If you have not read my disclaimer please read this first: http://notnormalworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/clearing-brain.html
From chapter 3:
December 24th at his mother's house though less uncomfortable than the following day at his in-law's is still something Ken dreads. Squeezing 15 people in a house made for at the most 4 is not his idea of fun. While sitting on the bed in the front room that is used by his father he ends up talking with his brothers-in-law (and one other person who always seems to be part of the family functions and has no where else to go) about fantasy football. "As expected, my team is in the title game again and after this TOUCHDOWN! I believe my team is a winner. So when will I get my money?" Ken asks his brother-in-law.
"What do you mean expected? You have not won in a while and you only are going to win this year because you got lucky with a draft pick in the 11th round."
"Since this is the first time in the past three years the draft was held on a day that I could make it and I was not violently ill I knew I would have the best team and unlike the time before when other teams colluded to prevent me from winning, it did not work."
"As I said, there was no collusion; they were just negligent with taking care of their teams and it hasn't happened since. Can I give you the money New Year's Eve?"
"That will be fine. I believe that had I not called out the league then it would have happened this year too. I do appreciate your efforts when I noticed discrepancies with other team's lineups."
******
In the kitchen where his wife was talking to his mom and sister, "When I walked in you were talking about what game to play after opening presents. I did bring a couple of ones I got including the one I texted you from Gencon Indianapolis about getting to see if it would work well here."
"It's ok," Ken's sister replied. "We'll be fine with what we have."
"It does not involve trivia and it is something no one can accuse me of cheating even though I don't."
"What do you mean you don't cheat?" Ken's wife chimes in.
"I don't need to cheat."
"That baseball trivia question you answered so fast. You had to have looked at the card before."
"You think I need to look ahead at a question involving BASEBALL?" Ken emphasizes. "The question itself led to only one answer and since I had the crafty Arizona Diamondbacks left handed pitcher Brian Anderson on my fantasy baseball team when he missed a start after playing too many video games, I knew it and answered right away."
"I still don't know why Randy Johnson is not considered a crafty pitcher."
"Randy Johnson threw the ball 95 miles per hour. That makes him a power pitcher, not a crafty one. I have told you that many times in the last three years."
"I have never heard the word crafty ever used in describing a pitcher."
"That is because like most Cubs fans you don't understand a thing about baseball!" Ken angrily replied as his wife stormed out of the room.
Returning his attention to his mom and sister, "It takes a lot of nerve to state 'wheel' is not a valid answer to 'things in the sky' in Scattegories by claiming a wheel is not a tangible object in the sky when you have St. William on your sheet!" Ken proclaims while grabbing a celery stick and heading back to watch the football game.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
I am the champion?
I am until someone gets a higher score on that song playing bass. (Note: Song has been available for about a month though to play it on Rock Band, the Lego version of the game needs to be purchased and the songs exported from the disk to the hard drive.)
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Title clinched
On Monday, my fantasy football team officially clinched its third division title in the past 6 years. The standings are as such with two weeks before the playoffs begin:
The league uses fractional points to try to avoid ties. If you are interested in the scoring system used, reply or send me an e mail and I will provide it.
The name of my team, Misfit Demons, comes from the video game Mutant League Football representation of the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The representation of the 1985 Bears are called the Midway Monsters.
From bottom to top in the Kraut division the other four people are the person who does not take care of her team who on multiple occasions this season had a person in her lineup who did not play due to injury, the person who decided to stop trying once he realized his team had no chance since he was not ready on draft day, the n00b who after drafting the person I marked as the best running back in the league (Chris Johnson) put him on his trading block and then traded him to me, and a Cubs fan, nuff said.
I have over the past six years taken advantage of the teams in my division which have consistently been worse than the Brats division especially this year as I share the division with the league's 4 worst scoring teams. Since the person who runs the league who won last year suffered an extremely difficult schedule this year as I faced people who either don't know what they are doing or care to put the effort into running their teams, the divisions will be changed for 2010.
I have proposed a plan to reset the division alignment every year based on the regular season record of the previous year. Hopefully, this will eventually make things fair for everyone.
The league uses fractional points to try to avoid ties. If you are interested in the scoring system used, reply or send me an e mail and I will provide it.
The name of my team, Misfit Demons, comes from the video game Mutant League Football representation of the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The representation of the 1985 Bears are called the Midway Monsters.
From bottom to top in the Kraut division the other four people are the person who does not take care of her team who on multiple occasions this season had a person in her lineup who did not play due to injury, the person who decided to stop trying once he realized his team had no chance since he was not ready on draft day, the n00b who after drafting the person I marked as the best running back in the league (Chris Johnson) put him on his trading block and then traded him to me, and a Cubs fan, nuff said.
I have over the past six years taken advantage of the teams in my division which have consistently been worse than the Brats division especially this year as I share the division with the league's 4 worst scoring teams. Since the person who runs the league who won last year suffered an extremely difficult schedule this year as I faced people who either don't know what they are doing or care to put the effort into running their teams, the divisions will be changed for 2010.
I have proposed a plan to reset the division alignment every year based on the regular season record of the previous year. Hopefully, this will eventually make things fair for everyone.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
A Madman Christmas Carol (excerpt 2)
If you have not read the disclaimer first, please do so here: http://notnormalworld.blogspot.com/2009/11/clearing-brain.html
From Chapter 2
At the entrance to the grocery store among the commotion of the man ringing his Salvation Army bell and the shoppers entering the store was a little girl standing in front of her mother. She was handing out little slips of paper to anyone who wanted one and Ken out of courtesy took one and read the hand written note on it while walking into the store. He stopped on the other side of the entrance then walked back outside and said to the girl, "You should not be handing out these slips of paper. You spelled ..."
Her mother angrily walks in front of the girl to confront Ken, "Who do you think you are telling my daughter to not hand notes to people? Do you know what is written on the note? It is John 3:16, the bible verse which explains whose birthday we are celebrating in two days."
"Yes, I know what it is. She spelled the word perish with an a."
"So? Who are you, some kind of spelling expert?"
"Since I have played for the National Scrabble Championship, I would consider myself one. If you want people to respect and pay attention to the message, it should be spelled correctly." Ken replied while walking back into the store with his daughter who was talking with the girl while their parents argued.
After getting the groceries while walking to the exit, a little kid runs in right front of Ken and his daughter, trips over his own two feet and ends up landing face first into the back of a stroller. Ken looks over the crying kid as the mother tries talking to him in Spanish as a bilingual store employee tries to calm her down. Seeing that the situation is being handled, he walks away with his daughter. As Ken gets to the door, he hears the woman screaming frantically and catches her eye as he leaves the store.
On the way towards the parking lot, Ken noticed the mother and kid were gone but the Salvation Army person was still ringing his bell and shouting Merry Christmas and as usual, Ken ignored him. Apparently annoyed with what he saw earlier, the worker with his bell walked up behind Ken, rang the bell next to his ear and shouted, "I said Merry Christmas!"
Wincing in pain from the sound, Ken turned around and to the surprise of the bell ringer, grabbed the bell out of his hand and threw it into a garbage can. "What the ****'s wrong with you?" screamed the man as he went to retrieve his bell.
Ken screamed back even louder, "You're ****ing lucky that I didn't take that *** **** bell and shove it up your ******-****ing ***!" Turning to his daughter who had a ringside view and speaking in a much calmer tone, "Remember, parking lot."
A few hours later the doorbell rang at Ken's house. It was the police. Ken nervously asked, "What can I help you with today?"
"By any chance were you at the grocery store earlier today with a little kid?"
Feeling impending doom Ken nervously replied, "Yes."
"Did you see a little kid trip and hit his face on a stroller?"
"It happened right in front of me. I was walking to the door with my daughter when he fell. Since someone was talking to her in Spanish, I figured I could not help."
"Can we take that as your eye witness to what happened? It would add to the report. Is this the correct spelling of your name?" the officer shows the sheet as Ken signs it. "Ok, thanks for your time, Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Ken reluctantly replies. After closing the door, he breathes out a big sigh, "That was scary."
Later that evening, while he is on his computer, his daughter approaches him.
"Are you doing you radio show now, daddy?"
"Yes, I Am."
******
"I'm about to go live on the mike, you want to join me?"
"Sure."
Ken speaks into the microphone, "This is the madman on the loose and you are listening to the Larry Csonka birthday special as the hall of fame fullback turns a year older in a few days. I am not alone here in Hardcore Gaming Studios. The little girl you heard screaming in that last song is here with me. So are you excited about the next couple of days?"
"Yep!"
"Nice. We had one interesting time at the store today. Didn't we?"
"Yep."
"You think that adventure would make an interesting chapter in a story?"
"I don't know."
"I have a lot more music to play. You have anything else to say?
Giggling, "Can you smell that? I just farted."
"If anyone had a doubt that this is my kid I think they have been removed. Here is Bob Rivers," Ken turns off the mike and starts the music. "Damn, what did you eat, kid?"
From Chapter 2
At the entrance to the grocery store among the commotion of the man ringing his Salvation Army bell and the shoppers entering the store was a little girl standing in front of her mother. She was handing out little slips of paper to anyone who wanted one and Ken out of courtesy took one and read the hand written note on it while walking into the store. He stopped on the other side of the entrance then walked back outside and said to the girl, "You should not be handing out these slips of paper. You spelled ..."
Her mother angrily walks in front of the girl to confront Ken, "Who do you think you are telling my daughter to not hand notes to people? Do you know what is written on the note? It is John 3:16, the bible verse which explains whose birthday we are celebrating in two days."
"Yes, I know what it is. She spelled the word perish with an a."
"So? Who are you, some kind of spelling expert?"
"Since I have played for the National Scrabble Championship, I would consider myself one. If you want people to respect and pay attention to the message, it should be spelled correctly." Ken replied while walking back into the store with his daughter who was talking with the girl while their parents argued.
After getting the groceries while walking to the exit, a little kid runs in right front of Ken and his daughter, trips over his own two feet and ends up landing face first into the back of a stroller. Ken looks over the crying kid as the mother tries talking to him in Spanish as a bilingual store employee tries to calm her down. Seeing that the situation is being handled, he walks away with his daughter. As Ken gets to the door, he hears the woman screaming frantically and catches her eye as he leaves the store.
On the way towards the parking lot, Ken noticed the mother and kid were gone but the Salvation Army person was still ringing his bell and shouting Merry Christmas and as usual, Ken ignored him. Apparently annoyed with what he saw earlier, the worker with his bell walked up behind Ken, rang the bell next to his ear and shouted, "I said Merry Christmas!"
Wincing in pain from the sound, Ken turned around and to the surprise of the bell ringer, grabbed the bell out of his hand and threw it into a garbage can. "What the ****'s wrong with you?" screamed the man as he went to retrieve his bell.
Ken screamed back even louder, "You're ****ing lucky that I didn't take that *** **** bell and shove it up your ******-****ing ***!" Turning to his daughter who had a ringside view and speaking in a much calmer tone, "Remember, parking lot."
A few hours later the doorbell rang at Ken's house. It was the police. Ken nervously asked, "What can I help you with today?"
"By any chance were you at the grocery store earlier today with a little kid?"
Feeling impending doom Ken nervously replied, "Yes."
"Did you see a little kid trip and hit his face on a stroller?"
"It happened right in front of me. I was walking to the door with my daughter when he fell. Since someone was talking to her in Spanish, I figured I could not help."
"Can we take that as your eye witness to what happened? It would add to the report. Is this the correct spelling of your name?" the officer shows the sheet as Ken signs it. "Ok, thanks for your time, Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas," Ken reluctantly replies. After closing the door, he breathes out a big sigh, "That was scary."
Later that evening, while he is on his computer, his daughter approaches him.
"Are you doing you radio show now, daddy?"
"Yes, I Am."
******
"I'm about to go live on the mike, you want to join me?"
"Sure."
Ken speaks into the microphone, "This is the madman on the loose and you are listening to the Larry Csonka birthday special as the hall of fame fullback turns a year older in a few days. I am not alone here in Hardcore Gaming Studios. The little girl you heard screaming in that last song is here with me. So are you excited about the next couple of days?"
"Yep!"
"Nice. We had one interesting time at the store today. Didn't we?"
"Yep."
"You think that adventure would make an interesting chapter in a story?"
"I don't know."
"I have a lot more music to play. You have anything else to say?
Giggling, "Can you smell that? I just farted."
"If anyone had a doubt that this is my kid I think they have been removed. Here is Bob Rivers," Ken turns off the mike and starts the music. "Damn, what did you eat, kid?"
Thursday, November 19, 2009
"real" music
A couple of years ago right after changing the CD that I was listening at work, someone came up to me and asked if I listen to any real music. Curious to what was meant, I was told that real music consists of original songs done by people or groups that play their own instruments. I asked, lead guitar, bass guitar, drum, and maybe a third guitar, keyboard or even trombone and was told yes. I shrugged my shoulders and the person walked away. I then hit the pause button and listened to the Ookla the Mok CD Super Secret which has all original songs performed by people who play the instruments I described earlier. As the first words of the CD were sung (Mr Potato Head), I cracked a rare smile at work and continued what I was doing.
Most people associate comedy music with Weird Al Yankovic. He has been doing this over 30 years and most of the songs people know from him are parodies songs that were popular when the parody was written. I have many times tried to explain that Weird Al has done more than parodies. Over the past 30 years he has released 12 original albums that have 140 total tracks on them and 6 songs on the internet since his last album was released in 2006. The breakdown of the type of songs is here:
Recent parody - Any song that is a parody of a song released within the past 5 years and the songs most people know (Eat It, Smells Live Nirvana, White and Nerdy)
Classic Parody - Any song that is a parody of a song that is over 5 years old (Yoda, Jurassic Park, The Saga Begins)
Polka - Except for the 3:39 polka version of the six minute song Bohemian Rhapsody, the Polkas consisted of a medley of 15-30 second excerpts of songs strung together in a group. Except for the time he did all Rolling Stones songs in a medley, they have been recent songs Al could not work separately as a parody.
Style Parody - An original song that sounds like it was done by a different artist. Over the years, he has done this to Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Devo, and Talking Heads, and more recently NWA, The Beach Boys, and USA For Africa, and the Doors.
Original - An original song. Some of them were theme songs for the tv show or movie.
Other - One straight cover and one instrumental.
I did not include songs that were never released due to not getting permission and/or only performed at concerts. From what I could recall, most of them were parodies.
Most people associate comedy music with Weird Al Yankovic. He has been doing this over 30 years and most of the songs people know from him are parodies songs that were popular when the parody was written. I have many times tried to explain that Weird Al has done more than parodies. Over the past 30 years he has released 12 original albums that have 140 total tracks on them and 6 songs on the internet since his last album was released in 2006. The breakdown of the type of songs is here:
Recent parody - Any song that is a parody of a song released within the past 5 years and the songs most people know (Eat It, Smells Live Nirvana, White and Nerdy)
Classic Parody - Any song that is a parody of a song that is over 5 years old (Yoda, Jurassic Park, The Saga Begins)
Polka - Except for the 3:39 polka version of the six minute song Bohemian Rhapsody, the Polkas consisted of a medley of 15-30 second excerpts of songs strung together in a group. Except for the time he did all Rolling Stones songs in a medley, they have been recent songs Al could not work separately as a parody.
Style Parody - An original song that sounds like it was done by a different artist. Over the years, he has done this to Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa, Devo, and Talking Heads, and more recently NWA, The Beach Boys, and USA For Africa, and the Doors.
Original - An original song. Some of them were theme songs for the tv show or movie.
Other - One straight cover and one instrumental.
I did not include songs that were never released due to not getting permission and/or only performed at concerts. From what I could recall, most of them were parodies.
Friday, November 13, 2009
clearing the brain
Over the past couple of years I have had unconnected pieces of a story develop inside my head. Last year I decided to connect them and throughout the past 12 months developed and for the most part completed it.
Currently titled "A Madman Christmas Carol" one can imagine it applies the Dickens' classic story to me. It contains situations I have encountered over the years and random thoughts about potential future situations many of which I do not expect to encounter.
While writing it, I soon discovered that most people whom I know can not for various reasons read it. However, I decided it would be possible to post edited excerpts from the story.
In the excerpts I decided to skip some things in between. I placed a divider ***** to designate that.
Even though I have basically completed the story, it is still a work in progress and whenever a thought gets into my head about a change, I will make it.
Currently titled "A Madman Christmas Carol" one can imagine it applies the Dickens' classic story to me. It contains situations I have encountered over the years and random thoughts about potential future situations many of which I do not expect to encounter.
While writing it, I soon discovered that most people whom I know can not for various reasons read it. However, I decided it would be possible to post edited excerpts from the story.
In the excerpts I decided to skip some things in between. I placed a divider ***** to designate that.
Even though I have basically completed the story, it is still a work in progress and whenever a thought gets into my head about a change, I will make it.
A Madman Christmas Carol (excerpt one)
From Chapter one. ***** means material purposely not put in this blog.
It was a holiday lunch at any common workplace. The employees mostly in shirts with their names on them were enjoying food their supervisor brought. At one end was a radio playing a CD of songs of the holiday season as most everyone was talking and laughing. At the other end there was a person quickly and silently eating his food watching everything with a cynical look on his face.
In an attempt to get him involved, someone walked up to him and asked "Why weren't you at the company's holiday party, Kenny?"
The person stopped concentrating on his food and looked at his dark blue shirt grabbing it just below a patch with a name scripted on it and then peered disgustingly back. "Er, Ken."
The reply which seemed to automatically come from his lips as it had been said many times over the past few weeks when asked if he was going was, "Since I have to get my daughter after I leave, I can't drink alcohol. Since they serve Pepsi there, I won't drink that. I would also need to leave before they serve any decent food. For me there is no reason to go."
She rebutted, "Why not go just to hang out?"
With an annoyed look coming over his eyes he replied, "It took me years to learn how to forget about this place and the people here once I am no longer within these walls and I really can't do that at the party. Anyway, if I want to be ignored around the people I work with ..."
"Huh? Tell me. You want to say it."
"Never mind." Trying to change the conversation, "I am really not a good social person outside the comfort zone of my house or while working. In most social situations, I usually end up silent in a corner until someone comes up to me. Yes, even in the group I hang out with, the same thing can happen."
*****
At this time the supervisor starts talking about the past year and his hopes for the new one and then opens up the presents his employees contributed to get him. While cleaning up shortly afterward someone else asked, "So what are you buying your daughter for Christmas, Ken?"
"As usual, nothing"
"O.K. For that football player who was born on December 25?"
"His name is Larry Csonka. Anyway, with how things are, I really can't buy her anything. I don't have the money."
writers note: It is revealed later in the story that since store credit was used to obtain presents, it was accurate to state that nothing was purchased.
*****
"Won't your daughter be disappointed that Santa won't get her anything?"
"My wife ruined it for my daughter a couple of years ago while my kid was praising Santa for getting her something by telling my daughter that it was me who got it for her."
A few hours later when it was time to go home, since the building was closed the next couple of days for Christmas, the supervisor greeted everyone on their way out with a handshake and a hearty "Merry Christmas!"
Ken reluctantly mumbled, "Merry Christmas."
Someone else shouted, "Merry Christmas, Ken!"
"See you Monday," was the reply as he walked out the door.
It was a holiday lunch at any common workplace. The employees mostly in shirts with their names on them were enjoying food their supervisor brought. At one end was a radio playing a CD of songs of the holiday season as most everyone was talking and laughing. At the other end there was a person quickly and silently eating his food watching everything with a cynical look on his face.
In an attempt to get him involved, someone walked up to him and asked "Why weren't you at the company's holiday party, Kenny?"
The person stopped concentrating on his food and looked at his dark blue shirt grabbing it just below a patch with a name scripted on it and then peered disgustingly back. "Er, Ken."
The reply which seemed to automatically come from his lips as it had been said many times over the past few weeks when asked if he was going was, "Since I have to get my daughter after I leave, I can't drink alcohol. Since they serve Pepsi there, I won't drink that. I would also need to leave before they serve any decent food. For me there is no reason to go."
She rebutted, "Why not go just to hang out?"
With an annoyed look coming over his eyes he replied, "It took me years to learn how to forget about this place and the people here once I am no longer within these walls and I really can't do that at the party. Anyway, if I want to be ignored around the people I work with ..."
"Huh? Tell me. You want to say it."
"Never mind." Trying to change the conversation, "I am really not a good social person outside the comfort zone of my house or while working. In most social situations, I usually end up silent in a corner until someone comes up to me. Yes, even in the group I hang out with, the same thing can happen."
*****
At this time the supervisor starts talking about the past year and his hopes for the new one and then opens up the presents his employees contributed to get him. While cleaning up shortly afterward someone else asked, "So what are you buying your daughter for Christmas, Ken?"
"As usual, nothing"
"O.K. For that football player who was born on December 25?"
"His name is Larry Csonka. Anyway, with how things are, I really can't buy her anything. I don't have the money."
writers note: It is revealed later in the story that since store credit was used to obtain presents, it was accurate to state that nothing was purchased.
*****
"Won't your daughter be disappointed that Santa won't get her anything?"
"My wife ruined it for my daughter a couple of years ago while my kid was praising Santa for getting her something by telling my daughter that it was me who got it for her."
A few hours later when it was time to go home, since the building was closed the next couple of days for Christmas, the supervisor greeted everyone on their way out with a handshake and a hearty "Merry Christmas!"
Ken reluctantly mumbled, "Merry Christmas."
Someone else shouted, "Merry Christmas, Ken!"
"See you Monday," was the reply as he walked out the door.
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