Take your protein pills and put your helmets on

Jimmyboy rolls into town Wednesday night.

He's a buddy of mine from Northern Wisconsin.

He lives in Superior with his lovely wife, L., and their dog, Marley.

I love Jimmy.

We've known each other for close to ten years.

Jimmy wants to ski at Big Sky a couple of days. We're also kicking around a few other ideas, like going into Yellowstone to spot wolves, soaking in some hot springs, consuming large slabs of meat and visiting a ghost town.

We're also probably going to do some breakdance fighting.

Jimmy's got a video camera, so look for some action shots of us doing some headspins in the streetz of Bozeman.

Jimmy also promises to return to the keyboard for another guest blog about his vacation.

On that note, here is a guest blog from my good friend, P.

Enjoy.

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So me and the N-man were watching TV last night when this commercial comes on for Universal Studios, Orlando. By the end of it, I find myself saying, "Let's go there." Over the years, we've done the Bush Gardens thing and Disney and Sea World, but we've never made it to Universal Studios. And lord knows, I need me a vacation right about now.

But then I remembered...

Two years ago we went to Las Vegas for the first time. We don't gamble (much) but we had a blast just seeing the sights, Blue Man Group, Fremont Street, Hoover Dam, Elvis impersonators...

The Borg Experience.

Have you been to this thing? It's at the Hilton--pretty cool, actually. You become participants in an interactive Star Trek story, when suddenly something (and I don't remember what) goes seriously wrong, and you have to PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED. But WAIT! No, I mean HURRY!! We might be able to escape if we board the shuttlecraft and hightail it outta Dodge. Or Trekkie words to that effect, anyway.

So everyone in the group crowds into this little shuttlecraft-type dealie, a room about 8 x 10 feet, and the doors close and it's one of those motion simulator rides, which I am preparing to like quite a bit (rather than the other option of being assimilated). So the doors close, the lights go down, the screen comes up, and we're flying and dropping and whirling and shooting and taking hits and, "Captain, we haven't got the power! The dilithium crystals are about to go!" -- I'm totally making that part up --- and the next thing you know...

I want to puke.

Now, I've never been motion sick before. I'm the kind who would likely die of alcohol poisoning because I don't throw up drunk, never had morning sickness while I was pregnant, and can count up all the number of times I've had to barf in my life without even having to think about taking my socks off.

Yet here I am in this little box moving at warp speed and my head is swimming, my brain is saying "too much information," I feel hot, embarrassed, you-name-it, and I SO do not want to ruin The Borg Experience for everybody.

Yeah, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but that kind of thing will scar people for LIFE.

I gotta try something fast or, "Captain, she's gonna blow!" I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Suddenly, I'm no longer on a space craft spiraling through the universe. I'm just sitting in this small seat, and it's occasionally going bump...bump...bump. I've taken worse hits negotiating potholes down East Washington on worn shocks. My gut starts to settle down, my face stops flushing, and pretty soon we're safe in another galaxy, far, far, away...or something (hey, my eyes were closed). Ride over. Enjoy the day.

So I pondered that for a bit.

Do I still want to go to Universal? Hell, yeah. I'll pack some Dramamine though.

I thought about how life is a lot like that short ride in a small box. Sometimes you've got to figure out if what you're looking at is real. Sometimes it' gets overwhelming with all the sound and show.

And when it does, maybe we just have to close our eyes for a bit. Get a feel for the road. Breathe. And wait for the doors to open.



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Thanks, P!

Are you ready for this jelly?

Here are the most recent Google search terms leading people to "The Dude Abides:"

1. "Kenny Rogers post-facelift"

2. "Friends come in and out of our lives like busboys in a restaurant"

3. "Took the restrictor plate off to give the Red Dragon some juice. Ain't exactly street legal so keep it on the down low."

4. "Make you cry"

5. "Shomer Shabbaz"

6. "Don't take your guns to town"

7. "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans"

8. The ever popular "My daughter is f-cking a black dude"

9. "Kevin Bacon Footloose dancing"

10. "Crazy delicious"

11. "All I need is this thermos"

12. "Mama's talkin' to me"

13. "Sunday driving"

14. And the last one was a google image search from this picture of me waiting in line for the bus, circa 1974-ish-



I am the dapper dude in front of the line.

For those about to rockWE SA-LUTE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are the Top 25 most played songs on i-Tunes, which tracks the songs I play while I sit at the computer.

Very often, while I write, I will play a song on repeat.

Even more often, I will get completely hooked on a song and play it over and over again, like a three-year-old with a really annoying new toy. For instance, The Eck emailed me the song "Tear You Apart" a couple weeks ago, and it is so gothically catchy and creepy that it is shooting up the charts with a bullet.

1. Only, Nine Inch Nails
2. DOA, Foo Fighters
3. Tear You Apart, She Wants Revenge
4. Justify My Thug, Jay Z
5. Of The Girl, Pearl Jam
6. Blue Orchid, White Stripes
7. Free Ride, The Edgar Winter Band
8. Personal Jesus, Johnny Cash
9. Born On The Bayou, Foo Fighters
10. Aneurysm, Nirvana
11. Staple It Together, Jack Johnson
12. Fashion, David Bowie
13. Optimistic, Radiohead
14. Can I Get A..., Jay Z
15. Into The Void, Nine Inch Nails
16. Filthy/Gorgeous, Scissor Sisters
17. Wish You Were Here, Incubus
18. 99 Problems, Jay Z
19. Still, Foo Fighters
20. Guerilla Radio, Rage Against The Machine
21. Busy Child, Crystal Method
22. Kielbasa, Tenacious D
23. Molly's Chambers, Kings of Leon
24. Janie Jones, The Clash
25. Bittersweet Symphony, The Verve

It's a bit of an odd mix, because the place I listen to the most music is in my car, on those old-school things called "CD's".

Lately, in the car, I have unleashed my inner small-town-Wisconsin-circa-1986 classic rawker, spinning Zeppelin III, Stones Beggar's Banquet and Exile...

Wow, what an uninteresting post.