I swear I am going to start a series about this. I was already done with my post for today and was in the process of having breakfast when I heard one of the stupidest things on TV, “So what are the dos and don’ts are around a cheetah?”

A Florida woman was mauled by two cheetahs, she was attacked in a sanctuary for big cats. Just like when Roy got attacked by his tiger I was not surprised that a wild animal attacked someone.

Wild animals have that little adjective attached to their name for a reason. To domesticate an animal it has to happen for many, many generations. Even now an Alaskan Malamute that has been trained its whole life to live around cats can switch to instinct mode the day it sees one dart by and it WILL kill it. That is what their DNA has programmed them to do, that is how they do not die of hunger… they have the instinct to kill to eat.

I was not even as annoyed when the zoo keeper that was being interviewed was saying that she felt very safe right next to a cheetah. If she wants to believe in her false of sense of security, that is cool by me. But when the stupid questions was asked I had to laugh. What are they doing for the viewers here, providing a service just in case you happen to walk into a cheetah cage? I am sure that would be the last thing in your mind if you happen to fall into a cheetah enclosure at the zoo.

I am not the biggest sport fan there is, but I do like to cheer for my teams and the Royals and the Chiefs are in different divisions than the Cubs and the Bears so it is easy to cheer for all of them. The Wizards and the Fire are another story.

Today is the Cubs home opener, and I know many people will say that the Cubs have never done anything within my lifetime. I do not deny that, but then you just don’t understand what it is to be a fan. You like your team because you have lived there, or like me was the first professional baseball team you ever saw play.

One of the hardest things of being away from Chicago, even though I love Kansas City, besides being away from family is the great food. I have yet to have found good Chicago Deep Dish pizza, and miss my loaded hot dogs and Italian beef.

Thanks to Food, K.C. and Other Things, I found out about this Cubs home opener day lunch today. I might have to go and get an Italian Beef if have never had one, go to KC Lunch spots for the false advertisement (the first time I saw his blog I thought he had found this delicious dish here in a KC lunch spot). I am already wearing my Cubs jersey
I am predicting that the Cubs are going to win it all this year and hope to be right as I was when I predicted the Patriots demise at the hands of the Giants.

Don’t forget, to turn off the lights… just of one hour. Earth hour is today.

Got first comment on the Fridays Feast… but before we get into that… please step (or click) over to my wife’s blog and wish her a happy bloggiversary… I mean, 7 years of blogging is something to admire… and only one hiatus even better. Also, you should really check out the post before this one… the pictures of Batman will crack you up.

Appetizer
What does the color dark green make you think of?
Green Lantern of course movie coming out… greatest superhero EVER!

Soup
How many cousins do you have?
Do I really have to count!!! I have a bunch… more than 10 for sure… let see. Mom’s side we have 1+3+2+2 = 8 Now on Dad’s side it gets diecy because one of my uncles is… hrm, what is a good word… a manwhore? Lets just call him fertile and I am sure he has more than what he admits to or maybe even knows about… so that is 2+3+3..4= 8..9 So lets just say 16 maybe 17.

Salad
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how honest are you?
11 I just cannot do subtle.

Main Course
Name something that is truly free.
I think true love is Free.

Dessert
Using the letters in the word SPRING, write a sentence.
Some People Ring Intensely Neat Gongs.

The only thing that was extremely disappointing about today’s meet up (besides the obvious absence of the self professed king of blogs, TKC, the real King of the bloggers is of course XO, even though D-Rules probably thinks he deserves the job more) was that Shane was not there. Shane, just have Chimpo explain to you what the title of the post means.

Today’s meet up was fantabulous and worthy of the made up word. Chimpo totally busted it with my wife and made it appear like we do not watch UFC on Saturdays but rather look for internet videos. So now I am banned from hanging out with Chimpo… well not really, I still have beer at his house that I need to drink.

Actually, I was also very sad that Meesha was not there; I wanted to congratulate him on his recent posts because they have been awesome. I did get to meet Faith who BTW looks NOTHING like her picture. She even accused me of not looking like my little avatar! As IF! I have not changed one bit since I was a blonde little devil… * When the text is blue (most of my a tags have had link as blue) or underlined it means there is a link people… click it, go ahead… I think Faith is new to the interwebs. I mean, look at this picture, I have not changed one bit.

I was very excited to finally meet that Nuclear Buffalo who I forgot if he was actually nuclear because I was kind of sitting right next to him and had no Geiger counter with me. He was just as good natured and fun as I had imagined him.

I then met one of my arch nemesis on the blogsphere… that 3 AM dude (Who really does not look anything like his avatar) … after a long stare down and a bad joke of me trying to call him EMO we put down the weapons and agreed to a truce. He brought in the door prices! Yeah, I got a bottle opener as a key chain again. He is actually going to watch Jericho even though Chimpo was trying to tell him the show sucked.

I feel like telling more, but Spyder would probably come and tell me that if people want to know how much fun it is to hang out with these bunch of crazies they just need to show up. I kind of agree… I mean, where can you hang out with Sponge Bob’s Secret Admirer who is convinced that some day she will get Chimpo and I not just to sing Karaoke but sing a song together.

I am glad that I might get to see Eric, Michelle, Dan, Spyder, Kanga and Alicia this Saturday because the Kansas City Bloggers are a fun bunch of people to hang out with.

And I am sorry for whoever is a regular at that place but the food kind of sucked.

*Update*

I almost forgot to say thanks we even got some door prizes!

*Update 2*

Illustration by ExtraLife (Scott Johnson)… originally posted here.

What are they feeding you? We went into the Gym this week, Bea had recently but it had been my first time back since I started martial arts. We decided to wait until the 5 - 7 rush was over and headed there after 8. The smell when we walked in was unreal. I am not sure if there was 2 really smelly guys or if there was a witches brew of body odor that just got stronger over time.

Gyms are always somewhat smelly, but I swear this was worse than locker room after a team practise The thing is that other than leaving the place, the only thing we could do was find machines away from people and just try to get used to the smell. Most deodorants say that they can work all day, but people if you head to the gym after work, apply a little more… for everyone else that has to breathe.

I first heard about 40 and 50 year old moving back to their parents house from a TV reporter. I then did a little digging (read, went to google) and found this article attacking the poor writing of the AP article. Both of them are good to read, but they still fail to address the human factor in the story.

Why is it so negative to get help from your parents?

The American mentality of individualism and independence has made the family structure so negative that people are ashamed of living with their parents. I have laughed at the jokes about Tony Kansas City living in his Mom’s basement and the constant harassment in the internet of anyone that is a male still living with his parents. I can assure you with great certainty that if I had not had to move out when my parents got divorced, I would have lived them for a while longer. It is financially smart to either help your parents out or let them help you. Financially I have done both, I have helped my parents out when they needed it and I have also been helped immensely by them after I moved out.

One of the most bizarre things that I heard when I first moved to the US was the common theme amongst my classmates in High School about wanting to move out. Not just to go to college move out, but to move away from their parents as soon as they could. I placed most of it to late rebellion, like kids that pack up their toys and want to run away but just go around the block. Then I got a little older and started to hear from parents that talked about their kids like products with an expiration date. Many of the people I knew that had kids referred to the day when their kids finally moved out as the day their real life started.

I then realized that it is a reality of the American culture to kick the little birds out of their nest so they can learn to fly on their own. Even though we are mammals, the American culture does not think of family as a pack.

One of the scary trends that I have wanted to talk about for a while and will hopefully have time to expand on is how many of the people I know feel that their kids are going to be a burden to others. I grew up with kids around me, cousins over at my house or all of us over at our grandparents was the thing to do in the weekend. Kids tend to entertain each other. Here though, every time someone is going to spend time with us and they have kids they start apologizing in advance for their kids, and that is even if they have the courage to overcome the guilt of having other people be “bothered” by their kids.

Serious, people feel like their kids are their problem and they will bother others so much that they should not have a social life. A kid is going to act out the first time they start feeling comfortable in someone else’s place… but as long as they parents start setting some rules that go with the homeowner tolerance it should work out. I am pretty flexible, as long as the kid is not pulling the cat’s leg they are pretty much ok. I don’t have any ancient Chinese vases that will be irreplaceable, and if there is something I am in fear of getting broken… I just put it away.

Before this starts feeling like it is going in a tangent I will make the connection. I feel that the American culture has deviated from what a family is really supposed to be. If you start feeling like your kids are a huge burden that need to be babysat at home so you can socialize you have the wrong picture. Your friends, even those without kids should grow up beyond the I have a house that belong in an ikea calendar (see Fight Club) and have you over WITH your kids. If they are your friends it is time for them to get to know your kids, they are not going away or moving out for at least 18 years.

On the other side of that coin I see more and more of my peers being “burdened” by the thought of their parents or grandparents getting old and the guilt associated with having to put them in a nursing home to take care of them. I think that if more 40 and 50 year olds had their parents live with them so they can take better care of them it would solve that problem… I think that is what most of the rest of the world does it… so why is it so taboo here to actually take care of or live with your family?