Monday, January 26, 2009

Rickey Recommends

This is where Rickey posts recommendations of noteworthy consumables, practices, and pastimes that have been deemed invaluable for the reader’s betterment. All products and pieces of advice listed herein have been Rickey tested and approved. Again, this is in no way shape or form a complete rip off of McSweeney’s (fa-la-la-la-la, lawyers, Rickey can’t hear you). Enjoy our latest installment of

RICKEY RECOMMENDS

Skipping your buddy's Super Bowl party. You know the drill: every year your crazy football friend ccs you on a mass email insisting that you attend his incredible Super Bowl party in the basement of his house that he's converted into a sports museum ripped from the playbook of the guy from "Fever Pitch." The facts are these: you're going to have to drive at least 25 minutes to get to the place, it’s BYOB, you're going to lose a minimum of $100 playing poker, your buddy's wife has absolutely no idea how to cook decent buffalo wings, and there will be a whole lot of goons there who you've never met before. And frankly, as much fun as listening to the Bills fan with the 14 beer head start on you explain precisely what went wrong for his team this season (hint: it was more than one thing) Rickey advises you to sit the whole ordeal out altogether. We have a suspicion that it's going to be a very ‘blah’ game anyway.

Warming up your car. Because there’s a massive psychological difference between clambering into a frigid vehicle or a toasty warm one and then proceeding to drive to work. Trust us, top men have done studies on the matter. Top men.

Kinchley's Tavern in Mahwah, NJ. Located in the northernmost tip of the Garden State, this cozy restaurant boasts the best pizza Rickey has tasted. Anywhere. Ever. Do not attempt to debate Rickey on this. The joint has no decor, they accept no credit cards, and there's not much on the menu worth eating except the best thin crust pizza in the Tristate area. What better way to celebrate the end of a brutal day toiling around on rte 17 in NJ than with some of the finest thin crust pizza known to mankind? It's seriously incredible stuff: not too saucy, not too cheesy, and a perfect crispy crust. Rickey could eat four large pizzas at this restaurant and not even realize what had happened. Seek out Kinchley’s now. If there's a better way of rejoicing in one's exodus from the state of New Jersey, Rickey has yet to find it.

Not attempting sexual intercourse with a raccoon. Turns out that raccoons aren’t too keen on that sort of thing. For those keeping score at home, we can now add raccoons to list of gila monsters, badgers, bears, jellyfish, puff adders, cassowaries, blue-ringed octopus, hyenas, and other ornery creatures which it is considered generally unadvisable to have sex with.

Familiarizing yourself with the budding legend of Rod Blagojevich. Schadenfreude never gets enough credit for the joy it provides our lives with. Is there anything that fazes this insane madman? Have you ever seen a greater display of hubris than watching a crooked politician who resembles a hobbit compare himself to Gandhi and MLK?

Flossing on the couch. It’s multitasking at its finest! We’re all adults here, right? And let’s be honest now, we don’t need to see our reflection in the bathroom mirror in order to properly floss, do we? So why can’t we do this flossing thing while watching TV?

"Hoedown" by Aaron Copland. Triumphant Americana at it’s finest! If you listen to this song one a day, every day, you will become imbued with an immutable sense of civic pride and you will actually be able to bench press an aircraft carrier by the end of the month.

Not purchasing a gaming console with a 20% failure rate. What the everloving fuck, Microsoft? Rickey’s Xbox 360 was just stricken with the dreaded red ring of death! And this marks the second time he’s had to ship it out for service! Now how will Rickey watch his streaming Netflix movies? What can possibly fill the void in one’s heart left by the absence of Halo? Are you fools actively trying to make a PS3 fanboy of Rickey? One more incident like this and Rickey's dusting off the old ColecoVision in his closet...

Getting a little artsy-fartsy. Remember that IKEA coffee table we mentioned a few weeks ago? Turns out that a space underneath the glass top allowed Rickey to insert a collage of photographs of himself and Ms. Henderson underneath, thereby creating a pretty nifty conversation piece in the center of the living room. Narcissistic? You betcha, but damned creative to boot, and a nice little surprise gift for Ms. Henderson when she returned home from work one evening. Yes, from time to time, Rickey is capable of behaving like a proper fiancĂ©…

Showing a bit of restraint when the roving Google Street camera van comes around snapping photos. At least that’s what the residents of 8 Sampsonia Way in Allegheny, Pennsylvania are probably thinking right about now.

Finding something else to do on Sunday nights during baseball season. From the “It Could Always be Worse” Department, we are brought word that Steve Philips is joining the Miller/Morgan team on ESPN. What, was Tim McCarver unavailable to complete the terrible trifecta? Rickey’s advice to remedy the situation: if you’re watching the game and have a 5.1 surround sound system, turn off the center channel. This should mute the offending announcers and leave only the ambient crowd noise coming out of your speakers. It’s truly the only way to watch a Sunday night baseball game on ESPN.

Kris Kristofferson. When will this guy finally get some attention? He seems like a nice enough fellow. Oh look, he's actually rummaging through your recycling bin right now--why not let him inside?

Stumble Upon Toolbar

23 comments:

TheJackSack said...

Oddly enough, if you opened your front door to Kris Kristofferson while blaring "Hoedown" on your stereo, he'll come inside and make sweet love to your pet raccoon for free. And this is an excellent substitute Super Bowl halftime show. Trust me.

Meg said...

Happily I'll be avoiding Kris Kristofferson as he headlines the Ann Arbor Folk Festival this Saturday (because I'm going Friday night when My Jeff Tweedy's there).

Alex L said...

20 percent failure rate... who told you that Rickey, its more like 50-60 percent. Its a fantastic console dont get me wrong... I just don't think microsoft counted on people actually wanting to use them.

Mike said...

Flossing on the couch . . . why can’t we do this flossing thing while watching TV?

I wasn't aware of any other option.

Rickey said...

its more like 50-60 percent

Depends on where you look--the consoles made by their manufacturing plants in China do have a 68% failure rate. Other locations aren't as bad. They've made so many different versions of the damned thing its to to pin down, but Rickey's heard that the average rate is something like %20 (still shockingly bad).

Scott said...

Sorry for the delay Rickey.
You are on my blogroll now! I list the 25 most recently updated blogs so if you don't see your site, just update your blog and you will appear instantly! Thanks for your support!

Michael from dadcation.com said...

I'm a huge fan of the guys in PA posing for the Google camera. Restraint? Nuts!

Anonymous said...

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to see Kris Kristofferson drop in to play an impromptu "Me and Bobbie McGee" with one or our local musicians, Stephen Bruton.

It was actually pretty cool.

Statler said...

Man, this makes me glad I shelled out the extra 30 bucks for the Best Buy insurance on the damn thing.

Also, From the Balcony is mostly dead, as an obscene workload has claimed 2 of our writers. Alumni can be found--cursing and swearing with regularity--here.

Bob said...

Dangit, I had my garage door open when the Google-mobile came by.

What a mess!

George said...

Your photo collage reminds me that years ago a friend was house-sitting for a professor who had such a collage on a desk top. If you looked at it for awhile, you noticed there was one photo of said professor in a robe, on a couch, with the robe wide open (he was not flossing). As a joke we all thought we should pose on the same couch with our privates exposed, take the photos, and sneak them into the lovely artwork. We didn't have the guts, though.

Noah said...

Showing a bit of restraint when the roving Google Street camera van comes around snapping photos.

As a gaming geek myself, I have never been more proud.

steves said...

Not purchasing a gaming console with a 20% failure rate. What the everloving fuck, Microsoft? Rickey’s Xbox 360 was just stricken with the dreaded red ring of death!

This happened to me twice. Fortunately, I had bought mine from Best Buy and had gotten the purchase protection plan. I decided no mas, and they sent me a check for purchase price. I didn't want to see if the third time was the charm, so I got the PS3. With the exception of Gears of War, the POS-Box doesn't have any games that I want to play that I can't on the PS3.

Rickey said...

Smitty, you're one of those LARP people?

Steves, in Micro$oft's defense, their online service is pretty damned robust and the PS3 has yet to match it. And they've got the greatest online shooter known to mankind (Halo). It's just a shame they rushed out a product with such catastrophic failure rates.

Noah said...

Smitty, you're one of those LARP people?

No, more of the standard RPG guy, along with some tabletop gaming (miniature stuff) and board games.

But gamers stick together, so I am sworn to defend my slightly-strange LARP bretheren.

Noah said...

Plus, once I learned hand-to-hand combat in the Marines, people didn't want to LARP with me anyway. Hit too hard, and had too much of "an air of seriousness."

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to know I'm not the only couch-flosser in the world. I was worried it was antisocial.

steves said...

The PS3 online service is improving, plus it is free. I don't do a lot of online gaming, so that isn't as big of a deal to me. Halo is a great shooter, but there are some other really good ones that you can play on the PS3, like Call of Duty, Resistance, and Bioshock.

Smitty, as a video gamer and occasional RPGamer, I am comfortable mocking LARPers. The Geek Hierarchy agrees.

Rickey said...

Hey Steves, whats your PSN tag? (for all his Xbox partisanship, Rickey actually owns a PS3 as well...)

steves said...

I think it is Forseti_

Rickey said...

no go, that id appears to be defunct. Rickey's is 'henderson1979' if you want to try adding him.

steves said...

Will do. I may try and change it to something that I can remember.

Deb said...

Frankly, Rickey-Rick, I could swear I saw a younger version of Rod Blagojevich in one or two really cheesy circa-1970s soft core porn flicks.

I could swear it.

*Snicker*