fastmoneyhappens.com blog

Several young men were taken into police custody from a cemetery in a U.S. town last week. According to reports the gentlemen had made at least one stop before arriving at the cemetery some time before midnight. That one stop was said to be a visit to a local Wal-Mart store where, allegedly, they bought c~ndoms. Although young men buying and possessing c~ndoms is not at all so unusual these days it turns out the plans these particular young men had in mind for the c~ndoms were somewhat macabre. According to the police complaint on record one of the men had enlisted the help of his buddies on that night in order to dig up the remains of a young girl who had died almost a month and a half earlier. [Tune in to my next post for more on this breaking news story.]

So, the cop that responded to a citizen’s report of a suspicious vehicle in the vicinity of the cemetery, apparently, encountered one of the young men, dressed in black, outside the cemetery at approximately 11pm. It did not take long for the already nervous young man, ostensibly standing guard, to “squeal” on his pals. He reportedly said that his friends were inside the cemetery digging up the grave of a young woman whose obituary picture they saw in the newspaper. Sometime after entering the cemetery police did in fact find a hole dug clear down to the concrete vault holding the young lady’s casket. There was, however, no sign of any other men. Sure enough, though, the next morning the sought after men were found walking along a highway more than 7 miles from the cemetery. I’m guessing they got spooked the night before when they realized their friend was back at the car “ratting them out” to the police. Anyhow, living up, or down, depending on how you look at it, to the motto that there is “no honor among thieves” one of the men apprehended the next morning also displayed a tendency to “spill the beans“ without much inducement. According to the police complaint he stated that the other guy asked for help in digging up the unfortunate girl’s grave so that he(the other guy) could take the corpse away to have s~xual int~rcourse with the body behind his house. The charge of being party to attempted 3rd degree s~xual assault that was initially pinned on the men raises a somewhat philosophical question for me, however. By definition can a non-living corpse truly be a victim of s~xual assault? Well, maybe I’ll revisit this story in a few days, or so, with links to more details about it from the national news headlines.

A Friday morning fist fight is said to have broken out between the 2 parties involved in an accident at LaSalle and Monroe involving a car, reportedly a t~xi, and a bicycle early yesterday morning. I’m wondering did they get more injuries from the accident itself or from the ensuing fracas and will accident insurance cover injuries from the latter?

I guess it’s rare for emergency room physicians to be surprised by anything these days. But when a certain would be patient, we’ll call him Mr. B, appeared in the ER recently I can just see “jaws dropping”. You see Mr. B’s not your average patient and you certainly would not expect him to end up in the emergency room of a busy California hospital. Nonetheless, after emerging on the bad end of an accident with a car Mr. B limped, alone and probably in great pain, to the nearest hospital. And what did he get for his troubles? Well, according to reports, the ER staff called security to have Mr. B tossed out of their waiting room. But Mr. B, stubborn old dog that he is, wasn’t having any of it. No really; I mean that literally. Mr. B, better known as Buddy, is a dog, a real dog, a German Shepherd in fact. Amazing as it sounds Buddy took himself to the emergency room after getting hit by a car. At first nurses wanted Buddy thrown out, but, eventually, he ended up in the hands of animal control and then a veterinarian, where x-rays revealed a dislocated bone. And “my what big teeth you have” said the doctor to the patient.

It was August of 1964 when, a then 11 year old, Rob Rydin jammed a sheet of paper bearing a message and a shiny new 1964 penny into a small ink bottle, sealed the bottle, weighted it, and tossed it into a suburban Chicago pond. Well, you probably know where this story is headed already. Some fellow trying to catch catfish in the same pond that Rob’s message in a bottle disappeared into 42 years ago got more, or less depending on how you look at it, than he bargained for. You guessed it. John Hood, the fisherman guy, fished up Rob’s message. It doesn’t end there, though; John located Rob, now a 50 Something year old insurance number cruncher, and did as requested in the message, in a bottle, that Rob penned 2 score and two years ago. The request was, simply, “PLEASE RETURN IF FOUND”. Similarly, I wonder will my request come true also if I bottle up a message, saying “Linda Evans Please Have Dinner With Me In Chicago If Found”, and throw it into some creek. Oh, I can’t wait 42 years, though; four months and two years is the best I can do.

“Fairy tells come true it could happen to you if you’re young at heart”

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About 40 members were reportedly robbed at gunpoint when a number of armed men entered Israel of God on Chicago’s West Side shortly after 8pm local time this evening. Maurice Robinson, one of the church members, talked about his ordeal after a gun was fired into the ceiling and the worshipers forced to the front of the church. Although, miraculously enough, none of the members was seriously injured the crooks did steal money and other items from the congregation which had gathered, ostensibly, for their regular Wednesday night service at the church in the 3700 block of West 18th Street.

Ok, I admit it. They make me nervous. The behavior of seagulls scavenging for food in suburban parking lots, far from “the sea”, does sometimes cause me more anxiety than I “let on”. I guess part of the reason is all that squawking in a “vocal” range that sounds so dam~ed human, intimidating, and, frankly, like it belongs in an old Vincent Price horror flick. Combine the incessant squawking, their congregating and crowding behavior, and their overt disregard for the close proximity of people and you have a great recipe for feeling “freaked out”. Heck, occasionally, with varying degrees of success, I get real close to them just to reassure myself they are far more afraid of me than I should ever be of them.

Well, maybe we should be scared. Really scared. Not of seagulls, not of a killer shark called Jaws, not even of some leafy green vegetable, but of a flat triangular shaped fish that, lately, has displayed a wholly uncharacteristic tendency to hammer the spiked end of it’s poison dripping tail into human beings. You bet I’m talking about stingrays. First Steve Irwin, naturalist extraordinaire, gets whacked into the afterlife by a stingray and now Mr. James Bertakis, an 81 year old Florida man, is critically ill in hospital after receiving a similar treatment from a stingray off the coast of Florida. In fact, according to reports, Mr. Bertakis wasn’t even in the water; he was in his boat minding his own business when the stingray flew out of the water like a laser guided missile and “bulls eyed” Mr. Bertakis’ chest in human Shish kebab fashion, or fish kebab depending on your since of humor. I mean the fellow’s 81 years old; these things don’t even have respect for elders.

If one more of these things plays “pin the tail” on the human in the next 38 days, then, “this means war” as far as I’m concerned.

You know, when it comes to our daily routine most of us thrive and function best by virtue of the “sameness of it all”. Indeed, what is routine other than “an unchanging regularity with regard to some task or set of tasks”. For instance, we expect

• the local newspaper to be in the same place on our front porch every morning at about the same time
• our mail to be waiting in the box when we get home from work
• our car to start whenever we turn the ignition key to the on position
• the local Dunkin’ Donuts, Krispy Kreme, or Starbucks Coffee to have our usual choice of donuts & roasted coffee fresh, hot, and waiting when we arrive
• and our young children to arrive at home about the same time everyday or we get nervous and start to feel that something’s wrong

To a large extent we even expect our environment to be familiar. Think of how disconcerting it would be if someone changed your entire office around after you left work every evening; that would probably wipe out the better part of your productivity because you’d spend most of your time trying to reestablish where everything is located. What if you had to drive an entirely different route to work every morning because of construction or something; think about it, that could literally drive you crazy. So my point is that we are, in no small way, creatures of routine. We expect to go through the same routine every morning from brushing our teeth to zipping our pants and we expect that routine experience to “end up” the same successful way just about every time; indeed, our ability to function properly or, stated another way, get things done probably depends upon it.

Let’s focus on the routine of brushing your teeth. We all brush our teeth every morning and I’m sure the largest percentage of us expect things to go the same each time. I mean you’re just brushing your teeth right; it’s not like a lightning bolt is gonna’ come sparking out of your a~s or anything. Well, actually it is like a lightning bolt is gonna’ come sparking out of your a~s because that is exactly what happened to Natasha. The twenty-something year old Croatian woman said “I had just put my mouth under the tap to rinse away the toothpaste when the lightning must have struck the building.”

“I don’t remember much after that, but I was later told that the lightning had traveled down the water pipe and struck me on the mouth, passing through my body.”

“It was incredibly painful, I felt it pass through my torso and then I don’t remember much at all.” According to reports “as she bent over to put her mouth under the tap…it appears the electricity shot out of her backside.” Poor Natasha ended up at hospital to be treated for burns to her mouth and rear end. Soooo, lightning flying out of one’s as~ while brushing teeth is certainly not routine and I find myself wondering if Natasha Timarovic will ever get over that “shocking” interruption to her routine.

Well, I guess she might take pride in the fact that she can be referred to as “That hot a~s Natasha” by all the guys now. …and they certainly won’t be lying.

A big thanks to Mt. Laurel, New Jersey for visiting this blog via Com~ast Cable Communications.

Okay, by now you’ve heard that Madonna, the superstar American pop singer of songs such as “Like a Virgin”, “Holiday”, and “Papa Don’t Preach”, wants to, or already has depending on who you ask, adopt a barely year old Malawi boy given the name David Banda. No doubt you’ve also heard the massive amount of opposition to the adoption voiced by many Malawi citizens, Malawi groups, and others world wide. Now, here’s my question to the opposition, especially the Malawi people. What part of “David Banda’s struck it rich” don’t you understand? Before Madonna baby Banda was living in an orphanage because his remaining parent, who by his own admission is illiterate, and his other relatives could not afford to care for him. Before Madonna baby David would likely have inherited the same “tradition of illiteracy” that afflicts his father, if he survived long enough to even be neglected an education considering that Malawi life expectancy is less than 40 years. Before Madonna Banda’s future as an adult consisted, almost assuredly, of a life lived in a hut in conditions so squalid that to characterise it as poverty would be a gross overstatement. Before Madonna essentially no one wanted David Banda enough to make the provision of a safe & successful future for him their own responsibility.

After Madonna David Banda is no longer an orphanage expense for the “state” of Malawi and the spot that he would have occupied in the system can be filled by other needy Malawi children, of which there is obviously no shortage. After Madonna David Banda will “want for nothing” and live a life of privilege. After Madonna David Banda will get a first rate education worthy of royalty. After Madonna David Banda will live in a mansion with a personal bathroom larger than the space he would have had in a Malawi hut. After Madonna David Banda has someone with the means to provide a safe, nurturing, environment that will result in a man, 18 years from now, with a “future so bright he’ll need to wear shades”. After Madonna many other Malawi children will benefit when she helps to build an orphanage. After Madonna David has someone that wants him.

So, who could possibly object. Well, baby David Banda has become “the goose that laid the golden egg” to a great many of his country men and women; it is not surprising, considering their desperate state, that they don’t want to let go of that. David’s 22 year old uncle may have precisely expressed Malawi sentiment best when he said, “We have received no payment from Madonna. We do not know if she is giving money to our village. We are very poor.” “We want to find out the benefit of the adoption to this family. We have seen other parents who have had their children adopted still living in poverty. They have not seen their children and all they see is pictures. We don’t want that to happen to this family.” Fortunately or unfortunately, despite the fact that no one gave a “rat’s as~”, with the exception of his father and grandmother, about David while he was rotting away in the orphanage everyone cares about him now that Miss Money Bags, read Madonna, has laid claim to David. It is not my aim to vilify David’s relatives or the Malawi people in general, no matter how tenuous the actual connection to the boy; I just hope that the baby does not lose what would seem his one chance at a viable future because of the tug of war created around him through no fault of his own. Indeed, if Madonna let’s go, or is forced to let go by refusing to adopt the baby’s adult relatives as well, then they all lose, with the very one who has no say at all, David Banda, ending up as the biggest loser of all.

The Republic of Malawi has been listed as the 2nd poorest country on the planet and it shows. Life expectancy in Malawi is reportedly as low as 37 years. The average per capita income is not even a dollar a day. The percentage of HIV infection in Malawi has been given as high as 30%. Nutrition, education, & medical treatment for the Malawi masses is typically so woefully inadequate that they are hardly identifiable as such. I guess misery loves company because, judging by all the uproar, other Malawi people, and a great many who have even less reason to say anything, certainly want to make sure that David Banda experiences everything that the Republic of Malawi has to offer, whatever that is.

About The Author: The author of this blog is a lifelong Chicagoland resident with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Presently, he is trying to convince 100, or so, of his fellow Chicagoans that it’s possible to add 20k to their income in the next 3 months by following his lead. He likes to refer to himself as The Common Man’s Champion; when pressed for good advice on how to be successful he will tell you “The moment you suspend your disbelief long enough for your blinders to fall away virtually nothing on Earth will be impossible to you.”

mintmaserati wrote> Thankyou for responding to my ad.
I have not settled on a firm price yet . Because these are literally…[40 year old]…cans from the Old Milwaukee assembly line that were never filled(top sealed, bottom open) with beer they are very unique indeed. They are so extraordinary and unusual that I am thinking in terms of a significantly higher valuation(sale price) than “consumer used” cans that you find on the market. I am also willing to consider offers for individual cans.

Billie wrote> Well, if I was you I’d test a few on ebay and see how they do. Just start one can at 99 cents and see what happens. They sound like a very interesting find. Let me know if I can be of assistance, I am trying to get an ebay business going so I also have some research tools…to see how to effectively sell things on ebay.


mintmaserati writes> Frankly Ebay is crowded now; very crowded. No doubt it is still possible to make money on Ebay, but I believe that it takes far more time and far more money to reach a really good profit, as a first timer with no previous selling experience, than people realize. If you ask me most potential sellers want to believe hype about Ebay that is just not as relevant this many years after startup; they are naive. There are far quicker ways than Ebay that don’t require you to a) “fight the crowd” of established sellers that made enough profit and learned enough about Ebay early on to, collectively, consistently take a large percentage of the current influx of buyers and b) avoid being falsely assumed a scammer because so many sellers are just that, scammers I mean. For each real crook that Ebay actually kicks off there are, conservatively, probably 750 others remaining to “take up the slack”; and that is if the guy that got booted does not just come back under another name or switch to one of the several other accounts he probably already has going to pull big money out of that one until it goes sour. Like I said, yes you can probably still make a profit on Ebay, but by the time you actually see that profit you have spent $8,700 trying to, either, price your product low until you can build up a significant positive reputation or just plain buying all sorts of stuff from which you never quite profit enough to offset your overhead. Overhead which includes the cost of gas as you drive around from flea market to flea market and garbage heap to garbage heap trying to get something free, or nearly so, that you can sell on Ebay.

With Ebay I am convinced it is very important to be honest with yourself and that’s hard to do when most newbies want to believe that Ebay is really making them rich when, in actuality, nothing could be further from the truth. Here is an example: Billie I have a rural property that is right on the Indiana/Illinois border. Because Indiana gas prices have a consistent history of running 7 - 20 cents per gallon less than on the Illinois side I, as you would expect, fill my tank on the Indiana side since it’s literally right across the street. Just yesterday I saved 10cents per gallon with an Indiana fill-up; that means I kept $2.40 in my pocket with everything else being equal. Now, I have acquaintances that live as much as 25 miles from Indiana in the Illinois South Suburbs. Guess what. Many of these guys and gals routinely drive 50 miles round trip into Indiana to pay, say 8 cents a gallon, less for gas than they would back in Illinois. It’s common, especially when gas prices are near record highs, for me to strike up a brief conversation with Illinoisans who came over for the “low” Indiana gas prices. Even if we assume his car is getting 20 miles per gallon a guy that drives 25 miles each way, out of his way, to get to Indiana just for gas is spending a full $5.88, assuming $2.35 per regular unleaded gallon, that he would not have spent if he had just gone to the Illinois gas station right down the street from his own home. If he has an 18 gallon tank on his car he could pay 10 cents more a gallon compared to Indiana, or $1.80 total, and still come out way cheaper than the almost $6.00 cost of driving all the way to Indiana just for gas. This type of stuff is more common than you think with average everyday people. They “miss the forest for the trees“; they miss the overall big picture. People will drive into the next county, burning 3 bucks in gas along the way, because some store has a gallon of milk on sale for 80 cents cheaper than the store that’s right around the corner from them. My point is that this is precisely what happens to a lot of Ebay newbies. They get so excited and fired up about the $20 they made on some broken down lamp they picked up at the curb on garbage day 2 months ago that they become completely blind to the fact that they have lost, let’s say $230, on Ebay over the last 3 months as they kept buying more stuff they still haven’t sold to put on Ebay in some fancy listing that cost them $8.00 when a 95 cent listing would have been exactly as good. You’d be astonished at the high percentage of Ebay newcomers that have not done the math enough to realize that they are “bleeding” far more than they are making on Ebay.

Fact is the masses(people) have become “conditioned” to do what most others are doing despite the fact that their individual benefit is lacking or nonexistent. Everybody is still “running” full speed after an “Ebay Dream” that they don’t understand how to implement, even in small part. Heck, there is probably a whole town of fisherman somewhere that make a pretty decent living selling their daily catch, but if I were to buy a brand new fishing boat plus all the latest gadgets and take my as~ out on the water thinking “I now how to fish; looks easy” I’d probably still end up broke, malnourished, dead, or all three. No, I am not entirely against Ebay, but I know that there are currently opportunities that offer something far closer to a “fool proof chance to make some real money” than Ebay does in its present state. As I alluded to previously, if you already are in the “shop keeping” business, then, you can possibly make an easy, quick, transition into Ebay that does indeed prove quite profitable; problem is, most of the people “salivating” about getting into Ebay are not the experienced “shop keepers” of which I speak.

Billie, right this moment I am in the very early stages of implementing an opportunity that I saw coming early enough to gain a modest advantage in. No pyramids, no MLM. Honestly, 100 of us, including myself, could probably “roll out” in the Chicagoland area just one day a week and earn an extra 10k - 20k, or so, in the next 3 to 5 months alone. I assume you are local right. I don’t even foresee any really hard selling because the largest percentage of consumers will want the product so much that the product sells itself; all we really need to do is make sure people know about it.

So what am I really saying? I am saying that $500, 1 full day per week, some computer/Internet ability, transportation, and a little discipline and focus can, relatively easily, turn into an extra ten grand or more for each of us in the next 3 to 5 months. In fact, the money should start pouring in from our first full day out. After 4 full days out, which adds up to one month at 1 day per week, you should be jumping up and down and “doing the twist & shout”.

Incidentally, it is $500 per person because that is a reasonable amount for me to set things up. “Set things up “includes a webpage associated with each person, two ad props for each person, business cards, access rights to product, possibly some podcast video, coordinating the whole thing, etc.. And it is a very reasonable “pay to play” amount when we are talking about earning an extra 10k as a result in just the first few months.

Really Billie, it’s probably impossible for each and everyone of us not to walk away with 8 grand after the first month alone. The hardest part is likely finding 100 people who can “feel my vibe” enough to realize this is infinitely easier than “dieing a slow death” bleeding greenbacks, while “running” after an “Ebay Dream” that will prove elusive for most.

Well, now that I’ve finished this response I think I’m going to post it to classifieds after I email you your copy; heck, it is probably as good and candid as any.

One more thing: Billie all 100 of us would probably make the nightly news after 3 days out and end up with more than just “15 minutes of fame“; this is just that impressive.

I’m not hard to find: mintmaserati[AT no spam please] ,well, you know the rest.

About The Author: The author of this blog is a lifelong Chicagoland resident with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. Presently, he is trying to convince 100, or so, of his fellow Chicagoans that it’s possible to add 20k to their income in the next 3 months by following his lead. He likes to refer to himself as The Common Man’s Champion; when pressed for good advice on how to be successful he will tell you “The moment you suspend your disbelief long enough for your blinders to fall away virtually nothing on Earth will be impossible to you.”

Did you hear? With all the critically important issues facing the world these days Oklahomans now have one less. They can legally get tattooed in their own state starting Wednesday. Tressa Madden, whose department is in charge of licensing tattoo artists and establishments in Oklahoma made a statement exclaiming, “Build the rules, and they will come.” Wow, what a relief.

‘Til now Oklahoma was the only single solitary state in the USA where you couldn’t get a tattoo.

A first tattoo license in Oklahoma is one grand and 1/2 grand each year, thereafter, for renewal.

You know, if I am drowsy enough I can probably sleep about anywhere. Indeed, going back at least 1 score and 2 years, I can remember finding my nephew asleep under the supports of the dining room table. The little guy’s legs were crossed Indian style and both elbows were supported on his knees with his hands then cupped under his face to support his head. To all appearances he was sitting upright in a position he often took while wide awake, but upon closer inspection we were amazed to find that he was sound asleep. The table supports were barely even 18 inches off the floor yet he was obviously very comfortable underneath them; we were astounded.

Incidentally, I remember a certain talk show host back in the 1990’s relating how he was very surprised at magician David Copperfield’s ability to fall asleep in a noisy, popular, night spot, full of alluring Claudia Schiffer type women, where they were supposed to be having a good time. I guess Copperfield was more interested in having a good nap; anyhow, Mr. Copperfield recently paid $50million for the fountain of youth so I guess he will soon be rejuvenated with more energy than he knows what to do with. …but I digress, sort of.

My list of “anywhere places” where I could probably fall asleep has some notable exceptions. Of course I’m whole heartedly for equal opportunity sleeping, but there are just some places where I am not inclined to have a quick nap. Take morgues for example. Thailand’s Royal Flora Ratchaphruek horticultural show begins Wednesday, November 1, 2006, in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Reportedly so many visitors are expected to attend the 3 month long flower show that one temple, the Wat Jet Yod, has gotten into the spirit by allowing visitors to sleep in its funeral hall; the same funeral hall where religious rites are held for the dead before they are cremated. Sure the price is a bargain at the equivalent of $0.54 per person per night, if you consider such accommodations a bargain at any price, but that is beside the da~n point isn’t it now. Call me shallow, but funeral homes and Bed & Breakfast outfits should not be interchangeable. I don’t find the idea of snuggling up in a glorified funeral parlour particularly appealing. To my mind that is too much like enjoying myself at Disney land all day long and, then, going over to the local funeral home after dinner and asking to “stretch out” on an embalming table for the night. I mean I’m not necessarily a light sleeper, what assurance do I have that they won’t mistake my heavy sleeping during the night for the everlasting sleep of one of their usual customers. No doubt they could have a guy embalmed while he’s dreaming that it is all just “A Nightmare On Elm Street”, or something; he might never get the chance to wake up and say, “I’m not dead yet”. To make matters worse, the Wat Jet Yod’s abott, Phra Kru Baideeka Prasert Santipalo, reportedly said that guests can not have alcohol and they can’t make any noise. I can see how, to the abott’s mind, drinking and noise might go hand in hand, but, ironically enough, for many people, including myself, having alcohol is the only thing that’s going to result in a severe enough lapse of good judgment for the abott to get my business in the first place, at least while I’m alive. How’s that for a paradoxical irony or something.

“Don’t mind the stiff over there honey; I’m in the mood for love” OR “You never let ‘em stop us when I was an Intern working the late shift.”

further links regarding Copperfield’s Fountain of Youth

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14364107/

http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowbizNews.asp?Code=WP183746I&headline=david_copperfields_fountain_of_youth

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, to grunt is to utter “a deep short…[guttural]…sound…[like]…a hog“. I was just thinking that I don’t hear genuine grunts so often anymore. Well, I guess I do hear grunting from weight lifters at the gym on occasion, but mine isn’t really the “place to be seen” for hardc~re weightlifters. As a result, even the serious lifters at the gym I attend seem far too self-conscious to be caught grunting at the strain of a heavy lift. Indeed, to me they seem about as likely to be caught grunting as Gloria Vanderbilt’s son, Anderson Cooper, on 360.

I guess it can be hard to know, sometimes, if the gym you are attending is a grunting gym or not. I mean this fact, grunt gym or not, can be somewhat important if you want to adapt your behavior accordingly. Adapting your behavior accordingly might even mean finding another gym, especially if you feel strongly one way or the other, because grunters usually like to have their behavior reinforced by others in a manner not so unlike the “call of the wild”, a “mating call”, or social bonding behavior.

There is more than one way to determine what type of gym you are at although, invariably, there are those brave souls who will “test the waters” by “grunting” through a big lift in a conspicuously exxagerated manner to see if their behavior gets reinforced. That’s what Albert Argibay was doing, depending on who you ask, at Planet Fitness gym in Wappingers Falls, New York, but something went wrong. At least I’d say that it “went wrong” because Albert got tossed out of the gym. Albert was in the middle of a 500 pound lift when the grunt police, I mean Planet Fitness’ manager, accused him of grunting. Turns out Albert’s a prison guard of sorts so he probably does not shrink easily away from a confrontation. The grunt cop, I mean Planet Fitness manager, ended up calling the real cops to toss Albert out. Planet Fitness used the politically correct term of “escort…out” instead of “toss out”, but, if you ask me, “if it feels like a toss out, if it looks like a toss out, if the back of your genuine Hanes Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator T-shirt gets pulled up over your head whether you like it or not, if they won’t let your a~s back in to get your sh~t” then it’s a “toss out”.

Argibay says whether or not he grunted is “open to interpretation” so I’m trying to imagine how little a grunt cop, I mean gym manager, must actually have to keep him or herself occupied to resort to listening for possible grunts. Anyway, Planet Fitness issued a statement saying they don’t allow grunting because “it conflicts with the non-intimidating atmosphere they strive for”.

I’ve got a question? Who da’ he~l gets intimidated at an adult, public, health club because some fellow grunts under the weight of the 500 pounds he is lifting? Really think about it. If I were inclined to be a fre~kin’ chicken I would be more intimidated by the guy, or gal, who hoists 500 pounds in the air like it’s a balloon and shows absolutely no sign of strain whatsoever; no grunts, no hard breaths, nothing. At least I have some indication that the grunter is f~c~ing human; it’s the guy twirling 850 lbs. over his head in complete silence, with no discernable stress on his body, that would worrry me.

Somebody sounds like they have an inferiority complex to me and his name don’t begin with an A.

Here is what Encylopedia Britanica has to say about: inferiority complex

“Acute sense of personal inferiority, often resulting in either timidity or (through overcompensation) exaggerated aggressiveness.”

Here is what Answers.com has to say about it: http://www.answers.com/topic/inferiority-complex

A grunt cop. “What’s he thinking!” — “Oh look there’s a big as~ fu~~er, minding his own da~n business, that looks like he could squash my miniscule a~s by wiggling his left ear lobe. Looks like he’s really working hard to stay in shape. Who does he think he is? He’s not acknowledging my obvious superiority. F~~k him. I’ll show him. I’ll take my tiny whiney but~ over there and show him I’m the boss of this gym. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do; and if he puts up a fuss I’ll call the real cops before he has a chance to flatten me. Alright, shoulders back, chest out, “here goes”.

Recall in Take That You Taxi Driver I reported on the fight that broke out between the 2 parties involved in an accident right. Well, it turns out the cyclist was one of those Chicago Bike Messengers. I guess I did realize that at the time, but now I am less sure whose side to take. Although, at first thought, one might be inclined to think of the cyclist as the underdog, or little guy, I am not so convinced anymore. From what I understand, in Illinois it is law now that automobile drivers must give bicycle riders at least 3 feet between themselves(their car) and the cyclist. As I see it, many times on a Chicago loop street their is nowhere for you to steer your car, that doesn’t send you careening into another vehicle, in order to give the bicycle rider that 3 feet that will prevent you from breaking the law. Second, in my experience bike messenger cyclists dart and zip through traffic like Evel Knievel in what, many times, causes problems for automobile drivers. To me it seems as if the bike messengers are daring motorists to have the audacity to hit them. In fact, my impression is that bike messengers are thinking “f~c~ you”; if you hit me I’ll take you to court and make a bundle despite the fact that it was my fault. Anyhow, I find myself rooting for the taxi driver from Take That You Taxi Driver; especially considering what happened to me this past Monday morning.

Here’s what happened. Monday was a nice enough day in Chicago so I figured I would take my antique plated classic car out for a “last dance” before putting it up on blocks for the winter about a week or two from now. As you know, from To ~bay or not to ~bay, I have a place in a rural suburban area, outside of the city itself, where there are actually farm fields remaining. Well, for whatever reason, and despite the horrible Dan Ryan construction mess, I figured I would drive into Chicago to pick up something that I ordered from a loop area business instead of getting it via UPS. So that’s what I did, I drove my gas guzzling classic into the city to pick up what amounts to a telescope lens.

So I’m in the loop *slow cruising down the street, looking for a parking spot, and minding my own da~n business as I approach the intersection. Either side of the street was already more or less completely lined with parked cars. About 6 or 7 car lengths from the intersection some sh~~head atop a bike blows out from in front of, of all things, a Hummer. A few seconds later and I recognized dumb ~ss on the bike was a messenger. I mean I think he actually launched off the sidewalk in front of that Hummer so fast that his tires probably did not even touch the road until he was in front of my sweet ride like a deer in my headlights or some sh~t. You think I saw his a~s? F~c~ no. The only, I repeat only, reason he did not get an asphalt sandwich for breakfast was because I was *slow cruising. If I had been driving the same speed as the majority of people in the loop the car, my gorgeous classic, would have had to endure crashing into his ragg~~dy as~ because their is no way she would not have kept sliding, right through his ignorant but~, until she had reached her stopping distance for that speed.

You know that really fre~kin’ burns me up like a bottle of hot sauce. 5 minutes after I almost cracked his bicycle ridin’ walnut hide open for all to see I remembered why I had not driven my sweet ride into the loop early on a weekday recently or more often. Because driving most downtown city streets is a disappointing preponderance of jack~sses that don’t give a sh~t what the F~~k they are doing. Tour de Sh~thead is a perfect example. He should not have even been riding on the sidewalk, but I can almost guarantee that he came out of the alley way and purposely rode on the sidewalk long enough to see what traffic there was before blasting into the road. If he had just lit out of the alley at that speed he would not have had enough time to gage the traffic after he had cleared the buildings and the cars; it was also raining so making a sharp turn around the back of one of the parked cars, in order to ride with traffic, after clearing the alley would have also put him on his as~ at that speed. So what does Mr. Wizard do? He slows just enough to hop up the sidewalk after a wide turn out of the alley and then peddles his a~s off as he looks to see what traffic is in the road before he launches out into the street through the first empty parking space that he found; then he does so in front of the biggest thing he could find. His brain must have been set to automatic moron or something. Jackass probably even saw me, but decided to launch out in front of a big as~ parked truck, just like some sort of Albert Einstein, anyway because he figured I wouldn’t dare hit him with my snazzy car. Left over brains probably never gave a thought to my stopping distance just like bike man from Take That You Taxi Driver may not have given a thought to something before he got derailed by a Chicago Taxicab.

If Billy Joel were driving he would have ended up a hood ornament.

There really otta’ be a law or somethin’…