It's true.

Baltimore smells like old butt and dead vermin.

But I digress.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I had the pleasure of watching the Baltimore Dirty Birds get trounced by the New York Yankees. Fortunately, I am a recently converted Yankees fan so the experience was pleasing.

The last time I went to a game a few months ago, I had no idea what was going on. There were people on a field. A round white dot got smacked around by a dude with a stick. Seemed like a lot of hooey to me.

Now, I'm a baseball fan and can pretend to know what's going on well enough to handle myself in smack talking. There's a magic banter that baseball people seem to like. I'm pretty good at smack talk whether I know what I'm talking about though... here's an example:

Monty several months ago

Baltimoron: Hey your Yankees suck!
Monty: Your father molests poodles.

Monty this weekend

Baltimoron: Yankees fans are the most ignorant people in baseball!
Monty: Isn't your team in last place?

Anyway.

So now I'm all into the game... but I'm extremely pleased that football season is a mere week and half away. Pinstripes and snazzy caps are all well and good, but it's time to don the burgundy and gold.

In getting in and out of Zeus' Butthole (a charming, jaundice-inducing section Blahtimore) I had a fair amount of time to read annoying people's bumper stickers. I've decided I'm going to create my own and sell them. My first bumper sticker will simply say: "My Stupid Opinion". I'm also working on a better version of the Jesus of the Trunk fish that I see all the time. Mine would have the little jesus fish, but sneaking up behind it, preparing to swallow it would be a big shark with the word "truth" inside it.

The moral of the story (there was a story?) is... Baltimore is still gross, bumper stickers are stupid- so own that, there's always a bigger fish, and truth trumps the trunk trinkets.

I realized it sure has been some time since I took a vacation. I mean like more than a couple of days here or there.

My normal vacation time period for the year has come and gone. I used to take an annual trip to the beach and that was always a nice time. Just a week of decompression. Last one of those I think was three years ago.

I've used up all my leave at the credit union doing knee surgeries. I changed jobs this year and don't have the leave time accrued. In theory, I have more leave time ability with the new job, but I've got a major roll out coming in about 5 weeks and so taking a week is pretty verbotten. Although... my boss just took a week off... so that doesn't sit well with me.

Anyway... I get 3 accrued weeks of vacation a year and I have (already) 5 personal use or lose days to use by the end of the year. And I've got sick leave too.

So... in theory... I'll have options for a vacation in the late fall.

Maybe I'll take a week in the islands or something. I just get the urge snooze on a beach somewhere with a frilly rum beverage.

This has been kind of a bleh post... I'll get back into posting again and hopefully it'll be more up-beat.

Happy 21st birthday Sir Charlie. Congratz on learning about whisky "neat" and enduring the prairy fire.

I'm sitting at my vendor booth.

I'm very tired.

I met the governors of Maryland and Iowa last night. They did not find my impression of Shemp from the Three Stooges half as funny as the busboy.

I've been MIA for a bit because I've been working so hard on getting this new web site ready for launch. It's being announced tomorrow by our CEO at this convention.

Interestingly... I took a train here. Which reminded me that in the movie Trading Places, Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd took a train to New York from Philadelphia. I just walked past a couple of places that looked familiar from the movie. Al Franken played a baggage handler in the movie. I will have the opportunity to meet Al Franken on Sunday. This conference is a pretty big deal in the political world apparently. We've got about 17 people running for a federal office speaking, Sen John Edwards is speaking, Al Frankin is speaking, Arlen Spectre is speaking, Gov Rendell is speaking... Obama is speaking via a video tape. Nancy Pelosi is speaking via video tape (ew). Sorry. She bugs me.

Oh. And I'm speaking.

How did I go from bored web guy to speaking to the same audience as Al Frankin and John Edwards? I was our acting director last week.

At least I got a hair cut.

Also, the train station in Philly is the same one used in the Fisher King... I love that movie.

I made the mistake of wearing a Yankees jersey here. I've been yelled at twice.

The train was fun.

I'm sleepy.

More to follow. I ate a free donut and bottled water. I'm living the dream!

Driving in Washington, I've seen many strange things. Usually they're either governmenty or idiot related. Today was strange and somehow fit neither category.

So I'm driving down Constitution Avenue and am sitting at a stoplight and see a lot of flashing lights coming my way. I don't think much of it. Motorcades are common in DC. Except this one is going very slowly. Lights and slow. Very strange.

So as it's coming towards me I see that the police are escorting a white van with what looks like a large black ball behind it. It's about 15-20 feet in diameter. What the hell is it though? I thought maybe it was nuclear waste or something.

No... it was Eddie Murphy's head. It was a giant sculpture of Eddie Murphy's head on the back of a flatbed truck. I was too floored to take a picture with my camera phone. There it was... big Eddie Murphy head driving down the street.

It was a very good likeness too.

I have no idea what the point of it was. Maybe there's a new monument to formerly funny comedians who have flushed their talent down the toilet in order to make films they can watch with their children.

In the morning, I was multitasking and doing a conference call during the commute. The time that I go into work puts me on the road after rush hour, but can require that I work while I drive. It works pretty well since my commute is only 50 minutes vs close to 2 hours if I had to go in like regular jerks. Anyway...

I was driving along and I saw an odd looking convertible on the road ahead of me. It was not a standard body shape of an normal car and it was goofy baby blue color. I got a little closer and noticed the Alpha Romeo logo. I am constantly, but no longer surprised by people who purchase insanely expensive cars in horrible colors. A baby blue sports cars is just silly. The baby blue book value on this thing was $100-$200k depending on the year. I'm going to guess, though, that all of the "Obama 4 Prez!" bumperstickers lowered the value somewhat.

Nothing says "brilliant" better than $10 worth of bumperstickers dropping $50k off of the value or your over-priced, ugly car.

On the way home, I saw another bit of highway madness.

It looked to be a 1988 Dodge Caravan that someone had invested about $700 in "tricking it out".

It was also blue... baby blue. But at some point it was full grown, adult blue... but 20 years of sun fading had changed the color. Gross.

So, dudeman the driver... had his caravan lowered, had some of those little mini-tires like from a go-cart, and put on some spinners. Well... spinners on a couple of the wheels. There was also the preverbial spoiler on the back... mounted to the tailgate... no where near the airflow.

I usually see this sort of low-rent crap car customization on old Honda CRXs or Datsun 210s. Now I know what these wonderful people do when they get married and have kids and need to get their future little gangsters to school.

You heard it here first.

I know nothing about fashion.

I don't.

I do know this.

If you can't walk in high heels, don't wear high heels.

There is no benefit provided by faux height or calve definition that isn't obliterated by the teetering and tootering of wobbly woobly ankles.

I was at the mall this weekend... miserable for that very reason. I saw a gal walk by and said to myself, "Self! She looks interestingly tall and perhaps her legs look leaner or something. It's a shame she appears to be suffering from Parkinsons Disease when she walks."

This lady need a spotter.

She was so unskilled at the tall shoe that she really looked like she was about to eat it at any second. She was trying hard to make it work. Face forward, arms down... ankles bending hither and yon. Trying to act like she was doing it on purpose. All the LA models look like they're having a seizure.

Don't fall for the hype. Don't fall off your shoes.

He's now driving a Bobcat. I'm hoping this afternoon lives up to my expectation regarding potential hilarity.

That's not to be confused with potential Hillary. She's less entertaining and more likely to be generally mean.

I mean... sleeeeeeeee-peeeeeee!

Sunday into Monday I got 2 whole hours of sleep. And Monday was a long day at work.
Monday into Tuesday I did a bit better with a pair of 30 minute naps, a 90 minute nap, and 4 hours of real sleep.

Waking up at 6:30am is hard. Whoever invented early wake up should be shot.

So at my new job... I'm grinding my knee pretty hard. The metro stops I take and the train basically require me to go up and then down 4 flights of stairs each way. Stairs are the hardest part of my recovery. Especially down. By the time I'm on the train, my knee is throbbing and weak.

Did I also mention that I'm sleepy?

I work in Chinatown now. I'm the only white guy for blocks. I want to go try some of the food around here, but it scares me. Mainly because there are no easy to know words on the menu like General Tso's Chicken or Sweet and Sour Pork. No... all I see is this #&*()^ next to duck hanging in a window. I don't want to eat a duck. Especially window duck.

There are three Irish pubs in Chinatown that I know of. That seems wrong to me. I feel there should be opium dens instead. That's just me though.

Did I mention that I'm tired?

I was clueless to the mechanics of baseball, but fortunately was clued in as the game went on.

I noted that baseball is a much more civil game than football as far as the fans go. I commented som time ago ago about how rowdy NFL fans got... especially in the potty room.

Not so much angst going on in the MLB. No one wanted to beat up Yankees fans in the toilet. How nice.

There was a Baltimore fan who was shouting "I95! I95! I95!"

At first I thought it was some crazy version of bingo.

No... was thrilled about interstate 95. Why wasn't obvious. After thinking, I figured that because I95 was the route that you'd take from Baltimore to New York, he wanted the Yankee fans to go home that route. I guess. He may have just really liked that stretch of highway.

In case anyone wonders... Baltimore still smells like butt.

People who read this thing daily have noticed that over the past few weeks I have been silent. People who know me know that that is not in my nature. Before I go my big rant about white trash, I'd like to throw out the following nuggets for your mental digestion:

1-My knee is within 5 degrees of getting full range of motion back. That's amazing. My leg is still weak as hell, but that comes with time and exercise. My surgeon has pulled the plug on my physical therapy and recommends going to pool & gym. I said ok.

2-I start a new job next week. I quit my current one because I was equal parts bored, bitter, confused, and perplexed. My new job has several big things going for it: 20% more money, my own office, flexible hours, good location within DC, it's not a bunch of nazis running it, the job speaks to what I do best. The downside is that I'm going to double (at least) my commute. But... they're flexible on time I need to be there (I was told "be in no later than 11am"). They're of the mindset that if things are getting done, they don't care where you sit. Although it'll be nice to actually have my own fancy new office.

So those are the big things.

White trash.

Why does the collective white trash (and often their international cousins "las basura blanca") think that adding a spoiler to their beater of a car make it look awesome?

Yesterday, en route to Dr. Bendisnap, I was at a stoplight where to my left a gentleman attired in a sweat brown shirt and NASCAR hat was driving and 1985 Ford F-150 or sumsuch thing. The truck was clearly used in a capacity involving driving in the mud and grime. On the rear of his beast, he had affixed a brand new spoiler. It ran up on two fins astride the tailgate and connected horizontally across the top. If ever there were a visual image of lipstick on a pig... aside from actually putting lipstick on a pig... this were it.

"That's the most retarded thing I've ever seen" I thought to myself.

I looked to the other side on my and saw a gentleman who I shall call Fernando who was driving a 1924 Nissan Stanza. Fernando was from El Salvador and loved his Jesus. I determined this by the flag hanging from his rear view mirror and one of the barely decipherable stickers on his primer colored trunk. I didn't know if he loved Jesus of bible lore or perhaps he loved Jesus (Hey Zeus) his neighbor. Maybe there were the same I dunno.

Fernando had also recently affixed a shiny new metallic silver spoiler to the rear of his duct taped together car.

Wow

Do people really think they're fooling anyone with that?

I guess I've never understood the idea of putting a fancy, cosmetic but functionally useless piece of something to a car that looks like crap.

Speaking of cars... I need a name, l-tag for my audi. My SUV (silver) is the Panzer (Z PANZER). The audi is a fast two-seat convertible and I want something that represents that.

Suggestions?

I had the rare honor of seeing two back to back live Eddie Izzard shows this week. The shows were amazingly funny in and of themselves, but it was like watching a mad genius to compare the two.

Izzard had, in his mind, a 12 point bulleted list of things to talk about (despite opening his first show declaring "tonight I'm going to talk about everything") and turned 20 minutes of prepared material into over an hour and a half of talking. 40% of the shows were completely and totally different. One discussed the merits rats. Another pondered the German training of geese to develop an awesome marching technique.

It was all part of a great birthday treat. Many thanks to all who participated in both nights of fun. Big thanks to Phil for dinner for everyone Friday.

Good good times.

Thanks again everyone. Best two nights of brief sleep that I can remember.

That's the magic number so far.

That's how far I can bend my leg at the knee. It's been a tough, tough effort to get that far. Weeks of physical therapy. Ouchie.

I hit a plateau about 10 days ago. Just couldn't bend it anymore.

One acupuncture appointment later... I get a 12 degree growth in my range of motion.

Prior to participating in acupuncture... I though it was a bunch of crap. Mind of matter sort of bull crap.

But it works.

For me it has aided with healing and recovery, helped with colds, even getting through the fun of opiate abandonment.

It works.

I'm sorta understanding the concepts behind it... but really... it doesn't matter. The person who stabs me with needles understands it and makes it work for me, so... that's good enough.

Acupuncture people don't find Pinhead from Hellraiser as awesome as I do though.

And if a Texan and a Frenchie had a baby... I would be mad that the plethora of birth control choices out there had failed society as a whole. Good god think of the horror. A swarthy, smelly thing with a big hat, boots, belt that was equal parts ignorance, arrogance, and dirt.

Bon jour, ever'body!