We're Not Dead

Hello everyone. We’re not dead. But I’m sure you and the majority of the Earth population have noticed that we haven’t posted anything in quite some time. This is true. There are a couple of reason for our internet absence and fortunately neither are because we are dead.  

The first is that I have recently been promoted at work. This a good thing. But due to the timing of it and unforeseen and untimely personnel changes I have to continue doing my old job in addition to the new one. This is not a good thing. It has meant long hours and little to no free time for yours truly. The good news though is that it’s only temporary. Once the project I’m working on for my old job is done, I should have my life back. Should be sometime around the end of the summer. Just in time to enjoy crummy weather.

The second and much greater reason why we have been so absent is that we are currently remodeling the entire PCPPP campus and we have been spending the majority of our time arguing over carpet samples. It’s been exhausting. I’m convinced that Misty Hemlock is the right color to go with but Pat insists on Sierra Flame.

Pat:  It sounds manly AND comforting, no?

Christian: Actually no. In my opinion it’s a rather aggressive color. Too aggressive. Makes me want to throw tennis balls at people. Misty Hemlock is soothing and inspires creativity. At least according to my carpet sherpa.

Pat:  Exactly! Aggressive. Isn’t that what we want? We are creating a locus of genius thought and comedy. Misty Hemlock makes me want to lay down and take a nap, or get a massage. Sierra Flame makes me want to kick a forest fire’s ass with a barrage of wit and sarcasm. “Fuck you”, forest fire! “Fuck you with my wit!”  

That’s what Sierra Flame says to me. And I want to roll around in it in the middle of our office. Maybe without clothes. That sound okay?

Christian: No. To me that would be the number one reason to go with Misty Hemlock over Sierra Flame.

So as you can see folks, this debate has taken up a lot of our time. All of it in fact. And it has been expensive having to pay my carpet sherpa all this overtime. So once I no longer am having to work two jobs and more importantly we resolve this carpet issue we may not be posting much. And not much may very well mean not at all. We’re thinking late August. When the moon crosses over into the seventh jaguar.     

Pat:  Hey Christian, this is that time of year when I don’t have to work, so just holler if you need some help. Oh, wait...is that like what they call salt in the wounds? Sorry.

Christian: You bastard. You Sierra Flamed bastard!

Daylight Savings Lame

In case any of you were wondering I will not be appearing in an episode of Catfish, that TV show about people that start online relationships with people who may not be who they seem. Turns out there was a problem with one of the routers my chat client was using and all my communications were actually being bounced back to me. Therefore it turns out I was Catfishing myself. Which is unfortunate because I felt like I had really developed a strong connection with me.

Anyways, you know what else is lame? Daylight savings. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the setting the clocks back in the fall, but do we have to set them forward an hour during the spring?

Pat, I say we start getting rid of the jumping forward part but keep the setting the clocks back in the fall part. What do you say?

Pat:  Is catfishing related to noodling? I think we posted about that awhile back--that thing where people try to catch fish my shoving their arms down the fishes gullets? Both of those terms sound kinda’ dirty when you are also thinking about online relationships. There’s too many kinks in the world, Christian. I just can’t keep up with them all.

Something tells me that continuing only half of the daylight savings/losings tradition is a bad idea, whichever way you go. Over the course of 24 years, it seems like you’ll find yourself in either yesterday or tomorrow. That can’t be good.

Christian: Why? If it’s yesterday that means we’ve gained a whole additional day! We could watch a whole season of Airwolf in a day! Sweet!

What’s not to like here?

I’m suggesting we just get rid of the spring forward part, which would put us into tomorrow after 24 years. Yes that would be bad. It seems like I always have stuff to do tomorrow.   

Pat: Amen to that, brother! WAY too much stuff. Better to live in the moment, I say. Tomorrow will take care of itself...just like my taxes.

How many seasons of Airwolf were there? Tragedy, what happened to Jan Michael Vincent. Pure tragedy.  Still chokes me up just thinking about it.

Oh wait...that was Jon-Erik Hexum.

Christian: Jan Michael Vincent is still alive as far as I know. Did you know his character’s name on the show was Stringfellow Hawke? Hawke I get, but Stringfellow?

If only we had gotten rid of the spring forward part of daylight savings time before they created the show. That would have given the writers more time to come up with a better first name for their Airwolf piloting hero.

See? This is the kind of tragic results that I’m sure we suffer from every year because of daylight savings. How many more ill-named TV action heros are we going to suffer from before we put an end to this horror?

Does this not convince you that we should get rid of it, Pat? (I’m still talking about just getting rid of the spring forward part.)

Pat: No. Not in the least. For one thing, I was never really interested in those 80s helicopter-centric TV shows. Well, I can only think of four of them (and one of them--“China Beach”--was really a Vietnam-centric show with a lot of helicopters in it)...but I wasn’t too into them beyond a couple of episodes.

Now...consider the ability to revert daylight savings time in order to get more episodes of “Square Pegs”, “Fantasy Island”, or any show starring Ann Jillian and then we’re talking!

Christian: You don’t have to watch Airwolf. Or Blue Thunder. Or… wait was there another helicopter themed show in the 80’s? I don’t put China Beach in the same helicopter category as Airwolf and Blue Thunder. You’re not including Riptide are you? Yes it had a helicopter, but I wouldn’t say it was helicopter-centric.

Pat: Yeah it was! That helicopter was almost the best part of that show! Sure, it didn’t have the rugged swagger of Blue Thunder, or the streamlined stealth of Airwolf, but the Screaming Mimi stole the show almost every episode with her shaky-but-reliable persona.

Don’t kill my heroes, Christian. We’ve talked about this before. A lot.

Christian: There is no fucking way “Riptide” was a helicopter show.

If someone was to ask “What is the premise of “Riptide”?” You would say it’s about two former Army buddies that start a private detective agency on a boat or something. But you can’t describe the premise of Blue Thunder or Airwolf without saying the word helicopter. If you did you would be a dirty liar.

I’m starting to think that you’re not the right person I should be pitching my “only fall back” daylight savings plan to.

Pat:  Probably not. Sorry you’re just figuring that out now. You know me. I like my routines, and daylight savings is just one of those annual routines that I don’t want to give up. It’s also the reason I refuse to travel to Arizona.

And we really don’t need to get into it here, but “Riptide” is, too, totally a helicopter show.

The people have spoken

Christian:  You may have won this Riptide-is-a-helicopter-show battle, but the war is not over my friend. TO BE CONTINUED!

The Sorry State of Sorry

Pat, are you familiar with that board game “Sorry” where you draw cards and move little witnesses to mob crimes around a board trying to get them all into a safe house? This game:

Is it just me or does this image seem slightly crooked?

It’s making me feel kind of dizzy.

(source)

Pat: I remember that game! It’s connected to the mob? Really? Weird...I always assumed it was part of a Soviet training regimen designed to get people comfortable with the slow pace of inconsequential activities. I guess we’re all wrong some of the time.

Why do you ask?

Christian: Maybe it was just me that added the witness to mob crimes aspect to it. Anyways, this game was one of my favorites when I was a youth/in my twenties/thirties/now. However my five year old recently received this game as a gift. A brand new version.

It had some odd optional fire and ice things and rules that you can add to the game if you want to spice it up. Which of course I immediately threw down the garbage disposal. The game is perfect as it is. Everyone knows this.

Strictly out of curiosity though, I read the rules to know what these fire and ice abominations were all about. But I quickly learned that not only did they add these stupid fire and ice things/rules but they changed some of the core rules to the game! For example traditionally to leave your start circle you had to draw a one or a two. But nowadays you just have to draw a positive number. It’s almost impossible not to do this. What the pansy fuck?

Someone told me that at some point Parker Brothers changed the rules to some of their old school games to speed them up. By making these games easier I’m concerned we are raising a generation of weak sissies.   

On a scale of terrifyingly concerned to there is no limit to the amount of concern I should have, how concerned should we be?

Pat:  Fire and ice, eh? Just got some of that myself. Heh heh heh.

Sorry?

And I don’t know what the pansy fuck, Christian. Do you think they might be trying to speed up the games in an effort to get kids bored with them sooner so that they buy more and more games? If so, that seems pretty sneaky, sis! (game pun!)

Christian: I don’t know what their game (pun!) is. All I know is that they have ruined Sorry.

In addition to the start rules they also changed how the 8 sliders along the sides of the Sorry board work. Back in my day you could only slide down a slider that was the same color as you. And we loved it.

Nowadays the sliders are multi-colored which means anyone of any color can slide down them. I prefer the old days when they segregated people by color... Wait a second…

Pat: Bigot.

But sliders got me thinking about two things:

1.  Slider burgers. Who invented those little, fucking annoying finger-burgers? And why the hell do we call them “sliders”? Where are they sliding to or from, besides from my index finger and thumb to my gullet in far too small a bite? Stupid finger-burgers!

Fuck you, stupid little burgerette!

2. Chutes and Ladders, ‘cause I used to think about how much fun it would be to slide down all those slides, ESPECIALLY the one that took you from way up near the top, where you were almost winning, to way down at the bottom, where you were guaranteed to lose. And it bummed me out, because I was smart enough to know that the goal of the game was to get to the top, but I was also smarter enough to know that who the fuck wants to spend all their energy climbing ladders when they could be zipping down slides? And then I would lose.  

Poor guy.  Missing out on all the fun.

Christian: So what I’m hearing here is that you found the old school games difficult and would prefer them to be dumbed down. And that you don’t understand small hamburgers.

Is this what you’re saying?

Pat: I didn’t find them difficult so much as disappointing. The games, that is (but, actually, I suppose it’s true for the burgerettes as well). I understood that they were about competition and winning and ambition, but I just don’t didn’t have any of those qualities or desires. So, yeah...I tended to suck at old school games. I guess I kinda’ suck at new school games, too. You’re not going to invite me over for game night anytime soon, are you?

Christian: Don’t worry Pat, that wasn’t going to happen anyways.

So you have no opinion about Parker Brothers changing the rules to their games? Great. You are aware that this blog is called Point Counter-Point Point Point. The points mean point of views.

Pat: Right. Oh yes. I disagree with you wholeheartedly!

(yawn)

I can’t believe you would even think such an inane thing!

(yawn)

What the pansy fuck is the world coming to, Christian, when you can just willy-nilly have insane ideas about very important things like the one you just had!?

That better?

Christian: Yes, but you are completely wrong. Just wait. 20 years from now when we get invaded by Canada, our future sissy soldiers - who grew up playing easy to play and everyone “wins” type board games - won’t stand a chance against Canada’s strong willed horse mounted Army Mounties. You might as well get used to putting maple syrup on everything now Pat.