Puff Puff, Cough Cough

Photo via http://news.humcounty.com/420_Idiocy_in_Arcata.html

Pffffhhh (inhaling) cough cough cough, yo Brah it's 4 something today ummmmm, right 420. April 20th of some year or another, stoners of the world unite yearly partaking in the annual observance of this faux holiday by smoking some kush hoping not to have their mellow harshed by the man, which in this case of course is Johnny Law. Does anyone have any potato chips, for some reason I have the munchies.

lick'em

Apparently according to wikipedia the term 420 was started way back in the 70's, the decade of butterfly collars, disco, and some other shit that I really don't seem to remember at this time (and I'm completely sober at this moment). 420 actually referred to a time and not a day, but of course it now refers to both time and day in which people gather and celebrate by smoking lots o cannabis and spreading Cheetos dust about their shirts via their finger tips (unless they were so hungry that they licked the dust of their fingers). Has anyone seen my hacky sack (hey, no self serve, or you get hit in the back)?

Your local corner store bodega must really be bustling with business today off loading all of that mexican brick to those that are just craving to enjoy today's observance of 420. The socks of dealers are probably packed to the gills with dimes ready for those willing to pick out the seeds and stems only to pack the rest into a bowl made of tin foil or modified coke can, or perhaps the edible appbowl. Ah, but you the reader enjoy your toke from a double blown hand made glass pipe, simply because you order from a delivery service whose sticker you found in a bathroom stall, only the best. hey, puff puff pass, it ain't a microphone even though it may be a bong as tall as a microphone stand.

via http://2.bp.blogspot.com

I really don't see why they don't legalize marijuana already! Everyone and their mother's seem to enjoy a toke now and then. How often do you really hear of people being in a automobile accident because the person behind the wheel was stoned compared to that of a drunk driver (honestly I'm not even going to bother to look at that up)? Plus, I think most people know that cannabis has proven medical capabilities which is why various states have approved medical marijuana. Personally, my opinion is why doesn't the government control it like alcohol in some fashion and just let people have the freedom to choose whether they want it or not, because we all know that if you want something then you will find a way to get it and enjoy it.

Anyways, to everyone out there observing 420 today throw on Dr. Dre's the Chronic (if you are my age this album then you know this album was the shit back in the day and still is), or if you are some hippie then perhaps some Phish (personally there is nothing really wrong with Phish, I'm just not into them), enjoy the day, be safe, and watch out for Johnny Law. Cough cough cough, pass the Turkey Hill iced tea (or perhaps so kool-aid if that's your thing) my mouth is pretty dry at this moment. Wait, where am I?

No Handle on My Bars

This is how I found my bike last Friday

There are only a few things in life that are worse than having to go to work Monday to Friday, only to repeat the process after two short days of relaxation. This past Friday what I thought was the start of a fine weekend turned to sadness as I exited the revolving doors that is the entrance and exit to my servitude and freedom. Low and behold what did I find waiting for me as my smile turned upside down, my bicycle. Normally I love seeing my bicycle after a long day of being tethered to my desk, but today when I gazed out like I normally do to my bike locked up on the rack I realized something was amiss. Turns out some asshole stole my handle bars and stem off of my ride.

As the two of you along with @thepipebit who read my blahg, I commute to work by bicycle. I have been commuting for at least two years since the MTA along with our Rat overlords decided that they would raise the fair to the point where a guy living alone making an honest earning can't afford to ride the train every single day of the year. When I moved to NYC in 1999 the fair was less than two dollars, now it is two fifty with talks of raising the fair again perhaps earliest as next year. Once you do the math, you'd see for a year that it's a ridiculous amount of money to throw at our public's failing mass transportation system, hence commuting by bicycle. Either way I love riding my bicycle, so it's a win for me.

This has nothing to do with this post,
 it was dinner the other night

I work at one of the busiest intersections that I am currently aware of in the city (I could be wrong on that assumption) which normally has a police presence all day either directing traffic or watching the hooligans leaving school after a hard day of preparing for summer school by failing while their pants sag (kind of like their future). So in broad daylight a thief rolled up on my bike and ripped me off in the same spot I've been locking my bike for what ever amount of time I said in the previous paragraph. So walking out of work and seeing the situation laid out before my eyes, I was angered to say the least especially with such a heavy police presence.

with new handlebars

Basically having no choice in the situation, I strolled down Park Ave. with what was left of my bike minus handle bars. I did receive some odd glances from people looking at me and my violated bicycle as they passed me, and I wondered to myself if they felt sad for me or they thought I was stealing my own bike (which of course they didn't know was mine). Either way I was determined to make it to the Bike shop before it closed at 7, and so with bike in tow I scurried along (not unlike our rat overlords).

In the end, I made it to the bike shop and dropped more money than I wanted to spend to get my bike back on the road. I was able to ride back to Brooklyn, but not without catching a flat tire (the 2nd one in two days). I have to admit I am currently nervous about locking my bike in front of where I work, and so I am looking into securing my handlebars and stem before I resume riding to work. I just want to say thanks to that asshole who stole my cockpit, I really hope you get doored and then immediately have taxi run over your shitty ass, you ass.

The Captain's Blahg

After reading my friend Chris's (@thepipebit) blog which you can read here, and conversing back and forth with him on twitter I began to think about Star Trek since it was the main component of our conversation which revolved around pipe smoking. Chris and I both enjoy smoking a pipe and it just turns out we both enjoy some sci fi as well, birds of a feather flock together.

The holodeck aboard USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D

If the stardate were 2363 and I were serving aboard the Enterprise under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard I would most likely find myself spending my leisure time on the holodeck enjoying a fine vintage of stardate 2250 serving under Captain James T. Kirk. Now don't get me wrong, both Captains and their vwessels are very admirable in their own right, it's just that I tend to lean towards one Captain over another. I shall now boldly proceed to explain where no one has boldly proceeded to explain before (yes I know, that was a stretch).

First off, let me say that Kirk wore normal clothes that consisted of a top and a bottom, but I assume he went commando considering all the alien tail he was slaying across the galaxy (I'm looking at you, green alien girl). Some how through a 100 years evolution the Starfleet uniform became a one piece like the one worn by Picard, so in stardate 2363 I too would be walking around in a outfit not unlike that of a newborn child, it didn't even possess an ass flap so how would one release the Captain's log? Easy access is just one reason the holodeck beacon's me to serve under holodeck Kirk while being stuck with Picard (at least give me some leg warmers to go with this one piece).

The Chek-uation brought
home a Photon Turpedo, again

Moving backwards on impulse power for a moment, I mentioned Kirk slayed alien tail across the galaxy, unlike Picard who was fond of that one ginger doctor in sick bay (glad he didn't serve on Voyager, awkward). I would on any occasion be Kirk's wingman over Picard based on my previous sentence, you want to chill with an aging shakespearean actor or would you rather want to hang with a swashbuckling, Kobiyashi Maru (not the hot dog eater) beating, klingon hating, alien tail chasing Captain like Kirk? To boldly go where no man has gone before riding shotgun with Kirk is another reason the holodeck calls for me, although judging by Chekov's face in the picture on the right being Kirk's wingman may not be all it's cracked up to be.

Although Pichard knows how to woo the ladies, Kirk will forever stand alone above all Captains. Kirk was the first to interracially kiss, not only in the galaxy but on television when the series originally aired back in earthdate 1968. So a century before Picard, Kirk was already out there starblazing which makes me think that Picard is simply following the footsteps of the Captain with the Golden shirt. Where Kirk was notorious for smooching the ladies and breaking boundaries, Picard was really skilled at pointing his finger and saying "make it so" to his bearded first officer, William Riker. I can sit in holodeck all day and watch Kirk kiss Uhura over and over again, instead of being pointed at by Picard (my mother is not dead).

Speaking of shirts, and I'm speaking of the television series only, Kirk wore a gold colored shirt where Picard wore red. I think we all know what happens to those who beam down upon any planet wearing a red shirt, and so I have to give it up to Picard for escaping death episode after episode, but that could be because every time the enemy tried to thwart Picard they were blinded by his baldness, thus enabling Picard the ability to escape time and time and again. If the enemies knew that little secret then perhaps they would have attacked wearing sunglasses so not to be blinded by that cranium sticking out from that red Captain's shirt of Picard.

Oh crap, my time on the holodeck is up, I would explain more about these two captains but I can't think of anything to write, besides Data is waiting to play Sherlock Holmes again. Perhaps I'll join him and have a pipe. Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life in my Blahg, perhaps I myself have smoked one too many dilithium crystals.

Hello

To the 5 of you that actually read this blahg of mine I have to apologize for I have been out of action for a week or two. If you read my post from last week than you know that I had a bit of surgery on my face and since then I have been pretty much in a daze wandering this earth, well at least my mind has been wandering. As the swelling in my face subsides I will be attempting to get back into maintaining this silly blahg of mine at least a couple times a week, by a couple I mean at least twice a week. I realize attempting to write 5 days a week is difficult at best, plus I am not being paid to entertain you with my writings (though I wish I did). Don't worry all of 4 of you (I lost a reader as you were reading this) I'm still here.

Monday was not a Fun day

I wore my good shoes for the occasion

This past Monday, I paid a visit to ye ol' oral surgeon, participating in a minor surgical operation that happened to involve my face. @thepipebit, a friend of mine on
Twitter, can skip ahead to the next paragraph instead of learning what the definition of an apicoectomy is since yesterday I posted a link for him that explained the procedure. Now, for the rest of you to understand what I am ranting about click on this word: apicoectomy so that you may learn about the procedure I endured Monday.

All of this went into my face

After some prodding by my girlfriend, I paid a visit to the dentist whom I've not seen for quite some time (I know, my fault) to have a check up and cleaning. The most annoying thing about having your teeth cleaned is having to bite the chomp while wearing a lead blanket to protect me from kryptonite x-rays, but in this case it was this very situation that potentially saved me from a lot of pain and suffering. The x-ray turned out to show a dark area in my jaw, a hole slowly being eaten away by bacteria, sort of like how bodies slowly digest after being tossed into the the Sarlac pit by Jabba the Hutt from Return of the Jedi.

The infection in my jaw was roughly the size of a blueberry, not to be mistaken for a Boo Berry, that hard to find monster cereal and character who runs the streets along side Franken Berry and Count Chocula while at the same time tasting delicious. This infection flowed out of my jaw and swam through my blood stream menacing my body, meaning that
I have basically been sick for multiple years straight. So with the potential life altering knowledge I now possessed, I set up my appointment with the Oral Surgeon (Ha, I wrote oral) to have my face fixed.

Yes, that is my real x-ray

Skipping ahead, I'm now laying under the Oral Surgeon who numbed my face to the point where I could have been hit in the face with the bat of a loan shark collecting money from someone trying to allude him and I probably would have felt nothing, not unlike someone raging the hell out on PCP. Patiently laying in the operation chair, my gum line was sliced open and my jaw was then drilled to the point where I could smell the burning of bone (ironically, this made me hungry). The entire procedure (which you know about since you read the definition link above) went rather quick and before I knew it the slicing, dicing and the drilling of my face ended with my gums being stitched up. Dazed and feeling nauseous,
I was expelled back out on the street ready to go and fill my prescription.

Duane Reed's pharmacy is like an inner city Mc Donald's, neither have any sense of urgency when it comes to serving your order. An hour slipped by before I could pick up my medicine and even think about taking any of the pain killers that were prescribed to me, eventually I was accommodated and any discomfort and pain was soon relieved. The rest
of my evening involved watching television hopped up on pain killers as time slipped away, while I packed and unpacked the gauze in my face that was collecting the blood that was leaking from my now tender jaw.

With pain accompanied by a swollen face I took the following day off to rest and recuperate
from work, that place we all have to unfortunately go to Monday to Friday in order to sustain any sort of normal life and pay for procedures like the one I just wrote about. I slept most of the day, ate a lot of soft food and discovered again that day time television is rather terrible, although I did get to watch a Champions league game between Real Madrid vs. Tottenham Hotspurs. Also, I have learned that green tea has surpassed vanilla as my favorite ice cream flavor.

Now that this ordeal is mostly over with the exception of the healing process, I now have to sit and wait four months to see if this minor operation truly worked or not. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!