marty voiced something i've been wondering a lot lately but haven't trusted myself to speak about. she commented: i've had that very thought (not the early morning hour bit, but the who is everyone talking to) as i watch cars go by as i ride my bike or sit at red lights or do anything that puts me in the path of other folks. please note that this part of the sentiment is not a judgement but just an observation as well as a genuine curiosity. the logical part of my mind anwers the question of who everyone is talking to is, obviously, each other.

this is not to say that i don't have judgmental notions about people's distracted states, especially while driving (seconded by when they are conducting transactions). after our last day of skiing, an 18-wheeler drifted fully into our lane at 70 miles an hour and i had to drive my car, also going 70 miles an hour, onto the shoulder to keep from getting side-swiped. the man never saw me before, during or after his maneuver. then the next day when we were literally one mile into our 1,300 mile drive home a girl came barreling through a red light where we were turning and came inches from caving in the passenger side of our van at better than twenty miles an hour. she definitely saw me as i could see the sheer terror in her face as she saw the near collision unfold.

i continue to be struck that more is not done regarding the legality of using a phone while driving. i'm convinced that this is largely due to the fact that one of the greatest abusers of this tenet seem to be police officers themselves. it's rare that i see a cop rolling by who is not on the phone (i wouldn't say the same of state troopers i've observed). and suit/business types seem to be another high-frequency abuser of one-handed, half-minded driving. i assume some of the these folks are the ones we would turn to for help in changing the law so when the law-makers and law-enforcers are big users themselves, it's hard to think there might be help close at hand.

the frustrating part of it all is in time i think this behavior will go the way of our pre-seatbelt and biking-helmet existence. there is just no sane, rational or intelligent argument in defense of the practice. none. i just wish we'd hurry up and come to our collective senses already.

one final aside related to marty's initial question above. back in the nascent days of cell technology (e.g. car-mounted, brick phones) a friend of mine, man-who-screams-like-woman, had a scanner that could listen in on the conversations at hand. he and another friend would stay up way into the night searching for and then listing to any nearby conversations they could detect. as it was still a newish thing, i asked what sorts of things merited the need for being able to call someone from anywhere. he said that well over half of the conversations they picked up on involved people in extra-marital affairs. and this was exactly what i told marty when she asked who all those people were talking to at seven in the morning--their lovers who they couldn't talk to at seven the previous night because their wife was around. for anyone thinking the percentage can't be the same given how many phones there are in play now i would only say the divorce rate trends will not support your argument.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. free pizza

bookguy calls it noun-challenged. to be noun-challenged is to be someone who can't remember people's proper names. between he and i, it's unclear who is more severely afflicted. as per usual, he would claim the title and i would claim he is wrong. either way, it is a fierce race.

as evidence to my condition allow me to turn to my proclivity for nicknames. i give people such monikers for three reasons; (1) to insulate them from embarrassing things i may say about them online, (2) because i can't remember their name at all, or (3) because i can't remember the version of their name (mike, michael, mikey, m-bag) they prefer or more importantly, they greatly dislike. and on that last item, i've argued many a time that mike, michael, mikey and m-bag are entirely synonymous and should be freely interchangeable.

to recap, some of the past characters, several of which you've heard of countless times ...

• bookguy
• bookpimp
• e-love
• man who screams like woman
• doctor j
• the way with words girl
• chavez
• smart ryan
• buddy james
• thin when tan girl
• the why the hell wouldn't ya guy
• the doctor of diss
• guy with mussed hair
• and of course, girl who dates guy with mussed hair

here's a few i've never shared online and use mostly when talking with walt (or rather marty) ...

THE FAKE MOMS
a group of highly augmented ladies who hang out at our pool.

NEWSPAPER DAD
a guy who sits at the park with his four young children reading the ny times and shooing his kids away anytime they near him.

HOLD MY BABY
actually bookguy-coined this gem but it is a fast staple in our home and i'm not really in a position to speak to its origin.

SMILING LADY
i see this lady all over the place and she makes the joker look morose.

BAD, DRUNK MOM
she's not just bad and she's not just drunk, she's both and therefore gets the double-bill.

YELLING MOM
the yelling mom scares me and is not too surprisingly married to ...

THE QUIET GUY
i got ten bucks that says this fella comes out soon.

when you see guys biking in a tight, single file row, it's called drafting. conceptually, its the same thing you see in auto racing. the basic premise goes that the person in front takes all the wind and you just float behind them exerting a fraction of the energy to achieve the same speed.

Man Who Screams Like Woman received a primer on the art of drafting from a friend because they are about to bike across the state of iowa together. it would seem that cooperative drafting has quite the rituals around it, for both safety and efficiency. for instance the guy in the front of the draft-line is not responsible for watching the road. he's busy working his ass off trying to keep a strong pace for the people behind him. the second man in line is charged with spotting any obstacles in the path where upon he alerts the front man.

additionally, when the lead man's time is done he announces this in some way so the next guy can get ready to step up and the third guy can prepare to birddog the road. the lead guy might yell 'i'm off' or something of the like and swing out of line falling to the back. the physics of the whole dynamic jettison the pack ahead of him where they will slow down a bit to let him catch up. once he's caught up he'll yell 'back on' so they can resume a hearty clip.

the first, and last, time i ever participated in a group ride which included drafting i was behind a stocky female i called sergeant bilko (in my head only). we didn't do all the fancy calling out and stuff because, well frankly, we didn't know about such etiquette. i spent most of the time staring at my front tire as it related to her back tire. it gets to be quite mesmerizing at about mile 30 and you'll find yourself zoning out. zoning out until you hear a funny noise and look up only to catch, square in the face, a gelatinous wad of chunk-laden snot shot from bilko's nose under her armpit (ala farmers blow). i heard/saw her loading up the other barrel and only just escaped the second salvo to the very great chagrin of the guy behind me.

in summary;
1. drafting is an efficient way to travel
2. there are numerous reasons to have rules
3. big girl equals big snot
4. it is totally possible to exfoliate/burn three layers of skin off your face and live to tell about it.

so friday was the grand opening of the new super mall for saint louis. wanna know how big a deal it was? vern from trading spaces was making an appearance.

saturday morning was the big unveiling our very own apple store in said mall. you know what there is a big difference between? soccer moms who make an event of going to the new super mall and geeks who go to pay homage to a particular brand of computer the day there first local store opens.

earlier in the week man who screams like woman (MWSLW) asked if i was going. sure. you want to go together? sure. ok, i'll meet you at 6. for those not reading the news, this would be four full hours before the doors were to be opened. but, if you wanted a shirt (to the first 1000) you best get their at 6.

since i could make my very own shirt in the same 4 hours, i elected to not join MWSLW. when i arrived shortly before they opened the doors there was a line. there was a line so long that it went down the mall and wrapped around multiple potted trees and lengths of glass handrails blocking the way of the hustling mall-goers. in trying to get through the mass they would anxiously ask what all the ruckus was about. new apple store. what's an apple store? apple is a computer company. hmm, what are they giving away. well, shirts, but that's not why everyone is standing in line. well why then. ... there's a reason these two groups of people don't mix by choice. by the end of my wait i was simply saying "if you gotta ask, i can't explain."

and, by the way, i did get a shirt. i'm wearing it right now. have been since i got it. the next time you see me, i'll still be wearing it. i shower in my new shirt. i mean, i did wait in line and talk to all those silly humans after all. i earned this shirt.

THE PLAN
07:00-07:30 eat breakfast
07:30-08:00 install compost bin and mulch surrounding ground
08:00-11:30 install upstairs quarter round
11:30-12:00 pick up house and shower
12:00-01:30 go to darkman's 30th birthday party
01:30-03:30 tennis with e-love
03:30-04:00 shower and snack
04:00-07:00 hang out with bella, marty & peggy (returned from chicago)
07:00-09:00 go to a ron jeremy lecture w/ man who screams like woman (MWSLW)
09:00-11:00 watch the ron jeremy documentary P*rn Star
11:30-11:31 fall asleep

THE DAY
08:00-08:15 wake up an hour and fifteen minutes late
08:15-08:20 eat granola bar & drink thai coffee (#1)
08:20-09:00 install compost bin and mulch surrounding area
09:00-09:50 install upstairs quarter round
09:50-09:51 brake a pane of glass from a french door on my lap
09:51-09:52 step on drill bit with bare foot while backing away from broken glass
09:52-09:55 turn vacuum on so i can scream and cuss very, very audibly
09:55-10:15 clean up glass and apply band-aids to legs and feet
10:15-12:00 finish installing upstairs quarter round
12:00-12:45 pick up house and shower. oh yeah, and thai coffee (#2)
12:45-01:35 go to darkman's party
01:35-01:40 kindly request that conner the chimp be removed from my lap so i can depart
01:40-04:00 tennis with e-love
04:00-05:00 hang out with bella, marty and peggy until they leave for some family thing
05:00-06:00 sleep. thank god for sleep.
06:00-06:03 read sign stating the ron jeremy appearance has been canceled.
06:04-06:20 resist pummeling the ticket whelp who hung the evil sign.
06:20-06:30 win debate with MWSLW regarding best possible question to ask the hedgehog
06:30-08:00 eat at lemon grass - have thai coffee (#3)
08:00-09:00 go to ted drewes for custard - suck-up to marty via an oreo concrete
09:00-11:00 geek with MWSLW
11:00-11:45 repeatedly listen to the freshly downloaded beasty boys? song GIRLS
11:45-12:00 lay in bed unable to sleep, thinking how good a thai coffee (#4) would be

Last night Man Who Screams Like Woman (MWSLW) and myself went to our local apple users group to see what they had to offer. We were thoroughly excited and had largish expectations of what we would find. Upon arriving at the session and nabbing some seats, we quietly took in the scene with sullen faces. After several quiet minutes, MWSLW leaned over to me and whispered, "So what do you think?" I responded, "I think we somehow have landed on the set of Cocoon."

Everyone was over sixty but us and this kid in the back row whose speaking voice greatly resembled the synthesized computer guy from War Games (Do you want to play a game?). I almost asked the facilitator to just point me to the shuffleboard lanes so I could get my stick on before the rheumatism set in and I'd have to settle for pinochle on the veranda with professor plum, floyd the barber and one of the gabor girls.

But, as karma would have it, during our dejected departure from the meeting and in the middle of our mutterings, we found a gay magazine, the adult variety, in the street that seemed to have been specially crafted for that lonely trucker away from home. And, as luck would have it, that's me. I mean that's us. I mean that's the most surreal evening I've had in some time. Come to think of it, the only thing that would have made the evening more surreal is if said magazine had catered to elderly gay truckers.

Bookguy is not Bookpimp, as Sir Chavez thought. and Buddy James is not Man Who Screams Like Woman, which no one has yet thought. but Walt is Mart and Mart is Walt and Walt and Mart, who are the same person, are both female so when i talk about Walt or Mart or even Marty i'm not referring to my gay lover Walt but instead my wonderfully striking wife, Marty and i fully understand if you need to meet Walt as Mart before taking my word on this as Bookguy did because until Bookguy met Walt, the woman, he was torn on my sexual direction, which is left. left for debate that is, given that i'm always talking about this Walt character which i reference almost as much as Bookpimp and significantly more than the misdirected Bookguy but far less than Chavez or Man Who Screams Like Woman or even Martha who is Marty who is Mart who is Walt but Walt is not Bookguy nor Bookpimp as Bookguy is not Bookpimp and vice versa.

Please blame chavez for this, not me, assuming you know who "me" is.

Man Who Screams Like Woman was telling me about this friend of a friend who has this bevy of great pickup lines. I get the impression that he is a pretty fit fellow and likes to draw attention to his physique whenever able. It was explained that in the delivery of the below lines, before answering each question, the meatback flexes his arm muscles and strikes a Ferrigno/Schwarzenegger like pose while finishing the line. Granted, this story is much better when Man Who Screams Like Woman is in front of you imitating how the lines would be delivered, but you'll get the gist.

Do you have a sewing machine? (strike pose and say ...) cuz I'm pretty sure I'm ripped.

Do you have a dictionary? (strike pose and say ...) cuz i need to look up this definition.

Do you smell smoke? (strike pose and say ...) Oh I'm sorry, it must be these guns.

Man, do I love people.