<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/flinstones-772017.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/flinstones-769830.jpg" border="0" /></a>Me: So, if Hurricane Wilma hits land, what would be the over/under on the resulting Flintstone references in America?
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/nerf-793914.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/nerf-787291.jpg" border="0" /></a>All right, I know my writing has been sucking the proverbial donkey member since about Saturday and for this I apologize. I don’t really get writer’s block; I just produce a subpar product. Also, I have two more excuses: I have been sick and there’s a bunch of random shit I need to get out of my system. Since I’ve already exercised the chicken soup option, I think I’ll purge the word machine for a few minutes. This is a flow; it is your choice whether or not to go.<br /><br />Taking a break from my work, putting the phone down and the papers aside, and then stepping outside to toss the Nerf football around with the pizza shop employees next door creates one of the best feelings I get every work day. And I know that’s sad. But what can you do? We all gotta eat.<br /><br />When Albert Pujols hit his game winning homerun the night before last, I had already written the Cardinals off so deeply (I mean I was ready to focus on next season by that inning) that I didn’t even have one of those, “Yes! I knew we could do it!” moments. Instead, I had one of those, “Well, dagum. This ain’t over yet” moments. It was as if all the life was drained from me over the course of nine innings and Pujols’ homer sparked a reverse of the same experience at the same speed. I didn’t really celebrate until three hours later, when all the life had finally been breathed back into me. Moral: sports mean too much to me.<br /><br />I’m not much for just coming out and saying that I hate certain people. But here is my biggest problem with humanity: no one takes credit for their own actions anymore. I mean, shit. It’s one thing to have become a culture of morons incapable of forming their own opinions, but it’s quite another to be a part of a culture that doesn’t even recognize its own actions and the consequences thereof. This is why the government thinks it should steal all our money to baby-sit us. They think we want to be led like sheep. And lately, I think they’re right.<br /><br /><em>I think I’ll write a poem:<br /></em><br />Went down to the valley and got some gin,<br />said ‘hey good looking, where have you been?’<br />to the overweight maiden with the triple chin,<br />who always tells me what time it is.<br /><br />Ya see, I plan my walk home to get downtown in time<br />So I can see all the pretty school girls unwind<br />as they kick back in the park before dinner time,<br />and you know I say I go there to unwind<br />but we all know the truth and she ain’t too kind.<br /><br /><em>Ah, that felt good.<br /></em><br />Women of America, you are fast becoming a cliché. Seriously. I know maybe ten women in my life whose opinions I respect. Here’s the deal: television, movies and books are not real life; bitching accomplishes nothing; no one cares about your damn nails; and most importantly, women, you are the gender that respects peace more, that respects love more, that understands the wicked nature of humanity better, and yet you proceed to spend the bulk of your time either bitching about how things suck, or plotting to see what material possessions can make you feel better. Please, for the love of God, cool women (I’m talking to you, Lulu) find other women and teach them that being more emotional doesn’t need to equate to being an emotional wreck, that life is not lived on the pages of books or television and movie screens and that time spent complaining could be better used addressing the problem. Naturally, I am not holding my breath here.<br /><br />Remember the President Bush who stood atop the World Trade Center rubble and reassured his country? Yeah, I miss that dude. This new guy’s been screwing the pooch for four years now.<br /><br />Tonight, the St. Louis Cardinals take on the Houston Astros in Game 6 of the NLCS. This series is too insane for my flippant predictions. But I will offer one: Pujols takes three walks.<br /><br />Thanks for letting me vent, y’all.
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/foodsafety-780167.bmp"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/foodsafety-777244.bmp" border="0" /></a>For a brief period of my life, I had a job editing food safety reports. Here are the funniest lines I ever edited: “There is a woman in the meat packing department with a beard. Beard net rules apply to women as well as men.” Imagine being the foreman who had to go explain to this lady that she needed either a beard net or close shave.<br /><br />I met a food safety auditor named Walter who, when describing someone who had their shit together, would always say, “There’s a man who stacks his beef on top of his chicken.” Food safety humor. Catch the wave.<br /><br />When you’re a food safety report editor, you get to see the following words way too much: feces, cross-contamination, temporary-fix, hairnet and vermin. Kinda makes lunch hard to swallow.<br /><br />One of my fellow food safety editors stood seven feet tall, had to use a specially designed keyboard that would allow his big ass fingers to type and played rugby with regularity. Job circumstances would teach me that this man was afraid of heights. Have you ever stood atop a four story building with a 280 pound rugby player while he has a panic attack about heights? In case you haven’t, it’s not pretty. Also, that moment spawned variations of the following joke: “Whadda ya mean he’s a afraid of heights? Look at him; he is heights.”<br /><br />At the end of each day, yours truly would deliver all the reports to the post office, where they all had a nickname for me: “Slim Shady.” I don’t know how I got this nickname or why I deserved it, but I got it.<br /><br />My buddy Tyler worked at the food safety office on every payday Friday. He would come in, file some stuff, collect his check, and then come back two weeks later and do it again. He set the bar so low that when he showed up on any other day of the week (like he was supposed to), people were impressed. When he was first hired, the boss told him he would not be allowed more than 25 hours a week. “Don’t you worry,” replied Tyler. “I won’t come close.”
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/beach-758524.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/beach-755878.jpg" border="0" /></a>Have you ever gotten so sick of following sports that, much like an overplayed athlete, you needed a day off?
<p><a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/football-793629.gif"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/football-789744.gif" border="0" /></a>This week, in the interest of seeing just how much of my bookie’s daughter’s college education I can be held fiscally responsible for, I am making three
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/albertpujols-798440.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/albertpujols-795427.jpg" border="0" /></a>“Nate, you should write about whatever you love to write about. And you love to write about baseball. Don’t be swayed by public opinion or you’ll be like the damn democrats.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—My Dad<br /><br />I want to apologize to the thirty or so people who really like all my sports entries lately. Unfortunately, I have let the hundred or so people who do not like the sports stuff overrule you. I have been sneaking my game day predictions at the end of my other entries like a good pick pocket traps your wallet while you give him/her directions. For that, I apologize (yet again).<br /><br />Here are the problems with my sports entries:<br /><br />Thousands of great writers write about sports. I am not one of them. So, naturally, ESPN.com’s readers are not flocking to The Nate Way.<br /><br />Many fans of the internet medium are not fans of sports. Furthermore, many PIC fans are not sports fans. We’re working on this. Just ask <a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/columns/dan/archives.htm">Dan Opp</a>. But for now, basically, no one reads that stuff.<br /><br />I am a fan of two St. Louis teams and one Tampa team. I’m not covering a broad spectrum here. Unlike my old e-mail list, where ninety percent of the people on it were Cardinals fans, only about three percent of The Nate Way readers care about the Cardinals. So the audience has broadened for the worse in this regard.<br /><br />Anyway, onto my Game Day Predictions:<br /><br />Get ready for some serious Tony LaRussa over managing. Reggie is hurt. Larry is sucking. We need two new outfielders, a bullpen guru and some pinch hitters to help get Clemens out before the 7th. I predict 15 players are used in today’s game.<br /><br />Matt Morris will give up 2 homeruns, but the Cardinals will hit 4 (2 by Pujols).<br /><br />David Eckstein will see thirty pitches.<br /><br />John Rodriguez will get into the game, get a hit and be pinch run for.<br /><br />So Taguchi will start.<br /><br />Cards win 8 to 6.
There is no better sexual relationship on planet Earth than one between a young man and a (recently divorced) older woman.
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/boomlift-713074.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/boomlift-710074.jpg" border="0" /></a>So me and my boss, tired and tanned from a long day of swaying over roofs of galvanized steel in a massive, mechanical hand, a little hung over from a night of swinging bottles into and out of our menial mouths, decide to call work off early and get some dinner at this little Cuban place always occupied by dirty working men with stains covering their blue collars (and all you can see of them is their eyes because every other part of them is covered in soot, dust, oil, grease and other particles and chemicals construction workers bathe in daily at work sites) then order some pork sandwiches and some black beans and rice when this little, red-faced guy swaggers in, swaying like a jerky boom lift and looking drunk, even though its only 4 PM and he starts screaming that some fool motherfucker done swiped his gas generator that he says is in the back of some yellow pickup—he knows it’s his generator, he says, because he etched the date of his wedding in the paint of the portable power machine—and this big, strong, pile of dirt-covered muscle stands up with the height and girth of a grizzly bear and says, “that’s my truck and the numbers etched in the back of my generator is the date of my son’s birth,” and like, the whole restaurant collapses in the chaotic pool of coincidence and the radio stops playing and the rice tastes so good, I don’t put it aside to watch the two men go out front and fight until the big, burly bear-man comes in with a little blood (that most likely was not his) on his thin blue shirt and says, “screw that guy and screw that fucking generator” before adding, “somebody better call an ambulance,” and the whole place just explodes with laughter like the diner was powered by some new generator run on working men’s sweat, roll-up-your-sleeve fights and the enigmatic power of cuss words and I don’t mind saying that I felt damn happy because the big boy seemed like an angel, a David in a world of undersized Goliaths, a higher power of humor released on the stage of a closing August work day in Tampa—so hot you can’t even shower away the sweat.<br /><br />Oh, and my game day prediction: Cardinals defeat the Astros, four to two.
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/katynate3-751801.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/katynate3-746446.jpg" border="0" /></a>We are, for the most part, defined by the people who surround us, who love us or hate us, who form opinions of us based on our actions and words, and who have come to know us so well that they make accurate comments about us. Because I do not know you and I do know the people who know me, I will now bust out some of the phrases said by friends or family that I think accurately define me. After reading this, you may just know me a little better.<br /><br />“I don’t worry about Nate. He’s too stupid to be afraid.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Dave, My Little League Baseball Coach<br /><br />“Don’t worry about that young man. Cream rises.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—My Great Uncle Art<br /><br />“I honestly believe you could drop him in the middle of a crowd of complete strangers who speak a different language and he’d still come out with at least ten good friends.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—My Brother Jay<br /><br />“That dude never shuts up.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Just about everyone I know.<br /><br />“Nate loves to talk, but he also loves to kiss. So whenever he talks too much, I just kiss him. And he shuts up. And I get a kiss. So, everyone is happy.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Lauren, Ex-girlfriend.<br /><br />“Nate is a great person, and he doesn’t want anyone to know.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Jana, Ex-girlfriend.<br /><br />“I can’t tell what’s more annoying, your incessant ramblings or your half assed attempts at being funny. Stick to the writing, poet boy.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Shane, Friend<br /><br />“I can trust Nate with anything. He knows how to keep a secret, and he’s so self-involved that he hardly thinks about other people anyway. So whatever he doesn’t keep secret, he just flat out forgets.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Kevin, Friend<br /><br />“That’s the kind of guy you can trust with your wife but not your daughter.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Old Man Dan (I still don’t know what he meant by the way, but I’m sure it’s true)<br /><br />“Uh oh. He ain’t talking. There ain’t no game on. He don’t have emotions so you know he ain’t depressed. That means he’s planning something sinister.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Tony, Friend<br /><br />“Nate, you are a fucking slut.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Lots of Girls<br /><br />“Nate, you are a fucking asshole.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Lots of Girls<br /><br />“One of these days you’ll find something that you do love, and when you do, I hope it fucks you over like you fucked me over you waste of looks and brains.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Jennifer, Ex-girlfriend<br /><br />“Nate, you ever think about shutting the fuck up?”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Scott, My Former Boss<br /><br />“I wouldn’t go so far as to call the brother smart. But he’s definitely quick. He’ll come to three wrong answers before I even find the right one.”<br /><span style="color:#ffffff;">Aaaaaaaaaa</span>—Chris, Who I ain’t seen in a while.<br /><br />So there y’all go. I’ve had my narcissistic moment. I hope you all feel like you know me better. And, as always, any of you out there who feel you have your own quotes can naturally rip me to shreds in the comment box.<br /><br />Oh, and my game day prediction: Cardinals defeat the Astros, seven to five.
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/socrates1-736823.gif"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/socrates1-721256.gif" border="0" /></a>Never buy any food that comes in a box from a grocery store.<br /><br />Unless trying to make a baby, do not have sex without some form of birth control. If she’s not on the pill, go to the condom. I know it sucks, but it beats the hell out of twenty plus years of parenting.<br /><br />Drinking is habit forming. Everything can be habit forming. Therefore, dinking can be everything.<br /><br />Never call a girl by her last name.<br /><br />In the words of James Douglas Morrison, “Expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, the power of fear shrinks and vanishes. It has no meaning, and you are free.”<br /><br />Never feel sorry for people. You don’t really feel sorry for them, anyway. You feel sorry for what it would feel like to be them. (There’s a difference, you soulless fuck.) Instead, just be yourself. No matter how screwed up someone is, they don’t need your pity.<br /><br />It is easier to be critical than it is to be correct. It is easier to make people cry than it is to make them laugh. It is easier to have sex with chicks who smoke cigarettes than chicks who do not. I don’t make this stuff up, people. I just live it and convey it.<br /><br />Drinking is not a hobby.<br /><br />Stuff you must respect: guns, drugs, sports, marriage, old people and war veterans.<br /><br />Stuff you must disrespect: guns, drugs, World Government, rich people and shit talkers.<br /><br />The best people in your life will never ask you what the hell you were thinking after a major screw up. The best people in your life, after watching you screw up, will laugh at you heartily and then offer help as if obligated to do so.<br /><br />Never trust a woman who won’t wear a watch. A woman who won’t wear a watch doesn’t care where she has to be or when she has to be there. So why should she care about you?<br /><br />And, the newest addition to this list, thanks to Mr. Tony of Local Pub Fame, “Eat cheese while you’re young.”<br /><br />And finally, my secret to complete and total happiness: Never notice when you win. Never care when you lose. And always smile.
<a href="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/cheese-700734.jpg"><img style="float:right;cursor:hand;margin:0 0 10px 10px;" alt="" src="https://www.pointsincase.com/nathan/uploaded_images/cheese-798391.jpg" border="0" /></a>Tony: If you ever listen to a thing I say, listen to this and take it to heart: Eat cheese while you’re young.<br /><br />Don: I can’t believe she cheated on me.<br />Darren: Why not? Everyone in this room has fucked her.<br />Me: I never did.<br />Darren: No, but you could have. It’s the same thing.<br />Me: How is that the same thing? If that were true, then I’ve had sex with millions of girls without knowing it.<br />Darren: I see your point, but I think your numbers may be a little skewed.<br />Me: You're telling me that any of America’s 5 million fattest girls wouldn’t sleep with me?<br />Jake: I don’t know Darren. This country has a shitload of fat chicks.<br /><br />Don: At least you had the respect to leave her alone while she was dating me.<br />Me: Dude, I didn’t know she was dating you at the time. I just thought she was ugly.<br />Jake: Take this conversation outside, right now! I’ve had too much busted furniture ‘cause Donny picks skanks.<br /><br />Don: I don’t even know why I hang out with you guys.<br />Darren: Who else would listen to you bitch about the inevitable and the obvious?<br />Me: Ouch.<br /><br />Don: Seriously, how was I to know that she was cheating on me?<br />Darren: Let’s see. She always made plans with you far in advance, she got mad when you came over unannounced even though you’d been together like five months, and she never gave a shit what you were doing. Oh yeah, and Nate told you she was cheating on you.<br />Don: But no one listens to Nate.<br />Darren: Not when he’s babbling on, but when he says straight to the point shit like, “That restaurant sucks, that liquor is watered down and I saw your woman giving head to some Cuban in an Ybor City alley” well yeah, then we tend to listen.<br />Me: I’m like EF Hutton, except you only wanta listen to like one tenth of the shit I say.<br />Jake: If that.<br /><br />Don: Who’s EF Hutton?<br />Me: It’s from some old financial company commercial. Saturday Night Live used to make fun of it.<br />Darren: And it’s also probably the name of some dude your girlfriend fucked.<br />Jake: All I have to say is that if you break my furniture, you bought it.<br /><br />Me: It’s not your fault, Donny. Look at it this way: she was cheating on you; you found out; and now you don’t have to worry about ending up with some stupid skank.<br />Darren: Yeah, now you can focus all of your energies on the next two bit gutter slut that digs your Camaro and needs a new step dad for her crack babies.<br /><br />Me: Holy shit, that was a nice pop.<br />Jake: Get them outside Nate, I don’t need this shit.<br />Me: Come on guys. You can fuck each other up a lot more out in the yard with all the lawn tools.<br /><br />Jake: Seriously, my granddad gave me this lamp.<br />Me: On the bright side: we didn’t have to call the police or an ambulance, and only one piece of furniture was broken. For this house, that’s a good night.<br />Jake: I’m never having you assholes over again. Poker night? More like fucking fight club.<br />Me: The first rule of poker night is you do not talk about Donny’s skanks.<br />Don: You’re going down asshole.
I just want to take this opportunity to thank Major League Baseball for allowing me to close out a bar while watching a baseball game.