i think first of all, i need to develop a rating system just in case i do regular movie reviews.  since i love monkeys, we will use a four banana rating system.  the more bananas, the better the flick.  get it? 

alright, so i have hit the pay per view a couple of times in the last week.  see if you can tell by the descriptions which one i liked and which one… not so much.

last week while the rents were here, we had a little down time the night before turkey day and decide that we would punch up good ol channel 801 to see what those geniuses out in tinsel town cranked out for our viewing pleasure.

now, i have enjoyed mr. vince vaughn in his humorous pursuits in the past.  and there isn’t a damn thing that i don’t like about mrs. jennifer aniston.  she is one tasty little morsel. 

the break up.  premise of the movie is that ever so funny and charasmatic vince makes that luscious little dollop jenn fall in love with him.  and somehow they afford this amazing condo in chi-town together.  they don’t get married?  the lustre on their love fades and the bitterness sets in on who is going to be the sole owner of the property.  they pull out all the tricks.  dating other people.  making each other jealous.  not inviting the other to things they know the other would want to do.

there are plenty of those patented “fast talking, you might not understand what i am say because its mostly obscure humor” vince vaughn moments.  and there is a number of those patented “i am hot but you still feel sorry for me because no man has ever treated me like i deserve” jennifer aniston moments.

but there is this unwritten rule in hollywood that if a couple has chemistry off screen, then the on screen magic fizzles.  this was one of those movies.

to be perfectly honest, i still have absolutely no idea how the movie ended.  i remember a jenn smile and a vince smile, the credits rolling, and this overwhelming desire to write time warner cable and ask them to pull this movie off of the pay per view in order to save other peopple the same disappointment that i had just experienced.  i don’t think there was even any resolution to their relationship.  shit, if i want that kind of confusion, i will stick with my own personal life.

rating:  the monkey flung poo at this one.  no bananas for you. 

on the other hand…

i grabbed the dice again with the pay per veiw tonight.  and even though i crapped out last time i rolled, i had to get back in there.  we fall so we can get back up right?

old reliable.  adam sandler.  but i was aprehensive.  i didn’t want to sit here and watch the same cast that he has in all his movies telling the same jokes.

click.  a guy who has a ton of shit going on in his life and unable to deal with all goes to bed bath and beyond to pick up a universal remote.  christopher walken gives him a remote for the universe instead.  the choices he makes affect how the remote fast forwards through his life until it gets out of control.

first of all, what a fucking cast!  david hasselhoff is fantastic in all his hoffness.  fantastic.  and walken is an icon.  there is no other way to say it.  and oh my god.  kate beckinsale.  she very well might have earned a spot in my top five.

i laughed my ass off.  i cried my eyes out.  i will be taking full advantage of my twenty four hours with this movie again tomorrow after work.  phenomenal.

rating:  two bananas.  good monkey.

- alright already people. for some reason, some of you actually want to know what goes on in my life. i think its just so that you can feel better about your own.

- but anywho… we catch up with our hero last tuesday night. he was expecting his parents to arrive from pennsyltucky at approximately 12:30am but was bold enough to try and fit in a show at the visualite theater beforehand. citizen cope.

it was cold and raining like ten sonsabitches. not good. especially since there appeared to be a line as rome and i approached the front door. doors were at 8pm and we got there around 9pm, so this was confusing. to add to that feeling, the roid monkeys working the door didn’t have any answers as far as when they were going to start letting people in. the show may have been sold out. but they don’t know?

after twenty-five minutes of standing behind slews of teenagers who could finally smoke because mom wasn’t around, rome and i cut our losses and bailed. good music not listened to by these ears.

but that allowed me to go home and finish folding some laundry before the rents got there. a beer and a half later, i passed out on the couch, thankfully awaken when they called from my neighborhood. god, its good seeing family.

- wednesday was a cold and ugly day in the CLT. doesn’t make for good sightseeing.  so we did what every red blooded amercian does when the weather sucks.  we went to the mall.  a little bit of shopping and people watching at southpark, and we were good to go.

after that, we headed back to la casa delYerg(s) and got cleaned up to go to dinner.  of course, we hit cabo fish taco followed by a few drinks at dolce vita.  where else am i going to take my family?  seriously.

rome joined us for a few glasses of vino and irma and molly kept it entertaining.  it was a good night, but an early night for us.  after all, there was the impending turkey day…

-  it seems like we got up at the butt crack of dawn everyday, but that could have just been the way that i felt since i didn’t really want to get out of bed, but found myself having to since my guests had arisen.  the whole obligation to wake up thing.  that led me to not sleeping in all five of the days that i had off.  poo tinky to that.

we eased into our day though after getting the bird in the oven a little before nine.  and we continued our food prep around ten thirty, keeping in mind a two o’clock dinner time.

the television never really came off the speed channel after i found the show “pinks!” while flipping through.  it kind of took pop back to his yesteryears with the whole drag racing thing.  yeah, dad was a little of a motorhead.

but thankfully, he is also a plumber.  you see, if it is la casa delYerg, the house is fine.  one singular sensation residing under the roof.  when it becomes la casa de los Yergs, some of the strain becomes more that the little house can bear.  especially when asked to swallow a mound of sweet potato peels that made it through the garbage disposal, but not much farther.

this bothered the shit out of the guy whose name is on the mortgage.  yeah, me.  but dad pacified my frustration as we tore apart the under guts of the sink later that afternoon.

around noon thirty or so, we were joined by my sister, lindsay, and her fiancee, conor.  linds is my girl and conuts cracks me the hell up on a regular basis.  and this was their first time in the CLT!  good times ahead!

but the meal!  i set the tables ever so nicely with my cb2 plates and bowls and the pier1 place settings.  and then we feasted.  started with a nice little tossed salad (keep it clean, it was a family affair).  then we did a kind of buffet style dinner.  turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean caserole, corn, and rome’s fried okra.  if you got up from that table hungry, it was your own fault.  and of course, there was plenty of vino.  i love that montepulciano.  two bottles?  gonzo in no time flat.  alexis snuck in a little past starting time and got himself a good plate of grub as well…

-  after dinner, we topped it all off with some fucking delicious pumpkin roll and an apple pie that my kick ass neighbors left for me that morning.  we cleaned up and let the tryptophan settle into the bloodstream.  that and some more wine.  alexis split for a little while to go get his pooch, frank, and came back with kat as well.

then the gauntlet was set.  trivial pursuit!  now, i have only lost at trivial pursuit about a dozen times in this (almost) thrity-one years.  and one of those losses came at the hands of my father.

so we huddled around that wonderful wheel of trivia and duked it out.  rome and i vs. dad and sal vs. conor and lindsay.  it was heated.  and then it cooled off.  and then it drug on for what seemed like forever.  this ended with my team’s oppenents conceding and another in a long line of victories for theYerg.

-  friday in the CLT was freaking beautiful!  the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the wine hangover wasn’t too bad.  so after some eggs and cornbread, we ventured out.  linds and sal hit the mall.  dad, conor, and i hit kilborne for some disc golf.

this was the first time for both conor and dad.  and at first, conor and i were the only ones playing.  but, i think after dad realized that he wasn’t going to be any worse than conor, he took up some discs on the fourth fairway and started chucking.  this was an experience.  there was a fair amount of swearing, a lot of laughing, and a decent amount of time looking for frisbees.  but after two and a half hours (a normal round there takes about an hour less) we returned to the car with smiles on our faces.

then it was a quick trip down to the mexi-wal-mart.  a little unnerving, but i got the stuff that i needed to go wireless in la casa delYerg.  a little card and a router and i am up and running.  like i needed a reason to stay up even later.

rome, again, joined us for dinner.  turkey day leftovers done shepard’s pie style in a baking pan.  fucking delish.  after that, linds, conor, LP, and i hit dolce vita for a couple of glasses of vino. 

-  saturday we woke up around eight thirty to the sounds of packing.  dad and sal had enjoyed their stay, but it was time to head back north so that dad could get ready for the first day of deer season.  it was really great being able to share a slice of my charlotte life with them like that.

then it was conor, linds, and i.  we took the “jared yerg three dollar tour of charlotte” so named because that is the amount of gas the sexterra might eat up on the trip.  we were blessed with another gorgeous day.  we went from NoDa to plaza midwood, couldn’t get a table at the penguin so decided to keep going.  into elizabeth, down to southpark, up into dilworth, over to southend, through uptown, back into NoDa where we stopped at the rat’s nest.  i got a couple of shirts there and then we hopped back in to see if we could get a table at the penguin.  no dice.  over to thomas street for some back patio grub.  and then i waxed poor conor’s ass in a couple of games of ping pong.

-  saturday night was a great time.  we were invited to patricia’s for a nice paella dinner.  a dozen or so people sharing a nice meal and wonderful conversation together (my soapbox conversation with another guest may soon arrive here).  very adult and a lot of fun.  thanks patricia.

conor, linds, and i got one last picture before heading up to the evening muse for some good tunes.  the guys from the rat’s nest were just finishing up as we got there and then truckstop preachers took the stage.  entertaining as always.  and although it really wasn’t conor and lindsay’s type of music, i think they enjoyed the show.

-  the kids left sunday morning and i was left in an empty house.  kinda still suffering from a familial hangover.  its tough when i only see them a couple of times a year.  and its exhausting afterward.

i hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving weekend.  now its back to work…

piece out.

how funny is it that ESPN is playing pearl jam during every commercial segway just because they are playing in seattle?

- you sound like a big choo choo train.

- hey, there is some great music that is going to be playing at the visualite theater tonight in elizabeth. citizen cope is going to be belting out some smooth tunes. doors are at 8pm, show starts at nine. it is 22 clams at the door and 20 on the pre-sale. should be real good.

- tomorrow night is the turkey day pinot noir sale at dolce vita. get you some good vino, cheap.

- the big bossman was kool and the gang when i explained to him that i was low on vay kay time but that the rents weren’t going to be arriving until late tonight and i wanted to take tomorrow.

- la casa delYerg is pretty much as clean as it is going to get for the holiday. i mean, the people i am having as company are my family. they have lived with me. they know that i am a little bit of a neat freak but don’t need stuff sterilized in the house. so i am going with the “as-is” approach. i will do some last minute stuff tonight, but i am not going overboard.

- by the way, real food is expensive. not like the shit that i buy that comes in cans or in its own microwaveable serving dish. vegetables? shit. you are just paying for convenience there. i mean, you can grow it yourself. nuts. i mean insane. i didn’t buy nuts. i don’t do nuts. only insane.

- enjoy your toooosday!

piece out.

last thursday night, LP roped a couple of us for a show at the evening muse. she had heard that nathan angelo, who we saw open for will hoge last month, was playing there.
LP and i were eventually joined at the muse by AD, rome, and patricia for the show that had andy davis and the animators bookending nathan’s set. all the music was good. got a little bit of the animators and then the animators with nathan sitting in on keyboard…

i handed the camera to AD thinking he would take a bunch of stills…



but AD got a little rambunctious and turned into a video recording machine. first interviewing, then filming while my drunk ass interviewed. it was fun stuff…

a special thanks to all the guys in the bands for putting up with our drunk asses and being a good sport.
i have to tell you, i am really enjoying the andy davis CD to. you can find all these guys on myspace.

i remember back in the mid to late 90’s, the group, live, was tearing up the charts. and being from lancaster county i was already a big fan of them. on their secret samahdi tour, they came to pittsburgh and i got a chance to see them at the benedum theater. it was an amazing venue for a rock show. even if you had a horrible seat, you were no more than a few hundred feet away from the band on the upper level. awesome.
well, a buddy of mine at the time worked for the event staff and he had said that he would probably get a chance to meet the band. maybe even get us back stage. did i mention that i was a big fan? unfortunately, we couldn’t find him after the show and were unable to try and take advantage of the hook up.
so we drove back to the rock. reeling from the show but wishing we could have made it back stage. a couple hours after we got back, my buddy that was working the show walked into the apartment and inquired as to where we went. he said he had two passes that he could have gotten us backstage. it was a stomach punch.
it sucks to know that you could have had a great time or taken advantage of an opportunity but it then eludes you somehow.
this same feeling comes over me when a woman tells me, after the fact, that she would have slept with me. what is that?
this kind of information comes in two forms. one, the woman tells you out of spite. things didn’t work out and she knows that the fact that you didn’t sleep together would be the perfect parting shot. especially if you ended it and she is pissed. it skips gut punch and goes right to kick to the groin as far as feelings are concerned if you decided to stop seeing her because things weren’t “progressing” in that department.
the second form is after you stop seeing each other and you strike up a friendship. you are comfortable with each other and get to the point that you can talk about your sex lives or lack there of. and she just nonchalantly slips it into a conversation. “i would have had sex with you.” WHAT?! i really wish you would have told me this sooner. like, before the phrase, “would have had” needed to be uttered.
i have recently been made aware of the ladder theory. women have two ladders for men to climb. one for friends and one for people they would like to have sex with. men have one ladder because at one point in time in the relationship, the thought of having sex with the woman has crossed the man’s mind. even his good friends.
this being the case, a guy hearing that he could have been on the woman’s other ladder may cause him to slip and smack his grill on a couple of rungs.
women, if you didn’t sleep with him, he didn’t know you wanted to, and you don’t intend to remedy that situation, keep it to yourself. thanks.

-  here is what really frustrates me about spam email.  its not that some dickwad pirated someone’s email address and feels the need to send me stuff that he wants to sell.  its partly the lack of originality.  i mean its the same body over and over.  but its mostly the lack of attention paid to who you are sending stuff to.

i mean, with all the tracking cookies and stuff that are out there on the internet, you should know what i am interested in.  send me something that you might actually have a shot at selling me.

i don’t have problems getting an erection.  quite the opposite.  things pop up at the most in opportune times.

and i didn’t have to throw out a wardrobe because my fat ass can’t fit into my old favorite pair of jeans.  there are enough pictures of me on the interweb that you should know what i look like by now.  so don’t send me shit to lose weight!

and do you really think that if i get fifteen carbon copy emails from fifteen different people that i am going to consider you company as a viable resource for providing me the best mortgage rates that are available to me?  no.  whenever i deal with a company, one person represents that company to me.  that is all my feable little mind can handle.  if i don’t get to talk to the same person twice, i won’t bother with your product.  and you internet people should KNOW this.  damn.

-  i may have stepped on the volleyball court last night and played some ball.  not the smartest thing to do.  not the dumbest though either.  but i actually played in the first and last games of the night.  bookended it if you will.  the first with my squad because greg was running a little late.  we won.  i felt good.  i actually swung a couple of times.

the second was five and a half hours later with dawn, shem and megan.  we lost.  sorry.  i played that game like hoo ha.  but the boredom was killing me.  that and i couldn’t concentrate on the book that i just started…

-  a few months ago tess sent me “conversations with God” and i promptly put it on my bookshelf.  but yesterday, i figured, what the heck and i took it to volleyball.  i only got like twelve pages into it and its very intriguing.  i actually stopped reading because i wanted to be able to better concentrate on the ideas.  good stuff.

-  if you get a cut while standing in a vacuum, does the blood come out blue because there is no oxygen to turn it red?

-  almost fri-pay-day…

piece out.

-  apparently OJ simpson is set to release a book called, “if i did it” which describe how he would have committed the murders IF he did.  are you kidding me?  this dude got away with murder on the largest stage ever set for a murder trial twelve years ago and now he wants to introduce his own thoughts to the contrary of his innocence?  man, the money must have really dried up once hertz didn’t put him in commercials running through the airport anymore.  and the residuals from the naked gun movies must have sucked.

everybody knows that OJ did it.

-  hey, go to dolce vita tonight for the pre-thanksgiving wine tasting.  theya re having a bunch of wines that would fit nicely with your turkey day feast.  there are more details on the calendar entry for today.

-  as much as i hate the saying, wednesday really is a hump day for me.  and no, not the good kind.  with a nine hour day at work and then a five hour night working volleyball, it truly is all downhill for the remainder of my week.

-  by this time next week, the rents will be here in charlotte.  my dad and step-mom sal, are coming down on tuesday for the whole weekend.  i cannot wait.  and then its right around the corner to christmas.  so not ready for that.

-  its kind of a slow week thus far.  i will try to pick up the pace…

piece out.

Wed, Nov 15, Dolce Vita will have it’s annual Thanksgiving Pairing Wine Tasting. We will be pouring 5 new wines including:

This is a chance to try to some great wines that pair nicely with Thanksgiving dinner! Sample these great wines from around the world and enjoy a discount on take home bottles! (Something to take home to mom for the holiday!) Most bottles will be sold for around $10! Tasting costs $12 per person and gets you unlimited tasting of each of these wines! Bottems up!

so i was talking with C last night about dating.  seriously, what else do her and i talk about?  but we both agreed that there is a stupid fucking comment that committed (applicable both because they are both in a committed relationship and probably insane.) people continue to offer up as advice for the single folk.

“you will find some one when you stop looking.”  or the closely akin, “it will happen when you least expect it.”

okay, seriously.  i will find someone when i stop looking for them.  are you kidding me?  i am a guy.  i am always going to be looking at women.  and if i am looking at the women, and i am single, i am probably going to entertain (be it ever so briefly) their possibility of being the one that i am looking for.

right, stop looking.  maybe when i go blind.  which of course, if i stay single and have to continue the “self serve” function, could be sooner than later.

okay, now for the happening when i least expect it.  guys, unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, watch entirely too much porn.  and if your man says he doesn’t, he does.  or he really wants to but he knows he will get in trouble if he does.  and in most porn, things happen in the weirdest of times.  the delivery person, the secretary, the teacher, whatever.  all times when you least expect it.  so a man’s brain is conditioned to expect it at any given moment.  that is why you have teenagers carrying around condoms in their wallet “just in case.”

now, i know that mainly pertains to sex.  and that love is a whole other entity.  but if love is going to happen when i least expect it, she is going to have to either be breaking into my house in the middle of the night and i by chance don’t shoot her.  or maybe be a hot chick on the bomb squad when someone inevitably rigs my toilet to explode like they did to danny glover in the second lethal weapon flick.  or maybe some woman that plows into me unexpectedly in traffic that can withstand the verbal berating that i dole out for her.  or maybe the girl that is standing in front of me at the supermarket and doesn’t mind the fact that the contents of my shopping cart making me look like i am feeding an eight year old.  wait, i have already thought about that, so i would expect it.

bottom line, please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t use either of these cliche bullshit answers to try and give me hope or whatever it is you think you are doing, in referece to my singlehood.  you are just making me not want to be in a relationship for fear of how stupid it is going to make me.