Sonicrusk Blog

Does anyone know how Girl Scout cookie sales work? I have a hankering for some Thin Mints. 

I would consider myself a social drinker. I only drink when I am with cool people and the conversation and hijinx can flow. I am certainly not a teetotaler, but I can have liquor and beer sitting in my cupboard or refrigerator for months or years untouched.

I saw a report at CNN.com yesterday by Sanjay Gupta, MD on alcoholism. Some guy had ten drinks a day for thirty years before needing a liver transplant. The operating surgeons said that his original liver only had two weeks left in it. According to the doc, four drinks a day makes you an alcoholic. I’d provide a link but the streaming video story has already dropped off the face of the earth after it went out for a pack of smokes.

Anyway, I am a paranoid and very responsible drinker. When I have more than a few, I leave my car where it is, or if I am drinking at a friend’s place, I stay the night. The next morning, I go home, or take the magical ghetto tube to pick up my vehicle.

This responsible thinking unfortunately alerts people to when I drank. Why are you at home with no vehicle? Why did you stay the night somewhere? I look like some type of raunchy drunk.

There are a lot of people out there that slug a few back and then drive home. You never know when they drank unless you saw them in person. They probably do it a lot but are furtive about it. Nothing to alert the passerby that they have drank. My responsible behavior does the opposite. So, in turn, I look like the bum while they look angelic.

I stopped by the McDonald’s drive-thru today for a quick bite to eat. I bought myself a couple of old-fashioned McDonald’s hamburgers and a large drink.

The price was $3.60. Jeez, kind of pricey for a couple of lousy hamburgers and a soda. I asked for my receipt. This is how it broke down:

2 hamburgers = $1.80

1 Large Soda = $1.60

The soda cost almost as much as the food, and was a lot less satisfying.

Restaurants chintz customers all the time with beverage prices. The La Villa restaurant on Union Avenue only offers medium drinks for a $1, but charges you 50 cents for a refill. Try eating authentic Mexican food with only a medium drink to satiate your thirst.

A few years ago, Carrows (hyperlink for Massachusetts) had some type of super breakfast for only $2.99. Two eggs, toast, hash browns, and a sausage patty. Incredible breakfast for an incredible deal. But the kicker was that Carrows charges $2.00 for a beverage. That’s ridiculous! I used to order the breakfast with water and watch the waitress’s face cloud over. I guess there is a big difference between $3.00 and $5.50 in the world of tips.

Every fast food joint and every sit down restaurant charge you an arm and a leg for a drink nowadays. Even coffee is getting that way. I’m pretty sure that McDonald’s now charges more than a dollar for a cup of joe.

Who do they think they are fooling? A pot of coffee costs, what, a quarter to make? We all know that carbonated fountain soda is like pennies a cup, if that fact is not an urban legend. It must be a big racket. Charge peanuts for the food and sock it to ‘em with the drink. They aren’t fooling anybody.

Good thing out of Poland? With a name like Edyta Kochanowska, how can you go wrong?

Nothing creeps me out more than people that disappear off the face of the earth.

You know it’s a sad situation. Kidnapping and/or foul play , or someone got so fed up that they left home one day and were never seen again.

Since I like to freak myself out, I found this website one day that chronicles hundreds of cases of people that just vanished into thin air. A lot of kids, unfortunately, but grown adult men also. Were they kidnapped? Makes me glad to be a little paranoid.

A couple of cases stand out in what I read. One girl was watching some school recital with her mom. She got up to use the bathroom and was never seen again. A lot of stories about the old “went out to buy a pack of cigarettes and disappeared.”

One story had two hunting buddies that vanished. For eighteen years, no sign of them or their truck. Two grown men and their vehicle gone. It turns out that a couple of thuggish brothers beat them to death and fed their bodies to pigs.

Anyway, not to be macabre, but that stuff freaks me out.

Black Dog and Dusty turned me on to a little gadget called Site Meter. It allows me to see from where people access this blog.

I barely installed it today and it has turned up 16 hits since about noon. Some crazy locations:

Columbia, Maryland

Mount Laurel, New Jersey

Quebec

Don’t worry, it doesn’t tell me any more than geographical location and ISP, but it is trippy.

Blog Rebound is where I respond to posts on some of my favorite blogs.

You can be staying in a Dallas hotel, drinking at the bar downstairs and if you’re having too much fun (judgement call), an undercover police officer will run you in.

Chris talks about a Texas operation where undercover cops go into bars looking for drunk people to arrest for public intoxication.

Texas is a very charming state with its own culture. However, they are quick to jettison their own civil liberties. Then the courts have to step in and slap them on the hand. Even their senator has little respect for civil liberties.

The fix is in, the powers that be have told me to take a dive, to just give up and to turn my back on anything creative and bitterly I will try to back off from the world of writing for a while.

Black Dog has found a way to see how people find his blog via the web and also where they access it from geographically. I am envious of him as the SimpleBlog format doesn’t allow for shit.

Unfortunately, his old lady is giving him guff over the blog. Let’s hope that passes.

When I returned to California a few years ago, I started listening to NPR (National Public Radio). I was tired of the same ten songs being played over and over at KRAB Radio and other stations that have since went the way of the dodo.

NPR can be like listening to the TV while driving. They have political debate shows, a world-class daily news program in the morning and evening, science shows, car repair shows, cooking shows, and even a quiz shows. During my trips to Northern California, I try to match my arduous 2.5 hours on I-5 to shows playing on KVPR, the Bakersfield/Fresno affiliate. It makes that boring stretch pass more quickly.

A close family friend, who also listens to NPR and kind of got me interested way back, once asked if I listened to The Thomas Jefferson Hour. This show is broadcast on the local NPR affiliate Sunday and Monday nights at 1900.

“Thomas Jefferson Hour?” I asked, “What’s that?”

“It’s a humanities professor that portrays Jefferson and answers questions as if he were him,” the friend answered.

“HA! That sounds ridiculous!” I responded.

“It does sound ridiculous, but it’s a great show.”

So as skeptical as I was, I listened to the TJ Hour on KVPR. As ridiculous as the concept sounds, don’t let it fool you. That show is magnificent. Clay Jenkinson, the professor, and Bill Chrystal, the host, talk about a wide variety of topics concerning Jefferson. They have discussed Sally Hemmings, Lewis & Clark, the Iraq War, and technology to name a few topics. Chrystal is a former military chaplain and minister. His son is a veteran of the War in Iraq, and one episode focused on him answering questions about that conflict. Sometimes, Jenkinson’s answers questions sent by email or as part of a town hall forum. It is incredible.

Recently, I was talking to Hoat and Adam during a Meeting of the Minds. I told them about the Thomas Jefferson Hour much like my close family friend did five years ago. Not surprisingly, they looked at me like I was nuts.

“It does sound ridiculous, I know, but it is the best show on NPR.”

So if you don’t believe me, and you are out driving around Central California on a Sunday or Monday night at 1900, turn the radio to 89.1 FM. Or, go to the KVPR-FM wesbite and stream it over your computer. Let me know what you think.

I was talking with my buddy Hoat recently about his hometown of Columbia, South Carolina. He was telling me about the main drag of that town: U.S. 1, also known as Two Notch Road. From what he told me, Two Notch Road is where the prostitutes loiter.

“Man, I saw your mama standing on Two Notch Road!”

Anyone that has grown up in Bakersfield has heard something similar. Bakersfield’s version of Two Notch Road is Union Avenue.

“I saw your mama walking along Union Avenue.”

A while back, I was talking with Hoat about 3B. Again, those familiar with Bakersfield know that Kern Medical Center, Third Floor, Wing B, or 3B, is where mentally ill end up during acute episodes where they cannot care for themselves or are threatening harm. 3B is a psychiatric ward.

“Man, you crazy. You belong on 3B!”

Columbia has the same practice, except their crazy folks end up at the South Carolina Department of Mental Health located on Bull Street. So, Columbians say:

“Man, you crazy, You’re headed for Bull Street!”

Two Notch Road – Union Avenue

3B – Bull Street

I wonder how many other cities have similar lingo.

Bake Town gave me a shout out over at her blog yesterday. Thanks Bake Town!