Beer Me (and this time it's a Bud)

Tonight I'd tried Bud Light Lime for the very first time. (No, I'm not writing a poem). I'm not one for Bud Light. Personally, I'm a Corona man most of the time with a tendancy toward the Guiness. For whatever reason, I got a wild hair up my ass to try Bud Light Lime. it wasn't bad at all.

Actually, for those of you who have been drinking for awhile, you may remember Zima. Do they even sell that anymore? I haven't seen that stuff in a long while. Anyway, Bud Light Lime tastes a lot like Zima to me if my taste bud recollection serves right.

It was probably the best Bud product that I've had in a long while. A few months back, I bought a 12 pack of Budweiser. Since then I've bought numerous 12 packs of other kinds of beer. I still have two of the Budweiser bottles in my fridge. I can't say that I like Bud beers, but if you a reminiscant of Zima, try Bud Light Lime. It a whole hell of a lot like it.

Drunken Rant

The wind is howling outside as I sit on my couch with laptop on lap and beer in hand (I've grown accustomed to typing one handed). It has been a very long time since I got drunk and ranted in a post about whatever happened to be pissing me off at the time. If you read any of my previous blogs, which it does not appear that anyone reads my thoughts (scared of the sheer awesomeness of ideas I presume), I tend to rant about many things. I just haven't done so drunk lately. Unfortunately, I'm not drunk now either, so that seems to be pissing me off at the very moment. Someday soon I'll get drunk and present ideas abundant in idiocy. For now though, I'll just present posts of idiocy sober.

Skin Cancer vs. Our Parents

Yesterday, I was out at a rally that was raising money for cancer research. Three hours in the sunlight, and by the time the rally ended, I was left with a nice little reddish glow to my face. My friend even made the comment to me that, "the ironic thing is I'm gonna get skin cancer from this." Now, I'm a grown man and I know how to take care of my skin, but I think about all the kids running around in the direct sunlight without hats, sunglasses, or probably even SPF protective lotion. It makes me think about the time when I was younger.

It wasn't until recently (last ten years or so) that we started hearing about skin cancer and how we should wear sunscreen if we are going to be out in the sunlight for any extended amount of time. I remember being a kid in the Arizona desert, running around all hours of the day outside, and I don't remember the conversation of sunscreen ever being brought up. Why is that?

Many people claim that we didn't know about skin cancer until recently. Why? Did the sun's radiation suddenly get stronger? Did our skin become weaker? Cancer's always been around. You would think people would have seen and diagnosed skin cancer for centuries. That being said, I don't think that skin cancer is anything new. I just think our parents were just ignorant. The information wasn't in their faces the way it's in ours, and they sure the hell weren't going to spend the time looking the information up (remember, they didn't have the Internet at their fingertips like we do). The thing that really pisses me off is that there are still tons of parents who have their kids running around without protection from the sun. Those parents aren't ignorant. They're morons!

Great Moments in Idiom History

What's the big deal with HDTV?

Am I the last man on earth who refuses to buy an HDTV? I'm one of those people who know that they'll come down in price after a few years, and then I'll switch over. They're already incredibly less expensive today than they were three years ago. I just wonder why getting one is such a big deal.

Sure, they make the picture look more clear, but it's still two dimensional. It's not like you're standing in the middle of the action with three dimensions spinning all around you. Likewise, a lot of the channels aren't even available in HD yet. They look crappier on an HDTV than they do on my old piece of crap traditional set.

Even more nuttier is the fact that you have to pay more for HD programming in most cases. One of my friends has an HDTV and service through a satellite programmer. I have service through the same provider. We both bought a certain sports package, but he had to pay even more for the same games so they could be HD. This all sounds like a huge scam to me.

Let me get all of this straight. First, pay more for the TV. Then you can't get what you paid for, meaning high definition, with all the channels because it is not available on all channels. Finally, pay more for the same programming so some of the channels can live up to what the TV is supposed to do in the first place (show pictures in high definition). Great! It all makes sense now. I'll wait for HD.

Being a Kid Isn't So Bad

In these times of economic constriction, I find myself often turning into the grumpy old man who yells just for the act of yelling. Little things seem to piss me off, and there is only so much drinking I can do before I become an alcoholic and thus create another problem in my life to be pissed about. I recently have found my thoughts wandering back to ages ago when staying up to midnight was a big deal. That is when it dawned on me: why can't I still be a kid? Well, obviously I can't turn back my age, and even if I did, I don't have anyone to take care of me. But I can, however, act like a child, or more so, I can do some of the things that made me happy as a child. Here are ten thoughts turn back the clock.

1. Build a fort - I'm talking about going into a vacant lot and finding a bunch of scrap wood and junk. Then I'll take it to another vacant lot and transform it into a physical manifestation that architects would wince at.

2. Ride a bike - Now I'm not talking about getting a mountain bike or riding a ten speed around the neighborhood. I'm talking about getting a BMX bike and jumping the thing off ramps or small hill ramps. Who cares if I get hurt? I didn't care about it when I was 10. Besides, I actually have better insurance now.

3. Build a water slide down the driveway - Do I need to explain this one?

4. Climb a tree - But not just ascend up it. Once I'm up there, I need to yell at passersby that they are treading on my territory.

5. Randomly start games of tag with the people around me. Once I tag someone though, I yell, "No tag backs!" Watch out for this one at work.

6. Get up early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons - Found this one doesn't work as well as there aren't an abundance of cartoons on Saturday mornings.

7. Walk down the center of a wash - This is more region oriented I think. If you don't have washes, then find similar areas of interest: forests, streams, etc.

8. Coerce a dog to follow you home and then ask your spouse, "Can we keep him? Can we?"

9. Order ten pizzas and then try to outdo your friends in a standoff of who can eat the most.

10. Jump on the bed - Who cares if you fall off and break your head. Screw those little monkeys and their clumsiness.

Live life without the pressures of adulthood constantly weighing down upon you. Be a kid again, if just for a moment!

Great Moments in Idiom History

It Ain't Easy Being Green

Green this and green that! Green seems to be the new buzz word floating off the lips of our nation's former tree huggers (and unfortunately everyone else too). From everything between eco friendly kitchen cleaner to new ways to shade your yard and save energy, we are the decade of green. The only question is: how do we stop the madness?

I was born in the mid 1970's, so I don't have a plethera of memories to draw from for that decade. I do have pretty strong memories of the nation's ways from the 80's on. In the 1980's I remember Yuppies and great spending. People were out to satisfy themselves. Screw the rest of them all. By the 90's, technology rang supreme. Computers and cell phones exploded. The Internet could be found everywhere. By the turn of the millenium, we went back to our wasteful spending ways, yet we seemed to make a lot of poor choices. For example, is it wise to get a home loan that will double in three years based on the idea that you can sell the house and never have to pay the huge mortgage? Not so much. We are ending the decade of dumbass choices.

So how do we make up for that idiocracy? We make everything green. We're going to save the planet from what we and our predecessors have done to it. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for saving the planet. I just don't need the word green slammed in my face when I turn on the TV or read the paper. And if we're going to do this, can we at least get green crap that is somewhat as useful as the old non-green crap I used to use. I tried eco friendly dishwasher detergent. It stuck forming a thick film on my dishes. I tried those swirly lightbulbs, but for whatever reason, they stop working in certain sockets if left on too long. They don't burn out. The corkscrew lightbulbs just don't work in that specific socket anymore. It like the socket and the bulb had a tiffy fit and refuse to work with each other anymore. I always end up putting my old lightbulbs back in.

If we're going to transcend into the "Save the World" decade, can we at least create stuff that saves me the trouble of having to replace the green items with my old stuff again? Save us the bullshit first.

Don't the "Greats" Come in Twos?

As friend of mine and I were talking recently about movies, we came to the utter realization that many of the "great" (and I use that term as loosely as my tongue will allow) movies always seem to have an equally promoted yet drastically insufficient twin of the same plotline. This practice of mirrored movie plots seems to always surface in summer blockbuster movies.

For example, let's look at the earthly death by meteor pairing of Armageddon and Deep Impact. Both movies provide us with a thrilling look into what the world would be like if a big ass meteor was about to plow into it. Although Deep Impact had Morgan Freeman, one of the finest actors ever, I never got into the storyline the way I did when I saw Armageddon. This, quite possibly, is due to the fact that I saw the Bruce Willis asteroid thrill ride first. Now if we could have just put Ben Affleck on that meteor too as it blew up.

Another pairing of cinematic siblings is the explosive eruptive Dante's Peak and Volcano. Now, I've enjoyed 007 in a few of his movies from the day such as Livewire, but I can't say that I've ever been a Pierce Brosnan fan. Tommy Lee Jones on the other hand. Although he seems to suffer from Robert Deniro disease (a rare syndrome in which the actor can pick Academy Award winning performances and movies one year and a pile of crap the next), I have to admit that Volcano lends itself to the pile of crap category. Come on. A volcano erupts in Los Angeles? Why didn't it burn down the studio where they were making that movie first?

Movie parallelism doesn't just end with high energy action flicks. It dips its hands into the children's animated movie world as well. Remember the first time your kid made you watch Disney's The Wild and you asked yourself, "Did I just watch this movie the other night when it took place in Madagascar?" Why yes, you did! Except for one of the lion's planted his seed in one of the movies while the other one came across as gay (sorry, Ben Stiller but your lion seemed a bit effeminate for King of the Jungle, and I won't make a Queen of the Jungle reference here-uh, besides that one).

This all finally leads me to my point. I need to know what types of movies are being written right now. If I can find out the premise for some future blockbusters, I can get my mediocre screenplay of paralleled plotline written just in time for both movies to go into production. Help me, help you! Ensure yourself the right to unimaginative storylines told and retold over and over again.