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Should I be happy or should I be sad? "The practice of serving Starbucks coffee... ...will be discontinued. Facility Services will be coordinating the replacement of Starbucks coffee with a less expensive flavorful blend." In an effort to cut back some expenses, as explained in the email I just received from one of the senior vice presidents here, the coffee beans will be from a mystery vendor. This makes me happy and sad at the same time. Yay for the little man... I just hope the person doing the ordering loves coffee. The list of cost saving changes was long, but the only other significant bullet was the corporate fitness center will discontinue it's laundry service. That completely sucks. I can walk to any one of a dozen decent coffee shops in less than 5 minutes from my office if I don't feel like the free joe that may or may not be as good as the free SB that we enjoy now, but bringing in and carting out my own gym clothes... not that's an inconvenience. LOL. I'm kidding... I'm just glad it wasn't worse. That club is the best fitness facility I've seen as far as amenities go and cutting a few niceties here and there isn't going to hurt it's status much.

Anyone that says racquetball is a not a contact sport is just looney. Clayton is all banged up.

Back here, I posted this not knowing that there was a series... but thanks to Lisa, I am down with ALL the goods. Check this out.

"Here we stand with our hearts in our hands and our hands in the soil"
I feel excellent. Other than my pets freaking out last night like someone or something was in my yard snooping around, I had a relaxing evening and peaceful sleep. I am an anti-violence guy... I think that there are better ways to solve things than fights and injury. I am also a realist that lives in 2002 A.D. in a state where killing someone on your property after dark is pretty much justifiable under any circumstance in the eyes of the law. That is whacked, but empowering. So, after last nights pet alarm episode, I reluctantly blew the dust off and cleaned my 9MM and filled the magazine with hollow point high pressure (+P COR-BON) loaded rounds... then conveniently placed it next to my saturated with movie and television violence trigger finger for a quiet night. It's not like I have anything valuable that would be worth stealing, but no one is going to threaten the well being of my family... all furry 12 legs of them. I drove the SUV into work today. Outstanding. I can tell that I've taken a break from driving it because I was a gear slut the entire way in... shifting like an elevator during stretches of road/trail that I usually power through without pogo sticking the derailleur. Why the hell are boxer briefs so fucking expensive? It's the only type of underwear I like to wear and I seem to be needed a lot of them these days. My commute is about 13.7 kilometers (8.5 miles) each way and when you take into account the relative humidity asymptotically approaching 100% throughout the day and the lovely Texas heat, I am choking in a sauna by the time I reach my destination. On the days I peddle, I shower (sometimes) before I leave the house, I shower (always) when I get to the office, I shower (always) when I get home, and I shower (most of the time) before bed (because the dirty that I like in bed has nothing to do with hygiene). Throw in an extra shower on the days I lift in the gym or play racquetball in the corporate fitness club. This equals a lot of fucking underwear... produced-by-slaves-to-capitalism-extemely-overpriced underwear. So back to my original question, why can you get a dime bag of a dozen whitey-tighties or banana hammocks, but boxer briefs are like $20 each? (I didn't include traditional boxers here because they provide zero support where needed and the only good excuse to put them on is if you're doing it for your mate who likes to see you in them... in which case, the only time you wear them is for show lest you don't care about your beans ala frank-n-beans) It's just not fair. Another complaint I have about showing so damn much is dermal care. Purchasing the right kind of shampoo and soap so that your hair doesn't snap right off and your skin isn't like the desert. Pain in the ass... not to mention expensive. August could be a scary month for me... too many friends with birthday celebrations in close proximity means the 'ole liver will be working overtime. My best friend's birthday (Sean) is the 10th and my birthday is the 13th, so we'll definitely be getting together for something. Looking alike and only being 3 days apart in age has always been great fun when we go out together. Everyone thinks we're brothers! I guess we are in spirit. My good friend Sam's birthday is the 9th and our mutual friend Lou's birthday is the 16th. My co-worker, friend, and rainy day carpool buddy Joe has a birthday on the 30th. It's gonna be crazy. I am not planning on celebrating my birthday specifically, but who needs to have a party when so many of your friends probably will, eh? I was seriously thinking of either going to see my mom and grandmother this weekend down at the coast or going to Guy Forsyth's gig in San Antonio on Saturday, but now I think I'll stick around town. I may have to work Sunday (bleh) for a little bit, so I don't want to string myself out this weekend with no sleep. Besides, I told my boss yesterday afternoon before I left the office that I wanted to take the week of my birthday off... and that's oh so close. Yeeeeeaaaaaahhh baby yeah!

I just got home from Goldmember. I laughed non-stop through the entire film. I laughed so hard I cried. I would have pissed myself if I hadn't gone before the previews rolled. That movie is effin hilarious. Shazam!

"I had only one teacher, myself, and only one student, myself." - Andres Segovia
His orbicularis oris tightens just so the pursing engages his zygomaticus major and the chorus of musculature crescendos... slowly and carefully building his smile. Ma journee est finit. Time to flee...

"They just said, 'Roll the tape.' No rehearsal or nothing... Muddy Waters didn't come in and say, 'I wanna rehearse.' He used to look at me and say, 'Let's play the blues.' That's all you need to do." - Buddy Guy
The blues is more than a basic I-IV-V chord progression laid over a 12-bar framework dammit! I joined the Houston Blues Society this afternoon. Yay me. Now everyone go waste bandwidth and listen to some B-L-U-E-S right effin now... try to bog the Internet backbone with soulful packets and contribute to the job security of network engineers everywhere. Now, if I can just figure out how to get some of Beth's homemade hooch... woohoo! "What's the word? Thunderbird! Twenty twice... half the price! Jump on the NightTrain! Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh baby!"

"Decaffeinated coffee? Kinda like kissing your sister." - Bob Irwin
Please tell me where it is... my coffee. Dammit! Stop hiding from me!