I made it through 12 days of my 30-in-3o challenge before I bailed out. I drastically underestimated the creative talent needed to blog 30 days in a row and terribly overestimated the reservoir of funny shit I thought I’d be able to write about in that time. Oh well, I gave it a go. I at least have several good stories queued up and ready to go. I also have a few posts about my hair waiting in the “wings” (Farrah Fawcett’s got nothing on what my hair is doing right now).

Anyways, I’m sort of obsessed at the moment with this series of articles on Slate.com. The author of the series and his girlfriend have decided to cirumnavigate the globe — without using an airplane. They can use cars, ferries, boats, trains, etc, as long as they stay on the ground. Slate is running a 5 part series on these articles and thus far, I’m totally inspired to try something like this. But probably on a less grand scale. Maybe I’ll ride a bike to work one day? Or not get the AC fixed in my 4runner. Either option seems to slide into the modern American’s idea of “adventure”.

Part 1

Part 2

I was in South Carolina this past weekend. My love affair with this state can be plainly seen in past entries in my twitter stream. Whether it be the cheap golf, the beaches, the radical theocracy they’re trying to build that makes me laugh, or the Dolly Parton Christmas spectacular, there’s plenty to do there. This past trip introduced me to yet another favorite past time of mine: quarter gambling machines!

The machine is a basic concept: insert a quarter, it slides down a shoot, and lands flat on the sliding surface. The objective is to push the other quarters off of the edge so you can collect them. While the winnings may be small (“I just won $2.25!!”), the seductive nature of the chase is enough to leave me panting and yearning for just one more fix! This past weekend was no different. My friend Tim and I were driving on some backwoods highway when we stopped for gas and beer. It was a dank little convenience store so of course we loitered for longer than we should have. Tim was busy buying what he thought were bottle rockets (but turned out to be incense) and I was busy plunging dollar bill after dollar bill into the machine. I was so close to greatness!

The quarters hung on the edge, the little George Washingtons teasing me. “What TJ, can’t master the slide motion? Or where to drop the quarter? Come on now, we expect more from you”

I expected more from myself.

I burned through about $3 going after just one more score before Tim made me leave.

Trust me South Carolina. I’ll be back. And I’ll be taking a fistful of quarters with me!

There is absolutely no doubt that when Holly and I have children, I’ll be able to offer an honest assessment of them as human beings.  Of course, every future parent says this. They see their friends’ kids acting like wild animals and then hear their friends say “isn’t johnny just the smartest little guy you’ve ever seen?” and all you want to say is “actually no. johnny is a freakin asshole” but you actually end up saying “well yes, he IS a smart little fella”. It’s just the nature of things.

But I’m going to be different. And how do I know this?

Because my oldest dog, the cutest little fella in the world, the one w/ the little black eye patch and the handsome face and the deep down desire to make you love him is a real son of a bitch.

I’m not sure where to begin explaining how or why Herb is a major jerk. But I have a few ideas.

1. Herb is almost 4 years old and he still takes spiteful poops in my office at the house. Not often. But frequently enough and usually right by chair that I think he plots in advance. Typically I’ll have just taken a bone away from him or told him to leave me alone and then boom, the little devil leaves me a treat
2. He frequently tries to dig holes in the middle of our bedroom floor. At 13 pounds, he ain’t exactly generating commercial grade torque or anything. But it’s generally considered to be a jerk move to try and dig a hole in someone’s bedroom
3. Herb is a master manipulator. His brother, Marv, is sort of gullible. It’s not uncommon for Herb to fake like someone is at the door, take off running, all the while looking over his shoulder to see what Marv does. Inevitably, Marv takes off after him leaving whatever he was chewing on or possessing fair game to be confiscated by the now retreating in the other direction Herb. Yeah, what a jerk.
4. I have no proof of this, but I’m pretty sure Herb steals money from my wallet. I have nanny cam trained on his ass as I type this.

That’s right, this is not a post. I’m fulfilling my contractual obligation during 30-in-30 to supply a post each and every day. Unfortunately, I was down at the beach the past 3 days with the fellas enjoying some much needed relaxation. All we did was play baggo, bocce ball, and watch basketball. We may have accidentally had a few beers too. So we’ll continue tomorrow with another steady stream of rants and ramblings.

Enjoy!

Last night’s Lost kinda blew my mind. I’ve been waiting for answers for YEARS now and we’re finally starting to get some. Theories range from purgatory to good vs. evil to fate vs. free will. However, I read an article on Slate today that made me laugh out loud:

A nature/nurture argument between two powerful beings, with human guinea pigs as test cases? You may recall this is precisely the plot of the 1983 film comedyTrading Places. Commodities broker Mortimer Duke is like Smokey—certain that our qualities are ingrained and irreversible, and that if he plucks hoodlum Billy Ray Valentine off the streets and places him in a corporate boardroom, it will still be in Valentine’s “very nature to sin.” Meanwhile, Mortimer’s brother, Randolph Duke, is like Jacob—certain that a person’s “past doesn’t matter” and that even the worst among us can shine when given an opportunity.

If you haven’t seen Trading Places, it’s pretty much one of Eddie Murphy’s finest offerings (along with Coming to America “When you think of garbage, think of Akeem” and The Golden Child “I want the knife. I..I..I..I..I want the knife….pleeeeeeease”).

Anyways, I found the Slate article humorous b/c I think it would be the grandest gag in America if Lost took a goofy 80’s movie and used it as the basis for what’s become a television institution. I also just wanted an excuse to quote the Golden Child line.

….And so it continues….

Having given up on trying to fix the washing machine myself, I gave in and called a repairman. His name is Paul.

Paul showed up at my house today at 4pm. He knocks on the door. I open it.

“Hi, thanks for coming Paul. How are you?”

and Paul says “Uh, hi, where’s your washing machine?”

“Upstairs, come on up”

Before I have a chance to really turn around, Paul is past me and headed up the stairs. He gets to the top, turns around and asks

“Where’s your bathroom”

He looks kinda agitated. Doing a modified, grown up version of the pee-pee dance. I chuckle, expecting that he needs to take a leak.

“At the end of the hall”

I don’t even have the last syllable out of my mouth before Paul is in the bathroom. I kinda hang out in the hallway, half expecting 30 seconds, then a flush, then the running of water to wash his hands.

Then a minute goes by. Then 5 minutes goes by. Finally, after TEN! minutes, Paul emerges looking sort of satisfied and asks “So, where’s the washing machine?”

Dude came to my house, didn’t fix anything before he used my bathroom for a dumper. Doesn’t protocol stipulate that you fix the washing machine before using the can?

I came home from work today greeted by another flat tire on HP’s car. I’m not entirely sure how this happens, but I seem to be a magnet for flat tires (or car maladies in general. but i digress). I think HP does crash-em-up-derbies in fields of thumbtacks but she denies it. Thankfully, today’s flat repair was pretty standard. However, it reminded me of one of my favorite blog posts from my last blog. I’ve decided in all of my benevolence and glory to recreate it here for you on my new blog.

Here we go.

The flat tired occurred almost exactly 3 years ago, just after I started my current job. Holly and I had gotten a wild schemey idea to buy a used Audi. We’d just acquired this gem from a sketchy used dealership up in Gwinnett. It was a sweet little car. I’m not much of a car guy (have you seen my current jalopy) but I loved driving this thing.

So I come out from a long days work on the new job to find a flat tire. Booooo! But what else is new. I’ve changed a million tires so I’m well prepared to tackle this thing.

I open the trunk to dig out the spare and requisite tools and then jack the car up. When I’d completed this maneuver, I go to pull the lug nuts off. What’s this I find? Lug nut caps. Freakin fancy cars and their fancy caps that need fancy tools to take the caps OFF. So I tear the car apart. I find nothing. I’m left to do what every male dreads — I have to get help changing my the flat. So I call a tow truck and tell them I need help changing the tire.

I wait for about 2 hours until help arrives. But help doesn’t arrive in the stereotypical tow truck driver named Felix, a guy who can change a tire or jack up a 6 ton truck with the ease of a pro. Instead, i get some guy clearly so hopped up on meth that he can barely stand still for more than 2 seconds. I can’t remember his name so we’ll call him Johnny. When Johnny realizes that neither he nor I have the tool needed to get the caps off, he decides to basically pry the caps off with a flat head screwdriver. Cool I think, this will work.

He hoists the spare tire up into the wheel well, takes a step back and says “uh-oh”.

“Uh-oh?”

“Yeah dude, did you notice your spare?”

“Not really. I was too transfixed by the lugnut cap riddle that I couldn’t solve to pay any attention to the spare”

Just as I say that, I look at the spare and notice that it looks like Freddie Kreuger took a long, poorly sharpened blade to about half the tire. I’m not kidding, it looked like the scene of a gruesome spare tire massacre. The tire was clearly unusable.

At this point, it’s almost 9pm and I say “well dude, can you just two the car home?”

He looks at the car, then at me, then back at the car and says “I can’t tow an all wheel drive car”

SON OF A BITCH.

So I’m stuck. With this damn german death trap and I have no way of getting home.

As I sit there wallowing in my pity, Johnny says “dude, there’s a service station right up there. Let’s take the original flat tire up there and see if we can get some fix-a-flat in there?”

At this point, I’m game for anything. Sure, why not?

We head up to the service station, grab some fix-a-flat and seek out where the leak is coming from. Johnny finds the leak, applies the fix-a-flat, but it doesn’t hold air for long. CRAP! Foiled again.

Just as I say this, Johnny says to me “Dude, let’s find a nail or screw or whatever and put that into the hole. Then surround that w/ the fix-a-flat!”

I look at him like he’s from freakin Mars but i’m delirious, hungry, and just a little bit desperate. “Ok, let’s do this”

So we spend 10 minutes scouring the parking lot of a texaco looking for a screw, nail, or any other pointy device we can put into my flat so I can get home. Just as I’m about to give up, Johnny yells “hey man! GOT IT!”. I scramble over (or maybe shuffle at this point?) and look into his hand and see what looks like a very very very tiny barbell. Because I’m part of the uninitiated apparently, I dumbly ask “What is that? It’s not a nail or screw?”

Johnny looks at me and says “Nah man! It’s a tongue ring!”

I swear on all that is holy and good in my life, the meth-head tow truck driver found a freakin tongue ring in the parking lot of a service station, jammed it into a leaky hole in my tire, surrounded it with fix-a-flat, and VOILA!, my tired was fixed. I could not, and still don’t, believe that this is what it took to fix my tire. I was able to drive home on this. In fact, I woke up the next morning and the tire was holding air like a champ. I took it to my local Discount Tire to get fixed and when asked what was wrong, I contemplated telling the guy the whole story. But who would believe it?