reason to worry

Clarence Thomas!!

George Bush Sr. is going to die with an ear to ear smile on his face for that one....

interview

I had an interview with the public defender's office on Wednesday. 25 minutes into the interview, my hand slid down near my crotch and I realized that my fly was down.

I wasn't sure what to do. I thought about making a joke by drawing attention to it and then pulling it up. "Hahaha, my fly is down, very funny. I'm going to zip it up now." But what if they hadn't noticed?

I thought about trying to pull it up inconspicuously. But there were two interviewers, and I wasn't sitting behind a table, so one of them would probably notice.

If they had already noticed, the joke would be the best course of action.

After a couple of minutes of brainstorming while pretending to actively listen to the interviewer, there was a knock on the door. A third guy came in to join the interview.

I gave up. I left my fly down for the rest of the interview. After the interview was over I walked out of the building with my fly down. I walked to the car with my fly down, drove home with my fly down, and got some lunch with my fly down. It's not like anyone could see my dick. Is there a school of thought that says that men who wear underwear shouldn't be required to zip up their fly?

Maybe the guys who interviewed me thought that I subscribed to that school of thought, and were impressed.

Someone who doesn't wear underwear should zip up their fly (if they want.) But if you've got underwear on, then fuck it, leave it down. What's the big deal if someone sees your underwear?

I used to work out at the Lakeshore Athletic Club when I lived in Chicago. Most of the members were middle aged men, and during lunchtime hours, the men's locker room turned into a naked lounge. I truly believe that some of the guys would just go in there around 11:30, strip naked, and hang out for an hour or two. The weightroom was practically empty, but that locker room was packed with naked men.

For some reason, that generation is much more comfortable being naked than mine. In the bathroom area of that locker room, I'd see men brushing their teeth naked, shaving naked, drying their hair naked, and most of all, just hanging out and socializing naked. And it was not uncommon for them to have a towel over the shoulder, or sitting on the counter next to them.

One time I was in there washing my face after a workout, fully dressed, when my boss came up to me and struck up a conversation. He was completely naked, with a towel in his hand.

I wasn't uncomfortable because he was naked, (and pale and overweight and hairy) that's understandable. (Chicago is an incredibly out of shape city.) I was uncomfortable because I feared that I wouldn't be able to stop myself from taking a quick glance down at his penis.

I didn't want to see it. It's not that I especially didn't want to see it, but I certainly wasn't interested in actually looking at it. At first I was afraid that for some reason I would glance down at that area, and he would think that I was checking him out.

It's like driving past a car accident. I didn't want to see it, but it's not something I see everyday, so I was probably going to look.

But then I realized that he's standing in front of me naked, (and wet), with a towel in his hand because he wants me to look. That's what it's all about!

He wants me to see it. And he probably wanted to see mine. I should have pulled my pants down and let him see it. Then we could compare, see who's longer. We could have had what Brian Hansen told me is referred to as a "Texas Measurin"

(That's how they settle disputes in east Texas. Rather than fight,,, if there's a dispute between two men and no compromise in sight, someone fetches a ruler (or in some cases a tape measure), the two combatants drop their pants, and the one who's longer wins. End of argument.

It took me a while to realize it, but when my boss approached me in the locker room that day, he wanted me to strip naked. I should have stripped, and then maybe we could have walked over and sat down on the couches, or in the jacuzzi, and hang out as men,.. free, naked, the true kings of the jungle.

Why the fuck should we have to cover ourselves up? We're men! Nobody tells us what to do.

That's the mentality he wanted to see from me. Instead, I gave him some quick one word answers, and got the fuck out of there.

When he approached me naked, I should have complimented him on his cock, and then stripped down and shown him mine. Now that's some real male bonding. You don't know a man until you've seen him naked.

law

When I read about the recent Supreme Court decision in Morse v. Frederick, it made think back to something kind of unrelated…

A few weeks ago Handsome Mike and I made a trip to Florida to visit Hansen and Dirk.

For those of you who don’t know these guys, Handsome Mike is a lot like me, Hansen is too (except that he is a few years older, and looks even older than he is), and Dirk, well, you know how scientists believe that man evolved from monkeys? If they met Dirk, they’d explore the possibility that some men may have evolved from Grizzly Bears. (I mean that in a good way)

On our last night in Miami, Dirk took us to arguably the dirtiest bar in the city, and immediately left to hang out with his parents. We weren’t upset that he left us. His parents were in town for the night, so naturally he should have spent some time with them. (Although he did say he’d be right back, and then proceeded to turn off his cell phone and not come back. But that’s beside the point.) Instead of staying inside that nauseating bar, we hung outside and did some people watching, which in Miami was particularly entertaining because we got to see some walks of life that guys like us rarely get to see.

3:30 am rolled around, the crowd began to thin, rain began to fall, but still no word from Dirk, so we decided to take a cab back to Dirk’s apartment.

Sitting in Dirk’s lobby was also quite entertaining. Looking at all of the pastel colors and tropical themed art -- it’s funny to think that of all of the buildings in all of the cities in America, Dirk chose to live in this one. (this is a 300-pound, gun owning, cut-off t-shirt to the bar wearing, two pounds of steak eating and still hungry type of mother fucker)

It wasn’t long before we noticed a couple getting out of a cab and entering the building through the back door. And it didn’t take long for the man to become the star of the show.

He could barely stand up -- let alone walk -- and his girlfriend was trying desperately to get him inside. She opened the back door and tried to walk him in, but he abruptly turned around and threw up in the bushes. She waited outside with him for a minute or two before once again trying to make the 50 foot trek to the elevator.

Once he appeared to be as ready as he was going to be, she put his arm over her shoulder and resumed their ill fated walk. They couldn’t have been more than five steps into the building before he began falling forward. She tried as hard as she could to keep him up, but he was just too heavy for her to control. She lost her grip.

He took a couple of steps forward, and then his feet stopped. The problem was that his upper body was still moving forward. Just when it seemed that a collapse was imminent, he made a last ditch effort to keep it together.

He was leaning dangerously far forward, about to fall over, and then as if summoned by an unknown force, his legs started moving and he began to step forward. He was trying to get his legs back under his body to regain his balance. However, the problem with this method was that his upper body didn’t stop falling forward. So essentially he was running into the building, with his legs churning full speed chasing his upper body to prevent the fall. But to those of us watching, the fall was inevitable. Fortunately for him, he slammed into the garbage, draped his arms around the can, fell to his knees, and resumed his vomiting.

His girlfriend, obviously, was not happy. Not only was the task of getting him up to his apartment still looming, but she probably also had to get him cleaned up and into a bed. For all we knew, they could be on their way back to her place (or their place.) And lest we forget that she was probably going to have deal with what was likely to be an epic hangover for him the next day.

Hansen and I tried not to laugh out loud, but it wasn’t easy. We had to laugh. We weren’t laughing because this guy was drunk and completely helpless, or that his unfortunate and relatively sober girlfriend was going to have to take care of him. I’ve been there before, I’m sure a lot of us have. That is no laughing matter.

And it certainly wasn't funny to imagine if he didn’t have a girlfriend and didn’t live in a city so rife with taxi cabs. In a sparsely populated town, a guy like that might have gotten himself behind the wheel of a car! That’s downright scary. We were definitely not laughing at that.

But we were laughing.

We were laughing because there were three men in the lobby. And we were laughing because the man who couldn’t stand up on his own two feet, who couldn’t control his vomiting, and who was likely going to have an considerable headache and feel sick to his stomach for the next day or two, was also the only one who had been taking legal drugs.

this is it

Is this pretty much what every man wants to be? Seriously, is it?

I could only find this one, but in the opening credits for a different season, they had a clip of him dunking a basketball! (it was somewhere between the clip of him loading the gun shirtless and noticing the ass in his face while he gave the private skorkeling lesson.) (before the clip where he speeds off in the Ferarri)

I didn't watch enough of that show when I was a kid. My TV action hero of choice was MacGyver. What an idiot I was.

I wonder if I could have got myself laid in high school if I had watched Magnum PI instead of MacGyver... (probably not)

posting for the sake of posting

It's been too long since I've posted something. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I'm definitely going to sit down tomorrow and post something. But for now,,,

here’s something that I’ve noticed for a long time and have always found amusing. If you go to the New York Times website and scroll about halfway down the page, you’ll see three tabbed lists on the right side of the page.

The first one lists the 10 most e-mailed articles on the website.

The second one lists the 10 most blogged about articles on the website.

And the third one lists the 10 most popular search terms used on the website.

The lists are fairly current. They change every day, I’m not sure how often they reset the count, but the lists change daily. They usually change during the day as well.

The search terms usually relate to some popular current event or issue, for example some of the top 10 search terms at this moment are: immigration, china, google, college, iraq, india, and energy. But no matter what is going on in the world, one particular search term is always at or near the top of the list.

"Sex."

"Sex" once held the top spot for several months in a row. When the Dow first broke $13,000, "Sex" was the number one search term. After the Virginia Tech shooting, "Sex" was the number one search term. And after the first round of Presidential debates, "Sex" still held onto that top spot.

"Immigration" is at the top right now, with "Sex" hanging back in second place. I wonder how long it'll be until "Sex" snatches up that top spot again. (P.Inc.)

opinion

Black Pepper is the most overrated spice on the rack.

There it is. I said it. I'm sure many of you have been thinking that for a long long time, but I've got the stones to throw it out there. (p.inc.)

Fuck Black Pepper.

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After re-reading that post, I realize that I might be starting to lose it a little.

I got a call from another legal temp agency last week. Legal temp work presents an interesting paradox: on one hand, it pays by the hour and it pays fairly well; on the other hand, it makes me feel like an idiot / drain on society / complete waste of a functioning brain. I decided not to call them back.

Since I had originally sent that agency my resume a few months ago, I felt bad not returning her call, so the next day I waited until after business hours and left her a voicemail. The next day she left me a message asking me to come in for an interview. (I've done a few of these "interviews" before. The agency basically wants to meet in person for 5 minutes just to make sure that there isn't anything extremely wrong you. (because applicants are selected for these jobs by resume alone, we never meet the actual client before the work begins))

Her message continued: after asking me to call her back, she said that her next available appointment was on July 26. (in case anyone hasn't been keeping up with the date lately, last week was June 5th)

I called her back today, and she confirmed that she had not misspoke in her message. Her next available appointment is at 10:30 am on Thursday July 26th. Again, let me emphasize that these appointments take minutes, and there are probably at least 20 other agencies like this one in Chicago. I told her to put me down for 1:30 pm on the 26th. Although, I'm afraid that if I'm still doing this type of work in two months, there might actually be something extremely wrong with me.

I've been thinking about becoming a mango farmer. I love mangos.

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If you're looking to get into Hollywood, this is a great time to be middle eastern or british. There's gotta be a lot of demand for extras who can play terrorists in movies and TV shows these days. Even those mini documentary shows on history channel could use some Arab looking extras. (this could be my chance to make a few bucks in the acting game)

Or if I was British, I could just pretend to be an asshole and probably land a gig as the next "jerk" judge on some type of talent competition TV show. I saw a little bit of "America's Got Talent" today, and I couldn't believe it. They march all of these young kids out there (I'm talking 8-12 year old kids) and the British judge is a complete asshole to them. Much worse than Simon on American Idol.

For example, this week, a little girl went up and sang the same song as last week's winner. (In my opinion, she had a great voice, but was not a great performer) After the performance was over, the British judge just laid into her, and this girl was probably 8 or 9 years old. He said something like, "Last week's winner had personality, she was cute, she was interesting, and she could sing... you are the opposite of all of those things."

We're talking about a 9 year old girl here! I was embarassed for the network.

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I'm taking an online CLE course right now. For those of you not familiar with this, it's a way for the state bar association to steal money from attorneys every year. $100 is the extreme discount price for first year attorneys to get a 15 hour lesson in common sense.

"So you're saying that I can't represent the husband AND wife in a divorce? That's a conflict of interest? Gee, I would have never guessed..."

I'm going turn up the volume on the training course right now, and I'm going to tell you exactly what the instructor is talking about at this very moment:

(I'm going to paraphrase what he says in this paragraph) ""If you want pull certain dockets, use Pacer, and if we have any problems with the Pacer system online, the instructor encourages us to use their help desk. Rest assured that they've worked hard to make sure that their helpdesk is actually helpful. He says that many government agency help desks are not helpful, but Pacer has really put in time to make sure that their help desk is in fact helpful. The help desk phone number is ___ ___ _____, then he gave us the first and last names of the three people responsible for setting up the help desk. If you set up an account with Pacer, don't share your username and password with people you don't trust, because it is possible that they could log on using your account and rack up $.08 per page charges.""

I swear, I turned up the volume and paraphrased what the guy said. No bullshit. I didn't listen for 20 minutes and type the dumbest thing, I turned the volume up and started typing.

Oh man, the next speaker is a magistrate. (a magistrate is kind of like a poor man's judge) and he immediately declares that a magistrate performs many of the same functions as a real district court judge. He then lists the functions shared by the two in detail.

Every 12 minutes they give me a two minute window to verify that I'm still in front of my computer and paying attention to the course.

ok, that's enough pointless unentertaining rambling for one night, good night.

remember back when rap was good?

You can't even buy this song on ITunes, what a travesty.

gas

Not a day goes by without a news story on the subject of rising gas prices. A ~200% increase over the last 10 years certainly gives people plenty of reason to complain.

So this made me wonder: Am I the only person in America who thinks we’re getting a bargain on gas? Seriously, we should be thankful for how little we pay for a gallon of gasoline.

Last week I went to a BP and bought gas for $3.59 per gallon. Obviously this is more expensive than ten years ago when I could get a gallon for $.99, but it could be worse.

After my tank was full I went inside, paid $53 for my 15 gallons of gas, and then paid $1.70 for one a liter bottle of Dasani water.

There are 3.785 liters in one gallon. Which means I was paying ~$6.43 per gallon,,, of water!

Are we running out of water? Why is it that I never turn on CNN and catch a special report on how bottled water companies are price gouging? Why don’t I ever open the op-ed page of the Tribune and read a debate on why we should use less water so we’re not as dependent on the companies that provide it?

It's not like water just falls out of the sky or anything!!

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Also, on the subject of conservation: how much energy would we save if the entire country decided not to put up Christmas lights this year?

I'm on board for that