The Price is Wrong, Bitch!

Ok, now that I’m retired from the music game, I have some free time to immerse myself in the iTunes app store. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch then this post may be of interest to you. If you don’t, then maybe it’s time for you to put down your outdated piece of shit phone, grow a pair and head on out to the Apple store to get hooked up.

Here is a list of my top 10 apps. Keep in mind that I am not a full fledged app geek, and I’m sure there are a ton of great apps that are not listed here. Please feel free to leave a comment with your favorites.

I am omitting the obvious stuff like Google and Facebook and trying to dig just a smidge deeper into the catalog. Did I really just say smidge? Am I a 50 year old housewife who got her own cooking show? “Bake at 425 and then add a smidge of cinnamon to top it off”. Shoot me now!

10. FML (Fuck My Life) – I like this app when I need a little pick me up during the day. Here is one of my favorites: “I was messing around with my boyfriend who was ignoring me and I said to him ‘you could at least pretend to love me’ and he replied ‘I pretend to love you all the time’ -FML”

9. The Price is Right – This app has everything except the fat fucks with the retarded homemade t-shirts sloppily rolling down the aisle to contestant row. You get to “come on down”, play some classic games like Plinko, spin the big wheel and rock the showcase showdown. What more do you want for the sale price of $.99. Just don’t bid a dollar for this one or you’ll get the dreaded “ehh-ehh-ehh, sorry you’ve all over bid”.

8. Toobz – Even though I often have a large exposed crack, I am not an actual plumber. In this puzzle game, you connect various shaped pipes to try and get the water off of the grid. Just like in real life, don’t lay your pipe the wrong way or things could get drippy.

7. Lyrics+ - This is a new one for me, but it shows the lyrics to the songs you play from your music library. This is a great app for settling disputes over misheard lyrics. “Did he just say ‘tip them in the bacon cut?” “Uh, no he said “tip ‘em and they make a cut”. Good, cuz a dollar bill jammed into your bacon cut might pinch a little.

6. Stone Loops! - I have to admit I was skeptical of this one at first. It sounded, for lack of a better phrase, really fucking gay, but once I played it, I was in the game. It has the old Space Invaders game concept of destroying all of them before they destroy you. If you have a nice long drive or flight coming up, this one will kill the time like a bullet to Morris Day's temple!

5. Flight Control – I always thought that I had the personality to be a air traffic controller, but it’s obvious after playing this game that I’ve killed way too many brain cells to be in that profession. This game makes you land various aircraft of different sizes and speeds onto the appropriate areas of the screen. Just like learning a foreign language, it seems easy at first but after a few minutes you are fucked.

4. iheartradio – I’ve lived in various parts of the country over the years, and in each city I’ve found at least one radio station that wasn’t total dog shit. This app lets you listen to radio stations from different cities. It really takes me back in time to when I was a poor Mexican child listening to La Bomba while picking oranges in East L.A.

3. Wurdle – Change the settings to 6x6 and make the shortest word 4 letters and you are ready to rock this Boggle rip off. My grandmother just turned 169 and she stays sharp by doing crossword puzzles. Well, that and masturbating twice a day, but hey who doesn’t do that right? I use this game instead of doing crossword puzzles to focus the mind, and make myself feel smart while making the wife feel dumb.

2. Paper Toss – This is yet another app that my brother turned me onto. If Wurdle sharpens your mind like a number two pencil, then this will break the point off and make you dumber than Daisy from VH1. This game is addictive like huffing paint, and it kills about as many brain cells, but you find yourself coming back to it over and over again. You flick a wadded up paper ball into a waste basket while adjusting for wind that comes from a fan. Like my daughter says while quoting Yo! Gabba, Gabba “Try it you’ll like it!”

1. Shazam – This is the fucking rock star of the app store. You click it, hold your phone up to any music that is playing and it gives you the artist, album, lyrics and lets you buy it immediately. I was on the shitter the other day and a commercial came on with a tune that I liked and I had the song on my iPhone before I flushed. That my friends, is what you call a cock strong, game changing app, and get this, it’s free.

So there you have it my top 10 apps. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to pass on this showcase showdown and pray for a new car and a Broyhill Dinette set in the next one.

Time to Move On

It’s official, my career as the music guru is officially over. Last week on a message board I was called out to suggest some new music and for the first time since I was 16, I had nothing to say. I’ve only been to two concerts so far this year, and they were both company sponsored events with bands that I had little to no interest in seeing. I listen to talk radio more than my iPod these days, and when I do play the iPod it’s more “Chicken Dance” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” than it is “For Those About to Rock We Salute You” and “Mama Kin”. Like Bret Favre, I still want to play, but the time has come to hang it up.

Gone are the days when I’d look forward to new releases like Kate Moss looks forward to her next coke score. Gone are the days when I’d sleep out in the snow at the local mall for concert tickets, waiting for the music store geek to let us in so that I could crash next to the Orange Julius until the tickets went on sale. Gone are the days when I’d spend hours on a Saturday afternoon at the used CD store rummaging through the plethora of Ace of Base and Hootie and the Blowfish discs looking for that elusive Doors import that you couldn’t buy in the US. Gone are the days seeing up and coming bands in old asbestos infested warehouses crammed together with the other 50 who were “in the know”. Gone are the days hanging backstage drinking beers with the band and mingling with the music industry folks. Gone are the days writing reviews for music sites, and pretending that my opinion meant something.

I had a good run. I’ve seen hundreds of great shows and I have enough music to last me a lifetime. I used to manage a record store and I had this guy working for me who was ten times the music lover I will ever be and he would always say with that kid on Christmas morning look in his eye “Dude, you have to listen to this album it will take you to worlds”, and he was usually right.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to put on my headphones, crank up the Tom Petty and re-organize my concert ticket stubs. After all I’m not dead, just retired.

“It's time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going”

Wake up Maggie

Warning, this will be a Daddy post for all of you non-breeders.

The other morning Maggie discovered the differences between boys and girls. I was trying to sneak into the guest bedroom when I heard “Daddy I’m Awake!” So I went into her room, sans clothes, and she immediately points at my junk and goes ‘What’s that Daddy?”. I said “Honey this is a giant cock”, well that’s what I thought, what I actually said was “That’s a penis”. She then paused for a brief second grabbed her crotch and said, “Daddy, I don’t have a penis”. Which was pretty impressive, considering she had her pajamas on which blocked her visual. Using the famous Kindergarten Cop quote I went on to explain that boys have penises and girls have vaginas.

Then we had to go through the entire family trying to figure out which were boys and which were girls. It’s 6:45 AM on a Tuesday morning and I’m naked talking to a two year old about everyone’s genitalia. “Yes honey, Uncle Bruce has a penis, except when he orders the ‘light and fancy’ at the Virginia Kitchen” “No sweetie, even though Aunt Jen excels at sports and could probably pin a small bear in a wrestling match, she does not have a penis that I know of.” Finally, I just broke into her favorite song, Oh Canada, she lost her train of thought and I was able to slip into the shower.

With the penis confrontation behind me, it appears that another battle is brewing at my house between my OCD and my daughters. I thought it was cute when she needed to touch pictures on her way out of school, and it was cool that she and her Mommy had a morning routine, where she has to do things a certain way, but now her OCD has conflicted with mine and it is on like Donkey Kong.

As you may know from a previous post, the lamp post in our front yard has a rod through it and I need it to be centered, after all I am a Libra. Well, my little miss sunshine gets out of the car the other day and yells “Daddy stick”. So I take her over to the lamp post and she pushes it all to one side. We start towards the house and I reach back and push it to the center. “Daddy NOOOO!” She then pushes it all the way to one side again. I give in and leave it be, knowing full well that it will bug the shit out of me until she goes to bed. The next day we get home and the same thing happens. I’ve decided to keep the peace for now, but if she starts turning over the change in my car from heads to tails, then she better be wearing comfortable shoes for her walk home.

Now if you’ll excuse me I need to prepare for the closing ceremonies of my week long tribute to the man with one glove who liked to grab crotches. No, not Michael Jackson, I’m talking about my hernia doctor. Turn your head, cough, and then give me a hee-hee-oooh!

The Bang Blended in with the Day

Fourth of July means only one thing for the Crawford clan, a week of alcohol and mayhem at my Uncle’s house in Pittsburgh. We had representatives from nine states come together in an effort to kill brain cells, get fat on crazy delicious eats and catch up on the latest family gossip. There was also a lot of rough housing going down. I was throwing half naked kids around the pool so often that I expected Chris Hanson to sit me down at any minute.

During our visit, my uncle Vince introduced my brother and me to this little beer joint that was an oasis in the desert of jean shorts and mustachioed men who love their Iron City. From the outside it looked like a little hole in the wall until you walked inside and realized that the micro-brew gods had smiled upon Natrona Heights, PA. Here’s the deal, you grab any beer from the cooler and for $2.50 you can sit at this little bar in the back and imbibe. They track all of the beers you consume and after you drink 25 unique beers you get your name posted. My Uncle said that getting his name on the wall was more rewarding than earning his PHD.

As we headed out of the store I saw a random box of lighters and after picking through a few I saw the Holy Grail. A Daisy Duke/Dukes of Hazzard Zippo lighter. Katherine Bach may not have aged well in real life, but her redneck “come pound me in the back of a car while listing to the Charlie Daniels Band” look from the 80’s was preserved forever on the cover of my new two dollar lighter. SCORE!

Now that I had my lighter it was time to find something to catch on fire. Pack it up boys, it’s off to the liquor store and the fireworks stand. Per my redneck handbook you must always visit the liquor store first, so that your liquor and your explosives are in the proper ratio. On the back of the fireworks box it said, light a fuse, take a shot, count your fingers, repeat. Words to live by my friend. The grand finale of our hillbilly fireworks display ended with me soaking the front row of viewers by doing a cannon ball into the pool ala Shamu. The only way it could have been better is if someone tasered me as I got out of the pool.

Finally, I’ll leave you with an EZ Cheez fail that I realized over the weekend. On the back of the can, it says “For best results, first remove cap.” Absolutely, fucking priceless. I’m not sure what was more sad the fact that they had to print that on the can or the fact that I was eating EZ Cheez and reading the directions.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have to open up an ice cold Tommyknocker Maple Nut and fire up the Daisy Duke a few hundred times.