Category: Humor

The Borax

~ Great Caeser's Ghost ~ 2 Comments
I’m a nearly forty year old full time mathematician.
Facing the start of a mid-life “transition”
I can’t sleep at night, and can’t wake in the morning.
Everything that I do is mind numbingly boring.
I’m bored of my work and bored of my home.
I’m sick of people but hate being alone.
I’m bored of listening and bored of talking.
I’m tired of sitting and running and walking.
I’m bored of sobriety and bored of drinking.
I’m sick of emailing, texting, and syncing.
I’m bored of reviewing the social networks.
Election year’s filled them with whiners and jerks.

I’m bored of following and bored of leading.
I’m tired of the Internet, TV and reading.
I’m bored with the dogs and bored with the kitty.
I can’t stand the country, and I’m through with the city

I can’t write anymore. My mind is a fog.

I’m bored of this. I’m through with this blog.



For Jacob on the Occassion of his 13th Birthday

~ Great Caeser's Ghost ~ 1 Comment
Jacob

As you take your first weary steps into adulthood, I feel the overwhelming need to lay down the ground rules for you. As puberty will continue to dull your mind for the next several years, you may want to print this out, keep it in your wallet and refer to it often. It’s going to be a lengthy list so you may want to look into getting a bigger wallet. Maybe one of the big fold over kind that men used to carry in their coat pocket.

The Rules of Life:

Education

  • School is your job. Right now, and until you graduate from college.
  • Average is not acceptable. This rule applies to everything, not just schoolwork.
  • You are solely responsible for your success or failure in all things. Sometimes this means you’ll have to work harder because you have a bad lab partner, bad teacher or bad boss. Those people aren’t responsible for your success or failure. You are.
  • College is mandatory. In the Game of Life you get to choose college or career. Real life is not a game, so you don’t get to choose. 
  • Make a lifelong commitment to learning. Learning doesn’t end after college, and for some people college doesn’t even end after college. It’s okay to stay in school forever. As long as you can make a living, go for it. Once you’ve left school, keep learning. Travel, read, research and grow.

Relationships

  • Your mother is the most important person in your life. If you don’t have a healthy loving relationship with your mother, you will never have a healthy loving relationship with anyone else, ever. The same is true of other people. Don’t get involved with people who don’t like their mothers.
  • It’s what you like, not what you are like, when it comes to making friends. Don’t get this wrong, strength of character is important, but for making new friends, it’s good to start from common ground.
  • You will be judged by the company you keep. Pick your friends wisely. Avoid people who make bad or dangerous choices.
  • Women aren’t mystical creatures. They’re just like men; manipulative, emotional men with boobs. They’ll try to make you think they can’t be understood, or that you can’t even pick out your own clothes without them. It’s a trick. Don’t fall for it.
  • Sex is not for only after marriage. If you wait, you’ll be sorry. I know you don’t want to hear about this now, but in ten years, you’ll thank me.
  • First marriages are for practice. If at all possible, try to avoid making babies with your first wife. To nullify this rule, wait until after you’re thirty to get married.
  • Be Faithful to your wife. The rules on fidelity are thus- If you’re the married one, it’s cheating. Don’t do that. If she’s the married one, technically you’re not cheating, but you’re also not bulletproof, so advance at your own peril. Also, no good relationship ever started with one of the parties cheating on their spouse.
  • The first girl you love is not the girl you’ll marry. You’ll fall in love in high school and think it’s special that you found your one true love on the first try. You didn’t. Trust me on this.
  • The greatest gift you can give your mother is to love your wife.
  • You’ll never outgrow the family you grew up with. If you believe “a son is a son till he takes him a wife, but a daughter’s a daughter the rest of her life,” you don’t know your mother. She’ll destroy any woman who tries to take you away.
  • The greatest gift you can give your father is to be a good father yourself.

Career

  • You will hate most of your first jobs. You just have to push through those times. You’ll need the cash to do all the relationship stuff above. These experiences also prepare you for later, less crappy jobs
  • Job satisfaction is more important than high pay. If you can score both, you’ve done well.
  • Pick a career that interests you. Find an employer you believe in. Don’t spend your adult years hating your job.
  • Anything worth having is worth working for. Anything worth doing is worth doing right. These are called truisms for a reason.
  • Don’t be afraid to quit. All that hype about not being a quitter is bull. Dedicating time to a losing prospect is much worse than quitting early.

All the other rules (in no particular order)

  • Rinse your dishes immediately after use. This will save you more work later.
  • All IT problems can be solved by turning the device off and turning it back on again.
  • Don’t slam doors or hit things unless you mean it as punctuation to a crappy mood.
  • Always judge people. This is contrary to what everyone else will tell you, but trust your instincts where people are concerned.
  • Don’t exercise in pajamas.
  • If at any point, you find yourself in jail, there is a very real chance you have failed completely up to that point, and your life will require a reboot.
  • Say what you mean, mean what you say, or don’t speak. Words are powerful. Use them wisely.
  • Learn to be self sufficient. There will be periods in your life when you will be completely alone.
  • Be weary of anyone who claims to profess the one true religion. For that matter, never trust anyone who claims to have conversations with an invisible deity.
  • In your late teens you’re going to discover alcohol. Don’t drink to excess or in public until you’re 21, and don’t ever drive drunk. Call me or call a cab. (#TAXI or #8294 from any cell anywhere).
  • Nothing good ever happened between Midnight and 5AM. Always be in bed under the covers during those five hours.
  • The toilet has a bowl, a lid and a seat. Each has a function.
  • Toilet paper should unroll toward you, not toward the wall.
  • Replace the TP roll when it’s used up. An empty cardboard tube on a spool may be of use after the apocalypse, but for now when the roll is empty replace it. (I know I just rattled off three rules about the toilet, but you’ll start every morning there, and you don’t want to start every morning of your life wrong.) 
  • College, marriage, babies. In that order!!!
  • Deadlines are due dates, not start dates. Plan accordingly.
  • Question authority. But first be sure you’re in the right.
  • Wear nice shoes and drive cool cars.
  • Caffeine cures depression.
  • Avoid the victim mentality. Don’t let impersonal things affect you personally.
  • Barney on “How I Met Your Mother” is not a role model. If you have to pick a role model from a TV sitcom, use one of the guys from “Big Bang Theory”.
  • Everyone loves a smart arse, but no one likes a jerk. Know the difference between sarcasm and meanness.
  • Use Social Networking responsibly. Be sure you don’t accidentally share a post with the world that you only wanted your best friends to see. If you want to share your most intimate thoughts with the world, start a blog… like this one, where I share our private conversations with anyone interested in reading them.
  • Avoid hypocrisy. Be who you are.
  • Honesty is always the best first option.
  • Spellcheck – Yes. Auto correct – No.
  • Variety is not always good. It’s okay to pick something you like and stick with it. It’s called consistency.
  • You learn from failure. So don’t be afraid to risk and fail.
  • Be resilient. Don’t get hung up on the losses life will deal you. Dust yourself off and move forward.
  • Confront your fears within reason and where possible. Don’t go out of your way to walk on the wing of a flying airplane or anything like that, but don’t let fear of rejection or fear of failure prevent you from doing things you want to do or having things you want to have.
  • Try to find the humor in every situation. Laughter will save you from the dull monotony of every day living.
And Finally…
  • Break all the rules at least once.

World Series Blog 4: How Minor League Baseball Ruined Major League Baseball

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Field of Dreams

Is this Heaven.? No… It’s Dr. Pepper Ballpark.

I always thought there was no better place to be than the ballpark. Any Major League Ballpark would suffice, but I have a special affinity for the Ballpark in Arlington. I never loved the name, but I love the design. I love the smell and the sound. Cold beer. Hot dogs. Then a few years ago we went to the Dr. Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, TX to watch the Frisco Rough Riders. I immediately fell in love with the smaller venue of the Minor League park.

Minor League ball, when done right, is everything you should love about baseball on a smaller scale. Fewer seats let you be closer to the action. Lower concession prices let you enjoy the full ballpark experience without breaking the bank. Great deals on ticket packages will help you build a relationship with the team in a personal way.
If you’ve never been, and you can get to Frisco in the Spring, you should go. If you’re local to North Dallas, you should really look at getting a ticket package. They’ve got an all you can eat section, the Teddy Express Section, where your ticket price includes unlimited burgers, dogs, brats, chips and sodas. Getting eight or thirteen games with burgers, dogs and sodas really makes it special.

Now that we’ve made a habit of going to the Rough Riders throughout the Spring and Summer, we don’t go to Arlington anymore. I don’t love the Ballpark in Arlington any less, but I love the Dr. Pepper Ballpark so much more.

World Series Blog 3: How Technology Ruined Baseball

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It’s been almost thirty years since MTV started shrinking my attention span with three minute bursts of entertainment. The progression of technology since has made entertainment more readily available and more personal. If we’re measuring from the end of World War II, then it starts as a slow progression, but thanks to Moore’s Law (look it up), technology has advanced at an increasing rate which enables me to get to my point before I lose interest.

Here’s how it went:

C3P0’s loyal sidekick

     

    1945 – Radio – baseball was edge-of-your-seat exciting.
    1955 – TV – 3 Channels. You’d watch a monkey washing a cat. You’d damn sure watch baseball.
    1965 – Still just 3 Channels. Your choices were watch Vietnam or watch baseball. In two years you could add Star Trek to the list.
    1975- 5 TV channels  –  baseball was still slow and no one noticed. We even sometimes listened to games on the radio for the nostalgia, and so we wouldn’t have to see Rollie Fingers’ mustache.
    1985 – Cable TV – more channels. Should we watch baseball or 540 music videos. Tough choice, steroid abuse made baseball a little more appealing, which made the choice easier.

    1995 – Internet – Baseball or porn? Why not both. You may not know this, but the history of the Internet dates back to the 1960’s. Formal Internet Protocols were established in 1982. Chances are, you first experienced it in the mid to late 1990’s. Then checking your email or chatting via AOL were such novelties that they interrupted most of your life.

    2003 – MySpace. Birth of social networking. More distraction.
    2006 – Facebook. Ever growing need to know what your third cousin ate for lunch. Baseball seems kind of boring in contrast
    2007 – iPhone. OMG! Social networking in my pocket. The whole Internet to look at while Jeter fouls twenty consecutive pitches.
    2010 – iPad / Android phones / Android tablets. I’m streaming the exciting parts of the game real time thanks to my nifty MLB app. There’s no need to spend three hours (or four if it’s on FOX, thanks to the three minute commercial breaks) if I can watch it in three minutes. Besides I’m playing Words with Friends, checking email, updating Twitter, and watching a monkey wash a cat on YouTube. Who cares what’s happening on the TV.

    World Series Blog 2: How Steroids Saved Then Ruined Baseball

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    This a short one. It’s the story of how for one shining moment steroids made baseball burn brighter than ever. Then with the help of a Red Sox shareholder and the U.S. Congress, the fire burned out.

    claims this was natural

    In my early adulthood, baseball suddenly became awesome. Thanks to performance enhancing drugs, records were falling almost weekly. Players stopped looking like Babe Ruth and started looking like Mark McGwire. They had biceps the size of a normal man’s thighs.These guys were titans, willing to abuse their bodies for the sake of competition. Their testicles shrank, their tempers flared, and they were hitting home runs out of the park nightly.

    This is when I discovered baseball, and it was incredible. Then George Mitchell, Senator from Maine and shareholder in the Boston Red Sox, set out to prove that there was a doping problem. Shockingly, no Red Sox got outed, but the bastard did out Yankees greats Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. Then the U.S. Congress got involved. Never mind MLB isn’t a department of the Federal Government. It’s not even a Federally regulated industry. Congressmen just wanted to meet the stars of baseball.

    After that, steroids went away. Players went back to being normal sized athletes, and the game got boring again. Doping, no doubt, still goes on. I’m sure A-Rod is using HGH or some such thing. Whatever they’re using, it makes them muscular, but worthless. So here I sit watching the Rangers and the Cardinals in the World Series, dreaming of the cornfield in Iowa that will one day be home to the freaks of the ’90’s.

    World Series Blog 1: How Al Qaeda Ruined Baseball

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    Most years I spend October watching my beloved New York Yankees in the World Series. When they’re not in the Series, I spend the month hating baseball. From the depth of my disappointment, I will now begin a best-in-seven-short-blog-series on the things that have ruined baseball. If it takes seven blog posts to get this out of my system, so be it. If I can kill it four, then all the better for my four loyal readers. 

    This is the story of how Al Qeada ruined baseball.

    

    Other hand genius.

    After the attacks of September 11, the Commissioner suspended games until Sept.16. The Yankees had their first post 9/11 home game on Sept 25. At the seventh inning stretch, instead of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, an Irish Tenor sang “God Bless America”.

    
    Okay, that was patriotic and sentimental. I’m glad we got that out of our systems. But it wasn’t a one-time happening. This became a new tradition for the Yankees. Then the tradition spread to almost all of Major League Baseball. Yankee Stadium even put in place a “no moving” rule during the singing of “God Bless America”. A guy sued them in 2009 because he was forced by security to leave the game because he left his seat. It’s the stretch!!! This is when you’re supposed to get up!
    
    Wait. It get’s worse. Fans and players alike remove their caps and face the flag, hands on hearts. This is not the national anthem! It’s an Irving Berlin show tune. Sometimes it’s not even a person singing. It’s a scratchy old Kate Smith record. No one should have to stand solemnly in place, and face the flag and salute for a scratchy recording of a show tune. We don’t genuflect for “Ya Got Trouble” from The Music Man. We don’t lower our heads in prayer for “Maria” from West Side Story.

    WTF MLB?

    Low T

    ~ Great Caeser's Ghost ~ Leave a comment
    On the way to work I pass a clinic with a huge sign that says “Low T”. This new-age disorder has replaced “Restless Leg Syndrome” as the new made up thing that people think the suffer from. They call it Andropause (this is “male menopause”) or Low T. The “T” is for testosterone. Here’s a complete list of symptoms:
        “Your T is low, Fool.”
      • Fatigue
      • Memory Loss
      • Muscle Loss
      • Weight Gain
      • Low Sex Drive
      • Erectile Dysfunction
      • Depression
      • Irritable Male Syndrome
      • Hot Flashes
      • Night Sweats
      • Hair Loss
      • Sleep Apnea
      • Prostate Problems
      • Osteoporosis

    Oh God! Where do I start? One of the symptoms is “Irritable Male Syndrome“. I cut this definition right off a website called renewman.com, “Getting irritated by things that never used to bother you? Have you lost your temper suddenly or for no apparent reason? Never quite know when you’re going to fly off the handle again?” I’ve been an irritable male since puberty. I thought flying off the handle was a sign of testosterone rage. Are they saying if I take their drugs, I will have more testosterone, but I’ll be mellow? OH THAT MAKES ME SO MAD!

    Fatigue, memory loss, muscle loss, weight gain, hair loss. Find me one man over forty who doesn’t suffer from four of those five things and I’ll buy him a wig. Hair loss? Really? They are claiming that hereditary male pattern baldness is actually a symptom of this disease. Whah?
     
    Low sex drive, erectile dysfunction, and depression. If you spend enough years being emasculated by women, subjugated by the boss, treated like an idiot by your children, and beat down by life you will exhibit all of these symptoms. Hormones have nothing to do with it. 
     
    Sleep apnea, prostate problems and osteoporosis. These are all serious problems, the cause of which is not low testosterone. They are each actual health problems. Diseases in their own right. If you suffer from one of these, go to an actual doctor and get help.
     
    Wait a minute. Is this all some B.S. reason to legally get steroid injections? Why didn’t you they so? Every man wants to be a pumped up action hero. They’re going about this all wrong. The ad shouldn’t say “Remember when you had the energy to [do a bunch of wussy stuff like be romantic and go to concerts]” It should feature Mr. T saying, “Wanna get ripped? Wanna bust some heads? Tired of takin’ shit off everybody all the time? Then get your T back, Sucka!”

    Hell yeah! Sign me up.

    Thirty Nine

    ~ Great Caeser's Ghost ~ Leave a comment

    On the occassion of the 18th anniversary of my 21st birthday, I’d like to take a 3.25 minutes to review the stats for my life so far:

    • I’ve been with Lisa and Jacob for 9.12054794505479452054795 years.
      • I can honestly say that 9.081532158016554 years of it has been pretty awesome.
      • We’ve been married for 6.795205479452054794520547945205 years
    • I’ve had the same cat for 17 years.
    • I’ve been legally elligible to drink for 6,570 nights. I don’t remember how many of those nights I actually drank, but I can say I puked probably less than 20 times.
      • This is only since I turned 21. Underage drinking gets expunged from your record.
      • It can be assumed that I’ve consumed 462.6 gallons of booze. (This stat is based on normal American per capita consumption, That’s 2.14 gallons per month. Jesus, America, slow down. It’s not a race. Is this why Rick Perry is so popular? You bunch of drunks!)
    • I’ve owned 11 cars
      • 3 were bought new
      • 10 were American
      • 1 was German
    • I’ve eaten 14,235 breakfasts, but I’ve only had 1,768 bisuits
    • I’ve lived 9 places (4 apartments and 5 houses) in 4 different cities, all within 60 miles of my place of birth.
    • I’ve voted in 5 Presidential elections. 3 times, my candidate won.
    • I’ve been to 19 states
    • I’ve had 7 jobs, with an average tenure of 3.4 years.
      • I better get back to work now or this stat may be in danger

    Left Behind

    ~ Great Caeser's Ghost ~ 2 Comments

    I am forever fascinated when people don’t embrace new technology. I have friends and family who aren’t on Facebook because they aren’t on the internet and don’t even have a computer. WTF? There are two adults and a child in our house and we have ten internet access points (3 smart phones, 2 tablets, 2 PC’s, 1 Laptop, 1 PS3, and 1 Wii), and I’m about to add an eleventh (a Roku player). The reason, it seems, that so many people aren’t connected to the web isn’t money based, and it’s not because they’re old and don’t understand the technology. It’s because it’s just not a priority to them.

    Newsflash! Technology should be a priority to you. It’s not just about Facebook. We don’t just use technology to stay connected, and to stay informed. This is how we advance our human civilization.

    Google’s Autonomous Car
    Google has developed a fleet of cars that drive themselves. They’ve clocked over 160,000 miles. The precision android driving of this technology will one day eliminate traffic by allowing us to have smaller lanes and leave smaller gaps between moving vehicles. There will never be an auto accident, a speeding ticket or a drunk driver.

    I have an app on my phone (a devise that fits in my pocket and has more computing power than we took to the moon) that allows me to have a spoken conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English. I say something in English, and it speaks it in Spanish. The person speaks to me in Spanish, and the phone speaks it in English. I’ve almost eliminated the need for a wallet because there are apps for store cards and library cards, and coming soon a debit card app. And you want to know something? If I could get this technology off my phone, and implanted in my body, I’d be first in line to do it.

    I can no longer conceive of a world in which I’m not constantly connected. I use the internet on the fly to find directions, movie times, restaurants, to settle arguments over trivia, to read, to watch movies, to listen to music, to work. Today we have all the world’s knowledge at our fingertips. We can’t be many years away from brain implants that give us the internet in our heads. Imagine all that information instantly available as a thought.

    Cybernetic implants and prosthetics are already common place. Some day soon, every part of you will have the potential for an artificial replacement. Immortality can’t be far behind. I’ll tell you now, that as my human parts give out, I will harvest parts from the people who today don’t even have internet access. That will be their punishment for hiding from the forward march of civilization. Their parts will be harvested by the cyborgs. And when those parts give out, I will replace them with robot parts. Then finally, even the last remaining bits of the people who aren’t able to read this will get left behind.

    Suck on that!

    Walmart: Hell’s Vestibule

    ~ Great Caeser's Ghost ~ Leave a comment
    Every Sunday, like Dian Fossey, I spend time in observation of my closest relatives in the animal kingdom. I feel as though I’ve been sent by National Geographic to observe the native population and their social habits. Only instead of watching chimps fashion tools from twigs and share bananas, I see huge women on motorized carts loading up on Ramen Noodles, and double size family packs of Nacho Cheese Doritos. That’s right, I’m talking about the weekly trip to Walmart.

    I struggle to find the right words to express how much I hate going to Walmart. Just thinking about it makes me want to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. There are always so many people, and they’re always right where I need to be. Even in the produce section. I can tell by looking at them that these people don’t eat vegetables, but there they are hogging the space.
    This is a true story. One week Lisa was working on Sunday so I went without her. I went late in the day and during a Cowboys game in hopes of avoiding the crowds. Even though the aisles were less crowded, there was someone standing in front of every item on my list. This is true. I wanted bacon, but there was a couple arguing in front of the bacon. I wanted soup, but there was guy on his cell phone leaning against the soup. I needed toilet paper, but there was a lady standing indecisively in front of the toilet paper I wanted. It felt like a set up for a hidden camera show.

    If we’re going to make this recession work, we need some ground rules for Walmart shopping.

    1. Crowd Control. Each family can only send one delegate to do their shopping. It doesn’t require the whole family, and the entire process will go more smoothly if there are fewer people involved.
    2. Freak Factor. When choosing your family’s shopping delegate, pick the least freaky person.
    3. Dress Code. If your family’s least freaky person is still side-show worthy, here are a few dress code tips:
      • Underwear goes on the inside of your pants.
      • Just because you can tuck your boobs into your pants doesn’t mean you don’t have to wear a shirt.
      • A skirt and heels is never an option for a man.
    4. Courtesy. If your shopping needs fill two carts or if you are an extreme couponer, you’ll need to shop on a weekday while the rest of us are at work.
    5. Self Control. Those motorized carts are for the handicapped. Lazy is not a handicap. If your too fat to walk through Walmart, it may be time to switch to Whole Foods. I’m just sayin’.

    Together we can get through this. We’re going to have to share this world until one of you rednecks pisses me off for the last time. So lets pull together and make the best of a bad situation. Ah, forget it. I’m going to Kroger.