The Modern Man errr... Give me a second, I'll Remember

Are you a modern man? Have you ever...

... had your significant other asked you to bring something down from a room, but as you enter it, you pick up a wayward sock, find a quarter on the floor, then noticed your Sodoku book. With super-human effort, you manage to avoid the Sodoku book, grab your wife's hat, then head downstairs with a proud smile on your face at overcoming that Sododu obstacle and a job well done.

"Did you get what I asked?" your significant other asks testily as you enter the room.

You stand, panic in your eyes, but decide you are sooooo prepared for this one. "Yes, oh beautiful one, I have the hat you requested. I have traveled long and through dangerous places to garner this truly wonderful and unique head apparal..."

No laughing. Then you have a long moment of dead air, as they say in radio. You suddenly realize that your ears may actually be sweating.

"You realized I asked for that yesterday?" she smiles, yet doesn't look happy.

"No." Sweat now dripping off your nose.

"Do you remember what I asked for?"

"My undying love?" you smile and try a waiter laugh as you wrack your brain for some clue as to what you were supposed to get. You end up slinking to the basement to watch football, and for some reason, know the name of every single player, play, penalty, and general history of both teams.

Have you ever...

...rushed headfirst into a room to grab something, then stood for over 3 minutes with your lips pursed, eyes stairing intently at the ceiling, trying to remember what the @#$@ you were there for? Well, as long as your there, you might as well listen to a tune or two on the 'ol IPOD while you finish that Sodoku.

You can't fight your brain.

As my great, great, great grandfather used to say, "You never forget anything, you just remember it too late."

That would be funny, but I can't remember his name.

Modern men have a lot on their plates. I'm not talking about eating and the obesity that is running amok in America. I'm talking about our poor minds trying to keep up with the modern world and the millions of things we need to remember to get through a day. This is having a detrimental effect on our memories. At least I think it is, I honestly can't even remember what the topic was.

Oh, yea. The power of remembering. To get to the bottom of this forgetting thing, I think it is important to study the etomology of the word "remembering." Broken into it's component language roots, remembering shouldn't be that hard.

RE means again, such as in refried beans will haunt you again and again.

Ing is some sort of bank whose commercials I never quite understand.

Member is a vague inappropriate euphamism that shouldn't be talked about in a blog such as this, but is often used in horror movies in such great lines as, "I can't believe that beast killed him by attaching that tentacle to his member."

Now, if you put all three parts together, it really makes no sense at all. I aplogize. I wonder where I was going with that, but I really can't remember.

But there is something in men's brains. They say that men think of sex every few seconds. However, I don't believe it. How the heck could we even remember to do that?

Men can remember stats like you wouldn't believe, they can remember to get their fantasy football team ready every week, and a joke they heard when they were 12 that still kills them at parties. Women of course use their brain power to remember every stupid thing we men have done our entire lives and save them up for arguments.

Woman: "Honey, do you remember when we were first dating and had that big fight after "When Harry Met Sally?" You're acting like that now."

Man: "That was funny, the scene in the restaurant. But I can't believe that one guy gave up his wagon wheel table. Good movie, though. Princess Leah was in it."

Woman: "You don't remember that big fight! How could you not? You're just pretending so I will stop yelling!!!"

Man: (Rambling on, despite the yelling.) "Did you know that Tom Hanks was once in a really bad movie about a guy addicted to Dungeons and Dragons? It could be possibly the worst movie ever. Even worse than Cabin Boy. I remember staying up to watch it since I played a little D and D myself. (now smiling reminiscently)"

Woman: (sobbing) "How can you not remember? HOW?"

Man: Looking generally confused and wondering if the couch is already made up for him this evening, then ticks off 10 Tom Hanks' films in his head, just for good measure.

No, ladies, we are not making this stuff up.

At least, I don't think we are. Quite honestly, I can't remember.
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Have any stories you remember about forgetting? Send me an email and maybe I'll post-em.

The Modern Man: Putting the Dumb in Wisdumb

As one ages, it is assumed that you will gain wisdom at the expense of your youthful persona.

For instance, I've learned to CHECK the breaker box to make sure the electricity is off when wiring my basement. It was quite a shocker, but I did learn.

I've learned that middle school is a perfect place for puns like "shocker", but adults weary of them quickly. However, I'm not a quitter, which might be a jolt to some of you.

I've learned good music is ageless, but our stars of the 70's and 80's weren't ageless at all, even with highly paid for plastic surgery, as shown by the following pictures, here, here, and here.

However even with all these neat bits of wisdom, with age comes confusion as well. The world moves forward at a technological pace equivalent of a (choose one... bike racer, sprinter, football player, or baseball star) on steroids.

So, as I should be getting more and more wisdom, there are more and more things I don't understand. So I've possibly coined the phrase wisdumb, which seems to show the state I'm almost constantly in. I should be getting smarter and wiser, but I keep seeing more and more things that confuse me. For instance:

I don't get stickers on fruit. Dear Lord, I just spent three minutes poking and prodding my lunchtime plum to pull that sucker off. Now it's stuck to my finger and I'm trying to flick it in the trash. Of course, it's now on the floor and I'm wondering if I should just leave it there, or take more time from my lunch break to unstick it from the floor. Do I really need a sticker to tell me it's a plum? It was in the plum pile for @$#@ sake. Am I going to pick it up and ask, "Hmm, I can't remember what kind of fruit this is? Thank God! There's a sticker! It's a plum!"

I don't get how a group of three people in a car all be talking on cell phones at one time (I actually saw this the other day)? Are they talking to each other? Do they hate each other? Is this the new ménage a trios, and if it was, why wasn't I invited?

I don't understand when a video game copies reality, and within the game I control a player who finds someone playing a video game in that video game, is that person whose playing the video game controling me?

On that note, do we control the video game players, or do they truly control us as we play at 3:00 AM hoping to make the next level and go to bed to get that 3 hours of sleep before work/school starts.

If reality shows mimic the human condition, then I'm beginning to wonder what condition my condition is in.

I don't understand how my wife can talk for 2 hours on the phone with a friend she's going to see that day.

If myspace.com is really your space, but technically it doesn't take up any real space at all, shouldn't it be called mypretendvirtualspacethatno-onereallycaresabout.com?

I don't get how NASCAR vehicles turn to the left all the time, yet their constituents tend to vote to the right.

I don't understand why radio stations are giving away "free money". If they are just giving away money, do I have to pay them back?

I also don't understand why I haven't made a million dollars with the inclusion of my new google ads.

I do understand that the google searches the blog for topics that they can sell and then places relevant advertisements, but last time I checked, my two ads were "Teaching Aids" and surpisingly, "Toilet Parts".

Toilet parts?

Now that's something I understand.

The Modern Man Sells Out!

It's hard to see your famous people sell out. I mean, The Who sold out to Humvee and others, Bush sold out to big oil, Steppenwolf sold out to another car company, and Jerry Fallwell sold out a long time ago, possibly to Satan himself.

I'm not quite willing to go as far as Jerry, but a little extra cash couldn't hurt. Which means I have to make this blog incredibly popular, get syndicated, and then rehash my old material over and over again, like Dave Barry or Bill Simmons, only with much less talent.

The problem is, my average weekly visits were occasionally in the negative numbers, which means more people are trying to avoid my blog then read it.

Oh, the horror.

However, something miraculous happened after my post, Law and Order: Modern Victims Unit. My site visits went through the roof. I mean, I was getting more hits than Jennifer Aniston at a singles' bar. Usually, my site meter sleeps most of the time, only to be interrupted by an occasional visit from a relative, a friend, or someone I made look at my site in the computer lab at school as I gazed over their shoulder saying, "Isn't that funny? Isn't that funny? Where are you going?"

But now I'm averaging almost 81 visits a day. So I had to find out why. So like Dr. Quincy or CSI, I went searching for the truth, without all that murder getting in the way.

So I examined the reason that people would visit my blog. Was it my scintilating prose touching the hearts of modern men everywhere? I'm pretty sure that can't be the case, since I'm not quite sure what that sentence even means. Was it my funny, whistful, and insightful slice of life reports from an Everyman type connecting emotionally with the masses? Seeing that I spelled wistful incorrectly, I'm pretty sure that can't be it either. Maybe it's the free homebrew I give to people I know who have at least pretended to read it. That might explain some of the hits, but I don't know 81 people.

The answer, it turns out, actually has something to do with a word that rhymes with hex. It's all due to one link to Pamela Anderson that I whimsically placed in one of my blogs. I'm now getting hits from people searching for that picture from all over the world. I've had hits from Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, and for some reason, The White House. The last one, however, may be due to my current bumper sticker, and not the cleavage of a woman who, God bless her, is single handedly trying to resurrect the lives of B level rock and roll men everywhere.

So now I've learned what M.B.A.'s, MTV video directors, and advertising executives all over the world know. Sex sells. Add a few links to good looking semi-stars, and you've got yourself an audience.

So today, I'm selling out, but like all semi-cool sell outs, I want to appear to do it without selling out at all. How to sell out is the biggest question? WWFCSD? (What would former child stars do?) The obvious is getting on television, yet my IQ prevents me from qualifying for a reality show. I'll have to find another, more sneaky way, so I'll try my best to not not sell out.

So, you won't not find any links to Angela Jolie , Elisha Cuthbert, or Number 6 (Tricia Helfer) here. You won't probably not find Salma Hayak or Lindsey Lohan either. You ladies definately won't not see Mathew Mccohohy, Mcconohy, I mean McConaughey, Johnny Depp, or George Clooney if I can possibly not help it.

Let's face it, I'm way to not cool and to moralistic to ever become one with "the man." I'll never truly sell out. You have to have talent to do that. But after looking in the old wallet, it can't hurt to try.

Back to School and the Modern Man

Did you hear that? It's a sound that started out as a whimper but it building up to the roaring of a freight train screaming through your back yard. A sound is beginning to roar through the atmosphere like rolling thunder, only with a slightly despondent 'waaahh' at the tail end of it.

"What is this sound?" you ask. Many an untrained ear has murmured this as they locked their doors and looked to the heavens for the coming apocalypse.

Is it a jet? A thousand low riders with playing a long mournful bass note a pumpin'? Is it a million Buddhist men chanting?

No, it's much worse.

You need to visualize thousands upon thousands of people yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" like Darth Vader at the end of Episode III to really get the magnitude of the issue. Teachers in the thousands are screaming out in one long loud wail. Yep, only a couple days left of summer break.

Teachers are mourning their loss of freedom, exactly unlike this country after the passing of the Patriot Act.

Speaking of freedom, thousands more parents are shouting, "Freedom!" like William Wallace did before attacking the Jews in the movie Braveheart and freeing all of Scotland from whatever people are blaming them for now.

These screaming teachers and parents are creating conflicting sounds are creating quite the cacophony, kind of like a Motley Crue concert, only much more melodic.

What about the students, you ask? They're too groggy from sleeping 14 hours and using the rest of their day for bad daytime television and violent video games to really care. Just give them a Red Bull on the first day and send them to school before they realize their summer is gone.

Yes, the S.S. Summer is about to sail. I've got to shave EVERY DAY! I've got to wear a TIE. I've got to WAKE UP before the sun comes up. My God! I actually have to SHOWER!

It's like summer is a wet bar of soap. I feel like I'm trying to grip the bar and am staggering around and around, just barely keeping it from hitting the ground and sliding away for ever. Only I'm realizing I'm no longer outside and having fun, but in a prison, and dropping the soap, well, that's really just a bad, bad, bad idea.

Yes, life moves on. We can kick and scream and complain or we can figure we've got 184 days to make an actual difference in our jobs, unlike about 95% of the other people out their working for a living. I'm looking forward to helping the world be a little better place. So, I'm just glad I got to enjoy myself this summer, spend some quality time with the family, and I know that summer will come again. I'm happy helping the cute (raving), intelligent (hormonal), middle school students move towards successful adult lives.

But excuse me for a moment. Cover your ears. I've got to scream really, really loudly....


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.

Sinking Like a Stone

"And cool water
Washes me all over
Washes me away
And still I'm drowning" Joe Jackson

"(I'm) a brick and I'm drowning slowly." Ben Folds Five

"I’m sweating,
And breathing
And staring and thinking
And sinking
Deeper.
It’s almost like I’m swimming." Tool

Swimmers. Can you hear the contempt in my voice? Of course not. I'd worry if you did. For as long as I remember I've avoided swimming. But now, kicking and screaming, I have had to become one. I'm being literal of course. Most of my swimming consists of kicking and screaming when I'm not actually inhaling chlorine filled water.

I've avoided the big plunge forever, but my 39 year old knees decided that the day would be more fun with IT band swelling and general knee pain. I swear that my knees are giggling every time I squat down to play with my kid as the knees snap, crackle, pop and I groan like a 1500 year old Sequoia in the wind, only louder.

"Daddy, your knees sound like breakfast!"
"But son, they feel like ___." I'm never allowed to finish that sentence, as the glance from my wife tells me it's time to change the subject. Ah, if only I could stand back up.

I know swimming is good for you, but I've never really identified with these broad shouldered, muscle encrusted, rubber headed, eye goggled, body shaving, kick flippin', "we're the best exercise" gloating, chlorine breathing, please shower before entering the pool area bas**ds.

Ah, that helped. I feel better already.

Being a runner, biker, rollerblader, and doing any other sport that allows oxygen freely into your lungs, I've always considered swimming only one step away from the treadmill. You start at a wall, go to the next, and come back 'home'. Then you do it all over again. It's like commuting, only less fun and with dirty water left over from the previous hours pre-school swimming program. You know what I'm getting at and I'm sorry.

So there's no scenery, no favorite loops, no dodging cars, and no talking to a friend. Just the goggle distorted site of a black line, lost Band-Aids, water suspended phlegm, the sound of gasping, splashing, and the funky green colored bottom where the lifeguard will probably find me dead since he is too busy talking to the girl sunning herself in a bikini the size of the Sacajawea dollar.

But I'm not bitter. I just can't breath. Plus, I smack my head on the concrete every time I do the backstroke. Dear Michael Phelps, please save me or at least show me where I can find some air.

But I'm attacking the pool like we attacked Iraq, with my WMD being the green water. I liberate a little water from the pool every time I leave. A little in the lungs, a little in the belly, and a lot in the ears. However, unlike Iraq things might be getting a little better.

My last swimming experience was as follows:

So back and forth I go. I'm moving like a large, flailing rock, only less boyant. I've noticed that they've positioned extra female lifeguards for some reason. Maybe they just think I'm cute? It's tough to say with goggles that see the world as clearly as Donald Rumsfeld. Nope, that's a look of worry on their faces. I just took my pulse, and it was 358.. That has to be good. Did my right arm just fall off? Nope, it's just numb. I've just had the head of the local triathlon club offer her coaching expertise as I gasped for breath gripping the side of the pool like a vice. Her introduction was, "I can help you with your form." That can't be a good sign. At the end, I seem to have breathed more air and less water this time around. As I stagger out of the pool, I notice something.

I feel like I've exercised.

As Tool said, "It's almost like I'm swimming." I may have to do this again sometime. Now if I could only get this water out of my ear.