Newt the Wonder Frog's Lily Pad

Walk down memory lane - the Towel Incident

2011-05-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

There are times when a memory will just sneak up on you and jump to the front of your brain and today I reminisced over the Towel Incident.

I was 18, getting close to graduation, and had been dating a 15 year old for about 2 weeks. Her name was Heidi and she and I were in the midst of a relationship that lasted about a month. Maybe it was that I was older or maybe she was just aggressive but one evening we found ourselves in my room making out, with my parents nowhere to be seen.

I am not an idiot so for anyone reading this that thinks Statutory Rape, please know that wasn't an issue and I was keeping it that way. But we were having a good time and it was slightly more illicit in the fact that I knew I shouldn't have had her at my house. My parents probably didn't even know I was dating anyone, much less a 15 year old.

I estimate that we had been in my room about 30 minutes when I heard the front door open and I realized I was screwed. My bedroom was at the end of the hall and the only exits were my door and my window. The window was out of the question the second I heard not only my parents, but my aunt, sit down in the kitchen. My bedroom window opened right next to the kitchen window so movement would have been noticed. Alternately, to leave meant walking right next to the kitchen. I was trapped.

I waited a few minutes before I decided to go out and say hello to everyone. Due to my parents smoking habit, I was known to stay shut in my room with the door closed at all times so my absences wasn't questioned, even though my pick up outside told them I was home. I exchanged pleasantries with everyone and racked my brain for a way to figure out how to get Heidi out of my room. We couldn't wait them out as she had a curfew and my parents can sit for hours drinking, smoking and talking. Then I remembered "The Towel".

I exclaimed to my aunt, "Aunt Mickey, did you see my graduation present?". You see, a family friend of ours had a tradition to give any graduate a towel with their name embroidered on it. It was a fairly large towel, around 5 feet long, and I had gotten mine a few weeks back. She said, "No" and I said, "Well let me show it to you". I ran back to my room and quickly explained the plan to Heidi.

I grabbed the towel, walked back out into the hallway, and held the towel up in the doorway of the kitchen. The towel was just big enough that when I intentionally let it touch the floor, the doorway was completely obstructed. Heidi took the opportunity to run past the door and to the front entry way. I waited a moment, told them I had to go meet someone or some other excuse that I no longer recall, threw the towel in my room, and left the house, taking Heidi out the door with me.

Did my parents know what was happening? I don't think so. I haven't thought to ask them but I still have that towel and from time to time that whole situation comes back to me and makes me laugh.

That is all,

Newt

I went to Austin and all I got was this Awesome shirt...and a bunch of comics

2011-03-07T07:57:00.000-06:00

Diana, Grace and I decided to go on a weekend trip to Austin this weekend, in part to go to STAPLE. It is a small press/independent media expo that features comic book and I was extremely interested in going to see a couple of my favorite creators, Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener. They created Atomic Robo, which is one of the best comics out there.

We drove in to Austin on Saturday and went straight to the center the show was being held at. I wasn't expecting to spend a lot of time there, and after about an hour and a half, we were done. I hit the Atomic Robo table first and cleaned up with a bunch of stuff. A couple of trades, a free comic, some autographs, and this awesome sketch.

We then went walking around as there were a few books I wanted to pick up. I got,

and

not to mention I found this awesome print of Cookie Monster.

and I got this funny shirt.

Diana was happy that we didn't stay for hours and hours and I had a good time. Gracie was a big hit once we got her out of the stroller. She wouldn't stop gibber-jabbering and people were eating it up. This was her first(of many) cons and it was a great way to get her started on them.

That is all,

Newt

Tootles

2011-03-01T10:00:00.002-06:00

So, as part of my weight loss challenge I have been spending time at the gym and Sunday, I may or may not have embarrassed myself.

I was 20 minutes into my elliptical use and I went to change the page on my Nook when suddenly I hear a very loud fart. I looked around to see who it was and as I smelled it I realized it was ME! It just slipped out, I swear.

As I smelled what I had produced, my gaze slowly darted to my left and right. A woman was standing two machines away from me and I couldn't tell if she heard it or not. My eyes returned to my book and I made no recognition of what happened and prayed that I wasn't now looked at as the stinky guy on the elliptical machine.

That is all

Newt

Weight loss challenge

2011-02-28T09:56:00.005-06:00

So, you know how I am fat? Well, not for long bitches! I went on a weight loss kick a while back before Grace was born and dropped about 20 lbs. I have kept off about 15 of those but a while back my doctor told me I should really be in the 200 lb range. Well, I always intended to get there but Grace takes up a lot of time, who knew? So, I slipped and stopped behaving myself and didn't visit that lovely gym I spend $30 a month to be a member of.

Well, it just so happens Erin moved back to town and is getting hitched and wants to lose some weight for her wedding, and maybe just in general. So, I threw down a challenge. I am super competitive and bullheaded and decided if I was competing with someone, I would be more inclined to drop the pounds. Last Monday we kicked off our Biggest Loser challenge to see who can be the thinnest.

We are weighing in every two weeks, calculating percentage lost, and the loser of that weigh in has to buy the winner something. That part is kind of vague. But it allows for the competition side of things to stay fresh, it allows us to be constantly in battle, and it allows for prizes.

So far, things have gone OK. I visited the gym a few times and ate poorly instead of incredibly poorly. I started counting calories again and made a few good decisions along the way. However I also made some bad ones.

Here is my shame:

10 beers and a huge burger while in Houston
Whataburger for breakfast on Wednesday and Thursday while in Houston
Mexican food for lunch and dinner on Friday, with 7 beers in the evening
An entire giant size box of Nerds on Saturday

So, will I win the upcoming weigh in? Who knows. I am not sure what Erin has done but I hope for my sake she fails miserably, and I hope for her sake that she wins.

That is all,

Newt

Hey People, there's an order to things

2011-02-03T08:26:00.003-06:00

Yesterday, I was chatting with a fellow blogger, Lola Lakely, and we were discussing many things, but one thing that came up was how hard it is to take care of something. Lola just got a puppy and I just had a baby and she was saying how it is a new experience to have something that relies on you. She immediately threw in, "We got a puppy, and not that it's the same thing but trying to figure out what she wants is hard."

And she is right.

Being a parent is hard. It is hard when you are a fur parent and it is harder when you are a full time parent. So, as we were chatting, I wrote down some rules for her to get tattooed on her arm as a sort of checklist. This is really a set of hard to figure out steps that people might want to know.

Step 1. Meet a mate. This is gender neutral and if you end up with a set of points or a set of holes, it makes no difference.
Step 2. Live together. This may go against some of your religious beliefs. If so, move step 4 between steps 1 and 2 but do not move past Step 4. You aren't ready yet.
Step 3. Get a Pet. Ever cared for another living thing? No. Well try it with an animal. Cats don't count. If you kill it, maybe you should think long and hard before procreating.
Step 4. Marry. Yes, I am throwing convention into the wind and actually suggesting you get married before you have a kid. And I have a great reason why.
Step 5 If you can do all that then you can have a kid

So, if you have done all of these steps you are probably pretty happy. There are exceptions to that rule because some people just don't work out but for the most part, I would stake money on this system. I haven't figured out how to market it yet but I am getting there.

Here is the logic behind my 5 step method.

You need a mate before you can move past step one.
Living together will teach you patience. Dating someone is not the same as living with them and even though they may have a tooth brush at your house, there are two people you are dating. One is the person you have over, and one is the person who is at home.

Pets teach responsibility and selflessness. You can't just run away for the weekend when you have a pet. Someone has to take care of them so they either go with you, causing you to be responsible even on vacation, or you pay someone to take them in which case you just got your first taste of daycare.

Marring teaches commitment. Sure, marriage teaches you all sorts of things, but by saying, "I Do" you are committing to something in a way you have never done before. I bought an extended warranty on a TV once that was 3 years. I have bought cars that I still drive. I even signed a 30 year note on a house, but at the end of the day a marriage is supposed to be a lifelong commitment and if you can keep it in your pants, it will be.

So, that brings us to kids. If you have patience, responsibility, selflessness and commitment, you can handle being a parent. It isn't an easy job, and some days you might wonder how you made it through another day, but it is worth every minute of it. As for why you should get married before you have a kid, having two people to raise a child is for the benefit of the child, but also for the people raising it. It is backup when you most need it and it is relief to know that if it gets to hard, someone is always there to support you.

That is all,
Newt

Disclaimer: I understand their are single parents out there. Their job is twice as hard and I would bet that most would all agree with my rules. Choosing to be a single parent is like painting a house. One person can do it, but it is a lot easier if you have help.

Selfishness, also known as Solitude

2011-01-04T12:55:00.002-06:00

I spent the entire day yesterday just for myself and it was amazing. This might be called selfish, or lazy but it matters not to me. I woke up to help Diana get Gracie ready for her first day of daycare and then the rest of the day was mine.

I had yesterday off and I spent it thus:

I went and tried the new Spicy Chicken biscuit at Chick-Fil A and it was pretty good. I have a hard time getting my head around chicken for breakfast but it was still tasty. I would rather have had the spicy sandwich.

I came home and played 3 hours of 'Epic Mickey' which is a phenomenally addictive game. I purchased a bean bag chair for the occasion, and after awaiting Christmas Day to get the game, my ass made quite an indention in the chair.

I went and ate Rosa's Tacos for lunch and followed it up with a screening of 'Tangled' which was very good. Much more enjoyable than I thought it might be. The movie, not the tacos.

I came home and read "Turning Angel" by Greg Iles for about an hour.

I spent two more hours playing 'Epic Mickey'.

At four I went and received Gracie from daycare,

For eight hours I didn't have to be a parent, a husband, an employee, a homeowner, or a cook. I got to be Trinity "Lazy Ass" Vaughn and it made me feel like my old self. The same guy who stood in line in the cold for hours the day the Nintendo Wii came out; the same guy that used to go to midnight showings for movies; the same guy who had time to read an entire book in a day because his life was so unrestricted.

I entered back into my new life at four, and I was very happy to see my little girl. I wouldn't trade my life for anything but it is nice to be able to step out of it for a while to appreciate where I have been. Sometimes it feels like life is on the path of who we are becoming and we don't get enough of a chance to remember where who we used to be.

That is all,

Newt

Things an old man wants for Christmas

2010-12-13T16:44:00.004-06:00

1. Battery Organizer - "There are batteries everywhere. I just want something where I can put all my batteries." - Newt the Wonder Frog

2. Flyswatter - "This may seem lame but I want a flyswatter. Just a plain old plastic swatter." - Newt the Wonder Frog

I am an old man. I want gifts for Christmas that are practical. How sad is that? More and more I just want to skip Christmas. I went and bought myself the battery organizer and my junk drawer has never looked better. All those batteries now have a home and I won't have to search through the drawer when one of Gracie's numerous battery draining toys goes dead.

Still no flyswatter but I figure it is perfect for a stocking so maybe I still have a chance.

That is all,

Newt

Did I shave my chest for this?

2010-11-15T10:38:00.004-06:00

I may have made a grave error in judgement.

I was laying in bed last night while Diana was feeding the baby and decided that today was the day that I was going to shave my chest. Why? Hell if I know. I just did. I haven't looked down to see a hairless chest since before puberty and whenever I hold Gracie she has a tendency to grab fist fulls of my luscious sweater and pull on them. So I thought, "Why not?"

It took about 15 minutes in all and I was very surprised to see how incredibly pale I am. I am used to seeing dark hair all over so to look in the mirror and see a nice yellowish pink is shocking. I didn't tell Diana what I did and waited until she was getting ready for bed and walked in. She looked at me and instantly did a double take and exclaimed, "You are so pale."

I sit here today with regret as I feel the gristly sensation of my shirt rubbing against my stubble. I didn't use a razor to shave, just my beard trimmer, so it isn't smooth at all. I am afraid to hold Grace without a shirt on for fear she will either latch to my man-boob or get razor burn from my skin. I was going to post a picture of what I now look like but it might be looked at as pornographic since I resemble a naked fat chick from the waist up.

Also, there were apparently some stretch marks that I was unaware of that the hair has been hiding and I don't want those out there for the world to see.

That is all,

Newt

My Fresh Prince remake

2010-11-05T08:24:00.003-05:00

This is a story all about how
my life got flipped, turned upside down
so I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there
to tell you how I became the dad of a little baby girl.
(musical interlude)

In West Texas oil land, born and raised
in the comic shops where I spent most of my days
Hanging out, reading and excelling in school
and then eating like crazy til I was real full

When I headed to Tech just to get me some smarts
went to a party where the drunk girls are
I got in one drinking game and my fate was shut
She said were making out tonight but not before I throw up
(musical interlude again)

I challenged her to date me and oh what a dear
her degree plan said Accounting and she had junk in the rear
If anything I could say that this girl was rare
so I thought, Dallas rocks and I made my home there(with her)

5 years later, I pulled up to the hospital just around 8
and I yelled at my wife, Shit were having a baby
Gracie came in the morning, kid was finally here
and since then she has been under our care.

That is all,

Newt

My EYES!!!!!!!!

2010-10-05T23:04:00.005-05:00

Let's get real for a moment.

My wife had a kid. I was there. It was gross. Here's why.

First, I was there when the water broke. I wrote a bit about why this is probably the most frightening thing to me in a previous post. Here's what happened.

We had a great nurse, Christa, who had been with us since we got to the hospital. She was the one checking Diana's vitals, dilation and overall just keeping us sane. One thing I never thought I would see was a woman sticking her hand into my wife's vagina. It isn't as hot as it sounds, though Christa was a cutie. Instead I got to here things like, "Dang there is a huge sack up there. It is tough. I'm going to try to pop it." And I stopped myself from saying, "That's what she said," though I wanted to soooooo bad.

Christa wasn't able to pop Diana's water though and I was entirely thankful for that. I had huddled into a corner with my back to them as she kept trying to do this, all the while holding down the urge to gag.

Diana was trying to deliver our child naturally and was a trooper all the way up til about 7 cm. Then the pain go enough that she finally caved and got an epidural. This turned out to be a godsend but at the time we just thought it would be helpful. Once Diana hit 9 cm, good old Christa was back. How she didn't loose a ring up in Diana's pelvis I will never know but she got her hand up in there pretty high. I had let my guard down when all of a sudden, Spoosh. A gush of water shot out and around Christa's wrist as her prodding had literally burst Diana's bubble. I jumped up and back when the liquid sprayed the bed and turned and faced the wall. Christa and Diana were amused. I was not. Why does irony have to be so transparent?

That is all,

Newt

Fatherhood: It's a funny thing

2010-10-05T22:48:00.004-05:00

I became a father a few days ago. That is something kind of crazy to say. It happened like this.

I was really getting excited to go have a few beers and meet up with our friend Erin at a local restaurant to watch the Texas Tech v. Iowa State game. Diana hadn't been feeling all that great but seemed to be OK with taking the trip. We loaded in the car and I drove us down there. The place was packed. Parking was a madhouse and neither of us was too thrilled to fight that madness. She told me that we should just go home because she really wasn't feeling right. I obliged. I mean, what else do you do when your 39 week pregnant wife says she isn't feeling good?

We returned home and finished watching the UT v OU game and Diana stressed that she felt that the pain she was having was coming pretty frequently. We got my phone out and started timing what we later realized to be contractions. She had had some false pains a few weeks ago and they went away when she walked so we decided to stroll up and down the block to see if they would go away. The timing was fairly consistent and after about half an hour of 5 to 7 minutes spaces between contractions, we decided this might be a real thing we should really go get the car packed up.

I have to say I remained incredibly calm. I honestly thought it would be a false alarm. I was getting hungry and our route to the hospital is right by a Chick-fil-A so I weighed the options and asked, "Would it be entirely insensitive of me to ask if I could stop for dinner?" Diana let me and it turned out to be a good thing I did.

We got to the hospital and confirmed that we were in fact in labor and took our place in a room to wait out the inevitable. It was an exhausting night but I stepped up. I will go into some of the more humorous details in a later post but I was up the entire night and into the morning with Diana and after 3 hours of pushing it was determined that the baby would not come out by mere pushing alone. A C-section was in order.

I was nervous for the first time. We had been up all night and now at 8 A.M. we were being wheeled in to an operating room. My baby girl was born at 8:51 A.M. and I am now a father. Yep, still sounds crazy.

That is all,

Newt

Insensitivity

2010-09-30T15:40:00.002-05:00

Can someone please explain to me why it is considered insensitive to say, "I am afraid my huge baby is going to ruin my wife's pleasure zone"? I have had two groups of people tell me this is not right to say, however I don't understand why.

One, it is not insensitive. If my pleasure zone, aka my wife's lady area, is destroyed I am not the only one who will be affected by it. Diana will be traumatized detrimentally by the fact that it has been ruined. She will get that thing where you pee when you sneeze and I haven't heard of any woman saying that is a pleasant experience.

Two, I just flat out don't want my dang fat ole' baby to be so big and cause so many problems for Diana. Bigger is usually better except on birth weight. Then it is not preferred.

Sure there is a selfish reason too. If that thing gets all stretched out it wouldn't be the best thing in the world. I saw something about how a ladies area goes back to almost normal in a few days after birth but come on! How can that be? You just pushed a baby through there! If i pushed a baby through the tip of my junk there is no way it would ever work the same again.

Newt

Water Wait

2010-09-22T08:58:00.002-05:00

As some of you know, my wife is carrying our first child and is about a week and a half out from her due date. We have been looking forward to this for some time but over the last couple of weeks I have started to become unreasonably worried about something, her water breaking.

I am disgusted by the thought of it. I understand it is part of the process and Diana insists that only about 5 to 10% of women's waters actually break on their own but I am so disturbed at the thought that at 3 a.m. I am going to feel a wet sensation on my leg and wake up to a water bed of internal lady goo. And there is that old camp trick that people play where they put your hand in water to make you pee on yourself. What if that happens?

Gwack! I almost threw up in my mouth. Uhhhh.

Why is this so gross? Will we be out somewhere and suddenly be standing in a puddle. I hope her water doesn't break because if it does it might be followed by me screaming like a girl and that is not something I want people to see.

That is all,

Newt

The Man I want to be

2010-09-10T10:30:00.002-05:00

I have an image of the person I expected to be at 30. This man is not overweight, can play the banjo, is an avid reader and writer, and an amazing father. I decided a while back that I am nowhere close to being this man. I am losing weight but haven't hit the goal yet, I can't play a musical instrument to save my life, and I have about a month until we figure out that whole fatherhood thing. In my plus column I do read like there is no tomorrow and have begun writing a bit. Oh, and this man drives an orange and black El Camino. Diana refuses to let me get that part of it.

I went on Tuesday and bought myself the Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Guitar on CD rom and am trying it. I played "Jingle Bells" yesterday without any real issues, so hopefully I can commit to this and use the guitar that my father graciously bought me 7 years ago. If I can get proficient I am getting myself a banjo. I dream of being able to play "The Rainbow Connection" to my kids and ever since Doug Funny, I have always wanted this skill. Maybe that also stems from my Kermit the Frog addiction.

I just celebrated my 28th birthday. I have 2 years to become this person that I want to be. I think it is possible. I know the weight loss is and if I stick to it, guitar can be too. We shall see.

That is all,

Newt

The Dinner Project

2010-08-31T14:24:00.003-05:00

Diana and I attended a very cool event last week. A few friends of mine from my book club were feeling lazy or something and instead of just reading a book or going to see a movie, they decided to fund a nonprofit charity called The Dinner Project. They hold a monthly dinner event and pick a charity that is dear to their heart. Then they invite everyone to bring a dish and ask you to donate what you would normally spend for dinner to the charity and everyone gets to eat and meet new people.

We went to their very first event on August 27th for a charity called Bead for Life. This is a very cool charity out of Africa that sells hand made jewelry. Below is the write up for the charity.

BeadforLife eradicates extreme poverty by creating bridges of understanding between impoverished Africans and concerned world citizens. Ugandan women turn colorful recycled paper into beautiful beads, and people who care open their hearts, homes and communities to buy and sell the beads.

The beads thus become income, food, medicine, school fees and hope. It is a small miracle that enriches us all.

The fare was all themed to African cuisine and Diana and I contributed with something called African Black Bean Fritters that we made ourselves. We got to try some new foods that I would never have tried otherwise and Diana spent some dough on new jewelry for a good cause. The first event made them about $2500 which is a pretty good initial offering. We are looking forward to the next event that is benefiting a local Dallas charity for abused children.

Thought I would share this with everyone to show that people can make a difference.

That is all,

Newt

Admiral Ronald

2010-08-27T08:26:00.002-05:00

I got this yesterday. I am very surprised that emails like this are still being sent. I also love the name.

Dear Friend,

I hope this mail finds you well. Admiral Ronald is my name and i am writing to direct an urgent financial proposal to you .

I would be needing your attention to assist me in making claim of some funds, Owing to the urgency of this financial transaction,i would appreciate an immediate response from you to confirm the receipt of my mail.Also forward to me your private email ID, to enable me furnish you with details of the transaction, I hope i can trust you.

Kind regards,

Admiral Ronald.

That is all,

Newt

2010-08-24T11:13:00.003-05:00

We have been spending a bit more time in the baby room and the dogs, in turn, have also been spending time in there. We aren't sure how they will handle the baby but if they act like this then we are going to be in trouble.

Diana showed Hazel how she could get underneath the baby's crib. Hilarity ensued.

That is all,

Newt

Throwaway

2010-08-16T08:47:00.005-05:00

He entered her world wrapped in arms that smelled like cotton candy with a hint of sweat. After hanging from a small white hook in the carnival barker area, he heard the pop of one, two, and then finally three balloons. As her father’s index finger swiped the air, he could only hope that this would be his chance for freedom, and more importantly love. The carnie reached up and grabbed his neighbor and as the disappointment of another night in the air settled back into its permanent home, the yell of the girl, Annabelle, pierced through the sound of buzzers and bells from the nearby rides.

“Not that one!” she exclaimed. “I want the orange one.”

Weightlessness engulfed him as he was freed from the hook and slowly lowered down into her waiting arms. She squealed with delight and wrapped herself around him.

“What’s his name, honey?” her father asked.

“Leland,” she replied, and so he had a name.

The rest of the night was a blur. Leland accompanied Annabelle on the “Love Ship” and at one point was almost lost to the night sky after a sharp turn on the “Roller Cart,” but as she fell asleep strapped into her car seat at the end of the night, he felt at peace to finally have a home.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Five years passed, and Leland is now where most of his kind ends up. After a few weeks of pleasantness, he began to be forgotten. He sat unplayed with on her bed and at times was remanded to the floor. Soon, he was moved to the closet to join the other “throwaways.” That is what they called themselves, those unloved toys. There was the bulldog from the crane game, the Happy Meal bean bag dolphin, and the knock off Snoopy from some theme park. Their stitching wasn’t as strong, their fabric more flammable.

All had been something she had “had to have” and so her parents relented. That is to say her father relented. Everyone had stories of how the mother was always saying, “She doesn’t need another stuffed animal,” but the father just went and got her what she wanted anyway. In a way, the banishment to the closet was proof that the mother was right. They weren’t needed.

Light entered through a sliver between the closet’s double doors. Lately, there was more activity on the other side of the dark. Sure, they got to see the room once or twice a day, but mostly they sat in darkness marked with the occasional days where the closet light was left on. However, now there was a constant breaking of the sliver as some small thing kept walking by the door. It couldn’t have been more than a foot or two tall, and it would sometimes stop and sniff the bottom of the door before walking away. The throwaways became frightened.

It was a few days before the shadow was identified. The door was opened, and a small dog ran across the room. It looked similar to the bulldog but less wrinkled and was, clearly, not purple. It seemed the family had gotten a new pet for Annabelle, and the throwaways could see that while they were in the closet, being outside of it was even worse. The dog had one of their comrades in its mouth and was greatly thrashing it about. Worse, it didn’t seem to bother the family at all and they even found it to be cute. What was once a happy sound now held to it an eerie quality, those “ahs” they exhaled.

“Were they next?” thought the throwaways. It was only a matter of time. What could they do, stuck in the closet like this? Luck was the only thing that saved them from their fate. A week later they were all thrown into a cardboard box marked “Garage Sale,” and on Saturday they spent the entire day outside under the blistering sun. One by one, grubby hands reached in and pulled them out for inspection before being brought to someone to ask: “Can I get this? It’s only $1.” Invariably the purchaser would haggle until each of the throwaways was gone, all except Leland.

As the sale dwindled down and the family began to pack up the unsold refuse, Leland felt sad. What did this mean? Would he return to the closet or possibly be donated to someone? As his box was lifted, the father realized only Leland resided inside and decided to just remove him. He was carried into the house where Leland saw the new pet and a premonition flashed across his felt eyes. He knew his fate, even before the father did.

“GEORGE! Dammit, I told you not to chew on the newspaper! Why do you insist on tearing it up? Here, if you are going to chew on something, chew on this.”

Leland felt that three foot fall as if it lasted for days. As soon as he hit the ground the mongrel was on him. This George, as he was called, began dragging Leland around the living room. Leland’s last visit to the living room involved hugs and kisses; now teeth and paws tore at him. The dog grabbed hold of Leland’s neck and began thrashing him about and tossing him into the air. At one point, Leland was sure the suffering was over, but the dog returned from the kitchen with water dripping from his lips and the attack commenced.

As the hearing on his right side vanished, Leland realized his ear had just been removed. Slowly, his peripheral vision began to pick up white stuffing. He was being pulled apart. A light headedness overtook him, and as he lay in a puddle of his own stuffing, the most unlikely of saviors arrived. The mother swept in and picked him up. She began yelling at George, and when the father started laughing, she turned her attention to him.

“Why did you give this to him? Look at this mess? God! There is stuffing everywhere. “

The back door opened and the mother carried Leland outside. He was not sure what else could be done to him but he was still happy to be away from the dog. He saw that she had gathered his stuffing up in her other hand and was surprised to see so much of it. Had he really lost that much of himself? The mother exited the back gate and walked Leland out to the garbage can. He realized at that moment that the name he and the other forgotten toys had given themselves had become reality. He had become a real life throwaway.

The above story was inspired by the image below.

Written by Trinity Vaughn

Kurt Vonnegut, I love you

2010-08-12T14:30:00.005-05:00

I have written of my love of Kurt Vonnegut on previous posts but I started his next to last book today called Armageddon in Retrospect, and it has caused me to want to tell you all how much Vonnegut means to me.

I read my first Vonnegut about 5 years ago and that was by reading Slaughterhouse Five. We didn't read it in High School, which I now understand was a shame and that high schoolers who get the privilege are lucky. It prompted a post about the book and also a search for all the Vonnegut I could get my hands on. I now own about 85% of his works and have read quite a few, but not all. I like my Vonnegut in doses.

The thing I enjoy most about Kurt Vonnegut, and maybe this turns others off to his works, is the way he puts the words on paper. They enjoy the asides of writing that allow a simple conversation to be in progress and then have it deviate with a few marks to become a smart comment on how things don't make sense. Then right back to the story as if it weren't interrupted.

He also mixes realism with fantasy in a way that no one else I have ever read has been able to do. To have chapters set in a war and then find the main character has been transported to an alien planet where he and an actress are being studied, and then having him flash back was something I didn't expect or could have come up with myself. Chuck Palahniuk is the closest writer to come to this level of genius/madness, which is probably why I also own everything he has written.

I really wanted to share a quote from one of the stories in the book that is actually from a speech written for a commencement at Clowes Hall, Indianapolis. "...If anyone here should wind up on a gurney in a lethal injection facility, maybe the one at Terre Haute, here is what your last words should be: "This will certainly teach me a lesson."

You could always understand what Vonnegut meant or felt from such a small amount of words. They always say more that what is on the page.

The day he died I was sitting at my computer at work and it flashed across the screen and I cried. I don't get emotional about a lot of things but this was one of those times where if someone had come up to me I would have been proud to show this emotion as it was a loss that really did affect me. I can't say that about many other things.

That is all,

Newt

Facing the facts

2010-08-02T13:42:00.004-05:00

Fact: everyone you know is on Facebook.
Fact: I am not on Facebook which means the above fact is not a fact.
Fact: I am now on Facebook which means fact one is now true and fact two is no longer a fact.

I gave in to the powers of Facebook today. Why? A few reasons. I am not a large fan of the social network and can proudly say I never had a MySpace account, Sorry Tom, but Facebook has become more and more of a factor in everyday life. My kickball team organizes through it and then emails the nonconformists, people no longer have real conversations which causes my wife to ask me all the time why such and such is doing something and I am left not knowing what she is talking about, and even my local comic shop is on it and gave away Scott Pilgrim sneak peek passes and I didn't know about it.

The final straw came yesterday when I was prepping the invite for the 3nd annual White Trash Bash. I needed a few emails and didn't have them. which meant I had to go to Diana's Facebook account and sending the invite through there. More and more I am being forced to use it and I am finally tired of pushing against a wave.

So, if you want to be my friend on Facebook, I can now be found by searching Trinity Vaughn. I am probably going to regret this later but I guess for now I am tired of walking and will be catching a ride on the bandwagon.

That is all,

Newt

The battle of weight loss and my penis hurts

2010-07-30T11:04:00.002-05:00

I wrote to bacon a few weeks ago in telling it how much I miss it, and I still do. This was all prompted from a visit to my doctor telling me to lose weight. Well, if anyone was curious, things are going well. I joined L.A. Fitness and that has been a godsend because they offer fitness classes. I am really bad about wanting to go jump on an elliptical machine but when other people are around me I feel embarrassed not to be able to keep up.

The other nice thing about the gym is that it offers racquetball, which it turns out is really fun. My coworker and I have started playing once a week and while I am not good at it, we spend at least an hour and a half playing. Wednesday's game brought with it my first injury though. I went to swing at the ball to bounce it off the back wall and instead of getting the intended lift on the ball, it ricocheted off the wall and came back to hit me square in the penis. Not ball, just my wiener.

I was glad of it hitting where it did but it felt like it took my penis and thumped it as hard as I could against a hard surface. Sort of like slamming your finger in a door but with my dick. I had to walk it off for a little bit before the game resumed but it left no marks and I recovered so no harm done. Makes me think I might need to start wearing goggles though because that could have blinded me had it hit me in the eye.

Oh, on the weight loss thing I am sitting at a loss of 8 lbs as of this morning. I haven't had bacon or french fries in almost a month. I am consistently tracking my calories via a handy app on my iPhone and my cookie intake has dropped significantly to about 1 a week. Two more pounds and I will have achieved a quarter of my goal.

That is all,

Newt

Moviephone

2010-07-22T15:59:00.002-05:00

I was driving in a very rural area Tuesday when something occurred to me. The Internet has really changed the way we live. Specifically the way we go to the movies.

Remember when you wanted to go to the movies and you would grab this large paper thing called a phone book and look up theatres. Then you would call the number and wait while the automatic recording would come on to tell you the movies that were out and the times they started? Thinking back on it I actually get reminiscent of the time when I could listen to a robotic voice saying, ""Angels in the Outfield" playing at 11:45, 1:50, 4:00, 6:50, and 9:20."

Then there was the problem of having to listen to all of the movies until yours came up. Invariably someone was always in the room yelling, "Well, what time does it start?" and you would miss the times because of it and have to call back in and go through everything again.

Isn't it amazing what technology has made obsolete?

That is all,

Newt

Coma Chameleon

2010-07-15T16:38:00.004-05:00

My mind has been wandering a bit lately, partially due to hunger, but one thought that I can't seem to get out of my head is what it would be like to wake up from a coma after a large number of years.

I read a story a long while back about a man who woke up from a coma after something like 20 years and he asked for a Pepsi and wanted to know if Reagan was still President. How unnerving must it be for someone to go into a coma on say, June 13th 1992 and then wake up today? The massive changes that we have had in that time would be astronomical. One day you think a Nintendo is the height of technology for gaming and you wake up and get to play an Xbox! You go comatose when Macaulay Culkin is slapping his face and wake up to Justin Bieber on the hospital Muzak machine.

In my wandering mind I thought up a couple of interesting scenarios.

1. You go into a coma around age 10 and wake up at age 21. You don't have anything past a 4th grade education and suddenly you are in a man's body. You now have to begin learning where you left off. You are a real life version of that movie 'Big'. Do you return to school? By the time you get to college people your age are buying houses and getting married. You graduate and you are now competing with other graduates that are 10 years younger than you. It wouldn't just be a environmental change you have to deal with, but a financial and educational one too.

2. You go into a coma as an adult and you wake up years later to find that life didn't stop when you did, it kept going. All of your friends have moved away or are at a much different stage in life, your marriage has fallen apart because your wife has moved on, and you have missed the death of your father. Your family has to welcome you back into their lives and try to catch you up on everything you've missed but they constantly find that they are bringing up things you don't know about and it is awkward and uncomfortable.

There are tons of other variations but the thing I think is most unsettling is the idea that you have to acclimate to the world. The changes in politics, religion, gay rights, television, the Internet, and every other media would be so difficult to catch up on. Where do you start. Do you get a list of the top 100 movies and watch them? Do you go to a bookstore and just soak in the mass of fiction you have missed? Can you ever really get caught up on life or will there always be something that you feel you are still missing?

I know one thing I would have to do and that would be to try to get caught up on my comic books and after waking up from a coma, it wouldn't be easy to do. First, I would need money and that would mean finding work after being out for so long. Trying to find a job would be difficult. What do you put on your resume?

1992-1994: Waiter at Chili's
1994-Present: Coma patient at Dallas General Hospital

That might not get you a call back.

The one saving grace for my big problem is that ebay has come along to make buying massive amounts of crap much easier. It would be a long process but one I would enjoy.

I am not sure why this has gotten so stuck in my head but it doesn't want to leave. Has anyone else ever contemplated this?

That is all,

Newt

Grave Error in Judgement - Nuts

2010-07-08T13:55:00.004-05:00

I have this thing I do when I regret doing something. It usually occurs about 3 seconds after I regret something and either out loud or in my head I always tell myself, "I may have made a grave error in judgement". Surprisingly this happens a lot and it happened on July 3rd.

We were going to a pool party on the 3rd at a friends house to celebrate the 4th and last year I got, how do we say, falling down drunk. I literally fell down and almost sprained my ankle due to excessive amounts of alcohol. I got out of the pool and my ankle buckled and I lay on the ground wailing as everyone laughed at me. I woke up on the couch in clean clothes and not sure how I got there.

This being the case, I thought I would prepare for this year's party by making sure that if for some reason my pants were removed that I would look good. I know this probably doesn't make sense to most people but it is entirely possible that someone would see me sans pants and I didn't want to appear unkempt so I, well, I trimmed my pubes.

It is a proven fact that if you have little to no hair on your crotch that your dong looks like a dang, as in, "Dang that is big". And with going in and out of the pool I figured if it got shown, it would be better to reduce the look of shrinkage. This is the logic that went through my head.

So, I grabbed my electric razor and started mowing the lawn, so to speak. This is not, in and of itself, a mistake. However, when I decided to remove the guard from the head of the razor and freehand it, that's another story. I nicked my sack and started bleeding. It wasn't awful but it wasn't pleasant either. The pain was not the main issue though. That came all day when the little hairs just kept poking into my entire crotch area as I walked.

"I may have made a grave error in judgement"

Newt

Dear Bacon

2010-06-30T13:48:00.003-05:00

Dear Bacon,

I miss you. I haven't had you in a few days and the fact that I need to lose weight means I may not have you for a while. Please understand this isn't my choice. I have to do it.

I had grilled chicken breast for lunch today and the whole time I was imagining you. I miss your salty crunch and the way you can take anything and make it better. Remember that time I ate a whole plate of you? Yeah, those were good times.

I hope you don't forget about me while I am gone. I won't forget about you. Not after all the good times we had.

Love,

Newt

I'm Tired

2010-06-28T15:39:00.002-05:00

I'm tired. Not sleepy or aggravated. Just tired, of everything. I am bored with blogging, I haven't really enjoyed anything as much as I feel I use to. My life seems better than ever and there are times where I just feel like I embody Blah!

I don't feel creative anymore. I remember a long while ago I was quick on my feet with things. I would say that I still am but maybe it isn't as honed as it use to be. I want to make something but I don't know how to.

The baby is coming and I feel like the next three months will be the last part of my life where I will be able to just go do something stupid and not have to worry about the consequences. I joined a volleyball league for the summer partly because I could.

I went to the doctor a few days ago for a check up and he told me I had to loose 40 lbs. Shit! that is a lot of weight. And I have zero motivation to do it, which doesn't help. But I am officially watching what I eat. The first day I got a headache and I think it was because I was so focused on not being able to have a cookie that I caused myself to become peeved. How sad is it that I can give myself a headache because I want a cookie?

I am starting to feel old. I think that might be a part of my funk. That and George Clinton. We were on vacation this weekend and I didn't get drunk. I drank a little but I honestly didn't feel like drinking. And when 10 o'clock rolled around I was happy to forgo the band we were listening to at the bar and instead go home and finish reading my book.

I wish there was a shot you could take that would rid you of malaise. I found an over the counter narcotic that would give temporary relief but like I said, I can't have cookies anymore.

That is all,

Newt

Batman XXX: There is a Nerd God

2010-06-22T13:40:00.003-05:00

"Holy Threesome Batman!"

Apparently there is a Nerd God because you can now see Batgirl getting pounded by the Boy Wonder. Axel Braun, Porn director extrodinaire, found a legal loophole that allows for the Porn Parody of the old 60's Batman TV show to be made into a porn.

It is called Batman XXX and it is awesome. I have never hidden my interest in comics and I have also been verbal of my love of porn so when these two things were combined and looked to be genuinely entertaining, I had to do something I haven't done since I was 18. I actually purchased a porn DVD.

I finally finished it, I had to stop a few times to...uh, well...huh? Oh, yeah. Anyway, it was fairly good. Dale Dabone plays Batman and can do a mean Adam West impression. The girl who plays Batgirl is a favorite of mine(Lexi Belle) and the extras are something that are actually kind of fun to watch.

They give a sex free version of the film that clocks in at about 30 minutes, the full length (pun intended) version runs about 2 hours, and the behind the scenes footage shows you the guys playing the characters seemed to have actually been fans of the old show. Also they show a reading of a script for porn which was an odd thing to watch. I believe I read they even hired the old costume director for the show to come in and make the costumes.

This is the trailer. It is safe for work.

I got my copy off of Adam & Eve and if you entere 'pop' in at checkout you save 50%. Oh the wonders of the internet.

That is all,

Newt

I'm so Happy!!!!

2010-06-17T15:10:00.003-05:00

On Monday my wife said the six sweetest words she could ever have said to me. I am tearing up just thinking about it. No, she didn't say, "Meet Jessica Alba, sex her up" and it wasn't "I want sex every single day" and it most definitely wasn't "Here, I bought Amazing Fantasy #15" (first appearance of Spider-Man for the non-geek readers). No, she said something I have been waiting years to hear.

"You can get a new TV."

Oh, here come the tears again.

Sorry, I dried my eyes. Thanks to Best Buy's Father's Day Sale, I am now the proud owner of a Samsung 46' LCD work of art. It is everything I hoped it would be. And we bought it a friend. We now are able to experience Blue Ray, which is something we waited on.

Sam and Ray have been great together. They are a match made in heaven. I couldn't ask for two better pieces of equipment. I just stand there watching them sleep and think how lucky I am. I never thought a Father's Day sale would mean I would be able to buy such perfect offspring.

Hooray!

That is all,

Newt

The danger of sneezing

2010-06-14T16:14:00.003-05:00

I will warn readers this is a disgusting post but when I told my wife this story she did not give me the sympathy that I was hoping for but instead fell over laughing at me. Thus I bring it to you, dear readers. Be warned.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Are you sure? I don't want to hear about how gross this is later.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

OK, but I warned you.

This is a cautionary tale. Hopefully my pain will save others from the same fate. You see, I almost ripped my asshole open a few days ago. I was sitting on the toilet, and just as the Titanic of turds was cresting I felt a sneeze coming on. There was a moment where I thought to myself, "If I sneeze while dropping a deuce, will it force the turn to shoot out like a cork from a pop gun?" Scientifically speaking, I was curious enough to find out and let my sneeze continue whilst my bung hole was in full bloom.

The answer to my query is a resounding "NO". Instead it causes what I can only assume is the feeling of being violently anally raped but only in the opposite direction. I let the "Achooo!!" out and immediately followed this up with a blood curdling scream and finished with a massive collapsing over in pain.

As I stared at my face in the mirror and tears began to well up in my eyes, I realized that there are many times in life when you do stupid things and I had just encountered one of them. The look of shock that was plastered on me for a few moments was a sight to behold and I was forced to sit for a moment to catch my breath. My poor anus still hasn't forgiven me.

I wish to leave you with profound words of wisdom at this point but I don't have any. Wisdom is clearly not my forte.

That is all,

Newt

This sure has been easy...a Post Mortem

2010-06-02T11:01:00.003-05:00

Well, we finally moved. It took two weeks from the original signing date to get our names on the paperwork to sell our home, a delay of 6 hours to have the movers even show up, and three days of heavy unpacking but we are in.

We love our new home. It is huge in comparison to our old house and the layout is a bit different, especially the kitchen and living rooms. I had to mow for the first time on Monday and that ended up taking 2 hours because the grass hadn't been cut in a month. Already we have met a couple of the neighbors and the neighborhood is an upgrade. If I can just get the cable line dropped into my office I am gold.

That is all,

Newt

Trivia time

2010-05-26T21:32:00.004-05:00

I am in Denver for few days and yesterday I had me a good ole time. Yesterday, after working at one of our Denver plants I joined a group of people from the company in a scratch golf game. I haven't played golf in over a year and this game really proved a point. You can't just start playing golf again.

I made about 3 decent drives and one solid putt. I hit one well enough that it overshot the green and went out into the street. I don't know if I hit a car but I may have. But I redeemed myself later in the evening.

You see, it was $1 taco night in the apartment complex of one of my old coworkers. After the game we headed over to the clubhouse of her complex and when we arrived we discovered they had trivia. I signed us up the second we walked in the door as team Newt the Wonder Frog and oh what a wonder it was.

The game consisted of 5 rounds however we walked in on the 4th question of round 2. The first question got me going as it was "Who sang "I'm too sexy"?" Well I knew that was Right Said Fred and we were off. My coworkers really didn't add much to our game as I knew most of the music, movie and TV questions but they tried and helped on a couple.

By the end of the night, we came in third against 7 other teams. Now that may not sound all that impressive at first glance but our score was 71 points while 2nd place had started at round 1 and had 72 points. 1st came in at 83 points and I know I could have taken it if I had started from round 1. Third place won us a $5 gift card to the bar so my coworker was happy. Had we won 1st we would have had $20. I was a superstar.

That is all,

Newt

This sure has been easy...

2010-05-16T18:15:00.004-05:00

"This sure has been easy," I said on Tuesday morning. I was referring to our impending move and sale of our home. We had an offer on our house within 10 days of putting it on the market and things went very well with selecting our new home. The financing worked out in our favor, we got a low interest rate, and we planned to move in on Friday. That is until Wednesday.

Wednesday I was working from the house and got a call from my realtor. "Do you want to schedule a final walk through on your new home?" I had been meaning to set that up so we worked out to go over that afternoon at 4 and make sure everything looked good for our move in. We had appointments to sign our buyer and sellers agreements on Thursday and this was my last chance to see the house before we signed. At 3 I got the call that has been plaguing us ever since.

"Trinity, we have a problem?"
"What's that Dan?"
"It seems the buyers on your home had an issue that will cause them to be unable to close tomorrow. Their agent said it should be fixed tomorrow and we can close on Friday."
"What? Well that isn't good. Do you know what it is?"
"No, but I am going to call around and see what I can find out. This is going to delay me getting to our walk through so I will meet you at 4:30 instead."

At the walk through I learned what happened. There was a gift of some money given to the buyers for the purchase of the home and when that happens you have to declare the gift and get a statement saying it isn't a loan. They didn't do this and thus we were stuck. After talking to my realtor we were told by the buyers that Friday shouldn't be an issue and to expect to close then.

Diana was flying in for this and we had transferred utilities, booked movers, and taken off work to get all of this done. I wasn't happy but one day wasn't going to kill us. I broke the news to her and she landed in Dallas on Wednesday night.

Thursday we heard nothing. The loans were stuck in underwriting and we were waiting. I had moved all of our important things such as movers and installs to Saturday but late in the afternoon we still knew nothing. We went and signed the paperwork on our new home and hoped that Friday afternoon was a possibility.

It ended up not being possible as well. We were out shopping for baby furniture and waiting for news on what was going to happen. When the call came, we were informed of what was holding us up. Somewhere along the way, our current address was spelled Oaks instead of Oak, the buyers wife has a hyphen in her name on some but not all of the documents, and a previous offer the buyers had made on another home that they ended up abandoning after inspection was under question for earnest money. It was now known that the earliest we could close would be Monday and more likely Tuesday or Wednesday.

Diana had to leave town on Saturday morning so we had to go get Power of Attorney to allow me to sign for both of us. I had to rush to reschedule all of our utilities and installs and now the movers have been put on hold again. I had to reschedule a work trip that was supposed to happen on Tuesday and Diana is scrambling to find time to come home and help me move.

So, "This sure has been easy" was the biggest bit of irony I have seen in a while.

That is all,

Newt

People who should be real

2010-05-07T12:38:00.003-05:00

I was eating a pack of Chewy Sprees today and a great sadness swept over my body. I realized that Willy Wonka isn't real and then it occurred to me, "I sure wish he was." Why hasn't someone become Willy Wonka? I mean, how hard would it be?

Buy an abandoned factory and convert it to a candy land, hire some midgets to dress up as Oompa Lonpas, and invest heavily in purple suede suits. Then you can just live out your days floating along a chocolate river and drinking dew from edible cups of sugar.

Someone has to have the money to do this. Rich people spend their money on stupid stuff all the time. I just want to walk through those awesome iron gates and have a apparently crippled man walk out so I can watch him take a tumble and then welcome me to his home. Is that too much to ask?

That is all,

Newt

Aged, like a fine wine

2010-05-04T22:23:00.003-05:00

I am closing in on 28 and it appears my body is falling apart already. Not sure why but I would guess it has just passed the warranty period and now will begin to fall apart rapidly and with resounding disappointment.

Three weeks ago I got out of my truck and my knee was injured. "Did you get hit by a car like a real man?" you ask. No, I literally just swung my legs out of the truck and when my right leg hit the ground I had a sharp pain in my knee joint and it has progressed nicely into a dull pain and massive amounts of swelling. It makes getting up a bitch too. Imagine a turtle on his back and you can get a decent idea. I have spent the last few nights having this conversation with myself and/or Diana if she is in town.

"I think my knee is swollen. It looks bigger. At least I think it looks bigger. Maybe it is in my head but it really feels swollen. I definitely think it is swollen." I then stand and look at it in the mirror and try to compare my two knees. Since they are both kind of fat and scarred up from years of neglect they look almost the same.

Oh, and the greatest moment of my life happened last night. I had to buy my first tube of Preparation H. Yep, that's right. I have a nice anal burning that needed the soothing that only a small tube of yellowish gel could quench. I say quench because that is the best description for the feeling of having gel in your anal cavity for hours on end. I had the continual feeling of having sharted.

I got doubly lucky because when I went to buy The H I got the ~~embarrassment~~ pleasure of having to buy the tube from a woman. When I saw her I just decided I should walk up and say "Yep, I have anal itch and sharp pain in my rectum but you already knew that due to this extremely embarrassing purchase I am making." Instead I just avoided eye contact and hoped The H shrinks embarrassment with the same gusto as my butt hole.

That is all,

Newt

What-A-Crock of $#!+

2010-04-29T15:15:00.003-05:00

The one problem I have with travelling is that on Wednesday’s, when new comic books come out, I am away from my home shop and can’t do my Comic Book Day ritual. That is that I go get my comics at lunch, head across the street, and grab a Whataburger with bacon and cheese. I then sit in a state of bliss for the next 20-30 minutes as I eat my meal and read a couple of comics. I make due when travelling by finding the closest comic shop and visit on Wednesday to pick up a single issue so as not to tempt the comic gods. You must make your weekly sacrifice of $3.

As I was driving into Columbia on Sunday I was dumbfounded to find something so disgusting, so utterly shocking that it makes every tabloid rumor, every American Idol results show, dare I say even every Telenovela dramatic reveal pale in comparison. Some sonofabitch in Columbia, South Carolina has defiled the Whataburger.

I know, I know. I almost shit my pants with disgust when I saw this blatant disregard for decency. The sign says “Since 1954” and after some fact checking I confirmed that Whataburger was established in 1950 which means that this pitiful excuse for a human being is a thief.
I went undercover today to find out how deep this conspiracy goes. My coworker and I went to eat lunch at this imitation and my level of disgust deepened when I stepped into the door. Look at these combos:

#1: What A Burger (What A Crock is more like it)
#2: What A Burger w/cheese (Yeah, that’s original)
#3: Double What A Burger (Double Suck my ass you copycat)
#4: Double What A Burger w/cheese (Now you just put cheese on my ass so you could keep sucking it)
#5: 8 inch Philly Cheese Steak (This is blasphemy. At least have the decency to copy everything. You probably didn’t have time to write down the combos as you were running away from the flavor police)
#6: 4 oz Ribeye Steak Sandwich (That one sounds kind of tasty.)

I tried a regular burger just for safety sake. The food itself wasn’t bad but it wasn’t the caliber of food that a Whataburger loyalist would come to expect from the name Whataburger.

And look at this drink. This is minute. I could drink that in one gulp. Come On! I guess Fancy Ketchup would be too much to ask for?

I can’t believe what this world has come to. Shame, shame!

That is all,

Newt

Travels for Work - Columbia, South Carolina

2010-04-25T21:30:00.003-05:00

I am currently sitting in my hotel room at the Clarion and tomorrow begin another fun deployment at a company here in Columbia, South Carolina. Today was a hellacious day because I have spent most of it on a plane. Diana and I were in Amarillo, Texas this weekend visiting a friend and I had to fly from Amarillo to Dallas to Columbia today and landed around 5:30 p.m.

Columbia is the capital of South Carolina yet as I drove around today I can't say it screams "STATE CAPITAL!". It is a nice enough town from what I have seen but nothing so majestic that I would instantly recognize it as a special place.

I went and took in 'The Losers' at the local mall tonight and felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone. Their mall is like nothing I have ever seen. It had no real front entrance and after circling the entire building, I found the Barnes and Nobles right next to the T.G.I.Fridays and guessed this was the place. I never saw a sign for the movie theatre but assumed it was inside and after being unable to find it, I checked the mall map.

What's this? The mall is on the roof? Huh? So I got on the elevator and went up to the roof and found nothing. It opened to a parking lot. I went back down and tried going to another area of the mall but it took me back to the roof. I finally found a mall cop and asked and apparently the theatre was up there but on a totally different part. I went back to my car and drove up the three ramps of the parking garage to the roof, silly me I hadn't thought to park up there, and finally found the theatre.

I was blown away. Sitting on the top of a two story mall was a 7 screen movie theatre that had absolutely no signs other than the small lettering above the door that said Regal 7 Theatres. I would never have found it. FYI: check out the movie. It was a lot of fun to watch.

After dinner I wanted to try something local so I drove around and found Bojangles' Famous Chicken 'n Biscuits. I was greeted by a ton of black people so I knew it was going to be good. This nice old black lady named Nancy recommended I get the Supreme, which was 4 chicken fingers, fries and a biscuit and I was not disappointed. And this was at 9:30 so it was not the freshest it could have been. I love that it was named Bojangles. That seems kind of racist since they sell fried chicken but I honestly can't say why.

That is all,

Newt

Moving is a pain in the ass

2010-04-20T22:11:00.003-05:00

FYI: It sucks to move. Since my old lady went and got herself knocked up we decided we didn't have much of a choice though, so to make room for our little bundle of joy we put our house on the market. I mean, I could have given up my comic book room but, come on, we all know that isn't happening.

I spent a couple of weeks, with the help of both mine and Diana's dad, updating our house and a For Sale sign went up in the yard. We saw a lot of action in the first week and after 10 days had accepted an offer. I think I might be spoiled on real estate because when we bought this place it was super easy and now selling it was too. We made enough cash for the down payment on a new place and as of today we now have an offer accepted on a new home.

Come May 14th we will hopefully be moving a little bit north of our current home and taking up residence in the house we will raise our kids in. With that we have started packing. God I hate packing. It is the worst experience because essentially you just take all your crap you never use and move it to somewhere else. You also are forced to do without things while they are in boxes. So far we have packed up the study, the living room's miscellaneous artifacts, and some dishes.

I have to go visit with an inspector on Thursday to make sure nothing is wrong with our new abode and then we can start getting our paperwork ready.

One of the funny things about selling this house is that the buyer is a fellow comic book collector. Since this is the case he has asked me to walk him through the house and get together to talk comics while he is here. Kind of odd but I am looking forward to it. He claims he has more comics than I do so I want to challenge that while he is here.

Oh the joys of real estate.

That is all,

Newt

I'm getting a tadpole

2010-04-12T12:45:00.004-05:00

I can't believe I get to type this but...I am going to be a father! (yes it was intentional)

My wife, Diana is 14 weeks pregnant and I have been informed that not only is it mine, but I am somehow responsible for it. WOW!

We waited to announce this news until the first trimester had passed and now that it has, the entire blogosphere is now allowed to know this. So, Newt the Wonder Frog is getting a sidekick. Not sure what kind yet but sometime in the first week of October we will be welcoming an addition to our lives.

I have a policy about writing about kids, and that is I don't care for it. I think of my blog as an arena for releasing the gremlins in my head so they don't completely take over. That being said I am sure I will want to write everything in the world about my baby so my wife decided to start a family blog for us. So, if you are interested in knowing my feelings on parenthood, family, and babies or you just want to follow along as God gets even with me for all my past mistakes, you can follow our journey here.

That is all,

Newt

To the Mystery Machine

2010-04-12T09:49:00.004-05:00

I've got a mystery and I need YOUR help to figure it out. I was reading "Exile" a week ago and got to page 100 or so and found something interesting. A receipt was in the book.

I thought to myself, "Now that is funny. Someone wanted some pastry while reading this book so they had to stop at the 7-11." I looked down at the receipt and at the bottom was the transaction date.

08/12/03

Thinking about this, the dates in the story were more in line with 2006-2007 so I decided to look at the publication date of the book and I found...dun dun duuuuunnnnnn....It was a first edition hardback that was published in 2007.

What does this mean? Why would someone hold on to a receipt for at least 4 years and then put it in a library book? Why this book specifically? Was it a bookmark? If so they didn't finish the novel or maybe they did and just left it in after. But again I am left wondering why?

I have a few theories. The first is that the 7-11 reciepts use a different date distiction and this is actually from 12-03-2008. If that is the case then the date is not as odd and the rest is pretty simple. I am going to go to this 7-11 since it isn't far from me and see if I can verify this.

Any other thoughts? Come on Velma! Grab Fred and Daphne and lets figure this out!

That is all,

Newt

Hidden Gem

2010-03-29T12:40:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago I made a pact with my wife. "Diana" I said, "will you make a deal with me? We have so many books that I would like to agree that until we have read all of them, each for their own books, we will not buy another book." And the surprising thing is, she agreed. I say surprising because, while I latch onto authors and buy all they have written, my wife will do that and pick up a random book after reading the jacket and deciding that, "It is only $4 so what the hey."

I love this about her but in the last year or so, her book buying habits have started to overwhelm our already bursting shelves. And she has a tendency to go for thicker novels which doesn't help things much.

The only problem with this agreement involves my book club. Once a month I have to have the book that we are reading, and as of late I have had luck picking books I already own but haven't read. Well, this month I wasn't so lucky and I need a copy of Richard North Patterson's Exile and Diana refused to let me buy it. Thus, I went somewhere I haven't been since I was a child...The Public Library.

Something snobby in me says, "Trinity, you don't need the library. You will just want to keep the book so just buy it." Well, I am now without that option and so I went to the public library today and opened an account to get my book and I must say, the Lewisville Library is nice. It was quite, had a wonderfully large area for children, and carried a decent supply of books. It isn't too large or overpowering and I was able to find Exile without any help which is more than I can say for some libraries I have been in.

And there were people there...at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning. I assumed it would just be me. So maybe I will give this library thing another try after I return the book I have. I mean, there is no way I will have all of my books read by next month and there is sure to be another book club meeting so I just may have to.

That is all,

Newt

"War "huh", Good God, What is it good for?" Winning

2010-03-18T07:43:00.003-05:00

Sorry it has taken me a week to post this but I have been rather busy of late. So, in case you haven't done the math in your head or checked out CrazyNewt's blog, I won the blog war.

I just wanted to send out a heart felt "SUCK IT" to Dave over at Crazy Thoughts from a Crazy Newt...sorry, crazy Steve and as I listen to "We are the Champions" I think back on the fun I had with this whole war. Dave made a nice surrender of arms post and in all seriousness, had he not attacked me I wouldn't have made a new frienemy and got to read his funny blogs.

Now we will both go about our business, kind of like America and Russia did after that whole Cold War thing. Sure, I will be watching him like a hawk to make sure he isn't making side arms deals with some other blog in an attempt to stage some sort of terroristic strike on me, but otherwise we cool.

That is all,

The one and only Newt

A post about how cool web comics can be

2010-03-12T11:51:00.007-06:00

I have been reading comic books since I was around 8 years old and it finally happened, I got mentioned in one. I began reading this awesome web comic strip called Heropotamus around January. It involves a little girl who sends Santa a letter saying, "I want a Heropotamus for Christmas", and that is just what she gets. The strip is very funny and rather clever as Heropotamus gets ready to battle his arch-enemy, Villianocerous.

Well, a few weeks ago we started a comment line that pretty much said, "What is Hero's catch phrase? Instantly, the comments were throwing out suggestions and I, of course, had a couple and one of them was deemed good enough to make it into the strip. Thus, I finally got mentioned in a comic.

You should all go read Heropotamus this instant. I can't wait until Josh Alves, the creator, gets around to making T-shirts so I can finally have my favorite water horse shouting his catch phrase, or more specifically mine.

The second web comic I stumbled upon came directly from Heropotamus because a guy named Jamie was always commenting on the Heropotamus site and it turns out he writes this really quirky comic called, "This is How We Met". It is hard to describe it exactly, but it involves a pony named Tony, a crazy doll thing that is named Mr. Izzy Goots, Humpty Dumpty, and a ton of other weird characters. It is like a mix of Dilbert, Pearls Before Swine, and a little Calvin and Hobbes all mixed into one.

And, Jamie was having this awesome contest a few weeks ago where he quoted famous lines from classic children's literature and if you guessed the answer, you got awesome prizes. Below are the sketches I received for getting the correct answer of The Giving Tree on one of the posts.
A few days later I was graced with this awesome set of sketch cards. My favorite was the one below entitled "Wild Thing".

In all, I got 4 sketch cards and he was kind enough to doodle the characters from the strip onto the envelope, which is what you are seeing on the left and right of the dog.

The third and final comic I wanted to alert you guys to is called Axe Cop. It is about a cop who uses an axe to fight crime. He has a strange dinosaur cop partner and it is weird. It is written by a 5 year old. Yes, you read right, a 5 year old. His brother draws it.

You can definitely tell that it is written by a minor as it jumps from one idea to the next and the simplicity of the ideas brings about teh nostalgia of being a child. Other character include Unicorn baby, Sockarang, Baby Man, Leaf Man, and Wexter the T-Rex. The list of ridiculous characters can be found here. The whole thing is just a lot of fun.

So, go support the people I love to read so they will keep making them and I can keep reading them.

That is all,

Newt

Why can't life be like Mario Paint?

2010-03-10T08:41:00.002-06:00

We are in the process of refreshing our house to put it up for sale, and in the process our realtor came by and told us what we should do to get it ready. He wanted us to paint and texture the kitchen, get rid of a wall of red that was in our bedroom, replace some door knobs, and touch up all the baseboards. So, we flew my dad in to come help me last Friday and Diana's dad came in on Saturday to help paint. We are almost done.

Here are a few things you can guarantee when I have to touch a paint brush.
1. I will complain.
2. Diana and Trinity will yell at each other at least once.
3. I cannot be trusted to handle a paint roller.
4. I will not be happy with the results.
5. Diana and Trinity will yell at each other at least twice.

Diana and I got into it pretty loudly last night for because of number 4 on the list. We have been having an argument that has these two sides.

Diana argues that the painting doesn't have to be perfect for us to sell the house. Her claim is that if we were looking for a house and weren't happy with the paint, it doesn't mean we wouldn't buy the house, and that buyers can just repaint if they don't like it.

My side of things goes of the premise of "Do unto others..." and I know that when I go to buy a house I really don't want to have to paint if we like the colors; I hope that the walls don't need to be retouched or corrected because the seller couldn't bring themselves to do a good job instead of a mediocre one. Plus the more we do to the house to make it as perfect as possible, the more likely it will sell quickly.

Who's right? I wish I knew.

I just want to be done with all this headache and get my house back in order so I can stop sleeping on the couch(this has nothing to do with our fight) and get back into my bedroom.

That is all,

Newt

Video Games Gone Wrong - The final battle in the War of the Newts

2010-03-06T11:00:00.002-06:00

Well, we have come to the third and final post in the blog war of the Newts. After looking over my blog, go over to my enemy's site and then place your vote for who takes home the title. We are currently tied 1 to 1 so this is the one that decides it all.

The third war topic was "Video games gone wrong". What does that mean? Hell if I know! I wanted to discuss how the world was being reshaped in 16 bit gore and mayhem but then I was driving home one day and a random thought came into my head that caused me to laugh out loud. Then another. And another.

Thus, I pulled out my sick Photoshop skills and created a set of cartoons I will title "Video Games Gone Wrong". This may even become a recurring feature.

And one more time for my friend Lola.

Ribbit, Bitch.

Newt

Bored Games

2010-03-04T16:11:00.003-06:00

I think I am broken. Somewhere in the last 10 to 15 years something snapped in my head and made a part of me stop working correctly. I didn't even notice, like gaining a single pound, it just happened. Such a miniscule thing. I can't win at checkers anymore.

I kid you not that I was amazing at checkers as a child. Maybe a checkers prodigy. I beat everyone and could see the moves that had to be made well in advance. I taught myself chess but never have been very good at paying attention to all the pieces and their movements. I enjoyed the undertaking and once in a blue moon I won, but checkers was always there saying, "Oh, that chess is too fickle. Come play with me," and I would.

A few years ago I saw a glimpse that something had changed. Erin and I played a game of checkers at a restaurant with a checker board that had no pieces. We used pennies and I lost! Multiple games! Lost!

I wrote it off as pennies not being a good way to play. I couldn't keep my pieces separate from hers because the only difference was we each used a side of the penny. I was confident that I was still a checkers champion. I WAS WRONG!

I have a iPhone app for checkers and play it all the time. I have won twice. I might win more if I was the first move, who knows, but the point is that I lost that spark that made me great. Where did it disappear to? Have you seen it? If you do, please send it back my direction.

I feel like I have been double jumped by a chimpanzee.

That is all,

Newt

My Hometown - The Second Battle in the War of the Newts

2010-02-27T11:00:00.003-06:00

We have come to the second battle in the War of the Blogs. This week’s battle topic is “My Hometown”. So, read my post, head over to my enemy’s blog, and vote for the winner in this week’s battle.

Have you ever seen the movie or the TV show “Friday Night Lights”? Congratulations, you have been to my home town. You see, I am from Midland, Texas, aka, the childhood home of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of these United States. Damn straight!

Honestly though, I do come from a town of about 130,000 people, about half of whom I went to high school with. You see, for all its wonderful traits Midland, Texas is a black hole of despair and disappointment.

I like to joke that Midland is where you grow up, go to school, and…well that is it. If you don’t have a baby from the best three years of your life otherwise known as High School, than you were fat, ugly, or intelligent. Please categorize yourself..

I do have fond memories of my birthplace. It was where I whiled away the hours journeying to and from my Granny’s house every week, spent summers riding bikes with Thomas, and categorized the different Rednecks in their native habitats. Honestly, it is still the place I call home, even though I have lived almost a 6th of my life outside of it.

The pros to growing up in Midland, Texas:

We had a water park…in the middle of Southern Texas. It was Water Wonderland and when you live in an area where summer temps reach the 100 degree mark, it was better known as Paradise.
My entire family lived there. That could be considered a con, but when you grow up with both sides of your entire family living in or around the city, it brings a level of closeness that I know my kids will be deprived of, and for that a part of me is sad.
Nothing was far enough away that I couldn’t get there on my bike. Now, that isn’t to say things weren’t a distance, but I was known to ride the entire length of town to go as far as the comic book store or as close as the 7-11. Having this option as a kid was a key experience in my childhood.
Texas Motor Speedway. I would bum along with Thomas and his family, and we would head out to the local dirt track to watch local race car drivers crash into each other. Mostly Thomas and I would go walk underneath the bleachers looking for fallen cash and wallets, but it was a thrill. My dad even did Demolition Derby there.

The cons consisted of…

Living in an area where High School Football was king. Mind you, I was a chubby comic book nerd, so things weren’t stacked in my favor, but the fact that on any Friday night, dumbasses from all over the city congregated to a football field and were overcome with pride for a bunch of grunts in Purple and Gold really chapped my ass. My school was Purple and Gold. Go Bulldogs!!!
The town was small enough it only had “One”. By that I mean we had one movie theatre (not counting the discount show), one comic book store (except in the mid 90’s when there was an odd abundance), and one Wal-Mart, and by that I don’t mean Super. Things got more plentiful as the years progressed but there is still only a Barnes & Noble and a Hastings by way of book stores, and Hastings is a movie rental place as well.
Teen Pregnancy Rates. I am going to make up a statistic and say that during my years in high school, Midland entered the National Teen Pregnancy Hall of Fame. I wouldn’t doubt it. It seems like everyone was having sex…except for me. Not that I wanted a baby, mind you, but I wouldn’t have turned away the practice.
Midland seems to be the buckle on the Bible Belt. Church and Midland were two peas in a pod. I am highly unreligious, but I went to church because I dated, and if you wanted a girlfriend that wasn’t a weirdo, you were probably dating a church girl. Oh, how I wanted a weirdo. Almost every serious girlfriend I had in high school belonged to a church. A Baptist church. I went to more Easter plays, youth group meetings, and Sunday services than I can remember. Ah, the power of the Lord (and by Lord I mean French Kissing).

So, that is my hometown. I honestly loved growing up there and doubt I would be as freakin’ awesome as I am if I had come from anywhere else. Growing up in a Southern Texas town allowed me to rebel into my nerdy world and still not need to turn to drugs and heavy metal to be different. When you walk into school with an Iron Man t-shirt on, you can feel confident no one else is going to be wearing it too.

That is all,

Newt

The Airport is a great place to meet people

2010-02-24T13:47:00.004-06:00

I just got back from a week in Waldorf, Maryland last Friday and while in the airport, a funny thing happened. I was standing next to the wall near the baggage carousel, waiting for it to come to life so I could get my bag. I had my phone out playing on it when out of the corner of my eye I noticed there was an older woman coming my direct, and she appeared to be ready to faint.

She wobbled over to the pillar I was standing against and immediately I could tell something was wrong so I asked the woman, "Ma'am, are you OK?"

The smell of tobacco and alcohol assaulted me as she slurred, "No" and that was when I realized, this lady was 9 sheets to the wind drunk. I got a better look at her at that point. She was about 5'2, between 50 and 90, thin gray hair, slightly hunching over and dressed entirely in chocolate brown. Her pants and shirt had that velvet look to them and she had a brown purse with her as well. She stared at me, with that vacant look you get when you have had one to many shots of whiskey and I think I could actually see her mind working to try to catch up.

She leaned against the pillar and from out of nowhere a young African American guy who worked for American Airlines manifested himself next to the woman. Their conversation went like this.

AA: "Ma'am, are you all right?"
DW: "No, I'm not..."
AA: "Are you flying somewhere?"
DW:"Yesh. Ahm...flying....to....."
At this point the Drunk Woman just stopped and waited about 6 seconds.
AA: "Ma'am, are you here to pick someone up?"
I immediately thought how that sounded like the worst idea ever but she must have rebooted completely because she started talking again.

DW: "Ahm goin' ta Nashvul."
AA:"Do you have a ticket?"
She looked at him and thought for a second when he added, "Maybe in your purse?"
She actually did have a ticket in her purse and when she handed it over I was surprised to hear the man say "Ma'am, you came from Nashville and are going to San Antonio. Let me walk you to your gate."

She eyed him suspiciously when he offered her his arm but after a second she must have reasoned that she should go with him, or forgot why she didn't want to go in the first place. She took his arm and they casually walked towards the gates. She almost tripped over a man's suitcase as they went.

I can only guess that somehow she got drunk during a layover or on the plane and wandered out of the terminal. She had no luggage and was entirely alone.

Diana came inside to meet me and when we were walking out we found that the AA guy was a liar. Instead of the gate, the woman was sitting in a chair as two police officers were talking to her. We overheard the question, "How much have you had to drink tonight?" as we walked away.

That is all,

Newt

Awesome Memory - The First battle in the War

2010-02-20T11:00:00.002-06:00

It is time for the first battle in the Blog War and the topic is "Awesome Memory". After reading my post, head over to my enemy's blog and read his post for this battle. Since my entire life is really awesome, thus my memories are all awesome, it was hard to pick one but after scrolling through my mental Rolodex I stumbled across this gem. I will note that I have mixed feelings about this memory but good or bad, it is still Awesome.

The year was 1989. I was sitting at home watching Full House, which I guess means this was a Friday because it was part of the TGIF lineup on ABC along with Family Matters and Perfect Strangers (Oh Balki). My mother and sister were gone to the grocery store, which left me and my father at home. As I laid on the floor, naked except for a pair of blue jeans, the phone rang.

I was entranced by Candace Cameron and so I was oblivious to the fact my father had answered. It was my uncle calling to ask if my father could come help him with something. Suddenly my father was in the room asking me, "Newt, can you stay by yourself for a few minutes and stay out of trouble until your mom gets back from the store?" I was around 7 at the time and felt the buzz most kids do when they get left home alone for the first time. The trust. The honor. The temptation.

"Of course" I exclaimed, I was just going to be watching TV anyway. I imagine there was some hesitation but whatever my uncle needed must have been enough of an incentive that Dad thought he could get away with it. He told me not to get into trouble and left. This turned out to be a larger mistake than he could ever have anticipated.

The rest of this memory probably takes place over a 15 minute span of time. In my mind it felt like hours. Minutes after my father left I stirred during a commercial break and...what's that? Do I smell smoke? Hmmmm. I walked around the house trying to locate the smell but couldn't. How odd! I went into my bedroom and stared at the couch that was being used as a makeshift bed for me for a few days. Instantly my mind entered a flashback sequence worthy of Lost.

"Mom. Dad. I want a real bed. I am tired of this huge water bed. I want a bed like everyone else, with Ninja Turtle sheets."
"OK. We can get you a real bed."

Through a rush of the day or two that this transpired we drained my water bed (Water beds! Got to love the 80s), dismantled the frame, and moved a couch in for me to sleep on until we could go shopping for a frame and mattress. After the couch was installed in my room I laid on the sheet and realized how cold it was. I had gotten use to the water bed heater that usually kept the bubble I slept on warm.

Well, if it could heat a water bed, surely it could heat a couch. 100 degrees seemed like the right setting for a couch and I tucked the sheet back around it, leaving the heating pad in direct contact with the polyester cushion and went about the rest of my Friday.

Shaking my head out of the thought I was having I walked over to the couch and felt its warmth. The smoke smell was getting stronger and I remember thinking, "Why does the couch smell like smoke?" Using 7 year old logic I knew the best way to figure it out would be to rip the sheet off of the couch, thus exposing the culprit of the odor. In a way I was right. I later learned that directly adding Oxygen to a volatile situation will cause a small suffering flame to rage. Who knew?

Like a magic trick, where once a sheet sat, now a flaming couch appeared. Instantly I knew, the house was on fire. My room was toast and I was scared so I ran to the phone to call for help and...who do I call? I know, I will call the smartest person I know, my Granny. She can help. I dialed her number and explained this situation as best I could. I think it went something like this...

"GRANNY, GRANNY!!!! THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!!"
"WHAT? Where are your parents?"
"THERE GONE!!! I'M BY MYSELF. WHAT DO I DO?!?"
"I'll be right there, call 911 and then get out of the house."
"OK. CALL 911. GOT IT."

My Granny lived three blocks away so I knew things would be OK. Then it hit me. The animals. Our dogs were going to die if I didn't save them. And of course I had to get Peaches. Peaches was our cockatiel and lived in my room. Heroically, I rushed back into the smoking pit and rushed to her cage. Orange and red flashed in the room as I grabbed her and rushed out the front door to freedom. Next I ran back into the house to find our Boston Terrier, Willie. He made it out on his own which left only our black lab Daisy to save.

Daisy stayed outside and would have been fine but the mind of a 7 year old doesn't function at 100% capacity at the best of times so I ran out into the back yard, released Daisy from her dog run, and escorted her to the front yard where she instantly ran away down the street. My father found her later after some time driving the neighborhood after the fire trucks had left.

The reassuring shell of my Granny's white Buick(I think) appeared in the front yard.

"Did you call the fire department?"
"OH NO!!! I FORGOT. I HAD TO SAVE THE ANIMALS."
"OK. I am going to run in and call them."

She disappeared into the smoky door frame as I was slowly being joined by neighbors in the front yard. Someone had grabbed our water hose and was aiming it at the window to my bedroom. I stood dumbfounded. Minutes passed and Granny didn't come out. Where was she? Is she OK? I started to panic and was considering running back in to save her when I heard it.

"Trinity! Trinity!"

It was her, but where was it coming from? I soon discovered. She couldn't make it through the front door after calling 911 so she had gone out the back and was at the side gate. We kept it padlocked and I clearly didn't have the key but with the help of my neighbor, or more accurately my neighbors flashlight, we beat the lock until it busted off and she joined me out front.

The rest of the night seemed to happen at double speed. My mother and sister appeared, apparently having to fight past the firemen who had tried to stop them from going near the house. My father came back home and to this day I never have thought to ask him where he had gone or how he knew to come home. Firemen did show up and get the fire out and we were left to go through the wreckage or our life.

The damage to the house was bad but the worst was my room. There was a charcoal bike frame, tons of debris, and all of my possessions melted or gone completely. The only things to survive were the belongings in my toy chest that the firemen had pulled out into the yard. My Ninja Turtles collection came through unscathed because of that toy chest and I breathed a sigh of relief.

That is all,

Newt

HERE YE, HERE YE

2010-02-17T09:51:00.000-06:00

The Epic Battle of Newt vs. Newt will commence this Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010.

This battle will be waged on three fronts.

1) Awesome Memory (Saturday Feb 20th)
2) My Hometown (Sat Feb 27)
3) Video Games Gone Wrong (Sat Mar 6)

Each Post will be automatically submitted at 12 PM Eastern.

For the week following each post, you, our readers, will be asked to vote on your favorite post to determine the winner for the week. The best of three posts wins and will be named the true Newt. It is expected that this be an unbiased voting process.

May the best Amphibian win!

I just got some bad news.

2010-02-16T12:48:00.000-06:00

This is the worst news I could ever have read.

Why does God hate me so much?

Newt

Aspects of WAR!

2010-02-14T20:20:00.000-06:00

To my enemy, the fake Newt.

Here is my proposal for the ensuing war that will be making you cry in your bathtub while all of your Canadian musicians play in the background.

We each write three separate posts about certain topics. We agree to post these at the same time so as to not give a fair advantage to the other person. I suggest topics in the vein of "
Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll" or "Things you don't talk about such as Sex, Taxes and Politics" as our topic ideas. I welcome your thoughts, or not so much welcome them as hold mild disdain for them.

We then open up the floor for comments and have people vote for their favorite. That may be unfair as I have more followers at the moment so I would like to know your ideas. We can have them pick winners for each category. I will demand impartiality from my blog friends but they love me so I can only do so much.

Winner takes all...mind you I won't be changing my name but will add Steve to it as promised.

Thoughts,

Newt

Olympic Fever? More like an mild cold

2010-02-12T20:02:00.000-06:00

I am sitting in my living room with Diana as the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games starts and she is "oohhhing" and "aahhhing" as fireworks go off and people ski down mountains in a montage of Canadian pride. Diana has been looking forward to this for weeks and one of the things that made her super excited about TiVo is that she could record some of the events. I just have to say when it comes to Olympics...

I DON'T CARE.

I really don't. It is the most uninteresting thing in the world for me. I love what they represent, Nations sending their top athletes to a single place to compete and see who is the best without having to resort to war. But it is soooo boring. I could fall asleep right now and I am only typing.

I don't understand why this is such a big deal to everyone. Name one medalist from 2002. I can't. It just seems like such a waste of time. Never have cared, never will. Unless one of my kids ever becomes an Olympian...then I guess I will try to give a crap. Until then, I will pass on all the fanfare.

That is all,

Newt

Knock Down, Drag Out War

2010-02-11T08:18:00.000-06:00

I have been attacked. Unprovoked might I add. You see, some poser from the land of Canada thinks he can come in with a year of blogging under his belt and steal the moniker of Newt. The nerve of some people, eh?

In a ballzy move that I must say is kind of brilliant, he has declared a blog war. I normally remain all Swiss on these things but he went and defaced the immortal image of my hero, Kermit the Frog, and for that he will go down. HARD!

His declaration of war can be read partly in the comments of my last post but also here. Am I scared? No. Why would I be. Everyone knows Canada is where you go to avoid war so this guy doesn't know what he has gotten himself into.

Once the term of the war are set, yes we will have civilized warfare, then it will be no holds barred. A competition to determine the number one Newt and the loser to be called Steve.

This has only just begun,

Newt(The one and only)

TBWCYL Day 364 - Update Time

2010-02-09T08:09:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally broke down and went back to the Half Price Books where I left my copy of This Book Will Change Your Life and my copy wasn't there. What that means I have no idea. Someone may have bought it but if so they are holding it hostage and haven't called me. Just as likely they may have it and not even realize it, though it was pretty apparent it was completely filled out.

The thing I fear most is that it was found on the shelf and the employees decided to trash it because they thought a filled out copy wouldn't sell. With it being 40 days since departure I am going to assume that I will not get it back. This is a sad development. I was so hoping to keep it and gain a little faith in people all at the same time.

That is all,

Newt

Maiwage

2010-02-04T08:36:00.001-06:00

I just saw a headline on the front page of MSN saying something about the secret to staying married 50 years. I have been married just over 2 years but have been with the same woman for over...hold on I'm counting...six years. In proportion to other people that may not be that long but with that many years under my belt I feel I can ask, "Why do people think marriage is so hard?"

I know I don't have a kid yet, and I live the good life of comics and middle class luxury so maybe I should look more towards that sector for this but I just can't understand why things are so difficult for people.

Let's look at a made up couple, Jim and Erica.

Jim has a decent job, not too bad looking, and semi responsible. Erica has a decent job as well and is going to school to become a nurse. They each work around 40 hours a week plus Erica's 15 hours of school.

They argue incessantly over dishes, laundry and occasionally money. Jim wants more sex and Erica wants more sleep. Why are they unhappy? Because they are stupid.

Come on Jim! Erica needs some sleep and can't give you as much sex as you would like. Let it go and grab yourself. That's what the Internet is for. And if she is going to school you should help out around the house more. It will benefit you in the end.

Geez Erica, cut Jim some slack. You don't really want him doing laundry do you? You saw how he shrunk that $60 blouse you just bought. Guys don't think to check for "dry clean only" tags. And I am going to guess it was you who decided to go back to school so you should expect to be tired. Don't use that as a crutch. It's not right, or fair.

See, I just solved their problems. It wasn't hard. People are stupid. I know I can be. I went through some of the same things Jim did. When your wife works 80 weeks and you have had more contact with your keyboard than her body, things can get a little tense...in my pants!!! Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The thing with marriage is that it is actually pretty easy if you have a few things.

1. The Right Person. If you married a bitch or bastard who can't sweat the small stuff, than you got yourself into this and everything you get is probably something you deserved. "He was so loving at first but now he is just mean." Whatever. I know there is occasionally that story but if you get with Biff, the mechanic at the garage who plays cards every week, smokes and drinks and suddenly you think a ring on your finger makes him more refined, you are as stupid as you look..and you look pretty stupid.

2. Patience. If you are the kind of person who asks for something to be done once and if it isn't then you start yelling, you shouldn't be married. Or for that matter in a relationship. Don't inflict that on someone.

3. Guilt. I know this may sound unorthodox and many people won't put this on the must have list but I think that guilt is a key instrument in making things work. Here's why. I will use a real example. Say I am at a Hooters. DD brings me some wings and I look at her boobs. Should I feel guilty, probably not. But if I was to start thinking about more than just looking, I would have GUILT. And guilt stops me dead in my tracks. If every cheater had guilt before he cheated instead of after, he might actually not cheat to begin with. This wouldn't have 100% accuracy but it might curve the numbers some.

4. Low Expectations. This is the most crucial thing any married couple should have. If I expect to eat Hamburger Helper every night, anything else is a bonus. If I want filet mingnon then I am going to be constantly disappointed. Men and Women are flawed creatures. Why anyone expects so much is beyond me. I think part of the reason for so many divorces is that couples expect so much from each other that they don't appreciate what they have and instead focus too much on what they don't. I didn't marry my dream girl combo of Jessica Alba and Little Debbie so I don't expect my wife to taste like Sexy Cream Pies. It would just be unrealistic.

I love my wife, genuinely love her. She is great for supporting me, having a conversation with, allowing me my faults, though they may be few, and knowing how to make me laugh. I can't say I am the perfect husband all the time but I bet she would say some of the same things about me that I do about her.

I currently can't think of anything that will change that feeling and it hasn't changed in the umpteen years we have been together, no matter what we fight about. I can't comment about growing apart or straying because I honestly don't see the point, but with divorce rates as high as they are, maybe I am in the minority. If you grow apart your not trying very hard and if you stray, you don't want to be married to begin with. As I get older, I think I am learning to sweat the small stuff more and more. Sure it annoys me that her side of the sink is dirtier than mine, but I just wipe it up and move along. Me cleaning up something that only bothers me seems like a solutions to a problem that is mine, not ours.

That is all,

Newt

Bloop, Bloop, Bloop, Bloop, Bloop, Bloop, Bloop

2010-02-01T08:25:00.000-06:00

The world is in color today because last night, Diana and I made a huge step forward into the future and got...TiVo. Let me back that up for you...”Bloop, Bloop Bloop... the future and got...TiVo.”

Suck it, VCR. You are going to that home where my dogs all went to roam free in the fields. Maybe that is why I always see old unwound Cassette tape clinging to the fences near the fields. Hmmmm!?!

We went to Best Buy and got our little friend yesterday evening and it was like buying a new puppy. I say that because as soon as we got it home I realized how much shit I was going to have to buy to get it to behave. We had to go back to the store to buy a Wireless Adapter so it could use the WiFi signal but after we plugged him in, our little guy was so eager to please.

“Can I set up a season pass for you?” Sure.
“If you tell me what you like I can look for other shows for you.” Really, you’re too kind.
“Did you miss something on the screen? Let me back that up for you.” Oh, you are the best sir.

Our TiVo is named Archimedes, like Merlin’s Owl from King Arthur times. I thought it fitting since this has to be a box of magic sitting under my TV. It may also be alien as it seems to only communicate through a “Bloop” noise that may actually be a language. I am not kidding when I say that I have been trying to talk back to it by using my own “Bloop” in response.

So far we now have Season Passes to our favorite shows:

How I Met Your Mother
House
Big Bang Theory
Life Unexpected
Lost
Human Target
The Office
Community
Modern Family
Sesame Street (yes, I am abusing TiVo now by recording this but I don’t care)
Oprah (This is Diana’s and I doubt will get watched much but she wanted it.)

I can’t believe I don’t have to remember to set a tape if I am not going to be home. Life is amazing.

That is all,

Newt

Midnight train to Jersey

2010-01-24T14:19:00.000-06:00

The doors to the subway train open and a waft of 8 day unwashed vagina attacks my nostrils. My eyes immediately dart around the train to identify where the smell is coming from and sitting in the corner is a small black man whose skin has begun to whiten from lack of hygiene and a life of riding subway cars to keep warm. My watch shows 1:02 a.m. and I have spent the last hour and a half in the underground labyrinth that is the New York Subway System.

I spent a lovely evening with a beautiful redhead named Lola. Saying that makes it sound tawdry which just goes to show you how quickly you jump to conclusions. It is the night before I leave New Jersey and I rode into the city via the Path train into the World Trade Center hole and boarded the E train to 42nd street for my date. Being in Jersey gave me the opportunity to hook back up with Lola after our brief meeting in Dallas.

We took in dinner at Etc. Etcetera and, thoroughly stuffed, made our way to see “Mary Poppins” on Broadway. In between renditions of “Step in Time”, “Spoonful of sugar” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (how impressive is it that my spell check has that as a word and corrected my spelling?) Lola and I made friends with a Brazilian who was taking in the show. I think we picked the perfect Broadway to see too. If you were in the audience and looked up to see kids enjoying themselves, “ooohing” and “aahhing” as Mary flies across the stage you would have been looking at us. We jumped with surprise, sang with the songs, and bobbed our heads up and down in time with the music. No two 20 something’s could have been happier.

After the show we headed to the bus terminal and as we went inside discovered a bar that was housed within serving drinks to travelers as they waited for their bus. As we sipped our beer in wait of Lola’s chariot, we were serenaded with karaoke as small white guys sang songs better suited to large black men or sopranos. You sure hit that high note, Mr. Blanco.

I saw Lola off and began my travel back to Jersey City. Knowing the trains ran off hours I anticipated a wait but was confident that I would be able to make it back to my hotel. I rode the E train in so I planned on backtracking on it and getting back to the World Trade Center. As I stood in the tunnel at 42nd street station I learned what Purgatory must be like.

I will start by saying I had 40 blocks to travel. The train ride to Times Square took about 15 minutes. I stood waiting for the E train and was disappointed time and time again. As I leaned over the tracks to watch for the small light at the end of the tunnel to grow brighter, the A on the train kept dashing my hopes. After 30 minutes on the platform I began to worry that the train would never come. Using the map I planned an alternate route and jumped on an A train to 33rd where I knew of a Path Train that ran from the City to Jersey.

I scrambled around Penn Station in a panic. My phone said the Path train stopped at 11:00 but I couldn’t find it out until I had exited the signal blocking tunnels. Stuck on 33rd, I rushed back to the Subway and decided I would just ride the A and get as close to WTC as I could and walk. It was past midnight by this point and exhaustion was setting in along with a mild need to urinate. I jumped on the A train but only rode it one stop when I decided to jump off and double check the map to make sure that I was heading the right way. At this point the voice of God, or maybe it was just an intercom, at that point I starting to get delirious, said,

“All E bound trains are being serviced off of the F line. Please ride the F train to Commerce for service to World Trade Center.”

I had just spent over an hour waiting for a train that didn’t exist. At this point I held back tears and went down a level to wait for the train that I hoped would bring salvation. I turned my phone on to record my thoughts.

“It’s just after 1 o’clock in the morning; I am now waiting for the F train on West 4th street. This marks an hour and a half in the subway with about a mile and a half covered.”

As I rode the F train with the human embodiment of rotten eggs, I prayed that I would make it home. My urgency at needing to pee was building but there was not a chance in hell I was stepping foot in a Subway bathroom. I made it to the WTC at 1:30 a.m. and the only real bit of luck I had appeared. I had arrived just in time to get on the Path train that would take me home. My second recording held more hope that the first.

“It’s 1:33 in the morning and I am on the Path train to New Jersey. It took me 30 minutes to get to the WTC so I could get onto this train and I lucked out to find it the first time. I was afraid if I didn’t it would have been another hour and I would have cried.”

As my feet screamed in protest I rode the train into Jersey City. I had entered the Path train in Jersey City near the office I was at. However my hotel was a good 10 block from the office and I got the great idea that I would just ride the Path to the station near my hotel, thinking it would save me about 8 blocks. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The train I was on dropped off on a different station than the one near my hotel but this didn’t become apparent until I had exited the train, popped out topside, and found nothing looked familiar.

I pulled out my phone and with the use of Google Maps, located my hotel and started the 12 blocks towards it. My urge to pee went from a want to an absolute need and I was forced to stop between two parked cars in a dimly lit street and urinate. My fingers were so cold that I thought I might recoil at the touch and we myself but in this one thing I was fortunate.

I arrived at my hotel at 2 a.m. and finished packing before collapsing into bed and embracing sweet exhaustion.

That is all,

Newt

Looking for the Jersey Devil

2010-01-17T20:50:00.000-06:00

I am sitting in the lobby of a DoubleTree hotel in New Jersey tonight. It is raining outside and the 'blip' of my Skype just went off telling me my wife responded to me. I am officially an employee of my parent company and on my first travel assignment. I have come to the state of New Jersey to get some training on a specific computer system before I get cracking on things and this entire week I get to hole up in an office complex overlooking the Hudson River.

Being new to traveling for work, it didn't occur to me that weather could be a problem so when the plane landed and I saw rain hitting the windows, I realized I was not prepared for that. I stopped in one of the airport shops before going to baggage claim and only saw "I love New York" umbrellas and I had no interest in being seen as a tourist so I passed. My hotel was next to a mall so I ran over and got one before it closed and I think I have learned my lesson.

Now, most of you are probably thinking, Newt is in Jersey? That is near Lola Lakely! and you would be right. In fact, my dear friend Lola and I are already planning on seeing each other and have tickets to see Mary Poppins on Thursday so that will be a post to come.

I am looking forward to this week and all the fun that travel offers. Why, just for dinner I was able to sample some of the local fare by taking in a quaint little restaurant. You may have heard of it. It was called Chili's.

So far I have to say Jersey doesn't seem to bad but I am staying in an urban area and it seems just like any other city. Maybe in the light of day I will walk outside and see what everyone is talking about. We will see.

That is all,

Newt

Womanizing the blogosphere

2010-01-12T07:45:00.001-06:00

It is slowly becoming apparent that the blog world is predominately female. When I started blogging I was in my own little world where me and my friends all blogged and had a little click. In the last year that click has grown exponentially and this is when it came to my attention that blogging is like volleyball, men play it but it is overrun by ladies.

I have considered that the blogosphere might be more even then I think but haven't been able to prove it. For every male blogger I find, there seem to be ten women ones. So, I did an experiment. Using the "Next Blog" button at the top of the screen I hit it 10 times and here is what came up.

Blog one was a mother writing about her kid.
Two was about an English woman writing about the trials and tribulations of having MS.
Blog three was about Merideth Boyd and her husbands photography business.
Quatro involved articles about prostate cancer.
Blog five focused on a child with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome.
Six was in a different language but it looked girly.
Seven is about the life of a teacher named Joye.
Eight was the first one I found written by a man and it is all about asexuality.
Nine has something to do with Photoshop and Wikipedia. Not sure what though but it was written by a woman.
And the final blog was by someone named Kate.

So, in total there were 7 that were written by woman, 1 by a man, 1 for health purposes that are male related so probably also by men, and the final one needed translation.

So I have to ask, "Where my bros at?" I actually read a few blogs by men but there are not frequented with as many posts as women. Is it because there are stay at home moms that write? Or single women that like to discuss going out? Or does having a family make woman want to write about their adventures? I don't know.

I have seen a subculture of blogs that are just written for families to keep up with what is going on with their kin. My parents have been known to keep up with me using this blog so I understand how helpful that can be. But where are the male bloggers? And can anyone recommend some.

That is all,

Newt(M)

Eye Spy

2010-01-10T18:34:00.000-06:00

Friday was an eye opening day. I finally did something I have been wanting to do for years and splurged to get Lasik. We arrived at the doctor at 7:40 and were out by 8:20 and I could see better.

For those interested, the surgery was quick, about 5 minutes per eye. They start by holding your eye lids open, using a laser they cut a flap in your cornea which they then lift, and then use a different laser to reshape your inner cornea to adjust the way light refracts off of it. It was painless and the only thing I would warn about is that it can get slightly confining while the surgery is happening.

It is an odd sensation for you to know your eye is open yet not be able to see. When the flap is cut, your eye looses vision and at that point things start to feel a little weird. After the flap is made, you are swung around to the corrective laser and are told to focus on a red light. There is about 20 seconds of noise as the laser does its work and then the flap is closed and you are done. One of the oddest things is that you can actually smell your eye getting burned. It smells like lightly of burnt hair and plastic. Really weird.

I slept most of Friday and have been putting drops in my eyes for the last couple of days but I can see almost 20/20. My eyes are still healing so I am not sure what exactly will be the end result so I my require some touch up if things don't even out exactly. But, the ability to go to sleep and see when I wake up is something I don't even have words for. I haven't been able to do that since the 4th grade. It is amazing.

That is all,

Newt

Her Name was Lola!

2010-01-07T18:39:00.000-06:00

Oh My God!!!! Star Sighting. Tuesday night something magical happened. I met Lola Lakely.

Living in Dallas gives me a lot of opportunities. One of those is that I am in a hub city that offers a lot of options for companies that need to have corporate functions. It is really common for people to fly in staff to come to meetings and that is how I met the real life Lola.

She arrived in Dallas on Tuesday night and Diana and I went to her hotel and had drinks and we all got to know one another. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. Earlier in the day she told me she didn't know what I looked like so I sent her a picture via my camera phone. When she told me she was on her way down, butterflies were moving around. Should I hug her? Would she meet my expectations? Would it be awkward?

Well, no worries were to be had because not only did Lola hug both me and Diana, she is also exactly as I imagined her and cuter than I thought she would be.

It is a weird sensation meeting someone that you almost know. With blogging there is a point where you consistently read about someone to the point where you consider them a friend and yet you haven't really met that person so it almost isn't real. More than once during the night we looked at each other and said, "This is so crazy."

I don't think I got the whole Lola Lakely experience because the night ended with no one drunk, no crazy stories, and a relatively small bar tab but all of her work people were out and about and it was a Tuesday. The most awesome thing about it is I get to see her again in two weeks when I go to New Jersey for work. To go from never meeting to seeing each other twice in a month is a pretty crazy turn of events.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 365 - Newt Year, New You

2010-01-01T20:18:00.001-06:00

At last, at last it has come to an end,
One year has ended, another begins.
I finished the journey of tasks to be done,
It seemed never ending, but we are on the last one.
A Party, a party to finish it all,
To celebrate my new self, the dropping of a ball.

We rang in the New Year with a party of close friends last night and thus the final task is complete. I completed(mostly) my 364 tasks in my amphibiously glorious fashion and to celebrate the accomplishment, my final task was to throw a New Year, New You party. We drank champagne, ate finger foods, lit a fire, and had sparklers and roman candles for the front yard as we welcomed in the year of the Tiger(2010).

And with this I come to a close on the experiment that was This Book Will Change Your Life. My first post on this can be read here but I decided to look back on it and see what I really wanted to do with this thing.

"I am going to do my damnedest to finish this experiment": That was apparent and easily my proudest part of the entire trip.

"you should see at least one new blog a day chronicling what the hell this book is telling me to do": In total there are now 372 different posts about this project so that seems to have been done. I might not have been daily but I covered every day.

"adding crazy shit into your life...and I am going to do it.": Mission accomplished

One unsaid thing that I set out to do was to entertain more people than I originally was. I was a lazy blogger at the time of this experiment and thought this would be a good way to force me into a habit of writing. I won't say I always wrote well, I never had perfect spelling, and my grammar could always use some work but I got into a routine of writing something almost everyday.

And I made friends, wonderful friends from all across the globe. I can't even begin to say how awesome that part of this was. It was something wholly unexpected and amazing to be able to say and I hope that part doesn't go away when I slow my blogging down. I especially want to think Kate, who hasn't been around lately but toward the beginning of this really promoted me when she didn't have to and got me integrated into what has come to be a community of people.

There was no way I could have guessed how difficult this would actually be. I kept it secret from my coworkers, I put myself in ridiculous situations, and I challenged myself to be and do things I would never have thought possible.

I think the biggest question I get from friends is, "Did it change your life?" The short answer is "Yes" but the all encompassing answer is more of a "sort of". No, I normally wouldn't have given myself an enema or eat unfamiliar foods but I never doubted I could do those things if I needed to.

I think the things that changed me the most were the ones that affected the world around me. The adventures in losing senses were eye opening, not talking showed me that when people think you are deaf they go out of their way to help and giving a homeless guy a $20 makes you just a little bit less cynical about the world. The biggest thing is the achievement of doing something that seems impossible one day at a time.

I won't be doing a sequel to this book, though there is more than one. I don't think it would be fair to me or my wife to put either of us through this again. I do want to continue with some recurring things and I am working on ideas for those but the daily thing is done for now. I am going to revel in my first day of task-free bliss and say...

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 364 - Bye Bye Bookie

2009-12-31T08:45:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was hard. I have held off doing this particular task until the end of this silly experiment but last night was time.

Back around Day 260 I was supposed to leave The Book in a public place and see if it came back to me. I guess in theory someone would find it, find my name and number in the front of the book and then call me. But, I waited on this because if it didn't come back quickly, or at all, then I would be without it to complete it and I wanted to finish the thing.

So, last night I bit the bullet and got rid of The Book. No, you didn't read that wrong, I no longer have The Book in my possession. Here is what I did.

First, I went to the day I was supposed to do this task, I think it was 262, and wrote a letter into the page.(see below)

Then, I wrote an additional letter in the front page of the book. So, when someone opened it, this is the first thing they would see. It stated that the book they hold was a year of my life and I would like it back. It contained my name and number in large print.

Diana and I then took it to the same Half Price Books that it was purchased from on January 1, 2009 and put it back on the shelf next to an unused copy. She snuck it in inside her purse and, like spies, we slyly placed it. My opy is the one on the right. I thought it very 'Circle of Life' to put it back where I got it.

Someone may buy it without realizing or they may just see a fully completed copy and buy it just to see how things went. I don't know. An employee may open it since it doesn't have a price and call me to come get it.

I feel a weight off of me. I finish the entire experiment on December 31st with my last task and it has been crazy. I will be disappointed if no one calls me about my copy. Maybe I will get it back one day and maybe I won't but either way I will have finished this thing and you guys have come along with me so thank you.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 363 - Calling in Sick

2009-12-31T08:42:00.000-06:00

So, I was supposed to hand deliver all of my emails on Tuesday but I got crazy sick and was only able to work for about 2 hours. In that time I had no emails to deliver that weren't to another city or person at another building. I think my coworkers were avoiding me or something.

I puked at work and decided enough was enough and went home. I spent the remainder of the day curled up on the futon in a dark room, only coming out to get water and eat an occasional slice of bread to put something in my stomach. It was not pleasant.

So, no task completed today on account of sickness.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 362 - Swap me

2009-12-28T15:34:00.000-06:00

Do you think you could do a co-workers job? Could they do yours? Well, I was tasked with finding out and today has been hellish.

Before I begin, I have an announcement to make. I got a new job within my company that will be starting after the new year. With it comes the opportunity to travel the country and do something challenging and completely different. I am now half training my replacement which lead to the task being much easier as no one at work knows about The Book.

To add to this a different coworker is on vacation this week and so I am covering for him while he is gone. This too helps the task for the day.

So, I have someone training to do my job and I am doing someone else's and it is tiring. I have been juggling shipping jobs for someone, which isn't something I normally do, as well as managing the call center the guy on vacation is in charge of. All of this is going on while trying to fit in minutes of training for my replacement. Oh, and I am starting to work on my new job duties too. Ahhhh!!!

I am ready for the day to end.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 361 - Tic, Tac, No

2009-12-28T15:30:00.000-06:00

"Challenge everyone you meet to a game of Tic-Tac-To." Is 'meet' open to interpretation? I hope so because I only challenged one person to a game yesterday and that was Erin. We drove home from Midland yesterday so most of the day was spent with one of two kinds of people:

Relatives
Wife

Guess what? I already knew all of them so I didn't meet anyone new. Erin met us in Dallas and is staying with us for the week so when we all settled down, I was able to pull out a pad and ask to play a game of Tic-Tac-To. We tied, because as Erin stated, "We are two intelligent people". I am not sure if that is why but I will take it.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 360 - Cham-pag-ne

2009-12-27T10:03:00.001-06:00

I was drunk by noon yesterday. I was tasked with drinking nothing but champagne all day yesterday and after getting up around 10, opened a bottle of $5 Cold Duck and drank the entire thing. Maybe drunk was too strong a word, more like tipsy. I went and got some burritos to fill me up and took a nap.

At 3 p.m. I was up again and uncomfortable. I am not one for napping and yesterday's endeavor just made my neck hurt and my head ache. No, I don't think the champagne had anything to do with it. I opened a bottle of dry something that I had bought and had a glass to wet my whistle.

My headache wouldn't go away and I had to relent and drink a glass of water. I think I was slightly dehydrated and didn't want to risk it getting worse. I had to get out of the house around 5 so I left my mother-in-laws and headed to my parents to visit.

One thing about me that you may realize is I can't sit still for long. I usually get up and move around, go find some work to be done, or just go to a store and walk around. I hate just sitting in front of a TV all day and during holidays that seems to be what happens the most and I am constantly bored. Last night, after finishing off the second bottle of champagne, I got just that: bored. I fidgeted a while and started to get hungry so while my wife's family sat around watching a football bowl game, I gave up and headed to get nachos and read. By this time it was 10 p.m. and I was dying for an ice tea and that is exactly what I had.

Champagne isn't the worst thing to have to drink all day but I wasn't really in the mood for alcohol. The problem was I had to do this task today because as you may have noticed, we are winding down on the number of days left for tasks and knowing what was left and my work schedule, I knew I had yesterday as the only day available to drink unrestrained.

5 more days of tasks left and we will close The Book forever. Whooo hoooo!

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 359 - Sketchy

2009-12-27T09:53:00.000-06:00

So, Christmas was an eventful day. After opening presents with Diana's family, Diana set out to bake a Pumpkin Pie. My task for the day was to sketch someone opposite me on public transportation but since it was Christmas and I was in a small town with little public transport, I decided to just sketch her baking a pie. It is as rare an occurrence as me riding public transportation anyway.

I am not an artist by trade so please understand that this image is not very good. I haven't sketched in years.

The bubble above her head says,"My Pie!". This is due to the fact that Diana got her pie ready to go in the oven the pie tin collapsed on her and spilled all over the oven. The entire series of events is worthy of its own post and once I figure out who is writing it, it will be posted on either mine, or my wife's blog.

I forgot how hard sketching something can be. I used to have a minute amount of talent with pencil and paper when I was younger and did well in my art classes in high school. I think I wouldn't pass now.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 358 - Hot Spot

2009-12-25T12:35:00.000-06:00

I increased my tolerance for hot food yesterday with some experimentation in Tabasco Sauce. Before opening our presents last night, we were sitting around and I went to refill my drink. I opened up the fridge and saw the bottle of Tabasco and without waiting to regret my decision, I poured about 6 spurts of sauce on my tongue and let it settle until I couldn't take it anymore.

My tongue caught fire and I rushed to the glass of ice tea that was waiting for me. It didn't do too much to eradicate the heat but it did help the transition as my tongue settled. I am not one for spicy food so this is one of those things where increasing tolerance meant building one to begin with.

My father gave me a chocolate bar with bacon mixed into it and I was trying to taste it but my tongue wasn't letting me savor the flavor. I still am not sure exactly the taste of it but I have some left so I will find out later.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 357 - Poor Old Man

2009-12-24T10:00:00.001-06:00

Imagine being this guy:

Well, it is another year and I am spending Christmas all alone again. I got this stupid pink Snuggie from my son. That son of a bitch just doesn't have any sense. They put me in this "Assisted Living" facility and think once I am here they can just call once in a while and I will be happy. I don't have alzheimers, for God's sakes. I remember that they forget about me.

If my saint of a wife hadn't gone and died on me, I think this would be more tolerable. It is being alone that is killer. Sure, the daily card games make the time pass, and the library shuttle gets me a consistent supply of reading material but I want more. Why do the holiday's make things worse? What does the birth of a kid 2000 years ago have to do with making me long to see my grandkids? I think the cafeteria is serving some sort of holiday meal. I just hope they have gingerbread men. I like to bite the heads off and put them back on the plate.

Merry Christmas everyone. Tell your old people you love them.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 356 - The Write Off

2009-12-22T08:15:00.000-06:00

My cousin Brian is the biggest Dick-head I know, and I know a lot of dick heads. Wait, that came out wrong. Anyway, for today's task I was to disinherit a relative and since my Granny died a few years ago, I think now it is safe to just pull up the tax return of life and write that bastard off completely.

You see, Brian was born as a giant douche. He got it from his father from what I can tell and as long as I have known him, he has never been pleasant, cordial or nice. He dips tobacco and leaves his spit cups around, he uses his family to get what he wants.

My main reason for disliking him so much is because of my Granny. When I was young, say 3 or 4, he was around quite a bit. She loved him so much and he ate it up and probably loved her back. However, as he got older, he let his relationship slide with her, can't say that doesn't happen from time to time but I think it made her sad. We were working in the yard one day, I used to help her weed her flower beds, and I said something like, "Granny, I love you and will never leave you". She came back with something to the affect of, "Oh, you'll leave me sometime and get busy and forget your old Granny, just like Brian did."

I was floored. How could she think I would ever do such a thing? She had Dr. Pepper and Ice Cream and all of my Legos were at her house. Plus, I loved sitting in her lap and watching Crooke and Chase on the Nashville network with her. I was so insulted. I said, "Granny, I could never do that. I love you too much and I will never leave." I don't think she believed me.

I count that as a defining moment in my life because I think it was one of the first times I realized what Loyalty was. I kept my promise to my Granny and even through college I would call her at least once a week and visit her every chance I could when I came home. When she died I was there to bury her ashes, even though it required flying to Alabama.

We had a viewing before her cremation and even though Brian did show up, he refused to look at the body. Some people said he didn't handle death well but I like to think it was shame for not being a better grandson. I haven't spoken to him since she died and honestly don't expect to unless he needed a kidney or something. I feel shame to think that he is my blood and the idea of disowning him doesn't make me feel anything. When you can't even muster any emotion for a person is when you know you don't care about that person anymore.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 355 - Kama Sutures

2009-12-22T07:59:00.000-06:00

I don't normally bring my sex life into this blog but The Book decided it was necessary. We packed the car for our drive to Midland last night and before I put The Book in, I opened up the task for today, handed it to Diana, and said, "Pick One". No, she wasn't picking my task, but instead picking the way that it was done.

You see, yesterday was Kama Sutra Day and the makers of This Book Will Change Your Life were kind enough to give me a task I would love to do. There were about 15 different positions available on the page and Diana and I had a good time looking through them. Most I had to describe how they would work and I have to say, a few looked down right impossible for anyone but a ninja to be able to pull off. We settled on the one below and I filed The Book away.

I won't go into too many details but after warming up we attempted this thing to hilarious results. I am 6 feet tall, my wife is 5'7 or so. Our anatomy doesn't line up when we stand or apparently when we kneel so attempting this was tricky. They might has well have named this 'Just the Tip' because that is about all that was achievable. After about 30 seconds of trying to figure out where are legs should go and what the hell we were supposed to do, we both started laughing so hard that we pretty much just fell over and gave up.

At least now I don't feel like my $.26 went to waste.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 354 - Carvings

2009-12-20T22:12:00.000-06:00

I put my initials in my neighbors tree today. It was my task to carve something into a tree and TV really fits well and is easy to carve so I went with it. I nonchalantly walked down the street and quickly stopped and pulled out a tiny screwdriver and popped them into the bark.

I supposed if the tree sheds or he goes out there and takes the bark off then my initials won't last long but they are there for now and that is all I can hope for.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 353 - Can I have your Autograph?

2009-12-19T23:21:00.000-06:00

Imagine you are book hunting and pick up a book to find that the author's signature is in the front cover. "OMG!" you exclaim. This must be some mistake. How could I be so lucky as to have found a signed copy for dirt cheap?

That would be my doing.

While working at the comic book store today, I reached into the 10 cent comic boxes and grabbed a few of the shittiest issues I could find and signed them with a Sharpie. I put the writers name in as if it was a signed copy and placed it back in the box. The damage done was minimal and may even give someone a rush of excitement that they would never have achieved had I not done this.

Was it wrong of me to deface these books? Maybe. But that was my task and I thought doing about .30 worth of damage was better than defacing hardbacks at the local Borders.

I hope these don't end up on ebay or I will feel bad.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 352 - 26 cents and I still felt ripped off

2009-12-19T23:04:00.000-06:00

I got drunk last night at a happy hour. I admit it. By 8 pm I was belligerently asking the waitress questions that I thought charming and had a great buzz going that lasted for a while. We went to the Flying Saucer to celebrate a friend passing her CPA exam and I got tipsy. We switched bars around 9 and I got mega hungry and decided to ditch the group and go to Chipotle for a burrito (I walked so don't think I drove drunk or anything).

Anyhow, after sobering up and eating a massive burrito I headed home. Diana was in a separate car and had to run an errand before meeting me at the house and by the time she got home I was verging on unconscious. The problem with that was my task, I hadn't forgotten to do it, I just needed her cooperation to get it done.

You see, I was supposed to join the many men who have paid for sex by... well, doing just that. I am not adverse to paying for sex if it is worth the money. In this day and age it almost seems like spending money on dinners and drinks for some ever changing amount of dates before sex takes place is just silly and if someone is willing to trade some tang for some cha-chang (This line strikes me as genius and I am going to get that trademarked) then more power to them.

I wasn't sure I was up for anything last night but thought I would try for the sake of The Book so when I got home, I checked the mail, got ready for bed, and went hunting for some cash to pay my lady of the night. I don't carry cash so I was literally counting change to see what it would get me. I found a quarter and a Canadian penny that for some reason was sitting in my change cup and deposited them on top of Diana's book on her bedside table. Then I slipped under the covers and tried to read...for about 20 seconds.

The next thing I know I am waking up to Diana coming home. In my daze I did hear her ask, "Is this my money to have sex with you?" I grumbled "Yes" and I have a feeling it didn't sound as sexy coming out of my mouth as it did in my head. So, I paid for sex last night and like many nights when I have been drinking, I didn't have any.

I don't know what is worse, the fact that I put money down for sexual favors and didn't get any or the fact that my wife didn't seem upset that I only offered 26 cents.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 351 - Red Sock, White Sock, Kickball, Tacky Shirt

2009-12-18T08:10:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was our final game in the regular season of Kickball and The Good, The Bad and The Ballzy took on Kick Balls, Not Puppies. Sadly we lost in the final inning when a bad call got us out on second. It was in contention but was given to the other team and cost us the win at 5-6. No matter, we still had fun and I made it all the way to 3rd before being tagged out on a run home.

Along with kickball, we all wore tacky sweaters/shirts and this gave me the opportunity to complete a task. I was supposed to 'Out' myself as a This Book Will Change Your Life participant by wearing one red sock. Anyone who had done The Book would recognize my signal and know I was in the Brotherhood and come talk to me.

While this didn't happen, our Christmas theme was the perfect opportunity to wear a red sock without the normal people wondering why. So, I put on one red and one white sock and before the game started, I tucked my jeans into them and played the game with my red sock visible to all.

I went out to the bar after the game and played some Foosball and the entire time I kept my sock exposed. It was very festive. No one approached me so there must not have been any other Bookies in the bar or on the field. Such a shame too because I really would like to meet someone else that has gone through this.

14 days to go.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 350 - Mason mania

2009-12-17T07:59:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to join the Freemasons yesterday. The Book had a form and everything. 2 problems with this. First, you had to have 2 Masons recommend you for entry, and two, Masons are F-ing crazy and I am afraid of them.

They are a secret society of people that don't let anyone into their inner circle. It is like Scientology except older. I have always been fearful of them and their ways. I saw Skulls with Joshua Jackson and I don't want to get involved with that crazy crap.

Another issue I have, and probably a reason they would deny my membership is that they have a constitutional declaration of belief in a the Supreme Being. I do not. I can see how that would go.

"Newt, do you claim allegiance to the Supreme Being?"
"erm...No, not really. Can I take a bench on that topic?"
"What?! No! You must pledge allegiance."
"To the Flag? I can do the Flag."
"No, get out of my sight."
"Toodles"

It wouldn't be pretty.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 349 - Timber

2009-12-16T08:16:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to cut down a tree yesterday. Can you believe that? Like I can do that. I don't have an axe, a flannel shirt, or boots. And there is not tree I could cut that would not end up with me in jail for destruction of public property.

Since I am a fat ass I turned this into an exercise in food. Below is one of my seasonal favorites, Little Debbie Christmas Tree Cakes. They come in vanilla and chocolate and are freaking awesome. Notice they are trees? Good, otherwise I would have to disown you as readers.
I might not be able to swing an awe but if you hand me a box of these I will be your Paul Bunyan. I don't have a blue ox but I have a Babe named Diana. When I threw a tree on her lap I think she got more pleasure than I usually give her. We both ended up eating two of these, one chocolate and one vanilla a piece, before the night was over.

I was mad at myself for not yelling "Tiiimmmmbbbeeeerrrr!!!!" after eating each one though.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 348 - $20 for some chicken

2009-12-14T13:09:00.000-06:00

I pulled a $20 out of the ATM today for my task. You see, there is this elaborate story on today's task about a man who gives a homeless person $20 and through a series of events is rewarded 100 fold because of it. Thus I was to give a homeless person a $20 and see what happens.

I went at lunch to find a homeless person. If you have ever hunted the homeless I will be placing a call to the proper authorities to report you. I, on the other hand, was out HARMLESSLY tracking the homeless today and was coming up with very little in the way of prey.

I first went to the local corner but there was no one to be found. I then checked the other three corners but they too were empty. I considered checking under a bridge but it was warm in Dallas today and seemed more likely to find them not home. The Whataburger I frequent has its fair share of vagabonds and I even went by there at both breakfast (I didn't eat) and lunch (again I didn't eat) but none were to be found.

Finally I hit a corner I knew to frequent the homeless population and struck gold. More like black gold actually as this particular homeless person was black. He wasn't as downtrodden as some I have seen but since 'beggars can't be choosers' I didn't feel right being choosy about my beggar. I pulled up to the corner he was at and flagged him over.

He was jovial as I held the money out the window and he jogged over. His sign read "Grub" which I took to mean he wanted some because being homeless and having the name Grub seemed to much bad karma for one person to be plagued with. He reached for the money and I said "Merry Christmas". He took it and then recognition hit his eyes as he realized the value. He said "Thanks. Now I can get some food" and darted across the street and headed to the local Church's Chicken.

The irony that a black man went straight to a chicken place made me laugh and also feel slightly racist. However the feeling of doing a good deed overcame it and put a smile on my face. I suppose I will now wait for my karmic rewards.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 347 - Is anyone there?

2009-12-14T08:51:00.000-06:00

Did you call me yesterday? Well if you did I didn't answer. In fact, I didn't answer the telephone at all yesterday. If anyone called I wouldn't have anyway. It turns out it isn't difficult to ignore phone calls when you don't get them.

Is it pathetic that no one thought, "I should call Trinity on Sunday"? Maybe a little but I don't really use the phone that much. I got an iPhone and only got that cause it was cool and had mobile Internet. It had nothing to do with the phone per se.

If I am absolutely honest, I spent all day with Diana yesterday and kept meaning to check my task but didn't get around to it until 6 or so and by then it was just coincidence that I hadn't had a phone call. As I told Diana, "Yeah for accidentally completely my task today".

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 346 - Speech! Speech!

2009-12-14T08:45:00.000-06:00

I made a speech on Saturday. It wasn't an especially moving speech or a rousing one but on the way home from an awesome Sister Hazel concert, Diana and I were discussing stuff and I took control.

We had been in a discussion about some personal things that I won't go into on here, nothing bad, and I made a clear and concise speech about what I thought we should do and all of the reasons behind my thinking. I pointed out what I thought was the right way to go about it and after some consideration, she agreed with me.

How is that for speechifying?

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 345 - Old Age

2009-12-11T13:32:00.000-06:00

I am 27 years old and hope to retire from real work when I get to about 65 or so. A few years back, Diana and I decided this and moved forward with some investing that we decided we needed to do to get us to the place where we could retire in style and not have to work forever. I tell you all of this because for today's task I was supposed to plan for old age.

I wonder what old age will be like. I am going to guess my house will be paid off by age 65 so we will just have to have money for fuel cells for our flying cars and for the space travel expeditions we will go on. I bet Jupiter is lovely this time of year.

I am going to bank on having a personal teleporter because I really think someone will figure that technology out in 40 years. Also, I am going to guess I will be able to have extra appendages added to my body so I can have the prehensile tail I have always wanted. Now your thinking, "a 65 year old man with a monkey tail sounds pretty gruesome" but I am looking forward to it so you can just take you gene-splicing prejudice and stuff it.

I figure I will live to at least 90 so having 25 years off is going to get old pretty quickly. If jobs aren't completely outsourced to India by 2047 then I can get a job for a few hours a week that will be for the best. Having me get bored is usually a bad idea. If not, I suppose I could always just sit all day and read my comics because by that point I will probably have so obscene an amount that it will be dangerous.

All in all I think old age will be pretty cool.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 344 - Naval digging

2009-12-11T08:01:00.000-06:00

Holy Hell it was cold yesterday. It was Thursday yesterday and that meant another round of kickball. I was asked to line ref the game before ours so I showed up around 7 and thourougly regretted it. I don't know the actual temperature that we hit yesterday but I would guess it was in the 30s and even though I tried to dress warm, I didn't do well and thought I might loose my toe to frostbite. Our team won its game against the Hamburglers though so we are on a three game win streak.

As for my task, I was to collect my belly button lint and send it in to the Benrik Corporation to help make a sweater for a dog they had photographed and placed in The Book. I hope by now he already has a sweater but there is a small envelope on my desk that is headed to NYC with two small wads of lint from yesterday. I excavated the second helping before getting into bed and all I can say is, "My belly button lint is blue". Not sure what that is about.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 343 - Pine-ing

2009-12-10T07:57:00.000-06:00

I didn't find this stupid tree so I don't get $1000. I could have used it too.

That is all,

Newt

p.s. Ignore that the task is for day 344. I had to rearrange.

TBWCYL Day 342 - Let me get that for you

2009-12-09T08:01:00.000-06:00

Who says chivalry is dead? Oh wait, I meant chauvinism. I got to pretend yesterday that I was living in the 50's, where men were men and women didn't count. Sure, they had a few perks but lets face it, they weren't thought much of, and that is the way I like it.

I was kind to women most of the day, opening doors, taking a cart off of their hands at the store so they wouldn't have to walk them back, etc. But when I got home, that is when the real fun began. I put my wife in her place. "Cook me dinner woman!" was yelled; "Bring me a beer" exclaimed. She was my servant, the way God intended her to be. When she talked, I made sure she knew how stupid her ideas were. You don't want them getting any ideas about 'Girl Power' or any of that shit.*

What a good day,

That is all,

Newt

*Actually, yesterday consisted of me coming home to an empty house and warming up chili until 9 when Diana finally came home and we watched "So You Think You Can Dance". I was polite enough to control the remote and fast forward through all the commercials. It is hard to boss someone around who isn't there.

TBWCYL Day 341 - Butter makes it better

2009-12-08T07:57:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to do something kinky yesterday. I made that the first sentence because after that it is on your head if you read anymore of this post.

My wife was running late last night and didn't end up getting home until after 8. She is out of commission at the moment so using her in my kinky act seemed unlikely so I determined I was going to have to manage with things myself.

I have been trying to get in the Christmas spirit and part of that has been with cooking. I feel like when you cook it warms your house and a warm home is one of the things I associate heavily with Christmas. Last night for my culinary endeavor I decided to mix butter and brown sugar into a paste and drizzle it on almonds and pecans and roast them so I could take them to work. After getting them in the oven I decided to complete my task.

So, the kinky thing I did...well I rubbed one out with butter on my hands. Now I didn't use a stick of butter or anything but after I got finished coating my nuts I just didn't wash my hands. So there was butter on my fingers and I thought, 'What the hell'.

My nuts turned out well.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 340 - Meat me in St. Louis

2009-12-07T08:00:00.000-06:00

I have a bad feeling I will regret yesterday. I was tasked with being a carnivore and was allowed to only eat red meat yesterday. No veggies, no bread, no sweets. I had to adjust this a little by saying, "Only Eat Meat" because I couldn't make breakfast without it.

I went to the store around 9 a.m. to grab eggs and bacon. I cooked it up and probably ate about 10 slices when all was said and done. I am sure that won't backfire on me.

After running around all day I started to get hungry and we were at Target so I bought some beef jerky and dove into it once we hit the car. Diana hates the smell of beef jerky but she fought through it. I however love the stuff and could eat it all day. She said, "What flavor is that?" and all I had to say back was "Beef".

While at the store during the morning, I also bought 2 steaks and since it is cold here, I decided to broil them. They turned out decent enough so for dinner I had steak. Just steak. No potato or green beans. Just steak.

God I wanted a piece of bread. How those Atkin's Diet people do it I will never know.

Funny story. We only ate one steak so at 9 p.m. last night I took a knife and went to town on the other cooked slab of beef and cut it into tiny slices. I headed back to the store to get everything for chili and came home to start it up. I decided I would leave it simmering overnight and then finish cooking it after work today.

I started cutting the onions and halfway through I was balling my eyes out. This was the most pungent onion I had ever cut into. After suffering through it I moved onto two very small jalapenos. I seeded them and chopped them and put them in. When I was done I washed my hands and sat down to read while my chili was simmering.

I pick my nose a lot. If I feel something stuck in there I act like a three year old and dig until I can't dig anymore. Apparently I didn't get my fingers clean after cutting the jalapenos because as I was reading a comic and winding down, I started an excavation project and about 2 minutes later, my nostrils were on fire. Have you ever had a burning sensation inside your nasal cavity? It hurts.

I was running around trying to clean it out with a wet paper towel and Diana was laughing at me when I asked, "What do you do to stop the burning?" Diana said, "Put bread on it, the carbs stop the burning" and I was desperate so I ran to the breadbox and pulled out a slice of Wheat and ripped two wads off and shoved them up my nose. I'll be damned if it didn't work.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 339 - He does exist!

2009-12-06T09:06:00.001-06:00

Christmas is upon us and with it means Santa is just around the bend. I have already seen him at multiple stores with little snot nosed virus vessels sitting on his lap. I enjoy Christmas alright but haven't had the gusto for it that I did when I first started life. I think that every year it looses a little of its fun. I think once we start having children things might be different but until that far off day arrives I will just have to enjoy the little things about Christmas.

One of my favorite little things is how blindly children believe in Santa and I support that belief whole heartily. It came in handy today because I was supposed to convince a child that Santa does exist. I had to work at the comic book store yesterday so I thought I would get plenty of chances to ask kids if they were excited for Santa's visit because I figured I would either get a big "YES" or a " Santa isn't real" to which I would lay the "truth" on them and set them back on the path of belief.

That didn't happen. Not one kid was in that could talk so logically I didn't get to try. But I still had time and we went to 'ICE' at the Gaylord Texan here in Dallas. ICE is an interesting thing. This giant resort takes their convention center and closes part of it off. Then they bring some Chinese people in from somewhere in China and set up tents and build ice sculptures and paint them or dye them to the right color and you get to walk through and see it. The room is kept at between 9 and 14 degrees so you are issued a parka before walking in the door.

This year's theme was "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and so all the sculptures were scenes from the book. My wife will surely post about it so if you want to see pictures, get to her blog. Anyway, we were taking a 4 year old with us which I figured was a perfect target. That little brat was not good to use because she had mood swings from super happy to crying to grouchy all in the space of 10 seconds. I kept trying to ask her but she just stuck her tongue out at me. I never did get an answer from her.

I had a few good arguments for Santa's existence that I didn't get to use.

1: If he didn't exist then how come all of these people believe and you don't? (Kids don't understand commercialism)
2: I know Santa exists because I caught him once putting presents under my tree. (I would then make up an elaborate story about how I came out of my room because I set a trap for Santa and caught him. I had to free him and he told me that what I did was naughty but he still gave me the Ninja Turtle I wanted.)
3. He does so. Nya Nya. (And I stick my tongue out at them.)

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 338 - Rainbow chaser

2009-12-05T09:14:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to dig at the end of a rainbow yesterday but I couldn't find one. You would think the makers of this book would have had some forethought to say, "We should only make tasks that are achievable". I thought I might stumble across a fake one on the street and I would just dig at it but I couldn't find one.

I feel like the last of the tasks are less interesting than the beginning ones. I haven't had tasks the level of 'give yourself an enema' or 'don't talk all day'. I honestly feel the days winding down and can't wait until January 1st when I don't have to remember to check my book before I leave the house so I can figure out what I have to do for the day.

That is all,

Newt

Busted - A Post about being a nerd and a compulsive shopper

2009-12-04T11:20:00.000-06:00

I think I made a grave error in judgement. Remember a few weeks ago when I was helping my coworker find a comic related gift for his nephew? Well, that kind of backfired on me. It started innocently enough. I got on ebay to look for something for his nephew and found a few things. If you haven't ebayed before you might not realize this, but sellers ususally sell more than one thing. It is old hat that when you are buying something from a seller that you usually just check out his or her other auctions to see what else they are selling so if you are interested you can buy more and save on the shipping.

All in all this is usually a good idea but when you are Newt the Wonder Frog, things can turn a little froggy and that is when you know you are in a bad place. I found an auction for him and did just as I said, checking the other availible items when I came across this beauty.

Meet the Mole Man. He is a Fantastic Four villian and was only $9.99. How could I turn it down? Well, I couldn't and this was the match that lit the dynamite that ended with me finding over $300 in mini-busts from three different sellers and a huge drop in my personal spending. Below is the rest of my haul.

Mysterio

Rhino

Hobgoblin

The Lizard

Kraven the Hunter

Morbius the Living Vampire

Black Cat

The Vulture

Sandman

Hulk - Grey Version

The Beast

Wolverine

Bucky the sidekick to Captain America

Yellowjacket

The Absorbing Man

I was so excited to put them up on display for my shelves, or most of them anyway. The Wonder Frog Sculpture Gallery now has a Fantastic Four and Spiderman display. The original Avengers exhibit has been retired for now.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 337 - Space, the Expensive Frontier

2009-12-04T08:12:00.000-06:00

I was supposed to go to www.spaceadventures.com yesterday and sign up to go into space. After perusing the site I just have to say.

Are. You. F-ing. Crazy?

Go to that site and look around. Go on, I'll wait. Did you see that shit? Who has $9,700 for Centrifuge training? Or $89,000 for Cosmonaut training? I mean really. And the guy who founded Cirque de Soleil apparently just went into space. Who does that? It would be cool, don't get me wrong, but I don't have that kind of cash.

I know space travel is getting cheaper and I can foresee one day when travel sites like Orbitz will be offering one way tickets to the moon but it sure as hell hasn't happened yet. Maybe in 40 years I can go up when I retire.

Damn!

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 336 - Wine-O

2009-12-02T20:55:00.000-06:00

Howdy all. I am slightly tipsy and becoming a wine connoisseur at the moment. This was a task I could get behind. I was supposed to become a Wine Master by following these four steps.

I opened a bottle of Montes Classic Series 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon that was in my wine bar, I think I may have bought it on discount from somewhere, and poured myself a glass. It had an angel on the bottle and looked fancy.

Step 1: Swirl
I swirled the glass but it was really full so I didn't get the effect I was looking for. The color of the wine is a rich rouge and it has very little leg on it. Again that may be due to the size of the glass.

Step 2: Sniff
With my honker that isn't a problem. The smell is acidic in nature with a slightly subtle hint of rubbing alcohol to it.
Step 3: Taste
Wine in my mouth. Yep, that is wine. Just kidding. I took a sip and let the wine hit all parts of my tongue. The acid makes the tip tingle and the back of my throat burn. Clearly this was discount wine as it leaves my tongue with that burned feeling that makes you know your taste buds have met their match.

Step 4: Spit
Fuck That! I don't spit out alcohol and anyone who says you should is a stupid ass piece of poop that smells like patchouli and looks like Chelsea Clinton. Sorry, Chelsea. You aren't attractive.

Well, I guess I still have about half a bottle to finish off of this fantastic year in wine. I suppose I should have eaten something first but....zzzzzzzz.

TBWCYL Day 335 - If I was invisible

2009-12-02T08:16:00.000-06:00

It is not easy becoming invisible. Unlike the movies, there is no elixir you can drink to make you see through. I was tasked with being as invisible as possible today and did my best to avoid people and make myself as unnoticeable as possible.

I started the process by avoiding carpool. I drove myself in and home so as not to talk to my coworker. My office has two doors and I shut one of them fully and the other partially to make people think I needed to be left alone which ended up working better than I thought possible.

We are in the middle of recruiting season which causes us to have to interview upcoming graduates pretty regularly and today was one of those days. Thus, I couldn't stay hidden all day. I had to participate in some of the interview process which blew my cover for invisibleness.

I went to lunch and huddled in the corner of the Subway and read with my back to the restaurant. When I was leaving I thought, "If the police came and asked if they anyone had seen me, the people would say 'no'" Mission accomplished!

I must have been doing something right because after lunch one of my coworkers came by my desk and asked, "Where have you been all day?" Pretty good huh?

The rest of the day I got pulled into a few things and didn't get the transparency I was looking for but I was still invisible enough throughout the day to feel like this is one in the win column.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 334 - Flower Power

2009-11-30T15:32:00.000-06:00

My task today scared my mother. I was supposed to send her Roses today but she isn’t that big a fan so I chose a different bouquet and was getting ready to send it to her when I thought about it and decided to call and make sure she was at work today. She answered and the conversation went like this.

T: Hey, are you at work today?
M: Yes. Why?
T: I am sending you something and wanted to make sure you were there today. It’s for my task.
M: Oh God!
T: Don’t worry. It is a nice surprise.

So, I ordered the arrangement and made sure to have it delivered today. I included an apology for missing Thanksgiving on the card. Around lunch my mom called me back and I assumed it was to say thank. I was wrong.

M: Hey, do I need to be here for this deliver?
T: No. As long as someone is there to receive it you don’t.
M: You are really scaring me with this. I don’t want to go to lunch.
T: Mom, it isn’t a scary surprise. It’s a nice surprise.
M: OK. I just didn’t want to go to lunch if I needed to be here.
T: No, you can go and maybe when you get back you will have a nice surprise.

I waited again and laughed at the idea that a nice gift from a son to his mother would cause the recipient such angst. At 3 p.m. she called me back.

M: Hi, thanks for the flowers.
T: See, I told you it wasn’t scary. Do they look good?
M: Yeah, I am trying to figure out what they are. Tulips?
T: Yeah, tulips and pine is what it was called.
So, I scared my mom and then she got flowers instead. What would candy have done?

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 333 - Getting to First Base

2009-11-29T20:30:00.000-06:00

I was told to take myself on a date today. Now, I will say that if I had to go on a forced date then taking myself is probably the best case scenario. Now, what to do on my date?

T: The date started out fine. I picked him up at 11:30 and we headed to the movie theatre. I picked Julie and Julia since I wanted a feel good movie.
T: He picked me up with 1o minutes until the movie started. I couldn't believe how rude that was and the worst part was the cheapskate took me to the $1 theatre. Who does that?
T: The movie went well. I liked it and thought it was pretty cute.
T: He chose a seat with a broken chair so I had to sit left of center to the theatre, which I hate.
T: After the movie a buzzkill appeared. My old lady called during the movie and I had the phone on silent but I was pretty sure he heard the buzzing. I called Diana while walking out of the theatre and I could tell it upset him.
T: What the hell!?! We were on a date, a shitty one but still, and he talks to his wife? I couldn't believe it. The only good thing I heard was we were going to eat which sounded great to me.
T: I told Diana I was going to go eat but I realized I hadn't gotten a haircut so I revised my plan and took my date to the SportsClips to get purdy for my date. I was pretty happy with the result.
T: That son of a bitch took me to a freakin' hair cutting place. How is that a date? The cheap bastard! I couldn't believe it. And the worst part was he didn't take me to eat. He said he wasn't hungry. What about me? What if I was hungry?
T: I couldn't tell if the date went well or not. I was hoping for a hand job or something but when I told him I was going to have to get home it seemed unlikely.
T: Never again!

So, I guess when you date yourself it isn't as cut and dry as it could be. Who knew?

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 332 - Numbers

2009-11-28T08:45:00.001-06:00

Greeting me this morning as my task was a page that requested I fill out all of the important numbers in my life. Things such as Phone, Address, Birthday etc. I filled it out but as you can imagine I can't put it up on the web. I also didn't write the full credit card numbers it asked for. If that book fell into the wrong hands I would be cooked.

I don't know if the makers of This Book Will Change Your Life were just thoughtful in putting these easy tasks near a holiday or if it was coincidence but it has been nice to have a few days of simple tasks.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 331 - R&R

2009-11-28T08:41:00.000-06:00

I get a day off. Yippee. The Book was kind to me and gave me a day of rehabilitation. Since I didn't have anything to do and was actually off from my day job, I pulled an extra shift up at Titan Comics. By 7 I was wiped. I guess my day off was more exhausting than it was meant to be.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 330 - Hike it up

2009-11-28T08:35:00.000-06:00

Well, Thursday was Thanksgiving and I didn't blog because I was on the house putting lights on it. We did a thing that Dallas has called the Turkey Trot which just means we got up early and went down with a ton of other Dallasites and walked around downtown to benefit the YMCA.

My task for Thursday was to pick up a hitchhiker. There are all of these stories about murderous hikers and such but I think the majority of people aren't bad so I wouldn't be adverse to picking up a hiker. However, two things stopped me. 1: I didn't see any hitchhikers and so I couldn't pick one up and2: Diana would kill me if I picked up a hitcher.

So, task tried and failed.

Nothing to be thankful for that day.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 329 - Pucker Up

2009-11-25T08:12:00.001-06:00

Imagine the most intimate kiss your lips could achieve. Was it passionate? Warm? Was there feeling in it?

Well, I had to kiss a part of someones body today that had never been kissed before. Now think of everywhere you have ever been kissed and tell me what is left. Go on? Where have you not been kissed before?

See, I gave this some thought before doing this task and the problem is you have to consider a persons life. Sure there are a few places you can guarantee kisses to have landed but the problem is you must consider one variable in kissing that most might not, The Parents. Parents kiss their babies everywhere. "Oh, these are the cutest toes I just want to eat them, numnumnum. Oh that is the cutest elbow ever, kissy kissy." The list goes on and on.

That's why I made sure to go for somewhere I know my wife has never been kissed and that is her butt crack. Don't get all sick on me, it was clean. I actually saw her wash it as I sat on the edge of the tub while she was in the shower this morning to be sure. Diana has a small birthmark right where her cheeks part and after she had toweled off this morning I made her stand in front of me as I gave her a "Wmack" right at the beginning of her coin slot.

She wouldn't let me post a pic of the area.

That is all,

Newt

TBWCYL Day 328 - Whats a Motto? Nothing, Whats a motto with you?

2009-11-25T08:03:00.000-06:00

Ah the Lion King. Such a great movie. And speaking of Mottos, I chose one to live by yesterday from The Book. I read them all carefully and decided on the one below.

Aut Vincam Aut Periam

Either Win or Perish

I think it adds a fighting spirit into things and makes sense for me as when I go for something I have a tendency to over commit and go balls to the wall on things. Thus the game night of 2008 when I made my friends boyfriend quit playing a game after badgering him because we were losing. Yes, he was my partner in the game but he wasn't using his mind correctly to extrapolate the info I was sending him. Taboo can be a very competitive game.

I looked it up to make sure The Book wasn't pulling my chain and found that it is the official motto for the the Pursell clan.

Origin: Irish
Coat of Arms: Gold with a cross between four black boars heads.
Crest: An arm holding a sword on which there is a black boar's head.
Motto: Aut vincam aut periam

That is kind of cool.

That is all,

Newt