Brady’s Blog

i have a buzz cut..

not because i think it’s attractive..

or cool..

i have a buzz cut because the shorter it gets cut the longer it is before i have to mess with it again..

i usually buzz it myself but it’s difficult to do a good job of it when you can’t see and i usually end up having to get the clippers out again a couple of days later when i realize i missed a spot or eight..

so i went to sports clips..

sports clips is the place where you get your haircut in a room full of tvs playing all kinds of sports..

i like sports clips ok.. most men do..

i have no idea how the women who work there make it through the day..

it would be like someone strapping a heads up display on me and making me watch oprah and ‘the view’ all day while i worked..

when you go in there, they ask you if you have a preference as to who cuts your hair..

normally, i snicker at this..

after all, what difference could it possibly make..

a buzz cut is the equivalent of a shotgun haircut..

you just point the shears in the general direction of the head and pull the trigger..

you don’t need a hot shot sniper to do the job..

but yesterday i was treated to a real pro..

she was patient..

and not ashamed to be handling the less glamorous work of what is essentially shearing a goat..

normally i have them cut with a number 1 or number 2 guard on the clippers..

this girl suggested we remove the guard completely and essentially just shave my head..

i love it..

i’ll definitely be asking for her again..

i think her name was angela..

or judy..

or brenda..

not sure..

and i didn’t really see her because i was watching sports center..

i’m sure her name was NOT erica..

this blog is mostly about dumb things i’ve done..

but sometimes i have the opportunity to write about my mistakes ahead of time..

for instance, i’m running a 10k in a couple of weeks..

no, not 10k over the course of the next couple of weeks..

i’m actually running all 10 of those k’s at once.. on the morning of the 14th of october in the two thousand and sixth year of our lord..

i think it’s safe to say that’s not a very smart thing to do..

especially when i’ve only been running for a few months and this particular event is put on by a world class cross country team..

we’ll just go ahead and file that under “asking for it”..

now here’s the interesting thing about this race..

there’s a heavyweight division..

if you’re over 190 lbs, your time goes against the other heavies for a separate prize (presumably a years supply of donuts and bacon)..

now when i started running, i weighed 238 pounds..

and i’ve lost 50 since then..

so that puts me pretty close to fat guy racing range..

the only thing is, i’ve been eating like a horse for the last couple of months and haven’t gone above 190 for more than a few minutes because i’m running so much (18+ miles per week)..

so the question is, do i incorporate some sort of ultra pig-out diet in my training regimen in the hopes that i’ll be big enough to run as a fatty, or do i do my best to just run and cut weight up to race day to improve my overall time..

tough one..

nothing like getting weight gaining incentive from the cross country folks..

of course, the fact that i’m even thinking about it should make me eligible for the low iq division..

that could be my niche..

i could be the all time fastest dumb fat guy cross country runner..

it’s such a good feeling when you finally find your place in the world..

kickball was the sport of choice in my elementary school..

looking back it seems like that’s all we did..

i do remember one day of recess when i just walked around the school yard talking to girls instead of playing kickball..

i had fallen off the bleachers at a softball game the night before and landed square on my tailbone - i could hardly walk much less compete at the level of kickball excellence expected of me..

i didn’t want to tell everyone i had a broken butt so i just acted like i was being a ladies man or something..

just about every other day of recess was spent on the kickball field..

oh sure there was some “kill the man with the ball” (aka “smear the queer”) but mostly it was kickball..

i don’t know how you did it at your school, but at rountree elementary you had the god given right to choose your pitch..

pitcher: “howya wannit?”

kicker: “slow and bouncy.. sloooow and bouncy..”

there was a girl named gayle in our grade - i remember her as being really really big but thinking back my guess is she was large but not terribly so..

she liked her pitches slow and bouncy and when she came up everyone backed way up because she could flat out put the hurt on the old kickball..

gayle’s mom once told me i was cute “as a bug in a rug..” yikes..

we also had a kid who’s sole objective when playing kickball was to try to break a window..

he’d hit a window a few times a year, but they were hard to break for some reason..

i was sitting in music class one day when he finally put one through the window and sprayed broken glass all over all of us..

that event was like the space shuttle tragedy or 9/11 for the kids at rountree..

everyone could remember where they were and how they felt the day that kid put out that window..

it was a huge deal..

they even moved the kickball field after that..

they also made another change not long before i left rountree..

i guess they didn’t like us getting all muddy so they decided instead of grass and dirt for a playground it would be better for us to have rocks..

so they covered the whole playground with white rocks..

not gravel..

rocks..

brilliant..

nothing like playing kickball and smear the queer on a couple of acres of jagged rocks..

it was kind of like being a gladiator in ancient rome..

only bloodier..

and there was a girl named gayle involved..

probably not a lot of girls named gayle in the colosseum..

mrs. cracker and i were given a mickey mouse waffle iron as a wedding present..

i think we used it a lot more before we had kids but we still drag it out once in a while..

it’s usually employed in a situation like this evening when mrs. cracker is out and the kids and i are fending for ourselves for dinner..

i do this because it’s a very easy meal to prepare and is the closest thing to having dessert for dinner that we can get away with now that all the kids are old enough to tattle on me..

sometimes after we’re all fed, i’ll go ahead and cook the rest of the batter and freeze a few mickeys for later..

works pretty well unless i also try to start bathing the kids while i’m still cooking..

that’s mickey after about 25 minutes in the tanning iron..

monday night football is being played in new orleans tonight..

the big re-opening of the superdome..

a big homecoming extravaganza, etc..

good deal..

they just gave a few nice wide pan shots of the crowd..

i think there were about 50 black people there..

and without regard to race, i’m guessing at $400 to $1200 a seat, the clientele has changed dramatically since the last time they filled the joint..

i am glad they’re starting to get back on their feet down there..

after $185,000,000 in restoration expenses they now have a very nice football facility..

and they’re saying all the tourist areas are back up and running..

no houses yet, apparently..

but football and drinking is all squared away..

they also had some video in the opening of the show featuring an all black church singing when the saints go marching in..

i’m sure whoever wrote that had nfl football in mind..

the great part of that video was the preacher who kept chanting “we’re still here.. we’re still here..”

to which the rest of america would have to say..

why?

hdtv is pretty cool..

unless you’re a sideline reporter..

the lady you see there is a football babe for espn..

looks ok, huh?

in hd she looks like a circus freak..

i don’t think the cosmetics industry has caught up with the television industry just yet..

the beauty of hdtv is the ability to see everything in perfect realistic detail..

that means you can see every blade of grass on the field..

every drip of drool from every lineman’s mouth..

and every pimple and mascara clog on holly’s poor mug..

i can think of a pretty simple remedy that would help her get more in touch with the players and help the rest of us keep our eyesight..

a helmet..

debbie: “thank you for calling SecondWorst Telco, how can i help you?”

cracker: “well.. i need to report a couple of lines that are down - a t1 and a voice PRI..”

debbie: “ok.. do you have the circuit id’s?”

cracker: “no.. all i have is the physical address and the customer name - we’re trying to round up the circuit id’s from the customer..”

debbie: “well.. we have to have the circuit id’s to look it up..”

cracker: “ok.. we’re getting that, but you can’t just look it up by the customer name or the address?”

debbie: “no we can’t sir.. we must have the circuit id to look it up..”

cracker: “ok.. i find it hard to believe there’s no way to look this up by customer name or physical address.. never mind.. i’ll call you back in a minute..”

found the circuit id, called debbie right back..

cracker: “ok.. circuit id #1 is 5508061″

debbie: “ok.. let me just look that up.. hmm.. i can’t find that circuit id in our system.. what’s the other circuit id?”

cracker: “id #2 is 5508062″

debbie: “ok.. looking.. hmm.. that one doesn’t show up either..”

cracker: “ok.. well.. those are the circuit numbers for those lines..”

debbie: “well.. hmm.. i just don’t find either of those numbers in our system..”

she puts me on hold.. i wait..

then..

debbie: “do you have the customer name for this? uh-huh… ok.. and what’s the address?”

i started running a few months ago..

valentine’s day to be exact..

on that day, i choked and spat through a half mile walk/run that was much more walk than run and about as much fun as catching bricks with your teeth..

since that day i’ve increased both distance and speed quite a bit, though i’m certainly not running any 2 hour marathons by any means..

it’s about .6 miles around our neighborhood with a decent hill and i’ve successfully logged quite a few 10 lap sessions as well as a couple of trips over 7 miles..

one of the tricky things about running that kind of distance on a short track is you have to count your laps somehow..

seems pretty easy but it’s almost impossible for me to keep in my head how many laps i’ve run..

so i use toothpicks..

if i want to run 6 miles, i put 5 toothpicks in my left pocket to start..

each time i pass our mailbox, i move a toothpick to my right pocket until they’re all over there and then start moving them back..

two things are dangerously assumed here of course..

first, that i’ll remember each time i pass the mailbox to move a toothpick..

and second, that i’ll move the toothpick in the right direction..

knowing me, there’s an outside chance this system will actually cause my death..

i think i could easily get stuck in a loop of passing toothpicks back and forth from pocket to pocket and just run until i die..

maybe i should take 10 toothpicks instead of 5..

and each time i pass the mailbox i can shove a toothpick up under a fingernail..

not likely i’d accidentally repeat one that way..

of course, on my longer runs i’d have to finish with at least one shoe off..

i have a high tolerance for boredom..

i think this is generally the case with those in my IQ range..

or slightly lower..

like.. um..

termites..

i just really don’t get bored that easily..

now when i do get bored, i’m smart enough not to tell anyone, but i really can entertain myself pretty well in almost any situation for almost any length of time..

the problem with boredom is it tends to breed activity of a nature that is not necessarily beneficial to society as a whole..

that is to say, most of the great accomplishments are more likely to be born out of a system of active, continuous work towards a goal rather than someone just being bored and thinking “hmm.. nothing going on today.. guess i could try curing some diseases..”

the activities which result in the relief of boredom are usually more along the lines of “if i scrape all the dead skin off my hands, pile it up and burn it, will that smell good or bad?”

not that stuff like that isn’t important..

smells pretty bad by the way..

i like magicians and their tricks about as much as the next guy..

but these guys like criss angel and david blaine have got to go..

they expect to be taken seriously..

they actually expect people to believe they have magical powers..

and i guess some people probably do believe..

for me, there’s a little bit of logic standing in the way..

like.. um..

you have magical powers, but you get paid to perform magic tricks..

wouldn’t it be easier to magic up some cash and just be done with it?

in fact, you want to know how you can tell a real magician..

he’s not handcuffed and shackled at the bottom of a water tank full of sharks..

he’s standing in the middle of a giant pile of cash eating ice cream and giggling to himself..