Category: General Musings

By:

The Dude on the Right
Look, I know that in the grand scheme of life today didn’t suck that bad, but,
well, it hasn’t been the most unchallenging day either.

It started out pretty
nicely.  I slept in a bit, caught an early showing of "Ocean’s 13," and
then was off on some errands for a company I do consulting for.  With my
day being pretty well structured, I was hoping to get the errands done quickly,
be back in time to get my review of "Ocean’s 13" posted, then head to help my
buddy Stu with some photos he wanted taken.  But as plans would have it,
things didn’t go that smoothly.  Well, they did up until leaving the movie.

First there was a larger amount of traffic in my cruising the Chicagoland area. 
This was a slight bummer as I knew it meant I probably wouldn’t have time to get
the movie review written and posted in the afternoon.  No biggie, I would
just take care of it after my photo assignment for Stu.  So I get back to
the Dude-Pad and notice my internet and cable TV are down.  With the high
winds that have been buffeting us in the past couple of days I figured there
might just be a cable down, and since I really only had time for a shit, shower,
and shave before I rounded up my spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch, and,
well, camera, before I had to leave, I figured the internet and TV would be back
up by the time I got back.

And now is the reason why I am not a wedding
photographer.  You see, my buddy, and our staff member, Stu, is an ordained
minister, and has actually married people, but he was lacking some photos he
could use for publicity purposes.  With that he asked if I could come to a
wedding he was officiating over and snap some photos.  The bride and groom
had no problem with it, I had some free time, the weather was nice (it was an
outdoor ceremony at a local golf course), so I told him I’d be there.  I
got there early, took some test shots before the wedding guests showed up to
check on lighting and stuff, and things looked great.  Then the big moment
came, Stu was up there giving the "Do you take…", and "Do you take…"’s, and
for whatever reason, my fancy, digital, SLR, wouldn’t snap a picture to save its
life.  I frantically tried turning the camera off and on, popped out the
memory card and re-inserted it, thought it might be a lens issue so snapped a
different lens on, put the camera in full manual mode, but as Stu was going
through the entire ceremony the camera would focus, would say everything was
fine, but wouldn’t snap a picture.  As bummed as I was I didn’t get a
picture of Stu performing the ceremony, I almost had a self-induced panic attack
picturing if I was actually the photographer the couple hired and didn’t get any
photos of their big day.

I told Stu what happened and that this was why I
didn’t do weddings, then walked back to my car.  For the hell of it I
pointed the camera at a building across the street, pushed the shutter button,
and the damn camera snapped the picture, snapped the next picture, and snapped
every other picture I shot before I climbed into the dude-mobile just wondering
"What the hell went wrong?"

So then I get home figuring I could at least write
my movie review, get it posted, and play BINGO during America’s BINGO Night, or
whatever the show on ABC is called.  I open my door, look at my cable
modem, and realized my cable TV and internet are still broken, down,
unfunctional, don’t work, screwed up, messed up, or all of the listed.

Before
eating, before peeing, and before feeding my kids I jump on the phone to the
cable TV folks.  There aren’t any reported outages in my area, they
transfer me to the internet support folks where, according to the girl who
transferred me, internet takes priority, but in my brief conversations with them
I’m pretty sure none of the support staff really has a clue what a cable modem
is.  The dude sets me up with a "technician’s appointment" for Saturday,
between 1PM and 4PM.  Then I call back because it seems the internet side
might be different from the TV side, stressing to the girl my cable TV is out,
and the best she can do is get a technician out on Sunday between 1PM and 5PM. 
I guess the internet side is a little quicker.

So here I am, flustered,
because I have no TV (guess I should buy a nice set of rabbit ears for just such
an occasion), I’m on dial-up internet (it sure takes a hell of a lot longer to
get things posted this way), and sure, maybe I could read a book, do some
cleaning, or enjoy nature, but how the hell am I going to post about Paris
Hilton going back to jail, or getting out again, in a timely manner on dial-up?

I suppose it could be worse, it could be raining, but right now I wouldn’t mind
a little rain.

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

By:

The Dude on the Right
This week has really been a roller coaster ride of highs and lows.  First
there were the new commercials for the

iPhone letting the world, and me, know it will finally be available June
29th.  Then there was the second to last episode of "The Sopranos" where
Tony’s crew is chopped down faster than a crop at harvest time, leaving what
appears to be only morons left on Tony’s crew, who, holed up in a safe-house,
decide to get some pizza delivered.  Then the Chicago Cubs won.  Then
the Cubs lost.  Then the Cubs won again.  The Chicago White Sox are
heading into a death spiral, and I can’t believe it but my Cleveland Cavaliers
are in the basketball finals, although most people in America probably don’t
care.  My dad has a birthday today (Happy Birthday, Dad, you should get
your card tomorrow), and so far I haven’t been sucked into any summer TV.

Now
you might be saying to yourself "Self, what the hell is The Dude’s problem? 
There aren’t any real lows there?"

Well it was on Sunday that the week of lows
started to begin.  You see, there I was, in the Dude-Mobile, listening to
my Sirius satellite radio, tuned on the Super Shuffle station where they play
music from all walks of life.  Suddenly the song "Kiss You All Over" by the
group Exile comes on
(for a point of reference, it was released in 1978, when I was 11, nearly 30
years ago).  But it being from nearly 30 years ago didn’t scare me, no,
what scared me is that I found myself singing along,

word for word: "You can see it in my eyes, I can feel it in your touch. You
don’t have to say a thing, just let me show how much. Love you, need you, yeah.
I wanna kiss you all over, and over again. I wanna kiss you all over, till the
night closes in, till the night closes in."  Fine, I have a freakishly
great memory for some bizarre things, and that initially didn’t cause my lows
for the week, until, suddenly, for the last three days, at any given moment, and
for no apparent reason, I find myself singing in my head "So show me, show me
everything you do. ‘Cause baby, no one does it quite like you. Love you, need
you, oh babe." and into the chorus I go.  I fear for my sanity, and hope
that somehow, someway, a better song sticks in my head.  Soon.

As Sunday
came and went I thought about blogging this week about how "The Sopranos" might
end this Sunday (the most bizarre sounding finale I’ve heard so far has A.J.
going all Jihad on the New York Mafia, finding out where Phil is, and strapping
on a suicide bomber outfit), thought about blogging about how the iPhone looks
to be the coolest cell phone ever, or even writing about Paris Hilton in jail. 
I finally decided on disclosing my knowledge of "Kiss You All Over" by Exile in
hopes, I guess, that by doing so, well, I can finally move on and have another
song drive me insane, like maybe
"You Sexy
Thing" by Hot Chocolate.  I believe in miracles.

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