I know the shine wears off every relationship, so practical men, such as myself, are looking for those qualities that justify putting up with you for the sake of sex. Being incredibly good-looking helps, so does aggressive affection, some guys settle for a good cook. I know what I need, and it has little to do with the initial putting on airs and acting nice. Use that nonsense on guys who hit on you once we are together, okay. If you are interested in me, you’ve got one narrow window to show it. So we had a fun trip, that’s it. We missed JP at home, his sister’s, dad’s, Quizno’s, and St. Jude’s. So I took the Goldwing on a slow crawl up South Beach, stopping for coffee at a French bakery around 75th street. Never again. It had the $13 burgers and generally outrageous prices considering the area and décor. While the place was full of busy staff, this did not include anyone who whose job it was simply to take your order, serve it, and leave you alone until you wanted to pay.
That place was too full of fake European play-acting for me. Everything became a special task, even wanting cream for my $3.50 coffee. The waiter in wide-eyed surprise telling me he’ll go in the back and “find some”, like it’s a huge favor and he’s got to milk the cow. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it, “Action stations, everyone. There’s a crazy Yankee out there who wants cream in his coffee!” No sugar on the table, but if you got $22 for a bowl of soup, they got that. I emphasize this was not a fancy café, but a joint in a Miami strip mall.
I was really taking the Goldwing for another test drive, if you must know. We got caught in the rain, part of the adventure, as I was moved to explain to the passenger. A regular sidecar has tractor-like handling characteristics, as in geared low, one job. The Goldwing is more like a thoroughbred, constantly trembling, ready to mix it up. Although it is only 250cc more than the Ural, it has twice as many pistons and three times the power. This makes it difficult somewhat to drive around town. But on the straightaway, zoom-zoom-zoom. I let all the jealous bastards pass me doing 75, because they know I could take them any time. I don’t even drop into high gear until I’m doing nearly 60.
Is this where I mention that I consider the “news” media to be the scum of American society? When I hear about crime, I want to know the ethnicity of the perps right away. I have a right to know this information and I tune out reporters and newscasters who don’t provide it. Part of the reason they are scum is the intentional omission of this data is itself a form of racial prejudice, but one that makes them think they are better judges of the facts. As in, they’ll tell us what we, in their expert opinions, are supposed to want to know. Scum. Greenish-black foul-smelling scum.
On top of that encouraging revelation, I’ve been trying to find live video coverage of the landing. Like they did for Apollo 11 back in 1969. Talk about the runaround. The NASA site isn’t any help. They keep talking about Channel 103, high definition, and transitioning like I’m supposed to know what in hell they are going on about. It’s like trying to get a straight answer out of my family. When it dawns on them you aren’t falling for their double-talk, they accuse you of not “cooperating”. As of y’day, they won’t even say exactly when the landing is to take place. Some say today, some say tomorrow, I finally was able to calculate it is 1:00AM Monday morning. All broadcasts should be on NASA time, the time it is in Cape Canaveral.
I finally had to resort, as so often before, to a site in England. In a Freudian slip, the official NASA video of the landing sequence ”Seven Minutes of Terror” states everything has to work perfectly, including “500,000 LINES OF COD3”. Ahem. Radio signals take fourteen minutes to get here from Mars and the landing itself takes seven minutes. That’s how they do the math. I will consider a successful landing to be a robotic triumph. Especially if that's how humans write cod3.
