Stupid Things I've Said or Done

I'm watching the Olympics, as usual, and they're showing all the Canadians in the stands loudly and proudly singing their national anthem. Then I see the Canadian women's hockey team, also singing. So I say, "They're going to get their ASSES handed to them." Then Michelle says, "This is their gold medal ceremony."

Then one time we were driving through Bridgewater, a suburb about 30 miles southwest of Boston, and we were admiring how great the town was. I was all caught up in the moment, and I go, "Wow, look at the Shaw's (supermarket chain) down here!" Again, Michelle says, "Uh Joe, I think that's Shaw's headquarters."

When I was about 13, my buddy got a new bike. He had it all decked out with new pads. I'm like, Dude, pads are lame. You should take your pads off, like my bike. Well later that week, my friend rode his bike down a hill, and his feet slipped off the pedals. He smashed his teeth on his crossbar. They said if he didn't have braces, he would have lost all his front teeth. He ate through a straw for days, maybe weeks, I forget. I still feel terrible about this. Don't take my advice on how to look cool.

Another friend of mine had an older brother, who had a .22 caliber rifle. We used to shoot rounds off in his back yard, aiming at targets we set up, trees, birds. Well I decided to shoot an aerosol can. From about 5 feet away. In his basement. Let's just say I'm lucky I didn't kill myself, my friend, or stay permanently blind. I couldn't see straight for quite a few hours after rinsing the poison from my eyes.

The same friend with the rifle went off a jump that I made out of plywood. The jump was very, very steep. His bike was very heavy. He went up, held on to the handlebars, and went down. Bit through his tongue and smashed up his face pretty good. My bad, again.

I once had the brilliant idea of walking along a 2 foot wide stone wall. On one side was a main road, with dozens of cars going by. The other side had a 20 foot drop to some shallow water. Not sure what prompted me to do that one. (Mom, if you're reading, it was the narrow bridge on Winter Street.)

The time I googled how to fix a clogged drain, and didn't realize that there was a tube hooked up to the sink which subsequently flooded our house with chewed up food.

The time I was the real slim shady.



There may be a part 2 (or 3) to this, depending on how many stories Michelle can contribute...

The Lead Singer

So I've decided to start this blog in order to chronicle my...oh wait. I already had a blog. Oops.

So pretending like I haven't missed a beat, here goes.

Murray Man has been neutered. His cajones are gone. He's still got his cash, just no prizes. Or as Michelle says, he still has his lead singer.

Although, he never really had cajones. They were undescended. I didn't like telling a lot of people that fact, I feel like Murray wouldn't appreciate it. But then again, he's had some pretty embarrassing stories plastered on the internet. Michelle was very, very worried. She was afraid he was going to die on the operating table. When she heard that he was fine, you could almost physically see the relief being removed from her shoulders. And he recovered really quickly. Everyone said that the next day he would be acting normal, but I didn't believe it.

Since Murray is constantly jumping on and off our bed, it was decided that I should sleep in the living room with him so he wouldn't rip a stitch. When I say it was decided, I really didn't have a say in the decision. It was more like I was nominated for the job. And then didn't have a choice. So I guess you could say I was forced.

The second night, I convinced Michelle that we should all sleep in the living room. She blew up the air mattress for me, and she ended up on the couch. We had a little camp out. That night, we also rented Couples Retreat on demand. It was ok, but overall, pretty disappointing as far as Vince Vaughn movies go.

In other news, I've been spending every spare minute doing my CFA studying. And I actually enjoy it. So far. I enjoy it a lot more than studying for the GMAT. The GMAT was an odd test, and I honestly didn't like what it tested, or how it was graded. Apparently it's an accurate way to test how people will perform in grad school, but I think that's crap. So far, the CFA encompasses a lot of what I studied in undergrad, but on a deeper level. That, and it will basically be about 8 Finance classes rolled into one giant exam. Taking advice from a friend, I'm taking it one page and one day at a time.

Over the last 9 days, I have been obsessed with the Winter Olympics. I love the sports, the athletes, the venues, the special interest story lines, the announcers, everything. I can't even think about the poor guy from Georgia who died competing in a goddam sport. There's been enough said and shown about his life and death, so I won't get into it all here. I just feel terrible about the whole ordeal.

I've even watched every possible minute of Curling. The sport is great. I'm a huge fan of bowling, and it reminds me of that mentality and atmosphere. I really only like candlepin bowling, which I think is limited to Massachusetts, or at least New England. But I'm going to try and make the US Curling team for the 2014 Olympics in Russia. It's good to have short-term and long-term goals, I think.

Another Olympic thought, I love listening to Scott Hamilton do the play by play of a figure skating routine. I may not understand the technical aspects of the scoring, but I have to respect when someone is that passionate about anything. I was watching Evan Lysdhjfacheck's routine the other night, and he landed a couple jumps in a row, and Hamilton just moaned. Just "Augghhhhhh!" At the time, I didn't understand why, but seeing as how he won gold, I'm guessing it was a good moan. Anyway, the guy kills me. And the lady announcer was brutal. One of the other Americans did a single axle or whatever, instead of a double, and she was all, "Oh it's over." No sugar coating from the figure skating announcers. Which I also can't understand what the difference between a triple axle and a trip toe loop and a triple lutz are. They all look pretty similar to me. I think my favorite part is when they spin. It's crazy impressive. And I love the drama with the Russian kid calling everyone out for not attempting a quadruple jump. It really adds a lot to a sport I never really care about. Another one of my favorite Olympic subplots.




In food news, the Whirley Pop is back in our lives. Michelle's on a kick that microwave popcorn will kill us all, so we've bought a Whirley Pop, and it is the best tasting popcorn ever. Beats the pants off of movie theater popcorn, since we can control the butter/salt ratio. If you haven't tried it, you're missing out. After posting this picture, Michelle just informed me that ours is black. So paint it black in your mind.

Now go and youtube "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones. Or don't. But it's in my head now.