After all, there is part of the room taken up by racing equipment. My toiletry “thing” takes up much of the closet, which results in shoes being double and triple stacked. Sporting equipment? Top shelf of the closet. I even added a mini Christmas tree to at least add some “festive-ness” to the daily existence.

I read the above, and have to laugh at myself. I complain, but then I see Bubbsy (as I have affectionately named him). Bubbsy has been here seemingly as long as I have. He is a big boy, north of the 300lb threshold that requires you to purchase more than one airplane seat. But, multiple times per day, I see him outside, with his weimaraner on a leash and a little tote. Open the tote, and out comes two more dogs, of the dachsund size proportion. I watch him load the dogs in the car, with no more room in his vehicle due to his stuff. It is a pretty nice, new SUV, so I don’t think he is really struggling financially, but I cannot imagine what his room smells like or how claustrophobic it must be.

That being said, I think I would gladly trade to be next to him instead and have some resident dog stink. I can not stand having every possession of mine smelling like an Indian grocery store. I got new towels last week. I leave for the weekend, come back on Monday, grab a new towel, and suddenly after my shower I feel like basmati rice.

I have lamented previously about the distance required to traverse to pitch the garbage on my hotel floor. Instead of hiking that, many of my neighbours have taken to just leaving it in the hallway. That would be fine if the maid always takes it! Anyway, a few weeks back, I saw Bubbsy’s equally girthy brother from another mother bringing his groceries up to his room – on one of the luggage carts. Naturally, such laziness means that he would leave his garbage in the hallway. I walked by a few days later, noticed what was discarded in it (clear bag), and had to go grab my notepad. The contents, you ask?

French onion dip
Chips Ahoy
Bud Light
Diet Dr. Pepper
Pizza box
Can of creamed corn
Pringles
Grapes (uneaten)

So, next time you feel slovenly, you can think of this upstanding member of the local Cardiac Club. And no, that will not stop me from heading off to lunch.

Eagerly awaiting his cholesterol results,
-Michael

I really had no idea what to expect. 24 hours in a go-kart split between 6 people? How bad could it be? I have done over an hour straight before in 2 hour races; this just prolongs the agony a tad. I did a crash course in strengthening my core and improving my diet, but that was really it. It was off on a crazy adventure.

Day 1 – Drive from Michigan to Charlotte.
Day 2 – Practise essentially all day.
“Day 3″ – Get to track way too frickin’ early and race
“Day 4″ – Do not leave track through night, and stay till awards ceremony. Then drive all the way back to Michigan.
Day 1-4 – Whine. A lot. Oh, and make running jokes that get more and more complex as the weekend progresses.

The TV coverage always alludes to the strange things that go on during the night as delerium gets closer and closer. Let the record show that I made it through the 24 on 2 hours of sleep, after getting 6 the night before. Here are some actual things that occurred, in no particular order, paying homage to Jeff Foxworthy with a trite play on his money-making routine.

- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find yourself popping aspirin like chiclets, completely unable to figure out how many aspirin you can take in a 24 hour period because you cannot figure out really when the 24 hour period started.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you end up in a ghetto supermarket trying to purchase bananas, powerbars, granola bars, and those mythical “half-pretzel, half-Ritz cracker” things that are just good as all get out and are gone way before the others. Oh yeah, this supermarket will be across from a strip mall that has “Pimp Yo Ride” car audio and “Mo’ Money” tax service. This will also be up the road from the strip mall that has a chicken/ribs BBQ place next to a barber shop.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you later in the race end up in a ghetto convenience store/Subway, where the alchoholic in cuffs on the ground in front of the store shouting racist expletives at the patrons will neither deter you nor make you flinch as you enter the store because you are on a mission to find sustenance.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find yourself combing through the bags of food unable to find a bad combination of foodstuffs. “You know, I did just have that Atomic Fireball, but I really could go for some trail mix.”
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find yourself unable to form a cogent sentence and end up finishing 3 out of every 4 sentences with “never mind.”
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find yourself having bizarre arguments with your subconscious. You know the kind, like “I have to drive in 10 minutes, but I kind of have to pee. Maybe if I hold it, the pressure of my bladder will distract me from the fact that my neck is killing me.”
- You might be participating in an endurance race if the one muscle group you are not worried about before the race is the one that fails you. To that point, did you know you can basically race with your head completely laying on your shoulder?
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find yourself brushing your teeth in the middle of the night but being unable to decide if it is the before bed or waking up cleaning. You might also find yourself justifying that 3 in the morning is a good time to take your morning medicine because, hell, you aren’t going to bed anyway so it is practically morning.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find yourself looking at the clock. Often. Like every 10 minutes often.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you find new and creative uses for duct tape that seem to take forever to implement. At one point I had duct tape holding the velcro shut on my suit, around my hand to try and prevent more movement from exacerbating blisters, attaching some gonorp to my neck brace to provide an artificial headrest, and I am sure I am forgetting others.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if all you want to do is sleep, but doing so is the seemingly worst thing you can do. I finally fell asleep, woke up to my alarm after some completely deranged dream but couldn’t stand up because my body was so sore and I had to push off on hands that were blister riddled. I was in more pain after.
- You might be participating in an endurance race if you vow never to do it again but 30 minutes later are already thinking about next year.

Still looking for cogent thoughts,
-Michael

Sadly though, that is one of my beefs. I complained about those stupid stickers that families put on their minivan that, in stick figures, diagrams what comprises the family itself. They are getting more and more prevalent – as people copy one another. They are for the most part similar, although some are a spin on the theme (using flip flops when near the beach). And I did enjoy seeing one this week where the dad was missing (almost as good as the beheaded family one).

But the same is true of those stupid white oval stickers with a black border and text. They have them for everything now. Ok, you went to Hilton Head Island. Oh wow, you ran a half marathon or a triathlon you narcisisstic overachiever. Ok, your kid goes to Arrogant Prick Institute. Do we really need one for every school now?

Speaking of school related stickers, is it really a requirement to have a sticker showing your kid’s jersey number and what sport he/she plays? Just because everyone else does it doesn’t mean you have to be uncreative and follow it. The only thing it does is illustrate how uncreative you were when you named your child, because we see what completely asinine spelling you added to a normal name.

Continuing the segue roll with a children topic, I saw the strangest billboard the other day. It said “Abortion – 40 million that will not be paying into social security.” I pondered that for quite some time and still am not confident I get it. I mean, do not get me wrong, I get pretty frothed up at the fact that I am contributing to SS but will never get a cent out of it. But that does not mean I am going to let it change my stand on abortion. “Yeah, you know Clem, I was ok with going down to the PP clinic until I realised that my monthly check in 30 years was going to be fractionally smaller. I mean after all, the difference in my check will assuredly cover 18 years worth of expenses for a child.” Is that really the most cogent argument that they could come up with for not having an abortion?

Finally, while we are on the subject of death, I want to complain about the further coddling of our youth. When I was a kid, come spring, they would put out the “don’t drink and drive” car. It was a car that had supposedly been involved in a drunk driving accident, and these bastards were mangled! I used to spend 30 minutes every year analysing the car, trying to figure out what happened, how it got hit, if the person lived, etc. I remember the year that the rear impact was so violent that the rear seat was pressed against the back of the front seat. I remember the year that that the A pillar on the passenger side was almost touching the driver’s seat. And I cannot forget the years that the blood was still in the car, including on the windshield one year. THAT was a deterrent. The car I saw this year was a joke. The fender was barely crinkled, and the bumper had basically been ripped off. I don’t even know if it was fast enough for the airbag
to deploy. The only thing it made me want to do was get in an accident like that! It looked like something we would have done locking wheels on our way back to the apartment in college. The net of it was that it was too pansified for me to waste time to stop and look at. Just like I won’t have time to stop for the pansified youth of today when they need a binkie in the workplace in 15 years…

Still ornery after all these years,
-Michael

I recently changed hotels just to get to a new “area.” Plus, I hated that place (subject for another blog). I had gotten stagnant, going to the same three or four restaurants. Well, what happened, but I moved and found new places to frequent. Despite my stuffy nose, the beautiful weather inspired me to find somewhere new tonight. I made a beeline for a place I have been passing every day. It looked like a western saloon and had me fawning over a gargantuan piece of cow. Instead I show up and find out it is a taco place! I went it to look at the menu and it was even more pretentious than I anticipated. Tapas? Really? So I drove around some more. And then some more. I ended up back at the same place I have been eating at every day seemingly. There I got to have a non-stop runny nose, have people sit on both sides of me at the bar to smoke, and naturally proceed to stain my shirt.

So, I did the only natural thing after. I grabbed a Klondike bar and returned to my hotel room.

-Michael

That being said, it has not exactly been a banner two weeks for healthy food consumption (count Daytona in there). Then I try to get back on the wagon this morning and it is Girl Scout cookie delivery day. There were crumbs and anarchy everywhere. Hell, at 75 calories per cookie I had 300 calories in me before my computer even finished booting.

Speaking of food, I had corn nuts for the first time in ages the other day. I cannot remember the last time I saw them and there they were, facing me at the convenience store. I took the package over the salt and vinegar chip stalwart. They were delectable, reminding me how much I missed them and baffling me as to why they are not more popular. Then I burped and remembered why. Good God was that horrendous. I felt like I was taste testing at the factory, only they had loaded it up with too many preservatives.

Continuing on the food front (the omnipresent theme of my blog), I was changing planes not all that long ago when I spied a very nervous young lady having a snack waiting at her gate. She had obviously brought this snack herself, as it was in a Ziploc bag – a 1 gallon Ziploc bag that was filled with cheese puffs. And there she was, just chain chewing away. Her friend appeared to want some, but gave up trying to reach into the bag after almost having a finger severed at the knuckle. This wouldn’t have been that bad if she wasn’t a serious chub-a-lub. The chunker was just going to town on the cheese puffs, like they had killed a close relative of hers. Anyway, the irony was just too much for me to bear. I looked at her, opened my mouth, and well, I audibly laughed. I mean a hearty laugh too. There could not be anything funnier than that.

Although tonight did its best to take the crown. I went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant. I was thinking to myself, whilst looking at a table across the way that had 3 Asians and 1 non-Asian, about how amusing it is that this situation always presents itself. I pondered that for a minute until I noticed the couple adjacent to me. Him? 40’s, bald, pudgy, boring from what I could hear. Her? 20’s, an absolute firecracker, a banging body, and a killer tramp stamp. She looked like a Geisha girl that had been completely westernised. I bet she even charged for her time. But, then I went to the mall for Dairy Queen after. There, while covertly sitting off in the corner of the top level and people watching, I spotted the exact reverse! It was a 40’s, balding, coke bottle bespectacled Asian businessman, walking around with an early 30’s white girl donning a miniskirt and CFM boots. It was as if they were the bizarro version of the first couple.

Time for bed – and hoping the Reader isn’t on, so I won’t be coaxed into watching Kate Winslet parade around nude all movie again. And next time, Reader director, please place some sort of warning on the screen when there is about to be male full frontal. Egad, I was not ready for that and almost hit my head diving for the remote.

Back, and all yours,
-Michael

I just moved into an extended stay type place. It is like having my own apartment. At least that is what the brochure tells me. Actually, it just leaves me confused as hell. There isn’t maid service unless you pay for it. There is a full time desk staff. Yet, it is really a hotel room that somone stuck a two burner stove, a full size fridge, a sink, and two sets of table settings in. Really, two sets. Two sets of stuff so cheap that you get change at the dollar store. I should have slapped the guy who showed me the demo room when he said “you get everything but the placemats.” Speaking of employees, I looked into multiple places. At one from a different chain, I was shown the room by a rather effeminate fellow. His smiles disconcerted me and made me uncomfortable. I was afraid he was going to take me into a room and make me listen to soundtracks until I signed the contract. Imagine my surprise when I walk in tonight and he is sitting at the
front desk of my hotel. Turns out the two are under the same umbrella and he gets to work here sometimes. Totally enjoyed the awkward small talk we got to have. Yeah.

Pathetic is drinking a nice wine out of a plastic cup provided in the room (after using my car key as a corkscrew). I thought it was a better idea than using the coffee mug. I am a little worried about it staining the high quality glass. Bought some dish soap tonight and forgot to get a sponge. Yeah.

I never know what time it is. Between the car, multiple phones, computers, my watch, and even TV schedules – I am just perpetually baffled. I feel like I am in Indiana, back when it gave the big “eff you” to daylight savings time. I observe Eastern time when I want and Central when I want. So kiss off.

My list of people I would love to be deftly excised from the rolls of this fine earth is starting to take more shape. My plan is to have a list of 5, perhaps 10, by July. I figure a solid 5 is doable by the end of the year. I may have even metioned some of these already, but I really don’t care. I am starting with people that have tattoos on their neck. Really, I am confident that anyone who gets that done cannot be trusted in a situation that requires intense decision-making skills, because they obviously failed (note – you get a pass if you are an extreme sports athlete). If you wear gloves in the store, just save the trouble and jump into the tar pit. I don’t care how cold it is in the juice aisle. And should you then dare to pay at the supermarket with a check (also a commitable offence), you get dragged in too. In fact, your arm is getting ripped off so that the guy who came up with the idea to have angled parking in high traffic parking
lots can be whapped repeatedly with it. Lastly for now, I am watching you people that put those suddenly trendy stickers on the back of your SUV/minivan of a stick figure representation of your family holding hands. So you can procreate? Who gives a shit? Honestly. I want to put one of those on my car and “X” out two of the kids. Or put like 13 kids. Or better yet, put pictures of the parental units arm in hoof with farm animals.

Anxiously hoping for a remote that works,
-Michael

- Wisconsin continues to amaze me with its prevalent use of personalised licence plates. The worst part is that most are as obnoxious as the GoDaddy.com commercials or my continued usage of the Queen’s English. Two offenders from last week – PRSLZD (really – a personalised plate to say personalised???) and CHZ ETR. Nice. Having a plate like that should be grounds for your medical insurance to cancel coverage when your cholesterol test comes back off of the charts.
- I cannot say I have seen anything funnier recently than watching a balding Indian guy in his 50’s going up to every car at a gas station and asking for directions and then watching him drive directly to the strip club up the street 1/4 mile.
- Speaking of places where catty women work, I had an experience with that at dinner the other day. I went to a restaurant where the server helps make your sauce selection for whatever is being grilled. I have been there multiple times, and always had the same waitress. I actually had a different waitress last time, but came to find out my normal one was working. The normal one came up to help me, despite me not being her table, which drew the ire of my waitress that evening. Upon mentioning that this was perturbing the other one, Normal Waitress replied spitefully “Don’t worry – she knows.” What the hell does that mean? I couldn’t really spend that much time worrying about it though because I was in the midst of trying the “spicy” sauce I had asked her to make and had proceeded down the wrong pipe. I kept it down though without choking. What a trooper I am.
- I learned a new term at work that has me mesmerised. The term “cougar” has made its way into the lexicon, riding smoothly on the coattails of such esteemed terms as “MILF.” It was brought to my attention that there is such a creature as a Puma. I denied its existence, but was shown a website that explains it. According to the source, a cougar is a woman between 30-45 looking for a younger man. A puma is one between 22-29 that goes younger for fun. And then the most dangerous of them all apparently is the sabretooth, which is above 45. This both baffled and intrigued me. I like the idea of breaking them up, especially as I feel MILF has to undergo the same treatment. All I know is that I need to start using this term more often. Although I will say that the puma seems awfully young. I cannot even get a puma! Now that really makes me feel old.

Now, where the hell are my pills?
-Michael

There was an art festival this weekend in one of the Philadelphia parks. It allowed me to partake in one of my favourite hobbies, which is really talking louder than I should be while espousing my views. Mind you, I think art is pretty useless – especially expensive art. I am not so closed-minded that I don’t get it; I just don’t choose to. Anyway, I was doing fine until I passed the local “Democratic National Party” sign-up booth at the fair. It was the ONLY non-art booth there. It was really more than I could do to hold back at that point, which led to much frivolity from me including gems I was proud of like “Does it come with complimentary health care if I join today?” That was the beginning of the end, and led to a nearly 30 minute running commentary, mainly on art in general. I have to admit I felt really refreshed after that!

And to the story at hand – I went back to the Japanese restaurant that has weekly specials on Sunday-Tues. It is over 40% off, which allows me to eat more than I really should. I went in there by myself tonight (again). Last time I manipulated the sushi menu until I reigned victorious. Tonight, it was me versus the hibachi grille. I told them I wanted hibachi and that I wanted to sit at a table. The waiter said to me “by yourself? (snicker) How about I sit you in here?” (pointing to the other room). I said to myself “How about you go get one of the guys in the goddamned hat that you make him wear? I want shrimp tails in my shirt, a sake volcano, and quite possibly singed eyebrows. Chop chop.” But I calmly relented once he assured me I could have hibachi in the other room.

That gave me the luxury of sitting next to the following table of college students, a letter next to each for future usage.
1 – trendy, obviously Americanised half-Asian female (A)
1 – caucausian boyfriend of hers (B)
2 – fully Asian, not completely Americanised females (C)
1 – fully Asian, fully Americanised female (D)
1 – midwestern caucasian girl (E)

I really couldn’t care less about the demographic here, except that it plays in to the story. Ms. Trendy dominated the table. It apparently was her idea to go for sushi, so she had to lead the charge.

A – Ok, here is what we are going to get – X,Y,Z rolls – I have had each of those before and they are good.
C – Really, what is in those, I haven’t heard of them.
A – I don’t know, they were good.
B – I think X has tuna in it, and Y…
A – Just look in the menu, it is there.
E – I always get a rainbow roll.
D – Why?
E – It is my “safe roll.”
D – What does that mean?
A – It means it has every type of fish on it.
D – I think we should get J,K,L. It will be a good mix, and will have this and this and this oit.
A – I suppose, but we really should add P and Q.

~~~~~they place their order~~~~~

C – whoknowswhatwassaidtheytalkwaytooquietly, yesbothofthemdo.
D – I was like supposed to clean today, but I didn’t get to it.
B – Ha, I was supposed to do laundry today, but I guess I will…
A – I have to do laundry tonight too. I don’t even have a full load to do, but I have to because I dirtied my one towel today.
E – knocks chopsticks on floor as she is the only one to get a salad
D – How did you do that?
A – I spilled my soy milk, and I just grabbed the closest thing, which happened to be my lone towel!*
C,D,E – Oh my God!!!
A – I know, right?
B – Leaves for bathroom

*it was at this point that I shifted the eating into overdrive so I could leave quicker without punching her in the face. Honestly, anyone who utters that sentence deserves to be punched.

~~~~~food comes~~~~~~

A – (Despite knowing it all) So what is that?
C – That is such and such around the outside…
D – And, then it is blah blah on the inside
A – Wow, looks great!

I am happy the food was good, because I do not think I could have tolerated the conversation otherwise. Humbly reporting for you,
-Michael

- I am still recovering from an illness last week. I got sick during Labour Day weekend. It started with a sore throat. So, I ventured to Rite Aid and shelled over $5 for generic sore throat spray. Now I am all better except for a cough that won’t stop. I get one fit per evening (seemingly not helped by this hotel) that lasts roughly 30 minutes. I finally caved and stopped tonight to buy some cough syrup (which assuredly means I will not have one tonight). But, I just hated to drop another 5 bills on this sickness. And I realise it is Walgreens, but calling it Wal-Tussin? Inititally I wondered why Walgreens was selling the Wal-Mart brand generic. I guess $10 isn’t bad every four years (I was last sick like this four years and three months ago).
- Speaking of Walgreens I had a great time there tonight. First was the “DON’T LOOK AT ME” lady. She appeared to be an early forties gal, and was not hideous or anything. She entered an aisle that I needed to go in. I happened to enter from the other side. She looked up, saw me, and bolted to where she came from. I continued perusing when suddenly she appeared on my end of the aisle. She again saw me, started to retreat, then just buzzed right by me at top speed.
- This smile carried me over until I got to the register where some six months pregnant chick was checking out with a pregnancy test in hand. Either she is really stupid, or really gullible to let one of her friend’s talk her in to buying it for them.
- I asked my senior citizen cashier if she knew how much the ATM fee was for the one in the store. She recoiled, gasped, and said “I don’t use one of THOSE” as if I had asked her how to take the aforementioned pregnancy test. She actually made me feel embarrassed.
- I sat in the bar area of Friday’s for dinner tonight. There was a large party in the main dining room, which I eventually deduced was a national convention for a company. Three of the younger members of the company, two guys and one girl, came to the bar area to buy some brews. The boys were flinging lines left and right to attempt to depants her. It was at that juncture that I got to thinking “how much would I pay to have one question in my mind answered about this situation?” You know, like “I wonder if she left her engagement ring at home for this trip” or “did these guys decide ahead of time who was going for it, are they playing it by ear, or are they going to try and tag-team it?” I am thinking $5 for this situation, but definitely more in ones where I can validate a certain supposition I have made in my mind from all my years of people watching. I would also like to thank The Sports Guy for a similar concept that led me to this one.
- Speaking of pants, or depantsing, I have noticed that one pair of pants (always been long on me) seems realllly long now. I thought it meant I was getting shorter but now I believe it is because my shoes are getting worn down and I am thus closer to the ground. That’s it, right?

Always humbly yours,
-Michael

I jumped into the Fusion, caught up with an old chum, and proceeded to the restaurant. I normally would do hibachi, but I really was craving sushi (plus, Derek just told me you look idiotic having hibachi by yourself. We’ll see if I remember that the next Tuesday I am dining solo out here). I spent a solid 10 minutes trying to figure out how to get enough sushi to fill me, get a soup and salad, and still stay under the mythical $15 barrier that I normally set for myself. It was during this 10 minutes that I discovered it is really “something more than 30 and less than 50% off.” It is still a great deal, but not the 50% on the menu. And to be fair, the discount menu says exactly that, namely that it is for the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday discount.

I settled for 2 pieces of regular sushi, a salmon roll, and a “fancy” roll. I normally get a Rainbow roll, which is a California roll topped with other types of fish. Even at a “discount” it still ate up too much of my budget. Since I wanted to try a new one anyway, I went with the “Fashion” roll. It had lots of good stuff in it, including tuna, salmon, avocado, plus tempura flakes. When it arrived it wasn’t the “normal” roll shape of a rounded rectangle. It looked like a church window, with the bottom being flat and the top being semicircular. It was an imposing size, even at just 5 pieces. I mowed through the salmon roll, and the two a la carte orphans (be gone crab stick and octopus!), and only devoured one of the big roll pieces. I got down to two, and noticed that one was way bigger than the rest, predominantly because of the rice. I decided to eat it first, because the other piece was full of more of the fashion roll goodness. I eyed it
anxiously, believing that I could eat it in one swoop, as I had the other pieces. This seemed ok, despite the fact that I barely had any room in my mouth normally. In mid roll lift I decided that I did not want to look like I was auditioning for an Asian adult film, and began to close my mouth slightly to instead take the piece in 2 bites. It was then that I committed a “fashion roll faux pas.” I closed my mouth too far and rammed the roll train right into my upper set of choppers. Rice, seaweed, fish, and wayward soy sauce crashed on to the plate, followed closely by my dignity. I quickly corraled them and polished off the other piece. It was devoured smoothly and I was sated.

However, I still had enough room for a post dinner snack. I stopped at McD’s for a sundae. I asked for the “vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce”, as I did not want the caramel kind which I seemed to remember them having. The disembodied voice from the ordering squawk box replied “we don’t have that kind, we only have fudge.” Seriously??? What do you think fudge is? I only wish they had a camera on the car so she could have watched me stare in disbelief at the box. It was only rivaled by my disbelief as I watched my sundae being waved at me from the 2nd window while I waited for my change from the order taker than did not understand the hierarchy within the dessert community. Thanks for melting half my ice cream from your hand heat.

Pleasantly plump for you,
-Michael