things god invented and why.

1. the puppy cam--as seen on the internets--if you have not seen this, do it, do it now. you can watch puppies in their natural puppy habitat do things puppies do: including make cute noises, scuffle, sleep (sometimes making cute noises), and cuddle.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/shiba-inu-puppy-cam

2. for obvious reasons, nick saban.

3. also for obvious reasons, both parents of St. Nick.

4. james bond movies--i just saw the newest james bond movie and it kicked ass. some people who "know things about movies" apparently say it's not very good. well, i for one am thankful i don't know much about movies. movie snobbery is like beer snobbery. some peoples', webb and john paul, but mostly webb, genuine appreciation for good beer can ruin ones willingness to sip on a salt of the earth, regular guy, joe the macro brewery worker american lager...ie, bud light, coors light, etc. Look--The Dark Knight was a kick ass, high quality film, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy a little Live Free or Die Hard too. I mean, come on people, these are the movies that make us who we are today, USA USA!

5. cracker barrels--my position on cracker barrels is known--i will not re-hash the glorious reasons why god gave us the barrel...other than this...if you don't like or think you don't like cracker barrel, go to a cracker barrel, look into the eyes of the sweet woman serving you delicious down home deliciousness...look into her eyes, right as she puts your frosty mug and carton of whole milk on the table, next to your slice of apple pie...look into her sweet, gentle, loving, 17 year old this is the only job i could find in this dying town eyes, look at them!, and tell me, just try and tell me you don't like cracker barrel. that's right, you can't, because you can't say you don't like, love, the barrel.

6. leftovers--we are in the midst of peek leftover season--there's only two times every year when people intentionally forget how much food they can reasonably stuff down their throat--thanksgiving and christmas. young bachelors, such as myself, have to be ready to move in for the kill when leftover food is being distributed. usually, most of the people doing the food distributing post-meal know that you are, or at least give off the impression, of being totally incapable of feeding yourself without occasional outside help. milk this for all it's worth and enjoy. to aid this impression you can try the following: mention the new dish you've started preparing for dinner "Cereal Suicide" akin to the fountain soda suicide. "it turns out, aunt judy, apple jacks, captain crunch, and count chocula are the trifecta of breakfast cereal combinations."


7. and finally, as it turns out, god also gave us things that are both good and bad. exhibit A: karaoke.

i used to be a karaoke hater. then i met bourbon street. among other attractions at bourbon street, a local bar, is the karaoke. it is at bourbon street where i culminated my love for Toby Keith's "Brought to you Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue." I know a guy who says that every person has one karaoke song meant for them...with the aid of a drink served from a pickle jar I discovered my song. sometimes though, karaoke can put you in terrible situations. keep your eye on friends filling out karaoke request slips of paper. they will screw you over. the other night i was tricked into singing "Beat It". Oh yeah, I know most of the words to that, this will be fine. "Beat it, beat it, no one wants to ....eat it, beat it?" Incorrect. It turns out Beat It has lots of lyrics cryptically hidden within the song to make you look like an idiot when you sing it in front of people. In summary--karaoke--occasionally a force for good and self discovery and other times a tool used to inspire deceit and looking stupidness.

I can't hold it in any longer. I have to profess my undying love for the best movie ever. I've watched it more than a dozen times. This is a special little film I like to call "My new Haircut". I cannot get enough of this guy's new haircut. Nor can I get enough protein bars, swollness, or heinekens. I am in awe.

I will go ahead and acknowledge that this movie is completely and totally innapropriate and should never be viewed unless you are willing to subject yourself to a barage of f'bombs, sexist comments, and five minutes of awesome. No, but really, it's profane and terrible. if you are offended by curse words, don't watch it. However, if you are up for the challenge tune in to you tube, broskey.

That is all.

Things to report from sunday lunch, and other topics:

Most Sunday's my family goes to lunch with my grandmother after church. Today we went to Shan-gri-la, a delicious chinese restaurant near old Eastwood Mall/new fancy Wal-Mart. Mom said that yesterday, toward the later stages of the alabama-auburn game, dad got pretty upset with alabama's performance. Dad likes to slap his hands against his knees and yell at the tv when things go wrong during Alabama sporting events. Mom reports that this was all very upsetting to our dog, Dotty, who fled the den with her tail tucked, chosing to spend the rest of the evening in the laundry hamper.

Another thing from lunch: Conversation between me and my grandmother, Ahree.

"Tyler what's that country in Africa you went to?"
Me- "Mozambique"
Ahree- "I heard something in the news about one of those countries. Something just awful, I can't remember, did you see anything about that?"
Me- "I don't think so."
Ahree- "Well, I can't remember either. Just google it."

Ahree has never googled anything and wouldn't know where to locate the "on" button to a computer.

A follow up note on Cracker Barrel:

My uncle informed me over Thanksgiving that Cracker Barrel's are left handed. It's true. You walk into the barrel, bam, you're in the gift shop thing. Which way do you go to be seated you might ask, left of course. The dining area is always to the left of the gift shop, always, except, I hear, for the Barrel in Cullman, but Cullman is kind of a strange place so I don't put much stock into what they do at the Cullman barrel.

Thanks for bringing this noteworthy observation to my attention, uncle David.

Last thing: ...and this is kind of a strange and perhaps disturbing thing, so get ready. I got really upset after the Alabama-Auburn game on Saturday. I usually don't get upset when Alabama loses games, but not this time. Toward the end of the game, and with the aid of several adult beverages, I think I felt hatred towards Auburn. You know, six is too many times in a row to get beat by any team.

After the game I got this real intense kind of 300 esque thought in my mind, like, this shit will not stand, man. This is the last time. Next year we will destroy them like the Persian dogs they are, and for good measure we will burn down select parts of their campus, not excluding key cow pastures! Then we will take their band members hostage, bringing them to Tuscaloosa where they will be forced to stay in the most terrible of all places, Tutweiler. Band members will only be fed from the worst Tuscaloosa chinese buffet and at the beginning of every hour there will be a forced viewing of that pre-game video where Bear Bryant mumbles a lot and talks about being a winner.

Tommy Tuberville is Zerkses and Nick Saban, King Lionitus, will cut off Tuberville's goofy Persian ears, strip off all his under armor logo'd garments, and offer them as a gift to the Bear's grave...and their will be much rejoicing. Yes, that is what will happen. Bank on it.

Saban demands it!

a few things...

i love leftovers. and speaking of, we're heading into the heart of leftover season, the holidays. end of story. other things...

i just listened to an interview Larry Langford did with WBHM this morning. It's pretty good.

http://www.wbhm.org/News/2007/Langford_takes_over.html

last thing...there's this guy named Jeff Kallay who is an "expert" in college visit experiences. He recently came to Birmingham-Southern and did some work with the admission staff, as well as the greater BSC community, to help improve the campus visit experience for prospective students and their families. He keeps a blog and mentioned BSC in his latest post. Kind of neat if you care about such things.

http://blogs.targetx.com/targetx/theexperienceevangelist/

check it.

I love the cracker barrel.

I don't know why. Oh wait yes I do, because it's bad ass. At cracker barrel you can order milk and you get whole milk, bam, no questions asked. just like that, and a mug, oh and yes, it's a cold mug.

I went to cracker barrel for dinner tonight. It was fantastic. I get basically the same thing every time, every time being about 3 times. Vegetable plate, four vegetables. Always the fried apples because they are delicious. Then it's usually a tough choice between greens and green beans. Both are delicious. Macaroni and cheese is always a good decision and so is okra, always.

Cracker Barrel is one of those places you hope the waitress calls you sweetie or darlin'... no male servers, please. i need a middle aged to older woman who is going to refill my tea and ask me if the food's alright and call me darlin', and you can not be a dude to pull this off.

Everything at cracker barrel is simple, including the people. just plain folks, gettin their country cookin from a place where the people are decent and honest, and you can check out a book on tape, for a reasonable price, that can be turned in at any barrel location.

When the waitress brought me a water and it had lemon in it, I was tempted to remove the lemon from the water. There's somethin about lemon in water that's a bit too la dee da for my simple cracker barrel tastes. I usually prefer lemon in my water, but not at cracker barrel. All I need to accessorize my food is a shit ton of pepper sauce and your basic salt and pepper, and none of that grind it up in the shaker pepper, just the regular amurican kind.

As I paid at the cash register I was tempted to tell the teenager at the register how much I loved the cracker barrel. I really wanted to gush to this person, but then I thought she might not appreciate, or worse yet, love the barrel like I do, and I couldn't stand to think she might not love her job as much as I thought she should, a lot.

The end.

This sign has recently been put up in several places around Birmingham. I don't know why. My aunt Gail decided to document the signage before the world don(e) changes. She sent me this picture.

On the possibilty of the world changing my grandmother says, "No big surprise. It's changing every day."

True dat Ahree.

My day at work.

8:45- Arrive for work.
Check e-mail and find little facebook activity has occurred since 5:00pm Monday.
Day off to bad start.
9:30- Begin Excel training session with arch nemesis co-worker Marylyn. Marylyn takes slowly to new tasks and things have to be repeated, a lot.
Day bad trend continues
10:30- Marylyn bitches about lack of music playing in office.
Insert Best of the Eagles CD, Part I. Marylyn is down with baby boomer generation classic rock. Said co-worker is muted until CD finishes.
12:30- Lunch. Pimiento cheese on wheat thins and fruit in front of computer. Compose reply e-mail to frat brothers in regards to Jarod Beam's bachelor party. Bulk of said e-mail is in response to a previous reply in the frat e-mail chain by one Rish Spurlock. My reply to Rish and other frat brothers takes on a tone of subtle mockery and Rish is successfully taunted.
2:00- Marylyn makes stupid comments about stupid work stuff and I think about striking her, physically, with my fist. Decide this is not appropriate for work atmosphere. Violence constrained.
3:00- Marylyn requests more music. I oblige. Dave Matthews. Co-worker objects and approaches desk to make different selection. Access to CD's denied. Marylyn is sent back to her desk.
3:15- Marylyn- "Honey do you hear dogs barking?" Me- "yeah" Marylyn- "good"
3:45- 85 year old former volunteer calls office from retirement home. Willow, my other, much cooler co-worker, fields former volunteer's call, is put on hold, and turned over to Marylyn. Marylyn, visibly not happy to be talking with volunteer, spends next 20 or so minutes talking with elderly, lonely, sweet Martha. Marylyn is heard saying things like, "I think you'd enjoy water aerobics Martha." "How is the food?" "I'm glad you're making friends." "Are you getting out and going to church? Do they have a bus or something?"
4:00- Send work e-mail to Willow describing my pleasure in Marylyn's suffering.
4:05- Willow confirms similar sentiments.
4:10- Marylyn gets off phone with Martha and conveys clear displeasure with said conversation and said co-workers for not aiding her in terminating call from Martha. There is much silent rejoicing made clear by Willow/Tyler eye contact.
4:30- Receive e-mail from Spencer with comments about his own day at work:

"when i was eating lunch with susan in the breakroom, she asked if i knew "that guy on tv on sunday mornings who is kind of slender...". i interrupted her mid description and said joel osteen. i was correct. she said she loves joel osteen. he puts everything so she can understand it. this is the same woman whose dream is for there to be a mexican buffet. i think i might have found a new girlfriend, possibly to replace dr. rossmann.
we were on the subject of preachers because she was talking about her sister's ex husband who is/was an ordained minister that cheated on her with his secretary. staying in for lunch today was a good decision.
spencer"

5:00ish- Whistle blows, time sheet is punched, hard hat left in locker.