With great moustache, comes great responsibility.

Dale was franticly cutting pepperoni and an assortment of NY’s finest sharp cheddars as I strolled into the kitchen.

I tried to act coy, though I was not sure how to accomplish that…. Coy is an adjective that is rarely used to describe me. So I went with what I know, and acted like Peter Griffin when he is trying to be sexy.

“Hey Bud, whatcha doin”?

Dale – “I’m late… Wicked late actually” (Dale is going camping with his family, his best gal, and from what I hear around 14 or 15 dogs, it should make for an exciting weekend. Charlie freaks out sometimes when he is in the house and feels constrained, I’m sure he will take to sleeping in a tent like a fish to water)

Me – “Yeah??? You are late huh?? That’s too bad…. Can I help??? (Mind you all the while I am hanging off him like a drunk trying to pick up a chick at about 1:45)

Dale – “No I’m all set”

Me – “You sure… come on, what can I do”

Dale finally takes time to look up from his Julie Child act and see’s this staring back at him.

Then right back to chopping… “Just gotta finish this up, thanks though…”

MY GOD……

I continue to try to get his attention like a child showing off for a parent that is too busy to look up from their morning paper or tumbler of scotch…. Dale… look at me… look what I can do….

He looked back a few times, never once saying anything about why I was acting like I wanted to get a quick bang in before he took off, or that I had this on my face.

Finally I couldn’t take it

Me -“Seriously??”

Dale – “What”

Me – Questioning cocked head look suggesting “do you really not know what we are talking about ?”

Dale - ….. nothing

Me – “Do you like my new moustache?

Dale – “Oh Jesus!”

Me… “Wow…”

Kali seemed to like it, but I think that it was just because it assists with the fantasy that I am someone else, which goes a long way to keeping her happy. Jerm also noticed immediately, but that may have been because he was wearing this…

You see, the plant had a fully sanctioned beard gowning contest during the outage. You had to be clean shaven on day one, everyone put in $5, and the winner I think gets to give his money to charity. I don’t know what kind of charity would accept money that was raised in this way, especially because I think the flyer for the contest had a picture of not only “the most interesting man in the world” but also Osama Bin Laden on it. I was not officially in this contest, as I was worried that it may affect my eligibility to grow a beard in the NCAA. So I waited in the wings, and let others have their fun, all the while, growing a fantastic bushy masterpiece that put all others to shame.

Then one day last week, we all got the news that Macho Man had past, which lead to watching videos of him, which lead to everyone talking in the Macho Man voice the majority of the time… in meetings, on the phone, paging people over the PA system

“Dan Murphy, call 5433… OOOOHHHHHH YEEEEAAAAHHHHHH!”


And one thing turned into another until out of this popped the idea… Moustache Friday.

A lot of people talked about it, and talked about what kind of stache they would grow, with the same looks on their faces that people our age got when we were kids and looked at toy catalogs at Christmas time. Like anything was a possibility. Like there was no one there to tell you that your moustache was too bushy, or your handlebars too long.

Yet when it came down to it, only Ginger, Myself, and one other fellow actually had the nerve to actually come to work with a stache’.

Jon... dont let him baby sit your kids

A stache is an odd thing. I was remarking to Jerm before I left today, how odd it was that there was an outside chance that I would get reprimanded for my fantastic fantastic fu-man-chu. “How” he asked. I questioned whether it could be considered a distraction to others. Granted it is hard to distract a group of people talking in wrestler voices and publicly fouling the air to the point that entire cubical banks need to be evacuated, but the thought was still in my head.

How odd it is that two people could have the same attribute, yet on one person it seems perfectly normal, and on another it could be seen as a joke, or as mocking of the mustached community and get them dragged behind the stache comb shop and beaten mercilessly by a pack of Tom Selleck looking fellows. I have been pondering this all afternoon the way religious folk ponder the afterlife, and how twickers ponder how the DVD player works before they take it apart.

I have gotten several strange looks since I got to work. Jon (“other fellow” pictures above) said that he stopped to get a sub, and the dudes seemed to respect him more, and the chicks seemed to think that he was dangerous, but not in a “sexy bad boy” way, but in a “Silence of the Lambs “Buffalo Bill” kinda way. A moustache brings out a lot of different emotions, to say the least. But oddly enough, the people that seem to actually take offense to this;

are the guys who have not only a stache themselves, but have the SAME Hulk Hogan-ish foo that I do. Maybe they think that I am mocking them. Maybe I didn’t pay in my membership dues before joining the BMF club…

Not that I really care. Their tired old foo’s haven’t helped anyone in a long time. Mine on the other hand is a shining beacon of peace.

Just a few short hours ago, two gentlemen got into a rather heated discussion during a meeting. After 30 days of working 12+ hours on night shift with the same guys night after night, a simple disagreement has the possibility of escalating into a full blown thunder dome type event if not properly diffused. The difference of opinion turned into some loud voices, which turned into a couple of very angry and frustrated faces. At which point someone broke with awkward tense silence with “Will everyone please just calm down and look at Dan’s face…”

And disaster was averted, if but for one more night.

He Screamed "Caulk"!!!

I had a joke book when I was a child. I think that I got it at the “Book Fair” that would come to our school each year. That travelling group of literary carnies sure did make for a good week. Everyone loved the book fair. This is where all the kids stocked up on all of their “Garfield Treasures” and “Guinness Book of Records” needs. Along with posters of all of the fancy sports cars that we would never own as adults. Wouldn’t it have been great if they would have had posters of Civics and minivans? “OOhhhhh mom…. I need $5 to get a poster of the raddest Caravan that I have ever seen…. Good times. Take a look, it’s in a book… A Reading Rainbow!


So the possible “Book Fair” joke book had a joke in it that read, and I quote “How do you know if there is an elephant sleeping under your bed”… Stay tuned for the shocking answer, after these words…

My new joke is “how do you know if you have a hole in your air mattress?” answer – You wake put by your nose being slowly crushed by the weight of your gigantic head pushing it into the hard wood floor. Maybe that is a little too inside to gain any ground in the joke book world, but it you have a huge head like me, go ahead and use it.

I have no real aspirations that I will ever get out of the current plant that I work at, but my contract is never extended for more than a month or so at a time. So I am basically a lifetime temporary resident of Rochester. I do actually like it that way, for some reason it makes me feel closer to home when I don’t have a lot of long term type things in the town where I work – furniture, tooth brushes, ect.

This is an actual photo of my apartment from Boston where I lived for about a year. The only two things that I owned in this picture were the TV and the book, and I threw out the book.

I moved out in about 6 minutes

So this leads me to sleep on an air mattress. This was the source of very un-restful sleep for the past week or so. Not because it was uncomfortable, but because I was stressed that I was going to wake up on the equivalent of a dry slip and slide after about an hour.

When someone asks “do you like your bed hard or soft”, no one ever responds with “I like it as hard as I can get it right when I get in it, then I like it to get progressively softer for about 15 mins, and then get really REALLY hard until it wakes me up". That would be a hard setting to put on a sleep number…

My bed had a blowout. I am not sure what caused it, as I have lost a few pounds as of late, so I don’t think that my girth was the cause. Maybe it was not designed to be inflated and slept upon night after night for over a year. Whatever the cause, I had a hole about a ¼ of an inch long (giggidy).

Being the modern day MacGyver, and in dire need for a place to sleep after being up all night, I ran to the garage, and got the tube repair kit off my bike. Worked like a charm! I slept like a baby that was very proud at his resourcefulness.

The next night… not so much… I woke up in the morning (well my morning, about 1:30 pm) with my elbows and ass bone pressed against the floor.

That night at work I “borrowed” about a half a roll of Nuke grade duct tape. You know the douchey saying about fixing anything with duct tape… Whoever said that has not slept on a flat air mattress with me.

I taped over the patched hole, and then I laid me down to sleep. After less than a minute, I knew that I was leaking (so to speak). I pulled my sheet off, and found that there was another similar hole about 2’ away from the first one. I tried the duct tape but it did not work at all without the patch underneath, and I was out of patches.

When fixing something in duct tape, the rule is, if the issue isn’t solved, add more duct tape. I had the original patch area with about a 6” square of tape, and the new patch area with about 8” square of tape, then 10” then 14”…. Then I filled the bed up and laid in it, trying to think of my next course of action.

Mind you it was one of the first warm days of the year, it was about 8 in the morning after getting up the previous day at 2:00pm and working a 12hour shift overnight. So my disposition was somewhere south of cheery. The bed deflating beneath me was like the Jeopardy music playing. It seemed like I needed to come up with a solution before I hit the floor. Then it hit me… Caulk!

It’s not unusual to hear me happily yell CAULK! from my bedroom, but it was odd that I immediately ran out of the room afterword.

Looking back, this not my best idea. At the time, I was thinking that the chalk would fill the voids in the tape, and form a seal 10 times tighter than anything that Billy Maze ever sold.

So I pulled back one corner of the tape square, and squeezed an ample about of caulk underneath it (giggidy)… That didn’t work. So Itried to smooth it out with my finger, and like I do with all messy construction supplies, I immediately had it all over my clothes, hair, teeth… This is when I realized that I had made a huge error in judgment. It was kinda like that episode of Friends where Ross tries to use lotion and powder to get his leather paints back on.

(Now just a back story to give the rest of this one some reference. Charlie the dog has a habit of running at you as fast as he can when he first sees you. It is a combination of excitement, retard strength, and very poor depth perception. But when he first sees you, you need to make sure that you don’t have your feet planted, or he will blow your knee out with a Lawrence Taylor type chop block)

So there I am, on my hands and knees on my deflated air mattress, hot, extremely tired and frustrated, covered head to toe in caulking, and angry at myself for the chain of events in my life that have lead me to this exact moment in time.

I hear Shaun yell “Charlie!” just as my door is pushed open. I turn my head to have Chuck, while running as fast as a large hound dog can get running in 15’, drive his dog nose into my eye socket (while my eye was open) with all of his weight behind it.

There was a flurry of sensations. The wicked odd feeling of his cool slobbery nose touching my bare eyeball, coupled with blinding white agony, coupled with fear that my eyeball may have ruptured, coupled with palpable rage and the question of how long it would take Dale to notice of Charlie just wasn’t there when he woke up.

While he was there, I used his ears like shop towels and cleaned the chalking off my hands. Then pulled the duct tape off the bed and stuck it to the back of his neck, and then worked the hole in the mattress into a large opening, shoved Chuck inside, slung it over my shoulder like a sack of taters, and carried the whole works out to the curb. Came back in, crawled in bed with Dale, and tried to sleep it off…

Answer: You your nose is touching the ceiling.

Face it, you are never going to be president.

During break tonight (as I would never waste time during scheduled working hours), I took a look at the stats for the ole site.




Which by the way, I am going to start referring to as OOAFM. Not as in saying the letters out like NCAA, but as a word. “OOAFM”



“Hey, did you read that account of the events in Libya last night on OOAFM? It was spot on. Spot on I say!”



Earlier tonight I Googled “how to increase your blog traffic”. I would have entered it into yahoo answers, but in the 3 days that I have known that this site existed, I have become disliked by the community as a whole. Not that it really affects me that a group of people who get serious medical advice from complete strangers don’t care for my specific type of witty banter, but I am afraid that I would not get reliable advice back from them.”



The advice that I received from the Goog’s was very helpful.



- Find a topic that you are passionate about (I’m pretty passionate about OOAFM. As passionate as the next guy I guess)

- Stay on topic.. don’t jump around (ut oh)

- Don’t ramble (wait what? isn’t that the point? I don’t have anything earthshattering to say, rambling and hoping that something profound poops out is really all I got)

- Be positive (I now hate this advice site, and started looking for a place to leave comments)

- Don’t be discouraged if you don’t have that many followers. Some sites have 1million viewers, some only have a few 1000. (a few thousand???)



On average, 275 people read this rubbish regularly. (There was a sign in the bat cave that said “Do not throw rubbish down the toilet”, so tonight’s activity is to say “rubbish” whenever possible.)



I was pretty happy with 275. I only have like 180 Facebook friends I think, and in real life, there are only like maybe five or six people that can stand me for prolonged periods of time.



So I thought my number was a pretty good. Especially since when I post something new, even if it is rubbish, you all read it within about 4 hours.



So I’m going to lay it right out on the table. If I have any hope of becoming a multimillionaire from my quips on everyday living, I need you all to stop reading this alone in the dark, where no one can see you. When I haven’t written anything in a while, people will ask me why I stopped writing stuff, but they ask me like someone would ask a stranger to borrow preparation-H. “ummm. Hey…. Shhh… um.. when.. when are you going to post something on your blog again.. shhhhhh”.



I don’t know if it is because it is gay to read a blog? Or if maybe you are afraid that someday you will be sitting on the witness stand under cross examination and the attorney will try to discredit your testimony based on your patronage of OOAFM.



“Mr. Smith… do you know what this is?”






-“Yes”






“Can you describe what this is”






-“Uh…. Yes, it is a screenshot of the home page of OOAFM”






“And is that your name underneath the list of followers?”






-“Yes”






“No further questions you honor”



Or could it be that you think that someday during the vetting process when you are running for President, that it will come up, and your party will distance themselves from you and you will be forced to become a lobbyist for the maple syrup industry?



Whatever it may be that keeps you from officially following me, or commenting , or even clicking the little thing that says that you thought this was funny (or stupid for that matter) Im ok with that I guess, but can I humbly ask you that you just forward one of your favorite posts to one of your friends that has a slightly off sense of humor like you and I?



There is a fancy new button deal at the end of each post that will let you send it on ‘er way. If even half of those people think I that this is worth a peep on their iphones whilst taking a deuce, well it won’t be long before I can quit the normal 18:00-06:00 grind and sit back and judge others full time.



And let’s be honest, that’s what we all want for me isn’t it?



Share OOAFM with the world you piece of rubbish.

The time spent not being "The Guy"

A man once told me (I don’t know if he was wise, but he seemed to have his shit together), that the life of a Nuclear Reactor Operator is 99% boredom, and 1% shear blinding terror.




That is very analogous of the work schedule during a refueling outage. (Do you like the use of that word? I am trying to expand my vocabulary and have started using fancy words in everyday situations, much to the dismay of those around me). What I mean by that is; during an outage, you are either the one that everyone is waiting for, or you are waiting for someone else.



When it is your turn to get your work done, everyone who has ever even driven by the plant wants an update on your work, and wants to know why it isn’t being done faster. And somehow overnight, those around you become subject matter experts on what you are doing, and know a better way to do it.



Hi, this is Alice from the cafeteria, can you please tell me when you are going to be done with cable terminations?






We should be done by 23:00






That’s UNSAT, you need to be done in 6 minutes.






What? We are way ahead of schedule, and you charge me a different price for the same lunch nearly every day, why are you even asking me?






Who do you report to?



This is what one of my past co-workers used to call “being the guy”. Whenever your work came up on the schedule, you were “the guy”. No one wants to be “the guy”.



The flip side of this is when your project is not affecting anyone else. When this happens, you could walk around with a vuvuzela and a tambourine, and you would not be able to get anyone’s attention.



Hey Alice, I think that my grilled cheese sandwich is on fire, can you turn around and flip it






What part of “you aren’t on critical path, go fuck yourself” didn’t you understand?




What amplifies these two extremes is the speed at which you transition from one to another. There is no spring or fall. It’s like driving a sports car 140mph right into a brick wall. One day the plant manager knows your name and where you went to school, the next day your own supervisor is too busy to hold the door open for you



I luckily find little ways to entertain myself during the down time. Don’t get me wrong, I do all of the things I should do during my down time. I get all of my reports for what I have done so far in order and I get everything that I need for our next window ready. I even make half assed attempts at helping others



Hey it looks like you need a hand with that?



Yeah that would be great



Oh crap, hold on a second, my boss is calling, I will be back in like 2 hours…



But your phone didn’t ring…..



But in between all of stuff I should be doing, I also find little things to do around the plant to pass the time and break up the monotony, so I don’t snap out of stress or cabin fever. Here are the top ten things that have gotten me through the past 2 ½ weeks



1. Noticing when others have not locked their computers when they leave, and changing their wallpaper to glamor shots of Adam Lambert

2. Paging people to urgently call random extensions (This was Jerm’s idea)

3. Walking around extremely wide eyed, like you have just witnessed something life changing, not acknowledging anyone around you

4. Standing facing into the corner of the elevator in containment

5. Leaving sticky notes on peoples computer screens that say “Call extension 357 !!! Extremely Urgent!!!” (our extensions are 4 digits)

6. Making truck noises when I walk, especially squealing tire noises around corners

7. Emailing my own email, then responding back to myself over and over talking about a trivial issue, then forwarding the chain to someone to get their input

8. Leaving sketches and calculations on the white board in my office that have glaring mathematical errors

9. Standing in my door way, with my door cracked just an inch or two, and if anyone notices me, closing it door immediately

10. Going to ask the other night shift engineers questions by going into one of the cubicles adjacent to theirs and popping my head over the wall, then leaving and coming back 5 mins later and doing the same thing from the cubical on the opposite side… Repeat back and forth as needed to get them to acknowledge what I am doing.



Luckily there are only two weeks left…

My Name is Robert Paulson

So the Nuke plant that I am working at has just started (about a week ago) it’s refueling outage. So my gingerific officemate and I take turns manning our office around the clock. Jerm and I Native American leg wrestled, I lost, and got stuck with night shift.




For those of you that have not had the pleasure of being involved with a nuclear refueling outage, you really don’t know what you are missing. This little industrial marvel is when the plants flips off the light switch, throws all of the spent fuel into Niagara Falls, or jams it down “Ol Faithful, or whatever they do with it (this is not my department), and replaces or rearranges the remaining fuel. Also, they fix or update old equipment, or just for practice take out equipment that is perfectly ok and put it back in. All the while, Greenpeace gets to sit on the boarder of the site and burn fistfuls of the plants money until it comes back online.

As such, the plant has a strong desire to get everything done as fast and safely as possible. This creates a great influx of new workers. As Jerm overheard one guy say “Every fucking carnie north of the mason Dixon line is going to be here next week”. That is funny on its own, but no one north of the mason Dixon line uses that expression, so the irony gives it that little bit of extra fun.





Anyway…



So I have been drawing a lot of comparisons between this outage and the movie Fight Club. And what kind of a guy would I be if I didn’t share these thoughts with you. A bad one… I would be a bad kind of guy….



First off, there is the obvious sleep deprivation aspect. I am the type of guy that doesn’t feel right if I don’t get 14-16 hours of sleep a night. I’m not one of those hippy types that sleeps in until noon, I go to bed roughly the same time as the average 4th grader. So switching over to night shift was not an easy transformation for me.

The first night, I did ok until about 2:30, then the guys on my crew had to wheel me around on a hand cart like Hannibal Lector. The second night I made it strong all shift. Then I stopped at Wegman’s on the way home to get lots of meats and cheeses. I was on the phone with Kali as I shopped, tooting my own horn about how awake I was, how the carnies have taken to me and want me to be one of them, and other such ramblings. As I rounded the corner to the deli, it was like I got shot with a tranquilizer dart. I dropped my phone and ran for the door like Jim Carrie running from the tribesmen in Ace Venture 2, with my arms hanging limp by my sides… I got in the car, and drove immediately into a light pole, and slept for 5 hours.



I have somewhat adjusted. But with our opposite schedules, when Kali and I talk on the phone, nine times out of ten I am in some state of unconsciousness. I fear that she suspects that I have developed a drug problem. That and I am never quite sure what day it is. It is very odd when you come into work on one day, and it changes to the next day sometime during the time you are hiding from your superiors.



The other glaring similarity to Fight Club is the….



Wait… if you haven’t seen Fight Club, stop reading this, go write “I am not a real man” 100 times, and watch it… Don’t keep reading until you do, as I am about to ruin it for you.



OK you are back.. Good wasn’t it…

The other similarity is that Jerm and I are never together in the outside world at the same time. It’s like Jerm is Ed Norton, and I am Tyler Durdan (I’m actually more like Robert Paulson but this is my story, I can be who I want), and Dale and Shaun are Marla. Jerm goes to work, I come home an hour later, then in the afternoon I leave and Jerm shows back up. They never get to see us together, and I am beginning to fear that I am a figment of his imagination.



You would think that I would be better looking if I was an image that he conjured up in his head right? So I am pretty sure that I still exist, but who knows.



But just to complete the whole Fight Club thing, I am going to march into my bosses office later this morning, and kick the shit out of myself and demand a raise.



I have to wait until Jerm gets here first so I have a way to get home….

If you are reading this, i am already dead

I feel as though I need to get this out there, though I may be putting my life in jeopardy by doing so (Dunt Dunt Dunnnnnt).




Some of you may not be aware that the greater NYC area has a real life, authentic serial killer, just like you see in the movin picture shows.



Kali was down in NYC this week visiting her sister, and she wasn’t aware that a mass murderer was picking off craigslist whores at an alarming rate (any rate is alarming I guess, depending on who you talk to). At first I was a little worried about this, because Kali fits the profile of the stereotypical whore. But now I am not so sure if I should have been worried about her, or whether I need to be worried about my own safety.



I won’t beat around the bush anymore. I think I know who the NYC serial killer is. I believe it to be none other than my officemate and roommate, Jeremy Bronson.



Do I have any proof of this? No. Do I have any real reason to even consider this to be plausible? Not really. But I still believe it with every fiber of my being.



There is only one small thing that planted this idea in my head, and like Leo’s wife in Inception, I have little doubt that it will grow and grow in there until I jump out of a high rise window.



Jerm has begun bringing large chunks of meat though airport security on a regular basis. He first asked me if I thought he would be allowed to bring a bone-in pork shoulder through TSA. A normal person would have asked why. I didn’t question it, I just figured that it would end with me getting pork, so I told him absolutely. He tried, and surprisingly, he was allowed.



Since that first day, he has done it multiple times, and is now known by the TSA personnel as the guy who brings big chunks of meat and bone though the x-ray. I fear that this is how he gets away with it. He is killing people in Rochester, cutting them up in chunks (that when baked for 8 hours at 225 degrees, are just as tender as can be), taking them on airplanes right under everyone’s nose, and dumping the parts on Long Island beaches.



Now you know as much as I do. A simple theory indeed, but one that has completely changed the way that I interact with him.



Because serial killers a lot of times are referred to by using all three names, I have started calling him Jeremy Matthew Bronson at all meetings and public events. No one knows why. When they look at me funny, I raise my eyebrows and slightly nod in Jerm’s direction, then give the slash the throat sign with my thumb, wink and smile crazily.



I have to sit in the office with Jeremy Matthew Bronson 5 days a week, for roughly 8 hours,minus the time that we spend going to the vending machine, or the coffee pot, or the Bat Cave. The Bat Cave is the bathroom on site where we like to poo. Its dark, and out of the way, and you are much less likely to have someone come ride sidecar with you following a night of overeating Sak Tai food.



The way our office is set up, my desk faces the door. This is great for passers-by not being about to see what I am up to. Unfortunately, it also means that I have to sit with my back to JMB (I have started using this moniker for him as well. Its shorter, but far more confusing, because when I say this, no one knows who or what I am talking about. The way of the nuke world is to use TLA’s (see previous post). The more TLA’s you know, the higher up the food chain you move. So no one will ever admit they don’t know one. So when I say that I think we might have a huge issue with JMB that we all need to be concerned about, the management just agrees and forms a committee to complete a risk matrix on whatever a JMB is… all the while, I am in a duffle bag in his trunk because no one would admit that this is not a common usage TLA, and means nothing to them).



Anyway, I have to sit with my back to him all day. It’s like playing faceball. You know that something bad is about to happen to you, but you can’t see it coming. So I made a little trip to the bike shop, and bought two very large rear view mirrors that I have attached to both sides of my computer monitor. They give me a fairly clear view of what he is doing, however due to the size of my head, there is a dead spot (how Freudian). This requires me to continually rock my head from left to right to see him when he is directly behind me… No one will come anywhere near our office.



In any normal situation, when someone had to share an office with another who may or may not be a mass murderer, they get to go home and get some much needed down time after they punch out. Not me. I get to walk out with, get in a car with, ride home, eat dinner, bathe with, and then cuddle up next two my tormenter. It is an around the clock nightmare.



There are some signs in our home life, that also have lead me to believe that I am sleeping with the enemy. Charlie has been acting even more weird than usual.



I haven’t talked much about Chucky. He is our house hound dog. He is much like Lenny from Of Mice and Men. He does not know a great deal yet, as he is still a puppy, and his growth has vastly outpaced his ability to control his body when up to speed. Coupled with his retard strength, he can be a bit of a handful. I often get on top of him and try to smother him with a pillow, but I just end up getting dragged around the house like those rodeo guys that get their boot stuck in the stirrup. I end up with compound fractures, and Charlie doesn’t even know we were fighting. I’m afraid that it will one day turn into a Sling blade type ending, with him waiting for the police over my lifeless body. But I can only have one irrational fear of being murdered by one of my loved ones at a time, so I will get back to Charles at a later date.



The only thing that outshines Chucks tongue length, is his sense of smell. If anything is out of the ordinary, he will barrel it over, or rip your arm out of socket if you have him on a leash. Lately, he will not leave JMB alone. At first it seemed out of place, and raised my suspicions. Then one day I came in and found JMB rubbing raw slab bacon all over his naked body while sitting in the kitchen sink. This too was a little odd, but it did fully explain Charlie’s behavior, so I could no longer prove that Charlie held the key to getting this fucking psycho put away for life. I think I may be dealing with a criminal mastermind.



I have no doubt that JMB will eventually read this. And it will bring the situation to a head. I just hope that that doesn’t lead to him carrying my head through the Greater Rochester International Airport. But I can’t take going on like this with him any longer, I just want to get it over with.



In closing, I will leave you with the words of Jerry Springer. Take care of yourself… and each other. And if you see a crazy eyed ginger, that smells of sweet savory bacon, for Christ sake, turn and walk the other way.

I drop bombs like Hiroshima

Since I cut out my overzealous use of alcohol in order to better prepare myself for this year’s Tinman, I have found that I sleep much better on Sunday nights. It is funny how staying up until the wee hours of the night on Friday and Saturday and “pouring that belly wash inta ya until ya don’t know nothin” (as Pete Murphy would say) will keep you up on Sunday nights when you are sober, have a hangover, and know that even if you fall asleep at 10, you are still only getting 6 hours of sleep. But no booze = sleep like a fat baby.

So last night, I was enjoying my newly founded restful Sabbath slumber. That was until thunder and lightning descended upon the hamlet of Colton with all of God’s furious vengeance.



I don’t know if I was half asleep… actually I do know that I WAS half asleep, so some of my recollection of this might be slightly off.. but I have never head thunder quite like last night. It wasn’t that it was overly loud. But it was nonstop. It just seemed to rumble on and on forever.



It woke Kali up too, and she said “What is that”….



I responded, as sweet as pie, “Thunder I assume”



Kali – “What if it’s not?”



Me – “What else would it be?”



Kali – “Bombs”

Me (with a quizzical look, as she said bombs with a seriousness that seemed like this was really an option) – “ummm. I a….I doubt it is bombs”

Kali (As she rolled over and fell back asleep) – “Allllright…. but if its bombs…..”



And with that she was out….

I stared at her sleeping for the next 3 hours, like the chick from Paranormal Activity.











She said “alright, but if its bombs”, the way your mother would agree to let you do something that she knew better about, but wanted you to fail in order to teach you a lesson. Like letting you watch a scary movie… “Allllright…. But if you have nightmares, don’t come crying to me….” Or letting you do LSD before school “Allllright…. But if you think your face is melting off during Home-Ec, just remember I told you so.”

The worst part was, I never got the “I told you so part”, all I got was “if its bombs……” What was I to do, if in fact, Colton was being shelled with artillery? ? Should I wake her? And if I did, was she just going to rub it in my face that she was right? I don’t know if I could take that. Plus I would probably never get back to sleep in time to feel rested for the drive in the morning. Should i go get under my desk the way that our parents were taught when they were young. "ummmm. teacher? there is a B52 flying over the soccer field, it looks like it is going to carpet bomb the school". "Just get under your desk and cover your ears, you will be fine"

Eventually the thunder (or bombs) let up, and I drifted back to sleep (or went and got a butcher knife and stood in the closet for 3 hours due to our house being possessed, could have been either, we didn't have a camera going).

but I asked Bruce as i was getting gas this morning, and he had heard about a storm, nothing about any bombings… So I guess we are in the clear for now, but who really knows.

In the arms of the angles.....

As you may or may not know, Kali and I are now home owners. We had wanted to get a dog for a few years now, but were always waiting until we had a place of our own.


Now that we have a place, we realized two things. The unending joy that one feels when they own a pink and purple home, and also that we are not home enough to have a dog. We didn’t want to but the kind of dog owners that keep their dog hog tied in the closet all day while they are out gallivanting around town.

Maybe someday when we are both on the dole, we can get a pooch, but not right now. So, we have decided to become cat people. I let Charlie know that we were going to be getting cats. He said, why would you want cats, they get hairballs and make faces like this;

Then he said, plus, they can’t play bar games, shut up about the damn cats and let’s play some foose.

After he beat me, he made me promise not to bring up the cat issue again.

So I have been looking around at some options. I looked at the Lollypop Farm website, and sent a photo of a cat that I thought looked cool, to Kali. She responded with a concern about used cats, based on the fact that I got her a cat back in the day from the animal shelter, and it turned out to be a drug abuser and an anti-Semite. I responded with the following;

Are you really going to condemn me for something some other cat did to you??? Look at me ! Really??

One thing led to another, and soon I was adding captions to all of photos of the used cats at Lollypop Farm that are for sale and lease, and sending them to Kali at work so she could look and see if she wanted to save any of poor souls from the kitty gallows.

It went a little something like this

a…. Yo…. Whats up sweetie…. Maybe you’s and I go grab dinner? Whatta ya say?

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a fine chianti

I know what you are doing, get back to work, we aren’t for your amusement

They make us pose for these pictures like 5 hours a day. I have a job, and a family… get it over with.

( From Black Cat) This white cat is racist, that’s why I sit so close to him… look how mad he is.

(From White Cat) I hate black cats.

No one will adopt me because my right ear is so much smaller than my left one…

I’m actually a kitten… I am screwed.

Hey mehn…. Jew wanna know something? That cholo really is a cat mehn… crazy!

Go ahead, adopt me… see if I don’t tie your family up and burn the house down by Thursday

Oh…. Didn’t ugh… didn’t see ya there…. I was… aughh.. poopin

I have scoliosis…Sarah McLachlan won’t even use me in commercials.

(From Brown Cat) I’m afraid to move… is that grey cat still behind me????

(From Gray Cat) Shhhh.. don’t tell him I am still here

I don’t even know what I am… some kind of small horse? A teddy bear???

But seriously folks, if you would like any of these fine animals, please contact Lollypop Farm of Rochester. And have your pets spayed or neutered.

Put your pants on, and get off my desk!

One part of working in a Nuclear Plant, is that at any given time, you have a 60% chance of being in training of some sort. Of the remaining 40% that you are not in training, about half of that is time that you are supposed to be in training and you have forgotten about it. The 20% that is left over you can use to fill out documents to explain why you missed the training you should have been in.


It keeps us all very knowledgeable, but does somewhat hamper one’s ability to get actual work done.

This week has been a heavy training week (so to speak). Most of it is CBT (that is a TLA for Computer Based Training for all you non-nukers), (TLA is a TLA for Three Letter Acronym). It should be fairly painless and go quickly, but I spend a good portion of the time arguing with the proctor of the testing over why I think I was right about questions that I got wrong, and why, as I am a black man in American, the testing is biased against me. It makes the time spent exciting for everyone, waiting to see when she will snap and tell me to GFM (that is a TLA for Go……).

Part of my training today was to get a physical exam to determine if I am physically fit enough to wear a respirator. Some work that we will be doing during the upcoming outage may involve types of radiation that require us to were a SCUBA suit. This makes me very excited. To quote Jeremy “If I get exposed to high levels of radiation, I want them to give me cyanide pills, not iodine pills. He was standing a little close to the microwave last night, so I slipped a little in his ice tea. (He missed training today, and will have to spend the rest of the week filling out paperwork).

So I went into the nurses office for my physical. She comes in a few minutes later, tells me that removing all of my clothing was not necessary, and tells me to sit down so she can take my blood pressure. I had been thinking about having M-Kent throw the old arm band on me if we got the chance, as in the past few months, when I drink with a hangover, my body feels like a overfilled balloon (insert fat joke). I was kinda worried that my blood pressure was to the point that if I slit my wrist, I could shoot blood across the room and incapacitate bad guys like spider man.

She put the band on my and pumped it up. When the pressure reached its greatest, 100% concentrated Franks Red Hot began seeping from my arm like a wet sponge that got squeezed. Just kidding, turns out that my blood pressure is fantastically low. She told me that and i replied with wide eyes “Really??? Wow”.

Nurse – “You seem Surprised”

Me – “You don’t know me that well”

Nurse – “I just saw you naked and laying on my desk”

Me – “Touché”

Following that she told me to take my shoes off so she could get my accurate height and weight. I immediately grabbed the questionnaire I had filled out and crossed out 6’3-175lbs.

Turns out that I am 4’-8”. This took me by surprise, I thought that I was much taller. Just goes to show that you never have a very objective opinion of yourself.

Then the meat and tater’s of the exam was to test my lung capacity. After multiple failed tests, she finally convinced me to stop sucking on the tube, and to blow into in.

Nurse – Ok, blow into this tube.

Me – Now do I put my lips up to it like a trumpet? Or wrap my lips around it like aaaa…….

Nurse (With a confused GFY look) – Not like a trumpet.

Fair enough…

Turns out I can blow a lot.



Bring on the REM!

Observations of a sorry little fellow with rambling nonsense

I was going to wait until i had a handful of WDT comment wars saved up and then post them all at once, but this guy might snap and burn the building down if i keep pushing him, so i wanted you all to be in on the grounf floor of his breakdown.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110324/NEWS05/303249942

P.S.Kali, Dobber, and Dobber's wife... (i told them all i would mention them. There ya go.

Unsolicited Mustard Injections

We went to dinner for Kali's parents 40th anniversary on Sunday Night. (if you see either of them, say congrats and give them a firm hand shake and a Benji).

After dinner, Margaret was getting a little sleepy from her big trip (boop), and let out a tubby sized yawn. I was slightly taken aback from the amount of time that i had to think about different things that i could throw down her throat (giggidy) without her being able to stop me.

At the last minute, i saw what would have created a story that would have been retold at Connelly family holidays until the end of time.

Remember that guy that Kali was going to marry, that squired the mustard in Maggie's mouth when she was yawning? That was the most awesome thing ever. What ever happened to that guy? He probably would have married her if he hadn't done that.

I am joking that Kali would leave me for injecting French's into her sisters mouth against her wishes, but i am not joking when i say that this in now one of my main focuses in life.

Mark my words, before the end of 2011, i will squirt mustard in someones mouth while they are yawning. Don't let it be you....Unsolicited

Time to Dust off the Ol' Laptop

Now that i have Jeremy working here in the office with me, I can delegate all of my important tasks to him, and focus all of my attention on the important things, like updating you all on my thought about everyday life, my hatred for he average poster on Watertown Daily Times, and why if you are arguing against Nuke power in the US or specifically NNY, based on the events in Japan, why you have no idea what you are talking about.


Again i have found that i have more to say than the average site allows me. Which is a sign that it is time to start writing on here again.

This is just a heads up that its coming, so you will be fully prepared...