The Pathbeater

…Thanks to a former Air Force roommate of mine, I’m a big Pink Floyd fan.  I was listening to their greatest hits album the other day and wondered, if Pink Floyd had to re-write their song Another Brick in the Wall, whether they would change the lyrics to say, “Hey, Preacher, leave them kids alone”….

…While driving into work this morning, I heard Mike Barnicle say some really nice things about the monthly publication The Atlantic.  Despite the fact that Barnicle left The Boston Globe in disgrace, I always found him fairly entertaining, so I might give The Atlantic a shot.  It doesn’t hurt that my favorite columnist on ESPN.com, Greg Easterbrook, writes for that publication (although he doesn’t write about sports for The Atlantic).  To check out Easterbrook’s intellectual take on this past weekend’s slate of NFL games, check out his ESPN column here.  One of the cool parts of Easterbrook’s ESPN articles is that he invites readers to submit haiku, which are then published, provided that they are judged worthy.  I submitted a haiku last week and I have my fingers crossed for tomorrow’s article…

…The King actually convinced me to go to a concert put on by the surviving members of the Grateful Dead tonight (called The Other Ones).  I guess Susan Tedeschi is going to be playing, as well.  If I enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed Trey Anastasio, it will be worth my while.  Stay tuned for the results of my first encounter with the Dead nation…

…What ever happened to Rico Suave?…

…My Sunday coed touch football team (Beer Factor) recently lost in the playoff finals, ending a season filled with good times with the cool people on the squad.  When the season starts next season, I’ll be married and probably living outside of Boston.  Since the Megger has already claimed to have “retired” from the sport,  I wonder if my married butt will be motivated to run a touch football team again.  I hope so…

…I just re-read my bit about The Atlantic, and it reminded me that one thing I miss about living in Central Massachusetts is reading Sid McKeen’s Wry and Ginger column in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette on Sundays.  There aren’t too many columnists I really enjoy, now that Mike Royko is playing in the big softball tournament in the sky, and I usually find McKeen enjoyable, if in a grumpy old man sort of way…

…Speaking of grumpy old men, despite the fact that it’s not politically correct, I have always been and continue to be an Andy Rooney fan, although I almost never watch 60 Minutes…

…Thanks to my friend Jeremiah, who always makes exotic food sound like a good idea, I recently tried a huge bowl of Vietnamese soup, I’m not sure what it’s called, but the menu lists it as XE LUA under a section called PHO huac MI, which features, among other things, beef, onions, noodles, tripe and beef tendons.  Despite the scary ingredients, it’s quite good, although I am not good at eating with chopsticks yet.  I’m sure my chopstick bumbling provides entertainment for the waiters, when they’re not out back dropping tendons into their soup…

…Some day, once I’ve written a best-selling novel and have some time for myself, I will learn to play the bass guitar.  Anyone with good ideas for a best-selling novel, please let me know…

…It was a sad day in my apartment yesterday, when the TV in the living room stopped functioning.  We took it apart and didn’t notice any glaring problems, such as a big switch labeled “Want your TV to work?  Yes.  No.”, so we made the command decision to have professionals take a look at it.  When investigating the problem, I did smell something that can only be described as “electrical components over easy”.  I’m not sure what that means…

…RB Update:  It’s been running relatively problem-free (sound of knocking).  I did take it in to Smiling V the Mechanic (where the motto seems to be “We may not be good, but we are conveniently located”) when I noticed that, although the engine was running ok, the temperature gauge rapidly vacillating between “overheating” and “normal”.  Smiling V held onto The RB for a day, said some prayers over a gasket and the thermostat to the tune of $50, and gave it back to me “good as new”.  The gauge still changes rapidly, but now between “not so hot” and “normal”.  What are the chances that Smiling V just adjusted the gauge for my $50?…

…Speaking of The RB, this past Saturday night while I was asleep, someone opened the unlocked door of The RB and attempted to abscond with the Official Radio of The RB.  Why anyone would want to steal that radio is beyond me, since it is an AM/FM/Cassette stereo circa 1992.  Maybe the thief was hit by a wave of nostagia?  

The thief apparently grabbed the molding around the radio and pulled, only to end up with the molding in his/her hands, which he/she then stole (maybe they were after the molding the whole time?).  The stereo must be a popular model, however, because this is actually the second or third attempt by crooks to relieve The RB of its music-playing capability, but apparently none of the scumbags thought to bring an acetylene torch, which seems to be required to actually remove the stereo…

…Lastly, I would like to say Happy Birthday to my niece Katie (my brother’s  daughter), who turned 4 this past Friday.  I’m not sure if I’ve written about this before, but Katie has taken quite a liking to the Megger, and once asked if I was the Megger’s husband.  When the Megger said no (we weren’t even engaged at that point), Katie pointed at me and asked in all seriousness, “Well, who is he then?”…

I can’t seem to focus today, so I’m going to whip up one of those “dot-dot-dot” columns that are springing up in newspapers all over the country.  I think it will be easier than trying to maintain focus on one subject for any length of time today.  It seems like this format might be popular on this site, as Fuma seems to have adopted it in his little literary playground.  I won’t do these types of columns so very often, but they might come in handy when I find myself lacking in the ability to form coherent thoughts…

 …My girlfriend (The Megger) received a greeting card in the mail the other day.  The address was typed and there was no return address.  Inside the envelope there was a blank Thanksgiving Day card, and thankfully, no white powder.  Being more than a little paranoid, I actually put the card and envelope into a Zip-Lock bag and had The Megger call the police to ask them what to do.  They told her that if there was no white powder, there was no problem.  It’s weird that three short months ago I would have thought nothing of it (except I might have wondered why someone would send a Thanksgiving Day card so early)….

 …My friend Dan told me this one, but it’s worth repeating:  When people are talking to an answering machine, they will often say something like “I’ll meet you at 7, ok?”, as if the answering machine is going to say, “Yep.  I’ll be there!”…

 …I had a bunch of people over to my apartment a while back to watch the Lewis-Rahman fight on pay-per view.  At one point of the night, I leaned over to grab another slice of pizza.  Just as I picked up the slice, my chair collapsed.  Mother Nature isn’t very subtle….

 …At a different point during that night, my friends and I were all loudly cheering for one of the fighters in a preliminary bout, when my friend BBD (who vaguely resembles a garden gnome) shouted “HE CAN SMELL THE BURGERS!!”  Instant silence.  He had just won the “We are going to make fun of you for the rest of the night” lottery…

 …My aluminum bat and I would like to speak with the person who decided it would be a good idea to put the on-ramps onto a highway directly in front of the off-ramps, causing all of the people trying to get off the highway to play hide and seek with traffic trying to merge onto the highway…

 …Note to whichever group of billionaires buys the Red Sox:  Fire Dan Duquette.  Fire him right now.  Any general manager who tells one of his veteran players that they’ve been released with a thoughtful FAX should not be running my favorite baseball team.  His haircut is awful, too…

 …If the people who made alarm clocks were smart, they’d make snooze buttons that wear out with use like cars….

 …Why did I have to go to college during the “Let’s wear loose, grungy clothes and plaid shirts” era in women’s fashion instead of the “tight clothes, belly shirts” era?…

 …One of my friends, “Norm”, had his mother call his college dorm room one time and ask for him by his real name.  Norm’s roommate of two years told her, “Nope, sorry, wrong number,” and hung up on her….

And finally, see if you can remember what movie this line comes from:

“You know, if you shoot me, you’ll lose a lot of these humanitarian awards.