Serenity Now

Heading up the hill towards Prospect Park on a 6 mile run seemed fairly innocuous when I left at 6:20 this morning. I love leaving at this time since the sun comes up just as I enter the park and for the first 25 minutes or so it is pretty empty before the crowds join you at about 6:45. Anybody living in the concrete jungle will attest to the tranquility that can only be found when they get to slightly touch a piece of nature. This morning did not disappoint, the weather was brisk, the morning dew glistened off the blades of grass, the birds chirped and the animals scurried back to their hiding places with the sounds of my running shoes hitting the pavement. Prospect Park at Sunrise is a great place to reflect.


By the time I hit mile 3 at roughly 6:45 the park, as it usually does by this time, had gotten quiet lively with joggers, walkers and bikers on the path and easily 30 dogs scampering unleashed around the big lawn by the picnic areas. At this time you realize why certain people are generally more healthy than others both physically and mentally as the value of spending an hour in the park cannot be understated.

All was going well, my heart rate was hovering around 145, my pace had comfortably settled at a 9 minute mile and the cool air felt refreshing against my cleanly shaven face. I knew the day ahead would be hectic but the hour of Righetti time in the morning seemed to help me relieve most of my stress and anxiety. But when I approached the turn heading towards the east side hill I felt something which could only mean trouble. The sweat from the workout started mixing with the sweat from the new found anxiety as I realized that I still had 2.5 miles left and even if I cut the run short I could not safely make it home in time. My mind was racing: what did I eat last night? Did the sell by date on the milk say 9/29 or 9/09? But mostly I thought about that porta john right before the apex of the East Side Hill, the one with the urine on the walls that Mrs Righetti refuses to even walk near.

But the hill was still a quarter mile away and then another mile up and there just wasn't that much time.

And there I did it, I took a choice which will basically erase all that I have done to convince people otherwise. I became "that guy". The guy who just couldn't take it anymore or just didn't give a f*ck. I ran across the path into a patch of woods and lost all credibility as a normal human. And by calling these woods, I am not doing the term woods much justice. There were about as many trees and brush as there were Met fans in the upper decks during Santana's masterful performance on Saturday. But at this point I just did not have a choice.

I give a cursory look around but really it didn't matter. I drop my running pants and drawers and squat, in the slightly obstructed view of every other person who wanted to get just some serenity in the park before a hectic work day. I squat and just let the muscles relax when a combination of relief and utter shame come over me as I realize I might as well be the homeless guy who stinks up the subway car. I stand up and standing with my boxers and running pants around my ankles, I completely undress and proceed to use my boxer shorts to clean up as best I can. I throw my boxers near a tree and stare back at the pile still steaming staring back at me, my morals forever breached. I turn around towards the running path and see the looks of disbelief and disgust and I slowly make it back onto the path to finish the final 2.5 miles of the ultimate run-of-shame. I felt like weeping but knew it wouldn't help the situation much, when I got home and jumped under the shower and tried to pretend it didn't happened.
I did manage to finish the 6 miler in 52:09.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

What happened to all my money?

Just yesterday I thought I was sitting nice and comfortably on my nest egg, perched high above staring at all the poor people below and then today I find myself sitting in a pile of yolk with all the poor people..  My life is very very very bad.

I think i saw the bat-sign high above the capital earlier today.  Not sure what it said but something to the effect of  "WE NEED JOHN McCAIN TO AIRLIFT BACK INTO WASHINGTON TO RUIN THIS SOME MORE!!!!"

Rumors are rampant that ATM's aren't giving out money which is only OK if you live in Western parts of North Carolina and were looking to fill up your F150 because reports there are rampant that Gas Stations are out of gas.

Here is for some positive news, read the following online today regarding the next installment of Palin v Couric

Apparently CBS is showing part 4 of this series on Wed/Thu. They gave Biden and Palin the same list of questions and have planned to show them prior to the debate. Word on the street is it is a total trainwreck.

Something hit me in the shower today and it wasn't my huge balls banging against my knees.   The McCain camp made this who big thing about Obama being such a celebrity... is there a bigger celebrity today than Sarah Palin.   She gets more press than any candidate for VP in history.   The funny thing is that she reminds me so much of one of those idiot movie actors like Ben Affleck Duck or Roseanne Barr who goes on Politically Incorrect and gets a forum for their total asinine ideas.  I hate people.

Well that is all for me.. heading home and just to be safe will stop at the ATM and take out the maximum.. you never know

Everybody loves Norman

got the following email from my buddy Norman this week

Tough year for the city of Seattle. First they lose the Sonics and now WaMu, 100 year old company with 4,300 employees in downtown Seattle. What's ridiculous is WaMu's current CEO who just got promoted 3 weeks ago is entitled to 11.6 million cash severance and to keep his 7.5 million signing bonus. He was on the job for 16 days.

Gotta love anybody who can equate losing the Sonics to the downfall of a major banking institution.

Listening to WFAN on Saturday morning, I was wondering why the Mets fans are more likely to jump off a building than any of these Wall Street executives.   Benigno sounded like he was going to do a swan dive off Citi Field.

I have to think that the Palin vs Biden debate is the most anticipated one-on-one matchup since Tyson-Holyfield II.    If I were Tucker Bounds, I'd pay Tina Fey to come in.  She does Palin better than Palin..  Just look at the how Former Channel 11 newsman Jack Cafferty thinks of her link   Man he is brutal, but totally correct!   My dad is convinced the GOP will pull her off the ticket using her Down Syndrome son as the type of excuse that nobody can critizize her for..


Mrs. Righetti has been making the point that Obama looks like he has aged 10 years since the beginning of his presidential campaign, 18 monts ago.  He was a vibrant 45 year old when he started, now give he's a few more gray hairds from looking like one of the guys in the barber shop in Coming To America.

Am I the only person who loves those "I just found the Internet" commercials?

Video of Palin in a swimsuit

Hey she's ridiculously stupid and completely not ready for prime-time but anyway here is a LINK of Palin in a swimsuit,

Funny thing about her response about having "trade missions with Russia", somebody looked it up and they can't find any of these trade missions anywhere. I've said it before, I'm just not comfortable with somebody being VP if they have only had a passport for 3 years. As an example, my buddy TC doesn't have a passport and you better believe I don't want him running the country.

I'm sure you are all dying to find out my opinion of the debate. Thought McCain did well when he went on the attack although he came across as slightly condescending with his naivety comments. I've never been involved in a debate which doesn't involve fantasy football, so I'm not sure but somehow the guy who is the aggressor usually is seen as the winner. Obama tried to get into some direct confrontation but I can't believe that McCain couldn't even look at Obama. I thought Obama actually did fairly well with the international topics and everytime McCain goes to his "ear mark" reform, he comes across well to the country.

Who hates Obama more, McCain or Bill Clinton?

I love the Chris Rock analogy which is basically that a black fighter can't beat a white fighter unless he knocks him out, he can't win in a decision.

McCain owns 13 automobiles, I wonder how many of those are tractors?

Well the Iowa vote is obviously for the toots and the wooden toothed one, look at this:

Taken to the Cleaners

I don't know how many people have been scammed but when it happens to you it just stings you and eats away at your good faith.

Scams come in many sorts, sometimes over the phone from a telemarketer, sometimes when you buy the extra insurance on the rental car and for one buddy it happened when he went to Tijuana and ended up paying $200 for a chick with an Adam's apple the size of a softball.

Well I can't speak for all of that but I feel like I’ve been had. A few months ago I dropped $200 on Woot.Com for something which was supposed to make my life so much better. They sold this to me basically an all in one cleaning system; little did I know that I would be the one taken to the cleaners. They said that for $200, I'd have a perfectly clean apartment night and day, no work for me at all. I was a bit afraid they'd send me a Bangladeshi chick in a box so was slightly relieved when I opened the box and found this thing.

But I was only relieved for a minute. I thought that when I bought this automatic floor cleaner that it would be the equivalent of a little hotty in an ultra small maid-outfit prancing around my apartment dusting up, not a loud driving saucer which bumps into everything and scares the hell out of anything that comes close to it..

how come everything I get at Woot either sucks or sucks badly?

Is this Hardball or College GameDay?

Chris Matthews outside of the University of Miss. waiting for the debate with a bunch of rabid fans behind him with signs.. I think I saw one that said "Chris Matthews has a Baby Arm"

Most disgusting ad I've ever seen

By the way the ad run by a crazy liberal group called Democracy for America, a group run by Howard Dean's brother..


I cannot believe that Sarah Palin has had a Passport for less than 3 years and now she wants to be VP.. then again she can see Russia from her bedroom. In other words in 2005 she couldn't have a Corona Lite in Cancun but in 2009 she could be going to Pakistan to negotiate with Zardari

These are the guys running our country?

No wonder we're in a financial mess. Look at these three, Dumpy, Dopey and Doddy.

Then again we could have Sarah Palin running the country, between her and Pelosi we'd have one who "can't blink" and the other who does nothing but blink.


Glad to hear the debate is back on, mainly because I have to run 20 miles tomorrow, which means i'll be housebound tonight and would really like something to do. I can't watch another re-run of Entourage. This show has gone from sucking to sucking badly to sucking worse.

I'm going to get a big bag of popcorn, a case of beer and a large pizza and plop myself infront of the TV to see the fireworks of McCain vs Obama I. Does it get any better than this?

Gotta love this exhange between Palin and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as reported by The Times

“I am honored to meet you,” Ms. Palin said.


“You are even more gorgeous than you are on the (inaudible),” Mr. Zardari said.

“You are so nice,” Ms. Palin replied. “Thank you.”


“Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you,” Mr. Zardari continued. At which point an aide told the two to shake hands.


“I’m supposed to pose again,” Ms. Palin said.


“If he’s insisting,” Mr. Zardari said, “I might hug.”

You know that Zardari probably spewed in his pants when he saw her show a little bit of leg. The only way you can see a chick wearing a skirt like that in Pakistan is if you import them.

So now I have fat ankles

What the hell is wrong with me.. First I have to wear a training bra when I go running for fear of the bloody nipples, then I have this major chaffing issue between my large fat-chick thighs and now I have developed fat ankles.

It's like I've gone through 80 years of being a chick without any of the multiple orgasms....

Might be the 40 miles I'm running per week or maybe my appreciation of Brad Pitt but this sucks.

Watching the Sarah Palin interview with Katie Couric, I'm starting to get REALLY scared. Not only am I losing any attraction to her because of how utterly stupid she is, I've decided she's got the same crappy haircut as the roomate of the Round-Girl in college. You know that haircut that chicks who aren't just football fans but know every member of the offensive line have. The combination of the Marge Simpson boof and the dirty bangs makes me feel yucky for ever having thought she was a P.O.A.

Then again, she could be Joe Biden who recently said "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened,'"

As Imus points out there are so many points inaccurate about this

1) Herbert Hoover was president during the Great Depression, not FDR

2) There was no television in 1929

Then again maybe this was Biden's method of trying to be noticed..

Palin wants to hide and Biden just wants somebody to know he's there.

Hiding Miss Palin

So the rumor is that the McCain camp wants to move this Friday's debate to Next Thursday.. But next Thursday is the VP Debate..which they are hinting should get axed..

The level that they have shielded her from the press is beyond scary, how can we have the next possible VP be somebody who her own inner circle is too afraid to parade infront of anybody.

I didn't see the Hannity interview but I'm sure it was a softball home-run derby while the Charlie Gibson interview was he equivalent of Clay Aiken facing Mike Tyson in a Karaoke off.

so riddle me this, who is harder to find Bin Laden or Palin?

BUT I guess there is good reason for it just now I heard an interview with CBS, watch the end of this interview of Palin with Katie Couric.. this is terrible: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Palin_and_Couric.html

Dancing with the Candidates

Am I the only one who doesn't know who the "star" is supposed to be on Dancing with The Stars? Although Warren Sapp should win this hands down, this guy might be the most entertaining performer since Puffy.


Kim Kardasian is pretty hot but white girl just can't dance,

Saw a great picture of Palin's "speed dating" sessions with, Kissinger, Karzai and some guy from Colombia. She walked out wearing a skirt cut right above the knee with 3" heels on, hair in a bun and the glasses on... Hoya Goya.. Couldn't tell but her lipstick might have been smeared.

At the same time her husband toured NYC with the non pregnant kids.. You just know this dipshit wears a fanny pack, with a cell phone belt clipped to his tapered jeans that come up right above his Nike Air sneakers. The perfect match for his goatee. If McCain does win, you know that people around the capitol will confuse him with the IT guy. I'm sure today when he goes to buy a new printer, other customers at Office Max ask him for help with a camera.

Thank God we have a President with an MBA

Jr. Bush is to speak to the UN today, his last scheduled speech before the end of his presidency. Rumor is that he will explain why the Fed has bailout the banks with a $700 Billion package. I finally feel at ease, Little Bush, the guy who ran an oil company into the ground and traded Sammy Sosa when he was the president of the Texas Rangers is going to come in and explain this in layman's terms, I bet he has his little smarmy smile on while he does it, you know the one where he looks like he just snuck into the back of the birthday party and dipped his grubby fnger in the ice-cream cake. By the way I hope you like your ice cream cake flavored with Texas jock sweat.

the scariest thing to me is that this entire thing is so beyond me. It probably feels like learning to play bridge. You figure this is probably OK cause everybody is doing it and you sit at the table. You have no ideas of the rules but you might have some beginners luck and and all of a sudden you put down your cards and some dude has to try to explain to you that you lost but you can't even follow the basic premise of the game. Now imagine that dude just takes all your money away and then tells you to bend over, cause your playing strip bridge.. This is kind of like how this feels like to me with this entire finacial crisis. I had no idea what the rules where, I thought I could lose a couple of bucks, now without any warning I'm going to get it in the five hole, and I still don't know the rules. In other words the next time I'm going to play Bridge, better bring your wallet and some lube.

I know it has something to do with mortgages that some people should never have gotten, you know the kind of people who probably rolled into the bank after having rolled a fatty. I know this has something to do with these bad morgages getting bundled together with other bad mortgages and then Fannie and Freddie being convinced to buy them. I know this has something to do with deregulation which stems from the Clinton years and was continued happily by Little Bush and his cronies. I know they tell me that this stimulus package is neccessary because otherwise the money and the credit will dry up and we could be in for a great depression. I know that the average American probably had very little to do with this mess and I also know that the average American will be in charge of bending over for the big financial insitutions who did nothing for them for years and years.

I do like McCain's idea of no CEO or Executive of any company who is presently getting bail-out money should get a dime more than the President of the US makes. The pay packaged in Wall Street have obviously gotten ridiculous, the Boards of these corporations are spineless, come on how was that HP chick going to possibly be considered as McCain's running mate. I guess she did pull her version of Jr. Bush.by having her company tank and then get out with her Golden Parachute but really do we need the female Bush?

I want to see a few of these CEO's jump. Pretend your David Blain, hang yourself upside down and forget to tie the harnesses but do it from the Lehman's tower in Times Square so we can all see you do it.

Unlike my chicks, I like my laces flat

I hate looking down and realizing my shoes are untied again but I've found the culprit: coiled shoe laces, those round ones you get in dress shoes. Every time I put on shoes with these things, I feel like I'm back elementary school having to double tie my knots.

Give me some reasonable flat laces and let me live in peace.


so we the tax payers are giving the the banking industry $700 Billion dollars and we're going to take on all the risk with a lot of these subprime loans and all the credit riskc and then we have to go and help all these people who own more on their house than it's worth get out of this mess.


So let me get this straight, the next time I buy a lemon car and realize it's a piece of crap, somebody will bail me out of that too?


I do bad for the couple who bought their home at the top of the bubble and now their house is worth half what it was

I don't feel nearly as bad for the couple who took a home equity against their home and used the money to go to Mexico and now they owe more on their home than it was worth.

I do feel bad for the guy who never got to go to Mexico for Spring Break

I don't feel that bad for the guy who was trying to flip a house and bang it rich.

I don't feel that bad for the CEO who was taking home $100 million a year to run their company in the ground.

I do feel bad for the janitor or the secretary at Lehman Brothers who is out of a job.

I don't feel bad for the guy who risked billions of our money and now is thinking of jumping

I do feel bad for the guy who is walking underneath him

I don't feel bad for the 290 pound chick who was 5'4" who was got onto on the subway yesterday

I do feel bad for myself as I was sitting next to that chick, cause she didn't even ask if was OK for me to hold her gut on my lap

Fringe = Cringe

Fringe


So after 2 episodes, I guess I get it.. It's a cross between The XFiles and Star Trek, but it's interesting.  I won't try to over analyze it because I'm sure the real dorks will make me feel like the feeble dork I am.

Couple of comments:
the dialogue between the son and the old man is tired and predictable, this cannot possibly continue like this for 5 seasons.  I have never seen Lost but I have to imagine the dialogue is a bit better than this.

The whole Walter Bishop=Einstein angle is a bit hard to believe, why would the US government allow him to rot in a mental institution if they knew his capabilities? Throw him in guantanomo and water board him for his secrets. Maybe he can even build a better waterboard?

I do find it a bit weird that they seem to be able to solve all of these great mysteries in exactly 60 minutes.   Not sure how the rest of the reason goes but really they might want to pull a couple of revelations until the next episode, although I think this was the way XFiles did it also.

The veiled comparison between Massive Dynamic and Haliburton is pretty obvious. I imagine the CEO who was the classmate of the Walter sounds like a duck!!  seems like MassiveDynamic even has a webpage already. http://www.massivedynamic.com/

The chick is hot enough to keep me interested, but I keep wondering when Alverez is gonna jump her.  They should add an episode where Adebisi grows out of a human embryo inseminated by a pure evil.

Plus the Homeland Security dude looks like a cross between Kevin Garnett and a skeleton.

The Righetti Count

As I've stated earlier, I'm sure I'm not the only jackass who has confused the price and calorie count on the fast food menus? The other day, I though $7.30 was pretty expensive for that quarter pounder with cheese, man was I happy when I realized it was only $4.89. This got me thinking, which got me hungry but also got me the following

A little math got me the following
730 calories/100 = 7.30
Total price : 4.89
Divide one over the other = 1.4928

This will be known as the Righetti Count

I gotta see if we can find something where the Righetti count is 2.0 (calorie count divided by 100 is more than double the price.)

I challenge all the TOR readers to send in camera phone pictures of Fast Food Menus where the Righetti Count is higher than 2.0.

The reader who comes with a picture of them EATING or DRINKING something with this highest* Righetti Count in the next 7 days wins a Righetti Bag of Crap.

*total calories must be at least 500*

All pictures will be posted on TOR.

Cross Promote this

is might have a Phil Mushnick feel to it BUT

Listening to ESPN radio's sportscenter today they had the story of Oscar Diaz a welterweight fighter. The announcer said "Diaz who went into a coma after his July 26th fight, seen on ESPN2, has started to breath on his own" If I were in charge of ESPN this might be time I'd let up on the promotion, but then again this is the great network we speak of.

I'm against term limits in general but with Mike Bloomberg, I think the city should not only repeal them but also beg him to come back and serve again.. Some day we'll fly out of Michael Bloomberg Airport!!

Why did McDonalds decide to go with the double quarter pounder with cheese as opposed to the half pounder with cheese? Although I for one appreaciate the succulents of two small burgers piled like one.
Although I wonder if I'm the only jackass who confused the calorie count (738) with the price ($4.69)

Keeping it in the Fast Food arena:

Did hear that the famous KFC secret recipe recently had to be moved from corproate headquarteres, it was a armored car situation because only two people in the world know all the 11 herbs and spices. KFC's vendors only know part of the story.

They got Bo Dietl to be the point-man in the security detail. Something tells me that Rao's is gonna be serving fried chicken next week.

Gotta love the following headline from CNN.com "Eva Longoria not pregnant, just fat" says costar. guess somebody has been hammering those double quarter pounders with cheeses.

Talking about getting a bit heavy, have you seen OJ lately, holy shiiiiit has he blown up since the '94 trial. Guess somebody has been hammering those double quarter pounders with cheese

Bank of the New America

So it's been a while (maybe 1 month) since a piece of glass came tumbling off the new Bank Of America building across the street from my office until of course it happened again today.. This is that new eco friendly building which promises to use less energy by cooling their building using rain water, using wind power instead of burning coal and most of the building is constructed mainly from recycled material and probably will be using the homeless people who loiter in front to carry the occupants up 80 flights of stairs instead of elevators. Very eco-friendly but with 3 of these falling pieces of glass shattering down on 6th avenue in the last few months, not very pedestrian friendly

As a comment from The Lad on TOR.com said maybe the bankers aren't jumping because the banks on wall street "put in reinforced glass". I wish it was so simple, these guys have no love and no heart, they remind me of the 2007 Mets, just watching the ship sink.

Maybe the Bank of America building had gotten so expensive that they couldn't afford the reinforced glass type to protect the newly acquired Merrell Lynch brokers!?!


I did get some good news when another regular reader of TOR sent me this link: http://www.dz-nuts.com/catalog/ which promised to protect your junk.. Definitely something I should consider.

After two stellar weeks of shows during the conventions, John Stewart was back to being predictable and not funny this week.. Oh well.

Reminds me of a question I posed the other day: Who takes more vacation: Howard Stern, Jon Stewart or George W Bush?

I know this is VERY late but wanted to give you my view on MSNBC pulling Keith "John Sterling" Olberman and Chris "Michael Kay" Mathews off its election night coverage.

All the liberal wienies always complain about how partisan FOX News is (and they are right) but what they must admit is that unlike MSNBC, FOX would never have the gall to put Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on their election coverage the way that MSNBC did with their El 'Obamazera combo of Olberman and Mathews during the democratic primary season.

oh by the way, this will make you feel better: Robert Willumstad only became CEO of AIG in June. After the Feds take over of AIG, he was asked to step down. Per his safety net employment contract, Willumstad is gonna walk away with a cool $5,000,000.00.. That is money that we the Tax Payers will be paying for..

hope you brought some Vaseline

More tomorrow I'm sure
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Goodnight Canada

Watching the Market the last few days after the dire reports of Lehman Brothers, AIG and Merrell Lynch it occured to me that we don't get any good brokers jumping off buildings anymore. It's like today's sports athlete, they don't care nearly as much as the fans do.
They show very little emotion, only seem to play best when their up for a new contract is coming up and at the end of the day they walk away from their team and are probably forgiven of all their sins and handsomely rewarded by a new team. Look at Andruw Jones, this loser is batting about .169 this year after having been on track to be a hall of famer years ago and you just know he doesn't give a crap.

Dodger fans may want to shoot themselves but in the stock market world sometimes I wish that the brokers could only be so dedicated.

Good news is that the market was back up by about 150 point today, I guess you can talk a few real-estate brokers off the ledge now.

A few weeks of the Mike Francessa solo show and I'm about to head for a ledge. Somebody call Sid Rosenberg or Don Imus or Tony Kornheiser or anybody.. The big-guy needs a life vest.

Here's my new idea. They line up the brokers who have cost their investors the most money over the last 12 months down in wall street, tag-team them up with their closest broker from another firm in terms of losses (a Merrell Lynch guy and a JP Morgan guy for example), now tie their legs together for a three legged race and then send a bunch of bulls down Wall street and we can have our own Pamploma



Goodnight Canada
Following a replay of the Felix Jones kickoff return for a touchdown with audio from the Spanish-language call of the game, Tony Kornheiser said, 'I took high-school Spanish, and that either means 'nobody is going to touch him' or 'could you pick up my dry cleaning in the morning.'

He is so great.. i really hope that the PC police doesn't get on him for this.

Remember Trainspotting? Well this was worse

There isn't a worst place in the world to be than on route 95 heading home after a night of heavy drinking. The rumble in my stomach signaled only one thing, Bud Mud!! The aftermath of putting back 20 light beers the night before.

We stop at a reststop, one of those gas stations that use to be a Mobil but now is run by a some dude who probably adds 40% water to the gasoline. The kind of place where you leave and your car runs worse just from the gas. I bust out of the car in search for relief, run into the quickly mart attached to the gas station. I run around quickly looking desperately for a place to get some relief. Then I look accross the aisle and find some hope when I see that the john is available. Bust into the room and now the decision of a lifetime is upon me.

This place looks like a Friday the 13th murder took place inside of it. There is crap everywhere, the toilet looks like somebody gave birth in it, there are probably pools of heroin and blood in the corner, from the looks of it there is more piss on the seat than on the floor and there are all of three sheets of toilet paper left,..but then again beggars can't be choosers..

This is when you just gotta close your eyes, plop your ass down and pray that the zits on your ass can act as a barrier for the STD that are probably floating all over the seat.

At this point I decide to be somewhat innovative. Take off my undershirt to wipe down the seat of the most gruesome visible filth,throw my shirt in the corner next to the box of eggs and the empty vial. I squat down and prepare to make this rest-stop mensroom my own. From the sounds of it, this wasn't just Bud Mud this was had the same consistency going in as it did going out.. I take some pride in actually having filthed up this mensroom worse than it was when I got there. I'm about to walk out when I realize the flusher doesn't work and since there seems to be urine in the sink I decide that washing up might not really help out the situatin much. I buy a bottle of Evian to wash my hands with mixed with some hot-water from the tea dispenser. My life is pretty bad but it's all OK, the ride is only another 2 hours.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Blogging from Fenway

There is a girl sitting behind me with a sign that says
"Jason Bay, in two years I'll be legal!  Marry Me!"
That is just disturbing

Watching the Notre Dame game, it hit me that Jimmy Clauson looks like a Disney musician.  Then I watched Chubby Charlie get taken out on the sideline. Poor guy, first he goes 3-9 in 2007 and now his knee is shot.   Plus he walks around with an extra ass in the front of his pants.

I have a buddy who was telling me that very much the same way you need to take a leak as you walk into your house, every time he goes to Barnes & Nobles he needs to drop a deuce.  Must be all that reading material, a built in laxative


I know this is not going to a popular thought but I have almost no sympathy  for the 140,000 people who stayed behind in Galveston Texas.  I read this morning that the local 911 was getting thousands of calls from people stuck in their houses.  Basically emergency personnel had to go into this flood zone because some jackass couldn't follow the warning of "certain death".  After we went through Katrina two years ago you would hope people would have some sense..

If some EMT died because he had to go and save some guy who could easily have driven out  of town 12 hours earlier.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Saving Sarah Marshall

So sat on a plane for 13 hours yesterday coming back from China which gave me a time to reflect on my trip:

Couple of comments
1) I spent time in two cities, ZhenghZhou and Beijing. ZZ is in the middle of the country and a total industrial city. When you are walking down the street you literally can't see a 1/2 a mile down the street. It felt like walking in a blizzard all the time except instead of kids making snow-men, they were coughing up coal fumes.
Beijing on the other hand had the bluest skies you have ever seen, but then again the Chinese government stopped cars from coming into the city during the Olympics and Para-Olympics and stopped all the local factories from working during the last month. It will be back to coughing up a lung next time I'm there.

2) There is no worse food than in China. I sit at every meal and tell the waiter "no pork" but not exactly sure if this is even remotely smart. You order Chicken you get chicken knuckle, you order beef you get a piece of fat, you order fish you get an entire fish which looks like it was caught next to a power plant. Plus the entire table wrestles over who is going to eat the eyeballs

At the end of the day everything tastes like pork and everything smells like something a pig wouldn't eat. Kill me



Well on my 13 hour flight I did get to see a couple of movies, so here comes my review of them:
I don't think I have sat through a worse piece of crap than Saving Sarah Marshall... This is what they should show at Guantanamo Bay to get the terrorist to talk, I have never wanted so badly to poke my eyes out.. I gotta imagine that the writer to this thing was not happy when they could only get that fake Will Ferrell.

The other movie I tried to watch was Remember the Zohan which wanted to make me jump out of the plane. I only watched about 5 minute's of this thing.. dreadful


How about the Jets and Giants considering giving their naming rights to Allianz an insurance firm with Nazi ties in their history. I'm assuming that the Switzerland Stadium will also not be used either.

Palin's was a beauty contestant..really?

WOW, the Charlie Gibson interview proves one thing, if McCain drops dead we might have to start to learn to speak Russian . One thing for sure is that if we are stuck with her, we are royally screwed.

I was expecting Gibson to ask her "what would you do to change the world?" and her to say something about bringing all the animals together and loving all people.

Gotta love her answer that you can see Russia from Alaska and having been to Mexico and Canada before, probably hammered off frozen margaritas at some Spring-Break wet t-shirt contest.

It's like she was fed a number of talking points that she regurgitated, my God does she come across a just a slight bit naive.  The Bush Doctrine question was great/scary, she had absolutely NO idea what it was.

Charlie Gibson seemed like he was testing a student who didn't study for a test.. She should have started taking off layers of clothes to try to break the icy stare that Gibson was giving her.   He looked like he wanted to shake her and start screaming  "You gotta be kidding me!!!"

A room with a view

Nothing like running through an airport when there was NO reason to be late.  Sweating like an animal because you went to the wrong terminal.  Badlife

I've come to learn a few things about traveling out of my comfort zone which goes beyond having to deal with people who don't shower every-day, wear the same shirt a number of days in a row and don't wear deodorant.  I  tried to compile a list but I'm sure this is just a work in progress.

There is NOTHING less refreshing as Evian!  This stuff has no grit, no oompf, no little particle flowing out of it and it tastes like lukewarm bathwater.  This is what surrender must taste like, Absolutely dreadful.

What the hell is up with Europeans using cold ice water in the bathroom sinks.  What kind of bacteria do you expect me to kill if I cannot even hold my hand under that stream because of a fear of frostbite..  I would be better off peeing on my hands when you are done, at least that may have some disinfecting properties. 

Why on earth must you people keep your cell phone on ringer volume 90, I near have a heart attack every time "Rock Roll, part 2" comes blaring through you 1 inch speaker..  Put it on vibrate, hold it close to your dingy and feel the warm sensation of testicular cancer creeping in like it is doing for the rest of us.

Two words "private space", this is where the rest of the world could learn something..  I don't want your evian drinking, loud ringer having, cold water using body that close to me unless you are a hot chick.  I feel that I need a 1 arms length radius around me at all times. You walk around Beijing and you feel like you grew a second ass cause there is some Chinese lady hanging out of yours.. bad life.

Really there are only a few things I ask, I don't think it is very much.

Joe Biden's face is on the side of a Milk Carton

APB for Joe Biden, Democratic running-mate and bulldog..  Old man might be wandering the streets of Dover Delaware wearing only boxer shorts and searching for his dentures. 
If found please return to owner for reward**
**reward involves a lecture about the virtues of change**


WOW what the hell was that train that just ran over Barack Obama's campaign, seems like some geezer was driving the semi with his young chick pacifying the Nascar crowd with the "show your tits" chants.

Granted I'm in China, so I might have a skewed view but every time I turn on CNN, the only thing they are talking about is Sarah Palin and the only time they even show Obama he is talking in front of 15 retirees in the parking lot of a Walmart.  I think they may have forgotten who Joe Biden is (maybe they confused him for a really old looking Ted Danson??)    Thomas Friedman's piece today was spot-on, Obama has lost his message, his audience, his luster his everything and he better find it before we have a polar-bear killing book-hating, gun-toting hotty in office.

One thing you learn when you are in China for a week, the value of a good old American meal, even if it comes at the Hard Rock Cafe in Beijing.   $20 for a Cajun Chicken sandwich which had less spice than James Carville without the crack and a $12 Sol which tastes like chinese urine and I was happy as a clam.
Now just got to sit through a 13 hour flight, an endless line at customs and  2 hour cab-ride.. kill me

I guess we are not dead yet?

I think we are less than 1 hours after the point when we were supposed to have me the end of the earth with this Large Haron Collider and of course I'm stuck in China with the runs.

So they are trying to recreate the big-bang theory using a large collider and there is a good possibility that the world will end or otherwise there is a good chance that the microwave at their lab explodes..

Although this thing looks like a car filter, supposedly it has the capability of creating a huge black hole while can suck us all into it. I really hope that if this is case and there is some kind of recreation I come back as somebody with thinner thighs.

I read the following theory online and it got me thinking
"Suppose that every intelligent civilization before us progresses to this point in which smashing particles together becomes possible and this in turn results in their extinction. "

then again I also didn't expect Lance Armstrong to make his big return. Good news is that it is located 100 meters under the Alps so if it doesn't destroy the whole earth maybe it'll melt all the snow at some shitty Swiss ski resort.

Talking about things that might destroy the earth, I watched Lou Dobbs today (there might not be a more vile human than this fat head by the way) where they talked about the possiblitiy that Kim Jong Ill could actually have died 5 years ago and that this might be a Weekend at Bernie's scenario with him. He did not show up for North Korea's 60th anniversary and these are the rumors.


Can't blame the dude, not exactly sure what you are celebrating: North Korea seems to be stuck in perpetual hell, all your citizens wear those stupid green uniforms all the time, you have a terrible haircut, your devoted followers probably love Depeche Mode, you wear woman's sunglasses and you eat rotten cabbage with every meal. Shit if i had that haircut I'd have jumped over some fence and gone streaking across the 38th parallel hoping to get taken out be sniper fire.

Somehow we know that this guy has 20,000 movies on tape but can't figure out if he's dead or if they've stopped their nuclear ambitions? something is seriously wrong with this situation.. Our CIA needs to get onto finding out some real information about these people, and I'm not talking about some crazy concocted Bush WMD stuff either.

What is wrong with some people?

There is nothing more frustrating to me then this scenario.
A group of people go a top steak-house in New York city, everybody is enjoying the conversation, the drinks are cold, the bread is warm and the conversation is good. The waiter walks up to the table to explain the specials and the sides and begins to take orders. People order all types of cuts: filet's, rib-eye, flank etc and everything seems to be going swimmingly until the waiter gets to the one guy in the group who orders the Filet Mignon and when the waiter asks how to they would like it prepared they say.. "well done"..

This is basically when the rest of the table goes quiet, some people try to hide others pretend they are in deep conversation. The waiter confirms it with a disgusted look and walks away shaking his head.

what is wrong with you people? You are at a steak-house, where you will pay $40 for a piece of meat only to overcook it?

This like asking Beethoven to play chop-sticks, Shakespear to write for the NY Post, John Ritter to appear in Police AcademyVI, this is worse than starting Warrick Dunn over Adrian Peterson or on par with having a chance to meet Jenna Jameson and asking her for an arm massage.

Do yourself a favor and save yourself $30 and get the burger.


you people suck

Why I run

In what I can only describe as a show of solidarity for #4 on my beloved Jets while I'm in China, I have decided to grow a 5 o'clock shadow.  Bad news is has taken me about 4 days to grow it and now my entire face itches

In China, running is not easy.   Running on the streets can best be described as a contact sport.  If the smog doesn’t kill you the random scooters and 1982 Pinto's will.  Exercise and China don't seem to mix and it is pretty obvious that the mere act of putting on gym sneakers and a sweatband makes you a world-class elitist or maybe an elite class-ist.   People here are worried about making enough money to feed themselves, not whether they have perfect abs.  The food sucks, the air sucks and the haircuts suck, if I lived here I wouldn't try to burn off fat, I'd be indulging in it.   Drinking it by the gallon out of large vats.

But I don't live in China, I just come to enjoy the views and I have to worry about burning the vats of fried cat liver I've eaten, so I go down to the basement where the Health Spa is located.   It has been the same story every day.

I wake up in a jet-lagged misery at 5:30AM, brush my teeth with sprite as I’m afraid to drink the water.   Get dressed and by 6am I’m on my way.  I take the elevator to the basement floor where I’m met by a dark hallway. I walk into a darkness feeling my way to a light switch.  I throw the switch and lights beam down on a full gym and 25 meter pool.   I turn on the machines and TV.   I can't find the AC switch and the pool/basement/china combination makes the place feel like a god damned sauna.
There is no water fountain (wouldn't drink it anyway), no towels and no inspiration.

So there I go, CNN blasting while I try to burn through 5 miles in a room which feels like a Dutch oven.

I sweat out Duck Feet, Pig Snout, Stinky Tofu and whatever else I haven't diarrhea-d out throughout the night.  My fat thighs rub together, my nipples hurt and my Favre-beard itches

Finally I hit 8 kilometers. (I hope this is 5 miles), sweat pours off me like a faucet and while I have been there for 45 minutes later, not one person has so much peeked into the room.
This exact routine has gone on for 5 days and counting.

But the marathon is less than 2 months away and I gotta break 4 hours.

I turn off the treadmill and TV and turn down the lights and realize I'm just a glorified Bally's janitor.

You know you're an addict when

you wake up in China at 4AM and go right to your computer to watch NFL boxscores change every so slightly. And then cheering and dancing in your drawers when Marion Barber barrels one in from the 1 yard line but later in near tears when Romo did not throw it in the endzone late in blowout game.

I love fantasy football but there is almost nothing more dorky to have to admit to being addicted to.  You spend all year waiting for the first week of games and then you sit in front of a Computer Screen for 8 hours watching numbers tick up and down, all for the pleasure of eventual pain.  Nothing like the loneliness of a hotel room at 4AM. 

Nothing is as bad as being stuck in China while the NFL season is about to start and searching through 40 Chinese stations just hoping for some American sports.  Kind of a Good News/Bad News thing for me

Good news is that I finally found ESPN,
bad news for me it was some kind of ESPN Desportes or KungPowChicken or something,

good news when they showed some college football last night, 
bad news when the game they decided to show was Iowa vs Fort Lee or something equally bad.

Good news they showed a couple of NFL highlights
Bad News they showed about a half hour of Beglium Grand Prix Highlights

China is an interesting place. you look out the window and the smog feels like it is just eating away at the glass.   Had my first "American" meal in a week when I got some KFC, although here the chicken is kind of brown and the sauce is just a heap of mayo.   Just thinking about it makes me feel sick all over again.

Just saw the Seinfeld/Bill Gates commercial on YouTube, absolutely hysterical.  I'm sure that 90% of the
country won't get it but that makes it brilliant.  This is what you do when you are stuck in China at 4AM, you surf websites to hear about cool commercials and then you look them up on YouTube..

So thus here I am again, sweating from my run, inner thights chaffed and smelling a mix of mayo and chinese food watching the numbers on my computer screen move ever-so-slightly

what have I done to deserve this?

I have lost almost 60 pounds about 8 years ago but still can't get away from suffering from a major affliction.
This is not the kind of issue a 32 year old guy in the best shape of his life should be forced to suffer from and it has taken till now for me to even come to admitt it.

This is not the kind of issue somebody would be proud of, it affects your every day life.  For me this issue is worse when I run but can strike on any hot day.   Basically my thighs are so fat that they rub together and the irritation causes major chaffing .  It's like a car wash with sand-paper between my legs which has forced me to try some drastic measures

Not too long ago, I had to stop mid-run to combat this pain.  I walked into an Italian restaurant, grabbed the oil-and-vinegar off the table and snuck into the men's room where I have proceed to douse my inner  legs with salad dressing to help with lubrication..  I had oil running down my legs for the next 10 miles and let me tell you it was NOT a pleasant sight.  When I finished this run, the smell that came off me was a combination of sweat, tears and vinaigrette,bascially the smell of a Vietnamese whore house.

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Enjoying the View... from China

so Day 5 of my great China trip and I am 100% sure about a few things

1) My lung capacity has decreased 25% since getting here, the smog is so thick that you are better off using a Marlboro Red as a filter.

2) I believe I have eaten every single part of a chicken: legs, breast, wings, feet, eyes, beak, snout whatever.. Can you say Avian Bird Flu

3) I have been hitting the gym every morning at 6AM and am literally the only person at the gym, not one other guest.. not even an attendant, I turn on the lights, turn on the machines and turn on the TV.

4) somehow there are a few websites which I can't seem to get here.. YouPorn, RedTube, Tube8 etc. are all not reachable. weird



few Palin updates
1) she switched colleges 6 times including one time because it rained too much.. think she is high maintenance?
2) National Enquirer is already rumored to be going after an extra marital affair, with any luck they find out the dude was John Edwards.
3) when she won the mayor of Wasilla, she got a total of 909 votes.. That may be more than Biden got when he ran for the Democratic Nominee, but not by much.
4) the band HEART has asked the GOP to stop playing the song, Barracuda, I have asking Heart to stop airing this song for about 10 years but have had not luck.
5) Not has she has entered every 13 year old's wet dreams, the way her voice cracks every 6th word, she sounds a lot like a 13 year old boy?


So McCain decided to give yet another speech in front of a green screen, my boy Colbert is going to have a field-day with this one.
You can say one thing for Jon Stewart, this election has given him some juice again.. This guy is like David Justice, takes a lot of days off and only turns it on in the playoffs. just my luck, when Jon Stewart's playoffs start, I'm stuck in China

Just heard Giuliani's speech at the RNC.. He isn't just campaigning for McCain 24/7 he is campaigning for him 9/11..

Funny thing was that the green screen was the grass of a picture of a middle school in California.. Name of the middle school "Walter Reed Middle School", think somebody may have made a boo-boo?


Britney is rumored to open the VMA's this year..and from what I've seen on What Would Tyler Durden Do.. she might be hot again.. This coming right after excerpts of her Mom's book came out with claims of Britney doing the dirty deed at age 14. I guess it was pretty obvious that she was not that innocent.



this is totally awful (but pretty funny) http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/09/05/sarah_palin_rap/index.html

Does McCain have a set of wooden teeth?

He might have more in common with George Washington than just the white hair??

Not 100% sure about the wooden teeth but I am almost sure he does not have a set of top teeth at all, reminds me of the chick on Hookers on the Point.

Watching McCain's RNC speech on replay, it seems that  the GOP must have forgotten to invite a few minorities, good God there isn't a whiter group in the world than the GOP convention.  Mainly white, mostly old and obviously cranky

In general the rule seems to be that there isn't an uglier group of people than conventioneers.. The Dems might look like the Hoggets but the Republicans look like the Golden Girls.

I'm not sure if that blue screen behind McCain was more distracting than that transvestite protester.

As this column has mentioned, Cindy McCain is like the chick from Seinfeld who only looked good in the one booth at the coffee shop...  Sometimes she looks Palin hot and other times she looks like Cher.


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When did I forget how to write

Warning.. This is will not be funny..

I can't say that I've become totally mentally incapable of surviving 15 years ago but it's pretty close. I am not sure when it first occured but I've noticed that I cannot hand-write anything anymore. I feel like I my 6 years of elementary school has totally gone to crap as I now live my entire life typing: emails, blogs, posts on message boards, updating my fantasy football team, texting and blackberry emailing that I think I have almost totally forgot how to write.. I try to write a P and my hand makes a D, the way that i'm going right now, my only options seem to be that you have to send me back to the 4th grade or otherwise cut my hair short and throw a straight-jacket on me..

WWE for everybody

Anybody else believe that Serena and Venus have a WWE type agreement before their matches.. At least the WWE makes it look competitive.  These matches are a lot more Body Slam than they are Grand Slam

I might be the only person in the world who didn't. see Palin's speech, did hear her line about a being a small town mayor being similar to being a Community organizer, except with pressure.  Nice jab.

Still would have preferred it if she had delivered it topless. I am 100% sure that McCain will almost look dead tomorrow when he delivers but the GOP will definitely get a leg up, first the Dems are forced to spend their convention in this bullshit show of unity, then the Republicans kill any of Senator Jesus' buzz after his Great Greek Speech with the Palin announcement and finally the Elephants come out and show a united front with their total abuse of Obama.. Seems obvious that their line of attack will just be an anti Obama thing instead of a pro McCain thing but that's the Karl Rove playbook for you
This week felt like Shark Week.





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Mother of the Year

So at this point I'm ready to declare Sarah Palin as the Lynn Spears of 2008..
Bloggers have already said that the 5th kid is also Bristol Palin's kid.    Forget a sitcom, we should go directly to a reality TV show with these guys.
Mother campaigning while Pappa Todd is drunk driving his kids to Hockey Practice, but what he doesn't know is that the pucks they are shooting at this "practice" can swim!!

You know we are only days away from the NYPost discovering some topless pictures of her Miss Alaska days.  I'm waiting with bated breath.

So fell asleep watching Recount and woke up in the middle of that terrible Sex and the City movie..  Was kind of groggy and thought that Carrie was stood up by Al Gore.   If they just busted into "To be with you", I would have lost it.  But truthfully,  Big and Gore  could be long lost twins.  I almost ex

Why do I always feel like I'm waiting when being waited on?

Came across yet another thing I dislike..


I can't stand when a waitress counts her tip in front of you. Now granted this happens mainly at French restaurants but as somebody who always tips well (too well if you ask me), I find it insulting to have somebody count out singles right in front of the person who just gave it to them. Like opiening a cash gift in front of the entire birthday party and shouting across the room "thanks for the $5 check Dusty"

When done at a restaurant setting, It's just plain tacky.


If you are going to go and count the money, I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I put 25 singles (assuming the total bill should be about $100) on the table in two piles. Tell you exactly what I'm doing by explaing that the one pile which would be the "tip pile" starts with $18 and another "extra pile" which starts with $7. Let them see how they can make extra with good service and what they cane lose with bad service

everytime the waiter or waitress does something right you take $1 from the extra pile and add it to your tip pile. Everytime he or she forgets to bring you a fork, fails to refill my water when aked etc., you take a $1 from the tip pile and put it onto the extra pile. You keep the minimum at $10 for the tip pile so they in effect can make anywhere from 10% to 25% depending on the actualy service.


I'm sure the service in general will be better although I'm also sure that i'll be chowing down on a armpit burger and a lugie coke.


badlife

Burn Hollywood Burn..

Four days after Palin and I'm still not sure if you pronounce it with a long A or a short A.

Just the luck of the republican's, just as they are about to start their convention, Gustav is threatening to delay the whole thing.. This what you get when you try to piss of the Mexicans by building that stupid fence.

Is kind of ironic how that pastor called for "rains of Biblical proportions" to come down on Senator Jesu... I mean Senator Obama's speech and now the entire GOP convention might get delayed, toned down or cancelled by rains coming down from the heavens.

So I've done all my research on Sarah Palin and she does seem to shore up two key demographics for the GOP.. She seems to please the social conservatives who love her stands on killing deer, not killing babies and drilling and she also seems to please the bloggers who love her stand on wearing glasses, affinity for procreation and general attractiveness.


I remember when Chelsea Clinton first made her scene as a shy ugly kid on the national scene when her Old Man became the POTUS, now comes word that Palin's 17 year old unwed daughter is pregnant.. This is almost as bad as Cheney's lesbian daughter for the GOP staunch religious right. But reports are that tt least she is going to marry the father.. This has sitcom written all over it.
Mother fighting Bin Laden during the day and driving the kids to hockey practice at night, the father is a newspaper writer together rearing 5 wonderful little kids. But here comes little Bristol Palin to tell her parents that she's knocked up and to inform them that the pimpled faced boyfriend is moving into the Vice President Residence with the rest of the family. With any luck the boyfriend is Mexican now you add a Dog and they can call it the Ice Queen Cometh .. add a couple of misunderstandings and you have a hit for NBC for at the next 9 years.

Yeah I'm sure this will end well.

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