Eastern Conference Finals

I sincerely believe that not one of LeBron James' teammates could start for any team that played in the conference finals, east or west. 

They are awful. They can't make an open shot. They take bad shots. The suck at defense. BAD, just bad. 

If he had, lamar odom or rashard lewis or  Hedo Turkoglu or Trevor Ariza or Chauncey Billups or Melo or anybody that is not on the Cavaliers, put a ring on his finger. But alas, reality is upon us and a 19 point half-time deficit is on him. 

The KING can do it.

The Weight of Europe

With two weeks to go, I am dying. 

Euros to dollars

Kilometers to miles

Military time to real time

Foreign language to American

Train or Plane.

Madrid to Paris to Venice to Rome or Madrid to Rome to Venice to Paris

Hostels or Hotels

Day Trains or Overnight

Reservations or on the fly

That sort of shit.

It is a lot of planning and a lot of decision-making for something which could turn out to be one of the best summers of my life.  If and only if, Alyse and I don't die first, which is a real possibility. 

Other than that, I am enjoying my time at home. Movies every night, pool and hanging out all day. It's the life. 

If you get time, see "Taking Chance." It's an HBO film and it's excellent. Kevin Bacon is an old marine, who volunteers to take the body of a dead soldier back to the family. Powerful stuff. My dad says that it's non-political, but it is distinctly anti-war and I couldn't agree more. It should be on-demand or online, check it out. 

And if you are in need of a lighter film, watch MASH. Straight Classic.

Cosmetic Post

In the words of Chick Hearn, this is a makeup for what I just did. So Coheed and Cambria's old drummer is a rapper. He's good. Apparently, this was something he just put together out of the blue. But you know I hate Asher Roth, who did got to some half-ass, no quarter-ass institution back east. 

And it seems that Weerd Science hates him too. 

right click here to download

"Art"

I heard the new Miley Cyrus/ Hannah Montana/ the lost Jonas sister's new single entitled "The Climb" and I said, "Damn this is something I have heard before."

The similarities between the songs are awesome, so here you go. If you haven't seen Walk Hard, I suggest you take some time out of your nonexistent life and watch it.

Now, here is Mickey Mouse's new song.

Bad Days

This story will always make you feel better. 

There was once this guy name Jim. He had a pretty tough life, so the next time you think that your life sucks, think about Jim. 

These are the details of Jim's life. 

 Jim was the oldest of 4 brothers. When he was 13, his parents died in a car accident, leaving him to take care of his brothers. He worked two jobs in high school and never  had time for a girlfriend. 

He had a college scholarship, but couldn't accept it because he had to raise his siblings. They were his whole life. When his brothers reached the high school age, they rebelled against the only father figure they had– Jim. 

Jim wasn't a bad father, but they treated him like it. They refused to get jobs. They had fun and lived their lives. His closest brother, Jared, went off to college and was never heard from again. The youngest brother got into drugs and the middle brother alcohol. They were best friends and one night, just like their parents, were driving drunk and hit the center divider going 85 mph. Dead on impact. 

Jim, 22 at the time, fell into depression, struggling to come to grips with the loss of his brothers. The only thing that made him feel better was to work. He had become a manager at McDonalds. It had become his life. 

Jim worked himself to the bone. He thought it was from working so much and he didn't have to go to a doctor, so he just kept working. Jim's autopsy revealed that he had a severe heart condition. He had a heart attack while passing a bagged meal to a customer. There was nothing he could have done, it was all in his genetics. 

When Jim died at 25, he had no family and no friends. He was completely alone. He had never been kissed, never had a girlfriend, and never had a real emotional connection with anyone other than the family that left him. Jim died a virgin.

The End

Aging Parents

Being home is great, except that my parents are slowly becoming more  and more like my grandparents.  

My dad has asked me on four separate occasions,  if I have seen the film Taken. I have. I have. I have. I have. 

Apparently, they are now worried about my upcoming trip to Europe. My mom probably was freaking out, because, hell, everything in movies are true. 

With that in mind, here is Alyse's and Joe's plan for Spain. 

1. Meet guy at airport
2. share cab with said cute, foreign guy.
3. Get dropped off first, so he knows where we live. 
4. Don't lock doors at empty house
5. Become high-end prostitute and be sold to drug lords.
6. Be saved by our badass fathers, who just killed 300 people to save our worthless asses.
7. Still not know if our father is really liam niessen or ralph fiennes or both, who as you will come to agree with me are the same person. 

Mr. Patten's Chair- finals version

This is CT's favorite story probably of all time. In the span of 30 seconds, we ruined a relationship with a teacher, who, until that point was probably the most laid back teacher ever. 

Throughout the whole year, Tim and CT came together to try and ruin the yearbook, my co-editors in chief didn't let that happen, but they tried. They deleted pictures off of spreads, they drew penises on Paint and put them everywhere (actually, they drew a bit of everything– frozen jizzy shake machines, cocktopusses and other miscellany. the paint obsession started when tim drew a picture of himself hanging CT). They called themselves Bacardi and Cola and they did everything but get the job done. 

But we got the book out, so fuck them and we can laugh about it now. So this is spring of senior year, we are sitting in the Patten's classroom (the yearbook room) shooting shit as usual.  

Tim is sitting in Patten's very nice rolly leather chair, but this is not just any chair, this is the only nice thing that Patten has in his whole room. He paid for it himself and when a teacher is working at Damien High school making peanuts, this chair means a lot. 

We were left alone in the classroom, which is a fairly usual occurrence for Damien (read: happens in just about every class).

So tim is sitting there, rolling around. Some newspaper guys were in and out of the room and somehow a football player got Tim out of the chair and threw himself down into the nice chair trying to slide across the room– CRACK! 

Uh-oh. The newspaper guys slowly slink out like nothing happened. The chair looked fine, but when Tim got back into his chair, it was clear that one of the wheels was no longer rolling. 

Tim, for one reason or another, becomes infuriated that the chair doesn't roll. Rather than trying to fix it, Tim props the chair up so that the broken wheel is exposed and slams his foot down onto the plastic– CRACK! The wheel falls right off. 

Ct and I are sitting next to each other in desks a few feet away and we were shocked. What the fuck was he doing? We are laughing, dying, rolling on the floor. What are we going to do? It wasn't us. 

We can hear Patten coming down the hall from getting coffee. Tim puts the wheel in place and runs over to a desk.

Dead silence. Patten had to be thinking, what the fuck did they do now? He smiles his goofy smile and sits down in the chair– the wheel  pops off. 

"YOU MOTHERFUCKERS. WHO DID THIS? WHO?"

Dead silence, we are holding our breath and biting our lips to keep from laughing.

Patten gets more pissed. We still don't answer. We couldn't hold it in any longer. Everyone busts up in unison. 

 It only gets worse, when he says,

"YOU PEOPLE SHOW ME SUCH A LACK OF DISRESPECT." He picks up the wheel of the chair and hurls it across the room at my brother, coming within an inch of his face. 

Patten kicks us all out, telling us he never wants to see us again until one of us disrespecters comes out and says who did it. "YOU FUCKERS OWE ME A CHAIR. (TIM) GRACZA YOU OWE ME A CHAIR."

We came back the next day after Tim said that he broke it off only because Teddy broke it. Patten could have hit him. He wanted to as Tim smiled in his face, finishing every sentence with "Sir." 

"YOU STILL OWE ME A CHAIR."

He still hates Tim to this day. They had a chance meeting at Jake's grad party last summer, and Patten smiles about it now, but you can tell he's still not over the chair. And Tim never bought him a new one. 

 

The Confirmation Pizza

I shouldn't be doing this, really I shouldn't. But I owe you and I'm procrastinating with another installment of The Jacuzzi Dude Chronicles.

Frame: This is the Spring of '04 or even '03 but that's not important, when Tim and I were being the two worst people on Earth to one gentle soul named Steve. 80% of the shit we did was aimed to just fuck with him. We wanted a bitch. We chose him. He declined. We tried anyway. We probably owe Steve an apology for all the bad shit we have done to him over the years, but the shit we did to him was just too funny to be sorry about. Anyway, here goes.

One weekend, Steve had a confirmation retreat out in Palm Springs, where they stayed at some hotel/resort. Being that Tim and I had trouble, at the time and still do, with Lutheranism as a religion (and just about anything that wasn't Catholicism or our personal favorite "The Drum Religion"), we planned to do something awful to him. But we had no idea what to do. 

We told him that we were going to come visit him at the retreat and perform emergency baptisms on all the pagans. We would save them, we told him. He kept his phone on so we could call him and keep him entertained. 

Tim and I spent a long evening on Friday spent pondering in the jacuzzi. Saturday was free, but there was no way we were going to drive 50 miles just to yell obscenities at Lutherans, especially because a Mormon Temple is just down the street from Tim.

After our sleepover, Tim and I moved our plotting over to his house. We were sitting in his living room when it hit me. 

"Call Steve," I said.

"Alright. Why?" Tim asked, knowing that he wasn't going to get an answer–it's more fun that way. "Well, what do you want me to tell him?"

Phone ringing.

"Ask him where they are staying."

Tim asks. "The (name I forgot) hotel."

"Ask what room number."

Steve wants to know why.

"We want to visit you," Tim lies.

Steve bites and gives up his room number. He's excited to see us–Dumbass.

"What city is that?" 

Palm Springs. Perfect. 

"Thanks Steve, we will be there in an hour, we just mapquested it," Tim hangs up. 

"He said that  they are about to eat lunch."

While this conversation is going on, I have been busy at the computer. 

"I wonder if Steve is hungry?" I ask. 

"Pizza?" Tim knows.

"Oh, yeah."

So we order one medium pepperoni pizza to Steve's room from Domino's. Thank you that will be $12.88 in cash and your pizza will be there in a half hour, Mr. Bridge. 

We wait.  We high five each other. We are laughing hysterically thinking of how fucked up we are. 

Then 10 minutes later, one of us gets the brilliant idea that one pizza isn't enough. How rude of us to forget about all of the other confirmation campers, they probably like pizza too. So this time we hit up Nick's pizza or some mom and pop shop like that for one more pep pizza. It'll get there in 45 minutes.

Time passes and Tim and I can barely hold it together waiting for the call back. 

It comes. 

"YOU MOTHERFUCKERS! YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS PIZZA! WE JUST ATE PIZZA AT LUNCH! GOD DAMMIT. FUCK YOU GUYS. YOU ASSHOLES! I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY WITH ME! MY LEADERS HAD TO PAY FOR THE PIZZA!" As you can imagine Steve is rather upset. 

But I hold it together. It wasn't us, I tell him. We swear. I am dying inside. I am trying to hold down the fort knowing that he is going to get another delivery in 15 minutes. He keeps screaming, tells us to fuck ourselves and hangs up. 

Tim and I just Prank-gasmed. How can this get any better? Oh, wait. It is going to get better, he has another pizza coming. 

Call number two featured an utterly defeated Steve at the point of tears. Literally, he was so pissed he cried. Then his confirmation leaders get on the phone and cuss us out. THIS IS GREAT. They lecture us and berate us, question how we were raised and if we are christians.  

Tim and I go and tell everyone, including our parents. They applaud our creativity but decide that it may be best to pay back steve for the pizzas, that is when he starts to talk to us again. 

We paid him back after about two weeks of silence but only because it was worth it, not because we were sorry for it.

Bruno

Krause sent this over to me and I can't wait. This is my summer movie list.

the Bruno movie Trailer
Uploaded by truman_show85 - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

Finals

I have been horrible about updating this lately. But my excuse is finals are here and they are owning my soul. Truth be told, I only have one final and three papers, so I shouldn't be bitching and I should just shut the fuck up and write. 

So here comes a rant on facebook statuses. I cannot tell you how annoying it is to read status after status that reads 

"...is 3 papers away and then freedom." Note: If you are going to use this, you must follow it up with something clever, new and fresh. Like how you are going to fuck up your exams or something ridiculous that you plan to do after. 

Working Example: "...is going to inseminate this test and then I'm going to Disneyland to inseminate Mickey Mouse." Also repetition works magic.

Or 

"is making Kevin Costner his bitch and is about to show him his field of dreams and cause more damage to his career than waterworld did."

More status fails:

"...thinks that finals should go away." Remedy: kill yourself.

 "...is in the stacks, come visit me." Answer: No and stay there. 

"... wishes she were at the beach rather than studying for poli sci 2." Remedy: Drop out now. You could live at the beach forever (read: The Hoff). 

"Joseph Cannon hates you, every single one of you."

Lastly, Facebook recently added the "I like" button. There should be a "kill yourself" button.

 

Mc-Potle

Have you had chipotle? I'm sure you have. Everyone has had it at least once. Unless of course you care about your health (read: Alyse). 

As of late, I have become addicted to the veggie burrito bowl. I get it to go. I eat it there. I think about it a lot. This is bad.

 

A little 900 calorie meal never hurt anybody, right? 

Well 900 before  you wash it down with a big 300 cal soda because Diet Coke out of the tap is gross. Oh and you're going to need to get a refill because this shit is spicy. 

Oh and don't forget the chips. Gotta have those chips. Add 600 and even you are getting fat just reading about what I ate. 

And now I'm eating candy. Morbid Obesity here I come, again. 

You got Hochuli-ed!

I love Ed Hochuli and I love the Chargers. That being said, read this article. 

And as someone who has always hated manny ramirez, the news today just confirms my opinion of him. 

What's in a name?

For the past 2 years that Alyse and I have been together, I have been trying to come up with a kick-ass, semi-cute, but mostly usable nickname. I have failed, over and over. She never likes any of the nicknames and damn have I been clever about it.

Who can turn down the name Gubbles the Gubbler? Alyse did, but if you want it, the name is yours. I'm thinking that Moisa is no longer flapjack or bitch, he is now permanently "gubbles the ass gubbling gubbler".

But last night, I had a new development in the search for Alyse's pseudo identity. SHORT STACK. Simple, succinct and sexy– SHORT STACK. What more could Alyse want, I asked myself. Apparently, she wants something cute. SHORT STACK is not cute, she says, and however much I disagree, she doesn't like it.

Oh and in case you were wondering if got to judge my own nickname, the answer is no. To Alyse, I am "Sticky face" or "Mr. Silly". I was given no choice. But I must say, I have come to like em.

Trust Issues

Last night in the party bus on the way to Alyse's formal in the city, this girl, who was visibly inebriated, asked me to hold her camera while she dropped a deuce.
And if you know me, or have trusted me with your camera, then you just said, "No, you idiot. just hold the camera yourself."
If you said this, then you should win a prize.
In the minute and a half that she was in the bathroom, I took probably 15-20 obscene pictures of myself.
When she got out, the girl was wondering how it came to be that I had her camera, so I explained that she had given it to me to hold.
She was still angry but she took her camera and moved on with the rest of her night. But when she went to load her pictures onto facebook, she had some surprises.
Most of my pictures did not make it up but these are priceless.

Let this be a lesson to all of you, I am a bad person and should never be trusted.