We made some tactical errors, completely our fault, but it was a good trip nonetheless. For one thing, we left too late. Check-in at the hotel is at 4, and we didn’t leave our house until almost noon. It’s a three-hour ride — supposedly — and we were putting way too much emphasis on that 4 o’clock restriction. In retrospect, we should’ve left early in the morning, parked our car inside the Caesars garage, and started the day before we had access to the room. It feels like we sometimes do some stupid shit. Oh well.

Traffic in Philadelphia was horrendous, as usual, and we didn’t arrive until 4:15. This is Dupree who checked us in at the main counter. I tried to make him laugh a couple of times, but was not successful. Dupree was nothing if not stoic.

The room was nice, with a great view o’ the ocean. As you can see below, it wasn’t super-sunny out, but it was relatively warm. Toney wanted to change clothes, but I was itching to get the party started. It was late in the day already, and we’d just rolled into town. I was in no mood for lounging and watching the syringes and bloody gauze wash up on the shore.

The bathroom was a little weird. It had a sliding fiberglass barn-door type situation with large open gaps on both sides of it. So, if you were getting out of the shower, somebody could easily walk past and see your entire ass and/or wang. Or whatever. I didn’t care for that. The toilet was inside another room — a room inside a room — so at least there wouldn’t be any public wipings or anything. Sometimes that fancy stuff doesn’t make practical sense. Right? What’s wrong with just a normal door? Normal doors have served us well for centuries.

We had a beer in the room, from our white trash carry-in cooler, and went downstairs shortly after arriving. Happy Hour at Gordon Ramsay’s Pub was still running until 5. We had to hurry to get even one half-price pint there.

We looked at the draft beer list and, as usual, I found it to be fairly predictable. Somebody should allow me to choose their beer selection. I mean, it wasn’t bad, it’s just… what every place like that offers. Ya know? We went with Fuller’s ESB, and they were $4.50 each — usually $9. I find that to be ludicrous, but whatever. The beer was good, and we’d vowed to only have one at each stop, and keep moving.

Here’s our bartender serving us the first of what I was hoping would be many adult beverages. I sent the photo to my brother with the caption “It begins…”

Toney suggested we get dinner, and we’d pre-chosen a place in the Tropicana called Broadway Burger Bar. I was assured that it’s just a short stroll down the boardwalk. Just seventeen minutes, according to Google. I already had two beers in my great belly and frowned at this news. Who wants to take a walk in the middle of a “session.” Not me, that’s who.

But it wasn’t bad. It felt good to get outside. It was a little stuffy inside Caesars, and the cool air was nice. The boardwalk was sparsely populated, but far from empty. We walked past a giant billboard advertising a future appearance by Rod Stewart, with special guest Cyndi Lauper. Some cynical woman walking past said, “Ha. Cyndi Lauper. That’s hilarious.” It rubbed me the wrong way. If you’re going to be cynical and negative, at least approach it creatively. Just shitting on everything does nothing to benefit humanity. In fact, it’s a drain. I wanted to holler, “Yes, not all of us can work in a State Farm office in Ass Zits, New Hampshire!” But, of course, I just kept walking.

As soon as we walked through the doors of the The Tropicana we were hit with a wave of heat, followed quickly by a tidal wave of cig smoke. Sweet sainted mother of Aldo Nova! Clearly, they not only allow smoking in that place, but they encourage it. Possibly even require it. I’m not a fan and was instantly frowning. Where is this goddamn burger place? We need to get out of this hellish emphysema hotbox.

And we walked… and walked… and walked… That casino is sprawling and we could not find the restaurant. They had fancy interactive directories that did nothing but confuse us further. It was so freaking hot in there I couldn’t believe it. And the smoke was entering my body from every angle. It looked like the clientele was a little on the riff-raff side, and my good mood was fading. Oh, it was fading.

We finally found it, and they led us to a dark dining room deep in the bowels of the place. Before we even sat down I was bitching about the darkness. “I guess we should’ve brought our coal miner helmets,” I said to whoever wanted to listen. Indeed, I couldn’t see the menu. I had my phone out, with the flashlight app engaged… What the hell, man?

We both ordered cheeseburgers, and a Cape May IPA. Again, it was the only thing on the beer list that was mildly intriguing. The waiter said, “Good choice!” And I wanted to say, “Thank you, but we’ve already had enough smoke blown up our asses just walking through this shithole.” Also, I asked what came on the burgers, and he said lettuce, tomato, and pickles. And there’s ketchup, mustard, and mayo on the table. “So, no onions?” I asked. I like onions on a burger. It’s an important component, right? The dude acted like he was taken aback by my exotic request. Like I’d asked for a pineapple ring or something. But he promised to look into it. Crazy.

As it turned out, the burgers were fantastic. Possibly one of the best I’ve ever had. I don’t know if I was just hungry, or what. But that shit was excellent. The beers — served in a super-pretentious brandy snifter-type deal — was OK. I don’t think the boys at Dogfish Head have anything to worry about, though.

But the whole ordeal — the frustration of not being able to find the place, the walking, the high-heat, and the cig smoke — kinda broke us. Neither of us was now in the mood to continue our self-curated pub crawl. As we walked back to Caesars the boardwalk was deader than Kelsey’s nuts. We discussed having a beer at a place called The Continental, but screw it. The spell was broken. We returned to the room. and had another Founders All-Day IPA from the hillbilly cooler, took in the view for a little while, and turned in early. It’s a sad state of affairs: so easily knocked off our game…

The next morning I went downstairs and got us two large coffees from an over-the-top pastry/coffee shop. They had stuff stacked in that place like they were expecting thousands of people to descend upon them within the hour. I also ordered a chocolate chip cookie with a circumference only slightly smaller than a steering wheel, for us to share.

Then we visited a breakfast buffet, for $19.99 each. The food was good. Toney went to the omelet station and had the dude in the Chef Boyardee outfit create something to her specifications. I just stuck with the tried and true: scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, etc. It was all very good. Expensive, though. Am I wrong?

It was a sunny day, and we walked around looking at the ocean and just taking it all in. It was nice. Good to get away. The ride home was aggravating, because of the Philly traffic again. This time it was worse than the last time. We were literally sitting in PARK for extended periods. That’s not good for the ol’ blood pressure. But I maintained. I didn’t blow a gasket or anything. Just some mild muttering of profanity, and many changes of the SiriusXM dial. SiriusXM was my musical pacifier.

When we got home I went straight to the car wash and knocked all the road filth off my new car. I’m still in the mode of keeping it shiny and clean. That’ll pass, of course. But it’s where I am now.

So, I’d rate the trip a B. We should’ve left earlier on Sunday, and not ventured far from Caesars that night. That place has a dozen or more restaurants and bars in it. We didn’t need to hoof it to that Pall Mall sweat lodge at The Tropicana. But, it’s a lesson for next time. It was fun, and not super-expensive. We’ve vowed to do these little quickie getaways from now on. This was a good start in that direction.

And the kids? Nothing horrible happened, as far as I know. There were some shenanigans, apparently, but I don’t believe the cops or the military were summoned. And the house was still standing when we returned, so I consider it a win.

For a Question, I mentioned SiriusXM. It, of course, requires a monthly subscription fee. After my first six months are done, anyway. I’d like to know what subscriptions you pay for monthly. Use the comments. I finally canceled eMusic, after ten years. But I still subscribe to SiriusXM, Spotify, Texture (a magazine app), MLB At Bat, Netflix, and Hulu. What about you? Bring us up to date on it, won’t you?

And I’m going to work now. You guys have yourselves a great day.

I’ll see you again soon.

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Sorry I disappeared for a few days. I have some stuff going on, it hasn’t been just pure sackism. Although to be honest, there has been some sackism. In any case, I’ve been dabbling with some stuff that takes me far outside my comfort zone. No, it’s not homosexuality. It’s something I hope to have enough courage to share with you guys soon. But we’ll see. There’s at least a 35% chance I’ll shitcan all of it, and that’ll be that. Stay tuned.

It’s still winter here, in case you were wondering. We had one and a half days of spring, on Friday and Saturday. And by Sunday it was full-on winter again. Also, the wind is blowing like a bastard out there. There’s garbage cascading through the neighborhood, and tree limbs falling. Last night it was gusting so strongly it felt like the house was going to come apart. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but this is bullshit.

Toney and I are going to Atlantic City on Sunday, leaving the kids by themselves overnight. They’re 22 and 19 now, but it’s still not a slam-dunk that there won’t be shenanigans. But, screw it. This is our summer of travel. All four of us are flying to Myrtle Beach in May, and Toney and I are going to Las Vegas for a week in September. With some quickie overnighters here and there, like this Atlantic City deal. For the record, it’ll be about food, drink, and decompression. Wot’s wrong with that? Nothing, I say. Should be fun. If the boys burn the house down, we’ve got insurance. Right? Right.

I’ve been fairly invested in the young baseball season and my team, the Cincinnati Reds, are 2-13. Meaning they’ve won two, and lost thirteen. Currently, they’ve lost eight games in a row. WTF? They’re absolutely terrible. They’ve been in “rebuilding” mode for about five years. Shouldn’t that shit be rebuilt by now? It only took four years to construct the Golden Gate Bridge, for godsakes. In all seriousness, how does the manager still have a job? I don’t understand. Oh well.

Do you watch Homeland? The first four seasons or so were fantastic. Then it took a steep nosedive and became ludicrous. LUDICROUS! But this year — Season 7 — is really good again. How often does that happen? I think it’s fairly rare, right? When the shittiness starts to creep… it almost never stops creeping. But they’ve turned it around somehow. It’s great! Can you think of any other shows that went bad, and became good again?

My cell phone is about two years old, and it’s suddenly become sluggish. There’s a brief, yet completely infuriating, lag that wasn’t there a month ago. It’s a Droid Turbo 2, and it’s probably the best phone I’ve ever had. It’s close to perfect, in my estimation. But I think they build this kind of crap into them. I think there’s an internal timer and the slowness is triggered at some pre-determined number of days past activation. Is that paranoid? A month ago it never crossed my mind to upgrade, and now I’m thinking about it. See how it works? Man, oh man. I’m getting fired up.

Other conspiracies I’ve uncovered through the years: I believe Kleenex adds sneezing powder to their products to cause the use of more Kleenex, gas pumps randomly switch from 87 octane to the more expensive 89 or 93, and NOBODY needs Chapstick until they starting using it — once they make that first swipe… they’re a prisoner for life.

Do you have any personal conspiracy theories? Please share them, won’t you?

Speaking of conspiracy theories, RIP Art Bell. I loved that guy. He was very odd, and (as the linked headline mentions) mysterious. But he was a great broadcaster and raconteur. George Noory is OK, but he doesn’t have the edginess or the humor of the original host of Coast to Coast. Art will be missed.

And I need to go to work now. I have more stuff in my notebook — it’s been a while — but not enough minutes on the clock. There’s always next time, though

Have a great day, my friends.

I’ll see you again soon.

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By the way, it’s snowing again. In April… after Easter… during the second week of baseball season. But I’m not supposed to complain about it. My only two options, apparently, are STFU or move to Florida. There are no other acceptable courses of action. Love it or leave it, baby! Here’s a shot from our back door. But whatever. Unless I’m willing to immediately quit my job, sell my house, pack my bags, and move to Tampa… I have no right to complain.

Speaking of baseball, I once again paid for Gameday Audio from MLB this year. It only costs $20 for the season, and you get access to every radio broadcast of every game for every team. I’ve been listening to the Reds since Spring Training and enjoying it. I might enjoy it a little more, of course, if they could win every once in a while. But it’s fun. Some quick thoughts:

• It’s great to hear Marty Brennaman, who’s been calling Reds games since I was 10 years old. He sounds exactly the same, and still speaks his mind and stirs the shit. Love it. He’s a direct connection to my kidhood when I was completely and absolutely obsessed with the Reds and baseball. He’s still doing the games, almost 45 years later!
• I don’t know any of the players, which is a big part of the challenge. At some point, during the mid-90s, I disengaged from the sport, and know almost literally nothing from that point. So, there’s a fairly steep learning curve. But I wanna do it. I tried a couple of years ago, and it didn’t take. I’m giving it another shot.
• I’ve always loved listening to baseball on the radio. I think I like it even more than watching it on TV. I can be having the worst week ever, with aggravation stacked upon aggravation, and after a few innings of baseball on the radio…. aaaah, I can breathe again.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Baseball is boring. Shove it, dullard.

Last Saturday I bought a new car. Toney’s inheriting the Suzuki, and I’m now driving a 2015 Chevy Cruze. It has 24,000 miles on it and seems 100% factory new.  Two things I noticed right away: the seats are about one million times more comfortable, and the car is incredibly quiet on the interstate. I don’t think I realized how noisy and windy the Suzuki sounded. The Cruze seems almost silent. So… I’ll drive that bastard into the ground, and we’ll go from there. Pass the beer nuts.

As soon I got home from the dealership, I went on the SiriusXM site and subscribed for six months. I’ve never had it before, and the preview channel in the new car said I could get six months for $30. Some quick thoughts:

• I was super-excited about the 1st Wave channel, which plays early New Wave stuff. However, after just a week I’m less excited. For one thing, they play WAY too much Missing Persons. They were a C List band even when they were at their peak. 1st Wave is very heavy-handed with the Missing Persons, and apparently believes they’re as important as the Pretenders and Elvis Costello. And they just generally play too much dancy bullshit like Information Society, and crap like that. I find myself frowning at the radio within ten minutes, and seeking something better.
• There’s a channel called Lithium that plays 90s alternative, they say. But I’ve never been able to string together more than five minutes there. Remember that bullshit band Live? They play a lot of Live, and Seven Mary Three. It triggers a very quick frown, as well as a furrowing of the brow.
• Classic Rewind is pretty good. It’s just classic rock. For some reason, I can lock-in there better than with the so-called alternative options.
• And Hair Nation sounds like something I could get behind, but it’s always shit like White Lion, etc. Seriously?

What do you listen to on SiriusXM? I don’t get Howard Stern, ’cause that costs something like twenty bucks more. I wish there was a channel that played 80s indie rock. Like Husker Du and the Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. But I ain’t finding it. There’s a lot of stuff on there, though. I’ll keep digging.

Last night, at exactly 10 pm, my phone rang and it said the call was coming from Salem, Oregon. No way I’m answering that crap, but it only rang once. Weird. I put the number into Google and there was a long conversation about it. People all over the country were saying they receive calls from the same number, on Sunday nights only, at exactly 9:30 or 10:00. Never 9:32, always 9:30. And it only rings once or twice. How freaky is that? Any ideas on what it’s all about?

And speaking of strange phone calls, I had a guy calling me over and over again who claimed to be a lawyer. He kept calling me by the name of a cousin, who I haven’t seen or spoken to since I was 12 years old, and was making all sorts of threats. He said he was going to come to my workplace and serve me with papers, and there was a judgment against me, blah blah blah. But he never called me Jeff or Jeffrey, he kept calling me by the name of that cousin. At one point he even said his full name, including his middle name, which is unusual. So, WTF? He spoke in an odd cadence like he was hosting some kind of late night Chiller Theater TV show. Like the fucking Crypt Keeper, or something. It was mildly unnerving. But it had scam written all over it, so I never called the guy back. Eventually he stopped calling. Pure scam, right? Right.

What’s the weirdest, most baffling phone calls you’ve received? That one from Oregon is bizarre. What is the point?? It makes no sense to me.

And I’m going to call it a day, my friends. I had to get up early this morning, and I’m already feeling it. I’m tired before the work week even begins. The coffee power is starting to fade, and fatigue is taking over. Oh well. I’ll leave you with a silly Question that might lead to a few laughs, maybe. Q: What is a phrase that is perfectly appropriate for the Easter dinner table, but never during sex? Make of it what you will.

I’ll see you guys again soon.

Have a great day!

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The older boy was involved in a fairly serious car crash a few days ago. He’s fine, thankfully, and the asshole who hit him is fine as well. But my old Camry, which the boy was driving, is completely and thoroughly fucked. That thing is destined for the crusher. Or as they call it down South… the masher. Oh well. The boy didn’t get hurt, and that’s the important part. We’ll just let our friends at State Farm sort the rest of it out.

Somehow, I’ve never really been involved in a serious crash. I was once a passenger in a car being driven by a square-headed sumbitch who ran into a telephone pole at a low rate of speed. I think he was fiddling with the radio and went straight off the road and into a pole. But it was minor. The boy said he was hit with such force the other day the front end of his car went airborne briefly, and he was spun around multiple times. That’s not something I’ve experienced, which is fine by me.

What about you? Were you ever involved in a serious crash? I think most people have. At least it feels that way. Tell us about it, won’t you?

Speaking of cars, we took my ludicrous little wind-up Suzuki in for its annual inspection a few days ago, and they came back with a list o’ things that needed to be done. About $700 worth. Believing they were attempting to rip us off, I told them to just fail it and I’d take it home. Then we took it somewhere else and they came back with a very similar list. I immediately wondered if there was some kind of centralized rip-off database where these pirates can log their attempted rip-offs to facilitate future rip-offs by other pirates. Is that paranoid?

In any case, we paid the ransom and I’m back in business for a year. That thing takes a beating, and so far it’s been 100% reliable. I don’t like it, it’s uncomfortable and the whole idea of it just rubs me the wrong way. But it’s great in snow (it’s snowing again right now, btw), and gets decent gas mileage. So, I guess it’s served its purpose. I just don’t like it. Ya know?

And speaking of hemorrhaging money… we locked in on the September trip to Las Vegas: non-refundable airfare that wasn’t cheap. We haven’t booked a hotel yet, but dropped about $700 on the flights. So, there’s no backing out. That’s two no-backing-out trips booked this year. We didn’t go anywhere for ten years, now this? It all makes me a little nervous. But we’ll see. All four of us are going to the beach in May, and just Toney and I are going to Vegas in September. I’d also like to catch a Red vs. Pirates game this summer in Pittsburgh. And we have a night in Atlantic City booked in April. That’s gonna be nothing but eating and drinking and staring at the medical waste washing up on the beach. This is all going to blow up in our faces… Good God.

My brother received one of those questionable DNA kits for Christmas and finally received the results back. It took him several weeks to send in his “sample.” I was encouraging him to pretend to misunderstand the directions and send them a stool sample. Or maybe a sperm sample. But he did it the way they suggested, and here’s what came back:

Irish, Scottish, Welsh  58.8%
Scandinavian  33.3%
Italian  3.9%
North African  1.9%
Nigerian  1.1%
Central Asian  1%

That’s fairly bizarre, but whatever. I want to now do the same test, and see how similar the results are. Have you ever done this? Were you satisfied with the results? Scandinavian? African?? I have no idea. I assumed we were just straight outta England, with a smattering of Italy. Apparently not. As I say, whatever.

Finally, I’d like to ask you about crazy coincidences. There were two former supervisors at my job who left at different times. They’ve both been gone for more than a year, and just recently… they bumped into each other in the lobby of a hotel in Texas. It wasn’t business travel — there was no work-related event that drew them there — they just randomly ran into each other. In Texas. I find that to be pretty wild. Right? What are the chances, as they say? It reminded me of one of my all-time favorite episodes of This American Life, which is about nothing but coincidences. Right here. I haven’t listened to it recently, but remember being blown away by some of the stories. Like, for instance, a wife showing her husband photos from a beach trip she took as a young girl. And the husband (who grew up in a different state) was in the background as a young boy. Or something very similar. I need to listen to it again. It’s crazy. So, if you have any tales of wild coincidence, please tell us about it in the comments.

And I’m calling it a day, my friends. Sorry these things are coming so erratically. But you wouldn’t believe the sustained level of chaos we endure here at Chez Kay. It wasn’t this insane when the boys were three years old.

Anyway, I’ll see you guys again soon.

Have a great day!

Now playing in the bunker
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Yeah, it snowed again last night. If there was an accurate way of measuring the annoyance level of a particular season, this must surely be the most annoying winter in recent history. Right? Right. Sweet sainted mother of Al Hrabosky! This is bullshit already.

On a more positive note, we booked a week in Myrtle Beach for May. All four of us are going, and we’ll see how that works out. We’ll be flying out of Allentown, and staying in a high-rise facing the ocean. We reserved a two-bedroom suite and rented an SUV for the week.

It’ll be our first real family getaway in many years. I know Myrtle Beach is touristy and predictable, but it’s also fun as shit. I have never been there and not had a great time. I’ll have to buy a couple of these before I go, and maybe a pack of bulge enhancers too? Heh. For the record… I didn’t even know about the existence of commercial bulge enhancers before I started doing Amazon searches for the most ridiculous bathing suits I could find. Amazing.

And speaking of touristy and predictable, we’re going to book our September Las Vegas trip this week, as well. Two trips in one year! It’s almost like we’re becoming normal human beings all of a sudden. Will somebody please hold me?

I don’t want it to sound like I’m painting this as a positive, ’cause I ain’t. But the absence of Andy (Black Lips Houlihan) gives us a lot more freedom. But… I’d trade the freedom for a few more weeks or months with him, without hesitation. I miss that hound every day. RIP Andy!

Do you have any trips planned for the summer? Tell us about it, won’t you?

A couple of weeks ago I was getting a haircut (they come fast and furious these days) and the ninth grader doing the cuttin’ was way up on the tips of her toes, dancing around the chair and bouncing from side to side. At one point she had the clipper cord wrapped around my neck. And, once again, there was a brief period when her armpit was basically mashed against my face. That’s not ideal. She’s cut my hair before and I think the armpit thing must be her trademark because she busted it out the first time as well.

Anyway, she did a halfway decent job, despite her unorthodox approach. But it all went swirling down the ol’ poop catcher at the end. Get this! As I was walking toward the cash register, still in the afterglow of being pleasantly surprised, she drops this crap on me: “Will you be taking advantage of the senior discount today?” What the?? “How old do you think I am?” I blurted. And that instantly made everything awkward. She started apologizing and dancing around on her tip-toes again.

I’m still in the early days of this “old” thing, but I can tell I’m not going to embrace it. I’m going to be super-defensive and see conspiracies in the shadows. Already I get annoyed when some zit-blasted shitbag comes over to help me navigate the self-checkout at the grocery store. That pisses me off, and I generally let ’em have it with both barrels. Fuck off, ugly! That’s the general vibe they receive, and they scurry away with their tails tucked between their legs. Assholes.

I also don’t like being called sir. That’s an old thing. I know it’s respectful, but it’s for the old folks. Right? However… I also don’t like it when some young person says, “Thanks, man” or something similar. Man? It always elicits the silent squint of disapproval. It’s OK if it’s coming from someone roughly my age, but not a youngling. My doctor addresses me that way (“Hey, man!”) which also bothers me. It almost puts us on the same level, and I sure as hell hope doctors are above me. Way above. ‘Cause if they aren’t, we’re all in trouble.

There’s a young guy at work who always greets me with “How’s it going, chief?” For some reason, I’m OK with that one. I kinda like it. It has an old-fashioned feel to it that I find appealing. And there’s a guy who calls me “bossman,” which is a little weird. But it doesn’t bother me.

What are your thoughts on the various greetings? Do any of them trigger a squint? Please tell us about it in the comments.

And I need to go to work now. Yesterday I didn’t update because I slept about four hours and it felt like my brain was expanding and contracting inside its housing By the time I got home last night I felt almost physically ill, like I might puke. So now I’m going to start having sleep issues? Is that an old thing too? Man, I’m getting fired up.

I’ll see you guys again soon.

Have a great day!

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