• Ultimatums are a guy’s best friend

    I laid out the law. I told my wife that if she loved me, she would watch the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. (Would you believe that “Battlestar Galactica” was not in the Microsoft Word spell-check dictionary?) It took me two weeks of relentless pressure, followed by my aforementioned last ditch ultimatum before Cheryl relented. I told her that if she would just watch the mini-series I wouldn’t make her watch any more of the series.

    Sure, it was a gamble, but I was confident in my good taste. Some would call it arrogance. I prefer to think of it as superiority, but I won’t bog you down with semantics at this late hour. Let’s just say that the gamble paid off.

    “So Cheryl, are you interested in watching any of the series?”

    “Yeah, I guess.”

    “Come on, show daddy some love. You really liked it, didn’t you?”

    “All right, yes, I liked it. ARE YOU SATISFIED?!?”

    Oh yeah.

    Starting tomorrow at 10 p.m., the Sci-Fi channel begins re-broadcasting the first season of the new Battlestar Galactica series – starting with the first episode titled, “33.” You know where Cheryl will be.

    Love is in the air…

  • Being late

    Being late is almost never good, unless you are trying to have a baby. Otherwise, it’s pretty much a drag. The other night I was up late. I even wrote about it. I was up late again last night, once again dealing with a tragic and unavoidable urge to play video games (damn you to hell, Xbox).

    The question remains (despite the Xbox scourge), why am I staying up so late? Come with me as I take you on a tour through my mind. Don’t worry. It shouldn’t take long.

    When I think of the primary reason why I stay up late at night, I am reminded of the immortal George Mallory. He’s dead now, so I guess he’s not really immortal – but his words are. He once said, “Because it’s there.” A little context may be helpful here. He was, of course, answering the question “why climb Everest?” (Or something like that, if not those exact words.) Sure, I could go to bed at a reasonable hour, but where’s the challenge in that? Isn’t challenge an essential building block of the human spirit? I owe it to myself, and damn it – all of mankind, to stay up late. You can thank me later (when I’m doing my service to God and country). Although when you consider that Mallory died on Everest, maybe he isn’t such a good example for this piece.

    Something my wife asked me the other morning pretty much sums up my second reason. She asked me, “Did I wake up when you came to bed last night?” I cannot tell a lie, the first thing that came to mind was, “holy crap, this is the perfect opportunity to lie.” That’s right friends, my mind holds irony in high regard. It’s obvious that the answer didn’t really matter, awake or not; she didn’t notice, and that’s what is really important. Hell, it may be the MOST important component of staying up late: the unperturbed spouse.

    The third reason is a conglomeration of many related little reasons. It’s the stuff you add to a recipe to make it thicker. It’s the water they add to mixed drinks to maximize profits. It’s, well, it’s in many ways what this web site is all about. It’s different for everyone, but for me it’s our Xbox, our DVR, this web site, my PowerBook, lefty-liberal-commie-bastard news sites, or just about anything involving an ass planted in a chair. The bottom line: I can’t go to sleep until I’ve filled my daily ass planting quota.

    Challenge. Opportunity. Ass planting. It’s why I stay up.

  • Why the f*** am I still up?

    I’m always b****ing and moaning about being tired. At my optimal bedtime I usually say to myself, “I’m just going to read one more article.” Uh, yeah, sure you will. Pretty soon two hours have passed, and I’m good and f***ed.

    Tomorrow I’ll no doubt be up at my normal time, engaging in my latest hobby – coffee slurping. I’m working on a wicked tough patch of scar tissue on my tongue from repeated scalding. I figure by this time next year I’ll be able to boil spaghetti on my tongue without flinching (I still haven’t thought of how I can overcome the obvious capacity problem though). Of course all of this begs the question, “what the f*** are you still doing up writing this c**p?”

    Just adding insult to injury baby! Throwing caution to the wind! Living for the moment! Carpe diem!

    Sounds like I should be having a really good time. Sounds like I’ve really got this staying up late thing completely screwed up.

    S***, are we out of coffee?

    Seriously, are we out of coffee? That’s not even funny. Tragic, but not funny.