People suck.

So I called a number in the Pennysaver and ordered 4 cords of firewood. The guy delivers two, I pay him for all four, and then he disappears. He doesn't answer his cell phone (which I expect to be disconnected shortly), and his voice mailbox is too full to accept any new messages. All the phone numbers I have for him turn out to be cellphones, and they're all not being answered.

Turns out, he did the same thing to my neighbor. So I'm out almost 300 bucks, and my neighbor 150. At this point, I don't know how many people he's screwed, but I'll bet it's a lot.

I was talking to my neighbor, and here's his take on it:

"Well, I'm pretty sure he's living hand to mouth. He told me he just got divorced and has two kids. I feel bad for him, so...I'm just going to let it go."

You know what? Eff that.

I might have felt sorry for him too, except this guy stole from me. He betrayed, yet again, my general faith in humanity and reinforced my reasons for hating all people universally until I get to know them. The sad thing is, I even gave the guy twenty bucks extra because he dumped the wood close to where I was going to be stacking it.

I don't understand the way my neighbor's mind works. Does he feel guilty for having what he's worked for? Could that be it? Does he think someone else is to blame for this guy's two kids and failed marriage? Did someone force the guy at knifepoint to knock up his wife?

I called the cops, explained my stupidity and gullibility. They took the report, and said they'll try to contact him. Rattle his cage a little.

In a nice way, they told me that I basically didn't have a prayer of seeing my money or my other two cords of wood, since it was a cash deal.

If he did the same thing to 50 people, that's quite a little Christmas club he's got going there.

I can tell you this: I'd like to shove a cord of wood up his ass sideways. So,it was an expensive lesson learned. Trust no one. Get the license plate and a receipt for all transactions.

Meanwhile, my car is sitting at the shop with a $400.00 invoice tacked to it. That's a nice bonus.

So don't buy firewood in Saratoga, NY or Corinth, NY from a guy named Tony Bills at (518) 696-7044 or (518) 791-3922 because he will rip you off. Let the search engines pick that one up.

Effer.

On a lighter note, tonight is Halloween. We live in the boonies, and for the last ten years we've had exactly zero trick-or-treaters. If the doorbell rings at my house on Halloween, we get the guns. If we're home, we generally carve a pumpkin, have a few glasses of wine and maybe watch a scary movie.

Sarah's post about Drackila reminded me of a Halloween poem I wrote when I was 8. I share this touching and memorable poem in honor of this sacred night:

Fankenstine

I wish I knew fankenstine. Good frends we would be.
I would take off his head and see what I could see.
And if he locked me up I would walk threw the wall.
And then I would watch the snake in the hall crawl in to the bedroom and threw the wall.

The End.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Fankenstine, 2005.



Yeah. Against my wife's wishes, I spiked his hair, and gave him some "monster" tackle. Poor guy didn't have anything at all. I think whoever slapped him together left it off by mistake. Besides, he looked like he might be needing it tonight, what with the unconscious chick and all, so I helped a brotha out.

St. Barfs

One more vacation story, and I'll be returning you back to your regularly scheduled programming, I promise. Every night around 4 or 5 pm, a big catamaran that holds about 20 or 30 people would pull up to the dock for the booze cruise. For ten bucks, you got a ninety minute cruise down the coast of the island along with all the rum punch and shots you could drink. The shots were this concoction they called "donkey" which was so named because "if you drink too much, mon, you be makin' de ass of yourself." Turns out it was just Rum, sugar and lime juice all mixed up and then chilled. It was actually pretty good after the 3rd or 4th one. The rest of the time you were constantly provided with rum punch, which, after the donkey, tasted like watered down grapefruit juice. You didn’t feel it at all. Until you tried to stand up. Alex and Horatio (the crew) did a great job. We went on this booze cruise twice -- the first time we met quite a few interesting characters. The second time, we spent most of the cruise trying to avoid those same interesting characters. Two of these characters were promptly named "mexican girl" and "loud fat guy." Yeah, our nicknames weren't very original, but they were accurate. 

Mexican girl was a new bride of two months, and was on vacation to St. Maarten without her husband. No idea what that was about. She was ok at first, then got progressively more annoying as the trip went on. She was polling people as they got off the boat, asking if anyone was "having a party." Not sure what she meant by that, but either way we didn't invite her to dinner. I never did find out what fat guy's story was. I do know that he liked to have his picture taken with the ladies -- if he could corner them. And ladies, he was quite the catch, let me tell you. Just take a look: And oh, just to sweeten the pot -- no, he didn't spill a drink on himself. That's pure man-boob cleavage sweat right there. So anyway, back to St. Bart's. My wife is not a water person. She doesn't swim very well, and she gets motion sick at the drop of a hat, so she doesn't like boats all that much. So obviously she was a little hesitant about the whole booze cruise thing, since it inherently involved both water and boats in motion. Off-setting these two things, of course, was the rum. As alcohol is wont to do, it gave her a false sense of confidence. She did fine, and was pretty happy. Since she had successfully navigated not one but two booze cruises, we all signed up for a trip to St. Bart's later in the week. An hour long cruise each way. She figured it would be a piece of cake after a pair of 90-minute cruises, especially since the boat to St. Bart’s was a lot bigger. Turns out there's a slight difference between a booze cruise that stays within spitting distance of the shoreline and the open seas the day before a hurricane passes by. The night before the cruise, we were out extremely late, for reasons I won't get into here, but suffice to say we had about 8 hours sleep -- between the five of us. The next morning at 8:15 sharp, we showed up at the dock, extremely tired and extremely hung over. It was raining, miserable, and very windy. We looked out at the bay and it didn't look too bad. That was good, because we paid fifty-five bucks each for this trip, and didn't want to waste it. They called our names, and we got loaded onto a boat which looked a lot like a shuttlecraft from Star Trek, only it was bigger and smelled more like armpits and feet. Here's a picture of it: When we got settled in our seats, the captain, an Aussie, gave us the speech -- Passports, trip time, when to be back at the boat, etc. He then introduced the two dudes who were going to be serving us drinks and taking care of us on the way over. Then he casually mentioned that we'd be traveling into the wind, and that there "might be a little bouncy-bounce." I should have remembered those damned Foster's commercials. Or even the "THIS is a knife" scene from the Crocodile Dundee movie. That should have been our cue to bolt for the dock and kiss our buck-ten goodbye. But no. None of that occured to me until later. Like I said, I was way hungover, so I was barely registering what he was saying. Plus I was keeping one eye on my wife, to make sure the boat swaying next to the dock wasn't getting to her. When the guy serving drinks asked me what I wanted, I told him water. Instead of a plastic bottle, he gave me a plastic cup full of water and ice. Then we started moving. As soon as we hit the open sea, I knew we were in trouble. When we cleared the bay, we immediately rode up the side of a twelve-foot swell, and slammed down hard. My ass did the same, and any of you who know me personally know that I don't have a lot of padding back there. Those fiberglass seats were hard. When we hit the second swell, the water and ice in my glass literally jumped out of my cup and went flying across the cabin. 

I had a seat that allowed me to look directly out the windshield of this boat, and I noticed something I didn’t want to notice. The captain looked a little scared. But he was an Aussie, goddammit, and I saw in his face that he would kill us all before he turned that boat around and admitted defeat. I watched the next wave coming and braced myself as we rode up the side of it and then dove under the next one, the water crashing over the windshield. Everyone in the boat was making sounds like you hear people make on a rollercoaster. Screams, whoops of joy, people clapping their hands. They were having a blast. There's one thing you have to remember about rollercoasters – the ride lasts, on average, about 1-3 minutes. Needless to say, after 30 minutes of this brutal ass-pounding ride from hell, the whoops of joy were decidedly more subdued -- and starting to sound a lot more like moans of agony. I noticed that the guys that had been handing out drinks were now surreptitiously handing out buckets. The most amazing thing to me was that they were actually able to stand and walk around during this. If I had so much as stood up, I would have immediately rolled to the back of the boat and crashed into the transom like a human boulder. I looked over at my wife to see how she was doing. She was doing pretty good. Those booze cruises had been excellent training for this trip. For your enjoyment, I drew this picture of what she looked like:  

She stayed like this for the entire hour we were on this boat. I wanted to comfort her, to hold her hair back and tell her she would be fine, but two things prevented me from doing this. One, my buddy's girlfriend was already over there sitting next to her and pretty much doing exactly that, and two, I knew if I stopped looking out the front window - even for a second - I’d be joining her on a one way trip to Bucketville. She had her bucket’s-eye view, and there wasn’t much I could do except clamp onto her hand from across the table and try not to catch a whiff that would put me over the edge. The bucket boys also had this green camphor/menthol stuff that they would pour into a paper towel and give to people, telling them to smell it. They got to where we were sitting, and as the bucketboy was pouring this stuff onto the paper towel, we hit a gigantic wave and about half the bottle of green stuff dumped on my buddy Pete's lap. About a minute later, I noticed him fidgeting around pretty good. Turns out that camphor and menthol are the two major ingredients in Ben Gay, so enjoy that visual. He told me later that it felt like his nads were on fire. Out of the 20 or so people who were on the boat, about half of them got sick. Another ten minutes and I would have been there right with them. Talk about a wasted trip. We took about 2 hours sitting on the steps of a storefront to get our stomachs settled, and then walked around for about an hour before it started pouring. We ducked out of the storm and sat in an open-air French bistro for what seemed like 3 solid weeks, nursing a club sandwich and ice water, and talking to a professional soccer player and his wife, who were really great people. St. Bart’s is a pretty small island, and a lot of us didn't rent cars, so we kept running into people who we had come over with. They were all obsessing about having to get back on the hellboat in 3 hours. We seriously considered flying back. My wife’s other suggestion was to just stay on the island permanently and start our lives over. We did eventually take the boat back, and it wasn’t all that bad. We were going with the wind this time, and the captain did a lot of surfing. Without all the ass pounding, it seemed a lot less sickening. After staggering to our room and taking a 2 hour nap, we awoke feeling almost human, and went out to get some food. We didn’t drink quite as much at dinner that night. My wife did find some nice artwork in the bathroom of the restaurant though:  

Too bad she didn't see it until after we ate, or I would probably have ordered the steak and ribs combo. They looked good.

Boogie On, Day Three

On the third beach day, Wilma was coming, so the winds were high and the sea was pretty rough. The waves were getting big, and after getting knocked around a bit, we decided to rent some boogie boards. For those of you who don't know what boogie boards are, they are small styrofoam boards that you lie on, and use to ride the waves. They are sort of a small surfboard you don't stand up on.

I discovered that there's a reason you see mostly young kids riding the waves on boogie boards.

It's not because it's not still a blast, because it is -- and it's not because you look like an idiot, even though you probably do -- it's because if you time the wave incorrectly, it will pick you up like so much dirty laundry, fold your spine in a direction that by all rights it should not bend in, and then slam your old, brittle bones to the sea floor and hold you there until it has forcibly injected at least 20 lbs of sand and a gallon of saltwater into every orifice of your body.

Even if you manage to actually catch a wave, the lower half of your body is still hanging off the back of the board. This means that while most of you is riding high, heading toward the beach, your man junk is riding much lower, and the wave you are surfing on is actively trying to tear it free from your body and send it via riptide to Puerto Rico. And let me tell you, that shit hurts.

The other thing I learned while boogie boarding in the Caribbean is -- never wear a bathing suit with a liner. Why, you ask? Let me tell you. When we got back to the condo to shower and get ready to go to dinner, I took off my swim trunks in the bathroom and the liner of said trunks contained approximately 1 metric ton of white beach sand, and my nuts looked kinda like a sugar cinnamon donut.

Also courtesy of Mother Nature's high-pressure washing machine, I actually had 2 pieces of seaweed stuck in my ass.*

I can hear you all now. "No way!" you're saying to yourself. "How could you not notice THAT?"

The answer to that question, my friends, is a single word, and that word is:

Rum.



*Yes, I know. I'm sharing too much.

Black Predator

I mentioned in my last post that you could also go parasailing at Orient Beach. Now before you read this, go into your kitchen and pour yourself 5 or 6 shots of rum and hammer them down. That will get you in the same state that we were in when we decided it would be a good idea to be towed behind a giant motorboat in high winds while dangling from a parachute.

Our friends had gone and said it was awesome, so my wife and I decided to give it a shot. We walked down to the parasailing shack and the young French guy with a cigarette dangling insouciantly out of the corner of his mouth gladly took our uncouth American dollars and gave us a little paper ticket. He waved us vaguely in the direction of the water, and said that someone would be arriving soon with a waverunner to bring us out to the boat. So down to the water we walked, awaiting our ride.

A few moments later we see the Jet Ski approaching, and on it is The Coolest Dude In The Known Universe.

Black as midnight, lithe as a panther, this guy has muscles I didn't even know existed, and exactly zero percent body fat. He is an Island God, and I could almost hear my wife's knees go weak. His hair is shoulder-length corn-rows with beads on the end, and he is wearing silver wrap-around shades. He is a reggae super-hero. A Black version of Predator. He is Lenny Kravitz Cool combined with Seal's natural grace. Dangerous looking.

He nods, and motions for us to jump on. No smile, no words. He just sits there on the idling Waverunner, exuding raw, unadulterated cool.

My wife somehow beats me to the Waverunner, even though she can't swim. I am still not sure how she managed it, but I seem to remember barely dodging a well-aimed elbow to the neck. I lamely jump on behind her and hold on to her waist, and I swear I can actually feel my testicles shrinking to little whiteboy raisins.

In retrospect, I blame the French. My theory is that they purposely hired this guy to make all of us pale white guys feel grossly inadequate. Then they sit at their booth, smoke their unfiltered Gaulois Blonde cigarettes, and laugh their smug little French laughs at our expense.

We ride out to the boat and jump onto the platform. The boat is manned by two more young frenchmen. They hook us up to the side by side harness, and explain what is going to happen. There is a pretty stiff breeze, and the parachute is out behind us. They signal for us to get ready, and explain that we will be lifted from our sitting position on the platform of the boat and immediately rise into the sky.

We prepare.

They launch us.

Instead of up, we slide straight back at roughly 1000 mph, and suddenly I get hit in the ass with a baseball bat. To explain what happened, I drew this helpful picture:



Both of us yelled, "OW! MY ASS!" at exactly the same time. As we were being whisked away from the boat, one of the Frenchman yells "Sooreee!" but I could tell what he was really thinking was "Hah! Every single time. Stupid, stupid Americans."

Once we stopped rubbing our asses, we started looking around. It was truly beautiful. You could see straight down into the water right to the bottom, and you could see three other islands when you looked out. I confess I spent a fair amount of time looking at the frayed knot in the nylon rope that was actually holding our harnesses and parachute to the boat, but I figured that if it snapped we'd just plummet to our deaths and drift out to sea. No big deal.

It was a short ride, but pretty fun, excluding the tumor-sized lump on my ass.

My back still hurts.

French bastards.

Meet Pierre Cousteau.

As I mentioned below, I’m back. It already seems like it never happened. One, because I had no power when I got home and then woke up to snow on the ground, and two, because I think vast quantities of alcohol affect your short term memory.

The best quote of the trip: “I’m sorry sir, we don’t serve alcohol before seven A.M.”

On the flight over, I sat directly in front of an old couple, or more precisely, in front of the male half of the old couple, who had an instantly assigned nickname of “Garlic Guy” because I am almost certain his breath actually boarded the plane a few steps ahead of him. As an added bonus, he was also a heavy mouth breather. The stink was almost visible, and it immediately set up camp in my sinus cavities like Cindy Sheehan on the Bush ranch. It, like Cindy, had a host of ardent supporters all clamoring for their piece of the attention pie. In descending order of disgust factor, they were Mr. Gingivitis, Reverend Stale Cigarettes and Reverend Old Coffee, or as I like to think of them, Michael Moore, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. At one point, I seriously considered chewing two pieces of spearmint gum and then shoving them deep into my nostrils. It was a long trip.

Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful trip over. We landed, picked up the car and drove to the condo. It was pretty nice. Two bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, living room and big balcony overlooking Simpson bay. We immediately changed into our bathing suits and hit the surf, even though it was already close to five thirty. The water was about 83 degrees, and clear topaz blue. Pure heaven after leaving 40-degree rainy weather.

I think the only way to do this trip (and this series of blog entries) justice is to break it up by activity and not by day.

Our big plan for day two was to go to Orient Beach, over on the French side of the island. It was beautiful. White sand beaches as far as you can see, and crystal blue water so clear it hurt to look at. This beach is also “clothing optional” which apparently means that people you would like to see naked never get that way, and the people that will haunt your dreams for the rest of your life walk around totally bare-ass naked. Here is a picture of the hottest looking semi-naked chick on the beach, and I am not even kidding:



I guess they call it the “off” season for a reason, These people had to be off their frigging nut to walk around looking like this, and I was off my feed for the rest of the day just from witnessing it. It was a thong, too. Take that.

Now, also on Orient beach, there are quite a few activities which one may partake of if one so chooses. We chose to partake of two of these, on different days. The first activity we chose to participate in was scuba diving, and this is the one I will talk about today. Parasailing comes later, and it’s a good thing, because my ass still hurts from that debacle, which I will not bore you with today. Perhaps tomorrow. Suffice it to say that had these activities been reversed, I would not have been able to dive the next day, since I could barely walk.

So my buddy Pete and I walk up to the little shack on the beach and inquire about a dive trip. There would be another friend of ours going as well, and neither of them are certified scuba divers. I am. I figured there was no way we were diving together, but I was wrong. I guess that along with clothing, certification is also optional. The nice French lady, who was fairly attractive in a bony, middle-aged, leather-skinned kind of way, explains that we will go out to a shallow reef. Once there, her husband (who smelled like B.O. and needed oral surgery) will give us instructions on proper dive techniques. It will be short, she assures us, but very thorough. She then leaves us.

A few seconds later, she pulls out four tanks from the back room. Each one probably weighs 50 lbs, and she probably weighs double that soaking wet. She grabs three weight belts, 3 BC vests and regulators and sets up all the equipment. She then hauls all this shit one by one out through the surf to the boat. Pierre helps her with this task by surfing the web in the back office, a soda balanced snugly between his mammoth man breasts. When she’s done, she wades back in to shore, and he gets up and then walks out to the boat, motioning for us to follow. After we board, it is then that we realize Pierre can barely speak English. But we are not worried. Pierre has hundreds or thousands or even dozens of dives under his belt. We ride for about ten minutes –- this dive was pretty shallow and close to shore – and he stops and anchors the boat.

The instruction begins.

Peirre holds up a regulator and says, “Stop breathing, no. Always breathe. Hold ze breath – is bad. Lungs, zey go poof! (makes exploding motion with hands) You die.”

My buddy, who has only been scuba diving a few times before, has this look on his face like he's thinking, "that can happen?" I briefly contemplate saying something about air expansion and the effects of atmospheric pressure on the air stored in your lungs, but Pierre is already moving on to something else. “Don’t hold your breath,” I say to nobody in particular.

Pierre continues. “Ziss - (holding up bc hose) zee air in, zee air out. Ziss (points to the inflate button, inhales deeply and mimes a BC filling with air.) Ziss (points to vent button and blows air out. Directly at me. I swoon involuntarily from the intense smell of rotting gums. I silently pray that he has never used my particular regulator.)

He then tells us what’s going to happen when we actually enter the water. The sum total of his instruction is:

“We go in, I look behind, I check for you. Answer OK (makes OK sign with hand) -- or no. (shakes head)”

At this point, I give a quick check to my own equipment. The BC is in rags but the main straps look ok, although a bit frayed. I give the inflator a shot, and it seems to work. The regulator is packed with sand. I knock it against my hand a few times to get most of it out. There is so much sand in this thing I am almost positive there has to be a sand crab or three camped out toward the back. There’s a slow leak hissing away on my primary, so I know the gasket is shot. OK, I think to myself. We’re only going down 30 feet. And I’m certified. I supposedly know what to do in the event of an equipment malfunction. By then, I was actively planning for one.

Pierre motions for me to put my regulator in my mouth and get in the water first, since he knows I have been diving before. I do one out of two because I’m washing this sucker out before I jam it in my mouth. I back away to give the others room to drop in, and I kill some time by washing my regulator. When it is relatively clean, or at least free of major chunks of debris, I put it in my mouth and try to breathe. Compared to my personal regulator, this thing feels like I’m trying to suck a lungful of air through a drinking straw while a sumo wrestler is sitting on my chest. I am fairly certain that regular maintenance and inspection routines are two more things that seem to be very optional in the Caribbean.

Finally, we’re all in the water, and he drops in. Kersplunk! Down he goes. I assume we’re supposed to follow him, so we do. He was oddly graceful, in a sea-cow sort of way – like the ocean was his true home, and land was just somewhere he went to mate and surf the web.

I wish I could tell you that things didn’t go smoothly, because it would make for a more interesting story, but for the most part they did. We had some minor buoyancy control issues with one member of our small party, but those were quickly resolved by our sage instructor, and we were on our way. I’m glad nobody died, because I can’t spare any friends. I don’t have that many. It was a good day.

When we got back to the shack on the beach, Pierre tied up the boat, and tossed all the equipment overboard and waded to shore. He sat on the picnic table while his wife grabbed all the stuff and hauled it in. I offered to help her, but she waved me away. She had muscles like knotted cable. I am betting that she’s been doing this a while.

“You like?” Pierre asked us with a big grin.

“We like!” we said. Not bad for $45 bucks.

We still have parasailing, booze cruises, waverunners and boat trips from hell to cover, so stay tuned! Kirk out.

I'm back.

Wow. What a trip. So much to talk about. So much to write. So much stuff that I don't know where to begin. I have to figure out how to arrange and digest this past week. Also I have to compile my notes, since much of the trip was experienced in various states of inebriation. I'll get back to you later tonight with the first of the adventures.

In the meantime, I wanted to share my inspirational quote of the day I received in my e-mail this morning.


"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
--Oscar Wilde

So if I'm understanding that right, when the shit hits the fan, I'll be turning into Spiderman.

Awesome.

Coconut Grove, here I come.

To escape the cold, miserable rain, I'm taking a little vacation to a tropical island where I will enjoy, from the looks of the weather report for the coming week, the warm miserable rain. There will be drinking. Lots of drinking.

I'm pressing my luck with the tail-end of hurricane season, but one of the people we're going with has this habit of just missing disasters, so I think we'll be ok. She lost her apartment because she lived right across the street from the World Trade Center; She postponed a trip to Sri-Lanka and therefore just missed the Tsunami -- that sort of thing. At the very least, it should make for an interesting blog entry, assuming I make it back.

The other person we're going with said he would be meeting us at the airport with a case of rum, a rental car and assless leather pants. I'm not sure what to make of that. Although he did say that David Lee Roth rented the last pink caddy on the island, so maybe there's a story behind the assless pants that I don't want to know.

Come to think of it, pretty much any story involving assless pants is one that I don't want to know.

Have fun. Drink responsibly. Avoid the assless pants. And, if you can, David Lee Roth.

Goddammit, I wish he'd stop following me.

What's wrong with this?

So today my little Google Desktop tosses up the "What's Hot in the News" list, and it looks like this:



This has to be the worst mix of news and oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-this-is-news I've ever seen. Some of it is valid news and some of it just made me scratch my head and wonder what the hell is wrong with people.

At the beginning, it's not so bad, but as you go down the list it gets worse.

• Podcasts, yeah they're all the rage, blah,blah,blah. First on the list? Doubtful. There are some other things going on in the world right now that I'm slightly more concerned about.

• Miers? Yeah, that's news, I guess. Beaten into the ground news, but still.

• Convicted hacker -- "Hmm," I think to myself. "That could be interesting." I clicked on the link and learned a few things. And yes, I consider that news because I hate all hackers and think they should be hung upside down by their testicles and have their ass beaten with the back side of an early 90's ISA RAM card. Yeah. The geeks will know.

• Response time to Katrina and N.O...well I guess that's still news, and by news I mean the serious business of figuring out who to blame for what. That could, and probably will, take years. Me? Well, I blame lots of people for that mess, including idiots who live 12 feet below sea level.

• Hello... What have we here? This is HUGE!! I'm talkin' story of the year. Dare I say Pullit-surprise? Yes, it's Dolphins singing the Effing Batman theme song. What could be more newsworthy than this? BATMAN for chrissake!! But wait -- turns out, I got my hopes up for nothing. According to the news story, it's an "extremely high-pitched, short version of the Batman theme song." Don't think back to the Batman movies, either. They're not orchestrating any Danny Elfman themes here. Think back to the campy old 60's TV show. The one that went "na na na na na na na na Bat-maaaaaan!" Yeah. That's the one. Turns out that a "short version" of this incredibly difficult tune consists of the "Bat-maaaaan!" part. So after years of painstaking training and hundreds of thousands of dollars and untold man-hours spent, the dolphins have learned to sing:
  
  Two notes.
  
  That's it. Just two. One short, one long. And get this: If you remember the song, you will also remember that they are both the same note. And according to the story, they are "extremely high," which means it's basically two regular dolphin whistles of differing length.
  
  I am pretty sure the whole project revolves around being "extremely high."
  
  Bat-maaaaan! Song over. Gimme a fish.

• Faith, filling voids, yadda yadda. And speaking of filling voids,

• Tom & Katie are expecting..... what are they expecting, you might ask? Why, they're expecting a baby. What they're not expecting, and will probably end up with, is a spoiled rich kid with a warped sense of entitlement and a coke habit he'll blame on his divorced parents. Whoo hoo! The world can hardly wait. I'm sure the church of Scientology can also hardly wait.

• And yet more faith...So the whitehouse says "Um, yeah. God doesn't talk to George Bush." I'm amazed that they even need to deny that. George may talk to God, but I don't think the big guy is listening to anyone these days. I think he's got his hands full with all the smiting and what not. I haven't heard much from the old "Katrina is Allah's revenge" crowd since the earthquake. Sucks to get your ass handed to you by your own God, I guess.

• Withdraw This Nominee - Couldn't tell you. Didn't click on it.

• Wallace & Grommit wareho? A wareho? I thought it was about wererabbits? Guess maybe I won't wait for the DVD afterall.

• As for the rest, well, I'm glad to see that 30,000 dead ranked above the new Xbox ga -- no wait. My mistake.

God, there is nothing on this earth I hate more than the 24-hour news cycle. Well, maybe being chased by a wareho, but that's it.

Death by chocolate.

Here's a question for the guys: Is it just me, or does this commercial make your balls shrivel up a little bit?



I swear to you, if I have to see this commercial (or one of its many sickening variations) one more time, I will fly to hollywood and kill these annoying bitches using nothing but foamy chocolate yogurt.

The one on the left annoys me the most with her inane and insipid references to chocolate goodness. I must admit however, she is marginally less annoying to me now than she was when she had the hair style of Leonardo DiCaprio in "What's eating Gilbert Grape."

So listen closely, annoying girl -- Just give it up and stop trying to convince us that you like guys. Just cave in to your lustful chocolate lesbian urges and be done with it. We can all tell that you are just one white russian away from simply leaping out of your chair and straddling your chocolate friend, so don't even try to convince us otherwise.

Yoplait ad executives should be killed for allowing these commercials to air. At the very least, they should be tortured by locking them in a room with nothing but a television that plays these commercials over and over, and no food except for a dozen cases of that foamy chocolate shit.

And this thing?



Vapor-plug? I don't even want to know what that's all about.

Countdown of depression

I have nothing funny to say today, so I'll talk about the end of summer, which I'm sure will just bum all of you out. I love Autumn, it's my favorite season. I just wish it was longer. Around here, if you blink you'll miss it.

PJ's Chicken n' Ribs is a landmark in Saratoga, and every year about this time, they close up shop and head to wherever people who run seasonal food joints head to for the winter.

Pretty soon, the countdown will appear on their sign. It usually starts out something like "Closed for the Season: See you in 22 weeks" which is really depressing when you're driving by during the first snow flurries of the year. Every week, they have someone change it, until it eventually works its way down to 1 or 2 weeks sometime in April.

I hate seeing that sign at the beginning of the winter, but toward the end it does give you some small ray of hope when you're driving home in a mid-march snowstorm. You see that sign and you can believe in your heart that Spring will actually arrive . This sign is how us locals keep track of the seasons. In Saratoga, by the way, these seasons are "Winter," "Concert" and "Track" and sometimes, as a town resident, you don't want to be here for any of them.

Winters are tough and long, and the less said about them the better. You'd better have a winter activity you like, because without one you will probably hang yourself. Concert season means that every weekend-night during the summer there is a traffic jam 5 miles long as people wait to get into concerts by the likes of Dave Matthews and Phish. (I don't care how good he is, and I don't care how drunk or stoned you are, how long and smelly your whiteboy dreads are, or how much you rule at hacky-sack, I want you the eff out of my way so I can just get to my house, thank you very much.) Track season means lots of bitchy rich folks from downstate come up to drop their cash and their attitudes on the local populace. I am willing to bet that more sent-back food gets spit on (and worse) in Saratoga in August than anywhere else in the world. It also means that the price of everything in town from gas to camera batteries goes through the roof.

When PJ's first started doing this sign thing way back when, they used to count down the individual days. I think this turned out to be a major pain in the ass, because they switched to counting down the weeks a few years ago. My best guess is that grandpa PJ got sick of hauling his ass out to the sign in the middle of a snowstorm just to make us townfolk happy.

They cook their chicken on a gigantic cinderblock and rebar grill out back, and when you drive up that way you can smell the chicken from about a mile down the road. In the summer, when they're really hopping and the wind is blowing west, you have to drive through a dense cloud of chicken-flavored smoke. If you are ever on your way to the thoroughbred track, keep this in mind. You'll want to roll your windows up as you go by or stray animals will be following you around all day.

I've only been there a few times, but I'm probably going to stop there this weekend just to officially say goodbye to summer. It has to be a lot better for the cooks this time of year than in the Spring. They got burned a few years ago when we had one of our 'extra-special' late season snow storms in the middle of May. It sucked to drive by and see nobody in the parking lot, and three poor bastards in goosedown parkas standing out back grilling chicken nobody was going to eat. (You almost wanted to stop in and order a pity chicken, just so the day wasn't a total waste for them.)

I've got no closer for this one. Eat Chicken, I guess, and if you like chicken n' ribs, now you know the best place to get it. Speaking of white meat, I'm off to St. Maarten for a bit in October. Maybe that will shake me out of this seasonal funk. Look for the glow in the Southeastern sky. That'll be the sun reflecting off my pasty skin.

Hunt mountain lions with a knife. That's a sport.

So I was talking with a deer "hunter" the other day. I really don't know how anyone could actually fail at this so-called sport. I know how most people hunt deer, and really, it's not so much "hunting" as it is "sniping what walks by." I realize it has to be done to cull the herd, blah ,blah blah. I actually happen to like venison, but I don't hunt deer. If I did, maybe to make it more fun I would stalk them, probably with a longbow or a flintlock. At least they have a sporting chance that way, mostly because I'd probably never see one since they'd hear me coming a mile away.

Know this going in. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to outsmart a deer.

For those of you who don't know how it's done, here's a little primer.

1. Before the season starts, feed the deer. They sell automatic, timed feeders that will dump corn on the ground at certain times. The deer get used to getting a free handout, so they stop by at around the same time every morning for a bite to eat.

2. Also before the season starts, put up a treestand. This is basically a high platform with a chair that you fasten to a tree and will eventually sit in and shoot from. Deer don't usually look up, so the chances you will see them before they see you is pretty good, unless you get drunk and fall out while trying to piss into an empty beer bottle.

3. Go get two or more bottles of "stuff." One to cover up human stink, the other to lure male deer. There's about a zillion different brands on the market, but they're pretty much all the same. Here's two examples, made by the same company: Deer Dander, and Standing Estrous.

The first, according to the literature, "makes you smell like the deer you pursue." (Note: Do not put this stuff on and then go to the office. That's just a little tip for the mainframe guy with the earring and the pony tail who works in my building.)

The second, an attractant, is just this: female deer piss. But not just any piss -- oh no. This is very special piss. (Another Note: This stuff also stinks, and apparently will make male deer want to pole you really bad, so don't spill it on your pants by mistake if you are in the woods alone. Unless, of course, that's your thing and you are looking for some deer lovin'.) Here's the description: "She stands, he mounts, and Code Blue bottles her urine. You won't find peak estrous scent collected with comparable precision. From a single, proven, receptive doe."

First off, that has to be the worst job in the universe. Think about it. You have to get in there, collect the piss and get out, all without getting an erect buck penis in your face. ("OK, we have to time this just right. Don't forget what happened to Stevenson two weeks ago - He still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming and gagging.")

Secondly, I had no idea that female deer were into water sports. They just spontaneously piss themselves? The shit that I learn from the Cabela's catalog amazes me.

4. Set up a few decoys. These are "photo-realistic" does. Somehow, according to the literature, they are painted and posed to "duplicate a receptive doe." I'm not sure what that means, but I am pretty sure it involves a little red teddy with black lace trim.

OK, so now you've got the deer trained to stop by, you've got your stand set up, and you smell like a doe that's cruisin' for some pole.

The last thing you need to do is wake up at 3am on opening day, get in your tree stand, and wait. At the appointed time, a gigantic buck will cluelessly wander in, looking for the deer equivalent of what every man wants -- Free food and hot sex with two chicks at once.

Then, right when he realizes the females aren't real, you point your high-powered rifle at his head and blow his brains out. If you time it exactly right, his last thought should be "Hey! These chicks aren't real! What the F-" BLAM!

The reason you wait for this precise moment is because the buck's confusion and disappointment releases a chemical compound into his bloodstream that will make the venison extra tender. (or so I've heard.)

Congratulations. You've just outsmarted one of the most dangerous, intelligent pred--- no wait.

You just shot a forest cow.

*edit 9/1/09; Lots of traffic on this old post! For the people who don't read the comments -- this is a humor blog, and as I've said in the comments, this post was really to bust the balls of my treestand hunting buddies. I have *nothing* against hunting. I have two of my friend's deer stands on my property right now. So read this as it was intended -- to poke a little fun at the tree standers, and at the people from NYC who order a thousand bucks worth of stuff from Cabelas, drive two hours north and shoot cows and dogs by mistake. I have no agenda here. I'm an NRA member, a multiple gun owner and as long as you're not trespassing on my land, we're all good.

And seriously, some of you guys need to lighten the fuck up. So far I've had death threats, been called a "gutless tofu sucking freak" by an anonymous poster who apparently doesn't understand irony, and "a squaw" because I like venison but don't hunt. The reason I don't hunt is not because I give a shit about deer or hunting. Deer hunting is hard, and time consuming. I just don't like it enough to work that hard for it. I'd rather let friends hunt on my land and then just drop off the steaks and sausage later, if that's ok with you. I like steak too, but I have no inclination to go to the farm, pick out a nice cow and then cut my own.

And nobody should be forced to eat tofu.

I am shocked.

Seriously, what are the odds?

I have questions (filler post)

Question One: Do only assholes buy rice-rocket motorcycles? Or is there something inherent in owning the machine, in having that much rice-power between your legs, that immediately takes you over and forces any latent assholishness to the surface? Or maybe it has something to do with the ugly flourescent colors. I'm not sure. My experience suggests that the first possibility is the correct one. I rarely, if ever, see a dude on a Harley driving like an asshole.

This morning, there was a guy behind me on my way to work on one of these crotch rockets. (And what the HELL is up with the jacket and helmet that matches your bike? Do you think that makes you look good? No, you look like a friggin' Power Ranger.) Anyway, this guy popped a wheelie, then passed me on a blind double yellow, all the while holding the wheelie. While impressive, if a car was coming the other way around the curve, this guy was cream cheese, baby. The thing is, when you're up on one wheel, you CAN'T STEER. So stay the FUCK away from the side of my car. I flipped him off as he went by, but truthfully, I think he was going too fast to see it. I waved it around a bit in vain hope, but I was probably wasting my time.

Question Two: This I also noticed on the way to work this morning. What's with the idiots who ride your ass in the passing lane, then when you move over, they DON'T FUCKING PASS? Goddammit that drives me insane. They just hang out there in your blind spot, going the exact same speed they were going when they were sitting in your back seat. I feel like pulling back in front of them and just locking up my brakes.

Question Three: Why is it that nobody appreciates off-center humor these days? I got in the elevator this morning when I got to work and on the way up, it stopped on the second floor. A guy got on, and he had 4 over-sized shoeboxes under his arm, with the covers taped on. We rode in silence for a few moments, then I caught his eye and nodded toward the boxes. "Kittens?" I asked.

Nothin. Not a smile, not a sigh, not a disgusted look. He got off on 4 without saying a word.

Oh well. Can't say I didn't try. My next post will be about my first bicycle, and the unfortunate events that led up to the stroking out of granny grunt.

I know I promised, but....

Here's a few quick pictures from coyote meat-snack lake:

Beetle Bottle Paddle Battle

So I'm reading the news today and come across this gem:

"China's ruling Communist Party has been imbued with a culture of secrecy from its very beginnings as an underground organization hunted by warlords, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists and Japanese invaders.

The current committee chairman, Wang Gang, was quoted by Xinhua in a speech two years ago as stressing the need to "strengthen the building of laws, regulations, and systems on secrecy maintenance."

I forwarded this to Yort, since we share an affinity for effed-up names, and his only comment was "No way am I joining a Wang Gang." I had to wholeheartedly agree.

Personally, I think it would be a great name for a hip, new version of The Village People.

Also, I'm wondering -- On Saturday nights, do you think Wang Gang Bang Tang?

I'm sorry. That was totally uncalled for.

Giggity.

Listen like thieves

The wife and I actually got out camping this weekend. We couldn't have asked for better weather. Beautiful blue skies all three days.

The trip wasn't without its minor speed bumps, however. We paddled out to the site and proceeded to set up camp. When we got to the part that involves "setting up the two-man bivy," (a small tent, for you non-camping folk) I discovered we had packed the single-man bivy instead. Unless we planned on sleeping directly on top of each other for two days, that meant one of us was sleeping outside.

Let me rephrase that. That meant I was sleeping outside.

We only had a single ground cloth, so rather than sleep directly on the ground, I decided I was going to try to sleep in my backpacking hammock. If you've never seen a backpacking hammock, it is made to be extremely light and pack up very small. It is made of very fine nylon netting, gathered to a ring at both ends, which you tie to trees with the rope hanging off the ring. Because of the way it's made, it's incredibly hard to get in and out of even when you're not trying to do it while stuffed into a mummy bag. I tried putting the bag in first, then climbing in after it, and the bag immediately fell out. I tried various brilliant yet flawed techniques to no avail, and finally had to get in the bag, hop over to the hammock, hold it open with one hand and jump in, all the while trying not to go over the other side.

I finally made it. I could barely move, but for the most part I was settled. I didn't immediately notice there was a problem.

About an hour later, I noticed there was a problem. That problem was that I was freezing my ass off. With my weight on it, the goosedown bag compressed between my body and the netting of the hammock, which meant that essentially, there was nothing but my shirt and a thin layer of flat feathers between my skinny ass and the chilly 37 degree air. I resigned myself to a long sleepless night.

My wife, god bless her, hit the bivy tent, crawled into her sleeping bag and instantly started snoring so loudly I could practically feel the ground vibrations through the trees my hammock was tied to. (Normally when she starts up, I'm close enough to jab an elbow or knee and get her to stop for a bit. I realized I couldn't do this from my frozen perch, so I had to resort to yelling "HEY!" and hoping she woke up enough to roll to a different position. )

One of the reasons we like this particular lake is because there's generally a lot of loons calling to each other throughout the night. It's a hauntingly lonely, yet beautiful sound, and probably one of my all-time favorites.

Unfortunately, we didn't get much in the way of soothing loons.

Just as I had drifted off to sleep, I was jolted awake by this sound, which seemed to be about 2.5 inches from my left ear, but was probably, in reality, about 500 yards away.

I instantly knew what it was, but still -- waking up like that takes a year off your life.

Both of us now Fully Awake, the next thing we heard was this, and it was coming our way at a slightly disconcerting pace.

Normally, the sound of a coyote pack tearing into a deer or rabbit doesn't really faze me. I've heard it dozens of times.

I have to add this caveat, however: Normally, the sound of a coyote pack tearing into a deer or rabbit doesn't really faze me because normally, they are not running directly AT me, and normally, I am NOT hanging helplessly between two trees like some kind of savory, pre-packaged meat snack.

Needless to say, I was very awake for quite a while after the symphony. Not out of any real fear, but only because...OK, I was afraid they would tear me to pieces. They skirted around us, and although we heard them a few more times during the night, it was from a more comfortable distance. I finally drifted off again about 2 am, with the coyotes fading into the distance.

I woke up again at three to the sound of something big and snuffling flopping around in the water down by the canoe. I didn't investigate. I was so tired I was beyond caring. I just buried my head in my bag, hoped for the best and went back to sleep.

Still, that sound echoing across the water is one of the coolest things I've ever heard.

I have some pics that I'll bore you with when I get them transferred to the pc.

Back to work tomorrow, dammit.

Got Meat?

I've been backpacking in the Adirondacks for as long as I can remember. About 99% of the time, we get there by going through Warrensburg -- a small, ex-logging town where it seems like everyone spends their summers getting ready for winter. For years I've been passing this big store with a gigantic sign on the front that says Meat Store of The North. Having never gone into this establishment, I can only assume that their primary offering is, most probably, meat. One day a buddy of mine and I were driving by this place on our way up north, and we decided that there was more to the story. I share it now for your enjoyment. Or not.

The wine and ale flowed freely at the Ravenwood Inn, as did the lively conversation. A large party of travelers had stopped for the night, too tired and hungry to continue on to the next village. The air was thick with the smell of hickory and roasting boar. A bone-warming fire blazed in the hearth, adding its merry light to that of the oil lamps set in the many sconces around the room. The night was cold, the snow falling steadily. It was not a night for traveling, and the crowd at the Inn had been growing since sundown. There had been no new patrons for a least 3 hours, and the barmaid was glad of it. If one more randy goat grabbed her backside there would be hell to pay. She could be had, but not for free.

Suddenly, the door rattled, then flew open and hit the wall with a crash. Instantly, all attention was turned toward the massive figure that blocked the moonlight and swirling snow from entering the pub. The huge man wore a hooded cloak of bearskin that shadowed his face, effectively hiding all of his features except his ice encrusted beard. He closed the door with a kick, and removed the broadsword from his back. Turning toward the barkeep, he threw back his hood, allowing the lamplight to fall on his face.

"At what do you stare? Bring me a horn of ale, woman. And make haste lest I grow impatient!"

The barmaid hurriedly filled a drinking horn with the Inn's finest brew, and walked toward the brash newcomer. "Let's see the color o' yer gold, before ye be drinkin' me best brew," she said, a slight quiver in her voice.

"Ah. A woman with a bit of fire in her soul," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Do you not know who I am?"

"For sure n' I don't, and I wouldn't care if ye be the god a' thunder himself, I'd havta see yer gold before you get served."

"Do you recognize THIS?" he said through clenched teeth, reaching inside his coat and throwing a bloody canvas bag on the nearest table. Whispered conversations stopped mid-sentence, save for the murmur of speculation as to the contents of the sack. All eyes were now on the spectacle unfolding at the front table. A group of the rougher looking men stood, and walked toward the front in case the newcomer needed a lesson in manners. The barmaid walked slowly over to the sack and peered within. Her eyes grew wide, and she stepped back in horror.

"No, you...you can't be him. He is DEAD! Dead for all eternity, damn his soul to hell! My Da saw him fall in battle, his head almost severed from his body! You are not him!

"I would have your father know the truth. I did fall in battle - but I did not die," he said, loosening his cowl and exposing the scarred and puckered flesh that encircled the base of his throat like a necklace.

The big man reached out and grabbed the blood drenched bag, and up-ended it, sending a thin stream of blood splattering on the table a second before the bloody slab of meat hit with a wet thud. A fresh murmur went rippling through the crowd.

He raised his broadsword and moved it in a slow arc around the room, leveling his gaze at the crowd. As one, they stepped back. Before the eye could see movement, he raised the sword above his head and slashed down hard into the oaken table, splitting the bloody meat in two.

"It is I! Meit Stör of the North!" he roared. "And I want these steaks cooked medium rare."

The rest is history.

Talk amongst yourselves.

I'm going on vacation for a bit. Clear the head. Recharge the batteries.

I might post this week, but probably not.

If anyone needs me, I'll be here:

Ahoy Matey.

Let's get something straight. I don't sail. I've never sailed, never learned how to sail, and never wanted to learn how to sail. In fact, I pretty much hate sailing. My idea of a boat is a canoe that can hold two people and a weekend's worth of gear. Paddle-power, baby. None of that "relying on the wind" crap. That being said, for the last 3 and a half years, I've been building a 19 foot wooden sailboat with my father. It's called a Weekender. He doesn't sail either. "But...why?" I hear you asking. I have asked myself that same question quite a few times over the last few years. This is what it will look like when it's done:

   

To be fair, he's always wanted to learn to sail -- and he had always wanted to build a boat. When my mother passed away almost five years ago, my father was wrecked -- and a year later, he figured the sailboat was the perfect project to get his mind on other things, move on a little bit, and start living life again. I was drafted early on, because I have a fair amount of woodworking knowledge. Originally, I was going to consult on this job while he built it. Somewhere along the line, I started going over to his shop once or twice a week after work and helping. Oddly enough, the knowledge overlap between woodworking and wooden boat building is small, at best, and I found that I liked learning new techniques that were unique to boat building. So, from a sketchy set of plans, and with a lot of hard work, we formed a sailboat, complete with a 6 foot cabin. It's still a ways from being done, but last Monday, we finished sanding, fiberglassing and painting the bottom. We spent no less than 6 months sanding, fiberglassing, sanding, epoxying, sanding, priming, sanding and painting. The next step is to flip it back over and do the same thing to the top. Hopefully, a lot quicker than we did the bottom. I am so sick of sanding that once this project is over I hope to never see another sheet of sandpaper as long as I live.  

A lot of amusing stuff has happened over the course of construction so far, but I'm going to share the most recent incident for your reading pleasure. A lot of it is of the "measure twice, cut once, measure again in disbelief" kind of amusing, which, when you screw up an eighty-five dollar piece of mahogany, isn't all that amusing until much, much later. This one is pretty amusing right from the get go. One of the things we needed to do to this thing is cut a square hole in the back of the boat to allow the rudder steering mechanism to stick out. In order to cut this square hole, I had to start it with a small pilot hole to allow me to get the jigsaw blade in and cut to the outline of the square. As I was about to drill the hole, my father decided that since he wasn't doing much, he would run up to the hardware store, and then over to get us some subs for dinner. He left, and I used a small paddle bit in the hand drill to make the hole. If you've ever used one of these things, you know that if you're not careful, they'll blow out the back and tear it up pretty good once the bit punches through. Especially in plywood. This paddle bit was very dull, so of course I was unable to keep it from blowing out the back. I heard the splintering when the bit broke through, and I said a few choice words. I was pissed, and I jammed my finger into the hole to feel around and see how bad the splintering was. What I didn't know was that the back of the hole looked like this:
    

You know what happened. Yep. My finger would not come out. Every time I tried to pull it out, the large splinters would close around my finger like a very painful chinese finger trap. I stood up as straight as I could, figuring I'd just reach over the top of the transom and pull the splinters away with my other hand, but quickly realized that my arms weren't long enough. I was stuck, and stuck good. To top it all off, I had to pee. Really bad. And my father was going to be gone for at least a good 45 minutes. There I stood, in the open door to the garage, doing the pee-pee dance with my finger jammed into the back of the boat like I was some sort of nautical proctologist. Right about the time I was trying to figure out how I could sneak a pee into the wet/dry shopvac, my father finally pulled into the driveway. When he got out of the truck with the subs, he headed directly to the house, figuring were were going to eat. When I didn't immediately follow, he said, "What, you're not hungry?" When I didn't answer and instead just stood there looking at him with a stupid expression on my face, he stopped in the driveway. "What the heck are you standing there for?" he asked. "Yeah. I'm stuck to the boat," I replied. 

He looked at me with incomprehension. "Did you say you were.....stuck to the boat?" "Yes. That's what I said. I'm stuck to the boat. And I have to pee. Really bad." Once I explained my situation, he did what any red-blooded dad would do in a situation like this.

He laughed so hard I thought he was going to pee himself. He actually had to climb into the boat, lie down on his back and reach one hand into each access port on the inside of the transom to free my mangled finger.  I'll probably never live it down, but I have to say that it was good to see my old man laugh his ass off, even though it was at my expense. I hadn't seen him laugh like that since my mother was alive. Time does heal all wounds. Not completely, and never quickly, but it heals. Apparently, boat-building with your oldest son sometimes helps. When we finally finish it, we're going to name it after my mom. I think we're going to call it "Constant Sun" since my mother's name was Constance and I'm nothing if not her son. 

All this time, I've been wondering why the hell I would ever build a sailboat. 

Listening to my father's laughter made me think that maybe I have my answer after all.

Take pictures. It's a lot less work.

I was cruising around on the web looking for a picture of that dude from Office Space who got hit by the truck, so I did a quick search on "body cast."

What came up was not something I would have expected, nor something I even knew existed until last night. What I found was this:



In case you're wondering what it is, it's something called the Proud Body Belly Cast. From what I can gather, it's some sort of plaster body cast for pregnant women to keep a memento of their "bump" (I think that's what the kids are calling it these days.)

The tagline for the kit actually says, "Just Love That Pregnant Belly? Now you can keep it forever when you make a pregnancy belly cast using our kit!"

Now, I've talked to many a pregnant woman, and in my experience, "keeping it forever" is really not one of the things any of them wished they could do. Getting out a chair without peeing a little bit -- yeah, that they wished they could do.

So I'm looking at this thing, and something about it seems oddly familiar. It just screams to my subconscious, but for the life of me, I can't place it.

Is it someone I know? I check the boobs. Nope, don't look familiar. Besides, I've never known anyone who did anything like this.

But still, it was bugging the shit out of me.

Then as I was driving to work this morning, I realized who it reminded me of:



Go ahead. Tell me it doesn't look like Homer Simpson trying to push his way out of Springfield and into the land of 3D. If you've ever seen an action figure of Homer, you will know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm glad that's out of the way. It would have bugged me for weeks.

But back to this mold making process. There's something about this that I just don't understand. I can see where -- to a certain set of excited parents-to-be -- it might be a fun way to kill a lazy Sunday afternoon, but what the hell do you do with this thing afterwards?

Hang it on the wall like some sort of priceless African mask?

Maybe slap some straps on it, paint it red, white and blue, and let your husband use it as an apron at the next July 4th cookout?

Personally, what I would do is wait until I had a really big party and then I'd flip it over and use it to serve salsa, sour cream and tortilla chips. You can figure out what goes where without my help, I'm sure.

So for about $35 bucks you get: 5 rolls of premium-quality casting material, a Tube of Vaseline, a Drop cloth, a pair of Nitrile gloves and a supply of Sanding screen. You also get full directions in something like 5 different languages.

Let me tell you, I've used less raw materials to put up sheet rock after major water damage. I can't even begin to guess what kind of mess this whole procedure would make, but if drop cloths and sand paper are necessary, you might want to just take a few shots with the digital camera and call it a day.

Something else is wrong with this picture. I would guess that there would have to be two people involved -- but think about it. One of them is concerned enough about the chemicals involved to be wearing gloves -- however, they have no qualms about blissfully slathering some sort of hot plaster concoction on the completely naked, extremely sensitive, freshly-greased body parts of their significant other. I don't get it.

Oh, well. I'm sure that somewhere in the world there's someone who thinks it was the best money they ever spent. Besides, I'm firmly convinced that all "first-baby" pregnant women are crazy in the head. They'll buy (and eat) just about anything while in that state.

I'm willing to bet that if someone does this casting deal during their first pregnancy and goes on to have more kids, at some point they'll be looking at this thing and thinking, "You know, I'll bet if I cut a few handle-holes in that bitch, it would make a kick-ass laundry basket."

Shop, Shop, Shop. Shop, Shop with Stan

I forgot my iPod the other day, and I had the pleasure of realizing all over again why it was such a desperately necessary purchase. Since I didn't have any CDs with me, I was forced to listen to the horror that is local radio in upstate New York. You have your choice around here -- on the talk radio side of the house, you have your right-wing AM or left-wing FM -- WGY or NPR. On the music side, you have your basic classic rock, country or alternative. That's pretty much it. I couldn't take hearing another ad for Gold Bond Medicated Powder sandwiched in between Don Weeks laughing at his own jokes, or Paul Harvey telling me the rest of the story, so I skipped WGY. I couldn't take another touchy-feely broadcast about the ecosystem or the plight of women in Afghanistan delivered by a smug, blatantly homosexual professor with a PhD, so I skipped NPR. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) That took care of the talkie side. 

Since I'm not a big country music fan, and you can only listen to Boston's "More than a Feeling" so many times in your life before you want to hunt down and kill Tom Scholz, I opted for the local "alternative" station. My only other choice was silence, and when I'm driving to work at 5 a.m. I need something besides my own thoughts to keep me from driving into a bridge abutment in my sleep. As a result of overdosing on Matchbox 20, Maroon 5, Hoobastank and Three Doors Down on that drive to work, I've pretty much confirmed that I hate all radio. Ever since Clear Channel borged all the independents around here, the dial has been shit. Before CC took over, the two independent stations would play music that would at least keep you interested. You could listen for 6 hours and not hear the same song twice. You might have even heard a new song you liked by a band you didn't know. But now....it's unbearable. It's not really even the fact that they play the same 20 songs over and over again that makes me want to claw the radio from the dashboard with my bare hands and heave it through the windshield -- it's the insanely stupid local commercials that play every 15 minutes. 

Seriously, they are so bad I have to fight a constant urge to bash my forehead against the steering wheel until the airbag lets go. How many times can you possibly rewrite the words to the Beach Boys song, "Help Me Rhonda?" Let me tell you. Approximately five thousand, three hundred and fifteen times, and counting. The latest incarnation is for a local car dealership that is instructing me to "Buy a Honda - Buy, buy a Honda." Fuck No, I say directly to the radio. I would not buy, buy a Honda from you if you were the last automotive dealership on the face of this green earth, and riding a horse to work was my only alternative. I have no idea what it is about the Beach Boys that attracts these marketing mental midgets. Their songs are like magnets for the unimaginative. Quick templates for second-rate ad agencies. If I were Brian Wilson, I'd probably be pissed off to the point of spending all my free time traveling around the country suing shitbag car dealerships into individual smoking holes. It's like someone stealing a priceless antique from you and then slapping a nice coat of lime-green latex paint on it. Surfin' USA, Barbara Ann, California Girls, Good Vibrations, Little deuce Coupe --they have all been used and abused more times than I can count. 

To add insult to injury, most of the time it's by some local bar band who can't even play a decent cover of Proud Mary. Four part harmonies are right out, but does that stop them? Hell, no. They sound like a bunch of rabid coyotes in heat, and for the life of me I can't understand why the client actually gives the go-ahead to that off-key shit. I've decided that If I hear another lame commercial for a local business set to a Beach Boys tune, I'm going to call them up, pretend to be Brian Wilson and threaten to lawyer them upside the head unless they stop fucking with my music. And riddle me this, Batman: Why does the announcer feel the need to scream the ad copy at the top of his lungs like he is chained face-down on a stainless steel table while someone is shoving a red hot poker up his ass? I can only assume it's supposed to convey EXCITEMENT AND URGENCY!! So ACT NOW! Well ya know what? It's not working. Not on me, at least. Not even when you repeat it three times at top volume. That little trick just makes me write your company name down and tell all my friends to avoid you like an STD. On the off chance someone reading this is contemplating paying for a local radio spot, let me share a few things with you that also do not work: 1. Two or more people who can't read a script without sounding like a slow first-grader reading 'Fun with Dick and Jane.' Find someone with at least a high school education. As a quick spot check, ask them to say the word "Mountain." If it somehow ends up with the letter "t" being silent, find someone else. You know who you are, Eastern Mouw-in Sports. 2. Two or more people like those in #1 above, who try to make it sound like something sexual is going on in order to get your attention. Ditto for those who use every double-entendre ever thought up in the history of the english language during a single, 60-second spot. I have yet to hear an honest-to-god sexy female voiceover on a local radio spot. (Note to all female voice talent of the Capital District: The key to actually sounding sexy is to not sound like a drunken slut with an IQ of 40 who is trying to sound sexy.) 3. Owner/Operators who insist on doing their own commercials when they have obvious and annoying speech impediments. Yeah, I'm talking to you Justin Resnick, self-proclaimed Mattress King. I would sleep on a splintered, wooden pallet covered in tick-infested straw before I would buy a mattress from your bald-headed, pajama-clad, lisping, annoying ass. OK, my iPod is finally charged. I'm outta here. Jeez, I'm starting to sound just like Scott.

JV Points.

I've decided I'm going to start awarding and/or taking away points to or from people I interact with every day. I don't plan on actually telling them that I'm doing this, because that would make them think I'm weird. Don't get me wrong -- I am weird, I just don't like to advertise it (except for here, obviously.) I won't be giving points to everyone nor will I be taking away points from everyone. Just the people who rise above and below my own personal, arbitrary bar on that particular day.

So without further ado -- here's today's allotment of JV Points:

Guy who pulled out in front of me this morning at 5:15am when I was doing 60mph on a two-lane highway with nobody behind me:
You get (-)100 points for doing this, when there was clearly not a single car behind me for miles. However, you also get (+) 50 points for flooring it and not making me slow down like the other assknob in the pickup truck who did this to me the other day and then went 30mph for 100 feet and took a left. I give him (-) 1,000 points, retroactive. He is the one who gave me the idea for this post, though, so I have to give him (+)500 points for that. He's still in the negative, because frankly, it's not that good of an idea.

Scabby-arm-guy working the register at the Mobil station:
You get (-)1,000 points for wearing a short-sleeved shirt and making me look at your weeping sores. You also get (-)50 points for licking your grubby fingers to count my bills back, and another (-)50 points for putting my coins on top of my dollars instead of putting the change in my hand first. Why is that so hard for people to get? Loose change first, then bills. That way I don't have to do effing gymnastics to get the bills back in my wallet. Jesus.

Unknown douchebag who got to work 3.5 seconds before me and took my parking spot instead of the one you usually take:
(-)2,000 points for not staying the eff out of my spot. You do, however, get (+)20 points for having your seatbelt hanging out of the passenger side door. Numbnut.

Lunch Lady Tina:
You also get (-)50 points for licking your thumb and adding to the saliva collection that scabby-armed guy started in my wallet. There was still a shiny wet spot on my five dollar bill when you gave it back to me. What is it with this nasty habit, anyway? I already have more spit-germs in my wallet than I need, thank you very much. You also get (+)49 points because you're a nice lady, and you know how to give me my coinage back first. Plus, you like 80's music.

Annoying vendor with English accent who, when I pick up the phone, says "Mr. Johnny Virgil" like I'm the next contestant on "The Price is Right":
You get (-)10,000 points because you are a relentless jackoff who transparently makes up bullshit lies like "Hey, the VP of Sales just walked into my office. Do you mind if I conference him in?" You know and I know that it was planned before you even dialed the phone, since he's a great (albeit also annoying) salesman and you suck old Def Leppard underwear.

I think that's it for today. You all get (+)1,000 points for reading my drivel on a regular basis.

Peace out.

Run Faster! Jump Higher! Spend More!

I went to the mall to get some new running shoes the other day. I walked into what used to be the athletic shoe store.

Much to my surprise, someone had replaced all the running shoes with bulbous, neon-colored, bipedal lower-appendage encapsulators. These things were not running shoes. They were Corporate Marketing gone Deeply and Seriously Awry.

Half the damn things didn't even have laces. They were "laced" with permanently mounted, miniature bungie cords. There were some very expensive ones there that had no laces at all, and appeared to be made of some sort of red, seamless, space-aged material. They also had some sort of hydraulic shock absorbers under the heels.

They were close to 200 bucks. I am pretty sure that this particular pair was actually sentient, and had I tried them on, they would have immediately melded with my consciousness and then actively conformed themselves to the exact proportions of my feet. For two hundred bucks, that's what they should do, anyway.

I didn't try them on because one, they were too damn expensive, and two, since they didn't have laces, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to put them on manually or just hold my feet up and shout commands like "NikeAir 7880 Extreme! To My Feet!"

I tried a few different commands at various volumes, but none of them worked as I had hoped. (One of them did cause my wife to walk away and pretend she didn't know me, so I'm hanging on to that one for emergencies.)

What the hell happened to regular old running shoes, anyway? You know -- good, solid arch support, not too flashy, something you could wear with Levi's or Dockers in a pinch? I would think twice about wearing 99.9% of these shoes anywhere, including exotic locations like, for instance, my basement treadmill. If you ever did wear them anywhere else, people would be doing double-takes just to confirm you weren't walking around downtown wearing clown shoes.

Also, it was pretty apparent that Malaysia and Bangladesh have almost run out of sneaker parts for the cheaper lines. I say this because almost every single running shoe under $70 seemed to consist of no less than 10,000 tiny, random bits of plastic, rubber, vinyl, leather and nylon -- all stitched together in some grotesque, vaguely unsettling, non-Euclidean geometric pattern. You couldn't look at them for long without feeling light-headed and queasy.* In fact, I'm willing to bet that pound for pound, these running shoes consisted of mostly stitching.

So, long story short, I spent an hour trying to buy running shoes that didn't immediately scream "DUDE! CHECK OUT THESE BITCHIN' RUNNING SHOES!" to everyone who saw them. It was an almost impossible task, but since they were buy-one-pair-get-another-for-half-price, I was not to be deterred.

After digging through roughly 437 boxes of shoes, I walked out of there with two pair of Nike Airs. One pair is orange and white, and the other pair is metallic silver, with bright blue highlights.

I feel ridiculous. I look like Ziggy Stardust. But at least my feet don't hurt.

My acute fashion sense? Well...That's another story.

Shambles. Shambles, I tell you.



*Cthulhu Fhtagn! Beware the Old Ones!

And they're off!

A bunch of people from work, that is. There was some sort of "management outing" today. Don't worry, it's not what it sounds like. Nobody was forced to admit their sexual orientation in a closed board meeting or anything. It just happens to be what we call our "forced fun" activities. Basically, it's when a bunch of managers and some of their chosen department members go "off-site" to someplace "fun" and blow off a little steam. Maybe they drink a little, maybe they gamble a little, and, if things work out the way they're supposed to, bond a little. It's really just a chance for people who usually only talk on the phone to actually meet in person, and for upper management to hobknob a bit with the common folk. 

All team-building, co-worker-bonding aside, these things usually suck, and I usually hate them. Let me tell you why. Here's a little brainteaser for you: Hypothetically, assume you have ten people. To make this easier, also assume 5 people are active and athletic, and 5 people are sedentary and overweight. Assuming the coefficient of friction is zero, what activity would allow all members to participate and be happy about it? Paintball? No, that involves not only moving, but actually running around and quite possibly sweating. S&O people want none of that. Rock wall? Whitewater rafting? Get serious. Sit around on a riverboat, sniffing diesel fumes and eating mediocre food? Bor-ing. A&A people will end up jumping overboard just for something to do. So, you see my point. Well, it turns out that one of the things that apparently appeals to a majority of people who aren't me is: "A Day at the Track."

Up in my neck of the woods, this means horses, jockeys and a big dirt oval. I live in Saratoga, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand the fascination with this whole process. Maybe you need to be a gambler to appreciate it. I am not. I went on one of these trips last year. Not to Saratoga, but to Ohio. Yes, I left the home of one of the most historic thoroughbred racetracks in the world to go to Thistledown Raceway in Urine Gulch, Ohio. It was really the first time I had ever gone to a live thoroughbred race. (Before you say anything -- yes, I know, the dead thoroughbred races are really boring.) What I mean is, live, in person. I had seen races at the OTB parlor before. My great-uncle played the horses and we took many a sidetrip to the OTB when I was a youngster. At any rate, I had no idea what to expect. Of almost my own free will, I was at an honest-to-god Betting Establishment. It was a hotter-than-hell Thursday afternoon, and the place was deserted. The only other people there besides our group were a bunch of old, skinny retired guys wearing white socks, wrinkled suits and fedoras. Almost to a man they were sucking on soggy stogies that smelled like roadkill. There were also a couple of homeless dudes who had come in from the brutal heat to enjoy a spot of air conditioning. They also smelled like roadkill. I am pretty sure one of them was actually carrying roadkill, so that could have been it. Needless to say, I learned a few thing my first time out. I will list them for your reading pleasure. 

1. The horses (are you ready for this?) only go around the track once. One time. That's it. Race. Over. Seriously, wtf? I was all primed for some Nascar-like action. I am not a big Nascar fan, but at least if there's an accident you might actually see something exciting. Once around the track? That's incredibly lame. I wanted to see those big bastards run until there was only a single horse left standing. I wanted mid-air collisions! Excitement! Horses biting other horses on the ass! I wanted to see jockeys foaming at the mouth and kicking at each other as they passed. Basically, I wanted to see this:  

But no. Once around and back to the ticket window. Goddammit, I'm glad there was beer. 

2. You have to know what you are doing at the window, or people behind you will get pissed. There is an entire list of codewords you have to know in order to just place a bet. There's crap I won't even get into here, but suffice to say that unless you want the fat, bald guy smoking the cigar behind the ticket counter to sigh and exhale smoke at you, mutter something that sounds a lot like "jesuseffingchristonapopsiclestick" and then wave you away with a motion that looks like he's fanning a fart, you had better find someone who knows what the fuck they are doing to prep you. Better yet, just hand that same someone your money and say "Uh, bet this on the blue guy"* which is pretty much what I ended up doing until my money ran out, due to #3, below. 

3. Don't listen to the guy in your group who tells you to bet all your money on something called a "long shot." Why? Because (and remember this, it's important) "long shot" is actually fancy horse language for "half-dead-loser-piece-of-shit-glue-factory-reject." I bet on one of these "long-shot" horses, and he was so far behind the other horses that the cameraman for the jumbo screen couldn't even keep him in the frame. I'm serious. This horse was so slow, he looked like he had escaped early from the next race. 

The "highlight" of our day was that we got to have our picture taken with the Jockey who won against the crippled, asshat donkey carcass I blew my wad on. My personal highlight was actually the race where John was screaming "WHIP HIM! WHIP HIM HARDER!"at the Jockey riding the horse he bet on. When one of the women on the team told him he was cruel, he said, "Horses are like babies. They don't feel it when you whip them." That single line made the entire day worthwhile. 

4. Up close, horses stink. Not-so-coincidentally, they stink like horse shit. 

5. Up close, jockeys also stink. The only difference here is that they smell like sweaty horse shit -- with aromatic undercurrents of Old Spice. 

6. Invariably, there will be someone who is never you, who knows even less about horse racing than you do, who will win big on something you never heard of. There's something called a Trifecta, for instance. Just so you know, this is not a device used on Star Trek to scan for life signs on hostile planets. No, the Trifecta is the name for the phenomenally impossible task of picking the first place, second place and third place horses, in the exact order they cross the finish line. My odds of ever winning this are roughly the same as my odds of ever knowing how to actually bet on it. 

 *Note: This is not an effective betting strategy.