Friday, October 29, 2010

DESKTOP FRIDAY





Yep, that's just what I needed nice, calm, and content bunnies.




That’s just what I needed.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

MY LIFE, LIVED WITH DIGNITY

I had to stay home yesterday because of a cold. When I’m at home in my sweat pants and with the dog laying half on top of me it always hits me, I never spend days at home.


When the weekend comes I always have somewhere to go, some sort of event or chore to tackle. Even during the week and there’s no one to hang out with, I’m out and downtown trying to find some sort of trouble. This is why yesterday, sitting in the bed watching a eight hour Ghost Hunters marathon / Golden Girls marathon with occasional breaks to watch the sleeping dog’s stomach raise and fall it hit me, I am not the sit at home kind of guy.

I found myself driving around our provincial village heading to buy…….. uh….. stamps, maybe. The cold medicine had its toll on me. I did end up in the Soviet Safeway’s parking lot, eating Oreos and a breakfast burrito, washing it down with a liter of Coke Zero. Just sitting there….. watching the unemployable go in and out of the local rundown Safeway. “Gawd, there so…. Belch” I said popping another Oreo into my mouth dropping crumbs on to the bright orange beach towel I wrapped around me so I wouldn’t get Oreo/burrito bits on the upholstery.

I believe I’m much better now.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

...AT THE CAR WASH...

You know the lady that stands in the lanes of the carwash and when the attendant is done up selling you to a forty-dollar carwash she looks at your windscreen in hopes of sell you her chip repair services? And how she tries to hit on you?

No? Just me then.

I have very few obsessions. Other then, well a certain British Sci-fi show and Pumas and Apple products and the gym and…maybe… we should stop. The most unnecessary of my compulsive behavior would be my obsession of keeping my car clean. Really, really clean. This manifests in a car wash every four days. What? It’s dirty. Unclean.

This resulted in friends saying things like “you’re going to strip the wax if you wash that car too much.” Which led directly to me waxing my spoiled spoilered baby once a month. Thanks.

Mostly I can fight back and just go to the drive through bay and wash my silver saloon with the high-pressure wand. But, when it’s really dirty or I’ve had a bad day it goes to the fancy car wash. This is where I feel like a bad Dad If I just get the twelve dollar car wash, like the extra rinse and “clear coat” finish will stop evil from coming to the sports sedan. Oy vey iz mir, so I get the thirty-nine ninety nine dollar car wash so no one will judge me.

It was during one of these trips that I met my girlfriend, Dana. I complemented her on her Pumas; she sold me on rock-chip repair feeding into my obsession of keeping the Lotze perfect. I was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, last Saturday she wanted to take our relationship to the physical level. Oy vey iz mir!

As I paid for my forty-dollar bath she approached me to see how the windscreen was holding up after her handy work. I said how it was great which was code for wanted to her to slowly work her hands over my bicep. This is when she offered more than her windshield services. Every fiber in my body stopped the physical reaction of retching upon her Rush Tee-shirt. But, then I stopped; she does have nice Pumas. I wonder if I’d get a discount at the car wash?

Monday, October 25, 2010

STEVIEB THE BEEFEATER

Did I tell you that I had dinner bought for me every night last week? It was easy, last weekend I went to the store a bought a container of tofu. That’s when the manipulation started.

Way back in the day when I was a hostile and judgmental vegetarian I made some good dishes using tofu and tempeh. I gave this up when I started my love affair with pork.  So, I guess being reminiscent for the 1990s or a 33-inch waist I started to crave my semi-famous grilled tofu and veggie scramble.  Yummo.

The free dinners started on Monday night, when I brought up my urge to connect to our vegetarian roots.

“You shouldn’t have to cook tonight. Let me take you to Famous Dave’s Barbeque for some ribs.” The carnivore of the house suggested with love and concern in his voice. 

Tuesday and Wednesday where the same. When I again expressed the urge to make the block of neglected soybean curd into a gourmet explosion I was met with a look of exhaustion and disgust.

“Really? Haven’t I suffered enough with compact florescent light bulbs in the dining room chandelier and making us go for bike rides all the time? Can’t we just go get Mexican?

It’s Sunday night, the carnivore is happily teaching a class tonight and I just settled down for…… Well, I made scrambled tofu and veggie stir-fry. It was awful. Horrible. So I tossed it and I’m now eating Taco bell. But, don’t tell the carnivore.  

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

STEVIEB'S GHOST STORY

One of my first jobs during college was as a manager of a funky coffee house in an old Victorian on Colfax Avenue. The house was built on Denver’s grand boulevard in the late 1880s but, with the city changing and after the patriarch of the family shot the driver for knocking-up his daughter, the family soon moved out of the grand manor house. It changed hands only a couple of times, most of its life was a Denver’s premier Furrier at the corner of Colfax and Franklin Street.

That was a long time ago and by the time I was a manager of the gay coffee house the mansion had seen much better days. It took me around a month to understand that the huge fur storage vault door was swinging open not due to normal reasons. Or when I would turn off every light in the entire building, seeing the second floor bedrooms illuminated. Even after I removed the light bulbs. At two am I had friends join me one night to watch the windows flash on and off. Oooing and Awwwing like they were fireworks.

My last night closing I had my boyfriend at the time stay with me so I wouldn’t be alone. But soon I forgot about the “owner” of the house as my thoughts turned to my boyfriend’s carnal desires. This did not last long before I flew across the dining room.

I found a new job the next day.

After you get physically assaulted by someone you can’t see I could understand why you would get into the paranormal. I didn’t, just something to talk about. I saw it that I had it coming for being a bad guest.

On my birthday in 1998 I sat in my living room struggling to write. I was trying to get down into words that just six days earlier I had lost my best-friend, Randy Jorgensen. Taken away because of losing his hard fought battle with AIDS. How do you deliver a eulogy to a room full on his family, his relatives that don’t want to hear how he died? They didn’t want to hear how he loved men. They didn’t care about the love that we shared and definitely didn’t want anything to do with how and what took him from them.

I was writing for a hostile audience to say the least.

As I crumbled up draft after draft I kept getting annoyed at my dog because he wouldn’t stop whining. That’s when I finally looked up and realized that my house lights were going berserk. Blinking wildly, on and off blink, blink, blink. That’s when I got hit with the phrase, “Fuck them! Write about us!”

So I did.

Monday, October 18, 2010

THE LESBIAN GHOST HUNTER

January 28th 1998 was my twenty-sixth birthday. The afternoon found me on my living room writing a speech. Not just a speech, more like the most important thing I’ve written in my life. I was under a deadline and hard pressed to finish it quickly, this was made extremely difficult because of the subject matter also because Chester my Chesapeake Bay retriever would not settle down and the lights in the house kept blinking off and on. Blink, blink. Roooower, blink, blink. Bark–bark. Blink, blink. Blink.

Last Friday I went to a lecture on the paranormal. This was given by my good friend Ranoli and I went because I trusted her to give one amazing lecture on spirits to kick off the Halloween season.

Okay, so yes I’m fascinated by ghosts. I am not in a true believer, drink the Kool-aide kind of person my any means. I am very mixed about the whole subject. I’m very science minded yet believe some things are possible. When an intelligent person that I trust impeccably speaks to her experiences and thoughts on the subject, I’m going to listen and trust what I hear. That and the idea of lesbians that hunt ghosts is just fucking cool.

Ranoli, the lesbian ghost hunter / lecturer was the first person to help me become that man that I am today. When I was fresh out of high school and new to living on my own the only thing I knew about the gay committee was sex. This first couple of years was very tough. I was adrift in a new world away from the structure of the church and in a sea of nonchalant fucking, drugs and drinking. This is how I ended up terrified on the front steps of a church deciding to go in and join the new gay and lesbian choir forming in Denver. That night was when I met Ranoli, who saw the terror in my eyes, got me to calm down and walk into the rehearsal room. This made me realize for the first time that it isn’t just that we sleep with the same sex that makes up our community.

As she is one of my mentors in life I listened intently to her story of how she became involved in the paranormal. I always love how lesbians are nonjudgmental, and speak to their story and journey without spewing to the established dogma. The dogma here being the aggressive ghost hunting shows on TV or movies. Instead, she addressed the entities that may be hanging around and the compassion to help them move to a better place.

During her speech, I started to reexamine my own experiences in the paranormal….

Friday, October 15, 2010

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

THE STEVIEB SEAL OF APPROVAL

There’s two new blogs in town. In the ebb and flow that is blogging it’s nice to see new suckers guys getting into the habit of sharing their unique perspective on the world.


PAC’S PAD
This is my bud, Pac from Atlanta. After receiving countless essays via Scruff and Facebook I said that he needed to write in a way that tells his story. What better then a blog?

You tell ‘em Pac, you tell the world.



WHAT CAN YOU BE RANDY P?
Catchy title isn’t it? Randy lives in North Cali and is restarting his life with a house, a new job and newly single but with a great attitude. I’m going to watch where he goes from here.

Whether it’s cruising Folsom or working on the house, he’ll jump in with great gusto.



And since we’re talking about successful people on the internets let’s talk about my BFF Dalton and his online shoppe, CRANK INDUSTRIES. What Crank Industries shirt did I get?



Ruggers. Woof! Get your own at Crank Industries.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

STEVE'S BIG DAY OFF

I had yesterday off so I thought I’d make a photo essay of StevieB’s big adventure.  Obviously we needed a theme (we do love a theme) so I chose the color white….



First off was laundry….


Then off to get some coffee…

Tunes….

A little late lunch…

Tried to watch a couple of movies, the best being LIKE IT IS, a boy meets boy, boy bare knuckle fights to near death to prove his manhood, kinda movie.
The Shar-pei did not approve... 


Before I knew it, it was time for bed...


Great day, now it’s back to work. Damn it.

Monday, October 11, 2010

SIGOURNEY WEAVER GAVE ME THE DAY OFF

An actual conversation from yesterday morning.  And by “actual conversation” I mean by text. My brilliantly elequted portion will be in blue.

I took tomorrow off to spend with you.

Uh, you what?

I took tomorrow off. I figured we could spend some time together. Cool hu?

Well I’d say thanks Steve but maybe I should thank Christopher Columbus. Since it’s his plundering and bloody apostatizing that brought measles and smallpox to decimate an entire population that gave you the day off. Not you.

Yeah, and how he suckered Sigourney Weaver into giving him all those ships in that movie. What a bastard. What was that movie called? 1491?


Yeah, 1492. What was it?

Aliens. So, because Segourney Weaver got scammed out of some gold and Columbus “Sailed the ocean blue” you get the day off. And you’re taking the credit for his day.

Yes, and I want to spend it with you.

Sorry I have to teach a class.

That’s cool, I wanted to go to the dealership and get my tires switched over to nitrogen anyway.

I’m sorry I’m going to miss that…fun. Being Italian I know that the proper way to celebrate is with auto maintenance. Thank you Sigourney. Er.... Mr. Columbus. 

No thank you obscure references.


   

Friday, October 8, 2010

DESKTOP FRIDAY




After the week I had, all I want to do is gaze off and think of happy bunnies.
Happy bunnies being hunted down by excel spreadsheets. Happy bunnies don't care if I messed up all the excel spreadsheet reports for the month at work.  No. No they don't.  Happy bunnies are just happy, and so am I that it's Friday.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

STEVIEB LOSES IT!

I’ve made it through the scruffiness; somehow I made it throo-ooo-ooo.


I think I might actually be on the road to growing a real, descent beard. And after a week of wanting to scratch my face off, it’s beginning to not kill me. I am bordering on looking like a homeless dude, sans the aluminum hat. But, if I remember to shower everyday they should let me into the local gay coffee shop.

I’ve been using the IPhone application called Lose It. A calorie counter and food diary rolled into a cool phone app. I can look like I’m totally checking in on my BFF using Facebook, when in fact I’m checking to see how many calories there are in a Moon Pie. There’s three-hundred.

Using this program I’m officially down twenty-three pounds. I KNOW! That means I’m five pounds away from my Big Muscle Bear profile weight. Part of this program gives you a report to help you track your food consumption and their calories. I love this, I can be iPhone techy nerd and lose tonnage. I thought I’d share with you my top foods in order of consumption:


Vegetarian Meat, burger, Garden Veggie Patties  23 servings
Salad Dressing, Caesar,  22servings
Salad, Field Greens 21servings
Bagel Thins 13servings
Butter, salted 10servings
Thai Kitchen 7servings
Tortillas Carb Lite 7servings
Nuts, almonds, whole 7servings
Apples, fresh, med  7servings
Sour Cream, light 7servings
Chicken 6 servings
Cereal, Special K 6 servings
Milk, 2%, 6 servings
Bread, wheat 4 servings
Pretzels, hard, chocolate coated 4 servings
Salsa, Tomato 4 servings
Tortilla, Flour, Burrito 3 servings
Frozen Dessert, Mocha Chill 3 servings
Turkey Bacon 3 servings
Cheese 3 servings
Pizza, Pepperoni Lover's 2 servings
Chicken, Sesame 2 servings
Taco, Fresco, Soft 2 servings

In the last 4 weeks I’ve eaten 23 veggie burgers and 21 servings of salad.  Criminy! No wonder I’m always so light headed. Last of the list? Taco Bell.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

STEVIEB IS SPECIAL....NEEDS


Why if you’re in a wheelchair and don’t have a head do you need special assigned parking? We’re getting so politically correct these days, now headless paraplegics’ get their own parking.

Then I want a spot marked with a little guy in cargo shorts, spikey hair, an iPhone in his hand, and with tiny biceps.

Monday, October 4, 2010

MY 650 BLOG POST

Today’s marks my 650th blog post. Wow, it boggles my mind to think that I’ve rambled on in a narcissistic self-severing tone for 650 posts. What I lack in creativity and grammar skills makes up in determination. Well, let’s start number 650 on my favorite topics: my iPhone and Pumas.

After getting my iPhone 4, I came to the realization that the drawer of electronics past was getting full. My past plan of shoving the old phone into the drawer with the Razor, Sony Handycam, parade of tiny Nokias, and maybe a pager or two wasn’t the best idea. Mostly because the iPhone 3G was worth money. Really? Wow. This realization was quickly followed by the dread of having to sell it on Craigslist, and speaking to the mere mortals that shop on Craigslist. I had scenarios flash into my head.

“Does this phone….like… make calls and stuff?”

“How would this phone compare to say… a toaster?”

“If I mailed you a check for 5K could you mail the phone to Damyang?”

So, last Saturday night I took some photos and made a posting. That’s when the new phone started to ring. And ring. And ring. For twenty minutes. “Huh? Guess I may have posted it for a lower price than I thought?” I sold it to the first guy to sound polite, in ten minutes flat. I met him yesterday, Bada Bing done.

And although I quickly found myself in the Puma store convinced that I should blow my wad on new Pumas (pun intended) I quickly used my “phone a friend” option and threw the cash into the bank towards the credit card. Wow, when did I become an adult?

Friday, October 1, 2010

DESKTOP FRIDAY

What's been on Steve's desk top this week? A new T-shirt design from Crank Industries.....




So you don't really see yourself as a Triceratops? That's okay, you're probably a Tricerabottom. Your horns are just as big... just used differently.  You need this shirt. buy it at Crank Industries.






Me? I'm more of a Tyrannosaurus rex.....