I'm just not too exciting these days. The highlight of my weekend was going over to Canada & hanging out with a guy I worked with 10 years ago. I meet him at the OTB and just passed the time betting horses. The highlights of the evening was when these 2 guys hit really big. The first one was a friend of my former co-worker & he hit for about $700 or so on a trifecta 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Then one Asian guy came looking like he just got out of a restaurant job by the way he was looking, bet what looked like $100 on some race from Penn National & hit $3700 dollars on a "superfecta" ticket meaning that he had in exact order 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Given that Penn National is a cheap racetrack in the sense that the horses are pretty much almost glue factory stock anything can happen. Needless to say he bought the whole place a round of beer.

The other big deal was the Variety Club or as they call it The Variety Kids Telethon on Ch 7. Is it me or could Buffalo be one of the last places to conduct such things? I mean having 24 hours of programing with people singing and doing other crazy acts for pledge money must have been mind blowing in the 50's and 60's but I can't think of another city that I have been in where they still do that kind of thing. Plus it isn't really the same without Irv or some other kick ass old school personality.

I remember watching some OK indie film by Atom Egoyan which has a telethon as one of it's key plot points which made me smile. But yea, Where are you Jerry Lewis? I guess in a way we still have them when Ch 17 begs for money but they're just really selling you some Ken Burns DVD set & a tote bag.

Actually this may beat out Cramer's "THEY KNOW NOTHING..." Rant



Part Two later on in the day, a bit more toned down and more debate from the other side.

I flew out of Buffalo on the day of that doomed flight. It was kind of strange in retrospect as something was odd but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I was checking the Buffalo News website around 10 but it originally sounded like a Cessna plane crash. Then somehow I flipped through cable news and it was kind of messed up watching the news last night regarding the whole thing. What got me was CNN was using mostly Ch2's stuff with that skype camera & some of Ch 4 stuff, so watching it from Florida was kind of weird. Since to me hearing Scott Levin & Kevin O'Connell was too familiar.

What a great interview from Chris Kausner, he hit the moment perfectly. There is nothing more terrifying and horrific than hearing the scream of a mother who just has been informed that her child is dead.

So yea looking back as I flew out of the airport the same day it just seemed like walking past some strange dude & later realizing that he was some basketball star or something else that you didn't realize at the time.

On another note coming back today was also kind of weird. As I was sitting in the Sarasota airport I saw the "26 seconds of terror" video on CNN, not a good was to start a days long journey on a plane. Then flying in to Buffalo, I sat next to some nice rich attractive older blond haired blue eyed woman from Clarence & talked about it briefly. The funny part was that we didn't fly near Clarence as usually it seems to be the normal flight pattern. We actually ended up flying over Niagara Falls/Tonawanda as I could make out Grand Island and the Seneca Niagara Casino. Now I've flown into BUF many times and never remember flying into the airport this way, once I remember flying out this way going west but not coming in this way. When you think about it you don't want to look out and see a crater with an airplane tail sticking out as you approach the runway, as it was still daylight when we landed. The woman next to us was asking about the body of water we flew next to which was Lake Erie, right before she just put her hands over her face as we began our final descent.

Yea it was kind of freaky flying in today, but the way I look at it, the number isn't going to come up again for a while. Buffalo went 50+ years without a crash, the number was due. Plus if you take a look at all the flights that have been added since we have become a secondary market airport to Toronto, we only increased out odds over the last 10+ years or so. Heck on the ride back on the long term shuttle bus, I was the only US residence besides the driver, everyone else was Canadian.

Because I'm taking off tomorrow & don't know if I'll have access to a computer I'll make my usual Greg Dulli V-Day post with one of his videos.

I'm not Jaded this V-day. I'm actually feeling the universe throwing me a vibe or two. It's not a dropping roller coaster feeling, but at the same time logically I kind of know that my window for something like that has long passed.

Anyway to the point. I was hanging @ Mothers Saturday night when i was kid of thrown in to the drama of two older women. The one with kind of sexting with some FWB type of thing in which she was lamenting that he "didn't try hard enough to get her into bed that night." There were other vulgar pleasantries eavesdropped on but it was sure enlightening in the sense that I realized that a good chunk of this town is in some kind of FWB situation, I know for myself I've been in more of those kind of situations more than a real committed passionate relationship.

So the next time you get a text @ 3:15 think of thing song

Yea, I can't wait to take off to FLA this week. Not a big deal on the surface since I was there less than 7 weeks ago. It's just that this time I'm heading down there when two events are going on, V-Day on Saturday & the Daytona 500 on Sunday. Plus you have all the Sunshine that should be much warmer this time around.

The weird part is that a part of me as I did mention earlier in some post about "getting out of Dodge" for that weekend. Well I'm glad that I didn't...

Yea, if I knew what was good for me I'd turn off my computer for the next 20 days

Really that was just generated by i initially making contact with someone on some stupid dating site & realizing that it is the sister of my ex's ex-boyfriend, if you can follow that logic.

So in a strange set of circumstances I have ended up making a kind of date with someone down there in FLA off another site I use. She's pretty cool and intelligent but in reality she wants someone to go to the 500 with and as an added bonus she's not into V-Day at all. So working out the logistics should be fun, but with the timing falling into place with me being there at the right time and coming back it should not be too difficult. How could I turn down an opportunity to check out the "Superbowl" of stock car racing?

So I'm grateful for having the time and resources to do this as well as the dumb luck for reading someone's blog that is a "friend" of mine. Other than that I should have some fun in the SRQ as usual, now the 2.5 day wait...

That 25 thing virus.

1. My Grandparents were slaves if you consider the fact that they were taken from their homes @ 17 & 18 to work on farms as forced labor in Germany during WWII.

2. After the war they stayed in Germany and that's where my Mom was born and raised until she was 12.

3. That's when my Grandparents immigrated to Canada

4. My Canadian Grandpa lost 4 fingers on one hand in a workplace accident, but by a miracle a surgeon painstakingly by shear determination reattached everyone back on his hand, mind you this was the 70's.

5. My parent's meet on Clifton Hill, the tourist trap in Niagara Falls Canada.

6. I was born in Canada and am pretty proud of that fact.

7. Also I'm grateful to my Father for giving me Dual Citizenship through him.

8. All of my Grandparents have long passed on.

9. Sometimes I think about how life would have been different if my Sister had not been killed in that car accident

10.Another What if scenario is how much my life would have been different if I had said the things I should have said & not screwed up the relationship regarding "The one that got away"

11.The one thing I am grateful from that relationship with her is the love of inline skating

12. I've had a blog since March of '02

13. I'm a sucker for J.Crew

14. Even though I go to Canada all the time I really haven't been to Toronto much in the last 8 years or so. This is something I'd like to change.

15. I'm afraid that I'll never find a wife living here in Western New York. For me I'm convinced that most people in the dating pool around here are severely defective.

16. I still think back about that weekend in NYC that if described could start off with "Dear Penthouse Forum"

17. For most of my life I have been going to Vegas at least once a year. The last could well be at least 15 times but I really don't have an exact number.

18. When I'm there I prefer the "Old Vegas" Downtown on or just off Fremont St.

19. I only got laid once in Vegas and that was with my Ex-Girlfriend at the Hard Rock.

20. At one time I was seriously thinking about becoming a Priest

21. The only way to describe my philosophy on life is Existentialist.

22. For most of my adolescence I thought I was some kind of freak, then I realized that some of my "so called" friends were a negative drain on me & manipulated me into keeping me at their psychic vampire level.

23. Then I went visited Poland and realized that my Grandmother's family are great people and I came from a descent normal gene pool

24. I visited the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau when I was there

25. I waited way too in posting this but when I first attempted to do so I had a browser error.

This is where I got the whole Dems= "Party of Hate" Reps="Party of Fear" concept.

I have to say that even in this "down" week of sports on TV due to the quiet media week for the Super Bowl & the NHL All-Star break I have to say there is plenty to keep me occupied. First off I never realized how much I would actually get sucked into the Winter X-Games. (e:metalpeter) is on to something on that one, although I can go to the next time over and see a bunch of crazy necks drive around on their snowmobiles, it does take it to another level. My favorites have been the ski races. There is just only so much half-pipe tricks that I can take with snowboarders and other mid air flip stuff.

Now since I have been kind of hiding since Friday night due to me taking a spill when I went out to see a band it lead me to just stay home and watch late night sports on TV. So yea I just didn't want to deal with the outside world so I stayed home and enjoyed myself on the couch. The other event was the Australian Open, which is always a good time. Unless that is if you got caught in the middle of that Bosnian/Serb fight last week...

I've been meaning to respond to (e:jason) 's post

But I think this is going to be a little longer and/or more personal so at some level I would like to have it easily accessible to me so I could read it at some point for my own personal use.

Yea I hear you with being an isolated outsider. I had my one married w/kid friend's wife attempt to set me up with anyone she worked with just so we could "go out as 2 couples." For a while I was seeing their co-worker, but I broke it off for my own reasons after I realized that she may have been trying to really emulate their relationship, if you know what I mean.

At times I delude myself into thinking that I should have stayed married. This comes from the cold hard fact that my living situation and just how I am personality wise in this dating pool of WNY just dooms me to being alone. Yea I have realized that I could just play the game and "find someone" to put up with my bullshit, but in the end I just realize that I would just be using them as a prop for other people to appear that I'm doing the "family" thing or even worse just a warm body for sex. Plus when I deal with people who have money problems I realize what a "cinder block around your neck" it can be if you're with or even married to someone that brings the trouble with the business of living problems to your life. Then I realize how being alone isn't so bad after all.

Would I love to be with someone that I am attracted to and can love? Of course I would as it is one of our basic needs of being human. It's just that for the most part I have just thrown in the towel, or at least for as long as I live in WNY. With a decade of dealing with the demographics and having my chances diminish with every year I get older, I just have had it with doing things via "going through the motions of the mating dance." Heck with Feb 14th coming around I even am planning on getting out of Dodge that weekend. Seriously I don't even want to be around here when love is in the air. For me I would rather be lonely loser somewhere else where no one knows me ;-)

Yea, since it was snowing for the most part I just spent the majority of the weekend at home. So other than making a mess of the house cooking I watched quite a bit of TV. There are two women that I came across that just sucked me right in from the first moment I was flipping through the channels. The totally weird unexpected part of this whole experience is that these women are actually my age & not the latest 23 year old flavor of the month hottie from Hollywood.

1. Rhonda Mitra

I just can't stop watching Doomsday as it has been on heavy rotation on skinaMAX. A part of you thinks that it is ridiculous shot'em up fiery action film, but the movie gives you enough other niblets that you just go along for the ride. But back to her, yea, a ripped athletic looking chick or at least when she filmed this right before she shot Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. All I can say is WOW, it has been quite a long time since I was sucked in by some actress.

2. Chelsea Handler

I never saw her show Chelsea Lately until this weekend. She's pretty darn funny to say the least. Yea she's kind of a sexy Joan Rivers but can't help not to laugh when she's talking trash about other celebs. I'll defiantly be DVRing it during the week.