The last year that I was in college (which is to say the year that I was cordially invited to not return), I lived in a house with several friends I would charitably characterize as “derelicts-in-training”: The only things separating their behavior (such as waking up on a lawn) from that of your garden variety bum were enthusiasm and time. And when their time ran out, so would their enthusiasm, I had no doubt of that. It’s one thing to broke, hungover, and foodless when you’re 22, and quite another when you’re 45. Continue reading

So you’re a new parent. Congratulations! Now I know it seems like you’re woefully unprepared, but it’s not that hard. It’s common sense, mostly, so just calm down. There you go… Take a few deep breaths… Much better. Ok, let’s take it from the top: Nutrition. You’ve got your food pyramid, right? Your fruits, your grains, dairy, meat, and whatnot. So let’s start with breakfast: A little milk and cereal, maybe topped with blueberries, some yogurt, some eggs would be nice. Maybe even some low fat sausage. Oh, and orange juice. Sounds like a nutritious breakfast, right? Wrong, asshole. That’s a baby you’ve got there, not a fucking garbage disposal. That fucker wants milk and it’s going to want milk for a long time. Then after that… what? No, not the fucking food pyramid. After being weaned your child will eat two things and two things only: Sugary crap and Mac ‘n Cheese. And you can shove those Brussels Sprouts right up your ass for all he cares.

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I’ve already discussed my daughter’s liberal shit dispensing policies, so I guess it stands to reason that I discuss my three year old son’s stance on the issue. He’s against it. Really against it. In fact, if he had any say in the matter (and he does, to a large extent) he would never shit again. Welcome to the wonderful world of stool refusal, or in short, your shorty won’t shit. Continue reading

My daughter has an extensive track record of trashing furniture. I’m not talking about scratching the finish, spilling water on it, or any of those kind of pussy minor accidents that I would gladly deal with in my house. She fucks furniture up. I mean, makes it fall apart into individual furniture molecules. Case in point, her dresser. She had a dresser with five drawers on the front of it, and she would CRAM clothes in there until the drawers would burst. I’m not kidding, her jeans drawer had a wad of jeans in there so dense that they were on the verge of gravitational collapse. And when I say the drawers would burst, I’m not talking about the cheap particle board bottom most dresser drawers contain these days. The solid wood front of the drawer would fly off like a button on Oprah’s pants. One time I reattached the front of the drawer with 4 inch wood screws. That lasted a week. Continue reading

In the summer of 1987, I had my whole life in front of me. I had just graduated high school and was working a summer job to set aside money for college, which I was starting in the fall at a Big Ten university. I had, for my age, ample access to money, girls, alcohol, and drugs even though at the time I felt I didn’t have quite enough of any of those things. What I did have plenty of was youthful stupidity, which is how I found myself with a bag of drugs in my underwear in a car billowing pot smoke on the Illinois-Wisconsin border while a State Trooper got ready to shoot my best friend. That’s how I used to roll. Continue reading

If you pay attention to my Twitter feed (over there, to the right), you’ll know that I often use it to troll celebrities. Like the infamous Foreigner/Roast Beef imbroglio. Or the time I asked Journey if they shot the man responsible for their mind-bendingly retarded video, Separate Ways. But you’d have to be paying extra close attention to have caught the tweet in which I discussed my plan to ask Joyce DeWitt (Janet from Three’s Company) to sign a photo with the words, “Greg, Thanks for the herpes! Love, Joyce DeWitt!”. (Huh, I guess I mentioned it in the infamous Lindsay Lohan post, too.) Well, today I got a little something in the mail. Continue reading

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while will know that I live in the Phoenix, AZ area renowned for our 350 days of sunshine a year, blistering summertime temperatures, and our annual influx of retirees cruising happily along at 35 miles per hour below the posted speed limit in the left hand lane, all the way to the grocery store where they will take one of the handicapped spots, of which there are seven million, forcing non-handicapped people to walk eight fucking miles to the store, so they can get to the meat section where they will park their cart and stand, staring at ground beef for approximately six hours. Yes, it’s happening again, seniors are inexplicably trying to prevent me from buying beef. Continue reading

I stopped by one of those quickie oil change places for lunch today, one whose name rhymes with “Iffy Lube”. I generally don’t do that, preferring to change my own oil. I do this not because I’m one of those studly kind of guys that can, say, replace a starter. Far from it. I’m not even sure where the starter is or what it looks like, just that, oddly enough, it’s not the part of the car you use when you actually start your car. No, I change my own oil because it’s one of the few things I know how to do with a car besides drive it, change the tire, and get laid in the back of it. So I do it myself because it’ll save me a few bucks and I’m fairly unlikely to rip myself off. I’m talking about changing the oil, not the getting laid part. Continue reading

If you’ve never read the excellent blog, A Beer For The Shower, the name alone is enough to tell you why I like it: Simply put, drinking before noon kicks ass. It puts a smile on your face, a wobble in your walk, and gives you the courage to face the day, to say nothing of the angry neighbors who will demand to know why you drop kicked their Yorkie down the block. Oh fuck, I just read the tag line to the blog, which reads, “After a long hard day, sometimes it’s just nice to step into the shower, sip a beer, and let the water wash away the shame and regret.” So that doesn’t make it sound like it’s about secret morning drinking at all. I am fucking disillusioned. Continue reading

You know how in horror flicks the protagonist will walk into, say, a dark and deserted castle with his vacuous dimwit of a barely dressed blonde girlfriend, and then he’ll pause and say, “It’s quiet in here… Too quiet” and then out come the flying blades of death, reducing everyone to a quivering hunks of meat? Well, you don’t really appreciate that line until you have kids. Kids ALWAYS make noise. Even when they’re sleeping. “I can’t sleep!” “I had an accident!” “I need water!” “Daddy, let me out of the attic!” And when my daughter actually decides to get her annual five minutes of sleep, she snores louder than a fucking leaf blower. So when your spouse turns to you and says, “It’s quiet in here… Too quiet” your child is doing one thing, and one thing only: Fucking your shit up. Continue reading