My List of Things that Don't Suck

It’s No Longer Complicated . . . It’s So Much More

by Richard Timothy | Jul 24, 2012 | I Do Suggest, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Observationally Speaking

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Facebook has added a few additional relationship status options. It appears apart from Single, Married, In a relationship, Engaged, Married, It’s Complicated, In an open relationship, Widowed, Separated, and Divorced you can also select In a civil union and In a domestic partnership . This got thinking, since 73%* of people on Facebook use it for relationship related activities, it would be fun to see them add a few more options.

(* A completely random number I just made up.)

Turns out I’m not the only one with this idea. Here is a list of Relationship Status options I’d like to see them add (the first half of which are borrowed from someone else’s Facebook post).

Cats only
Single and awesome
Baby Daddy
Experimented at college with
Blacked out and woke up with
Playing house with

Building a pillow fort with
Shacking up with
In a Relationship with ______, but don’t tell ______ in case he/she like me too.
Just seeing where this goes with
Smelling glue with
Knocked up by
Brainwashed by
Drinking Kool-Aid with
Sharing a jail cell with
Has amnesia but everyone says is married to
Pretending to be pirates with
Climbing trees with

Protecting _____ from spiders
Got a green card for
Sharing a mutual dislike of NASCAR with
Dresses up for Star Trek Movies with
Together for tax reasons with
Putting the toilet seat down for
Married long enough that they no longer hold in their farts in front of
Riding dolphins with
Hoping _____ gets the hint and buys a damn ring already
Is a coward and hopes _____ ends the relationship soon
Quoting Monty Python and the Holy Grail with
Petitioning Congress to make it Illegal for Adam Sandler to Ever Appear in Another Movie with
Found the Rainbow Connection with
On a bender with

Yes, I could keep going, but you get the point. I do hope you got a Smirk out of this list and if you happen to be in a comment leaving mood, I’d love to hear some of your own relationship status updates you’d like to see Facebook implement.

Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: it’s complicated, pillow fort, and scared of spiders.

Ode to my ABBA Mom

by Richard Timothy | May 15, 2012 | My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, When I Was a Kid

Last Friday, as I was walking into work a co-worker was trailing a little behind me so I stopped and held the door open for him. As he walking up I noticed he was humming a little turn to himself. Thing that surprised me is that I recognized the tune. The man was humming ABBA, and ABBA always brings a smirk to my lips.

I don’t know about you, but anytime the Swedish pop sensation ABBA comes up in conversation, inevitably, apart from mentioning they were from Sweden, the topic of mothers always seems to come up as well . . . and occasionally gay men, depending on whom you are talking with. In the case of my co-worker, our conversation came around to topic of our ABBA moms.

Some of my favorite childhood memories of my mom are the times when we (my siblings and I) would either be playing a game, or watching television, or just lounging around the house and mom would walk over to the record player, shuffle thought the shelve of LPs, and the next thing we knew there she was, dancing around the living room to ABBA.

It’s one of my perfect childhood moments, where there was no denying how absolutely happy my mom was. Sometimes we’d clap and cheer her on, other times we’d join in and dance around the house with her. Occasionally in my teens when friends were over, I’d leave the room as fast as I could, embarrassed that she would dare embarrass me like that. Fortunately I out grew that phase, and now, it’s just a reminder of what a kick ass mom I have.

My co-worker and I came to the conclusion that there are really only three types of people on the planet:

Those who publicly love ABBA.
Those who secretly love ABBA, but keep it a secret from the world.
And those who have never heard ABBA so have not yet fallen into one of the first two categories.

For me, obviously I’m a fan and most of that credit goes to my dancing ABBA mom. Any mom that is willing to lip sync Take a Chance on Me to you while dancing around the house is definitely a pretty cool mom, and you should consider yourself lucky because you too have an ABBA mom. So, if you didn’t remind her of this this past Sunday on Mother’s Day, you should call her up this week and let her know, because let’s face it, she deserves to be reminded that she is truly a beloved dancing queen.

Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: ABBA, dancing mom, and mom rocking out.

Washing Your Memory

by Richard Timothy | Dec 12, 2011 | My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking

I have a memory stick, and by memory stick I don’t mean a wooden paddle that my fifth grade teacher used on students to help them remember why they broke one of his class rules. No, what I mean is a USB key, the little 1GB data storage device that holds all of my writing, every book, Smirk, and a lot of really bad poetry I wrote when I was in high school . . . high school poetry is a lot like discovering the girl you made out with at your friends party turned out to be your third cousin that you never knew existed at happened to be in town for the week to go to the fair. It’s something that you did, but you never share it with anyone, ever . . . ah crap. Well, you get the point.

The nice thing about technology is that I’m able to take my writing with me where ever I go, and often times do. When wearing jeans I’ll keep the memory stick in that little change pocket that has shacked up with the front right pocket of all jeans everywhere. I remember those pockets being referred to as change pockets, designed to hold your loose change, but seriously when was the last time someone ever used one of those pockets? If it hadn’t of been for the invention of memory sticks I doubt anyone would have a use for them.

Usually, when I get home I always take the memory stick out of my pocket and plug it into my computer for any after work writing I plan to accomplish for the evening. Okay, so not always, just every time except this past week. Monday I arrived home feeling a bit under the weather. One of the many joys of working in an office is, much like going to school when I was a kid, there is no controlling who comes in sick. As a result, you spend your day in confined quarters with someone who unwittingly and relentlessly shared their cold, or other sickly ailments with you (which does occasionally mean you hear about what they did over the weekend, and believe me that can certainly fall under the sickly realm of sharing a cubicle).

For the following two days I spent a good portion of my day in bed, downing cold medicine and drinking Emergen-C in much the same fervor as Orson Welles on a bender. This resulted in me failing the simple daily activity of placing my memory stick on my desk next to my PC. Thursday morning when I went to my office to get my “don’t leave home without” items; my wallet, my phone, my scan badge for work, my keys and, something was missing . . . my memory stick. I search around my office, and then I went to the bedroom to see if it was in my night stand. That is when the thought that I forgot to take it out of my pocket, came to mind, but they were nowhere to be found.

I asked Angela and that is when I learned that my cutie-baby-sweetie-pie-wifey-pooh, in a gesture of kindness and taking care of my, opted to do a load of laundry for me, which is where my pants had gotten off too. I pit started to form in my stomach. My jeans had already made the move from washer to dryer and as I rushed and pulled them out, to my relief, the pocket was empty . . . and so was the washer. I asked Angela to keep an eye around the house for the memory stick and headed to work in hopes I had accidentally left it there on Monday.

Around 11 AM, Angela called with the news that my memory stick (holding all of my writing) had been discovered . . . in the dryer. I hadn’t even thought about digging through the dryer, and since things were still a little damp after I check my jeans, I had turned the dryer back on for another forty minutes. There is a very hollow feeling that starts in your gut when you realize two decade of writing might have been washed away in one regular extra-large wash cycle, it’s kind of like you stomach had turned into the starting point of a mini black hole. I’m sure if I was in that situation the second the spin cycle began I would have done a complete memory dump.

Angela took the stick and plugged it into her computer, filled with the same amount of hope that all teenage boys everywhere use when sit through a sparkly vampire movie, hoping they just might get to make out with the girl that forced them to suffer through it. I’m not sure how, but as it turned out the hoping worked, well it was either that or China made a much better cheap one gig memory stick than I could have ever imagined possible, which just sounds even more ridiculous as I write it down. Who knows maybe the extra drying is what did it, whatever the reason, not a single gigabit was damaged, water logged, or destroyed.

Plus, the memory stick looks almost brand new. All the old smudges are completely gone. I think I might get a new memory stick for my birthday though. I think the old one has earned its retirement and should be placed into my storage drawer of nostalgia. Plus, I finally got around to getting all of my writing safely stored in four new and more permanent locations, so I can now check that off my “to do” list too. I wouldn’t recommend anyone do this, ever, but in my case, I actually worked out for the best, which is definitely a Smirk worth sharing.

Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: USB key, drunk Orson Welles, bad phone call, and cheering man.

What Weddings have Taught this Reverend

by Richard Timothy | Sep 19, 2011 | I Do Suggest, I Think There's a Point, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking

Last weekend (not the past one, but the one before that) I had the honor of performing the wedding of my oldest brother. The wedding went off without a hitch … although if you think about it, isn’t the whole point of a marriage, to get hitched? With this wedding being the fourth wedding I have performed, I thought for this week’s Smirk I’d take a look as some of the things I’ve learned over the past few weddings.

When my first wedding came up, let’s just say that I was very happy I had been in a wedding prior to it or things may have turned out a little lacking in flow. When I showed up I was planning on simply walking the couple through the ceremony on how it was going to work and showing them the logistics for how a sand ceremony works. As it turned out, the couple wanted their parents and a child from a previous relationship added to the ceremony, so I knew I’d have a few people to direct.

It was when I arrived and walked into the space where the wedding was going to take place and the groom asked, “So what do we do?” that I realized they were going to need a little more direction than just were to stand and the queues they need to wait for before they performed their task in the ceremony… and some reason when you walk into a wedding rehearsal a day (or hours) before the official ceremony, and chaos of people find out you are “the reverend”, pretty much anything you say after that becomes the official law for how things are done for the wedding.

I got to put together the precession for who would be walking down the aisle and in what order. I got to choose the sides that the brides and groom’s family were to sit on, and had them practice the march a few times so that the timing and spacing would work out instead of having everyone shuffle in like a train trying for its quickest time for passenger arrival. The couple did have the wedding march songs picked out, which was helpful, but unfortunately they were not sure when they needed to play those songs.

Here are few things to keep in mind if you every find yourself choosing to become a reverend so you can perform a wedding for a friend or family member.

Just because you are a reverend does not mean that people get to confess things to you. For some reason when people hear you hold some sort of title that they associate a kind of authority you hear a fair share of stories from people you know (or don’t know) about things they did that you a) never ever wanted to know, or b) just don’t care about. You really can break someone off in the middle of their confession about accidentally killing their little sister’s pet hamster by putting it in that plastic running ball and letting it make a mad dash down the stairs. I mean you could, but I didn’t want to risk it and have them show up later with a therapy bill they expected me to pay for rejecting their confession half way through.
Know the preferred language of the couple getting married, the language of their beliefs I mean. If the couple does not believe in god(s) you really don’t want to use Heavenly Father, Shiva, Yahweh, Buddha, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Elohim, Zeus, The Holy Ghost, etc. to bless the couple. Likewise, if they do believe in a god(s) make sure you use the right one(s).
Your power to bless the couple is endless. No really, it is. You can use anything and everything to bless them with. I’ve used sand, spices, energy, the sun, coconuts, the ocean, a stick. As long as the blessing holds a positive connotation to the couple and union taking place, it’s all good.
This brings me when overseeing a wedding ceremony always remember the Boy Scout motto and “be prepared!” This included being prepared for situations that are not your fault, but require you to be cover for someone. For example, at a wedding I did on a beach in Mexico, there was a part in the ceremony where the couple and attendees were to be given a glass of champagne for a toast near the end. The people in charge of getting the drinks out to everyone was a little lacking in their preparedness and when the time came to pass out the glasses, they had not even opened the bottles yet. Hence, I had to stall. This is where the ocean, and sun, and coconuts, and stick, and anything else lying around that I could see were used as objects of reflection and blessing toward the happy couple. And you know what? No one noticed.
Now that I’ve brought up the wedding in Mexico … sometimes you have to lie in order to make a wedding happen the way the couple wants it too. Meaning, I had not authority in Mexico to perform a wedding, but my friends wanted a ceremony on a white sand beach, they not only deserved a wedding on a white sand beach, they were going to get a wedding on a white sand beach. It was a beautiful amazing wedding where they wanted, how they wanted, and when it came time to filling out the paper work, turns out they “officially” (wink, wink) got married in my back yard in Utah, on the exact same day we were all in Mexico together. Thus is the magic of matrimony.
Never guess on titles, especially on how the bride is choosing her name. The last thing you want is to finish your ceremony by announcing the couple as Mr. and Mrs. James Brown (or whatever the groom’s name is) and have the bride, who as it turns out is a devout feminist set on equality, bring the entire ceremony to a screeching halt by saying, “Excuse me!?!!” while giving you the evil eye.
When telling others about performing wedding, it is best to express that you are performing the ceremony and not marrying someone. The amount of confusion and odd looks you get from others is astounding. For example, telling someone “I am marrying my brother next weekend in Arizona.” brings up an entire set of different mental images about you and marriage laws in Arizona than if I were to say, “I am performing ceremony the wedding for my brother in Arizona next weekend.” The only real confusion that might occur in that second statement is that someone might think that both my brother and I perform weddings and that we was supposed to perform one in Arizona and can’t so I am covering for him.
Do not abuse your power to control the actions of others during the ceremony, namely the kiss. The couple is waiting for you to give the green light to smooch town and surprisingly they will wait longer than you would expect to get the go ahead from the presiding reverend. Stay focused until they couple exits they ceremony area.
Oh yeah, your job is not done until the couple has signed the certificate. Say want about ceremonies and where they take place, in the US all of that is fluff, because you are not married according to the government, until you sign that piece of paper given to you by the state that you are married. Which also brings up and important point, if you get suckered in to performing a wedding for a coworker’s sibling of that you don’t know at all. Get wedding paper signed and get the hell out of there as soon as you can, because being the reverend at a wedding for people you don’t know really kind of sucks, and you don’t want to get stuck at a strangers wedding.

One last thing, creating a wedding ceremony for someone you know well and hold dear in your heart is truly one of the best experiences. The ceremony gets to come from you and is a gift you get to give to them. If you get the opportunity, take it, because when you love the people you are performing the ceremony for, it hold more meaning, emotion, appreciation and power than any ceremony some stranger or vague family acquaintance will ever be able to create and perform for the happy couple.

Also, if there is an ex involved and they contact your with suggestions, smile and nod. Say, “Thank you for that suggestion.” You can even take notes if you want. Just remember that when you get home, burn every note you took and reject every single suggestion they gave … even if it didn’t seem like that bad of an idea … because it was. The end. Don’t even try to second guess it. Just walk away and don’t look back.

Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: wedding officiant, wedding procession, la la la I can’t hear you, be prepared, telling a fib, signing wedding certificate, and wedding group hug.

Pirates’ Demise, If Only They Could See Them Now

by Richard Timothy | Aug 16, 2011 | I Think There's a Point, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Observationally Speaking

It was my last Smirk that got me thinking about words and how easily a definition could change simply by looking at the way the word was made up. This got me looking at other words, words that have changed over the years. I don’t mean the definition has changed all that much, it’s just managed to acquire an addendum, but the outfit has certainly devolved in that process.

If I were to ask you what a pirate looked like you’d more than likely be able to point one out in a group … or would you? Sure a few hundred years ago pirates were the scourge of the seas, renowned and feared because of their affinity for murdering, looting, plundering, arson, hijacking, public intoxication, an unapologetic potty mouth, among other anti-gentlemanly activities. They exhibited the same kind of maritime behavior that made early Vikings famous for being the bad asses of the seas.

In searching to find examples of what pirates actually looked like, I managed to find a virtual copy of The Buccaneers of America (printed in 1678), thanks to The Library of Congress, which had a number of images of pirates from that era. I used these as my reference for what pirates use to look like. Even though none of the images depicted a pirated in a version of the iconic Seinfeld pirate shirt, there was enough suggestion in the images that pirates certainly had their own outfits, which moves me to suggest that the outfit of a pirate was distinct enough that people certainly knew a pirate when they saw one. I’m sure it was a look that took a little time to find and that everyone in the pirate fashion industry could agree on, but once it all came together it was obvious who was a pirate and who was not.

Pirates once carried with them only the image of Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow, only meaner and a bit more of a tyrannical personality. It is true that that type of pirate still exists; take to those lads in Somalia (who actually do not consider themselves pirates) or similar types. No I’m referring to the addendum to the word pirate, which has come about in the last few decades. Today, the word carries with it the image of some 13 year-old that looks like Screech from Saved by the Bell, who spends most of his free time at his computer illegally pirating music and movies using some file sharing program like Napster, Bittorrent, Limeware, Kazaa or Bearshare. It’s a little depressing when you think about how the image of a pirate has changed in the last century.

To give a little clearer picture of what I mean, here’s a short comparison between two.

Original pirates: Weapon of choice, a cutlass and a flintlock pistols.
Present day pirates: Weapon of choice, a computer with internet access and an iPod or some other media watching/listening device.
- Winner: Original pirates.

Original pirates: Sidekicks, an animal of some kind like a monkey or a parrot.
Present day pirates: Sidekicks, something that enhances their ability to pirate something at a moment’s notice, like a memory stick or USB key for quick and easy access to friends electronically formatted music libraries.
- Winner: Original pirates.
Original pirates: Wore silly hats, but made them look cool (example: a tricorne).
Present day pirates: Wear normal hats, and make them look silly (example: a baseball cap worn backwards).
- Winner: Original pirates.

Original pirates: Beverage of choice, a bottle of rum.
Present day pirates: Beverage of choice, a bottle of water.
- Winner: Original pirates.
Original pirates: Wore long sleeve puffy ruffled shirts that look ridiculous in when worn with a pair of jeans, but somehow worked with baggy pants and knee high boots.
Present day pirates: Wear tee shirts that have entertaining graphics and/or sayings on them that look ridiculous in when worn with baggy pants and knee high boots, but somehow worked with a pair of jeans. (Even though original pirates in their full outfit looked a lot cooler, present day pirates are a lot more comfortable.)
- Winner: I think this one will have to go down as a tie depending on what result you are after.

Original pirates: Had names like Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Barbarossa.
Present day pirates: Have names like Shawn Fanning, Brianna LaHara, and Jammie Thomas-Rassett.
- Winner: Original pirates.
Original pirates: Gave us words like booty and hornswaggle, not to mention their affinity for pronouncing long Rs every chance they got.
Present day pirates: Gave us words like rip and burn as an act for copying something. Plus, they have not carried on the tradition of using the long R sound in all of their every day speech.
- Winner: Original pirates.
And that ends this little comparison with original pirates 7, present day pirates 1. It is important to point out that present day pirates are a much nicer breed of people than original pirates. They don’t they don’t kill people, unless they are in 100% virtual and found in some computer game they’ve pirated. They don’t trespass onto property that is not theirs and take things that aren’t theirs. They don’t hoard all of their pirated loot, instead they open it up to anyone that would like to download some of their pirated goods … they are very big into sharing actually.

I guess it breaks down to this, even though original pirates looked a lot cooler and were much more bad ass than present day pirates, I really do prefer the present day ones, they are a lot better people and they shower regularly. Perhaps someday we’ll come up with a cross breed pirates, once that looks cool, but doesn’t go around violating other human rights, you know like a present day pirate dressing up as an original pirate for Halloween, or a Flying Spaghetti Monster convention. You never know.

What are your thoughts on the two pirate types?

Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Blackbeard, Screech, pirate with parrot, rum bottle, water bottle, pirate treasure, and pirate with iPod.

© Richard Timothy 2011

Putting the Dog back in Dogma

by Richard Timothy | Mar 24, 2011 | Borrowed Smirk, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Visual Smirk

There has always been something inherently entertaining to me about the dogma marquee outside places of worship. Sometimes they are inspiring, other times they are anything but, some get judgmental or fear based, and once in a while absolutely priceless, much like a four year old trying to tell you something they consider to be very, very serious, but end up botching it so badly that all you can do is laugh.

Some of my favorite’s that I’ve personally been witness to were gems like, “The best form of birth control, close your legs.” I saw that one when I was living in Tacoma, Washington. There was a church right across the street from the apartment I was living in and the preacher was constantly putting up random sayings like that.

Another one I remember is, “Heaven isn’t too far away.” I did wonder if they realized they were quoting the lyrics of and 80s hair band that, sadly, also gave the world the unfortunate hit Cherry Pie. I would say it is safe to assume they did not.

Then there are times when these little signs feel compelled to begin pointing the finger of judgment, and this marquee text finger happens to point at the church across the street. The pictures below come from a blog that I visit from time to time called Status Viatoris, the musings of a gal from the Britain living in Italy. The images document a little church sign conversation between a Catholic church and a Presbyterian church focusing on the dog dogma. I got a good chuckle out of it, enough so that I’d like to share it with all of you. I hope you enjoy this borrowed Smirk as much as I did.

Catholic Church Sign

All dogs go to heaven.