Shot in the Back

Now that this blog has been updated into a semi-monthly bulletin, I am happy to inform you that my buddy--the one with the life-threatening heart attack--is doing just fine.  I saw him the other day at an Easter get-together.  He was happily taking part in the biscuits and breakfast pizza (it was a sunrise service, which makes me wonder if Jesus would have even bothered getting out of the tomb if He knew he would be subjected to nutrient-deficient breakfast foods.  Though I guess he could just turn it all to bread and wine), and apparently he got a girlfriend a month or so back, so that's all good.

The heart attack?  Brought on by a buttload of sausage and ice cream, apparently.  Although I just had a buttload of chow mein and turkey for dinner, and you don't see me clutching at my chest.  Now, my stomach, yeah, a little bit, because dinner sometimes fights back.

Of course, he's kind of a small guy, which makes me wonder if he just isn't used to his food fighting back.  He didn't really go into detail about what the doctor said, and I didn't ask, so for all I know, House and his team were using the stethoscope all wrong.

Note:  I have never heard or read such obsessive use of the word "butt."

Back From the Abyss

...Kinda.

Does this video stretch out past the blog.  Let's see.

Nope.  Good.

Oh, and I guess it's not a "video" so much as an album cover with music playing over it.

Please don't tell the pastor at my local church that I've been listening to this.

Back From the South Side of Chicago

It occurs to me that I might seem like a bit of a jerk for not posting any updates, much less anything about that buddy who had a heart attack.  The most I can tell you, is that he's still on Facebook (he checked in some time a couple of days ago).

This, of course, should also tell you how much I've so much as even looked at Blogger for the past week or so.  The truth is, I've had a case study to work on for a while, so that has to take priority.

Note:  He's missing his spleen.  Is that important?

Remind me to do Evangelion some time...

An interesting read on two Genre Busting gentlemen, one Alan Moore (the creator of "Watchmen" and a giant in the comic book industry) and Hideaki Anno (the creator of...you know what?  Remind me to do a Brewhaha review on Evangelion some time...)

(No, seriously.  If I don't do an Evangelion review in the next few weeks, just shoot me.  In the back.)

As for that buddy I mentioned in my last post?  The last he said, he was back home.  I'm not sure whether to be worried or relieved that he was released from the hospital.  Beyond that, that's all I can tell you.

eXCLclamation pOINrts and Quesiton MARKS

Have you ever wound up looking for AAA's for your cheap MP3 player, and then it turns out you got AA's by accident?  Yeah, that guy was me.

Have you ever forgotten your pay check and then rushed to the office to get it over a week later?  Yeah, that employee was me.

Have you ever just put off your FAFSA for about one or two months, and then not been able to find your pay stubs when it comes time to estimate your income for the year?  Yeah, that potential perjurer looking at the possibility of jail time was me.

Have you ever gotten a heart attack about ten or twenty years too early?

Don't worry, that last one isn't me.  The bad news, it still happened to a buddy of mine from youth group.  It was a minor heart attack, but it was bad enough that he had to wait in the emergency room.  For almost three hours.  (Because when you get to the ER, they'll either have the decency to rush you in, or the decency to make you wait for a better part of your day.)

I'm talking to him on Facebook chat right now.  He says he's on a couple of medications, including an inhaler.  Nobody knows how it happened, but needless to say, I'm going to be watching the salt content in my own food out of pure, unadulterated fear.  And as always, he will be in my prayers.

And now, some YouTube junk.



Yes, from the show that taught us to toss our fridges out the door if it attacks us, it's "Tank"  "TANK!"

Social Animals

First of all, I probably need to mention that I am not anti-love, I am not anti-romance, and I am emphatically not anti-wedding.  As some of my posts would indicate, nothing could be further from the truth.  At heart, I am nothing more than a hopeless romantic.

Still, something has recently come to my attention.  Specifically, the quality of our weddings.  Specifically, the quality of our wedding receptions.  Specifically, the quality of wedding receptions organized and put on by very close friends of my family.

I can't believe it needs to be said, in this country, in this day and age, that your music sucks.  Your music sucks beyond words.  Your music sucks so much, so hard, that it wouldn't be out of place in your local red light district.

Or, specifically, the music at wedding receptions sucks.  Or, more specifically, the music put on by very close "family friends" of mine at their wedding receptions sucks.

I'm supposed to almost be an adult now.  I believe I fall into that much-sought demographic known as the young adult.  So I should be able to get past the thought of my aunts and uncles, my grand-parents, my mom, and both of my dads, some nice old ladies from church, all rushing to the dance floor and shaking their "thangs" to Def Leppard or Toby Keith or "Play That Funky Music White Boy," and then getting to talk with other "friends of the family" for about four hours while I sit around texting some friends, and then they try to talk me into getting off the phone with my friends and dancing with grandma for maybe one or two songs, and at the end of the night they're all drunk and I end up the designated driver.

Somehow, though, I can't get past that.  It might be a generational thing, or it might just be I'm not a family man.  Or, for that matter, much of a man at all.

A lot of my general resentment with weddings comes from just not being the life of the party.  See, even at wedding receptions, there are bound to be some chicas there (not that I resent the title of a one-woman man, but still).  The problem is that there's a certain social dissonance with trying to pick up chicks while Mom and Pop are about two feet away.  Not that one should be going to weddings with the express intent of trying to pick up chicks (I'm look at you two tools), but if such an opportunity were to present itself, having to worry about the approval of Mommy dearest makes it that much harder.

It's not rocket science, really.  It's just...well, it's more like brain surgery, I guess.  Possibly the brain surgery of one social animal Homo sapien.  Specifically, one very obtuse and stubborn Homo sapien who is still caught between a rock and a hard place.

This really doesn't have anything to do with my relationship woes.  It's more like me feeling like a fish out of water at a very recent wedding reception.  It was for someone at my church.  She has just married someone I used to have classes with in high school.  And I'm happy for both of them.  They're both very nice people, and they seem right for each other.  The groom gave me a Swiss Army Knife as a gift for helping out with the ceremony.  (I did some ushering.  I wasn't really an "usher," but I helped direct the flow of guests in and out, and I videotaped, so I guess it counts.)  It'll be nice when I travel to the south side of Chicago this weekend.

Weddings are a beautiful thing.  It shows the joining of two souls who have vowed to love and nurture each other for the rest of their lives.  There is nothing so sacred and so meaningful as giving one's heart to someone they truly cherish.

It's just.  The receptions.  Always.  Suuuuuck.

Just a word of advice:  If you should ever get married (and I hope you do), avoid country music.  And whatever "white boy" plays that funky music.  And ninety-percent of the stuff from the eighties (Queen is still more than acceptable though).  And, as a rule of thumb, anything that's been playing way too much on your local radio station.

And if you go to a party like that, bring at least one or two friends you wouldn't be embarrassed to start dancing in front of.

Linkage Overload

So there's this guy, he's been gone for spring break, so he hasn't been able to blog as much as usual.  (Four posts a month for the Brewhaha, and eight posts for this blog, that's how I roll).  So he goes to check back in and post some new stuff, and wouldn't you know it, his videos are all messed up.

See, he has a couple of videos for Phil Davison (who is the most greatest communicator of our time), and this one video with that teeth-scratchingly annoying guy who keeps chiming in on your date, and another video which demonstrates a more drastic male interest in feminine products than most people would consider healthy.

So he logs on for the first time since spring break started, and he scrolls down to check the videos real quick, and through some sort of glitch while logging on, it turns out they're all mixed up.  So in his discussion of Phil Davison, it also looked like Davison endorsed the Trojan vibrator for women.  And in the post discussing how annoying third wheels can be, one could see the video of Davison's presidential ad, originally posted along with the original Davison video.

So which video replaced the original Phil Davison video?  None of them.  Because nothing can replace the magnetic, roaring, prepubescent voice and feral, nigh-animalistic gaze of Minerva's greatest Republican county treasurer's employee between the years of 2000 and 2010.

They're all back in their usual spots now, though.  Which is a shame.  Because I want to see Phil Davison endorse Trojan vibrators.  "Drastic orgasms require WHAT?  DRASTIC VIBRATORS, YES!!!  WHO SAID THAT!?  THANK YOU!  DRASTIC ORGASMS REQUIRE DRASTIC VIBRATORS!!!"