McBonebeat Poll: OHIO Sweatshirt: Good or Ghastly?

My sometimes-unreasonable wife and I don't have a long history of fighting, but in the 14 years we've been together, I would estimate that 90% of our disagreements have revolved around the pictured Ohio University sweatshirt.  She was there when I bought it, and she did everything in her power to dissuade me from purchasing a garment she found aesthetically and rhetorically deficient.  Aesthetically because of its color scheme and oversized block lettering.  Rhetorically because the word OHIO, in her reckoning, did not adequately signify Ohio University to the casual onlooker.

I have long objected.  In my estimation, this pullover is THE Ohio University sweatshirt.  Green and white happen to be Ohio University's colors (I'll never understand why she chose a gray hoodie with blue lettering), and the lone, proud OHIO emblazoned across my athletic torso is a more than satisfactory identifier.  If the symbolism is lost on the uninitiated, I can't worry about it, and I'm sure as hell not going to spell it out for them.  I'm too busy being cool.  And as for Ohio State?  Listen, Ohio U was founded in 1804, OSU in 1870.  If any student body can lay claim to OHIO as an identifier, it's ours, so you Buckeyes get to muck your sweatshirts up with all the extra words.  We Bobcats don't have to.

Well into our second decade of matrimony, we still have not settled the debate.  So we turn to you, gentle McBoners, and ask that you weigh in, in poll form, on whether my OU sweatshirt is a good sweatshirt, or, in the words of my sometimes-hyperbolic wife, a ghastly one.

Thank you,

nwb

Pretty Girls and Fancy Ketchup

I've never been one for a lot of heavy makeup and perfume, but did you ever notice how naturally pretty girls are even prettier with a bottle of fancy ketchup?  It's true!  Behold this dark-eyed enchantress, illumined by the compact florescent glow of her pretty friend, Melinda:

Need more proof?  Just ask my partner blogger and resident cartoonist, Kid Shay, who, along with his pretty wife, Isis, turned a potential catastrophe at their local burger joint into something magical.

If you find yourself still unconvinced by our meme, take a look at my sometimes-melancholy wife with an everyday, ordinary, unfancy brand of ketchup:

Pretty, yes, but so forlorn without her fancy ketchup.

nwb

Snow Day Skirmish

A rare snow day afforded us the chance to frolic in the 6 inches blanketing the homestead this morning.  I thought a snowman might be a fun activity, or perhaps a fort complete with tunnels and battlements.  Instead, the McBonerito chose to pick a fight. 

With my back turned, my treacherous son uncorked a fastball that whizzed past my ear.  Though his aim was poor, his intent was clear: the kid wanted to knock my fucking head off.

Thanks to my sometimes-popular wife, the cameras were rolling just in time to catch my retaliation to his craven attack.

I'd say the old man showed him a thing or two.  Maybe he'll bring his 'A' game the next time he wants to start some crap with Dad.

nwb

Charmless

I hoped things might change when the McBonerito was born.  The Cleveland sports landscape has been pretty bleak since LeBron gathered up his vast talents and vacated the premises after a 61-win 2009-10 season.  Like any sports fan, I'm superstitious, and I thought maybe, just maybe some new blood would stir things up, reverse karma, recalibrate whatever machinations make some teams winners and other losers.  I've even taught the kid to say 'Go Cavs!', a phrase he's liable to spout a couple dozen times a day.

Here's how we've fared since 11/6/11:

Indians: 68-94

Cavs: 43-91

Browns: 6-17

Total: 117-202

Winning percentage: 36%

Playoff appearances: 0

When it comes to sports, the McBonerito is apparently not a lucky charm.

So, kiddo, this is it.  If the Indians don't have a winning summer, it may be time to talk siblings with your sometimes-pregnant mother.

nwb

Lamenting the Joy of Lousy Gum

I bought a pack of Bazooka the other day, just for old time's sake.  The way I remember it growing up, a piece of Bazooka gum was hard, tasted terrible, lost its flavor in about half a minute and contained a corny Bazooka Joe and his Gang comic strip.  I loved it.  The comic came with a dumb, punny fortune, and Bazooka even offered the chance to redeem the comics for novelty items, say, a pair of x-ray specs for 20 wrappers and $1.95 shipping and handling.

My 12-pack cost $0.95, and I wasted no time.  I was mildly annoyed that the gum was easier to chew than I remembered (I owe my powerful, bone-crushing jaw to years of Bazooka chewing), but pleased that the taste was as awful as ever.  The mail-in prize being replaced by 'VISIT BAZOOKAJOE.COM TO COLLECT COOL STUFF!' didn't bother me much, though I did miss being enticed by erector sets, decoder rings and real cameras.  No, the comics themselves were what killed the experience.  Not because the jokes were bad, or because the fortunes were bad--I expected that.  No, what got me was that, after 4 pieces, I had just two different comics, including the same three in a row.  A fluke, I was sure, until the next piece was another repeat.  Same for piece #6.  Frustrated, I unwrapped another.  Finally a new comic.  The next was a repeat, as was the next, and all the rest.  By the time I popped #12, I had almost a whole pack of gum in my mouth, but just three different Bazooka Joes on my desk.  Four of each.

With my gums receding and my inner child dying, my question was: when did Bazooka start mailing it in?  The stuff is still manufactured by the Topps company, the same folks who removed the brittle, terrible stick of gum from its packs of trading cards sometime in the 90s.  That's when people started taking baseball cards too seriously, handling them like Fabergé eggs, searching for flaws and acting like a photograph on a piece of cardboard has any real value outside of a child who loves baseball mutilating a card with sticky, adoring fingers.  When I got a new pack of Topps, I chewed the fucking gum.  I liked that one of the cards was stained with sugar.  I rifled through the stack hoping I'd get at least one Cleveland Indian.  To me, netting a 1983 Alan Bannister as my teeth and saliva reintegrated a dozen shards of shattered pink gum was the height of bliss.

So when baseball cards became glossy, when they stopped printing full career statistics on the back, when they ditched the gum in favor of holograms, that's when I checked out.

Do I digress?  Only slightly.  It's no fun to collect comics if the collection ends at three.  If I'm a kid who's just scored a 12 pack of Bazooka, I want 12 different comics.  I think Topps could figure out a way to make that happen.  If I buy my son some baseball cards, I think there should be gum in the pack.  I don't want some adult telling him to be careful because the cards might be worth something, someday.

Are you listening Topps?  I want my gum back.

And here's what 9 pieces of Bazooka look like, in case you were curious: 

Do not chew 9 pieces of Bazooka at one time.  You will be sick.

nwb

Crib Notes, Volume 3

This is going to be short and sweet, I just have a random thought I need to put in writing....

WHY ARE WOMEN SO CONVINCING?  I am probably one of the more stubborn people you are going to meet.  I typically live life by my own rules, do things my own way.  You can ask my parents and they'll tell you I've pretty much been that way since I was upright. I'm nostalgic, somewhat traditional in that I very much value the traditions my family had growing up. Not a big fan of change when it comes to those things. More on this in a future post.  If my mind is set on something it is very hard to convince me otherwise.  I got cut from my 8th grade basketball team, but that just made me want to play basketbal even more.  My parents would tell me all the time not to do things, and I would do them regardless, (Which many times ultimately led to disaster).  In my present life I am very confident and steadfast in my business philosophies and my approach.  It can be difficult to convince me to stray from an idea or concept that I feel strongly about.  In my social life I don't really succumb to peer pressure, in part because I am often the one leading the charge, but it takes a lot to convince me to do something I didn't already want to do on my own.

All of that being said, and I'm discovering this more and more as my life progresses, women can literally convince me to do just about anything.  A man could come up to me and say, "Hey Jeff you have to try this product," and typically I'll just say ok and never actually do it.  Five seconds later a woman will come up and tell me the same thing, and I'm probably going to the store 10 minutes later.  I've obviously experienced this personally but I would venture to say this is pretty much par for the course in the typical life of a man.  Certainly there are exceptions, and that example may be a slight exaggeration, but my point is that women at least in my experience have about 100 times more convincing power over me than men.

Now lets state the obvious and get part of this out of the way.  In some instances the answer to this question can certainly be traced to some type of sexual instinct. Especially if it is someone you are sleeping with or attempting to sleep with. Women are amazingly beautiful, loving, nurturing,  tempestuous, caring people,  and provide a gift so amazing to this world that can probably never be fully appreciated enough by men.  Being able to give life to another human being is a truly incredible thing.  So let's all agree that some of the convincing power can probably be attributed to all those factors.  However, I want to take that part of it completely out of the equation. Even women I have absolutely no desire to sleep with, could be a stranger, friend, or a colleague, and they are still twice as likely to convince me to do something, or to change my mind about a thought I already have.

I can't explain it....I can try, as I have some thoughts, but I think I will get myself confused if I even attempt it.  For me it is probably a saving grace so I don't completely lose myself in my own overconfidence, stubborness, etc...But it still baffles my mind sometimes when I find myself doing things I had absolutely no intention of doing, simply because it was a woman that told me to.  Life is so funny some times. 

Ok maybe not so short.  Could write on this for a day. 

jab

Rhee & Zhee

Last week a good friend came to town, the preeminent documentary filmmaker Rosy Rhee.  As a bonus, she brought her beau, let's call him Dr. Zhee, all the way from California.  Plenty of laughs were shared and yarns were spun, and it was great to introduce them to the McBonerito, but mostly what I'll remember about that short visit was, once the kiddo was asleep in his crib, the four of us getting our Twinkie on:

 
Ever notice how good friends and stimulating conversation make food and wine taste even better?  I've discovered that nothing, nothing can improve the taste of a Twinkie. 

nwb

A Spartan Life

My sometimes-employed wife went out and snagged herself a job this week.  No big deal.  Assistant Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University.  Full time gig.  Salaried position.  Nice benefits.  No heavy lifting.

Though it hardly qualifies as news at this point, I thought an achievement of such magnitude deserved a more lasting tribute than a heap of Facebook 'likes.'  Only a blog post is forevermore, so allow me to rhapsodize for a moment.

My sometimes-overworked wife earned her place among the MSU faculty after 5 years of reading and writing and filming and teaching in the pressure cooker that is the doctoral program at Purdue's Department of English.  Along the way she's made documentaries, published articles, helped launch a journal, passed her prelims and got some dissertation chapters written.  Looked good doing it too.  Oh, and she wedged a childbirth in there too, just for the hell of it.

If, by the miracle of technology, I should live to be 1,000, I'll never understand how she managed it all, and with such grace.

But she did, because she's amazing, so you'll forgive me, McBoners, for using a few lines to gush. 

Michigan beckons.  Soon we'll be saying goodbye to West Lafayette and hello to East Lansing.  A dissertation alone stands in the way of her degree.  Soon that obstacle too will lay vanquished on a path to glory that started back in '07, when she waltzed into the University of Akron's English Department and asked if they needed some help with the kids.  They did, and that hiring led to this hiring.

And I would also like to point out that the following correspondence from an Ohio university of some renown arrived last week in the mail:

Apparently I've been spelling my spouse's first name wrong all these years.  Been spelling the last name wrong, too.  And wouldn't you know it, it seems that, to my surprise, I accidentally got one of those gay marriages.  It doesn't matter.  Love is love, and I love my husband.

Congratulations, Mr. Hilalgo.  I'm so proud of you, dude.

nwb