I See Sick People

I see sick people
now they're everywhere
I wade through the pathogens
that populate the air

RNA-breathing zombies
are all over this place
with their pale, clammy skin
and their mucous-lined face

Like this guy in the hallway
he's sniffing and snortin'
it's times like these
I wish people had Norton

So that when I'm invaded
by a trojan rhinovirus
It would give me an alert
and transfer files to Billy Cyrus

So far I've escaped them
and I'm feeling quite fine
but that most likely means
I'm the next one in line

Tomorrow at the airport
I don't stand a chance
It's like being american
at a restuarant in France

I'm already starting
to feel lightheaded now
it's the same way I feel
after a pint of kung pao

I give up, just take me
I'll become one of you
bite marks on my neck
now I'm Nosferatu

Mountaineering is many things...

I read that...in a book.

I'm gonna meet my buddy in Washington state this weekend. He likes me.

He and I have been making plans to do a climb out there for some time now. We might do Mt. Hood because people die on it and that's risky and macho and cool. Right? Yeah, that's what I think too. I ain't quite feeling the cool-ness yet. I feel the risky part though. But, since he's into this stuff and I have a weakness for saying yes to things that jeopardize me, I said yes.

He sent me a book on Mountaineering. It's like 500+ pages. It's titled "somethin' somethin' Mountaineering". He told me to pay close attention to the portion on self-arrest. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with fur-lined handcuffs and everything to do with stopping your body as it propels down the face of a mountain. So, even though my life is crazy busy with work wanting a big piece o' me and my grandmother going to heaven, I feel the pressure to educate myself about this self arrest stuff. The pressure largely stems from my unwillingness to die.

Consequently, I have diligently stuck to this this nightly ritual where I take the mountaineering book upstairs and spend some quality time with it.

Here's how the last few nights have gone for me:

11:00 pm Take book upstairs, lay in bed in guest room

11:01 pm *reading* "Mountaineering is many things...."

11:02 pm "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

The Next day was a bit different...

11:00 pm Take book upstairs, lay in bed in guest room

11:01 pm *reading* "Mountaineering is many things. It is climbing, panoramic views and..."

11:02 pm "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

So, I'm not very prepared. And I fly out Friday morning.

I slept with the book though. Ah, just because you sleep with something doesn't mean you know it any better. I think many of us can attest to that.

So...

Anybody know how to climb a mountain?

I'll take some nice pics for you folks though.

* Maybe from the base. *

Did I also mention I'm really really tired?

I'm sure it'll be fun....somehow.

Bye.

But hopefully not for good...

Gear Up!

This weekend I'm climbing Mt. Hood, St. Helens or some other big volcano depending on weather.

It's cold up there. I think my mountianeering book says so.

I've been trying to find some mens mittens to keep my paws warm. You know how hard it is to find men's Gore-tex mittens?

Whelp, I got a great deal on a pair on eBay. They just came in the mail today.

Yay!

I'm gonna try 'em on right now...

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My Plans are Fluid

My windshield washer fluid doesn't pump to my windshield. At first, I thought the line was frozen. But after further inspection, it's something to do with the fluid pump motor thing-a-mo-bobby. It probably needs a fluid uptake grommet valve spindle.

Because I am a professional crastinator, I shut the hood and solved the problem my own way. My car is now equipped with one of these...

If you see a guy in a black Ford sticking this out of the side door and spraying his windshield, give him a honk. Because, that's me.

Super Blunder

Me and my buddy might be able to actually take a stab at Mt. Hood the weekend of Feb 2nd. The snow is packed and the only real risky crevasse is filled in with ice.

Yay!

My buddy even sent me a five hundred page book on mountaineering.

Yay!

But I haven't read a lick of it yet.

Boo!

I didn't realize it when booking our flight, but that's Super Bowl weekend and I'll be flying back on a plane during kickoff.

Boo!

Oh well. Hey, at least I'll have a safe flight because all the terrorists will be at the Super Bowl.

Yay!

Unless they plan on flying a plane into the Super Bowl...

Boo!

* Oh shit. *

MS Vista Needs Permission To Bite Me

I bought a laptop. It’s black. It’s a Compaq. I mean HP. Wait, I think those are the same company now. Ah, it doesn’t matter because pretty soon everything will be the same company and my next computer will be probably be made by Taco Bell. It also has Microsoft’s brand new brain-teasing operating system; Windows Vista version 6.6.6. For once, I felt like I was ahead of the technology curve and I felt so cool. I’ll be sure to include that in my suicide note.

Change is different

Vista has some new features that I appreciate. Like the circley-orb-thingy. The circley-orb-thingy is a new item that replaces the hourglass-thingy. It is a new and progressive way to tell you “your computer is confused”. So, now when my computer hangs up, I have something new and exciting to look at. Pfeh. Nobody uses the hourglass anymore. It was time for change.

But, Bill Gates, why you gotta do me like ‘dat?

Too much change changes too much. For example, I used to be awesome at Excel. I could Excel circles around people and populate cells like nobody’s business. I was thinking of entering a national tournament. My secret weapon was the “edit fill” tool. This allowed me to fill cells with beaurocratic details at rapid-fire speed. I could edit fill down, edit fill up, edit fill sideways and edit fill 3 dimensions outwardly. I had a black belt in edit fill from the Excel Dojo. But with the new version of excel, do you know where “edit fill is”?

I’m really asking…”do you know where edit fill is?”…cus I have no effin’ clue.

Edit disappeared. Someone at Microsoft must have ctrl-X’ed it. So, I’ve now been demoted to an Excel orange belt and I must re-train myself back to form by spending countless hours in the MS dojo. And, this makes me want to go Bruce Lee on somebody with nunchakus.

Micro*Mart Sucks

This is all like when you come back from vacation and you go back to your regular grocery store and they have changed all the shelves around. You go to the shelf where you normally went to buy a can of edit-fill and it ain’t there. Then, you try to find a clerk to ask and there ain’t any clerks. So, you circle around the store seven times. After a half an hour or so, you finally find it, but you’re so demoralized you go and buy yourself a case of Lemonade Tycoon.

Time to check out! Damn. Now they’ve changed the checkout aisle. There used to be a sign there that read “check out” in English. But now, we have to accommodate everybody in america who habla espanol and high school graduates who can't read rest room signs without moving their lips. So, there’s just some funky symbol there and I have a hunch it's directing me to the checkout aisle.

This all pisses me off so much that I’m considering taking my business to Linux*Mart. But, that place is wayyyy too weird for me. They let people bring in their own items and sell penguins in the poultry section.

Where to from here?

There’s no free market. I’m stuck with Vista. So, I might as well learn it. But until then, they can kiss my Microsoft Orifice!

Holy Geez!

Watch Closely...

As I age 20 years...

...and yet do not become a bit...

...more mature.

Come see me on Associated Content

The format is better and I get paid based on the number of page views.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/mickeysbigmouth

Come on, pleeeease? I have at least two kids to support.

Don't Look In The Basement!

When I was a kid, my parents thought I was old enough to handle a scary movie. So, we went down the mom & pop video store in the closest village and rented Don't Look In The Basement. It was in Beta. It had a booby scene and that was uncomfortable to watch with my Mommy in the room.

Sorry, I lost my point there. I remember being in my pj's eating popcorn and yelling at the actors on the TV "Don't look in the basement! Don't you know that's the title of the movie!?". Well, guess what? They looked in the basement, and there was a ghost, zombie, alien or Amway salesperson or something down there and it didn't work out too cool.

I experienced something similar on my recent trip to see my Dad . I looked in the basement...

...and I think what I saw made me realize I'm going to have the starring role in the horror/tragedy Guy Who Has To Clean All This Shit Up Someday.

I should have never looked in the friggin' basement.

So, what's all down there? Lots o' stuff. My brother helped me take inventory since I'm kinda afraid to go down there. But if you dare, you'll find thousands of beer cans lining the ceiling, three crutches (in case anybody with three legs hurts one of them), 30 cans of baked beans, 3 microwave ovens, 17 cases of "freakin' nuts", 6 tub and tile epoxy kits (that'll fix dad for about 60 years because he only has one bathtub), countless vacuum cleaners and last but not least, a fish bowl with 30 ping pong balls in it, one of which has a skull and crossbones drawn on it in pen that reads "kill Mickey". It must have been the ball of choice for one of our famous ping-pong grudge matches. Yeah, there's a ping pong table down there, you just can't see it.

This all begs the question "what is the guy gonna do with all this stuff?" and "how much does a jumbo size dumpster cost?". Those questions remain to be answered at a later time. Hopefully, much later.

But I gotta hand the guy this; if you're in a pinch and need of a microwave oven or a can of beans, a vacuum cleaner, a cardboard box or even a dead mouse, Dad can fix you up without ever having to leave the house.

A lathe...he has a freakin' industrial lathe down there...

I love you Dad. But not your basement.

I Like Most Beers But...

Holy Cannoli, I was experimenting and I think I just discovered the cure to alcoholism.

Make them drink this.

http://dbhobbsbeer.com/

It tastes just like the crack of my cat's ass, and he died 10 months ago.

Yeah yeah yeah, I know what you're gonna say...

A Letter to 2008

Dear 2008,

It was wonderful to meet you today. I am much more excited about knowing you than I was 2007, which had it's good moments but by and large, sucked donkey doo-doo. It seemed like it lasted a year...on Uranus!

I feel much more optimistic about you. So, if you allow me, I would like to accomplish some things while getting to know you better.

Take better care of my body: I would like to drink less and eat healthier. But not in fanatical way that will cause me to miss anything fun. I need to make my abs and back stronger. I need to stretch more. No, I need to stretch...period. I'm starting to groan when I stand up and that's not what a 39 year-old should be doing.

Say "No" more: I will start by standing in front of the mirror, looking at myself and practice saying "No" repeatedly. I need to say no to my job more. I don't need to be in management my entire career. I don't need to be on twenty different committees, task forces and focus groups. I especially don't need to do stuff that is other people's job. I also really don't need to answer my phone when my boss calls me while I'm at the bar tossing back a pint or three. No!

Be more charitable: I should spend more time with my volunteer work and helping others in need by utilizing my time, talent and treasures. That's a no-brainer. I think the folks at the nursing home would agree, if I asked them that, and they actually heard me.

Cycle my arse off: It took me 32 years to discover the greatest sport ever. So, I should pursue it while my body still allows. I want to ride 10,000 miles this year. I should be more selective about the type of events I enter and get better finishes. I would love to earn enough points in my 2008 races to be upgraded from a USCF cat 3 to cat 2. That would be narley.

Have more fun: I need to go to concerts, travel, and do anything that is spontaneously enjoyable. That's why I have spontaneously planned a bunch of that stuff for the early part of 2008. Spontaneous planning is a premeditated and predictable way of being spontaneous.

Take better care of those who care for me: I need to identify those who show they care for me and reciprocate, multi-fold. Conversely, I need to shift my focus away from those for whom my affections are lost as if thrown into a bottomless pit.

Once again, it was great to make your acqaintance today 2008. I look forward to a relationship that is rewarding, fulfilling and most importantly, lasts a full year.

Sincerely,

Mick