Saturday Night Dead

The good thing about living in New York is that you usually have a group of friends, and then an extended group of friends, and friends of friends (as well as people you just hate, but hang out with anyway). This usually leaves you with at least 2 or 3 options to do something each night of the weekend with any of 223950 people you know. Unfortunately, I don't live in New York anymore. I live in DC. Since 2 of my friends are out of town and one is having dinner with his girlfriend and her friends, I am shit out of luck in the going out department. Incidentally, my girlfriend is out of town as well.

So, what should I do this fine Saturday night? I have been watching the tournament (I need UNC to win tonight, but god won't let that happen because 1) he doesn't exist, 2) I refuse to capitalize his name, 3) I celebrate Passover with a slice of pizza, and 4) that would make me happy.) I also played a little internet poker. I'm actually getting pretty good. In 6 single table tournaments, I finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, and 6th out of 9 players, respectively (god dammit, give each one some respect!). I started drinking at 9:30. And I might go to the Irish bar on my corner to see if they still have live music later (the bar burned down earlier this year and may not still have the funds to pay the blind guitar player/singer).

At least SNL is one that I have not seen tonight. That show has been pretty awful since Tracy Morgan, Will Ferrell, and Jimmy Fallon left. I know, Jimmy Fallon wasn't that funny, but I loved his DJ (notice I didn't spell out DJ) sketch. AND WE'RE BAAAAAAAACK! Topher Grace is the host, so there is some potential. Usually, they have been going with gimmick hosts (like ones who are the musical guest and the host, like Queen Latifah or ones with no discernable talent, like Paris Hilton). I wonder if Lorne Michaels of 1975 would respect Lorne Michaels of 2005. Artistically, definitely not. Monitarily, probably.

The cast is long overdue for an overhaul. The first person I suggest they bring in is none other than myself. Catheter Man is ready to step up to the plate. Sure, I haven't been in any organized acting activity since I played an apple in "Let George do it," our 4th grade play, but hey, I'd work for cheap. Come to think of it, I may have played the 2nd baseman in "Casey at the Bat" in 5th grade. Both very strenous roles that even Meryl Streep wouldn't try.

So Lorne Michaels, if you are reading this, feel free to email me at catheterman@hotmail.com. Who was the last cast member you hired to have a law degree? Maybe Garrett Morris, but other than that, I can't think of any. Here's what I am offering: I will write, act, edit any video you need, act as a legal intern, and get you lunch. I don't think you'll find a better offer than that. Plus, I'm not afraid to do nude scenes. I know you don't normally go there on tv, but just keep it in mind.

Help me help you. Help me...help you.

Not in those words... officially drops today!

Happy April Fool's, bitches! I assure you, the release of the blog to the general public is no joke. It is appropriate that I am dropping this shit on April Fool's Day, because I am quite the fool and it is April. If you have not been privy to the blog until now, thats because I have not wanted you to see it yet. I was hoping to hone my instrument (my fingers) and get a good backlog of posts going before I shocked the world. As you can see, I was quite busy during March. Take a look at the archives. It'll get you drunk (not really, but if you are drinking while reading you could get drunk).

Please feel free to leave comments on any of the posts or email me at catheterman@hotmail.com, as I'm hoping to make this a more interactive forum (read: hate mail). If you have a blog, please link to mine and let me know, so I can return the favor. Oh, and if you are a female, feel free to send naked pictures of yourself. Anyway, enjoy the blog and remember: When Catheter Man talks, people listen.

A letter to QVC

Have you seen this commercial for QVC where some dumb whore screams at the top of her lungs, "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Have nothing to wear!"? Well, if you haven't you are in luck. The effect of this commercial is maddening. What follows is a transcript of an email I sent QVC. And yes, I asked for them to respond. If I get a response and its good, I'll post it.

Dear QVC,

Please, if you have any regard for humanity, stop airing that commercial where the woman screams at the top of her lungs that she has nothing to wear. Every time I hear this commercial come on tv, it makes me want to puncture my eardrums with a dull, rusty spoon that has just been dipped in hot sauce and spat on by a homeless crack addict.

Seriously, this commercial must be stopped. How would you like it if every 10 minutes or so, I randomly showed up next to you and screamed in your ear for about 5 seconds? Doesn't sound fun, does it? That is what is happeneing here with your commercial.

Now I'm sure that as a customer service representative, you probably don't have the power to get that piece of crap off the air, but maybe you could pass my sentiments along to management so that I don't need to hear that bitch scream anymore.

Yours in Christ,

Catheter Man

2005: Year of the Catheter?

I have been participating in fantasy sports, Superbowl, and NCAA pools since high school. For all of my sports knowledge and prediction abilities, I have never really had much success (save for winning a few non-money fantasy baseball leagues and finishing second in football twice). This year could be different.

It started out, as most years do, with the annual Superbowl boxes game. Usually, I spend anywhere from 10-25 dollars just to make the game more exciting (since the Redskins will not be in the Superbowl until the uncapped year in '07). I always expect that I am just throwing my money away because this game is based purely on luck (of which I have very little). Well, this year I actually won one of the quarters and recouped my $15 dollar investment. It wasn't a huge win, but at least I got my money back (I also ate my weight in crab dip, pigs in a blanket, and fried chicken, but thats neither here nor there).

I am also in a random no money NBA head to head fantasy league on Yahoo. I finished the regular season in first place and have the number one seed (and a bye) going into the playoffs. I'm feeling pretty good about my chances in that league, especially if Tim Duncan and Antawn Jamison come back from their injuries in the next week or so. By the way, Primoz Brezec and Joel Pryzbilla are blowing up right now!

Next is the NCAA Tournament Pool. Normally, I finish 1 spot out of the money every year. But despite what I may have thought before, the scenario generator says that I have a chance to be in the money if any team wins besides Illinois. If UNC beats Illinois in the Finals I could finish as high as second place. If I can get 2nd place in this, it would be huge. I'm not sure how much I would win, but it would be at least the $15 I put into it.

So is this it? Is 2005 the year of the Catheter? Only time will tell. I have a non-money fantasy baseball team that I am pretty happy with. I have 2 football leagues I usually do (with awful luck). We shall see if the roll continues throughout the whole year.

Of course, by talking about the current status of my NBA and NCAA things, I'm sure I just jinxed myself and will spend the rest of the year cursing myself for picking Syracuse in the Final Four instead of Michigan State (my second choice in that bracket).

Ramblings

Here are some things I've been thinking about lately:

--Don't you hate people who preface every statement with: "I was just going to say..." and then continue with their thought? Were you just going to say it or are you saying it right now? Just skip the preface and give us whatever nonsense it is you were thinking. You are just talking to get class participation points anyway. Douchebag.

--Whats up with all these spam e-mails I get with titles like "Christian Debt Relief" and "Christian Singles in your area"? First of all, I'm not Christian. Second, even if I was, I'd be kind of offended that these morons are trying to use religion to be successful spammers.

--Rolly bags are the devil's spawn. For those of you who aren't in law school, rolly (rhymes with holy) bags are just like those suitcases with wheels and a handle, only slightly (and I stress slightly) smaller. These can be seen trailing 3 feet behind fat girls, clogging up elevators, and hitting people in the legs. Hey lazy, maybe you could use the extra exercise of carrying your books. Nothing makes me happier than seeing a fat girl try to carry a rolly bag up a flight of stairs.

--Rev. Jerry Falwell is supposedly in critical condition right now. I think this is an appropriate time to remember the man for his greatest accomplishment: losing his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. [A spoof ad claiming just that was the subject of his lawsuit against Larry Flynt, which Falwell deservedly lost].

--As long as we're making fun of the infirm, we might as well go ahead and take shots at the deceased. Johnnie Cochran just died. They are saying he had some brain disorder (like one that would make him believe OJ was innocent?). I think he was killed by some random person and the brain disorder was set up via a huge conspiracy in the racist LA police department.

--I think the best part about cable shows about food are their willingness to employ hosts from cheesy early 90's game shows. With Marc Summers from Double Dare and Mark DeCarlo from Studs already in the stable, it can't be too long before Nitro from American Gladiators gets his own show to talk about the wonders of pork or something.

--Whoever decided that work/school should start at 9 am is an asshole. Whoever decided that Americans can't have a Siesta in the middle of the day is a bigger asshole. Whoever decided that graduation from law school requires an "upper level writing requirement" is the biggest asshole.

--I don't think I have taken a dump in at least 5 days, even with a few bacon, egg, and cheeses, Julia's Empanadas, and Chipotle thrown in the mix. I think something is seriously wrong with my digestive system.

--Bubba Ho Tep is the strangest big studio movie I have ever seen. It took me about 40 minutes to figure out what the hell was going on.

--What's up with these people who call things "double-edge swords"? Aren't all swords double-edged? Isn't a single-edged sword called a knife or a sickle or something?

--I think Netflix should not only rent porn, but also video games. They are missing out on a ton of money.

--American Idol just did their 90's theme show. I'm pretty sure I was in my music heyday in the 90's, yet I only recognized about 4 of the 10 songs the contestants picked. What up wit dat?

--I'm thinking Friday is a good date to officially "drop" the blog. Why the short notice? Because I don't want the internet downloaders to get hold of it and screw up the opening weekend numbers.

Camp, Part Deux

When I read that last Camp post, I decided that a few more things need to be added to my favorite memories of sleep away camp and a few things need to be explained. Here goes...Camp, Part Deux

Roller Hockey. Sleep away camp is where I first developed my love of roller hockey. When I first started at the upper camp, rollerblades had just come out and since I wasn't too into skating, I didn't have any. Nor did I really want them. This changed as soon as I witnessed my first roller hockey game at camp. A good number of guys at camp actually played ice hockey in the winter, so roller hockey was taken pretty seriously. We had real boards around our basketball court so that it was like a real hockey rink. The only difference was that our rink was square so you couldn't "push it around the dashers," as Craig Laughlin would say. There were also usually two or three really good goalies also (they did not have to wear skates to make the scores more realistic). Anyway, my second year at camp, you better believe I had rollerblades. From then on, I loved roller hockey. Also, since I had like the second rollerblades ever made and I have what doctors call "wide feet," I would usually need to take off my left skate at least a few times during each game. Afterward, I could barely walk. All for the love of the game.

Riflery. Jews and guns don't mix, you say? Nonsense! At camp, we had rifelry. Somehow, they allowed us to shoot real .22 caliber rifles. I know a .22 is pretty wimpy, but still. It was a real gun! I was pretty damn good at riflery. I even shot the little plastic thingy that holds the bullets at about 25 yards away (or whatever the distance was). The best thing to do in riflery was to fill up a soda can with water all the way to the top and then shoot it. When you hit it, the pressure would blow a huge hole out of the back of the can. Good times. The funny thing was that they actually made me teach riflery one summer. Come to think of it, they also made me teach archery (which I was terrible at). I guess they thought I was either really responsible or really violent.

Living in Tents. I mentioned in the first post that we used to live in tents. Well, this was the way it went. In the lower camp, we lived in cabins. In your first year in the upper camp (age 13), you lived in "dorms" and were called "dormies." These consisted of what looked like college dorm rooms, but with 2 bunk beds in each one. There were only 8 dorm rooms and 4 were for counselors my year.

The next year, you would start living in tents. This was much cooler than it sounds. The floor of the tent was a wood platform about 10 feet by 10 feet, raised off the ground by cinder blocks so that it wouldn't flood. Then there were posts about 10 feet tall in the front and back of the tent to keep it raised. The back post had a light and electrical outlets. The tent was made of a really thick material, that I can't really even describe, but there was a tent cover to protect against rain. So, these were not your typical tents. Normally, two people would share a tent and there was plently of room for a bed, cubby, fan, trunk, boom box, and whatever else you would want to bring.

Then, there were the "Super" tents. These were the same setup, but much bigger. Super A and Super B held 4 or 5 kids each and the Super Duper held up to 9. Normally, in your junior year, one group would get Super A and the rest would be in normal tents. Senior year, one group would get Super B and the rest would be in regular tents. CIT year, everyone would be in the Super Duper. Due to a lack of attendance my senior year, I was in the Super Duper and stayed there for my CIT year. I think I hold the record for most consecutive sessions spent in the Duper at 3.

Services. Seeing as this was a "jewish" camp, we were supposed to have some sort of services on saturday morning. I'm not sure if there were ever serious services, but by the time I was in camp, it had devolved into people reading out of Shel Silverstein poetry books and singing songs. The songs were typical camp songs and to this day, I have no idea why we sang them at services. They included such classics as: "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Fire and Rain," "Cats in the Cradle," and "Country Roads." The only jewish part of the whole thing was that we would start off services with the song "Bim Bam."

Sing Out Timber Ridge. TR stands for the name of the group of camps I went to and has been withheld to protect its (my) identity.[I was going to do that, but since I later need to use the name in lyrics, I'll divulge it] Anyway, Sing Out TR was a yearly tradition where you would get together with all the kids in your age group and compete in a group sing off about how great camp is. The counselors would write lyrics about camp to popular songs and then we'd practice a lot (I used to hate this shit) in order to compete with the other camps. As much as I hated it, I still remember some of the songs from when I was young. Examples:

From when I was 10: (Sung to the Miami Dolphins song)
"We are the Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers number one.
We are the Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers, we have fun.
From east to west and north to south, we come from coast to coast... back to West Virginia to the friends we love the most...
(Chorus)"

From when I was 11: (Sung to The Rose, by Bette Midler)
"Some say camp, it is a trial, with many ups and downs
Some say camp, it is a burden that will drive you to the ground
Some say camp, it is a struggle, with no family around
Timber Ridge, it is a heaven, where friendships do abound."

From when I was 12: (Sung to Faithfully, by Journey)
"Summer camp, a place where friendships are born, three camps reunite to form Timber Ridge.
New faces come and they are joined with the old (I don't remember this part, so on to the chorus!)
They say Timber Ridge is a great place to make a friend
We create memories that will last till the very end
The love and the friendships made are what all camps 'sposed to be
Oh, can we stay forever?
Its so hard to say goodbye....TIMBER RIDGE"

Anyway, as you can tell, they loved to talk about friendship in these songs and as much as I hated practicing them, they still are stuck in my head.

Rainy Day Activities. Some of you may be saying, "Camp is fun when its sunny, but what about when it rains?" You're right, we did have some kick-ass thunderstorms in WVa, but not that many a year. When it rained, we usually played Bombardment in the gym (basically dodgeball) and/or watched movies. Camp was where I first developed my love of the movie Major League. I think it was an unspoken rule that the first rainstorm of the year meant that there was a mandatory showing of Major League. It basically got to the point where I could recite that whole movie without even seeing it. I remember also seeing Point Break one time. Its pretty funny that somoene owned that movie.

Late Night Eats. You weren't supposed to have food in your tent, but everyone had some sort of stash hidden away. Usually this was candy, gum, chips, and the best camp food ever: Ramen Noodles. Camp was the place where I honed and perfected my technique for cooking Ramen Noodles. I always brought a hot pot, which for those who dont know, is a pitcher that plugs into a socket and heats up whatever is inside it. The best way to cook ramen is fill it up, let the water get all hot, dump 1 or 2 packages of noodles in there and let them cook. When they are done, pour out most of the excess water and then (and only then) put the flavor packets in. Voila! A perfect late night meal.

Another great thing about living in tents was that if you had to take a piss, there was no need to walk all the way to the bathrooms (a truly stank-ass facility that housed shitters, a urinal trough, and a communal shower room). Pissing out the back of a tent, though frowned upon, was a time-honored tradition at camp.

British Counselors. Normally, there was a group of about 4-8 Brits who would be counselors at camp. They were always one-year counselors who wanted to come to the US for a summer to experience camp and then see the rest of the country. The tragic thing was that they would all arrive at camp thinking they were going to be counselors and two would always get stuck being the kitchen helper and the cleaner, respectively. The first day of counselor training, the director would always make the same joke about the brits turning red if they didn't use sunblock.

One year, we had a lot of british counselore. I guess there were enough to field a soccer team because we played Brits v. US in soccer. I don't remember who won the game, but I do remember one of the campers bringing his boom box to the field and playing Neil Diamond's "Coming to America" before the game to pump everyone up.

The Infirmary. Perhaps my proudest accomplishment in life is that I never went to the infirmary in 8 years of being a camper and a counselor. Sure, everyone had to do the lice check at the beginning (and end) of the summer, but I never went for any other reason. The only cool part about the infirmary was that it was air conditioned and it had a tv/vcr to watch movies on.

The only two things of note that happened at the infirmary that I remember were that one of my friends snuck in there to see a chick he was hooking up with and she gave him a hand job and secondly, the token crazy kid, Allan, went nuts in there one night and threw a chair at someone. He was sent home soon after that.

Boy's Leagues. Finally, we get to my favorite thing about camp. I mentioned it in the earlier post, but I don't think I gave it its proper explanation. Boy's Leagues was a competition in which the whole boy's side of camp was drafted and put on teams to compete in various sports. The way the draft went was that the counselors determined a draft order for the CITs to pick their teams (they were captains). The worst athlete got the first pick and the best athlete got the last pick and the draft would snake. They would choose from the seniors, juniors, and dormies for about 6 or 8 rounds and the rest of the campers would just get allocated to teams. After (or during) the draft, CITs could trade. Rumor had it that one guy got traded for another guy, plus a can of coke.

Once the teams were decided, they wold compete in 2 sports every other day (M,W,F as I recall). The sport combinations were Softball and Water Polo, Basketball and Hockey, and Football and Soccer. Wins and losses were tallied and a standings board was kept on the wall of the dining hall. At the end of the season, there would be a tournament and the first place team would play the last place team and so on. The winner of the tournament would get bragging rights and a trip to Tastee-Freez.

Incidentally, there were also Girl's Leagues. But they only played one sport each time and there was guaranteed to be at least one athsma attack in each game.

My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord... and its name is the Burger King Enormous Omelete Sandwich (or NAMBLA, for short).