If they make themselves available....they're asking for it

Right now as I sit here I am nervous about our future. Even more so with Spendy McHealthcare in the White House. Because you have a large mountain of nutjobs out there who, rather than help you or me out, just want to show Obama they have a bigger dick than him. Face it, that's reality. So come Tuesday, we're gonna usher in one hum-dinger of a pissing contest and you and me are the ones that are gonna get wet.

ANYWHO...the commercials were getting just downright mean and nasty but the phone calls really pissed me off. I started to think, do these nitwits know I hung up on them? Is there a way they can tell that I cut them off right after I heard the sales pitch start?

THERE IS!! And thank YOU Google for again helping me find the answer. And thanks to this nudniks for helping me out by providing the online chat function. SO really, it's their fault (not mine) that I had to be a dick. Observe what happens when I ask the rep if they can show if a message was heard in it's entirety or if someone (me) hung up.

What aisle are the chains in......

"Miracle Whip...Miracle Whip...". I repeated this to myself over and over again as I had the most MONUMENTAL of brain farts. Where is it in the store? See, I don't use it so there's no familiarity there but I have heard of it and seen it, .....where? My wife asked me to pick it up. As I strolled down the dairy aisle I see several "whips". I see Ready Whip and Cool Whip.....in an ordered and well meaning society, shouldn't ALL the "whips" be together?

"Okay I give up, where is it?" I ask my wife on the cell phone. "In the condiment aisle...near the dressings". Sure enough, there it was.

When I become President, I pledge a uniform and orderly grocery store with aisles like "round things" and "stuff you eat when there's nothing around to make a sandwich with" and "stuff I eat when there's a game on" and the ever popular "frozen crap that's NOT ice cream". Finally, a grocery store with not a HINT of a man on a cell phone begging for help from his wife.

Is it just me

Am I the only one grossed out by the Jimmy Johnson Extenze ads? The one where the girl goes "Jimmy, do you really use it?". "Yes, I really do!".

If I was there I'd have both fingers in my ears going "Grandpa!! Shut up!!! La la la la la....i'm not LISTENING!".

Greg Geraldo

Brilliant comic (he was a Harvard educated attorney at one point) and tremendously funny guy. Gone at the too young age of 44. Watch this clip.

Has this ever worked?!

I did telemarketing for TWO days, and one of those days was training. I wanted to make extra money in the evening. Actually that's a lie. I told myself I wanted to make extra money, what I really wanted was a job I could have and tell them to fuck off at the drop of a hat. "Whaddya mean I'm five minutes late! I don't have to take this abuse...I quit!".

But while I was there I got to experience what it's like to beg someone to listen to you. Someone who had better things to do than listen to my schpiel for them to sign up for my credit card. I thought that was the bottom rung of the job ladder. I was wrong.

I think below telemarketers has to be the guys calling begging for money. And it's always the same, pleasant hello, passionate plea, lots of your neighbors are doing it...then hit you for money. And that's my FAVORITE part. They tell you what other suckers have given in the hopes that they can guilt YOU into giving the same amount. "Most of the people in your neighborhood have given $100, could we put you down for that?". Hey, I'm patient with them. I sympathize....but this latest one was my new all time favorite.

I got a call from Planned Parenthood. Poltics aside, I have no problem with an organization that helps kids with no place to turn to. But their pitch was priceless. "Sir as you know these are tough times and we receive no government funding and we want to keep our doors open, would you be willing to give $150.00?".

Yeah, ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS.......an amount I haven't given in one donation to cancer, muscular distrophy,....that guy I owed $150 too, NOBODY! And this guy wanted me to fork over that kind of cabage to him? "$150?!?" I said "I'd abort somebody mySELF before I'd give you clowns $150!".

I do something for people in that crummy job donations can't do. I ground them....and remind them that most things just plain suck and the best you can do sometimes.........is laugh.

Who'll be in the benefit concert?

Usually the thing that wakes me up is one of my seemingly never ending trips to the bathroom at night. For I, have the bladder control of a septuagenarian. I tend to not sleep as much as I nap between pit stops.

So imagine my surprise when I awoke to an itch, a bizarre and strange itch on both of my hands. I immediately start rubbing both hands together in a manner that a Boy Scout might use to start a fire with two sticks. This is how it all started.

What followed was weeks of a skin irritation I chalked up to new soap. Nothing to be concerned about. That was until I started to get what looked to be acne..........on my fingers. Apparently a little later than usual my fingers JUST now were going through their awkward teen years. They'll never get a date for the prom now.

My wife convinces me it's okay to go to one of those drug store clinics and I do. There's a special magic you feel waiting to see a medical professional 5 feet away from a rack of Depends undergarments and looking up the shaving cream aisle. So the nurse on duty suggests it's just an irritation from a plant, poison oak or something which up until then I had assumed (and been told) I was resistant too. I had never had a poison ivy breakout. Poison Ivy?!? Pffft! I put that shit in my salad!

Off I go then to use the cream they prescribed. Only problem is, it never goes away. NOW I go see the REAL doctors, the one that you don't go down aisle 5 to see. It takes this guy 2 seconds to say "Eczema" and then I'm done and on a medication that seems to be working.

What I find out later on the internet shocks me though. This isn't just something I caught once and it will fade away in my memory years later.......this, is a disease.

That's right I said it, eczema is a full blown, chronic, never getting rid of it disease. It's like having a venereal disease without the benefits of all the sex. There's a foundation (http://www.nationaleczema.org/) and they take donations and all that crap that you'd see for a full blown....well, disease!

THIS just might be the cause i've been looking for. It's time for me to get active, to get involved. I'll organize fund raisers...yeah! I'll become THE face of this pain in the ass affliction. I can just see the TV commercials now "Hi, I'm Ray....if you're one of the millions affected by this illness I want you to know you're not alone. Look at little Timmy here, so young....so innocent....so itchy....won't you please help him?". Now I just need to convince Bono to write a song for it and i'm set!!

Crowds suck

So okay, the title is about a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale of creativity. I wanted to write about this past weekends trip to the Columbus Zoo and the IMMENSE crowds I experienced. I guess I could have gone the "crowd-zilla" route, but trust me, this was a nightmare for someone who likes to leave concerts during the encore to beat the traffic.

Why the Columbus Zoo Ray? Well, voice in my head it's really quite simple. It's far away but not TOO far away that I want to take an ice pick to my temple by the time hour five rolls around on the drive too it. AND,...it just so happens to be an awesome zoo, rated number one on this list.

We got there around noon due to the nearly FOUR HOUR long drive. So you think by twelve'ish, the lines to get in wouldn't be that long, I mean, it OPENED at nine? WRONG! We got in line at like ten to twelve and I looked behind me to see what appeared to be a Steeler game letting out coming right for us. "Are you KIDDING me?". The name of the game for the next trip....NO TRIPS ON A HOLIDAY!

People loose their effing (that's right, I said effing) minds when kids are concerned. By that I mean, nobody would intentionally elbow you or kick you in the side normally, but with a kid in tow all common decency gets tossed right out the window. "Yeah, I elbowed you in the back, sorry, trying to maneuver my kid here". This happened everywhere and the kicker was, going to eat. We HAD to get something to eat. You can't just let a 4-year old go hours without food. Every friggin line was PACKED. I waited in a line (not 10 people deep) a good 45 minutes for two cheeseburgers and some chicken tenders. I think i'm gonna cry the day my daughter says "PLEASE Dad,....if I even LOOK at another chicken tender, I'm gonna be sick!". "I don't think I've ever loved you this much honey.....GIVE DADDY A HUG!".

The best part about this is, we spent this morning in the hotel pool and just like every other trip we've taken if you ask my little girl what was her favorite part.....the food daddy waited patiently for 45 minutes for......the 10% of the zoo we saw due to crowds.......I know darn well it would be, the pool. Oh, that and the dogs jumping into the pool competition (dock dogs) we just happened to see at Cabella's on the way home. You know.....the FREE stuff.

Check this out though. I got AMAZING video from this exhibit.

The Big J

Faith to me has always been very personnel. When I DID go to church on a regular basis it wasn't to form some sort of fellowship with those in the church, I was going for my own benefit. Okay, ya got me,...I went because my mother MADE me go..happy now?

I know enough about my faith to satisfy my needs which makes me what I would consider your run of the mill Catholic. So when the time came to explain God and Jesus to my 4 year old it was a struggle. She's starting pre-school soon and it's at a Catholic school and there's a very strong chance she'll wind up in a situation where she'll have to play a part in the "kneel down, stand up" dance I call the "Celestial Hokey-Pokey" that is my faith. So I decide now with about a month to go is as good as time as any.

My wife and I decide that we need to get her acclimated to going to church so we take her and I decide to lay a few nuggets of info that I have on her.
"See that Honey? That's Jesus".
"Is he on the cross".
"Well no, he's just got his arms outstreteched dear".
"Is he flying?"
"No sweetie, he's the savior, he's not Superman......or IS he".

So then the questions start.........and they are doozies.

"Why did they put him on the cross?"
"Well, honey...they were bad people:.
"Why where they bad?"
"Well,...they just were, now pay attention".
"Why he die for our sins dada"
"Okay look....that's all I know, happy? I'm a bad Catholic....okay!"

Of couse I didn't yell at my daughter in church. We did like all good Catholic parents did. We waited till we got to the car. Amen.

I'M FREE

Got to go out and see a comedy show last night. Yes, I miss doing that very much....doing the comedy thing that is. Being in a bar never really appealed to me me. Don't get me wrong...I luz mah alcohol, but I miss telling jokes and getting that immediate reaction from a large group.

Boo

I won't watch those ghost hunter shows and here's why. I have a theory that ghosts are around us all the time and they're cool about being around us. They don't bother us, we don't bother them. I'm afraid I'm going to have that ghost hunter show on TV, go to change it and THAT's when they really notice me and go "No no no wait....turn that back...was that Frank?".

Thanks for the help

Saw a truck today with a fire fighter logo but a huge emblem on the back that said proudly "I fight what you fear!". So i had to stop him at the next light and roll down my window and go "How do you kill them!". "What?". "Monsters!".

I KILL me....

So I posted a Happy Birthday message to a coworker, a young innocent coworker who really doesn't deserve my brand of evil.

I put several phrases on his Facebook page in several different languages.....Croation, Czech, Polish, and ended it with "In any language, have a happy birthday".

Nice, right? Except every language when translated said the same thing - "Go blow a goat". Really, when you think about it, if you got that far that you went to translate it, I think you too would even laugh.

Poor Frack,...we hardly knew ye

"Ah, honey? I think this fish is dead". After a goldfish that lasted less than 24 hours in my care, we decided to move on to a more hearty fish, guppies. Prior to that point I heard the word "guppies" and thought one of two things......bait and or pond dweller. That's where I assumed they came from. I thought of guppies as a fish that needed minnows in the world to feel good about themselves. "Sure I'm a guppy,...at least I'm not a minnow".

As it turns out, guppies are pretty nice looking fish and I almost can't see them on the end of a hook to lure a BIGGER fish....ah, to my fishing hook. I bought two guppies (we named them Frick and Frack) for my daughter to see and admire. As all child pet stories end, your's truely ended up doing all the care. Poor Frack, he might have faired better had the 4 year old taken interest.

ANYWHO.......they lasted the day...then more days.......then weeks. It seemed as if I had found my nitch fish, the guppy. I enjoyed seeing them come up to the top to feed. Even if they did feed like finicky toddlers and just nibble a flake or two letting the bulk of it fall to the pebbles below.

So one thing happened that may or may not have contributed to poor Frack's demise. The filter in the tank consists of a square fabric like ...ah, filter...that has charcoal in it and rests on a ledge on top of the tank. A pump below pulls water up and just spills it over the filter to get....filtered (need another word....fancied up??) and sent back below. Well lately the filter has been saturated and not all of it makes it out fancied up. Some of it escapes over a spillover area to the left of the filter.

I don't know if water quality contributed to the demise of Frack or the constant stream of water that came out stronger than from the filter. They seemed to be wary of it and huddled in the corner away from the filter. One day I saw Frack sort of swimming on his side. At that point I thought he'd gone and got the net. But as soon as I touched him....BOOOM, he was off. I don't blame him. If someone showed up to cart me off because I was just asleep.....I would have jumped up too.

This time, Frack clearly was gone. He was floating belly up (hey!! Is that where that phrase came from?). My wife said "He's probably just sleeping". Ah....no. Belly up??

So I get the net and have to make a small current to make him float out from under the filter so I can get him. This all made me wonder how Frick felt, now he has the tank all to himself. He seemed happier..if that's possible. "Thank GOD!! HE's gone.....yak yak yak yak yak......dude never shut up!". We're going to end up getting him some companionship soon. I may have to go to a different pet store soon before they start putting my picture up with a big sign "FISH KILLER".

Yes, I'm a d*ck

SWEAR TO GOD this happened;

"Hello, is Ray there?".
"This is him".
"Oh hello Mr. Cavender,....this is Connor Vern from the DNC".
"What?!? Oh your name is NOT Connor Vern".
"Sorry? Ah..yes...yes it is. It's Scottish".
"Scottish? Sounds like a porn name".
"Okay,..well, we're calling because the Republican smear campaign is in full swing. Operation Code Red. And we're counting on people like you to help fight. Most of our donors are giving upwards of $100, can we count on you?".
"Well...CONNOR Vern....if that IS your name, I'm actually registered as an Independent now..so I'm afraid I'll be giving my money to someone a little more independent minded".

Actually....I don't really give a shit who's running. But a hundred bucks?!?! Please!

SLEEEEEEP

There's a new study out by Professor Chris Idzikowski from the Sleep Assessment and Advisory Service that says how you sleep determines your personality. For example, those who sleep in the fetal position are sensitive but still with a tough exterior. Those who sleep on theri backs are said to be reserved, quiet, and keep high standards for themselves. Alas, the article was incomplete. I guess I'll have to keep wondering about myself as I fall aslseep on the carpet in front of the TV passed out from a sugar high of Coke and Cheerios.

Name this!

Ever hear those radio commercials that invite you to "name a star after somebody"? So...okay, if we go with the premise that this is real, I have one question. Do the astronomers and scientists who actually DEAL with stars and space on a regular basis seriously have to adopt this naming process? Can you imagine an emergency someday at NASA where one astronomer yells something like "LOOK!! A comet!! Heading straight for us!". "Where where!" shouts his buddy. Then the first one goes "Look, in the telescope,...see that bright object in the sky right by Iben Poopen and to the left of Mybalz Itch?".