What to Expect from an Apple Electric Car

The business and tech world has been tripping over itself in recent weeks over word that Apple -- makers of the iPhone, the iPad and iIndigestion – are working on an electric car. Based on the experiences I’ve had with the company’s iGadgets, I predict the following:

• An Apple iCar will come with a sealed, non-replaceable battery. It will start acting erratically after about two years, requiring you to upgrade to the latest model.
• Every time you start your Apple car, you will be alerted to upgrade the onboard computer’s software. When you finally do, the car will only travel at a blistering speed of 7.3 mph. Your genius dealer will tell you that you cannot revert to the old software, but he will gladly sell you a newer model of the car that handles the improved technology.
• If the windshield cracks in your Apple car, the dealership will offer to replace it for a small fee. Your genius dealer will then change his mind once he looks under the hood and sees an internal indicator has been tripped that shows you violated the warranty by once allowing a non-authorized bottle of water to sweat profusely in a cup holder. Your Apple dealer, however, will happily offer to sell you an exact replica vehicle as a replacement. At full value.

$20 Worth of Stories in the Naked City

New Yorkers truly are honest, generous and unselfish. Even more so when you bribe them to be that way.

This lesson came after my day had started, hung over and early, at the train station where my wife dropped me off and I vowed never again to overindulge until the next time. As I stepped aboard Metro-North, the first raindrops splattered the platform like eggs hitting Ol' Man Crotchky's porch on Mischief Night.

We arrived with a leisurely 39 minutes and a mere five subway stops to go from my national syndicated talk show debut. Katie Couric, America's Perkiest Journalist, would soon be grilling me and a panel of other at-home dads about our being guests at our children's tea parties rather than captains of industry like, you know, our wives.

I walked unhurriedly through the over-caffeinated, under-deodorized crowd in Grand Central Terminal to join the queue for subway tickets.

Plenty-a' time, I heard my satisfied, suburban inner voice say.

Opening Day and Closing Doors

The bulging cooler, the teeny rusted camping grill, and four cobweb-encrusted folding chairs will be loaded into the back of the minivan. The kids, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes even after a school-less morning in, will climb into the middle seat. My Love will ride shotgun.

We’ll ease out of the driveway and go over the checklist.

Tickets?

Wallets?

Extra layers to fight the inevitable stinging winds?

We’ll have them all.

We’ll just have rolled to a stop at our neighborhood’s edge when My Love will ask, as she tends to do when we’re in hurry to get somewhere, “Did you close the garage door?”

Of course I did. I closed it this time as I did a million or so times before. It’s an automatic.

So automatic that I won’t actually remember reaching up and pushing the button next to the visor.

So automatic that I won’t really recall seeing the door shuttle down and seal itself against the concrete threshold.

“Dang you, woman,” I’ll say and slam on the brakes and then into reverse.

Fasten Your Seats

Having exhausted all other ways of squeezing nickels out of fliers, American Airlines has apparently come up with an innovative revenue idea: charging passengers extra to have their seats bolted to the floor of the plane.

The plan hasn't been officially announced, but how else to explain reports of seats coming loose on three flights in the past week? In the public relations business, that's called floating a trial balloon or, in this case, propelling the occupants of 12D, E and F via a sudden drop in altitude.

I developed a love/hate relationship with American when I lived in Dallas years ago. I loved American because you could fly it almost anywhere. (I once asked a long-term transplant to Dallas where the best place was to go on a weekend. He answered quite seriously, "DFW Airport – Departures.") At the same time, I hated the airline because it was essentially your only choice for flying nonstop out of Texas. You never want to play an American lawyer or lobbyist in "Monopoly."

With little alternative, I've accumulated a few hundred thousand frequent flier miles on this airline over the years. Meanwhile, my wife – the globetrotting executive goddess that she is – has long had American's coveted Platinum status, a designation achieved by completing 100 consecutive flights without grabbing an attendant by the collar and screaming, "Six dollars for a box of raisins and a Wet-Nap? Are you people insane?"

Summer Vacation Lessons Learned

In a fit of over-caffeinated ambition, My Love and I scheduled more family trips into eight weeks this summer than the Brady Bunch did in five years on television.

It didn't take a crazy old prospector to lock us in an abandoned jail for us to soon realize the pitfalls of all this family togetherness; however, I suspect the engine fire in our minivan may have something to do with an ancient tiki. It also may have had something to do with my speeding through a Lake Michigan sized puddle lined with dead leaves and pine needles in an effort to get away from the constant howls of "How much longerrrrrr?"

Nevertheless, it was an adventure-filled two months.

We experienced Fourth of July among the dehydrated waves of grain in the Great Plains.

We visited the birthplace of the women's suffrage movement in upstate New York where we spent most of our time visiting a museum dedicated to the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

We rode a boat under Niagara Falls, boogie-boarded in the North Carolina surf and learned the art of heckling the opposing pitcher in near-empty minor league baseball stadiums.

Here are a handful of lessons and observations from our summer vacations:

The annoying mosquito to parental drivers' ears is no longer the backseat bellow of "Are we there yet?" It's the middle row of the minivan whine of "When will we start getting 3G again?"

According to my 12-year-old daughter, when going on a weeklong trip to the scalding flatlands of Nebraska where we'll spend most of our time in towns smaller than her middle school with her grandparents, who are farmers, and my wife's best friends, who are undertakers, the most absolutely necessary item to bring is a flat iron for her hair.

If you think the United States has cornered the market on gaudy tourist traps, you've never visited the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. It's as if downtown Las Vegas and Times Square birthed a circus geek.

The first question children ask when you arrive at your lodging destination has evolved from "Does it have a pool?" to "Does it have free Wi-Fi?"

Provident Bank Park, the Westchester County home of the Rockland Boulders baseball team of independent Can-Am League, is one of the nicest minor league ballparks you'll ever visit. Unfortunately, the quality of pitching embarrasses Little Leaguers.

Sonic Drive-Ins offer 54 types of milkshakes. I kid you not – 54. However, whenever we stop at one, all my daughter wants is a cup of their ice pellets.

Environmentally conscientious coastal communities, such as those on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, have banned supermarkets from using plastic grocery bags. This is good news unless you bring your dog with you on vacation. And he's prone to traveler's diarrhea. Like ours.

The people of Nebraska love shooting off fireworks, just not fireworks sold in Nebraska. Those are "church fireworks," in the words of my wife's brother. Instead, you need ones from neighboring Missouri, which contain enough liftoff and explosive power to qualify as military grade anti-ballistic missiles.

There are many reasons why you can always get a table for four at the Hard Rock Café at the height of the dinner hour. Not one is good.

A modern family of four now packs more electronic communications devices for an extended weekend trip than it does pairs of clean underwear.

The best beach time on the East Coast is after 5 p.m. when the shadows grow longer and the adult beverages have sufficiently numbed the burning scrapes caused by sand inside your bathing suit liner.

Giving Drivers A New Finger

I recently spent the better part of a week driving around Nebraska and, boy, is my finger tired.

We visit my wife's family and friends every year or so out there in that area of the country they also call the "Heartland of America." Whoever "they" is, they have a great sense of irony. Whenever I'm there, I clog my arteries on three square meals of red meat, buttered sweet corn and marshmallow Jell-O platters. (To be fair, the Jell-O usually features fruit. Canned in heavy syrup fruit. Prevents scurvy just the same as the fresh stuff, Dr. Oz.) I indulge in these Cornhusker staples/delicacies because they taste good and a stuffed mouth prevents me from showing the natives just how ignorant I am about the ever-present topic of college football.

Between meals, we always seem to be driving. Unlike our New England ancestors who knew "good fences make good neighbors," the settlers of Nebraska knew better --30 miles of cropland between signs of human life makes it pretty hard to tick off anyone. But that was before cars and commuting.

Not What it Seems

What first comes to your mind when you look at this photo of Excitable about to plunge off the back of our vacation houseboat and into the clear waters of Lake Powell, Utah/Arizona?

Fear and Dancing in Las Vegas

Our recent family vacation started and ended in Las Vegas. It may seem incongruous to bookend travels with children in a place known as Sin City or for me to use a 10-cent word like “incongruous.” However, I have plenty of photos of us enjoying “wholesome” touristy things to prove otherwise.

Like …

Photo Finished

I write about my failures as a family portrait photographer on our recent trip West at DadCentric today. Here’s the start and one of my many bad photos to entice you. Cheers!

The poetic among us would find rich metaphoric comparisons between the taking of our yearly family portrait and my annual health checkup.

I kinda froze here: one is a figurative pain in my tuchus; the other is literally.

:: snap :: ... and exhaaaaale -- good.

Though a notoriously mediocre point-n-shooter, I undertook the job of family photographer this year because I now own a decent camera and we were going on a scenic week-long trip out West. The breathtaking, soul-enriching beauty of the Grand Canyon and such should surely override my technical ineptitude and my motley crew's many flaws, right?

Yeah. Right.

Continue reading at DadCentric >>

Go West, Uncool

If you only read my blog feed or Facebook page or blog title (ye of ultra-short attention span), you were probably under the impression that, as usual, I was home last week.

Sucker!

Those who follow my Twitter feed knew that The Uncools actually took a trip West to explore this beautiful and diverse land of ours, to create memories that will last a lifetime, and to show our children what makes America the best dang country in the world without true universal health care! (Take that Bahrain … wherever the heck you are.)

So, just where did we go?

No Stupid Smartphone for This Dad 2.0

Today, with a little luck, I am on my way to Austin for the Dad 2.0 Summit, a.k.a. Paternity Party 2012.

Given my usual luck traveling in or out of Texas, though, I’m most likely stranded at the Chili’s Too in Terminal C at DFW International Airport, reduced to selling my “wares” for Shiner Bocks and Southwestern Eggrolls to survive the long, dull Lone Star nights.

That might not be a bad thing. I’m a little nervous about whether I can really hang with daddy-type dudes for three days.

What worries me?

Come to Connecticut. PLEEEEEEASE!

Let’s talk a little about my ‘hood -- Connecticut.

With deficits and taxes growing larger than a sperm whale (um, that's our state animal), our governor decided to spend $22 million to rebrand and market Connecticut abroad as a tourist destination.

At first glance, it seems excessive.

Then you reflect deeply and frankly about this place I call home -- and you see the light.

That's NOWHERE near enough money to undo centuries of work to make Connecticut the most generic of the Northeastern states.

Consider our state bird: the ubiquitous American robin. State song: "Yankee Doodle." Our seat of government: Hartford -- The Insurance Capital of the World.

Welcome, stranger, to the Land of Steady Habits. We are bland; hear us snore.

The four (four!) agencies the state hired for this job must be real Mad Men. Look at our competition just in New England:

• Vermont's a crunchy life of skiing and maple syrup.
• New Hampshire proclaims "Live Free or Die" when not in the presidential primary spotlight.
• Maine is synonymous with lobster.
• Massachusetts has Pilgrims, Bunker Hill, Kennedys, Hahvad Yahd, etc.
• Even without its legendary music festivals, Rhode Island still has the distinction of being the tiniest state of them all.

But try to define Connecticut.

Long Island Sound? Maybe if it wasn't for, oh,  …the NAME

Mystic Seaport? Not quite a Boston Harbor tea party.

Mark Twain? Lived and wrote in Hartford for decades but he is forever associated with Huck, Tom and the South.

His neighbor Harriet Beecher Stowe? Her house is one of at least three "historic" Stowe residences throughout the country and ours is not the one where she penned Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Yale? You mean that other Ivy League school.

The Coast Guard Academy? That would be home to the fifth most popular of the nation’s five armed military forces.

Lyme Disease? Well, it is our best known export …

Connecticut's portrayal in literature and Hollywood also rarely screams, "Pack up the kids, we're road trippin'!" We're bored suburbanites, preppy snobs, anti-Semites or Stepford wives. Even the Ricardos and Mertzes lasted only a dozen episodes in Westport before shutting down that legendary Desilu production.

Past Connecticut marketing campaigns prove our lack of "wow factor." Most focused on the state being small but with a broad range of features and activities that, sad but true, all our neighbors do much better. We sold ourselves as the Vanilla Mint Listerine of the region: just as effective but much less intense.

That's our problem. Connecticut is good at many things. It's just not particularly outstanding at any one.

No one views our role in U.S. history as quite so revolutionary. Our cuisine, derivative. Our wine, kinda drinkable. Our mountains, more molehill than majestic. Our beaches, not even vaguely MTV-ready (in the era of Snooki, I suppose we can live with that). Connecticut is the utility infielder of the Northeast: able to fill in adequately but unspectacularly when The Hamptons are already booked.

Without best-in-class traditional tourist features to brag about, it's time my fellow residents and our hired shills change tack. We need to mindlessly, obnoxiously and absurdly promote our urban legends and idiosyncrasies.

In short, we need to make like Texans.

Having spent six years in Dallas, I never could comprehend Texans' blind devotion to their home state unless they had never ventured beyond its borders or, worse, only into Arkansas. Yet they embrace cowboy boots in their hellish heat, rally behind a battle they lost in a massacre (which explains why concealed weapons are legal there) and revere native dolts as political geniuses, y'all.

Here's where we finally win. Connecticut and Connecticut alone has P.T. Barnum -- native son, successful businessman, mayor, Congressman and, most importantly, master showman. We need to follow Barnum's lead and fly, nay, wear our freak flag every day and everywhere. The suckers will follow.

Hike the treacherous yet romantic 356-mile trail of the cryptic Old Leatherman! Escape the zombies and monsters in Sleeping Giant Park! Indulge in the ancient, secret powers of our legendary wooden nutmegs! Bwaahaahaahaa!

Step right up, come one, come all to Connecticut! Just make sure to visit the Egress!

Let Me Amuse You With My Misery

I don’t delude myself. I know most of you come here for a grin and giggle, not to be impressed by:

• my profound insights (you’re smiling already, yes?),
• my clever turn of phrase (look, if you must roll on the floor in laughter, please do so over the muddy paw prints by the door), or
• my dazzling use of metaphor, allusion and other terms you have most likely not thought about since you wrote your last English literature term paper (this was only a few weeks ago for this reader and this one, so they are excused for reading my blog as a way to purge their brains of all intellectual thought before summer break).

However, I’m not feeling all fun and games these days. Oh, let me count the ways:

1. Within 10 minutes of stepping foot in Seattle for our recent Cure JM conference/vacation, Thing 2 left not only his iPod Touch but also his beloved Nintendo DS and some 20 games for it on the airport shuttle train. Even he could do the math on that. In short, a grainy security camera stlll of yours truly might now be pinned to a corkboard hanging in the Seattle-Tacoma International’s TSA office with a note to “Approach with Caution. And Mace.”
2. Returned from said “vacation” to find our house had been broken into. Luckily, the biggest thing stolen was a huge jar of loose change. Unluckily, the only other thing stolen was Thing 1’s piggy bank. Which contained $100. Which she received from relatives as an elementary school graduation gift.
3. In the mail pile that collected during said “vacation,” I received a jury duty notice. All I’ll say is that on August 17, someone in the criminal justice system may be very sorry our state didn’t do away with capital punishment.
4. Speaking of death, our dog Murphy is apparently suicidal. Last month, he ate a bowl of grapes. Yesterday, because our Lab abhors subtly, he chowed down a block of rat poison. I happened along shortly after both incidents and did what I do best – made him puke his ever-loving guts out. It’s a talent.

The list goes on but I’m depressing myself. Maybe I’ll detail it more online (I will most definitely give you the scoop in person if you buy me a beer because I’m just a loose-lipped harlot for the hops as you know), but as of right now I need a little happy in my life and if it can’t be me, why not one of you. Hence:

LET ME GIVE YOU STUFF!

A brilliant PR company (i.e., one that actually read my blog and put a few things together) has offered to let me give one lucky reader

4 FREE PASSES to
Lake Compounce amusement park
in Bristol, Connecticut

Lake Compounce is the oldest continuously operating amusement park in North America, having started in 1846. (I know you folks are used to my typos, but I did really type one-eight-four-six.)

It is home to Boulder Dash, which has been voted the world’s No. 1 wooden roller coaster and is liked even by the stodgy New York Times. Lake Compounce even has Connecticut’s largest water park (no, not Long Island Sound -- we have to share that with, you know, Lawn Guylanders).

The park is a gem from what I hear from friends and I’ve read online.

That’s right. I’ve never been.

Not that I didn’t want to go and give you a firsthand review.

I tried to go last week with the Things and My Love and the four free tickets the PR folks gave me to use, but 30 minutes sitting in a traffic accident on I-84 made me turn back.

And yes, you may add that to the list.

Anyway, here’s da rules:

• Leave a comment by 8 a.m., Friday, July 15. Any comment will do. I’m easy. Duh. (If you want to comment, but don’t live any where near Bristol or don’t want tickets, just say so.)
• Include a working email address when you fill out the comment form so I can contact you if you win.
• Be a citizen of Earth. So unless you are Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum, you qualify.

I’ll pretend to give an extra entry if you like the “Always Home and Uncool” Facebook page, which occasionally includes bonus photos, links, bon mots and extra moanin’ and a-bitchin’ from me.

One winner will be picked at random. As will my nose.

Better The Devil You Know

I am back home, but I am still waiting.

Waiting on doctors. Waiting on home healthcare services. Waiting on insurance companies.

They are trying to get on the same page so the treatment of Thing 1’s flare can begin:

• 3 straight days of IV steroid doses; then a week later, two days of steroid drips; then one a week for two weeks. These can cause moodiness, high blood pressure, excessive hair growth, weight gain, cataracts and increased risk of infection.
• A monthly dose of IVIG (Intravenous Immune Globulin), a refined human blood product that takes three to six hours to infuse. This can cause headaches, rash, fatigue, hypertension and, in worst cases, renal issues and aseptic meningitis.
• 10 mg of oral prednisone a day. See the first bullet point.
• 20 mg of Prosilec twice a day to prevent the prednisone from eating her stomach lining and GI tract.

It’s the same general treatment doctors put on when she was first diagnosed nine years ago. It’s the safe course, the one we know worked before with minimal problem and, in theory, should work again and nip this off in a few months.

This standard bill of fare wasn’t the first idea her doctor presented.

She mentioned trying Rituxan, another immune suppressant often used in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis. It’s considered a “third-line drug” for juvenile myositis patients, one you try when the primary treatments (steroids, methotrexate) and the complimentary treatments (IVIG, CellCept, plaquenil) fail or no longer do the trick. It’s success rate, at least in the JM kids we know, has been hit and miss; it’s side effects can be nasty.

The treatment would be two IV doses, see what happens, then evaluate what to do next.

“The reality is we need better treatments,” the doctor told me.

Until those are found, we decided to make her better with the devil we know.

All this is actually good news.

Thing 1’s blood work looked better than expected; her evaluation with the physical and occupational therapists showed only some minor loss of strength in her neck and truck muscles (she could barely do a sit up – a reality that almost made her cry, had problems holding her neck up for barely 60 seconds, could muster only half-hearted complaints about the exam taking so long).

Given the photos and descriptions we had emailed her the previous week, Thing 1’s doctor said she “much better than I expected.” But the prominent rash and other skin issues, including some tiny pebbles of calcinosis on her fingers and knuckles, are the clear warning flags that something bigger is crouched beneath the surface, ready to attack.

Time for us to stop waiting. Time to fight. Again.

* * *

It wasn’t all drama in Chicago; there was also sports.

Months ago, as a birthday present to myself, I bought us tickets for Sunday’s Cubs game in the wonder that is Wrigley Field. I was last in The Friendly Confines about 15 years ago and, I’m happy to report, that little has changed. The Cubs still lost.

 
The pink hats were a giveaway for Mother’s Day. Suits me, no?

Thing 1 declared the nachos not nearly as good as those we had the previous Mother’s Day on the South Side at New Cominsky Park or whatever they call that concrete thing the White Sox play in.

* * *

We arrived back home Monday night, exhausted but optimistic. I went to bed feeling relieved despite it all.

When I woke the next morning, I looked in the mirror and saw one last birthday present.

That was SOOOOO not there when I left for Chicago Sunday morning!

What’s really scary -- I talked about being disappointed on my 40th birthday when I awoke to find my hair hadn’t suddenly turned white. Classic Uncool definition of “too little, too late.”

Well, as my dad says, I don’t care what color they turn as long as they stay put. Hair-dee-hair-hair, dad.

* * *

Help heal Thing 1 and all kids with juvenile myositis diseases! Support our family as we participate in the Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon by donating to Cure JM.

The Words I Write Ain’t Big or Bright (or Even Here)

Happy New Year, everyone!

While I’m still digging out our home from My Love’s annual overly ambitious holiday decorating work (I’ve rolled up 56 extension cords and unplugged 29 lighting timers in the two days since I started this project, and those laid-off British Royal Guardsmen she hired as live “nutcrackers” are not taking my pleas to stand down seriously), please take a click over to Kristine’s Wait in the Van blog to read “The Northeasterner’s Guide to Texas” I prepared for her before she heads to the Lone Star State this spring.

Anyone want some leftover candy canes? How about a few hundred white doves of peace?

Mmmm, squaaaaab!

Real Househusband Meets ‘Real Housewife of New Jersey’ – Really!

This is the second and concluding post about my encounter with Danielle Staub of Real Housewives of New Jersey infamy. Need to catch up? Read Part One!

* * *

Feeling refreshed and several hundred dollars lighter the next day at the casino, we hit the pauper’s breakfast buffet with the Mohegan Sun’s main clientele. After navigating our way through the portable oxygen tanks and wheelchairs, we head upstairs to valet parking.

As we wait for the Minivan of Manliness to appear among the Lexuses, Navigators and H2s and wonder why none of these car owners were at the buffet with us earlier, a guy as tall and skinny as a telephone pole strolls up the sidewalk in a track suit, greets the doorman by name, fist bumps him, then enters the hotel.

"Let me guess," I say to the doorman, "that guy's a pro basketball player?"

The man used to play in the NBA and now clowns with the Harlem Globetrotters, the doorman tells me.

"Wow -- this is celebrity sighting weekend for me,” I say proudly. “Last night, we dined across from one of the Real Housewives of New Jersey."

“Yeah? Which one?”

“Danielle, I think."

"Yep, that was Danielle," says a man in a gray FDNY T-shirt who had just come up next to us. "She's the crazy one."

“That’s funny. That’s exactly how the guy who told me who she was last night described her to me.”

“Well, I should know,” says FDNY Guy. “My wife is her publicist.”

(After this, maybe now ex-publicist. Or ex-wife. Sorry about that, FDNY Guy.)

Two minutes later, I’m relaying this bizarre coincidence to My Love. But something is amiss. I notice her eyes are not on me.

“She’s standing right behind you,” she says sotto voce, which is Italian for “in a manner so as not to make an ass out of you, dearest.”

I turn and there she is: Danielle, the PROSTITUTIONWHORE! herself. She dressed down from when I saw her last in this:

This Sunday, she’s in flats, a loose-fitting long sleeve blouse and jeans not nearly tight or low-cut enough for me to even venture a guess as to whether she had underwear on.

“Dear,” I say in a tone I plan on using again on the day I meet Thing 1’s first boyfriend, “give me the camera. … Not the iPhone – the REAL camera.”

Danielle is hugging someone, a man I don’t recognize. There’s no squealing. No snippiness. No drama. She’s smiling. In these few moments, she seems – and I know this may disappoint some you – perfectly normal.

"Excuse me,” I say, “I'm sorry to interrupt -- but are you Danielle from the Real Housewives?"

She instantly smiles with teeth whiter than any Vermont college town.

"Yes, I am!" she says.

She’s upbeat, dare I say it – perky – and I’m not referring to her boobs because they are modestly concealed under the gentle flow of her taupe-colored top. 

"Would you mind if I got a photo with you?"

"No, not at all!" She chirps, stepping to one side so I can stand next to her.

I hand the camera to the guy she had been hugging.

"My wife and I sat across from you at dinner last night."

"I was MUCH taller last night," she says as we slide arms around each other's backs, without hesitation or awkwardness.

"Yes, my wife was admiring how you could actually stand in those shoes,” I lie.

“Not very well! Did you see how many guys I had holding me up?" she says, gesturing and there they are -- the future heads of the Jerry Springer Show security team from the night before. They are standing on the sidewalk, giving them a few more imposing inches of height. I see no expressions, just muscles and the pain they could cause someone they don’t like.

It was then, and there, I decided it was best not to bring up the whole PROSTITUTIONWHORE! thing. Or, as was suggested to me by someone on Twitter, that I yank on Danielle’s hair extensions.

It was then I realized how much I enjoy having all my own teeth.

Even if they’re not as white as Danielle Staub’s.

* * *

Since that day we met, I’ve done a little more Googling and thinking.

There’s an alleged sex tape (NO! NO! NO! NOT ME! Her!!!) coming out. (UPDATED – BabyBloomr, I will never doubt you again. Ever. Now please pass the boric acid.)) I should have expected that.

But speaking of coming out, I now learn Danielle may be having a lesbian love affair (which I’m sure completely explains why she did not feel up me backside, right, love?).

She’s also trying to reshape her image doing PSAs against bullying, supporting gay rights and working with some charities.

Good for her.

Maybe she’s turning her life around, scampered up on a true morale high ground where she’s found redemption and a stable, loving relationship to make her whole.

Maybe.

But she's always PROSTITUTIONWHORE! to me.

Technorati Tags: television,reality TV,danielle Staub,real housewives,real housewives of new jersey

Real Househusband Meets “Real Housewife of New Jersey,” Part 1

Since I never break from “Always Home” mode halfheartedly, the next few posts will feature Your Uncoolness out and about having fame, stardom and celebrity fall into his lap like a pole dancer with vertigo.

* * *

The Indian casinos in Connecticut have a special name for My Love: “Doubles Down in Vain.” This notoriety comes with certain perks, which the tribes tease us with every month or so through bright and shiny postcards that arrive in our mailbox.

DRASTICLY DISCOUNTED HOTEL STAYS!

COMPLIMENTARY CONCERT TICKETS!

FREE $100 FOR BLACKJACK!

Everything to get her and her debit card to their gaming tables short of a police-escorted limousine ride and lap dance from Denzel Washington. (Psst – the limo wouldn’t be necessary if you promised her the lap dance.)

Luckily, she limits these benders to two or three times a year which, thanks to the freebies heaped upon us, allows us to turn into our incurring gambling debt into educational family trips.

“Hey, kids – look!” I’ll yell into the back seat with unbridled Clark Griswoldian enthusiasm as we roll up to the resort. “See that new hotel tower? It cost $18.3 million to build. How many consecutive hands of blackjack, at $50 a hand with $2 tips given to the dealer every sixth hand, did your Mom lose to pay for that new tower?”

On one of these visits a few weekends back, we dropped the Things off at the all-night kids’ arcade (where, you should know, they don’t take kindly to hypothetical questions about what happens if you lose the cash you set aside for their child care fees to a tightwad Deuces Wild video poker machine) and we headed for our ritual last meal before she hit the tables and I hit the bar to try to break my record for “free” Newcastle Brown Ales downed while noodling through $20 worth of quarter Jacks or Better.

The antipasto had come and gone when three couples work their way into the corner booth diagonal from us. Two of the guys, who look like they had just spruced up after an afternoon of security duty at the local meth lab, clear a path for a woman with thick dark hair, towering stilettos and a short tight black dress that gave anyone seated nearby the chance search for yeast infections.

A few minutes pass and a young couple approaches the booth. He’s holding a point-and-shoot camera. The two Hell’s Angels poster boys climb out of their seats and Long Tan Woman in a Black Washcloth poses, hand on hip, for photos with the couple, together and separately.

My viewing of reality TV is limited, but I am regularly sucked into that celeb gossip fest Extra because it follows Katie Couric’s nightly ritual of failing to profess her deepest, darkest desire to grab a certain at-home dad by the love handles and ride him hard and put him away wet. This led me to guess aloud to My Love that the woman is one of the Real Housewives because:

1. She has that "I need to be the center of attention" get-up on.
2. She has a perfectly even tan during a prematurely cold New England October.
3. She's too tall and coherent to be Snooki.

My dormant investigative journalism gene kicks in. I knock over my chair, very stealthily, bump into a few tables and cruise around the restaurant to find the couple who had their photo snapped with the woman.

“That’s Danielle from Real Housewives of New Jersey,” says the woman.

Confir-MA-tion!

"Which one is she?" I ask.

"She's the crazy one," says the guy, looking into the camera’s display screen. “My God, she’s hooooooooooot!”

(I didn’t have a camera on me, but she looked pretty much as she does in this photo, but with longer, darker hair.) (And sluttier couture.)

Hmm. My BlogHer bedmate, TwoBusy, writes about that show for an entertainment blog. I wonder if she’s the one he has a special nickname for.

I return to the table, grab My Love’s iPhone and fire up ye olde Twitter app.

Later that evening, I had my answer.

 
Will this real househusband meet up with this “real” Housewife?

If so, will he slip and call her PROSTITUTIONWHORE!?

If so, would she hold it against him (I hope not – I’m behind on my shots)?

Tune in later …

Technorati Tags: television,real housewives,reality TV,Danielle Staub,entertainment,celebrities

Ch'i Whiz, Another Attempt At Yoga

Vacations are only successful if you break routines and try new things, someone once told me. It’s good advice that I solemnly repeat, with eyebrows waggling, to My Love whenever we throw down (waggle) our baggage (wagglewaggle) on the bed (wagglewagglewaggle) at our latest holiday destination.

She always obliges immediately, offering to swap sides of the mattress we sleep on.

This indicates a clear lack of communication between us or, more likely, that even my most suggestive waggle suffers from a severe lack of lower forehead flexibility.

Hence, I enthusiastically supported My Love's decision to spice up our annual beach trip this year by bringing in an outsider to loosen us up.

Yes, she hired a yoga instructor who makes house calls.

Morning stretches on the warm sand.

A symphony of seagulls and crashing waves in our ears.

The scent of undispersed BP crude lubricating our lungs.

If anything, it would have to be better than my last attempt at yoga. (For those to lazy to click the link, that consisted of me prone on a cold basement floor getting the heebie-jeebies, via grainy videotape, from a sculpted and oily yogi dude with a hipster ponytail who kept urging me to get in touch with myself and breeeeeeathe.)

This go-round, we started with a perfect harmonic convergence. Not between body and spirit nor, more likely, my body and alcoholic spirits. The great unification occurred between our scheduled yoga time and high tide.

As my swimming skills are suspect, we immediately moved to the second-floor deck of the beach house. This higher elevation should have offered us a stellar view of the Atlantic waters gently caressing the shore or, at a minimum, the waters carrying off the lounge chairs we had left a too close to the shore overnight. Instead, the rising sun blinded us as it focused down like God's own laser pointer.

"Petey? See these two?"

"Which two, God? Those freaks Heidi and Spencer at it again?"

"No! Right there! No! There! Those doofs on the deck! Jesus!"

"Not now, Dad! I'm trying to, uh, take the shower!"

"Sorry about that, son. And drop it. You really think I don't know what you're up to just because you pulled a few clouds around you?"

When I managed to see through my own perspiration and stench, I focused as best I could on our instructor. She was what you'd expect: toned, tanned, voice like liquid Smart Balance "butter." She also had a slight gap in between her front teeth. This made her bear an uncanny resemblance to the sister of a friend of mine, assuming said sister had giving up her habits of eight reality shows, two packs of smokes and case of Miller Lite a day. This image, along with my complete lack of coordination, contributed to an incongruity between my mind and body that not only prevented me from focusing on my breathing while trying to fold and unfold myself like an origami crane but also made briefly forget how to breathe.

INSTRUCTOR: "Breathe in. Feel your bellybutton rise slightly with the motion."

UNCOOL BRAIN: Wait -- wait! My bellybutton's going down. Quick - exhale. Exhale and reboot.

INSTRUCTOR: "Now, slowly breathe out through your mouth. Notice your bellybutton as it falls slightly."

UNCOOL BRAIN: Exha- … ack! No air! Inhale, inhale! Through my mouth or nose? Why is my belly button moving the opposite way again? Is it? AHHH! I can't feel my belly button! Where is it?! AHHH!

(Ironic realization: As a blogger, you would think I'd be better at naval gazing.)

At last, something started to click.

A warm, soothing calmness flowed through my limbs. My eyes closed, and I listened for my own heart beating.

And there it was: low, steady, pumping, thumping like a 10-year-old girl bouncing up the deck stairs, one wooden tread at a time …

"Daddy," Thing 1 called, "do you know where there's a plunger?"

BlogHer: The Chicks are All Right

Only a handful of women directly addressed the elephant in the room (actually, the penis in the elevator) at BlogHer ‘10 this past weekend by asking me: “Why are you here at a conference for women?”

More surprisingly, only one of them inserted an emphatic “the hell” into that question but it was in her eyes, not her words.

But that wasn’t the real controversy surrounding my appearance among the 2,400 women gathered in New York City. No, not by a long shot.

It was: How did I -- a man who once wore a paper doily as underwear, who can barely hang self-adhesive wallpaper borders -- get invited to a Martha Stewart party instead of some of them?

Answer: Martha knows I need FAR more help than you.

(Actual conversation that happened not once, but twice with Omnimedia employees at the party:

MARTHA MINION: And what’s the name of the blog you write?

ME: Always Home and Uncool.

MARTHA MINION: Oh, yes! We know you. YOU’RE the daddy blogger.)

Martha obviously wants to broaden her appeal to folks like me, the domestic doofus demographic. One swag bag her folks distributed contained fudge-covered mint Oreos, Kraft Homestyle Mac ‘n’ Cheese and, honestly, Miracle Whip. It only lacked a warning label:

“DANGER! Eating these three items in one sitting might cause heart attack, diabetes or terminal SuburbanWhiteBoyism!”

I only had one moment of true testosterone discomfort during all three days. Oddly, it did not occur while entering a women’s bathroom Thursday night to pay my respects to Jenny the Bloggess. That I expected.

My man shame occurred during the conference’s panel on humor writing. Comedienne and The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead described her need to rally the world against white, male … um, excrement egresses. Oh, how the sea of women around me laaaaaughed and laaaaaughed and … *sniff sniff* … do I smell boiling tar?

Then I remembered.

Lizz wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.

That’s right.

Not “guys like me.” But me, in particular. So there, Lizz Winstead: You. Owe. Moi.

She passed me, TwoBusy and Kristine in the hall right before the panel started and asked where the room was. I’m positive I pointed first.

In all seriousness, everyone I meet – male and female – were as gracious as they could be to me or at least faked it convincingly. Here are some thanks and memories worth sharing:

To TwoBusy, my roommate and safety net. I’m especially grateful you never kidney punched me for endlessly begging and pleading with people to support Cure JM’s efforts to win that $250,000 Pepsi Refresh grant. You are a gentleman and I owe you. No kidding, what’s my half of the hotel bill?

To the 400 or so people who now possess the above Cure JM cards: thanks for indulging me. My daughter and other children stuck with this stupid disease known as juvenile myositis are depending on you and the power of your votes.

To the dynamic duo of Ms. Picket and Carolyn Online. For you, I’ll make an exception to my rules on drinking light beer. Not at the $10 a pop the hotel bar was charging, mind you, but definitely up to $7.75. Sans tax and tip.

To Momo Fali: I am not your stalker. It was aaaaaall an Ambien-induced hallucination.

To Bossy: I am your stalker. I just made it seem like you kept bumping into me around the hotel bar because I’m that good.

To Pop and Ice, Dr. Snarky and, especially their lovely daughter who likes to grill cab drivers and waiters about their hopes and dreams. I wish I still had her sense of curiosity and wonder.

To Verdant Dude and Avitable’s (mostly) Florida mafia for welcoming me into the city, but not for making me sweat my ever-lovin’ man sack off in that Belgium bar. Don’t you get enough humidity back home?

To Out-Numbered for letting me surf in his wake while he hobnobbed with the post-breakfast crowd Friday morning.

To Maggie Dammit, Ann Imig, Small Town Mommy, VodkaMom and the other handful of people who literally tapped my shoulder (or in Charlie’s case, leaped over a chair and a table) to say hello. In each case, it was a strange, wonderful and wholly unexpected experience for me. There are many days I wallow silently in my feelings of worthlessness, resentment and loneliness over the belief that no one cares about what I struggle to hunt-and-peck here. You made me feel welcome in your home.

* * *

You could win an iPad by helping us win that $250,000 Pepsi grant. Go to www.CureJM.org, sign up for daily voting reminders and then vote your ass off and get your friends to do the same every day until August 31. We only give away the iPad if we finish No. 1 or 2 in the voting.

Technorati Tags: BlogHer10,BlogHer,blogging,Apple,iPad,Pepsi Refresh

BlogHer: Treat this Guy Like One of the Girls

For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter (and what’s up with that?), you missed the big announcement the other week that confirms your long-held suspicions:

I will be at the BlogHer ‘10 conference in New York City this week. This puts me among the handful of men there who will not be serving drinks, restocking the buffet or unclogging hair from the hotel sinks.

“But wait,” you say, “you can’t go to BlogHer! You have a penis!”

Hold on.

I’ve checked and, yes, I can confirm that I do indeed have a penis. But please, do not hold it against you.

I mean, against me.

I mean, don’t hold it all.

Don’t even think about my penis.

Stop it.

Stoooop iiiiit.

Good.

Why am I going to a conference so chock full of estrogen that it will make The View seem an editorial board meeting at Maxim magazine?

It’s nearby.

It’s cheap (minimal travel cost, bought my ticket early at a discount and I’m sharing a cardboard box near Rockefeller Center with a few former Lehman Brothers brokers).

It offers many networking possibilities with other bloggers and people who could possibly be conned persuaded into giving me cold hard cash to shill things on my site that I have first-hand experience with, such as feminine hygiene products and disposable underwear.

And finally, My Love said it was OK.

As long as you don’t think about … you know. That thing I have.

She seemed extremely concerned yesterday about the possibility of me being among the 10 percent of the BlogHer attendees with a Y chromosome. In particular, she was worried about me “dancing” with women hopped up on free swag and cheap booze at the BlogHer parties.

“You’ve seen me dance,” I told her, “it’s anyone within a 20-foot radius of me who should be worried, not you. Members of our wedding party still bear scars to this day.”

“Dancing,” it turns out, was a metaphor. Since it went over my head, she threw another one at me.

“It’s like driving,” she explained over a martini as big as an Octomom-Sized bucket of KFC. “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s the other crazies on the road. I want you to practice Defense Driving.”

I’ve taken Defensive Driving at the behest of the state of Texas – twice -- so let me think … pay attention to your surroundings, maintain adequate distance, both hands on the wheel except when flipping off that idiot with the perpetually blinking left-turn signal.

Ahhhh!

Wow.

Seriously?

Anyway, if you are a woman (go ahead and check – I’ll wait) and you meet me at BlogHer, please put My Love’s mind at ease. Just treat me just like one of the girls. This means you should:

• Compliment me on my hair, cute shoes or choice of purses.
• Complain to me about how your spouse is always wanting to have intimate relations with you then detail all the clever ways you manage to avoid doing so.
• Discuss and compare our muffin-top elimination strategies.
• Tell me why you are either on Team Edward or Team Jacob, and why anyone in her right mind should really care that much about crappy fictional characters.
• And finally, ask me about my problems with bloating.

Exception to the rule: Please – no matter what the circumstance – do not invite me back to your room for a lingerie pillow fight. I’d disappoint you any way. I’m only packing my granny panties.

* * *

All kidding aside, here’s what I’m looking forward to at BlogHer:

Driving to the conference and rooming with the anonymous blue lobster known as TwoBusy, a man who can rip your heart out with his writing about his autistic son, scare you with his knowledge of The Real Housewives of New Jersey and impress you with his large, uh, music collection.

Having beers with Ms. Picket (OK, I’m having beer, she’s having Miller Lite), whose husband and I made a formidable battery back in Little League days, and discussing with her how much coaching kid soccer sucks.

Thanking, in person, some of the people who have been extremely generous with their money, time and blog/Twitter space in helping Cure JM and our fight to find a cure for Thing 1’s autoimmune disease. These include: the amazing Anna Lefler; the prolifically funny VodkaMom; my serial reTweeters Ann’s Rants, Kristine and Panic Room Ryan; the easily persuaded Maggie, Dammit and Miss Britt (sorry about begging on Sunday night) and, I hope, a cast of many others.

Passing out business cards … not mine, but ones that explain what JM is and hopefully, gets many more people to vote for us in the Pepsi Refresh contest for $250,000. (Yes, I know we dropped from No. 4 to No. 175 – the system is screwy because there are also no Nos. 1 to 97 last time I checked. Have faith.)

So, if you are at BlogHer and you see this guy:

You didn’t see me. You saw character actor Skip Hinnant dressed as The Boy from The Electric Company skit, "Love of Chair," from the early 1970s. He only plays me in my avatar and blog header.

But if you see this guy (most likely without Liz aka Mom 101 but probably with a drink):

 
Yep, that’s me. Be gentle, ladies. I already have one damaged X chromosome.

Technorati Tags: blogher,blogger,blogher10