Thought Sausage

This weekend I procured a new road bike (see pictures). I also took roadbike out for a spin in the back country of Iowa in 90 degree heat in the dead of afternoon (and 7:30 am this morning). Suffice to say, I'm ready for RAGBRAI next week. This year, I'm going to make a point to draft in the various pellatons barreling down the road. A group of 10 of us were able to sustain a 30mph average speed for nearly 35 miles (and that INCLUDES the post Maid Rite breakfast stop!). Said roadbike is a Trek 1000, which I've been eyeing for a few months. The Carbon fiber fork makes a HUGE difference. The fact that one of the toughest substances on earth can also have shock absorbtion and weigh next to nothing is fucking good. Since RAGBRAI this year is the 4th highest elevation in the history of the ride (and we're mid 30's here folks), methinks the carbon fork isn't gonna owe me a thing come two weeks from today.

Things to purchase before the weekend? A Co2 mini bike pump and spare tubes. Ian blew a tire last year, and I suspect I'll probably go that way as well (Trek 1000's come with a fairly durable Bontrager tire, not like the soft shit they use on Tour de France, but nevertheless, we're covering 444 miles next week on some hot asphalt).

I ain't gonna lie to ya kids, I'm stoked about this ride...the sophmore outing for Team Spokeasy is gonna be badass! We've definitely assembled a fun bunch.

Ah, mid summer....that time of year when 22-23 year old boy/girl fancies turn to obtaining that first job out of college. Usually towards the end of any winter, spring or summer semester, emails magically appear in my inbox from universities in Iowa and now Illinois (this began occuring after I apparently had some drunken conversation with a prof @ the U of I during SES 2004 Chicago). The emails are spawned by enterprising young scamps casting that wide net in hopes of somebody leading them to that coveted first job out of college. Now I've been there. Granted, my path certainly wasn't the beaten one, but I remember that anxiety of having to actually _DO SOMETHING_ (although at that point, playing music constantly wasn't entirely impossible since I was living on a porch paying 150 a month in rent). The "Wet-behind-the-ears-newbie" space is definitely competitive. Colleges unleash a few hundred thousand of these graduates each semester onto us unsuspecting companies.

Now, I partially blame the colleges. I had a conversation with my mom about this today. I grabbed two degrees in business related fields before I bid adieu to the University of Northern Iowa. Neither of them have provided me much insight that guides what I do today (other than the odd insights from professors about 'when you are in the real world...'). My mom contends that even though the knowledge obtained in college is somewhat standardized and certainly doesn't qualify an individual to be an expert in a field, its the experience of being in college that makes the pursuit of a degree worthwhile (obviously, this only applies to undergrad people). Now, I'll be honest, more than once I've sat in meetings with a bunch of suits babbling in scholarly terms (blah blah blah, customer retention, blah blah blah adoption process, blah blah standard deviation of purchasing times) and after awhile it starts to sound like a mano a mano vocabulary fisticuffs where efficiency is thrown out the window.

I could go on and on about the various shortcomings in the higher education system in America. But suffice to say, when kids get out of school, they are ready to flex their muscles and take their newly acquired certification that says they know something about whatever is printed on their diploma out for a spin. This is fine. But there's a difference between wanting to use your skillz and out and out arrogance. If you sound like an arrogant college grad, you most certainly WON'T be getting hired anytime soon. We were all in your shoes once, and we know first hand how very naive you really are. After a few years in the real world, you start to realize that there's "the way it is taught" and then there's "the way shit actually happens". The better you are at aligning yourself with the latter, the more successful you'll be, and that's a fact. You know absolutely nothing about "the way shit actually happens" because you haven't really been there when said shit is happening (and don't think for one second your semester or two as an intern at an agency means you know fuck all about anything).

I know I'm somewhat jaded, but here's a list of things that should be observed when preparing that resume and casting that net in hopes of obtaining gainful employment:

1. Don't be a fucktard. Fucktards are people who are fucks that act retarded. I have literally recieved emails that have sentences like "I was wonderin if u had any openins in your marketing dept. Thanks man!". O RLY? Well, chatting to your girlfriend on AIM is one thing, but when networking with people who will invest a sizeable chunk of money in your dictation-impaired ass, we like to at least know spelling and grammer were included in that education of yours MAN.

2. Along the lines of rule ..1, spell check your fucking resume before you send it. Your resume is basically the first impression anybody will have of you. This should be the most pristine document you've conjured EVAR. If you can't even get the spelling right on this, what's gonna happen when you have to churn out a 20-30-40-50-1000k project for a client?

3. Putting a salary expectation on your resume or cover letter when you have no history is the last thing you should do when seeking a job (right below walking into the office and jacking off on the carpet). If you're talking how much money you think your worth before you've even met us, we've pegged you as a disloyal job-hopper. We also think you're an arrogant naive dumbass.

4. Put "references available upon request"...don't assume you've gotten to the background/references stage just because you sent a resume. Plus, this is a good way to get human resources talking to you, and assuming you're not a complete fuck on the phone (which would mean you're probably not going to get hired anyway), gives you one more chance to show what a fine young upstart you are.

5. Follow-up emails are fine. One email to me everyday makes me think you're somewhat desparate. Multiple emails everyday for 2 weeks makes me think you're a creepy lonely little virgin. I probably don't want to work with you.

6. Perception is 9/10 of the game. That means you need to be putting your best food forward. Fudging a bit is expected (but not out and out bullshit, make sure you know the difference...if you're unsure..see the previous blog entry for a demo of what 'out and out bullshit' is). But if you worked at Chili's while in college, 'tended bar' is NOT an "accomplishment".

7. Not that I give a shit, but it would be to your advantage to take all the metal out of your face and dye your hair a natural color (see: not fire red, and not grape).

It has taken me three days of recovery to properly recount the activities of the last week. For about two days, I felt like somebody took a bunch of pennies, threw them in a sock and beat me with it for a good couple hours. On top of that, my computer decided it was going to gasp its last breath SUnday night. So its on its way back to San Francisco to be formatted (surely I'll catch hell for this next time I'm in fogtown).

For those of you who don't know RAGBRAI occured last week. This is where you get on a bicycle and ride it across Iowa. Along the way you consume as many alcoholic beverages as humanely possible, while enduring the 100 degree weather and seemingly hilly Iowa countryside (think its flat? You won't after you power your own arse through it). You are joined by about 30,000 equally insane individuals. 7 days of madness, drunken insanity, heat exhaustion test every facet of stimuli a human can endure. And this year, I can safely say we definitely raised the bar.

So after that ride, I find myself viewing last week in a haze. All the days 'n activities run together. SOMEHOW Carson was able to parse out the highlights of the days. To me after about the 3rd day, it starts to play out like Groundhog Day, that movie with Bill Murray where he keeps doing the same shit everyday.

-wake up with a pounding headache
-ride 10 miles to alleviate headache
-get really hot
-eat a Farm Boys breakfast burrito
-pound the bike really hard
-douse in water
-eat Tender Toms Turkey
-pound the bike hard
-douse in beer
-pound the bike really hard
-arrive at camp and drink till you can't feel feelings
-awake the next morning on either a golf course or under the bus

Rinse/Repeat

Somewhere in there I took 3 showers. None of which were real showers. I even had to use the car soap in a carwash for one of them (I considered using the tire foam because it seemed like a good way to add a nice shine to my epidermis).

The theme for this year was "What happens on the ride stays on the ride". That's a bunch of shit if you are partying in the host towns for RAGBRAI in this year of our lord 2006. Cos if 'standing around town square with families' is your idea of shit that should stay on the ride, you probably have no business riding the ride to begin with. Nope, if you RLY want to experience RAGBRAI the way the good lord intended, you get your ass about five miles out of town and find the off route parties. This is where it happens. Wanna lick a temp tattoo of a shamrock on a random girl's arse or breasticle? DONE. Wanna strike up a conversation with another rider only to watch him get tackled jackass style before your eyes? This is the spot. Wanna stand in cramped confines with half naked women, some from town some from the ride, and drink 75 cent draw beer (or free if you're partying with a sponsored team) while orgies occur 5 feet in every direction until 5am? Ain't happenin in the host town.

For shame too. A ride of this size (some 30,000 strong) is bound to draw some attention. The beauty of riding through backwoods Iowa is that until the rest of the world pays attention, shit just happens. Ever read that book or see the movie "The Lottery"? Same thing. Well now Lance Armstrong has taken his cancer-crusade to our fair event. The result? A slew of mainstream media and big company money who want to clean up the image of this ride. Oh sure, its always gonna be about the drink, but that ain't how this shit works. Lance announced in one of the towns that he would be riding all next year (he did two days this year). What can we expect from that? I'd say probably 10,000 additional god-fearing biker wannabe's with those "Live STrong" bracelets who will be shocked 'n awe'd by the insanity we conjur. And by shocked 'n awe'd, I really mean "Will-bitch-and-moan" to any newspaper, child, man, rabbi, priest, conspiracy theorist in earshot. Ya can't blame Lance..afterall, all he wants to do is ride. But this ride has gone on for 34 years now, and we've thrown down hardcore since day one (well those before me). More than once I've heard 20+ year vets of the ride say if Lance rides again, the ensuing circus will guarantee that they will not show.

I believe Corey Taylor summed up the essence of RAGBRAI when discussing Iowa in general:

"I remember the first time I ever went to a Hollywood party in 1998. I just remember looking around at these people. We were wandering around like outsiders thinking, "This is it? This is what we heard about and this is what we dreamed of doing and this is it?" It was really banal. It was almost horrifying. It really hammered home to me that I would rather be in Iowa. I'd rather be in Iowa at a real party where people don't have all the stuff that the east coast or the west coast has. So when we have a party, we throw down. We really go for it, because who knows when you're going to have another opportunity?"

Truer words couldn't be spoken. At RAGBRAI, we straight up go for it. You hear about frat kids dying from binge drinking...we straight up assume deaths will be incurred during our party. If we can pull the ride off for under 3, we call that a good year.

Now I'm not advocating that people drink till they die, just trying to make the point that RAGBRAI has always been a hardcore not-for-kids-or-faint-of-heart party. Cops routinely told the miller lite chicks not to announce that chicks should flash them to earn beads or they'd be arrested for "inciting a riot". This NEVER would have happened 10 years ago. And I would be willing to bet if Lance rides next year, they'll actually get arrested.

Sorry mainstream america, I gotta call bullshit on you here. RAGBRAI should fall under the "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen" file. We aren't bringing our drunken bullshit to your front door, we're bringing it to middle-of-nowhere Iowa. And seeing as how we've been doing it for 34 years, I don't think Iowa has any particular beefs about it.

So drink up or get the fuck out pussies!

Just fired this off to 7-Eleven:

Dear 7-Eleven,

I have been shopping at your stores ever since I moved to this new place and you are across the street. I work from home so I usually grab a sandwich or something for lunch. I am a big fan of your gatorade and turkey sandwich selections, however I do have one request. I like Chef Boyardee Ravioli, but sometimes it gets a little old. I also like the Franco American brand stuff, but I noticed 7-Eleven only carries Chef Boyardee products. I would be a really happy camper if you carried Franco American Ravioli alongside the Chef Boyardee stuff. You might also want to think about stocking the Chef Boyardee 'Jumbo' Ravioli. Its a little spicier and you get a lot more of that imitation meat in each piece.

I would appreciate it if you could look into this matter.

Thanks!
Dave

PS-Keep up the good work on the Tombstone pizza

yesterday was a summation of all the training that has been going on since May. Roly and I ran the Accenture Triathlon.

Muscles? Sore...although not as bad as I thought I'd be. My shoulders feel like I've been toting a 200 pound frame pack for a week through the rockies.

All in all, it went pretty well. Now that I've had a day to recover, I'm definitely going to do it again next year (and probably somme other events).

Part of the trick to a triathlon is accurately gauging how hard to do each event. You can't over exert yourself early on, else you won't have the energy to kick ass on the back half. The saying our coaches threw around all summer was "you can't win a triathlon but you can lose it in the swim". Bearing this in mind, I went ahead swam fairly moderately. Still ended up first in my wave to finish the swim. That went well. The area they had us swim was full of seaweed so that was, well, gross.

Transitioning to the bike was fairly easy. I knew I could either pound the bike REALLY hard, but this being my first time through a triathlon, I kept about a "level 2" pace for it so I'd have energy for the run (which is definitely my weakest area). I hovered between 20 and 23 mph pretty much the whole time. I ended up riding with a U of I grad student and we bullshitted about this that and the other for the most part. I probably could have been around 23-25 and shaved some time off my cycle but I was in long-ride mode.

The run pretty much sucked for me. I have to be the slowest motherfucker on the planet. My ankles were killing me, despite all the training (for this and the marathon in December). I've decided to make it my winter project to become a faster runner. Longer stride, better use of body movement etc etc. In short, I can't do this steamroller shit next year.

By the end of the run I was about dead. It took about all I had to drag my carcass to the finish line. Its pretty cool finishing an event like that. Everyone goes nuts. Pics can be seen over on http://www.drewzilla.org .

Altogether, I think I swam something like 20 miles this summer, have run about 200, and including ragbrai, have certainly biked over 1000. Almost half of that was done in various hotels in San Francisco or New York City. But statistics really do no justice to describing what it takes to do something like this. Especially for somebody like me. Last summer, my typical complaints were things like "man, I only have 100 bucks tonight to go out! I better get good and tanked here at home first!" and "3pm is when everyone is going to the beach? Man I'll have to set the alarm for noon!". This summer, my complaints were more on the order of "well, I'd like to go out to meet you tonight but I have a mile swim at 7am tomorrow morning" or "Well I'd like to put away 30 miles, but the fucking streets around my apartment look like the craters on the moon".

There were people who went well above the call to help Roly and I along and support us or cheer us on. I made new friends and new enemies. But all in all, when everything is said and done, I can say I did something that most people can't do...we trained on the road and at home with zero base and in 3 months ran and did rather well for our first triathlon and anyone that chickened out or said it wasn't possible or doubted us can just go fuck themselves. We did it and they didn't and that's what it all comes down to.

Okay, in previous years, I've never attempted to do a day-by-day recap of Ragbrai, however I think I've sufficiently recovered to where I can recount the pertinent details of each day (although this is certainly going to be a blur mid-week). The pics are here.

Day 01 (Friday)
See post rant about the massive clusterfuck that was attempting to get the bus in order. We began motoring bikes and gear up to Pressure around 1 (where the bus was parked). We _WERE_ going to begin this operation around 10, however Ian's iphone apparently wasn't acknowledging people calling. This curiousity proceeded to create all kinds of fun for the remainder of the day. While getting things to Pressure, we still hadn't procured a driver for the week. James (longtime friend and manager of Pressure) once again deployed his "I-can-pull-the-pope-out-of-my-ass-if-you-need-him" skillz and produced somebody willing to drive. This artisan was named Brent. Brent had literally just moved to Chicago the week prior. He is originally from New Orleans and was summarily wiped out in Katrina. From what I gather, he'd spent the interim time between Austin Texas and San Francisco with relatives. He arrived in Chicago and was couch surfing until he got on his feet. So what the fuck right? Why not drive a bus for a bunch of complete strangers with a whacky looking bus, nice bikes and what appeared to be a steady stream of beer? Brent was up to the task and 5 minutes later we had ourselves a driver. Now at this point, Brent was only going to drive us to Lisbon Iowa (where we were to meet the Tallywhackers to motor out to the west end of the state). Brent had no qualms with that as we had a car ready for him to drive back with.

We packed up the gear and were off to the races. Getting out of Chicago didn't seem as harrowing as getting in, although its worth noting that converted school buses aren't really made for smooth rides. The net result of which is that riding in the city is a bumpy-ass ride. Nevertheless, the next hours were spent drinking booze, watching Big Trouble in Little China and playing the shocker game. It's funny how that game gets more and more amusing the drunker you get. I did note that Ragbrai wasn't as warm this time out. It was probably more due to the fact I hadn't eaten anything all day and put away 12 beers or so, but I started getting chills. So I was huddled in a sleeping bag half the way.

Around 1:45 we arrived in Lisbon to meet Dave and Kim @ their local bar. Somewhat drunk by now, it was decided that Brent would be driving the whole week because he did such a bang up job getting us to Lisbon. Plus we liked the dude and didn't want to see him leave yet. We then hung out and drank @ Dave and Kim's until 4-5am or so, since we had to get up and on the road by 9 to complete the 7+ hour drive to be in time for something I'm not quite sure of to this day. But them donuts got made. It was somewhere in this haze of early/late hours that Travis began reciting the tuba song anytime a fat person was in the general vicinity. He does it quite well too. Really sounds like a tuba. Some sort of cheek/air/tongue procedure. This ritual stayed with us well into Wednesday (and may have re-appeared on Friday).

Day 02 Saturday
We awake in a fucked up haze. Ben and Shelly have arrived to ride with us so we climb on the bus and drive to a neighboring town where the Tallywhackers bus is. After procuring some breakfast pizzas @ the Casey's, posing for pictures on a tractor from 1845 and making fun of the Barney Fief cop, we were underway. This was our massive 7 hour ride. You may be asking yourself how we pissed what with all the booze. Well Paddy installed a makeshift toilet on the bus that consisted of a funnel, a hose and those little blue things you see in urinals. Boy howdy did that beat the "pissing in bottles" routine from last year. No help for the women folk though (of which we had 3 of at this point). The Tallywhackers had a full blown toilet on their bus which was much more practical. Between stops @ gas stations for food/more beer we would hop between buses. The crew was collectively around 40 now. The trip was pretty uneventful, except when the Tallywacker bus blew a tire. They fixed it in short order, but it was an omen of bus woes to come.

We arrived in George Iowa early evening, pitched tents, rode on playground equipment and hit the bar. This bar was run by what looked like Papa Smurf on crack, which mattered little to me because that fucker was selling us vodka redbulls for 2 bucks a piece! The bar was pretty packed with other riders, and by this point we had met up with Team Pucker as well. I don't really recall how the night ended, but I DO know at one point, Brent and myself attempted to climb the fence to swim in the municiple pool. This resulted in my foot hurting like a motherfucker for a couple days and Brent not being able to walk at all. That's about all I have to say about that night.

Day 03 (Sunday, first actual ride day).
We (and by we, I really mean me) are still drunk and so the first 10 miles of the ride basically involve me yelling the nickname I had given Travis ('ol Back Pussy...yes we were watching Borat). See, this shit is why you shouldn't bring children on the ride. I'm just sayin ya know? We sweat out the booze and made it to Farm Boys. Farm Boys, for those who don't know, make breakfast burritos that are a slice of heaven itself. I eat them somewhat depressed because I know it will be a year until I have a breakfast burrito (or any burrito for that matter) that will taste near this good. One thing about Farm Boys is that they always have their station setup pretty far (for the morning) into the ride. So you really gotta want it. But soooooooo worth it. We eat up and move on.

We went through all the perusual towns. Also taken in was Tender Tom's Turkey. Tender Tom is a cherub of all that is good food. Holy shit you haven't had a turkey sandwich until you have one of this bastard's. I'm just sayin is all.

The first host town was Spencer Iowa. Unfortunately we lost Marty somewhere on the route. He completely missed us or something. Also happened he didnt' have his wallet. So he rode straight into Spencer without stopping. When the rest of the crew arrived we met up with the bus (after the usual "where's the bus parked" clusterfuck) and somehow ended up in a church parking lot that claimed to have a spaghetti dinner going on. We walked around back to where said spaghetti was to be served. Also performing was one of those "mosh for jesus" christian rock bands. You know, the kind that has all female followers not because the chicks are down for the cause, but because the think the pretty boy singer is cute? Yeah that was the craic. They were out of spaghetti but were selling corn on the cob, and when on the ride, you don't pass that shit up. So I got in on that shit...jesus rock or not.

We met up with where the Tallywackers (I am spelling this interchangeably because it's late and I can't be bothered with figuring out the right way so sue me) were camping. They had friends in town with a really nice house and were sitting out back with them. Some of us humped down to the high school where they had showers to use. Community showers. I did my best to freak out the locals by threatening to re-enact the American History X shower rape scene. Once squeaky clean, we drank in the backyard with the Tallywackers and then the girl who lived there drove us up to the festivities in Spencer for that night. Brent stayed behind because he still couldn't walk after fucking his foot up. I got me some Godfather's Pizza cos they don't have those in Chicago and that pizza is and always will be the shiznit for chains. Hung out in the beer garden where they had one of those 40-something-dudes-playing-punk-and-hip-hop bands to the masses. Not that they were bad or anything. Quite the contrary. We closed that thing down, and then managed to find a shuttle back to the bus. Most went to bed, but some of us stayed up and drank with the Tally's and the owners of the house.

Day 04 Monday
Got up, a little groggier than Sunday morning and not quite as chipper. The morning ride to Farm Boys was pretty uneventful. Once at Farm Boys, we hung about for a bit, had our burrito's, drank some gatorade. At this juncture, Roly and I decided to use the bathroom (on ragbrai, that means bushes). As we're walking over, a woman who clearly didn't know she was behind us (like 10 feet behind her) drops her shorts and starts pissing...I don't know who this unnamed ass/anus combo was, but we just proceeded on. Roly says to me "jesus its really gushing out of her"...yeah I turned around and saw what had to be the biggest torrential piss ever to emerge from a body in the history of humankind. Not to get all gross (and I'm pretty sure this is a fetish for some readers), but jesus christ. Farm Boys on Monday will live in our memories as the day we witnessed the most massive piss geyser ever to occur in a natural setting.

The rest of the day was spent riding through various little towns and drinking them out of house and home. We finally arrived in Humbolt fairly late in the night. This was a result of a "shortcut" that was actually a long-ass way around that involved a bike trail (one of those shitty ones with the rocks everywhere). I flatted which sucked. The good news is that Ian and I managed to slap a new tube on and inflate in record time (well, for Spokeeasy at least). But fuck trails and fuck shortcuts.

The host town was Humbolt Iowa. We were lucky enough to have a townie who let us stay in his front yard, provided we weren't too loud because he had to work @ 6:30 the next morning. It bears mentioning that upon touring our bus and noting the TV and DVD player, I was told the mom and son both went into a speech about all the porn they have in the house and how "they like to watch the Paris Hilton one". Mmmmmkay...thanks mom. Turned out the Choads were parked right next to us, so I said hi to Kremer and that whole gang. Seemed their bus broke down on the way out, and they convinced some backwoods family to sell their rusted out Suburban to them for 700 bucks so they could soldier on. Somewhere along the line Kremer procured a 70's vintage camper for 1000 bucks too. Neither appeared exactly street legal, but that isn't a principle that ever really did apply to Team Bloody Choad so there the devil drives. They all went into some town 20 miles away and apparently attempted to get kicked out of Hy-Vee.

Got some food and wandered down to a karaoke bar. I had lost my voice that day so I did a very Greg-Brady version of The Love Boat Theme Song, Eye of the Tiger and the Golden Girls theme song. My biggest fan was a hardcore dart-league dyke who was absolutely convinced my name was Jake. We chugged a few vodka lemonades and then some douche-bag college group came in with the flipped up collars. I wasn't really feeling the vibe so I made my way back to where the buses were to sit in some lawn chairs and sip beers with whoever was there. En route, I got to watch a pretty cool white trash fight between some snaggle-toothed moron and a neanderthal who'd "Stolen his girl". Total Jerry Springer shit..no joke. There may as well have been a midget who wanted to marry his pet goat coming up next. I'm pretty sure the cops eventually showed up and doled out a country ass-whuppin to both of 'em but I didn't stick around to see.

Back at camp some Tallywackers were up drinkin so I pulled up a beer and joined them. All was well until we encounted "Fast Eddie". Anywhere besides Humbolt, I'm pretty sure "Fast Eddie" would be called "Coke'd out since he lost the arm in 'Nam Eddie", but that's now how they roll here. I'm speaking of this man. Eddie was the neighbor of the people's house we were at. He came over to hang with us around midnight or so. Fast Eddie was so full of quotes, I can only recall the highlights, but they did include:

-"Hey look at me, I may have had 3 heart attacks in the last 2 years, but fuck it, I can still do coke twice a week and it don't do shit to me!"

-"Let me tell you about Filipino women cos I got one for a wife, those bitches can cook!"

-"I met my wife and she was living in a garage in LA to escape her home country. I took her here with me, and she's thankful. And THAT'S how you get a wife that don't mouth off!"

-"Do you know the three H's of Marijuana? Happiness, Horniness and Hungriness. Looks like the hungriness got the best of you you fat fucker!"

-"Shit, I bet you got a wife at home that can't give her pussy away because you're too busy eating food you asshole!"

-"Hey, my wife said if I come party with you guys she's leaving me, there goes the bitch in the car right now"

-(repeated every 5 minutes) FAST EDDIE TR25 COMING OUT OF HUMBOLT!

-(repeated every 10) NOBODY FORGETS FAST EDDIE!

-"Hey I'm your friend, that's why I tell you this shit you fat motherfucker!"

-"Hey come here, why don't one of you bitches suck on my titties for a change!"

Travis was writing them down as he went. Suffice to say, Fast Eddie was clearly not intended for mass consumption. We never did ask him what happened to his arm, but I'm guessing gangrene and a heroin addiction were involved.

Day 05 (Tuesday)
Woke up earlier today I noticed. The ride got pretty heated up mid-day I remember. Travis and I wore our Sesame Street Jerseys which was actually pretty popular (He was Super Grover, I was Oscar). I had TWO farm boys burritos this day. They are that fucking good. The morning ride was particularly taxing (for this ride) as it was hilly and we had a headwind all day. We rode into eagle grove, had a couple beers and began to ride out when we discovered a fucking water park. Needless to say, Travis Ian and myself spent the next 45 minutes going down water slides. Fucking awesome way to spend a mid-day on the ride. Easily a highlight. Rode into the next town which was mid-day. seemed some of the Tallywackers had fallen behind so I spent the majority of the time pounding beers and replacing the sunglasses I accidentally threw away with my burrito garbage (d'oh!). There were a few teams rounded up @ this point. Once everyone was together, we rode on with a full crew. I don't recall anything particularly noteworthy happening that afternoon. We did encounter a slip 'n slide where I acquired some cuts/bruises because a tarp laid out over some mud may hide rocks so you don't see them but it sure as fuck won't keep you from feeling them. FUCKERZ

The host town for the night was Hampton, and the tip we got was not to go there. Seemed the local barney fief cops were out for justice all Buford Pusser style and were gonna arrest anything with a beer. Fuck that noise. So we met up with the bus on the stop before Hampton and motored into Ardale which was the first stop of the next day and set up camp there. They had a bar there called Ducks and that was pretty much it. The Tallywackers and Subtle Savages went off to some house party. So we pretty much had the run of Ducks because Ardale has like 10 people in it. Upon arriving the following conversation took place between Marty and a little boy whose mom had just shaved his head out on the front porch:

Marty:"Hey there is that a basketball?"
Little boy: "Are you from England?"
Marty: "No I'm from Ireland, do you know where Ireland is?"
Little boy: "Are there going to be Asian people coming too?"
.......

We proceeded to get tanked in Ducks until close. The staff was extremely friendly and made sure we were well fed and taken care of. They even offered free drinks in the AM.

You shouldn't put your dick on an electric fence. that was another major takeaway from that night. It may seem like a cool way to impress your friends, but it's a lot less painful to learn a magic trick or something instead.

We crashed around 3am and had to drive a little bit to the proper route for the next day's ride.

So that's the first half of the week. I'll post the rest tomorrow (and by tomorrow I mean, next time I coin this).

Bought tickets today for Jay and I to see what is being called the farewell Ministry Tour (really?). It'll be cool to see Grandpa Al's big sendoff (in Chicago no less-that in of itself oughta make this a star studded affair) at the House of Blues, which is one of the better venues to see a show this size in our town. Meshugah and some opener I know nothing about are opening. Meh. Of course this whole affair takes place in May (seriously?) and the first show already sold out (!) so they announced the May 8th gig. Man I remember back when I could go see Ministry when they'd sell out the Aragon Ballroom and even scalpers weren't selling tickets for 52 bucks. Now I remember why I don't go to shows as much as I used to. Funny how ticketmaster charges 9 bucks for the "convenience charge" for a show like this and only like 3 bucks for the opera. Like all that industrial is way too much for Ticketmaster to put one guy on it so they had to staff it with three. Or they just subscribe to NIN's Australian label's theory that since Ministry has more of a devout following than the Phantom of the Opera did, they can charge more. Asstards...

Nevertheless, I'm quite stoked. Last time I saw Ministry was the Animositisomina tour and since then, they've put out 2 pretty good albums and 1 spectacular album (Houses of the Mole'). Tommy Victor is playing guitar (yawn) and obviously Paul Raven isn't going to be on bass so who knows will play bass. I'm pretty sure his first name isn't Paul and his last name isnt' Barker so its kind of a moot point.

I'm finding myself in the midst of trying to figure out what the fuck to do for New Years. On one hand...I'm not the sort of person who puts a lot of thought into New Years aside from going with the flow. Only the flow isn't going in one consistent direction. You see on the other hand...I have friends (and a brother) going to Vegas, and a flock of Chicagoans that want to "do something" but nobody has quite turned that into a plan. Rumor has it there's some deal at Witts that people are leaning towards, which is not unlike spending New Years in a liquor store, but whateva. I'm to the point in my life where I've played shows on new years, not played shows, gone to high rent exclusive parties downtown, and parties where people like Tara Reid are too drunk to actually make it to midnight, then of course, my Iowa days that are probably the most, I dunno? Comfortable? ...at this point in my life I really don't give a fuck as long as I'm around people. The rub of course is now the Vegas faction is telling me I gotta make a decision and yet I'm not exactly sure what the fuck is going on here in town. If this sounds like trivial bullshit to you, you and myself are in agreement. Why the fuck is this something that is even occupying my brain?

I have nothing intelligent to add here, other than SES is in town right now, but PubCon is going on in Vegas (jesus for a city I detest it's making its way into my site pretty frequently today). Of course, all the cool people I normally use SES as an excuse to meet up with are going to PubCon which basically means SES is nothing but a bunch of n00bs and hanger ons that didnt' get to go to PubCon. All the talking heads went to PubCon. I've had too many meetings and stuff during the day to pay much mind to SES, especially since there's like no fucking parties whatsoever this week. The party scene for this convention has steadily gone downhill since 2004. Perhaps its just Chicago because out in San Jose (San Fran basically) this thing is the shiznit (same with Ad Tech)

The girl from Monday departs for Hawaii in the morning for the marathon (aka Japan's now-annual re-invasion of Honolulu...it's what ya get for letting JAL sponsor the fucking thing I guess). Won't see her until the end of the month (as reported yesterday)

I got some function for Illinois Tech Association tomorrow night so I'm bailing on swimming. Then hopefully I'll make it to the CIMA holiday party. I'm told it'll be "off the hook" (thanks Brad). Off the hook is no longer something I do particularly well mid-week. Damn old age...

UPDATE: Oh shit CIMA party is so off the hook it sold out. Not that I'm particularly thwarted by that notion (seeing as how my boss is the president of that organization)...but I guess if I needed an excuse to not plunk down 100 bucks to hob nob with a bunch of people that I inadvertently make 'feel stupid' (their words not mine), that right there falls conveniently in line.

Well I now have all the pertinent people back in my phone...the girl from last week texted me about the marathon so she's in there, so I'm pretty much back to normal. Anybody I think I'll need to get a hold of between now and whenever I can get their digits some other way.

On the plus side, I've managed to get my phone off the "sounds for fairies" motif and am actually playing with some of the media stuff. I've never been a big phone guy (although I almost dropped the cash for the iphone) but playing with the new features is cool. I installed the Gmail mobile app and it is t3h awesome just as I figured it'd be. So there's some upside to actually having a phone that wasn't designed 7 years ago.

Did my first snow ride on Saturday. Correction: I did my last snow ride . Fuck that noise. I can see where studded tires could be of use, but gaining any traction in the snow is futile. So you end up working twice as hard. I think my overall distance wasn't even 10 miles. Lots of cross country skiers out and they all gave me strange looks. Anyhow...snow cycling isn't near as fun as I thought it'd be, so I'm going to have to find other ways to amuse myself in the great outdoors. I still run, but I hate not having the bike out. I did some rides on the road bike last year and the salt and shit required the crank to be rebuilt this season and I'm not about to go through that again.

My phone debacle and the fact Horowitz's assumptions of what flights cost to Vegas are grossly understated, I think I'll be doing New Years here in Chicago. So yeah...that's that.

I've got a metric fuckton of shit to sort out by the weeks end. My goal is to have this big knowledge base for the company populated before everyone leaves for the holidays. This will mean we can come back at Q1 when all the projects are ready to launch with a rock solid back-end for the n00bs and a go-to for people who needs templates and docs quick. It's been a long time coming but ultimately it is gonna RAWK

So tomorrow marks week 3 (really?) of the Crossfit morning routines. I'm starting to notice things getting tighter. Between now and the summer, I need to shave 10 minutes in running and 20 in the cycle to be "competitive" (aka start placing). That's a tall order, but it seems do-able integrating the strength training.

Tomorrow is the big day. Led Zeppelin reunites. This is obviously one of those things that is going to be either really good or really shit. Prediction: Really good. I dunno, I got high hopes. If they focus the set on songs where Robert Plant doesnt' have to hit the super high wails (aka earlier shit), it could work. Song I RLY wish they'd play? I'm thinking Wearing and Tearing. Chances of them playing that? I'm gonna throw out 5%.

And another one down. We had our season ending banquet and big swim today. The team that is. 5k race this morning. That particular conundrum resulted in me not drinking at all last night for Monica's b-day which prolly resulted in more success than it did failures.

Aight...so having said that...bout that 5k....boy howday was today an exerise 'not preparing' proplerly. Actually I've done worse. But today was one of those times where I was actually racing..as in, it was a swimming event, verses a tri or marathon where basically finishing is the end goal (although I _SHOULD_ be fairly competitive for tri's next year). I had a buffalo chicken sandiwch @ Bridget's and boy howdy did that do a number on me right around a half hour into that set. FUCK. I mean FAWWWWWWWWWWWWWK. Suffice to say, a duration of a rage wherein your stomach feels like it is on fire and you extremities (hands, feet) have gone numb like 10 minutes ago is basically pure hell. I made do. Ya gotta remember this particular race was indoors in a 25 meter pool which meant 200 lengths. That's two hundred flip turns people. Yeah...you fuckers who bitch about "eating food that disagrees with you" before boarding a flight in nothing short of a blue angle test flight better not bitch to me 'bout shit ya see!!???!!!!

That said..your hero didn't too too bad. Took 4th (out of about 300) in the race today. And @ the banquet I was the #3 for "Swimmer of the Year" (#1 was given to Sarah Randag...a bird I don't even really know myself...cos she's so fast you see). So...what ya think of that! I really need to get better at sports that are spectator events. Monica says she wants to come watch me swim, but well, swimming isn't known for being a spectator sport. It's certainly known for weeding out the pussies, but nobody wants to watch that part....(sigh)

That said...new Batman Trailer out today. I'm not one to be a fan-boy...but well, this one's got me giddy. Heath Ledger's Joker OWNZ the fuck out of everything I've ever seen prior. Sorry jack, but well, c'mon...this is what it is. That said...it looks like about 90% of this movie takes place in my neighborhood. If you recall, this summer when they werefilming it, I captured some of the malarchy. But if you watch that trailer...almost all of the outdoor scenes are occuring in my neighborhood. Yeah, I live there.

Through the infinite wisdom that is the OMC overlords, we have ourselves a 3 day weekend this weekend to observe Martin Luther King day. So instead of like, sleeping or something, I'm just pulling myself away from the Roxbox and hitting the hay. I've tried to shake up my workflow a bit to help jog some new ideas. I made a whole shitload of 16 track audio files with varying drum beats, tempos, and so forth. Then I just jam away and pick out riffs/sounds that aren't throwaways. Prior to this, I built drumbeats around riffs and I think that leads to shit sounding less natural and contrived. This is somewhat like what I did in the late 90's when I'd jam against presets in an MC-505 until something usable came out. It sorta worked. I always did what I thought was the strongest shit when I'd jam something out with Ryan. So this is sort of my way of putting Ryan in a box (and now he never overplays! har har har). I did a lot of downtempo shit tonight and maybe something useful will come of it. Definitely felt like there were some things floating around in there that could turn into something.

In other news, Roly got his ass back to the US soil after being in the UK for the last month or so. So we celebrated that by getting retarded drunk the past couple days in various bars/clubs throughout Chicago. That went well....I guess...can it ever go bad?

McCain took South Carolina, which I think is a good thing. If Huckabee can't rally there (although he had a close one), he's going ot have a tough time on Super Tuesday.

I had an epiphany this week on the whole political landscape (at least with young yuppie liberals). The talking heads are all saying the big issues for voters this year are going to be the economy and Iraq. Yet, the big things that get hammered on are things like a candidate's views on gay marriage, their 'moral compass' and other (arguably) not-as-pressing stuff.

I believe when people can't see how things affect them in front of their face, they pay more attention to the novelty issues (and yes, to me, whether or not gay couples can get married is a novelty when compared to the health of the economy, our troops in Iraq and the health care situation). The net result is that the conversations had on the left don't seem to be straight-talk (to borrow one of McCain's buzzwords). They throw out buzzwords and pie-in-the-sky solutions without any evidence to back them up. SRSLY, even a glance at what Obama is proposing for federalizing health care shows that its entirely unrealistic and, if ever actually implemented would be a bureacratic nightmare. Any reasonable person could look at how NAFTA has been huge for promoting international trade and see how absurd John Edwards call to repeal it is. And all the leading candidates on the left that seem to think we'll "pull all the troops out of Iraq" in a year after being elected are ignoring the physics of war our 200+ years as a nation has taught us. While they're at it, maybe they can get around to getting us out of Korea and Europe since we're still holding a presence there because of wars that ended over 50 years ago. No the REALITY (that is, the one a single president doesn't have the authority or capability of altering all that much) is that we've entered a situation in Iraq where we'll always have a military presence there. The dialog needs to be about how that is going to be shaped, and less about nonsense ideas like how we're just going to 'pull out' of there. Any talk of pulling the troops entirely out as some sort of 'end goal' within a year is nothing more than pandering to people who really don't understand the situation. this same thing happened in the 04 elections with democrats too. It's like I -want- to be one of the cool hip liberal yuppie kids and support somebody like Obama because he's not a homophobe...but unfortunately, him accepting gays or not has very little to do with his position on things that have much larger effects on the future of our country. And, unlike the whole hollywood/liberal camp, I have a little bit better handle on how those bigger not-sexy issues will affect my daily life.

Am givin this my first listen though (although proper listen will be tomorrow @ work throughout the day to see how well it sits in my daily rhythm). So far so good I suppose. Lots of weird ambient noises and strange intros compared to other albums. Not sure what to make of that just yet. Definitely noticed the absence of Jason Isbell, but what ya gonna do? At least we got Sirens of the Ditch outta that departure. Lots more female vocals too. Not a bad thing, insofar. This one sounds, I dunno, more reflective? slower? somethin like that.

Anyway, it's worth more money than you're gonna pay for it, so go forth (also available on itunes and Amazon).

So that happened...prolly the only good news to come out of today. Heath Ledger went off to that brokeback mountain in the sky today. For shame, I was starting to like him, especially given that his role as The Joker looks like nothing short of a masterpiece. It certainly projects a different light on what's already the most anticipated (by me) movie of the summer.

Fred Thompson also dropped out of the race for the republican nomination today. Did he even campaign? Like did he do anything other than go on Leno and post a few Youtube vids? Pretty lame way to blow through 20 million dollars. I see the power play that went down here though. He most likely took votes of uber-conservatives and evangelicals that would have gone to Huckabee in South Carolina, so rather than risk splitting the Super Tuesday votes, he dropped out now to centralize those votes on Huckabee (who's clearly a front winner). This is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what I was hoping he'd do. Ideally, he would have stuck around through super Tuesday and kept that vote de-centralized. So that makes things all the much tougher for McCain in the next couple months (whom IM oh so HO, is the voice of reason amidst all this political gibberish---Guiliani's scandalous ass included). Meanwhile on the democrat side, their front-runners and only hope of actually taking control of the executive branch are too busy taking pot shots at each other to notice if they are alienating the independants or not. Jesus Christ how on earth do they get away with calling themselves the liberal/intellectuals? There are high school student council campaigns run with more tact and strategy than these idiots'. Democrats are making that same fucking mistake they've made the past 2 elections...they seem to think the race is between two democrats and ignoring the republicans completely.

Make no mistake, if its Huckabee, or if its McCain, the democratic nominee WILL be up against a very formidable opponent. FACT: Republicans vote..Democrats by and large do not. This in of itself will prove to be very crucial given the state of economic affairs. Furthermore, as dumb as Bush is labeled (and appears to look), he's gone round for round with Kerry and Gore in the debates. Both democratic candidates were supposedly primo debaters and ended up walking away the (arguably) loser in those things (I remember all my super left-wing friends getting all pissed cos those candidates didn't "go in for the kill"). John McCain and Mike Huckabee are way ahead of GWB in terms of debate skills. Based on what we've seen so far, either of 'em could more than handle their own against Hillary or Obama because they've both consistently taken the high road on personal attacks. Not only that, but as kooky and creepy as Mike Huckabee is with his southern baptist views...you can't deny the man has a social presence that is currently unmatched by Hillary or Barak. He's personable. Old folks will like that. And old folks vote. Hillary looks like she's all but cringing to be around people...Barak is good, but he doesn't have that good 'ol boy charm Huckabee does. And McCain, as I said is the one guy who pretty much is reasonable and not too far right or left, so I would wager he's got the best shot at securing the independants (at this juncture).

Point is..regardless of who beats who in teh democratic party...either candidate will have quite a challenge. They need to take a few notes from the way the republican campaign is being conducted and get back to the issues. Look kids, in these times of woe and want, straight talk works. Stupid pot shots like all the dumbass pundits take (on either side) are retarded and mind-numbing. Those pundits are figures engineered by the people running their programs for idiots who simply don't understand the issues and need personalities to inspire them to be excited or pissed (but at the end of the day, all they really need is for you to tune in and watch). Don't get me wrong, I have that demented part of my brain that gets pleasure out of getting pissed off at Ann Coulter just like everyone else. But Ann Coulter doesn't answer to teh same responsibilities or people a president does. We don't need a president who sinks to that level. Never did never will.

Had a time trial in swimming today. 30 minute continuous swim. I put away 2125 meters in that time. Slower than I was around mid September, but I totally wasn't prepared to be fair :-)

Oh, and I need to get on a bike trainer or somethin. It's been windy as shit on the rides home (yes, I commute daily by bike rain/snow/sleet/shine) lately and I am feelin it even in flat-ass Chicago! I'm guessing not-so-flat Alaska and southern Michigan won't be so forgiving.

Also began getting things in order with the financeers for this mortgage business. "CREDIT IS KING THESE DAYS" = exact quote from 5 different people. Not that I have bad credit, but jesus, ya really gotta throw that at me every time?

UPDATE: Better Than Creation's Dark is in fact, t3h Awesome. After a few solid listens I can't put the damn thing down. It's a total character driven album in the most awesome way. Some fuckin rockers, some mellow shit and total character all the way through. Makes me wanna buy it on vinyl (which i can supposedly do next month)

So it looks like we'll be going through the center of the state this year (the smart money was on it being a southern route, which is really hilly). We've got a couple big cities to avoid. We'll probably duck Ames like the plague unless Ian knows some hookups that get us away from the masses (larger towns are a clusterfuck of the worst order).

I must say even the jersey looks pretty cool this year. I may have to scare me up one of those before the ride (even though it'll be half off afterwards).

I had a sprint workout tonight (swimming) and split a 24.5 for a 50 Fly. In layman's terms, that's pretty fucking fast for an old guy. I was pleasantly suprised. It certainly gives me some confidence. I don't have any meets on the horizon that would require me to swim fly fast, but I guess when the situation arises, I'll be ready. All that liftin' as of late seems to be payin off.

Also, for those interested (and I'm guessin very little), I'm one of the appointed authors over on the Resolution Media Blog. And my first post went over the wire today (an admittedly tertiary and somewhat naive observation of Ruby on Rails). Go check it out if you are into that sorta thing...otherwise you'll find the regularly scheduled programming of phenominally stupid shit on the web and random ramblings here.

Speaking of, my favorite sweaty neo-con pundit wannabe, the Ultimate Warrior shot his mouth off about Heath Ledger yesterday and summarily got his site hacked the fuck out for a good few hours earlier today. Way to go champ. Even TMZ caught wind of it. I guess any publicity is good publicity when you're a down and out latently homosexual (c'mon who can't see that closet case a mile away?) ex-pro wrestler who likes to push buttons. Thanks Mike.

Finally...if you had any sort of notion that the music industry has just recently gotten fucked up, check out this vid the Turtles (those people who wrote "So Happy Together") made circa 1990:

Thank Travis for remind me (and by association you) of t3h Awesomely 80's that is/was Roxette

Best new vid of the day has to go to this new Bounte vid which has about as much awesome as you can physically pack in under 3 minutes

Yeah.....fuckin' suuuuuuuuuuuweeeeeeeeeet

Fuckin' hell we had a bitch of a workout. This bothers me. Either the workout was a bitch or I am a pussy. It's hard to tell becuase I'm doing a lot more yards than I was last year. Regardless...I'm layin here feeling like I was beat with a sack of quarters. Since I picked up lifting, I'm...I dunno, bigger? I don't know how this is going to help me be faster. In fact its not...all my 10k times are progressively slower and hovering around that 50 minute mark. This is not good...I need to be rocking around a 42 come June. I suppose the fact I have to run in downtown or west loop Chicago is reason to believe that the time spent waiting for lights to change or for cars could eat up a couple minutes in of itself. Nevertheless...I've got my work cut out for me. Getting on the cycle is going to help I imagine. I haven't been on a spin/trainer at all this winter.

Super magic fingers Tuesday was yesterday...meh. Olbermann is a never ending source of amusement in these situations what with the smart-ass pot shots. I don't know that these results really told us anything we didn't know on Monday. I am suprised to hear the rumors Romney may be pulling out. Good for Huckabee and his massive list of dumb-ass redneck sayings (my fav from the coverage: "it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog"). For some reason, I figured Cali would end up going Hillary's way. Maybe its cos of all the special interest bullshit she's got funding from (although it bears mentioning that her recent injection of 5 million could certainly give Obama the edge he needs). Personally, I LIKE Obama. Like he seems like the sort of dude that hang out in my crowd. Of course my typical disdain for politicians in general looms large. I'm sorry, but I can only take so much of people giving America the message that all your individual strife is somebody's fault and the only way you can rise up and do something meaningful with your life is if you elect the person telling you this so they can go in and sort shit out with all the "other people". This is why I'd never make it as president. My "Stop waiting around for people to fix your shit and take actions to positively contribute to the quality of your life" platform isn't going to ring with the middle class, moderates, the right or the left.

...sigh....

In other news...I've decided to devote a sizeable chunk of the weekend to reconfiguring how I've got my music/studio/guitar rig set up. Its time I came to terms with the fact that me and this halfstack are stuck together for life. I may as well start figuring out how to make it fit in with the motif in the room. So that'll require a trip to the home depot where I'll be procuring some beefier steel shelving to house the whole schbang (as opposed to the pedestal for the Roxbox and the upper half of the 2x12 combo in here. I'll post pics when I'm done. My requirements aren't all that elaborate. I just need a way to elevate anything that produces bass so my scrawny little effeminine Indian neighbor doesn't call the front desk every time I decide to listen to a mix with any bass or percussion in it.

Bagel Thursday tomorrow morning....suweeeet. It's slushy as fuck and I have to ride over to the Michigan office tomorrow all along Lake St....nawt suweeeeet

Saw Rambo tonight (cos I'm like, a masculine motherfucker). Fuckin' hell Grandpa Rambo just owns the fuck out of burma in this one. It's comical how excessively violent it is. Rambo Stallown's the fuck out of Jason Bourne, Neo and their ilk. Of course, the premise was entirely unbelievable and I don't think Sly's in any danger of winning Best Picture or Movie of the Year. Fun movie no less. Definitely not for the squeemish, as this basically makes Robocop I look like The Little Mermaid. Old people don't take shit...that much is obvious.

This weekend was typical irish mis-behavin. Nothing major. I did get everything sorted with the music rig. I finally got to where I got everything set up in a way that makes sense for my workflow. Small, centralized, and all based around guitar (you'll notice no synths around here...I program what I can't physically play, and my keyboardin'/piano skills are rudimentary at best).

Here's what the setup looks like now . Obviously I'm in no danger of impressing the folks on Analog Industries or anything, but fuck 'em...I never claimed to be rocking anything more than a project studio at best (and 'studio' is a big of a misnomer for what is essentially a rack with a bunch of shit on it). That 2u server in the middle is the roxbox I keep talking about. It's a champ (albeit a loud champ). I got barstools from in the kitchen which work, but sooner or later I gotta get down to the business of getting a really cool one for this rig. Maybe a custom Spokeeasy perch is in order ...SWEET

Since I essentially work for a giant agency conglomerate, we get Presidents Day off (how 'bout that). So it feels like I havent' been to the office in like, forever. Shit I haven't even logged into my work email since like Saturday. Craziness.

The net result of all this time off is that I basically spent the weekend getting stupid drunk with various people along with me. Somehow I pulled all this off without losing a phone. A few close calls though.

Oh and I spent a metric fuckton of money too. One of those "dave drinks away a grand in 3 days" binges. Incredible. Of course statistics do no justice to what actually occured.

Took in the auto show too this weekend. These events (aside from being the single biggest clusterfuck this side of the Taste in the way of idiots and their offspring coming to our city and taking up space) always get me thinking about buying a car even though I don't actually need a new one. The Mustang is more than capable of schlepping my ass out to Palos and to the grocery store. However, this year I was quite taken by the Hummer H3t. They aren't out until fall, but depending on whether or not things like a condo come together between now and then, I may be procuring one of these. I'm basically a truck sorta guy anyway...and i needs the space for my various cycling endeavors.

There's a package you can get for it that turns the bed into a tent, and there's AC power back there. Plus they have a bike rack that goes on the roof so bikes can stay up there. Nice...

So there's that. Plus since its a Hummer, I can still keep the "he must be compensating for something" aura that seems to go with all my vehicles anymore. Gotta have that don't ya know.

Today, despite being hungover from trying out some new watering holes in Greektown with Horowitz Sunday, I went down to Palos and got a mountain bike in (yes it was 8 degrees, yes there was snow on the ground and yes the weather gods are sorely mistaken if they thought that would keep me away). Fuckin Palos closes all the roads going to where the mountain bike trails are. So you're essentially in for about a 2-mile ride on really shitty icy roads on your bike. Boy howdy that'll kill any semblance of "fun". All in all I did a few runs but I had to bail before any real riding could be done. In fact, this could very well put the kabosh on my riding until this winter shit goes away. I've been told by persons who do such things that cross country skiing is equally enjoyable. Somehow I doubt it but perhaps that'll be how I get my fix. I came home and did a 5k run...again...outside. It got noticeably colder (and I suppose the lack of windchill out in the forest makes up for something). I haven't really shaved since last week and I got that whole icicles on m face thing. The good news was this run was one of my faster splits. So I guess I do well in the cold.

Tech Cocktail is on Thursday. Apparently a lot of people from work are going to that. For those that don't know, this is essentially happy hour that all the techy companies in Chicago all meet up at. It happens once a month (I think?) and while I'm aware of 'em, I never go. Mostly cos I didn't realize search marketers knew about it (I of course do because everybody I know is in the hosting industry).

Aight...I'm tired and in dire need of about 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep...

Back home after spending the weekend in Iowa. My brother had just gotten back from spring break and was hanging out at my parents' house in the Quad Cities. He also just turned 21 so I had my first beer with him when he was actually legal to do so. Good times. Got a couple good runs in too. Weird how much, I dunno, cleaner? Iowa air is. It was almost an overload of oxygen after running in the west loop all this time. Good things afoot though.

I am officially taking on the Alaskan race. Roly and I booked our flights for the second week of July to fly up to Anchorage. Still haven't sorted out how exactly the bikes will get there, but if Jet Blue can ship 'em to Long Beach, I don't see how the fuck Delta can't get 'em up to Alaska. A little leary of having connecting flights with those things in tow though. Guess we'll see I guess.

My fuckin' home laptop's power insert decided to loosen itself to the point to where I can't keep the plug in long enough to power up the internal battery long enough to get the fucker to come out of his sleep mode. So its basically in a coma. I brought my work laptop home to use for general internet stuff (The Rox box isn't, nor will it ever be connected to the interknot). So until James re solders or does whatever the fuck it is he has to do to make the thing come alive again, I'm stuck wtih this thing. That's somewhat inconvenient because I can't install anything on this computer, which includes my workout/diet/weight tracking program I use very regularly on the onset of a new season. So yeah...I need that shit fixed else I don't know what the fuck is goin on.

Lots of new projects afoot at work this week. We've got a couple new deliverables to roll out to the teams, new projects coming along, old clients trying on new ideas etc etc. All in all, it's enough to keep me on my toes and then some. I'm trying to get in a habit of having to-do lists that are so chock full that I need to prioritize. For the past few weeks everything has been cropping up so fast and furious I literally showed up to work and spent the entire day helping people with their projects and making sure the teams had what they needed. This went on for pretty much the whole year. Then I found myself on Friday without anybody coming to me and was like "whoa, what the hell do I do with myself?". It was an awkward situation because A.there's so much shit to do, to be in a situaiton like that is inexcusable and B. I had so many little tangents and things I could start, yet no priorities or plan for how to attack them. So, yeah, we're gonna eliminate that sorta shit in short order believe you me.

Random question...what was the mall used for the big shoot out scene in Commando? I watched that Saturday night and noticed, even 20+ years later, it looks curiously like the one by the airport in Long Beach....

As of last night, I've got all entries in, permits acquired, hotels booked 'n almost got weight to where i want it (6 more pounds and I'm rockin)

April 18-20 - Illinois Masters State Swim Meet - Dekalb Illinois

April 26th - Crazy Legs Classic -Madison Wisconsin (party run)

May 10th - Tallywacker Rider -Lisbon Iowa

June 7th - Trek 100 (tentative...if I feel like donating 100 bucks to fight child cancer) Pewaukee Wisconsin

June 22 - Hy Vee Triathlon -Des Moines Iowa

July 12 -Fireweed 400 (century) - Anchorage Alaska

July 20-26 - RAGBRAI - Iowa

August 2 - Steelhead Half Ironman - Benton Harbor Michigan

September 13 - Big Shoulders - Chicago Ilinois

I'll probably take on a few little things here and there. But that's what is set in stone (well Big Shoulders isn't "official" because they haven't opened up registration, but I guarantee I'll be in just as soon as it is)

Come a long way from those lazy summers!

Yeah...I actually said this without realizing what I said

Dave McAnally [2:40 PM]:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/yahoo-test-search-ad-outsourcing/story.aspx?guid=%7B4A38AB92%2D057F%2D4EB0%2D867C%2DA30C055285A9%7D&dist=hplatest
Dave McAnally [2:40 PM]:
SUCK IT BILL!
Stephanie Bercaw [2:42 PM]:
oh shit
Stephanie Bercaw [2:42 PM]:
that suuuucks for them
Stephanie Bercaw [2:42 PM]:
hahahahahaha
Dave McAnally [2:42 PM]:
no but its hilarious
Stephanie Bercaw [2:42 PM]:
yes
Stephanie Bercaw [2:42 PM]:
it is
Dave McAnally [2:43 PM]:
Microsoft is like the Paris Hilton of Search
Stephanie Bercaw [2:43 PM]:
hahahaha
Dave McAnally [2:43 PM]:
it's fun to watch 'em get fucked
Stephanie Bercaw [2:43 PM]:
HAHAH
Dave McAnally [2:43 PM]:
WOW
Stephanie Bercaw [2:43 PM]:
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Dave McAnally [2:43 PM]:
I WAS THAT FUCKING CLEVER

Racked up some miles on the tri bike the past few days. As I said last week, i had to get my ass up super early on saturday morning cos of the weather. It was just as fun as it sounded...

But that said I had a good ride, that bike is FAST. Like really fast. It's cool moving that quick. Sunday I got the new mountain bike out down in Palos and got it good and dirty. Now it looks like a real mountain bike. I don't know how the fuck I got on without disc brakes. It's 90% better. This frame is a lot heavier than the Gary Fisher which takes some getting used to. this does make it feel, i dunno, sturdier? Like going over logs and jumps seems a lot more solid, which is cool. But it takes more out of me to move it up hills I think. Not that that's a huge deal since Palos has relatively minor climbs. But at Sunderbruch in Iowa, that may be problematic (I plan on riding that in two weeks).

Weekend otherwise was good. Beer on the Pier was Saturday. It wasn't quite as enormous as last year...nevertheless, beer was consumed...heavily. Then Drive By Truckers proceeded to rock the fuck out of Brian and I...Horowitz is officially "a convert". We then went to bernies, and Amy dropped her drink (shattering the glass) on me and the bouncer kicked me out for it. Cos you know that's how they roll up in Wrigleyville...was one of those powertrip bouncers too...and thankfully horowitz had a clearer head on the matter than me cos outside, the two of us nearly came to blows (where was the other bouncer)? and I jammed his thumb pretty hard while he did this stupid like "grab me by the arm and proceed to attempt to move all my bodyweight with it" manuever. Retarded shit like that happens, but s'way it goes when 90% of your clientele is drunken ex-fratboys with popped collars I guess.

Tonight after work I went to the lakepath and put in a solid 28 miles. Well...actually solid is a dubious term. More like about 18 with 10 miles of it being the shitstorm douchebag clusterfuck that is the lakefront of lincoln park. Seriously...let me say this about rollerblades: fuck 'em. If you are thinking of getting some and "taking it up" don't (and if you already have, my condolences). There is nothing cool about these stupid things. No you stupid figure-skater wannabe you aren't 'gonna keep up with me'. No you stupid fat bitch, your ass waddling about in those things is not 'bringin all the boys to the yard'. I almost took one in the wheel because rollerbladers consume around 4 feet of the path as they mosey along. If you're a dude, it is completely impossible to not look gay while using them and if you're a woman, it seems impossible to not act all awkward in them. Even the 'good bladers' just look fruity. There I said it...fuck rollerblades and their path consuming ways.

Around Fullerton, one of the aforementioned douchebags cut this chick off causing her to wipe out and apparently break her wrist. This led to me taking a 10 minute break or so waiting around with her (along with a crowd of ten or so) while the ambulance came along. She'll probably be alright, but she was pretty rattled. Said douchebag didn't stop or anything, cos well, why the hell would he? I swear that is the LAST time I'm not chasing one of you fuckers down when that shit happens. So let this serve as notice to douchebags who ride out of control in congested areas on the lakepath...you plow over/injure another biker and I see it...I'm catchin your ass, and you're gonna answer for that shit. I'm sick of seeing this happen 4-5 times every summer and you assholes just ride off. I'm serious. I will follow you, get a description, call the police and you can go ahead and be charged with the hit and run charges that go along with it. And yes I ride with pepper spray and a blade so god help you if you think you're gonna be a tough guy about it (I've never kicked anybody with my new cleats, so it'll be interesting to see what they do to a set of ribs). It's bad enough you think you're speed racer on those girly little trailbikes your ride, we can do without the reckless abandon for the safety of everybody else.

Argh...

That said....

Am listening to the new NIN album. Trent seems to have gotten quite prolific now that there's no label behind him. Interesting. Love how its' free though, that is really cool. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. No press, no publicity, no nothing. Just pure word of mouth. I haven't digested enough of it to give a full review...but I'll let it go all tomorrow morning and we shouuld have something of an opinion by then. Insofar...I'm a little nervous about the noise to signal ratio that goes along with a dude who releases his shit this fast.

Aight...I've had some time to give this album a few spins. It's actually kind of hard to judge an album like this because of how it was released. Like I said yesterday I was somewhat suspicious that all this free-of-labels thing would turn artists like Trent into music producing machines wherein things that probably wouldn't have been released will now be released. A lot. At some point or another, a label does serve the purpose of releasing things they think will sell. This can be at odds with an artists creative vision (witness the problematic release of Bowie's Low) but ultimately, to quote somebody I don't recall "I can't define art, but I know it when I see it".

Thus brings us to The Slip. Trent's 'gift' to fans for supporting him through the years. There's no doubt this is a very interesting idea. Sort of like the time Prince more or less gave away his album in the London times (of course, said paper paid him quite a bit of money for the privilege to do so). The simple fact of the matter is that this is by no means a mainstream pop album. No hit singles here. It sounds almost impossible to convincingly reproduce live, and some of the riffs sound like rehashing from the previous two non-Ghost albums (1,000,000 and Only from With Teeth?). That said, there are some really good things here. Lights in the Sky is a very gothier than thou vibe that is straight outta something from Trent's 90's stuff. The guitar/bass riff in Four of Us are Dying is classic Trent.

But what's up with all the glitchy lap-topish sounding percussion? Where did all that noisy metal on metal from The Downward Spiral and The Fragile go? Did somebody trick Trent into thinking those were bad things? I've been bitching about this since Year Zero. All the percussion (save for that big noisy snare he uses here) sounds really dry and it sucks the depth out of it. You can tell it's a stylistic decision but I'm not hip to it. Not yet at least.

So that said...my take (as of right now, I did an about face with Year Zero too if I recall so take it for what its worth) is that left unencumbered, Trent's noise to signal ratio gets a little dilluted. There's nothing remotely close to the weight or songwriting quality of The Day the Whole World Went Away, Wish, Hurt or Head Like A Hole here (although to be fair, I don't think that was the intention). Nope, what we have here are a bunch of fragmented tunes that, while there are interesting moments, won't be anything he'll hang his hat on. They are intricate no doubt. I can hear a lot of things going on...but with this sort of music, Trent was the forerunner in showing how less can be more. The point is, just because something is a programming extravaganza with crazy vocal edits and jagged guitar lines doesn't mean the song is good. Sometimes it works here, like on Demon Seed, but for the most part, it sounds like the self indulgent trip it most likely was/is.

I really wish Trent would swing for the fences in stripping things down and writing some really deep anthemic songs that all of us Gen X'ers remember him for doing. While I think its great he's making a strong case for succeeding business-wise on his own, a HUGE fuck-you to the industry comes when his output can speak to generations without a label propping it up.

So, I guess it's certainly worth checking out. If you're an old school industrial fan, there's plenty of glitchy noise and 'oh woe is me' lyrics here.

In other news, I procured the following items today:

and

The latter is a light that mounts inside a tent via magnets. Basically, the pannier bike is complete. A lot of this is the direct result of me getting out of that 1600 dollar chunk of fines that the Illinois Tollbooths tried to levy against me since my iPass apparently wasn't working/deducting properly (after waiting 45 minutes on hold, I found this was because they never officially changed the plates assigned to it from my temp ones when I bought the car). The net result of which is that whole clusterfuck ended up really only costing about a hundred bucks. This is a good thing because it looks like the weekend of the 22nd will be the maiden voyage in this project. I'm told I have a posse although I would not be suprised in the slightest if this ends up being me myself and I. No matter. I'll pick up all other pertinent supplies (sleeping bag, mattress, potential cooking supplies) at my parents house next weekend (I'm going to get some serious rides in next weekend fyi). In other words...everything is falling into place.

Ministry in 2 days....whoohoo!

No shit? Wow. The weather isn't exactly doing what