Thought Sausage

Let it never be said the Chinese can't build a sexy stadium when the spirit moves 'em.

Thanks Travis for making my current competing/training environs that are the UIC seem woefully inadequate.

Wow, for the first time in a long while I had my weeknights freed up enough to actually hit all 3 of my swim practices, get my runs in and not show up to work on Friday barely hanging on to the will to live. Man its good to be alive. I almost forgot what it's like to spend a whole week crawling into bed every night feeling like your body had been put through its paces in ways that didn't involve poisoning my liver.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to the Quad Cities (of Iowa) for a weekend of hard mountain biking, mongolian food and fresh non-loop air (a cocktail of smog, pigeon shit, diesel, exhaust and urine). We're hitting up a couple major parks and I have a local to ride with who undoubtedly knows "the good shit" so I'll be putting the bike through its paces.

Comes at a good time too...as the mountain bike just got a new pair of shoes. The guy at Kozy sold me on a pair of Kevlar wound treads. I put 'em on last night...and it's straight up rim porn. It really takes that bike from "the sorta mean lookin one on the rack" to "keep your bike away from it because it'll kick its ass". I'm like a proud father (or materialistic self-absorbed bastard..you decide). I'm really excited to put those fuckers through their paces (and rest assured, they WILL be put through some hell). Yes I can truly say I'm addicted to this kind of riding. My youngest bro will also be in town for the weekend so I'll hang out with him at night. I love it when a plan comes together.

In other news, we (one of my teams) had some major props come our way by means of a glowing review of our work for a large Fortune 500 company by Forrester Research. This has resulted in me feeling really fucking positive about the processes and deliverables we put in place. You can't get much more of a validation than when somebody like one of the most reputable consultants in the world tells your one-of-the-largest-in-their-space-in-the-world clients that essentially, you are a badass and they should be listening less to the other chumps and more to you. That's the kinda shit that makes ya get up and do it the next day. The net result of this is that said client is renewing with us for 08 in a major way. So ya gotta love that.

Annnnnnnnnnnd while you are all probably aware that Dane Cook is on my Punch-the-fuck-out-on-sight list, go figure that no-talent asstard is on Conan as I type and within the first 5 seconds, he basically kife'd a Mike Birbiglia bit. Jesus this dude needs to get the fuck off my TV and into a frat house where he belongs.

Speaking of TV, don't bother tuning into A&E to watch Dog The Bounty Hunter. He went and got himself in trouble (again) only this time it was because he couldn't keep from saying a bunch of racist shit to his kid on the phone. So A&E cancelled the show and now they are showing even more of that fruitcake magic trick weirdo Chris Angel. I don't watch much TV at all to begin with, but Dog is usually on whenever I get back from the pool so I tune in...if anything to watch Dog's quasi-sage bit he does to every single crackhead he picks up off the streets of Honolulu. You always hear how reality television is scripted and I have no doubt this white-trash festival is as well. I can only imagine how the rehearsals between scenes go. Like when the REAL bounty hunters come along and actually find the guy, then they tell the crackhead "Okay, so you go back in the house and hide under the bed, and Dog and Leland are going to come barging in and yell a lot. Then they'll make you smoke a cigarette and Dog is gonna say a bunch of shit about christ. Think you can handle that brah?"

Either way...I think we can all rest assured Al Sharpton will milk this for all he can over the next couple of weeks until people forget about Dog and move on to paying too much attention to whatever stupid shit Britney Spears is up to.

And finally...at the risk of sounding like a total tool, y'all should check out the acoustic set Metallica did at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit this past weekend. I realize that's sort of like talking up Pizza Hut as your favorite pizza joint. But for a bunch of old dudes that if you like, you dont' go around bragging about unless you also have a rusted out camaro with your 3 1/2 step kids out front playing on it in your front yard, they actually laid down a really fucking quality set. They played both days and both shows have their suprisingly fucking awesome covers of Nazareth Please Don't Judas Me and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms (which was a stupid song to begin with...the managed to make it work). You can download either show here for 10 bucks and its definitely worth the price of admission. I'd post the mp3's here but Lars would probably show up in the morning with a SWAT team and I've had way too good a week to put up with that bullshit on a Friday.

Whatever you think makes you badass ain't got shit on how these guys spend the afternoon

UPDATE: Apparently Live Video decided to not work sometime this afternoon (per Mike's comment). So go here to see how un-manly your pursuits really are in comparison. Thanks Mike har har har

Wow I never woulda thunk it. Yet here I am...laying in a kickass feather mattress bed worried that if I don't set this alarm, I won't actually wake up until next week sometime. Jesus you always hear about those people who sleep constantly, but don't believe it until you sleep on the types of beds they probably sleep in. To be fair, I've stayed in just about ever hotel chain there is in America and the brands under the Westin name take the cake...but even those don't compare to this thing (I'm in my parents house FYI).

Mongolian Food = Procured
Clean Air = Breathing
Biking = FAN FUCKING TASTIC

Am out riding with my dad and Jim (resident 'guy who can get ya the good price on Treks'). We went to Sunderbruch (sp?) Park, which is basically this mountain bike park the city of Davenport has built. So that means a lot of artificial yet natural elements are in this course. Some of those are a little weird to get the hang of...like the stumps they make hills out of and launches that occur right after an immediate turn. But overall, it's the business. If I had to compare what's going on here to Palos, I'd say this isn't as vast as Palos, but it has a wider variety of trail elements. Suffice to say, its an awesome collection of runs.

We're going out again tomorrow in the afternoon. So in the spirit of keeping myself from being lazy, I'll probably go for a run tomorrow am (I brought all my running gear).

Props to everyone who ran the trials today and good luck to the NYC marathoners tomorrow.

Oh...and fuck yeah Navy!

Help make your workplace and mine a safe place for all genders. In the meantime, I sure could go for a powerfuck!

Don't thank me, thank Travis

Sorry I have to rant on work (to those that aren't in the search industry). Michael Martinez is unhappy with Google Analytics new site/internal search functionality because Google still doesn't properly index supplemental results. I won't bore you with the details other than to say supplemental results in Google are pages that Google normally doesn't show in its normal index because they have deemed them less important. The internal search functionality refers to Google now reporting on the types of searches people perform on your site. For example if you were to search for something in the query bar on Thoughtsausage, if I were employing this functionality, I could see what types of things people search on when they are here. Pretty cool really.

Michael Martinez claims this tool is useless because all these non-pertinent pages aren't being indexed. Michael Martinez is also the proprietor of xenite.org, which aside from looking straight out of 1995 is the self-proclaimed #1 resource on the web for Xena the Warrior Princess. This serves to be his source of achievement in the search optimization community. Real hipster we're dealing with here.

So here's my open letter response to Michael Martinez (and I have no doubt he'll eventually find it as he seems to be just the sort of fellow who Google's his own name on a daily basis to see what comes up):

Michael,

I'm glad you got your grievances for Google Internal Search off your chest. The rest of the SEO community understands that supplemental results and internal search are two entirely separate issues and while one may not be perfect, it doesn't mean Google can't enhance their product elsewhere. That's what those of us at the grown folks table call progress. And in 5 years when people have forgotten what supplemental results even were, they'll know what internal search is, and you'll forever be known as a whiny little pissant if somebody bothers to look you up, which they'll never do.

Dave McAnally

Wow..I'm already paying way more attention to this than I ever thought I would (thanks Sphinn!). Apparently that last post caught Michael Martinez's attention (I can only assume) and prompted him to write a massive diatribe on what a good SEO blog is. I'll circle back to this one more time and then I have like, real things to do.

Michael since you're obviously reading this, let me help you out a bit:

1. I couldn't give two shits and a rolling donut about where Thoughtsausage is showing up in the SERPs. In fact I've kicked around the idea of banning all crawlers from it and pulling it out of the Google index. 99.999% of the posts are on topics other than search and you can rest assured that will be the case for the forseeable future.

2. If you want to talk about basic blogging SEO, making the first 40+
characters of every title tag on your blog the same is pretty fucking weak.

3. Most "real" SEOs fly below the radar because they don't have time to
write 10,000+ words a day on various blogs, forums and mailing lists.

4. Real SEO's optimize real websites. Not to burst your bubble champ, but if you think I'm sitting around optimizing websites about sci fi bullshit and attempting to monetize via adsense and banners, you are woefully mistaken. Nope my days are spent working with websites that make more money online in a day than xena related shit has made in the past 3 years.

Sorry to everyone who has no clue what the hell this is all about...back to our normal schedule of finding phenomenally stupid shit on the web and talking about myself.

Bypassed swim practice today to meet with the realtor about a condo up north. WAY up north. Like baja Evanston north in my old stomping grounds of Edgewater. Don't get me wrong I love Edgewater and it definitely has a charm that the rest of the city is lacking. But as Horowitz would say, 'once ya get the training wheels off and live in the city for real it just ain't it". Unfortunately, he's 100% accurate. Great prices, but living that far away from everything really crimps my style. Not to mention I'm still going to attempt to cycle to work every day throughout the winter. So there's that.

So I'm back onto Roxbox and I've got a few rhythms I'm not un-satisfied with which has led me to try out some lead ideas over the top. I'll say this much, on the various albums I've played on, it never did occur to me how seemingly impossible it is to get a guitar solo to actually sit in a mix. I have a new respect for all the people who produced tracks I worked on cos I'm totally striking out on this. Maybe I'm more anal retentive than I used to me, or maybe my playing isn't what it was, but I've tried everything from giving the DAW a totally dry signal to squashing the life out of it and nothing is sitting comfortably. In another life, I would have decided this was due to the fact that the leads I'm trying to shoehorn on top of these things are shit, but I think I know otherwise on at least a couple. So I doubt the 'record of the year' is going to come of anything I do on this rig without somebody who "knows what they are doing" in the room. Not that that's the stated end-goal, but well, it'd be nice to have my hairs stand up on the arm once in awhile.

Being as that its Friday and despite the fact I didn't workout last night, I decided to throw judgement to the wind and eat Chipotle for lunch today.

I got busted by the guy in those restaurants that hovers around the soda machine for filling up soda with a 'water cup' (ironically it is the one that has the coke logo on it). Now I PAID for soda, I even had a reciept that said so. But the chick at the counter gave me this cup, and who am I to argue with Chipotle's protocol?

So I walk up to the soda kiosk and begin putting Mr. Pibb in it when this portly dude comes up and says "Excuse me sir, you need to fill that with water"...to which I replied "there a problem with the soda?" and he says "You only have water, that's a water cup". I say "Well I paid for soda" and, as a good loyal employee would do, he takes the side of his team and says "No yoU didn't, otherwise you wouldn't have that cup". Already feeling our conversation had gone on way too long, I went in for the kill and pulled out my reciept, even pointed to the line item and said "Look dude, they sold me soda and I don't really have time for this shit". Apparently that combination of words strung together in that fashion was interpreted as a cue for this guy to launch into a speech that details the finer points of Chipotle's soda economics. Oh hell, he musta sat there for a solid 2 minutes expounding on how Chipotle loses all this money because people ask for water and then go put soda in the cup (which is the dumbest caper I've ever heard of but that's just me). Plus he was one of these guys who when you kinda nod and try to walk away he simply raises his voice and sucks you right back in. Apparently this particular Chipotle has been under a lot of scrutiny from the "Regional office" because some secret shopper (really?!) comes into their store every so often and was appalled by how many people were stealing the soda (NOTE-I find this humorous because this is the Chipotle on the 200 block of Michigan Ave so the only people going there are advertising execs and other professionals...apparently these people need to resort to petty soda stealing to save a buck on their lunches).

I kindly told him that all I did was buy my lunch and take the cup they gave me and I fail to see how any of this is my fucking problem. He assured me it wasn't and that he would be addressing this with the resident 'cup classifier' or whatever that un-named artisan's title is. He made double sure that I understood that the next time I came to this particular Chipotle post, if I order soda, by God I'll get the soda cup.

So, there's no real point to this post other than to say if you happen to want a burrito and go to the Chipotle on the 200 block of Michigan, don't fill the water cup with soda cos they are all over that like stink on shit!

Am putting together my lifting strategy for the 08 off-season training. I haven't actually taken weights seriously for a few years now (and even then is was pretty petty compared to the level I'm doing things now). So in weaving around the interwebs I came across this site which is chock full of great info and it's all free (if you can stomach all the cheesy monetization efforts). I think my biggest problem with sticking to a weight training program is that I get bored sitting around in a gym. The other challenge is in finding the time to do all this shit. I'm pretty much resolved to the notion of lifting sessions occuring before I leave for work. So THAT means I'll need to be getting up around 6am to make that happen and I'm already not a morning person what-so-fucking ever. I used to do all my training in the morning which was actually pretty refreshing because by the time I got to work I was pumped. Couple this with the fact building muscle usually requires more rest and I'm not a "rest" kinda guy (I average about 3-4 hours of a sleep a night). I made some progress and got pretty swol, but given the nature of next year's schedule, bulk isn't going to be my friend. All lean here.

Took Horowitz down to Palos to mountain bike (Tomas was out of town) because he's got a fucking nice bike and never gets to put it through the paces. So we most definitely did that. Only problem is we sorta got lost and stuck in teh woods all Blair Witch style. NOTE-Inaugural trail riding should not be done under the cover of night with no lights. He says he had fun but I can't imagine riding trails you can't see that you are unfamiliar with is all that enjoyable. HOWEVER, I'm told by persons who would know such things that night trail riding is becoming popular with the kids. You basically light the shit out of your bike and wear a helmet light. THAT sounds pretty fucking cool and after doing it just this weekend without lights, I can see where the appeal would be.

Other than that...just a lot of shoring up to be done around the office to make way for the holidays. I haven't made a lot of progress on some heavy lifting that needs to occur for this knowledge base we're building so that might make for some jam packed days where I lock myself away somewhere. Yeah, that'll go over just GR8! with the teams. After I get through this week, then next week I'm going to Florida to hang out in Panama Beach and Niceville where my bro lives, hang out, eat lots of turkey, and laugh at how stupidly close I am to Alabama. A bunch of us are going to see Phantom of the Opera on Tuesday. I'm told this is a really cool play and unfortunately, the only version of it I've seen is the Lon Chaney silent movie. My mom lent me the CD of the music and I took some of it in to prepare. Its @ the Cadillac Theater and I've never been, but if its good enough for Vice President Oprah's play, then it's good enough for me I guess (note to non-Chicago residents: come here to see Wicked cos the theater that thing is playing is in worth the price of admission alone).

Gene Simmons is without a doubt one of the most obnoxious individuals on the planet. His empire of Kiss-EVERYTHING and shitty reality TV is one of the bigger stains on rock 'n roll history. That said, every now and then the guy proves the behind his bullshit is a very intelligent perceptive individual. No more has that been evident than in what he said in Billboard this week regarding artists like Radiohead and Trent Reznor's attempt at a new business model. Basically its what I've been thinking but have been unable to coagulate it into a string of sentences:

But some artist like Radiohead and Trent Reznor are trying to find a new business model.
That doesn't count. You can't pick on one person as an exception. And that's not a business model that works. I open a store and say "Come on in and pay whatever you want." Are you on f*cking crack? Do you really believe that's a business model that works?

So what if music just becomes free and artists make their living off of touring and merchandise?
Well therein lies the most stupid mistake anybody can make. The most important part is the music. Without that, why would you care? Even the idea that you're considering giving the music away for free makes it easier to give it away for free. The only reason why gold is expensive is because we all agree that it is. There's no real use for it, except we all agree and abide by the idea that gold costs a certain amount per ounce. As soon as you give people the choice to deviate from it, you have chaos and anarchy. And that's what going on.

Exactly. At some point there needs to be a sustainable model. I think what Positron Records is doing is about as close to a work-able situation as possible, but if you're a new band good fucking luck. Point is...Radiohead's "business-model" only works because Radiohead spent 15 years cultivating a largish base of fans who would buy anything that band puts out.

Italian Spiderman Bitch!

The underlying issue of this has been bubbling under the surface with me for years now. I was just at the local Subway getting lunch and, as those of you in Chicago know, the lines @ any lunch establishment in downtown are quite long. Well today this snorky little dude in front of me shows up, and natch, he's ordering for himself plus he's got a little post-it note with instructions for a sandwich he's getting for his co-worker/friend/sig other. We waited for must have been a solid 8 minutes and during this time, said dude was not on a phone, or really doing anything besides staring into space looking not-unique. So what does he do when he gets to approach the counter? Well first off he rattles off the list of shit on the post-it note like a pro, and then FUCKING STUMBLEs OVER EVERY SINGLE FUCKING THING ON THE TRAY.

I'd hazard a guess this wasn't this guy's first jaunt into Subway. I can't imagine that the elements that comprise a sub sandwich were at all alien to him. Then why in the hell was every single thing from the meat, to the cheese to the veggies such a fucking toss up? Shit, even the girl who's command of the english language isn't all that more advanced than your well-watered houseplant had to coax his dumbass through the ordering ritual. After he got done telling the lady the kind of bread and size for his friend's sandwich he sat there and said: "Oh, uh, I dunno, um...can I get the wheat bread please? Hmmm..actually, hmm, maybe the italian herbs and cheese. How much more is a footlong?" (bear in mind there was line of around 20 people behind him). Moving right along to meats once that was decided, this turned into an indecisive clusterfuck as well. "Hmmm, make eeeeeeeet....ummmmmmm, can I have the turkey meat ('turkey meat'??!!), oh wait, actually let me have some of that chicken teriyaki...you know what, let's just have the turkey meat." And oh fuck, when it came to cheeses, this dude ACTUALLY FUCKING ASKED WHAT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PEPPERJACK AND "THAT ONE RIGHT THERE" IS. Look, if you don't know the difference, then it doesn't matter. The woman at the counter managed to convey that pepperjack is spicy by pointing at it and saying something that resembled "hot" yet it managed to rhyme with 'bumper'. Ya got me?! After making a bunch of noises indicating (I assume at least) his brain was processing this new information he settled on, I believe the pepperjack. The woman asked him if he wanted it toasted, and this was the only thing he was sure of, as he nodded and verbally confirmed that toasting was to his liking (because he was so sure of himself you see). By this point I was already annoyed, if for anything else because this moron is exactly why democrats think its best if the Federal government makes decisions for everybody. Plus it was beginning to dawn on me that as soon as his sandwich was done being toasted, he was going to have to determine what veggies and shit he wants on this labor of confusion.

And oh jesus fucking god. Now I actually made a point to rattle my order off really quickly because I hoped against all hope that this might tip this guy off that I was in somewhat of a hurry. The word 'futility' comes to mind in retrospect. This guy literally gazed at every single fucking thing and made sure each little bucket (container? Retainer? Bowl? I don't know what the fuck those things that hold the veggies in Subway are called) got some sort of noise indicating his interest or disdain. He also made sure he pointed at every single item just so we know what exactly was confusing him I guess. So he'd point at the lettuce and go "Ummmm errrrrm ehhhhhh eeeeeee oooooo" and then "Just a little bit 'o lettuce", and then onto the jalepenoes and "errrr ummmmm okay eeeee rrrrrraaaa" and over to tomatoes "errrr aaaahhh eeee duuuuuh Tomatoes!". This literallly continued for every single fucking piece of food he could have piled on. And to top it off, I think he actually only got tomatoes and lettuce on there. This of course didn't stop him from asking our english challenged sandwich artist what shit was he didn't know. So this poor woman had to figure out a way to tell him those are banana peppers when I'm quite certain she didn't know the english version of either word that comprises the name of that veggie. I think whatever she told him it was sounded more like "hogan's heroes" than "banana peppers" which only appeared to confuse this prick even more.

I thought once this whole act came to pass he'd be home free and the one chick working the counter could go on to putting shit on my sandwich (I was waiting for it to get out of the toaster). Oh hell no, we still had the sauces! He had to know which one the Chipotle Southwest shit was. So the lady held it up for him. Nope, not white enough. "HOw about eerrrrrrm eeeeeem, do you guys have light mayo?" "errrrrrm, weeee eeeeem, uuuuuuhhhh okay hooooooooooow aboooooooooooooouuuuuuut dijon mustard". So his highness got some fucking dijon mustard. Oh but what is this parmesian and pepper you speak of? Goddamit!!!! Those two fucking shakers also prompted one of his non-linguistic verbal assaults and I think he finally decided on neither.

Just fucking shoot me.

Look people, can we as a nation go ahead and get this fucking shit straightened out? If you are at a subway (or any restaurant with a patron line and a food assembly line), figure out what the fuck you want before you get up to the counter. Subway has gone out of their way to accomodate your dumbass with a huge menu, and even some suggestions that people of your ilk seem to enjoy. PICK SOMETHING!

This is a German dance, thus, it's already slightly retarded, but the karma police definitely pulled this guy over for a sound beating. If there's one guy who deserves to swallow a mic its this guy. OOT OOT! ZIGGY!! OOT OOT!!

Invigorating. Today I went for my first real solid run in a long time. 10 miles. I'm getting the mile pace for those distances right around 8:00 which isn't perfect, but I'd rather be running those paces now than in like June when that shit has to count. One thing that sucks about these longer runs is my determined routes. I've been going southwest which basically sends me right through little Italy and Pilsen. This areas would have stabbed/shot a goofy white kid like me on sight (especially since my dumbass elects to do these runs around 10pm) as little as 3 years ago. But i dunno, they don't bother me so much now. I guess if anything, it'll keep me from standing still. Knock on wood. Hard

Heh, as an aside, I loaded all the data from my ipod into the nike+ website and actually went to the site for the first time in ages. I was informed via pop up window (or flash module as that site is a Flash-o-matic piece of clunky shit IM oh so HO) that I have now run 423 miles on this ipod (which I purchases in Jan). I'm "Well on my way to reaching 500" and that "while I'm already a winner, I am on my way to being a champion". Awww, now don't that just make ya feel all warm and fuzzy inside? I guess that also implies I'll need to be purchasing new shoes in the not-too-distant future.

I'm going to Florida tomorrow night to observe the T-day, where we American rejoice in the fact Native Americans were so susceptible to small pox when the white folk settled here for the winter (yeah I know that reads weird to all my European readers). So like, don't break anything while I'm gone.

Am sitting in a condo looking out of a 15th floor balcony over the gulf in Panama City Florida in shorts cos its 74 degrees thinking to myself there are way worse ways to pass through life. This of course is because I happen to know it is pissing rain back in Chicago. SUCKAS!!!!

Flight was fine. No major hitches, other than Atlanta's airport reminded me once again of why I hate the fucking place so much. It's one of maybe 10 in the United States that rely on a tram sysem to get you between terminals. So I had to go from one side of the airport clear to the other to connect to Panama (no direct flights from Chicago) in 15 minutes. Couple that parameter with the fact that the holidays have a disproportionate amount of old women with too much carry-on and way too many little kids and it makes for one ornery Dave McAnally trolling through that place.

I'm actually at my parents condo instead of my brothers place. This is because Niceville is actually about an hour from the Panama City airport (I discovered) and so rather than go barge in on my bro, who has to work @ 5:00am tomorrow (half day...that's the Navy for ya), I just came here. But hey...a few beers procured and a rock solid wifi later with a Young Guns I and II marathon going on (the latter of which represents the one good thing Bon Jovi EVER did and EVER will do) and I'm good to go.

So...no other point to this post than that. I'm going to get a good run in tomorrow morning since I'm still riding on the momentum of what went down last night. Then my brothers and I hired a photographer to do some professional pics of the 3 of us to give to my mom for xmas. I'm not really one to stand around and get my pic taken (as anybody who had the misfortune of having to do the promo shots of me back when I was a rockstar knows), but hey...it's for mom (everybody let out a collective "awwwww"). Also on tap...I'm gonna finalize this whole lifting/strength regime with my bro. I'm talking taking notes and the whole bit. As anybody who follows this blog knows, I'm a lot more methodical about my workouts than I used to be...and this is no different. Besides when you've got the undivided attention of a naval special forces officer for the better part of a week, you better carve out some time to get yourself a badass workout.

Let me go ahead and get this out of the way...I've never really felt like Mardi Gras is something I have to take part in before I die. In fact I don't really give a shit about it. Nevertheless, I am intrigued by the message and overall sentiment in this movie. I went ahead and ordered it. I'll post a review once I get it (however, I also just ordered season 16 of Law and Order on itunes so it may be awhile till I get around to watching it). Now, we use and abuse Mardi Gras beads fairly religiously on RAGBRAI, but I think the message this movie is attempting to communicate goes a little deeper than the beads themselves.

My initial sentiment here is that this movie will (accurate IM oh so HO) show how the people partaking in Mardi Gras are ignorant spoiled little bitches. And go figure...that's pretty much what New Orleans (at least the parts of it that weren't members of the band Down) French Quarter was before the storm.

This is what happens when I surf the web alone in Florida on a beach. To be fair though, I gotta give this one to 'ol Hank.

The title of this post is the title of the coolest "slow" Ministry song (if such a description can actually be applied to a Ministry tune). FWIW, run don't walk to wherever it is you procure your music from and purchase The Last Sucker. This album totally was a grower. It is on every playlist I have (flights, running, sitting, working etc etc). Grandpa Al definitely threw down the gauntlet here.

I'm about to clock out here...so my rundown here is gonna be fairly sparse:

1. We drove by the base where my bro is operating/training out of. Included in this drive-by was the mine/bomb field where they practice blowing munitions up (this includes fresh craters and mortar shells). Replete with its own bunker. Fuckin' A that'll make whatever it is you do for a living look like a big bowl of gay.

2. Within the base (it's predominately Air Force here...but as y'all know, we McAnally's are firmly in the Naval camp), there is a barber shop called "Hair Force One"

3. UPDATE FROM YESTERDAY: I got my training reco's from my bro. It'll be a conversation that spills into tomorrow but I DID do some running with 90lbs added to my person and some insane pullups. Ultimately, crossfit training is not for the faint of heart.

4. Niceville? Well it seems nice I guess. Like the people are alright. This town has a serious lack of fucking streetlights though. I went out for a 10k around 5 today and that was a fuckin hazard. This reminds me a LOT of Honolulu (the area north of Waikiki). Looks awesome, but fuck yourself to get a decent non-life-threatening jog in.

5. Darkman is on. This is without a doubt the dumbest role Liam Neeson ever took on. Jesus could this guy be anymore cheesy in this role?

6. Pics went off quite well. I may even post some. However, the red tide (phenomenon that occurs when algae and bacteria builds up along the coasts and proceeds to kill all the fish and basically smell unbearably bad) was in full effect. So it was REALLY hard to get decent pics where we had our eyes open.

7. I am told it is snowing back home. FOR SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm sitting in Panama City after bumbling about the panhandle of Florida.

Today I:

A. Saw the casing that is used to house nukes...aptly called "The Fat Man" that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's sobering to say the least. Fuckin' A. My bro showed me and my other bro a museum of the US Military's arsenal. First time I saw a SR-71 Blackbird up close. Were it not for the fact satellites have rendered that plane obselete (sp?), it should definitely be in use. Fuck those things are badass looking. I also learned how anti-tank missles nowadays work and suffice to say, I thank my stars I'm not actually in the line of work that requires me to be in a tank.

B. I also saw where they filmed The Truman Show. That town looks just as cheesy and gay in real life as it did in the movie.

C. Learned Britney Spears owns a house just up the road from here in Destin. In the last week I've spent a fair amount of time in Destin. Destin is basically a Girls Gone Wild video happening in real time in the summer. This time of year, its what those "SPRING BREAK GONE CRAZY!!" type vids look like when nobody is going crazy. And Britney living here actually explains quite a bit.

D. Have settled and finally built a Crossfit workout set for strength that incorporates a lot of insane shit but I've walked through one set and survived. This is the way for me to go because it can be done in a very short amount of time (20 min or less) and basically beats the fuck out of your whole body rather than focusing on specific muscles. Note to those of you who are looking to build some strength and get in endurance sport shape over the winter...check this shit out. If its good enough for the Navy SEALs, it's good enough for you!

So tomorrow I fly back to Chicago, get some groceries (cos i'm totally dry) and hoping against all hope I can actually wake up Monday morning and start burning off all thsi fucking food 'n margaritas I've been inhaling all week.

I've decided for 08's season I need to upgrade my ride (don't get me wrong, the orange wonder will still be deployed for RAGBRAI and other road events. However, given the obvious advantages of a tri bike built for, well, triathlons, the Fuji Aloha and all its Shimano Ultregra loaded glory make a good argument to where my next 1500 bones should go (although I'd hazard a guess street price is more around 1100). And why the hell is it the last official page on the Fuji site still says 2004? C'mon? I know y'all still make this bike cos I've seen the 08 @ Performance Cycle! But I digress... While I'd love to shell out the metric fuckton of money required for the Scott CR1, well, I'd also love to buy a condo and we all gotta make sacrifices donchaknow?

But in the meantime, if anybody was thinkin of what to get 'ol Dave this year for the birthday of baby jeebus, well you could do worse than one of those under the tree.

If you can make it through the first 2 minutes of this without wanting to slap the glasses off this dudes face, you're a patient person. That's before he starts 'trying sounds' too.

Man so much for Metal Health (zing!). Guess that's what ya get for going to see The Cult in 2007 and not like, a band that everyone else didn't get over 17 years ago.

That's me alright!

Did my first round of crossfit this morning. Today I focused on core/shoulders and boy howdy this shit kicks your ass in all kinds of unique ways. When I was lifting and building strength in the past, I always did it with the idea that I'd focus on a single muscle group per workout. The Crossfit regime doesn't allow for such things. Instead, you pulverize all parts of your body. For example tomorrow's activities include 45 second runs with 100lbs of additional weight. Yeah...and that's just what goes on between routines. I'm stoked because this is EXACTLY what needs to happen to step up to the next level next season, and it'll be cool to get all cut up for the first time ever, but boy howdy, doing that at 6:50am is punishing. The good news is by the time I get to work I'm totally jacked up. My days of oozing in at 8:25 unable to communicate with anybody until I've had at least 2 cups of coffee are over.

The second part of this punishment routine is that I decided to go ahead and get some whey protein to supplement the muscle portion of this. Why the fuck can't they make this shit in flavors like gatorade? I get it that its supposed to be a shake, but i don't want a fucking shake. I just mix it in water cos well, shit that's all I have time for (and my blender is in one of 4 storage places I now have shit stashed in). So, you'd think I'd pick out a flavor that this combination sounds appealing right? WRONG! Cookies 'N Cream y'all! No fucking joke. And its about as gross as it sounds. I suck it down cos I'm tough like that but jeebus aitch christ that shit puts the hair on your chest. I sucked down a serving of it after a 10k run tonight.

I eased back into the grind @ work fairly easily after nearly a week off. Some very good news abound in the way of new clients and some not-so-good news about other clients from a bygone era. All in all, we're gittin 'r done and that's what counts. I'm pretty much set to accomplish my goals for the remainder of the year (4 work weeks left? really?). Omnicom's stock is down for the year right now, and I just enrolled in the employee stock purchase plan (yeah we get to buy the umbrella stock cos we're that fuckin cool) and I'm hoping it stays around here for a bit so I can horde it all up at the low price. It's projected to be 10 bucks up next year so maybe I'll get rich! BLING BLING baby!

"You don't have to be an athlete to enjoy Gatorade, you just have to be a thirsty dude!" -Mitch Hedberg

Other than the Xtreme Bullshit (which I'm sure he had nothing to with), fair travels sir.

Man...as I'm laying down here in bed I feel like I was just beaten with a sock full of quarters. We had a rather grueling IM set tonight at swimmin' and today I've completed my weekly routine for AM Crossfit. My legs are still throbbing. I kicked around giving monday's routine a go through but am laying off since I'm probably ready to give the bod some rest to resconstruct all the muscles I tore down so far. The good news is I completely lost all the weight I piled on last week. That didn't take long. I guess 3 days and 18,000 calories burned later....

Why the fuck am I hearing a lot about how great Skeleton Key is? Over on AI, Chris is talking about them like they are the shiznit (and his tastes in music tend to be most un-indie-rock-hipster in the 10 years I've known him), they are touring with Chemlab (really?!) and I think Buddyhead has been all over 'em too (not suprising). Am I the only one who thinks they are bland cheese? To Chris's defense, at least he's saying the live show is where it's at. I dunno, but from the MP3's on their site, all I'm hearin is bland indie-doofus cookie cutter artsy-so-girls-like-me rock. Sorry but I'm not impressed.

On another music note...I went ahead and grabbed that Sixx A.M. album from itunes and its playing right now and will be in rotation @ work tomorrow. What can I say- that Life Is Beautiful song finally grew on me. As it plays, I'm not feelin it...it's on laptop speakers but still...they gave this dish an extra helping of cheese what with all the spoken word stuff. I get it, how its supposed to be a soundtrack to a book (as if that was at all necessary), but for fucks' sake, you'd think Nikki Sixx would have figured out when to say when by now. The Heroin Diaries were an awesome read, but I don't know if this is really enhancing my purchase of that book.

On a positive note, I totally (re??) connected with that Reeves Gabrels Rockonica album today. I never really let it play through all the way and get into it...but the song Anywhere She Is finally got me roped in. As anybody who has known me more than 5 years knows, Reeves is t3h Awesome to me, but this album never piqued my interest until now. Definitely should check it out...

Some interesting developments in personal and professional life this week. Both seem like they could be good things. Updates abound in the next couple of weeks.

Now off to sleep...get to sleep in to 7:30 tomorrow am!

Right here

This case is so fucking stupid I can't even coagulate my opinion of it into english. WTFBBQ?????

Sudan is sending people to jail just because some children named a fucking stuffed animal after their prophet? It's 2007 right?

The Sudanese government is lucky I'm not in charge of the US military cos if I was, I'd send a platoon of SEALs there to bitchslap and backhand everybody who had a hand in this case