I Chose #Scandal Over #BUFvsCLE

I'm embarrassed to say what I did, Olivia. SMH.

(SMH)

Those who have followed me for a minute know that I'm a huge football fan.  Especially the NFL.  (Sigh)  I almost feel dirty typing this, but tonight, I did the unthinkable.  Tonight, I did something that could possibly get my Man Card revoked.  Tonight, I chose to watch the hit show "Scandal" over Thursday night football.

What intrigues me so much about "Scandal" is the writing.  The show writers do an excellent job of taking you down a path, getting you comfortable, and then blindsiding you with something completely out of left field.  Top that off with a cast of amazing actors who surprisingly left the Emmy's trophy-less and you have something rare for prime time TV these days... an amazing show.

But, the NFL on Thursday night is a no-brainer for a sports nut, right?  Despite the fact that the game involved two un-sexy teams in Buffalo and Cleveland, it's still the NFL.  (BTW, the game was pretty entertaining).  I started watching the game at 7:25 PM Central Time and once 8:59 PM CT rolled around, I found myself changing the channel to ABC.

I still love the NFL, but with the magic of DVR's, I can pause the game, flip over to "Scandal", and watch the game during commercials.  Although it makes sense to most men to record "Scandal" and watch it after the game, it's virtually impossible to do due to social media.

If I don't watch "Scandal" live, then one of my Twitter or Facebook followers will be sure to tweet something that spoils the show.  That's not what you want in a show like this where the writing is so superior to 95% of the things airing on TV these days.  Shows like "Scandal" spawn copycats like "Deception" or "Betrayal" and all of those other shows with edgy names, but empty stories.  It's one of those trendsetters that every other station wishes they could duplicate.

I got on the Scandal bandwagon on Day One.  It's very rare to see an African-American as a lead character on network TV and for it to be a woman made the show more interesting to me.  I wasn't familiar with show creator, Shonda Rimes, also African-American, and my knowledge of actress, Kerry Washington, was very limited, too.

Despite all of that, I knew after only watching the first few episodes that this show would go down in history as one of the classics.  The ever-changing plot is great and the cast of characters is even greater.  It's the best cast of actors that I've seen on a show since ABC aired "Ugly Betty."

Dag, I may lose my man card for admitting that I watched that show in its entirety, too.

SMH.

Don't feel so bad, guys.  I'll be back!

Get Out Of My Back Pocket!

So, for The Mrs.' birthday, I decided to take her to Baton Rouge, LA. It is not very far from where we live, roughly three hours away.

Although my intention was to leave early in the morning, I some how managed to sleep until 1030 AM. Hey, I was tired! Don't judge me! LOL!

We grab breakfast right outside of our hometown and get ready to jump on the road. She is driving while that homewrecker, Fantasia, plays on the radio. I'm so fortunate to have a woman who doesn't mind driving. Who am I fooling? She doesn't trust anyone with her car!

Any way, let me share with you what went down during breakfast at Cracker Barrel, which is a country-style restaurant. A pet peeve of mine occurred: the violation of personal space.

There's nothing that aggravates me more than when a person doesn't recognize that they're "in your area". I'm getting ready to pay for our food at the register and when I reach for my wallet, this older guy is standing so closely behind me that I accidentally elbowed him in his stomach. By reflex, I said, "Excuse me."

"No problem," he replied.

Wait. I started thinking, "I reach for my wallet and elbow you and I'm apologizing? Why are you standing that close behind me? Dude, get out of my back pocket! You're closer than my wallet!"



You would think that the elbow to the solar plexus would be a hint that you're violating someone's space, but obviously this guy obviously doesn't have any home training. So, I'm paying my bill and whip out the debit card. As I sign my receipt, this guy is literally standing beside me waiting to pay his tab. I look to my left and The Mrs. isn't even as close to me as this guy is.

I shoot him a dirty look, but keep my cool and don't say anything smart to him (although that was very difficult to do).

So, we make it to BR and I already have a dinner spot picked out called Texas de Brazil. Basically, it's a Brazilian steakhouse where they have servers walk around with skewers of meat including chicken, beef, pork, lamb, etc. They normally have roughly 10 to 13 different types of meat. They bring it by your table and if you want to try something, they slice off a piece and give it to you.



We both enjoyed our meals as we basically said "yes" to everyone who offered a slice of something. Mix in their huge salad/soup bar and it was a hit.

The next day we decide to hit up the Hollywood Casino. I don't care for casinos, but The Mrs. wants to try her luck since we rarely go. We walk around a couple of floors before she finally settles on a lonely looking row of slots against the wall.

She puts $20 into the $1 slot machine and plays three credits. Red 7.... Red 7... Red 7...

What? Wait. Three 7's? That's a good thing, right? Immediately, we both look towards the scoring legend at the top of the slot machine to see exactly what she's won. It's hard to concentrate with the machine making tons of noise announcing her as a winner.

$600. Are you kidding me? She won $600 on one pull? Maybe I should play slots on my birthday in November!

So, she plays out the remainder of the $20 she put in to start and we leave there with $599 feeling pretty good about ourselves. That's when the next violation of personal space occurred. And it was bad, folks.

First of all, I don't know who designed the men's restroom at the Hollywood Casino, but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a guy. Once you walk into the restroom, you see a huge wall, but for some reason, all three urinals are within six inches of each other. "Why didn't they space these out and maximize the room in here?", I think to myself.



Sure enough, as soon as I unzip and start my business, some guy walks into the restroom. Now, being that the urinals are so close, I'm thinking that he will just go into a stall and use one of the toilets.

No such luck. Not only does this guy decide to use a urinal, he violates the oldest man code in the history of Man-stivity and chooses the one directly next to me!

Are you freakin' kidding me!!!!???? You always leave a space in between urinals. That's Man Law 101! Were you raised by wolves, dude!!!???? Just because the one on the end is lower than the others, you can still use it, man!

Now, not only do I have a guy within eyesight of my "particulars", I also have to concern myself with "spatter" as Secretariat next to me is relieving himself. For some reason the thought "don't cross the streams" comes to my mind (that's a "Ghostbusters" reference for those of you who aren't paying attention -- you need Netflix in your life).

I use every muscle in my body to stop, zip and make my way to the faucet. Of course that nasty buzzard leaves without washing his hands. Figures. Anyone without the common sense to stand next to a man at a urinal surely doesn't have the proper hygiene.

Wow. What a day. If it weren't for my lucky lady winning six Franklins, I may have been in a bad enough mood to go Chuck Norris on one of these violators today.

Share your "space violation" stories in my forum discussion.