UNDER THE TABLE AND DREAMING

A Renewal In Faith

2011-01-18T15:01:00.001-08:00

There comes a time in everyone's life where your faith in humanity, yourself and everything else is put into question. Last week was one of those weeks for me. I won't go into details as it's irrelevant to this post, but last week was a week that really put me to the brink and tested me in all sorts of ways. I for one am not the most religious of people. Yes, I did have a Jewish based wedding where the bride walks in circles around the groom, the groom breaks the glass and we cut the challah during the reception. Not to mention the wedding and reception actually took place at a temple. I have become very cynical of religion including my own over the years. To the point, where I am very close to being defined as an athiest and a skeptic. I really enjoy the "traditions" of Judaism, but I don't take it literally for a second.

You may be asking yourself, "what is the point of all this?" The point is this. In my week of emotional turmoil, despite being a skeptic and somewhat of an athiest, my initial response was to ask God for help. Maybe I am still pre wired from my early years or maybe that is just everyone's reaction when they are put into situations of turmoil. Either way, I found it interesting and in my moment of desperation I took the opportunity to talk to God and ask for help. Am I a hypocrite? Yes, most likely I am, but I figured that it couldn't hurt. I thought I would have a ton to say and I would air out all of my feelings, grievances and issues, but this wasn't the case. I sincerely laid out the situation and said, "make me a believer." I said this three times in a row. Maybe deep down I actually wanted to become a believer again. I had no idea if my prayers would be answered and I really have no clue if anyone is out there listening. Desperate times call for desperate measures and you would do anything to sway the outcome in your favor.

The outcome did sway in my favor and I couldn't be more thrilled. Do I believe in God and in religion and all that jazz? I honestly don't know. However, I do have some renewed faith in life, people and some new perspective on what is important in life and what isn't. Maybe this is what I was supposed to gain from all of this. Either way, this is one of those landmark moments in my life that I will never forget and always be thankful for.

This Will Be The Year

2011-01-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to say that this will be the year that I start blogging and writing some more. I'm starting to get the itch to write and get some things off my chest and I plan on making a real commitment to do so. There really won't be any rhyme or reason for my postings. My postings can be anything from a movie review, a pet peeve, a random observation or just a flat out pour my heart out post. Stay tuned!

Poor Boner

2010-02-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

Too early for Boner jokes? I think not. It wasn't too early for Michael Jackson jokes. I feel bad about Andrew Koenig's death, but it doesn't mean the world has to stop. This world is too politically correct anyways. On with the jokes!

Tomorrow's Newspaper Headlines......

Boner Found Dead

Boner Found In Park

Boner Is On Ice

Boner Found Dead At Olympics

Kirk Cameron Mourns Beloved Boner

Tracy Gold Wishes She Seen Boner More

At Least Boner Not Killed By Whale

Vancouver Mourns The Loss Of Boner

Hollywood Community Mourns Boner

Boner Fought Hard

RIP Boner

Boner Had Some Growing Pains

Boner Finally Finds Peace

Family Mourns Boner

Vancouver Police Find Boner Dead

Boner Laid To Rest

Boner Had Hard Life

The list could go on and on.

MOVIE THEATER ETIQUETTE

2010-01-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

For the people that know me very well, I have a ton of pet peeves. And when I say a ton I am not exaggerating. Some of them probably seem ridiculous and I am sure they are, but they get my blood boiling. For example, animals that wear clothes, couples who sit on the same side of the booth in restaurants and broads who wear Uggs in the summer time just to name a few. But the one thing that gets me the most is bad movie etiquette. I literally can't stand it. Let me paint a picture about an outing I had at a movie theater. This is the kind of scenario that happens to me ALL THE GOD DAMN TIME!

It was a lovely Saturday night and I decide to take my then girlfriend, now wife, Jessica out to the movies. I chose the last few movies, so I gave her the baton to choose a flick. She chose the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler flick 'Baby Mama.' (Yes, not my choice of course, but I was being a good guy and a good boyfriend.) In any rate, we go to the AMC Century City 15 to see the movie. We wait in line at the theater for what seemed liked hours to get a good seat (this is a whole other blog posting, because I have issues with this as well. Shout out to the Arclight theaters and The Landmark). We finally make our way into the theater to grab a seat. We end up getting seats in the front portion of the middle section right in the middle. Not too close, yet not too far. The lights finally dim and we are ready for the trailers to begin. This is where things definitely take a turn for the worst. The guy in front of us decides to eat Corn Nuts as his movie snack. Are you fucking kidding me?!? Corn Nuts in a movie! Why don't you just bring in a jack hammer while you are at it? I am starting to wonder if there needs to be movie etiquette laws out there. If that wasn't bad enough, the guy behind me is cackling and laughing a jack ass through out the entire movie. I know it's a comedy and you should absolutely have the right to laugh, but don't laugh like Fran Drescher on a coke kick. It was the most annoying laugh in the world. I wanted to punch him, but realized he played for the other team. Not like there is anything wrong with that, but I didn't feel like being the headline story in the LA Times. At the time I pictured the headline as "Angry Moviegoer Punches Homosexual During Baby Mama Screening." That wouldn't sit well with anyone especially with Prop 8 lurking in the wind. To add the cherry to the sundae, we have the group of young girls sitting in the front row talking loudly and playing with their cell phones the ENTIRE TIME. I swear to you, I am like an owl sitting in a tree at night when I am in the theater. If I see a glimpse of light coming from a cell phone I immediately gravitate towards it like Matthew McConaughey and a bad chick flick. I just can't help it. I get uptight and angry which in turn makes me miss a solid five minutes of movie time. What is the point of checking your phone and texting 500 times during the movie? You might as well as just wait and rent it at home.

The whole point of going to the movies is to escape from reality. It is escapism at it's finest. When I go to the movies, I want to be able to concentrate and allow myself to get lost in movie magic. I love going to the movies. It's absolutely one of my favorite things to do. I love being able to sit in a theater with 300 other movie lovers and experience the power of a movie. If only everyone else had the same expectations that I do when walking into a theater.

Office Restroom Etiquette

2009-08-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been noticing that some people get really comfortable going to the restroom at work. I don't mean that you shouldn't go to the restroom at work, by all means go for it. What I am saying is that some people are a little too comfortable with their indicator at the work place. For example, there is a guy here at work who will tuck the Daily Variety under his arm and start unbuckling his pants as he is headed to the restroom indicating to everyone that he is about to drop a deuce. He might as well send out a company email saying he his heading to the restroom and to stay clear. Another time there was this girl who stopped by my desk and asked me flat out if I had anything good to read. I said, "I have the new issue of Entertainment Weekly in my bag. You bored?" She responds with, "No. I ate something at lunch that's not agreeing with me and I have to go take care of business." For crying out loud, even chicks are telling me when they have to drop off the Cosby kids at the pool. I don't need to know and I don't want to know when someone is taking a dump at work. When I have to go number two at work, I am always really discrete about it. Never will I walk around the office with a Maxim under my arm or anything. If you are of the reading type on the can which I for sure am, I am way discrete about it. I will fold a magazine up and put it in my front pocket and unfold it once when I get into the restroom. Printing up articles from the internet is a great idea also. I think it should be installed into corporate policy to please be discreet when going to drop a load. We will all be better off for it.

When Fantasy Rules All

2009-07-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I was in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. Now, when I travel I usually like to take my lap top with me, so I am always in contact with work and more importantly I can keep track of my Fantasy Baseball/Football lineups. Knowing I was attending a bachelor party I decided to leave my lap top at home and go with my blackberry for keeping track of lineups, stats, news, etc.

I get back to the room at 3:30 AM from a night of boozing and gambling and I realize that I didn't set my fantasy line up for the day and I had to get the newly acquired Shane Victorino into my lineup. I get on my BlackBerry to change my lineup and of course I am having crazy issues trying to set my line up. Once I came to terms that my BlackBerry wasn't going to cut it I had to go with Plan B. And what was Plan B you are asking yourselves......Plan B was me stopping off at Jessica's great aunt and uncles house in Sun City to use their computer. Granted I had to go there anyways to pick up some items for Jessica, but I made sure her uncle fired up what seemed to be the original Commodore 3000, so I can change my lineup. After feeling satisfied that my lineup was now in good standing order I hit the road realizing that I was sweating over a stupid lineup change. It might be time to re-evaluate a couple things.

What The Hell Do I Do?

2009-07-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

My Thursday started off pretty nice. I woke up feeling good, took a nice long shower, and I was being productive at work when out of the blue an email hits my in box that would change all this. It was an email courtesy of the Hats For Bats Fantasy Baseball League. Of course, my first indication was that another trade went down or we needed to discuss some new business for next season. Neither was the case. The commissioner of the league, John "The King" Kumpart decided to show me up in front of the entire league and ask why I haven't posted since February, and then attached my inaugural post with it. Now, I do realize that I haven't posted in roughly five months or so, but I have been busy with my upcoming wedding, work (not really a good excuse) and plus I actually didn't think anyone really cared what I had to say. That is neither here nor there. The King has rang the bell and I for one will answer that call. Without further ado here is Jason Kissen's sophomore blog post.

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As I plan for my upcoming nuptials in December, I have been faced with a very big dilemma from the get go. The big dilemma resides around my wedding party. I have two friends who I have known since Pre-School and we practically grew up together. As of the last five years or so, our friendships have really drifted apart. I hardly see them or hear from them at all and even when we do see or talk to each other the interaction is very forced, very strange and in a nutshell just odd. Now you may be asking yourself, what the hell is the big decision here? You aren't close with these guys anymore so just cut them loose. I really wish it was that simple.

One of my friends is getting married this August and already asked me to be in his wedding party. I am not really sure why he asked me to be quite honest. Maybe he was short friends and needed to fill a spot (this could be it as he is kind of a pussy and made his life all about his fiancee alienating his friends including myself) or maybe he values our friendship more than I do. On top of that his fiancee is very close friends with Jessica (she is in the wedding party also) and both of our families retain a friendship (not what it used to be). I guess the easy thing to do would be just to include him, but this is my wedding and I want the people who mean the most to me to be involved and not someone I have to include because of the past and/or current situations. Why should someone more deserving of being in my wedding have to take a back seat due to this? I don't want to have to look back 20 years from now and say to myself man I should have went with my gut feeling. I can honestly say that there are around 15 other people I would go to if I was in trouble rather than him. I feel he views our friendship as convenient and since there is such a rich history that I am not going anywhere.

As for the other friend, he is close friends with the other friend also. That being said, our lives have really just taken a different turn. He has made some questionable decisions in his past that I don't necessarily agree with and in some cases due to me distancing myself I have saved myself a ton of drama and pain. This situation is much easier than the other one as the only thing I have to think about is how he would feel if I included my other friend and not him.

Basically my point in all of this is where do you draw the line? Just because someone asked you to be in their wedding party, does it mean you have to ask them to be in yours? Just because there is history there, does it trump everything else? I have been dealing with this for a while now and there is still no clear answer. Whatever I decide to do will have some sort of ramification. I guess in the end if this is my biggest problem than I am a lucky guy.

5:30 AM On A Saturday Morning

2009-02-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

These words should be a foreign language to everyone. I guess instead of complaining about this, I should really embrace it and take it all in. In my quest to figure out what to do on a Saturday morning at 5:30 AM, I decided to turn on the TV and see what was on. After seeing the endless string of infomercials including four advertising the debacle that is "The Snuggie". Anyhoo, I can be the first to verify that television programming at 5:30 AM on a weekend isn't the most stellar. I then decide to see what I have recorded on my wonderful DVR. I really think at this point my DVR has become one of my most trusted friends. It's always there for me and rarely disappoints, accept when it doesn't realize a show goes a little bit over the allotted time and doesn't record the show to completion. Some people say it's my fault, but I blame my DVR. I notice I have three episodes of 'World Series Highlights' from the MLB Network recorded. (Just as a side note, the MLB Network has become one of my go to channels and I now think that 'Hot Stove' is one of the best shows on television.) I figured 'World Series Highlights' would be a show that had great commentary while it showed highlights of that years World Series. Much to my surprise they literally just string together highlights of that World Series with the actual play by play. It was kind of neat at first seeing Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle play in the 1952 World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees, but I just wished it had some actual commentary and gave me more information then just seeing highlights.

After that disappointment, I decided to watch Thursday's episode of '30 Rock'. I really enjoy this show and this episode in particular. Jon Hamm's guest appearance and Alec Baldwin making a phone call while pretending to pray in church were the top moments for me. I feel everyone says they love '30 Rock' and watch it religiously, but they really don't. People probably say they do cause its the popular thing at the moment, but you would think the ratings would be better with all of these so called people watching the show. Thats neither here nor there.

After watching '30 Rock', I figured I would surf the internet, when all of a sudden it hit me that this would be the best time to start a blog. I never thought of myself as the blogging type, but I feel I have some interesting and honest thoughts on my life and the world and can come up with some witty banter. On that note, this will conclude my inaugural blog.....Wait, the TV Gods have come to the rescue as Soap Net is airing reruns of old 'Beverly Hills 90210' reruns. I sign off with the 90210 theme in the background and Jason Priestley doing "The Turn" in the opening credits.