Life was so much easier back then.

Then along came junior high and I didn’t want to be a little kid anymore so you started using a pen and about the only thing you ever used a pencil for was my math homework.

Before I knew it I was out is the working world, using a pen for everything and I’ll bet I had not used a pencil for anything other than keeping my miniature golf score in at least fifteen years.

Suddenly I found my self thinking, “What has happened to pencils in the last twenty years? What technological marvels of writing may pencils have become in all of this time? Heck, do pencils even exist anymore?”

I guess I have seen them around occasionally. I think I even have a few at home in the junk drawer or something, but they have old crusty and hard erasers that wouldn’t work worth a crap.

Then as fate would have it, I was rummaging through the supply cabinet at work the other day looking for a new pen, and ran across a box of pencils way back in the corner. The box was a little tattered on the corners and not in the greatest of condition, indicating that it had probably been sitting in the supply cabinet for quite some time. Well I knew we had an electric pencil sharpener over by the copying machine, because I had passed it on many occasions but never had the opportunity to use it. Well, darn it “today was going to be different” I thought to myself, and I took a pencil from the box instead of the pen that I had originally been searching for and walked down to the sharpener to sharpen that puppy up.

Well I’m here to tell you my life has changed since that day. Using a pencil is so much more fun than using a pen. I think there ought to be a law requiring the use of pencils instead of pens. I’m sure there are the environmentalist whack jobs out there that would disagree with me and explain to me how pencils require chopping down 85 trillion trees a year, and that an area the size of China is deforested each year harming 23 million species and making 7.5 million species extinct each year and so on, and so on. But I’m here to tell you I don’t give a rat’s ass about any of that.

The psychological benefits of using a pencil and the harmony that it has created in my life, if spread amongst all the humans on the earth could give us a world that is nearly as peaceful and great as the fabled nirvana. And I’m not kidding. Pencils are freaking awesome! Using a pencil can make even the most mundane of tasks seem like a terrific childhood memory revisited.

Everyone thinks paying bills are a drag right? Well not with a pencil. Writing out those checks feels just like writing an exciting essay about what you did on summer vacation. And aren’t you tired of getting autographs of baseball players on expensive new baseballs, and then it turns out the player sucks and you’ve just wasted a great new $20 baseball? Well, use a pencil dummy. That way if down the road it turns out the guy stinks or he gets traded to some crappy team you hate (like the Yankees) then you can just erase that crap off of your ball an BAM! No more Nick Hall, now you can get Kyle Drabek on that thing. Brand new ball again, just like that!

Damn people, I’m here to tell you. Pencils RULE!

Get a pencil today.

You’ll be glad you did.

EDIT: Forget about what I said about writing checks with your pencils. While it WAS initially fun it turns out that 32.68 check I thought I sent to Verizon for my cell phone bill actually paid for someone’s trip to Key West.

BEWARE OF PENCILS!

PENCILS SUCK!

Help a brother out and ALWAYS roll from the front.

When I first got married I tried to maintain the level of cleanliness that I had grown up with, but sadly I must admit that when it comes to household standards my wife is the polar opposite of my mother. In our first apartment after being married I managed to keep my wife’s area of influence to a minimum. I purchased her a desk and tried to give her her own space where should could work and pile her unorganized heap while I worked to keep the rest of the house orderly. That worked for a while, but over time my wife’s sphere of influence began to overtake my own until I found myself in a 2000 square foot house that consists of 1850 square feet of stacks of my wife’s stuff that are off limits to me and my cleaning regime. I often tell my wife that one of these days she is going to come home and find that her “stuff has been touched” and much of it carted off to the Goodwill. She knows better though.

She likes to lord her authority over me like some sort of evil master who demands that I have meals prepared and on the table, but that when it comes to her stuff…

Man…do NOT touch her stuff!

It is a lesson that I have learned the hard way. The first instance of “stuff touching” that got me in trouble was probably after (much after) our first Christmas together. Weeks and months went by after that first Christmas, and the pile of Christmas related stuff around her desk remained. I gently urged her to do something with the empty boxes of stuff, but to no avail. Finally come mid-February I could not take it any longer. She was working late one night, I was bored sitting home alone, and the rest is as they say, history.

I gathered up all of the empty boxes, and put what few gifts still remained in them aside. I then took the boxes and left over wrapping paper to the apartment complex dumpster. Order was once again restored in the house and I felt good. I could now sit and relax to enjoy myself while I waited for the wife to get home from work. She would come home and see how clean the house was, she would be happy.

Well, that was the plan at least. In the end it did not quite work out that way. My wife came home from work and found all the boxes missing, but this was not a good thing. It turns out that she had put a gift certificate in one of those boxes (underneath the tissue paper no less) and though the box appeared empty and trash worthy to my untrained eye it was indeed not empty. Needless to say I spent 30 minutes that night digging through the apartment dumpster until I found that gift certificate. After many more similar instances with my wife about “touching her stuff” over the years I have finally learned my lesson and I do not touch her stuff.

But this is not a story about touching my wife’s stuff, so let’s get back to the main story…

Mom, I love you. And Monica (my wife’s heretofore undisclosed name) I love you too. And while you are both far superior to me (each in your own way) in most instances, I contend that in this one shining moment of glory for myself (and for all men) I reign supreme over you both. I, Jeff Crupper, know how to put a roll of toilet paper on the holder correctly while the both of you are sadly lacking.

SADLY LACKING!

LACKING, SADLY!

The great over vs. under debate has raged in society and between me and my mother for years. When she comes to visit me I always find the guest bathroom has had the roll turned around to roll from behind. WTF is going on here? How could my mother, the perfect housekeeping mother that she is, be so freaking stupid about this thing, yet know so much about everything else? My mind is going to explode! Everyone knows that toilet paper should roll from the front.

Scientific studies have proven the validity of my argument, yet I find myself unable to get through to this woman. What gives? Mother, I beg you to see the light and let that roll drape down from the front. It makes getting my ass clean so much easier to accomplish, and as my mother you know how important a quality BM experience is to a Crupper man.

Now to the wife: Monica…Monica. After fifteen years (sixteen this coming November 6th – and you thought I didn’t know when our anniversary was) I have learned to live with many things (as have you I am sure), but in this one instance I am asking you (begging you) to compromise and cave to my will. I will admit that at least you don’t force me to roll from the back like my mother, and that your way is better (marginally) than hers. However I must ask, in fact I demand, that if you want to save our marriage you PLEASE put the roll ON the freaking roller. Is it really that much trouble to put the new toilet paper roll on the roller rather than just sit it on top of the bathroom counter? Is it, really?

Now my dear reader that I have shared my dirty laundry with you, perhaps you can share this tragic tale with your friends with whom you have had a similar debate. Let my tragedy be your triumph. Let my suffering be your salvation, and mostly to all of you who would argue the “roll from behind method” Let this be a lesson to you…

[UPDATE:] The toilet paper debate did finally boil to a head in 2010 when Monica and I were divorced. Ladies (and geltelmen) please see the light now before it is too late for you as well.
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I live in Florida, so flip flops are everywhere. I’ve never personally been a big fan of flip flops myself partly because I don’t really like having anything between my toes, and partly because I’m just not a big fan of feet in general (as I’ve mentioned in a couple of previous posts). But flip flops are comfy and appropriate in some casual situations like going to the beach or chilling by the pool and what not I reckon. Mmmm hmmm.

However … If you are going out in public and have any desire to make other people think you don’t live in a trailer park or collect welfare, that you make more than minimum wage, brush your teeth regularly and aren’t married to a sibling, then flip flops would make an inappropriate option for your feet. AND if you are going to work anywhere except perhaps as a lifeguard then flip flops are strictly forbidden.

I for instance work in an office where it is generally pretty quiet (except when the annoying guy two cubicles down gets on a conference call and thinks he has to talk at the top of his voice for others to hear him, you know who you are). What I don’t need to hear is the annoying sound of slap, slap, slap everytime you take a step and walk anywhere within 100 feet of me. I don’t care if your flip flops have a leather strap, or cute little rhinestones on them. If I can hear you walking from 75 feet away as they slap against the bottom of your skank ass feet, then take that shiz off and put on some real shoes.

But for God’s sake DO NOT walk around barefoot in the office … again another story for another time.

So a while back I did some work for Florida Poker Player and helped them design a website. Well time goes by and I never get paid always getting the run around, and then eventually just stopped being able to get in touch with them at all. Since they had never paid me I had never released any of the image files that I created for the site to them. Instead I hosted all of the images on my own server so that I could take them down if I needed to.

Well, as I said they never paid me so I took down all of the images and they basically just had a blank webpage. Then a while ago I decided to really be a dick. I created new images and gave them the same names as the original images, but these new images weren’t anything like the real original images.

I invite you to visit and enjoy the new Florida Poker Player website.

…and remember, don’t be a dick.

Normally I like to keep things light hearted around here, but today I just need to vent.

So, about a week ago my cell phone battery stopped holding a charge. I would charge the thing all night and by 10:00 the next morning the battery would be dead whether I used it or not. I went to my local AT&T store, and they gave me a new battery free of charge.

Well, the new battery didn’t help. Still the same problem. Charge it all day, take it off the charger and within a very short time the battery is dead. So now I figure it has to be something wrong with the phone which I only got back in March so it is still under warranty. I go to the store again, and am told they cannot do warranty exchanges and that I need to either drive to a warranty center in south Tampa or do the exchange online.

So I go home and get online to do the exchange. I order the new phone and wait. In the meantime I can now only use my cell phone when it is plugged in which is pretty inconvenient for a cell phone.

Finally five days later the new phone shows up in my mailbox. I hurriedly open the box, thankful that once again I can use my phone. HOORAY!

Well my enthusiasm is short lived as I open the box to find a new phone that has no battery, no SIM card, and no back cover. “Oh well, whatever” I think to myself and I take the missing parts off of the old cell phone and put them on the new cell phone. Problem is my new battery is now not working because of using it the old broken phone and so I still cannot use the new phone.

So I take the new phone and phone parts back to the AT&T and find the store swamped with people so I have to get on a list and wait to be called. This time they don’t have a battery so they tell me they can order one, but it won’t get here any sooner than Monday (six more days away.) I offer to buy a new phone because I don’t want to/can’t wait six more days for a phone that works, but again I am told they can’t do anything because they don’t offer warranty credits at the store.

So frustrated, I accept the bad news and leave to go home. Once home I plug my phone in and call AT&T customer service. I explain the problem, and ask if there is any way to expedite getting the new battery to me because my wife is out of town and I have no other phone. I am told that since I already ordered a battery in the store they can’t hurry the order up.

I ask if they can cancel that order and place a new order to overnight the battery. “No sir, since you have already placed an order in the store we cannot do anything else for you.”

Bottom line … wait six more days for your new battery and hope that fixes the problem. If that doesn’t fix it call us back and then we’ll send you some more parts, you can wait five to six more days until they get there and then hopefully you will have service that works.

Thank you AT&T for being so understanding and helpful.

UPDATE: NO, THE NEW BATTERY DID NOT FIX MY PHONE. At this point I was so mad I just packed up all the phones and parts I had and sent them back in the return box with a note telling them to either send me a complete phone that works or cancel my service.

Of course it turns out that was not the proper procedure and now they would DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to correct the problem except offer to sell me a new phone at full price.

HELP YOURSELF!

So, I’m at work today, its early afternoon and I finally wander down to the break room to rinse the cold and stale coffee out of the bottom of my cup. When I walk in the break room I notice a small black banana sitting on the counter top next to the microwave about six inches from the hole where the trash can is. At first I think to myself “someone must have tried to throw that away, but missed” but then I notice that there is a note next to the banana. Now curious I move closer to read the note … HELP YOURSELF it so kindly announces.

So I think to myself…”seriously?” Did someone REALLY put this 3” long miniature banana that is so black it has got to be practically liquid here for one of their lucky co-workers to enjoy, and who is this person? At first I just thought they were some lazy jerk who missed the trashcan, but now? Now I don’t know what to think.

Is this an act of generosity, that I the cynic can’t appreciate? Or, is this some sort of act of spite against the rest of us who work here? Some sort of commentary about how this person feels about this company and those of us who work around them? I guess the mystery will remain unsolved.

Oh, by the way. There is some free food in the break room. Hurry.

Number one, men should not have hair long enough to put in a ponytail in the first place. This isn’t 1985, you are not in a rock band and that’s all I have to say about that!

But I digress…

I’m not here to talk about sexy feet. Today we’re talking about ugly feet.

I live in Florida where a lot of sandal wearing goes on, and I’m here to tell you there are some people that simply should not be allowed to wear sandals. I don’t know if some people are simply delusional and think they have attractive feet, or if they just don’t give a crap about what the rest of us think. Either way, these people need to be reigned in. While a strong self image is crucial to your emotional well being, the flaunting of ugly feet is simply not good for anyone, and quite frankly it is detrimental to societal well being as a whole.

Put some freaking shoes on you ugly feeted people! Geez…