This weekend my wife and I went out on the town with some good friends. Being stalwart Pennsylvanians, we felt honor-bound by stately sporting obligations to find someplace after dinner to watch the Penn State/Ohio State football game.

We ended up finding a “sports bar” outside of the city. I use the term “sports bar” very loosely as most of the sparse patrons seemed more interested in perusing the surly barmaid’s new lower back tattoo than fixating on the various sporting events being displayed on the numerous big-screen tvs.

After settling in, we ordered some beverages, some alcoholic some not, which were all poured directly into clear flimsy plastic cups.

I mention all this because it occurred to me that I’m pretty sure the last time I paid cash for a cold beverage that was a) served in a plastic cup and b) not purchased at a state fair, I was most likely:

• Wearing copious amounts of flannel.
• Paying 5 dollars for the right to own said plastic cup thereby entitling me to a night’s worth of beverages (not including Jell-o shots and/or shooters.)
• Exposed to voluminous amounts of cigarette smoke, co-eds, all the Pearl Jam I could handle, and ultimately, lowered expectations and social disappointment.

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It’s Halloween season here on Ranzino.com and we’ll be celebrating this manufactured non-holiday by posting some extra-spooky content here every day this week.

Yes that’s right, you heard it here first. Daily content. Prepare for the reckoning.

What better way to kick things off than having some random French guy sing in a capella 64 different parts (including sound effects) of Michael Jackson’s pop-culture classic Thriller.

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Sculptures To Be, originally uploaded by ranzino.

So what’s the over-under on the life expectancy of any balloon animal made for children ages 5 and under? 10 minutes? 8?

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In these uncertain times of financial and political turmoil, it may be time for Americans to finally heed the call of sacrifice and once again give back to this nation that has given us so much. Much like our grandparents did during the days of the last great rift in economic and international relations, it’s time for ordinary citizens to rise up and do extraordinary things to ensure our most basic freedoms for future generations.

Or you could just say to heck with it and spend the next 2 minutes and 42 seconds watching a man play Europe’s “The Final Countdown” on a homemade ukelele/piano/kazoo.

Really, it’s your call.

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Harvest on Flickr

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This pretty much sums up how I feel about my ongoing pursuit of excellence in the dynamic field of child rearing.

With my apologies to the brilliant site, Indexed.

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Recently, I took the boys on our not-so-frequent trip to the hair removal store.  I like to refer to this particular  establishment as a hair removal store because I cannot bring myself to admit I bring my sons to a “hair dresser” or a “salon” to get their hair cut.  I was raised by my father to get my follicles removed exclusively by:

A. A man.

B. A man, who had one point served in the armed forces (or at the very least had a debilitating hunting injury) and cut your hair accordingly.

C. A man, who had at one point served in the armed forces, and had the good sense to offer a fine selection of automobile, sports and recreational firearms (or if I was luck enough, Boys Life) magazines for your perusal while you waited for the barber chair to become available.

A small part of me is ashamed that I don’t take my sons to one of these types of places and probably ranks high on the list of the ways my father is disappointed in me wedged right in between “Looks like a 7-year-old girl when using a hammer,” and “Presence seems to actually repel sport fish when near streams, lakes and oceans.”

Nonetheless, because of the strip-mall convenience of our world, I found myself at the hair removal store once again. While I was staving off an overly curious 4-year-old (‘Why does that lady smell so bad?”) and an instinctively destructive 2-year-old (Who even knew they put hair gel in glass bottles?) while every octogenarian in the county got their bi-annual dye, set, shellac, and sealer, I noticed this sign:

Clip-In Hair Extensions
$12 per extension
Sorry, hair is non-returnable

I immediately realized how bad our economy really is. If you have to warn people that they’re not going to be able to barter with you concerning their slightly used $12 fake hair purchase, you know we’ve fallen on hard times.

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Remember young Americans, your vote counts… even if having the ability to spell possessive pronouns no longer does.

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Just a guy who likes to take pictures, writes every once in awhile, and performs the duties of dad/husband on a regular basis.




Maybe I'm spending too much of my time starting up clubs and putting on plays. I should probably be trying harder to score chicks. - Max Fischer

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