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Easter Antiquer
April 11, 2012 | 
Author
Sunday afternoon, I was driving home after spending a great Easter brunch with my brother Chris and his family, when I drove past an antique mall. I hadn’t been there in several months and was surprised to see a number of cars in the parking lot. I figured it would be closed on Easter, but it was as open as a head wound (or something else less gross that’s open). 2 and a half hours later, low on fluids, I walked out of the antique mall into the fresh air and sunshine with some pretty awesome items that I totally don’t need.
Here’s what I found: Read the rest of this entry »
Mirror Gate In the Entryway
I found this mirror gate a while back and knew I had to have it. It’s not old, but was made as a cool mirror. I’d seen some small antique gates before that I knew would be great as decorative architectural features on the wall, but the one I found was perfect because it came with hanging brackets and a mirror. The mirror, of course, helps provide visual depth in my narrow entryway.
I accepted the fact that I’d be putting more anchor screws in the wall and that someday when I sell the place there will be a good deal of hole-filling between these anchor holes and the ones for the stained-glass window and the holes from hanging all the other pictures in the house. Or someone could set up a Lite Brite. Anyway, I put this puppy up in my entryway. I like it.
the secret product is Lite Brite
Linkeriffic!
Drilling Holes In My Wall For Mankind
Antique Stained-Glass Window For the Bachelor Pad
Antiquing and the Cylinder Phonograph
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
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Cook A Romantic Dinner As Trickery
(While other guys were out on romantic Valentine’s Day dates with their girls, I was home pondering the nature of life and how much chocolate ice cream I should eat in one sitting. I’m sure I did something manly. I also worked on this.)
You’ve cooked a very special dinner for your girl and are seated at a candlelit table on a neighbor’s roof (non-sloped). This is approximately how you want your romantic dinner conversation to go (assume breathiness):
You: My Dear, can I give you any more of anything?
Her: My Darling, I’m quite full, it’s all so delicious, but I think I have a little room left for some of your yummy manicotti.
You: Of course, kitten. Here you are. Be sure to save room for dessert. It’s cherry cheesecake.
Her: Mmm, I bet it is, tiger. And you better save some room yourself, my love. (<wink>) Ooh, watch out for that pigeon.
You: Actually, monkey, that’s a turtledove I borrowed from the aviary. I thought the cooing was soothing. Just look at that cute little leash.
Her: Um, yes, Sniffles. It’s lovely, dearest, but the local pigeons are trying to…Oh, no! Stop that!!
You: (<muttering to self>) Insatiable.
Disgusting stuff like that. My grandma is blushing. Read the rest of this entry »
Naming the Bachelor Fortress
Superman Hides from Lois Lane
The Vanderbilts have the Biltmore Estate. The French royals had Versailles. Blenheim Palace is the birthplace of Winston Churchill and has a fun garden maze. Superman had the Fortress of Solitude. Um, there’s Howard’s End. See, I think it’s time I named my little house. My bachelor pad. My precious. Read the rest of this entry »
Drilling Holes (In My Wall) For Mankind
I just drilled holes in my wall to hang a stained-glass window and it only took me 2 months. I’m on the ball.
In August, after some searching, I finally found and purchased a cool stained-glass window at an antique shop. It was awesome. Once I brought it home, though, it sat leaning against a wall except for when I brought it out to admire it or take glamour shots of it in the moonlight. I meant to hang it in my dining room, but that required drilling holes in my wall for the screw anchors. The thing is, I have little recent experience drilling holes in walls, but I have done it before. Read the rest of this entry »
Antique Stained-Glass Window For the Bachelor Pad
Bachelor Pads Have 15 Times More Germs!!!
This is not my beautiful house.
by Jonathan Bacteria Perry
Okay, dudes. We need to talk. It seems we have a problem, a perception problem that’s going to take a lot of Lysol & Clorox to wipe clean. Apparently our bachelor pads have gotten pretty funky. I know that’s not terribly surprising, but now there’s this so-called ‘official’ research from the University of Arizona showing how truly foul things are. According to these tests, bachelor pads contain 15 times the amount of bacteria than is in the homes of bachelorettes. 15 TIMES! That’s insane. I didn’t figure the number would be that high. Maybe 3 or 4 times more germs, but not 15. Of course, the study found that bachelorette homes were even cleaner than the average home with 2 or more people, so apparently bachelorettes are freaks, like museum curators or something, whereas bachelor pads were like monkey cages (which would make bachelors the monkeys throwing poop, not the zoo keepers).
Oh, the grossest thing the study found about bachelor pads is that 70% of coffee tables harbored coliform, a type of bacteria common in feces. Feces! You’ve got crap on your coffee table! Apparently shoes pick up feces after a while, so if you put your feet up on the coffee table, there’s a good chance you’re transferring poop. Exciting, huh? These coliforms and other fun microbes, including cold and flu carriers, were also abundant on TV remotes, door knobs, and the bedside stand. It’s true, bachelorette homes weren’t immune to these bugs, but they weren’t nearly as disgustingly infested.
Now guys, you can take some solace in knowing you aren’t spreading the Legionnaires Disease that recently made almost 200 visitors to the Playboy Mansion ill. We all knew there’d be some scary stuff coming from there, but not on that big of a scale. I’m sure you might be interested in seeing some sort of trade off, like the flu for a scantily clad woman or hives for a dominatrix, but things don’t exactly work like that (though bringing a stripper home might provide bonus bacteria). It’s probably more important at this point to take a Sunday afternoon and wipe up your filth, you pig.
And if she ever asks whether you want to go back to her place or to your place, you know, to make jam, definitely go to her place. And remember to take off your shoes.
The secret word is nasty.
Bachelor Pad Links
How NOT to Decorate a Bachelor Pad
Domesticated Bachelor Step #1: The Bachelor Pad!
DB Step #10: Collect the Right Toys
My Bachelor Pad
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Top Bachelor Links of the Week (Feb 6-12)
Phaistos Disk-1700BC. Can you crack the code?
Last week was most notable for the Super Bowl and some heavy changes in Egypt that hopefully don’t make things worse than they were (cross your fingers on that power vacuum). On a somewhat lighter note, I’ve gathered some nifty new weblinks from last week that might be of interest to the bachelor folk.
1. The Best & Worst Cities For Men- Men’s Health graded 100 major cities in the US using several criteria, including health & social factors. I was pretty stoked because my city, Lincoln, Nebraska, came in 6th! (Lincoln’s done fantastically on several comparison lists over the last few years, which gives me some consolation since I don’t live in the Pacific Northwest.) Take a look to see if your city made the list.
2. 10 Man Caves- The real estate site Zillow.com made a list of 10 great man caves, including Larry the Cable Guy’s man cave. Not so much bachelor pads as bachelor islands in the seas of marriage. Or something.
3. Top 10 Uncracked Codes- If you thought women were hard to crack, check out these 10 codes that have stymied cryptologists for years. One was even written by the composer Elgar in 1897. Maybe you can crack them (probably not). My brother sent me this link.
4. $20,000 To Hack Chrome- For all you computer geniuses and/or nerds (like my college roommate Ted) who need legal & financially happy outlets for your hacking skills, check out Google’s offer of $20,000 to anyone who can hack their Chrome browser during an event in Vancouver next month.
5. 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal (The Singularity)
This was a fascinating article from Time about Ray Kurzweil’s belief in ‘The Singularity’, where computers may soon far surpass human intelligence resulting in humans merging with machines in one of a couple ways. A fascinating read, if potentially disconcerting. Cyborg stuff.
6. 6 New Mythbusting Rules for Singles- Match.com surveyed 5,000 single men & women and found some surprising things that defied stereotypes, including that men fall in love more quickly and are more eager to have children. Why must they tell our secrets?
7. Silver Bullion Backwardation Suggests Supply Stress-Running out of silver? Sort of. The demand is greater than the current supply which means prices should continue to run up for some time. The article explains backwardation and what that means for the price of silver. I started watching silver prices last summer when they were at the $17.50 an ounce level. Today silver is just over $30/oz and this particular article expects it to reach as much as $130 in the not too distant future. The instability of our fiat currencies certainly helps silver and gold, but gold is a bit high for the average investor (currently over $1360 an ounce). Silver is outpacing gold with help from it’s many industrial uses, including it’s use as a conductor in solar power cells. The article doesn’t quite suggest you run to your local coin dealer and stock up, hoarding silver in a hole in your backyard for retirement and/or nuclear fallout, but it didn’t really need to. I think there was a link for that.
The secret word is cryptology
Listomania!
My Bucket List: 100 Things To Do Before I Die
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor
My 11 Favorite Christmas Albums
30 Favorite Songs of 2009 (1-15)
9 Foods I Might as Well Move To the Bomb Shelter
Timely Link
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Make Super Bowl Party Foods In The Dark. In Your Basement. Slowly.
by Jonathan Butterchurn Perry
(This is an excerpt from my forthcoming eBook which might have a title something like The DB Presents: Tacos in the Night Exchanging Cheeses (probably not that at all). Maybe closer to The DB Presents: Cooking at Gunpoint (ok, I kind of like that.). Also, Behold! Here’s an awesome animated video I made for the subject at hand.)
You’ve seen it happen before: at the Super Bowl party some regular schlub makes a really great chunky salsa and all the lovely fresh-faced Betties keep fawning and asking in strange English accents, “Who made this delicious salsa? It’s Brilliant! I really do love it so!”, and some observant freak impersonating James Cagney says, “Why, old George made it in his cellah using his Civil War buttah churn while singing to those old classic yodeling records.”, to which a random hot chick says, “Wow! That’s specific. Well, I’ll just have to get his recipe! Oh, and …Brilliant!”, whereupon Civil War butter churning re-enactor and budding yodeler, George, emerges from the mist, ignores the annoying British overuse of the word ’brilliant’, and produces his sacred and secret salsa recipe to great female adulation. Phone numbers are exchanged and private butter churning yodeling lessons a-go-go are scheduled for the 147th anniversary of the battle of Antietam and a hot time on the old town tonight is set in motion all because George spent some quality time learning to make a tasty, but easy, chunky salsa (‘Tasty, but Easy’ is also what we call George‘s sister. Also ‘Chunky‘.). Why he used a butter churn to make salsa, I do not know, but it hardly matters. Brother, that could be you giving private butter churning salsa lessons to an eager young lass in a dirndl and making her yodel! Yodelay-HE-HOO!
I was going somewhere with this…oh, yeah! I don’t have the saucy salsa recipe at this particular moment (that‘s in a secret prison in Spain awaiting extradition), but I do have a delicious Guacamole recipe you can totally rip off and pass off as your own. You’re welcome! You think you’re lucky now with the guac, but I also have a crazy awesome cheese ball recipe that not only tastes, but looks, fantastic! (I’ll withhold that now for a bit, but you can totally find it my upcoming eBook. Wink 
Wink Nudge Nudge). I know, you’re counting your lucky stars, green clovers and purple horseshoes and don’t know whether to thank me with butterfly kisses or to transfer $10 million to my offshore bank account quickly now before your bank notices, but just knowing I’ve helped some sad single wretch such as yourself with a series of mild chemical imbalances is all the thanks I need (really, though, get on with the account transfer or there‘s a bullet with the name Vincent on it).
So, without further ado, let the dip-making begin!
Gringo Guacamole a la Sherry
(This serves 2 people. Learn multiplication.)
1 avocado
½ tsp lemon juice
Mayo (approximately equal to the amount of avocado. Add to taste…)
½ tsp soy sauce (adjust to taste)
Garlic powder (a little)
Chopped Onion (some)
Salt (taste for amount)
I know, you saw Sherry in the title of the recipe and became disturbingly excited thinking there was cooking and/or drinking Sherry included in the list of ingredients, but that’s just not the case. Sicko. Sherry just happens to be my mom’s name (some observant person might remember that my last name is Perry, thus believing my mom’s name to be Sherry Perry, and it is. Way to go. You cracked the code. Yeah, laugh it up, buddy.).
When I got this recipe from my mom, it was odd because some of the ingredient amounts were pretty vague, like ‘a dash of this’ or ‘a heaping spoonful of that’, and everything usually ended in ‘add to taste’, so that was useful (note the sarcasm). It’s like being thrown into the deep end of the pool, but the pool is filled with Jello…that you made! And you made it slightly wrong! I kept asking “Really? Really?” after each unnatural measurement was given. Was I being taunted by an unkind mother who was really mocking my feeble attempt to make a completely unnecessary food? No, motherly mockery is reserved for other things, like my attempts at songwriting. It seems this tendency to not use proper measurements is a kooky device cooks use sometimes. Apparently, they get so used to making a recipe that they can kind of ‘eye it’, knowing just how much to put in by sight and by taste. Also, they may be lazy or cocky. Every so often these daredevil cooks decide to pay attention to how much of an item is used and write it down, so that next time they won’t have to guess or keep tasting (hint hint).
Anyway, the recipe is fairly straight forward, once you get the hang of all the adjusting to taste. For those unfamiliar with the evils of avocados, know this: The avocado has a hard outer peel and an even harder pit in the middle. Do NOT eat these! Also, when selecting your weird green fruit thing at the farmers market it’s important to get to 2nd base with it first. Squeeze it gently and if it gives a little, it’s about ripe. Also, the skin should be a little darker, kind of a purplish-blackish-greenish mix. Like a Martian’s bruise. Buy a couple so you can feed more than 2 people.
Once you’ve gotten your avocado(s) home and rinsed and peeled and pitted it(them), mash up that green fruit, then mix in the other ingredients with an eye to tasting it a bunch to get it right. Go forth and serve your special guac with corn chips at a Super Bowl party at someone else’s house and be awesome.
The Secret Word is Brilliant.
More Consumable Goodness
The Great Suburban Mushroom Hunt
Secret Ingredients and Family Recipes
9 Foods I Might As Well Move To The Bomb Shelter
Berry Smoothie & the Magic Blender
Easter Recipe: Mom’s Creamed Eggs and Croutons
Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: Step #4. Learn To Cook
My Bachelor Weight Loss Secrets: Sticking It To The Terrorists
Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: Steps 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: Step #3. Shape Up, Fatty
Stuffed French Toast By Sam The Cooking Guy
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Christmas Album Favorites
As you roast your chestnuts, drink your egg nog, and bake tasty Christmas cookies, you probably find it fun to set the rest of the holiday milieu by playing your favorite Christmas tunes on your hi-fi as you rock around the Christmas tree in your worst festive sweater. I’m sure you have your favorite Christmas music and of course I have mine. These are my 11 Favorite Christmas Albums.
17 Types of Bachelor Pads
by Jonathan Bonobo Perry
ABC has a new cheesetastic reality tv show called The Bachelor Pad which seems like it might combine The Bachelor with Big Brother and The Real World after they’ve soaked in a briny vat of The Girls Next Door. It promises an abnormally good-looking and freakishly healthy cast of cast-offs from previous reality shows being overly-dramatic and dramatically-amorous in a fine and expensive model home. Pray, what will this bachelor pad be like? Certainly it has everything. Entertainment, games, and watery places, perhaps 7 hot tubs (so a few could be decontaminated simultaneously). This got me thinking about types of Bachelor Pads as theme parks for men or rather types of homes for types of bachelors. What if guys were only one-dimensional and could each be pigeonholed into one tidy category? Here’s who 17 of those guys would be and how their bachelor pads would be set up to reflect the weirdness.
1 Lothario/Lech Pad-Round spinning bed, cocktail bar, fancy lighting, a fine collection of loungy mood music. It would be like the digs for Quagmire from Family Guy or for Austin Powers, replete with bathrobes and smoking jackets and lots of velvet. A hot tub. This is usually the first picture that comes to mind when one thinks of the classic bachelor pad. It’s a lie. Mostly.
2 Gamer Pad-Comfy chair for all that sitting. Probably plush. A couple gaming systems (XBox, Nintendo, Playstation, Wii) backed up by a quality entertainment system. Dice and game parts for various role playing games. Occupant-pasty sleepy nerd.
3 Partier Pad-A sufficient supply of food and beverages and, if lucky, easily cleaned surfaces. Large tv and other entertainment devices: good stereo, lots of music, the gamer’s gaming system, some board games and backyard games. Possibly a jacuzzi and a grill in the awesome backyard. There might be a firepit. Tiki torches?
4 Handyman Pad-Handmade furniture or carvings. An extensive collection of tools and parts. A fine workbench in the garage. Powerdrill always plugged into the wall. Multiple projects at different stages of completion spread about the garage and house. Possibly a classic car parked in the garage being restored.
5 Traveler Pad-Travel books, posters, and paintings. Souvenirs and maps. Photo albums of trips. Several suitcases, bags & perhaps an enormous travel cases like Jimmy Stewart‘s from It’s A Wonderful Life.
6 Collector Pad-The house may be overrun and/or decorated by strange collections: stamps, baseball cards, license plates, Coca-Cola memorabilia. Butterflies. Places to store and display all this stuff have been set aside. The Antique-r is a sub-specialist of collector. Or is it the other way around?
7 Gadget Dude Pad-Assorted collection of the latest and greatest gadgets both electronic and mechanical. Not only does he have the latest ostentatious Apple product (iPhone, iPad, iTouch), he also has camcorders, ereaders, robots, roombas, gps’s.
8 Reader Pad-Several bookcases, maybe some built-ins for a large a well-organized library (possibly numbered books, as if it were a real library). There might be a list of books lent out and who has them and why you’ll never get them back. (Chris? Marshall?). If he’s gone gadgety, there might be an Amazon Kindle or a similar ereader.
9 Sports Fan Pad-There will be lots of sports memorabilia, some of it plastered to the walls. Maybe jerseys of the home team. There could be game highlight footage on DVD. There might even be sports cards, but certainly sports magazines.
10 Movie and TV-Buff Pad-Huge TV entertainment system with surround sound. Lots of DVDs. Lots of VHS tapes with the player. Possibly a Beta player and Beta tapes for some rare ancient weirdness.
11 Musician Pad-Instruments. The pinnacle is a grand piano or a specialty guitar signed by some dead rock legend. Recording equipment. A fine hi-fi system that spans the years from phonograph to 8-track to cassette to cd to mp3 player. There will be plenty of albums to play on this system. There might be busts of musicians and sheets of music. Perhaps rooms have been modified to adjust acoustics.
12 Fitness Enthusiast Pad-In this pad might be found a bicycle and helmet. If he’s a daredevil he might have mountain-climbing equipment, otherwise regular (and strange) exercise devices: dumb bells, stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical, medicine ball. He might have his own awards from previous sporty endeavors.
13 Animal Lover Pad-Aquariums, terrariums, cages and kennels. Leashes and bowls on the floor. Adorable creatures that want to eat and bite you and need to use the facilities which may or may not be in your house. Animal hair everywhere. Unsolved allergy issues. Hello Kitty stationery? Maybe that’s just a sub-genre.
14 Hoarder Pad-this comes from mixing too many of the other categories together and having certain psychological issues.
15 Artist/Photographer Pad-Paints and brushes. Easels and canvas and frames. Cameras and camera equipment. Maybe a dark room for old film. Some of his own work might be framed on the wall as well as his inspirations’ works. Art supplies and works are spread all over the house.
16 Gardener/Plant Guy Pad-Much of this guy’s stuff would be in the backyard: Veggie garden, flowers, other odd plants. Sometimes the greenery will come inside and there will be pots of living greenstuff (non-mold) around the house. There might be books and magazines for gardening ideas and tips.
17 Chef/Cook Pad-This dude has a kitchen full of quality cooking equipment. Pots and pans and skillets or whatever. There will be odd measuring devices which might use the metric system or stuff like pinch or smidgen. He’ll have lots of spices and fancy oils. The cupboards and fridge are stocked with all kinds of food.
Certainly your type has been overlooked. That just means you’re weird.
The secret word is pigeonhole
Related Reading:
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
Bachelor Step #10: Collect the Right Toys
Bachelor Step #1: THE BACHELOR PAD
$15 Million Ultimate Bachelor Pad
Tenuously Related Reading:
Logan’s Run & Population Control
Sound Of Music Death Match!!! Liesl v Maria
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Which Is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
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State of the Bachelor Address: July
by Sir Jonathan Boniface Perry
My fellow blog readers, we do not harass Caesar with tickle fights to haze him, but to Epilady him because he’s Mediterranean and obviously pretty hairy (Mediterranean men recognize their condition and are not offended. Especially Caesar.). Yea, verily, here’s the state of the bachelor: Hungry! No, really, here it is:
1. Whenever the theme song for “The Office” plays, I make up another song on the spot and sing it over the top of the theme. Sometimes there are lyrics which may or may not include “Shake your butt. Shake your butt, baby.” I’m working on that. On a related note, I’m sad to hear that Steve Carell plans to leave the show at the end of next season. Bummer.
2. Last week I was accidentally subscribed to Ladies Home Journal. Also Parents Magazine and Family Circle. Probably a sweepstakes entry gone bad, though I don’t rule out a clever prank. My issue of Family Circle arrived in the mail today. Really, I did cancel them.
3. Found a dead bird. 1st bird this year. 3 last year. My yard might be cursed. I also suspect vuvuzelas. Or soccer in general. I left the bird because it was on the edge of the yard and had already been sitting several days. It smelled a bit & its little claws were sticking up all twig-like. I mowed around it, so there’s a small square patch unmowed on the side of my front lawn being fertilized a special way.
4. Yes, I realize DB could also stand for Douche Bag. Oy.
5. I traced several lines of ancestors back into Switzerland for a few hundred years to as early as the 1500s. Crazy awesome! That’s 500 years! Didn’t know we had any Swiss. I knew about a few of our German lines, as well as Chippewa, Cherokee, likely Welsh and Dutch, but not about the Swiss. Still haven’t found how my dad might be related to Benjamin Franklin. (More to come later on this genealogy business. Probably.)
6. Average daily blog hits in June- over 100!
7. Found a great Belgian Chocolate Gelato sold by the pint at the supermarket. Need to quit buying it so I can lose weight.
8. (Update on nicknaming post.) a)Darrin at work has started calling me Pretty Pretty Princess. Retribution is required. b)I’m trying out other nicknames for Paul J. who was non-plussed by the nickname Paulina. Paolo was also apparently inadequate. I’m thinking Polyglot or something else with Poly-. Maybe Polymer (not Polyamorous). c)Still need a good nickname for Randy besides Bookie and Wizzer (not a spelling error from me). Randalina doesn’t quite do it. Maybe the Great Randini. d) Nickname for Dave Micek, DJ Mice K, is still super awesome!
9.Today, the aforementioned Apollo Polyglot at work guessed I was only 27 years old (he’s 10 yrs off). This, of course, rocks. Not sure whether this guess was based on my maturity or if my vampire white skin is paying off.
10. Need to renew my passport for that cruise in Dec. It needs to be valid for 6 months after the trip, but mine would only be good for 5 1/2 months after. Oh, hey, I’m taking a cruise. I’ll sunburn in style.
11. I now have over 13,000 songs on my iPod! Sure, a few hundred tracks are chapters of audio books. Sure, I had to finally upload a few of those Mozart CDs last night that had been sitting around unused for a few years. Sure, 135 of those tracks are of my own poorly recorded music and of those maybe 30 are duplicates. Do I have a 2-disc set of a Bulgarian women’s folk choir singing Bulgarian folk songs leftover from a world music binge in the ’90s? Yes, I do. But I’ve reached a special milestone. If you figure that each album averages 10 tracks, this would mean I should have about 1,300 albums. According to my iTunes it would take 35 days to listen to this 58GB of songs. Will I listen to all of these songs straight through uninterrupted over those 35 days? I will not in a boat with a goat. But I can, if I wish to kill myself that way. Also, there is chocolate gelato.
12. Thwarted a kitchen invasion by ants last week. They were probably displaced by the recent heavy rains. I gassed my house with poison that probably was the cause of my subsequent sickness.
13. Put down 120 lbs of topsoil near the foundation of the house to fill low spots that were pooling with water during those heavy rains. Need more. A little water was leaking into the basement. On a positive note, I could set-up a Slip-and-Slide in the garage.
In conclusion, that is the recent state of the bachelor. Will there be changes? Probably. Will they be snail-paced? Most certainly. Will you have a good Independence Day/July 4th Holiday? I hope so. May the force be with you.
The secret word is Polyphonic
A Similar List:
Related Links:
Nicknaming Your Friends For Fun (and Revenge)
Other Linky Links:
Will Your Siblings Use Up The Good Names?
Children, Braid Your Nosehairs
Couples vs Singles: Socialization
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Domesticated Bachelor RESOLUTIONS For 2010
Happy New Year and junk! 2008 and 2009 were great years for me. I made swell strides in personal improvement: bought a house, changed jobs for the first time in 9 years, lost almost 40 pounds, finished writing a book, started this blog, and dated a few good-looking and fascinating (if unhappy) women. 2010 is promising and I hope to take a hearty chunk out of its hopeful offerings. Here’s my (public) list of resolutions for the new year (the private list may or may not include shameful notions like ‘Online Dating’, ‘Invisalign’, and job advancement. Yes, the public list is shameful, too.).
- Get below 200 pounds for the first time since just after college (Allow for muscle tone & abs. If there’s good muscle tone and a nice 6 pack, then just over 200 pounds is fine and not bad for a 6 footer built like a linebacker. Or me.). I could totally do it by summer. Maybe.
- Get more sleep. Unless I’m hanging out with attractive women until the wee hours, there’s no reason I should exhaust myself and make my brain dull and eyes red (though bloodshot brings out the blue in my eyes). This may mean more hopeful cocktails of Melatonin & Tylenol PM. Of course insomnia is insomnia.
- Save more and invest more. $$ x $$= $$$$$$
- Be more confident & fearless. Don’t care what people think (like the unhappy, uber-critical, pretty good-looking girl-woman I was sorta kinda not dating for 6 months who teased me a few times for not being manly enough. Man, I miss her.). Also, don’t overshare feelings, especially with uber-critical women.
- Be more manly & rugged. (ok, yeah. So I’d like to be a bit more dude-ish, but not in an obvious, obnoxious, pandering to the critics sort of way). I’ll still listen to the Pet Shop Boys.
- Do one major home project: new siding, update a bathroom or the kitchen (by ‘do’, I mean pay someone skilled to ‘do’ this project).
- Do 2 minor home projects: trim, doorway casing, paint stuff.
- Plant at least one new tree on my property. Front yard 1st. Maybe a Birch or Japanese Maple. Maybe both. Also an evergreen. That sounds like 3.
- Do some landscaping. Flagstone walkway. Sunken garden in the low corner of the backyard. Junk like that.
- Learn a manly skill or 2, like wiring a new light fixture or building a built-in bookcase. Or join a fantasy football league. It shouldn’t be as exhausting as the daily fantasy baseball league I was in for 2 years.
- Do more cool adventurous sorts of things: whitewater rafting, backpacking, large hill climbing, long trail hiking. Canoeing the boundary waters (if there are showers).
- Be more sociable & less reclusive. More Jay Gatsby, less Ted Kaczynski. Also, make friends.
- Date more frequently & less stressfully. More irons in the fire reduce the chance that a single iron will burn you. Or something dumb.
- Finish writing one of the books I’ve been puttering around in. I’ve been chipping away at 3 or 4 books, but get distracted easily. One project has 22 pages of notes, but only 7 pages of written product. What’s up with that?
- Resume writing music. Finish some songs. Maybe learn to use the Pro Tools recording software I bought in ’08 right before I bought the house. (If ever tempted to write a song for a girl again, sleep on it a few days first and be sure it’s finished and not incredibly dorky. Or containing dark humor. Dangit.)
- Waste less time. This includes spending less pointless time online or wasting too much time on wishy-washy women, however much you dig them and can’t get over them.
- If all else fails, follow the 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor.
(Again, I am not actually a Domesticated Bachelor. I just play one in my mind.)
What resolutions do you goats have for 2010?
Related Reading:
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor
Unrelated Awesome Reads:
Logan’s Run & Population Control
Sound Of Music Death Match!!! Liesl v Maria
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Which Is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
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Posted in 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor, bachelor pad, decorating, garden, health, house, investing, tools, tree, weight-loss | 5 Comments »
My 11 Favorite Christmas Albums
by Jonathan Bing Perry
Whether you grew up listening to big band, prog rock, hillbilly, classical music, or some evil hybrid, you were likely exposed to some Christmas music at least a little each year and possibly relieved when the holidays ended.
Our vinyl record collection was crammed with Christmas music that filled the house for months and I grew to love it. It was the soundtrack to family traditions and youthful happiness. I now have most of this music at my house and listen to it year round ad nauseum. To me, it’s like comfort food or anti-depressants. It hits the spot.
These are my favorite Christmas albums.
1. Andy Williams-Merry Christmas
2. Andy Williams-The Andy Williams Christmas Album
These 2 gems of the ’60s are fantastic, combining a smooth baritone voice with great big band-ish arrangements by Robert Mersey. Original classics that are introduced include Happy Holiday/The Holiday Season, It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Sleigh Ride, and Christmas Holiday. Andy Williams had terrific Christmas TV specials where he sang with his brothers and the Osmonds on beautifully staged sets. About 15 yrs ago my family saw AW’s Christmas show at his theater in Branson, MO, and though he’s much older, he’s still sounds great. For me Christmas isn’t the same without Andy Williams.
3. Bing Crosby-Merry Christmas
Irving Berlin’s White Christmas was the perfect vehicle for Bing Crosby, or perhaps it was the other way around. Either way, it was a perfect marriage of sound. This bestselling song even became a feature of a few Bing movies (including Holiday Inn & White Christmas). White Christmas is included here with 11 other Christmas songs rendered with Bing’s unmistakable voice. My other favorites are Christmas in Killarney, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, and Mele Kalikimaka. Who can resist the piano tinkling beginning of Jingle Bells? (And, no, his Little Drummer Boy duet with David Bowie is not here. That came almost 20 years later, but it’s way awesome.)
4. King’s College Choir: A Ceremony of Carols, by Benjamin Britten
I was introduced to this Christmas Cantata when I was about 12 and sang it in the Waco Boys Choir with my brother Jay. In 1942 Britten adapted Middle English & Latin texts into a cantata setting for a boys’ choir with harp accompaniment. The melodies, harmonies, and rhythms are unparalleled. The recording I have is from Argo and it includes Britten’s ‘Rejoice in the Lamb‘ and ‘A Boy is Born‘. This is one of my favorite pieces of choral music. I’ve even messed with writing my own Christmas Cantata and Britten’s work is what I’m aiming for.
5. Ed Ames-Christmas with Ed Ames
This is one of those albums we had on LP and that’s the only way I have it now and of course my record player is on the fritz. My favorite songs are The Ballad of the Christmas Donkey and Sweet Little Jesus Boy. I really don’t know much about Ed Ames, but it occurs to me that we had plenty of Christmas music by baritone crooners circa 60s (we never had Sinatra, though).
Other Notable Music
6. The Messiah, by Moe (CB) Handel
Probably most recordings will serve adequately, except for some modern-day renditions (read crappy 80s rockified/soulified). There are plenty of highlights in Handel’s most renown work, though much of it is essentially a collection of themes and variations with nutty ornamentation to show off how long singers can go without breathing. Still, there is a soft spot in my head from having sung it so many times and it has wormed its way into my life. Pre-puberty I sang the alto solo, O Thou That Tellest Good Tiding To Zion, at an opera house in Mexico. A few Christmases ago I sang along with some of the other choruses when my brother’s church had a sing-along. The Messiah was the climax of the program and I was reminded how much I really do love it.
7. ‘The Nutcracker’ Ballet Suite, by P. I. Tchaikovsky
Sugar Plum Fairy. Sugar Plum Fairy. Great delicate and mysterious music. Another total Christmas piece. Excellent stuff. Definitely required Christmas music. The ballet can be pretty good, too, though I usually manage to fall asleep somewhere in the middle. Something about extended dream sequences. The classic album I like has Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.
8. & 9. Music Box Christmas music
We had 2 LPs of Music Box Christmas music: ‘The Charm of the Old Music Box‘ and ‘A Music Box Christmas‘. These were both pretty cool. I’ve always enjoyed the sound of music boxes and combining that sound with Christmas music makes something pretty magical.
10. Mannheim Steamroller-A Fresh Aire Christmas
Yeah, I like this one, too. Part electronic gizmo, part elevator music. The main dude is from Omaha, not far from me.
11. The Chipmunks-Christmas with the Chipmunks
Ok, I’ll throw a bone to my friend Roland, who digs the C-munks in an unholy way. My brothers and I grew up with the squeakiness of Alvin, Simon and Theodore, and were pretty fond of the beasts. My young nephew kept asking to hear it over and over 2 Christmases ago and we humored the boy at the risk of our sanity.
(One of my friends suggested I make a list of ‘bachelor Christmas music’ that might include Rat Packers like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. These guys seem like the appropriate martini bachelor types who would hold up the genre with aplomb and fit neatly with bachelor pad entertainment. Oh, and Perry Como. But I didn’t listen to them so much. I’ll catch up with these dudes later and maybe next Christmas provide a comprehensive swingin’/chillin’ bachelor Christmas list full of Rats, Nats and Comos. The baritone crooners I have included, Bing, Andy and Ed, will narrowly fulfill my bachelor-style music requirements for now.)
-What are your favorite Christmas albums and why? Did any of your favs make my list?
The secret word is crooner.
Related Reading:
30 Favorite Songs of 2009 (1-15)
SOUND OF MUSIC DEATH MATCH!!! Liesl v Maria
Holiday Chocolate-For Independence Day?
Depeche Mode and High School Girls
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
11 Steps: #10. Collect The Right Toys
Holiday Hosting Survival Guide with PM Chin
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Battle For Milkquarious
Yes, it’s a PR campaign by milk, but it’s way groovy! You know you’ve been itchin’ to check it out. It’s a futuristic 70s-style camp rock opera trippin’ as a 15 minute movie. Think Logan’s Run meets blacksploitation (with mostly whities) meets campy music by way of The Rocky Horror Picture Show for a groovaliciously weird milk campaign. It’s like Austin Powers dipped in the milkpool for extra mojo, baby! We’ll even latch onto the whole bachelor theme to make it relevant to thedomesticatedbachelor.com (ah, relevance). I present Battle For Milkquarious , featuring “the luxurious love den of the most milktasticalist rock star in the Super-Universe, White Gold.”
(Don’t you think the main dude looks like the love child of Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters and another member of the band?)
Related Reading:
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
Bachelor Step #1: THE BACHELOR PAD
Logan’s Run And Population Control
Bachelor Step #2: The Right Wardrobe
Bachelor Step #10: Collect the Right Toys
$15 Million Ultimate Bachelor Pad
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