Category: family

What’s Been Going On?

Alright, the holidays are over. Christmas did what it does every year and that is sneak up behind me, steal my wallet, put 1500 miles on my car, gets me out of shape, pissy and then before I know it I am back in my office wondering why I got so excited about it to begin with. And next year, the same will probably happen. But 2011 didn’t go quietly into the night. Let me catch you up.

What you are looking at above is me, hard at work supplying all facilities with the latest and greatest medical technologies. I have been hard at work in this position for a while and so far, love it. I know you can’t tell by my expression but being an account exec does have its rewards. Let me explain.

Trying to help older people understand the web or applications is a lot like explaining the steps how to DVR Happy Days to your cat when you are out-of-town; it takes a long time and when you come home you can be certain that the Fonz will not be in your future. Older Doctors know a lot about the world of medicine but the when it comes to web applications they make a face much like I do when someone asks me if I know what a Kardashian is. “I don’t understand the question and I refuse to answer it.”- Lucile Bluth

People come and people go in life. I have learned through extinct relationships that going separate ways doesn’t require screaming and lamp throwing. It’s important to know what you want, understand that not everyone is perfect, appreciate the ones who enter your life and appreciate the ones who left even more. So, for now, being a single guy who works sixty hours a week fits well. Like my late great-grandmother said to me when we visited years ago, “…if you are a monkey, be a monkey. Let the zebras have their stripes. Just be a good monkey.” I remember that as though it was yesterday. And after that advice my grandmother took me to Burger King. What a great day.

I’ve finally planted here. While I look for a nice house to finally buy, I will be hanging my hat here and hosting a lot of VeggieMacabre.TV at that bar…thing…it. With about five thousand invested into Ikea and some art from Final Girl, this place will do just fine. I will also get to use my green screen and host the show from space or Newark!

Looks like Alton Brown and I have buried the hatchet. By finding a common bond with flying I soon forgot the present he signed for me a few years ago. In case you don’t know I received a signed copy of his first book. I was ecstatic until I read his message.

Okay, that was a pretty good one. Girl:1 Will:0

I went up north again for Christmas and every year I say it’s the last time but then November comes and I find myself committing to the madness. But, it’s family and sacrificing some time to remind yourself why you live so far away is good for the soul. Also, I get more quality time with Uncle Mark. He is an amazing dude. Although, he drives like a fuckin’ nutcase! Also, he is best friends with the Indian couple that run a Dunkin Donuts. It’s a weird match but at least we had a place to dump the discarded wrapping paper that night!

Well, that’s a quick catch up and I did so in less than 750 words! I thought for sure I would ramble for 3,000. Lucky for you.

I will leave you with a picture from 1983 at my grandmother’s when I was much smaller, Dad’s mustache was much bigger and the world was a lot more fun. I was downloading this picture to Photobucket and the lady behind me asked if this could get any cuter.

Better?

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Sooooo…. Yup

It has been so long and I have missed you all so much. Really. Honestly. The thing is I just don’t know how to jump back in this whole blogging thing again so I guess I am just going to do it. There has been a few life directions I have changed and last Sunday I turned 30 so this is as good of a time as any to start up the ol’ VeggieMacabeness that will someday be the word of all humanity. Just wait. “Be Excellent To Each Other”.

I was asked to speak at the 2010 Young Executives Conference for NEC and Konica Minolta next week about what lessons I have learned and how I attribute them to my success. There are a few things wrong with that last statement. One, I am neither young or an executive. I am a project manager for a medium size office that will pay for my Neuro PhD. Two, everything I learned in life has been from the 1987-91 TGIF line up on ABC so the joke is on them, I guess. Three, I am far from a success. Do successful people break off the trunk from the broccoli in the grocery store to make it lighter or hold onto a box of Nabisco Spookie Fruits from the eighties? Not really.

I know I am getting older and it really hit me when my parents sent me their gift. It was a fruit basket. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because many people my age don’t get anything, but a fruit basket? I just sent a fruit basket to a new customer as a token of appreciation. This does not compute. Maybe I am just being a whiny weenie Will? Nononono. Wtf? A fruit basket?

I have finally managed to ignore all vices for the past couple of months and hit the gym to get back in the shape I was in at 28. My goal is to be in better shape, look hotter and be tip-top happidy hap-hap happy come this summer. I have a goal to make this the one true crazy summer of fun and mayhem. And then grow up. You know, like buy land, get married and have kids? I at least make the effort.

Oh shit, it happened. I hate teenagers. Everything about them makes me want to hurt puppies and babies. I have no idea where that came from but as I am writing this I just saw two walk by in their emo-skinny jean-black and purple-wierdo hat-sad walk and I want to say, “MRAAAROOORAPDAP!” because there are no words for my pissiness. “I weep for the future“.

I know that this post had a tinge of bitchiness to it but I promise great stuff on the way including a Megadeth backstage post on the first of March. Man, I hope Dave isn’t too big of a prick. And I hope I don’t get nervous and get shaky leg syndrome like the time I met Alice Cooper. That was just embarrassing.

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Where Did You Go? X-Mas Addition

Tis the season to be watching tons of the most merry programing and movies Hollywood has to offer. Even though I consider the Halloween season to be the most anticipated time of the year for fun TV, the Christmas season is arguably the most popular. Why I say this is because of all the cable channels that are 100% dedicated to the Holidays like AMC, Hallmark, Lifetime, ABC Family, QVC and TMC. Plus, Christmas movies outnumber any other holiday movies probably 51,687,342 to 1. So today I am going to pick a few of the 51,687,342 Christmas movies and see what the actors are up to today. I hope there are not too many dead.

“Stuck? Stuuuck? STUUUUUCCCKKK!!!”

Poor Flick. The kid that proved sticking your tongue to a flagpole is not an urban legend like previously believed. His role in the Christmas movie to end all Christmas movies, The Christmas Story, was really a prominent role to me. I think it was because he captured what kids were really like and that was his high pitch, shrill screams he belted. Bravo Scott Schwartz!

Holy Jingle Bells! Since his most famous role as Flick, it looks like Scott Schwartz has gotten his tongue stuck on more things than a flagpole. Unbelievably so, Scott made a pretty good run in the porn business through the 90’s. It never ceases to amaze me when writing these “catch up” articles what a few of these childhood stars delve into. But to be fair, he has done other things like his other famous role in The Toy and many after school specials. Today he runs a card shop with his dad and still acts in lower budget movies. His porn star days look like they have gone the way of the Dodo. I mean he is only 5 foot 6 so how impressive could he be? I’m just stating what others think.

“I am not a piece of undigested potato, you fucking dick-hole warrior!”

I don’t know if I quoted that completely accurate but I think I am pretty close. Anyway, Frank Finlay played the ghostly assistant to Scrooge (George C. Scott), Marley in the 1984 made for TV movie Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. And holy holly shit, Marley scared the nog out of me. Really though, that part of the story was always the most unnerving. Much more than the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come.

Frank is one of those actors that has been a film legend but has not been privy in my limitless film knowledge because, well, that knowledge is reserved for films like Flight Of The Navigator and Mega Shark 3 (director’s cut). No, Frank is a “serious” British actor that has been in so many films, plays and TV specials from the 1950’s to present, I couldn’t read off the list without taking a pee break. But in that whole list that I am not willing to type, I really only recognized a few like The Pianist, Life Force (amazing space vampire movie) and The Three Musketeers followed a year later by The Four Musketeers (no idea). So with that, thanks Frank. Thanks for scaring the figgy pudding out of me on the most joy-est day of the year.

“Dinosaurs are always linked to the birth of Christ” (Almost made that 10, Norb)

I don’t know if you will remember the “Claymation Christmas Special” but if you do, you will be just as outraged as I am that this isn’t a Christmas classic like “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” or” How The Grinch Stole Christmas”. No, this amazing TV special died with the dawn of Pixar animation because let’s face it; claymation takes artistic talent and computer geeks out number them 10 to 1. You can probably find the clay animators working for “Ace of Cakes” or something.

So where are our hosts Rex and Douches-Tricer-whocaresish?

Like you didn’t already know that?

“Santa, there is a little boy who wears bear sweaters and corduroy pants that lives in Marietta, Georgia. I think his style is amazing and I totally want to go steady with a guy like that.”

That was actually in the 1985 movie Santa Clause and the actress Carrie Kei Heim said that. I think they edited it out in the TV formated version but I remember it.

Seriously though, I had a huge crush on the young actress as a kid. And if you are a 31-year-old straight male that remembers 1985, you did too. Unfortunately she wasn’t in too many other movies other than Parent Trap II and a few TV programs like “Pippi Longstocking” and “The Equilizer”. No matter, though because she has a successful life as a lawyer, wife and mother of one in Boston. I like learning that child actors have another destiny besides being a guest on “The Smoking Gun TV show”.

That’s where I am going to leave this addition of “Where Did You Go” for the 2009 Christmas season. We learned that Flick’s pole licking led him to a carrier in pornography, Marley is arguably the scariest of the ghosts in The Christmas Carol (except for Goofy), Claymation is awesome and the only way for a comeback is to go buy your own Play-do set, and the cute girl in Santa Clause grew up to be boring and a lawyer. So that means she is damned to Hell. Well, that’s pretty interesting.

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It’s Christmas Time Already?

What? When did this happen? I am not going to say that I don’t like it, but what happened to, well, the year? I suppose there is no use in being upset by a year that when from zero to “Ba-Zing” so…let’s start the holiday off with a bang!

If the above image is confusing to you, then I guess you don’t have X-Entertainment.com in your life, and I am sad for you. Like a broken record, every year at the same time, I shout from the mountain tops to check out Matt’s famous site of all things great. So this year is no different. Make a point to click the link and take a fun trip, whether it is the blog or the wacky antics in the advent calender, I promise you’ll feel colors. Red and Green colors.

For the first official day of the 2009 Christmas season, I believe I will discuss the greatest memories I have and that is the countless hours spent browsing the Sears catalog, making a “wish list” and checking twice. Or three hundred times. Ok, five hundred. Whatever. Combing my memory, here are some great toys that even today, I wouldn’t mind having.

The USS FLAGG was the greatest toy a boy could have. It was like a toy for your toys. That didn’t make any sense, I know, but go with me here. It was so massive it required a permanent portion of a room. I had fantasies about this thing. I dreamed of being the kid that truly had the best gift every kid wanted and the massive amounts superficial friends I would acquire because of it. I dreamed of eating cheeseburgers on the deck while watching Thundercats. I dreamed of reenacting the opening scene of  Top Gun while humming the theme song. A kid can dream, can’t he? But sadly enough, it was a dream. Never had the damn thing.

Holy shit did I have a few of these. I think this was the present that all my relatives bought for me when I was six. It was as if everyone got a memo for that Christmas stating my aspirations to build a fleet for the Rebel Alliance. What ever the case, if you needed a Kenner X-Wing; I was your guy. The one thing I hated about this toy was the laser sound. It made a noise that would turn a cat inside out and explode. What ever that noise was, it was not a laser sound. Watch this below and see what I am talking about. “REEEEE”

Speaking of lasers, remember this awesomeness of awesome? The Hasbro Lazer Tag set was one of my most treasured Christmas gifts and even though I never found a kid in the neighborhood who had a set to compete with, I did enjoy shooting myself with the help of the bathroom mirror. The only thing I didn’t like about this was the noisy heartbeat sounds on the monitor. Made sneaking around pretty much impossible.

When I was searching for the perfect Transformer picture to rant and rave for the “must have” toy of the mid to late 80’s, I came upon this. Megatron. In an instant I was whisked off the couch back to 1987, sitting in my PJ’s on the blue carpeted den in Marietta, Georgia on Christmas morning. On my lap was this glorious purple box. When I took it out of the static clinging styrofoam I immediately began to “transform” the Rugger pistol into the nemesis of Optimus Prime, ignoring the pleads of my father not to force it. But before I knew it, I forced it, and hyper-extended it. I broke off the leg of Megatron. Though the disappointment was apparent, I still managed to enjoy it for what it was. God, I can still smell the pine, scotch tape and new plastic. Some nostalgia can rival any of Einstein’s greatest theories.

Pow Pow Power Wheels! Much like the dream of owning the USS Flagg, another pipe dream of mine was owning a set of Power Wheels. I had plenty of first grade daydreams of driving my Power Wheel Jeep to the store for my Mom or picking up my pal Toby and cruising to Showbiz Pizza and catching a Rock-A-Fire Explosion animatronic show. But it was not in the stars. But the next year I did car jack the neighbors daughter and take her Barbie Jeep around the block. That is until Mom found out and a foot chase issued. Turns out Power Wheels were a lot faster in my dreams. I was escorted by the elbow to a cell without dinner.

The WWF Wrestling Buddies were a big item for my friends and me. What toy could be better than an Ultimate Warrior a 75 pound kid can body slam? In fact, this pillow character above is directly responsible for a dislocated shoulder. I will just say the couch is not a platform for a pile driver. It’s embarrassing to admit losing a match to a half pound pillow. Even if it was this dude:

Yeah, would you mess with this guy? I didn’t think so.

Perhaps it was for a lack of siblings but I really wanted a bear that could read me bedtime stories and have conversations about Star Wars. This was the one time it was sociably acceptable to have a teddy bear as a boy. We all knew Christopher Robin was a pansy. But going through my old photos from my time home for Thanksgiving I found a troubling picture.

Ah shit. No wonder. I will leave it at that. No wonder.

Nothing will fuck a vacuum up like a Lite Brite peg. I know this from experience. But really, I have received this a couple of different times during Christmas and even though I understood the concept, I never made anything more than an illuminated Jackson Pullock. Seriously, if Lite Brite was an intelligence test, I would have scored somewhere between “cat with paintbrush in mouth” and “chimp with paint on it’s ass”. Meh, this was a shit gift.

No, I have never owned a Strawberry Shortcake doll but I have tried to eat one. Like you haven’t at least thought about it. But I can attest, it just tastes like plastic.

I believe this is a good way to wrap up this old Christmas-want article. The one, the only Castle Greyskull. Even my Grandmother knows what Castle Greyskull is. This magnificent play set was a Masters of the Universe staple in every snotty kid’s room. I was shit, I admit. I even had Skeletor’s Castle. In fact, there are fond memories of saying “boner” over the Doom microphone. I suppose you have to be eight to see the humor. I still cackle when I hear “boner”.

I hope some of my memories have brought up a few of yours. I know I can’t be alone in my head toy chest. Tis the season to be happy and these memories make me smile no matter where or when. Let’s kick off the X-Mas fun starting….right…….NOW!

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Cry Havoc And Let Slip…

…The Dogs of ‘Ween.

3143996fThat is right folks. It is that time of year again and I know it is not too early because I don’t shoot my mouth off until Matt over at X-Entertainment does. The Fall season has begun and all seasonal stuff is now un-tabooed so that means I am free to blog about anything and everything macabre without fear of people thinking that I am weird. But who am I kidding? People think that regardless.

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I am going to be doing a lot of reviews this year. To me, my opinion matters and I live in a fantasy world where everyone else believes that too. I read and watch many review sites and more times than not, I trust what they say. So, I figured why not and to kick off the season I will be doing so with the 3rd Annual Fall Beer Review. Of course that will include drunken carving.

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Oh the movies we will watch! I think if you have been on here long enough you get the point that I lurve old school horror as much as I do beer. And given the choice between the two, I am positive my head would turn inside out and explode from the fuse blowing conundrum in my brain. I think this week we will start off with an oldie but a goody, House On Haunted Hill. The old version, not the crap from today. Vincent Price was a genius and anyone would want to argue that, I will meet you with pistol on the hill at midnight. You can see this version on Hulu.com. Each week I will highlight a new favorite and try to keep it to those shown on either Hulu or YouTube so everyone can play. Hopefully Canadians can too because Sulya told me Hulu and Disney joined together to eradicate kittens or something and she can’t watch much. Nazis.

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I ask, no, demand, that you follow along with the Halloween Countdown over at X-Entertainment.com. Matt has been doing this for years (weird to say that) and when it comes to the king of the season, I think he has held the crown for sometime. Trust me, you’ll get hooked all the way through January 1st. It is a great way to enjoy the seasons with other adults who don’t see Halloween as a time to dress as sluts at parties or burn poop on the neighbor’s doorstep. Okay, so we do that too. But still, it’s a nostalgic good time for all. Click the picture above to go there. I command you.

I told you before I want to bake something and I need your recipes. Allison gave me a good one and I am sure she is good for more. Nothing too complicated because, well, I am a guy. I can put out fires but in my own kitchen, I would rather not. I will post a step by step success or failure and test them on my neighbors. If they croak you’re going under the bus. Just kidding. I would just bury them in a pet semetary on an old Indian burial ground. Like they would comeback…

torrancefamily
Borrowed this from Finalgirl. Chech her out. Very good writer!

There might be a vlog. I haven’t decided that fully but I have been leaning that way. Hand gestures just prove to be too important not to use. Recently I have incorporated a bird and a dog into my hand gesturing conversations. You just have to see it. I have not decided this yet because I still like to imagine that you read this in a Robert Goulet voice. You know I hate to disappoint.

September and October are not really about gearing up for the day of Halloween. To be quite honest, by the time Halloween roles around I am pretty burned out and looking forward to Turkey day when all is right with the world with food, beer, football and the Macy’s Day Parade. But I really enjoy the little things about this time of year like the retail market focusing on bats and skulls, silly horror movies on UPN, the bizarre Kraft food Halloween ideas on the back of cheese packs, the change in weather and hunting for the ultimate pumpkin in the most sincere pumpkin patch.  It is nice to focus on life that goes by so quickly and enjoy just a piece of what most busy people never notice. Call me silly but a slice of Heaven is sitting on the back porch with a crisp evening Fall breeze blowing, drinking an Octoberfest beer, watching a candle flicker in a proudly carved pumpkin while Friday the 13th part III plays as background noise. I hope you will join me over the next few weeks. Trust me, they fly.

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