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.