My 'No Sweets March' Success

The temptation began on March 1, the first day of my second attempt at a “No Sweets” month. With February’s failure still on my mind, my daughter reminded my wife and me that we’d promised ice cream to her when she went to bed the previous night.She was looking for Dairy Queen.Through some smooth talking—but really, how smooth did it have to be, it’s still ice cream—my wife convinced her to “settle” for Baskin-Robbins. So after dinner I made a Baskin-Robbins run and bought cones for three of my kids. None for me though. Victory!For one day.But the temptations kept coming. March 4 was pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. March 5 my wife made banana bread. I love my wife’s banana bread almost as much as I love my wife. March 7 my parents came over to visit the kids. My mom brought some fancy chocolate and caramel cake. March 8, more cake. March 9 a nice grandmother at work left a donut and two chocolate chip cookies on my desk.Do these people hate me?March 10 I went to the store to get my wife some medicine for her ailing foot. “Can you stop at McDonald’s and get me an ice cream cone?”Have you ever realized how long March is? Thirty-one days! That’s 744 hours without sweets. And the temptation just kept coming.My wife made chocolate chip cookies. Twice.We went to a birthday party for my friend’s son and they had plenty of cake.Toward the end of the month four boxes of Girl Scout Cookies arrived at our house. Girl Scout Cookies! Thin mints, Samoas and Tagalongs. What person in their right mind declines Girl Scout Cookies?Much to my own amazement, I declined them! This is even more surprising to me since I vividly remember an occasion three or four years ago in which I bought some Girl Scout Cookies at work and proceeded to eat half the box of Samoas while sitting at my desk.(Don’t act like you haven’t done the same thing!)This rare-for-me exhibition of will power and impulse control continued for the entire month of March. No ice cream. No candy. No cookies. No cake. I did it. I made it through the entire month of March without having any sweets. I have no official confirmation of this, but I suspect it’s the first month I’ve gone without sweets since I was still swimming in amniotic fluid.(As always, there’s one footnote to be made: My four-year-old daughter made some cookies and a cake with her Easy Bake Oven. She was very proud of her culinary skills, and gave me some to try. When your four-year-old daughter bakes cookies and gives one to you, you eat it. No questions asked. If you want to count that against my No Sweets feat, go ahead. But have you no soul?)So what the heck was the point of not having sweets in March? Well, once again, I proved to myself that I could do it. That’s enough for me. However, I did learn a few other things.Sugar probably is addictive. I avoided food that’s explicitly loaded with sugar (my definition of sweets), but there’s hidden added sugar in gobs of foods like bread, ketchup and peanut butter. When I eat sugar I want more sugar. But that doesn't seem to hold true if I have just a little sugar, like what's added to many "non-sweet" foods.The first few days are the worst. If I have some sugar and then I want more sugar, it makes sense that my body’s not going to be too happy if I don’t give it more sugar. So for a few days it yelled, “Give me some sugar,” and I said, “Shut your face, Body! I don’t want to hear it.”It gets easier. Eventually my body learned the new normal. It stopped demanding more sugar. It stopped looking at cakes and cookies and all that other sugary good(bad)ness. After eleven or twelve days, not only did it become easier to say no to sweets, but my body didn’t even ask if it could have them, so I didn’t have to say no.Sugar is sweet. This is obvious, you’d think. But until I celebrated the end of No Sweets month with one of my wife’s ridiculously tasty chocolate chip cookies at midnight on April 1, I never realized just how sweet. I’m quite sure I tasted every single grain of sugar in that cookie.And my favorite ice cream place reopened on April 1, so I ate there, too.And I loved it.Since then I’ve continued to eat sweets. Carrot cheesecake/cake. Gummy bears. More chocolate chip cookies. My body craves it once again. But tonight I plan on eating the last piece of that carrot cheesecake and then telling my body to shut up again for a week or two.In the meantime, I’ll concentrate on succeeding on April’s challenge for my Year of Doing Without: no peanuts. This may seem like no big deal to you, but I assure you it’ll be a challenge for me, especially considering it’s the time of year for Reese’s peanut butter eggs.Failure IS an option.PREVIOUS POST: That Time I Met a Girl at a BarIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: PB&J the Right Way+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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That Time I Met a Girl at a Bar

The challenge this week, as given by ChicagoNow to all of its bloggers, is to write about the most memorable night of our lives. I came up with the challenge at a time when I really had no idea what I would write about. I just thought it would be a cool challenge.For the past few days I’ve thought about every night of my life. It just so happens that this very night is the 13,500th night of my life. That’s a lot of nights to think about. Most of them just run together. Some of them stand out. I guess I should write about the ones that stand out.There was the night that my friends and I illegally climbed sand dunes and two perturbed police officers forced us to climb down the dunes under spotlight.There was the night that I took my family to Disney World in December 2009. At the time I only had three kids, ages 12, 5 and 3. The parks were packed. Magic Kingdom was open until 2:00 am though, so my wife and I brought the kids back to the hotel around six o’clock in the evening, napped for a couple of hours, and then went back to the park and stayed until two o’clock.My three kids and my wife rode the spinning teacups on the Mad Tea Party three or four times in a row. By themselves. With literally no one else on the ride. It was like I was a millionaire and I rented the park just for my family.No wait at the Dumbo ride. No wait! At the Dumbo ride. Do you understand what I’m saying? Pardon my French, but it was fucking awesome. My kids were so happy I wanted to cry.There was the night my second son was born. My wife’s water broke just after midnight. We were sound asleep. She asked me for a towel. Confused, I asked why she needed a towel. When she told me, I freaked out with excitement. We got ready. I left the house with no shoes on.That sounds like an episode of a bad television sitcom, but it’s the complete truth.We raced to the hospital. The nurses didn’t believe she was about to give birth. My wife—on her third child—knew different. “Hurry up!” I remember thinking. Still, they moved so slowly.Finally, they sensed the urgency. They called an orderly to wheel her up to the maternity ward. He chatted with us too much, and then ran her wheelchair into the elevator door.I thought he might be drunk, be he didn’t smell like alcohol.My son was born.Memorable nights are aplenty if you live. I mean really live. Live like you want to experience life, not just live it.My most memorable night—the one that I’ll remember for the rest of my life, the one that I still shake my head about, the one that leads to everything else—occurred January 7, 2000.My wife and I met on AOL. I wasn’t an axe murderer.We went on a date. I visited her at work. “Hey, I’m going to Finke’s with a friend on Friday. You should meet us there,” she said.“Sounds good,” I said. “Where’s Finke’s?’ (My wife grew up in a town twenty-five miles away from where I lived.)“Just get to Highland and ask directions.”That’s my wife. She didn’t drive at the time. Still isn’t concerned about cardinal directions, street names, distances. It’s all about landmarks.“Just get to Highland and ask directions.”She went to Finke’s with her friend and her friend’s boyfriend. I drove to Highland. I looked for Finke’s. Couldn’t find it.Up and down practically every damn street in Highland. Bars, taverns, pubs, restaurants. I think I drove past every establishment in town.Every establishment except for Finke’s.Finally I came across a liquor store. Hoping that maybe alcohol aficionados might be helpful, I walked in and asked the man behind the counter if he knew where Finke’s was. He didn’t.However, a scantily-dressed woman, roughly my age, who wore entirely too much makeup, smelled like a flower patch, and had just purchased a pack of cigarettes, had heard of Finke’s.It just opened, she said. There’s no sign out front, she said. Too new.No wonder I couldn’t find it.She gave me directions, which I tried to listen to, but since I wasn’t familiar with the town, I didn’t understand very well.Five minutes later I passed the building. No sign out front, but plenty of foot traffic nearby. That had to be it.I looked for a place to park. Nothing. Jam packed. The parking lot was full. The streets were bumper-to-bumper.Having already searched for the place for an hour, I considered calling it a night, driving home, and telling the pretty girl I wanted to meet that I just couldn’t find it.She’d understand, I told myself. My usual self-doubt threatened victory when I convinced myself she probably wouldn’t even miss me. Plenty of other people there, I thought.I passed Finke’s one more time, watched it pass in my rearview mirror, stopped at a stoplight, and waited for it to turn green.As I waited I thought, “What if you’re throwing away something amazing just because you can’t find a parking spot? Wouldn’t that suck?”Yes, I suppose it would. I forced myself to do a U-turn.I parked on a residential street, three blocks from Finke’s and walked along unlit streets in the rain. I stood in line by myself, with dozens of other people waiting to get in. I felt like a loser since they all had other people with them. I had nobody. Just the hope of someone inside.I showed my ID. They let me in.The place was packed. Wall-to-wall people. I could barely move. I had little hope that I’d find this girl. I walked around the first floor. Nothing. I moved to the second floor. Nothing.I was just about to leave when I turned around and happened to see her in the distance, wearing black pants and a black shirt that sparkled. I’d never seen anything more beautiful in my life.I came up behind her, wrapped my arms around her, and said hello.My life was never the same.5,569 days, three kids, a house, jobs, and endless experiences later, we’re married and we’ve built a life together.I shutter to think what might have happened had that stoplight been green, and I wasn’t forced to sit and think for a moment.Good God, what if?PREVIOUS POST: This Blog is Coming After YouIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: That Time my Parents Thought I Was Kidnapped+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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This Blog is Coming After You

After 139 posts on Dry it in the Water, I am out of ideas. It took me decades just to come up with that many topics to write about, so I don’t have much faith that I’ll be able to continue on my own for much longer.Part of the reason I wrote this blog is so that I can interact with readers, critics and everyday people. Some of those interactions have been useful, and some have veered toward idiotic, such as the wordsmith who left a one-word comment—“Bitch”—on my post about Taylor Swift’s new album.Recently I’ve tried to think of innovative new things to do with this blog. Sometimes I write things just to make people laugh. Sometimes I write to make them think. And sometimes I write just because I have some time to kill. But what would happen if I stopped doing all of the hard work and left that to you wonderful people, the readers?I’ve thought about this for a few weeks, and I think that I’ve figured out a way to pull it off. It’s going to take a lot of cooperation and effort on your part, but with my persistence and your ideas I think we can make this a success. It’s a little different than the way any other blog is written, and it might seem unusual at first, but stay with me here.Let me explain what I have in mind: The first blog written in person by readers. I’ve done enough. Now it’s up to you. But since I know how difficult it is to have the discipline to sit down and write something, I’m not leaving this to chance. Especially since I plan on taking the credit for whatever you write.From now on, after someone comments on a post, I’ll meet that person at their home or place of employment, and we’ll hammer out the next post together. The topic of that post will be whatever the reader wants it to be. So be prepared, we could have a wide variety of writing coming from Dry it in the Water.One day maybe a reader will want to write about watermelons, and then the next day a different reader will write about parking tickets, and then the next day some crazy reader might write about the maddening fallacy of bed sheet thread counts. It literally could be about anything. Imagine if one day you get a post all about how Democrats are brain dead, and then the next day you get a post about Republican idiocy. The possibilities are endless!Our blog—and I do mean our blog, it’s not my blog anymore (although, just a reminder, I will still be taking credit for all of the writing)—is going to really change the way blogging is done. Gone are the days where readers are somewhat anonymous beings hidden behind a computer screen. Instead, writers and readers will come face-to-face. I wonder if the person who left the “Bitch” comment on my blog would do such a thing if she knew that I’d show up at her doorstep the next day, coaching/coercing/educating/tutoring her into creating a blog post of her own.Life’s too short for me to do this blog by myself, and I’m tired of the virtual wall between you and me. To paraphrase Little Ronnie Reagan, it’s time to tear down this wall. And when the wall is gone, the fun begins. Just ask the East Germans if you don’t believe me.So Dry It in the Water begins a new chapter. You better tidy your home, because I might appear on your doorstep with a pad of paper and a pencil, and tell you to write. But before that happens, let me give you your first assignment. You can begin by writing down the first letter of each paragraph of this post.PREVIOUS POST: Do You Know Where Your Dog's Tongue Has Been?IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Little White Lies Can be Dangerous+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Do You Know Where Your Dog's Tongue Has Been?

I should start by saying that I don’t own a dog. In fact, I don’t have any pets, unless you count the opossum that visits our recycling bins a few times every summer. So maybe I just don’t get it.However, I have owned a few cats in my life. I liked them. I even loved one or two of them.Wait a minute… we did have a dog when I was a teenager. Her name was Coco, and she chewed the hell out of the legs on a coffee table my parents had owned for thirty years. She wasn’t around long. I can’t remember the circumstances, but at some point my dad brought her to my aunt’s house in rural Iowa where she…no longer lived with us.So perhaps if I had a dog I’d understand the intense love that permits dog owners to tolerate, even embrace, having their face licked by their dog. Because as a dog non-owner, I want to puke every time I see a canine tongue make contact with a human face, especially the mouth.Yuck.Dog owners, do you not know what dogs do with their mouths? Dogs lick certain parts of their body. If my kids just touched—not even licked, just touched—those parts of their own body I’d make them go wash their hands. I certainly wouldn’t say, “Aww, how cute, come over here so I can suck on your fingers!”Doesn’t that make you want to puke?Are there breeds of dogs that don’t make out with the organs of their excretory and digestive systems? Maybe so, but I’m not getting freaky with them either. I’ve smelled dog food before, and I’ll be damned if I’m letting any mouth that eats that stuff within eighteen inches of my own mouth.My daughter ate a dog biscuit once and I made her gargle with Pine-Sol before I’d let her near the dinner table.Let me also remind you that not only do some dogs lick their own butt, and all dogs eat disgusting food, but the worst of the worst actually try to combine the two and eat their own poop. That’s so gross my fingers just went numb to avoid typing the words.“Oh Rover, come lick my face you little cutie pie!” No.Here Rover, chew on this tube of Colgate and wash it down with some hydrogen peroxide.(It’s probably a good thing that I don’t own a dog.)As a dog non-owner I’ve tried to imagine something more revolting than being Britney Spears to my dog’s Madonna, but it’s really stretching my imagination. There’s gross, and then there’s gross.Every now and then we hear about some article that claims a toilet seat is cleaner than this or that household object. But even if a toilet seat is cleaner than your purse, you’re not going to lick your toilet seat are you? You might as well. If your dog had a toilet seat it’d be no cleaner than those parts he licked thirty seconds before greeting you at the door and slurping on your face.Or what if you and I were out playing golf (that’s probably not going to happen), and then we went back to my house and my eight-year-old son greeted me at the door by licking my lips. What a sick little brat! Wouldn’t you expect me to go wash my face and maybe down a fifth of vodka, just in case?Dog owners: do you buy produce? What’s the first thing you do to that bunch of lettuce before you use it? You probably rinse it to get the dirt off and maybe take care of any hearty little bug that might have survived the trip from the field.But come on, there’s nothing on that lettuce that’s worse than whatever’s hiding under your dog’s tail, and thus in his mouth. Save some water and stop washing the lettuce. Don’t kid yourself, you don’t even like clean things.Now, before you comment below, let me save you some time. I don’t want to hear about how clean a dog’s mouth is. “A dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s mouth.” Yeah, maybe after a human just fell through the floor of a decrepit outhouse.But if you want to keep letting your dog lick your face, then go right ahead. Don’t listen to me. I don’t even have a dog.I also don’t have tapeworm, and that can’t be a coincidence.PREVIOUS POST: Keep Your 'No Regrets' to YourselfIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: How to Tell the Difference Between Kids and Dogs+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Keep Your 'No Regrets' to Yourself

Regret can be tricky. I suspect that has to do with the whole issue of time. We’re here on Earth for a few years and then we’re not. This moment will never return. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.This is the part where we turn to Cher for wisdom. Her song "If I Could Turn Back Time" perfectly captures the reason some people are so sensitive to regret. In case you don’t know this song, or you just want to act like you don’t know it (but come on, don’t be ashamed if Cher has a prominent place on your iPod), let me explain.Cher sings about wishing that she could turn back time so that she could take back mean things that she said. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She didn’t want to see anyone go. But she did. And since she can’t go back and change it, she sang a song about it.(One side note: Watching Cher strut around half naked, in an unbelievably revealing “outfit” on an aircraft carrier while she sang this song in the video wasn’t the worst thing in the world as far as eleven-year-old Brett was concerned. Not bad at all.)If we could do as Cher desires, and actually turn back time, then regret wouldn’t be a thing. You could undo anything that you wish didn’t happen.But Cher’s just a singer, not an inventor, so we can’t yet turn back time. Therefore, regret exists.I don’t think much about regret. I’m not a worrier in general, and I’m sure as hell not going to worry about things that have already happened and are beyond changing.I think certain people are just more prone to regret, also. I can’t remember who said it, or where I read it, but a few months back I came across an idea that basically argued that people who frequently say “No regrets!” probably have the most things that they should regret.For some reason I always associate the “No regrets!” mantra with the type of person who wants to talk to you more than you want to talk to them.You know the type of person I’m talking about. He—it’s usually a he, but it could be a she, too—corners you at work, or at a party, or at your kid’s soccer game, and blathers on about anything that crosses his mind. Sometimes the thoughts are disjointed. Often they’ll make no sense.Inevitably, if he corners you long enough, he’ll bring up something that he did years ago, or months ago, or last week, and you’ll have to listen to his ridiculous story and act like you don’t think he’s an idiot, when really you’re thinking, “How do you even function as a person?”And if you have the poor misfortune of not breaking away, he’ll get to the end of his crazy story, and punctuate it with “No regrets though! Right? No regrets!” He’ll act as though he just thought of this revolutionary concept.Since you’re a functioning member of society, you’ll just nod your head, or say something like “That’s incredible!” But inside you’re thinking, “If there’s anything that someone should regret, it’s that story you just told me. No regrets? Are you sure about that?”Don’t expect him to change his mind though. That might be admitting regret.I’m not against the idea of no regrets. Actually, I’m for it, for the most part. Whatever’s happened in the past has made you who you are. And hopefully you like who you are. Even if you don’t like who you are, all you have to do is change, which requires thinking about the future, not dwelling on the past.Better to not regret things and just take the attitude that I stole from my wife’s cousin: It makes a better story. Whatever happens, happens. And if it doesn’t turn out good, well, it makes a better story!Just don’t get cornered by that guy at the party. Then you’ll know what true regret is all about.This post was written as part of ChicagoNow's weekly This Blogger Life series. The prompt for this week was "Regrets? I've had ... a few? None? A boatload?"PREVIOUS POST: SB101: Indiana's Shameful Discrimination BillIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: A Sybaris Experience Confession+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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SB101: Indiana's Shameful Discrimination Bill

A soldier returns from war. He has just served his fifth tour of duty in some far off land and has been away from his family for more than a year, just on this deployment alone. He’s never seen his six-month-old baby. His four-year-old barely remembers spending time with him.All is well now though. He has returned in tact and anticipates no further deployments. Although his family expected him home soon, he arrived two weeks early. On the way home he decides to stop at a locally-owned burger restaurant in his small Indiana town.He’s still wearing his military fatigues and when he walks into the restaurant the owner greets him at the door. The soldier thinks that owner is going to welcome him home, maybe thank him for his service.Instead, the owner tells him to get out of his restaurant. He won’t serve him.A new restaurant opens in a different town. It’s located in a strip mall and has a funny name. A woman walks by, pushing her two kids in a stroller. They’re all hungry and the air is thick with delicious, unfamiliar smells. Both the kids have been good so she decides they’ll all go to lunch.She opens the door and as soon as she walks in a voice from behind the counter begins yelling at her. At first she’s confused, then alarmed as the loud voice is frightening her children. A man walks through a door from the back and waves his hand, shooing her out of the building.The Indiana House yesterday passed Senate Bill 101. The first sentence of the bill’s summary describes it as “Religious freedom restoration.” That sounds like a reaction to the popular “We’re losing our freedom!” refrain so popular among a certain segment of the population over the past few years.(Want to have fun? Next time you hear someone cry about losing freedoms, ask them to state one actual freedom that has been lost over the past few years and exactly what the government has done to destroy that freedom. Then wait for an answer.)But “Religious freedom restoration” is really just a fancy way of saying “we want to discriminate against people who do things that our religion doesn’t agree with.”So this bill would make it legal for a businessman against gay marriage to refuse service to a gay couple. Or it could provide a Catholic pharmacist the right to refuse to fill a prescription for birth control.In a country that has been fighting to overcome discrimination since its founding, Indiana has decided to turn back time. It’s as if the state assembly and supporters of the bill have said “Equal rights? Non-discrimination? Fairness? Justice? No thanks. That sounds like you’re taking away my freedom.”I hope people who support Senate Bill 101 think about the two scenarios I described above. Most people would be appalled if they saw such events unfold. But how is either situation different than not serving gay couples because you’re religiously opposed to gay marriage?If the soldier walked into a Quaker-owned restaurant, and the pacifist owner refused to serve the soldier because he carried out actions against the owner’s religion, wouldn’t we be up in arms? Wouldn’t the same people who support this discriminatory bill be at the front of the pack decrying the disrespect toward a soldier?But wouldn’t this bill protect the owner?And if the Muslim owner of the new restaurant believed that all women should have their faces covered in public, and refused service to the mother because she wasn’t covered, can you imagine the outcry? There’d be immediate talk about Islam being a barbaric religion that denigrates women.But wouldn’t this bill protect the owner?However, if we allow this to stand, why stop at businesses? Shouldn’t I have the right to practice my religion without government interference? If my wife’s sort of mouthy sometimes, and I find a religion that lets me slap her for that, isn’t the government infringing upon my freedoms if they try to stop me?Indiana’s horrifically incompetent governor, Mike Pence, has promised to sign SB101. It looks like it’s going to become law. Someday we’ll look at this episode and shake our head in disbelief that something like that could pass.Until then, perhaps the only thing we can do is hold our legislators’ feet to the fire, and hope that discriminating businesses are forced to close because people stop shopping there.And as long as we're hoping, we might as well hope for a new state legislature and governor, too.PREVIOUS POST: George Zimmerman's Video Interview is Like a Horror FilmIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Indiana's Sunday Alcohol Ban Should End+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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George Zimmerman's Video Interview is Like a Horror Film

Dear Georgie,You remind me of Jason from those Friday the 13th films. As far as I know you haven’t had an axe bashed into your head, or been tied to a boulder on the bed of a lake, or frozen to death in a cryonics chamber, or even been killed in a setup by the FBI like that fictional madman.However, like Jason Vorhees, every time I think you’re gone, you show up again. And frankly, I’d rather hear more from Jason in his hockey mask than from you.As the most prominent hero of the “There Are Bad People Who Don’t Look Like You and Are Just Waiting to Do You Harm So You Better Protect Yourself and Everyone Around You” group, I’m sure many people are quite psyched about the new 13-minute interview your lawyers at 18884mydivorce.com (I’m not making that up!) just released.It’s clear that you fancy yourself as some sort of modern-day Wyatt Earp, and from listening to your interview it seems that you might have delusions of becoming Clarence Darrow (he was a famous lawyer, Georgie), too.During your interview you say that President Obama directed “the Department of Justice to pursue a baseless prosecution” which “overstretched, overreached, even broke the law in certain aspects to where you have an innocent American being prosecuted by the federal government which should never happen.”Newsflash, Georgie: Innocent people are prosecuted and investigated all the time. In fact, everyone ever investigated or prosecuted is innocent. There’s a legal principle in America known as presumption of innocence, you know, “innocent until proven guilty.” Not until after the investigation and prosecution is anyone guilty.I’d think you—perhaps more than anyone else in the entire country—would understand how someone completely innocent can be suspected of wrong doing. Just be thankful that all you had to deal with was a trial and maybe some tough words directed at you. At least no one followed you at night, frightened you, and then killed you.I’m not surprised that you’re not a fan of President Obama. Sixty-three million people voted for someone other than him in the last election, so obviously a lot of people don’t like him.What I am surprised at though is how you accuse him of inflaming racial tensions right after you refer to him as Barack Hussein Obama. Although Hussein is the president’s actual middle name, it’s been used ever since he started running for president by those who like to insinuate that he’s something other than American, or other than Christian, or maybe just other.I’m sure you knew that though, didn’t you Georgie? In fact, like most other people who include the president’s middle name, I’m sure you intended it as a wink-of-the-eye acknowledgement to other like-minded imbeciles.And before you breakout the, “Well it’s his middle name!” defense, let me remind you that even John McCain in 2008 knew what it implied and repudiated its usage.I’m having a difficult time choosing my favorite part of your interview though.Is it the part where you invoke Anne Frank and claim to “believe that people are truly good at heart?” (Except for when they’re walking down the street, apparently. Then they’re suspicious.)Or maybe it’s when you say that the President should have “been an example, been a leader as the president should be and say lets not rush to judgment.”You seem to have forgotten what the President actually said: “And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together -- federal, state and local -- to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”And, “I think all of us have to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.”Does any of that imply rushing to judgment, Georgie?Choosing my favorite part of the interview is as hard as choosing my favorite of your run-ins with the police since you became infamous.There’s the time you threatened your estranged wife and her father with a gun. And the time you pointed a shotgun at your girlfriend and started breaking her belongings. Oh, and don’t forget the time you threatened to kill another guy in a road rage incident. And when you threw a wine bottle at your ex-girlfriend.Man, Georgie, all of these run-ins with law enforcement, you must be the unluckiest person in America.Well, except for anyone who ever comes in contact with you.PREVIOUS POST: Hey Idiots, Thanks for Ruining my NCAA BracketIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Dear Guns,+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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Hey Idiots, Thanks for Ruining my NCAA Bracket

Thanks for nothing, Harvard. I was counting on you and you let me down. I had big things in store for you. After beating North Carolina you were going to win a couple of more games and even take down the number one seed in your region, Wisconsin. Instead, you lost. Losers.Sure you fought the good fight after being down big to North Carolina. You fought back and almost pulled it out. But guess who cares about that? Nobody! Fighting the good fight doesn’t help my bracket. You winning the damn basketball game helps my bracket.How did you lose, anyway? Especially against North Carolina. Sure, as a four seed they were favored against you and your thirteen seed, but come on, it’s North Carolina. Apparently, they’ve got a bunch of knuckle-dragging mental lightweights who can’t even be bothered to pretend to be students. They’re dumb. And you’re Harvard! But you still let the dummies beat you.Believe me, I know things are tough for you since you don’t offer athletic scholarships (we wouldn’t want to taint the endless pursuit of knowledge with any physical competition, would we?), but if you’re good enough to hang with North Carolina, then shouldn’t your superior intellect push you over the top?And by the way, your team name is Crimson. News flash: Crimson isn’t a nickname, it’s an elitist way of saying red. Get a new name. Something like Harvard Killers, or Conquerors, or Madmen. People already think you’re weak because you’re Ivy league. Having Crimson as your nickname isn’t helping your case.Let me part with one observation, Harvard: Yale would have won. Not only are they tougher than you (they’re the Bulldogs!), I bet they’re smarter, too.I’ve got plenty of animosity to go around, so don’t think you’re getting off easy, Baylor. I should have known better than to count on a school from Texas. If we let Texas secede, then Baylor can’t be in the NCAA, right? Two birds, one stone.Holy crap, I just discovered that Baylor’s president is Kenneth Starr! The guy from the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky/ Whitewater investigation. No wonder they screwed up their game against Georgia State.I’ve learned my lesson, Baylor. I’ll never choose you to win another game, much less make it to the championship game. You can’t be trusted. And as much as Harvard makes me angry, you just hurt me. I was feeling so smug after fourteenth-seeded UAB beat third-seeded Iowa State just as I predicted. And then you go and blow it.I hope you cried all the way back to Waco.Hey Georgetown, you’ve been upset in the first round three of the past four times you’ve been in the NCAA tournament, but not this year. I suspect it’s because I picked you to be upset, so naturally you won. It might also be that one school can’t continue to choke so colossally year after year.Whatever the case, you screwed me. I hope Utah destroys you in the next round and converts you to Mormonism. Unless you’re already Mormon. Then I hope they treat you like Mormons treat fundamentalist Mormons. Bad things, Georgetown. Bad things.Speaking of religion, I’ve got some things to say to you also, Southern Methodist University. You let a sucky UCLA team beat you. How the hell did that happen? I’d think having a coach older than dirt would have helped you. It helped UCLA with John Wooden all those years.How’d Larry Brown even end up coaching at SMU? Oh, that’s right, he’s already coached every other team in the country. Brown’s coaching resume: Denver Nuggets, UCLA, New Jersey Nets, University of Kansas, Spurs, Clippers, Pacers, 76ers, Pistons, Knicks and Bobcats. He’s done a good job at SMU, I guess, but not good enough to keep him off my shit list.Wofford. Small school. You’re on the list, too. I’d never heard of you before, but from now on you’ll just be remembered as the school that lost to Arkansas just to piss me off.And now for you, Kentucky. I picked you to win yesterday, but not because I wanted to. Nobody likes you. Ashley Judd and Jim Beam are the only people rooting for you. To everyone else you’re the Evil Empire and we’re all just waiting for you to fall. And we’ll dance in the streets when it happens.Oh, and just for the record, I wouldn’t trust your coach, John Calipari, to clean up after my dog. That guy’s more crooked than Harrison Ford’s nose.(Sigh) I feel better.Let day two begin.PREVIOUS POST: Why Your Neighbor's House is Cleaner than YoursIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Why We Should Run Everywhere, All the Time+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Want an e-mail every time I write something new? Type your email address in the box and click the "create subscription" button. I'm not going to send you a bunch of junk, and you can ditch me any time you want.Hey, did you like reading this? If so, you should Share it on Facebook so you can bring joy to others. You can also find tons of other posts by me here. And you can like my Facebook page, Brett Baker Writes. Please.