Plucking Out My Moustache a Hair At a Time

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080622025045AA2lqvi

I remember when I was fourteen, I had my first moustache. It was sparse, but with thick hairs, like a giant novelty comb you would get at a carnival. My mother thought it was cute, but I thought it was trashy, so I decided to shave it off. Only, I had never shaved before, so I went horizontally across my lip instead of vertically. Not only did I not actually shave any hairs, I managed to slice my lip open pretty severely. Blood poured down my lip and into my mouth, onto the counter and into the sink.

I got the hang of shaving eventually, but decided that it just wasn't worth the hassle. I would grow a full beard if I could, but I wasn't quite blessed with the facial hair growing prowess of some, so I just keep a sort of bandito look, a chin beard and a moustache that aren't connected. I have kept that look for almost a decade at this point, only changing it for one ill fated fortnight where I shaved my moustache and looked very much like Maynard G. Krebs.

Having this hair on my face has spurned a new and unfortunate nervous trait. I seem to be plucking my moustache hairs out one at a time at random moments throughout the day. I'm not sure if it's stress or boredom that has brought on this new habit, but it has produced a weird bald spot the on left side of my lip and left it red and irritated.

I feel like I should just shave it off, just so I won't do it anymore, but I think I would look weird at this point without facial hair, and my wife probably wouldn't like me anymore. Also, I kind of fear that I may just start plucking my hair out, which was a trait I had in eight grade, or rather Ryan Nady had for my head (I would fall asleep during movies in classes and he would pull out my split ends and any stray hairs, which for me was a lot). Either way I need to break this habit, or I will soon probably irritate my lip enough that the old scar from my first shaving attempt will just burst open and blood will pour everywhere again. Or, if nothing else, I will just look like I have some sort of weird lip mange. Either way, it won't be healthy.

I'm Not Much of a Preacher

http://blogs.salon.com/0001772/

My grandfather passed away a couple of weeks ago. He was a life long smoker who refused to give it up even right to the end. Even after they told him it would help his chances of living, he still refused to give them up. We were told that he probably only had a year or two left, but then a couple of weeks later, he just stopped living. They say it might have been a stroke, but no one is really all that sure. I think because of the shape he was in, we were all expecting the phone call at any moment. When I first heard the news, it was upsetting, but not life altering, it wasn't unexpected and we weren't all that close, but it was still a bit of a cold slap to the mouth.

While I sat in the funeral home and listened to the Johnny Cash song my father picked to play, I kept looking around the room. Sad faces, but nothing crushing. I thought about my father and how with each passing year, he looks more and more like his father, and with each passing year and each passing cigarette, he is closer and closer to having the same thing happen to him. The preacher spoke and opened up his salvo with today's GoogleTube, and then proceeded to live up to that with each word he spoke. After, he was done talking though, I immediately thought of myself, which I guess (or at least to ease my mind of being too self absorbed) everyone tends to do at these kind of things.

I promise, I didn't want this to be one of those "I have to deal with my own mortality because of the mortality of others" things, but it really my own mortality was the first thing I thought of. I wondered if I died tomorrow, what would people think about my life. I think at this point, people would talk about how young I was, and how I left a young wife behind and how I had so much more to accomplish. But I'm starting to fear that even if I die at 38 or 48 or 98, people are still going to talk about how I had so much more to accomplish. I have been dogged by the word potential since I was a kid in the talented and gifted program at my elementary school, and now I'm starting to wonder if I will die with all that unfulfilled. I think that's the problem with people having high expectations of you, is that they expect you to do things, and even when you don't do the things they expect, they still just keep expecting. Almost makes you want to take up smoking.

Stephen A Smith Heckled at the 2007 NBA Draft

Today is the NBA Draft, so you know what this means!!!!!!

Who Would Have Thought the Teenagers In the Sesame Street Shirts Would Be So Angry

http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2007/04/26/emo-wasnt-he-on-sesame-street/

Emo kids are funny, but this lady is funnier. She has a frank and open discussion on the effects of being emo, but opens it with a joke about Elmo. Its like ha ha, two kids are dead, but aren't I clever. I appreciate her talk of teenage suicide, which is and always will be a problem, but I have found that the kids who write sad things on their facebook page and dress like Robert Smith, probably aren't the ones to worry about. She kind of understands this, and undresses the idea of Emo a little bit, but at the same time I think she misses out on a pretty key thing.

Here is what I know about being emo, it means they want people to look at them because they are sad. They want the attention of other people, because look how messed up I am. And sure, sometimes they take that attention thing too far sometimes, but I think the ones to worry about are the ones who sit in the back of the class and never say anything, then sprint out of the room, hoping none of the football team catches up to them.

When I was in high school, I was one of those kids. I didn't want anyone to look at me. I wanted to go into my bedroom and shut off the lights and fall asleep. I wanted to pass through the halls of my high school with as little notice as possible. I wanted to be left the fuck alone. So that sure as hell didn't mean posting emoticons on myspace or dressing in all black and putting on eye makeup. I wanted the least amount of attention drawn to me as possible.

This isn't where I wanted to go with this I guess. I wanted to talk about this band I saw last night. They all had floppy hair and they all wore different Sesame Street characters on their shirts. When the music started, they sounded like any other high school garage band, not Earth shattering, but not offensive. But when the "singer" opened his mouth, he let out just a guttural, 115-lbs throaty death growl, for pretty much their whole set. I wanted to talk about how awesome they were in a spectacularly awful sense. I wanted to talk about how we made jokes about how his song was brought to you by the letter "BWWWWWAAAHHHHHHH" and the number "GRRARRGHG". I wanted to talk about eating fish and chips and listening to my sister bitch, but this lady's blog kind of got my mind started on something.

I'm Not Sure, But I Still Think Tiger Woods is Pretty Good

http://www.pgatour.com/2007/tournaments/r028/09/08/woods.transcript/?eref=sitesearch

I have a friend named Balls. He is about the nicest person you'll ever meet. He's generous, warm, funny and an all around good dude. However, there is a rule we all share: "Don't Argue Sports With Balls". It's not that he's dumb or that he doesn't know what he's talking about a lot. It's just that when he gets an idea in his head, no line of rational thought can dissuade that idea, no matter how ridiculous his thought may be. Also, a lot of the time he's dumb and doesn't know what he's talking about.

As a group, we are all guilty of breaking this rule, because sometimes he adopts positions on topics that are just too silly to let slide. The only time I've broken the rule was when he told me that Tim Tebow sucked and Colt Brennan is a better pro prospect and a better quarterback than him. Needless to say, that is not a very astute observation, since Brennan has a noodle arm and Tim Tebow might be Jesus.

On Saturday, I fell for it again. We were watching Tiger Woods's ridiculous third round of the US Open and noting how impressive he was since he was doing it on basically a knee held together by kelp and bubble gum. Balls, however disagreed and said Tiger wasn't that impressive at all. I immediately got up and went to the bathroom. When I came back, no one had broken the rule, but Balls was giving a dissertation to no one in particular on why it was unimpressive that Tiger was good, but very impressive that a similar athlete in another sport, Michael Jordan, could be at the top of his game. I broke the rule.

"Why would you say that Tiger isn't impressive?" I asked.

"Because he came from money and Jordan came from nothing," he said.

He was arguing that even though they had Dad's who pushed them into sports at a young age and nertured and coached and trained their kids since they were toddlers, he said that since Earl Woods had money and Jeffery Jordan didn't, Mike was more impressive.

I was immediately taken aback. For the last thirty years, there have been overly pushy dads that famously shoved their sons into sports, and maybe 1% have succeeded and of that 1% only three have made claims to being the very best of all time in their sport: Jordan, Tiger and Wayne Gretzky. Of those three, two came from a well off upbringing.

I asked Balls why he would discredit Tiger's ability just because he came from money, his response was that anyone with his upbringing could do just as well as he could.

I dismissed his claim as quickly as anyone could dismiss anything. I think that true talent cannot be contained, and if Tiger grew up hitting an acorn with a mop he would be, at the very least, a professional golfer who wins a lot. But his claim did make me think, is it really more impressive when people come up from nothing to make something of themselves? Shouldn't their current actions be taken equally regardless of where they came from? I dunno, while it's impressive that someone could be super poor and then make something from themselves, I don't think it's fair to discredit someone just because they weren't impoverished. And I grew up awfully darn poor.

I guess maybe it's just time for me to pull myself up from my bootstraps and overcome my upbringing. Although, I guess having world class talent might be an issue for me. I guess if I were to overcome my upbringing, at least I know I would have a fan in Balls if I do make it to the big time.

Rejected Google Tubes Extravaganza

http://blogscript.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

This isn't a real post either. I know, it was one week ago and I said I would write one, and there is one percolating, but I just need some more time. I started writing something else that has taken away some of my creative juices. I don't want to write a post that is all, I did this, then this happened, and then OMG this happened. I want to write something meaningful, which I know is high concept for this here internet.

Just to keep you up to speed, here is a quick recap of what you missed since I stopped blogging:

-I had an okay interview that is making me a little nervous in the lack of call-backery.

-I got more involved in some local music stuff.

-I still hate my job and and pretty much everyone associated with it.

-I lost my wedding ring.

-Oh and this happened:




In the meantime, here are some possible google tubes that I could've done, but had nothing substantial to attach them to:

You Shouldn't Shoot Fire At Babies

Son, In This Country, It Doesn't Pay To Be Nice

It's As Clear As The Penis on Angela

Rain Sucks

Nature Hates Us A Lot

That Red Wingged Bird Has Ill Intent

I promise within the next day or two, I will post something worthwhile. Until then, um, read this

Vince Gets Rick Roll'd on Raw

I know I haven't made an actual post in a while, and tomorrow I plan on making a real one, but this is pretty awesome. As both a wrestling and Rick Astley fan, this may be the best thing ever.

Be prepared, in the next day or two, I plan on making a pretty decent post.