Hop's Thoughts

Whoever coined the phrase "his eyes were bigger than his stomach" must have had enormous eyes. ATM's are not new. Why the hell do people seem to always get confused when I am waiting to use one? It takes someone who makes $50,000-a-year twenty years to make a million dollars. Tiger Woods makes a million dollars every three days. People work all their life to play golf once a week. He makes more money not playing golf. I just had onion rings from a fast food restaurant and it didn't have the single fry in it. WTF? Countries with socialized medicine have an average life span that is four years more than those that don't. Obviously it doesn't work. Is Reality TV an oxymoron? Is there anyone creepier than the guy on the Dos Equis commercials? Speaking of creepy. Does anyone else have a feeling that Michael Jackson is going to make a comeback next year? The Internet truly amazes me sometimes. It is so chock full of information. Think of all the things we assumed b...

Chris Klein has not been in enough movies as of yet to qualify, so we'll give him a pass. OK, I'm going to get heat for this one, but my vote is for Robin Williams. And of course, because this is a blog and not a facebook status update, I'll explain. Let's start at the beginning. He appeared as the martian Mork from Ork on Happy Days back in the 70's. Somehow this was spun off into it's own show. At the same time he starred in his first movie as Popeye. A live action cartoon which was so horrible, it turned me off to spinach until a young adult. This was followed by The World According to Garp. Despite it being filmed partly in good old Eastchester and a cameo by our beloved AD Dom Cecere, the movie is absolutely awful. Moscow on the Hudson was actually pretty decent when I first watched it, but I later realized it wasn't because of RW, it was because as a youngin I was infatuated with Maria Conchita Alonso. Then came Club Paradise, and despite having one of...

Aujourd'hui maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas. (Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure.)  Opening Line from Albert Camus' The Stranger . Unlike Mersault, I know exactly what day my mother passed away. On July 23rd , 2004 at roughly 2AM. My mother passed away. A long battle with cancer took her from us. For the most part, she was with us til the very end. Two days before she died, she apologized for an incident which was altogether forgotten in conscious memory, but obviously, not in either of our subconsciousness. Maybe this was the last of the numerous gifts she gave me. She died a frail old women; mere skin and bones. Her ability to function almost gone. A far cry from even a week before. She was only 62. My mother was a slender woman, who at 5'9, carried herself with the elegance of a movie star and had the character of a saint. She sometimes combined this with the mouth of a truck driver, but this made her all the more real. She ...

I live alone. On most nights I sleep alone. I work alone on many days. I drive places alone on most occasions. I do almost every day to day function alone and I am fine with it. One thing I hate to do alone is eat. The odd juxtaposition is that I love to eat. Usually my love of food outweighs, literally and figuratively my pet peeve, but at times, it causes me to skip meals. When I was a child, I'd have breakfast with my family, if not all sitting, at least frantically gathering papers and briefcases, while all in the same room. Lunch was enjoyed with friends, sometimes even sharing our meals, and dinner was spent sharing stories of everyone's day. Sometime in the mid 80's all of this started to change. The family dynamic had changed. With so many marriages ending in divorce, so many people working two jobs, and so many people having child after child, not thinking these things through, the way of life everyone had known had changed. Meals were seen as almost a bother. Peop...

I am probably in a large majority of people who love their coffee. I find that most people like coffee, good or bad, but a few of us care. I used to go out and spend $8 a lb on the stuff, but living alone, despite the large quantities I consume, I have settled on Bustelo as my house blend. It's strong, a little bitter, but not like DD. I like it because it has flavor. Coffee flavor. Then I started to think about just how much I like it. For a week I didn't have a coffee pot and times were very tough. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't concentrate, I basically couldn't function. I once went two years without a girlfriend and realized then that coffee was very important to me. This morning I awoke and thought about the pros and cons of each, so I made a mental list. To my surprise there was only one item on the cons list for coffee. Coffee Breath. That's why there is toothpaste and mints. There is no mint that can get the taste of a bad relationship out of your mouth....

When people think of the wingman, they immediately think of Top Gun. Maverick & Goose, Iceman & Slider, or Sigfried & Roy. OK the last one wasn't in Top Gun, but you get the idea. The wingman is an important part in any single man's arsenal. He's basically the friend who will take the bullet so his buddy can hook up with a girl. In most cases, we hear tales of the wingman hooking up with the ugly friend just so his buddy can score with the girl that is out of his league. In the end, the guy doesn't really care, because he's wasted his entire evening for his friend's benefit and he's getting a little payback. Even though the collateral damage that is caused to his psyche might not be worth it. Funny thing about being a wingman is that, the person himself is probably not realizing that the girls are playing the same game. I mean, seriously, guys thinking they are taking one of the team, but if one guy is hooking up with a really hot girl and the ot...

I sometimes wonder what makes a birthday great? What is an important birthday when you are over 21? Is it 25? 40? 50? $75? 100? Seriously, other people make a big deal about it, but does the receiver of such reception feel anything? I said over 21, because that's the legal drinking age and maybe it's more of a reflection of the company I keep than the importance of the age that makes this so important. Ten was a big birthday for me. I was double digits. Thirteen was big, but only because I would be a teenager and entering high school. I later found out that wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Eighteen was exciting, because I could vote. Oh wait, no it wasn't. I don't remember my 21st birthday and not because I was drunk, it was just not that memorable. Twenty-two through thirty-nine have been a blur. I can't remember most of them and the majority have been spent with friends over dinner or drinks. Some were with family, some were not. I guess if I had to pick th...

The Fourth of July just passed us by and as I sat on a rooftop, many of my friends stood in appreciation of the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air. I sat, sipped my drink and let out a sigh. Fireworks do nothing for me. Every year, around this time, grown men and women get giddy as schoolchildren awaiting the next Harry Potter movie to see these extravaganzas. They pack up picnic baskets and coolers and sit in the grass, or on a hill, maybe even on the hood of their cars and gaze up with anticipation for the spectacle of lights cascading across the night sky. Then inevitably sit in traffic cursing everyone for their stupidity. It's as American as apple pie. I've always felt that the only reason anyone really likes fireworks is because they have always been connected to sexual situations. The phallic rocket pointing upward higher and deeper into the dark sky until it explodes. The explosions getting bigger and brighter until the climactic finale. That ...

Yesterday morning I awoke after a night of heavy drinking and heavier eating and stared at the ceiling. I wondered why my sleep had been so short. I waited about an hour and headed out. It was the day after July 4th, random firework casings littered the streets and I had visions of a delicious breakfast ahead of me. Little did I know, I was in store for fireworks of a different variety. I returned home to a fresh pot of coffee, a bag full of steaming hot bagels, some cream cheese and lox. I guess this is the Jewish equivalent of the Sunday dinner...I call it brunch, no matter what time I eat it. 9:00am. I turn on the TV, coffee in hand and half listen to the broadcasters go on and on about the historic event. I'm having thoughts in my head of how the day will go after the 90-100 minute slaughter I'm about to watch. Four and a half hours later, I'm worn out. Literally sweating from the action I've just witnessed. Powerless and fatigued by the effort that entertained me...

My blog has become a weekly venture instead of it's intended daily venture. I try and bring some thought, some heart, and some intelligence into it, but not all three want to participate on a daily basis. The other day, driving to the bank and driving home from work, I noticed many things. Some of these things are evident every day, if one just opens their eyes. Some are harder to see. None of these are revelations, so if you thought you'd be knocked off your feet, you'll have to wait for the 40 bus and stand a little to close to the sidewalk. I feel I do more for others than others do for me. I'm not talking about people I know. I mean strangers. I hold doors, say thank you, offer to help people with bags, etc. I wave people ahead when two cars approach an intersection at the same time. I let people know when traffic is bad if I overhear or let them know the updated forecast if I hear people discussing some weather related activity. It's not a big deal, but I'd...