Handbasket Travel Ventures

Being unemployed is grueling work, so I'm headed to the beach next week to relax.  Which means that my pitiful posting schedule will be even worse than usual in the coming days.  Honestly, if you still have serious expectations for this space, it's time to revise them downwards.  In the meantime, one of my college friends just launched his own blog for reasons that are detailed in his first post.  Check it out here.  Among other things, he claims, "I promise to be intelligent and interesting a majority of the time."

That's the kind of thing I would never promise my readers.

Like most dogs, my parents' pooch, Casey, is a perfectly fine companion.  She's sweet, she's entertaining, and her devotion to the other members of her pack is unwavering.  That's not to say, however, that she's without her blemishes.

She has a strange and unfortunate fixation on things that, in the parlance of our times, smell like shit.  Like, for instance, shit.  She finds that a hearty roll in a steaming pile of horse or deer poop is intoxicating.  So much so, in fact, that she is completely oblivious to the horrified screams of her owners as they strongly advise her against smearing another animal's excrement all over herself.  Sadly, this is not her most foul habit.  Casey's most foul habit -- in my estimation, anyway -- would be her desire to roll in the dead carcasses of woodland creatures who have lost battles with beast, infection, or good old Father Time.  I haven't asked Casey, but I don't think that the cause of death is of much importance.  What matters is getting as much rotting flesh on her coat as possible.

And, so it was on Sunday morning in the bucolic calm of a public park that I didn't spot the lawnmower-ed groundhog soon enough.  By the time I arrived on the scene, Casey had covered some reasonable portion of her left and right flanks with her fallen comrade, and as no amount of verbal dissuasion was getting the job done, I had to jump into the fray and pull her off the dead fella.  (I'm tempted to make a joke about the expression the groundhog was wearing at the time of his passing, but honestly, I don't think that my face would be a picture of distinguished calm if someone dropped an inverted running helicopter on me either.)

After fouling the peace of an early Sunday morning with a series of expletives and pulling Casey a safe distance away from the decaying carcass, I wailed, "Why?  Why do you do that?"

Still panting from the ecstasy of the moment, she looked at the ground and at a nearby bird for a little bit before working up the courage to make eye contact with me.  And her expression said, "I know.... I know.... but that one had maggots on it!  Maggots!!!"

I have to admit, I was intrigued by the link (yes, Dronken means what you suspect it does) to a Belarusian soccer (that's pronounced FOOT-BALL, people) referee who had approximately 5,291 drinks at halftime during a match (is that what they call these f*$#in things?  I'm American, dammit, unless a particular event is silently sponsored by a bunch of steroids that haven't been named yet, it just ain't football), and so I couldn't help but watch it.

What I did not anticipate was seeing this video in YouTube's "Related Videos" section.  If you're a dude, you probably don't want to view this at your place of employment.  If you're a woman, you probably don't want to view this unless you're a lesbian and you wish for the four-eyed geeks who administer your corporate spy software to know that you're a lesbian.  After very careful review of the cinematography, I've concluded the following:

1. Europeans are more progressive than Americans are.
2. WTF?

And, yes, if you've arrived at the supposition that I still haven't thought of anything substantive to write about, you can give yourself a point.  Additionally, I offer the following:

1. The lyrics are in English.  Not that it means anything (unless you consider, "Techno sucks.  Even the techno that Europeans like" to be something).
2. Slow clap to the soft-pornographers filmmakers who elected to employ the white vs. dark, good vs. evil theme.  As always in crappy fiction, good prevails.
3. They couldn't have done another take around the one minute mark in which the ref flipped the coin vertically?  Seriously, does film cost as much as gas in Europe?
4. Models -- anywhere -- will do anything to collect a paycheck.
   

I still don't have anything to write about.  Feel free to submit your suggestions in the comments section.  And, no, I don't care if you've lost respect for me.  Additionally, no, I don't care if you never had any respect for me.

I recently overheard conversational snippets between two women in which both were complaining about men admiring their cleavage.  As it happens, both women were rather attractive, had chests that might be characterized as ample, and were wearing low-cut blouses that displayed a not-insignificant portion of their orb-like lady parts.  If I were less generous, I might be tempted to say something like “each lady’s cleavage was visible from space” or “Holy boobs, Batman!”  But I’m a generous and mature man, so I won’t say either of those things.  I will, however, offer my thoughts on cleavage viewing -- and cleavage display -- as a public service.

Before I offend everyone I haven’t already offended (you know who you are), let me state the following:  it is absolutely bad form for a man to stare at a lady’s chest for a duration of time exceeding 0.34 seconds.  Up to that time, he is merely fulfilling his evolutionary requirement to assess the physical attractiveness of any woman who still possesses a pulse.  Beyond 0.34 seconds, he is running the risk of earning a nickname like Captain Creepy.  I don’t care how awe-inspiring the cleavage happens to be.  There are exceptions, of course, but unless you’re at an establishment whose name begins with Cheetah, Filly, or Vixxxen and ends with Lounge, Corral, or Heaven, I think the preceding advice can serve as a reasonable rule of thumb.

Having said all of those things, I would like to offer the following thoughts to the aforementioned women who were lamenting the prying eyes of the not-so-fair sex.  In the wonderful and varied arsenal of love, cleavage is a napalm strike capable of voiding an entire bar’s worth of red-blooded male brains of any higher thoughts.  Cleavage, of course, cannot be aimed, and herein lies the problem.  While the lady displaying her wares often hopes to attract a particular member of the opposite sex or at least a particular subset of the opposite sex (i.e. the physically attractive ones), she is unwittingly casting a massive net that will snare the glances and stares of anything attached to a penis.  There will be tires, toilet seats and the occasional turtle accompanying the salmon when she reels the net back in.  Peace must be made with this truth.

Discuss.

• Recently I watched an interview with a very, very large Englishman who was competing in the World's Strongest Man competition, and while we generally think of these gentlemen as musclebound behemoths who only possess three neurons in their brains and are only capable of using two of them at a time, this dude actually seemed quite articulate.  Which brings me to this question:  if we asked an Englishman to read a transcript of some of Mike Tyson's comments, would he still sound intelligent?
• There was actually a dude named Marmaduke Hussey.  I'm flabbergasted.
• At the driving range (on a Thursday afternoon at 2 PM... being unemployed has its perks), I was hitting near a pack of 10-year-old boys who were nearing the end of their respective buckets.  One particularly vocal runt began to worry that he had fewer golf balls remaining than his colleagues, so he counted how many little white orbs remained for each of his friends.  Upon completing the audit, he loudly wailed, "Everybody has more balls than I do!"  Know the feeling.
• It's almost impossible to do push-ups or sit-ups while occupying the same room as a bored black lab.
• There's a new advertising campaign for either an insurance or financial services company in which an adult at some pivotal moment in his or her life is visited by a more elderly version of him- or herself.  (I've been trying to find the commercials online, but to no avail.)  So, for instance, a new father is admiring his child at the hospital when an older version of himself saunters up and starts talking to him.  I swear to you, the first time I saw one of these commercials, I thought, "I would definitely get in a fistfight with an older version of myself."  And, I'm a pacifist, for Christ's sake.
• Okay, so here's why I'd end up trading haymakers with an older version of myself.  First, the Elder would make a jackass statement to the Younger about some mistake we made seven years ago, and then the Younger would ask the Elder when he last got any action.  (Because that's the thing about arguing with an older version of yourself... you'd know where to put the dagger.)  Eventually, someone would call the other one a d-bag and then we'd drop the gloves.  If I had to choose, I'd probably put my money on the Elder in that fight, as he's likely to have more latent anger than the Younger.
• The previous two items might be construed in some circles as a cry for help, but I happen to think otherwise.

You probably don't know who Marko Jaric is, but he's recently become a pop-culturally relevant man, for a singular reason I'll tackle in a moment.  He's a point guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves and this past season, he averaged 8 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 steal in 29 minutes per game.  If you don't follow basketball, here's the simple summary of the preceding statistics:  Marko's pretty mediocre.  If the NBA were suddenly transformed into a large pick-up league, Marko would be one of the stiffs not chosen until the latter portion of the selection process.  Personally, I picture him picking his nose, looking at his shoes, and trying to start a conversation with Darko Milicic about how getting selected last is a real kick in the misters.

So why discuss the man at all?

Marko was recently engaged to Adriana Lima, who is best known as a Victoria's Secret model and all-around impossibly hot chick.  If you don't know who Ms. Lima is, feel free to conduct some grueling Google Images research.  (But, if you're a straight male or a lesbian, please do so after reading the rest of this post... I don't trust you to ever come back from the visual candy store).  Very simply, Adriana is aesthetically exquisite.  Marko?  Not so much.  As a result, the pop culture group-think monster (basically a newer, dumber Greek chorus) has added the Marko-Adriana union to the list of other well-known beauty and the beast couples:  Lyle Lovett & Julia Roberts and Marc Anthony & Jennifer Lopez.

As you might expect, dudes the world over gnashed their teeth and peppered the internets with nasty comments when the engagement was announced.  The typical sentiment went something along the lines of:  "The world is so unfair.  Here's this plain-looking Jim-Bob-Joe Everyman, and he's managed to hook a supermodel.  He doesn't deserve her.  I average 7 points and 3 boards a game in my rec league.  Where's my supermodel?  Hell, I'd even settle for one of those Home Shopping Network broads."

Where to begin?  First, there's some faulty thinking in supposing that Marko somehow represents the everyman.  While I've been happily pitching him under the bus so far, it's worth mentioning that he's a professional athlete whose salary for the past season was roughly $6,000,000 and whose total earnings from 2006 to 2009 will exceed $25M.  You're not going to believe this, but making that kind of money and playing a professional sport on national television opens some doors probably not available to you or me.  The kind of doors behind which one might rub elbows with models and starlets.  (I'm gonna level with you right now.  You weren't ever going to sit next to Adriana on a Southwest flight from Lubbock to Boise, and you weren't going to bump into her at your town's annual corn festival either.)  Plus, it's my firm belief that women still carry some evolutionary baggage from the good old days when one had to worry about a mountain lion sneaking into the cave and asking "Are you Sarah Connor?" before dispatching souls to the great beyond.  Which is to say that the fairer sex is still drawn to men who could kill a mountain lion using nothing but strength, guile, and maybe a big stick.  (I have no scientific support for this statement, but my promise to you is that I will never research any claim that I make in this blog.)  Marko's about 6' 7" and weighs 225 lbs, so he passes the "kill big kitty with stick" test.  Big dude.  Makes a lot of bank.  Professional athlete.  National television exposure.  Other than that, he's just like you and me.

Perhaps more importantly, rather than being upset about this union, shouldn't your average-looking guy be stoked about this engagement?  How wonderful that we live in a world where Marko Jaric can trick Adriana Lima into marrying him, Marc Anthony can bag J-Lo, and Lyle Lovett can live the dream (at least for a little while) with Julia Roberts.  Ultimately, this story isn't about a lost opportunity, because you never had a chance with Adriana or anyone of her ilk anyway.  This is a tale about a woman's unique ability to find romance with a man who's 923 times less attractive than she is. Be like Mike?  No, thanks.  I think I'd rather be like Marko.

I have too much free time on my hands.  I knew this already, but it's really been driven home this morning, since I've been checking the Mozilla homepage, oh, once every 15 minutes to see if Firefox 3 has been posted.  That's right.  I'm apparently dying to try out the new browser.  Now, before you start laughing (or, if you've already begun, please try to wipe the tears of mirth from your eyes), just know that one of the features of the new browser has been nicknamed The Awesome Bar.  Who's laughing now?

I realize that most people don't zealously debate the merits of different web browsers, but if you're stuck in the Internet Explorer crowd, you should at least give Firefox a try, particularly if you own or work on an older machine.  Firefox tends to be zippier and more memory efficient than IE7, and early reviews of Firefox 3 (yes, I actually read reviews of web browsers) suggest that the third installment is a large improvement over Firefox 2.  Also, while I'm not a security expert, there seems to be consensus that Firefox fares better on this front than Internet Explorer.  How much of this is derived from better coding, and how much is attributable to security through obscurity isn't clear to me, but I'll listen to the experts on this one.

If you want to give Firefox a shot, you can download it at the Mozilla homepage.  But, I recommend holding off until version 3 is posted sometime today.  Also, as an interesting socio-political aside, Mozilla is trying to set a download record today, and to drum up buzz, they created a download pledge page here.  The interactive map presents an interesting snapshot of what parts of the world have more pressing concerns than downloading a web browser on the first day it's available.  In particular, check out the disparity between North and South Korea, the relatively microscopic numbers for China and India, and the total dearth of pledges from Africa.

In this final installment of wedding week at Handbasket Travel Ventures, I hope to raise awareness about an issue that afflicts 6 out of every 5 straight white boys: an inability to dance.  While this disorder is an impediment at a variety of functions, it tends to be most visible at weddings.

We've all seen it.  People who can't dance, who in spite of the fact that they can't dance, dance.  And, that's okay.  Not everybody can dance, and we shouldn't think less of them because they can't.  I advocate this position because I can't dance.  I mean, I really can't dance.  And, since I know I can't dance, I don't dance.  The only difference between the dancers who can't dance and me is that I know my limitations.

It's part of the constellation of traits that define the straight white boy blues.  We can't dance.  We can't sing.  We have no rhythm.  And, for the most part, we know these things.  Which is why we spend our time at proms, dances, and weddings clinging to walls or chairs the way a toddler lovingly strangles the shit out of her favorite stuffed animal.  Walls and chairs are safe.  Open spaces are hazards.  Open spaces are woman-wooing graveyards where our arms and legs can and will move as if being directed by the convulsions of a puppeteer suffering a massive stroke.

I've heard the counter-arguments.  Nobody cares that you can't dance.  Nobody's watching.  Everybody's already forgiven you for accidently blowing out the bride's ACL at the last wedding.  And, I'd believe all of these things if I didn't know they were untrue.  Because people are watching, and they are noticing that you can't dance.  Want to know how I know?  All the other straight, rhythm-deficient white boys and I sit on our chairs and hold up our walls at our proms and our friend's weddings and we take notice of those who can't dance.   I have to imagine it's always been this way.  Many thousands of years ago, poor uncoordinated saps pressed up against cave walls and watched as their less rhythm-deficient friends gyrated for a bit before clubbing some woman over the head and dragging her back to their cave.  (This was before chivalry died, of course).

So, let this be an open letter to all those who cannot fathom why my fellow straight white boys and I do not dance at clubs, bars, weddings, or parties.  We don't get off on being withholding.  We don't take pleasure in having others beg us to dance.  We don't enjoy sitting feebly while polished wooden floors become populated by yet more ghosts of women un-wooed and opportunities missed. Know that we have our reasons for not dancing.  We don't want everyone who sees us dance to require trauma counseling.  We don't want someone to accidentally dial 911 because they've mistaken our dancing for a brain aneurysm.  But mostly, we do not dance because we cannot dance.  And, if the straight white boy blues are about anything, they're about knowing one's limitations.

If I had readers, they'd no doubt seek my advice on a wide range of topics.  And, since this is wedding week at HTV (no, I don't care if I'm the only person who thinks this is funny), these readers might ask me hard-hitting wedding-related questions like the following:

I'm at a reception with an open bar.  How much can I drink?

An open bar is a green light.  It says that the bride's parents or whoever paid for the wedding hate both your liver and your brain.  And, wouldn't you know it?  You hate your liver and your brain, too.  Have another drink.

The hot bridesmaid just strolled onto the dance floor for the bouquet toss.  Is she fair game to hit on?  I know I can hook up with her.... Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know it!

Settle down, Beavis.  When the flower chuck rolls around, any wedding DJ worth his weight in ABBA CDs will try to load up the dance floor as much as possible, because no woman wants to be seen as the poster child for "3 billion men can't be wrong."  So, while the DJ will first request the presence of all single women, he will often then clarify that he means any woman who is unmarried.  As it happens, being unmarried covers a lot of scenarios.  That tall bridesmaid with the long, dark wavy hair and the disarming smile might be dating a guy, dating ten guys, dating 3 guys and 2 girls... don't assume that her mere presence for the bouquet toss implies that she's available.

Conventional male wisdom suggests that bridesmaids are easy marks because their sister or friend is getting married, they're feeling lonely and neglected, and they're more likely to act out by hooking up with some loser like me.  But, I've never managed to hook up with a bridesmaid.  What gives?

Conventional male wisdom is an oxymoron.  That's your first problem.  Your second problem is that you're living in the post-Wedding Crashers world, in which most women have mistakenly supposed that most men are Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn bajingo-monsters, and are therefore guarding against messing around with a walking stereotype.

But, I couldn't hook up with bridesmaids before the release of Wedding Crashers, either.  WTF?

Hmmm.  Sounds like you either need to be better looking or making more money.

Can I try to pick up one of the groom's or bride's exes?

In general, it's not considered very sporting to jump one of your friend's exes, regardless of whether you're at a wedding or not.  I know of only one real-life exception to this rule, but that had more to do with the groom's mostly-joking hope that his sleazy man-whore friend would give an ex-girlfriend a case of the clap than anything else.  Weddings can be so romantic.

I realize that I'm departing from the stated theme week with this post, but due to the time-sensitive nature of the topic, I really had no choice.  Although we're only a little more than one-third of the way through the MLB season, I'd like to claim that the Pirates 7-6 loss to the Nationals last night represents the signature loss for the season.  Here's my case:

The lowly Nationals (and that's coming from a Pirates fan) came into last night's game sporting the lowest batting average in the bigs and having hit the fewest home runs of any club.  They'd have the worst winning percentage on the Senior Circuit were it not for the existence of your defending National League champion Rockies (whose run to the World Series last fall grows in apparent flukiness every day).  Naturally (following last night's losing spectacular), the Pirates are 1-4 against the Nationals this year.

Supposedly, the game was infused with significance (at least by Pirates' fans' standards) because a win would pull the Pirates within 1 game of .500.  Although you don't get any trophies for sporting a .500 record, you'd never guess it by listening to the Pirates players or beat reporters, whose obsession with the apparently magic number rivals Hurley's fixation with 4 8 15 16 23 42.  It's everywhere, dude.

While I remain dubious about the significance of .500 (especially in June), here are some numbers that do matter:  3-0, 4-1, 6-5.  These are the leads that the Pirates held after the first, sixth, and eighth innings, respectively.  And, how, pray tell, did the Pirates manage to blow these leads?  Mainly through the long ball.  Ronnie Belliard homered for the Nats in the 5th, then Dmitri Young, Jesus Flores, and Ronnie Belliard (again) hit solo shots in the seventh inning to tie the game at 4 runs apiece.  Offensive juggernaut Belliard added an RBI single in the eighth to give the Nationals a one-run advantage, 5-4.

Which brings us to the point in the game where most past Pirates clubs would have rolled over and died.  This year's edition has a little fight in it, however.  Sure, it's not enough to actually win games, but I'm sure the local TV advertisers who routinely buy 30-second spots in the late innings are pleased with the development.  In the home half of the eighth, Nady singled in a run before Doug Mientkiewicz hit a sacrifice fly to deep right to put the Bucs back on top, 6-5.  (While we're here, I can't help but think that Mientkiewicz and Jason Michaels are collecting big league checks with the Pirates merely because they hate losing so much.  Their baseball skills aren't exactly overwhelming, but apparently the front office felt it was worthwhile to have these guys on board to counteract most of the roster's apparent indifference to losing.  I suspect we won't have to wait much longer before a youtube video surfaces in which Jason Michaels is sitting peacefully at his locker before muttering, "You won't like me when I lose...", at which point he turns into a large green individual and shoves Adam LaRoche up Zach Duke's butt.  Of course, if you look closely at the same video, you'll probably see Jose Bautista in the background reminding a recent AAA call-up that he'll collect the same paycheck regardless of whether the Bucs win or lose.)  That was a very large parenthetical statement.

Where were we?  Oh, yes, the Pirates had a 6-5 lead heading into the top of the ninth, which meant that Matt Capps was summoned from the pen to try to nail down his sixteenth save in as many tries.  Capps always scares the swaddled baby Jesus out of me because he begins nearly every pitch sequence with a 92 mph fastball right down Broadway.  Which means that he records a lot of first pitch outs that travel to the warning track.  But it kinda backfired last night.  After recording two quick outs, Elijah Dukes (who might slaughter a ball girl for sport before the year is out) nearly knocked down the wall in right center with a double on a first-pitch fastball.  On the next pitch -- another first pitch fastball --  Lastings Milledge mashed a homer into the left center bleachers for a 7-6 Nats advantage.  The Pirates went quietly on 10 pitches in the home half of the ninth.

So, why do I claim this is the signature loss?  First, it was to an awful club.  Second, the Nationals -- who entered the game with the fewest home runs in the league -- stroked 5 long balls during the course of the game.  Third, it was Matt Capps first blown save of the season, continuing a long and storied tradition of players taking turns letting the rest of the team down.  But, perhaps most importantly, it was that the Pirates battled back from a late deficit to reclaim the lead before they ultimately decided to renew their lifelong love affair with losing.  So, maybe there is a way to tie this post into wedding week... it's like the Bucs renewed their vows last night:  We, Pirates, take thee, Losing...