Guy 1: “Are you an actor?”
Guy 2: “Huh? No.”
Guy 1: “Because you look like that Snoop Dogg dude.”
Guy 2: [Who, actually, did not look to me like Snopp Dogg: Silence, shakes head slightly]
Guy 1: “He’s got a good act, that Snopp Dogg. Doesn’t he have a good act?”
Guy 2: [More silence, then:] “How tall are you?”
Guy 1: “6 foot 9″
Guy 2: “Wow.”
Guy 1: “You look like you’re about 6 foot 4″
Guy 2: [Who, in fact, looked to me considerably shorter than that, shakes head slightly:] “I have a 17-year old nephew who’s 6 foot 8.”
Guy 1: “Whew!”
Wendy’s counter guy to Guy 2: “Here’s your nuggets, sir!”
Guy 2: “Thanks!” [Walks away]
Guy 1: “Nice talking to you! Have a good one!”

Latre.

Note: Guy 1 then went on to engage the Wendy’s counter guy and other diners in conversations I didn’t quite hear. I think there was something a little off about him. Or maybe he was just overly friendly.

Pet Peeve of the Day: The caps on the Safeway gallon milk jugs don’t work nearly as well as the ones on the King Soopers’ jugs. They are very hard to screw on and off.

First of all, on any given day, a few of them will be off/out of order. Currently 2 of out 10 are completely dead. One TV is working, but has blotchy black edges around the picture, like Shadow Creatures are attempting to possess it. Every day, they devour a little more of the screen from the outside-in. It totally freaks me out.

Some of the sets have closed captioning on and some don’t. I’m assuming very few people actually plug their headphones into the jacks on the treadmills, ellipticals, cycles, etc and listen to the TVs. I think most people are like me and they listen to their MP3 players while occasionally glancing at the sets. Therefore, CC should be on for most, if not all, of the sets. With my luck, CC is on only for the sets furthest away, which I can’t read very well when on the treadmills without my glasses. I prefer not to wear my progressive lens glasses at the gym, since they get covered with sweat and I can’t see through them anyway. (BTW, I’ve totally grown used to the glasses and wear them at all other times, even when on the computer.)

Then there’s the content. Lately, some of the TVs at the gym have been set to the Food Network. This seems overly sadistic to me. Are they thinking that by getting people to crave food after a workout, they’re more likely to keep coming to the gym and pay those membership fees? Like I really want to see someone rolling dough while I’m huffing along at 7mph on the treadmill.

Sometimes some TVs are set to infomercial channels. Or at least to channels that show infomercials during the time I go to the gym (the Food Network does this sometimes in the early morning). That is unacceptable. Even if I were interested in the product, how am I going to remember the phone number or URL by the time I get home? Man, I could really use that weed whacker that uses the special double helix fishing line.

What’s especially weird is when the infomercials showing are for fitness products that could conceivably cause someone to stop going to the gym. When I see one of those, then I know the gym doesn’t have a plan like I thought with the Food Network thing. If I go home and send for the Become Totally Ripped At Home In 90 Days With No Exercise Equipment And Eat All You Want DVD, then what use would I have for the gym?

Also, they almost always seem to have a couple of the televisions set to the NFL Network, even when it’s not football season. Does 24-Hour Fitness have some sort of arrangement with the NFL Network that requires them to constantly show it? Do I really need to see some Titans/Ravens game from last year while I’m sweating it out?

At least they’ve stopped setting the TVs to channels that show scripted dramas such as Law & Order reruns. Those are pretty useless when working out, since chances are you’re not going to see the whole thing and won’t know how it turns out.

Ideally, the channels should be set to “small digestive bites” networks. I like when some are set to a local station for the local news and some are set to a national news channel like CNN. I am also willing to put up with ESPN, since that seems logical for people working out. And some days, they do have the televisions set up that way, like this morning. But that’s becoming increasingly rare.

Of course, the best bet would be setting them all to The Erotic Network. That I could go for.

Latre.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “i’m not the one you were looking for home and away”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: None

A month or so ago, N and I spotted these lovely and massive creatures while driving home. It’s really not that unusual, as the wildlife in Colorado will venture anywhere. I see deer all the time. It’s the first time I’ve seen two bull elk traveling together around here though. Where’s the rest of the herd?

More pix here and here.

Latre.

Anyway, I’m thinking the rules of the Twitter Chain Story will be something like this: I compile a list of people who are interested. I’ll write the first tweet of course, which will be the opening line(s) of the story. Then we’ll go down the list in order and the next person has to take up where the previous one left off. You must submit your tweet using your own Twitter account. When you have submitted your tweet, please ping the next person in the list (which will be maintained somewhere on this site), via a direct message or separate tweet or whatever. In order to convey as much story info as possible in a single tweet, there should be no @replies or anything else cluttering up the tweet aside from some common hash tag I’ll decide on to identify the tweet as part of the story, and possibly a sequence number for sorting out the order. Suggestions on the format would be appreciated. When we get to the end of the list, we start all over again at the top. I’m thinking that if it’s your turn and you don’t submit your entry within 24 hours, then you lose your spot in that cycle and it goes to the next person in the list. Maybe we should jumble up the list occasionally so that you’re not always following the same person. The story will end when a majority of the people involved deem it necessary. I’m unsure if we should let additional people join after the story has started. All Twitter rules and terms of service must be followed. Let’s try to keep it relatively clean.

Does that make sense? Anything I’ve missed? If you’d like to participate, or have any better ideas of how this might work, please submit a comment to this post. Be sure to include your Twitter username if you wish to participate. (Obviously you must have a Twitter account.) Please also include your real e-mail address in the specified box. It will not be published and no one but me will see it, and I won’t give it to anyone else or spam you. It will just be used for me to send out administration info about the project or to prod you if it’s your turn and you’re slacking.

Latre.

Anyway, I was on vacation last week, and actually traveled for the first time in a long time. The experience of getting to place to place itself was actually fairly pleasant this time. We flew Southwest Airlines to Philly like last year, but this year I understood that you have to do the online check-in and print your boarding pass at home in order to get decent seats on this non-seat assignment budget airline. Although I screwed up the timing for the flight out and did the check-in 23 hours before the flight instead of 24, and so we ended up in the high “B” boarding group. But N and I still got seats together on the full flight, so that was nice. On the flight back, which was just me alone, I didn’t have Internet computer access, but was able to do the online check-in on my iPhone through Southwest’s mobile site, and then printed out the boarding pass at the airport bag check kiosk. This time, I got into the high “A” group, but since there weren’t many people in the low “A” group, I was one of the first people on the plane. The flight wasn’t anywhere near full and I had a row all to myself. I was surrounded by babies in the front and across the aisle, but they were all well-behaved and quiet.

Southwest is growing on me, even though I still don’t like not having assigned seating. The people are always pleasant and they keep things moving fast. Not charging for checking bags is definitely a big plus, as it makes the flights even cheaper compared to other airlines than they already were. There’s no meals on the flights, but at least they’ll give you pretty much infinite packs of snack crackers and such if you whine even a little bit. I don’t miss having a TV screen, as I prefer to spend flights reading. And the seats are fairly comfortable – N thinks that the legroom has gotten bigger since last year.

For a rental car, I took InfK’s advice and tried Priceline.com this year. That worked out very well. Not only did I get a much better price than if I had booked directly, but also the company turned out to be Hertz, which I’ve never used before. Of course they didn’t have an economy car like I booked, so they upgraded me free to a brand new Mercury Sable with Sirius XM satellite radio and a GPS navigator system – both a first for me. I could get used to that kind of luxury. The automatic seat positioning was cute but not all the accurate. I think it kept automatically resetting the side rear view mirrors also, which was annoying. The GPS came in handy on the 2.5 hour drive up north and worked pretty well. My only complaint is that sometimes it wasn’t quite as explicit with the voice directions as I’d like (for example, not always specifying whether you should take the “north” or “south” highway exit if they were both on the same side). And on the drive back to the airport, it had me take a route that had me paying higher tolls than if I had just went the route I was familiar with. So the lesson there is Trust With Caution.

The one glitch I had with the car was not figuring out exactly how the headlights worked immediately. I think I drove out of Philly at night with only the parking lights on for a little while. Luckily it wasn’t too dark yet. Dang American automobiles and their impenetrable foreign hieroglyphics!

Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: The AAA application for the iPhone refuses to validate my membership number.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “most irrational phobia on record”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (DS)

To no one’s surprise, E.W. Scripps finally pulled the plug on the tabloid-format Rocky after months of failing to find a buyer for the financially strapped paper. I’m not terribly sad. My subscription reverts over to the full sheet-format Denver Post, since the two papers had combined subscription departments anyway due to the Joint Operating Agreement. I’m thinking it’s a good time to just cancel the subscription altogether, although I may keep getting the Sunday paper. Gotta have those coupons! I find it interesting that the DP is adding all of the RMN’s comic strips. That’s going to be one bloated comics page. They’re also adding some of the columnists. I actually feel sorry for those, since the columnists who are not being picked up by the Post are getting a head start on finding New Journalism jobs (i.e writing blogs) or other forms of employment. By the time the Post shuts down, there won’t be any of those left either.

Latre.

Pet Peeve of the Day: I am starting to get tired of the Jon Stewart/Brian Williams Bromance.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “what to wear fear of buttons”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: Castlevania:Order of Ecclesia (DS)

We’re in the middle of Denver Restaurant Week, something that the girlfriend and I take advantage of every year. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a week (actually two weeks this year; it’s been extended) where hundreds of higher end restaurants in the Denver area offer dinner for two for the mile low price of $52.80. Most places offer a limited menu for DRW compared to their full menu, but it’s still usually a phenomenal deal. This year we wanted to try a steakhouse, so we choose the Cherry Creek Elway’s. I got a tasty beefy pepper-crusted melt-in-your-mouth sirloin and N had the salmon. The price also included soup or salad, a side, and two brownie and cheesecake “lollipops”. Even with the limited menu, it was almost too much food and N saved half of hers for later.

There were a lot of people in suits there tonight, and as always with DRW, we felt like we didn’t quite belong with the movers and shakers. But the wait staff was very nice and accommodating, and I’m sure they’re very used to it this time of year. We did see a number of people wearing jeans, and we were at least business casual. N is always more observant than I, so she naturally scoped out the place for local celebrities. Sure enough, as we were leaving she spotted former Broncos’ head coach Mike Shanahan at a table in the bar area, talking excitedly with wide expansive hand gestures to a big dude we didn’t recognize. So that was fun. No sign of the restaurant’s namesake though.

Next year: The Cherry Creek Arby’s.

Latre.

Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Exercising Since Last Blog Update:

• “High Fidelity” (Bob Mould)
• “Leaving So Soon?” (Keane)
• “Choose Between Two Sons” (Game Theory)
• “Ride The Wild Wave” (The Oranges Band)
• “1,000,000″ (R.E.M.)
• “Looking Inwardly” (Chameleons UK)
• “Nobody’s Fault” (Phantom Planet)
• “Comedienne” (Cinerama)
• “Intermission” (Blur)
• “Bandages” (Hot Hot Heat)
• “I Feel Funny” (Soap Star Joe)
• “Thank You” (John Sharples)
• “Day Is Done” (Johan)
• “Ages of You” (R.E.M.)

Pet Peeve of the Day: Extreme fatigue brought on by attempts to diagnose extreme fatigue.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “society for creative anachronism nursing home”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)

But one thing I wanted to mention today was that a new gas station mysteriously opened up in my neighborhood a week or two ago. It’s on a site that used to be a Conoco station, but now it’s a Gas Express. The bizarre thing about it is that ever since it opened, the price has stayed steady at $1.59/gallon for regular unleaded. That’s at least 20 cents a gallon cheaper than most of the stations in the area. It’s even cheaper than Safeway gas with the 10 cent discount. In fact, if you go to denvergasprices.com, there’s no station listed that has prices that low (the lowest there right now is $1.65). I guess this station is too new to be listed on the site. Not surprisingly, the place is always super crowded even though it’s not really on a main drag. How can they afford to do this? Is it some grand opening special? How long will it last? Is it special gas that is extracted from the bones of deceased people in an underhanded deal with the local funeral home? And if one station can afford to sell gas that cheap, why can’t they all? I want to know.

Latre.

Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Exercising Since Last Bog Update:

• “Finding Solutions” (Heartless Bastards)
• “Everybody Needs Love” (Robyn Hitchcock)
• “Wasting Time” (Shake Some Action!)
• “When the Generals Talk” (Midnight Oil)
• “Andy’s Babies” (Lloyd Cole)
• “Goodbye” (Brad Jones)
• “Judy” (Pernice Brothers)
• “Soma” (The Strokes)
• “Gold Into Straw” (Brendan Benson)
• “Eighth-Grade Summer Romance” (Action Action)
• “Candy Wrapper” (The Makes Nice)
• “Right Here” (The Go-Betweens)
• “Spinning Dizzy On The Dial” (Bill Nelson)
• “Mutiny, I Promise You” (The New Pornographers)
• “Circlin’” (The Connells)
• “Thank You Very Much” (Kaiser Chiefs)
• “Girl” (Beck)
• “Petulant” (Shriekback)
• “You Keep It All In” (The Beautiful South)
• “Public Service Announcement” (The Bravery)
• “The Night Chicago Died Again” (The Minus 5)
• “Them & Me” (Brendan Benson)
• “Read About It” (Midnight Oil)
• “Digital Noise” (Vinyl Devotion)
• “Soldier” (Classix Nouveaux)
• “Wake Up” (Velvet Crush)
• “Open Book” (Mates Of State)
• “The Girl Became the Stairs” (The Heart Throbs)
• “Let’s Make Some Plans” (Close Lobsters)
• “Out There on the Moon” (The Minus 5)
• “Suffer For Fashion” (Of Montreal)
• “The Mayor of Simpleton” (XTC)
• “Youth Worshipper” (The Church)

Pet Peeve of the Day: Across the board salary cuts.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “man in the moon phobias”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: I don’t think I’ve played any lately – no time.

There are ashtrays next to the urinals.

Latre.

Posted from my iPhone.

I’m not sure what it means. Those without attitude never impose conditions? Is that a good thing? I like conditions. Conditions are good. “You can’t drive my car unless you have a driver’s license and insurance”, for just one example. Another good one I live by is “I’m not eating that until you taste it first”. And there’s always, “Yes, you may use my bathroom, as long as you remember to flush”. And of course, “Don’t touch me if you’ve been addressing Christmas glitter cards”.

These cookies manufacturers aren’t even trying anymore. They’re just sitting around with a copy of Bartlett’s. A quick websearch reveals that this is a quote from Eric Butterworth, a well-respected (at least by Oprah Winfrey and Maya Angelou) New Age minister in the Unity Movement. According to the bio, “He made a peaceful transition into the Flow of Eternal Life on Thursday, April 17, 2003.” Some people say I’m kinda slow, but I’m thinking this is a euphemism for pushing daises.

Excuse me, I have to go deal with a different kind of flow. Latre.

Songs That Came Up On The iPod While Exercising:

• “Who Never Fought In Wars” (The Celebrity Pilots)
• “The Climbing Rose” (Mercury Rev)
• “Rich” (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
• “Section 22: Running Away” (The Polyphonic Spree)
• “Eastern Electric” (Bill Nelson)
• “I Remember (Reprise)” (William Duke)
• “Let’s Talk About Me” (Alan Parsons Project)
• “Melanie” (Dreams So Real)
• “Rifle Called Goodbye” (The Minus 5)
• “Ease Your Feet In The Sea” (Belle & Sebastian)
• “Hey You” (The Connells)
• “Bird’s Eye View” (Brendan Benson)
• “The Red Baron” (Game Theory)
• “Tomorrow Will Be Too Long” (Jason Falkner)
• “Thalassocracy” (Frank Black)
• “Um, Ah Good Evening” (Bill Nelson)
• “Lost in the City” (Eleventh Dream Day)

Pet Peeve of the Day: 5-day work weeks.

Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “snow globe of doom”.

Videogame(s) Played Since Last Blog Update: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)