Sometimes life sucks. But SOMETIMES you see Full House stars at hick bars.

You know how on Full House, Uncle Jesse is in that band "Jesse and the Rippers"? Of course you do. Well, a few months back, I went with some people to this old fogey bar called Cowboy Country over in Long Beach. We're standing in line outside and hear a bunch of the people walking out talking about John Stamos. "Odd topic of conversation for so many people to coincidentally have chosen at this random location," I mull silently to myself. And then we walk inside where, low and behold, John Stamos is playing the drums. Ahh... so that's why...

 

John Stamos

                                  The Neil Morrow Band









Since I was practically raised in that health-and-fire-code-breaking full house alongside those Tanners, this definitely goes down as one of the top 8 greatest moments of my life.

<-----Thanks to that night, Jesse Katsopolis and I are like this.


Highlights of the evening include:

-The lead vocalist/keyboardist breaking out into the Full House theme song as well as "Jesse's Girl" (much to Stamos' chagrin).

-The fact that the rest of my group had to point out to one of our friends which one John Stamos was. (WHAT?!)

-The fact that one of us had the knowledge and insight to realize that it would be a grave mistake to exit the bar without having gotten a photograph with Mr. Stamos. Though this did require a bold and daring dash onstage during the set, it did result in the photograph that he himself POSED for whilst drumming along. It also resulted in security escorting us out of the building... but that was to be expected.

Elise (the brilliant stage-bombing mastermind), Stamos, and myself. We're the three best friends that anybody could have. Obvi. (Do you love how I had to blow the picture up to EXTRA large size for you to even remotely identify him? Haters gonna hate.)

So the next day, I told one of my roommates about this little escapade. She laughed... and then went on to tell me that, several weeks earlier, she had been sitting in an airport in Europe next to Mr. T, kindly offering him her Tide-To-Go pen when he spilled his beverage all over himself.

She wins...

...for now.

How To Not Pick Up Chicks

You may or may not but probably definitely maybe sorta do remember my post about a clever way to pick up chicks. This post is nothing like that.

I work in the compliance department of a company that hires and manages truck drivers. Drivers have to pass drug tests in order to get hired. A few weeks ago, a Girl I work with got a particularly interesting call from a driver saying he didn't know what to do because he was told to leave the drug testing clinic before he could find it in his heart or bladder to urinate.

While she was on the phone, Girl realized that the rest of us in the office had tuned into this chat and were getting severe hits of joy from it. So she started repeating the stuff the driver was saying solely for our benefit. You know, like how they do in the movies when you can only hear one side of the conversation and it sounds super unrealistic because nobody would ever talk that way? Yeah. Like that. Like this!:

"What do you mean you left the clinic before they gave you your drug test?"

[Driver talking]

"I don't care if you waited 45 minutes and couldn't pee! Department of Transportation regulations clearly specify that the clinic isn't allowed to let you leave until you have waited three full hours. As a clinic, they should know that, and as a driver, you should know that too."

[Driver talking]

"Okay, sir... well, if this doesn't get cleared up it will qualify as a refusal to test, which is just as bad as having a positive result. Who exactly told you to leave? Did you get a name?"

[Driver talking]

"You don't know her name... but she looked like Snooki from Jersey Shore... Oooookay...................."

Girl calls clinic.

"Hi, my name's Girl and I'm calling from Company and I'm wondering if you by chance have a receptionist that looks like Snooki from Jersey Shore?"

[Clinic talking]

"Oh you do? Great! Because I have driver who's telling me about how........[she explains situation]"

Apparently, what ended up happening was the driver had a "shy bladder" and spent his 45 minutes at the clinic pacing around the waiting room, drinking heaps of water and ogling Snooki. Ogling turned into approaching and approaching turned into maybe possibly definitely stepping behind the desk and telling her she was beautiful which turned into "Hey, you wanna go down the street and grab a few beers with me? Maybe that would help me pee." ODDLY enough, Snooki wasn't down with that suggestion, and had security kindly escort him out of the building despite the fact that his three hours hadn't passed yet. They told him if he came back, the cops would be called immediately.

Girl called the driver back. She gave him the lip he deserved about having conveniently left out the part of the story where he sexually harassed a Snook-a-like, trying to woo her with promises of alcohol and an all around grand adventure of a time. She continued to explain to him for the next twenty minutes how this incident had rendered him ineligible for the position of driver within our company. I guess that was a concept he couldn't really grasp.

There are several morals to this story. I suppose one might benefit from printing them out and carrying them in one's wallet. Think about it.

Moral 1
If you are waiting to take a drug test for a new job, it is advisable to not pass the time waiting for your bladder to be ready by trying to take the poor tanorexic girl who does her make up in the dark out for beers WHILE SHE'S AT WORK.

Moral 2
If you've already made the mistake of ignoring the suggestion offered in Moral 1, do not attempt to lie about it to your future employer. It probably will not work and you will look like a fool.


Moral 3
You shouldn't allow trashy television to influence the standards you set for your potential mates.


Moral 4
If you've already made the mistake of ignoring the suggestion offered in Moral 3, at least go for someone who looks like JWOWW.

Late night. Come home. Work sucks. I know.

"Sometimes you just have to suck it up."

^ The sentiment I often have to remind myself of, though I'm growing exceedingly bad at disguising my disdain for my current job.

"JUST THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS."

^ The idea I usually end up meditating on. I'd love to say I don't need to do this until a few hours in, or even near the end of my shift. But, unfortunately, this struggle begins almost immediately upon walking through the door.

All that aside, I recently had a fond memory of someone who inspired me to make the best of things at a job you don't enjoy.

SURFER'S PARADISE, QUEENSLAND

INT. HOTEL ELEVATOR- DAY

CARSTY enters the ELEVATOR to find MAINTENANCE MAN with a large cart filled with tools and supplies. At the next floor, a group consisting of several quite intoxicated couples joins them. They ride down in silence for a few floors. Upon noticing a tennis ball included on MAINTENANCE MAN'S cart of tools, CARSTY decides to break the awkward barrier and try to get a laugh out of the DRUNKIES.

CARSTY

(with extreme enthusiasm, animatedly gesturing towards cart)

One of these things doesn't belong!

Drunkies stare blankly. Crickets can be heard from off screen.

MAINTENANCE MAN

(melancholy)

Yeah, sometimes this job can get really boring...

(beat)

And I also have these!

He pulls several bouncy balls out of his pocket.

CARSTY and DRUNKIES laugh.

  

And that's how the game is played, my friends. Even middle aged hotel maintenance men don't take life too seriously. Blogging at work has become my bouncy ball. And you may have noticed that I've been bouncing that ball a lot lately...


Six. More. Weeks.

Axl Rose. A True Story.

It's that time again. Time for yet another installment of the chronicles of the exceedingly irrelevant and absolutely insignificant coincidences of my life.


A few years ago, I was over at a friend's house. He, being a classic rock lover, and I, being a classic fool, had a conversation that went something like this:




Friend: Blah, blah, blah, blah, guitars, blah blah blahhhhh, music, blah blah BLhaaHAhaHAHa, Axl Rose, blah blah bliggity blah blah blah.


Carsten: Who's Axl Rose, again?


Friend: WHAT? You don't know who AXL ROSE is? GUNS N' ROSES?.... I DATED YOU??? [Slew of expletives.]


Carsten: I'm... Sorry?



The next day, I was hangin' out with my Pops, watchin' TV and eatin' food and what not. OUR conversation went something like this:




Pops: Carst, I had the strangest dream last night!


Carsten: Oh  yeah, Pops? What about?


Pops: I dreamt that you didn't know who Axl Rose was.... weird!


Carsten: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......






My friend and my father do not communicate and I had not told anyone about the conversation from the previous night. To my knowledge, nobody had seen any documentaries on Guns N' Roses in the recent past, and my friend lives far enough away from my parents' house as to render eavesdropping from across the expanse physically impossible.


So.... basically, my dad can read minds. Just like my sister. It's the only feasible explanation.


All that to say, I now know exactly this many more things about Axl Rose than I did before: One. (He is from Guns N' Roses).

Verdict: Leprechauns are not real.

I know St. Patrick's Day was a minute ago, but I watched the Boondock Saints last week so, that got me thinking about all things Irish. One of those things being my elementary school art teacher, Ms. Morgan. Something especially Irishy about her remains burned in my brain. I was five, a wee kindergartner, with a malleable mind, waiting to be lied to. That year, Ms. Morgan, decided it would be an excellent idea to tell all us kiddos that leprechauns were real. Now, mind you, at that time in my life, my only references to leprechauns were

THIS:

and

THIS:

So when she told us that leprechauns were alive and among us, I pictured them as some combination of these two creatures. To help you get a taste, I helped makemebabies.com be the most useful it's ever been. 

BAM. 

Now that that's settled, I urge you to mentally insert that petrifying image into my retelling of a gross lie. LIES, rather. I shall now list the LIES that were told to SMALL CHILDREN about MYTHICAL CREATURES. (One of my biggest pet peeves.... Don't even get me started on Santa. I've blogged about him already.)

We were informed that:

1. Ms. Morgan was half leprechaun and possessed magical leprechaun powers.

2. Her brother was FULL leprechaun, and thus, miniature, and was running around the school, in need of being TRAPPED.

3. Leprechauns COULD be trapped by a device consisting ONLY of a toilet paper roll, some pipe cleaners, and a string! She had each of us make a trap and take it home to try it out on our own pesky leprechaun populations. (I can't, for the life of me, remember how this trap functioned, but I do remember that we used chocolate gold coins as bait.) You can be certain I set up my trap on the daily and did not once catch a single thing.

4. Anybody who had gold rings around their pupils had leprechaun blood. I, having such eyes, felt far superior to those of my classmates who lacked gold rings.

5. The "FOOTPRINTS" cut out of CONSTRUCTION PAPER that were found all over the school were from REAL LEPRECHAUNS.

Whatever. I'm bitter. I should get over it. I'm trying! This always helps:

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day.

What lies were YOU told as a kid?