The Bosque

This was last week's cover story in the Riverfront Times.

It's one of the more interesting stories the RFT (our alternative weekly) has run lately. But I found it...disturbing? I dunno. I think I was most disappointed with the photos of two women they profiled in the story. I'm sure some folks out there find them hot, but I didn't think they were anywhere close...particularly when you consider the model they used for the cougar photo shoot.

Plus, the whole concept of "cougars"...y'know, if it works for ya, and it ain't hurting me, go for it. But the whole concept seems asinine...and kinda sad. Like you're trying to live a rock star lifestyle, even though most folks know you're full of shit.

And there's no double-standard here...guys that try to go over the top to be cool and go after young gals...again, if it works, do your thing. But that shit just seems retarded to me.

Here is the most updated list of CDs currently for sale. They're in fair to excellent condition, and personal delivery in the St. Louis area (for the cost of gas). Name your price. Outside the area, we'll have to negotiate in regards to shipping.

Soundtracks
Death Proof
Planet Terror

Compilations
Christmas with the Rat Pack
Classic R&B: R&B of the 1970s
Sounds of the Season: The NBC Holiday Collection
Scion CD Sampler v.17

Alanis Morissette
Jagged Little Pill Acoustic

Bob Newhart
The Buttoned-Down Mind of Bob Newhart

Cathedral
The Ethereal Mirror

Coldplay
Parachutes
A Rush of Blood to the Head
X&Y

Dave Matthews Band
Busted Stuff
Stand Up

Floetry
Floetic
Floacism

Fudge Tunnel
Creep Diets

Jay-Z
American Gangster

Jill Scott
The Real Thing-Words and Sounds Vol. 3

John Legend
Get Lifted
Sounds of the Season

Madlib
Shades of Blue

Metallica
Garage, Inc.
S&M

Moby
Hotel/Hotel: Ambient

Muse
Absolution

Nas
Greatest Hits

Portishead
Third

The Roots
Rising Down

Seal
System

Sly & the Family Stone
Different Strokes for Different Folks

Stinking Lizaveta
III

System of a Down
Mezmerize
Hypnotize

Testament
The Ritual

Threebrain
Weeeeeeeee!
Fetus Trackstar!

Tony Bennett
Duets-An American Classic

Andy Williams
Super Hits

As part of my cleaning project, I am getting rid of most of my physical CDs. Here is the first batch for sale. They're in fair to excellent condition, and personal delivery in the St. Louis area (for the cost of gas). Name your price. Outside the area, we'll have to negotiate in regards to shipping.

Alanis Morissette: Jagged Little Pill Acoustic
Bob Newhart: The Buttoned-Down Mind of Bob Newhart
Cathedral: The Ethereal Mirror
Classic R&B: R&B of the 1970s (featuring Chaka Khan, Barry White, The Temptations and more)
Coldplay: Parachutes
Coldplay: A Rush of Blood to the Head
Coldplay: X&Y
Dave Matthews Band: Busted Stuff
Dave Matthews Band: Stand Up
Floetry: Floetic
Floetry: Floacism
Fudge Tunnel: Creep Diets
Jay-Z: American Gangster
John Legend: Get Lifted
Metallica: Garage, Inc.
Metallica: S&M
Moby: Hotel/Hotel: Ambient
Muse: Absolution
Nas: Greatest Hits
Portishead: Third
The Roots: Rising Down
Seal: System
Sly & the Family Stone: Different Strokes for Different Folks
Stinking Lizaveta: III
System of a Down: Mezmerize
System of a Down: Hypnotize
Testament: The Ritual
Threebrain: Weeeeeeeee!
Threebrain: Fetus Trackstar!
Andy Williams: Super Hits

St. Louis' Central West End (where April and I work) is anchored by BJC Healthcare and the Washington University School of Medicine. Probably upwards of 20% of our store's business comes from the medical complex--I probably go to various places over there 3 or 4 times a day.

Normally, when we go to any delivery over there, we call the customer before we leave the shop and they meet us in front of their particular location or in the lobby. My first delivery this morning was at the Center for Advanced Medicine, which is one of the regular stops for us. I pulled up to the drop-off/pick-up area, went inside to wait for the customers to come down, they came down and got their food and I went back to my car.

As I got closer to my car, I saw two security-looking people surrounding it along with what looked like a boot on the left front wheel...it was actually a wheel lock.

The security folks told me that I wasn't allowed to park where I was, and that I would have to pay $25 to remove the wheel lock. Never mind that we've parked there plenty of times before--in front of security at that. Never mind that my car has a placard in the front window with the name of my store, the address, the phone number and my cell phone number. I asked the one security attendant where delivery drivers should pull up, and she advised that I should have pulled up to a spot further up. Never mind that I would have been totally impeding traffic then, and I wasn't impeding traffic where I was.

Thank God I had enough cash on me to pay it right away, so the whole incident only lasted about 15 minutes. But I made sure to send an e-mail to BJC right away:

I am a delivery driver for a local pizza store that delivers to the Barnes/Wash U complex, and my car was booted at 11:30 this morning in front of CAM. My car was clearly marked as a delivery car, including a phone number where I could be reached...yet I was not contacted. I was in the CAM lobby for approximately 5 minutes waiting for staff from the 6th floor to pick up their order. When I returned to my vehicle, a wheel-lock had been applied, and I was advised that I would have to pay $25 to have it removed. I have parked in front of the building and across the street on Parkview Place regularly--oftentimes in front of valet or security--and have not had this issue before. I regularly pull up in front of BJ-South, Children's, etc. and had never had a problem until today. I also take great pains to minimize disrupting any traffic around me. I enjoy delivering to employees and the families of patients at the complex, and think that the wheel-lock was excessive and unnecessary. Especially given that my vehicle was marked and was not impeding the flow of traffic. I would like to be contacted regarding this situation and get the hospital's position on deliveries to the complex. Thank you.

Hopefully my boss will reimburse me for the fine.

This ad is part of a campaign by Amro Worldwide, a British travel agency that caters to gays:



I think it's funny...I read the background behind the campaign on the company's website, and it's an interesting concept.

But it would seem that they didn't have any knowledgeable Americans on the ad staff:



If I were gay, South Carolina is one of the last places I would want to go...right up there with Mississippi and Wyoming.

From MSNBC: A state employee has resigned and officials have disavowed an international advertising campaign that led to calls for an investigation of tourism posters proclaiming "South Carolina is so gay."

The campaign, which plastered the London subway with posters advertising the charms of South Carolina and five major U.S. cities to gay European tourists, landed with a resounding thud in South Carolina, where the issue of gay rights has long been a political flashpoint.

...

Oran Smith, president of the Palmetto Family Council, a conservative activist group in Columbia, the state capital, said that at first he thought the ads were an Internet hoax.

"I think with today’s economy, we have to be really smart with our tourism dollars, and South Carolina’s market, very clearly, is the family-friendly market," Smith said. "So if we want to spend our dollars in a way that’s wise, we need to go after our market, and our market is families."

Said Ventphis Stafford of Charleston: "We’re so gay? Nah. Wrong state. Go to California."

...

Such attitudes remain prevalent in the state, said Warren Redman-Gress, executive director of the South Carolina Alliance for Full Acceptance, a gay and lesbian advocacy group. He praised the motives behind the campaign but criticized it as poorly thought out.

"I wish the folks at the tourism board had done a little more of their homework," Redman-Gress said. "I get calls regularly, people want to know before I come and spend my hard-earned money, my souvenir dollars in South Carolina, is it a place where it is OK for me to be gay?"

From today's Post-Dispatch: InBev chief executive Carlos Brito, hours removed from the announcement of a $52 billion deal to buy the iconic St. Louis brewer, told analysts this morning said the merged company, to be known as Anheuser-Busch InBev, will be the leading provider of beer in the world's five biggest beer markets and the third-largest consumer products company in the world. It will be 62 percent larger in terms of revenue than its next-largest brewing rival, SAB Miller.

For now, I refuse to buy or drink A-B products. I don't know if that will be permanent, though. This is just...fucked up. Fuck the Busch family!

From today's Post-Dispatch: With 11 wins at his back, Kyle Lohse hears "the pool calling my name" and plans to spend the All-Star break cultivating the glow of a "good farmer's tan" instead of tuning in Tuesday for the actual All-Star Game.

There's no reason to watch where he arguably should be.

Lohse became the fourth pitcher in the National League to win his 11th game Friday when he and rookie Jaime Garcia combined to shut out Pittsburgh 6-0 at PNC Park. Lohse has won eight consecutive decisions and has the best winning percentage of any starter in the past 11½ months. The other three NL pitchers with 11 wins this season are Bronx-bound as All-Stars.

No one expected Lohse to go 11-2 in the first half of the season...I don't think Lohse thought he'd do so well. This was probably the best money the Cards spent in the off-season.

So I went to lunch at a restaurant today...the restaurant that I worked at for all of 3 weeks in April. I was supposed to be the main delivery driver, but wound up mostly washing dishes and doing some office work. I hurt my back trying to do too much during the 3rd week, and that was pretty much the end of my employment there. Deliveries were few and far between and there was nothing else for me to do based on my physical restrictions. Plus...I don't mind helping out here and there, but I am not going to fucking wash dishes for $7 an hour 7-8 hours a night. Fuck that!!! I told them to call me if deliveries picked up...and never heard from them again.

I went in for lunch in May, and it was painful to do so. I helped put the place together and was there during the very first days of business. I liked the people I worked with, and it was--and is--a cool place. And I sure as hell didn't want to go back to fucking Pizza Shit.

I've been trying to deal with my...demons. I've always left my jobs on good terms, save for one of the temp jobs I had in Philadelphia. But by the time I left each job, I hated the place and most of the people that worked there. I would let the jobs get to me to the point where I just had to get the fuck out. And I wonder why I have heart problems now.

That shit has to stop. All those jobs are in the past, and they're just fucking jobs. And what's the point of having hard feelings? It's not like anyone really did a number on me or anything. Looking back, I could have handled all of my departures a little better.

The restaurant situation really didn't involve animosity. I should have been more vocal about my health and less afraid of the owners. And I think the owners could have been more accomodating after I got hurt. I felt like the main owner/chef just blew me off, which stung. But in the end, it was business. The chef can be a dick at times, but I don't think he was necessarily trying to be a dick in this case. As emotional as I can be, I cannot have hard feelings towards the owners--and I won't. The restaurant is great, they have a great staff and the restaurant is apparently doing quite well--and I'm happy for them.

So anyway, back to the point of this Manifesto...I went in there for lunch today. The owner/chef's wife happened to see me and stopped to talk to me for a moment...and it was pleasant. But it was what she said at the end that made me smile.

The owners decided to kill off delivery service a month after the restaurant opened, due to the dining room being so busy. So they got rid of deliveries in May. Which means I probably would have been looking for a new job anyway, because I sure as shit wouldn't have worked in the kitchen.

The peace that came over me was immediate and welcome. I think I'll feel more comfortable going over there now, and will visit more frequently.

I dunno...God has a funny way of making things work out. I've tried really hard to be a better person over the past few years, and I feel like I'm finally being rewarded for that work. Plus I actually love my current job...I haven't loved a job in several years.

I'll take all the good I can get right now...

From tonight's Post-Dispatch online: Only one out and 16 pitches into Wednesday's start, Mark Mulder looked at head trainer Barry Weinberg and admitted his twice-repaired left shoulder wasn't right.

After Mulder spoke, Weinberg briefly conferred with manager Tony La Russa at the mound. La Russa at one point glanced into his dugout, then told plate umpire Marvin Hudson he would need another pitcher. Finally, painfully, Mulder handed the ball to La Russa, wiped his eyes and walked from the field, the 2-year-old riddle surrounding his future more complicated than before.

The Cardinals asked Mulder for a start Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park. Instead, they may have witnessed the end.

I went to the 24-hour Walgreens near my apartment a short time ago...we needed a few things that I didn't want to wait until tomorrow to buy.

So I walk up with my items to the checkout, and there are two girls standing at registers side-by-side talking. I went to the register closest to the door, and the girl there told me that the girl behind her was the only cashier open. That cashier then tells me that she's waiting for a manager for something or other. The original cashier then goes to the register across from the one waiting for a manager and rings me out.

Bitch, don't play with me like that! You probably knew that the actual cashier was stuck with a manager call, so why the fuck didn't you move to other motherfuckin' register sooner?! Goddammit!

I'm fine now. :)

From Fox News: The end of the Internet is near — and in less than three years, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The reason? More than 85% of the available addresses have already been allocated and the OECD predicts we will have run out completely by early 2011.

...

When the current IP address scheme was introduced in 1981, there were fewer than 500 computers connected to the Internet. Its founders could be forgiven for thinking that allowing for a potential 4 billion would last for ever. However, less than 30 years later, the Internet is rapidly running out. Every day thousands of new devices ranging from massive web servers down to individual mobile phones go online and gobble up more combinations and permutations.

For most of my life, I've been a bit of a pack rat. I'm not excessive, but I tend to hold onto things for quite a while.

I finally started getting out of my pack ratted-ness just before I left Philadelphia. I don't know if my mom is rubbing off on me, or if it's just because I'm getting older, but clutter just annoys the shit out of me now. It drives me nuts. I'm not a neat freak, but I just like shit more organized than I used to.

Recently, I've become even more less pack rat-ish. I want to hold onto some items, so that when we buy a house, we can create a space where everyone can enjoy them. But you just can't take the shit with you when you leave this Earth, so it's time to get rid of more stuff. In particular, I'm selling off my baseball card collection and most of my CD collection. I'm also getting rid of most of my college textbooks...a lot of the undergrad ones are probably becoming outdated, and I won't use many of my graduate books.

I'll probably donate the undergrad books, and sell everything else. I might put some stuff up on eBay, take the card collection to a dealer and sell other stuff at flea markets. We'll see...it's time to simplify more shit, though.

--I delivered 38 orders, which is pretty good for open-to-close.

--I delivered to my dream apartment: a 2-bedroom 3-bath with den/study in a high-rise on Lindell. Go to Google Maps and type in "4500 Lindell, St. Louis, MO" and check out some of the high-rises along Lindell.

--I delivered to my dream house: a 3-story mansion on Washington Terrace. Go look up Washington Terrace on Google Maps and look at some of the bad-ass houses!

--I delivered to one of St. Louis' worst housing projects: Blumeyer Gardens. We only go there because we have one customer that's "grandfathered" in, and she has to meet us downstairs by security. Some piece of shit there backed into Cleo...fortunately he did no damage. Then he got pissed because, according to him, I appeared out of nowhere. Of course, I had already been parked there about 2 or 3 minutes, but you know how cars just come the fuck out of nowhere. Thank God nothing bad came out of the situation. To top it off, the customer was a piece of shit too, complaining about her order for the 2nd time in a row. I have no plans to go back there, and I'll be sure to let the boss know that no one should be going there anyway.

--Twice today, I was able to take 2 deliveries to one location: 2 to the Pageant and 2 to the hospital complex. I love it when they come that simple.

--A woman came into the shop at about 9pm, asking if we had a pair of shorts or pants for her to wear. Our store is in one of the most diverse areas of town, and has enough crazies to keep Wolf occupied for days.

--I got an account statement from the hospital for the echo I had done 2 weeks ago--$2400. I owe nothing...for once. Our out-of-pocket limit is rather high, and we're always getting nickeled and dimed for shit. It'll be my luck that I'll get a bill for like $150 in the next 2 weeks.

And now, it's time to head to Slumber City...another double later today.

From the Seattle Times: The Sonics' 41-year run in Seattle ended Wednesday with a legal settlement that will let owner Clay Bennett take the team immediately to Oklahoma City in exchange for a $45 million payment — and Seattle gets no promise of a replacement team.

The deal came together just hours before U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman was scheduled to issue her ruling in the federal lawsuit Seattle had filed to try to force Bennett to play out the final two seasons on his KeyArena lease.

The settlement, announced at simultaneous news conferences in Seattle and Oklahoma City, requires Bennett to pay Seattle $45 million immediately and $30 million more in five years if the city doesn't get a new team.

The Washington Legislature can try and stand firm all they want, but major-league franchises cost big money--and bring big money. Just shut the fuck up and pass the money Seattle needs to rebuild KeyArena.

Still, this is just...asinine.

From MSNBC: Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed a bill Monday outlawing cyberbullying, just miles from where a 13-year-old girl committed suicide nearly two years ago after being harassed on the Internet.

The bill updates state laws against harassment by removing the requirement that the communication be written or over the telephone. Supporters say the bill now covers harassment from computers, text messages and other electronic devices.

I think the intentions here are good--and I haven't read the actual law yet--but I'm concerned that the law could be too broad. If someone decides to give me a hard time here or on Cellar, could I have them busted under this law?

On second thought, this could be fun...