[this post contains paid placements]
I do so enjoy Friday Nights. This is the second Friday night I've had recently that involved recording strangers playing music in my home.
This one is by a fellow that if I remember correctly is named Justin. Percussion is by me, all else by him on his acoustic (and produced, of course, by yours truly).
If your podcast client doesn't download it automatically, click here to download.
As a side note, I try to work these paid placements in somewhat unobtruseivly and humourously, if possible, but this next one is so freakin' obvious it's sad. I mean, it is true that my car insurance is coming due here in the next few months and I will be needing to switch insurance companies. It's even true that I'll likely be switching to CarInsurance.com soon, because I've used CarInsurance.com in the past, and they're generally the cheapest in the business.
But who talks about automotive insurance in a blog? It's really hard to work into conversation. Try it.
"So the other day, I was shopping for an online car insurance rate that was affordable, and I thought, hey! when I think of online auto insurance, I think of CarInsurance.com!"
It sounds like a damn infomercial!
Oh well, there you go. Corporate whoring!
/rizzn
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Life is Rosey
Today has been an extremely productive day. It's amazing how well a week goes when the previous weekend is one of the best in recent memory.
I've been really busy with what has been a real roller-coaster of a week. I was dealing with being stiffed for over $3,000 in late-paying clients this week (as well as being screwed for even more money by my landlord - I won't go into the gory details except to say that Powell Properties of Tyler Texas is by far the worst property management company in the world). Then my girl Iris called me on Tuesday, and suddenly things snapped back into perspective for me - everything was copacetic.
I'm really diggin' this girl. I don't often talk about my romantic entanglements on here, mostly because they usually end in tragedy. At the moment, though, I'm really enjoying where this relationship is going, and she really seems to as well. It colors my days rosy and leaves me with a good feeling when I go to sleep. This weekend spent almost exclusively with her was a whirlwind of romantic gushy goodness.
So after the phone call with Iris, things started really looking up for me. One of my clients informed me they had dropped a check off for me at my office. Subsequent to that, I had an interesting session on iRP, in which my kobold Rizzn almost (or may be in the process of dying), but my bubble would not be burst (see later posts this week regarding that whole story).
Wednesday and Thursday were busy days for me. I've begun really cranking out these sites in earnest. I had monumental amounts of junk going on Wednesday - I sat down with the studio and Darrell to iron out our shooting schedule for the Podded Meat project. That whole thing is really gelling. I'll be talking more about that once I get a chance to put up a site for it (yet another thing on my very long list of things to do). Smokehouse is prodding me to get the ModPodder thing done as well. These things will be soon coming up on my todo lists and coming to fruition in a way that doesn't involve just preperation and things that the public can't see.
It occurs to me that my writing style has become a bit convoluted and hard to follow - I'm really out of practice of writing a lot. This is due to the fact that I've generally got about five contiguous minutes at any given point to do any serious writing - and I've got some sort of interruption going on that has me going off in a different direction, and then it's save to draft and come back later. Looking at my list of unfinished posts is a little depressing. For every post I have for the last three months, I have three unfinished drafts. Doh!
At any rate, I have a few paid placements to get out of the way. I've got this credit cards and Orlando Vacation Home keywords to do. I really don't do much in the way with using real credit cards, and my Florida vacation home is in Miami, so I truly can't relate this to my life in a meaningful way. Instead, I'll just mention the following facts to fulfill my legal obligations:
/rizzn
I've been really busy with what has been a real roller-coaster of a week. I was dealing with being stiffed for over $3,000 in late-paying clients this week (as well as being screwed for even more money by my landlord - I won't go into the gory details except to say that Powell Properties of Tyler Texas is by far the worst property management company in the world). Then my girl Iris called me on Tuesday, and suddenly things snapped back into perspective for me - everything was copacetic.
I'm really diggin' this girl. I don't often talk about my romantic entanglements on here, mostly because they usually end in tragedy. At the moment, though, I'm really enjoying where this relationship is going, and she really seems to as well. It colors my days rosy and leaves me with a good feeling when I go to sleep. This weekend spent almost exclusively with her was a whirlwind of romantic gushy goodness.
So after the phone call with Iris, things started really looking up for me. One of my clients informed me they had dropped a check off for me at my office. Subsequent to that, I had an interesting session on iRP, in which my kobold Rizzn almost (or may be in the process of dying), but my bubble would not be burst (see later posts this week regarding that whole story).
Wednesday and Thursday were busy days for me. I've begun really cranking out these sites in earnest. I had monumental amounts of junk going on Wednesday - I sat down with the studio and Darrell to iron out our shooting schedule for the Podded Meat project. That whole thing is really gelling. I'll be talking more about that once I get a chance to put up a site for it (yet another thing on my very long list of things to do). Smokehouse is prodding me to get the ModPodder thing done as well. These things will be soon coming up on my todo lists and coming to fruition in a way that doesn't involve just preperation and things that the public can't see.
It occurs to me that my writing style has become a bit convoluted and hard to follow - I'm really out of practice of writing a lot. This is due to the fact that I've generally got about five contiguous minutes at any given point to do any serious writing - and I've got some sort of interruption going on that has me going off in a different direction, and then it's save to draft and come back later. Looking at my list of unfinished posts is a little depressing. For every post I have for the last three months, I have three unfinished drafts. Doh!
At any rate, I have a few paid placements to get out of the way. I've got this credit cards and Orlando Vacation Home keywords to do. I really don't do much in the way with using real credit cards, and my Florida vacation home is in Miami, so I truly can't relate this to my life in a meaningful way. Instead, I'll just mention the following facts to fulfill my legal obligations:
- Orlando welcomes more visitors than the state of California each year: 43.3 million
- A credit card is a great way to enhance your daily life, if it's used responsibly (much like beer).
- The current population of Orlando is 185,00 (roughly the same as the Greater Tyler area).
- When visiting Orlando, you'll find that most car rental companies and hotels will not let you utilize their services without a credit card (that's a two for one factoid!)
/rizzn
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Florida: Not There Anymore
I just want to say that I didn't really have a great time on my trip to Florida. The trip was more or less an utter failure, and but for hanging out with Michael and Rachelle, it was almost entirely filled with work that I was doing Pro Bono. Pro Bono work is not fun.
On top of that, most of what I went down there to accomplish did not occur. As if that were not enough, my days have been filled with utter idiocy since I've returned - dealing with the cable company and my various landlords is not a treat. Pile onto that family issues and a current budget deficit (i.e. more money going out this month than coming in)... I'll save you the gory details - it's become tiresome even to me, so I know it's not entertaining to anyone I unload my misery upon. It's safe to say I've got some stress.
The high-point of my day so far has been a conversation I had with what I think may be safe to call my girlfriend now, Iris, out in Dallas. She is going to come out and spend a week with me either the first or last week of August! This is good.
On the upside (financially speaking), the Finkelsteins have closed a deal that will net a substantial sum over the next three years, as I understand it. I'm sure I'll be kept quite busy with that in the near future.
In Business News
It's going to be a busy week for me. 5Tribe is going to keep me busy here for the next few days, as will the next round of blogs. At the moment I don't have the time to look up and match names with domain names, but I will give you a teaser of the ones I remember from memory:
boobbrains.com - Kate Phinney is finally joining the network! Her Double-D's are very likely to feature prominently on the page.
reeltruthyness.com - KC Morgan has been writing my column, “Twenty-Something
and Single” for Hot Psychology magazine, with much success. She's intengint to cover celebrity gossip, movie reviews and movie news.
brushfires.net - Ben Thompson from New Ulm, Minnesota, the most German town in the U.S. Interests and areas of expertise are: social and political issues, sports, Constitution, American History, psychology and religion, to mention a few.
thedrakeslair.com - This belongs to a future blogger named Diane. At the moment I've having a hard time finding her bio info, so I'll just leave this generic sentence in for the moment!
infectiousinsanity.com - Darrell's new blog domain name.
poddedmeat.com - the main site for the new Vodcast station. For the moment it's included in the blogging project.
iwishicouldthinkofaclevernameformyblog.com - Joel Finkelstein is migrating from his Alternative Energy blog over to a more general format blog.
I've got more to say, but no time to say it at the moment. More later!
On top of that, most of what I went down there to accomplish did not occur. As if that were not enough, my days have been filled with utter idiocy since I've returned - dealing with the cable company and my various landlords is not a treat. Pile onto that family issues and a current budget deficit (i.e. more money going out this month than coming in)... I'll save you the gory details - it's become tiresome even to me, so I know it's not entertaining to anyone I unload my misery upon. It's safe to say I've got some stress.
The high-point of my day so far has been a conversation I had with what I think may be safe to call my girlfriend now, Iris, out in Dallas. She is going to come out and spend a week with me either the first or last week of August! This is good.
On the upside (financially speaking), the Finkelsteins have closed a deal that will net a substantial sum over the next three years, as I understand it. I'm sure I'll be kept quite busy with that in the near future.
In Business News
It's going to be a busy week for me. 5Tribe is going to keep me busy here for the next few days, as will the next round of blogs. At the moment I don't have the time to look up and match names with domain names, but I will give you a teaser of the ones I remember from memory:
boobbrains.com - Kate Phinney is finally joining the network! Her Double-D's are very likely to feature prominently on the page.
reeltruthyness.com - KC Morgan has been writing my column, “Twenty-Something
and Single” for Hot Psychology magazine, with much success. She's intengint to cover celebrity gossip, movie reviews and movie news.
brushfires.net - Ben Thompson from New Ulm, Minnesota, the most German town in the U.S. Interests and areas of expertise are: social and political issues, sports, Constitution, American History, psychology and religion, to mention a few.
thedrakeslair.com - This belongs to a future blogger named Diane. At the moment I've having a hard time finding her bio info, so I'll just leave this generic sentence in for the moment!
infectiousinsanity.com - Darrell's new blog domain name.
poddedmeat.com - the main site for the new Vodcast station. For the moment it's included in the blogging project.
iwishicouldthinkofaclevernameformyblog.com - Joel Finkelstein is migrating from his Alternative Energy blog over to a more general format blog.
I've got more to say, but no time to say it at the moment. More later!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Florida: What vacation? (news roundup)
It's been a minute since I've had enough free time to do one of these, but guess what!? It's a news roundup from your old pal Mr. Rizzn. That's right. Today I actually have enough free time to devote to a little R&R. What is R&R for Rizzn? Posting on his blog. On the upside, I am doing this from a wireless laptop from the beach outside my house here in Florida, so I'm not a total recluse.
For those of you keeping track at home, I've had 0 drinks on this trip, and I'm headed back in the morning. Smokehouse wins the vacation drink-a-thon.
Resident's 18 TV's might have caused high-rise fire
This story makes me rethink my idea for the video wall I had planned for my livingroom. I just like the retro look of oldschool pawnshop TV's stacked on one another. Incidentally, this story takes place a few miles from my house here in Florida.
Recording VoIP
Does this story mean that I am violating the law everytime I record my conversations with my insane landlord?
Skype Hacked
My thought on this is that now Skype is owned by eBay instead of Skype, their attitude on hacked pieces of software is likely to be a lot less liberal than when hacked versions of Kazaa got certained unnamed CEOs millions in startup capital.
Old news, yes I know. But movement on the story indicates it's actually going to happen.
Certainly this is a sign of the apocalypse?
For those of you keeping track at home, I've had 0 drinks on this trip, and I'm headed back in the morning. Smokehouse wins the vacation drink-a-thon.
Resident's 18 TV's might have caused high-rise fire
This story makes me rethink my idea for the video wall I had planned for my livingroom. I just like the retro look of oldschool pawnshop TV's stacked on one another. Incidentally, this story takes place a few miles from my house here in Florida.
Picture this: you're kicked back watching several of your 18 televisions while propping your feet up on one and holding the door open with two others -- and then your room catches on fire. Strangely enough, something very similar may have happened; the precise cause of the fire that lit up Florida's Hotel Versailles -- forcing the Red Cross to relocate 150 residents -- is still being investigated, but there's no way having that many TV's plugged into a small army of power strips can be safe. When firefighters arrived, even they commented on the difficultly of extinguishing flames while wading through over a dozen CRT sets. So the next time you think about rigging up an insane multi-monitor setup, keep your protective gear
close at hand.
[via engadget]
Recording VoIP
Does this story mean that I am violating the law everytime I record my conversations with my insane landlord?
There are a ton of reasons a company might want to record its own VoIP calls, starting with Sarbox compliance and running through points like customer service, security and even CALEA. Witness Systems says its running on a third of Cisco's Unified Contact Center systems, and AudioCodes's SmartWorks IPX collects voice packets and reports D-channel information. But be careful about running afoul of privacy laws, which differ from state to state.
[via vonmag]
Skype Hacked
My thought on this is that now Skype is owned by eBay instead of Skype, their attitude on hacked pieces of software is likely to be a lot less liberal than when hacked versions of Kazaa got certained unnamed CEOs millions in startup capital.
Regardless, it will be interesting to see how eBay handles this. They've got a bad reputation in some circles in how they handle the PayPal end of things, but every company that handles money in a bank-like fashion tends to irk people quite easily. This will be the first software product I'm aware of they'll be having to deal with a problem like this with. Their responses will be telling.
YIM/MSCHAT InteroperabilityThere's a report that an unnamed Chinese company has developed software that can place calls over Skype's proprietary network. The software doesn't use Skype's Supernode peer-to-peer feature, which routes calls over computers and networks to relay calls--a feature that alarms system admins and has caused many businesses to ban Skype. On one hand, being able to bypass Supernode would be attractive to business customers. On the other hand, too many customers bypassing Supernode would degrade Skype's throughput.
[via vnunet]
Old news, yes I know. But movement on the story indicates it's actually going to happen.
Limited public testing that enables users of Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger with Voice to connect to each other through either service. Users can register to sign up in a limited public beta at Yahoo or Microsoft. The process had een expected to be available in the second quarter of this year. Once they gain access to the beta, users can exchange instant messages across the two services, as well as see their friends' online presence, view personal status messages, share emoticons, view offline messages and add new contacts between the services ... Microsoft declined to comment directly on whether it would soon have a similar deal to make Windows Live Messenger interoperate with AOL's consumer IM client, but said that the company "anticipates more of these relationships in the future."The End is Near
[via computerworld]
Certainly this is a sign of the apocalypse?
Bill Tancer over at his HitWise blog has data that claims MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites. This is incredibly important, MySpace.com is more popular that Yahoo Mail, and MySpace's growth of visits has surpassed Google towards the end of May of this year. But as Bill points out, what is most revealing is that the "top search terms driving traffic to all Internet sites" is MySpace and MySpace.com with 1.28%, compared with last years top search term being eBay at .31%. See all the details at HitWise.
[via searchenginewatch]
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
In Florida - What? a Vacation!
Well, I'm here in Florida, Day Whatever. This driving 24 hours straight thing has really fubared my sense of time. I'm pretty sure today is Wednesday, but yesterday I was sure it was Monday. Who the heck knows.
I sit here in this folding chairs and ponder the pleathora of projects ahead of me. As soon as I get to a machine that doesn't have sixty million pieces of spyware, I need to turn on the new blog sites I've designed for the new bloggers, I've got to get a line on some new furniture for the sets in the studio. Right now we've got a metal-legged newsdesk, but for our tech show we need something other than a green-screen for the backdrop so that we can reduce the set-up and editing times for the show itself.
We shot the pilot for RunTime, a software and tech show coming out on the Podded Meat network. The co-producers are wanting to essentially scrap all the ideas for shows and start over because of production time, and I'm of the opinion this is unacceptable. We've got to be versatile and be able to produce a wide variety of shows, or we're not going to succeed at this. I'm also of the opinion we've got to be flexible and adaptable, and work without a net, a concept which seems to be bothering other parts of the team.
Apparently, I'm not doing a good enough job of impressing my vision to the other members of the team since things aren't evolving as organically as I had hoped. I'm trying to reach out and pull the talent out of those I've chosen to work with, and it's not as easy as it was in the beginning. I'll have to do some deep thinking on this concept and see where it takes me.
I was going to take this time to finally explain all the bits and pieces of the new blogging network, but as has been the case the whole time I've been down here in Florida, I'm being called to do more work. Even on my vacation, people can't let me relax.
In other news, I did get the brakes fixed on my Florida car, and I'll be driving it back to Texas this week. If anyone wants an Infiniti G20 in reasonably good condition with 114,000 miles on it, let me know. I'll let it go for a good price.
I sit here in this folding chairs and ponder the pleathora of projects ahead of me. As soon as I get to a machine that doesn't have sixty million pieces of spyware, I need to turn on the new blog sites I've designed for the new bloggers, I've got to get a line on some new furniture for the sets in the studio. Right now we've got a metal-legged newsdesk, but for our tech show we need something other than a green-screen for the backdrop so that we can reduce the set-up and editing times for the show itself.
We shot the pilot for RunTime, a software and tech show coming out on the Podded Meat network. The co-producers are wanting to essentially scrap all the ideas for shows and start over because of production time, and I'm of the opinion this is unacceptable. We've got to be versatile and be able to produce a wide variety of shows, or we're not going to succeed at this. I'm also of the opinion we've got to be flexible and adaptable, and work without a net, a concept which seems to be bothering other parts of the team.
Apparently, I'm not doing a good enough job of impressing my vision to the other members of the team since things aren't evolving as organically as I had hoped. I'm trying to reach out and pull the talent out of those I've chosen to work with, and it's not as easy as it was in the beginning. I'll have to do some deep thinking on this concept and see where it takes me.
I was going to take this time to finally explain all the bits and pieces of the new blogging network, but as has been the case the whole time I've been down here in Florida, I'm being called to do more work. Even on my vacation, people can't let me relax.
In other news, I did get the brakes fixed on my Florida car, and I'll be driving it back to Texas this week. If anyone wants an Infiniti G20 in reasonably good condition with 114,000 miles on it, let me know. I'll let it go for a good price.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
In Florida, Rested and Ready to Go
I arrived in Florida around 11pm Sunday night. My time here has been filled mostly with eating, recovering, and making phone calls. I've been irritated with the PR firm recently because they have been paying very little attention to the group and not sending the promised amount of paid placements. Despite this, I'm confident we'll get this worked out, and if not, there is a back-up plan that could be a bit more promising.
This entry is likely going to be quite short - the computer I'm typing this on has what I could only describe as a DefCon 5 level spyware infection. Every 30 seconds, three pop-ups come up. This is after I've run my best utilities on the machine to remove everything. On my first run (and this is AFTER I removed about 100 pieces of spyware manually) of AdAware, the detector found around 6,900 pieces of spyware on the machine. It was able to remove all but 214 - still a serious issue.
Because of this issue, I'm having problems getting the sites designed. At this point, I'm doing good to answer emails.
I'm headed over to the AACS office today to do some work and get the client intake website running. I'm also at the same time attempting to determine whether or not my car is worth saving or not. I just found out yesterday that it's going to take substantially more money to fix the vehicle than I previously thought. Almost too much. If I can find another, cheaper, solution to fixing the car this afternoon, I might do it. Otherwise, I may donate it to some charity, or see if a scrapper will take it of my hands for a small chunk of change.
I had other things to say - At the moment, they all escape me. I just got a phone call from Iris, and my brain has emptied of all the important things I needed to mention.
I'm sure they'll all come back to me if they're as important as all that. Hopefully I'll be at a non-popupped computer soon, and can speak more.
Good legal teams like the ones at simmons jannace & stagg and the local ones in the area don't show up often enough on channels like that........Although that would make sense on channels like CC and Sci-Fi....Because they don't really belong.
[This entry contains paid placement]
This entry is likely going to be quite short - the computer I'm typing this on has what I could only describe as a DefCon 5 level spyware infection. Every 30 seconds, three pop-ups come up. This is after I've run my best utilities on the machine to remove everything. On my first run (and this is AFTER I removed about 100 pieces of spyware manually) of AdAware, the detector found around 6,900 pieces of spyware on the machine. It was able to remove all but 214 - still a serious issue.
Because of this issue, I'm having problems getting the sites designed. At this point, I'm doing good to answer emails.
I'm headed over to the AACS office today to do some work and get the client intake website running. I'm also at the same time attempting to determine whether or not my car is worth saving or not. I just found out yesterday that it's going to take substantially more money to fix the vehicle than I previously thought. Almost too much. If I can find another, cheaper, solution to fixing the car this afternoon, I might do it. Otherwise, I may donate it to some charity, or see if a scrapper will take it of my hands for a small chunk of change.
I had other things to say - At the moment, they all escape me. I just got a phone call from Iris, and my brain has emptied of all the important things I needed to mention.
I'm sure they'll all come back to me if they're as important as all that. Hopefully I'll be at a non-popupped computer soon, and can speak more.
Good legal teams like the ones at simmons jannace & stagg and the local ones in the area don't show up often enough on channels like that........Although that would make sense on channels like CC and Sci-Fi....Because they don't really belong.
[This entry contains paid placement]
Saturday, July 8, 2006
On my way to Florida
I'm currently en-route to Miami at the moment. Pompano Beach, to be exact. At the moment, we're about 15 minutes outside of Baton Rouge. Rabbi Finkelstein happenned to be in Tyler, and had some business back in Florida, while at the same time the need to go retrieve my car from my place down there became imperitive.
So now I'm headed back with him, and am scheduled to return to Tyler between Wednesday and Friday or so.
Fortunately, Rabbi has a T-Mobile aircard, so I'll likely be available to chat and answer email during the bulk of the trip. My phone lines are all forwarded to wherever I am, so if you need to get a hold of me for any reason, call all the normal numbers.
Gas is particularly expensive down here in South Louisiana - common are prices above three dollars. I have a feeling the price of gas will be much more down in SouFla. Good thing I've got money in silver.
At the moment, I'm hungry, tired, and distracted by a few chat windows at the moment, so I'll be signing off now, but we're scheduled to go hit a 24 hour Chili's in Baton Rouge in a few, so I'll try to get back to you after that
/rizzn
So now I'm headed back with him, and am scheduled to return to Tyler between Wednesday and Friday or so.
Fortunately, Rabbi has a T-Mobile aircard, so I'll likely be available to chat and answer email during the bulk of the trip. My phone lines are all forwarded to wherever I am, so if you need to get a hold of me for any reason, call all the normal numbers.
Gas is particularly expensive down here in South Louisiana - common are prices above three dollars. I have a feeling the price of gas will be much more down in SouFla. Good thing I've got money in silver.
At the moment, I'm hungry, tired, and distracted by a few chat windows at the moment, so I'll be signing off now, but we're scheduled to go hit a 24 hour Chili's in Baton Rouge in a few, so I'll try to get back to you after that
/rizzn
Thursday, July 6, 2006
...And they think *Republicans* are racist!
[this post contains paid placement]
Man, Joe Biden is a tool. Observe.
While reading over some things today, I came across an car insurance companies scheme that offers women an automatic male companion with the flick of a switch (Buddy on Demand). I really was amazed that this concept had not come to light a whole lot sooner seeing as how blow up dolls have been around as long as HOV lanes and/or carjacking's.
I guess if you are a woman looking for free car insurance quotes, you've got that much more time to spend with the blow up doll, in or out of the vehicle! If it were me... I'd be afraid I might wreck due to my new opinionless gentleman in my passenger seat. Ahhh much more reason to take the quick 15 minutes for an automobile insurance quote.
Man, Joe Biden is a tool. Observe.
While reading over some things today, I came across an car insurance companies scheme that offers women an automatic male companion with the flick of a switch (Buddy on Demand). I really was amazed that this concept had not come to light a whole lot sooner seeing as how blow up dolls have been around as long as HOV lanes and/or carjacking's.
I guess if you are a woman looking for free car insurance quotes, you've got that much more time to spend with the blow up doll, in or out of the vehicle! If it were me... I'd be afraid I might wreck due to my new opinionless gentleman in my passenger seat. Ahhh much more reason to take the quick 15 minutes for an automobile insurance quote.
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Crime and Punishment
[this entry contains paid placement]
Howdy, Rizznites.
I'm out in Dallas, still. I've had what can only be described as an interesting weekend, in the Chinese sense of the word.
Let me explain.
Less Crime, More Punishment
I left Tyler a little late on Monday afternoon. The plan was to come up to Dallas, work with Thos on a few campaign and iRP issues, and prepare for the Park Cities July 4th celebration. But I wound up taking an afternoon nap, and consequently left a little late out of Tyler. Just before I wound up leaving, Darrell sent me a message to the effect of "be careful, I had a dream last night." When pressed, he wouldn't give me any details. Oh that I had heeded his forboding and stayed home.
On my way out of town, I took the 110 route, and got stuck behind a truck going 25 mph for about 15 miles, which was about as fun as that sounds. Once I got up on I-80, though, I was determined to make up for some of the lost time by setting the cruise control at 84 mph. This is usually a safe speed to travel, and tends to not piss of the highway department too bad (at least not bad enough to pull people over).
Apparently, though, there was one particular DPS official with a bone to pick, and almost exactly at the turnoff for I-20 from I-80, I see the flashy lights come up behind me. There's not exactly a great place to pull over in that area, so I waved at him to indicate that I saw him, and then I waited till I got on the straightaway of I-20 before pulling over to a median.
As it turns out, this delay in my stopping did not amuse the esteemed public official. Standing about 5'2" and looking all of his 19 years old, as authoritatively as his pubescently cracking voice could merger ordered me to present him with my license and registration. I obliged his request, having it ready previous to stopping. He returned to his squad car and did his computer stuff where they punch in your license number and find warrants for your arrest in states you've never been to.
He came back about 20 minutes later (I'm not exaggerating here), and ordered me out of the car, quite forcefully. I asked what the problem was, but he told me to put my hands on the side of my vehicle. He then asked if I had any illegal substances or weapons on my person. Of course I didn't, and I told him so. He then proceeded to frisk me. He then ushered me over into a muddy patch beside the highway and instructed me to remain there.
He then informed me that my license had been suspended by the State of Florida. That's when the fun began. He wanted to know if I had any weapons, up to and including knives, swords, guns, grenades, or small nuclear arms, or if I had any drugs or dead bodies stored anywhere in my car. I told him not to the best of my knowlege. Of course he didn't believe me and still wanted to search my car.
For those of you non-Texans, we have a draconian, unconstitutional law that says you can refuse to let an officer search your car, but by doing so, you forfeit the right to drive in Texas. Rather than explore the constitutionality of the law and the nuances of his absolute authority, I slipped my hands into my pocket and told him he could go ahead and search my vehicle.
Unfortunately, this was the right sentiment with the wrong execution. He then freaked out about me slipping my hands in my pocket, even though he had discovered no weapons in his previous frisking, and placed handcuffs on me. He then went about the business of tearing up my vehicle, looking for something to take me in for. This seemed a bit redundant since it already appeared I was going to jail anyways.
As I struggled to remain calm, I told him that it would be an altogether poor decision to take me in for driving with a suspended license, especially if the warrant that ended up suspending the license was in Florida, which is what he lead me to believe. Florida would not pay to have me extradited back to Broward simply for a traffic ticket, and then the State of Texas would not get paid for the 10 days I'd stay in jail waiting for extradition.
At this point, close to an hour and a half had since elapsed, and the sun had long since set. Whether it was the compelling nature of my arguments or the fact that he was simply tired of harassing me for no real reward, he went back to his squad car and finished writing up my ticket. He uncuffed me so that I could sign it. I did so, and he released me back to drive illegally the rest of the way to Dallas.
When I examined the ticket after arriving at Thos's, I discovered he had written the ticket for 81 in a 65. I-20 and I-80 are 70 mph zones during daylight, so he held me long enough for the sun to set so that he wouldn't be just giving me a ticket for a 11 mph violation.
When I arrived at Thos's, I relayed the story over a couple of nice glasses of sweet champaigne, and we took care of our business, and then retired to bed.
More Crime, Less Punishment
After we awoke, we made our quick preperations to leave for the celebration, and made our way to my car. Imagine my surprise when I discovered my driver's side window smashed, my dashboard torn up, my fusebox torn out, and my stereo completely missing! I'd like to add that Thos lives in a decent neighborhood, not-inexpensive.
Let me also mention that amongst the sports cars, Lexii (that's plural for Lexus), and other such trendy vehicles parked alongside mine, mine was the only one broken in to. I'm choosing to take this as a sort of backhanded compliment.
At that moment, however, I was highly annoyed; I almost raised my voice when I spoke my discontent regarding the situation.
Then began the three hour process of figuring out how insurance was going to cover this. I won't bore you with the details of all the phone calls I made, but I will mention that I'm glad I have comprehensive insurance, which covers these sorts of things. I'm finally at the point in my life (and living in the right geographic area) that this sort of thing is affordable. Up to this point in my life, insurance has been downright impossible to get due to either where I lived, my driving record, or me being too young. Every online car insurance rate I've pulled down in the past has been exhorbitant - in the neighborhood of several thousand dollars a year. As a result, I've tended to go with Short Term car insurance programs, where I get insurance long enough to get registration and licensing squared away, and then go back to being an illegal motorist. I don't reccomend this, but sometimes when you're poor or unfortunate like I have been in the past, you've got no choice.
It occurred to me, in the process of reporting my vehicle stolen and then getting the repairs issues squared away with the insurance company, that there was not even an illusion of justice being presented here. The Dallas police department handling of vandalized vehicles is for you to wait for a four hour window of time to elapse - in which time you'll be given a call back from someone working for the department who will ask you a few pointless questions, and then give you a number. This number is your police report number. It is useful for one thing - giving it to the insurance company.
There is no investigation. There is no chance of my property being recovered. There isn't going to be a dramatic trial where I finger the culprit in a tense courtroom, tempers running high. No!
Conclusions: Who took what in the where?
My question is this: If the law enforcement of Texas has time to detain me for an hour and a half on the side of a road on the suspicion might be going 16 miles over the speed limit (because I look so much like a terrorist and a drug dealer), but can't expend more than three minutes looking into what happenned to my car the next day and why, then what is the point of having law enforcement at all?
Where is the Crime Scene Investigators, those .. what are they called, criminology units? Where are the no-holds-barred detectives like on Law and Order? Where are the slightly emotionally troubled but heart of gold officers like on NYPD Blue? No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, and there certainly aren't any law enforcement officers with a set of priorities that match up with their job description.
Cynical Rizzn, Signing Out.
Howdy, Rizznites.
I'm out in Dallas, still. I've had what can only be described as an interesting weekend, in the Chinese sense of the word.
Let me explain.
Less Crime, More Punishment
I left Tyler a little late on Monday afternoon. The plan was to come up to Dallas, work with Thos on a few campaign and iRP issues, and prepare for the Park Cities July 4th celebration. But I wound up taking an afternoon nap, and consequently left a little late out of Tyler. Just before I wound up leaving, Darrell sent me a message to the effect of "be careful, I had a dream last night." When pressed, he wouldn't give me any details. Oh that I had heeded his forboding and stayed home.
On my way out of town, I took the 110 route, and got stuck behind a truck going 25 mph for about 15 miles, which was about as fun as that sounds. Once I got up on I-80, though, I was determined to make up for some of the lost time by setting the cruise control at 84 mph. This is usually a safe speed to travel, and tends to not piss of the highway department too bad (at least not bad enough to pull people over).
Apparently, though, there was one particular DPS official with a bone to pick, and almost exactly at the turnoff for I-20 from I-80, I see the flashy lights come up behind me. There's not exactly a great place to pull over in that area, so I waved at him to indicate that I saw him, and then I waited till I got on the straightaway of I-20 before pulling over to a median.
As it turns out, this delay in my stopping did not amuse the esteemed public official. Standing about 5'2" and looking all of his 19 years old, as authoritatively as his pubescently cracking voice could merger ordered me to present him with my license and registration. I obliged his request, having it ready previous to stopping. He returned to his squad car and did his computer stuff where they punch in your license number and find warrants for your arrest in states you've never been to.
He came back about 20 minutes later (I'm not exaggerating here), and ordered me out of the car, quite forcefully. I asked what the problem was, but he told me to put my hands on the side of my vehicle. He then asked if I had any illegal substances or weapons on my person. Of course I didn't, and I told him so. He then proceeded to frisk me. He then ushered me over into a muddy patch beside the highway and instructed me to remain there.
He then informed me that my license had been suspended by the State of Florida. That's when the fun began. He wanted to know if I had any weapons, up to and including knives, swords, guns, grenades, or small nuclear arms, or if I had any drugs or dead bodies stored anywhere in my car. I told him not to the best of my knowlege. Of course he didn't believe me and still wanted to search my car.
For those of you non-Texans, we have a draconian, unconstitutional law that says you can refuse to let an officer search your car, but by doing so, you forfeit the right to drive in Texas. Rather than explore the constitutionality of the law and the nuances of his absolute authority, I slipped my hands into my pocket and told him he could go ahead and search my vehicle.
Unfortunately, this was the right sentiment with the wrong execution. He then freaked out about me slipping my hands in my pocket, even though he had discovered no weapons in his previous frisking, and placed handcuffs on me. He then went about the business of tearing up my vehicle, looking for something to take me in for. This seemed a bit redundant since it already appeared I was going to jail anyways.
As I struggled to remain calm, I told him that it would be an altogether poor decision to take me in for driving with a suspended license, especially if the warrant that ended up suspending the license was in Florida, which is what he lead me to believe. Florida would not pay to have me extradited back to Broward simply for a traffic ticket, and then the State of Texas would not get paid for the 10 days I'd stay in jail waiting for extradition.
At this point, close to an hour and a half had since elapsed, and the sun had long since set. Whether it was the compelling nature of my arguments or the fact that he was simply tired of harassing me for no real reward, he went back to his squad car and finished writing up my ticket. He uncuffed me so that I could sign it. I did so, and he released me back to drive illegally the rest of the way to Dallas.
When I examined the ticket after arriving at Thos's, I discovered he had written the ticket for 81 in a 65. I-20 and I-80 are 70 mph zones during daylight, so he held me long enough for the sun to set so that he wouldn't be just giving me a ticket for a 11 mph violation.
When I arrived at Thos's, I relayed the story over a couple of nice glasses of sweet champaigne, and we took care of our business, and then retired to bed.
More Crime, Less Punishment
After we awoke, we made our quick preperations to leave for the celebration, and made our way to my car. Imagine my surprise when I discovered my driver's side window smashed, my dashboard torn up, my fusebox torn out, and my stereo completely missing! I'd like to add that Thos lives in a decent neighborhood, not-inexpensive.
Let me also mention that amongst the sports cars, Lexii (that's plural for Lexus), and other such trendy vehicles parked alongside mine, mine was the only one broken in to. I'm choosing to take this as a sort of backhanded compliment.
At that moment, however, I was highly annoyed; I almost raised my voice when I spoke my discontent regarding the situation.
Then began the three hour process of figuring out how insurance was going to cover this. I won't bore you with the details of all the phone calls I made, but I will mention that I'm glad I have comprehensive insurance, which covers these sorts of things. I'm finally at the point in my life (and living in the right geographic area) that this sort of thing is affordable. Up to this point in my life, insurance has been downright impossible to get due to either where I lived, my driving record, or me being too young. Every online car insurance rate I've pulled down in the past has been exhorbitant - in the neighborhood of several thousand dollars a year. As a result, I've tended to go with Short Term car insurance programs, where I get insurance long enough to get registration and licensing squared away, and then go back to being an illegal motorist. I don't reccomend this, but sometimes when you're poor or unfortunate like I have been in the past, you've got no choice.
It occurred to me, in the process of reporting my vehicle stolen and then getting the repairs issues squared away with the insurance company, that there was not even an illusion of justice being presented here. The Dallas police department handling of vandalized vehicles is for you to wait for a four hour window of time to elapse - in which time you'll be given a call back from someone working for the department who will ask you a few pointless questions, and then give you a number. This number is your police report number. It is useful for one thing - giving it to the insurance company.
There is no investigation. There is no chance of my property being recovered. There isn't going to be a dramatic trial where I finger the culprit in a tense courtroom, tempers running high. No!
Conclusions: Who took what in the where?
My question is this: If the law enforcement of Texas has time to detain me for an hour and a half on the side of a road on the suspicion might be going 16 miles over the speed limit (because I look so much like a terrorist and a drug dealer), but can't expend more than three minutes looking into what happenned to my car the next day and why, then what is the point of having law enforcement at all?
Where is the Crime Scene Investigators, those .. what are they called, criminology units? Where are the no-holds-barred detectives like on Law and Order? Where are the slightly emotionally troubled but heart of gold officers like on NYPD Blue? No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus, and there certainly aren't any law enforcement officers with a set of priorities that match up with their job description.
Cynical Rizzn, Signing Out.
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Smokehouse in Chicago: Day 6 (Saturday)
I knew I'd get around to this eventually.
Not a lot was planned for Saturday. We only had one thing on the agenda, and that is Howl at the Moon.
Now, if you haven't heard of Howl at the Moon, it's a probably one of the coolest places in downtown Chicago HATM is a dueling piano bar, and they play all rock and pop tunes. People get all drunk and sing along, as well as play interactive games with the musicians. It's a pretty good time.
Not only that, when you're with a fireman, it's the cheapest place in town. Free cover and half price drinks. Anyway, we met Lindsay (yes), and our buddy Terry down there, and hilarity ensued. It's been awhile since I've seen Terry, but I'm happy to say he hasn't changed a bit. He's not rude, but he definitely has his own vocabulary, (he refers to being drunk as "mooned") and sometimes his inner monologue fails him. (There was the hot waitress dressed as a schoolgirl, and he and I were talking about her. Terry said, "Oh yeah man, she'd wake up the next morning with a brick in the back of her head!"
That's just Terry. The best part? Lindsay, who is dating Terry, was standing there, unbeknowst to him, and heard every word. The thing I said about hilarity ensuing? Yeah, pretty much.
Probably the stangest thing I saw of the night was the "School Spirit Battle". It's a slick little game the musiciand play for a set period of thine to get money out of the crowd. Essentially, people keep one-upping each other as far as tips go to get their college fight song played. The game is continuous, so if someone beats another school's bid, the musicians shift flawlessly into the highest bidder's song.
I've never seen so much money being thrown at two people in the span of ten minutes in all of my life. Bids start at $20, with minimum $1 increases from the previous bid. Some schools battled back and forth. One would put in $25, and then the next person would go $30, and then the original would come back with another $31. Crazy. The final "winner" of the night was some guy from Indiana University, who ponied up $120 to hear his school's fight song.
Obviously, people in Chicago have way too much money.
After a few hour's we went to Jet's for some even cheaper drinks, and then off to White Castle. I LOVE White castle. It is indeed the perfect food when you're drunk. Nothing is better than "Sliders" and onion rings. I so wish we had one here at home.
All in all, it was a great trip. I hope I get to do it again soon, but I'll certainly have to find a way to afford it again.
Well that, and try to get my liver to come off strike.
Drink Count: 13 Final Trip total - (6 days): 65
Not a lot was planned for Saturday. We only had one thing on the agenda, and that is Howl at the Moon.
Now, if you haven't heard of Howl at the Moon, it's a probably one of the coolest places in downtown Chicago HATM is a dueling piano bar, and they play all rock and pop tunes. People get all drunk and sing along, as well as play interactive games with the musicians. It's a pretty good time.
Not only that, when you're with a fireman, it's the cheapest place in town. Free cover and half price drinks. Anyway, we met Lindsay (yes), and our buddy Terry down there, and hilarity ensued. It's been awhile since I've seen Terry, but I'm happy to say he hasn't changed a bit. He's not rude, but he definitely has his own vocabulary, (he refers to being drunk as "mooned") and sometimes his inner monologue fails him. (There was the hot waitress dressed as a schoolgirl, and he and I were talking about her. Terry said, "Oh yeah man, she'd wake up the next morning with a brick in the back of her head!"
That's just Terry. The best part? Lindsay, who is dating Terry, was standing there, unbeknowst to him, and heard every word. The thing I said about hilarity ensuing? Yeah, pretty much.
Probably the stangest thing I saw of the night was the "School Spirit Battle". It's a slick little game the musiciand play for a set period of thine to get money out of the crowd. Essentially, people keep one-upping each other as far as tips go to get their college fight song played. The game is continuous, so if someone beats another school's bid, the musicians shift flawlessly into the highest bidder's song.
I've never seen so much money being thrown at two people in the span of ten minutes in all of my life. Bids start at $20, with minimum $1 increases from the previous bid. Some schools battled back and forth. One would put in $25, and then the next person would go $30, and then the original would come back with another $31. Crazy. The final "winner" of the night was some guy from Indiana University, who ponied up $120 to hear his school's fight song.
Obviously, people in Chicago have way too much money.
After a few hour's we went to Jet's for some even cheaper drinks, and then off to White Castle. I LOVE White castle. It is indeed the perfect food when you're drunk. Nothing is better than "Sliders" and onion rings. I so wish we had one here at home.
All in all, it was a great trip. I hope I get to do it again soon, but I'll certainly have to find a way to afford it again.
Well that, and try to get my liver to come off strike.
Drink Count: 13 Final Trip total - (6 days): 65
Monday, July 3, 2006
An Unlikely Occurance
I had an interesting exchange as a result of the CraigsList ad I put out for writers this week. Apparently, and I did not know this, there are people out there who's joy in life it is to answer ads and abuse the people trying to hire others. Witness this letter I got from casey ed in response to my well written and thorough ad placed in the writer's section of Dallas Craigslist.
/rizzn
From: casey ed <birdmanhoo@gmail.com>Mildly irritated, I tapped out a quick reply:
To: gigs-176579676@craigslist.org
Date: Jul 1, 2006 1:14 AM
Subject: the useless blog
why? and for what purpose
From: Rizzn Do'UrdenLate that evening, I got a cryptic email with a slightly different header - I almost immediately hit the spam button, but as I sometimes do, I hit the read button to verify it wasn't spam (or if it was to see the clever way they defeated gmail's spam filter).
To: casey ed <birdmanhoo@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 1, 2006 1:16 AM
Subject: Re: the useless blog
If you have to ask, it doesn't matter.
From: eddie the baker <birdmanhoo@gmail.com>Of course, you Rizznites know me, never one to let sleeping dogs lay, I explained to him exactly why I thought his response was odd...
To: rizzn.dourden@gmail.com
Date: Jul 1, 2006 11:47 PM
Subject: Your true father smashed his hands through the glass
You are probably the most pretentious/shallow person in existence;
acid needs to be flung into your eyes in copious quantities to perhaps
shed light on your dry emaciated soul. The world is completely
apathetic to you. Removing you from it really makes no difference but
skin cancer will nonetheless follow you into the dark my sad little
friend.
Love,
The sun
From: Rizzn Do'UrdenI'm curious though - have I found a quirk (or just a unique jerk), or have any of you had a similar experience? Are there really people trolling unlikely sources such as CraigsList to just insult random people?
To: eddie the baker <birdmanhoo@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 1, 2006 11:58 PM
Subject: Re: Your true father smashed his hands through the glass
Just because your reading comprehension skills are below average isn't any reason to get snippy with me. The ad I placed couldn't have been any more clear, and to ask my why and to what end is not only redundant, nosey, but stupid and insulting. Your subsequent correspondence with me continues with this trend. It's unfortunate that you have little else to do but troll the job boards for someone to unleash abuse upon.
/rizzn
Sunday, July 2, 2006
Smokehouse in Chicago: Day 5 (Friday) "Travesty of Justice"
Note: I know I'm behind on these. Been too busy to write. Observe.
The days seemed to be starting later and later. I wonder why?
We started the day intending to see the DaVinci Code, but that ended up being a bust, because Yahoo movies gave us bad information as to the location of the theater in Skokie which was showing the film. We couldnt get there in time, so we scrapped the idea and stopped for lunch at a local Johnny Rocket's.
It was probably for the best anyway, because we had a big evening planned. After a quick stop off at a local Best Buy to pick up some new earbuds for my notebook, we hopped the "L" for a trip to Wrigleyville to scope out the bars around the ballpark.
Now, I've never been on the "L" before, so this was a new experience. People have always told me that if I ever moved to Chicago that I could use the trains to get around. Well, after using the train, I have to tell you, I'd really rather not. It's terrible during the afternoon. You're packed in their like sardines, and it is bumpy as all hell. I was in my wheelchair, and I was litterally leaving the ground. I didn't know that it was possible to achieve weightlessness on public transit. I truly learn something new every day.
Not only that, it's terribly time consuming. It takes an hour to get to Wrigleyville from the Harlem station by train. This also includes one transfer. It's indeed quicker to drive, but they say the perk is that you don't have to pay for parking. I'm not so sure its a perk, though, because after getting shaken around so badly for so long, I had to find a bathroom so bad that I was crying piss. Plus, the doors only stay one for like 20 seconds. I'd never make it in or out in time. I'd be track splatter.
Anyway, we went to this pretty cool place called Casey Moran's to hang out with one of my friend Bryan's buddies girlfriend, and some of HER friends. (Follow that?) Casey's is a pretty cool place, but I think that's mostly just due to where its located. It's pretty much your standard modern Irish pub with a nice beer garden.
I wore my "I'm in it for the parking" T-shirt, and I got a *lot* of attention. It's fun to make people laugh like that. Especially the girlies. What can I say? I'm a giant charisma reactor, yay me.
My only complaint about Casey Moran's is the $5.25 price tag for a bottle of Bud or Miller Lite. That's atrocious.
We were having a lot of fun, and then...things slowly and silently began to take a turn.
First, my sunglasses fell out of my collar and into sewage oblivion while I was using the porta-john in the beer garden. Disappointing, but things happen. I can take that in strise and move on.
Secondly, the friend we were hanging with, Lindsay, was getting progressively more drunk. She doesn't get mean when she's drunk, she just gets to be a bit obnoxious. Mainly, she's one of those people who lives to text message. She wouldn't put her stupid phone down, and when it finally died, she kept bitching "My phone is dead!" over and over again. I like Lindsay a lot, but I felt like stabbing her in the eye after a while.
Third, my buddy and I ordered some food. We hadn't eaten anything in over 9 hours, and after that much drinking, some mini-burgers sounded good. We ordered four each. Lindsay and her friend Tina didn't want anything, so all was good. Or so I thought.
When the food came, I gave one burger to Lindsay and Bryan gave one to Tina. Of course, they happily took them. I ate a couple of the burgers rather quickly because I was starving. Then I stopped to talk for a couple minutes. Then as I was blindly reaching down to my plate for my third burger, Bryan says, "Shit, dude. Look."
When I wasnt looking, Lindsay had eaten my burger and somehow vaccumed up about half my fries. I didn't really say anything, but it did piss me off. She's not my girlfriend, but I would have given her the food or bought her some had she *asked*. I'm not like, all MAD or anything, but I just met her that night. It's not nice to steal.
But...what's done is done. Just wanted to tell the story.
As a side note, as all this was going on, Brian and I had a couple of girls actually walk away from us because we jokingly teased them about being Cubs fans. (It was Cubs/White Sox weekend, and everybody in the town goes insane. I'm not even a White Sox fan. I like sports as much as the next guy, but why get so upset? It's a GAME you play with a BALL.
Fourth, Lindsey keeps chiming in and demanding that we go to a gentleman's club in Bryan's neighborhood called Admiral's. We finally relent and take the hour train ride back. This is where things really start to take a dive.
We get there, and they won't comp our cover. See, the norm is to comp a firefighter and one friend out of respect. The club refused beceause Bryan wasn't a CITY firefighter. He's a SUBURBIAN firefighter. I guess the burb boys aren't as brave in the eyes of some of those in the city.
As it turns out...cover was $25 EACH. Normally we wouldnt do that, but the place was supposed to be pretty cool, and I was on vacation after all. Take one of the team. Just wait, it gets better.
So we get in there, and we try to order some beer. The waitress looks at us and says, "We dont serve alcohol here."
Christ almighty.
We begrudgingly order a couple of diet cokes, and the waitress comes back with them and says, "Ten dollars."
What?
At this point the rage is truly beginning to build. I just rode on a pissy train for an hour and paid $30 for a Coca-Cola. Valuable drinking time was lost. I'm pissed off. We bolted from that place, to say the least. Lindsay is in deep, deep shit.
Fifth, we find this place called Teasers, which is another pub-type place, and they tell us they are open until 4am. At this point, its about 3:05. We order a couplr of brews, and five minutes later, the bartender yells, "LAST CALL!"
What? To hell with that. Last call shouldn't be until 30 minutes prior to close at the earilest.
Fine. We order 2 more drinks each, so we at least have a pile in front of us. I consider myself a pro, having many frends in the bar business. I can work the system, dammit.
Mmmhmm.
At 3:30, they start throwing people out. Literally yelling for people to "GET OUT!"
Alright. Let's break this down. To be open til four, that means you have a four o'clock liqour license. If you advertide being open until four, that means you let people stay in the building until four, and then you start throwing them out.
I'm working on sucking my drinks down, and then somebody crosses the final line....effectively turning my "launch key"
One of the bouncers picks my walker up over his head and yells "HEY ANYBODY LOSE A WALKER!!?? (it was about two feet away from me, and had my $300 camera in its tote bag).
Yep. This big bald-headed asshole is holding my walker up like one of Ric Flair's 16 world championships.
If I dont know you, you don't manhandle my walker. Ladies and gentlemen...we have achieved liftoff! (Mark knows me well, I'm sure he can picture this).
Can you imagine anybody misplacing their motion aparatus?
I put my finger in his face and I say "HEY, YOU BIG, STUPID FUCK! THAT'S MINE! PUT IT DOWN **RIGHT NOW!!**
He quietly said "Oh shit. It's yours?", and slumped off.
We called it a night and left.
Thank God its over.
Drink Count: 13 Trip Count: 52
The days seemed to be starting later and later. I wonder why?
We started the day intending to see the DaVinci Code, but that ended up being a bust, because Yahoo movies gave us bad information as to the location of the theater in Skokie which was showing the film. We couldnt get there in time, so we scrapped the idea and stopped for lunch at a local Johnny Rocket's.
It was probably for the best anyway, because we had a big evening planned. After a quick stop off at a local Best Buy to pick up some new earbuds for my notebook, we hopped the "L" for a trip to Wrigleyville to scope out the bars around the ballpark.
Now, I've never been on the "L" before, so this was a new experience. People have always told me that if I ever moved to Chicago that I could use the trains to get around. Well, after using the train, I have to tell you, I'd really rather not. It's terrible during the afternoon. You're packed in their like sardines, and it is bumpy as all hell. I was in my wheelchair, and I was litterally leaving the ground. I didn't know that it was possible to achieve weightlessness on public transit. I truly learn something new every day.
Not only that, it's terribly time consuming. It takes an hour to get to Wrigleyville from the Harlem station by train. This also includes one transfer. It's indeed quicker to drive, but they say the perk is that you don't have to pay for parking. I'm not so sure its a perk, though, because after getting shaken around so badly for so long, I had to find a bathroom so bad that I was crying piss. Plus, the doors only stay one for like 20 seconds. I'd never make it in or out in time. I'd be track splatter.
Anyway, we went to this pretty cool place called Casey Moran's to hang out with one of my friend Bryan's buddies girlfriend, and some of HER friends. (Follow that?) Casey's is a pretty cool place, but I think that's mostly just due to where its located. It's pretty much your standard modern Irish pub with a nice beer garden.
I wore my "I'm in it for the parking" T-shirt, and I got a *lot* of attention. It's fun to make people laugh like that. Especially the girlies. What can I say? I'm a giant charisma reactor, yay me.
My only complaint about Casey Moran's is the $5.25 price tag for a bottle of Bud or Miller Lite. That's atrocious.
We were having a lot of fun, and then...things slowly and silently began to take a turn.
First, my sunglasses fell out of my collar and into sewage oblivion while I was using the porta-john in the beer garden. Disappointing, but things happen. I can take that in strise and move on.
Secondly, the friend we were hanging with, Lindsay, was getting progressively more drunk. She doesn't get mean when she's drunk, she just gets to be a bit obnoxious. Mainly, she's one of those people who lives to text message. She wouldn't put her stupid phone down, and when it finally died, she kept bitching "My phone is dead!" over and over again. I like Lindsay a lot, but I felt like stabbing her in the eye after a while.
Third, my buddy and I ordered some food. We hadn't eaten anything in over 9 hours, and after that much drinking, some mini-burgers sounded good. We ordered four each. Lindsay and her friend Tina didn't want anything, so all was good. Or so I thought.
When the food came, I gave one burger to Lindsay and Bryan gave one to Tina. Of course, they happily took them. I ate a couple of the burgers rather quickly because I was starving. Then I stopped to talk for a couple minutes. Then as I was blindly reaching down to my plate for my third burger, Bryan says, "Shit, dude. Look."
When I wasnt looking, Lindsay had eaten my burger and somehow vaccumed up about half my fries. I didn't really say anything, but it did piss me off. She's not my girlfriend, but I would have given her the food or bought her some had she *asked*. I'm not like, all MAD or anything, but I just met her that night. It's not nice to steal.
But...what's done is done. Just wanted to tell the story.
As a side note, as all this was going on, Brian and I had a couple of girls actually walk away from us because we jokingly teased them about being Cubs fans. (It was Cubs/White Sox weekend, and everybody in the town goes insane. I'm not even a White Sox fan. I like sports as much as the next guy, but why get so upset? It's a GAME you play with a BALL.
Fourth, Lindsey keeps chiming in and demanding that we go to a gentleman's club in Bryan's neighborhood called Admiral's. We finally relent and take the hour train ride back. This is where things really start to take a dive.
We get there, and they won't comp our cover. See, the norm is to comp a firefighter and one friend out of respect. The club refused beceause Bryan wasn't a CITY firefighter. He's a SUBURBIAN firefighter. I guess the burb boys aren't as brave in the eyes of some of those in the city.
As it turns out...cover was $25 EACH. Normally we wouldnt do that, but the place was supposed to be pretty cool, and I was on vacation after all. Take one of the team. Just wait, it gets better.
So we get in there, and we try to order some beer. The waitress looks at us and says, "We dont serve alcohol here."
Christ almighty.
We begrudgingly order a couple of diet cokes, and the waitress comes back with them and says, "Ten dollars."
What?
At this point the rage is truly beginning to build. I just rode on a pissy train for an hour and paid $30 for a Coca-Cola. Valuable drinking time was lost. I'm pissed off. We bolted from that place, to say the least. Lindsay is in deep, deep shit.
Fifth, we find this place called Teasers, which is another pub-type place, and they tell us they are open until 4am. At this point, its about 3:05. We order a couplr of brews, and five minutes later, the bartender yells, "LAST CALL!"
What? To hell with that. Last call shouldn't be until 30 minutes prior to close at the earilest.
Fine. We order 2 more drinks each, so we at least have a pile in front of us. I consider myself a pro, having many frends in the bar business. I can work the system, dammit.
Mmmhmm.
At 3:30, they start throwing people out. Literally yelling for people to "GET OUT!"
Alright. Let's break this down. To be open til four, that means you have a four o'clock liqour license. If you advertide being open until four, that means you let people stay in the building until four, and then you start throwing them out.
I'm working on sucking my drinks down, and then somebody crosses the final line....effectively turning my "launch key"
One of the bouncers picks my walker up over his head and yells "HEY ANYBODY LOSE A WALKER!!?? (it was about two feet away from me, and had my $300 camera in its tote bag).
Yep. This big bald-headed asshole is holding my walker up like one of Ric Flair's 16 world championships.
If I dont know you, you don't manhandle my walker. Ladies and gentlemen...we have achieved liftoff! (Mark knows me well, I'm sure he can picture this).
Can you imagine anybody misplacing their motion aparatus?
I put my finger in his face and I say "HEY, YOU BIG, STUPID FUCK! THAT'S MINE! PUT IT DOWN **RIGHT NOW!!**
He quietly said "Oh shit. It's yours?", and slumped off.
We called it a night and left.
Thank God its over.
Drink Count: 13 Trip Count: 52
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