Well the staff of DP is finally on a much-needed vacation for the next ten days. We’re staying in the panhandle area of Florida, drinking beer and running. Not at the same time, of course, but…wait a minute…

Anyway, updates may be few and far between for a bit. But here’s this week’s installment of FTILFF:

1. Dyson’s public restroom hand dryer - You would think that those fancy shmancy Dyson vacuums would be kinda lame for being so damned expensive. But the few times I’ve used one, I’ve been impressed. And seeing this video from CNet about the Airblade makes me realize that this guy has a crack team of monkeys cranking out some pretty incredible designs. Yes, vacuums and hand dryers are cool. There, I said it.
2. Joe Mathlete Explains Today’s Marmaduke - Hilarious. I hate Marmaduke as a cartoon, but this guy has some pretty hilarious “interpretations,” and some pretty honest ones as well.
3. Having a beer while watching the sun set over the ocean - Yes. A magical elixir to erase The Suck from the past year.
4. Heath Bar Cookies - I’ve never been much of a toffee fan. But The Wife definitely is, so all things toffee are now added to my baking repertoire. These cookies? I’ll probably be making them in the next 24 hours they look so dang good.
5. Nutmeg in your muffins - I’ve found that this little freshly-grated addition to muffins makes a nice, mildly nutty almost citrusy kick. Complimented w/ some chocolate chips, they make a 11 hour drive to the coast bearable.

I’m off to sit under an umbrella, slathered in SPF9000 sunscreen so as to remain as cancer-free painfully pale white as possible. Maybe I’ll have a beer or twelve to console myself.

Vacation rules.

There are certain milestones in life where it becomes painfully clear that you are no longer as youthful and full of life as you once were, and that your priorities have shifted to a slightly different place. Throughout the years, these instantaneous epiphanies have revealed themselves in some of the most curious forms. For instance, there was the day not long after graduating from college that I caught myself saying to someone that it “was really awesome to finally own my own washer and dryer.” Why this friend did not punch me in the nose I still do not know.

There is also the time that during a candid discussion with some friends, plans for tax returns were revealed. Televisions, vacations destinations and expensive electronics seemed the most popular wish list items ripe for purchasing. You can imagine the looks of horror I received when I disclosed that our returns were being electronically deposited into the Roth IRA to be touched in a very immediate 39 75 years when we finally retire. How is that NOT 100% awesome?! Based on the agape mouths and blank stares, I had clearly missed the call to board the USS Fun Boat and mistakenly wandered onto HMS Lame Ass.

This past weekend was yet another nail in the proverbial coffin. The Wife™ was in a wedding for a friend, so much of our time was consumed by the events surrounding the nuptials. Friday night’s dinner at the Louisville Slugger museum was complimented by a nice amount of Scotch. Scotch that someone else was paying for. This, as anyone knows, is the best kind of Scotch, so this Scotch was warmly welcomed. I did not get drunk, nor did I intend to. But I did have a bit more alcohol than I do on any average week, which sadly hovers around the mark of one beer every 7-10 days, which by College Rules should immediately revoke my Man Card™. So by the end of Friday, it’s safe to say that I had easily used up July’s alcohol allowance.

“…I had clearly missed the call to board the USS Fun Boat and mistakenly wandered onto HMS Lame Ass.”

Saturday after a 2 p.m. ceremony, the bridal party and all of their significant others were shuffled onto a chartered bus where there was a 2:1 ratio of people to coolers. As people drank with reckless abandon, the driver headed towards Churchill Downs, where we proceeded to spend the next several hours drinking more, betting on races, and hanging out in a very posh, catered skybox. Even by this point, I was a sight for sore eyes, only having a mint julep and some Tanqueray (not together. My god that would be horrible.) I had neither the energy or the metabolic stamina to keep up with the other 20-some people my age. I did what anyone would do in this situation, I panicked.

By the time we got to the reception at 7 p.m. a good portion of the bridal party were on the brink of vomiting off the roof ready to dance, and the awaiting open bar was a challenge that everyone seemed to meet with renewed vigor and vim. I tried. I switched back to Scotch, but it was no use. Even the pregnant women at the reception were outlasting me. All I wanted to do was crawl under the table and sleep. I had become just like an 18 year old freshman chick with a Bacardi Lime. I was a disgrace to every other under-30 person in the joint and I knew it.

So this weekend was yet another milestone in my road to Fogeyville. I’ve become that person who mutters, “I don’t know how you do it!” when hearing the drunken exploits of friends. While most people my age go out three and four times per week, drinking relentlessly for hours on end, I probably was at home watching CSI reruns and falling asleep reading economics books before the sun even goes down. I have accepted this defeat, but do so with a sad and heavy heart.

What’s next? Complimenting someone on their John Tesh collection? A spirited debate with friends on the improved quality of adult diapers? Someone shoot me now.

I have a confession to make and it’s embarrassing: I’m so anal-retentive that I start the process of packing for any trip more than two weeks before scheduled departure. I have comprehensive lists of items that must go, and a holding area to collect everything. I realize that this makes me certifiably insane and that I have a problem. But you can’t argue that I’m not organized like nobody else dammit.

What slays me is thinking of all the bullsh*t that my parents had to pack because of us kids when I was younger. As if going on a two week vacation to the beach 900 miles away wasn’t stressful enough, my parents had to deal with me insisting that, yes, my four-foot-long keyboard DID indeed have to go with us. You know, just in case I wanted to squeeze in some extra piano practicing at the beach.

1. The best 5 seconds spent on the Internet - Man did this thing make the rounds this week. It seems as if everyone and their aunt was linking to it. But you know what? The Internet does not lie. Watch this prairie dog and you’ll understand. OR WILL YOU!? (Conan-style dramatic delivery)
2. Bella Knitting’s Baby Viking Hat - There was a reason that the web exists, and brilliance like this is de facto proof of it’s awesomeness. Sad that all of my friends with children have girls, because this baby hat rules. Kinda like Leif Ericson did. No? Too early for poor social studies humor? Got it.
3. Real beef - Naw son, not the East Coast/West Coast debate or Biggie vs Tupac. Real ground beef as opposed to turkey meat. I was raised eating lean ground turkey which sure, it’s healthy. But when you’re having a burger it’s just not the same. This week I ground my own patties with a mixture of sirloin and chuck and slapped ‘em on the grill. It’s the difference of night and day, Big K and Coke. I’ll have a hard time ever going back to turkey.
4. Overheard In New York - Whoa, totally uncensored text, so consider yourself warned. But if these conversational snippets are indeed snatched from real life, then the American public is way funnier than I ever imagined. Or at least New Yorkers. I still don’t believe people in Nebraska have funny bones.
5. Microsoft Surface Parody - Again with the meme vids from the week! This one is quite well done. If you’ve never heard of the MS Surface, it is their next-gen computing “solution” that is supposed to revolutionize how we interact with technology. Watch and laugh, because one day your computer will be a big-ass table.

How my parents put up with this is beyond me. I can’t recall a time when they laid it on the line and told me how much of a toolbox I was being. Instead my dad would just find some masterful way of packing it all in. And as I prepare the car-load for our vacation next Wednesday, I have enough sense to now weigh the options, the real decisions that matter, such as “one pair of pants or none?” and “Will The Wife™’s family give me sideways glances if I pack 10-days of clothing into a small backpack?” Hey, don’t judge me! I’ve got far too much beer to cram into the car. A guy’s gotta make some sacrifices, ya know?

I think that I’ve watched enough Law & Order- and CSI-type shows by now to generalize on a few fairly universal truths that seem to exist in TV land. There is a slight possibility that my conclusions are ill-laid though, because I refuse to watch any of the CSI: Miami series. David Caruso’s head scares the piss out of me.

1. Overhead lights do not exist - Apparently every police precinct is in on the green movement, as the only lights that are ever on are tiny, insufficient desk lamps. Every interrogation room has a single light bulb, and every sketchy crime scene conveniently has no room lights to switch on, thus necessitating flashlights. These poor people must have terrible eyesight by now. It’s a wonder they ever get any work done.
2. All science-related things are done in rooms with blue LED lighting - Apparently labs are only allowed faint blue lighting to conduct their forensic investigations. No blue light? No science going on.
3. The first person interviewed is never the culprit - I know this rule, yet somehow always get burned. They question the subject and immediately I scream, “it’s him! he did it! THAT BASTARD!” only to realize that there’s 47 more minutes left in the episode. Dick Wolf is a genius.
4. There’s nothing the coroner can’t find, and when they do it’ll be presented in a totally nonchalant fashion. - Surprisingly they also work in a dimly-lit basement with no other co-workers.
5. Detectives never finish a meal. They are zombies - In the 12,000 episodes of CSI I’ve seen the poor detectives eat maybe a half a dozen times, yet never once get to finish the meal before they have to run out the door without paying. Nor do they sleep, go home or wear anything but suits.
6. 99% of criminals do not realize that they leave finger prints or semen - You would think by now that the general population would have caught on and invested in some gloves and condoms.
7. Check the sewers for the gun - No, really, I’m serious. It’s probably there. Why does it take them 24 TV hours to realize this?
8. Prepaid cellphones and epinephrine are your best bets - I’m not man enough to ever commit more of a crime than tearing the tag off of a mattress, but if I did, I would be sure to use a prepaid cellphone (paid in cash), and knock-off whomever I needed to w/ an injection of epinephrine. Gotta make sure they can’t trace you and that the coroner thinks it was a simply a heart attack.
9. Police have the best technology ever - Every computer has a kick-ass GUI, every video can be zoomed in 40,000% and then magically enhanced to absolute clarity, call-tracing is both instantaneous and bad-ass looking, and microscopes can solve anything.
10. If you’re a suspect, prepare to get punched - Apparently detectives are allowed to serve you a knuckle sandwich any time of day, or throw you around the interrogation room if they don’t like your answers. BD Wong is probably watching from behind the glass, psychoanalyzing your ass as it gets handed to you.

Just once I would love to see them get Blue Screen of Death’ed. Guess I’ve got a few more years of USA Marathons to watch. You know, just in case.

One night last week after work I stopped by the DMV to renew my car’s registration and pay an absurd amount of money the yearly property tax in order to be able to drive legally, something that is kinda-sorta encouraged here in The ‘Tucky. Coming previously from a state that did not believe in penalizing ordinary citizens for having cars worth more than $4.00 and/or a goat, I have yet and likely will never adjust to having to pay this ridiculous crap. And worse, it involves going to the DMV, and we all know that my interactions with local government have been less than stellar.

Having the convenient hours of “open while you’re already at work, until right before you get off of work,” I was lucky to hit the DMV on the one day that they stay open an entire hour later. How those people manage to not lose their sanity. True heroes. Anyway, so as I entered the office I was quite pleased to notice that there were no other people waiting before me and only two parties being helped. At this moment in time, for one brief, fleeting second, I truly believed that I was going to get out of there in under 15 minutes.

I happily sat down on the oh-so-comfortable bench to wait my turn. I looked around and noticed that there was quite the staff of five able bodies working, yet upon further inspection realized that several job descriptions seemed rather vague, including one woman who’s job it appeared to be to scan documents like a mute zombie and not help anyone else (I want this job). Two clerks were serving the two parties ahead of me, and as I began to casually listen in on the conversations, I realized that I was in for it. Every hope I had for a normal interaction with my local government quickly went the way of the fannypack.

Party number one (consisting of a Bubba* and his Pappy) were attempting to transfer a car from one to the other, and as God hates me luck would have it, they got the one new clerk who had no idea what a keyboard was, how to use it, or any of the other fancy office equipment in front of her. This necessitated the aid of one and half other workers in the office, which as anyone knows triples the length of time it takes to do anything. Trust me, that’s how state-run things work. It’s a law or something.

Having lost all hope that party number one would leave before next Christmas, I quickly shifted attention to party number two, hoping for redemption. This guy was surprisingly normal looking, had all of his teeth and was not wearing any article of clothing that contained either the rebel flag or the Tazmanian Devil. This guy had promise.

But, yet again, my hopes fell sadly to the floor as the minutes clicked by. Fifteen minutes turned into thirty and then to forty-five. By now the waiting room was full. Some people had withered to skeletons. I was damned near unconscious by the time someone moved. See, the reason this guy took so dang long is not that the clerk was slow, had a hook for a hand or was even drunk. Nope. As it turns out, he was there to renew the registration on ALL of the following items: two cars, two jetskis, an RV, two tractors and a motorcycle (there’s probably a good chance they’re all parked on his front lawn, too). What was the final nail in the coffin was that every single piece of insurance information that he needed to present was wrong. Not one, not two, but THREE times, he had to use the phone to call his insurance office, re-read the policy number, tell them the corrections and then we would all then wait patiently, blinking at each other, while the office would fax the changes over. Each time, it was incorrect by one letter. I was so damned close to getting on the phone myself to scream at the agent to, I don’t know, WRITE THE NUMBER DOWN. That’ll teach him not to use Hilljack National for his insurance ever again.

Eventually I had to wake up from my nap to present my forms, a process that took (no joke) less than 60 seconds to complete. As I ran for both freedom and fresh air, I couldn’t help but be happy. Sure, I had wasted over an hour of my time in a soul-sucking office with nothing to read but a poster about MADD. But I saved two bucks by not mailing it in. That’s right, two entire dollars.

I sure know how to stick it to The Man.

The human mind is amazing in the way that it is capable of turning ordinary, non-threatening items into maliciously vindictive entities. When you’re having a bad day, an exceedingly strong burst of wind ceases to be a beautiful part of nature and instead becomes an affront on your personal well-being. “Piss off Wind! Stop trying to blow in my face! I hate you so much!” Even bodily functions like an eye twitch that won’t go away somehow becomes justification for homicide. Granted, you can’t murder a twitching eye, but your crazy-ass mind doesn’t care about that.

1. NPR: A Marriage That’s Good Enough - This short piece from NPR is a tidy lesson in not seeking perfection in everything. I agree with the author, so often we can too easily get caught up in looking for something more. Being content is an exercise I need to learn how to practice.
2. Terrible weeks - Sometimes it just feels that everything that could go wrong in a span of seven days just does. With everything seemingly exploding around me this week, coming out of it in one piece makes me realize that 50% of it is legitimate stress and 50% of it is my own stressing about being stressed. Just as the day after a storm seems incomprehensible in it’s tranquility, sometimes the periods right after hell unleashes it’s fury are the most refreshing.
3. The Ten - I can’t decide what to think about the trailer for this movie. The cast lineup is insane: Winona Rider, Paul Rudd, Adam Brody, Rob Corddry, Liev Schrieber, and onwards…crazy! Watch the trailer and decide for yourself if this looks terrible or intriguing. My indecision alone is what makes it something I love for the week.
4. Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA - No idea how this beer slipped past me until now, as it’s a veritable classic in the craftbrew circles. Exceedingly balanced, long on taste, and a nice touch of citrus and pine from the hops. The beefed up 90 Minute was a might too much for my palette, but the 60 is a great, refreshing summer beer.
5. The Plain White T’s - Specifically, their older 2005 album, All That We Needed. I never paid attention to these Chicago kids until last week’s AOL Under Cover sessions. And while their 2006 release has two or three great songs, their older album has a much more well-rounded and consistent feeling. Catchy pop-punk songs that lean more toward the structure of old Beatle’s songs than do other bands right now. It’s a great disc. Perfect summer driving music.

I have a bad habit of saying, “Yeah do that, do EXACTLY THAT! That is exactly what the F*** I wanted you to do!” when I’m having a bad go of it. This is possibly the dumbest thing I could think of. But somehow verbalizing this to the plant that just peed water on my shirt or to the screw that just stripped itself makes me feel marginally better. I need to be careful though, because I think I’ve given the dishwasher a complex by screaming at it. Can you give appliances Paxil?

I love designing. I just can’t see myself spending the rest of my life doing it. The words that follow could be perceived as whining, and on some level, I can’t disagree with that assessment. Even a skinned knee, trivial as it may be, is grounds some complaining though, right? I don’t mean to bitch. I’m just tired of justifying every decision I make.

The “problem” with design (web & print are the only two that I can speak to)is that the visual capacity that it involves is something that most all humans share, since we’re mostly all blessed with sight. Likewise, accountants share with us the basic human comprehension of math, musicians the prevailing ability to hear, etc. Perhaps these professions all suffer the same frustrations as I do with design: it gets really old hearing “suggestions” from those who don’t make a living doing what you do.

“I have a computer, and if someone had taught me how to use that program I could probably do that too!”

Per usual, my sub-par writing has spiraled into obscurity. So, an example is in order.

I started a project almost two years ago at my job, to redesign a very large, very out-dated and unfortunately complex collection of web sites. The reason it took two years is entirely not my fault (I just want to add that to the record.) Anyway, these two years of frustrating, proverbial teeth-pulling finally came to an end this week when the first layer of sites finally launched. No fanfare or parade, but to be honest, that’s how I like it (nor is it warranted!). The problem at hand, though, is that out of the woodworks creep the armchair designers, the PhD’s who believe that everyone wants to hear their opinion, including you Mr. “Designer.” There are the pleasantly forceful secretaries that would like you to know that this color choice was wrong, and couldn’t you just bump this up a smidgen? From every corner of the company comes the advice, the feedback, the general comments and sometimes the down-right unstructured criticism. None of it is solicited. Very little of it is useful.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I try explaining it to The Wife™, who is giving me her best blank stare. I attempt to put it into a different context (as I have an annoying habit of doing). Would you send your mechanic an email telling him that he should perhaps think about switching the brand of wrenches that he uses? I wouldn’t, because I trust his professional decision. (The Wife™ would unhelpfully respond here with, “Why would you email your mechanic?”) Similarly, I wouldn’t look disapprovingly at my physician and tell her that I think she’s holding this instrument incorrectly. (Wife: “But designers aren’t doctors!”) The point is, people who spend their entire working careers doing what they do, do it for a reason. And if they’re good at it, and you have no concept of how to do what they do, let them be. That’s what they go to school for and get paid for, right?

The catch here is that feedback and criticism are also critical to the design process. Unwarranted, poorly written (read: condescending) and demeaning feedback is counterproductive though. And after years of having every single decision I make be questioned by those who did not go to school for the same training as I did…it gets exhausting. No, I’m not advocating plugging my ears and ignoring the rest of the world, the worldwide audience that I design for in the first place. I guess I’m just frustrated that other people don’t treat designers as equal professionals. It all goes back to the old “well I have a computer, and if someone had taught me how to use that program I could probably do that too” mentality that so many today hold. Ask any designer and they’ll smirk, “yup, everyone thinks they’re a designer.”

I’m not bitter about it. I expect it before it happened with this particular project. But there’s no way to prepare for the lack of respect that your profession gets when virtually every decision you make is called into question by someone of a completely unqualified background.

So don’t tell your doctors how to insert a catheter correctly unless you really know what you’re talking about. Don’t counsel your lawyers to speak more articulately in court, don’t suggest that your tailor remeasure that hem, and don’t dare tell your mother how to care for her cold unless you’re entirely sure you have the place to. Just because you’ve been to a hospital, watched Law & Order, own a sewing kit or had the sniffles yourself…it doesn’t mean you’re in the right place to be rude to someone who spends their entire day trying to make the lives of people just like yourself just a little better.

Now I’m off to find the cleaning staff to tell them that they obviously don’t know how to vacuum, because just look at this floor!

This past weekend was the first since early April that The Wife™ and I weren’t being pulled in a million different directions. That’s not to say we still didn’t have an overwhelming amount of work to do, but it was a rare (and very welcomed) break in a jam-packed summer schedule. I really needed it too, in order to keep my sanity.

Apparently we’re still somehow at the age where everyone gets married. With only four weddings this summer, one might not think it to be too bad. However, figuring approximately two to three showers for each wedding, plus shopping for shower and wedding gifts, dress fittings, suit shopping, the weddings and rehearsals themselves, and three of them are out of town, which require hotel reservations, plane tickets, rental cars, etc. One could easily make an entire summer out of just that. Hell, The Wife™ has tried to make shopping for one pair of shoes an all-summer event. But squeezed in between all of these are our annual vacation, various family graduation parties, birthdays and other holidays. I think we’re not done until the third week in August, and it’s an exhausting pace.

This past weekend, though, as The Wife™ knocked off inside chores and a bit of take-home work, I set to power-washing the outside of the house. Everything needs a good scrubbing, and I was able to get the front porch, back deck, side deck, the driveway and the siding all nice and clean. The driveway alone took about six hours, and between that and an energetic five mile run I was about spent by dinner time. But instead of a miserable, “my entire body wishes to throw itself off a cliff” tired, it was a pleasant “I feel good about working hard” tired.

We had a pleasant dinner at a local Mexican place with another couple and their adorable newborn, and then stopped by to see the enormous house that they’re building out in the country. Afterwards we hit up the local Dairy Barn for some homemade ice cream as we watched the sun slowly sink over the Kentucky hills. From the picnic bench where we sat, it was the perfect ending to a hard-earned day.

Was it an exciting weekend? Certainly not. Was it a fun weekend? Not in the sense that most people (including myself) would consider so. But the shift in pace, the temporary pause in a four month schedule of non-stop going…that was priceless. They say you never remember to appreciate the small things until they’re gone. And as cliched as it is, it rings painfully true.

So next weekend, when we’re back to our crazy schedule, I’ll probably wish for the mind-numbing monotony of power-washing. Terrible sunburns and all.

Live, late-breaking and up-to-the-minute news along with your local forecast powered by Super Doppler 3000, THIS is Wave 3 Channel 32 news.

Or FTILFF. Either one, really. You’ve got to admit, though, that this intro would be way better if that dude who introduces the evening news was saying it. Just picture it in your head.

1. Stronger by Kanye West - Oh, Kanye, how the hell do you stay so likable when you’re so friggin’ full of yourself? Maybe it’s because of your DJ, A-Trak, who picked this killer Daft Punk sample to spit your patented brand of narcissism over. The rolling bass line of this electrolux goodness is pure hotness. The Mark Ronson overdubs on this rip make me insane, but you should take a few minutes to stream this one.
2. This Ain’t No Disco (It’s where we work) - This site is devoted to showcasing the incredible workspaces of all those dime-a-dozen firms out there. There really are some incredible offices that are featured, all of which produce a strong feeling of jealousy here in my humble little grey box. Hopefully the gang from Innersync will submit their space, they did a great job remodeling a few years back.
3. Anberlin’s cover of Creep - It’s a popular song to cover. I’m normally underwhelmed by most versions, but I think the guys from Anberlin do quite a respectable job of it acoustically. And is it me or does the lead singer look like a happier Elliot Smith? (The Plain White T’s and their John Cusak look-a-like singer also do a great cover of a classic Beatles song as well, worth watching)
4. Rain - We were so desperately in need of rain, after 26-some days without it. The grass was half dead, as was pretty much anything else around our house. A day and a half of strong storms brought things right back. Now if I could just figure out how to keep those damned ferns on our front porch alive.
5. Getting my computer realize when I’ve left the room - I finally had a few minutes to set this up. Using a Bluetooth sniffer, my laptop here at work now recognizes when my phone is out of range (when I’ve left the room), and automatically executes a series of actions. So now within a few seconds of walking out the door, without touching the computer, it pauses iTunes, mutes my speakers and then locks it down. When I return, everything starts back up by the time I’m seated. Fantastico!

Speaking of news, I was reminded yesterday of my old hometown paper, the Toledo Blade, and how their slogan is/used to be “America’s Best Newspaper” or some other such nonsense. I was hip to the fact that this was a complete lie when I was young, purely because my parents refused to subscribe to it and instead got USA Today which had way cooler infographics and color-coded sections. But Jason Havens once tried to argue with me for over an hour claiming that indeed The Blade was the pinnacle of journalism in America. How else could they claim that?

So I say that Five Things I Love for Friday has a new tagline: “America’s Best Craptacular Post.” Who’s going to argue that?

I love being Irish. We get our own annual, national holiday (suck it, Swedes!), we have ridiculous alcohol tolerances to compliment our ridiculous work ethics and our general stereotyped demeanor is rather cheerful. In short, I’m thankful for my heritage. Good job, grandpa.

What I do not like about being Irish is the fact that the simple act of breathing causes the body to retain any and all sources of energy, stored primarily in the form of fat. Because you never know when there’s more work to be done on the farm, lad. Curse you, slow metabolism!

Regardless of the fact that I have no scientific proof of this phenomena, I believe it to be empirical fact and fully verified. The amount of energy it takes to lose 0.1 lbs is equivalent to running the Boston Marathon. Twice. In the same day.

True story.

It’s infuriating, not because I’m obsessed with looking good (lost that hope LONG ago, about the same time I discovered what mirrors were), but rather because living a simple, modest dietary existence causes me to gain weight, which causes me to be unhealthy, which is unacceptable given the cost of health care these days. An example:

Running 3-4 miles per day, 5-7 days each week, eating a nicely balanced diet (roughly 50% protein, 30% carbohydrates, 20% fats) in the range of about 1500-1700 calories. No fast food. No fried foods, candy, etc. The result? No movement of the scale. Cut out some running and watch it tick upwards. Perhaps not working out enough!

Now walking 2-3 miles each morning, 2-3 miles at lunch, and either running 4 miles or lifting weights after work. Even with a slightly increased caloric intake to offset the increased amount of work, the result? Weight gain. Seriously?

I don’t mean to bitch, whine, moan or whimper here. I’m healthy enough to be able to workout, which in reality should be of key importance. But what is the most frustrating is that I would like to enjoy a damned beer on an occasional evening without the fear (or reality) of gaining more weight. In my experiences over the past five years, I’ve found that alcohol, even in moderate amounts in my body, wreaks havoc and causes my metabolism to shut down. Let’s just say my metabolism and I are SO NOT SPEAKING.

I’m not looking to get drunk (statistically impossible, see “high tolerance” reference above), catch a buzz or even have more than one. Over the years I’ve come to appreciate the taste of good beer, and really do enjoy having one or two a week. I sure as hell picked the wrong hobby to start with homebrewing because every spare inch of our house is crammed with boxes of beer that it will take me a lifetime to drink at a rate of 12oz per week.

It is a sad reality that in order to maintain a healthy weight, I would need to run every day and eat less than I do now, which ironically I don’t have the energy to do. So the end result is a very pissed off Irishman with no stein of beer to cry in to. Is there no justice in this world?

So to all you “eat anything I want” types, you “I switch to diet soda and dropped 25lbs” people, I say…enjoy it. You may not have your own national holiday complete with plastic green top hats, but you have peace of mind and sanity, every day free of worrying if having that extra 3oz of grilled fish will require another 30 minutes on the treadmill. Bitches.

Sitting in the third row seats of my sister-in-law’s new minivan this weekend, I actually thought to myself, “This car ain’t half bad.” Instead of getting out right there to schedule surgery to reattach my manhood dignity, I panicked, trying to justify to myself that it was the shiny 10” touch-screen navigation system or the flip-down DVD player that I thought was great.

Dear God what has happened to me? Next thing you know I’ll be wearing Crocs (with white athletic socks, no less) and Ralph Lauren polo shirts while yucking it up with my neighbors about the homeowners association.

Someone needs to kick my ass with a quickness. In the meantime, I’m running off to listen to as much Minor Threat and Bad Religion as I can get my hands on. Oi!

It’s Hawaiian shirt day here at the DP offices! Why? Because we think they’re ridiculous. Who in their sober right mind would chose to buy an ill-fitting, ugly piece of cloth adorned with false representations of tropical plants? That would be like having a pair of pants with illustrations of hazelnuts all over. Actually, that might be kinda cool now that I think about it.

1. Street View added to Google Maps - I admit to having a schoolgirl crush on Google Maps. Always have, actually. So this week when they rolled out a new (developing) feature, I swooned all over again like it was a first date. You can now pinpoint areas on a map and get panoramic photo views of the streets in question, with the ability to rotate and travel up and down streets. Very handy. For traveling. And spying.
2. Getting growlers of beer - I realized last week that my local Liquor Barn (don’t laugh, that’s seriously what it’s called) offers a great beer on tap, with the ability to bring/buy a growler and fill it up. $4.99 for a half-gallon of fantastic Arrogant Bastard ale. Read that again. Five bucks. At that price, I actually believe the dude in the store that said he used to have a customer that came in to fill up 3 gallons each week (that’s a 7% ABV beer, too. Doing the math, that works out to 32 12oz bottles. Yikes.) Plus, I feel like I’m back in the olden days before refrigeration or force-carbonation when this is how people got their beer!
3. Squirrels With Light Sabers - I’m not even a Star Wars fan. It’s the squirrels. They’re hilarious.
4. Chocolate Peanut Butter Chunk Fudge Ripple Ice Cream - I imagine this is what heaven tastes like when you die. Or when you take an acid trip. Either way, this recipe, which was based on a few things from The Perfect Scoop is absolute perfection. Of the eight or so batches I’ve made (hello! get Jenny Craig on the line, stat!), I think this one wins.
5. “What Goes Around” by Justin Timberlake - My eyes are cast downwards as I write this, because the music snob that lurks deep inside me is ashamed of this gem of a song. I feel guilty. But alas, I can’t deny how catchy the song is (as is the previous album cut, “Love Stoned”), and apparently other artists can’t either, as covers have already surfaced (Marilyn Manson, acoustic?!). I predict it will be this summer’s runaway anthem like Gnarls Barkley/”Crazy.” Ok, maybe not.

Sadly there will be no roasted pig for lunch. I don’t allow the staff to eat lunch. They’re permitted to crouch in the corner of their offices for 5 minutes. It allows them to stretch their legs. Maybe we’ll listen to Jimmy Buffet songs to celebrate the fact that it’s finally June (month of The Vacation™). I think hearing “Cheeseburger in Paradise” on repeat for eight hours is enough to drive them all sufficiently batty (and possibly quit).