I Wanna Go Fast!

I’ve been driving in to San Francisco to go out with some friends from work the last few weekends, and I've got something to say: for a city that's known for being full of intelligent people, the road design here sure is fucking dumb. For those of you back east, the best way I can describe driving in San Francisco is “San Francisco’s roads are like driving through Boston for the first time, only you were spun around 500 times and forced to take copious amounts of acid beforehand.” The road names don’t seem to follow any pattern, and there’s plenty of one-way streets, just like Boston… but there’s also massive hills blocking your view of what's coming up everywhere, and while all of the intersections have white lines, only some of them require stopping. It appears that whoever designed the city decided it should be a fun scavenger hunt at every intersection to add to the excitement of the drive, so there’s various stop signs and stoplights, but they always seem to be off to the side on a random corner instead of in the middle where you’d expect them. While everyone appreciates a good game of Where's Waldo, I prefer not to play it in the middle of oncoming traffic.

I’m proud to announce that my stats minor has been put to good use. After much exhaustive research, I’ve determined an official numeric value for hotness: “How long can you keep me watching a Lifetime movie?” Congratulations, Lacey Chabert – you are the current champion, with a new world record of “about 5 minutes.” The only problem is that there’s pretty much no such thing as “A Perfect Ten” anymore, since there’s no way in hell I’d watch a Lifetime movie that long, no matter who’s starring in it.

While football games may have been going on for a few weeks now, the season didn’t officially start until this past Sunday, when announcers made their first “Wow, Hines Ward sure is tough!” rant.

Tougher than a lumberjack, a pirate, and Chuck Norris combined.

Speaking of football, here’s a few more random thoughts I had while watching the Cowboys dominate the Bears so hard, we all thought the Bears must have forgotten their safety word…

Anyone else think the Wendy’s commercial where they inhale the helium and then go to Wendy’s has “pothead” written all over it? Think about it – everyone’s in the room doing what’s essentially drugs, then someone suggests fast food, and everyone thinks it’s the most fucking amazing idea in the universe.

And you thought Joe Camel was a bad influence...

Terrence Newman is back from his injury! I guess you could say that now that he’s recovered, Newman is a New Man. By the way, that screaming noise you hear is from the 40 or so people who want to make sure they never see such awful puns again trying to pry their own eyes out with a plastic spoon.

Pesto is a dumb name. It sounds like someone caught a bunch of pests and made them into a sauce. I’ll have my pasta without cockroaches, thank you very much.

I wonder how far an NFL punter could punt a small baby. I’m gonna set the over/under at about 20 yards. In fact, I think they should incorporate babies into all those NFL Skills Competitions they have at the Pro Bowl every year. They could see how far punters can punt them, how far quarterbacks can throw them, how hard linebackers can tackle them…it’ll be fun for everyone. Well, except for the babies.

But mommy, I don't wanna go to the Pro Bowl... Mat McBriar is kicking this year!

Finally, how fitting is it that the Cowboys signed Tank Johnson? A player known for his trouble with guns being signed by a team that plays in Texas, the only state where fans probably like players more after they get arrested for handgun possession.

3rd Post's the Charm

I missed last Thursday’s entry, and my old computer died so I haven’t been on AIM… so for those of you back home I haven’t talked to in a while, let’s kick this puppy off with a few quick Yes and No updates about my life in Will Smith’s Wild Wild West over the past couple weeks.

Yes, I am still alive, even after the tazer incident.

No, I have not been able to watch much of the NL East race, as we don’t get SNY out here.

Yes, I am furious about the above fact.

No, I do not think 2 Fast 2 Furious was a good movie title. I stand by my original thought that it should have been The Faster and the Furiouser.

Yes, I did just recycle an old joke of mine. I blame the northern Cali hippies, they keep raving about recycling.

No, I have not become a dirty hippie. Even if I adopted their political views, I’d never fit in to their “shower less than once a decade” requirement.

Yes, there’s a 50-50 chance I’m going to be fired from work far before the decade ends for cracking up hysterically when I pick up the customer service line and someone with a funny accent is on the other end of the call.

No, I would not just pack my stuff and walk out if I was fired… I’d sprint to the cafeteria and scoop up 14 platters of Google food on the way out.

Yes, the first thing I thought of when I typed “let’s kick this puppy off” at the beginning of this entry was Jack Black punting the dog off the bridge in Anchorman.

Throughout the US Open, I saw the Gillette commercial with Federer, Tiger, and Thierry Henry several times a day, and I still have NO idea what Henry says. I talked to my brother, and we’ve narrowed it down to either “I never think about yesterday” or “I know a thing about history”… and either way, we’re still confused. Speaking of the US Open, I’ll never understand athletes who wear jewelry while they compete. While this is usually more reserved for the track stars whose feats (or should I say ‘feet’?) are all the more amazing by the fact that they ran that fast while wearing 42 pounds of bling in their necklaces, Justine Henin somehow played her entire match wearing a rather expensive looking watch. Luckily for her, my friend Sara has kindly volunteered to hold the watch for her forever, so she can focus more on the tennis.

I know it’s already Week 2, but I didn’t write last week, and I feel it’s important to bring up Week 1 to prove a point I’ve been trying to make for a long time. In the Colts-Saints season opener, Jason David, former Colts and current Saints cornerback, was burned for three touchdowns. That’s right: Jason David, a star member of the “Don’t trust me, I have two first names” club. It's called a first name for a reason - it comes First. You can't have a second first, it just doesn't make sense.

While I’m talking about football, did anybody see Champ Bailey’s interception off Josh McCown in the Raiders-Broncos game? What the fuck was Josh McCown thinking? “Oh, I’m under pressure… I need to get rid of the ball… I know! I’ll lob it somewhere… where to lob…. Aha! There’s the best defender in football, I’ll lob it towards him!” It’s like going to the bar, and really feeling like you need to find a girl that night, and then, just as the bar is about to close, when you have to pick one and just go for it, walking up to the one wearing a miniskirt and 2-feet high boots with a cold sore on her lip.

The fact that Beauty and the Geek got a 2-hour season premiere while Family Guy only gets one hour makes me hurt almost as much as the police tazer did earlier this week. (If you aren’t understanding these tazer jokes, read this news story. Unforunately, they got my age wrong… and for some reason, my hair doesn’t look as red in the Youtube video.) Anyway, the fact that these reality shows can get so much airtime is just wrong… although it’s not quite as wrong as this:

(POST-POSTING NOTE: For some reason, it seems to be cutting the right half of the images off for some people. Right click it and click View Image to see the whole thing, cause it doesn't make sense if you only see half.)

Not quite seeing what's wrong? Let me help you out...

Yup, that's a tailor with a bright neon coat hanger right next to a Planned Parenthood center. There’s really not much else to say, other than “hahahaha… wtf were they thinking?”

Bo Knows Blogging.

You know you live near Oakland when you hear MC Hammer on the radio and see a guy wearing a Bo Jackson jersey in the same car ride.

Actually, while I’m about 40 minutes from Oakland, I live just a few minutes down the street from a Casual Male XL store, which confused me for a while… the first few times I walked by it, I couldn’t decide if it was a clothing store that sold large sizes, or one of those penis enhancement places that you always see commercials for on ESPN on weekends.

I finally started my job this Tuesday, since Monday was Laborless Day. It’s not bad so far, but after spending almost two weeks with a schedule that basically consisted of “sleep in, wake up, swim in the pool until I get hungry, eat, wander around aimlessly in weather that’s guaranteed to be 90ish and sunny, repeat”, you could ask me to hold your empty soda can while you needed a free hand for 12 seconds, and it would seem like some hellishly unfair and difficult task. But on a more positive note, the Pacific Time Zone makes for some perfect after-work activities… tomorrow, I’ll be going straight from work to a sports bar, just on time for the 5:30 Pacific Time NFL Season Opener. In fact, rather than talking more about work, I think I’m going to use the next chunk of space for some random season-preview thoughts…

-Roethlisberger will bounce back from a poor season, now that he’s finally comfortable that Jerome Bettis is indeed far enough away that he won’t need to worry about Bettis seeing “berger” on his jersey and taking a bite out of his shoulder before the snap.

-Tony Romo will lead us all to a glorious event this winter, but whether it’s a Cowboys championship or a Carrie Underwood sex tape remains to be seen.

-The world will finally realize the irony of the fact that tiny Tiki Barber played for the Giants, but as he’s now retired, it will be too late.

-Millions of gamblers who took the over on the “Week Larry Johnson’s legs physically fall off: Week 9” will groan in unison as his left leg detaches from his body in week 7.

-Despite their names, the Saints vs. Cardinals matchup will not be a holy war.

-The Bengals will attempt to trade names with the Steelers, in order to have a name that more accurately reflects their team full of felons.

I recently set up my voicemail for my apartment. I had quite a few thoughts for what the message should say, but I figured I should leave it pretty standard, at least for the first few weeks here. Rejected voicemail ideas included having Gwen Stefani start singing “leave a message and I’ll call you back…” (but after both Gwen AND the random drunk dude at the karaoke bar both rejected my offer, I had to give up on that one), and “hi, we can’t come to the phone right now… if you’d leave your name, number, and time of day, we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks a lot for calling, bye”, just so Harrigan wouldn’t fly 3000 miles to come kick my ass for not doing it.

On my drive to Berkeley last week, I had to go over the Dumbarton Bridge. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of driving over it, allow me to share the only two facts you need to know about it. 1) It’s the weirdest “bridge” ever… it’s kinda half-bridge, half-road, half-pig. Call it Bridgeroadpig. It’s only sometimes over water, and usually more over just this ugly muddy stuff. 2) The Dumbarton Bridge smells like shit. That’s not an expression; the bridge literally smells like feces. Of course, based on fact #2 (#2… get it?), it should come as no surprise that the first sign I noticed after going over the bridge was “NEWARK: NEXT 4 EXITS.” Apparently, I can fly across the country, but I can’t get away from the shittiness that is Newark.

Manbearpig does not like the smell of bridgeroadpig.

Random side note to end this on: in the Federer-Roddick match that I’m watching as I type this, McEnroe just said “it seems like he’s putting out more than Federer is… can he keep this up for 5 sets if he has to?” Yes, it’s true… putting out makes you tired after a while. I believe it was the ancient philosopher Plato who said “Pimpin’ ain’t easy.”

Call Me Ishmael.

On 2^nd thought, please don’t ever call me that. While I may be blessed with a “giant sperm whale”, I’d prefer if you called me a name that didn’t remind me of failing summer reading tests in high school. (Apparently, reading the comic book version of Moby Dick and half of the Sparknotes for Grapes of Wrath wasn’t quite enough to pass… who knew?)

I figured with people starting to call to see if I’d survived the trip out west, maybe I’d start writing again, for multiple reasons: one, to assure people that yes, I am indeed still alive; two, to give valuable insights about this mysterious other coast; and most importantly, three, so I can take my lack of transitions from the old medium of the College Voice to this new, hot, sexy thing called The Internet. For those of you who haven’t heard of it yet, The Internet is this new thing where you take fancy-looking typewriters and connect them to each other through a fatter phone jack… as bizarre as it sounds, I think it might become popular some day.

Anyway, on to the meat of this, cause nobody likes vegetables and crap like that anyways. I’ve been living in California for a week now. I’m in a town called Mountain View, which is deceptive, because the view out my 2^nd floor window is an office building that looks nothing like a mountain. However, it’s only about 40 minutes south of San Francisco, so if I focus hard, I can just barely see the edges of Barry Bonds’ head sticking out around the office building.

Mountain View, and the Palo Alto area in general, has an interesting mix of ethnicities and races. As far as I can tell, my area seems to be a roughly equal mix of white people, Asian people, and Hispanic people… and yet, there’s no black people anywhere. Seriously, there might be less black people here than in Weston, if that’s possible. It’s not the all-white Weston thing where you look at a crowd and you might as well be looking at polar bears in a blizzard on a day full of white clouds; there’s plenty of non-white people, there’s just no black people.

I live across the street from Whole Foods, which is actually an abbreviation… the real title is A Whole Fucking Gigantic Lot Of Foods, and the place has enough food to supply an all-you-can-eat buffet for both Joey Chestnut AND Takeru Kobayashi. Seriously, they have like 20 types of chicken, 30 ready-to-grill meals, and more sausages than a gay porn orgy.

Even Chestnut grimaces at the idea of eating that much food.

My building has a hot tub, and it is, in the words of Paris Hilton, “hot.” I’ve always wanted a hot tub, so I’m pretty excited about it. My friend Jess tried to rain on my parade by informing me that hot tubs are basically a breeding ground for bacteria, but I’m not worried… I think she was talking about private hot tubs, whereas mine is a public hot tub that little kids who just rolled around in the mud and probably wiped their ass with their hands are doing cannonballs in and out of, so I’m sure it’s perfectly clean.

In my first week here, there’s been plenty of things that are throwing me off a little bit… I need some time to adjust. For example, the Mets played their night game against the Dodgers recently at 4 PM here, which threw off my plan of watching after dinner. Perhaps even more confusing, on Tuesday night, I got in a cab in San Fran (which, for those of you who don’t know, is Spanish for St. Fran, named after the girl who sat next to me in calculus), and immediately knew something was off. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, until about halfway through the cab ride, I looked at the nametag on the window-divider, and realized his name wasn’t Mohammad. I’m definitely not in New York City anymore.

While I’ve only been here for a week, I’ve eaten at In-N-Out Burger twice, which pretty much makes me an official California resident now. I’d heard a lot about In-N-Out before I went there, but didn’t quite know what to expect… so for those of you back east, let me clear up a few things for you.

1) Contrary to popular belief, In-N-Out is not named for the speed at which you enter the restaurant, get your food, and exit the restaurant. It is actually named after the even quicker amount of time between when the food goes in to your mouth, and when it gets shit out of your ass. It’s delicious, but I’d hate to think what it would be like to eat it and then get stuck in traffic for an hour on US-101 with nowhere to poop.

2) In-N-Out has damn good burgers and delicious thick milkshakes, but their French Fries are more “eh” than a group of Canadians.

3) In-N-Out is great, and has surprisingly lived up to the hype that I’d heard from native Californians at college… but it’s no Fuddruckers.

My toilet broke a couple days after I moved in. It was rather strange… it wasn’t clogged or anything, it just kinda stopped flushing when I hit the lever. Fortunately, I live about half a block from a Target, so when I had to drop a deuce and the maintenance guy hadn’t arrived yet, I simply threw on shoes and walked over to Target to take care of some business in their restroom. However, upon arriving, I realized that Target is missing out on a golden opportunity. Think about it… Target’s logo is the giant bulls-eye, and they have public restrooms… why not have some fun and paint the logo on the bottom of the toilets? Trying to make my dookie land dead-center in a bulls-eye would be way more fun than the usual magazine reading.

I’ll try to write here once a week or so about my random Cali experiences. You can tell this is going to be a great blog because it starts with a penis joke and ends with a poop joke. And yes, I am turning 23 years old in less than a month.