Landing in the top 5 Google hits for the search term “bushy haired nerd” was a little unnerving.
But getting a hit for the term “straight college studs” is a little more like it.
I’m sure Eyegal is nodding in agreement.… Read the rest
Stories like this make me glad that I’m not a famous TV anchor.
My office is right across the hall from the ladies restroom at my place of work. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times–turn the faucet on, turn your microphone off.
Speaking of famous TV anchors, I wish someone would airbrush me.
Where’s Walter Cronkite when you need him?
It’s a given that if you’re taking a walk or a run on a Saturday morning in Alabama (or just about anyday anywhere in the South for that matter) and you meet up with one of your neighbors, that you’ll exchange a greeting of some sort. A head nod, a lift of the hand, a “hey,” or the classic “good mornin'” are all socially acceptable salutations. To acknowledge and greet a fellow passerby is as much a Southern staple as barbeque, sweet tea, high school football and Wednesday night church.
Or so I thought.
This past Saturday I was nearing the half way mark of my morning run when I spotted a speed-walking, fifty-something woman clad in colorful, cheerful spandex coming around a corner directly into my path.… Read the rest
It’s been an eventful week here at Ocular Fusion. First, I was graced with a visit by the Winged Goddess of Victory herself (I think we all know her name, don’t we?). Then I was the victim of a vicious attack of flying spam, necessitating the installation of the new and improved, all purpose, Super-Duper Askimet Anti-Spam Shield and Bug Zapper (so far, 70 pieces of fried spam in 48 hrs).
But, no matter what I do, the assimilation continues.
Here’s my latest VIP visitor:… Read the rest
I thought that “getting Swooshed” would be the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Visions of free running shoes, endorsement contracts, commercials and billboards were dancing like Oregon Waffles in my middle-age, ever-balding head.
Instead, I went from Swoosh to spam in no time flat.
It all started when those pesky and creepy little search bot worm thingies started crawling all over my site a few days ago. Both Google and Yahoo (Inktomisearch.com) stop by at least daily, Yahoo sometimes more often. The result was a coordinated spam attack between 10:15 and 10:50 A.M. yesterday which launched eight cash-seeking missles that landed in the comment section of my various Nike posts.… Read the rest
In mob circles, it’s known as becoming a “Made man.” You’ve shown loyalty to the family through the years, doing all the dirty deeds you’ve been asked to do. Finally, after paying your dues, somebody notices. Suddenly, your suits get silkier, your shoes shinier, you receive VIP treatment at the dry cleaners and get the best seats at all the good restaurants with no reservations. Usually “being made” is the pinnacle of a mobster’s career–unless you’re Joe Pesci’s character Tommy DeVito in the movie Goodfellas.
Now I’m no mafioso, but I am a shoe nerd. And we have our day too, you know.… Read the rest
I’m starting to get all worked up about the upcoming college football season. Crisp fall air, golden brown leaves crunching underfoot, and college football on TV from Thursday through Saturday make for an intoxicating brew. I graduated from a college with only a moderately successful football team and have never experienced an honest-to-goodness campus “Game Day,” so I don’t have as much ego and money tied up in all this as some people do. But as a Virginia expatriate who has lived 17 years in Alabama, I wish to announce that I have finally chosen a side: I do hereby officially declare that I am always, and ever will be, pulling for the Crimson Tide.… Read the rest
Sometimes object lessons go just a little too far.
Yesterday, our pulpit minister was preaching on purity and was reading Mark 9:47:
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,
To emphasize the point, he brought his hand to his eye to illustrate what “plucking” looked like and to drive home his point. I immediately sensed danger, and I leaned foward at the ready, my professional instincts suddenly on full, red-eye alert. We all watched in horrified fascination as he sharply thrust his fingers toward his orbit in pincer-like fashion.… Read the rest
“Where do I buy the Nike shoes?”
-Tom Hanks as Victor Navorski, The Terminal
Hello. My name is Mike the Eyeguy, and I am a shoe nerd.
There, I said it, it’s out in the open now. I no longer have to hide the fact that ever since I was a bushy-haired boy growing up in the 1970s, I’ve been obsessed with athletic shoes of all brands, colors and sports. I’ve worn just about all of them at one time or another: Keds, PF Flyers (remember how they made you run faster and jump higher?), Converse All Star Chuck Taylor canvas high tops (black, red and sky blue–back before I knew that color was associated with the evil Tar Heels), Puma “Suedes” (often referred to as “Clydes” after Walt Frazier, famous point guard for the N.Y.… Read the rest
It’s been a week since the “head butt heard ’round the world,” and the repercussions of Zinedene Zidane’s shot to the chest of Marco Materazzi continue to ricochet wildly throughout the internet.
Zidane has issued an apology (of sorts) for his outburst which arguably cost France the World Cup. For his part, Materazzi has reassured us that he would never dream of insulting someone’s mother. No, according to the Italian defender the insult that provoked Zidane was merely a garden variety one that is tossed around the pitch on a routine basis, implying, of course, that the French midfielder and captain overreacted.… Read the rest
If you think I’m fickle, changing World Cup allegiances faster than Jennifer Lopez changes husbands, then check out Englishman Michael Davies’ sudden infatuation with the Italian National Team.
Methinks he enjoys Die Nationalmannshaft’s demise just a little too much.
WARNING: If you have asthma, keep your inhaler close by while you read this. I should know.
With inhaler in hand, you might want to check out several of his other posts as well. He is by far the funniest and most insightful WC blogger out there (hat tip to JRB for pointing this one out to me).
Some other interesting WC blogs can be found at the International Herald Tribune (Roger Cohen), Soccer Sweep at USA Today and WorldCupBlog.org… Read the rest
Although my Plan B (anybody but Brazil) is technically intact, please pardon me if I screw up my face in disgust while I try to choose a side to pull for in the remainder of World Cup 2006. What else is there for an American guy to do when his favorite team is eliminated in group play, all his other alternatives have bitten the dust, and the only remaining choices are Germany, Italy, Portugal and France?
Fortunately, two are relatively easy to eliminate. Italy’s roster is chock full of whiney, flopping phonies who fret more over their pomade and Prada shoes than they do corner kicks and PKs.… Read the rest
Thanks to Scott Freeman, we now have some new information to mull over this morning regarding the Burger King-Antichrist connection.
In the comments section of yesterday’s post, Scott chimed in with this pearl:
“You know the founder of Burger King was COC right?”
I replied:
“Get out of here! Really? No, I wasn’t aware of this, but that does thicken the plot considerably.
Well, now that you’ve piqued our curiosity, we’re waiting with bated breath to hear more. Do you happen to know if he was premillenial or amillenial?”
Then he shot back:
… Read the rest“I may be wrong. But during my first youth ministry gig I worked with a former missionary to Brazil.
There is much ado about what day it is, you know, that day. And of course, the discussion invariably comes around to who is the Antichrist. A long list of famous people have been nominated over the years, but as I survey the cultural landscape these days, a leading candidate to me is that creepy monarch fronting for the international fast-food chain, Burger King.
There’s already been a good expose written on “The King” elsewhere, and many other scary details can be found here. Despite the fact that I rarely eat there (I prefer to receive a month’s worth of fat and cholesterol over the course of at least 15 days as opposed to one sitting, thank you very much), I just can’t get this guy out of my mind.… Read the rest
Dear Anonymous National Public Radio (NPR) employee,
Thank you for stopping by Ocular Fusion at 1:49:04 PM on Thursday, June 1, 2006. I noticed that you didn’t reach my blog via a referring link such as a search engine or another blog. That probably means that you either had my site bookmarked or perhaps emailed to you by one of the many talent scouts whom you’ve no doubt commissioned to scour the highways, byways and backwoods of America for fresh, emerging commentators and writers such as yours truly.
I’ll try to overlook the fact that you didn’t browse through any of my posts and that my stat counter indicated that you stayed approximately “0 seconds” before moving on.… Read the rest
