I get the idea of showing me ads that are relevant to me and what I do, but it seems pretty funny that I’m getting ads for things that (for all intents and purposes) I’m already a ‘customer’ of. I suppose it doesn’t hurt, but with the narrow focus that advertising is capable of I’m not sure it’s money well spent to show me things I already do/own/buy.

One of the funniest ones, for example, are the constant 300×250 ads for the Camaro that I seem to get bombarded with on websites of all kinds. I bought one three months ago. What is gained by showing me Camaro advertising?

So today my wife and I are going for our lunch date and we’re stopped at the light on the side ride from our little community (for lack of a better term) where we turn onto the main road. There was a bunch of traffic for some reason and I happened to notice a white car was behind me. We made the left at the light. At that point he road is three lanes. I went to the far right lane as did the two cars in front of me and the white car behind me and stopped at the first light (that is always red when you make the left on the arrow from the side road). I contemplated slipping into the middle lane to get ahead of all the right lane traffic, but didn’t. There are also left and right turn lanes at this light, so it was a weird situation where the two leftmost and rightmost lanes had cars in them but the middle lane was empty. Not sure why I noticed this. Maybe because I almost got in the middle lane? Who knows?

It was after sitting there at the red light a moment that I noticed the white car swung out from behind us. My first thought was, “Oh, they’re doing what I was thinking – beating the traffic,” but then the car pulled up beside us and stopped. I looked over and the girl in the passenger seat was putting her window down and making eye contact. So I hit the button and my window went down – it was two chicks. Gonch even gets chicks when he’s with his wife going on a lunch date. I’m that cool.

The girl asks, “What’s your license plate say?”

I told her and she asked what it meant and I explained it was a nickname. It was pleasant. I’m full of notoriety lately. I actually had a dude at Traget recognize me a week or so ago from the CoasterBuzz podcast.

No idea why the plate is suddenly getting attention. But I dig it. That’s what a vanity plate is for, right?

Here’s where I should point out that since we got the new car, the old car has been sitting out and the new car goes in the garage. Not sure why we’re not putting both in (still issues with getting comfortable with the fit, I suppose), but when we take the new car, the old car gets parked along the curb right at the end of the driveway by the mailbox. Everytime we return home and turn into the cul-de-sac, I get that quick startled rush of “Who is parked at the house?” because nothing really changes on our little street and it stands out like a sore thumb. It’s happened every single time I make the turn up our cul-de-sac since we’ve been putting the car there.

So tonight I turn in and have that moment when I spot the old car up at the end of the street near our driveway, but also notice another car at the opposite corner of our lot, closest to the turn in to the cul-de-sac. This really caught my attention because at 11pm, cars parked in front of the house are certainly out of place. But it was pretty far down – almost to the next house’s driveway. I chalked it up to company at their place parking there which is not unheard of, but is rare and super rare late at night. Needless to say, the car caught my attention and I looked at it as we approached and passed. It was empty. Which is what sort of solidified my initial guess of neighbor company.

So I continue past our house into the ‘circle’ of the cul-de-sac. Our driveway connects to the circle so essentially pulling into our driveway is like making a u-turn. Come up the street towards the circle at the “6 o’clock” position, hook a hard left and hit the driveway at the “8 o’clock” position. Our mailbox is just to the left of the driveway (when you’re facing it). It’s one of those birck column mailboxes with the actual mailbox built in. The old car gets pulled just past it. Kind of what would be the “7 o’clock” position, if you will. Make sense? Got the visual?

Anyway, I continue past our house into the circle, hit the garage opener, hook the hard left and as hit the driveway and get right next to the mailbox this girl in a black hoodie pops up and starts walking away. She was kneeling behind our mailbox/car. I’m like, “Whoa! What the fuck!?” My wife hadn’t noticed and I’m going, “There’s someone hiding there!” She’s all, “What!?”

I pulled into the garage and she jumps out of the car hitting the ‘lock’ button for the old car on her keychain making the lights flash and horn beep repeatedly as if throwing virtual punches of some kind. Next thing I hear is, “What the fuck are you doing near my car!? Get the fuck away from my car!” (my wife is so badass)

I hear a raspy female voice going, “I know! I know! I’m sorry! I’m sorry. I mean you no harm.” I hesitated a moment as I got out of the car. The kids were still in the back. I had a moment of pause, not sure whether to go out around the garage with my wife and confront the girl or to stay with the kids or what.

The girl went on, “I got into a fight with my grandmother and she called the cops.” She gave her address, which if I remember correctly, was for a house on the other side of the woods behind the house on the main road behind us. (but I’m not entirely sure if I filled in that blank correctly or not, in the confusion no one was taking notes).

She kept talking, “I climbed over the fence and I’m waiting for my ride.” Now that’s interesting because there is an old, rusty wire fence along the top back park of our property that kind of turns to barbed wire and disappears. Barely a fence, really.

While this is happening, I told the kids to get out of the car and got them inside then walked out to my wife.

At the same time, my wife with her cell phone in hand starts dialing 911. The girls goes, “Oh there it is now” and beelines for the car parked at the other end of the yard. My wife tells the 911 people someone was messing around our house but they’re leaving. She hangs up. The girl gets in the passenger side of the car and it takes off and makes a left out of the cul-de-sac.

We’re both like, “What the fuck was that?” She goes over to the car and looks for a minute then unlocks it and I say, “Go try to find them” and she’s like, “Yeah!” and off she goes.

I go back into the garage and grab a flashlight and start looking around. Shining the light into the woods, I noticed I left the shed open when doing some yardwork earlier. I hear a little movement, but nothing that couldn’t have been a critter or something. Still I wasn’t going back in there by myself to lock it up. I pulled out my cell and called my wife who had circled a few of the streets around us, but saw nothing. She was just coming back. I had her high-beam the woods where the shed sits and I went back and locked it up.

She pulled into the driveway and we grabbed flashlights and circled all around the house and yard, but saw nothing and nothing looking particularly out of the ordinary. Satisfied that whoever was there was all gone, we realized we left the kids in the house alone, closed up the garage and came in and looked around the house just to be sure.

I have to admit it was a little unnerving and pretty fucking weird. It doesn’t sound like much, but the 10 minutes of that confused rush was really crazy.

We settled down and tried piecing the weirdness together.

We all agreed the girl was in a black hoodie and my daughter said dressed all in black. My wife saw her the most and said her hair was either blond or very light brown and she had light eyes and was scared shitless at being conforonted and was shaking. He tone of voice sounded as much to me from the garage. She would have put her in her mid-20′s age wise which suprised me because from the rapsy quality of the voice, I’d have said grizzled 40-something. But I didn’t see her well. I would have called her blond from what I did see.

As for that car, I’d put the percentage at 90% to 95% that it was empty when we pulled up the road. I’m pretty damn sure someone wasn’t reclined or ducking. We both agreed that it was a small black (dark colored?) Toyota car – based solely on the emblem on the car. Neither of us thought quickly enough to get the plate number…and that pisses me off the most.

What scares me the most is that if the car was empty (and like I said 90% to 95% sure it was) and the girl got in the passenger side when it took off, who else was there and where were they as we pulled in and confronted the girl?

If I’m remembering the address she gave correctly, the fight-and-left story sort of adds up right until she hides behind our mailbox/car as we pull up our street. Why would she be hiding from cars if she was waiting for a ride? The psoition she was in would have been a perfect hiding place for anybody coming up the cul-de-sac with the sole exception of us coming home. And why would she leave a main road, cut through the small woods and wait for a ride on a small, side cul-de-sac? And why didn’t she see the car that was supposedly her ride sitting there before we pulled up? The car was clearly parked and turned off and empty when we pulled in. Why would her ‘ride’ be empty waiting for her?

I dunno. Something doesn’t add up. I generally don’t get wigged by much, but the whole thing felt “off” to us. So her I sit at 2:30am putting these thoughts down so I don’t lose them and sharing the story. I did turn all the outdoor lights on and closed up the windows and turned the air conditioner on. Don’t know why. If anything the moment you confront someone suspicious and they bail, is probably the time there’s the least chance that someone is nosing around outside.

I jokingly told my wife I think it was adisgruntled Meijer employee because earlier today I filled out one of those survey things they print on the bottom of receipts and ripped them a new one because they’ve fallen so hard. You have to add you name and address on those before you submit them. Clearly it was a disgruntled deli employee with a grudge.

I think I’ll stay up extra late tonight, just to be safe.

1. lord gonchar
2. uncle jesse
3. every piss begins with pee
4. homies
5. i wanna do flo
6. my body is a lockbox of diamonds
7. brown sugar fountain
8. usps clown commercial

Least used:

“I love that thing you do. You know, that thing. With your mouth…and the ice cubes…and the blowtorch and the 13 trained poodles and the autographed photo of Merle Haggard made out to someone’s Uncle Norman and the mp3 of La Bamba. That thing. I love it.”

It doesn’t appear on the list anywhere.

Think about it. It’d be the same overlying story arc, just told from the other side. Next time you catch it, watch it with that in mind and see how it works.

Which made me then think of a terrific marketing gimmick for a movie. Two movies simultaneously released that tell the same story but each uses the opposite main character as the protagonist.

So, I’ve invented the advanced motorboat. You get two girls to stand close (shoulder-to-shoulder) so that they form cleavage with their boobs closest to each other (the girl on the left’s right boob and the girl on the right’s left boob).

I think you see where I’m going with this.

Motorboat away in the newly formed dual-girl cleavage. You sir, are a master.

You’re welcome.

Kitty is spayed.
Kitty has been declawed on all four feet.
Kitty has a few years on her (vet wouldn’t say exactly, but I’m guessing 4 or 5 – give or take).
Kitty is healthy.

So I guess Kitty is ours. We’ve seen and heard nothing about anyone in the area looking for their lost kitty. The whole thing is weird.

1979-1985

1987-1995

That’s almost 16 consecutive years of Uncle Jesse. It’s also the same 16 years where life in this world arguably hit it’s peak.

Clearly the answer to restoring greatness is finding the next Uncle Jesse.

I wonder what kind of omen that is?

This year we didn’t go apeshit like last year. We still got great gifts, but did it with more laser-like precision as opposed to last years bulldozer-of-goodies mentality. My son got the laptop he’d been begging for since summer. (we’re now a three laptop/one desktop family) My daughter got the iPod upgrade she’d wanted. She now has a sweet new 16GB nano that she loves. And we finally moved totally into the present and replaced the last old-school CRT TV (in our bedroom) with a sweet 42″ LCD. Now every TV in the house is HD.

It was a very efficient Xmas. Stuff went up (admittedly half-heartedly) on the 11th and it came down the 27th. 16 days.

It always seems weird to me that people totally redecorate their house for 8 weeks out of the year. This year we cut it very short, but I’ve never been a “Thanksgiving to New Year’s” kind of guy.

We’ve done real trees since moving to Ohio (before that it was usually fake) and this year’s was the saddest of all. We waited so long that unless we were willing to pay a small fortune, we got stuck with an undersized, underloved piece of shit tree…and that’s what we got. I’ll maintain until the end of time that it was the worst tree ever. And I felt kinda bad because my son seemed so into it this year, but we’re finally getting to the point where we can drop the Santa pretense next year and I think that’s going to shift the focus and tone of the holidays for us. We’re becoming older as a family.

I already want to go back to the artificial tree, but I want a really nice one and I want at least a 12-footer and I want to put it in the entry and I want decorate the fuck out of it next year. And everyone can grab presents from the tree and bring them into the office/sitting room or the living room and open them. I’m creating a new level of Christmas in my mind. And upon sharing that thought with the wife (and kids to lesser degree) I can see the light bulb going off.

It feels like change is in the air. 2011 starts with my wife beginning her new job. (her last day at her current job is Friday the 31st) and she starts by flying to St. Louis for two weeks. This is the first year we have no plans to buy a season pass for any amusement park and no plans to travel in any meaningful way during the summer. We hopes to finally get a lot of stuff done around the house and spend more time outside. We’re going to get back on track with our weight (which we semi-abandoned in the fall). I haven’t had a haircut in months and am sporting a beard. My wife just went from her natural color with blonde highlights to a darker base with beautiful red streaks throughout and a modified style. My daughter continues to excel in school and is on the yearbook staff and joined a group that does competitive writing. She’ll find out if she made the actual team that travels to compete in mid-January. My son continues to enjoy artistic pursuits (he’s already gunning to get something in this year’s district art show again at school) and is evolving with his interest in football wanting to actively prepare for the 2011 season.

None of it was conscious either. It just seems like this is all happening and when I sit back and assess it, it’s all coming together organically. On all levels from big important things to little stupid things. I’m not sure what it means or that it matters. But there’s something there.

2011 motherfuckers.

The list currently includes:

Forbes
Forbes Life
Smart Money
Bloomberg Businessweek
Motorboating
Marlin
Yachting
Muscle & Fitness
Spin
Maxim
Playboy
Popular Mechanics
Home Theater
Extreme How-To

I think that’s it.

I hope the mail lady doesn’t judge based on the magazines that come to the house. Meh. Who cares if she does?