Holy
crap in a Bundt pan...
Due to the
recent well-publicized shortage of
amateur websites produced by assholes who consider themselves to be
clever, I
have been called into action. My name is Jeff Kay, and I’m an
Ugly American living
on the cusp of a mid-life crisis, near Scranton, PA. And I’m here to
serve, baby.
The
State of My Fat Ass A journal of
sorts, updated every once in a while.
--
When we were at that school meet 'n' greet earlier in the week, Toney
sneezed -- in a room full of Catholics. And man, you should've heard it.
It was just an avalanche, a freaking tsunami, of God bless yous. In
fact, it caught me off-guard and sorta jolted me. I come from a place
where people just shoot you a dirty look, and purse their lips in a
disapproving manner when you "make a disturbance." I'm not too
familiar with the Vatican-mandated sneeze ordinance.
-- How come bacon and sausage are considered banjo meats? Know what I
mean? When those two products are advertised on television there's
always a down-home country feel to it. Usually checkered table cloths
are involved, also overalls, and banjoes playing in the background.
Other meats don't receive this treatment, it's only bacon and sausage.
How did this happen? I'm looking for an explanation.
-- I uninstalled AOL instant messenger this morning, because it was a
pain in and of my ass. There was so much garbage loading upon
start-up, that it took an eternity to get my computer running in the
morning. I could turn it on, go upstairs and have some toast and apple
butter, watch an episode of Spongebob, then come back and it
would almost be finished shucking and jiving.
There'd be page upon page of crapola like movie trailers, news articles
about the latest crackpot diet craze that won't make your ass any less
riffly than it is today, celebrity gossip, and all manner of
lowest-common-denominator bullshit. And for some reason it would come
over in this ....creeping ....crawling slow-as-crap feed. Serenity now!
So I removed it, and it asked me about five times: "Are you sure
you really want to do this?!" I kept saying yes, and it
begrudgingly exited my computer. Afterwards I ran Spybot and saw that
they'd left me a little going-away present: dozens and dozens of
tracking cookies, and adware. I cleaned all that stuff up, and maybe
it's all behind me now?
Yeah, I know. I'm fooling myself, right? AOL is like the Hotel
California. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
-- I think it's now time to break the seal on the 1975 World Series DVD box set.
It's very definitely fall outside, and bourbon season starts this
weekend, so I believe the appropriate moment has arrived; it's time to
go all the way with it. Some folks enjoy a good thirty year old scotch,
but there's something to be said for slow-aged baseball as well, I
think. Bench, Rose, Morgan, Perez, friggin' Yaz.... AND Carlton Fisk's
body-english homer in Game Six -- the greatest game ever played. Oh,
it's gonna be deep-dish childhood nostalgia. I'll probably have tears
streaming down my face the entire time. Can't wait!
-- The deadbolt lock on our front door has
been jamming, and sometimes it takes a long time to get it to open.
Earlier in the week the oldest Secret had to leave for school through
the back door, because I couldn't get the lock to let go. But guess
what? I fixed it. That's right, you read that correctly. I took it all
apart, sprayed some WD-40 up inside, put it back together, and now it
works like the deadbolt lock of kings. The shit is smooooth.
Because I am a man, a real man. I repair things. With tools.
-- My parents were here for a quick visit last weekend, and brought the
kids this ridiculousness to add to their
ever-expanding Halloween
decoration stash. It's a dancing skeleton/pirate hybrid sort of thing,
and is taller than I am. It's standing in our living room right now, and
dances to Rick James' "Super Freak," a couple of ZZ Top songs,
and "Slow Ride" by Foghat.
When the thing kicks off it commences to jerking and twitching like
Skippy Hicks in that Ford commercial. And the "singing"
reminds me of a guy I used to work with who had to have his jaw
reconstructed after being mugged by a gang of young toughs, and hit
in the face by a tube sock with a cue ball inside.
Simply excellent.
-- My Mom and Dad recently bought a minivan. It's a Dodge Caravan, and
is pretty darn nice. They do a lot of traveling, and wanted the extra
room, they said. Anyway, the doors on that thing automatically lock when
you reach 18 mph. Not 15 or 20, but 18. Why? And why don't they just
lock when you put it into gear, like on most vehicles? Can any of you
explain this to me? I'm baffled.
-- On Saturday all of us went to the Pumpkin Patch, to let the kids
engage in some good ol' fashioned sausage & bacon country fun. It
was a good time, as always. I don't know what it is about that place,
but I always enjoy myself there. Maybe it's because I associate it with
fall, my favorite time of year? I don't know. But we did it all: the pig
races, the pumpkin launch, the hay loft, and, of course, the corn maze.
The maze is the big attraction, and has the power to blow a man's mind.
It's massive, and a person can get lost inside for hours,
literally. Indeed, we've been trapped in those things for so long during
previous years, I started to get nervous. It's just one dead-end after
another.... everything looks the same.... and it'll drive you to the
brink of a breakdown and make you want to just go thrashing through the
walls of that fucker.
But not this year, thank you very much. We let the oldest Secret be the
guide, and it only took us 34 minutes. We entered through the entrance,
and exited through the exit, as well. Sometimes we end up going out
through the in door, but we did it correctly this year. It was good
clean fun, as they say.
Here are a few pics I snapped during the day. Now pass them Jimmy Deans
over here, goddammit.
-- One of the Secrets told me a story yesterday about a kid in his class
who is driving him crazy. I guess he's one of these competitive little
shits who has to be first in line, and the best at everything. After he finished with his tale, an old saying from grade school popped into my
head, from somewhere way beneath the scar-tissue and catastrophic damage:
"Yeah, that kid thinks he's hot snot on a silver platter, but he's
really cold boogers on a paper plate."
Heh. I don't know where that came from, but it leads to the question of
the day. What are your favorite grade school put-downs? I'm sure you can
do better than the one I came up with. Use the comments link below to
tell us about it.
--
When we were at that school meet 'n' greet earlier in the week, Toney
sneezed -- in a room full of Catholics. And man, you should've heard it.
It was just an avalanche, a freaking tsunami, of God bless yous. In
fact, it caught me off-guard and sorta jolted me. I come from a place
where people just shoot you a dirty look, and purse their lips in a
disapproving manner when you "make a disturbance." I'm not too
familiar with the Vatican-mandated sneeze ordinance.
DVD box set.
It's very definitely fall outside, and bourbon season starts this
weekend, so I believe the appropriate moment has arrived; it's time to
go all the way with it. Some folks enjoy a good thirty year old scotch,
but there's something to be said for slow-aged baseball as well, I
think. Bench, Rose, Morgan, Perez, friggin' Yaz.... AND Carlton Fisk's
body-english homer in Game Six -- the greatest game ever played. Oh,
it's gonna be deep-dish childhood nostalgia. I'll probably have tears
streaming down my face the entire time. Can't wait!
