I must own this book and pass on its wisdom to the boy. Here are some of my favorites maxims with comments directed at my infant son as if he were an adult with the ability to reason:

• Surround Yourself With Smart People. You are who you hang out with. Your friends will expect you to do what they are doing alongside them. Smart people expect you to be intelligent and well read. Drug addicts expect you to pass the Guns N' Roses coke mirror you won at the carnival balloon-dart game after snorting a line.
• It Is Not A Gang Without The Cool Girl. Be sure to always have at least one cool girl in your inner-circle of friends (bonus if she is hot). She can provide invaluable feminine perspective and is bound to bring around other cool girls. You may even marry her someday.
  
• Ask Your Mother To Dance. There is no better way to make your mother's night then taking her for a spin around the dance floor and acting like it is fun and not a chore. You will do this and you will like it.
  
• Do Not Get All Fancy About Your Beer Or Coffee. Coffee? Black. Beer? Yes, please. It is as simple as that.
  
• Do Not Have A Girlfriend In College. Think of all the awesome shenanigans you can get into while attending college. Now think about doing them while maintaining a steady relationship with an average looking girl that you met in the first week of your freshman year.
• Never Sit Down On A Ball Field. Take A Knee. You do not sit down on a sports field unless you are severed at the torso and have no legs. Even then, you still take a stump.
• Always Meet Your Date At The Door. Do not be the dickhead honking the horn in the driveway. Go up to the door and ring the bell. Doing this affords you the opportunity to open the car door for her as well. Double the points, my son.
  
• Yes Ma'am. No Sir. No Exceptions. People that are older than you are always sir or ma'am. Even if your friends parents tell you to call them by name you still call them sir or ma'am.
  
• Try To Lose The Adverbs. Nothing illustrates how weak your vocabulary is more than an adverb. You are not very tired. You are exhausted. You are not extremely happy. You are ecstatic.
• Keep Your Word. Even the over-consumption of liquor does not excuse you from this one. If you tell someone you will do something, you do it.
• If You Are Good At Something, Never Do It For Free. Excluding sex, masturbating and murder.
• Walk It Off. This philosophy that can be applied to many situations including electrocution, being on fire and venereal diseases.
• Never Be Afraid To Ask Out The Best Looking Girl In The Room. Be fearless. What is the worst that can happen? She says no and you call her a lesbian? You are still in the same position you were in when you walked into the room.
• You Do Not Get To Choose Your Own Nickname. You are luckier than most as you have a sweet last name that can be shortened to "Broz" or "Brozo." Even so, you do not ask anyone to call you this. They must do it of their own accord.
  

Labels: books, coffee, college, drinking, liquor, sports, the boy, wife

I have to give credit where credit is due: this kid has a fantastic idea for a Halloween costume. He does not need a double amputee to pull it off, however. Roll behind a Kohl's and look for some discarded mannequin parts in the dumpsters. Piece together a torso and some arms and legs. Pick up some gold spray paint and you have yourself a rudimentary (yet light) C3P0. Imagine the logistics of having a double amputee strapped to your back all night. What happens if you (or the amputee) has to take a shit? Even without legs I am assuming a double amputee weighs 75 pounds (if not more). That is a lot of weight to be huffing around sober let alone with your veins pumping Jack Daniels. What if there is a slut dressed as Slave Leia at the party? Are you prepared for that menage-a-trois?

I think my idea for a Halloween costume is better than what this kid is attempting to pull of, anyway. Me as the "host body" and my infant son strapped to my mid-section as the alien Kuato from the movie Total Recall. I may have to hold out until next year for when the boy is talking so he can quip "Open your mind" upon presentation.

Labels: drinking, geekery, halloween, movies, pop culture, the boy, tomfoolery

Me: Call me if you need anything while watching the boy.
Dad: You will be away somewhere where you cannot help me. So why the hell would I call you if you could not help me?
Me: Um, okay.
Dad: I will see you when you pick him up. Gotta go. Your mother just made us some sandwiches.

Labels: dad, the boy, tomfoolery

My mom called this morning to inform me that the boy was exposed to some form of a coughing disease a few weekends ago at her house (my young nephew being the little monkey from Outbreak in this scenario). I told my mom that this weekend the boy was exposed to the drunken stupidity of my sixteenth annual fantasy football draft, his dad repeatedly calling the Rockies a "bunch of dirty ball sacks" for getting swept in San Francisco and the assorted programming of the History Channel including Gangland and one very disappointing show about prison tattoos that mostly focused on the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. She said I should get him get him "checked out" just to be safe.

Labels: disease, drinking, family, pop culture, sg crew, sports, tattoos, the boy

Fatherhood has yet to provide me with any kind of spiritual awakening. After speaking to the other expectant fathers in my various babying classes, I was expecting angels to descend from heaven and play a harp rendition of "MMMBop" while I recognized the kinship of all living things when my son was born. Instead, I was relieved that the boy arrived with no serious health/birth defects and his mother did not go all 19th Century on me and bleed to death during childbirth and leave me and the boy to resent our stations in life and grow bitter over the years while tending to the family farm. It is cool to have an entire life dependent on you. It is also scary as hell. I think the true measure of whether or not I was a successful parent will come when it is time for me to go into a nursing home. If I did well? The boy will come visit me with his family on a semi-regular basis and take me out for a steak on occasion while tolerating my rants at the waitress for being too slow with the side order of gravy. If I did not do well? I will suffer in a multi-level town house in Thornton and eat Alpo out of the can and call my son "a fucking pussy" when he makes his annual call to wish me a happy birthday. Right now the boy is much like a zombie army; singularly focused on food, growing at an exponential rate and adverse to any kind of a rest. I am debating the Boggins Window Crib to make nap time more interesting. Not sure if that will get me the steak dinner or the Alpo. Only time will tell.

Labels: bad parents, family, l-i-v-i-n, music, pop culture, the boy, tomfoolery, wife

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

The first few weeks of parenthood have been rife with happiness, urine, poop and sleep in three hour clips. The boy is still getting the day/night schedule figured out so I am getting used to working at four in the morning while he squirms about and makes cute little noises. The wife has it far worse as she is the food source and usually the one waking up at all hours to nurse. Women really get the shitty end of the deal in nature. Menstruation? Check. Squeezing a living human out of your vagina? Check. On call for the first year (or first six years if you are a perverted fruitcake) to suckle said living human? Check. Then here I am, Sperms McGee. Just the male actor in a straight porn movie. The prop. "Stand over there with your penis and do not say anything stupid. We will call you when we are ready."

Labels: babies, family, l-i-v-i-n, porn, the boy, vajayjay

The wife has successfully gone number three and brought into this world our first offspring (click here for some hot Flickr action). She was in labor for 33 hours and produced our eight pound, twenty-inch boy on April 7, 2009 just after 8:13 PM. I saw many things I can never un-see during the birth of my son. All parts of the female anatomy are now completely demystified for me. While I can still objectify naked woman, I now understand that nature intended for boobs to be suckled by infants and that a vagina was meant for a baby to be pushed out of, not for me to press/push/thrust my penis on/in/around. The boy is experiencing a touch of the Jaundice and is currently laying in a portable baby tanning bed, but other than that, we are all happy, healthy and exhausted.

Labels: babies, boobs, family, l-i-v-i-n, pregnancy, the boy, vajayjay, wife