The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for December 2008

At Least We’re Not Homeless

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Every day I wake up and find myself repeating the same stupid phrase to myself, “At least we’re not homeless.” It is a mantra that I use to pretend that I feel ok about our situation. It is one those stupid mind tricks that people use to try and convince themselves that the situation really isn’t that bad. It is no different from saying “things could always be worse.”

Well, I hate that fucking line. Stop telling me that things could always be worse. Sure they could. I could have a terminal disease. I could be injured in some sort of industrial accident and be paid the grand sum of $10,000 for the loss of an eye. Or I could be eaten by a wild animal.

Sure, things could be worse, but that doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t remove the sting of the current pain. It doesn’t make me feel any less worse. It doesn’t help to tell me that my situation isn’t my fault. I know that it is not really my fault. I know that I am not really responsible for my predicament.

But the thing is that no one is going to rescue me. The government isn’t going to bail me out. I don’t have any reason to expect that I am going to win the lottery, find the golden goose or magic beans. Sometimes shit happens and you laugh about it and sometimes you find that shit gets poured down your back. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that be particularly funny.

What I do know is that even though I may not be responsible for my situation I am the only one who can get me out of it. And at the moment I haven’t got a clue as to how long it is going to take and truthfully little hope that things will not get worse.

So I stand here before you doing what I have been taught to do, be responsible, be accountable and take it like a man. And I keep repeating my little line, “at least we’re not homeless” but what no one hears me say are the two words I never mention out loud, “not yet.”

He Ate Seven Pounds of Latkes

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I love latkes, but this makes my arteries ache. I have to add that knowing that there is an Association of Independent Competitive Eaters makes me feel good. It is proof that there is a hobby/profession for everyone.

A 23-year-old mechanical engineering student downed 46 of the potato pancakes in eight minutes to win a contest at a Long Island deli.

Pete Czerwinski says he’d never eaten a latke before consuming about seven pounds of them Sunday at Zan’s in Lake Grove. The Toronto bodybuilder says he’s just “a power eater” whose brain never signals that he’s full, according to the Long Island daily Newsday.

Association of Independent Competitive Eaters Chairman Arnie Chapman says Czerwinski demolished the contest’s previous record of 31 latkes, set in 2006.


The Secret of Gift Giving

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There is a secret for giving gifts, but not everyone knows what it is. The bad news is that I am not going to offer it up in this post. However I will share a few thoughts/comments about giving gifts.

In many families there is one relative who is known for giving terrible gifts. That is the sort of thing that you never want to be accused of saying about another and it is definitely something that you don’t want to be said about you. But the reality is that most of us have received a gift that we found less than inspiring.

And though we tried to pretend to be grateful it was hard to smile and offer thanks for having received something that we just couldn’t believe we had gotten. One of these days I need to dedicate an entire post to this topic, but not now.

The thing about the secret to gift giving is that there really are multiple secrets to be aware. There is the secret to giving a gift to a spouse or significant other, there is the secret to trying to be the cool aunt/uncle/friend/parent and the secret to trying to make sure that other parents do not hate you.

Since I am a father I am going to share some tips for how to make sure that parents do not hate you. Believe it or not there are some relatively simple rules that you can follow.

  1. Don’t give gifts that make obnoxious noises. Sirens, beeps, whistles and screeches are bad. As a rule of thumb I reciprocate by providing the child of the gift giver with a drum set. Or if they are single I hire a marching band to visit them during the early morning hours on the weekend.
  2. Don’t give gifts that require 36 hours to assemble. It is not cool. The kid doesn’t like it and the parents definitely do not.

Those are the two primary ones. Obviously there are others. And just as obvious is the rule that if you dislike the parent and child you should give them a gift that is obnoxiously loud and requires a degree in engineering to assemble.

And there you have it my friends, a practical toolkit that you can use to your benefit.