when she feels like crying she starts laughing

Want to feel old? Verbungle just celebrated its 5th birthday a few weeks ago. What kind of meaningless crap was occupying my brain 5 years ago? Stuff like this:

-Old Man Steve at Paragon
-the eternal Eddie Murphy-John Stockton (then still active!) comparison
-Sitting on one's nuts
-Drunk dudes on the street
-The Lakers-T-Wolves playoff series (I was really into this matchup for some reason)
-The just-launched Iraq war and the U.S. deck of terrorist cards
-Dwarf Depression
-The color-coded terror alert level chart thing
-The moment when I threw a tennis ball out of a moving car and caught in on a bounce (you may know this as "The Greatest Moment in History")
-Granville Waiters
-Religion
-Smokers and the citywide smoking ban
-Hootie Johnson
-Bobby Knight
-Wizards-era Michael Jordan (then still active!)
-Murderous Office Psychos

Wow, Verbungle 2003 was a wild place. Makes Verbungle 2008 seem like a retirement community. What have we got going on these days...hmm...oh, I just got back from vacation in the money-launderin' Cayman Islands. I needed a break and it was perfect. I've never been on a vacation where I was less interested in the culture and scene of the place I was visiting than this one. It was just: beach, book, pina coladas, dinner, bed every day for five days.

I read 92 in the Shade by Thomas McGuane, which for a beach read was a lot more challenging than I had hoped. Man that guy can write though. It was dated, but in a fun, remember the 70's kinda way. And the book goes on all sorts of insane paragraph-long excursions that I was maybe not quite smart enough to follow. But I liked it nonetheless and recommend it to you all -- I kind of see it as a literary version of Easy Rider. In fact, if somebody wants it just let me know in the comments and I'll send it to you. It will be even more interesting for you if you like fishing.

The kid had a blast:
Oh, and there were tons of lizards in Grand Cayman. Lots of little fellas but also big ol' Iguanas just chilling all over the place:
I got a severe sunburn on the first day -- whenever I go someplace warm, I somehow always get it in my head that I am a swarthy Mediterranean hunk who tans well instead of the pasty Irish fuck that I actually am. So I had to wear a special skin-tight shirt thing the last few days to protect myself. Nothing has ever been more awkward and dorky than me in that shirt. Baby Bungle loved me anyway:
Now back to the shitsacking reality of my life. Under 2 months to go until HIATUS. Why can't I get excited about that? I am excited about softball, though. It starts next week and I am bringing a video camera to create a short documentary about opening day.

I took my bike in to the shop to get 'er all fixed up. I will be riding to work by next week at the latest.

ooo jeez!

could you too muster the wherewithal to utter a non-swear word in a moment like this?



class. pure class.

some piddling shit

I want to finish my latest Trayline thing and a new basketball post for the ol' basketball blog, but I am struggling to put it together. They each require some actual work -- like in the Trayline shit I have to go through a bunch of stuff just to advance the plot along and it gets boring. So I guess I gotta spice it up as I go and it's just tiring me out. So that's on hold.

Instead, some random shit:

Hadn't heard it in about four years until tonight, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more enjoyable slice of 70's rockstalgia than Thin Lizzy's version of "Whiskey in the Jar":


Speaking of youtube, I am fairly certain you will enjoy these outtakes from my intense California one on one battles with my bro in law. These were intended to be cut into our basketball footage for comic relief. It was then discovered that the actual basketball scenes provided adequate comic relief, and thus these were tragically shelved...until now.



And speaking of celebration, I was impressed by this email I just received from my college comrade JPW, who just celebrated birthday #39:

I also wanted to let you guys know that I passed my annual physical fitness test at the YMCA:

* Dunk – 3 one-handed with plenty of warm-up (my left leg is a bit sore though!)
* Bench 225
* Run 3 miles in 24 minutes

The final test will be next year at 40.

Man, what I would give for one dunk right now. Or ever.

Go Badgers!

UPDATE: New, kinda boring Trayline is now available for your review.

a lighter jacket, a holiday, and visions of you on the orange thing

It's March, and that means Spring Training. Shake out the stiff old leg, do some pushups, maybe go toss the bean around with your pal. Soon we'll be playing under the cozy lights of Clarkson Street, laughing and failing and getting into arguments as if any of it really matters.

In order to do my part, I am warming up with a cold 16 oz. Budweiser this Sunday night.

As I swoosh it around in the back of my mouth for a second before swallowing, I can almost feel the comforting crunch of shredded tires beneath my feet. How I love the outdoors. As my friend-for-an-instant Rich wrote in my high school yearbook 21 years ago, "Man this summer's gonna be a blast. You better be around."

I have been sick as hell for the last 9 days but I think I'm pulling out of the tunnel and things are gonna be OK. Whenever I go down with an illness or an injury I remind myself to be thankful the next time I'm chugging along healthily on all 4 rusted-out middle-aged cylinders. I think I'm just about there. So here's some thankitude in advance.

Feeling better always gives me a fleeting impulse to make changes in the way I live, to streamline this or that, to stick to my budget, to exercise, to get more sleep, to take more of an interest in my life and my family's future and to think about steps that can be taken to get things rolling. It never lasts. I am tired and lazy and for the most part happy as can be with the way things are. I wish I had been born more motivated or had more discipline instilled in me or could somehow find a way to change my basic makeup as a human being, but...I think this is it. Deal with me. Love me. And not just for this huge penis.

Small changes I do promise to make:

-Get bike outta basement, get it tuned up (next weekend), begin riding it around. Ride to softball 85% of the time. Ride to work 72% of the time. Avoid cab fares and other problems associated with cabs and cars.

-Play sports. Starting the weekend after next (next weekend is the wife's 'birthday zone' weekend). Decide that 2008 is my last great stand as an athlete and make the best of it.

-Finish my new Trayline post, about Moving Day 1992, and my new Basketball post, a series of lightweight observations about this season's Golden State Warriors. Go back and give them both a once-over before posting to make them funnier. These will both be in the can by Friday unless something goes wrong.

-Wear something green to work tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day, and re-initiate official Genius Point distribution with the arrival of today's contest: The First Annual Verbungle.com Patty Cake Challenge. Your mission: between Monday and Tuesday, grab your phone cam or your digital cam, whatever you got, and take pictures of as many of these as you can. Fools are getting drunk today, drunker than they anticipated, and they are vomiting on the damn streets! Let's get out there and document it! 20 genius points for each vomit patch you can photograph before Wednesday. If you live in a small town where nobody vomits on the streets, take some initiative: go out and vomit yourself.

Also, Deion will be grandfathered 20 points for his bathroomdat answer of The Blue & Gold.

Finally...it's just about Spring, kids, so why not celebrate with a quick trip back to another Spring not too long ago when the world was a simpler place, when we didn't even know how good we had it, when love was in the air and free time was still in your price range.

20 signs you may no longer rock* (not that you ever really did)

1. The last time you threw up was due to food poisoning.
2. You find yourself getting overly excited about things that are actually pretty lame, like available washing machines in the laundry room or the solace of your afternoon piss.
3. Things that used to make you brag now make you blush.
4. You are not only unfamiliar with the current crop of bands, you are unfamiliar with the venues in which they are playing.
5. You say something -- anything -- good about John Mayer.
6. You have a sore back that prevents you from doing stuff.
7. You wear a scarf.
8. When visiting a prostitute, you are no longer willing to pay extra for "no-condom" intercourse.
9. You attempt to argue that a movie other than Fast Times is the best movie of all time.
10. You write lame, Dave Barry-lite blogposts about how you no longer rock.
11. You are Rod Stewart.
12. You read the business section first.
13. Your moustache no longer has handlebars.
14. You submit less than two NCAA tournament pools.
15. You smoke a pipe or even a damn cigar.
16. You feel cold and want to sit down.
17. New Year's Eve is no longer even close to worth the effort.
18. Instead of sending a potent electric charge through your body, drinking one beer makes you sleepy.
19. At night, you dream about work.
20. Instead of being a dazzling, irrepressible star of your chosen sport, you are now a grumpy and stubborn Coach/GM determined to drag a franchise into the sewer.

Yo, so maybe this post was a little blah, but we are starting up the Trayline again, with a new post maybe halfway done. I've been sick as hell for the last five days, otherwise I'd have it done already. Also, nobody's got bathroomdat yet.

Also, an announcement: I have decided that I want to write more stuff about basketball. But since a lot of you don't give a shit about it, all significant basketball content will now live on the newly-remodeled High Socks and Short Shorts blog. All of DLee's future stuff will live there as well. When there is an update, we will let you know on this ol' bungle. The HS & SS blog previously dealt solely with my fascination for the since-seemingly-disappeared MSG series "Knicks 101", and today we have a final, unpolished entry that I typed up couple of years ago and never brought home. It consists of the notes I jotted down as I watched the Knicks play the Pistons in a game from December 1983. Enjoy.

*or, if you prefer, 20 signs that you have moved on to a more stable and mature place in life.