Sleepless in Seattle? We'll Find Out.

When I was 8-years-old, my family and I went to Seattle on a vacation.

And I fell in love — with the city, the baseball team, and yes, even the Kingdome, shown here being imploded:


After visiting Seattle, seeing Mount Rainer and Puget Sound, I made it one of my lifetime goals to move there one day, to settle down and stop my incessant wandering. Call it a wanderlust, or call it what you will, but I've lived in six states alone since 1999, and moved more often than that. In fact, 12 months is the longest I've lived anywhere since I graduated high school.

A move to Seattle always lingered in the back of my head, like a song you just can't stop singing, but one you actually like. Basically, it's the city equivalent of "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne or "Jukebox Hero" by Foreigner for me.

I've always dreamed of seeing the Mariners play in person again, about seeing the Pacific Ocean every day, of being within driving distance of a giant volcano that could explode at any time, killing me instantly.

I've also always wanted to work for a magazine, to write about something that interests me and something I'm passionate about.

Now, finally, I'll be doing both.

I just got a new job in Seattle writing for a fly-fishing magazine. Please, hold your applause and/or jeers.

When I saw the posting on a job board several weeks ago, asking for an avid fisherman that has imaginative writing, the only thing I thought of was — That's me. I can do that.

And now I have that chance.

As awesome as it is, it brings up several questions, ones I'll try to answer here:

• What is the over/under on how soon you go insane and try to jump off the Space Needle? We'll go ahead and set that at four months, and I might take the under if I were you. There's no telling what I'll do.
  

• Exactly how far away will you be from your family now? Do they really smell that bad and are they that annoying that you have to move to Seattle to get away from them? Mapquest says that it's over 2400 miles, so that's pretty far, and I doubt I'll be able to smell them from there, but that's mainly because the Mariners stink so badly. And no, they're not annoying at all and they're pretty glad I'm moving further away. Only because now I'll stop whining about wanting to live in Seattle.
  

• Will you be making more money? Yes, thank goodness. All I know is that I would probably have ended up living in a tent (again) if I kept making as much as I do right now. This will be a welcomed change, and you're kidding yourself if you don't think that a huge TV is the first thing I'll get when I move. A 50-inch DLP Samsung HDTV, to be exact.

• Won't you miss Montana? Of course. Glacier National Park is awesome, the fishing is awesome, the mountains are awesome, the skiing is awesome ... but it's not Seattle, which means there aren't Starbucks on every corner, a crappy baseball team that I'm obsessed with, and huge traffic problems. Wait, why do I want to live there again?

• What are some of the positives? 1. Major League Baseball, National Football League and National Basketball Association teams in town. 2. It's much cheaper to fly to and from Seattle than it is Kalispell, Montana. 3. Taco Del Mar. 4. Working for a fly-fishing magazine.

• What are some of the negatives? 1. Even further from friends and family, but that could be a positive, I'm not sure. 2. Bums, lots of bums. 3. Way more expensive to live there. 4. The Pacific Time Zone.
  

Hopefully, this will put an end to all my moves for a while. I'm definitely planning on settling down there for a long time, but we all know how good my word is when it comes to that.

All I know is that if I keep moving west at this alarming rate, pretty soon I'll have circled the globe and I'll end up back in Kentucky again.

And no one — I REPEAT, NO ONE – wants that.

The Best Ever?

This morning at work, I started playing some songs from perhaps the greatest singer-songwriter of all time, Mr. Neil Diamond, shown here being awesome:


The first song that I played was "Forever in Blue Jeans," and my editor came out of his office and said "John, don't play that crap. It's going to be in my head all day."

I left it playing.

A few minutes later, he yells at me through the wall "John, I'm going to kill you!"

Not if Neil has anything to say about it.

Also, feel free to watch this clip of Will Ferrell playing Neil Diamond on Saturday Night Live.

Penn Isn't Mightier

One Penn down, one to go.


Sure, Chris Penn may finally be dead, but unfortunately for us, they took the least douchebag-ish Penn sibling.

Say It Ain't So, Buffalo

The Buffalo Bills are dead. It's official.
Today, they hired Dick Jauron as their new head coach:



Jauron, the former head coach of the Chicago Bears and 2005 interim coach of the Detroit Lions, has compiled an amazing 35-46 career record at the helm of two of the most mediocre franchises in the past 20 years.

In 2001, Jauron somehow won NFL coach of the year, after miraculously guiding the Bears to a 13-3 record, only to self-destruct in the playoffs. At least he had this to say about the situation:


Discounting this obvious aberration on his coaching resume, Jauron has an astounding 22-43 career coaching record. This is his coaching philosophy:


It's not every day that you can say you hired a coach that has more wins than losses if you multiply the wins by two. What a great hire, and by great hire, I mean the man is borderline retarded and the Bills are supplanting the Arizona Cardinals as the worst-run professional football team in America.

Arena League teams are better than this.

I doubt any AFL teams would hire this man as their head coach:

The worst part is that Jauron is Marv Levy's hand-picked coach.

The reason?

Levy spent the past few years doing radio analysis for the Chicago Bears and was "comfortable" with Jauron. Shouldn't the 80-year-old general manager of the an NFL team do a little more research than this? Did anyone look into Jauron's record? Did anyone notice he was on the staff of the Detroit Lions this year, a team that quit in week 7?

Seriously, this is enough to make any Bills fan want to dive headfirst into a swimming pool full of rusty razor blades and man-eating goldfish.

More Dead Miners

In a not-so-surprising development, two more miners are missing and presumed dead following a fire in a West Virginia coal mine.

Rescuers are scouring the area, digging through old cans of Busch Light and shotgun shells to find the lost workers, to little avail thus far. With precious time withering away, officials guarantee the miners will be found before the 2006 Nascar season begins with the Budweiser shootout on Feb. 11.

Luckily, men like this are up to the task:



Just three weeks ago, West Virginia was rocked by an explosion in a neighboring community that killed 12 miners, all of them brothers and/or uncles to each other. After this fire, 10 men were able to escape alive, including this man, who was relieved to see his mom/wife:



The popular theory floating through the area is that God will save these miners, unlike the 12 that perished several weeks ago. However, once the dead bodies are found, huddled together and burned beyond recognition, everyone will realize that God actually hates miners after all and wants them dead.

This seems to be some sort of two-pronged message from above:

1. Get out of the ground, and shut down the mines. Men aren't supposed to root around through dirt like a bunch of mole-people. They are supposed to get drunk, watch tons of football and beat women when they forget to make them sandwiches.
2. Get out of West Virginia, and shut down the state. West Virginia truly is almost heaven, if by heaven you mean a mountainous death trap full of crazed rednecks and meth labs.
   

Snowshoes

My sister and I went on a snowshoe tour of Glacier National Park today. I had to do it for work, she did it because she came to visit me and is basically stuck doing whatever I have to do. (Insert evil laughter here)

Here is the day in pictures:

Here is the guide leading some of the strange people in our group down the trail. He is thinking to himself in this picture, I know I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I don't deserve to be here doing this. No one does.

Here is an old guy that looked a little crazy in the snow. I think he wanted to knock our tour guide into the frozen river and/or punch me in the stomach.


Beaver skull. Tasty.

Here, the guide shows us Donald Trump's scalp. Notice the women in the background completely disinterested. The lesson here is this: Women have tiny brains and can't comprehend a first-grade level biology lesson given by a park intern.

This is my sister looking royally pissed off. Actually, she was staring at Trump's scalp thinking to herself, I wonder what I would look like if I skinned Trump alive and wore his face as a mask?

We got some dude on the trail to take our picture. This is a great photo — of the trees in the background. The lesson here is this: never ask a man wearing glasses to take your picture.

Brokeback Bills

What is going on in the Buffalo Bills front office?

Seriously, someone figure this all out and then let me know, because it looks more and more like it's becoming a retirement village than a football organization.

First, in a move loooooong overdue, owner Ralph Wilson fires GM Tom "I like to trade my future first round picks for terrible, terrible quarterbacks"Donahoe. This, by any stretch of the imagination, is a good idea. Any Buffalo fan should support this.

In case you are wondering why, read my recap of Donahoe's mistakes.

Here is the 87-year-old owner Ralph Wilson, posing with one of his best friends, the Grim Reaper, right after he showed Donahoe the door:


So after Donahoe got the axe, Wilson felt he needed to "reconnect" with Buffalo's storied history, and in a fairly inexplicable move, Wilson hires former head coach Marv Levy, the 80-year-old hall of famer that led the Bills to four straight Super Bowls, as the new general manager.

This is how the conversation went:

Wilson: Hey Marv, I just canned Tom. What do you think I should do?

Levy: I think I might know someone who could use a job. He's retired, semi-incontinent and once took the Bills to four straight Super Bowls. I know he might be considered a loser by some, but he still loves that team.

Wilson: (long pause) Marv, shut up. Just shut up. It was always going to be you.

Levy: (sobbing) I just don't know how to quit you, Buffalo.

Don't get me wrong, I love Marv. I'd probably kiss him on the mouth if I had the chance. But the man is old, real old — and he'll have to learn on the job about his players, about how the game has changed in the eight years since he retired and about the new crop of players in college right now. Keep in mind that some college players hadn't even been born when Levy was named the Bills head coach in 1986.

The situation presents two questions:

Was Marv Levy was a hall of fame coach and should he be tied to the Bills in some fashion? Yes, no doubt.

But should he be the new face of your organization, making all the personnel moves? No, probably not.

However, the PR aspect of this is move fantastic. "Hey, we suck real bad, so let's bring in the one guy that helped make us successful." It would be like the guys from Velvet Revolver kicking out Scott Weiland, bringing back Axl Rose and starting Guns N' Roses up again. It's that kind of move — a good one for the hardcore fans, but about a decade too late.

Here is Marv fired up on the sidelines when he used to coach:


The thing about Levy is this: when he was hired as the coach the first time around, people said he was too old. By the way, he was 61 at the time and not wearing Depends. Now, well, that's a different story.

The move was not without repurcussions, though. Understandably, the current coach, Mike Mularkey, wasn't too thrilled with Levy's hiring. The GM that hired him (Donahoe) was gone, most of his assistants were fired, and here he was, basically in a one-year audition to keep his job.

So, what does he do? He resigns, and does Bills fans across the globe a favor.

What that means is that there will be no more scenes like this on the Buffalo sidelines next season:



The move brings about a lot of speculation that Levy will take over as coach and leave his GM duties to someone else.

This is a horrible, horrible idea. Simply terrible. You've probably seen clips of players running into the sidelines, knocking over coaches before. I hate to say this, but one hard hit to Marv and he's a goner. He wouldn't last through the second pre-season game. If he's hired as coach, he'll probably be the first head coach in the history of football to sit in the team box upstairs with the coordinators.

So, in the light of recent personnel moves the Bills have made, instead of going young, I say they go old. Even older than Marv. I say they hire this 90-something-year-old transient farmer:

The Bills are quickly becoming the laughingstock of the NFL anyway, so why not embrace that image and do everything they can for entertainment's sake.

While they're at it, why not hire Maurice Clarett as head coach instead, with Marcus Vick as offensive coordinator. Bring in Lawrence Taylor as d-coordinator, Barrett Robbins to coach o-line and the corpse of Darrell Russell to coach the d-line? That would bring fans to the seats. They'd never know when a drug-induced rampage might break out at the game. I know I'd watch.

The Bills would become the NFL version of the team on ESPN's doomed series Playmakers. Only better.

Seriously, at this point, it wouldn't surprise me if the Bills actually did do that.

Like I said, I love the Bills and always will, they just make me sick sometimes. When I say sick, I actually mean physically ill, like the time I got dry heaves when they drafted J.P. Losman.

Well, you'll have to excuse me, just thinking about all this means I have to go stick my head in a toilet bowl and clear out the contents of my stomach.

Big Mountain

Here is a picture taken on Wednesday at Big Mountain, the ski resort right up the road from my apartment.

This is in no way my sister or myself, although we were up there all day yesterday slightly tearing ligaments and wearing away cartilege, much like this guy (photo stolen from stumptown photography, in case you were wondering.)

Notice the trees.

They're blanketed in an ice/snow mixture, so much so that the green is barely visible and the trees end up looking like huge white blobs. The locals call these "snow ghosts," and they are extremely cool looking at the top of the mountain. Cool, and a bit scary. I had nightmares.

With over 12 inches of fresh powder on most slopes, the skiing was amazing, and a bit difficult, because I'd never actually skied on that much powder before. Imagine trying to turn on ice skates if the ice was halfway melted and six inches deep. That's about how it feels to try and turn your skis on this stuff.

But I'm learning. And by learning, I mean rupturing my achilles and crying myself to sleep on the couch.

One of those was true, I'll let you guess which one.

Nicely Done

This is my friend Brian, who is turning into a bit of a hermit.

He sent me this picture with a caption that read: "I should get a haircut, but I refuse. Also, I have way too much free time."

Well done, Brian. Well done.

I only wish my hair could look that awesome one of these days.

Tragedies, Schmagedies

This story about the dead miners in West Virginia is pretty terrible. And by terrible, I mean a great example of what happens when misinformation and crazy hillbillies meet.

First, 12 of the 13 miners are alive. Then — whoops — they're actually dead.

Media and officials: Sorry about that. Our bad.

Enter, stage left: riots at a church, followed by assaults on mining officers and at least two dozen Nascar shirts being burned in eulogy.

It is a lot like any of the following situations:

• A homeless man wins the lottery, followed closely by the announcement that due to a computer error, he didn't win the money and actually owes the federal government roughly $45,209,345.88 in back taxes and is being indicted in the Jon Benet Ramsey murder.
• Women at a Weight Watchers meeting are told they lost an amazing 12-15 pounds each at the weigh-in, only to be told later that the scale was actually reading 28 pounds low and that all of their houses burned down while they were being weighed.
• After complaining of chest pains, a man goes to the doctor's office for tests. After being told it was merely "a bad case of gas" at first, the doctor comes rushing in a few minutes later to say: "I'm not sure how to tell you this sir, but your heart may explode at any time. We need to get you into surgery as soon as we can. It seems you are on the verge of having a stroke and a heart attack, not to mention your arteries are 98 percent clogged, you are coming down with nasty cases of AIDS and brain cancer, and there seems to be a nacho cheesier Dorito lodged in your aorta. If you have any family, this might be a good time to tell them how much you love them."
• Milli Vanilli's Grammy Award.
• Two newlyweds, only weeks after purchasing their first home, find out they are having a baby. Eight months later, a doctor asks them if their home was built on an ancient Indian burial ground because it seems their child is not only possessed by an evil spirit, it has scalped its twin in utero and appears to have eaten part of the mother's cervix.
• Driving down the road, a college student picks up an attractive female hitchhiker on his way back to campus. After a nice night together, including a few drinks and a makeout session in his apartment, he finds "her" the next morning in his bathroom, using the toilet. Standing up.
  

Tragedies, all of them. That's for sure.

This Will Only Take a Second

My editor's great idea for the name of a coffee shop:

Turn Your Head and Coffee.

Yeti In Space

By Request

My cousin Patrick saw what I did to that picture of me in my profile and wanted me to make one of him.

So I did.

"I look like a G.I. Joe bad guy," he said when he saw it. "But I like it."

Irrational Comparisons By an Extremely Casual Pop Culture Observer

—I think it's plain to see that Celine Dion is the Alice Cooper
of Las Vegas entertainers, with or without long hair.

— For my money, it doesn't get any better than the smooth jazz
stylings of Alec Baldwin, who reminds me of a younger, less
African-American Miles Davis.

— The Pantera album Cowboys From Hell is to the adult contemporary
scene what Brian Wilson was to the Beach Boys — pure inspiration.

— When discussing the all-time great American fiction writers, Danny
Bonaduce never fails to impress with his stylish prose. He is indeed the
21st century's F. Scott Fitzgerald.

— Chris Kattan is perhaps the most talented star of stage and screen
since Marlon Brando — and slightly more attractive.

— Chevy Chase is the Wilford Brimley of our generation, sans
mustache and diabetes.

— Looking at John Cusack's body of work, you can't help but think he
is approaching Walter Cronkite's status as the foremost journalist
of the last 50 years.

— Debating the most talented lead actress in Hollywood is supremely
difficult, if only because Da Brat and Ann Coulter always
warrant mentions.

— Jonathan Lipnicki has the wherewithal and drive to become
the greatest singer-songwriter of this — or any — generation, eclipsing
even his hero, Redd Foxx.

—  Only one man could possibly have pulled off the role of Rocky
Balboa other than Sylvester Stallone, and that man is the guy from Ed.

Going Off the Rails

To give myself something to do over the next few months, I've decided to let my hair grow to previously unexplored, and potentially hazardous, lengths.

It might not be a mullet, but it'll be something.

The plan is to make myself look as much like Bob Ross or Ted Kaczynski as possible.

Or at the very least, exactly like this:

Things Not to Say If You'd Like a Conversation With a Woman to Continue

— One day, I'd like to be described as "young at heart" instead of "convicted felon" and "registered sex offender."

— You know what else is sad? My lack of self-respect and personal hygiene.

— That's when the doctor came back with the test from the lab. Turns out it was just a real bad case of syphilis. I guess that's what you get for spending New Year's with an escort.

— When we get back to my place, I'll show you my parents. Quick question, though — have you ever seen a cryogenically frozen body before?

— Oh, I have lots of practice cleaning blood out of carpets and clothing.

— You wouldn't believe how many of those lawsuits are bogus. It's not like I forced the kids to sleep in the same bed with me. They wanted to.

— Now, don't take this personally, but if I were sober I wouldn't talk to someone like you. You know, because you're kind of fat.

— That reminds me of a great coat hanger abortion joke.

— It's uncanny. You look just like my friend's older brother. Well, I guess sister now. He had a sex change last May. I have the videotape if you want to see the surgery.

— Look, if I told you what human babies taste like, you'd never eat pot roast again.

— If you say that to me one more time, I'll knock your front teeth out, smash your head against the counter and smear the walls with your blood. I'm not kidding.

— Did you just fart, because it smells like you crapped your pants.

— Don't freak out, but I kinda sorta put a wire tap on your phone line and installed a camera in your bathroom.

— So, how much for an hour?

— Hi, my name is John.

Things I Learned in 2005

— Your hair will actually freeze when the temperature drops to 16 below zero.

— Getting a credit card is great. Getting credit card debt is not.

— Expanding your DVD collection exponentially is good for your personal entertainment, but not so much for your social life or bank account.

— Love is an amazing, and sometimes fickle, thing.

— Wearing shoes with little traction on the ice is a terrible, terrible idea and you will more than likely fall at least six times this winter. Or maybe that's just me.

— Flying across the country to see friends is always fun, especially when it involves watching the NFL Draft, digging through trash in the streets of Boston or making keychains at Wal-Mart that say "I pooped my pants."

— Glacier National Park is easily one of the top five most beautiful places in America, and I'm lucky to live within twenty minutes of it. Until you see it in person, you can't really appreciate it.

— Kentucky isn't as bad as it seems. Oh wait, yes it is.

— If you download an illegal copy of a movie, then purchase the DVD later on, karma dictates that your copy of that DVD will get lost. Has anyone seen my copy of Garden State? Seriously?

— It is always funny to talk about man-on-man-on-man triple kisses, pooping your pants and fighting old women. Always.

— Growing a beard takes a lot of time, and in my case, effort.

— Moving across the country is a great way to see and experience new things, but no matter how far you go, you can't outrun your problems.

— Losing weight will do wonders for your self esteem, but it also means you'll have to spend a ton of money buying clothes that will actually fit. Either that, or wear the same two pairs of pants over and over again, like I do.

— Steve Spurrier is an awesome football coach. Mike Mularkey is not.

— The fact Arrested Development is getting cancelled and Two and a Half Men is staying on the air is a testament to just how idiotic the majority of Americans are. Arrested Development is easily the best show on television.

— Spending a lot of money on a nice camera or a nice pair of skis won't make you a good photographer or a good skier. Trust me on this one.

— If you smell crab legs in your apartment building, more than likely your upstairs neighbor has killed himself and is rotting in his bathtub. I know this from experience.

— Getting a humor column in a newspaper will do a lot for your professional life, and if you use that space to bash a terrible waitress at a local restaurant you will receive physical threats.

— Fly fishing is both extremely relaxing and frustrating at the same time, but always helps to clear your head. The good part is that while you're out there, you don't think about anything but the fish.

— Living several thousand miles away from your family and friends makes you appreciate them just a little more than you used to.

— You don't find love, it finds you.

— Trying to pay bills, eat and live a comfortable lifestyle on my paycheck is extremely difficult.

— The best thing about Living in the Mountain Time Zone is watching sports on television. The late games aren't that late and the early games start right when you wake up.

— Trying to follow up the best year of your life (2004, in my case) is a hard thing to do, but not impossible.

— You learn a lot about yourself when you pick up everything you have, stuff it in a U-Haul and move someplace you've never been before.