Dumbidity

21st Century Travel Game

Do you remember the lame games the old folks use to make you play when you went on long trips?

The "Find the 50 States" license plate game is way too complicated now with all the specialty plates the various DMVs have developed. "I got everything from Maryland except Hearing Impaired-Iwo-Jima Campaign-Terrapin-Retired!"

"I Spy" is the stupidest game ever devised. Politicians play a variation of that every election cycle.

"Road Sign Bingo" isn't too bad, but if you've finished the 2nd grade, it hasn't got much appeal.

The ever-popular "Punch/Pinch Your Sibling Until He/She Strikes Back and Play the Victim" will never fade away.

But there is a new game for the Post-Nuclear Generation: Name the DVD. This game requires the conspicuous consumption of others, namely that they have a DVD player in their car; it's playing a DVD; and they're burning more gas than you because they're in front of your car.

It's easy to play. Once the tiny screen is spotted, players squint and strain to see what's on it and the first person to correctly identify what it is gets 3 points. The first person who says "uh-uh it's 'The Goonies', dooty-head" gets hit by the driver's flailing arm.

The driver should not participate. I missed my exit because the SUV in front of me was playing a really cool vintage Popeye cartoon - the one where he beats up Bluto to save Olive Oyl.

There Will Not Be a Slide Show

The reason for the flurry of postings two weeks ago and no postings at all last week is that My Dear Sweet Wife insisted that I accompany her on a cruise. We set sail last weekend aboard D'agony of D'seas for a three hour tour seven night/day buffet.

Selected highlights and observations (in no particular odor):

·        I now know where the term "aquamarine" comes from - it's in the tops of 12 foot waves facing the morning sun, just before they crash back into the Caribbean.

·        Just because they make bikinis in size 26 doesn't mean anyone should buy them, much less wear 'em.

·        If you had a cesarean 6 years and 40 pounds ago, the foregoing applies regardless of the size of the bikini. I swear this woman looked like she had butt-cheeks under her navel.

·        Coral sand can actually be brushed off, unlike that powdery white quartz grit that attacks you in Pensacola/Destin.

·        Grand Cayman looks kinda funny with all the leaves blown off all the trees. Avast there me hearties, they're rebuilding as fast as they can. Arrrrr.

·        Cozumel is an island composed primarily of Tanzanite jewelry. Best I could figure is that it's made from crystallized Tazmanian Devil dooty.

·        About the most decadent thing I did was to smoke a cooban cigar. While it beat the living hayl out of King Edward cigars, it's not something I'll need to do often.

·        My Dear Sweet Wife enjoyed escargot, cherries jubilee and baked Alaska for the first time. No, I'm not kidding - and I've taken her to nice restaurants a few times, but she's a cheesecake fanatic.

·        If baked Alaska is baked, is there such a thing as frozen Hawaii? (I'm just askin'.)

·        Three meals a day is plenty. Four is pushing it. Five is simply stupid. Six is technically possible.

·        If you drink heavily, add 40% to the cost of your cruise.

·        If you don't drink heavily, prepare to be irritated by those who do, especially when they can walk a straight line with the boat rolling in 12 foot seas and you can't.

·        I didn't know it was possible to have 18-hour-bra-qualified cleavage between one's shoulder blades. This is not gender-specific either. brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

·        Don't bum out if you can't find the silver jewelry you like at the first silver jewelry place you browse - one of the next 73 silver jewelry places will have it.

·        It's a bitch trying to parallel park a 900 foot yacht along a pier with the current and a 12 knot wind broadside trying to blow the boat down the coast. I thought our Skipper was going to toss the local Gilligan, ostensibly on the auxiliary bridge to help, overboard - on the concrete side.

·        It must be a bitch waiting 45 minutes for a 900 foot yacht to parallel park so you can go back and forth from the 2 boats that docked earlier to the 74 silver jewelry places on shore.

·        I can't go on a cruise longer than 7 days or I won't fit in the shower.

·        A bath towel can be rolled/folded to resemble a: dog, elephant, swan and rabbit. Towel origami curries much favor for the passengers' room attendant, so tip accordingly.

·        One cannot take too many pictures with a digital camera. Note the title of this post. You're welcome.

·        Tequila is available with a wide variety of dead critters preserved at the bottom of the bottles.

·        There is a health inspector in Mexico. He works Tuesdays and Thursdays during months without r's from 10 to 2.

·        Señor Frogs does not serve frog legs. They will, however, squirt kickapoo joy juice down your throat, joggle your head and give your breasts a vigorous jiggling while inanely blowing a whistle.

·        Nachos in Mexico run about $42. That's in pesos (whew!) so it's about four dollars American. They use the same plastic cheese.

·        I now have enough vanilla extract and Tortuga Rum to make a hundred billion rum cakes.

·        There is a building inspector in Mexico. He's currently on long-term disability from falling off the balcony of a hacienda under construction.

·        There is such a thing as the M-BAV (Buffet Assault Vehicle, Mechanized). There was an individual on board who was so large...

HOW    LARGE    WAS    HE?

He was so large, the Skipper attached a GPS locator to his M-BAV so the ballast control computer could compensate for him.

Seriously, this guy was well over a quarter-ton, and with his M-BAV was probably pushing 800 pounds. He was semi-ambulatory and was observed occasionally with his enablers to stand and pivot.

On the night of the Gala Boofay, his M-BAV was too wide to navigate the paths between the fabulously constructed edible bread, fruit and vegetable exhibits and the gigantic ice and butter sculptures which lead to the Death-by-Chocolate bier. Instead, Jabba-the-Cripp patrolled the perimeter awaiting the end of the photo-tour. Folks, y'all just don't wanna know the rest.

·        A bit of advice for white-trash chef-wannabes who can't figure out what fruit/vegetable they carved the red pine-cone looking thing out of: don't pick up and fondle each and every one of them while you ponder the mystery aloud.

And finally...

·        When you get home, you must convince yourself that the floor isn't really moving, even when it makes you fall over in the shower.

Second Wind, Second Chance

Last weekend we got a legitimate cool front, and considering it was the first weekend in August in the Gulf South, it was most noteworthy.

Having noted it most worthily, I got a comment from my esteemed colleague in blogdom, Suzette, who took me to task for not telling her about it in time for her to travel down to the Emeril® City to enjoy a coiffure-friendly getaway. I figured it'd be a cold day in hayl blue moon or two before I got a chance to redeem myself.

Enter Bonnie and Clyde Charley. This one-two punch of tropical stormation, while treacherizing Florida, is bringing excellent conditions to South Louisiana. The counter-clockwise rotation is pulling the cooler and drier (special emphasizzle on that "dry" angle) down today, tomorrow and through this weekend. Record lows are predicted for Saturday morning - 59° would tie the record in Baton Rouge - and with the relative humisery well below normal (normal is 90-100%), I'll be able to go get the morning paper without sweat running down my neck.

So Suzette, dahlin', you've got plenty of time to zip on down for a long weekend of partying in the Big Easy with good hair - a hurricane doesn't necessarily have to hit New Orleans for hurricane parties to break out. You could even stow away on the flight with the NY Jets and catch an incredibly mediocre preseason football game in the Stupordome against the sAints. If you prefer a more low-key (i.e. sensible) itinerary and have time, perhaps the Dear Sweet Wife and I could arrange some festive dinner-type event.

And since the current forecast has those storms hustling up the east coast, it might be a good time to bug out of your neck of the woods.

SPLAT!

I was on another road trip on the Saltmine's dime, and found myself traveling through rural Louisiana on one of the most beautiful days a body could want.

May. Rural Louisiana. Cow pastures. Freshly mown right-of-way.

Plecia nearctica.

These are commonly known as lovebugs, two-headed bugs or those &$#(@ little $(#*$@^!! The People who Eat Tiny Animals are gonna let me have it cuz I musta kilt half a billion or so. There'd be no denyin' it - I've got tiny little dried-up, formerly gooey corpses all over the bumper, headlights, grill, hood and windscreen (not to mention the little black wings I'm sporting all up 'n' down the radio antennae).

There is a moment, an instant really at 75 mph, where one can see the bug(s) very clearly just before they get spluted into a greasy little spot. Scores of those instants make it an old phenomenon in a hurry because one runs out of clean spots through which one may spot the little blighters. I'm down at least a half-gallon of wimper-wiper fluid and my wimpy-wipers are fuzzy.

I had a pair latch onto the driver's side window at a light - how they can plant their little feets on glass and hold on at 35 mph is a mystery to me. I can't tell which end is what gender, but at about 20 mph, one end let go of the glass and began oscillating rapidly in the slipstream. If bugs could communicate, I guarantee it was screaming "DONTSTOP!" repeatedly - at least until the other one lost its grip.

There was a car behind me.

Gon Out Backson Bisy Backson - I

Just in case any of you are the kind who might stay up all night worrying, Dumbidity will be on a brief haitus while I take time to confer, converse and otherwise hobnob with my fellow wizards.

Backson.

Over-the-Counter Cherry Coke™

The erstwhile Tvindy, whose unquenchable thirst for knowledge has caused him to trek over halfway across our great nation, has proven adept at dealing with Wisenheimers (in this particular case, yours truly). His tactic? WAAAY more information than the Wisenheimer (me again) EVER wanted to know.

To briefly summarize a redundantly condensed recap, boiled down to the bottom line in a nutshell:

Tvindy wishes to travel something like 2,000 miles, accompanied only by his mouse. He further determines to drive the first leg in 24 hours straight. Because he uses caffeine infrequently, he is certain that 2 liters of Cherry Coke™ can be administered throughout this segment of his trip in order to keep him awake enough to drive. One assumes the mouse was not capable of or permitted to participate in the, say for lack of insurance coverage, driving.

It sorta sounds like an algebra problem.

As a comment to his blog entry, I had surmised, based on my own experience, that the Cherry Coke™ would impede his progress with the need to make frequent rest stops. I learned I had surmised incorrectly. Tvindy is evidently capable of managing his kidneys as part of his overall stimulant administration regimen, so props to him. This came as a relief, because the only alternative I had considered was the recycling of the 2 liter bottle in a manner not recommended by the manufacturer of said container. Having considered it further, I should have suggested the 3 liter bottle for not only its potential reserve capacity, but also for its more generous aperture. I'm sure the Farrelly Brothers will pick up on the latter and contrive some sort of very embarrassing "stuck-in-the-bottle" road-trip scene involving product-placement of the highest bidding beverage manufacturer.

When you see it, just remember I thought of it first.

As far as the strategy of infrequent caffeine use is concerned, I hadn't really thought of it. I mean, I'm the guy that gets hand-signed Holiday Christmas Cards from Juan Valdez because my coffee consumption keeps a new burro in his shed every three years (A local new-used Burro dealer has a really neat lease program). I will say this, even with my high tolerance, Cherry Coke™ is, without a doubt, quite effective at putting an intense caffeine buzz on me.

But since I don't put it in my coffee, I suspect it's the half-pound of SUGAR they put in it.



[This gratuitous reference to sugar is sponsored by the 2003 National Championship Louisiana State University NCAA Division I Football Team, the Cane Growers of Louisiana and the Etienne deBore Granulation Society.]

Fresh Refreshkminks, Skunky Game

There's an old joke in which the Senior Railroad Inspector interviews an applicant for employment working on the railroad, all the live-long day. A key question tests the applicant's crisis management skills:

SRI: A northbound train is traveling at 50 m.p.h. A southbound train is traveling on the same track at 45 m.p.h. and is 5 miles from the northbound train. What would you do?

APPLICANT: (without so much as a moment's hesitation) I'd call my brother, Ray.

SRI: Your brother? Why?

APPLICANT: 'Cuz he ain't never seen a train wreck before.

Along the same line, there's an old saying that describes why one might watch a tragic spectacle without any expectation of being able to do anything about it. I suspect if'n Ray had access to ESPN's cablecast of the only NFL game on Sunday night, he'd've used it.

The only way to describe why I watched the entire Colts versus the sAints game was that it was like watching a train wreck - I just couldn't look away. The final score was 55 to 21 only because both teams started playing reserves and collaborated to run out the fourth quarter in a mercifully quick fashion.

To say the sAints sucked is an affront to vacuum cleaners everywhere. Lame, stinko, putrid, rotten, vile, inept, self-destructing, bone-headed, feckless - none of these words do justice to the inferior level of performance exhibited by the sAints in this nationally televised event (I don't even think it's appropriate to call it a game).

We almost got a break when the game hadn't sold out hours before the blackout deadline, but a casino and a grocery store felt some unnatural obligation to schlurp up the last 4,000 tickets so locals could watch it. Not that it affects my negative opinion of the "gaming" "industry" but I'll continue to stay out of their facilities. The grocery chain is already on my "do not call" list, so they didn't hurt themselves any worse with me either. What I don't understand is what they think they're getting back for having spent the money. I can understand a casino wanting to increase the concentration of suckers, but what's a grocery store got to gain?

Maybe they're one of the few stores left where you can get brown paper bags to wear to the games?

One day after the Chicago Cubs clinched the NL Central and their long-suffering fans got a rare opportunity to look at some post-season action, the long-suffering sAints fans had to sit through that drek. I think sAints fans win the misery contest against Cubs fans - even though the Cubs haven't won the World Series in about a hundred years, at least they've won it (or had a chance to since). In 37 seasons, the sAints have won exactly one (1) playoff game.

In the long tradition of sAints teams, this most recent edition is overrated and consistently underperforms. In spite of the long, losing tradition, fans still buy tickets and get gouged by pro football concession prices. I don't know why.

If these sAints were an endangered whale swimming near the coast, Greenpeace volunteers would chain it to several SUVs and tow it onto hot asphalt to die.

If these sAints were a giant redwood dating back to the time of the Roman Emperors, the Sierra Club would hire lumberjacks to hack it apart with chainsaws.

If these sAints were a laboratory test monkey, PETA and ALF eco-terrorists would break in and add to the experiment as many other monkeys with related DNA as they could find.

If these sAints were Medicaid, Theodore "Jabba-the-Pub" Kennedy, D. (Mass.) would sponsor a bill to abolish it.

If these sAints were an NFL football team, the people of Louisiana should overrun their facilities, pack them into every available truck that runs and flip a coin. Heads - haul everything east to Biloxi; tails - chug west and dump it in San Antonio.

When I think of the tax breaks, facility concessions and other tens of millions in goodies granted to them by the taxpaying citizens of Louisiana (who OWN the Stupordome the sAints piddle around in), I just want to throw up.

Would the sAints please threaten to leave the state again - please?

Or, maybe just quit calling those poor obsessively optimistic souls who keep going to the games "fans" and start calling them "martyrs" - it'd fit better with the name "sAints."

All last week, Budweiser was making a great big deal about how all the beer served in the Stupordome tonight would have a "born-on" date of September 28, 2003, making it the freshest beer that could be served (at what, $5 or more a bottle?). Budweiser used to make a big deal in their ads about avoiding "skunky" beer that wasn't fresh.

I think most "martyrs" backing the New Orleans sAints would drink goat-whizz straight from the goat if that bunch of losers would stop playing skunky football.