The Top 5 Reasons People Run Marathons

5. Running is a time to sort you mind out, and most runners will tell you that it's the time where they can think most clearly.

4. It is man versus nature.  It is man versus the open road, and we're drawn to those sorts of conflicts, battles of wills.

3. It promotes good cardiovascular health, and with a race looming around the corner, it motivates us to keep training on those days where we want to sleep in.

2. Once you do a race, you want to do a longer one.  Then when you do a half-marathon, inevitably someone says to you, "Anyone who can do a half can do a full."  That goes in the back of your head, and the next time you want to sign up for another half, you think about that.

1. We run marathons so we can feel superior to people who haven't.  Never mind the rest of the list.  It's mostly just this one.

In a Hurry to Get Your Freak On Is NOT an Excuse to Speed

Zachary P. Ramirez, 21, of Naperville, Illinois found that out the hard way after going 111mph and running a stop sign and a red light (whole story including picture of the idiot here).  When the officer asked why he was going so fast, he said he was in a hurry to go have sex with a girl he likes. 

Now, it seems to me that it's as good an excuse as any, but to be going that fast and disobeying traffic signals knowing you have weed in the car?  That must have been some poonanny . . .

Denver

I'm off to Denver tomorrow after work to spend the weekend with my lady who is flying out from L.A. where she's living for just one more year . . .

Anyone ever been to Denver?  We have no major plans outside of maybe some bike riding, a ballgame, some hiking, a brewery, some dinner, some wine, and catching up.

What's cool is that it's right in between us, so it's just a 2 hour flight for each of us.  If we end up liking it out there, we'll do it again same time next year . . .

When I'm in the Produce Section . . .

. . . I squeeze the mangos to see which one is soft because I need it to be ready to eat before I go out of town for the weekend.  So I was tenderly squeezing each one saying "who's a mushy mango? . . ."

Anyone else do shit like that?

Some Crazy Woman in the Ukraine Altered Herself to Look Like a Barbie Doll

I'm serious.  Check it out.

Why would she do that to herself, and she's only 21-years-old!  Do you think that face of hers is capable of expressing any emotion?

Also, did you watch the cartoon?  How about that bear with the Russian hat on squirting lotion in his hand to wank to virtual porn?

2012 Cubs Game Damn Shame Game One

I'm going to do a blog post for every Chicago Cubs game I go to; this being my first paid year on the season tickets I've been sponging off my friends on for years.

Who Went: Just me and Brutus today.  We traded in our season tickets in the upper deck for some seats in the sun because it was around 30 degrees with the wind.

What I Drank: No beer today with it being a Sunday and a long week ahead of me.  Just one coffee

The Outcome: Cubs lost 4 to 3 to the Reds in pretty lousy fashion.  Soriano had a dropped fly ball and some spectacular big league strikeouts. 

Today's Revelation: I saw that Wrigley awards designated drivers with a Good Sports raffle where the drivers can win things.  I think it would be funny if Brutus and I stumbled in there blind drunk, slurring, belching and hiccuping our way through telling them that we were both each others designated drivers.  "I'm driving (hic) him home and he's (burp) driving me home.  Whaddawe win?  A beer or sumphin'?"

Tonight . . .

. . . I'm doing another podcast with Crom and Southie, and this time we're drinking beers and doing a commentary over "Sex and the City 2," you know, the one where women couldn't even stand it.  That's right.  We're going in and we're not coming out until something funny comes out of it.

Stay tuned . . .

Come on! Let the Kid Take the Porno Actress To His Prom!

Check out this story.

If only he hadn't tipped anyone off, he could have just brought the porn chick at the last minute and not told anyone how she payed her bills.  It turned out all right for this kid from Minnesota because he is having his own party with the porn chick coming, who accepted because she never went to her own prom, and he also had people chanting his name in the hallway and calling him a legend. 

I'm going to have to look up this lady just to make sure she is a real porn actress and not at all because I like porn.  I'm not into that.  I may invite her to something else that maybe she has never been to, as that seems to be the right angle.  Maybe the library?  Church?  Something unlikely like that . . .

If You Don't Have Me On Facebook, You Missed This:

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater: Are these chops supposed to be 3 different colors. Screw it. I love cooking for myself.

Southie: HAHAHAHA burp

DK: I think your grill is home sick because I'm so inept when I cook with him.

S: If you are cooking pork on the grill, it is one of the most difficult meats to cook

DK: Okay, so maybe the neapolitan look wasn't as big a failure as I thought cuz it tasted fine.

S: Let me know tomorrow morning how it went LOL

DK: With any luck I'll have a neapolitan poop. Expect a picture text!

S: Ooooooh the colors!!!

DK:  Taste the rainbow.

Hurry Up and Buy Your Kid a Vibrator Today!

Get a load of this story.  That's me writing again in italics at the end of it.  Look at this kid just buzzing away  . . .

Vibrator For Children

Mattel recently introduced the "Harry Potter Broomstick". It's a battery-powered toy that resembles the flying Nimbus 2000 brooms from the Harry Potter movies. For added effect, the broom makes "flying noises" and vibrates. After a while on the market, concerned parents noticed that mostly young girls seemed to enjoy the toy - especially the vibrating part... Here are some of the customer reviews from the Toys R Us website: Reviewer: A toy enthusiast from NJ This toy was #1 on my daughter's Christmas list. So what the heck, although it has no educational value I figured it would be good for imaginative play. It wasn't until after she opened her gift and started playing with it that I realized that the toy may offer a more than sensational experience. The broomstick has cute sound effects and ***VIBRATES*** when they put it between their legs to fly. Come on---what were the creators of this toy thinking? She'll keep playing with the Nimbus 2000, but with the batteries removed. Reviewer: Ashley from TX My 12 year old daughter is a big Harry Potter fan, and loved the part with the Nimbus 2000, so I decided to buy her this toy. I was afraid she would think it was too babyish, but she LOVES this toy. Even my daughter's friends enjoy playing with this fun toy. I was surprised at how long they can just sit in her room and play with this magic broomstick! A great buy for any Harry Potter fan! :) Reviewer: A toy enthusiast from Maine, USA I recently bought this for my son, Vantro. He's a HUGE Harry Potter fan. Seen the movie 32 times (in the theaters) and made the paper. This toy gives him the ability to fly around the house zapping things. My only problem I see with the toy is the batteries drain too fast and his sister fights him over it, so now I need to buy her one. Reviewer: poola13 from Ohio When my 12 year old daughter asked for this for her birthday, I kind of wondered if she was too old for it, but she seems to LOVE it. Her friends love it too! They play for hours in her bedroom with this great toy. They really seem to like the special effects it offers (the sound effects and vibrating). My oldest daughter (17) really likes it too! I reccomend this for all children.   ------------------------------------------------ As you know, here at The Gancer I have found a number of wild stories over the years, but this one is just nuts.  I like how the first parent noticed that the thing is a giant broomstick vibrator, but then all these other parents seemed to think it was perfectly okay for their kid to sit there with the thing between their legs in their bedroom, especially the 17-year-old.   We really don't need to get kids hooked on masturbating when they're 5.  That's what adolescence is for.   Wait, do you think that adult nerds buy this thing and pretend to be horny-ass witches?  That's even scarier to think about than kids masturbating . . .

My Lady and I Got in the World's Dumbest Fight . . .

. . . about where I would put my CD's when we get a place together.  I was drunk and demanding that they be prominently displayed because I like seeing them - they're comforting.  They have been in the basement for too long, and every time I want to hear something that I haven't put onto my iPod yet, I have to go all the way down there.

The next morning we were laughing about how dumb a fight it was, and it was one of those things where we are pretty much agreed on it, but we weren't listening to one another because we both were drastically overserved with pints upon pints of loud mouth soup.

So today I sent her this email:

I went downstairs with my cigar to look for a Pantera CD that I want to play during workouts, and I left the cigar on the ledge outside.  I found that disc and some other gems, but while I was searching, the rain started pouring, putting out my stogie and getting me and my discs all wet on my way back up to the apartment.

That settles it.  The discs will be displayed tastefully in our lovely little apartment.

Love you.

If You're Not Following Me On Twitter, You Missed This:

My girlfriend's roommate has muttenchops and lays his girlfriend to classical music. Chops guys aught to bone to Motorhead.

Why Do We Do This?

You ever get caught in really bad traffic where no one is moving, and it is an unusual time with no construction?  So, you're thinking to yourself, either a bunch of idiots are stopping to look at something or there is an accident of some kind, and you find yourself saying:

"There had better be an accident up here, or I'm going to be so pissed.  If there is not a car on fire up here, or at least an overturned one, I swear to God I'm going to snap.  I mean, there had better be a bunch of dudes with the Jaws of Life trying to pry a mutilated, unidentifiable body out of a Ford Taurus . . ."

So we're hoping for a car accident?

Or maybe that's just me . . .

Today Was . . . Dry

Today was crap.  I screwed something up, defended myself as if I was right, then after a nap realized how stupid and wrong I was.  

But I will say this: I learned a new "hood word" on the West Side.  

Dry.

When you say someone is dry, it means that they have not been laid in a long while.

Example:

Quintel: Man, I've been hittin' it all week, son!

Keywan: No way, dawg.  You dry as hell.

So.  I'm an idiot, but on the bright side, I'm learning. 

I Bumped Into Bono the Other Day . . .

 . . . And you won't believe what he asked of me:

"Let me take a ride with your sister in the rain."

What?  Who asks that, and exactly what are your intentions with my sister on this drive of yours?  Is it your motorcycle because you shouldn't ride one of those in the rain with or without a passenger.

I never trusted that Bono.  I think it's the over-sized fly sunglasses that give me a weirdo vibe. 



-----------------------------------------
*I finished this blog post only to find out that he actually says "Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain."  Fuck it.  I'm posting it anyway.  

Do You Got Guys?

You need "guys," people you go to when you need something done, like your watch fixed or your chimney cleaned.  Even better is when you're middle aged and you've amassed an armada of guys so when someone has a problem you can tell them, "I got a guy for you."

The best "guy" I ever had at my disposal was a mechanic who would fix things out of his house.  His name sounded like a mechanic, but without using his real name, I'll call him Billy Bracket.  I would drop my car off at his place late at night, leave the key in the visor, and every single time he would call me before 7AM to wake me up to tell me something like, "Yeah, Ken?" (in a thick Chicago accent) "I took a look at your car.  It's got a busted alternator."  Then he would quote me something ridiculously low.  All you had to get these fabulous prices was come in and have coffee with him every few tune ups, which I was glad to do because he was funnier than hell.

One time Billy played me an audio tape of him nailing a broad.  Another time a girl came by when he was taking a look at my car, and I swear I heard them call each other "cousin" more than a few times, yet just as she left, while tightening a screw under the hood, he nonchalantly said, "Yeah.  I've been pluggin' her for years."  His cousin?

I'm making Billy sound like strictly a big ol' pervert, which is not the case because these were the only two such cases I came across.  Generally he was a really sweet guy who was a Vietnam veteran with a number of health problems, and he was really easy to talk to.  I hope he is still going strong and still plugging his cousin.  I haven't heard from him in a long time because he was the "guy" of my girlfriend at the time's father, so I had to let him go when she and I parted ways.

An honest mechanic is great to have, especially when you know nothing about cars except where the key goes because they'll rip you off any time they get a chance.  But not Billy; He was the man.  Here's to you, Billy.  Hope you're taking care of yourself and your customers.  My first Bud tonight is for you. 

How about you, Seven Readers?  You got guys?

Another Weird Guy at the Bar

Last night there was a dude in the bar who came in with an envelope to give to the bartender, which he said was his "sex tape."  Turns out it is a tape of him on "Wife Swap" because he had been telling the bartender girl about it.  Remember Ratner from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High?"  He looked just like him, only he was hunched over.  He told us that his doctor said he has a "lazy back."

Later when we were doing some evil shots of Jameson, due to fricking Southie ordering them up a couple times, just after Rattner downed his, he darted into the bathroom, so we think he may have thrown up.  Still, he kept right on drinking as every good regular should.

I don't know how we got going on this, but he was quizzing me on my 90's rock knowledge, and of course I was killing it.  However, I was really disappointed that I couldn't remember Better Than Ezra.  God, that song was annoying.  Who the hell was Ezra?  And if they are better than him, just how shitty was Ezra?

The other night my lady and I were in Cody's, a great Chicago cozy dive bar, and there were like 3 dogs in there (it's a very dog-friendly bar), and for whatever reason a Filipino man was telling us how he ate dogs when he was a kid.  I thought this was interesting because while I have heard of this a lot, never have I met someone who openly talked about having done it.  He said they would have a pet dog, but then one day their dad would cook him up and they would all eat the son of a bitch.

Naturally, I had some questions, as I always do.  You would imagine he has to skin the thing to get all the fur off, so how do you just skin and gut the family dog after playing fetch and teaching him to sit and shake  all those years?  He explained that it is a third world country, so they had to do what they had to do to survive, which helped it make a little more sense to me.

Then again, I wasn't too sensitive to the subject to ask when a pizza arrived for him if he got any dog toppings on there?  He obviously wasn't offended, thankfully, when he responded, "I wish, bro!"