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| In honor of the overly paranoid John Peterson, I bring you a special rendition of the Budweiser "Real Men of Genius." (Ripped off from maybe the greatest radio ads of all time.)
Today we salute you, Mr. Ridiculously Paranoid Dude.
You, scared to partake in anything remotely risky, teach us that fun really can be had without risking the release of adrenaline.
Sure, the fact that you're scared to ride a motorcycle may seem ridiculous to some, but not to that guy at the mental hospital wearing a helmet and bubble wrap.
Where others may see a potential for good time, you preach a higher gospel.
You preach of a world where everyone locks their doors and tells their buddies to quiet down.
You say, "I can't go on that rollercoaster! What if it malfunctions?"
So crack open a fresh bottle of OCD medication, Mr. Paranoid, because we all know, when we really want to be safe, we can hang out with you for a night. | | |
| “Well I'm a mushroom-cloud-layin' motherfucker, motherfucker!”
A weekend recap… after a month plus of blog inactivity:
Friday was meant to be spent at the Skateville in Burnsville celebrating Lisa’s birthday, rolling in circles on 8 wheels, and furtively hitting on 12 year olds. Instead, John, Eddie, others, and I headed to Grandma’s where we ate delicious food, drank several pitchers, and sat outside to enjoy the amazing night. The plan to leave at 7:30 and head to Skateville vanished quicker than the civil, sober conversation.
After Grandma’s, we headed to Chuck’s place where I laid eyes on a ridiculously splendid high definition TV. I assumed we would watch some sort of sporting event or nature show, the two genres best suited for HDTV. I was quite surprised to learn that Chuck had connected the television to his laptop so that he could have a high definition monitor. Now, I consider myself a nerd… actually, a huge Nerd. But I obviously haven’t reached the Chuck level of nerdiness. What a waste of HDTV. Nerd.
Towards the end of the night (after an hour or two of high definition computer screen viewing), John and I headed to the Ofstedal residence where we were regaled with wonderful roller skating stories and provided beers free of charge. I was surprised to learn that despite Dan’s best attempts, he was unable to pick up any of the pre-teen skaters.
Saturday I arose early, as has been a pattern since I began that delightful hobby known as “work.” I picked up a little, threw the Frisbee around in 30 mph winds (more difficult than you think), and headed home to my parents’ place, a.k.a. the Knick-Knack Nest. My cousins, aunt, and uncle arrived at noon after their early morning trip “up” from Iowa. We spent the afternoon playing basketball and good naturedly ridiculing one another. I of course sweat enough to drown a small child, leading to a dampening and disgusting experience for the defender assigned to my nasty ass (scoring becomes much easier when everyone is afraid to come within two feet of you).
Final food tallies for Pete’s Saturday intake:
2.2 pounds of candy
3 pounds of meat (mainly consisting of ham)
1.3 pounds of various “salads”
2 pounds of dessert
1 mild stomach ache
2 gigantic turds
1 case of food induced sweating
49 silent, blamed on others gas releases (partly responsible for the title of this blog entry)
Sunday we awoke early for the 6:30 am Easter mass. Needless to say, Pete was not a cheery churchgoer. My meek attempts at sleeping in were quickly swatted by my dad’s persistent wake up calls and turning on of the brightest lights EVER.
After church, I consumed various muffins, croissants, doughnuts, egg bake, and sausages while pretending that my stomach wasn’t stretching to Al Roker proportions. Following a short nap, my Iowan family headed back down to the Mumps’ Prairie and my dad and I set off towards the golf course to hack around for the first time all year. After 93 strokes, one birdie, 15,000 steps (my dad was wearing his pedometer), three Nalgenes of water, and one sunburned head and neck, I headed home.
When I arrived home, Eddie’s family was in town for the weekend and cooking an Easter dinner at our apartment. They conveniently cooked extra food and allowed me to continue the weekend gorge-fest as I consumed unhealthy amounts of lamb, potatoes, asparagus, and chocolate. Thanks Eddie’s family!
Sunday night John and I watched Pulp Fiction, one of the 5 best movies ever made. Samuel L. Jackson, as Jules, ranks as one of my favorite characters of all time.
“Well I'm a mushroom-cloud-layin' motherfucker, motherfucker!”
Now if I could just devise a way to avoid Monday mornings..
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| Plethoric Perspiration
I sweat a lot. Those of you reading this entry are probably already privy to this knowledge. If not, here is a little story to help shed light on my excessive excretions.
When I was a junior in high school, I played on the basketball team. During the summer, we traveled around to various gyms for scrimmages to test our mettle against metro area squads.
One hot, sticky night we traveled to Minneapolis to take on De La Salle. The temperature was around 100 F with humidity in the 80’s, to give you an idea of the hot/stickiness factor.
The problem with this scrimmage was the gym didn’t have air conditioning. The school officials attempted to rectify the situation by opening the windows and doors but this only served to exacerbate the problem by letting in sunlight. Added to the ambient warmth was the body heat from a couple hundred screaming fans cheering on the absolute ass kicking the athletic De La Salle team was laying on the powerhouse Anoka Tornadoes*.
*By powerhouse I of course mean the worst basketball team to ever suit up for Anoka High School. My junior year our varsity team went 0-27 and I played a minor role in each of the losses. At the time, we had the largest student body in the state, yet couldn’t manage to win ONE game. Incredible, but I digress.*
As the game progressed, I began to drench my entire uniform in salty liquid. It seemed every pore was excreting massive amounts of sweat and I could do nothing about it. By the end of the second quarter, my entire jersey (shirt and shorts) was completely soaked and I was forced to resort to drying my hands by rubbing them on the top of my head (my hair was the only dry spot on my body).
During halftime, I attempted to cool off and drink water, but continued sweating anyways.
As the third quarter began, I entered the game and proceeded to completely miss two passes as they slid right through my drenched fingers. At this point, the coach realized I was even more useless than usual and removed me from the game.
As I sat on the bench, I looked down to see water slowly running out of my shoes onto the floor. I had literally soaked my jersey, body, socks, and shoes in sweat and as I sat perspiration dripped from my jersey down my legs and out my shoes. I had to place two towels under me to soak up all the sweat. I am not exaggerating this one bit.
Needless to say, I didn’t re-enter the game and we lost by 127 (maybe slightly exaggerated). We entered the locker room the losing team (as we had 27 times before). The coach, incompetent as ever, entered the locker room, looked around, stopped at me, and proceeded,
“Well boys, we got our asses handed to us again. I don’t know what else to add. But Pete, I have been coaching for 32 years, and I have seen a lot of sweaty men but I have NEVER seen anyone sweat even close to as much as you. THAT (pointing at me) is ridiculous.”
After that comment, the team broke into unexpected laughter and applause as I stared in sweaty bewilderment. We may have lost the battle, but we won the sweating war.
I consider this moment to be the apex of my athletic career.
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| Cranium, Calzones, Kittens, Cattle, Cadavers, and THE Cunningham
Highlights of an entertaining, extended weekend in Champaign, Illinois.
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Since I decided to make the 7 hour trek after work on Thursday, I was a tad sleepy as the drive progressed. I decided to stop, purchase an energy drink, and immediately chug the contents. Suddenly, my heart rate doubled, my eyes shot open, and my leg started involuntarily twitching. Maybe not the best plan.
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Going out to a new bar on campus (I forgot the name) where the record was set for most pointless pictures taken by one group of drinkers. OK, probably not. But many droopy eyed, giggling, boob licking, ass grabbing photos were snapped.
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Partaking in the largest calzone I’ve ever set my eyes on. Mmmmmm. Three pounds of bread, sauce, cheese, and sausage. Although I shortened my life polishing that baby over two gorge-a-licious days, artery congestion never tasted so delightful.
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Round 2 of Cranium where Erin and I dominated the early portion of the game only to choke under pressure and give the game away to the *cough cough* clutch *cough cough* team of Lisa, Stef, and Marj(orie?). I would comment but my hands are stuck around my throat. (I know we answered Kramer first! And yes, I’m bitter.)
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Checking out the Vet school as well as the extremely smelly, rotting components of dead animals. In the large animal barn, the smell of manure was much more pleasant and we were able to visit real, live horses and cattle. Erin tried talking to them but I’m pretty sure they don’t like her. Or maybe they just don’t speak English.
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