2010 Grammy Awards Predictions - Uncool Version

My awards show predictions are uncannily accurate over the years. It seems that I am well intuned to what is going on in the culture at large despite my uncool status. So without further adeiu...

Grammy Prediction #1 - I will NOT watch the Grammy Awards yet again. That keeps my current streak at 45 consecutive Grammy Awards telecasts that I've missed. I wouldn't want to jinx it. Heaven forbid if I actually enjoyed watching it.

Grammy Prediction #2 - During the Grammy Awards, I'll probably watch Star Trek. Going through the original series now that the special efx have been upgraded.

Grammy Prediction #3 - It being Sunday night, I'll probably eat a pretty big dinner.

Uncool Business Card Flashback - The Radio Debacle

My first post-television job was a year stint in radio as a sales person. It was time for me to finally "make some dough". The problem was that I was the worse sales person to ever strap on a tie. I was absolutely terrified to ask anybody for money and that is one of the worse problems to have when you are a sales person.

Throw in the fact that I was selling for the hip and cool radio station and you've got a recipe for disaster. It was during this stint that I learned the value of anxiety medication.

As horrible as I was, I had made gobs more money than I ever had working at the salt mines known as Fox 45 television. Not sure if that means the TV pay was so bad or that sales is so much better no matter how horrible is hard to say. Let's just say, I learned a lot but wouldn't necessarily want to repeat the experience.

The Jeff(rey) Rhodes Project - Jeff-ERY Rhodes Debacle

Perhaps they exist, but I have never seen in the history of the planet a person named Jeffrey spell their name Jeff-ERY. I have seen Geoffrey and Godfrey and Jeff and Jeffrey and Jefferson and million other variations but not the dreaded ERY. It is one of those misspellings that when it occurs and you correct someone they give you the ol' shrug and 'whatever'. Whatever?

'What's the difference?' What's the differenece!

To quote a good friend of mine, "One is my name and the other is not!"

Now that I've become friends many Jeffrey Rhodes' around the world, I'm curious to know their take. Interestingly enough, more people get the Jeffrey-part wrong than they get Rhodes-part wrong.

Side note: This is normally the type of blog entry I would just keep to myself but since I've come to realize there are many more Jeffrey Rhodes' than I had ever imagined, I'm running with it.

Kids Name Cheat Sheet

Being a man and being a dude who has enough trouble with names as it is, it is with candor and sadness that I inform y0u that I have the hardest time in the world remembering the names of all of my friends kids. It is one of lifes little secrets that many guys can never remember the names of his friends kids. It just never comes up.

That's why I came-up with a "Kids Name Cheat Sheet" that I keep in my wallet.

Whenever I run into a kid I should know, I pull out the yellow card from my wallet and check the cheat sheet. I keep the kids, listed by parent, in descending order by age. As long as I get the right family, I'm usually pretty good.

Shorty & Bobe's Christmas Trees

Jeff the packrat strikes again with a blast from the past... A classic business card from some friends of mine and one their first businesses together. "Shorty & Bobe's"

My friend Tony had been saying for years that he was going to open a Christmas tree lot one day. His dad owned the perfect location and he was going to make a killing.

In the final analysis, I'm sure the amount of time and the amount of freezing was way more than made it worth it because the Christmas tree business was a one year venture. One of the lasting benefits of my packrat skills was unearthing this card. The inside jokes abound:

*Shorty and Bobe were two very funny nicknames
*"Home of the $9.99 Christmas Tree"
*"Free rope with every purchase"
*"Expert Tree Sales"
*The fact that they even had business cards was the most hilarious part

Alas, Shorty & Bobe have moved on to much more lucrative and well-thought business ventures, but it all began with two months sitting around a trash barrel fire at the corner of Belair & Moravia Roads at a place called "Shorty & Bobe's" - Custom Tree Trimming on Premises.

What is on These Tapes?

Here is a small sample of the 947 tapes I have lying around the house with no labels. Throw in the fact that I have a bunch of empty tape boxes and a bunch of tapes without tape boxes.

Clearly, 'one of these' days I will look to see what is on these things. Perhaps I'll catch the birth of one of my sons or finally figure out who really killed Kennedy. Hard to say...

Saving Money - Child Labor (Customer Service Edition)

(Above) 'May I helb guu.'

I have found that having my children "man" the customer service telephone lines really saves money and cuts back on overall complaints. They are cheap to hire and I don't feel a need to train them. It's good all the way around.