10,000 Channels and Nothing's On

    Earlier today, before the Blackhawks got throttled 7-0 (Ouch) and before the Ducks made their first Final Four since 1939 (Sweet!), Mrs. Snarky and I were skimming through the DirecTV guide trying to find something to kill an hour with before the Hawks game. It's truly hard to believe there is that much crap on television, and we seem to get more and more channels every day. The worst offenders, at least in my estimation, are the channels that play different episodes of the same show over and over, all day long. Ion Television, for instance, had nothing but Law and Order SVU all day, which is an okay show to watch once in a while, but ALL DAY LONG?  If I were to watch more than two episodes in a row, I think I'd become convinced that everyone in the world is a rapist.

Holy crap! They are after me!

    Another channel had America's Funniest Home Videos... ALL DAY LONG. 5 minutes of that show and I'm ready to vomit. Yeah, they have something to make me laugh on occasion, but the stupid shit they have the host say makes it completely not worth watching for me. Blech! GSN has the Family Feud. That's right. You guessed it. ALL DAY LONG!

I'm your man Steve Harvey and we got a good one for ya today. Holy Crap

, he says that A LOT!

    Another Channel called Reelz had different celebrities "Final Hours" and autopsies. Chris Farley's Final Hours. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Final hours. Seriously? Do people watch this stuff? Then, we got into the infomercial area of the guide. "The One Secret to a Flat Stomach!" Yes! I need that! But then they'd probably tell me that the secret is to not eat junk food and get some exercise. Oh, and probably you have to buy some crunch thing they are selling for just four easy payments of 19.95. Never mind. Then, we saw it. "The World's Greatest Wheelbarrow!" We both started laughing immediately. It's a wheelbarrow, right? What could be so great about it? Does it plant new grass seed and get you a beer out of the fridge? Maybe it has a cooler built into it. I can't imagine what could be so great. Until I just looked it up on Google.

Holy Crap! I might actually need this.

That is all.

 LOVE, MR. SNARKY

For Extra Fun, Watch this video (NSFW)

Oh Death and Grief and Sorrow and Murder

    Here it is, a day later and I'm feeling much better. Not 100% myself, but there's nothing like a funeral, followed by one of your favorite movies, followed by a long nap to help bring you back toward your version of normality. The funeral was a former coworker who'd been retired for about 5 years. I can't say we were close, but he was a nice man, I had the day off, it was right down the street from me, and I knew lots of people there.

    I did reaffirm one long held belief of mine by going to that funeral. I could NEVER be a Catholic. I mean no disrespect to the faith whatsoever. There are many things about Catholicism that I find beautiful. I just don't get the hard pews. SO UNCOMFORTABLE! With my back, that was a very long hour. Fortunately, you don't get to stand or sit very long at a Catholic service. Stand up, sit down, kneel, then stand, then sit again.

Am I the only one who goes to a funeral and thinks, "It's kind of nice to not be dead?"

    So I came home, got back into my pajamas just after lunch, and really took the day off. I told myself, "I'm not doing anything today," which is hard for some people, as it is for me if I'm feeling fine. So I put on "Almost Famous" and relaxed.

    Tomorrow and Sunday are both days off for me, and I plan on getting some things done around here. Unfortunately, after checking out the weather report, mowing the lawn probably won't be one of them.

If you could read this, you'd see rain, followed by more rain, then after that, yeah... RAIN!

    Thank you to all of you who continue to read every day; especially those who read the post from 2 days ago, even though I never posted a link. You made this Snarky old man happy.

LOVE,

You know who!

 

The Fog

    I haven't laughed, or made anyone laugh today. Not once that I can remember. Yesterday either. Maybe, just maybe Mrs. Snarky laughed at something I said, but she's always laughing at me. In a good way, although since becoming an adult, I don't really mind if people laugh at me. Makes me feel good that I've made them giggle, even if they are laughing AT me instead of with me.

    Today, and yesterday, not so much. Not at all, if I'm being real. For some reason, real is all I've got right now. I hope you don't mind. I have a bit of depression. Always have, always will. It's never been enough to make me want to jump off a bridge or anything, but it makes me withdraw.

    Every other Thursday, six to seven of our family members get together and have a writing/ creativity group. When I'm feeling it, I love it. We share stories, have dinner and have a lot of laughs. Depression doesn't mean sadness, although it can be a small part of it. For me, it's more of an emptiness that makes me shrink back into my head and hide. It's a feeling of inadequacy, even though I know that plenty of people care about me. It is also straight up pain. I don't know if the pain causes the depression or vice versa, but they kind of go hand in hand. I felt withdrawn and incapable of creativity tonight. I just remembered... I did make them laugh once, but I think it was just because they expected it to be funny. If I were in a good state of mind, maybe it would've been.

My mind feels something like this picture... foggy and barren, and it seems that spring will.

..

    ...never come, and yet, I know better than to let it consume me. Tomorrow I may feel on top of the world. The sun could be shining, my favorite music playing and I'm driving with the sunroof open down the Pacific Coast Highway. It's beautiful. Stunning even. Just not now. I really don't want to do anything but crawl into bed. Hide. From you. From my closest loved ones. From myself. Just... hide.

    At work, I smiled and said hello to friends and strangers alike. I put on my happy face. But it isn't real. It's a mask. I'm nervous to share this with people. I don't think I've ever gone into this much depth about it with anyone. Not ever. I hope you don't mind.

    Just so you know, I'm not asking for help or sympathy. It's just something I deal with from time to time. And I know I'm not alone. I also know that I'm supposed to be funny in my posts, and that makes me feel like I'm not doing my job when I write this. I've got the entire day off tomorrow, so I'll try to get some sleep and hope I'm feeling better.

    One last thing before I go. You are also not alone if you have feelings like this. It's okay. Ask for help if you need it. Figure out some way to let it out, and don't let it eat you up inside. You are loved. You are important. You matter.

Be well.

Love, Me

I Got Nuttin'

    I'm sitting here at my keyboard half asleep with a blank white screen and a mind just as empty. I'm just gonna keep it really short and sweet this evening, because, as I said once before, I promised to post something every night. I didn't promise it'd be anything good. Don't worry, I won't even share the link. I'm curious to see if anyone reads this or not.

    Before I go, here's a few Dad jokes.

    Did you hear about the guy who invented Altoids? They say he made a mint.

    Did you hear that the police have a warrant out for a midget psychic who keeps ripping people off? The notice reads, "Small medium at large."

    What's ET short for? Because he's only got little legs.

    I went to the zoo the other day, but it only had one dog in it. It was a shitzu.

Get it? 

It was a shit zoo (Shitzu)

Ahh, what do you know from funny?

I'm Out, 

Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow.

THIS IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!!!

    I guess this is my week for picking on coworkers, but something happened today that I just absolutely found unbelievable. The person of which I speak is in her late 50's or early 60's, and has never, at least not to my knowledge, lived in a cave. You won't believe this, but she had never heard of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." I know, crazy, right? I had done something for her and she said "Danke Shoen," and then proceeded to sing it. She asked me if I knew who sang the song and before I'd even had a chance to answer, she said, "Wayne Newton!" I replied, "Ferris Bueller sang it too." Then she said...

Wait, who?

    I said, "Ferris Bueller. You know... from Ferris Bueller's Day Off?"

    "I don't think I've ever heard of that. What is it?"

Inconceivable!

    So this made me wonder if some of my readers had missed out on some of the greatest movies of my generation. I would absolutely qualify Ferris Bueller in that list. "What list?" you ask? This list...

Mr. Snarky's Friggin Movie List

Snarky says, "If you ain't seen these movies, there's something wrong witchoo."

 This is NOT a comprehensive list of every movie you should watch, or even my top movies or anything. It's just stuff that I feel that everyone should see at some point. These are all from the 80's and are in no particular order.

"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" - The movie that made Matthew Broderick a star, also has a young Charlie Sheen cameo. A classic of my time.

"The Breakfast Club" - As Jay said in Dogma, "Judd Nelson was fucking HARSH!" Yes he was, Jay. Yes. He. Was.

"Fast Times at Ridgemont High" - Jeff Spicoli is amazing. That's all I can say.

Who would've guessed that this guy would end up with a pair of best actor academy awards one day?

"The Princess Bride" - Now, I know that not everyone gets this movie. Kind of like I don't get "This is Spinal Tap." I've had people tell me it was boring. I simply say to them, "You're boring!"

Any or all of the following - "48 Hrs.," "Beverly Hills Cop," "Coming to America." There was a time when Eddie Murphy was the funniest man alive, hands down. These are, in my opinion, his three best.

Finally, I'll go with "Caddyshack." Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield. Hilarity ensues. No, it's not the greatest movie ever, and maybe not even the funniest Bill Murray movie. But there's

something about it that just feels like my generation. Also, it was the first movie I'd seen in the theater with boobs! 

So it's got THAT goin' for it... which is nice.

 Gotta go!

Let me know what you think.

Down there.

In the comments section.

Yeah, there.

Mr. Snarky

Happy Flippin' Monday To You Too

    Having a one day weekend sucks. It especially sucks when the one day you have off turns out like mine did yesterday. (click here if you missed yesterday's post) So of course, I woke up in a terrific mood. (If you were unaware, bold italics = sarcasm) By the time I'd gotten my coffee and walked into work, the mood hadn't really improved, but I was as ready to face the day as I could get myself. Now, I'm not naming names, (FEZ!!!) but we had a short-term employee whose last day was yesterday. He's a younger guy, who is going to school and was going to be working with us for a while, but schedule changes forced him to quit. I liked the kid. As in past tense. I USED TO LIKE HIM. GRRRR!!!!

   

I had planned on showing some medieval torture device I would use on the guy but I found the images unsuitable for our younger readers and didn't want to get a PG-13 rating. Suffice it to say that you'd hate it, Fez.

    Now, you may be asking yourself, "Self, why is Mr. Snarky so angry with this Fez person so much today?" and Mr. Snarky might say, "Be patient. I'll get to it. Gosh!"

    I get to my work station and immediately I hear loud chirping noises. We have these birds for sale  that chirp when their motion detector is activated. I pretty much hate them, but I really hate when someone hides them where I won't be able to easily find them when I'm half asleep on Monday morning! The chirping continues and I go to open my drawer and find that it's taped shut. On my counter is a penny. Super-glued. I go to another workstation and that one starts chirping! And all around are little signs that say "FEZ WAS HERE!" And I'm thinking to myself, you're lucky you're not here now, pal!

No, Dr. Who. Fezzes are NOT cool. And anyway, I'm pretty sure he was named after this other Fez...

This one is not all that cool either.

    So, Fezbo the clown, this post is for you. You best watch your step if ever we see each other again. I'll get you back. I promise. (The following video is NSFW - explicit lyrics)

Much Love to You All.... except for Fez.

Okay, fine. Him too. I don't hold grudges.

SNARKY

The Perfect Day

    You know that feeling after a good day when you've gotten all the things done that you had planned, and life seems to be going just perfectly? You do? Well then, I kind of hate you. Not actual hate, I guess. Just very jealous. Mr. Snarky NEVER has those kinds of days. I hate to admit this, but I'm not extremely handy. I can get by; I'm not totally incompetent when it comes to fixing things, but I definitely not a master handyman either.

    For instance, we bought a new stereo for our car a couple of weeks ago. The one in the car is completely dead. It was an aftermarket stereo, so I figured it wouldn't be that tough to switch. You know, just unplug a couple of wires from one, stick 'em into the other, and voila! Yeah... no. First off, the pins from one don't match the other, so you've got to disconnect each wire from one and solder them onto the other. It looks something like this...

It's really simple. You just attach the yellow wire to the opposite yellow wire, making sure to... 

    Then there's the stereo installation kit, which you use to make the system fit snugly into your dashboard. The biggest problem I had with this was opening the package. It was in one of those plastic nightmares that are practically indestructible. I was trying to keep the package fairly nice in case it wasn't the correct kit and I'd need to return it. I failed miserably, and after about 5 minutes, I went into the kitchen, grabbed a steak knife, and hacked the stupid thing into oblivion. Then I went back out to the car, pulled the old unit out of the dash, opened my new stereo, and then saw that it would take a lot more than just unplugging from one and putting it back into the other. So I did what Homer Simpson would do.

"If it's too hard, just quit!"

    That's right. I gave up. I have kids and/or a nephew that would probably be glad to help me, or, there's always Car Toys. So I decided to do this other thing I've needed to get done for a while. Mow the lawn. Now, in Oregon where we live, it rains mostly all winter long. Sometime in March or April, the rain stops and it stays mostly sunny and nice for 5 or 6 months. Somehow, every fall, I manage to not get the lawn mowed nice and short before the rains start. Every other house on our block did just fine. Not me. The grass on the side of the house looks like a green hay field. We've had a few sporadic days of nice weather here over the last few weeks, but the rest of the time, pretty heavy rains. Every nice day we've had, I've been at work. My off days... not so nice. Until today. After my disappointment with the stereo, I went straight for the garage, pulled my nice, expensive, five-year-old Toro out. I gassed her up, pulled the rope... pulled it again... and again... about 100 times... and the damned thing wouldn't start.

   

And this was on TV. I was doomed.

    So then I get inside the house and I'm watching the end of the Hockey game, and meanwhile Mrs. Snarky has taken apart the entire bathroom, scrubbed everything, put it back together, repotted a couple of houseplants, finished the laundry and made dinner. When she was done, she could barely walk because her back was hurting her, but she wasn't quitting. Made me feel like a real bum. Whattaya gonna do? I got nothin'.

Try again tomorrow I guess.

Snarky