Look at that man. That's a handsome man. Look at how much he's enjoying that gorgeous auburn mane. He had never let his hair grow that long, and he's excited about "where it's going." You see that excitement, don't you. It's the excitement of a man who has endless possibilities, no limits, can't be denied. Yes, my friends, this is a man who quite simply has it going on. Nothing's gonna stop him now.
Goddamnit.
You know that little thought experiment that's supposed to tell you how bad a person you are? You know, the one that asks: if you had to choose between giving up a loved one's life for ten people you'll never meet on another continent, would you do it? Would you do it for 100 people? 1000 people?
Well, why not take that to the logical extreme: would you give up your loved one's life for the lives of everyone in the world except the two of you? Now, I don't think you can dismiss it out of hand, I imagine we've all entertained an Omega Man fantasy at some point. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but living out the rest of my days skipping through deserted streets and breaking into candy stores with someone you care about has its upside, I think.
Ok, so take one small step back from the logical extreme: your loved one's life, or everyone else in the world except the two of you and one guy who keeps screaming, "THE FUCK YOU DO THAT FOR?"
Well, why not take that to the logical extreme: would you give up your loved one's life for the lives of everyone in the world except the two of you? Now, I don't think you can dismiss it out of hand, I imagine we've all entertained an Omega Man fantasy at some point. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but living out the rest of my days skipping through deserted streets and breaking into candy stores with someone you care about has its upside, I think.
Ok, so take one small step back from the logical extreme: your loved one's life, or everyone else in the world except the two of you and one guy who keeps screaming, "THE FUCK YOU DO THAT FOR?"
This is why women's sports are completely unwatchable.
No, I'm completely serious.
A home run happens when you hit the ball into fair territory and round the bases before you're tagged out. If you hit the ball out of the park, you get to round the bases at your leisure. It's softball, there's no clock, we're not in any hurry.
So if you injure your knee while backtracking after missing first base, you have precisely two options.
1. Give up at first base, get credit for a single, get pulled for a pinch runner, and cost your team a run.
2. Limp, hobble, crawl, hop on one fucking leg around those bases, because WE PLAY. TO WIN. THE GAME.
There is no option 3. There is no "gosh, you hit the ball but you didn't round the bases, but you wanted to round the bases, so we'll give the game to you, friend." That would be dumb. That would sort of ruin the part of the competition where the competitors compete to win the competition.
The reason you've never seen anything like this before is because it's incredibly stupid. If I were rooting for the team that gave the game away, I'd have stood up and walked out. Just awful.
This is why our kids aren't learning in school.
No, I'm completely serious.
A home run happens when you hit the ball into fair territory and round the bases before you're tagged out. If you hit the ball out of the park, you get to round the bases at your leisure. It's softball, there's no clock, we're not in any hurry.
So if you injure your knee while backtracking after missing first base, you have precisely two options.
1. Give up at first base, get credit for a single, get pulled for a pinch runner, and cost your team a run.
2. Limp, hobble, crawl, hop on one fucking leg around those bases, because WE PLAY. TO WIN. THE GAME.
There is no option 3. There is no "gosh, you hit the ball but you didn't round the bases, but you wanted to round the bases, so we'll give the game to you, friend." That would be dumb. That would sort of ruin the part of the competition where the competitors compete to win the competition.
The reason you've never seen anything like this before is because it's incredibly stupid. If I were rooting for the team that gave the game away, I'd have stood up and walked out. Just awful.
This is why our kids aren't learning in school.
I almost forgot! I changed my own air filter in my car! Oh, how proud I was of myself. I could have sworn I had it done at least once along with an oil change, but apparently not — it seemed to be the factory original filter in there. I was most surprised by the amount of bird feathers. You don't expect all those bird feathers.
And I had been having a problem with my car's battery draining when I parked it at my garage, and I had finally figured it out: the internal light doesn't always switch off when you close the door, unless you lock it. I had never noticed it before because I always locked my car when I wasn't using it, but when the attendants take it on the car elevator to its resting place, they leave it unlocked with the key in the ignition. But what to do about it? I explained it to every parking attendant I left my car with, but English often isn't their language of choice, and my Spanish made it sound like "the light is on fire as the door to open, please to close the door," which they already knew.
I was chatting with Austin the other day, and I offered to pick him up from the airport for his upcoming visit, assuming my car would start. He asked what the beef was, and I described the problem I'd been having. Immediately, he had the elegant solution: pop the bulb out of the light. Done and done.
The Target in the Bronx: not as bad as the Internet led me to believe it'd be.
And I had been having a problem with my car's battery draining when I parked it at my garage, and I had finally figured it out: the internal light doesn't always switch off when you close the door, unless you lock it. I had never noticed it before because I always locked my car when I wasn't using it, but when the attendants take it on the car elevator to its resting place, they leave it unlocked with the key in the ignition. But what to do about it? I explained it to every parking attendant I left my car with, but English often isn't their language of choice, and my Spanish made it sound like "the light is on fire as the door to open, please to close the door," which they already knew.
I was chatting with Austin the other day, and I offered to pick him up from the airport for his upcoming visit, assuming my car would start. He asked what the beef was, and I described the problem I'd been having. Immediately, he had the elegant solution: pop the bulb out of the light. Done and done.
The Target in the Bronx: not as bad as the Internet led me to believe it'd be.
I do a lot of driving, because, as we've established, I love my Meaghan and I love my car, in that order. So I drove down to Durham last Friday, and I drove back to New York on Sunday. It's an eight hour drive in perfect traffic, which is getting more rare as the weather turns nice and everyone covers their eyes, fills their tank, and joins me on the road. The drive down took about ten hours, because I left too late in the afternoon and had traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike, Delaware Memorial Bridge, and for some reason they were doing road work at the tollbooth of the Ft. McHenry Tunnel. The drive back also took about ten hours, because I pooped my pants.
I should explain. I was making decent time piloting the Stratus, having left Durham around 4:00pm and pacing to hit the George Washington Bridge right around midnight, despite hitting a little Sunday afternoon traffic north of Richmond. I wasn't having the best drive of my life, it was rainy most of the way, but I was enjoying the freshly vacuumed interior of my car and listening to Jake Fogelnest spin the tunes on the satellite radio, and I couldn't complain too much.
Six hours into the trip, it was time for my patented detour around the tollbooth at the Maryland-Delaware border. (Sorry, Delaware Turnpike Authority!) There's a McDonald's on that detour that I often stop at (like on Friday), and I figured I could enjoy a leisurely late dinner. I had the #3. Little did I know, I was setting myself up for THE NUMBER TWO.
Back in my car and pulling onto the local road to the highway, I felt the unmistakable twinge of my weak constitution. Now, my bowels can be a little strange. Lord knows I pour a whole lot of junk into my food-hole, but I have yet to find a correlation between a specific food and severe abdominal cramping — it appears to be completely random. And I certainly poured a lot of junk down on this day: chicken wings, meatballs, fried okra, a slice of cheesecake, and a bag of pizza flavored Combos, off the top of my head. Apparently, this day, I should not have chased it with a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a large order of fries. Who knew?
After the initial rumble, I knew I was in for a evening. Instead of turning around and going back into the McDonald's to use the facilities, I got back onto I-95 and headed into Delaware. Once on the highway, I felt the unmistakable "holy shit it's time to potty," which might be the most unpleasant sensation in the human experience. (I'd take heartbreak, severe depression, and women laughing at my genitals over needing to poop really badly.) And this is where the story gets a little strange: for some reason, I passed the rest stop in Delaware, confident I could make it to New Jersey. After all, I'm a grown man, it's not like I'm going to shit myself.
Just as I zoom past that rest stop, the potty sensation came back, twice as strong. Why did I think it was better to poop in New Jersey? Why did I think that would save me time? Why did I need to get more highway behind me before I stopped again? No time to consider any of that, because the sensation was growing geometrically with every wave.
By the time I was on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I was in serious trouble. The radio was off, because that was way too annoying. The air conditioner was all the way to high, just to get a little relief from the sweats. I was actually saying, outloud, to nobody, "I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine." I was driving in my usual maniacal fashion, except this time I was actually out of my mind.
The first rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike is about two miles down the road. Less than two minutes away from relief, except that the way I was clenching myself closed had the effect of lifting my foot off the accelerator. But I finally got to the rest stop, peeled into the parking lot, pulled through empty spots to get closest to the door, and in one motion it was engine off, lights off, seatbelt off, door open, door closed, car locked.
I did the buttocks-clenched waddle as quickly as I could to the door. The rest stop was relatively crowded for a Sunday night, the Phillies were hosting the Mets, so there were a lot of Mets jerseys milling around. I got as far as the passageway to the bathroom with a stall in sight before my epic fail. With every step I took, more rancid poo fell out of myself and into my boxer-briefs, until I finally got to the toilet. The rest stop bathrooms are a crapshoot (see what I did?), but I lucked out this time, I would have a clean stall to completely soil.
Door closed, pants down, spin around, fall onto the seat, let it out. I exhaled for the first time in ten minutes, not wanting to spoil the moment, but I had to look down. There was about two cups of perfectly smooth but slightly viscous brown poo in my shorts. Ok, so this is what we're dealing with now. Shoes off, jeans off, boxers off. I took the boxers and carefully set them off to one side, while I finished the poo, cleaned myself off as best I could with rest stop toilet paper, put my jeans back on commando, got my shoes on, washed up at the sink, and went out to the car to retrieve my overnight bag. I always travel with one more pair of underwear than I think I need, just in case I stay an extra night or get sweaty and shower twice in one day or, in this case, shit myself. Back in the bathroom, and lo, the same stall was still available. My jeans also had a bit of poo on them, so I carefully wrapped them poo-side-in and packed them, and changed into a pair of khaki shorts. Now, the question of the soiled boxers.
To be clear, I never thought I was getting the boxers back. I've definitely jettisoned the underwear for far less than two cups of poo; these were a total loss. The problem was, I didn't want to march out of the stall, gingerly carrying a heather cotton sack of shit. "Hey guys, this is what I think of the Phillies!" No, not tonight. All I could do was carefully push the shorts behind the toilet with my foot, and walk out confidently.
I returned to my car, put my overnight bag in the trunk (just in case), then immediately returned to the bathroom to shit some more.
Back on the highway at last. Then I stopped at the next two rest stops to shit even more. They were both close calls.
I got in around 2am, having learned no lessons.
I should explain. I was making decent time piloting the Stratus, having left Durham around 4:00pm and pacing to hit the George Washington Bridge right around midnight, despite hitting a little Sunday afternoon traffic north of Richmond. I wasn't having the best drive of my life, it was rainy most of the way, but I was enjoying the freshly vacuumed interior of my car and listening to Jake Fogelnest spin the tunes on the satellite radio, and I couldn't complain too much.
Six hours into the trip, it was time for my patented detour around the tollbooth at the Maryland-Delaware border. (Sorry, Delaware Turnpike Authority!) There's a McDonald's on that detour that I often stop at (like on Friday), and I figured I could enjoy a leisurely late dinner. I had the #3. Little did I know, I was setting myself up for THE NUMBER TWO.
Back in my car and pulling onto the local road to the highway, I felt the unmistakable twinge of my weak constitution. Now, my bowels can be a little strange. Lord knows I pour a whole lot of junk into my food-hole, but I have yet to find a correlation between a specific food and severe abdominal cramping — it appears to be completely random. And I certainly poured a lot of junk down on this day: chicken wings, meatballs, fried okra, a slice of cheesecake, and a bag of pizza flavored Combos, off the top of my head. Apparently, this day, I should not have chased it with a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese and a large order of fries. Who knew?
After the initial rumble, I knew I was in for a evening. Instead of turning around and going back into the McDonald's to use the facilities, I got back onto I-95 and headed into Delaware. Once on the highway, I felt the unmistakable "holy shit it's time to potty," which might be the most unpleasant sensation in the human experience. (I'd take heartbreak, severe depression, and women laughing at my genitals over needing to poop really badly.) And this is where the story gets a little strange: for some reason, I passed the rest stop in Delaware, confident I could make it to New Jersey. After all, I'm a grown man, it's not like I'm going to shit myself.
Just as I zoom past that rest stop, the potty sensation came back, twice as strong. Why did I think it was better to poop in New Jersey? Why did I think that would save me time? Why did I need to get more highway behind me before I stopped again? No time to consider any of that, because the sensation was growing geometrically with every wave.
By the time I was on the Delaware Memorial Bridge, I was in serious trouble. The radio was off, because that was way too annoying. The air conditioner was all the way to high, just to get a little relief from the sweats. I was actually saying, outloud, to nobody, "I'll be fine, I'll be fine, I'll be fine." I was driving in my usual maniacal fashion, except this time I was actually out of my mind.
The first rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike is about two miles down the road. Less than two minutes away from relief, except that the way I was clenching myself closed had the effect of lifting my foot off the accelerator. But I finally got to the rest stop, peeled into the parking lot, pulled through empty spots to get closest to the door, and in one motion it was engine off, lights off, seatbelt off, door open, door closed, car locked.
I did the buttocks-clenched waddle as quickly as I could to the door. The rest stop was relatively crowded for a Sunday night, the Phillies were hosting the Mets, so there were a lot of Mets jerseys milling around. I got as far as the passageway to the bathroom with a stall in sight before my epic fail. With every step I took, more rancid poo fell out of myself and into my boxer-briefs, until I finally got to the toilet. The rest stop bathrooms are a crapshoot (see what I did?), but I lucked out this time, I would have a clean stall to completely soil.
Door closed, pants down, spin around, fall onto the seat, let it out. I exhaled for the first time in ten minutes, not wanting to spoil the moment, but I had to look down. There was about two cups of perfectly smooth but slightly viscous brown poo in my shorts. Ok, so this is what we're dealing with now. Shoes off, jeans off, boxers off. I took the boxers and carefully set them off to one side, while I finished the poo, cleaned myself off as best I could with rest stop toilet paper, put my jeans back on commando, got my shoes on, washed up at the sink, and went out to the car to retrieve my overnight bag. I always travel with one more pair of underwear than I think I need, just in case I stay an extra night or get sweaty and shower twice in one day or, in this case, shit myself. Back in the bathroom, and lo, the same stall was still available. My jeans also had a bit of poo on them, so I carefully wrapped them poo-side-in and packed them, and changed into a pair of khaki shorts. Now, the question of the soiled boxers.
To be clear, I never thought I was getting the boxers back. I've definitely jettisoned the underwear for far less than two cups of poo; these were a total loss. The problem was, I didn't want to march out of the stall, gingerly carrying a heather cotton sack of shit. "Hey guys, this is what I think of the Phillies!" No, not tonight. All I could do was carefully push the shorts behind the toilet with my foot, and walk out confidently.
I returned to my car, put my overnight bag in the trunk (just in case), then immediately returned to the bathroom to shit some more.
Back on the highway at last. Then I stopped at the next two rest stops to shit even more. They were both close calls.
I got in around 2am, having learned no lessons.
I'm down in Greensboro for the weekend, visiting Meaghan, as I often do over a given weekend. (I love my Meaghan and I love my car.) Before I came down, she warned me that her A/C wasn't working. I clearly remember her telling me this, but as is often my problem, the connection in my brain between "no A/C" and "warm bedroom" didn't happen.
So it was very warm in the bedroom, when my mind wandered to HVAC maintenance. Had the girls called someone about it? Yes. Did the girls look for a switch on the thermostat to turn the A/C on? We've used the A/C before, Scott. What I'm getting at is, has a man looked at it yet?
I hopped out of bed and went down the hall to check the thermostat. Sure enough, the switch was set to "off," which also may explain why it was cold all winter. So I moved the switch over to "cool" and set the fan to "on" for good measure, and we were in business. Disaster averted. You're welcome, girls.
In case I wasn't clear before, I totally love my Meaghan.
Yes, fools! Finally, Kansas PAYS! And what a game! What a comeback! ONE SHINING MOTHERFUCKING MOMENT!
I'm splitting the cash prize with Eugene, because we ended up tied and I won on the tiebreaker. (I picked 78-70.) On Saturday night, I almost emailed him and asked for a pact where we'd split the winning in the event of a tie, because tiebreakers are bullshit. I didn't send the email because I didn't want to jinx, but I have to honor the contract I'd have signed behind the veil of ignorance. I learned SOMETHING in philosophy class, damnit. And half the prize is still more than enough for a very nice dinner with Meaghan, who had grounds for dumping me when I was rooting for Kansas to beat her Tar Heels, but stuck with me for some reason. (Reason: she's wonderful.)
But from now on: no touching a bracket until an hour before tipoff of the first round. Unstoppable!
me: are you going to be in durham this weekend?
Austin: no sir
Austin: no sir
maybe for memorial day
me: so you're judging ryan's contest remotely.
Austin: yes
me: now i get it.
now i understand.
yo lo comprendo.
Austin: are you sure?
me: absolutely. i'm not dense.
Austin: because i'm not going to be in durham this weekend
me: roger that.
10-4.
Austin: i'll be in cleveland
me: that makes sense. that's where your house and things are.
Austin: yeah, i'm not headed to durham
there's just no way
me: hey, i believe it.
Austin: yeah, me going to durham, not gonna happen
so, drop it
jesus
me: THIS IS GROWING TIRESOME
Austin: yeah, it is wearing on me too
i'll probably stay home this weekend
me: i am never talking to you again.
Watch this while you can, 'cause it's the best I been got in nine years:
Also, why can't an April Fools prank on the Web go sixty seconds before getting a comment or reply that says OMG I WASN"T FOOLED ITS APRIL FOOL"S DAY YOU DUMASS? No shit it's April Fools Day, it's the day that comes after March 31st each and every year. There was a particularly clever prank I saw on a messageboard that was pissed all over inside of three minutes, and by an improviser. Very disappointing. Playing along is much more fun, you fucking animals.
Also, why can't an April Fools prank on the Web go sixty seconds before getting a comment or reply that says OMG I WASN"T FOOLED ITS APRIL FOOL"S DAY YOU DUMASS? No shit it's April Fools Day, it's the day that comes after March 31st each and every year. There was a particularly clever prank I saw on a messageboard that was pissed all over inside of three minutes, and by an improviser. Very disappointing. Playing along is much more fun, you fucking animals.
