Hello blogging my old friend...

So. This is awkward. It's been awhile.
As I hear it from a vocal few, my blogging has been missed. I'm not sure what this says about the lives of the people who make such claims. Not much, I'm afraid.

Anywho, what's been going on with me, you ask?

Not much.

I bought a car. First time in seven years and the first time in 12 years I bought a car from a dealer. I had completely forgotten how much I hate buying cars.

As I left the dealer I figured one of the following. I:
A) got an awesome deal and totally screwed the dealer out of every last penny and they were stunned by my negotiating skills.
B) paid so much for the car that my salesman, Bobby, is sending his stupid, stupid children to private school and lighting his cigars with $20 bills.

Before we go on, some of you might think that mocking Bobby]'s children is mean. I don't actually know that these children are shockingly stupid. I can only guess that, after meeting their father, that they are genetically screwed in the IQ area.

Holy crap was this guy dumb. I showed up one day and said I wanted to drive X car, which I had seen on the web site.

"Hmmm, okay. Let me see if I can find the keys," Bobby said.
This was a 15 minute process that led us to a car that was not the one i wanted to drive.

"I'm not sure where that one on the web site is."

I turned around and pointed. "That's it."

"OOOOHHHHHHHH. Let me see if I can find the key."

10 more minutes.

"I can't find the keys. Would you just like to drive this one?"

"Sure, buddy. I'm going to drive this care while you take the time to find the other keys to the OTHER CAR I ACTUALLY MIGHT PURCHASE."

Etc. etc. more stupid things as he tried to sell me every car on the lot except the one I wanted.

Finally, Bobby relented. We dickered over price. I laughed out loud at their first offer for my beloved GTI. Bobby must have been in a hurry.

"What did you have in mind to pay when you came in here?"

And that was it. I didn't even get to storm out in mock anger.

And now, I own this sweet piece of machinery that is, as I write this, likely discovering new ways to break down.

Most disgusting thing I have ever seen

I was going to post a picture of the lovely procedure I underwent today to stop my string of ingrown toenails. But I decided against it.

Let's just say if you're looking for something to test the 'ol gag reflux, type "ingrown toenail" into Google and look at all the images. oh my.

Anyway, it was something I had already seen today as Dr. Wagner (first name, and I'm not kidding is Steventon) jammed a ginormous Q-Tip into my toenail and halfway up my ankle. It's hard to go through an entire procedure trying desperately NOT to look at what's being done to your toe. Luckily, the doc had drugged my toe into the stratosphere. My toe was flying high.

It's been a rough couple weeks for the feet. Ingrown toenail, a rehash of the gout in the other foot. The plantar fas. Criminy. I'm tired of these suckers. anyone want to trade?

So, the weekend was interesting as Mr. Perry and I took in some high school football at Ohio Stadium, watching St. Thomas Aquinas of Ft. Lauderdale beat Upper Arlington so bad, they probably didn't even enjoy the ride home in Mummy and Poppy's Lexus. We had some nice seats, well, until 2Live Crew showed up to stand right in front of us. yes, son, there's certainly no reason for you to wear a shirt. Growing teenagers smell GREAT in the hot sun. And then there was a midget.

Other notes from the recent summer of non-blogging:

- Funny People should be renamed "Interminably long movie stars untalented hack, Adam Sandler"

- I hesitate to blog about work, but last weekend they decided to add two offices in our area. This required us to pack everything in our desks so they could move them three feet. It was a bit of a pain in the ass.

- mmmmm.. fall is here. I can smell the footblal.

This recession is real, bitches.

There have been lots of charts and graphs and stimulus packages and home foreclosures and Wall Street crashes and bailouts, but it wasn't until today I knew the recession was the real deal, thanks to the A1 centerpiece of the Columbus Dispatch.

The horrifying news? Ohio's vanity plate market has tanked.

Sure, a lot of newspapers would have made the editorial error of burying this story in the Metro page or even (gasp!) the Life section. (Assuming your paper has a Life section or Metro section. Or that it's still in operation at all.) Not the brave souls at the Dispatch. They know Ohio's vanity license plate market is an unmatched economic bellweather.

And while other newspapers might make the mistake of assigning this story to some poor Ohio University intern who made a questionable career choice, not the Dispatch. Nope, at the Dispatch only a story as riveting as the collapse of the vanity plate industry can bring out the big gun: Managing Editor Ben Marrison.

Marrison pulls no punches with this hard-hitting feature, letting us know right up front things are not good in the Buckeye state:

With the recession forcing people to pinch pennies harder, more and more Ohioans are dropping their expensive plates in favor of the lower-cost, standard-issue variety.

What's that? You're not buying this well-crafted assumption? You're under the impression that people will cut back on their groceries, their utilities, attend Columbus State instead of Ohio State, but never, never give up their personalized plates?

Marrison douses the doubter with hard-hitting facts.

According to Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles records, Ohioans applied for 42,500 new vanity plates last year. However, because even more people dropped the special plates, the overall total fell by 277 vehicles. Last year's drop marked the first time in three years that sales fell for vanity plates - those with the logo of a college, a charitable cause, initials or words spelled in license-plate code.

That's right, Mr. Skeptic. Requests for specialized plates dropped by .6 percent.

Let that sink in. These are numbers that cannot be ignored.

Then Marrison drops the real bomb. Ohio is going to hell and the state does not even care.

Lindsay Komlanc, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety, said the state doesn't study the reasons behind fluctuations in vanity or specialized plates.

"We do not have a mechanism for tracking why people are doing the things they're doing," she said, explaining that the bureau of motor vehicles is required to make plates based on legislation approved by the General Assembly.

Marrison wraps it up letting us know that this issue affects many of our Buckeye brethren.

"The most popular plates are those defined as "personalized," those on which people mix letters and numbers to spell out messages, such as CUL8R or BUCKEYE. Last year, nearly 330,000 vehicles had personalized plates, up 70 percent since 2001. Those with initials alone totaled 118,627 last year, up 24 percent during the same period."

Marrison didn't need to add - "For NOW" - to make his salient point.

I don't know if Ben Marrison has a personalized plate. But if it does, I'm guessing it says "BM - HERO."

Alright Already.

Get off my back.

Anywho, today i stumbled across this beauty.

Media execs rocked by 15-year old's blunt, blistering anaylsis

where a bunch of suits were shocked when they gave a 15-year old intern an assignment (a 15-year old intern? Jesus, kid, go play basketball) and he returned with a SCATHING analysis of modern media.

"He goes on, dissing newspapers because teens "cannot be bothered" to read physical pages when they can get the condensed version online or on the tube. As for banner ads on the Web? "Extremely annoying and pointless," Robson observes (according to the Guardian). By the same token, Robson says teenagers are "very reluctant" to pony up for tunes, preferring to stream or share them for free."

Brilliant. Here's my analysis: Teenage boys are f'ing douchebags and nothing they say or write, no matter who gives them the assignment, should be given an ounce of bleeping credibility. Somebody spank this little shit.

Get it together, Ron

C'mon, Ron.

Not only is Ron some kind of unemployed extra from Born on the Fourth of July who spends his days stealing copper to fuel his crystal meth habit, no Ron didn't even have the g*ddam courtesy to die in a non-embarrassing manner like the rest of these brave people being portrayed by actors in still photos.

See, Ron, American Electric Power isn't concerned about whether or not you steal their copper wiring. Ron, American Electric Power wants you to live a good wholesome life filled with happiness and don't die like a fucking chump, Ron.

And for God's sake dont' die on our power lines in a way your family could sue us, dumbass.

I mean, Ron, did you SEE the other people in the commercial? The lady cop. Dead. Firefighter? Dead. Cancer lady? Dead. But dead in appropriate ways, Ron. Even heroic, Ron.

Jesus, Ron. Get your shit together.

West Virginia+Las Vegas =

.38 Special: Coming soon to a casino near you.


Father's Day!!
So, yes, for a Father's Day celebration me and Sam headed to Wheeling, W. B. G. Va. for a little dinner and gambling fun. (I'm a classy son.)

The fun didn't last long though. Dad got smoked on slots and I got hammered at the Blackjack tables rather quickly as the player who was drawing before decided it was his sole goal to collect every card in the deck. (uh, did you really just hit an Ace-Nine with the dealer showing a nine? what????)

He was one up on the 122-year old lady next to him, who stopped taking oxygen long enough to take a drag on her smoke. Twice I was pretty sure she was dead, but she managed to make the "hit me" motion with her fingers.

Best hand of the night? The lady who split her Aces, only to draw two more aces.

Ahh, Wheeling Island, the crass/gawdy parts of Las Vegas combined with the ghettos of Wheeling. The best of both worlds.

No offense to anyone. I'm only angry cause I lost so quickly. Usually it takes awhile before my money's gone. Not this week. The Island wasn't f'ing around.

Besides, I'll be back at the Island - Styx, REO Speedwagon and .38 Special are there in two weeks!

Speaking of .38 Special, can someone explain the meaning of the lyrics to their classic "Hold On Loosely"? They have always confused me.

Side note:
Best sign in St. Clairsville, Ohio? The giant blue one for VASECTOMY.COM.

This one hurt just a tad

My life in the 90s. And part of the 00s. And most of the 80s.
Dammit.

Don't Ask. Don't F*cking Care

So this guy's gay.

Couldn't miss it as it was the lead story on the front of Yahoo! today. Would have meant more if I knew who the hell he was.

Either way, I'm tired of celebrities coming out of the closet in magazine spreads.

I don't care about your sexual orientation. I don't care if you're straight, gay, bi or you like to hump puppies in an empty refrigerator box. It's none of my g&ddam business.

Now, dance attention-starved monkey, dance!