IÂ’m not a big fan of nicknames unless theyÂ’re derogatory and used behind someoneÂ’s back. But what really tips me over the edge is people who decide theyÂ’re going to bestow upon themselves a nickname. And yes, adults do this.

ThereÂ’s a big difference between legitimate and illegitimate nicknames.

Let’s say a guy buys a boat and tells all his friends about it. Eventually the friends go on the boat which is promptly run aground due to incompetence. The friends decide, spontaneously, to start calling the guy “Captain” much to his dismay. This is a legitimate nickname.

The other way is to pick a nickname for yourself (because youÂ’re mildly retarded) and then try to put that nickname into play. IÂ’ve seen this play a hundred times but two incidents come to mind immediately.

The first time I saw this phenomenon was in college. A guy stuck his hand out and said, “They call me Rebel.”

I was taken off guard and though I knew I was dealing with an asshole I couldnÂ’t be bothered about it. The next time it happened I was ready for it. I was at a barbeque and a guy came up and stuck out his hand:

“They call me Crash.”

“But what’s your name,” I asked. He looked shocked.

“Everybody calls me Crash.”

“But you must have a real name? Is it Cecil or Hubert or something?”

He walked away fuming. Point, game, match.

I’m sorry, but I really can’t help myself. Anybody who has the balls to start a sentence with, “They call me…” is going to get shit from me. Not to mention the fact that people with real nicknames never introduce themselves with it. Most wish it would go away.

For the common good, please stamp out self-imposed nicknames at every opportunity.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:26 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Today I was walking from my car to the office and there was a guy three cars down who was arriving at the same time. As he got out of his car I was able to smell his cologne from thirty feet away, outdoors. As usual, it enraged me.

What possesses people, both men and women, to swim laps in that shit everyday? Can you imagine working with this guy? Last week I was olfactorily offended at a restaurant by a woman four tables away. This has got to stop.

You shouldnÂ’t be able to smell that shit unless youÂ’re close enough to kiss somebody. Meanwhile IÂ’ve got people at work who reapply that shit three times a day. ItÂ’s taking the goddamned paint off the walls. Have you ever had to sit in a conference room with someone who has bathed in perfume? Because I have and IÂ’m here to tell you itÂ’s migraine inducing.

Stop. Now. Before I start accosting you publicly

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:24 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I went shopping over the weekend. ThatÂ’s not something I say with pride. Fact of the matter is I needed something and was forced to go get it. We walked into the place and my wife and I split up, her, naturally, to womenÂ’s shoes and I to menswear.

My mission was accomplished quickly enough and having no desire to hang around the womenÂ’s shoe department so I got to looking around. I saw it all. A pair of menÂ’s jeans that cost $180. WTF? IÂ’m not cheap and I was appalled. I canÂ’t imagine the idiot that spends $180 on jeans but IÂ’d like to meet him.

Next I went to sport coats which IÂ’m always in the market for. I love me my sport coats. ItÂ’s amazing what will catch your eye when youÂ’re not looking for something specific. And thatÂ’s just what happened because I glanced up and sitting there before my eyes was a seersucker suit. It was a thing of beauty. I reached up and touched the fabric and smiled.

The first thing that occurred to me was I would need a straw hat to go with it. The next thing that occurred to me was what a perfect ass I would look like wearing that thing. I stood there lost in thought for a few moments; it was as if my whole life was flashing before my eyes. Yes, if I wore that suit I would look like a pompous ass. The perfect ass. I immediately started looking for my size when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?” It was my wife.

“I’m buying this fine suit of clothes.”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“On the contrary—“

“Stop. You realize that you’ll have to wear white shoes with this? Are you prepared to wear white shoes?”

I wasnÂ’t. That was a show stopper for me. And gingerly, I put the suit back on the shelf. When I turned she was already walking away and I had to trot to catch up. She had already forgotten the suit.

Four days later, I have not. And this morning I found out that itÂ’s permissible, even fashionable, to wear tan loafers with a seersucker. IÂ’d been had.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I donÂ’t see the point of criticizing others unless itÂ’s done it jest or the person really deserves some grief, but there are a shitload of bloggers I canÂ’t stand. Some of them are popular but most of the people on the list arenÂ’t especially high traffic sites.

The Great Pretender
I have a lot of pet peeves and a lot of things annoy me. One of those things is when people pretend to be experts on things or talk about things as if they had a great deal of knowledge, experience or insight when in fact theyÂ’re completely off base or just plain wrong. IÂ’m not talking about opinions, which are subjective, IÂ’m talking about facts. ThereÂ’s an old sayingÂ…A Chinaman can say anything about kung-fu and be believed, no matter how ridiculous. The same is true for the Internet.

The One Trick Pony
Yawn.

A Dollar Short
Some bloggers become obsessed with a post they write or a topic that amuses them. Temporarily. They then try and milk it for a week before they decide no one gives a shit but them. Shampoo, rinse, repeat. These people have more false starts than the 400 meter event at a school for the hearing impaired.

The Shockblogger
Self explanatory. This sleight of hand technique is used to misdirect you from the absence of actual writing.

The Tin Men
Here we go round the mulberry bush. Some people would shoot their mother for a hundred more hits a day. Trying too hard reeks of desperation and is terribly sad. I recommend a drive in the country or perhaps a good prescription drug.

I donÂ’t think I need to point out that these are not mutually exclusive.

Feel free to add your own in the comments or take a shot at me. IÂ’m thick skinned.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:46 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Woijnvjgwinovu53005iuy,jginksnjiomcjiorjmxopejtbvyh9uwhmxiurhwoitn chi

ThatÂ’s what I see when I visit some blogs. ItÂ’s not browser trouble.

The paragraph above is actually more interesting than most of the stuff IÂ’ve read in the past few days. Sorry.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:24 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Someone keeps searching this site for the words “throat yogurt.” Another big search here seems to be “urination stories”.

I guess we all have to make decisions about what to do with our spare time on the Internet.

I can just picture these people too, sitting in some mold infested, filthy apartment with Jerry Springer on in the background.

Or a balding guy in a suit overlooking central park, typing away at Google, searching for the mother load. He probably had a sandwich for lunch. IÂ’m thinking pastrami on a rye, brown mustard, a fountain drink with too much ice. HasnÂ’t bought his own underwear since college. His wife, who settled, probably still buys three packs of Hanes when theyÂ’re on sale. What a fucking momo.

My imagination is really too active for my own good.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:37 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Happy with it?

IÂ’m a big believer in the fact that we control our own destiny. Cause and effect. If you drink too much, youÂ’ll get drunk. Run in into traffic, get hit by a car. Yet every day IÂ’m amazed at people when they declare they donÂ’t know why XYZ happened to them.

I fucking know why—you need to pay your bills before you start boozing it up or flying to Jamaica on a credit card. I know I’ve said this before, but if you can’t afford to pay cash for something, you really can’t afford it 19%. It’s almost like going to a shy for the money.

However I’m no longer stunned when I hear people say, “It must have been God’s will.” I’m not a believer, but many people are. I’m genuinely happy for them because psychologically it’s probably very healthy in the right doses. Yet some people use God as an excuse. They fuck something up, either through stupidity, laziness or otherwise through their own volition and then they tell you it was God’s will.

Some of these people are assholes; some of them are not. A lot of folks are just plain stupid, regardless of religion or lack of it and we shouldnÂ’t confuse the two. Some truly believe that God has laid out a plan for their life, right up to what theyÂ’re having for dinner every night. They are having meatloaf tonight because God has willed it. Pee on the toilet seat? No need to clean that up, thatÂ’s GodÂ’s will.

Before that vein in your neck bursts let me say that IÂ’m not anti religion. I grew up going to church and so did almost everyone else I know and nobody was leaving pee droplets on the toilet seat. Normal, intelligent people. Using God as an excuse would never occur to them. I was never really into it personally. My family faked it pretty good except for the old man, who refused to go to church. By the time I was fourteen or fifteen they felt like they did their best and finally relaxed and said fuck it, the jig is up.

I have a lot of respect for religious folks so long as they arenÂ’t selling or telling me how I should live my life. IÂ’m glad they found something, because a lot of people are looking and the alternatives are sometimes scarier than we like to think.

Some people believe in both God and luck. Somehow I canÂ’t reconcile that one. Some people pick and choose which aspects of a religion appeal to them and ignore others. Some people are only religious when itÂ’s convenient for them. And some people are genuinely pious, humble folks. I donÂ’t wish to offend the latter.

This post was inspired by an incident this morning where a guy told me it was GodÂ’s will that something work-based happened, which has pushed me over the edge.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:42 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I knew it was going to be trouble the day before. Somebody in my neighborhood was lighting fireworks. No big deal, right? Except it was almost one in the morning and the shit was loud. My kid was sick and every time she fell asleep…”Kaboom!”

Finally I had enough. I got out of bed in a fit of rage and started pulling on clothes.

“What are you doing?” my wife said.

“I think you know exactly what I’m doing.”

She intervened and there was a brief but tense altercation before I acquiesced and got back in bed, under the condition of if I hear one more, and I mean one more, nobodyÂ’s going to stop me.

Thankfully it was quiet after that.

On the actual 4th of July I expected all hell to break to break loose with fireworks so IÂ’m not too unhappy when the entire neighborhood starts shooting shit off around seven in the evening. By eight oÂ’clock it was intense. I was trying to watch Platoon and I swear the sound from outside was louder than my home theater system.

Still, it was no big deal. ItÂ’s the 4th and everything so who am I to complain.

10:00 PM: It now sounds as though my house is under siege. I was getting jumpy. I had looked around outside to see if they were good fireworks or just noisemakers and I couldnÂ’t see anything, but they sounded close.

10:30 PM: My discerning ear tells me that someone a few houses down has gotten hold of at least a few hundred dollars worth of M-80s. They were tossing them into the street one at a time, nonstop. I start to ponder how bad it would be if I lived in a shitty neighborhood. I canÂ’t imagine.

10:45 PM: The barrage of shells going off from every quadrant is astounding. I canÂ’t fully describe the sound. This shit is LOUD and IÂ’m experienced in fireworks. I canÂ’t imagine what theyÂ’ve gotten their hands on. Fearing my perimeter has been breached I go outside for a look. I canÂ’t see who is lighting shit off, but itÂ’s coming from every direction. There were so many rounds going off at once, and for such a long duration, that I cannot fathom the thousands of dollars spent. It sounded as if twenty families had each spent a weekÂ’s paycheck on fireworks and decided to shoot them off simultaneously, with no breaks whatsoever, for as long as they would last.

11:00 PM: If anything itÂ’s intensifying. IÂ’m praying the kid doesnÂ’t wake up and start coughing again. I put my shoes on go outside for a look and my wife gets that look on her face.

“Where are you going?”

“I just want to make sure I know who is doing it.”

“Why?”

“Retribution. Not anytime soon, but I’m gonna be egging some houses in the future.”

12:30 PM: IÂ’m in bed reading a book, as is the wife. All is quiet except for one asshole. Every once in a while he lights an M-80. Kaboom! I look over at the wife.

“You realize what this is, don’t you?” she asks.

I shrug.

“Karma. Do you know how many times you’ve been on the other end of this? And the worst part is I’m always included in your karmak paybacks…by proximity.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I got an emailed question regarding food in bars. Oh man, this is a tough one, because it's highly subject to some very nebulous criteria. Firstly, when I go to a bar I'm not chasing down a meal. The bar at Outback Steakhouse is not a real bar - it's a way for them to cram more people into their restraunt. Bar food is limited to something one can eat while in a bar - a bar being a place where people converse, shoot pool, play darts, watch TV, or punch each other in the nuts. My bar doesn't have a menu; they've got potato chips and pork rinds, slim jims, hot pockets, and microwaveable corn dogs. It's a bar people, let's remember that. I wouldn't be averse to a plate of cheese fries or maybe some quesadillas; but here we skirt the line. A bar shouldn't offer a whole host of finger foods, prepared side items, and salads. I'm sorry, that's just not what bars do. Bars serve drinks, good times, and that's it.

Off the topic of 'good' bars, Paul hit on something that I'm a strict believer in. A bar, for me, has to have a story. As commercial as Sloppy Joes has become, I'll always spend at least one night there every time I'm in Key West because I like the history. And dive bars go a long way with a guy like me. The Wife and I had our late-night after party at a local beach dive that most people don't even know exists. The best part is they've built a refrigerated big-rig trailer into the bar itself that acts as the beer room. You walk in, pick a beer from easily 150 bottled brews (domestic, international, micro, etc) and bring it to the bartender. The place is decorated with swap meet furniture, 4x6 prints of past summer parties, and items from ships that sunk off the Cape Fear river in the last hundred years or so. The floor, where there is one, is brick laid right down on the sandy ground. There's a backyard with a big steeldrum barbecue and what must be the world's largest black lab.

These are just my opinions of what a good bar is, and many times I'm in different types of bars; as Paul mentioned he does. Understand here that a good bar isn't defined by myself, but by the people who make it their joint and how well you gel with those people. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you think either of us are wrong on what a 'good bar' consists of; that's okay.

Even though you wear a striped shirt and your favorite drink is a jello shot. You toolbag.

Posted by: shank at 03:00 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Much to the dismay of my wife, I have recently come into a family heirloom. ItÂ’s an oil painting of me done when I was about ten years old. It was painted by an artist of some note and itÂ’s top quality work.

In the painting I look quite handsome and athletic. Once when I was in high school some friends came over and saw it hanging over the fireplace. One of them, a guy with a large bag of weed in his sock, stepped closer and studied it for a while before stating, “You know, it looks like you could have turned out to be a real asshole.” It was a memorable moment in my life.

This particular painting has been the cause of much controversy since itÂ’s first showing. My sister was not a big fan of it.

“Why the hell is his picture on the goddamned mantle?”

Good question actually. I was certainly not the favored child in my opinion, but who knows. I guess it is pretty obnoxious to hang an oil painting of one of your children in a prominent place while the other looks on.

Now the picture is in my possession and causing problems again. This time with my wife.

“So now we’re going to start hanging large pictures of ourselves?” she said, clearly appalled.

“It’s not a snapshot from Six Flags, it’s a fucking portrait in oil!”

“What difference does it make? You can’t hang portraits of yourself in your own house!”

“I rather like it and I can’t see stuffing the only real piece of art we have into a closet.”

“The only real piece of art we have? What about—“

“The only real oil painting we have.”

She stared at me for a long time before laughing quietly and dismissing me with her hand. Her show was back from commercial.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:51 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I canÂ’t fully explain my hatred for them. I canÂ’t complain about the way they maintain their house or their landscaping, itÂ’s almost perfect. They donÂ’t have parties, theyÂ’re not too noisy and they pressure clean the sidewalks. But they are indeed strange people.

IÂ’ve been in this house about five years now and up until last month weÂ’ve never really spoken. Almost every time IÂ’m coming or going I see one of them skulking over there. I always wave and smile, just in case, because thatÂ’s the kind of guy I am. If they happen to glance up they will return a wave but you can tell itÂ’s taxing them. Some people just donÂ’t exude warmth.

IÂ’ve always suspected theyÂ’re up to no good. For one thing theyÂ’re always pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of theyÂ’re house on the phone. ItÂ’s not a cell phone either; itÂ’s just the cordless phone from the house. And though IÂ’ve heard them speak English they also mumble in a tongue that I canÂ’t identify, though I suspect itÂ’s Greek.

In the last week I noticed an addition to the family. An old man in a wife-beater that sits in a lawn chair out front all day. ItÂ’s very classy. Of course thereÂ’s nothing anyone can do about it. ThereÂ’s no bi-law in the HOA rules that says an old man canÂ’t sit out front in his undershirt all day like a fucking Turkish coppersmith or something. And now that the long summer evenings have arrived the new ritual is for the whole clan to bring their lawn chairs out back every night, face them towards my house, and watch me barbeque. They simply stare at me. The first time I go out there IÂ’ll give a quick wave and one of them will return it, but thatÂ’s the extent of our communication. I canÂ’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable it is.

One night about two years ago I overheard an argument while I was taking out the trash. It was one of the few times I actually heard anything from that direction. It was the younger one and he seemed to be dressing down the rest of them. The one clear statement I heard, repeated twice, was, “That’s worshipping false idols!” He was screaming it at the top of his voice.

On that note I retreated to the relative safety of my couch and wondered if I should fire a couple of warning shots through their front bay window. Kind of a preemptive strike on whatever brand of insanity may have brewing been over there. My wife reasoned against it as sheÂ’s wont to do on those infrequent occasions when I become agitated.

Since then I have suspected they are some type of Christian crazies. Whenever I hear a family argument about “worshipping false idols” I suspect the worst. One of them probably bought a garden gnome or something and it set off the crazy factor.

I remain vigilant.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:19 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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