guinness red??

o my poppets, ima skeptical!! why fiddle with perfection?

but sayeth the guinness blog:

Guinness Red uses the exact same ingredients & the same process but cuts short the roasting of the barley slightly - roasting the barley until it is red rather than black. This has 2 main effects:

1) COLOUR: The lighter roasting means that the whole pint is that wonderful rich ruby red colour that you see at the bottom of a pint of Guinness Draught if you hold it up to the light

2) TASTE: The lighter roasted barley knocks back the dominant bitter flavour just enough to allow some of the other flavours that are normally shrouded in a pint of Guinness, to come to the fore. This means that you get a pint with the familiar bitter/roast flavours at the front of the mouth, but with a subtle sweetness towards the finish - creating a pint with a fantastic bitter-sweet balance.

And it still has that traditional 2 part pour, surge and settle, tight creamy head and fantastic velvet smoothness that we know you love about Guinness!

mmm, tight creamy head.
it feels like friday.
it should be friday.

F to the E to the F...

[via email, cos e don't IM.]

yo boy -- I found your gf’s blog here. who else would "e" be? who else would say "Buy this truck and PUNCH MOTHER NATURE IN THE FACE"?

I asked her if she was going to post these on the internet and she never got back to me. Apparently she has disguised us as Frenchie Canadians, so smart, no one ever suspects Canadians, let alone French ones.

Funny. Thanks.

good and can you ride today.

[in the spirit of full disclosure i should say i've been listening to slayer and pantera all day but i did not have mexican for lunch.]

Sorry. I can not ride today.

your loss. it's not everyday you can get serenaded by a meowed version of "Raining Death."

what are you talking about. I heard that this morning on www.anotherrandomblogthatmeows.blogturds.com
but maybe your version is different, please make a recording for me.

out-meowed again. curses!

idiots rule

my evening commute yesterday was marred by clips from juan williams' interview with Our Glorious Leader. needless to say, i ground another mm of enamel off my teeth and tossed for an hour before blessed sleep came. the full transcript and audio is here, but it's this shit that's like waving the red cape in front of me:

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. President, you have talked about Harry Truman and the challenges that President Truman faced during his time here. He wasn't popular toward the end of his presidency, but history ended up judging him very well. Is that your hope now?

PRESIDENT BUSH: [bunch of posturing snipped] ...I think it's very important for people – for a president to make decisions based upon principles. You know, you can be popular, but you may be wrong. And I would rather, when it's all said and done, get back home and look in the mirror and say, I didn't compromise the principles that are etched into my soul in order to be a popular guy. What I want to do is solve problems for the American people and yield the peace that we all want.

guess what, dipshit. you were elected to enact the will of the people, not to act as a fucking philosopher-king. do you get it?? you’re the leader of a democracy, so if the populace and your congress oppose your wish to send more troops to iraq, maybe you should listen to them.

“principles etched into my soul.” give me a fucking break.

you can be UNpopular, AND you can be wrong.

role reversal

JR, MyCo's self-professed manwhore, appeared as a suppliant at my desk this morning.

- F tells me you know all about muscle tears and shit. i need help. i think i tore my trap lifting too hard on saturday.

- did you feel it tear while you were lifting? like did it totally give out?

- no, but it was really sore sunday morning and i couldn't lift this morning either.

- then it's probably just a pull. take a shitload of ibuprofen, stretch it and get a massage if you can. what're you doing lifting so much anyway? you gonna start body building? watch out -- you could end up prolapsing your rectum.

JR winces. for a manwhore he can be really pansy-arsed. he wigged out a bit during the centipede vid, for ex. (note: pansy-arsed ppl shd NOT click. u kno who u r.)

- i gotta get in shape for acapulco. - he and F are reliving their college days doing spring break down there in march. here's another thing i love about F: he's all muslim fast-during-ramadan, pray, clean body, family boy; then he goes utterly may-fly bacchanal, then returns home and grounds his brother cos he failed a calculus exam. and just like JR, he's in heavy lifting mode now too. gots to impress the lizadies - he explains, and just laughs when i tell him he's perfect the way he is.

so hah, you fuckers. for once YOU can grapple with the insecurities and dissatisfaction with body image crap. worry worry worry while i just don't give a flying fuck because i am running again and life is good.

GAD sent out a link to this YouTube vid to MyCo's inner sanctum, subjecting it "JR's last date."
"i would go out with her," i reply-all'd after watching.
his response was immediate. "you are her, finn."

not a flying fuck.
today, at least.

oh, and to the people on the treadmills to either side of me this morning?? -i'm really sorry about the garlic. it seemed like a good idea last night.

friday's dashboard confessional

i don't who jared leto is or why he's famous.

i don't watch 24, or Lost, or Heroes.

i really suck at Gears of War.

i think i have a tapeworm.

i saw paris hilton's twat.

i hate my cats.

i <3 MFBT.

mujahideen

F’s uncle, who underwent 7 hours of open heart surgery last week, has finally stabilized enough to leave ICU for a less-intensive care room, one with a roommate who has the tv volume pegged from sunup ‘til sundown.

an impatient, driven man even on his best days, nazir’s now decided he’s responsible for his healing, not his doctors; and he’s begun to roam the hallways with his IV drip, barking commands and interrogatives at the nurses. yesterday nazir, his drip, and his wife were cruising down the hall when he lost his balance. his wife reached out to steady him but he batted her away. leave me be! – he commanded – let me fall!

this is the man who told F that if he didn’t stop gambling, he’d still be living in his parents’ basement at age 50. “NO LIFE, NO WIFE, NO MONEY, BALD AND AGED and no one to blame but yourself, Assuming you don't kill yourself by then” he wrote to his nephew.

afghans are HARD, man. the soviets didn’t have a fucking prayer in that country.

State of the Union blues

so Our Glorious Leader had some wisdom and hope to dispense last night to the amurkin people. i was not one of them, as i was buried in bed with a stephanie plum novel when OGL took the stand. bitter experience has taught me that bush's tendency to spindle and mutilate the english language, combined with his snarky little giggles jon stewart apes so well, and topped with his astounding general ignorance gets me so exercised that i cannot sleep for hours afterward.

so i sacrificed getting to know the state of our union for some sleep. selfish, i know; but ultimately practical, for when i got up at 4:20 this morning, D was twitching restlessly, and he toddled blearily into the kitchen while i was making my double cappuccino.

- you missed a good speech last night - he noted while swigging orange juice straight from the carton. cad.

- really.

- yup. made me proud to be an american - he wiped his mouth, placed the juice carton in the spice cabinet and shuffled back toward the bedroom.

- you didn't sleep at all did you.

- nope.

i put the orange juice back in the fridge and took off for the Y feeling very pleased with myself.

coachella 07

need an excuse to go west, young man?

jesus & mary chain, LCD soundsystem, the frames, air, damo rice and MF Rage.
what else were you planning to do the last weekend in april??

rudy's consigned me and my posterior tib tendinitis to treadmill running, akin to a death sentence to someone who needs to be outside, away from other people and going someplace. what makes this inane hamstering tolerable is my nano and the Underworld soundtrack. it's got a killer version of bowie's bring me the disco king, the thrash of dillinger escape plan & icarus line, APC's solid heft and the crooning of johnette napolitano's suicide note. there're also some sweet solo instrumental tracks from danny lohner, who's responsible for corralling all this shit together and making it cohere.

there should be more lohner in the world.

UPDATED: here's that "killer version" of bowie's disco king. it's compressed tae fuck, but you get the idea.

a train wreck of an AC/DC cover

celine dion and anastacia on "you shook me all night long."
which will bleed first, your eyes or your ears?



i wonder how much they had to pay the drummer.
it could not have been too much.

observations, and action

1. it's monday
2. monday *morning*.
3. i'm hungover
4. and gloomy.
   
5. i fucking don't feel like working.
6. i've had that bloc party prayer song in my head going on 4 hours.
   

what could possibly help?? how about maxim's top 10 horror movie deaths? no dandying about with shitty dialogue and extraneous plot detail -- it's straight to the tasty stuff. the eye-popping lucio fulci makes the cut (hur), as do tom savini's zombies and julia's resurrection in Hellraiser 2. good times. but no dario argento??

there's a reason "sanguinity" is made up of cheer, and blood. i feel better already. let me outshine the moon.

adam, u can fall in love with me now

memes are gay, but.

You're Pale Fire!
by Vladimir Nabokov

You're really into poetry and the interpretation thereof. Along the road of life, you have had several identity crises which make it very unclear who you are, let alone how to interpret poetry. You probably came from a foreign country, but then again you seem foreign to everyone in ways unrelated to immigration. Most people think you're quite funny, but maybe you're just sick. Talking to you ends up being much like playing a round of the popular board game Clue.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

frosty ride

did i say i missed winter? i must have been fucking high.

yesterday afternoon E and i rode for an hour-forty. lulled by tuesday's shorts-worthy temps, i totally underdressed for yesterday's sub-zero windchill. by the time we were rounding about to come back home, our cheeks were little mounds of numb and we slurred at each other like a couple professional drunks.

- fush it i can't feel my toves anymur. do you fing they're still ver?

- num num norgl numming yee.

- yu soun like paula abnul. hur hur hur.

- hur hur fush yuyu fushing fush.

my ass was hyena-red when i lept into the shower, and my toves were bone-white. afterward i donned 3 wool sweaters and huddled next to the radiator in the guest room. the dog came to investigate the smell of burning wool but didn't bring me any hot chocolate. some "working breed" he turned out to be, mr. sorry excuse for a border collie.

sanitation won, in the BMJ poll to assess the most signif medical advance since 1840. i think that's a load of crap, or i just hang out with the wrong people. if sanitation's so important, why does someone keep shitting on the toilet seat on the 4th floor, and why does it stay like that for days?

7 hours

F's uncle is under the knife. he's down at Johns Hopkins having open-heart surgery.

- can you watch it? - i asked F, the would-be doc. he looked at me like i were mad.

- no, i wouldn't want to. not someone that i care about. besides, the surgery's 7 hours.

7 hours?!? that's longer than some relationships i've had. in fact, there's not a helluva lot i can do for 7 hours straight. even the workday gets broken up by lunch and, since i don't smoke, union-enforced p0rn breaks. i can't even sleep that long, unless some kind of sedative's involved.

what i might be able to do for that seeming eternity is:

• drive, though i'd probably have to pee once or twice
• race (part of) an Ironman. i did a half-ironman in 5 hours, and that was fine, because you're doing 3 different things so time passes quickly
• play Silent Hill 4, or some other decent survival-horror game -- which might not be all that different from performing surgery although i trust the Hopkins surgeons aren't using gatling guns.
  

what could you do for 7 hours?

the difference, is why you drink

bukkake

- how ya doin', loucypher?

- ah, you know, taking it minute by minute.

- one cornhole at a time, eh?

- yeah, the only thing is, everybody wants to gangbang me.

clients. can't live with 'em; can't afford a habit without 'em.

shorts in january

yesterday i rode in SHORTS and a SHORT-SLEEVE JERSEY. last time i looked, it was JANUARY. where is the SNOW and the WINTER. where is the school closings and XC skiing and mornings so cold you sneeze when you venture outside.

is it the GLOBAL WARMINGS?

all american, again

USA Triathlon 2006 rankings are now final, and public.

even though i was injured for half the season and totally sucked at worlds, i still eked out All American honors, in both duathlon AND triathlon, for the second year in a row.

this calls for shots all 'round.
(it prob means i shd get off my lazy ass now too.)

all my heroes are dead

last week scottish cartoonist, writer and all-around unique individdle, Harry Horse (aka Richard Horne), died along with his wife, and their pets, in what looks to be a suicide pact. horne's wife mandy contracted MS when she was 39, and her condition was getting worse and worse. the going theory is that richard helped her leave, then tidied the house afterward.

here's an article in The Scotsman, followed by a readerly debate on the ethics of euthanasia (and pet euthanasia in particular). it's even more passionate than a CO "cats'n'racks" post-up.

peace to harryrichard, mandy and their loved ones.

MFyouknowwhat

in the pool this morning at 5am -- a bit earlier than usual -- and out at 6, much earlier than usual.

- what, done already? - asked my favorite lifeguard (the one with the tongue stud) as i walked past him pulling off my swimcap.

- done. it's friday. time for a beer.

- i am in total agreement.

aaah, the friday before a weekend with abs nothing on the agenda.

hey, how come we didn't have naked parties** when i was at cornell? i'm diggin' on the idea of not having to fret about what to wear to a gig -- you know, where you assemble a dozen different outfits from your outdated closet and then end up staying home with Sliding Doors and a quart of Starbucks Java Chip ice cream cos you have absolutely nothing to wear and you've got too much of a gut to go out in public anyway. (fatmammycat u will just hv to trust me on this 1.)

this is easy dressing, like einstein's. plus, it just might change how you relate to people:

"I found that people who would have been considered heavy with their clothes on actually looked better naked. I’m not sure why. And definitely the gaunt look was a lot less attractive. Visible hip bones looked alarming. It was a nice reality check."

GayArtDirector goes to naked parties, but they're different than Yale's i'm pretty sure. GAD usually don't walk so good the day after his.

have a wonderful weekend, peeps.

**requires login, but it's free registration and it's the NYT, people.

training 'em early

- you know why i love my wife? - loucypher asked me.

i totally know. she let him play "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta" during the entrance to their wedding reception. she bought him High Tension for christmas and watched it with him. she has her own wireless controller for the 360, and she hates squirrels. what's not to love? but i played along.

- why do you love your wife.

- because she's reading this animal book to aidan and when she gets to the cat part, she says "the cat says meow" and then adds "cats. uuuuuuuuugh" and aidan loves it. he laughs and laughs and tries to say "ugh."

right on. i might consider having kids if i knew i could exert such a positive influence.

so we asked jimba, who's been excommunicated to the first floor, if he'd feel like a part of our clique again if he could look at us all on camera whenever he felt lonesome. he needed no time to consider. no, he responded, actually i think i'd feel really creepy.

"creepy" seems to be the adjective of choice in this discussion.