Random Thought #6701

Who exactly is it that buys nudie magazines from the airport newsstands?

I have a routine when I fly that began when I regularly flew between Des Moines and San Antonio in college. To this day, I always go to the ATM, take out my requisite cash for the trip and then go buy a Sports Illustrated. Reading this magazine is pure indulgence so I save and savor it for when I have to fly.

Not surprisingly, Sports Illustrated is with all the other "men's" magazines, like Car and Driver, Muscle and Fitness, a lot of sports magazines, and, on the top row, a collection of nudie magazines that would make the Encyclopedia Britannica proud, in terms of comprehensiveness and organization.

And part of my routine is to marvel over all the selections and how one goes about choosing one magazine over another. Are the differences between Playboy and Penthouse as subtle and nuanced as the differences between Running Times and Runner's World (or Newsweek vs. Time)? Or are the stakes higher and more polar? Is it like choosing between FOX news and, well, anything else besides FOX news?

And this seems like a strange place to contemplate this because I'm in an airport, not Sex World or SuperAmerica.

And this brings me back to my original point. Who on God's green earth is buying these magazines in the airport? And why? They have been there for as long I have been regularly flying, so clearly there is a market for Playboy in the airport, otherwise they would have been pulled from the shelves a long time ago.

Is there a whole sub-type in the Annoying Traveler category that I've been missing here? I mean we've all had to sit by any of the following: screaming baby, smelly man, obese person, grunter/snorer, the conversationalist, Mr. Cell Phone, and (this one was new for me on the last trip) a girl with a small dog/rat in her purse.

But has anyone had to sit by "the crazed porn addict who can't go two hours without seeing a naked lady so he had to buy a Penthouse from the Lake Woebegone Newsstand in Terminal C of the MSP Airport"? Because I haven't. Have you ever sat next to someone who spent the whole flight from Chicago to Denver studying the dimensions of Miss February's centerfold? Again, I haven't. So if Porn Addict is indeed a new kind of Annoying Traveler, I have yet to meet him.

So I ask again, who in the hell is buying all these magazines? And why?

Texas Rules: Reasons # 218937-218943

Although The Deets and He Who Follows Four Seasons would like you to believe otherwise, I really did grow up in Texas. Sure I was born in Illinois and spent a year or so in Manhattan when I was wee, but my formative years are purely Texan. Here are some pictures of my trip back home with Emily.

One of my sisters lives with her family in St. Hedwig, a town (for lack of a better word) about 15 miles east of the San Antonio metro area. One day my brother-in-law should start his own blog and he can tell you tales like "How to Kill a Rattlesnake With Your Wife's Honda Civic." Until then, these pictures will have to suffice.



How to catch a Minnesotan Golden Gopher: lay a cow spine on a prickly pear near some barbed wire. This picture looks posed, but it's not. I think a dog must have dragged the spine across the prickly pear patch and left it there.



One of these scoundrels is the likely Spine Dragging Culprit.



The white gunk residue on the prickly pear is actually NOT white residue from deodorant. It is a critter.



One of my brother-in-law's three horses. My sister also has a pinto, but we didn't get a picture this time around. Oops.



My senior year of college, a housemate of mine had a puppy. He thought it was a good idea. The eight other people thought it was a terrible idea. I was one of those eight. The dog, pretentiously named Shakespeare (not by me) had epic battles with me back in the day about his role in the house.

It's a long story, but after I graduated my mom actually ended up with the controversial dog. She was only supposed to have him for a year. Well, one rattlesnake bite, one seizure disorder, and 12 years later, Shakespeare (or "Shakey" as my family calls him--less pretentious) is still living with my mom.

He looks and walks like a grandpa, but he does still enjoy life, as you can see here. I am shitting you negative, he is actually chewing on the jaw bone of a pit bull. How the pit bull jaw ended up in his mouth is also a long story.




Home of Da Smoke BBQ is a barbecue shack (a literal shack as you can see) outside of St. Hedwig. Everything besides the church, VFW, post office, and feed store can be considered "outside" of St. Hedwig. Home of Da Smoke had some of the best barbecue I've ever had. I had ribs, pork loin, candied yams, fried okra, corn bread, and sweet tea for less than ten dollars. And that is reason #218943 why Texas rules.



Here I am being a tourist in my own state, with Emily and all that food I just wrote about.

Happy Holidayz Yall

Emily and I are making like Santa and flying to San Antonio tonight. We get in just before midnight. We'll be there until Friday. So Merry Christmas (or Happy Christmas to Matt and Anna).

If anyone wants to know what Christmas in Texas is like, ours will be something like this.

The Most Horrible Post I've Ever Written

I know I have ranted against Winnie the Pooh for wearing a shirt and no pants in the past, but I can't let it go. Why do people think this bear is cute? Seriously. Try it yourself. Next time you're getting dressed, put a t-shirt on and nothing else and look at yourself in the mirror. It's truly horrible.

The only thing that rivals this is a man wearing running tights and no shirt.

I have had this rant for a long time. I mentioned to a friend in college once, who was on the cross country team with me. So one day, after practice, we were all done showering and getting dressed to go to he dining hall. With no fanfare or announcement, my friend began getting dressed "Pooh Style." He put everything on but his pants and skivvies. He had his socks, shirts, winter jacket, and backpack on, but was still bare-assed. There is a universal order to how we all get dressed for a reason. It was both one of the funniest and most horrifying things I have seen.

And this makes me realize I've had a pretty sheltered life.

Random List #2

Favorite Movie About High School Kids Dazed and Confused

Favorite Breakfast Food that I Always Forget to Order Waffles

Lowest Score I Ever Got On A Test Negative 15 on a 7th grade Spanish test

Most Recurring Dream I'm in college/high school and running in the National/state cross country or track meet and I forgot to train all summer and fall (how I therefore qualified for said meet is only logical in a dream)

Favorite Muppet Animal

First Thing I Ever Stole A piece of caramel from the Brach's bin at Waitz' Model Market at age six. One of my older sisters busted me and made me spit it out. For some reason, I complied.

Last Thing I Ever Stole I used to "borrow for the evening" lots of bikes in college on Friday and Saturday nights, as did half the campus. I tried to return them from whence they came in the morning, but I guess this still counts as theft.

One of My Biggest Act of Hypocricy I would angrily confront those whom I caught "borrowing" a bike I either owned or had "borrowed for the evening" myself.

Coveted Job I Least Covet ER Doctor

Most Idiosynchratic Pet Peeve The sound of chalk on a chalkboard. In this era of PowerPoint, this is probably now an obsolete pet peeve, but it made it very hard for me to focus in high school. For all you young kids out there, back in the late 80s teachers still used chalk and a blackboard.

Random Thought #78912789243

Anybody else out there remember Zork? Damn that was a sweet game. My boy Matt the Hatt and I spent many hours playing that game in junior high, drawing maps of the Zorkworld and trying out different ways to get all those freaking treasures.

After you read that paragraph, it should come as no surprise that in junior high I wasn't exactly a "ladies' man." And the fact that I still pine for Zork should make it no surprise that I have never really been a "ladies' man." Actually, I believe you kids today call it "being a player." Or is it "playa'?" No, that can't be right. "Playa" means beach in Spanish.

But I digress. I don't think we ever did solve Zork in its entirity. That asshole thief kept on stealing our shit and killing us.

Sure Matt and I weren't at the Galaxy Movie Theater every night chasing girls that wouldn't like us anyway, like some of our peers were. But still, there were and are worse computer games out there to burn your off your childhood.

Paper Clips

Last night I watched a documentary, sent to me by my friends at Netflix, called Paper Clips, Directed by Ken Burns it ain't. But who gives a damn? The story is remarkable. You don't need Homer to spin this yarn to make it good; the story tells itself. See what you can do to get my friends at Netflix to send the movie to you. It is 80 minutes of your life well spent.

Blognation: You Can't Stop It; You Can Only Hope to Contain It

I have added two more blogs to the links section. The first is The Deets. The Deets is another one of those crazed south Minneapolitans who writes about Jucy Lucys and random shit. Kind of like this blog, only better. So no sports and more concise writing.

The Deets also has a technology blog , www.technologyevangelist.com . To me, it's like reading a foreign language, but there are a few tech savvy folks out there who frequent this blog who may enjoy it. But for me, cripes, I understand more of Matt the Hatt's French blog than I do reading Technology Evangelist.

The second blog added to the list is Pounding the Rock. On the surface, this is a San Antonio Spurs basketball blog, but it is still worth reading. It is very funny and well-written and I would say about a third of the content is non-basketball related. And even the basketball stuff is funny enough, it's worth reading if you are a non-Spurs, non-sports fan. And in the interest of full disclosure, it's where I found the Brent Barry commercial. To summarize, SPURS RULE!!!

Brent Barry HEB commercial

Yet another reason why the Spurs rule. Here you will see Spurs shooting guard in a commercial for HEB ground beef. HEB is a grocery store in Texas. I find this ad to be very funny.

Pancho's Life As A Dog

Winters in Minnesota are tough on Pancho. It's too freaking cold for me and my Texan sensibilities to do anything with him except take him for short walks and long runs. Gone are the days of summer, where I'd take Pancho to the dog park or down to the edge of the Mississippi River to run around.

To keep him active and entertained I have had to invent a few games for him. But much to his chagrin I have phased out the backyard games because he is tearing up our backyard with his strength, speed, and enthusiasm for running, jumping, and chasing things both real and imagined.

So we play Dog Football, Dog Boxing, Dog Wrestling, and Dog Soccer in the living room and a few other games. I took pictures of him playing one of them, which I named Buried Ball. I hide Pancho's plush ball under his dog bed and he flips the bed upside down to get to the ball.

This really should be a ten second process, but Pancho really overdoes the bed flipping process so the whole thing can take over minute. Or when I hold to bed down so he can't flip it over, he relentlessly tries to do it anyway. I have lasted five minutes participating in this, but got bored. Pancho however, had no intention to stop, even if he had to paw at that dog bed for another two hours, God love him.

All this for a nasty saliva and dirt crusted plush basketball that is coming apart at the seams. I tried getting pictures of him playing his other favorite indoor game, Ball In A Bag, but he moves to fast, and my camera too slow, for me to get any worthwhile photos.


The search is on...


The discovery is about to made...



VICTORIOUS!!!

Girl On A Box

Our local wine store, Haskell's has some pretty awesome sales to go with its pretty awesome wine selection. So a few weeks ago Emily stocked up on wine during one of their famous sales. As a result, she needed a box to bring home all the wine she bought.

That night as we were eating dinner, Emily was facing the kitchen and could see the box on the kitchen cart. Suddenly she started laughing. I felt pretty good about myself because, let me tell you, while Emily is not at all a serious person, she is a tough audience. Sometimes I'll make a joke and she'll just say, "That's funny," and not even crack a smile. I feel like there was a Seinfield based on this entire dynamic, but I digress.

So like I said, I was feeling good because FINALLY I made a joke that could make Emily burst out laughing, when I realized it wasn't me she was laughing at, but this drawing she had just realized was on the side of the box she bought home from Haskell's....



Those craaaaazy guys in the stock room at either Haskell's or some winery draw a nekkid stick lady, and that gets Emily to laugh. Yet somehow my jokes somehow don't cut it? Horseshit! That does it. I'm going back to drawing penises on napkins and writing "BUTTHEAD" on my plate with my tater tots. Seems like anything else just won't cut it for Emily anymore.

Anyway, this drawing reminds me of a song by the Blake Babies, called Girl In A Box. The song is as old as it is creepy. But for some reason the nekkid stick figure, though ON the box, and not IN it, is pretty close to what I picture the "girl in a box" looking like in the Blake Babies song.