be my twit

It's getting to be a tradition around here -- fail to come up with a cohesive post about a specific topic, and instead string out a few aimless, lightweight observations, Larry King-style. Damn, it feels good to link to the 1997 Onion, like getting in a time traveling elevator to go high five a sweet old pal before he eventually turned into a dick.

Dear new-ass iPhone that will (hopefully) be released this summer, just in time for my 40th birthday and the expiration of my cell phone contract,

I am planning on buying you, you little bastard, especially if you fulfill the following requests:
1) better camera, like game-changingly good camera, like ohnotheydint-level or better camera
2) video recording and sending capability (I know you're trying), and not so shitty as to make it a waste of time
3) copy and damn paste
4) MMS
5) Some cool new shit that I ain't thought of yet but blows me away when you unveil it.

In other news, Hans Bungle is now taking Twitter for a test spin. You can check my tweets (?) here. Or subscribe to me or whatever. Follow me. Stalk me. Harass me. Grope me. I don't honestly know how this shit works. If any of you are on it, let me know and I will subscribe to your ass as well.

I got some new spex. A little outside my comfort zone, bordering on dreaded retro/hipster/poseur territory, but I like 'em. And we would have lost a few hundred dollars of flex money if we didn't spend it. Go ahead and give me your feedback. And yes I realize I look a little bit like an ape. That's just me, not the glasses.

The stretch of recent celeb deaths and school shootings and plane crashes has gotten to me more than usual. It's like we all have our little systems in place that allow us not to think about dying, to live in a state of semi-denial about the ultimate and overruling fact that death is speeding towards us and doesn't care if we're ready. Then a few bad deaths, a few too many reminders placed too closely together, and it all comes back into focus. I'm gonna die. My kid's gonna die. Our legacies are meaningless; we will be dead. Buried. Gone. Unable to participate. It's all so temporary. May as well do the things you want to do. Except you, would-be axe-murderer!

As my pop's health got worse and worse, he somehow kept a sense of humor about it. That was his defense. Part of me wishes he had experienced a last minute religious epiphany, real or bullshit, that would allow him to approach the end with some sense of optimism and hope. But he didn't. He was miserable and scared and disappointed and he didn't try to hide it. That's genuine courage.

But he would crack jokes, some funny, some not, to all the nurses and doctors and loved ones who gathered around his bed every day. One of his favorite things to say, upon receiving some grim news from a doctor, was "Will I be able to play in the Big Game?" It wasn't that funny to start out with, but it somehow became funnier as it became more and more ridiculous. I hope I am as brave as he was when my number comes up.

I have a couple ideas for blogstuff around here. One of them is "The Verbungle Interview Series" or "Interviews With the Greats" in which we IM-terview friends and acquaintances, focusing on their one area of true passion and/or expertise. My first thought was to interview B. New about the true nature of funk.

Another one, which frankly could be incorporated into that one, is "History Makes the Call" in which you would submit a moment from your past (preferably with documentation) and we would all weigh in on whether you were a victim or your time, ahead of your time, or just eternally clueless. For instance, you could send in a photo of your favorite jacket from 1989 and we could all tell you whether or not it stands up to history's cold, honest eye. Or you could show us a pic of your high school crush who everybody thought was the bee's knees, and we would all be the judge of that. Or you could tell us that you once went to see "Top Gun" twice in the same day, and we could tell you if that means you are exceptionally cool or an unsalvageable disaster. Basically, "Mortified" with more pics.

I am trying to keep this bizznitch alive, and we'll need some more interactivity to make it happen. Join the crusade.

How am I supposed to root for the Yankees this year? How am I supposed to get fired up about their new stadium? It just gets harder and harder each year. Yuck. Give me a few weeks, anyway.

For like the 6th straight weekend I did nothing that could even generously be called exercise. I have kind of lost my Saturday hoops game and haven't started a weeknight game yet. The thing is, I don't consider myself a particularly sedentary or physically lazy person. I love to run around and play sports. I just need a ball. I had a plan that I was going to start running to and/or from work every day or every other day. It's about a mile and a half each way. Then I thought about it and figured my knees would probably take a beating, and I would hate to suffer my career-ending knee injury doing something as lame as jogging to work. So I guess nothing.

had to be there

Busy weekend. Good and busy. How about you?

After multiple kids' birthday parties on Saturday, I started Sunday off with what is currently my favorite menu item: the Tuscan Platter at Le Pain Quotidien. Share it with a pal.

Meanwhile, BJL and Joe Monkeyweb were attending the big town meeting. In case you missed this story, apparently our douchey landlords might owe us all a lot of money. Joe anticipates 50 grand or so for himself. Here he is chewing out his Maybach dealer for fucking up the size of the HDTV screens in the backseats.

I'm having a hard time believing we'll ever see a dime. Things like this just don't happen to schmucks like us. I'll consider it a whale of a victory if our rent gets lowered substantially moving forward. I still tip my cap to the folks who've been fighting the good fight -- Tishman and Speyer are probably shivering in their Cristal-filled jacuzzis right now.

Anyway, the meeting sounded productive: a couple of witches got burned, some tribal elders spoke, coupons redeemable towards future high fives were issued.

To celebrate our impending fortunes, the three of us sat down for a few rounds of Guinness at the brightly-lit-but-still-somehow-depressing Paddy McGuire's bar on 3rd avenue.


With our average age of approximately 37.6, we were the spring chickens of the bar. This guy was about 46, and represented the median. He just sat there for like three hours silently and calmly drinking. Sometimes that's all you can do.

At one point BJL tried to outstare me. I think he's still there in this exact position. Does that mean he wins?

Things we didn't talk about: The Yankees. The Mets. The Recession. The Old Days. Moustaches.

Things we did talk about: Softball. College. Kids. The Incident. Facebook.

We came up with a facebook app called forgivebook, where you reach out to old acquaintances and they give you closure for the terrible things you did to them years ago. I could use that. So could BJL.

Soon our respective ladies wanted to know where in the hell we were. We weren't at the bar that long, but it adds up.

We were probably drunker than we realized as we left the bar. BJL found a corner and belted out some of the loneliest Irish Doo Wop that 3rd Avenue's ever heard.

Then he went Hulk on this poor garbage can.

Then I went grocery shopping for like an hour. By the time I got home, I think I was hungover, and I still had to put the kid to bed.

I woke up Monday with a cold.

strange van parked in front of your house

That's the title of a spam email I just received. I like it. I mean, if there is a strange van outside my house, I want to know about it, and I want to get the whole story. What makes the van strange? It seems awfully judgemental. Maybe it's just a friendly man's van. Or maybe he's gonna kill me. I need to open this email.

Thursday came along and roughed me up a little bit just as I knew it would. I would say it was comparable to a typical Pork Chop Tuesday* in terms of stress intensity. In the end, though, I survived and Thursday died as scheduled at midnight. I win. No day has whipped me yet. Right now the record reads: Hans 14,443 wins, Calendar 0 wins. My dad finished with a lifetime record of 29,684 and 1. That calendar starts getting mighty ornery once you rack up about 25,000 straight wins against it.

I think Nikki Sixx is like 15,212 and 4.

Anyway, as the day was delivering blow after solid blow to my midsection, with the promise of more tomorrow and next week and at least five days a week for the foreseeable future, I had a little mini-midlife career crisis. I say mini because there was no time for a full crisis, plus in this economy we all need to be legitimately grateful for steady employment. But man, JOB HARD. JOB GENERALLY UNREWARDING. JOB ON OTHER MAN'S TERMS. JOB NOTHING LIKE THIS:



How do I get there? The place where a stray note floats by and disappears into the air in an instant. Where sloppiness is endearing. Where you don't even own an alarm clock; you wake up when your head hurts too much to keep sleeping. Where you release every ounce of your feelings into a creative endeavor you believe in with all your heart. Where brown M & M's don't exist. Where people applaud when you are done.

Damn you, talent gods.

* Pork Chop Tuesday was easily the worst day in our two week menu cycle on the Trayline. It was every other Tuesday and on that day the entree station served pork chops and my starch station had like four kinds of potatoes (regular, fat free, salt free, salt free fat free) and an equal number of stuffings. In addition, each type of potato and stuffing had three gravy options. It was twice as much pressure as any other day, and I dreaded it with all my soul. I wonder how many patients died from getting the wrong kind of mashed potatoes.

IAQ vol. 42

Q: What did you do this weekend?

Not much. Hung out with the family, went to a friend's house for Sunday brunch, caught up on sleep. The big story, of course, is what went down on Sunday night. A new Jesse Stone TV movie aired on CBS! Hope you saw it, I DVR'd it for enjoyment at a later date, a date when I feel adrift in the universe and need some clarity. Somehow I have become a Tom Selleck fan, despite never being a fan of Magnum P.I. and never seeing a movie with him in it. The reason: Jesse Stone. It's not that these movies are good, exactly. It's that their simplicity makes me feel like a kid again. The good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and there's rarely a moment where you can't spot the difference. Shoot the bad guys. Make out with all the available women. Drink hard but hold it well. There is no need for reflection or regret.

Q: What NBA team do you hate the most?

A: The Lakers, by far. Hate 'em. Historically. Specifically. Symbolically. Fundamentally.

Q: What do you think of A-Roid?

A: I think he's a schmuck, but then again I always thought he was a schmuck. Of course he is a steroid user, how could this be surprising to anyone? When a league is full of juicers, and one freakish dude is dominating all those other juicers, you can safely assume he's a juicer. Call it The Armstrong Principle. What will be fun is when evidence surfaces that he did steroids in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. Plus, it's hard not to look at him now and think about the steroids. In the past, he could still turn to his unbelievable statistics as an escape from what a loser he was as a human being. No longer.

Q: What do you think of Twitter?

A: Not sure yet. I think I may give it a try. It seems kind of lame but that hasn't stopped me from blogging, facebooking, and watching Jesse Stone movies.

Q: How'd you like the Oscars?

A: Pretty enjoyable. Hugh Jackman was better than I expected, I would vote for him to be brought back next year. Slow in the middle but overall I'd give it a 7.5.

Q: So my friend and I had a little bet going. He's a Duke fan and I'm a Carolina fan, and we decided that if Duke beat UNC in their game a couple of weeks ago, I would have to wear a Duke jersey (player of his choice) in a bar the next time they faced each other. And if UNC won, he'd have to wear a UNC jersey. If he had won the bet, he would have had no shortage of humiliating former and current Dookies to inflict on me (Wojo, Laettner, Brian Davis, Jay Bilas, Thomas Hill, Hurley, Redick, Chris Collins, Paulus, ooooh! Danny Ferry, etc. ad infinitum). Thank God that didn't happen. Instead, I have to choose a North Carolina player to humiliate him. Who should I choose?

A: Tough one, UNC guys are generally not as annoying. Rasheed Wallace probably represents the least Duke-like player in UNC history, so if your friend likes Duke, he probably hates Rasheed Wallace. Eric Montross is kind of comical, but not really that annoying. Hansbrough is kind of almost Dukish in his overemotive facial expressions, etc. I think I might have to turn this one over to the peanut gallery.

Q: What days are you dreading most this week?

A: Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday is going to be a real bag of shit.

Q: What days are you looking forward to this week?

A: Saturday, when we head to an indoor water park. Friday, which marks the official end of Thursday.