Autoweek Volume 1

For some reason, my old mustang has been haunting my dreams as of late, so I have decided to have a little post about it. I'm not the type to play favorites and make my other cars I have owned jealous, so they will all get posts too (try to control your excitement). To keep things pseudo-interesting, I will try and share a story or two about each car.

As far as the ole' stang goes, it was quite possibly the fastest car I have ever been in. Truth be told, I once rear-ended a bird trying to fly away from me. The car also had an amazing trick. Press in the clutch, cock the wheel all the way to one side, rev the engine to 5K and dump it and you could pretty much do a u-turn without moving. The car also goes 150 MPH and that's all I am going to elaborate about that.

The last thing I will say is that cops hated that car. I received my first (and last) ticket(s) in that car. It had a hard life (before I owned it of course). It started as a demo and then was bought by some kid in Waldorf before it came into my possession. He promised me it was never raced, despite having several thousand dollars worth of racing upgrades and 1/4 mile slip showing 13s. He sweared it was just one pass, just to see what it could do. I was gullible teenager. The car leaned funny and the frame developed stress factures so bad that a body shop fixed it, but didn't charge me because they had never seen anything like that and were worried of being liable for something going horribly wrong.

We had a good run, but after 3 years, I put the stang out to pasture thanks to the never ending supply of speed hungry gullible teenagers from Waldolf looking to buy a mustang.

The life and times of Mr. Happy

Right now, you are asking yourself, who the heck is Mr. Happy?

Is he the same guy from the Roger Hargreaves series?

No, not in this case.

When I refer to Mr. Happy, I am, in fact, referring to a wooden spoon that my mother's friend would use to discipline her kids, ala Catholic school nun ruler beating across the tops of your hand style.

Mr. Happy was no ordinary wooden spoon. Rather, someone had taken the loving and caring time to etch a smilely face with a soldering iron and when Mr. Happy came out to play, tears flowed like a majestic river of sugar free grape kool aid.

Thankfully, my parents, being the enlightend folk they are, were never big into the whole corporal punishment scene.

However, they did try the spoon trick. Once.

I'm don't remember what, exactly, I did wrong, but I am sure I went out of my way to earn the fabled spoon smack. What I do remember is laughing at the first recourse of my actions...a hand smack. My foolish courage was rewarded with a upgraded punishment, Mr. Happy Style.

Like the sad clown, I laughed no more and retreated to my bedroom in furious tears. There I lay, waiting, plotting, until I glanced over to my desk and a grand vision unfolded.

I knew what I must do. The sleeping hours could not come soon enough, but once they did, my mission began. I stealthily crept into the kitchen and abducted the wooden utensil which wronged me only hours before.

I took the spoon back to my room, sat at my desk and inserted the handle into my pencil sharpener. I then began cranking the handle and laughing like a 3 year old mad man. I wore that handle down to a mere nub of its former glory before returning it to the drawer to serve warning to other spoons.

I guess it worked, cause the spoon beatings ceased. Victory was mine!

Clemency

The printer lives to jam another day...for now.

clink clink clink...color printer come out to playeeaa!

We got a new color printer at work recently and are allowed to dispose of the old one in any fashion we see fit.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

The Color printer gets it, after school, 3:00 behind the library!

Look for another infamous T15 epic 2:00 movie portraying its demise soon.

Casa Bonita

Sweet.

The Chronicles of Narnia

I hate that troll.

Run for the hills!

I know my post on strawberry hills was hard to comprehend for some of you non-visual thinkers, so now we have this.

In other news, me and the lady watched Dave Attel's Insomniac Comedy Tour this weekend. It wasn't too shabby. One joke was so intense, I laughed and farted simultaneously, much to me lady's alarm. Touche Mr. Attel.

Finally, I saw a clip on America's Funniest Home Video of a snowman on a highway being runover.

As confirmation of my future trip to the fiery gates, I laughed hysterically. For starters, the clip is pretty damn funny in its own right. Secondly, I once experienced a very similar circumstance first hand...back in the day and secondarily (ie I take no responsibility, I just so happened to be around when it happened) of course.

The main difference was in the snowman's location. Rather on a county approved road, it stood proudly on someone's front yard. We were driving around in one of my friend's mom's car, a 1989 Chevy caprice, and one of our other friends (not the one who's mom owned the car) was driving.

As we rolled down the block, the driver calls out "I don't like the way that snowman looked at me" and proceeded to 180 the car, and floor it across the lawn mowing down frosty in the process.

Pretty deviant, eh? Well try and google snowman and car on google images and just look at what some twisted donkey thought up...

Maybe there is still hope for me after all.

Probably not.

It's bad luck just seeing a thing like that...

Forget Lost in Translation, go see Quick Change for an epic peformance from Bill Murray as a bank robbing clown and as an added bonus, quite possibly one of the best movie scenes of all times*

*in 1990 only

TSA Tonto and tres fish tacos...

It must be friday with a title like that, woo-haa got ya all in check!

So I have nil in terms of substance to blog about this PM but that's never stopped me before. Here are two things I'd like to share:

I had fish tacos for lunch today and they were fish-licious. Admittedly, I was a bit scarred to try them, but felt that with enough Cholula, anything is edible. Surprisingly they were not half-bad. Just 1/3 bad.

And from the "Oh that can't be good" vault, a snippet from yesterday's experience with the LAX TSA (airport security). The guard was of american indian/professional wrestler heritage. He was as diesal as they come and eyeballed my luggage tag and says to me "Custer.....any relation?" I wisely said "no" and his reply "Good...better not be...and how" Ok I added the "and how."

That is all.

Strawberry Hills Forever

yeah yeah yeah, I know the tune is strawberry fields forever, but how many of us are experts on Beatle's lyrics (especially in light of itunes ban)?

As promised, I have a wicked good stock of material to blog about thanks to this past weekend's trip to the big rich and the strawberry field's horseraces...dueling ice luges, 15ft beer bongs, horse paralysis (temporarily), portable toilets, portable stripper poles, wanna-be braveheart, the world's most pimp pants, me being compared to 1980s peanut butter, crying on the bus ride home, drooling on the bus ride home, sunburn, steel pail full of tater tots and 22 oz. PBR tall boys.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who you ask) the camera which documented all this insanity is still in the big rich, along with out lawn chairs and a bag of random stuff, so at this time, no photographic evidence is available.

Here's a disturbing fact...

and it must be true cause I read it on the Internet or maybe I overheard it somewhere, it doesn't really matter, who's gonna let proper citation get in the way of an interesting tid bit.

Every 10 years, your mattress doubles in weight due to dust mites and shedded dead skin cells.

Isn't that how Terminator got started?

On cnn.com today...

An article on snake robots and how they can help save mankind.

Does he know how to build a flying machine?

Damn that is a big a$$ rabbit.

I want one.

I want one to help me build my flugtag.

Yup that's right flugtag coming to Charm city, can't wait to see the giant flying STD.

Hold the phones! That's nacho cheese...

Thank you for the early wedding present google!

Interesting comments also found...
That nacho cheese fountain is so delightfully white trash! It makes me want to plan some sort of event just so I can have one!

Will this work with mayonnaise?

How about guacamole?

Quality Control

Isn't it funny how certain traits become evident at such a young age?

Why just last week, in a bout of office stress relief, I decided to ride my office chair like a scooter into a co-worker's office, only to yell RAMMING SPEED and collide into his desk. During this episode, my coworker's remarked, "Man, I knew you were up to no good cause you had that deviant look on your face."

I know that look. It is the same look evident in about a quarter dozen childhood pics where I was, no doubt, considering some shenanigans for the camera.

Another trait which emerged when I was quite young is my passion for quality control. Inconsistancy is the bane of my existance. Perhaps my favorite example of exercising quality control coupled with psychological sibling warfare comes from when my older sister was in the girl scouts, many moons ago.

Sure they sold cookies back then, but not like nowadays. In the late 70s, you had 1 shot at getting thin mints and tag-a-longs annually and you have to pre-order AND pre-pay. My sister did her duty, making the neighborhood rounds drumming up 50 or so orders and 8-10 weeks later, several crates of cookies arrived on our doorstep.

The arrival was most likely mid-week, so our parents thought the hall closet would be a safe place to store the cookies until the weekend, when my sister could distribute the goods.

It was at this point, where my penchant for quality control came into play. As you see, I decided to sample the goods, but in a highly regimented fashion. I opened every last damn box and ate exactly 1 cookie from each one.

Saturday morning came and I would imagine my sister was pretty much flabergasted not only at the cookie carnage which lay in the closet, but at the prospect that she would now have to face all of her customers and tell them there would be no cookies for them this year. Christ, it must have been like denying christmas for some of these people. Nevermind the fact that my parents had to pony up $300 bucks to cover the slightly used cookie stash.

While I feel a little bad about it now, I imagine I took some perverse sense of empowerment over the situation at the time (and chalked a victory in the brother vs sister war which lasted nearly 16 years).

Adventures in iTunes

My latest adventures in downloads and internet exploration have yielded the following booty:

Atlantic by Thrice Featured in the doughnut video linked in my previous post this haunting brit-pop track sounds like it took a bite out of Master P's "Pass me the Green" which took a bite out of the Halloween soundtrack. Mellow and Moody but I like it. I checked out some of their other tracks on I-tunes and was rather shocked that they are a punk group. It pink mohawks and torn ramones shirts are your cup of tee, then check out their punk cover of Send me an Angel. *original version featured in the BMX dance scene from RAD.

From the holy mackeral I've seen it all files comes Matisyahu, a Hasidic Jew who spits reggae chants like it's nobody's business. Check out King without a Crown and Close my eyes just want all you Sublime types would get a kick out of. He was recently feature in the post's sunday source. He's got skillz.

Speaking of reggae, most would consider Ini Kamoze a one hit wonder with his anthem "Here comes the hotstepper." Don't act like you don't know. This track is so commerical it got airplay at disneyland last time I was there. Anyhow, grab his track World a Reggae as an alternative to Damien Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock" they are pretty close to one another.

They were not lying when they grilled ole baldy from american idol for straight jackin Live's cover of Walk the Line. It is a pretty cool remake of the Man in Black's anthem. I think he would enjoy this rendition.

I know it's totally brokeback, but I am hooked on Grey's Anatomy and their money showcasing of songs. If you like music played in over-priced clothing stores with fancy flooring and dude couches, then you might want to give the Greenskeepers a try. Specifically Back in the Wild and You don't know me, which are perfect tracks to play in your loft while sipping moscow mules and discussing 3rd world politics.


In the Keepin it real department peep The Hit Man's Create & Devestate. Heavy samples, hip hop and free on I-tunes (for now). Decent rap compared to most stuff on the radio today. Still kinda sucks though.

Sunday 29th by Bent is another interesting selection. A little chickish but nice. Draws upon some old school Edie Brickell sounds and serve's them up with a taste of Justify my Thug from DangerMouse's Grey Album.

Anyhow just a few things to round out ye olde collection.

In Australia, it's a day ahead...

It's like they know more. That's why the food is so good. It is from the future.

Time to make the Doughnuts...

Can anyone think of a better way to burn off a few extra minutes waiting for some friends to get home than taking Melady, The Guvness and Nabob to the rec field parking lot across the street to do some doughnuts in a station wagon? Only to get disapproving looks from the neighbors?

One of the things on my big ole list of things to do before I expire is to learn how to do a proper doughnut preferably without wrapping my car around a telephone pole or a Lindy sapling.

What's a Lindy sapling you ask?

Well it's only one of my mom's most favorite trees and quite a resilient breed at that. You see, a few years back, melady and I were on our way to a local state park for some hiking. We got about .4 miles from my parents house before she realized shoes would be a good addition to our hike. So I pulled a u turn and headed back to the house for proper footwear.

About 2 houses away, I asked, want to try something fun? She said OK.

Naturally I floored it, turned the wheel and pulled the e-brake in hopes of 180'ing into the driveway.

Now I am no math wiz, but I am pretty sure I missed the 180 by approximately 135 degrees, thus shooting the car directly in the line of site of the only baby tree in my parents yard. My mom's favorite tree. The lindy sapling. The tree that grows .5 inches annually. The tree that is old as me but only 3 feet tall and as thick as a pack of rolo's. The tree that was no match for my Mazda MX-6 GT Turbo.

Ole Lindy never saw it coming.

As I looked back I saw skid marks across the lawn, over the tree (now on the ground) right up to where my car was parked.

Oh Shizer, I better move the car, but what to do about the tree?

Simple, I ran over a propped the top half back up like nothing happened. Miraculously it stood on its own (or so it would until my dad's next lawn mowing excursion where the slightest brush with the John Deere would cause the tree to fold like a house of cards).

I felt bad about setting my pop up to be the patsy, so I came clean and told dear ole mom.

My mother had a puzzled look when she came outside and saw a pair of tire tracks on each side of the tree, but the tree was still standing. It was like an MC Escher painting. You saw the driverside tire track on the right of the tree, the passenger side on the left, but an upright tree in the middle. She didn't understand. Then she touched the tree and it fell like a wet noodle and I got the "OH BEN!"

I told here the spirit was strong in the tree and it would comeback. And it did. Sorta. It now stands proudly 8 inches above the ground.

Anyhow, happy Arbor day.

No it's not really Arbor day.

Is it?