When Harry Met Rally

As you may or may not have heard, the world's economy is in a bit of a downturn right now. People are loosing their jobs at unprecedented rates and the lifestyle that most of us have come to take for granted over the past few years has gone by the wayside. While this bear market has produced many negatives for a lot of people, a few positives have come out of it. Subway has all footlong subs for $5 and Quiznos has some subs for $4, at the end of the day I think this is what will define this era, The Great Sub War. This time has forced many people to adjust their spending habits and become more resilient . I think as a whole the general population is trying to make the best of a bad situation and is maintaining reasonably high spirits in spite of the poor economic conditions. Americans are showing their true spirit and doing everything they can to support their fellow citizen who may be in need, this is no more true than in the case of General Motors. While some people are saving pennies and still managing to donate their time, food, clothes, etc, to those less fortunate, GM is taking the unprecedented step to ask Americans to 'put their rally caps on.' Get inspired by watching the commercial...



(pause)

Hmmmm, put my rally cap on? Are they being serious? I think they are. I almost wrecked my car the first time I heard the radio commercial for this appeal to the population. Then, I almost jumped through the roof of my house after seeing the tv commercial asking the same thing. Sooooooo, let me get this straight...GM is seeking $24 billion in bailout money from the government to support their sorry asses, and they want me to put my rally cap on? How out of touch can these people be? You put your rally cap on when your baseball team is down 2 runs heading into the bottom half of the last inning, not when you're asking Uncle Sam for a cool $24 billion. Let me try to describe the sports scenario equivalent of the situation GM is in right now....oh wait, THERE ISN'T ONE BECAUSE NO FUCKING BASEBALL TEAM HAS EVER ASKED THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT FOR $24 BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS! Even the Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals organizations are looking at General Motors like they're a goddam joke, and rightfully so. The Pirates and Royals are a lot of things, but I've never seen them on Capital Hill begging for money.

And why should we put our rally caps on? Aren't they the ones with one foot in the corporate grave? Heres a hint for the GM wonderkin, why don't you put your fucking rally cap on? Take your own advice and wear your rally cap the next time you head to Washington D.C. to shill for more taxpayer dollars. Maybe the government will appreciate the 'fingers crossed, let's hope for the best' mentality of the rally cap and just give you $50 billion just to tide you over. And while I'm dropping hints to the GM 'braintrust,' why don't you try updating the gauges, dials, radios, buttons, etc., in your cars once every 30-40 years? Have you ever thought that maybe that's why you're in this predicament? Fuck me, if you need a power window button for a 2007 Chevy Malibu, all you need to do is go to a junkyard and grab one out of a 1988 Astrovan. No need to reinvent your model lines once every five years like the Japanese companies, that's just a big waste of R & D money! Around the 12 second mark of that commercial, it says 'we need to start thinking differently.' Really? No shit? You're only about 3 decades and $24 billion late on that call buddy. Oh well, who needs technology and innovation when we have rally caps? They'll save the day!

I may not be in the best financial situation I've ever been in but I'm working and staying afloat which is fine, life has its ups and downs and this is just a part of the ride. And it has nothing to do with 'digging in' or 'rallying,' it's called being a normal human being and surviving. Unlike the white collar fat cats who drove GM into the ground, and on some level aided in the current world economic crisis, the overwhelming majority of us don't have the comfort of taking the corporate jet from our cushy northwest Detroit suburb mansions to the nation's capital to panhandle for cash. It's possible there's a lesson to be learned from how GM is handling this current crisis, can we apply the their rally cap theory to all aspects of life? "Good evening sir, this is American Express. Your bill is past due and we'd like a payment." "Well, I'm kind of short right now, but I have my rally cap on! Does that give me an extra month?" or perhaps..."Sir, I have some bad news, your kidneys are shot, you need a transplant." "Well doctor, I presently don't have health insurance cause I was laid off of work from a tier one GM parts supplier." "No problem sir, I just realized you had your rally cap on. We'll take care of it for you, no problem!" I could come up with scenarios like this all day, but I haven't even touched on Chevy's shitty anti-gay Howie Long truck commercials. Not only is GM broke, but they also feel it's important to disperse anti-gay sentiment in their commercials. Sorry for using my Ford 'man step' to make my day easier and save my knees and back Howie, I guess I'll buy a Chevy just so you don't call me a queer. And Howie, wearing wire rimmed glasses and a mock turtleneck don't make you smart, they just make you look smart...big difference douchebag. Here's a good video on how comic book villains are handling the current economic climate...

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm from Jon Hamm

Formal Apology

In an effort to maintain the highest standards of journalistic integrity, Third and Forever is issuing a formal apology to women bikers after our post yesterday. As it turns out a guy I know also wrecked numerous times this week making the score: women wreckers- 3, men wreckers-1. I'm sure the men number will change to at least 2 once I start biking as well, as I attempt to get used to being clipped in to the pedals. I hope this suffices and any feelings of ill will towards Third and Forever recede.

The Boys (and Girls) of summer...and fall

I'll just apologize to start off, there will not be any pictures of puppies today in the blog. I'm sorry, if you came here thinking of me as your one-stop shop for everything puppyness, you're partially incorrect. We all enjoyed the pictures of little Hank on Monday's post, but some things are best done in moderation. Notice I said 'some things,' alcohol is not one of those things, the more the merrier with booze. Another thing that is best not done in moderation is kicking peoples asses during races. Like booze, the more ass you can kick, the better. I mention this cause the weather is turning nicer and race season is starting to heat up, I'd say it's at a simmer right now, but come next month it will be at a full boil. (I guess I meant that last sentence to pertain to running and tri races, but auto racing is also getting in full swing with the start of Indycar, Formula 1, and ALMS so that is good. At least there are options other than NASCAR on Sunday afternoons now which is outstanding. Last weekend all 4 disciplines had races so it was a veritable racing orgy of sorts which I appreciated. And like an orgy, I had a boner for an extended period of time, I will not confirm or deny if ED drugs were used.)

But, I think most of us that are training for a certain event(s) can now see the finish line (literally and figuratively I guess) and all those indoor workouts over the winter are looking to pay off in the racing arena. As I talk to friends who are training you can tell everyone has spring fever and is itching to see if all the hard work is going to be worth it and take precious minutes off of their times. Last weekend I got the first taste of competition on my tongue, and I'm definately ready for more. With my introduction into triathlons, I've noticed how fun it is to look and talk about tri equipment, mainly bikes. Basically everyone I know has gotten a new bike and it feels like the day after Christmas where we're all calling/emailing each other to talk about our new toy. In running, you don't have this aspect. No one calls each other to talk about their new Brooks Defyance running shoes (which I just got last week, they're really nice). This will be a fun year to hear about everyone's racing experiences, with my exit from auto racing (and lack of travelling) I'll now have the time to focus on racing myself and be a part of the community which will be a good change. The main thing I'm excited about since I'll be doing more races this year is collecting as many race shirts as possible, another case of the more the merrier. I love technical shirts and unlike my collection of hoodies, my tech shirt collection needs some help, after this race season that will change. I plan on doing any and every race that is within 2 hours of Columbus. I'll keep a scoreboard on here to let you know how the collection is coming.

I hope everyone does well this race season and is able to meet/exceed their personal expecations, and is able to stay healthy. On that point, what is it with girl's falling on bikes? 3 girls I know have fallen on their bikes recently, 0 guys have. What's going on here ladies? Seriously, we need to get this figured out! I'm excited to get into tri's and do my first race, I think they'll be a lot of fun. I looked on the web and found out that the average income for a triathlete is $126,000, I'm glad that I can help bring down the mean big time. The next race on my schedule is the Pittsburgh half marathon on Sunday, May 3. I should be able to get into the 1:30's pretty easily I think, but we'll see. 2009 race season stats so far, 1 race, 1 PR, 1 technical shirt.

Enough about racing, at the night job a few days ago I came up with what is widely being considered one of the best nicknames ever. This one black guy wears these matching light brown Dickies shirts and pants to work, eventhough only full time drivers get uniforms (which are possibly brown at the company I work for). He has a matching dark brown set as well and he looks like of funny cause everyone else is dressed so casually. He looks like a zoo keeper, so I nicknamed him Brian Fellow, which was a character portrayed by Tracy Morgan on a Saturday Night Live skit called 'Brian Fellow's Safari Planet.' Here's a clip if you don't remember the skit:



Everybody at work loves this nickname and it's pretty obvious the guy doesn't seem too enthused about it. He looks like a tool though, and I think it's hilarious. All night you can hear people yelling 'FELLOWS!' at him whenever he drives by on his forklift. He'll probably come in and shoot up the joint one of these days, but it's funny in the meantime. And another black guy nicknamed me Birdman, a reference to Larry Bird, cause he said I talked so much trash for a white guy. This is one of the nicest things I've ever heard.

I'm not sure if I'm going to write about LOST tomorrow, our relationship is kind of going through a rocky phase right now so I'm taking a step back. I have quite a few other things I want to write about so I'll probably get another post up tomorrow.

Better Late than Never

I know, I know, it's been a long time since I last had a proper post on the blog. But, can you really stay angry with me after seeing the picture of the cute puppy up there? I mean, look how cute he is! And I posted it, so by basic transitive property you shouldn't be the least bit angry with me. Let's walk through this...if you aren't a commie and you like puppies, and I post a picture of a cute puppy, then you should like me...pretty simple. So let's forget about the lack of posts the past 3 weeks and focus on the important stuff, like Hank the golden retriever puppy from the 1/2 marathon I did Sunday. Did I mention how cute he is? Doesn't Hank rock? And, isn't that a great dog name, Hank? Yes, yes, and yes! Oddly enough, I didn't actually get to meet or photograph Hank, I was running at the time of his presence at the race, so all I have are these pics to preserve his legacy. Here's another one, I just can't help it! That's two (2) puppy pictures, I could write anything from this point forward and no one should care!
I wish I could say I haven't had any posts recently because I was busy partying it up with my boys Lance Armstrong or P.Diddy, but sadly that isn't the case. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Instead of living the high life of rich socialites I've been working two jobs and training in every spare moment in between. I used to travel all over the world on someone else's dime and was on ESPN or ABC 20+ times a year. Now, I have the potential of working 70 hours a week while making less money than when I used to have 1 racing job, good times. My days basically consist of 4 things: sleeping, eating, working, and training....seriously. And looking at Facebook. To be honest, I don't mind the working, I just mind how it cuts into my ability to train how and when I want.

Unfortunately, until I can go full time as a driver for a certain parcel service that my second job is at, I'm forced to keep my shitty day job with the white trash losers, which is what I'm really upset about. With my night hours at the parcel service, which functions internationally, I'll just call it IPS, I'm actually gaining a new found respect for my dvr. I'm actually forced to use it again for the first time in a while, and I now have a new found love for it. The second job is also at night which has somewhat cut into my texting, which is my lifeline. At IPS I work Tuesday thru Friday 6pm to 12am'ish, which are prime texting hours (they have a no cell phones policy in the building, but as I've noticed as I work there longer, no one really gives a shit about this policy, or very many other things for that matter). So, hopefully I can go full time at IPS sooner rather than later for numerous reasons which include but aren't limited to: more sleep, less white trash people, better/more consistant training, more money, better health benefits, and all the brown pants/shorts I could ever hope for. Pray for me.

A few good things have happened since we last talked. First, I got that new job at IPS. It's not the best right now, but has the potential to be absolutely outstanding, in a relatively short time period as well. They have a great tuition reimbursement program which is one of the things I'm most exicted about. The sooner I can get a real degree and move my pathetic psychology/sociology degree to the background, the better. Second, I got a cool road bike. I got it from an OSU student the day before he was leaving for spring break. I had talked to him about it for about a week and a half prior but figured he'd be more desperate for cash as spring break neared so I wasn't returning his calls or emails right away. The last Friday of OSU finals I called and gave him a ridiculous offer which he seemed pretty excited to receive. He got vacation & beer money, and I got a sweet bike at a great price, it was a win-win situation. God bless craigslist and broke college kids. If you're a bike dork and want the specs send me an email or check out Fuji's website. Here's a pic...

Third, I completely blew away my expectations at the 1/2 marathon I ran yesterday. While it was the first official 1/2 I've run competitively, I'd say I've been physically and mentally prepared to run one for a while but haven't for different reasons (injury, scheduling, etc). I was incredibly anxious to finally do one and see how I'd do in a competitive environment. My stated goal for the race was 1:45 which is basically 8:00 pace, I would have been fine with running this time. I started out the first mile at 8:15 and felt good, my first mile is always my slowest, it's possible I over-compensate for trying not to come out too fast by going a little convervatively. Mile 2 was 7:55, now we're talking, still feeling strong and breathing is good. Mile 3 came with some hills which I like, started passing people and the competitive juices were flowing...7:45. Mile 4 started a long stretch on an arrow straight fairly flat paved bike path, getting splits during the next while was hard cause mile markers were non-descript, miles 4,5, and 6 were done in 22:20 (7:27 pace), miles 7 & 8 in 15:21 (7:40). The turnaround was at mile 8 and started us on a mile trip dead into a headwind which was discouraging, I felt good til I hit this point, luckily I brought an energy gel which I took at the mile 9 aid station, miles 9 and 10 done in 15:52 (7:56, uh oh, creeping back up towards 8!). The gel kicked in and I jobbed mile 11 in 7:35, only 2 miles left, we're almost home free! A guy with a Garmin 305 w/ GPS caught me at this point and was trucking, as we passed he said keep up the good work and said we only had 2 miles left. We exchanged a few out of breath sentences and I decided I had to try to keep up with him, we did mile 12 in 7:42. Mile 13 we caught a guy who was walking and encouraged him to finish with us, the poor guy ran about 50 yards and proceeded to stop and puke, awesome! Mile 13 = 7:19, the fastest of the day. Race total: 13.1 miles, 1 hour 40 minutes 45 seconds, 7:42 pace, 95th out of 444 half marathoners (top 22%). I'm still psyched today, I'm surprised I haven't broken my arm/shoulder while patting myself on the back the past 36 hours, but what can I say? Sometimes we do things that we're proud of ourselves for, and this was one of those things for me. A la Tim Riggins on Friday Night Lights after his Panthers lost in the state championship game, I left my shoes at the finish line, Xenia Forever...

April Fools Blog

April Fools!!!!! Buhahahahahahahaha!!!

But seriously, check out this link for the great new song by the band Carolina Liar, 'Show Me What I'm Looking For'

Mo Tweeting, Mo Problems

I have to be honest when I say the main reason I look at Twitter is because of Bad Boy Records CEO Sean Combs (Twitter @iamdiddy). When you look at the picture to the left, how could you not be interested in knowing what he's doing at any point of the day? It's a guarantee that whatever he's doing, it's way cooler than what you or I am doing. I would like to see a pie chart of how Diddy's days are spent, I'm guessing there aren't that many categories of things he's doing, but they're probably completely awesome. And even if what he's doing is something like you or I do (like in USWeekly's 'They're just like us!' section), he's still doing it with way cooler shit. Like if he's surfing the internet for porn, you know it's on a Diddy edition solid gold 19" Macbook Pro. You're probably saying, 'Brandon, Apple doesn't make a 19" Macbook Pro.' I know they tell the general public they don't, but I bet they build them special just for Diddy. And when he's texting hos on his cell phone, it's no doubt on a diamond encrusted Titanium Blackberry that has a Cristal application that shoots Cristal out of a special Diddy edition bluetooth headset into his mouth. Back to the Diddy pie chart...I'd say the major categories represented (with corresponding color, cause it's a pie chart and you need colors) are: riding in my Bentley/personal jet/yacht (canary blue), throwing hundred dollar bills at strippers (hunter green), throwing hundred dollar bills at strippers while in my Bentley/personal jet/yacht (burnt orange), drinking Cristal (yellow), hangin wit his peeps (red), and handling Bad Boy/Sean John bidness (gray). Actually, I'm very interested to see Diddy's pie chart now, I'm very uninterested in seeing mine. The only categories that would probably be involved are: tri training, sleeping, and thinking about what to get for lunch. Sadly, that's about it.

I only actually know 2 people on Twitter, besides that it's all celebs of varying degrees. Diddy is easily the best person to follow, his tweets are off the charts. I'm convinced he's a fucking vampire cause he only tweets at night, during the day I'm sure he's just resting his loins after a hard night of doing....stuff. Pretty much all of his tweets are incredibly positive and uplifting, his energy is unrivaled in the interweb. A basic Diddy tweet consists 3 things: 1- ALL CAPS AND LOTS OF EXCLAMTION POINTS!!! 2- trying to get people to do something he wants to do. And 3- a charge to his followers to get up and go. Here's an example: 'CMON PEOPLE!!! PTWITTY IS UP AND ON THE AIR AT 6AM!! HOW YALL FEELIN? LETS GO!' He's hilarious, he was out of the twitterverse yesterday but came back with a vengence today, here are a few of his tweets to wet your palate:

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER!!!...IM BACK!!!...LETS GO PEOPLE!!!

+++++++++++++++++++++ENERGY!!!!!! take that!+take that+TAKE THAT!!!

I NEED YALL TO LIFT UP YOUR ENERGY PEOPLE!!!!! LETS CHANGE THE WORLD!!! LETS GO!!!!!

Ptwitty question of the day: ARE YALL READY TO DANCE???!!!

As you can tell, it's hilarious. Diddy provides some great fodder for me and my 2 Twitter friends. And, UFC announcer/comedian Joe Rogan commented on Diddy's awesomeness on his feed yesterday. It's obvious the whole world is catching on.

living in harmo-knee

it's been 5 days since my last post, and i don't really have a full topic i need to touch on but I feel the need to clear my mental pipes of the stuff that's accumulated over the past few days.

- my buddy Ted Haynes (name has been changed to protect his true identity) was in town Friday night for the state high school wrestling tournament and we met at Buffalo Wild Wings for some drinks. a girl I knew from college brought a friend and met us so that was fun, they left early though cause she's a gymnastics coach and had to be ready for the individual portion of the gymnastics tournament that was also in town. Ted and I ended up staying at BW3 til they were dragging us out while our fingertips dragged across the hardwood floors. Luckily, the hotel he was staying at had a fridge in the lobby with shitty frozen pizzas and cans of Bud Select. the lady was nice enough to sell us some beers, god knows we needed them....fast forward to Ted poring out 11oz of each can later that morning. we stayed up til 330am pseudo-drinking in the parking lot and shooting the shit, good times. this represents 1 of 3 times in my life i've been to a BW3 and didn't order any food, history was made.

- luckily, i had one of the worst hangover headaches i've ever experienced on saturday morning. after cruising home to grab a quick nap and get my gear for swim practice, it was off to the pool. i felt terrible and was in no condition to properly attack the lesson in typical deagle-gusto fashion. after 200 yards the teacher asked me if i was going to yack in the pool, that's not a good sign. fortunately for me, our teacher was a big talker and we didn't necessarily spend the whole hour swimming. he was a good teacher though, he actually got in the water and swam with us. he was really no-nonsense which was nice and helpful. i had a headache all day which was ridiculous, it must have been the draft beers. i later ran 7 miles, then proceeded to slam 5/8 of an extra large Minuteman Pizza.

- sunday, i didn't do anything. literally, i did nothing. well, thats not completely true, i did some dishes and 1 (one) load of laundry. and you know what? i didn't feel the least bit bad about it. tragically, when nothing else is on tv on sundays i get roped into watching nascar, which sucks on principal, but has some really talented drivers which make it worth watching. there was an incident in the race where a gas man for one of the pit crews ran across the pit lane and damn near the track to retreive a tire that rolled away from their pit stall. this was insanely unsafe and incredibly stupid, but hey, were dealing with nascar here, stupidity shouldn't be unexpected. of course this hilljack was the talk of the race and has been all over espn the past few days being chastized for his actions. as a former fueler on pit stops, i couldn't be more embarassed. i would like to feel sorry for the guy but i can't, he must be a moron. if it wasn't for possible negative backlash from the public, the team would have fired him by now. but, with his 4 race suspension by nascar today, firing this retard would simply incite a sympathy campaign for the goof leading to people sending him hundreds of thousands of dollars to put towards his kids college fund and thus, not teaching him a valuable lesson; which is...don't be a retard.

- the weather has been nice recently and luckily this has coincided with my knee feeling better and me being able to run. hopefully, this won't be my down fall. i'd like to ease back into running more than what i have, but it's just not part of my genetic makeup. my first day of running was last wednesday and i did 3 miles (after swimming for an hour), then i ran on thursday and did 4.5 (after biking for an hour). saturday i did 7, with the plan of running on tues, thurs, and sat this week. upon getting to the gym monday night there was only one bike, which was occupied (somehow the other two were 'out of order.' my ass dickheads, it's a fucking bike. can you pedel the fucking thing? oh, yes? then it isn't out of order). so i ended up running 10 miles last night in record time (82 minutes), then did 7 tonight in 57 mins and immediately went to the gym to bike 15 miles. i hate being inside when it's nice out, the weather is supposed to go back to shit tomorrow which will be a blessing indisguise on some level.

- for some reason i've been checking out twitter a lot lately. i only actually know 2 humans on it, but for some reason its kind of fun to check out some of the peoples messages. i have no clue how to describe twitter, what its true function is, or what its purpose in the greater scheme of things is, but its almost kind of interesting. my favorite part is puff daddys tweets, hes hilarious. i sent him a tweet but he didn't tweet me back, i'm still broken up about it. the fact that he refers to himself as p twitty is spectacular. i'm still partial to facebook, but i'm sure in our present state of technological society, FB will grow to large for its own good soon and our information seeking carnivorous pack will migrate to the next best thing, leaving FB's bloody remains on the interweb prairie.

- no LOST tomorrow but i still might post a few thoughts about recent events. for the return next week I'm planning a big format change to the episode blog which I think will be most enjoyable for all!