The Crushing Of Souls

Yesterday I ran into a guy I used to work with at the data slaughterhouse at the hockey rink. After exchanging pleasantries (“pleasantries” being me talking smack after we shut his team his team out 4-0), I asked him how everything was going. I knew that he was still toiling away in that godforsaken hellhole and I was curious if things were as I remembered them. He dropped this gem on me:

“Once I stopped caring about what was happening around me, I was a lot happier. When I cared, management knew it and they crushed my soul.”

Good to hear that nothing has changed since the day I was laid off.

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Link Goodness

  • Ten things we do not understand about humans. I love how pubic hair made the list and I love even more that some scientist has studied pubic hair back to prehistory. For the record: we do not need explanations for why women prefer to go hairless.
  • With the recent retirement of NHL star Jeremy Roenick, Greg Wyshynski compiled a list of his top ten pop culture moments on Yahoo! Sports. Of course the mention of him in the movie Swingers was high on the list (#2). In reference to Roenick being a video game hall of famer I could not agree more. He was without a doubt the most dominant players on NHL ’94. I averaged a hat trick with him each time I played as the Blackhawks.
  • The thirty five worst celebrity tattoos. Fred Durst: thank you for confirming you are the biggest douchebag in a group douchebags. And Reggie Miller? Seriously?
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Joe Sakic Retires

Super Joe hangs ’em up. One of the most entertaining, humble and classiest guys to ever play the game, Joe Sakic could have scored at a nunnery in the dead of winter. He is guaranteed to be a first ballot hall of famer no matter what snow blowers try to do to him. During the span of his twenty year career he is eighth all time in points, has won two Stanley Cups and holds the NHL record for game-winning overtime playoff goals (8). In celebration of watching Joe play regularly since the Avs landed in Denver in ’95, here is my favorite “Sakic” moment:

How do you like them apples, Gilmour?

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Turkey Slaughterin’? You Betcha!

Americans all have their own traditions for the Thanksgiving holiday. The wife and I are usually run in the Turkey Trot pre-gluttony, but in lieu of her being with child, we are skipping this year and instead I am skating in an early morning ice hockey game at Denver University. We will then partake in two Thanksgiving meals; one at my parent’s house in the afternoon and one at the wife’s parents house in the evening. Sarah Palin, on the other hand, will have a quiet holiday at home, cooking a turkey for her husband and her children named after English towns. This will occur, of course, after some guy slaughters a turkey during her interview with a local television network. We are all different, yet we are all the same.

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North Carolina Business Trip: Epilogue

Flying on 9/11 may not be the smartest thing I have ever done (then again neither was this. Or this. Or this), but, as the rabid Carolina Hurricanes fan sitting next to me on the plane said yesterday “If we do not fly on 9/11 then the fucking terrorists win.” Preach on, guy who loves Rod Brind’Amour, preach on (note to Perez: ‘Canes fan was a former Philadelphia Flyers fan which almost made me stop talking to him until I asked him why he stopped rooting for the Flyers. His response, “Because my wife and I have been living in Raleigh for the past seven years and, well, fuck the Flyers“). Sitting in the CLT, here are some highlights from my recent business trip to North Carolina:

  • North Carolina is green and lush. I mean really green and lush. I guess I am too used to the yellow-brown hue Colorado is covered in year-round. There are a plethora of pine tress in the greater Raleigh-Durham area, too. I was not aware the Carolinas were so friendly to the coniferous tree family.
  • Various topics discussed with our client that was not related to his website: Carolina Panthers football, the point spread on the UNC-Rutgers game, Indian hotel investors, hairy pussy, bald pussy, Viagra and wine.
  • Various topics discussed with our client related to his website that had nothing to do with design or development: their T1 connection.
  • Various topics discussed with our client related to his website that had to do with design or development: none.
  • I enjoyed a ridiculous meal at a five-star resort called Herons. I gorged myself on a tremendous meal of sea bass, hush puppies, numerous expensive glasses of wine and sweet potato pie.
  • How many times our client’s partner urged me to “beat my children with a strap” upon telling him that my wife was pregnant: 3.
  • How many times our client’s partner passed on the restaurant valet service even though it was free: 2.
  • The next time I will be to invited fly to Raleigh and “talk about the website”: 6 months.
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An Open Letter To My Wife

Two years ago today you foolishly took my hand in marriage. During that time, I have been unemployed twice (1, 2), made the neighbors suspect I was beating you when yelling “You dirty bitch!” at the computer while designing a website, bulged a disc, come home late countless nights from post-hockey drinking benders, continued my subscription to numerous smut magazines, remained dutifully absent from all Monday night plans during the fall/winter to drink with my Fantasy Football buddies, run down a couch on the highway and have never let you hold the television remote in my presence. In short, you are still the amazing, accepting and funny person that I fell in love with. I appreciate you more with each passing day and I love you like Extreme; More Than Words. Happy second anniversary, honey. It is the cotton anniversary so let us pick up some righteous sheets that make it feel as if we were sleeping atop a marshmallow cloud. Or we can save our money and just get a giant box of maxi pads. Those commercials make them look like giant stingrays swimming. Just saying.

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Link Goodness

  • Click here to see the reason why I am hooked on A&E’s Intervention (pun intended). Naked meth whore’s journals are eerily reminiscent of a former coworker of mine who was rumored to be on the pipe. She used to sketch magical spirals and write “NO” repeatedly in her notebooks during board meetings.
  • Michael Jackson may be losing the Happy Pedophile Ranch due to some back taxes.
  • The Colorado Avalanche made some big moves before the trading deadline netting them Peter Forsberg, Adam Foote and Ruslan Salei. In other 1999 news, American Beauty wins the Oscar for Best Picture and folks are starting to get serious about this Y2K thing.
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In The Lap Of Luxury Boxes

Last night I watched the Avs home opener from a luxury suite at the Pepsi Center (the boys lost to the Stars 2-3 in OT). The old man, Jake, Nels and Aaron were also in attendance. My pops was responsible for the hook up as he procured the tickets through assorted work connections. The suite came equipped with a private bathroom, assorted domestic beers, food platters, period-by-period stat sheets and a computer with internet connection. Our luxurious time was surrounded by famous radio personalities with fake cans (Clear Channel suite next door), one drunk fan trying to start an “AVS RULE!” cheer (seats below us) and silver bucket of ice, Coors products and sunshine. The life of an unemployed artist is glamorous and fulfilling.

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Unemployment Round Up

My third week of unemployment will include two web design job interviews; one in the heart of downtown Denver which is a block off the 16th Street Mall and the city’s main bus depot (I’m all about the public transportation) and one a few blocks away from Govnr’s Park which has amazing happy hour beers and a Slider Basket that would make Wimpy cry (the Won Ton Juans are equally as glorious). Keep your fingers crossed that one of these interviews will pan out before my severance runs dry and we will be subsisting only on a meager public school teacher’s income. The wife has yet to wear tattered clothing and babble incomprehensible phrases while standing over a barrel fire, but I can assure you that that time is nigh, my friends. Onto an unemployed artist’s browser history:

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Mel Gibson Hates Jews, Cops

On Friday, Mel Gibson was touched for a DUI and spouted off at arresting officers with an anti-Semitic, obscenity-laden tirade that would have made Heinrich Himmler blush. Gibson concluded the outburst by calling one female officer “sugar tits.” Well done, Mel. You just surpassed Ed Belfour for “Best Arrested Famous Person Intoxicated Shenanigans” (when Eddie was playing goal for the Dallas Stars police were called to a hotel room occupied by him and a women afraid of his drunkenness. He attempted to bribe the arresting officers with a billion dollars to let him walk). No report on whether or not Mel was sporting his excellent Saddam-In-Exile beard at the time of arrest.

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