What the #$%@ do you people want?

I bet this girl doesn’t check her stats. She doesn’t have to, what with her being hot and all. http://finsnation.typepad.com/

I quit. Really, I fucking quit. There should be a Blogging 101 class you’re required to take before you start this crap.  Lesson one, day one should read something like, “Stats are a fucking mystery to us all, we recommend sacrificing a virgin at dawn to ensure good stats.”

This blogging shit is hard because I’ve become addicted to stats. Fran (editor extraordinaire)  says I am a people pleaser. She claims I’m eager to do what ever anyone wants to keep ’em coming back. But I don’t even really know Fran. She’s just some broad in North Carolina who (brilliantly ~ Fran) edits this drivel into a fun easy read. (She hopes ~Fran)

I don’t know why I obsess about it.I get the same exact amount of nothing if one person or a million people read this, so my obsession is similar to following Justin Bieber’s career.  I mean, if his career tanks tomorrow, sure you’ll be sad (dork), but you’re not out much. Same here with this effort.

Still though, what the fuck do these numbers mean?

There was a big uptick in March. Why?  February was down — man, it was down!  Why did so few people come here in February?  Was it something I said? In December and January we were up, baby! We had a lot of hits then. What the fuck does all this mean?

It means jack and shit. Nothing. It’s as pointless as changing your profile photo in support of a political cause. Which should mean SOMETHING to some of you, but likely won’t because no one reads this shit that deep except Fran and Marni … Sometime Maggie, but usually not and — fuck, what is this about again?

What the fuck is interesting to read here? Really, what do you find interesting to read here?

I didn’t make this. I actually found it on a blog about gutters. A gutter cleaning blog by a gutter cleaner. He also wants people to read his blog.
http://www.sparkle-king.com/

I think we need a poll. A good old-fashioned honest to “jebus” poll.  A poll that not only says, “This is what I expect out of this retarded blog, but also, this is what I would like out of this blog,” because if stats have told me anything it’s all about you, and I’m fucking all ABOUT you, or at least making you happy.  That sounds funny but it’s really, truly, honest. (See, I told ya. ~Fran)

I want to write things you will enjoy and read.

So, in an effort to figure out the whys, we can and shall — I decree — take a no-shit poll.

It’s right there above this paragraph, can you see it?  For the first time in the history of “Had a Few Beers” we have an real poll. You can’t vote 12 times, you can’t vote for “I like ponies.” You can’t do anything but vote.

Like a good ol’ I-love-God-and-Country American, we’re gonna vote.

I’m curious to see the results. So please vote.  Or leave a comment, comments are also good.

Trash Can Wars Part 2 … Crossing the Rubicon

I can’t do this anymore.

Rebellion, open and honest rebellion, is my only option. The oppressed must rebel.

I have no guns, mind you. No weapons, save a bayonet I bought for like $5 in Iraq years ago. But desperate times, my friends, call for desperate measures.

I speak, of course, of my wife’s retarded – I mean insane, I mean full-blown weird – decision to remove the trash can from the house.

I honestly just blogged, twice about a fucking trash can. Everyone deserves some boobs.

I talked about it here. But if you don’t want to read that, let me sum it up quickly.

My wife decided, for reasons that escape any known or sane definition of logic, to do away with the trash can. The MAIN trash can, mind you (the one in the kitchen), has been removed from the house entirely. In the trash can’s place we are currently using – and I couldn’t make this up if I tried – convenience store plastic bags hanging from the door knob.

Don’t try and work through the “why” of this command decision. There isn’t any way to rationalize it. It is devoid of reason and without logic. There is no, it-helps-with-recycling aspect to it. In fact, I’m pretty sure it does the exact opposite since all trash goes into the same plastic bag.

Ease can’t be the reason for the change. The small bags fill up every time someone farts. The only purpose, I can surmise, is to annoy the living hell out of me. Something an actual trashcan never did.

A beer ad from Brazil! I was trying to find a trash can full of beer cans and instead found this. You are very welcome. ~Fran

Trust me on this one – TOTAL pain in the ass.

Besides filling up at a rate of every second, my wife insists the handles of each plastic bag be tied before being removed from the house. Because obviously, an untied plastic convenience store bag holding coffee grounds, empty beer cans and egg shells is tacky as hell, or an affront to god.

Or something.

Anyway, rebellion, or something akin to rebellion, is brewing. Soon I’ll be meeting with like-minded individuals (the cat) to discuss in hushed tones the revolution.

We’re on the cusp of blood being spilled. Well, not blood exactly, but at the very least beer and that’s c0mpletely fucked up.

The following exchange just took place.

“Damn, Todd! If you would just take the trash out when it’s full, I wouldn’t get mad,” she said.

“You know what would make this a lot simpler, using a trash can,” I explained. “It’s an ancient invention that has proven its worth throughout the ages. Having little bags the size of a fucking coin purse to deposit our waste into is both stupid and stupid. It’s stupid twice. It makes literally no sense. Logic cannot be applied to the decision, that YOU made. It’s impossible to logically justify this decision from any firm standing.”

Your logic has logic in it. This makes me mad. (Photo credit: jcgoforth)

At this point she became pissed.

“I’m doing it because of beer cans!”

That was her answer. I can’t explain it. You can’t explain it either.

Her logic is that there would be  too many beer cans in the trash can if we used the actual trash can. There are too many, thus the trash can is no longer going to be used. I also might add that we have a newly purchased, fully functional trash can, that she banished to the basement some weeks ago.

Now… I’ll be fair, I’ll be honest, I’ll bare my soul here. This blog is called Had A Few BEERS for Christ’s sake, so yes, the receptacles that deliver beer’s sweet, succulent love into my belly are eventually in need of disposal. My love, nay, devotion to beer produces (gasp) empty beer cans.

In our last house it was verboten to even place a beer can in the kitchen trash (I used the one in the garage to dispose of my empties). So her argument holds no water, or trash, as the case may  be.

So I think I’m going to take a G-gank approach to this problem and

just put the fucking trash can back in place. When confronted I will tell her it’s there because it’s stupid to not have it there. I’ll also use phrases like, “Because I said so.” “Trashcans are not evil.” “Who has the penis in this house?”  And, “Please honey, can’t we have a working trashcan, please?”

I’d type a lot more of this, but I obviously have a tiny bag of trash to take out.

I have restored the trash cans to their rightful place in the Oliver Republic. Much like Caesar, I fully expect to be stabbed. Oh well, the die is cast.

Finally, to anyone reading this and thinking, but what about Germany’s recycling laws, I’d like to reply, yes.

A fast note to Had A Few Beers readers: Fran, the awesome person who edits this, recently had surgery for chick stuff or a rotten gallbladder, or circumcision, I wasn’t really listening. Seriously though, I hope everyone reading this takes a moment to wish her a speedy recovery. (Fran you’re awesome and I hope you feel better, sans gallbladder).

I have glitter on my hands and I smell like hooker — stay out of your coworker’s desk

I smell like hooker.

In fact, I have glitter on me.

Don’t tell my wife okay?

Thanks.

Why I smell like hooker and have glitter on my body is best described with a photo …

There were issues … I still smell like coconut chickness and I’m starting to like it.

Yeah that. That right there. That’s the issue. Coconut Carmel Whip hand sanitizer and girly girl co-workers are the reason.

They’re at fault. Not me. No sir.

Earlier in the day I purchased two bags of “Bigs” bacon-flavored sunflower seeds because they’re flavored like bacon.  How anyone can pass them up in the store remains a mystery to many of us.

Anyway, after happily munching bacon-flavored sunflower seeds at my desk all damned day long, I’d worked my way thought every drink I had at my desk. I drank an old can of Citra found in the desk drawer, the Gatorade I bought with the sunflower seeds, a carton of old milk in the office fridge (bad decision). I was contemplating collecting the dew off plants outside when I finally broke down and went to the Shoppette.

The Shoppette, for those of you unfamiliar with military life, is basically a convenience store.  They have lots of convenient products, it’s never very clean and the cashier only has like $20 in the register.

An IV for my tongue (Salt fucks a tongue up!) was what I wanted. I considered buying a bag of ice and just sucking the cubes, one after the other.

I don’t understand how something so manly, with the name BACON right in the title, leaves me feeling so very, very dirty!

After asking my co-workers what they wanted, because I’m an awesome guy, I struck out on my five-minute endeavor. Because I’m quite the clever guy, and because I am basically a lazy bastard, I decide to also buy some beer for later when I get home.  I bought two Gatorades, a bag of chips for the boss and two, four-packs of Bitburger because nothing says you have shitty taste in beer like Bitburger purchased in Germany.

Proudly, I step up to the counter and engage in small talk.

I am fine today sir, just fine and you? Ah that’s splendid.  Busy?  No?  Well sometimes that’s good, my friend. Yes, yes I would like to hear about your special …. Wait, what’s all this fucking liquid.

Thankfully the store was empty, because as the cashier bagged the beers up it became obvious that one of the beers had a hole in it. It was obvious because there was fucking beer everywhere in little tiny puddles.  All over the counter, all over the bags, and a glistening trail on the linoleum leading up to the register.

I can only assume the cashier also has a long history with beer. Perhaps he has a blog called Ilikebeer.com, we may never know.  We both immediately sprung into action trying to locate the culprit. (To discover which beer can has the pinprick hole in it, one must firmly squeeze each can.)

Can you see where this is going?  Yeah, me too.  NOW I can.

I, of course, located the wayward can and when I gave it a firm squeeze, a pressurized stream of beer shot out all over my arm. Actually, it was worse than that, it shot back into the aisle and covered not only my arm, but my shirt and hands in the process.

I replaced the four-pack, paid for my order, then desperately looked for something to clean up with. The search proved futile. I’d have to stay beer-soaked until I got to the car where I had a bottle of, I’d soon learn, empty hand sanitizer.

A good 45 seconds of cursing later, I said fuck it and drove back to the office covered in drying beer.  Which, I think most of you know, smells like ass.

Throwing my boss his bag of chips, I looked for and located what appeared to be a bottle of hand sanitizer. I plucked it off my (absent at the time) coworker’s desk and applied a liberal dollop to my hand and to my arm and commenced with the sanitizing.

But in addition to the alcohol-smelling, germ-killing goodness, I was treated to stripper glitter, coconut and caramel whip, whatever the fuck that is.

So male friends this is the lesson. You can grab anything off a male coworker’s desk and use it for any manly purpose you so desire, but reach into your female coworker’s desk and come away smelling of strippers, bad decisions, and coconut.

Finally, damn it, is humanity just breaking down? There was a time that hand sanitizer just contained alcohol, some gel shit and it smelled like dead germs.    Who is the asshole who started adding glitter and coconut to this stuff?   Used to be that prisoners would take this hand sanitizer and light it on fire during riots, what are they doing with it now?  Exfoliating …

Harlots, bosoms and Tucker Max …

I can’t give this blog the love it deserves at the moment because, work.  I’m on another business trip and sadly this one isn’t filled with strippers and angry Dagmar phone calls about said strippers.

Seriously I’m working crazy hours until Halloween so I’m not sure what I’ll be able to put up here.   Either it will be incoherent, half-sleep deprived, half-drunk rants like this one or you’ll just have to come up with your own boob and beer jokes.

Here is a free, non boob and beer joke though.

What do you call a deer with no eyes?   No eye-deer.

Okay I’m sorry I really shouldn’t do this when I’m tired.  That was just sad.

I do have two odd things and here they are.

The first, the one I hope to write about soon involves about ten bat-shit crazy comments I received here last night/this morning.  All by the same dude, different names but all the same dude.   I deleted them all because if anyone’s going to use the words harlot, bosom and sin on this blog it will be fucking me.    They were retarded but they COULD be funny because harlot, bosom and sin are hysterical words, if used right.

Trust me it will be funny, they’re deleted but saved.   All you harlots have been warned.  I suggest you wrap your bosoms up into brassieres and just fucking wait damn it.

The second, less funny but interesting thing, I want to talk about is Tucker Max.

Tucker Max (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yeah, yeah get it out of your system now, 42 year old Todd finds Tucker Max interesting what a tard.

Fuck you, this is why.

Tucker, while funny and juvenile and <insert adjective here> is still Tucker there are, and I’m sure lot of fans know this, the moments where he’s really in the zone.   You can see a lot of his influences and you can really appreciate what a great fucking writer that dude is.

This is what I just read,

“The rules your parents teach you to live by are very different than the rules the world actually runs by.  Most of the conventional wisdom is not only wrong, it’s a lie told to us by people who want to control us.  It doesn’t help us, it helps them.”

By the ticket take the ride …English: Hunter S. Thompson, Miami Book Fair International, 1988 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re a Hunter S. Thompson fan and don’t see a lot of HST in that, try harder.   I’m starting to discover I love rereading Tucker Max, just as I love rereading HST.  Each time you reread it, you find something new.  His stories are funny at first glance but, maybe more so in the later books, they have brilliant bits.  I think I read that he was influenced by HST, and that fits, but …

But …

But …

But I need to go to bed, early mornings and all.

Also boobies.

Need help annoying your partner during long drives, this updates for you!

Summer’s here and like many of you Dagmar and I just spent a wonderful, relaxing and nightmarish 20 odd hours in the car together.

Oh what a joy, the things you learn when you’re cooped up in a car with someone are remarkable.

Yes, yes I DO think history pod casts are interesting even after 8 hours!

For instance did you know that while the someone is exiting an autobahn rest stop, madly working the gears, checking mirrors and judging whether or not that Porsche in the left lane, driving a reasonable and insane 200 mph, is going to suddenly change lanes, that’s the perfect time to ask them to hand you things.

“Honey I know you’re pumping the breaks like a madman because of another of Germany’s infamous stau’s has appeared out of thin air but hand me that water bottle.”

Perfectly reasonable request.

In her defense she was probably close to insanity at this point because I’d subjected her to a collective 15 hours of Mike Duncan’s “The History of Rome” podcast.

Now I Love (yes, with a capital L) me some, “The History of Rome”, I love it so much I’ve listed to all the podcasts three times!   Yeah I’m dork so what, Cato the Elder would have said … oh never mind, sorry.  I should have been clued in though during hour 13 of the podcast when she literally started yelling at the radio, “Shut up, Shut up, Shut up!”

So maybe I missed a sign or something.

Also honey I give you a ‘C’ when it comes to bringing up uncomfortable subjects.    Sure you get an ‘A’ on subject matter, why WAS I flirting with that girl, but a ‘F’ on timing … I mean come on we were pulling into the driveway at that point.

Another point is that yes, maybe I am a male-chauvinistic pig but when I grew up dad did all the driving.  If they were both in the car, pops had the wheel.  I see it as the man’s duty, like mowing the lawn, re-shingling  the roof and looking at porn.   “No honey I can’t go to bed yet, this porn’s not going to watch itself is it?”

You, yeah you reading this, do you keep change in the car?  You know in the divider thing between the passenger and driver’s seat?  Maybe you keep it in the ashtray?  Do you?  If so never, I repeat Never, let Dagmar in your car.    This type of change storage is an affront to the very laws of our existence and it must be policed up, sorted and stored in a proper change receptacle (this little bag in her purse).    Loose change (both the kind in my car and the retarded September 11 2001 conspiracy movie) drive her nuts.  Makes no never mind that the next time I need 35 euro cents I’m screwed, everything has to be organized.

Which leads to another fun game I call, ’round up the trash!’  Now I’m all in favor of having a car that’s reasonably clean and who am I kidding, without anyone else in my car the interior quickly begins to resemble a public landfill.   But I’m not so stupid that I don’t pick up before she, or anyone else, gets in the car but it’s always amusing that during long trips she become litter patrol super captain of the world!    For instance, I’m a filthy smoker and yeah, yeah don’t smoke it’s disgusting and filthy (really don’t), but I’ll often put empty cigarette packs in a little cubby hole on the bottom of the driver’s side door panel.   Heck tons of stuff can go there, empty coffee cups, empty drink bottles, tissues whatever.

These are great opportunities for her to ask me to hand her things during my before mentioned attempts at passing a 1950s Winnebago while someone tries to park their Lamborghini in my ass.

“Todd can you hand me that empty cigarette pack?”

“Sure thing my love, just as soon as I’m done merging into a construction zone surrounded by Italian drivers.  I mean if we live that is.”

This is more of a suggestion in italy, I mean if you want to go right who am I to stop you?

Which, unrelated to my lovely bride and her adorable passenger habits brings me to crossing international European borders.   Entering Austria from Germany is a yawn, like visiting a sibling, they’re the same as you but different.  Entering Italy from Austria is akin to visiting Charles Manson wearing a shirt that says, stab me please while handing him a knife.

Want to drive 70 KPH in the fast lane, go right ahead in Italy.   Lane changes need not be indicated by signal lights, just change lanes damn it, extra points if you cut someone off and then slow down.   Letting someone merge into your lane means you have a small penis and yes, yes you can slow down to check out the hot chick.

Crossing back into Germany it’s like everyone flips a switch and the rules count again.

“Holy shit, did you see that?   That dude just used his ‘blinker’ to indicate he was making a lane change.  Someone should tell the Italian’s about this!”

I think I’m going to get a lot of support from the men reading this next point.   If the start time, for getting on the road, is agreed upon, say 9 a.m., then 8:45 is not the time to start elaborate philosophical discussions.   See we were visiting our best friends (hey Maggie and Alex) and I guess, the fifteen minute mark is the time to start a discussion about ‘what it all means’ or ‘why are we here’ or ‘are Oreo’s better than Chips ahoy?”.   But Alex I do want to add that I’m in.  In  retrospect, I’m down with the Somalia plan but you’ll have to navigate because …

Listen officer, the GPS TOLD me to drive over this guy’s lawn.

I confession I suck at directions.  Thank god for GPS.  I failed land navigation as a young soldier at the (then called PLDC) Warrior Leader’s Course.  I failed it AND because of a crap-ton of snow we were doing it in garrison.  Those of you that know what I’m talking about are laughing at me right now, go ahead … dicks.   For those that don’t know what I’m talking about the instructor basically told me, “go four blocks that way, turn left two blocks and tell me what the sign there says.”  Yeah, I fucked that up, repeatedly.So YES honey you DO have a better sense of direction than I do but that’s like me saying I’m better at golfing to a retarded, physically handicapped 5 year old.  It’s not much of a victory.

Rules for business trips … never give sasha your phone number, never.

Haven’t updated in a while because, well fuck you it’s summer and who wants to type a bunch of words when it’s sunny and hot outside.   Not me that’s who.   Anyway just returned from a few TDY (business) trips and thought, you know what this blog needs?  Public Service Announcements that’s what!

Thus …

Rules for business trips:

When drunk in your hotel room a close up photo of your balls texted to 45 of your closest friends will not be all that funny the next morning.

Okay, yes it will be, but only if it’s REALLY close … with a few ball hairs.   That makes the joke funny.    You need a few ball hairs in the photo.

Free for use internet images for herpies come up with some pretty funny results.

The fact that “Sasha” has offered you a dance in the “private room” does not mean you and her somehow ‘connected’ and anyway herpes doesn’t care.  More on Sasha in a moment though.

Internet porn is free.  Hotel TV porn is not.  Do the math.

Hotel porn really, really sucks too.

Married males only: Internet porn is best enjoyed in rationed doses.  If you find yourself looking at a naked midget clown mowing the lawn, literally mowing a lawn, it’s time for bed.

After a certain number of business trips you will likely shun all human contact after working hours.  No longer will you desire to see the local post card production museum in (insert town here) or go out with your fellow travelers but will wish to remain secluded in your room most, if not all, nights.   Refrain from building a fort from the hotel room’s pillows and sheets near the door.

If that’s impossible, build in an escape route, while giggling if possible.

The minibar in your own room should be treated with respect, only touched when needed.  The minibar in anyone else’s room should be used and abused like a roman slave.  #protip free beer is always available in someone else’s minibar.

Yes, yes you can have a beer in an airport no matter what time it is.   Literally most international airports have bars that are open always.   Use this opportunity to find out what you think is funny when you drink at 6 a.m. with no food.   Facebook the results for extra credit fun.

Any offer by anyone traveling with you to go ‘out’ that night that is not a ‘tried and tested’ companion can and likely will result in a hangover that is level eight.   Proceed with caution.

Currency conversion when drunk is best done by adding up the number of drinks consumed, multiplied by the hours spent in the establishment, divided by … just hand over the credit card.  If you’re in an ‘unusual country’ said credit card will be declined and you will have to call the fraud alert hot line in the morning to, technical terms follows, “unfuck it.”

There is a 50-50 chance the boss is as hung over as you are.   Should you find yourself not at all hung-over, spike the football.  If not hung-over

This was not the best free for use image I could find for hungover but it was the one that made me laugh the most.

and wondering if the boss is hung-over, invite him out.   If he gags, spike.   Works. Every. Time.

No matter how prepared you were you forgot the most important up-to-date document.   Deal with that.

The most important up-to-date document is really useless.   It won’t survive day one of the real reason you’re traveling anyway.

Anyone that has a “good idea” or plans a “fun” ice breaker should be savagely stripped of all their clothing and beaten by the group with large sticks … or congratulated for being the most awesome person ever.  Whichever.

Stripping a person of all their clothes and beating them with sticks should never be suggested as an icebreaker but would but a very memorable icebreaker.

Alone time in a hotel room is an excellent opportunity to go over every inch of your skin for weird shit. Odd bumps, hairs, anomalies, third nipples whatever.   You’re likely naked anyway.  Fuck the hotel furniture.

The hotel furniture is likely FULL of butt germs.

The temp of the hotel room can always be set to plus or minus five degrees of what you decide is awesome.

Printing any document while traveling will be a level 8-million clusterfuck, resign yourself.

The taxi driver will not speak you language … I don’t care what language you speak, he won’t speak it.  This somehow equates to a better tip.

Any decision made after 11 p.m. will have interesting consequences.

No matter how much fun you’re having at the club don’t call home to tell your spouse about it.

Don’t.

Trust me.

Never let Sasha talk on the phone to your significant other, the phone bill is too high.

Don’t give Sasha your phone number. If your SO gives her the number … flee south.

If Sasha and your SO talk for more than 5 minutes, find religion and pray, pray for all you’re worth, that the plane going home crashes.   This won’t happen of course so spend big at the duty free/gift shop … you will buy something they don’t want or even like but … okay hope the plane goes down.

While we are on Sasha, her ass is neither better than anyone else’s and you would not come to the “yard” for it in the morning.  It’s a cute ass but it doesn’t need to be spoken of tomorrow.

Never say milkshake when referring to a person’s butt.  Milk and butts are words that should not be combined.

When smoking in a non-smoking room always open and blow the smoke out the window.    Offer the housekeeping staff a liberal bribe because you eventually got drunk and just “smoked it up” anyway.

Did you just send out a heart-felt email to a long lost lover from high school?  Did you just cry?  Are you currently naked and peeing in the sink?  If yes, go to bed.

If any trusted coworker says at breakfast, “JESUS what the fuck happened to you!”  Trust them.  If you at breakfast say to a trusted coworker, “JESUS what the fuck happened to you?”  Cover their ass and extract all the tales.   Yeah that Sasha is a trip isn’t she?

Three hundred dollars of oops (pure awesome!)

Drunk me makes sober me really, really tired. Drunk me is full of ideas, just ideas coming out of every hole in my body full of ideas.

It’s up to sober me to filter them.

Here’s a hint drunk me, most of the ideas suck. Can you do a little better job at the filtering them yourself maybe? Help reduce the amount of ideas that you push through to morning maybe would really help? Perhaps you, drunk me, could apply some common sense sort of rules before you push the thought forward to the morning?

For instance you could ask yourself the following questions before forwarding the idea on to tomorrow.

1: Will the idea get me fired from work?

I'm not kidding. We really do have one of these at work. And I can verify, the temptation is overwhelming.

See this one is easy. At work we have a large, old fashioned, metal triangle fire alarm. Even sober I want to hit it with the handily provided medal bar while yelling nonsensical emergency things. “Salmon Attack” dong, dong, dong. “My balls itch”, dong, dong, dong. “Bring out your dead,” dong, dong, dong. “Antiquated fire systems test!” dong, dong, dong.

See it IS funny and I’ve often been TEMPTED at work to do just that. Thoughts about rigging cameras around the whole place to capture the reaction don’t help, so stop suggesting it. It would be funny, but only for about 10 minutes.

2. Does it involve me naked?

You’ve violated the wait till morning rule here a few times with mixed results. I admit the close up photo of testicles texted to, well more people than was sane or necessary, worked as a funny joke. But sober I never would have approved this idea. It was funny yes because the photo didn’t look like anything (other than a really close up picture of testicles) so the joke worked. I maintain you got lucky, most that received the text laughed and the ones that didn’t still talk to me so …

Don’t do that again, no more naked jokes unless I’ve (while sober) sanctioned it!

3. What does it cost?

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to remind drunk me of the strip club after the long business trip or the bill that followed.

like this only I don't remember and it was on a credit card.

After a grueling two-week trip in Italy I, the night before I left for home, made the decision, at the prompting of others and while blasted out of my mind, to visit a strip club. Sober, I in all honesty would never, ever, not in a million years, be up for this. Drunk though I think my brain did the math, boobies AND beer equaled me fully in. But here’s the thing just because I had a tough two weeks (you’re thinking tough, two weeks and Italy don’t go together in a thought, screw you it was tough) that was NO reason to go back into the private VIP area of the club and run up a visa bill that was both obscene and awesome at the same time. The memories from that night SHOULD HAVE BEEN epic yet all I can remember is at one point there were two girls with me, one said something to the effect of, “you can touch them” followed by me batting at large swinging breasts like a kitten plays with a ball of yarn. My wingman, sensing economic disaster, finally pulled me out of the back room and in the morning, when I asked him why he let me stay back there so long just said, “You looked like you were having fun.” He should have bought me a ball of yarn.

This reminds me, I should buy Dagmar something expensive. When I got home this was how the confession about the strip club went …

Me: Hey I should tell you something. I spent like 2k in a strip club.

Dagmar: Did you get laid?

Me: No.

Dagmar: You’re an idiot.

I’m thinking a necklace or ear rings but I’m taking suggestions.

Which leads us to …

About five days ago the $300 remote-control helicopter (Ar Drone for those that are curious) that I ordered while Maggie and Alex were visiting arrived. Even the next morning, sober, I considered canceling the order but besides that quote from Hemingway it passed the filter.

If nothing else I thought the damned thing would be good for a laugh and it LOOKED easy to fly. It synchs with your smart phone or iPad and you tilt the pad to the right and it goes right … how hard could this be?

The answer is hard. As Adrian pointed out in this video, the damned thing just sort of crashes a lot. The only bonus I can think of is that it scares the hell out of the cat and annoys the wife. Win some, lose some.

I say go left and it flies, with reckless abandon, right. Right into the wall getting one of its propellers locked in between two pieces of wood on the wall.

Forward, forward, forward … HOLY too much forward … BACKWARDS full … backwards into the clothes and into a full crash. The propellers are caught now in my shirts, the ones I have to wear to work. No wonder pilots are cocky … this shit is hard.

The battery lasts as long as your high-school boyfriend did, provided you’re a chick. If you’re a man the battery did an awesome job, high-five!

Here it is ... about to fly right into my face ...

You can kinda get it, hovering and adjusting the altitude easy enough. Spinning in a circle left or right — also easy. Movement from a stationary position is the trick. When attempting to command the helicopter to perform movements more complex than hovering a foot off the floor it all comes down to knowing what direction the helicopter is facing in relation to the iPhone… Work it out in your brain, calculate the direction it’s facing and the direction you wish it would go, add 2, subtract 67, multiply by 9, consider how old your grandmother was when she was happiest and it’ll fly into your wall with simplistic finality. Then subtract two.