The Dinner Project

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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!!!!

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

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

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

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...

"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

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

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