you'll be laughing at this until Monday

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Ninja Assasin

Mrs. Flick has shoulder surgery a couple of weeks ago. She's doing well and healing up fine, but pain management has been a bit of an issue.

Mrs. Flick is rather conservative when it comes to drugs, prescription I mean.... she wouldn't even consider recreational. Heck I have to buy her pony bottles of beer and she can barely get through one of those before it starts to get warm. So despite being in some post-op pain, she was only taking her Oxycontin at about half the dosage and in half the time frame prescribe by the doctor. The real trouble started when, after three days, she just quit cold turkey and tried to "gut it out". That's when she learned that "time-released pain meds" means that once you let it get out of your system, you're not getting any real relief for about 2 hours.

After suffering through some serious pain for a few hours, it took far less convincing to get her to take a full dose of the meds, which she did and finally at about 4 am conked out. That's when she learned the meaning of another new phrase..."opium dreams".

I was driving into work the next morning and my phone rang. " WHY ?! WHAT DID I DO ?!", Mrs. Flick was shouting at me.

" Huh ? What's wrong ?"

" I'm a good wife, I'm a good person, why would you want me dead you bastard !"

She went on to explain her very vivid dream involving me hiring a ninja to kill her and her somehow escaping..but the ninja slicing her in the neck and shoulder.

The whole thing was a bad trip which reminded me of this.

I did my best Jimmy Carter, talked her off the ledge and had her go back to bed. A half dozen hours later, no longer high and with a cup of coffee in her, we got it all straightened out....although I notice she still kinda watches me all suspicious out the corner of her eye all.

Which brings us to last night.

Last night I had a shitty day, she had a shitty day and we were chasing the kids around getting them ready for bed. " Man I could use a beer" I lamented since we haven't been keeping any alcohol in the house since I started trying to get back into shape. " You know, me too", she responded.

So while she tucked the kids in I ran down to the corner bar and grabbed me some beer ( that experience will be tomorrows post).

When I got back we sat down, relaxed, and I cracked open a couple of beers. After a few minutes of peaceful silence Mrs. Flick asked, " Hey, I took one of those pills about an hour ago, you think its ok for me to have this beer ?"

I thought for a second, " yeah sure, one beer isn't going to do anything."

Then she gave me that out of the corner of the eye look and I can tell thoughts of ninjas were going through her head, " are you sure ?"

" Yeah I'm sure...relax", but then I started thinking about it and I wasn't sure at all. I mean I wouldn't worry for me, but she doesn't drink, doesn't use drugs, and she's about 100lbs lighter than me. I doubted anything could happen, but now that she asked me ( twice) if anything did happen I didn't need that shit on my shoulders. Plus I know she told that ninja story to at least one of her friends and if she turned up dead I had a bad feeling that I'd have a tough time trying to find character witnesses that would say anything other than, " I dunno...he seems like the kinda guy who might actually do it."

So I googled Oxycontin and alcohol and the first 5 hits that came up has some variation of the same thing, " UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DRINK ALCOHOL WITH THIS DRUG, IT WILL SUPPRESS YOUR CNS AND YOU'LL GO TO SLEEP AND NEVER WAKE UP".

" Ummmm, maybe you should stop drinking that be...", I looked up to see her finishing off the last of the bottle.

" WHAT !?!?!"

" Oh nothing dear, just kidding" and I sent her off to bed.

On Wednesdays I get up to swim and between that and the way she's got herself rigged up in a nest of pillows and pulleys and such for the shoulder, I've arranged other sleeping quarters. So I got up swam, came home showered, and went into our room to get my clothes.

The light from the open door spilled across the bed and there among the pulleys and pillows and various contraptions used to prop her up was Mrs. Flick. Her head was back, mouth agape, out completely cold and not moving. I looked a little closer for the tell tale rise and fall of the covers and the thoughts of prescription bottle disclaimers and Amish ninjas flashed through my head. " OK Flick, get ahold of yourself, you're being silly", I tried to steady myself.

I moved a little closer and leaned over her listening for her breathing and still nothing...NOTHING ! " Honey ?", I whispered. Nothing. " Hey.", and I gave her a little poke. NOTHING !

Then I just freaked out, " OH MY GOD ARE YOU ALIVE, HELLO HELLO !" and started shaking her (good) arm.

" AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH", Mrs. Flick bolted straight up, eye the size of saucers. Dazed and confused, " WHA ? WHO ? WHA ?"

" ohmygodohmygodohmygod....okokokokokokok...aaaaaa. sorry....sorry....go back to bed, everything is ok"

She was looking around blankly, " but wha ? what the ?"

" No honey its ok, everything is fine, back to bed now", and I coaxed her back onto the pulley and such and somehow got her lulled back to some sort of sleep. Then I got the hell out of dodge.

this aint right

har de har har

Greg Lemond

I usually don't talk about cycling or doping because they both bore me anymore, but I just got done watching stages 17-21 of the 1990 Tour De France and find myself really pissed off.

What I'm pissed off at are the morons who criticize and vilify Greg Lemond as some sort of washed up guy who's criticism of modern cycling and douchebag Armstrong is all sour grapes.

Lets establish something right off the bat.

Greg Lemond is the greatest American cyclist ever. Period.

He was World Champion as a junior and twice as a professional on the road.

He got the silver at the worlds an additional two times as a professional

He won the Tour three times, twice after being SHOT and still having pellets in the tissue around his heart. He also placed third in the tour and second in a tour that many feel he could have won.

He won the season long super prestige trophy in 1983 which was that era's equivalent of the Pro Tour title. He was second in the same series in 1986

He raced all season long in Europe AND the US, winning the Coors Classic a couple of times,the Tour DuPont and featuring in the spring and fall classic as well as the world championships.

And HE DID IT DOPE FREE

I'll even contend that if it weren't for EPO jacking up riders like Berzin, Chiapucci, Riis, Indurain, etc etc etc in the early 90's that Lemond may have an another couple of successful seasons and perhaps another tour win.


Now to address his criticisms of Armstrong and Landis, let's get right to the heart of the matter.

Landis doped.

If you want to make the argument that Armstrong didn't dope, I think you're retarded, but I'll agree that he never tested positive. Somehow he dominated Ulrich, Zuelle, Pantani and all the other admitted cheaters, but he never tested positive. All his former teammates, Hamilton, Heras, Landis, Vaughters, Andreau, Swart, etc etc etc all have either been busted and or admited cheating, but you're right he never tested positive. He dumped Landis' blood bag down the drain like some petulant child, but he indeed has passed every piss test. He went out of his way to badger, humiliate and cut short the careers of riders and support staff of spoke out against doping, but you're 100% correct he never tested positive.

Oh except for that one time with the cortisone, but that got all straightened out.

So at great personal loss....he lost his bicycle company...he had his personal laundry of child molestation outted....he's persona-non-grata in the professional cycling community.....at the great personal loss and without anything to gain, Lemond has spoken out AGAINST DOPING. He's called into question Armstrong antics, associations, and motivations. He's asked for more strict guidelines and testing procedures.

And along every step of the way his assertions, accusations, and ideas have all been proven to 100% absolutely CORRECT.

And he's the asshole ?!?!

If you don't support Lemond, if you don't see that he's trying to clean up the sport...the dying piece of shit that its become...then you're blind.

http://www.cyclinghalloffame.com/riders/rider_bio.asp?rider_id=23

http://bestoflemond.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_LeMond

Two Ships

After watching to kids almost konk heads in the swimming pool the phrase " two ship passing in the night" went through my head.

Its usually used in the context of two people missing some wonderful opportunity due to an unfortunate circumstance of timing. Often this is used in the context of relationship.

But seeing the two kids nearly bang heads made me wonder about the alternatives. What if two people were like two ships that collided in the night. You know with horror and panic, people screaming and pleading for their lives ?

Now that sounds like a much more apt description of my relationships.

down and out

I caught a cold.

It started Thursday as a runny nose and by Saturday had evolved into a fully functional ass kicker.

I had hoped to spend the weekend riding my bike and getting some stuff done around the house but instead spent the weekend horizontal, moaning.

In my reclined state I did get to catch a little TV and noticed that the news reporters all do something really funny anymore. When they pronounce a foreign word, they do some sort of cartoon impression of someone from that country.

This first started right around 2000 when the country went into a Latino frenzy - you remember - when Nacho's superseded the potato chip, the Miami Sound Machine did that conga, and Edward James Olmos or whatever the fuck his name is was being talked about like Al Pachino ( who ironically enough had been on the cutting edge of the movement, trading in his guini-tee for big tab collars of Tony Montana)

but I digress...

Back then you'd hear Daisy Fuentes introducing a song in perfect Queens English and then get to a word such as " enchilada" and suddenly she'd be like Speedy Gonzalez offering some food to Yosemite Sam, " On-chillll-(rolling tongue)-taaaaaa" then right back into English like nothing happened. It would be like drive by Spanish....whap-pa-pa-pa and then right back into English.

But whatever. Daisy was in fact Hispanic, and hot, so whatever she wanted to do was fine with me. And the whole thing, while odd, did not give off a sense of affect as much as it did cultural pride.

Well some time between then and now, the whole thing has gone to hell in a handbasket. Apparently any word, or worse yet any name, that doesn't appear on the side of a Happy Meal box now has to be said as spoken in its country of origin.

The first blatant example of this was with Qatar. KA-TAR....sounds like guitar was fine for most of us. Then it began. QUA-TER, KA-TEAR, Mis-ta KOT-TAH...until finally some dope settled on CUTTER. CUTTER ? Come on, that's purposely being obtuse.

My recent favorite is seeing how many syllables the anchor can add to the Russian Presidents name. Medvedev Having the D and the V next to each other has sent them into a tizzy. Now, rightly or wrongly, MED-VED-EV is simple enough. We know who you're talking about, he knows who your talking about, and its easy on the English ear. But no, they're rather MED-VI-ED-VI-EV, ME-ED-VI-ED-DI-EV or the CNN preferred pronunciation all slurry like Rocky after fighting at 15 rounder with Apollo Creed, MED-VIED-EV.

I did notice that they tried this shit with Al-Qaeda for a while but then just gave up and went back to AL-KI-DA. Maybe the whole thing comes down to a matter of respect.

been riding ?

" Been riding ?"

Every language and culture has their own unique greeting, " buenos dias", "bonjor", " howya doin", " whatup-G", etc etc.

In the obsessive compulsive world of cycling, the choice of greeting invariably includes the phrase, "been riding ?".

Oh sure, it takes various forms, and occasionally, if the situation warrants it will be preceded by a "nice to see you" or " Hey your shirt is on fire", but those are just some sort of societal obligation...a necessary pleasantry before getting to the meat of the issue...

" Been riding ?"

The response to the "been riding?" question/greeting is perhaps more interesting the the question itself in that the response is always an untruth. Then always followed by the necessary, " how about you?"...and back and forth it goes.

To the uninitiated, it looks something like this...

Frick: Hey nice to see you.....been riding ?

Frack: Riding ? No, not much at all..barely been able to get out. How about you ?

Frick: Nah, not much. I did get out with the guys on Saturday, but that's about it.

Now I have to interrupt the conversation to point out the not so subtle turns that things often take here.

* If in fact one of the parties actually has not been riding ( unlikely) then the conversation will awkwardly fizzle out as one of the guys is only capable about talking about riding, bike, bike riding, the last ride he did and the next ride he's going to do....while the non-riding guy will want to talk about riding about as much as Bruce Willis wants to talk about what a wicked great career that Ashton Kutcher is having.

* If both parties actually have been riding, then game switches from one of mutual denial into a Cold War-esque arms race...

Frack: Oh you went out with those guys on Sat ? Yeah I couldn't make that, but I did get out for a couple hours by myself in the morning.

Frick: Oh cool. Yeah the group did about 3 hours

Frack: Sorry I missed that. But its probably for the better since I ended up sneaking away for 4 hours on Sunday and so 3 hours on Sat would have been too much.

Frick: Wow 4 hours on Sunday, you must be getting in great shape. I only did 3 on Sunday, but I did it later when I was windy.

ad nauseum until ever ride for the last 6 months has been described and accounted for and, of course, there's the necessary trading of scouting reports on all the other riders they both know...who also "have not been riding" and how many miles and how well their " not been riding" is going.

Too often this transpires while Frick and Fracks wives, or girlfriends, or kids stand to the side ignored and glazed over with 1000 mile stare usually reserved for methadone addicts or prisoners of war.

The customary closing is as automatic as " buenos dias" or " peace out".

Frack: So are you going to ride this upcoming weekend ?

Frick: Hmmm, probably not. I mean I've been so busy...I may not get to ride for weeks.

Frack: Yeah I know what you mean. I doubt I'll be able to get out either.



Good night Frick, Good night John Boy.

Can you put a price on art ?

Actually, yes you can.

I took my daughter downtown on Friday for dinner and a walking tour of some of the downtown galleries. As we wandered around looking at pieces, it got me thinking a few things:

1) How is art priced ? Is the $1000 painting on the wall a function of materials used, time invested, the perceived quality of the work or emotional attachment the artist has to the work ? If any of you out there are artists please let me know because I really am curious.

2) Many of the pieces just aren't going to sell. Its not because of their quality, its because most people don't have $1200 to spend on a oil painting of a farm scene. I suppose the idea is that selling one painting for $1200 is still more profitable than selling 10 paintings at $100 each. But as an artist wouldn't you want people to have and enjoy your art. As a gallery owner, don't you want to start to create a market where people get in the habit of consuming your products ?

3) Functional art is really cool. I suppose there is something aesthetically pleasing about an entire IKEA layout, but I'm a much bigger fan of odd and older pieces cobbled together. Many of the shops downtown have tables, shelving, candle holders, table ware, etc regular houshold type goods that are either old items refurbished or stuff made by hand. Little of it, probably none of it, has clean lines. The pieces have nicks and scratches. But almost all of it it etched or painted or has some touch to it that makes you consider the fact that another human being spent time putting skill and labor into it.

I saw a couple of bands this weekend. Both had fiddle players. I thought that was odd. One had an electric piano and a scrub board. I'm pretty sure both should be pre-requisites for any music made. The group I saw Friday night was playing on the street and consisted of a fiddle, a guitar and an upright base. The folks were playing for tips and had drawn quite the crowd. I watched the fiddle player, standing in the cold jamming away and it made me realize that he was better at playing the fiddle than I am at anything in my life. Then I realized that as good as he was, that he was standing on a street corner playing for dollars while Brittney Spears was somewhere getting a foot massage. I gave him a dollar and felt depressed for the both of us.

A rule of thumb to live by. The louder someone yells, the more they're lying.

I saw a big guy in a T-shirt and trucker hat get tossed from a bar. About 20 minutes later he came back wearing a pink argyle sweater vest over top of the t-shirt and still with the trucker hat. He made it about 30 seconds before he got thrown out again. Somehow he had convinced himself that putting a pink sweater on a 6'2" 250 lb man was a good disguise. I love drunk logic. It was yet another time that I wished I had fake schnoz and glasses , because I'm fairly certain I could have convinced him to make another run at it.

Starbucks or Swingerbucks

I just went for a cup of coffee.

As I walked up to the counter, the guy in line in front of me said to the woman working behind the counter, " So, are you single ?"...no small talk, no preamble, nothing like that...just BOOM, " are you single?" .

She replied, " How old are you ?"

" 27", is what I think he said.

" Well I'm at least 10 years old than you"

" Great !", he raeched into his pockets, " I'm going to give you my number. Call me if you want to go out."

He handed her a card, picked up his coffee and out the door he went.

It was the antithesis of every experience I ever had asking a woman out...he was confident, he was direct, he was sober. I was as baffled as the woman behind the counter, who I might add, got quite the smile on her face and put the number in her pocket.

Then as I was standing there, mouth agape, the woman behind me in line moved up alone beside me and smiled. She was a realtively attractive woman, but well into her 50s. Obviously somewhat affluent with a plunging neckline and and obvious boob job.

" So what are you doing tonight", she asked..apparently inspired by our boys performance.

It was then that I became very aware of the fact that my wedding ring was still sitting on the ESC key of my keyboard back at the office.

" Tonight ?", I repeated, " well for starters I'm getting the hell out of this place"......laughed.......then ran like hell.

the great escape

A friend recently asked, " Do you find it hard to go to sleep at night ?"

He wasn't asking about any insomnia, he was referring to the fact that, in general, men tend to stay up late watch bad TV and surfing the internet. This, and the fact that the airtime is cheaper, is why you'll see ads for penis enlargement cream, rogaine, and girls gone wild videos all shown well after 10 pm.

The reason is relativly obvious, but I think worth noting. Men need to be alone. Alternatively, men need to be with other men alone ( meaning without women and children)...but that mostly works because men don't ask shit of other men so you can't actually hang out with them and not feel put upon. And its the "put upon" that seems to be the driving force that's keeping Colbert and Mega-Man suppliments in buisness.

Back in "the day" men would get this type of reprieve on a somewhat regular basis. There was the Elks Club, Knight of Columbus, Country Club memberships ( at Country Clubs with no women and children), or post work meet-ups at the local pub which would have occassionally have women, but for our purposes of discussion, 19 year old cocktail waitresses are not applicable.

In today's modern age, men are "involved". They're coaches, they're baby sitters, they help with homework, they spend "quality time", somehow or another we've become actual participants in the daily lives of our wives and children. NOT, as they say, NOT that there's anything wrong with it. My only point is that those downtimes are less formal and less regular than during our father's generation.

So where does that leave us ?

First all lets get one thing out of the way. The term "man cave" is gay. If you use it stop using it. If you hear it, please make the offender know of the transgression. Getting some sort of designated area, and worse yet some sort approval from your spouse...with the title " MAN CAVE" is contrary to the entire concept. A " MAN CAVE" is a place where men might as well have " PLAY DATES"....another designation that sucks all of the fun and spontinaity out of life.

I remember sneaking out to the garage for a beer and smoke with the father of one of my friends after our wives had gone to bed a few years ago. I felt sheepish about the entire operation until he pointed out to me that all over America...he'll over most of the world, men were sneaking out into their garages, or woodsheds, or basements and sneaking a smoke or a drink. He tuned me into the fact that hanging out alone, or even with a friend, outside of your wifes knowledge or without scheduling it, or without having to check on the kids, was an act of independance. That it was in those moments that we break free of the burdens and bonds of daily drudgery. Furthermore, he pointed out that those moments rejuvinated us enabled us to be better fathers, husbands, and providers. We weren't taking swigs from the flask hidden in the toolbox for ourselves...we were getting covertly hammered for THEM. That watching reruns of The OC episode where the chicks are trying on swimsuits isn't our pleasure as much as its our duty and obligation.

The man made a lot of sense. Either that or I was just really really high.

Still Funny