DAD'S SAYING 342
Like my Dad used to say,
"You can dress it up, you can put it on sale; but shit is still shit."

Jim Beam
It's a shame when you feel you have the need to go to the bathroom, but you ask yourself, 'Do I soil myself or do I protect my job?"' Kelley said.
- CNN

And that's why I drink Maker's Mark.

LYD
Ernie is The Weakest Link.

Flight 243
I’m not sure whether he did poorly in the NFL draft or he wasn't quiet ready to leave the halfway house, but it was too early for the guy next to me Saturday to fly across the country. We had the emergency exit aisle, so we had leg room. However, sitting between the 6’6” Jeff Veen and the 250 lb linebacker, it was a long, long flight.

My favorite exchanges:
(As Jeff and I raced to finish the airline magazine crossword)
HIM:   schhny..ub
ME:    Pardon?
HIM:   42 down.
ME:    oh, ok, what is it?
HIM:   It’s the answer to 42 down
ME:     yeah, I just didn't hear the word.
HIM:    (huffy) never mind
    (He then snapped his head forward, clinched his eyes like a child pretending to sleep, and held perfectly, perfectly still.)
JEFF:   (whispering) Dude, you are totally getting punched in the face.


Other favorite phrase on the flight:
As I look for the flight attendant:  "Can you not sniff"
As I started to nap:  "Can you face the other way - you're breathing toward me"
As we waited to pull up to the gate:  "If I pulled down an oxygen mask, they'd probably all come down, uh?"

WASHINGTON
Heading to DC tomorrow.
It doesn't matter how bloody hot I know it'll be, I always get excited going to the nation's capitol.

Leslie Veen "just spent ten days in El Salvador with twelve Bay Area high schoolers. Here are two quotes that sound like they could have been uttered by one of those students:

1) "He's still tight with us ..."

2) "Obviously, to the extent that, you know, our friends promote democracy, that's important."

Unfortunately, these two quotes were from the President of the USA."

Salon on the subject.

KITTY
Last night, I rolled over to see my girlfriend snuggled up with the cat. Both of them sleeping soundly.

As I faded back to sleep, I thought, "I wonder where that cat came from? I'll see if there's a collar in the morning."

DECISION
I am seriously considering either law school or singing lessons. Maybe both.

FOND FAREWELL
Before heading to prison for eight years, and after becoming only the second person expelled from Congress since the Civil War, James Traficant was honored last night by the Mahoning Valley Scrappers (Class A baseball) in Niles, Ohio. Anybody who wore a terrible toupee or proved their "Daddy was a truck driver" got in for free.

"Former Congressman Traficant played a vital role in attracting the franchise to the Mahoning Valley," club GM Andy Milovich said. "We felt a Jim Traficant Night would show our sincere gratitude for his efforts."
from Daily Press

CNN
I know times are tough, but come on CNN; you're not even affecting a sense of shame anymore.

Today's headline:
Hooters in the air?
August 15, 2002: 8:41 AM EDT
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Will Vanguard Airlines, known for its low fares, and Hooters Girls, known for their high-cut shorts, soon be corporate cousins?

BACK IT UP
For the love of all thing holy, save all your data, emails, photos and contacts, right now.
Right now!

Stop reading this, go buy a Rewritable CD Drive and save everything you should want if your hard drive should crash; irretrievably loosing all that you hold digitally dear.


It may be 2pm, but it's time for a drink.

THE STAMPEDE CORRAL
The name makes no sense and the food aspires to the culinary splendor of a TGIFriday, but The Stampede Corral is home to some of the the best cocktails, entertainers, and people watching in Southern Ontario, .

Tammy, our waitress, worked with a degree of sweet chattiness that would put any Georgian to shame. She giggled appropriately as she gave my sister one Slutty Amy after another (basically vodka and grenadine - Tammy loved them and insisted my sister would too.) She talk with great pride about their new expanded menu and was pleased the folks from the softball tournament were finally finding their way to The Stampede Corral.

My brother, sister and I got back to the softball fields before the two-stepping really got heavy - but I'll be back someday.

HOMERUN
I saw the Czech team hit a home run tonight. It was very cool and they were very excited.
But my favorite part was the simple fact that they didn't use any signals to the communicate to the pitcher/batter.
They just yelled to eachother... because they were certain nobody from the Midland, WI team understood them.

ISC
I'm on my way to Kitchener, Ontario for the World Championship of Softball. The whole family is heading to visit our neighbors to the north and help/harass my Dad as he presides over his first tournament as President of the International Softball Congress (ISC). I guess that makes me the First Son of softball.

Highlights may include:

• Sitting in the bleachers with my brother and sister, drinking beer legally.
  
• Fastpitch: The Movie – A documentary showing in Waterloo
  
• Learning the Canadian rivals to Busch, PBR, Keystone and, of course, the holy water in the Mason home growing up, Coors.
  
• Czech Republic vs DeKalb
  
• Watching with equal parts horror and humor as my countrymen refer to Canada as, "like a whole other country”
  

HAIR
Today at the gym, I saw a guy in the changing room blow drying his back hair.

I think I'd rather get fat and weak before I see that again.

PCH
Things I learned about my girlfriend on our 1,200 mile drive up and down the Pacific Coast Highway:

• She knows all the words to The Dead Milkmen's Bitchin' Camaro
  
• She can sleep through a 70 MPH, 1.5 G curve with salsa on the radio and the window down
  
• We have well synchronized pee schedules
  
• She has a genuine disdain for maps and map-related activities
  
• Hotels can be as run-down as they like, as long as they smell clean
  
• After 10 hours in the car, anything I say is hilarious.
  

We had fun.

LU
So my good friend Luanne needs some help. She's doing an artist residency somewhere in Colorado (she's a theater director) and she could use some source material. It's a kids' project that focuses on education. Grab an old post, draft a paragraph, write a song... whatever.

The question from Lu is:

"Why did you go to college?

It could be funny or truthful or silly or a lie or poetic or a poem, but tell how you really feel, be creative, have fun and then I will steal away your words and use them in a fabulous performance art piece and you will never be compensated, but you will be famous for years and years."

Write to her at lu@b-may.com.

For the children, people.