I worked

Man, I was dragging massive ass.  But I really wanted to have the experience of participating in the parade, and was both flattered and intrigued by the invitation.  The public relations arm of GM had chosen me for some reason, and there was no way I wasn’t going to be there at the requested time.

So, Toney dropped me off, and I went hoofing it through the blowing rain.  It was a bad day for a parade, no doubt about it.  But many months of preparation goes into it, and it would probably take a Xenia, Ohio-style tornado for them to cancel the thing.  Parade Day must stand!

A Blow-Pop green Camaro should not be a hard thing to find, but I didn’t see it anywhere.  I walked up and down the block, and it wasn’t there.  Was all this an elaborate hoax?  Possibly perpetrated by Metten and/or Mark Maynard?  Will it somehow end up on YouTube, where I will be mocked and ridiculed, and sworn-in as the high-mayor of Douche Town?  These thoughts seriously went through my head…

I saw a passel of greyhounds dressed in green sweaters, and felt sorry for them.  Dogs have built-in jackets (as well as snout-cozies), and shouldn’t be forced to wear people clothes.  The poor guys were prancing around on their pipe-cleaner legs, probably embarrassed to the point of physical illness.  In fact, what happened later might have confirmed my suspicions.

I also noticed a man dressed in nothing but boxer shorts, hanging around a “float” with a toilet and running shower on it.  Yeah, who the hell knows?  And there was a group of Renaissance Fair veterans draped in animal pelts and chainmail, brandishing weapons.  Occasionally a sword fight would break out, and they all had deadly serious expressions on their faces.

And the mayor has his cabinet…

Eventually I felt a low rumble in my sternum, and saw a green Camaro pull alongside the curb halfway down the block.  I’m not much of a car guy (I drive a Camry), but that thing looked pretty freakin’ bad-ass to me.  Menacing, even.  My mid-life crisis was starting to flare-up, just looking at it.

I gave them time to get settled, and wandered over.  There was a group of folks, in two vehicles.  I believe they were all involved in the publicity end of things, and everyone was exceedingly friendly and nice.

After a few minutes of chit-chatting, I was invited inside the car and realized it was just going to be me and the driver.  Amazing.  I was under the impression there would be several local bloggers in there.  But no, I was it.

The driver’s name was Chris, and he works for GM in New York, as a public relations specialist.  I don’t really know his exact title, but that might possibly be close.  He was a good guy, and we talked at length about publicity.  I asked if he’d ever done anything in publishing… you know, maybe a hilarious novel by a first-time author, or anything along those lines…

I am a whore.

I learned something very interesting while we talked.  Remember when Dr. Pepper vowed to give everyone in America a free soda, if Guns ‘n’ Roses released their Chinese Democracy album by year’s end?  Yeah well, that was Chris’s idea.  And how much viral publicity did he earn his client with that stunt?  It was all over the internet and TV for a couple of weeks.

So, we sat and waited for a long time, while the parade took shape around us.  There were essentially five separate mini-parades, all linked-up to form one big honkin’ mondo parade.  And I think we were somewhere in the middle.

Eventually a man wearing an expensive overcoat and an air of authority gave us the signal to fall into position.  Chris pulled the Camaro into the middle of the street, and I realized there was a bunch of people around the car with bags of giveaway rubber bracelets.  The freebies seemed to have shamrocks and Chevy logos on them, but I’m unclear.

The emasculated greyhounds were in front of us at that point, and while we waited for actual forward motion to commence, one of them dropped down in the back and cut-loose with an astounding load of diarrhea.  And the bracelet women howled in protest.

When we started moving, Chris attempted to avoid the shit-slick, but the “OHHH GOD!” from the crowd indicated that he hadn’t fully succeeded.  “You’ve got poop on your tire!” a disembodied voice told us, from a distance.

Sheesh.  It’s a wonder we didn’t fishtail on all that liquishit.

I was expected to send Twitter updates throughout the parade, and I sent about twenty using an app I downloaded to my phone.  But when I got home I saw that only four actually posted.  What the hell, man??  I tried, I swear I did.

And as we moved along the parade route, people were losing their minds over those free bracelets.  They were practically knocking each other to the pavement, trying to get at them.  It was incredible.  People were acting like Costanza during a fire out there.

Also, there were MANY shouts of “Light ‘em up!!” as we passed in the Camaro.  I’m not sure what that means, but I assume it has roots in some sort of hickness.

Chris shook his head, and said, “These people just want a show. They don’t care if I take out the Friends of Poland marching band, or anything.”

“Hell, they’d love it,” I offered.

And that’s the way it went, during the whole parade.  Near-fights for bracelets, and people hollering “LIGHT ‘EM UP!!”  Before we got to the finish line, I asked Chris why they’d chosen me to ride along with them, and he said it appeared I had one of the most popular blogs in the area.  I liked his answer just fine.

After the parade ended we pulled onto a side street, and they offered to drive me to my car.  But I told them I’d been dropped-off, and since we were only a couple of blocks from Cooper’s… right here would be just fine.

I took one last photo of the Camaro, said my goodbyes, and headed for the bar.

And it was absolute pandemonium in there.  It was packed with people, many of whom were bed-shitting drunk.  I saw a woman with a terrifyingly red face reeling around the room in a SCRANTASTIC! sweatshirt, and I knew this hunk of her life would be lost forever; she’d never remember any of it.

I ordered a Guinness, to keep with the theme of the day, and had to drink it while wedged inside a coat rack, with my head amongst hangers.  Great fun!

And that was that.  Toney came and picked me up.  She was going to come inside to join me in the coat rack for a pint, but there were no open parking spaces, so she said fukkit.

Thanks again to Chevy for inviting me along on Saturday.  I had a great time, and apologize for the Twitter malfunction.  I’m sure I screwed it up somehow…  But I appreciate your hospitality and great taste in websites!

Here are a few pics I snapped during the day.  They’re not the best, because most were taken from inside a car.  But hopefully it’ll give you a flavor of the day.

Also, here are some pics I took at the same event in 2007, when I was able to move around a little more.

See you guys tomorrow!

Now playing in the bunker

To answer

And I think someone needs to come in and adjust the settings on that vending machine, stat.  I mean, seriously.  That shit’s running wide-open.  There’s a big difference between cold, and… vitrification.

I was planning to do something a little different yesterday, but real life (once again) threw a body-block on me.

I had to take the younger Secret to a doctor’s appointment, for one thing.  A yearly checkup.  And I hate going into those pediatricians’ offices, because it always feels like I’m sitting inside a swirling vortex of microscopic poop and vomit spores.  Every breath, I’m convinced, is another lungful of diarrhea mist.

But so far I’m OK.  I know the incubation periods for diseases vary, but nothing has happened within the first twenty-four hours or so.

The doc asked our son a series of safety-related questions, including “What’s the first thing you do when you get into a car?”  And “What do you wear while riding a bike?”  Then he wanted to know our boy’s favorite food.

“Apples,” the Secret said, and I think I actually snorted.  Talk about telling someone what they want to hear.  Outrageous.

Everything checked out, and the kid was declared “healthy.”  So we went across the street to Wendy’s to celebrate with burgers, fries, and Cokes.  Seemed appropriate to me.

It’s starting to feel like spring up here, and the concrete-hard snowpack is dwindling away.  Our dog Andy (Black Lips Houlihan, Snoop Manny Mann, Mr. McDingles) is used to our yard being elevated, slick, and solid.  And now he’s running into problems.

Whenever he ventures outside his urination trough, you see, the snow can no longer support him.

So he’ll be walking along and his front legs will plunge through the ice, and his face mashes against the ground.  Or just one of his legs will give way, and he’ll go radically out of balance.

One time I saw him get into such a contorted mess I thought I was going to have to go rescue the poor hound.  I believe his left front and rear right legs collapsed, and the other two were still on the surface.  For a few seconds he looked like a severely handicapped crab.

But I think the snowpack is on its way out.  Within a week it’ll be gone, and I’ll have to find something else to bitch about.  I’m confident I’ll be able to rise to the challenge.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are usually my days off, but I have to work tonight.  A bonus round.  There’s a “special project” going on, and it’s all hands on deck.  Including us pampered, fat-ass management types.

It’ll be fantastic.  By the end of the night I’ll probably need a mobility scooter.  We’re going to be doing the equivalent of digging a big hole, then filling it back in.  My nipples are exploding with delight.

But tomorrow morning (after a few hours of tortured sleep) I’ll be riding inside a green Camaro, in the gargantuan Scranton St. Patrick’s Day parade.  This is no half-assed event, it’s a huge party known locally as “Parade Day.”  People come from out of state to participate in the debauchery.

I was invited by Chevy (if you can believe it) to ride along with them, and fire off Twitter tweets throughout.  Should be interesting, and fun.  I hope some of you will follow along, via Twitter.  And, of course, I’ll post an in-depth article about it next week, complete with photos.

The parade starts at noon, and I’m supposed to be “at the Camaro” by 11:15.  So, if you’re around a Twitter page at that time….  I hate to even type these words, ’cause they sound kinda douchey, but I’d appreciate a few retweets, etc.  That’s right, retweets.  I said it.

Then on Saturday night I’ll be participating in our loose-knit #SottedSaturday Twitter group.  You’re all welcome to join us, if you’re, you know, sotted on Saturday.

Next week I’m going to record a second podcast.  I wanted to do it yesterday afternoon, but everything went (as the Brits put it) pear-shaped.  My goal is to post one every other Friday, and that’s what I’ll be shooting for.  Starting next Friday.

If you have any real questions you’d like answered, let me know.  Otherwise, I’m just going to start telling stories.  And I’m fixin’ to approach someone about a Skype interview, as well.  Of course I’ll have to buy one of those Garth Brooks clip-on microphones, and up the douche-factor even further…

But I’m way past caring.

Before I get to the Question of the Day, I’d like to alert you to a couple of new projects by Friends of the Surf Report.

First is a just-launched blog by Aaron Starmer.  He and I were partnered-up by National Lampoon, to write a proposal for a book they ultimately passed on.  Here are the sample pages from that proposal, and I think they’re pretty damn funny.

…Hey, their loss.

Anyway, Aaron’s first novel was recently released, and he now has a new blog.  I hope you’ll support both.

Also, Jason Mulgrew’s first book was published a few days ago.  I have my copy, and you should go buy four or five, as well.  Jason is, as they say, funny as all hell, and I’m looking forward to reading his twisted memoir.

And finally… when the Secret and I were returning from his doctor’s appointment yesterday, some guy in a huge, black Tony Soprano SUV ran me halfway off the road.  He kept drifting out of his lane, and causing all sorts of trouble.  I don’t know if he was drunk, or what.  But I didn’t care for any of it.

As I shouted nonsensical profanity at the guy, and waved my arms around, I saw that he was driving something with a really weird name.  I can’t remember it now… I think it started with an E.

And where do carmakers come up with those model names anyway?  In a lot of cases I think they just make up new words (Lumina? Firenza?).  And some are just straight-up bizarre (Touareg?)

Are they running out of ideas at this point?  Well, I think we need to help them out…

In the comments section, please list your suggestions for new car models of the future.  I’ll get the ball rolling with a few of my own, and you guys can take if from there.  OK?  OK.

Pontiac Carcinoma
Hyundai Regret
GMC Pierogi
Volkswagen Sot
Ford DeVito crew cab

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you guys next time.

Have a great weekend!

Now playing in the bunker

A couple of nights ago

“What the hell?!” I shouted, in outrage.  Then I put my shoulder down, and rammed the machine like De’Cody Fagg.

But, of course, there’s never a positive outcome to such a scenario.  Once the vending sequence is completed, successfully or otherwise, there’s no going back.  Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocketry, wrote extensively on this subject.

So, I growled like a dog, and moved to another machine.  I’d be paying $2.50 for a bottle of soda, which broiled my brisket, but I needed a cold, caffeinated beverage, dammit.

The other machine didn’t have any Mountain Dews in it, so I chose a Lipton iced tea with lemon.  And the thing dispensed a solid block of ice in the shape of a bottle.  I’m not kidding, I could’ve used that tea to defend myself, in case of attack.

“Am I on Candid Camera?” I shouted inside the break room, to people who couldn’t care if I live or die.  What was I going to do with this thing?  It was a teaberg!  Grrr…

No way was I going to pay $3.75 for a drink, this ain’t San Francisco.  So I just sighed and walked back to my desk, with an enlarged, rock-hard blunt instrument in my hand.  And I’m talking about the iced tea, just to be clear…

I sat the thing on my desk, underneath a lamp, and wondered how long it would take to thaw out.  It was roughly 3:20 pm when I purchased it, and wanted to make a note of when there was no visible ice left inside the bottle.

Anyone care to guess?

At one point I decided to remove the lid, thinking that might speed up the process.  But it was a mistake.  A column of brown ice kept inching its way upward, then melting down the sides of the bottle.  So I had a sticky mess on my hands, as well.  Call me a radical, but I’m not really a fan of gloopy, sticky workspaces.

I don’t have any prizes to give away, except bragging rights, I guess.  But tell me when you think my plastic bottle of Lipton iced tea was finally ice free.  At what time of night, after its purchase at 3:20?  Use the comments link below.

And I overslept again today.  I’m operating with a severe sleep deficit, and have bags under my eyes that’ll never go away.  Yeah, they’re permanent by now…

When I’m working I hit the sack around 3:30 am, and the alarm starts bugging the hell out of me at 9:30.  So, I get six hours on a good night.  I do get caught-up a little on the weekends, but not enough.

What about you?  Do you get much more than six hours per night? I think that’s pretty normal nowadays.  And weren’t we supposed to be living a life of leisure by now, with flying-cars and robot maids and whatnot?  Wotta rip-off!

So, please guess the melting time of my iced tea, and tell us about your sleep habits, if you wanna.  And I’ll be back with something more substantial tomorrow.

See you guys then!

Now playing in the bunker

I came home

And after I hoisted my heft off the dormancy platform, and shuffle-pooted to my computer the next morning, I saw that both sites were STILL down.  Grrr…  Something must be seriously wrong, I mumbled into my chipped Cape May mug.  Fan-flippin’-tastic.

I sent my webhost an email, asking what was going on, and started complaining about the situation at Twitter.  And people told me:  the Surf Report isn’t down… I’m looking at it right now.

What in the double-decker heck?

Turns out I’d triggered something in the host’s firewall, and my specific IP address was blocked from visiting any sites housed on the server.  They couldn’t tell me why it happened, but fixed the problem.

And the entire process, from first profanity to remedy, took several hours.  The hosting company advertises 24 hour support, but I think it’s a Steven Wright situation:  24 hours… but not in a row.

So, that’s why there was no update yesterday.  Sorry ’bout that.  I hate to miss any day (I really do), but especially Mondays.  And so it goes.

After I’d washed my hands of the situation yesterday, I decided to go to Waffle House for their Big Retarded Field Hand breakfast.  But it didn’t happen.  I went to Borders instead, and bought this book.

Next Friday I’m going to go into revise/rewrite mode on my “book,” and want to ingest that guidebook before I get started.  It has a good reputation, and since I’ve never edited a novel-length manuscript before…

I’ve made a point of not reading my book since I finished the first draft at the end of December.  It’s best to just let it settle for a while, I think.  I did send it to two more folks to read and critique last week (one of whom is a Surf Reporter), and am looking forward to their feedback.

The thing still needs some work, but has good bones, I think.  I’m excited to start working on it again, and making it better.

After Borders it was time for me to go to work, but I still hadn’t eaten anything.  So, I ended up going through a McDonald’s drive-thru, and taking them up on their $3.99 Filet-O-Fish meal deal.

And have you ever tried to eat one of those fish sangriches while driving at 75 mph on an interstate highway?  It’s not easy, I’m telling you, because of the criminal overuse of tartar sauce.  Why do they have to put so much on there?  Sweet Maria.  What do they use, a soup ladle?

So, the first bite sent a golf ball-sized glob of sauce out the back-end of my sandwich, and I was worried I’d get it all over my clothes.  So I was contorting myself and dodging falling tartar, while traveling at a high rate of speed.

Tasty, though.  I like those Filet-O-Fish.  Know what I mean?  I wish I had one right now.

During my website frustration yesterday, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came up on iPod shuffle play, and it reminded me of the Weird Al version of that song:  “Smells Like Nirvana.”

I like Weird Al, he’s usually reliably silly, but the dude seriously dropped the ball on that one.  The video is funny, but the song parody is incredibly lame.  Smells like Nirvana?  Sheesh.  A kindergartner could come up with something more clever than that.

In fact, I’d like to make that the Question of the Day.  I’m getting all worked-up about it…  In the comments section, please suggest a better parody of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” than Al’s.

I’ll get the ball rolling with a few off the top of my head:

Smells Like Bad Hygiene
Smells Like Recent Feces
Smells Like Hotdog Belches
Smells Like Wolf Blitzer

Take it from there, Surf Reporters!  Together we can build a better parody.

And I’ll see you guys tomorrow.

Now playing in the bunker

You guys

Apparently they’re going to have several local bloggers inside the cars, and asked if I’d like to be one of them.  I instantly accepted, because it has “memorable experience” written all over it.

I’m not sure it’s such a great marketing strategy to pack several sports cars with ugly-ass, pasty-white bloggers.  But hey, that’s not my department.  If they want me there, I’m willing to serve.

I don’t have all the details yet, but I think I’m going to be expected to crank-out Twitter tweets during the parade.  So, that’ll be interesting as well.  I’m unclear if I’ll be updating some Chevy page, or my personal Twitter account.  I’ll let you know, as more info becomes available.

Should be fun!  The parade is on Saturday, 3/13.  Pass the beer nuts.

In case you were wondering (and I know you were), here are the five most-visited pages at TheWVSR, during February:

Number One
Number Two
Number Three
Number Four
Number Five

That’s right, the homepage wasn’t the most popular destination last month.  These things happen, from time to time.  And it happened this time, because of Rusty Kuntz and friends.  I couldn’t be prouder.

And this reader comment, left by TILLY on Tuesday, contains one of the funniest lines I’ve read in a while.  See if you can figure out the line I’m talking about…

I was, in a past life, in charge of the kitchen at my church. We had “family Sunday” dinners once a month and we all brought a dish to share. I decided since I was in the kitchen anyway I would broil fish and serve that because someone had given me a ridiculous amount of cod. So I broiled it in the kitchen and proceeded to make the entire place smell like a vagina full of bad decisions. It was hilarious!! The entire congregation looking around trying to figure out what the hell was going on. NO fire though.

I almost did a spit-take, I’m not kidding.  Thanks for that one, TILLY.  Simply excellent.

I haven’t mentioned my “book” lately, mostly because there’s not much to report.  Oh, Metten gets my stressed-out, whiny emails from time to time. And so does Brad.  But I try to spare the rest of you.  In a nutshell:  the whole process is so infuriatingly slowed-down, it’s about to send me over the edge.

Anyway, I was in Borders recently, and saw a coffee table book about knots.  It was an expensive, oversized thing, with a photograph of a length of rope tied in a different knot on every page.  Knots!

And goddammit, if a publishing house paid someone for that crap, then I shouldn’t worry.  Right?  If the Book of Knots (or whatever) is on the market, it should serve as an inspiration to us all.

That’s the way I see it.

A few days ago I went to “lunch” (8 pm) at work, purchased a bottle of water from the vending machine, found a seat at one of the high school cafeteria tables, and flopped down.

And inside my lunch bag was a dirty Tupperware container, which had housed my salad on the previous day.  Underneath it was another bowl, with congealed 24 hour-old soup residue clinging to the sides.

Fantastic.  Toney packs my lunch, and I don’t even look at it until it’s time to rip into the thing.  But sometimes she forgets; she has ten million things going on, as opposed to my million.

So, I had to tear ass out of there, and went to… Subway.  I hadn’t been in that place since I told a sandwich engineer to go fuck himself.  But that was months ago, and I decided enough time had passed for me to make my triumphant return. And I was correct; the engineer was someone completely different, with no real reason to slip a booger into my hoagie.

And man… that thing was good.   I don’t know what it is, but sometimes those five dollar lettuce sangliches hit the spot.  The bag full of dirty dishes worked to my benefit, it sure did.

But it reminded me of an incident in Atlanta, years ago.  A woman thought she’d brought spaghetti or somesuch, leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, and popped the container into the work microwave.  It was a margarine bowl, and she just cracked open the lid, and popped it in the nuclear heating box.

And yes, you guessed it, she’d grabbed the butter instead of the spaghetti on her way out the door.  So, she sat down with a fork, in front of a steaming bowl of partially-melted margarine for lunch.

I can still hear the sustained laughter of her “friends.”

And I’m going to leave you now with a big Question.  I’d like to know what are the most amazing things you’ve ever seen.  How’s that, huh?

I’m thinking about locations, places in the world that blew your freaking mind.  But, as usual, you can bend the rules and list whatever you want.

Two things jump immediately to my mind.  I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, or the Egyptian pyramids, or anything like that, so my two examples might not seem all that dramatic to some of you.  But both affected me a great deal.

The first was a couple of years ago, when we flew to England.  I’d wanted to get there since I was a kid, and was super-excited about the whole thing.

We took off from Newark around ten o’clock at night, and flew for about five hours.  Then it was daylight again (freaky), the sky was incredibly clear, and we were flying over Ireland.

Finally getting to the UK, and seeing it for the first time from an airplane window, was one of the most memorable (amazing) things I’ve ever seen.

Also, when I was an unsightly teenager I went to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play one of the expansion teams.  Toronto, I think.

And when I walked up the tunnel and laid my eyes on the inside of that great old park, my heart skipped a beat.  I was a complete baseball freak at the time, and a lover of baseball history.

It was an amazing moment, one which I’ll never forget.

Now it’s your turn.  Tell us about the most amazing things you’ve ever seen.  Use the comments link below.

And I’ll see you guys next time, whenever that happens to be.

Have a great weekend!

Now playing in the bunker