Frenchy's Rant

Is it me? Or is the urinal just not the best place to start a conversation? I could see standing around the water cooler, or even at a bar, but the urinal? Is this the new “in” place to make a friend?

What the hell would possess some stranger to sidle up next to someone they don’t know, drop trou and start chatting? Maybe they think of the urinal as a logical extension of the water cooler or the bar, who knows? Do they walk in and say, “Hey, there’s some guy with his dick in hand! He’s not going anywhere for a while, I bet he’d LOVE to hear about my morning commute!”

Yeah, great, that’s nice, but honestly, idle chit-chat is NOT WHAT I’M IN HERE FOR, FOOL! I don’t go busting into the stall on people to get to know them a little better, I expect the same courtesy to be extended to me as I go about my business. Why do the nutters of the world always seem to seek me out?

I don’t even know what to say about those people that make their living in a bathroom offering a towel after you wash your hands. That’s a whole other blog to write.

Chatty psychos in the bathroom are annoying, for certain. But I guess it proves the old saying it’s better to be pissed off than pissed on.

I’ve been a frequent flier for at least a decade now. In that decade, I have made some observations about the general types of people that travel. Here is my list:

The Business Douche:

This guy is always in a hurry and always on his cell phone. You can immediately spot the business douche by the retarded looking headset he has permanently attached to his ear. Usually he’ll have a huge suitcase that he’ll gladly roll right over your foot in an effort to get to his First Class Ass into his First Class Seat. His carry on luggage is normally so large that it won’t fit in the overhead, to which he’ll stop his cell phone conversation long enough to inform the flight attendant that “I can’t believe this, it ALWAYS fits!” The only good thing about sitting next to an idiot like this is as soon as he loses cell phone service, he immediately opens his laptop to work on a PowerPoint presentation, and won’t even acknowledge your presence.

Mommy and FrankenBaby:

Harried looking and tired, this poor woman looks terrified as her kid cries and screams and kicks throughout the entire flight. Playing Peek-A-Boo doesn’t help, giving the kid juice doesn’t help, so she resorts to playing a Barney DVD at top volume to entertain the little monster. If it’s a long flight, the kid will invariably fill a few diapers with incredibly stinky goo. Mommy, having taken leave of her senses long ago, will think nothing of changing little Junior’s shit filled diaper in the seat next to her. The only good thing about sitting next to this dynamic duo is once the flight lands, you’ll never have to see either of them again.

The Rookie:

This person has never left their home town before in their life. Two traits make Rookies easily identifiable. First, the mountain of luggage trailing behind them. And Second, they live under the fantasy that planes always leave and arrive exactly on time. A delay is something that the airline must be doing to them personally, because they HAVE TO GET TO THE BUFFET IN ORLANDO BY FOUR PM!! Many of them wear their plane tickets in a ridiculous looking holder around their neck. They’ll slam on their brakes while you walk behind them as they try to figure out if they are in line for security or for the bathroom. They will show their photo ID to anyone and everyone, even a janitor. Rookies will also try really hard to start a conversation, enlightening you with great detail exactly where they are going away to. The good thing about these people is one flight a year is a lot for them, so it’s rare to see them again. The bad thing is there are a LOT of rookies out there.

The Sist-ahs:

These wonderful people are usually a trio of Rookies, on their way to “Ant Maggie’s hawse” or Vegas. They usually reek of cheap perfume and/or alcohol. They’d love nothing more than to chain smoke the whole flight, and think five bucks for a beer is reasonable. They are loud and annoying, and almost invariably talk the whole flight, their raspy sandpaper-like voices ruining any chance for sleep. The good thing (for their sake) is that murder in the air is still a felony.

The Flight Simulator:

This idiot is a subset of all the other idiots. He knows exactly what the pilot is doing in the cockpit, and why. He’ll tell why and how and when the plane will turn, current altitude and speed predictions, and why we left the gate fifteen minutes late, though he’s never actually flown anything other than a paper airplane in his life. He knows the seat configuration of a Boeing 767-500 and how it difffers from the 400 series. The good thing about this guy…. well.. nothing really.

The Aromaniac:

This guy usually eats a half gallon of beans, eggs and drinks lots of warm milk, just to share with the whole plane what the insides of his intestines smell like. Easily recognizable by his snicker, he’ll sneak ’em out until someone nearly dies. He’s disappointed if he doesn’t get some kind of reaction from his efforts. The best thing about this guy is…. it’s FUNNY!!!! (Not that I know firsthand…..)

The Nymphomanic Stripper:

Doesn’t happen. Ever. Period. They must drive everywhere, because they sure don’t get on planes. So much for the friendly skies!

And finally…

Gigantic Girth-o-man:

This is the worst person to get stuck next to on a long flight. Not talking about a “big” person, or even a “pretty fat” person… I am talking about one of those freaks of nature you normally would only see on Jerry Springer. An obese mound of human flesh that not only spills over the armrest, but into your lap. This rotund lard pile should, by all rights, be forced to purchase two seats, or in extreme cases, an entire row. Sweaty, foul smelling and all around disgusting, there is nowhere for you to go once you are entombed in your eighteen inch seat. The best thing about this person is you could most likely feed him FrankenBaby, and possibly the Sist-ahs.

It’s a sad day in the world of professional wrestling. The Dicks have been ejected from the WWE. In the beginning, they always started hard, some might even say they came out swinging. The potential for the Dicks to be a HUGE tag team was there. When the Dicks were out, the crowd would explode, at least at first.

But how far can a one-trick Dick really go? Without new moves, they just couldn’t get over the hump, and the fickle fans eventually lost interest. And once that interest was gone, it wasn’t long until “The Dicks Suck” chants filled the arena. The cold shoulder from the crowd caused the Dicks to shrivel. They ended up in a hole they just couldn’t get out of. Towards the end, they just weren’t performing, and were too easy to beat.

And so, sadly, it’s a wrap for the best named tag team ever. Now, it’s back to wrestling’s bush league for the Dicks. They’ve officially been cut.

But don’t count them out entirely. In the wacky world of professional wrestling, it is completely possible that someday, somehow, the Dicks will rise again.

RAW emanated from Trenton, New Jersey on Monday, and what a day it was! It started with a bang and went downhill from there. Here’s a small list of “fill-in-the-blanks” for this version of Broke Blank Monday:

Broke Cars

While a video crew was outside setting up for a shot, some cars slowed to see what was going on. One rubbernecker wasn’t paying enough attention, smashed into the guy in front of him, and the chain reaction was on. Sounds of screeching tires, crunching metal, and shattering glass filled the air. When it was done, three cars were totalled, one ending up on it’s roof.

The crew never did get the shot.

Broke Leg

The first match of RAW was a Women’s Battle Royal Match. In this type of match, contestants are eliminated by being thrown over the top rope. The last Diva standing is declared the winner. Ashley was the least fortunate Diva of the night. After an awkward landing, she collapsed to the ground and screamed in pain. She left the arena on a stretcher, and we later learned she’d suffered a bad spiral fracture to her left fibula.

Needless to say, since Ashley could no longer stand, she lost the match.

Broke Jib

In the third match of the night, something else broke.

Somehow, the jib, a large crane with a camera on the end, managed to fall over in the arena. During a move, one of the wheels got caught on something, and… TIIIIIMBERRRR!!! The eighteen foot arm came crashing down, along with the very expensive camera. Fortunately, everything fell in an aisle, and nobody was injured. The jib and camera didn’t fare so well, both broke into pieces.

Broke Cart

At the end of the night, when it seemed that all the mayhem and breaking of Broke Blank Monday was over, there was one surprise left. As it was being loaded into the truck, one of the wheels on an equipment cart suddenly broke, nearly causing the cart and equipment to dump over on the crew.

What a night… Can’t wait for tomorrow!

I’ve been planning a motorcycle tripe through Baja California for several years. It’s finally going to happen this year, shortly after NBA season ends. One of the things on my Baja “to-do list” is try to learn some Spanish, or, as they call it in Spanish – “Espanol”

(I can’t figure out how to make that goofy squiggle over the letter n. Ah well..)

The Rosetta Stone Language Learning Software promised to be “The Fastest Way To Learn A Language. Guaranteed.” With a guarantee like that, I bought a copy, positive it would be great.

Wrong. Or at least I should say, after wading through the first of ten lessons, I have my doubts.

Instead of teaching useful things like “Yes sir, two more cold beers would certainly be most refreshing at this juncture.” or “No, I do not want to see a donkey show.” or most importantly, “Bring the doctor, this diarrhea is killing me!” this program (at least so far) concentrates on trivial things like the color of the woman’s raincoat or the number of shoes the child is wearing.

I can picture it now, after several hot, sweaty days of riding through Baja, getting stopped at a military checkpoint in the middle of the desert, confronted by bored, drunken soldiers with loaded automatic weapons, I suavely break the tension with, “¡El sombrero blanco es muy largo!”

I wonder if learning how to secure bail is part of the Rosetta Stone guarantee.