Episode 43 - Puddles Everywhere

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The Dachshund is trying Tom’s patience, Ema admits to escalator hesitation, we announce the winner of our Things I Hate/Things I Love Contest, Ema would like to have a soundtrack to her life, we re-discover 'The Wedding Singer,' Our neighbor talks Tom down from the ledge, and we discuss the relative merits of being ‘good’ parents.

Contest winner Dan's Things I Hate/Things I Love:

Love - Sleeping
Hate - Going to bed

Love - Video Games
Hate - Work

Love - Flamboyant Gay Comedians
Hate - Homophobes

Love - AudioBooks
Hate - Illiterate people

Love - Podcasting
Hate - Broken web pages

Music on our show curtesy of Joe Feraci:Click HERE for info on Joe
Links Mentioned:
Love Long and Prosper Podcast
Couplecasts.com
Theater of Your Mind (Tom's stories)

And even though we didn't mention them in this episode, a link to our buddies Jen and Jason's Tucker's Podcast 'Tucker Tales.'

The Unreal OC - Episode 42 - Win

Our good friend Win visits us from the UK as we stumble down memory lane, talk about why British people use the wrong words for things, and laugh until we make ourselves ill.

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The Unreal OC - Episode 41 - No Sympathy

Wanna here what Ema and her sister, Linda say about me when I'm not around? Check out this week's episode!

The lovely ladies take over the show for this episode as Tom’s throat continues to heal. Ema and her sister Linda take this opportunity to talk about Tom behind his back. Special guest star: Robin, Linda’s daughter.

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Sisters are Doin' it For Themselves!

I just finished editing The Unreal OC episode 41 – No Sympathy. Ema and her sister, Linda hosted this one as my throat isn’t up to non-stop talking quite yet. I’m able to either carry on short, quiet conversations, or belt out 4-5 good yells at the kids during any hour period. I’ve found that alternating the yelling and quiet talk not only helps my throat, but also perpetuates that whole manic-daddy persona I’ve been working on for some time. "No Nick, I have no problem with you playing ½ hour more video games today if you promise to sweep. . .SAM, LET GO OF YOUR SISTER’S HAIR OR I’LL MAKE A PERSONAL VISIT TO THE EASTER BUNNY COMPOUND AND HIJACK ALL TRUCKS OF CANDY COMING YOUR WAY!!!. . .the side walkways, as well as the front patio.”

Anyway, I think Ema and Linda did a terrific job on the podcast. If anything, I think the podcast may have turned out a little too good – professional, polished, upbeat, funny as hell. . .like they didn't need me at all. . . Well, find out for yourself when I post the episode this coming Wednesday 3/14.

I’ve got to go do a shot of liquid Tylenol, and make my Sunday morning donut run.

See ya – Tom.

UPPP Journal – 3 Hours Before Surgery

It’s 6:04 AM on the day of my surgery. I’m to report to Long Beach Memorial Medical Center at 8:30 AM for my UPPP (Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty) and Septoplasty. I considered getting only the UPPP done, as one mutilating, invasive surgery per day is usually my limit, but when they told me I could ‘super size’ the order to include the Septoplasty, well. . .I just couldn’t resist!

Yesterday I had to go to the hospital to do all the administrative paperwork, get some blood drawn, and a chest x-ray. The x-ray tech introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Mike, and I’ll be your x-ray technician,” and then asked “Do you know why you are getting a chest x-ray today?” This threw me for a loop. I mean, I assumed this type of info would be on that chart neatly tucked under his arm. But I decided to play along, “Well, I’m going in for throat surgery tomorrow, and I suppose during the procedure if the doctor sees anything deeper down my throat that needs attention, he could use the chest x-ray as a map.” Mike didn’t turn back toward me. He shut the door behind me and asked me to take off my shirt. Now ordinarily, when another man asks me to take off my shirt, it’s after a couple of drinks and maybe some playful eye-batting, but Mike was all business. A few seconds later and it was all over. . .the x-ray, that is. -Jeeeesh.

I was instructed to not eat or drink anything after midnight, and I realized immediately that the poor folks at the Taco Bell all-night drive-thru window may have to clock out and go home early. Phil and Claudette, if you’re reading this, I’ll be back as soon as I can, so keep the Chalupas hot! And that brings up another depressing thought. The lovely dinner that Ema made for me last night was my ‘last supper’ for at least two weeks. I suppose eating less will be a good thing, but eating far less is going to be a shock to my system. You see, my side dishes are bigger than most peoples’ main courses. It’s not unusual for me to have lasagna with a side of tostada grande.

Well, I better go and not drink or eat anything now. I’ll check in tomorrow with the first of several post-surgery updates. Thanks for your time, your patience, and your well-wishes. - Tom

The Unreal OC's FIRST Contest!!!

The Unreal OC is proud to announce our FIRST Listener Contest!!! Granted, the prizes aren't worth all that much money, but hey - we've got a college fund to build! One of the two prizes is a Lil Sucker. See, you place it over the bottom of a beverage container; slam the container on a flat surface, and the Lil Sucker makes a suction grip with the surface so it won’t spill off your RV table, be pulled off by your toddler or knocked over by that drunken guy sitting next to you. The other prize - shipped to you in the same, convenient package, is The Unreal OC sticker - yahooooooo! It's 3" x 5", and will stick to just about anything, but looks especially good right in the center of your dining room table.

You can listen to how we obtained the Lil Sucker in episode 40, which will be posted by Thursday 3/1.

All you have to do is email us at theunrealoc@gmail.com and tell us your own Things I Hate/Things I Love. That’s it – Just type out something you hate, something you love and the reasons for each. The winning entry will be judged on originality and creativity – but don’t let that scare you – we aren’t really good judges of either.

The Drawing will be on April 1st, and the winner will be announced, and his or her entry read during episode #43. So c’mon and send in your Thing You Hate and your Thing You Love – Ema and I look forward to hearing from you.

- Tom

Twitter

How self-important do you have to be to expect anyone else to be interested in what you are doing at any random moment throughout the day? Twitter (www.twitter.com) doesn’t attempt to answer that question; rather it has produced a site which forces you to face the horrible truth yourself. Twitter simply asks the question: “What are you doing?” I don’t know what the appeal of Twitter is yet; even though I find myself tapping out text messages to their server several times per day with such meaningless tidbits as “Eating Yoplait.” or “Pumping Gas.” You can read my entries on the left side of this page, then check back periodically to watch as “Getting ready for bed” magically changes to “Can’t sleep, acid reflux, – reading comic book.” in just 30 short minutes!

There’s a primal need for connectedness amongst us Earthlings. That need combined with the compulsion for voyeurism somehow makes Twitter unquestionably compelling. You can log on and see, not only what your friends are doing, but what famous people like Steve Wozniak and Britney Spears are doing as well. That’s the other draw of Twitter – I’ll call it the Normalization Affect. If someone as successful and smart as Mr. Wozniak types in “Opening a can of peas.” or Britney enters “Checking out of rehab, walking to hair salon.” doesn’t that make you feel just a little better about doing life’s most mundane chores and responsibilities? Doesn’t that somehow raise canned vegetables or abandoning a commitment to new levels – however slightly? Will you ever be able to open another can of peas without thinking about Steve Wozniak?!? I won’t. So see, we are all much more alike than we’d care to think. “The Woz” opens canned food, Britney gets a haircut – we are all of us, as one.

And I, for one, am going to continue to share my tedious, sometimes offensive routines for all to see, because I believe in what Twitter is all about – community, sharing, and keeping tabs on friends, celebrities, and self-important bloggers the World over.

Tom’s Crazy-Ass New Diet Plan

We’ll be talking about this in episode #39 as well because this is exciting news. I may have finally hit upon a sure-fire weight loss plan! As anyone with diet experience can attest, one of the most frustrating and discouraging elements to any diet is hitting the inevitable ‘plateau’ – that point in your diet when weight loss slows down to a point where even your new $300.00 bathroom scale fails to indicate any progress, and you start wondering just how many pints of Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby ice cream you could have bought for what you paid for that over-priced piece of crap. This is the precisely the point where I usually begin fantasizing about sitting in a Jacuzzi filled with nacho cheese or testing the limits of Applebee’s policy on their ‘Endless Steak Fries.’

Well not this time! You see, at exactly three weeks into my current diet plan - the point when my metabolism finally catches on to the fact that I’m putting considerable effort into disposing my adipose, and slows to match the metabolic rate of a drunken tortoise, I’ll be having throat surgery. Now, if all of the horror stories I’ve read about this surgery are true, then I won’t be eating anything resembling normal food for more than a week. This will force my diet to stay on course and punch right through the plateau.

And for those of you worried that I might lose too much weight by taking such drastic measures, look - my fancy electronic bathroom scale shows that I have the fat reserves of a Kodiac bear in November, and with a little math, I figured out that if I stopped eating today, I could live off of nothing but water until May of 2009.

I figure by the time I feel like eating anything beyond popsicles or runny oatmeal, I’ll have evaded all attempts my metabolism has made at discouraging me. I plan on surfacing on the other side of the dreaded diet plateau, having avoided disappointment, personal doubt, and any temptation to don a bib, and start chucking random freezer items into the Fry Daddy. Stay tuned. . .

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty and Septoplasty Scheduled!

Folks if all goes as planned, I’ll be going under the laser-guided, serrated scalpel on Friday March 2^nd. Cards and flowers can be sent to me c/o Forest Lawn Memorial Park - Cypress California.

Now look – Ema tells me I have a tendency to catastrophize a bit, but you all know that she’s a delusional paranoid, so I guess both of us can’t be correct. While you’re digesting that, chomp on this - There's no way I'm going through this procedure without dragging every one of our fine listeners down with me, so one of us will be keeping y’all informed via this here Unblog.

So turn on, tune in, and drop out. . . it's what I'll be doing in just over three weeks. That, and contemplating the words of another brave American who faced tremendous odds with the courage of a thousand generals - Lance Armstrong: "Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

Episode 38 - Bang Bang Muffler

Nobody bamboozles Tom! Disneyland in January, the cereal diet, Ema wants to be a groupie for Chris Isaak. Do you pump for your wife? Tom does.

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Episode 37 - The Whole Tooth

Tom’s wisdom tooth extraction, a new car, Ema rants about obnoxious up-selling, and a pre-dawn dreamlike visit to a flea market

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