More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

You know, there’s a saying in engineering: “There’s always more than one way to skin a cat.” I heard it just the other day when I analyzed something one way and someone suggested doing it another way. That got me to thinking why isn’t the saying “There’s always more than one way to skin a dog?”

I’ll tell you why, because dogs are great and cats are the devils spawn.

The only cool cats I’ve ever seen or heard of have personalities like dogs. Which begs the question, why even bother gambling on the fact that the cat might be like a dog when you could just get a dog?

Maybe my dislike for dogs comes from my dad throwing ice cubes at the neighborhood cats wondering through our yard when I was growing up. I later asked him why he used ice cubes and he said “It’s a solid object that won’t leave any evidence and won’t ruin the mower later.” Smart man my dad.

So back to cats and why they are so terrible. First off, these generalizations are for “cat” personalities, not the cool “dog-cats.”

Cats don’t do what you want them to. Why do the blind only use dogs, because cats would leed the blind up trees and to cat nip factories. They are such arrogant animals, I just want to my shoes at everyone of them! I unfortunately learned I can’t do that since I only have 2 shoes on me and there’s usually 12 cats wondering around.

Cats only come around humans when they want something. Dogs will wait for you to come home and wag their tales when they see you. There love is unconditional and this is made obvious to by the fact they still love you even after rub their noses in their own feces. Dogs can go on walks with people outside, they go on boats, hikes and even like to swim around with people. When was the last time you saw someone going on a walk/hike with their cat?

Cats are just stupid. Dogs can be trained and will learn how to do many useful things at they should do. Cats do whatever they want and think they’re better than humans. If they had opposable thumbs, I can see these creatures being mankinds’ arch enemies. Let’s just say that the Terminator movies would be the fight against cats.

No crazy old people own 100 dogs. They always seem to have 100 cats. Why, because crazy people like cats. Enough said.

Last point is that people give cats away and I’ve seen people pay someone else to take their cat. Dogs are hard to find for free. Why? Because of supply and demand. No one wants a cat and there’s way too many of them, therefore the price is zero. There are many people who want dogs and apparently there are not enough, price is usually around $100.

On all points, dogs win. Cats are stupid.

What in the Wide Wide World of Sports!?

As of right now, the Michigan economy is in the dumpster. In fact, it’s more of a dumpster fire. Usually a good focal point for states that are in the dumps or that are burning in the dumpster are the local sports. With sports, we can escape from our real world problems for awhile and just watch athletes at their finest.

Being from Michigan and a Michigan State University Alum, I still like to keep up with teams in Michigan. There are the Red Wings, Pistons, Tigers and Lions. I think they have a WNBA team, but no one considers that a sport. If you do consider it a sport name the past 3 champions of the league, yeah, that’s what I thought, shut up.

Besides professional sports, there are great college sports too!

Being in the dumps right now and with an unemployment rate of 46.3% (a little bit of rounding is involved in that figure) people have all the time in the world to watch their teams. You would hope that with the current conditions in the state, things would be great for sports. Well, like the economy, so went the sports, spinning around the toilet bowl on their way down through the crapper. Let me sum up some of the great accomplishments in the great state of Michigan from the 2009 year so far:

1) Red Wings lose in Game 7 of the Stanely Cup finals to the Pittsburgh Penguins. They were up 3-2 and had game 7 on home ice. I still don’t like the Penguins and never will for that reason, jerks.

2) Michigan State Spartans Men’s Basketball team comes out of no-where to be the bracket buster and play in the Championship Game against UNC in the March Madness Finals. The icing on the cake was the game was being played in their backyard at Ford Field in Detroit! The game was over in about 1.8 seconds, they got crushed along with a lot of hearts in Michigan.

3) Just last night the good old Tigers blow a 3 game lead with 4 games left to lose the AL Central. Now I really don’t care about baseball so this had the impact of 1 puff for Snoop Dogg, zero. I just mention it because of the epic failure it was, first time it’s ever happened in baseball. They made the Wall of Shame for this one!

4) The Lions had the distinction of winning for the first time in 2 years in football last week. Then they go to Chicago and get their dogs kicked. To top it off, Johnny Knox returns a kick off for a touchdown. That’s not the amazing part, a ball boy sprinting down the field with 2 balls in his hands outruns the entire Lions team. Granted he didn’t have blockers in front of him, but he also isn’t making hundreds of thousands of dollars for this one game. Terrible. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPE110QQ9gU&feature=player_embedded

5) The Pistons managed to make the playoffs in the Spring. No one seemed to notice or care as they were a road bump for a much better team, whoever they played in the first round. They also made headlines for trading away their best player for an older dude that is pretty much an old thug that can’t play anymore. Good thinking! Let’s top it off by ruining our chances for getting a decent draft pick by making the playoffs. At least the Lions had the right mentality when they ran the board last year and ended the season with a perfect 0-16 record.

6) The icing on the cake is the fact that when our professional sports are getting blown out by out of state teams, the in state collegiate teams beat each other up. First Central Michigan pulls a horse shoe out of their butt to win in the last seconds against Michigan State. Then a Top 25 University of Michigan stumbles into East Lansing and loses to Michigan State. Since University of Michigan beat Western Michigan earlier in the season, Central Michigan (!?) claims the prize for best college football team?

The good news is that the Red Wings started again and Michigan State Men’s Basketball is returning a lot of guys. UNC thankfully graduated their top 18 players to the NBA, so we shouldn’t have them as a problem this year!

Go Green and Let’s Go Red Wings!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

There is something to be admired by the way kids talk and think. They have no reservations for calling it like they see it. Why not, they haven’t been brain washed yet to know what political correctness is and have no manners what-so-ever. This topic came up for me when my 3½ year old made some very keen observations and comments. So I started thinking, what if adults were the same way?

What would our work conversations sound like? I know what a conversation would sound like at my work:

Me: Can you correct this drawing, it looks like it was drawn by a 3 month old monkey?

Him: You can bite me for that comment first off. Second off, I’ll say I’m going to do it but I won’t do anything about it until about 3 months from now.

Me: That’s fine, I’m just going to e-mail you with a conversation summary summarizing what we just talked about and your comments. That way you can be the super fart face when the boss asks why this is late.

Him: Oh yeah, you’re the super fart face! [Hits me]

Me: Dummy! [Kicking him in the shin]

Physical and verbal fighting would ensue until someone either won or someone tapped out. Either way, things would be settled the way they should be and the world would be right again.

Here’s another example of what a conversation would sound like at the grocery store:

Stupid Lady: Why do you have to use so many stupid Qpons and take FOREVER to check out!

Wife: Listen stupid lady, first there’s no “Q” in coupons. Second I’m saving money, something you should think about doing although you most likely don’t have the mental capacity to handle “doubling coupons” and “rebates.”

Stupid Lady: Listen, there’s only 2 lanes open right now, why don’t you plan on doing your shopping at a time when there’s more people to check you out?!

Wife: I do my shopping when I can, why didn’t you come when there’s more people to check out shoppers. Oh yeah! Maybe because that would mean there’s a ton of people here and no one likes to go somewhere when it’s busy unless they have to. Where did you get your High School Equivalency? Man, you’re such a super fart face!

Then ideally stupid lady would go off and feel shame for being so obviously stupid, but instead she would just argue and in the mean time she could have just gotten into the other lane and have checked out 15 minutes ago. Seriously, have you talked to people recently? They’re the worst!

I guess this blog is my outlet for speaking like a child. I get to comment on things the way I see them, although it was supposed to just be about sports. Either way, I think people would be a lot less stressed if we just said what we were thinking. Last real life for someone calling it like they saw it:

Mr. O: Blah blah blah, and of course we won’t do that even though if you actually read it, it plainly states we will.

The Man: YOU LIE!”

Nutrition Tool

Training with my wife for a half marathon introduced me to the world of runners. They are a fruity bunch were the men wear women’s length shorts proudly. Thankfully, I have more respect for my fellow man and stick to soccer type shorts.

Another odd aspect of this world is the nutrition. There are GU gels, recovery drinks and anti nipple chaffing creams. Alright, so I made up the last one although SpongeBob band-aids work great. The GU gels have been known to leave stool samples looking more like oil slicks. I’m not making this up, talk to runners and they’ll tell you the same thing if they have used these things.

The recovery drink I got a sample of when we picked up our “raceday” packet was FORZE. This “Nutrition Tool” is “Designed to activate the body’s natural appetite control signal” to help reduce hunger. I guess it’s actually to lose weight but since it was free I had to at least try it.

Man, whoever made this liquid crap is the real tool. Maybe I’m the tool for believing it might taste like something a human might want to consume. It came in two flavors, Vanilla and Chocolate. I thought the Chocolate was the worst thing I had ever tasted until I tried the Vanilla variety. Why would anyone buy this stuff unless it was their first time or they were on crack?

To give you an explanation of the way this stuff tastes and looks I’ll go into more detail.

First off, it comes in what looks like a milk carton. It’s does not require refrigeration which should be the first warning sign.

Second, the smell is like soy milk. I’m sorry if you like soy milk, if you do you’re dumb.

Third, it has a milky type of fluidity. As it runs over your taste buds it makes you want to gag. The claim is correct that it helps with appetite control in the fact that you never want to eat again after trying this soup made by the devil himself.

I think I can help the marketing departments of all this nutrition junk, they should just let everyone know that the taste is required, the processing may be irregular but the benefits are minimal! Then they would finally go out of business and we could say goodbye to these fruitcakes and go back to our diets of bacon only!

Ah, the wonder of highlights

After taking a summer off of commentating on sports, I found it appropriate to make another comment on baseball.

Since it’s the only game being played during the summer, it’s terrible and I didn’t have SportsCenter (except at the gym) I didn’t have anything to comment on really.

All summer long I kept seeing the same stupid ass highlights of baseball though. Guys making diving catches (with gloves!), guys hitting the baseball and pitchers striking guys out I decided that Baseball is the worst. Have you seen it lately?

The best highlights of this stupid sport were when a cat got on to the field, the mascots pushed each other over during the 7th inning stretch or morons on the bench were wearing their hats inside out as “rally caps.” I’m not even making these up.

I have other posts explaining my opinions on why this sport is full of super fart heads, but with these so called highlights making the “Top 10 Plays” of the day just confirms my opinion of this sport as fact.

To top it all off, these guys make millions of dollars and they aren’t even in shape!? Are these athletes? Seriously, they are? Man, I would classify this “sport” as on the same playing field as cheer-leading.

Oh Snap, I just made a tackle!

With football season in full swing I think it’s time to address a troubling trend. The excessive celebrations of regular and mediocre plays.

I think it all started with the touchdown celebrations, followed by the advent of SportCenter where athletes wanted to be on the evening news for their outstanding plays where only the best can make the 30 second recap of the game. Another major contributor is steroids. If you think football players are not on steroids, you’re just dumb, which explains why you’re reading my posts.

Now players they have to go nuts when they make a tackle run an extra 30 yards after being pushed out of bounds on a kick off play because they brought it out past the 50. These morons feel that if they do some dance, flex, hit themselves on the helmet hard or make the first down sign after gaining 8 yards they are then classified as awesome.

Note to these players, you are not more awesome for doing stupid acts like this you are classified as retarded. The best players in history didn’t do much of a celebration because they had been there before and knew they were going to do it again, see Barry Sanders TD celebrations or Brett Hull after scoring a goal.

I’m all for players getting excited, but to make a spectacle of something they get paid to do is just off the deep end. Pretty soon the whole offense is going to perform a choreographed sequence, Riverdance style, in the end zone. The guy who scores the touchdown will get to be the “lead” guy.

Just go back to huddle or throw the ball the ref and go back to your respective sideline. Your 1.2 seconds of fame is over and when analysts talk about the greatest players to play the game, your name is only going to be mentioned in the category of “Kanye West Wanna Be’s.” (See recent deutsch bag move by this ass-dart!)

Government Efficiency

So our family got to visit the epitome of government efficiency this past weekend: the DMV.

Before going to the wonderful DMV, we drove by a new location of Chipolte, a great burrito place, that was new to our area. We have been craving it a ton since leaving Colorado. At least after being frustrated by the morons at the DMV, we’ll at least be able to eat here after our long wait we told ourselves.

Before leaving I checked the web site on what documentation we would need to get our new state residence license. It said in the first sentence of “Proof of Residence” that the definition of this is a government issued, non-expired ID with your full name printed on it. Check, Colorado license covers that. Primary identification is also covered by the CO license, bonus! Secondary identification is the marriage license, great, wife and I both only need to take our CO license and marriage license.

We get to this wonderful establishment after confirming location of said Chipolte and proceed to the “Information lady.” She informs us that we need a passport, birth certificate or something else. At this point of the conversation I blocked out what she was saying because I had too much steam coming out my ears. I wish I would have told her that I don’t even need this kind of identification to be President of the United States! Instead I went with the “I needed more of a background check to get my government ID (as I showed her it) than she did to get this government issued ID.” To which she just started saying “I don’t have to take this from you!” The security guy tried to get me to leave at this point.

Having been taken too many times and having driven 25 minutes to this crap hole with 2 kids under the age of 4, we asked to speak to the manager as I still thought we had the proper identification just to get a new stupid license. The manager did a good job explaining to us that buried in the verbiage of “Proof of Residence” was the fact that to get a new state ID, we couldn’t just use CO driver’s license.
So we left and my blood pressure was still quite elevated. As we drove back towards Chipolte, I talk about what I should have said. The fact that I want to get “DMVSX” on my new license plate and how it’s funny that the one government building that needs security is the DMV, because it’s not uncommon for people to get so jacked up there. I wish I could invent a time machine to go back in time and tell people a much better line than what I did tell them. Then again, rather than doing that altogether, I suppose I could have just gone back in time and taken the correct identification. But I digress…

So pulling up to Chipolte we see the words come into focus on the windows, “GRAND OPENING, JULY 31st!!” The main problem here was that the date this took place was July 24th! If I were by myself in the car at this point I think I would have driven the car straight through the doors. So our Friday afternoon, in which I took the day off “sick”, was a huge waste. The kids were hungry, the wife was hungry and I did not want to hear the words “calm down.”

I learned my lesson and we went back the next day with kids running around screaming and got our paper licenses, although for the pictures we weren’t allowed to smile? Is that what this country has come to? I don’t care if I have to pay $1000/month in health care to keep it privatized, if the government runs my health care I think we can all expect it to be similar to the DMV, crappy.