Author: Chris

Once I had kids, I heard something I had never thought of before.  “There’s nothing worse than your kids being sick.”  It’s true.  Both my kids got croup or croop or whatever in hell that vile barking cough virus is that kept them up all night hacking and snotting and oozing.  So being sick with them is a walk in park, right?

When you’re sick and the kids aren’t, you are willing to offer a human sacrifice just so they will go to sleep.  “Please let this be a day you just want to watch Toy Story on repeat, oh please God and baby Jesus…”  “I want to go to the park!  I want ice cream!  I want to ride a horse and a cow!”  “What?  Who told you about riding horses?  Son of a bitch!”

Of course, the whole debate is a moot one – WHEN THE KIDS ARE SICK, YOU’RE NEXT BRAH.  Oh it’s coming and it’s coming for you.  If you’re one of those parents thinking you are so cool telling everyone it’s worse when the kiddos are ill, put on your seat belt, the ride is just beginning; you are going to experience both, dummy!

SPOILERS AKA DON’T READ!  I mean don’t read if you haven’t seen Game of Thrones.

Well, it’s finally over.  No more armchair show writers online arguing with fanboys, no more “who is getting murdered this week” to watch.  Now we can just fight about people’s opinions!  I’m still processing, but I thought I would review my office pool we made before this season.  MORE SPOILERS, SERIOUSLY YOU’VE BEEN WARNED AND I PUT A WHOLE PARAGRAPH IN HERE.

Good – I picked Arya to kill the Night King, clearly my shining moment.  I thought she was the only one with enough stealth skill to pull it off.  I also picked Tormund, Samwell, Tyrion and Jon Snow living, plus Euron, Jamie, Cersei, Varys (boo), Dany and the Hound dying.  I went light on white walkers also, which held up.

Bad – I picked Melisandre to become a walker in a hurry, but thought her magic would protect her from that fate.  I had Sansa not making it because of her lack of fighting skills, but she’s now a hardened take no shit ruler.  I had half the King’s council dead, at least.  Seriously, now did Podrick survive?  I also went with Jon Snow on the throne, but technically, there is no throne…plus we never did find out if Dany was knocked up, but I’m going with no.

There’s tons of reviews out there, but I’ll do quick awards.

Best character arc: Sansa Stark.  From naive to the most skeptical person on the show, which is saying something.  Great ending for her.  Runner up: Bronn.  Not anyone’s favorite, but went from basically a security guard to ruling most wealthy kingdom of the six.  Complete scumbag, but pulled off a hell of a rise.

Worst character arc: Tyrion Lannister.  Got dumber when he sobered up.  WHAT’S THE POINT, STAY THIRSTY MY FRIEND.

I miss you, boo award: All the direwolves but one.  I want more direwolves in war scenes.  I want direwolves playing poker scenes.

Best final season moment: The ol’ switcheroo on the Night King.  Runner up: The drinking by the fire scene before the battle of Winterfell.  Giant’s milk for all!

Worst final season moment: (Tied) Jon Snow drawing up a battle plan is like watching a guy on coke play chess.  Also, Varys got treated like a bitch.  Not pleased with how fast and easy that went down (yes, a lot went fast – we know, everyone is saying it).

Now for the spinoffs or whenever Mr. Martin finishes the books.  In other words, two years or never.

Ah, memories – even bad ones.  Thanks, Facebook.  Seven years ago, I got a random email through this very website.  A marketing firm researched local funny people and somehow found me.  I was invited to an open audition for a commercial…the next day.  I had about 24 hours to prepare.  I worked a normal day Friday, then, of course, went to happy hour with my pals – after all, it was only a few lines.  I bought more beer and sat down to memorize my lines.  Can’t be that hard!

After an hour, I was so incredibly bored and started cranking some music.  From what I could tell, they wanted an upbeat, energetic man excited about telling people they could save money.  IT’S LIKE THEY KNOW ME ALREADY.  For some reason, I was 15% sure I could get this – it ended up paying something like $5000 if it took off.  Looking back, I knew I wasn’t going to get it unless no one showed up, but money is money and hope springs eternal.  I’d fight a tiger on TV for $300.

I woke up Saturday early and realized drinking 12 beers may not have been the best course of action.  Oh well, off to be famous!  I got there and one guy was much older than me and was pacing around like he ripped fourteen lines of coke in the hotel bathroom.  He was sweating profusely and talking non-stop.  I have to beat this guy, right?  I got called in and they had a professional actress (on some level) and a small crew.  I was all set; I had memorized every line.  They immediately said, “OK, now improvise a bit!”  I had nothing.  I just kept spitting out the stock lines.  The director, an increasingly angry lady, was raising her voice.  “Change it up!”  I didn’t.  In fairness, I had zero enthusiasm about saving anyone money and I really didn’t know what I was doing there, but I was starting to regret it.  Can’t you just film me getting kicked in the nuts and give $35?  I’ll take that right now.

My director finally said, “We’re done here!”  She waved me off like a bad fart.  Apparently, I was really supposed to dive into a world of saving people money at the store.  Maybe I should have done some Daniel Day Lewis level shit and lived in a grocery store for six months or some nonsense.  Sometime later, I realized it was a Wal-Mart commercial because I saw a guy in his late 30’s saying the exact same lines I had done.  WHERE’S THE IMPROV SKILLS ON THAT DUD!  He was actually friendly appearing and enthusiastic unlike me and not full of uppers like jittery guy at my audition.  I realized I am going to have to be more selective in my roles, like as in “Hey, we need someone to appear like a washed up drunk that hates human contact with strangers.”  I’m in!  Here’s my address to send the Oscar to now, to save you the hassle.

My kids are three and one and my wife and I agreed to take them to Dave and Buster’s.  We must have a gas leak or something.  Here’s how it went down…

Food – Everything on the menu has 2000 calories or more except if you lick the plate the salad came on.  That has 1400 calories.  Nothing like hammering out ribs and buffalo sliders, plus two 22 ounce beers and chasing a toddler around for 40 minutes.  I hope no one minds if I vomit in the pop a shot.

Games – 1/4 of the games are murder shooters, whether the angry model in the jungle Raider lady or zombie murder fun, not really for kids.  1/3 are ticket games.  The claw never works, my son crawled up the skeeball 33 times in a row and they’re too young to dance dance revolution (I’m too old to dance dance suggest changes).  I have to hold my daughter for most of the games to reach them.  I saw the Mario/Sonic 2016 Rio Olympics.  Looks fun, the freestyle swim in the open sewage event was a bit much, though.  We need something tasteful, like Temple Run.  Wait, this is a free iPhone app.  Remind me to sanitize everything also, I just saw a kid licking the air hockey pucks.

Ticket prizes! – I spent over $100 to get a ball my son chewed in half in seven seconds and a stuffed pink snail for my daughter.  All I got to do was push the gas pedal on Mario Kart and watch my son chuck ticket prize toys across the floor.  Granted, if my kids both sleep through the night, I will spend double that and take a swift kick to yambag.

HOLY HELL, do we need a purge.  That’s not a question, it’s a statement.  Here’s a rundown of people that suck (more than usual)!

First, the “I’ve never watched _______ but I’m going to post about how I’ve never watched it seventy-five times and I could have honestly watched three seasons by the time I ranted about it yet again.”  WE GET IT.  You don’t enjoy a movie that literally doubled the revenue of the second most popular movie of all-time, which by the way, was the predecessor to this film.  Good for you.  You also don’t watch Game of Thrones, which is the best show to air since Breaking Bad.  ENJOY WATCHING NOTHING THEN AND SHUT YOUR HOLE.  I don’t like pop music, I think people that listen have bad taste in music, but I’m not stupid enough to think if I post enough about metal, that everyone in America will be headbanging by next week.  Let people enjoy their stuff.

Secondly, the “director.”  This is one you may not think of, but they are out there and vocal.  The directors are people who would’ve, of course, made the last episode better, because why watch a show or movie and just enjoy it?  Here’s the Game of Thrones version of the “director”: “Only five major characters died in that battle scene, I would’ve made sure 23 did.”  GoT fans, for some reason, because the show kills off a lot of people, think if half the cast isn’t washed out each episode, the writers are selling out BECAUSE THAT’S A REALISTIC EXPECTATION.  Just replace the whole cast every three episodes!  Same with Marvel people and trust me, I’m a stickler as I’ve read all the relevant comics.  Guess what, you don’t need a verbatim movie, you already know what the comics did.  It’s OK (strokes head of nerd, then backhands violently).  YOU’RE NOT A PRODUCER, DIRECTOR, WRITER OR ACTOR.  SHUT YER HOLES.

Thirdly, the spoiler aka my mom didn’t tell me she loved me when I was kid person.  The sower of misery, the asshole of assholes, the “I need attention, even negative attention” scumbag.  I saw a few dildos do this, one even went as far as “you guys never comment on my posts that matter.”  Cool, so punish them by being a jerk off.  One guy even said, “My daughter just saw your spoiler and it ruined her weekend.”  Way to go, but hey, that 11 year never liked your post!  That showed her!  Of course, toss in the first example people that never watch chiming in comments like “I don’t like ______, I’m glad you ruined it!”  Well fuck you too, then.  Game of Thrones has over 30 million viewers and Avengers made 1.2 billion, so it’s clearly not you, it’s them.

I could cover more, but it’s exhausting to think 20% of the people I know are like this.  I just think we can all agree, anyone who spoils a movie on purpose should have a hot sauce enema for each person that saw their post and I’ll vote for whatever candidate gets on board with this.

I, like tens of millions, eagerly anticipated the return of Game of Thrones.  In all honesty, other than live sports, it’s the only show I watch live.  Week one, I turned on HBO and recorded the episode in advance.  All was right with the world.

Episode two was coming on, so I turned on my TV about 7:45 to make sure it was recording.  “You are not subscribed to this channel.”  OH MY DEAR SWEET LORD WHAT IS GOING ON??!!  I called, customer service was closed.  I went online and quickly added HBO to my plan, even though I already had it.  I called the tech support number – “No problem, sir, it should show up in a hour, maybe two.”  It never did.  FOR OVER 14 HOURS.

I called Monday and talked to the nicest, most incompetent rep on Earth.  I explained in great detail what happened.  “Yes, do I have HBO now?  What happened?  Why did it work?”  “Hello, sir, you have HBO!”  “Excellent, why did it shut off last night?”  “Oh you have it, you signed on last night!  Am I providing good customer service?”  “I know I signed on last night, it worked a week ago, didn’t last night.  It didn’t show up even this morning.”  “Yes sir!  You are signed up now, you have HBO!  Am I taking care of your needs?”  Me, breathing into a paper bag now, “Look, I had it a week ago and then I didn’t.  Why is that?”  “Yes, now you are a subscriber!”  I re-explained another two times.

I took one more very exasperated inhale and blew out.  “I KNOW I HAVE IT, I TOLD YOU THREE TIMES I HAD TO SUBSCRIBE.  WHY DID IT SHUT OFF?  WHY AM I PAYING NOW WHEN I HAD IT ALREADY?!”  Another five minutes of this and it finally clicked with her I was trying to find out what happened.  Turns out, my free period just happened to end randomly and it was free for everyone the first week.  “Great news, sir!  It was free for you last week no matter what!”  “COOL, I WATCHED IT.  I KNOW.  I REMEMBER THAT.  I WATCH ONE STUPID SHOW LIVE.  I HAVE TWO KIDS UNDER FOUR.  I HAVE LITERALLY ONE PART OF POP CULTURE THAT I STAY RELEVANT ON.  IF MY GAME OF THRONES ISN’T ON WHEN I GET HOME, I WILL UNLEASH A THOUSAND YEARS OF DARKNESS ONTO THE LAND.  MAKE IT WORK!”  “OK, I see you’ve subscribed!  Would you say I’ve answered your questions today?”  “HAVE A GOOD DAY.”  Click.

It worked and the Night King has been kept at bay for now.  If this happens again, I’m dragging someone from whatever call center on the other side of the globe to my house and making them fix it while I scream, “YOU’RE NOT PROVIDING THE BEST CUSTOMER SERVICE RIGHT NOW!”