Hop's Thoughts

Recently, I have discovered the world of karaoke.  Over the last few months, one of my local watering holes, Stephen's Green has been having a DJ named Kystle, who plays karaoke.  The first time they had it, I really didn't know what to expect.  The place really isn't that type of restaurant, albeit they do draw a crowd for their weekly music.  The night started off slow with me refusing to sing.  This was partly because a previous time I was tricked into singing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance and that is one hard song to sing when you are drunk.  This time was different.  Well it got up to me and I decided to sing It's Raining Men by the Weather Girls.   Now obviously, the song is great, but there's something about seeing a chubby heterosexual guy jumping around singing this song. Well, I had a little help from some others, so I wasn't embarrassed.  Now I can't wait for it.  Every time they have it, I try and get as many people to come ou...

As I entered the lovely White Plains Mall, I walked down the dirty corridor, passed some odd restaurant, an optical place and a Subway, I turned to my left and to my disbelief, the DMV was gone.  License plates in hand, I called my boss and he told me they had moved it upstairs.  I walked towards a young man wearing jeans who turned around and he had wings bedazzled on the back of his pants.  Was he a frustrated bird?  The Phoenix rising from the ashes?  I don't think so, he looked more like a frustrated rapper.  I passed a man having a loud conversation with no phone.  This bothered me more when I realized he didn't have a bluetooth device either.  I entered the DMV and was pleased to see there were only three people on line and about forty people sitting.  I knew it would be quick.  I approached the desk to get my ticket and was enamored by the young lady with nails longer than a samurai sword.  She handed me t...

I've had this ongoing nightmare that has me perplexed.  It's lasted quite some time and the last time I mentioned a dream, a friend of mine gave me her analysis.  It was pretty much on point, so I threw this one at her.  After her analysis I decided to reflect a little and see how her analysis and the dream told me things about myself.  Her analysis is italicized for the reading comprehension impaired. Here is my initial post on her Facebook page: Hey dream analyzer - had a dream the other night that someone was trying to kill me. This has been an ongoing dream (for like two years) with the same person after me (I don't know them). The person always appears and I get away. In the dream, I write my dreams down, because I'm also dreaming I'm being chased by thi s person. They told me if I burn all my written down dreams, they'd leave me alone. So I do this. But while doing this, I meet a woman. She asks me what I'm doing and I tell her. Now he's trying t...

Let me begin by saying that I am not a big fan of this holiday.  Sure as a child I would pester my parents about it and we'd sit and make a costume and then I would skip down the street and annoy my neighbors with that irritating little saying "trick or treat."  Funny how in all my years I never got a trick.  Why don't we teach our little ingrates to just say "put the damn candy in the bag, grandma," because that's what we really mean.  One thing I will say for Halloween is that it does teach us many things about many people. Sometimes their costumes reveal more than just some cleavage.  Sometimes they reveal someones hidden persona.  One that is trapped beneath heavy sweaters, taped glasses and failed expectations.  Sometimes they just show us some tit.  Either way, it's always an interesting evening. Halloween has taught me that whether it be an intricate mask hiding someones identity or simple fake glasses with a moustache, a m...

There have been many a great invention over the years.  There is the wheel, the Frisbee, and of course Gold Bond medicated powder (if you don't know you better axe somebody).  Recently, I've noticed that some inventions aren't that brilliant.  Some are downright silly.  These are a few of the items we would all be better without. Sunday Night Football - Going to work on Monday sucks enough as it is, but thank you NFL, you've given us three and a half more hours to drink, when we've already been out for seven hours.  Couldn't you have just been a little kind and started the game at 7pm?  No, I have to wait an hour and watch Andy Rooney for a fucking hour.  Thanks a lot.  TV Remotes - I'm as lazy as they come.  I'll drive two blocks to go somewhere, using the excuse that I may go somewhere else later.  It's pathetic, but I'm not so bad that I can't stand up and walk three feet to change a fucking channel.  I have watched as people...

I don't know if it's the ozone, dietary habits or the incredible ease in obtaining prescription medication, but it seems to me that people are getting stranger and stranger.  Now this isn't to say we didn't have our share of nut jobs back in the day, but the prevalence is increasing at an alarming rate.  While growing up in Brooklyn, my parents had a tenant who took them to court, accusing them of stomping their feet in the middle of the night and waking him up.  He also said we had made rude remarks to him and were horrible landlords.  So he had his day in court.  Everything sounded like a valid complaint until he said that my brother (who was two at the time) would call him a "crazy homo" and that my parents used to pour hot wax through the cracks in the floor to burn him.  Case dismissed!  That was nearly 25 years ago and now that story almost seems tame. Maybe I'm just more perceptive than I was in my youth, but th...

The great thing about a blog is that your thoughts are documented.  That is unless you're wrong.  Well at the beginning of the season I picked the Texas Rangers to come in last in their division.  I also only picked four of the eight playoff teams correctly.  That's the worst I've done in about 15 years.  I did however pick the Phillies and Yankees to play in the World Series again....but it looks, as of now, as I might be wrong.  I should get Kudos for having the Giants in the playoffs though.  Not many "experts" did.  I should say that I also predicted Texas/Philly in the World Series back in June. So what else is going on in my head?  Here are a few things. I have decided that I don't like cold cuts anymore.  Unless it's salami pr proscuitto, I'm not interested.  In the past few years it's dawned on me that cold cuts (especially Boar's Head) are as bland as a Michael Bolton CD.  Cold cuts has joined pasta on my "why the ...