All These Porta Johns...

And not a bolt cutter to be found. So its a lot of "lookie" and very little "cookie" for me as I ran up and down Capitol Hill this past Saturday.

The setup was already in place for next Monday's inauguration ceremonies. There were bleachers, snow fencing, folding chairs, and temporary lighting was all in place and ready to go. The technicians were out making some tweaks. And the best part was the Port-a-Johns. Oh the Port-a-Johns.

They were lined up for days, miles even. Beautiful shades of blue and green. All fully stocked with toilet paper and hand sanitizer, no doubt. But there's a catch.

Actually it's a lock. Well a lot of them. Each and every unit is locked. I'm not talking about simple plastic zip ties that can be broken with a few good pulls. Nope. These are all pad locked shut. This wouldn't be a problem but even with the jogging stroller a bolt cutter tends to stand out. Plus the added weight will change your mile time something fierce.

So that was the position I was in last weekend. Now of course it would be my luck that whenever I need to "answer the call" I'm always in the middle of nowhere or even worse, in the middle of somewhere without a bathroom. So this time, I'm in the middle of bathrooms and don't have to go.

Such is my luck. Of course last time around I was very grateful for these bathroom offerings. To be that close to the johns with virtually no lines after so much morning coffee was a true blessing. But I was especially grateful that I wasn't stuck in the Purple Tunnel of Doom. 

Speaking of such it's good to see that organizers are taking precautions this time around but I think it won't really matter. Between a second term and an impending snow storm (don't think it can actually get colder than last time). 

You Call This Steak?

Other than the marks on the side where the jockey was hitting hit I can't really qualify the dish that was put on my table yesterday at brunch, steak.

The thought was nice of course and we were there to celebrate the impending welcome into the world of a new little bee. And yes the people there were very nice and I did get to have several adult conversations that have been devoid in my life recently but that still doesn't excuse the quality of the slab of meat that shared space on my plate with the egg whites, grapefruit slices, and diced potatoes.

Chef Geoff's has become over the years as close as this town has come to a hallowed institution. They used to be known for takes on simple American classics. Now they will be known for dropping a piece of NY strip that looks to be a reject from both TGI Friday's, a high school cafeteria, and possibly the snack bar at the Baghdad International Airport. The eggs weren't much better but that's not the point.

How does food like this make the grade?  There was supposed to be farmers, slaughterhouse supervisors, food inspectors, purchasing agents, chefs, food expediters, and waiters who all were supposed to stand in the way of that cow of making it's way to my plate. Where were they and why weren't they doing their jobs.

And if it could happen here, in the United States, in our Nation's Capitol, just blocks from the White House and the McDonald's near the White House, then what about in other countries? Canada could start serving bad meat, or even Britain. Heck it could possibly spread to India...well maybe not that far.

In summary, the steak was rubbery, undercooked, and possibly microwaved. It lacked taste, color and many other meat like tendencies. It deserved no place in a restaurant, hospital, or morgue and it certainly deserves no space on my plate.

May The Schwartz Be With You

Well clearly they can't show Spaceballs in Encinitas County schools. A parent might think their child was learning Yogurtisim.

It sounds crazy yet according to those liberals over at NPR, parents are suing the school because they are teaching the kids yoga as part of their physical education curriculum. Forget the kids getting healthy, the krazy kristians are worried the kids might be learning Hinduism. In a related story, 15 third grade students asked their parents for permission to get a tattoo of Vishnu on their backs and another 20 have petitioned to have the school mascot changed from the sacred cows to something less offensive like the dirty jungle bunnies.

I just want to understand this. A school is trying to teach kids early on that a healthy lifestyle, complete with food choices and exercise, is the best way to go and parents are fighting it? Wasn't it the parents who are letting the kids establish unhealthy eating habits and avoid exercise in the first place.

Maybe I missed the section in the Bible that says, "thou shall not let thy child to breathe deeply while clearing their mind allowing them to learn more." Was that in The Gospel of Jeremy? I never did get around to reading much of the back half of the book. You know us Jews, we don't like to carry big books.

It really doest matter your chosen faith, we should all be striving to live a little better and provide support to those around us who need a hand doing the same. If kids are learning how to do that at a young age and don't have to battle weight the way many of us have had to do as adults then we should be encouraging that wherever possible. Any judge in his right mind should toss this out immediately.

But we all know that the case will go through and the school may have to blink. Either way the kids loose. I'd hate to see what happens if the school eliminates bacon from the menu. Prepare the lawsuits because the kids are being taught how to be Muslims!

How Long Is Too Long?

Who has In-Laws?  This guy does. Before you start with your jokes, I actually like them. I know it's against every law that Issac Newton ever laid down but they are OK.

Well they just left town (on a big jet airplane) but it got me thinking about house guests in general. I've been on both sides of the coin and I started to figure out about how long is too long. At what point do your friends and family stop becoming guests and start becoming pests?

There are lots of guides out there on how to be a good house guest and lots of guides on how to be a bad house guest. What I can't find out is how long is too long? Is it 3 days or 2 weeks? Where is the line? Where are the guides for this? 


I propose that 3 days or shorter is the perfect stay.

Day 1: Pick Up
You pick your guests up at the airport/subway/train station/horse track...whatever moves you. This is the whole "oh it's great to see you" phase. There's a lot of smiles, handshakes, hugs, chest bumping...again whatever moves you. There's usually a nice meal out and the carrying of bags to the guest room, sofa, futon, or fold out couch. Simple, easy, and civil.

Day 2: The Event Day
The second day starts with a nice breakfast, maybe some coffee. From there it's off to an event of some sort. Maybe the park or the shopping mall or if your guests are really lucky a football game. Either way the "event" takes up a good chunk of the day and the rest of the day is spent talking about the event. Dinner, followed by chit chat and possibly use of the computer to check in to their flight online.

Day 3: Going Home
Bags are packed, the bed is stripped (if you have the "good" variety of guests), and breakfast is on the table. Your guests are ready to go home. Their stay has been wonderful and the memories will last a lifetime, but it's time to go.

There it is in a nutshell. Anything beyond 3 days is pushing it (although for clarification my inlaw's 5-day stay was not overstepping and actually enjoyable). There may be acceptations to this rule. If your guest is a gourmet chef and cooks you foie gras stuffed pineapples or if there are significant amounts of financial encouragement.

There Are Stranger Things But Not Many

Humans have strange addictions and fetishes. We pride ourselves on it. We have shows to prove it. Just look at the lineup on Arts and Entertainment television tonight, Intervention, Hoarders, Pawn Stars.

Well actually that last one isn't really an addiction unless you count my Father-In-Law watching hours of it on end. But that's a topic for another post.

No matter how strange you think something is, chances are there is a pornographer out there trying to make a buck on it. Yep. Porn has ridden the information super highway all the way to the bank. Back in my days, porn was just available in magazines or on Cinemax after dark. But even then it was standard girl on guy or girl on girl or girl on guy on girl action. Nothing too crazy, but boy have things changed.

Today I was reading up on leprosy because I have this thing and it looks a little green...well that's not important. Anyway while reading my friendly Urban Dictionary I came across something called "LeperPorn". Yes....exactly. Pornography specifically for Lepers, which shows bits of their body falling off during sexual activity.

Now that I've swallowed the little bit of vomit that just came up in my mouth, I want to apologize for putting this image in your head but it's important we deal with this issue head on. Actually when I think of leaperporn, I see an actor that looks and sounds a lot like Sam Kinneson yelling at his female counterpart....but your image may vary. I have chosen to spare you from the actual footage but trust me I've done the research and now you know there is one more category of "kinky" that you may have to contend with the next time you dot com. 

How to Win Fans and Influcnce This Guy

I am a simple man. I don't need to be treated like a superstar (although rumors are that it doesn't hurt). I fly coach, I buy generic drugs, and I've tried to print my own money. However once in a while I get blown away by either (and usually) a negative experience or sometimes a positive experience with a company I'm doing business with.

The later happened this week when Mrs. Bloggerman and I tried to take the Kid to his first basketball game over at the University of Maryland. It was a high demand game featuring the 0-13 Delaware State Hornets at the end of December. Because there was no way in hell that I was going to pay full price ($30 each) for a game that would be no more then 50% full because students were on winter break. Enter my friends at ScoreBig.com.

ScoreBig is essentially the Priceline for sports and concert tickets. You find the event you want to go to, pick a "star" level for the tickets you want and "bid". If you're bid is accepted you've bought them and if not you can try again later. The better the seats the higher the stars and the deals are pretty good. We've used them in the past to buy tickets to both the Nationals and the Orioles and have been very satisfied with our seats.

Back in November, we decided to go and invited another friend to join us. I went online and found 3 star seats in Section 118 (corner of the floor) for $18 each. They accepted my bid and I also had a $20 promotional credit so the tickets worked out to about $11 each. Great deal that was almost 66% off the face value. I paid and the tickets arrived in the mail a few weeks later. I checked that they were the right section/date/etc and put them on the fridge. The morning of the game I realized that I wasn't sure about where to park so I grabbed the tickets and hit the interwebs. I won't go into how bad the University of Maryland's site is and how little actual information is provided. Let's just say that my tax dollars better be going to great professors because the web content team stinks.

After finally figuring out parking I saw a 3-D, interactive seating map for the Comcast Center so I decided to see where our actual seats were. YIKES! They were 3 rows from the back of the arena. That can't be right. These are supposed to be near the floor. (Truth is they were near the floor...26 rows away...in a 31 row stadium!) Next I went over to ScoreBig to see if they had similar seats for future UMD games. The next game they had was on New Year's Day and the seats were listed as 1-star. I called their customer support line at 9am but they are based in California and weren't open until 30 min before our game started. I called right at noon and got through to a representative right away. Alfonso listened, asked good questions and did some research. He confirmed that the seats we had tickets for were not in right star "rating" and that he couldn't do anything for us in terms of new seats because the game was going to begin. He told me to go in to the game and enjoy it and that he would follow up with his manager when he got back in (on Jan 2) to find out about at least a partial refund. I got an email from him saying the same thing and that was that. The game was great and the seats were ok but not great. Most importantly the Kid had a great time at his first game and I think I heard him yell, "DUNK" a few times...or he might have just been looking for his cheese-its.

Yesterday at lunch my phone rings and it's Alfonso again. He began by first apologizing again and then actually took the time to ask me if I enjoyed the game (good move!!). Then he said that his manager reviewed the situation and was issuing a full refund for the tickets and giving me an additional $10 credit to use toward future tickets. Wow! The refund and the money were great but what really blew me away was that he 1) followed up when he said he would, 2) actually took the time to ask me how the event was and remembered that I said that it was my Kid's first game and 3) that they extended us a full refund.

You now have a customer for life and I am officially declaring ScoreBig.com the "Official Ticket Broker for Nobody Likes A Jerk". That's quite an honor...trust me.

Fiscal Cliff Won't Prevent Birthdays

However walking off a real cliff will probably prove celebrating challenging.

We made through another Congressional-imposed cliff and just by the skin of our teeth. Oh the fun. One Congressman, Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, told CNN's Dana Bash that he and his colleagues won't be hemmed in by the votes of "sleep-deprived octogenarians" in the Senate. Yep, bipartisanship is alive and kicking!

But I don't want to dedicate today's space to the bi-partisan incompetence taking place just a few dozen miles from my desk. Nope today is the first post of the new year and I'm making a resolution (even though I said last year that I won't make any more resolutions...oh well) to provide more new content this year than I have in the past two. For you that's more of my semi-comedic ramblings and for me it's free therapy because unfortunately my medical insurance doesn't see me as medically certifiable so I can't get to see a shrink on their dime. No today's post is dedicated to two birthday's and unfortunately none have to do with octogenarians but one does have to do with flaky cliffs.

Today, the nice folks at Nestle foods remind us that it is the "90-ish" birthday of Bart Simpson's former favorite chocolatey treat, Butterfingers. Butterfinger designated 2013 as a benchmark for its first 90ish years, as the candy bar originally invented by Chicago’s Curtiss Candy Company was believed to have been promoted as early as 1923 (before it ultimately was sold to Nestlé in 1990). However, Butterfinger parent company Nestlé holds a trademark document from 1928, thus the 90ish reference around its anniversary, keeping in line with the brand’s irreverent sense of humor.  The folks over at NPR even did a full story on it today.

Now I am a connoisseur of finer chocolates everywhere and Butterfingers rank up there with some of the best. We all know it's not as great as a Toblerone or even the gold standard, REESE'S Peanut Butter Cup, but it is consistent and it's always good. Plus because it's flaky you are almost guaranteed a surprise flake or two in your lap or shirt pocket a few hours later so it's an added bonus. 

Almost as cool as the pseudo birthday of a candy bar is that my kid, Bloggerman Jr. turned 2 years old a few days ago. Do you realize what this means? Well, yes there is a discount now for day care. Ok, I guess you can look at it as he's another year closer to leaving the house. Fine, he's almost ready to get a job and start pulling his weight around here. But I'm talking about something even bigger then all that. As of his birthday, I no longer have to take out a pen and pad to figure out how old he is when people ask me. There is no more, "well he's almost 21 months now..." Nope. He's 2. Next year he'll be 3, and so on. I don't have to think, I don't have to figure, and most of all I don't have to get overly annoyed, vexed, or irked by slack jawed yokles asking me his exact age. Happy Birthday Kid!

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/01/01/4513933/butterfinger-celebrates-90ish.html#storylink=cpy

I Need To Post Something

It has been 6 months and none of my pre-unemployment predictions have come true. I haven't gotten a job yet (as if you had to ask if that was number 1), I haven't grown my beard out yet (although I've tried a few times), and I haven't kept up on posting to this absolute black hole of space on the interwebs.

I've been doing everything possible to get that first one checked off as it's kind of the reason I'm in this position in the first place. I might have to take a few months and move up to Williston, North Dakota where even WalMart employees are making big bucks. $17 an hour if you care to know. Of course you're living in an oil boom town in the northern most part of the shitiest state in the union. (Mississippi you're now number 2!)  but why dwell on the upside now. I've also tried to grow that beard out several times but keep getting called in to these pesky job interviews where evidently large, random patches of facial hair are frowned upon. Add to that Mrs. Bloggerman always seems to think that I look stupid and I'm constantly shaving.

So that only leaves posting material here. Of course that has slacked off too and the only reason I can come up with is that I don't have a job to complain about nor a beard to give others something to complain about. Thankfully for you my dear readers (all 3 of you) today, something wonderful dropped in my lap today. Lucky You.

The first is that my favorite high school football team, the New York Jets managed to blow another game. Monday Night Football early in the season or if your team is in contention late in the season is an exciting, must see moment. However when your team couldn't beat a team composed of 65 year old lepers it's not quite as exciting. But I'm a trooper and stuck it out for as long as I could. I made it into the third quarter until I couldn't take it any more and just closed my eyes. Fortunately it appears that Mark Sanchez did the same thing. Ok the season is over and I still "have to" root for two more games.

Fortunately for me, my other team "The California Bulls" (yes...those Bulls) are in the Superbowl. Well not the actual Superbowl but rather the fantasy Superbowl created by idiots who can barely run their own lives. I'll update you next Tuesday if I'm the raining champion of absolutely nothing.

The Flavors That Nobody Asked For

Hey Boss...lets get creative this year and come up with flavors that nobody has ever thought to put into flavored seltzer water!

Didn't the folks at Jone's soda try that some years back to disastrous results?

They just didn't know how to do it right. When we're done with this stuff it'll be so good that people will be calling it the Christmas Story 2 of the beverage industry!

Are you sure?

Absolutely Boss!

The moral of the story is never listen to your employees because they will do two things. The first is to actually make those flavors that nobody asked for. I present for your drinking (dis)pleasure the newest flavor additions to the Polar Seltzer family of seasonal beverages: Eggnog, Buttered Rum, and Candy Cane. Yes you read that correctly. Three of the most beloved seasonal flavors have been chemically engineered and added into carbonated water. The result?  Ehh...well I wouldn't kick it out of bed but I probably wouldn't have slept with a bottle of flavored seltzer in the first place. Actually they don't taste awful but they aren't to die for either. It's clearly a mistake by a company desperate to increase market share but it raises an important question. If there are scientists who can create a chemical to mimic eggnog, how come we can't cure cancer? The later seems a little easier to imagine. While I don't think the boardroom conversation at Polar's New England headquarters went quite like that stated above, there was still a conversation to be had and somebody in authority had to ok this devilish combination of flavors. Who was it and do they still have a job? The only redeeming thing that I can figure is that on their Facebook page Polar does post this recipe for a lighter version of eggnog:

Looking for a skinny 'Nog that isn't loaded with artificial ingredients? Make your own and make the holiday season sparkle: 1 part whole milk + 1 part rum + 2 parts Polar Seltzer Eggnog or Butter Rum Seltzer (+ optional garnish of raw sugar) = YUM!

Hold your vomit in folks, remember I said there was a second thing that rogue employee might also approve for manufacture. Think of all the movies ever made that focus on the Christmas season. Which is the only one you all love but would never want to see a remake or g-d forbid a sequel?

EXACTLY! A Christmas Story

Let that vomit flow because there is now an actual "official sequel" to Christmas Story. Yes Ralphie and his pals are now 8 years older and moving up in the world of toys. This year he's hoping for keys to a new car to be left under the tree. Follow the link and watch the trailer because it's perhaps the only way you'll understand why movie critics are saying "This is the remake that nobody asked for" and "This is a great gift for everybody you want out of your life.".

Yeah I know....now time to rip into my bottle of Mint Chocolate seltzer and watch Home Alone 22 (Macaulay Culkin is launched into space....hilarities ensue).

They Must Be Getting Slower

Because there is NO WAY that I'm getting that much faster.

Yes it's true I did set a new PR (or personal record for non runners out there) on Saturday at the AMPS 5k in Pensauken, NJ. I crossed the line in an even 21 minutes and 21 seconds which shattered my previous best time of 21 minutes 56 seconds turned in at the Gaithersburg New Year's Day 5k. That was my favorite 5k and the last before LBJ (Little Bloggerman Jr) decided to poke his head out the following year).

To give you an idea of how I'm not really built for speed, I ran all 3 miles in under 7 minutes which is the first time I've ever done that. Add to that my first mile was clocked at 6 minutes and 29 seconds which is easily the fastest mile I've turned in, well ever. So that had me pretty amped up (no pun intended).

But there was one more thing that topped all of these. It seems there were only two people to finish ahead of me. That's right...little (fat) old me came in 3rd place (2nd male finisher) in the entire race of 400 people.

Now I know what you're going to say, and no, I DID NOT CHEAT!  I did however have two things working in my favor. First was that I was among the first five people to cross the starting line and in a race that isn't chip timed, starting position means everything. Second, it didn't hurt that of the 400 or so participants, about 300 of them were walkers.

But most importantly was that the race raised valuable funds and awareness of Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome (AMPS) which one of my cousins suffers from. It's a very painful disease that sucks all the energy out of you. In fact she was having another tough bout a few days before we showed up but luckly started feeling better the  day before the race. She, along with her siblings and some friends walked/ran the entire distance along with a bunch of other alumni from thier recovery program. Her Mom and Dad along with Mrs. Bloggerman and LBJ walked the course too and turned in a rather impressive time of under an hour!

I'm really proud of everybody who participated but particularly those who have battled the disease and continue to fight through the pain to live normal lives! Finally, my cousin won for "Best Fundraiser" for the event. She raised over $11,000 for the treatment program!