Friday, August 31, 2012

Things I Thought Would Happen Before Fundy Got Married

Back in our college days, during the heyday of Culligan Manor, Fundy used to rip on Paul and I for having steady girlfriends.  He played it off as us being suckers for being tied down when we were apparently supposed to be out banging randoms by the truckload, but really it was because he couldn't talk to girls unless he was hammered.  If The Big Bang Theory existed back in 2002, his nickname today definitely wouldn't be Fundy, it would be Raj.  If his house was on fire, and a female answered 911, he'd have to hang up and call back until a guy answered the phone.  Then he met Smapes at a party, sparks flew, emotions ran high, and whammo! Fundy had himself a serious girlfriend and joined the rest of us "suckers."

And now, one week from tomorrow, he and Smapes will be walking down the aisle together.  I've gotta say, I'm proud of our boy.  We've come a long way from high school, when Fundy called up Breezy and asked her to Prom like this (picture Ike and I literally rolling on the floor in laughter as this conversation is going on):

~Fundy dials the number, Breezy answers and presumably says "Hello?"

"WHADDYADOIN?"

~pause~

"OH.YOUWANNAGOPROM?"

~

"PROM?YOUWANNAGOPROMWITHME?"

~

"COOL.OKIGOTTAGO,GOTTAGOBASEBALL!"

~

"IGOTTAGOBASEBALL!!!"

~click~

And a catchphrase was born; one that we still use to this day.  I gotta believe that if Fundy could do it all over again, he would've made that phone call in private.  But I'm so, so glad he didn't.

***************

Here are some things I thought would happen before we actually saw Fundy get married:

- Tupac resurfaces after faking his own death.

- The Rapture.

- A Y3K scare.

- The Chicago Cubs win a World Series.

- World War III.

- Channing Tatum stars in a movie that doesn't make me want to punch him in the face (Dammit, that's a lie, it already happened.  21 Jump Street was kinda awesome.  At least he went right back to being a toolshed with Magic Mike-- although I'm sure most girls, including my fiancee, would disagree with that statement.)

- Coach K is revealed to be a robot.

- Time travel is invented-- shenanigans, mostly of the Michael J. Fox variety, ensue.

- A female President.

- That one thing that Meatloaf won't do for love....he does it.

- World War IV.

- Rick Astley gives you up.  He lets you down.  He runs around, and deserts you.  He makes you cry, he says goodbye.  He tells a lie, and hurts you.

***************

Later, skaters.  Off to North Dakota to golf, see the entire side of my mom's family for the first time in 15 years, play dollar blackjack, eat at Red Pepper an obscene amount of times, and watch Fundy and Smapes tie the knot.  ("Huh?  A knot?  Ehhh, you better...KNOT mention that again, you cocksuckers."  Classic.  Let's end on that note.)

Monday, August 27, 2012

Wait, They Traded WHO?!?!

Regarding my favorite sports teams, Easy E and Fundy are constantly blowing me up with fake trades, injuries, suspensions, run-ins with the law....you name it, and they've tried to make me believe it happened.  Brandon Rush got caught with a prostitute.  Phil Mickelson tore both ACLs while pulling somebody out of a burning car.  Chris Johnson got arrested with 50 kilos in the trunk.  Steve McNair was killed in a murder-suicide by his mistress (Oh wait, that one was real?  Too soon?)  With them, no lie is too much of a stretch.

So on Friday evening, I had just finished a round of golf and I was enjoying some beers on the country club patio with Hendo, Matty P, Blaine, Ben, and Wardo. I had been off the grid for awhile, but earlier that afternoon, the last I had heard was that the Dodgers had put in a waiver claim on Adrian Gonzalez, so there may have been some trade talks going on.  So when those two idiots called me and were yelling over each other that the Red Sox were trying to trade Adrian Gonzalez AND Carl Crawford AND Josh Beckett AND Nick Punto in one fell swoop, can you really blame me for telling them to STFU, and asking Easy E if he actually knows how the waiver wire works?  My Kansas buddies overheard my phone conversation, and we all had a good laugh at my moron North Dakota friends and their drunken shenanigans.  Three things in my defense:

1.  Easy E doesn't, in fact, know how the waiver wire works.
2.  It was Fundy's bachelor party weekend, so I was already on DEFCON 2 alert that these guys would be screwing with me somehow via drunk phone calls.
3.  This is probably the single most ridiculous, completely-out-of-nowhere trade in baseball history.

I told Easy E and Fundy I owed them an apology for berating them in front of my friends when I turned out to be wrong, so here it is.  (Even though I'm pretty sure the Boy Who Cried Wolf didn't get an apology from the townspeople, he just got his flock of sheep eaten by a fucking wolf).

Now, as far as the actual trade is concerned:  I'm trying to talk myself into it.  No matter how bad Beckett has sucked for the past year, no matter how much beer and fried chicken he consumed in the clubhouse during last year's collapse, no matter how many rounds of golf he played during the season ("My off days are my off days!")....I can't get on board with trading him.  He is most likely my all-time favorite pitcher-- the only possible competition being Roger Clemens when I was six years old, but I mostly loved him because I had a strange obsession with the letter R when I was really young.  My favorite ninja turtle was Raphael; my imaginary friend's name was Roger Sanchelly; I strolled around wearing a yellow baseball hat with nothing but the letter 'R' on it....the whole thing was kinda weird.  But yet I digress.  Bottom line, I hate that my boy Beckett got shipped out.  Remember in the 2007 ALCS, when Cleveland brought in Beckett's ex-girlfriend to sing the national anthem before Game 5 with the Sox down 3-1 in the series, and he sat there and smirked and nodded during the whole performance, like OK, fuckers, I see what you're doing here, then came out and struck out like 12 dudes and completely shut the Indians down, and the Sox went on to win the series?  Beckett has plenty of spite in his tank, and he's going to empty it out now.

As far as Gonzalez and Crawford, you just know those two are going to blow up for the Dodgers (while Crawford is injured until next year, Gonzo already started with a three-run donger in his first at-bat.)  For whatever reason, the Sox are great at knowing when to let a player walk in free agency, letting another team throw big money at the guy right before his skills start to erode (Pedro, Johnny Damon, Jason Bay, etc.)  But when the Sox trade somebody....heads up, it's about to start raining baseballs in the bleachers (Manny, Youkilis, Josh Reddick, etc.)

In summation:  it's never bad to shed $260 million in salaries, and the prospects the Sox got in return from the Dodgers sound pretty legit (Rubby!) and clearly the team needed some kind of new direction here....but I can't lie and say that I'm happy about this deal.  What a mess the last 12 months have been for Red Sox Nation.

Last thought:  as I've been saying for about a year BEFORE he retired:  make Jason Varitek the manager!
 

Thursday, August 23, 2012

"And We're Baaaaaaaack!"

We're coming up on four years now since ChewGate, and I have still stuck with just chewing pouches, as opposed to the "real" thing.  I think it tastes better; I like that I can put one in or spit one out and not worry about if I have a bunch of shit in my teeth; and it's much cheaper.  So much to the chagrine of some of my friends who chew the real stuff, I have stuck with pouches this entire time.

So a few weeks ago, we're attending a party in Teens' hometown, and it was a stereotypical small-town Kansas shindig.  There were a lot of Southern accents, lots of pick-up trucks parked on the street, and lots of country music being blasted over a beer pong game being played on an old door.  Real hootin' and hollerin' type stuff.  I only knew three people at the party, so it was one of those nights where you just gotta shrug your shoulders and say "Welp, time to get drunk and make some new friends."  Somehow I ended up getting accepted into the toughest crowd at the party.  I don't know what they liked the most: if it was my pearl-snap button-down shirt, or gelled-up hair (I had a PERFECT gel job going that night, bro), or biceps the size of a 14-year-old who got cut from the 160-pound weight class on the wrestling team.....but apparently they liked having me around.  Sorta like a jester or something.  Or maybe I was like Spider in Goodfellas.  And we all know how that ended.

In any event, pretty soon we're sitting around a table, playing cards, and talking about stomping the shit out of the random guys from down the street who showed up uninvited to steal beer out of the keg (naturally).  I pull out my tin to throw in a Dufner**, much to the approval of the dudes in the group.  Subtle glances are exchanged; affirmative headnods are directed my way.  My small-town Kansas swag couldn't be any more through the roof.  Then, one of the GIRLS across the table asks me to bum a chew.  I shake off my surprise (I mean, if she can talk about throwin' some 'bows at the dudes down the street for stealing beer and doing coke in the living room, she can handle a lipper, right?) and slide my tin across the table.  She picks it up, makes a disgusted face, and snarls,

"Oh....you chew POUCHES?....nevermind."

Boom.  Roasted.  In front of all my new tough-guy friends and everything.  My swag balloon wasn't just deflated, it was like someone took a knife to it.  It popped and the remains flew out of the garage and down the street to the random guys' house-- where now I surely wouldn't be invited anymore when we stormed down the street to stomp them.  Not me and my pouches.  Maybe the most emasculating moment of my life.  I can handle getting ripped on by my buddies all the time for still chewing pouches, but having a girl call me out in front of an entire garage full of tattooed, jean-short wearin', switch-blade carryin', baby-mama havin' Kansans?  Ouch.

***************

**I like to call individual chews different names, depending upon the occasion.  For instance, if I'm putting in a chew on the 4th of July, I might call it a Thomas Jefferson.  If it's during Christmas break, maybe it's an Ebenezer Scrooge.  Etc. etc. etc.  On a golf course, it's called a Dufner, in honor of Jason Dufner, who has become my hero (don't worry Phil, I still love you more) because during tournaments on TV, he constantly has a sold-out lower deck in his mouth stadium.  You know the CBS producers can't be a fan of that, but Dufner don't give a FUCK.  And here's his Twitter profile picture:




As a result of his awesomeness, I've taken to calling chews 'Dufners' even when I'm not golfing.  Jason Dufner, American hero. 

Just don't tell him I only chew pouches....

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Don't Call It A Comeback, I've Been Here For Years

Yes, I'm going to blog again from time to time, I'm not dead or anything.  Thanks for all the support from my friends during this hiatus.  (By "support", I mean texts/emails that say something to the effect of "Dude, get off your ass and blog once in awhile, you're such a homo" and things of that nature.) 

In the meantime, enjoy some clips of Workaholics, a show that has been a hot-button argument amongst some of my friends and I lately.  Teens and I are in love with it-- personally, I think it's one of the funniest shows I've ever watched....but Steph and Jared think it's the dumbest show in the history of television, and that you are an idiot if you watch it.  So suffice it so say that the lines are drawn.  For the record, I can see how some people might not like this show.  It's definitely not a smart or subtle comedy.  Nobody will ever confuse it for Arrested Development or anything.  But I still nearly pee my pants laughing at least twice per episode, so there's something to be said for that, methinks.