End of YEAR Ramblings 2008

New Years Eve 2008...  

One year later.  The 40th anniversary of MLK Jr.'s assassination, the shooting at Southern Illinois Univ., floods in the Midwest, the deaths of Heath Ledger, Tim Russert, and Paul Newman, record high gas prices, bailouts, and douchebag auto industry owners.  But on the brighter side - Michael Phelps' 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, Barack Obama becomes the 44th president, gas prices fall lower than they've been in 5 years, and Bush dodges a shoe.

Gotta say the whole year is kind of a blur right now.  Plenty to look back on personally though.  Leaving the station in March was a little bittersweet.  Lots of memories there and friends I've made and will keep for life.  Traveling the country with the UAR was a blast - as crazy as it was, I'm really going to miss Austin in '09.

..and of course Josh, Jackie & the dogs - Maple is my hero, and Willow the retarded cat.

I learned that I never want to be unemployed EVER again.  That was the longest 2 1/2 months of my life ever.  People - always have at least 6 months in savings just in case you're ever out of a job.  Man, that sucked.  Love the new job, just need a doggie to take to work with me everyday.

Through it all though, there were two people that were with me the entire time.  Two people I missed madly when I was on the road.  Two people that I thought about when I asked myself "what can I sell to get a little bit of money to help with bills?"  Two people that mean more to me than anything else, and anything that money can buy.  Angie & Ry - I'm blessed to know and love you.

What does 2009 hold in store?  I don't know, and if I could look into the future, I wouldn't want to know.  You play the cards you're dealt.  If you want to complain about how the last hand went, fine - be an ass, it's your right.  But, you can't win 'em all.  No one can stack the entire deck - even the MIT blackjack kids got caught.  I gotta get away from this metaphor before it turns completely into a Kenny Rogers song.

Here's something totally different.  We all know Billy Mays - the inventor of Orange Kazow!, OxyClean and other household cleaning agents that smell great but taste terrible.  Here's what he's working on as of late:

Here's to a less soul-crushing 2009.  All the best.

Cheers, -H

End of week ramblings 12/26/08

Now that X-mess is over, it's time to look forward to another fun holiday:  Thursday!!  This year's theme is New Year's Eve.  It's a great holiday - another short work week, sneak in a ride, hit the liquor store, then up all night with the gang...  and their kids...  and maybe a trip to the ER - true story.

Remember when we...

And the time that...

Neither do I.  Not a clue.  But Shauna found the pix and for that I'm grateful.

Let's recap shall we..?

It was cold out this week.  What was it like out East you ask?

Probably the coolest place to hang out this past week would be in PDX or Seattle, where they enjoyed their first White Christmas EVER!!!!  How'd you like to commute via sled to the corner store to get smokes?  That's what folks in the Emerald City were able to do!  If they were caught looking for that last minute gift of fresh fish/flowers/tourists, visitors to Pike Market were met with this scene:

Just lookin' at that gives me the chillz...

Partied with the outlaws (that'd be Angie's parents) last weekend for Papa's birthday.  A big night of guitar hero, awesome wings, beer cheese dip, and the most fierce matches of ping pong EVER!!!  Those people don't mess around - ya gotta love 'em!

Well, that about wraps things up down here at the ranch.  Have fun with all the "some assembly required" and "batteries not included".  I guess you shoulda thought about the fact you're not an architect and Barbie's new dream house now comes with schematics.  And if you think you got a crappy gift, it's the thought that counts, buddy - and maybe that someone thinks you're crappy.

Cheers, -H

Happy/Merry Everything

Whatever you celebrate, have a great time with the family, then get fall down drunk with friends.  Just stay out of trouble.

Happy all that.  Cheers.

End of week ramblings 12/19/08

Hey ya, Happy Saturday.  I didn't post on Friday because I'm working again now and there are other people that I like better than you now.  Not really, I'm just bad with excuses.

WOW - WHAT A WEEK!!!  Where do I start???

Saturday night last week resulted in dinner with "The Rents", a cocktail or two, an hour of romping in the snow, then staying up til 4am.  Yea, time got away from us on that one.

Started the new jobby-job this week.  The folks there are great, I've got a fish bowl type office, and there's a cafe' in the break room.  It's got one of these:

You just pop your favorite tea/coffee/cocoa/office crack packet in the machine and it spits it right into your cup.  Great stuff - drink about 10 of 'em a day now and am now peeing often enough to frighten my urologist.

If you watch the Today Show on NBC at all, you may have learned a couple things.  Katie Couric is no longer tops on your "Worst List" - Meredith Viera is now the all time title holder.  You may also know the Duggar Family.  Michelle & Jim Bob (I kid you not - is his real name) Duggar are from Arkansas and live in a home (modified warehouse) they built themselves for them and their 17 children.  Here's a recent family photo:

Well, it's time to pass the hand-me-down's around another time... as Michelle & Jim Bob (HA!) welcomed their 18th bundle of joy this Thursday.  I was thinking about this, and I couldn't imagine being pregnant for almost 20 years straight.  More power to 'em though.  They seem to do alright and are making sure Arkansas doesn't run out of white people.

Just about to wrap it up, and came across this slice of awesome:

If that doesn't inspire me for the new year, I'm not sure if anything will.

Merry ChristmaHaunaKwanzaa, and Festivus.  I think that covers all of 'em.  Cheers, -H

D-D-Duh-Nuh-Nuh

It's the only way I know to describe Slayer.  And then there's this:

Nothing against hippies, of course.

End of week ramblings 12/12/08

And what a great a week it has been.  Actually got to SIT and watch a hockey game last Saturday with Angie.  Was great to kick back and have a couple beers and enjoy.  Kinda bummed there weren't as many fights.  I know, hockey at it's purest form is always a gentlemen's sport.  Well, whoever thinks that must really be lost on today's sports (most likely a backwoods townie holding up in the wilderness of Saskatchewan - that's in Canada).  Of course the games I'm working, those are the record nights for minutes in the box.

In other news:  Got the call this past Monday that I'll be starting my new gig with a magazine/new media company on 12/15.  It's close enough to where we live that I can ride my bike to work on days it warm enough (starting June).  Which to be perfectly honest, this job was the only thing I wanted for Christmas (as well as the Swobo Sanchez, It's Always Sunny in Philly seasons on DVD, and a cool argyle sweater).  I could not be more excited right now.  I feel truly blessed and lucky to be starting this job, especially given the state of the economy right now.  Which if you've still got college debt, are graduated, but are not working in the field you majored...  just go to the government and get your bailout package.  They're giving out sh!tloads of money right now, might as well get yourself some while the money is still worth more than the paper it's printed on.  Good 'ol American Peso...

The new Batman movie The Dark Night came out on DVD this week.  I cannot believe how dark the whole thing was.  I thought before they brought on the new guy, Christian Bale, the whole franchise was in a complete downward spiral.  It was just getting really hokey, more just for kiddos and less for, well, not kiddos (I don't want to say nerds).  This second in the new series is REALLY NOT for kids.  It's really violent, really twisted, and really cool.  Heath is awesome as the joker and 1000 times as twisted as Nicholson was.  Was pretty surprised how much filming they did in Chicago too.  You really should see this movie, and if you're even remotely a comic book movie fan, buy it.  

Time to wrap it up.  Enjoy the final days of holiday shopping.  Ug - no way.  Have a kicked back weekend.  -H

It sure ain't easy...

Apparently, because being awesome takes practice.  So much practice, that someone wrote a "how-to" manual on the whole situation.

The worst thing I learned from this book: to be awesome you have to own and regularly wear ugly sweaters, and hangout with douchebags from the OC.  It shows how dated (or not) this text really is.  Bummer thing though, I don't have time for all that.  I'm far too busy learning to be "F'n Rad" thru the Learn From Home to Be F'n Rad study course.  Part of the Associates of Badassness degree I'm going for at the University of WOOOOOOOOO!!!

Here's a proud alumni of the U of W:

Damn right.

You can uncross your fingers

I've got some good news.  I got a J-O-B.  You know, the kind that pays in money, instead of sexual favors.  And it has left this look on my face:

Don't be fooled, it's a happy face.  I'll be at a magazine/new media company as an Ad Trafficking Coordinator.  Making ads and little boxes look pretty and enticing.  It's gonna look so good you'll want to run out and buy whatever it is we're selling (no promises).  Almost the same thing I was doing at the radio station - which is cool and should cut down on the learning/refresh time.  On a similar note - I will not be doing the bike race thing next summer.  I wish 'em well and will probably help out with the Colorado events next summer on the weekends, so it all worked out in the end.

Been trying to get the "lazy" out of the system.  Got something great to look forward to now, just got to kill time before hand.  Speaking of which, I have a beer to finish and The Simpsons are on.

Thanks for keeping your fingers crossed for me.  Mucho gusto.  Taco nachos frijoles Sabado Gigante.  Burrito.

End of week ramblings 12/05/08

You know there are just some things that never change.  Daytime TV, just as crappy as ever.  Have you ever caught this show while on your day off:

It's "The Doctors," or for the hipsters, "The Drs."  I think they go a little too far at times.  The one episode I saw had a gal on a table and in the stirrups - no joke - and before a live studio audience.  You know Oprah gives away cars on her show, if you go to a taping of "The Drs" you might score yourself a complimentary physical, and your 15 minutes of fame all at once!  The show is produced by Dr. Phil's son, which as we know anything that comes from that guy is about 97% crap (see episode #156 - "Help! My Metrosexual Lesbian Daughter Is Out Of Control!").  I think I'll stick to getting my medical advice from this guy:

Self diagnosis and WebMD are no help either.  Thought I had some weird STD one time, turned out it was just hiccups.

With the recent snowfall (FINALLY!), you're hopefully getting into the holiday spirit.  Found out the kid has a holiday concert coming up at her school.  Strange thing is they're putting it on 3 times, 9:30a, and twice at 11:30a both days.  Now I hate to flashback and do one of those "when I was a kid" moments, but for me - the concert was always at night and usually coincided with open house at school.  In the 80's & 90's, parents could give a sh!t about school programs, and the schools knew it.  They two-fer'd the whole thing - getting two birds stoned at once.  Then, since everyone knows what's better for our kids than we do, they came up with the education equivalent of the NRA - the PTA.  Today, if you can't bring cookies to your kid's class once a week and attend every mind-numbingly terrible field trip to the museum or box factory, then you're a bad parent.  I tell you what though, my kid reads better than any student in her class (with character voices I might add, thank you) and gets straight S+'s - whatever the hell that is.  It used to be A's in my day but that another blogski for another day-ski.  I do enjoy parent-teacher conferences though.  It's the one chance to dress up in all black and scare the crap out of my kid's teacher.  If I could set up the holiday program for my kid's school, it'd look something like this:

That's about it from this side of things.  Be sure to eat your veggies, cause you don't want to end up on "The Drs" showing us your blocked colon while your kids stand around and sing "O Tannenbaum" in the ugly holiday sweaters your grandma bought them.  I don't need to see that.

Have a weekend.  -H

Easy Holiday Shopping

I came across this awesome website today while on Facebook and not job searching.  It's called NoiseBot.com and they sell a bunch of t-shirts with a ton of witty and pop culture quotes on 'em.  Here's a good one:

Why not get that special loved one or relative you never see something unique this holiday.  Maybe something with profanity on it.  I know when my friends and family are shopping for me they ask themselves "what just screams Hans?"

More holiday nonsense coming up in this week's EOWR on Friday.  Oh, I'm such a tease.

You ever get the feeling?

I wonder if it's just me, but it kinda seems like the closer I get to 30, the more I think the whole "woulda - shoulda - coulda" situation.  It's like a bad game show, "Change your life and take a chance with what's behind Door #3, or stick with what you've got and the box that Carrol has here..."  And you just know what's behind the door:

Or worse...

I hate to sound preachy or cliche', but I try and live without regrets, and I've done some stupid crap before, a couple times before a couple thousand people, but I learned a couple lessons.  Here's a lit of the most popular:

• People that don't know you will "boo" you if you try and get them to cheer for the wrong sports team.  
  
• Teachers hate it when you fall asleep in their class.  
  
• Teachers REALLY hate it when you snore while sleeping in their class.  
  
• Don't hide the fact that you smoke from your parents.
  
• Everything you did as a kid that "irked" your parents, but they never told you, will be exactly what your kids will do to you.
  
• Dry dog food is not terrible.
  
• Wet cat food is repulsive.
  
• The best friends you'll ever have you'll get after high school, except maybe one or two.
  

I guess anything that happened to me in the past where I was left ashamed, troubled, vomiting, embarrassed, laughing hysterically, or down on my luck, I can look back and have a bit of a laugh.  That's where the friends come into play - chances are they were there for most of it, and posess photo evidence/documentation/court reports.

This post leaves me feeling pretty blessed that I've had the support of my friends thru my risk takings, trip-ups, and set backs.  That's enough sappy stuff, it's Frambozen season!!