The Most Annoying Christmas Tradition

Some traditions need to go away. I’m talking about you, red hots on my Christmas cookie.

Does anybody like these stupid things? What do you like about them, the crappy taste or the feeling like your teeth are cracking when you bite into one? I bet you liked getting those crappy taffy things wrapped in the black or orange wax paper on halloween, too.

The most common sight you will see at a Christmas party is a platter full of crumbs and one or two Christmas cookies left over with about a dozen red hots on them each because a small child made them and didn’t know any better. It’s not the child’s fault, we as adults need to take responsibility and stop buying red hots to put on Christmas cookies.

I mean, I get it, sometimes you need something red to make a Rudolph nose or buttons on a gingerbread man or holly berries on a wreath. But can’t we use red M&M’s for that? Or some other red candy that isn’t spicy cinnamon based? Nothing? All of these options are better than red hots.

Now I know what your next question is. Ben, what is your stance on tiny metal ball things on Christmas cookies? Excellent question.

My stance on tiny metal ball things on Christmas cookies is that I’m okay with them. Yeah they’re still hard on the teeth but at least they are basically tasteless. Plus there is no substitute for tiny metal balls except for bb gun ammo. I don’t recommend eating bb’s although they are preferable to red hots.

I know traditions are important to honor the olden days and our ancestors' ways of doing things but enough is enough. Hell, in the olden days we used to let the British govern us from across the Atlantic but we bucked that tradition and it seems to be working out pretty well for everyone. I say we do the same for stupid red hots.

And while we’re at it, let’s stop doing the chicken dance at weddings, too. Thanks, World.


I dare you to find the cookie in this photo that won't be eaten. It's not difficult.

Crazy Target Lady

I started watching TV again, last night to be exact. I didn’t want to take any chances viewing any more commercials with that Crazy Target Lady, who has been giving me night terrors since last week. I don’t know where the ad wizards at Target found this woman or why they selected her to be the face of their Black Friday promotions but rest assured, they will NOT be getting my business any time soon on the off chance that I might run into this woman at their store. I feel like she would have no problem shoving a shiv into my side while making a bee-line at a bargain priced, off-brand flat screen.

Honestly, they need to make a horror movie starring the Crazy Target Lady. Does it take any imagination to envision the camera pulling back in any one of those commercials, and seeing a bunch of people chained to various torture devices along the walls in her house, like in a scene from Hostel? Eli Roth should be all over this. They could call the movie…wait for it…Black Friday. This movie writes itself.

I’m kidding of course. Not about being afraid of the Crazy Target Lady or Black Friday being a really good idea for a horror movie. But we did go shopping at Target and the mall that Friday night when all of the diehard Black Fridayers cleared out and left us to pick through all that commerce carnage. The night was uneventful but there was a tinge of fear and excitement in the air knowing Crazy Target Lady might be lurking behind that stack of $9.95 electric griddles…



Freddy Krueger ain't got shit on this chick.

25 Years of Zelda, 25 Years of StnkyNts Domination

I just picked up the new Zelda game for Wii. It’s the 25th anniversary of the game since it originally debuted for Nintendo in all of its gold plated cartridge glory. It’s probably my favorite video game franchise of all time, Rad Racer excluded, so for the anniversary of the game, I’d like to revisit my greatest Zelda memories.

Fall 1987 – Dad comes home with the first Zelda for me after Mom made me return Double Dragon back to the store because it was too violent. I would have been outraged but Double Dragon was hard as shit and I couldn’t make it past the second level anyways. Stupid Abobo’s…

Summer 1988 – Accidently erased David Dimmer’s entire quest when he was at the 9th dungeon. Apparently I didn’t hold down select or something when I turned off the system. In any case, our friendship today would best be described as strained.

Winter 1991 – Zelda debuts for Super Nintendo. This marks the first incident of me naming my Link character StnkyNts which is the name I’ve used for every Zelda game ever since. And every other game that allows you to name your character. Incidentally, I still think this is hilarious and laugh every time some mystical elder within a game tells me that, I, StnkyNts, am the chosen one.

Deer Hunting Camp 1994 – Started playing Link’s Awakening on the Game Boy while sitting in my deer stand to stave off boredom. Literally saves me from quitting deer hunting because sitting in the woods with nothing to do all day really stinks. I’ve vanquished Ganon more times than I’ve vanquished a whitetail.

1998 – Ocarina of Time comes out for N64. What a time to be alive.

Freshmen Year of College – Dude’s cousin Brian, in the wee hours of the night, high, dungeon music in the background, leaving messages on our answering machine asking how to find missing triforce pieces. During finals week.

2010 - Bought original Zelda on Wii game store after haven’t playing the game in over 10 years. Found every heart container, rupee stash, and secret item without a moment’s hesitation and beat the game in under four hours. Did I mention I forgot my mom’s birthday a couple of years ago?

So now I’ve got new memories to make with Skyward Sword. Being the Wii though, it makes you perform various physical actions, like in order to charge your sword, you have to raise your Wii remote i.e. your sword in the air like you just pulled Excalibur out of the stone. This is cool to do, but to a casual onlooker, like my fiancé for instance, I imagine this doesn’t look cool.

I don’t know where I’m going to find time to play this game without Jess being around. I think somebody is getting a full day spa package for Christmas this year…

The Dog Whisperer Part II

Whoops. I almost forgot about following up with this post.

On Saturday morning, I called up Deb the pet psychic. The consultation did not start off well. She forgot I had an appointment with her. Psych! She totally remembered.

So the first thing she did was “channel” into Cheese’s head to hear his thoughts. My guess was that he was thinking about biscuits. But I was wrong. According to Deb, he was worried that we were going to abandon him after the wedding. She then took a few minutes to tell Cheese telepathically that everything was going to be fine.

Then I told her about the blender problem and some other behavioral stuff. Deb again talked to Cheese and then assured me he wasn’t going to act like a doofus anymore when we make smoothies.

Deb then channeled out of Cheese and channeled into Skits. This took several minutes. She said Skits was never going to get along with Cheese because she feels she is like an English nanny and that it is her job to administer discipline to all those who dwell in the household, including Jess and me. I thought to myself, yep, that sounds about right, actually.

I told Deb to tell Skits to stop pissing on Cheese’s bed and to like me more and she said ok, no problem.

The results? About an hour later, if that, Cheese goes berserker on me when I attempted to unload the dishwasher. Good job, Deb.

But I will say this, Skits has not whizzed on Cheese’s bed since. AND, out of nowhere, she started sleeping on my side of the bed for some reason. Did I mention I was allergic to cats? I just wanted her to stop hissing at me, this was too much. Dammit, Deb, you’ve screwed me again.

But seriously, even though there was a lot of nonsense, Deb was a very sweet woman and you could tell she legitimately loves animals and really wanted to help me. She did give me some good, non-magical advice too. I’m going to stop making fun of her now in case she finds about this blog and places a hex on me.

Speaking of loving animals, I hope I kill a deer this weekend! Wish me luck!

The Dog Whisperer

About a year ago, I went to this benefit auction thing and I made a silent bid on a basket of dog stuff like treats and toys and things like that. I made the minimum bid of $25 and I won. Sweet.

It also included a free one-hour session with a dog psychic. BONUS.

Ok, technically it’s called Reiki Energy Healing. The brochure states that it is a non-invasive energy system that yields powerful results in the body, mind, and spirit. Call it what you want, I’m just hoping this lady can get Cheese to stop spazzing out whenever we try to use the blender.

I’ve been sitting on this coupon for over a year, but seriously, this blender situation is getting out of hand. I called the psychic up tonight and set up an appointment for later this weekend.

I asked where we should meet but she said it wouldn’t be necessary because she would be able to communicate with Cheese telepathically over the phone. Talk about efficiency!

My only concern is that the Reiki Energy Healing purportedly works better over a landline phone and we don’t have one. If the Reiki doesn’t work, it will probably be because of that.

I gotta tell ya, I’m getting pretty excited about this. I had to send the psychic some pics and some background info on Cheese tonight so she could prepare. She also requested I send a picture of Skits, Jess’s cat.

Presumably, if we can bang this blender problem out under an hour, we might be able to tackle this other situation on our hands. I’m referring of course to Skits and her love of constantly peeing in the middle of Cheese’s bed at inopportune times. I don’t know though…I don’t know if there’ll be enough time.

Hey Oh

Sorry this was locked before, Brain Litter was on hiatus due to me looking and finding a new job and I didn't want to get googled and have a potential employers mind blowned and somehow miss out on an opportunity. I'll try to update soon.

Green Bay Fireworks Bingo

Really, Green Bay?

I know it’s hot outside but we can do better than this. We are a Super Bowl Champion town, let’s start acting like it.

Here's a fun game to play at the Green Bay fireworks until we get our shit together. It’s Bingo and you know the rules. I know this seems pretentious but it truly was yahoo central last night at the annual downtown Green Bay fireworks festival. Somebody needs to make fun of the situation and that someone is me.

You Win, MTV, You Win

Jess and some of my closest friends like to tease me that I’m an old man. Sometimes they call me Old Man Wollin in jest. And I always shrugged it off.

I’m sorry but getting excited about installing a new radon mitigation system in the basement does not make me an old man. It makes me prudent and .005% less likely to get cancer some day, but it doesn’t make me an old man. Ditto for getting excited about shirtless lawn-mowing. That’s just the way God intended lawns to be mowed.

But the angering up of my blood from the 2011 MTV Movie Awards might be compelling evidence to support the Old Man Wollin moniker.

Let me clear upfront that I did not watch one second of the actual award show last night. I just read the recap this morning but it was enough to get me reeling to the point where I had to vent on Brain Litter today.

Nominees

Winners

If I was a 12 year girl with a Robert Patterson poster above my bed, I would still feel like my intelligence was insulted. The Twilight series, arguably the worst thing committed to celluloid since the medium was invented, received a staggering five awards including best picture in a field that included Inception and Social Network.

My actual beef though is not from Twilight winning this year but the fact that it wins EVERY year. I did a little research and basically, the other Twilight travesties won the same categories in 2009 and 2010. At what point does one scratch their head and wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is just a stupid beauty pageant and not a good way to spend 2 hours of my time?

And one also has to wonder if Justin Bieber really had the most jaw dropping moment, from a quasi-documentary without a plot to substantiate audience suspense, or if MTV just invented the category and victory so a Bieber presence would boost their ratings. Hmmmmmm.

Again, I don’t hate the youth of today. Why, just yesterday, I saw some teenager with both a mohawk and a rattail at Ashwaubemay and I didn’t think to myself that this kid sort of looks like an asshole. No, I just smiled and thought to myself, shine on, you crazy diamond.

But I guess hating MTV would put me in the old man camp so I guess I’m an old man now. I’ll take the History Channel over MTV any day of the week.

FYI watching the History Channel doesn’t make me an old either. World War II was cool beans and I would go on a date with that dude that shows up on Pawn Stars every week that knows everything about medieval weaponry and antique guns than Taylor Lautner in a heartbeat.

Note To Self: Use Your Recorder More

I was digging through my junk drawer the other day and stumbled upon a voice recorder that I bought about four years ago. This is especially poignant since Norm MacDonald, the inventor of the note-to-self bit…classic, recently started hosting a new show on Comedy Central.

Which is great by the way, any show that utilizes the throwaway line, “Ping Pong is the only sport named after its inventor”, is aces with me.

Anyways, I remember purchasing this voice recorder years back because I was always coming up with hilarious blog topics and jokes in the most inopportune places and I needed a system to keep track of them all. But like everything else I embark on, it seems sweet and life-changing at first but then I revert back to my old ways because…well…eh.

So I started going through my old recordings. The very first recording was “Extra! Extra! Joe Smells!”, which is strange because I bought the device to record new information. I already knew that.

The next three recordings were ideas I had about a potential Brett Favre retirement sympathy card idea. WHICH WOULD HAVE WORKED. That idea was worth tens possibly hundreds of dollars. I had this brilliant scheme to come up with a line of sympathy cards to express your condolences to fellow Packer fans when Brett Favre inevitably retired back in 2008. Hindsight is 20/20, my friends.

Go back to early 2008 and that’s still a good idea. The problem was my creative copy. My third recording was “Sorry for your loss, he will be four-ever in our hearts”. Uh, terrible. I sounded really smug on the recording too, like I was the first person to ever use four-ever in some capacity. I’m embarrassed for myself.

On a side note, I did perfect that card eventually. The card cover: a guy wearing a Brett Favre jersey sitting on a card table chair in the middle of his garage, his head buried in his lap in frustration, a dozen crushed Miller High-Life cans strewn about his feet. The card inside: blank.

The front cover says it all. Simple. Perfect. Admit it, you would have bought that for your dad or uncle or buddy if Favre retired when he should have. And I could be on a beach somewhere with my big payday. Ashwaubemay beach most likely, but still, the beach.

I had two other recordings for blog ideas that I actually followed through with so I guess the recorder paid off. The last recording was “email Grandma”. That reminds me, I should probably email my Grandma.

I think I’m going to start using the recorder again. I still come up with great ideas all the time, maybe this time around I’ll consistently follow up with them.

I already recorded a new idea today. Maybe I’ll follow up with it soon. Or maybe four years from now. I hope “Dave Weisnicht + Mike Hubert = Tosh.0” is still relevant in 2015.

Holy Shit I’m Engaged To Jessica MacGregor!

Wait!? What!?

This isn’t Wednesday at noon. This is not a drill. Yup. You heard right. I’m engaged to the very lovely and beautiful Jessica MacGregor.

If you think about it, this really shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve always been attracted to really cute little brunettes. That went to Ashwaubenon High School. That were in my grade. Named Jessica. What can I say, I have a type.

I’m really excited about it. Jess is too. Surprisingly, buying the ring was one of the easiest decisions I ever made. I’m the type of person that normally gets buyer’s remorse from buying a pack of gum but this was a no-brainer. I didn’t even have to administer the dutch oven method, that’s how confident I was.

I’m kidding, I had a 99 cent Swanson microwave enchilada dinner waiting for me in the freezer just in case she hesitated. I’ve been told that being waterboarded is preferable to hanging out with me after eating one of those bad boys. Trapped under the covers, I imagine she would have agreed to marry me plus called permanent chore duty forever. But that’s not what this is about.

My proposal was pretty simple. I surprised her when she came home from North Dakota this weekend. I bought some roses, lit some candles, took a shower, it was all very quaint and romantic. I was thrilled when she said yes.

I considered proposing to her via the blog but that’s almost TOO romantic. I need to save some of that heat for the Honeymoon.

So now we have some serious planning for next summer but it’s all very exciting. More to come as Jess and I take the plunge together. Wish us luck!

Dr. Mario and America

When Jess moved in with me, she also brought a Wii with her, which was admittedly a huge selling point for me. She’s the best and I love her and everything but…you know…free Wii.

I was recently dabbling with the shop channel the other day and discovered a new wi-fi version of Dr. Mario. Best 10 bucks I ever spent. Usually, when I’m bored, I’ll crank out a post here on Brain Litter or find another way to contribute to society, but lately, I’ve just been killing viruses blue, red, and yellow style.

Since I’m playing human opponents online, that usually involves killing viruses at a slower rate than some Chinese guy named insert wacky Chinese letters here. Yep, that’s a new stereotype and you heard it here first: Chinese people are awesome at Dr. Mario.

Despite amassing heavy losses to our Asian friends, I have yet to kick this crippling addiction, and that is despite the fact that the version is flawed and could be better.
I can tell you at least five things that are wrong with the “new and improved” Dr. Mario on Wii which is also an explanation for what’s wrong with America today.

1.) Your online profile only keeps track of wins, not losses. Our generation was raised to think that we would all be winners, that’s why we all got trophies for playing soccer just for showing up. But you can’t have winners without losers. Losing is a part of life, it builds character. This coddling nonsense has to stop.

2.) Not only does it not keep track of losses, but the win counts stops at 9,999. Didn’t we learn this lesson from the millennium bug? What a total lack of foresight.

3.) Instead of pressing down to speed up the virus killing process you can now also press up to have the pill instantly drop to the bottom. Are we so impatient and is our time so valuable because we’re sitting around playing Dr. Mario that we can’t wait an extra .5 seconds for the pill to drop regularly. Patience is a virtue.

4.) They added a feature where the pill shows up semi-transparent at the bottom of the screen based on its current trajectory. Thanks Shigeru Miyamoto, I already love having my hand held like a big baby for not showing my losses.

5.) Velco Fly by ZZ Top is still not a selectable song to pick besides Fever and Chill. Unbelievable.

But like I said, it’s still Dr. Mario so it still kicks ass. I can still beat the butts off most Americans and Europeans as well. If you get this version and are up against Ben Dude, be afraid, be very afraid.

Chicks: Why Are You Always Doing Laundry?

My mom just informed me that my aunts and grandma are coming over on Sunday after dinner to take a look at my new place. Normally, I wouldn’t care but as you probably all know, Jess has moved in with me last February. I just assume keep a "don’t ask don’t tell" policy in regards to living in sin but it looks like the cat is going to escape from the bag this weekend. On Easter. Great.

That’s bad news for me but good news for my blog readers because now that I got nothing to hide, I can start dishing about all the goofy stuff chicks do compared to dudes. Like excessive laundry.

What is the deal with the laundry, ladies? Based on the laundry usage in our household, I suspect that Jess can’t wear an outfit for more than half a day before it is considered too soiled to wear in public. Barring a half day worn shirt, there’s always a blanket or a towel or some random coat needing to be washed right away.

Only got one or two things that are dirty? That’s OK, you don’t need to wait to do a whole load. Girls LOVE running the washing machine for just a couple of things or less. It’s their specialty.

I wish I was being sarcastic but last night, Cheese breathed on Jess’s shirt and she told me the shirt was unsalvageable and needed to be, you guessed it, washed right away. In her defense, Cheese does have really bad breath, but still.

And I’m not just picking on Jess. I won’t name names but one time in Madison, I was living with Joe Daniels and this other girl and their dog Hercules and this girl constantly did laundry too. I know because she would often do laundry in the middle of the night and my bedroom was next to the utility room. My favorite was when it was jeans cleaning day or in my case, jeans cleaning night. I find the sound of metal buttons on dryer cylinders soothing.

I admit this is some low hanging fruit I’m picking here. I wish Jess had some goofier habits or she tried to change who I am fundamentally with hilarious consequences once she moved in but the transition has been very smooth and the cramping of my swinging bachelor pad lifestyle has been minimal so far.

In fact, the feminizing of my place has been so minimal, I could probably jam the really girly things in a closet on Saturday and continue the ruse with my family that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, I would still go to heaven.

But then I wouldn’t have anything to blog about and I really wanted to post this picture I found in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.



Kintzler is giving Lucroy a textbook high five – Van Lieshout style. A Van Lieshout style high five is when you act like you’re going to give someone a real high five but then you creepily, gently rub the other person’s palm with the tips of your clammy fingers until the other person is grossed out and can’t handle it any more.

The Milwaukee Brewers are Awesome and Girl That Played With Fire Sort-of Reviewed

Now that Yovani Gallardo single-handedly delivered the Brewers first win this season and got them back on track to sweep the World Series, it is now safe to talk about the not-so-great Opening Day.

Monday was not great. It was pretty frigid outside for tailgating and our seats were in the Loge section in a location that did not allow viewing of the brand-new, very cool scoreboard. The worst part though was the congestion. It was the 2nd highest attendance ever in the new stadium which meant the bathroom lines were horrendous.

Normally, I’m no stranger to an impossibly long wait for a urinal (I’ve been to Lambeau Field after all) but Miller Park is not equipped to handle to crowd of +46,000. I missed the 5th and 6th innings waiting to use the pisser. People were getting irate. I thought a riot was going to break out when some people started entering through the exit doors to butt in line. I’m pretty sure they were closet Cubs fans. In any case, the general mood was palpable, there was no joy in that lavatory to say the least.

Of course the zeitgeist of the Section 222 Men's Room got to me and I got pee shy when it was finally my turn to go. I had been holding 5 high lifes in my bladder since the opening pitch and there I stood frozen like Prince Fielder on a 0-2 count with the winning run on third base. When is THAT guy gonna show up and start belting some dingers?

I digress.

Usually when I get pee shy, I try to clear my mind by thinking of a waterfall located in a mysterious wooded glen but I just couldn’t mentally find that magical place with 10 dudes breathing down my neck. My 25 minute wait for the urinal ended up a colossal failure. Then Saito gave up two solo home runs and things went from bad to worse.

But we won now finally so now I am in a much better mood. I’ve also relieved my bladder numerous times since Monday; all subsequent trips have been successful in case you are wondering and I know you are.

Which brings me to my next segment, my review of The Girl That Played With Fire. Warning: Spoilers coming up.

It was pretty good. I actually liked it better than the first one but only after my friend, Comrade Dmitry, pointed out that there was in fact, a zombie at the end of the book. I didn’t put two and two together at first but at the end of the book Salander gets shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave. She awakes from her coma, rises from the grave, and wrecks havoc in the nearby farmhouse in a bloody rampage. If that ain’t a zombie ending, I don’t know what is. At first I thought that ending was lame and implausible but now I love it. Thanks, Comrade.

Dr. Thunder Miracle

This has been an extremely unremarkable couple of weeks for me, hence the lack of blogging. The most exciting thing to happen to me was that I learned an easier and healthier way to make chocolate cake. Let me explain.

First you buy come chocolate cake mix. Then instead of adding eggs, water, and oil, you just add one can of Dr. Thunder soda to the mix. If you don’t have a can of Dr. Thunder, you could probably use Dr. Pepper as a substitute but I wouldn’t recommend it. Just mix that shit up and throw it in the oven BAM you got chocolate cake. It is super easy and healthier and you can barely taste the difference. Add frosting too, that’s key.

In other news, the Badgers really stink. They stink worse than my farts right now and I just ate a huge salad for lunch. With broccoli. It’s hard to win a game when you don’t score the first six minutes of the 2nd half. My brackets are officially on life support. Oh well, still got the Super Bowl. That’s going to be my motto for the next year. Hopefully not two years (stupid lockout, I hate it so much).

I’m going to Madison with Jess next weekend, hopefully something exciting arises out of that. According to our hosts, part of the weekend will consist of witnessing the spectacle of another Scott Walker protest, this time it is zombies that are pissed off about collective bargaining rights. I’m not kidding. A zombie protest march down State Street, you can’t make this stuff up. It seems a little silly to me, why would a zombie have an opinion, either for or against, collective bargaining rights? The only thing a zombie should be protesting against is skulls.

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo REVIEWED

During my cruise last month, I was able to peruse a few of my favorite periodicals and read a novel. Everybody has been talking about this Girl With The Dragon Tattoo book. I decided to check it out.

I didn’t like it at first because the story is set in Sweden and I prefer my stories to come from America. I don’t know much about Sweden except their greatest exports are modular furniture, meatballs, and Stellan Skarsgard.

In fact, it became impossible to envision the main characters in the story without one of them being played by Stellan Skarsgard. Then I started getting mad thinking about a film version without Stellan Skarsgard in it. And then I thought, why not throw Peter Sarsgaard in there as Blomkvist, that would be a juicy bit of casting.

PS Stellan and Peter aren’t related. I know! I thought they were too!

Well I imdb’d some stuff when I got home and learned that Stellan will be in the American version, thank God. Daniel Craig is going to star in it too which I’m okay with. I’d be happier if he was working on a new James Bond movie that DIDN’T suck but I don’t want to veer off topic here.

I’m really shocked that Kristen Stewart will not be playing Salander; that was another obvious actress choice in my opinion. According to the book, the character playing Salander is super skinny and unable to express emotion. Kristen Stewart is super skinny and couldn’t express emotion if it slapped her in the face. That could have been a slam dunk. Way to cast a movie, Hollywood.

So without giving away any spoilers, this book is a mystery/suspense that prominently involves a computer hacker and a sex dungeon. For being a talked-about best seller as of late, the whole book as I was reading it seemed a little too 2002-ish to me. Don’t get me wrong, some things from that time period get better with age, like my Motorola RAZR which no smart phone has yet to surpass in ergonomics, quality, and awesomeness.

However computer hackers and sex dungeons just aren’t doin’ it for me anymore, I was expecting something a little more modern. There’s not even any vampires in it.

But maybe the sequels will have vampires in it. Or better yet, zombies. I’m not holding my breath though. Even though I would rate the book as pretty good, I’m still probably going to end up reading the sequels because I’m stubborn like that. Or maybe I’ll just check out the Swedish version with subtitles, it’s on the Netflix. I don’t know. I don’t know if there’ll be enough time.

Here is a classic ecstatically happy or seething with anger pose from Kstew. Imagine if her and dipshit Ryan from The O.C. produced an offspring. That child would be first human being born with negative talent.

How is Topper Harley Getting Out Of This One?

Wow. That’s about all I can say about Ricky Vaughn right now. I’ve been following this story closely for over a week now, it’s a like a car wreck, I just can’t look away.

I’m getting all my info from avclub.com, the greatest source of entertainment news and commentary in all the lands. Here is a sampling of some of their maverick reporting.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/charlie-sheen-lashes-out-at-two-and-a-half-men-cre,52369/

http://www.avclub.com/articles/updated-charlie-sheen-continued,52384/

http://www.avclub.com/articles/charlie-sheen-planned-to-create-a-porn-family-alle,50755/


When this story first broke, I found it impossible not to compare Bud Fox to Adam Mallien circa 1997-1998-ish. As I kept reading Platoon’s quotes I kept nodding along thinking to myself, yep Mal would have said that, nope Mal wouldn’t have gone that far, maybe he would have said that, whoa I’m almost POSITIVE Mal once called Thomas Jefferson a pussy, and so on and so forth.

Try it, it’s really fun. If Navy Seals and sophomore year Mallien got together to make a sitcom, I would definitely watch it. I think those two would be right up there with my three favorite TV characters as of right now. Those characters being Ron Swanson, Phil Dunphy, and Magnitude.

I really do like Charles Sheen as an actor, the guy has great comedic chops and I think we can all agree that we want to see a Major League 3. I just hope he lives that long. If I were a betting man, I’d say he won’t make it to 2012. You could even make a bet that Red Dawn won’t make it til next dawn.

Let’s just pray that Young Guns gets his shit together or has the whatever Keith Richards has so that he can keep on Winning forever as an F-18 that could take us trolls out at any time.

The Carnival Freedom aka The Golden Corral of the Sea

Ahoy hoy everyone, I know you are all dying to know why I have not commented on the Packers glorious win in Super Bowl XLV and the reason is because I have been on a week long cruise with my family and I’m 29 years old and that’s not weird and I don’t care what anybody says.

We departed on Sunday from Fort Lauderdale on the day of the Super Bowl. I was really nervous, not so much for the outcome of the game, more so that I would miss the game because Time Warner does not offer service in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

I caught most of the pre-game on the top deck with every one else on the ship, there were 3,400 people on board, the ship was massive. There was a smattering of GB and Steelers fans; most of the crowd appeared to be neutral.

So no shit, about two minutes before the coin toss, the satellite feed goes out. I started freaking out as you can imagine. I was seriously considering jumping ship, figuring there had to be someone in Cuba that had a flat screen, Direct TV, and chips. If I jumped off now, I could probably invade the Bay of Pigs before the Black Eyed Peas took the stage at halftime. I’m not kidding, a mutiny was brewing on the top deck that would have made those Egyptian protestors look like pussies.

But the game came back about two minutes into the first quarter, the Packers dominated, then made me physically ill for two quarters by letting Pittsburgh back into the game, then domination again. What a game for the ages. The icing was the orange Gatorade poured on Mike McCarthy after the victory that paid out 5 to 1.

Nothing more can be said about the Pack, they are the greatest team that ever played the game of football and they are going to be twice as good next year.

The rest of the trip was like living on a giant, floating orgy of food.

Ever wake up and have a craving for two omelets, infinity bacon, and a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch but with vanilla ice cream instead of milk? Well then a Carnival Cruise is just for you. I cannot reiterate how much food is available on these ships 24/7. Way too much. I’m still feeling pangs of guilt.

I took one picture the entire trip. ONE.


You can tell where my priorities were at. I got to see Key West, Cayman Islands, and Jamaica, I swam with stingrays and climbed waterfalls, but the trip would have been a total loss without winning one of the almost daily Ping Pong tournaments onboard the ship. Not kidding.

The first tournament, I made it to the semi-finals but some sloppy play on my part caused me to lose to some Eastern European guy, 17-21. The next tournament I battled two old guys i.e. hardened veterans and an Asian guy to face my arch nemesis in the final match. My arch nemesis is, you guessed it, my brother, Joey Wollin. The pressure got to me and he soundly beat me, casting a large shadow over an otherwise very enjoyable trip.

But the final tournament of the ship, on the last day, I beat this chick who was really good, my dad, and then once again I had to square off against my brother who is frickin awesome and he beats me all the time and I get really riled up just thinking about it. I could not imagine a more horrific scenario than my brother winning TWO pieces of ship on a stick and me having none.

But I channeled by inner Forest Gump and defeated my younger brother, the way God intended, and now my trophy is nestled comfortably between my 1st place WWITB kickball plaque and the Champion of Hammersley Road trophy that I earned by reigning over Joey Daniels in a series of feats of strength back in the summer of 2007.

My children will have some very large shoes to fill some day that’s for sure.

Super Bowl Fever

Ever since the NFC Championship Game, I have been unable to channel my attention to anything other than the Super Bowl for more than about 3 minutes at a time. I set a record this morning though, I managed to slog away at an appraisal for a whole 8 minutes before I got caught up in the firestorm that is the Finley tweet regarding the team photo scheduling in Dallas, which I proceeded to get sucked into for a good hour.

I think ESPN, Fox Sports, and the Press Gazette have done a pretty good job so far providing content every hour on the hour for a game that is still 9 days away so I think it’s up to me to provide some insight into the lighter side of Super Bowl coverage, in numerical order for your reading pleasure.

1.) I think it is fine when the local DJ’s superimpose Packer radio highlights onto existing songs but I am just not a real big fan of dedicated Packer novelty songs. To me, they are just an insult to Robert Brooks, who perfected the Packer novelty song in 1996, thus rendering all future Packer novelty songs obsolete. Why eat hamburger, when you can eat steak?



2.) I think the same could be said about Reggie’s Prayer, the 1996 (what a time to be alive!) hit film starring Reggie White, MC Hammer, and Mr. Miagi. Why does Hollywood continue to make movies when they already have this:


As scary as this sounds,this is only the SECOND greatest acting performance in Brett Favre's film career.

3.) I just posted this clip on my Facebook profile but I think it is worth repeating. Look closely for the smoke bomb used to make the scene look more like 14th century England and less like a shitty park in some suburb in America.

4.) I’ve made my first step towards a chronic gambling addiction by signing up with one of those overseas betting web sites. I did for the sole purpose of making a proposition bet that B.J. Raji will score in some capacity during the Super Bowl. Maybe another pick-6, maybe he’ll get a TD as a fullback, hell maybe they’ll throw him in as a kicker, I don’t know, but the fact that he will score is a LOCK, a LOCK I tell ya.

5.) Let’s hope Mike McCarthy doesn’t adopt a Homer Simpson style of playbook strategy and roster management. If I see Jordy Nelson run a play where he spins around in a circle and falls to the ground, I’m going to punch someone in the face.

Distracted in Appleton

I know most of you are dying to know how fast I ran the 2011 Perkinstown 3-Mile Snowshoe Race last Saturday and the answer to that question is BLAZINGLY. I left behind a trail of puddles as I cruised through the Chequamegon National Forest knocking over small children, elderly citizens, handicapped people, people, people that are my girlfriend, orphaned children, and anyone else that got in the way between me and my 37:17 finishing time.

I finished 48th out of 185 in the men’s division and 9th in my age bracket, but I am pretty sure that the 47 dudes in front of me cheated. In fact, I’m positive they did.

Jess was right behind me but she lost some minutes due to some impromptu text messaging on the course. She loves that blackberry. She really does.

I don’t know what was so important that she needed her phone during the race but one thing is for certain, if she got a text, her reaction was “OH…..MY GOD”. The “OH…..M Y GOD” response gets used quite liberally with Jess. Whether finding out that her mom won the Powerball or if she just found out her friend Staci ate a turkey sandwich for lunch, you can bet Jess will be calling out to that Big Guy in the Sky about such a monumental turn of events. It’s pretty cute, actually.

Not to change the subject, but every morning this week, when the alarm clock went off, I instinctively banged that snooze button, crashed back on my pillow, stared blankly at the ceiling, and had the following inner monologue:

Packers…..Packers…...Bears…..Packers…….Bears…..Bears?.... Packers!..... Clay Matthews……Packers…...

This would continue for three or four more snoozes before I was forced to get up and drive to Appleton and pretend to give a shit about work.

I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics should have done a productivity study in the State of Wisconsin this week. I would have liked to know how exactly we were all collectively distracted from our tasks at hand in an objective measure. Im sure it would have been record breaking.

Especially, last Tuesday at 2:00 when Ticketmaster.com started selling tickets for the NFC Championship Game for a 60 second window at face value. I didn't know they sold out so quickly, I was on that piece of shit website for what seemed like forever. I was on there so long, that I started to become fluent in that gibberish language you needed to type to verify you weren't a spammer. But after about 45 minutes I was like "Flugg this schlipt, I'm getting the fundarck out of pheere" and I walked away empty handed. No big loss, who wants to watch the big game surrounded by a bunch of FIBS anyways.


Stay warm today everybody, it is colder than a biscuit out there. Go Pack!

Hotel California, Packers, New Years, Rotten Lettuce Farts, and Wollining

Man, I got a lot on my mind right now.

I am slogging away on this appraisal right now and Hotel California just popped on WAPL. I got excited, not because I like the song, but because once it is over, it will mark the longest time possible before more Hotel California gets aired again. Hotel California is probably my least favorite classic rock song of all time. To quote his Dudeness from Big Lebowski…ahhh man, I hate the fucking Eagles. It just ended and now I can go back to work, knowing that Hotel California will not be playing again for the rest of the afternoon. Bonus that it is not double play Tuesday so I will not have to be subjected to another horrible Eagles song.

Second, how about dem Packers, eh? I could not be more excited about that game yesterday, I’m still smiling from that pick by Williams to end the game. I still can’t believe the always reliable David “Always Make ‘ers” Akers dropped not one but TWO field goals. We can finally receive some vindication from the 4th and 26 debacle back in 2003. Now we just need to bring the pain (and the stick ‘em for Jones) to Altanta. Saturday can’t come soon enough.

Third, my new years resolution to play more video games this year is going pretty good so far. I’ve really fell behind at work over the holidays and probably should be working some late nights coming up but that will not stop me from logging in some hours with the Playstation 1 tonight. Wish me luck.

Unfortunately, my other new years resolution to spend more time at Cropsey’s is going dismally. I haven’t played numbers in almost a month and don’t even get me started on the zero dollars I spent gambling on bowl games. Get your head out of your ass, Benji.

Fourth, I’ve also started a new diet and workout regime because I’m going on a cruise with my family pretty soon and I don’t want to scare the fine vacationers on Carnival when I take my shirt off outdoors for the first time in 2011. The diet is going really well so far, I’ve been farting more frequently and when I do fart, it smells like rotten lettuce. If that is not a good sign, I don’t know what is.

Fifth, I invented a new word. It's a verb. The verb is to Wollin and the action is to take an hour to seal plastic wrap over a window to prevent drafts and then get everything just about complete and then touch the hair dryer to the plastic wrap so it makes a huge hole and you have to start all over again. Here's a sentence example: "Yeah I really Wollined the shit out of my family room window this weekend, it totally sucked." Feel free to get that one going.

Well that’s about all I got right now. Sorry for not blogging in so long, I was sort of swamped over the holidays but I have a big snowshoe race coming up this weekend that I will be sure to fill you in on.