When I was younger I used to like winter. Honestly, I used to legitimately like all four seasons; they all had their positives and negatives. But as I get older, I find myself liking winter less and less each year. A big part of this is the cold. I don’t eat as much meat as I used too; hell I’m practically a vegetarian by comparison. I went from eating meat or poultry nearly every day to eating it maybe once a week. Although I certainly have no clue what I’m talking about, I think that this might be a reason why I get cold so easily and why I have grown to dislike winter.

And then there is the matter of the snow. A couple of years ago we had a massive blizzard here in the Chicagoland area. It was all good for me because I had just bought a brand new snow blower that I was able to use. Unfortunately though, that very day I broke the key off in the snow blower. Although it worked throughout the blizzard, it has not worked since. I did manage to have the key extracted back in November but the damn thing still won’t start. So now I’ve got this nearly brand new $300 snow blower that doesn’t work.

Which brings me to the other aspect of winter that I’ve grown not to like: the snow. Although I’m still relatively young and in good shape, it is not unheard of for somebody my age to have a heart attack while shoveling snow. Also even if I don’t have a heart attack shoveling snow, most people do eventually get a sore back from shoveling. I had some back issues last summer and am concerned that I might have an issue again with my back after shoveling. So I’ve spent most of the winter in fear of a major snowstorm as the last thing I want is to have to shovel snow even though I’ve got a damn near brand new snow blower that I have used once.

We have been very lucky though in that we haven’t had a bad winter. It has not been obnoxiously cold and we have not had a whole heck of a lot of snow. A couple of weeks ago we had a storm that might have dumped oh, about 3-4 inches on us which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot. Today though, we had the biggest storm since the blizzard. Some areas got about 10 inches however we probably got around 6-7 inches. I did spend about 45 minutes shoveling my driveway tonight and though I did not have a heart attack, my back is kinda sore. Either way, I’m pretty much done with winter now; it can go away and not come back until the end of the year or at the very least until after I get the damn snow blower up and running. So if anybody has any ideas on how to get it working please feel free to let me know. And if you have never had the chance to experience shoveling snow, then by all means why don’t you come over and shovel should we get snow again before the month is up.

Every now and then there are certain news stories that I become completely and utterly fascinated with. Since Thursday I have been following the story of the sinkhole that killed a 37 year old Florida man. In case you haven’t heard about the story, the guy was in bed when all of a sudden his entire bedroom was engulfed by a 30 feet wide and 60 feet deep sinkhole and he was literally never seen again. He screamed for help and his brother tried in vain to rescue him but it was of no use. His brother later gave a sad and tear-filled interview discussing how the whole thing went down.

The story is tragic but part of what makes it so fascinating is the fact that it only engulfed the one room; fortunately the rest of the people in the house were okay. I spent the better part of a few days wondering how such a thing happens and then tonight on CNN I watched a report about the whole thing and they actually went inside an actual sinkhole. I was totally blown away by the size and scope of these things. And it appears the water level is almost in a constant state of flux. And what was even more scary is that much of Florida is believed to be over various, random sinkholes. In fact not far from where this sinkhole opened another one has opened between the yards of two houses. Talk about fucking disheartening I mean could you imagine living in one of those houses knowing what happened to that other guy and you wake up and find a sinkhole in your yard?

Of course I had to stop and think if this sort of thing could happen to me. I’d like to think that up here in Illinois the ground is a little more stable but honestly, I haven’t got the first damn clue as to if it is. All I know is that the thought of being buried alive while you sleep has got to be one of the most frightening thoughts one could have as they lay in bed at night. Oh fuck me, why am I so damn neurotic at times?

Outside of my nasty hangover this morning and afternoon, this was one hell of a great fucking weekend. It started on Friday night when as I mentioned before, I would be part of an group from my improv class performing a 15 minute show at Second City. Now I have never performed anywhere so I probably should have been super nervous but I really wasn’t. I was a little nervous but nothing that I couldn’t overcome. Actually I was probably more anxious than anything else; I really just wanted to get to it and have fun.

The show was scheduled for 11 in the pm. I met up with some classmates at a local bar across the street at about 8:30. We hung out there before meeting up with the rest of the class and the teacher at Second City. I had a couple of guys from one of my classes from last term show up along with two of my best friends. As the time got a little bit closer I did get a little more nervous but again, it was not bad and certainly a good nervous. 11 o’clock finally got here and it was showtime. The teacher introduced us as a group and we quickly came out on stage and got started. While I was on stage the entire 15 minutes, I probably performed for a grand total of maybe 90 seconds. I wasn’t hilarious but yet I wasn’t awful either. My goal was not to embarrass myself and I didn’t. Oh and I had a blast and can’t wait to do it again.

After the show we all went out to a couple of bars in the area and hung out. I felt so alive and pumped up; shit I just performed at Second City, how fucking great is that? I got home about 2:30 and was still wired as it took me probably 45 minutes to fall asleep which really sucked because I had to be up by about 7:45 so I could turn around and go right back there by 10 am for my final class of this term. After a great class we went to lunch and hung out for a bit.

After lunch I had to race home and clean. My best friend’s wife is pregnant and I was hosting a poker game at my house in which if you brought diapers you got extra chips. He called it the Poker For Diapers game. I got home about 2:30 (again………only this time in the afternoon) and he got here at 3 and we started cleaning and setting things up. We wound up having about 12 guys for poker. Although I lost I still wound up having a pretty good time and by the time we finished about 2:30 (there’s that time again, I swear I did not plan my weekend around 2:30) I was pretty damn shitfaced although still wasn’t all that tired.

What a great weekend. Where do I go from here?

There was a guy on last night’s Colbert Report who was talking about asteroids and meteors including the one that recently hit Russia. Two things occurred to me; one in all the years I have been blogging here I don’t think I’ve ever blogged about asteroids or meteors and two, holy shit how is it that we have never been hit by a rather significant flying space object of some sorts. Oh sure, the rumor is that is how the dinosaurs got whacked was an asteroid hit the earth and killed them all off. Seems pretty logical and realistic. And if it did happen, how did it not totally destroy the earth and make it virtually unlivable?

And furthermore, how is it that another one hasn’t hit yet and destroyed all or part of human civilization? Look by all means I’m no space or universe expert so I really have no idea how much stuff is up there racing around. And I certainly don’t know the odds of this sort of thing happening. All I know is that the nights when I’ve been middle of of nowhere and looked up at the night sky there are a whole shitload of stars and things out there. It seems pretty damn impossible NOT to get hit by something major at least every 5,000 years or so.

So is it possible that we might be due for something major to it us? And I don’t mean like in the next year but I mean within like the next 1,000 years. I’m sure I might come off as being just a little bit paranoid here but if a tiny meteor could hit Russia than certainly a larger one could hit a bigger part of the world and do far more damage.

Ahhhh fuck it, we are all doomed! DOOMED I TELLS YA!!!!

Nearly eight and a half years ago George W Bush won reelection in large part because of his denouncement of gay marriage. In 2004, a wide majority of the country was against gay marriage. And an overwhelming majority of Republicans were against gay marriage. Bush won by getting the evangelical vote out to rally around gay marriage bans in states across the country. At that time, the false fear of two dudes kissing was worse than the very real potential of spending more time in Iraq. Back then, it seemed like we were light years away from gay marriage getting a majority support among Americans. And we seemed even further away from getting significant support from Republicans.

But that was nine years ago. Flash forward to now. It is said that the wheels of justice turn slowly, yet on the issue of gay marriage the wheels have started to move very quickly. A majority of Americans support gay marriage including the President of the United States who makes a point to mention gays in many of his most prominent speeches. We should not be surprised that Democrats support gay marriage. We should be surprised when Republicans do.

Today 75 prominent Republicans signed a brief supporting gay marriage. I was not surprised to see Jon Huntsman support gay marriage. I was not all that shocked to see that Christine Todd Whitman supported it. I was floored though to see that Meg Whitman is now supporting gay marriage even though when she ran for governor of California she supported Prop 8, the ban on gay marriage. What a stunning turn of opinions by her and some of these other 75 Republicans. I never thought that Republicans would start to support gay marriage so soon.

In theory Republicans should be for gay marriage. If you get back to the roots of what it means to be a Republican, the right for gays to marry should be a core belief. Republicans say they are for less government. They are supposed to be against government intrusion into our lives. They always claim to be against “the nanny state”. Yet when it came to gay marriage, they folded like a cheap tent on those core beliefs. They showed a remarkable lack of balls when it came to dealing with the religious right on this issue. Instead of telling them that while they want their votes, they can not be against gay marriage, they went right along with them in demonizing gays and fighting against gay marriage. Why? To get votes and get elected. It is nice to see that some of them are now finally starting to come out in support of what many of them probably always felt was right: gay marriage.

Of course a lot of this is political too. They got their asses kicked in November in part because they look like they are stuck in a different age. They needed to realize that not only is this not 1950 anymore, but it isn’t even 2004. Americans, especially younger Americans, no longer giver a shit about dudes kissing. America has moved past that, instead preferring to focus on things that actually matter like jobs and the economy. Republicans basically no longer have a choice to be against gay marriage and still remain relevant. Sure, gay marriage is not going to make or break them. But, refusing to change with the times on issues such as gay marriage and immigration and many other issues will make or break them, which is fine for liberals like me. But, we are at a crucial point when it comes to gay rights and achieving equality will be much easier with Republican support.

This past weekend was my annual weekend long party with a group of friends at one of their houses. A good time is always ensured but so is a lack of sleep. Most of these weekends I can count on one hand the total number of hours of sleep I get for the entire weekend. This weekend was a little different……….I managed to get about seven total hours of sleep. Just like every year, I always take the Monday off work so that I can sleep in and recover. Shit, I’ve got a ton of vacation time so using a day is not a big deal.

But back to the lack of sleep. Now I might be talking out of my ass or have no clue as to what I’m talking about, but I’ve long said that proper amounts of sleep goes a long way towards keeping people healthy and fighting off sickness. Case in point, by last night I started to develop a cold, which has manifested into a full blown cold today, which is probably due in part to my lack of sleep over the weekend. It is rare when I’m sick or even have a cold but I have noticed that the times I do get sick or get a cold it is usually after a couple nights of poor sleep.

The general accepted amount of sleep one should get is eight hours a night. I try to get about seven hours a night. You can get by with six to eight which I consistently fall into and therefore am not often tired or sick. I’ve got a friend who never gets enough sleep; often times she tells me how she only slept three or four hours the previous night. And yet, she does get sick often. My brother on the other hand gets about eight hours of sleep and often times goes years without getting sick. While this might not be enough proof to say that I’m right when I stress how important sleep is, I think it is certainly a starting point.

Since last summer I have been taking improv classes at Chicago’s legendary Second City. I’ve got no expectation of anything coming out of this but have always wanted to do it and it seemed fun. The classes are eight week sessions and there are five of them. On Saturday I will finish my third class. What makes this one so special is that this Friday I get to perform a 15 minute show along with my fellow classmates at one of the smaller theatres at Second City.

Some of my friends are making a big deal of this, however I’m not;  I have only invited a handful of people to attend. For starters, it is only 15 minutes long. There is a potential that I might only have one or two lines. Also, at the end of the next eight week class we get to perform for 25 minutes and finally at the end of the last class we get to perform for 40 minutes. And in addition, it’s not like I’ve earned this or auditioned for it, after all anybody can take the classes and do this as well.

Still though I’m pretty excited and pumped up for it. Although I have never performed on stage before, for some reason I’m not really nervous. That isn’t to say that I won’t get out there and nearly piss myself when I see all the people there. We have a rather large class so we are expecting a decent number of people to attend. I have the potential to totally embarrass myself or really shine and be great. I suspect though I will probably be somewhere in between. While I do believe I am funny, I am not great at improv but I’m not awful at it either. At times it can be very hard and other times not so bad. Either way, it should be a very memorable experience.

By now I’m sure all of you have heard that the Pope is retiring to spend more time with his kids. So this means for the second time in the past, I don’t know is it eight years, the Catholic Church will be hiring another pope. I guess they are currently taking applications from now until probably sometime in April at which point the applicants will submit a drug test and then the College of Cardinals will get together and vote. Once they have made  up their minds, one of them will fart and a giant poof of white smoke will arise from the Vatican signaling that a new pope will be poped. Or maybe they will tweet who the new pope will be. I don’t know.

But I’ve thought about it and it’s about time we have the first pope of my kind: the first Atheist pope. That’s right people, I’m running for pope. Although I am an Atheist now, I was raised Catholic, however I did not have the fortune of being diddled by a priest. So I do know a little bit about Catholicism or at least enough to get by. And besides when I become pope, I’m going to be making some changes. Oh sure you might think it’s going to be evolution, gay marriage, and abortion for all and while that will certainly be true, I have bigger plans:

• First thing I’m doing is moving the Vatican to the north side of Chicago within walking distance of Wrigley Field. It’s no secret, I’m a huge Cub fan. And when I would have to hold mass or make major announcements, I will do it at Wrigley Field. Shit, I’m not exactly going to get on the field based on my athletic ability so this is the next best thing. Plus, Wrigley is pretty much right in the middle of boystown and since The Church would now be gay friendly this will help with that transition.
• Priests can marry and fuck whomever consenting adult they want. This is a drastic change from their current policy of only allowing them to sleep with little boys.
• And while we are on the topic of priests, it is no longer a boys club. Anybody can be a priest.
• Remember that nuns group on the east coast that cheesed off the Pope because they were focusing on the poor instead of defeating abortion and gay marriage? Well get used to them because they are now replacing all of the Cardinals and will be the face of Catholicism. And of course, they will continue to do their good work.

See, now isn’t this a church you would want to be a part of?

So today was President’s Day. Are you like me? Do you have a lot of wonderful and fond memories of old President’s Days past? Was your childhood filled with all the normal traditions of your typical President’s Day? Perhaps now you have children of your own and you have started to pass those traditions onto your own kids. Or maybe you are a childless loser and you just celebrate President’s Day by yourself or with that special someone. Either way, do you have those same traditions? Traditions like:

• Going President’s Day caroling. Aww yeah, this might be my favorite. You get dressed up as your favorite president and go door to door singing all your typical presidential songs. Oh, imagine the joyful look on their faces in that all white neighborhood in Alabama when they open the door to see you standing there looking exactly like President Obama.
• Putting up the replica of the White House in your living room and decorating it with pictures of all the gorgeous first ladies like Barbara Bush, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mary Todd Lincoln.
• Having your phone illegally wiretapped and your emails hacked by the Secret Service all in the name of national security. Oh, you might not see how your ordering a little blue pill to make your dick hard is a matter of national security, but hey tis the season!
• Laying in bed while your dad reads you the inaugural addresses of former presidents. Hell, nothing puts a kid to sleep quicker than William Henry Harrison’s 8,000 word inaugural speech. Why, the whole family could be asleep in the two hours it would take to read the damn thing. And with any luck, the family members you don’t like will be dead in 33 days, just like Harrison was after his speech!
• Waking up in the morning to find that the ghost of President Millard Fillmore had broken into the house and left you gifts under the replica White House of presidential artifacts. You know, historic things like the dress with Bill Clinton’s cum stain on it, the over sized bathtub William Howard Taft had installed in the White House, and the pretzel George W Bush choked on!

Oh, I just hope your memories are as good as mine are.

Today is the 50th birthday of Michael Jordan, which if you are a Chicago Bulls fan like myself, is kind of a big deal. I’m not a fan of Michael Jordan the person in the least; he seems like a total asshole and often times behaves like a petulant baby. Shit the guy still refuses to talk to Sports Illustrated all because of a cover from nearly 20 years ago in which they told him to stop playing baseball. Which, oh, by the way, is not only what he eventually did but also was a great decision for him; he came back to basketball and won three more titles after that. And then there was his treatment of teammates and even executives on the Bulls. And for those of you that need more proof that he is a raging asshole just go back and watch his hall of fame speech from a few years ago. Holy shit, what a fuckin prick.

But Michael Jordan the basketball player? Holy shit, what a fucking god! If you were a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s in the Chicagoland area you all but worshipped Michael. I can still recall pretending I was him playing basketball in the backyard, hopelessly flailing around trying to do some of his moves. Bulls games were appointment t.v.; you had to watch in awe so that you could talk about him the next day at school. And that was regular season games. Playoff games and NBA Finals games? Well shit you got together with friends to watch those games.

Chicago had never quite seen anything like him. We were a city with two awful baseball teams that somehow had not won a World Series in a million years. The Cubs had gone the most years of any team in pro sports without winning the championship. And the White Sox? Well they were second to the Cubs. The Bears had a brief run of greatness in the mid 80s but that was it. And the Blackhawks had not won in a long time either. Jordan and  his Bulls won their first title in 1991 and proceeded to win another five after that, with the last one being in 1998. Six titles in eight years. Never been done in Chicago. Probably won’t ever be done again. He added a whole new pride to Chicago. For decades if you left Chicago you would tell people you were from Chicago and they would mention Al Capone. But, after Michael came around that changed things. I remember going to Mexico in 1999 and when I mentioned to a tour guide that we were from Chicago he instantly mentioned Michael Jordan.

There was a time when people said Michael Jordan was the Babe Ruth of basketball. When Jordan retired for the first time in 1993, the Bulls owner said it was the other way around; Babe Ruth was the Michael Jordan of baseball. I don’t know which is true, but all I know is that athletes like Jordan, Ruth, and Mohammad Ali come along once a generation. There are people who compare Lebron James to Jordan, and while James might be better than Jordan someday, I still don’t think he will. The way I would compare it would be Jordan is Ruth and James is Willie Mays; more well rounded and better all around but not the devastatingly dominant player that Jordan was.

I look back now though and really appreciate getting a chance to watch Michael Jordan play all the damn time. How lucky we were to live in a time to watch the greatest perform at his peak.