Andrew's H8LV 5/12/11

I hate things, I love things. Sometimes at the same time.

H8#3: Locking DVD Cases

              You know the ones I'm talking about. There are two little snap locks on the side of the DVD case that you have to pop up before you can open it. Will someone please tell me what the point of this is? I've wracked my overworked brain for at least seven seconds and have yet to come up with one possible improvement these have over regular DVD cases (I feel the same way about DVD cardboard slipcovers by the way). All of my other DVD cases that don't have snap locks seem to work just fine. Shockingly none of them have ever spontaneously burst open, expelling their contents across the living room as my friends and family dive for cover (I would like this very much, actually). The only thing these DVD cases have ever managed to achieve in my home is when I pick up a movie to watch and, like a sensible human being, open it while walking over to my DVD player in my basement with my cat petting herself with my ankles. It seems to stick for a moment, so I apply more pressure and manage to break the case instead of opening it. Now, I'm sure this wasn't the intention of whatever genius designed this case - how were they supposed to know that in rural Georgia there lived a movie nerd with fantastic muscles who doesn't know his own strength? Still, as I've said before, if you (or your product) contribute absolutely nothing positive, and manage to make life more difficult and annoying in some way I HATE YOU!

H8#2: Teenage Mothers

            While I realize this was all the rage like 100 years ago, when girls got married at age 13, don't you think we should have progressed beyond it by now? I remember long ago (in the good old days) when there was something called shame. Social stigma. I blame a lot of this on abstinence only education, but let's be real for a moment - we all know where babies come from. If you're a young teenager and interested in having sex (and what teenager isn't) you should realize the consequences. Getting unexpectedly pregnant when you are young, unmarried, and probably single, is nothing but a gigantic advertisement of your own stupidity. I know a billion people who accidentally got knocked up so I'm stepping on ten billion toes here, but really, you're all very dumb. It isn't that terribly difficult to avoid. I have a friend who has little to no sense,  and has had sex hundreds of thousands of times, and still hasn't gotten anyone pregnant. You know why? HE'S IMPOTENT! OR he realizes that knocking a girl up would change his life in uncontrollable ways that he is not at all prepared to handle so makes it the most important thing in his life NOT to get anyone pregnant. More important than eating, more important than working, more important than remembering to put gas in his car, more important than not getting arrested. All of these are problems, yes, but problems that can be solved - not something that will last as long as he lives. There is a reason that teenage pregnancy rates are the highest among the least educated social classes - because educated people make better decisions. Now, I'm not saying these children should be treated as bastards, and I'm sure they're all wonderful kids and their parent(s) wouldn't trade them for the world - but that doesn't make their conception any less of a mistake.
          Let's try to not glorify bad decisions, eh? Children are wonderful, and parenting is wonderful, and yes, sex is wonderful too - but we don't randomly buy houses for twenty minutes of pleasure. Know why? Because buying a house is a giant decision that will affect many areas of our life. Let's try to treat childbearing with at least half of that gravitas.

         Note: none of this is to let teenage fathers off of the hook, but unfortunately they are often off of the hook already. It takes two to tango but when it comes to teenage mothers it's rare to see both parents raise the child. This isn't okay, but it's a fact. Everyone should be very conscious of the consequences of their actions, but the consequences are often much greater for the woman than the man. 

H8#1: Hello Kitty

I take it all back. This is obviously so witty it justifies the
existence of Hello Kitty. Also, the original caption for this
on the site where I found it was, "I've worn this once and
will be wearing it again once I lose enough weight." 

            My problem isn't really with Hello Kitty as an object, or a character, or a brand - that's just smart marketing and a simple supply and demand principle. My problem is with the fans of Hello Kitty. For some reason a lot of adult females (and I don't think this is as bad as it was even five years ago, but it's still worth hating) have a weird obsession with Hello Kitty. It's creepy, frankly. Sure, everyone likes cute stuff, girls especially, but Hello Kitty is so ultracute, and so twee, and so patently ridiculous that it's just embarassing to fawn over. It seems to me (and this is just a theory) that girls think that boys find it cute for girls to act like little kids. (Re-read that last sentence to make sure you understand it). We don't. We spend most of our time cursing all the ways that you, as women, don't act like adults. You know how adult guys act like boys - making fart jokes, playing video games for hours on end, trying to look down women's shirts - that ain't cute. It's immature and a huge turn off to you ladies. Now, why in hell would you think that we fellows would find you talking like a little girl, liking little girl stuff, and putting Hello Kitty stickers on your possessions is cute? 

          There are only two types of guys that find this sort of thing attractive, and before you start acting like an 11 year old consider this and decide which type you are trying to attract. A) Pedophiles. B) The Japanese Business Man Stereotype. Hello Kitty originated in Japan, the center for repressed sexuality and terrifying perversion. Japan is a truly freaky place - beyond what any of us could imagine and reaching far beyond the whole Japanese school girl stereotype. If you want to be horrified just do a little research or spend a couple of weeks in Tokyo. 

         I'm a sane guy, and I can admit when I'm reaching a bit. There are plenty of people who find Hello Kitty adorable and can't imagine why I would hate it or relate to me on any level. That's okay though, because this is MY hate list, and I truly, deeply, madly hate it. 

LV: Peanut Butter

                    If you know an O'Dell, you know that we love peanut butter. You know that we simply cannot live without it. You know how some people say, "Oh I love [insert whatever food here]" as a way of saying that [insert previously inserted food here] is one of their favorite foods? Well I don't mean it like that - I mean that I legitimately love peanut butter. How much, you ask? Honestly, if one of the many O'Dell children one day declared that they simply did not like peanut butter well - while they wouldn't be disowned they would certainly be ridiculed and harassed about it at every single family get-together. Ever hear of George Washington Carver? He came up with like over a hundred different uses for peanuts (peanut butter wasn't exactly one of them, but sort of) AND my sister dressed up as him for a costume party when she was about 13. In black face, gray hair, moustache, the whole nine yards. I eat peanut butter in my ramen noodles and bean and bacon soup. I eat peanut butter on my pancakes. I make grilled peanut butter sandwiches. Today for lunch I had a hamburger...with nothing on it except for peanut butter. I'm 26 years old and still eat peanut butter sandwiches (with Bama apple jelly). I knew I was going to one day marry my wife when she told me she puts peanut butter in her vanilla ice cream. Speaking of, I eat peanut butter on vanilla wafers. My favorite candy is Reese's. I love peanut butter more than I love most things - including a lot of living, breathing, beings. If I found out tomorrow I had a severe peanut allergy, I would just take my chances and if I die, die doing what I love - eating peanut butter. 

Fatherhood: The Blog - Second Trimester!

           Happy birthday kid, we made it! We are now firmly ensconced in the second trimester of Margaret's pregnancy and she has yet to vomit even once. In fact, I don't think I've vomited the entire pregnancy either (impressive, I know). I haven't updated this blog lately but for a variety of very good and convincing reasons. Life has been extremely busy, with friends, family, and other social activities, as well as the same old grind of work, love, and responsibilities. In fact, we've barely even played Halo in the past couple of weeks, so you know we've been busy. I've also been around a lot of children lately, so I'm learning all about what kind of parent I will be - answer: a great one.

            Last week my entire immediate family came over (except my dear wild beast of a brother who is currently spearfishing during breaks from his Special Forces training in Florida) and we grilled out and played yard games (including watching a squirrel fall out of a tree from 40 feet up, land on all fours in my backyard, and look around wide eyed and then run off). My sister brought her three kids, of course, and so I got to hang out with them, watching them play and eat and all of that and frankly - it's quite exhausting. Thankfully we're birthing a child, not adopting a trifecta, so we get a chance to grow into the situation, not have it all just dumped upon us. Since parenthood is obviously boiling water, it's good to get into it frog style, with the heat being turned up a little bit at a time.
           Also my dear friend from my adolescence (we met nearly 13 years ago when I, to break the boring silence, turned to him and said, "I don't know if you know this or not, but I can fly." "Like Peter Pan?" he asked. "No, like Buzz Lightyear." I told him. After that we were BFFs.) who now works on stealth bombers in a secret location in the midwest is in town for a couple of weeks with his wife and 16 month old son. They stayed with us this weekend so I got to experience an even different age of child (5 year old, 4 year old, 2 year old, and 1 year old all within 24 hours (I'm guessing. I don't actually know how old my nieces are)). He was surprisingly fun - he's old enough to actually have a personality, even if he doesn't talk much. He eats regular food (like a monster. I think he ate a pound of bacon Sunday morning) and laughs and climbs on stuff and gives high fives - that's enough for me. The only real problem is that after he went to bed we stayed up talking and watching TV (and generally being guys - we saw Rondo get his elbow bent backwards in the Celtics game and squealed in horror while covering our faces...then spent the next ten minutes watching replays of it, trying to find it online, and covering our eyes and screaming every time we saw it) and I didn't go to bed until after 1 a.m. Mag had fallen asleep on the couch, so after everyone else went to bed I straightened up, did some dishes, and went and woke her up. She did the classic, "Huh? What? I wasn't asleep. My eyes were closed but I could still hear everything." Then she realized that it had been like an hour so we went to bed.

         THEN, by 7 a.m. I could hear the baby's fat legs running around the house so got up to watch Fraggle Rock (and the first 20 minutes of Waterworld) with he and Jake. We went to Zoo Atlanta with them that morning/afternoon and I was ready for bed by about 5 that evening. Of course I had to stay up until 10 p.m. so I could watch A Game of Thrones, so I got to experience a little bit of the exhaustion of parenthood. The zoo was busy, as mom's get in free on Mother's Day, and there were a ton of parents and kids there. My personal opinion is that Mother's Day should be celebrated by the mom not having to be a mom. The dad should take the kids to the zoo and the mom should go to the spa or something. A mother is a mother every day of the year - give her a break for one day in appreciation of her being a mom. The zoo was fun and Margaret fell in love with the Red Panda (I argued with myself all day over whether it was in the bear family or the raccoon family but couldn't remember. I looked it up and it used to be in the raccoon family, then was moved to the bear family, and now is in it's own family). Therefore, when she was distracted later, I sprinted across the zoo, taking steps three at a time, hurdling strollers, shoving old ladies to the ground, and finally bursting through the front glass of the cleverly titled, "PANDAMONIUM" gift shop. I purchased the last stuffed Red Panda, donated a dollar to Panda Research or some such b.s., and caught up with Mag, handing her a paper bag and declaring, "HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!" I told her I was giving her a gift to give our child - unfortunately she's slept with it in our bed every night since. My god, what have I done?

                Now, back to our own child. There are a lot of feelings that one experiences when fatherhood is impending - joy, anticipation, anxiety, excitement, and...terror. Absolute terror. While Margaret was out of town for a conference two weekends ago she started experiencing a sharp pain in her side and a few other strange symptoms. She texted me about it and I looked it up online. It didn't seem to be any big deal really - just some minor common pregnancy complications. But I found out one thing that I'm sure many other future parents have discovered - the Internet is a horrible place. You might find nine sites that say, "It's nothing, don't worry about it." but you will always find one that says, "It's a sign of a miscarriage! Your baby is dead!" Logic flies out the window and that hand of horror grips you by the spine and you feel the ice begin to spread up and out. Your body functions slow down, making breathing suddenly seem difficult, as your brain kicks into overdrive, thinking a thousand different thoughts in a thousand different directions and never even finishing a single sentence. It's like when you can't reach a family member who normally responds to your calls or texts and for no real reason your brain starts thinking, "Are they okay? Was there a car wreck? What's going on?" There are a lot more reasons to assume their phone isn't charged, rather than that they drove off of a cliff, but we aren't always reasonable. Of course I just told Mag that the Internet said everything was fine, as there is no reason to spread The Fear, but that we should probably tell the doctor about it on Monday.
                So, on Monday she calls the doctor and the doctor says that she wants her to come in that very morning for an ultrasound, or sonogram, or whatever (is that the same thing?). By this time it's been a good 40 hours and my brain has reasoned with my emotions to convince myself everything is fine, but now my emotions kick my brain in the balls and say, "AHA! You thought you had me, but look at my new weaponry!"   I rush to get off of work in time for the newly scheduled appointment. Mag beats me there and I rush, skidding around corners, running red lights, splattering hobos, using conveniently placed tow trucks as ramps, and fly into the parking lot of the OB/GYN, doing a shoulder roll out of my truck as it crashes into a series of parked cars. I stand up, brush myself off, and walk through the door. You see, I don't think my presence will change the news, whatever it may be. I don't imagine the doctor will pull me out of the room and say, "We couldn't find a heartbeat" and then I'll break the news to Mag. I just don't want them to tell her and then for her to have to call and tell me. No mother should ever get bad news about the baby in their belly, but I can't control that. No mother should ever have to tell bad news about the baby in her belly though, and that's the only thing I can control in this situation.
                      Mag is already in the back, and the office has some stupid cell phone blocking powers so there's no way of contacting her. I tell the bimbo at the front desk why I'm there and she stares blankly around for a bit and then I have to tell her again. She asks me if I'm sure I'm at the right place (because I'm sure a lot of men accidentally stumble into the OB/GYN office) and finally Mag walks out of a door with pictures of our healthy, happy, extra-large baby. We sit on a couch in the waiting room and cuddle for a bit while looking at pictures of our little minion.

Size of my baby

                  It is a strange feeling, looking at the weird mass of cells that are nestled in your wife's belly, and that are beginning to form your own child - carrying your own DNA, and vestiges of your own personality, and it's own random hopes and dreams. I didn't really experience any wonder or ultra sensational feeling though - really all I was feeling at that moment was relief. I've studied the pictures since, of course, and the kid actually does look like a human, albeit a curled up giant-headed weird one. They say his/her spine looks just marvelous, and that he/she is also bigger than expected - in fact they said if they were in the business of moving due dates they'd probably move it from 11/11/11 to 11/08/11, but that we'll just let the prediction ride. Speaking of the whole him/her/it conundrum, Mag solved it in her own corny way. One night we were lying in bed as she (always remarkably in tune with her own body) felt our baby flutter about in her womb (and I think this was the day of the ultrasound, as the tech told her that our baby was moving constantly and making photo-taking difficult) and said something about, "Chill out little Flipper!" Well, Flipper is just gender neutral enough to work, and Flipper O'Dell sounds a bit like Digger O'Dell (some obviously kooky fellow from a half-century ago who used to bury himself in cars or phone booths or whatever and let people watch him live his enclosed life through a periscope. Hopefully I am in no way related to him.). I was annoying Mag by singing lullabies my grandfather used to sing to me (that make no sense - "when you awake I'll bake you a cake and a whole lot of pretty little horses." ???) so I switched from, "Go to sleep little Margaret," to, "Go to sleep little Flipper." It's nice to have a name - no matter how silly it may be. It makes my child feel like an actual being, as opposed to an, "it."
   
         Flip well, dear Flipper, and don't ever scare me like that again.

Picture of Margaret's belly

Next week on Fatherhood: The Blog - bathing suit shopping with a pregnant woman! There's no way it can be anything but a smooth and emotionless experience! 

Clayton's LV/H8 of the Week ( / Season)

 I admit, it's been a minute or two since I posted a LV/ H8 blog. Sometimes it's difficult to put into words just how much I hate humanity; things that seem simple like driving to work, waiting in line at the grocery store, or taking out the trash spark my ire and ought to ignite a plethora of blog posts, but the rage spreads from my overwrought brain to my eyes and, Cyclops-style, sears all thought and motivation from my mind. Then I hear a song I love on the radio and forget about what it was I hated and the blog never gets written. Welcome to my daily life.


 HATE #1: Bumper stickers.

After this picture I take back that entire paragraph.

   A week or two ago while going through the daily tragedy of driving, I encountered a middle-aged Jeepish contraption (I'm terrible with car identification) with a daring bumper sticker. In an attempt to get a ticket for following too closely, in the vein of a dear former roommate, I sped ahead and craned my neck to read the sticker. "Fear the Government that Fears Your Gun," it read. Now, I realize that I live in Georgia, but are we being serious right now? The quotation is trite and stupid enough to begin with, regardless of one's opinion on gun control, but to put that idiotic statement on a car reaches untold levels of ignorance. It made me realize that I don't fully understand the concept of bumper stickers. Are cars anonymous enough that we feel safe spouting our narrow opinions without fear of having to defend them? Is it a pussified way of voicing ourselves? Do we buy bumper stickers because our bumpers are too unadorned without them? I don't know. I don't care. I just hate.



 Hate #2: "Young man."
  Obviously a dichotomy exists between generations, especially when generations are distanced from each other to the point that one generation was raised in the Depression and another existing generation was raised on Madonna. As youth, we have been taught to respect our elders (though each generation seems to learn this less and less). As elders, I don't know if we're taught to give respect to younger generations, because I've never had the benefit of being an elder. I admit that I don't always show the deference to elders that I ought. It seems that almost every time I make an effort, though, I get the ironic response of being called "young man." Okay, people of the world, listen up. I am 23 years old. I've lived in four decades, graduated from college, paid my car insurance, watched R-rated films, signed rental agreements, kissed vampires, and done other grown up things. Obviously I am younger than your condescending self, but I am old enough to realize this without you constantly reminding me. It would be rude of me to call you "old man," so don't tempt me (Frodo!) to do it. Besides, why even call me anything? It's always fine to say "Hi ^_^" or "HEY YOU," or, ya' know, call me by my GOD-GIVEN AMERICAN CITIZEN NAME.

Hate #3: 100-Calorie Anything.

I promise this is real.

Since America is fatter than every third world country combined, there has been a push in the past few years towards consuming less (I won't even begin to rant about what a misguided and lazy response this is to the very real problem of national obesity). This Law of Lessened Consumption materializes in what I have dubbed The Religion of A Hundred Calories. Is your favorite snack sweet, unhealthy, and full of sugars, yet the portion is small enough to be just a hundred calories? EAT UP! Have you already eaten a huge fast food lunch (with a Diet Coke) but crave more, and that apple just isn't enticing? A handful of carb-ingested crackers are only a hundred calories so toss that apple out! The concept is dumb and lazy, but if by some stroke of illogical fortune it does save our nation from the danger of obesity, we'll die of pollution instead! 100 calorie snacks essentially are a big bag of the same snack that has been repackaged into dozens of smaller bags for people with no self-control. Instead of littering my beautiful neighborhood with one box of Cheez-Its, you're not littering my once-beautiful neighborhood with fourteen bags of Cheez-Its (and the box it comes in). But thank goodness it was only 100 calories!



That Thing I Love: *Natural* Tanning.

 Now that it's May, the Georgia heat has hit the upward swing. This, compounded with my early morning work schedule, has given me the benefit of being able to lie in the sun and tan on the occasional days I get off on time. Most years I tan only at the beach and just lie out throughout the entire vacation and burn myself to the point where, once the red fades into a tan, I manage to be tan for about three weeks. This year I've been taking advantage of friends' sisters' apartments' pools, beach weekends, and backyards to soak in the sun and turn a delicious shade of... tan. And honestly, though a lot of it is about getting rid of the pale white skin I wear throughout the winter, the part I most love about tanning is the act itself. Lying and soaking in the sun, only to bleed it back out through my too-huge pores in noxious sweat, is one of the most empowering feelings known to mankind. It makes me feel like a part of nature itself, going through a cyclical motion of soaking and emitting, all with the added benefit of making myself implausibly more beautiful. Tanning - it's just something I love.

Cinco de Why-o?

          Back many months ago there was an event called, "The Super Bowl" which I claimed was, "The second-most American holiday, after Cinco de Mayo." In the weeks and days since many things have changed - my wife and I conceived a baby, Osama bin Laden was killed (OR WAS HE), baseball season started, some other stuff probably happened somewhere else in the world, and my productivity kept pace with my alcoholism - both have diminished significantly. This is to my everlasting shame, as I thought that perhaps drinking less would actually make me more efficient. All of this is an excuse for why all of our loyal reader(s?) have been precariously balanced on the edge of their seats for an entire Spring awaiting my blasphemous explanation of how a DAMN MEXICAN holiday could possibly be considered more American than something like Thanksgiving. I wanted to post this Thursday, but that proved impossible as I didn't write it until right now, on Monday. Diez de Mayo. Sit down (Beatrix) Kiddos. History can be fun.


WHAT IS AMERICAN?

Enough said.

            This is a question that is nearly impossible to answer just among the neighbors who live on your own street, or in your own apartment building, much less by the nation as a whole. If we considered the opinions of the entire world (which I think we can all agree is a distinctly UN-American thing to do) we would arrive at a different conclusion entirely. There are probably a few traits that most people would define as, "American" however, though they may disagree on how positive or negative those traits are. Independence, religion, recklessness, wealth, career driven, friendly, very nationalistic. To call a holiday the, "most American" we have to have some sort of baseline on which to judge what is and is not American, so let's use those few traits I just listed as a generalized description. We all have our own idea of what to be American is (hint: obese) but I think we all know what I'm talking about here.



THANKS FOR NOTHING! 
               When you ask your average every day neighborhood super hero, "Which holiday is the most American?" he or she will invariably answer with either Thanksgiving or Independence Day. If they answer with anything other than one of those two than they are obviously an idiot, as all our other holidays are celebrated around the world and might have unique American spins on them, but aren't exclusively American holidays. Independence Day is a strong contender, in that garish, jingoistic, brass band sort of way, but Thanksgiving certainly is not. While we think of Thanksgiving as the whole cutesy Pilgrim and Indian thing (and then make sure to ignore the fact that that feast was merely an ironic prologue to the story of White Man vs. Red Man and a pretty horrible decision by the Indians), Thanksgiving wasn't made an official national holiday until 1863. Sound familiar? That's right, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving during the middle of the Civil War to celebrate the fact that the tide was turning, the Union was winning, and that no foreign powers had interfered in the war. He basically said, during his speech, "All in all it's been a pretty good year for America, ignoring the whole rebellion thing."

"HAPPY THANKSGIVING!"

               I'm from the South and all, and we all know Mr. Lincoln could be a bit of an unconstitutional dictator, but I generally like the guy and don't have any problems with him declaring a day of Thanksgiving. But it's hard to give the award for Most American Holiday to a holiday that was officially instituted while the nation was at war with itself, causing death tolls still unmatched by all of our other wars put together, and that speaks more to the Federal power vs. State power question than it does to anything to do with Pilgrims or Indians.              


CINCO DE WHY-O? 

               Ask your same friendly neighborhood Spiderman what Cinco de Mayo is and he or she will tell you, "Mexican independence day!" or more likely, "I don't know!" It's a pretty good guess, since we call our Independence Day The Fourth of July, why shouldn't them Mehicanos call theirs The Fifth of May? We all know they want to be like us, anyway, right? Well unfortunately this explanation just isn't true, or is only very slightly true. Mexico has a long and troubled past, full of war, racial bigotry, corruption, slavery, and constant conquering and re-conquering. It's no coincidence that they speak Spanish in a country that is across the ocean from Spain. In 1861 (a couple of years before Thanksgiving, for those keeping track) after a long string of wars that Mexico mostly lost (including to America in the 1840s) the Mexican government found themselves plumb out of money and announced, "Descansamos un rato en aquel pago entero de nuestra cosa de deudas, Europa." or, "We're taking a break on that whole paying our debts thing, Europe." Europe wasn't too happy about this, and France, figuring that Mexico had a history of losing wars, and France had a history of guys named Napoleon, decided to invade. Things were going swimmingly (for France) until, you guessed it, the fifth of May, 1862.

                 On this day there was a great battle that ended with the French army (double the size of the Mexican army) doing their whole French thing and tucking their tails between their legs and running squealing back to mime school. This was really just a small blip on the radar, because after re-upping on bon-bons the French army returned and crushed the Mexican army, installing a French ruler over Mexico and reigning for three years (I told you Mexico was conquered and re-conquered a lot). What does any of this have to do with the United States? Well I'm certainly glad you asked! If there's one thing that we hate as Americans, it's the god damned French. We hate them so much that we seized upon this relatively minor victory by the small Mexican underdogs against what was then the best army in the world, and we're still celebrating it 149 years later. They don't even celebrate it very much in Mexico (their real independence day is in September) but we here in America act like it is the most important Mexican holiday ever.
                See, that's another thing that makes us distinctly American - we love to take one holiday from another country and twist it into something sort of American and then pretend like we're culturally diverse. Mostly we celebrate these holidays by promoting caricatures of whatever nationality we're mocking (I mean, celebrating) and then drinking ungodly amounts of booze until we pass out, and wake up the next day American again. This is why we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, and this is why we celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

                  So why is Cinco de Mayo more American than Independence Day, or Thanksgiving? Any country would celebrate the day they achieved their own independence, but only in America would we co-opt another people's victory, get the history completely wrong, use it as an excuse to drink to excess, and still celebrate it a century and a half later as a giant middle finger to the French. That ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm proud to be an American. 

"We're just celebrating Independence Day!"

The Mother I Could Be

 Today is the greatest holiday in the world, if you were to ask most mothers. It's the one day out of the year they can sit back and do nothing other than bask in the glory of having birthed a generation of greedy little wenches who will one day sit back and bask in the glory of having birthed a generation of even greedier little wenches. I find it hilarious that Mother's Day is the most eaten out holiday because it proves that even in 2011 mothers still cook. As families the only way we know how to let mothers get a day off is by taking them out to eat. Don't worry moms, one day we'll learn how to cook!

 In honor of Mother's Day, I decided that the best blog I could write is one about me. My mom mothered me to be a self-assured and overconfident young individual who thinks primarily about himself, and this is best illustrated in a Mother's Day blog about no one other than me. So to all you mothers out there, enjoy this blog describing to you why I, Clayton O'Dell, would make an incredible mother.


 I love doing dishes. There are plenty of household chores I dislike, but as any man born before 1980 knows, the woman's place is in the kitchen. For the 364.25 non-Mother's Days throughout the year, a mother ought to be in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, and doing the dishes. I know that the job of being a mother is fairly difficult and not the most enjoyable thing in the world, so the fact that I actually like to do dishes would make me a great mother. Plus, dishwater would keep my delicate hands neat and clean.

 I like minivans. Being a mother wouldn't be a tough job if mothers were allowed to keep their angelic little heathens at home, but eventually reasons to leave the house crop up: soccer games, school, grocery runs, visits to check and see if daddy's really working late or is out getting wings, etc. Children are apparently required to sit in carseats, and most kids require water and books and toys and other completely unnecessary items that necessitate a vehicle larger than the hot little two-door that pre-moms were allowed to drive. Well, unborn children of the world, fear not! I would make a great mother because I love minivans. I think they're stylin' and luxurious, and nothing gives me more pleasure than flooring it in a minivan and speeding past a wannabe sports car with a dopey grin on my face. Though maybe the fact that my driving skills are more geared toward showmanship than safety makes me a better dad than mom.

 I'm the best subtle hater ever. We all know the archetype of the overbearing, boastful soccer mom who will stop at nothing to prove that her incompetent child is better than your competent one. Unlike father dynamics where guys air their grievances with one another and sometimes get drunk enough to punch each other (but never press charges), there is an unwritten rule that mothers can only fight with words, and even then can never let it be public that they're fighting. Well folks, let me tell you that I am a sarcastic young man who's been granted an overabundant dose of sarcasm and subtlety. If someone thinks they can lie about their kid being better than me, I can cut you (not your child!) down in front of the other moms without ever saying anything exact enough to get me in trouble. But if it ever does come down to a fight, I can pull hair with the best of them.

 I don't really understand technology. It took me over a month to discover how to put captions on the pictures I uploaded to our blog (but it wasn't my fault!). I have consistent trouble with my cellphone. I have only used an Ipod once or twice in my life, at most. I can use technology in a functioning manner, but there is no possible way I could understand how to double-check my kids' browsing history or track their texts. As a mother, it would be my duty to make sure my kids were doing what I want them to do (fathers don't believe in such) so perhaps it's bad that I don't fully understand technology, but every kid needs an outlet that mom can't comprehend, right?

 Mommy can read! I suppose dads do it just as much, but I have been recognized on three separate occasions with statewide awards for Best Children's Book Reader. There's nothing better than sitting in bed and having your parents read you to sleep, unless you're a mother reading your child to sleep. I do need to reexamine my book choice, though, since I don't believe most children would appreciate listening to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as they fell asleep. Oh well, they'll learn.



 You know, now that I think about it, being a mother isn't all that easy. I may know how to take care of a child for an afternoon, an evening, maybe even a weekend, but for eighteen years?!? I couldn't mother someone for eighteen years, but mothers go even further - a mother's job is never done. I'm 23, Andrew's 26, yet our mother still takes care of us (and our cacophony of siblings) and works hard at it. A mother's job is never done, and there's no way I could outmother the mothers I know. Keep up the good work, ladies. (:

Andrew's H8LV 5/4/11

HATE #3: HAIRCUTS REVISTED
Once upon a time, in a far away land, a much more foolish version of myself dared to claim that he hated haircuts. His reasons were shallow, weak, and jinned up to fulfill his weekly column requirements. His tone was mocking, immature, and thorougly annoying. I am here today to say that that man is no more - no, before you stands (or rather, sits on a cheap chair in my basement while my kitten uses my leg as a scratching post and I watch Days of Heaven) the new and improved Andrew. The Andrew that LOVES hair cuts. You see, everything I said about them the first time still applies, but a hair cut was the greatest event of my day today, and I owe it all to the Gay Barber.
             For all you damned homophobes let me explain something to you - I LOVE gay men. Feel free to take that out of context and enscribe it on my tombstone, but, just between you and I, allow me to explain. It's rude and possibly hateful of me, but I find almost all gay guys completely hilarious. They love talking, which I love and which most straight guys hate. They love looking good, which I love and which most straight guys hate. They love me, which I love and which most straight guys hate.  They love women - they adore and worship women, they attract women like molasses attracts flies (supposedly, I've never seen molasses). If you are straight and don't have a gay friend, you are really missing out. There is no better opportunity to meet women, and no better way to make women like you. I live in the South, where it's normal for manly men to be racist, sexist, and homophobic. If a girl meets you through her gay friend, and finds out you're not gay, she will instantly love you and you will go up like 100 points in her book (I don't know how many points there are, or what this book is) just because you don't hate her gay friend. It's amazing how easily girls will fall deeply in love with you not because of anything good you do, but because you don't constantly shoot yourself in the foot. Most homophobia, let's face it, stems from the fact that straight guys think that all gay guys find them irresistably attractive and are plotting to rape them. I hate to break it to you, but you are all hideously ugly. Have you EVER heard of any straight guy being raped by a gay guy outside of prison?
              So anyway the guy asks me how I want my hair cut, and I tell him, "I was hoping you'd tell me. I hate hair cuts. I only get my hair cut like once a year."
"When's the last time?" he asks.
"I don't know. I think I shaved my head like last June or something."
(Incredibly exasperated sigh and eye roll that only a gay man could pull off).
"Why do you hate hair cuts?"
"Because I'm trapped in a chair and can't move while people do something to me I have no control over and they try and make small talk and ask me what razor they should use. I didn't go to no damn cosmetology school." (I often try to talk with redneck grammar, as I find it funny, and don't want to accidentally exceed anyone's expectations). I explain a little bit about how I want my hair, ("Shorter, but not too short. Like yours, but not as short." He of course promptly cuts it about twice as short as his is.) and then we switch subjects to the fact that the salon got broken into three nights ago. The amazing thieves broke into the store next door through the ceiling, and then kicked through the wall to get into the salon and steal like the $100 that was in the register, managing to do over $2000 worth of damage.
                 The rest of my haircut is spent discussing how obviously dumb the thieves were, (he said, in his politcally correct fashion, "It looks like a retarded twelve year old robbed us") interspersed with him asking me if I live nearby, if I have any children, and how old I am. It was actually fun small talk for once though, and as I was the only customer at the moment the female stylist came over and we eavesdropped on the alarm salesman as he fed line after line of bullshit to the manager and we made fun of it. I told them, "I always tell myself that if I ever resort to a life of crime it's going to be some awesome Ocean's 11 style shit, not breaking into a Fantastic Sam's. But if I do I'm going to steal your $80 shampoo and sell it out of my trunk." They advised me on the best ways of breaking into their store, and which doors are the weakest and what not, in case I change my mind, and then I paid him, told him to make sure not to leave his tip in the store over night, and left.
           You may be asking, "Why is this under hate?" Because my hair looks nothing like I attempted to request and is far shorter than his and when I told him I wasn't sure I liked it he told me I could come back and get it fixed for free. ARE THEY GOING TO MAKE IT LONGER?
           
HATE #2: CONSPIRACY THEORISTS
          Osama bin Laden is dead. I will bet on this for any of you dumb conspiracy theorists that want to put your money where your incredibly large mouth is. I hate conspiracy theorists. There are some compelling arguments about JFK's assassination, and even about the Oklahoma City Bombing, but I don't believe in any of them. It isn't that I don't believe that people are evil, or that our governments are capable of great atrocities, or that nothing has ever been pulled off without the knowledge of the general public, but I just think people are too dumb to be successful. Think of how many people would have to be involved in your average conspiracy, and then never breathe a word about it to anyone else. If conspiracies were real, we'd  have like seven unsuccessful ones for every successful one. Really, JFK and RFK were both killed by the government, or the mafia but there's never been any proof? Really, the American goverment bombed the Twin Towers and no plane actually crashed at the Pentagon or in Pennsylvania? Really, Osama bin Laden isn't dead? Really, we didn't land on the moon? Really, aliens crash landed in Roswell? Really, Elvis is still alive and living in a garbage dump in Barfield?
          See folks, a conspiracy requires more than just saying, "It isn't true!" You need to show me something more true. You have to show me something with more facts, more motive, more likelihood of happening, and then account for all the reasons why we don't know the truth. Sometimes the facts are facts. Life is just that boring. When there were no WMDs discovered in Iraq it wasn't shocking, or an unveiled conspiracy - it was the opposite. There was no real reason to believe there were WMDs there to start with, and if conspiracies were as popular as the theorists seem to believe, you can bet someone would have buried some uranium or mustard gas out in the desert somewhere. Colin Powell wouldn't have come out a few years later and said that he mislead the American people, or whatever term he used, because we would all still be fooled. You know the celebrity that was most associated with 9/11 Truthers? Charlie Sheen. Look how that turned out a few years later, guys. I know everyone likes to think that they can somehow see the REAL facts, and that all the other sheeple are just too dumb, but really, especially in this, the age of Information, life is sometimes exactly what it seems.

HATE #1: COLLEGE PROFESSORS
            So Clayton is apparently Georgia's excuse for a minor genius or something, and he earned Student of the Year at his college for whatever his degree is in. Being a loyal and thoroughly O'Dellicious brother, I skedaddled the hour and a half down the road to attend his award ceremony. They were also honoring a bunch of Teachers of the Year or something, and ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you that these people look exactly like the caricature a right-wing radio host would paint of a liberal academic. I make fun of rednecks, and right wing stereotypes all the time, but never let it be said that I'm not an equal opportunity offender. First of all, they're all very ugly. Their faces are too narrow, their foreheads too long, their teeth too British, and their skin weathered - not by exposure to the sun, but by never seeing it once. Their sense of humor is awful (the dean made the hilarious joke, "I'm going to go over these numbers that were given to me by the math department. I hope I can trust them!" Everyone laughs, me more loudly than the rest because I'm so smarmy and ironic. "Because these are numbers, and it is the math department!" she continues. I don't really see why you need to explain the joke by repeating it after everyone laughs, but I'm not the dean of a college). On top of that, a lot of the guys are wearing bow ties. Listen guys, only people in tuxedos and clowns wear bow ties, and you sure as hell weren't wearing tuxedos. One little spaz was running around in a bow tie taking pictures and somehow managing to keep his glasses balanced on his pointy head. After the ceremony was over I was looking at a series of framed pictures of speakers who had (believe it or not) spoken at the college and one was Laura Bush. I called my ten year old brother over and asked, "Do you know who this is?" Mr. Spaz quickly gallops (in the same way a frail horse skeleton gallops) down the hall and stands about four inches next to me, staring at the picture. I turn to him and, in my polite way, tell him, "I wasn't asking you. I assume you know who this is." "YEP!" he declares, "That's W's- that's the woman who stuck with W!" I don't know if that was supposed to be funny or what but my brother and I just silently turned our backs on him and walked away in perfect synchronization.

LOVE: DELETING FRIENDS OFF OF FACEBOOK
         Oh what a filthy pleasure. It's immature, certainly, but it feels so great. I realize that when you delete someone off of Facebook they don't even realize you've done it, but I'm perfectly fine with that. As I long ago taught one of my padawans (Lesson 47: Successful Pranks) most of your pleasure in life should come from the action, not the reaction. Your greatest moment of glee should be when you apply the superglue to the toilet seat - not when someone sits on it. Regardless of anyone ever even is affected by your prank, you've gotten your pleasure and moved on. If your satisfaction is based on reaction then A) your chances of getting caught increase exponentially, and B) there are plenty of ways your prank can lead to less than ideal results, forcing you to be displeased with the whole thing.
           Now, deleting friend off of Facebook isn't a prank, of course, but the same principle applies, though not necessarily for the same reason. I'm just saying, I don't delete people so one day they'll realize, "Hey, Andrew hasn't posted any incredibly witty statuses lately, I wonder how he's doing." Then they'll go to their friends and realize I'm not there and be OH SO ANGRY! Nay, rather, I do it because it makes me happy. I once made the mistake of thinking that I had to accept  all Friend Requests from anyone I knew, even if I just knew them from when I was a kid, or if I had met them once at a party. Well, people are the most annoying things on earth, and I used to spend a great part of every day being incensed at the stupidity and inanity that these little creeps would litter my News Feed with. I would bite on my tongue until it bled, attempting to not start a flame war by telling them what I thought of their ridiculous opinions. No more, I say! No more! There are few things in life that make one feel so good and have no negative consequences whatsoever. Go through your Facebook Friends today and delete at least a dozen people, and tell me you don't feel better. I love it. My goal is to get down to like sixty friends, and then eventually to only myself. Then one day I'll delete myself, and that's how the Social Network Part II (tagline: What if Facebook was actually as important as teenagers think it is?) will end. In tragedy, bitterness, disillusionment, and deletion.
         I also deleted a lot of people out of my phone contacts today, and that wasn't nearly as fun. See, phone contacts aren't offensive, it's just bothersome to scroll through them all. However, deleting people reminded me of stories from the past, as I would just name people in ways so I could remember them, as opposed to whatever their names actually were. I'll leave you with the names of some people I erased today:
Beth the Bull
Ashley Zombie
TayTay
Bobby Tattoo
3 (when this black fellow gave me his number he was insistent that I use, "3" not, "three")
Nigga D
Tabby the Rabby
Steven Bread
Creepy Lauren
Jody Breezy
Rebekah Pregnant (this person wasn't actually pregnant, but one day I ran into her in Wal-mart and she quickly hid a pregnancy test behind her back. We made very small talk for about fifteen seconds and then I said, "I can't help but notice you're hiding a pregnancy test behind your back.")

Osama Bin Laden Goes For a Swim

 For those of you whose only source of news is O'Dellicious, Osama bin Laden is (SUPPOSEDLY!!!!) dead. A few days ago US troops caught up with him in Pakistan, stormed the building he was in, shot a human shield, and also managed to shoot bin Laden in the head. Since then, the US has taken his body to the nearest ocean and dumped it so that wicked bin Laden worshipping terrorists can't make a shrine where his body is buried. Also because he didn't really die and it's all a ploy for Obama to get re-elected.

 I'll let you guess which parts of that paragraph are true (hint: all of it), or even do heavy-duty research and turn on CNN. However, if you want to get to the real truth of the matter, all you need do is log on to Facebook. I discovered about bin Laden's death by being on Facebook, and the first thing I did (after turning on CNN for heavy-duty research) was to get on Facebook and begin reading the status updates. Ever so often I lose faith in humanity, then a major event like this happens and I get on Facebook, and I remember that the world is still well and good. Instead of writing a blog about Osama's death, I feel the best way for O'Dellicious to make note of it is to compile some of the best and brightest Facebook status updates on this situation. Enjoy.

 DISCLAIMER: These are *real* and *genuine* Facebook status updates. Most of them are appreciated only ironically, though a few of these are actually good (maybe two). If you are offended that your status is here, so sorry. All typos belong to the original owners.


  The Patriotic


============================ 
 "Nice to see America unified for half a second again."

============================

 "I hope everyone is watching the News!!!! "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!!!!" He's finally going to a place where he will be judged for his actions, 'bout time. AND killed by a US missile... thats what happens when you mess with the best."

============================

 "Today is a great day in America. Rot in hell Bin Laden!"

============================
 "so apparently Osama is dead.......Ugh, I was actually planning on catching this fool myself but they got ahead of me.. Dang.... i had a nice schedule of things i would have done to him. oh well, maybe next time. Imma go after his brothers....haha"

============================

 "God Bless US Navy SEALs!!! I want the guy who shot him to be the father of my children."


 The Conspiracy Theorists

============================
 "CIA Asset Bin Laden 'killed'. -Alex Jones"

============================

 "I'm just sick of hearing praise for Obama over this. I personally think everything our government does is a set up. Did you know Hitler died May 1, 1945 which was exactly 66 years ago? 5/1 or 5+1=6. Seems a bit too strange to be a coincidence. Plus it is clearly a ploy to get him re-elected. PLUS everyone is clearly still convinced that osama bin laden was the cause of 9/11 and i totally disagree. There is no real evidence that points the finger to him, but rather to our own corrupt government. Those buildings collapsed demolition style and almost all of the "hijackers" are still alive. Also, the other 2 sites where the "planes crashed" is very strange considering there were never any planes or plane parts to be found yet human bodies were still in tact....think about it....or better yet watch zeitgeist"
============================

 "....is the royal wedding over? check ...is it sunday night with everyone home? check ..ok run the teleprompter ...barry you're on"


============================

 "Mr. President Oboma now that the Quote on quote Terrorist regime leader is dead i was wondering if possible, you could bring our families home NOW. Oh wait i'm sorry i forgot about Fascist agenda you have planned for our country. :)"


============================

 "I go to bed and they have his body, I wake up and he was barried at sea? Hmm. Lemme get this straight, it was a compoud with barbed wire, thick walls, the whole 9 yards, but there was only 3 peole guarding him? ok? Wouldn't he have a small army with him at all times? Oh and as soon as they landed they took fire from bin laden and this three croonies. Why was he fighting and not hiding...in the builing made for that... There was a helicopter crash, but zero unjuries? Oh and the US says no one knew about it, but Pakistan says they were at the compound when it went down. Ooooooooooo K. Think I got it."



 The Peace-makers/ Breakers

============================
 "Proverb 24:17-20 'Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the LORD see it, and it displease Him, and He turn away His wrath from him. Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the wicked; for there will be no prospect for the evil man; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.'"

 ============================

"'Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?' Ezekiel 18:23. We need more than a healthy dose of this mindset."

============================

 "For the people condemning people that are celebrating this wonderful news because it's not very "Christian-like" ... My God is celebrating too."


============================

 "For those condemning people for celebrating, I challenge you to remember September 11, 2001- and tell me celebration is not due..."


============================

 "You know what Osama Bin Laden just learned: Allah doesn't exist!!!!"


============================

 "They have killed Osama Bin Laden. When the wicked perish, the people rejoice."



 The "Humorous" (note the amazing originality)

============================
 "Reign of the 2001-2011 hide-and-go-seek champ ended today"


============================
"First it was Anne Frank. Now it's Osama Bin Laden. Who will be the next Hide and Seek World Champion?"

============================

 "The world's longest game of "Hide and Seek" is officially over."

============================

"'Hey! How come my forty virgins are ugly and carrying pitchforks and pincers?!!!!'Joke borrowed from my firend, Ed Newnan."

============================

 "so i'm wondering how disappointed bin laden was when he didn't get his virgins...."

============================

  "Mrs. Bin Laden changed her Facebook status to single lol"

============================

 "Osama your fired!"



 The Political


============================
"BAM- Just hit me... Osama Bin Laden's death will probably be the catalyst for Obama's re-election. Just a thought."

============================

 "To everyone being all happy that Osama is dead: I hope you THANK your COMMANDER IN CHIEF BARACK OBAMA for this since HE'S the one that actually sought out Bin Laden, rather than fighting his dad's war for oil. But oh wait, this victory will somehow not be attributed to him by the Right so that they can keep up with their bitching and moaning."

============================

 "I can't be certain it's Osama until his corpse produces a birth certificate, tee hee. But congrats on finally killing America's boogeyman. No telling how many innocents died as collateral damage. But I won't rain shit on America's parade too hard. Bush is a bigger terrorist to be honest, though. /Debbie Downer"

============================
 "Ok geeze obama, stop taking credit for it. Ehh...I did this, I did that....
  Obama can't help himself. He has NPD - Narcissistic personality disorder. The narcissist is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity."



 The Best


============================
 "Loves repects believes in and is so blessed to be an american. God bless our troops, their families, and our leaders in command. USA is my heart soul and life. But as happy as this day is it is stupid of us to stick our heads in the sand and think we have aquried peace especially after assinating a key leader and official of pakistan. I love this country and its people. Let freedom ring we are once again united." [sic]

============================

" R.I.P. Osama. You were like a brother to me </3 fly high baby!"

============================

 "ugh Osama why did you have to die? I was streaming Celebrity Apprentice and it was interrupted and I STILL DON'T KNOW WHO WAS FIRED! Dickhead."

============================

 "Thanks to George Bush, We killed Osama. Don't mess with Texas"
 "That's right... Bush, NOT Obama."

============================

 "Osama bin laden is dead... That can't be good."

============================
 "Now I lay me down to sleep...one less terrorist this world does keep...with all my heart, I give my thanks...to those in uniform, regardless of ranks...you serve our country and serve it well...with humble hearts, your stories tell...so as I rest my weary eyes...while freedom rings, our flag still flies...you give your all, do what you must...with God we live and God we trust....Amen and Amen RE POST"

============================

 "Ding dong the bitch is dead... and by bitch I mean Osama bin Laden"

============================

 "Man. I love Tootsie Rolls."

============================




            And that, dear O'Dellicious readers, is that. Comment to share your favorite one from above, or add any that you saw on your own Facebook feed and loved. And, above all, have a wonderful Monday (how can't you, now that the world's greatest supervillain is having a casual swim??).

Andrew's H8LV 4/28/11

          H8 #3: Comcast Cable
          This week I decided I love myself. "This week?" your cynical lips may cry. "Every word you've ever written has been soaked in adoration for both yourself and your nearly equally O'Dellicous brother(s)!" Well, in my defense, your honor, I would claim that there are two types of love: (1) Normal, over-the-top, self-obsessed love. (2) Love enough to buy yourself HBO. Last year, being all sweet and stupid, I bought HBO for my wife so she could watch Season 3 of True Blood. After suffering through what is possibly the most overrated season of a supposedly high-quality show ever made (even worse than the last two seasons of LOST) I kept HBO long enough to watch the second seasons of Eastbound & Down and Bored to Death. I attempted to get into Boardwalk Empire to no avail and finally just cancelled the channel. Well, now I need it back. I first started reading A Game of Thrones in 2001 and quickly devoured the subsequent two novels. I've obsessed over them, discussed them with friends, and casted all the various roles in my mind in the height of my nerd years. Finally the novels have been brought to the screen in the most ideal of circumstances - a series on HBO at the height of television popularity and quality. I could resist no longer - I must have HBO. So on Sunday, on my way home from my family's delightful little Easter celebration,  I rang up HBO to have a little talksie.
    
         My first call was answered by a fellow who asked for my name and number and then answered my question: "How much would it be to add HBO to my cable plan?" "$19.99" "Thank you, goodbye." So sweet. So simple. After talking things over with Margaret and deciding that I was powerless to resist the call of the direwolf, I called the same number back. This time I spoke with a lady, who asked my name, my number, and then asked me the address at which I would like to have Comcast set up service. "I already have service, I just want to add a channel," I tell her. She claims she still has to have my address so I give it to her, and then she asks for my e-mail address, "for confirmation purposes." I didn't even realize I needed to have some e-mail address to confirm who I was so I gave her one of my e-mail addresses and said, "Is that the one you have on file." "Oh, we don't have one on file," she tells me, "This is just so we can send you special offers." I explain to her that I'm simply trying to get HBO added, and she tells me I've called the wrong department and she'll have to transfer me. THEN she puts me on hold for five minutes, and comes back to say that she's ready to transfer me, but first wants to go over a few special offers. She launches into two long-winded sales pitches from some troubleshooting service called, "Save Squad" or something, and one for ADT HOME SECURITY!
          
          This is obviously ridiculous. Listen, Comcast. I am calling YOU trying to give you twenty extra dollars a month for you to do nothing. You don't produce HBO shows, all you have to do is simply press a button on a computer somewhere and then I get them! It will literally not cost you a dime, and yet you're making it as difficult as possible for me to give you my money. After I tell the saleslady no, and that I'm not interested six different times, she proceeds to transfer me to the department I should have been in the entire time. A computer answers, and I have to enter in some of the information I already gave the lady, and then go through a series of menus to let them know why I'm calling (so evidently everything I told the lady was for no purpose whatsoever) and then a machine comes on the phone to tell me that the department closed twenty minutes before.

           The happy ending is that I called Comcast back the next day and got HBO for ten, not twenty dollars a month. The unhappy ending is that both on Monday and Tuesday I got calls from Far Eastern salespersons who were, "returning my call" because they had heard I had, "expressed interest" in their Saveology products. Sometimes I use the word, "hate" loosely, and because over exaggeration is fun, but I'm being dead serious - I hate this sort of crap.

             H8 #2: Road Work

DEFINITELY DONE DURING THE DAY

             Okay we get it, roads have to be worked on. At one point (I'm too lazy to look up current statistics) during the last few years Georgia won two honors - the state with the best roads in America, and the state with the dumbest high schools in America (I assume all our drop outs go to work on road crews). Whenever I leave the state by vehicle (as opposed to the many times I've left it on foot, just three feet ahead of the local Sheriff's department, or by ferry, just a short jump ahead of the local Ringwraith department) the decline in the roadway is immediately noticeable. But listen guys, you don't have to work on the roads while people are driving on them. You know how all the time you go to throw something in a dumpster but the dumpster is turned upside down being dumped into a truck? You know how you try shopping at the local superstore but you can't get down any of the aisles because they're filled with pallets full of groceries that are being put on the shelf? You know how you send a package to someone across country and it takes weeks to get there because mail can only travel between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. No? That's because in every other industry work gets done at night so as to not get in the way during the day. See, day time is when most people are at work, or on the roads, or awake, generally. I get up at 4 a.m. in order to get into places when they aren't busy, so I can stay out of people's way - this is more convenient for others and for myself. I run into road work all the time that is being done during rush hour. I don't want to accuse any underpaid worker in any field of ever going on a power trip but you know - some people take their flag waving abilities a little too seriously.

            H8 #1: Over Serious Sports Fans

Real tears, or a genius way to grope college boys?

              Sports are a lot of fun until I really stop and think about them. There aren't really many things that are more pointless that make so much money, or have such a dedicated following. I know there's the whole thing about how sports teach young men about teamwork and self-worth and all of that but that's a pretty flimsy justification for an entire multi-billion dollar global activity. I don't think events have to prove their own worth though - people like sports, that's enough of a justification for them to exist. This year the Atlanta Hawks are surprising everyone by actually winning some games in the post-season. Last year the Orlando Magic swept us four games in a row in the first round of playoffs, but this year we're rematched against them and winning the series 3-2. Tonight's game is at Phillip's Arena in Atlanta, and the Hawks are expected to win, thus moving ahead to certain defeat in round two. On sports radio today there was discussion about tonight's, "Dwight-out." You see, Dwight Howard is the star of the Orlando Magic, and tonight all Hawks fans are encouraged to wear white, in a show of team unity. Normally it's called a White Out, but tonight we're going to be especially punny. The radio hosts also mentioned how the people down in Orlando have been referring to the Hawks (and by proxy, us band wagon jumping Hawks fans!) as...bird brains! Oh course, as all Little Lebowski's know, this aggression cannot stand, man, so we'll just have to defeat them tonight.
 
             Sports are great and all, but sometimes I have the sneaking suspicion they were designed by women to make men act like little children. "You think Twilight is dumb? You cried when a group of overpaid athletes that have no affiliation with you whatsoever beat another group of overpaid athletes that have no affiliation with you whatsoever!" "You think my story about inter-office drama is boring? You got angry because someone in another state that you've never met called a basketball team, 'BIRD BRAINS'." Come on men, save your emotion important things, like the realization that Kurt Cobain would be 44 years old right now if he hadn't been assassinated.

           LOVE: Thunderstorms.

           This is an irreverent choice, as we just had a series of tornadoes across the southeast last night that killed over 200 people, but that's kind of what makes me love them. Not the fact that they kill folks, but for the sheer power weather contains. Weather is something that we now understand through science, but the raw display of force shown by something as invisible and mysterious as wind makes my thoroughly modern soul revert back to the days of pre-history and convinces me that the weather is an act of a vengeful random god. I can understand why so many cultures worshiped the weather - not only is there the importance of rain cycles to the survival of a people, but there's also nothing quite like a real storm. It comes out of nowhere, wreaks it's havoc, and disappears back into the unseen beyond. The randomness with which a tornado touches down - totally destroying one house but leaving the one next door untouched, is almost enough to build an entire religion around.
                I of course am no fan of people dying, or property being destroyed, or irreplaceable keepsakes being lost forever, or millions of dollars worth of damage - but I am a fan of thunderstorms. They are so other-worldly, and uncontrollable, and powerful, and amazing. There is nothing that has those four attributes that I could ever attempt to not love. Thunderstorms, I love you.

How is this not an alien invasion?

Fatherhood the Blog - Week 11

                While I won't deny I love writing about my tiny little child that is currently doing back flips inside of my wife's belly (like a creep!) I also won't deny that on occasions (like every day) I am a desperately self-centered, self-pitying little fool who is not above hijacking a blog dedicated to his own unborn child in order to wax on to pathetic lengths about his own crazy little life. I knows I switched from first to third person in that last paragraph, forgive me, Mr. Whatley of ENG1101. 


                This week my baby turned 11 weeks old. Or perhaps negative 29 weeks old. This week I turned 26 years and 40 weeks old. This week Margaret turned 23 years and 4 weeks old. Also, this week was a horrible week.

                 So many things went horribly wrong this week. It's Friday, and instead of feeling relieved that the weekend is (sort of) here, I feel like a half-drowned man realizing that he's very nearly out of the current, and the shoreline isn't quite as far as it was a moment ago. I have a pretty smooth life, and duck and dodge drama with a deft dip or a delightful dance-step and generally can in no way ever be called, "depressed." My life is a little boring, and not a ton of exciting things go down, but if I had to fill out a quiz every night as I lay my wet hair on my dry pillow, I'd almost always rate each day a 7.5 out of 10 or more. Not this week though. I'm sure it's just some perverse way our brains attempt to organize a chaotic world, but it seems as if disasters come in groups - like thunderstorms. There will be a long period of sunny weather, and then three bands of storms in a row.

                Monday - I don't remember Monday, really. That can only be a good sign. I know we re-planted some peppers in our garden, but then like two days later the peppers we planted a few weeks ago sprouted. PEPPER WARS! My baby reached the size of a medium goldfish. 2 1/2 - 3 inches long.

                Tuesday - At work my handheld computer quit working and, long story short, I had to work 9 1/2 hours straight, without a break. After a few hours at home Margaret and I went to my sister's house. She, her husband, and their three wild indians just moved to Georgia from Los Angeles, Mexico. We had dinner over there and then sat out in the front yard watching the kids ride a bicycle, a tricycle, and some creepy little car with eyeballs. They borrowed a shovel from me, and I borrowed a BB rifle from them. Watching Siobhan, the  five year old, ride a bicycle with no training wheels, take a turn, and then the bike wobble back and forth as her eyes cartoonishly pop out of her head and she comes dangerously close to scraping all the skin off of her legs with the pavement, I learned a lesson about fatherhood: I never want to have a kid. It's just too terrifying. I think I would be running behind the bike ready to dive and catch the child before he or she came close to the ground - and I'm an extremely laid back guy! My baby experienced something amazing today for the first time - the sound of his or her mother's voice. I don't think she/he can hear me yet (but maybe, I don't know) for which he/she should be grateful.

              Wednesday - Wednesday started at midnight (as days often do). Wednesday is my day off, and therefore I still had not gone to sleep. I was sleeping on and off throughout The King's Speech (it's a fine movie, but best picture? Really?) when I got a phone call. This is a top secret phone call which I am completely unable to relate here, or to brag about what a good person I am, but mysterious details aside, my heroic misadventures resulted in me driving several hours, falling asleep on a stranger's couch at 5:15 a.m., waking up at 7:30 a.m., doing a few other secret agent type things, and then driving back home. Margaret was visiting her parents, so I spent the rest of the day (aside from the hour I had to work) lying on the couch feeling exceedingly crummy and fading in and out of sleep. During this time my baby was checking out it's new organs - a gallbladder, a pancreas, and some other stuff which it doesn't know the names of yet.

               Thursday - I got up at 4:00 a.m. and went to work. I spent just over an hour sorting my product and loading my truck and then hopped my sprightly self up into the cab, turned on the vehicle, turned up the radio, shifted that baby into drive...and rolled forward about four feet. My transmission had magically gone out. There was no choice but to get a giant rental truck, but the local Giant Rental Trucks R Us doesn't open until 8 a.m. After a series of headaches and trials that can only have been designed by the god of drill sergeants (and basically amounted to running through mental tires, crawling under cosmic barbed wire, and leaping karmic walls) I was able to get a vehicle with which to do my job. This means my job ended up taking over ten hours straight, and I had to make over twenty phone calls. It took about half an hour on the phone with some barely-English-speaking guy from Allstate to finally get my work truck towed. In despair we went out to eat Mexican food that night, because I needed my margarita medicine. My baby, not at all fazed by my terrible day, spent most of it stretching and flexing it's rapidly developing muscles, focusing on the day when it can hit me in the eye.

                 Friday - Friday wasn't actually that terrible of a day, all things considered (or, at least in comparison with the three days previous). It was bad because I got the news that I needed a new transmission, it'll be over a week before my truck is ready, and my warranty - though it doesn't expire due to mileage for another 50,000 miles, it's one year past the three year warranty date. Translation: No warranty. Also, while having a rental truck is great and obviously necessary, it isn't my normal truck, and isn't the same size, or have the same features, or even the same doors. All of this makes my job much more annoying and makes it take a much longer time. Today my child tested out it's vocal cords. They are very small (since they are on a 2.5 inch creature, after all) but vibrate wonderfully and, I can only assume, in perfect tune. 


             And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we fold our hands neatly in our laps and smile for the cameras. We've done it folks, the first trimester is complete. Margaret hasn't thrown up ONCE.

              UPDATE: It is now actually Monday, and the weekend was busy, but nothing horrible happened. I'm still in the rental truck, and still have no news on my broken truck, but the weekend was enough of a breather that I can survive this upcoming week.  Also, the Hawks are miraculously up 3 games to 1 versus the Orlando Magic, and the Braves just swept the World Champion Giants. There is joy in Mudville.

Local News Report! BODY PARTS FOUND IN LANDFILL

             I just made the tragic mistake of spending almost a full hour reading, watching, and listening to the news. My complaint isn't the traditional, "It's too depressing! Why can't we have a good news channel?" because really, if someone donates money to the Salvation Army in your town, and someone kills someone else in your town, which do you want to hear about first? I do, however, have a complaint. You see, news is now relayed through websites, and most of those websites allow readers to leave a comment to weigh in on the news story. WHY? I can think (and I can prove, since, as I just explained, I've spent the last hour on these sites) of dozens of reasons why these comment sections shouldn't exist, and how they actually degrade the sites and news stories, but I can't think of any one reason why they should exist, or any iota of positivity they possible contribute to the newsreading experience.

            I've kept my news story searching to the local level - never venturing beyond my state's borders for fear of the horror lurking just beyond my purview. I looked through Atlanta news, while watching the 10 o'clock Atlanta news on television. I read through the Columbus, Georgia news, and also the newspapers of a few small podunk towns in my immediate area. Wow, news is horrible. I can't believe that I at one point wanted to write for a newspaper. Stories are boring, and stolid, and rarely get more information across through their labored sentences than were originally communicated via the headline. Not only that, comparing a small town newspaper to the Atlanta evening news is hilarious. Let's just say that the standard for what makes news isn't always the same. However, our local small towns have had a few adventures lately.

- A couple has been arrested for killing a co-manager of Family Dollar while robbing the store.
- Three dumbass teenagers, while on a recruiting trip to UGA, stole iPods, phones, and other things out of the football players lockers. WHAT. THE. HELL. I would argue that was a bit short sighted, as far as value goes.
- Some girl who grew up around here, married a Marine, and was working as a stripper in California was killed by her Marine husband.
- In my favorite story, some Muslim family has dominated the news every day in Atlanta for a week. While the husband was gone, the wife (and mother of five, let's be sure to add, every single time we reference her) went to the Redbox to rent a movie and was never seen nor heard from again. The husband has been on the news every day, people have been looking for her and putting up fliers, etc. Then today his wife reappeared - she'd been staying in a women's shelter down the street under a false name and had left the house because she was afraid of her husband. "I had sent her a text saying, 'I'm going to kill you' which wasn't the best choice of words." he explained today. She ran away because she was feeling afraid, and then really got herself in over her head when he went to the Police and it became news, because now her family would know that she had spent the night ON HER OWN out of her house and she would be shamed and disowned if she came back. Sometimes, kids, religion ain't too healthy. For my own sanity's sake, I skipped the comments on this particular article.

            The story that first got me started on all of this news crap was Mag reading to me, from someone's Facebook status: "Praying for the families of the four women who were shot today in Columbus as part of a gang initiation. One of them was pregnant but they saved the baby." (this may not be word perfect, as it's just something she read to me earlier, but the details are all there). Now, I have quite the famous BS detector (the secret - nearly everything on Earth is an exaggeration) and so I immediately knew there was no way this was true, and got online to disprove the statement. As I told Margaret, "Killing four women, one pregnant, as initiation? This is the most hardcore gang in the world!" Of course, the real story is that two women were shot - one pregnant, who was killed, and another in the leg. The women were carrying a gun in a crappy part of Phenix City when the incident happened but there are currently no suspects. The baby was saved, which is the only true part of the Facebook status. I'm sure more details will come out in the next few days, but what really amazes me is how quickly the story has metastasized from the basic facts into doubling the number of women, saying all were dead, and giving the killing a motive.

                If I had a super lame super power I would want it to be the ability to trace a rumor. It's humanly impossible, of course, but I would start with whoever posted that status, follow them backwards in time to whenever he/she heard the story, follow that person back, etc. etc. Does someone here something wrong? Does someone make some conjecture about motive which then gets repeated as possible, then probable, then fact? Does someone somewhere along the way deliberately add facts that they know to be untrue in order to make the story juicier? I find that endlessly fascinating

              You know what else I would find fascinating? A news story that ever was completed! Now I already gave an example of one that has been completed - the Suleiman tragedy was brought to its predictable anti-climax, but that story was only followed up on because the news was following the, "Pretty Muslim Woman Disappears!" storyline all week. However, when researching all of this news I was reminded of a municipality-shattering event that happened not three miles from where I now sit, back in February. A body was found in an abandoned lot and four arrests were made - three for murder, and one for making false statements to Police. The murderers were caught because one of them was stabbed during the murder (presumably) and had to be life-flighted to Atlanta. The other two murderers were little redneck wiggers, aged 17 and 18. Now, through my Internet detective skills, I quickly found out a few facts that the papers never divulged (everyone has a Facebook page these days, and even when they take them down, they often forget they have Myspace pages still open, since no one uses Myspace anymore). I found some arrest reports on the guy that had been killed, his age, his town of residence, and a few facts on the teenagers charged with murder. I constructed an elaborate story in my head that fit the little bit of evidence that I had (it revolved around drugs, let's face it) and waited for the follow up stories that explained a bit more about the facts. It never came. I just spent a bit searching for any follow up story whatsoever since the arrests were made over two months ago, and I couldn't find a thing.

                  Instead I got to read a comment section on whether or not a teenager should have made a comment about an umpire at a local ball game, and an in depth argument in the comment section about whether or not the paper should have stated that the murdered 19-year-old worked as a stripper, and whether stripping was moral and, "Christian." Thank you Internet. Once again, you've taken a bad thing and made it worse. Not every mouth needs a microphone.