There are how many beers in a rack?

I finally have definitive proof that the internet is NOT bringing us together as a nation or making us a more homogenized society. You would think that it would – because we are all sharing the same platforms, looking at the same stuff (well, some of the same stuff) and we are, we’re told, connected to a degree never before possible without two tin cans and a bit of string.

Still, there is some way to go before we are all conversing using only thought waves and foregoing speech altogether. I know this because of beer. You see, the last time I went to a gathering I asked the host if I could bring anything – you know, because it’s polite and the Shadow says I should do things like that. Be polite, that is.

As an aside… Ladies, when part of a couple's gathering, there isn’t a man alive who asks “what can I bring?” without hoping that the answer will simply be, “Nothing. We’re good.”

When tasked to do this, I generally have to take out a notepad so I can make sure I understand exactly what type of cold and hot salads are already being brought by others and what food allergies the neighbor’s little punk-ass kid has. I also have to make an extra note to be sure not bring food that might contain anything resembling hot wings.

Oddly, however, in a group made up of only guys, we have no problem asking that question because when we do, we know the answer will be: “bring whatever you want to eat and drink.” And because everyone there is a guy on a kitchen pass, you’re going to like everything on the buffet line. You just know it.

Anyway, I ask the question and I’m told, “Yeah, bring a rack of beer.”

Fine. Easy enough. And I come back with a 12-pack of beer.

Only, here, a 12-pack isn’t a rack. Here, a rack is a case. So not only am I looking dim, I’m also looking cheap despite buying good beer. Where I grew up, a rack was a 12 pack. I’ve read now that it can be as much as a 30-pack of cans. Who knew?

And that got me to thinking – as beer often does – that despite all our technological advances, the fact of the matter is, even in America, we still can’t agree on how many beers are in a rack – much less, decide on far more important issues like how come I can listen to Bryan Adams music now when it used to give me intestinal cramps in my late teens?

And I think as a nation we’re getting ahead of ourselves in trying to solve our debt crisis, or fix the economy, or get people back to work. We should be working to find some common ground on small issues so we can more effectively deal with the big stuff.

Being the fine, upstanding American that I am, I would like to propose a list of items that we should try to tackle first, to give ourselves a much needed boost of confidence and some momentum before taming a multi trillion dollar debt.

1. The rack thing. Obviously. Let’s just start there. We’ll call it a case for domestic beer and a 12-pack for anything that doesn’t suck.

2. Which ear can a guy wear an earring in? It’s different wherever you go. …or have we decided it doesn’t matter and just said to hell with that one? Nobody tells me these things.

3. We need an easily understood spicy index for food. I think we should use geographic regions of the country. New England is for food with the spicy-ness of say, chocolate pudding, while Texas is for food that causes brush fires.

4. We need to agree that marshmallow fluff belongs with the peanut butter at the grocery store and not with the baking products. What the hell is up with that anyway?

5. Beer that is in bottles that are not twist-offs should be made to include an opener on the pack – kind of like the built in sharpener on big boxes of crayons.

6. We need to decide if it’s entirely necessary to have a shampoo called “Black Orchid Velvet Hibiscus” (An actual product – I saw it at Target)

7. We need to come up with a standard computer operating system that doesn’t suck and at the same time doesn’t turn you into an arrogant little prick with a misguided superiority complex.

8. Every coffee house barista should understand the words, “black coffee” and not make you learn 18 words of a foreign language to size it.

9. It’s time that women just start calling a size 38 pant a size 38 and stop trying to kid yourselves into thinking that a low number doesn’t make you fat. If we keep on at this rate my daughter will be ordering her prom dress in a size represented by a fraction.

10. Is it less filling or does it taste great. I think we’ve had enough time to figure it out and I’m just as sure it isn’t both. Let’s move on.

I invite you to add your own thoughts to this list and then we’ll get together and start reaching some consensus. Be sure to let me know if there’s anything I can bring.

Siri is here - but my version would be better

I’ve been thinking for a while (about 30 seconds truth be told) about getting a new iPhone 4S – with Siri. If you haven’t heard about it, Siri stands, I think, for Small i, Really Irritating. Or it probably does. I don’t know because I don’t have one, but apparently it’s amazing because you can now ask your telephone questions and it will answer you. This is long overdue and there are obviously millions of people in America who could really use one.

I’d be willing to bet though, that Siri gives useful answers instead of the answers people really need to hear. I’m sure, for instance, that if the dumb-ass in the corn maze in Massachusetts had one and said, “I’m lost in a maze and need assistance,” Siri would have calmly answered, “dial 9-1-1 for assistance.”

What it should have said – and what it would have said in my world was, “I see you’re in the middle of a corn maze. Are you freaking kidding me? You can’t find your way out? You can move corn stalks you tool – just pick a direction. And please drop me while you’re at it.”

In fact, I’d program Siri to talk when you didn’t ask it questions. For instance, if Siri realized you were traveling at 65mph and using the device, she’d suddenly just scream, “PULL THE FUCK OVER YOU MORON!” And then, when you did pull over, Siri would talk to your car and shut it down in such a way that it would take you a tow truck, three weeks and a thousand dollars to start it again.

Because she’s a “female,” Siri would also screw with people whom she didn’t like and she’d be bitchy about it. Let’s say, for instance, you didn’t talk to Siri enough. When you get home from work, Siri would wait until dinner and then say very loudly, “Bob, that woman who usually only calls you at work and whose number you keep erasing from my memory is trying to call you again…” Fortunately, the scientists at Apple have that problem fairly under control and it usually only happens once a month.

I hope they’ve built a sense of humor into it though. Because you know there are some people who are really far down the genetic food chain who will ask it questions like this:

Siri, do these pants make my ass look big? “That’s your ass? I thought you left me on the sofa?”

Siri, what do I want to eat tonight? “Yak liver pate and puffer fish. Yeah, definitely get the puffer fish – there’s a guy who does a mean back-alley puffer fish across town – go there.”

Again, I don’t know what Siri is like, but I know what mine would be like and I think most people would agree, mine would be a lot more fun. Hell, people would keep asking it questions like a Magic 8-Ball just to see what it would come up with. I think I’d also build a program just for stoners so that Siri would just say random stuff and constantly mention ding dongs… “pretty lights make cat piano wallaby if we go get some ding dongs…”

There is so much potential here but I’m sure it will be wasted even though I'm pretty sure that within a year or so savvy collegians will make up Siri-based drinking games.

I'm sadly just as sure that network news will lose what trifling little credibility they have left by asking Siri’s take on the news.

“They found Mohmmar Ghadaffi today, Siri, what do you think about that?”

“Well, Bob, I think he probably should have hidden in a corn maze in Massachusetts.”

You Can Help Decide How Far I Ride

This week the folks who put on the Soldier Ride San Antonio - the fund-raising bicycle event to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project - put out the course route and distances for the Nov. 12 ride. The good news is they have a 25-mile route which I can do. The bad news is 25 miles is the shortest route.

There is also a 55 mile route, which my ego says I should try, but my brain tells me would be fool-hardy at the very least.

So, what to do...?

In the finest tradition of the political season which is all to early upon us, I've decided I'm going to let other people make up my mind for me. For you see, as this is a fund-raising venture, there are funds to be raised. Right now I've got a little over $400 but my stated goal has always been $1,000.

So, here's my plan. If I can achieve $1,000 in donations, I'll give the 55 mile distance a shot. For many cyclists this is no big deal. However, I'm not many cyclists. In fact I've never ridden more than 25 at any one time - ever. Hell, I just got the bike a couple months ago. So to try to pedal 55 miles will make excellent use of my body's ability to cripple itself I'm sure.

And in case you're curious, the 55 mile route isn't just a 25 mile route twice - it's one of those routes that once you're on it - you're on it. So short of falling off the bike and being a total wuss, it's pretty much all in after the 9-mile point.

If you are at all inclined, please click the link below which will take you to my Soldier Ride donation page and, if you can, please throw a few bucks to veterans who have quite literally often given a piece of themselves for America.

If you need me to do more than cycle 55 miles to earn your donation, let me hear what you've got in mind and I'll consider it. I only ask you make it do-able and if at all possible, amusing.

As for now, I promise this will be my last mention of the ride until after it's happened and the last time I ask you to consider donating. I'm sure this space will contain some account of the day by Nov. 13.

I'd like to thank some folks (again) for their help in getting me 40% of the way to my goal...so far:

- Ed Boucher
- Steve Bushey
- Val and Tim Trefts
- Scott Wakefield
- David Smith
- Lynne and Steve Cory
- Jon and Marie VanGuilder

Click here to donate:

I see the people, but I'm not sure it's a protest

While visiting a base where I was stationed in the 2002-2003 timeframe, Retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks said (and I’m sure he’s said it at other times too) – that we should, if we see a protestor, go and shake his hand…
…and then wink at his girlfriend, because she knows she’s dating a pussy.

I think he’s right. And I know he’s wrong.

We should shake the hand of protestors and we should thank them for their service to our country. In fact, I think if you ask most people in the military, they’ll agree that should the day ever come where people cannot peaceably protest in the United States, well, we’ve pretty much fucked up.

The part he’s wrong about then, of course, is the part about protestor’s being pussies. If we look back there have been some remarkable protests – from Rosa Parks' bus to college campuses, to Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria.

Probably the most notable protest photo I can ever remember seeing is from China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 – that lone individual in front of a column of tanks.

Have you ever stood in front of a modern main battle tank? I have. It’s freaking awesome from only a couple meters away and I don’t think the photo really does justice to what that particular protestor saw. His entire field of vision was armor-plated. And the main gun on a tank – well, you can easily fit your arm down one.

And here’s the difference – the tank I stood in front of was British. While certainly it was on the ‘enemy’ side of the large scale exercise we were engaged in, I’m as sure as I’ve been about anything that it had no ammunition and that the crew inside it, when they turned the barrel of that monster toward me, had no intention other than making me wish I had a new set of drawers.

Let’s look at the Arab Spring protests – all those people were out there raising their voices when there was every chance – in fact history pointed in that direction – that they might be shot. Or at the very least jailed. Often it amounts to much the same thing.

And looking at these instances of people who are entirely brave and deserving of our respect, it’s almost embarrassing for me watching people take part in "Occupy Wherever" around the U.S. I almost have a hard time justifying the word ‘protestor’ when describing them. I think complainers or agitators or people-who-are-fed-up-but-not-sure-what-to-do-about-it, would be more appropriate.

People have the right to protest – but having a point would be in order. As it is, where people in other parts of the world run the very real risk of being shot, Occupy Wherever protestors mainly run the risk of their cell phone batteries dying.

It’s not nearly as inspiring. Not by a long shot. In fact, after a week, it looks more like people are doing it just to have something to write on their FaceBook pages. Maybe they’re hoping for a Kent State style government over-reaction to galvanize them (although it’s hard to imagine why they would and I certainly don't believe that to be the case). Maybe they’re hoping something will come up that they can grab onto with some conviction.

There’s a lot of talk about protestors being angry about corporate greed. If this is the case the writers at Saturday Night Live must be having a field day. The protest is a “social media-driven” protest according to many news sites. Nothing spells "stop corporate greed" like an almost implicit sponsorship by the likes of Verizon, AT&T, i-Phone. And it’s doubly laughable that so many of these people mourned the loss of Steve Jobs last week – while simultaneously protesting the 1% who are wealthy beyond a single person’s ability to spend.

Steve Jobs was no pauper. In 1986 he gave George Lucas $5 million dollars when he bought Pixar. He threw in another $5mil of his own to get it working. And 20 years later when he sold the company to Disney, it was for the tidy sum of $7.8 BILLION dollars. (Insert your own Dr. Evil impression here.) He was the single largest individual shareholder of Disney stock - by a lot.

Rich people are rich generally because they busted their asses and took chances most people wouldn’t take to get that way. Some are rich because daddy or mommy was rich. Well, that happens and there’s no use crying over it. If someone were to hand one of these folks (or me!) a briefcase with a million bucks, I think they'd probably take it and not look to pay any more taxes on it than they could reasonably help.

But, in the end, what I think these protestors are really looking for, is leadership.

They aren’t getting it from their elected representatives. And after a week, not one person has stepped up within the heaving mass of protestors to even try to give it a direction or some coherence - at least no one who has succeeded enough so that we've heard about it.

The reason, I think, is that most of thoe folks know deep down, that it’s not really that bad in America. The government isn’t rolling tanks up on Wall Street. They don’t have to worry about loony-tune dictators sending out the secret police to whack people who get out of line. They live in a country where they can protest peaceably if they want to – and it’s great they’re exercising that right.

But, and here’s a thought, why don’t they all exercise their right to vote. That’s where messages are sent. And I’ll even contribute something they can write on signs:

NEXT TIME – VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE.

It doesn’t matter who you vote for, or which party they belong to – just vote out the people who are in. We have the capacity to enforce our own term limits if we would all stop being such lemmings.

At the very least, the iPhone and Starbucks crowd currently gathered in U.S. cities should "Occupy A Point”. They should have one. A solid one.

What makes a solid point? I’d say the bar is set pretty high. If you want to be a real protestor, your point better be something strong enough where you’d be willing to stand in front of a loaded tank with a crew of unknown intention.

Then, I’d defy anyone to call you a pussy.

I'm Prepping for the Championships in Austria 2015

I’m no renaissance man and I’ve never tried to be. Hell, I had to look up how to spell renaissance so I’m not one to look to for advice on becoming a better person. But still, I realize, and I may have mentioned this before, that there comes a time in a man’s life where he realizes he’ll never play guitar in a band. (Unless of course, he actually does play guitar in a band).
So, knowing you’ll never have a job where random women throw their knickers at you, you have to readjust your mid-life bar. That is, you have to latch onto something that you think you may have a reasonable chance of achieving before you grow so old as to forget it all.

You want to be able to do something; to leave your mark; to have something to chat about while sipping your food and waiting for the spades tournament. At the very least, you want to do something that will annoy people now – while you can still enjoy being disruptive.

I believe I have found such a thing.

Of course, I can’t actually start doing it yet because of military rules which prohibit such things, but next year I think I may give it a shot. It will probably take a year or two before I can decide if it’s something I really want to commit myself too, but it meets all the pre-requisites I’ve set out for myself…

1. It has to be something obscenely easy and paradoxically difficult to achieve in a pure sense.

2. It has to be something that takes a long time – like baseball.

3. It needs to have no underlying value or point – again, like baseball.

4. It needs to be one of those things that my children, as they start to reach puberty, will walk away from in disgust if any of their friends takes even the slightest interest in.

5. It needs to be something I’m physically capable of doing.

6. It needs to be something I can do without sweating severely, or without injuring a major moving body part.

7. It would be best if I could do it sleeping.


I’ve decided, in short, to grow a beard.

Not just any little scrub beard or one of those silly beat-poet goatees that the coffee slurping crowd seem to favor, but a proper, full-blown, prize-winning beard.

It meets all the criteria listed above and there is a competitive element to it – and if you think I’m crazy, obviously you’ve been spending too much time using the internet to look at your facebook profile, because there's an entire culture in America dedicated to beards.

In fact, there is a World Beard and Moustache Championships. Yes, “world”. We’re not talking county fair stuff; we’re talking, carry in the red, white and blue, play the national anthem and line up the endorsement deals world championships.

Now, the timing on this is really excellent, because the 2011 championships are being held in Lancaster Pennsylvania this week – on Oct. 8. And the governing body of this group has already set up the 2015 championships to be held in Austria. The real Austria, in Europe, not some little town in Idaho or something.

This year’s event will be judged by Miss Pennsylvania; a former member of the Superbowl Champion (2009 version) Steelers – Justin Hartwig, who himself sports a rather mundane and conventional set of whiskers - and an as yet unnamed player from the Philadelphia Eagles. There are real beard-guy judges as well, and you need to check out there website because I cannot adequately describe judge Willi Chevalier. If you click on only one random link that you read this week, click on that or the Beard Team USA homepage.
This is not follicle fundamentals, but big time hirsute haberdashery we’re talking about. The guys who compete in this make Grizzly Adams look like Mr. Clean. And best of all, for a clean-shave guy like me, it really only takes time, imagination, two opposing chromosomes and the little bit of the genetic goodness that allows you to grow facial hair.
Time I’ll have when I leave big blue; chromosomes I can prove by presenting you with my offspring; and genetics…well, we’ll have to wait and see, but the three day stubble I currently sport provides a tantalizing glimpse at dreams that could be.

And as I get ready to start training next year, I’m going to hold off on those guitar lessons. No sense learning an instrument when I’d only just get my beard caught in the strings.