1 Happy St

Sorry for the lack of posting around here. Greg is still trapped near the inner-circle of fault, and Jill and I joined our friends Brian and Sue on a vacation to New York. I figured I could either use this post as an opportunity to apologize, or an opportunity to bore you with pictures. Or how 'bout both?

First off, let me tell you how awesome New York is. It may be the only place in the country where you can walk into a dive bar and spend $10 for a domestic beer. You gotta respect a place like that. I had been there once before, but it was 5 or 6 years ago and I was by myself. Round 2 was a lot more fun.
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Okay starting left to right, you have me, Jill, some guy, 2 girls, Sue, and Brian. The 3 people in the middle were old friends we knew a long time ago who moved to New York a long time ago.

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This is Offica Paul White. We met him our first night and he told us about all the cool baws and clubs to hang out at. He also spoke with a New Yawk accent that we found pleasing. Oh, and he faked like he was writing us a ticket for the benefit of passers-by.

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Our first day we checked out Radio City Music hall. It was pretty gay. The hall itself was nice I guess. But the tour was gay. Really, really gay. That picture up there is me taking a break during the middle of it. And in the spirit of the tour, the look I was going for was gayness. I think I pulled it off nicely. A young girl on the tour who witnessed my pose mentioned that it was "totally going up on your myspace". Not having a myspace page, this blog will have to do.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The main reason for the trip in the first place was to check out Yankee Stadium, this being its last season and all. I was shocked to learn that they cheer for Derek Jeter there. I had never been to a place where Derek Jeter was cheered before; it was odd. Also, the Yankees were playing the Royals, but the whole 1st half of the game, the scoreboard showed the Yankees against the Angels. It took until the 5th inning for the scoreboard operator to fix it. The Royals get a lot of respect around these parts. The stadium itself sucked, but I loved the fans. They boo their own players if they swing and miss, even if it's only strike 1. Lesson learned - every stereotype about Yankees fans is 100% accurate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you didn't know, New York doesn't have alleys, so all of their garbage piles up on the curb right where people walk. It adds to the fun, I say. Quick side-note that has nothing to do with the picture: earlier in the week, I read an article about Michael Phelps that said he eats 12,000 calories every day. I shared this story with Jill, Brian, and Sue, which led to our theory that he probably does nothing except eat, swim, sleep, and shit all day. So every time one of us had to use the bathroom during our trip, we would say "hang on you guys, I have to Phelps." Believe me, it was funny the first 500 or 600 times.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't even try to act like that isn't funny. Using my head to cover up the "C" in Canal? That's comedy gold in my opinion. Hat tip to Sue for the idea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you think we didn't make fun of Brian for wearing a Cubs shirt beneath his Yankees jersey, you'd be sorely mistaken. The Cubs AND the Yankees? Why not just wear a shirt that says "I'm a big douche"? I bet he also roots for the Cowboys. And Duke Men's Basketball.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jill got to brag that she's the only one of us who got to drive while in Manhattan. One of our friends who lives there met up with us and she drives a BMW. Since Jill was the only "sober" one, she got to drive us around one night. And yes, Jill now wants a BMW of her own.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here's me reading a map in the middle of a crowded train station. How did I make it the entire week without someone stealing my wallet?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remember that scene in Big Daddy? Now it IS your problem Buddy. I'm not sure how this didn't make it on my list of things to do while in New York, but thankfully it made Brian's list.
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And that's pretty much it. We did the touristy thing, we did the bar thing, we did the expensive restaurant thing, we did the cab thing, and we got to see Yankee Stadium. All in all, a complete success. And if I don't go back for another 5 or 6 years, that'll be fine by me.

I'm leaving for NY City here shortly. So in my absence*, Greg will be taking over the blogging duties around here until some time next week. And by "taking over the blogging duties", I mean "ignoring this place like the plague". He works in mysterious ways.

* That's one of those words that I constantly spell wrong. I think it should be "absense". Doesn't that make more sence? That's my two sents anyway.

But before I go, I'd like to share with you a list of some of the things I hope to do while in NY:

1. Go to Coney Island to eat a hot dog.
2. Steal the change from the cup of a homeless man.
3. Root for the Royals while at Yankee Stadium.
4. Find Mike Lupica and punch him in the throat.
5. Avoid the police after punching Mike Lupica in the throat.
6. Meet up with my pen pal at the top of the Empire State Building.
7. Swim in the east river (I have back problems).
8. Buy a pack of gum from Rupert G.
9. Befriend a homeless lady who feeds the birds in Central Park.
10. Take a lame touristy picture in front of a closed-down Studio 54.
11. Take a lame touristy and risque picture behind the bull on Wallstreet.
12. Check out the WTC progress.
13. Call my co-workers in the middle of the day to brag that I'm not at work.
14. Buy a fake Prada purse for Jill. I'm thinking a Proda or Pradda.
15. Buy an "I heart NY" t-shirt and get it signed by a celebrity.

I'm sure I won't have time for all of those, but some time next week I'll fill you in on what I did.

Until then..........

Jill and I took a mini-vacation to Wisconsin over the weekend. The weather was perfect all three days, which was nice because we found out later that it rained back home the whole time we were gone (HA ha). We did some boating, some eating, some drinking, some boating, and some eating. Oh and drinking. In that order. We visited with Jill's grandpa at his (near)-lake house, which is always a good time. Some of the highlights:

We went to a restaurant/bar and the service was beyond the worst I have ever seen. They had one poor girl waiting every table and she couldn't have been older than 15. And she was shy. Have you ever met a shy waitress? Yeah it's not good. The people at the table next to us had been waiting on their pizza for 2 hours (not an exaggeration) when one of them said to her "is our pizza gonna be much longer?" and she responded with "I'm not sure". It was perfect. No "let me check" or "it'll be 5 minutes". No, she said "I'm not sure" and then walked away. Well then. It was so bad that everyone was walking up to the bar themselves to get refills on their drinks. I think they need a better system. We tipped the girl $10 just for comedy's sake, and I figured it would make a good ending to the story on this blog. In hindsight, I wasted 10 bucks.

I love watching local news broadcasts in small towns. They have nothing to report. I'm used to the top 10 stories on my news being about murders and assaults and political corruption: you know, the good stuff. Not here though. The top story for small towns is always the weather. It was 80 and sunny the whole weekend, so how is that news? I could see if we were setting heat records or if there was 20 inches of snow or something; that'd be worth reporting. But who the fuck cares about the weather when it's 80 and sunny? Small towns kill me.

One of the neighbors was removing a tree from their yard that had been damaged by a wind storm.

That last one wouldn't have been a highlight if the police hadn't shown up. It's probably still not a highlight, except for the fact they showed up for no reason. I swear you really have to love small towns. The police only showed up because there was nothing else going on. So the officer just stood in the yard and watched as the tree was removed. "Hey Carl, you gonna head on down to the Johnson house this afternoon? I hear they're removing that tree that was damaged last week." - "I'm on it, Sheriff." And yes, all police officers in hypothetical dialogues about police officers are named Carl.

I'm not used to people being nice. Jill's grandpa bought some telephones from Radio Shack a couple weeks ago, but he wasn't happy with them. He wanted to return them and he had the receipt, but he didn't have the boxes that they came in. So Jill and I put them in a bag and drove over to try and bring them back. We were so ready to put up a fight with the Radio Shack people. We figured they'd tell us that without the boxes, there'd be nothing they could do. But we went in there and the guy took them back with no problem at all. He even apologized on behalf of the phones for not working properly. It was odd. As we were walking out of there, I said to Jill, "what was that? Was that customer service?" It's weird seeing things for the first time.

One morning we went out to breakfast and I got two eggs over easy, hash browns, bacon, and a cup of coffee for only $3.50. And it was eggs-cellent (puns worthy of a Full House episode). Gas was only $3.98/gallon. And beers at the bars only cost $2. I love Wisconsin.

I could never live there though. Not because I don't want to, but I'd probably be kicked out for not being able to grow a cheesy mustache. And by "cheesy", I don't mean lame. I mean actual cheese. Every guy who lives in Wisconsin looks like a walrus. Goo goo g'joob. It's a wonderful place to visit though. I can't wait to go back.

Hi, all! I'm back in the frigid Midwest from sunny Arizona. I plan to have a recap of my trip up here soon (at the moment, I'm still digging out from under the mound of work left for me last week), but I wanted to check in and let you all know I'm home.

I will say this though. I had my first experience with a GPS device on the trip. We used it to guide us from our hotel to an old "ghost town" about an hour away. Has anyone else used one of these yet? I really liked it but it did make me wonder...

Why did they used a woman's voice on the GPS to navigate? I assume they did lots of research to figure out that most people prefer a woman's voice but why do you think that is? Why do you think men prefer a woman's giving him directions?

Obviously, the voice isn't meant to imitate my wife. I say this because when we got off course, the voice simply calculated an alternate route and continued giving me directions, as opposed to saying, "I guess you're not going to listen to me" and then giving me the silent treatment for the rest of the trip. Also, I know it wasn't meant to mimic my wife because GPS-girl didn't seem to mind when I went more than 4 MPH over the speed limit.

My next thought was that maybe the voice is supposed to make us feel like our mother is giving us directions. However, I quickly realized this wasn't the case when the voice didn't pray loudly, "Jesus, Mary & St. Joseph!" when we were winding through the mountain roads along cliffs. I also knew it wasn't my mom when passed a road-side stands that sell yard ornaments and I wasn't instructed to "turn right into parking lot".

Nevertheless, I actually grew to like the woman's voice. She was very helpful. We talked a lot during the trip. Her name was Helen and she went to Texas A&M. It turns out that she used to be the voice on the Speak & Spell. She's come a long way.

From kayak.com comes the following vacation idea (h/t Mark):

Mexico City¨ Flights Hotels Cars watch fares
Immigration and border patrol seems to be at the top of every political conversation. At Parque Eco Alberto, you can go on a pretend 'Night Border Crossing Experience.' The parque is owned by the Hnahnu Indians in Hidalgo, about three hours from Mexico City. The $18, four-hour night hike starts with the Mexico National Anthem. Your 'coyote' guide, Pancho, pulls off his black ski mask while actors gather around to scare you senseless along the way. Run from border control agents; dodge hidden actors shooting (blanks) at you, and make your way through barbed-wire fences. Survivors are blindfolded, led across a rickety bridge, and then set free to run across the border to freedom!

Mark's followup line: Are American's really that bored?

Yes. Yes they are.

I'd like to explain my lack of posting the last few days. I had been out of town since Friday and an internet connection where I was would have been hard to come by. Thankfully Greg kept us afloat.

If you're curious about where I was, I was returning back to the scene of the crime. Every year around this time, Jill and I and her family and some friends of ours travel to N. Wisconsin for snowmobiling, ice fishing, and heavy drinking (normally all three of those activities would be related to one another, but with so many alcohol-related snowmobiling accidents recently, that would have been silly. So yes, I was sober. Mostly). The "scene of the crime", as I put it, was a local bar in town where my brother-in-law Tom and I got into a fight back in November. Saturday night we ended up practically closing down a bar with one of the local guys that was involved in that fight with us. So I guess it's now water under the bridge. You have to hand it to these people from Northern Wisconsin. Every single one of them looks like Mike Holmgren (6 feet tall or shorter, 230 lbs, extremely white, red face), they all drink like it's their job, they all add an extra "o" to every word that has an "o" in it like "goo grab me a coold one", they all love to fight (I saw a great one that didn't involve me and let's face it, fights are awesome if you're not involved), and I guess they all like to forget about it by morning. But this town up north has everything I need in a town; lots of lakes, lots of bars, and a casino. It's like Vegas only smaller, uglier, much colder, and there's no celebrities. Okay so it's hardly like Vegas. But for a quick weekend getaway, it's perfect.

Then again, I'm so glad to be home.

I realized that with Brian gone this week, he and I are sort of like a mom and dad. Hear me out on this...

Brian is like the stay at home mom. He is constantly contributing content to the site and always here when you need him. Whereas I tend to pay attention to the exterior of the site... Making sure the links work, updating the interactive poll, things like that... Dad stuff! Like mowing the lawn and taking out the garbage. Occasionally I contribute content but let's face it. Brian does most of the work. And with Brian gone this week, I'm left in charge of the house and the dishes are piling up and I'm wearing a dirty shirt I pulled from the hamper because I'm all out of shirts. But don't worry, kids. Mom will be home soon.

But here's some bloglets while we wait...

I have never seen a man with no arms riding a bike but I bet if there is such a guy, his friends are sick of hearing him say, "Look, Mom! No hands!"

Painkillers are probably the only medicine with the word "killer" in the name. I wonder why that is.

A friend of mine gave me grief for using the word "guff", which I found to be ironic.

I took a correspondence class but I didn't get a very good grade. I totally mailed it in.

I'm guessing that book stores in San Francisco get a disproportionate number people demanding refunds for the Curious George books.

Tonight is The Office season premier. Don't forget! Check this spot tomorrow for discussion of the hour-long episode.

Rest, relaxation and.... No wait. I guess there's just two R's. (Which makes me wonder, why do they call reading, writing and arithmetic the three R's? Only one of them actually starts with R. It's no wonder our public school system is in the shape its in.)

Anyway, I'm off on what we in the business call a hiatus (and by "business" I mean "Hollywood" and by "we" I mean "they"). 12 days of fun in the scorching heat of sunny Florida, USA. I'll bring you all back a snowglobe.

While I'm gone, my college roommate Carl will be housesitting for me. He won't actually be posting here but he will be picking up my mail and making sure the newspapers don't pile up on my driveway. If anyone wants to meet him, it should be easy to tell when he's at my house because he drives a big moving van. (I could really tell you some stories about the road trips and adventures we used to have with that moving van but I'll save that for a future blog entry.) He usually hangs out with two other guys who's names escape me right now, but I think they have skin conditions because whenever I see them, they're wearing ski-masks and gloves. Anyway, while I'm gone, Carl is going to be taking some of my furniture to be reappolstered and he's even taking my big screen TV to be repaired. Isn't he a great guy? He and his friends should have no problem moving them so don't bother asking them if you can help. Believe me, I've tried to volunteer to help them before and they're rather insistant that they can manage. But, if you want to go over and lend moral support, Carl said they'd be at my house "during broad daylight" (which I found to be a rather odd choice of words but that's Carl for you).

I'll see you all when I return.

- Greg

P.S. Is anyone available to drive me to the airport?