Patrick Says

Just found out today that a friend of The Wife’s passed away the other day. We hadn’t talked to her in a very long time, but she was still a friend to The Wife. We have not heard the circumstances of her death, but as I understand it, it was not foul play.

At the wedding, we jokingly referred to her as ‘girl on left’. The Wife and I had both wanted our mutual friend as both best man and bridesmaid. So, for balance in the pictures, we used M. She knew it was a joke and not meant to demean. She had a pretty good time at the wedding anyway, so I think she was fine with it.

Rest in peace, girl on left. (Note that in this picture, she is on the right in the red dress. During the ceremony, she was on the other side, hence, the left. It all worked out that day.)

(Picture courtesy of Mister Wind-Up Bird)

To be honest, it didn’t start out as an experiment at all.

Monday was rough. The reasons aren’t really that important. Let’s just say that a lot of things were all combining to put me in a severe bad mood. So, on Tuesday when I returned to work, I thought I would wear a necktie to bring me out of the funk. My logic was that if I dressed up and looked a little fancier, perhaps I would feel a little fancier. (It should be noted that my office has a business casual dress code.)

It worked. Kind of. I did feel a little better. But what was more interesting was my co-worker’s reactions. Some were curious. Some were concerned. Some had no idea I was even wearing a tie. It’s funny that if you work with people long enough, they never really ‘look’ at you anymore. Anyway, I continued the tie-wearing through Thursday. On Friday (our casual day), it was back to no-tie.

So what did we learn? Not much. We learned that I can bore my readers in just two paragraphs. Will I do this next week? Still too early to tell. But I’m guessing that my co-workers expect that I will not. Hmmm…

My rectum is bleeding. Do you know why?

Because I just paid $3.49 for a gallon of gas. That would be fine if I only needed a gallon, but I need thirteen of them. That’s nearly $50 worth of petroleum that just a few short years ago cost me about $1.99 a gallon.

$3.49 FOR A [expletive deleted] GALLON OF GASOLINE!!!
ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
GUESS WHAT!?!
THE TERRORISTS WON!!!
ARGH!!!

I swore I would get a post out tonight. I seem to be suffering writer’s block lately. But I will overcome. Anyway, why not share my thoughts on the ‘American Idol’ performances this week. I generally don’t enjoy Idol once they get down to the finals, mostly because I love the bad performances. But David Cook has kept it interesting, so I end up watching the whole thing.

Here’s my thoughts on each performance (and yes, I know they’re out of order):

• David Archuleta - Great…another friggin’ ballad. Dude, you’re killing me with all the downers. Please let AI have a ‘no ballads’ theme SOON.
• Carly Smithton Hennessey - She’s starting to look like Steve Perry again. And then there’s the whole ‘plant’ thing. And then there’s the husband with the tattooed face. Dude, they are going to laugh so hard at you when you get to the retirement home. Anyway, her singing…I did not care for it.
• Syesha Mercado? - A diva singing another diva’s song. Ho-hum.
• Brooke White - I used to root for her. Turns out she’s a plant too. Anyway, that folksy innocence wears out after a couple weeks, it turns out. Sorry. How many times do I have to watch Carly Simon sing?
• Stoner Dude With The Dreads - I actually can’t even remember what he sang…sad.
• Kristy Lee Cook - Awful. I can’t stand country anyway, so you know I’m dreading her pretty much every week. And this week was NO exception. My ears are still bleeding.
• David Cook - I have dug most of his covers. I especially give him propers for noting that they were not his arrangements recently on the show. On the other side, his Our Lady Peace cover last week was god awful. This week…a home run. Right. Out. Of. The. Park. His cover of Mariah’s ‘Always Be My Baby’ was amazing. I kind of hope he goes all the way, but then I kind of hope he gets voted off so he can go make the album he wants and sell tons of records (in a certain Daughtry fashion).

So, that’s that.

Do you think Paula is aware what a huge pile of bullsh*t she has become? She used to actually critique. Now she just fellates each performer after they’re done. Is that too harsh? Maybe, but she offers NOTHING whatsoever to the show and she is a waste of a chair with the incessant messiah complex she seems to have for anyone with a microphone. It’s grating to say the least.

As for Mariah Carey week, I’m disappointed no one picked my favorite Mariah song. It’s got everything you need in a Mariah song!

• INFECTIOUS POP HOOKS!
• JAY-Z RAPS!
• CROCHETED BIKINI TOP!
• CHOREOGRAPHED BUTT SMACKING!
• JERRY O’CONNELL IS IN THE VIDEO!
• MARIAH KICKING HER OWN BUTT!

It’s a can’t miss! Sing along if you know the words!

There has been a lot of drama going on behind the scenes of this blog. Let me break it down for you here in some lovely (but manly) bullet points:

• Categories - I have fought and fought with not only what the categories would be, but whether a post could have more than one category. I have started going through the archives and categorizing not once, but twice! And then at some point, I get frustrated and delete them all and go back to ‘uncategorized’.
• Tags - One of those things I would love to have, but can’t bear to go back through 500+ posts and do it. So, I decided against it. (Good news: I found a plugin that will go through your archives and add tags for you. More to come!)
• Themes - Oh yes. The theme battle. I change themes a lot. Mostly, it’s because there is a feature I’d like and the current theme doesn’t have it. So I change themes. But then I don’t like the colors or the fonts. Argh. I have been looking around for the last month and I can’t find that theme that is the one. Hence, the site right now is using the default until I find the one. I have probably looked at over 300 themes and I’m way past frustrated with that.

And here’s the problem. I tend to be really focused on a task once I take it on. So, I have spent days simply paging through sites of themes. And it’s driving me insane. It all came to a head last night when I deleted the blog and gave up. Later today, I restored it. I love blogging. I don’t want to give it up yet. So here we are.

I’m just going to leave this default theme for a bit. It’s not hurting anything. It has all the features I need. If the right theme comes along, I’ll throw it up. Otherwise, who cares. As for categories and tags, we’ll see…

Thanks for reading my blog. Stick around…I think we’re on the cusp of something good.