Just a few more days....

…and we’ll all get to kick ’05 the fuck on out of here. With that in mind, I’m going to be partying like its 1999, which was way better. Ummm, minus the puking, that wasn’t very much fun, but you get the idea.

Mrs. Head didn’t get the job. I suspect she’s being blackballed by the local demon management, but to find out for sure I’d have to do something altogether unprofessional (and maybe even illegal) myself. Life kinda sucks that way sometimes, always throwing shitty choices your way. It’s so overused that I know I’m possibly inviting a mob to come after me with pitchforks, but what the hey, I’ll say it anyway. Poker makes me a lot more comfortable with the shitbox situations of life. After almost two years I have a much better idea of what to do with my middle pair (both literally and figuratively). A question to be dealt with another time, then, is why am I still kind of tight-passive at the tables, when I’m not that way in general? Cuz let me tell ya, right now I’m being an aggressive sonuvabitch.

More interviews to come for the Mrs. on 01/03. Time for ’06 to show and prove. If it doesn’t, I may just have to take it outside and get into some gangsta shit.

That’s right, I’m totally gangsta. OG, even. Word is born.

We’re going to hang out with Performify for the holiday, so this will likely be it until we get back from KC because tomorrow I will be spending the day doing obligatory post-Christmas tech support for most of my family. Somebody kill me with a dull spoon. PLEASE.

Happy New Year!

(put that tequila down, it is not your friend)

Freedom, baby.

At the Head household, the 2005 holidays ended up being a bit lackluster (as holidays are traditionally defined), but upon reflection I can still say it was good. I’m looking at it as a sort of “working holiday.” Why?

We are in full-on “get the fuck out of here” mode.

The leading candidate so far is Phoenix and aside from the breath-stealing price of even lower end houses I am excited at the possibility. Mrs. Head had a promising interview before the break, and it looks like I’ll have one or two coming up shortly. Hip Hop Hooray. Cross your fingers, the Mrs. should be finding out something this week.

So with these possibilities in mind, and while languishing somewhere around the fourth level of shitbox-for-neighbors hell, we decided it was time to begin the pre-move paring down process. We started on Friday with our clothes, and by the end of the day I was ready to punch myself in the face for being such a gluttonous fool. There were clothes that I could only remember wearing one time. There were even some that I purchased and never wore. Shameful. When you’re finding things that you didn’t even remember you had, you have too much stuff.

When the smoke cleared I had donated a few shirts over 7 lawn and leaf bags FULL of clothing. Completely ridiculous, and as you can probably tell by now, I’m still beating myself up about it even though it’s probably going to make quite a few families very happy. Finally poor little Johnny will have that Banana Republic jacket with the Eddie Bauer sweater and Abercrombie pants that will get his rich bastard, MTV-sodden schoolmates off his back for at least a little bit. Yes, I had a few things from Abercrombie. Shut up. I mended my fashion ways several years ago, but I do realize that I should probably get an extra punch in the mouth and/or groin for ever patronizing such a god-awful establishment.

What the hell does this random drivel have to do with anything?

I’m glad you asked.

The paring down of many of my material possessions have made me realize that even though I haven’t sunk nearly as far into rampant consumerism as a large portion of the general mouth-breathing masses, I still found myself deeper than I thought. Yes, buying stuff is cool, and having the ability to buy lots of stuff is something to be thankful for, but damn, I can’t believe I fell so far into that hole.

Good God. Is he ever going to get to the damn point?

Yes, dammit, be patient.

When you’re digging yourself out of a mountain of your own excess, you have plenty of time to think. Of course, in such times my mind will invariably wander over to poker. My game needs to be pared down. I realize that this is one of the reasons I haven’t really overcome the tilt that’s kept me away from the game more than I would like. I buried in a mountain of my own useless poker shit that I don’t use (or don’t need to be using), so over the next few days/weeks I’m going to be paring that down, as well. While the more complex principles are at times appropriate, they are little used, especially with the low-limit animal. It’s time to get back to the bare bones foundation and rebuild the poker house with less lackluster materials.

So here is the point. Get rid of the useless crap. I’m not saying lose everything and live like a celibate, threadbare monk, but if you take a step back and look at your life, your game, whatever, you’ll likely find a lot of useless crap hanging around. Chuck the '05 crapola. Lighten the load for '06. Be free.

Ghost of the Redneck Riviera

If there was ever a sign that it’s time to leave this motherfucker, it was this holiday season. In the spirit of Pauly’s Redneck Riviera I give you this heartwarming holiday tale.

Rachel and I were still in recovery mode from the Vegas trip and were easing back from staying awake for two and three days straight to getting back on our normal schedule which is much more conducive to leading a responsible “adult” existence. We went to bed around 1:30 AM on Saturday and just as I we were drifting off to fever-dreamland….

WHAM!
What the fuck??

Now, our house is nearly 100 years old, built in 1910, so we’re accustomed to the strange noises made by the old place. Personally, I’m not altogether convinced that it’s not haunted a bit, but this noise was way too loud to be explained by old age or ghosts. Citing the possibility of pre-holiday vandals, both of us crept downstairs where we were greeted by the situation enlightening, “Darnell, I didn’t fuck my boss and you know it!”

Fucking wonderful, our house is going to be on Cops.

This would be a good spot to explain a bit about our neighborhood. It’s an area called Riverside and is right in the middle of the city. It’s and old neighborhood, populated with bungalow style houses about the same age as our own, all in various conditions (nice for the most part, though). It’s a hodgepodge of homeowners and renters. Well, as the gods of fortune would have it, the house next to us is one of those rentals. For the last three years, our various renter neighbors have been pretty good. It even seemed as though the current renters were decent even if they were kind of strange. Strange, as in, one of us would say hello and they would look at us like we were from outer space. Anyway, for the first couple of months they weren’t any trouble, although the two of us were growing increasingly suspicious of their white-trashiness.

When they moved in, they were driving a 2000-ish Chevy Cavalier. You know, the Chevy’s version of the Neon, and it looked pretty new. Of course, not two weeks later, the rear end was bashed in and it wasn’t getting fixed. Shortly thereafter, a giant white Cadillac, mid 90’s, ghetto cruiser style, showed up in the driveway. Sure enough, once the 30-day tag was close to expiration the Cavalier ended up backed into the driveway, and its plates ended up on the Caddy. Great. The white-trash stock just went up a few points.

So there you have it, a little background. We now return you to the domestic dispute, currently in progress.

Rachel and I are peeking out our back door window at the unfolding drama and I’ll admit that I was a little bit giggly that this guy’s name couldn’t have been more stereotypical. Earl was the only other name I could think of that might have been more appropriate, but Darnell is still pretty good. He’s drunk and crying and yelling, and she’s yelling at him to stop hitting the car (I guess that solves that mystery). He’s doing the tough guy pace and all of the sudden..

WHAM!!! (again)

Good lord, this guy is beating on the top of his new Cadillac with a snow shovel! It would really be laughable iif it weren’t so sad and embarrassing. They yelled for another fifteen minutes or so before finally going back inside. We were getting bored, so we just went back to bed.

Fast-forward one week. Day before Christmas Eve.

BOOOM!!
They cannot possibly be at it again already.

Rachel and I already know for sure this time what the deal is, and with great anticipation run downstairs once again to witness the show. Oh look, Darnell is drunk and angry again because he can’t get over the fact that his baby momma is a whore, and he has to give up some grips to take care of a kid and his job sucks. As soon as we took up station at the back door and looked out we could see that Darnell had really showed his baby-momma who was boss this time. The back window of the Cadillac was busted out. Nice.

“Darnell, stop it, goddamnit! The baby needs that car to get around!”
The baby drives?

That was the mother-in-law. We still can’t tell whether she lives there now, as well, or just hangs around a lot, but now she and her daughter are out on the porch trying to calm down drunk storming Darnell, who is leaving but wants to go inside and get his cash and his weed first.

BOOM! (There goes one of the side windows)

Evidently one busted car window wasn’t worth it, but two is the breaking point where it becomes proper for the mom-in-law to call the cops, and she gets on the horn. Darnell doesn’t like this idea, something he makes known by busting out another side-window and decimating the windshield. 4 out of the six windows are now gone and He takes off down an alley, and of course the cops finally show, walk around, but don’t really do look very hard for him. Way to go Johnny Law. Let the destructive trash keep on keepin’ on, while you treat me like a crack-smoking hardened murderer for doing 4 mph over the posted speed limit.

As I sit here postulating on the inner workings of the white trash mind, there’s still one question to which I can’t even field a partially complete answer.

Why in the hell would anyone destroy their own car? Or, in keeping with the old Tootsie Pop commercials, “How many whacks with a snow shovel does it take to beat your way to the center of a ’93 DeVille?”

And I’m spent. Back at ya tomorrow.