Stress Relief!!!

A little letter to Trader Joe's

Note: Some of you in will not understand this..but its a small grocery store chain in about 20 states.




Sorry Joe, it's not you, it's me.

No, no... that's a lie. It's you, and the other people you've been seeing.

When we first started seeing each other things were great. I loved you for your tasty and unique variety of frozen snacks, sauces and dry goods. I was never so happy as when I was sipping a glass of your shockingly inexpensive chardonnay or tasting a wonderfully decadent miniature dessert. It never bothered me that your pleasantly hippy exterior was just a transparent cover for your low-grade snob appeal and nagging need to be trendy. I admit, it really attracted me in a forbidden way - I'm also an elitist ass and couldn't come to terms with my desire to be cool.

But those feelings are gone now. When I see you now all I can remember are the awful battles to get through your cramped little parking lot, the eternally long lines and the other obnoxious shoppers you insist on seeing.

Specifically, I can't handle you seeing these people:

The parking lot meanderers - I understand that you're not in a hurry. And, truthfully, I don't HAVE to be anywhere urgently either; but I would much rather spend my time doing something I enjoy than waiting for you to cross the parking lot crosswalk with all the speed and alacrity of a palsy patient in a tar pit. Also, walking down the middle of the lane while the cars behind you move at your strolling pace isn't helping anyone. Please, just get in your damn Volvo station wagon (or since I am in Oregon now, a Subaru Outback) parked diagonally into 2 lanes and go home, someone there may just appreciate you getting in their way. I don't.

The faux-wine snob - You would almost entertain me, if I didn't despise you. I'm glad that you like to flash your platinum card while buying a few bottles of overpriced wine that you scrutinized for 15 minutes while I ignoring my polite requests to be 'excused' and allowed to pass you in the wine aisle. Perhaps I should give you a cheat sheet which could make your wine shopping a little easier. Here are the tips you need to know:
-Joe's is great for inexpensive wines. Charles Shaw is really a wonder of the free market. Remember, you don't get to drink the price tag.
-No one is impressed by pretention. Also, for future reference, Neitzche doesn't rhyme with "peachy."
-That bottle of Sutter Home you considered for it's "earthy tones?" You can buy that at Safeway. Also, "earthy tones" means that it tastes like dirt.
-The expensive wines are just there to make you think that the selection is "great." Those are decent, but incredibly overpriced bottles for people with money who can't tell the difference. Wait... sorry, that's for you. Would it be easier for you if they just labeled them with your name?

Anyone buying organic pet food - Have you watched your dog lick his own balls lately? or chew the shit out of a piece of colored rubber lately? They don't care if their food is organic, they just want to eat a lot of it and then shit it out in the overgrown grass so you have to scoop it up. Seriously, watch how happy they are the next time you scoop up their shit for them.

The guy buying frozen vaccuum packed Atlantic salmon - You're truly the antithesis of the Wine Snob, you are the guy who doesn't appreciate what he has or could have. You live in the perhaps greatest seafood city in the world. If you're snobby enough to shop at Trader Joe's you can suck it up and spring for something good from a real fish market.

The people lingering at the free samples counter - Sadly, Trader Joe's was designed by a sadistic freak who placed the sample counter at the narrowest and most highly trafficked point of the store, creatingly a painfully constipated shopping sphincter. There's no avoiding the poor design, but must you linger for minutes at a time savoring every crumb of your shitty little want-to-be-DiGiorno pizza. If you do find it necessary to stand there and not step out of the way I promise that I will also find it necessary to jab you in the kidney as I squeeze through.

Whoever decided to discontinue the Trader Joe's peanut butter Oreo knock-offs - How can there be any value to life in a world without those wonderfully tasty treats?

The "Everything here is so cheap!" people - Obviously there was no math requirement at your liberal arts college. Either that, or you can't be honest with yourself through your haze of liberal guilt over your trust fund. Get over it and admit that you're a snob who doesn't really care if they pay a little more for something they like, or shut up and shop at Safeway.


I'm sorry Joe, I just can't go on living a lie. If you can't change, or stop seeing other people then I have to end it.

Airport woes part deux and the weekend

Welcome back faithful listeners...we last left our able-bodied adventurer stuck in Emeryville with his friend Natasha on a late Wednesday evening...let's tune in.

Well, Thursday was fairly uneventuful..but it was a marathon training session and Thursday evening my fellow trainees and I went to PF Changs and blew our per diem on some Kung Pao and alcohol. I got back a bit late, caught the tail-end of Survivor, as well as American Inventor and fell asleep sometime in the 10 o'clock hour trying to watch "Constantine", but it seemed like it was sucking hard and I passed out.

Friday was my final day of training, and we had an exam. Of course I passed this lame test, and then one of my co-workers drove me to the airport. My flight was due to leave Oakland at 6:30pm, and I got there about 4:30, so I bought a Coke Zero and tried working on some sudoku. Then I hear the message "Alaska Airlines flight 123..."..yeah..is delayed. The plane had mechanical difficulties and was stuck in Orange County. It should be in Oakland around 7pm. Sigh..fine. So I went and got a sandwich, watched some hockey playoffs (I could care less about hockey, but...) and then went back to the gate around 6:45pm. Apparently another flight was leaving from the same gate at 7:10pm for Portland..not my flight..but it was full.
I put my name on standby.
7:10pm, they call my name..to tell me I didnt make it..Completely full. I slink back to my seat.
Another announcement..my flight is still in the OC, and should be here closer to 8:45 or 9pm, departing around 9:30pm. Annoying as all hell.

Anyone remember my airplane woes in Minneapolis last June??? Its in the archives about "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas".

Yet another announcement..anyone who has NOT checked in a bag, can take a shuttle to San Francisco and hop another flight leaving at 8:50pm to Portland. I, of course, have checked in my bag...and it was already en route to Portland, as it made the flight leaving at 7:10pm.
Another announcement about 8pm..anyone can take the shuttle to SFO. So, its a 45 minute ride from Oakland airport to SFO, its 8:15pm, and the flight is supposed to leave at 8:50pm..interesting. So a bunch of us cram into some vans and we book on over to SFO. I ditch my fellow shuttlemates and go as fast as I can through security, the terminal, to the gate and sit in my seat with 2 minutes to spare, when there is an announcement that they are going to leave at 9:05pm..and then another at 9:15 that they are leaving at 9:45pm. This is no joke. I am pretty sick of sudoku about now. Not to mention airplane malfunctions and delays.
We finally lift off at 9:50pm, and after an hour or so, landing, grabbing my bag thats just sitting out for any putz to take, waiting for the shuttle, taking the shuttle to my car, and driving home, its 11:45pm and I am whipped. My wife had worked a really long day herself and needless to say..we did not have sex.

That last statement was rectified on Saturday. Ahem. In fact, it was a gorgeous day on Saturday, and we spent about 5 hours doing yard work as well. I got sunburned too. I cannot say that too often in Portland. Saturday night we went to our neighbors for a BBQ, and had some tasty salmon, baked potato, salad, garlic bread, margaritas, and ice cream and brownies. Later, we watched "Good night and good luck", which was excellent.

Sunday, my wife had to work from about 1-10pm (but got home closer to 11). I did some errands in the morning and came home and had lunch, watching the Lakers play a pretty decent game, but lose to the Suns in game 1. Crap.
I went out for a bike ride, because it was a gorgeous day, and rode about 10 miles. I was pretty beat coming home, as it was the uphill part of the ride, and against the wind too. But it was worth it. I gotta train for the Lance Armstrong ride that none of you suckers have donated to.
Not much else was accomplished the rest of the day except some chores and I watched The Sopranos of course.
The wife finally got home, beat as all get out, and we went to bed about 11:45pm.
Back to work. Yippee.

Going back to Cali..and..FINALLY

Sorry for the lack of entries..I have been busy with work and the wife out of town.
So..the latest updates are as such:

My wife went to California to see family and friends for Passover and Easter and a vacation in general; she needed it and deserved it..and we both would have gone, but 2 things prevented us: my job, and our dog. At only 9 months, we did not want to kennel him for 4 days or so. As it turns out, I had a business trip scheduled while she was in California, unbeknownst to me, so we had to kennel him regardless.

Ok..so lets go back in time. Our 3 year anniversary was Wednesday night (April 12th), and we had a great dinner and time together. Thursday, Audra left for California and I went to work as normal. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, spending time with Maximus, doing chores, went out to lunch with my friend Allen, watched "A History of Violence" (thumbs down..a little slow and boring, but well acted and a few good action scenes) on Netflix and did some cleanup and such.

Sunday, I went to Dawn and Darby's in the afternoon for an Easter dinner. Yes, this Jew went on over and sat with the goy for dinner. They asked me to bring Maximus along..which was good for him to interact with new people, other dogs and so forth..but their daughter ended up feeding him a lot of food he doesnt normally eat..and come Monday, Maximus got sick and had the runs all over the house. This was, of course, 5 minutes before I had to take him to the kennel and before I had to head to the airport for a flight to Emeryville, Ca for training. Less than pleasant. Maximus looked so sad too, knowing he had done something wrong. I was not mad at him of course..I felt bad for him. He had been batting 1.000 though at potty training, so now he is less than perfect. Argh. :)

So..I flew to Emeryville (near Oakland/SF) on Monday afternoon..which was stupid since my training started Tuesday morning, and they flew me out at 2:30pm. Needless to say, I got to my hotel by about 5pm and killed the rest of the evening by hanging out at a Barnes and Noble and then seeing "V for Vendetta" (I enjoyed it actually, but it was totally predictable).

Tuesday, my training began and it was pretty boring for the most part, but the instructor, who is a dead ringer for a gay Michael Stipe, tried his best to make things reasonably fun. The other people in the class were friendly as well.
The evening was the best part of the day because FINALLY, after about 5 or 6 years of talking to Natasha online, I met her for the first time, for dinner. Yes yes, before you all ask, my wife knows about her..shes just a friend. There is no romantic interest on either side, just a mutual fondness for each others humor and insight. She also has a blog here (but rarely posts anymore) and sometimes comments as well, and she is the one who made me go to myspace and so forth.

So on Tuesday she drove up from San Jose and she picked me up at my hotel about 7:15pm and we went to San Francisco. She drive us to a restaurant called Cafe Lulu and we split some anitpasti (several cheeses, leeks, salmon and other goodies) and then split some Seared Ahi Tuna and other miscellaneous items on the plate which I cannot recall. Then we went to North Beach and went into some Italian bakery for espresso, canolis, tiramisu..etc. Natasha apparently has a very big sweet tooth, since she mentioned that she might want to take me to a place called "Bittersweet" on Wednesday. After the coffee, we just walked around North Beach for a while and she took me home about 11:15pm. I watched some Letterman and went to bed about 12:30am.

On Wednesday, the training was not any more..or less..interesting and Natasha also came up again form San Jose (a good friend, huh?) and we went to Japantown in San Francisco for some sushi. She thought it was terrific, but being the sushi snob that I admittedly am, I thought it was mediocre at best. Still, anytime I can eat sushi, especially on per diem, and with good company, I cannot really complain. A funny thing that I am sure she didnt want me to mention was that we were trying to figure out what some of the rolls were going by on the little sushi boats. Well, one went by and she said she thought it was an "enema sushi". She could not remember the word "sea anemone". It was funny and I told her she would be mentioned in my blog for that one. Her revenge was that she took some funny photos of me that I am sure will be on her blog shortly.Maybe I ought to mention that Natasha is Russian, and while her English is almost perfect, she occasionally uses a word incorrectly or struggles to find the correct word and sometimes something cute like that happens. That said, I only know about 10 words of Russian..so, I cannot really talk smack. After that, we walked around some shops in Japantown, including a great bookstore, and then went over to Union Square to walk around and to some restaurant for another canoli and a cappucino...I forget the name..Kotell's perhaps (Bittersweet was closed for the night). She dropped me off at my hotel around 9:45pm and I passed out watching tv around 10:30.

We had a good time and I hope she can come up to Portland sometime to visit the city and my wife and I. She had mentioned she will have her own cooking show featured on tv soon, called "Natasha Eats", so be on the lookout for it..and you can see one of her quick recipes on her myspace account, her blog or on "YouTube".

I go back to Oregon on Friday night, after not seeing my wife for about 9 days and my dog for 4-5. I look forward to both very much.

Talk to you all soon!

Ps - Laura..I just won my fantasy basketball pool :)

Sorry XericX

Maybe only Eric and Laura will care about this post..but whatever..

Kobe with 50 points
Odom with a triple double
Kwame..yes Kwame with 20 and 10

That has got to hurt the Blazers


:D

Anime vs Sir Mix-A-Lot

There is some slight cartoon nudity for you prudes (or people browsing at the office) out there.

Do you have it in you?

I got some of this from another website and found it funny (and of course had to add some of my own commentary). Much of it seems true.

Have you ever pulled a joke on somebody, but you could never tell them about it because it was a prank so foul, so degrading, so truly evil...that revealing it would have had dire consequences? Like maybe spitting on someone's food or stealing the Playboy they kept under their mattress during puberty for emergency masturbatory purposes? (And yes: I'm talking to you, Mike Adato, you thieving bastard!)

Sure you have. We all have. But this isn't the place for confessions, so please don't flood my inbox with comments about how you replaced your sister's birth control pills with Tic Tacs. If we really cared about your life, I'd call myself "Dear Abby," and I would suck.

No, today I want to expose the conspiracy that has been perpetrating the public for the past few decades. I first discovered this dastardly plot back in high school, but just like when you accidentally walked in on your parents/sister/roommate having sex -- ugly, sweaty, disgusting sex -- I haven't had the courage to talk about it. Until now.

So let's begin. Please look at the following image and tell me what you see.



Not sure? Okay, look more closely. Much more closely...


Okay. If you said anything other than "penis," then you're either a liar, a eunuch, or a Gatorade employee trying desperately to hold onto your job. Because it is, in fact, a Gatorade bottle:



How is it that no one else has ever brought this up? The bottle that contains the most popular sports drink on the planet looks like a big, thick, throbbing penis, from the clearly defined and strangely textured head to the perfectly tapered shaft. The only thing missing are a few well-placed veins. Of course, the Gatorade apologists could argue that the male penis comes in an endless variety of shapes and sizes, many of which are strange and asymmetrical. The Gatorade bottles, on the other hand, have standard sizes and are all perfectly proportional. To which I say: whatever.


Experience the bolder taste...of fruit-flavored cock.

Maybe it's all a simple misunderstanding. Maybe nature figured out billions of years ago that the penis was the perfect fluid dispenser, and now people are just unconsciously copying that design. I mean, the phallic shape is everywhere: pencils, missiles, rocket ships, skyscrapers, mustard containers, hot dogs, baseball bats...the list could literally go on and on. So sure, perhaps the penis is the perfect shape for just about anything. But that still doesn't explain the overt and obvious sexual connotations in ads like this:


Come on, now. I've seen porn that isn't this blatant.

I just can't accept the idea that this is just a coincidence. There's no way. Which brings me to the conspiracy part. Why do I think it's a conspiracy, you ask? Think about it. You take the world's premier sports drink and package it inside a giant penis-shaped thing, and you know what happens? Every macho stud, every muscular he-man, every guy who takes his masculinity just a little bit too seriously...at some point is going to put a cock in his mouth and suck. That's right. Because no one drinks Gatorade out of a cup, and you have to actively squeeze on and suck out of the bottle to get the drink to dispense as fast as you want it.

Are you still a doubter? Do you think I'm overreacting, or, at worst, just making up wild stories? Fine. Believe what you will. But before you make your final decision, consider this screen capture from an actual Gatorade advertisement that ran during a televised basketball game this season:


Under a black light, Gatorade looks just like...well, you know.

Uh huh. The Gatorade people are all but rubbing our noses in it. You know somewhere there are several rich men sitting in a board room and laughing like Dr. Evil every time they watch Michael Jordan give a big, sloppy blow job on national television. Gatorade commercials tend to feature our best athletes, whether male or female, and they all without exception show said athlete slurping down nutritious, electrolyte-laden fluids straight from the universal life source. Sometimes they pour it all over themselves, bukkake-style, and, for God's sake, they even sweat it out of their very pores (as exampled above). Few men are as homophobic as professional male athletes, and few women are as liberated as professional female athletes, and we get to see them all play the bitch to a giant phallic symbol, again and again, on national television. Gatorade's tagline "Is It In You?" should probably be changed to "Is It Thrusting Hard And Deep Into You?".

And if you think about it, the joke is really never-ending. I, for one, will never be able to watch someone drink Gatorade without wincing, laughing, or both (probably both). Need proof? Go do a Google/Yahoo/AltaVista image search for Gatorade. Come on..go do it. I am not gonna post all the rather..INTERESTING..phoitos that will pop up.

It seems like our whole society is preoccupied with the male penis. And this isn't a new thing. Have you ever seen an Ancient Egyption obelisk? Ancient Greek and Roman columns? Weapons like the sword and spear were specifically designed for quick, powerful thrusting. I guess the major difference between the ancients and us is that, back then, phallic symbols were reserved for things like art, war, and architecture. Now they're used for everything from flying into space to replacing the complex carbohydrates we lose while running a marathon.

And so we have the Gatorade bottle. So much of the advertising for this stuff centers around "increased stamina" and the ability to "last longer" in sports and other activities. So maybe it's just natural that the vessel for this amazing concoction would be the living symbol for strength and endurance. And the best part is, Gatorade turns sticky when it dries, just like..well..you know. So the Gatorade people have done everything they can to rehydrate us while using the most powerful and lasting icon in the history of mankind.

And if this is all just some whimsical flight of fancy on my part, then I can only offer my most sincere apology. But if you're ever caught away from home without your favorite sex toys, and you need a little help "getting the job done," you can find Gatorade almost anywhere anything is sold. I'm just sayin'.