Rededication

One of my thousands of readers came up to me today and asked for an abbreviated review of Cinderella Man since he did not want to have to bother with the “drivel" to get to it. He chuckled, I didn’t notice. I was too busy surreptitiously wiping my chin. No drool. What was this “drivel” he was talking about then?

I raced back to my corner office, and flicked on the computer. I headed over to Webster’s website.

drivel

n 1: a worthless message [syn: garbage] 2: saliva spilling from the mouth [syn: drool, dribble, slobber]

I was confused. I glanced over at a mirror. There really wasn’t any drool on my chin. That must mean that he thought my blog was drivel! Ahhh, but the chuckle to show he was kidding of course, he didn’t really think that. But maybe there was some truth to it.

I reread what I had written. It was all drivel. It wasn’t the earth shattering posts I had planned on. I had become some hack, spitting out whatever was on my mind. This must end. I hereby rededicate my blog to the good of mankind. I will no longer post that which is unimportant. I will only write what will change people’s lives!

I swear it, or my name isn’t Fritz T. Grand

Next up: An in-depth look at Senior Citizens on the drag racing circuit. Sick humor or good, clean fun?

--Fritz

Cinderella Man

If you are one of those people who are thinking that they will only go see one more movie in a theater, make it Cinderella Man. I'm sure you were going to save it for a movie with great special effects, lots of explosions, but no, see Cinderella Man.

The sheer violence of boxing, depicted so accurately, contrasted with the gentleness Jim Braddock shows to his wife and family is so striking, that I think it needs to be seen in its full glory.

It is 2 1/2 hours long, it flew by and when it was over all I could do was sit transfixed in my seat. Only one couple got up to leave at this point.

The sheer honor shown by this man makes you almost weep due to the shameless people of today. This was a time when men were men, when honor, honesty, and working hard meant something. Even with no food he marched his son back to the butcher's shop and made him return the meat he had stolen. When asked by a gaggle of reporters what he was fighting for, he replies "milk." When he is forced to go on Government Assisstance the scene is heart breaking. He tries to work three shifts a day at the docks to make ends meet.

This is a true story, most of the quotes taken are real to the best of my knowledge, therefore, don't spoil the ending by looking up what happens. Please.

"Cinderella Man is a terrific boxing picture, but there's no great need for another one. The need it fills is for a full-length portrait of a good man."

--Roger Ebert

The only other movie that Wife #1 and I have both loved so much was Band of Brothers, so take it not from me but her, this is not a movie to miss. Just go see it, you will thank me.

***** out of *****

Fritz

Generic Q-Tips

Every weekday morning I have a little ritual. The alarm goes off, I hit snooze. It sounds again, I slap snooze again. The third time it goes off, I hit the button a little harder. Then my wife starts saying something about getting up and I mumble something about a “few more minutes,” to the untrained ear it probably sounds like cursing. Then I get out of bed.

I stagger to the bathroom, the difference between me before a shower and after is very much like the difference between Clark Kent and Superman. I am not a morning person.

*Good excuse here to show a picture of Morgan when she was just a little kitten*

When I come out of the shower, Morgan is almost always waiting for me. I don’t know why, she just is. I think she feels the need to make certain that I survived my latest encounter with water since she hates it so much. This is one of the few times during the day that she will deign to honor me with her meow. She wants attention, doesn’t matter if I am running late for work, she wants attention. She also knows that if she meows at me, with her kittenish meows that I will always pet her. She loves having her ears scratched.

Have you ever bought a toy for a child and they were more interested in the wrapping paper? We have quite a few cat toys in the house, a large bagful actually. Morgan has a few toys that she likes, but what she loves to play with are Q-Tips. I use a Q-Tip in the morning after a shower, and I get one for her too. I throw it down the hall and she chases after it, pouncing, batting, and rolling around with it grasped between her paws. Once she has subdued it she will carry it in her mouth to another point in the house, where she will drop it and begin the process anew.

We first learned of her love for Q-Tips by discovering her love of dumpster diving. She would knock over the bathroom garbage and sort through it until she found a Q-Tip. This is not the behavior that we felt she should be exhibiting! But I am too wrapped around her little paw to actually punish her. So I give her a new Q-Tip to play with.

A generic Q-Tip actually. I like the soft feel of the extra padding on the brand name Q-Tips, but it is too easy for Morgan to tear it off and try to eat it, assuring that it will make an appearance later, or I worry that it could be harmful to her. So last time at the store, I got generic Q-Tips. Less padding, my ears will suffer and pay the price to keep Morgan from harm. I think it is the little things we do that show our care for each other more than the large things. In a way it is easy to do large things once a month for those we love, we get thanks showered on us, but the every day things, the little sacrifices that go unnoticed and unthanked, those get tiresome.

Morgan doesn’t thank me for using generic Q-Tips to keep her safe, but she doesn’t need to. The sheer joy she exhibits when I throw a Q-Tip down the hall is thanks enough.

--Fritz

Five Long, Arduous Years

Well, my five-year anniversary is fast approaching. By some strange coincidence, Wife #1’s five-year anniversary is the same time of year. Fortunately, they are both on the same day so we celebrate them at the same time.

As I look back over the five years since I babbled something that sounded like “I do,” I realize that most people probably would have split up because of the problems we faced. The number one cause of divorce in America is money issues. And wow, did we have money issues. By issues of course, I mean that we had none.

2000

The first year of marriage is a beautiful time, when two people used to having their own bathroom move in together. Your feeling of independence and freedom is shattered, never to return.

But we made it through the first year, I was working and Wife #1 was finishing school (that would be second grade, we got married young).

2001

Six months into the marriage was when her back problems started, nothing quite like taking someone to the emergency room in an ambulance, it is an experience to be missed. Good things happened that January though; I got a whopping 3% raise! My boss had to fight with her superiors to get me that much, they wanted to give me a 2.75% raise. With the amount of money I was making, we were not talking about a lot of money, that would be my first experience with corporate greed, The Howard Hannah Way®!

In February we started looking for a house. Our one bedroom apartment got old really fast. We wanted out. We were picky. We weren’t going to take any old house; we demanded that it be in our price range! On June 18^th we bought our first home using Howard Hannah Realty. We did it The Hannah Way ®!

On November 12^th, my boss, while crying, told me that the higher ups in Pittsburgh had decided that they were dumping my job. My boss reminded them that I had just bought a house using their company. The higher ups agreed that it was a shame. How swell of them. To be honest, I hope their company collapses around their ears. I hope they wind up broke and unemployed while people they sacrificed for turn their backs on them. Does that seem vindictive? It sure is. I also hope that a certain Hannah gets his Porsche destroyed before his eyes. Just a quick reality check, if he had refrained from buying a new Porsche that year, they would have EASILY had enough to pay my salary. So a new car was more important than I was to those people. The Howard Hannah Way®!

That changed me, I thought irrevocably, but it was not to be. I swore never again to give more to a job than they gave me.

They gave me a month of severance pay, thereby ensuring that I would spend Christmas realizing that I only had one more week of income left. My boss was not supposed to tell me so early in the month for some reason (only explanation: The Howard Hannah Way®!), but she told me, risking her own position. I immediately started looking for a new job. I sent resumes, I filled out applications, and I applied for unemployment. Months came and went, we had no money; unemployment payments are just enough so that you can pay some bills. I got rejected by Wendy’s, I couldn’t get any job.

2002

Through this all, my wife’s back grew worse. She graduated (with many honors) from a prestigious school that you have never heard of and got a job at a local non-profit that helped people with mental problems and other such stuff (motto: We help our clients while hating our staff!).

In July I had an interview. A few weeks later they offered me the job. I just knew I should refuse it, but I needed a job. Five months of misery followed, culminating in us calling over the H.H.G. and having a chat about me quitting with no other job on the horizon, and with no unemployment to fall back on. It was the right thing to do; I left.

With only Wife #1’s income we were still short (money wise that is, I’m over 6’). So I plunged into the depths of hell and got a job taking phone calls from people who were buying stuff shown on infomercials. Wheee! The interview process went thusly:

I walked in; filled out an application, set what days I would be there, and that was it. I had a very bad feeling from the get go. They didn’t even pretend to care if I was a good worker or would be there beyond next week.

As some of you might have noticed, my mind jumps around a lot, it is very active, sort of like a chipmunk on speed. Taking these calls was awful for me. They didn’t really take all that much brain power to handle, just enough so I couldn’t zone out. My mind raced, time slowed to a halt, and I got in trouble for, on average, taking less than 18 seconds on upsells.

Through all of this my wife’s back grew worse, she missed time at work, her supervisor started showing her true colors. Doctor’s offered no help, aside from medication there was no relief from the pain, and medicine loses its potency after a while.

2003

January 28^th. I started working for a C.P.A. I will go into detail about this in a later post, suffice to say that I hated it, maybe I hated him too, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me in regards to my career (that, readers, is known as a teaser).

During tax time I would work 40+ hours a week. I enjoyed doing people’s taxes, despite what you may believe, I did over one hundred tax returns (individual and business) in 2004 and not one came back due to an error I had made. I was pretty proud of that.

Then came the summer of 2003. There wasn’t enough work to do, I worked two days a week, eight hours a day, sixteen hours a week, between Wife #1’s job and my part-time work we almost were able to make it. I started looking for a better job again. I sent out resumes to everywhere, even for Accounts Receivable positions (if you understand my distaste for Accounts Receivable, then you must have some accounting knowledge).

The H.H.G. and I took up golf, that would soon turn into a

*obsession*

passion of mine.

My mother died that summer. This is the event that has affected my life more than any other, I think. We all know that we are fragile creatures, but we still think that death is for old people, or other people. People are not supposed to die from a bee sting. But that also is another topic for another day.

Back to the job search. No luck, no one even called me for an interview. Before I knew it Christmas had come and gone and it was a new year.

2004

Tax time! Sweet relief, I was able to work again, as much as I wanted. We had enough to make ends meet, we were paying off debt, and both cars were now paid off. Good times, we both knew that the summer was coming when we wouldn’t really have enough, but why worry about the future when you can’t do anything to change it? I stopped sending out resumes during tax time, didn’t want to lose money going to a fruitless interview.

April 15^th. For some reason we were not as busy on the 15^th of April as some tax people are. Maybe we just dealt with more people who liked to get their taxes done early, the lack of advertising had something to do with it as well I’m sure. Only one more month before my hours would be cut dramatically, the phone rang. It was Wife #1. She had been forced to resign from her position for having the audacity to actually use her sick days. I won’t go into all of the ugly details, but it turns out that a friend of the CEO was hired within a week after her leaving. A grave injustice had been done. The reason that she resigned, rather than forcing them to fire her is because they gave her severance pay and promised not to fight the unemployment claim. Thanks a bunch guys! (Motto reminder: We help our clients while hating our staff!).

We now looked forward to trying to survive on sixteen hours a week and unemployment. The CPA and I examined some things and discovered that I would make more money if I worked a mere eight hours a week and filed a partial unemployment claim. He was willing to do this, and so was I. You can discuss the morality of this with me all you want, but walk in my shoes, attempt to provide for your family, see what you do.

I went to several interviews, two of which I nailed. I knew I impressed them. I interview well, when I have to I can swallow my shyness, my fear and plunge ahead when I know I have to. I may feel like puking, but I am the most outgoing person you have ever met while being interviewed. I was runner up in one of them, second place, the first loser. More interviews, more rejections.

I heard of a job, three states away in Illinois (shudder). I had always fought against moving, I really did not want to leave my family. It appeared I had no choice. I interviewed for the position. The offered me the job.

On November 3^rd , Wife #1 and I drove off in a huge Penske truck, filled with our earthly possessions, and more importantly, the furball creators we had come to love. We left Western Pennsylvania (motto: closer to Heaven than most Buddhists will get), with heavy hearts and a CD player packed with batteries.

Never say, “We are making good time!” Don’t tempt the fates.

We were making good time; we were going to hit Indianapolis just a little before 7:00 p.m. (Eastern) when the truck started jerking, bumping, thumping, and generally feeling like it was about to collapse under us.

We made it to a truck stop and called Penske (motto: you break it, you bought it!). They sent out Charlie the Wonder Mechanic. There was a good chance that it would be hours before it was repaired. Against Penske’s wishes (new motto: the customer is never right!), we packed up some thing in the car that we were towing (this included a very scary episode of getting the cats out of their traveling cage and into separate carriers without them escaping), and headed off, leaving all of our earthly possessions at a truck stop in Indiana. It was now 11:00 Eastern; we had spent three hours at the truck stop.

As we hit Illinois, it began to rain. Just enough so that wipers were needed, not enough so that they didn’t make a screeching noise. There were no lights. We pulled into our new home at about 2:00 Central. There was no water. The small town where we lived had not allowed me to transfer the account into my name over the phone, so we had electricity, gas, phone access, but no water.

My new landlord had kindly left a mattress and bedding for us to use, I inflated the Aero Bed ™ for Wife #1, and collapsed into sleep.

2005

Wow, this is long, quite prodigious, I would say. At least I would if I knew what that word meant. Wife #1’s back has gotten worse, doctor’s still offer little help, but on the bright side, I work at a really good place, and once our house back in Pennsylvania sells we will just have enough to pay the bills. That is a good feeling to have, especially considering where we were.

We have been through some really hard times, job problems, money issues, sharing a bathroom, my mother’s death, and some really good times, most notably our honeymoon at Niagara Falls (everyone should go there once). There is a phrase from The Shawshank Redemption that I always have liked:

“He crawled five hundred yards through the (muck) and filth, and came out clean on the other side.”

That is us, we have crawled through the muck and filth, the other end is in our sights. Even when times have been hard, really hard, we stuck together, when times seemed desperate, we didn’t push each other away. We have crawled through muck and filth, and there are only fifty more yards to go. I’m sure eventually, we will make it to the other side and come out clean, together.

Fritz

Musings

Beware! A certain Mr. Greene has created a devious trap for your computer! I was innocently reading his blog on my computer and I tried to leave. No such luck, I was unable! I desperately attempted to close the browser window, but it was too late! My precious machine froze in fear and would do nothing!

Stay far away from this evil man, far far away. You have been warned.

I have noticed that some people have kindly linked to my blog. Some of those people though have done me the great injustice of treating this as J's blog. I DON'T TALK IN ITALICS! IT IS MY BLOG, MINE!

Please, it also is not merely "Fritz," do me the honor of a full name, "Fritz the Grand" is what I answer to, at least to yokels like yourselves.

By the way, please call me Mr. Grand when you address me, thanks.


Fritz

Life Sucks, Then You Die

What comforting words, at least in my twisted mind. It is always good to be reminded that no matter how bad life seems at the moment, it is only a temporary affliction. Even supposed "permanent" disabilities and problems are merely "permanent" in this life.

And let's face it, what is 75 years as compared to 5,000? What is 5,000 compared to eternity?

Next time life sucks, take heart, you will die soon.



--Fritz

Gratuitous Furity!

Well, Wife #1 was looking at my blog when she remarked that I did not have any pictures of the furballs! Or at least the creators of the furballs.

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to:

The Cats of Fritz (and Wife #1)

The cats all have been named after a person in Arthurian Legend (King Arthur and his peeps).

Name: Merlin

Nickname: Merlinator

Merlin was our first cat, when Wife #1 brought him home, to be honest, I didn’t care. It merely took a short period of time for him to grow on me. Merlin has had the distinction of having the most medical ….err… needs? When we first brought him home he seemed happy, he was eating fine, drinking enough liquids, and had horrible digestive problems. We feared that he would die. We took him to the vet, they found nothing wrong; we took him back to the vet; he had lost noticeable weight. We didn’t know what to do, and we were worried.

For the first time in the history of the world, something good came out of the existence of New Jersey. Wife #1 and I were heading out that way to visit family and we left Merlin with the breeder from whom we had adopted him.

When we returned we discovered that Merlin had been fine during his stay, no problems at all. A day after coming home, the problems had started again. We called the vet again and the nurse said that maybe there was something at the breeder that he missed, something that wasn’t at our house.

Name: Arthur

Nickname: Chubs

The breeder practically begged us to baby-sit Arthur for the weekend and see if that helped Merlin. It did and so Arthur joined our happy little (growing) family. When I was “downsized” (English translation: Screwed over by a company you worked overtime for), we still owed money for Arthur, about $300 if I recall correctly, the breeder forgave the debt, even though we didn’t ask for it. (For that, she gets a link, fo sho!)

Arthur is stuck up and prissy, when he relaxes he properly crosses his front paws in front of him, he knows he is royalty and a fine looking cat. He is not quite as smart or athletic as Merlin, but he is persistent.

Cute Anecdote:

We used to block the doorway to the bedroom to keep the cats out, but we didn’t want to close it up because it would get COLD due to the fact that there were no heating vents in the bedroom. A box fan blew in to circulate the warm air, and a pillow shoved next to it made a perfect (so we thought) blockade. Merlin got brave enough and started jumping over our blockage. Arthur (remember his nickname) couldn’t quite do that, but there was no way that he was going to be left by himself outside the room. I heard a loud BANG and Arthur strolled into the room. He had pushed and pushed on the fan until it fell into the room, allowing him to walk in as a conquering king.

Name: Morgan

Nickname: Little Em

Well, Valentine’s Day was fast approaching and I didn’t know what to get Wife #1. I find giving jewelry so blasé. She had been wanting another cat, so I figured that it worked out nicely. Wife #1 wanted a girl, so she went to the breeder’s website and started looking. A calico! Perfect! We went out to the breeder’s and she brought out the litter that Morgan was a part of, they were so little. Morgan appeared to have a great delight in running into things since she wasn’t all that coordinated yet. Wife #1 was in love immediately.

Morgan learned very quickly how to completely control us, her little meows still sound like a kitten, and she only bestows them on us in special situations. She also only does something when SHE wants to do it.

Anyway, while Wife #1 was fawning over Morgan at the breeder’s, for some reason I asked to see the runt, the little guy with the crooked jaw. I felt that no one would want him and I always have a soft spot for the runt.




Name: Percival (Percy)

Nickname: Perkitoon

When he was brought out, he fit into the palm of my hand. He looked up at me and promptly began chewing on the zipper of my jacket. I’m not sure what it was, but I knew he had to join our family. The breeder sold him to us at a discounted price. Due to his physical traits she knew that not many people, if any, would want him and she was glad that he would be coming home with us and his sister. And what a discounted price it was! Good thing we reserved him early. He grew, his jaw straightened, his fur fluffed out, and when people saw him they all wanted to take him home. A professional cat show guy said we were stupid for getting him neutered since we then couldn’t enter him in shows!

Percy has always been attached to me, I’m not sure if he knows why he is home with us and not someone else. Does he remember that he was the ugly duckling that only we wanted? He sleeps next to me on the bed. His head on the pillow, curled up under the blanket, he waits for me to come home and sits in my lap whenever he can.

Well, there you are, that’s it, that is the list! I’m glad you got to know more about our happy little family, I hope you enjoyed reading about them …..eh… actually, I don’t care if you did, I didn’t force you to read it.

Fritz

Aaah, The Power of Cheese!

Wow, am I constipated. Someone should put warning labels on those white pieces of torture.

“Eat only if you do not wish to pooh for the next 36 hours.”

The worst part is that I know it will all come out at once, in its own time, when I am stuck at work. I know these people that work here, and while I like them, I do not like sharing a toilet seat with them. Why can’t we have sanitary wipes in each stall to clean the seat when the user is finished?

On one trip I had to stop at a gas station and use the “facilities.” Let me tell you, that was not a good pit stop. I felt the need to try and spit shine everything in the restroom before “letting nature run its course.”

Why doesn’t someone invent disposable toilets? How nice would that be, knowing that your ummm… fanny, was the first to ever grace the seat? No more examining the person who just left the restroom, no more praying that the trucker who was before you “merely used the urinal.”

I’m not sure how women handle this; I’m assuming that the hope of the person ahead of you using the urinal and not the throne of mercy does not exist.

Quick note: I am not asking for stories on how you deal with this, but if you feel the need to let the world in on your secrets, be my guest.

*You know, I thought it would be at least two weeks before you delved into potty humor.*

I love the fact that I can surprise you still, keeps our relationship fresh and exciting. Speaking of fresh, anyone tried a bidet?

Well, I gotta get going, really. I got to GO! I sure hope Brother #1 wasn’t just in there….

Fritz

Voices In My Head

Well, I successfully made it through my first "oops" in blogging. Clear sailing from here on, right?

*Please Lord, make it so*

So what is next? I wrote nothing for a while, then this all came spilling out. I have learned that when the dam breaks, you can't dam it back up again, the dam is undamable.....dammit.

*Wow, I could see that coming from a mile away, you are so pathetic*

Hey, shut up.

Anyway, I can't seem to think of want to write about, I seriously thought about giving this up.

*And deprive the world, at least your five readers, from your, uh, wisdom?*

Look, they knew what they were getting into, if you want wisdom read one of these:

Junior!

High Holy Guy

Just ignore the bad photograph of the H.H.G.

Problems are for Solving

The Bible

I'm here to rant about nothing and see if people hate me. This should really be called "Problems are for Kvetching About."

The good news is that I learned something about myself, I walked up to the person I wronged, and showed him what I did, and apologized for it. He didn't even know about the wrong until I pointed it out. I must have grown spiritually.

*Errm, it was actually me who had to go to my Brother, swallowing my bile and fear and ask for forgiveness for what you wrote. So I guess it was me that grew, not you.*

Bah! You should thank me then. Was penance exacted?

*No. I'm not good at going to those I wronged and asking for forgiveness, but thankfully he was gentle and was very willing to forgive. I learned something about forgiveness today too. When we have been wronged it is vital that we show grace and mercy to that person, just as Christ does for us.*

Good, so all he made you do was take down the post?

*No, I did that on my own. Even with the changes I made it still seemed to cast him in a bad light. All of us have sins to deal with, being a generous person is not one of his, far from it.*





*Are we done yet? I get all icky feeling inside when I have to talk about feelings and whatnot.*

Fine. Go ahead, I'll just hang out here a while by myself---

*NO! Not after what happened last time, you are on a short leash, Fritz! You know, maybe we should end with some lyrics from a song. Maybe "The Hard Way" by DC Talk. It perfectly describes what happen--*

No way. Song lyrics in posts are so overdone. I'm trying to be unique here!

*Sure, and this is the first blog on the internet then?*

La la la la, not listening!

*Whatever, I'm done for now, I'm off to slay evil orcs in Warcraft.*

Hehe, how cute. You have such an overactive imagination, where will it end?

*You are aware that you don't really exist right? You are a product of my "overactive imagination."*

Whatever, I'm not the one talking in italics, now go away. And no lyrics, this is MY blog, we will end it how I like. Just like this.

Fritz

Nude Girls!!

At the end of this post there is a link to pictures of naked women. All you have to do is read what I am going to say. No zoning out, no skimming, no sleeping, and no scrolling to the end. Well, I guess I have no real way to keep you from doing that, so I’ll just have to ask nicely.

Please read what I typed. I laboriously typed out some excellent thoughts to try and convince you of my way of thinking.

Ummm….yeah, the nude girls were just a way to get you in the doors. But the ends do justify the means, right? See, I got you to read one post, maybe then you will come back and read others! Maybe those people will tell others about my blog, and the nude girls of course, and they will stop by once, maybe they will stay as well! Then I will have many people reading my blog, people who have been convinced that I am right, people who will suddenly believe as I do, just because they are reading my blog!

Now sure, I had to bend my conscience a bit, I had to muffle its cries while I hunted through the internet (while at work) looking for pictures of naked women, but God will forgive me I’m sure, especially when He sees that I’m doing it for Him!

In fact, I bet that He will reward me for this. He will overlook the sin, and reward my intentions. Maybe I’ll even set up a Paypal donations button and give all the money to an orphanage.

This will be a great idea, lure people in to the blog with the promise of something they want, then make them have to listen to a prepared speech about something else, kind of like a timeshare thing.

I sure hope churches don’t think of doing this though.

Fritz

As promised, here is the link: All Nude!!

A Groundbreaking Day!

People! We have doubled in readership! Not only does Sister #2 read my blog, but an unidentified individual named greenemama has actually read it as well! If you read her comment you will see that she even uses big words that I have to look up in a dictionary!

Does life get any better? As a special reward for her readership, I will add her blog to my links!

I'm sure she is feeling the same as if Publisher's Clearing House came to the door.

Fritz

When Good People Do Nothing

*I posted this without reading it. Sometimes it happens that what you have said comes out a VERY different way than what you meant. I will republish this post once I completely edit it so that it says what I want it to say, and doesn't come off as a personal attack against a very close friend of mine. I guess I need to read more carefully what Fritz is saying, and not just trust him when he says, "It is all ok! Really! Trust me!"

For those who read the post before I have temporarily removed it, I meant for Mr. Solver to be a mix of Christians I know, problems in myself, and a lack of giving from others I have encountered. I deliberately took his comments out of context, using them to show things that others have said or expressed. I never realized that people would actually read this. I didn't know that there was a link to it :) Oops. Let this go as being foolishness from someone writing a blog for the first time. To paraphrase:

Mistakes are for Learning*

Wishing Ill on Others

So a friend of mine and his wife went to a baseball game in St. Louis (Red Sox were in town), they returned home to find that their apartment had been broken into and quite a bit of stuff had been stolen. I think that something so bad coming out of the blue is made even worse after a good day. It is so unexpected, a sucker punch at your own wedding.

I remember exactly what I was doing on July 19, 2003. Carrie and I were at her much older cousin’s 50^th wedding anniversary. As he was a wealthier guy, and enjoyed throwing nice parties for his guests, it was a pretty good time. Good food and decent people. Came home to a message on the answering machine that Mom had a heart attack and was in the hospital. It seems like two separate days actually. Sometimes I forget that it was the same day. A punch in the gut.

Is it wrong to want the thief to die a slow, painful death? Preferably in a nursing home of course. Is it wrong to want the cheapskate landlords, who didn’t put in video cameras to protect their tenants, to have their house burgled? The responding police officer said that there had been several robberies in that building over the years, of course the landlords didn’t divulge this information when attempting to rent out the apartment, and like I said, they have done NOTHING to fix the situation. Maybe a slow, painful death should be wished for them as well.

What kind of person breaks into someone else’s home? Aside from the theft of property, the illusion of safety is completely destroyed, for this I wish stomach cancer on the thief. What an act of uncaring, what a selfish, wretched act! In the words of the great Lombardi, “What the hell is going on here?”

I know the answer: sin. But I want to know how this wretch sleeps at night, knowing that there are people who aren’t right now, at least not in their own beds. How can this person be so hateful? And for this I wish Alzheimer’s on the thief.

There is always justice in the end, maybe not in this life, but I know that there will be care for those unjustly treated, at least for these people. I have seen to that. What I wish for most though, is that these two people will be able to feel safe again, and sleep well at night. Hey, I can’t use all my wishes up hoping for pain and suffering to befall the evildoer now, can I?

Fritz

P.S. Huzzah! I have one wish left! How about death by frog stampede?

Phrases

This will be a continually updated post, I think. As new phrases pop into my mind, that taken out of context could be funny. Not "taken out of context" like Prince Harry dressing up as a Nazi, but real things taken out of context.

I am addicted to a game called World of Warcraft, I suppose many of these idle thoughts will come from things I have thought whilst playing. Just for the h-e-double hockey sticks of it I will number them as well, and put the date when they were posted. Add your own and join in the fun!!! Yippee, huzzah, hooray, woot! Having a good time already, eh? In reality, this will really only amuse me, and since I make up over 95% of the readership, that is a good satisfaction rate.


1. "Hmm, if I kill those creatures over there, I could then use their fire to cook some food." June 11th, 2005 - Added By Me

2. "The best way to support paralyzed verterans is by using them!" June 14, 2005 - Added By Sister #2

3. "Ummm, you mean people actually read what I post on the internet?" June 15, 2005 - Added By Me

4. "Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing." June 22, 2005 - Dave Barry

Walking the Mile

Well, I thought I would be funny, at least start off with something funny, but nothing is coming to me. How pathetic, writer’s block on an internet blog that no one is going to read!

Anyway, I just finished the Green Mile by Stephen King (again), in which the main character, Paul, is living in a nursing home and writing about his experiences in the past, working on Death Row in 1932. Aside from being a good story, Stephen King does an excellent job of portraying an older person’s life in a nursing home.

Now for the thing that I’m not sure I am supposed to say, I am terrified of dying, not death, but the process.

*Just a note, I just erased “terrified” and replaced it with “scared” it seems more “Christian”, but then the whip came out, and I switched it back.*

My sister wrote recently in her blog about my Mother’s death, read it here:

http://sharppointythings.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_sharppointythings_archive.html

The post entitled: “Memorial Day”

Back yet?

Come on……

Must be from a public school…..

ARE YOU BACK YET??

Ok, good.

Well, that seems like the best way to make the transition from earth to heaven, doesn’t it? Apart from us still stuck here being sad, it seems rather painless. I don’t want to grow old, the journey seems rather crappy. I also am scared of being put in a nursing home, also known as “Hell on Earth.” Carrie’s (my wife) grandfather had to be put in a Hell Hole recently, he is fading fast and I hope he dies soon, how can you want to live with your mind gone? How can you want to carry on when you can’t get up to go to the bathroom? You have to use a bedpan, why would you want to stay around here?

I don’t want to end up there, I don’t want to reach a point in my life where I can’t even do the simple things I enjoy like being one of the three wisemen in “Journey to Bethlehem.” I will never forget my grandfather crying when he talked about not being able to do that “this year.” I’m sure he wasn’t crying because he looked forward all year to portraying the wiseman, but the fact that he couldn’t do something so simple.

So, I’m not saying, pull the plug, what I am saying is that I hope and pray I don’t make it to that point that there is a plug to pull.

Am I being selfish? I don’t know. At this point I guess I am supposed to talk about submitting to God’s will and whatnot so the one person who stumbles on this blog doesn’t think less of me, but I really don’t care. And isn’t that really the point of this?

Fritz

Intro

This will most likely be the only post that I actually write, all the others will be done by that crazed Fritz, I will merely be an editor, or maybe a commentator.

Inside most of us, those who are not raving homicidal maniacs, there is something, like a wall, that keeps us from saying everything on our minds and turning our friends and family against us. I’m not sure what exactly it is, maybe it is fear of being alone, but it keeps our true feelings bridled up, eating away at our insides like acid, creating ulcers, and making our lives miserable.

But there is that voice screaming in our heads, at least mine, saying what I want to say, an alter ego who says what he wants when he wants and screw those who get offended. I call him Fritz.

So this blog will be his, I will try to stay out of his way, except for occasional comments in italics when I feel he might of gone too far, but there will be no editing of the words, no deleting offensive (to some) comments, the only thing I will do is fix typos and misspellings.

I am hopeful that the writings will be funny, pertinent, and read by some. If not, I apologize in advance. Oops, there I go, caring about what the other inhabitants of this world think of me.

Time to get the whip out.

Jonathan