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The other night, my good friend Dean emailed me something that I had almost forgotten about.  Back when I was in college, I had a strange dream about a scavenger hunt, a missing car, and a psychic vampire.  It was all so utterly absurd that I had to not only write it down, but turn it into a screenplay.  And so, a day or two after recalling it for some reason, Dean finds it on his hard drive and sends it to me.  Funny how that works out.

And so, here it is.  I haven’t edited it or anything, and it seems to end abruptly.  I think that’s when I woke up.  And by the way, have a happy birthday tomorrow, Dean!

The other night I found myself staring five leftover Independence Day hot dogs in the face.  I wanted to eat them all, but I knew that I could do something more with them than just the usual.  In a few minutes, it was like a Top Chef Quick Fire Challenge.  I got a little experimental, and it led to this:

Nothing can prepare you for what's in store.

(In case you’re wondering, these are all beef Hebrew National dogs.)

#1 – The Italian Grinder Dog:  This hot dog is wrapped with provolone cheese and Genoa salami, topped with sharp, creamy mustard.  As can be expected, this one was pretty tasty.  I figured it would be a good place to start.  I would not suggest making a whole mess of these and eating them all at once, though, as I’m sure that would pose some sort of problem down the line.

#2 – Wasabi Dog:  In honor of the ever-determined Takeru Kobayashi, I dressed this one with some wasabi paste.  The result was a killer of a dog.  I could eat these more often.  Next time, I will probably add soy sauce (not a lot, just enough to flavor the inside of the bun).  You might find it strange, but I think it works.

#3 – Roasted Red Pepper Dog:  No need for dressing, just a few peppers did the trick.  I liked it, but I put the peppers on straight out of the fridge.  Next time, I will have to heat the peppers and the dog.  Not sure if heating them up together is the trick here.

#4 – Whole Seed Dijon Mustard Dog:  Okay, so I started to come up dry on the ideas at this point.  I just noticed a new mustard in the fridge and wanted to try it.  So what?  The mustard was really quite good.  The seeds gave it the texture of a poppy seed bagel, almost.  Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.

#5 – The Control Dog:  The final dog was just the way I like it: with Kosciusko brown mustard.  I’ve been in love with that stuff for years.  It was sort of a measuring stick against the rest.  In all honesty, why mess with success?

Polish it off with a nice cold Corona Light.  Mmmm… now that’s the stuff.

Guess what, America?  Amid all of the parades, pool parties, and fireworks displays, there’s a party going down in one of the happiest corners of the Earth, New York’s Coney Island.  Just like last year, I’m going to do my best to caputre the event as I see it.  Can Joey Chestnut continue to do his nation proud on her 234th birthday, or will a new champion rise?

Fun fact: 669.25 hot dogs were eaten in total by all of last year’s competitors.

Hail to the King.

11:58:  Started this.  SportsCenter is showing the first of the pre-game material.  Joey Chestnut is, of course, the favorite, and they showed him limbering up by massaging his esophagus.  Have you EVER heard someone talk about massaging an esophagus?  Anyway, seems that Kobayashi is NOT going to be competing this year.  Something tells me that this is a fake-out.  Then again, I refused to believe that Eddie Guerrero was dead and I thought it was all a ruse to bring him back at WrestleMania.  Then he’d have come out in the middle of the thing and go up to whoever he was feuding with at the time and go, “Thought I was dead, right?  Well guess what, homes?  I lieeeeed!”  That never happened, he was actually dead.  But I digress.

12:03:  Kobayashi is at a “labor impass” with the competitive eating people.  Seeing how much they’re talking about this, I think they’re working up to a last minute swoop-in by Kobayashi.  They just had a graphic comparing Michael Phelps’ daily intake to Joey’s 68 dogs from last year.  Joey ate more than twice the calories Mike did.

12:07:  Heinz is, once again, sponsoring this shindig.  Last week I received the greatest interpretation of the “no ketchup” rule.  “Never put pureed tomato on pureed meat.” – Caitlin Sullivan

12: 11:  The guys and gals just got off the bus.  I love that they get a police escort.  Joey looks confident as ever, but not cocky.  This crowd is absolutely enormous.  I thought last year was huge, but this is ridiculous.  And they brought vuvuzelas.  Tim Janus and Pat Bertoletti are my picks as Joey’s real competition.

12:15:  ESPN 3D ad.  Can you imagine this event in 3D?  I’d rather not.

12:17:  I missed the number to text whether you think the record will fall today.  I think it will, because I think it’s been broken every year for the last five or six years.  Oh, there’s a graphic… It’s pretty close to it.  I guess two years ago there was a dip, probably because of the legendary “eat off.”

12:19:  Piece on eating techniques.  ”Tokyo Style” vs. “The Bean Bag.”  Tokyo Style is when you separate the bun and the dog, dunking the bun while you chow the dog.  Remember, you can only dunk for five seconds.  I’d hate to have a controversial dunking penalty stand in the way of a new record, like a close call at first on the 27th out of a perfect game.  Bean Bag is when you do the jump-up-and-down thing Joey does.

12:23:  There’s a new guy by the name of Bob Shoudt who has apparently beaten Joey a few times in the past year (in other events, not hot dogs).  Intriguing.  He doesn’t look like a threat, though.

12:25:  The eaters will be making their way down “The Gauntlet” on their way to the stage this year, getting up close and personal with the fans.  Very nice.  I just hope they all get escorts so as not to slow things down.  This shit’s got a schedule to keep.

12:30:  I hear Thomas Dolby, and that means it’s time to start introducing the competitors.  Crazy Legs Conti looks like he’s just happy to be there.  Dude’s not in it to win it anymore, but without him, it just wouldn’t feel the same.  Some guy with a mannequin head.  Badlands Booker is already sweating through his shirt.  I love how they make Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas out to be evil.  Fran says “This is the only time she eats, I think.”  Pat Bertoletti is awesome.  Tim Janus is ready.  Joey is looking pumped, “Baba O’Reilly” once again.  That belt gets nicer every year.  Looks like it’s actually worth something now.  The crowd is going NUTS.  This is going to be nothing short of epic.

12: 42:  Kobayashi is in the crowd!  I feel like they’re coaxing him out of there.  He looks like he’s going to an AFI concert.

12:43:  UNDERWAY!  Joey is just going for it right out of the gate.  Crazy Legs is wearing the Snorricam this time.  Joey is in the lead after a minute by 3.  Now 4.  Janus is doing a helluva job.  Black Widow’s technique requires a warning before they cut to her, I think.  2. 5 minutes in, Joey’s still got the lead.  Sonya’s closing in on the top 3.  Bertoletti’s pacing himself but he hasn’t been in the running thus far.  Joey’s doing 7.5 DPM (Dogs Per Minute) right now.  Bertoletti’s in 3rd after 4 minutes.  Looks very very hot down there, hope this doesn’t pose a problem.  Joey’s slowing down a bit.  Not on pace for 70 halfway through… but he could still pull it off.  Kobayashi is still looking intense in the crowd.  Those judges are right in the blow-zone.  Joey’s got a 9 dog lead on Janus with 4 minutes to go.  He’s just plowing through.  Janus is doing his best… maybe a little too good.  Some just came out of his nose.  Shake it off, Tim!  Lots of chants for Joey.  About a minute to go, and it’s no contest.  Joey just needs to coast.  ”Barring a reversal” he’ll walk away with it.  Wait, there he goes!  He’s bringing it on home!  It’s over!

12:53:  Joey starts chugging the Pepto.  Gotta say, without Kobayashi, this was kind of boring.  No head-to-head, down-to-the-wire action.  Final tally gives Joey 54, Janus 45, and Bertoletti 37.

12:57:  Post-meal interview,  Joey says he didn’t drink enough water and he was feeling a little dehydrated.  On Kobayashi: “If he was a real man, he’d be on the stage.”  OH SNAP.  You gonna take that, Kobayashi?  Are you?

Well, good show all around, but it was missing that edge-of-your seat feeling.  But where else can you do this?  Where but in America?  Nowhere.

EDIT:  Kobayashi was arrested after the competition!  Go check it out for yourself. He still has that Gary Oldman in The Fifth Element look to him.

Back on YouTube.  Feels good, man.

I couldn’t find my nail clippers this morning.  I searched the house to no avail.  Looks like “Go to CVS” has just been inserted between “Coffee” and “Work” on the to-do-list.

I pulled into the CVS parking lot and positioned my car to strategically pull back and out onto the street in the shortest amount of time possible.  Upon entering the drugstore, I came to the realization that I don’t know where the nail clippers are supposed to be.  I just envisioned myself picking them up and paying for them… not actually looking for them.  I scanned the store, trying to think of where they’d be.  I got a sinking feeling when I realized that this is going to involve looking at other nail-related products, which I can’t distinguish from ordinary makeup and hair dye when I’m rushing about.

After approximately ten minutes real time (forty minutes in “they’re watching me look at women’s products, I know it” time), I found the nail clippers wedged into the furthest corner of the store possible.  I grabbed a pair and headed to the front of the store, where there’s a line forming.  Always my luck, no matter when I go or what I need from CVS, there’s always something holding up the proceedings.  Meanwhile, this guy was buying a bunch of gummi worms or something and he saw that I’ve just got a pair of nail clippers in my hand.  I assume he’s going to let me go ahead of me, but he doesn’t bother to say anything.  That’s probably because I’m still wearing my sunglasses and he’s afraid to look me in the eye, only to see himself staring back.  “It’s a nice day out there, and what am I doing?  Buying gummi worms again?  What have I done with my life?”

Gummi Worm Man let me go ahead of him when I finally turned to him and asked if it was okay to go to the newly opened cashier.  I gladly paid her in cash and handed over the Extra Care card my mother let me borrow once and I never gave back, allowing us both to rack up points for Good and Plenty and Twizzlers.  I also donated a dollar to ALS research.  This made me feel good.

As the cashier hands me my change, I look down and notice a bucket full of nail clipper keychains.

You got the mythril nail clippers! A winner is you!

Nails clipped and ready to go.  Time to practice that guitar.

I hate days like today.  I’m working on Saturday, therefore I have to have a day that’s cut in half during the week, and today’s that day.  Sometimes I get to open the bank and get out pretty early.  Today’s not one of those, though.  I get to close up.  Basically, I’m stopping by work for a couple of hours and then going back home.  I try to be productive on days like this, but it’s always weird knowing that eventually you’re going to be at work.

Seeing as how I’ve got all this extra time, I just got my oil changed at Sears, where my best friend works.  However, as it always seems to work out, he’s got the day off.  Nobody’s balls to bust at Sears, I guess.  What the heck am I gonna do with the rest of my free time?

That’s a stupid question.  Time for lunch, and where better than Friendly’s?  There’s one right next door and they’ve got WiFi.  I also like to keep myself up on the latest and greatest in Friendly’s menu developments.  I blame my sister for this, as she spent the last couple of summers waiting tables there and I always managed to mysteriously find myself in Sturbridge whenever she was there.  Her enthusiasm bred mine.

What is this I don't even

And so, there’s a new menu today.  Some new offerings, including this burger melt that has those nacho chips from the salads on it, along with jalapeños.  Zesty queso, indeed.  But I don’t know how that’s gonna work out for my stomach at work, and it said something about chipotle.  Sorry, Bobby Flay, but I don’t roll like that.  I also notice a burger that is put between two grilled cheese sandwiches.  Someone at Friendly’s world headquarters has been watching Man vs. Food.  I realize that Adam Richman probably gets lots of girls, but he also probably gets lots of indigestion.  I settle on another newbie, this chicken bruschetta sandwich that comes on a ciabatta roll with mozzarella.  When it comes out, I’m pretty pumped until I go to grab it.  It falls apart and it’s soggy from the balsamic vinaigrette.  I get some silverware and dig in.  It’s actually pretty good.  I figure that it would be better as an open faced sandwich.  The chicken is grilled well, the cherry tomatoes go well with it, and the dressing is good.  The roll makes it pretty satisfying, even with a knife and fork.

The cook ends up stopping by to see what I think.  He apologizes for not giving me silverware along with it.  ”Yeah,” I say, “I think it would work better if it was…”

“An open faced sandwich, right?”  We laugh.  I like this guy.  I finish up and even stick around because I’ve got a free Happy Ending sundae coming.  My sister always mentioned how ridiculous she thought it was for people to come and eat there but not actually stay for dessert.  I just think it’s counterproductive.

Well, this chocolate almond chip’s for you, Friendly’s.  Now, I’d better get to work.

My friend Neal seemingly does nothing but consume the Internet all day.  Every day, he adds peculiar links on his Facebook page, be they strange articles, photos, or YouTube videos.  The other day he managed to introduce me to a YouTube channel that consists of mostly casting videos from a studio in Chicago.  I initially thought that the videos were all a part of some elaborate joke.  Then again, that’s what we all thought about After Last Season.

None of these brief “video headshots” features good acting.  And of course, this is something that I hate to be critical of.  Acting is something I’ve loved to do for years, so I’d hate to say something disparaging when they believe themselves to be good at it.  Then again, I have rarely worked with anyone this bad, even at my community theater level.  I don’t know if these people have enrolled in these classes because they want to have a career in acting or if they just want to feel more comfortable interacting with people.  What’s more, I don’t know what type of instruction these people were given.  Still, you’re always bound to find a diamond in the rough.  Take, for example, the great Bill Dollear:

I absolutely love how the guy can’t keep from laughing when his partner tells him she’s pregnant.  Whether that scene was supposed to be funny or full of tension, that’s likely the one reaction that he wasn’t supposed to come up with.  He also does a killer Scottish accent.

This channel is full of other little nuggets, such as a guy who robotically delivers Rutger Hauer’s classic death scene from Blade Runner, or some bozo who drains a Simpsons reference of humor.

With sites like Awkward Family Photos and sexypeople popping up so much these days, videos like this seem like a logical progression to me.  What is with our fascination with odd people?  I think it kind of plays into the voyeuristic tendencies we all have.  We want to see people in their natural state;  sites like this satisfy that desire, and it’s all in the presentation.  These glimpses of people are submitted and they never expected anyone to do so.  I think that’s why we love it.

I could go on and on about that, I guess.  Maybe another time.

It’s Easter and decent weather is finally upon us.  I guess we can consider ourselves lucky, of course.  Recently, we were hit by tons of rain, so much that if it had been colder, we would have had about five feet of snow in a few days.  I’ve seen much worse than this in early April, so I won’t complain.

Friday was the first truly nice day we’ve seen in a long time.  We’ve had a taste or two, but nothing quite like this.  I’d say that it was so nice that it was distracting.  Take the way events unfolded right out in front of the bank.  I was at lunch when one of my coworkers came out back and said that someone had come in asking for our first aid kit.  Turns out that there was an old lady cruising along on her brand new Jazzy scooter and took a dive in it on the sidewalk, possibly caused by someone driving too close to the sidewalk, freaking her out and causing her to flip it over.

The instrument of your destruction

Seeing as how our first aid kit only consists of band aids, we weren’t of much help.  At one point, the kid came back and said, “We’re all set with ice but they think her liver’s broken.”   So we got a front-row seat to the fire and ambulance hold up traffic and a ton of listless youths standing around watching.  She got loaded into the ambulance and it seemed like the excitement was done for the day.

Then I looked up from my work about an hour later and noticed that a couple of cars were pulled over in the same spot and a couple of dudes were gesticulating and pointing in various directions.  Cars tried their best to squeeze by – this is Park Ave, mind you.  I thought it was funny that two incidents took place one after another.  It’s downright hysterical when a third accident happens about an hour after that, and cops going by (two cruisers, mind you) pull over to see what’s going on, traffic stopping once again.

I realized two things:  For one, I should just go home via Salisbury St. and through Holden.  Secondly, after a long and crummy winter, the biggest driving distraction is simply seeing blue sky and being warm enough to roll down your windows.

Can’t get it out of my head.

Just remember, comrades, he’s laughing with you.