Fat Tuesday festivities began with an hour and a half in the bitter freakin' cold holding up a 'Parade In Progress' sign. Reminded me of this book my Latvian grandmother made me read about Siberian exile, except we had better hooch*.

Then I was scheduled to accept donations for Hospice down at the Essex. It was basically dead, but we had a good time - hanging out, drinking Newcastles, sitting on the radiator, humoring the drunks.

Yeah, how is it that even drunk crazies can start your wheels turning? Drunk guy, hard done by, starts in on me about the tyranny of capitalism or something. 'One day, money will be nothing but worthless paper.' Perhaps ... but until then, how'm I supposed to buy beer? Truth be told, I've done some pretty significant stuff for people in return for pixie dust and magic beans. In fact, just today I registered a domain name for someone in exchange for $50 worth of sushi. Hell yes.

Then we had the munchies something awful, so down to the Century for wings & hurricanes. We almost went to see the drag show at Nietzsche's, but instead decided to zonk the f# out, which is what I'm about to do right now.

- Z

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• Frosty Nail [like a Rusty Nail, only more Canadian and less Scottish]

1 1/2 oz Crown Royal
1/2 oz Yukon Jack

Mix it up. Use ice.

Yeah, so I'm not much of a blogger, but I figured, what the hey. Ever since I started working for a certain prominent local alternative newsweekly* I find myself saying 'the Internet needs to hear about this' a lot more than I used to. For those who are easily confused, this is my personal blog - not that of my employer - though I will not be able to resist posting about what happened at work. Much as I might love to, I can't get your article published, and I can't get you into Nietzsche's for free.

Today I brought a sandwich press into work to have its portrait taken. [I mean, who wouldn't want a portrait of their sandwich press?] One thing led to another, and we ended up having a grilled cheese sandwich party in the back office at, like, 3:30 this afternoon. Where I'm from this passes as relatively normal.

- Z

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• I realize that most or all of you know exactly who I am talking about. I don't know whether I should bother keeping it a secret.

So this morning I had a little bit of an accident in my poor car. Some guy had decided that he needed to turn left immediately, which happened to place his passenger side door directly inside my engine compartment. Once two objects occupy the same space at the same time, well ... that's when the insurance companies get involved. I can only hope that in his haste he was able to get to his extremely important job on time, because I know I didn't make it in to work until 11:30. I find it extremely unlikely, however, because while I left the scene in a tow truck, he left in an ambulance.

At any rate, I'm not hurt - a little overwhelmed, but not hurt. The tow truck guy and the receptionist at the collision shop were both very nice to me and answered all my stupid questions ... the receptionist even drove me to the rental car agency to hook me up with a loaner.

Looking at the car makes me sad, because over the course of 76000 miles I've formed a weird sort of bond with the thing, it's a great car, and even after having its tiny front end smashed in it still somehow ran like the day I bought it. If by some miracle it's not totalled I'd like to get it fixed up real nice. If it is totalled ... well shit, I hear Volkswagen is making Rabbits again.

Fuck, man. I just don't want to have to deal with all this paperwork and decisions and shit.

- Z