The Days Get Longer While The Years Get Shorter

The Year in Review

I gained some weight. LMJ learned to walk and talk, and became a fully functional rampaging terror. An African-American, black, Negro, colored fellow was elected President of the United States. Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska was the first woman to run on a Republican Presidential ticket. The economy crashed because of collateralized debt obligations. Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois has chrome plated, grapefruit sized nuts. The Large Hedron Collider almost created an artificial black hole and nearly destroyed the universe. My parents got old. My sister moved to Kansas. We went to Chicago and discovered Portillos. Britney Spears made a comeback. We bought a Nintendo Wii. I’ve watched more Sesame Street this year than I thought I would in my lifetime. There was a tropical storm in the Pacific named after me. Unfortunately it never intensified into a typhoon and killed no one. I added swimming to my workout cycle. Fidel Castro stepped down and turned Cuba over to his brother – estos cabrones. We bought a Panini press, which helped lead to the first sentence in this post. I joined Facebook. That's all I can remember. Much better post than this one

Xmas Shopping Stuff and Kung Fu Treachery

This is my first real Christmas as a dad. Last year LMJ was sort of fascinated with the wrapping paper, but that’s about it. This year she’s noticed that there’s a tree in the house and stuff inside the wrapping paper. I built a tricycle for her which wasn’t too bad. The instructions didn’t have many words, just diagrams, and I had to figure out which order things went together. By the time I got frustrated I was 85% done. I went low key on the shopping because no one needs anymore crap. I know the gifts I got will be enjoyed by the recipients. There was a hot Israeli chick that almost got me to buy some Dead Sea manicure sets. I was making a B-line for the Godiva kiosk, which I was surprised was even open at 8:30 in the morning, when Roni jumped in front of me and asked, “Can I ask you a question?” She was tall, dark, and mysterious with a desert accent. I meant to say, “Sorry, but I’m in a hurry.” What came out was, “You can ask me anything you want.” Dammit! I knew I had just wasted at least 5 minutes of my life. She went into her sales pitch about how she was from Israel and this four sided nail buffer and assorted polishes made with salt from the Dead Sea would be the greatest gift ever for the woman in my life. She grabbed my hand and started buffing my thumbnail. Opportunity knocked and I opened the door. “Hey, my wife already has one of these,” which is true, and I took the buffer from Roni and showed her how this side scuffs the nail to release the natural oils, and this side buffs it to a nice shine, blah blah blah. “But thanks anyway, Roni, happy Hanukkah.” Boom, I was out of there. I got my chocolate and was on my way. If you’re not a heterosexual male you have no concept of the mental discipline this took. This is the type of situation that got Sarah Palin the Vice Presidential nomination. John Edwards would have spent $50 thousand on Dead Sea nail stuff. This was remembering the lyrics to a song while a different song is playing. I’m a ninja

Add Your Own Captions

My favorite thing about W is that he's a half way decent athlete. What would Obama have done? I hope he would have come over the podium and whipped dude's ass. Biden would have taken both loafers right between the eyes. McCain would have gutted the reporter and hanged him from the ceiling with his own intestines. Palin would have shot both shoes out of the air and admonished the reporter, "I didn't yell pull." Hillary Clinton would have stopped the shoes in midair with the force and said, "The ability to hurl footwear is insignificant next to the power of the force." Bill Clinton would have ducked like W, but would have apologized to the reporter, "I'm sorry. I didn't know she was your wife".

'09 Strategy

I was looking at some old posts of mine, back when I wrote about exercise and pain, looking for a list of my fitness goals. I fell short of my race goal of ten. I only ran eight – six if you count the Tour de Pain as one race – but I was closer than I thought I was. I’ve gained eight pounds, but I thought I’d gained twenty-eight. I was already getting fat before the end of last year, and I’m already dropping it before the beginning of next year. Not failing horribly has inspired me to get a head start. I’m training for the River Run and I’m scheduling the other nine races now. That way they’ll be on my calendar and I can forget about them until Outlook reminds me. Then I can moan and groan about how much I hate to run. I’m changing one ridiculous goal to something more reasonable. I will never finish the River Run in under an hour – that’s stupid. I’m not running a 15k at a 6 ½ minute mile pace. Do I look like I’m from Kenya? An hour and a half is much more reasonable. It’s not that the hour pace is physically impossible, but it would require intense interval training, and interval training hurts- a lot. I’ve added it to my regimen once a week and it’s zero fun. I don’t look forward to lung burn the same way I do muscle burn. Muscle burn creeps up in a gradual way, increasing in intensity with each rep. It’s weakness leaving the body. Lung burn kicks in instantly as soon as the body starts burning sugar, and there’s no warning. It’s life leaving the body. Everything is exhilarating and then it’s excruciating a step later. I don’t know how long interval training will be in the regimen, but right now it’s the only actual running I’m doing. I’m swimming and doing the elliptical machine for my calorie burning and muscle recovery. Long runs will only be added when I have a race coming up, and only so I can get used to a comfortable pace. I’m done tearing up my feet, ankles, and knees for no reason. Actually, it’s has more to do with me being cheap. I don’t care about my body; it heals, but shoes are expensive. I don’t know if I’m going to become that guy who carries his running shoes to the start line, but it wouldn’t surprise me. I can tell that I’m getting into a routine because I hate everyone at the gym. I’m finishing ’08 strong both mentally and physically.

I'm Not Racist. You're Racist for Thinking I'm Racist

I was dragged to Wal-Mart last night by my wife. It was just how I remembered it: a congregation of the dregs of humanity. I always want a gun, but the Wal-Mart parking lot was the first time in a long time that I felt I might need one. It was six-thirty on a Sunday night so, of course, Wal-Mart was jam packed. When we got out of the car, I felt like I was in a scene from The Wire, and I realized I’ve insulated myself from the real world and real people’s problems. I see lots of different colors of people in my daily life, but if I had to guess, 98% of them have college degrees, and are more concerned about global warming than buying beer with a WIC check. I’ve become a limousine liberal. I’m Barbara Streisand. I don’t want to come in contact with the disenfranchised. I just want to tell them how to live. We found the candy MJ wanted and were in the less than 20 items express line behind a Cambodian refugee. I don’t know if he was Cambodian; I didn’t see a passport or anything, but I’m almost certain he was a refugee. I’m also pretty sure he handed the East Indian clerk a counterfeit sawbuck. MJ doesn’t do well in crowds or with inefficiency, yet she wanted to go to Wal-Mart. The refugee had a penny coming back to him, and the clerk was out of pennies. MJ offered one up, having come back to her senses about being in Wal-Mart, to speed things along. The refugee didn’t make eye contact with anyone because he’s part of a counterfeiting ring, but the clerk acted like MJ was offering up one of her kidneys. As we were walking out, and the clerk was asking MJ for her name so he could nominate her for the Nobel Peace Prize, MJ told me I was right about not wanting to go to Wal-Mart. I didn’t have a voice recorder to catch the rare moment, but I bet Wal-Mart had one cheap.

Possibly the Greatest Thing Ever

This is the last political post of the year. I promise.

Maybe It's Me

We had an interesting Thanksgiving holiday. I ate way too much. I didn’t drink nearly enough. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The Seminoles suck. My fantasy football team sucks. And the Jaguars were kind enough not to play. We had a yard sale and people bought our crap. I’m always surprised that one man’s trash really is another man’s treasure. I wouldn’t have come up with a nickel for anything we were selling, but MJ and CG made a killing. Yard/Garage “saleing” is a sport. People have different strategies for buying garbage. Some like to show up early, even before the sun comes up, well before the listed start time. Some people like to aggressively haggle, because it’s ridiculous to pay a dollar for a broken CD player when it can not play music for you for 75 cents. I wasn’t “on duty” for any of these people, which is probably a good thing. I don’t think they would have liked my negotiating style. I grew up in a small town called Get-the-f**k-outta-here. There were deals to be had, especially on the big ticket items. We got rid of sold a treadmill, a table saw, and a really good ladder. We also had an arms dealer moment. We sold some of LMJ’s old clothes to both sides of a nasty divorce. The grandpa is a jackass and the grandmother decided to play for the other team after the divorce – apparently that’s how much of a jackass Gramps is. We got paid. What they do with those clothes is their business. Our across the street neighbor is writing a memoir about his trip(s) through Ireland because Frank McCourt is a little bit dour and the Irish people need a more uplifting story. I’m trying really, really, REALLY hard to like this guy, but damn. Okay buddy, you go ahead and fix Irish literature. I’m sure your two weeks there on a bike trip will give you all the insight you need into the Irish psyche to change how they see a thousand years of their own history. If I give him a copy of Oliver Twist maybe he’ll be able to put a happy spin on the English orphanage experience. How do people think like this? Well, I spent a fortnight here (you people say that right?). Let me give you MY take on how you should feel about your country. Dude doesn’t even drink Guinness.

You Have Something On Your Shoe

I'm trying to lose twenty pounds before the holiday season so I can put in all back on during the holiday season. I'm down five in seven days due in large part to my long walks with LMJ. We walk a five mile course - I walk, she rides in the stroller - that takes between an hour and fifteen minutes and an hour and a half. We were three miles in yesterday, and as far from home as we get, when she decided it was time to get out of the stroller. We were walking around Memorial Park, so I figured why not let her run around. It will tire her out and make bedtime much easier. Side Note: Ultimately, this plan is not going to work. Her body is going to get used to the activity, and she's going to stop sleeping all together. I've seen it happen with puppies. I released the beast into the wild where she managed to find each and every fire ant bed in record time. She was frustrated that I wouldn't let her scoop up hand fulls of ant bed, and tried to head fake me a few times. I think it would have been a good instructional device, "What'd we learn?", but I don't think that MJ would agree, and I also don't think I would have an acceptable answer for the questions: Why does the baby have ant bites all over her hands? Why did you let her scoop up hand fulls of ant beds? and How stupid are you? If I responded, "I bet she won't do it again," there's a good chance I would be physically attacked. LMJ was having fun running around and chasing anything that caught her eye. I had my running watch on and she covered a full quarter mile, which is pretty far for someone 2'8". When she gets tired she sits down wherever she is. She did and that's when I saw it, then I said it. There was canine scat on her shoe. Fortunately, I saw it before she saw it and took her shoes off as quickly as I could. I put her back in the stroller and found a napkin and wiped as much poop off of her shoe as I could. Then I started thinking about hunting down the jackass that didn't curb his dog, and beating him to death with LMJ's filthy shoe. Side Note: It is sooooo hard for me not to curse in front of my little girl, but I bit my tongue. As we were walking home I became more phlegmatic about the shoe dooky, and chalked it up to a baby girl first. Too bad I didn't take any pictures. Aww, remember when she stepped in her first steaming pile? Oh how time flies.

Sometimes They Kill Their Masters or The Lesson of the Golem

I hope this will be the last post about politics for a while. The Republicans are turning on their tulip. McCain advisors are going on the record blaming Sarah Palin and her team for costing them the election. John McCain had a sober quote about how campaigns are viewed by history,

“Every book I’ve read about a campaign is that the one that won, it was a perfect and beautifully run campaign with geniuses running it and incredible messaging, etc. And always the one that lost, ‘Oh, completely screwed up, too much infighting, bad people, etc.’ So if I win, I believe that historians will say, ‘Way to go, he fine-tuned that campaign, and he got the right people in the right place and as the campaign grew, he gave them more responsibility.’ If I lose,” people will say, “‘That campaign, always in disarray.’ ”

None of this changes the fact that they gave Attila her first taste of the limelight, and now they’re trying to tell her she can’t have any more. Didn’t they learn anything from Arnold Schwarzenegger? The Republican powers-that-be are a bunch of Ivy League, brie eating, chardonnay sippers whose every accomplishment began with, “Daddy may I have…” While Sarah Palin rose to be governor of Alaska and candidate for VP of the United States basically by herself. They may be willing to have someone stabbed in the back, but she is willing to personally, probably literally, stab someone in the front. She’s not as smart as Arnold, but she’s every bit as focused and ambitious. This country didn’t rise to greatness because we’re smarter than anyone else. It rose to greatness through determination and being in the right place at the right time. We have a lot more Joe Kennedys than Thomas Edisons. Ronald Reagan became the Great Communicator by saying nothing better than anyone else before him. He was also the butt of every joke after his run for President in 1968. What happened twelve years later? Sarah Palin is 44. She has a full twenty years to learn that Africa is a continent and not a country, and that Australia, through the power of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is both. Dutch was nice and didn’t hold a grudge against the Republicans that laughed at him, but I wouldn’t count on the Barracuda doing the same. I heard payback is hockey mom.

Uh-Oh

The New World Order without Hulk Hogan

Barack Obama was just elected President of the United States, and right now I’m thinking about LMJ in 15 years when she says, “so”, because it won’t be a big deal to her. “Yeah he was black. So is President Rice.” This is a “Where were you when,” moment in history. I was in my house on Oak Street in my PJ's. It’s the first good historical moment that I’ve personally experienced. I remember Ronald Reagan getting shot. I remember the Challenger exploding. I remember 9/11. Strangely, I feel pretty much the same way tonight that I did when the other events happened, with the exception of 9/11, which my brain couldn’t process. I remember Eddie Murphy joking about Jesse Jackson running – literally and figuratively – in 1984, worrying about someone shooting him if he won. I don’t worry about that with President Obama – PRESIDENT OBAMA (technically President Elect but right now it feels good to write it). Strangely enough, President Bush’s (W minus 75 days) draconian agenda is going to keep President Obama safe. Wire tapping Middle America is no longer just easy, it’s also legal. I don’t think the right wing Rambo wannabes thinking about gearing up to take the country back really have the stomach for a stay at Fort Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Those t-shirts aren’t so funny anymore are they Rush Limbaugh fan? I’ll put my money on the Secret Service. Catch one Neo-Nazi; you catch ‘em all. When I think about it, W made all of this possible. If he wasn’t the worst President since Ulysses S. Grant there is no way Joe Sixpack would vote for a non-white candidate. If W had gotten 9/11 right, or the economy right, or Katrina right, or The War on Terror right, or education right John McCain would be President. Even if he ran the ridiculous campaign that he ran.

The celebrating is over. You have 175 days (W minus 75 then your first 100)to get your s**t straight Mr. President Elect. Barack Obama is not going to be a good President. He’s either going to be FDR – we hope – or Jimmy Carter – we hope not.

A few pieces of advice:

· KEEP HILARY CLINTON OUT OF THE LINE OF SUCCESSION AT ALL COSTS.
· Unite the country. Reach out to the Republicans in Congress and make sure their minority voice is considered.
· Stop running for office and govern

Because I will vote for Mitt Romney in 2012 if you suck.

Election Day!

BE CAREFUL WHO YOU VOTE FOR!!!

The Consortium

We took LMJ for some proto-trick-or-treating Halloween night. She seemed to enjoy taking candy out of the bowl and putting it in her purse – more about the journey than the destination. She was a little bit fussy, and I don’t know if it was because we were getting close to her bedtime, or if there were too many other children around sucking up attention from the community. MJ and I did some parenting networking, which was long overdue. We met a few new families from down the block and our across the street neighbors. They all have children, and only one of them is over five. Fifteen years in and our neighborhood is turning into a neighborhood. I used to hate all my neighbors, but digging in like a tick has paid off, and now I don’t hate them anymore. I even wrote about it on here, but I’m far too lazy to go find it. It’s easier to hate people when you just stare at them out of a window. The networking is important because there are access points in all four directions – there’s water to the south and east, and ghetto to the north and west. If we want to keep as many of our children as possible alive then we, as a neighborhood, need to share intel and back each other up. We need to work together to keep the 2700 block as safe as we can: Putting up stop signs and gates to enter, chipping in with shovels and alibis if a boyfriend’s corpse needs to be disposed of because he brought a daughter home late without an acceptable excuse. Looking out for one another so no one gets caught in a conversation with the block drunk – yes we have our own Otis – etc. We’ll run it like the Mob. We’ll be the literal Five Families. I have to go. I need to get a pinstripe suit.

I Voted Today

Semper Fidelis

The family went to the airshow Sunday. It FREAKING rocked. The sound of fighter planes is awesome - old school wrath of God definition. This is the first one we’ve been to since the War on Terror began, and it made me feel differently than the simple carnival the airshow was when we weren’t at war. Back then it was easy to push aside the fact that these are killing machines, and see them as very loud acrobats. Sunday, I was a ball of emotion. I was excited by the precision of what the Blue Angels were doing, and comforted that these guys’ protect our ground forces, making sure more of our soldiers come home. At the same time I imagined how terrifying and frustrating the constant roar of these jets must be when you’re on the other side.

I looked around a lot. I saw a microcosm of what I was just talking about in the Marines playing usher, not letting anyone into certain areas of the flight line. One of them was 19. He’s been a marine for a grand total of seven months. It’s physically impossible for anyone to look more like a Midwestern farm boy than Lance Corporal McLaughlin did. He was talking to some of the crowd about what it’s like to be in the Marines, sounding like the doofus 19 year old kid that he is – just be where you’re ‘sposed to be when your ‘sposed to be there, and it’s not that hard. Then someone tried to ignore the big orange cones, the young Marine, and his side arm, and walk across the restricted area. In the space of a breath John Boy disappeared and Corporal McLaughlin showed up leaving no doubt that walking into the restricted area was an actual rule and not just a guideline. On the one hand I wish this kid could be in college, getting drunk and chasing girls, without the pressure of knowing he might be called on to kill or be killed on a whim. On the other hand that’s what he does, and I’m sure he finds time to chase girls. I’ve known only a handful of Marines, but they all agree it’s the best thing they’ve ever done. At the end of the show I wished that I had joined the Marines. But then I remembered that being where I’m ‘sposed to be when I’m ‘sposed to be there has never really been my thing. Thank God for the fighting men and women of the US Armed Forces. If I had to defend the country when would I find time to blog?

Sarah, Sarah, Storms are Brewing In Your Eyes

Would the above video have been any more of a WTF moment if she was decked out in orange/camo hunting gear? I haven't had long hair since...well ever, but even I know that some Paul Mitchell product, the size of a dime, would take care of whatever is going on with her hair. Start at the (split)ends and work your way up. This ends the Tim Gunn portion of this post.

I have no idea what I did to please whatever god it is that has brought Sarah Palin into my life, but I'm glad she's here. And thank God for the RNC's fashion budget. I'm in love with the new second half of Showgirls Nomi Malone Sarah Palin. She's batshit crazy and she kills stuff. I'm not voting for her, but I really do hope that she can keep it together and not utter any racial slurs until the election is over. I want her to head the RNC. I want to see her try to convert Barney Frank by flirting with him on Hardball. I want to laugh at Chris Matthews while he sits behind his desk, not daring to stand up because something else is standing up. When she has a gameplan that she understands and is prepared she's flawless. She's Ronald Reagan. I want her turned loose as a charming Ann Coulter - the bonus is that Ann Coulter will become redundant and go away. The flood wiped away the dinosaurs 6,000 years ago, fine. Homosexuality can be "cured", no problem. God hates captial gains taxes more than man's inhumanity towards man, whatever. All I want is 15 minutes of Meredith Viera trying not to vomit moose meat while watching video of the governor killing and dressing said moose every week, and you've got yourself a brand new, money donating Black Republican.

We Would Have Needed a Bigger Bed

The boyo was put to sleep two years ago today, and it still sucks. I read my post from his 1st death day, and it made me sad. It didn’t make me happy at all. I miss him. In everyday life I remember him happily, even when I’m saluting his grave in my backyard. I remember all the crazy cat stuff he did that made him great, but today there is an ache. I’m sort of glad for it because I never want his place in my life completely taken up by something else. I wish he had been ten years younger so LMJ could have known him. Actually, I don’t wish he was younger; I wish cat life spans were thirty years instead of twenty. He got wiser as he got older. Aloof master of the universe would have been better than bloodthirsty super-predator with an infant running around. He would have been a great babysitter. He would have occupied most of her waking thoughts. I doubt she would be as interested in keys as she is now if there was a furry little beasty thing she could chase. She would be on a noble quest to grab that elusive tail. She would probably eat a lot of cat food though. He would let her baby handle him until it wasn’t fun anymore, and then find a place millimeters out of her reach. He would teach her the lessons of frustration, and that she wasn’t the center of the universe. It would be an honest mistake and he wouldn’t judge her for her arrogant misconception. It would be natural for her to believe she was the be all end all due to her close proximity to the actual center of the universe – him. I miss that for LMJ because she’ll never know him. We’ll have other cats, and we will love them dearly, but they’ll always be subject to the “…yeah but Mr. Kitty…” standard. I’m going to have some tuna and some chicken today for him – and a beer or two for me.

Britney Spears is Actually a More Thoughtful Lyricist than Bob Dylan

2008 is an election year. Technically, every year is an election year – someone is always running for something. But 2008 is a big election year. All the worthless turds in the House of Representatives are lying to keep their jobs; one out of three worthless turds in the Senate is lying to keep their jobs; and a Muslim terrorist is running against a Protestant cattle rustler for President. That’s pretty big. I’ve been perusing some political bulletin boards, and I’ve noticed a few things. I’m really surprised by the number of self-made millionaire, S.E.A.L., C.I.A. black operator, Nobel laureate economist, lawyers, under the age of forty, who fought in Viet Nam that seem to have a lot of free time in the middle of the day. I love that these guys – guys because chicks just aren’t stupid in this way - are from small town middle America and in their free time, when they aren’t trying to hide their fortunes from socialist Black racists, talk to their many Black Republican friends, who all willingly, yet shamefully, admit they are voting for the community organizer, strictly because of their shared racial characteristics. I only lurk, and don’t post, on these boards because I’m not going to argue with crazy people unless it’s about something important, like MMA. And these are the best places to find Photshopped pictures of Sarah Palin. There are reasonable people who frequent these boards, at least for a time. Their posts get shorter as their frustration grows, culminating in the black hole of angry bulletin board posts, “Source or fail!” Someone writes something outlandish as a fact like, “Records show Obama was a Weatherman in the sixties,” and it’s a race to see who can reply with “Source or fail!” first. I’m thinking about starting to say this in real life. When someone states something as fact that I find dubious, “Source or fail!” I’m going to be lots of fun at parties.

Party Goer: This is going to be the best Christmas ever.
LJ: SOURCE OR FAIL.

I’m also thinking about benching la cerveza and moving rum into the starting lineup. Great men get drunk on hard liquor. Source: Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Ernest Hemingway, Mel Gibson, Lindsay Lohan. I could go on.

After proofreading this post, I really hope I mellow out after the elections.

...and Released Back Into the Wild

Beth tagged me, which would be a problem for most couples but MJ and I have a "modern" relationship.

1. Zoe is my favorite Sesame Street monster
2. I watch a lot of Sesame Street
3. I think everyone should shave their head with a razor at least once in their life. It's cathartic.
4. I talk to myself because I'm a frickin' psycho.
5. I want to flip a smart car over.
6. Death Metal Mashup is my favorite thing on the interweb (outside of porn).

7. I'm a maverick.

8579

SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THAT'S HOLY!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIEEEEE!!! STOCK UP ON CANNED GOODS!!! KATIE BAR THE DOOR!!!

At least now I have something to complain about to my grand kids.

Come 'ere son and sit down while Grampa tells ya about what it was like back in aught eight. I was a strapping young lad of 2 score minus 3 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted to 8579. We thought it was the end of the world, and if George W. Bush and the rest of the evangeli-faciscts of the day had it their way it woulda been. But thanks to a mulatto, half-muslim, half racist, inexperienced, angry, black elitest, socialist with ties to domestic terrorists and brie eating, chardonnay drinking, East Coast, limousine liberals everything turned out alright. No son, it wasn't Tiger Woods

Sarah's in Town! Sarah's in Town!

Governor Palin was in town today, and her presence made it difficult for me to park. If I wasn’t already voting for Obama, she would have lost my vote for making me trek. I rode the trolley and walked through downtown with a bunch of people hoping to see her. One guy asked me which trolley stop was closest to the Landing, which is where she was speaking. I’d parked next to this guy, and he had all the cutesy bumper stickers on his Kia SUV. He and his wife/girlfriend/companion were wearing “Sarah is My Homegirl” t-shirts (WTF does that mean?), and it surprised me when he asked me politely where to get off the train. I’d built up a whole bunch of hatred for this jackass, and I was fully prepared to jam his nose up into his neo-con pseudo-brain. YOU’RE GUN DIDN’T HELP YOU TODAY DID IT, BITCH! He was a nice guy who was excited about seeing a charismatic candidate and possible future President of the United States that he’s supporting. This is something he’s hoping he can tell his children about – Ranger, Calc, Monaco, and Oktoberfest. That’s a positive thing. Generally, people aren’t assholes. They have to be pushed. Unless they’re elected officials, and unfortunately, they’re usually the only ones we hear from. We got off the train and there was a line around the block. I felt bad because there was no way in hell this guy was going to see Sarah Palin. I don’t know where he came from, but I’m sure he didn’t pay to park and then ride public transportation downtown so he could marvel at the wonder that is the Modis building. I hope he and his fellow Palinistas that couldn’t get into the Landing found something fun to do so their trips weren’t complete wastes of time. At least he made me think about starting “Be Nice to Neo-cons week day hour". Hell, I wrote this damn post, that's enough.

The Gods Are Conspiring to Make Me Fat

I hurt myself lifting weights this morning. I wasn't even doing anything dangerous. I was just getting revved up in my chest routine when it felt like I got hit in the back of the head with a pipe or branch or some other type of heavy blunt object. I know no one actually did hit me in the back of the head because I was lying down on a bench. My ears were ringing and the base of my skull had seized up like I had been hit with a tazer. This lasted for about ten minutes before I went home. I was only an eighth of the way through my workout and I did zero cardio. I put ice on the back my head and took four Advils. That seemed to do the trick.


But then I learned about this, the Fatty Melt.

It's basically a patty melt, but instead of melting the cheese onto the burger, you stuff the burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches. This is why America is better than everywhere else. The Swiss never came up with anything cool like this.

Random Thoughts

I watched the Seminoles effortlessly crush the Hurricanes with their bare hands today, and my Dutch friend Heineken came along for the ride, so thoughts aren't really rattling around in my head as much as they are sloshing.



If Obama wins the election Hillary Clinton's political career is over, for all intents and purposes. She can continue to be a wonderful senator and statesman(person), but she's not going to run for President in 2016 when she's 69. My question is if Obama is elected is there any reason for her to continue to put up with her husband's crap? I'd be very surprised if there aren't WJC contingency plans for spending some time getting to know the governor of Alaska, win, lose or draw. She's hot, she's dumb, and she's attracted to power. How is this not in Bill Clinton's wheelhouse?



WJC: Governor(Ms. Vice President), I know how you feel about Roe v. Wade, and I'm sure there would never be another abortion if I could just see you naked.



SP: I don't know...



WJC: Governor(Ms. Vice President), this is where politics ends and doing God's work begins. Sarah, ask yourself, do you care about the unborn or not?



SP: Well, okay, if you really think it will help.



I'm guessing this conversation happens before Thanksgiving. If it happens in Washington, Hillary let's it go because she'll need Bill in 2012. If it happens in Anchorage, there's no downside to Hillary castrating Bill and making him hold his own severed junk while he bleeds to death on a sheet of ice. What New Yorker would hold it against her? Women would empathize, and men would think, "Damn! You couldn't even wait until Christmas?" Five years later the movie would be made. Dennis Quaid would play Bill. Meg Ryan would play Hillary. And Catherine Zeta Jones would play Sarah because her Welsh accent is just as jacked up as Palin's Tundra accent. Bill Clinton would direct. If you don't think there's an army of Bill Clinton clones running around in some lab in Harlem then you're just naive.

Just Pick a Motley Crue Song

Motley Crue members Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee had a contest during one of their world tours during the late ‘80’s to see who could go the longest without bathing and still hook up with groupies. They went months and never reached that point. Their own filth disgusted them more than it disgusted the groupies, and they bathed. I think the Republican Party is having a similar contest. They’re trying to find out how unfit a nominee can be and still get elected. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have reached their own filth threshold. They started with Ronald Reagan, a semi-wax figure former B movie actor, and supply sider. George H.W. Bush was given the VP slot to assuage the fears of actual Conservatives in the Republican Party – as opposed to the Dixiecrats that treat the party like the new socially acceptable Ku Klux Klan. Reagan was a way to dip their toes in the River Tard. Dan Quayle was a proto W, but since his wife, Marilyn, is smart and hardworking and always did Dan’s homework anyway, they had a backstop. Twelve years later they cannonballed in with a fully (non)functional W and consummate grumpy old man Dick Cheney. Think about this. Half the country voted (twice) for a spoiled, lazy, son of New England old money talking with a fake Southern accent. The over/under on how long it is before W starts sounding like Thurston Howell III after he leaves office is three weeks. This brings us to SARAH! DON’T F**K WITH OUR SARAH!!! The reelection of W shook my father’s faith in God. If SARAH! is a bone in McCain’s bangers and mash away from the Oval Office I’m pretty sure he’s going to turn to Voodoo and there will be sacrifices in the back yard. If ignorance is bliss then she knows heaven. She’s vacuous like a stereotypical beauty queen, and I don’t know where that comes fr…oh wait a minute, that’s right. Women are starting to feel sorry for her because she’s so far out of her element, and I’m afraid this is going to turn into votes for her. If McCain and Palin are elected I don’t know how the Republican Party tops it. The groupies are clearly ready for some unprotected group sex in a pig sty.

Just some random thoughts from my day so far

I just got an e-mail from an investment company lauding the benefits of transparency in today’s market. Should I infer that opaqueness was the way to go in yesterday’s market? Since when is honesty a marketing ploy?

I was ogling these two hot chicks in the elevator this morning, and they ruined the moment by opening their mouths. They sounded like Taylor Mali’s poem “Totally like whatever, you know?” One chick kept making statements that sounded like questions like, “I haven’t even picked out a dress yet? I mean I haven’t even looked in my closet?” The other chick added, “Yeah”.

I hate paperwork. I had to skip the gym this morning so I could get my ducks in a row for a meeting tomorrow. I have to write a letter of instruction that can’t be misunderstood, but can’t come across as condescending. This is difficult because I am condescending. The people in Fidelity’s back office are stupid, in an officious “I’ll make you redo this out of spite” kind of way. I once got an application sent back because they said my 2 looked like a 6 and they just wanted to make sure they got it right. It never occurred to them that there is no 16th month of the year. No one was born on 16/25/1941. Unless one of them happens to be reading this, in which case they’re the best in the industry and that’s why I do business with them.

I hate the Florida Gators. If they win the national championship in football this year I’m going to have to kill myself or a lot of other people. I hate the Seminoles more. There are no academic requirements for athletes at FSU. FAMU being in Tallahassee is a massive recruiting advantage, so what possible excuse can the coaching staff have for fielding a crappy team for the eighth year in a row. The last time Florida State didn’t suck Bill Clinton was still President.

Conspiracy Theory

I was speaking with someone a couple of days ago. I'm not going to name names for everyone's safety of course, but this person posited this scenario. John McCain is elected; four months or so later Sarah Palin resigns because of "family matters", and Joe Leiberman becomes the VP. The VP McCain always wanted. After a couple of days of this idea marinating, it seems plausible to me.

Another theory is that the idea of the lovely governor and hockey mom was sold to the geezer as a way to bring in women and younger voters, but she's really just a right wing puppet and the Republican powers that be are going to bust a cap in his ass and Dick Cheney will remain the VP. I truly believe that if the Republican inner circle caught McCain and Obama together, but only had one noose, John Mcain would get strung up. They hate his stinking guts.

The Spin Cycle

Are you kidding me? This is the coolest thing ever. I hope it STORMNIHILATES everthing between California and China. I know I shouldn't be wishing for death and destruction, but I see this as an out-of-the-box solution to over-population and world hunger. When this thing hits category 5 I'm getting T-shirts and baseball caps made.

1/2 an Hour After Eating

I added swimming to my routine today. I was inspired by Michael Phelps and Dara Torres. They make it look easy. I figured I would just swim slower like I do with the running. I run the same as the Olympians they just do it faster. Swimming doesn’t seem to work that way. I jumped into the pool at the Y. It’s twenty-five meters long, which is half of what’s seen on television. I planned to do ten laps, minimum. I’m in pretty good shape. I can run pretty far pretty fast. I found out during lap two that I can’t swim very far or very fast. The first lap went swimmingly. The Australian Crawl is my stroke – Freestyle to the uninitiated – because the backstroke is for old women and the breaststroke and butterfly are flat out retarded outside of a swim meet. I was feeling so good that I thought about doing a flip turn to impress the hottie lifeguard with jewelry in her face. I’ve never done a flip turn, and in a freak occurrence good sense won out and I still haven’t. When I run my body handles the breathing. I don’t have to think about it. With swimming the breathing is “hands on” the whole time. I hadn’t really thought about this until I was half way through lap two. I didn’t get my face far enough out of the water, and a mouth full of water isn’t useful when one is trying to gasp. It’s funny how quickly panic can set in, and while I felt a surge of adrenaline, it didn’t seem to help me get any closer to the wall. I did make it to the wall without looking too stupid but I did decide that a full fifty meters was way too far to swim all at once. I finished my swim one lap at a time with a break in between each to catch my breath. I even started to figure out how my stroke actually works. I swam for about a half hour including my breaks, and I was more spent than after a session of weights and an hour of cardio. My feet didn’t hurt. I wasn’t drenched in sweat. And I’m thinking about getting rid of all my body hair. So MJ, if you come home and find me booty naked, covered in Nair it’s because the London games are only four years away.

Stuck at Work

The Duval County website is down. The ridiculous important and necessary training that I’m supposed to do to keep certain regulatory agencies happy is down. I came into work for almost no reason today. So I guess I’ll write about the Tour de Pain I ran over the weekend. Now that I’m done with it it’s not that bad. This is the second year that I’ve done the race. It consists of a four mile run on the beach, a 5k through Jacksonville suburbia, and a one mile sprint through downtown. I did better than I did last year in the first two legs, but the fifteen pounds – down from twenty - of baby weight added an extra half minute onto my mile time. I almost puked up a lung. I started the beach run four minutes late because there weren’t enough port-o-lets – there was one (1) – but that, along with where I parked, allowed me to sufficiently warm up by adding an extra mile and a half to my run. I was like Willie Mays Hayes at the beginning of Major League, except I wasn’t wearing my pajamas. I knocked a couple minutes off my time from last year’s beach run so I was very happy about that. There had been a mini-hurricane about an hour before that carved canals into the sand, turning the race into an obstacle course. I tweaked my already iffy achilles tendon jumping over one of these temporary rivers. I have brand new Nikes (Air Pegasus 25’s). I wasn’t getting them wet by running through the puddles. Last year I barely showed up for the 5k, which starts only twelve hours after the first race, because I was frickin’ tired. I didn’t care how I finished just that I finished. This year I ate right and got a decent amount of rest. I also showed up early enough to stretch out my sore ankle, and I chopped another couple of minutes off of my time from last year’s race. The only downside was that my iPod died half a mile into the race. I have a 30g video iPod that’s probably a little too big to run with, but I am way too cheap to buy an additional one designed for shaking and jostling, so I just deal with it when it hangs up. I hate running without tunes. I can hear myself breathing gasping while I run and it demotivates me. The 5k is at 7:30 on Saturday morning and the one mile sprint is at 3 in the afternoon… in downtown Jacksonville… in August. It’s pretty easy to understand why they call it the sizzler. It’s like running in a steam room. The glass, concrete, and asphalt reflect roughly 100% of the heat the sun pours down. Hot air into the lungs is not conducive to efficient aerobic function. To get an idea of what it’s like turn the hot water on in your bathroom for fifteen minutes, get an old school hair dryer with no diffuser, turn that sumbitch on high, spray it in your mouth, and see how long you can do some jumping jacks. The reason it’s so tough is because the race is so short and it comes on the heels of the first two stages. I had nothing left. I finished in under eight minutes on pride alone. I started too fast, got into oxygen debt, and that was that. However, I did knock almost four minutes off my total time from last year so I’m calling it a win.

A Day at the Beach

I AM THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS. THERE WILL BE NO SURVIVORS.

MY MEN ARE HERE, AND I AM HERE, BUT SOON YOU WILL NOT BE HERE

THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS TAKES NO SURVIVORS.

ALL YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES ARE ABOUT TO COME TRUE

THE DREAD PIRATE ROBERTS IS HERE FOR YOUR SOULS!

You Can't Blame a Compass for Pointing North

I got into the elevator today with a guy who went a little heavy on the Axe Body Wash, and just like Proust’s madeleine; dude’s stench took me back ten days into the past; to Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport. I was waiting for my flight back to Jacksonville when a young guy drenched in some type of new millennium musk sat down next to me and started eating a Big Mac. I love Big Macs. They’re fat gram for fat gram my favorite fast food burger, but the smell of the Big Mac mixed with the smell of Arctic Blast, or whatever the hell it was taking years off my life, almost made me return my venti-raspberry-café Americano to sender. Big Macs don’t smell like anything else. It’s a combination of Clearasil, cheap beef, and broken dreams, but I like it. It shouldn’t be mixed with any non-trans fat based smells (i.e. French fries and supplementary burgers), especially synthetic perfumes marketed to under twenty-five males. I don’t judge these knuckleheads. I not only used to be one; I loved being one. I can’t rule out the possibility that the mellifluous tones of Drakkar Noir are what landed me my wife. I know the effects that a chick wearing perfume had on me from about 1984 thru 1991. MJ usually wore Anais Anais. When I see it in department stores I always stop. It takes me back. I remember the days of getting out of a tangerine 1972 Super Beetle with my three best buddies. I rocked the Drakkar Noir. I had a buddy who rocked the Obsession, one that rocked the Polo, and one that rocked Eternity. And we didn’t spray, delay, and walk away. We had a more Flashdance approach to cologne application. If nasal fatigue was able to set in then we weren’t wearing enough. Thank God no one ever threw a match at us.

The Bible Says I Can Kill You - Deuteronomy 21:20-21

LMJ: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

LJ: You wanted to get in the chair. So I let you get in the chair, and now that you’re in the chair you’re mad?

MJ: Are you honestly trying to use logic on a toddler?

I can’t help it. I come by it honestly. I’ve turned into my dad. For as long as I can remember I was warned about the ramifications and consequences of my actions, and I can remember pretty far back. I remember hearing about my unmitigated gall in the apartment we lived in on Twinbrook Parkway in Rockville, Maryland. We moved when I was six. LMJ has this to look forward to, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. There are lectures in her future – endless, rambling, circular lectures – to which she had best pay attention or I will be forced to start over (a chill just ran down my sister’s spine). I doubt she’ll hear about Ronald Reagan as much as I did but I don’t make any promises. I don’t want this. She certainly doesn’t want this, but it’s the circle of life. Unfortunately for LMJ, her father is also a sci-fi geek. And this brings us to the subject of this piece: How do Vulcans deal with their babies? Vulcans aren’t naturally emotionless. They work at suppressing their emotions in the pursuit of pure logic. Their emotions are much more intense than humans. Something has to give. On the one hand, it’s illogical to expect logic to be persuasive to a toddler. On the other hand, a child’s constant flights of fancy must be subdued if the child is expected to be part of a logical society. When and where does the Vulcan begin? Is it intense discipline on baby’s fourth birthday? Is it cultural, and baby gradually learns to mimic mama’s and papa’s behavior? Or is it possibly religious and baby is fed some ridiculous illogical nonsense that she believes because her mind doesn’t have the logical dexterity not to? Illogic as logic – fascinating.

My Mind Tends to Wander

The other day I was in BabyGap with my family when I heard a guy with a Hispanic accent with a lisp. He wasn’t speaking with a Spanish (Castillian) accent; he had a lisp. This got me to thinking about speech impediments in other languages. What are they? Can a native French speaker have a lisp? While there is the “s” sound in French – s’il vous plait for example – there is no th sound. Zees is why zhey replace ze “th” with “z” or “s” now zat I sink about it. They’ve never heard the sound so after a point in childhood they’re unable to make it, BUT if a native French speaker has an orthodontic condition that would create a lisp in English will they naturally, spontaneously be able to make the “th” sound even though they’ve never heard it? Or is a French lisp something completely different? Could a speech impediment in one language be an advantage in speaking another? Timothy Zahn has a minor sub-plot in his Star Wars book Heir to the Empire that deals with this. Princess Leia has difficulty understanding Chewbacca because the Wookie language is highly dependent on harmonics. When she goes to the Wookie homeworld she can understand the diplomat she’s dealing with much better than she can Chewbacca. So she flat out asks Chewie, “What the f*&k, Chewie? You been a stutterin’ f#$kin’ pr!*k this whole f*^kin’time?” Well, that’s if Joe Pesci was playing Princess Leia (see title of post). Chewbacca doesn’t have the speech impediment. The diplomat does. It just happens to be an impediment that makes it easier for humans to decipher what’s being said. It’s an interesting idea and I wonder if there are actual Earth languages where this phenomenon might take place - a speech impediment in one's native language being an advantage in speaking another.

This reminds me of the Japanese exchange student I worked with in college. He was barely conversational in English so he had absolutely no chance in all of hockey sticks of saying my name intelligibly. He wound up calling me by my last name. He was a nice guy

Chips 'n Dips

I ran race number five for 2008 Friday. It was the Celebration 5k in honor of the Declaration of Independence. I showed my patriotism by training Wednesday and Thursday then running the race Friday. My legs are sore, my feet hurt, and I need some new shoes. However, JG and EG were nice enough to by me my own Champions chip. It’s a chip that tracks when I start a race and when I finish a race. The races rent them to runners that don’t have their own for $2, and since I’m cheap (I didn’t want to drop the money on a chip…) and I’m lazy (…because I’m not running enough races for it to be cost effective). My chip was delivered in the envelope pictured above. The G’s are two of the nicest people in the world so they were most likely just being generous, but they could have been embarrassed being associated with someone who drops his rented chip into the bait bucket with the rest of the part-timers and cheapskates. It’s like having dinner at The Russian Tea Room and someone in your party ordering Busch in a can while the rest of the party is enjoying Dom Perignon. I even called JG a half hour before the race to ask her if my chip was supposed to come with a Velcro strap to fasten to my shoe – how gauche? JG, with no hint of condescension, explained that I should thread my shoe laces through the chip. I had the chip on roughly 30 minutes – the time it took me to finish the race – before I was looking down my nose at the riffraff taking off their rented chips. Just because I’m cheap doesn’t mean I’m not a snob. I live in Riverside (not Avondale). I attend am a member of St. John’s Cathedral. I have an office in the Modis building. And I have my own Champions chip.

Briefcase Full of Butts

Damned Drug Addicts

Smoking cigarettes used to be cool – Nat King Cole, Humphrey Bogart, early Bond Sean Connery. But now it’s just sad, especially for smokers under 50 years old, and there is no reason to smoke if it isn’t cool. Now I see no difference between a crackhead huddled in a corner firing up that rock and a smoker huddled in a corner designated off campus smoking kiosk firing up that butt. There are people in my building that get on the elevator with their cigarette and lighter already out. I work on the 29th floor. Sometimes I want to “Christmas tree” the elevator buttons because poking drug addicts with a stick is funny. It’s sad because smokers don’t even like being smokers anymore, but they’re addicted to nicotine so they’re stuck. They all complain that they need to quit but they can’t. Even the shame of doing the “Smoker’s walk” across the street to stand in hundred degree weather so they can smoke crappy cigarettes and accelerate their slow, painful deaths can’t motivate them to quit. I smoked socially for about three or four years, long enough to learn to distinguish between good cigarettes and bad. I never understood cheap or light cigarettes – hell, I didn’t understand filters. Smoking is a vice. The goal is to ingest a drug and enjoy doing it. Why do people smoke light cigarettes when they cost the same as full flavor cigarettes, and study after study shows THEY’RE JUST AS DANGEROUS. They don’t reduce the risks of any of the diseases associated with tobacco use. They don’t make your breath or clothes stink less. All they do is harsh your nicotine buzz. Why do people smoke cheap cigarettes? Is it a wino’s mentality, “I don’t care what it is just give me my fix”? I started out on short Camels and moved on to Lucky Strikes because they were “quality” products and they were the coolest. They were the brands of the Rat Pack and longshoremen. Can you imagine if Bogart was smoking Marlboro Ultra-Light 100’s in Casablanca? No, you can’t because you know that Bogey wasn’t a bitch. If Bogey had been smoking Benson & Hedges in Casablanca, the Axis powers would have won WWII in reality and we’d all be speaking German. But that was then, when a man’s cigarette brand said something about him. Now they just say I’m a bum, I’m a teenager, or I’m European, no matter the brand. Bruce Willis is the line of demarcation. He’s the last cool smoker. When John Travolta smokes he looks gay. When Brad Pitt smokes he looks gay. When Tom Cruise is in a movie he looks gay. Bruce Willis is it, and the last movie he looked cool smoking in was The Last Boy Scout, which came out in 1991.

It’s over, no more smoking. When I walk my baby girl past the hospital, and we see – and smell – the smokers it’s pathetic. They don’t even talk to each other anymore. They just stand in the heat and humidity wallowing in their self-hatred. How does someone work at a hospital in 2008 and still smoke? I would have a completely different take if cigarette smokers had the attitude of cigar smokers. If they celebrated their suicide like Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, cigarettes would still be cool.

Midday Funnies

This was too funny not to post

Briefcase Full of Guts

I injured my ankle about six weeks ago and it still hurts. I played basketball in my running shoes and they offer zero lateral support. I think it's a small muscle injury because if I run it stops hurting about a mile in. I've tried resting it for the last two weeks and it seems to have helped a little bit, but whenever I point my toe flex my foot down like a man I still feel pain. The two weeks of inactivity made me anxious - ya boy needs to sweat - so I decided I would tough it out and go for a run. But then I remembered I had a bike and I could get my sweat on and still rest my aching Achilles area and wear a retard helmet to boot - BONUS. I haven't ridden my bike in at least 18 months so I had to inflate the tires but the rest of the bike was tip top. More importantly, I had no idea how to pace myself, and if you've read this blog for any length of time you know that this is probably leading to a heat stroke or a myocardial infarction (infarction sounds like it should be a curse word: Did you see that guy cut me off? Get off the phone infarction!) Anyway, I had my trusty Garmon 305 w/heart monitor so I knew to slow down when my heart rate got above 180 so there were no V-Fibs or V-Tachs. I rode about 11 miles in 54 minutes, but there was a 4 or 5 minute span in the middle where I was stopped by a draw bridge. I picked a route that took me through Riverside, Avondale, and Ortega - pronounced ORTEEGA, this is southern Georgia not southern Spain - it was a beautiful trip past many mansions on the river. Unfortunately, it wasn't as bike friendly as I thought it would be - no sidewalks, no bike trails - so I had to push the pace a little bit to stay out of the way of cars during the middle 7 miles of the ride. Going out wasn't bad; coming back was rough. On the way out I tried to stay ahead of the cars. There were periods where I would get up to 25 miles an hour. On the ride back I said screw it I'll get closer to the grass. The ride was much different from a run. The whole thing was a series of pulses followed by rests, as opposed to the consistent rhythm of a run. The ride hurt my heart a lot more than it hurt my legs. Even though my heart rate topped out at 178 it still took me a good 3 minutes to get it below 120 when I got home, but my Achilles didn't hurt and I burned almost 900 calories. I had a blast. Bike riding is definitely getting added to the workout mix.

I had trouble with the title of this post. Stupid songs like Queen's "Bicycle" and Led Zeppelin's "Achilles Last Stand" came to mind, but then I remembered I was heterosexual so I picked a Dethklok song instead, even though it doesn't have anything to do with the post.

Twelve Word Novel

She said, "Honey, be honest." And he died never having sex again.

My Favorite Teachers Were English Teachers

MJ was telling me about one of her students who, when asked about a late assignment, answered her honestly, and told her he just wasn’t going to turn it in. MJ respected his honesty for an instant and then melted down on him; letting him know that she’s dragged students up to school to finish their work after summer began before, and she doesn’t have a problem doing it again. I’ve been there and I empathize with the youngster. I went through this with some of my English teachers, and twenty years later they’re the teachers I remember. Most of the others I wouldn’t spit on if they were on fire, but that’s stuff I probably need to work through. I had great English teachers in 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th grade summer school, and 12th grade.

First up is Mrs. Korn from 7th grade. She was part Paula Deen and part rolling ball of butcher knives. She was the first teacher to look me dead in my eye and ask me what the hell is wrong with me. How could I not respect that? Thanks to her I haven’t misspelled “a lot” since 1982. She was the first teacher to call me on my B.S., not because it was B.S. but because it was sloppy. I can’t remember the last time I thought about her before today. She left at the end of the year.

In 8th grade it was Mr. Isaac. Mr. Isaac was part William F. Buckley and part Al Bundy. I had a zero in his class, and when he sent home a scholarship warning I forged my Pops’ signature. Mr. Isaac didn’t say anything until he had a conference with my parents. I’d spent a full 9 weeks convincing my parents what a rotten teacher he was, and they had my back walking into the conference. Before they could sit down Mr. Isaac dropped the forged document on the desk and asked, “Mr. J, is this your signature?” My parents just wanted a piece of my backside walking out of the conference. I did things the way Mr. Isaac wanted in his class for the rest of the year, and I was introduced to critical reading.

9th grade was Mr. Weatherly, the coolest teacher in the history of teachers. He was a surfer and he was on our side. He wouldn’t let the administration take kids out of his class unless he thought they had a good reason. He was an ABC after school special teacher. He had a wife and two kids, yet he spent a ridiculous amount of HIS time helping us. Stanton is a magnet school so kids come from all over Duval County; that’s more than 840 square miles. The only way kids could hang out together before we were sixteen was to stay after school. My friends and I were bitching about not being allowed in the gym after school. We were bitching to each other, not to Mr. Weatherly, but he asked why they wouldn’t let use the gym since it was just sitting there empty. We couldn’t use it because there was no one to supervise us, so it was a liability. The next week he started after school athletic programs in the gym twice a week. He also did his job. One day he lost it and started screaming at us because no one could actually write a sentence. We started from scratch writing subject and verb. It progressed into these ridiculously long sentences that didn’t mean anything but they had lots of parts of speech. I learned the difference between direct and indirect objects. I’ve forgotten the difference between the perfect and pluperfect tenses but I knew them cold in 9th grade. Mr. Weatherly deserves his own post because I’m pretty sure he kept me out of a bell tower with a high powered rifle.

I took 11th grade off. I loved every minute of that year, but hated everything about school. I hated all of my teachers and I still do. I failed five classes that year so I had to go to summer school where I met Mr. Thompson. Mr. T was part Superfly – he had a gold tooth – part Bill Cosby. We had to do busy work. He knew it. We knew it. He knew that we knew it, but he was still able to make those six weeks palatable. He also looked up my transcript, sat me down and explained how close I was to not being able to graduate in the spring. He didn’t have to do that. I remember him saying, “You don’t seem like the type of fella that wants to spend any more time here than you have to.” He taught remedial kids during the school year, but he kept an eye on me even though I wasn’t one of his students. He gave me my “Oh, snap!” moment in the summer of ‘87 with enough time to change my evil ways and graduate in the spring of ’88.

12th grade was Dr. Alexander. She’s the only one on this list that I didn’t like. She was basically Stone Cold Steve Austin’s mom. She was from Texas. She was mean. But she loved poetry, and she taught it very well. She taught me how to tie a poem to a chair and beat a confession out of it. Her class was AP English, which I was taking for the 5 point grading i.e. an A was worth 5 grade points instead of 4 as far as colleges were concerned, and I needed all the help I could get. I had no intention of taking the AP exam however. I had planned on skipping school that day until she asked in a very mild mannered tone if anyone wasn’t planning on taking the exam. I felt the disturbance in the force and knew to keep my mouth shut. Some idiot didn’t and answered her honestly. She went double-aught drill sergeant on him, and I decided the prudent thing would be to take the exam. I’m sure if I had skipped both the exam and her class she would have hunted me down, shot me, and mounted my head over her mantle.

These were the only teachers who helped me learn how to think. I learned math but that was a skill. Nothing above basic arithmetic, which I had figured out in 3rd grade, is applicable in my life. Everything I was taught in a science class I learned was crap in college. And I’m sure that there is a bigger waste of time somewhere in the universe – possibly blogging – than social studies but I haven’t found it. I would like to thank these five teachers. If I saw Mrs. Korn, Mr. Isaac, Mr. Weatherly, or Mr. Thompson in a restaurant I would walk over, reintroduce myself, and offer to pick up the check. Dr. Alexander I would just send a gift certificate - anonymously in the mail.

No Boundaries Part Deux

Beth asked for some links to the music I wrote about earlier so here's a video. This is my main man Michael Angelo playing his tune No Boundaries. I don't think he's homeless, but you can't tell that from his sweet attire.

It's a beautiful day today. Red Stripe (Hooray Beer!) was on sale for $10.99/12pk and there was a $2.00 instant coupon as well. I poured some out in tribute to the fallen. Happy(?)Memorial Day.

Software companies have been promising voice recognition software for at least 14 years. Where is it? I'm too good to type. It's beneath me. My blog would be much more interesting if I could ramble into a microphone incoherently and then publish it. I'd be like Bill O'Reilly.

Florida State sucks.

No Boundaries

I’m being forced to write this. Blogging is so 2007. I haven’t been writing because I’m in a rut. Nothing cool is happening outside of my daughter’s development, but I’m not going to write about that all of the time because I’m not a chick. So this will be about the change in my running music. What seems to work best for me is neo-classical electric guitar aka shredders like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and my new discovery Michael Angelo Batio. None of this stuff is any good. It’s all contrived; nothing but arpeggios up and down pre-selected scales played as fast and clean as possible. It’s a display of supreme dexterity and nothing else. What’s funny is that all of these guys list Jimi Hendrix as their main influence, yet nothing they do is spontaneous, and Hendrix was nothing but spontaneous. But there are about two hours of stuff that I like and the mix of light speed licks and slow rhythms works to keep the feet moving. I’ve been running to it for about a month and it hasn’t gotten old. I don’t even have to randomize it.

Battlestar Galactica is the greatest show ever.

Miley Cyrus is More Talented than I thought

April Races

I'm running in the Oak Leaf 5k on Saturday the 19th and the Spartan 5k on Saturday the 26th. We'll see how we do.

6 Word Memoir

THE WORLD IS MINE... ooh! TV.

Now that she's mobile
Chasing LMJ will be
A life's endeavor

Surreptitiously
Psuedoanalytical
Interpretations

I cannot believe
That my nipples were bleeding
Too much exercise

The Ten Commandments
Chuck Heston's Finest Moment
But white Egyptians?

This Probably Isn't That Big a Deal But...

The History Channel is changing its name to “History”. "Our brand is, in the media landscape, synonymous with the genre of history so I don't think it's presumptuous of us to call ourselves History," said Nancy Dubuc, the network's executive vice president. What the hell is wrong with you? First, history isn’t a genre. It’s a subject. It’s a topic. It’s a major. It’s a discipline. To some people it’s a complete waste of time – I’m talking to you Mr. President – but it’s not a genre. Stephen Hawking isn’t an Astrophysics stylist. This really bothers me. This lady runs a television network dedicated to an academic field. Her performance affects other people’s jobs. How does she not know what a genre is? Second, are other channels going to change their names? Is Channel 4 The Local Station going to change its name to Local? “Our brand is, in the media landscape, synonymous with the genre of local so I don’t think it’s presumptuous of us to call ourselves Local,” said Rob Sweeting, the stations six o’clock anchor. Are the broadcast networks going to compete over who gets to be Crap, or will they be satisfied reaching into a hat and randomly choosing Garbage, WTF?, and You Gotta Be Kidding Me? Is MTV going to change its name to Anything Except Music Videos? America is getting stupider by the minute, and I seem powerless to stop it. Maybe Communications should be reduced from a major to a class, along with Marketing and Management (6 hours of Marketing and 12 hours of Management help make up my degree). All they seem to offer is a lack of cognitive agility. They are why transition is now a verb. They are why companies now say they want to service – as opposed to serve – their customers( My mom's favorite). Servicing a customer used to apply only to prostitution and husbandry. Then again, I definitely feel screwed by most of the companies I deal with, so maybe they're not that far off. At least MS Word still catches processees as a misspelling. I hate that “new” word the most. It’s as if procex was the singular form instead of process. I’ve veered off of the road. It’s just that Ms. Dubuc’s statement is so absolutely ridiculous, it forced me to comment.

In the beginning
There was nothing. And now
Condominiums.

The moon is a rock
Dwayne Johnson once was the Rock
Synchronicity

It is late at night
I don’t know why I’m awake
It’s past my bedtime

Sweet potato puffs,
Cheerios for LMJ
A baby girl grows

One Down

Right is the 5k! Left is the 10k! That’s what the guy with the bullhorn was yelling at the, roughly, half way point in today’s St. Patty’s day run through Evergreen Cemetery, and I had a choice to make. Last week after I skipped the River Run, I pushed my goals out a year and one of the goals was to race at least ten times in ’08, and the St. Patty’s Day race was the first. It was a 5k/10k race where runners chose their distance when they signed up. It was in my vigor, but not so much my vim, to start the year off aggressively so I chose 10k. Choosing a 10k distance on a website is just as easy as choosing a 5k distance, but it’s much harder to run 10 kilometers than it is to run 5. I knew this when I clicked the radio button but didn’t appreciate it. As the week wore on and I was still sore on Friday from my workout on Tuesday I fully appreciated. I thought to myself that choosing the longer distance was stupid and that no one would have thought less of me if I had chosen the shorter distance. This thought ran through my mind right up until I approached the guy with the bullhorn. I could make a right and be done in about four hundred yards or I could make a left and run another 3.4 miles. Well, I decided not to be a rooty-poo candy-ass and I made the left turn, and I’m glad I did. I ran what was basically a second lap through the graveyard and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I didn’t set any wild expectations for this race. I wanted to finish in under an hour and a half. I finished in an hour and six minutes. I ran at a leisurely pace right under eleven minutes a mile. It was laid back and groovy, and if I ever planned on dying and being buried I wouldn’t mind Evergreen Cemetery. But if I do die, I'm not being buried. I want to be thrown, bodily, into the Caribbean Sea where I will be devoured by all manner of sea creature.

My wife wants me to
Write a haiku on days I
Don't post something else

Better Luck Next Year

I can’t decide if skipping this year’s River Run was a good choice or not. I’m glad I didn’t because I could have died, and even if I didn’t die I still would have been pissed at my time. On the other hand, I could have run it and gotten a new t-shirt and medal and let go of my ridiculous athlete fantasies. It’s not like I’m going to win the freaking thing. I am certain that this is all LMJ’s fault. I had no idea how much energy she would take. I expected to have to streamline my schedule, but when I do have the time to exercise I don’t have the energy, especially for running.

Running sucks. A chick named Deena Drossin won the women’s division and was the first runner to pass us at the south side base of the Main Street Bridge. She didn’t look happy to be there and she was winning, which is further evidence that there is no such thing as a runner’s high. Being finished with a run is great, but it’s all relative. Everybody feels good when the pain stops.

I’m done bitching and moaning and whining, and I’m goaling. I’m just extending my 2008 goals into 2009. I want to finish the 2009 Gate River Run in under an hour. This year, however, I’m adding goals for MJ. By River Run time next year she will be able to run 1 mile in under ten minutes (bonus if she can do it without complaining) and she will be able to either bench press her own bodyweight or do 100 pushups – and I don’t mean the Good Humor tasty treat. Another goal I have for myself is to run a minimum of ten races. They’re fun, they’re healthy, and they’re a good family activity, so there’s no reason not to run at least one a month. I just registered for the 10k St. Patty’s Day Run next Sunday.

Rickson By Armbar

MJ is an internet bulletin board lurker. She peruses a baby related board but never comments. I’m a post whore, especially if posts are tallied and displayed. I’ll comment on a Russian board discussing the degradation of the Russian language as technology progresses. I’m pretty sure the Russian word for gigabyte is gigabyte. I’m also pretty sure their alphabet is Cyrillic; therefore I am qualified to give my two rubles. None of this has much to do with what I’m trying to write about, which is the different natures of MJ’s favorite board and mine. Her May2007 babies board is helpful, supportive, and never ever mocking. My favorite board, Sherdog.net, is where intellect goes to die. My board is made up of mostly fifteen year old boys trying to pass themselves off as twenty-something soon to be professional fighters. Lots and lots of bar fights, but no cops or guns or buddies jumping in. Posters on MJ’s board have unraveled the mystery of then and than. Posters on my board still struggle with the difference between granite and granted (I SWEAR TO GOD). I regularly see sentences like, “Granite, Randy Couture beat Tim Sylvia, but he still didn’t deserve the title shot in the first place.” On my board the best way to respectfully disagree with someone’s opinion is to suggest that they kill themselves. “Your(sp) an idiot. Randy Couture is the man. You should Benoit yourself.” Chris Benoit was the professional wrestler who killed his family and then himself. Basically, Sherdog.net is like the British House of Commons but with bad grammar. Sometimes I want to go onto MJ’s board and troll aka start stuff for the sake of starting stuff, but she won’t let me. I want to write that I find breastfeeding in public offensive and it should be a fifty dollar fine. I’m sure that would start a lively discussion. What’s refreshing is that there’s an entire chatroom within sherdog dedicated to politics. Some of these people vote, which explains some things. I think everyone should take a look at sherdog.net’s Heavyweights section, and see that maybe Al Gore was wrong. Maybe internet access shouldn’t be available to everyone.

Viva La Revolución!!!

Castro Pone Fin a Casi 50 Años de Poder

As Desi Arnaz is my witness, I told you Fidel no tenía what it took to rule Cuba for very long. It’s like mi abuelita negra used to say El Diablo es un cobadre. BIENVENIDO CUBA LIBRA!!! Wait a minute. ¿Dónde está mi arroz? No es arroz con pollo sin el arroz. Escuche Mr. Chic Fil A. No floté a través del océano en una balsa para no comer mi arroz. Racism in this day and age, an old man can’t get any rice. Treat me like I was medio-Puertorriqueño.


Can we lift the embargo now, pretty please? You win Mr. Nixon. Fidel has fallen. I don’t care about the politics, and I don’t care about the cigars. I’m a little bit – and by a little bit I mean really, really – interested in Cuban rum. I want the “Pearl of the Caribbean” open for my enjoyment. I don’t know about anyone else but I prefer short plane rides to long plane rides, as long as the short plane ride is scheduled to be a short plane ride. A short plane ride scheduled as a long plane ride tends not to work out for most people. Can we annex Cuba now, like we should have done at the end of the Spanish-American war? We kept Guam instead. I just want a trip to the Caribbean to be as simple as a trip to Disney. Maybe Disney will buy Cuba and rename Havana Celebración. It wouldn’t surprise me if, as his last act in power, Castro sold Cuba to Microsoft. Then Microsoft could get into the sugar business. What could possibly go wrong there?

I’m a bit manic right now. I don’t think I should have had that second Diet Mountain Dew. I’m seeing vapor trails. Is that bad?

I just got a weekly fair update from Delta, and I can go from Daytona to Atlanta for $59, but there’s no mention of Jacksonville to Havana. I’ll pay as much as $102 to get to Havana, even if I have to go through Atlanta – which I would since it’s Delta. Castro said he wasn’t going to “run” again at least an hour ago. Let’s make this happen. Banana daiquiris on me.

Daddy Daughter Weekend

MJ spent the weekend getting drunk and arrested with her thug friends, while I was at home with LMJ. MJ wants me to write about my weekend, but as I sit here there's nothing to write. LMJ is a sweet, well behaved little girl who falls into her schedule effortlessly. Seriously, there is nothing to report. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get her to fall asleep without Mommy being there, and I would spend two sleepless nights listening to her scream. It didn't happen that way at all. She went to bed exactly when she was supposed to and I spent two sleepless nights watching her sleep. I caught up on my late night television. The first season of The Cosby Show is the best television ever, and was light years ahead of its time. I don't know if LMJ sees us as caregivers as much as a wait staff. As long as we feed her on time, she's pretty much down for whatever. While she didn't miss her mother demonstrably, she was definitely happy when MJ got home. Momma showed up Sunday afternoon and LMJ was giddy for the rest of the day. I was happy because I got the "self-employed models" out with fifteen minutes to spare. I really expected the worst for the weekend, but it couldn't have gone any better. A big reason for the ease of the weekend is CG. She came in with some quality relief pitching and ate up more innings than could reasonably be expected. We make a good team. I'm the rookie sensation and she's a wily, crafty veteran. It's an unstoppable combination. But not one that should be used too often, so MJ is forbidden from going out of town for a while.

On a side note: We went out to the condo where the girls were staying so I could load up on milk, and I got worked at Phase 10 because ME, Beth, and TF cheated. They were hiding cards. I'll just leave it at that. Make your own judgments.

Responsibility Is A Heavy Responsibility

I had a weird moment recently. I was watching Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie and turned it off because it was stupid. It used to be one of my favorite movies along with Up in Smoke, but as I was watching it I was getting annoyed. None of it was funny. It was all stupid. All I could think was what a couple of morons. Maybe it was because I was sober or maybe it was because I’m thirty-seven, but I definitely don’t like not liking Cheech & Chong. What’s next? Is Dark Side of the Moon going to all of a sudden suck? I spend my days differently now than I did when I was twenty, but I always thought those were the best days. I look back and remember an almost constant intensity of fun that I don’t experience on a regular basis anymore. Maybe that’s just the way memory works. Maybe most of the crap of those days is pushed to the back. I remember it being quaint that I had no job and no money but I did have seventy-two ice cold cans of Bush beer in the fridge – and nothing else – and Gumby’s pizza on speed dial. I have fond memories of my buddy Dave, who was a jackass for the most part, but was always flush with botanical refreshment. I’m having another weird moment right now as I kind of “stream of consciousness” this post. I’m thinking that I should thank God, my personal guardian angel, luck, and/or fate for clouding at least part of MJ’s better judgment. Direct divine intervention is the only explanation for why MJ didn’t run for the hills at some point between my eighteenth and twenty-third birthdays. I was the best of a bad lot I guess. Oh well, c’est la vie. I don’t know what Tommy Chong is up to, but it seems Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez always find a spot for a more sophisticated Cheech Marin. And he’s great. It’s like we grew up together from his ridiculous stoner cholo to a shotgun wielding bar owner. I wonder if he looks back at his early eighties work and thinks what a couple of morons…while counting his residuals.

The Vermin Is Perpetually Amusing

There was an article in The New York Times (long read) yesterday about Disney’s ability to keep us amused now and in the future. The article goes into the economy, people’s shrinking patience for standing in lines, and the decrease in “wonder” due to advances in personal technology. The articles conclusions are all wrong. The one thing it does get right is that as its theme parks go, so goes Disney. I try to be as empirical and as analytical as I can be. I’m cynical, skeptical, and convinced of man’s basic worthlessness. On a day to day basis my favorite place is on my couch in front of the television. I hate crowds because crowds lead to waiting. But while the Magic Kingdom* may not be a kingdom it is definitely magical. If I never set foot in a Busch Gardens or a Six Flags again I won’t miss it. Amusement Parks suck as a rule, but one of my great joys is stepping through the gates of the Magic Kingdom and out on to Main Street. It’s transcendental. I’m happy at that moment. I’m six-year-old-kid-got-the-exact-bike-he-wanted-on-his-birthday happy. I enjoy the other Disneyworld parks, but not like the Magic Kingdom. It hasn’t changed since my first time there in 1978. There’s nothing special about it. It’s anachronistic in its constancy, which is what makes it so cool. I’m surrounded by up to a million strangers but I feel comfortable. LMJ’s first favorite song is from a Mousercise CD MJ used when she was an extended day teacher, at an extended privilege private elementary school, to keep the four and five year olds active more than a decade ago. This makes me happy because while LMJ was still just a gleam in her daddy’s eye, one of the things I look forward to the most is exposing her to more and more Disney as she grows up; letting her get acclimated to the fantasy world that exists on the stereo and the television, and then passing the stroller and locker rentals with a three-to-five year old LMJ, stepping into the sun, and BAM!!! it’s all real sweetie, it’s all real. Where is LMJ going to pre-school? I don’t have a clue. When is her next doctor’s appointment? It’s written on a card somewhere – I think. What’s planned for her first trip to Disneyworld? The only thing I don’t know is a specific date. I don’t think it will be magical or transcendental for her the first time, and she’ll be annoyed about “wasting” her weekend/spring break with her parents when she’s a teen, but when she’s in her late twenties she’ll go back – most likely with an exhaustively vetted significant other – and the magic will hit her. That’s why I’m not worried that a retarded stock analyst, which is redundant, has rated Disney as a “sell”. Disney will always be a big part of America, just like apple pie and guns.

* Disneyworld is made up of 4 main amusement parks, a bunch of hotels, and other attractions. When most people talk about "Disneyworld" they mean the Magic Kingdom. I'm just being specific.

More Politics

Beth has inspired this post with her most recent post. I will try not to melt down, but I’m not making any promises. Beth wrote about the hypocrisy of the conservative/Republican rhetoric. I don’t know if their stance is really hypocritical or if it is just short-sighted – or are they the same thing? One example that confuses me is their stance on abortion: it is evil in every instance and must be made illegal. I won’t get into why that can’t happen logistically and how they’ve forgotten the nightmare of coat hangers and back alley butchers. They seem obsessed with the well being of a fetus but the instant the umbilical cord is cut it’s, “Hey, not my problem. You got yourself into this mess.” My mom thinks it’s misogyny, pure and simple, and it’s hard to refute that argument, but I honestly don’t think they make the connection between the two issues. I think it’s two different groups of conservatives with not as much overlap as one would think. On the one hand there is the social conservative and on the other there is the fiscal conservative. The social conservative is completely insane. They honestly want to control sex – the strongest drive in the natural world. The fiscal conservative just doesn’t want to pay for anything, ever. When you combine the two you get a special kind of crazy. You get either George W. Bush or Ron Paul. My favorite thing about George W. Bush is that he was the worst President in 130 years and the U.S. is still the best place to live in the world by far. My favorite thing about Ron Paul is that he wants to cut taxes across the board, and at the same time, he wants to round up all 10 to 20 million illegal aliens and ship them back where they came from. Marinate on that for a moment. Seriously, take a moment and think about the grand scale of Dr. Paul's "Round 'em Up" scheme and how he wants to do it on the cheap. That’s short-sighted more than hypocritical isn’t it? I don't think he is saying things just to get elected. Since he has as much chance of winning the election as Rosie O’Donnell, why would he pander to anyone? I think he’s your typical conservative trying to deal with one problem at a time and not even realizing that there is a big picture. I just can’t see myself ever voting for a conservative for President. I’m still not voting for a Democrat out of spite. Which is how we arrive at the Dick Cheney decision, but he’s not a conservative he’s a Fascist – big difference.

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney in '08

The leading Democratic nominees signed a pledge back in September not to campaign or assign the delegates in Florida because Florida chose to move its primary election date to January 29. The primary doesn’t matter. I’m a registered Independent; I don’t get to vote today anyway. The general election does matter. Florida is the biggest swing state. It’s the third biggest state, population wise, and Barrack, John, and Hillary have decided that they have some sort of authority over us. Somewhere in a beltway induced fog they’ve come to believe that we need them, as opposed to them needing us. They’ve decided to concede Florida and her twenty-seven electoral votes, and I guess, roll the dice in Ohio for her twenty-one electoral votes. The state that decided they hate boy-boy kissing more than they love having jobs in the last Presidential election. A guy with a skin condition and a funny name and a liberated woman with a philandering husband have put all of their eggs in the irrational basket of some laid off NASA workers and fundamentalist Christian farmers living in Republican Israel. How can I possibly vote for either of these idiots? I don’t care about the first husband, Bill X, questioning Obama’s blackness. I don’t care about Obama running around like a Gitmo prisoner at Disneyworld. I do care about the arrogant lack of foresight. I don’t see either a Washington/FDR or a W/Grant among any of the candidates so I don’t care who gets elected. But since the Democrats have pulled this stunt, I do care who doesn’t get elected. I won’t vote for a Democrat for President. I don’t care if it’s a Romney/Thompson ticket on the Republican side. I don’t care if Roe v. Wade is overturned. I don’t care if they bring back Jim Crow. I don’t care if I lose my right to vote altogether. Hillary and Obama can rot in Hell. Well done jackasses.

I Was Going Into Tashi Station to Pick Up Some Power Converters

I want to apologize for the negative tone of this post in advance. Whoever decided on the 1001 movies people should see before they die has upset me. I understand that I’m a Sci-fi geek, and that just because I like it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. I don’t have a problem with The 5th Element not being on the list. It’s a stupid niche film that I happen to like. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat when Blade Runner didn’t make the list, but I know that oversights can happen, and there needs to be room for The Aviator and Far from Heaven. I think people should be sodomized with a chainsaw when none of the Star Wars movies make the list, and by Star Wars movies I mean Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. That other stuff didn’t really happen. Star Wars just revolutionized filmmaking and won a bunch of Oscars (zero of them were for acting). It was just the launching point for the most bankable movie star ever, Harrison Ford (Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t make it either). Why see The Empire Strikes Back when you could see Gallipoli or The Blair Witch Project? How does Star Wars get skipped? Didn’t they have an editor or some type of review board to stop this crap from happening?
I started looking at the list to help broaden my horizons. I can only watch Smokey and the Bandit so many times. I was prepared to give movies like Annie Hall and Breakfast at Tiffany’s a look in the spirit of open mindedness, but not now. Now Woody Allen goes back to being the guy who slept with his nanny and Audrey Hepburn goes back to not being Katherine. It’s not just the omission of Star Wars that makes me hate these people. It’s their incompetence. How do you put The Good, The Bad and The Ugly on your list but leave off A Fist Full of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. You can’t put part three of a trilogy on a great movie list without parts one and two. This is why the standard for justifiable homicide needs to be they needed killin’.

(Big Up’s to me for not going on a diatribe about the myriad ways Star Wars is the greatest thing ever)