Thought Sausage

Today I swam my first swim meet (well, first as an old guy). Did pretty damned good for a guy who has been out of commission for 12+ years. Ended up winning the 100 free and taking 2nd in the 100 fly. For those readers who understand swim speak (which is like 2 of you probably), I went 0:55 in the 100 free and 0:59 in the 100 fly. Those times are of course, a lot slower than I swam when I was a kid, but I set a goal to go sub 1:00 in the 100 fly, and well shit, I'm already there after 2 months. Time to raise the bar ya dig?

At the going rate, it looks like I might actually have a fighting chance at this whole swimming thing. State is in 2 months. Of course, that's just the winter season. we've got summer and the Winter I season too.

In other news, I'm finally with digital camera. So maybe these entries will get a little more visual.

Projects in the works: making my own wine (if this works, I'm goin full bore..and starting my own label), outfitting mountain bike for the summer (some guys @ work know some good trails, so I'm in company), and initiating operation "bulk the fuck up" (now that I trimmed off all the phat, it's time to build some hurtin' bombs if I'm gonna push the fly time any faster).

I realize sandwichesofchicago.com is lingering, but I'll get it up and running.

I've said it before and i'll say it again. This weather can choke on my left nut. We were told that this week would be warmer. Like lots warmer. 40-50 degrees perhaps. Instead, it's colder than a witch's tit and after just washing my car it decided to snow while I was at swimming. Fucking joy. Delilah has spent a good chunk of 2007 covered in salt and random snow shit so just once, I'd like it to go for more than a week without having shit all over her. I'm so happy I could shit.

In other news, Scooter Libby officially took the fall for higher ups. I can't help but think this cat could have blown the whistle on the whole shebang, so you know somebody somewhere told 'ol Libby if he opens his trap, Mrs. Libby and Scooter junior may end up having an unfortunate accident or something. I dunno, fuck, it basically happened on Prison Break last night. Now the democrats are all in a tizzy because they think Bush is going to pardon Libby. I'm taking a "wait and see" approach on that, but I'd say the smart money is on Bush letting things play out via appeals. No way he's gonna do anything that could potentially make it so the buck doesn't stop with Libby.

It also occured to me today after eating a club sandwich that was constructed with elements including a hard boiled egg and 1000 Island Dressing (the least masculine dressing of them all if you ask me) that we now live in times nobody could have possibly invented. Case in point: If I were to travel back to 1998 and have a conversation with myself about what life as an American is like in 2007, I would tell myself that we are fighting a "war" that 20% of the country actually agrees with, Britney Spears has proclaimed that she's the anti-christ, the terminator is the governor in California, a guy named "Scooter" took the fall for the vice president, more people voted for the winner of a karaoke themed game show than the sitting president and you can hear Huey Lewis sing Jacob's Ladder anytime you want from any computer connected to the internet in the world thanks to You Tube.

I'm also watching Ozzy Osbourne Don't Blame Me right now and it's making me realize how awesome of an album No More Tears was. Goddamn my kingdom for a slammin' Ozzy record now (none of this pussy-assed Ozzfest generation shit he'll no doubt put out).

The Die Warzau video Natalia and i were in last year is finally online (Schmudde was there too, but I've yet to find him):

We are peppered throughout the club scene @ the end. You can notice me and my crappy white guy dance moves behind the weird naked jesus guy and Natalia pops up in between the scenes of the chicks having sex in the back room (yes, this could very well be the greatest video in human history).

CAUTION: This vid is very much NSFW so proceed with caution

UPDATE: Shit, well YouTube decided to show their true yellow colors and have taken the video down. I'm told the band is scouring the interwebs to find a suitable place to host it. I'll post the link as soon as I know what it is

Henry Rollins is one badass motherfucker...I often ask myself, when in a given situation, how 'ol Hank would handle it...then I'm fine

I'm having trouble determining if this guy is retarded or not. I'm gonna have to go with "no"...he's just a cracked out jackass (or fucktard as we label 'em around here). It's not like I don't understand the type of music he's goin for. It's that this is what happens when crackheads get a camcorder and have a shower. Dig the gold grill brutha!

UPDATE: If Reh Dogg's magnum opus here actually tickles your fancy, you can buy the album. Just don't put that disc in if I'm ever riding in your car.

I'm laying here after the coaches sprung an unforseen 30 minute time trial on me today. Had I known that was on tap for tonight, I would have backed off eating a footlong meatball sub for lunch (yeah I splurged on the calories a bit, sue me). Suffice to say, side cramps were abound during that excursion and I've once again amazed myself at how many times I can lose the will to live within the span of a half hour. But as the man says, them donuts got made and your hero whacked off 2350 yards (yes to the swim folk I realize that's a ghastly slow pace, but well, go fuck yourself, I wasn't "on the ball" today).

I'm wondering if the constants of the universe read my blog, because after bitching about the weather last week, we got paid back in spades the last few days. Rumor has it we eclipsed 70 today! Needless to say, Bertha and I had a nice ride to and from practice today. I'm getting to where I might, dare I say it, enjoy these rides (by enjoy I mean coast along without obscenely cold wind whipping across my face).

Meanwhile, I know I've been laxed on the Spokeeasy website. It appears somehow everything got broke, and amidst all that Travis changed the password. He told me what the new one is but I forgot to throw it in Dreamweaver, so unless he pops online in the next hour or so, that placeholder is all you get. The good news is there actually IS a blog on that thing now. It doesn't look like the rest of the site which is somewhat problematic, but, well, the functionality is there.

Other projects to be undertaken in the near future:

1. Wine -will procure the implements for this during my trip to Dominicks tomorrow. Yes I am going to start making my own wine. No I don't know what I'm doing. No my definition of wine isn't "vodka with some grape juice in it" (thank you very much Roly) and yes, you can have a bottle if it turns out good. But that's a pretty big "if" at this juncture.

2. Weights -Well I managed to trim off about 30 pounds of shitty weight. But with the cycling season upon us, it's time to start building the 'ol trunk up. You'd think I'd target legs/back, but actually, it's my abs and shoulders that probably need the most toning up. Unfortunately this will have to take place before I go to work, which means i'll be getting up at preposterous hours of the morning (although not too preposterous...the gym in my building is adequate for my needs so the commute consists of an elevator ride).

3. Launch Spokeeasy site -Turns out people actually have been emailing the addresses Ian had on the site, so that means somehow people are coming across our little neck of the web woods. Yes I'm totally late on this, but it's not my fault I swear. Blame the new PHP release

4. Become a total knowledge base for video search -The more I learn about this the more I'm learning how much I don't know. In short, nobody knows what the fuck is going on and I've never seen so many complicated factors go into such a simple fucking concept. You have a video, you want people to see it, MAKE A VIDEO PEOPLE WANT TO SEE AND PUT IT WHERE THEY LOOK FOR IT. Can you believe that has everybody in my industry completely flabbergasted? Yeah, it's not that simple...couldn't be.

5. Pimp out the mountain bike. Yeah this one. It's not the urban yuppie douchebag machine you see there anymore. Gone are all the city implments, and in their place, full off roading components are being added. My goal is to have this completed by April in time for riding. Of course, to make this work, I'll need to actually buy that car rack (the Dero I babbled about). I did find out how to mount one of the really cool welded ones, but well, fuck it, I don't care anymore.

You'll want to pack a lunch to watch all of this, but these vids are well worth the time (for the record, this is a true story he tells):

Finally, the new Spokeeasy site is live. Well almost. I still have to trick Travis into doing some shit with the blog to make that happen, but seeing as how we're not actually doing anything with riding yet, nobody has anything to say anyway. But it is what it is. You'll notice the pics look exactly like Drewzilla. Well that's because Drew installed it for us (if you aren't already aware....he pretty much lays claim to the best gallery implement, well, in the history of these crazy tubes we call the internet).

In other news...am watching the NIN Beside You In Time DVD and even though it's like almost 2, and I can't really crank the bass...this shit is the business. Definitely two thumbs up from me. I saw this tour in like, October or something of 2005 and the DVD definitely shows more With Teeth songs (not a bad thing by a stretch).

And another year's St. Patty's festivities are behind us. Of course, St. Patricks day doesn't mean I actually do anything different. It just means the rest of the city thinks they are Irish and clog the bars I'm normally at with their bullshit "kiss me I'm irish" shirts for the day.

All in all, I'd call the weekend a success. There were some good things to come of it and the Tallywhackers (Cedar Rapids based cycling team) rolled in to party. All good...it even FELT like RAGBRAI for a bit. Props to Spain for the party and all the peeps there.

There's talk of seeing 300 @ the IMAX...I may or may not do that....as you can imagine, my brain is still swimmin (even though for some reason I woke up @ like 9 this morning and have already been out to the burbs to waste time (aka driving around aimlessly).

Work proceeds on operation make-my-own-wine. I'm either going to make some really good shit, or go blind.

TWO DAYS UNTIL ROCKY BALBOA IS OUT ON DVD

I'm just sayin' is all....

that fruity German dudes love marshmellows

Somewhere...probably in the pacific rim, is a chick who digs Oasis that is making this guy try waaaaaaaaaaaaay too hard. This is either gonna grow on you or you're going to hate me.

PS-yes I know I'm treading dangerous water with a video like this since we've all been there. Look at it this way...if you recorded yourself fumbling through some song your girlfriend really likes and singing woefully out of key then proceeded to upload it to Youtube...you'd be fucktard of the week. But you didn't..so enjoy

is so I can show you gems like this:

If you don't think MST3K is funny as fuck, well, you've got bigger fish to fry.

Those of you who are regular readers know that I go through serious phases of music. I'm just getting over a big Rush obsession where everything from Moving Pictures to Roll the Bones was solid gold. It appears the next "dig deep into the archives" obsession seems to be Drive by Truckers. I've got some old CD's of theirs from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day when I saw 'em in Iowa City. But I just cleaned out itunes supply of 'em. For those who are unfamiliar, My Sweet Annette is a free download if ya wanna hear some kickass southern rock goodness. Said itunes buy-up presents a new problem. I think I just downloaded more songs than my ipod is currently capable of holding. So that means some shitty music I never listen to will need to give itself to the cause. I have a shitpile of 80's hip hop that I don't believe I've ever listened to. That selection process is gonna be somewhat painful because it's entirely possible I'll go through an old skool 80's hip hop thing. I'm already finding PM Dawn's Reality Used to Be a Friend of Mine seeping into my work playlists. And I'll always have a place in my heart for everything Public Enemy.

Or I may just need to procure a beefier ipod....

I seem to have developed a serious problem of drinking too much coffee @ work. Then I get home and have a serious withdrawl/comedown that wipes me right out. This is a problem cos I couldn't scrape myself off the bed to get to swimming tonight. SONOFABITCH! In addition, I'm starting to teach SEO classes. In my teaching mode, I tend to prepare for a class by amping up on caffiene and turning into a retardedly hyper jackass then praying the session doesn't go off the rails. Hey, it's probably what worked for Jaime Escalante right?

UPDATE: Just piled all the new DBT songs into the ipod and it took it like a champ. Packed to the gills of course, but no deletion required yet. Fuckin disc space.

I'm trying to come up with a comment witty enough for this but I'm finding myself stuck. That actually comes from http://www.godtube.com , but I can't be bothered with going to that site to see what other incredibly fucking stupid shit is on there. 100 bucks says there's a youth group somewhere in Nebrasklahomo that made this filled with members who hang out in the "commons area", drink grape soda and sometimes listen to Creed when they wanna get "crazy".

Don't blame me, blame Travis. I'm just the messenger.

Added aero bars, new tubes, lube and basically tightened everything. Ridin season's here bitch!