12 Thoughts for 2012: coffee mugs, lars ulrich, game of thrones & more.

Here’s twelve random and largely un-connected thoughts for 2012…

1. I’ve grown tired of the Republican Death Race for the Presidential nomination. Although I do appreciate Newt Gingrich employing the best and most massive BUT in recent memory when he said that he won’t go negative and won’t start throwing out attack ads…but (and that’s it) he does reserve the right to tell the truth. The translation: oh I’m going to get negative and it’s going to be awesome. Buckle up Mitt, Newt’s about to go nuclear on your Mormon ass!

2. I usually disagree with Sports Illustrated’s predictions about anything, but Peter King predicting a Saints over Patriots Super Bowl makes total sense to me. However, I do disagree with their use of regional covers. I don’t like them, especially because I don’t currently live in the region of the teams I’m a fan of. I live in Philly and get stuck with Pennsylvania-centric covers (no thanks Big Ben) and unless it’s a member of the Phillies, I could care less. I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking this. And it pains me that in the Colorado area, Sports Illustrated possibly had their third Tebow cover in the last five issues.

3. Van Halen played a club show in New York City last night and I watched two clips on YouTube. This led to me spending 15 minutes watching videos of drummers. The highlights- a four minute clip of Lars Ulrich awkwardly trying to find a drum beat for a fairly generic Metallica song and James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett trying not to shit on Ulrich, but at the same time, growing frustrated with his inability to get something together. I hate Lars Ulrich. Sit down you nancy boy. Drummers shouldn’t stand up unless they are coming or going. Have you ever seen Questlove stand up? No. Case closed.

4. I haven’t watched the NBA since Christmas day. There’s too much going on right now. But it’s nice to see the Celtics start to get some wins- albeit against some terrible teams. You know how the NBA can be saved? It’s easy, dude. Contract 4 teams…Sacramento, Charlotte, Milwaukee, and Toronto and move Memphis’ team to Chicago with that team getting first dibs on Charlotte and Milwaukee’s four best players. Boom. Two teams in Chicago would be great- the Chicago Grizzlies. That sounds like a winner.

5. An underrated awesome present for a man like me for Christmas? A new travel coffee mug. I got one and it’s awesome. It’s too early to say it might change my life, but there is a damn good chance.

6. It’s hard to pinpoint a new season of a show I’ve been more excited for that rivals my excitement for season two of Game of Thrones. The only show that could be considered would be the Wire season five, but that was for different reasons. I love the idea of six seasons of Game of Thrones and that this will only be the second. Of course if someone docks and union workers and dead Eastern European hookers are involved, we might have an issue.

7. I can teach you how to write a good email. I can also teach you how to parallel park.

8. It’s No Beer-uary with the only exceptions being Patriots playoff games and this Saturday if we go see See-I, a reggae band from DC, at Union Transfer in Philly.

9. I think we need a holiday in late February or early March. I’m not sure if it should be a gift-giving holiday or a big-eating holiday or a costume-up & booze-up holiday, but we need something to break up this dangerous stretch of time we’re about to embark on. Either that or we could just get rid of March as a whole and with respect to people with March birthdays, we give them their choice of either moving their birthday to February or April and then we move St. Patrick’s Day to mid-August where it can then serve as one big throwdown before the summer ends. This allows for a more relaxing Labor Day weekend where we can concentrate on important things like bar-be-ques and fantasy football.

10. Following regular bands, not popular mainstream bands, but bands out there just trying to string together shows and get people out, listening and buying their shit, on Twitter makes them step out from behind the curtain. This part of a band’s ascension is no longer a mystery and I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I feel one bad thing about it is that it can fool a band into thinking people actually give a shit about what they’re doing when they’re not playing shows- which for the most part, people don’t care. Although this could be part of a larger problem I have with Twitter- unless you’re reporting news, then I really could care less about what you think or what you’re doing…unless it affects or involves me of course.

11. After Christmas I made the switch back to straight razors after a couple month relationship with an electric razor. Although I’m keeping the electric razor still in my life like Jameson because I don’t do shots of Jameson as much as I used too, but I’m still up for one if the right situation presents itself. The situations where a electric razor proves useful are weekday mornings when I’m begrudgingly awake and face the possible danger of cutting my face open. Plus this will help me conserve razor blades because really, why the hell are replacement blades so freaking expensive? Everywhere- they’re the same price. It doesn’t matter what kind of store it is; you cannot find four replacement razor blades for under $14 bucks. That seems crazy to me. I feel like coffee should be cheaper too.

12. I never thought that I would A) ever eat swordfish meatballs and B) really enjoy said swordfish meatballs. But both happened and it was glorious.

Part 13: I wait for the poop and then I pick it up. Then we continue walking.

Dugan was up early- earlier than I had hoped but about when I expected.

Quarter to six.

No go, I rolled over. I continued to roll over for the next two hours, despite his huffing, little whimpering, jumping on the bed, jumping off the bed, jumping back on the bed and scratching- shaking the whole goddamn thing. It's what I imagine living through a moderate earthquake might feel like. But I slept through it, or tried too at least.

Five to eight.

That's it, party's over. I can ignore a lot, but when it comes to him licking my face, then there is only so much I can stand. So we got up. He was stoked.

He already had that shithead look in his eyes and it wasn't even eight yet.

Food then a quick walk. My legs hurt from yesterday and walking wasn't high on my list of things to do. But Dugan was all about it. He got screwed yesterday and knew I felt bad about it. Today, he was going to milk it for all it's worth and push that envelope until he felt I had had enough. Because things had been cool. But yesterday, I had to work all day and he couldn't come. If he could have, shit yeah we would have brought him! But there were a lot of sketchy looking characters around, setting up for the concert, and Dugan does not take kindly to such sketchy looking characters.

It is funny though. We both think the same person is a little weird. The person with the funky hat or jolted scramble of a walk. You know, the person you see when you're out walking and after they walk by, you chuckle and think, well, that dude was a little strange.

Dugan and I always agree on those people.

So we went out to Valley Green. Philly almost feels like Maine today, there's a nice breeze and no trace of humidity what so ever. It's comfortable. And on the path at Valley Green, coming in off the ball field, Dugan was on overdrive. He swerved this way and bolted that way. He kept picking up sticks that were way too big him- way to hard to manage. He kept trying to eat trash. Goddamnit that's starting to get me pissed off. It's disgusting! Absolutely nasty and he does it all the time. A napkin here, a hot dog bun there, a whatever-the-hell-that-is across the way. It's a filthy habit, like smoking or huffin' glue or bowling, and it's one he needs to stop.

But every dog does that, Jody said. We met Jody on the way back. Unlike the dude who I had seen earlier and thought was Jody, this dude was actually Jody. He was out for a run and we stopped to chat. From the perspective of someone thinking of setting up camp in Philly for the long haul, randomly meeting your cousin out while taking the dog for a walk is a comforting thing. Like the weather. It's familiar, let's you remember what's real and what's not. Plus with Jody, you learn fun facts like when the latest tree fell out in along the path and when Cousin JJ the Farmer is in town with New Radiant Storm King- Sat Aug 22nd at MRoom (front & girard.)

Before seeing Jody and before turning around, Dugan went tromping through the creek. He likes to jump from rock to rock and really only goes swimming if he absolutely has too. So like- when he jumps and misses a rock. Then he's a little screwed and he swats his big ol' paws up and down, creating a hell of a lot of noise and water splashing about before he finds another rock. Then he stands there, gets his shit together, and then goes back on Drifting Stick Patrol. But the current baffles him. He won't go near it.

I don't get it.

But then he was a little bit of shithead when it was time to leave the creek and continue walking. He did his little bullshit act of running around in crazy, criss-crossing circles- doing anything necessary and unnecessary to avoid getting the leash back on. It was frustrating, not comfortable and not kind of funny like it is right now when he's lying upside down, under the table and right on my foot. He just stretched out and his spine feels funky on my foot. Really, he's a weird dude.

But for about five minutes he was a real shithead. The thing is that I knew he'd come back. For all his misgivings and shortcomings, Dugan is one thing. He's incredibly loyal and he's a team player. He'll act all tough until you get out of eye sight and then he comes running back. So it's almost inevitable that the act will end. This was good, I was almost too tired to go after him and my calls of Dugan quickly faded into the breeze- lacking the gusto needed to properly carry. Like shit man, Dad back in the day. He would call our names and from streets away we could hear it. It was like a church bell.

It was impossible not to hear.

We had no excuses.

Dugan got distracted by something in the brush. I hooked on the Red Sox leash and got him back to the path. I looked at him as we walked- he couldn't walk in a straight line and looked a little worse for the wear. I could tell he had moved on, was now thinking about something else. Dropping a deuce maybe? I couldn't decide if I wanted to put my headphones back in and the new Dr. Dog album back on, or just listen to the woods. All it took was for me to start thinking about work next week and I put the headphones back on.

Gave the volume a little bump and got back to walking. Can't let the little things bother you, not on a day like today. Not on a Saturday with the sun shining and the wind kicking around and nothing but relaxation of the docket. No way, dude. We're all moving on. We're all saying screw it and moving on.

Up, down, sideways.

Just on, dude. Just moving on.