Thursday, April 29, 2004

Oh Yeah, the Packer Draft

I formally come out as "unhappy" about draft day.

Now, everybody knows that I know nothing, have no insight, and don't know much about all the players they took or could have taken.

But it is quite obvious they were not willing to make a bold move to try and get a starter. With the exception of the punter (which they needed), there is not a single starter in their draft.

Especially since Mike McKenzie has officially moved his residence to Stupidfuckingdumbassshitforbrainsfuckwadville, we're going to need a new corner. Maybe Mr. Coach Sherman could have tried to get someone to help us there.

The guy they picked is fast, yes, but he's a grab-and-chase guy. They exact kind of guy that the new NFL coverage rules were meant to exploit.

sigh

Sure, there's not much you can do when you are a good team and have low picks, but I don't see any players in this draft that are potential starters except for the punter and Joey Thomas, but he's a few years away.

The Difficult Thing

...about marriage is:

Getting used to responding to references about "marriage", "the wife", "married life", etc without wrapping it in the safe, chocolate scented, foil wrapper of sarcasm.

Getting used to the fact that your hunting days are over. While your tail may raise and your hair may stand on end when you see that hot, young girl in tight jeans, ...you are chained to a stake in the ground in your own back yard. "You're no tiger, meow meow meow" (extra points if you know where that came from)

All your nice rough edges get sanded down.

Dark, brilliant, alcohol-fueled heartbreak songs lose their impact. How can you really "feel" the bite of heartache when your loved one is holding your hand smiling at you? How???

When you join with another you DO lose a little bit of yourself. Say goodbye to that part. You had some good times, but things change, ...bars close and re-open as boutiques, bands break up and form depressingly inferior side-bands, fair balls land foul, all your male friends grow pot bellies, all the female friends start to get a paunch.

You wish you could be upset by it all. Because in your former life it is the adversity and heartbreak and uncertainty that fueled you, gave you a purpose for living and fighting and getting up from bed the morning after all your dreams and emotions went crashing through the floor.

Yes, this is all difficult. Difficult in a new way. Unfamiliar terrain. No matter how much of a dork you already were, getting married means hopping on that rocket train to squaresville (or just deeper into squaresville proper). Since I started out on the near southwest side of squaresville, I guess I'm headed for the Mayor's office.

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Ok, I'll play too



"The chapter number now appears at the top of the page, cut out of a green triangle."

From this silly, but mildly amusing, internet game.

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open the book to page 23.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Monday, April 26, 2004

Big Big Problems

For Senator dumbass, that is.

Caught a long, long steam of outright LIES about his military service.

Big bombshell today from ABC.

The story here. Kerry's whiney, immature, caught-red-handed, squealing response is here.

Friday, April 23, 2004

Draft Day

No one knows what the hell the Packers are going to do at 27 tomorrow. This draft seems really thin in a lot of positions.

They are not expected to take QB JP Losman, which is a good thing, I guess. I think he's a gamble. Everything they say about him are the same things they said about Tony Banks. With one exception, JP is supposed to be really hard-nosed and competative. We'll see. He doesn't move well and wants to always pass pass pass. Some have said he's a head case.

Lee Evans is expected to be available at 27 because there are about 6 great receivers in the draft. If they take him it wouldn't be the worst thing. They do need another receiver, but they are always a 2-3 year project in the west coast system. At the very least Evans could provide kick returning help immediately.

I have no insight, but I have picked up on one thing.

With most positions very thin, the cream of the crop will be selected early, so look for a few in every position to go.

There are only 3 top cornerbacks in the draft, and Chris Gamble is the slowest of them all. I doubt he'll be passed over twice, but if he falls to 27 the Packers have to take him. Especially since McKenzie is being a jackass.

If they can get one of the top 3 corners at 27, they should be happy.

I will be.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Neglect-a-rino

It's been a week.

In this short dispatch, I have the following notes to declare:

_______________
I don't think you can make blanket generalizations about life. I think the most important factor when talking about life is not the person living it, ..but WHERE they live.

Think about the word necessity. Things that are necessary for life in other countries are not necessary in ours.

I think the only things we need for life in the US is Love and Wealth.

We have everything else almost by default. Furthermore, if we accumulate love and wealth, we would automatically have everything else we could possibly think of as needs.

Those are the ingredients.

In week 1 of marriage I realized what it means to have love. I've got it, and it's great. It's like nothing I've experienced before. Maybe it's just our "honeymoon" period, but everything's been chocolate cigarettes so far.

____________________
In my pre-wifed days, the formula for dinner was:

(flour tortilla + butter) or (bread + peanut butter) or (1 box of stuffing + water)

Today it is filled with exotic ingredients and smells. The sharp, ripe, punchy odor of fresh ginger being grated and mixed with soy sauce. The sound of thin sliced, marinated pork hissing at the bottom of a skillet. The soft, sweet taste of Japanese croquets dipped in some strange, non-tangy-yet-orangey sauce. I could go on ...

_____________________
Where there once was two, now there is one. Stronger and happier than the individual parts.

Friday, April 16, 2004

Terminal 5

If you ever want to scope out a cavalcade of stunning beauties at the airport, go no further than the International terminal. And I'm not just talking about the asian girls, ...but the middle eastern, Itallian, Brazilian, Sweedish, and Spanish girls. Lots of Spanish girls.

It's a nice distraction.

Terminal 5 has two exits through which all international arrivals are filtered, exit A and exit B. Each time I've taken the flight my wife is on, I have exited through exit A. However, on this trip, she will have to go through some sort of immigration processing (I imagine), so that could re-route her to exit B. She's over 7 months pregnant and is carrying 4 suitcases, so I don't really want her wandering around looking for me.

Fortunately the information desk has tv screens that show people coming through each exit. If I have to, I can just watch the screens and hope to see her.

For reasons I discussed yesterday, this distraction is also not unwelcome.

It's not unwelcome because I still haven't shaken this weird feeling. It's not nervousness, but it is causing nervousness. I'm nervous because this feeling is not something I'm used to. It's like going to UPS and picking up your new life. It feels even weirder than that sounds. Not many people start a new life at a definite moment between dropping off old clothes at Goodwill, fueling up the car, and getting groceries.

So, I'm kind of like a dog in unfamiliar surroundings. My ears are up, my hair is up, and nothing looks right to me.

And and and, ...there are so many questions that no one can answer. Here it is 10 minutes before she lands and I don't know what life will be like tomorrow, or next week, or two months from now when the baby arrives. But the wick is lit, and without-a-doubt bricks will fall and glass will break and dust will rise. The only question is where and when and how, ...and will we survive? Will I fail as a father, or husband, or man? Will I fail my family?

I've never had to be a man before, much less a father or husband. Tragedies will come, heartache will come, disappointment will come, and I am no longer insulated in the sweet selfishness and materialistic shoulderpads of singlehood. I'm exposed.

And there is so much to worry about, ...so much depending on me.

I could use a drink, but I had my chance. I could have gone over to the bar and gawked at the cute bartendress, but I decided to write instead. And it hasn't helped. A beer would have helped.

Let's call that lesson #1 of married life.

I can't wait for lesson #2.

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Bush's Press Conference

The speech was excellent, clear, and sober.

The Q&A afterwards was typical for Bush, ...lots of stumbling and repeated statements, but managed to get out the right words.

The media is obsessed with trying to make Bush apologize for 9/11. They asked him (it seems) more than once about it. His answer was great. Osama Bin Laden is the one responsible for the mass murder on 9/11.

Overall, it was positive, ...and most of the reviews agree with me. The media template is clear, however, ...Bush won't apologize, won't admit mistakes, is too stubborn. Watch for lots of stories and poll questions about that.

Oh, and visit the professor for a complete round-up.

More on Ashkkkroft

In case you get all of your news from the mainstream media and headlines, you missed out on the biggest development from yesterday. John Ashcroft totally whopped ass in the 9/11 commission.

His performance was a devastating, back-breaking, nail-in-the-coffin blow to the democrats. He intercepted their pass, ran 99 yards for a TD, spiked the ball in their end zone, and fucked their cheerleaders.

Of course, the media's reaction to the democrats being slammed and embarassed, ...move along, nothing to see here ...

Ok, I Couldn't Resist

Here's a picture dump before I change the contents of my hard drive to PG13. No time for pop-ups, just raw links.

#20
#21
#22
#23
#24
#25
#26
#27
#28
#29
#30

Enjoy.

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Good Night

I apologize for falling behind on the girlie postings, ...as most of you may have guessed, that practice will end tonight.

I'll get up early tomorrow, get to work, plow through the avalanche of documents I need to write and proof, then take off at lunch to pick up my wife at the airport.

There's a scent about this that I just can't shake, that all this has been too easy. Will the pendulum finally swing the other way at the last minute, ...I can imagine all sorts of bad scenarios.

She's detained at the airport and denied entry into the country for no good reason.
They suspect her visa is not legit and just refuse to let her in.
She loses her visa on the plane or in the airport or on the way to the airport.
She gets in a car accident and misses her flight.
The plane is forced to land elsewhere, or it is delayed and she's stranded somewhere like Rochester, NY.

So many people have so many troubles bringing their wives and relatives to the US, I've been conditioned to expect trouble, yet we've had none.

In fact, if everything goes through tomorrow, the process would have been fast, efficient, courteous, and simple. Imagine that!

Anyway, I'm nervous, and not just about that. I'm nervous about everything. The signing of the marriage papers was merely a formality. Wearing the ring is a formality. The real heavy lifting starts tomorrow. The marriage starts tomorrow.

oh boy

I keep telling myself, "Well, this is it. Do or die."

Of course, I have no choice, no other options, but that's not what bothers me now. It's the reality that gets to me. Like when you wake up from a terrific dream only to realize that it indeed WAS a dream. You sit up in bed and say "Awwww, Fuck!" It's sort of like that. I had been keeping half of my brain in the freezer, blissfully frozen in time, day dreaming away about living in California, spending a few months traveling through China and Vietnam, writing that book, meeting that girl, buying that car, ...

So forgive me it this all feels new and scary, I've been defrosting for 3 days and everything is just coming into focus. I'm like the Iceman. That's a great movie btw, ...I think Timothy Hutton was in it. They find a guy in the ice who was covered up in an avalanche thousands of years ago, while defrosting him, he comes back to life. They keep him in a dome and try to observe him, but of course the Iceman is not stupid and escapes. He thinks that the helicopter that visits the research facility is Sika, a bird God that takes him to a wonderful place, but I won't give away the ending.

That also reminds me of my grade school chum Jim. One early spring day Jim was on the way home from school (I was with him) and found a dead rabbit by the side of the road. The rabbit had obviously been run over in the early winter, and laid frozen at the bottom of a snowbank all winter. It was hard as a rock and clearly dead.

Well, Jim picks it up and puts it in his school bag and takes it home. Why? I don't know. Another thing I don't know is why he brought it to school the next day. Still frozen, the rabbit sat in his bag all day. He told the other kids in the school and showed it off, ...a few hours later some school moms came up to me in the hall and asked if I knew about Jim's rabbit.

I said that I knew he had it at school. They said, no, something else had happened. They said that Jim showed it to the whole class and during the class that rabbit was defrosting and got "all soft and frosty". Then, they said, the rabbit came back to like, jumped up, and ran around the room!

Well, the truth is, the rabbit started stinking up the cloakroom, so someone told a teacher and they disposed of the clearly dead rabbit.

So, to tie it all together, I'm a flattened rabbit at the bottom of a snowbank.

Well, not really. The only thing that is dead is my life as a sometimes publisher of porn. Tonight my whole stash will be killed off so the wife doesn't get wind of it. The old pics will stay up on this site, only my personal stash will be deleted. The only time that stuff will come down is if the wife finds out about this site.

If she does, it all comes down. In that case, it was nice knowing all of you. Goodbye, good luck, and good night!

Friday, April 09, 2004

Heavenly Body #5

Nice enough to eat off of.

Ashkkkroft

I guess my status as a consumer and sometimes publisher of porn requires me to talk about John Ashcroft's crusade against porn.

In general, I think he's a good man. Despite the image often portrayed in the media and by the democrats, he's not a racist. Also, I don't think he has "trampled" the bill of rights in his response to terrorism. Unless you want to suggest that the great liberal icon FDR was twice the fascist Ashcroft is (detaining innocent Japanese Americans in camps!), then you should just get over using overheated, indefensible language.

I do think Ashcroft is grossly out of step with most Americans in his day-to-day life. For religious reasons he does not dance, drink alcohol, or consume caffeine. He covered statues in the Justice Department that showed nudity. Yeah, he's a nob. But I don't think he's evil.

Now he's aggressively going after porn. What the Bush administration needs to realize is that a lot has changed in the last 5 years.

I had never owned a piece of pornography in my life until I purchased a Playboy in 1994-5 with a Drew Barrymore spread in it because I had a little crush on her at the time. Friends of mine might remember that period. I was not anti-porn, but because I did not own it or use it in any way, I didn't really care if people railed against it.

In fact, I tended to believe the women's groups who suggested that porn is related to violence against women and deviancy.

Maybe that was true in the past. Think about it, in the past it was relatively hard to get porn. The only people who would go through all the trouble to get a hold of a reel to reel projector, drive to the edge of town to rent a flick, and set it up in their basement, ...well those people were not "normal". Batchelor parties aside.

Nowadays, porn is so common that I'm convinced it's a daily part of life for many people, myself included. It's easy to get, so more people will seek it out. That makes sense.

But that means that a whole new population is partaking in it and the old myths no longer hold up.

The world has changed. Porn is ubiquitous, but violence against women is on the decline.

So, someone should reign in Mr. Ashcroft. He's certainly welcome to live in the 20th century, ...but he might be surprised to get resistance when he tries to drag the rest of us back with him.

In that spirit, check this out.

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Friday's Gift

Everybody, meet Sakura.

A perfect girl on any day, especially Friday.

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Coupla Girls for Ya

Anna three times.

Isoyama twice.

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Girl #9

Ami again.

Bambi's Bombers Forever

George Bamburger died Sunday night from cancer.

He's the first Brewer's coach I was ever aware of. He gave the Brewers their first winning season. They continued their winning ways in the years after that, and it was Bambi who was always given a lot of (deserved) credit for turning the team around. Right guy, right place, right time.

To say he is beloved here is an understatement.

Mayoral Race **UPDATED

The early returns look positive for Barrett and the city of Milwaukee in general.

Exit polls give Barrett a 51-49 lead. That's too close to call right now.

However, the candidates do their own polling and they know a lot more than the TV stations right now.

The Barrett camp looks happy and upbeat.

The Pratt camp looks nervous.

UPDATE: Scott Walker wins easily (Yay!). Barrett holds his lead over Pratt. With about 74% reporting, Barrett is ahead 58-42%, up by 18,000 votes.

UPDATE II: They are calling it for Barrett with 82% in. He's got a big lead. Unless that changes, the predictions were wrong, ...it wasn't that close.

Whew!

A Tense 24 Hours

On Sunday night the Wife called while she was on her way to a bank in Tachikawa (it was Monday morning for her). I could tell right away that something was wrong.

The previous night she had started to feel sick. Her stomach felt swollen and "hard", and she felt nauseous. Also, she said the baby was still moving a lot, but moving "differently" than before. She had heard about this happening to other friends of hers and in one case it produced a still-born baby.

I convinced her to see her doctor the next morning, which she did.

The whole day I felt nervous and terrible. Even if everything was ok, her doctor could have told her she needed to remain in the hospital until the birth. This would prevent her from coming to the US anytime soon. Worse yet, what if the baby does not make it?

I began to feel what would likely become an overwhelming sadness. Just the small glimpse of pain that I felt was enough to terrify me. I tried to imagine how we would get through the next few months. Packing up the baby furniture and clothes we had received from friends and family, canceling our plans for a baby shower, ...but the worst part was somehow stopping all the dreams and plans and thoughts that have dominated our minds since the pregnancy was first detected.

I think about the baby almost every moment of every day. A whole new lifetime of worries, laughter, struggles, revelations, and transformations ...suddenly gone. You cannot put the brakes on a train of thought when it is being driven a hard-pounding emotion. An emotion you never knew was inside you, but now know you cannot live without. In that situation, your mind and your heart are your own worst enemies, conspiring against at every turn, ...reminding you that your new car needn't have fasteners for a child seat when there is not child to sit in it, that you don't have to move your wrought iron shelf because now there is no child to tip it over, that your plans for the next 18 years have been cancelled.

So, I waited by the phone last night, expecting her to call around 10pm. 10:15, no call. 10:30, no call. 11:00, no call.

I fell asleep and she woke me with a call at 12:30.

The baby's fine. She just needs to rest more and take it easy. She's been over worked the past few weeks and it's starting to show.

The only problem is that she has a lot more packing to do and only one more day to do it. Then, finally, she'll be able to rest.

And so will I.


A New Low, and That's Saying A Lot

Ted Kennedy says:

"Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam." He said this in a speech at the Brookings Institute think tank.

Yeah, and Chappaquiddick was Ted Kennedy's Killing Fields.

What a pompous, murdering, hypocritical asshole.

The he goes on to make this remarkably ridiculous statement:

"President Bush gave al Qaeda two years ... to regroup and recover in the border regions of Afghanistan," Kennedy said, talking about the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden. "As the terrorist bombings in Madrid and other reports now indicate, al Qaeda has used that time to plant terrorist cells in countries throughout the world, and establish ties with terrorist groups in many different lands."

Over 70 percent of al qaeda has been destroyed.

Furthermore, the Madrid bombers came from Morocco and India, not Afghanistan. This lecherous windbag can't even keep up with recent global events.

Monday, April 05, 2004

Girls 11 and 10

Meet Yoko Matsugane and friend 2, 3, 4.


Alice Cooper

I've been a big Alice Cooper fan for many years. While I'm not hip with his newer music, I'm well schooled in his classics.

He's also quite intelligent and sensible. He said these remarks at the Juno awards (the hoser grammys).

On hand to pay tribute to a Canadian Hall of Fame entry, producer Bob Ezrin, U.S. rocker Alice Cooper said music downloading hasn't hurt his sales.

"It's helped gain me a whole different audience," the legendary rocker said.


Link here. Check it out if you want to see Alanis Morrisette with short (cute) hair.

Brewers

The Brewers started playing about 35 minutes ago.

My prediction for the year: 70-92

Two games better than last year.

Why?
Because 70 games isn't a lot.
The players are still determined to play hard.
Sheets will have his best year.
Spivey could be good.
And finally, because we all expected them to be terrible last year due to the fact that they were a team of nobodies, but they suprised us. Perhaps they can do it again.

X Baby

Congrats to the Bucks for making the playoffs.

Some may remember that at the beginning of the season I predicted the Bucks would have a 29 win season. doh

If they hold on to the number 4 spot they get home court for the first round.

Saturday, April 03, 2004

Interesting ...

Here's a handy chart from the Department of Labor that shows when and where the economy (and jobs) started to go south, ...about 10 months BEFORE Bush took office.

Friday, April 02, 2004

Girl the 12th

I'm mostly a leg man, but the rack on this nymph makes me want to change parties. Here's two more pics.


The 12 Days of Singlehood

Starting today there are only 12 days until the wife and unborn child lands at O'hare Intl and the three of us start a new life. For the child, it's literally a new life. For the wife, it's a new country, a new culture, new people, and a new family.

It's a little less clear for me. I'll still have the same job, the same friends, the same flat, and the same car, but my life will be totally different. So, in an effort to come to terms with my life changes, I'm having my 12 Days of Singlehood starting today.

12 girls
12 things I will say goodbye to
12 memories

Starting now:

Well, the first on the docket is the most obvious. Goodbye to going out.

Tossing back pints of Newcastle while listening to 80's rock with ringing ears at the Cactus Club ...
Fighting down Belgian Ales at the Onopa ...
Ordering White Russians from the hot Thai bartendress at the Dragon Lounge ...
Drinking Tekate and playing video games at the Landmark ...
Drinking even more Newcastle and flirting with girls at the Garage and Hi-Hat ...
Watching the hot Riverwest dancing girls at the Mad Planet on 80's night ...
Watching the game with my buddies at Tangerine ...
Striking up a conversation at the Nomad ...
Going to the Vox because we've run out of other places to go ...
Spending Christmas night with the barflys at Ynot II ...
Trying to ignore the bad, white-boy, hippie blues at the Up and Under ...
Getting a bar stool at 3 ...
Getting refused admission to Eve ...
Standing outside a bar in the freezing cold for an hour just to get in ...
But most of all, I'll miss that rare moment when I walk into one of these places, see a gorgeous women, smile, and have her smile back.

Now, a Little Sanity

Can John Kerry come back off the ledge now? Not only has the latest jobs report shown that payrolls have had the biggest gain in 4 years, but another report out today shows that the crybabying about the evils of outsourcing were heavily overblown.

Some good quotes from the stories:

The movement of U.S. jobs abroad "has been blown out of proportion" mainly because domestic companies in the United States have been slow to increase hiring, said Martin Baily, chairman of former President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.

...the number of Americans employed by U.S. affiliates of majority non-U.S. companies grew by 4.7 million from 1997 through 2001. In the same period, the number of non-Americans working at affiliates of majority-U.S. companies abroad rose by 2.8 million.

Kerry, the 60-year-old senator from Massachusetts, has made the movement of jobs abroad a centerpiece of his attacks on Bush. In a speech Feb. 19, Kerry vowed to "repeal every tax break and loophole that rewards any Benedict Arnold CEO or corporation for shipping American jobs overseas."

Homefront Abroad

Well, we're now 90% sure it's a girl.

The wife had another ultrasound and it basically confirmed the earlier findings. I wanted a boy. I'm sure most fathers want a boy and most mothers want a girl, but if you had to choose a "least desirable scenario", this would be it.

A mother will always have a special bond with her children because she carries them for 9 months and nurses them. Fathers can only develop that bond through parenting and hard work. This is why it's easier for a father to have a strong bond with his son, because it is more likely they will enjoy similar things.

I imagine there is not much difference between the sexes when they are toddlers. They all scream and run and play and make messes. It's when they start developing interests and hobbies that it gets difficult for the father/daughter.

Let's face it, ...it would be easy for me to counsel my son when it comes to dating, etiquette, playing defense, friendships, or fighting. I've been through all those things from a boys perspective, ...I've suffered the bumps and bruises, endured the scorn of coaches, failed and succeeded at dealing with the opposite sex. I know all this stuff, and I feel a desire to impart it to a son.

But what will I face with a daughter?

Judging by my sister's childhood (which I witnessed as an older brother) and her daughter (who is now 10), ...I will attend ballet recitals, see at least one room in my house morph into a pink nightmare, attend make-believe tea parties, be forced to interrupt my sports watching so she can watch Dora the explorer, and eventually deal with pimply-faced cretins showing up at my door trying to score with my daughter.

It goes from bad to worse.

What's odd is that only three of my buddies have had children, ...and they've all been girls. Four pregnancies in my extended group of friends. Four girls. Why is that? Are we being punished for the way we've treated girls our whole lives? The cheating, the scamming, the lying, the "using", ...now it's all blowing up in our faces.

Where's the justice?