The rage is relentless. We need a movement with a quickness.

You wanna know what is absolute bullshit?

I'm serious.

Absolute bullshit.

This has been eating at me since I was about 7 years old. That's 28 years for you non-math majors. 28 years of pent-up, stifled outrage at something that I have known since a tender age is absolute bullshit.

I'm sure you've read about the innate innocence and purity of a child.

Well, let me tell you, children also have VERY accurate bullshit detectors.

I've always known it was bullshit. It was bullshit then, and it's still bullshit today.

What is bullshit, you ask?

The Three Musketeers Bar.

What is it? A thin coating of chocolate over some nougat. Yeah, sure, chocolate is good. So is nougat. But, in this case, the whole falls pretty fucking far short of the sum of its parts.

You know what else has chocolate and nougat? Snickers. That's right, Snickers. And Snickers friggin rules. Who else? Milky Way. Milky Way rules, too. Not as much as Snickers, but it still rules. Baby Ruth. Sure, sure. But they all bring something else to the table...nuts, caramel, what-have-you. They bring some love.

Shit, you can even take something off the table and it's still better than Three Musketeers... nougat. That's right, get rid of the damn nougat. What do you have? A fucking delicious, plain old Hershey chocolate bar is what you have.

I haven't seen a nougat-only/no-choclate bar, but if it exists, I bet it's better than the bullshit Three Musketeers bar.

A few years back, Three Musketeer tried to sell you some more bullshit by saying it was "healthier" than its tasty competitors. Dude, we're talking candy bars. I don't want healthy in a candy bar. If I want healthy, I'll eat some damn broccoli. Quit half-assing it, Three Musketeers. Take your weak-ass bullshit, and get out.

So, with Halloween around the corner, avoid the bullshit and don't buy Three Musketeers. If it were three years ago, and I was still trick-or-treating, you bet your ass you'd be getting a trick if you threw a weak-ass Three Musketeers in my orange bucket. And, get the fun size, too, ya cheap bastard.

Screw all three of those mustachioed dandies and the horses they rode in on.

Three Musketeers is bullshit. I'm telling you.

Into this house, we're born. Into this world, we're thrown.Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan.Riders on the storm

It is rainy and cold here today.

The clouds this morning crept over the mountain tops and pushed through the passes, and these strange white-grey tendrils creeped down the other side. Once they pushed through, the sky opened up.

Call me a freak, but I love rainy, cold fall days. These are the days tailor made for a good novel, a crackling fire, a cat in your lap, a dog by your side and a cup of tea.

And all along, visions of the expected ten inches of snow above 5000 feet will be dancing like sugarplums in my head.

Call me a freak, but I am probably going to go out running in this weather before I go ahead with the book/fire/cat/dog/tea thing. I figure I have run around 350 miles since we moved here in mid-June.

Alright, that's enough. If you call me a freak one more time, I'm gonna take off my shoe and beat you with it. Right in the street. I may even wail (whale?) on you with a garbage can or something. So, knock it off, unless you want the Sonny Corleone treatment.

I miss some of my friends from Wisconsin. I don't even know if the two of them I miss the most have been reading this; I don't think so. I'll make some calls this weekend. Neither one of them are really "phone guys," and I am really not either... But neither one of them are really email guys, and, if anything, that's what I surely am. I fear the lack of communication and physical distance may cause these friendships to fade, and eventually, go away.

I am the kind of guy who meets people, and makes acquaintances fairly easily. I'm social. I can usually make people laugh, and I can bullshit with the best of them. (I am half-Irish; I am my mother's child; and I have kissed the Blarney Stone... twice.)

Friends come and go in life, like seasons. I am sure that distance will cause many friendships to flicker and dim. I will care more about some than others, and vice versa. I also care less now about making acquaintances and striking up new friendships, though it will doubtless happen in this new location.

I have only really made one or two new acquaintances here. I just don't feel a real need to fill that space in my life. It used to be a void. Now it is just space. And I like it.

I guess I've become more comfortable with myself, and have grown to progressively appreciate, enjoy and eventually crave solitude. I find myself enjoying solitary pursuits like running, reading, hiking more than ever. With this season pass, I am sure I will spend many days snowboarding by myself this season. I couldn't be more excited.

But these two friends?

No. I'll be calling them this weekend, whether they are phone guys or not. I have known them since I was twelve. Other than family, there are only three or four people who I have been continuously friends with since that time.

And, as the narrator typed at the very end of one of my favorite movies, Stand By Me,

I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?