NotTheRock Musings

Over the recent weeks and months, my wife has slowly been moving into the house and getting things in order. Yes, we moved her stuff in a while back, but getting the house situated and putting her touch on things takes time. Lots of time.

Among the things she spent some time on was our bedroom. And in the bedroom, back when it was my bedroom, was my pillow. A Pac Man pillow. Yes, I was kickin' it, old school. It was a Pac Man pillow, not unlike the one pictured here, and I got it when I was probably somewhere around 5 or 6 years old.

Because I'm efficient and not wasteful, I had seen no need to purchase a new pillow over the past twenty-five years, give or take. I was still using Pac Man. He had seen me through puberty, high school, college, my career, and into my 30s. I had some of the finest sex of my life with that pillow as my support -- literally.

Granted, Pac Man was beginning to get a bit flattened, threadbare, and faded. But he was going strong and I had no need to replace him.

My mother and sister began putting the idea in Watersyne's head a while back that my beloved pillow was "disgusting" because it was so old. They reasoned that it had "dust mites" living in it and, well, once my lovely wife heard that, all bets were off. It was going to be her mission to take my pillow away from me. She brought it up whenever Pac Man peeked out from his pillowcase -- so I did my best to keep him hidden and out of her sight.

Well, two weeks ago, when I came home from work one day, Watersyne had done wonders to our bedroom. There were snazzy curtains up, a new duvet cover, nice new shams, and the room was cleaner than ever. She had also been working on one of our many plastic storage bins and after gauging my mood, she led me to the storage bin, and showed me what was at the bottom.

My Pac Man pillow.

There he was, squished under several other pillows and blankets that were "going into storage," much the same way your parents sent away your 14 year old golden retriever to "live on a farm."

"See, we're not getting rid of it," Watersyne reasoned.

I didn't really expect to win the argument. And even though I felt like I made pretty good points, I still don't expect to ever see my Pac Man pillow again. Truth is, I never really thought I'd have it forever -- I knew this day would come. Women like to find the things you use over and over.... and trash them. Like your favorite flannel shirt or your best faded jeans or your most trusty workboots or your comfy old college sweatshirt with the salsa stains on it.

"Why must you take away the one thing I use every single day?" I asked, as patiently as I could.

Her calm composure dissolved after just one question from me: "It's gross! It's disgusting! It's so old there are dust mites in it!"

"Oh, you and my mom and sister and the damn dust mites! What did you replace it with?"

"One of my pillows from my apartment," she replied.

"How old are they?"

She paused. "Maybe ten years." (Which means at least ten years.)

"Okay," I slowly answered, kind of enjoying this, "So my twenty-five year old pillow is disgusting and unacceptable for use, but your ten year old pillows are safe and clean? Do I have this right?"

I was proud of myself because I was clearly making good points. This wasn't just me wanting to hold onto something for the sake of resisting change -- no, I was enjoying this not because I couldn't give up my pillow, but because her logic for doing so was something I simply felt like challenging.

She lost interest in the argument just as I was gaining steam and simply closed the lid on the bin and rejected my appeal.

Bye, Pac Man. It's been a good run.

Labels: Pac Man pillow, women always ruin the fun

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Miss Teen South Carolina:

Labels: Miss Teen USA, southerners AREN'T stoopid ya'll

Okay, so someone is clearly messing with me and, well, it's quite funny. Though I'm not sure I will really enjoy all the spam mail I'll probably end up with as a result.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from "Culver's ButterBurgers and Frozen Custard" offering me a free value basket with the purchase of... a value basket. Now, I'm not familiar with this establishment, but damn, a ButterBurger washed down by frozen custard quite simply cannot be bad. Especially twice.

The Web site claims it's the "#1 Burger Chain in America," which is also interesting, given that I've never heard of it. But what amused me about this email was that it wasn't just regular old spam. No, somebody signed me up because it had my first name along with my wife's last name -- spelled incorrectly, I might add, helping to lead me towards who the culprit might be (poor spellers are easy to trap).

So then today I get another email -- this one from "Cat Lovers." The body of the email says, "Welcome to Cat Lovers" and gives me a Login ID and temporary password. I'm actually kind of worried about what I might find at a site with security passwords and the words "cat lovers." Yeesh.

Either way, somebody knows how much I like cats and decided to add this to my list of places. Which is fine. Because I will find you. And you really will wish you'd stopped this sillyness after signing me up for Culver's.

Labels: burgers are yummy, Culver's, fatness

Uh-oh, Lake Michigan is draining. Seriously, according to this article, a "man-made drain hole" is "slowly emptying Lake Michigan."

You're probably thinking, "Holy hell! How much time do we have?"

Well, I don't know if this prognosis is good or bad. On the one hand, the Canadian study responsible for this story claims that Lakes Huron and Michigan combined are losing 2.5 billion gallons of water each day. (Of course, it's a Canadian study and they use the metric system so they don't know what the fuck a gallon even is -- can we really trust them?)

Lake Michigan's water level has declined "nearly" two feet. Wow, that's significant, you might say. Except that it's declined "nearly" two feet.... since 1970.

At its deepest point, Lake Michigan is 923 feet deep... so 37 years ago, it was 925 feet deep. At this rate, by the year 2118, Lake Michigan will only be 919 feet deep at its deepest point.

Somebody call the Kentucky Headhunters -- we need to organize a benefit. Somebody get Al Gore on the phone. I bet he could do an entire movie about how we're destroying our environment. Oh wait.

But really, getting back to the article, what are we to take from this? What's the point? Why is this news? What's the real issue here? Well, the article doesn't tell us anything more than I've shared here. It's Fox News, after all.

They report. You gotta decide.

Labels: Fox News, Lake Michigan, stupidity, suckholes, wading

When I was a kid, I definitely liked music. However, for some reason, I was never into going to concerts. Part of this was probably that my parents were rather protective of us and as a result, we didn't go to concerts, Great Adventure, Action Park, etc. Whenever something bad happened at one of these places and it was reported in the newspaper, this only served to further cement the rules.

I don't really remember for sure when the first concert I attended was. I do know that in 1992, Genesis was touring after the release of the "We Can't Dance" album and my good friend Xtrosity had a ticket available for me. Alas, I was a sophomore in high school and had an exam the next day (this was June, I guess) and my dad simply wouldn't allow it. And then Genesis more or less disbanded. Well, shit.

Well, they've finally decided to tour again and they'll be in NYC at Madison Square Garden on September 25 and Watersyne and I will be there.

Another band I loved as a kid and grew to love even more when I was in high school was Def Leppard. I always had said that the top three bands I wanted to see in concert were 1) Van Halen, 2) Genesis and 3) Def Leppard. I managed to see Van Halen (with Sammy) a few years ago as well as the tour in 2002 when Sammy and Dave managed to sort of co-exist enough to collect millions of dollars and sing Van Halen music to us without anybody really named Van Halen backing them up. And as I said above, we'll be seeing Genesis in about a month.

Last night, we managed to see Def Leppard (who also brought along Stix and Foreigner) and it was pretty damn cool. Sure, they're old and don't quite sing the songs the same way anymore, but hell, DL formed thirty years ago and some of those hits were chart-toppers in 1983. So it was pretty awesome. Pour Some Sugar On Me was, of course, among the best-received songs since absolutely everybody knows it, although Photograph was also very highly revered. I was actually a bit disappointed that my favorite DL song, Let's Get Rocked, wasn't played. Weird.

So just this morning, I decided to check out Pollstar to see, by chance, if there was any news about Van Halen touring again someday. It's often rumored but that's such a dysfunctional band that you never know. Well, amazingly, this past Monday they agreed to reunite -- with David Lee Roth -- and tour North America starting in late September. They'll even be in the NYC area right around my birthday.

Hell yeah. Party like it's 1984, yo.

Labels: Camaros, Def Leppard, Genesis, jean jackets, mullets, Van Halen

Okay, listen Bank of America. I like you. I like you more than most ginormous, near-monopolies deserve to be liked. In general, your customer service is good (for a bank) and I enjoy the ease of accessing my account information online.

That said, knock this shit off with "Keep the Change." Every single morning, while I have the Today Show on, I invariably hear your stupid commercial about "if all the loose change out there banded togerther." Yeah, if all the loose change in my pockets, my desk, random cups in my house and office, my car door handle, my nightstand, my wife's nightstand, my dresser, my jackets, my computer backpack, my suitcases, my sofa, my carpets and so forth... if it all "banded together," yes, I might have a nice chunk of "found money." I get that. But to equate that with your stupid "Keep the change" program is insulting, annoying and just plain false.

For those that don't know, Bank of Amercia's "Keep the Change" program works like this:

You have a debit card attached to your checking account. You use that debit card to buy an item or items -- let's say the total charge is $25.32. Bank of America, in this example, then charges you another 68 cents and then -- get this! -- deposits that 68 cents into your savings account for you. Thus you have "kept the change."

But wait, you say, wouldn't I already have that 68 cents whether I was involved in this "program" or not?

Why yes, you would.

"So I'm not gaining anything?" you would then ask.

No, no, you are not, I would respond.

Then I'm not doing that, you'd conclude... because you're a reasonable, salient, moderately intelligent human being.

Yet they continue pushing this stupid "feature" like it's something special that you're getting for being a Bank of America customer. In a nutshell, you're being charged a markup (albeit small) every single time you use your debit card and then... it's being given right back to you.

What's the point here? Forced savings? I guess so. I guess this is for the people who think that when they underreport their dependents and then at the end of the year get a big, fat tax refund, that they've somehow made out well and taken money from the government. When in reality, no, you've just given the government an interest-free loan that they made interest income on. Well-played, genius. Go save another twelve cents on your next trip to A&P.

Labels: Bank of America, Keep the Change, stupid fat people, things that just shouldn't be

As you may have recently heard about, the Duggar Family from Arkansas just had their 17th child. (From Arkansas! I know! Can you believe it??)

They were featured on The Today Show Tuesday morning and, WOW, is this a freakish situation. One commenter on the above story didn't pull any punches, referring to them as a "cult" in the making. I decided to research a little bit to see if there was anything to that and learned that he might indeed be right. The kids don't get much, if any, outside influence; they don't interact with people outside their immediate family (they're all home-schooled in their 7,000 square foot compound -- err, house); they have a rigid hour-by-hour schedule almost like a, well, cult; and each night they all gather around daddy for bible time. Wahoo!!! Sounds like a ball. For the complete daily schedule, check this out.

What I think is also interesting is that these brainwashed clowns used to use birth control! So they're hypocrites! Now they use nothing and see children as "gifts from God," which is of course a fair thing to think.... but is it fair to these kids to overpopulate like this? Are they trying to field two full softball teams or four basketball squads? What's the ultimate goal here? I think the idea of it becoming a cult is a pretty decent theory. And that they're from Arkansas and the patriarch's name is Jim Bob doesn't help this bias I'm feeling.

You can also call their house directly or drive up to the compound and see if you get shot. Phone and address information is here.

Kudos to loyal reader NicHul who pointed me in the direction of the photo you see above. Good stuff.

Labels: don't you do it for fun anymore?, Duggar family, vaginas aren't revolving doors

As everyone must know by now, the unthinkable happened in Minneapolis last night, as a major bridge suddenly collapsed into the Mississippi River as well as onto other pavement below (it didn't only collapse over the water).

It's kind of funny how the blogging community works. I'm not a super-frequent commenter on other blogs but I do read a number of them throughout the week when I have some downtime (or even when I don't have downtime and just want to procrastinate). Many are sports blogs but a few are personal blogs, like this one. One in particular, which you'll see over to the right, is called Velcrometer. The guy who writes it is hilarious and writes reviews of my favorite TV show, 24, over at Television Without Pity. Anyway, he's a terrifically funny writer and even his weekly musings about life are enough to often make me laugh out loud. I don't know this guy at all but I've read so much about his everyday life that I almost do feel like I know him, his wife and his son. And they all live in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I hadn't been reading his site lately, mainly because I've just been too busy to keep up on anything. But you can bet the first place I visited this morning was Velcrometer. And isn't that just weird? Why do I care about someone I've never met? I guess it shows the power of the written word and how galvanizing a silly little once-underground community like the blogosphere can be. It turns out that he and his family are fine and I actually felt a little bit of relief, that this one person I don't even know is okay.

Weird, I tell you.

Labels: disasters, Minnesota, random people I don't know but keep up with