Back to the Lab Again

Yesterday after returning from a run I had taken off my shoes to stretch in the grass behind my house. This is pretty standard practice for me, and as it was rather steamy out yesterday, I noted some bees traipsing through the grass. I don't have much to back up this observation, but any time I seem to see bees out in the grass, it is also hot as balls. So, shortly after taking note of how much it would suck to be stung by a bee and moving out of the way of one that seemed particularly smitten with me, I found myself in a bit of a distracted daze until I felt a shitty little pinching in my left arch. As luck would have it, there was a bee, still attached no less, and I had to pluck the little bastard off. Luckily I'm not allergic, so some ice did the trick pretty well, but still, fuck you bee.

Still, I would take a couple more bee stings in exchange for the behemoth blisters I managed to get right behind both big toes, between the end of the toe and the beginning of the sesamoids. The bitch of it is, that this is right where the toe bends, so once you have improperly treated your blisters, they don't exactly feel peachy. I think blister etiquette says something along the lines of wait it out or, if you do drain it, to leave the skin intact. For me, my MO has always been to cut the whole damn thing off with a pair of nail clippers maybe slap on a bandaid, and hope for the best. This has actually worked surprisingly well in the past, but these bastards want none of it. Note my use of bastard once again.

Anyway, in non foot-related news I also baked one of the most attractive and delicious blueberry pies this afternoon. I actually took a picture with my camera because I am that much of a loser, but not so much of a loser that I bothered to upload it and post it here.

Seeing as I am on an accidental "b" theme here, I feel I must mention my most recent Sunday morning. After a long evening of booze and food (read also: wedding) I was feeling decidedly money. The food and booze had seemingly offset one another perfectly, leaving me in that wonderful state of sociable, standable (since this isn't a word: capable of standing), and able to remember the nights events. So it is that I blame a spot of eggplant for my Sunday morning woes. Awake by six AM and feeling poorly in the belly region, I lay there, sleeping intermittently, until eight or so. At that point I knew a number two was coming, and perhaps a bit of a boot as well. Sitting there, essentially having completed my deuce session, I knew I was about to hurl but had not the time to flush the toilet so, seeing as it was a hotel room, yacked in the sink. I blame the eggplant I say because that is pretty much all I saw in the sink. I can't describe the fun as I flushed the toilet, commenced booting anew and then transferred chunks from sink to john. Another sure sign of foul vegetables afoot was that I felt absolutely like a million dollars after the yack. Hell I popped out the door to run five or so miles right after.

Catch you on the flipside...

Redundant

Today at work I was made redundant, as they say in Britain, so I figured I'd post a little send-off from this IP just once more.

And if you haven't seen the The Dark Knight yet, I suggest you get out there and do that.

Start Your Day Off Right

Whenever I listen to a new comedian that I dig, rather than simply having their jokes in my head, I also start to craft my own jokes that rip on their style. A similar thing takes place when I read a book that I like, and I find myself somewhat adopting the author's writing style. I'm not a parasite or anything though, I swear, instead I liken it to Rogue's super power, just less cool and less well executed.

In the last week, my comedian of choice, courtesy of a coworker, has been Demetri Martin. Just prior to this I was on a huge Gaffigan kick (see past posting that I am too lazy to link to), and before that it was all about Sir Digby Chicken Caesar (posted same vid before, but what the Hell...). I'm still loving those, I just spend more time listening to Demetri these days. So, this morning while I stretched after my run, I composed a couple of Demetri-esque jokes I thought I would share. In fact, I'm still thinking I'll share them, as I'm putting them down here right now.

The other day at work a guy asked me how I was feeling. I told him, "Usually with my hands." When he looked at me funny I said, "Well it has to do with nerve endings and synapses..."

The last week at work I signed myself up as a kitchen monitor. So someone asks me "How's the kitchen monitoring going?" I told him, "Well, see for yourself, it's still there."

After writing these down on a piece of notebook paper while I was taking a dump this morning I realized, "Hey, maybe I'm not thinking like these comedians, maybe they think like me." But actually what I mean is that I think I end up liking comedians that tell jokes I would tell only I wouldn't tell them because they are better comedians than me, but if I were a better comedian, those are the kind of jokes I would tell. When I started typing that, it seemed like a revelation (actually more of an epiphany), but really I just said that I have comedic tastes, just like everyone else. Still, no way I am deleting that paragraph.

Anyway, in addition to my low-grade Demetri copycat efforts, I feel compelled to share this video clip as well because it will make you feel retarded. At that point, if you're as hooked on his humor (and in awe of his brainpower) as I am of late, go ahead and check out his website.

The Epicenter of Hip

This past weekend landed me in Williamsburg aka hipster central. As a graduate of Wesleyan University, I was already pretty familiar with the hipster but, whereas in the past such an individual might easily inspire rage in me, the new, softer, version 1.8.7 (not quite at 2.0 yet folks, sorry web entrepreneurs) I was straight up McDonald's.

One of the weekend's events, was an "international" kickball all-star game. I don't know how international it was, but there was definitely at least a team from Toronto. That's the thing, while some hipsters are stealthily tremendous athletes, these Torontons were anything but. Granted it's kickball and there can be speculation about precisely how athletic one needs to be to compete but, again, this was supposed to be all-star weekend. Fittingly the Williamsburg crew stomped their Canadian opponents.

Another thing that stood out in my venturing to Williamsburg was the free concert(s) at McCarren Park. Of course, the free concert isn't just a McCarren Park thing, but it was a very cool space. For instance, a couple of weeks prior I was at a free concert in Prospect Park. McCarren gets the nod for acts I was more interested in and beginning early in the day. Prospect gets the nod for greater ease of smuggling in booze.

The last, and perhaps greatest thing I noted, was the block party being held outside my buddy's apartment. It was just a bunch of hispanic family enjoying tasty looking food, blasting music, and having their kids run through the loosened fire hydrant. If you believe in reincarnation, then I think that I was hispanic in a prior life because I love the idea of having a huge family that hangs out together and on a hot-ass summer day enjoys the things that make you happy: family, food, and tunes.

And on that happy note, tomorrow maybe I can bitch about my favorite thing(s): the train and the generally thoughtless/selfish/jerkface nature I observe in so many of my fellow humans. Happy hump day (SFW)...

Still Love Safin

This Sunday was the epic Wimbledon final between Roger Federer, the Swiss superstar I dislike for no reason, and Rafael Nadal, the youthful genetic beast. It was a pretty tremendous match and I admit I was awfully nervous that last set-plus, wondering if Federer was going to pull it out. R-Fed is amazing, no doubt, and I am going to try to stop hating him, but it's going to be tough. I think it's not just the dominance, but the cool dominance. I just want a little more emotion is all I think. After his victory, Nadal crawled into the stands. Chances Federer does that? I'll go with a number rapidly approaching zero.

I am a Nadal fan, no doubt, but he will be no higher than second fiddle on my list of favorite players as long as Marat Safin stays on the courts. And why? Again, no good reason. Like so many other things in life, I just go with the vibe of the thing, and I love the vibe Safin gives off. He talks about quitting, he drops out of the Top 100, he beats the world's number three ranked player (and only other winner of a Grand Slam final this calendar year), Novak Djokovic aka Dontchawanna Chokdabitch. To be fair to Federer, I don't like Djokovic either, and I vastly prefer Federer. Heck, maybe it was just a couple of minor dents in his armor for me to start liking him.

No matter, it was a great weekend of sport, even if I had to watch Safin go down on a Friday and Alan Webb fail to qualify for the Olympics. I still love you Alan, and I have no doubt you'll pull your shit together and prove all the haters wrong. There will always be haters (see also my feelings towards Federer and, moreso, Djokovic) but I hope Alan knows he's still got bigtime fans. Dude's an absolute beast.

I'm also still riding the high of Spain and my man Fernando Torres winning Eurocup. Considering my native England didn't qualify, Spain was my desired champion, although for the sake of the Dutch, I was hoping they'd put it together a bit more.

We're also at exactly the one month mark to the Beijing Olympics. 8/8/08...some marketer probably rode that one to retirement. I have to say I am pretty stoked as there almost isn't a sport I don't enjoy watching during the Summer Olympics, and with modern technology (which I often bitch about), I could spend the couple of months after the Olympics watching shit I missed. And you've gotta love the Asian touch on the Olympic mascots (which are historically awful). So let's rejoice in the beauty of athletic competition and pray everyone's not on drugs.

iPod Nation

Starting this past Tuesday, and so far straight through today I have joined the iPod Nation. I love music, but for whatever reason I avoided the iPod until I was gifted one this past April. Leading up to this I'd been singing fairly frequently on my walk to work (sort of an advanced mumble-hum really) and I'd been getting some strange looks. So far similar instances while donning my iPod? Nobody bats an eye...

On my walk Monday I noticed an elderly gentleman (probably 60s, not that old in our modern world) struggle to open a door and exit a building while managing to push out his walker at the same time. Unless he had the presence of mind to back up through the door, or the wingspan of Shaq, this was not happening. So I did what I consider the natural thing, and opened the door for him. He smiled, thanked me, and was generally very appreciative. What bothered me was that, after I held the door, tow other people scuttled through, two people that could easily have opened the door before I did, especially as they were going into this building (which I was not). Discourteous bastards.

For a pointless photo, here's Mary-Kate Olsen drunk at a party in high school:


Moving on then, Jim Gaffigan remains my favorite comedian of the moment, so here's a sweet bit of his from Letterman last week.

I also feel compelled to share this effort from Ole-E and Wally J. "Booty on My Youtube." High budget and, more importantly, a serious effort. How many hits will I get if I put your booty on my youtube?

I'm trying not to make this a recycled link post once again, but I'm struggling to find a relevant way to reference this clip of guys putting helium in their jeans. My buddy Dan pointed out yesterday that they disproved this being possible on Mythbusters, but one of those dudes wears a beret. Do you honestly expect me to take you seriously in that hat?

Finally, as it is Olympic Trials week, I present the following article about a former Olympic Gold medalist who has flown under the radar for the past forty years or so.

Have a great long weekend everyone.

Link Parade

I want to apologize in advance for anyone who was hoping to read about sausages in this post. That said, I received a couple of emails recently saying that my update pace has been pretty lackluster so I went and looked at the previous months for some perspective. As it happens, after completing this post I'll have hit five for June, only one under the six I dropped in May. I'd claim writer's block or lack of interesting things to discuss, but as I always like to say, that has never stopped me in the past. Anyway, I've stumbled upon some sites I'd deem "of interest" in the past week or so, so I figured I'd just go ahead and promote/denigrate a few of them.

The first link I present is actually an old one entitled The First Annual Myspace Stupid Haircut Awards. Like real life, much of the basis of the internet is to appear as cool as possible. This generally is done in one of two ways: 1) try really hard to be clever and look good in photos or 2) try really hard to be clever by making fun of the people that do number one. In many ways the internet is just a long-distance and fairly up-to-the-minute giant pissing match. This is pretty hilarious to me in that the internet remains, by and large, anonymous. Am I starting to enter the hypocritical zone? Surely slightly. Snarkiness, which is apparently not a word, but henceforth will be in my lexicon, is the weapon of the tragically hip. The goal is to be as witty as possible and make fun of as many people as possible. Hell, here I am critiquing a site that critiques random people on the internet. Anyway, I like the sweet comparisons to Marvel characters and I have to say, with all of the ridiculous photos of people on there, I find myself wishing I had seen some of those people in real life.


Following that same theme I can't help but mention Hot Chicks with Douchebags. I can't remember what first sent me to this site a while back, but I did find it fairly hilarious. The commentary that forcibly uses the word douche, etc. gets old quick (for me), but it's certainly adopting a style, and they stick to their guns over there. I have the same sentiment about this as I do about the above link: rarely do I see such crazy-ass folks in real life. This tells me two things about myself in a hurry: 1) I am not spending nearly enough time in the hippest clubs and 2) I am getting old because I think things like "what do their parents think?" What I really wonder, though, is what these people do as their day jobs because a lot of time, effort, and money are required for these looks.

Still on this theme. Celebrity rag blogs abound and yes, I find myself reading them from time-to-time, but what is the deal with so much coverage devoted to random strangers who aren't famous? Still some pretty classic photos up on that site. Besides, this is all just a rant about hating my own nature. Sure it's bad that people post lots of stupid shit on the internet (see also: this blog), but far worse is that I spend time reading it.

Moving on, when I first went to Wingchicks I was thinking of some combination of women and buffalo wings. Instead it seems like an excellent escort service business model. Plus, you gotta dig the name.

Then there is Animoto, a site that auto-generates videos from photos and music you submit. As someone who is sometimes in the mood for a slideshow well-synced with choice tunes in the background and, at the same time, too lazy or perhaps just not talented enough to do it himself, this site seems great.

Saving the best for last, and my favorite, by far, is Something Store. I have been telling whoever I can about this one. For $10, they ship you something in the mail. Most of the items they show seem to cost well over ten dollars, so it seems like a great deal. Given the choice between ≤2.5 gallons of gas, and something completely random being mailed to you, I think the choice is obvious. Plus, I think we can all agree it's fun to get shit in the mail. Genius.

Lastly, a quick plug for the The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper I would otherwise ignore were it not for good chum BTB. Where else am I going to get my stories of the Mile High Club and disturbing tales of homeowners shooting strangers. For all of the efforts to make human-powered search engines these days (mahalo and the like), I've got my human-powered search and it's name is Bryan Bissell.