The Gospel According to Biff

It's Monday. I can't say if I'm glad or sad about this. On one hand, it gets me back to my routine, on the other hand it gets me back to my routine! In either case, my hands are full of routine!

Anyway hi-lights from the weekend and road trip to Kansas City:

Boca di Boppi (actually Buca di Beppo, but Eva and I took it to extremes and had a whole conversation that no one else understood! In fact, I am sure we didn't understand either!)

Matt and Erika Herring have an adorable child (looks like a baby). It, I mean she, cries a lot. I have a soothing effect on the child for some reason. Eva has a similar effect. I believe this is for two reasons. The child loved our plump bosoms, and we sang Rancid to her. Who wouldn't love to be serenaded by Rancid?!?! Her name is Molly and she's a cool little thing. For the record, they are good parents.

There were weird rabbits located around the Plaza in KC. Don't ask me where the Plaza is, all I know is that it was south of our hotel. Anyway, weird rabbits all over. Giant human sized weird rabbits.

Eva and I bought boots. Larry's boots. Pretty sweet if you ask me!

Free hugs were being given out at the Plaza. Free hugs guy restored my faith in humanity, but as usual, that quickly flew right out the door. What happened? Oh nothing really, just a accumulation of annoyances. I have a very very tiny list of people that are allowed on my planet (free hugs guy is one of them). Sorry, but there isn't enough room on my awesome planet for people that make me mad or annoyed. (Holly & Drew, you are both good, you are family that I like, you get to stay so don't get paranoid).

I think I drank sour milk, still alive though.

My newest Madness album showed up in the mail!

The English Beat were awesome. Eva and I almost didn't even go. The local KC crap radio station was holding a Prom Theme for the show. Eva and I showed up in our cowboy boots, jeans, and regular tops. Everyone else (except for maybe 3 other people) were in prom gear. Tuxedos, dresses, gowns, etc. We did however go in and skanked our happy little hearts to soreness! An adorable boy standing next to us (in a stylish and dapper hat (drool)) skanked with us. The girl he was with was not too happy about this. Oh well, we had a great time!! Great, and I mean great show!

My blog crush Justin Z. made the Toronto Star (local paper). You should read the article and blog!

I, as usual, bought a new book to read even though I am reading two books (and a third for work) as I write! Looks good though. A book by Christopher Moore called A Dirty Job. Very few people could vie for favorite author in comparison to Douglas Adams, but Moore is one of them! He wrote a book called Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal that I really enjoyed. I'm excited to read Moore (yes, pun intended)!

Well, this is where I need to stop and move forward with my routine! So now, the words, you know what I'm talking about:

Friday - bardcore: A pornographic movie with a Shakespearean plot.
Weekend - C and E: People who show up at church only on Christmas and Easter.
Today - girlfriend button: The button on the controller of an Xbox, Playstation, or Wii you have to press to pause the game when your girlfriend wants to talk.

Yep, Busy Busy Busy!

I'm going to start this blog off by tracking back in time. A time I call . . . "yesterday"!

I left work late to get a couple of extra hours in since I won't be at work on Friday (going to KC Fri-Sun). As it usually goes on evenings that I don't have an automobile, I took the Metrolink to the 5th & Missouri East St. Louis station. The bus to Collinsville shows up about quarter to the hour. I get there a bit early to ensure I don't miss it. While sitting there, Eva calls to tell me there is a major drug bust at the meth house just a few houses over from her house. We are talking about the SWAT truck, SWAT team with guns aimed, and PERCUSSION GRENADES! PERCUSSION GRENADES!! Damn the luck of my profession; I want to use percussion grenades!

Anyway, for those of you who may not really know who I am (and even for those people that do); I used to live at Eva and Jami's place in West Granite. That is West Granite City, Illinois. Now, it's not the best part of town. It's considered "the other side of the tracks", literally it is the other side of the tracks. But I liked it well enough, still do. It's the same atmosphere as any town/city. You have the wealthy, you have the poor, and you have everything in between. West Granite just seems to house most of the drug producers. Meth makers. Duane. Duane got his ass some percussion grenades yesterday!

Now, back to the bus . . . I was waiting with a large group of people for the bus. I've done this often. I've never felt scared, awkward, or in danger. Yesterday changed that!

The bus arrives, we all stand to get on, one by one filing onto the bus offering our tokens for a ride. I offered the fellow by me the "next in line" spot, he declined and said, "after you". I thought it was polite, thought nothing else of it. I got on and went to my well chosen seat. I put a lot of thought into the seat I choose (shown below).

This particular seat has a plastic thingy behind it so that no one can reach over the seat. I can sit in the aisle seat and set my belongings in the window seat. The only major downfall to this seat is that the seat across the aisle faces my seat. This is where the "polite guy" sat (see below). From now on, "polite guy" is now "weird guy".

I had headphones on, which I thought was the universal signal to say "I do not want to speak". I guess he took it as "I am just listening to music until someone bothers me, please come bother me". He started his line of questioning, "how was your day", "how was work", "what do you do", "what does that mean", "how long have you been doing it", "does it pay well", "do you like it", "where did you go to school", "where did you grow up" . . . etc. I seriously started to feel as though this were the East St. Inquisition. There was finally a break in speech. I turned my head, put the headphones on, turned my body so it's language said "leave me alone", and pretended to be busy with my cell phone. Yep, busy busy busy.

Then he lightly touches my arm which scared the crap out of me. What is much more scary is that when I turned to see what it was that he wanted, he was standing, rather haunched next to me watching my every move with the cell phone. I think he got close to smell me or something of that nature. He kept touching my arm despite my uncomfortable inching away from him. This is a major violation of my personal space for sure! Thankfully he got off at the horse racing track which he referred to as his "second home". Before exiting the bus he grabbed my shoulder, held it for what felt like hours, and told me how great it was to talk to me.

Ugh!

Anyway . . . so now fast forward to this morning. I took Metrolink today, but completely bypassed the bus option (imagine that)! I had to run to catch my train; that's okay. Nothing like a brisk run to get your heart rate up in the morning! And alas, here I am, at work, blogging. Yep, busy busy busy!

But tonight I will be taking a tour of St. Louis' largest recycling plant. I am very excited. I would take some photos to share, but that's not allowed.

I have a few things I wanted to comment on this morning. 1) Yes Drew, magnets would be a good idea, and surprisingly some one else mentioned it yesterday, jokingly though. It would be great if we embraced what is natural to make structures, roadways, etc. In this case, no chance of magnets. I will have to come up with something much more clever to make my stair float, yet withstand gravity and lateral loading. This is going to take some Voodoo, if anyone has any suggestions, I am totally open! 2) Fuck, Becky, warn me by saying "These images are not suitable for Stephy's eyes". Ugh! 3) Mike, you shall be amazed by what I will learn about soccer. I'll make you proud! Oh, and from Chris, "soccer's for girls". 4) Watch Amélie, it's one of my favorite movies, and I watched it yesterday. 5) I will be in Kansas City Friday through Sunday to visit Erika and family as well as to catch the English Beat. I will try to blog, but I might have to disappoint Mike by not blogging more than once. Sorry friend!

I will leave you now with the word of the day . . .

downchuck: the opposite of upchucking. When you vomit a bit, and you accidentally swallow it. Leaves a nasty taste in your mouth and can often happen many times if you are hungover. [Editor's note: gross]