Sacrilege to follow…

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not coffee cake, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not coffee cake, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not coffee cake, I gain nothing.

Coffee cake is patient, coffee cake is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Coffee cake does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Coffee cake never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and coffee cake. But the greatest of these is coffee cake.

A big Thank You goes out to my mom for making this most delicious treat :)

Let’s talk about Trust

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the reliability of the news providers lately. We here at the Shuck N Jive take no exception to the reliability and trustworthiness of our news. That is why we have gone and sought out what we believe to be someone we can trust. We’re proud to announce that we have found such a media outlet, and we fully support it. We are also not selfish here at the Shuck N Jive, so without further, nonsensical, blathering and delay, click here or here to check it out.

Email me some world domination

The “D” is for Danger

Due to the legality of possibly jinxing my team, I have previously been unable to mention this year’s summer league. As of last night, we completed a perfect 6-0 summer season. Yes, there were some close calls along the way, and there were a few mercy rule games, but in the end, we remained undefeated.

It didn’t come easy. We battled through injuries and flakes. We played some good teams and some bad. But most importantly, we played for free because the company picked up the tab.*

It’s not easy to win every game of the season. You rarely see it in professional sports, and at this level, it’s almost impossible. We aren’t saddled with the burden of playing to make money. We’re all out here for the love of it, which makes it ten times more competitive then you’ll ever see in the pros**. When you see a 450 lbs man try and leg out a slow grounder to the pitcher, you know that it’s done out of love, not for a paycheck.

We have one week off, then it’s on to the fall season. As always, there will be some turnover in player personnel. I think we have the makings of a dynasty here. I believe the core of the team will remain intact as they are all still under contract and what with the perfect season and all, it’s hard to see anyone demanding a trade. But there’s still some fat to trim. That one guy, who never came to a single game and was actually fired from the company midway through the season? Yeah, I don’t think he’ll be resigned.

* The author had no intention of making this paragraph rhyme, it just worked out that way.

** This statement is most likely false as there was no research done on this topic. Often times the author makes up “truths” in his head and sees little reason to verify such obviously idiotic claims.

The New Look for Summer 2006

After cracking triple digits for the 2nd week in a row, I felt it was time to take action. I needed to cut my hair. It’s been well documented that shaving as little as one inch of hair off the top of your head can cool you down approximately 10 degrees. I went the extra mile and cut off an inch and a half. It wasn’t a hard decision. Just knowing that everyone else would be sweating it out at 100 degrees and I, with my new do, would be chilling at a very acceptable 85 degrees, was all the motivation I needed. (also, the fact that I’ve shaved my head several dozen time in my life already, didn’t hurt)

I’ve never been one to pay for this sort of activity (ok, I did that one time, but I had a sprained ankle, and I think we’re all acutely aware of how important good ankle support is when you’re cutting your own hair with some clippers. I’m not proud of it. In retrospect, I really think I should have gutted it out and just clipped through the injury, but what’s done is done and there’s no taking it back.) so I grabbed my trusty clippers from their secret location in the closet, (damn it!! I just gave away the super secret location!! Why did I have to fall asleep during the backspace key lesson in typing class??!?!?) oiled them up and got to work.

I’ve spent the last decade perfecting a technique I call, “just randomly shave everywhere for 10 minutes until you think you’ve got everything, check the mirror, realize you totally missed half of your head, then repeat.” Only one, short hour later, I was done. Or so I thought. See Exhibit A.

EXHIBIT A:

This little guy could not be beaten. As I’m sure you can tell, there were a few others that were severely wounded, but none defied the death of the clippers more than this guy. I first caught a glimpse of him in my rear view mirror on the drive to work. At first I was like, “What the F…?!?!?!?” and I nearly swerved off the road and into a gaggle of geese, but I was promptly corrected back onto the road by a fortuitously high curb. This correction, however, was short lived. Bystanders that witnessed this particular maneuver might be inclined to say that I “over-corrected.” This would explain why I quickly found myself on the opposite side of the road competing with oncoming traffic. Right about that moment is when my body was able to create some new sounds that were emitted out of my mouth, of which I had previously been unaware even existed. I can’t really explain what happened next. Partially because my vocabulary is lacking the proper adjectives, and partially because I was distracted by what I believe to be a diamond studded pair of shoes on the feet of a small toddler, which came across very eerily as I had Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the soles of her shoes” blasting on the radio.

After approximately 10 minutes of zigzagging through oncoming traffic while listening to more Paul Simon (I had the cd on random, and I have to be honest with you, when you’re battling against on coming traffic, trying to save your life, “Rene and Georgette Magritte with their dog after the war” and “Slip Slidin’ Away” are not the most ideal songs to help you through that time), I was finally able to return to the proper side of the road and make my way to work. I totally forgot about the hair until probably the middle of the next day when an ever so slight breeze caught hold of it and made me freak out because I momentarily believed I was being attacked by a very small, yet extremely dangerous, spider. But I quickly remembered the previous days near miss with the geese and had a little chuckle over the whole situation.

At this point, I could no longer bring myself to cut the hair. We had been through entirely too much together. I’m also convinced that piece of hair is the strongest part of my body and to cut it would bring about Sampson like consequences. Frankly, I’m just not prepared for that. Not until I perfect my invulnerability suit anyway… It’s coming along, but we’ve still got a ways to go with it. The current model is only rated to stop a reasonably forceful spitball. I’m not willing to put it into production until we can crank that rating up to a meteorite. I fully expect a lot of meteorites to hit the earth in the coming years, so I’d really like to corner that market before it gets too late. I’ve already printed up boxes with the slogan, “Protecting frail humans from meteorites for over a decade” on them, so I’m pretty invested in this.

Of course, there is a downside to not cutting the hair. When people say, “Hey Jon, I see you cut your hair. Looks pretty questionable, I hope you didn’t pay a lot for it.” I can no longer quip back, “Actually, I cut all of my hairs!” followed by a knee slap and a cackle. This is, admittedly, an enormous sacrifice.

The Rumors are True…

Nearly 3 years in the making… totally not worth the wait.

Dear Ned,

Please, I’m begging you, do not trade Cesar Izturis.

Napkins Please?

Can we just take a moment here to dissect my eating habits? I’m going to make one of those lists now. One of those, “who the crap cares what you ate today, guess what I ate? It’s unbelievable what I survive on compared to what you ate.” Lists. Undaunted, I carry on.

1. 2 oz bag of Cheez-its followed by a Snickers bar and then washed down with a bottle of Lemon Gatorade. Time: 9:42 AM
2. 1 burrito Supreme with no lettuce followed by 1 soft taco, also with no lettuce but with hot sauce from Taco Bell (although really, is that hot sauce from Taco Bell really that hot? I don’t think so. I’d call it more of a low grade mild at best.) and then washed down with a bottle of Orange Gatorade. Time: 3:06 PM
3. Some cookies??? I don’t remember. I think I took a nap, but I’m not sure. Time: ???? If this alleged event did happen, it happened some time around 8:00 PM, but again, there’s no evidence to suggest one way or the other that this actually did happen. I might be confusing today with yesterday, or possibly even tomorrow. I’m extremely fuzzy on the details.

So that’s the list. It’s after 11 PM right now and I’m debating whether or not to go to Jack In the Box to order a Big cheeseburger with a regular order of Stuffed Jalapenos (3) which will be washed down with a bottle of Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade OR stay home, nuke a Ham and Cheese Hot Pocket followed by some Chewy Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies (also nuked), then washed down with a bottle of Raspberry Lemonade Gatorade.

By now I’m sure you can probably see my problem. Am I too much of a health nut? The last thing I want is to be made fun of for keeping such a healthy lifestyle. But at the same time, eating well and treating my body like a temple is very important to me. I mean, I’ve been this way for so long now, I think it would be almost impossible for me to stop anyway. Why does society have to ridicule those of us with a sensible diet? It’s just not fair!

Obviously, I feel the most pressure from my family and peers to give in and eat more salads, but the random strangers that pass by me during my meal times (which never ceases to amaze me because I eat all of my meals at my desk. You wouldn’t think there would be a lot of foot traffic there, but you would be more wrong about that than probably anything you’ve ever been wrong about before in the past decade. I say the past decade because I don’t really know for sure what your life has been like and I do know that anything that happened between 1980 and 1996 was absolutely freaking nuts, so I can only safely argue that you’re more wrong now than in the past ten years.) really lay it on thick too. They say things to me like, “That looks good, but have you ever tried a salad?” or, “Taco Bell, one of my favorites. You know what else I like? The salads they have over at TGI Fridays. They’re pretty good. You should check them out some time.” I mean, for the love of the A-Team, how is a guy supposed to stand up to that kind of pressure? It takes less pressure to make a diamond out of coal. I just want to tell those people to go listen to Hootie and the Blowfish. I know I shouldn’t, but sometimes I can’t help it. You push a guy into a corner and he’s liable to lash out. I’m just saying you should know with whom you’re messing before you start telling him how to live his life by trying to manipulate his eating habits.

Hmmm… this ended abruptly…

What I can’t describe

I have some shocking news to report. You’re going to want to sit down for this. I may be jumping the gun here, but the preliminary reports are in, and if things stay the way the reports indicate, it would appear as though my readership is down. I know, I’m shocked too. Once I verify that this information is indeed true, I’ll have to order a full 100 member task force to investigate exactly how and why this might have occurred. It’s utterly baffling.

Some time ago, I was tagged with a meme by SNJ HOF member Cadiz. As it is written in the Shuck N Jive Constitution Page 4, Paragraph 4, Item 4, Line 4. Edict 4.4: “When in the course of blogging, should a meme be issued by any member of the most glorious and exclusive Shuck N Jive Hall of Fame ©®, said meme shall be ignored for a period of no longer than 20 months before it’s completion. Said meme’s completion is also mandatory under the August 14th proclamation of 1978 which states: “All meme challenges issued on behalf of any blogger whose name starts with the letter “C” and ends with a number and is a member of the Hall must be completed, even if that means doing so begrudgingly.””

As you can see, my hands are pretty much tied. I’m required to complete the meme tag issued to me by Cadiz. You may also note and praise me for attending to this meme long before my 20 month grace period is up. Also note that I am not doing so begrudgingly, that was just some legal mumbo jumbo to ensure the letter of the law as well as the spirit of the law remained intact. It’s an odd law to be sure. In fact, I was only recently made aware of it by our research department after I inadvertently spilled 6 gallons of ketchup on the research department’s jeans. I assume this is some sort of crude attempt to get back at me, but the jokes on them because I don’t mind doing this meme. In fact, I had slated it for mid July anyway. I swear though, sometimes, the research department just needs to get a life. Granted, they were white jeans, but seriously research department, let it go. Those jeans didn’t look good on you anyway.

But I digress… on to my 10 simple pleasures. These come in an order so amazingly specific, not even I can figure it out. To the uneducated, it might look like this was just the order that they popped into my head, but that would just be too easy. No, this order was predetermined several thousand years before I was born. I’m sure of that.

1. Gagné in the ninth. I have had the pleasure of being inside Dodger Stadium when Eric has jogged in from the bullpen with the good guys up by 3 runs or less at the end of the game. Welcome to the jungle.

2. The 4th gear shift. This doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, but sometimes, I’ll be accelerating, and I’ll drop down from 3rd to 4th gear, and it will be so silky smooth on and off the clutch that I can’t help but smile.

3. Sneezing. It’s just a nice little release. And as much as sneezing for 30 straight minutes puts me into a state of euphoria rarely matched in any other way, no one sitting around me seems to share in my delight… (sigh)

4. Highway One. Particularly when driving through Malibu on a nice clear day, with the windows rolled down and the music up loud.

5. Watching two of my favorite teams play at the same time. And by that I mean, watching teams in different sports play at the same time on two or three TVs right next to each other.

6. A Double Double with spread and tomato only and an order of fries with a side of spread from In N Out. For those of you not in California and select parts of Nevada and Arizona, I apologize.

7. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Well, pretty much anything that traditionally has a wire, if you remove it, I like it a lot more. But my keyboard and mouse have been quite handy in the wireless area. Nothing used to bug me more than having my mouse cord get hung up on something and make it hard to move. USED to bug me…

8. Gatorade Tropical Intenso. It’s delicious.

9. Turbulence on an airplane. I think I may be somewhat alone on this one, but I enjoy turbulence when I fly. The pilot is always spouting some nonsense about how he is going to fly around it and I’m like, “No, fly right through the heart of it!! Maybe circle back around and hit it again?”

10. The Transplant’s “What I can’t Describe” as my ring tone. Mainly because of who it’s assigned to. Although it is a great song to boot.

And there you have it. Meme complete. I plan to tag everyone else in the universe that hasn’t done this yet, so give me some time to research and compile that list. I should have it ready by 2367.

Worth a dozen words… give or take a dozen.

Yeah, I totally blew it. It’s been over a month. I know no one is asking, but for those who may have accidentally wondered it, I’ve been having fun with my digital camera. It’s a Canon SD200. Nothing fancy, just gets the job done. When the time is right, I’ll be upgrading to a much fancier, although still reasonably priced, digital SLR. I’m leaning towards the Nikon D50, but we’ll see. In the mean time, enjoy some questionable amateur photography by yours truly and if you find it that horrific, blame the camera and donate some money to me for the purchase of better equipment.



I feel it necessary to also point out to everyone that in the past month, I have spent approximately zero weekends at home. I know that this is a painfully bad excuse, but it’s the one I’ve chosen to use today.