Michael Irvin No Longer Follows the Cowboys :(

American Football has started again and it's time for more Cowboys bashing!

The first game of the season I sat with a couple of diehard Cowboys fans who hated Tony Romo!

I sat with them completely by accident. Really.

Today, I read an article about how you can get people to read your barely readable articles by coming up with a good title. I'm working on it.

Last night started the 2nd official week of the NFL with the Patriots beating the Jets 13 to 10.

But, this article, led me to blog.

It's a story about how Michael Irvin got upset with Tom Brady (QB for the Patriots) for being frustrated with his receivers.

It convinced me that either Michael doesn't watch the Cowboys anymore or maybe he watches them too much and then takes his anger against Romo out on quarterbacks (who have actually won playoff games) like Tom Brady.

Tony Romo is a big whiny baby. Every time he throws an interception it's someone else's fault. And "I get sick and tired of seeing him (being visibly frustrated) when someone runs the wrong route and, for reasons unknown, he throws it to the opposing team."

I'm convinced that when a Cowboys receiver runs the "wrong route" Tony purposefully throws it to the defense. Then, when the defense catches it, Tony walks off the field pissed off at all his receivers.

Tony is stupid. Tony has no business playing in the NFL.

Some folks will also blame it on the offensive line. I ask those people if they've every played a sporting event with someone who made them play better? I, for example, have bowled on several different bowling teams. There are certain people who make me play better. They are leaders. They lift people up with their positive attitude and knowledge of the sport.

If Tony was one of these people, his offensive line would be better. Hell, his receivers would probably run the routes he expects them to run. Tony is not one of these people. There is a very good reason that no GM, in their right minds, drafted him originally. GM's want to win playoff games. Jerry is not a good GM. He's a good businessman. He realized that those cute little dimples would get millions of women to watch the Cowboys every week regardless of their chances of winning a playoff game. Millions of viewers equals millions of dollars.

This year Romo is making about 18 million dollars. Jerry is hoping Tony will be healthy enough to watch the playoffs.

My Accounting Wife and Pi

Yesterday, my wife of less than a month surprised me with an email regarding my earnings. In a bold font with lots of exclamation points she demanded:

• My most recent pay check stub
• The amount of interest I had paid on my most recent house
• The amount of property taxes I had paid on my most recent house
• The number of exemptions I am claiming
• Whether or not I can claim a loss on the sale of my most recent house
• Any medical expenses not paid by FSA
• And finally any other deductions I can make

I was horrified, but I sent the information like a good little boy. She is an accountant after all and maybe she finds this kind of thing fun. I mean, I work on computers and sometimes, for reasons which are mysterious to me, I enjoy trying to bring broken PC's back to life.

Then, when she got home from work, it was right to business. Open up the laptop and start cranking out numbers. We're going to owe this much. We're paying more now that we're married than we did when we are single. What happens if we claim this person? What happens if we buy a house? Do we need to change our exemptions? You are over paying. I am underpaying. It went on for hours.

Thirty minutes into it, I decided to watch Pi.

This was not a very good idea.When getting quizzed at random intervals about percentages and monetary amounts, you should not watch a move about a slightly deranged genius mathematician who tries to beat the stock market. Really.

It gave me nightmares. Well, let's call them disturbing dreams.

The first one involved a friend of mine from high school. He picked me up to take me on a road trip to some place I'd never heard of in Mexico. Several hours into the trip, he decided he didn't know where he was going and we had to stop at some little town in the middle of Mexico. They gave us a little room in the back of a hotel and invited us to the bar for tequila. Next morning I woke up and some muchacha is telling me that I won!

Seems that during our over indulgence of tequila, my buddy had bought some kind of lottery type ticket just before we passed out, but gave it to me because it was my birthday. Somehow I won $20,000. I gave him $10,000 of it since he bought the ticket so we decided to stay at the same place for another night, but invite another one of our high school friends to join us because we decided we were lost anyway.

The other friend showed up with his family in tow and that's when I woke up the first time.

Upon going back to sleep I dreamed that Texas had seceded from the Union because they didn't want to pay some ludicrous taxes implemented by the Obama administration. I was very irritated with the seceding. I was not a fan. I felt like I would be stuck in Texas forever. Then, we went to a Queensryche concert and it was funny because Geoff Tate (original singer for Queensryche) was irritated because he was going on a cruise out of Galveston and was having to get special permission from Texas President Perry to get back into the country.

Back to reality: apparently it's going to cost me about $2000 in additional taxes every year to stay married. I tried to tell her for $200 we could get divorced and just live together, but she wouldn't listen. No wonder my dreams are warped. It's the government's fault. Kind of makes you wonder why anyone (gay or otherwise) would want the government to recognize their union.

The British Jamaicans

While on my honeymoon in Jamaica we ran across a couple of British couples: two sisters and their husbands.

When we first met them, it was just the two sisters. Every time we saw them they were getting pissed (English for drunk). But, they were always having a good time and very talkative.

At some point they started trying to determine who I looked like. Well, not really at some point, because I seem to remember one of the sisters telling me I looked like James Bond (the Pierce Brosnan one) right after I said hello.

I don't see it, but it made her happy. Then again, she may have been pissed already. The first day we met them, their husbands were golfing and they were awfully flirty.

The next day, they were getting pissed with their husbands and they all had a go at who I looked like.

This time, the consensus was Paul Young. Except with their English accents to my Texas ears, it sounded like Pull Young. From that day forward every time they'd see me they'd say, "Hey Pull" and I'd be thinking they wanted me to go yank something for them. I'd be like, "Pull what?" Then they'd laugh and say, "No. Pull! Pull Young". And it would finally sink in that they were saying Paul, but without the Texas drawl.

One of the blokes finally did mention that I looked more like David Cassidy. Back when I had the long hair, I'd get the David Cassidy/Keith Partridge thing all the time. I think David Cassidy became uglier as he got older while I became better looking ;).

Durango's World

My blog used to be called Random Ramblings. Or Gar's Random Ramblings. Or maybe it was the Random Ramblings of Gar. I don't remember.

Upon the recommendation of a friend, I changed it to Gar's World which seemed, I don't know, easier to remember.

A couple of weeks ago, my blogging mentor and nemesis, Durango, decided to create a Durango World blog. At first I thought he was joking. I thought perhaps he was just coming up with something to belittle my new blog title.

I did a search for the Durango World blog he mentioned and I couldn't find it.

Well, he's finally started writing and I must say: I like the Durango World blog more than I do his Durango Texas blog. I read post after post today without slowing down or growing bored. I even felt inclined to comment a couple of times, but I decided to write my own post instead.

I don't know how much he actually reads my posts but he took one of my little asinine spoutings and spun it into gold with this particular post about Obamacare.

Anyway, come to my little blog site once a day, look on the right column and click on Infamous World of Durango. I'm quite impressed, but don't tell him that.

Necessary Randomness

As you may or may not be aware, I got married on August 17th.

Last week I was in Jamaica on my honeymoon so no blogging.

However, I shall share with you some stories and an interesting thing or two I learned while in Jamaica.

First of all, I've always claimed that mosquitoes don't like me for one reason or another. I almost never get bit. I'd like to update this information. Texas mosquitoes don't like me. Jamaican mosquitoes think I'm the best thing since sliced bread. I've got bites in places mosquitoes have no business going and can't be scratched without public ridicule and persecution.

On a somewhat completely unrelated note, I recently discovered Google's Blogger has been sending all my comment information to a defunct email address so it was never getting read (by me). I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to any commenters I failed to sarcastically respond to. And I'm rather pleased now after being quite sad about the lack of comments. There were a whole mess of comments I never saw! How exciting is that? I briefly thought about responding to all of them, but I rejected the idea and instead fabricated an arbitrary cutoff date. Sorry again.

Football season is about to start back up! While in Jamaica I kept crossing paths with a large man from Washington DC who was always wearing a Redskins baseball cap. One fine day, after two or three too many Rum Punches, I confronted the Redskins fan.

"Hello Sir," I said with a smile, "I see you are a Redskins fan. Well, I'm from Dallas, and I'd like to offer you Tony Romo in exchange for RG 3."

He looked at me, kind of snickered and said, "Are you kidding? We'd never do that! Tony Romo is our best player."

The Green Mile

On Saturday, I'm getting married again.

When I was wee little child I never imagined getting married more than once. But, as I learned early on, "Shit Happens".

It's funny how things work. Now that I'm about to get married for the third time all kinds of interesting tidbits come about. My doctor recently asked me if this is, "three strikes and you're out". I told her, "no, third time is a charm". She went on to say something else about my second divorce seemed easier than my first divorce and I said, "practice makes perfect'.

It was after my first divorce that I went to counseling. The best thing I learned from my counselor was that it's all about perspective. I wish I had learned that when I was 20. "Change your way of thinking; change your life". You are not going to a movie by yourself, you are going to the movie you want to watch and not having to share your popcorn.

Now my life is an ongoing game of perspectives.

I have a friend I've known since I was about 11. We were both kind of nerds in a small town. We played Dungeons and Dragons together religiously. We put computers together back when the only things going were Apple II's, Commodore 64's and TRS 80's. He was the best man at my first two weddings and he's flying in from India to hold my hand during this wedding as well. Some things never change.

In case you've been reading my blog for longer than I've been writing it, I play this game with astrology. You can read about it here.

I'm an Aquarius. I was born February 14th. My future wife was born February 11th. When I was 5, 6 and 7, I used to hang out with a girl down the street. She was born February 8th (I think -- it was sometime in February - she canceled her Facebook account so I can't look it up). My first kiss was from a girl born on February 9th. After my first divorce, I became really good friends with a girl born February 10th. Which is saying a lot coming from a guy who has few friends. One of my few girlfriends (I think I had 3) in high school was born January 29th.

The best man at all my weddings? He was born January 23rd.

We're all Aquarians. We're all happy.

The other day I was reading my daily dose of useless news when I came across a headline about Shakira's abs. Shakira was born on February 2nd. The reason her abs were on the news was because she had a baby on January 22nd. Her boyfriend (the child's father) was born on February 2nd. I feel like Sharika and I have a common bond. We surround ourselves with happy Aquarians.

I doubt I shall be blogging again for a while. I'm packing, cleaning and entertaining guests, getting married on Saturday and going to Jamaica next week. I'll have better things to do.

Laws and People and Things

I've been kind of toying with this idea for a while. I don't really think it's blogworthy or blogready, but I'll write about it anyway for practice.

If you peruse my site at all, you'll know I do a lot of complaining about stupid laws. In fact it was one of Texas's stupid laws that got me banned from Adsense.

I spend a lot of time asking why? Why can't I buy liquor on Sundays? Why can't I smoke pot? Why can't I carry an open beer around at the park (this may be a Texas thing)? It's even doubly troubling when you consider I supposedly live in the "land of the free".

I remember about 12 years ago, I went overseas for the first time. My company sent me to Amsterdam (The Netherlands). People walked around with beer. There were shops where you could buy pot. There was occasional cussing on the radio. Nobody threatened to fine me if I didn't "buckle up". I didn't stay until Sunday. It's possible everything including the red light district closed down on Sunday. But, I was impressed and felt a little brainwashed by the "American Dream".

So, why all the laws? If you think about it and we all just behave like decent human beings, how many laws could you do away with? You could do away with handicap parking for example.

Handicap parking is a law because we don't think about anyone but ourselves. If we were decent people, we'd park in the space furthest from the door and walk. Because as a considerate person, we would know that there are other people who need to park closer because they are sick, have little kids, are pregnant, or just can't walk. Why do we always have to get the closest spot?

Even with handicap laws like they are, why do you get the closest spot? I see people combing parking lots to get as close as they can to the front door. Why do you have to be closest to the door? Walk a little bit. Get some exercise. You'll live longer.

If we lived in a society capable of thinking of others, the parking spaces furthest from the door would fill up first.

Why does the government tax us for social security and welfare? Shouldn't that be normal? We gladly support the idea that we all have unalienable rights. We all expect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's not free.

We curse the government for taxing us, but would we guarantee others who are less fortunate those "unalienable rights"? Shouldn't we just freely take care of them?

It would be impossible to pursue happiness if you were born with an incurable disease or managed to get one as a youngster. Therefore, I'd opine that being healthy is a right. We have the right to be healthy. Even in Texas where we don't have the right to buy alcohol within 300 feet or a church.

For some real reading, here is my Durango link for today. It's a story about his parents and the American Dream of drinking beer in Death Valley.