Girls and babies: A match made in heaven or an endless and vicious battle?

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I’m an animal person. Not only your usual human companions like dogs and cats, but pretty much every kind of creature that walks, hops, flies or slithers around.

                Well, maybe not so much that slither part. Snakes are fine, just as long as they’re a good distance away from me.

                I like animals. A good deal. I’ve been known to exclaim “Puppy!” anytime I’m driving and happen to pass a person walking a dog. Regardless of whether or not anyone is in the car with me to hear it or if the dog is old enough to be my father.

                It’s just the way I do business.

                One thing I’m not super into? Babies. Human ones.

                I don’t dislike babies, by any means. I just don’t find them as appealing as animals. I respond to a baby in a room the same way I do a coffee table: It’s just a thing that’s there. It’s not adding to or distracting from my life experiences.

                I wasn’t raised around a ton of babies so I don’t really know what to do with one when it’s around or how to interact with it. I’m not quite on the level of Schwarzenegger in “T-2,” but maybe just a hair below.

                Babies and I aren’t on the same page, but like I said, I don’t have a problem with them.

Something I do have a problem with? Girls and babies.

Man battles Nature for claim to ho-hum outdoor dining location

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Most days at work I eat lunch at my desk, all alone.

                Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold your tears, please. I much prefer things that way.

                I’m not exactly the world’s most social creature in most situations and those goes double for when I’m eating. I don’t mind the occasional group lunch, but it’s not something I’ll make a daily habit of.

                When I’m eating, I just like to eat. And listen to podcasts and creep out people in the bathroom. But we’ve talked about that already.

                It’s nice to zone out while eating. When you’re with people, there’s a lot of pressure to be engaging and present both mentally and physically. It’s the mental part that’s tough. My mind is and always will be a drifter at heart. It doesn’t have a heart, but you get the idea.

                So most day I eat lunch alone at my desk and zone out. Wow, we haven’t made a lot of progress yet, have we?

                When the weather’s nice however, I like to venture outside. The office building where I work has a handful of picnic tables scattered around outside. Year-round, these exist mostly to enable smokers by giving them some place to sit and smoke a butt.

                Starting sometime in April, however, they actually get used for their intended, food-related purposes. That lasts until usually early September, when they become the dominion of the smokers again.

Fun with lists: Best Goo Goo Dolls Songs of All Time ... part 2

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So here I am, sitting out on my front porch the night before the big Goo Goo Dolls concert, finally delivering the second part of the bestof list I started earlier this week.

It should be noted that the sun has long since abandoned its post, and my porch light burned out many moons ago. Also, the area where I live has a strict anti-street lamp policy. Very strict. We don’t like to talk about just how strict it is, but trust me. Strict.

So I’m sitting here, blogging solely by the light of my laptop screen, just like our forefathers did, feverishly fighting off the endless swarm of moths drawn to the faint blue-ish glow.

You’d think these less than ideal circumstances would drive me inside, where there’s light and many fewer bugs, or at the very least watch my word count and move things along. But no. Here we are. Stalling for time. Talking about my neighborhood and bugs.

Some guy just laid on his horn one street over for a good 30 seconds. Wonder what that was about?

A different guy just walked by, talking to his dog. Did he not see me sitting here? Who doesn’t try to hide it when they talk to themselves or their pets? Maybe he thought I must be crazy too. After all, who sits on a porch in total darkness, pounding away at a laptop?  

                Alright, that bug that just dive-bombed my face was just too big for me to comprehend. I’ve had enough of this, let’s get into the list.

                You know him as the Goo Goo Dolls’ more famous lead singer and guitarist, the voice behind all of their biggest and smallest hits.

                In many ways this was a much tougher list to put together than my Best of Robby collection. Some tough choices had to be made. Some favorites had to be left off. But the top pretty much wrote itself.

Here they are: The Ten Best Johnny (John) Rzeznik Songs … of All Time!

Funs with lists: Best Goo Goo Dolls songs of all time ... pt. 1

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So on Sunday my ladyfriend and I have the honor and the privilege of attending the Goo Goo Dolls/Matchbox 20 (Twenty)/someone else show in the not-so-great state of New Jersey.

                This will be our second time seeing the Goo Goo Dolls live and in person. They’ve been one of our favorite bands for quite some time now and the first time around was quite good … even if it was a bit heavy on subpar “Let Love In” material.

                That show paired the Goos with the Counting Crows, who definitely seemed to have lost something over the years. Like most of their best and most beloved songs, as well as a hefty dose of energy, but hey, it happens. We all get old eventually.  

                Side note, this will also be my second time seeing Matchbox 20 (Twenty), and they were most enjoyable from what I remember of the first time I saw them. No, I wasn’t drunk, it was just many moons ago. I went with my parents. Soul Asylum opened and Semisonic was the second band.

                Anyway, with that concert looming on the horizon, I felt the time was right for a little “best of” listing action.

                But seeing as though the Goo Goo Dolls have a pair of lead singers with two different styles, one best of list just won’t cut it.

                So let’s start with the Goos’ reliable, yet shoe-less bassist, the band’s former main lead singer turned mostly afterthought singer. Well, at least as far as the general public is concerned. I’ve always loved me some Robby Takac tunes.

                For me, Robby’s raspy, grungy voice has always provided a nice little breather from Johnny’s more polished, radio-friendly style.  

                Here it is, the ten best Robby Takac songs … of all time!

Going down the internet rabbit hole: The 1975

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The most dangerous part of the internet? Other than the roving gangs of identity thieves, computer-destroying viruses, scheming Nigerian princes and eBay?

The wide range of different and seemingly endless rabbit holes you can easily find yourself stumbling down. Maybe for hours, maybe for forever.

For example, say you read an article about the Los Angeles Kings hockey team. That gets you thinking about former Flyer Jeff Carter. So you head over to Wikipedia to look at Carter’s career stats. While there, you notice Carter was drafted in 2003 with the 11^th overall pick. Pretty good player for not being a top ten pick, you think to yourself. So you look up the results of the 2003 draft to see who went before Carter that year. You find out the 2003 draft is widely regarded as one of the two best draft years in the NHL’s history. Before you know it, an hour’s passed and you’re reading round by round through every player selected in 2003, just to amaze yourself with how deep it actually was.

Recently, I went spiraling down a rabbit hole so deep that it carried me beyond the gates of the internet and back into the real world. So yeah, what’s up Donnie Darko? Can your rabbit costume-wearing psycho-babble match that?

I didn’t think so.