat people giggling about their diets, I appreciate the music that you pipe into most of your stores.  I would prefer a live, local band but seriously, when was the last time that you ever saw one of those at a fast-food restaurant?  That’s like asking for the moon and the stars when you place your order of fries, right?  I know, I want too much.  I’m just pleased that you don’t have country-rock blaring from your sound systems all the time.  Don’t get any ideas from that either. 

I’m also fond of the fact that you’ve stayed socially conscious as your organization has grown.  I enjoy that I can drink my coffee with the knowledge that it hasn’t been harvested by tiny slave-children in a field covered in sewerage and icky chemicals.  I respect how you treat your employees.  Even though they the all seem to think that I should eat a bag of dicks when I ask them for milk, I admire you for offering them some of the best benefits in the industry.  I also like your coffee… if I am allowed to put a lot of non-fat milk in it. 

What I don’t like is the manner in which I see your company changing on an almost daily basis.  I hate how you’ve made yourself more and more like a dealer of fast food rather than a true, community coffee shop and gathering place.  I loath how your stores have become dispensing hubs for milkshakes, slushies, snacks and all manner of items that could just as easily be bought at a 7-11.  I disapprove of you killing everything that was once nice about drinking coffee.  You’ve made the little deformed two-tailed mermaid woman cry at the tawdry way that you’ve forced her to behave. You are a bad café.  Shame!  Why you haven’t just started selling cigarettes and condoms at this point is beyond me?  

Sadly, there’s no alternative to the product that you offer because you’ve dotted the landscape with over a zillion different Starbucks and driven out all competition everywhere.  The locally owned café’s and bistro’s which were once so common during the ‘90’s have been replaced by your vulgar stores and the assembly line style that you make your drinks in.  Gone are the specialty coffee’s blended just for you (without having to beg for non-fat milk), gone are the local bands and poetry readings, gone are the refuges where we once could talk.  Everything is Starbucks and everything at them is doing everything it can to drive the simple enjoyment out of everything, everywhere. 

As with most matters that inspire one to sit down and type up a four page letter about how full of suck that a company is, my complaint is not just in regards to that one store at the mall.  True, it may be the most awesome of any of the ones within your organization at screwing up an entire coffee drinking experience but that factor is nominal.  When you’ve gone and replaced all the things that once made your brand special and in their absence given the customer an experience equivalent to sucking balls, then calling one location out for being the pits is like naming the worst cancer cell in your body.  True, there probably is one that’s more gnarly and tumorus than all of the others but it doesn’t change the fact that having any cancer is like choking on a bag of hot dicks.  

You’ve got a great responsibility to uphold Starbucks, and that’s keeping everything that’s good about coffee alive.  Please, don’t cheapen it and don’t push people away from the simple pleasure of enjoying it by making them feel like criminals when they ask for cream or crowding them out of your shops by giving them less and less floor space in ratio to those who are standing around waiting on candy and treats before jetting off to their next meal.  Please serve foods that are more unique than just gussied up donuts.  Put the blenders in the back because… Goddamn they’re loud and besides, you’re supposed to be a coffee shop, not an ice cream store. 

Listen Starbucks, you have to change the path that you’re on and you have get back to you core.    I beg you, do whatever it takes!  Do anything!  Watch every episode of Friends with a scene at the Central Perk if it helps you to remember what people enjoying good conversation and a cup of coffee used to look like.  Stop focusing on crap food, bad service and just generally sucking balls and take a moment to have a nice slow drink with the people that you cherish.  Don’t try to do this at any one of your establishments because it’s become impossible these days.  All Starbucks coffee shops sound like blenders anymore and they look like fat people and cookies exploded all over them. 

We coffee drinkers have nowhere else to go.  You’ve destroyed our natural habitat with your reckless expansion.  Please change Starbucks.  Please.  I implore you to please, please change and if you refuse… then I hope you choke on a bag of hot dicks.

A Concerned Customer

http://mastroianni66.wordpress.com

NERD (or Driving Excitement)

I’m just going to go ahead and break out the entry that I normally write on Mondays about the weekend into two or three separate and shorter blogs to be updated throughout the next few days.  I’m undergoing a busy period here at work and since the usual blog compsing ritual that I engage in during my lunch hours will now be replaced by crying over spreadsheets and punching office furniture then I figure that it’s best not to bite off more than I can chew.  Besides that, my post-workday life is very uninteresting so now with me working late all the time my levels of excitement are set to diminish by double the amounts that they currently are at.  In other words, everything I do this week will be twice as infinitely dull. 

On Saturday everyone except me was sick so about half the day was spent with all of us lying around on the bed like some kind of phlegm-filled slug-creatures from the planet Lazy.  I did get outside to mow the grass but I found the humidity to be totally bogus and almost 1,000% capable of killing all human motivations.  By the time that I was finished I was all like “Fuck this!” and  I didn’t even weed or edge.  Instead I drove out to the local entertainment and video-game store where I staked out it’s millions of rows of used Xbox titles for something that I could play in front of my daughter.  My only requirement was that it didn’t have a million body parts flying through the air yet still be ass kicking and enjoyable to play. 

 I’d read recently on an online parenting site that 9 out of 10 fathers like me who had never matured past being a teenaged boy considered Halo to be an okay game to play around their kids.  They rationalized all of the gun-play and xenophobic genocide by stating that graphically the maelstrom of combat was on par with what is seen in all the Star Wars movies.  Since my wife and I had started introducing our little girl to Star Wars and everything about it from almost the point of conception  I figured that it would be okay to go ahead and purchase Halo 3 and finally see what all of the hububaloo was about. 

To my delight the game is a blast to play and as an added bonus my wife can even join in on the missions with me.  It’s not too terribly violent graphics-wise and since we’ve started a practice of referring to the guns used in it as lollipops instead of weapons then I figure that we’re probably terrifying Elissa about candy.  This is also a good thing considering that our kid staunchly refuses to eat anything that hasn’t been first fried in butter and then dipped in sugar.  I really like it but still, I don’t get this advertisement that was included in the box. 

What is this telling me?  Is it supposed to indicate that driving a Pontiac is akin to fighting off aliens in the ultimate galactic struggle for human survival?  I’ve never driven a Pontiac so I don’t know.  If so, then cool!  I definitely think more people should drive them.  I’ll probably buy 20.

Kalpana Chawala Day

 What happens when you pick a little girl up from school and say things like “ARE YOU READY TO GO SEE MONSTERS VS. ALIENS?” and “IT’S ALMOST MOVIE TIME!” for four hours straight and then go out to the field where they were supposed to be showing it only to find out that it’s too muddy and that the whole thing’s been cancelled?  I’ll tell you what.  It’s basically like sending a billion 9/11 planes crashing into your kids world, destroying their faith in everything. We had to pull of some Dora the Explorer from off of the internet we got home just to make it up to Elissa.

Of course, it didn’t help that the movie wasn’t scheduled to start until 9:00pm.  T is just about the time that we start getting her ready for bed right before she gets too tired and goes nuclear.  It also didn’t help that I showed up to the school almost two hours early in order to have diner with my wife and then made the kid walk around looking at fountains and benches for what I’m sure felt like 100 years to her.  True, she likes looking at the fountains but there’s only about three of them and that’s basically 40 minutes per fountain which is exactly 39 minutes and 30 seconds too long to make a three-year old focus on any one object.  

The school where this was being held is both the school that I graduated from and the one that my wife is now attending for her doctorate.  I’ve long since gotten over the weirdness of walking around it almost 12 years after I last desperately looked for a date or just ANYONE TO LOVE ME on that campus.  Some things have changed and some things have remained the same.  There are new buildings that have been built since the time when I was an undergrad and all of the classrooms are now filled with mysterious typing machines that the students refer to as “computers” but still… I swear that the carpet in the fucking Student Center hasn’t been replaced ever. 

I’ll be honest with you, back when I went to this university, I hated it.  Yes, the college did have a business school that was ranked 33^rd in the country but it got a big ole FAIL when it came to teaching the art of party.  During this time, all of my friends were going off to schools where they majored in Crazy during the day and beer-pong at night and I was just too poor to afford such frivolities.  I was jealous of them and I coveted their universities.  While they got to have a true college experience complete with panty-raids and weird art-house friends who wore turtlenecks all the time, I just got educated with a bunch of pasty white-guys in button down oxfords.  

These days I still look back on the experience with a little bit of bitterness but perhaps because I’ve become a different sort of selfish-prick than the selfish-prick that I was back then, I sort of like the school now.  I appreciate the fact that they have a family friendly campus that shows cartoons on a weeknight.  I’m glad that the student body is mainly made up of working people or people who just want to get their degrees with as little nuisance and interruption as possible.  I know first hand that this college will make you work your ass off (just look at Dana this semester) but it also allows you to work your ass off with less kinds of distractions than most of the other universities do. 

 As soon as Dana’s done with her doctorate I fully intend to go back to school myself.  I haven’t yet decided what I’ll major in when I return (probably business with the goal of teaching college) but I know that I can’t keep being a middle-manager and senior accountant for the rest of my life.  If I continue to have to live in the corporate world then I have no doubt that I’ll probably end up drinking myself into and early grave or going crazy, winding up wandering the streets naked and covered in feathers one night after my companies year-end are turned in.  If you don’t believe me,  please come up at see my in my office at 9:00pm next week and I’ll personally tell you how much that I love what I do for a living using as many four-letter words as is possible. 

Should we be unfortunate enough to have to remain in this area then I have no qualms about returning to this place that I once cursed for its lack of collegiate debauchery and drunk, hot chicks.  Thankfully, my days of searching out parties and hedonistic fun are long since behind me.  All I want to do now is get through my future educational experience with as little distraction as possible so that I can use as much time as my studies will allow being at home with my family.

Raindance

Tonight, my wife goes to her weekly belly-dancing class (did I mention already how lucky I am to be married to her?) and I’m left by myself to entertain the kid.  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem but as of about 9:00pm last night I officially decided that I’ll be damned if I’m cramming myself into that itty-bitty Dora tent and playing Dora dolls one more time this week.  I was looking forward to taking her to an outdoor showing of Monster’s Vs. Aliens that the local college is putting on but it’s been raining all day and even if it clears up by nightfall I’m not sure if I want to go sit out in the mud and yell “Sit down and quit kicking me!” at my daughter for an hour and a half. 

I guess if the weather stays nasty then I can always fall back on my old stand-by; the mall playground.  They’ve finally gotten a new coffee shop and it’s “Not Starbucks” so that way I won’t have to feel like I’m destroying what’s left of café-culture just to have a few gulps of the old chokin’ bean while I’m watching her.  Then again, I suppose we could also go play putt-putt.  Truthfully I’m a little tired of doing the same things with her week after week but she loves going to these places and right now every single one of them is miles and miles away from her Dora tent.  She’s become such a Nazi about putting me in that tent. 

 Last night was Elissa’s dance class!  EVERYONE I KNOW IS DANCING!!!!  This is how our lives work okay?  Dana goes to dance on Thursdays to learn how to writhe seductively while the kid goes on Wednesdays to be educated in the art of prancing like a pretty ballerina or stomping like a drunken Irishman.  I know, it looks weird on paper but all of us are happy and it feels right.  We’re sticking with the prevalent social disconnect in the various ways that our family chooses to boogie for right now.  Maybe in the future we’ll all be in a musical.  Me?  I don’t dance.  I beat-box. 

Anyway, I was thankful that this class allowed me to escape the Dora tent for most of last night and besides that, I always love watching my little girl go through her routine along with all the other girls.  She’s getting quite good however it’s still really funny to watch her what with all the kicking and the falling down and the looking at herself so closely in the mirror the whole time.  She’s only three-years-old so she still has the muscular coordination of a drunk getting tazered while riding a rodeo-bull.  There isn’t much uniformity to any of the moves that they do.  I don’t care.  Elissa is having fun and I’m just glad that she listens to the teacher and doesn’t cry out in terror every time they make them plié.  Many of the others do. 

 I was very happy that my wife decided to join us at her lessons.  Dana does manage to make most of these classes but right now she’s so snowballed with high-minded things like teaching-theory and discourse-examination that she’d have had every excuse in the book to bail on us last night.  Instead she came along and said encouraging things like “Good job!” and “That was so pretty!” to Elissa in between her various sessions.  Afterwards she’d rush back to a dimly lit corner of abject patheticness and continue writing her paper.  I have no idea how she pulls off this degree of multi-tasking other than the fact that she’s a primo chick and awesome mommy.  

Next Monday begins my week of the month where I never get to leave my desk and hardly see my family and just generally get abused a lot by my work. I don’t know what the kid and I will do this evening but knowing what’s coming, I feel a certain pressure to make sure that its fun.  I probably won’t buy her a balloon like her mommy did yesterday (THE KID IS NUTS FOR BALLOONS) and I’m sure as hell not going to go back in that Dora tent tonight.  I don’t know… maybe watching a movie in the mud and being kicked to death by my daughter doesn’t sound like such a bad thing after all.

Productive doofus

“Technically your license has been suspended but really it’s not suspended.”  Spoke the friendly lady at the other end of the 45 minute phone-call from hell.  I had called the state to ask why they had never sent me a new one after I’d stood in line and had my picture taken way the hell back in May.  Now the temporary had expired and I desperately needed a real life card that would assure both cops and beer vendors that I was old enough to drink alcohol and drive a motor vehicle. 

“What?”  I asked. 

“Well, there was a hold put on your license but it shouldn’t have been put on there.”  She said in a tone that sounded like genuine concern.  “I’m so sorry.  We should be able to get it cleared up in about 10 days.  Call back on Monday just to be sure.” 

“I need to get my truck registration taken care of and I was hoping to do that tomorrow.”  I replied being careful not to sound too annoyed.  I didn’t want my utter contempt for the Texas Department of Public safety to ruin my chances at having the latest headache that they’d given me be relieved.  “Is this going to cause problems with that?” 

“Oh.”  The lady mouthed anxiously.  “I’m afraid that it might.” 

“What if I get pulled over while you guys are still clearing this up?”  I asked.  “Am I going to be hauled off to jail?” 

“You shouldn’t.”  She answered.  “Just be polite to the police officer and explain to them the situation that you’re in and you should be okay.  You’re technically licensed although our system doesn’t register it and your temporary has expired.” 

I didn’t tell her that I had about as much faith about the cops in my area listening to reason as I would at being invited to ride on a float in the OJ Simpson Sainthood Parade with Jesus Christ and Marilyn Manson.  Instead I asked, “Is there anyway I can get put through sooner on Monday morning when I call back?  I waited on hold for over 30 minutes for this call.” 

“Yes.”  She said with satisfaction.  “The earlier that you call the less of a hold-time you will have.”

 - - o – - – o – - – o – -

Other than this annoying (but expected) trouble with my license, I’ve been a dynamic, productive and totally bitchin individual these past few days.  I got my tires changed yesterday, went and had my eyes looked at today (QUICK QUESTION:  Should you really decorate your optometry office with blurry black and white photographs?), and tomorrow I’m probably going to at least try to renew the registration for my truck.  After all, I’m technically licensed to drive and technically the TxDot website says that you don’t technically have to have your technically expired license with you to get a new sticker… technically speaking. 

I don’t know.  It’s worth trying. 

The remarkable thing about getting all of this done this week is that I’m normally really good at looking after other people but completely lousy and inept at making sure that I myself am clothed properly or fed or… well, breathing I guess.  For instance, every single month I’ll put off getting a haircut until the point at which I wake up one morning beating myself with a baseball bat because I’ve seen myself in the mirror and think that some sort of transient or hippie has broken into our house.  The dentist?  Yeah, don’t ask my wife about me going to the dentist.  Don’t ask her this ever. 

I got to pick Elissa up from school yesterday which is a rare treat for me and one that I always appreciate.  I’m glad that my wife has a schedule allowing her on most afternoons to spring our kid early from the prison camp of daycare but I truly do love going in there and getting to see what she does in her class for myself.  For instance, yesterday when I entered the room, my kid was standing outside the bathroom with her pants down around her ankles.  Apparently there was another child engaged in using it and our daughter was just thinking ahead and getting ready for when it would finally become her turn.  One of the parents said:  “She’s so smart.” to me as together we stood there waiting. She told me that she’d said this because Elissa could already spell her name and she was impressed.  Being mentioned as it was while I watched the girl dancing half naked off in a corner, it didn’t come across as I’m sure that she’d meant it to. 

When we’d left my daughter and I headed out to Kroger’s to do our weekly grocery shopping.  Why Kroger’s?  Well, they have these nifty little European looking cars affixed to their shopping carts and Elissa likes them.  We had to stalk the parking lot for what felt like forever just to find a parent that was giving one up.  I’ll keep this in my “Patient and Understanding Father” file for the next time that my daughter gets pissed at me for needing to leave the playground or stop playing dolls with her in order to bathe and feed myself.  I’ll say, “Remember when we went to Kroger’s and I looked all over for a cart with a car so that you can ride on it?” and she’ll scream at me.  She won’t care but it’ll make me feel better. 

While grocery shopping we bought all greens in order to satisfy my new dietary requirements and stave off the fast approaching fat-hood that I’ve almost let myself be destined for.  Both my wife and I have been vegetarians for many, many years but I myself often chose to supplement meat with things like beans and pasta over anything that would actually provide nourishment.  I’m pretty bad about keeping a package of microwavable crap in our freezer and just feeding off of that for days at a time.  For now though, I’m going to give salads a try and see if they’ll really help me to have more energy without turning me gay from eating the fruity little things constantly. 

Lastly, something has happened here recently which I’m not sure whether to feel happy or sad about.  You see, next to her mommy I’ve always been the secondary parent in my daughter’s mind.  For instance, if both my wife and I were hanging off a cliff over a pit of boiling lava, Elissa would first rescue my wife and then, once she’d satisfied herself that mommy was going to be okay she’d push me to my death.  I’ve just never been that important to the child and she’s let me know this on multiple occasions by telling me that she doesn’t love me  because she loves mommy too much.  Ouch! 

During the past week however, Elissa has been clinging to me and sometimes balling her eyes out at the door when I have to leave for work in the morning.  Truly I’m thrilled that I’ve finally been able to make my daughter cry regarding her fear of me leaving her but still I feel really badly for my wife.  The only reason that Dana is not number one right now is because she has to study so hard for her class these days that she isn’t around as much as she used to be.  She was the one who basically for the first two years of our daughter’s life spent every summer taking her to the zoo and practicing words with her on a daily basis .   I’m just a doofus with an accounting degree who goes and plays putt-putt with the kid from time to time.  My wife on the other hand gave birth to the most fantastic little girl on the face of the earth and now she’s about to have her doctorate.  Dana is smart, beautiful and a she’s wonderful mommy.  If I were Elissa, I’d hate me because I loved her too much as well.

Brad Pitt and I… Simpatico

As a guy who celebrates all of his life’s accomplishments by asking “Has Brad Pitt done this?” and if the answer is yes marking a point down on the “I KICK ASS!” score card that I keep in my pocket, I was rather delighted to see the cover of ‘Wired’ magazine this month.  You see, I’ve been feeling less than cool lately.  I have grey in my bead and my knees hurt 80% of the time.  Where I use to run on high octane PARTY-POWER I’m now just generally starting to fall apart in all sorts of demeaning ways that involve stuff like not being able to eat Tabasco sauce like I once could or having to get at least seven-hours sleep in order to not turn into a grumpy old dick for the entire day that follows. 

I was excited to see this magazine cover because… OMFG!!! Brad Pitt has grey in his beard!  And as if this gift wasn’t enough to provide a mini-Christmas morning for my insecure soul he’s finally starting to look a little bit older in the face!  HA!  That’s two points for my “I KICK ASS!” tally.  If only his hairline were receding then I could have scored a tri-fecta and celebrated by eating a bowl of bran cereal and popping some Tums before bedtime tonight. 

Science tells us to look for similarities when trying to find an explanation for two separate subjects who both exhibit old-fart characteristics at the same time.  Casting aside the obvious effects that being born before the release of Star Wars could have on an individual who is living out their lives as the years progress, we’re left with only one explanation… both Brad Pitt and I had a kid at the same time.  It’s simple really.  Our children are stealing the elixir of our youth and using it to play with dolls and stuffed animals while in fact we still need it so that we can continue to jump off of buildings on skateboards and inhale beer-bongs. 

 I don’t think I’m making too much with the crazy-talk when I say that if you allow it, having a child can make you decrepit before your time.  They’re all categorically insane.  They force you to squeeze yourself into tube slides and roll around with them on hardwood floors for hours on end.  They don’t feel the pain that you feel in your joints while they’re running around on the playground all bat-shit insane and making you chase them.  They just want to have fun all the time and on their terms… which is exactly how you yourself used to be before they came along. 

I remember from the time that my parents were about 30 up until they turned 55-ish they basically just stopped taking care of themselves.  I’m sure that some of this was my fault but really, when it comes down to it, one day they just stone-cold grabbed a plate of pork-chops, sat down in front of the television and never got up.  I can only guess that they had no idea what the effect of three plates of fried animal parts a day and a box of donuts every morning could have on a person because at one point I swear that I heard them both exclaim “I’m soooooooooo fat now!” in suprise before flipping the channel to see what else was on. 

These days, I’m a lot closer to 40 than I am to 30 and for the most part I’ve stayed relatively active.  I’m slightly below what the government says that I should weigh and that’s a condition that I count as only marginally acceptable when I consider the tolerance for fat-assedness that this country possesses.  I still get outside and move my arms and legs real fast occasionally but I know that I don’t do it as much as I should.  I’m slowing down and the fact that I’ve somehow rationalized and accepted this injustice to my body is something that makes me want to vomit all over everything. 

 Having a kid will tear you in a million different directions and rob you of all of your free time but allowing yourself to turn into a lard-filled, achy, dump-truck-butted, lazy person is unfair to them as well as  everyone else in the family.  While I’m sure that I’ll never have the chance to be as RIOT as I was when I was 18, 25, or even 32 years old, I intend to stop allowing little things like work and catching my breath after chasing my kid all over the place slow me down.  I need to break unhealthy lifestyle habits that I’ve gotten into since our daughter was born and I need to get back to really paying attention to the way that I eat and the things that I do.  I want to be running with Elissa when she’s as old as I am now and I want to be acting all bat-shit insane for a man over 70.  The way I see it, it’ll be payback for the hell that she’s putting me through these days on a regular basis. 

Brad Pitt and I are getting older and it’s beginning to show.  I’m sure that he wakes up some mornings after a night spent having his kids jump all over him and immediately orders up a chiropractor as well as some uppers, a holistic swami and whatever else Hollywood people chose to employ in order to make themselves so Dorian Grey all the time.  He’d be wise to start of a regimen of practical diet and exercise as well.  Starting this week that’s what I’m doing and I wouldn’t want him to have to grow old and icky while I just get more charming and fantastic year after year.