2/28/2007
Current Events!!
This story would be a lot funnier if AsianWeek, et al would have just played it off as a joke. As an example, here is how the report really reads:
"Something like this should never have been printed," said Vincent Eng, deputy director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, who is not related to the columnist.
If I was the editor, here is how it would read:
"Something like this should never have been printed," said Vincent Eng, deputy director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, who is not related to the columnist, but looks just like him (joking!).
Or, this:
Sophie Maxwell, one of the city's top black officials and a member of the city's board of supervisors, said she doesn't believe Eng's column will hurt relations between blacks and Asians in San Francisco.
Would be this:
Sophie Maxwell, one of the city's top black officials and a member of the city's board of supervisors, said she doesn't believe Eng's column will hurt relations between blacks and Asians in San Francisco, because blacks don’t read the paper (joking!)
----------------
This is today’s forecast map on the weather channel. I don’t like it (although, there is a big “L” over Kansas, which I can only assume stands for “loser” as in “Bill Self is one.” I do like that.).
“Energy Sweeps out from the SW,” leading a long, white arrow to the “L”?
There’s a “Rich Flow of Gulf Moisture” (Which sounds disgusting.) pointed right toward me?
Can’t you just tell me what the temputure will be? That’s more important than rich moistness to me.
-----------------
Man punched for refusing to give cigarette
PEORIA - An East Bluff man was punched in the face Sunday afternoon when he refused to give a man a cigarette.
Harold W. Lowery, 52, told police a man approached him about 5:30 p.m. in the 1900 block of Wisconsin Avenue and asked to bum a smoke. When Lowery told him no, the man punched him in the face.
Lowery fell to the ground and briefly lost consciousness, reports said.
He suffered blurry vision after the attack and was treated and released from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Harry Lowery can’t take a punch.
-----------------
I'm so, so glad Hal is the hitting coach again:
"Something like this should never have been printed," said Vincent Eng, deputy director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, who is not related to the columnist.
If I was the editor, here is how it would read:
"Something like this should never have been printed," said Vincent Eng, deputy director of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, who is not related to the columnist, but looks just like him (joking!).
Or, this:
Sophie Maxwell, one of the city's top black officials and a member of the city's board of supervisors, said she doesn't believe Eng's column will hurt relations between blacks and Asians in San Francisco.
Would be this:
Sophie Maxwell, one of the city's top black officials and a member of the city's board of supervisors, said she doesn't believe Eng's column will hurt relations between blacks and Asians in San Francisco, because blacks don’t read the paper (joking!)
----------------
This is today’s forecast map on the weather channel. I don’t like it (although, there is a big “L” over Kansas, which I can only assume stands for “loser” as in “Bill Self is one.” I do like that.).
“Energy Sweeps out from the SW,” leading a long, white arrow to the “L”?
There’s a “Rich Flow of Gulf Moisture” (Which sounds disgusting.) pointed right toward me?
Can’t you just tell me what the temputure will be? That’s more important than rich moistness to me.
-----------------
Man punched for refusing to give cigarette
PEORIA - An East Bluff man was punched in the face Sunday afternoon when he refused to give a man a cigarette.
Harold W. Lowery, 52, told police a man approached him about 5:30 p.m. in the 1900 block of Wisconsin Avenue and asked to bum a smoke. When Lowery told him no, the man punched him in the face.
Lowery fell to the ground and briefly lost consciousness, reports said.
He suffered blurry vision after the attack and was treated and released from OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: Harry Lowery can’t take a punch.
-----------------
I'm so, so glad Hal is the hitting coach again:
Labels: Hal McRae Goes Batshit, Links, Racist Jokes Which Will No Doubt Come Back to Haunt Me Someday
2/23/2007
The St Louis Baseball Cardinals: Breaking Camp
[have a great weekend, everybody. have fun at the fish fries and be sure to respect your vizcaino's (vizcaini?).]
Labels: 2007 Cardinals, Dumb Cartoons, St Louis Baseball Cardinals
The O-B Bird
A newspaper article that made me actually laugh out loud? Yep, this one.
I would pay one million dollars to have a time machine, just so I could have been at that game. Then I would hunt and eat a woolly mammoth.
"(Redfern) calls me back and says, 'I just figured out why they were booing!' " Smith said. "And I said, 'Yeah, because it's a stupid idea.' "
"And (Redfern) says, 'No, because we're playing Ohio State and the colors of the costume were Ohio State's colors, and they thought that it was an Ohio State mascot," Smith said.
"And I said, 'No, they were booing because the idea sucks and it's a stupid idea,' " Smith said.
"And (Redfern) says, 'No, because we're playing Ohio State and the colors of the costume were Ohio State's colors, and they thought that it was an Ohio State mascot," Smith said.
"And I said, 'No, they were booing because the idea sucks and it's a stupid idea,' " Smith said.
I would pay one million dollars to have a time machine, just so I could have been at that game. Then I would hunt and eat a woolly mammoth.
Labels: Eating Prehistoric Creatures, ILL-INI, Links
2/22/2007
Boy, That Escalated Quickly
This story is all too quickly spiraling out of control. It went from being a car accident during one of the worst winter storms Cham-bana had seen in years; to a DUI where Jamar somehow drove over a mile when his car looked like it was totaled, then ran inside of his apartment and freaked out because he thought Carlwell was dead. So he left him in the passenger seat of his wrecked car, in the parking lot, during a blizzard. And someone else, completely unrelated to the accident, were the ones who called the cops after they noticed a 6’11” “dead dude” sitting inside of a wrecked car.
Next week, when it’s released that Smith and Carlwell were not, in fact, “drinking beer and tequila with some girls” before their accident, they were “shooting heroin, fucking goats, and sport killing the homeless in Rantoul with flaming tridents,” I, for one, will not be surprised.
It just goes to show you: Never trust a Peorian.
Never.
Next week, when it’s released that Smith and Carlwell were not, in fact, “drinking beer and tequila with some girls” before their accident, they were “shooting heroin, fucking goats, and sport killing the homeless in Rantoul with flaming tridents,” I, for one, will not be surprised.
It just goes to show you: Never trust a Peorian.
Never.
Labels: Are There Homeless People in Rantoul?, ILL-INI, The Startling Dearth of Cabs in Champaign
2/21/2007
Spring Training!!
The weather is warming up (the massive ice block keeping the door to my terrace firmly shut for the last month finally thawed), the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the bees are trying to have sex with the birds; it's finally spring.
Opening day can't get here fast enough.
From Yahoo!(!) photos and the Post Dispatch:
The more things change:
Reyes' new, dumb hat (thanks a ton, New Era).
Carp's learning him a changeup.
The more things stay the same:
Rick Ankiel is still somehow on the 40 man roster.
I've said it before, I'll say it again (now just because he keeps complaining about it)"boooooo-urns."
Opening day can't get here fast enough.
From Yahoo!(!) photos and the Post Dispatch:
The more things change:
Reyes' new, dumb hat (thanks a ton, New Era).
Carp's learning him a changeup.The more things stay the same:
Rick Ankiel is still somehow on the 40 man roster.
I've said it before, I'll say it again (now just because he keeps complaining about it)"boooooo-urns."Labels: 2007 Cardinals, Links, Rick Ankiel is Still Alive (And thus Still on the Cardinals), St Louis Baseball Cardinals
2/20/2007
Zack, I am not a matador so take the bull outside!
I recently had my g-mail made available on my cell phone, in part because if The Lady Friend wants anything, it’s for me to play with my cell phone more when we’re in public, but mainly because this was the pic that went along with said download:
Oh man! Hawaii with Buck Rogerson, Caitlin’s surprise party, sushi with Susan (who, truthfully I never cared for; she’s a bit of a pill), and Nathan’s having a bbq on Saturday! I want that life!
Then I realized that these are the actual message sitting in my cell phone right now:
From Evelio: Do I have to be nice to black people since it’s “their month?”
From Josh: Did you know that there’s such thing as clown porn.
To Josh: There is also mascot porn.
From Josh: Really?
To Josh: Yeah. It’s called like furries or something.
From Josh: This is a strange time and place that we live in.
To Josh: THIS IS OUR COUNTRY!
From Will: Your new name is doctor hoops.
To Will: I like it!
From Will: I need your address so I can send you the pills.
(don’t ask.)
To The Lady Friend: I farted at Schnucks. It reeked. The clerk made a face but didn’t say anything.
From The Lady Friend: It’s Mr Belding!
And ya know… I think I like my life better.
Oh man! Hawaii with Buck Rogerson, Caitlin’s surprise party, sushi with Susan (who, truthfully I never cared for; she’s a bit of a pill), and Nathan’s having a bbq on Saturday! I want that life!
Then I realized that these are the actual message sitting in my cell phone right now:
From Evelio: Do I have to be nice to black people since it’s “their month?”
From Josh: Did you know that there’s such thing as clown porn.
To Josh: There is also mascot porn.
From Josh: Really?
To Josh: Yeah. It’s called like furries or something.
From Josh: This is a strange time and place that we live in.
To Josh: THIS IS OUR COUNTRY!
From Will: Your new name is doctor hoops.
To Will: I like it!
From Will: I need your address so I can send you the pills.
(don’t ask.)
To The Lady Friend: I farted at Schnucks. It reeked. The clerk made a face but didn’t say anything.
From The Lady Friend: It’s Mr Belding!
And ya know… I think I like my life better.
Labels: I Wish My Job Involved Running Into Dennis Haskins, Stuff You Probably Don't Care About
2/16/2007
The St Louis Baseball Cardinals: Breaking Camp
[have a great gras weekend, everybody. remember: if you show your boobs, you should get free beads. or roofied.]
Labels: 2007 Cardinals, Dumb Cartoons, St Louis Baseball Cardinals, Where In The Hell is Ian Ziering Anyway?
2/15/2007
Dos Admin Notes
1)This new blogger is horrible. Not only will it no longer let me post from work -- my firewalls label just about anything on the www2. as "sex" and although I normally pay no attention to these bans (I spend most of my night on fantasy sports, anyway), I'm not risking playing around in the "sex" category; so FYC posting may be a little odd from now on -- but it's taking fucking forever to load. (When the firewall label of "sex" first came up I thought it said "sexy" and I said to myself "Damn right! Sexiest blog on the interbays!" Then I realized it said "sex" and I thought "They have sex on the internet now?")
Anyway, I'm going to try to write future posts the day before and post 'em up before leaving for work (In fact, that's how I am doing this post; let us see how it works!) or, buy that DeLorean, hit the switches to two days ago, gun it to 88, and never switch over to the new blogger at all. That would be much cooler.
Another problem with the new blahger -- posting pictures is a mind numbingly tedious process. I smoked no less than 15 camels, ran through a liter of Beam, and kicked two separate puppies on three non-consecutive occasions this morning trying to upload what brings us to number two:
b) Starting tomorrow, I’ll be commencing a new feature on The FYC... Cartoons!
This is actually the reason I picked up a scanner a few weeks ago; From 7th grade of junior high through my senior year of high school I used to pencil up a daily cartoon known as “Al’s Dud O’ The Day.” Those cartoons are curently housed by Al Fritz historian Dennis Quaid, but I'm hoping to throw a few out here sometime soon.
Drawing new ones -- specifically St Louis Baseball Cardinals-centric ones -- is something which I have been itching to start back up, especially with yet another hilarious baseball season getting ready to commence.
So, tomorrow begins the cartoons. But, be warned: I am a horrible drawer. Since I started drawing them when I was 13, I have made no attempt to improve. None. So, they look like they're drawn by a 7th grader. Plus, I pay absolutely no attention to proportions, I have no clue how to draw feet, I just, in general, suck; but I feel the overall craptitude of the pencilings are what give them that authentic “Al Fritz” feeling.
You know that feeling: Half-assed.
Anyway, I'm going to try to write future posts the day before and post 'em up before leaving for work (In fact, that's how I am doing this post; let us see how it works!) or, buy that DeLorean, hit the switches to two days ago, gun it to 88, and never switch over to the new blogger at all. That would be much cooler.
Another problem with the new blahger -- posting pictures is a mind numbingly tedious process. I smoked no less than 15 camels, ran through a liter of Beam, and kicked two separate puppies on three non-consecutive occasions this morning trying to upload what brings us to number two:
b) Starting tomorrow, I’ll be commencing a new feature on The FYC... Cartoons!
This is actually the reason I picked up a scanner a few weeks ago; From 7th grade of junior high through my senior year of high school I used to pencil up a daily cartoon known as “Al’s Dud O’ The Day.” Those cartoons are curently housed by Al Fritz historian Dennis Quaid, but I'm hoping to throw a few out here sometime soon.
Drawing new ones -- specifically St Louis Baseball Cardinals-centric ones -- is something which I have been itching to start back up, especially with yet another hilarious baseball season getting ready to commence.
So, tomorrow begins the cartoons. But, be warned: I am a horrible drawer. Since I started drawing them when I was 13, I have made no attempt to improve. None. So, they look like they're drawn by a 7th grader. Plus, I pay absolutely no attention to proportions, I have no clue how to draw feet, I just, in general, suck; but I feel the overall craptitude of the pencilings are what give them that authentic “Al Fritz” feeling.
You know that feeling: Half-assed.
Labels: Sexiest Blog in America, Stuff You Probably Don't Care About
2/14/2007
Replacing The Arch
I first moved to St Louis in early August of 2004. I have grown to love many, many things about my new home: Dogtown, baseball, the park, the Loop, Soulard, the bars, the lack of people who wear black pants while at said bars... They're all towards the top of a rather long list. And while there are a few things which continue to grind my gears from time to time (the lack of driving ranges, the traffic), there is only one thing which I literally hate about the town in which I have lived and loved in lo these past few years:
The Arch.
It's fucking stupid.
How can I hate something that’s "more than an engineering marvel, [it] has come to represent the spirit of the City of St. Louis, the Gateway to the West?"
Easy:
(Hell, it doesn't even represent the city of Saint Louis as well as other local landmarks like the giant Amoco sign over highway 40 or Joe Buck's monstrous, oddly shaped head.)
When people* think about the Old West they think about two things: The Oregon Trail and saloon style swinging doors. Maybe Young Guns and Back to the Future III as well, but I’m not certain about that.
(By the way, the key to winning The Oregon Trail? Be the banker from Boston. That rich Masshole was wicked smaht and could float the Columbia like nobody’s business.)
And since the good people at the National Park Service refuse to tear down The Arch and replace it with matching 630 foot tall statues, one of Emilio Estevez dressed as William H Bonney and one of Christian Slater as Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh (believe me, I've tried), I think it’s high time someone finally listened to me and replaced the arch with what the true symbol of the Old West is: Saloon style swinging doors.
And I don't want just any saloon style swinging door monument. I want them to be as tall as the arch. And to actually swing.
This is something I have brought up many, many times while drunk, only to be greeted with callous retorts from my friends like “Al, you’re an idiot,” or, “Al, that bartender caught you jerking it in the ladies bathroom last time you were here. She’d like you to leave.”
But this is my vision. 630 foot tall swinging doors, flapping gently in the Midwest breeze over the Mississippi river, helping to transform our city's boring, pedestrian skyline from this:
To this:
"Flap, flap, flap" went the giant swinging doors.
Instead of saying tiresome things like "Did you know that it's actually as wide as it is tall?" slack jawed yokels from around the gloge will view the city's new skyline and let out joyous cries of "Now THAT'S the Gateway to the West!"
We will be the new marvel of civilization. And this won't be some trivial, useless wonder like the Egyptian pyramids or the Maginot Line; Oh, no. This one will have a purpose.
The doors will actually be wind turbines**, producing power which will be given out to the great residents of St Louis, in turn helping to cut down on the preposterous amount of cash us suckersss are paying out tothe worst company in the world AmerenUE every freaking month.
So there you have it, St Louis: Replacing the Arch with giant saloon style swinging doors? Win, Win, Win.
*People being myself and (I assume) everybody in their late 20’s and early 30’s.
** I have literally no idea how things like turbines, power, or even wind actually work, so I don’t really know if this would succeed. It’ll be a hell of a lot of fun finding out, though!
The Arch.
It's fucking stupid.
How can I hate something that’s "more than an engineering marvel, [it] has come to represent the spirit of the City of St. Louis, the Gateway to the West?"
Easy:
- It's pointless
- It's dishonest
(Hell, it doesn't even represent the city of Saint Louis as well as other local landmarks like the giant Amoco sign over highway 40 or Joe Buck's monstrous, oddly shaped head.)
When people* think about the Old West they think about two things: The Oregon Trail and saloon style swinging doors. Maybe Young Guns and Back to the Future III as well, but I’m not certain about that.
(By the way, the key to winning The Oregon Trail? Be the banker from Boston. That rich Masshole was wicked smaht and could float the Columbia like nobody’s business.)
And since the good people at the National Park Service refuse to tear down The Arch and replace it with matching 630 foot tall statues, one of Emilio Estevez dressed as William H Bonney and one of Christian Slater as Arkansas Dave Rudabaugh (believe me, I've tried), I think it’s high time someone finally listened to me and replaced the arch with what the true symbol of the Old West is: Saloon style swinging doors.
And I don't want just any saloon style swinging door monument. I want them to be as tall as the arch. And to actually swing.
This is something I have brought up many, many times while drunk, only to be greeted with callous retorts from my friends like “Al, you’re an idiot,” or, “Al, that bartender caught you jerking it in the ladies bathroom last time you were here. She’d like you to leave.”
But this is my vision. 630 foot tall swinging doors, flapping gently in the Midwest breeze over the Mississippi river, helping to transform our city's boring, pedestrian skyline from this:
To this:
"Flap, flap, flap" went the giant swinging doors.
Instead of saying tiresome things like "Did you know that it's actually as wide as it is tall?" slack jawed yokels from around the gloge will view the city's new skyline and let out joyous cries of "Now THAT'S the Gateway to the West!"
We will be the new marvel of civilization. And this won't be some trivial, useless wonder like the Egyptian pyramids or the Maginot Line; Oh, no. This one will have a purpose.
The doors will actually be wind turbines**, producing power which will be given out to the great residents of St Louis, in turn helping to cut down on the preposterous amount of cash us suckersss are paying out to
So there you have it, St Louis: Replacing the Arch with giant saloon style swinging doors? Win, Win, Win.
*People being myself and (I assume) everybody in their late 20’s and early 30’s.
** I have literally no idea how things like turbines, power, or even wind actually work, so I don’t really know if this would succeed. It’ll be a hell of a lot of fun finding out, though!
Labels: A Ridiculous Obsession with Young Guns, Al's Dumb Ideas
2/13/2007
Ah, Fuck.
Illini sharpshooter Jamar Smith and big man Brian Carlwell injured in a car accident.
Edit: Update from Will at Deadspin.
Edit: Update from Will at Deadspin.
blech.
I gots just about nothing today. It's implausibly disgusting out, I’m sick of non daylight savings time, Lenten fish fry’s are still a few weeks off, and I’m pretty sure The Lady Friend is trying to infect me with the sick. Fucking middle of February.
The only good new out there? There are only two more days until pitchers andcatchers Molinas report.
The only good new out there? There are only two more days until pitchers and
Labels: Links
2/09/2007
Really, Al? Another One? Jebus.
Ah, hell… We might as well keep this train wreck of a week running (even if some people think I’m “sick”). Here's one last stupid thing which I have scanned this week.The article to your right is one taken from the Glasford Gazette (ah, the beautiful, thriving metropolis of Glasford, IL!); front page, above the fold (there was no fold) in February-ish of 2002, after I had been living in Guantanamo Bay for a few weeks. I had absolutely been loving my time there; it still ranks as one the greatest three month stretches of my life –- the sun always shined, the food was unbelievable, the booze cheap, I was fortunate enough to share a townhouse with some of my best friends, beer pong was our unit’s official sport –- it was just top fucking times.
One day, we were fooling around outside of our office and noticed some reporters talking to one of our guards. Nobody liked the sound of that, so we went out to see what in the hell was going on. As it turns out, it was some hack reporter from the Air Force doing profiles of whoever wanted them, to be run in the hometown papers of those service personnel.
And, well, that sounded peachy. I wanted one.
It’s a fairly standard article for the military folks; one with a staged photo (they wanted me to act like I was talking on a walkie talkie –- of course, I had no walkie talkie, so they had me hold a brick up to my ear. Whatever.) and a bunch of generic lines that I’m sure they used in the hundreds of thousands of other articles which have ran in small town newspapers across the country lo these past five (!) years.
I tried to sneak a few ridiculous lines in there ("... so the judge told me either join the Marines or go to jail. So, it all worked out in the end, but I can’t help to think ‘is double parking really worth it?’", "What’s my favorite part about Cuba? I taught a monkey to make me drinks. He wears a tie and I call him Steve.") but those damn censors must have gotten them before they hit the presses.
One really, really dumb quote that did make it through is:
Yeah. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. Not only is my job title 90% made up [there was an Assistant Special Security Officer (ASS-O), Mike, who would deputize me as a "D-ASS-O" whenever he had pressing business to attend to (read: Drink beer and fish), but the title was only an honorary one; although one which I tried to use in order to leverage a few more months on that exotic, heavenly island, only to fail miserably and be sent back to crappy ass North Carolina] but I still have absolutely no freaking idea what in the hell "it’s kind of like being a bouncer, except I’m not in a bar –- I’m in Cuba." is actually supposed to mean.Of course, I was probably drunk at the time, so maybe it does make a little bit of sense.
Again, whatever.
And thus concludes "The FYC’s Week Where Al Obviously Mailed It In And Told Us Really Boring Marine Stories."
[have a great wintery weekend, folks. try to stay warm out there, and remember: if illinois beats indiana saturday, i’m giving away handjobs! (to myself)]
Labels: I Miss Cuba, Tales From The Rear
2/08/2007
More Story Time
In the comment section of yesterday’s post, king of the back handed compliment Pat Imig noted: “Fritz, you look lean and not fat.”
Thanks. Dick.
Thinking about it a little bit, I realized that, yes, not only was that photo taken four years (which seems kind of weird to me now), but also about 25 pounds ago. I thought “Have I really gained 25 pounds in four years? That’s some kind of awesome.” Then, I realized that I actually dropped down to 155 while I was in Kuwait, so technically, I have gained 35 pounds in four years. And that’s fucking incredible.
Of course, these numbers are rather skewed and my weight gaining abilities are not really that magnificent. Four years and one month ago, as I left North Carolina to live in the desert for six months, I weighed in at a healthy 180 (I consider somewhere between 175 and 185 to be my ideal weight; I’m 190 right now). I actually didn’t lose any weight over that month long boat ride across the Atlantic, as it was the first time in my adult life that I have actually eaten three whole, square-ish meals a day, and the only activities I participated in were sleeping, playing spades, and jacking it. A lot. In fact, I won a contest.
(Seriously, if I told you how many times, you wouldn’t believe me.)
So, nearly four years ago (almost to the day), I arrived in Kuwait exactly ten pounds lighter than I am now. But then a funny thing happened:
They have, in Southwest Asia, these things known as “sandstorms.” And they fucking suck. In essence, it’s like being in a torrential downpour with 25 mph winds, except instead of water coming down all around you, its sand. Fucking sand. The air gets thicker than you can believe; it’s nearly impossible to breath, you can’t see anything more than five feet in front of you, and after a while it starts to fucking hurt, like some weird ancient torture.
Inside of our camp, which was essentially an area of the desert covering a few square miles which housed a collection of hastily assembled yet meticulously aligned tents surrounded on it’s perimeter by eight foot high sand berms, the tent which I lived in was approximately ¾ of a mile from where the twenty foot long metal box which I called an office rested. I was working the late shift then, much as I do now, and on one particular night, while on my way to the office, a sandstorm kicked up.
It was probably the worst sandstorm I saw while there, and it took me about an hour to walk the ¾ of a mile; which was really fun to do, since the camp was guarded by a bunch of 18 and 19 year old, poorly trained (and some literally insane) kids with automatic weapons who probably were scared out of their minds and would rather shoot a shadowy figure moving suspiciously across the wasteland than not, lest they get yelled at by some idiot. Eventually, though, I made it into the office, a little worse for ware, but I made it, damn it. It was video game time.
In the morning, I walked out to use one of the many porta-johns which lined our sand perimeter. Unfortunately, they were all knocked over. “That sucks,” I thought, before peeing into a water bottle and throwing it in the trash. What I didn’t think of was the fact that those porta-johns had been knocked over in the sandstorm the night before, while I was slowly making my way across base.
About an hour later, I crapped my pants.
Then, I vomited.
Followed up by another crap of the pants. And more vomiting.
This cycle continued all morning, before I finally made my way to our units medical station, where I was informed that the night before, while I was in the sandstorm, I had inhaled particles of shit from the knocked over porta-johns. Which explained why I could no longer control any of my bodily functions, I guess. Once they were certain I was done throwing up, they hooked me up to an IV and had me take a nap. I slept for a good hour before I woke up to find my buddy Will standing above me.
“What’s up, dude?” I said to him groggily.
“You fucking pussy,” he replied.
Thanks for caring, friend.
I stayed in the medical tent for another hour or so, before they let me go back to my tent, where I was supposed to stay in my sleeping bag for the next couple of days. No problem with that.
(As I was leaving the medical tent, I crapped my pants again. It was really getting old by that point in time.)
And by the time I was healthy enough to get out of my sleeping bag and get back to normal, lazy work, I was down to 170 pounds. So that was a ten pound drop in less than one week.
Following that, spring sprung, the temperatures started getting well into the triple digits, I had no booze, got by pretty much only on canned fish and Camel Lights; a few months later, I was skinny as a crack head… and yeah, I can see pretty easily how I looked “lean and not fat” while living in the desert.
(Dick.)
And how did I gain all of that weight back, you wonder? Fried chicken pizzas, three times a day, five times a week, for six months straight. (I was in a very weird place at the time.)
-----------------------
Elsewhere around the interwebs:
Crap! Damn! Boob! Cock! Tim Howard ignores his turrets and shuts out Mexico.
More on the futbol front, Slack LaLane’s European Vacation rolls into Aston Villa.
The All-Time Saint Louis Baseball Cardinals tourney is about to get started.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Thanks. Dick.
Thinking about it a little bit, I realized that, yes, not only was that photo taken four years (which seems kind of weird to me now), but also about 25 pounds ago. I thought “Have I really gained 25 pounds in four years? That’s some kind of awesome.” Then, I realized that I actually dropped down to 155 while I was in Kuwait, so technically, I have gained 35 pounds in four years. And that’s fucking incredible.
Of course, these numbers are rather skewed and my weight gaining abilities are not really that magnificent. Four years and one month ago, as I left North Carolina to live in the desert for six months, I weighed in at a healthy 180 (I consider somewhere between 175 and 185 to be my ideal weight; I’m 190 right now). I actually didn’t lose any weight over that month long boat ride across the Atlantic, as it was the first time in my adult life that I have actually eaten three whole, square-ish meals a day, and the only activities I participated in were sleeping, playing spades, and jacking it. A lot. In fact, I won a contest.
(Seriously, if I told you how many times, you wouldn’t believe me.)
So, nearly four years ago (almost to the day), I arrived in Kuwait exactly ten pounds lighter than I am now. But then a funny thing happened:
They have, in Southwest Asia, these things known as “sandstorms.” And they fucking suck. In essence, it’s like being in a torrential downpour with 25 mph winds, except instead of water coming down all around you, its sand. Fucking sand. The air gets thicker than you can believe; it’s nearly impossible to breath, you can’t see anything more than five feet in front of you, and after a while it starts to fucking hurt, like some weird ancient torture.
Inside of our camp, which was essentially an area of the desert covering a few square miles which housed a collection of hastily assembled yet meticulously aligned tents surrounded on it’s perimeter by eight foot high sand berms, the tent which I lived in was approximately ¾ of a mile from where the twenty foot long metal box which I called an office rested. I was working the late shift then, much as I do now, and on one particular night, while on my way to the office, a sandstorm kicked up.
It was probably the worst sandstorm I saw while there, and it took me about an hour to walk the ¾ of a mile; which was really fun to do, since the camp was guarded by a bunch of 18 and 19 year old, poorly trained (and some literally insane) kids with automatic weapons who probably were scared out of their minds and would rather shoot a shadowy figure moving suspiciously across the wasteland than not, lest they get yelled at by some idiot. Eventually, though, I made it into the office, a little worse for ware, but I made it, damn it. It was video game time.
In the morning, I walked out to use one of the many porta-johns which lined our sand perimeter. Unfortunately, they were all knocked over. “That sucks,” I thought, before peeing into a water bottle and throwing it in the trash. What I didn’t think of was the fact that those porta-johns had been knocked over in the sandstorm the night before, while I was slowly making my way across base.
About an hour later, I crapped my pants.
Then, I vomited.
Followed up by another crap of the pants. And more vomiting.
This cycle continued all morning, before I finally made my way to our units medical station, where I was informed that the night before, while I was in the sandstorm, I had inhaled particles of shit from the knocked over porta-johns. Which explained why I could no longer control any of my bodily functions, I guess. Once they were certain I was done throwing up, they hooked me up to an IV and had me take a nap. I slept for a good hour before I woke up to find my buddy Will standing above me.
“What’s up, dude?” I said to him groggily.
“You fucking pussy,” he replied.
Thanks for caring, friend.
I stayed in the medical tent for another hour or so, before they let me go back to my tent, where I was supposed to stay in my sleeping bag for the next couple of days. No problem with that.
(As I was leaving the medical tent, I crapped my pants again. It was really getting old by that point in time.)
And by the time I was healthy enough to get out of my sleeping bag and get back to normal, lazy work, I was down to 170 pounds. So that was a ten pound drop in less than one week.
Following that, spring sprung, the temperatures started getting well into the triple digits, I had no booze, got by pretty much only on canned fish and Camel Lights; a few months later, I was skinny as a crack head… and yeah, I can see pretty easily how I looked “lean and not fat” while living in the desert.
(Dick.)
And how did I gain all of that weight back, you wonder? Fried chicken pizzas, three times a day, five times a week, for six months straight. (I was in a very weird place at the time.)
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Elsewhere around the interwebs:
Crap! Damn! Boob! Cock! Tim Howard ignores his turrets and shuts out Mexico.
More on the futbol front, Slack LaLane’s European Vacation rolls into Aston Villa.
The All-Time Saint Louis Baseball Cardinals tourney is about to get started.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Labels: Tales From The Rear, That Time I Ate Shit
2/07/2007
"What did you do in the war, grandpa?" "I was a jackass."
I picked up a scanner over the weekend, in order to preserve all of my old mementos and crap which will be destroyed in a massive fire on April 12th in one of the greatest insurance scams the world has ever seen just in case something happens. I started scanning some old photos today and came across this scene which my buddies Brandon, O.G., and myself played out when we were killing some time during the war. We thought it was funny; wives and girlfriend? Not so much.
Dumb bitches.
Brandon: "Man... This whole war things sucks."
Al: "Yeah, it's pure butthole."
O.G.: "But at least I got to grow this creepy moustache!"
Brandon: "Whoa, what's that?"
Al: "I don't know... It looks like a missile or a bomb or a soda machine or something. Better put our gas masks on."
O.G.: "But there's three of us and only two gas masks!"
Al: "Well, then... GIVE ME THAT GAS MASK!"
Brandon: "NEVER!"
O.G.: "Ohgodohgodofgod!"
[dead.]
Dumb bitches.
Brandon: "Man... This whole war things sucks."Al: "Yeah, it's pure butthole."
O.G.: "But at least I got to grow this creepy moustache!"
Brandon: "Whoa, what's that?"Al: "I don't know... It looks like a missile or a bomb or a soda machine or something. Better put our gas masks on."
O.G.: "But there's three of us and only two gas masks!"
Al: "Well, then... GIVE ME THAT GAS MASK!"Brandon: "NEVER!"
O.G.: "Ohgodohgodofgod!"
[dead.]Labels: Before I Was Fat, Tales From The Rear
2/06/2007
Vote Fritz (Someday)
The Monday post Super Bowl not being a holiday is one of the sure signs that the terrorists have won. How is this still possible? Does anyone enjoy going to work the day after the Super Bowl? And this has been going on for 41 years now, and beaten into the ground by lazy smart people this entire time? And still...
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Democracy simply does not work.
And while I am lucky enough to not work on Mondays anyway (meaning that I was free to drink all the whiskey gingers my belly could handle during the big, crappy game), I could still really use today off. Which got me thinking about:
The Four Day Work Week.
This is one of my grandest ideas and one which I feel the most passionate about. Here's the plan: Everybody works ten to eleven hours a day, from either Monday to Thursday or Tuesday to Friday (rotating to fit one’s schedule if need be). You still get in 40+ hours of work every week, all five working days are covered, but you have a three day weekend every week.
I really need to get voted into Congress and make this happen.This is why nobody can know about all those hookers I killed outside of Houston in July of 1991. Good thing I have a clean record.
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Alternative Programming: Because every good baseball park needs a grocery store:
"The Cardinals Experience will combine a restaurant and Cardinals Hall of Fame museum, featuring memorabilia and a spot where future inductions can be held, DeWitt said. A grocery store, bookstore, a place for live music and brew pub are among the potential tenants being considered."
Live music? Cool.
Brew pub? Awesome.
Book store? Indifferent.
Grocery store? Greatest idea ever.
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Democracy simply does not work.
And while I am lucky enough to not work on Mondays anyway (meaning that I was free to drink all the whiskey gingers my belly could handle during the big, crappy game), I could still really use today off. Which got me thinking about:
The Four Day Work Week.
This is one of my grandest ideas and one which I feel the most passionate about. Here's the plan: Everybody works ten to eleven hours a day, from either Monday to Thursday or Tuesday to Friday (rotating to fit one’s schedule if need be). You still get in 40+ hours of work every week, all five working days are covered, but you have a three day weekend every week.
I really need to get voted into Congress and make this happen.
------------------------
Alternative Programming: Because every good baseball park needs a grocery store:
"The Cardinals Experience will combine a restaurant and Cardinals Hall of Fame museum, featuring memorabilia and a spot where future inductions can be held, DeWitt said. A grocery store, bookstore, a place for live music and brew pub are among the potential tenants being considered."
Live music? Cool.
Brew pub? Awesome.
Book store? Indifferent.
Grocery store? Greatest idea ever.
Labels: Al's Dumb Ideas
2/04/2007
Colts 29, Bears 17
I bet the Bears to win and to beat the spread, as well as on the under. In the process, thanks to the lovely process of hedging ones bets, I lost eight dollars, total. In my mind, that's a successful Super Bowl Sunday.
As for the people who are actual Bears fans... well, via the Chicago Tribune, this is a pic of some of my Peoria friends in South Beach:
If this pic was taken any time after the 3rd quarter of the Super Bowl, I'm pretty sure they are all chanting for Kyle Orton to relieve the Sex Cannon from his quarterbacking duties.
As for the people who are actual Bears fans... well, via the Chicago Tribune, this is a pic of some of my Peoria friends in South Beach:
If this pic was taken any time after the 3rd quarter of the Super Bowl, I'm pretty sure they are all chanting for Kyle Orton to relieve the Sex Cannon from his quarterbacking duties.
Labels: Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports
2/01/2007
Kyle Orton Does Have a Beard!
It's a short week here at The FYC, as I need to head up to Peoria for a funeral, but I will leave you with this, something which I didn't think I'd ever say with any sort of conviction:
Go Bears.
What could possibly make me want to cheer for the Bears? The bliss and elation that a Chicago championship would bring to my many near and dear friends who are Bears fans? Nope, those jerks can suck it. It's this guy:
If this dude, Kyle Orton -- this drunken, 20-something vagrant, looking seamlessly like a man on a drift, slumming it up around Australia for a few years -- can somehow earn a Superbowl ring while inexplicably skating by and staying on the Bears roster... well, then, Goddamn it, there's hope for all of us.
[have a great superbowl weekend, everybody. don't get any chili in your neck beard.]
Go Bears.
What could possibly make me want to cheer for the Bears? The bliss and elation that a Chicago championship would bring to my many near and dear friends who are Bears fans? Nope, those jerks can suck it. It's this guy:
If this dude, Kyle Orton -- this drunken, 20-something vagrant, looking seamlessly like a man on a drift, slumming it up around Australia for a few years -- can somehow earn a Superbowl ring while inexplicably skating by and staying on the Bears roster... well, then, Goddamn it, there's hope for all of us.
[have a great superbowl weekend, everybody. don't get any chili in your neck beard.]
Labels: Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports Sports
