Holy shit - I haven't posted in over 2 months

Do you know that I haven't posted in over two months? Of course you do - you check the blog every day looking for your JohnnyM fix. Oh sure, CoCo has posted a few times, but let's face facts - he's trash.

Why haven't I posted in so long? Well, the reasons are numerous, but suffice to say that I've been out of the country. Fighting crime. And saving puppies.

What have I been doing with my summer? Well, let's see...I went to Scotland for two weeks. Partially because I was going to my cousin's wedding, but also to get away from yet another summer of violence on the mean streets of Toronto. In Scotland, I was greeted by peace, serenity, and a blown up terminal building:

One of the people at Glasgow airport who helped to take down one of the would-be terrorists was a baggage handler by the name of John Smeaton, who has turned into a bit of a folk hero. He has several web sites now dedicated to him, including http://www.johnsmeaton.com/. What's funny is that the first time I saw that URL, I thought that it might be a porn site dedicated to yours truly, because I read it as "john's meat on". Note to self - I need to start that porn site dedicated to myself before someone else does.

After I returned to Canada, I really have been doing fuck-all. I went to go and see the new Transformers and Harry Potter movies, because apparently, I'm a 15 year old boy. This past week, I decided that my life really wasn't hard enough, so I signed up to take part in Ironman Lake Placid next July. This will necessitate a steep decrease in my alcohol consumption, which will likely result in a fewer posts that are...you know...funny (not that I've been doing much of that lately), and a corresponding increase in posts about such fascinating topics as wetsuits, tire pressure, tubulars vs. clinchers, race nutrition, body glide, transition times, contents of special needs bagszzzzzzzz....

That said, I can't really miss the offical JTC pub crawls, so for those who have been asking, the next "cornerstone" event on the JTC calendar is happening on Sunday, November 11th, where we honour those who have died in wars protecting our freedom. Our freedom to get hammered.

Quantity - not quality,

JohnnyM

What kind of entendre said I. Double she said, so Double I did.

Given my 'colleagues' aren't really doing any 'work' for our fake 'company', and hence we have no 'posts', I thought of something to fill some space. Quantity, quality - whatever.

A few years back JohnnyM and I were in New York state on a business trip, in the magical town called Binghamton. It was a real shit hole, but oddly enough has a storied history:

• From 1923 to 1927 Binghamton was the Northeast headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan.
• The concentration of the defense industry in the town during the cold war made it the seventh most likely area in the nation for a nuclear attack.
• With 6 historic wooden carousels, Binghamton boasts itself as the carousel capital of the world.
• And finally, Unlike most small American cities, Downtown Binghamton still has a full-sized department store.

Which leads me to the real reason for writing this post. While we were there, drinking in a local watering hole, the band that had been playing the requisite honky tonk shit all night suddenly broke out into this classic song, "I Used to Work in Chicago". It's now one of my favorite songs in the world. It goes like this:

I used to work in Chicago, in a department store.

I used to work in Chicago, but I don't work there anymore.

A woman asked for some gloves, "What kind of gloves, said I",

"Rubber" she said, so rub her I did.

I don't work there anymore.

The reason it's so goddamn funny is the permutations. When the song is sung, and the request word is sung (ie. "Gloves"), you are already laughing waiting for how it will be used. For instance, here is a short list of other permutations I recall:

tools, hammer she wanted, and nailed she got

drinks, liquor she wanted, and lick her I did

hardware, bolts she wanted, and my nuts she got

German airplane, Fokker she wanted, and fokker I did

A quick scan of the net shows some people have taken this to extremes, with some outright classics:

lobster thermidor she wanted, creamed clam she got

German method of coal extraction she wanted, mine shaft she got

translator she wanted, cunning linguist she got

diamond choker she wanted, pearl necklace she got

Some Shakespeare she wanted, Dickens she got!

As you can see it's quite a creative opportunity.

Well, that's really it, just wanted to share that fucking awesome song with you. Also, through writing this post, I've also been able to determine that Wikipedia is probably better than most real encyclopedias, and from the facts available there, I learned a lot about why Binghamton sucked so much ass. Also, I finally got to use Ku Klux Klan in a post. It's been a long time coming.

Tourists: Trapped

In a couple of weeks I am flying in to Pisa, Italy, and promptly taking a train straight out of the city, forgoing the classic Tuscan sites around the field of miracles (such as the leaning tower). My decision is in part due to having been there before, but more importantly, I want to do whatever possible to avoid witnessing this horrendous scene again: