1 Happy St

One thing that Jill has learned about me since we got married is that I have a wealth of knowledge about things that are completely unnecessary to have any knowledge about whatsoever. Most of the time when I get to show it off, she'll just shake her head and think to herself, "oh my goodness, I'm stuck with you the rest of my life". I think deep down, she just hates it when I'm right, because whenever I am, I celebrate it by jumping up and down, smiling from ear to ear, and reminding her for the next hour or so until she punches me in the face.

One day about a year ago, I was flipping through the preview guide on the television and I saw that the movie "Back to School" was on. Jill was sitting next to me, saw that my eyes lit up, and immediately said "no, we're not watching that." I replied with "wait, let me just guess which part of the movie is showing right now." I was going to base my guess on where in the movie the preview guide said they were. I then said a line from the movie that I figured (hoped) would be coming up soon and turned the channel. Honest to God, within 2 seconds, the line I had just uttered was being spoken in the movie. Jill turned to me and said "oh my goodnness, I'm stuck with you the rest of my life". Needless to say, I was quite proud of myself. And also needless to say, if things like this could go on a resume', I'd have a much better resume'.

Fast-forward to last night: Jill and I were in the car driving around and finishing up some of our Christmas shopping. I told her that I was going to turn on the satellite radio to the 90's station (by the way, if you don't have satellite radio, you should get it just for the 90's station. Granted, they play a lot of late-90's crap like Third Eye Blind and Everclear, but there's also an abundance of Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and other stuff that reminds me of Greg). Before I turned it on, I asked Jill to guess which band would be playing. Of course she wanted no part of that game. She probably realized the odds were 1 in 5000 or so to guess correctly, not to mention the game itself is really stupid. But I didn't care; I was playing. So I threw out Alice in Chains. Even now, I'm not sure why I said that because when they were popular, I never particularly cared for them. They had some songs I liked, but were never one of my favorites. But as soon as I turned on the radio, we heard this: "Heeeeeere, they come to snuff the rooster. Oh yeah. You know he ain't gonna die." Of course my face lit up like I had just won the lotto. Jill looked at me and didn't know what to say. But I think today she's filing for divorce.

Yeahhhhhhh, here come the rooster!

The weather over the weekend was outstanding, which meant all my neighbors were outside doing work around their houses, including Old Guy, who on Saturday managed to start his happy hour at 8:30 in the morning. God Bless him. He called me over to join him for a quick alcoholic celebration of this glorious weather before we started our day. What kind of person would Michael be (and yes, he managed to call me Michael a couple times) to turn down a cup of coffee, er, a can of beer with an old man on a Saturday morning? So of course I accepted his invite.

As we sat there in his front yard, we discussed everything from Mark Buehrle's no-hitter earlier in the week to what the neighborhood looked like when he first moved into his house back in 1957. It was a terrific conversation. But then this happened:

"So how's Gail?" he asked.

"Who?" I replied, already cracking a smile in anticipation of where this conversation was headed.

"Gail," he said again. "How's she doing?"

"Oh, you mean Jill." I said, barely able to contain myself.

"Her name is Jill?" he asked. "I'm sorry, I thought it was Gail. I hope I've never called her that."

"I'm sure you're fine," I said. "She's never mentioned it to me."

Isn't he the best? I'd like the record to show that I have corrected him, so if he gets it wrong next time, it's on him.

- If you really think about it, the letter "X" doesn’t really need to ecksist. I say we find a new place for helicopters to land, give Malcolm a different last name, call it a ‘zylophone’, and get rid of it altogether.

- Come to think of it, what’s with this ‘ph’ sounding like an ‘f’? I understand the rule, but has anyone ever asked why? It makes no phreakin' sense.

- What was the best invention before sliced bread came along?

- Keith Richards is reporting today that the story about him snorting his dad was just a joke. I don’t get it though. It must be more ironic funny than Ha Ha funny.

- Why do we go to all the trouble of washing our vegetables before eating them, but we don’t find it necessary to clean the top of our Coke can before popping it open?

- I think salt should be blue so that I can see how much I’ve added (courtesy of Jill).

- Is it possible to eat at Arby’s and not feel like a big loser?

- Wouldn’t it be funny if a rich White Socks fan bought the Cubs and then traded all their good players to the South Side?

- A clever Cubs fan could then ask the question, isn’t "rich White Socks fan" an ocksymoron?

- A clever White Socks fan could then ask the question, isn’t "good Cubs players" an ocksymoron?

- I’m glad baseball is back.

- I think we’re all better off that the name ‘Ulysses’ never really caught on.

- Why are Opening Day’s in MLB always sold out? The game itself means nothing and it’s always so cold outside.

- I suppose that outsourcing our work to India has it’s Pro’s and Khan’s.

- It’s pretty sad that the previous random made my final cut. I hope that doesn’t mean I have to retire this idea soon.

- Is it really that big a shock that Chinese Food is bad for you? It tastes good, it’s convenient, and it’s prepared in under 30 seconds. Gee, what were the odds?

- Do you think Meijer wants to be Costco when he grows up?

- Everyone loves an upset, but you have to admit, the Final Four looks a lot better when there’s good teams involved.

- Jill and I are going camping this weekend. Her idea of "roughing it" is going to a hotel that uses real keys, and this weekend’s weather forecast calls for lows in the 40’s. This should be fun.

- I may have to call shenanigans on this whole Weight Watchers system. I’m allowed 31 points, but does that mean I can fill up on 31 points worth of candy all day? Something tells me that wouldn’t be healthy either.

- A guy I work with has the sniffles and I just noticed it. My day is ruined.

- Was ‘Never Eat Soggy Wheat’ the best we could come up with?

- Ten or fifteen years ago, did you think Best Buy would eventually dominate the electronics market over Circuit City? That’s a pretty big upset, no?

- These television networks really have to stop putting all their best shows on Thursday night. My Tivo can’t keep up.

- It’s probably a good rule of thumb to never purchase insurance from a guy who asks to be referred to by his nickname.

- Old Guy stopped by yesterday to talk about PermaSeal, and I noticed he went out of his way to not say my name. Even as he was leaving, he said 'I'll talk to you later' rather than his usual 'See you later Mike'. He mentioned that he had PermaSeal come out to work on his basement after they were finished with mine. I just hope they didn't tip him off. I feel horribly about this. I'll keep you all posted.

When did it become popular for celebrities to say that the media took them of context rather than simply apologizing for what they said? Every celebrity that puts his or her foot in their mouth does this now. We hear things like, "I didn't say that I hate gays, I was taken out of context" or "I didn't cheat on my wife, I was taken out of context" or "I didn't shoot that guy, I was taken out of context." Can everyone start doing this, or have celebrities cornered the market? Like if Jill overhears me complaining about her driving, can I later claim that she took me out of context?

Just for the record, Jill is a great driver and she would never hear me complaining. But even if she did, I wouldn’t use the “taken out of context” defense. Instead, I would bust out the “my bad” defense. I think that’s more appropriate.

In mid-December, Jill and I had the fine folks from Perma-Seal come out and inspect our basement because we were getting water down there. It seemed like we would get at least a few puddles after every storm no matter how hard the rain came down. There was no denying we had to get it fixed, especially since we had plans to remodel it.

So a couple months ago, Perma-Seal came out and quoted me $8500 to fix our problem(s). Now I’ll admit I gasped a little bit when the guy said that number, but then he showed me the itemized bill and it made a little more sense. Believe me, our basement needs a lot of work. So anyway, after providing the quote, Perma-Seal called me back the next day and scheduled the work to be done on February 22nd and 23rd.

Fast forward to today: we have not had any water in our basement since they came out for the inspection two months ago. What had been practically a daily occurrence of new standing water has yet to occur again since they originally came out. Why does that always happen? It’s like when you sit through the pain of a toothache for a week or two, then the day before you’re supposed to see the dentist, the pain stops. What the ####?!?! I’ll be honest, I’d feel much better about handing over $8500 if my basement was a small lake right now.

I’ve mentioned before that I will sometimes watch the Bears game with Jill, and for the most part, she rarely takes anything away from the broadcast. I’ve even mentioned times when she has said something smart or insightful (considering she barely cares who wins and would just assume football didn’t exist). Apparently, I don’t give her enough credit because she would never, EVER, say something like my co-worker Alex’s wife said to him while watching the Chargers/Patriots game with him on Sunday.

Alex’s wife: "Does DeGate play for New England or South Dakota?"
Alex: "It’s not South Dakota. It’s San Diego."
Alex’s wife: "Oh. Which team does DeGate play for?"
Alex: "I’m not sure who that is."

After clearing up the South Dakota/San Diego confusion, Alex realized there isn’t a player on either team named DeGate. Apparently, she was looking at two fans holding a "defense" sign. You know the one. One guy holds a "D", then the other guy holds a picture of a fence. Yeah, I know.

My advice to Alex: Either stop watching football games with this poor woman, or stop telling us about it afterwards.

- Who do Kenny G and Barry Manilow make fun of? Is it each other?

- I was just told that my cell phone voice mail says that I’ll be on vacation until December 4th. Oops. Either I haven’t missed a call in a full month, or people wanted to see how long I’d go without fixing it.

- I wonder how different "The Apprentice" would be if Donald Trump was replaced by a union leader. Would anyone ever get fired?

- Better yet, I think they should do a show called "The Communist Apprentice" pitting a team of socialists versus a team of capitalists. The possibilities are endless.

- I think the guy who invented Starbucks cup sizes was compensating for something, if you know what I mean. Small equals tall and medium equals grande? C’Mon!

- I wish I could have proposed to Jill after scoring a game-winning 2-point conversion in a college bowl game as she cheered me on from the sidelines. Unfortunately, I suck at football and she’s not a cheerleader.

- Sometimes I wonder how certain things happen for the first time, like sky diving. I can see where the popularity comes from now that we know it works, but who was the first person that thought to themselves "you know what, I feel like strapping this JanSport to my back and jumping out of a plane"?

- My wedding featured the token creepy guy hitting on the cute younger girl, the token drunken guy fight, and the token cheesy dancing to YMCA. But after all that, I still feel kind of cheated that we didn’t get the token drunk girl who starts jealously crying because her long-time boyfriend still hasn’t asked her to marry him yet. What happened to that girl?

-Whenever a ghost in a movie tries to grab an object, their hand always waves right through it. So why don’t they ever fall through the floor? You’d think movie ghosts would have to hang out in basements (courtesy of Jill).

-I don’t know how to pronounce the rapper Fabolous’s name. Do I pronounce it just like it’s written, or is it just a clever spelling? I’m also not sure if this makes me feel more old or more white.

-I want to hire a driver for my car and ask them to drive really slowly, then I’ll sit in the back seat and wave out the window like I’m in a parade. But I want to do this all the time.

-Weird Al is about to release a new album, 25 years after his debut. I can still recite most of the lyrics to “Eat It”. I’m not sure if this makes me feel more old or more white.

-Every week, the Monday Night Football crew goes to all that trouble of putting a microphone on a key player, but all we ever hear is "Wooo, I'm coming all day Baby, I'm coming all day" or "This is our house Baby, this is our house!" or the immortal "WOO! YEAH! WOO! WOO! YEAH!". So why do the Producers even bother anymore?

-My least favorite part about returning home from a long vacation is that very first time a hundred dollar bill seems like a lot of money again. It usually takes a couple days and it most likely happens at the grocery store.