The Super Fantastic MJ Excellent Weight Loss Challenge Bonanza!

I joined a gym.

As the calender continues to flip and I get older by the minute, I'm starting to notice funny changes in my body.  You tend to notice these changes when you find yourself heavily wheezing on the bus because you had to run 40 yards at a full sprint to catch the damn thing.  Also, I've found myself saying things like, "Huh.  You didn't have that 3rd chin yesterday". 

So, I joined a gym.  Many moons ago, when I was gainfully employed at Steppenwolf Theatre Company, I was relatively healthy.  There was a YMCA down the street from the 'Wolf that was everything I looked for in a gym:  it had two basketball courts.  About 3 or 4 times a week, I would drive the half mile to the Y--in retrospect, this might have been part of the problem--and I would lace up my hoops shoes and run around for an hour.  Since they had two courts, I would let all the kids from Cabrini Green dunk on one and I would shoot hoops with the older white guys on the other.  Occasionally, they kids would need a 10th for their game I would run over and try to keep my guy in front of me.  Usually by fouling as hard as I could.  Sure, I never scored much but they respected me because they liked my hustle!  They must have; they only pants-ed me once.

Sadly, they tore the place down and I think there is a retirement home on the land now.  On that day, back in 2006, I stopped exercising.

Since then, there have been an awful lot of Kraft dinners, whiskey, pizza and couch.  And since then, I've gained an awful lot of weight.

So, in a continuing effort to please my wife sexually, I decided it was time to shed those unsightly pounds.  I found a gym a half-block from my house and, really, if it was any farther, I would just give up and climb the escalator of weight gain to 300 pounds or so.  But since it is directly across the street from where my bus lets me off each night, there really is no excuse.  I have a choice each night:  White Castle or B&W Gym.  I appreciate my intestines too much to be a patron of White Castle. 

The Gym itself is hilarious.  It is a gym for "serious" weightlifters and has dozens of pictures up of dudes with vein-busting muscles.  The first night I walked in, I was immediately taken back to high school:  the gym, in a basement beneath a discount furniture store, smells exactly like the weight room in the basement beneath the old gym at Benet Academy.  I've never been there when there were more than 5 or 6 people walking around, lifting weights, flexing into the mirrors, etc.

What did I do?  I rode the exercise bike.  Manly, I know, but remember, I haven't exercised in 5 years.  At all.  Seriously, the most exercise I've gotten was walking around the French Quarter for 3 days while I drank heavily.  Feel the burn!

Last night, in my first trip to B&W Gym to actually sweat a bit, I rode the exer-cycle for two miles, got winded and quit.

This might take a while.

Can a dessert give you an erection?

As it turns out...yes.

Allow me to back up a bit.  A few years ago, in looking for the perfect gift for a father who tends to fix his clothes with a glue-like product called "Shoo-Goo", I stumbled upon the Turducken.  The Turducken had gained a bit of fame over the years because John Madden--football announcer and spit collector--gave away turkey legs to players for a job well done during the annual Thanksgiving day football game (Bears/Packers/Vikings/Cowboys/Bucs/Saints/Raiders/Patriots/Steelers/Redskins/Chargers/Seahawks 45 - Lions 3).  The CBS production staff annually put together an avian-monstrosity called the "Turducken" that was a Frankenstein-type bird:  a turkey combined with a chicken combined with a duck.

A bird is not supposed to have this many legs

Turns out, the tradition goes back much, much further than John Madden:  “In his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reyniere presents his rôti sans pareil (‘roast without equal’)—a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting and a garden warbler—although he states that, since similar roasts were produced by ancient Romans, the rôti sans pareil was not entirely novel.  The final bird is very small but large enough to hold just an olive.”

Thanks Wikipedia!

Today, a few companies produce the Turducken around Thanksgiving, although it's not nearly as fancy-schmancy as the one Grimod conjured.  These days, the thing is pretty much just a de-boned chicken stuffed into a de-boned duck stuffed into a de-boned turkey, stuffed with a sausage and cornbread stuffing.  I say it like that in itself is not awesome. 

Needless to say, this gift was the highlight of my Dad's Christmas.  Other than spending time with his family, of course (just kidding!  The bird was totally the highlight).

Anyhoo, when writing my boring post about Thanksgiving 2011, I was going to include a picture and a history of the Turducken we devoured--the Turducken having now become a family tradition--but I was just too lazy to do so.  Can you blame me?  I still had a crap-load of Turducken in me.  But in researching the Turducken, I came across a dessert so awesome, so ungodly...I...I just don't have the words.  

Seriously, check this out.  I present to you, my brave readership of nine, with the "Turducken of Desserts"...the "Cherpumple":

 

So...horny... 

Dear god.  That thing is amazing.  It's a cherry pie baked into a frosted, white cake, placed on top of an apple pie baked into a yellow cake, atop a pumpkin pie baked into a spice cake.  Click on the picture for a larger, more fantastical image.  

Creator Charles Phoenix says, "It both intrigues and horrifies people." 

Lisa, my work neighbor and resident badass chef (I want her to write a cookbook called "EAT THIS!" that features a picture of her on the cover scowling in a chefs hat, holding a mixing bowl and giving the reader the finger), thinks she can make one of these.  She is, however, thinking that it should only be two layers.  Heresy!

I dunno.  I want one.  Although, to be fair, I'm pretty sure we all now have diabetes merely from looking at the picture. 

Thanksgiving 2011

I LOVE Thanksgiving.  It is--by every calculation--my favorite holiday of the year.  Sure, I'm filled with childish glee come Christmas...who isn't?  Except for our friends of other faiths, of course.  Also, as discussed previously on this blog, Halloween is a truly special time to go barhopping.  And while it is not a government sanctioned holiday, the NBA draft absolutely should be, in my humble opinion.

However, none of these holidays holds a special place in my heart quite like Thanksgiving.  Why do I love Thanksgiving?  Because it is all about food.  No presents, no pressure; just eating and drinking.  And napping.  And football.  And family.

This Thanksgiving was a little bittersweet as it was the first major holiday without our beloved mother and her wonderful stuffing.  To lessen the pressure of the occasion, we all chipped in this year and it became sort of a Thanksgiving Potluck:  Dad made a Turducken, his famous gravy and the mashed potatoes, my brothers-in-law chipped in with stuffing and green bean casserole, Peggy made a spot-on Red Velvet Cake from my Mother's recipe, I brought the pies and Krishni made a truly bad-for-you batch of southern-style dinner rolls.

Of course, we all brought champagne. 

And god did we eat.  Over the 36 hours I was at my Father's house, I had probably 5 slices of pie and 2 slices of cake, two full meals of stuffing and gravy and, for ceremonial purposes and nothing more, a chunk of turkey. Clearly, I'm carb conscious. 

We also celebrated my adorable Godson's 2nd birthday with remote controlled cars and trucks, played with a bunch of toys at Toys R' Us, watched a ton of (bad) football, buried the kids in leaves in the unraked back-yard, saw the new Muppet movie--it was awesome--and drank a considerable amount of wine.

Considering this was the first major holiday without Mom, I consider it a smashing success.

Now, about the extra 10 pounds I am carrying around after the weekend...

Things I don't hate

I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time bitching about the things I hate.  Like mayonnaise and Julia Roberts.  It's sort of who I am.  But today on the bus--where I overheard two dudes loudly going on and on and on about how much they hate Justin Bieber--I realized that that can be exhausting.  Who can hate Justin Bieber so much that they must angrily bitch and moan at 7:13 AM on a Friday when everyone else is patiently counting down the minutes until 5pm? 

As such, in celebration of it being Friday, I thought I would make a list of things that my stunningly sexy readership of 9 may think that I hate, but in actuality, don't bother me in the least:

1)  Bieber

Might as well start here.  I can't name or hum a single song by this kid.  I have no idea if he sucks musically or not.  All I'm going on here is what I hear people complaining about the guy.  Ok, so he has kind of douchey hair.  I'll give you that.  And he has more money than god.  But hell, he's just a kid that was thrust into a spectacularly successfully money making machine.

Can we blame him for that?  He's sort of like the next generation's version of Macaulay Culkin.  Sure, we may all remember Mac fondly now, but that's revisionist history.  There was a swift and brutal backlash against Macaulay Culkin back in the day that abruptly pushed him into an early retirement.  It's very easy to forget how much people hated that kid for a while.  So, Mac relaxed for a couple years, divorced his parents, slept with Michael Jackson, got married, got divorced, laid low and then eventually came back as an indie-movie darling and I think we can all agree, he's sort of awesome now:

God, I hope that picture isn't photoshopped

Point is, yes, Bieber is over-exposed and has that hair but it wouldn't surprise me if he either went the Mac route or the Timberlake route and remade his career on down the road.  I hated Justin Timberlake for a while...c'mon, the dude was in 'NSYNCH (did I get that right? I refuse to google it) but through a series of SNL appearances, that fun Pepsi commercial where he was killed by a big screen TV, "Tit-Gate" at the Superbowl, and some pretty good roles in the occasional movie, he's made my short list of dudes I'd probably have to set aside my heterosexuality and bang given the opportunity.  I can "not hate" Bieber and at the same time hope to god he never makes that list too, right?  I better move on.

2)  Rebecca Black

This is one that I don't get at all.  Sure, her song "Friday" was not very good.  Let's get that out of the way right now.  But is it the worst song every released?  Hell no.  I mean, the Black Eyed Peas shit out a worse song 8 or 9 times on their average album.  Bob Dylan recorded entire albums on auto-pilot that were worse than "Friday".  I can even think of a few Beatles songs that are worse: "Birthday", "The Long and Winding Road", "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" and "Michelle", just to name a few.  

I really don't understand what the spite and fury is all about.  What we have here is a 14 year old girl whose parents paid for a music video to be made of a song the girl didn't even write.  The lyrics speak about the average, every-day "problems" of a teenage girl, not about Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner having a dirty three-way with the Declaration of Independence.  Where is the controversy?  "Friday" is the definition of innocuous. 

And yet, because of this song, the girl--a freaking teenage girl--received death threats.  What?  Why?  I don't get it.  I hope she makes a shitload of money, does Bieber and writes a hilarious book someday.  The ridicule she received was not at all equal to the annoying qualities of the song. 


3)  Mondays

For just about forever, Sunday has been my favorite day of the week.  See, on Friday and Saturday, we're supposed to act and behave as functional human beings.  We go out, have drinks, mix in a dinner, run errands, visit people and generally better ourselves.  Sunday?  I consider it a loss if I change my underwear.  Sundays are all about sitting on the couch, watching football and movies, playing Nintendo and not showering.  Sunday is the perfect bridge to Monday.

If you can't deal with a Monday, then you didn't do Sunday right.  

While I don't hate Mondays, I do think that these days they are rather sad and bittersweet.  One one hand, I have to drag my fat ass out of bed, take the bus-to-the-train-to-the-bus in 40 degree weather all to help grown men masturbate.  On the other hand, I won't have to worry about that commute much longer.

Sigh.

4)  Jesus Christ

Despite what you may believe after a few of my posts these last few days, I gots nothing against the King of Kings.  Honestly?  Jesus seemed like a cool dude.  While I may not believe that he was the son of God, I do think he was a prophet of sorts and pushed a message of love that people these days really, really seem to ignore.  It's hardly his fault that millions of people have been killed in his name.  And if he's watching us today, he's probably cursing Republicans right now, saying things like "WTF?  I never said word-fucking-one about gays." or "Help the poor!  Help them!  Remember?  Love!?  I healed lepers!  You can't help a cancer-ridden single mother of 3 with her hospital bills!  Christ!"

What did Gandhi say?  "I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians."  That seems about right.

************

Thus concludes the only blog you will likely ever read where JC, Beiber and Rebecca Black have something in common.  Happy Friday!

I'm old, Part 2

Back on January 30th, 2008, I posted an entry at my totally inappropriate MySpace blog entitled, "I'm Old".  Within, it had the following passage:

"It all started at work.  My back had been feeling a little out of sorts for the better part of the day.  Lower back pain is never pleasant, I would imagine, but I had never really experienced it before.  The spasms started small and only happened when I stood up from my desk area.  Any time I turned or, uh, moved, a tiny little pain would shoot through my spine and hammer my brain.  Ouch.  But it was manageable.  

I left work, made my way to the train and started thinking about the delicious, delicious burrito I was going to buy across the street from my bus stop. I knew something was wrong when I ordered something like 'a chorizo burrito with no sour-GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !'  It snuck up on me and attacked with such vengeance that I didn't know what the hell had happened. It felt like to opposite of an orgasm.  I stammered through my order and immediately went next door to the liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka."

The rest of the post goes on to describe how useless I was for the next 48 hours.  It was the most pain I had ever randomly encountered, and this comes from a guy who just had his neck assaulted by a crazy homeless dude.  

Anyhow, I figured that the source of my back pain was from a weird chair I had been using at work.  They had just moved us from one end of the office to the other and in the move, they had lost my desk chair.  The new one was super uncomfortable and over the course of the next few weeks, I experienced some back soreness that eventually erupted into the fateful burrito order above.   I switched chairs shortly thereafter and, like magic, my back pain slowly went away.  I haven't experienced anything like that godawful week since.  

Cut to this past week.  It happened again but this time, there is no "office chair" explanation for my spasms.  I can only come to one conclusion:

I am--for realz, this time--really god damned old.

You see, normally when folks throw out their back, it's because of a lingering issue from long ago--my dad's back pain can be traced to when he played football in college--or otherwise they were doing something moderately active: whether it be playing with their kids, or falling off a ladder or making a sudden, jerky movement to prevent someone or something from falling.   All of these are fantastic excuses for back pain.  You know what I did to cause my back pain?  

I sat down on my bed to put on my socks.  

Ask Krishni about it sometime.  She was laying on the bed when I sat down and immediately shot directly up screaming something like "JESUSF'INGGAAAAAAOWOWOWOWOWCHRIST!"  I begged her to move over--likely not in a polite fashion--so I could lie down and whimper and swear and pretty much not move.   It was terrible.  And I have no idea what I did to cause the back gods to be angry with me.

Now, it's been well documented that I don't exercise enough.  And I eat a lot.  And probably drink more than I should.  And I just turned 33.  My sudden and fierce back attack was probably a direct result of all of the above.   Or maybe it's because I've already peaked as a human being--sad as it is to say, since I help grown men masturbate for a living--and it's all downhill from here.  

Christ.  Krishni married an old man.  Here's photographic proof:

Hooray for old man pants!

Calories and Jazz-Geriatrics

Many moons ago, Taco Bell came out with what I believe was the perfect drunk food:  the legendary Frito Burrito.  It was a simple concoction: chili, cheese, onions and Fritos chips wrapped in a flour tortilla.  It was spectacular.  Tracing it back, my devoted passion for Taco Bell may have come from the Frito Burrito and the Frito Burrito alone.

There was, of course, a dark side to this delicious treat.  CalorieCount.com gives a "C-" grade to the burrito that apparently features 60% of your daily allotment of saturated fat.  And it looks like this:

Raaawwwwwwwrrrr!

Sadly, the Frito Burrito was to be short lived.  It went away my junior year in college along with my dignity, waistline and most of my liver.  Little did I know it was just lying dormant and in disguise at another beloved fast-food calorie trough.

A few years ago, Sonic started serving the "Chili Cheese Wrap" which was the exact same thing, minus the onions.  Since I always picked the onions off anyway, this was a new and improved version of the burrito that was sadly only served at a restaurant that often teased me with commercials, but sadly the nearest location was about 200 miles away.  This might help explain why when Krishni and I arrived in New Orleans, we dined at Sonic three times and I ate three damn Chili Cheese Wraps.  Wooooooooo!  Calories!

But our trip to Louisiana wasn't all stops at fastfood joints.  No, we did lots of other stuff too.  After our first two nights in New Orleans, Krishni and I drove 240 miles to Deridder, LA, to stay with her Father and Step-Mother.

Frighteningly close to dirty, dirty Texas

They have a lovely ranch-style house located across the street from the Beuregard Country Club golf course.  The house is filled with some amazing art and antiques, as well as all sorts of hilarious knick-knacks like that $1,000 Egyptian throne you can buy through SkyMall:

 For the man who quite literally has everything

In the back yard, Jay--her Father--has planted what will eventually be a pretty amazing orchard.  He planted a few different kind of apple trees, a tangelo tree, a tangerine tree, a satellite peach tree...pretty much everything but a Frito Burrito tree.  But my, wouldn't that be fun?  It's a fantastic home made warm by the people within.

From Deridder, we roamed back to New Orleans and Krishni and I spent the night in a haunted hotel...woogetty boogetty!

 

"Your keys for your soul, sir."

Actually, the Dauphine Orleans Hotel is awfully swanky and normal looking:

But it allegedly houses three ghosts.  You see, back in the Civil War, before the fall of New Orleans to the bloody Yankees, the hotel was a Confederate brothel.  As the Hotel's website states:  "Haunted by Civil War soldiers and their well dressed ladies of the evening in the bar, May Bailey's, the hotel was once a bordello. It is said that at night, the spirit of the woman rearranges the bottles in the bar, as the soldier wanders through the courtyard."  Also,  "The beds are said to bounce and shake in the early hours of the morning and late in the afternoon" and people speak of the "sounds of ghostly moans in the rooms".  Brothel.  Moaning ghosts.  Beds shaking.  Get it?

Krishni claims she won the wife of the year contest because not only did she bring me to a hotel populated by ghosts, but she brought me to a hotel populated by "prostitute ghosts".  She still doesn't get it...she had wife of the year wrapped up the second we got married.

_______________________________________________

Our last night in New Orleans was a "hoot".  That's what old people say, right?  "A hoot"?  The terminology is important because of our activity of choice that evening:  The Obituary Crawl.

The final Friday we were in town, we stayed with Ruth Ann, Krishni's cousin who also stood up for Krishni at our wedding.  If you were present at the wedding, you may remember her because you either loved her or hated her.  Seriously, there was no middle ground.  Anyhoo, Ruth Ann--or RAM for short--just moved into a new place in the Quarter.  Her millionaire, eccentric, spinster of a landlord sent RAM an email inviting us to come along with this little club to which she was a member.  The club is called "Obituary Cocktail" and "meetings" are held a secret location each week.  That secret location is a fancy name for a "bar" that is changed from week to week.  The Friday we happened to tag along, the event was to be a pub crawl through the French Quarter.  Sweet!

When we strolled up to--again--Tony Seville's Pirate's Alley Cafe, I have to admit I was not prepared for the clientele of this organization.  Milling around the outside the bar, we found a hilarious group of rambunctious old people drinking absinthe and dressed to the nines with hilariously decorated parasols and feather boas...these septuagenarians were ready to par-tay!  Seriously, check out the members photos from their website:

 

Woooooooooo!

 

Woooooooooooooooo!

 Woooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Whatever.  This group was awesome.  They even hired a jazz band to lead our procession and crank out joyous little New Orleans-styled tunes as we danced our way through the streets from bar to bar.  Check out this super-short but still riotously awesome video with RAM leading the way:

The crawl was a ridiculous amount of fun and it was simply the perfect way to end our trip to the Big Easy.

You know, since I didn't get to a Sonic the next day.

Hello again!

Let's just start here:  I'm dehydrated.  Damn dehydrated.  At some point this week, I plan on being normally hydrated again but until that point...christ I'm dehydrated.

Holy hannah, New Orleans is fun.

The Big Easy...that's where I've been for the last few days and that's why I haven't been blogging like a good little blogger.  I would have alerted my stunningly good-looking readership of nine but I didn't want some of the seedier sides of said readership--I'm looking at you, Mary Kate--to take advantage of my vacation and rob my condo blind whilst I was away.  She probably would have left me only with a camera and a toothbrush, for whatever reason.

"What kind of sick bitch takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer?"

Anyhow, my gloriously beautiful wife and I traveled down south for a week to visit her Father and Step-Mother, take in the sites and consume entirely too much alcohol.  Here's some stuff that happened:

Day 1:  We arrived in New Orleans, ate at Sonic about 5 minutes after we left Enterprise Rent-a-Car (Helllllllloooooooooo Frito Burrito!) and made our way to her friend Kendra's house.  Kendra is a cool cat who was in our wedding and has a lovely apartment not too far from the Tulane campus.  She took us out to a proper deep-fried NOLA dinner, we had a few beers and then we went to what amounts to a state fair:  Gretna Fest.

Gretna, apparently, is a suburb of New Orleans and--from what I could tell--is pretty much Tulsa with a river.

Wanna go?  No?  I don't blame you.

All of the white trash fixin's for a good state fair were present and accounted for:  Guys in Harley t-shirts?  Check.  Women who shouldn't be wearing tube tops?  Double check.  Deep fried things you wouldn't think to deep fry?  I ate deep friend brownies.  Coors Light?  Oh hell yeah.  Arrests?  We witnessed many.  What's left of Lynyrd Skynyrd?  Can't you smell that smell?

 Hint:  It's either you guys or Katrina.  What?  Too soon? 

To be fair, we couldn't actually see Skynyrd...they were playing on the other side of the levee and there was an enormous crowd.  Misery loves company, I guess.  But we sat in the grass on the far side of the levee and took in their musical genius.  In a word, the whole night was "awesome".  I will admit that sometimes I miss the hilarity of Tulsa so it was super-fun to go to a festival that celebrated all that is white trash.  Also, I don't know if AC/DC has, like, a house in Gretna or something but I saw soooooo many people sporting black AC/DC shirts.  Odd.

I was the designated driver that night so it was promised that we would go balls to the wall the next night in the French Quarter.   And that we did.  We headed down to the quarter to watch the Saints game the next afternoon and I met up with an old buddy from Benet where we proceeded to have many, many beers before getting one of those godforsaken Hurricanes (or two?  Maybe three?  I dunno) and roaming around the quarter for the rest of the night.  We ended up at an absinthe bar and closed the place out with the bartender, the bouncer and this rather strange couple from Chicago.  This is where the night got weird.

The guy actually owns a goth corset company.  I don't know if you know anything about me but when there is a dude who owns a corset company in the room, I talk to that guy. 

Pictured:  Hawtness

And yes, that was the most PG-13 picture of a chick in a corset I could find.  Although, when you google "Gothic Corset" many, many terrifying pictures come up.  Like this:

Oh, dear god.  

And this:

 Why?  Why, god, WHY?!?!

So I'm talking to this dude and his wife who own a gothic corset company.  Honestly, I don't know how or why the subject came up but we started talking about Vlad the Impaler.  As his name might imply, Vlad Tepes was not a nice guy.  He ruled a section of Europe in the 1400's then known as Wallachia and was constantly at war with the Ottoman Empire.  As his name suggests, his favorite mode of torture was to impale a person on a (text far to awful to type) by inserting (text far too awful to type) while it slowly (text far too awful to type) until it emerged (text far too awful to type).  Also--and I cannot stress this enough--he was Bram Stoker's inspiration for freaking Dracula.  Clearly, he was just a super, super good guy.

Vlad "Giggles" Tepes

1431–1476

Anyhow, my new gothic alterna-friend at the absinthe bar was trying to convince me that Vlad the Impaler was anything other than a terrible human being.  He was passionate about it.  Like he had written his gothic dissertation on the guy or something.  At this point in my evening, I was (super) drunk on beer/hurricane/vodka/absinthe/etc and I was ready to fight him tooth and nail on the subject.

As you may well know, I am a bit of a history buff who has some knowledge of the serial killer because I read far to many books on the subject.  I recommend Colin Wilson's The Mammoth Book of the History of Murder if you want a fabulously-entertaining-while-being-equally-and-sufficiently-horrific bathroom book for your loved ones this Christmas.  While he is not technically a serial killer--"asshole" is the better term--within that book, you will find a nice little section on our good friend Vlad. 

My corset creating bar-mate kept going on and on about why Vlad was such an important leader but he oddly refused to acknowledge all the horrible things Vlad did, suggesting they were "media creations"...as if CNN and Fox News have an ongoing smear campaign against Vlad Tepes.  To put this in a modern historical context, it would be like if a guy insisted Adolf Hitler is viewed unfairly solely because he built the autobahn.  He kept saying things like "He reinvigorated the local economy!" and "He created a set of laws that is still used there today!"  All I kept saying was "His name was Vlad the fucking Impaler." 

No, I assure you my arguments were more intelligent and eloquent than that.  Although the words above did spill out of my alcohol blessed mouth more than a few times.  The moral of the story?  I guess it's this:  never get into a heated argument about a guy named Vlad the Impaler at an absinthe bar in the French Quarter called "Tony Seville's Pirates Alley Cafe" with a guy who owns a local gothic corset company and is sporting the greasy pony-tail-and-goatee-combo of a virgin Dungeons and Dragons player.

Let that be a lesson to you.

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Tomorrow:  More trips to Sonic!  I stayed at a haunted hotel!  I went on an "Obituary Crawl"!  I'm likely still dehydrated!

Christ-fil-A

My morning commute lasts about 50 minutes, give or take.  I usually take the 84 bus to the 147 bus and then walk the 3 blocks from Michigan Avenue to my work at 680 N Lake Shore Drive.  Sometimes, unfortunately, the bus gods don't play nice and I'm forced to take the Red Line downtown.  I don't have anything against the train...it's just louder, more herky-jerky, and is super-crowded by the time I reach my destination.  Today was one of those train days.

One bonus of taking the train to work is that the exit of the Chicago red-line stop spills out at the front door of Chicago's newest fast-food joint, Chick-fil-A.  Those of you from south of the Mason-Dixon line are well versed in the deliciousness of Chick-fil-A.  Those from up north likely only recognize the establishment for those amazing cows that urge folks to avoid eating beef:

Seriously.  These cows SLAY me.

This morning, my second bus was running late so I reluctantly took the red line to work.  However, such a travel annoyance comes with the promise of a delicious chikin biscuit at the other end of my commute.  I ordered my biscuit, waited, like, 30 seconds and a nice lady delivered it to me.  I said "Thanks!", turned around and started to walk away when I'm 90% sure she replied with "God bless you!"  As I said, since I was running late, I had already turned to walk away but I'm pretty damn sure those were her words.

Now, Chick-fil-A's politics are well known.  The company was started by a deeply religious man down in Georgia and their mission statement is almost as funny as those cows:  "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.   And serving deep-fried chicken sandwiches to everyone but fags." 

Full disclosure:  I may have added that last part. 

However, they have donated a ton of money in the equally-hilarious (and terrifying) "National Organization for Marriage" and have been involved in a number of discrimination lawsuits.  Because, you know, its ok to hate on queers and Muslims because, like, God and stuff.

So by all means I should avoid this place like the plague.  Like Target, they have an abhorrent political stance and I should not support either organization but damned if I don't like the joint.  The chicken sandwiches are really good.  Plus, they serve waffle fries and their single serving ketchup doesn't come in annoying packets, it comes in an awesomely convenient cup that you can squeeze in the traditional fashion or peel back the top and dip stuff into it:

How cool is that?  And why has no one thought of this before?

Returning to my experience this morning, it was odd to be preached-to at a fast food restaurant.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna go all Jimmy Johns and boycott the place.  It's just weird.  Growing up Catholic, I'm used to being surrounded by god-stuff: crucifixes, flying through our prayer before dinner ("blessusohlordandthesethygiftswhichweareabouttoreceivefromthybountythroughchristourlordamen"), morning prayers on the intercom at school, spending my Saturday mornings at stupid CCD class...I get it.  God is all around us if you want to believe that sort of thing.  I don't think, however, that if I was hit by a bus on Michigan Avenue later this morning, I would be granted the keys to the gates of heaven just because I ate a delicious $2 chicken sandwich and was blessed by the cashier before I did so. 

I dunno.  Maybe I'm wrong and the girl with the colorful beads in her hair that blessed me today is right.  And maybe I'm screwed anyway because despite my Chikin baptismal, I feel a dude should be able to marry another dude and "Christians" should just back the fuck off. 

And maybe--just maybe--nothing that occurred this morning matters at all in the cosmic scheme of things and all I really did was make a bunch of cows ludicrously happy because they won't face the slaughterhouse for another day. 

I'm sure we'll meet again soon at White Castle, cow.

Krishni Returns Today

And let my liver be the 1st to say, "Thank you!"

Nah, just kidding.  While I did get a bit messed up on one or two nights, it was actually a pretty relaxing 10 days for me.  There were several nights where I was tucked neatly into bed before 10pm.  I really only pushed myself to the limit the day of my court hearing and even then, I was passed out by such a reasonable hour that I woke up fresh as a drunken daisy the next morning. 

As you may or may not recall, I had a few goals for my bachelorhood week.  Let's see how I did:

Walking a mile.  Total.
I may have walked more than a mile.  There is no way of knowing but I will say that I probably dropped more on cabs than I'm used to spending.  I'll count this as a win for me and a loss for exercise. 
Pizza.  Lots of it.
You know, Brad and I got a pizza the 2nd night Krishni was gone and I never ordered it again.  Granted, it was a mondo Art of Pizza pizza* and I ate off of it for the next few days but still.  Dominos surprisingly didn't get a dime of my money and I am pretty sure I can throw an empty beer can from my couch and hit the store. 
Movies.  Bad ones.
My short list:  Jennifer's Body (loved it), Predators (probably not good if you're sober), Cool Runnings (ditto), Futurama's Bender's Big Score and Bender's Game, Grown Ups (laughed harder than I ever thought I would at this movie.  I still think Kevin James sucks, though), The Hot Chick (yeah.  This one was not good) and Waterworld.  Because it never gets old. 
Drinking.  Heavily.
Had a fantastic boys night out on Friday night and the last drink I ordered was a "bourbon and orange juice".  Let's just say the conversation and camaraderie was better than that last drink. 
Porn.  Lots of it.
This was my next day.  All day.   
Sportscenter.  On a constant loop.
I was tremendously annoyed that PTI wasn't on all week.  Damn it. 
Baseball.  Picture-in-picture with Sportscenter. 
The friggin' Sox.  Just when I left them for dead they run off a 6 game win streak just to get my slim hopes pumped up before they punch my optimistic ass right in the head.  College football, why won't you get here faster?!
Tacos.  Lots of them. 
I ate the hell out of some tacos when Mel came over to watch the season finale of Supernatural (you know, the one that aired, like, 4 months ago?  Thank you DVR).  And my wife will be happy to know, all tacos came with actual vegetables in addition to copious amounts of fat, sodium and cholesterol. 
Mario.  In all incarnations.
I did, in fact, beat Mario Wii again while she was gone.  I guess what I'm saying is I did accomplish something. 
Pants.  Not gonna wear 'em.
Wait!  Clearly I accomplished two things!

So, it was a pretty good week but I'm glad that it ends tonight upon my gorgeous wife's triumphant return.  Fortunately, my bachelorhood isn't totally dead...she's returning just in time for football season!  Notre Dame kicks off on Saturday!  Woot woot!  Get your green on, babe!

I am truly living the dream**.

*if you are not familiar with the Art of Pizza, it is this FANTASTIC stuffed-pizza joint on Ashland Ave here in the city.  Folks, I've eaten a lot of pizza in my day.  Far more than you.  And I have never in my life eaten better pizza than the Art of Pizza.  Trust me.  Order today. 

**I am allowed to watch the game on Saturday, right Krishni?  Right?  Krishni?  I love you!

The Novelty is Gone!

My wife flew out of town for 10 days on Monday.  That evening, I drank entirely too much whiskey and ate dinner from an On-core! Veal Parmagiana.

I'll be the 1st to admit it.  Ew. 

Tuesday night, I shared an early dinner with Brad then kicked back, had a little bit of wine and watched a couple of movies.  It was fun.

Wednesday night?  Well, I got home from work and just kind of stood in the front room of my condo.  I looked around, mulled my options as far as Nintendo goes, and realized I was already bored to tears.

Who knew?  I missed my wife!

Obviously, I'm kidding about my surprise.  But I honestly thought the novelty of being a bachelor again would last longer.  Apparently, the extent that I like to be a nouveau bachelor is exactly 48 hours.  Also apparently, I'm pretty boring and kinda needy. 

Who knew?  Probably all of you.

Aaaaaaaaand this is why America is fat...

I walked downstairs to the grocery store in my building for lunch.  In the deli line, a very, very large woman was explaining why she hates Royal Carrebean Cruise Line:

"They don't have enough food."

I don't know if any of you have ever been on a cruise before but all you freakin' do is eat.  They have midnight buffets dedicated to chocolate!  They have between 4-8 restaurants for your choosing pleasure!  Room service is free!

Sigh. 

My super-awesome, intelligent and sexy wife is out of town...

...Here is what I plan on doing for the next 10 days:

Walking a mile.  Total.
Pizza.  Lots of it.
Movies.  Bad ones.
Drinking.  Heavily.
Porn.  Lots of it.
Sportscenter.  On a constant loop.
Baseball.  Picture-in-picture with Sportscenter. 
Tacos.  Lots of them. 
Mario.  In all incarnations.
Pants.  Not gonna wear 'em.

Exhaust, meat and glorious, glorious smashing

I've stated many times over that the number one thing I miss about college is waking up specifically to drink.  In my fraternity days, on the morning of one of our parties, we would wake up at 8am for an event called "Drivers and Donuts".  We would set up for the party that A.M. and eat donuts and drink screwdrivers.  Thus allowing the collegiate overachiever to get drunk twice in one day.  Three times if Rum Fest happened to fall later that afternoon.

I don't often get the opportunity anymore to wake up and pound beverages; Opening Day is my only remaining event that requires morning drinking.  However, I still seek out events where I can--at the very least--drink all day.  Which brings me to this past Saturday's spectacle, the "World Famous Figure 8 Trailer Race" in Rockford, Illinois. 

The trailer race is exactly as it sounds.  Well, not exactly...it's also a demolition derby.  What it boils down to is an all day event at the Rockford Speedway but most of the day is a series of short-track, NASCAR-style races.  We tend to wait until the last possible moment to enter the stadium since I have absolutely no interest in NASCAR.  Why people pay their hard earned money to sit in the sun and--as George Carlin once said--watch redneck jerk-offs drive 500 miles in a circle is beyond me.  After these races, roughly 20 yahoos who have been building and modifying their shitty trucks for the past year, pull onto the race track with the intention of destroying every other vehicle in sight.  This part of the event is very white trash.  This part of the event is also a ridiculous amount of fun.

The rules are simple:  a hillbilly enters the race with a car/truck/jeep and attaches a car/boat/camper to his vehicle via trailer.  Said hillbilly then drives around trying to destroy every other trailer on the track until one hillbilly with a trailer remains.  You can stay in the race as long as your vehicle is drivable-ish and still retains the trailer.  And did I mention they drive in a figure 8?  Words cannot adequately express the mayhem that is unleashed upon the track.  Hopefully this video will do the trick:

My friends Mary Kate "Perpetually Pregnant" Terberg and her husband Dirk host the event.  Apparently, Dirk and his friends have been coming to to the Rockford Speedway for the race the last 11 years.  And boy do they go all-out.  They're the 1st to arrive in the parking lot, they stake a tent and skull-and-crossbones flag near the beer and proceed to drink for the next 8-10 hours.  This year, they had pulled pork catered and grilled all sorts of delicious, delicious meats.  At the chef's suggestion, I piled a mountain of pulled pork on top of my cheeseburger and now have a new favorite way to destroy myself from within. 

 Proud sponsor of the 2011 World Famous Figure 8 Trailer Race

As the title of this post indicates, the race was glorious.  I was surrounded by good friends, good meat and some weird rodents that filled the parking lot and increasingly baffled our party as we consumed more booze.  We ate, played catch, mocked the trash and peed in a field (dudes only).  We smuggled in beers, watched 45 painful minutes of NASCAR races and ate some oddly good fried cheese from the Rockford Speedway.  And we watched 20 rednecks with names like "Spark Plug" and "Whitey" and "Caterpiller Miller" destroy each others vehicles in a truly American example of overzealous waste and fury.

We will, of course, return next year. 

USA!  USA!

He he he!

Krishni can tell you this:  I giggle a lot.  Maybe it's my obsession with Disney World but I try to keep a little whimsy in my life.  Krishni and I had a good guffaw when I watched Enchanted for the 1st time; I pointed out to her that that she was clearly the Patrick Dempsey character in the movie and I was clearly the Amy Adams character.

That's me on the left

To be fair:  of the two of us, I am far, far more likely to tell a cancer joke; but I do have a much more whimsical view of the world than she does.  And if that means that I get so excited about certain activities that I showcase a mile-wide smile and giggle uncontrollably, so be it. 

There are 5 scheduled days in each calendar year that require giggling:

1)  Opening Day
2)  Thanksgiving
3)  My fantasy baseball draft (I'm cool)
4)  My Brithday
5)  The NBA Draft

Opening day needs no explanation:  Brad and I start drinking beer at dawn, we eat fatty foods and watch baseball in the cold.  Te-hee!

Thanksgiving is hands-down the best-est of all holidays.  Thanksgiving is all about stuffing a turkey, stuffing me and hanging with the family by the fire.  What could be better?

My fantasy baseball draft involves pizza, wine and poor decisions around the 23rd round.  Krishni enjoys this day on a much different level than I do...she still thinks it's cute.  However, this day, sometime far in the future, will also be known as "The day Mike's wife finally realizes what a loser Mike is and packs a bag and slips out forever without her husband noticing because he's staring at his computer screen and deciding whether its a good idea to draft a closer in the 12th round or wait until the 18th.  While giggling."

It will be a very sad day. 

My birthday kicks ass because I've never had a problem planning my own birthday party.  Why not plan a day celebrating me where my friends buy me drinks?  The better question is:  why don't all of you do this?

Which brings me to the NBA Draft. 

For those not in the know, every year most of the best college basketball players leave school and enter into the NBA draft.  Each June, these players are selected by each NBA franchise in an order roughly determined by the previous years record; typically, the worst teams get the higher picks (meaning 1, 2, 3, etc) and best teams get the lower picks (28, 29, 30, etc).  There are two rounds worth of players picked over the span of about 5 hours. 

The draft is tonight. 

Honestly, I'm not sure what draws me to the NBA Draft.  On the "Mike Jacklich Personal Sports Hierarchy", the Bulls come in 4th behind the Sox (1), Notre Dame Football (2) and The Benet Academy Boys Varsity Basketball Team (3). 

While I love baseball and college football more than I love NBA basketball, I've always, always love the NBA offseason more than any other league's offseason.  Last years was epic:  the free-agent frenzy that centered around LeBron that directly and indirectly affected about half the league when it came to off-season moves and contender statuses will never, ever be topped.  It was so much fun to follow.

This year, we have equal drama:  a potential lock-out and the cancellation of a chunk of the regular season.  Truth be told, I love lock-outs.  I think they are absurd.  Millionaires arguing with billionares over a bigger slice of the pie...it's fun on the oddest of levels.

Back in college, there was a lockout that I followed closely.  It was pretty funny.  The owners quickly learned that most players actually lived paycheck-to-paycheck just like many of us do.  The only difference, of course, is that while I'm trying to decide how to best payoff my two credit card balances that don't total more than $2,000, NBA players were dealing with an entourage, house payments on 3 different properties, 6 car payments, servants, chefs, wives, girlfriends, 1 to 10 kids, family members begging for money, gambling debts, lawsuits, VIP rooms, strip clubs and hookers.  It was a lifestyle that was killing the players.

At some point in the middle of the lockout, the players floated the idea of having a "charity" game for some of the guys that needed cash or for players that were "only" making the league minimum which, at the time, was about $270,000...Patrick Ewing, the Hall of Fame center for the Knicks, was famously quoted as saying--in a tremendously poor attempt to gain public sympathy--"Sure NBA players make a lot of money, but we spend a lot too."  Boo-freakin'-hoo, Pat. 

The Draft tonight is just the 1st part of what I like to call the NBA's silly season.  Why do I love the draft?  Well, it's a bit different this year:  we have a pretty weak draft as far as the quality of the players being drafted.  Because of that and since there is no real consensus on who is going to go where, there should be a ton a trades and GMs across the NBA are going to be trying to unload salary before the lockout.  Chaos is always fun. 

Also, back in college we played what was, in retrospect, a horribly racist drinking game during the broadcast.  Rules included "Drink for players with cornrows" and "Drink 5 if the player hugs a Mom but there is no Dad present" and "Drink 5 when a white guy gets drafted in the top 20, finish your beer if he's picked 1st overall."  It got worse than that, too.  But hey, Bonzer T's Homeskillet is PG-13, remember?

So, tonight I'm going to sit down with some booze, my home-made NBA Draft t-shirt, some fatty foods and a ridiculous smile on my face while I watch the NBA landscape change.

There will be giggling.

The Poll Results are In!

And apparently I'm wrong.

My loyal readership of 7 may remember a few weeks ago when I posted the "Literal Sally" story about my wife.  Our argument boiled down to this:  When I went off to watch the Chicago Bulls play basketball, was I watching "Boys playing with balls" or was I watching "Boys playing with ball"?  Well, the results are in and they are not pretty:

Boys playing with ball:   3 votes (33%)

Boys playing with balls:  6 votes (66%)

Full disclosure:  I voted twice. So thank you, kind stranger, who voted with me.  It's just you and me against the world. 

I still say that within the confines of the marital argument, I'm right.  Sure, maybe not grammatically or even drunkenly correct....none of this changes the fact that there is only one damn ball that matters.

Alas, the people have spoken.  And, as I've always said, everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if that opinion is wrong.

Whatever.  You guys suck.

******************

This seems as good a time as any to bring up the results of my first poll:  "Should Mike lay off the crap?".  This poll was thrown up after my recent visit to the doctor's office who found that my cholesterol level was "John Goodman High".  This was also after a fast-food bender of epic proportions.  The results:

Should Mike lay off the crap?

God, yes!  Krishni loves you!  6 votes
Nah. If there's anything these last 32 years has taught us, it's that your colon can handle anything:  4 votes
I dunno.  Do you have insurance?  0 votes

First and foremost, I'd like to thank the 6 voters who seem concerned about my physical well being.  Secondly, I'd like to thank the 4 voters that will continue to encourage me to destroy myself from within.  That'll be a whole lot of fun. 

Hey, isn't tonight the all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner at The Rail?

Fat

I wouldn't say I'm on a diet.  That would require effort.  No, what I'm on is sort of a gradual (ok, minimal) change in lifestyle that has happened to result in me dropping a few pounds.  My wife sneaks vegetables into my dinners, I'm eating less crap and the only thing I typically eat before dinner is a couple of bowls of cereal at work.  It has actually been quite painless.

However...

I went a bit off the rails this week.  Anyone who knows anything about me knows I dig novelty.  Pretty much whenever a fast food restaurant comes out with a new item, I really, really need to eat it.  I'm stupid like that.  As a matter of fact, I have a standing date with my friend Kalena to go and get the new Taco Bell item whenever it comes out.  We haven't yet named our awesome club but over the years we've picked up a few intrepid members:  Krishni, Mel, Brad, Marc...that's Kalena's Marc, not my buddy Marc.  Although he did join us once which resulted in a pretty wicked case of food poisoning after the XXL Double Beef Chalupa experience; but we all ate the same thing and none of us got sick.  Funny, that.  I think he just didn't want join us anymore.  I really don't blame him; the Chalupa itself was pretty gross.  I mean, look at this thing!  Gross, right?:

Where was I?  Ah, yes, fast food novelty.  Last night we all convened at the Wrigleyville Taco Bell (motto: "20% more expensive than any other Taco Bell") for the new item:  The Cheesy Double Decker Taco.

First of all, a review:  It was goooooood.  You see, what makes this different from a standard Double Decker Taco is instead of a layer of beans fusing the soft shell to the hard shell, there is now an added layer of nacho cheese oozing out the sides.  That's the only difference.  I mean, what do you want?  There's only so many ways you can combine the same 8 ingredients.  Until they introduce chorizo--Please Taco Bell!  Bring us chorizo!--we're working with a limited color pallet. 

Now onto the problem:  Sure, I could have had just one of these things.  But instead, I had two.  And a shrimp taco.  As the ad says up top, "Get twice the taco".  Does that mean I had a taco to the 5th power?  I dunno but it felt good.  For a while.

So a scant 5 days after the White Sox/Bulls bender, I had a little Taco Bell extravaganza.  Big deal, right?  Well, that would be the case if only I hadn't eaten one of these over the previous 36 hours:

Yes; for those of you concerned about my heart, that is sausage, pepperoni and bacon stuffed and baked with a shitload of cheese into the crust of this Pizza Hut monstrosity.  Let's ignore for a moment that is was pretty good.  This pizza is the definition of American excess.  This pizza is one of the main reasons folks in the Middle East hate us.  This pizza is the reason my lungs almost exploded when I had to run 2 blocks at a full sprint to catch my bus this morning. 

I think it's best that I lay off the crap for a while.  My body deserves it.

Pacific Scrimps

Last May, after our ridiculously fantastic wedding, my wife and I went on a Caribbean cruise for our honeymoon.  For 10 days we ate, drank and soaked up the sun.  It was glorious. 

Holland America Line, for those who haven't cruised, caters to an older crowd.  We're talkin' like "blue haired ladies" older.  However, the Godparents had cruised on HAL since the 50's and, as a result, I've built up a little bit of standing with the company.  Kids, you're looking at a HAL Bronze Medallion holder.  Bam!  Anyhow, I have my own personal "Cruise Coordinator", I get nice discounts on future trips and invitations to champagne toasts with the captain and such. 

My cruise coordinator, knowing that I didn't have a foot in the grave, set up my new wife and I at a dinner table with two other younger couples.  One was a pair of Denver cops a few years older than us who loved to drink and had some truly fantastic law enforcement stories.  The other couple was another set of newlyweds from Lawrence, Kansas whose names, jobs and faces escape me at the moment.  Seriously; I ate dinner with these people for 9 straight nights and I don't remember a thing about them.  Guess which couple we enjoyed more? 

The couple from Kansas was actually so forgettable that I couldn't remember their names while we were still on the cruise.  I took to calling them--both to Krishni and the super cops--"Jasmine and Steve" because those were names I could remember.

Anyhow, Jasmine and Steve were, shall I say, "large" in nature.  They, like me, loved to eat.  As a matter of fact, Jasmine was a "food blogger".  Each night, she would awkwardly take photos of her food with the arrival of each new course, provided she remembered to do so.  She lost more than one shot on the cruise because she started tearing into her meal before she remembered to take a photo of it.  I laughed internally because "The fat girl forgot to take a picture before she ate her plate!  Har!"

And I'm a dick.

Why do I bring up a boring story from 10 months ago?  Because last night I had the pleasure of experiencing the new Pacific Shrimp Burrito from Taco Bell.  And I forgot to take a picture before I ate the hell out of that thing.  So this will have to do:

I have news for you:  it was good.  Damn good.  So good, everyone thought, it should not have been from Taco Bell.  A few reviews:

Marc:  "It was light years beyond what I expected."
Krishni:  "I liked the taco better than the burrito." 
Kalena:  "I can't believe that the shrimp are so shrimpy."
Mel:  "It's like they used real shrimp."

Ok, ringing endorsements they are not.  All of the above just suggest shock and awe over the quality of the Taco Bell experience.  What cannot be argued is that this group of seasoned Taco Bell veterans really enjoyed their meal.

The shrimp were juicy and tangy, the crispy strips were, um, crispy and the burrito accoutrement worked just as those rich guys from the commercial said it would.  Seriously, I cannot recommend it enough. 

I have to believe that even Jasmine would approve.