Author: Andy Labis

By:

The Dude on the Right
Dear Major League Baseball, The Chicago Cubs, TBS, and whomever else set the TV
schedule for the upcoming baseball Divisional Series,

Thank you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And let me write it again – Thank you!

I would like to thank you for scheduling the first two Cubs games for the
Divisional Series at a time when there is pretty much no way in hell I’m going
to watch, and even more importantly at this stage of my Fall TV season, I won’t
miss any of my old favorite, nor new favorite TV shows. Yup, you scheduled the
first two games on Wednesday and Thursday nights, to start at 9PM CDT. Sure,
first pitch is supposed to be at 9:07ish PM, or so someone said on the radio
this morning (and out of sheer curiosity I might try to sneak and see when that
first pitch actually gets thrown tomorrow night, probably during a commercial
break of a new episode of "South Park"), but even in the best of chances it
would be a major miracle for the games to finish by 11PM, and even a minor
miracle for them to finish by Midnight. As much as I love the Cubs I don’t have
the late nights available for these two games unless I wanted to be a zombie at
my morning meetings on Thursday and Friday, and besides, if the Cubs do win both
games, the game that really matters will be at 5PM on Saturday evening, where
hopefully the Cubs will clinch their series at The Friendly Confines of Wrigley
Field!

Also, with those games not starting until after 9PM, I’ll have no conflict
with my normal slate of Wednesday nor Thursday night TV viewing and TiVoing.
I’ll have no worries of missing "Bionic Woman," "Survivor," "My Name is Earl" &
"Smallville" (both on TiVo delay), "30 Rock," and anything else coming along
those two nights.

And sure, as a transplanted North Coast resident (Lorain, OH – Represent!), I
am also cheering on the Cleveland Indians, but my mom pretty much figures the
New York Yankees already have that series wrapped up, so I figure why bother
watching. Even so, their games are actually early enough they have the potential
to be over by my TV time anyway.

So, again, baseball and TV folks, Thank you! I didn’t want to watch the
Chicago Cubs anyway!

Sincerely,
The Dude on the Right

And that’s it for this one! 
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

By:

The Dude on the Right
So last night, with some help from the Milwaukee Brewers, the Chicago Cubs
finally clinched the National League Central Division and now it’s time for the
playoffs.  Yay!  The thing is that now, what is their new "Magic
Number?"  The news stated it was 11, but isn’t that wrong in Magic Number
lore.  It’s supposed to be the combination of wins of your team with the
losses of the team you are up against to advance to the next stage of the
season, at least that’s my understanding, so even though the Cubs need to win 11
games to win The World Series, isn’t the Magic Number to win it all actually 22? 
In any case I do know that with the Cubs in the playoffs, well, my TV viewing is
being thrown into even more turmoil than it was last week, especially since two
new shows, after watching them and reflecting on an event last week, reminded me
of something.

Even after being 2 scores old, I’m still an insecure geek. 
And fine, go ahead and insert the word "nerd" for "geek" if you prefer.

The
two shows I’m talking about are "The
Big Bang Theory" and "Chuck." 
In "The Big Bang Theory" this smoking hot dudette moves into the apartment next
to a couple of uber-geeks, actually surpassing me in the geek-dom of being a
geek, but there he was, the one dude, doing all he could to impress the hot
dudette.  And in "Chuck," Chuck is a nice guy, implanted with the spy
secrets of the government, and a smokin’ hot government agent enters his life to
at first find out what he knows, faking to be interested in him, and Chuck gets
his hopes up.  The basic part of the story is the same: Geeky guy is
interested in the hot girl but doesn’t know how to be cool enough to work it.

So how did this remind me of my geek-dom?  It was last week and Stu Gotz’s
buddy was turning 40 (what a great age).  To celebrate, Stu set up a small,
lunch, get-together including Stu, Mama Gotz, Stu’s buddy and the buddy’s wife,
and me, at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Orland Park, south of Chicago.  We
all end up at the bar and the bartendress is very cute, with a great body, great
butt, nice boobs, and a perfect smile.  You would look at her and say
"Dude, she is so out of your league."  As lunch went on a question came up,
namely who was the girl who turned into a blueberry in "Willy Wonka & the
Chocolate Factory," and none of us could remember.  As the conversation
between the couples went on (mostly about kids and their houses), I took out my
iPhone, Googled "blueberry girl in Willy Wonka" and announced "Her name was
"Violet Beauregarde."  Somehow "iPhone" came up in the conversation and the
cute bartendress pretty much denounced anyone who would buy an iPhone, that she
wasn’t a gadget girl, and that her cell phone was older than the hills but she
knew how to send text messages.  As a geek, pretty much everything she said
also indicated "I’ve got no shot in hell with her."  But then Stu’s buddy
said something to me, something like "Dude, dare her to let you text her." 
I shook off his suggestion, then he said something like "Dude, then let me dare
her to let you text her."  And I shook him off again.  He seemed
flabbergasted, kinda like "Why the hell not?", and after we left, and after
seeing "The Big Band Theory" and "Chuck," I realized I should have taken him up
on his offer to try and get her phone number.  Even after all of these
years I was still an insecure geek, and what’s the worst that would have
happened, other than she lets me text her, her Ultimate Fighting boyfriend sees
a weird text on her phone, he hunts me down, and he beats the living daylights
out of me? At least I would have had her phone number.

So, I don’t have the
cute bartendress’ phone number, I still have my iPhone that isn’t bricked and
somehow has my personal ringtones even though I upgraded to Firmware 1.1.1, and
I think I have come to realize that I will always be a geek.

Or maybe just a
nerd.

Is there a difference? (No comments from you, Sis.)

That’s it for this one! 
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!