The Simple DudeA Simple Dude in a Complex World

Kind of a quick little non-post today.  The lady friend and I picked up a pumpkin to carve, still gotta get some candy for all the neighborhood kiddies.  We are not sure what to expect – like me, she always used to leave the lights off to discourage the little rugrats from stopping at her house.  So can someone explain to me why each of us separately would ignore the trick or treat tradition, leaving the little shits in our respective ‘hoods high and dry for all these years….  Then, for some damn reason once we are living together we throw caution to the wind and open our doors to the little costumed cretins and their goofy little costumed dogs.  Hmmm…  The trick for me will be to not eat all the candy myself. 

No, thats not my dog, just some poor pooch I found on the net.  Some people hate when others dress up animals for Halloween or other occasions.  I dont think I would ever do it to my own dog, but when I see animals dressed up…  I think it’s hilarious.  Pets are here to amuse us after all.. right?? 

I’ll get into some details about the Halloween party I went to last night and post a pic of the penguin in action sometime in the next couple days – just don’t have the energy or time right now.  But it was fun – lots of good costumes.

Also wanted to mention something to ya’ll.  (No we don’t say “ya’ll” here in Minnesota.  But we do say Ya You Betcha unfortunately) I have been getting occasional hits on my blog from something called Bloglovin.  Not McLovin’..  Bloglovin.  I wasn’t sure what it was, but apparently it’s a site that indexes blogs, making it easier to follow lots of your favorites all in one place.  For instance THIS is a link to my blog on their site.  They have blogs search-able or browse-able by the type or genre of blog.  Kind of cool – check it out.

Tomorrow night I announce the winner of my big giveaway.  Still time to enter – all you have to do is leave a comment telling me you’re interested.

Happy Halloween you scary sons of bitches.

First off a note on my last post.  For those that didn’t figure out who Wire Weiner and Space Face are – it’s Comcast and DirecTV.  Whether it’s Comcast or some other cable company, it sounds like most of you dislike them – good for you.  They suck.

Now onto something much more important.. and timely.  I absolutely freakin’ love Halloween.  Something about getting dressed up in a costume has always been awesome to me… maybe I just never outgrew the whole trick or treating thing.  I have had much, MUCH more fun at parties, bars or hanging out with friends around Halloween then I ever had on New Years Eve.  Speaking of which, that may be a post for another day:  How incredibly overrated New Years is..  now that is a stupid holiday. But putting on a costume and pretending you are someone else for a night is awesome.  Do our lives suck that much?

I am going to give you all a glimpse of the Simple Dude.  Not just sharing some stupid personal shit, but an actual legit photo of me.  I know this is an anonymous blog, not using my real name or any pics of myself.  For those of you curious, that profile picture I use is a tray of Cheese Curds.  A real grease filled delicacy here in the upper Midwest.  Smart Ass Sara and Ang know what I am talking about.  I know what you are thinking:  Simple Dude doesn’t want to put his picture on his blog.  Thats fine, but why the hell does he subject us to a pic of deep fried artery clogging greezy cheese???  Cause that’s how I roll. 

But back to me.  This was my Halloween costume from two years ago.  I’m a hippie.  By the looks of this picture a very drunk hippie.  This costume involved a bunch of accessories that may or may not have been lost by the time this photo was taken.  No that’s not my real hair, believe it or not.  Mine is a little longer.  And lime green.  

Yeah I know it’s really shitty quality.  It was a low res picture, taken by a drunk friend of mine on his crappy phone.  But it’s all I have of that particular costume. That pic makes me look fat – which I probably was.  I have lost about 20 pounds in the last year as I turn my body into a rock hard temple.  Stop giggling.  Seriously. 

I can’t post a picture of the costume I wore last year because it stayed in the closet unused.  Three days before Halloween last year I started getting sick… long story short, it ended up being H1N1… yep, the fuckin’ swine flu.  I have never felt so shitty in my life and wouldn’t wish that on ANYONE.  I was laid up for about 5 days without leaving the house.  So the costume I intended to wear has been sitting in the back of my closet for a year and will get brought out this weekend:  a full body penguin suit!  Haha!  I think it will be hilarious.  If it’s as funny as I think it will be i’ll post pictures next week!

Hope you all have a great weekend and scare up some fun!  Ok, that was lame.

Don’t forget to enter my drawing for FREE STUFF.  I’ll be choosing a winner Monday night.  

I have had the same TV provider for about 8 years.  I am not going to name them, but lets just say they get you their signal WITHOUT requiring any wires going into your house from the street.  The signal magically appears from space.  So we’ll call them Space Face.  I have been very happy with them, through thick and thin.  It hasn’t always gone perfectly.  There were a couple times that things happened to inconvenience my TV viewing.  And I watch a LOT of TV so thats a pretty damn big inconvenience..  know what i’m saying?  But each time it happened Space Face fixed the problem and bonused me with some kind of extras to make up for my troubles.  Free HBO / Showtime, a $100 credit to my account.  Shit like that.  Fixing these goofs has made me a very loyal Space Face customer. 

Moving into the lady friend’s house a few weeks ago presented a quandary.  She has used a competing company for just about the same length of time.  Without naming them i’ll say that you DO need wires coming into your house from the street for their service.  We’ll call them Wire Weiner.  Following me?  Good.

In my experience Wire Weiner has very shitty customer service.  When we were talking about me moving in I explained that I preferred to stay with Space Face.  I liked their DVR system, their onscreen guide and obviously their customer service.  She was ok with it, so that was that.  But as it turns out adding a certain piece of rooftop equipment to her house Space Face requires was a little more complex then we thought.  And since she already has internet with Wire Weiner it would have complicated all the cables running through the walls..  meaning Space Face and Wire Weiner are not able to share the same cabling so we would have to add jacks to each room, etc.  Granted Space Face would have been willing to do this for free – just to keep me as a customer.  But we decided it wasn’t really worth all the hassle.

So no more Space Face.  Since I brought my big fancy flat screen TV into our household, I had to go pick up a new HD DVR at Wire Weiner’s retail location.  After waiting in line for about 20 minutes I get up to the counter only to have Wire Weiner lady tell me I am not on the account and therefore not authorized to pick up a DVR. This despite another Wire Weiner lady on the phone the night before adding me to the account.  My guess is the in-person lady disliked her job and decided to be a bitch to everyone just to prove it.  She refused to give me the DVR which pissed me off.  I told her (loud enough for the room to hear) that this is exactly why I have always preferred Space Face over Wire Weiner and walked out of the place.

Outside I called Wire Weiner’s 1-800 number and the person on the line said yes indeed I was on the account and that they would talk to the store person.  I went back inside, walked ahead of the line and handed my phone to the woman.  Whatever they said got through to her, since she relented and gave me the DVR.

At the end of the day bundling our Wire Weiner TV and Wire Weiner internet probably is saving us money over Space Face so at least there is that.  Have any of you switched TV services recently?  Which do you prefer?

Also.. gotta give thanks to Amber at Amber LaShell Rants for another blog award!  This one is called the Gold Framed Dog Blog Award.  And comes with a picture of a Gold Framed Dog… how ironic!  Thanks Amber! 

Don’t forget about the Simple Dude giveaway…  still got plenty of time to enter the drawing.

SD

I alluded to an idea of Why We’re Screwed Mondays last week and I think I am going to move forward with that idea…  but not yet.  I know I missed it yesterday, but while there has been plenty of proof that we’re all screwed this week – I was unable to get any photographic proof.  And me, being the visual demon that I am, will have to try to capture something in time for next Monday.  

 The Sopranos Complete Series DVD set

Entourage Season 4 DVD set

First off in full disclosure, the Entourage & Sopranos sets are brand new and sealed shut – but the True Blood set has been opened.  However I can assure you it’s in excellent condition.  If these DVD’s are not your thing, keep in mind the holidays are coming.. you could re-gift!  Or just sell them on Ebay, I don’t give a shit.  Once they are yours, they are yours!

I’ll be choosing a winner the evening of next Monday November 1st. Oh, and to qualify you do have to be a follower of mine here, on Twitter or have LIKED me on Facebook..  whatever that means. 

These were left overs from my class reunion last month..  I may have a few other goodies up my proverbial sleeve for future giveaways too.  So stay the fuck tuned!!

Keep up with the latest shat on Twitter here:  @SimpleDude17.

I am a sheep.  No, not the kind you can use for an unlimited supply of shitty sweaters.  Or the kind that can be rounded up by a barking dog, blindly following the herd wherever the sheep herders want to take me.  Wait.. no..  that’s EXACTLY the kind of sheep I am.  Proverbially speaking.

I am easily led by quality advertising, particularly when it comes to food.  Put TV ads for your products in my favorite shows and there is a good chance I’ll give ‘em a shot.  I’m not a picky eater, so I am always looking to try something new.  And it always seems there is something new being pitched to me via TV, radio, billboards, magazines, internet or social media.  I work in marketing so I understand exactly how all these ad campaigns work, but yet I still fall victim.  Because I am a damn sheep.

Every few months I get excited to try the various seasonal food and beverage products that hit the stores and restaurants.  As some stupid old movie song said “These are a few of my favorite things.“  Yes, I know that’s from the Sound of Music, but Simple Dudes don’t admit to knowing such things. 

This time of year we get lots of those seasonal treats to sample.  Starbucks has their pumpkin spice latte, as does the local convenience store chain.  Both are very good.  As soon as I see them pop up on my Starbucks menu you couldn’t stop me from ordering it even if it came with a swift kick in the dingy. 

Also, Dairy Queen just brought out their Pumpkin Pie Blizzard.  I don’t know if this was around last fall but it’s new to me so I had to jump all over it – picking one up for lunch.  Yeah, it was my lunch.. so what?  I brought one back for the lady friend too (have I mentioned how lucky she is?) and it was good.  Fucking good.  I am not getting an endorsement for this, but I sure as hell should because I am going to recommend you pick one up!  I love pumpkin pie and it honestly takes just like pumpkin pie and ice cream.  Genius. 

I think Starbucks has their Peppermint Mocha seasonal drink out now too but that’s more of a Christmas-eee thing so I can’t be hopping on that bandwagon just yet.  Speaking of Christmas, egg nog!  Another seasonal treat I love both with and without a bit of the booze.  Then after the Holidays I have a couple months to wait for my next anticipation:  McDonald’s and their Shamrock Shakes.  Other than being green I don’t know what the hell they have to do with St. Patricks Day.  But they are damn tasty… like a little bit of Irish goodness in my mouth.  Wait a sec.. that’s not the way it sounded in my head. 

Guess what?  News on a giveaway coming in my next post…  yep.. FREE SHIT.  Who doesn’t like that?  

Baaaahhhh.  

SD

I’ve recently seen a bunch of bloggers sharing their dental experiences.  We’ve all had bad things happen in a dentist chair and I can’t imagine anyone who enjoys those visits.  Personally i’d rather spend the day trying to eat my own foot then go to the dentist – but when you consider the alternative, having healthy teeth ain’t such a bad thing..  i’m jus’ sayin’.  

When I was a kid I took good care of my teeth and didn’t have any cavities at all until I was about 20 years old.  But as so often happens when you get into your 20s and can make decisions for yourself I decided “fuck that prick and his white coat” and didn’t go to the dentist for maybe 5 years.  When I finally did go I got some bad news… I needed TWO root canals.  Ugh.  I didn’t know what the hell a root canal was but it didn’t sound good.  If you are not in the know, it means the tooth is a lost cause.. so they have to “kill” it by eliminating the nerve ending.  No fun.  So then you need to get a fake crown to replace the one they wipe out.  This part isn’t such a bad thing…a crown will never get a cavity, it will never get get coffee or nicotine stains and it looks just like the real deal.  

So over the course of three appointments I had the root canals, was molded for new crowns and then had the permanent fake teeth installed.  One of them is way in the back of my mouth so I had my mouth stretched open like a fuckin’ baby bird for about an hour each time I was in ‘the chair’ but the other one was just to the right of my two front teeth on top.  So that wasn’t as bad since the dentist and his minions didn’t have to have their latex hands down my throat to get at it.  When all was said and done my insurance only covered about half the work, leaving me out of pocket about $800.

Then about a year later I was sitting at work, pretending to keep busy while eating a bagel sandwich.  I absentmindedly bit into it and heard a crunch.  I thought maybe there was something hard in the bagel I was biting into and decided to spit it out.  Nope, it wasn’t the bagel.  The crown in the front of my mouth BROKE OFF.  Luckily I didn’t swallow it.  The good thing is that the tooth was dead (see above) so there was no pain… no feeling at all really.  Other then the rising anger towards my damn dentist. 

I called them immediately and they said they were pretty busy that day and asked if I could come in tomorrow.  “Uhh… NO.  I look like a fucking Jerry Springer guest – you’re going to have to squeeze me in today!”  Which they did fortunately.  They put it back on temporarily then a week later I went back and they reattached it with a little steel post they embedded into my upper jaw.  Seriously.  It shows up on x-rays.  Fortunately not big enough to cause airport trouble and put me on a no-fly list.  The dentist actually wanted to charge me for the “repairs”.  I wasn’t hearing any of that noise… it was their shitty work that caused it in the first place.  Plus they had pulled enough money out of this mouth.  

That was probably 10 years ago and since then I’ve had just one cavity – and make regular visits to that bastard sadist and his white coat.  Not taking any chances there. 

First off, I passed the 100 follower mark at some point last night and am tickled pink.  You all are awesome and i’ll do whatever I can to prove i’m worth your time.  So please for the love of God don’t unfollow me!

I haven’t been blogging for too long but I follow a lot of blogs, some of which I found through all of your blogs.  Others through the bloggers finding me and commenting here.  Still others (like Kristine’s,  Annah’s & Charles’sss) I found through the Blog Of Note feature on Blogger.  A little something those of us in the biz like to call B.O.N. as in Annah got BON’d this summer and that’s how I found her blog. It’s not sexual, although in her case I am sure she found a way to make it sexy!

There has been long debate on what exactly it takes to get yourself BON’d.  Does one just continue to blog as normal pretending it doesn’t exist?  Ignoring the fact that it’s out there..  and that each and every day another blog gets BON’d.  Some of them just for showing pictures of horses, ceramic toads, beaded purses or tie dyed moccasins?!?

Or is it better for one to beg repeatedly for a solid BONing.  Posting about it, losing sleep over it, tweeting it, telling homeless people on the street how much it would mean to you.  Only to wind up disappointed time and time again.  Secretly dying a little inside each time you click on Blog of Note only to see another shit-ass blog about Russian headgear or Chilean mine safety has been chosen once again. 

I feel there is a third option.  To have someone out there like your blog enough to pimp it for you.  That’s what I am going to do here.  I know lots of great bloggers but for today we’re going to focus on just two who are highly BON worthy.  Pay attention Blog Of Note Gods or Goddesses… you need to immediately BON The Journey and The Ranter’s Box.  Not only were Rabbit and The Empress two of the first bloggers I followed in my long strange blogoverse trip but to this day they are two of my favorites.

Both are similar in that they put time, thought and honesty into their writing.  They are both at the top of my list when it comes to reading material and should be at the top of yours as well.  But you reading them is not the point of this post.  This post is to get them fucking BON’d dammit.  I don’t quite get how the selection process goes but would like to find out.  I know it’s not about traffic or post frequency because in the last two months I have seen blogs get BON’d that haven’t posted in weeks.  As the bit on SNL goes “What up with that?”

Maybe someday i’ll be BON worthy, but I don’t want it before these two.  Yes, I know what you are thinking… I am a Simple Dude and can be a selfish prick so what gives?  What the fuck.  I could use some good karma so i’m trying to do something nice.  Besides… Santa’s watching and we’re only a couple months away from his day. 

On a more personal note (always gotta bring this shit back to me don’t I?) I won an award this week.  I mentioned it in an earlier post but this is the first chance I have had to show it off.  

This one comes from Jeff at Content Unrelated – a great blog I recently found… be sure to check it out!  The only rule is that I pass it along which I am going to do to Canadian Blogger Girl.  Her blog is worth visiting just for the hot cartoon chick at the top – but she’s also a good writer!  Enjoy!!

SD… aka @SimpleDude17 so click on dat.