Just Plain Wrong

The woman in front of me at Subway today ordered a chicken teriyaki sub, which comes in a sauce of it's own. She then added cheese (melted), sweet onion sauce, chipotle sauce, and extra mayo. I'm pretty sure that if Subway offered a big bowl of gravy for sammich dipping, she would have gotten that too. Aside from being a henoius combination of flavors, what exactly is it that possesses people to abuse condiments in such a reckless manner? I'm not saying it should be illegal, I'm just saying that some things are JUST PLAIN WRONG.

Much in the same way that responsible drivers should be handed a stack of "hey, you're driving like an asshat" stickers to be distributed at will, I think that other responsible individuals should be given a whole stack of "Just Plain Wrong" cards for distribution in other situations. As an internationally reknowned individual who does everything pretty much perfectly, I'd be happy to spearhead this movement, provided I would report directly to the United Nations, and that I have a budget similar to that of national defense. And an office with one of those neat mesh high tech office chairs.

Coming soon, from the Department of Just Plain Wrong: two of the wrongest t-shirts I've ever seen, which I of course had to buy while on vacation in Orlando.

Disney Part 2

Okay, here's a quick follow-up with some factual junk about our Disney trip... it will not be funny, so get ready to not laugh. The next post will make up for it, I swear.

I think that 6 or 7 is the ideal age to visit Disney. I was 5 and remember almost nothing except eating a hotdog in a funny paper wrapper and falling off a moon-bounce thing and skinning my knee. If you wait till 8 or 9 I think a lot of the magic is gone, as well as some of the innocent belief. At this age, Disney is still sorta real... the princesses might just be real princesses, and the characters are not yet sweaty teenagers making $6.50 an hour to get heat stroke. Also, below that age you may run into height restrictions... Lucy is tall enough that it wasn't an issue. There is certainly fun stuff for younger kids, but with few lasting memories for them, a $65 day ticket for a 3 year old is pretty steep for me and my rock and roll paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

We did Animal Kingdom on day 1 and Magic Kingdom on day 2. AK is a pretty reasonable one day, while MK is a long one day or maybe a day and a half... but by halfway through MK day, I was straight up exhausted. After a rest, a nap, a beer, and a dinner, I was ready for a few more hours, but we all slept in from midnight till about 10AM the next day.

On the third day, we planned on doing Seaworld but got the impression that it was a couple of cool shows (dolphins, sea lions, and Shamu) mixed with a bunch of coasters. We don't do coasters... hell, I nearly hurl after 3 seconds on a swingset... so we decided to skip SeaWorld and have a mellow day. Instead we went to GatorLand, "Orlando's Best Half day Attraction", and we were really psyched to find that it was an awesome spot. I feared that it would be a big concrete swimming pool with a bunch of sickly gators and Cletus poking them with a stick, but it was in fact a great place to spend a few hours. There were a few shows with snakes, tarantulas, and creepy critters, a brief gator wrestling event, and a jumping for chickens show, but the best part was the huge breeding marsh with boardwalk and observation tower. You could get within feet of hundreds of gators, and the swamp birds like cattle egrets were nesting a few feet away as well. The shows were fun and goofy enough for a kid to enjoy, but still cool for adults, and the boardwalk was really neat too.... and at under $20 for an adult, or 1/4 the price of a Disney/SeaWorld/Universal, I think it is a must see location.

In my mind, Epcot is too educational for young kids. I went a few years ago and found much of it, um, kinda boring. I think Disney Hollywood Park, Seaworld, and Universal are also not well suited for young kids. We also skipped the waterparks due to the 50 degree weather and, again, the motion sickness issue above.

So, for us, I think a three day visit was pretty much perfect...
Day 1: get in late afternoon, get settled, and souvenier shop at an outlety (preemptive strike... we skipped 98% of the 432,789 gift shops in the parks by buying a few things right away.... saved us roughly 6 days and $56,089 dollars.)
Day 2: Animal Kingdom for an easier day, get used to the process and the ways to beat the system (FAST PASS!)
Day 3: Long day at Magic Kingdom, break Midday, and stay late.
Day 4: sleep in, hit GatorLand on the way to the airport (or catch early flight the next day).

That's a pretty good long weekend, hit the best and skip the rest! Tis oif course assumes kids... if you are without kids, this advice is really crappy and you should totally ignore it.

Thoughts on Disney

Let me begin by stating that I actively dislike big crowds, hot weather, and excessive consumerism/marketing especially to youth. With that said, I just got back from a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida during school vacation week. Further complicating the trip was that I was travelling with my mom, my sister, my wife, and my daughter. As the single Y-chromosome in the family truckster, I had the cards stacked against me...

Now I'm no conspiracy theorist, but a lot of people talk about how thoroughly Disney has taken over the culture of central Florida (and perhaps the world, via the Disney-AOL-Hershey-Microsoft-Google-Islam-Vatican City merger; I highly suggest that you read Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World by Carl Hiaasen, a native Floridian jounalist with the Miami Herald, and one of my favorite authors).

Anyway, it was pretty clear to me right away... after arriving at the hotel, I went to talk to the concierge/guest services dude about what to see, where to go, and all that, and lo and behold, the dude had three fingers on one hand. It looked sort of like this...

which reminds me of this...

I'm not saying that M.Mouse or D. Duck had anything to do with the three-fingered concierge, but it was intriguing nonetheless.

With that said, the mission for the trip was to create a great vacation and memories for my almost seven year old daughter, so I had to put aside my X-Files suspicions, repress my y-chromosome instincts, and just do all that I could to ensure a great trip.

Given the crowds, the variety of attarctions, and the sheer scale of all that is Disney, it is of vital importance that you plan ahead and time everything perfectly. Planning for a 3 day Disney trip is akin to the preparations required by the Allied Forced before their early summer visit to the Beaches of Normandy... The lack of space on the internet prevents me from going into the full plan of attack, but let me share a few key pieces of wisdom:

1) The $15 fee to rent a stroller is the best money that you will ever spend. We didn't rent one the first day, and didn't make it 15 steps into the park before the first meltdown occurred due to tired feet and legs. And no, your child is not different. Disney is a magical place, and will create some priceless memories, but from time to time, it will also turn your normally peaceful child into a raving screaming lunatic. A one day walk through the Magic Kingdom is about as much walking as a typical Everest summit attempt... starting in Minneapolis. Get the stroller.

2) Go early, leave, and come back late. It defies all known rules of child-rearing, but we had our best Disney time between 6PM and midnight. There are no lines, plus the night-time parade and fireworks are both awesome, especially when viewed from a ride.

3) As a seven year old, the best rides include the Monorail and the tram, so don't be afraid to pack a lunch and take a ride back to the parking area for a car-side picnic. $5 Subway sammiches taste all the sweeter in a calm quiet car when compared to a $9 cold cheeseburger, a $5 order of fries, and a $4 Coke...

Gotta go unpack, bye for now ehhh.

Classified Absurdity

I read the classified ads.
It is a quirk, I'll admit, but I like to see what sort of weird stuff people sell, and I like to know what stuff is worth... like if I had a bunch of leather bondage gear to trade, what might i get for it? (odd that I keep going back to that one post... better discuss that in next weeks' electrotherapy session...)Anyway, I come across all sort of wackiness.... here's a few:

Here's a funny end to a "for sale" ad for a motorcycle:
"These were very easy miles. I am in my mid 40's and do not ride aggresively. Please reply to me at ridefast06@yahoo.com"
So how do you define agressively? One way might be riding fast. Hmm.

Next up, an interesting definition of the word "honest". (abridged version)
23 yr old male from the looking for a weekend Part Time job that pays under the table. I'm very easy going, honest, respectful, great with people, a team player, and a person who gives 100% effort into everything I do. Just an honest guy looking to make a few bucks to make ends meet.
Hmm, last time I checked, under the table jobs were ILLEGAL. Doing illegal stuff is typically viewed as, oh, what's the word, Not Honest?

Finally, this ad just makes me sad, and makes me doubt the survival of our species for much longer. This message is presented uneditted in its entirety for your viewing pleasure.
SUP PPLS i got a hole ls swaup for 88 to 91 crx or civic hatchback so if any 1 got a shell for sell call=860-208-5128 or mail me at GORILLASELLCARS@YAHOO.COM I got the car n drive it it need paper work im no goin tru tha so if any got a shell hit me up will pay up to $500 or will trade the hole swup crx for 92+civic hatchback
I'm not sure, but I think he might want to buy or sell or trade something vaguely Honda related, but that is about all I can gather. I also suspect he might be wearing a baseball cap at some odd angle, but again, that is just a guess.

Sketchy Digital Post-It News

Yesterday afternoon I posted a follow-up to my Post-It Note internet... 12 hours later, this is posted to the Gizmodo technology newsgroup:

Talk about quick development cycles... these folks apparently read about my updated Post-It browser yesterday, developed it last night, and had a technology piece written about it within about 12 hours. The full article is here, but please remember where you saw it first...

9 Year Anniversary

So today is my 9 year wedding anniversary... so I pull out my handy dandy internets from my pocket, and ask wikipedia what the dealio is. The full Wikipedia article says this, but my pocket Wiki says this: (notice I upgraded my browser, and now have a start button, application name, and current time at the bottom of each browser applications. yeah, I'm cutting edge...)
Hmm, says me, a leather gift... I think I know just the thing that would make the perfect anniversary gift, and it is leather too...

Playing Dress-Up with Harley Dudes

So this past Sunday morning, Libby and I stopped in at the Stafford Speedway Motorcycle Swap Meet. It was a chilly morning, probably 35 degrees, cold, and a bit windy, but it was right on Libby's path north towards Maine, and we figured it would be a sight to see. We expected a truly ridiculous spectacle, and we were not dissappointed.

To start with, there were probably 1000 motorcycle dudes all dressed up in their leather outfits with tough guy vests, bandanas, chaps, and various other body accessories with the ever-present Harley Davidson symbol. There were vests and jackets representing various groups of Hells Angels, Bikers for Christ, the Silver City Rollers, all the big clubs and groups. These dudes were generally dressed in full biker garb, serious biker attire, all 1000 of them, each tougher than the next. The funny thing is, there were only about 200 bikes in the lot. Which means that probably 800 of these yahoos woke up in the morning and decided to play dress-up.

"Hey Muggsy!"
"Yeah T-Bone?"
"Let's dress up like bikers today!"
"Sure thing Tiger... but it is not sunny and 70 degrees, so we can't take the motorcycle.. we better fire up the Jetta!"
"Okay my sweet T-Bone, too bad it is not sunny enough to take the Cabrio..."
"Yeah, maybe we can take it tomorrow when we dress up like superheros or
ballerinas..."

I can just picture five or six of these Devil's Warriors Gang members hopping into Jerry's Honda Odyssey and swinging through Starbucks for lattechino mocha grandissimus smoothies on the way...

The other funny thing was that of the hundred or so tables/tents/tarps/piles of assorted chrome, black leather, and rusted out piles of tentanus, I saw excatly zero price tags or identifications of any sort. Apparently to find an item of interest, you just need to be walking down the aisle, and suddenly notice the left baffled doofelater cover from a 1973 Shovelhead Sportster that you've been seeking all those years. After all, there have only been a few dozen models produced each of the past 50 years, so how hard could it be to find what you need in a big pile? I'm pretty sure that these vendors were all philosophically opposed to the concept of actually selling any items.

Funny Side Note: In searching for funny pictures to include on this article, I have come to the realization that there are a ridiculous number of dogs names Harley. Do a search like I did and gaze in wonder at the multitudes... I'm just glad to see that these dogs aren't draped in useless chrome and black leather like these ridiculous bikes.

My Big Winnings... err, Losings

I'm not one to brag, but a rather significant pile of money landed on my desk this morning as a result of my notable standings in a recent NCAA tournament pool.
As you can see above, there is a bountiful booty there, lying victoriously atop my bracket. The handful of small red checkmarks show the games that I guessed correctly. The multitude of red scribbles show my route to victory, officially guessing wrong more often than anyone else in the pool. As the official worst entry, I won back my entry fee... so I collected my losings, and am headed to Vegas, baby!... unless I get hungry along the way, in which case this pile of cash should be just enough to score me a sammich.

Hitch____ Furniture

WARNING: 6th grade level humor to follow.
There is a former Hitchcock Furniture store in my town, which is very visible from the highway. The company was originally founded in Connecticut by the son of a Revolutionary War veteran who was lost at sea. But that is neither here nor there. The store closed down in the spring of 2006, and the storefront has deteriorated since then. Then, late one night, a band of theiving vandals struck. Here's what they left behind:Now at first glance, I didn't think much of it... some punk kids ripped down a few letters from a sign. Big deal. But then I got thinking about it... and then I realized that somewhere out there, some theiving little bastard punk kid has a three foot high "cock" on his wall. And you know what? I'd like to track him down and shake his hand. Good score, young punk! A street sign or a construction sign on the dorm wall is pretty tame, almost a prerequisite along with a tapestry and a Pink Floyd poster, but to have a three foot cock on your wall, that there is something to be proud of. (EDIT: never end a sentence with a preposition!) ... that there is something to be proud of, dude!

Guest BlogSpot: DLibby

B-NOTE: Today's feature is a guest spot. The views expressed below are not necessarily the views of this blog, nor do I condone the content. All in all, I'm pretty sure this is a really bad idea, but I am proceeding anyway, full speed ahead, Evel Kneivel style. I will throw in some italicized comments from time to time when required, so buckle up...

Hello all you may remember me from Brian’s My genetic lovechild meets the Lord of the Rings Blog. I am “Libby” I am here to talk about Brian. As some may or may not know we are “Motorcycle Gay” as my wife likes to say, due to the fact we each have 2 motorcycles that are Identical, but that is for another time. (Libby got his dirtbike first, but I got my sport-touring bike first, so neither of us is a designated bottom in this motorcycle gay relationship... just to keep that clear. And the bikes don't match either, which means we're probably both butch/bear, rather than twink... not that there's anything wrong with that.)

So, my story starts with me taking a little ride ( 200+ miles in the rain ) from my home in Maine to Connecticut to go riding with Brian. (Libby did his rain ride in April with light rain... mine was November with heavy rain and colder temps, heading 30 miles further North nonetheless...)But this is all academic to the real reason for me Dave to hijack Brian’s Blog. You see our good friend as fallen on to hard times.

What I have discovered about Brian is that he may be “Bandwidth Poor”. The incident happened shortly after my arrival. We were chatting in his kitchen about what to do that evening. It seemed like a nice ride in the rain was not an option because Brian has Aquaphobia (B-NOTE: see above... I'm no sissy...). He suggested maybe a movie. I thought great I stated that I would like to see 21 he said great let me check the times. He reached into his front pocket then sorted thru a small stack of PostIt notes and produced a small list of “Movie” times there appeared to be abbreviated titles and times when each movie would play. He ran thru the list suggesting other possible things to see and was stopped when he reached SL. “I have no idea what this movie is so we will skip it”. We agreed to see 21 and took off to get some dinner. (The movie was StopLoss, but that's irrelevant.)

After dinner Brian again had to check some more movie times so back to “The Internet” he went and he while driving reached into his pocket and pulled sever stacks of PostIt Notes . He found the List and checked the start Time. “Hay Dave we still have about and hour and a half I have to get some stuff you want to go with me?” . Since he was driving he just put all his info on the console between the seats. We stopped to get some gas and it was the perfect time for me to look at his notes. The first pad I grabbed was the same thing hand written on each page “Google” with a square box below. I found sever articles about current events on other notes, and then found the movie list with the attached PostIt “Movies 06033” on a “Google” PostIt. There was a mini Flip book with an animated Stickman knocking himself out with nun chucks labled YouTube. Some postings from news groups, some others with little stick people that I could not figure out what was going on it looked like a football game or wrestling, and his latest blog. It is obvious he has some internet Proxy (literally) that is giving him his info. And God willing I will find this proxy before I leave his house, and can slip this blog enter into the mix. (he didn't as it turned out, but slipped a Post-It Note of his own into my pocket...)

Dave.

Hockey Socks

I saw a woman riding a bike the other day in the rain. She wore a bright flourescent yellow/green cyclist jacket, a pair of black spandex biking shorts with the big wide red stripe on each leg, and a pair of big wooly red and blue hockey socks on her lower legs that were tucked into the botttom of the shorts.

The weirdest part was that she was rising a really nice road bike... not brand new, not top of the line, but a perfectly respectable bike nonetheless. Usually those outfits are reserved for folks riding kids bikes down the center of the highway, or riding a spray-painted cruiser with a three-wheeled shopping cart trailing behind.

It was a jaw dropping, turn your head and openly stare sort of moment, especially in the fancy downtown area of the semi-snooty town that I live in, where sparkly new Volvo station wagons and giant SUVs are the default vehicles of choice. Awesome. Simply awesome.