Category: Life

  • Open Letter to the Asshole Who Stole My Umbrella

    Dear Dingleberry,

    You already know that I consider you to be an asshole from the title of this piece, so I thought it best, in the hopes of keeping this letter active and engaging, that I come up with some other descriptive names for you; such as rat faced monkey butt.

    Yet, I feel I should get to the point. For you, you near sighted stinky weasel, stole my umbrella that was wet, and drying outside of my apartment’s front door. You might not be aware of this, you waste of carbon, but theft is frowned upon. In fact, as this is a small building with a limited number of people living here, we all know each other rather well, and stealing from the front door of your neighbor, is a cardinal sin around these parts.

    I understand why you did it, you simple minded amoeba, it was raining outside, but that doesn’t justify your actions. If you wanted to borrow and return the umbrella, I would have agreed to that, for I am a neighborly neighbor, unlike you, a stain left on the floor.

    But, you did not do that.

    You saw an opportunity, and took it believing that there would be no repercussions to this action. The actions of a poop smelling little person.

    I know that there is a good chance that one of my neighbors did not do this, because as I had mentioned before, we do look out for each other in this building. We help each other move heavy things up and down the stairs, water each other’s plant, feed each other’s animals, delivery packages and mail, and most importantly, hold doors open and say hello. NO, my neighbors are good people.

    You, assclown, most likely don’t live here, and maybe thought you would never come back here, or if you do come back, so much time will have past that no one will care that you swiped an umbrella from someone’s door step.

    Ah! You figured wrong; you chunk of ear wax! You couldn’t have imagined that “the power of words” would come after you in this wildly passive-aggressive letter! Yes, the pen is mightier than the sword, but a baseball bat to the shins is even better!

    And with no due respect; please burn in hell. Forever, if you wouldn’t mind,

    Matt Groff

    P.S. – Bruce knows what I’m going through…

  • ODDS and ENDS: Hurricane Training, Mayor of NYC, and LinkedIn

    (I’m a cold Italian pizza, I could use a lemon squeeze-a…)

    Yes, hurricanes are dangerous, and we should take them seriously. The damage they cause and the loss of life, so people need to heed the warnings that officials give. But I want to talk about those poor television meteorologists who get stuck with the job of standing out in the wind and rain to “show us” how dangerous the storm is. First of all, no one is out here asking for somebody to stand in the storm – when you tell us it’s windy and rainy, we believe you, we’re good. Second, and being that it’s a cliche for the weatherman to stand in the storm, it’s dangerous to do that, so does the meteorologist receive some sort of training? Do they teach how to breast a storm and hold on to your hat? Or is this a “figure it out on your own” type situation?

    I told you that you couldn’t trust Eric Adams. If a guy lies about sharing an apartment with his son so he can claim residency in NYC to run for mayor, then you know he’s not fit for the job. Just saying…

    Oh LinkedIn; the account I have but never use. Though I haven’t touched it in years, I do enjoy your weekly email telling me that my profile appeared in 3 searches. Week in, week out, it’s always the same – 3 searches. It’s a magic number, three.

  • My “Merch” Page

    I sit in my little office, and I try to come up with things. Sometimes I write them down, and put them up on my blog. Other times, I send them out to magazines – both online and print – with the hopes that they get published. I have made some headway in this regard, but my results have been modest, to say the most. Through all of this, there has been a goal in the back of my mind, which is that I will earn enough money from my writing to go and buy a new computer. Not that I need a new computer, it’s more of a symbol, and sounds better than saying I want to earn $1,000. (But if someone out there wants to buy me a MacBook Air 13-inch with M2 chip, I won’t say no.) As of the end of August, combining what I have earned from my writing and the ads on my blog, I have $6.69.

    I started to think, I might need to diversify my income streams from my writing. Hence why I am contemplating opening up a “merch” store on the blog.

    This might require that I come up with a logo. Maybe a funny catch phrase or two that could go on a sweatshirt or a hoodie. And I gotta have coffee mugs.

    I produced enough shows and ran some theatre companies that I know you never make your money off of ticket sales; it’s the concessions and the mech that really pays for everything. Well, that and grants and a large loyal donor base…

    Point being, maybe my tens and tens of fans are coming for my witty observations and inspired criticisms, but that stuff doesn’t pay the bills, you know.

    First of all, I do need you guys to like and subscribe as that does help me move up in the algorithm.

    Next, I will set up a page on the blog, and get some really funny and catchy shit on t-shirts that we all can wear ironically (or sincerely… they’ll always wonder when reading it…) I haven’t forgotten about the coffee mugs; those will have inspirational crap on it, like “The Only Rule is that There Are No Rules.”

    Right?

    Oh, and I’m open to a refurbished MacBook Air from like a year, as well.

  • Missing Sleep, and Snuggles

    Last night was a rough night of sleep for me. The wife went to be at 10, and I was going to follow her at 10:30, which is normal for us. (She needs a head start, because if we go to bed together, I will fall asleep first, and I will snore which will cause my wife not to sleep, and you can see why I don’t want this to happen.) And right as I was about to get off the couch and go to bed, the kid got up.

    She was sleep walking, and mumbling, and I quickly put her back into bed. This happens from time to time, so no big deal. Other than the fact that I was awake, and had trouble falling asleep. Then the kid did this three more times, and by 1:30 in the morning, I started to wonder if I was ever getting to sleep. We all did, but my total for the night was four hours of sleep.

    To say that I am dragging, well, that’s accurate. I have nodded off twice while trying to write this. Sure, doesn’t help that I am sitting on my bed, but still – nodding off over here. I might do a power nap before I leave to get the kid from school.

    When all of this was going on last night – the kid sleep walking and try to coax her back to bed – I thought about when the kid was a little baby, and getting her fussy little butt to calm down and get some sleep. We had a rocking chair then, and even though we normally got a few hours of sleep during that period in our life, there was an understanding that fussiness with sleep was a temporary problem, she would grow out of it eventually, and also that her being tiny and snuggly was also a limited timed offer. She wouldn’t be a snuggle bug for long.

  • Japanese Curry and the Fun of Trying New Foods

    YouTube is now the devil in my home. I say that because I find myself watching YouTube videos before I head off the bed. It started simple; I would watch rounds of different disc golf tournaments or Bad Movie Bible videos. Then somehow the algorithm figured out that I am curious about making Japanese food.

    The cooking video that Google decided that I needed to see was this guy:

    I respect Kenji’s cooking show and the recipe he put forth. I do draw an exception with putting raisins in curry, or any food that isn’t trail mix. It’s just gross people, always has been, always will.

    Like I said, not sure how I got to this video, but am I glad that I arrived, because now I have to make my own. As luck would have it, the local H-Mart carried the curry powder that Kenji used in his video, so later this week, I will give his recipe a try… except no raisins. Honestly, it’s just a bad idea.


    The great thing is that my kid is game for this. I don’t know how we did this, but we have a kid that is willing to try new foods, no questions asked. When I was her age, what my mom prepared us was pretty middle of the road, Midwestern American food. Nothing crazy or surprising, as most of the recipes my mom followed either came from Betty Crocker, or her mom, or her mother-in-law. Later in life, both of my folks became much more adventurous with food. Probably because they didn’t haver to feed three boys anymore.

    I was lucky enough to make great friends in college, who were from all over the world, or had at least traveled around the world. It was positive peer-pressure, as I didn’t want to look like the unrefined yokel who was afraid to try sushi, or Indian food, or the Mongolian grill, or the new Pho place that opened up down the street from campus. And it also helped that I started dating a gal who was a trained chef, and trying new foods was like her whole thing. And then I married her, so that kind’a sealed my fate.

    Point here, I guess, is that I’m going to try my hand at making Japanese curry. I am very fortunate that I have a wife and kid that encourage me to try my hand at creating these dishes, as they are very open to trying them. Oh, and I have really great friends that forced me out of my culinary comfort zone twenty years ago.

    Just, no raisins please.