I just finished Artie Lange’s new book, Too Fat to Fish. What a book. It’s full of funny stories and it’s somewhat of an biography, so it gives us an insight into Artie Lange. For those of you who aren’t big fans of Howard Stern, Artie Lange is a regular on the show and really adds a lot to the morning dialogue.
Artie goes into quite a bit of detail about his drug problem and how it affected his career, starting with his stint on MadTV. It’s a good book, but I must confess that I only purchased it because I had an Amazon coupon. As many of you know, I don’t like paying full price for anything these days.
Artie also goes into a few stories about some of the movies he produced/starred in. I’m not a fan of his movies, because his acting is really bad…everything seems forced and over the top.
Having said all that, I must admit that I enjoyed the book. The stories are funny and I’ve always enjoyed biographies.
This weekend was pretty busy for us. We started off by getting up early on Saturday morning and heading out to another one of Emma’s Gymnastics meets. She’s currently in Prep-op, at the Bronze level. For those of you who know something about gymnastics, you’ll know what I’m talking about. For those of you who don’t, I’m not going to explain it. You’ll have to Google it if you really want to know.
Here’s a good picture of Emma doing a handstand on the beam. Incredible balance and grace. She makes it look easy, but of course there’s no way I could ever do any of this.
Anyway, the competition lasted all morning and we got home around 2:00PM. I then drove Emma over to her friend’s house, where she spent the night. Rhonda and I then went over to Mike and Chris’ house for an evening of fun with our golf friends. We played a game of Texas Holdem, left-right-center, spoons, and screw-your-neighbor. Of course there was some heavy betting going on, but I think Rhonda and I came out even at the end of the night. We got home around 4:00AM and of course slept in until 9:00 the next morning.
After we crawled out of bed, we pretty much watched TV and did nothing for a few hours. I then went and picked Emma up and then sat down in front of the computer. I’ve been working on a push-email promotion for work, so I ended up writing some PHP code for a few hours. I think everything works now, which is good because I have to send out about 1,000 emails tomorrow. There’s a big trade show going on in Texas and we want to make sure we get an email out to all the attendees. I think I’m just going to work from home tomorrow, so that can make sure this gets out.
After that, I played some Texas Holdem for an hour and won about $7.00. It’s not much, but it’s better than losing. I’ve recently had the guts to start playing for real money, so this has been consuming some of my time lately. I’m actually learning a few things about the game, so I think it will be good in the long run.
Right now, it’s closing in on 11:00PM and I’m still wide awake. I think I’ll grab my book and try to get through a few chapters.
This short story was written by a friend, Sabrina. She was gracious enough to allow me to publish it here. — Eric
You awaken with a slight dizziness. Sitting up you realize you are in a sterile room. You feel the cold steel below your form. You attempt to look at your watch, noticing that you are missing your left arm from the elbow down. It’s strange, because it doesn’t hurt. You look around the dimly lit room noticing that you are in what looks to be a morgue. How is that even possible you ask yourself? A light appears in front of you, if asked to describe it, you would say that it appears to be darker then the room you are in, but there is a glow that somehow your brain registers as a heat source. There is a voice from this light, “You have made a big mistake and must relive it before you can move on.” You ponder this for a second. “Mistake, what mistake?” You ask yourself out loud. The light disappears, leaving you stunned. You decide to get up and check out your surroundings. Attempting to put both feet on the ground, you soon discover that your left leg has a bone sticking through it, rendering it useless. So you drag your broken leg behind you, while thinking to yourself, how funny it is that you are feeling no pain.
All of a sudden you are no longer in the morgue type room. You are at a party, no one can see or hear you. You see yourself, with your friends, partying the night away. You watch yourself repeatedly taking shots of alcohol and drinking one too many cups of beer from the keg. You remember this celebration. It was graduation night. You had been accepted into your favorite college and were more then excited. You see yourself get up out of the chair, grab your keys from your jacket and stumble from the backyard. Your friend Jason is following you, drunk as well. He slides into the passenger seat of the car stammering on about nothing. You start the engine.
Then the scene changes, you are now at the side of a road. You recognize this road, with its bends and curves, winding up to the peak. You see your car barreling down the stretch of road, and you have this feeling of impending doom. You see another car coming from the opposite direction. Its occupants are a 34-year-old pregnant mother and her 6-year-old daughter. The cars inch closer together as the second’s pass. Then it happens. The crunches of steel against steel, the sound of glass shattering into hundreds of pieces, ear piercing screams and then . . . silence.
Sitting in a coffee shop in your hometown is the local police force. They’re enjoying jelly donuts, coffee and the likes. They’re interrupted from their leisurely break by a call from dispatch about an accident on Devil’s Peak. They gather their belongings and race to their cars, flicking on sirens and communicating with their headquarters. They arrive at the scene. It’s a scene of carnage and wreckage. Twisted metal, glass, body parts and blood spilled over a few km’s of the street. The officers are in shock, and some are puking their stomach contents up. Having never seen such tragedy or such disregard for a human life. They call in the coroner, since all persons are deceased.
There is another flash and you are behind the wheel of your car, intoxicated and unable to process much of anything. You race through the twists and turns. You see headlights, you realize you’re in the other lane, you can’t stop . . . lights out. You awaken with a sharp pain in your head. Putting your right hand to it, you feel a piece of glass, it’s deep, you black out.
The light appears, you are now standing around the wreckage, blood, body parts and what remains of the two vehicles’ surround you. You see your friend Jason, he has been pushed into the backseat, he has a look of terror over his lifeless face, blood is coagulating around his mouth and nose. The other car, with the passengers . . . the strangers, has a woman in it, she has been pierced through the stomach with a piece of metal. She was obviously far into her pregnancy. Her daughter, well her daughter’s body is situated in the passenger seat, her head is missing, sheared off by an object from the impact. You look around and spot it in the street, eye hanging out, mouth frozen in a terrified scream. You’ve caused this, you and you alone.
The light appears again. It’s funny how the light source is becoming comforting. You are back in the morgue. You now know this place. You see Jason’s parents crying over his body, and they are angry, angry at you, angry at the world and angry at their God. They had been so proud of him, graduating with top honors, his acceptance into a top university and his projected future, which was all ripped away from them because you decided to drive under the influence. You lay down on the cold, hard gurney. The light appears, its darkness enveloping you, you close your eyes for the last time and are taken away. A frightening realization comes over you, that light is from the fires of hell, that voice, that voice was the devil. You are forever living in damnation
I’m working at home today. I’ve got so much programming to do, it didn’t make any sense to head to the office for a whole day of interruptions. I got out of bed at 7:30am, grabbed a shower and took Emma to the dentist for her scheduled cleaning. While in the waiting room, I quickly glanced over three magazines; one of them being sports related, because it was basically all they had.
I finished reading The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger last night. I understand there’s a movie version out, but I haven’t seen it yet. If it’s like most screenplays, it will undoubtedly be worse than the book. I’m not entirely sure what intrigued me by this book, other than I remember reading The Nanny Diaries and being impressed by it. (By the way, The Nanny Diaries is a MUCH better book.) I think there’s the movie version coming out on this book as well, or maybe it’s been out; not sure. Either way, it’s highly unlikely I’ll see it.
As predicted, I started reading The Bean Trees last night. So far, so good.
This morning I went to a used book sale in Bloomfield Hills, MI. This particular one was run by a church and of course it’s Sunday morning, so I had to dodge all the people heading to mass. I was certain they were all thinking the same thing: Why isn’t that dude attending the service? Why can’t he buy used books later? What could be more important than God?
Naturally, I went in the wrong entrance and found myself in the main part of the church. I had to literally walk through the service in progress to get to the basement where the sale was going on. Everyone was pretty nice about it though and I eventually found my way.
I’ve attended quite a few of these used book sales and found that the better ones are usually run by a church; I don’t have to worry about my books having a “library” stamp on them somewhere. I purchased 5 hardcover and 4 paperback books. I rate today’s experience as highly successful, because I finally found a copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees. I’ve read two of her novels, but never this one; perhaps her most famous and what got her started in the literary world. Like a child at Christmas, I can hardly wait to begin reading it. Of course, I could have ordered the book from Amazon, but there’s something special about going on a quest and finding it for 50 cents. It will make a fine addition to my library.
I just finished reading Kevin Smith’s My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith. I’m a big fan of his work, both in film, books and of course, comic books. My favorite movie of his is probably Dogma, staring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. If you haven’t seen it yet, rent it. It’s hilarious.
Anyway, his diary is a long collection of almost every detail of his life during the filming of Catch and Release, a movie staring Jennifer Garner. I’ve seen the movie and it isn’t that great, but it’s interesting seeing Kevin Smith trying to be an actor. The book takes the reader into all the details that go into filming a movie. These people certainly lead different lives.
The book is fairly long and get’s quite detailed about his personal life, including a description of almost every meal he consumes. Writing obviously comes easy to Mr. Smith as this particular book goes into too much detail. The book really has no point, or plot; nor does this semi-review. How appropriate.
February 28th, 2009 in
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As many of you already know, I like to read books. A lot of books.
I usually have 3 or 4 books going at the same time, as I find this breaks things up for me and then I don’t get bored. Not that the books are boring, it’s just that there are so many things pressing for my time, I can’t possibly do everything.
Anyway, a few days ago I finished The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. It’s a great book and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to read. There are only about 6 books that I would recommend people read, so that fact that I would recommend this particular book, shows you how highly I think of it.
It’s a story that shows the poverty of a family here in the United States. The strange and perplexing thing, is that the parents choose to live this way and refuse to help themselves in any conventional method. I won’t give any more any, other than to say that it parallel’s Frank McCourt’s Angeles Ashes.
Later!
February 21st, 2009 in
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It’s been quite a while since anyone has seen anything from MoJoPokeyBlue. A lot has happened and I’ve simply been too busy to keep writing these past few months.
My plan is to post all the old short stories and then see how things develop.
October 8th, 2008 in
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I was involved in a car accident today. I was on my way home from work. It was approximately 5:47PM and I was travelling Eastbound on 16 Mile Road, just west of Ryan. Here’s what I told the police:
I have no idea what happened. It was rush-hour traffic and everyone was stopped. All of a sudden I saw this black SUV hit the side of my car.
That’s it. That’s all I know. I don’t know where the car came from, or how it managed to hit me. In others words, I am a completely useless witness.
However, I was able to piece things together from the other two drivers. Apparently, someone was trying to pull out of a subdivision and across three lanes of traffic and into the turnaround lane. The three lanes of traffic yielded to the black SUV, so the vehicle pulled out. However, the driver failed to see if the turnaround lane was clear and smashed into a silver SUV. From there, the black SUV bounced off of the silver SUV and into the left side of my car.
I was completely innocent. Really. 0% my fault. Thankfully my gracious neighbor, Paul, came over and duct taped everything together. It should stay together until I can get it to a body shop. So…I guess I’ll be driving a rental for the next few weeks until this one is fixed.
Okay, it wasn’t really a “hit and run”, but that title sounded much more interesting than “I have no idea what happened.”
Not sure how many of you have played Pictionary, but it’s a great game that we played recently with our golf friends from Burning Tree. I specify Burning Tree, because although we invited some friends from Boulder Lakes, none of them showed up. Anyways, Pictionary is a game like charades, except you have to “draw” your clues for the other people on your team.
Well…here is what Jody drew for her team. See if you can guess what it is.
Pretty easy huh?
I bet you got it within the first five seconds.
The phrase was MORSE CODE.
When asked to explain her line of reasoning, here’s what she said.
“Well…I was trying to draw “horse”, which rhymes with “Morse”. When that didn’t work, I started to draw the dots and dashes.”
Uhhh…..okay.
Yeah…now that you mention it, it does look like a horse.
