sex

A Soft, Gentle Reset

It’s morning. You’ve just woken up. It looks warm outside, the sun is shining, but there’s a thick blanket of snow on the deck. A large mug of coffee sits on the window sill, sunlight illuminating the steam as it lazily escapes the heat of the mug. You may be cozied up with your chin on your knees, a thick blanket wrapped round you as you stare out the window from the overstuffed leather chair. But it’s not a happy time. It’s sad. You’ve just lost a friend, finished the final legal hoops of a failed marriage. It’s a pensive, reflective moment. All cried out. Alone. Relieved, at peace, but saddened and forlorn. A complex web of emotions hangs stagnant amidst the lingering aroma of the coffee. They’re all real. Every bit of it as real as the snow outside. The sun, too far away to melt it, serves as a reminder that it will warm someday. This ain’t the last rodeo. The fingerprints on the window also serve that hope. There is life. And when the bell rings and the kids come traipsing in the front door, your silent melancholy will be abruptly shattered.

I’ve come to find that winter is my favorite season. I do like that cold. But that’s not it. It’s like a hard reset for planet America. Or at least planet North Texas. My world. It gets cold, freezes off the trials of the summer and the first nine months of a year, drops the leaves in the street and starts over. Let’s give it another chance. Let’s see if we can get it right this time. A perpetual trial and error in small, annual runs, like caption bubbles popping, saying “Once more”. Every year I contemplate what I could have done differently to make it a better year. Have I achieved what I set out to achieve this year? Have I grown as a man? A husband? A father? Am I where I wanted to be in life? On that third-grade questionnaire, where it asked ‘where do you want to be at forty-five’ what did I answer? Rich with a mountain home and a private plane? Warm with a red-haired wife and a black dog in a small cottage? Alone with a television blaring nonsense at a sub-audible level while I play solitaire on a sticky TV tray?

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  • Reading time:12 mins read

Farewell to the Help Desk

For the last 18 years I’ve been working on computers in some capacity. About eight of those years were server engineering and data center operations, but the rest has been help desk. I’ve always preferred the help desk because it’s more hands-on with people. I have the great privilege to make people happy, one person at a time.

Help desk obviously doesn’t pay near as well as the server side of things, but it’s always been enough to support my family and me. And you know me – I’m not greedy. I only want to make enough to cover what I need, plus a little allowance for toys and beer. I have no desire to drive a fifty-thousand-dollar luxury automobile, or have a summer cabin in the mountains. Though that does sound quite nice now that I think about it.

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  • Reading time:11 mins read

There’s Got To Be A Better Place

I had a most peculiar experience in the men's room this afternoon. And I think I should tell you about it, because A) that's what I do here, and 2) you can get a good chuckle. There aren't very many times one can say he had a 'peculiar experience in the men's room' without getting funny looks, but trust me: this was great, and it had nothing to do with anyone soiling his pants. For once. It all started when I was in the men's room, sitting on the toilet. There was another dude in the second stall. These stalls are arranged where you can't see the feet of your neighbor unless you bend way down. And you don't want to do that, because your junk touches the water. So basically, I didn't know who it was in the other stall, and he certainly didn't know who I was. So…

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Love and Other Drugs

Now here’s a movie that needs a nod. I rented this movie based solely on the title and the rating it had on Netflix, thinking it was a chick-flick, and my red-haired wife and I could enjoy it together over caramel popcorn and bourbon. Now see that, ladies? I am a man who is not opposed to renting something I think my red-haired wife will enjoy, and watching it with her. I’m quite a catch, if you think about it.

Anyway, this is a fairly original storyline, not too overdone, and pretty well written. A young woman (Anne Hathaway) is diagnosed with Parkinson’s and runs into a young man who has just gotten into the pharmaceutical sales business. Think Steel Magnolias or Philadelphia. But see, it’s not really a chick-flick. It’s more of an emotional drama that should appeal to anyone with a heart than just to women. Well, it should also appeal to any red-blooded man who wants to see Anne Hathaway naked.

Seriously, and I know you’re not going to believe me when I say this, but I had no idea she got naked in this movie before I rented it. I think I might have seen that she was in it, but I actually clicked the Add to Queue button before I even read up on it. Like I said, the title made me think it was a chick-flick. But boy does she get naked in it. A bunch. And we haven’t seen her breasts since Brokeback Mountain. Which means all of you homophobes who are too cool and too manly to watch that film have never even seen them at all!

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  • Reading time:4 mins read

SpaceBrew Review: Gray Matters

My red-haired wife and I watched Gray Matters last night. It’s a chick-flick. You see, chick-flicks are not my first picks when I’m looking for movies, and it’s certainly not my favorite genre. But I am an artist, and can appreciate all kinds of art. Which is why I’ll listen to rap if there’s actual talent to be heard in the track. Shrug. I don’t close my mind and avoid watching (or listening) to something just because it falls into a particular genre of which I’m not typically fond. I am also very objective in my reviews of such pieces, because I’m evaluating the art. Not the category. That being said, this was a fine movie.

I will back up a second and admit to you that the only reason I rented this one was because Heather Graham is in it. And so is Bridget Moynahan. And there happens to be a particular scene in it where they… I don’t know how to say it… uh, they, well, let’s just say they kiss a little bit. No, I am NOT shallow. But these two women are pretty close to the top of my celebrity hit list and so if they’re kissing each other, I need to know about it. And I need to see it. And not to ruin the movie for you, but the kissing scene of which I speak was really well done. Tasteful and not gratuitous, surprisingly. Yes, seriously, I was really surprised that it wasn’t just a gratuitous make-out scene the director threw in just to classify the movie. It was cute, fun and – well, very believable. And damn sexy, if I might say so.

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  • Reading time:5 mins read

Bacon Talk: Breasts

Good morning, friends. Welcome to Bacon Talk: our award-winning weekly segment, where we get together and discuss whatever’s on our minds, over a hot pot of coffee and a greasy plate of bacon. Really, can you think of anything more perfect? I think – excuse me. Uh, Haycomet, please make a note to remind me to get with Butch and Bruno after our talk. I want to go ahead and have a balcony built outside the 23rd floor conference room windows. I’d like to have bacon outside next week.

Sigh. Okay. Sorry about that, readers. Anyway, here on Bacon Talk we’ve been covering some really ground-breaking topics that are both newsworthy and relevant to your lives in a way you and I can’t really begin to express. Yes, friends, we do listen to our readers. And we do talk about the very things that make you happy. Because making you happy makes us happy. And when SpaceBrew is – okay, I’ll shut up.

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  • Reading time:12 mins read

Phone Call Gets Area Man Laid

Have I ever told you about how I lost my virginity? Well, it’s not the actual misplacement of my chastity that makes for an interesting story. Obviously, I could go into details about what happened in my pickup that night down by the lake, but really – you’ve probably heard very similar stories already. And heck, you may even have one of your own! Suffice it to say that it happened, and certain parts went certain places just like you imagine, certain motions were made (as were certain faces), then I very kindly told her she needed to get out of the vehicle and find a way home. I also explained to her that if I did indeed find her undergarments somewhere in the vehicle, I would mail them to her at a later date. See, you’ve all heard the story, and I’m not really interested in trying to prove to you that I actually did, in fact, get laid. Trust me. I’ve got two kids. I’ve done it a couple of times. :haw:

Anyway, the interesting story here is the events that led up to the main event, so to speak. How did you meet your first lover? (cheap date, one-night stander, whatever you want to call him/her) Well here’s how I met mine.

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  • Reading time:7 mins read

The Time Traveler Convention

We had a little get-together the other night with a few friends, and I think some of the things that happened that night are worth mentioning. It was a hot summer night, just like every other night has been this year, here in Texas. It’s so hot that when my wife and I sit outside and just enjoy the cool night air after the kids are in bed, it’s actually still over 100 degrees. And we’re talking about after nine o’clock. But there is one good thing about it. At least we’re not in Oklahoma.

So Haycomet and Byronic came over and brought their tinycomet – who (and this is another story, but) installed Open Solaris on one of my print servers and re-allocated a slash 28 from my DHCP scope to serve as her science lab, then delved into some hard coding time, whereupon she ran all six of my computers at 98% CPU usage for over two hours grinding out application for her theory about relativistic dimensional vacillation. So in short, we spent a few hours sipping cognac in a fine 17th century hall surrounded by warpainted women in loincloths and pasties who thought we were Norse gods. Thanks, tinycomet!

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  • Reading time:6 mins read

Wait. What birds? What bees?

A few years ago, when my nephew was still just a little shaver, we found ourselves faced with an uncomfortable confrontation when my sister mentioned something about sex. Now it wasn’t something inappropriate, to be sure, but rather something along the lines of “sex in a movie” or something equally as innocuous. So all she did was basically say the word sex. It might even have been something like, “what sex is the child?” or whatever.

Anyway, my nephew, hearing the unfamiliar word, piped up with this little gem: “What are secks?” Well, seeing that a possibly uncomfortable situation might abound, I went ahead and stepped up to the plate with a perfectly delivered response, when I said, “Well, son, let me tell you what secks are.” So as the boy sat on the couch and looked at me, I told him that secks were like different categories into which women are grouped to determine their eligibility. I said, “For example, your mother would be in Seck A. Grandma over there? Well, she’s in seck B. Now Step, my red-haired wife? Yeah. Hi-five. She’s Seck C.

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Universal Solvents

Have you ever heard of the universal solvent? Well basically it’s a solvent that will eat through anything. Or rather, everything. You pour it on the concrete and it will just fizzle away until it all burns up eating stuff. See that’s the thing, it won’t eat its way all the way through the earth. Think about it. As it eats away at whatever it’s eating away, it uses itself up. So if you pour some on a steel table, it will eat through it, then whatever drips to the floor beneath will be a little less. It then eats through the tile, then the concrete, then some soil, and it’s pretty much down to nothing left at that point. But you do have a nice little hole through your table, foundation and the ground beneath.

So, of course, the question at the end of the riddle is, “What do you put it in?” The old anecdote mentions a guy walking into his boss’s office and saying, “Hey, boss, I finally did it! I finally created the universal solvent!” And his boss looks him up and down and says, “Why isn’t it eating through the beaker?”

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  • Reading time:5 mins read