Remember that cousin that I had staying with me last month? Well, got a call today from her telling me that her dad died last night. This was not a big surprise as he was 86 and had a multitude of things wrong with him. His quality of life had really taken a turn for the worse in the past couple of years. He has gout, dementia, macro degeneration in his eyes, a painful disease in his feet that left him in a wheelchair, Parkinson’s and the need for diapers. He basically couldn’t do anything for himself.  Things got so bad that last month he was given a feeding tube. At that point, you know that the end is probably near. And if its not near, you would hope it would be near because nobody should have to live like that. I was never really close with him, but as far as people in my mom’s family goes, I did like him and was saddened to hear of his passing, unlike last month when his son died.

My uncle was truly one of a kind. He was always a bit…………….nuts to say the least. One story that will always come to mind when I think of him happened about 10 or 11 years ago. He was with my mom (his sister) and their evil to the core sister in the kitchen. Jt and I were in the other room. I don’t quite know how it got started, but soon the three of them were arguing about how old he was. He insisted he was 78. They said he was 77. As was the way with all 3 of them, things got kinda heated. There was yelling until all of a sudden he says “I was born in 1923, you do the math, you figure it out!”

Being elderly, he also was not very………….tech savvy to say the least. For example, he had trouble understanding the concept of an answering machine. He would call, get the machine and then start yelling into the machine as if somebody was there. One time the beep went off and all of a sudden all I heard him say in that old man voice of his was “What the hell is this?” He then struggled to hang up the phone all the while arguing with his son in the background about weather the phone was hung up or not. Mind you, this was years ago when he was still healthy and without dementia, although he has always been confused.

When we were kids every summer my siblings (and sometimes my mom), my cousins and he and his wife would take a day trip to Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. His driving was always…………adventurous to say the least. He was clueless behind the wheel. He was the type who would cut another driver off and then yell at the drive and blame him for being there, even though clearly it was my uncles fault. I remember one year when we were about 14 or 15 Mark brought his friend (I guess he is my friend too) Rusty. We road in the back of his Suburban. These were the old Suburbans that had a cab up front and a separate cargo area in the back of the vehicle. This is where we sat. Rusty was so frightened by the drive up there that when we finally got out he kissed the ground; grateful that we made it out alive.

When it comes to my mom’s family, he was one of the good ones.

As for his daughter, once again she asked if she and her loser ass husband could stay with me. I had to work up the balls, but I did tell them no. I did however put them up in a hotel for the night. That’s right, I would rather have them stay at a hotel then with me. That is how much I dislike and distrust her husband. Yes, he is that bad.

Family. Why can’t we pick them?

Although the story is a few weeks old, I haven’t had a chance……………ok, so maybe I just forgot…………..to post about the Manny Ramirez story. As we all know, he tested positive for steroids. Well, kinda. It was actually a female drug that is used to help somebody cycle off (in other words, transition from using steroids as to help your body become normal again) steroids. I guess technically he could be going through menopause and maybe this drug was helping him with that. But, since he is clearly a dude and since medical science confirms that dudes don’t go through menopause and because he was putting up Nintendo numbers, its fairly obvious he was on ‘roids. Now I don’t know if I posted on this previously, but I have been saying for years that Manny Ramirez was on the juice, just like I said for years that Roger Clemens was juiced. Of course, its one thing to say it now after stories of their usage has come out, hell that makes me look like a jackass. And while I am a jackass, it is not for those reasons as I honestly did say they did steroids. There are a few other players who I have been saying are users as well and in an effort to justify my ramblings and make it look like I do know at least a little bit as to what I’m talking about, I’m going to come right out and say some of the players who I’m convinced have done it or are currently using some sort of performance enhancer. What is my proof, you ask? The numbers my friends, the numbers. The proof is in the numbers. When players are routinely doing things that have never been done before, that is a sign. When they are doing things that are unheard of its a sign. When they are missing games and getting injured sneezing or doing a stupid pointless hop in the outfield, its a sign. When they are twice the size of what they were 10 or 15 years ago or are way bigger than other Hall of Fame players, that is a sign. When they are routinely snapping and fighting and or yelling at umpires, other players, coaches, and beating the shit out of water coolers that is a sign. Now granted, maybe one of the above signs doesn’t mean they are a user, when more than one of the signs are prevalent, then it is a dead giveaway.

People (and by people, I mean my brothers) think I’m nuts for assuming that a player is guilty and I think he dopes after  he does something amazing, but I’ve always been a cynic. I’m a lot of things, but a fool is not one of them. You can fool me once or I can bury my head in the sand for a short time, but after the truth comes out I will be damned if I will be fooled again and my trust is nearly impossible to regain. Yeah, I’m bitch when it comes to that sort of thing.

So without further delay, here are the baseball players I think or am damn near certain have done some sort of performance enhancer at some point in their careers:

• Alfonso Soriano
• Albert Pujols
• Jim Thome
• Curt Schilling
• David Ortiz
• Jonathan Papelbon
• Carlos Zambrano (I’m not convinced yet, but after his tantrum today it makes me think he does it)
• Miguel Cabrera

Those are just to name a few. Now there it is in writing so that it may appear someday that I actually know what I’m talking about.

So President Obama made his Supreme Court pick today. I have to say I’m strongly opposed to this pick. Honestly, just what the fuck was he thinking? What about me? Why didn’t he pick me? Hell, I applied. I even submitted some references as well. Oh, I’m sure the dude he picked is going………….oh, wait, what’s that? I’m being told that he picked some chick. Well, who he picked isn’t important. What’s important is that it wasn’t me. Apparently I don’t have enough experience. According to a little thing called the United States Constitution, there are no qualifications to be a Supreme Court Justice. Oh sure, leave it to an elitist liberal to shit on the Constitution with his elitist demands. All of a sudden, Obama goes against what our founding fathers decided by picking somebody who has a law degree and who has judged before. Damn elitist. Just because I never went to law school or college or high school or most of middle school doesn’t mean I can’t judge.

What does he think I’m not capable of judging people? Does he think I can’t make decisions? Honestly how hard can it be? You listen to two people blather on for 5 minutes and then make a quick, rash decision so that people can get on with their damn day. And if you can’t make a decision you flip a coin, its that simple. I’m quite confident that I can decide in a Supreme manor and make everybody happy.

The job is easy. You get dressed in a robe, give Scalia a much deserved punch square in the face, plow Ruth Ginsberg, blackmail Clarence Thomas for sexual harassment, out John Roberts and call it a day. See, its easy and fun shit, especially punching Scalia.

Great. Now I gotta wait for Alito to get caught trying to ass finger Scalia before there is another opening.

Maybe if I stopped paying my taxes I could get Obama’s attention.

I had a busy yet fun weekend, however I will have to keep this post brief. Saturday I went over to Amy’s parents house for an impromptu bbq and to play some beanbags. The food was great; hell it was steak so you really can’t go wrong there. As for beanbags, I had a good day, routinely winning and kicking Mark’s ass. He did manage to get 13 in a row in the hole, but none of them were against me as I wasn’t playing that game. And when I finally turned around to start watching, he hit the 13th one and then missed the next one, ending the streak.

Yesterday I had  my own bbq here. It was fun and we had a decent amount of people, but nothing too exciting to write about.

Every year my friends and I play baseball on all the summer holidays. So today was no exception, in spite of the rain. Perhaps my team shouldn’t have played. See, Mark and I are always captains and choose teams. I put together a horrible team and I think we lost by something like 30 or 40 runs. Yeah, we always have a lot of scoring in our games. But this was rid-damn-diculous.

I really need to stop picking teams based on looks and instead on talent and ability.

Then again, some of the people were people I had never played with before so I had no idea if they would be good or bad. Turns out they were bad. And not just bad but awful. And it turns out the players Mark picked were good. Still had fun though, just very sore after slipping and falling during the game.

I’ve always been one to listen to the radio ever since I was a kid. I’ve never had a favorite radio station; I have a tendency to bounce around the dial a lot, especially with morning radio. This is because I think morning radio pretty much sucks. I’ve always been convinced that I can put on a better morning show than most stations; I just don’t want to get up early. Still, there has always been something that has bothered me about radio. It tries too hard to be popular. There are too many gimmicks. The best way I can describe radio is to compare it to high school students. Now of course, every town has different radio stations. But, I’ve taken many road trips to every direction in the country to know that outside of the names of the stations, each city pretty much has the same type of stations. Hell even the names are the same in many cases. After all, how many cities have a station named Star, or The Mix, or The River. This is because many of the stations throughout the country are owned by the same rather large companies or corporations. I’m going to give you some examples of what we have here in Chicago. And although you are not familiar with these specific Chicago stations, you have each of these types in a town near you. I’ll include the type of station so you have something to compare it to.

• Q101 101.1(adult alternative)- This stations plays all the newest and hippest music, except kinda with a chip on its shoulder. Its not the most popular station in town and I think this is why it has a chip on its shoulder because it feels it deserves to be the most popular station but they pretend like they don’t care about popularity. The high school equivalent would be an emo/goth kid. Don’t let those goth fuckers fool you; they pretend like they don’t want to be popular but deep down inside, they want to be.
• The Mix 101.9 (adult contemporary)- They play pop music and adult rock. 6 months after every other station in town is playing a certain song, they start playing the same song and try to claim that they are “playing new music”. This is kinda like the kids in high school who think they actually are popular when in reality not many people know who the fuck they are. About a year after the black kids make a new phrase popular (such as the term the bomb) they start using it; little do they know its too late and the rest of the world has already moved onto another phrase.These are usually the theater kids. 
• The Loop 97.9- (hard rock/classic rock)- This is the station that is stuck in the 80s and every few hours will “keep you up on what’s new in rock” by playing a newer band who’s sound is stuck in the 1980s, like Nickelback or Creed. Ok, so maybe their sound is not stuck in the 80s, but for some reason they appeal to people who are stuck in the 80s. No matter what they do, they will never be hip, just like the burnouts in high school.
• XRT 93.1 (progressive rock)- This is the station that plays the finest rock or so they claim. They will often play classic rock like the Rolling Stones, The Who or the Beatles along with newer stuff ranging from REM (not so new) to Ani Difranco (newer but still not all that new) to Green Day (even newer) the Killers (the newest) all the while with an elitist attitude. Ladies and gentleman, meet the preppy snobby kids.
• WGCI 107.5 (r&b and rap)- They are the ones who start the trends and are easily most popular with blacks. White people are generally afraid of these stations until a year later when they finally catch onto the hip new lingo in which they pretend to have heard it on that station. This is kinda like the blacks in high school who the whites are always trying to hang around with in a desperate attempt to be hip.
• The Drive 97.1 (classic rock and nothing else)- This is the station that you secretly like except you wouldn’t want to be caught dead listening to it for fear of it making you look old. Because of this, the station likes to play promos in which they whisper their name. Its kinda like those kids at school who secretly like their teachers but are afraid to admit it because they might be made fun of.
• B96 96.3 and Kiss FM 103.5 (trendy pop and white people r&b)- These are the stations that play the Backstreet Boys, and many other top 40 songs as long as they aren’t too heavy or too hardcore rap. These are the stations the high school kids actually listen to. I guess they would be the equivalent of the popular kids in school. Secretly everybody hates them, yet they are all dying for their approval so that they can become popular too.
• The Lite 93.9 (light rock)- These are pretty much your pussy stations; you know the ones that play Air Supply yet somehow always manage to get good ratings. They are kinda like the kids in school who are quiet and timid, yet always have the best grades.

Now I didn’t even touch on talk radio, country music or the Spanish stations. That could be because I don’t speak Spanish and I HATE country music. And here in Chicago, we seem to have too many country or Spanish stations; which is ironic since they are opposites and the people who listen to them wouldn’t be caught dead listening to the opposite stations. For a town in the midwest, we seem to have an awful lot of both.

As for talk, well, AM radio (where most talk is) is kinda its own breed and doesn’t compare favorably with high school kids.

People have always said that a man’s penis has a mind of its own. Actually, I’m almost convinced that a penis is a being completely separate from its owner and or master. The cock seems to do its own independent thinking regardless of what the man wants it to do. In fact, many times the dick seems to plot and find ways to work against the man. Its only because of the great joy and pleasure that the cock brings us that we allow for it to do its own thing.

We seem to have no control over when it decides to work and when it does not decide to work. When you least want it to be erect, say like at a funeral or doctor’s appointment, there it is, hard as hell and ready for battle. When you want it to work, say after a night of drinking and you bring somebody home for some drunken sex, it decides that is the time for it to go to sleep. In the morning, you wake up with a rock hard erection in spite of the fact that you just had a dream that wasn’t sexual at all; such a a dream about getting your oil changed or eating at a buffet in Vegas. Of course, being the morning you also have to piss like a motherfuckin race horse as well but it is physically impossible to take a leak with an erection. So you have to wait it out; meaning you have to nearly blow a fuckin bladder waiting for the damn thing to go down.

And speaking of juices flowing from the cock, once it finally goes down, it again decides to assert its independence by split streaming your piss all over the fucking toilet and floor. Now you’ve got a mess on your hands and although you sure as hell didn’t do it, you can be damn sure that you are the one who has to clean it up. Once again your cock has gotten you into trouble.

And how about the jizz? You have even less control over the semen squirts than the pissing. At least with the split stream, you have an idea of where its going to go. When you cum, a lot of times if its not in something (you know, like a pussy, an ass, a mouth, a paper towel, watermelon or jar of jelly) and instead out in the open anything is fair game. You have no idea the volume, distance or direction of this extremely messy substance that is about to spew from your manhood. If you aren’t paying attention to where it goes you very well could find a sticky yellow spot on the damn wall of your office for your boss to see. And then there is the post cum penis aftermath…………..the tremors after the earthquake. Just in case its not messy enough, you have the jizz drippings to contend with. If you are naked and stand, it drips everywhere. If you put your underwear on right afterwards, you stain your underwear. If you lay there naked on the bed in a post orgasm coma, the jizz dries up and leaves behind a mess in your junk region. Honestly, its like the penis has it out for the rest of your fucking body.

Even when its flaccid it still never goes where you want it to go. There are always constant adjustments throughout the day. First its hanging to the left, so you need to adjust. Then it goes to the right and that just won’t do. You sit down and the positioning is uncomfortable and you need to move it. Five minutes later its itchy so you need to scratch it but when you do its uncomfortable again and you need to re-readjust. For fuck’s sake, I wish it would make up its mind already. 

If the damn thing wasn’t so much damn fun it would almost be too much to put up with.

I had a brilliant thought today on how I can  become rich. Now I don’t want you stealing this idea for yourself, so please keep it secret. Wait, come to think of it it turns out I can’t trust you. I’m going to have to ask you to take a vow of silence after you read this. No, check that, I need you to cut off your tongue. Wait a minute, you can still write without a tongue. So, why don’t you cut off your hands too. You know what, fuck it, you are just going to have to kill yourself after reading this. That is the only way I know my secret won’t get out.

Ok, since we are all in agreement on your suicide for my own personal gain, now on with the business of me telling you my idea. I’m going to start printing counterfeit money out of my basement. Now you might be thinking “Mike, just how the hell are you going to do this?” Well people, you forget, I’m also the same person who came up with a vaccine for hardcore Christians, even though I never actually made it. I’m also the one who found a way to detach my 6th toe on my left foot………….even though I don’t even have a 6th toe. And I created a way to grade people’s ugliness on a scale ranging from smokin hot to………..well damnit, I forgot, but you can rest assured that there was a bottom to the scale. So clearly I’m a genius at getting shit like this done and changing the world.

So first I have to make a machine. Don’t worry, I’ve got that covered. I’m going to get some sort of uhhhhh…………….super gum along with screws of some kind. Also, there will be a motor involved but only one that is quiet. Next we will need spray paint, I want the machine to look like your average run of the mill couch, that way nobody is none the wiser. Of course we will need paper to make the money on. I  don’t anticipate this being much of a problem. My neighbor has a tree that he said I can use, I just have to make him a couple of $2 bills. Finally, we need water. I’m predicting I will get thirsty down there, as the machine will have a tendency to run hot.

Now you can see that what I’ve got so far is a brilliant blue print of a plan. Oh shit, I almost forgot. Fuck, this changes everything. I don’t even have a damn basement! Well fuck it anyway, the whole damn plan is off!

There has been a lot in the news lately about torture. Actually, check that, there has been a lot in the news about torture for several years now. Seems the incompetent George W Bush and the heartless, cold, soulless, chill you to the bone Dick Chaney tortured prisoners of war while in office. A lot. A real lot. The debate (if you want to call it a debate, frankly I don’t see how this can even be a debate, if you ask me its a pretty damn easy choice) is if torture is acceptable. Any reasonable person with even small doses of compassion and common sense would say that torture is wrong and should never happen. Outside of the obvious reasons that have been stated over and over again, I’d like to offer two additional reasons why torture is wrong. The first reason is one that I came up on my own and have believed for years. The second is one I heard a caller who was in the military, give while calling into the Stephanie Miller show.

First, if a member of our military or even a civilian gets captured, we would not want them to be tortured. I would hope that we would expect that they would not get tortured, yet we know better. If we don’t them to be tortured, then we really should lead by example and not torture. Its the so called Golden Rule: treat others how you want to be treated. By torturing, we give them another reason to torture. Not that it matters, because I still think they will torture anyway, but all of a sudden we lose the right to tell them not to torture our prisoners, even though we are torturing their prisoners.

Second, and this is even way better than the first reason, when we are fighting a war, we would always prefer for the enemy to surrender instead of fighting. That is just common sense. The enemy is less likely to surrender if they know they will be tortured upon surrendering or being caught. They are going to fight even harder to evade capture because they don’t want to be tortured. Hell, you might even say that they would rather die than get captured and be tortured.

In short, torture lets down the military and the troops. In fact, it hurts the troops for all the reasons anybody else has said and for the reasons I have mentioned above. Republicans and conservatives like to claim they are true Americans and the most patriotic people in the country. They claim to be pro military and always support the troops. Yet they are the ones who are most pro torture. Yet, I can’t think of one thing that makes you more anti military and against the troops than torture.

One of the detainees at GITMO was tortured a staggering183 times! The Dick Chaney’s of the world say that torturing gets information. Well, if you don’t have all the information you are going to get after torturing somebody a few times than you aren’t going to get anymore. Furthermore, if you have to torture somebody 183 times than either the torturing isn’t working or you are a sick, cruel, sadistic sonofabitch who probably should be institutionalized away from society for the rest of your life or both. My guess is both.

President Obama recently admitted that the U.S. did indeed torture. He talked about releasing pictures of the torture. He said that we would not prosecute the people who committed the torture. He said that releasing the pictures doesn’t make America safer. He said that he wants to move past this ugly chapter in American history and prosecuting would not allow us to move past it. There are people who believe he is wrong on both counts. There are people who believe he is correct on both issues. Honestly, I see both sides and can agree with each side on each point. But, let this be the one truth: torture is wrong and does not make America safer.

Let’s say you are driving down a road. Its smooth road with not many bumps but maybe a small pothole. All of a sudden, out of nowhere the road turns into heavy bushes followed by a huge tree and two HUGE apples. What the fuck am I talking about you ask?

That my friends is the male body. I fucking swear, genitalia is funny looking. That’s not to say that its not hot or great, its just odd looking. When you think about it, the cock and balls probably should belong to a woman. Ok, so I’ve got friends who’s wives own their balls. But I mean in a literal way. See, if a chick had a dick there would at least be some sort of consistency with it all. Females have the large sexy lips, the bit tits and the curvy ass. These things stick out, so why not have another thing sticking out; dangling from their mid section. Guys don’t have curves. They have flat bodies; that is until they become alcoholics and get the inevitable beer belly. But nobody rights songs about how guys curves are kickin’.  It would make sense that would have internal engines.

The thing is we are all attracted to genitalia. It turns us on. But its so fuckin weird looking. Just look at an uncircumcised cock. The head looks like a fucking mushroom with a little slit on top. Actually, it kinda looks like a weapon in a way. And than there are the balls. I mean, looks wise, how the hell do they fit into the whole mix? And don’t even get me started on pubic hair.

As for the pussy, well I had a friend who once told me that it kinda reminds him of a crumbled up napkin. So that’s just great. The ‘shroom weapon is releasing its ‘shroom juices into a crumbled up napkin. When you put it that way its an absolute wonder that people get laid.

Yet, everybody wants it and many people are obsessed with it. Ahhhh, the mysteries of life.

Normally, I work until 6 in the pm. Last week though, I was very busy at work so I found myself there until 6:30 each night. While I don’t mind it too much, Thursday I wound up regretting it. Had I left on time there is a decent chance I could have seen a certain notorious wife killing machine getting arrested for the murder of his third wife. Everyday I drive past where he got arrested. It would have been kick ass to see the sonofabitch getting dragged off in cuffs.

Still, I need to look at the positive. Because I didn’t actually see him get arrested, I can still be a juror on his trial. Longtime readers know that I have been waiting for him to get arrested so that I could eventually, hopefully serve as a juror on his trial for the murder of his fourth wife. Well, it turns out that a potential witness is that trial is a slight acquaintance of mine. Also, to date they still have not found the body. Lucky for me……..wait, poor choice of words, I mean there is a dead person involved here. As the situation goes, over the years he has developed a nasty habit of murdering his wives. Allegedly. Which is to say that he definitely without a doubt did it.  Oh sure, I know the whole innocent until proven guilty bullshit and honestly if I had the chance to be a juror I would go into the trial with that mentality. But, had I witnessed the arrest, it surly would have disqualified me to be a juror. Now the dream is still alive!