Drink Rum

Beware, beware... there is a rumor/small chance that I may be getting a foot back into the self-indulgent world of podcasting. Don't get too excited because it isn't a done deal by stretch of the imagination. If it moves forward, you'll see it here first.

The main issue at this time is my complete and total detestation for the term "podcast". Although the more I listen to the horrible radio options available these days (sorry Penn), the more attractive the idea is sounding.

We'll see.

Posted by Monty at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy Friday, ya punks.

It's a happy, toe-tappy, non-nappy fun-filled Friday in the sunny suburbs of the wiley Washington metro area. I've had so many, many things (thank you commandant L'sarde) to write about this week... so many (many) in fact, that my brain jammed and I wrote nothing. The mental constipation has finally cleared. Today mark's the return of the old weekly piece... Friday's Amazing Retard Trophy.

And the winner this week is... drum roll please... actually, in this case skip the drum roll and go with a French horn instead.
The winner is...
Head Frog Jaques Chirac.

Being French almost got Blaque Jaques Chirac the award, but the fact that he is personally financing and pushing technology in France to overtake the IT world demonstrates that he's equally brain dead as he is smelly. So very, very smelly.

Firstly... France. This question is for you. France. Why did you elect a le President that got his hinder beaten by Bugs Bunny? I swear that little guy is an idiot standing up there on his damn dam with a cannon yelling, "hey rah-beet!" only to be blown up by said rabbit who was standing behind him on a bigger damn dam with a bigger cannon.
"Hey Fren-chee!"

And don't counter with the fact that Washington DC elects crackheads for mayors. I'd take a DC crackhead over a French midget with a 5 o'clock shadow at 10 in the morning.

So France wants to beat out Google to be the best search engine ever... yay for them. Great to have ambition. Who is building it? The French government (they're helping between finger wagging sessions), the French IT company (there's one), and a German IT company. Hey France (bon jour!)... if you act surprised when you get this new google (le google) machine delivered to you from Germany and open it up only to find Artie Johnson sitting inside with specticles and spiked helmet claiming how the whole project is "very interesting, but also stupid"... you have no one blame but yourself.

I actually think it'd be funny if the Germans helped the French build a new search system. Convince them to spend all of their resources on it and aim for the top. And the day it's unveiled... invade. There'd be panzers in Paris, but the french fried frogs would get the best search result possible in a POW camp. Good for you.

If there's anyone who is French and is reading this. I would like to actually apologize. I can get a bit spun up some times. I'm very, very sorry you're French.
Vive le us.

****As a side note... Bill O'Reilly isn't going to be the icon graphic forever for the F.A.R.T posts... he's just filling in today.

****Another side note (at the bottom)... Becker is the one who turned me on to this little piece of international debris... the French guy, not O'Reilly.

Posted by Monty at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Odds are though... if someone asked me (ahead of time) to be a a guest and a bartender at their window... I'm sure I would. If I was only invited to save money on a pro bartender... well... piss on that.

Posted by Monty at 7:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Tis the season for lots and lots of weddings. We've already been to two so far and have at least two more on the horizon.

Before I get to far into my rant... I want to thank everyone who has invited Kerie and myself to their weddings as guests. We enjoyed it. Greatly.

I put "guests" in that sentence intentionally (it wasn't put there by the blog fairy... who by the way looks like Jeff Bridges but smells like Lloyd Bridges). I have actually been invited to several weddings to serve as the bartender. And that drives me up the wall.

Firstly... I am good at mixing drinks. Especially at weddings. The crowds tend to want drinks that I've heard of. If I'm at wedding that has a pile bar (meaning the bar if a pile of bottles, ice, cups, and a help yourself sign) I've been known to mix drinks out of boredom. Especially if it's a wedding for a friend of my wife's and I know no one. A few years ago I attended a good friend's wedding and was asked to be the bartender. The rest of the the circle of friends were in the wedding party... oh well. I did it and considered it my wedding gift to the happy couple. At least they asked ahead of time.

I've also been invited to a wedding for no other reason than to bartend... and didn't know that until after I arrived and was wondering why there was no one else attending that I knew or had even heard of. I was they only person from that circle of friends that had skills I guess. I declined to do that job.

I like making drinks. I really do. I don't like being someone's personal bartender. If I'm at my house... and I feel like mixing... chances are, I'll make you a drink without you asking or I'll ask. If I look like I'm just making myself something... chances are... I'm not looking to wait on people. I have a great amount of liquor... and several books on cocktails. All of which are fairly self-serve.

I was at a New Years Eve party a few years ago being hosted by the father of one of Kerie's co-worker's. I knew no one and wasn't interested in meeting new people. My reputation as a bartender had preceded me and the plan (unknown to me at the time) was that I'd be the bartender at the party. I found out and got a bit pissed. But (BUT!) when I saw the bar I'd be tending I was impressed. A huge stock in a great homemade tiki style wet bar. I also talked to the guy whose party it was and who built the bar... he was very cool. I also realized that if I didn't tend bar, he was going to be stuck back there all night making drinks for the 100 or so guests and would be missing his own shindig. So I said I'd do it. Initially he said we'd swap out every hour but after he started having fun I told him to forget it. I slung drinks for 6 hours. I also learned all the new bar drinks the kids were into... like Snot Goblins. Mountain Dew/AMP Energy Drink and Vodka... I made over 100 of those. I was also fun to do speed-tending. I hadn't tending a party that large and that thirsty (everyone went ugly) in years and I was happy to know that I still had it. I ended up meeting people (sorta) cause everyone loves the bartender. It was fun. More fun that standing around. I only hit one person with a bottle and that was because they were standing next to my bottle trash can 10 feet away that I'd put a sign on saying "Do Not Stand Near This Can. Bottles Will Explode In Face".

Anyway... I do like bartending. At my grandfather's funeral people were offering me money to do their parties. In Florida. But I like to do bartending on my own terms. That's the great thing about a hobby vs. a job. Because no one is paying me to do it... I can blow it off and relax.

Posted by Monty at 4:46 PM | Permalink

In the past few weeks, several retired generals of the United States have come out and talked about how bad Donny Rumsfeld has been running the war in Iraq. Hold on to your hats folks... I'm pretty pissed off at all of these turkeys attacking Rummy.

The common beat of their collective drum has been that Rummy is an idiot and he needs to be removed. When asked where was this mentality a few years ago, they respond that they cannot raise a conflicting view because dissentors are booted out of the army or demoted. There are quite a few examples of senior military commanders in the field and in the pentagon who spoke up and their careers were flushed because of it.

So basically... these now verbal generals made a decision that the issues they now consider so vital weren't worth risking their careers over. Good for you generals. Either the problems aren't that big of a deal and you're just bitter or the issues are serious but you were willing to put your men in harm's way to further your career.

Either way, you have no business representing the US armed forces. You are an embarassment.

As a side note, Rummy is a jackass.

Posted by Monty at 9:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

For those who like the running tab on my medical bills for my knee:

Insurance costs (out of pocket): $2,742
Co-pays and what insurance won't cover (out of pocket): $3,420
Total cash the injury has cost me: $6,162
Medical costs covered by my crap ass insurance: $3,969

Before you go, man that sucks... if I didn't have insurance... the entire 4 months of knee hell would have cost me a very reasonable $22,399.

Math whizzes will notice that heathcare costs twice as much if you don't have insurance.

Posted by Monty at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Now that Bush has fired his press secretary... I'm going to have to create a new logo for posts under this topic. The young Mr. McGoo in the picture is none other than Dubs' former press dodger Scott McClellan... although he's more affectionately referred to as Scotty the Human Sausage around the famous Washington metro stops.

I'm sure Pudgy the Whale will find happier times ahead. He was probably the worst press secretary in the history of avoidance. Bring back Ari! And bring an ice cream cake with you. Damn... now I want a Carvel's cake. With Scottbot's face on it.

No wait... he was smart and stepped out right before the Iraq debacle. I'm sure he won't be coming back.

I think they should have a shoe as the new press secretary. It would certainly be no worse than McClueless.

Before you chalk this up to my usual Bush hating... like I do... I've read and/or watched just about everything that came out of the Press Office for 9 years. I'm very qualified to say who sucks at that job. Ari was very good. And smart enough to get out of the job before it took down the public perception of the administration. Big Mac had a tough job and he never got comfortable in his role. I'm surprised he didn't stroke out.

So long Scott. Ya turd.

Posted by Monty at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So after six weeks of post-operative physical therapy, my therapist doctor is sending me back to the orthopedic surgeon. He's concerned that I still have significant pain in the knee and unresolved swelling.

There has been considerable progress... but he's concerned because my knee has not gotten any better over the past few visits and didn't respond to an electro-steroid treatment.

I talked to my doctor at the therapy clinic and the director of the clinic. My doctor wants to see if the surgeon will aspirate my knee... basically stick two very large needles into the center of me knee and under the knee cap a try to get some fluid out. Yay.

The director is concerned that I'm developing a big fancy condition from my bone bruise. I don't remember what it's called... it's three long latin words... but it basically means part of my leg bone is dying.

Great.

Basically, the bone bruise is full of broken blood vessels and parts of the tissue die. There are so many contingencies about what happens if that happens, but none of them are appealing or happy. An MRI will be done to see if the area of the bruise is dead and then a few months after another MRI will determine if the dead tissue is spreading.

The the conversation turned to procedures involving removing the knee cap and drilling the bones and putting the cap back, bone grafts, and other things that made me sick to my stomach.

There's nothing that I can do to prevent the bone deterioration or lessen the impact. It'll happen or not.

Anyway... it's way to early to guess at what else is going wrong in the knee... they're just getting me ready in case there are more issues. These guys are pretty good at diagnosing internal injuries though. The last time they sent my back to the ortho, they correctly guessed that I had a torn meniscus which required surgery. As with last time, they've suspended therapy until I talk to the surgeon.

I think it's probably 100% I'll have to have large needles shoved into my leg in the next couple of weeks. Probably 75% chance I'll have an MRI done on the bruise.

Depending on what's causing the persisting pain... I've either got more long, painful rehab ahead... maybe another arthroscopic procedure to get out scar tissue if that's causing a problem... or the worst case scenario... full reconstructive surgery with a bone graft.

Also, I've been asked a couple of time why I haven't had a cortezone shot in the knee yet. All my therapy relies on my ability to tell a therapist when it hurts. We work right on the edge of pain. With Vicodin, I can get my butt kicked in therapy and then pop pills to make it all go away. With cortezone I'd have a dead knee basically. And while I'd sleep at night and be able to stand for longer periods and generally be happier... I'd likely damage the joint in the process.

I'll be happy when this is all over...

My goal was to get back into paint ball shape this year, but I'm still not green lit to do aerobic activity yet and I've probably put on 15lbs since this all started. Paint ball is probably out this year... so my goal is to be ready for a pirate cruise next summer. That's over a year... plenty of time to recovery from just about anything.

Posted by Monty at 9:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So the new job is sending me on a field trip this summer.

I'm going to Boston for a week in June to see what Microsoft is going to unleash on the world in 2007. I've never been a big Microsoft fan, but I can't argue with a week in Boston on the company dime.

It's kinda funny. I spend nine years doing everything I can do to keep a big fancy web site on line and running smoothly and I got crapped on regularly.

I shift gears to a much smaller scale company that actually believes in people and wants to grow them versus burn through them and now I'm getting free trips... what a difference.

I've never been to Boston before... should be fun.

There is a down side to the new job... I did take a pay cut. I can't just take vacations on a whim anymore. I burned through all my reserve cash and now have to rebuild... but it'll be slower going. Hopefully, the wife will be getting employed now that I can drive and that can help the cash flow.

I'll probably not be taking my annual trip to Las Vegas this year. The family is going to the beach, so I'll go with them this summer, but the rest of the year will be spent saving cash.

If all goes well... next year, my wife and I will be taking a week long pirate vacation.... sailing around the Caribbean on a tall masted sailing ship. Drinking rum and attacking deserted islands... all kinds of fun.

Not cheap... but I'm changing my outlook on life. I'm going to spice up vacations and try new things. So this year, nothing fancy... just save some cash... next year Pirate of the Caribbean.... the year after that... something new... maybe Europe for a couple of weeks.

But the real trade off is instead of killing myself for 50 weeks for 2 weeks of recovery, I'll do 50 weeks of a decent job and 2 weeks of fun.

Posted by Monty at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It is with heavy heart that I bring to you this latest posting. I really hate writing sad posts, but I would be doing myself and the world a disservice if I did talk about this for at least a moment.

Due to the rezone and reconstruction involved with Washington DC's new baseball team... the Nexus Gold Club will be closing its doors... maybe forever. I have attended many a good party at the Nexus, including my own bachelor party. Very, very sad.

It appears unlikely that the owner will be able to find a new location DC to reopen. DC will not allow naked dance bars to be within 600 ft of a residence... and that's tough. The few places the owner found, he's getting resistance from the religious community leaders.

The current property must be vacated by the end of the year to make room for new high-priced condos near the new baseball stadium.

I was very thrilled to see that a member of the board of directors of Fidelity is standing up for the club. His take is that DC should have to find him a new location.

I hate Washington DC. The whole damn place is backwards.

If they start shuttering the strip clubs... I'll have no reason to ever go back into the city again.

Baseball in Washington... who cares? The team stinks and they can't even sell out a home openner.

Losers.

Posted by Monty at 2:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Umm... funny.

Posted by Monty at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wife asked me a pretty good question yesterday... why doesn't INS go to all of these anti-deportation rallies and arrest illegal aliens? Ponderous. My initial thought is that somewhere out there someone has figured out away to say that the constitutionally protected right to assemble applies to foreigners. Probably.

That got me thinking.

I'll start with my initial thoughts on illegal immigration.

I'm passively against it. I was rather. Now I'm actively against it. For the pure and simple fact that the idiots on the marches tied up traffic in the DC area yesterday. Congratulations... you've earned my ire.

I enjoy the new slogans that the pro-Mexican lobby is coming up with. If you're against illegal aliens in the country... you're a racist. You're also anti-immigration. I like that flip there. If you're against illegal versions of immigrants, you're also against the legal ones too now. Kinda like drugs... I'm against heroine so now I'm also against Vicodin. Screw that. Vicodin rules, dumb dumbs!

I'm very much pro-immigration. One of the first sound bites the pro-Mexican lobby likes to toss at you is, "Were your ancestors born here?" Nope. Not mine. Half of my family arrived in the 40's after WWII from Australia... legally. The other half of my family was Welsh, but they've been in Virginia for a couple hundred years. I believe they arrived when all you needed was the ability to get to the US to be a citizen. But they followed whatever rules were in place.

If I were a legal immigrant... I'd get mad at the illegals... making them look bad.

People like to talk about how it is inhumane to not allow anyone who wants to enter the country to do so. It is not my fault that Mexico is a crap country. It is not my fault that Central America is improverished. Has anyone thought about the costs associated with making 11 million illegals citizens? These people are the bottom of the socio-economic barrel (that's not racism, that's just a fact). This would add 11 million more people to an already broken welfare system. It would not increase tax revenues because people at that level pay less into the system than they take out. And last I saw, the US wasn't exactly running a well oiled machine in the financial planning department.

And then there's language.

In the United States, people should speak English.

Because that's the language we speak.

I don't a flying poot about you or your culture. Nor do I expect you to care about mine. But if you want to live in this country as bad as your lobbyists say you do... learn... to speak.. the language. Instead of creating a constitutional ban on gay marriages, how about authorizing a national language? When I go to Arby's an order my meal... I don't want to hear "que?" come back on the drive through speaker.

The pro-Mexicans are very tough on the point that illegal aliens do the jobs you don't want. And it saves you money. So the pro-Mexicans are also pro-exploitation? Neat-o? But what do you think will happen when below minimum wage workers all get a pay hike because they're legal? What happens when employers are required to cover insurance for these new legal friends of ours? Before, when they were illegal, they were disposable... were they going to go to the cops or lawyers to get justice? Nope. The cost of business will go up... and the consumer... the legal consumer will eat the cost.

Illegal immigrants are felons. They should be booted.

I'm not a warm fuzzy humanitarian type. I'm pissed about the war in Iraq because we're getting America kids killed for no good reason. If the point of us being in Iraq is to help the Iraqi way of life... I'm against it. If that was what was presented to the US people at the start of the war, Bush would have been beaten with a stick. Let's invade Mexico if it's so bad. Why not spend a few billion dollars rebuilding Mexico?

Because that's like renovating your garage. You don't do it.

Build a nice wall. Put some guards on it. And shoot anyone crossing.

There's a reason why people don't go sneaking across the Korean border.

Hell, if I though running across the desert in the middle of the night would get me a phat hook up and the only consequences would be to get sent home if I was caught. I'd do it. I'd be running over here every day.

And the last thing this country needs is more me.

Posted by Monty at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Do people ever blame god when things go wrong? I noticed recently that a lot of people thank god when they win something or something good happens to them. Do people blame god if they lose or something bad happens? I'm curious. Do you think that you'd go into a church in New Orleans tomorrow and find the title of the sermon to be, "Way to jack up our neighborhood god... ya big meanie!" Probably not. Hopefully they don't have church on fridays in New Orleans. Probably not mad at god churches anyway.

Are the people who are thanking god for helping them win something also thanking god for making the other people losers?

Here's a situation...

Madonna wins a grammy for Best Nationally Recognized Artist Who Has No Real Identity. She beats out Kanye West, Kid Rock, and the gay guy from American Idol. In her thanks for the paper weight speech she thanks Perry the Wonder Snail, Steve Martin and god. Is she saying god likes me? God likes Madonna and not the other contestants?

According to most major religions... god does hate gay people... so that explains the American Idol part. Kanye West thinks George Bush hates black people and since Bush and god are buddies... Bush probably asked god to not vote for the black guy. I don't know anything about Kid Rock... but god does... because he knows everything. Like Santa Claus. So Kid Rock must have done something wrong.

So god likes Madonna and rigs the grammys to prove a point or something.

I dunno.

It would seem to me that that old phrase "if god is on our side, who can stand against us?". I dunno. Darth Vader maybe? Sauron. He could. What about Tom Hanks? He can do anything.

I think the phrase should be changed to "if my version of god is on our side, everyone else and their crap gods are stupid and smelly and should just shut up and die and stuff".

I'm sure the Israelis and Palestinians would agree.

Posted by Monty at 3:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It was a nice day so I had a late lunch in the parking lot of a shopping center. Apparently, a nearby high school had let out or it was lunch time because the area was overtaken by high school kids shortly after I arrived. I noticed that the vast majority of the kids... were very ugly. Just ugly muttly looking kids. Maybe this is the crack baby generation or something.

Are kids everywhere looking like this? I don't remember kids being so universally toad-esque when I was in school. Maybe I was parked next to the Ugly School of America.

Luckily, I was able to overhear some of their conversations and these guys make up for their lack of physical prowess with their amazing intellectual skills. When they write the next version of HTML, I want a sarcasm tag.

I think I'll make sure I eat lunch somewhere else. Between the ugly kids and the vans with the pedophiles in them, the parking lot made me lose my appetite.

And it takes a lot to do that.

Posted by Monty at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I had a wedding to go to this weekend. It wasn't too bad. I'll clarify that by saying that by default I don't enjoy weddings. I have enjoyed a few, including my own, but usually not. The wedding was for a friend of my wife's so I was already going to be at a disadvantage of not knowing very many people there. There are a few of her friends that I know and get along with and we were all at the same table so that's fun. There was plenty of free beer and wine to go around so as I said, it wasn't too bad. I should also say that my leg was giving me trouble from the get go and that led to me being a bit of a grump. The healthy stout on hand kept most of the grump in check though.

The wedding was in DC on the same day as all the hippy tree people come to look at the Cherry Blossoms along the tidal basin. Long time readers (oh who am I kidding) will remember that I hate the city of Washington DC with every ounce of my being. Driving into the city on a Saturday is usually not that big of a deal, but add the Cherry Blossom crowd (who are mostly slow... very, very slow) and some bridge construction and things get ugly. We had to drive to an area of DC that I wasn't terribly familiar with, but we got there ok and things went on pretty much as planned.

Our table at the reception was at the very rear of the dining area, as far away from center as possible. With the only exceptions being the wedding of my sister and my own wedding, I'm always seated at the table farthest from everyone. It's the loud and likely to do something embarassing table. At my friend's wedding in Chicago a couple of years ago, we were Table 11. We were the annoying friends who are always fun at parties, but who you never want your grandmother to see. We took pride in our status and even had group photos taken with our "Table 11" sign/placard. We found out later that our "table photos" (from disposible cameras) were the most entertaining shots of the evening.

So we're in the back. I don't mind so much except that I've got a bum leg. The table were too close together, so navigation was difficult. I took to just wandering outside of the tented area and going through the hedges to get to the bar/dining area. It wasn't bad, but the wear and tear did add up and we ended up having to bail on the after-reception bar party. I was really looking forward to that. The bride and groom looked great, and their wedding was a hit. I'm very, very happy for them.

Probably the highlight of the day was Mark. The guy pal of one of my wife's friends. He's a rather clever fellow and gets mean/funny when he's drunk. I like mean/funny.

There were several children in various stages of development and regression at the party. At one point, one was under our table and he crawled out from beneath Mark's chair. Mark looked down at the kid and then up at my wife and said, "Hey look! I pooped a kid!"

My response back was, "What the hell did you eat?"

Then there was the obligatory poop-kid diatribe that lasted a good 30 minutes.

Also... future tip for people... make sure if someone volunteers to be your designated driver... that they understand that means they can't get drunk. I thought that was a given, but apparently not.

I need to find out what kind of stout beer that was that I had. It was a local brew and I had three tasty pints of it before dinner.

I would have had more but... well... designated driver got bombed.

By the end of the reception my leg called it quits and the rest of me followed suit.

I got home, took some magic vicodin and watched tv for a few hours.

Speaking of vicodin. Dr. House from the show bearing his name is my new hero. My mother told me to watch the show because the main character reminder her of me. She'd said the same thing about me and Michael J Fox in Spin City too, but I was skeptical. She was right this time. A dude with a bad leg, a preference for pain pills, a caustic sense of humor and the need to always be right... that's me. If he was an internet guy instead of a doctor, I'd sue Fox.

So yeah... House is cool. I need to get some more Netflix... and some more Vicodin.

Posted by Monty at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)