Puttin' Out The Vibe

Well first things first... I present your 2007 World Champion Boston Red Sox!!!!!!! You are excited right? Great pitching, great hitting, great fielding. Not to get too far ahead of myself but I think we should prepare now for a ten-peat. Icing on the cake, as cranky Mike Lowell picks up a much deserved MVP award. Great time here for Lowell if that is the end. I won't belabor the point but I am pretty damned happy today. I would also like to thank the National League for sending another lamb to the slaughter. Seriously, other than Todd Helton and Todd Helton's goatee, was there one person in that lineup you were afraid of? Matt "I'm taking a" Holliday? Nope. Kaz Chopsuey? Nah. The other 6 guys? I was afraid they would fly out as opposed to strike out, that's about it. Of course, this is pretty easy to say now that it's over.

A few more thoughts... Thanks for coming out Steinbrenner Jr. Maybe you should keep talking. There are 200+ million reasons why the Yankees suck. A-Rod. I am sending out a huge disapproving head shake. this guy might be the biggest asshole in sports... Maybe even topping Barry Bonds, and Kobe-Beef. That guy is going to pansy slap some team for 300MM plus, I just pray it's not the Red Sox!

So I was drinking a beer and watching the Giants w/ a co-worker on Sunday afternoon, we happened to notice once again that Burlington is one odd place. How many towns in America are more strange during the day than at night?! We were accosted at the bar by Santa Clauses drunk brother, Flannel Frank... who regaled us w/ stories and funny nicknames for NFL teams, such as the Washington Foreskins, and the N.E. Pastry Asses! Good times. We finally rolled out and came across a guy who appeared to by 5 acid tabs deep, twirling around in the middle of the street looking and pointing skyward, with his eyes rolled back in their sockets (he was about 45). With a little beer in my belly I then rocked the price Chopper where I was able to wade through the 300lb herd to pick up the Jay family essentials. Let me tell you... it is ALWAYS a good idea to A)let you 5 yr old push the cart (preferably into other shoppers) and B) look in one direction while pushing your cart in the opposite direction (preferably into other shoppers). I then bagged my own groceries while the 8 teenagers "working" at the store stood around and chatted about the sex they are not having and the zits they most certainly are having! I'll take plastic please!

Hey, the Patriots are pretty good. The Dolphins and J-E-T-S... not so much.

Chewing tobacco may give you moth cancer but with it's smooth satisfying flavor... you can count on smooth satisfying moth cancer! Sorry, I was just reading a magazine in my other office and thought that ad was funny.

Hey Mel Gibson, I have one criticism concerning Apocalypto... more violence!!!!

Trinity football... more laterals!! http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3083220&categoryId=2564308&n8pe6c=2&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1

Jay About Town... more ellipses... And way more exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last thing, one more rant about VT. The service! In a metropolitan area you pay a professional, they grumble, they do the job, they make every attempt to do the job professionally, and they take pride in their work. Here? If you can find someone actually willing to do some work (needs to be between 10AM and 3PM), you pay them more than they deserve, they usually do not do the job and if they do it is shit, you complain, they are already closed, they do not have call waiting... or email... or an answering machine... you seethe and contemplate burning their business down, they go on a 3 month vacation courtesy of their trust fund and or welfare check!!!!!!!! So that's fun.

OK, enough for now... it's time to put out the vibe

Schill for the Man

2 down... 2 to go! 1 night after laying an absolute smackdown on the Rockies, the Red Sox worked to pull out a gutsy 2-1 win. Curt Schilling may be as old as my dad but that old fart can throw. The buzzword du jour... guile. Shilling didn't have gas but he did have "GUILE". I guess I need to brush up on my English because I had no idea guile meant "bad hitting lineup used to hitting in a huge park 50K feet above sea level"?! In any event... it was a great game and once again crusty Mike Lowell came up with a huge play that ultimately swung the game in their favor. Lowell has created a tough situation for any GM in baseball. He played way over his head in a contract year. As much as you like his "guile" and his glove, he will never hit like this again. So as a Red Sox fan you hate to lose him, realize you cannot replace him, but ultimately need to let him go. Was that last little blurb a little weepy?! Well F*** YOU!!! Just kidding, Mike Lowell is great, I hope he gets a big contract somewhere in the National League.

My wife is out of town so I was also able to watch a movie last night... no, not that kind of movie! Clerks 2, it was way too wordy. Unlike the first movie, the dialogue was not very witty. They just swore alot and made a bunch of gay jokes. The only redeeming quality was a sort of funny donkey love gag, and Rosario Dawson... who was pretty cute (i.e. hot!). Just in case you were wondering, I ate a cookie... BEFORE DINNER! Then had a couple beers, leftovers, another cookie, and fell asleep on the couch. That is the glamorous life of the bachelor, soak it in baby!!!

Hot Dog!

What a start for the Sox! Beckett pitched well, especially that first inning, and the rest of the team really put the wood to the ball (heh-heh). Anytime you are afforded the luxury of letting Eric Gagne pitch a whole inning of regulation baseball, well sir, you are doing ok! Julio "I love to grab my crotch" Lugo picked up a couple of hits, as did JD Drew. Just amazing all around. Of course it was a little bittersweet as I had to get up at 4:45 AM to drive the little lady to the airport. That's the type of sweet guy I am. I will however be a shell of myself by about 3PM. Already a little shaky. What can I say, I need my beauty sleep... you don't get these shockingly good looks through luck folks!!!

That's a Man...Man!

I am a huge fan of the New York Post. I also enjoy the Boston Herald and the New York Daily News, but there is nothing quite like the Post. The story that has my attention of late revolves around billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Apparently he is in hot water for soliciting sex from underage prostitutes. Pretty salacious story right? Well, it gets better. He got sued last week for having relations w/ a then underage model who now is twenty something years old but at the time of the incident was so emotionally damaged she could not bring charges. Beyond the oddness of the underage and "unnatural" sex acts... this model was pictured w/ her much older, fatter, uglier, lawyer/boyfriend! Not only extremely salacious, but fishy, very fishy. But wait, it gets better! The she is a he! It's a dude! Maximilla was once Maxillian!!! Well, it might all be fake but it's a funny story anyway

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10232007/news/regionalnews/gender_bend_shocker.htm

Do you like Strawberry? Well, how about...RAWBERRY!!!!!!!!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/5176

This Week in Music

Not for nothing but this guy is worth millions of dollars. If YOU have ever purchased a HoBo Joe, er, uh, Kid Rock song or album... this is where your money has gone. Can anyone really be shocked this knucklehead got in a brawl at a truck stop waffle house? I sort of imagined his mug shot would be the result of a harmless misunderstanding w/ the maitre d' at Chez Something or Rather. Man, I was way off!!!!! So in closing, good people of the jury, I would ask... is this the face of a criminal? I say no! Heavens NO!!!!!!!

The Mo Fo World Series!!!!

Pretty good weekend if you are a Boston fan. Sox working thru a few jams on their way to a World Series, BC football moves up a spot in the BCS and they didn't even play, the Patriots lay another smackdown on the hapless 'Phins, and that Head of the Charles race where the hoity toity go to see and be seen (to be fair it is a really fun time). In the name of full disclosure, I am a pretty big Red Sox fan. The nature of a Sox fan does not allow you to really enjoy their success until the end of a winning game while you die a little inside w/ each miscue. This has been written ad nausea by better writers than I so I will no belabor the point. Just know that last night I was a mess until the final Paplebon out... and then it was sheer joy!

By the way, as much as JD Drew (not a bad series) and Coco Crisp tried to wrestle the title away, was there a worse Sox player this season than Julio Lugo? I mean he looked like he had money on Cleveland last night. He couldn't hit, couldn't run, couldn't field, and was a complete disaster. Given the deer in the headlights look he had, I actually thought the Sox had miraculously picked up Reche Caldwell to play shortstop last night!!!!

Meanwhile, by the time I was able to flip on the Patriots game on the radio (I was eating fiber cereal and getting my ass kicked by my wife in golf at the In-Law's) the Pats had the hot dog guy at QB throwing 75 yard bombs to the bathroom attendant. Call me a nerd but Tom Brady is carrying the Patriots as well as my fantasy football team, and he dates supermodels, and impregnates hot actresses... I want to hate him out of sheer jealous spite but he put up 50 points to lead my team to victory?! What is a lame ass like me to do? Fortunately for me, my wife is pretty hot too. I was able to catch a little of the Denver/Steelers game between innings of the baseball game. Neither of those teams really scare me much. The Broncos QB looks like he might crap his pants at any moment and their top RB is about to go Ricky Williams on us. Those 2 could be our generation's Cheech and Chong. The Steelers meanwhile have a, a, a... I don't even know what they have but they lost to a sucky Denver team last night ergo, they suck worse!!! On the other hand, what do I know... I couldn't pick a winner w/ the spread if my life depended on it. I have a better chance of guessing when Brittney Spears will get sober than picking football winners this season?

Couple short observations... Unbelievable foliage this week... amazing colors, great New England weather... really a pretty spectacular way to usher in the next 6 months of cold gloom! I read a story about how Radiohead offered its fans the ability to download their new album for free and then the fans complained about the sound quality and said it was merely a marketing ploy to get you to buy the album. Guess what dipshits, it was a ploy to get you to but the album!!! The band put the work into making it, the least you can do is fork over $10 to buy it if you like it, or don't. Just don't whine about the sound quality of a free download... you are not entitled to take some one's stuff for free just because you own a computer!!!!!!!! Like exclamation points? Get used to them, I use 'em a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GO SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This Seems Like a Good Idea

Trailer park becomes 'paradise' for sex offenders

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/17/trailer.sexoffender/index.html

or...

Ellen DeGeneres Says Dog Drama Has 'Gotten Out of Hand'

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,303198,00.html


then again...

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10182007/entertainment/fashion/hell_yeah_.htm

USA! USA! USA!

You know, in these turbulent times, threats all around us, turmoil within... it is comforting to quietly remember the words of a true poet.

I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,

I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

When it comes crashing down, and it hurts inside,

ya' gotta take a stand, it don't help to hide,

Well, you hurt my friends, and you hurt my pride,

I gotta be a man; I can't let it slide,

I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,

I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

I feel strong about right and wrong,

And I don't take trouble for very long,

I got something deep inside of me, and courage is the thing that keeps us free,

I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,

I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

Well you hurt my friends, and you hurt my pride,

I gotta be a man; I can't let it slide,

I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,

I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

I am a real American, Fight for the rights of every man,

I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

Review: Zodiac

Looking for a way to spend an innordinate amount of time (2hr 38m)? Looking for gratuittous violence? How about multiple characters who seem to be very loosely connected and go through ups and downs but never find any type of resolution? How about a story that seems to have a hypothesis regarding an unsolved crime but then realizes it does not have a complete base of facts and bails out at the end w/ no ends to justify terribly painful means?! Uninterested in hearing what the actors are saying because they talk to softly, the music is too loud, and they generally have a cigarette in their mouth? Do you want Jake GYLYNLAHHALLEN doing Jake Gyllakehnenhalun things?!?!? Than Zodiac is the movie for you!!!!!! It is too long, cuts it's only entertaining character (Robert Downy Jr.) too early and w/ his character still woefully underdeveloped, and generally just SUCKS! They had a nice little idea but tried to incorporate far too many facets to a complicated case. If you are getting into an unsolved case of this magnitude I think you have to take the Oliver Stone JFK route and just make a huge leap of faith and make a bunch of shit up. At the end of the day there is a reason the police could never make a compelling case against anyone.

On the bright side the soundtrack is fantastic.

F*ING TUESDAY!

To be fair I started the day out a little on the cranky side... Last night I sat through a Red Sox meltdown which put me in a foul mood and and to search around for the source of an odd dead animal smell emenating from the first floor of my house. I am a little wary of getting a pet but the mouse situation is ridiculous. I have also been having strange dreams of persecution... like getting arrested for something I did not do and then getting harrassed by the police as I try to explain my innosence. What the hell is that all about?! So then I get up this morning and it's dark and cold. I live in an area of the country where you spend 6 months in the cold and dark; it's dark when to wake up and go to work, it's dark when you come home, the only light you see during the week is from the window of your office or the 5 minutes it takes to walk to a sanwich shop for lunch. Believe me, that is not in the least bit depressing! So I take a luke warm shower, trip over my wife's shoes in the hall, pick out mismatched socks in the dark, and then trip over the gym bag I laid out for myself the previous evening. Banner day so far. So I finally get on the road. It doesn't take long before I am trapped on Route 7. Traffic is not so bad here but for some reason there is a perponderance of dipshits who think they should get in the passing lane in order to drive slowly and NOT PASS!!!!!!! So you get two morons driving the the same speed (5mph below the limit) side by side. If this is you, why the F*ck do you do this?! Just pull over for the love of all that is holy! If you see the dude right up on your ass waving you over and screaming at you? That is ME, and YOU are doing the wrong thing! The icing on the cake this morning was the guy with the "BIDS" vanity plates driving 30MPH in a 45. I finally got around him and realized what was diverting his attention from the road... he was picking his nose and eating it. I would show a $20 "BID" for the Smails kid to not drive anymore. **Sorry if you are reading this nose picker, but eating it is a big faux pas.

So back to the animal issue. My special lady (i.e. my spouse), suggested I use this forum to break out one of my all time gems. Not sure how it will translate in writing as opposed to a verbal telling but here goes. So my wife tells me she has seen a huge mouse in the house. We have seen a few before, it is an 1870s farm house in the country... these things happen. So we are sleeping one night when I have to take a pee. Now, the free spirit I am, I'm sleeping naked... BUTT-NAKED! It's around 2AM mid week so I am still half asleep, hand on the wall supporting myself, when I see something out of the corner of my eye. I snap awake and turn my head to see that huge f*ing mouse. I mean seriously, it's like 7 inches long! I am still mid stream, I can't stop once I start... it stings. I am peeing, trying not to pee on the floor while I watch this giant mouse cruise around the bathroom. I finish up and he settles into a plant we have that is in a basket. What should I do? I decide to go gladiator style and grab the plunger. AAAHHHHAAYAYYHAHAH!!!!!!!!! I make a huge stabbing motion down across the bathroom and thrap the thing in the plant bathroom. So here I am holding the basket (imagine and easter basket) with the mouse trapped under the plunger. BTW, did I mention I was au natural? I run out in the hall and start yelling for my wife. She comes running out (still asleep) like there is a fire or something. There I am in the hall, 2AM in the morning, stark naked, holding a basket with a plunger jammed in it. She looks me up and down and says something to the effect of "what the hell are you doing?". "I've trapped the mouse! Go open the door!" She asks me if I need some pants? Good idea but my hands are a bit full, how am I supposed to get them on? So she runs down and opens the dooor. I come flying down after were (stuff all over the place) and run outside throwing the whole basket out into the night! BOO-YEAH!!

So yeah... I probably don't need a cat or anything.

A mini pub crawl

So one reason I put this bad dog online was that I really enjoy writing little bursts about things, places, and experiences I have come across. I really enjoy little things and have found that I have become a cosmic intersection of weird and funny shit. I had been posting some things for the folks in my office and I really enjoyed that but at a certain level, due to time contraints (and some possible legal constraints), it made sense for me to find a different outlet for my energies. I have never been very good at keeping journals so this may fizzle like Corey Haim's career (minus the coke, spiked hair, and excessive weight).

On Sunday, my special lady had put in a bunch of hours doing schoolwork (she is hooking up an MBA so I can be a stay at home husband) and deserved a break. We decided on a trip to the big city... Burlington! As this is the intranet, I challenge the 2 people who don't know me to guess what state?! First stop? The Bangkok Bistro for a martini and appetizer. Let's just get this out of the way, the extra dry Bombay Saphire martini (his) and the Ketel One w/ a twist (hers) were large and in charge! The veggie egg roll was also quite nice. But here is where the real action was at! We sat at the bar, another couple deep in conversation to our left... a solo guy reading a book to our right. Game in hand I was wearing my Red Sox hat when the guy looked over and asked in a thick Mass accent (I guessed dorchester, he said vaguely North Shoa), "what was the final scoa?". This opened up a little dialogue about name, occupation, hometown, etc... "GUY" was from the North Shoa, worked on 18 wheeler automatic engines, was a good looking well kept guy, and was reading one of my favorite books... Dostoesky's "The Idiot". "GUY" had read several of "this guy's books". Small talk aside the conversation was over right? WRONG!!! "GUY" went on to tell us all about Canada; the banking system, Toronto Dominion, crossing the border, the girls, his girlfriends in Montreal (those are strippers to you and me), how Canada was the most fiscally sound country in the world, and how Canadian banks forgave almost all overdrafts in lieu of simple low interest payments, far lower than here in the States. I have to admit, between trying to ignore him and the martini, I lost most of the conversation... the gist being that Canada is much nicer, cleaner, friendlier, and better managed than the U.S. of A.! What I did notice is that he kept mentioning vague run ins w/ the law and how he was able to talk his way out of issues w/ the MAN here and North of the border. I was already a little alarmed and trying to wiggle our way out. That's when "GUY" mentioned something that was no big deal but was on his record and gave hime problems in Canada. I won't mention it, it may be no big deal...or it may get you killed in prison! CHECK PLEASE!!!!

Stop number 2... Taste. We had visited this spot a few times before but it had been awhile. We had been just passing by but decided to poke our heads in for a look. It was warm in temperature and overall atmosphere. Upon entry we immediatly ran into my man Jimmy B waiting for a table, w/ his special lady, his sister, and nephew. What I didn't know was that Jim was the mayor of Taste. He talked it up, gave us a drink recomendation, and put in a word w/ the bartender, Carol!! Hot Dog, it was go time!!!! Now let me tell you a secret, Jay About Town is no stranger to a fruity cocktail. I am married and a huge lady killer... no worries about my manliness my friends!!! We hit up the special "Stonefruit Martini" and it was as advertised! A special concoction made up w/ care and love by the owner chef himself and boozed up from our very busy but professional and nice mixologist Carol. We then rocked another app., the veggie fritters w/ a sweet peanut sauce. Another winner, they were quite good! After that I was a little martini'd out and it was time to go home.

Overall, I give the evening 2 solid thumbs up... doesn't get much stranger than that for a 3 hour study break!!! I always enjoy the Bangkok's martinis and suggest them to anyone w/ a driver and bit of courage. I also am going to put Taste back in the mix and try dinner in the near future... the moral there is sometimes a place needs to grow into it's own!!! And w/ a cloud of dust and a hearty High-Ho!

Jay About Town... About the Intraweb

OK... here we go! I have never done this, I am sure it will take me awhile to get my web legs, and I tend to write in rambling conversational prose... as it were. This blog, like every other attempt on the web is the vain musings of an idiot. With that said, I hope to be able to take my thoughts from a very constrained environment to one where I can spread my wings a bit. I plan on taking on such weighty topics as Burlington, VT and it's points of interest, traffic, sports, employment, spell checking, chance encounters, etc... I will try not to offend badly, though I might on occasion. I also hope any potential readers understand I am willing to laugh at myself as I would anyone else as I am most assuredly the biggest knucklehead in this space so join in the joke, don't become the butt of it! And I am out!