This bet involved their favorite teams against mine, the Minnesota Wild.  The rules were simple… the person whose team advanced the furthest this season wins something special and unique from the cities of the two losers.

I won’t bore you with how it happened, but Sean and his Blues came out on top.  And I am a loser.  Along with Jewels of course.  There is something nice about sharing in the losing…  thanks Jewels!

That left the question of what to send Sean.  Lots of things are unique to Minnesota.  Spam, Bundt cakes, Scotch Tape, Post-It Notes, Wheaties, Tonka Trucks, Roller Blades, snowmobiles and indoor malls were all invented in Minnesota.  But I can’t send Sean a can of Spam.  If someone mailed me a can of spam I’d poop on it and mail it back.  Ok, that’s an exaggeration… I wouldn’t mail it back.

At first I thought of the gift of movies.  Two movies are often associated with us here in Minnesota.  Fargo and Purple Rain.  Fargo is the movie with the over the top Minnesotan accents written and directed by the Coen brothers who are from the Twin Cities.  Purple Rain is the movie filmed all around Minneapolis with that little purple dude Prince.  He grew up just a mile or two from where I did.

But the problem is you can’t find Fargo or Purple Rain in any store.  I tried a couple places and they just don’t carry older movies these days.  So I gave up on those options and instead went with some authentic Minnesotan wild rice.  It’s used in lots of food dishes here in the Upper Midwest and was first grown by Indian tribes in Minnesota like…  I don’t know…  500 years ago or something  What the hell am I, a historian?  Oh, and chicken wild rice soup is absolutely amazing.

On top of that I am throwing in a book called “The Code” which is written by a Minnesotan author.  It’s all about the history of fighting in the NHL and how the players all have a code by which they play… and fight.  It’s a good book and with Sean being a hockey fan I am hoping he will like it.

Lastly I am including a Minnesota Twins keychain since one of my earliest happy sports memories was of my Twins beating Sean’s Cardinals in the 1987 World Series.  Take that.

Enjoy the spoils of victory Sean… you’ve earned them.

SD

P.S.  My Lady Friend and I are getting married in less than 2 weeks and my bachelor party is this weekend.  YIKES!!

I wrote one last article at The Indie Chicks website about our wedding plans and the small reception we’re having at our house.  The tough part was deciding who does and doesn’t get to come over and eat and drink on me.  I plan on getting lots of people drunk.  I don’t offer that kind of service every day!

Click on over and read all about it…  and in the next few days I’ll have a post about the NHL Blogger Bet that has now concluded.

Here is a hint…  it didn’t have a happy ending for your Simple Dude.

I’d love for you to click over and read the article.  For starters, it’s funny.  Or so I think.  But also because The Indie Chicks is a great website that has a lot of other great articles to offer for both chicks and dudes alike.

I’ll be back here with a post next week – I promise.  Just don’t hold me to that.

SD

“Man, this gum sucks.  It’s got to go.  Not, not when I get to the garbage can. It’s go to go NOW dammit!”

Ladies, you don’t really know much about this phenomenon.  Unless you are one of those urinal-peeing ladies I’m always hearing about.  But on occasion you’ll step up to tinkle and see a piece of gum just sitting there waiting for it’s golden shower.  The gum won’t go down when flushed due to the rubber liner / pee target, so when you hit the handle all it does is bounce around in a yellow circle.

But what really gets me about this is that the offending chewer is not thinking at all about how that gum is going to get OUT of the urinal.  Is it going to sprout legs and hop out?  Nope.  As disgusting as it may be, some poor sap is going to have to reach in and take it out.

Granted this person is someone who actually cleans bathrooms for a living, but there is a difference between rubbing a cleaning brush around in a toilet bowl and having to reach into a urinal to fish out gum…  gloves or no gloves, it’s gross.

If you are the kind of dude who spits his gum into a urinal you must be saying people who clean public bathrooms have life a little too easy.  Their lives are just too damn good.  You need to knock them down a peg or two.  Kick them down off their high horse right?

Come on.

If you have done this in the past for whatever reason, please stop.  Think of the poor bastard you are forcing to get all pissy-handsy just because you are an asshole.

Public bathroom cleaners everywhere will thank you for not being one.

SD

As you may or may not know… the Lady Friend and I are getting married this summer.  And coincidentally The Indie Chicks recently asked if I would be willing to write a few more articles for them.  So I decided, what better topic to write about then the end of my life!  My single life that is.  Jeez, I hope my Lady Friend doesn’t read this.

Since I am not your typical groom, getting married for the very first time at the ripe old age of 40, I thought I could bring a unique perspective to a whole process.  Which is what I am doing over the course of a few articles over there.

The first one went up today and is published under my pen name Jon.  I know, what a weird name to choose right?

I’d love you like a case of beer if you did me a favor and clicked over to read it.  And please comment there – I’d love to hear what you peeps think!

SD aka Jon

And I’m man enough to admit you may have swayed me a bit.  I haven’t decided to go out and get me a set of those things but I can at least appreciate the benefits of having them at certain times.  Like when you’re throwing parties in empty fields and no one has enough sense to bring a chair or table.

Today I have another item from this catalog to share.  This one is a book.  A book encouraging you to PAWS FOR A MOMENT WITH GOD.

You should pray for a cat who will clean it’s own litter box.

Before you write any nasty comments you need to know I love animals.  Sure I prefer dogs to cats but I have no problems with cats.  That grumpy cat cracks me up!

And I wouldn’t fault or poke fun at someone who prays or shows their faith in their own way.  We all have different levels of spiritualism and the freedom to .  It’s one of the things that makes this country great.

HOWEVER…  at the bottom of this book it says “Devotions Best Enjoyed In The Company Of A Cat” and that just made me laugh.  Are there people out there who will buy this book, grab their favorite feline and plop down in front of a fire to read these out loud?  And if so, will the cat do anything more than lick itself and go to sleep?

And as a guy who likes to write and has published a book myself…  can someone please tell me how an author decided this book HAD to be written?  And more important how in the holy-cat-farting-hell did some publisher buy it?!??!?

I want to buy this book just so that I can find out who the publisher is.  I will then go to the home of the publishing company president and explain to this person that there are a million authors out there self publishing books far superior to this crap.  Lastly I’ll punch this person in the balls (or boobs) for all of you folks who have ever considered writing a book.

You’re welcome!

SD

This doesn’t really bother me.  I do happen to know a fair amount about sports but filling out these brackets is as much about luck as it is about skill.  And as you know it’s often better to be lucky than to be good.

So finally, here is some insight into the mind of these non-sports people that pull a winning bracket out of thin air.  Here is a bracket as filled out by your typical non-sports fan:

Guaranteed to win you the money

There you have it…. good luck to all!

SD

But every few weeks I come across a story of some new perversion or idiocy coming from the land of cheese… Wisconsin.  The latest “Only in Wisconsin” moment comes to us from the city of Racine and involves this man… Tyree Carter.  He gets a special distinction.  According to the Wisconsin courts he is now:

“BANNED FROM EVERY LIBRARY ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH”

He’s a book-loving clown-boxer.

As you can imagine, it takes more than just reading to get banned from a library.  It takes masturbation.  Out in the open.  For everyone to see and no desire to hide what he was doing.  Yep, that’s what our friend Tyree was up to.  This may be a tough ban to enforce…  what if he decides to do a little reading in Romania.  Or check out some books in Bangladesh.  Or visit a Library in Lithuania.  Or do some fiction aisle fondling in France.  Will his picture be posted on bookshelves around the world?

“Beware of this Jerker”

“Have you seen this chicken choker?”

“Caution: Book loving banana buffer on the loose.”

But I get the feeling his love of books is secondary to the love.. uhh… of himself.  So maybe the libraries of the world are indeed safe.  Even so, you may be safer to stay home with your kindle… and read my book!

SD

I’ve written articles about things featured in these catalogs over the years.. things like lighted birdhouses, belts that have holsters for beer cans and teddy bear towel holders.  Basically crap.

The other day another one of these catalogs came in the mail and I’ve found a few more things to share with you over the coming weeks… starting with these “Outdoor Beverage Holders” which are really Hillbilly beer stakes:

Old Milwaukee sold separately?

I understand people like to sit out in their yards and drink beer.  I have a nice deck and patio area and am looking forward to warm outdoor beer drinking weather myself.  But who the hell can’t hold their own cans?  Or put them on a table?  Or a cup holder on their chair?

The only way I would find this useful is if I was forced to sit on the ground.  And quite frankly if I can’t afford to buy a chair I probably shouldn’t be spending money on beer.  Zoom in on that photo and you’ll see this at the bottom corner:

Perfect for drinking Boone’s Farm!

It’s for those classy folks who can’t afford chairs, but are too good for beer.  Now they have their own holder for wine glasses.  Hillbilly wine glasses?  I don’t have much more to add about that… though I am guessing the beer holders get a lot more use.

I suppose if you have a lounge chair lower to the ground these could come in handy, though you’d never catch me in a lounge chair.  And even in that case do you really need SIX of these?  One would suffice.

I’ve got a few more of these stupid catalog items ready for future posts!

SD

I do this all the time.

When I do sleep, I dream.  Vivid, bizarre, often humorous dreams of the most random shit you can imagine.  I’ve always remembered my dreams which can be both a good thing and a disturbing thing.  And the things I find funny in my dreams are generally stupid as hell when I wake up – even by my own immature humor standards.

I can’t count how many times I have thought to myself in those first moments after waking that I need to write down something I said or did in a dream because it was so damn funny.  Then as reality creeps in and I become a little more alert I realize it’s not funny.  At all.  Like a farting duck.

Ok, you got me, that never happened… I can only WISH I’d dream about something as funny as a farting duck.

But this week I had a couple funny dreams that stood up to the bright lights of the next day.  One of them involved the Lady Friend and myself in Vegas.  Have I mentioned Vegas is one of my favorite cities in the world.  It is.  I’ve been there about a dozen times and am always itching to go back.  In this dream we were wandering around the casino where we were staying and stumbled onto a small hole in the floor.  Inside this hole was a wad of cash.  As any sane person would do, I quickly grabbed the cash.  I didn’t bother counting, just stuffing it in my pocket as quickly and nonchalantly as possible.

Then I noticed a dude all the way across the casino coming towards me – he’d seen me snag the money.  Even from quite a distance this guy looked unsavory.  He was the stereotypical mafia type: big, dumb, mean and ugly.  Not the kind of dude you want to mess with.  So we got the hell out of there darting and dodging between slot machines and people.  I knew he was far enough away that he didn’t get a good look at either of us so I told the Lady Friend to head to up our room while I hit the streets to lose him that way.  I had the money and he saw me grab it so I knew he would follow me.. which he did.

Hee Hee.

Out on the strip this guy kept following, though still from a distance as I can be pretty quick when being chased by a thug!  I quickly ran around a corner and into the side door of a casino before this hoodlum could see where I went.  My first thought was GET RID OF THIS CASH.  Anyone who has ever been in a casino knows that a quick way to do that would be to put it into a slot machine and then “cash out” to get one of those receipts you bring to the cashier.  At least I wouldn’t have a wad of cash on me anymore.  But no… I decided I wanted to spend it on food.  Lots of food.  All that running made me hungry so I stopped at every food stand, eating everything I could.  Then in my dream wisdom I decided I needed a costume so I bought a giant wig, some bright goofy clothes and over-sized sunglasses.

This idea worked… I walked right past the bad dude who was standing on the corner looking for me.  When I got back to the hotel room my Lady Friend was pissed off at me for spending all the money (along with some of my own) on that random crap.  I guess me being alive wasn’t good enough for her.

Then I woke up, giggling.

SD