Childhood interests

It's interesting to see that two of the biggest movies coming out this summer are both based on 80's toy lines that I actually didn't have a lot of interest in. Transformers 2 and GI Joe. I'm not going to go into how much I can't stand Michael Bay and his take on Transformers, but GI Joe hasn't come out yet and I can already tell that's going to be pretty damn bad. While I didn't follow these two series very closely as a kid, as a geek you just kind of KNOW about these types of things. I did watch the original animated Transformers movie, same with GI Joe, but I never really owned any of the toys. The only GI Joe toys I had were a couple 12 inch "dolls". They were the male equivalent to Barbie I guess one would say because they had different clothing and weapons to change and use. The actual GI Joe toys were always so silly to me. They we're incredibly tiny! I had a friend in my neighborhood who only wanted to play with GI Joe's. He had an amazing set up, I'll give him that, but the fun with those toys was lost on me. I also knew people who had Transformers but I didn't find those all that fun either. I would change one back and forth several times and then get bored with it.

My childhood phases went something like this: He-man was the first, brief obsession. Then came Ghostbusters. Pronton packs were a big craze in my neighborhood and I was one of the first kids to get the "trap" which was pretty sweet. Then probably the biggest of all the crazes was Ninja Turtles. That whole thing took a life of it's own for most boys in the early 90's. Then probably my favorite was the Marvel phase (which sadly hasn't gone away since I was but a young boy). While most of the other kids wanted to play with Autobots and tiny army figurines, I wanted to play with Wolverine and Spider-man. Unfortunately for me not a lot of the other kids would like doing this and would always get excited the day my mom would tell me I was going to spend the weekend at my cousin's house. He had giant plastic containers filled with so many Marvel figures it would make my head spin. So there we would sit, play with these silly toys and read comic books all weekend. It was like heaven for me.

Most of the other kids thought comics were lame. I could have sworn little kids were supposed to like comics! But I guess I was wrong. I guess I kind of had the last laugh though as now some of the biggest movies in the past few years have been movies based on comics. Hells yes! But that's when everyone else starts to jump on the bandwagon. "OH man, I always loved Wolverine!" or "Batman fucking rocks!" It suddenly was actually cool to like these things because the movies were so huge.

Better late then never I guess. Now if I could only get some of these supposed "Batman fans" to actually pick up "The Dark Knight Returns" and read possibly the best Batman story ever told. Or have these "Wolverine fans" read some of Frank Miller's run.

But hey, can't win them all.

But now I have to go to work which I'm really not "feeling" right now since I woke up today and my entire body was sore and I have no idea why.

Later all!

Diet Time

I just noticed the other day my similarities to Garfield. My severe hatred of Mondays, spiders, and diets.

Sadly, yes it is time I go on a diet, again. Due to events in my life the past couple years it's been almost impossible to keep my weight down. I've been through a lot lately as most of you know, but it's time to get my shit back together. I won't feel better about myself until I actually look better. I'd like to go back to looking more like Edward Norton and less like his pot-bellied cousin. Which means eating better and laying off the alcohol for awhile. I actually already started a few days ago. I weighed in at 210. Blah! That's exactly how much I had weighed a few years ago, then lost 35 lbs, then gained it all back this past year or so. It really sucks but if I did it once before I can do it again. And it wasn't too hard either. I lost that weight in a little over 3 months I believe and once I did I felt a shitload better about myself. I mean, who wouldn't?

I figured I'd share this on here as kind of motivation to myself. You all know now where I am at and it will hopefully keep me on the right track. Don't want to disappoint now. I just had a fat free hotdog (30 calories) on a reduced calorie bun. I ate these a lot back on my first diet and they worked great. Hotdogs in general always make me feel full so that helps. I also started making my own mini pizza bagels. Small onion bagel (100 cal), a little tomato sause, and reduced fat cheese. Nice little snack that tastes amazing and isn't too bad for ya. And of course, as with the last diet, I get the Healthy Choise/Lean Cusine meals. I hated them at first but now I'm addicted. They really aren't bad, esspecially their pizza and panini's.

So that's what's going down. Wish me luck and if anyone has any tips let me know. I can't stand fruit so that's not even an option, just so you know.

Later all

Webbing!

Man I'm sidetracking again. But it's best to get out the feelings while they are with me, right? And that means more blogs for you guys. Two Bad Neighbors part 2 will come when it comes...

I can't fucking stand spiders. I downright loathe them. And the sick irony that I love Spider-man is not lost on me, but that's a post for another time.

So now it's warm again here in Maryland and that means the bugs and spiders are out and about. The breezeway leading to my apartment door is a bug haven with all the light on at night. Most of these bugs don't really bother me too much, but it's the spiders that make me want to jump off my third floor balcony and plummet to my doom. Lucky for me she hasn't shown her face since last year (though her web nest is STILL HERE, I will take a picture to prove) but the spider my brother and I named Shelob is absent. She made her nest not 10 feet from out door. Our home!!

Shelob exists by the way. Google it and enjoy. It wasn't just Frodo and Samwise she desired...

Shelob was a gigantress that made my brother and I fear walking to our own front door. While we haven't seen her yet, I'm sure her spawn are creeping into our condo and that doesn't help the fact I can't sleep at night.

So tonight I was walking Kenobi (my dog) and at night he has a habit of walking real close to trees. During the cold season this is fine, but now that it's summer I kinda forgot about the webbing I'm supposed to avoid. So obviously what do I do? I get pulled into some sort of spiderweb and freak the hell out. It sends shivers down my spine. I took my dog out because I know he needed to poop but he walked me right into a death trap of web that had me ALMOST running and screaming to my apartment. I calmly waited for him to do his dirty work while in the meantime I patted down my whole body while making the "pfffh pfffh" sound trying to get any type of webbing away from my mouth. I caught a glimpse of a neighbor lady opening her blinds to see what was up. I said "Sorry" and she closed the blinds. I must have looked pretty dumb but I didn't care at the moment.

My main priority was dragging my dog up 2 flights of stairs to our home so I could jump in the shower and get whatever webbing was on me.....OFF. I honestly cannot sleep or do anything unless I am absolutely positive that there is no webbing (or spiders) on me. My shower is a quarantine of sorts.

*insert quick blog here*

I wanted to throw this in real quick since it just happened about 20 minutes ago. It's funny, I wanted to go to the grocery store to get some food, then come home to eat and finish my 2 Bad Neighbors blog. Then I have an incident at the self checkout and am given more material to write about. I think I'm going to dedicate certain sections of this blog to "The Self Checkout" and "The RedBox" since someone always seems to surprise me while there. Like an ongoing series. "Sean at the RedBox #24"

So anyways, as I was ringing my stuff up this couple stood behind me in line. And I mean RIGHT behind me, like they were trying to rush me somehow. That's when I played dumb and slowed all my movements and pretended to look for bar codes on my products *yuck yuck* Usually there is a kid bagging your stuff for you so by the time your done you can grab your food and leave but it was pretty busy tonight so I had to bag everything myself. As I'm doing so these people are start scanning their stuff. I still have a lot of stuff to pack and their milk comes down the belt and knocks all my stuff down. This woman looks completely shocked as if her stuff was going to magically veer off to the side and position itself neatly in the corner away from my stuff.

Woman: I'm so sorry! (Grabs her milk and puts it off to the side)
Me: It's fine, it's fine (In an obviously frustrated tone)

In my anger I pack up the rest of my stuff and throw it in my bag. I also accidentally grab their milk! We both happened to get the same bottle of Skim Milk. I start to walk away and she yells "HEY! You took my milk!"

I was about to mouth off to her until I realized that I actually did have their milk! But did I feel stupid for doing so? Not at all!

So I said to the couple "That's why we wait for someone to finishing bagging, so things like this don't happen" They basically just proved my point entirely. If you're going to scan your shit so fast it gets grouped in with the person in front of you, IT'S GOING TO GET MIXED TOGETHER. Lesson learned you dummies, I'm glad I was of assistance! I'm half your age and apparently have a lot more common sense than you.

Here is a fun diagram I have slaved over for your viewing pleasure.

Two Bad Neighbors Part 1

I've been out and about for awhiles now so I feel I owe it to everyone to post a long one. This might be broken into a 2 parter. After two awesome/relaxing vacations (Pittsburgh and Chesapeke Bay) I am back in the real world and am already angry again. That didn't take very long. One day.

But first a brief story about this past weekend.

So I'm back from the Chesapeake Bay. Went down there for the weekend with a group of friends (17??) for my buddy's birthday celebration. 17 is a lot of people for such a tiny place on the water but we for the most part made it work. The only real downfall was the tsunami that hit us late Saturday night. More than half the group were spending the night out in tents and it just started pouring! Tents trying to blow away, the whole yard turned into a muddy swamp in less than 5 minutes. It was cool at first to be outside in (I love when it gets REALLY windy) but then people's shit was getting soaked and we had to find a way for 17 people to sleep indoors with only 2 guest beds and 2 couches.

I got no sleep that night on the floor. But it was an amazing day anyway.

Then I come back home and the first thing I do is walk my dog. As we're strolling through the grass I almost slip and kill myself on a big ol piece of crap. How do you not pick up your dogs shit? I live in a condo development so none of us really have backyards and have to walk around the neighborhood letting the dogs do their sinful business on the few grassy areas. When I first moved here I was so used to just letting my dog out in our backyard that I was completely oblivious to picking up my dog's doodie. Until some lady yelled at me. That was all I needed to hear. I realized my mistake and since then I always pick it up. And on the occasions that I forget. I will go back inside my house, get a grocery bag, and go back out and get it.

But not everyone is as super awesome as I am.

But here's the real kicker. The condo development was kind enough to place these dog droppings containers and bags. It's basically a stand with a doggy bag dispenser and a small trashcan underneath. Not only that, I think they put up MORE than they actually needed to! I guess the development realized just how fucking lazy these people are. It doesn't hurt to walk another 50 feet. I should know, I need to shed some pounds myself! So when I see the development go out of their way to help keep this neighborhood clean and make it easy for everyone, only to notice that I am still stepping in SHIT infuriates me to no end.

What else have the condo people done for us lately? They put speed bumps in my neighborhood. There's only 2, but I feel it should help. For you see the 4 speed limit signs in my neighborhood were not enough to get people to actually drive 15 miles per hour. Yeah 15 can be pretty damn painful but there are children in this neighborhood! 2 years ago I had one of those tv/movie moments where the rubber bouncing ball went out into the street and a small girl went running after it. Since I was going about 15 miles per hour I was able to stop in time. She was still about 20 feet away, but someone doing about 30 down the street like they normally do might have had a problem.

But the speed bumps don't seem to help much either. My favorite person in the world "Scottie LeDouche" as I refer to him still does 30-40 down the road. I have downstairs neighbors (that actually talk to me and call me by name) that have a 4 year old and a 7 year old. They like to play outside and ride bikes and scooters. But that doesn't stop Scottie LeDouche. He'll come flying down that road likes he's trying to win The Kessel Run. It's sad that most of the people in my neighborhood drive a lot like him and it won't be until they stike a child or maybe even a dog to learn their lesson. But apparently that's the world we live in. It's cool to drive fast. I wouldn't know, I never thought I was cool and I never will. Scottie LeDouche is a sad pathetic late 30's early 40's dude desperately trying to hold on to whatever youth he has left. When I called him out on his actions awhiles back he referred to me a "some dumb punk" Coming from the jerkass who drives like a speed demon, throws a beer bottle at me and my dog(that was from an old blog back on Facebook), and in general is just a plain douche (hence the name) his words don't seem to affect me that much. But sadly, I see him every day. I walk Kenobi around 3:15 when I get home from work. Halfway through our walk Scottie gets home, flys down the road, I stare him down the whole time, he walks into his house, grabs two little white terrier dogs, lets them pee once, then drags them inside. All before Kenobi and I get back up the street to our place. He must really love those dogs.

But at least I know it's not his dog poop I'm stepping in since he doesn't even give them a change to go...

Next time I shall discuss more why my brother and I are considered the bad neighbors and what prompted them to hang this banner from their balcony!

Hey all!

I have to apologize again for the absence. First of all I was on vacation for 5 days. I think my first night in Pittsburgh is when I posted my last......post. Then it was 5 awesome days of hanging out with friends and drinking! Normally when I go visit my friends in Pitt I usually see the same few people. But this time I got to see several old friends that I honestly had not seen since I moved back home in 2005. I had an amazing time and I'll hopefully be going to visit a lot more often than I have been.

But when I got home on Monday I was treated with walking in the door to my house as a sauna. My brother told me that the AC was broken. To me, that is a nightmare. I live off of my AC, and the whole time I was in Pittsburgh I had no AC. My friends bought a fan that was pretty damn sweet and that enabled me to sleep well while on my vacation. In the back of my mind, I was so excited to be able to come back home and sleep in my bed and cold ass house. Boy was I in for a surprise.

I CANNOT sleep in the heat. I just can't. I toss and turn like an infant that needs to urinate. It's quite sad.

I ended up getting no sleep the night before I had a 9 hour shift at work. Halfway through the work day I was barely able to stand and was a tad delirious. I remember spending several minutes trying to lock up the store when we closed, only to notice I was using my house key to do so.

Normally I don't need much sleep but I think that coupled with the fact that I slept on a couch in Pittsburgh and was partying so much, I didn't get a lot of rest those 5 days. So I was ZONKED at work. It was terrible. But did I have a great time? Hell yeah! So it was totally worth it. Plus, since my AC is broken I ended up going to Home Depot and buying the exact same fan my Pitt friends bought. It's pretty sweet!

I'm going to see The Hangover tomorrow which is supposed to be amazingly funny. Can't wait.