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.

big brother, 2007

apparently we’re considering installing cameras in the office. currently there’s a camera surveying and recording parking lot activity, and, unbeknownst to me, quasar set up another on my desk. this morning he was all cackly-triumphant because he caught the janitor looking through some boxes. he pulled me, loucypher and carv over to witness the felony.

- look! look! i caught him on tape! he’s going through my stuff! – quasar was elated; i was horrified.

- you’re spying on the janitor??

- he’s going through my stuff! he’s supposed to be cleaning, not rifling through boxes.

- you put cameras in our office?

- well, just one for now. it’s J’s idea. he thought it’d be nice to know when people are at their desks, in case you need to talk to someone.

- first of all, J is from CHINA. he eats dog, would drown girl babies and has never met a civil liberty he liked. second, if you need to talk to someone, what about IM?

- not everyone’s always on IM – quasar cut his eyes at me. don’t put ME on the defensive.

- how ‘bout the fucking phone?

- that’s not the point, really. the point is that we’re all spread out now, and the people on the first floor are totally disconnected from the third and fourth. we thought it’d be nice if people in remote places -

- like the first floor

- well, yeah and if we open other offices in philly or new york then people there can feel like they’re still part of the company, you know, cos they’ll be able to see us here. take jimba. his project team gathered on the first floor, and he had to move down there away from us. he’s out of sight, out of earshot.

- so this is about how you miss jimba? – carv broke in. quasar ducked his head bashfully. – then send him a whitman’s sampler for fuck’s sake. this is the stupidest idea i’ve ever heard. a surveillance camera is not gonna make people feel warm & fuzzy. it’s gonna creep them out. i’m creeped out just talking about it.

i finally have a handle on what's been bothering me.
- dude, do you know how many times i’ve gotten naked at my desk?!

i’ve got everyone’s attention now. loucypher’s eyes glitter. he IS part goat; i just know it.
- you get naked? -quasar asks.

- yeah, like if i have to change into client clothes, or when it’s really hot in here in the summer, and there’s no one else around, so what does it matter?

- like naked naked? – quasar wants the exquisite details.

- oh like you’ve never rubbed one out when you’re here all alone at 11 at night. – i’ve overestimated him, however. a corn-fed midwestern boy, he doesn’t even know what i mean, and i rabbit on. – the fact is that even though this is a public place, taking away our personal privacy is wrong and, in this case, without merit. if the janitor – or anybody – were stealing stuff, that’d be one thing, but he’s not. you’re just spying on him, and us, you creepy little man.

- i don’t like it either – carv backed me up.

- me neither – added loucypher - unless we're talking about the Finn Crotch Cam.

we’ll see where this goes. we were talking grass once, too, and now we’ve nice wood floors downstairs…

new year; new look

reverse type was hell on my hangover. is this better??

fuckinA florida. have no fear, underdog is here.

peas in a pod

loucypher sidled up to my desk this morning.

- did you hear? -rashan's, like, AWOL. nobody knows where he is, and we had to send allen to BigStinkyCo in his stead, only allen's not a WebSphere guy, so he had to do the dance. this is the third time rashan's done this.

- what about dauntay? isn't he WebSphere Portal Man?

- he's out too. he went home to Mali for a week. vacay.

- really? i didn't think he got vacation - quasar stuck his big nose in.

- why, quasar? cos he's black??
oh fuck. godDAMit loucypher you are a bad influence.

he is, too. he's singlehandedly responsible for the spoliation of the political correkdness grad school beat into me, as well as my full-bore Ultimate Alliance addiction. we marched through Silent Hill 3 together too, and he got me off the subway when i kept dying on the tracks. he's my id.

my box is now on UPS backup, because everytime Biz Dev prints to the color printer, it overloads the circuits to this side of the building and trips the breaker. installing more outlets, or giving us more juice, would make too much sense; so now everyone just runs off battery until the 50-page SOW's done printing. when i set my UPS up this morning, i pulled the socket guard off its 3-prong plug and planted it on loucypher's desk with the note, "Here is the Butt Plug you asked for."

so now everyone knows.

vote on the greatest medical advance

what, in your opinion, is the greatest medical advance since 1840? was it anesthesia? antibiotics? immunology? the pill?

today the British Medical Journal opened up this poll to anyone, even the unwashed masses like me who know shit about medicine but know their lives would have been a lot different without oral contraceptives, amoxicillin and meth. (just kidding. meth didn't make the poll's short-list, an obvious oversight on the part of the "experts" who identified the 15 finalists.)

read more about the poll here, or go to the BMJ's site, where there's a link to the poll itself at the top of the homepage. voting ends the 18th.

if you do vote, spill your choice in a comment. i'm curious.

melancholy friday

[not mine]

thievery corporation's remix of sarah mclachlan's dirty little secret.

danny lohner's remix of a perfect circle's judith.
fuck your god indeed.

better than camus

jerome murat

where have all the aphorisms gone?

as i lugged my junk up yet another landenberg hill yesterday afternoon, the creaking in my knees vying with my bottom bracket’s, i shifted down a gear and thought haste makes waste, you poncy bird in the bush.

which got me to thinking: when was the last time someone coined a good aphorism that stuck? seems like we as a civilisation blew our wad with benjamin franklin, and since then no one’s come close, either in quantity or quality. is aphorism-ing (not to be confused with jism-ing) a lost art? has the prevalence of texting and chat turned our language so utilitarian and flat that we now lack the wit to pack a complex truth in a half-dozen words? or has everything worthwhile already been packed?

the most recent solid job i can come up with is mcluhan’s the medium is the message, with pigface's the temple walls are made of flesh a distant second.

a ken bruen christmas

still clawing out from under the holidays. went for a ride yesterday, and did i feel those extra pounds? did i fuck. what floats me in the pool does not float me up the hills of southern chester county PA.

one of the unfortunate side effects of getting older is that the holidays lose their magic. you learn santa’s just a construct and it’s all downhill from there. every year you stress a little more about all the shit you have to buy for other people and all the crap you’ll get from them in return. D’s mom gave me earrings. In the 15 years she’s known me, she’s never noticed my ears aren’t pierced. i nodded & smiled, content to let the thing ride, but D had to bust her chops, at which point she did her damnest to try to convince me i was wrong and went into great detail about a pair of earrings she’d seen me wear at some point in the imagined past.

you see? yer holidays demand herculean mental effort and levels of diplomacy not seen since carter's days in Camp David.

then old people you care about grow infirm and delicate, but they manage to hold on by their scrabbly, peeling nails ‘til the holidays; then they go forth and pop off right around Christmas, adding yet another dimension of bleak misery to that time of year. w0rd to the doddering folx: if you think you’re doing us a favor by eking it out to the holidays, you’re not. don’t bother. if you’re doing it because you want one last round of figgy pudding that’s entirely different, and i can dig it.

in sum, dim sum, it was not a Charlie Brown Christmas this year. It wasn’t a Very Special Christmas, nor was it a Bee Gees Christmas. it was more like a Ken Bruen Christmas:

The first two weeks of December I was dry. Gearing up. I knew I’d never get through the whole fiasco sober so I was putting in time for good behaviour. It’s just another delusion that alcoholics practice. These lies are nearly as vital as the alcohol. You hug them close as prayer, and they are twice as heartfelt…

I had a calendar on the wall. The Sacred Heart was on the front, and the days were marked with pithy sayings to uplift your day. I can’t say they much uplifted mine. In red, the 18th stood out like a beacon. It’s my father’s birthday. That was the day I’d drink again. Just knowing the very time when I’d lift a glass got me through so many other impossible hours. I’d planned well. Had four bottles of black Bushmill’s, twenty-four pint cans of Guinness and an ounce of coke. I kid you not, this was just for openers; and for the lock-down days of Christmas, I thought it was a fairly decent plan.

The day came and I lashed in with a vengeance. Managed a week till I got a blackout and ended back in a hospital. They were not pleased to see me and read me a minor riot act. Their hearts weren’t in it, as they knew I’d drink again.

The Magdalen Martyrs

that bruen and his crusty, broken heroes. doesn't it make you feel better.

baby got back

after a month of excess which came to a fearsome head the last week of december (i did not drink that entire bottle of Jameson by myself in 3 nights, did i? the cats must have taken a nip now & then, yes?), i finally slunk back to the pool this morning, after getting ZERO sleep last night because the idea of going back to work was just too terrible to bear; and i kept waking every half-hour. oh the horror.

sure it was nice to get back in the water. but befuddlement arrived during the 300yds of fly kick i usually do after my warm-up. why, i wondered, did i keep rising to the water's surface, rendering that dolphin movement utterly ineffectual?

the sad truth, people, is that i gained 6 pounds in december. my ass is now a Red Cross-certified floatation device, and it's destroyed my butterfly. blasted!!

i hope you all had lovely holidays.

on my wish list

what'd you say your name was?

F pulled me, the mayor and loucypher together yesterday to tell us he's got doubts about meeting a jan 15th deadline. the problem is, he announced, that most of you people are out next week. i heard the emphasis; so did the mayor.

-- what do you mean, us people? - he asked.

-- oh you know. you christians.
the mayor's about as religious as me, which is to say not at all, and he was looking nonplussed.

-- us christians? and you're what, again?

-- muslim.

-- muslim?

-- no, not MUZ-lim. there's no Z.

-- muslim?

-- not MOOSlim. MUSS-lim!!

-- oh. but you don't have an equivalent of christmas?

-- well, we've got Eid, which is at the end of Ramadan.
at this point as godless as i am, i'm feeling very superior because i know all about Ramadan; and it's a rare day when i'm more cultured than the mayor. F continued.

-- and there's a holiday that sort of coincides with christmas. you usually give stuff to kids, like a buck or two.

-- a buck or two?!? no wonder you people are at war with each other! a buck. you know, you could make it a whole lot easier on yourselves if you just gave up and assimilated.

-- like we did when J made us give up our macs! -- i piped up cos i can never resist a cliched argument. everyone ignored me.

-- in high school, my coaches used to call me Foo, cos they couldn't pronounce my arabic name.

-- yeah, you gotta dumb it down for us - loucypher explained. take J. there's no way we can pronounce his name in chinese, so he simplified it for us. jay. simple. and edgar -- you think that's his name in filipino? fuck no. in filipino, edgar's name is... he looked around wildly and grabbed a long network cable the diameter of my thumb, and flung it to the floor where it landed with a smack and shirr of unwinding coils. THAT is edgar's name in filipino and there's no fucking way we can pronounce it, so he's edgar to us.

-- dude, doesn't your name mean "i pimp for satan" in polish? - i wondered out loud.

-- absolutely, but you can call me lou.

in gaelic, my name means "there are no Wiis for you, hortense."

how i spent my weekend when i wasn't running all over gods green earth on a Wii wild goosechase

fri nite: dinner with girlfriend before show. talked about desserts, depression, and boys. saw damien rice at the tower theatre. awesome show. again, Amie/Eskimo Friend the highlite.

sat nite: sushi with crew in philly before show. talked about the mona lisa, blowjobs and boys. saw the killers at the electric factory. good show, but i have been spoilt by Nails' 90-min sets, inspired re-interpretations and thrashing pits. spent the next 4 hours hanging out in gay bars with 5 gay guys, listening to bad karaoke, dancing to jacked techno and ogling unobtainable hotties.

if reverse logic proves true, after this weekend i should be leaking soy milk and shitting edamame.

i need some Gears of War STAT.

(some holiday spirit would be nice too.)

MFHT

fucking awesome. thanks crammit.

you're soy gay

finally, someone figured out what makes people gay. it's soy, according to this article: Soy is Making Kids Gay, for:

Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products.

of course; it all makes sense now.

when i explained this to our gay art director, he was sadly skeptical.

-- if only it were that easy, he lamented, inject a hot, straight guy with soy. insta-gay!
-- oh, you would use the power for your own cracked devices -- i retorted. gay dastardliness knows no bounds.
-- of course. it's in our Agenda handbook.

consider yourselves warned.

more than this one thing

tearing pell-mell after you past Trop tables, slots, in heels,
heads of security guards whipping but no one stopping us
huge weight on my chest, grasping, wringing, a futile mantra
i wish i wish i wish
there are so many wishes here and mine’s the least of the bunch.
you’re out of reach, not my responsibility; and i’m not your answer.

-- i'm not strong enough -- i tell reilly.
-- yes you are.

and if i die be
fore i wake
i could not swear
(or swim) you see.

newsflash: happiness is...

...i'm not exactly sure, but it's not buying stuff, at least according to this article: The Truth about Happiness May Surprise You.

By and large, money buys happiness only for those who lack the basic needs. Once you pass an income of $50,000, more money doesn't buy much more happiness, claims daniel gilbert, a harvard pychologist. 50K is a decent chunk of change, mind you.

Our genes hardwire us to reproduce, but children have a small negative effect on happiness, avers gilbert, who observed that people are about as happy interacting with their kids as they are doing housework. ha ha! another excuse to throw the defective clock out the figurative window. as for the "transcendent moments of joy" he admits kids may bring, well, i can get that from my new office chair. i can fart through the mesh seat without lifting a 'tock and folks, that's pretty fucking transcendent.

now here's some hope: with age comes increased happiness, at least until you reach doddering old age. the least happy men are those aged 18-29; the most happy are 65 and over, especially if you're republican, because they're purportedly happier than dems and independents, which i totally don't get. perhaps the happier lives are those lived selfishly (in the non-pejorative, ayn rand sense of the word).

finally, gilbert explains why a trip to europe brings more happiness than a new car. i dig what he's saying, and i've made my short list for 2007 vacay, but i still want an Acura. is that bad?

but to get granular, this friday morning happiness is:

• a good night's sleep (sponsored by unisom; thank you pfizer!!)
• ass coffee and dark choc M&Ms
• unhurried fly that just clicked

tonight we're going to atlantic city to dress up like russians and drink icyclear liquid from frosty bottles @ red square and F has pledged to help me fritter away $200 playing spanish blackjack and roulette. should i end up another bedraggled dream on the atlantic boardwalk, well friends it was nice to know you and adam i'm sorry about the camera.

have a good weekend, all.

tdy

noli me tangere

remember the hammie??

well, rudy's claimed my calf as his next victim. it crashed like a harddrive baby. while i lay sweating and groaning on rudy's table i considered biting my tongue in half because i thought that might make him stop sooner.

-- it's all soft tissue, deep soleus, some gastroc - rudy said as he prepped an ice bath for me - NOT a stress fracture: there're no hotspots on the tib. but i don't want you running or doing anything high-impact for the next week; there's too much acute pain in there.

i might have pouted a bit here. or it could have been my pained face as i hobbled over to the whirlpool.

-- oh stop it with the hangdog look. this is no big deal. remember your hamstring? you got over that. you runners... vicki does the same exact thing. 'oh woe, doldrums, i'll never run again moan moan moan.'

-- my world's crashing down around me, like.

-- yes, that. it's not that bad. come back in two weeks, one if it gets worse.

MF FattyTime.

benefits of being a multi-sport athlete

this morning terry and i left the Y's shower room at the same time.

-- hi! haven't seen you for a while -she said brightly. were you on vacation?
-- nope. just sleeping in.
-- oh, that's nice. did you come in later?
-- no, just stayed lazy for a couple weeks.
she looked at me blankly.
-- what, don't you ever do that? - i asked.
-- oh no. i'm afraid if i did i'd never come back.

much respect to the terrys of the world, for whom fitness is work and diligence. it is easy to do something you love.

after 2 weeks it was soooo nice to get back in the water. like a little kid on christmas eve i DREAMED about swimming last night and was not disappointed this morning. sure i'm slow and i didn't even attempt fly, but that will come back.

in february.
it's still FattyTime.
and i'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

i hate running...

...or at least i did yesterday. and the day before wasn't so great either.

yesterday afternoon i ran for half an hour, and every minute was interminable and plodding. i felt absolutely awful. there was no rhythm, no fluidity, no unbearable lightness of endorphins. i have new appreciation for people who hate running cos if that were the way i normally felt, i would rather drive sharpened sticks into my kidneys than go for a run after work.

this is why there are playstations and xboxes.
this is why it's okay to sit in your skivvies bathed in blue monitor glow.

send donuts.

luv,
jabba

bfast of champs

last night was Make Yr Own Kahlau chez finn. it's eeeezy. the hardest part is finding the glycerin (which adds thickness & body).

homemade kahlua

1/5 vodka (~26oz)
3 c.sugar
2 c. water
2 oz glycerin
4 1/2 Tb instant coffee
1/2 c. boiling water
1 vanilla bean

mix water & sugar. bring to boil, then simmer 30min.
mix coffee & boiling water.
remove syrup from stove and add coffee, glycerin & vanilla bean.
let cool totally.
add vodka.
seal & let stand 30 days -- or several years -- before using.

the more this stuff ages, the smoother it gets, but it's drinkable right away. and it's the perfect morning bevvie, with serious sugar and coffee. oh, and vodka.

season wrap-up

5am visit to sir rudy this morning. my right calf is the color of a thunderstorm sky sunset. it's all soft tissue, says rudy, the soleus right next to the tibia, and NOT a stress fracture. permission to run, he said cheerfully, permission to train as normal.

rudy's unaware of super secret training shedjule which defines december's training objectives as follows:

• get fat
• get short-winded
• lose a shitload of muscle tone
• finish The Tin Drum
• beat Gears of War
• watch 40-Year Old Virgin (for the 9th time)

last weekend was my last race of the year -- the Delaware Open XC champs. this 5K race starts with a gently-downhill technical mile with rocky twists & turns, followed by a quarter-mile gradual climb, then a quarter-mile bitch-ass climb (the notorious Maintenance Hill), then a shin-jamming downhill, a short steep climb that took out my hamstring last year, then a seemingly interminable false flat leading up to another short climb right before the finish. FUN. really. sooo much better than a flat course.

F found me as i was chowing down a gel before the call-up.

- you’re wearing those? he pointed to my trainers.
- yeah…. what?
- you might as well be wearing timberlands. don’t you have spikes? flats?
- it’s MUDDY out there. plus i’m injured. and uncoordinated.
- lemme see your flats.
- do you WANT to see me covered in mud?
he cocked an eyebrow at me.
- gimmee.
i offered up my sauconys for his inspection.
- they’re fine. go with these.
- you think?
- do it. what’s your strategy?
he’s quizzed me before on this, so I know what to say.
- go hard and vomit at the end.
- that’s all you have? i’m mute; he rolled his eyes. okay. cruise the first mile. it’s fast anyway; you don’t want to go out TOO fast. keep it under control. short steps on the tight corners. keep start working on the gradual climb, punch it up maintenance and then do a full-on effort after the hill. gottit?
- yeah. i have to pee.
- so go.
- the line’s too long.
- go up there and he pointed up the hill where i’ve seen a trickly stream of runners going up and coming down. oh, that's what they're doing. i obeyed and as i trotted i marveled how light my feet feel in flats, compared to my timberlands. maybe F was right, i think.

and when i raced, i concluded he WAS right. i hung back for the first half-mile, letting the elbows fly until butterflies settled down. at the ¾ mark i passed blondie and cecily and cruised through the first mile in 6:35. followed the steeplechaser’s wife to the gradual climb, then passed her midway up it, her spikes grinding slipping over stone, breath more labored. on Maintenance Hill, gained more time on her, and some on the redhead in front of me. two more women ahead of her. hit mile 2 in 13 flat, attacked the steep, hamstring-crippling hill and peeeeeeeeetered out. the last mile was the bataan death march, only with less dysentery. i crossed the line 4th, in 20:40.

the.last.race.of.the.season.

so i’m a rock, and an island, blah blah blah, but i gotta confess: it was SO nice to have someone there -- someone who knows me and how i run, and fret, and whinge; someone who knows the course and how to run it; someone to think about the things i’m forgetting; someone to send you off with a hug & pull you in with another. it was so nice to not do everything myself. just a thought.

i don’t need any help being a lazy bum for the month of december, though. i got that covered.

earworm...

and an abs stellar first verse.

when porn is downright funny

today's twofer tuesday: two (okay, 3; maybe 4) pterodactyl; one chick.
WTF is up with Mr Squawky Beak, who arrives mise en scene midway through??
most def NSFW. you've been warned.

pssssssssssssst. flap your arms some more.

i want you

Fiona Apple covers Elvis Costello

The VH1 Decades Rock Live Elvis Costello tribute. When Costello was asked about the highlights of the show, he responded "...Fiona's incredible job on "I Want You." For me, that was musically the high point of the evening, in terms of how much you can reach within a song and come up with something that was for you."

end of an era

that's it??

so long ian, and thanks for all the fish.

splendor in the grass

teh Good, the Bad, and the Yoda.

what november is

november is....

i'm looking forward to december, when all month i can celebrate national I Fucking Hate the Idea of Fake Grass in My Office. and boys who don't put out. and the pimples that come after waxing. and breaststroke kick. and pantry moth larvae in my granola squares. and some other stuff.

i'm ready to get thankful, bitches.

a pig in a poke

tomorrow my mom turns 60. she pleads for no fussing, no fete-ing, but i'm giving her the lladró i bought for her in barcelona. my mom’s tastes aren’t high-dollar by any stretch, but when she and my dad married, he gave her a lladró: a maiden limned in characteristic fluid pastel sweeps. she looks like my mom. llater, when they were going splitsville, the maiden fell over and her head broke off at the neck. my mom kept her and repaired her, and the maiden and her finely-cracked necklace occupy the mantel.

recently, to commemorate a seminal day in MY life, my mom gave me a lladró of a girl with dog, rampant, licking her face. it’s so perfect that when she gave it to me i bawled a little. (okay, a lot.) she’d had it for years, waiting.

so tomorrow i’m giving her a pig, un cerdito de la suerte, which, the accompanying brochure informs me, embodies “courage and determination, for it only fights to defend its own and knows how to use all its resources to sidestep difficulties.” fits. plus, my mother took a shine to pigs after my grandmother, well-versed in pen & ink ways, went through her pig period.

so, a pig for her birthday tomorrow, and last night, for an early birthday present, an argument about rose. my friend shteve, whose daughter i learned this weekend was a friend of rose’s before the accident, said that rose is hardly responsive. if you give her a present, she’ll just pluck at the wrapping paper; that’s about it. her situation hasn’t changed since last march.

- she’s 18 – i told my mom – and she’s not getting any better. if that were me, i don’t think i’d want to stick around. this is an argument for… whaddya call ‘em… those something wills.

- a living will.

- right. i mean, what’s the point?

- she’s still alive.

- but what constitutes “alive”? mom, she’s not like dr. fellows. there is NOTHING there that i can see. no brain activity, no responsiveness. steve says her state’s almost vegetative.

- so if that happened to someone you love, you wouldn’t take care of them?

my mom’s voice has gotten small and tight. we’re now talking about something completely different, and i am regretting those 2 glasses of shiraz. then again, would this conversation be any better completely sober?

- …. no, i’m not talking about caretaking. i’m talking about what i would want if i were in rose’s situation.

- well, how would we know what you wanted if you were rose?

- that.is.why.i.am.talking.about.living.wills.

jesus christ this should not be so difficult. we fucking stopped the machines on pete because we knew living in a wheelchair, in an unresponsive body, would be too cruel, against his wishes. we didn’t NEED a living will to understand this.

- but finn you don’t KNOW. you don’t know how rose’s family feels.

something is up,and it’s time to back down, to keep pete resting where he is.

- no, i don’t, no. and yeah maybe she’ll come back.

i’m unconvinced and my mom’s hackles are raised. i walked into the minefield of someone who’s taking care of a parent with alzheimers. i should have known better.

that lucky pig better work.

warming up with the gods

you can't be a runner in this town without hearing of vicki huber. after dominating at villanova and competing in 2 Olympics (in the 1500 and 3000m), vicki returned to her hometown and married the guy who holds her ITB and plantar fasciitis at bay, that miracle of miraculosity, sir andrew of rudawski, AKA rudy. officially, vicki's retired now, but she does show at the occasional race so that we mortals, as FMC so eloquently encapsulated, can fart along in her beautiful etheral wake though it be not quite as ethereal as the steeplechaser's but perhaps as a woman i'm slightly biased.

vicki's a friend & ex-roommate of my massage therapist denise, who's a gifted runner herself and one of the kindest, most grounded people i've met. by extension i'd grafted those qualities onto vicki, whom i hardly know.

2 weeks ago vicki, ML and i were warming up before the winterthur 5K. vicki had some trepidation about the footing, which was a little hillocky in places, but whatdya expect from XC?? -however vicki's had some bad experiences with precarious footing, and she told me and ML about spraining her ankle running in the dark the night before junior nationals.

-- so the next morning, i had my ankle taped and i went to the start line and my coach was FURIOUS.

-- furious? why?

-- because he thought that in my competitors' eyes it was a sign of weakness.

i considered this for a second. there was some merit.

-- well, could you have worn tall socks or something?

vicki fixed me with a steely gaze.

-- please. i didn't want to look like a DORK.

no indeed.

dorkus malorkus wishing you a fine frivolous weekend. bottoms up.

[how'd the story end? vicki bonked 200m before the line and got passed by half a dozen girls who may or may not have had questionable fashion sense.]

the mortals, and the gods

last night’s hard hills workout was the last of the year. 9 days & counting ‘til my last race of the season, it really doesn’t make any sense to do anything but taper & sharpen. and maybe race a 5K this weekend.

2 weekends ago i raced for the first time since worlds back in july (not counting my delightfully disastrous first swim meet in october); and this past weekend i raced a 4-miler, the 2nd annual Race for Rose. a friend of a friend organises this fundraising event to defray some medical expenses for rose, a local high school student who last march was in a car accident that killed two other students and left rose with permanent brain damage.

rose showed for the post-race gathering and awards ceremony – rather, rose was brought in by two classmates who maneuver her wheelchair with nonchalant, practised ease. well-wishers showered balloons and flowers upon her; a woman with a french bulldog coaxed the dog to stand on its hind legs and rest its chin on rose’s knee. FMC, you might have squeeed with delite.

while this activity roiled around her, rose’s head lolled, her cocked wrist trembled and she scratched desultorily at her chair’s armrest. from my POV, on the fringes and admittedly unfamiliar with rose’s signs & signifiers, i didn’t see many conventional signs of awareness. i’m sure rose’s family would argue that her life is meaningful and rewarding, just different; but if i were in the same position, with no control over my body, few outward indications of sentience and an inability to communicate effectively, i’m pretty sure i’d be begging for somebody’s mercy just like that chick in Million Dollar Baby. rose is a teenager, not an 80-year-old stroke victim who can run movies of her solid past life in her head ‘til someone finally turns off the lights.

my take, anyway. the mileage always varies.

anyway, though my time wasn’t anything to write home about, i ended up first female, bested only by two UD XC guys and the steeplechaser mike diG, who’s peaking for the Rothman 8K in philly this weekend and was running a light tempo at 6:15min mile pace. i started at 6:30 and caught him at the 2nd mile. he looked like he was out for an easy jog, whereas i metered in a gasping breath after every 3 words, like george-bush speak:

dude you know – it would be – really nice if – at least you – were a little – bit out of – - - breath.

there was a response from him, and more words after that, but in my oxygen-deprived state they didn’t register very effectively and i didn’t put up a fight when he motored ahead on the last hill.

the steeplechaser – called so because he went to the last Olympic trials in that event but didn’t make the cut because he’s a bit of a head-case – is one of those creatures who looks perfectly human jogging (7min mile pace to him) but who, once put into overdrive -- that notch in the clutch that most of us don’t have -- settles into a fluid, light grace that drops your jaw and holds you spellbound. not bad for a cracker.

at the wintherthur 5K XC race, my return to racing 2 weekends ago, DiG ran a 15:07 – on an undulating course of hillocky grass. that’s a 4:53 mile pace. MF NotWorthy.

for adam, who will clamor for pix (by Bud Keegan):

• the steeplechaser, AKA mike diG (men’s winner)
• rudy’s wife vicki (1st F)
• finn (2nd F)

it is so good to be back, my friends.

a little help

THE GOOD

[13:54] [F]: u runnin hills today?
[13:54] [finn]: that was the plan neway.
[13:54] [finn]: am feelg rather wimpy.
[13:54] [finn]: not v warriorlike.
[13:54] [finn]: i need my warrior.
[13:54] [F]: u need to fast
[13:55] [finn]: U need to fast.
[13:55] [finn]: that's when you started to go downhill, when u stopt fasting.
[13:55] [F]: lol.....i know:-(
[13:55] [F]: that was my mojo
[13:56] [finn]: meb u need a substitute mojo.
[13:56] [finn]: like tons of candy corn.
[13:57] [F]: what i need is a miracle....
[13:58] [F]: i wish i was a prophet
[13:58] [finn]: rudy is a miracle.
[13:59] [F]: yeah i'm waiting for God to send me a sign like he did for jesus and muhammad
[13:59] [finn]: you want me to burn a bush for you?
[13:59] [F]: and then i can heal myself
[13:59] [finn]: well, rumsfeld resigned. that's a miracle.
[14:01] [finn]: and we did some ass kickin' yesterday.
[14:01] [finn]: u know, it would REALLY be nice to be proud of my country again.
[14:01] [finn]: inst of making excuses for our asshat leaders.
[14:16] [F]: yeah i'm so excited
[14:16] [F]: it makes up for my depression that i went through 2 years ago
[14:17] [finn]: me too!!
[14:17] [finn]: when i was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR, it was almost like a dream.
[14:18] [finn]: you know what i WISH were a dream?? that i didn't just go through that whole AAA meeting with my zipper down.
[14:18] [finn]: classy.
[14:18] [F]: yeah it's awesome to kick some butt
[14:18] [F]: LOL
[14:18] [F]: well good thing that wasn't me cuz i'm riding commando

(esplodes)

elekshun dei

thanks to The Chief Source.

teh good

after a most shiteous week, this is all i've got.

The Good:

• jeff schwaner

a prayer for all the you(andi)s
and if i die be
fore i wake
i tried to swim
(you know) i swear
            -- js

SCY @ GMU

learnings from my first swim meet, this past weekend:

• always circle-swim in the warm-up lanes. otherwise, you run the risk of head-on collisions with cranky competitors who assume you've been doing this for years and just have shit-for-brains.
• no matter now many times your coach has watched your individual medley in practise, you still might get disqualified in competition. twice.
• freestyle is the only stroke where you're allowed to travel backwards to touch the wall if you missed it. because, if you completely swish the wall on a flipturn, you're disqualified.
• after getting deeked and subsequently scolded by the head ref (twice), the possibility of walking into the men's locker-room (in error) is very high.
• even when performed by skilled, fast swimmers, breast-stroke is still a ridiculous endeavor whose only use, as i see it, is to make you appreciate freestyle even more.
• butterflyers are hawt. breast-strokers tend to be stringy. i imagine they taste like squirrel.
• it is possible to finish almost dead-last (or get disqualified) in every single event you swim and still have a blast.

you crack me up, said alicia my neglectful coach. everytime i looked at you, you were trotting around the deck with a huge grin on your face.