Dream A Little Dream

The other night I dreamed that I was an Olympic gold medal winner......in shitting.

It was a new competition that was causing quite a stir. Competitors were strapped, pant-less into some kind of bondage harness on the end of a rope swing. On the ground below the swing was a bullseye like target with 3 rings, the outer being worth 50 points, the next worth 100 points, the inner ring was worth 200 points and in the center was a bucket worth 500 points. The object of the competition was for the "athletes" to swing from one platform to another and to poop whilst in mid-swing. Needless to say, your score was determined by where the turd landed. I won by nailing three straight buckets for a perfect score, a world record.

In the cold light of morning, it seems fairly unlikely that this kind of thing would ever be accepted into the Summer Olympics as it is way too exciting for them. There may be a chance in the Winter Olympics but it might be too cold for it.

The more I think about it, the more it intrigues me. It would require a great deal of skill, muscle control and mental preparation. Timing would be paramount, meals would have to be carefully planned and the use of performance enhancing drugs such as stool softeners and laxatives would have to be stopped....... I'm obviously going to have to put some serious thought into this before presenting it to the IOC.

Okay, so you waited for over a month and all you get is another post about shite. You have a right to be disappointed but admit it....you missed me.

I have lost about 23lbs, missed a dental appointment, read zero books and have so far failed to find an acceptable alternative to bacon. Enough of me, what have YOU been up to?

Israeli's, Tennis Balls and Fake Cripples

I'm a bit annoyed this morning, mostly with myself.

Last night someone, an Israeli, wanted to make a bet with me that Israel would beat England today. Hesitantly, because England have been a bit shit lately, I agreed and as is the Israeli way we began to talk money. He started off at $1000 and I told him to fuck right off because a) I don't have $1000 and b) even if I did I would not be putting it in the hands of Steve McLaren. I suggested something a little more reasonable like $50. He would not do it!!!

What the fuck is wrong with these lads? If I had agreed to the grand he probably would have taken it and I would have theoretically been $1000 richer this morning. I say theoretically because there is no way the fucker would have paid up without, shall we say, a little pressure. I just don't get them. Their perceived value of things is way off. I see them all the time at the club, they will happily drop $500 on a bottle of vodka but will go to extraordinary lengths to get a $5 discount on admission. They will show up dressed in expensive designer threads and stand around outside for a hour or even two, waiting for someone they know who works there to get them in for free. It's all fuckin' flash and talk with fuckers from that region of the world, big fuckin' talkers. They want to argue, get in your face, push buttons but then play the race/religion card quicker than anyone when things go south. Like I said though, I'm more annoyed with myself that I didn't grab his hand and shake it as soon as he said "put your money where your mouth is."

Tennis Balls
I've been working hard on a creating a new image for tennis balls, or at least finding a new use for them. After doing some research I have concluded that there are only three main purchasers of tennis balls. Tennis players, dogs (or dog owners) and people who use zimmer frames. You don't ever see a tennis player using a walking frame and you never see a walking frame user playing tennis. Similarly, it is extremely rare to see a dog doing either and the thought of a dog doing both at the same time is just silly as they are really only interested in chasing the tennis ball. You could argue that a dog owner might be either a tennis player or the user of a walking frame who gets extended use out of their old tennis balls by throwing them for their dog but I would say the you were stretching things a bit.
Apparently you can also use tennis balls for breaking into some older model cars but I'm not sure the industry would want that particular activity to be the focus of an advertising campaign. So I'm struggling with this. If anyone has any ideas please share them.

Mister Waring! Can We Have Our Balls Back?
Puuuhhhleeeeese?

Absolutely No Use For Tennis Balls

Fake Cripples
One of the few things that annoys me more than a fake cripple is getting stuck behind a real cripple in a narrow aisle at the supermarket. This isn't about real ones though, it's about fake ones, people who do it for either financial gain or because they are just lazy twats and in some cases, both.
I see this lad last night in a wheelchair, he's obviously not right as he is having a loud argument with himself about religion. Anyway, this lad is wheeling himself along in the wheelchair using his legs and feet. If he can use his legs and feet to such a degree why does he need a wheelchair? Is it his back? Can he just not stand up straight? Am I judging him too harshly?
I once saw some bloke on crutches standing at the bottom of the freeway exit holding bit of cardboard which said "Cripled(sic) Please help". Later that day I swear I saw him running for a bus.

A Very Sweaty Arse Crack

Fuck!

It's been two fuckin' weeks since my last post. What the fuck has happened to me? I was turning out regular posts 3 or 4 months ago. Okay, they weren't much cop but at least I was making the effort. I need to sort my shit out and get back to the matters at hand. The stuff that nobody else seems to concern themselves with, that few are interested in and that make absolutely no fuckin' difference to the lives of the majority of the population. The stuff that (my) dreams are made of.

I took last week off from the day job, time to relax, to sleep in until at least 7am or just to lie around spread eagled across the sofa pumping my fist to the morning weather girls on telly.
Actually, I took time off to try being a Dad for a week seeing as it was the younger Waring's last week off from school and to hopefully get some shit done that I never seem to have time for, like blogging. Turns out that it was the hottest week of the fuckin' year here in LA and to be honest, it was fuckin' miserable round at the noticeably non-air conditioned Waring house. We got out and did a couple of things like see a film or two and went down to the Aquarium of The Pacific in Long Beach but other than that, it was a week spent sparring with the missus and just trying to stay cool. It was too fuckin' warm to blog and my mood did not suit anyway, so I purposely left it alone. Enough said.

Speaking of the heat, it's cooled off considerably and could be described as "quite a nice evening" in these parts. A cool breeze and a celebratory bottle of wine (my first for some time) conspire to make life tolerable again.

Speaking of the heat, last Saturday lunchtime I took the sprog to the pictures to see "Underdog", a festering turd of a movie - avoid at all costs, it has Jim Fucking Belushi in it for Bogs sake. Anyway, we go over to Alhambra, where at noon on the corner of Atlantic & Main it is 104 fuckin' degrees hot and some poor cunt is out dressed in a Spongebob costume holding a sign that says "HONK IF YOU WANT TO SAY HELLO"......

Don't Do Drugs......

I don't know why, maybe it was a bet, a dare or maybe someone was desperate to lose weight or something but I can think of no good reason to do this to myself. They were not advertising anything but were stood outside a car dealership so maybe they were just trying to attract attention to it. I got there at noon, entered the cinema at 12:15 and came out at 2:00 and they were still there. There was also someone in a Garfield costume (although they were gone at 2:00pm) a Genie (from Aladdin) and someone in a neon green dinosaur costume all holding the same sign. As usual, I was left with only questions....no answers.

Speaking of losing weight, I am on a diet stroke healthy eating stroke exercise binge once again. I need to lose a pound or fifty and get myself into some kind of shape if I am to ditch the wife and attract a quality replacement. That said, I did not need the added, unexpected bonus workout that I got last night. It was the first night back at school after taking the summer off, I enrolled in a Human Relations class which should be a fuckin' breeze and keep my 4.0 GPA intact, thank you very much.
I may have mentioned before that parking at Glendale College is a fuckin' nightmare, traumatising to say the least. You buy a parking permit but yet there is nowhere to park, fucking racketeers is what they are. Anyway, they sorted it out by building a shiny new multi-storey and advertised the benefits to no end. So I show up and fuck yeah! No problem, I pull into a space on the sparsely populated 5th floor of the garage....very nice! I follow the signs for the lift and notice with little surprise that the lift shaft seems to be lacking doors and indeed, a lift. The bastards have rushed to complete the parking structure in time for term so that they can sell more fucking parking permits but have not yet added the necessary accessories that would actually make it conveniently accessible.

Normally, 5 flights of stairs are no big deal but the location of the parking structure, atop a very steep grade indeed, adds a good 100 (steep) steps from the college itself up to first floor of the garage. The journey down is a treat but the return is a right bugger. I had to stop half way up to almost throw up and my legs were like jelly. Imagine my delight as I practically crawled, wheezing and spluttering to the top just a the free shuttle bus pulled up......bastards!

Also, as a result of the diet/excercise/arse sweat lifestyle change, I have made a radical choice to change my underwear of preference. More later....

Random Acts of Revenge

I have stated before that I find humour in the oddest places. I have to amuse myself occasionally and if this is at the expense of another's misfortune or through some childish, petty act then so be it. I'm not proud of my behaviour, on the contrary I am often ashamed of it. Every now and again though I make sure that someone gets what is coming to them.
No matter how insignificant it may seem, I do get pleasure from knowing that in some small way I have spoiled some arsehole's day. Maybe I just caused them an irritation, a minor bother or small annoyance that they did not bargain for. Hopefully I cause them a major inconvenience, severe earache from the missus or considerable grief at work, but to be honest, I am happy with the former.

I'm not a cunt. I think I'm a fairly nice guy. I don't pick on the innocent or the inoffensive, just the people who wrong me or who I witness wronging others or those that I consider twats, wankers, arseholes or shitbags. Those that are just plain rude, ungrateful or who treat others poorly. I don't see myself as a vigilante or a do-gooder or a social steward, I just believe that what comes around goes around, and if you are big enough to give it then you had better be prepared to take it when it's your turn. I think I am. Does any of this make sense?

Today, I was at Blockbuster, a place that I rarely go to. Blockbuster is shite, they hardly have any movies that I want to watch and besides, it's a total fuckin rip off. Sure they have the online service now but they can fuck off, I am lucky enough to have Netflix and I'm staying with them. Blockbuster could have done what Netflix do all along, they just didn't until they lost a shitload of customers and reacted by doing the same thing Netflix do.....
Anyway, I'm digressing as my beef is not with them, or not entirely, though it is their fault that I spent so fuckin long there this afternoon because they didn't have a copy of either James & The Giant Peach or Muppet Treasure Island and thus, because of their shite selection and an indecisive 6 year old, I was forced to endure an argument between some fuckin twat of a wannabe cholo gangster and his fuckin pig of a wife/girlfriend arguing over their choice of movie.

It was painful. They were loud and cursing at each other with little regard for the other people and kids in the store. Normally in situations like this, if alone, I would be tempted to intervene but not with my daughter in tow. It doesn't set a good example and I would not want to traumatize her by having her watch her Daddy get the shit kicked out him should things go wrong. So it was all "This movie's the fuckin bomb!" and "Fuck no! I don't like Samuel L fuckin Jackson" and "Fuck you bitch! I ain't watchin' no Jennifer fuckin Lopez" and " You fuckin' asshole! We watched 2 of YOUR fuckin' movies last week!" and "Fuck you bitch!" etc. etc.

It became tiresome and I was trying desperately to hurry up the younger Waring with suggestions, none of which she fancied much. Finally the child settled for Muppets Take Manhattan and as I plucked it from the shelf I heard the idiots agree on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I turned around and noticed with glee that I was standing right next to the "F's" while they were in the next aisle. There was only one copy of Fear and Loathing, quickly, happily and with no regret whatsoever, I hid it in the neighbouring "G's" and went to pay my $4.49 rental fee, a small minded yet happy man.

As I made for the door I heard "Awww fuck bitch! It's out!". My work was done.

Hot, Hot, Heat

Fuck, it's warm. Toasty. Ball sweatingly, arse drippingly, uncomfortably warm. I would go as far to say that it's rather hot at the moment here in Southern Californ-i-a.
Normally, coming from the dark and nasty regions of England, I am appreciative of a nice bit of sunshine but, as always at this time of year, I pine for a nice bit of sleet or the finger numbing cold of an English January morning. It hasn't rained proper for a couple of months and won't for a couple more, maybe longer. It is dry. I have developed quite a thirst.

The worst thing about this time of year is that my intake of cold alcoholic beverages exceeds normal levels. Given that my normal intake of cold alcoholic beverages is rather high, this is a bad thing. Money-wise, it gets expensive. Normally, I will pay the extra couple of dollars for decent, imported beer. I don't poison my body with the crap they turn out here except under either extreme financial hardship or if I have (American) guests coming round because there is no good reason as to why I should waste good beer on them and they wouldn't like it anyway as it tastes too much like beer. So every now and again, I will put on dark sunglasses and a false "Groucho Marx" style mustache (in case anyone I know see's me) and I will buy "domestic".

Yank beer, on the whole is fuckin' cat piss. Yes, I know all about Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams and Bog knows how many "micro-brews" and they are okay. I'm talkin' about yer Bud's and yer MGD's and yer Coor's. The shite that generations of Yanks have grown up on and who will drink nothing else. I know lads that will only drink Bud Light period. I know lads who will only drink Coors Light, if you put a Bud Light in front of them they will not touch it. Don't even get me started on the Steel Reserves, and the Old Englishes and the Schlitz malt liquors. Yes, they get you cunted but they taste fuckin' horrid. They make the "auld purple tin", to quote Irvine Welsh, taste like Dom Perignon. It is inexplicable. As for MGD, my own piss tastes better and probably has a higher alcohol content to boot.

Anyway, two days ago I bought a 5 liter "Keg" of Coors Light. Years ago, party kegs were popular in the UK. Finally, the US has decided that they are the thing of the future. I wanted to try one to test the quality, and I was trying to be economical, so I bought handed Abdul $8.99 of hard earned and rushed home to "tap" the fucker.

The Holy Grail of the Dumpster Diving Community

I have to say that it was beyond bad. I drank 5 fuckin' pints and probably pissed 15 times, all I got was a headache. I tried to finish the rest last night but couldn't and when I got home from work tonight, the last couple of pints were flat as fuckin' pancakes. I'm sorry I wasted my money on this shite. The only thing that made it even worthwhile was the look of amazement on my daughters face when she saw it and said "WOW!!! Daddy, that's the biggest can of beer I have ever seen. Are you going to drink it all?" "Well," I replied smugly. "The fucker isn't going to drink itself now, is it?" "I bet you can't" she said. She was fuckin' right.

Kids, eh?

No Sense Of Humour

Knudsen beat me to it, of course, but as there's no sense in going to bed right now (Mrs.W is still awake) I may as well do what I set out to do and give my take on the story of the Irish lad who is currently in a Senegalese jail for showing his arse.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Do they have no sense of humour?

There was a time, a number of years ago, when I was a prolific mooner. I favoured mooning from coach windows while on the way to or from rugby games, either as a spectator or as a player. I wasn't shy when it came to mooning people on the street either. My specialty was to wait at a bus stop until a bus came to a complete stop and the driver opened the doors, then I would drop my pants and show my arse to the driver and the passengers. It amused the fuck out of me. It was better when you were on the bus though cause you could get your arse up against the window and spread your cheeks against the glass, the warmth causing the window to steam up if it was a cold day.

Of course, now that I am a grown up, responsible husband, father and productive member of society, I have learned to control my impulses and have not shown my arse in public since setting foot on American soil (except for on the internet). Here, it is the kind of thing that frat boys do but only as a dare or as part of some hazing ritual. You just don't see buses driving on the 5 Freeway with a bare arse in every window like you might if you were on the M62. I think that the majority of society would find it offensive as opposed to hilariously entertaining. But it's like that with most things. In addition, my arse is a much hairier and considerably less welcome sight now than it was 20 years ago.

I never did it to offend. I did it to entertain, to amuse, mostly myself admittedly but also others, if they were so inclined. Although I have to confess to a certain feeling of satisfaction whenever a Datsun would pass by, loaded to the gills with people of Pakistani or Indian origin, all turning away and covering the eyes of the younger passengers at the sight of my ringpiece winking at them from the window of a British Leyland bus. Magic.

So what the fuck is wrong with these African lads? You would think that in a continent where, if you believe everything you see in National Geographic, most folks sit around the dirt or chase chickens naked, a bare white arse would be a welcome and refreshing sight. Now granted, he did moon the home of a Senegalese Governor and there may well be some law against that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, I'm just saying that it would not surprise me. You would think though that they could have taken it a little more light heartedly. Like I say, the object of mooning is to amuse not offend. Take it in the spirit in which it was offered.

Hopefully, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs can sort it all out and get the lad out of the hole (geddit?......fuck off then) but I would like to suggest that if and when they do secure his release, the whole fuckin' embassy should drop their kecks in support. Yes, it may cause an International incident and war may well be declared but at least we are safe in the comfort of knowing that the Yanks have our backs. Right America?

An Army Of One

Call them what you will Tramps, Bums, Hobo’s, The Homeless, they intrigue me. If I see one of them exhibiting particularly strange behaviour I am fascinated and usually can’t put them out of my mind for at least a day or two until something else catches my eye and my attention. They always leave me with more questions than answers…

There used to be this bloke who lived on the corner or Broadway and 1^st St for at least 5 years that I know of, who each morning would perform his exercises (jumping jacks) in his terrible arseless pants. It was truly a sight to amaze and horrify passers by. Every now and again they would cart him off (presumably to a mission) while they hosed down the pavement and got rid of all his rubbish. Next day he would be back, clean shaven and obviously washed yet still wearing the pants with no arse in them. Why the fuck did they not give him new pants? Or did they offer him new ones only for him to refuse? I suppose that wearing pants with no arse in them has its advantages, especially if you never get up to go and shit. One day he was gone for good. Dead? Relocated? Eaten by wild dogs? Who the fuck knows?

Then there was the lad who stood at the corner of Broadway & Temple every afternoon reading aloud from a three ring binder into a microphone, the wire of which led into his back pocket. I was determined to stop and listen to what the hell he had to say that was so important to him but parking was never possible and I would just drive right by. On the day that I said to myself “Okay, this is it. I’m going to risk a ticket and hear him out,” he was gone, never to be seen again. I will never know what was in the binder. Could have been blank pages, could have been the ranting of a mad man, could have been the secret to life, the universe and everything.

There was the bloke in the gas mask who would dance like a fuckin’ maniac outside the various discoteca stores that pump out loud banda, norteña, and salsa music down on Broadway, south of 4^th St. What the fuck happened to that guy? Did he like the music that much? Did the store owners employ him to draw attention? I suspect he was just crazy as every now and again I would see him dancing outside Clifton’s to the sound of traffic and police sirens.

Since someone realized that they could convert all the old buildings downtown into high rent lofts and make millions, the LAPD have been cleaning up the area and getting rid of all the loonies, shadow fighters, screamers and urine reeking prophets. Causing dismay to dedicated people watchers like me. Luckily I will always have Hollywood. Santa Monica is fertile ground for jakeys too, but I don’t get out there that often. Hollywood is closer and to be honest, is home to a different breed of nutcase. There was this one lad who seemed to keep crossing the same street, backwards and forwards. Over his shoulder, he carried a black hold-all which held probably all he owned, a blanket and a stereo from which he was blasting what sounded like Smokey Robinson, but was, I was reliably informed, The Temptations. Every now and then he would stop, do a bit of a shuffle and mess with the volume, then cross the street again. The hold-all bore the legend “US ARMY – An Army Of One”, this was no doubt his free gift for his application to enlist (rejected). As interesting as this behaviour was, even more intriguing to me was what he carried in his right hand….a blue cellulose sponge. The kind that you wash dishes with, well the kind that the wife washes dishes with, I don’t do dishes. It didn’t appear to be wet, it was dried out. What the fuck was he doing with it? Did he like the texture? Was it his comfort sponge? Was it his favourite thing in the entire world? Could “the man” have taken his home, his pride, his dignity but not his sponge? I should have fuckin’ well asked him when I had the chance…..

This shit has my mind in a spin. I may not sleep tonight.

By the way, I commented on the lad with the furry yellow bike’s blog. It was moderated but he put up my comment anyway, he just didn’t answer my questions. He did not offer an explanation for the protest and did not offer his favourite remedy for saddle rash. So I still do not have closure on that bizarre event.