Friday, August 28, 2009

Everything Must Go! Get It While It's Hot!

California is having its blow-out garage sale right now. Apparently by selling a few odds and ins such as old prison uniforms and a spare Xbox 360, the esteemed actor governor of California is convinced that he can wipe out the state's $25 billion deficit. That, my friends, is one hell of a garage sale.

Mrs. Stickman and I tried to do a garage sale once. The thing brought in a gross profit of around $25. Then after we paid the kids off for helping set it up, we brought in a net of about $3. And then we still ended taking a couple truckloads of crap to a charity. The most ridiculous thing about that whole garage sale, however, was the fact that the kids wanted the money for all the crap of theirs that we sold - apparently it didn't matter that I am the one that bought it all.

So anyway, I figure the state of California is screwed. Perhaps they can get a sponsor. You know how all of the sports arenas, and the college bowl games, and almost everything else you can think of has a sponsor now? They could be the Microsoft State of California. Or the Viacom State of California. Or something more saucy like Victoria's Secret State of California. Or we could make it real easy and have it be the Mexico State of California.

From what I understand, they are looking to increase the value of items by having the governor autograph them. I can not think of a better Halloween costume than a California State Penitentiary uniform autographed by Arnold Schwarzeneggar. And who wouldn't want The Terminator's signature on their car? Uhmmm...me.

I wish I would have thought of offering to autograph the things at our garage sale. Who wouldn't want a Stickman autograph on their child's Abercrombie jeans? I bet we could have brought in at least $26 dollars if I would have thought of that.

What are they going to think of next in California? Sell all the stop signs? The traffic lights? Maybe they could sell all their illegal immigrants back to Mexico. That would be a good deal, especially since they would probably just come right back anyway. They could keep reselling the same immigrants.

I bet the top item at the garage sale is the big giant knife that Governor Schwarzenegger used in his famous garage salesman video. I bet they could get at least $100 for a giant buck. $150 if he signed it!




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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

How Can One Little Puppy Exhaust Me So Much?

As I set here and type this blog, I can barely keep my eyes open. Our little puppy is just wearing me out. It is constant work to have a puppy in your house. I hear the word "NO!" in my sleep. I find myself daydreaming about going outside to go potty. How much more of this can a human being take?!?

For something that was to be the complete responsibility of the children, I sure am doing a lot of work. Getting up at 5am to take the dog outside to do her business isn't exactly what I signed up for. And yet, I find myself loving that dog so much already that I can't just let her be miserable. Also, I am so anal retentive that I can't stand the thought of a mess in her crate - or my house!

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d yjsy yr;; u pi

See? I am so tired that I just typed an entire sentence with my fingers in the wrong spot on the keyboard. That's pretty bad! Not only am I getting up early to take the dog out, be we are staying up on average about an hour later than we normally do so that we can get one final potty in for her before we go to bed.

Our puppy's sister - that Mrs. Stickman's sister's family got - is the calmest puppy ever. It sleeps and cuddles and sleeps. Our puppy plays and bites and plays. We had to get the hyper one. Sure when she is older that may make her much more fun, but right now it is exhausting.

I am going to turn this blog into my puppy venting outlet if I'm not careful. I promise more funny once I can get some sleep.




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Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Medieval Puppy Training Method

This is quickly becoming a dog blog. I am sorry for that fact, but the puppy is an all consuming force. Day in and day out we shall eat, breath, and sleep puppy. OK, don't get alarmed... we aren't actually going to eat the puppy. We are breathing a lot of her though, and she smells like wet dog. And we certainly aren't sleeping - that puppy sure can cry at night.

So, before I go any farther, some of you have demanded to see this puppy so that you may judge - once and for all - her cuteness. So, without further ado, I present to you Presley (yes I named her after my hero, Elvis):



Told you she was cute. She is 6 weeks old. She's what they call a Labradinger, which is a mix of English Springer Spaniel and Labrador. And she is much more awesome in real life than she is in this picture.

So after spending the day with her yesterday, and reading much crap on the internet, Mrs. Stickman has decided to subscribe to the Medieval Puppy Training Method, in which you torture the poor puppy by locking her up in cage all the time and only taking her out to go to the bathroom, and to play occasionally.

This plan involves a lot of crying, gnawing on the cage, and attempts to find escape hatches - and that's just me, although the puppy doesn't like it either. Turns out that I am just a big softy in this dog situation, because I can hardly stand it. We're not even allowed to talk to the poor dog when she's in the cage. How cruel is that.

Also, if the dog ever IS allowed out of the cage, she is not allowed to step on any of the rugs. We have a lot of very large area rugs on our main floor. This is going to involve a lot of zig zagging and movement restrictions on the poor dog. It's so not fair. Not to mention that the basement and the second floor are carpeted, so she can't go there at all!

I figure we're going to end up with a dog that can go to the bathroom outside, but hates our stinking guts the rest of the time. Poor little puppy. She probably feels like she got captured by Al Qaeda or the Taliban or something.

I can't wait until she is potty trained so that we can actually start to enjoy her again! Stickman out!



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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

I Get A Dog, I Like The Dog, I Get Mocked - I Can't Win

You would think that since I went against everything I stood for, and out of the abundance of love and generosity in my heart, got my family a beautiful little puppy that I would be the king of my world, the master of my domain, the beloved husband and father; however, just as with anything else I do, I just end up getting mocked. How does this happen?

Before I got the dog, when I was still in my "no pets in our house" stage, I was accused of terrible things like being a dog hater or a puppy kicker. I was mean. I was cruel. I was the only person in the world that didn't know that every kid must grow up having a dog.

(On a side note about that: Girl Child said to Mrs. Stickman: "Every kid needs to have a dog growing up." Mrs. S said: "You're not a kid anymore, you are already grown up." Girl Child: "I am too still a kid." Mrs. S: "Then take off your boobs!" Isn't that hilarious!)

After all of these cruel things were said about me, much like Jesus, I forgave my family for they knew not what they did. And then with all the love in me, I snuck out and secretly got a puppy for our house. Everyone is concerned that I have made a terrible mistake and that I will be mean to the puppy and treat it badly. Preposterous!

Instead, I absolutely love the puppy, and I talk to it and treat it like a baby, and I play with it, and I take pictures of it, and I hang these pictures in my office, and it is my pride and joy. Obviously, everybody in our family finds this to be wonderful and is so thankful to me, and tells me how awesome I am, right? WRONG! They mock! They point and laugh!

I threaten to get rid of the dog if that is how they are going to treat me. They don't believe it because they know I am absolutely in love with the damn dog. I make them promise to not tell anyone outside of our house that I like the dog. They lie and say OK, although I know they will tell everyone.

What's a guy got to do to get a little love? I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?




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Tuesday, August 18, 2009

I Am A Hero - I Got A Damn Dog!

On Saturday Mrs. Stickman's sister and her family came over to hang out and go swimming and grill and drink and all of that good stuff that we do in the summer. Only this time, they brought along a brand new member of the family. Oh yes, a puppy!

Now this puppy was the cutest little puppy I have seen in a long time. You couldn't help but love this puppy. Mrs. Stickman and Girl Child fell so in love with this puppy that they instantly began to demand a puppy of their own.

I have a pretty strong anti-pet stance that I have stood behind for quite some time. I know that a damn dog would eat my shoes, piss and poop all over my house, ruin everything that I work hard to provide for my family. In general, I felt a dog was a bad idea.

After seeing the faces of the females in our house, I began to break down. And I have to admit, that puppy was damn adorable. So I inquired as to the availability of another puppy from the same little as our new niece puppy. Is that what you would call that? Seems odd.

So I began a secret campaign to get a puppy. I would sneak into the house and try to call the owners. Turns out they were out of town for the day on Sunday. So I called yesterday, and it turns out all the puppies were spoken for. So I was bummed and told Mrs. Stickman that we were too late, they were all gone.

And then I get a call back today that one of the families that took a puppy aren't going to be able to keep it, so we can have it. So in about 1 hour, I will officially be a puppy owner. I am excited and nervous at the same time. However, I know that my family is going to be so excited. I will be the hero!

An additional benefit is that I get to use the "I bought you a puppy" line for the next 6 months or so to get just about anything I want. And I plan on milking this for all that it is worth. "Go get me a beer." "Give me some sex." "I want that new phone." "We watch what I want to watch." And if there is any descent...."I bought you a puppy."

I sure hope this goes well. I don't want to become a puppy kicker.




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Thursday, August 13, 2009

Is It Weird To Love A Pair Of Socks?

When we were on our recent excursion to the East Coast, I did as any self-respecting man does on vacation and shopped for shoes. What can I say, I am a man that loves shoe shopping. Is that so wrong?

In Philly, I hit the Puma store (one of my favorite shoe brands) and found a cool new pair of shoes. I also picked a couple pairs of athletic type ankle socks in the store. They were white with giant pumas on the bottom of the feet area.

I wore these new socks the next day as we were wandering around downtown Philly. They were very comfortable, they wicked moisture well, and I was very pleased with their performance.

So that night, back at the hotel, I removed my shoes and laid down on the bed. I begin to check out my new socks and admire the pumas on the bottom of each foot. As I checked them out, I began to ask them if they enjoyed their day walking around. And then I began to sing to them about how great of socks they were, and how much I loved them.

As I did this, Mrs. Stickman and Girl Child had stopped whatever it is annoying females do after returning to the hotel after walking around the city on vacation they were doing, and began to mock me for enjoying the company of my socks. What is that? I performed no mockable act.

And, therefore, I ask the question - Is it weird to love a pair of socks? To talk to them about your day? To name them Puma 1 and Puma 2? To sing a little song of love and appreciation to them for bringing you through the day blister free, or for wicking your foot sweat away, or for keeping your feet from stinking?

I dare say that NO, it is not weird. It is awesome! It is cool! And it is most definitely absolutely normal!!

So eat it Mrs. Stickman and Girl Child! Stickman out!



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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

30 Million Things You Didn't Know About Money - Just Kidding, It's Really Only 30 Things

Do you think you know a lot about money? Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. But let’s see if any of the following facts are in any way surprising to you:


1. More of our fantasies are about money… than sex.

2. If we could have any luxury in the world (and money didn’t matter) more of us would choose to spend money on a butler and a maid than anything else. I would buy Mr. Belvedere and Alice from The Brady Bunch.

3. 90% of Americans who own pets buy them Christmas gifts. Also, 90% of Americans are retards.

4. Money is the leading cause of disagreements in marriages. A close second is who controls the money.

5. 65% of Americans would live on a deserted island all by themselves for an entire year for $1,000,000. Only 50% would go on Survivor.

6. For $10,000,000 most of us would do almost ANYTHING! Including abandoning our family and friends and our church. A very high percentage of us would, for that same amount of money, change our race or sex. And, 1 in every 14, would even murder someone for ten million bucks. What’s really strange about this is, the statistics remain the same whether it’s ten million dollars all the way down to three million. For three million bucks, most of us would do the same horrible things we would do for ten million. But, guess what? Few of us would do these things for a “measly” two million.

7. 92% of us would rather be rich than find the love of our lives. 100% of us would rather do both.

8. Here’s a weighty one: Money (or the lack thereof) is the biggest stress inducer in the lives of Americans. We worry more about money than our marriages, our health, or even who’s going to win the Superbowl Game - unless we have all of our money riding on the game.

9. If you get your money out of a Hitachi ATM machine in Japan, it will be laundered. The way they do it is, they briefly press the bills between rollers at high enough temperatures to kill most bacteria.

10. Nearly half of the people who sell their houses with furniture included will take all the light bulbs out of all the lamps when they vacate the premises. It's a great gag, the new owners just walk around bumping into the furniture.

11. Most people won’t bend over to pick up money lying on the sidewalk unless it’s at least a dollar. This is how Warren Buffet made his first million - by picking up all the change that everyone else walked by.

12. Most Americans think pennies are a pain in the ass and the U.S. Mint should stop making them. Great idea!

13. There is about 405 billion dollars in circulation. Only 32 million of that amount is counterfeit. That means, the percentage of counterfeit money in America is .0079%. And, $20 bills are more often counterfeited than $100 bills. And yet, the damn cashiers at the store always have to check the bills with that damn marker thing.

14. Do people care if their bills are crisp? Indeed, they do. Fresh, crisp, clean bills are considered much more valuable than those which are old, wrinkled and dirty. My Father-in-Law actually irons his money! Can you believe that?

15. Let’s flip a coin and try to guess whether it will come up heads or tails. Three times as many people guess ‘heads’ than ‘tails’.

16. Here’s one I personally think really sucks: One out of every four Americans believe their best chance of getting rich is by playing the lottery. One out of ever four Americans are also lazy ass idiots.

17. How about this one for a shocking fact: 5% of lottery ticket buyers buy 51% of all tickets sold. Trust me, none of these people belong to the “Einsteins of America Society”.

18. A staggering 74% of us are influenced by how much we can win in a lottery as opposed to the odds of us winning. Duh!

19. That’s a good thing for the Government because the odds of winning a lottery jackpot are about 10 million to 1.

20. A person who drives 10 miles to buy a lottery ticket is 3 times more likely to be killed in a car accident while driving to buy the ticket than he is to win the jackpot.

21. Few people know it but, you can buy single-disease insurance. Can you get it for Moronitis? Then all those lottery ticket buyers could get their ticket expenses reimbursed.

22. Here’s one that’s really important: 63% of us decide NOT to buy a product advertised on the Internet… because… we think the shipping and handling charges add too much to the order.

23. Eight times as many Americans would rather use an ATM than deal with a real live teller. I would rather do anything in a way that doesn't have to deal with another human being - they always screw things up!

24. This one’s going to blow your mind: 83% of Americans still pay with checks instead of credit cards! And 100% of these people get in front of me at the grocery store.

25. Almost 30% of us say we would need 3 million smackaroos to feel rich. This ties in with the fact most of us would do anything for as little as $3 million… but… not nearly as many of us would do those identical things for a measly $2 million. (Hey, here’s your chance to take advantage of that situation. If you only want to pay $2 million to have something done, ask me if I’ll do it. The chances are, believe it or not, I WILL DO IT.)

26. Two-thirds of Americans say they wouldn’t let their spouse spend the night and have sex with another person for a million dollars. Many of these people are liars. There’s a big difference being asked if they would do it for a million dollars… as opposed to… handing them a paper sack containing the million fungolas and simply saying, “Here, you can have this if you’ll let me sleep with your sweetie tonight.”

27. More than one-third of American women consider money more important than good sex to the success of a marriage. Maybe I should wear underwear made out of money.

28. According to Employee Benefits Research Institute 96% of all people who have jobs right now won’t be eligible for their full Social Security benefits when they reach age 65.

29. One of the best ways to raise money for a charity is to have a free dinner for a lot of people and have an empty envelope tucked under their plate… for the express purpose… of making whatever size donation they want.

30. People tip more on sunny days than they do on dreary days.


Lot's of interesting insight into the money situation here. I hope we have all learned a valuable lesson. What that lesson is, I have no idea!


Stickman out!




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Thursday, August 6, 2009

It's A Good Thing Martha Washington Was Rich, Cause She Was A Hag

Far be it from me to criticize the mother of our nation, but that Martha Washington was not a looker in the least bit. Not that George Washington was exactly Brad Pitt or anything himself. With parents like those two, it's no wonder America is such an ugly nation!

I don't know that I had ever really seen a picture of Mrs. Washington before we were in a museum in Philadelphia on our trip last week. As boy child and I were working our way through the photo gallery in this museum, we came across the picture below, and we let out a collective grunt of disgust.




Stickman Musings' extensive research department, commonly referred to as Wikipedia, has informed me that old Georgie boy got him a Sugar Mama by marrying her. Martha was loaded! Of course, in those days, money (AKA land and slaves) was far more important than looks. I don't know if you've seen paintings of people back then, but it was a pretty well known fact that everyone was ugly.

Can you even imagine what people are going to look like in 200 more years? If we look back at our ancestors and are stunned by how ugly they are, how ugly are we going to look to our great great great great great grandchildren? Of course, some of us don't look even look so good to our contemporaries. If I'm this ugly now, imagine how I will look to those 200 years in the future. (Note to self: Destroy all photos of self before death)

With this revelation of Martha's ugliness, it is no surprise that George was boinking the slave girls. He clearly had no choice.




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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

An Ode To New York City

Oh, New York City
How I love you
You are so big and wondrous
And full of hullabaloo

I am drawn to you
like a mosquito to a bug zapper
And no matter what I choose to wear
You consider it quite dapper

Your people are so diverse
And they speak in many tongues
Your streets and parks are nice
And your gutters contain no dungs

No matter what I choose to do
Be it sightseeing or shopping
You have it all at my disposal
If in a cab I feel like hopping

Your buildings are so tall
Your attention span so short
My feet enjoy your sidewalks
Even with my planter's wart

You are the big apple
And I like to take a bite
Time's Square is quite lit up
Especially at night

You have a lot of old
And historical type things
Also, the Naked Cowboy
Who plays guitar and sings

I can go and see Matt Lauer
And even be on TV
Or buy some knockoff sunglasses
And drink wine in little Italy

There are way too many things
For me to go into here
So I will just thank you for your bars
And all your awesome beer

I love you New York City
Of this there is no doubt
That wraps up this post
So... Stickman out!


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Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Guess Who's Back!

The stickman has returned!  I know all of my faithful readers have missed me terribly over the past 10 days while I was gone.  

I have lots of fun stories to tell about the trip, but it has been a crazy day here getting settled back in.  I promise to write a real post tomorrow.

In the meantime, consider this.... Where is Old York City?


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