Croissants and Cheese

This is what i had for breakfast on Sunday. Croissants filled with egg and Bulgarian cheese. I know what you're thinking and I'm way ahead of you.

This is what the cheese looks like. And the taste? It's salty, cheesy and overall very good, especially when cooked inside a croissant with egg.

Now you may be asking yourself, what is Phil doing eating Bulgarian cheese? Where is Bulgaria? What is Bulgaria?

Bulgaria is a former Eastern bloc country located north of Greece and Turkey. And my wonderful girlfriend A is from Bulgaria. Now, if you google image search Bulgarian women, this is what you get.

Why is she holding bullets? Who knows, I sure don't. If you read the travel guides, all she wants to do is drug you, beat you, rob you, and kill you. But more on that later. Thankfully, that isn't at all what my girlfriend looks like. Or acts like. She looks more like this.

In case you were wondering, A is the one in the middle. Duh. The best looking one of course. And she introduced me to the wonders of the croissant with Bulgarian cheese and eggs. But that isn't the only thing I've learned about Bulgaria and it's culture since I started dating her.

I've learned the being called a gypsy is apparently quite the insult in Bulgaria. I'm not really sure of the American equivalent. But I know it sure does tick Bulgarians off. I learned this watching the cultural documentary Borat with Alex, and hearing her laugh out loud as Borat politely asked a gypsy for her tears. She then told me about how insulting it is to be called a gypsy, which of course ended with me asking for her gypsy tears for the rest of the day.

I've also learned a lot from a good buddy of mine, Matt. He sent me a tourist preparation guide about Bulgaria, so I could prepare myself to meet A's parents. In a nutshell, this is what the tourist guide said.

"Everyone in Bulgaria belongs to the Bulgarian Church. And the Bulgarian mafia. And after dancing with you, and letting you buy them drinks at the local eatery, they will drug you, beat you, steal everything you own, and kill you."

Thankfully, this guide was wrong, as it turns out they will instead flirt with you, date you, and then introduce you to their culinary delicacies. I would say that the truth is much more fun in this instance, since I'll take and egg and cheese croissant over a savage beating any day.

And many thanks to A for letting me post her picture up here. And in case you were wondering what I look like?

That's me, in all my pride and glory. Comments about how lucky I am go below, and yes, that is, in my opinion, the most flattering picture of me that i feel like putting up here.

In Case of Zombies

BREAK GLASS!!


I've noticed an odd trend lately. Sure there are plenty of crazy things society has obsessed over as harbingers of the end times. Immigrants, nuclear weapons, war, chemical weapons, terrorism. But that is not what obsesses my generation. My generation does not have a fallout shelter. We don't keep disaster supplies.

We keep zombie apocalypse kits.

I'm as guilty as the next person. How would you defend your house? Where would you get your weapons? Who would you trun away from your shelter and who would you let in? Would they be old school shambling zombies, or new school fast zombies? All these questions and more run through our heads.

Some of us, myself included, have even gone so far as to train for zombie attacks. A game, Humans vs Zombies, has swept college campuses across the country. Humans, armed with nerf guns, balled up socks, and marshmallows, try to fight off attacking zombies. And let me tell you, it is a blast. And vital to our survival as a species.


The game is a blast, but its intentions are more important. To train otherwise weak, and tactically unsound college students in the subtle art of zombie warfare. When to charge and take them down. When to cut your losses and run. And how to go down fighting.

I guess my point here is that every generation has something that scares it, that makes it prepare for the worst. Generations before us have had nazis, communists, fascists, and all other manner of horrible and very real enemies to deal with. But for us? We picked zombies.

Maybe the old guys are right.

Kids these days.

No respect.

Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving

And all through the bar
not a creature or person remained in their car.
The coats were hung by the door with car,
In hopes that at last call they would still be there.

The old men with hats sitting on their heads
were looking curiously at that one guy with dreds
And A in her northface, and I in my hoodie
were just settled in for a long night making merry

When out on the bar their arose such a clatter
The barmen jumped up, and yelled, "What the hell is the matter?"
Away to the booth i flew like a flash
sat down and muttered, that guy is an ass.

The moon on the shards of new broken glass
Some guy was about to get thrown out on his ass
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
but a big shiny new glass of beer!

The friendly barman, with a tap so quick
I knew his name was Dan, but I called him St. Nick
More rapid than an eagle, the beer it came
As he whistled, shouted, and called them by name!

On Coors! On Miller! On Yuengling and Bud!
On Sierra Nevada, Yards, and that one that tastes like mud!
On top of a stool, right next to the bar
Now drink em one, drink em all!

As leaves before the hurricane flies
Those beers disappeared right before my eyes
Into the hand so strangers and friends
all the beers met delicious ends

And now I'm out of rhymes and reasons
To continue this poem about two seasons
So Happy Thanksgiving And Christmas and remember to stop
when you see the lights flashing from that angry cop.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!! Have a happy and safe holiday!! And eat lots of turkey, and drink lots of beer.

Turkey Bowl

I know what you're thinking. What can google come up with for Turkey Bowl? And do i ever disappoint when it comes to a google image search?

The answer is no, I never disappoint. and this trophy may be the best trophy i have ever seen when I searched for Turkey Bowl on the internet. Go ahead, just try to beat it.

I have two turkey bowl games to go to this year. One is an old group of friends from high school, my friends from marching band. Here is what we look like playing football.

We're those people getting stomped on by that guy with a jersey. We wear jerseys ourselves, some of us have gloves, it usually rains, we get muddy, and all around just have a blast. I believe this is the 5th or 6th year for the turkey bowl, founded by Ian P. Carr. His home hosted us for breakfast, and the park near his house hosted our game. It was a great way to start off thanksgiving, running around, getting muddy, and hoping no one broke a bone.(No one ever did)

Now I have a Black Friday Turkey bowl game too. I'm not sure what this will be like. Maybe this:

But I sure hope not. I think it will be very much like the game on Thanksgiving. A lot of uncoordinated guys running around, praying they don't break a bone. I'll be one of them. Because as much as i love my football, and running around, and tackling people, I've been on the end of one of those bone crunching hits. The ones that require a hospital visit, surgery, and a couple of months of physical therapy.



Never again.

Job Interview

I had a job interview today, which is why I am posting after lunch, I was a little nervous this morning and I forgot to post the blog I had prepared. But, since you are reading my blog, I'll assume you want to know how things went. Well, let me tell you.

Interviewer: "Hi Phil. How are things today? Ready for the interview?"

Phil: "Of course I am, I have on my finest threads, I've got my finest answers prepared for your finest questions, and I am here to impress."

Interviewer: "You're hired!!"

Alright so maybe they didn't say i was hired. But i was dressed in my finest threads.
(Google's interpretation of finest threads not mine)

And I did answer their questions, and I looked good and sounded good doing it.

Sort of like the above. Except I have a buzz cut. And my interviewers were businessmen, not a bunch of hippies.

But you get the idea.

Anyway, I'll keep all of my faithful readers, all 1,000,000 of you(or maybe its really 20 a day, who's counting?) updated with news as I get it. I should find out next week. If you see a post that starts with this kind of picture:

start celebrating.

But if it starts like this?

Look the for the PayPal donation button.

And please click it.

Books and Limericks

There was a sweet girl of Decatur

Who went to sea on a freighter.

She was screwed by the master

-An utter disaster-

But the crew all made up for it later.

-Isaac Asimov

My Dad and I were discussing one of the funniest books we have ever read last night. That book is this:
By this man:

The book, is quite frankly hilarious. Filled with totally innappropriate limericks about sex. What's not to like?  But talking about books got me to thinking. And since this is my last post before the weekend, I figure I will post my top 5 favorite books(or trilogies) of all time, and see if anyone else on here either agrees, or reads them and realizes my reading choices have changed their lives forever.

1. My Side of the Mountain
  - Jean Craighead George

This book is a must read for any boy who likes the outdoors. Even if you don't like the outdoors, you will like it after this book. I read my copy of this book so many times, my mother had to cover it in clear contact paper to hold it together. This is far and away my favorite book of all time, and one the I will read every chance i can get. It is a short read, only about 200 pages, and it is the adventures of a yojng boy who runs away from the big city to live in the Catskill mountains in New York. Sam Gribley meets many ecclectic characters aling the way, Bando, an English teacher who camps on his mountain. Baron Weasel, a contentious but friendly neighbor. And Frightful, Sam's faithful peregrine falcon. A must read for any young boy, or anyone who feels young at heart.

2. Starship Troopers
  -Robert Heinlein

This is the greatest book about war with no fighting that I have ever read. Do not let the terrible movie by Paul Veerhoven sully your image of this book. Heinlein artfully crafted a book, that while about war, detailed the mindset of a soldier in the army, and also detailed the dangers of living in a fascist society. Heinlein has a style of writing few can match, and when you read this book, you'll see what I mean.

3. The Foundation Trilogy
  -Isaac Asimov

This trilogy is the story of the collapse and rise of a galaxy wide empire. The story is far too vast for me to get into the nitty gritty of what it is about, but suffice to say, Asimov shows why he is the undisputed king of science fiction in this novel. As humanity battles to save itself from 30,000 years of chaos, The Foundation struggles to turn back the tide of barbarism, and waits for the 2nd foundation to come to their aid. But no one could forsee the Mule. A must read if you like clever books with political intrigue. And this book is broken down into easily readable sections that detail each generation's fight to stop the chaos, which makes it easy to read in pieces.

4. Shogun
    -James Clavell

Shogun is the story of a shipwrecked English pilot, Blackthorne, in Japan, and his adventures in love and war in 17th century Japan. At first captive, then advisior and soldier to Toranaga, he fights to keep his life and to return to England. But forces stronger than himself hold him in Japan, bringing him to a controversial position of power at one Japan's most tumultuos times. A great read for those who like adventure with a little love thrown in, the only downside to this book as a weekend read is it's length. But don't let that stop you, the book is worth every letter on the page.

5. All Quiet on the Western Front
  - Erich Marie Remarque

The greatest war novel of all time. Much like Starship Troopers, this novel deals with war by examining the psyche of a young soldier, and the rest of his squad, in the last years of World War I. Paul Bäumer gradually begins to accept war, death, everything as inevitable. The last few pages of the story are, in my opinion, the best ever written to end a novel. And the last page will have you breathing a sigh of relief. This is the only book I have ever read  where I was so emotionally invested in the main character, and as satisfied with the ending of the story. It ended the only way it could.

I hope you enjoy these books, I know I did. I have read a copy of very single one of these to destruction, and I am on my second copy of every book. No matter how many times I read them, I can still pick up these books any day, and read them with the same enjoyment as the first time.

The Greatest Movie Ever Made

By far the greatest movie ever made. Bar none. I have personally seen this movie well over 500 times. And it never ever ever ever gets old. It has everything a man could ever want or need in a movie. Planes. Explosions. Good looking women. More explosions. Classic insults. I can honestly say that Top Gun has had a larger effect on my life than every other movie I have ever seen, combined.

It started out when I was young. ABC was broadcasting Top Gun as its million dollar movie. My dad stayed up, and taped off of ABC all of the plane scenes for Top Gun. Then he somehow bleeped out all of the curses. For about ten years, this is all I knew of Top Gun. And it taught me an important lesson. Top Gun is the only movie where the plot is not important to the story.

Then I got Top Gun on dvd. Of course the special edition. Is there any other edition? And it introduced me to the story. Which is of course awesome. And it also introduced me to the many insults Top Gun has to offer. They are beautiful. Wit at its most potent.
"Slider, (sniff sniff), you stink."
"Don't sweat it Mav, they were abused as children."
"Come on mother goose!!"

Then I got to college. And I met Dave Denny. He had the single greatest Top Gun innovation I had seen in years. When one went to sit down upon the commode, looking at you on the wall across from the porcelain throne was this:

This way, when you were sitting on the, ahem, you always had a little bit of encouragement. And you know what? It always made me smile. Here is the one and only decorating tip I will ever give someone. If you think your bathroom is missing a little something, maybe needs a little pick me up? Toss Maverick in there, He'll fix it right up.

Now movies have tried to equal Top Gun. They have tried to come close. But they can't touch it. No one ever will. This movie is pure 100% America. 100% testosterone. 100% awesome. How many movies are 300% cool? None. Except for Top Gun.

Will this be my only Top Gun post? Negative Ghostrider. But it is my only Top Gun post today. And I'll end it the only way I know how. With some F-14 Tomcat goodness.

Heartbreak

I've now experienced my first true heartbreak. The first time i saw her, I  knew it was love. A redhead with a lot of fire in her belly. Ready for life's great adventures. Anything that happened, we would make it through it togerther. But then last night happened.

 It is the first time I've been abandoned. The first time I've been left alone, standing in the rain, wondering why would she do such a thing? I mean sure, we can go back and look and things i shouldn't have done. But I treated her well. I loved her. She was my first love. And she has broken my heart one too many times.


Damn car wouldn't start. Wouldn't even turn over. And she left me stuck in the Target(trademarked) parking lot, wondering why she would do such a thing.

This was me. Except I'm a 6'6" guy. and it wasn't raining this hard. And it was in a parking lot. And it was a red Pontiac Grand Am(trademarked) not a red Geo Metro(trademarked). But you get the idea.

But alas, my time for wondering is over. She did what she did. She can't undo it now. Sure she has a lot of mileage under her belts(133,495 miles to be precise). But she is a good old girl. I learned to drive in her. I drove to Penn State for the first time in her. I drove to my first real job interview in her.

We've made a lot of great memories together. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not ready to let go yet. So please don't cost to much. Park Auto are a great bunch of guys, they always treat you well. I know you can pull through this! I have faith in you!

We'll be flying down the turnpike yet, sunroof open, my hair(even if i do have a buzzcut) flapping in the wind, And if you don't make it? If it is too much?

Thanks for the memories, you're the best redhead I've ever known.

Wheat Pennies

One of my many hobbies is collecting wheat pennies. For those of you who are scratching your head, this is a wheat penny:

Wheat pennies were the origianl penny. The cool penny. The retro penny. And they were in circulation until 1958. Some pennies are worth next to nothing, only $.03. Some are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But they are all collectible, small, and waiting to be found.

I collect them. This obsessive collecting began when I worked the worst job I have ever had. I worked at CVS. On the overnight. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. One of the bright spots of this 9 hour, dead as a graveyard shift, was the discovery of wheat pennies.

Wheat pennies are fairly common collectible coins, you probably get one or two a year in change. But when you are a like me, and have access to roll after roll of pennies, you start to hunt for them. Obsessively. I began to examine my rolls of pennies, looking for signs of oxidation that would indicate a higher probability of a wheat penny in the roll. And the wheat pennies started rolling in.

And I mean rolling. By the time I moved to day shift, after 6 months overnight, I probably had close to 150 wheat pennies. More wheat pennies than most people will see in their entire lives.  The day shift presented new opportunities. Every register was open, meaning instead of a possible six rolls of pennies, there were more like 18 rolls to be examined. And since people like me at work, they all looked for pennies for me.

Even when I wasn't there.

My collection now looks something like this:


It's huge. 350 strong and growing every week. I have wheat pennies everywhere. In my wallet. I have a couple on a picture frame at work for good luck. I've gone as far back as 1913. My good luck work penny is a pretty worn 1919. I'm obsessed. But it isn't enough. It never will be. I still obsessively check my penny rolls to see if they have oxidated pennies in them. I can guess about 70% of the time if a roll has a wheat in it. Often i can get 2 or 3 wheats in one go. My best shift nailed me 6 wheat pennies and a buffalo nickel.

I don't really have a moral here, or a point. Except this. If you want to mail me some wheat pennies you've found, my email address is peschwarz.pes@gmail.com And if you want to start collecting them yourself? Good luck stopping once you start. It's more addicting than you might think.

Saturday/Sunday

My weekend began with a bang. And by a bang, I mean one of the longest nights of sleep in quite some time. I got home from work Friday at 9, and promptly fell asleep after dinner. Saturday was also a good day, until 3:30. I got to see where my sister goes to high school, drove through some nice areas, and then I went to meet my girlfriend, A, her roomie and her roomie's boyfriend at the mall. After about half an hour shopping(I met them at the mall about an hour into their trip), Dan and I decided to go to the local eatery to watch my favorite sporting event of all time. Penn State football.

Now for those of you not in the know, Penn State played Ohio State this weekend. It was a huge game. Gameday was there. Penn State was pumped. With a win, we could be a spoiler for a Big Ten title for Ohio State, and possibly even play our way into a New Years day bowl. With a win, we would assuredly be ranked.

When Dan and I got to the eatery, Penn State was up 7-3, and very quickly made it 14-3. PSU looked great, playing aggressive defense, and letting walk-on Sophmore Matt McGloin fling the ball all over the field. 14-3 at half, we were cruising, and i was happier than a clam in chowder.


Then the second came. Penn State apparently had boarded the buses home, and was letting a bunch of imposters play. 35 unanswered points later, Ohio State had beaten us, 38-14. McGloin, so crisp in the first half, threw 2 pick 6's. A tipped bomb was caught for a touchdown, a fluke catch that happens maybe once every other season. Ohio State ended the game looking dominating.


After that game, I was done with college football for the weekend. I had hurt me too much. I spent the rest of the night with A, we watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, and I taught her how play poker. It was a blast.

Sunday came and went, work at CVS was, well just about normal really. Watched the Nascar race Sunday(My guy stunk) and some football. All around, a good weekend. Except for those second half quitters. Joe Pa himself said it best, "The minute you think you've got it made, disaster is just around the corner."

The Necktie

The Necktie.

One of the best things a man can wear. Put on a necktie, and you are immediately taken more seriously. You look better, you feel better, and put off a more serious air than those around you who are sans tie.  But a coworker of mine today violated a rule. He wore a pretied tie. Only two groups of people can wear clip-ons or pretied ties. They are as follows:
Police officers- for safety reason, no cop should go to work with a noose pretied around the neck, clip ons are accepted.
Children- They may not know how to tie a tie, or be able to resist untying what dad tied this morning at recess. For simplicity, a clip-on may suffice.

Everyone else should wear a hand tied tie. And it isn't very hard to tie a tie.

There you have it. Simple as pie. And damn good looking too. Now I could try to tell you what kind of tie to wear, what designs look best with what suit, or what patterns are correct for what events. That is all too complicated. Instead, I'll let you in on a little secret my father told me. And my father is a man who knows how to wear a suit and tie a tie. No one I know can do it better than him.

His rule is as follows: Red ties with blue dots, or blue ties with red dots.

There you have it. Any question on the right color? Nope he only has two colors. Is this pattern to wild for a business meeting? He only has one pattern, dots. Will this match my suit? Red and Blue match every Navy blue or black suit ever made. Will I look good in this tie? My Dad does, and when I follow his rule, I like to think I do too.

This isn't to say I always follow this rule. I have some ties that do have diagonal stripes. I even have a tie called Twisted Machine from Collection 14. Its a crazy hippie tie designed by Jerry Garcia.

But whenever I'm in doubt, whenever I'm not sure what tie I should wear? I always think of one thing.

Red tie with blue dots, or blue tie with red dots.

Yellow

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
and everything you do
Yeah, they were all yellow.

-Coldplay, Yellow

Yellow is a great color. The more I look around me the more I realize that i see yellow pretty much every day.  And yellow is always the color of awesome things. You start the day off with yellow.

Nothing says yellow like a balanced breakfast of eggs, pepperoni, onions, garlic, and peppers. And yes, I cooked that beautiful creation myself.

Then you arrive at the office, and you realize that yellow is pretty much everywhere. Post-It notes, pencils, that woman who always wears those ugly yellow shirts. Even the crane they use to lift a new HVAC unit onto your roof.

And let me tell you that was one big crane. Unfortunately, the next day, the building across from ours had a bigger crane than we did. Stinking Cigna, always trying to one up us over here. They already have a lot more people than we did, did they have to take away our crane too?

Then you get home, and you realize you can never escape yellow. You park your car, get out, and this is the tree that you see.

And you drift off to sleep, exhausted from a yellow day. You drift off thinking, what could I possibly see tomorrow that could make all this yellow seem silly?

You wake up the next day, get in your car, and see this.

 I realize the picture is small, but this is what the license plate says. And no, not yellow. Get that thought out of your head. It says. D8 B8. Thats right. Date Bait. So all of you ladies out there looking for a man, I've found your guy. Or at least his truck.

Thank God it wasn't yellow.

And all jokes aside, take some time today to thank a veteran. It's November 11th, Veterans Day, Armistice Day, The 92nd anniversary of the end of THe War to End All Wars. Wherever you are, thank those who have fought, and continue to fight to keep us safe. Here is the only yellow that really matters today.

My Commute

My drive home is about 3 miles, or 6 minutes, depending on how you want to gauge it. Either way works for me.  My rode home is puncutated by the usual sights and sounds of a commute. A few traffic lights, some guy cutting you off, someone who doesn't know where their turn is, a very slow 18 wheeler. All the normal stuff. My commute is just a little bit more abbreviated than the average commuter.

It is different from a normal commute in one way though. The Prudential office park near my house has recently converted into a zoo. Herds of deer roam across the expansive lawn. Groundhogs and rabbits crawl around the fields. And redtail hawks hunt mercilessly from the tops of light poles at street side.

Now all of these are normal sights in Philadelphia suburbs. But the frequency of the sightings is what astonishes me. I have seen a herd of no less than 5 deer, every day for the past 2 months. And these deer are often 10 or 15 feet from the road. And most people drive by without even so much a sideways glance. I've seen the redtail hawk hunting every day for the past 3 weeks,the only days I haven't seen him hunting, I've seen him eating. And the only days I haven't seen a groundhog or rabbit alive are on the days when they are dinner for the hawk.

Unfortunately, with the deer so close to the road, it is only a matter of time before the only natural predator the deer has left strikes. The car. So far so good, but I don't want to be there he strikes, the car guarding his dinnner is never a pretty sight.

Keep an eye out and see what you can see. When you throw in the coyote I saw last weekend with my girlfriend A, I've seen just about everything there is to see. Minus a cougar.

I really want to see a cougar.

Hugs

But not the kind you're thinking of. Not the kind you give to a family member when they're leaving. Or the awkward kind you give to someone when you want the handshake, but they are a lot more touchy than you. No, I'm speaking of course of the Hug:



The greatest drink you ever had in 3rd grade. And i know what you're thinking. Phil, you are an adult, working in an office. What are you doing drinking Hugs when you should be drinking coffee, or mainlining Red Bull and 5 hour Energy? The answer is simple. I'm in a 3rd grade beverage war. Maybe the best part of 3rd grade.

Well, actually the best part of 3rd grade was trading for Pringles. But the second best part was having a cooler drink than everyone else. And my liquid nemesis? Troy. He even has the name of that kid you competed with in high school, and since he always beat you in dodgeball, you had to beat hmi on your turf. The lunchbox. But Troy came prepared. He came with this:

Well played good sir. So here we are. Two culinary contestants in the cafeteria. Two watery warriors. Two sipping soldiers.

And who wins? In a battle between these two classic drinks, who can tell. I leave it up to you, gentle readers, to decide who wins the battle, while I fight for all that is good in hugdom.

Saturday/Sunday

Saturday. What a day. My girlfriend and I drove into the lion's den that is New Jersey. We both made it out alive. Her parents were very nice, built the house they live in, and are both excellent cooks. And they like to hike. The visit couldn't have gone better in my opinion. Here is a brief exchange between my girlfriend and I that affirmed everything I was thinking.

Me- "So, did your parents like me?"
A.- "Well, they didn't speak Bulgarian at dinner, if they hadn't liked you, they would have started speaking Bulgarian."
Me- "Nice."

So the visit went well. I wasn't that nervous about meeting her parents. A is a great girl, and I really get along well with her, so I had a good feeling about meeting her parents. Here are some other highlights of the trip.

While at her house, I watched Joe Paterno, a God amongst mere mortals, win his 400th game as head coach of the Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions. Congratulations, Joe, you earned it.

For the first time in my life, I saw a coyote. It was in a field, pretty far away from me, but still, I was impressed. I'm glad i got to see it, I've never seen a predator bigger than a fox in the wild before.

Sunday, funday, was work day. I worked my second job at CVS, developed some cool pictures, dealt with some customers, and then went home.

The Eagles won, there was a fight in the NASCAR race, and the Dallas Cowboys sent a JV high school team to play the Packers in Green Bay, and ended up losing 45-7. All told, it was a pretty good weekend. It's always nice when Dallas loses.

New Jersey

Tomorrow, I will be traveling to the bastion of sin and debauchery that is New Jersey. Yes, that's right, your beloved author will be traveling to the armpit of America. And what or who could possibly convince me to visit a state I'm not even sure you're allowed to say out loud without cracking a joke?

My lovely girlfriend.

Thats' right, tomorrow I will be visiting my girlfriend's parents for the first time. Not only will I be meeting them for the first time, I will also be the first boyfriend that my girlfriend brings home to meet her parents. Now normally, I'm what most would call money under pressure. And meeting the parents shouldn't be too tough of an obstacle for someone like me. But what would this post be without another twist.

They are immigrants from Bulgaria. That's right fair readers, I have to meet parents, for the first time, as the first boyfriend brought home, from a culture I know nothing about. The average man would cower in fear at this proposition, but not me. I've been reading up on Bulgaria, I like to think I now know next to nothing about Bulgaria, instead of absolutely nothing.

So, my friends and readers. Wish me luck. I have no fear, but I might be just a little bit nervous.

I mean come on, I'm meeting her parents. Who wouldn't be nervous?

The Lottery

How many people do you know who have won the lottery? I don't know any either. But that hasn't stopped my coworkers from regualarly spending about $100, 2 or 3 times a week, to try to win the lottery. Now, granted, in this economy, the lottery may be just as good an investment as my 401k. But still, $300 a week, for the past month? This just seems a tad silly to me. Now lately, I've seen a lot of commercials talking about what the money spent on political campaigns could have bought. So let us analyze what my corkers $1500 dollars, recently spent on lottery tickets, could buy.

1. 1500 failures, I mean lottery tickets.
2. A 1993 Honda Civic, with 165,000 miles on it.
3. Enough beer to keep my whole office feeling good for the month, instead of all us wondering why we each spent 5 dollars to get nothing,
4. A pool table.
5. Plane tickets for all of us to fly out of the hell hole that is Philadelphia to the wonderful bastion of culture and civility that is Pittsburgh.
6. A season ticket package to the flyers, with enough tickets for every person in the office to see two games from the last row in the arena.
7. 4 tickets to a 3d movie in an Imax theater.

So as you can see, we easily could have smarter investments. I suppose. I mean, I was a part of this, and half the time, I forgot that I was even playing the lottery hen the numbers came on tv.

And if you're wondering? Sadly, we did not win the lottery. So all of us are still here at the office, working our butts off, and thinking about the future.

Because hey! Maybe we'll win this time!

150 Feet

150 feet is what seperates the last two parking spaces I have parked in at work. One, under a tree, is directly across from the door to my office. If you were to pull up to my office right now, you would consider that spot to be the best spot available in the parking lot. You would be completely wrong. In a mere 9 hours parked at my office, more birds used my car as a toilet than in the past 6 months combined. Disgusting. And they didn't even wipe.

Move on to yesterday, when I decided to park 150 feet farther away from the door. Under the exact same kind of tree.(Yes, I know I'm a glutton for punishment, but i like parking in the shade) I walked out of my office at 4:00 PM, prepared for the worst. And nothing had happened. My car hadn't recieved a single paint job from a passing pigeon.

Now the odd thing is, these trees are the exact same species, shape, height, width, etc. Everything about them is the same. Except one contains a vindictive mafia of poop machines, and the other gently shades cars, and protects them from winged attack.

The true difference? What made one tree a bastion of safety and the other a cauldron of winged fury?

I'll never know. But one thing is for sure.

The birds have won,

Election Day

  Get out and vote! And I want you to vote for one reason.Not for all the altruistic reasons, so often cited by the media. I don't care about  your civic duty. I don't care about your convictions. I don't care about that one particular issue that makes or breaks your vote for a particular candidate. None of that is more important than one thing.

  When polls close tonight, political ads are over. Done with. Off the air for a couple months filled with peaceful ads for E.D. medication, or new cars. I never thought I would miss E.D. commercials until this election cycle. Whether you consider it a referendum on Obama's policies, or a vote to stop the Sarah Palins of the world, we can all agree that this cycle, election ads are at a saturation point. I watched my favorite show last night, a fairly silly sarcastic crime drama. Whole entire commercial breaks were political ads and nothing else. Lets break down what the two sides are saying.

Republican: The Democrats are bad bad liars. They raise your taxes, take your money, give it to people who don't deserve it and like to kill babies, take your guns, and bring down the heavy hand of European Socialism upon America.

Democrats: The Republicans are bad bad liars. They want to give all former felons guns, make everyone worship their God, only give tax cuts to the obscenely wealthy, and try to trample the poor and downtrodden, because let's face it, Republicans love kicking the poor when they are down.

  And this is all you hear. How many candidates run positive ads about their campaigns? I didn't see any last night. I may have seen one or two about 3 weeks ago, but I think they may have been intended as ironic ads.

  So in closing cast a vote today, a vote to stop these overbearing, caustic and insulting ads.

And for you Pennsylvania folks, thats Onorato. Dan Onorato. Because all you Pennsylvania morons are too stupid to be able to pronounce his name.

Halloween

  Halloween was a complete success. My raven on my shoulder, Mr. Peepers, was quite the creepy sidekick for the night. He worked exactly as i planned he would. I spent my Halloween partying it up with my girlfriend at her house for a party. The party was a complete success except for one thing.
  My girlfriend and I decided to decorate her house a little bit, to put everyone in the spirit. And nothing says Happy Halloween like glow in the dark spiderwebs. We stretched out the spiderwebs, hung them up, and turned off all of the lights. Unfortunately, since it was 2:00 PM, light coming through the windows denied us the full glory of the glow. So we decided to take a walk while we waited for dark. A walk and couple pizzas later, it was dark, and we returned to the house, turned out the lights, and held our breath. And........ nothing happened. The cobwebs didn't even flicker, or blink. Most assuredly no glowing was going on. We decided that the party had to go on, and as people streamed in, I apologized profusely for the lack of glowing spiderwebs. The responses back went something like this:
"Who cares, where is the beer"
"You have spiderwebs? Where?"
"I don't care, where is the beer?"
Some people just have no culture. Ahh well, there's always next year.