Before I start… this is something that Brendan mentioned in his heartbreaking tale about a hot chick telling him she’s blind, but I’m going to repeat it to really make sure the point gets across. We do things because they’re funny to us. Those things we do may also be funny to some of our friends. But much more often that not, they are funny to quite literally nobody else. 0% funny, 100% completely fucking moronic. Our brains are simply wired differently than the general public’s. It’s been said that you must to learn to love yourself before you can love others, and in return have others love you. Well, we’ve got the first part down pat, but have made little to negative progress with the latter. Do we care? Absolutely. At least I do. Nothing matters to me more than the opinions of others. But will I show it? Not a chance. I’ll put on my mask and go about my day and pretend the well-deserved snide remarks/dirty looks/silence from girls I’m interested in didn’t get to me. But they did, do, and always will. I’m sensitive like that. I watch This Is Us for fuck’s sake. I like to shed a tear every now and then. Regardless, we will continue doing what we’ve been doing since the dawn of our days and make no adjustments whatsoever.
On to blog number two for Tommy.
For me to live my life the only whey (side-note: sometimes we spell ‘way’ as ‘whey’ to let females know we lift. There will surely be more words we substitute in for others, but this is the only one I’m going to explain for you. So if you don’t know what we’re saying, just sound the word out and use some common sense) I know how, immaturely and obtusely, I very often will delve into the online shopping world and treat myself usually to whatever product I think would be amusing to own. My Amazon purchase page is more bizarre than the browser history of a budding teenage boy who has lost interest in simply youtubing “girls kissing” and is looking to diversify his fun-time library.
Together, we will take a trip down memory lane and recall some of my most memorable purchases. Each purchase will be rated on a 20-80 scale, much like the scale scouts use in baseball to grade prospects. 20 being a shit purchase, 80 being worth every penny. Factors taken into consideration include price, how often I use the item, and how it funny/unfunny it was. And speaking of baseball, I was quite the prospect back in high school. Would’ve went D1 but then I got hurt and that put an end to my major league dreams. What a bummer. At least when I tell that to girls, I:
1. Receive an enormous amount of sympathy from them – “Oh you poor thing!! How about I make it all better 😉”
2. Can brag about what a tremendous athlete I was without having to back it up with any sort physical activity. “Sorry babe, I’d love to buckle the knees of that annoying punk with a 92 mph slider, but the doc says no more pitching or I could lose the arm for good. Can’t risk it”
How did I get hurt? Not important. Let’s get to what you came here for.
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PURCHASE #1: Women’s Tap Shoes, $19.50

I should first say that when I bought these, I was not aware they were women’s shoes. As a matter of fact, I didn’t realize until about halfway through the night when I thought “holy fuck these things are tight.”
Why I Bought Them: Short story. The pals and I were watching Family Feud one night. Steve Harvey is going down the line, introducing the members of the family. One guy claims he’s a professional tap dancer, goes center stage, and starts doing his jig. One of my friends is particularly impressed… I am not. Not one bit. “This guy is so full of shit. I could do that in my sleep,” I say. My friend fires back, “Oh yeah? Prove it?” 10 minutes later the shoes were bought, paid for, and shipped.
When/How Often I Wore Them: It took a while to break them out. The made their debut July 3rd, 2018 at our favorite bar. This place is actually a half-bar, half-club, so I thought tearing up the dance floor in some tap shoes would surely get some hunnies by my side. I lace ‘em up and I’m out the door. Big night ahead of me. Only problem? The place was a ghost town. At one point I was the only one on the dance floor. I was particularly looking forward to sneaking on the DJ stage and putting on a show before getting kicked off, but it was so dead that he didn’t even give a shit when I made my way up there. Regardless of the low view count, I still got some laughs and even a shout-out over the speakers. Very cool!
Grade: 50/80. Fun idea, fair price, good execution. But a small audience and no repeat tap-dancing nights force me to knock its rating down a tad.
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PURCHASE #2: LED Light-Up Sneakers, $55
Why I Bought Them: I was at work and saw a very young child with a light up pair of Sketchers. Instant nostalgia. I proudly owned a pair back in kindergarten and they were a hit. I would lead the way into the movie theater, “lighting up the night” for my family on our way to see Ice Age. When I was picked in duck, duck, goose (which was a lot because I was the coolest god damn kid back then), the lights would become a blur because I was so fast, plus they would be a distraction to whoever was chasing me, giving me an advantage I frankly did not need, because of the speed.

By the way, is there a title for the person doing the chasing in that game? I know the ducks are the losers who never got picked, and the gooses were either the popular kids (me) or the fat kids because they were easy to catch… but the chaser? Let’s put a name to the face right now:

Wolf, Eagle, Bear, Raccoon, Fox. Take your pick.
When/How Often I Wore Them: Once. I got to wear them one fucking time at a run-of-the-mill hangout because these pieces of shit broke within a week. I hate to use such a hostile tone, but it’s only because I loved them so much. These things didn’t just light up when you took a step, they had a permanent flashing setting. Actually, setting(s). More than one. They would blink blue, red, green. Flash all colors at once. Act as a strobe light that would trigger an epileptic seizure in a millisecond (remember the movie Miss March made by the WKUK guys? How about the scene where the chick seizes mid blowie and bites Trevor’s yogurt slinger? Ouch). I made sure to make the most of my time with these bad boys though. It’s a darn shame they didn’t last as they would’ve saved me at least 20-25% on my electric bill. Light up the night.
Grade: 35/80. So much potential these shoes had, but what a bust they turned out to be. Jeff Francouer-esque career. Got off to a scorching hot start only to turn into a bigger disappointment than every one of my last attempts at dating (“You’re really nice and funny, but…”). As they say, the brightest stars burn out the fastest.
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PURCHASE #3: Olympic Team Handball Net, $179.99

Why I Bought It: … Why the fuck did I buy this? I mean, Brendan and I were two-time European Handball Tournament champions in high school (Brendan was just a coach for the second one, but every team member gets a ring so I’ll count it). Did I think that I could continue that success and play for Team USA or something? Well I obviously couldn’t have because of that stupid sports injury that prevented me from becoming the transcendent athlete I was destined blossom into. I really don’t have an explanation for this one.
When/How Often I Used It: Once again, this was just a one time use for Tommy. Luckily however, it provided somewhat of a lasting impact. A few neat pics of me were snapped while I was shooting on it, which I promptly used as one of my Tinder photos.

That is… until I was banned from the app.

Apparently, “I’ve been watching a lot of Dexter recently and I’m just looking for people to kill” is not the best pick-up line. But I say leave that for the big-city slams to decide, not the dumb fucks from corporate trying to silence my profile. #NotMyDatingApp
Grade: 20/80. Gonna be hard to get worse than this one. But hard doesn’t mean impossible. We can do it. Together.




