Mark Twain Liked Hockey???

It's snowing yet again here in the beautiful Gate City. On March 2nd. I'm sitting at the Generic Bread (not the one by the Costco, the one by the Steak & Bake) and it's nice here for once, as there are all of 5 folks in the entire joint (it's about 7). I wish it would keep snowing - the rest of the year. Anything that will keep annoying people out of the Generic Bread, I'm all for it.

I'm a little foggy on the news here lately, but I did see where Joe Biden went to speak before a group of "labor" leaders. And I wonder just how much labor these "labor" leaders really do, as they don't appear to be the most fit guys in the world. Most of the laborers I know (at least the ones who work for private business) are in pretty good shape. It's more appropriate to call these "labor" leaders something like lazy ass, on the take, anti-worker, thieves. Something like that. And I did notice one of these "labor" leader butch-type babes eyeing Joe Biden's massively erect medically aided boner rather longingly. That woman probably isn't getting it on the regular, as my man Mike Scott (not the pitcher) would say.

I've been spending some time at that Wings & Bling over on N Garden. And the other night (Saturday) there was a redneck to my right with his big racked, mediocre looking woman. And they were downing Bud Light buckets fast (they give you 5 beers for $10 on Saturday and Sunday). I mean this awful couple had 4 buckets between 4 and 8. The guy was particularly hammered (the funniest thing about him was that he was wearing a Tar Heels ball cap, and there is no way in hell this guy had ever been to Chapell Hill, because with the racist hate he was generally spewing all night, he would hate all the wine drinking/cheese eating liberals over there, to say the least). Anyway, this redneck asks for his check and then things broke ugly. Real ugly. The bartender at the time was a vacant dude named Paul - a nice enough guy in my limited experience with him, but just generally clueless. So, the redneck starts to swear up and down that he's being overcharged and he starts to go off on this vacant bartender Paul. At one point, this redneck guy threatens to come over the bar and settle things the way they do in bad Patrick Swayze movies. The guy eventually paid up, but not before saying he knew the owner and was driving right over to the owner's house to have Paul fired. Blah, blah, blah. The funny thing is that this guy turns to me and Brandon as he and his big racked, mediocre looking woman are about to head out and says, "Watch out man. He'll fuck ya if you let 'im." I said "I'll be sure to check the bill twice brother, but I'm guessing my math skills are slightly more advanced than yours, what with you having no conception of how to multiply 4x10 and all." His woman actually laughed at that, which was a good thing believe me. His ire turned from Paul, briefly to me, and then to his woman. They left after another minute of incoherent drunken racial slurs (which made no sense, since every person in the bar area was white). What killed me is that after all his bitching and alcohol fueled ranting, he left Paul a $7 tip. Really, he did. The thing Brandon reminded me, and he was dead on here, was to always remember that if there's a real problem with a guy like the one we came across there that Saturday at Wings & Bling, just remember that Ben will kill the guy for 20 bucks. And Brandon was right, that is something to keep in mind.

One of the weirdest things about Wings & Bling is that they, like other places I've been in, put the news channels on in the late afternoon. Only the XM channel drowns out any sound from any of the TV's. So, you're left to speculate just what Glenn Beck might be angry about at any given moment. And I'm not sure what all he's pissed about exactly, but he looks like he needs to take a dump - badly.

Big hoops game tonight, as TOSU goes for the Big 10 regular season championship in Columbus against my buddy Paul's (the guy who writes movie reviews from Chicago) old school. It should be interesting. And tomorrow in College Park is gonna be huge - huge.

I was out at that wing joint on Battleground Sunday and there was some hockey game on. And folks were really into it (me, I wanted to watch the Phoenix Open, obviously). In fact, several guys were wearing NHL team jerseys (I noticed a Borque jersey for example {I asked the guy wearing the Borque if Borque was French - the guy failed to laugh...}). I guess the game was exciting enough. At the end though, Canada pulled out a win. A number of the guys at the wing joint on Battleground were bummed out. I reminded them that, Canada may have won a pointless hockey game, but that didn't change the fact that Canada still is, and will be for the foreseeable future, a 3rd world country. These hockey fans didn't take too much solace in my comment. My buddy Phil was there too and at one point we got to talking about Canadian women. And Shania Twain's name came up (for what it's worth, I find Shania more attractive than Phil finds her, but to each his own). I told Phil how, often, when I bring up Shania Twain's name, I'll mention to whomever, "Did you know that Shania Twain is a great great granddaughter of Mark Twain?" Phil asked the appropriate question at that point (he's a pretty bright guy), "How often do people laugh when you ask them that?" I told Phil the truth, "Not nearly as often as you'd hope..."

Miles Standish proud