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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
(Hey, I know many of you don’t give a flying flounder fanny about baseball, or anything about it… but I do, so I’m devoting a post to something baseball-related.
Besides, it’s Friday night, and I’ve got nothing else. Chances are nobody’s gonna see this, anyway, if I get another post in front of it tomorrow. But if you’re reading this and don’t care or know anything at all about baseball, then feel free to skip off to another part of the site for a while. I won’t be offended, and you’re only gonna miss one or two lame jokes. Nothing to worry about.
Otherwise, though — read on, soldier. Maybe you’ll find something of interest, or at least kill a few minutes of weekend time. And that’s something, eh?)
So, I’m not the biggest Barry Bonds detractor there is.
Frankly, I probably like the guy more than most baseball fans do. He played in Pittsburgh for a couple of years when I was there and rooting for the Pirates. He’s got an amazing batting eye, and one of the quickest bats in the game. And frankly, his ‘loathe-hate’ relationship with the media bothers me not at all — most of those bastards are fricking ‘sportsparazzi’, aggressive and pushy and asking endless questions, each dumber than the last.
(Sure, there are exceptions. Just like I’m sure there are one or two people working for the National Enquirer who really are looking for ‘the truth’. But the cluetards greatly outweigh the pros in these professions. It’s fricking ridiculous. ‘Enquiring minds’ know they’re mainly a bunch of douchebags. That’s all I’m saying.)
Anyway, I’m no Barry-basher, normally. I’m willing to forgive and forget an awful lot of snarkiness, and unsubstantiated rumors floating around regarding who used what performance-enhancing thing when are just that — rumors.
(Though you’ve got to admit, if you step back and look at it, that an employer worrying about performance-enhancing drugs could only happen in the world of sports.
Really, if I was shooting something into my eyeballs that made me type ten percent faster, or write database queries like a pro, do you think my boss would be trying to make me stop? Nah. He’d help me wrap the tourniquet around my forehead and hold the needle plunger for me. And nobody would care if it shrunk my penis, either. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t come into play at all.
On the other hand, the more common drugs you see around the workplace — cocaine, booze, weed, and the like — aren’t really performance-enhancing, so much. Well, maybe pot, if it clears your head… but I’m pretty sure that whatever advantage you’d get from the clarity, you’d give it right back by taking a snack break every twelve minutes. That’s all I’m saying.)
Okay, none of this is really the point. The point is, while I’m willing to forgive the Bondster many of his trespasses, this banned substance scandal is finally getting too ri-goddamned-diculous to ignore. Here’s the latest, leaked from Barry’s grand jury BALCO testimony:
Bonds testified that he ‘unknowingly’ used steroids
Oh, Barry. Barry, Barry, Barry. Dude, when the jig is up, the jig is up, man. ‘Fess up, and all will eventually be forgiven. Or maybe it won’t. But there’s no need for… for this. What are we supposed to believe here, Barry, that you’re a drooling fricking moron?
‘Hmmm… I wonder what’s in this tube labeled ‘Steroid Cream‘? Eh, you never know with the way they label these things. I’ll just assume it’s something else.‘
‘Hey, and this syringe lying here next to the steroid solution — I bet that’s just a flu shot. I’d better shoot myself some of that before I get the sniffles.‘
‘What’s that, dude? Do I want to buy some steroids? Well, how about this — just give me some Flintstones vitamins… but could you put them in a jar labeled ‘steroids’? If it’ll save you some trouble, that is.‘
I dunno. Maybe he is that dense. But I doubt it, people. Forrest Gump wasn’t that dense. Rain Man had more common sense. Hell, Anna Nicole Smith would’ve… oh. No. Never mind. She wouldn’t. She’s a fuckin’ doorknob. Never mind that last thing.
Anyway, it looks like the shitski is about to hit the fan with this whole ‘drugs in baseball’ thing. Jason Giambi has admitted to taking human growth hormone, ‘roids and coke and booze recently killed Ken Caminiti, and now Bonds either took them on purpose, or he has the brains of a lobotomized guinea pig and took them ‘accidentally’. This can’t possibly be the last we’re gonna hear about this, and that’s a pretty shitty thing for a baseball fan like me.
And all of this happening in the offseason, when there’s no other baseball news to distract us from this train wreck. Damn. What we need is a nice diversion of some kind, to take the heat off the topic until something can be done about it.
Which begs the question: where’s that John Rocker asshole when you finally need him for once, eh? How about opening your bigassed ignorant mouth again and taking one for the proverbial team, John? A couple weeks’ worth of flogging your redneck ass in the press might be just what we need right now. How ’bout it, Johnny boy?
Permalink | 1 CommentOh, holy fuck. It’s five thirty in the evening now; here was my day so far:
11am: Five minutes late for my first meeting — mostly because I was finishing the entry above. (If it smells like burning karma in here, folks, that’s probably because it is.)
First meeting ran twenty minutes late, making me…
11:50am: …twenty minutes late for my second meeting. With my boss. To go over my employee review. Dang. I’ll have a bite of that karma toast now, thanks.
Second meeting ran thirty minutes late (or only ten, if you factor in the tardy start), making me…
12:30pm: …thirty minutes late for my third meeting. (Do you see a pattern here?)
This meeting also ran thirty minutes late, which would have put me just on time for the fourth meeting of the day. But dammit, by that point I needed some lunch — or technically, ‘breakfast’ — so I slipped off for a sandwich, making me…
1:50pm: …twenty minutes late for my fourth meeting. Which was almost as exciting as the third meeting. Which in turn was almost as exciting as a cardboard enema. And nearly as painful. On the way out, I had this conversation:
Him: Man, you look dead. Sorry the meeting was so bad.
Me: Dude, that’s not even the worst meeting I’ve had today.
Him: Holy christ — somebody get that man some booze!
The good news is that the fourth meeting didn’t run late. Officially. Of course, the bad news is that half that meeting spilled over into my office, to suck what little precious time I would have had until…
3pm: …the fifth meeting, which lasted well over two hours, and just spat me out, quivering and twitching, back here at my desk.
Six and a half hours of solid meetings, people. That’s fucking harsh. The Inquisitors didn’t go that far, man — they’d put you through, like, five hours and then go:
‘Damn. Let him go, poor bastard. Heretic or not, mother fucker’s suffered enough.‘
But the bullshit’s almost over. I’ve just got to send two emails, pick up a printout, look up a few numbers in a database, have a quick conversation (and I’ll be bent over and broomhandled before I call it another ‘meeting’ today!), and I’m home, sweet home. I just try not to think of the four five things that went onto my ‘to-do list’ because of all this tomfoolery, and the zero no, that was right: zero things I managed to cross off today. Calgon, take me away!
No, scratch that — my buddy was right. This is a job for sweet, beautiful booze. And in just a few minutes, I’m all over it. Raise a glass for me, folks — it’s goddamned Miller time. Only with good beer. You know what I’m sayin’. Word.
Permalink | 7 CommentsYou ever have one of those days where, as soon as you wake up, you know you’re not gonna accomplish a damned thing all day?
(Yeah, yeah, I know — I spend the better part of my life not accomplishing anything, so why should today be any different?
But still… I like to go until at least lunchtime with the delusion that I might be productive — that just maybe, today is the day I turn it all around and make the world a better place somehow.
Well, you know what? Today is not that day. World, take a number. Again. Bitches.)
So how do I know, as sure as the nose on my face or the penis in my pantaloons, that I’m going to get nothing accomplished today?
Because I have five — count ’em, five; one, two, three, four, five — meetings at work today. Five!
Count ’em backwards, if you want — five, four, three, two, one. En espanol — uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco. Backwards, in Roman — V, IV, III, II, I.
It doesn’t matter how you slice ’em — there are still damned five. That’s a whole handful of fingers! Or an entire basketball team! Hell, it’s just one smarmy douchebag short of the Brady kids! And that’s at least five Bradys too many. Or maybe just four, after Jan got her boobs — but that’s not important right now. For once in my life, boobs I’ve seen on TV aren’t my highest priority.
(So wait — what was the other thing, again? I got myself all twitterpated with the breasticle talk, there.
Oh, right. I remember.)
Five, dammit, five!
(You know, you don’t seem nearly as upset over this as I am. Either I’m overreacting, or you just don’t give a swooping shit. And I think I know which.
Poopyhead.)
So, anyway — five meetings. Apparently, I’ve moved into the ‘acceptance phase’, because I can’t even muster a good lather over it any more. But even at a half-hour each, that’s two and a half hours of my life I’ll never have back.
(And believe me, folks — most of these meetings have zero chance of ending after thirty minutes. Horny Bulgarian hookers could walk into the room, and they’d be tabled until after the report on last week’s ‘action items’.
(And see — see how this is affecting me? I don’t even have the strength to make the obvious joke about hookers being ‘action items’ themselves.
Or how it’s not the good kind of ‘tabled’.
Or to wonder why the hell I made them Bulgarian. I’m a little delirious at the moment, apparently. Hold me.)
Ah, well — guess there’s nothing to do now but get in there and take my lumps. On the other hand, though… there’s really nothing that says I have to be at these meetings. Only that somebody has to be there, and then I have to know what went on.
Anybody out there want to do me a favor? You can take my TiVo to my office and tape everything that happens, and then I can fast-forward through the boring bits. That way, there’ll only be two and a half minutes of my life I’ll never have back. And that’s way better. Hell, I spend that much time every day in the shower, wondering whether I’ve already washed my hair. That, I can handle.
So, how about it? Anyone want to trade lives for the day?
(Wife not included, but you can stay in the house, if you like. And I’ll make you a sandwich. And we can watch real TiVo when I’ve gone through the meetings.
It’ll be fun. Like summer camp, without all those crappy arts and crafts, or the awkward shame of putting on your swimsuit in front of a bunch of strangers.
Although, if that would help return the favor, we can do that, too. Just don’t laugh — I’m telling you, dammit, there’s been shrinkage.)
Okay, that’s it. I can’t put it off any longer, so I’m going to work. And in only eight to ten hours, it’ll be over, and I can go back to pretending I’ll get something done ‘tomorrow’. It’s not much to hold onto, but it’s something, right?
You kids have a beautiful Thursday. I’m off to visit my own little slice of hell. Toodles.
Permalink | 1 CommentI’ve found myself in a few situations recently that have made me stop and wonder, ‘Who’s the damned weirdo here? Me? Or that guy?‘ And frankly, there’s no way I can make that call. So I’m putting it to you, the impartial observer: who’s the douchebag here?
(Hey, hey, hey — no answering until after you read the scenarios, there, sparky. Don’t get ahead of yourself, calling ‘douchebag!’ all over the place. Keep it in your pants, sailor.)
Okay, here we go:
I played volleyball this week on a team with a couple of people I’d never met before. When I got there, the team was refereeing another game, and I swore an old friend of mine was working the net. Until he took the whistle out of his mouth, and it became clearly obvious that it wasn’t him. Whistle in, spitting image. (No pun intended, smartass.) Whistle out, some strange guy.
So does that reflect poorly on my friend, that he looks like random guys, but only when they’re blowing on little plastic doodads? Or am I the douchebag, for thinking about it in those terms? And using the terms ‘random guys’ and ‘blowing’ in the same sentence. And dropping ‘doodads’ in the middle of that description.
Damn. Score one for me. I kinda gave it away at the end there, huh? Bitches.
Next situation, then:
I was in the bathroom at work today, minding my own business on the toilet.
(No, not ‘minding my business’, either, jackhole — just minding my own business. Not everything is a euphemism around here, you know. Most things. But not all, dammit.)
After a couple of minutes, a guy walked into the bathroom and sat down in the stall next to mine. It was all right for a bit, but then he tried striking up a conversation! The nerve! The pervy nerve!
So, I ask you — was he the douchebag there, for interrupting my privacy with his attempt at small talk? Or somehow was I at fault, for keeping quiet and pretending not to hear his repeated attempts to chit chat?
I mean, honestly, what else could I have done? I’m not equipped to deal with that situation. And who starts freaking conversations with, ‘Hey, buddy, can I borrow some toilet paper?‘, anyway? Whatever happened to ‘Hello‘?
What? Oh. Right. That’s me again, isn’t it. Well, poop.
(Okay, that time I meant the pun. Ain’t I a stinker?
Heh. I could keep this up for hours.
But I won’t. A little dribble of bathroom humor goes a long way. And I think I’ve shaken it more than twice already. Proverbially speaking. Moving on.)
How ’bout this one:
There’s this girl in my office that I always thought was really tall.
But recently, I realized that she’s not really all that tall. She just has enormous boobs. Which I noticed a long time ago, of course — you’ve got to get up pretty damned early in the morning to sneak a pair of towering tatas past me, folks. But I always thought she was tall, too. Apparently, I’d been blinded by her breasticle bling, and imagined her with height she doesn’t really have.
So, the question is… aw, screw it. This one’s me. All me. I can’t even make a case for myself. I’m a douchebag. And Laetitia Casta* must be, like, nine feet tall. Next!
Okay, last one:
I just spent the better part of an hour working this crap into an entry, editing it, and posting it. For no good reason, and possibly at the expense of sweet, beautiful, pillow-drooling sleep that I could be having right now.
But you — you, now, we’re talking about — just read the whole damned thing. And that’s three minutes or so of your life that you’ll never have back, see?
So it begs the question — who’s worse off in this situation — me, for writing this nonsense, or you, for allowing it into your head like this? See, I ask you — who’s the real douchebag here?
Wha? Me?! Dammit! Why am I always the douchebag? Poopstain!
Screw this, then — I’m goin’ to bed. What kind of douchebag thought of this stupid game, anyway? Oh. Shit. Never mind. Good night, then. *sigh*
* (Image linked from the Laetitia Casta picture pages at SuperiorPics.com. In case you were wondering. Or horny. Or both.)
Permalink | 7 CommentsAh, there’s nothing quite like having a new little game to play, and squealing for joy over it like a schoolgirl hopped up on sugar and hunky quarterback pheremones… and then, after a while, tiring of it… and eventually forgetting about it altogether… and then being bored one day, after a long, piehole-stuffing weekend, and remembering that it wasn’t such a bad idea, after all, and trotting it back out for another chance.
Yes, folks, there’s truly nothing quite like that.
Probably because such a thing has never happened before, quite like that. Until now, that is. ‘Cause it’s time for another bout of Punchline Fever!
See, what with all these (where ‘these’ very probably means ‘you‘) BlogExplosion peepers zipping in here for half a minute — no more, no less — at a time, I thought it might be nice to give them something they can entertain themselves with for that length of time. As opposed to my usual lengthy, wandering ‘diarrhea of the keyboard’ approach, which this post is rapidly approaching. Focus, dammit! Focus!
Okay. So, in a nutshell, for you new folks, here’s the deal:
1) I’ll sit around, day and night, thinking of a short but flexible setup for a joke.
B) I’ll post the best setup I can think of, but with a blank where the punchline should go.
iii) Then it’s up to you to come up with your best line, and leave it in the comments, for all to snicker over.
That’s it. I used to do it on Fridays, then I got bored, and I didn’t do it at all. And now, I’m gonna do it on Mondays. Why? Because this is Monday, and I’ve got nothing else to talk about today. Deal, bitches.
So, without further ado — back by (un)popular demand after a nearly five-month hiatus — I bring you today’s… Punchline Fever!:
Punchline Fever #21:
‘In an effort to boost post-Thanksgiving sales, Butterball just launched a new ad slogan: “I likes my turkeys like I likes my women: _________________________”‘
Have at it, folks. That’s the best you’re gonna get in thirty seconds’ time, I’m afraid.
(Though, if you wanna stick around a little longer, you can always check out the Punchline Fever archives for more reader-submitted hilarity.
And you’ve got until next Monday to think of a punchline for this bit — come on, that’s a whole fricking week! How hard can it be, eh?)
And, as always, I’ll get first crack, so I’ll leave a comment now with my punchline included. So don’t be shy, folks — hop in there and catch the fever! Happy Monday!
Permalink | 17 Comments
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