Interesting... so is it true that Beast Blog took down (e:jasons) reponse? I guess getting owned in a debate is too much to handle for the guys over at the Cindy Sheehan Memorial Think Tank. Someone please actually tell me if this is true, as I would never give Beast blog traffic.

Anyhow, I'm in Kansas City tonight, one day in KC sandwiched between 2 days in Chicago (don't ask me, I didn't plan this trip). Anyhow the good news is that in 2 more 1-way trips I'm going to have a free roundtrip to any of 60 destinations thanks to Southwest. Yeah, I got enough for a free roundtrip in oh.... 6 weeks of travel? Lol. Anyhow, I think I'm going to save this freebie until the spring... maybe my bro and I can go to California. I've wanted to see San Fran and the rest of the PCH drive up the coast to Seattle. Oh, for the record - Nissan cars absolutely suck compared to good ol' Dodges. I shit you not, the Nissan Sentra has a shittier ride than a Dodge Neon, and the Neon is $3-4k less. Don't be fooled when you are looking for your next car - I guarantee I get to test more cars than 99% of the Estrip audience, and right now the best '05 cars outside of luxury models from Germany and Japan are coming from the USA.

My first impression of Kansas City is - "omgwtfbbq this city is much bigger than I thought it was going to be!!!" Seriously, Kansas f'ing City has WAY more going on than Buffalo. My first thought on that is, how is it possible for a place thats so remote to be in such a better position than Buffalo is? The answer is, of course, is that for 50 years nobody has figured out how to properly run a city, or even a state, in Buffalo and New York. Maybe I'm overestimating Buffalo's worth on a national scale. Above and beyond the obvious size and economic differences here, the people here are immeasurably more civil than in New York. People in this part of the world are honest, polite, sincere - virtues that are completely lost to the population of the Northeast. For how sophisticated people in the northeast think they are, you'd be surprised about how much people in the northeast have to learn from people from the midwest and south. Wonderful, so you live in New York City? Thats great, but there is a great chance that compared to other Americans you are a piece of shit human being. Yeah, that sounds harsh, but from a seasoned traveler I can tell you that in many cases this is rule and not the exception.

Anyhow, I saw Arrowhead Stadium and whatever the stadium is called that the Royals play in.... Arrowhead is of course one of the most famous stadiums in the NFL and is very unique from an architectural standpoint. Any football fan would easily recognize the place, and I have to say that I would love to see a game there. Kansas City is also famous for its BBQ.... I've gotten a tip about a place called Arthur Bryant's - its THE place for KC style BBQ, and is set in a way that would be endearing to most Buffalonians - great food in a shitty neighborhood. The place has pictures of Presidents who have visited there, but its not exactly the most polished place on earth. They basically slap a pound of slow-cooked beef on a bun, slather it with their sauce, and serve it up. I'll let you know how it goes, and for sure I'm bringing home some of that sauce so I can compare to the stuff I brought back from Texas.

I scrunched my face in the most painful possible way for my brothers new digicam, and I thought it would be fun to turn it into an avatar for everybody to enjoy. Yes, my skin is red... I am telling you I don't tan, I burn!

So yeah, (e:joshua) has been living in the proverbial basement lately, keeping his head down and grinding through some work and fun. I guess you could say that the past few weeks have been busy beyond belief. When I'm not travelling I am in Buffalo working at my company's office, OR I'm doing some leisure yet non-leisure travelling because of previous commitments. When your job requires you to travel a lot, travelling on the weekends, even for a short trip, is HIGHLY undesirable. Most people hear about what I do and say things like "OMG SO COOL!" and "Wow you get to see so many places!" Yeah, thats true, but think about it - taking a vacation requires travel... so how am I supposed to look forward to vacation? For me, vacation has to satisfy one of two requirements - A) The destination has to be FAR as hell away, like cross one of the two big oceans far, and/or B) Vacation for me = staying at home in bed.

So anyhow its interesting to me that (e:paul) has been having a dialogue with BuffaloPundit. Yeah, I saw that he was butthurt a little over me calling him liberal, but hey... whatever. Unbeknownst to him (or perhaps knownst?) he had an e-mail convo with me and I have to say that he seems like a nice guy and not too much unlike me with respect to his concern for our locality. One thing that I know for certain is that there are a lot of concerned people on all political sides who can't stand the apathy here. Unfortunately, if you read about last weeks Democratic primary for Mayor... it looks like the apathy continues or perhaps has gotten worse. What are we to do when we can't change because so many people don't care? We work harder dammit!!

Speaking of the mayoral race - there are other candidates besides Byron Brown on the Democratic ticket that I prefer. My thing is, it looks like we are going to pick between Brown and Helfer... I think Brown is going to win but its just going to be another vote for the status quo. I'm sure he is a sincere guy, but when I see "former NYS Senator" on the resume I get extremely nervous. I think its about time our area had a mayor that is from outside the same noxious political sphere that we are used to at this point. At this point I don't care if its a Democrat or a Republican... I need something different. That being said, you can probably guess which way I'm voting. I'm pencilling in either Bill Crosby or J.C. Watts.

SCREEEEEEEECH!

Problem solved, hopefully we'll have the car later on today. I'll let (e:jason) decide if he wants to disclose the how's and why's. Now I want to drink out of joy! I have some relatively important shit to do at work but they don't want me to be there while I'm distracted with this. Anyhow at least we have a starting point, and hopefully this thing will be back in our hands soon! Definitely relieved.

The Larsonmobile got stolen overnight, out of the lot adjacent to Wilson Farms and Globe Market. If you see a 1997 Plymouth Breeze with the license plate # APV4031 PLEASE call the police and report that you saw it!

My boss came all the way down from Clarence to pick me up for work... he saw my brother and I and simply told me to stay home and fix this. The police and the private number listed on the board next to the lot do not have the car. We've filed a report and are hopeful that the vehicle can be recovered.

My father is leaving work and driving to Buffalo this morning... (e:jason) and I are just smoking cigarettes and contemplating getting hammered. If you see two drunk guys on the 750 porch this afternoon you will know why!

I've been staying in Buffalo and working out of the office... the company has a backlog of audit documents to verify. Therefore Joshy gets to work his fingers frantically around the hefty Compaq laptop there to get the documents sorted out. In a way not travelling is nice because I get to sort out things at home I don't get an opportunity to do normally. I spent the last two days strolling the office, staring out the window, surfing the web, drinking coffee, petting my bosses golden retriever, thinking about the noise reduction headphones I want to buy, reading e-mails. I actually will have some real and substantial work to do the rest of the week, followed by more real and substantial work to do beginning next week, followed by a short trip to NC and Delaware.

I tried port wine last night... its my new favorite thing! Nothing will ever top a rocks glass filled with a proper single malt scotch though.

(e:paul) - I took the sign down because I'm having major beef with my landlady and I didn't want to give her another thing to potentially bitch about. Is there voting for this "best of" and when is it over? I'll hang it until the "best of" issue is out.