We Don't Walk Slow

About Tom Stortz

Enjoying my last few responsibility free years left.

“You’ve given me all your good advice”

I hear the same thing from person after person. “You have to set a limit on how much you drink,” “You live and learn,” “At least you are honest with yourself about having a problem.” All of this is fine and good but none of it really solves anything. I actually think the most realistic things people have said are to stay away from hard alcohol and this most likely won’t be an issue. What I think people don’t understand is that when they say it’s easy to say ‘I’m only going to have 6 drinks tonight and then quit’, this works fine for someone who doesn’t have the disease of alcoholism. When I start drinking, there’s no light-bulb that flashes and says “I’ve had enough.” My mind gets overrun by the alcohol and I’m not making decisions anymore. Most people don’t have this issue because at a certain point their body says no more. Last week when a Dr. asked me how much I had to drink over the weekend because I told him I wasn’t able to eat the next day from drinking so much, I honestly replied I think I probably had the equivalent of 50 drinks in 3 days, which I think is still probably an understatement. So when people give me their advice on what I have to change, I know they are saying what they think is best but the reality is that they are telling me this in their shoes. Yes I am honest with myself and know that I’m pretty much fucking up and there’s no one else to blame but myself. I love the “live and learn” quote because I’ve been binge drinking for almost 10 years now and I am still doing the same stupid shit I’ve done throughout each previous year. There are 12 questions on an AA website that I read and it says if you answer 4 of them with a yes, you probably have a problem. I think I answered 10 of 12 yes and the two I gave as no were probably wishy washy no’s.

So why am I writing this post. If you’re coming to this web address, I assume you have some interest in me. You either like something about the way I operate or you look to me as an interesting human being with unique view points. I write honestly in this blog and I give away inside information about myself because I’m not embarrassed about anything and I like the idea of documenting my life. This past weekend I had to get 13 stitches in my upper lip and some teeth repaired after face planting on the sidewalk from being blackout drunk. I’m going to make 100% recovery aside for some new teeth and some damage to my wallet. I have a problem with alcohol that if I put out in the open, it will probably make me try harder to rectify the issue. I’m not going to write that I’m never going to drink again because that would be a lie. But I will say that I will try to do a better job respecting the drug and overcoming some of my shortcomings. Since I see there’s not a huge amount of people who read this, I assume that most people know who I am on a personal level some way or another. You don’t have to feel bad for me or frown if you ever see me having a drink. I’m a work in progress and will try my best to do a better job. If that means going to the bar with mouth guards and a leash on me, we’ll see what has to be done. So next time you think you are having a bad day, just know that people out there have done some pretty stupid things and that you are not alone. If I didn’t have anyone who was concerned about me, I probably wouldn’t feel the regret I do, but knowing that I’m letting my mom down and not realizing my full potential does get to me. So I share this not to create gossip or to get sympathy but to let everyone know that I’m self aware and will move forward with my greatest effort. I thank everyone who stands by me no matter how much of a tard I can be.

By Tom Stortz|2010-06-15T00:17:25-04:00June 15th, 2010|My Brain|3 Comments

What a day

To mere mortals, I had a better day than most people can dream of. I woke up at 6 yesterday went to the gym, did some weights and ran 2 miles in 11:45. I went to work after that and with one distraction at around 9, I worked efficiently and flawlessly till 5pm. I ran another 5 miles or so when I got home and went to the driving range after that. Then Wagon and I went to Mad River where I made some connections with pretty much the hottest bartender there is. She’s not really on board with the free drinks but I got her to make a mind eraser with Stoli instead of Vlad? for the same price so I’m pretty sure she’ll cave with some more convincing. The bottom line is that I pretty much owned the day. From 6am till I probably between 12 and 1 I was awesome. I sometimes go through these phases of big ego’s and it’s not so much because I think I’m that great, but more so because I take pride in what I can accomplish. It’s like there is me for 95% of the time, but for 5% a Bruce Wayne character shows up. I’m not fighting any crime or helping anyone out but I just take major pride in myself. It’s probably because my bac is .25 right now and I feel invincible but I really think I’m set for big things.

By Tom Stortz|2010-07-08T01:03:12-04:00June 11th, 2010|My Life|0 Comments

King of Anything

I was actually going to make a post about whatever happened to Sara Barailles but I heard a song on the radio the other day that I thought was decent and proves that she’s still around. It’s kind of like the Shee would say Lisa Lobe’s “stay” is a guilty pleasure, I always thought Love Song was a good song. I find this one to be kind of catchy and I’m not embarrassed to admit.

By Tom Stortz|2010-07-08T01:02:54-04:00June 10th, 2010|Music|0 Comments

Times Square and Wall St

Yesterday my dad, Jeff, Sam and I went to NYC to go on a tour of Wall Street and to see Times Square. Pretty much like a field trip for the company. We left at 7:15, felt some traffic, and eventually arrived there at the tour 15 minutes late. Traffic is awful there obviously and I was doing the driving. If I can drive in NYC without any incidents, I’m pretty sure I can drive anywhere in the world. The tour of Wall St was pretty interesting and we saw buildings like the Trump Tower, AIG, Goldman, the Fed, and finally we saw the aftermath of the World Trade Centers. Quote of the day goes to Sam when he was using the video camera and giving commentary when he was shooting the Goldman Sachs building and said “Here’s the Morgan Sachs building, no that’s wrong, here’s the Golden Sachs building.” Pretty brilliant stuff. The tour guide was raving about the book ‘Too Big too Fail’ so I went out and bought on his* recommendation. He also made an interesting comment about the Skyscraper Theory which was saying that whichever nation is building the tallest Skyscraper in the world, bad things are ahead economically.

We ate lunch at some cafe and then drove through Times Square. Personally I wouldn’t recommend driving through as it’s pretty much chaos. We saw the Nasdaq and then stopped in the ESPN zone for a beer. Apparently all the ESPN zones are shutting down, at least that’s what the bartender told us. We left at about 3:30 and took the Lincoln tunnel out of there not hitting too bad of traffic. My dad loves to be a back seat driver always pointing out which lane is moving faster or where I should be turning next. Whenever he does I’m tempted to just put the car in park and just get out and let him drive (which he doesn’t want to do). I’ve been to New York now a couple of times and I always leave with the same thought of it being too crowded and just a tough atmosphere to do things. Parking is outrageous at something like 30 bucks for 2 hours or so. I would never have any urge to move there. I took some pictures with my phone just to verify that I actually went.

The New York Stock Exchange

Here’s AIG’s replica building of it’s building

If you look closely you can see the show being taped in the Nasdaq building

True Blood

Entourage w/ a nice Toy Story 3 ad in there

Mary Poppins & Lion King billboard WTF!

By Tom Stortz|2010-07-08T01:03:23-04:00June 10th, 2010|My Life|0 Comments

Can’t catch a break

I sometimes wish that I just lived in Nebraska, working on a farm and tending to crops to make a living. I really wouldn’t care about making a lot of money but owning some small house, working outside under the beating sun, and raising a family in the simplest matter has it’s appeal. No pressures or complications, just pure and simple lifestyle. A big day would be some farm animal getting loose in the yard. No stock market or daily annoyances from customers, just simple is as simple does. Which brings me to my life and its non stop roller coaster.

Let’s begin with my braindead move at the end of the day on Tuesday. I’m leaving work at 5pm (already bad) and I see this guy in a uniform riding a bike and putting a ticket on a car. My garage leads to a one way street that I literally have been driving up for the past 5 years. Well today of all days I grow some huge balls and pretty much think that this guy isn’t a real officer and that even if he was I’d be able to get away. Well if you can’t tell where this is going… I start up the street and hit the accelerator to get a head start and as I reach the street to make a right, I see this bike flying up the sidewalk and at this point I pretty much know I’m fucked but I’m going to play it off. So I make the turn and the guy wheelies up the sidewalk and cuts me off as I’m stopped at a stop sign for literally 3 seconds. He walks to the window and says you just went up a one way street. I look at him with this dumbfounded look like “yeah no shit, you’re right.” So he writes me a $119.50 ticket but tells me he’s cutting me a break because I should be getting 3 points but he’s letting me slide. Yee-ha. So that puts me at 2 traffic violations in 10 years of driving. Most likely you have no idea how badly this fucks up my life. I speed, rolling stop through stop signs, run red lights, obviously go up one way streets, and now we have a big problem because of this minor blemish on my record. I like to think of the way I drive as a cautious maniac but now I’m moving straight into the cautious, avoid ticket mode.

I did a 12 mile run Tuesday which made me feel better but my system is still whack from the bike race. I’ve hardly eaten anything since then and I felt like I weighed nothing on the run. I was shocked when I weighed in at 172 because I know I haven’t been that slim in a long long time. It’s already past Tuesday and I still am feeling shitty from Sunday. It really comes down to making some life changes and if I have to entertain the idea of moving to Nebraska to make things better, I might be in some trouble. I have 2 weeks of vaca coming up. The first week is with my family down the shore which usually involves some heavy drinking and the 2nd week with college friends who I haven’t seen in a while and this crowd is even heavier drinkers. I know I can hang but the damage I’m going to do to my body may be severe. If anyone knows of some cure all for drinking and not feeling like shit, I may have to purchase a lifetime supply. I’m not proof reading this either because it’s late and I have to wake up early to head down to NYC with my brothers and dad as we are taking a tour of wall-street. Toodle-loo Motherfucka.

By Tom Stortz|2010-07-08T01:00:52-04:00June 9th, 2010|My Life|4 Comments

Let me in

Today I concluded that there is only one character trait that I’m looking for in a female, and that is letting me make my left hand turn when the line up the hill is completely backed up on the right side. Sounds absurd I know, but today some pretty attractive girl stopped completely, hand signaled me to go and then I looked through her windshield and she smiled and waved. I was beside myself that someone could be so enthusiastic and nice about such a simple thing that should be such common practice but goes unnoticed. Now I probably wouldn’t be making this entry if the woman had been 300 lbs with a beard instead of a 21 year old nice looking blonde, but I’ll still delve into why I’m even writing this.

First off, this move shows common sense. There is a long line of people and she isn’t going anywhere so there is no reason not to let someone make a left. One could argue that if I was making a right then I’d be impeding her progress and slowing down everyone behind, essentially budging the line. However, I can’t tell you how many people are aholes about this and make it all about them. Next, since she can see the oncoming traffic, she alerts me that no one is coming and I’m not going to get sideswiped because that would pretty much ruin my day. I would be getting hit on the passenger side though so I’d survive. Another selfless act where she could have been a prick and let me fend for myself. Considering I’ve been doing this drive for 2+ years now you’d think that I wouldn’t be awestruck by this act but I honestly can’t remember a time where as I was passing by and gave a wave of gratitude, that it was actually returned with a “no problem” wave and a smile that at 7am is certainly not expected and nevertheless looking as fine as it did. So in those 5 seconds of driving, I learned enough about this person that I found my dream girl. Selfless, pretty, hot shades (I actually don’t understand the shades and driving but she looked good so it’s OK), nice, drove a jeep cherokee, no guy in the passenger seat, and a beautiful smile with perfect teeth. The fact that I don’t know anything else about her is fine because I honestly think that’s all I need. I’m not really sure if that would make me shallow or deep. Shallow in the sense that she was a hot blonde and I’m making up my mind in 5 seconds that I would marry her on the spot or deep because if I believe she had these qualities I could reason in my mind that she’s the only one I’d need.

I’m well aware that this is a far reaching and pretty out there post but the more I go through life the way people handle the small things tell a much bigger story about themselves. So when I equate these small acts of kindness to a telling story about her personality, I do believe what I write is true. An example, I have a friend who I owed 3 dollars to. Now it’s only 3 dollars and no one would say anything if I didn’t do anything at all, but the process of me going up to him and saying “here’s the 3 dollars I owe you,” means more than probably any amount of money because it’s the right thing to do. People downplay little stupid things like this but they really are the fundamentals of trust, virtues, and honesty. I feel like Maximus for that last line. I also think I should make clear that “I’m no angel” (by Greg Allman and actually a pretty good song) and have flaws just like every other human but I certainly don’t live obliviously and I try my best to become a human being that I hope people will say, “yeah he used to get way too fucked up and party way too hard but he was honest, reliable, and wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone but himself.” (I also have the backs of my friends so I probably would hurt someone else if it came to it). Alright I’m done preaching my value system.

If the girl who was in front of 200 Green Lane at about 7:17am today reads this, I’ll be leaving the driveway at the same time everyday for the next year to propose.

By Tom Stortz|2010-06-08T09:01:39-04:00June 8th, 2010|My Brain, My Life|0 Comments

Bike Race and Chaos

So this has been one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time. Pretty much the most fun you can have without getting laid. I have shout outs, call outs and thank yous galore for the people involved to make this weekend awesome. I tried something a bit different this weekend to make things turn out better and that was to start drinking later. On Friday I made it to 8:15 before consuming any alcohol and 7:15 on Saturday. This led to me being functional for the majority of the weekend and remembering most things. I scored some girls number on Friday night, who I said I would take on a date but I’m considering otherwise at no fault of her own. I really wonder what she’s thinking though because I remember asking her name at least 10 times and when she asked me if I knew it I had no idea. I remember telling her I loved her glasses and I think that’s what did it.

We had a weak game in softball on Saturday because the other team was only playing two outfielders. I give Evan some props for standing in there against me pitching overhand which abruptly ended when I beaned him in the back. I personally would never stand in there with me throwing hard. Saturday night was fun too as we had a plethora of siblings over. We got a keg and everything worked out fine. After a couple of shots of Yager with DB and many many games of flip cup I made it to the bar but was pretty wasted. I also want to note that I lost 1v1 vs Kat but beat Jill so I’m looking for a rematch because I don’t like losing to girls. I had a girl sleep in my bed on Saturday but I’m going to be completely honest and say that I have no idea how she got there.

Sunday was really the day of choice though as it was the Manayunk bike race. I’m actually smarter than most people think surprisingly. I collected 24 bike race tickets prior to the bike race because the bartenders have a quota so they are looking to sell the tickets for drink deals. I specifically sent my favorite bartender this link so she can understand my appreciation of her service. If you read this you are easily one of the nicest people I’ve met and I thank you for feeding my desire for alcohol. My thought in the morning was that I might have some difficulty getting rid of that many bike race tickets but much to my surprise, this was not the case. Big props to Wagon for helping me sell the tickets and I think we collected about 200+ dollars for them all. I really don’t feel bad about it at all because I’ve literally given Mad River thousands upon thousands of dollars and I have to be one of the best customers. It’s kind of like Cheers where everybody “knows your name.” There’s one bartender there who gets really annoyed with me because I always ask her the same questions but I this point I think she understands it’s kind of a joke and she’s starting to give in to my likability. My favorite part of selling the tickets was Chad and I walking up to some people and them being really skeptical about the deal and Chad was just like “fuck you, we’ll sell them to someone else” and the guy instantly caved. So that part of the day was a success.

When I woke up on Sunday I had about 4 beers before I left to go to Mad River but when I got there I wasn’t in my best drinking shape but that changed after a few hours. Once we found the best bartender the Mind Erasers occurred and shit started to get out of control. I literally must have grinded on about 10 different girls who I pretty much didn’t give an option to saying no. There were tons of hot girls there and I think I have to agree with Chad and say that they should have that every Sunday cause I would be there every time. I have a couple of random numbers that I don’t really remember getting but I’ll probably give them a call to see what I was up to. I have two bbm’s from Jkash, one that says “Where are you” and then another one 10 minutes later that says “Where the fuck are you” so I would think it was probably around 7:30ish that I went back to Green lane. Major shout out to Jkash who was my right hand man all day and drinking like a champ. At night, I was definitely close to passed out mode but I still drank a beer just in spite of Mallory who secretly loves me even though she acts otherwise. I woke up at 3:30am on the couch and feeling like death. I went to my bed and when I woke up at 7:00 today. I was hurting but not feeling horrible. I actually had a physical scheduled today and I’m 5-11 and 172 pounds which is reasonably fit and I’m just hoping all the alcohol today doesn’t skew the blood test results. The nurse told me to put on a gown and I was like no fucking way am I wearing this piece of shit gown. That pretty much concludes what I went through over the past couple days.

By Tom Stortz|2010-08-11T15:49:46-04:00June 7th, 2010|My Life|0 Comments

Movies and Such

I’ve watched 2 movies that I actually enjoyed. Considering I don’t think I’ve been to the movie theater since Superbad, I pretty much just bottom feed the on demand like a prawn. If you understand that reference you can probably guess that one of the movies I recently watched was district 9. As much as I find these alien movies kind of off the wall, I was pretty intrigued the whole way through. My only question was that if the aliens had all this amazing technology, why weren’t they using it? I’ll assume the answer is because the humans wouldn’t let them? The ending was also a bit peculiar but all in all I was entertained by the movie even though I don’t think the story was spectacular. I also watched Fargo which was very entertaining. I sometimes just scan the old demand looking for movies that I’ve heard were good but never got a chance to see and this was one. The info on it had it labeled as an uproariously funny comedy but I think someone either got confused or was pulling a fast one. It was entertaining throughout though and I would recommend it. They had two actors who were married and they way they acted together made me think that “that is how a marriage is supposed to be.” They were actually nice to each other and legitimately liked one another which is far too uncommon nowadays. It’s really slim pickings on demand though and I’m going to have to start finding new means of entertainment.

I just want to throw a couple random thoughts out there. I don’t really understand the concept of walking for exercise. Now obviously it’s better than doing nothing but I know that when I walk a golf course I don’t really think of it as exercise. I guess I just think people should put forth some effort when they are exercising or else it’s … not.

Pooping in Port-a-potties has to be one of the grossest things out there. I can’t bring myself to do so. It stinks to high hell and the fact that other peoples feces are sitting directly beneath me grosses me out. I would hold it in 99% of the situations where I would ever have to shit in a portapotty. I will however take a piss if there are a ton of people around and I couldn’t find somewhere to go outside.

By Tom Stortz|2013-03-15T17:19:05-04:00June 4th, 2010|Movies|0 Comments

The Lean

Evan and Adam vehemently disagreed with my opinion on driving without looking over your shoulder to change lanes. I will use this entry to refute their argument and possibly educate anyone else who doesn’t know how to drive properly. The first thing to do when driving is to set your seat so that you aren’t too far or too close to the wheel. You also don’t want to be slumped to low in the seat or too high so your head is touching the roof. Once you are comfortably seated, the side view mirrors should be adjusted so that in your normal sitting position you can just see the body of your car in the inner part of the mirrors. Meaning you can see everything to the side of the body of your car in the mirrors. Now, their argument was that there are blind spots and this is why you have to look over your shoulder. This is where the lean comes in. Whenever you are switching lanes, you lean forward and view your blind spot, which in turn, isn’t a blind spot anymore. I would be completely comfortable driving without a rear view as long as I had my side views. I still stand by my original statement and that only bad drivers need to look over their shoulders because there are virtually no blind spots with coupes and sedans. One must learn the lean.

By Tom Stortz|2010-07-08T01:02:44-04:00June 3rd, 2010|My Brain|1 Comment

Back on Schedule

I was surprised to see that I had at least 30 entries in both March and April compared to a mere 18 in May. I’m not sure if it was my lack of motivation in May or my devotion to this in the other months. Anyways, I’m going to try to get back on track here a little bit. What that means is that I’m going to start having to carry a pen with me and write things down that I think are worthy to write about. I think I was in a “funk” throughout the month of May though which led to sub par entries and a down view on life. I really do believe that your character is more so defined by how you handle the downswings in life. I’m staring at two weeks of vacation though at the end of this month and it’s been a while since I’ve actually had more than just a couple days of relaxing and enjoying life. I feel somewhat wrong in saying this as I probably have more flexibility in my job than most. Not to mention that I’m born into the best country and have all the opportunities in front of me to go along with good health and good friends. Aside from that though I’m going to spin this entry off into some randomness that I find in my day to day.

I’ve wrote this before but I listen pretty closely to the words that people use. The way people speak gives away a good deal about what their brain is processing. Not only do I listen to others speak, but I notice the way my own brain handles data. Lately, I’ve been using the word ridiculous to describe things. If something amazing happens or if something comical goes down. The word can be used pretty often for a number of different occasions. Falling into this type of trend makes me feel like a tard because I take it as my brain is too dumb to come up with any other words than ones I’m already using. It portrays a lack of thought. So whenever I notice myself doing this I go to the Thesaurus and look up the word. Now things can be outrageous, preposterous, or shocking. The problem with the Thesaurus though is that it doesn’t give any good slang phrases like I would expect from Urban Dictionary. Where is the Urban Thesaurus? (I just looked it up and “a book synonymous with making you sound cooler instead of just smarter.”) So now that this is behind me I’m hoping to move on with a fresh start from the ridiculous period.

Everyone has an opinion on how to do things. Whether it be brushing your teeth, shaving your face, or trimming your pubes, everyone has their own way. Just because I think it’s better to do it one way doesn’t necessarily mean my way is better than yours. But there are concepts in this world that some people are just so oblivious to that I find it important once in a while to point out.

I don’t find the happy trail a good look. Unless you are one hairy ass gorilla where there is no discrepancy from one part of your body to the other, a happy trail looks unkempt and foolish. I’ve also read that some girls like hairy guys so I can see where I may be off base here.

You are stupid for not going to the dentist. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met that refuse to go to the dentist and they all say the same thing, “I brush my teeth really hard and I don’t have any problems.” Last time I checked it’s pretty difficult to see the enamel in your gums corroding away from your lack of flossing in the mirror. This goes hand in hand with the doctor as well. I told my mom I wanted to get a blood test and she said something to the effect, why would you get a blood test if you feel fine. To which I retort, “how do I know I’m fine unless I get a blood test.”

Body gel blows regular soap out of the water. I feel like a neanderthal using bar soap. I suppose soap is supposed to kill bacteria but I just get the feeling it lives on top and turns into mold and then you wash yourself with nasty ass germs. I will never take a bath or use bar soap ever again. This is really random but the hot tub scene in both Baseketball and Out Cold with Victoria Silvstedt playmate of the year just popped in my head.

Reading magazines that you haven’t bought yet is wrong. I saw a girl take a magazine from the front counter and park herself there while she skimmed all the pages. Now if you are in line waiting to be checked out, I feel it’s perfectly acceptable to skim through the magazine and see if there is any hot ass in those celeb magazines. However, I could tell that this girl had no intention of buying the magazine and was treating the CVS like a library (I incorrectly wrote pharmacy the first time).

Switching lanes in heavy traffic is one of the most pointless things ever. If you think you are getting further ahead by switching in and out, you are creating chaos and accomplishing nothing. I also find it unbearable watching people switch lanes by looking over their shoulder. Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to take your eyes off the road to look over your shoulder driving at 65 mph? The cell phone in the car is also just as worrisome. I’ve been accident free all my life but I have indeed typed while driving and there is no doubt this is asking for trouble.

Littering and not picking up after yourself should really be instilled into society. Severe penalties should be given out for both. Having the mindset that you don’t have to clean up after yourself and essentially handing the burden to someone else because you are too selfish and lazy to do it yourself is a surefire way to bother people while displaying your lack of manners in the process. I remember I was in a McDonald’s in Canada and everyone would just walk out of the restaurant and leave all their trash on the table. It was like entering Alice’s wonderland where nothing made sense. I don’t even preach spic and span but just some order and respect go a long way.

My opinion on whether things are good or not has been improving with age. If you ever notice the things that I think are good, are almost always highly acclaimed. So you could easily make the point that I only like things that other people already tell me are good. I just would like to make clear that I started watching True Blood from the beginning. No one said anything about the show, I gave it a chance and people jumped aboard and now everyone rants and raves about it. I watched the pilot of Californication and said “I think this show is about a 6, but they had multiple sex scenes and boobs aplenty so I gave it an 8” and now look where it is. I even watched the pilot of Glee before it was even produced and I blogged about it, stating that it had potential. Now the press is absolutely raving about the show and it’s already picked up for a 3rd season. I watched the movie Observe and Report with Seth Rogan and I can tell you that it was an absolutely terrible movie. Aside from the back and forth Fuck You’s 22 minutes into the movie, this was dark, moronic plot and absurdly dumb. I would have given it 25 percent based on Rotten Tomatoes and they had it at 50. I think I’d actually have a really good time being a critic but I think my vocab and writing skills are too weak to really make anything of it.

I think the fact that I can write this much and get no gratification at all from it makes me wonder why I still do. The crowd is meek, the money is none, the task tedious. I just think one of these days something will come from it. I have no idea what and don’t really expect much, but it isn’t all for naught.

By Tom Stortz|2010-08-11T15:48:54-04:00June 2nd, 2010|My Brain|0 Comments