suck in that gut

i noticed something weird the other day while watching 'whipped,' which by the way is an awesome movie that i'm pretty sure no one else has ever seen or heard of. so in one scene this fat guy is sucking in his gut to make himself look thinner. but here's my question...

how come when you breathe in really deep, your stomach gets smaller, but when you exhale, it gets bigger? shouldn't it be the other way around?? i thought about this on the subway yesterday for like 10 minutes lol. its kinda like how when you hold your breath for as long as you can, you end it by breathing all that air out, not by breathing in more air. weird.

similarly, i notice lately how when i lay down to go to sleep, im usually not very tired at all. but when i wake up in the morning, i am dead tired. shouldnt you be tired before sleep and then alert once you wake up?? god clearly made some mistakes when he designed us.

the pacific northwest

as you may or not know, my cousin and i are on the extremely ambitious and flaming quest to travel to the extreme points of the country. in september of 2006 we drove to west quoddy head, maine, the easternmost point in the country



in july of 2007 we trekked to angle inlet, minnesota, the northernmost point in the country



next up: cape alava, washington, westernmost point, aka extreme roadtripping part 3 of 4. i also planned to enter the states of washington, idaho, and montana for the first time.

flew into vancouver, our flight was from 11pm to 1:40am, so basically a red-eye in the opposite direction. i found this interesting. got a bad first impression of vancouver when we lied to down to sleep in the terminal and someone tried to steal my cousins bag, then claimed that he was 'just making sure everyone is paying attention to their stuff.' bitch please.

first observation about washington state, people drive SLOW, almost painfully so. i feel like everyone lives in slow motion out there. on the way out to the cape we ate at a subway with only one guy working, making everyones subs and working the register. it took 20 minutes to get my crappy spicy italian sub.

we had to hike 3 miles through a forest to get out to the ocean. one thing we kept seeing - and i saw a lot at the grand canyon also - is people come on these easy hikes wearing all this hiking gear and their two little stupid hiking poles. man people are such panzees these days. if you cant walk up a slight incline for 3 minutes without hiking poles you forfeit all potential respect from me.

heres what the westernmost point in the continental US looks like. its as boring and non descript as you would think. and there were about 21,937 tiny little flies on that rock.



the pacific ocean is really crappy out here. its dark and damp with no waves and murky water. the beach is full of dead trees and wood washed up on the shore.

that nite we hit up safeco field. side note real quick: one time i was talking to someone about my upcoming germany trip, and i said we were planning on hitting up a concentration camp, and they got offended. haha, i mean i can see why, i just found it kinda funny tho.

safeco is my 16th stadum been to, possibly the best one. and the town of seattle is awesome too. everything is so nice and clean and colorful and upbeat. altho the weather was pretty crappy. we were there in july and it was cold as shit in the mornings.



july 4th, 2008 was probably my worst driving day ever. at like 9am in the middle of nowhere in washington i get caught doing 95 in a 70. and get this, he tells me since it was over 20mph above the limit, its deemed aggressive driving, and if i get caught again within 24 hours theyll impound the car. yikes!! so 206 dollars and 16 hours later, i'm driving home from the bar to our econo lodge like a mile away. literally as i pull into the parking lot i see the cop behind me with his lights on.

so i pull over and park right in front of the front desk of our fucking hotel, with a cop car behind me like a real dope. i had had like 4 beers and wasn't wearing my seatbelt. and i had to stumble around my wallet for 10 seconds looking for my license bc i put it back in a different place after having to take it out for the first damn ticket. im thinking great, first aggressive driving in washington now a DUI in montana. what a day.

so she tells me she pulled me over for doing 38 in a 25. seriously?? if u pulled over everyone that did 38 in a 25 u could erase the national debt. she comes back and asks me where im going tonight. i point to the front desk and say, 'right here,' trying not to laugh. she thinks about it for a second then lets me off with a verbal warning. whew. oh i also flashed her too, that mightve helped.

in glacier national park we got to look at some glaciers, but the funny thing was, theyre not there anymore. al gore was right! the things that were supposedly glaciers looked like regular week-old snow on a hill. i dont know, maybe thats what glaciers look like. if so they are overrated.



on the way back to vancouver we stopped at an A&W in castlegar, BC. the following conversation ensues:

counter girl: sir im sorry but i accidentally charged your card for 244 dollars instead of 24
me: okay, can you cancel it and fix it?
girl: no i cant im sorry
me: okay...
girl: all i can do is give you 220 dollars in cash back
me: well alright then!

so now im loaded with canadian dough, which is like a tiny bit taller than US dollars, so it sticks out the top of your wallet, very annoying. i wonder if they make wallets taller in canada to compensate for this. or maybe people just suffer lots of papercuts.

in vancouver that nite, we were blown away by the hotness of all the girls. i mean good lord. and the best part was they were all super dressed up, but they werent all on their way to the club like these snobby new york girls, they were at the BARS. everywhere you looked. i need to move there.

all in all, 3 more states, 2 more provinces, and another region of the country dominated by the cheifets

next up: eurotrip 08

fatsos on airplanes

okay so since i was recently in college i heard all kinds of stories like this one. a girl is abroad in europe or wherever and is all set to come home. of course since she is a girl she bought a million clothes and has a million things to pack up and ship home. but they get to the airport and find out that each person only has a certain amount of weight in luggage that they can check. and the story always ends with the girl crying on the phone to her dad about how she had to throw away so much stuff.

but my thought is this. most of these girls probably weigh like 120 pounds at most. and they are limited to two 50-pound bags each. but what if some 350-pound fatso shows up and checks a 20-pound bag? perfectly fine. well that's not right. i think there should be a total overall weight limit. if these airlines are gonna sell tickets to fatsos, why cant a slim person bring on a few hundred pounds of luggage?

with a total weight limit of say, 400 pounds, a fatso of 350 pounds could only bring on 50 pounds of stuff. and if he doesn't like it, too bad, lose some weight lardo. and slim people like me can take on whatever they want.

so in one move, i've solved that luggage weight limit problem, and encouraged fat people to lose weight before flying. so now their gross arm fat doesnt spill over into our space.

quotes

when i was a kid we always had this book lying around the house. it was a big book of quotes. famous quotes throughout history, like 'nothing is certain but death and taxes,' and all that. it was always entertaining for about 28 seconds if i got bored.

well i was thinking, how do quotes like that get started? i can understand the ones by authors or whatever, theyre probably just things they had written at some point. but what about someone like thomas edison, he has a bunch of stupid quotes attached to his name. did he just call people to his house one day and say something brilliant and then tell people 'hey that was a quote, write it down and tell everyone else i said it.'

did you have to already be famous to get a quote? i don't see any quotes from regular joes you've never heard of. and who makes the list of official quotes, the kind good enough to get into quote books. if i had a really good quote, how could i get it into a book? i feel like there arent any new quotes coming out lately. the most recent ones are from like 50 years ago.

i think this just goes to prove that people who lived hundreds of years ago were really, really bored.

car accident

so i was hanging out with a few people the other day. and my one friend's younger brother happened to be there. we were all talking and all, and kinda making fun of the kid's brother. just harmless stuff.

but then the older brother says, 'hey don't make fun of him, he almost died in a car accident last year.' so i was surprised a little, but i got to thinking. just because this kid was in a bad car accident he gets immunity from all jokes made about him? what kind of deal is that? sure he probably went through some hard times, but that doesn't buy a lifetime of joke protection.

fat girls

a quick thought today. you know how when girls try clothes on and they ask "does this make me look fat?" well i was thinking, do fat girls ask this when they try clothes on? i mean, i know they try to act like they're not fat, but they know they are.

i think it'd be very funny if some fat girl asked that to one of her friends or her boyfriend.

p.s. maybe they should say, "does this make me look fatter?"

milk

so you know how they put dates on the gallons of milk you buy at the store? well it always says "sell by april 8th," or whatever. well that's all well and good for the people at the store so they know how long to leave it out there, but it doesn't really help you when you're back at home and that gallon is in your fridge.

say you buy one that says 'sell by april 7th.' and you buy it on april 3rd. well if you still have it on april 8th, should you still drink it? or does it go bad on april 7th? probably not, because why would the store still sell it on april 6th if it was just gonna go bad one day later? so in actuality you don't know when it's gonna go bad at all, even though the milk people do. so what they should put on the gallon is "drink by," not "sell by."

a funny story

i'm bored at work right now so i figured i'd write a blog. this one's just a story though, no deep insight today, sorry. my last post about what a great driver i am elicited a few responses saying i should tell people that i did, in fact, drive into my own house. sadly, yes, this did happen.

i actually like telling this story. i was kinda embarrassed by it at first, but then freshman year at college in writing 105 on the first day we were introducing ourselves to the class and all. and this one kid, clark tomlinson, huge weirdo, says we should all have to tell a story about our most embarrassing moment. of course we all look at him like shut the hell up, but the stories actually turned out to be funny. well, mine was, at least, i don't remember anyone else's.

anyway, i had only had my permit for like 6 weeks when i was driving home from a driver's ed class with my mom one night. i pull into the driveway, all is well. i pull into the garage, everything's cool. as i pull in, i take my foot off the brake for a second and get ready to come to a stop. but instead of coming back down on the brake, i go full throttle on the gas, WHAM! right into the garage wall. i smashed a bookcase which was in front of the wall, but i didn't think it was that bad.

as i slowly back out, the wall starts to crumble piece by piece from where i hit it. it creeps up the wall until the whole thing starts to collapse. before we know it the roof above us is cracking up. apparently that was a load bearing wall. stuff starts to fall on the car so i back out of the garage real quick and we sit and watch as the whole roof crashes onto the garage floor, followed by all the furniture from my room, which was right above the garage. we get out of the car, but of course there was nothing we could do. things just kept falling until finally the whole house had fallen in on itself. we had to stay in a shelter for the next 3 months until we bought a new house.

okay that last paragraph was entirely false. there was a huge whole in the wall though, into the laundry room, which we had to walk through for the next 2 months because the door frame had been bent out of shape and the door wouldn't open. man i felt like a moron. i knocked off the washer and dryer from their connections. but what we did actually was we ended up knocking the whole wall down and expanding the laundry room by a few feet. so this story had a good ending after all.

driving

as you may or may not know, i'm pretty much the greatest driver alive right now. so on my daily commute, i'm usually free to do other things with my time than focus on driving. texting is basically the most dangerous thing you can do in a car, i think. it's about 5 times more dangerous than actually talking on the phone while driving. instead of cracking down on that i think cops should find a way to police texting-and-driving. i guarantee a lot of accidents out there are being caused by this. i hear the cell phone law is coming to PA actually, but not for a while. meanwhile, any day now it will become law in PA to have your lights on if your wipers are on. good thing they focus on the important things.

on a side note, i really hate when people keep their lights on during the day. i drive to work between 3 and 4pm, i can't tell you how many people have their lights on. it's broad daylight! i just don't get it. if you're so blind that you can't see other cars on the road in the daytime unless they have their lights on, then you shouldn't be allowed to drive, let alone leave your house. sometimes though, i feel pressure to turn my lights on when it does start to get kinda dark out. i'll start looking for other cars without their lights on. and when i find one, it justifies my decision to hold out. "see? he doesn't have his on either. i'm not the only one!" also, i bet all these losers with their lights on are much more likely to leave them on by accident when they park and get out, because it's already daylight out, so you can't really see your lights shining against whatever's in front of you. good riddance, i say.

one other time i ate a whole angus burger and fries from burger king while doing 60 without getting any food on myself. if you don't think this is impressive, get an angus burger, you'll see. i probably even texted someone to tell them i was doing it.

anyway, onto my original point. my driving awesomeness allowed me to think up this idea:

i hate when you are waiting behind a few cars, and you're all waiting to turn onto a bigger road. each person goes one by one when they have enough time. but the thing is, nobody knows if they have enough time to pull out until they get to the front of the line. so, what i've been trying to do lately is, if i'm first in line and i have plenty of time to go, and there is also enough time for the person behind me to go, i give them a hand signal out the window as i turn, much like a thank you wave. this signals to them that there is enough time for them to turn as well, instead of them driving to the edge, stopping, looking both ways, then going. think of the time we could save! i have actually been doing this off and on for a few years now, i have yet to see it catch on anywhere, but it'll take time, for sure.

it probably seems far-fetched, but all great ideas do when they are first introduced. this one would work. i just think it would be awesome to be driving around with my grandson in 60 years while texting and eating a burger with my lights off at midnight, and he asks me why do people wave like that, and i say, "yeah that was me, i started that." so basically, once this becomes the norm, don't claim to have invented it. it's mine.

xmas lights

you know how people put up christmas lights on their front lawns and on their trees and all? well how do they get the lights all the way up those really big trees? there's a house near me with a tree in front with lights all the way up to the top, and it must be about 50 feet high, no joke. how do they get them up there? i seriously can't think of one single way.

religion

it's kinda funny that i'm doing a blog about religion, since i may be the dumbest person on earth when it comes to the subject. one time i put a eucharist in my jacket pocket at a funeral because i didn't know i was supposed to eat it. then an hour later at the cemetery when someone asked me what i did with it i pulled it out of my pocket. then i proceeded to eat it as dicreetly as possible. i guess that was my jewish side at its finest. one of my funniest and dumbest moments all at once.

anyway, recently i've been thinking about what religion i am. it seems like i should know by now, right? technically, i'm half jewish and half christian, but that doesn't really mean anything. a good friend of mine, let's call her natalie r., always used to preach to me that it's impossible to be half anything when it comes to religion. i tend to agree. so that's out. conventional religion has eluded me.

then there are things like atheism - believing there is no god - and agnosticism - not knowing if there is a god or not. that last one always seems like a copout to me. i mean, no shit we don't know if there's a god, i could've told you that. knowing me though i probably screwed up that definition, even though i did just google it.

but i don't fall into either of those categories either. i say there is a god, but that's all. just, a god. why does he have to be attached to an established religion? can't i just believe in him? what's that called? theism? monotheism? scientology? my cousin, who is actually jewish, now describes himself as "indifferent" to the whole scene. but i don't think that's me. i think about god a lot and why stuff happens the way it does. who knows.

basically, i don't know what i am and i don't know what i'm not. i think i'm just ignorant.

today and tomorrow

so i'm in the car coming home from work tonight. it's like 1:15am and i'm listening to sports radio. the update guy comes on and talks about the iverson trade. then he says the sixers play their next game tonight. it always surprises me when they say that. it's only 1am. tonight isn't later on today; tonight already happened. i guess it begs the question, when does today become tomorrow?

i always get annoyed by those people who, once it's past midnight and they're talking about tomorrow, say "oh well actually i guess it's today now." oh i get it! it's after midnight, i see what you did there, very clever. to me, the next day doesn't start till you go to sleep and wake up.

but every time i hear that on the radio i also think, is there anyone out there for whom the sixers game actually is "tonight"? at 1am? i mean, is there some guy who's getting up at 12:30am, showering, eating breakfast, driving to work, turning on the radio and hearing the update and thinking"oh hey the sixers play tonight"? and if so, the game won't be on for another 18 hours anyway. and this guy probably goes to sleep at 6pm so he won't even be able to watch it.

even if there are lots of people like this, there are still 100 times more who are still up and have yet to sleep. so basically, radio update guys, put some thought into it next time.

funeral processions

i don't understand funeral processions. is it really so crucial that everyone get to the cemetery at the same time? is it worth interrupting traffic and inconveniencing hundreds of people along the way? i mean, everyone has directions anyway. i don't get this rule. how did it start anyway? one day people just declared that people going to a funeral have right of way, ignoring all red lights and other drivers? i bet it seemed like a pretty stupid idea when it was first introduced, but somehow it has become accepted in our society.

the other day i saw one going through this huge intersection near me, grant and the boulevard (i always brag about how it's the 3rd most dangerous intersection in the country, although they put those red light cameras up there a year ago, i got caught once, 100 dollar fine, i ran a red light by .03 seconds i think, what a joke). anyway, this one procession was going through, the light turns red, they continue to go. i don't know if the opposing traffic didn't realize what was going on, or just didn't care, but the procession just got totally obliterated. it was great. no accidents or anything, we all just inched our way forward until they slowed down and then we went through them. it was a like a rebellion or something. very surreal. i was glad to be a part of it.

deal or no deal

so i was watching deal or no deal the other day. i really don't like that show. i mean, they just give away money. i keep thinking, how do you become a contestant on this show? you can win thousands of dollars just for calling out numbers on briefcases. why doesn't everyone in america try to be on this show? it's free money. just seems weird.

but on to my point. every time i watch one of these game shows (millionaire, greed, weakest link, etc), i always have the same thought. say you were on deal or no deal, and you didn't take the banker's offer because you wanted more money, and you end up getting the 5 dollar briefcase or something when you could have had like 500,000 dollars. my question is: how could you live with yourself after that? knowing that you blew 500 grand on a hunch you had on a TV game show in front of the whole nation. or gambling on the million dollar question on millionaire and getting it wrong and only getting 32,000? i mean, how can you go home and sleep that night? or go to work the next day? i would be haunted by it forever. any money problems i had after that would just be that much worse. it could potentially ruin your whole life.

i also don't get how, when this happens, the contestant just smiles and takes it in stride. if it were me up there and that happened, i'd be catatonic. i'd start yelling and flipping chairs. i don't get how these people can have so much money on the line and hide their emotions so well when they blow it all. it's probably all fake.

this also happens on jeopardy at the end during final jeopardy. as they reveal everyone's answers and wagers, all the contestants are stone faced. wouldn't they be nervous about their opponents' answers? and when they see them, wouldn't they quickly do the math in their head to see what their new total is and if their wager was enough and all that? they never do that at all. i think trebek tells them they can't have any reaction whatsoever. they probably already know the result.

more random game show thoughts while i'm on the topic. whenever i watch wheel of fortune i start believing pat sajak has seen that wheel turn so many times in his life that he can tell where it's gonna stop before everyone else can. sometimes he'll say what it's on when it's like 4 spots away. it's amazing.

chicken tenders

so i'm at work tonight (i'm actually still at work writing this, don't tell anyone), and around comes dinner time so some people from the office (can i call it an office? it's not really an office building, more of a complex). so three people from the complex get food from this place we frequent called angelo's, i pass because i'm not that hungry. so the food arrives and the two guys i'm with start eating right away. but the third guy, nick, can't be found anywhere in the complex.

so the aroma wafts my way and of course i start getting hungry. and i start wondering what to do in this situation. can i eat this dude's food? how long do i have to wait? i joke to my colleague brad, who got the food, that if he's not back in 5 minutes i'm eating his food. half joke, that is. i mean, i was hungry, and we all know i love food. so 5 minutes later i'm about to eat it and brad says you better give me the 8 bucks for that if you eat it. the following conversation ensues.

J - 'but nick already gave you the money for it right?'
B - 'yeah'
J - 'so i shouldn't have to pay you'
B - 'but you're eating his food, you gotta pay for it'
J - 'but not you, if nick shows up then i'll pay him'
B - 'if nick shows up he'll wonder why you're eating his food'

i realize i am stuck. i say look, i'll go look for nick so at least i can say i made an effort to make sure he didn't miss out on his food. of course i really just wanted to make sure he wasn't still here and about to burst in and see me gorging myself on his chicken tenders.

long story short, i pay brad the 8 bucks and eat the tenders, which of course were cold after all this deliberation. but i can't help feeling i got screwed here. i should've gotten that food for free, and that way, next week, if nick says anthing, i'll pay him. if he says nothing, then oh well, his loss. don't buy food and not eat it. if i were him and i came in the next week and found out someone had eaten my food, i'd feel like an ass asking for the 8 dollars for it.

this touches on another tricky food related topic. when people order food and there are leftovers, i.e. pizza slices, and everyone is full, can the guy who didn't get anything have it? does he have to pay? are the original buyers entitled to save it for tomorrow? after 4 years of encountering this in college, i still don't know the answer.

new orleans

it's been awhile since my last blog, i'm sure you're all very upset and feeling empty inside. very long entry this time to make up for time off.

this story started back in april, when i began looking at tickets for eagles road games. saints tickets were about 4 times cheaper than everywhere else, so i started thinking about it. this would give me a chance to go to one of the sweetest party cities in the country, drive through the south and knock off like 5 more states i've never been to, satisfy my newfound love for road trips, and oh yeah, go to an eagles game for only 25 bucks. so the next night i drunkenly purchased 4 tix, saying at the time that actually having the tickets will make us make it happen, and if we can't do it, i'll just sell them and get my money back. and so it was done. fast forward 6 months, and i had found two others to make the trip with me, oh and a free hotel room also.

we left at 2am friday morning, got there at 8pm. some would say driving all day on a friday the 13th is a bad omen, but oh well. checked in, ate, hit bourbon street. nothing better than talking to people that night and telling them we just drove 19 hours and then immediately went out and partied it up. a true hero's welcome. near the end of the night, we started jawing with two saints fans. the pushing and yelling somehow lasted for 20-25 minutes, even though their whole argument consisted of repeated yellings of "who dey?!" i thought that was the bengals chant, but maybe every southern team uses it. it was funny, though, to watch all the hot girls slowly move away from our ongoing argument. at one point i said something to the effect of "no way we're gonna lose to this piece of shit city." they didn't seem to like that too much.

regarding the hurricane, the city itself seems fine for the most part. on the drive in you could see wreckage that clearly just hadn't been touched, and lots of houses that were just abandoned. they seem to all be able to joke about it, though, as evidenced by the many drinks named after hurricanes (the katrina rita being my favorite), as well as hilarious gift shop merchandise. as i always say, if we can't laugh at ourselves, what can we laugh at? and if there was any city that could laugh about this, it's new orleans, or at least any city in the south. the southern hospitality was noticeable, they clearly know how to have fun down there. the town was probably founded by a bunch of boozehounds.

just look at bourbon street, which is pretty much the greatest place ever. there are approximately 519 bars packed into like 8 blocks, they stay open till 5, no covers, you can buy beers and drinks on the street, you can drink on the street, lots of live bands, 64 ounce beers, and cops who were drinking beers right next to us. one fun thing is the shot girls that populate every bar. they approach you and force test tubes full of alcohol down your throat in very suggestive ways. then just as your stomach starts to churn, they ask you for 3 bucks. my favorite was this russian chick who caught me ogling her as she walked by, then made a b-line for me, said 'yes you vill take shut now,' and then afterwards grabbed an extra dollar out of my hand as she explained, 'teep for me.' thanks natasha. i felt so used.

one highlight of the weekend was driving my eagles-decked-out car down bourbon street past tons of eagles fans while blaring the eagles fight song on repeat. the best. ratio of eagles fans to saints fans: approximately 12-1, not even kidding. eagles fans really do travel everywhere. made me very proud. saturday afternoon we sampled some local cuisine at acme restaurant by getting some po' boys. basically a big sandwich that you can get anything on, mainly seafood. i got the acme special, which was roast beef, ham, turkey, american cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, all covered in gravy. for dessert i had the triple bypass. good stuff.

sunday morning we hit bourbon st. at about 10:30 to find it as lively as ever, filled with all eagles fans drinking as if it were 10:30pm. we then marched all the way through the city to the superdome, reciting eagles chants all along the way. possible highlight of the trip, seeing as how the game itself was a letdown. one thing about the dome is that it was a lot louder than i expected, almost deafening noise. that's the one thing i'll give saints fans credit for. certainly not for all the shit they gave us on the way out. the worst was the father and son in front of us who kept talking to us after the game, at first being assholes then being annoyingly nice. the dad was hell bent on giving us his phone number so we could meet up with him next time we came down. which he did, while forgetting to give us the area code. he even said to me, 'bring your mom down, too.' the son then sat down next to me and said "i really think god wanted the saints to win this game." i wanted to say something so badly but i didn't, which was probably good. yeah clearly god loves you guys, he gives you one of the worst disasters in history, kills thousands and causes billions in damage, then feels bad about it so he tries to make it up to you by rooting for the saints. that must be it. don't even get me started. although if matt bryant can hit a 62 yard field goal to beat the eagles, maybe god really is against us. but like i said don't get me started.

we kept it relatively chill that sunday night. i had my 64 ounce beer, which i now love and wish they sold in every bar in the country. on the way back we drove across the pontchartrain causeway, a 23-mile long bridge that goes over lake pontchartrain. that means i went over the world's longest bridge and the world's longest bridge over ice-covered waters within a 16-day period. i wonder if anyone's ever done it quicker.

we stopped at a sonic on the way back, which i've wanted to go to for a long time. it took like 5 minutes to figure out how to order, but it was worth it. sonic is my new favorite fast food place. they have everything. burgers, chicken sandwiches, nuggets, coneys, burritos, popcorn chicken, shakes, ice cream, a ton of drinks. it's every fast food place rolled into one. so good.

some trip specs: 2570 miles, 40 hours of driving, 9 states. all to see the eagles lose on a last-second field goal. oh well, it was worth it.

road trip

this weekend i took a road trip with my cousin to maine and canada. our main destination was west quoddy head, maine, the easternmost point in the united states. but after that we also trekked deep into canada all the way to prince edward island in order to hit up 3 provinces. why? just to say we've been there. this is really my motivation for going to 80 percent of the places i wanna go, just to say i've been there. i'm getting obsessed with it lately actually. it did, however, lead to a funny conversation with the customs guys entering canada.

'where are you from?'
'philadelphia'
'where are you going?'
'prince edward island'
'what for?'
'just to go and see what it's like'
'that's all?'
'yeah we just wanted to go and see some provinces'
'when are you coming back?'
'tomorrow'
'so you're driving all the way from philadelphia to prince edward island and back in two days just to see what it looks like?'
'yup'

we realized afterwards that it probably did sound like a made up story. but as i said to my cousin, "two idiots like us are the last people they should be worried about letting into their country."

anyway, the easternmost point of america is just as boring looking as you might expect. but i was thrilled by the whole thing, especially by the humor of things such as parking in the easternmost parking spot in the U.S., and taking my easternmost piss ever in the U.S. above is a picture of me at the absolute extreme eastern tip of america. pretty cool stuff, huh?

ironically, only a few miles away we passed a building on the side of the road called the 45th parallel, which made us realize that we were on the 45th parallel, which means we were in the exact middle of the northern hemisphere, equidistant from the north pole and the equator. another small thrill. also, maine foliage is very beautiful.

so i added maine to my states-been-to list, pushing it to 22, and we forged ahead into canada. this marked my first time in the atlantic time zone (GMT -4). we flew through new brunswick and onto prince edward island, arriving at charlottetown, the capital, at 10:30pm, only 1070 miles later. after being awake for 30 something straight hours, i fell asleep approximately 1.3 seconds after my head hit the pillow that night.

getting off the island was interesting for one reason. the only bridge that connects to the mainland is the confederation bridge, which is 8 miles long and only one lane each way. the toll was $40.50 canadian. that's $36.23. 36 fucking dollars to cross a bridge. this just went to prove my point that they can really charge whatever they want for bridge tolls, because what else are you gonna do? especially on prince edward island. it's either load your car onto a ferry for 100 bucks and take forever getting over, or buy a house on PEI and start a new life. when our american cards wouldn't work in the ATMs near the bridge and we didn't have enough cash for the toll, i was relieved to find that some lanes actually have machines that let you pay with a credit card. this led to my declaration that if you need a card machine at the toll booth, the toll is too high.

back on the mainland, we drove into nova scotia for a few minutes to say we'd been there, too. on the way back came the moncton magnetic hill theme park. legend goes that this one little hill has had magical magnetic powers for centuries. and if you park your car at the bottom of it and put in neutral, it will roll backwards up the hill. so we pay 5 canadian bucks to do it, and sure enough, it worked, and we rolled all the way back up the hill. it was cool, but it also left a lot to be desired, somehow.

a side note about the canadian highway system. someone needs to introduce the concept of rest areas to these people. any time you want gas, you get off at the exit, and then have to drive four more miles to find the actual station, which is just in some nearby town. and there may or may not be a sign to guide you there. very frustrating.

to pass the time we decided to learn all the canadian provinces and their capitals. we then came to the conclusion that there are less than 500 people in america that can do this, and we are now two of them. we also listed every country we could name in the world, and came up with 156. on the way back, i wondered if we were the first people to eat in both a canadian and american subway on the same day. probably not.

all in all a great trip. some specs: 2023 miles, 33 hours spent driving, 3 provinces, 7 states. next up: new orleans, with a quick stop in syracuse first.

4 hours

so we've all seen those commercials for viagra or cialis or whatever it is, and the part comes where they say if erection lasts 4 hours call your doctor. of course this line provides for approximately 475,273,409 jokes to be made about it, but i figured i'd chime in with my thoughts on such a situation.

to me the worst part would be about an hour in when your realize the problem, and you remember the 4 hours thing, and you know you have to wait another 3 hours before you can do anything. it must be funny at around the 3:45 mark. "okay i'm gonna give it 15 more minutes! if it's not better by then i'm driving to the hospital, i swear!"

but what if you can't wait that long and you go after a few hours. they'll probably ask you how long it's been and then you'd have to sit there in the waiting room - very awkwardly - until 4 hours hits.

those viagra commercials always creep me out anyway. the guy comes home and gives his wife this look, and she smiles and looks away all shy. they make it seem so happy and innocent but i'm just like, "i know why you guys are smiling, you're both gonna get some for the first time in a long while."

haircut

i got a haircut today. i don't really like haircuts that much because i never know where to go. as a kid i never had a barbershop my parents would always take me to. my mom cut my hair for a long time. i've been going to master cuts recently because i got one of those cards that gives me a discount if i get 10 haircuts there. i'm at like two right now and i feel so pathetic asking them to stamp it at the end because it seems so far away, and it's only for 10 dollars off, not even a whole free haircut. doesn't even seem worth the effort to take it out of my wallet 10 times.

if it were worth one free haircut i would be so anxious the whole time during my free one. we would walk to the counter and i would bust out my card, much like seinfeld in that old american express commercial where he tries to top off his gas so it hits exactly 20 dollars. lights would shine and angels would sing. i'd say "excuse me, but i believe this one is on you guys!" and then i'd have to tip the lady anyway.

anyway, onto the origin of this post. today at hair cuttery i had this girl who was cool, and we were talking the whole time. probably the second best haircut convo i've ever had. (number one occurred back in april up at school, hot girl, good laughs, sparks flew, emotions ran high, she actually looked at me man, tractor beam, sucked me right in)

but today this girl was more concerned with talking than actually cutting my hair. and the most awkward thing about haircut convos is the mirror in front of you. she would stop cutting and stand literally directly to my right, and look at the mirror to talk to me. so instead of looking at each other, we were communicating through the mirror. and it's extra weird because you have to look at yourself at the same time. it's like watching yourself on TV and seeing how uncool you really are when you talk to girls.

and then walking out after the haircut is always odd. i always wonder if people are staring at my hair. and i wanna just violently rub my head to get all the loose hairs out, but i wait until i'm far enough away so the girl won't see me. is that insulting to them? seems like it could be. i'm just too damn nice.

maps

it must have been exciting for map makers when we finally got into outer space and got high enough to see what the outlines of the continents looked like. because until then, they didn't really know if their maps were correct. no one had ever seen the earth from above, like a map depicts.

so when pictures of the earth first started coming back from the first satellite or whatever, all the map makers were probably very nervous. what if they were totally wrong? "oh that's what america looks like! we were way off!" and then they woulda had to change all their maps. i'm assuming they were right, though. and that was probably a pretty good feeling.