The Modern Man is feeling guilty

I noticed today that I put on socks with a matching pattern so I thought I was stylish and in vogue. Yet when I saw them in the light of day, one was black and the other was blue. Although Black and Blue is an excellent song by Van Halen, it's not necessarily what I need during my busy work day. I mean, I know that no one else will figure it out, but every time I've seen my feet today, it's thrown off my ju-ju. On top of that, I got in my car in the afternoon and was cursing it under the impression that the air conditioner had broken since heat was pouring into the vehicle and making me sweat like a Bush press secretary. However, I suddenly realized I was still had the heater on and it was running at the same time as the air conditioner. (Colorado is great for 35 degree morning and 75 degree afternoons.) I never said I wasn't an idiot. Now, if you throw in a two hour missing backpack search for a student, some seriously dubious student parenting leading to poor grades, poor work habits, and possible future incarceration, I'm having a bad day. Now throw in the fact the last song I heard today was the Pina Colada Song and it's been in my head for 7 hours now it's pretty obvious it's time to write a new blog.

Guilt.


I was raised well. That means that I have a lot of guilt about a lot of things. Without guilt, what's going to keep you from doing the wrong thing? If there is no guilt floating about you have no reason to ever think about your actions. People without guilt can do amaziningly horrific things, and not even bat an eyelash. This, I'm completely positive, is why our current administration (and much of big business) can get away with what they do. They have no internal parent telling them they could possibly be hurting someone or actually wrong about something.

However, being without guilt did seem to work for OJ, at least for a while.

However, I'm not big business and I'm definately not OJ, so let's delve into some current guilty feelings:

First, I saw Superbad the other day and feel slightly guilty about it. I mean, I really enjoyed it even if it was totally inappropriate. (Hence the guilt. Should I enjoy inappropriate things?) If you're a male and were not the richest, coolest, or most attractive member of your high school class, this movie is for you. Most women won't like the male-centric plot, but let's just say that it is about friendship, the quest to "get with" a girl, the crusade to purchase alcohol as a minor, and a lot of inappropriate jokes about the male and female groin area. In other words, it's pretty hilarious. Plus, it helped change my perspective on how to handle stressful situations. For instance, I've decided that in any stressful situation I'm going to replace my usual mantra: SERENITY NOW! with a loud shout out, "I am Mclovin!"

Speaking of that, I am Mclovin the idea that my son will soon enjoy video games. However, this fills me with guilt as well. One of these days, one of the grand parents will break down and purchase an expensive system for him and I'll get to play it. I really have not been able to play video games since my son was born. Should I feel guilty about this future windfall? Should I ignore the Madden 2014 sitting in front of the TV? Should I try not to look at Halo 8? Should I pre-file for divorce, since that is probably going to happen if I start playing video games again ten years from now? I guess the answer to all these questions is YES, but I'm thinking NO. OHHH, the horrible guilt.

Also, should I feel guilty if I go fishing on Sunday instead of going to church? I mean, most of Jesus's crew were fisherman, so fishing is technically a religious experience. However, PETA says that fishing is evil because it hurts the fish. Does that mean PETA is evil since the disciples were fishermen and they were good Christians? So, if PETA is evil and GW Bush is Christian and a leader of the USA (which I keep hearing is a Christian nation with a Christian Constitution), than logically speaking that means that if I don't fish and I listen to PETA, I'm being evil and un-American at the same time. That might make me an enemy combatant of some kind. I don't want to go to Abu Ghraib for not fishing. Do I want to anger the church by not going or anger our wonderful country by not fishing? It's all so confusing. Hence, the guilt. Hence the reason I will be fishing this weekend. It's really the most religious thing I can do.

I'm also feeling guilty about supporting Boston fans for all their underdog years. However, that will be a blog of its own. Sorry Rockies, I wore my team hat by accident and cursed the team.

Talk about guilt.

The Modern Man and Fantasy Football

The Modern Man has been on a long hiatus, but he is back. For those of you who don't know what 'hiatus' means , I've provided three examples of its use in every day language using a common teaching practice:

1) I drafted John Kitna for my fantasy team, and realized that the Lions have been on a hiatus from football since 1954.

2) I was running down the first baseline when I suddenly pulled my hiatus. (I was quickly arrested and charged with lewd conduct right afterwards.)

3) The nuclear (*pronounced "nuke you ler") leak created a huge, genetic freak out of our dog Hi, and unfortunately, Hiatus.

This type of teaching come from the ancient Romans and is highly effective in working with middle school students. The technique is called, vocabularus desperatus, meaning, "We ain't gonna learn it if the word has more than one syllable, and you're pulling our haituses is you think we care."

So I've been talked into playing fantasy football. When you put fantasy and football together, I envisioned me being tackled by eleven scantily clad Victoria's Secret models. However, much to my disappointment, this is not the case.

To start off, if gambling were legal, I would have had to plunk down $30 to join a fantasy league with a group of nice church going people who seem to feel that gambling is okay, but swearing and drinking is not. This is too bad, because quite honestly, I'd rather swear and drink. I mean, for @#$# sakes, I can brew 5 gallons of beer for $30 and I can @#@ing swear for free.

But, I digress.

Fantasy football. It's hugely popular. It brings millions of dollars to websites across the country. Manly men with enormous HD televisions, large cable bills, officially licensed NFL paraphernalia (not to be confused with the single and lonely phernalia), and WAAAAAAAAY to much time on their hands play this game weekly, spending hours setting up their teams and worrying about their player's production.

For this game, we were to be given $100 dollars in pretend money (which is a pretty good return on investment, if gambling were legal) and we were to bid on our players in auction format and these players would be imported into a team which will score points against other pretend teams. Now, I thought the trafficking in humans for profit was made illegal in this country after the Civil War, but I guess I'm wrong. I bid on many players and I am now an official fantasy owner, or as I would rather be called, an official fantasy pimp.

Why pimp? Well, I can play my best people and "cut" the ones I'm unhappy with. Hey, it isn't fair, but that's life on the fantasy street.

The unfortunate thing was that I actually had to do research on my players to find out who I should draft. I probably spent over an hour finding information on who I should take. I was glued to the computer screen, leaky pen in hand, going over data no one really understands. I crunched the numbers, came up with a plan, then did more research. Do you know what that makes me? I'll get to that in a moment.

When I entered the basement of a neighbors house to make my draft picks, I was surrounded by affable gentlemen (and one lady) who all joked, had fun, and bid on illegal human traffic. I looked at those around me. They all gripped their fantasy magazines (not a naked picture in any of them), checked their fantasy lists, and eyed their newly acquired players with a fondness only a fantasy pimp can have. But as I joined in, a quote from a bygone era came quickly into my head. The quote, from the Alpha-Betas still resonates today as it did years ago as it was shouted to the Lambda Lambda Lambdas by the various members of the fraternity.

"NERDS!" they shouted. Yep, it seemed to me that every one of these people was a nerd, but didn't know it.

You can be the toughest man in the world, but if you're taking more than 5 minutes a week thinking about fantasy football, the fact is, you're a nerd.

You're not even a fantasy nerd, just a nerd.

For years I've been trying to rehabilitate my nerdy nature, but it's come back to haunt me.

You know what they say, when you point, three fingers are pointing back at you. At least that is what teachers say, so that's what I'm sticking to at this point. As I pointed at the 'big board' with my current fantasy picks, and pointed towards the nerds around me, those three fingers were pointing right back at me and the cold hard truth sunk in.

My God, I'm a nerd, too.

But, I'll be a successful FANTASY nerd if I win my league. However, my quarterback is John Kitna.

Looks like I'll be taking it up the hiatus this year.