A while back I regaled you poor, wayward souls with my disease. This "being nostalgic for a time you didn't live in" thing I have.

I'm not exactly certain just how serious that was taken and, to be honest, it really doesn't have to be. But you should know, since you're obviously going to be spending a lot of time with me from here on out, that it goes deeper than just photographs.

In my original note I talked about what an old photograph does to me sometimes. That it sucks me into the margins and I lose a certain connection to the present surroundings. Where I can "almost hear" the background noise in the picture. Feel the sunlight and temperature of an ancient day. You know... the usual stuff like that there.

But what you didn't know is that this is really only the beginning of it. It goes much deeper than that.

When I say I can hear the sounds... I'm actually not kidding. But like a drug that has less and less effect on you over time, I have been led down a path to seek out a more vivid connection, you see. And I have found it.

I can hear it now... in real time and in a real place. And so can you. For example if you follow this link you will be able to hear the world's earliest playable sound recording. Voices from 1878. Think of it. Not a recording from the 20th century, that would be too easy. But a recording from the 19th century. Voices from a time before anyone currently living was even alive. Right there on your computer. In just a few short seconds.

I even have a place where I go to gather up these shards of the past and put them all in one place. No, I don't get a kick back on these things, I am actually just an evil person who won't be happy unless he captures others into his weird little world.

And you thought it was just a harmless blog entry on a passing day.

Bwa haha...

That is to say... how many movies should there be in the Required Viewing list? You know the type of list I mean. People used to sit around and make lists like "1000 things to do before you die" and such.

Except that something like "25 Movies You Must See Before You Die" seems too drastic and doesn't actually make the point. There should be, though, a list of movies that everyone should see. Together they create a lexicon of film. Reference points.

However many the list includes the first one on my list is, and will always remain, Casablanca.

In making this call I have already come up against resistance from some quarters... "too prosaic," say some. "Too expected" say others.

But the point is not just in the visual or the actors involved. Beneath our level of consciousness, it seems, this was all about the language, kid. The language and the way things were spoken.

Captain Renault wants to know what Rick, an American, is doing in Casablanca anyway.
"I came here for the waters."
"Waters. What waters? We're in the desert."
"I was misinformed."

Ilsa wanted to know if Rick remembered their last day in Paris.
"Not an easy day to forget. I remember every detail. The Germans wore gray, you wore blue."

"Captain Renault, another visa problem has come up."
"Send her in."
And when the "visa problem" goes to Rick for help, wondering about Renault's character she asks "What kind of a man is Captain Renault?"
"Oh just like any other man, only more so."

Someone else says, "It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca. And the Germans have outlawed miracles."

It isn't "play it again, Sam" - from Ilsa it's "play it once, Sam, for old time's sake." And from Rick it is just "play it. If she can take it so can I."

Of course there's always "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she walks into mine."

"Major Strausser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects."

"Here's looking at you kid." (Said 4 times throughout the movie, btw)

But "...the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this world."

And "Louie... I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

I think Casablanca easily belongs on this list. If only for all the verbiage that it generated into the language back then that is still in use today. And if you disagree, that doesn't matter... we'll always have Paris.

Be careful what you sound like. Are you a relic of a bygone age? Or are you just becoming one?

Everyone eventually does, you know; become a relic of a bygone age, that is.

The other day I caught myself answering a question ("who are some of your favorite bands?") with the names Procol Harum and Jethro Tull.

As I sat there all smug and impressed with my good taste I was reminded what I was pining away for - "That's 35 years ago dude! Wake up!"

I'm not the kind of person to go quickly into anger-mode but I couldn't help feel a little ticked at the response. Those were bands I followed as a kid - of course I knew about the stuff happening now (This guy qualifies as one of my "guilty pleasures"). So WTF?

But, you know, if you think about it... put yourself back in 1971 where Tull and Procol Harum are at the zenith of their careers and take a look at what a similar situation would come up with.

Here's me, in 1971, asking someone in their 50's "who are some of your favorite bands?" And the guy sighs and says... "Well there were the Big Bands, but Bing Crosby was always one of my favorites." To which a young RW says "That's 35 years ago man! Wake up!"

But check out the algebra. What this means, as of 2006, is...

+

=

If what I am saying still isn't clear to you, imagine you of late 70's fame answering the kid who questioned me with your typical "Oh just kill me you little squirt, there was nothing after punk." That - being 27 years ago - would be the same as you asking someone back then and them saying "Ahm with the King, baby."

Which means, applying the same math as above...

=

To him, you just sound like what an Elvis fan sounded like to you.

But there is security in this... someday today's best will be tomorrow's relic, and the people who are so cool now - eventually start to shrivel up and die just like all those Bing Crosby fans!

...a million generations
removed from expectations
of being who you really want to be.

Face it, some people just cannot be reached. It is like - you can try to be friendly to them and they just operate in their own universe regardless. You try to show them you understand - they ignore you. You try and see where you can agree with them - they look for clues about how you really don't like them in some deep corner of your heart. You can invite them over, but you can't make them come in. Sometimes befriending people who just don't want to be befriended is a big headachy mess.

The price of gas is something like that. Everybody complains about it, has their reasons for it, views the culprits in clear definition. The Arabs. The Oil Companies. Republican greed. Democrat taxes. Bluh BLAH bluh BLAH bluh BLAH. But the fact is we Americans deserve to pay a high dollar for gas because we piss it away at every opportunity anyhow.

Look at how people drive... and for this I am including myself as well. They burst out into traffic foot and gas pedal to the floor - when waiting just a few seconds longer would allow them to move out in front of nobody in a gas-wasting hurry. Not to mention the eternal Race to the Red Light! (I have to be in front... no Me... No ME!)

We hold as gospel the LIE that we get better fuel efficiency over 55 MPH. This couldn't be more false, and engineers have known it for decades...

"Fuel economy, however, can decrease as speeds go up. A rule of thumb, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is that for every one mile per hour that you drive above 55 m.p.h., a vehicle loses about one percent in fuel economy. A passenger car that averages 30 miles per gallon at 55 m.p.h. could typically get 28.5 m.p.g. at 60 m.p.h., 27 m.p.g. at 65 m.p.h., and 25.5 m.p.g. at 70 m.p.h. Remember, however, that for different levels of speeds, the change in fuel economy will probably be different for different models and ages of vehicles."

We drive like drunken fools in this country. All of us. We fall into the old macho speed trap. Even women. And if anybody thinks anyone is actually going to do anything about this, they're truly naive.

Nothing is going to stop people from wasting gas moving up a spot, racing ahead, pulling out in a frenzy, passing over the solid line, jumping out to an early lead from the red light, or holding people who drive cautiously in a kind of schoolyard contempt. Except when they get killed for driving like lunatic morons.

If they don't kill somebody else, and drive us all into the poor house in the meantime, first.

I have to buy the top grade Premium for my MINI and it is damned expensive! But so long as we waste this resource, as a whole, we all deserve to have our dollars ripped out of our hands.

I doubt we Americans will EVER change this part of our behavior.

Alright this is the last straw. I am sick and tired of being left out to hang, dry, by my gonads, every time I do one of these stupid damn memes. I see that both Sereena and Jolie have advised me to take other tests, but this has become personal with me now.

According to these meme-makers they think I belong in Minsk living like a hermit with a flour sack on my head.

Well I'm sorry.

I have a reputation to uphold! I am a big important person in the world, and I'll be damned if I let these little psychological assassins chip away at my granite-hard reputation and stellar bon vivant... ness.

So I am going to drink a lot of Corona and do this one here called "How Do People See You?" because I KNOW the world views me as a wonderful person who knows how to dress and eats in all the fancy places... and is therefore better than most people you see on a daily basis.

So I am going to answer the questions, copy, paste, and let it fly.

I'll show these stupid quizmasters, and the world, how vital and important I am in the greater scheme of things!

HA-HA!

Asinine and Ridiculous

Your friends, the two or three you have left, see you as sometimes painful to be around. They see you as out-of-touch, extremely vacuous, and an ignorant and narrow-minded buffoon. It'd really surprise them if you ever did something original or not peppered with phony burps and air-swallow belches, or fart sounds made by blowing hard with your lips against the back of your forearm. They expect you to say the dumbest thing, ask the most embarrassing question, and make a total goof out of yourself before you look at everybody and innocently ask... "Wha?"

WHA???

Labels: Blogthings, flaps and shit, memes

Just got back in from the East Coast & Prego has a thyng about pyjamas.

But white shoes are officially "OK" after Labor Day now, so no worries.

White shoes... pyjamas... Labor Day...

I need a vacation...

Ok I am gone shopping for a few days. Off to the Northeast where I shall talk to carpenters, dine on chowdah and lubstuh, and be back to Sweet Home Chicago Thursday night. Salesmen drive the economy! Huzzah!

In the meantime, a bit of distraction for you all in the form something called David and Miles.

I'm not sure what to think. Do you?

These memes are just really starting to piss me off...

How You Live Your Life

You have a deep, wrenching fear of social situations. You tend to avoid human interaction and stay away from real emotion. You prefer to live like a hermit with a flour sack on your head. You have one big dream in your life, and that is to live as far away from civilization as is humanly possible. Or inhumanly possible, for that matter.

Sigh...

Labels: Blogthings, memes

You know... I see these stupid memes all over the place and everybody's results are so cool and happy and I just don't get what the damn problem is here, people.

I never seem to get a result that makes me look cool or fly or even remotely interesting even! Take for example this latest one I took called "What European City Do You Belong In?"

It asks a few questions about what you like and dislike and then generates a result based on the value of your answers. This one tries to place you in your perfect European city based on your personality equation.

Here's mine...

You Belong in Minsk

Prone to bow to authoritarian dictators and gray as both a person and a thinker, you want to enjoy Europe without the bother of other people's ideas or the phony plasticity of young, smiling faces. You're the perfect person to suck on cigarettes in dark corners and brood over a bowl of cold borscht... or enjoy a quiet evening alone watching the only television station allowed play slides of tractor shows in black and white.

Now I ask you! I mean COME ON! I don't smoke!

Labels: Blogthings, bored, memes

Thing 7 - It's Gotta Be The Shoes

I'm getting a little worried about the American male and I think along with the general pussification of America men have slowly been losing some key skills. One of which is shining your shoes, for God's sake.

My Dad, dead lo these 30 years now, used to say "never trust a man who doesn't shine his own shoes." And it has been an eternal verity every time I applied the dictum. Worse than this now, though, is the apparent fact that there are guys in this world who don't even know HOW to shine their shoes. Witness the lack of shoes that require shining in general use, the paucity of the stupid gym shoe in all its overgrown gaud, and the state of men's shoes when you look at them in public.

Now maybe because I am in sales I notice these things a little more. That would be a legitimate statement. I can't stomach a salesman with scruffy shoes. Believe it or not - people are checking out your shoes. It does leave an impression, and it does say something about your character.

So here's the deal... SHINE YOUR DAMN SHOES! And get them cleaned up before you go into public. There are not many more things as patently ridiculous than a guy at table with his shoes all scruffed and dusty trying to fathom how to approach the portobello. I wouldn't even care if he was going into an Outback Steakhouse; have a little more self-respect and button up.

This is an old-fashioned item you won't find brought up any more. Maybe being a part of the generation that was born and raised in the 50's has something to do with it. We wear ties. We like three piece suits. Our shoes are clean. Is this so difficult a skill?

Well, if it is, here's some help. Never trust a man whose shoes are filthy.

Now... this is as close as I get to Foot Fetish Friday. Besides, I'm officially more a part of




So go over here now.

Labels: 27 Things

Don't you think Tom Cruise has had quite enough crap piled on him by now?

Don't you think it is time to move on and find another target in the world? Isn't it just all a bit old by now?

Um. Actually. No.

No. It isn't.

Who said this kind of thing was a cool idea?






Who, exactly, are people talking to on their cell phones at 5:20 in the morning? You are jogging and talking on your cell phone. Who are you talking to? You are driving to work. Can't it wait twenty minutes? And if it is your spouse you are talking to... what, are you newlyweds or something? Just. Why?

Why has 21st century product packaging become impossible to open? It all began with CDs you know, then went to little electronic gadgets, and now it has moved on to everything. You can't even open a package of candy without destroying what is inside while opening.

Should women with tattoos be allowed to have missing teeth? I think there should be a law. Women with tattoos should not be allowed to have missing teeth, or vice-versa. Plus, a woman with a tattoo who has missing teeth and is in a Wal-Mart in pajama bottoms should be dragged off and killed. No exceptions.

I am proud of never having seen a single episode of the "American Idol", "Deal or No Deal", "24", "Survivor", or "Jerry Springer" but have a thing for her show and this woman who graduated Phi Beta Kappa at Vassar College with a double degree in 20th-century philosophy and German literature.

That's also a dose of reality TV. So am I still a snob?

And aren't people who dismiss educated and cultured people, and don't want to be associated with them, just snobs in reverse?

See? I worry about this stuff...

With apologies to Sadie, netpilot, Trishy, ginuzz, po, and all those readers from the days of blogs gone by who know this route only too well by now; indulge me one more time so that I may explain my problem to all our recent friends. If I do this now then in case I start to froth at the mouth and fall to the floor in massive convulsions people will know not to just kill me if any of you old timers aren't on hand.

But, you see, I have a rare and intractable disease that has affected me since my childhood. And there is no known cure.

If you were to find pictures of me as a small boy you might be able to tell it had made its onset by the distracted look about my eyes. That wandering gaze that pulled me away from the fun and frolic of the immediate moment; summer vacations and softball games at the picnics. I threw myself at them but only to forget my pain and suffering for being away from the one thing I seemed to need to maintain my health and my sanity.

The disease is exceptionally rare and I can't pronounce the name. I never could. But it effects you by stopping you cold in your tracks at certain stimuli and only a long process of fighting through it will bring you back to general consciousness.

The aspect of this disease that is the most frustrating is that it doesn't have to happen. If I were to avoid certain behaviors it would not raise itself inside me. Ever. But like a moth to the flame, like a dope fiend, I crave the one thing that triggers the response. Indeed, I think I would probably wither away without it.

When I see old photos... not just old pictures of me as a boy or you as a child, but old photos of days I never lived in... I become transfixed.

It isn't easy to explain. But the longer I stare at these things the more I am drawn into them. I begin to sense the heat in the air of a summer day of 90 years ago. I start to hear the horses. Smell the paint. And then the voices...

It doesn't matter if the photos are from the middle 1800's or the early 20th century. The same thing happens again and again. Memories that aren't mine. No worthy reason to recall anything. But I can see details in these pictures that aren't available to the cursory glances of most.

That first picture? Click it to enlarge. Do you see it? It is the original Berghoff in Chicago. Decades before I was even born. I knew it was there all along.

Anyway, it is a terrible disease. They don't have telethons for it, and there are no specialists in the field. Why would anyone have studied it? There is no known name for being nostalgic for a time you didn't live in, or the trances invoked by photographs that have no context to you, the person, except for the image and the sounds inside the crumbling, ragged edges of the pictures...

Reference 1
Reference 2

Good Morning,

Amongst Friends, it is just another Firstday. The argument out in the world is between the atheist and the literalist, and the discussion is a real one and true. But in this house that isn't even the point.

The metaphor is the thing. And I wish you a good day.

Lightly,
RW

Well I sort of blew it with you folks and let me offer an apology right off the bat. The menu I let you peek at ahead of our review tonite was the WINTER edition. I guess The Vie hadn't updated their web site yet, because when Lynne and I went in tonite we were handed the SPRING menu. All different. The Vie is a seasonal and organic venue. I'm not lying when I tell you that I immediately thought of all the people who participated in the menu gazing - waiting to see what happened. Oh well. But then it seems a lot of embarrassing things were meant to happen this night. Wait until I tell you.

First, though, The Vie itself. It is tucked down a side street near the regionally famous Western Springs water tower. This is in a very upscale district and I must say the houses across the railroad tracks are mammoths. On a cool but comfortable early spring night the mood was set for a very nice, romantic dinner.

In the austere but unassuming dining room, louder than you might expect because of a party at the main table, we were given a seat by the window in a corner. The occasion called for champagne. I passed by the American sparkling wines, but we pushed the boat out a bit and got a Pink! Actually more toward ruby. Well, to be honest it was of the "Vin de Bugey-Cerdon La Cueille, Methode Ancestrale" which really amounts to a French sparkling Rose and technically not exactly a classic Champagne - but hey... this was about just having fun.

After the appropriate toast to each other my wife started with soup, and I had a quail appetizer. Specifically; Sunchoke soup, with croutons, truffle oil, and lemon. The soup was another level of creamy altogether. My quail was marinated and wood-grilled and set atop creamy grits, but all of this was covered over with pickled garlic, sweet onions, tomato and a roasted pine-nut chutney.

Lynne then moved on to the wood-grilled, brined pork accompanied by a choucroute (a French take on some old-fashioned sauerkraut prepared in a pursed wedge), an herb creme fraiche and a relish of house pickles. As good as it all was the pickles were out-of-this-world.

My entree continued a theme. I am attempting to rid the world of any possibility of bird flu by single-handedly eating every avian threat to the public safety I can find. I started with quail - I moved on to duck. I recognize my vegetarian friends are not impressed with this display of mad meat-lust. But someone has to act to protect the country - if not the world - from the deadly disease encroaching upon our security.

You want me on that wall. You NEED me on that wall. YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH... Wait a minute. Calm down here... sheesh. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh yeah...

The duck (left as pink as the wine like it is SUPPOSED to be) was teamed with a goat cheese and potato galette, and sat atop some braised celery seasoned with thyme, and set beside a nice rhubarb jam sweet and warm enough to tickle the hardest heart.

Chef Paul Virant's creations lived up to all the billing. Especially my wife's organic strawberries and cream. I paired a "3 cheese mousse" (cream cheese, mascarpone and fromage blanc) with some Moscato d'Asti.

I was ready to say I was in heaven. From top to bottom, food to service, a first class experience.

And then it happened...

When I asked for the bill our server returned to say our daughter Kate wished us a Happy Anniversary and that it was all taken care of. Tip and all.

I was completely floored.



Vie is located at 4471 Lawn Ave in Western Springs, Illinois. Reservations are highly recommended. Larger parties are served regularly. Call 708-246-2082. Hours of Operation are listed here.

Labels: old sentimental goof, restaurant reviews

Thanks to RockBitch, this is me drinking alone...


Self: Drinking alone is wrong. And that is an absolute truth.
Same Self: Wrong. There are no absolutes.
Self: Yes there are.
Same Self: No. There aren't. There are no absolutes.
Self: Is that an absolute?
Same Self: Yes. That is absolutely true.
Self: Well if it is an absolute to say there are no absolutes there has to be at least one absolute, and that is that there are no absolutes.
Same Self: That's what I said; there are no absolutes.
Self: Except that there are no absolutes?
Same Self: Exactly.
Self: So if there is one absolute then you can't say there are no absolutes.
Same Self: Why not?
Self: Because if the statement is true then the statement is false.
Same Self: That's right. And it being false means it is not an absolute. Therefore there are still no absolutes.
Self: ...Except for the one that says absolutes don't exist?
Same Self: Absolutely.
Self: I see. There are no absolutes except that there are no absolutes.
Same Self: That's right.
Self: Even if that is an absolute.
Same Self: You have it.
Self: So where is the exception?
Same Self: First base...

Since 2003 3,039 separate photos have been submitted, creating 304 pages of submissions, and still going strong.

It is true to say that the vast majority of these photos wimped out, but the one on the left - which catches the driver in full sight - is what is known as a "Money Shot."

Think about it. 3,039 individual photos on the theme.

Check it out.

Trish resurrects a heartfelt metaphor for hope, colored with the bright swirls of memory in this week's installment of the Roundtable.

It is all tied up in the ribbon of awakening. Happily, it is not about peeps. Those disgusting little, spongy, insipid, little goo-balls.

And I thank her for that.

I mentioned the other day that my wife and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary with her being down in Tennessee taking care of family business and me batching it. And though I must admit I ate rather well that week the company just really sucked.

So this weekend we are going out to celebrate in our own usual style and that will include a visit to the Vie restaurant.

Though you are not actually invited I sometimes do wish we could all sit together at a big table and just wile the night away. To me the greatest joy in the world is a group of friends around a table in a restaurant willing to put up with a crowd like us. Good company, good food, a fine atmosphere, and an open-ended conversation is - for me - the epitome of the good life. I'd rather do that, in that fashion, than a couple hundred other pleasurable things I could think of. Any day. If each one of us has a version of heaven, mine would be an eternal evening at a bistro with my friends.

So - if you're coming with us what would you have? I'd be curious to know. This will only take a second. I'll have it open in a separate window and you can come back here and let us know. I might even take someone's suggestions. Who knows. And anything you want to know about the place... just ask. I'm going to file the review probably Sunday.

So here... take a quick look at the menu.

What'll you have?

I started the day half naked in a van in Manchester, Iowa this morning.

It isn't what you may be thinking. The people of Iowa are virtuous and kind and all their cemeteries are called Mt. Hope, or New Hope, or Keep Hope or You Gotta Believe or something. I love the smell of cow poop in the morning. They have entire planets of methane out there in the solar system. Don't tell ME life can't exist on Titan or Venus. They probably have cows there.

No. When I went to pull my fresh shirt from the dry-cleaning box this morning before heading out, I discovered it was my WIFE'S! A white shirt is a white shirt - unless it buttons from the wrong side. Here's an argument for being a little less metrosexual I guess. Can't wear that. What to do??

I could have gone out and got a fresh shirt and brought it back to the room and changed - but I was running late. So I put on yesterday's shirt, checked out and drove to the Wal-Mart down the road, got a shirt for 8 bucks, ran into the company van and changed.

Thus, half-naked in a van in Manchester Iowa this morning. So much for your dirty mind!

Iowa is a nice, friendly place full of nice, friendly, corn-fed people. It is amazing, though, how some place WEST of Chicago has so much southern accent going on. Anyway I saw all sixteen buildings in Colesburg and am happy to say I have returned with orders from new customers that paid the trip over 10 times.

And this morning was my SECOND visit to a Wal-Mart in my life. I am really expanding my horizons!

One of the reasons I am glad I am married is because, at this point, if I had to go back into the singles-scene I would fall flat on my face not know where to start.

I am used to a woman who understands the language and symbols we have generated as a couple over all these years. If I had to start over I would make a complete ass out of myself would struggle to figure out how that happens all over again.

After all, in the midst of a conversation my wife is quite used to my going into re-enacting a movie scene when something she said reminds me of a line. She waits patiently for me to finish my Cary Grant or Gary Cooper and then resumes the discussion. I'm quite sure, were I ever single again, someone I just met for a date would have me SO locked up.

That's why I read Cherie Burbach's 5 rules for online dating over 50 with great interest this past week.

Maybe - I figured - if I just boned up on some of this stuff it wouldn't be so frightening a concept. I mean, between me and my wife I'm going to die first so it really doesn't matter; but a guy can't be too complacent in this world.

But as I read the article right away I disagreed. And knew better. See? That's how I am.

Her first rule was "Get some help with the technology" and talked about the use of digital cameras; but I think she missed the boat because she didn't mention the wonders of PHOTOSHOP!

Photoshop would be my first stop in the over-50 online dating game. I mean really... do you honestly believe people on those post-your-pics to get a date sites all went out and put their actual pictures on the web? Give me a break.

Help with technology and leave out Photoshop my foot! I need want this kind of power...

BEFORE PHOTOSHOP

AFTER PHOTOSHOP

The rest of the article was fairly standard stuff and I have to admit outside of that one exception I did learn a lot.

I know for a fact that one of the other rules that would certainly help me is the part titled "Try broadening your idea of a great date!" Well to me a great date would begin with drinks and dinner... or end with drinks and dinner... or at least have drinks and dinner in there someplace.

But I suppose change is good so maybe I'm just an old stick-in-the-mud. In my day that's what you did. But these modern women, I suppose, expect something more adventurous in their over-50 paramours. God forbid I ever find myself in that situation, I suppose I'll have to just get with the program.

ME, AFTER MORE PHOTOSHOP, ACROSS THE TABLE FROM YOU AT DINNER

I'd hate to have to consider it but you know... if ever it happened, I think I could handle it.

I'm just glad I'm going to be the one to die first!

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."


Humphrey Bogart

I got a head start on the Get Drunk Friday thing late last night. Drinking alone was OK, there's always that other personality hanging around. He was cool. And at least my buddy Dave peeked in to see what was going on. Not that anybody else did. In fact the verbiage has been pretty quiet around here lately. Like a freakin' haunted house around here I'm thinkin'.

I sign on here after work & find out the four or five emails I've sent off with important questions are still out there somewhere probably unread and unanswered. Maybe tomorrow. Next week. Whatever.

Last couple of days but for a few people I've been participating in things online but seeming sort of like a ghost most of the time. Words just drifting off into the electrospasms of 0's and 1's. At one point I even started answering myself!

To top it off today is my 28th wedding anniversary... and my wife and half the family is down in Tennessee taking care of the funeral and burial of her stepfather.

I mean, I know I don't have a long list of sycophantic, lonely, fawning women inserting inane "you're so FUNNY" crap into this thing (and I do thank God daily for that - in all honesty), but lately I can't even draw the same kind of razz that usually spits out at me from the fingertips of the regulars around here.

With all of that negative ju-ju, that which looks like desertion, back-turning and blank stares (with a tip of the hat to Dave and a couple of folks who engaged the lunatic once in a while), I should be crying in my cups, bitter, dejected, abandoned, lonely and forlorn; wondering what ever I did to deserve such treatment at the hands of such a fickle crowd.

But I just can't.

With all the upheaval around here somebody has to take care of Emma until everybody gets back tomorrow morning. So I'm going to go build blanket forts over chairs now with my grand-daughter, and the rest of you (exceptions listed) can just go find somebody else to ignore for a bit Ok?

OkHaveFunBye...

Yeah so I got an early start on everybody ok? Then I had to sit around and wait till midnight for it all to be official so I played over here in the comments for a while. I know it is midnight somewhere - but it wasn't midnight here. Ok? At this level of consumption it doesn't matter anyway but it makes you think... at a certain level of alcohol intake it starts to get obvious that there are certain people who should have their legs cut off at the knees. Cut off at the knees and then their bodies buried in compost up to the neck. Cut off at the knees, buried in compost up to the neck, and fire ants dumped on their heads.

Say you're happy about something. La la la la LA. You're happy. And then some sour-faced smile-sucking jerk suddenly feels compelled to tell you the something you're happy about is bad because of A. the environment B. the poor people and C. orphans. Plus D. that smile makes you look like a dork.

You tell a joke and some bloodless pedant who isn't laughing says it would have been funnier of you hadn't mispronounced the word "spearwort". Asshat.

Life is full of people I'd like to see shinless, fire-ant-coated living in the kitchen scraps. At work - if you deliver it early it costs too much. If you cut the price they question the quality. If you perfect the quality it took too long to get. In the land of the social wars if you're so stupid you have to ask what's going on you're a twerp. Part and parcel of the merciless bastards who bring it down, tears of a clown, smiles to a frown.

Someone else: Hey RW that didn't exactly rhyme.

Me: Up yours.

Pass the bottle to the daily bitch, lysie6211, S.K. Waller and our ringleader.

You know, the generation of my grandfathers and grandmothers must have been a different breed altogether than their wimpy descendants. In the case of my family, they smoked like chimneys, drank too much regularly, stretched the capacity of mortal flesh to the limits - and all lived to be 80 and 90. It ain't fair.

This week Lauren gives us a taste of Irish whiskey and a brief look into the character of a woman named Nelly who holds a special place in the lexicon of that generation's character.

I have just completed 40 years of study attempting to determine the "hottest" hot sauce in the universe that is still edible (OK maybe not 40 years of study exactly but I've been having hot sauces for a long time already and I'm old - so I can claim it so long as you don't look into it too deeply - Happy now??). For the record "edible" is still something you can taste but that maybe 80% of the public couldn't handle.

The "heat" in hot sauces is measured in "Scoville Units". There are a lot of insane claims about hot sauces and how many Scoville Units they contain - some even claiming to go up to a million 16 times over. That is a possible number if you are talking about pure Capsaicin (the actual chemical that makes a pepper "hot") but they would, at that point, have to be of dubious flavor.

While it is certainly possible that hot sauces are given pure Capsaicin in their ingredients the key to my point is that it must be edible. There has to be some flavor involved, otherwise it is just a lot of macho posturing.

Anyway... The key has always been the presence of the habanero and there is no question that this ingredient must be present in order to come anywhere close to the ultimate fire. But not until the advent of Dave's Insanity Sauce had a non-habanero sauce approached the two qualities important in this test. Dave's includes "hot peppers" and "hot pepper extract". That is to say not exclusively habanero. So two categories had to be created to fit in the change in view. Habanero-based and Non-habanero-based hot sauce.

To our panel of wizened hot sauce experts "Great White Shark Predator" has had the lead in Habanero-based sauces for heat and flavor for some time now. There are sauces that register more Scoville Units (White Shark is just under 20 times hotter than Tabasco Sauce), but none reach the flavor quotient.

Both of these listed approaches 180,000 Scoville Units - and that is quite an achievement for Dave's Insanity being habanero-less.

I'm not shilling these products so you'll have to find them online or in your stores on your own. But for those of you who need yet another reason to consider the possibility of adding these tasty treats to your diet, take a look at the miraculous health benefits inherent in them.

And if you have candidates of your own please feel free to list them here. Heh heh...

First of all, I'm getting damned sick and tired of people who moan about songs that get stuck in their heads. "Oooo... I can't get this song out of my head now...!" What are you, an IDIOT? Try this - Stop it. Ever think of that? I never understood that crap. Are you telling me that an unending circuit has got hold of your brain and controls you as well? Should we also keep babies and sheep away from you?

Look - here's an easy remedy for Song-Won't-Stop-In-My-Headness:

In your head - imagine yourself singing the song, then when you get to the end of a stanza put your arms out and draw out the notes like you're on stage in a Broadway play and are putting a finish on a show song in front of a thousand people. You know, like...

"...My Looooooooooooooooooooove!"

Then imagine yourself bowing and imagine thunderous applause. Badda-bing - song over.

For God's sake already.

Second of all - a recent survey has shown that 81% of all MINI owners have a name for their car. I'm going to ignore the most popular name because it is kind of silly - proving that just because you have a MINI doesn't automatically make you cool. I mean - it helps - but it isn't automatic. Ok - the most popular name is "Minime", which is downright asinine.


But the second most popular name is NIGEL. Which is much better. I also thought SPIKE was good. But neither are as cool as my MINI's name.

Moving right along to the third thing - I have joined a group of bloggers that fly under the Get Drunk Friday banner. For more information click here. I figured it was a natural.

All for now. Say goodnight "Gracie"...

My wife (that's her in the upper right hand corner) has been in Tennessee since Friday tending to some very heavy family business. Last night she nearly got rolled over by the storms that went through, just a stone's throw from where she is staying.

So I am taking care of things on the homefront and acting the good bachelor as best I can. Sunday I spent the evening running around the kitchen table with my Grand-Daffter Emma at my elder daughter's - who fed the old man a beautiful salmon steak topped with spinach and tomatoes afterwards. Emma, who is two fingers, runs very fast and my daughter is turning into a fine cook in her advancing years. Ha.

The rest of the time, though, will be mine to take care of and I went to the market Saturday morning to fill a single man's larder. You know, simple things like a nice porterhouse steak and fresh shrimp and such. But Saturday afternoon a daunting realization came to me; a kind of disconnect I hadn't realized was there at all. In an effort to be the good husband I took the afternoon to straighten up the house and do a little cleaning just to keep things going. In the past when she had gone for an extended period of time I usually found myself deteriorating. Clothes in a pile, dishes making a mountain in the sink. That kind of thing. Only to have a wild scurry the day before her return. I determined that, now, I'm really too old to live that way and have grown accustomed to living less mean.

So I'm picking up this and that and I'm thinking "this goes over here. This goes over there, I'll straighten that in a second" when I caught myself saying in my head "Man, if this was my house I wouldn't have this there..."

How dumb was that? Glad nobody heard me.

My friend Joe reminded me that today is the start of the baseball season. So you'll pardon me if I momentarily fly the colors and express my sympathy for the coming of yet another miserable season for you Cub fans because... after all... you're Cub fans and misery is what you do best.





And now back to our regularly scheduled nonsense (as opposed to this random kind).

It is strange the things you find on the lists.

My last name is spelled S-p-r-y-s-z-a-k. But not until a friend of mine sent me an email telling me about what he found online the other day did I even know this stuff was out there, or still out there. I know I did it, but I didn't think it still existed for people to see or find. The past has a way of catching up to you.


I have led several lives. Few of which - I thought - worth remembering.

Long ago I wrote fiction and poetry. Nothing too grand and - after getting published here and there - the "dream" ended up being pretty empty. In one incarnation and on more than one occasion I shared credits with Charles Bukowski, our stuff appearing in the same 'zines. But because a lot of them were off-the-wall experimental type publications I figured they were long gone. Now I find that isn't so. Like for example in the credits of Slipstream Issue #11 published way back in 1991. Not only am I listed there with Hank but - I note - so is T.L. Toma and Lyn Lifshin.

And it gets stranger.

You'll note on Lyn's site, if you go there, a plug for her book "The Licorice Daughter: My Year with Ruffian" which is about one of the greatest speed horses of all time. Funny.

Because my friend also found my past connection to horseracing. Long ago and far away I actually owned and ran a website that sold horseracing tips. I did it for about three years and then sold the URL. But the footprint remains. The little review I did of Steve Davidowitz's classic on handicapping and even my participation in an online usenet still remains.

That's just strange.

But not as strange as finding my daughter listed in a production at Trapdoor Theatre from a few years ago.

Curious, I googled myself to see what else may be out there. Nothing of note except I did find the same things as above, along with a lot of associated links to the last name I have no idea what they are.

But this should make you think... Have you ever googled yourself?

Because there is more to religion than pleasing your Imaginary Friend. Take the fundie test today.

Courtesy of The Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua.

Happy April 1st!