Bastard Husband: A Love Story

If you are following me and are not already following Linda Lou (who?) then you are doing it wrong.
Linda is an amazing woman living in Vegas (in sin?) who sometimes performs Stand Up and the local joints and dives, works a real job, travles more than anyone I have ever known in my life and also writes books.

Her First book is Bastard Husband: A Love Story and it's the type of book that makes you want to get married just to get divorced.  Develop a talent and use it to the best of your abilities so that you too can tell your story and be as cool as Linda.

In all seriousness - The Kindle version of the book is FREE this weekend. 4/13 - 4/14.
Free, did you hear that folks.

FREE

So, click the word free - Head on over to Amazon.com and Pick this bad boy up.

You are doing yourself a disservice if you don't.

Even if you don't have a kindle - Go Grab it for FREE now because you can read it on your computer or tablet or smart phone with the kindle app.  Even those crappy iThings have the kindle app.  You can probably even put the app on the Barnes and Noble Nook imitation POS.

GET THIS BOOK NOW.

Jesus will love you for it.

Thanks.

An Open Minded Response to Vegas Linda Lou

Over on Linda's site she posted about having an open mind and how it really just doesn't work for her.
I started to type a simple reply and then the next thing I know I've got a 800 thousand ward diatribe (is that word used properly? I doubt it but it is what came into my head) and decided that it was no longer a proper response in the comment section and that I had to just move it over here instead.
Hope some of her readers still find this response and take it into consideration.

Linda - I think I might chalk this up to being stubborn.
Making your mind up one way or another and being bull-headed pre-disposes you to those feelings that you've already determined that you have.
Did you really give Zumba a fair shot or did you just go to shut your sister up and then to get the "I told you this would suck so I'm going to go do something else and you can think of how miserable I am right now"???

I say this because I'm the same bloody way.  If I tell you I won't like something then shut the hell up and leave me alone because I'm not going to like it no matter what. Even if I might end up liking it by some miracle I'm going to be miserable and tell you I HATE IT because you will not be winning this war!

However, I've been trying to change that slowly and give in and really apply the whole "open mind" concept by going into something without my normal "I'll prove you wrong" attitude.
I've caved on Sushi but it took me 4 attempts.
First 3 attempts I flat out said "I'm going to hate this, but I'll try it" and when I tried it I was right, it absolutely sucked.

Then, on the 4th try I did something different.

You see, Sushi is something I've always just known that I hate.  I never had it and never wanted it but dammit I guarantee that that shit is horrible and belongs no where near my body.  What the hell are you trying to do, kill me?  No sir eee.  I've had many offers to go out and have sushi and I believe the response "Are you fucking crazy" has left my lips a few times.  I'm a picky eater and I'll stick to the shit that I like.

So, with the new love of my life being a huge fan of Sushi I figured that at least taking her to her favorite Sushi place was a good compromise. (I wrote about that here) I could be near sushi, but as long as I didn't accidentally touch it I should be fine.
Then it happened.  I have my nice Filet Mignon (why does blogger not recognize this as a word?) sitting in front of me and I get the look with....

Love: "Are you at least going to try it?"
grrouch: "um, I've got this beautiful steak, why would I want to ruin it?"
Love: "really?"
grrouch: "Tell you what, when I'm close to done I'll think about it."

And that seemed to placate her.  However, she left me a piece and now I had to eat my words.  So I prepared a piece of my steak as a flavor savior.  I dipped the sushi in the spice and quickly ate it.  Then I quickly put some steak in my mouth to cover the flavor up before I knew what it really tasted like.

Love: "So?"
grrouch: "Yeah, it pretty much sucked, but I tried it.  Aren't you proud of me?"
Love: "Sushi is amazing"
grrouch: "Steak is amazing, Sushi is poison"

Over the course of our next couple of visits I humored her and tried exactly one piece every time we went with similar results.

Finally (what I was trying to get to way up there) I decided to play a different game.  How about we tackle Sushi the serge way - lets spice it up and give me a chance to cover up the fish taste and see if I can like it or not.  So, she ordered something spicy and I got my chicken teriyaki plate (which, again, was good).  This time I ate a piece early so I could enjoy the rest of my meal but with all of the added spice I actually kind of liked it.  I think I ended up eating 3 or 4 pieces that time and had a lot of my own food for left overs.
Then I did something that probably still eats at my soul to this day.
I told her that next time we came we'd order only sushi and I would give it a real try... however, if it was too bad then I'd have to order off the "REAL" menu.

That next time that we went we ordered up 3 different spicy rolls with various thins like Jalapenos and Sarachi sauce and overall I started to like all of them.  Now, as long as it's spicy, I can eat sushi and actually enjoy it.
In fact, I've had cravings for it at times and that kind of scares me.

However, the point of this all is this.
Having an open mind is one thing.  A true open mind is hard to do.
Most of the time you are pretending to have an open mind just so you can say "Fuck you, I told you I'd hate it and I do"

And Dear Linda,
That is my response to your blog in 100 words or less

It's SooOoOO Cold

Yeah, the weather this November has dipped down into the 50's and Vegans everywhere are starting to panic and break out the heavy winter clothing.  I lost count of the number of times I have heard someone tell me in the past few days that it's so cold outside currently - usually right before making fun of the fact that I'm in shorts and a T-shirt still.

I've been told that over time you adapt to the weather here much like anywhere else and when you were used to 20 degrees or below being cold or freezing or whatever eventually Vegas weather will prevail and the 50's will end up being the new "I'm freezing" point for you.

However, here I sit 6 years later and really still haven't gotten into the whole cold weather thing here.  Maybe it's because I'm still fat and have all this extra padding on me and next year is going to make a huge difference after the loss of 80+ pounds?  Who knows.  What I do know is that I think everyone is crazy thinking that this is horribly cold weather which calls for a winter jacket.

This week is my Sunday/Friday at work and I have actually made plans for my Sunday.

I'm going to start by waking up early to clean the floor in the living room.

This is where I tell you that as a flooring salesperson I love Laminate flooring, but now that I have some in my own house I would probably never get it again.  maybe it's because I'm in the desert and things get dirtier/dustier around here or maybe it's just this particular laminate that came with the house being all high gloss and such, but I'm no longer a fan of it.

After cleaning I've got a Strat game set up where my Las Vegas Scumdogs will be battling the Erie Colonels for possession of 2nd place in the division.  We both sit at 2-1 while someone else is 3-0 currently and yes this is only the 4th game of the season but it would be nice to own that early tiebreaker!!  Of course the next game is against the currently undefeated team and I'm hoping he suffers a tragic loss this week :)

After (and during) the Strat game will be football on the TV.  I don't know what games I'll be watching currently but I'm looking forward to some good ones. 

Once football ends (1st two games at least) I'm going to be making a trip down to Henderson to meet up with Linda Lou and we will have a few beers and discuss things comedy related.

I have no real expectations of how this is going to go down other than a few beers and a few laughs.  Either way it will be a worthwhile evening and hopefully give me a few ideas on what direction I need to start focusing on.  For those who don't know Linda is a great local comedian (meaning she lives here - she also performs elsewhere when it strikes) who has volunteered to help me out in any way possible to help make this pipe dream of mine a reality.  So, I'm really looking forward to this.

(On a side note I also have one other person who has volunteered to help me out as well through discussions, emails, bouncing ideas off of her, etc - I'm truly blessed right now to have people in my life that support my decisions and are willing to help me attain them!)

After the meeting of the minds I've got a decision to make.  I work late on Monday so I'm able to stay out late and enjoy myself but I don't know what direction I'll be heading.

I can visit a friend (and see the next topic that I'm covering to end my post) or I can head down to Bills Gambling Hall and Swap Meet to play a couple of hours of penny poker and looking for stories to regale you all with.

Last conversational topic.  The Hobbit.

My date to the Hobbit has never seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies.  She has agree'd to go to the Hobbit because I never argue about anything she wants to see or do.  I brought up the fact that she should watch the LotR movies before hand and she agree'd.

I debated taking her to the all day showing of the Trilogy at the theaters but I didn't want to overwhelm her (though I'm thinking about attending myself).

So, what I settled on was forcing her to sit down and watch the extended editions with me.

Now, I do realize this is probably the wrong choice - but I have decided to treat them as 6 movies instead of just 3.  

For those of you who don't know, the extended editions come on 2 discs.  Broken up around the halfway point of each movie and (as far as I can tell) at a logical end point.  So Sunday night might be the night to let her watch the 1st half of Fellowship and then Finish off the Trilogy Weds, Thurs and Friday.

I've already warned her that the 2nd movie will probably be her favorite because it has the most action but that she is going to have to sit through the 1st movie to get there.  

In all reality I'm really hoping she likes them because I love re-watching these movies every couple of years!

For now, I need to play some video games or read some Deadpool in order to prepare for an evening of work!

grrouch out