1) Coffee Mugs.  Yeah, coffee mug sitting on my desk right now, I’m talking to YOU.  Smug little bastard.  Right there in your name, you’re trying to dictate to me how I should use you.  Seriously, have any of you readers out there tried drinking other beverages from a coffee mug other than coffee?  Just feels weird, right?  Well, that’s all your fault, shitty little coffee mug.  If you called yourself something else, like say, “MUG”, then I’d feel free to employ your liquid containing prowess however I saw fit, but nooooo, you’re a goddamned COFFEE mug and stubbornly insist on containing coffee.  Up yours.

2) Well-manicured Lawns:  “Oh, look at how lusciously GREEN I am!  Look how neatly trimmed my edges are!”  Suck it, well-manicured lawn.  You’re not a fucking golf course, so what right do you have to be so uniform in surface?  I live in a condo, and you know what my lawn is? A concrete slab and bark mulch.  That’s right, asshole–surfaces that require NO mowing.  If I wanted a cushiony surface, I’d go back inside and stand on the rug.  You suck.

3) Very Small Dogs: I’ve had it up to HERE with you guys (*holds hand at mid-shin height*).  Yeah, wag your stubby little tails and give me that beady-eyed stare all you want, you’re still useless to me.  Have you ever once offered to drive me to the airport?  Wanna do my taxes for me?  How about getting that thing for me that’s on that high-up shelf? No, no, and no!  You can’t drive, you suck at math, and the shelf is too high because you’re VERY FUCKING SMALL.  Forget it, just go get me a beer from the fridge… oh, right, you don’t have hands so you can’t open the damn door, and even if you could, the bottle opener is totally out of the question.  Yeah, just go poop on the lawn some more, you little freeloaders.

4) Fingernails: For the love of God, someone explain to me what these things are for.  When bitten rapidly, they can indicate that a cartoon character is anxious, but beyond that?  You know what, I’m just not going to get into it with you, fingernails. You’re dead to me.

5) My iPad: You evil, evil bastard.  How DARE you be so awesome?  You and your convenient size and heft, your responsive touch-screen, your wireless-N AND bluetooth?  Oh man, if you were a dude I’d sock you right in your state-of-the-art teeth. Oh, crap… wait, wait, wait. I didn’t mean it, iPad.  You know I love you.  I just get cranky sometimes, and I don’t mean to take it out on you, and… shhhhh… it’s alright.  Look, how about you and I spend some quality Plants vs. Zombies time together, and everything will be all better.   I can’t stay mad at you…

As friends and family are aware, I work in a metal shop environment.  When you get down to it, this means that my day is spent making shit, sitting at a keyboard designing shit, and/or maintaining the various computers around the shop (figuring out why they’re being shitty).  This also means hours-long stretches of rote activity, which in turn leads to a lot of spare brain resources.  Music is, of course, a favorite method amongst many to stave off mental tedium, but in a machine shop it can get kinda noisy, and it’s not always feasible.  There’s only five of us here, after all, and we don’t have a receptionist, so we need to field phone calls, so that rules out headphones.  So what’s left?  I can only speak for myself, of course, but that usually leaves one of two things: Contemplation of the Universe (which gets regurgitated in snippets on this here blog-type thing) or what I like to call the Internal Playlist.

Yep, I’m talking about cranking up the volume on the iPod inside my head.  Some people like to sing to themselves while working away, but in a shop environment with very snarky co-workers (did I mention that two of them are my dad and older brother?), that can be tantamount to suicide.  Case in point: over the holidays, I was working away when I heard this very unpleasant, very unpleasant whining noise.  Generally, we tend to be on our toes where high-pitched noises are concerned (as it usually means something’s wrong with the equipment), so I immediately start scanning the shop, trying to figure out which machine is having a meltdown.  Nearby, I noticed one of our employees doubled over, laughing his ass off.  I gave him my best “WTF” look, and he jerked his head toward the other end of the shop floor, toward our other employee, who turned out to be the source of the offending noise.  Headphones in his ears and happily assembling away, said employee was belting out O Holy Night in an inadvertantly LOUD, off-key falsetto.  When he reached the “o night dee-VIIIIINE!!!” crescendo, I nearly peed my pants.  Five months later, we’re still giving him shit about that…

So, in the interest of self-preservation, I let the music play in my head and keep my mouth shut.  This is all fine and good, until it turns bad…  This takes on many forms, some of which are as follows:

1. It’s a song you don’t know the lyrics to.  There’s only so many times you can sing “blah blah, garble garble, Jumpin’ Jack Flash it’s a gas-gas-gas!” before you start going mad.
2. It’s a particularly annoying song, like, say, the “Heat Meiser/Cold Meiser” song from A Year Without A Santa Claus (which is made worse since it’s pretty short, causing it to loop endlessly…)  You can try to counteract this one by concentrating on another song, but invariably it tends to be an equally annoying song and your agony persists.
3. It’s a song you don’t know the words to which is ALSO incredibly annoying, so you’re stuck with just the excruciating snippet you know (eg: “pa-pa-pa-Poker Face, pa-pa-pa-Poker FACE!”).
4. It’s an instrumental that has one or two actual words in it, which means that you’ll be singing “doo doo doo” to yourself until you get to said words, which you inadvertently sing out loud.  One moment you’re quietly bobbing your head, then out of nowhere…”TEQUILA!”  Congratulations! You’re officially a crazy person.

Oh, the list goes on,   Of course, there are other methods to keep one’s mind occupied (like counting parts, calculating productions times, etc.) but now you’re Rain Man.  The bottom line is that the attempts at staving off death by boredom only leads to madness.  So, I’m trying to be more diligent about coming up with blog material.  This way, instead of a raving lunatic I’ll be a ranting lunatic.  Somehow, that seems better.

Fast-forward to this past weekend, where we attended the wedding of some good friends of ours at one of the venerable Pioneer Square bars.  To give a little background, said friends are pretty much royalty amongst the bartenders and cocktailers in that neighborhood, as well as a decade-long couple who just now decided to get married.  So, a huge party was planned, much imbibing and revelrie ensued, and this time I enjoyed myself immensely and never once felt like gnawing off my own arm and running screaming to the hills.

My recent encounter a handful of weeks ago with the staff party had me worried going in– what if I’ve suddenly become one of those people who doesn’t like parties anymore ‘cuz them’s just too durned loud?  Have I reached premature Fuddydudd-itude?  Do I now officially suck?  Well, fret not, True Believers, for the party was booze-soaked and I had a blast through to quittin’ time.  So why was this shindig different, and why did I run for the hills at the former, but close down the joint at the latter?

First obvious difference is that the space was much larger, and actually designed for large groups of people to destroy their livers all at once.  Not that the staff party host’s house was small, but just didn’t have the right flow (every path around furniture and every doorway had a mob of people loitering in ‘em…)  The real difference was the fact that the wedding was populated by what I now refer to as PROFESSIONAL DRINKERS.

Disclaimer: this does not insinuate that I was in a room full of chronic alcoholics. Rather, I use this term to differentiate from the amateur, maladroit drinkers at the staff party who got much too drunk far too quickly to be able to maintain any sense of cool.  Instead, this was a room full of bar and restaurant veterans who know how to drink and socialize at the same time, without screaming or breaking shit.  We’re talking career bartenders and cocktailers and their long-time patrons who know how to get properly soused without acting like a bunch of college kids at a freshman year kegger.  A good time was had by all, and it was rowdy and bawdy, but everyone was still able to act like adults and NO ONE WAS YELLING UNCONTROLLABLY WHEN THEY WERE HAVING A NORMAL CONVERSATION.

It just seemed to me that when people only really DRINK-drink once or twice a year, they just aren’t able to a) pace themselves properly, and b) maintain shit-facedness with any kind of control.  Compared to those who partake regularly and with gusto, most of whom earn their living through cocktails, and it’s like pee-wee football versus the NFC All-Star team. (And as a side note, how hilarious would that be?  Like the rugby scene in Monty Python’s  The Meaning of Life…)

To sum up, I have not in fact morphed into a geriatric tee-totaling curmudgeon.  I’d just prefer to drink with the pros.

PS: already loused up trying to get at least one blog entry a month. BLOG FAIL.

I don’t want to give anyone the impression that I’m a COMPLETE Scrooge/Grinch/Dickhead, and that I don’t like Christmas.  What I have a problem with is the arbitrary gift exchanging, particularly within a large immediate family such as mine.  Mom, Dad, five of us siblings, plus three in-laws equals 9 adult presents to buy for each of us.  That’s a lot of dough.  Of course, one could say that you just buy less expensive gifts, but that means each of us is getting 9 crappy gifts that we could have just as easily bought for ourselves (we all have jobs, after all).  So rather than a stupid crap-exchange, we’ve dispensed with all of it.  Except for the young children (grandkids, cousins, nieces, nephews, offspring of friends), because that would make us HORRIBLE people.  Actually, they make out like bandits, since we can all now spend more money per rugrat, rather than on each other. So no kids getting stupid-ass socks on our behalf.  It’s all copious amounts of electronics and expensive swag for them.

Is it so wrong that I’d rather not have anybody waste their time on crap presents for me, and would prefer nothing aside from their company at the holidays instead?  I already have too much useless junk at home that I accumulate all on my lonesome, so I don’t really need assistance there.  In fact, I’m pretty much of the mindset that if I never get another present for ANY OCCASION for the rest of my life, I will be perfectly fine with that.  Historically, my mom, sister, aunts, as well as Mrs. Grand Poo-Bah, have expressed frustration with me when I answer their query of “whatcha want for Xmas/your birthday?” with “nuthin’.”  The more complete answer is, of course, NOT nothing, but the kinds of stuff that I do want tend to be kinda expensive, and I certainly would never ask anyone to buy them for me.  Again, I have a job, and if I want a new $3000 tv, I can buy it myself.

Oh, and I also hate crappy Xmas music (not all of it is crappy, but most of it… And what’s with Barbara Streisand singing CHRISTMAS songs?  How can she look her rabbi in the eye anymore?), so my relief is palpable when the holidays are over.

Anyway, now that that’s out of my system, on to the the REAL topic of the post: 2009 in review!

2009 begins not with a bang, but a recession: Yeah, that was a lot of fun.  Our little family metal shop weathered the storm fairly well, all things considered, but it got kinda dicey there for a while. (VERY brief political opinion: Republicans need to stop blaming Obama for this– it was YOUR retarded guy and Alan Greenspan that handed this mess over to him, so STFU.  Okay, done now, will never bring it up again).  The first six months of the year were completely schitzo, with two bad months, one really good month, another bad month, so on and so forth.  Hitting the end of June, things started a steady (though slight) upward climb, and we closed out our fiscal year in November on a positive note, so *whew!*

Got a new sister-in-law: Yep, the Grand Poo-Bah’s baby brother got himself hitched this summer, and right in the middle of Seattle’s record-breaking heatwave no less.  I don’t know how many of you out there have ever worn a three-piece tuxedo in the middle of 100° weather, but that’s pretty freaking warm.  Seeing as the weather ’round here bottomed out at 18° a couple of weeks ago, I much preferred the ridiculous heat over freezing my balls off.  But that’s just me.  Oh, and new in-law is cool.  We think we’ll keep her.

Took no vacations this year: That was all kinds of suck.  Business being slow, we kinda had to take on anything we could to stay out of the red, so that meant a lot of labor-intensive, low profit monkey work.  Grand Poo-Bah Sr (aka Dad) made a few trips out to Maui to see my sister, so my and my brother deferred our vacation plans to him.  That means that aside from major holidays (good for a 3 or 4 day weekend) were all I really got this year, and it SUCKED HUGE DONKEY BALLS.  Been twitching like an electro-shock patient to get the hell out of town for, like, 18 MONTHS.  Seriously, last real vacation I took was July of 2008.  This will not stand, so I’m definitely getting my ass away next year.

Began the Great Crap Purge with Mrs. Grand Poo-Bah: When a packrat marries a packrat, only disaster can ensue.  After years of looking like we just moved in a month ago, our tiny condo became a maze of piles and stacks of junk.  So, while she was on summer vacation (the perks of being a teacher), we managed to eliminate about 30-40% of the useless shit around here.  It was a very cathartic purging, although in the end it doesn’t really look like we have any more room than we started.  Five truckloads to Goodwill/the dump says otherwise, but you’d never know to look at our place. *sigh*.  To Be Continued, I suppose…

Reached a definitive conclusion about Santa Cruz, CA: Having been there three times over the past four years for various weddings and other stuff, I’ve finally decided that I don’t really ever need to go back.  I think I’ve partaken of Santa Cruz enough for one lifetime, and if I never find myself there ever again, that would be just fine with me.  Not that I DIS-like SC or anything.  I’ve just had my fill, and am pushing my chair back from the dinner table that is California. “No more Jello for me, Ma.  I’m full.”  Oh, and I reached this decision completely at random last month.  As stated above, I actually haven’t been out of town at all this year.  Santa Cruz just arbitrarily popped into my head while I was doing something else, and I felt that no tears would be shed by me if I never went back.  So there it is.  To any of you Banana Slugs out there, no offense intended toward you or your city.  I just have other places to go.

And lastly…

Realized I’m lousy at making regular blog entries: Yeah, just look at that list to the right.  Gonna have to work on that, maybe try and get at least one a month…  Kinda hard to come up with stuff to talk about while work has been so hectic, and I didn’t want the blog to become a repository for bitching about work (believe my, I have plenty of material like that, but no-one wants to hear that).

Anyhow, that was my 2009.  Nothing terribly bad happened, a few bright spots, but no vacations.  Could be worse.

See everybody in 2010!

The main reason for thinking about coolness is simple: BATMAN.   I kind of have Batman on the brain at the moment.  I recently acquired Batman: Arkham Asylum (Coolest. Game. EVER.)  I also picked up the Batman/Superman: Public Enemies direct-to-video, which came with a little Batman action figure.  I have been playing the crap out of Lego Batman, which is cool in a dorky kinda way.   Also, a week or so ago I caught a re-run of an episode of  Wire Tap on NPR, in which Jonathan Goldstein discusses nicknames (and how the coolest ones start with “the”, eg: The Fonz, The Big Ragu) and Batman with his teenage daughter.    And as you know, there isn’t anyone cooler than Batman.  Why?  HE”S THE GODDAMNED BATMAN, that’s why.

So now I have Batman and  the Fonz rattling around in my brain.  I remember watching Happy Days in my youth, and like most kids I thought “Gee, I wish I was as cool as The Fonz…”.  I also wanted to be Batman (what kid didn’t?)  Thanks to that Wire Tap episode, I now realize that the Batman/Fonzie level of coolness carries with it an incredible burden, and I’m pretty sure I’m just not cut out for that.  So, what if I scale it back, and just be the coolest dude amongst the people I already know?  That could be a little more attainable, so I set about imagining what that might entail.

So there I’d be, amongst my small circle of friends and acquaintances, being all cool.  I’d do my thing, they’d be all “wow, that dude is like Shaft! He’s the GODDAMNED BATMAN!”  They’d look forward to hanging out with me, just to see what badass, Clooney-esque hijinks I’d get into next, and awesomeness would ensue…  Then, the dark side to all this occurred to me: if I was the coolest guy I knew, everyone I knew would bore me to tears.  If I was that cool, everyone else by definition would be less cool, and I’d be surrounded by them. 

Yow.  What a terrible, unforeseen consequence of attaining awesomeness.  Everyone would suck, except me.  Oh, heavy lies the head that wears the crown and all that.  Maybe that’s why Batman scowls so much.

Of course, now that I think about it, all of my friends are a bunch of dorks, so I might in fact be the coolest dude in the group…