Baby Lily is here!!!
Current mood: ecstatic

This is Chad, Hojo's lesser half. Anyone interested may be happy to know that at 5:49 PM, Lily Jade Parsons was brought into the world, screamin' her f***ing face off. Holly went into labor around 4 a.m., we arrived at the hospital at 7:30 (she waited to time the contractions and be sure...) and we were sent home by 11:30. Fast forward four hours, and we're back at the hospital. Holly progressed so quickly she missed the chance for an epidural and had to do it all-natural-style. (Good god you should have seen her face when they said she didn't have time for the epidural... classic fear even the greatest actors could never pull off. )

Luckily, it took less than ten minutes of actual pushing... three good pushes, and my daughter popped into the world, nasty and covered in goop.


baby and mom are doing fine, babies already breastfeeding, and I've got dibs after she's done.

;)

You can text congrats to our phones, or comment on here.

I'll have pictures up by tonight!

Woot!!

-Chad, Holly, Dawson, Dade, and now Lily

P.S. She came in weighing 7lbs 13oz, and was 20" long. Cash donations may be dropped off at our house.

;)

8:07 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Things you may or may not know...
Current mood: dorky

Alright, this seemed interesting.  Nancy tagged me on her blog to do this, so here goes:

Here are the rules: 1) Link back to the person who tagged you (that= me!). 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six random things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites. 5) Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

1) I once studied to become a pastor.  I turned down a full-ride art scholarship at a decent liberal arts school in the midwest to do this.  As it turns out even pastorial colleges cost craploads of money, and they turned me down based on lack of financial aid.  Ten years later, I'm a certified minister through the Universal Life Church... and it was free.

2) I'm a closet physicist.  I still contemplate going back to school for it, but then I remember that I'm kind of lazy, so I don't.

3) I used to have a crush on Aja, the asian girl with blue hair from Jem and the Holograms.  I've since moved on from such childish things... Jasmine and Esmerelda are MUCH hotter.

4) Every time I pass a red semi truck, I make the transformer sound.  (Chkk-khul-khhk-chkk!)

5) I'm terrified of wild dogs.  I'm more terrified of wild republicans.

6) I secretly hope my children become cyborgs, but not before I do.

So, yeah, it turns out I'm not all that interesting.
Stay tuned, there's more mediocrity to come!

Oh, and as per the rules of this thing, I hereby officially tag Paul, Hiding in Bathrooms, Elisabeth, Henkel, *alissa*, and Chris (girl, interrupted).
So get on it, people.

7:55 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

*Zzz.zzZ*
Current mood: exhausted

It's not that I'm trying to screw my kids up.  I don't wake up every morning and start jotting down various ideas I dreamt up that will somehow allow me to dement and ruin my kids' minds forever... it just sort of happens.

For instance:
  My son likes to sing and dance in the tub.  You generally don't want your child to dance too much in the bath, and would likely tell your child something direct to explain why.  "You might slip and hurt yourself", or "you could fall and maybe drown!" for some of you more dramatic folks. 
  This is one of those times when I accidentally screw my kid up forever.  I don't just say "you might slip and fall"... I really drive the point by saying something like "If you dance around in the tub, you'll slip in the water, fall and smash your front teeth off on the faucet.  Once you realize how bad that hurts you start flailing around, screaming, only you start sucking water into your mouth and now you're choking, oh god, you're choking!  But I'm downstairs and can't hear you, now you've drowned and your mom goes crazy killing the rest of us in our sleep.  Got it, man?  Dancing in tub = your whole family dies.  Do you want that?  Do ya?  Do ya?  Huh, huh HUH?"
  He looks at me and says "I am never taking a bath EVER in my WHOLE LIFE."

So now I have a cautious, disgustingly filthy child. 

No, I kid, I kid.  The kids are great.  I'll start the bidding at $250, comes complete with day and night clothes, toilet training (most of the time), and a steady, reliable source for any questions regarding the alphabet, basic colors, addition, and Pokemon.  Buy both for $450, and act now and you may get our lucky "You raise our newborn but let us claim it on taxes" package!  Absolutely the only way to buy a black market minor!

1:23 AM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Anything can be something if nothing’s around to point out everything’s wrong
Current mood: apathetic

In the beginning, there was nothing.
  A vast and unrecognizable void that coated the expanse of the universe as it was, when it was nothing.
  The universe itself
was nothing,
 and beyond that nothing came more nothing.
It was as though nothing would never end.
One day, nothing pondered,
 "When will I be something?"
And of course, nothing answered.
 Nothing said, "If you work hard, you can be something."
  Nothing said, "You can be anything."
   Nothing said, "Go be everything you can be."
So,
in an unprecedented and uncharacteristically sudden something,
nothing was gone
And everything started happening.
 - - -
P.s -
  Do not be discouraged;  Nothing is there.
It’s hidden behind everything.
Spring not a tear
but look to the sky
Ask not in fear
But wonder "O why,
why are we here?"
And then in a sigh,
nothing will answer.
...
...
...


  and we’ll think, "O...                                                                    


                                                                     ...that’s why."



When I talk, nothing listens, and nothing answers, so why shouldn’t I believe in nothing?  At least then, it makes sense.  But if I believe in something, then every day I wake up, look to the sky, thank it and sing it songs...

but when I ask questions, nothing answers me, anyway.

8:41 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

It’s a great damn day outside

(*For the purposes of broadening my current demographic into the ultra-rare 5-9 year old left wing conservative liberal bilingual multi-partisan Jewish Jehova’s witnesses, I have replaced any occurance of "the F-bomb" with the appropriate form of the word, "Afflack".  When encountered, it should be read as though Gilbert Gottfried is standing next to you, screaming it into your poor, poor ear.*)


If you live anywhere in the Ohio region, you may be lucky enough to be benefitting from the current schizo setting on our great state’s thermostat.  Days like today, you swear Ohio is beautiful and full of new life... because five days ago there was TWO FEET OF SNOW ON THE GROUND!!!!

I mean C’MON!!!  You know, if it was one way or the other, I could almost cope, but this is re-google-damned-diculous.  You wanna keep me smothered in snow for three months in the winter?  Fine.  BUT DON"T MAKE IT 70 DEGREES THE NEXT DAY, THEN BACK TO ’FLACKING 10!!!!!!!!!!!

*ahem*  Excuse me.

This is why I want to move.  This is why I have ALWAYS wanted to move.  This is why, no matter how afflacking great it is in the spring for TWO WEEKS, or how hot and great the summer is for TWO MORE WEEKS, I will never be satisfied.  Give me heat, give me cold, but don’t give me snow, then rain, then Tornados, then sun, then ice, then frogs stuck in twinkies.  For one, I don’t like how frogs taste, so you’re just flackin up my twinkie.  You might say "It’s not that bad.  The groundhog said we’d have spring soon".  Whatever.  The Ohio Groundhog is retarded.   The one in Pittsburgh, which is the one they air on national TV, said six more weeks of winter.  So even if we’re SUPPOSED to have spring, there’s a full bown winter still happening two hours away, which means we’re STILL SCREWED.  Show me someplace that’s 100 miles from an active winter, and I’ll show you people still livin in the afflackin’ cold.

You know who never has winter?  Australia.  At the coldest, it hits low 50’s and 40’s.  Snow is unheard of in all but the very northern parts.  Sign me up for the Koala Bear Beach package and lets rock out with our clocks out.
  Alright, I’m goin’ outside to stare at the sun.  That way when it sinks behind the clouds again til June, I’ll have the image burned right into my corneas.  It’ll be like Sesame street every damn day of my life.
 

12:52 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

A suggestion for Leadership
Category: Life

(Alternate Title:
  "A suggestion in the form of a poorly done haiku that in no way even remotely resembles an actual Haiku, with apologies in the afterword to the founder and creator of Haikus" )

This is my idea.  All rights reserved, meaning if you try to steal it... I will fight you.
That's no Lie.

I have the ideal solution for that which vexes our mighty Incorporated States of America.  Since we have reduced ourselves to a blathering non-sensical coagulation of trite, simplistic, media-dependant morons, we may as well go all out in proving it to the rest of the world.  No longer shall we abate ourselves with the listless thoughts of a true Republic bound by honor, honesty, and oil prices; no longer shall we delude ourselves with the misbegotten hopes of ever finding a presidential candidate with any sense of moral fibre or responsibility willing to stand for what they believe in based on their actual beliefs, rather than the public polls deciding who and what our leaders believe.  It is time we stood up to the rest of the world, claimed our apathy and asserted our acquiescence, shouting from our couches, "We will not fail in our duty to pretend to be informed.  We shall not waiver in our unending War against truth and responsibility, nor shall we falter in our unending quest to find one simple medication that regulates our mood and increases breast & penis size while maximizing memory, luck, pheromone production, and winning lottery number predictions.  Act now."
 
  No, the answer to our country's current state of unpopularity, which is at an all time low and meets with almost the same sickened irreverance as once brought by Hitler and Nazi Germany, is to make our country more marketable.  Americans are fastidiously becoming the most useless, sheep-like nation of them all, allowing our leaders to become near dictators.  Presidential accountability has been all but erased in light of our needs for "greater security".Despite the most concerted efforts of our nation, I'm afraid to report we aren't going to accomplish that by passing out fliers and buying radio stations overseas.  No, what we need is a good old fashioned PR kick in the Ameributt, and I know exactly how to do it.  We'll do what any red-blooded american would do:

  We take America global... as a reality program.

  Start by throwing out conventional rules about who can rule our country.  The age limit of 35 is far to mature, and as any Neilson family knows, we like our leaders young and sexy.  So we set the age down to 23... this allows for any and all partying associated with community college, or immediate post-grade-school entry into "The Real World", preferably the San Francisco Crew.  Then we allow three washed up hollywood vets to whittle down the number of people attempting to "make it big" to 16, and then, my friends, then the fun begins.  Starting off with a pre-show special, we highlight the best and worst auditions, making sure to show judge Cyndi Lauper restraining a smile when Ross Perot gets up on stage and has to pull the mike down.  Then we spend the next four months eliminating one contestant per week via various debates, town forums, and talent competitions.  Various rap battles between the contestants covering go-to issues like abortion and gun control are punctuated by lightning trivia rounds meant to demonstrate World Knowledge, such as naming, in 30 seconds, as many countries as you can whose names end in "stan".  As the show progresses, the stakes rise, and the events become trickier and more difficult.  Real-time exercises are run where each contestant, which we'll call 'Candidates' for fun, is awakened by a shrill call at 3 A.M. citing a national emergency.  The world gets a front row evaluation of what our president can be like when faced with tough situations like terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and Writer's Guild strikes.  It's in a nation's best interest to know their president can rise to the challenge of finding ways to keep "Heroes" and "Chuck" on the air, all the while maintaining peace with unions.
  This continues until the final 2-hour Finale, where we go all-out, with no expenses barred.  Start by establishing a death-welcoming obstacle course, complete with such daredevil events like the Ring of Fire, also known as "Gay Marriage Advocacy", and the Tiger Pit of Doom, more commonly known as "Healthcare Reform".  The must survive the course, dodging the swinging sex scandal pendulums, evading the American Gladiators while reciting the Gettysburg Address, with bonus points given if recited in English, Spanish, and Ebonics.  The tension mounts as the final two reach the end of the course, slide down the lame duck slide into the National Debt Tar Pit and, in a twist worthy of M. Night Shyamalan, are pulled to freedom and greeted by none other than Ralph Nader, the surprise 3rd party Candidate!  Covered in tar, exhausted, and brutalized by the previous months of competition, the two are seated in soundproof booths, forced to listen to testimonies from the families of civilian victims of American agression overseas while, outside the booths, Ralph Nader buys the last five minutes of the program to explain why everyone should vote for him, and always refer to him by his first and last name, screaming it at full volume when doing so.  Then, as Clay Aiken sings a little diddy about not being gay while making out with a cardboard cut-out of Bruce Willis, the voting lines are opened and people all over the world begin calling in their votes.  Allow a full 24 hours for all call-in votes to be counted, and When the dust settles, America will reveal it's first globally-elected President to the world.  Sworn in by Justin Timberlake and Nos during the halftime show at the Superbowl, the world will come together in celebration or morbid fascination as we, yet again, prove our unyeilding commitment to the bastardization of all that is sacred and important to the world community at large.  
  You may scoff at first, but give it serious thought.  An event like this would pull interest from real hosting talent, like Downtown Julie Brown or Pat Sajak, and with that sort of star power at your helm, there's telling what kind of ratings we could acheive.  Maybe even better ratings than the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  You know, at first.

  So sit back, open up the good liquor, dank weed, or whatever lets you endure reality programming and politics combined, and let's get to it.  We, the people , have a country to pretend to run.  If lines are busy, please continue calling.  A representative will be right with you.

10:46 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I’ll never understand...

How does someone decide to be a stalker?  I mean, I've been in love, but I don't EVER remember thinking to myself, "I really love this person.  holy fuck!!  I need to hide in her shrubbery RIGHT NOW!!!"
  Then, of course, I'd jump out and try to stab the person being stalked.  Because nothing says "I love you" like a gaping knife wound.  After all, it's almost Valentine's Day!

Sometimes I think to myself, "Hey, I should be a porn star.  It's every guy's DREAM to be a porn star!."  Then I remember that I'm kind of overweight, and really not all that attractive.  It was a good dream, though.  Besides, I'll always have socks.

The other day I was sitting outside smoking a few cigarettes, and it occurred to me that that my hair was still wet, and I might catch a cold and die.  Boy, did I hurry and finish that last cigarette!

If I'm drinking to avoid my problems, and most of my problems come from not having any money, then I think I should own a liquor store.  Cause then even when I didn't have any money for the bills, I'd still have an entire building full of alcohol.

Once in a while I sit and smoke marijuana cigarettes before I try to write funny things.  But I realize now that me being high doesn't make me funny.  If YOU got high before you started reading my stuff, THAT would make me funny. 

Seriously, though, drug and alcohol abuse is a real problem.  If you know someone who's on drugs, or is an alcoholic, you should call someone right away, because when that person dies, you're gonna need a new friend to buy pills from.

You know what else isnt funny?  Alzheimers.

See.  Told ya.

11:56 PM - 4 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

To bring you back from that last blog...
Current mood: awake

yeah, so sorry about that, people.  Misery truly does love company.  And then misery makes the people sick so they can take the misery home, and sooner or later, POW!!!  No one makes crab cakes anymore.

Okay, you may or may not remember me putting this video on sometime ago, (and thank you, again, Travis, for introducing me to the Tunak Tunak Tun Da Da Da,) but this is simply legendary.  The original video can be found Here on youtube, and that is silly enough on its own right.  You should really watch it sometime, but for now, and especially if you only have time to watch ONE video today, watch THIS ONE.  I really recommend watching the first one I listed, just so you can realize how damn addictive it is after you've heard it.  But once you see it with the English Subtitles... well, the whole world is a different place.  (It's so worth the four minutes, trust me.)

  That's pretty much it, for right now.  Tune in next time, Loyalists!  I don't really have a same bat-time, but this would definitely be the only channel that qualifies as my "same bat-channel!".. so, uh...
yeah.

Currently watching : Eight Crazy Nights (Two-Disc Special Edition) Release date: 04 November, 2003

12:05 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Tis the season to get the flu

     T'was the week before Christmas, and all through my house
 Not a creature was stirring, except hamsters, which, though related to the mouse family, are considerably cuter until they bite, at which point I probably should not have fed them to the cat.

The stockings aren't hung, and my tree's anorexic
The cat ate my tinsel, now her poop is more festive
I woke up at 4, my stomach was hurting
And I knew before long, I was gonna start squirting.
I got to the bathroom, not feeling so hot
So I ran some cold water, promptly doing a shot
The saliva kicked in, I knew it was time
I leaned for my prayer to the porcelain shrine
I couldn't quite help it, as over I hunched
but think what a waste was now yesterday's lunch
At once, after hurling, I felt 'tween my buns
An urgent urge stating that I was not done
I sat, nearly dead, my bathroom in spins
as I suddenly shat and spat out both ends
Ten minutes I horfed, heaved, wheezed, and butt-peed
and thought if I died at least then I'd be free.
Instead I slowed down, and eventually stopped
My insides now out, I was ready to drop
I cleaned up then crawled back into my bed
while visions of college dance in my head
I slept until 12, and I still feel like crap
so I thought I would share via this christmas rap
You may think it's gross that I described my flu
You better thank god it won't happen to you.

Merry Christmas, everybody.
-c-

3:30 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

All kindsa shit

There is absolutely no reason for me to be writing a blog.  Nothing interesting is going on in my life right now, (as if I ever write about anything interesting,) and I find very little value in the words from my fingertips, at the moment.  They don't have nearly as much practice forming words as my mouth does, and the entire time I'm typing, my mouth's just sitting up there on it's heady perch whispering shit like "I wouldn't have said that.  And the phrasing is all wrong.  Damnable phalanges."

So I seriously need to move someplace.  I'm going fucking crazy, here.  (Anyone who knows me will sense the unavoidable irony in the fact that "going... crazy" implies I was not to begin with.)  But Ohio just isn't cutting it.  I can't find enough graphic work to do anything meaningful, and I refuse to work for McDonald's or some shitty factory.  Sorry to any of you happy fast food employees or factory workers, but you can fuck right the hell off.  I'm not doing it.   Make my burger, assemble my drivetrain, and leave me the fuck alone.

I have to write this out, or else I'll forget it.  Rion, Shane and I were talking last night, and the conversation inexorably turned toward midgets.  I believe we were talking about Time Bandits... a movie from the early 80's or late 70's about a group of time-travelling midgets that fucked me up as a kid.  Read on...

"That movie convinced me that midgets were fucking awesome.  Why?  Because they can travel through time, and I already believed all midgets were magical."
  I wonder if that's where the stories of leprechauns came from.  Like, maybe Ireland was, at one point, the original breeding ground and sole home of midgets.  Like, maybe regular-sized people moved in and realized that there were these little tiny people running all over the countryside, just wearing green, dancing, and playin' in rainbows an' shit.  A little bit of inter-sized breeding, and suddenly you have little people popping out of regular people...
  Imagine all irish accents here, if you will...
"Jesus, Agnus... ye had yerself a wee little baby!  No, look, he's not even a full baby yet!  Did you take him out too soon?  Fer Jesus' sake, Agnus, yer such a tramp ye cannae even let the baby GROW all the way b'fore ye take him out of ye? 
  And look, Agnus... fer fuck's sake, ye cannae even feed the wee boy.  He'll never get his wee mouth on yur tit!  Look, look... oh.. oh Jesus, Agnus, ye cannae even SEE the boy!  He's buried under that giant bulbous breast, and now he's GONE.  
  Oh, look, Agnus, ye can keep him in yer cleavage, now?  What?  He's like a bonnie li'l Kangaroo, then?  Just sits up between yer breasts, and when he's hungry he just jumps down to yer tit fer food, then crawls right back up again! 
  Jumpin' Jesus, Agnus... leave the wee boy alone!  Ye can't keep him between yer breasts f'rever!  He's NINE YEARS OLD, Agnus, it's just wrong!  Take him out of there... I DON'T CARE IF HE STILL FITS."

*ahem*  I suppose I should end it on that note...  There's no segue to go from that to much of anything.

8:45 AM - 5 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment