Bernie Madoff, Mob Ties?

This is a reposting of a post by a member of abovetopsecret.com.

As I've been rather preoccupied with the madoff mess thanks to my connection to this via clients who've been bilked, I have spent quite a bit of time trying to find information on the case and on some of the players I've had contact with. My clients' family dealt with Frank Dipascali. He was their investment manager. In other words, they were being swindled by Madoff's right hand man. So, I did some digging on this guy who has been evasive with the feds so far. He's lawyered up and hasn't been saying much of anything yet, when anyone asked, they'd say nothing happened without talking to Frank first. Frank and Bernie controlled access to the 17th floor. The 17th floor was the floor where Bernie and Frank and 8 others worked. Everyone there was related to Madoff, except Frank. Odd, right?
Well, here's an interesting blog that might shed some light on it.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mrs_panstreppon/2008/12/madoff-cfo-frank-dipascali-mar.php
"Frank pushes phony equities and his wife writes worthless mortgages"

The checks my clients received from Madoff over the years were drawn on a chase account. Frank's wife worked at chase.
Frank's wife is from Howard Beach, New York. This is one of those areas where there's a heavy mafia residence. Is it possible that Madoff was in with the Mob?
The blog linked above raises some rather interesting points.
The US Attorney General removed himself from the case as his son, Marc Mukasey, was representing DiPascali. Marc Mukasey and his dad have very close ties to Rudy Giuliani. Rudy was well known as the man who went after the mob when he was in the US Attorney's office. Giuliani was, publicly, a mob enemy but, is it possible, he was connected to the mob?Rudy's business partner and former top NYC cop, Bernard Kerik, has been linked to the mob and has fallen from grace, taking "gifts" from a jersey construction company among his many crimes. Then there's this blog regarding Rudy and a slip-up regarding his "family."
http://moreyetitrouble.blogspot.com/2007/09/giuliani-hints-darkly-at-mafia.html
Sure, it's reaching but, given the history of the mafia in NYC, is it not possible that Rudy was connected and his long time friends the Mukaseys are also connected, thus, Marc Mukasey is representing mob connected Frank DiPascali?
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to see the mafia linked to this. They've been linked to wall street scams for years.
http://www.wallstreetscandals.com/PARTI/criminal_activity/mafia3.html
why wouldn't they continue to operate in an arena where the profits were there for the taking?


If you'd like to add to the discussion, here's a link to the original thread:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread421674/pg1'

I almost looked like a hero

I'm horrible at picking out gifts for anyone over the age of 15. If one of my kids needs a gift, the wife asks me what to get. If one of our many nieces or nephews is having a birthday, I usually pick it. Perhaps it is my childish nature. I'm immature and I like to play with the kids and their toys so I have a pretty good handle on what to get them.

When it comes to adults, I'm a moron. A good friend of mine recently turned 40 and I went and picked up a tie. It was a good pick. Very nice. Normally, I'd pick something out that I would like but when I wear ties, they tend to be on the funkier side of things. So, when I came home with a tie for this friend, my wife was surprised and shocked. His wife called my wife to make plans shortly after his party and she said it was one of his favorite gifts. She thought it showed how much we cared that we didn't opt for the standard bottle of wine or champagne. She told my wife she has excellent taste and her husband wore it that Monday. My wife then said "Floogin picked it out. He didn't tell me he was doing it. Just went and picked it out."

Other than that one shining moment, I'm a total bust when it comes to gift buying. Every year, on my wife's birthday, our anniversary, mother's day and channukah, I basically tell her to go buy something for herself. It allows me the pleasure of not having to see her disappointed face when she opens some crappy gift from me.

So, when my sister's 20th wedding anniversary was coming up, I suggested we take my sister and her husband out for a night on the town. They live on Long Island and don't get to take advantage of all the city has to offer. My wife said she liked the idea and asked where we should take them. She thought I meant a restaurant. I did but I also thought it would be fun to see a show. So, I told her about Rock of Ages. It's an off broadway show that is described as "a romantic musical comedy set to the hottest tunes of the 80's." The songs in the show included hits by white snake, styx, reo speedwagon, foreigner etc. The website has a video from the show. It looked fucking awesome.

We were discussing the show with my younger sister and her husband and they both loved the idea and thought the show sounded awesome so I asked my older sister and her husband and they were all over it. They both thought the show sounded like a lot of fun and they said they hadn't been to the theater since our show closed back in 2001. (that's right, Floogin McNoogin as the title Broadway Producer on his resume).

So we set out trying to find a night the 6 of us were all free. After about a week of deliberating, we settled on a date and I went and bought 6 tickets. I got 6 seats in the front row, dead center. Normally, I'd want seats set back a few rows. Having produced a show and been involved with the theater machinations, I have learned to request house seats whenever possible, often doing this through back channels. They are rarely free but you wind up in the best seats in the house. These are the seats that the set designers, choreographers, lighting people, directors etc sit in when the show is in pre-production and these are usually the best seats for viewing the show. The only show I know of where the house seats were not necessarily the best in the theater was The Producers. Mel Brooks wanted the choreography to geared towards the orchestra seating but he also wanted to ensure that the folks in the second balcony would not be fucked over so many of the dance numbers were designed like the old synchronized swimming scenes from those movies from the 40's.

Anyway, I scored these front row seats and, judging from the video on the website, it looks like the show turns into a full on concert. People are dancing in the aisles, the cast comes off the stage to interact and dance with the audience. Quite a party.

I picked up the tickets and this past Friday I gave my sister and her husband their tickets at an anniversary party. I gave my other sister hers. she paid me for her share of the tickets and everything was set. All that was left was to pick a restaurant to hit before the show. No big deal as my younger sister wasn't going to spring for dinner too so it was just the 4 of us for this leg.

Today I got the email alerting me to the show's closing. A week before we are supposed to see the show. On sister is going away next week, the other might not be available the week after that. So, I'm going to have to get a refund and start thinking about a gift all over again.

One last thought. If you are on line for the bathroom in a restaurant, and there's someone behind you, do you let them in first if you plan on taking a dump? I was at a rather crowded restaurant Saturday night and there's a guy on line in front of me and he goes in and doesn't come out for a solid ten minutes. He finally comes out and as I walk in I am engulfed in the noxious odor. A thick, creamy, pea soup of stench permeates my clothes and I spend 3 minutes gagging and pissing. I wound up pissing all over the place as the heaving gags were making me move around as I peed.

When I came out of the bathroom there was a guy and a girl waiting behind me. Well, she was waiting for the lady's room but they were together and as I exited the room of death he said "why don't you go in here, I can go after you."

As she stepped into the bathroom, she must've got wind of what went down in there because she stopped dead in her tracks, spun around and practically leaped out of the bathroom. She was an odd shade of green and she had her hand over her mouth. Thru her fingers she gag spoke and said "you go ahead, this guy got personal in there."

I tried to defend myself but I realized I must've sounded pathetic so I lowered my head in unwarranted shame and fled the scene.

hot weekend. hot as hell.

Hell of a weekend. Or should I say the weekend was hell.

Friday was, for the most part, horrible. Spent the better part of the day investigating and researching into the Madoff scandal as I have a few clients who had investments with this petty thief. I've been saying for years how something wasn't right with this guy. For starters, in an arena where the technology is never fast enough to get your trades through, this guy was claiming to have the most cutting edge technology to aid in his system. Odd since his 1099's were sent out on handwritten or typed forms and his monthly reporting was done on old dot matrix style printer paper with the perforated edges. I didn't even know they made that shit anymore. Everything was so hush hush over there, only Bernie and his sons know what's going on blah blah blah. The whole thing appeared to be ridiculous and, I guess, those people who have lost it all with him now see that the age old adage is true. "If it looks too good to be true...."

I felt horrible when I learned of the scam , mainly because one of of my best friends and her family took a massive hit as a result. To make matters worse, over the last ten or so years, I've been trying to get my friend's dad to at lease diversify a bit, move some money into treasuries or other investments. He always asked the same thing "in a bad market will I still get 10 to 15%?"

So, when my friend got the call from her dad and the first words out of his mouth were "Floogin was right all along," I felt even worse. Normally, I 'd relish the I told you so moment, sneaking off into a private corner and rubbing one out in celebratory glee but not here, not now. This is horrific. Sure, there are people saying "they were rich, who cares" but the folks who were involved here weren't all rich. They thought they were thanks to what I'm guessing are made up statements, phony documentation and utter horseshit reporting. So, when my cousin's grandfather, who is in his late 80's and had one bank account that held everything, learns that the $75 million dollars he thought he had is actually a big zero, he's got a hell of a problem.

No money to pay the maintenance on his apartment. No money for food. No money for the various endowments he has set and promised to fund for as long as he lives. No inheritence for his kids, grand kids or great grand kids. He went from being the guy they all relied on to begging for handouts in the blink of an eye.

fucking sucks, regardless of your opinion of people with money.

So, that's Friday.

Friday night was my sister's anniversary. 20 years of marriage. Always fun to get the McNoogin clan in one room, locked away from the rest of the restaurant, and see what transpires. I had myself on drink as I like to stay relatively sharp at these things. Better to enjoy the chaos around you than to be a semi-willing participant in the maelstrom.

So, I watched as my younger sister's husband devolved into slurring, mumbling sweaty ass. I watched as the celebratory anniversary bride became a slurring, head lolling, eyes closing mess and I watched and listened as her kids (one 14, one 17) made fun of her drunken behavior.

My wife and I snuck out as soon as we could. Ugly gathering of ugly drunks. If I was a pickpocket or a con man, it might have been more fun.

Saturday I took the kids to get new phones for the apartment. Managed to put a bit too much pressure on the foot/ankle in the process of getting in and out of cabs and the pain was rather bad. I actually resorted to calling the wife and asking where the fuck my pills were. She was fucking carrying them around with her. Brilliant idea, if she were me. Dumb in an epic, biblical manner if she was not me.

She came home, I scored my meds, popped me a perc but it was too late. The pain was not going away.

Went to see The Reader. Ok movie, lots of Kate Winslet flesh scenes. I don't get her. She has the doughiest, flabby looking legs and arms but her wasit and body is fucking stellar. So odd. For some reason, the director of this movie thought she should look as much like Madonna as possible. So the german accent she used in the film made me think of Madonna's faux brit accent, further confusing me. The movie isn't bad. Seriously. A bit too much cock viewing for my taste but catching my own naked reflection in the mirror as I walk out of the shower is a bit too much cock viewing for me. Not that my cock is small. It isn't. Seriously. No, really. It isn't. Massive is more like it. It's like a forearm or something.

Fine, it's small. On the bright side, it's almost new. Rarely used. Maybe that explains the smallness. It's becoming akin to my appendix. Small, shriveled and useless. atrophied organ and all that.

Went to the outlass for a party at their club last night. Food was fair, company was ok. I let the wife drive and her stop and go style of driving made me nauseous. My son puked as soon as he got out of the car and my daughter begged me to drive home. I did.

While there the kids exchanged presents with their cousins. Good stuff. Always fun watching the kids get what they want. Even more fun watching the disappointment of gettting a lame gift. I'm cruel.

As we were loading up the car to head home I picked up the bag of gifts that my wife had left next to the car. She is such a good packer, she managed to fit all the gifts into one big bag.
She even managed to fit the $2000 SLR camera. Of course she didn't tell me this so, when I picked up the bag the camera rolled out and landed lens down. It was in the camera bag so, I figured, minimal damage.

Minimal if you consider a shattered lens filter minimal.

I'm heading to the camera store today to see if the lens is fucked.

Got home after 10. the kids were wired. They wanted to play with their new shit. My son had his face painted like spiderman but he wanted to wear his new extended wing batman cap thing. Paint from his face everywhere. Scratches and scrapes from the wings everywhere.

The weekend must've run me a couple grand between the anniversary gift, dinner and movies saturday, the phones, the shopping we did on saturday and sunday and now, add the likelihood of me needing a new lens for my camera and I might actually top the $3k mark.

fucked.

He runs the risk of being homeless.

Starbucks Stupidity

Every morning, like clockwork, I enter my office building and head to the starbucks in the lobby to snag me a big cup of joe. Every morning they get me what I want without me asking. Every morning they put the heavy cream out for me. I never have to say a word. Of course I do speak to them. I say hello, ask how their weekends were, make small talk and thank them for the coffee etc. They all know me there.

Except when they get new folks into the mix. Then the system breaks down and all hell breaks loose.

So, this morning I walk in, hold my $2.28 out to the new lady behind the counter and ask for a venti bold. She takes my money and one of the women I know says goodmorning and hands me my coffee. Everything is moving along nicely.

I head over to the condiment bar to put my equal and heavy cream into my coffee. There, on the bar, is my cream. So far still good.

Then I hit the condiment bar. There's a new kid working there, cleaning it up. Two women are struggling to prepare their coffee on either side of the idiot taking up all the space as she cleans. there's a line of people waiting for their various drinks and there's a line of people waiting to use the condiment bar because this moron decided to clean it during the busiest time of the day.

So, I stand there, coffee in one hand, cream in the other, waiting for one of the women to finish making their coffee or for the employee to finish cleaning. The two women trying to make their coffee are, clearly, frustrated, by the cleaning going on.

They both finish up and leave and I move in. I put the cream down, I put the coffee down. I grab 4 packs of equal and go to put it in my coffee. Where the fuck is my coffee?

The woman cleaning up has moved my fucking coffee so she could continue cleaning.

I move my coffee back, open the faux sugar, pour it in and look for the cinammon. Find it, go to shake it into my coffee and it has moved again.
I move it back, shake the cinnamon and reach for a stirring stick. I go to stir my coffee and the fucking moron moved it again. Only this time she moved it under my arm and I manage to spill half my coffee onto the counter and myself. My rather expensive (bought at a major sale, more than 60% off) sheerling coat with the suede exterior is now doused in coffee on both arms.
The woman trying to clean now has a real fucking mess to clean and I am furious. I start wiping the coffee off my sleeves, trying to pat the fucking sleeves dry, hoping the jacket isn't destroyed, and the woman starts moving my shit around again. The new movement causes the coffee on the counter top to run over the sides, onto my legs and shoes.

I turn to her and tell her that, during the busiest time of the morning, her best bet is to stay as far away from the condiment bar as possible. The tourists are watching me. I need to remain calm. I don't want to be the ugly New Yorker but I am furious.

The woman tells me there's a mess that needs to be cleaned. I tell her there wouldn't be one if she wasn't trying to clean up after people while they are still cleaning.

She walks away as I mop up the coffee on my legs, shoes and coat and then I go and ask the barrista who is making the espresso based drinks to top off my cup and give me a new lid, please. she does and apologizes for the issue. I tell her not to worry. Not her fault. I'm pissed but what can I do, really?

Then the new hire comes over with a fucking wet nap for burning liquids or something.

I had no choice but to laugh. I look at her, tell her she just managed to spill coffee and ruin my coat, my sweater (light blue cashmere w/coffee colored stains around the sleeve edges), possibly my pants and shoes and that a little wet nap won't really do much. She says it will take out the sting. That's right, it will take out the sting. I tell her it's the sting in my wallet I'm concerned with and walk away.

I gather my shit, grab my coffee and as I'm leaving the door I hear "MOTHER FUCKER!" and turn around. The woman knocked over someone else's coffee.

Holidays Suck

So, the holiday came and went. I'm still alive, barely. I'm teetering on the brink of sanity but that's old news.

Went to the outlaw's before heading to my parents' place for the long weekend. Always hell at Satan's lair. The one upside to visiting her is her rx cabinet. She's a pill freak of epic proportions so I take the opportunity to grab some pain killers and vallium whenever I am there. I stocked up on a variety of goodies that were a necessity thanks to my still aching ankle. Then we headed to my parents' home. I hate going there. My kids are satanic when they are around their cousins, my mother is an ass and my younger sister drives me nuts. But, still, we go.

The dinner itself was fine. I abstained from drinking, as I tend to do at family functions. I feel someone needs to have their wits about them at these things and the alcoholic McNoogins are not to be relied upon for this. After the kids were put to bed I had to endure 3 hours of my brother in law's slurring, incoherent business plan. He's the only guy I know who has an exit strategy in place before he launches a business. Probably why he constantly fails. Truth is, he's got a stellar idea. If he'd let smarter people handle the business plan he'd probably have a hit on his hands. Sadly, his game plan (before the exit strategy) is all wrong and every time I tried to give him direction he simply ignored it and continued pressing in the wrong direction. As a result of this, his plan will, invariably, fail. There's only so much I can do to convince him otherwise. I'll be told that he knows this field better than I do (true) and that this is his area of expertise (true). I will attempt to show that I am somewhat wiser when it comes to running a business and I have a bit of experience in the area of starting a successful business.

So, I dealt with that crap. Then I dealt with entertaining my kids and his kids all weekend long. They (my sister and her husband) tend to ignore their kids when they are around my kids, leaving my wife and me to deal with them all. I dislike her kids. I know that's kinda harsh but her daughter seems doltish and her son is so damned annoying. The one fun aspect to him is that he is only interested in girl things and it drives his homophobic father nuts so I promote the use of the makeover game on barbi.com and other such girlie endeavors.

I did take my daughter to the park so she could finally ditch the training wheels on her bike. She was a champ. Rode like a pro. No more trainers for her. Of course I was forced to run alongside the tottering bike for hours, further aggrivating the ankle. I had plenty of pain meds to help get me thru that and to help me deal with the relatives all weekend.

On the way home we hit the outlaw's again and I stocked up a bit more on the meds.

Then, when I was unpacking, the wife saw the stash and went nuts. She swiped the bottle, presumably to flush them. The fight that ensued was rather ridiculous. She clearly thinks I'm an addict. I didn't have the energy or desire to fight so I let her do her thing. She called me all kinds of names, said all kinds of things. I said nothing. No point really. Let her rant and rave. What's she going to do, cut off the flow of great sex?

Went to see the doctor this morning to find out what the MRI showed. Frayed tendon. Not quite ruptured, not quite torn. What this means is I can have surgery to fix it but I can also try physical therapy to strengthen the area around the tendon to avoid the surgery. I opted for the therapy. I'll go see the guy who helped me with my back. He did a bang up job there so, perhaps, he can work his magic once again.

Bathroom Follies

You ever open a bathroom door and there's someone leaving and there's that startled look on you and the other guy? Why is that? Why do you have this hand in the cookie jar look? why are you startled? It's normal to need to hit the can so why do we get all jumpy when the door opens.

OK, if you're leaving and the door opens and you've got the deer in the headlights look it could be attributed to the foul stench you left behind but still, it's a bathroom. What was the other guy expecting? Potpourri?

So, I'm peeing in a stall (I don't like take little floogin out if there's a risk of another man being around him) and there's a guy in the stall taking a dump and it's painfully obvious that he's got some serious assues (my word, you can use it). He's clearly trying to stifle the horrific sounds of emanating from his anus and the ensuing hose down effect of his liquid hitting the water. He's letting out those tight cheeked discrete farts that whistle and whine until you can no longer hold back the pressure. Then the mix of foghorn blast and water balloon burst sounds come echoing out of the stall and it takes all your energy not to laugh. That is until the smell hits you. It's thick and soupy that smell, with a biting acid tone to it and your nostrils burn and you suddenly find yourself gagging. A horrible scene that gets even worse when the poor bastard has to come out of the stall and show his face to anyone in the bathroom.

Is it polite to apologize if you are exiting the bathroom after leaving a nasal plague behind? Do you politely tell the incoming person that, for all intents and purposes, the bathroom is off limits?
It's no different than walking into an empty elevator and cutting open a fresh biscuit, only to have someone get on before you can get off. Do you apologize? Do you admit to too much fruit? Do you start talking about the pig who shit his pants and exited the elevator a floor earlier?

Here's something else. If you enter a stall and the seat is down and all you need to do is pee, lift the fucking seat up. I know, I sound like a woman but, seriously, most men, as they get older, have terrible aim and piss all over the seat and then next guy who needs to take a shit is going to be sitting on piss and that's just nasty.

On a side note, Disney is, officially, out. Little Moogin (not his real name) hit 103.9 on the temp this morning, had low oxygen while at the doctor's office, lung spasms followed and he wound up on a nebulizer. Poor kid is a trooper and, since Mrs. McNoogin was wise enough to take out full insurance, I am not paying for the trip, I figured some presents for the kids were in order. Santa McNoogin is coming tonight, making everything all right.
For the time being at least.

Sick McNoogin, Disney on High Alert

Well, we're 4 days from our trip to Disney and little Snoogin (not his real name) is sick as a dog. This is par for the course with the McNoogins. Whenever the elder McNoogins take a trip, one of the kids gets sick, putting the parental trip at risk. We've cancelled trips, postponed trips and we've gone away anyway, suffering the bad parent thoughts the whole time we were gone. When we've gone away as a family, the same thing occurs. Lately, it's been the boy who get sick. He was ill when we went to Montauk this summer and, sure as shit, he's fucking sick again. He's got a horrible cough, a fever, he's been puking up snot and he seems somewhat miserable. Who wouldn't be?

I spent the bulk of last night in his room with him. He woke up at two thanks to a wet bed, puked in the bed and then dozed off on the floor while my wife cleaned up the bed. Then my daughter came into our bed and I decided to take late night duty with the boy so I stayed with him thru more snot vomiting and more crying and coughing. He was, actually, in good spirits, given the circumstances. He was making jokes most of the time. Not bad, really. However, at 3 am, who the fuck has a sense of humor? I made him a nice glass of medicine laced juice and he would take a drink and ask me to put the juice on the table so I'd get up, put the juice down for him and get into the other bed. As soon as I would start to drift off to sleep I'd hear "daddy, can I have my juicy?"
And I'd get up, hand him the drink, lie back down, doze off and...."daddy, can you put this down for me?"

On and on it went. Until around 4 in the morning. Now, after an hour of this, I am fully awake. So, the boy finally crashes and sleeps like a log and I am wide awake. I figure I'll read a book or something but I can't go into my room to get it or I risk waking the girls.

So I lied there, staring into the blackness, wondering how the hell I will get thru the day with no sleep. I have appointments all over the place today and I will be a fucking wreck. So be it.

I'm off to take Snoogin to the doctor. He hates doctors. It's going to be an ugly scene for sure. On the bright side, my wife, in a moment of clarity, paid the $200 for full insurance on the trip. So, cancelling it means no Disney (boo hoo) and a full refund. Can't go wrong there I guess.


I'll update as I have news. I know nobody reads this and, therefore, nobody cares about updates but, hey, it helps to get shit out sometimes and it beats posting your problems in an arena where people will feel the need to respond, regardless of whether or not they actually give a damn.

Enough Already

Ok, I know it was a huge deal for the black community, the country and the world. The first democratically elected black man ever, anywhere. It's huge. I understand that. I'm proud of my country, I'm happy for the Obamas, for the country, the black community and the world. I'm sure the better man was elected. There's no doubt there but, seriously, do I still have to see all the vendors selling tee shirts and does every african american in the city have to wear the pins? I understand how much this means to the community but, still, is this going to be a four or even eight year thing? If he winds up fucking up the country even more, will the pins go away? I'm not saying I'm rooting for this, I'm just asking.

The way I see it, the president is nothing more than a figurehead. He wins a popularity contest and then he hires people to do all the important jobs, make all the important decisions and, if need be, take the fall if the decisions the president "makes," fail. I never expected Obama to lose. The way I saw it, he'd garner a shitload of black votes and he'd also garner a shitload of white votes. If he was the exact same guy, only he was white, would he have won the nomination, let alone win the race? I'm not sure. I'm glad he did though. The idea of Clinton scared me and the other options were, well, not good. So, the better man is moving into the white house and I'm thrilled.

I think the majority of the US and the majority of the planet, are excited about this. The only two groups that seem to be upset about Obama's win are the die hard republicans who actually bought into the bullshit their own party spun out about Obama and the comedians who seem to think there's nothing funny about Obama. This isn't really true. Hell, Fred Armisan (sp?) did a knock-out impersonation of his mannerisms and speech inflection on Saturday Night Live. It was brilliant and, if not for Tina Fey's even better Palin impersonation, Fred would've been getting all the press. Obama is funny. The problem is he's black. Comedians, well, the white ones, are going to be afraid of making any jokes for fear of being called a racist.

If you've ever seen any movies or tv shows geared towards african americans, you know that using the same scenarios in those movies, only transplanted to the white house, would be fucking hysterical. Think of a big momma type character in the white house. Think of Shaft or, even better, think of I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! Does the president need his own theme music? Absolutely. Is it funny to ask? If you've seen the blaxploitation movies like Shaft, Dolomite, Super Fly etc, you'd think so.

If SNL's The Ladies Man was funny enough to have its own movie, why wouldn't a presidential ladies man using the white house as a means of getting laid be funny?

I can understand the palinites not being happy about Obama and I can understand their bitching about it but the comedians? Grow some stones and test the waters. Even 9/11 eventually found its way into humor. The expression "went down like the tower 2, the wtc etc" has been in use for quite some time now. Funny? Not necessarily but at least the speaker is moving forward and realizing that, if you can't stay serious forever.

Floogin Can't Win

So my mother outlaw had back surgery yesterday. She's been gearing up for this surgery for a long, long time now and she finally had the surgery. So my wife goes to the hospital at 8:30 to be with her mom and I take my daughter to school and head to work. I'm very busy with work, clients coming to see me and a few other meetings and, before I know it, I'm running late for my haircut. I sprint uptown and get my locks shorn. I head home and tell the kids we need to call grandma. The sitter tells me Mrs. McNoogin called and the surgery started late and she should be moving to post-op within the hour. She called around 5:30 and it was now 6:30.

I sit with my daughter while she does her homework. Then the kids want some more food. Then I call my wife. She tells me the doctor just came out to see them. She updates me on the surgery and the status of her mother. Still living. Oh well.

I talk to my wife a bit more, then I call back my outlaw's friends who have been calling me for updates. Then I call my wife again to let her know I've called all the old hags who have been trying to reach her. She thanks me, tells me she shouldn't be home too late and says goodbye.

I watch some tv and go to bed. Around 11:30 my wife comes home, hangs up her coat, grabs a quick bite and then comes into the bedroom. As she's undressing she tells me how upset she is that I didn't call all day. I apologize and tell her that I was very busy and I figured she'd be unreachable as you aren't supposed to use cell phones in hospitals and, as a result of this, I figured she'd update me when she could. She raises her voice, tells me this is not a good excuse. I explain that it isn't an excuse, it's the truth. Again I apologize. Again she turns it into me being a dick. Again I apologize and explain that I have been very busy. She laughs and says there's always time to call. I explain that she never calls when she is going to be late, even though I tell her it would be nice to know so that I can tell the kids not to wait up. She says it's different and then she says I should just say I'm sorry. Again I apologize. She tells me if I would stop bringing it up we wouldn't be fighting about it. I realize my wife was drugged in the hospital and she is now acting like a fucking moron as a result of the narcotics.

I ask her how her mother is doing and she mumbles something about my brother in law calling all day long. I tell her he's a better person than I will ever be and that she can always go seek out a replacement.

I go to sleep.


This morning, all is back to abnormal in our home. Throughout a shitty night of no sleep I come to the realization that my mother in law has managed to drive my wife even closer to the edge of sanity. She probably awoke from the surgery and started in on my wife. "You wore that to the hospital?" "Your hair color is terrible." You get my drift.

I shower, I shave and I tap my wife on the ass to wake her and she bolts upright and asks, angrily, why'd you hit me? I explain that I barely touched her and she needs to get in the shower. She showers while I get dressed. She comes out of the shower as I am midway thru tying my tie. Odd because I never wear ties. We're supposed to meet with my son's teachers this morning and I guess I felt like I should look nice. Anyway, she comes out of the shower and starts telling me something. I say "yeah?' as I continue tying my tie.

She says "can't you even look at me when I'm talking to you?"

I tell her she started talking while I was in the middle of tying my tie and I stop with the tie and I turn to face her. I tell her she has my undivided attention.

She starts telling me something and she turns and starts putting lotion on her legs while she's talking.

I walk out of the bedroom and go to the kids' bathroom to tie my tie. She comes in and says "I was still talking!"
I tell her that she shouldn't tell me to look at her when she's talking if she's not going to look at me when she's talking.
(bad move on my part).

Well, I took a break to meet with some folks and now the piss and vinegar is gone. No matter, I'm sure I'll piss off Mrs. McNoogin tonight and have new material tomorrow.


In the meantime, click the links you lazy fucks. I need to feed the little McNoogins.

Dueling Sales Reps

Ok, so I've got a p.o.s. copier in the office. Had it for several years and it has always been a problem. The guy that sold it to us said it was more than suitable for our needs, based on our annual printing figures. Well, what shit fer brains didn't take into consideration is that the bulk of our printing is done over 2 and a half months in the spring and again in the fall. So, after the first heavy load, the printer was fucked. It has spent countless hours under the care of their inept technicians ever since. So, after dealing with this crap for a couple of years, I decided it was time to get a new one. I called the fat fuck that sold it to us and told him it was a lemon and I wanted it out of my office and a newer, better machines should be in its place. He came to see me, checked the service call records and was astounded and upset that we didn't contact him sooner. He says he'd have ensured that the machine would run perfectly from the first call. He sends his "specialist" over. Tells me this guy is the nuts and that all the problems will be resolved. In the meantime, he's going to work up numbers for a replacement.

So his "specialist" comes, takes the machine apart, spends two days on it, shutting down our productivity in the process. He finishes his job on a thursday. Friday morning, first print job since the two day overhaul and the paper jams in the same fucking places. The copies are still coming out slightly askew and somewhat faded. I call the guy again and tell him to not waste my time with a quote as I can't see how it would be in my best interest to get another machine from Toshiba or deal with their crappy service department any longer.

He tells me he will hook me up with a sweet deal. So I humor him. He comes in, fat fuck that he is, nasty moustache and all, and goes into his sales pitch. What's he pushing? The new version of the old lemon. I ask him why I would want the same machine when it the old version was incapable of handling my printing load and he says "oh, they've fixed all the bugs."

So, my machine is, admittedly, a buggy piece of shit.

I thank him, tell him I'll get back to him and as he leaves I throw his shit in the garbage.

Then I remember that young lady who tried to sell me some equipment about two years ago. She came in, cold, to see if there was anything she could do for me and has, since then, been emailing me once a quarter, to see if I need anything.

What the fuck was her name? When did she email me? Fuck!

Anna? Anita? Enya? No, wait, Anya? Ania?

Ania!! that's it. So I go scrolling thru my emails in search of her last transmission and there it is in July. So I shoot her an email, explain the problem, detail the current equipment and ask her to come in armed with relacement suggestions.

She gets back to me in ten minutes. She can't meet me for two days. No worries, I tell her and we set up a date.

So, Ania comes in to see me. She's fucking hot. I don't remember her being anywhere near this cute. Short skirt, showing off some very nice legs and the cleavage on display is more than ample. She knows how to sell sex, that's a plus.

She runs thru the equipment she's selling and she's explaining all the features, the capacity the tits tits tits tits legs tits tits tits.

That's right, I'm mesmerized by her flashing of flesh. My conference room has a glass table and I can see her legs thru the glass and she's leaning over the table to show me her tits, I mean her data sheeets and I am entranced.

We finish the meeting with me telling her to get me cost information. We email back and forth for three days after the meeting so I can get a better explanation of the numbers and now I'm about ready to call her back for one more meeting where we fight over the details and out of the blue Frank the Fat Fuck calls me, looking to set up an appointment.

So now I have two clowns vying for my attention. Frank is coming in this morning. Ania needs to schedule another appointment. I'm hoping to get her in here right after he leaves because I am going to need her womanly curves to offset the horrific image of Frank leaning over the table, exposing his manteet cleavage.

I'm planning on making Fat Frank jump thru hoops and I will gladly pay more to not have to deal with his company any more but I know nothing about Ania's firm, other than they have better sales reps. I wonder, if the machine is a lemon, will they send her over to make me happy?

***SPOILER ALERT***

The title says it all. This little phrase is used in every article to warn the reader that, in the article, you will be told of a major plot point in a book, movie or television show, thus ruining the story for you if you have not yet seen it. These plot points are usually the focal point of the entire movie, book or tv episode and, thankfully, the authors or these articles and reviews are kind enough to not screw over the reader, ruining the experience. When movies like The Crying Game came out, you couldn't read the reviews and articles if you hadn't seen the movie. This makes sense. If you've seen the movie you know what the final twist revealed at the end of the film. If you knew it going in, there'd be no point paying for the experience of watching the movie. The folks who put this kind of entertainment out should be in debt to the reviewers and writers who put up those spoiler alerts, right?

Then why the fuck to the same folks who put this entertainment out there allow the synopsis of their movies and tv shows to give away the spoilers in the descriptions of their product? Last night I watched a show and the synopsis in the paper, as well as the on air description (when you hit info), read "one of the gang gives the ultimate sacrifice..." So, we go in knowing someone will die. Then, in that final scene, when the tension is high and one of the characters does what he does to help the others, you know he's going to die. Hell, you knew one of the 4 characters in the scene was going to be offed and you knew it wasn't the two main stars and you figured it wasn't the one character who could be described as the lead's friend or confident so it had to be the guy who wound up allowing himself to be killed. I knew this as I watched it. I knew it from the minute I saw what they were going to try and accomplish. The show is a good show, a bit silly and outlandish but entertaining and the tense action is what makes it so much fun to watch. So, why on earth did I have to read in the morning paper that one of the characters was going to die?

I know, you're going to tell me not to read the synopsis posted in the paper or on cable's description. Well, here's the thing, I read the paper by accident. I thought the show was not on again until next week and I was scanning the pages to see what was on when I saw the name of the show and that synopsis. Had I not seen it in the paper, I would have definitely seen it when I watched it. Why? Because I record everything these days. I haven't watched a live show (other than sporting events) in years. I record everything I want to watch in case the kids keep me from watching it or I have other plans. I often have several episodes of unwatched shows on the box. Hell, I'm 4 shows behind on many of my favorites. So, anyway, I pull up the list of recorded shows and scan down to makes sure I am going to watch them in order. How do I do this? I check the date and the...SYNOPSIS!.

Even though I will probably not bother with it, pick a candidate and go vote - if I read in the papers that Floogin McNoogin got votes I will definitely be honored and I promise to fullfill all those promises I didn't make.

Weekend Stuff

Saturday was, um, fun? My kids were hung over from too much candy and 3 minutes prior to leaving the apartment for a party my son decides to taste my salad. One bite of the bleu cheese and he's bolting for the bathroom, announcing that he is going to vomip (not a typo). He makes it to the can in time, bends over and spews. Alas, little Cloogin (not his real name) didn't life the lid. Mrs. McNoogin stayed behind to clean up the mess, bless her heart, and off we went. A saturday afternoon birthday party for a family friend's son. Gym thing with inflatable slides, trampoline bunjee jumping and 0ther assorted fun things. The kind of Saturday afternoon party that tires the kids out, making it easy to put them to bed early.

Not when you have another party that night. We were stuck celebrating my sister in law's birthday as well as my mother outlaw's birthday. Good times.

My kids were a wreck. They were starving when we got to the restaurant and we had the inevitable hour and a half wait. Why? Because my moronic outlaw chose an italian restaurant that is about as touristy a place as you can get and, to add to the insanity, it was the night before the NYC Marathon so every runner in the city was dining on pasta.

So, we get to the restaurant with the knowledge that I am going to pick up the tab and not eat a thing. Carbs are not on my menu and this place is a carb factory. My kids are going berserk, the place is too crowded for us to stand anywhere and chaos ensures. Fortunately, I am friendly with the magician who seems to perform at every kid party these days and he gets a kick out of the fact that I am the only non-professional who can blow up those long skinny balloons used for making animals and swords and other shit. So, after messing around with the magicians and the kids, making such wonderful balloon things as "lower intestines" and "a virulent bactieria," I left for the dinner with a pocketfull of balloons.

So, at the restaurant I resort to making balloon things for my kids. My daughter, Soogin (not her real name) is having a blast, my son Cloogin (not his real name) is distracted from the hell of this restaurant and all seems right in the world. We all endured the hour wait, my wife acting as a human shield, keeping her mother away from the hostess. We finally get seated and my sister in law admits to not understanding why we are eating Italian food. She's married to an italian guy, they have this kind of food all the time, only it's good. Her husband cooks, her inlaws all cook and, she says, she'd "rather have fish."

My outlaw, Satan (her real name), then starts complaining about the poor lighting, the crappy table (it was in a corner, perfect for the kids) and the lack of bread, water, butter, gold flakes etc on the table. This is a ploy the red menace (her real nickname, so given by her dead husband's friends at his funeral) uses at every meal in a restaurant. She figures she'll bitch and moan thru the entire meal and then drop the "give me something free" line when she gets the bill. To make her seem like even more of a cheap lunatic, my brother in law and I pay for every meal. I deal with the waiters who are so thrilled to not have to talk to her that they end up comping my booze. And I drank a lot that night. No food for me, just a nice bourbon appetizer followed by a bourbon entree and I ended it with bourbon and coffee for dessert.

So the meal cost me a few buck. I went home and ate dinner. No biggie, I'm used to it. The outlaw knows I don't eat pasta so she picks italian meals whenever possible. It's her way of saying "recognize me."
I do my best to be nice but I tend to drop the odd comment or two that responds to her "recognize me" with a big "fuck off, it's my family, not yours." Truth is, she fancies herself as some Ewing matriarch, minus the oil, money, taste or looks.


So I woke up Sunday, mildly hungover, and we started planning the day. My wife wanted to take the kids to the Met to see the egyptian wing and the armor and weapons wing. Cool stuff but there's the NYC marathon and getting around the city can be hell, I tell her.

"But I want to take the kids to see the runners."

I am all for supporting your friends who run and I have the utmost respect for anyone who even plans on running, regardless of whether they finish. Hell, props to anyone who trains for it.

But standing on a cold corner, watching joggers? Why?

What's the fucking point of that? Who do we cheer? What if I'm cheering for one stranger and another stranger thinks it was for them? Should I run along side people, ask them their names so we can cheer for them? Do I just start cheering "GO YOU!" and point at people?

My son, clearly felt the same way. He was bored and itching to get in the museum so we split up from my wife and my daughter who was standing there watching the ice cream cart and not the runners.

The museum was pretty cool. I haven't been there in ages and my kids were somewhat into it for the most part. When they got bored we headed home. Stopping at a shoe store for the kids of course. Forced to listen to the owner tell us about the celebs that came in. He always mentions them coming in. We must just miss them every time we're there.

The night ended with me making leftover pasta for everyone and watching them all eat again. A fine end to the weekend.

Oh, and I managed to not have to repair the roller coaster yesterday for the first time since completion. Tonight or tomorrow, I'm taking it down. Takes up too much room and it is way too delicate.


Next week, the boy goes to the Intrepid and I'm taking my daughter to the magic museum near my office. Maybe I'll learn a few tricks, like how to make my outlaw stay in florida.

Rocking The Vote

Election day is almost here or, as my 4th grade social studies teacher, Ms. Chang, used to say "erection day is here." We got a hell of a kick out of that. The only other lesson that garnered equivalent laughs was the one that involved mass starbation in some african countries.

Anyway, in a matter of days we will vote for a new president and then, finally, the papers will go back to writing about news and they will stop printing crap about the cost of wardrobes, who is friends with terrorists, who is old and out of touch and who is or is not qualified to run the country.

I have learned a new level of insanity when I watched the conventions and when I watch these jackasses talk. The ardent followers of the either side scare me. You see these conventions and the rallies they attend and all I can think of is some crazy college football fans or, for my foreign reader(s), those football hooligans that bite off ears and tear down stadium seating. Seriously, these folks are nuts. Some of the smartest people I know are slowly finding themselves in my mental filing sytem, under "fucking nuts."

I've got clients that are working for both camps. The truth is, the folks backing the dems are a bit more sane. They have, basically, taken a stance that their guy is better, they have their reasons, and that is what they talk about. The folks from the republican camp, perhaps as a result of their thinking their side is in more dire straits, have taken to repeating the same bullshit stories that come from unnamed sources, blogs and emails. One of the smartest people I know sent me an email that contained a letter sent to Obama. My response was very simple. I'm not reading it because I highly doubt someone sent a letter and then sent a copy of it to the republican party to distribute to anyone and everyone they could. Same thing with the stories about McCain that I've seen. In the case of the McCain crap, the letters and emails have all been prefaced with "this can't be true."

At least they're admitting the bullshit meter is screaming red alert.

So, here's what I've learned about the candidates so far. One is black, one is white. One wants to raise my taxes, one doesn't, one wants to continue fighting in iraq, one doesn't, one has a big mouth, moron running mate, one has a big mouth moron running mate. One is lacking in experience, one is going to die and leave someone lacking in experience in the seat of power.

You know what? I have no experience either. Might as well write in Floogin McNoogin when you cast your vote. I'm serious. I am not going to promise anything. Why bother? I can't say if higher or lower taxes will help. I don't know if we can simply pull the troops out of Iraq. I don't know if bombing Iran is going to stop them. I don't know the names of most of the world leaders and I don't give a shit about them. The country needs the next administration to focus their efforts at home. Fuck the rest of the world. It seems that when we thrive, everyone thrives and, as is evident in the current global meltdown, when we suffer, everyone suffers so why focus on anything outside of our borders. Fix our own shit and the rest of the world will see their shit fixed by proxy. The key is that I won't promise to do anything beyond trying to do my best.

Last night my son watched a peanuts! doubleheader on tv. The Great Pumpkin and You're Not Elected. The reason for the back to back of these episodes is that the first one sets up Linus' fixation on the great pumkpin and in the second show, he almost blows the election by talking about the great pumpkin. He manages to get elected anyway and at the end, Sally makes him march into the principal's office to start working on his campaign promises. He exits the principal's office, sweaty and nervous, and announces that the principal told him to go ahead and do what he wanted but to run everything by him first, basically stifling Linus' voice of the people.

Sally walks away lamenting that he sold out, he's just like the rest, all promise, no punch.

Do we really think this round will differ from any other? Will Obama really do everything he promises to do? Will McCain?

The answer is a resounding no. The only real chance for either of them to come thru with their promises is with Obama because a win by him will give the Democrats control over all three divisions of the government. This is not, exactly, a good thing. I'm not saying you should vote for McCain, just pointing out that have the dems run everything might mean little or no resistance in getting everything they want passed thru all levels of the government. A scary thought.

Not as scary as having to look at McCain's shave monkey paw hands for 4 years and certainly not as scary as having to watch Sarah Palin announce that effective today, she has taken control of the white house and she wants to remind everyone that she is "totally prepared for this since she once subbed for the Akutan junior hockey league coach when he was recovering from the ice fishing incident."

Either way, we're fucked so vote for Floogin on Tuesday and go to bed at night knowing that I won't break any promises because I didn't make any.

I'll close this pointless posting with a quote from Plato as I think really covers the political process.

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber"

McNoogin McFishery and Other McRandomness

Ok, I've set up the ability to follow my blog. I did this to see if any of my readers care enough to come back for seconds. So far, the answer is no. No worries, I'm sure you're like me, you read it, have a chuckle and never come back again. You ungrateful bastards. You don't comment to tell me how brilliant I am or what a miserable piece of shit I am. The least you could do is click the fucking ads and sign up to follow me so I can laugh at you for following me.

I took my son to school the other day and the head teacher came over to say hello to me. She told me she adores my boy, how he's got an unbelievable sense of humor for a 3 year old (I heard the same thing about my daughter when she was 3) and how he is the sweetest, kindest kid. I had to confirm that we were talking about my son, the one who told the sales girl at the costume shop that he can't get a sword because "I hit my sister with the last one and my dad had to throw it away." Seems my son is an angel in public. I guess that's a good thing.

Anyway, the teacher then goes on to tell me that they've been learning about elections and they will be holding a class election at the end of the week (yesterday actually) so the class can vote on the name of the class fish. I asked them what the choices were and she said "Ariel and Nemo." She then said "your son was really excited about this and he tried really hard to get everyone to vote for his choice." And what was his choice? Floogin McNoogin! The assistant teachers, upon hearing our conversation, all chimed in, telling me they all loved the name and thought it was hysterical but, sadly, they can only pick the two most nominated names for the voting process. The end result was that Ariel won because the class is two thirds girls. When my son told me that Ariel won, I asked him who he voted for and he said "Floogin." I said that I thought he could only vote for Ariel or Nemo and he said "yes but I didn't like those choices so I added my own choice." Gotta love the kid for not accepting the limitations on fish naming. On the flip side, I'm not too thrilled with the boy wanting to name a fish that will die in a week after dear old dad.
As I wrote this the market continued on its downward spiral so, again, click the god damned links and have a great weekend.

Coaster Engineering Hell

Let's talk about the coaster construction kit I bought for Floogin Junior (not his real name). He likes to put shit together and then break it. Sounds like most 3 year olds, right? So, Jr, convinces me to buy the previously mentioned roller coaster construction kit. This thing is for 7 or 9 year olds and has like 1200 pieces. It's a fucking monstrousity. Close to 6 feet tall when finished, it is about as close to a real coaster in the livingroom as you're gonna get unless your name is Disney.

So, Sunday evening we pop open the box and scope out the pieces. All different colors and shapes and sizes and way above my pay grade. I can do this. It's for the boy. He's so psyched. Look at him, he's, what the fuck, he's playing with the bags holding all the pieces? He's gonna lose them. I explain to my son that we need to keep the pieces in the bags they came in. I told him I will pull out the pieces needed for each section and he will be in charge of them. He'll give them to me when I need them and he will help put them together. He says "ok daddy" and then he gets up and runs away. Shit. That's what I wanted to do when I saw the innards of this box. Smart kid.

I pull out the 19 pound tome marked "instructions" and open to the first page. Suddenly, I hear this cluttering clackety racket as Junior comes running back over. He's wearing his bob the builder hat, bob the builder tool belt and he's got all the tools in place and a few extra tools in his hands. "I'm ready daddy."

I'm near tears. This is the cutest thing I've ever seen. I wish the wife was around to witness it because in a matter of minutes, the boy will be heartbroken and distraught over his old man's inability to actually put this thing together.

Still, I soldier on. Page one of this book has a picture of the finished product. It's huge. I have no idea where we're going to put it. I have no idea where we'll store it while it is under construction. I'm sure I will be repairing the broken sections each night after junior and his destructive friend Zachary (his real name) rip it to shreds. Back to page one.

A nice picute of the coaster adorns the first page. The second page has a picture of all the parts spread out with a number next to each part. This is the number of each piece in the box. There's a small box in the lower left hand corner of the page that says "count all pieces and call K'Nex if any are missing."

Yeah, ok, I'm going to sit here and count out the 21,000 pieces while my son, in full handy man garb, patiently waits.

I open the bags for the pieces we need, take out the individual pieces that are needed for the first section, hand them to Junior and explain what, exactly, we will be doing.

"Junior, hand me the red sticks."
"Dad, I don't know my colors"
"They're the only sticks in front of you."
"OK daddy. These?" he asks as he hands me his toy hammer.
BONK BONK BONK goes the hammer
"No, these" I say as I pick up the sticks.
Slowly but surely I get the first section done. I look over at my son and he has taken all the track out of the box and is laying it all over the apartment.
"Don't do that. The track is the last part"
"Dad, it takes a long time to make a roller coaster. Can I watch tv?"
So it goes for 3 nights. He starts out all dressed and ready for construction and he gets bored after 3 minutes. Still, I build. I'm following the directions, piecing the plastic bits together and from nothing rises a tower. Then there are long extensions on either end. My wife is furious that this immense sculpture is in the living room during the night time and in our bedroom, safely tucked away from Zachary and his destructive hands, during the day.

For three days and nights the coaster cosumes me. I carry the instructions with me wherever I go. Partly to read up on the next sections, party because I figure it's a good workout carrying this giant fucking weight around.

Every morning and every night, I get the same question. "Daddy, can we put the track on now?"

Every morning and every night I say "soon, buddy, soon."

I see coasters in my sleep. I am forever building towers, higher and higher, never an end in sight. Until now.

Last night, around 1:30, I'm sitting in the living room, my knees and ankles aching from sitting on the floor and I am one step away from installing the motor. Once the motor goes in, it's TRACK TIME BABY!!

I can't wait to tell the boy we can put the track on. I can't wait to stop dreaming of coasters. I can't wait to get back to normal things, like eating and sleeping.

I'm so excited over the prospect of finishing this thing that I find a baguette has developed in my shorts. Ok, I had skinemax on but I was excited.

I need to put the hinges here, get those bent clip things, slide 5 spacers on a red stick and then a wheel thing and then another 5 spacers and, wait, where the fuck are the red sticks. Shit. They must be buried in the box. Let me do the other part first. I need two purple sticks, those green button like things and 5 yellow elbows. Ok, great. Got it got it got it got need it need it got it got it got where the fuck are the purple sticks.

Ok, I'm stuck. I empty the contents of the box. I emtpy each bag. I am missing the red and purple sticks.

FUCK

Step one - count the pieces.

I didn't bother.

Now I'm fucked

I have a 5 foot tall frame, a 1 and a half foot tall motor housing extension, several feet of track and nothing else.

I go online and learn that K'Nex is famous for shortchanging you on the pieces. Seems there are plenty of complaints about the coaster. Not as fast as the video on the site, rickety, missing pieces etc. So what? If I can build it, my son will love it right up to the point he tears it apart. Then he'll make me build the other suggested coaster. I'm fine with that but I can't do shit without the missing pieces.

I search the internet and learn that, not only are they notorious for not including all the pieces, you need to buy the missing pieces. That seems a bit ridiculous.

So, I wake up this morning, count the remaining pieces, make sure that when I call the company, I am armed with the exact number of missing parts. Then I add a few extra, just to be sure.

I spend the morning taking my son to school and chaperoning my daughter's class to see Teddy Roosevelt's birth place. My ankle, which I sprained in a previously discussed vomit slide, is not sprained. I must have broken or torn something. Dancing on it with the kids didn't help. It's burning with pain. I walk a half mile with the kids, up and down three flights of stairs, a half mile back to school and then a half mile to my office. My ankle is killing me. I swallow the pain, turn it to anger. Why? So I can unleash the tirade of all tirades when the idiots at K'Nex tell me I need to pay for my missing pieces.

I dial the 800 number, hit the 46 different options and get someone on the phone.

"Listen, I bought this serpent coaster thing and I'm missing pieces and I can't build the fucking thing and my son is going crazy and how the fuck can you sell incomplete shit and expect people to be happy with your products and I have a blog that reaches hundreds of thousands of people (a bit of an overstatement) a month and I will spend the rest of my days talking about how you guys sell shitty incomplete toys and .."
"Sir, if you'd just calm down, give me your name, address and the missing pieces, we'll send them right out. We don't charge anything for this. We know that our factories aren't 100% accurate and we know how awful it is when kids can't use the toys they get and we send these pieces out next day air, at our cost, to ensure that the kids don't suffer."

"um, well, ah, yeah!"

So, I gave this lovely woman my name, my address, the missing pieces and I thanked her profusely. I also apologized for the tirade. I explained that I had been prepared for the worst and she sort of threw me off.
Seems she gets a few of these calls a day.

So, the missing pieces will be here tomorrow. The coaster will be finished by the weekend and Junior McFloogin will be breaking it by Sunday.

I'm so excited.

Baguette in the pants excited.

A Break and the Hell That Comes With It.

So, work slowed to a grinding halt on Thursday. Sure, there's stuff to do but it came in late and I am over that wave of adrenaline fueled workaholism. So, I'm taking it easy. For starters, I'm taking my daughter to school in the mornings again. This gives us a chance to hang out and it also reminds me that my little girl is, one day, going to grow up and be a pain in the ass like her mother. My daughter is a lot like me. She's sarcastic, she's sharp, she's funny and she's always aware of her surroundings, even when she appears to be sleeping. OK, so I'm not all those things or, I am but not to the same degree that she is. She's so attuned to the things around her that she'd make a great spy. No shit. It's scary. Anyway, we get to hang out in the mornings again and it's usually a lot of fun. To compensate for this, I need to find the alone time with the boy. His school starts at 9 so taking him to school is a bit of a pain for me but I'll do it from time to time. I don't, however, get enough time with him this way so, this past weekend was all about him. Well, Sunday was. Saturday was pumpkin picking.

We schlepped about an hour and a half out of the city to some farm so we could pick pumpkins. My wife is like a kid with these things, she seems to enjoy them more than the kids. So much so that, when the kids picked two small, handpainted pumpkins, she went nuts trying to convince them we need a large pumpkin to carve up. Sure, if we lived in a burbs that might be a good idea. We live in an apartment builing. There's no place for a pumpkin and I'm fairly sure that sticking a candle in the thing would be breaking some kind of fire code and yet she made us get this giant pumpkin. The kids were too scared to make it past the entrance to the haunted house and they were bored to tears on the hay ride. They did like picking apples so, to go with our giant pumpkin, we now have about 1,400 apples in the apartment.

Throughout the day, I walked. Up and down hills and all around the fallen apples. I mention this because the turned ankle I experienced in my now famous vomit slide is, apparently, more than a simple twisted ankle. At least that is what I'm thinking because now, along with the hurt, I've got swelling. Not a lot but a noticeable amount and the ankle definitely hurts more today.

Of course, yesterday didn't help. Yesterday was Droogin's day (not his real name). I took him to the dentist for a cleaning and then we wandered around the city, hitting toy stores and other fun places. The dentist was a first for me. My wife usually takes them but I wanted to spend the day with him so I said I'd do it. He was awesome. For a bit. He showed me the game room, we played video games and hung out while we waited. Then we went into the office and they got us all set for the cleaning. The hygienist managed to clean two teeth and then my boy went berserk. Flailing, screaming, covering his mouth. We stopped and the doctor came in. She tried to calm him down a bit and he let her check for cavities but the cleaning never materialized. We talked a bit about how she didn't want to push it because he usually has no issues there and this might be a one off thing and blah blah blah. So I left. Oh, no, wait, I left after I paid them $125 for the cleaning. That's right, they whacked me for the whole bill.

My boy has 2 shiny $62.50 teeth in his head and I reminded him to smile and show off those two teeth as often as possible.

At the toy store my son convinced me I should by him this construction kit so we could build a rollercoaster for his "men." His "men" are his various super hero figures and other such critters. Being a total fucking idiot, I bought him the rollercoaster. I tried to convince him that we should get something else as this was really meant for 7 year olds but he wanted the coaster and they didn't have any other coaster kits. So, I bought it.

I walked home, pushing him, his giant coaster kit, the things I bought my daughter and the things I bought myself. I walked about 5 miles yesterday, always pushing a stroller with at least 40 pounds in it. Last night the ankle was punishing me for the walk.

Anyway, we get home and all he wants to do is put the coaster together. I open the box and feel the warm ooze as I shit my pants. The coaster is no ordinary construction kit. This fucker is 6 feet tall and has over 150 parts. Most of them are tiny. My son lies down on the floor and says he wants to help me. I think "this might not be so bad" and start opening up the pieces.

After 20 minutes, I've managed to get the first "box" of the frame built and my son is bored. He starts pulling all the parts out, laying the track all over the room, hanging his "men" from the small piece I've already built.

I lost my patience and put the coaster kit away. I tell him I'll work on it after work with him until we finish it but he has to help me.

He says "daddy, it takes a long time to put it together. return it"

Like I can do that now.

I'm trying to control my anger. He's 3, he has no idea how frustrating these things can be.

Then he hugs me and says "I love you daddy" My cold, angry heart melts. I feel a lump in my throat. Then he turns and as he walks away he says "even if you're too stupid to put the coaster together"

I'm about to throw the box at his back when I hear him say "just kidding daddy"

My body is battered and bruised and my fragile psyche has just been crushed by a three year old only to be mocked even further.


Life is good

You Lazy Fuckers

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I'm Going To Disneyworld!

Let me start out by saying, I am not a fan of the crowds at these places. I get somewhat disgusted by my fellow americans. I find them to be an ugly lot. Socks up the knees, fat, ugly kids. Obnoxious, loud parents. You know what I'm talking about.

I went to Hershey a year ago. The whole fucking town smells like chocolate. It's no wonder everyone there is overweight. I'd be too if I was constantly inhaling chocolate. It'd be like putting a crack addict in a cocaine plant. Everywhere you go they give you free chocolate bars. When we bought our passes for the park the nice guy behind the counter asked if it was ok to give the kids some treats. No, it isn't. We schlepped all the way from New York City, to the heart of a candy making conglomerate, to not eat candy. Moron.

Then, when you're inside the park you see these fat kids lined up, waiting to buy the same free shit out of candy vending machines. It's pretty fucking comical. They're paying $5 for a free chocolate bar and, being about 100 degrees, the shit comes out like, well, shit.

But anyway, I'm going to Disney world. I went to Disneyland in LA when I was 5. I have no memory of it. I went to Disney in Japan when I was 16 or 17. It rained and we were the only people in the entire park. I don't recall very much but I do recall having an awesome time. How could we not? No lines at all, no need to get off a ride if we wanted to go again. All the characters were bored so we were fucking around with them. Made out with a couple of princesses and almost convinced the chick in the Minnie Mouse get up to remove her head and get busy with me. I was a bit of a troublemaker in my youth. Needless to say, my only memories of the house of mouse are pubescent fantasy type fantasies and this trip is going to destroy everything I hold dear.

To make matters worse, I agreed to go on this trip without thinking about the dates. I'm going to be there the weekend before and the week of Thanksgiving. I'm travelling home the day before Thanksgiving. Notoriously, the worst day of the year to travel. What the fuck was I thinking? I'm racing home so I can be with my family? I hate my family. You'll hear about it eventually but, suffice it to say, the McNoogin clan are a dysfunctional group of drunks.

While we're at Disney, I won't be able to go on any of the good rides. My kids will either be too small or too scared. Probably a good thing, because I haven't been on anything scary since I was in college and I've seen some of the more modern rides. I'd probably have a heart attack and die.

One thing I will do is create as much trouble as possible. Disney is a freaky society and I plan on teaching my kids the ins and outs of the many conspiracies surrounding Walt Disney and his empire. They will learn about the little easter eggs tossed into the various disney films, they'll learn about the handling of pedophiles, the Disney jail system (I'm hoping to learn more firsthand, if possible) and they will learn about Disney's bigoted past.

It should be fun, if only the crowds would stay home.

Anyway, if you are in Orlando, see if you can spot me. I'll be the jackass in the mouse hears, eating a cruller and ice cream, with my red and green tube stripe socks pulled up to my knees and three cameras hanging around my neck.

Adsense attempt part 36

Well, after months of waiting, I finally got a new pin for adsense and I've attempted, yet again, to get some ads in the blog. With all the traffic I'm seeing, I should be ready for retirement some time in January of never.

Perhaps it takes a while for the ads to appear. I don't recall how it works. I do recall it being much harder to get the ads to appear back when I last had one of these blog things. I recall having to put my own code in the blog. Now, at least, there are buttons to push that do it all for you. Of course I'm not seeing ads so, perhaps, I'm doing something wrong (likely) or google has decided to fuck with me. Both options are probably.

In any event, today is October 15th. Technically, the last day of hell for me for a while. I say technically because the hell at work will go away but the hell at home will now be my primary focus. Time to deal with all the shit that went on while I was buried in my office.

Time to start taking the kids to school, time to start having fun with them on weekends, time to start dealing with the myriad of issues the wife has with me, with the kids, with her life. Really looking forward to this. It's great knowing how much my clients rely on me, how much they appreciate me. If not for this, the complete opposite treatment I get at home would be unbearable.

I shall begin each day by repeating my old mantra.

One day I'll be dead.

I think my the wife repeats the same mantra. You know, "One day he'll be dead." She must because she has asked me about my life insurance policy several times over the last few months. Either she's planning for the future or planning for my lack of one.

Time will tell.

The Good Old Days

There was a time when I would work thru my busy season, spending every waking hour in the office with nothing to look forward to but the bulging bank account. I'd work for two and a half months straight and, having not had a social life or any free time, my bills would be minimal. The month after this period, I'd sleep in, rest up, take it easy and reward myself for all that hard work by spending some of that hard earned coin.

Well, I'm married with kids now and guess what? I've got lots to look forward to. I will finish up this hectic week by not being able to rest and not being able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. My wife Spendoogin McNoogin (not her real name) has taken it upon herself to spend my hard earned money faster than I can earn it and my kids, Divaoogin and Terroroogin (not their real names) have already alerted me to all the things they want to do now that they've got daddy back. So, the rest will have to come later, like when I'm dead. And that might not be a bad thing because, when I'm dead, the insurance kicks in and Spendoogin will then have a lot more of my money to spend.

I just got the amex bill for the last month. Over this period, I have been in the office every single day. I haven't taken the amex card out of my pocket once, except to give it to my secretary when she needed to get some office supplies. My spending for the month is about $1200. This includes postage of $500, a few hundred in office supplies, some dry cleaning bills and my internet and phone bill. My amex bill is topping out at ten grand. The other $8800 seems to be a result of Spendoogin's newfound spare time. I don't mind her using my card for food, household shit, the kids etc but I'm fairly sure the Lord & Taylor charge ($943) and the Bergdorf charge ($839) are hers and not the kids. If they are the kids, I'm going to have to explain the coolness of stores like H&M where, for $15 you can get an incredibly cool jacket that, when the kids grow out of it in 2 weeks, you won't feel like a schmuck for overspending on what amounts to a clothing rental. The most annoying part of this is that Spendoogin overbuys everything with the idea that she can always return it later. Unfortunately, she might wait a month or two to return things so I am stuck paying for everything now and, hopefully, getting a credit later. I won't even get into her moronic method of not paying for the things she expects to return, eating the penalties for underpayment instead.

This month's bill also has the Disney trip on there. I know, this is a family thing and I shouldn't complain about it. I agree. That's not the issue. I agreed to go. My beef here is that, knowing there's a $5,000 (the airfare and deposit were on last month's bill) bitchslap on the card, why would Spendoogin go and drop another $2,000 of shopping spree shit on me. Is she so in the dark that she doesn't think about the pain in my bank account? Does she simply not care about it? Does she not know that people are hurting all over the world and, perhaps, now is not the best time to be shopping? Spendoogin is a sucker for a sale. She'll come home with some horrific looking shoes and say "look, they were $29,598 marked down to $11, isn't that a great deal?"

When I say, "they're ugly and, for the record, when you pay $11 for a pair of shoes, they're $11 shoes," she gets offended. She is turned on by the discount. She's got an illness. She cannot resist the sale. What she doesn't realize is, we are heading towards what might be the worst retail season ever and the sales are going to get even better. She's probably pissing away even more money by not waiting but, again, it's that red tag marked SALE that gets her hot.

Hmmm. Sales turn her on? Slashed prices make her hot?


I wonder. Should I get "MARKED DOWN MUST GO" tattooed below my belt line? How about simply hanging a tag that reads "SALE: Half Off" on my "mcnoogin?" Not only will the sale tag get her all hot and ready for love, the half off will make it seem like, at one time, it was, actually bigger.

Sinner McNoogin

So, atonement day is almost upon us (me). That's right, Floogin is jewish. I know, you're thinking, "Floogin McNoogin isn't a very jewish sounding name." Well, it seems that my great grandfather changed it when he arrived at Ellis Island. Originally it was McNoogginbergstein. I really don't know why he shortenend it. Such a grand name but I digress.

So, after sundown (or dinner, which ever comes first) I will not eat until the sun sets tomorrow night. Ok, the when the sun sets or passes behind a cloud creating a darkening effect. I will do this to absolve myself of all my sins from the last year. Truth is, other than thinking about sinning, I haven't actually done anything worthy of a sin. Sure, I've got drifter meat aging in the closet but offing a drifter or two isn't really a sin now, is it?

So, what is the worst sin a guy like Floogin could commit? That's right, adultery. Cheating on your significant other. I didn't do that. I sure as fuck thought about it a lot. Like every time I walk by a woman I think "yeah, I'd go there." I didn't do anything beyond that though so I should be ok, I think.

The cheating this is actually somewhat interesting. I read recently that the majority of men who cheat (90+% I think) do this not because they want to get laid but, rather, they needed that admiration, adoration and attention that they were no longer getting at home. In other words, they got caught and "honey you don't fuck me anymore so I figured I'd go get me someone who would" was too scary to admit so they said "you don't show me you care, I'm an emotional being, just like you and I need to feel important."

I call bullshit.

Sure, we all want to feel important and loved and needed. Sure, our spouses and significant others don't provide this anymore. Why? Because that's the way it is. They grow tired of the things you can do. The surprises become mundane. Sure, there was a time when farting under the blanket and smothering your lover in the stench was funny but she probably finds it annoying now. Sure, she got a kick out of the way you tossed your stained tighty whiteys just next to the hamper. Now she gets pissed and with each little annoyance, her disdain for you grows. It happens and the next thing you know, you are without sex for months on end. Maybe longer. Apparently, this is the real definition of marriage.

So, let's get back to cheating. I've put a lot of thought into this. If I am sleeping with one woman and it is understood that I will not sleep with anyone else and I do, this is cheating. If I am not sleeping with a woman and I go and sex up another woman, this is not cheating. Why? If woman 1 isn't willing to work the McNoogin Magic with me, I can't really cheat on her. It'd be like playing poker with your buddy and your phone rings and it's Dave, who's home, and he accuses you of cheating in your game with him.

So, if I were to go out and get me some love, the only person I'd really be cheating on would be Hand McFlooin and that is hardly cheating either as it seems I'm on a break from my hand as well.

What this all boils down to is, I have roughly 5 hours to find me a lady who wants a quick romp so that I can not eat tomorrow and be forgiven for my indiscretion.

Now this leads to another interesting point. If I fast and am absolved of my sins in god's eyes, doesn't that mean that my wife should forgive me? I'm not much of a god fearing/believing kinda guy but she is. Well, I think she is as she often tells him when I've done wrong. I assume she's doing this so that god has a list of things to wipe off my slate when I fast. She'll say "oh god, what a fucking idiot" or "god dammit, how can you be so fucking stupid." I used to think she was yelling at god but one time, when I started to back away from her and cower under a table she asked me what I was doing and I explained that, in the event god was real, I wanted to be a healthy distance from her when he smited her for giving him such lip. she told me she was actually talking about me and not him. So, she's making a list for me. Now, if she thinks it is so important to list my sins with the big guy, when the big guy says "you fasted, clean slate, I absolve you of your sins", shouldn't my wife follow suit? Wouldn't it be somewhat hypocritical to not forgive me when she gave god the list of things I needed to fast for in the first place?

now I have 4 hours and 45 minutes. I can't believe I'm wasting my time talking to nobody instead. In the off chance that someone actually reads this before sundown, and wants to experience a little loving Floogin Style, let me know.

Floogin Gives Birth

So, I don't eat carbs. Most people know this. I lost a lot of weight thanks to the no carb/low carb diet and I liked how I felt. Not just the slimmer body but the whole internal thing as well. No more food coma, more energy, less gas etc.

There is a downside to the no carb diet. Pooping becomes an event. So, this morning, after a 3 day gestation period, I suddenly went felt a contraction. "This is it" I said to myself. I grabbed my pre-packed poop kit (newspaper) and headed to the can.

Yay! the middle stall is empty.

I sit down and tell myself to breath. Hee Hee Hoo Hoo, just like we learned in lamaze class. The cramps come. I feel the sweat starting to bead up on my body. It's crowing I shout to no one in particular.

"shut the fuck up" I am told in return. Must not have noticed the guy in the birthing stall next to mine.

Hee Hee Hoo Hoo I breath. I hear a flush from the shut the fuck up guy.

Congratulations! I shout.

"fucking weirdo" he says back. No thank you, no well wishes for me. Oh well, he must be exhausted.

Hee Hee Hoo Hoo
sweat ribulet twist and weave down my back.
Hee Hee Hoo Hoo
Beads of sweat weave thru my hair, across my scalp like little spiders.
HEE HEE HOO HOO
my intestines feel like they are straightening out.
HEE HEE HOO HOO
a clunk and a splash. Did I drop my watch in the toilet?

I lift up, look in and hear "daddy?"

Tears of joy stream down my face. I whip out my cell and start snapping pictures. Gotta capture the moment.

Much as I want to, I am not going to post the pictures here. I will hold out until one of the tabloids is willing to make a sizeable donation to the Floogin McNoogin Foundation. Once they pony up, the world will officially meet Poopin McFloogin

METS LOSE!!! METS LOSE!!!!

Yeah, they blew another season on the last day. Sure, that's three years in a row where they were in the mix and wound up breaking the hearts of their fans. Ok, fine, 3 years ago was game 7 of the playoffs and sure, they deserve more credit for that but, still, hearts were broken.

Last year was horrific. Blowing a 7 game lead in 17 days is actually rather impressive. Go Team!

This year they sucked out of the gate, turned it around but, thanks to injuries and a group of relief pitcher that suck. I'm opening a store that sells oversized garbage cans so this group of pitcher no longer have to deal with missing the can. They probably piss all over the bathroom too. Aim is a tough thing to master for sure but seriously, on the last day of the season, win or go home, how can your relief pitchers give up back to fucking back homeruns? How?

The real reason I'm here today, talking about this isn't because I'm frustrated by the loss. I somewhat expected it and I'm sure the team will do whatever it takes to get K-Rod and, possibly Sabathia (if he'll leave the Brewers and his arm is ruined from all the short rest pitching).

No, I'm here because the first thing my jackass brother in law said to me this morning wasn't hey, hello or how was your weekend, no his first thing spoken was "so, you gunna be a yankee fan now?"

Let's see, 3 years ago we were one good swing of the bat from the world series. 3 years ago, the Yankees were, um, 3 and done I think. Last year we blew it but played a meaningfull game on the last day of the season. Sure we got blown out but that was Glavine's fault and Willie's for not yanking him instantly. The Yankees? 3 and done I think. This year, on the last day of the season, we played another meaningfull game. We lost. It hurts. The yankees? Um, they were out of contention in like June. In a division where the yankees and the red sox both play, you are more likely to make the playoffs every year because the other teams stink and the two high banked teams are beating everyone else to a pulp. so, it's easier to stay up in the standings. How else did the yankees manage to even be in the running this year? The Devil Rays played amazing baseball and, suddenly, the division wasn't all doormats and the big 2. No, now they had 3 teams playing well and suddenly it ain't so easy to walk away with a wild card or division with mildly talented overpaid players, wildly talented but lacking heart players and insanely wildly talented player who only hits when his contract is on the line.

Steinbrenner the younger whines about the playoff system being unfair. I looked at the standings. Everyone making the playoffs from the American League has a better record than the Yankees. What's not fair about it? For over a decade you stacked the deck, buying whomever you could to ensure that the stadium would be filled and the fans would be watching playoff baseball. It worked well for a while. Then it worked ok as you made the playoffs thanks to the aforementioned crappy division. Now you realize that all that money doesn't always account for wins. Steinbrenner, let me introduce you to the Bonilla/Saberhagen era Mets. Best team on paper for a couple of years. Horrible records. Money doesn't always translate into wins.

So, Floogin, how come you said you are confident that the Mets will go buy new and improved relief and starting pitching?

Because anyone is better than what we have so you can be assured that whatever you spend, you'll see a return on your investment.

Besides, I'm pretty sure that the fans will stop going to the games if there's a chance they have to watch Schoenweiss, Ayala, Feliciano, Sanchez and possibly Heilman ever make the walk from the bullpen to the mound.

Floogin on Facebook

No, I'm not on facebook so please don't go looking for me to add me as a friend. I don't understand why any adult would be a part of this nonsense. I can fully understand why teenagers and college kids are into it. It's a nice way to see what your friends from home are up to while you're away at school and it's nice to be able to see what your camp friends are up to during the school year but adults? Seriously?

A friend of mine came to see me a while back and asked if I had seen this picture of a girl we went to school with. I said no and he said it was on her facebook account. I laughed at him for joining it and he said he joined because he was told by another friend of ours that he "had to see this picture and he had to join to see it." So he joined. Over the course of the next hour he received about 100 emails from friends of friends of friends of friends, all asking to be his facebook friend. I can see how getting spam from people you don't know or are no longer in touch with could be a great thing. I mean, the penile enlargement ads, the harder cock ads, the remove spam ads, the mortgage interest ads, the hot stock tip spam, the spam from every online store you ever bought from, the work emails, the emails from family and actual friends really don't do enough to fill your inbox every 6 minutes, so why not add this new group of unwanted emails?

My sister calls me that night and says she added my friends on her facebook account and she adds that she is now friends with 412 people, some of them are my friends from high school. I tell her they were my friends but, since I stopped talking to them ten years ago, they really are not friends anymore. I then tell her that 412 friends is great. I ask if she'll be inviting them all to her birthday this year. She says they aren't "those kind of friends."

So, what are they?

People she knows, people who know people she knows and people she used to know but doesn't anymore.

and why do you want to be "friends" with people you intentionally removed from your lives or, even worse, friends of people you intentionally removed from your lives.

"you just don't get it."

No, I don't. So far, I have only heard one reason for this and we'll get to it shortly.

I ask my sister how much time she spends on facebook. Her husband says she's on all the time.
Having never actually been on facebook, I don't know what it involves but I guess, to spend that much time on it, it must have games, music, news, video feeds of your friends etc because what else could occupy that much time.

Oh, wait, keeping tabs on 412 people you hardly know. Reading about what each person is up to. And you care, because they are your friend. So, when you are at a party and you see one of these people, do you go up and hug them, kiss them on the cheek and say "it's been too long, it's been what? oh, we never actually met."?

So, what exactly is the reason adults go on facebook?

Simple.

To see how badly they fucked up their lives.

I first gleaned this bit of wisdom from my loving wife, Sloogin McNoogin (not her real name). Ok, she didn't actually admit to it but, one night my sister signed onto her facebook account while we were with them and she showed my wife all of her friends who were actually my wife's real life friends. People my wife went to college with and still talks to and still sees from time to time. Not internet friends, real flesh and blood friends. My wife started checking out her friends' profiles and she saw all these people she used to know. She started clicking on each profile. Oddly enough, they were all guys she was "friends" with. I take this to mean guys she dated.

First thing I learned. My wife dated a lot of guys.
Second thing I learned. She was very interested in how they turned out, where they live, what they do for a living etc. I started to see the reason for facebook. She was scoping out old flames, comparing them to eachother and, invariably, to me. She was checking out these guys to see if she made the right decision.

So, I poured myself a hefty glass of vodka and left the room to ponder this.

A couple of weeks later, we're at a party for one of her friends. (real one, she has yet to join facebook - I think). We're talking to this couple and my wife and and the woman are catching up on old college friends and my wife says "I just saw them on facebook." The woman's face lights up but her eyes dart to her husband. He's got this devilish grin on his face like this is a fight they've had before.

She asks my wife if she's on facebook and my wife says no. The husband laughs and says "my wife's having affairs on facebook." She gets pissed and he says "she has all these guys she used to date on there and like three girlfriends from her high school days. Why else is she there but to talk to old boyfriends?" They wound up getting into a huge fight over the issue and I'm guessing this has been an ongoing issue. He needles her about it and she gets defensive because, why else is she on there?

Just this week, I'm at the deli, grabbing lunch and there are two women in front of me. They're talking about? Facebook. It seems one of them just ran into an old "friend" who she used to date and he looks hot and he's recently divorced and well, you get the picture.

The other woman says she has to limit her facebook time to when she's at work (I'm sure her boss would love to hear that) because her husband thinks she's cheating on him. Why? Because all her facebook friends are guys she used to hang out with or date.

I like to think I was a decent guy with the women I dated. I like to think that, for the most part, the relationships ended because we were really not meant for eachother. Yes, I have one ex who I think was devastated by our break-up. She went and married a guy who, according to friends who are her facebook friend, looks exactly like me. But, clearly she is over it. she has a nice (and handsome) husband, two kids, a nice house. I can't really recall anyone breaking my heart but I do know that there were a few girls who stopped seeing me for reasons that I was hurt by but I can't see why I'd want to get back in touch with them other than to see that they are with total losers who pale in comparison to the Great Floogin McNooogin!

hmmm, maybe I should join.