neurological dryer lint

i'm going to go to the gym every week day until the wedding. today was day one. i got to sit there for 30 minutes while every senior citizen in green township sat silent and waited for the MJ verdict. no one really cared after it was announced, strangely enough.

this gym thing isn't a panicked, last ditch attempt to turn into calista flockheart by the time i get married. i was planning on doing this after the wedding anyway and i figure i'd get a jump on it while i have absolutely nothing to do this week.

well on my PC tonight it's battle of the crappy media players part five: which one can suck more? Windows Media Player or iTunes? why did the only decent media player in the last ten years stop receiving funding? sad, sad, sad.

good story (stories) for you that will probably get me nailed by homeland security.

OR SHOULD IT BE... HOMELAND INSECURITY?!?!?!?! GET IT? I BET YOU NEVER EVER EXPECTED THAT ONE.

anyway. mom and dad and adrian were up on the lake on vacation this past week. so they sail out to pelee island (in canadian waters) and check in with canadian customes by calling an 888 number, where they give you a simple 6-digit 'canpass' that proves you checked in. simple and efficient.

so they're coming back the next day and they call the american customs department. who apparently gave them a 21-digit number (we're leet) and said to go check in at the customs videophone on south bass island (put-in-bay). i've seen this phone. they stuck it next to the men's bathroom, in a little metal box on the wall that looks like a fuse box. so dad opens it up and makes the call.

it's busy. thank you. but our princess is in another castle!

so (out of the goodness of his patriotic american heart) he tries again. gets a choppy image of a guy walking around in an office making coffee and BS'ing with his friends. after dad yells 'hello' a bunch of times homeboy wakes up and peers into his side of the videophone. dad tells him he's coming back across the border from pelee. the guy's response?

uh, i'm in new york, i don't know how to do that.

finally the guy gets the clue engine working hard enough to ask 'uh, are you carrying anything back?' to which dad answers 'no'. the top-notch guard of american security tells dad that he's good to go.

i tell you, i feel safer already, knowing someone could enter our country with absolutely no knowledge and go anywhere. screw flying. sigh.

and, i heard this on NPR this morning - did you know that canada's third highest export to the US is - oh yes - the reefer? THIRD HIGHEST. an ILLEGAL DRUG. people chopper it across the border several times a day. a writer named Robert Sabbag is doing a magazine article on his adventures with canadian pot smugglers. these guys apparently make $400k on every major run they make. guess i'm in the wrong business.

geez. i could listen to hendrix twenty four hours a day.

listening to: jimi hendrix - crosstown traffic