And?

Blood is red

Smurfs are blue

I've been a bit terse

What the hell's it to you?


I've received some complaints due to my lack of flow here on the ye olde blog. And to be quite frank, I really don't care. I haven't had anything that I care to write about as of late and that's a whole bunch-a fine, in my mind. A whole bunch-a fine.

Here's something for you to chew on...
http://thechuckwagonjournal.blogspot.com

Once again, this is the blog of my folks, Chuck and Kathy, who are currrently ensconced in a westward movement of epic proportions. They're having the time of their lives and as you'll read, they haven't once thought of killing each other over the course of the three months they've been travelling...methinks this a boldface lie, but hey. Who knows.

I promise to be more proactive on my blog. Jabroni.

Something New

I started a new blog.



http://goaheadifuckingdareyou.blogspot.com/



I've decided that a lot of my colorful ranting about little things that really, really bother me deserve their own blog.



What you can expect: some questionable language. Well probably a lot of questionable language. If you're not one to take too kindly to a smattering of cuss words, go read http://thechuckwagonjournal.blogspot.com. Actually, do read this one. It's my parents' chronicle of their own cross country journey in real time...unlike mine. They're on day 10 right now and should be somewhere in Wyoming.

Inevitably, something gets under my skin each and every day. If you care to know what that might be on a given day, read this blog. Go ahead. I fucking dare you.

See what I did there?

What WILL They Think of Next?

Ever have those moments where you say that to yourself? I had one last night as I watched the new JJ Abrams drama, Fringe (hooked me instantly, by the way). It was a commercial for one of the newest diabetes monitors to hit the market and the come in 4 fashionable colors so you can personalize your diabetes. I had many thoughts flood my brain after this commercial. For one, I wish they had Wilford Brimley do this ad. "Check your blood sugar; check it often. And pimp your diabetes monitor; pimp it hard. You have diabetes...there's just no reason for you to not be cool and have diabetes." I wonder if they'll come out with covers for the monitors so you can be moody with it. Don't want your monitor to be blue today? Fine, use the black cover. Or the yellow one. You have options...you may have diabetes, but you have options with your monitor and its color. Don't let diabetes run your life, and don't let your diabetes monitor leave you in a fashion conundrum. There's just no reason not to have a cool diabetes monitor.

Why have we not seen the pimped out wheelchair or motorized scooter yet? With all the shootings we hear about on the news and all the gang-related shit out here in LA, there's got to be a market for wheelchairs with 36" rims and spinners to boot. What about a lowrider wheelchair? Or one with fucking hydraulics?? So you can't walk, fuck it. Blast Dre and bump down that sidewalk. I know someone could make money doing this. Could give new meaning to the term 'ambulance chaser'...not just for lawyers anymore.

I also don't feel like we're doing enough with the keychain. People of the 80's had some serious issues with the janitor-style keychain...unless this was only a symptom of my aunt Joanie and her daughters. I recall shit like bandannas on there, like forty-six some-odd keys of various uses, a few mini, stuffed cats, a Vegas-themed thing and some other shit. Nowadays, the keychain is reserved for cards that link us to various clubs. CVS. Stop & Shop or Ralph's or whatever your local grocer is. The gym. Petco. What have you. Most people have a car device on there that locks and unlocks. My dad has always been a proponent of the mini Swiss Army knife on his and I think this is one of the best ideas ever. You have a small blade, a file, a screwdriver and a toothpick at all times. Beauty. But this is what I mean...shouldn't we be taking greater advantage of the one part of us that never leave home without? Shouldn't there be an iPod that hooks to our keys? It would have to be tiny like the Shuffle, of course. I'm always wishing I had tic tacs, but I know if those bastards made a container that attached to my keychain, I'd buy them more often. Same with gum. I don't know, it just seems like we need more from our keychains.

Wow, a remake of Tainted Love just came on in Coffee Bean. It's one I haven't heard yet and it's pretty nice. Anyone know who this might be? On other musical fronts, I'm due some congratulatory remarks on account of finally downloading iTunes to my laptop. I no longer have to screw up my lady's iTunes with my devil music.

A Very Brady Sequel

Blog world is quiet thus far...quiet for the Monday following a potential career-ending injury to Tom Terrific. Although now, he's more like Tom Troubled, or Tom Too Bad. I'm not trying to make light of this in any way, shape or form but I will say this: I am so thankful that I am not in the city of Boston right now.

I've been chatting with a few of the guys I used to work with in Boston and all reports are the same: people are totally out of it today. Women have shed tears, men are pissed off and little babies are spitting up all over their #12 bibs. I get it, I do. He's the face of the franchise and the face of the NFL, for all intents and purposes. He absorbed what many are alleging to be a cheap shot and from what I know as of right this second (which equates to little more than zilch), he's probably mangled his ACL/MCS/knee thing-a-majig.

The response out here is something I never thought I'd see as a Patriot fan. People actually laughed at the news report during the early games yesterday. You see, it's funny to outsiders who see the Patriot conglomerate/juggernaut as merely a black mark on the league due to the bullshit with Spygate or whatever you want to call it. Apparently this injury to the formerly Favre-esque Brady is payback...a little karma action, as Earl might contend. My question is, how are Pat fans panicking at this point? Isn't there some pretty pertinent precedent here? Didn't we all shake in our shoes collectively when Mo Lewis all but decapitated Drew Bledsoe back in 2001? Yeah, we did. Now we're here, without even the slightest aftertaste of Bledsoe bitterness and two rings...not to mention a perfect regular season. Wait a second here...what's really at work?

The Patriots manage to blow a perfect season at the hands of the (gulp) Eli Manning-lead New York (gasp!) Giants, finishing a deplorable 18-1*. Hilarious, right? Yeah, ok. But this happens in the wake of this taping scandal and suddenly black clouds start to roll in on this once marveled and oft admired picture of hard work and coaching. Belichick is a bozo, a cheat. Now the Pats are the Evil Empire of the NFL and they have haters in more places than the Sox have fans across the globe. And now, in the first quarter of the first game of the 2008 season, the poster boy of all poster boys goes down with a career-threatening knee injury. Gene Upshaw is rolling over in his grave (whatever that means...what does that mean? Rolling over? Not banging his fists? Spewing cuss words all over? Crossing him arms and pouting?). I find the timing of all this to be very, very interesting.

How insane would it be if the Jets are now captained to the AFC crown by Brett fucking Favre? Is this a joke, people? The Jets are suddenly looking pretty damn good to contend for the division, like it or not. I still tend to believe that the Patriots will win it, seeing as though Tony Eason could probably win the AFC East with the likes of Moss, Welker, that O-line and that D-line. Cassel will be fine if they don't do something ridiculous and hand things over to a Chris Simms or Tim Rattay. Look at this scenario for a second. Cassel is a huge man with a big arm and a brain. He knows the system as well as Brady if not better and now he's in charge. If he's given some time to sit in the pocket and do what good pocket passers do, Moss will have another 20 TD grabs and the Patriots will win 11 or 12 games and be back in the playoffs. But you have to be intrigued by the possibility of the Favre Jets to be there in January. He's slingin' it again...in case you missed the 4th-and-13 that he willed into the arms of one of his receivers to basically win the game. How long until the Madden 2009 covers are all reproduced with Favre in a Jet jersey? Make the originals collectors items and sell new ones with him on the cover as a Jet. It'll be a new Madden curse, only this time it will involve a seemingly washed up, wily veteran who will retire, then unretire, and take his team to the promised land. Madden 2010 will feature Warren Moon, who will unretire to lead the QB-desperate Chiefs back to glory.

Final Destination

Stage VI, Parts II & III

We departed San Francisco with slightly heavy hearts, as we could not stay in this wonderful city any longer. But we'll be back. We would our way down to Santa Cruz and the home of the banana slugs...also known to Lauren as home for a few years of college. I don't know why anyone would want to attend college anywhere else other than the University of California at Santa Cruz. Campus lends itself to a national forest which happens to border the ocean. Come on. COME ON.

We walked amongst the girthy sequioas and under the circling hawks that protect the campus. I felt a sense of peace about the place as we trapsed about the campus...Lauren told me about the system of grading without actual letter grades and about the regularity of hippies that attend the school. I could only imagine how this place is a veritable haven for pot smokers of the collegiate age, given the natural beauty of the campus and the feeling like you're in some protective community where anything goes and nothing goes beyond the gates of the campus.

Anyway, please enjoy some more of my lovely Lauren's photo journalism, Santa Cruz and Gilroy style.

Cowell College...one of the eight or nine colleges that are a part of the system at UCSC and the college that Lauren attended while she was there. Cowell is the Liberal Arts college and it overlooks the ocean, as you can see here. You know, maybe I'll just go back to school at UCSC and start over. It's not like I learned anything from my 5 years at UMass, anyway.

Expansive fields on which one can play various sports and the backdrop is, as I may have mentioned, the ocean. Pretty sweet deal.

More from the fields o'er the ocean.

And finally, the Gilroy Garlic Festival. Without expectations, this place blew our minds. Who knew that a celebration of garlic could produce such a mass of food and shit to see. We should have come earlier and spent the entire day, but we didn't know what we were coming into. Instead, we spent a few hours here in Gilroy, we ate jalapeno poppers, garlic ice cream, garlic potato chips, buffalo wings and...beer. We drank some beers which tasted glorious in the 98 degree heat. We took this photo in front of a giant, burning clove of garlic. We then returned to our vehicle for the remaining 4.5 hours of driving that would land us in Los Angeles to find that some dipshit had left the passenger's side window down. Yes, with all of my belongings atop the car, in the car and about the car as well as Lauren's bag, wallet, cell phone and my cell phone, iPod, GPS, etc etc etc...I left the passenger's window open. For three some odd hours. Amongst a slew of garlic-seeking stragglers from all over. It could have been a disastrous climax to a long and arduous journey of 4000 miles, but no one took our stuff. They probably walked by and figured, hey, why fuck over someone who stinks of garlic and beer?

I almost forgot...Bowen, we did happen upon a banana slug, seen here on his laptop. He was too busy to take a picture with us...turns out he was spoofing the biographical Tupac movie with a version of his own called "Slug Life". He was surpisingly trendy with his D&G shades and Uggz knockoffs...yeah, called Sluggz. Ripoffs. But apparently they do indeed exist and they are intelligent creatures. They just don't care to take photographs with humans.

Stage VI, Part One

Our last leg of the trip...finally. In my opinion this was the best leg simply because of all the stuff we got to do/see/eat/smell. Here's how it went:

Part I: downtown San Francisco. Awesome city. It's widely known that Bostonians love San Francisco and I guess I now know why. You get some of the same feels, only over a much grander sprawl. Unfortunately for us, we were only in the city for a handful of awake hours so our exposure was quite limited. But I'd say that we made the best use of our time that was possible. Enjoy.

Bay Bridge from the car.

AT&T Park, Home of the San Francisco Giants.

More AT&T...

...and one more...AT&T & Me. Aesthetically, this is a beautiful park. I've always been a jealous fan of McCovey Cove. I want to blast an opposite field homer into the ocean, don't you?

Dottie's Cafe on Geary St. Place is UNREAL. We had the pleasure of sitting at the countertop, due to the fact that we were in line at 7:10am for a 7:30 opening. We watched the grillmaster/owner flip flapjacks, spin out omelettes and scrambles, hash out the potatoes and poach eggs for benedicts. It was awesome, the food was insanely good and I even admitted that the dude made a better scramble than I do. Listen, you can't fuck with my breakfast prowess. I'll spin you off a scramble with spinach, mushrooms, shrimp, goat cheese and hot sauce that'll have you singing my name all the way to bottom of your plate. I digress...Dottie's is a MUST GO if you're in San Fran. I recommend the smoked trout scramble.

Financial District

Golden Gate Bridge

Me and Lauren at the park that precedes the wharf. You can't see them in the photo, but Danny Tanner is behind us, picnicking with Michelle and DJ. Stephanie couldn't make it because she was on the phone with a boy. How rude.

The start of the wharf with the Bay Bridge in the backdrop.

Part's II and II of the Final Stage are to follow very shortly, so check back if you have any interest in seeing UC Santa Cruz or a lovely photo from the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Red Means Stop, Green Means Go. Yellow Means...

Please enjoy the following account for how my brain reacts to seeing a traffic light turn yellow as I approach an intersection.

Light is green, brain is set to easy, comfy mode. Foot remains lightly pressed on the gas pedal, speed in maintained, passenger (Lauren) in a stationary and apparently content state.

Light turns yellow, brain immediately pukes out a command to my right foot to jerkedly depress the brake in one, quick motion. Speed drops considerably, car jolts a bit, passenger jerks forward then back, looks considerably annoyed and kinda pissed.

Light remains yellow, just a split second after it turned at this point. Brain flip flops, pukes out another genius command to jam on the gas. Speed increases significantly, car jolts a lot and passenger's head hits the headrest rather impactfully. Passenger totally pissed, starts to offer audible complaints/barbs in my direction.

Light turns red as car approaches intersection, brain sends final command to foot to apply enough pressure to the brake pedal to break human bones if they were underneath. Car comes to a screeching halt, passenger jerks forward with great force, settles back into seat and begins to shower me with insults and more barbs, asks what the hell is wrong with me.

I don't know why this happens every time I see yellow light.

Overheard

This is unreal. I'm sitting here at Kinko's in Santa Monica and currently, this is what I'm overhearing. I'm trying to keep up with this one-sided phone conversation. But I'm laughing so hard that it's extremely difficult. Incorporate about a 10 second pause between each statement you read.

"David Hansen told me that his father is Jewish."

"David Hansen had a party thirty years ago that I went to with Mark Jackson. There was alcohol there but I didn't drink any of it."

"It was David Hansen's party. It was here that David Hansen told me his father is Jewish. There was a lot of alcohol there but I didn't have any. You can ask Mark Jackson, I bet he'd tell you."

"I went to Westminster Elementary with Mark Jackson. We've been friends for thirty years. Westminster Elementary is on Abbot Kinney and some other street. But I went to a party at David Hansen's with Mark Jackson many, many years ago and there was a lot of alcohol there. I didn't have any alcohol though. You can probably call Mark Jackson and ask him."

"David Hansen told me his father is Jewish."

"David Hansen told me his father is Jewish."

"David Hansen had a party in Santa Monica that I went to with Mark Jackson. I didn't know whose party it was until I got there, but once I got there I learned it was David Hansen's house. David Hansen had the party and there a bunch of kids from Santa Monica High School there, drinking alcohol. I didn't drink alcohol there, though. Mark Jackson will tell you that if you call him."

"I saw David Hansen on the 3rd St. Promenade and he told me that his father is Jewish."

"David Hansen told me his father is Jewish."

I can't keep up with this anymore. It's too much. Who is this guy talking to? He sounds like a fucking parrot, for Pete's sake. David Hansen's father is Jewish. He told me that. David Hansen told me that. I didn't drink any alcohol at David Hansen's party. You can ask Mark Jackson.