* - sorry, all you Democrats out there, but after visiting this site and taking this quiz, my first impulse is to vote for John McCain in November. I matched up with him 53%, compared to only 38% with Barrack Obama.

* - I had one of those “Clouds-Parting-And-Angels-Singing” moments at work yesterday. I finally had the female fascination with looking at jewelry and shoes and clothes ad naseum (sp?) without actually buying anything explained to me by a customer.

Don’t ask how we got onto that topic in the first place.

The woman, after looking around to make sure there was nobody else in the store who might be offended by her answer, said, “Well, like I’ve said to my husband, ‘Those things are to women like tits are to men, honey - no matter how many you’ve seen, you always want to look at more.’”

NOW I get it!!!

* - so, I keep seeing all these stories on the internet about how the price of oil has been falling and falling and falling.

Then why is it the price of gas at the station across the street just went up $0.05/gallon?

WTF?!

* - These are actual books I saw on sale at a store in the town I work in:

Never mind the kindergarten to grade-school age kids these books were intended for, after my internship I know some high-schoolers who could stand to read these!

* - Another store offered, among other selections, these t-shirts:

In case you can’t quite tell, that’s a lobster about to go into a pot asking a lobster already in the pot how the water is, and then realizing to it’s horror exactly how the water is.

I know, this pic is even worse. I’m sure you can see the words “Irish Yoga.” The pictures are of a drunk man in three different poses of inebriation.

If you don’t get that humor, you’re either way too naive, or way too politically correct.

* - the same store also had a t-shirt with the pink bow for breast cancer and the sating “Save the Ta-ta’s!” It also had baby onesies with sayings like “Give me the ta-ta’s and no one gets hurt,” and “I did nine months before I got out,” and (perhaps the best one) “Mommy just wanted a back rub.”

* - I’ve mentioned in the past coffee shops with great names - “Jitters,” for example. Well, the town I’ve moved into has a coffee shop with, in my opinion, a really bad name - “The Udder Place.” First of all, there’s just nothing attractive about the word “udder.” It doesn’t look very nice, it doesn’t sound very nice, and the image it conjurs isn’t very nice. Secondly (and perhaps more importantly), while I know perfectly well where the cream in my coffee came from, do I really need to be blatantly reminded that I’m injesting something that was derived from the secretions of a female bovine’s tit?

I LOVE my new job!

Why? Allow me to count the ways…

1 - it’s only eight miles away from the new eyrie. Talk about saving time and gas!

2 - I got a small raise to take my new job. Granted, $.10/hour isn’t much, and dealing with a state income tax (something I haven’t had to do since 1996) obviously knocks the net income down a notch or two, but the savings in gas more than make up for it.

3 - my co-workers are friendly, cheerful, intelligent, and funny. The fact that they’re all female and pretty easy on the eyes doesn’t hurt, either. We’re a small staff, just me, the boss, and two others (and one of them will be gone soon - the one who doesn’t meet the aforementioned characterisitics), but we’ve all hit it off immediately.

4 - the hours are fantastic! Monday through Saturday from 10AM to 6PM and Sundays 11AM to 5PM. No nights! Holy effing crap - a retail job and I won’t have to work nights?! WOO-HOO!!!

5 - unlike at the mall, the hours are not extended at Christmastime. Oh my dear lord, I may actually have to spend time with my family! Kill me!

6 - I don’t have to wear a tie or a suit jacket. I still need to wear a button-down shirt and dress pants and nice shoes, but no ties and no jackets ROCK!!!

7 - we don’t take returns. Only exchanges for equal or greater value. Now, I can see where this is a bummer for the customer, but for a salesperson who gets commission as part of his pay, not having to worry about returns is huge! Example: the day before yesterday I sold a platinum .75 carat diamond solitaire ring for over $2,000 (it was in the clearance case - the ticket price was $5,555.00). With our “no return” policy, I never have to worry about that $2,000+ sale being taken away from me.

Now for some random observations I’ve made around the new workplace…

We have, as most workplaces do, I’m sure, various government-produced posters in the bathroom about workman’s compensation and sexual harassment and the legal minimum wage and so forth and so on. Two things on these posters amazed me:

1 - one poster had it’s information in several different languages, which in and of itself, in this “culturally diverse” country we now live in, isn’t all that remarkable. Some of the languages, however, were. I expected Spanish and French, and even the Chinese didn’t really take me aback. But Polish? Farsi?! Somali?!?!?!

2 - there was a notice on one of the posters regarding proper training to reduce the risk of injury to… wait for it… COMPUTER OPERATORS?!?!?! Seriously?! Seriously. The notice talked about making sure they didn’t hit the keys to hard, about making sure they weren’t forced to type too fast for too long, and that they weren’t forced to stay in the same position for too long, blah, blah, blah.

Are you kidding me?

Look, I’m familiar with the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome (just ask the folks over at Brazzers about my lawsuit against them ), but this notice just struck me as ridiculous. Is it really that dangerous to be a computer operator? I mean, is it like Navy SEALs could learn a thing or two from them about toughness and courage?

Please.

for those who might (for some ungodly reason ) be interested, here are a few of my favorite things:

color - red

number - 19

season - when I was in school it was summer because that meant I wasn’t in school. Now that school is irrelevant I’ll say autumn because that means football season, baby!

sport - football

football team - Atlanta Falcons

football player - Steve Bartkowski

baseball team - Boston Red Sox

baseball player - Fred Lynn (the reason why my favorite number is 19)

basketball team - Boston Celtics

basketball player - Dave Cowens

hockey team - Boston Bruins

hockey player - Bobby Orr

male tennis player(s) - Jimmy Connors and Andre Agassi

female tennis player - Chris Evert-Lloyd (not that I’d kick Anna Kournikova out of bed for eating crackers… )

restaurant - The Great Lost Bear

food - the One Eyed Bacon Cheeseburger (check out the description here)

drink - a Long Island Iced Tea or a frozen Mudslide, depending upon where I’m eating / drinking (TGIFridays‘ Ultimate LIIT is good if for no other reason than the size of the thing, and Pizzeria Uno and  Longhorn Steakhouse do a good Mudslide)

author- JRR Tolkien

book - The Lord of the Rings

movie - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (extended edition DVD)

actor- Steven Seagal (ok, I know he’s not really an “actor,” per se, but I can honestly say I own every one of his movies except the ones that went direct to cable or DVD)

actress- Pamela Anderson (again, like Seagal, I know she’s not really an “actress,” but, well, DAMN!!!)

adult film actress- Shyla Stylez (even less of an “actress” than Anderson - believe it or not - but even more of a DAMN!!!)

sexual position - well, if you must know… Are you kidding me?! You didn’t really expect me to tell you that, did you?! I was just checking to see if you were paying attention!

TV show - Miami Vice

cartoon - Battle of the Planets,  though Animaniacs comes awfully damn close

comic strip - Calvin & Hobbes

comedian - Dennis Miller

comic book superhero- oooh, very, VERY tough. Wolverine? Gambit? Daredevil? Punisher? Aquaman? Green Lantern? Out of that bunch, Wolverine, I guess.

comic book superheroine - well, DUH!!! Wonder Woman, of course!

(I was hoping to find the video, but instead this brief transcript from the late Rodney Dangerfield movie Back to School will have to suffice:

Diane: Oh! What do ALL men want?
Dr. Phillip Barbay: [wryly] He wants you to dress up as Wonder Woman? Tie him up with a golden lariat and force him to tell the truth? )

music - 80’s hard rock / heavy metal

band - Whitesnake

album - Whitesnake (aka 1987)

song- “Still of the Night” by Whitesnake

singer- David Coverdale

guitarist - George Lynch

bassist- Billy Sheehan

drummer- Neal Peart

(damn, what a band those four would make, huh?)

bird - peregrine falcon (the reason why my favorite football team is the Atlanta Falcons)

fish- great white shark (one of these days I’ll sit Cookiemaker down and make her watch Jaws…)

whale - sperm whale (stop snickering, you pervs!)

sea creature not listed above - giant squid

dinosaur - triceratops

snake - boa constrictor

dog- german shepherd

pet - any kind of cat

board game - Axis and Allies

PC video game - Madden 08 (until Madden 09 comes out, of course)

console video game - any of the SOCOM: US Navy SEAL’s

non-board or -video game - Dungeons & Dragons (I actually prefer 3.0 over AD&Dand D&D 2nd Edition, but I haven’t given 4.0 a shot yet)

Dungeons & Dragons character- for races I almost always play elves, half-elves, or halflings, and for classes I almost always play rangers or rogues (thieves)

car- once upon a time it was the Corvette. Then it was the Lamborghini Countach, and then the Lamborghini Diablo. Now it is (and I suspect it always will be) the Jaguar XJ-220.

plane- the Supermarine Spitfire. Yes, there were better fighters in World War II (the Mitsubishi Zero, the Focke Wulf FW-190, the P-51 Mustang, for example), but the Spitfire was pretty good in its own right, and no other plane before or since has been as just simply, plain, flat-out beautiful.

I wonder if you were to show this list to a psychologist or psychiatrist or whatever (what exactly is the difference, anyway?) what he or she would have to say about me?

Oh, and Mrs. C.? Did I hold to the proper conventions regarding titles fairly well? You know, italicize this and put quotations around these and underline this?

Well, the Falcon clan has moved to a new eyrie. Last Saturday Cookiemaker and her father helped me load up a 17-foot U-Haul truck with just over two rooms full of stuff (mostly the master bedroom and Little Man’s room) and drive it almost 90 miles to our new digs. While Cookiemaker stayed behind to clean up (you would NOT believe how much dust had accumulated in various hard-to-reach areas, especially around where the computer had been), my dad-in-law and I, with the help of my father, moved everything in, and now we’re pretty much settled.

The move went much better than I had expected. Once the decision had been made to move, the entire process leading up to actual day had seemed very half-assed to me. I never like moving in the best of times, but something about this one had had me very stressed out. With Cookiemaker an hour-and-a-half away five days a week at work and me working in retail, we really couldn’t help each other pack up very much, and we hardly ever saw each other enough to talk about what the plan was. I was NOT looking forward to June 21st!

As it has always happened whenever I have moved, however, everything went off without a hitch. It took us three hours to pack up the truck and Cookiemaker’s car, two hours to make the drive, and about thirty minutes to unload everything. I shuddered a bit at the bill from u-haul and what it cost to fill the tank of that beast, but other than that it was a pretty smooth day.

We now live in my in-law’s condo. Their house is about another hour-and-a-half north, but mom-in-law teaches in this area, so the condo saves her from a hellish commute during the school year. She’ll have her own room, Little Man will have his, and Cookiemaker and I will have our’s. Cookiemaker’s job is now only twenty miles or so away, and I will soon be transferring to a job that will only be eight miles away! Not only that, but even though this job is retail, I won’t be working nights! The store is open from 9 - 6 Monday through Saturday and 11 - 5 on Sunday. How cool is that?! I’ll actually get to see my family more often than not! Holy crap! What a concept! To top it all off, my parents are only six miles away.

The move was mostly financially motivated. Childcare is over $200/month cheaper in this area compared to the old eyrie. God(dess) only knows how much money we’ll be saving in gas. My transfer comes with a small raise. Most importantly, however, is that Cookimaker’s family isn’t asking for any rent! The lease on our old apartment won’t run out until October, but after that we will be saving some serious cash! In the meantime, the old place will act as a storage unit (albeit an expensive one) that will allow us to finish the move in a relatively leisurely fashion.

I will miss the friends from the old eyrie, though they’re not really an impossible distance away. Nonetheless, we do have our families close by, the money to be saved couldn’t be passed up, and Cookimaker and I both graduated from the high school in the town (I was the Class of ‘87, she was the class of ‘91), so we do have friends up here, too.

Wish us luck!

In my previous post I said I’d throw out ten of my favorite movies at you, and then proceeded to give you only five.

Whoops!

And I’m trying t become a teacher?! Well, at least I’m trying to teach Social Studies, not Math!

Anyway, here’s the other five movies I forgot the last time around:

Major League - very funny. Full of stars (Charlie Sheen, Dennis Haysbert, Weslie Snipes, Corbin Bernsen, Tom Berenger). The final big ball game against the Yankees gets the adrenaline flowing. The baseball is fairly accurate. And Rene Russo looked hot.

The Bourne Identity - the best of the Bourne films. I love watching Bourne trying to piece his life back together. The fight scene between Bourne and Castel is one of the best - if not the best - and most realistic in Hollywood history.

The Fugitive  - yes, Harrison Ford is the title character, but Tommy Lee Jones steals the show. He gets all the best lines, is funny, and Gerard is just a kick-ass character.

The Princess Bride - this just one of the best films of all time. Action. Humor. Love. Rodents of Unusual Size. What more could you want?

As you wish…

Above The Law - I know what you’re thinking - “What?! A Steven Seagal film?!” Hey, this was Seagal’s first movie, so nobody knew how bad of an actor he was, and it was the first time I’d ever seen aikido, so it just blew me away. For a Seagal fil, this was pretty good.

Holy crap! It’s been almost a month since the last time I posted?!?!?! Damn! Sorry about that. Isn’t it funny how life gets in the way sometimes? Work, family, friends, bills, etc, etc, etc…?

Anyway, I finally got some time to myself again, so here I am, throwing out some random observations just to let you know I’m still alive…

* - the Falcon flock is moving in with the in-laws in about three weeks. I’ll be transferring to a new store in about four to six weeks. The Missus and I will be scouting for a new daycare for the little Falcon in about two weeks or so. I hate the hassle of moving, and don’t particularly care for leaving this group of friends, but there’s money to be saved, family close by where we’re going, and another group of friends we can reunite with, so it’s not all bad.

* - talk about going through opposite ends of the emotional spectrum in a flash! This past Saturday Cookiemaker’sold college roommate got married. Then last night her father called her to tell her her grandmother had passed away. It was quick, peaceful, and not unexpected, but dealing with a death in the family is still dealing with a death in the family.

* - as if that wasn’t bad enough, she had to get the news while she was on the road. Her work has her holed up in a hotel three-plus hours away to go through training, and she got the call while in her room. She spent all last week there (except for Memorial Day, of course), and has to spend all this week there, too. Miraculously, Little Man is surviving with only me to look after him. I guess I’m a bit better at being a dad than I though I was.

* - I finally got certified to teach in the state I live in! I received the document a couple of weeks ago. Now I’m just waiting for my certification in the state we’re moving to. I believe that will be in the mailbox any day now. I’ve been sending out a flurry of application packets lately, so here’s hoping!

* - I recently got a little gig on the side writing for the website Consensus Draft Services. It’s not much money (if any at all), but i gets me back in the game and could lead to something bigger down the road, I suppose. Hey, it’s one more thing to slap on the ol’ resume.

* - here’s another little pet peeve of mine when it comes to working in jewelry sales - the infamous line of “Do you know how much money I’ve spent in your store?!” Customers like to throw that out as some kind of threat when things aren’t going their way and think they can intimidate us into breaking the rules just for them, because they’ll take their business elsewhere if we don’t.

Newsflash, a-holes: not only do I not know how much money you’ve spent, I DON’T CARE! FUCK YOU! Even if you have spent all this money with us - which, nine times out of ten, you haven’t - that doesn’t make you special or any better than any of the customers we have who haven’t spent a lot of money with us. All it tells me is you’re an arrogant prick who thinks money is the only thing that matters in life.

* - in the mall I work at, there’s a Sprint store right across the hall that has four big-screen TV’s(I’m not exactly sure why, to be honest). Ninety-nine percent of the time, they have ESPN on. In the past couple of days they’ve filled the slow time during the middle of the day with women’s college fast-pitch softball and the national spelling bee championship.

Exactly how is spelling considered a sport? And who thought it was a good idea to televise it? Do people actually watch it? And if they do, who thought it was a good idea to put 5th, 6th, and 7th graders under the spotlight of national television? No pressure, kids, no pressure at all!

I don’t know if I’d want to set foot in the batter’s box against these softball pitchers. They can clock over 80 mph - underhand! John Kruk, currently a baseball analyst for ESPN and a former major league All-Star looked foolish when he tried to hit one of these young women on a lark.

* - to wrap up, I’m gonna steal a post from Mrs. Chili. She’s started to do her Top 100 favorite movies, and that inspired me to do mine. I don’t know if I’ll hit a hundred, and I’m not about to try right here right now, but here’s ten, anyway…

1) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. All three of the LotR films were great, and I know The Return of the King won all those Oscars, but I like FotR the best. I think it deviated from the books the least, and I had waited for it for over twenty years, so it resonated with me the most.

2) Lethal Weapon. The first LW was easily the best, imho. The last three became comedies, while the first one was a gripping drama. I loved the character of Martin Riggs, and the fight scene between Riggs and Mr. Joshua was outstanding.

3) True Lies. Easily Arnie’s best film, in my opinion. Funny, plenty of action. Tom Arnold almost steals the movie, and Jamie Lee Curtis’ stripper scene was hilarious and yet hot at the same time (she looked pretty damn good in that bra and thong for a woman her age!).

4 & 5) American Pie & American Pie II. Oh my god were these movies funny! I couldn’t believe the second was as good as the first. The franchise has gone downhill since, but the first two were excellent. I saw the original at a bachelor party, and it couldn’t have possibly been a more perfect movie to see for the occasion.

That’ll do for now. Hopefully I’ll be posting on a more regular basis in the future.

* - for those of you who care about the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons, and / or the NFL Draft, here’s my review of the Falcons’ draft this past April 26th & 27th.

* - oh, btw, did I mention I’ve started a new blog devoted entirely to the Draft?

Yes, I know - I have no life.

* - as long as we’re talking about my lack of a life, I’m very psyched that Whitesnake has released a new album! It came out back on April 22nd, and it ROCKS!!! This is the band’s first studio album in eleven years, and it was well worth the wait.

* - another artist soon to be releasing a new album is guitarist Gary Hoey. He was recently on my favorite radio morning show and played a track that will be on the album called “Only Human.” Trust me folks, this song is going to be a big hit.

* - in case you missed it, it is now official that there will be a “Hobbit” movie! Peter Jackson will not direct, but will be the executive producer. Guillermo del Toro of “Hellboy” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” fame will be the director, and Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis have confirmed that they will return to be Gandalf and Gollum, respectively. There will be two new films set in Middle Earth, actually, with one being “The Hobbit” and the other apparently covering the events that occur during the sixty years between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

I CAN’T WAIT!!!

* - Cookiemaker, Little Man, and I saw “Horton Hears A Who” last Friday night. Good movie. Little Man enjoyed it and behaved himself very, very well. While there were many chuckle-worthy moments during the film, the only burst-out-laughing moment for Cookiemaker and I was of course a moment that Little Man didn’t get.

Move on to the next bullet if you don’t want to read any spoilers…

At the end of the movie, when Horton has succeeded in saving Whoville and everybody is about to live happily ever after, Horton - voiced by Jim Carrey - and the Mayor of Whoville - voiced by Steve Carrell - break out into an over-the-top duet version of REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling.”

Frickin’ hilarious!

* - I know I’ve mentioned in at least one past post that you know you’re old when music you once thought rocked is now mall muzak fodder. Well, the other night I heard the mall I work in play “Stairway To Heaven,” “Walk This Way,” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They also played “Silent Lucidity” from Queensryche and “Photograph” from Def Leppard. Effing kill me! “Pyromania,” the album “Photograph” is from, was the first hard rock / heavy metal album I ever bought, and now it’s mall muzak?!

* - I had another confirmation of my advancing age when I tried to get something to drink from the mall’s Gloria Jeans. All I wanted was a coffee, preferably large. No such thing any more. Not only is there no such thing anymore, but it’s nigh on impossible to afford what they do have. I had four bucks. I could only afford a small mocharetto “esspression” - whatever the hell that was. I literally had to ask the kids behind the counter what the hell I had just ordered. I felt like Dennis Leary, for chrissakes! What the hell happened to just plain coffee? When I jokingly asked them if they knew what just plain coffee was, they said no.

I think they were just kidding…

* - Let’s go back to me having no life again, shall we? For some reason - I have no idea why - I find cephalapods fascinating, especially big squid. Six days ago CNN had an article on its website about the colossal squid. Did you realize this thing has eyes the size of soccer balls? And that scientists believe the ones they’ve found aren’t even indicative of just how big they may grow? Holy crap!

* - maybe I should start paying attention to the sport of cricket…

* - finally, a word on the moving front. We haven’t had much luck finding anyone to take over for us (though Mrs. Chili just sent me an email saying she has a friend who may be interested), but we’re going to move out anyway. If we have to, we’ll just use the apartment as a $940/month storage unit until October ends. We’ll gradually be moving stuff to Cookimaker’s parents’ in the meantime, with the goal of being more-or-less completely moved out of our current residence by June 23rd. We’re already saving some money on a monthly basis because our tax return allowed us to pay off my Sunfire, so now we don’t have any car payments. Childcare in the in-laws’ state averages about $200/month less than what we’re paying now, so that will save us some more money. It also just dawned on me the other day that our utility bills will at least dramatically decline, if not disappear altogether (I’m still not clear on all of the details of this upcoming living arrangement). Sometime in July I should be transferring to a store in a mall closer to the in-laws’, so gas and toll expenses should also decline / disappear. Then, come the end of October (if not sooner), we’ll stop paying rent.

The only uncertainty comes from if I get a teaching job in my current state of residence sometime in the near future, then the gas and toll expenses come back. However, given that if I get teaching job in my current state of residence I could see my personal income increase by half again as much as I’m currently making, or possibly even double, I’d call that a good problem to have.

Hi, all. For those of you who are NFL Draft fans or know people who are, I have started a new blog - The Zone Blitz Draft Report. You can check it out here.

Enjoy!

I know, I know - not exactly as stirring as “Release the hounds!” but it was the best I could do. Cut me a break, ok?

The NFL Draft is merely four days away, and I can’t wait. As the last two years, I’ll be at my friend Fourth Unit’s house to watch it on Saturday. He’s cooking up a batch of fish fry, deep-fried scallops, hot wings, cold cuts, and homemade macaroni salad. Given the abundance of seafood and poultry, I thought a couple of bottles of white wine would be appropriate. What do you think?

This year’s draft is shaping up to be pretty interesting. The NFL has made changes to the rules, cutting the time teams have to make a pick in the first round from fifteen minutes to ten, and also from ten minutes to seven in the second round. Teams will still have five minutes to make a pick in rounds three through seven. Only the first and second round will be held on Saturday (as opposed to rounds one through three in past years), with the remaining rounds to be held on Sunday. The draft will begin at 3PM on Saturday (as opposed to noon in past years) and 10AM on Sunday (as opposed to 11AM in past years).

In addition to changes in the scheduling, there is real debate as to who the Miami Dolphins are going to take with the first overall selection. In most past years there has been one or two consensus top player or players to choose from. This year you could make a valid argument for as many as six players (Michigan OT Jake Long, Virginia DE Chris Long, Ohio St. DE/OLB Vernon Gholston, Boston College QB Matt Ryan, LSU DT Glenn Dorsey, and Arkanasas RB Darren McFadden) being worthy of that pick. Bill Parcells, the new head cheese in Miami, has been negotiating with Jake Long to try to get a contract in place before the draft even begins, but if those negotiations fall through he could easily turn his attention to somebody else.

I also find this year’s draft intriguing because of my favorite teams’ possibilities. The local favorite, the New England Patriots, have the seventh overall pick of the draft, thanks to a trade made last year with the San Francisco 49′ers. My hunch is the Pats will try to deal down from that pick to add more picks and to save money against the salary cap - unless either Chris Long or Vernon Gholston are still available. My sentimental favorite, the Atlanta Falcons, have the third overall pick, thanks to being a really bad team last year. They also have three picks in the second round, two in the third round, and two in the seventh round, thanks to trades with the Houston Texans, the Oakland Raiders, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and from the NFL awarding them with a compensatory selection due to the loss of DE Patrick Kerney and FB Justin Griffith to free agency. The Falcons will have eleven total selections, including the aforementioned third overall pick, four of the first forty-eight picks, six of the first ninety-eight, and seven of the first one hundred and three. Obviously, if these picks pan out, Atlanta could rapidly reverse it fortunes.

(A quick aside here  for Mrs. Chili. Could you do a Grammar Wednesday about how to properly write numbers? You know, like when I should write ninety-eight vs. 98? Thanx!)

The basic gameplan for the weekend is first to go to a birthday party for a friend of Little Man’s. From there we’ll go to visit Cokiemaker’s parents. I’ll leave there about an hour or so before the draft to go to Fourth Unit’s place. The area AM sports talk station will be on the radio during all driving time to pick up any last-minute developments. I’ll have my laptop with me, as I plan to blog while the draft happens, and a small pile of books and magazines pewviewing this year’s prospects. We’ll spend the night at Cookiemaker’s parent’s place, then head over to see my parents on Sunday, where I plan to watch at least most of the rest of the draft, if not all of it.

I know, I know, I’m a geek, but this weekend I’ll be a happy geek!

Oh, btw, like every other draftnik on the planet, I’ve my own prediction as to what will hapeen during the first round, what most people call a “mock 1st round.” You can check it out here.

UPDATE!!!: The Miami Dolphins have come to terms with Michigan OT Jake Long, officially making him the first pick of the 2008 NFL Draft. The St. Louis Rams are now on the clock.

ANOTHER UPDATE!!!: The Kansas City Chiefs have traded DE Jared Allen to the Minnesota Vikings in exchange for the Vikings’ 1st round pick (the 17th overall), and the two picks the Vikings had in the third round (the 73rd (acquireed from the Denver Broncos) and the 82nd overall). The two teams will also swpa 6th round picks, with the Vikings getting the 170th overall pick and the Chiefs getting the 182nd overall pick).

I was looking through some old emails the other day (a quick aside here - does anybody else have emails from the beginning of 2004 still on their computer?) and stumbled across one I had written about porn. A female friend - who shall remain nameless -  had emailed me to ask me why men find it so fascinating. If I recall correctly, she had caught her significant other looking at some on the computer one night (though he, of course, vehemently denied it) and she became a bit concerned. Porn in and of itself didn’t necessarily bother her, but seeing her partner looking at it planted some seeds of doubt in her mind. “Does he not find me atttractive anymore?” “Do I not satisfy him anymore?” That sort of thing.

So, when she needed some answers as to why men look at porn, for some strange reason she turned to me.

 The following was my response (with a little bit of editing):

For starters, there’s no way I can talk about porn without sounding like a perv, so let’s just admit that I’m a pig and move on, shall we?

I believe your first question was something along the lines of how porn affects a man’s satisfaction with his sex life. I equate porn to alcohol in this regard - it depends on the guy. Some men can have a beer with dinner and not touch another drop for months with no problem whatsoever, while others need a fifth of Bacardi 151 just to get through the day. Some men can just flip through a copy of Playboy at the magazine rack of the corner store if the cover happens to catch their eye, while others need to remember the little schoolgirl / golden shower / anal / bestialty / gangbang vidclip they downloaded the other night just to get it up. It depends on the guy.

Why look at porn at all? Basically, it’s an outlet. If you’re a guy who’s not getting any at all, whether it be because you’re shy, socially inept, just plain ugly, or some combination of the three, porn gives you at least a visual and / or audible outlet for your urges. Sure, you could just close your eyes and use your imagination while you’re jacking off, but porn gives you a little bit more tangibility (is that a word?).

What if you are getting some? What if you’re married or otherwise deeply involved with a woman and have no intention of cheating - why look at porn then? It’s still an outlet. I have a theory that the kind of woman a man fantasizes about on a purely sexual level is often not the same kind of woman he fantasizes about falling in love with and spending the rest of his life with. Look at me - I have the rap that my “type” of woman is a big-titted blonde, and if I were to be totally honest, I’d have to say that’s correct. If I were single and at a bar just looking to get laid, I’d more likely try to hook up with a Pamela Anderson / Anna Nicole Smith lookalike than a Cindy Crawford or Kate Moss or Nicole Kidman lookalike - not that I’d kick them out of bed for eating crackers. Now look at Cookiemaker - she’s obviously not that “type,” but I did marry her, and I think Little Man is proof that I find her sexually attractive. Porn allows a man an outlet for that “fantasy woman,” and be honest, which would you rather a man do - get off fantasizing about that kind of woman by jerking off to some porn, or get off fantasizing about that kind of woman while having sex with you? 

This works with another theory of mine - there are different kinds of sex. Making love, having sex, and fucking are not three different terms describing the act of reproduction, they are three totally different acts. Making love involves a spiritual and emotional level that the other two don’t have. Having sex is purely physical and done for the fun of it. Fucking is purely physical and more or less involes using the other person. Porn shouldn’t be involved in making love, might be used in having sex, and almost definitely will be used in fucking. A guy’s fantasy woman is usually a woman he thinks about fucking, maybe having sex with. Again, be honest - would you rather be made love to, or fucked?

What if a man has happened to marry a woman who’s also his sexual fantasy type? Why might he be looking at porn then? Once again, I’d say as an outlet. She may be his “type” in regards to her looks, but maybe she’s not willing to do things that really turn him on. Maybe she doesn’t like giving blowjobs. Maybe she’s horrified at the thought of anal. Maybe she thinks he’s a perv if he asks her to go completely bald “down there” or dress up like a schoolirl or a nurse or a french maid or a policewoman or whatever. Maybe there’s no way on God’s green earth she’ll invite her best friend over for a threesome. Whatever the case may be, porn is then the only way the guy can have an outlet for that.

If she’s his “type” and is willing to do anything he wants and he still looks at porn? Then he’s a lost cause! Just kidding. Then he’s proof of one of my other theories - that at some level all men are pigs, which is the femiNazi way of saying that at some level all men are like any other animal with a penis. We have an instinctual need to sow our seed as widely as possible. At some level or another, despite our opposable thumbs and towering intellects, we have an overpowering urge to bang anything with two legs and a heartbeat. Some of us are just better at controlling that urge than others.

Well, there you go. If you have any other questions, comments, or restraining orders, just let me know.

Those are just my theories, and they are only theories. I could be way off. Certainly they don’t apply to all men. Some men don’t lok at porn at all. They may find it immature, disgusting, morally reprehensible, against their religion, or even see it as a turn-off. However, if the billions of dollars spent every year just in the United States alone are any indication, most men do look at it. Hopefully my thoughts here will give you all a little insight into those small minds.