Can you hear me now?

It looks as is Spring has finally sprung in Boston! The weather is awesome so I decided to take another walk through the streets of Boston. Of course it's going to be tough to top the Dunkin' Doorman but I'm gonna try my hardest to find something to get into before I call it a day!

Most of the time I'm walking or riding the T I'm listening to my mp3 player and the sounds around me are drowned out. Today I decided to pass on the musical soundtrack and just take in the sounds of the city ... you know, in all their wonderful glory!

One of the most annoying inventions in the last 20 years has to be the little bluetooth ear pieces people use to make their cell phones hands free. I have a couple of issues with these damn things!

First off, now I can't tell the crazy people from the sane people any more! Now I have to ask myself "do they have a bluetooth or are they really just talking to themselves". Another thing is I NEVER know if you're talking to me or if you are on your phone ... case in point:
I was on a business trip and my company had put me up in a hotel room with a guy from another office. I had never met this guy before and now we were going to be sharing a room together for a couple of days. So here we are in the hotel room unpacking and I'm sitting at the desk checking my e-mail and this guy, who I only met 20 minutes before, asks "What size shirt do you wear?". I have to admit I did think this was an odd question from someone I just met but I answered it and continued checking my e-mail.

My temporary roommate continues to unpack and then he asks me if I like long sleeves or short sleeves ... what is it with this guy and shirts? He continues to ask questions ... weird ones too, like do I prefer pink or purple ... do I like ruffles ... that kind of stuff! Now I have to be honest with you and admit I was getting nervous and giving some serious thought to requesting a new room ... but I did answer each and every one of his questions. Then he told me he loved me ... WTF???

Just as I was about to punch him square in the nose I realized he had one of those fancy-dancy bluetooth ear pieces and that he was actually on the phone with his wife ... now who looks like an idiot? Yeah, not a big fan of the bluetooths!

Another problem I have with those cute little ear pieces is that if you are going to force me to listen to your phone conversation ... I want both sides! Screw the ear piece and just put it on speaker ... I don't want the one sided conversation, I WANT THE WHOLE DAMN THING! And if you are having a conversation that you are forcing me to listen to ... it better be a good one!


Back to my walk through Boston...

I'm walking along enjoying the weather and the sounds of the city and it hit me like Chris Brown (c'mon, it can't STILL be too soon!). Here's what I'll do ... I'll walk around and see what interesting phone conversations I can "find". You walk next to someone long enough you can kind of put the story together yourself. OK, so it may not be the whole story, and you may need to fill in some blanks yourself, but it could still be interesting! Down the street I go looking for a good conversation.

The first person I happen along is talking about Monday ... Monday, first thing! A doctors appointment? Big meeting at work? Damn it woman tell me more! As I am trying to figure out what this lady has going on on Monday a guy walks by me and I hear "Yeah dude, she had a banging ass" ... and that's where I lost interest in what this lady had going on on Monday ... U-TURN!

Now I am headed in the opposite direction listening to this guy recount his adventures with his temporary secretary ... his regular secretary was on vacation or something (OK, I made that last part up ... but it helps with the story don't you think?). To be honest with you the "conversation" got real boring real quick, almost made me regret leaving the lady with the Monday plans.

At some point my ADD kicked in and I lost focus on his conversation and him in general, next thing I know I'm walking next to some guy that is having problems with his wife and seems to be asking the person on the other end of the phone for some advice. Now in case you are new to this blog OR you live in a bubble, I will remind you that I am divorced and I am VERY familiar with "having problems with the wife". My ex-wife and I had a LOT of problems ... I mean A LOT! Of course it wasn't all the problems that convinced me to divorce her, nope ... it was the day I walked in and caught her doing laundry, that's when I knew I HAD to divorce her ... I guess I SHOULD mention that laundry was the name of the neighbors dog!

Moving on ...

This guys conversation was kind of depressing and I was once again getting bored. I felt his pain, but I needed to find a more uplifting conversation to eavesdrop. After all it is a beautiful day and the sun is shinning! It's HAPPY TIME! Damn you and your troubled marriage!

Here’s a lady yelling at someone , ”You’re an asshole” … I’ve heard THAT plenty of times … NEXT! “So the stocks have stabilized at …” boring … NEXT! “I miss you so much my heart aches … ” oh c’mon, I’m getting sick over here … NEXT “It’s like an oily, puss filled discharge that comes from my …” HOLY SHIT, YOU ARE IN PUBLIC BUDDY!!!

As I slip in my ear buds and turned up some Kid Rock to drown out the oily, puss filled conversation I think I may have actually yelled out “DAMN YOU BLUETOOTH INVENTOR” … so much for the sounds of the city! "I'm a cowboy baby ..." yeah, much better ... ahhhhhhh!

Ahhh the great outdoors ...as seen on Discovery (Finale)

ATTENTION:
This part 3 of 3 ... read part 1 & 2 first!

You know when you first wake up and you're not sure where you are? This time I REALLY had no idea where I was, except to say I was in the middle of the woods laying on a mixture of snow and leaves. I was so cold I was shaking like a homophobic guy eating a hot dog at a gay pride parade. Luckily I remembered that I had the radio in my ear ... all I needed to do was "break radio silence" and tell them I'm ready to go home.

Not so easy for two reasons - 1. I never turned it on and 2. I kind of remember someone saying, earlier in the morning, that they would switch to blah blah channel and then maybe blah blah channel if there was too much chatter. Yeah, the "blah blah" parts where lost in my head. As someone was telling me channels all I was hearing was that little voice in my head saying "you just shit in a pickle bucket, run now"!

I have no idea where I am or how to get back to the camp and I'm looking at a little two way radio wondering what blah blah channel I would find someone who did actually know ... let the fun begin! What I decided to do is just go channel to channel looking for the guy who brought me out into the woods, Scott.

Here is the conversation I had at LEAST 9 times that morning on various channels of this little two way radio:

ME: Hey Scott you there?
SOMEONE IN A WHISPER: Who is this?
ME: It's me, Brendon. Is that you Scott?
SOMEONE IN A WHISPER: No this isn't Scott... shut up!
ME: I'm just looking for Scott.
a few moments of silence
ME: Do you know Scott?
SOMEONE IN A WHISPER: Scott who?
(and that's when I remembered I didn't know Scott's last name)
ME: Uhm, Scott ... I'm staying at ... uhm ... Hey do you have a bottomless pickle bucket to shit in at your camp?
SOMEONE IN A WHISPER: A WHAT?
ME: Yeah, OK never mind.

And then on to the next channel I would go in search of either Scott whats-his-name or someone who has a bottomless pickle bucket they shit in at their camp, they can't be that common!

Scott did actually find ME around 12:30 when he came back to the exact same spot he had left me at earlier that morning at O dark 30! All I had to do was look like I have been waiting for a deer AND try to pull off the "I wasn't sleeping" look ... something I perfected on many of the 3rd shift jobs I've held.

We headed back to camp for lunch and to discuss what signs we've seen ... you know, rubs and warm deer shit and bed downs and ... OK, honestly I have no freaking idea what any of these guys are talking about, and even if I did it wasn't going to matter because I was SLEEPING all morning and didn't see shit! But I sat there and took it all in ... all while the little voice in my head kept yelling RUN!

I'm not going to bore you with the rest of the day to day adventures I had those two weeks but I would like to share some important thing that I learned ...mostly the hard way!

• Fox urine stays on your skin for a LONG time.
• You never really realize how cold your hands actually are until you have to pee.
• Guns? They need something called ammunition ... you know, bullets! (learned that on day 3! Yeah, I was in the woods 3 days with an empty gun ... thought someone had loaded it for me, WRONG!)
• Sitting on a bottomless pickle bucket too long will cut the circulation off in your legs causing them to fall asleep ... making it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to walk for about 10 minutes.
  
• HUNTING IS NOT FOR ME!

No, I never did shoot anything ... in fact I never even saw anything (and I WAS awake half the time) and I really can't say I had a good time. In fact it would be safe to say that it was one of the longest two weeks of my life. These guys do it every year and they do it for ALL of the hunting seasons. Some guys haven't shot any thing in years, some get something every year. They say that's part of the "game", trying to out smart a wild animal.

My brother in law went hunting last year for wild boar. He didn't want to play the "game" though because he went to a place that you paid about $1,500 for a 4 day hunt ... but they guaranteed you would shoot a wild boar

Guaranteed huh? So I imagine that if on the 4th day you haven't shot anything they bring out this wild boar on a leash and say "Go ahead, pop a cap in his ass"!

Me, I'm fine in my recliner watching the great outdoors in HD on Discovery!

Ahhh the great outdoors ...as seen on Discovery (Part 2)

ATTENTION:
THIS IS PART 2 YOU SHOULD READ PART 1 FIRST

Some how, some way I was able to doze off and fall asleep amongst roaring nostrils and the erupting sphincters. It seemed as if I had just dozed off when I was thrust into the state of awareness by clanging pots and pans. Yeah, you see they have this little tradition at camp that on the 1st morning of the season all the "regulars" stand around the sleeping newbie and on the count of three bang the shit out of some pots and pans. Of course this isn't a tradition I was aware of until, oh let's say about 3:30 that morning!

As I sat at the kitchen table, again asking myself WHY, I realized that my body didn't care if we were in the woods or not ... it had some dinner from the night before it needed to vacate. It was at this point that I noticed the lack of a bathroom in this hell they call camp. However next to the door is a 5 gallon pickle bucket. Yes I said PICKLE BUCKET! At one time this bucket held pickles ... at one time. I know it is no longer used to hold pickles because there is no longer a bottom on this bucket! This, as I was informed, WAS the bathroom! You take the bucket out into the woods, find a spot and pop a squat. The purpose of the bucket was so you could sit and "relax". No bottom allowed your ... uhm ... "contribution" to fall to the ground. This, my friend, is how you shit in the woods!

It's about a quarter til 4 in the morning, pitch dark out and I'm tromping through deep snow with a flashlight and a bucket with no bottom looking for a spot. Yes the thought did enter my mind that this is just another "pick on the newbie" trick and there was, in fact, a Taj Mahal of a bathroom back at camp. The truth is there wasn't any Taj of a bathroom and this wasn't any "pick on the newbie" trick. As I said before ... this, my friend, is how you shit in the woods!

As I sat on the pickle bucket I once again began to swear at Al Gore and his "Inconvenient Truth". The only Inconvenient Truth was the fact that I am sitting on a pickle bucket in the middle of the woods, in the pitch dark and it's about -20 degrees. I actually yelled out "Fuck you Al Gore and your global warming bullshit". I may have been sitting on the pickle bucket but I WASN'T relaxing!

Back in camp all I wanted to do was crawl back into my bunk and go back to sleep. What kind of people get up at 4:00 in the morning to go sit out in the cold ... I mean besides homeless people. You can't go back to bed, that's not allowed at hunting camp. After all this is the manliest-man sport of all manly-man sports ... "YOU'RE HUNTING for shit-sake" is what I kept being reminded. Besides, it was breakfast time and I had to clean up, after all I WAS the newbie. Yeah, another "tradition" I wasn't aware of until it was too late.

Breakfast is done and I'm ready to head out and find a spot to hunker down at to await the almighty buck. I have a gun on my shoulder, an ear piece in my ear so I can hear my fellow hunters communicate via two-way radios. I am dressed in a borrowed camouflage outfit, I have a bright orange tuke on my head ... what more do I need? FOX PISS! Yes I said FOX PISS! See, deers have a VERY keen sense of smell and you must mask your "human" scent when you go out into the woods. The best way to do this, I was being told as I was getting doused in fox piss, was to cover your clothing in "nature scents" ... i.e.: fox piss! Let me tell you how bad fox piss smells ... it's bad. There was something else I could use if I wanted to ... Buck semen! Who the hell collects this shit? How do you get a fox to piss into this little bottle? And the buck ... who has to "aid" in the collection of that? Maybe my jobs not that bad after all, you think?

4:30 in the morning and here I go ... gun on my shoulder and covered in fox piss. Dammit I'm going hunting (insert Tim Taylor "argh argh" effect here) does life get any better? I'm walking with the guy who invited me on this adventure and I'm guessing he's regretting inviting me just about as much as I am regretting the fact that I said yes ... two weeks huh?

We have been walking now for about 20 minutes and I'm ready for a break. This was back in the day when I still smoked and I was ready to sit down and light up. Guess what? Smoking isn't allowed! Deers can smell it and will vacate the area! No smoking? No bathroom? And I only have 12 beers left ... again I start crying!

My "friend" finds me the perfect spot. Tells me to bunker down and just hang out. He reminds me that you are not allowed to shoot until day break so if I see anything I should just keep an eye on it until the suns up. That's fine if it's a cute little deer ... but if it's a bear or coyote I'm shooting the fucking thing and I don't care if the suns up or not. You can bet your ass on that! Of course I didn't tell him that, I just nodded and smiled ... the "sure, everything is just fine" kind of bullshit look. With his final words of advice, which were "don't shoot yourself by accident", off into the darkness he disappeared, leaving me there to wonder if it was OK if I shot myself on purpose!

It's only about 5am and I've already had a full day. I woke up to pounding pots and pans ... I've shit through an old pickle bucket ... I've bathed in fox piss ... I've hiked in the woods ... and now I'm sitting in the dark waiting for the sun to come up so I can shoot the 1st flipping thing I see so I can go back to bed. As I sat there I became Ghandi like ... not being all peaceful and shit, more like the trance shit ... just staring into space. I went from leaning back on a tree questioning my ability to make decisions to waking up about 10 feet from my gun with the sun beating down on me. It was now 11 am and the only thing that was going to make this worse was opening my eyes to see a big steaming pile of deer shit right next to me. Luckily there was no deer shit, but I had been asleep for about 6 hours. The gun was still resting on the tree much like I was before I rolled away from it in my slumber.

Yeah, this hunting thing just wasn't going to be for me, I could tell.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Ahhh the great outdoors ... as seen on Discovery (Part 1)

I'm not the outdoorsy Man vs. Wild type of guy. I know you find that hard to believe considering 99.5% of my blog posts originate from my recliner (I would say 100% but there was that one time I was on the toilet).

I grew up in the city and considered a walk through the Boston Commons as a "hike" in the woods, that was until I moved away from the city. I was married and living in rural Amercia, and by that I mean cousins married and the dentist was the loneliest guy in town. A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go to hunting camp with him and a bunch of guys. After two years of marriage I got to tell you that 2 weeks in the middle of the woods with a bunch of guys sounded pretty damn good at this point! So off to hunting camp I went ready to learn what I could about the great outdoors.

The first, and most important, thing I learned as we hiked to the hunting camp was YES, bears DO shit in the woods, so stop asking! Once we got to the actual camp it was time to unload the packs and settle in for an adventurous two weeks. Now is a good time to tell you that deer season is in November and in November there is plenty of snow in rural America. It was also one of the many times I really questioned Al Gore's theory of Global Warming ... but more on that later.

So as these guys I am with start to unload their packs I began to realize I should've paid better attention to my "friend" when he was telling me what I would need. These guys are pulling out wool pants (called woolys) and big heavy jackets and orange hats and vests, gloves and mittens and wool socks... Me? I pulled out some thermal underwear and a case of beer ... clearly I have missed something here.

The unpacking is done and now the guns start coming out. I guess you need to clean them and oil them and rub them just the right way. I started thinking if some of these guys treated their wives like they treated their guns they wouldn't need two weeks away in the woods ... but who am I to judge - I'm sitting in thermal underwear drinking beer! My friend has brought one of his guns to let me use during my hunting experience. I don't have the "bond" with this gun that these other guys seem to have with their guns. So as they rub and caress theirs I toss mine on the couch and open another beer. See it least I'm treating this gun exactly how I treated my wife ... no favoritism from this guy!

One thing that is amazing at hunting camp is the food. I may be hunted down myself and shot for exposing this, but guys CAN cook... and not just the gay ones! The food was incredible! Maybe it was the 1/2 case of beer I had drank, but I was really starting to enjoy myself. That was until I was informed that wake-up was at 3:30 in the morning. 3:30 in the frigging morning? What, do deers have jobs that they have to get to so we need to catch them on their commute? It's the wild, won't they still be around at say ... NOON?

It was explained to me that we need to get up at 3:30 for a quick breakfast and then be in the woods all set up by 4:30, 5:00 at the latest. Wait, I thought we WERE in the woods ... can't I just open this door and shot the 1st deer I see, then go back to bed? I knew this hunting thing wasn't going to be for me ... last time I had seen 3:30 in the morning I was just getting home!

It's just a little past 10:00pm and it's time for bed, so I'm told. Lights out! The last time I slept in a room with 9 guys was Boy Scout camp when I was 11 and I don't remember anyone snoring this much. Honest to God it was like a constant roar of a grizzly bear, these guys couldn't even get in sync with each other! Another thing I should mention is that as good as the food was we ate for dinner ... it did create, shall we say, a SHIT LOAD OF GAS! I'm not sure how to type sound effects, but if just for a moment you could imagine snoring and farting from 9 guys and the sounds that it would make ... yeah, not so pretty is it?

As I lay on my cot listening to the Fart-and-snore Orchestra I begin to wonder WHY... why did I commit to TWO weeks of this. I'm going to be stuck in the woods with a bunch of guys that, I would be willing to bet, would make love to their guns if they could figure out how. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks ... HOLY SHIT I only brought a case of beer! I cried myself to sleep that night!

TO BE CONTINUED
-----------
Part 2 coming soon

Another round of questions answered ... A.K.K. too much time on my hands!

Another Facebook type survey showed up in my e-mail today with the promise that if I answer all the questions and forward it to 20 of my friends I will receive something VERY special within 5 minutes of completing the questions! Hey, who am I to tempt fate?

So here we go..

1. Your ex is on the side of the road, on fire. What do you do?
Drop my empty gas can and run like hell!!! What, is that wrong? Yeah you are right I should keep the gas can with me ... evidence! Good thinking!

2. Your best friend tells you she is pregnant. What is your reaction?
To be honest with you if my best friend was a female then it's a good chance it could be mine!

3. When is the last time you wanted to punch someone in the face?
About 5 minutes ago ... bikes are NOT automobiles ... stay out of the middle of the road asshole!

4. What is the last thing you spent money on?
Blue Blocker sun glasses and some "Extendz"... which, oddly enough, was also the last night I did drugs and stayed up watching all night infomercials!

5. Do you think you gained or lost weight this past month?
I don't think I gained or lost BUT something IS wrong with the dryer ... keeps shrinking my shit!

6. Crunchy or Puffy CheetoCurls?
Puffy ... used to think the crunchy ones were puffy ones that went bad!

7. The first person on your friends list just called you a bitch. What do you have to say ?
Bitch? really? Bitch!? Asshole I could see ... but Bitch? Can I change my answer to #3?

8. Congratulations! You just had a son. What's his name?
Jesus ... no really, at this point it would HAVE to be Jesus! Bit of a "dry spell" if you know what I mean.

9. Congratulations! You just had a daughter. What's her name?
Uhm ... what's the feminine version of Jesus ... Jesusa???

10. What are you craving right now?
A big Hot Fudge Sundae with nuts and whipped cream AND a Billy's Roast Beef dinner! SHIT, maybe I'M pregnant!!

11. What was the last thing you cried about?
Question 1 ... tears of joy my friend ... tears of joy!

12. When you buy something and your change is 2 cents, do you keep it or tell the cashier to keep it?
I TAKE IT ... you never know when I'm going to have to give someone my 2 cents on a subject and if I left it with the cashier I wouldn't have to give! DUH

13. What color is your tissue box?
Tissue box? really?

14. Do you have a ceiling fan in your bedroom, and if so, is there dust on that fan?
How can you have a ceiling fan AND mirrors on your ceiling???

15. What was the last voicemail you received about?
I guess my auto warranty is about to expire or something ... shit and it was my 2nd notice too!

16. Have you ever blocked someone on Facebook?
You can do that?

17. Scariest thing you've experienced in the last year?
Obama's election (relax I would've said the same thing about McCain)

18. Do you wear a name tag at work?
NO... they have too many names for me at work ... and most of them you wouldn't want to see in print!

19. What kind of car do you want?
Have you seen the car that turns into a plane??? Yeah, that one!

20. What do you order when you go to Taco Bell?
A Big Mac ... yeah that's the look they give me too!

21. Have you ever had a garage sale?
Yup ... but the guy who owned the garage was pissed!

22. What color is your iPod?
Black ... it's actually just an MP3 player I don't buy into the "brand name thing" ... me and my Zip sneakers are fine!

23. What is the last alcoholic beverage you had?
I do believe it was a Friday's Long Island Iced Tea ... OK, can I go back and change my craving question now?

24.Are you happy with your life?
It's OK but I would rather have that guys ... right there ... to your left ... walking ... the one over there ... no, the one next to him ... yeah HIM!

25. Who came over to your house last?
Some guy that said he witnessed Jehova or something something ...

26. Do you drink beer?
Why what else can I do with it? Something I don't know?

27. Have your brothers or sisters ever told you that you were adopted?
Yeah and my sister used to tell me she was going to return me ... no wonder I have so many issues huh?

28. What is your favorite key on your key chain?
Did you run out of SMART questions or something??? My Roller Skate Key of course! (How many people reading this ACTUALLY know what I'm talking about???)

29. What was the last movie you watched at home?
Debbie Does ... er, I mean ...Lakeview Terrace

30. What is in your pocket?
Sunshine ... yup ... I got a pocket ... a pocket full of sunshine!

31. Who introduced you to your bf/gf/husband/wife
I can't remember BUT IF I EVER SEE THEM AGAIN ... the mother fu... yeah ok, moving on!

32. Where do you hurt?
It's funny anytime someone brings up my ex ... my asshole starts to hurt!

33. Has someone ever made you a build a bear?
No ... but a Build a BEER ... yeah!

34. What's something fun you did today?
Oh I answered these questions and then I went to the dentist and had my teeth pulled without any Novocain ... it was a fucking blast!

35. What is your favorite aisle at Wal-Mart?
It used to be the free candy isle until they explained to me that it was actually the CANDY FREE isle ... amazing how "word order" can really change the perspective

36. When is your birthday?
July 28th SO DON'T FORGET MY PRESENT THIS YEAR!

37. Is there anything hanging from your rear view mirror?
nope

38. How many states in the US have you been to?
GOOD question ... let's see ... MA, VT, NH, PA, CA, FL, AL, TX, NY, ME, RI, VA, OH, GA, NJ, CT and Washington DC

39. What kind of milk do you drink?
Breast ... no? OK ... 2%

40. What are you going to do after this?
Vow never to answer any more of these damn surveys!

41. Who was the last person you went shopping with?
Not a big shopper ...

42. What is something you need to go shopping for?
I keep answering these surveys so I'm gonna answer A LIFE!

43. Do you have the same first name as one of your relatives?
Yeah, my Aunt Dorothy

44. What kind of car do your parents drive?
Does this matter?

45. Are you rich?
NOOOOOO, I'm Brendon! Oh you mean rich, like money wise ... yeah did you MISS the fact that I have an ex wife? I'll let YOU answer this one for yourself!


47. [Invisible Question Here]
invisible answer here (and damn it was a GOOD one too!)

48. What famous person do you look like?
Alf (he's still famous right?)


50. Say you were given a pregnancy test right now. Would you pass or fail?
Very confusing ... if you ARE pregnant is that a PASS or a FAIL? It's a Pregnancy Test ... if I take a drug test and I have drugs in me I FAIL, but if I take a pregnancy test and I have a kid in me I PASS ... or do I fail??? Oh, by the way ... I HAVE A PENIS so this was a waisted question!



60. Have you ever changed your clothes while in a vehicle?
Yup ... and NO I didn't see the trucker until it was too late!

OK, that does it for this round of questions!

~Ciao

Thoughts from the recliner with Avril Lavigne

It's a rainy Saturday afternoon and I'm kicking back in my recliner watching an Avril Lavigne concert on Palladia. I know what you're thinking ... I spend too much time in my recliner! Or where you thinking that it's odd that a man close to 40 years old is watching an Avril Lavigne concert? OK, maybe a little ... but I can't find the remote AND she's HOT plus she is actually pretty good. I will admit I DO like some of her music.

So how did I end up watching an Avril concert? This is how...

I was flipping through the typical Saturday afternoon TV shows and landed on one of the news / talk stations. There was a story about some really rich guy who has lost millions due to our ... what are they calling it today ... recession? No that's not it ... depression? Nope ... Economy "downturn" I believe is the latest angle. Sounds much less frightening doesn't it?

Any-whoot ... so there's this rich guy who lost millions due to the downturn and he committed suicide. The story went on to say that this is becoming a much more common thing ... rich people who lose their money and then kill themselves. THIS PISSES ME OFF! You mean you would rather be dead then have to live like us common folk? What are you afraid you might have to shop at Target? Maybe catch a blue light special at K-mart? Does the thought of eating at Applebees scare you so much you decide it's better just to end it all? WTF, Applebees isn't that bad! See that's the nice thing about being broke - the recession, er, "downturn" doesn't even really effect me - I was already broke.

The news/talk stuff was way too depressing so I continued to flip through the channels and came across the Avril concert. You have to admit Avril IS much cuter than Greta Van Susteren. Where the remote has gone is still a mystery to me but one I will have to solve later ... the Pussycat Dolls concert on Palladia starts in 5 minutes!

~Ciao

Jogging ... from my recliner (much safer)!

The nice weather is really trying to get here, and none too soon. There is nothing more I enjoy this time of year than driving down the street with my window wide open. Of course there are a few things you must constantly remind yourself as you drive down the street with your window wide open. One of the more important things would be that the things you say (or yell) are MUCH easier to hear now that your window is open.

With that said ... I would like to take this time to once again apologize to the very large and VERY understanding gentleman I "met" earlier today. Clearly I was NOT calling YOU a stupid son-of-a-bitch and I believe it is quiet obvious that it wasn't you that I wanted to slap the shit out of ... a total misunderstanding. Probably a good time to also mention to the pretty lady in the tight pants that I was talking to my buddy who owns a donkey farm at the exact same time you walked by ... the whole "nice ass" comment was totally taken out of context.

Moving on ...

Jim Fixx or Arthur Lydiard, depending on who you talk to one of those guys invented jogging. Oddly enough Jim Fixx DIED while jogging ... ain't that a bitch?

According to my extensive research (i.e.: Google search) jogging was "invented" in the 60's ... invented? How do you "invent" a body movement? I'm gonna bet that at LEAST one time prior to either Fixx or Lydiard's "invention" that someone "jogged" ... like, oh I don't know, maybe John Wilkes Booth! I bet he jogged a bit ... maybe while leaving, oh lets say Ford's Theater. I'm just guessing on that though. I wouldn't mind being known for "inventing" something people have been doing for years! How about Brendon Lynch ... the "Founder of Farting"?

Again, lets move on...

Now I am not a jogger, but I have ran a few times in my life ... OK so usually it's AWAY from something or someone. To be honest with you I just don't get the point. If you need to get somewhere that quick why not just drive? You joggers can NOT tell me you get any enjoyment out of it ... I've seen your faces while you are doing it and that is NOT a look of enjoyment. It's more of a "holy crap where's the bathroom because I'm never going to make it" look ... honestly, have you ever seen your face while you are jogging? I have never seen anyone jogging down the street with a big smile on their face. I'm going to guess some joggers will try to tell me they jog because it's healthy. I would like to take this time to direct your attention to the above paragraph where I mention one of the guys credited with inventing the "jog" DIED whilst he jogged!

Healthy? I'll take my chances here in the recliner, thanks!