So I went on a road trip to New Hampshire for the primaries, and I think I discovered a few rules for road trips, or at least a few things I thought were really annoying. First off, one of the guys I drove up with would read or comment on everything he saw. “Oh, that’s a nice house… Dunkin Donuts… look, a cow.” That shit is annoying, I can see for myself, dammit, I don’t need you telling me everything like we are in that “Hear No Evil” movie with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder where one is deaf and the other one is blind and they have to do stuff together. And along those lines, I don’t care if you are going to make a cell phone call while in the car, but the car isn’t your personal phone booth. This one girl called every one of her friends, it was ridiculous. “Yeah, I’m in New Hampshire! I’m working for Kerry! I saw so and so,” etc etc, it was the same conversation, then they’d gossip about people. After awhile it became kind of amazing, because she talked from New Hampshire to New Jersey. But still, cut it out. And I also learned that you should only take road trips with people who share roughly the same musical tastes as you. I don’t want to listen to fucking Train or the new J. Lo song or have you flip through most of the first Weezer CD because you want to hear “Buddy Holly.” I guess I could have told them to stop, but I didn’t want to be an asshole. Maybe that should be a road trip rule too: the driver can be an asshole.

And now it’s joke time:

Three CEOs of North America's major beer companies (Molson, Budweiser, and Corona) are at a meeting in St. Louis for a beer conference. After a long day at the conference, they all see each other at the hotel bar. The corona chief says to the bartender "I'll have a Corona, the finest cerveza in the world" and so he gets a Corona. The Anheuser Busch chief then says to the bartender, "I'll have a Budweiser, the king of all beers" and gets a Bud. Then the CEO of Molson says to the bartender "I'll have a Coke please." The other CEOs look at him, stunned. "Why did you order a Coke?" the Corona guy asks. And the Molson guy says "well, I figured since the rest of you aren't drinking beer, I won't either."

so i just learned an important lesson: don't return your rental car at 4 am. i went up to new hampshire for the primaries with a friend and we had rented a car, since my car is a piece of crap and probably would not make the trip. We left NH at about 4 pm and I got back into DC at about 3 am, about 4 hours longer than mapquest, but we got lost a couple times and there was a traffic jam in new york and we had to make some stops like Friendly's and the New Hampshire State Liquor Store, which is pretty cool. so i figured I would drop off the people riding back with me, unload my stuff at my house, bring the car back to the rental car place at National Airport, and i'd catch a cab back to my house since the Metro train doesn't run that late. i thought this would work best because otherwise i'd have to park in DC and i'd probably get a ticket, and even if I didn't I'd have to wake up in a couple hours anyway, drive it back, and then take the train from the airport directly to work. So a couple of hours away from DC we called the Avis place to make sure they accepted late night returns, and they did, so that was good. after dropping everybody off I got to the Avis place and had to wake up the guy working there to return my keys, which was kind of weird. the Avis place was at the very end of the airport, so i went into the airport building and followed the signs for "motorized walkway to terminal," because i figured it'd be faster and i was tired from driving. so i found this walkway, which was a pretty surreal place, it was a brand new yellow hallway with no doors or windows, only the motorized walkways. there was no one around and the only thing I could hear was the speaker repeating "caution: walkway is ending", which would get louder and then softer as i reached the end of one walkway and got on the other. so that was pretty funny. i followed the signs to "ground transportation" and when i was about 100 feet from the door I saw a taxi drive by. i figured there would be more when i got there so i didn't run out to get it. when i got out i didn't see any taxis, but i figured was at the smaller old terminal where the smaller airlines flew, so there probably wasn't anybody around. i decided to head for the main terminal and get a taxi there. so i went back in and walked around. however, this terminal was pretty gigantic, it used to be the entire airport before the new main building was built, so i walked through these deserted hallways and the main room that looked like the zeppelin port from indiana jones and thought about what the people watching the security cameras must be thinking, since there was still nobody around but me, trudging through the airport in my heavy jacket. so i kept walking and got to another really long hallway, literally so long i couldn't see the end. of course, i also need new glasses. i went down that, and luckily i didn't have any bags, and got to the main terminal. it was pretty cool to be there, i thought, because i could look the length of the terminal and couldn't see anybody except a zamboni driver and a person mopping the floor, and it was almost totally silent. so i went downstairs to the ground transportation and didn't see anything except for a police car. i waited a minute or so and went back in, where i saw two maintenance workers. i asked if i could catch a cab and they said "no, not until 6 or so when planes land, you gotta call one. go look up taxicab in the phonebook" and they pointed at the pay phone. so i thought "shit" and went over to the payphone. my cell phone was back in my house, but it was dead anyway because i had forgotten to charge it. So i went to the phonebook and turned to T and didn't see taxicab. I thought "i hate phone books, they always call stuff by the weirdest names you would never think of." But after flipping to "cab" and "limousine" and not finding anything, i turned back to the T's and realized that all of the taxicab pages had been torn out. Because no one would need to call a cab from an airport. I walked out to find another phone with a book and I saw one of the maintenance people from before and I told her the taxicab pages had been torn out. She laughed and looked at me, and i laughed too, since it was pretty ridiculous. I asked her if there was another phone book and she said there were lots up and down the terminal. I was at one end, so I started towards the other, looking at the phones for books. I then noticed that all of the clocks in the airport were set to different times, and not just a minute or two, some were an hour apart, which I thought was pretty funny. I passed about 5 banks of phones and walked through most of the deserted terminal, which was actually pretty nice, before i saw one with a phone book and went over. this one did have the pages for taxicab, so I dialed the first company I had heard of and put my credit card in the slot. it beeped and said "insert 50 cents" so i put the card in every other way, but it still didn't work, so i fished around and found two quarters and put them in. I called the cab company and got the "all operators are busy helping other customers, please hold" message and I thought "shit, maybe the dude is asleep or having phone sex or something," but then somebody picked up. She said "what's your address" and i said "national airport" and she asked when I wanted to go and i said "as soon as possible." then she asked "what's your address?" and i said "I dunno the address, it's National Airport" and she said "oh, you're AT national airport. i don't know if we pick up there, hold on." then she said they didn't. so i said, "do you know anybody who does" and she said "no, sorry." so that sucked. i found another cab company that said national airport in their ad and searched for money, but i only found 25 cents and 3 New Hampshire toll booth tokens, which coincidentally cost 75 cents to buy. I dialed 0 and asked to make a credit card call but the lady said they didn't take credit cards, so then I tried to call the next cab company collect, but I got a message saying they didn't accept collect calls, which is probably a pretty smart idea. I didn't think of dialing 10-10-220 or whatever. whoever builds those payphones should make cars or something, because i knocked the hell out of the receiver and it didn't break. but I thought I had seen a change machine, so I flagged down the zamboni guy who said immediately "no english" and started to drive away. I attempted to ask him in spanish if there was a machine to turn my dollars into coins and I guess it made enough sense because he thought a bit and looked around and said no, then he called to some other people and they said no too. so by this point i was pretty damn pissed off, I probably looked like a crazy person stomping through the terminal. i went out to the front again and didn't see any cabs, then i went back in and saw what looked like an airport administrative type and asked if there were a change machine, and he said no. I told him my story and he said he didn't have any change, and the guy at 7-11 had even let him pay less than the amount because he didn't have any, but that cabs usually start coming by 4:30 to let people out, and that if I went upstairs I could probably flag one down. so i went upstairs and saw a couple police cars and one of those blue buses with a guy unloading. so i waited awhile for a cab and decided to ask him if he could go to Adams Morgan, where i lived, and he thought for awhile then said ok. I asked him how much and he said 10, which was probably a lot less than the cab would have been. so after about an hour and a half of walking around the deserted rental car place and airport I got a ride home. Hopefully this has been an interesting and informative story, and has taught you not to be like me and return rental cars really fucking late at night. and hopefully this wasn't boring and makes up for me not posting anything in awhile. maybe i will post funny shit from the trip later.

so this is mostly for me so i don't forget or lose the piece of paper i wrote it on. here are concerts I want to go to:

THUR JAN 29- LES SAVY FAV, FRED ARMISEN (of SNL), SAM JAYNE (of Love As Laughter) $12 mainstage 8:30

Fri Jan 30 The Clarks w/ The Lost Trailers & Stephen Kellogg $15.00

MON FEB 2 - SUICIDE GIRLS LIVE BURLESQUE TOUR, FULL MINUTE OF MERCURY (this show is 18+) $10adv/$12day 8:30

ok so that's not really a concert. i still want to go!

SAT FEB 7- OK GO, ARMY OF ME, SPIRALLING $12 mainstage 9:30

TUES FEB 10- THE SHINS, CASS MCCOMBS $12adv/$15day mainstage 8:30

WED FEB 11- THE SHINS, CASS MCCOMBS $12adv/$15day mainstage 8:30

WED. FEB. 11 Super Furry Animals $15.00

SUN. FEB. 22 Fountains of Wayne $15.00

so I got this thing from the snack machine today called a “Cookies &” bar. I wanted a Snickers, but both things with Snickers weren’t working, so that sucks. Anyway, this Cookies & thing is like a shortbread cookie with some candy on top, this one has the insides of a Snickers on it. Other ones have baby M&Ms or Kit Kat stuff on top of the cookie thing. It’s ok, sort of tastes like a crunchy Snickers or whatever. Anyway, I was looking at the wrapper for this thing, and it has the slogan “Perfect for those times when a cookie is not enough and candy is too much!” I mean, does that time really occur that much?

“Hey man, what time is it?”
“It’s one of those times when a cookie is not enough and candy is too much.”
“Shit! I'm late!”

I really doubt there are people sitting around thinking "gee, i am hungry, but a cookie is not enough and a candy is too much. if only there were some middle food!!" And anyway, it seems to me that a cookie is more food than candy, especially since you usually eat more than one cookie, right? Well, I do, unless it’s one of those enormous ones with the one foot diameter that costs 4 dollars. So the dumb slogan should be vice versa, “perfect for those times when candy is not enough and a cookie is too much” if they are really trying to hit this massive demand for food items between cookies and candy. I mean I saw the petition drive and the protests at Snickers corporate headquarters, but I never thought they'd cave this easily.

so it's been awhile since i posted anything, mainly because i've been playing this new video game i got, ESPN College Hoops for my playstation 2. It's ridiculous, it's so realistic and fun. The recruiting is awesome, players can visit your school officially and unofficially, you can visit them, and assistant coaches and players can email you, which is cool. and the gameplay is cool also, it's a lot like the college game. so anyway, that's what i've been doing. maybe i will think of something funny soon

so i got this email today from a guy named Robert Bobb. The man's name is Bob Bobb. Or Bobby Bobb. I wonder what his middle name is? That'd be funny if it started with the letter D. Robert D. Bobb. "Hi, I am Robert D Bob." "Uh, well I guess I am Andrew The Andy then." And randomly, earlier today before I got the email I was thinking of something and remembered Tony Toni Tone, that R&B group from the early 90's(I had to look up which tony went where), and that had reminded me of this guy who used to play running back for the Eagles, Anthony Toney, thus Tony Toney. I wonder why parents do that? I am sure their kids heard from every single person they met from first grade on. And even now! I mean, I am supposed to be an adult and I immediately realized the dude's name was Bob Bobb. Then after realizing it was Bob Bobb, I bet people would say to them "Hey, I knew somebody once whose name was Richard Head! Like Dick Head! ahahahah!" or something like that. "My friend knew a girl named Tara Dikoff! Get it! Tear a Dick Off!!!" (both of which I have actually heard of). And what if these dudes are grandfathers and their grandkids called them "Pop Pop" rather than Grampa? They'd be Pop Pop Bob Bobb or Pop Pop Tony Toney. Which sounds like a rap beat, pop pop tony tony, pop pop tony. Word!