Them's fightin' words

So, last night, me, Momma Pug, Tree and P. Daddy went into a bar. Shocking, huh?

Ok, maybe not.

But we went into said bar to see the Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest, and the competitors were...eligible. Highly eligible.

Unfortunately, several of the very large crowd were eligible only in the shithead category. And we got a firsthand experience with one of them.

So we're sitting there waiting for this thing to kick off a little after 10 and our waiter, true to his orders, keeps on bringing me Ziegenbocks, when I notice this little prick wearing a University of Houston hat backwards is talking to Momma Pug and Tree. Not the smartest of things, to strike up a conversation with two married women when their husbands are right there and one of them is really, REALLY looking to punch someone after his good for nothing fucking college football team looses to some JV High School team 18-14 (wonder who that could be)?

It's an even less good idea to insult the wife of said guy, and that's what Cougar High Prick proceeds to do. With a smirk on his face, he asks Momma Pug if she's competing in the bikini contest.

While my wife has a rack that would put these chicks to shame, she does not have self-esteem problems or a desire to commence a career in porn. She also is not a size -1. But this guy, claiming himself to be "interested," tries to ask her repeatedly if she's competing.

I look over and see the other guys at his table are laughing. This really pisses me off.

It's a putup job to insult my wife, for reasons that are beyond me.

Momma Pug has handled Cougar High Prick with great grace to this point, asking him if he's a fucking retard or simply has had too much dumbass juice for one night. But he keeps on. So I stand up and say, "That's my wife. Is there something I can help you with?"

My look says, "Fuck off, kid, or I'll rip your torso from your waist and use your legs as hockey sticks." He's too wasted (or intent on being "funny" to notice the look).

He realizes he'd better back off when Tree calls him a "pencildick" and threatens to spit in his face.

By this point, he thinks he's the shit, or something. And I'm ready to kill.

You don't insult my wife. Ever. And you don't do it on a gag in a full bar. I can't believe that I let the little fucker walk away!

As I'm sitting there debating whether or not to walk over to his table, grab him, crush his larnyx and kill each one of his friends with varying common bar instruments, P. Daddy has gotten our waiter and explained the situation. Our waiter, big, black and very, very cool, is livid. He goes and gets his boss, who is big, white and knows we're pretty regular customers.

"The gentleman at the table over there wearing the University of Houston hat has decided it is amusing to insult my wife. We decided to give you the opportunity to do something about it before I did something about it myself," I said.

Oh, he did. He walked over, grabbed the kid by the back of the neck and dragged him outside. The kid comes in a few minutes later, ashen-faced, and sits back down. The manager comes over, says Cougar High Prick denies doing ANYTHING untoward, says he NEVER talked to my wife, much less inulted her. He says he didn't buy that and told Cougar High Prick that if he so much as looks at our table, he'll throw him out over the fence, not through the front door.

Cougar High Prick makes the mistake of looking over at us. I make eye contact and motion for him to put his head down. He does so.

A few minutes later, I have to answer the call of nature. I walk in to the john and, at one of the stalls, is Cougar High Prick. He gets done, and imagine his displeasure when he finds the very pissed off husband of the lady he insulted standing over him.

His consternation grew when I shoved him into the wall and put my hand flat onto his chest.

"You're not a very intelligent young man," I said to him in a conversational tone. "Insulting women in bars is a good way to stay a virgin, because ladies hate it and husbands get the desire to rip your balls off and shove them down your fucking throat."

(Admission time: After 8 Ziegenbocks, it would be difficult to be this pithy off the cuff. I planned out what I was going to say in case I ran into the little fuck in advance and was still sober enough to pull off the trick.)

"But..." the kid said.

"You don't follow instructions very well, do you, shithead?" I said. "The manager told you not to talk. If I tell him you spoke, you're gone. Shut up and get out."

Cougar High Prick scurries out the door just in time, because I really had to piss and P. Daddy walks in right as he leaves, as everyone else had noticed that the little bastard was in the can and were pretty sure I had gone in there to kill him, not pee.

Anyway, Cougar High Prick looked very scared for the rest of the evening. It was quite amusing.

Serves the little bastard right. If A&M loses next weekend, and he shows up, I'll kill him on general principle.

FORE! (left, and right)

To those of you now finding my humble blog through Facebook -- you should have been trying harder to find it. We discuss life-altering shit here.

(NOTE: The REAL life-altering shit will be found, effective 45 minutes from now, on the Texas Overseer -- txoverseer.blogspot.com. I just haven't posted there in...well, Rudy Guiliani was going to be president the last time I did.)

Anyway, back to life-altering shit. Like golf! Some of you on Facebook (Tajon, if you read this; Wade, if you bother to add me AND read this) may remember that I could hack a little back in the day in Saudi. Since my golfing partners from A&M haven't shown up yet, they can't attest to the fact that I hacked there too -- and, basically, royally sucked.

So I went on hiatus.

For a decade.

See, I know why I suck at golf. My equipment's lousy (dad and I made the clubs when I was still in Saudi -- we've literally had them half my life), I can't hit behind a ball because I learned to try to lift it hitting off of Astroturf and I play wearing my baseball batting gloves.

And there's the real issue. You can't play golf wearing baseball gloves. It just isn't done. It's like...trying to hit a baseball with golf gloves on. Tiger Woods aint Albert Pujols and vice versa. But Lance Berkman does look like a golfer, don't he (PUMA!)?

But I digress.

Last weekend, I got an offer to play some golf. Since I felt like hitting something (not someone, unless it were SHB), I figured, why not? It hasn't been that long, has it?

Uh, yeah. It was long enough that they don't even use the same type of golf shoes I have anymore. Everyone else is tooling in HD, and I'm Betamax.

After hitting at the range for 45 minutes (and having a blister start on my left thumb, in spite of my glove), it was time to start. Time was 12:07, which, in Houston time, means REALLY FUCKING HOT AND HUMID IN AUGUST. The first hole went as expected--triple bogey. For those unfamiliar with golf, that's not good. I could have gotten out my putter and hit it the whole way and been just as good.

On the second hole, magic. Pull out the driver -- crush it, 300 yards, dead center of the fairway. Get out the 7 iron for the second shot, hit it dead with in 6 feet.

Tiger, you're my bitch. Of course, it's only because you have a busted knee and can't walk, but you're still my bitch. I parred the hole.

Yes, that's right, gentle reader -- second hole since Bill Clinton was getting sucked off by fat jewish interns, GWB was running for re-election as governor and I was trying to get laid at A&M, and I parred that bitch!

In fact, I parred three of the first nine holes. The other ones were varying degrees of disgrace, amusement and sheer suckdom, but three of the first nine holes were parred!

Golf, I fear, is like chasing hot chicks. You fail, fail, REALLY FUCKING FAIL, then...you score. And you're hooked and can take more failure. But I have an advantage -- I'm married now, and there will be no chasing of hot chicks unless my wife is taken into consideration. I will not attempt to chase any other hot chick because Momma Pug will drop my ass with a .22 from 200 yards.

But I will also not attempt to golf again until it gets cooler. It took four days to recover and I still can't grip a club because my hands are torn up. But I will be back, golf course -- and this time, I will not only crush with the 2 iron, I WILL BE HUGE WITH THE DRIVER MORE THAN ONCE!

That means, I will stop popping the fucking thing up in the air and not have to hit my second shot from just in front of the ladies' tee.

Add one job, subtract another

Last Wednesday, I was hired by a Fortune 500 (hell, the way things have been going for them, they may be a Fortune 5) company to do some very nice-paying work for them. On Friday, the Fortune 50,000 company I had been working for canned me.

Let's get something out of the way here immediately: I was not fired for poor performance. In fact, I was told as much. I was fired because my shithead boss (henceforth referred to as SHB) hated my guts.

I don't know particularly why; it was just very, very apparent. He never had anything to say to me unless it was negative, even though SHB tries very hard to give the impression that he's a nice, laidback guy who loves everyone.

You know, sort of like Attila the Hun loved everyone.

Anyway, SHB hated me. He took no small amount of pleasure in informing me that I didn't work hard, calling me a "fucking 8 to 5 guy." Of course, SHB never did take into account the fact that I was usually at work 30 to 45 minutes before him, worked
through lunch (he'd never know, because he was off at 90 to 120 minute suckup/fuckoff fests) and didn't spend another two hours of my day verbally fellating potential clients who largely considered me to be a fraud. He also didn't like the fact that I would surf the Internet during the work day, largely because I had accomplished what I needed to do. Of course, he does the same thing, but what is good for the SHB is not good for the peon.

So, Friday afternoon, I get the call into the big boss's office. Big Boss is not there; he never is when someone gets fired. This ought to tell you something about Fortune 50,000 Company; their leadership doesn't lead and can't take the heat when it's brought on them. In fact, I noticed that Big Boss actually has a "panic button" which can close and lock his door from the inside to prevent people from getting in. That's having faith in your employees, right there.

Anyway, I walk in and see the HR lady in there. Well, I know they're not going to ask me about the weather, so I just start laughing. SHB does not like this, because you could tell from the look on his face that this was gonna be as good as jerking off to Skinamax on Saturday night. I said, "Say no more. Let's be done with this."

"Oh, no, let's sit down and talk," SHB says.

Seriously? You haven't had time to talk to me in a fucking month, you farcical excuse for a human being.

(An aside: SHB apparently recognizes, to some extent, that he is an SHB. About four months ago, he called a meeting and asked all the employees under his "direction" to write a job description so he could look at it and discuss it with each employee, one-on-one, later. "Later" never came. In case you were curious, part of SHB's biggest problems is in absolute inability to keep track of anything going on around him.)

"Talk about what?"

"Well, I got the feeling that you knew this was coming."

Uh, yeah. When you avoid me like I have Herpes Simplex 10 and glare at me any time I do make eye contact with you, it's a pretty good indication that you want me gonegonegone.

So then he tries the soft, political tact. "Uh, well, you know, sometimes things don't work and personalities don't mesh," he says, making a locking motion with his hands.

Uh, I'm not gonna play Cat's Cradle with you, asshole.

"You know, sometimes personalities are a problem."

"Yes, you have a personality problem," I responded.

He didn't like that. I liked the fact that he didn't like that.

So they tried the hemming and hawing, trying to get me to beg for my job or cry or something so SHB would get some satisfaction out of me.

"Well, hopefully you won't be out of work long and you'll learn something from this."

"Oh, I think I'll be just fine, thanks, and don't you worry about little ol' me," I said, leaning back in the nice leather chair. "And I've learned a lot of how to deal with people."

At that point, the discussion was over. And damn if he wasn't mad about me not getting upset.

Well, sorry, SHB, I got another job working half the hours -- think about that, 8 to noon! -- making the same amount of money. And I don't have to deal with you.

A four hour work day. I think that's what SHB puts in between 8:45 and 7. Someone should have a talk with the old boy.

Deuce, the Devil's Puppy

As I’ve matured, I’ve found that I have a much easier time keeping my patience (ok, maybe the credit should go to the Effexor I take, but whatever). But, outside of CNN and MSNBC, which I assiduously avoid, there is one thing that tries my patience more than anything else.



Deuce.

Yes, that’s right, Deuce, our sweet-looking, loveable little Silky Terrier. Mr. I Love Everyone, Let Me Give You Kisses.

Satan’s appointed canine on Earth.

It’s not enough that Deuce poops in the house (Martin did that before he him, for 16 years, and Sonny does too, so whaddyagonnado?); it’s not enough that his bark is a high-pitched shriek that could wake the dead. Nope, he’s also adventurous and perpetually horny.

Ok, the horny thing is our fault, because we should have gotten him neutered by now. But we’re trying to breed him, since purebred Silkys can make beaucoup bucks in stud fees. Problem is, Deuce has yet to figure out exactly where to put Appendage A.

Well, that’s what we thought, until yesterday.

Momma Pug got home well before I did and opened the door. Deuce, as he always is, was waiting at the door. But, in a change, he didn’t jump up in adoration – he hauled ass out the door.

Now, he does this on occasion. Actually more than on occasion, more like three times a week. He always gets his ass beat, so you think he’d get the point by now. But, I guess in the mind of a puppy, no guts, no glory. And certainly no ass.

Well, off Deuce goes, down the street. Momma Pug follows and sees him squeeze through a crack into someone else’s backyard. This is new – why’d he do that?

Probably because there was a poodle bitch in heat in the backyard, ready to stick her ass up in the air and let Von Deucer take a crack at the big time.

By the time Momma Pug figured out that she could get in the backyard and not get shot since the neighbors weren’t home, Deuce had driven for glory and scored.

Momma Pug grabbed Deuce, beat his ass and informed him that he wasn’t claiming those children on his tax returns.

So, that would teach him a lesson, right? Ha! You know not my dog.

This morning, I put Deuce and Rippy in the back yard to go to the bathroom. 15 minutes later, I went to get them, and Rippy obediently came to the door. No Deuce.

Now, I knew the gate to the yard was locked. The busted pieces of fence were in place, so he couldn’t have gotten through. But, somehow, he was gone. Vanished.

Momma Pug called her ride to work and waved him off. I went over to the neighbors in a pair of shorts, flip flops and my glasses to see if he’d somehow gotten into their yard. No dice. Or Deuce.

So we checked his House of Pleasure. No poodle, no puppy. WTF?

I walk back inside to put in my contacts, and who’s sitting at the back door?

You got it. Deuce.

It would suffice to say he got another asswhipping, but I really, REALLY want to know where the hell he went.

Would you like for him to come to your house? He’s available.

Dear Home Depot

(The following is an actual letter sent via E-mail by yours truly to the Home Depot)

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing you to complain about the service that I have received on numerous visits to The Home Depot in Pearland, TX. I believe that the store is referred to as the “Silverlake” location and is number 5796.

I will note at the start of this letter that I use the term “service” loosely. In many cases, I couldn’t find anyone to help me and just as many employees who actually cared.

Judging from your commercials, Home Depot employees are highly intelligent, motivated people who know not only their respective departments, but can at least tell you where other items are located. This location in particular seems to have not gotten the message, because, when you actually found an employee, they had no clue about how to help me.

Now, I will admit that my project was probably too complex for most home improvement specialists to fathom. I was actually trying to put in a new toilet and tiling in my upstairs bathroom. I wanted to do it myself because I was trying to not only be cost-efficient, but learn something new. And, I will admit, I was suckered by your motto: “You can do it. We can help.”

Not at the Silverlake location, dear person. That changes the motto to “You can do it. Maybe. Ask us if we give a hoot.”

In the process of installing this toilet, which I purchased from you, and fixing the downstairs ceiling, I returned to this location a dozen times. I received decent customer service once. One for 12 is a pretty lousy average, especially when I’m asking such tough questions as “where can I find the sheetrock?”

The service I received at the cash registers was equally pathetic. When we purchased the toilet, we picked up a model that was placed under a sign which indicated it was $79. It rang up at the cash register at $129. We were informed by Tamika that we plainly didn’t know what we were talking about when we said we were under the impression that it was $50 cheaper. Well, that made me reconsider my professional success and the four advanced degrees owned by myself and the people who were there with me. We’re plainly idiots, who should have known to look back to the third toilet under that sign to find the correct toilet. Silly us!

The last time I went, I purchased a piece of sheetrock. The piece did not have a UPC code, which plainly infuriated our young cashier, who stormed off in a huff to get the code with an attitude like we’d just taken away her car keys on movie night. After a few more snotty comments made to myself and the gentleman with me, she was offended when we didn’t tell her to have a nice day.

I will be honest: I’ve never written a letter of complaint about customer service before. But I will be equally honest with this statement – the service at location 5796 (I believe) sucks. When I leave a Home Depot, I want to feel like I got what I came for and didn’t waste any time, not insulted or talked down to like I’m some kind of brain-addled idiot. In the three years I’ve lived in Pearland, I have yet to have a satisfactory experience at your store. If there was a Lowe’s anywhere nearby, I would frequent it. As it is, I know this will fall upon deaf ears, but I can assure you that I’m not the only person who is really tired of the crap they have to put up every time they go to location 5796 (I think).

Take the initiative and make the management at the Pearland/Silverlake location do their job. Make them crack the whip and improve customer service. You can do it. I can help.

Hooter hell

Last weekend, a trip to the Humble Hooters (with the exception of the MMA crowd) was delightful. What a difference a week can make.

Now, the quality of the personnel – at least lookswise – was just as good, if not better. The girl who took care of us first, Mikaela (or something like that) had a nametag that mentioned that she was a “promotional girl.”

Yes, she was. Sadly, she didn’t get to serve us the entire time, which started our descent into Hooter hell.

We got a new waitress and, our party of eight (me, Momma Pug, Madge, the Razorback, Madgette, their exchange student from Korea, Debbie Do Right and Mr. “Thank God I’m not in Mississippi and Near My Wife’s Family”) suddenly became invisible. If you had added Matthew Fox and that hot brunette chick, thrown in some dirt (and maybe a volleyball) and you had yourself a show on ABC. I mean, we were lost. Abandoned. Totally forgotten about.

Not for five minutes or 15 or even 30. A full friggin’ hour. With this bunch, idle time is not folly; it should come with an Attorney General’s warning.

Since there were hotties around and baseball on TV, I figured I’d be largely calm with the exception of the fact that I was really Fing hungry and it doesn’t take that long to make miniburgers and wings. So I watched TV and toosh for a few minutes, until I heard the sound sort of like someone had spit a dart.

Well, it wasn’t a dart. But there was spit. It was a spitball. I was not entirely shocked to see who the spitballer was:

My beloved bride.

Never one to be bored and certainly never one to act over the age of seven when around her friends from Franklin County, Momma Pug decided to kill some time by firing soaked pieces of napkin through her straw at Madgette. This little five-year-old has the look of the righteously indignant (picture your grandmother’s look when she heard you say “Motherfucker” for the first time and you’re there) down to a science. She was AGHAST that her auntie had fired a spitball at her. Until the second one hit her in the face.

Within a matter of moments, the majority of the table, with the exception of the Korean Exchange Student, Debbie Do Right and Mr. TGINIMANMWF, were throwing spitballs, packets of sugar, ice and whatever else they could across the table. I will admit to throwing one, at Madgette, who retaliated by wadding up her entire coloring paper and throwing it at me as I was watching the ballgame on TV in front of me.

It went four feet over my head and landed in the middle of a table of people still eating.

“Strike,” said the Korean Exchange Student, who I had been trying to teach the intricacies of baseball to.

Not quite.

I walked over, apologized for the inconvenience and told them that her parents were sitting at the other side of the table. They left shortly thereafter, wearing the same AGHAST look on their face that Madgette had when Momma Pug drilled her the first time.

So it is now established that the spitball stuff is not such a good idea. Does that stop my wife? Nope. Instead, she doubles up, trying to shove two spitballs into her straw to fire them at a five-year-old child. What happens next is predictable: her straw blows up and spit, water and paper go flying onto the shirt of Debbie Do Right, who likes anything having to do with germs about as much as Amy Winehouse likes sobriety – which is to say, not much.

DDR has had a rough day and, it would suffice to say, is unamused by this development. She’s even less amused when my wife puts a lemon slice in her mouth and smiles all wide at her. So DDR pops her in the check, allowing my missus to truly suck on a lemon.

What do I do now? My wife has just been bopped in the face by a friend of two decades, who is AGHAST at her behavior. So I choose to do nothing, because really, she deserved it. And maybe it’ll calm down the screwball show that our table has become, because I’ve noticed that the only person NOT staring at us in the place is our invisible waitress. And, shockingly, most people were AGHAST.

At this point, I look up and see that the baseball game has been taken off, replaced with the Olympics. But not a good Olympic event; the men’s floor routine. In other words, severely precious-looking dudes in sleeveless shirts and short shorts running around like divas.

“What the hell is this shit?” I sputtered, talking faster and faster as I went. “Bad enough I aint got no food, now I can’t even watch a ballgame because we gotta watch these fairies prance around looking like they missed fuggin leather week. Whothafug watches this shit?”

Madge leans over to the Korean Exchange Student and informs her that she should not listen the naughty words coming out of my mouth.

Thankfully, I don’t think she understood a single one of them. But I looked at the rest of the table, and everyone else was AGHAST. Even my wife, who still had lemon juice dribbling down her chin.

Dinner eventually came. Cold. We were highly pissed. Someone shot a spitball at the waitress as we left, but I’m not sure who. I’ve got my money on Debbie Do Right.

No Clone Wars for me

For those of you who know me, this admission will not come as a surprise: I am a Star Wars junkie. This, however, may come as a bit of a shock – Star Wars: Clone Wars opens tonight at the movies and I have no interest whatsoever in seeing it. Not tonight, not tomorrow; not ever, really.

You read that right. A guy who knows all the lines from the original trilogy (ALL OF THEM), still has the R2-D2 that was his favorite toy when he was 2, the guy who is seriously considering calling his firstborn son Luke, has a Darth Vader bobblehead on his desk and is referred to by one of his friends/coworkers as “Vader” has no interest in seeing this alleged “movie.” A guy who will actually sit and watch Episode I when it’s on TV and can find some redeeming value in parts (only parts) of Episode II has no interest in seeing this flick.

Sorry, Hayden Christiansen, your acting is so incredibly shitty that not even I will make an excuse for you. Give it up.

Anyway, back to my point. No Clone Wars for me. Why? The reason is simple.

George Lucas is an egomanic who has lost whatever creative touch he has and has become the author/director laureate of suckdom. A few years ago, Matt Stone and Trey Parker (also huge Star Wars junkies) told Jedi George that the new movies ate a big shitburger. He was not amused. But the thing is, they were not only right, but the movies are evidence of Lucas’ descent into either insanity or mediocrity. Examine:

If anyone else had come up with Jar Jar Binks and thought he was a good idea, that “creative genius” would have been institutionalized. Not ol’ George; he makes him a major part of not only the first movie, but the guy who starts the destruction of the republic by proposing Palpatine be granted emergency powers in the second. Let’s stop here for a second – we have some horrible, HORRIBLE people representing us in the Congress (take a bow, Nancy, Harry, Ted Stevens), but NOBODY, NOWHERE, is going to be dumb enough to elect someone clumsy enough to screw up a wet dream who sounds like Rastafarian that just swallowed helium to represent them!

Anakin Skywalker, in the first trilogy, had these sweet lines: “I find your lack of faith disturbing”; “When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master”; “Impressive. Most impressive” and “You have failed me for the last time, Admiral.” What do we get in the new trilogy? “WHEEE!” and “I HATE YOU!” Yep. I can see that whiny, juvenile ass becoming the scourge the galaxy. Give me a few more shots of Jagermeister and I’ll think Obi-Wan’s CGI-creation buddy who owns a diner on Coruscant (A DINER ON CORUSCANT? WTF?) was a good idea too.

George made Jimmy Smits, one of my favorite actors of all time, stiffer than Lenin. That takes some doing.

Jimmy Smits had more life to him than Samuel L. Jackson (also known as the Second Smoothest Motherfucker Alive Behind Billy Dee Williams) did. Sam Jack looked like he had sat on an eight-inch wide tack the whole time. He didn’t even get to die right. The man who made “Snakes on a Plane” almost watchable and rocked in “Black Snake Moan” didn’t get to show any depth, much less use the word “motherfucker”. IN THREE MOVIES.

Obi-Wan has to chase down General Greivous, the most feared entity in the galaxy, even though he’s a robot with tuberculosis (another WTF?). So what do we see? Obi-Wan, in the middle of a highly advanced planet with machines all around him, chasing after Grevious ON A LIZARD. What’s next, the Jedi charging into battle on Geonsis on stallions? Jesus Herbert Walker Christ.

Misused Christopher Lee, also known as Count Dooku and the Man with the Golden Gun. If you’re gonna waste a Sith Lord, do it with style. Or have Roger Moore put a bullet in his ass with a Walther PPK. That’ll make my wife happy.

Oh yeah, he wrote this latest shitty Indiana Jones movie. WARNING SIGNS. BIG WARNING SIGNS.

I read today that Lucas was actually pissed off that the director of the Empire Strikes Back, one of the 10 best movies ever made, added a darker, more psychological edge to it than he had originally intended. If that’s the case, the Ewoks shouldn’t have been the first indication that he was losing his mind.

But George Lucas is officially off the reservation. He’s saying current politicians would make great Jedi, acting like they actually exist. He thinks this blocky cartoon animation looks good, when it looks like some Japanese kid put it together in between sessions of getting their rocks off watching Charlize Theron in “Two Days in the Valley.” And he really has started to believe he’s smarter and more creative than everyone else.

Problem was, he was smarter and more creative than everyone else when he didn’t think he was. Now, he’s just a shell of his former self. Sort of like Anakin Skywalker, if you think about it. But don’t, because that will remind you of Hayden Christiansen, and he sucks too.

I do not like UFC

On Saturday night, I was at Hooters up in Humble, watching the Redskins game. Okay, before we go any further, a few things: Humble is not my usual stomping ground, the staff at this Hooters are very qualified to work there and my wife knew I was there—in fact, she showed up to eat with Madge and Madgette.

Anyway, back to the ‘Skins. We’re sitting there, minding our own business, watching the game (and ignoring the Texans game on other TVs) when, all of a sudden, the sound system in the place goes nuts, blaring something non-football related.

“Blah blah blah IN THE OCTAGON blah blah blah BLOODSPORT yadda yadda yadda TONIGHT.”

Oh, crap. UFC. I hate UFC.

Why do I hate UFC, outside of the fact that it bears a striking resemblance to the gladiatorial fights that marked the start of the fall of the Roman Empire? A few reasons. One is that these guys who are MMA fighters are about one step away from being basic street thugs. There’s more technique used in hockey fights. You got a bunch of big ‘roided out goons beating the shit out of each other! Great! If you dressed them up in rags and gave them each 40s, you could mistake it for “bum fights.” It is not a sport. It requires no talent. It requires you getting leverage once and beating the other guy’s face in. Woo hoo.

Another reason is because I’ll wager it’s real big in Montrose. I mean, seriously, have you watched any of this stuff? You’ve got a bunch of muscle-bound galoots wearing thongs all oiled up, wrestling and putting their legs around other guys heads and other places they just simply should not be. This stuff has got to be a gay guy’s dream.

Of course, never make the gay commentary when you’re in a bar full of UFC fans. They tend to get a little pissy. P. Daddy refuses to learn this, and every time we’re out and a UFC event comes on, P. Daddy starts making all kinds of homoerotic references which make all the people around us want to kill him. At least once, Jaime’, Drew and I have turned around and informed the people standing behind us that the guy talking smack was in the middle and if they attacked him, that’s fine, but if they came after anyone else, they’d leave with their teeth in a Ziploc bag.

If you hadn’t already guessed, UFC fan is my biggest problem with UFC. They’re not fans of any other sport. Most of them look like they put off their little World of Warcraft playdate for Saturday night, put on some Clearasil and are going to go act all bad while they watch this shit on pay-per-view. The older ones frequently look like they’ve never gotten laid and, if they are married, like trying out the MMA moves on their wives.

And all of them think they’re badasses.

After “yadda yadda TITLE BOUT blah blah VENGEANCE” went over the speakers, some douchebag who was maybe 19 decided he’d change the channel on the TV that had the Redskins game on so he could watch the pre-fight crap. Of course, the first fairy punch didn’t get thrown for another two hours, but he had to watch the glories of Brock Lesnar (whoever that is) over and over and over again.

Well, I got pissed and told the manager that some jackhole had changed the channel. The manager, being a Redskins fan (he went to school with Rock Cartwright) walked over and changed it back.

“Someone up here’s gonna get dead,” UFC toughguy said.

“Hey, thanks for letting us change the channel back to where it was supposed to be,” I said to the punk, who had to squint through his glasses to see who was talking to him. “I’m glad to see it wasn’t a problem.”

He stared at me. I glared at him.

“Uh, no, no problem,” he said.

I’m sure that he was already thinking about when he got home, when he could tell his World of Warcraft buddies how he put this football fan dude in a double supflexor or some shit like that because he dared to change the channel on him.

UFC sucks.

Things that annoy me on TV

I don’t watch much TV anymore, and I can’t figure out why. Well, outside of the fact that almost all TV sucks and the shows are boring and unoriginal. So, I decided to make a list of things on TV that irritate me. Here it is:

• The Astros
• WIFESWAP, also known as the “WORST TV SHOW EVER”
• Kathy Griffin and her life on the F-minus list or whatever the hell it is. Sadly, my wife loves it.
• Grey’s Anatomy. If there’s anyone on this planet more whiny than Ellen Pompeo, they should be euthanized.
• Keith Olbermann. Oops, he’s more whiny than Ellen Pompeo.
• Everyone on CNN. They’re either delusional, dead or both.
• Chris Berman. Dude, you’ve been a caricature of yourself for a decade. You’re not funny. So don’t try to be.
• Erin Andrews, when she’s not in slut garb.
• MTV. Play some music and shut the fuck up.
• These commentators on shows who look at the screen with this somber, yet pompous look that you know is fake, except for the pompous part. Stone Phillips isn’t around anymore, but he should be shot for being the master of the look.
• The fact that there are tremendously HOT babes on KPRC-2, yet they’re too dumb to read a teleprompter.
• That the other Houston stations have people who can read teleprompters, yet are not tremendously HOT.
• Patti Smith on Fox Sports Houston. This is what happens when you’re mean to my wife and force me to bitch your ass out in front of the Museum of Fine Arts.
• The fact that it looks like someone shoved a helium hose up Kristina Abernathy’s ass and left the container go full blast.
• Everyone else on the GLOBAL WARMING—ERR, Weather—Channel. Except Jim Cantore. He’s still a badass.
• Poker tournaments. IT’S A BUNCH OF PEOPLE PLAYING CARDS! If you want to watch that, invite some friends over and crack open a few cold ones. Otherwise, you’re brain dead.
• Sex and the City. Come on, I’m a straight male. You think I’d like that shit?

Toiletgate

I have been considering writing about this for some time, and now, after counseling, I feel comfortable enough to do so.

“This,” of course, is our late upstairs toilet and the debacle surrounding it. If you read Momma Pug’s blog, you already know something about this. But you don’t know the full story. The complete story.

MY story.

It’s a Saturday night/Sunday morning, now 10 days or so ago. The missus and I come in from a night out and we’re talking in the bedroom. Sonny the Pug and I are in the middle of the room, while she’s sitting on the bed.

And I feel a drop of water hit me on the shoulder. Clearly, booze or not, my mind immediately starts screaming, “NOT GOOD.” One look at the ceiling and I could tell it was a whole lot worse than not good; in fact, it was pretty fucking bad. There was water damage about four feet long and a foot across, with at least one part of the ceiling looking like it was about to cave in.

I quickly ran upstairs and turned off the toilet, noticing that the floor was wetter than Ellen DeGeneres at a WNBA game. At this point, I figured we had a bigger problem than a leaking toilet and that a pipe between the upstairs floor and the downstairs ceiling had busted.

So, I did what any confused and worried individual would do at 1 in the morning – I called my dad. Shockingly, he didn’t have much to tell me, except that I’d probably better turn the water off to the house.

I’d sort of figured I’d have to do that, except there was one problem: I couldn’t figure out where to turn it off. So I was outside, in the middle of the night wearing this flash-light on a headband thing that makes you look like a highly fashionable miner, in my shorts and flip-flops (I’d changed since coming home), looking for this thing. I didn’t find it until morning, at which point, the water had stopped anyway.

So, the next morning, I pondered my options and came to a highly reasonable conclusion: I called my dad again.

“You need to find out what the problem is,” he said.

“How am I going to do that?” I asked, knowing he’d say that I have to punch a hole in the roof.

“Punch a hole in the roof and see what’s going on.”

Fuck.

At this point, Momma Pug has a brilliant thought: Madge and her husband (ok, her husband) have experience with stuff like this! Momma Pug “invites” them over for slave labor…ERR, a visit…and we get down to work. Madge’s husband, the Razorback, punches the hole in the ceiling and finds that the pipes are good, it’s the toilet that’s the problem.

Then, we go upstairs and find a bigger problem. After ripping out the shitty piece of carpet that had covered the bathroom floor (note: if you EVER see carpet on a floor where there’s water flowing frequently, that’s a danger sign), we see that the only thing between us and being Isaac Newton’s bitch is a ¾-inch piece of plywood.
Which is largely rotted from water damage. Oh shit oh dear.

Now, this reinforced a lesson that I had probably figured out about a year ago: pay attention to the caliber of people you buy your house from. Try buying your house from an upscale accountant, or some responsible member of the community. Odds are, you’ll find a house in excellent shape that’s worth your money. We bought ours from a couple who had gone bankrupt after buying a really big house in Katy before unloading this one, all while their business was going belly-up. Oh, and the guy considered himself a home improvement expert. Never buy from one of those, either. The unfucking of his “improvements” is probably going to take us a decade.

So, largely following the Razorback’s lead, the rest of Sunday is completely pissed away cutting holes in the floor, putting some two-by-fours, putting in new plywood and trying to install the toilet. This is, of course, after we deal with the most utterly fucking inept and customer unfriendly Home Depot in the world. Home Depot’s motto, allegedly, is, “You can do it. We can help.” The one for store 5796/Silverlake should be “You can do it. Ask us if we give a fuck.”

By 8 that night, have the ceiling is on our bedroom floor, there’s a nice hole in the roof which allows you to hear the upstairs TV and we’re trying to figure out exactly what a wax ring does for you.
No, you pervert, it is not a contraceptive.

At about this time, I’m outside getting new tile out of the back of the car when my dad pulls up. More on dad in a second. But the tile – did you think I was going to put down more fucking carpet? I say thee nay! The missus and I only settle for the finest, so we got some laminate tile flooring called “Eurotile” or something like that, so when the floor does collapse in a couple of years, the rubble will be really stylish. All the fashion people can go, “Oh, I’m sure that looked so fabulous with the yellow walls before everything fell through the ceiling!”

Anyway, dad arrives home and looks at me with a hopeful smile and gives me a thumbs-up. He take a look at the tired and frustrated look at my face and knows that not all is well even before I say, “Welcome to my nightmare.”

All he can do is say, “Well…I brought you a new microwave.”

I appreciate the gesture, honestly, but it doesn’t fix our bathroom – even though I would have considered nuking it at that point, because I knew it wasn’t going to get done that night. Why? Because, while screwing in the base of the toilet, I snapped a bolt. Home Depot number 5796 was already closed, so there was no getting a new bolt and superiorly shitty service that night.

By the time we got to night number two, I came to realize that it really didn’t matter if I had the bolt or not, as I’d pretty much fucked up the toilet installation process in every other possible way. How did we determine this? When dad and I completely assembled said toilet (which, by the way, we got for a nice low price of $79, proving that you do get what you pay for) and I went downstairs for a test flushing.

Did pulled down on the lever and the toilet leaked from virtually every possible orifice, soaking my head and shirt.

“LEAK! LEAK! LEAK!” I screamed, as if it was going to do any good. I trudged back upstairs, soaking wet, waiting for Momma Pug’s giggling. Thankfully, she was too engrossed in “Arrested Development” to notice.

“Hey, did you say something?” My dad asked me.

“No, nothing at all,” I said, dripping on the plywood “floor.”

On to day three. We determined that one of our biggest problems was the hose between the wall faucet and the toilet tank, as it leaked like the State Department. So we decided to tell Home Depot Number 5796 to go outside and play hide and go fuck itself and went to Lowe’s, some seven miles out of the way. We get there and find that there are about 48 different types of hoses that you can install on your toilet, but not only does only one work, Lowe’s has horrible descriptions! Did you know there are hoses with OD connectors? I would have thought that would have been Amy Winehouse’s nickname for her heroin needle, but no. Ours was supposed to have a half-inch “fine” connector.
Yeah, well, guess what we couldn’t find? Fine. So we picked up something that was close, and close did not fit. Square peg, round hole, pissedoffed-ness.

On the other hand, I did find out what a wax ring was for. It goes between the floor and the toilet’s bottom to prevent leakage. The first one we put down sucked worse than a Texas Tech student’s SAT scores, and the second one got messed up when we mistakenly moved the toilet. But the THIRD one worked!

Day 4. Back to Home Depot Number 5796, where, lo and behold, we find the right type of hose! And by “we,” I mean “me,” because once again, you couldn’t get help in this place if you were on fire. After all, half the staff, if you could find an employee, probably couldn’t find the water hose section (it’s in gardening, outside. I know this now). Bring it home, install.

Leak.

Irony of ironies, the leak was coming through from the tank of the toilet, which is where the previous toilet and been leaking from (for probably about 15 years). At this point, my desire to kill the previous “improvement genius” has reached a point where, if you put him next to Ayman al-Zawahiri and told me I had one shot, I’d go looking for the magic bullet to kill both of them. But, unlike the previous idiot, we figured out what the problem was. Of course, we couldn’t do anything about it until the next day.

Day 5. Home Depot 5796. We buy a couple of new washers for the toilet (which we would have done with the old one, had Mr. Improvement Genius not caulked everything up, which didn’t seal anything but made it impossible to stop the leak) and go home.
Success! Our new toilet not only works, but does not leak! At this point, I pick up the old toilet, which had been sitting upside down in the bathtub. I took it out to the curb and, as I prepared to lift it over my head and spike it, I feel old toilet water leaking out of it.

Screw it. I spiked it anyway and it shattered into a million pieces. I’d like to see that son of a bitch leak now.