I still exist

I noticed nothing has been posted here since Sept. 29. That's sad. I neglected my little slice of cyberspace. I'll try to do something about that, and I promise I won't talk about "my bracket." No one cares. Why should anyone? Yeah, I fill one out, but I would prefer see enough upsets to eliminate the Dukes, North Carolinas, Indianas and UCLAs of the college basketball world. All we care about here are the little guys. So, go Butler (obviously), Drake, Davidson and Kent State. And when you win and destroy everyone's "brackets," sending them into fits of despair and tears and horrible annoyance, I'll do cartwheels like A.J. Graves.

If a baseball game is played and nobody is there to see it, did it really happen?

Apparently, it did, and only about 400 people witnessed it. And because baseball preserves every single stat imaginable, there will be proof 100 years from now that the Marlins beat the Nationals 5-4 yesterday in front of nearly 75,000 empty seats. It was hot, humid and involved two of the worst teams in the National League. I have my limits, so yeah, I probably would not have wanted to be there, either. But I have to admit that it would be interesting to watch a game in such a large stadium with such a tiny crowd.

Better than streaking

This occurred during the Colorado-Colorado State football game on Sept. 1. The "running toilet" was apparently part of a promotion by Denver Water to raise awareness about water conservation. What I want to know is how the person inside the toilet suit could see. It does not appear as though there are eye holes. Eye holes or no eye holes, a toilet with arms terrifies me.



# # #

Yes, I know my first post in more than a month deals with a guy in a toilet suit running across a football field. Deal with it, I guess. It's an oft-used, yet rarely fulfilled promise, but I'll try to get back to this thing more regularly.

Dear Cubs,

I'll only say this once. If you want to move into first place, please Cubs, get a hit or two when you have the bases loaded and no out. Every team goes into a slump at one time or another during the season, but this, this is a bad time. Seriously, the Brewers are trying to give it to you. You're not planning to kill me again, are you? Maybe not, but over these last few days, you have managed to put me in a perpetual dark mood. Too much good has happened so far to let this crash and burn. But if that's how you want it, I'll have the gasoline ready.

Thank you.

Six good and four bad from the trip

It's been a couple days, but more than 3,200 miles and nine states later, I have returned to Indiana. This is fine, I suppose, although I miss the mountains.

Good

1. The Rocky Mountains. I am fond of them. It was especially nice to stand on the top of a mountain, 12,000 feet above sea level, look to the east, point and yell "HAHA!" to my poor co-workers who were dealing with racing stories.

2. Finding homestyle fries at the Fort Morgan, Colo. Arby's. It's good to know at least one Arby's hasn't imprisoned its customers to an indefinite tortuous fate of curly fries. Seemingly, they are the lone holdouts in the country. Or at least the parts of the country I have seen. So if you don't want to eat crappy fries, go to Fort Morgan. It's in the middle of nowhere in northeastern Colorado, but it's worth it.

3. The Cubs, Royals, Rockies and Twins won, while the Cardinals, Yankees, Dodgers and Brewers lost.

4. On the newspaper stands at a rest stop in extremely rural Missouri, I saw next to USA Today, various car traders and "Diabetes 101," a publication called "Country Singles." Due to the potential of being alternately terrified and struck by bouts of manic laughter at the gems that lay within, I bought a copy. I was not disappointed. The "incarcerated" section of personal ads (under the heading, "ATTENTION READERS: Please DO NOT, repeat, DO NOT send money to any of the incarcerated!! Thank you for your cooperation!!!") was my favorite. One SWF imprisoned in Nevada said she is, "Willing to relocate."

5. Kansas and Nebraska. While they are both mind-numbingly long and were key contributors to plunging our nation into a Civil War due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act (although, if my mid-19th century history is correct, it can be blamed more on the pro-slavery "border ruffian" Missourians who invaded Kansas, but I might just be making stuff up), I liked them in the way chocolate ice cream with bits of razor blades is enjoyable. Parts are painful, but for the most part, they're OK.

6. When you're in the middle of nowhere, especially in Kansas and Nebraska, chances are you will be able to watch a small cluster of clouds in the distance grow and develop into a large thunderstorm. I like that.

Bad

1. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed a couple hours after I drove out of town. I did not drive on the bridge, but it's chilling to think that it's possible some of the people I passed on the sidewalks on Tuesday and Wednesday could have been on the bridge.

2. Motel 6. Cheapness in lodging is a fault of mine. I don't typically feel the need to spend a great deal of money for a place to sleep. In fact, I would be perfectly happy sleeping in my car. Unfortunately, my car doesn't have free HBO that I won't watch or a pool I won't swim in. However, it would be a good idea for me to at least graduate to Econolodge.

In the past two years, my adventures at various Motel 6's around the country have included: 1) what appeared to be a bullet hole in the floor (Washington D.C.), 2) a strange man knocking on doors hoping he would be let in (Dallas), 3) mouse poo on the bed sheets (Minneapolis), 4) jackhammers shaking the windows at 9 a.m. (Omaha), 5) another strange man who was smoking in an elevator while wearing a shirt that eloquently stated, "F*** you. I love hatred" (Denver), 6) overly angry cleaning crews (Baton Rouge, I believe, but maybe D.C.), 7) an entire team of 12-year old softball players who creepily referred to themselves in colorful soap on the windshields of their parents' cars as "The Sexy Babies"(Kansas City) and 7) a parking lot so small that many people had to park at an adjacent gas station (Boston).

3. The bug that exploded right in my line of sight on the windshield somewhere in Iowa. It was the size of a small mammal.

4. Apparently the designers of the central Illinois rest areas believed that, on average, human beings are 4-feet tall. That is the only way the bathroom stall doors could possibly be that short. I believe the quote from the guy who walked in and saw the situation was, "Jesus Christ, Illinois! Can we not have some privacy?"

Letters to the good people of the world: Chicago edition

Dear 60-ish year old man who was riding a bicycle along Lake Shore Drive while wearing only a thong:

I didn't need to see that. The image is forever burned into my brain, and I am terrified. Even as it was, you probably still felt imprisoned by the shackles of your thong, but my eyes will never be the same. At first I thought you were just wearing pasty white shorts, but then I realized that those, those weren't shorts at all. And then I wanted to turn the car into the lake and just end it all right there because I knew I couldn't go on. However, I will admit it had to take some courage to step out your front door like...that.

Yours in memory purging,
Daniel

# # #

Dear Barry Bonds,

While I find it amusing you did not play (the booing must hurt your feelings and your knees), may I have some of what you used? Just a little bit? I'm having a difficult time surviving the rigors of sitting at a desk, and I need a bovine steroid-induced pick-me-up. Please get back to me. It's important. Oh, that's right. What are steroids? My mistake. I need some of that flaxseed oil that did this:



That would be so cool.

Yours in punishing the haters,
Daniel

# # #

Dear sea gulls that invade Wrigley Field immediately after the game ends,

How is your species so in tune to the workings of a nine-inning baseball game? There are many humans who do not understand the game as well as you guys do. As soon as the third out of the ninth inning is made, your flock swoops in to partake in the forgotten peanuts, pop corn, cotton candy, stale beer and vomit that are left in the bleachers. I'm impressed and amazed.

Yours in eating other people's leftovers,
Daniel

America vs. Canada (Or, who is the little brother anyway?)

A few nights ago after work, I entered into one of my exhausted ramblings. While I don't do it as much anymore, it's still not as if that is a rare occurrence. What began as a conversation about Canadian football turned into me referring to Canada as "America's big brother." After being told I had that backwards, I went on to explain that, no, Canada is the mature big brother to America's reckless, free-wheeling little brother and not the other way around.

(And get ready for a giant run-on sentence that will probably make very little sense, but is one that will leave you feeling fulfilled in much the same way as you feel after eating a giant box of donuts at 4 a.m. And they're not good donuts, either. No, no. They're those scary donuts that sit around on the Marsh shelves all day and never get thrown out. The ones that say Krispy Kreme, but deep down, you know they're just bad imitations. And you feel cheated for about five seconds before you realize that you've really had a bad day and you just want to experience the sugary victory parade of some freaking donuts. So that's how this is going to feel.)

So you might say that while Canada (we'll call him Calvin) grew up respecting his parents, eating his vegetables and getting straight A's before being accepted into Brown (Harvard was too pretentious for Calvin's tastes), then turned down a job with a great marketing firm to go into the Peace Corps (or Canada's equivalent) and eventually got married and had six amazing kids who all have names that start with the letter Q, America (we'll call him Ralph) hated his parents in order to gain attention, ran away from home seven times before declaring his independence through court order at 16, then got his GED but dropped out of Indiana State after two-and-a-half years because he got into a dorm brawl with the kids a floor below, but turned his life around and eventually gained a boatload of power at Subway because all his co-workers were too high on crystal meth to tell the difference, but this was before he caught syphilis from a hooker named Annabelle, but he didn't hold it against her because it wasn't her fault, rather it was society, and so it went.