I like beer.

I like sports

So what does this have to do with cookies? Well, there was this group of women who would get together on a monthly basis at each other’s houses and everyone would bring a dozen cookies. They would exchange the cookies so everyone went home with a variety of different goods.

The husbands would always go out to the bar or something so their wives could gossip and cackle at one another in peace. (I’m joking, ladies)…anyway, during a drunken stupor, one of the guys mentioned that they should start a beer exchange. The guys laughed about it at first but then realized that they might be onto something.

So they decided to get together for the NFL playoffs. Each guy brought a 12 pack of beer and at the end of the day they divided what was left between them. Each one went home with a variety of different beers. The second year people invited friends and the growth of the annual beer exchange began.

My first invitation was 2 years ago. The way it works is that a friend that has been there before invites you. While you are at the exchange you put your e-mail address on a list. The next year you will receive an official invite and that entitles you to invite a friend.

Last year they rented a hall, had 2 large screen TVs, roasted a pig, deep fried numerous turkeys, deep fried pork tenderloins and barbequed steaks. There were 130 men there eating, drinking, and watching the games.

The reason I have taken the time to explain all of this is because last year I witnessed a miracle at the exchange. You see, everyone brought 12 beers. We all drank from that pile of barley pop and it didn’t seem to get any smaller. My friends and I were the last to leave and when we began to load up our variety packs we realized that there was enough beer for us each to take a case with some to spare. We stepped back, removed our hats and stared at the miraculous pile of beer with tears in our eyes. After a moment of silence, we loaded up as much beer as we could carry and headed home.

So ladies, you can keep your cookies because God has anointed the annual gathering of middle aged athletic has-beens and their bottled grains.

People don't read posts over 120 words long.

My last two posts are evidence of that so, even though they were worth the read, I will now limit my posts to lengths that people with untreated ADD can handle.

Here's today's post for those with a short attention span:

Why do these people keep sending e-mails for Viagra? Is there a drug that will have the opposite effect? I could use some of that.

...And what kind of pill can enlarge a penis? Give. Me. A. Break.
How about a penis reduction pill? That's for me.

Give me something I can use and maybe I'll stop trashing your e-mails.

Thanks!

I like sports. I like to watch and play all kinds of sports. This is interesting because I’m not an extremely competitive person. I don’t even have any favorite teams. Sure there are certain teams that I would like to see win but I’m not going to paint their colors on my body like I belong to some middle aged drunken street gang.

I live in Colorado where I often see “Raider Hater” bumper stickers. Really now, who is it that these people hate? Is it the players? The team owners? Sponsors? Los Angeles?

Not that I think sports are a bad thing; like I said, I like sports. It’s the fans I have a problem with.

I’ve attended sporting events and cheered right along with the fans…people get excited. They yell and scream because they are having fun. The anticipation of winning is exhilarating but when it’s over…it’s over. Let it go. There’s no need to get into a fist fight in the parking lot. There’s no need to scream obscenities about the visiting team. There’s no need to plaster a bumper sticker on your car showing your hate for God-knows-what. If you want a bumper sticker, how about “I ♥ the Broncos” or something? Put your money in the pocket of the team you support. Not that they need it.

Another thing I don’t understand is the memorization of statistics. I mean, I know who the players are, their positions, and whether or not they’re having a good season but I really don’t have the time or desire to study how many times they wipe before pulling their pants up. This information is of no use to me. Sports statistics seem like a waste of brain power…of course, if you have that much brain power to spare I would say go ahead and use it…but from what I’ve seen of these super fanatical sports enthusiasts… well, let’s just say that I think they should take it easy on the memorization of numbers. They might want to use their mental capacity for things like remembering the names of their kids.

Just a note to the guys:
Dude, think about this... you turn on the game and sprawl out in your recliner. Your six pack sits on the floor next to you which, incidentally, is the only six pack in the room if you get my drift. You drink…you watch the game…you doze off…wake up…watch more of the game…drink…repeat.
Life…is…great.
All the while your wife is watching this. She sees you, sitting in the recliner…belly hanging over your boxers…drooling…snoring…drinking…while a bunch of buff guys in tight pants run around on the TV.
Life…is…great.

She wants you, dude.

One thing I’ve noticed is that a sports fan’s passion is overwhelming. I can’t help but imagine what the world would be like if they directed that energy toward something worthwhile, like their families, or the environment, or their communities.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

Further proof that higher education does little more than fill the brain with trivial nonsense that is useful only in specialty situations:

I was one of the few that escaped the clutches of academia with my basic senses intact. However, my theory still holds that, in order to make room for academic knowledge, our brains have to abandon things like our sense of humor, the ability to reason, or the skill set that enables us to differentiate between our rectal cavity and a terrestrial fissure.

No one proves my theory as well as the typical college student. These poor students sit through lectures day in and day out while professors pump theories into them; 40% of which are meat, and the rest…cereal filler to give the parents a false sense of value for their tuition dollar. The students only need to choose which 40% to retain. This shouldn’t be difficult for a 19 year old who, not even a year earlier, knew everything…but that is not the case. It’s a constant struggle to hold onto youth when faced with the daunting task of becoming an intellect.

College students spend four or more years being convinced that they are mental giants and in some respects they are; but at what cost? The trade off is far more than a mere monetary transaction. These kids are trained to abandon their previous thought processes and adopt a new way of thinking. The first thing to go is their sense of humor.

I’m not referring to the ability to laugh…they all hang onto that…I’m talking about the capacity to understand what is actually funny and what constitutes a cry for help. Anyone can laugh at the idiot on the business end of a beer bong, especially when everyone in the room is drunk. That’s not humor…that’s just comical in a pathetic sort of way. That type of “funny” is just a way to vent the stress of the week. These students laugh because they’ve run out of tears. Their minds have become numb little scholastic archives devoid of reasonable emotion.

I say this because I recently had the opportunity to “joke” around with a college sophomore. I had known this kid since he was in high school and we could always make jokes and laugh. But now things were different. He is no longer fun.

I asked him which college he ended up going to and he said the Colorado School Of Mines. So I made a joke;
“School of mimes?” I said “Can you do the ‘this is me in a box’ routine?”

Blank stare… Pause…“Not mimes…mines”

“Ah,” (I acted enlightened) “Prospecting school”

Blank stare…“Um, no” getting irritated with my apparent idiocy, he said, “It’s an engineering school”

“Nice” I replied, “I always wanted to drive a train”

He’d had enough… “What is wrong with you?”

No, kid, what is wrong with YOU? What do they teach in that place? Engineers, apparently, cannot do their jobs if they find humor in any aspect of life. I work with engineers and I find this to be true for the most part. I must add to my theory, however, that the older one becomes, the more they realize the importance of the emotions that were suppressed in their academic youth. Elderly scholars are indeed humorous. So this darkness we call intellect does actually have a light at the end of the tunnel. My goal is to shorten the tunnel so the next generation of “smart people” learns to enjoy life a bit earlier than their predecessors.

To do this, I will continue to joke and to explain that I was just messing around with them until they lighten up. I will also need to resign myself to the fact that the middle aged, self proclaimed “thinkers” are beyond my help and will never understand where I’m coming from. I will just have to endure their ridicule until the years have eroded the shell that begs them to impress the world with their brilliance.

According to the “more learned”, my humor is infantile. But I know that they are only saddened by their feelings of loss. My humor musters the subconscious knowledge that their very personality has been sold to the pursuit of almighty dollar. I’m not prepared to say that money cannot buy happiness, because although true happiness comes from within, money can buy different aspects of contentment. What I am prepared to say is that all these trinkets of gratification will not make you fun loving again.

So go ahead and point your finger at me and tell me how offended you are that I made fun of something that you know more about than I do. Tell me that I’m not qualified to make jokes about something based on my limited knowledge of the subject. Tell me that I’m immature. I’m good with that, because the day will come when you’re sitting in your wheel chair, gumming your Jello, wondering where the years had gone and why you don’t recollect having any fun even though you could afford to. You will spend your last days telling your Great Grandchildren adventurous stories of hostile takeovers and corporate musings that cause them to beg their parents not to expose them to the old man in the weird chair because he is so incredibly boring.

I guess I’m just trying to say that there is nothing wrong with intellect as long as you leave room to live life. You need to do whatever it takes to ensure your future holds more hope than colostomy bag change.

What did you do today that your Grandchildren will want to hear about?

It's quiet. It's midnight. Everyone is in bed. Except for me. So I thought I'd take a couple pictures of the peacefulness.

Dogs like me. I’m fully aware that it’s due to instincts. They just know a good person when they smell one. I really don’t think it has anything to do with my habit of bathing “Au Jus”. So, I’ve deduced that the reason some people don’t like me is not only because they have no instincts for that type of thing but they haven’t given me a chance.

I’ve found that it’s the nice people that like me. I really don’t know why this is because I’m not always a very nice person. Maybe they have a secret desire to be rude to people without guilt and I, somehow, represent that dream to them.

Anyway, back to the dogs…yeah, they like me. I don’t treat them any differently than I treat people, for instance; I don’t let them sniff my butt or hump my leg, and I don’t let people do those things either. Neither do I sniff their butt or hump their leg (dogs or people).

I think we could learn a lot from dogs. They love us unconditionally as long as we treat them well. They don’t care if we’re ugly or what our political views are. They don’t care how we live our life, if we have money, or what we’ve chosen as a career. They are loyal.

A dog can take a dump in the middle of a crowded park and not be embarrassed. That takes a secure personality. I know I could never do that. A dog doesn’t mind if you blame your flatulence on them. They don’t look at you strange if you pick your nose or spit on the sidewalk. They are content that we take care of them even though we make them eat the same nasty food every single day.

There was, however, this one time where I decided to feed the dog and myself at the same time. I opened a can of Alpo and a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. To my surprise, the Alpo looked and smelled better than what I was about to serve myself for dinner. As tempted as I was, I stuck with the stew…but I have to admit; I was seriously thinking about making a switch but my dog deserves the good stuff so I made the sacrifice.

I’m not saying that people should be like dogs, (although the flexibility of a canine is a personal quest of mine) I’m just saying that we could learn a few things from their basic instinctual social behaviors. If people would learn to think more like dogs, more people would actually like me.

Just a thought.

The whole experiment with writing about bloggers didn't pan out very well so it's on to other things.
I thought I was going to play the angle of ironic humor by blogging about bloggers. Apparently it wasn't funny. I'll just stick to making fun of myself, that seems to go over really well.

I've been told that this blog sucks, so why do I keep writing? Because I'm bored. I'm sitting at home, on vacation, sick, and bored. I started a blog because a friend suggested that I would like it but I must say that I had no idea what I was doing. If I were smarter, I would have spent some time reading other blogs to get a feel for what it's really all about. Maybe then, I would have had some sort of theme. Maybe I would have realized that a blog is supposed to cater to it's readers. I never even knew I would have readers other than family.

So, for those of you who spend more than 30 seconds here; thank you. You've taken the awkwardness out of the experience. I had no idea that the blogosphere was so much like an extended family. I'm a sucker for subcultures...two out of three therapists would say I have acceptance issues. Of course, all three of them spend time doing the same thing as me.

Anyway, I need to rethink this whole blog thing. Now that I have people who read what I write I suppose I should be more careful about the things I choose to make light of...like blogging.

I think for my next post I will try my hand at political correctness.
Don't look for it anytime soon, this may take awhile.

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For instance, I can say that I've actually received more hits from Michele Agnew this week than I have from Blog Explosion. I find that extremely interesting, don't you?

If site traffic is what you're after, go befriend Michele.

I’ve been sick. Like you care.
I have a head cold that finally kicked in full force today. So, even though I had planned on writing something humorous, I won’t be able to because nothing is funny to me right now.

It is interesting though, that my blog is becoming benign and it’s only a month old. I think I have bloggers block. Looks like I need to start ripping off some of your ideas again but you have all been pretty benign lately also.

It seems like there’s a bit of a war brewing between the psycho trinity and the Agpro but I have to wait for developments before I can go off on it. I went to both of their blogs where they had posted about one another and I tried to instigate some excitement in the comments section. I played the “he said/she said” game in an attempt to rile their alpha male instincts with hope that I might have something to read and write about tomorrow.

Agpro had mentioned that the shrinks’ review of him, good or bad, would drive traffic to his site and this got me thinking; what is it about us that causes us to desire so much traffic to our blogs? I started this blog not caring whether or not I had visitors, I was writing for me. In fact, I wasn’t even addressing an audience. But then I felt the support of other bloggers and realized how good that support feels. It’s nice to have the approval of those who do the same thing as you. This leads me to wonder how many people started a blog as a form of expression but now that blog is their means to validate themselves.

I’m still not driven to write purely for response but it seems like some people are. Some of them even come right out and admit it. It’s like a popularity contest.

I never did understand the benefits of popularity. Think about it; the more popular you are, the more people expect from you. When we apply this principle to a blog it means that people expect a daily entry from you and just stopping to say that you have pneumonia and might die tomorrow isn’t enough for your readers. They want substance.

Take this post for instance: pure fluff. Even though I feel I have a point to make, I doubt anyone will actually read this far. They’ll probably get through the first couple sentences and think “Wow, John’s slacking today” then jump to the comments and post something that parrots the person before them so they might sound like they know what they’re talking about…

My first tendency is to write a paragraph at the end that has nothing to do with the rest of the post. That way, I can catch those people who read the first and last paragraphs only. They think they can assume what the rest of the post was about by doing this and that this will somehow qualify them to comment.

I just realized that I’ve sold out. I just wrote a post about blogs. I never thought I would do that. So in the spirit of benign babble from yet another lifeless writer in the blogosphere, here is my last paragraph; let’s see how many fish bite:

Speaking of fish, my cat just coughed up a hairball on the carpet. Don’t you just hate when that happens?
Ok, that’s enough about cats and dirty diapers and work and stuff. It’s time for a Nyquil smoothie.

Go ahead, bite.


It isn’t that I care, but I do find it interesting.

I was sitting at a friend's house this afternoon and realized that today is my birthday. It was 3:00 pm which means I went all day not remembering. My family was at home wondering if I was planning on spending the whole day working at someone elses house.

Is this how I'm going to be from now on? I guess I need to make an appointment with SC&A.

I'll be on Christmas vacation for the week so my posting may be sporadic.

I plan to have something at least every other day.

Merry Christmas!

I’m told that my site is supposed to be about music. In fact, I think that Isabella was so disappointed she may never return.
I’ll miss you Isabella.

I use "Muzikdude" as a username on everything, and people at other sites, forums etc, have shortened it to “Muzik”. So "The Sound Of Muzik" just means that I’m making noise again.

I am a musician though…not professional…but pretty decent. So I’m told.
I went to college on a music (vocal) scholarship but lost it due to immaturity.

I love all kinds of music; even the kind that has “big boned” people with horned helmets screaming at one another in foreign languages. But I would say that particular style enters at the bottom of my list. I listen to any kind of rock music now...I'm diverse.

I used to listen to country all the time but my therapist said I should quit. He felt it would lead to bipolar disorder.
Speaking of which; isn’t bipolar just a new flavor of manic depressive? Why did we have to get politically correct about that? Just like ADHD; we went from "hyperactive, to "Active Learner" to ADHD...it's all the same thing. I guess a longer acronym means it’s ok to substitute Ritalin for parenting. What about OCD? Isn’t that a replacement for Lunatic? The euphemism for that one used to be “eccentric” but the acronym would have been “E”. We couldn’t go around blaming our lack of self control on E, now could we? So the quacks of creativity came up with a three letter acronym. The medical field has more acronyms than the military. That’s where the grant money comes from people. When the money gets low, they come up with another acronym to convince their particular foundation that the research is ongoing.

I’m convinced that there’s a secret course for Psych majors that teaches grant writing. They learn to tug hard enough on the heart strings of old rich people to convince them that you need their money more than they do. Then we promise to name a library after them.

I digress. And this, Isabella is why this site is not about music.

Of all these online quizes, I think the biggest crock of cranium is the Mensa test.

I know what you're thinking: "This guy believes he's a genius and Mensa said he was a dolt so now he's going to bad mouth Mensa."

Well you're wrong... as usual.

I took their silly little test and I did quite well. I was really happy with myself. Little did I know that the battery of questions they have you answer is not the real test after all.
You see, after you do well on their trivial garbage and are "accepted" into the ranks of "great thinkers" you recieve an e-mail.

The e-mail is to congratulate you and inform you of steps that are necessary to complete your membership.

First things first...Annual Dues.
What's this? You tell me I'm a genius then you treat me like a moron? No thanks. Sure, I get something for my money...a welcome package consiting of a bumper sticker, and a subscription to their magazine.
The bumper sticker would really satisfy my Narcissistic needs but the magazine is filled with articles written by over-educated, under-experienced, micro-scholars.

Then it dawned on me...this e-mail is the actual test. If I reply to it, they will list me as a buffoon and my application will be thrown into the circular file. If I ignore it, they'll realize that I'm no fool.

So I never responded. I'm sure my membership card is in the mail.

I'm smart.

Where did the stories of flying reindeer come from? Well...apparently, Santa forgot to close the garden gate and the pets got in. You would fly too if you grazed in Santa's mushroom patch. All it takes is for one junkie to mention that "Santa's reindeer were really flyin' man" and the rumor mill blows it up into some fantastic tale of levitation. The reindeer are strung out on hallucinogens, folks, pure and simple. Yeah...Santa's magic alright...

Shall we address the issue of the North Pole? Like he would actually live there. That's the address he gives to keep the DEA off of his trail. You can't grow decent pot at the North Pole... even in a greenhouse. Santa owns a poppy farm in the Dominican Republic.

So, some things about Santa are true...he's in the export business - he has an interest in children - he's interested in naughty people - he breaks into houses - Oh, the list goes on and on.

Maybe we should think about these things as we lie to our children. Santa is real alright...a real creep. Let's not play him up as some sort of hero. Santa has polluted society with his liberal ways long enough it's time to break the cycle.
Stand...united... with me.

Accepting donations for the claus...I mean, CAUSE.

The chipmunks are demonic rodents. Listen to those voices. How did they make it in the music industry?
I'll tell you how...they had a little meeting at the crossroads and sold their soul to Santa...er...I mean, Satan.

And who is this Dave Seville guy? He's a sicko freak, that's who he is. He talks to rats and he books gigs for them. The funny thing is; people don’t question this. They actually let them cut albums. They even purchase their CDs. What is wrong with our species? Is it politically correct to include animals in the work force now?
I can’t believe there are recording studios out there that would turn me down but sign three mice on helium, singing songs that poison the minds of our youth. Dave Seville is the devil and the chipmunks are his demons.

Let’s look at one of their songs shall we?