Sweet Mercy Ooo That's Nice

The Sharper Image Quad Action Percussion Massager.

My life changed yesterday afternoon. I unboxed my package with trepidation. What kind of a dipstick buys a Concussion Machine for this much money? This genius dipstick, that's who. It has heat. Four heads. Brrrppp to Pummel... Actually dozed off for a second on the trapezoid. Chronic Pain beware, there's a new weapon in town. Dam thing will rattle your fillings on the vibro-death setting. One hell of a hummer this beast. Ladies, you'd have to brave if you were considering this monstrosity for alternative uses. Ahem.

Highly recommended. Two quad thumbs up.
















Neither Get A Grip nor GTW [grippingthewheel] Enterprises NOR NEITHER NIGH NYET anybody associated with me is/was paid to endorse or trash any product or service. Fin.

All-Aboard the Train to Idiot Village!

So the brooding, Euro-paranoid GOP hated the rescue of the US auto industry from the brink of extinction. And now this total lack of vision by the US House of "Representatives" with the attempted dissolution of the Transportation budget. Car bad- check. Choo-choo bad- check. Teabaggage Republicans seem to afraid of travel of any kind. Is moving good and services efficiently the work of the Debbil? Does sitting impotent in traffic, raging on your steering Chinese-made wheel, burning A-rab gasoline, bring on a John Wayne-y catharsis? Better yet. Never ever leaving your house must be the most patriotic responsibility of sad, easily frightened, let-it-all-decay isolationist Teabag America. What's left? A Norquistian wasteland with doofus America clamoring for their promised jobs, jobs, jobs from their extra-strengthened red white blue lawnchairs. Sorry, building bridges, tunnels, and laying track alongside public right-of-way is a Commie AFL-CIO-ACLU-ACORN plot to reward high-paying jobs to hard-workin' blue-collar Toby Keith Americans... *woopsie-doo* Those might be union jobs that would decrease our dependence on looney oil wackos. Sorry, that would be un-American. Shut up and go hide in the gun cellar, a Hispanic-y dude would steal your job anyway. Gay marriage. Flag burning food stamper grabbing your guns. Ooh, shiny.

One would imagine Republicans would support America living out a nationwide truck commercial. Not the case it seems. Eisenhower's highways are socialist garden paths that steal your precious bodily fluids. The rest of the world is building high-speed rail,it's called infrastructure. And they're also building and upgrading infrastructure that supports bullet trains, light commuter rail, buses, trolleys, bikes, whatever it takes to kick America's ass. Network management, trust in themselves and Transportation efficiencies cost/benefit stuff is helping China and India embarrass the Hell out of us. It's also just too hard for this teabagger GED flat Earth crowd to grasp unquantifiable quality of life productivity gains. *sigh* A Norquistian Nightmare. Why does Eric Cantor's America feel like a Stephan King novel? Idiot Village, USA.

You know what? Fuck it. Come on, Blue-Staters. Let's come out in favor of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Mid-West must be sacrificed. They are begging to rape their own backyard in the ass. Rational people hate, no despise the Heartland almost as much as they puke on the Deep South. If the Fucktard Creation-Village Idiots want to be gutted to keep the Coastal Educated Blue and Purple Liberal Elite in cheap energy, VELVETEEN PICTURE GAWD WITH THE EYES THAT FOLLOW YOU ACROSS THE ROOM is our witness. Hell yes and... Frack it, frack it all. Let's drill, frack, mountain top, bore, excavate, implode, explode-- the whole fucking previously worthless FLYOVER evapo-shit-pond known as the Heartland. FLIP the whole fucking thing upside-the-fuck-down. Scoop off the good stuff. Thanks, good luck, polyester-gravy douche-tards.



Just Another Problem solved by your Solutions Solutioner.

Lightning Strikes Whenever It Likes

While I'm not an early adapter, G+ sure is a fascinating global community. A mind-boggler. It feels as if I just fell off the Internet, down the worm-hole. Guokas In Wonderland.

Oh my. Such a fine day.

What an incredible day. It's a small world. My father reminded me recently. Dad knows most everything.

Sitting in the window seat at 33, waiting on a friend I haven't seen for 30 years. THIRTY YEARS.. My beautiful friend spots me, good times. WHAT? She waved and walked on by. Mercifully, she turned back. Yea, Burt Bacharach [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScyIcOWbiDs.] We're ordering brunch. Only in Portland can this amount of irony exist. On the inside is Guokas and his beautiful friend. DIRECTLY OUTSIDE the glass, a Portland-style junkie is emptying his bag and man-purse on the table outside our window. His shaky-shaky hands spills a smartphone. My fellow frugalitarian and me sport lame-o Tracphones. And he had a needle stuck through his brow in some kind of Weirdness. Here I am [always] expounding on the benefits of living close-in. Brunch at Circa 33 is very tasty. That veggie-stuffed Bloody Mary sports a full bacon strip and a split boiled egg. Our server comped us a drink. Butt.. uh.. oh..In a neighborhood of reasonably-priced West Coast housing Portland in twenty years? Buy land now. My friend, she's...she's very smart and modest and very pretty and sports big brain.

There's much too do this Spring. Need to see the ocean soon.

They've Breeched the Moat.

In Circus-Circus 'Corporations is people too' America where we live now, the weakness of civics knowledge is grossly obvious. An easy example? "Voters" who pick presidents on their likeability quotient over-estimate the POTUS' non-existent legislative power-thingys and under-estimate the power of Commander-in-Chiefee stuff. It's embarrassing.

Still it's a good thing that Superpower America election turnouts are so low given collective red, white and blue joy in being ignorant. There has to be a way to fool the FOX News viewer into IQ testing for voter registration to begin to cull the guns-gawd-gays herd as they keep breeding unchecked. I myself no longer search for rational solutions to America's whiny victim-hood, I simply repeat repeat accusatory patriotic blather until it becomes fact. How is that possible you say? Throw our even more outrageous 'facts' rendering your previous bullshit seemingly plausible and moderate-y.

"What's The Matter With Kansas" merely scratched the surface. ACK! Yes Newton "Hugo Drax" Gingrich your Pasty Porkiness, I agree. [Just call him Drax, he's hip like that.] Cut food-stamps so we can build a funky Moonbase on that ball of Jesus Cheese. Warning: The core of the Earth's Moon is molten Velveeta so it could be dangerous according to Texas textbook publishers.

We must return this country to the Greatness we exuded before that meddlesome Brown vs Board and the jetpacks will follow. Leaving Earth behind for the little janitor negro childrens, Conservative specimens of perfection will be free to smoke crack and bang male hookers in Peace and comfort on Moon Walmart. [Naming right were sold January 21st as the first order of Newt-y business.] Just as Ronald Reagan wrote in his secret manifesto, Grover Norquist's Haliburton Army National Police Truth Brigades will begin construction of coastal states re-education camps with all the Pizza Hut buffet your fat little video-gamers would ever want. Amen.



This week in Florida Moon Regent Newton Leroy 'Hugo Drax' Gingrich promised to build the Food Stamp Moon Colony for the Imperial Tea Party.

Personality Cult Implodes

Paula Deen, Southern snake-oil saleswoman, hid her Diabetes diagnosis for three years. Her Food celebrity community have kept their mouths shut, no love for the Queen of Fat from Bobby Flay or Bourdain. Anthony Bourdain actually cast a big stone. There's nothing wrong with butter. Hiding a gimmick-end disease and profiting over its cure is sleazy, slimy and downright creepy. The Southern fat-based sweatpants life-style brand is panicked her ham's with her Diabetes face on the label and cookware line might not sell to her cult anymore. She's just another example of celebrity-turned-brand manipulation machine. Does she have her own butter-scent toilet water yet for those with type II who'll miss eating it? It seems the Belle of Budder will do anything for fame. Deen stole Emeril's shtick and cracked it up a notch and got caught. The temples of Trump and Puff Daddy and JLo and Rachel Ray their ilk count on blind worship and obedience, a soulless public gets a comfortably packaged, programmed lifestyle that pleasures and soothes like religion. Deen's sinfully gluttonous disciples must be terribly dismayed, no redneckery without consequence? boo hoo It's an amazing comparison to Graham Kerr's story when he discovered what food can do. Actually, this Buttery Tale is a fine fable to tell the kids at reading time. Oh, be warned Rachel Ray, they can turn on you if EVOO is found to promote...say...anal warts.

"The Wicked Queen of Butterfat melted at the stake by fondue-stick jabbing anal-warted followers..."

Happy New Year. To me.

Strange vibrations zipping through my interaction with female human auras. Closing in on HALF OF A CENTURY of life here on Earth, currently portraying Quasimodo as a twice-divorced bachelor man who happens to glide through life in a titanium wheelchair in the casual fashion of a 25 year-long quadriplegia. Dark clouds are lifting. I'm ready for more, already have accidentally been testing the waters. Finally. Didn't want to force it. I've been single long enough as to not throw luggage up in the air when talking to another woman, because it's all settled out. Jump in too soon and you're a douchebag.It's always better to be the least douchebag as possible, you'd think that would be easy. Enough already. I'm clean. I'm relaxed. I've got a little clarity. It's not time to shut down in my 50th year, although my birthday can hold off until this Summer, I'm in a more stable state of mind, maybe more than I've ever been. My health is returning. Simply stated, I'm enjoying being interested in meeting women just because they are women. It's been a while, it's hard to follow a wonderful woman, I didn't want to compare anyone to anyone. The Air is clear. There are so many attractive women roaming around, and I have no game. I'm a horrible flirt, I think. I'm not sure. It's just that now I remember how much I enjoy looking a woman directly in the eye and sharing a smile if just for a second. Trading witty thoughts with a woman far away in the Interwebs feels right too. Yep. I dig that stuff.

It's the beginning of Winter and I feel like it's Springtime with an upswing in the Market. It sure would be good to share some time with whoever wherever you may be. And yikes, women have never been more beautiful in my entire life. Luck and numbers, please favor me. I recently informed a friend on my recently activated mojo, and he said, "Victory or Death.". Sound advice.


















http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64Ixzp94ksw&feature=relmfu

Enough Already.

I'M LEANING INTO THE WIND. PLEASE. Let's please get 2012 underway. Please Jesus, please.

Wake up, it's the day after Santa Biz.

Gee whiz, Mr. Damon. The reason America was a happier place a decade or two ago is because we were a bloated manufacturing giant. The Great America Unwashed had jobs, 20 clams an hour jobs. This put a 2nd car and a boat in the driveways of illiterates from sea to shining sea. Without factory jobs for the vast majority of non-collegians, this collective malcontent will just grow and fester.

Fortunately for those safe in gated communities, 60% of Americans are so lard-assed from sedentary starch-opulence they'll never riot like in Greece or Italy. Taco Bell and KFC's Double Down chicken monstrosity will ensure this. Dean Vernon Wormer said it best, "Embrace the Audacity of Reality." loosely translated to that effect. And yet, how many Americans have a college education that relates to a skill? Hint: Not many. How many Marketing and Broadcast Journalism majors can Ohio State spew out before someone says enough already. WE DON'T NEED MORE OF YOU. THERE AREN'T ENOUGH REALITY TV SHOWS FOR ALL OF YOU TO JOIN IN ON.

Without factory employment, America is screwed. There will never be unskilled American factory employment again. And the reaction from the heart, a fight over waffle irons at Walmart. China and India and Japan are racing for a lunar presence. We cannot even muster enough pride to keep the Post Office open, let alone NASA. Like a fat kid in a closet with a bag of cookies, yay USA. Sharing is for Socialists! Never has a country worked so hard against its own interests and health of its people. The Audacity of Stupidity? The Audacity of Dopes? Of course, the now majority Right Wingnuts have a frothy belief in the destruction of American government as healthy for a free society. Assholes. Matt, you place too much potential on America. Until someone figures how to deal with a spoiled maybe-never-should-have-been middle class, this is going to be a miserable place for many moons.
















The Oscar award winner Matt Damon has been blasting the President lately. The declining American way of consumer life is bothersome to some of the wealthy.

RIP my friend.

My friend died a year ago. I didn't know until last week.

Scott Murray and me arrived in Cortland, NY proper within a week of each other. It was the beginning of the Eighties, a very bleak, dark somber America. I was looking for a place to land, so was Murray. It was as if we stepped off separate Lunar landers on Planet MFN, only to end up at the same Weirdness. Scott asked her to go skiing, I asked her to meet me after work since she was going skiing. This all came about first week, one night at a secluded upstairs bar, Godiva's above the Dark Horse, in a ski and college town in the middle of nowhere Upstate NY. Murray had a job that paid and I was a ski instructor and a vagrant. My future ex-wife met me at the bar at the bottom of the slopes, Scott was there. Something should have happened. Murray was gentleman, we were fast friends. It was a magnetic zone of skiing and food and beverages. We became a powerful clan. Greek Peak Ski School, a dozen or so of the Grey and Black would overrun the Dark Horse or anywhere Cortland, colors. And even after I broke my neck, Scott was always there. Jesus we blew a lot of money at the Rusty Nail, The Community Restaurant, Paddy's, the Tavern, Woodman's, everywhere. The Dark Horse. Scott made sure I was everywhere and at every event. He was always there. It was tough being a new quadriplegic, Scott and Greg and Bill and Jim. They were there. Playing cards, arguing politics, parties of legend- the Western event was epic with rooftop gun-play et. al.. After me and what should have been his ex-wife split, we were tight. Scott would laugh when my catheter would leak, we'd fix it. Back before ramps I still went everywhere, thanks to Scott. Scott gave me dignity. We were always tight between women. Women didn't like being around us when we were single, we laughed too hard. Our inside jokes drove women crazy, not one S.O. liked either one of us, we recognized this. Out of respect, we hung out infrequently. But oh, I can't count the number of our legendary events we started and finished. Scott once shoveled a path through eight feet of snow to my back patio. We BBQ-ed ribs like Kings and drank Jameson, a case or two of Old Milwaukee. Scott's generosity knew no bounds. We ate good. We enjoyed cooking over the edge. We did holidays for strays regularly, for those with family far away or unable to travel or too close. Thirty second auto transfer, in or out, me and wheels in his car. Epic times. I was stupid. I didn't check in with Murray after my last split. He was a brother through thick and thin and a great friend. He loved to ski hard and fast, always ready for a grease-race and Spring skiing slope-side BBQ. He loved to fish, fish fish. Always pushing that damn smoked Skaneateles Lake trout. Always wearing the Ray Ban aviators. Drove me nuts, he used to howl with my dogs until physical harm. Steve Earle's Copperhead Road. Damn. I can't believe he beat me into the ground.



The author suggests making a call or writing a note or comb the internet for a chance to say hello to an old friend. Merry Christmas.