Andyland, USA

It was glorious. It was beautiful. I’d even go so far as to say that the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich that I had constructed for myself that morning was damned near being the food of the Gods. Everything was perfect. From the crisp, toasted homemade 15 grain bread, to the soft set eggs, and the ooze of the cheese. I sat myself down at the table, took a moment to be grateful to be alive, and I dug in. The first bite was sheer heaven, I swore I heard “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” by Barry White start to play. Right as my breakfast moment of nirvana reached its zenith, is also when my phone rang. I was ready to ignore it, “let’s not ruin this with words” I thought. My eyes glanced at the screen, and discovered that it was my aunt calling. Foolishly, I set my sandwich down, and answered. “How quickly could you bring over as much ice as possible?” is what my Aunt said as soon as I slid to answer. “Lightning ran in on my fridge last night, it’s fried, and every...

Why The Addams Family? Why not!? Next weekend, my very dear friend Amanda is getting married. As the countdown clicked on and the stress levels rose, we would talk about all that has to be done before the ceremony. You're practically working right until the moment you say “I do”. Amanda talked to me of the rush of organization, showers, and general madness of dealing with people. One area of particular stress for Amanda, was writing the vows. This led my brain to thinking. Amanda's wedding is the kick off of a late summer to fall wedding season for me, I have four to attend. So I thought as a service to my friends, and those of you with your own wedding worries on your mind. I've taken it upon myself to create some vows that you are more than welcome to use for your own wedding. These are all gender neutral, so feel free to adapt them to suit your needs however you see fit. The vows below are perfect for any wedding or commitment ceremony. You even have my...

I enjoy Facebook, but I do it in my own way. For one thing, I try to not be political on my page. Sure, I like posts by my like minded friends, but I'm not that interested—most of the time—in shoving my views on anyone when it comes to politics. Movies and music? Yes. What do you mean you don't know who Harry Nilsson is? Let me send you this link to his amazingness on YouTube. But there are two things in particular that I've seen noticing on the Book of Face that has been driving me crazy. There's the not new to anyone phenomenon of people having no clue how in the hell to use the English language. I don't expect everyone to write with the skill of a poet, but for heaven's sake, some people just need to learn about the wonders of a comma. Yes, Virginia, there are posts on Facebook that look like this: “me and smithy went down to grunky holler and got us a nice boat and a fished for several hours and it was good and we had a great time and I love Hoo...

I don't really think of myself as a morning person. To me a morning person is someone who wakes up at six AM. Full of life, singing a song from a Disney movie while birds fly around them and prepare their breakfast. I do not wake up like this. I wake up around 7:45, and once my brain accepts that we are actually awake, I'll lie there for a while and ponder things. Mostly I just ponder how comfortable my bed is, but sometimes it's other things. This morning it was the lovely lass I found myself on a date with, who told me “dating is fine, I'm not looking for a relationship right now”. Then two days later she's in a relationship with a guy who looks like he was kicked out of Mumford and Sons. I rise. Following that is a part of my morning that I've had for almost as long as I've been alive. My “morning zen” time. My zen comes in the form of an hour of music before I do anything. Before breakfast, before working out (I admit it, Wii Fit), before che...

I want to take a second and take stock before we launch into this week's column. For the past four weeks I've been taking you all on a little journey alongside a group of friends and I all watching and commenting over movies together. The movies are on Netflix, the comments are on Facebook. I've called it Andy's Film Club, and this will be the last week that I discuss what we've been watching in these pages. We're still gonna be watching movies, because it's quite a bit of fun, however I won't be writing about it here. Perhaps from the time to time I will, but I doubt it'll be a regular feature. In other words, things return to normal next week. The last film the movie group watched is a favorite of mine, and one that I have nothing but high regard for. 1963's “Charade” directed by Stanley Donen, and staring the oh so perfect combination of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Charade has often been called “The best Hitchcock movie Hitchc...