I’ve mentioned this before but I am a huge Seinfeld fan. The Simpsons has long been my favorite tv show of all time but Seinfeld is a very very close second. A lot closer than a lot of people would realize. I watch it in reruns most nights, sometimes full episodes, sometimes just bits and pieces during commercial breaks of whatever sporting event that I’m watching. Either way it speaks volumes as to the lack of quality comedies on the air these days that after 14 years off the air, Seinfeld is still better than any of them.

I believes Seinfeld is the greatest tv show of all time. I was talking with a co-worker about it the other day and the best way I can describe it is to say that Seinfeld is kind of like The Beatles of tv. The quality of the work is top notch and pretty much the top of it’s field. And like the Beatles, none of the Seinfeld Four achieved nearly the same success or popularity as the Fab Four did, well if you don’t count the rather unfortunate video of Michael Richards from a few years back. Oh sure, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David has the amazing Curb Your Enthusiasm which is damn near the comedic equal of Seinfeld, but he was not one of the main four actors on the show.

Like the Beatles, Seinfeld was way ahead of it’s time and was like nothing we had ever seen before. There was never a show like it before and not a show up to the same quality since. And like the Beatles, Seinfeld has spawned many imitators but none that can even come close to being as funny or as good. The influence that Seinfeld has had on comedians and comedy is stunning; there are still shows and comedy that borrows from it on a fairly routine and regular basis. It’s influence has gone well beyond typical pop culture, even seeping into sports, politics, and many other walks of life. Terms and phrases like double dip, re-gift, shrinkage, close talker and “NO SOUP FOR YOU!” have transcended into the lexicon of normal everyday speak, even if people don’t know where they came from.

I know there are some people who just don’t like Seinfeld or it is not their type of humor. And that is okay, hell there are some people who don’t like the Beatles. But, in the case of the Beatles and in the case of Seinfeld, you still have to respect and recognize their greatness and influence.

In case you missed it, there was another school shooting today, this time in Maryland. Fortunately, only one person was injured and none killed thanks to the quick actions of a nearby teacher. Of course, this is on the heels of the shooting at the Empire State Building last week. Which was on the heels of another shooting at Texas A&M the previous week. Which was on the heels of another shooting at a temple in Wisconsin. Which was on the heels of the mass shooting in Aurora, CO last month. And I haven’t even mentioned the numerous shootings that happen every day here in our fine country. I’ve asked this before and I will ask it again and again and again and again, but when is enough enough?

Whenever there is a mass shooting the gun nuts always say “now is not the time to talk about gun control.” But for them, it is never the time to talk about gun control, only a time to talk about how we need more people to have more guns. Yes, their solution to the problem is MORE GUNS. They believe that more people carrying guns would prevent this sort of thing from happening. Yeah, you know, because when somebody pulls out a gun of any kind and starts shooting, the one thing that will make everything better is to have 10 people all pull out guns at the same time and have bullets randomly being sprayed all over the place so that not only do innocent bystanders need to dodge the bullets from the gunman, they also need to dodge bullets from people taking the law into their own hands.

The Republicans always claim to be about family. All about family and children. Protect the fetus from abortion unless of course it is legitimate rape in which of course, pregnancy is impossible. Protect the children from the gays. Protect the children from learning safe sex. Protect the children from drugs. Protect the children from sex in movies or offensive lyrics from music. Protect the children from everything. Except guns. No with guns the best way to protect the children is to put more guns on the street. And not just more guns, but more powerful guns with more ammunition. Makes sense to me. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard tons of music that has killed kids just from listening to it. Oh, and how about all the deaths that resulted from the gay pride parades back in June. How can they continue to call themselves pro life when they place more importance on guns than people? Their standard talking points when a shooting happens is “well our prayers go out to the victims of this tragedy but gun control is not the answer.” Well why the fuck not? Why are our second amendment rights more important than the thousands of lives lost or changed to gun violence every year?

When are we going to get serious about this? Oh that’s right, never. Look, I sincerely agree, everybody should have the right to defend themselves. Nobody is saying we should outlaw guns, not even President Obama, in spite of what Megadeth’s lead singer Dave Mustaine says. More on him later though. All we are saying is that maybe there needs to be some restraint in allowing people to own as many guns as they want. Maybe they shouldn’t be able to buy rounds of ammo by the thousands. Maybe people should’t have the right to own machine guns and AK47s. And maybe people need to go through a thorough background check before they are able to buy a firearm. Perhaps somebody who has spent years in therapy and on mental drugs who said he wants to kill people someday should’t be able to have access to guns. But no. Our rights remain the priority.

As for Obama he is nowhere on this issue, in spite of what the Republicans and gun nuts might say. Little known fact, since he took office, gun rights have EXPANDED under Obama. Yes that’s right, we have more gun rights thanks to Obama signing into law an amendment to a bill that allows people to carry guns in national parks. Yet, people like Mustaine go around spewing bullshit like what he said earlier this month in Singapore accusing the president of staging all of the recent shootings like the one in Aurora so that he can take away our guns. If that isn’t the biggest load of shit than I don’t know what is. I will say this much though, perhaps the president should grow a set of balls and start putting gun control as a priority instead of pussying away from it because it is an election year. Hell, there should be two sides to this debate; right now there is the side of the gun nuts and nothing else but the silence of thousands of dead victims of gun violence.

As you might know from previous posts, I’ve got a couple of things broken in my life right now. We will start with the most important thing, my house. See, back on June 29 a heavy storm passed through the area. And by heavy I don’t mean anything too major………….just 92 mile an hour winds. Well my neighbor’s tree decided that it couldn’t handle “a little wind” and one of its large branches chose to break and relocate itself on my house and lawn. Well this left a gaping nearly two foot hole in my roof along with damage to the fascia and siding torn off from the wind. Since then I have been fighting with the wonderful State Farm (and by wonderful I mean fuck you, State Farm) along with having contractors come out and assess the damage. Finally though, this week there seems to be an end in site. It appears that this is finally the week that the damn thing gets fixed!

The other pressing issue is my car. While driving to work nearly three weeks ago, the transmission on my 2012 Ford Fiesta (with around 10,000 miles on it, mind you) decided that it had had enough of this shit and died. Fortunately it died right in front of the dealer that I bought it from, which was really convenient. In fact, my boss said that the car was unreliable, yet courteous. As you might expect, the thing was fortunately still under warranty, so they would fix it for free but it would take three weeks. They told me they would give me a loaner car so I asked them for a Mustang. They told me they would be able to loan me a 2011 Ford Mustang but it had to be the Ford Focus version. Since then I have been excitedly driving around in a 2011 Mental Mustang. Ohhh, it’s sweet, what with it’s four doors, rather average pickup, and 34 miles to the gallon gas efficiency.

They left me a message the other day. Turns out, they should have the parts in by Tuesday which means that I could potentially get the damn thing back Tuesday or Wednesday. The way I see it though, it is no big rush; hell the longer they have it the less miles that are put on the Fiesta, not like the house, which has me very concerned everytime it rains as the hole is only protected by a tarp. But, at this point I’m feeling a sense of relief that both issues will likely be resolved by the end of the week.

Halloween has always been a very big thing for me. I love Halloween and usually try to go all out with a costume for the party that I go to or host every year.  Usually though, I’m outdone by my brother who always has THE best costumes. Honestly, he blows everybody else away with his costumes. One year he went as a fat lady. Another year he went as head on a platter which was probably his best costume. Another year he went as Satan when hell froze over. All my costumes are child’s play compared to his. Here are some of the costumes I’ve worn: a nurse, a pregnant nun, a marine, George Washington, a fat lady stripper, I went as my friend Keith one year which was my personal favorite, and another costume that is so offensive I can’t even mention it here.

Usually by about April, I know what I want to be. This year though, I was a little late. A couple of days ago I was driving home from work when I heard Smash Mouth’s “All Star” and I started to sing the lyrics I like to sing to that song “hey now you’re a porn star, take your clothes off, get laid“. This is when I had an epiphany of sorts: I decided I wanted to dress like a porn star for Halloween this year. And not just a porn star, but a 1970s porn star.

As usual, I want to try to go all out for this so I’m looking to solicit ideas from anybody and everybody. Of course, first and foremost I’m gonna need a massive fucking cock. I don’t want to just stuff my pants or shorts with a sock; I want something long and thick down there. And being the 1970s, I wanted to be very hairy everywhere. I’m a naturally hairy guy but I want to go even heavier on the hair so would need some good chest hair. And then there is the clothes. Just what exactly would a 1970s porn star wear, I mean besides nothing. I’m thinking some jewelery along with a button down shirt opened up far enough to really show the chest hair. Or, wait, even better yet, a bathrobe with nothing on underneath (well, except for some shorts to hold in the long, thick cock). And of course, sunglasses. And perhaps an afro of some kind.

I did a search on Yahoo! for how to dress as a 1970s porn star and haven’t had much luck with a search. Oh sure, I can watch and old 1970s porn which is great and all but I still need to find a way to come up with some of these accessories. Uh, does anybody have a 10 inch penis I can borrow?

I was reading an article in the Sunday Chicago Tribune about an interesting and amazing guy from Plano, IL named Andrew Kuebrich. He was one of those amazing overachievers in high school who seemed to do everything and was loved by everybody and made quite an impact on people. After graduating college, he landed a job teaching English to three and four year olds in Hong Kong before taking a similar teaching job in Taipei. All the while, he created a list of 150 things he wanted to accomplish before he died.

I’ve always been the type the loves lists and in particular lists that involve people reaching certain goals or accomplishing things. So naturally the article appealed to me. His list includes not only a whole shitload of really cool things like write a book and have it published (#16), shower in a waterfall (#109), unicyle (#111), see something no else has seen (#151), visit Stonehenge (#87) but also a lot of things that will either make a difference in a person’s life like #75, make a huge difference in at least three people’s lives or hand write letters to five old friends (#90) or spend a weekend at an old person’s home (#32) or #142, make somebody cry out of joy,  or make a difference in the world such as number #22 invent a couple of products or #45 be a teacher or make a million dollars just to give it away which was number 13.

His list is nothing short of amazing. And I was excited to see that I had either done some of the things on his list such as watch a Cubs game in the Wrigley Field bleachers (#3), be in New York for New Year’s Eve (122) or win a free IPOD (#95). There were a ton of things on his list that are things I want to do including something I put on my list to do by the end of this decade, which is go to Mardi Gras (#125 on his list). In short, it is a great list of a great and interesting person. But, it was #149 that had the biggest impact on his life. #149 was to take a bike trip around Taiwan. And it was number #149 that cost him his life on January 25, 2012 when he was struck from behind by an SUV and died on the scene.

As gutwrenching and heartbreaking it is to read that last sentence, it is bittersweet to hear that his family, friends, and even some strangers are helping to complete his list which has been posted on the Remembering Andrew Kuebrich Facebook page. I can’t help but get almost teary eyed when I visit the page. And it makes me want to accomplish at least one of the things on his list (not number 115, be a member in a TV audience because I have already done that) such as #61 be in two places at once or #124 drive across America from coast to coast.

Or better yet, in honor of Andrew, start my own list:

1. Go to every major league baseball park.

2. Attend a protest.

3. Win a trip to take my friend J.T. on to make up for him not being able to go to a trip I won to L.A.

4. Complete something on Andrew’s list, like #77, give $100 to a bum.

5. Win an IPAD

I can and will go on with this list, but this is a start. Here is to Andrew, an amazing person who left this world far too soon.

Oh, and if you want to read the article for yourself, here is the link:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-19/news/ct-met-journal-life-list-20120819_1_social-network-facebook-page-list/3

George: “So what exactly is Risk?”

Jerry: “It’s a game of world domination being played by two guys who can barely run their own lives.”

Friday night I played Risk with my two closest friends and my brother. I know most of you reading this either do not like Risk or are not too familiar with it. Let me explain it to you in case you are not familiar with it. The board is essentially a map of the world, circa 1950ish broken down into 42 territories. Each player takes turns placing a piece (or army) on each space until all spaces are filled. You then own that space until somebody else wins it from you by beating you in a roll of the dice. The ultimate goal complete and utter world domination by owning every single territory. That is pretty much the simple way of explaining it. Oh sure, there are lots of little rules and many strategies that you have along the way, but that is just a brief overview of the game. Oh, and the game has been known to take up to and even longer than six hours to play.

Risk has long been one of, if not my favorite board game of all time. I have been playing it since I was probably about 11 or 12 and can be good at it at times. I realized something though the other night: it is a guy game. While the four of us played, two of the wives came home and asked a little bit about the game, even though as one of them admitted “I don’t know why I’m asking. I’m never going to play this game.” So I thought about it. I don’t think I’ve ever played the original game of Risk (there have been countless versions of Risk including but not limited to a computer and video game version) with a female. It’s not that I’ve never tried to play it with a girl, it is just that most of them do not have any interest in playing. I don’t know why it is seems to be split among the genders, but I guess for guys the appeal is the war like aspect of the game.

So the title of the post and the first two sentences, you might have guessed, come from a very funny episode of Seinfeld in which the game Risk has a major story line. Kramer and Newman are playing a game which lasts off and on throughout the episode over the course of a few days. Towards the end of the episode, they are on the subway playing and run afoul of a Ukrainian guy who does not fully understand that they are playing a board game and hilarity ensues. Being that we are all big Seinfeld fans, we utter some of the lines from this episode every time we play. And since playing on Friday, I have those lines stuck in my head.

I really would like to try to find a way to play Risk on a semi regular basis. Maybe I can even have a Riskathon complete with betting money on it and everything. We can even have bounties and goals and whatnot. Oh, now I’m thinking.

Many of you know that back on Friday June 29th, a storm swept through the area putting a hole in my roof, tearing off some siding and breaking the fascia on part of my house. Here we are a mere seven weeks later and it still isn’t fixed. How the fuck is that you ask? Well it turns out like the neighbor who was out of town when part of his tree broke off and went through my roof, State Fucking Farm is not there. Oh sure, they “paid” the claim, if your definition of paying the claim is low balling on the repairs by three grand and then trying to find reasons why more of it should not be paid than yes, they have paid the claim. But I kind of define paying a claim as making the hole in the roof go away. Until that happens, I say they have not paid the damn claim.

Now I want to stress not all of this is State Farm’s fault. I mean it did take them damn near two weeks to get a fucking dickish adjuster out there to assess the damage. But, I have dragged my feet on this a little as has one of the contractors I was looking at, although I have since moved on from him on the account that he simply could not get his shit together in order to get me the fucking quote I needed. So I have another contractor in place who has given a quote that was more than what State Farm is willing to pay.

On Saturday August 3rd, we had another nasty storm pass through the area. Fortunately no more damage was done to the house. But as the rain poured down and the wind gusted to over 70 miles an hour, I grew increasingly livid at the condition of my house. Monday morning rolled around and either the dickish claims adjuster or the contractor was going to incur my wrath. The first person I called was the dickish adjuster who I proceeded to lay into for 10 minutes, yelling and swearing in the lunch room at work. I made a promise to him that he would hear from me EVERY SINGLE DAY until there was no longer a hole in my roof. Well, I have called him every day since then and still, the damn thing is not fixed. I’ve gotten closer to getting it fixed this week but at this point, I still believe I’m still another 2-3 weeks from having it fixed. Gosh, I feel myself getting pissed even as I type this.

And than there is the story of my car which has been awaiting a transmission replacement or repair at the dealer since Tuesday of last week. The dealer says the earliest they will have it fixed is August 28 but in the meantime they have provided me with a loaner car. I’m not too concerned about this whole situation because it is all covered under the warranty and my car will have no miles put on it for over three weeks. Honestly, I don’t have a lot to complain about with this situation except that the loaner car gets about 33 miles to the gallon as opposed to my car which gets 40 miles. Oh, and I don’t have the Ford Sync on the loaner car but that is not the end of the world.

So now I’d like to see which one gets fixed first, the roof or the car. I’m betting on the car, which is funny because it is free, yet the thing that is costing me thousands of dollars is taking way longer.

As the rain gently falls today, I can’t help but wonder if it is too little too late. If you are in the United States, than chances are good that your state is in the midst of the nastiest drought we have had in decades. Not just decades……….possibly ever. I can recall some dry summers in the past, most notably when I was a kid in I think 1987 or 88. And maybe one or two in the last decade. But none quite like this. And than you through the heat into the mix and it equals a recipe for disaster.

I don’t think I ever recall a drought having the kind of financial impact this one has had, but than again, I was a kid back in the 80s and didn’t have to worry about paying for things. But now, shit, I’m seeing and hearing all about prices going up on, well, just about everything. One has to wonder how our fragile economy can handle such a steep increase in food and everyday essential products. What’s worse is that there is really no way to fix a drought. I mean it’s not like we can all of a sudden make it rain.

Oh sure, it is raining today but hell we are so drought stricken that I think we would still be screwed even with five straight days of rain. All we can hope for is that we somehow manage to get enough to minimize the damage that has already been done. Otherwise, well honestly, I don’t know otherwise, but I would imagine the longer the drought lasts the longer and the bigger the problem becomes and the domino effect starts; the economy starts to suffer more and so forth. It reminds me a heck of a lot of the old dust bowl in the 1930s that just so happened to coincide with the Great Depression.

So here’s hoping we can make this rain a regular thing.

Thursday I was saddened to hear of the loss of one of my favorite aunts, Irene. A couple of ironic things is that her name was not actually Irene and she was technically never my aunt. Huh? Well let me explain. Her real name was Florence and her middle name was not Irene but for some reason, they called her Irene. I’m not sure why. I think tomorrow I will ask. But in the meantime, let me continue to explain the story. My mom was the youngest of nine, her oldest sibling was born in 192fucking1 if you can believe that (and yes, he is still alive) and my mom was born in 1934. One of her brothers, Fred, married Aunt Irene in 1945. The divorced sometime in the 1960s so technically she was not my aunt by the time I was born in 1975.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t think of her as an aunt. Shit, I knew her better than I knew just about any of my other 11 aunts. I used to always refer to her as Good aunt to distingush her from another aunt I did not like. She hung out with my mom a lot back in the 80s and especially the 90s. They were practically best friends, although since my mom died in 2000 I have not seen her nearly as often or nearly enough. But she was about as great as they came, I always loved talking to her as she was not your typical old person.

One story I found out about her tonight was when her granddaughter (and my second cousin, Tina) got married some 19 years ago. See, Tina married a black man which in my family was wrong and caused much drama. I come from an old school, Italian family who, like many Italian families, were racist. In fact several family members disowned her (although they did eventually all reconcile) and others looked down upon her. Tonight Tina’s husband told me the story of when he first met Aunt Irene. In spite of the fact that much of the family wanted nothing to do with him just because he was black, Aunt Irene didn’t care. She was playing bingo at the time and she said hi to him and treated him just like any other member of the family.

The past few years have been tough on my aunt. Like many older people, a lot of people around her have been dying, including a couple of her friends, several of her siblings, and sadly one of her sons. So she started saying that she was tired of living and was ready to die. Thursday morning she died peacefully at home surrounded by her family. Nobody wants to go, but if there is a way to go, that would be it. She was a wonderful lady. She will be missed.

Yesterday I was driving to work when I heard a loud noise under my car. I thought I ran something over so I quickly looked in the rear view mirror to see if there was anything on the road but saw nothing. A short while later I heard a different, loud grinding noise that certainly was coming from my car. I instantly grew very disheartened. Within a couple of minutes I heard the noise again and became very concerned that maybe my damn tire was about to break off from the damn car. As fortunes would have it though, I was literally driving right up to the dealer which I bought it from at that very moment so I turned into the parking lot and into the service area.

I should back up a little. I bought this car brand new last September 22. It has between 10 and 11 thousand miles on it and is still well under the warranty. Still, I should not be having problems with the car already; shit this is the exact reason why I bought a brand new car because I wanted the piece of mind of owning a car that was reliable.

So back to yesterday morning after I got to the dealer. I explained to them the issue I was having and they told me they could look at it and offered me a ride to work which I gladly accepted. On my lunch I found out that they ran a test on it and found out that there as something wrong with the transmission and they would have to keep it for a couple of days but would pay for a rental. The car rental place was only open until 6 but I don’t get off work until 6:15. I quickly borrowed a friends car on my lunch, ran to the dealer to get some things out of my car and get some paperwork for the rental car and not actually pick it up as I did have to return my friend’s car to work. I was told that I would be getting a car from Enterprise which was a couple of blocks away. So off I went to rent the car but not actually get the car. While there I was told I would be getting a Chevy Impala (which is funny since I drive a Ford) but the lady who worked there had to drive me over to the Firestone which was a couple of miles away in order to get the car. So off we went, so that I could pick up the car, in order for me not to actually get it yet as I had to drive it back to Enterprise, leave it there while I drove my friend’s car back to work. Got all that? Gosh, what a pain in the fucking ass.

As of today they have yet to fix the car but  I expect them to fix it no later than tomorrow. Between that and my house which is STILL not fixed from a storm on July 1 (read The Windy City……….Uh, Village from July 1) I’ve had just about enough of having to deal with shit breaking. Fuck it still only August and this year has sucked. Man, I wish it was last year again. Last year ruled; everything was going my way. Meh………….can’t have every year be awesome.