A New Year in Memphis

OK, playing Rocksmith has encouraged me to practice a lot more guitar than I was before. But it has also shown me how badly I suck at playing in a band as opposed to sitting alone and jamming at my own pace.

Not mine

I have been working on slowly assembling my Man Cave upstairs in our bonus room. There is so much crap up there, SO MUCH CRAP, that it is hard to make enough space for me, my Lay-Z-Boy chair, my flat screen TV and BluRay player and stereo and gigantic speakers, my guitars and amplifiers and pedals that make my worst crap sound exciting, my computers and massive DVD collection - it's all up there just waiting for me to clear enough space to make it my sanctuary. All I need now is another XBox to go with it because the one downstairs, along with Kinect, is being used by my significant other for workouts. It seems to really help so I'm not messing with that. I'll just get a new one and we'll have 2.

I made an interesting discovery during the time that I've been off work for Christmas and New Years. First, those touchless car washes don't do much of anything unless your car is either not really dirty or else it is caked with mud to the point that any water at all will help. I took my 4x4 and Challenger through a nearby car wash and it did absolutely nothing. I even watched the guy in the filthy white car ahead of me go in and come out just as dirty and still I paid good money to give it a try on my cars. It didn't do a thing. I'm going to have to take a sponge and do it myself.

Those handicapped stalls have really gotten out of hand

My second important discovery is that Walmart's handicapped toilet stall is as big as my first apartment. I had a massive shit attack while shopping in Walmart and had to run to the men's room. The handicapped stall was open so I took it. It was enormous! I could put a bed and small kitchen in there and it'd be a complete apartment. Imagine how cool that'd be! You could just get up, shower and then go out your front door into Walmart to shop for some breakfast while the Walmart staff cleans your stall, er, apartment for you. You wouldn't even need a living room. You could just grab a bean bag chair out of their household goods department and drag it over to the electronics, plop down in front of their largest flat screen TV and watch whatever you want.

Anyway, for New Years we had 2 good options for places to go - a friend's band was playing at Hadley's and there was a big, drunken party at a private club I'm a member of. But my significant other had just driven 7 hours home that night before and wasn't feel well. We decided that because of that, plus the fact that we hadn't been together during Christmas to exchange gifts, that we'd stay home and drink chocolate wine and open presents. It was pouring rain outside all night long so it probably was a good thing we did that. Roads filled with intoxicated people combined with pouring rain and random police checkpoints isn't a great combination for us, especially when the designated driver (not me) wasn't feeling well and was exhausted already.

Woman Bait

Chocolate wine - who thought of this? It combines the 2 biggest weaknesses of the female sex - wine and chocolate - into one devastatingly effective trap. We'll have plenty of empty wine bottles for the recyclers when they stop by next. And I'm pretty sure we'll be returning to the local liquor store for more because someone living with me LOVES that shit.

So, let's talk football. How about my Dallas Cowboys? Do they suck or what? I mean, individually they have loads and loads of talent, but when it really counts they have a serious problem. Today the news stories are blaming quarterback Tony Romo. He does seem to choke when the pressure is really on and he does throw badly timed interceptions while under pressure. But I suspect the real problem is at a much higher level than the QB. I think until Jerry Jones has a crippling stroke which prevents him from interfering with the Cowboy coaching decisions, or just flat out dies, the Cowboys will never win another playoff game again. Jerry Jones puts the "I" in team, and that isn't a good thing.

Someone in my house bought a bag of crackers that have lots of spices in them that make you fart a lot. I ate my share of them. This brings us back to Walmart. Did you know that Walmart is one of the few places that it is perfectly acceptable to fart at will without bothering to deny that it was you? It's true. You can stand in line with a whole family behind you and just let it rip. Who cares? I mean, it's Walmart. People should be grateful that you showed up wearing clothes, let alone having showered, brushed your teeth and combed your hair. Forget about holding in farts. Walmart is the toilet of department stores. Farting is encouraged there. I took full advantage of that yesterday prior to making my way to their 600 square foot handicapped stall and crapping my brains out.

Fart Freedom!

 I just read a news headline flashing by that says America went over the fiscal cliff and then a temporary "compromise" was made. From what I read it was no compromise. Obama got everything he wanted and Boehner broke ever promise the Republicans ever made. Obama said he planned to take us over that cliff and yet Boehner acted like it was negotiable, as if he just needed to talk smoothly enough to persuade King Obama to totally change his plans and not wreck our economy. Hey, too late, dumbass. Boehner just seems to have no clue what he's dealing with. Actually, Boehner just seems to have no clue in general. He's the Tony Romo of the Republican Party. No, I take that back. Romo is better than Boehner. Romo will take a crushing hit for the team. Boehner is just a weeping, pink-tie-wearing Gumby of a politician. I truly have no respect for the man. He represents everything that is wrong with the Republican Party. And that's all the politics I'm going to mention here today.


OK, so we're watching "Despicable Me" on the Disney Channel. I haven't seen it before.I still need to shower and get some work done around here. And I think someone is wanting me to open up some more chocolate wine. I hope your new year's celebration was good. Happy January 1st!