My response to the well-compiled Tomato Nation 25 and Over list:

1. Remember to write thank-you notes. The written word is a lost art and most youngsters under age 25 think texting 'THX PLAYA' does the trick. Taking the time to send off a stamped, hand-written note (especially after a job interview) shows that you are considerate and not a serial killer.
2. Do not invite yourself to stay with friends when you travel anymore. Being as I have a deep aversion to inconvenience (both for myself and those around me), this has never been a problem for me. I would much rather crash at a hotel even if family/friends are close by.
3. Do not expect friends to help you move anymore. I only expect my friends to help me move things if they stayed at my house due to a bout of excessive drinking the night before. Asking someone to help you move a roll-top desk with a crippling hangover should not be an issue if said someone yacked in your sink twelve hours earlier.
4. Develop a physical awareness of your surroundings. I pride myself on assessing my surroundings and acting accordingly. Alcohol often kills this one for me.
   
5. Be on time. I generally show up on time to most events. If I am late to anything longer than thirty minutes, I will blame my infant child who cannot speak.
6. Have enough money. Nothing pisses me off more than somebody who never brings money out in card or cash from. You did not leave your wallet at home. You are just a cheap bastard.
   
7. Know how to calculate the tip. It is not difficult to multiply the bill by two to get the 20% tip equivalent. If you do not have the mental capacity to calculate a tip without the aid of a calculator or cell phone, eating out is probably the least of your worries.
8. Do not share the crazy dream you had last night with anyone but your mental wellness professional. Depends on what the dream is about and what your intentions are by sharing said dream. A sex dream with the intention of getting yourself laid? Absolutely. Murdering all you co-workers with a machine gun during a casual Friday with the intention of getting a raise? Probably not.
   
9. Learn to walk in heels. Only applies to me if I patronize an East German sex club.
10. Have at least one good dress-up outfit. Before the wife cleaned me up, taught me how to dress and expanded my wardrobe, I owned only one suit at the behest of my mother. It was my all-purpose suit that saw many weddings, funerals and job interviews. I could sometimes tell the last time I wore it by reaching in the inner-coat pocket and finding an old event program.
11. Do as invitations ask you. I am usually not formally invited to anything and if I am the wife handles all the RSVP-ing and gifting. It is better this way.
    
12. Know how. Sadly I think most people 25 and under grew up with every convenience afforded to them and would perish in the wilderness after being given a knife and a water source. Problem solving is lost on a generation that did not have to solve any problems because their parents were afraid if they failed it would crush there delicate sensibilities. I like to think I know enough about enough to be dangerous.
    
13. Don't use your friends. This should be on an age 5 and over list. You should never use your friends unless they have an awesome surround-sound system.
    
14. Have something to talk about besides college or your job. As the many people in my life can attest, I have plenty to talk about besides college and my job.
15. Give and receive favors graciously. As my Dad said while scolding me after an excessive sports celebration in my youth, "Act like you have been there before."
16. Drinking until you throw up is no longer properly a point of pride. It depends on how good the scotch is.
17. Have a real trash receptacle, real Kleenex, and, if you smoke, a real ashtray. Toilet paper serves multiple purposes (in my opinion); nose blowing and ass-wiping. If you smoke? You will be dead before me. That and you should properly dispose of your butts. My yard is not that place.
    
18. Universal quiet hours do in fact apply to you. Working from home I keep weird hours and I keep the volume down during the quiet hours without even realizing it.
19. Take care of yourself. Workout a few times. Take a shower every other day. Do not eat Taco Bell three times a week. Repeat.
20. Rudeness is not a signifier of your importance. It is when you are from California.
    

Labels: career, dad, drinking, family, gluttony, sex, stupidity, wife

I could not help but overhear your whining to the manager on duty regarding the broken cart-pushing machine while I was waiting in the checkout line with my steaks and diapers. I wish I could say I felt sympathy for you, kid, but you are nothing more than a spoiled bitch. Back when you were still playing with your own crap and watching Sesame Street, I was pushing carts for Uncle Sam Walton without the aid of mechanized transport. The Slushy Gutter Crew toiled and labored in that godforsaken parking lot, but we all took pride in pushing cart trains into the warehouse with our youthful exuberance and brawn. We also took pride in pushing those same carts into the lake behind the warehouse, playing Nerf football games when the manager's backs were turned, daring each other to climb into the hydraulic bailing machine and turn it on, loading eight flatbeds full of merchandise into a motorcycle gang's refrigerated truck and kicking boxes across the asphalt. In short, suck it up and push the carts in yourself, princess.

Labels: babies, glory days, open letter, sg crew, tomfoolery

Me: Go suck a bag of dicks. One by one. In order of smallest to largest.
Candee: So as I get tired of sucking dicks, the dicks keep getting bigger and bigger making it even more gay and more painful? Is the last one in that bag a real choker? Like Mike Tyson's dick?
Me: Well, if it were Mike Tyson's dick it would rape you and then beat your head in before you sucked it. I was thinking more along the lines of John Holmes's dick. It is enormous and then gives you AIDS when it is all over. Because that is what you get for sucking a bag of dicks.
Candee: Nice.

Labels: candee, gay, im convos, pop culture, sex

• Timberlake absolutely killed Saturday Night Live over the weekend. I am loving the Color Me Badd personas he and Samberg take on. Acid-washed jeans? Christ.
  
• The Denver Nuggets have been rolling through the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs. The main reason? Homegrown talent Chauncey Billups. I remember watching Chauncey eat my high school alive in the state basketball tournament back in '94. If the Nugs win it all, there is no player more deserving of MVP honors.
  
• Rwanda, fifteen years after the genocide. The new government granted Get Out Of Jail Free Cards to most participants of the single largest mass murder in African history. Good times.
  

Labels: death, denver, history, link goodness, music, pop culture, sports, war

Articles like this make me happy I committed to Broz Design last November. From a guy who has been laid off and fired more than most, I can tell you that offering to cut your own salary will do little other than show your employer you have no pride left. If anything, it makes you look desperate and afraid.

I take more risks with my income than most. There is no guarantee when my next pay check will arrive. My retainer clients may decide to cut losses and liquidate their contracts tomorrow. Yet in spite of all this, I am happier than I have ever been professionally. I have always refused (sometimes at my own peril) to justify to anyone why my skills and abilities are indispensable. If my work did not speak for itself or it went about unnoticed, than I do not want to work for you.

My employment missteps have led me to where I am today. I am flourishing. I do not have to wear pants to work. I am making enough money to keep diapers on the boy. I would rather fail on my own that be somebody's puppet. I do not like anyone's hand up my ass, be it metaphorically or literally.

Labels: broz design, career, l-i-v-i-n, pants-free, the boy