Riding with Rickey

Your Weekly Blogroulette: In Which Rickey Spins the Wheel of Internet Insipidity

2010-08-03T06:54:00.008-04:00

Welcome back to Blogroulette. You know the rules by now, so let's get right to it. After Rickey’s first two clicks took him to blogs of parents fawning over their children, Rickey was extremely concerned he was going to have to re-name this column “Rickey Doesn't Give a Shit About Your Kids, Buddy.” But then we hit pay dirt. Behold: “Completely Random,” a blog written by a 24 year old ESPN employee, chronicles the life of a charming young lady coming to grips with issues of identity in Manhattan, as she invokes the proud literary tradition of Sylvia Plath and Gertrude Stein in her pursuit of…

….oh who the hell are we kidding. This blog is terrible. Just the most banal and uninteresting thing we’ve read in weeks. We're pretty sure this airheaded blog alone will set the feminist cause back a good decade or two. But on the plus side, it buries the needle on the unintentional comedy meter. Witness the scribe’s profound treatise penned on July 23, entitled “Always a Bridesmaid…” Poor grammar ahoy, people!

“So yesterday I was watching Sex & the City & it was that episode when Carrie & Aiden first start dating & she's not sure if she is just his friend or is his girlfriend.”

Strap in folks, this is going to be a brutal one. Why do women continuously ask themselves this question? Isn’t it fairly clear whether or not one is in a relationship? Does the guy actually have to loudly proclaim “WE ARE NOW ENTERING INTO A RELATIONSHIP” in order to alleviate your uncertainty?

“This kind of made me think about last week when I was at 519.”

What is that? A bar? Some sort of WWII code? Youth culture completely escapes Rickey.

“Alyssa said how I am always our friends' boyfriends' favorite. So why then, if all of these guys love me have I not found a boyfriend? I am in no way saying that I wish I had my friends' boyfriends, that is certainly not it.”

Heavens, certainly not, no! Rickey thanks you for clarifying that issue.

“What I am saying is that I am always the friend & never the girlfriend. Am I not girlfriend material? Is it because I am too much like a boy in that I love sports & beer?”

Er, no, Rickey's guessing that your third grade reading/writing skills have more to do with it.

“Probably not because Sam is like that too & she always has a boyfriend. Is it because I am too picky & overlook the good ones? Perhaps. Watching Carrie trying to figure out if Aiden was her boyfriend also reminded me of a number of relationships that I have had. In one, we would get along like great friends & make out frequently but when it came to an actual relationship, it never really came about. Another had been my best friend but when it came to us being more then that, it never worked out no matter how many times we tried. I'm having a similar puzzle now.”

You’re “having a similar puzzle now”? Rickey doesn’t think that means what you think it means.

“This guy used to be my best friend & then we lost touch & recently reconnected again. Now we talk everyday but it's hard to tell if it's more then just a friendship.”

OK, look, Rickey’s been out of the dating scene for the better part of a decade, but here’s what you need to ask yourself: are you spending time alone with this guy? Does he compliment you and stuff? Are you learning things about each other? Also, is insertion occurring? If the answer is ‘yes’ to at least two of these, then mazel tov, you’ve got yourself a bonafide relationship! Meet your beau next Wednesday for the official “RELATIONSHIP KICKOFF MEETING” in which you will exchange phone numbers, emotional baggage, and the “Keeping up with the Kardashians" Season 2 DVD box set!

But for a Yankee hater like Rickey, it doesn’t get any worse than her July 21st post, “Ladies Night Out!”

“So it's been a while but I'm coming back with a bang! You know that “Make a Wish” foundation? Well I’m not dying (knock on wood) but I got my wish granted last night!”

Well, in a metaphysical sense, we’re all dying, albeit very slowly. For example, a part of Rickey dies with each additional sentence he reads on your blog.

“I attended CC Sabathia’s 30th birthday party at the 40/40 club in NYC & partied with all the NY Yankees. Thanks to Sam Sank’s former company, I get invited to some pretty nice events but they generally fall on weekdays that I’m in CT so can’t go. I happened to be home this weekend & due to some bad luck which turned out to be great luck, I got to go to this exclusive event not opened to the public.”

Well congrats on hob nobbing with famous people. Rickey saw SNY’s Kevin Burkhardt at a Mets game this past weekend and loudly yelled his name! He totally turned around and scowled at Rickey! Mets Fever: Catch it!

“So we go up to the upstairs bar & Marcus Thames & I made eye contact & he must’ve thought I was someone else at first because he pointed at me & smiled & then walked across the room to come over to me & give me a kiss & hug hello. I think he then realized his mistake but was very cool nonetheless & we were like old pals. Once he started talking to Joba Chamberlain we decided to take a shot with them (Red Headed Sluts are Joba’s go-to, we have this in common.) So shots with Joba, old friends with Marcus & the night was only beginning. Got sandwiched between Alex & Joba while walking.”

Rickey believes this maneuver is referred to as “The Throgs Neck Pattycake”

“Shook the hand of Reggie Jackson. Danced with Curtis Granderson (who is an amazing dancer!) Re-introduced myself to some current Yankees who were once upon a time Staten Island Yankees that I had to drive to & from the stadium when I interned there & they were both super duper nice. Francisco Cervelli was the one I was hoping would remember me & he at least pretended to & then the rest of the night would give me a wink & a smile every time he saw me. I wished CC a Happy Birthday & he gave me a big papa bear hug & said “Thank you & thank you for coming.” Happy to be there, CC.

We guarantee the Mets don’t do stuff like this. Angel Pagan just stays home every night and stares menacingly at a poster of Roy Oswalt.

Had a few convos with Phil Hughes. Shoved several girls out of the way to introduce myself to Robinson Cano & I got to see that big beautiful smile in person & it was aiming at me & then I got a kiss on the cheek & could’ve died a happy girl. David Robertson cleared the way to the bar so I could get there. Bumped into (literally) Brandon Jacobs of the NY Giants & feared for my life because he is so big.”

There’s probably some other subtext going on in that last sentence that Rickey would prefer not to delve into…

“I also played craps for a while & I won somebody $21,000 which I still am not sure if I was playing with real money or not. It was all-in-all AMAZINGG & I am pretty much the coolest person alive.”

Indeed you are, and that irrefutable reputation is cemented by this gem of a blog post about your wayward turtle, entitled “Texas Willie.”

“I have been told by a number of people that I should write a book.”

These people who tell you this, they’re homeless and deranged, correct? You really shouldn't listen to those guys.

”I have a few ideas & I am definitely going to get serious about it at some point, but I'm pretty sure this past weekend has stepped up my game a bit. I have 2 very separate ideas & one is a children's book. The title? "The Adventures of Texas Willie: Big Excitement Based on the True Stories of a Little Turtle."

Please tell Rickey that’s just a working title and that you didn’t spend a sleepless night agonizing over it…

This past weekend, the turtle wrote his own story: "Texas Willie's Great Escape". On Saturday morning I woke up & my turtle was not in his tank. Since he had been living in this tank for quite some time, I thought it was physically impossible for him to get out. So I looked around the apartment & couldn't find him but I knew he had to be somewhere around so I didn't really worry too much. I put food around & figured he would be sitting by one of them when I woke up. He was not.

Rickey believes that in great literature, this plot device is known as THE REVERSAL. High drama indeed!

"Day 2 was a bit of a different story. This is when I turned crazy. I came up with several theories about what happened to him."

So let Rickey get this straight: there’s a reptile loose somewhere in your apartment and you’re coming up with conspiracy theories about the situation like it’s the goddamn JFK assassination? How about actually looking for the turtle?

“My main theory was this: I lock my door out of habit when I come home. Friday I was cooking & the smoke alarm went off so I shut it off. I got in the shower & after I got out, a little while later I noticed the door was unlocked. I didn't think much of it. That was until my turtle went missing for 2 days. The theory developed into somebody coming into my apartment while I was in the shower & stealing my turtle out of his tank. They took nothing else, only Texas Willie. I knew it sounded ridiculous at the time, but I rationalized it enough in my head that it was a credible idea to me. My mother was no better because she agreed with me that this could be true instead of telling me I was a reTard.”

No words… should’ve sent… a poet…

“If you thought Day 2 sounded bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. I awoke Day 3 & before even brushing my teeth, I searched. Then I watched 90210 & called my landlord.”

Indeed, in dark times like this, Rickey also finds himself wondering, what would Brian Austin Green do?

“I proceeded to tell her my theory that someone broke in & stole my turtle & she appeased my insanity by telling me she would have someone change my locks. I took out the paper to start making "Missing Turtle" posters but decided I would give 1 more good look around for the 10 zillionth time first. I flipped over my couch again & decided I should slice open the bottom to see if he was somehow inside the couch. As I was about to do this, I heard a bumping kind of noise. So I checked out the kitchen again but to no avail & figured it was something across the hall. As I was slicing & dicing open my couch, I heard it again. It sounded as if it was coming from inside my refrigerator so I opened it up & looked in the bottom drawer. It was at that point that I saw a space underneath the fridge that I hadn't noticed before. So I got out my flashlight & shined it underneath & TADA!!!! There was his little turtle shell lodged underneath the fridge all the way towards the back. How he got himself back there, I will never know. I didn't know if he would still be alive so I poked him with a curtain rod & I saw his leg move! I cried I was so happy. Then I had to introduce myself to my neighbor by asking him if he could help me, because my turtle was stuck under the refrigerator. So he & his wife came & helped pick up the fridge & we got him out. So Texas Willie is now back in his tank safe & sound & I have returned to being a sane human being (or as much as is possible for me.) I also have Chapter 4 of my children's book all ready to go.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the 2010 Caldecott Medal for excellence in children’s writing goes to…

Finally, the author tosses up a timeless post on the weighty issue of female identity and sports allegiance. Readers, we close out this edition of Blogroulette with: R-E-S-P-E-C-T . Quothe the scribe:

“Here's what I love most about being an ESPN employee: I am finally taken seriously as a real sports fan.”

It took the better part of an hour before Rickey could stop convulsing with laughter and continue reading the post. For giggles, let’s play “Invent an Equally Incongruous Statement”!

-Here's what I love most about being a BP employee: I am finally taken seriously as a real environmentalist.

-Here’s what I love most about being a Klingon: I am finally taken seriously as a calm and cool-headed individual.

-Here's what I love most about being a member of the 1825 Decembrist Uprising: I am finally taken seriously as a supporter of Tsar Nicholas I.

But Rickey digresses… moving on…

“This may sound odd because anyone who knows me knows that's what I am all about. I'm a diehard but yet before, there were still those non-believers who were ALWAYS men. Why is it that when a guy says he loves sports, other guys simply believe him?”

Wait, we do? We just walk around professing our enjoyment of sports to strange men? Rickey can’t remember the last time he bumped into a random guy and blurted out “I enjoy professional sporting events!” and was then informed by the other guy “As do! Our covenant is complete!”

“I have met plenty a man who just says that so he sounds like a man, but when you really get down to it he has no idea what's going on. When I would tell people that I am a huge sports fan, they would have to test me. In general, I'd pass their tests but they wouldn't pass mine.”

Let Rickey guess, they asked you who plays shortstop for the Yanks, and you asked them where he’s getting married in November… Hard hitting stuff! Pop quiz: do you know who played shortstop before him?

“There was also a time that I was with another gal friend of mine who is also a very big sports fan. There was a guy that actually said the phrase, "I love it when girls pretend like they know about sports". He was lucky we just got up & left, rather then throwing drinks in his face or much worse. Are people really that archaic?”

Yes! They’re, like, totally archaic! Just like those ancient Greeks! OMGWTFBBQ!

“I'm not saying that every guy is like that. I have plenty of gentlemen friends who totally get how much I love sports & they absolutely respect it. Loving sports is part of who I am, which is why my new job is perfect. I'm no Buster Olney "Baseball Analyst" but just the title of working at ESPN has certainly brought me several levels up in the minds of those non-believers.”

Aw, but analysis isn’t that hard, even if you're not Buster Olney... Here, Rickey will give you an example. A-Rod has been stuck on 499 hits for quite some time now. Ergo, A-Rod proves once again that he is terrible under pressure. Presto, award-winning baseball analysis! Now you try!

Fun with Horticulture!

2010-07-29T06:00:00.001-04:00

You’re looking at sampling of nature’s bounty, freshly harvested from Rickey’s garden. A veritable cornucopia of organic goodness. The size of the eggplant and cucumber are fairly staggering. Unnerving even. Has Rickey mentioned that his house is within ten miles of a nuclear power plant? Sure, there’s a risk of “The China Syndrome” going down in Rickey’s backyard, but would you look at that magnificent bastard of an eggplant! Totally worth it.
You’re probably wondering what’s the deal with that black junk on Rickey’s roma tomatoes. We researched it and apparently they’ve contracted a vicious plant eating disease known as BLIGHT (which we’re pretty certain is the same affliction currently plaguing Rickey’s level 52 dark-elf in World of Warcraft). No cure is known for THE BLIGHT, so it looks like the tomatoes this season are a lost cause. Such is the dilemna of the organic gardner--you forsake the wonders of Dow Chemical knowing full well that something like this can happen.

While the woodchuck continues to devour Rickey’s crops unabated, we’ve come to somewhat accept the situation. Rickey’s approach to the matter mellowed out a bit once he learned that introducing a honey badger into the backyard was not a viable possibility. Life goes on, we suppose. The woodchuck takes what he needs to feed his family and leaves the rest for Rickey. It’s the very definition of a community garden.

Dog Day Afternoon in the Bronx: In Which Rickey Ventures Into the Bowels of Hell

2010-07-26T06:17:00.013-04:00

Hey kids, what do you do when your baseball team of favor vehemently shits the bed? You hop a train down to your cross-town rivals’ stadium and root against them like your very sanity depends on it (because in actuality, it does). And that is precisely what Rickey did this past weekend. Like a pilgrim venturing into an unholy land, Rickey made plans with a friend to attend his first Yankees game in their snazzy new stadium.

Hearing that the Kansas City Royals were the opposing team, Rickey quickly procured himself a KC baseball cap and deeply immersed himself in Royals knowledge the night before the game. For a team that we weren’t aware was still officially recognized by MLB up until a few nights ago, the Royals certainly have some interesting things going for them. For example, did you know that Brian Bannister is not only alive and well, but actually occupying a starting pitching role for KC? No really, it’s true! Or that Wilson Betemit’s last name is in fact pronounced “Bay-tah-mee”? Crazy!

But probably the most striking thing about the Royals is how astonishingly bad a baseball team they are. Their heyday seems to have been in the 1980's when they were led by George Brett, a terrifying ogre of a man occupying third base who appears to have achieved Paul Bunyan like status amongst the Kansas City fan base. Things have deteriorated greatly for the Royals since then. In 2007 their team motto was “True. Blue. Tradition.” which inspired them to a 69-93 record. 2008 saw marked improvement as they changed their slogan to “New. Blue. Tradition.” and surged forward to a 75-87 record, marking the first time in five years they Royals didn’t finish last in their division. And then they finished dead last again in 2009. The 2010 season looks to be a turbulent one as KC has replaced their manager with baseball prodigy Ned Yost, whose previous credentials include the roles of obscure backup catcher on assorted 1980’s teams and part time taxidermist in Mississippi. Needless to say, much lamentation is transpiring in the Royals blogosphere.

And it was into this pit of despair that Rickey happily stepped as he headed off to the Bronx!
Yankee Stadium’s exterior façade is predictably grandiose. Walking in, one isn’t sure whether to expect to witness a baseball game or Yogi Berra locked in gladiatorial combat with a tiger.

And look, they even have a flutist to march you in! Apparently he’s there each and every game. Ladies, and gentlemen, the pied piper of the Bronx!
One of the more amusing sights was the fan tribute to recently deceased Yankee public address announcer Bob Sheppard, the so called “Voice of the Yankees” (the Mouth of Sauron, if you will). Here's his memorial!What a delightfully shitty memorial! When Rickey croaks, he totally wants to be commemorated like this: some soiled clothes strewn about, a bunch of dime store candles, and a few half empty bottles of beer. All that's missing from this picture is a forlorn three legged dog wandering around in the background. Shit, we think there may even be a few half eaten chicken wings in there. A true testament to the proud Yankees tradition!

After entering the stadium and enjoying two delicious Philly cheesesteaks grilled to perfection courtesy of Carl’s, Rickey and his buddy found their seats, and took in the view. It is begrudgingly impressive. The national anthem was played, and an image of the U.S. flag appeared on the Yanks’ jumbo screen with, we kid you not, the text “The Star Spangled Banner, as written by Francis Scott Key” above it. Well who the fuck else would’ve written it? Is there some Jethro Tull version of the song that we’re all totally unaware of? Mind numbing redundancy aside, the game finally commenced.

And then the effects of the midday heat sunk in. First off, you need to understand that it was 97 degrees and unbearably humid that day and that Rickey’s seats were in DIRECT sunlight. It might not seem hot in these pictures, but trust us, it was bad.

Enduring the Yankees’ unbearably loud PA system is bad enough, but when you’ve to put up with it in addition to Ra the ever living sun-god shining his magnifying glass of unrelenting vengeance upon you, things get a bit dicey. 75 SPF sun screen might as well have been Crisco. Unscrupulous vendors sold pocket fans for $20 a pop. Sweat poured from parts of people’s bodies in a manner previously deemed impossible by most medical professionals. Ice suddenly became currency. People were slumped against the stadium rotunda walls like the New Orleans Superdome circa August, 2005. And that’s precisely why, sometime during the third inning, Rickey thought it would be a good idea to power through his nagging case of heat exhaustion with a few beers. Smart, right?

Hell, Rickey was in hell. You probably can’t make it out in this image, but Rickey’s arm is like a freaking slip and slide. That grey damp mass to the left--that’s Rickey’s buddy’s shirt soaked in back sweat. Good news ladies: he's single!

The good news was that Rickey was not alone in his Royals pride. On the train ride down to the stadium, Rickey had proudly worn his KC hat and had been asked “are you really a Royals fan?” by more than one onlooker. Why yes friend, Rickey’s been a lifelong Royals fan ever since he discovered they still existed last night! But at the game, Rickey found other Royals fans just like him! People to engage with in highly informed commentary such as “this team sure is scrappy!” and “now that’s ROYALS BASEBALL!” Bottom line, this was a highly enjoyable game for a Yankee hater. The Yanks were undone by poor pitching and the Royals played small ball and capitalized. Here’s the final score Rickey savored while exiting the stadium: For Rickey, there is absolutely nothing more enjoyable than 50,000 disappointed Yanks fans walking dejectedly toward the parking lot. Look at the sad sea of tormented humanity on display in photo, it's like a Hieronymus Bosch painting! Shuffle home fools, YOUR TEARS SUSTAIN RICKEY. We have little else other than that to offer in the way of a recap. We do, however, have a video that Rickey shot of Alex Rodriguez at the plate. When a professional baseball player who commissions a portrait of himself depicted as a centaur is only one homer shy of his 600th career home run, Rickey figures it’s worth recording. And so we did. Behold, stunning video footage of the esteemed Alex Rodriguez NOT hitting his 600th home run!
The dude squawking "sitdownsitdownsitdownsitdown" is Rickey’s buddy. Funny how Yanks fans suddenly transform into Emily Post when they're at a ball game. The guy who jeers “NOT QUITE!” when Rodriguez blandly pops out? We will give you three guesses who that was… Eat a dick, A-ROD. Eat a big bag of dicks.

Introducing the New Thing That We Do Now (and will promptly forget to do ever again): BLOGROULETTE!

2010-07-21T06:10:00.025-04:00

A kindred blogger introduced Rickey to the concept of the “next blog” button on the top of the website and recommended he click it. Apparently by doing so, you’re taken to a blog with similar interests as yours. Click a few more times and you’re taken further down the rabbit hole of randomness. It’s good wholesome fun that provides Rickey the opportunity to do what makes the internet such a special place: ridicule others. So we’re totally making a recurring practice out of this. The concept is similar to Chatroulette, but featuring even more self-aggrandizing pathos! The rules to this game are simple, you click on the “next blog” button thrice, see what comes up, and steep yourself in the awful blandness of it all. We kick off our inaugural installment with…

At first, we thought that with a name like this, the blog would written by bank robbers from East Baltimore cataloging their hilarious yet socioeconomically tragic hiijinks, but sadly we were wrong. So very wrong.

It’s a blog about two kids playing baseball (the sports element is what linked Rickey’s site to this one). For bonus internet awkwardness, the blog is written entirely by the DARRINGTON BOYZ’ proud mother and discussing their exploits on and off the baseball field. We’re pretty sure that the milk in Rickey’s coffee curdled while he was perusing this blog. Thank god Rickey’s exploits are a constant source of disappointment and embarrassment for his mother, otherwise he’d probably have to put up with a website very similar to this one…. But enough exposition, here’s what the bright future of America looks like! There are words to describe this photo. Rickey, however, is at a complete loss for them. You can practically see the one on the right just working things out in his head--figuring out the best place to open up a quiet little hotel with some nice stuffed animals on the walls and maybe moving his mom in there to live with him. Oh, and we’re pretty certain that the one on the left is Cthulhu hiding in corporeal form.

The best part is that the mother is completely oblivious to the bottomless pits of terrifying nothingness dwelling in the eyes of her sons. Naturally, in the face of such alarming vapidity, she’s turned to Jesus. For those sorely in need of a deeply motivational quote to put up next to your “hang in there kitty!” poster, you’ll find the following pearls of wisdom on the blog:

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.

Well that’s all very touching and whatnot, but Rickey’s would prefer to file his own tax return next year rather than entrust it to the J-Man if that's copacetic with you, honey. It’s a little unsettling how much overt religiosity you’ll find on these family blogs. Rickey’s buddy similarly lamented that his site always leads directly to a never ending supply of Mormon blogs, (presumably because like most other Jews, he uses the phrase "Jesus Christ" a heckuva lot). But Rickey digresses... There are yet more inspirational quotes from Mater Darrington to guide you through your hectic modern life!

Work as if it was your first day.
Forgive as soon as possible.
Love without boundaries.
Laugh without control and never stop smiling.

First off, if Rickey “worked as if it was his first day” he’d be queued up on a breadline by now. After seven years on the job, you think Rickey’s superiors would respond well to him suddenly asking where the bathroom was and what kind of 401K plan they offered? And “laugh without control”? Isn’t that what the Joker did to the fair citizens of Gotham? People died from that shit, lady. Not cool.

But then Rickey saw a blog post entitled “First Snow and Cougar Hunting” we got much more excited. What sort of lurid mischief could the Darrington Boyz be getting up to, we wondered?

Ah crap, she meant "cougar hunting" literally. Well that’s just not right at all. Apparently that whole “love without boundaries” thing stops short at large mountain cats whose natural habitats encroach upon the Darlington Boyz’ hunting grounds. We guess Rickey missed the section in the new testament in which Woodland Hunter Jesus lectures his apostles (his BOYZ, if you will) on the merits of snuffing out majestic felines for recreational fun. It’s probably hidden somewhere in the back.

You know what, we’d love to see the Darrington Boyz go toe to toe with a more challenging critter. Rickey recommends THE HONEY BADGER, probably the most fearsome land mammal ever to roam the earth. Take a gander at nature’s version of Winnie the Pooh on crack cocaine:

[h/t to “Badass of the Week." for making Rickey aware of this relentless beast. The video is all Rickey's doing--enjoy it before Jay-Z shuts us down]

Honey badger don’t give a fuck. Honey badger will mess your shit up. Honey badger is all teeth, fur, and balls. Ain't no love in the heart of the jungle, baby. Now THAT’S your motivational quote of the day.

Anyhow, we’d go on to post more about this blog , but it’s pretty much an amalgam of religious poems, insipid birthday parties at P.F. Changs, and the Boyz standing over various carcasses of recently slain wildlife. As for their baseball careers, it’s pretty much a lock that you’ll be seeing them on the Colorado Rockies in the not too distant future. Tune in next week to see what fresh hell Rickey stumbles upon in Blogroulette!

Hyperbole Ahoy! Rickey Reviews "Inception"

2010-07-19T05:36:00.005-04:00

"Inception" is at once the best movie you'll see all summer, yet the most flawed as well. The movie boasts a wildly imaginative concept that's executed to near perfection from a storytelling point of view. However, the visual tableau in which the plot moves forward falls flat in a few places. The movie's ideas are intensely cerebral, but it lacks much of the necessary presentation to compliment it. At the very least however, this is a thought provoking and fast moving flick that is definitely guaranteed to kick your brain into overdrive for two and half hours. If "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" can claim the same, we'd be more than a little shocked.

The basic overarching plot is deceptively simple: it's a heist movie. Leonardo DiCaprio and a gang of thieves dive into the mind of a powerful industrialist in order to dissolve his energy company and thereby better the welfare of his competitors and humanity as a whole (hey, why can't we do this with BP?) But the way Leo accomplishes it and the manner in which it is explained and performed cinematically is what catapults this movie on to another level entirely. The movie unfolds on a level that we, as moviegoers, haven't had the pleasure of experiencing until now.

In order to pull off the heist, DiCaprio's character Cobb recruits various specialists and then plunges head first into the dream. The underlying science behind is left intentionally unexplained, which is OK with us--this is more of a fantasy movie than a sci-fi one. Cobb's plan is to plant the suggestion to dissolve his empire in the billionaire's head by plummeting into three consecutively deeper planes of his dream state and using the target's deep rooted father issues as leverage. Things go wrong when the team arrives in the dream to discover that the target has prepared for this mental invasion by "militarizing his subconscious" (best. line. ever.) and then the rest of the flick becomes a frantic scramble spanning around multiple layers of consciousness, some scenes constrained by gravity, some not. "We have to go deep" is a common refrain throughout the film, as Cobb's tenuous grip on reality grows shakier the deeper he travels.

Three nested levels of dreaming, unfold simultaneously at different paces, with characters running around about on each level. Each level's time progresses at a different speed. Absolutely nothing like this has been put on film before. Watching it all intricately unfold, crumble, and finally synchronize up again, we can't help but assume that Nolan played his fair share of three-dimensional chess in his younger days. The heist is absolutely brilliant, it occupies two thirds of the film, and the idea alone is well worth the $10 ticket price for this movie. Words simply can't do justice to the complexity that unfolds before your eyes. The movie is a testament to what cinema can convey.

The big problem is the visual execution. The gritty urban realism that director Chris Nolan perfected in his Batman movies doesn't serve him as well in a surreal movie about dreams. More than anything else, this is a movie about big crazy ideas, and either you're willing to forego normal cinematic conventions in order to get your brain tickled for two and a half hours or you're not. Rickey was cool with it, but some of you might not be. Don't get Rickey wrong, this is a terrific movie--easily the best of the summer, but it could've been even better if it took a bit more of an artistic leap.

At one point, Rickey said to himself, "hey, this is a dream, so why don't they just grow wings and fly around?" Sure, it sounds silly at first, but think about it. We're in the dream world here, so why not venture into the realm of the fantastic? When we dream, can't most of us do a little better than dreary Chicago in the rain? Isn't there more most of us could dream up than characters chasing each other around a dimly lit hotel? To it's credit, the movie pays scattered homage to other great dreamers such as Escher and Kubrick in many shots but when it comes to the third level of the mark's subconscious, a wintry snow scene, Nolan completely dodges the obvious shout out: Hitchcock and Salvador Dali's collaboration on the ski run scene in "Spellbound." Instead, we are bombarded with a James Bond style shoot out featuring fireballs and snowmobiles. Not quite as profound...

The obvious explanation for this restrained (and arguably unimaginative) take on dreams is that asking the audience to delve even deeper into the realm of the imaginary when they're already tracking three concurrent dreamlines is pretty demanding. Warner Brothers didn't spend $200 million to completely alienate their viewership and create more of an art house flick than a summer tent pole movie. We get that. Still, Rickey was ready to make the leap with them on this one and was left wanting when the visuals didn't match the trippy ideas the film traffics in.

But these are minor issues given the overall wonderment and awe this movie provides. And then there's the film's ending, which will probably go down in history as one of the most polarizing to date. "Inception" is very much a movie that asks you to make a decision about what you've just seen. Rickey's leaving this review purposfully light on spoilers, but for people who saw it, we'd love to discuss what you thought of the film's final shot in the comments section.

2010-07-16T06:40:00.002-04:00

Probably the most comedically rewarding thing Rickey's ever done was create a faux email address and toss it up on this blog for random passers by to send him messages. And woo boy, do those messages deliver. They're an electronic smorgasbord of human confusion, angst, and gleeful perversity. Frankly, we're amazed to think that so many people think the actual Rickey Henderson not only had the wherewithal to kick start a blog, but then proceeded to use the word "loquacious" in five separate occasions in 2009.

As you'd suspect, Rickey gets a lot of requests to sign autographs, tell tall tales, and make speaking appearances at local Elks lodges. But far more entertaining are the profoundly unsettling emails. You know, the good and pervy kind. Why thank you kind sir, but Rickey being, a bit of a prude, is entirely unfamiliar with your notion of performing a "rusty trombone" on a "grizzly" and must therefore decline your kind invitation to rendezvous in the parking lot of the local Red Lobster this weekend. A good morrow to you, sir!

And finally, there are the emails threatening severe legal action. We like those the best. They make this whole blogging thing seem dangerous, kind of like zipping up one's fly too quickly! Rickey's living on the edge!

See, a while back, Rickey was scanning Fark.com and noticed a delightful post about a Red Sox scout being accused of indecent exposure. So Rickey crafted a delightful bit of satire about it involving Chris Hansen and some high stakes baseball trivia. Before posting it, Rickey sent it to his brother for his input, whose two word rapid response was "too far." So we knew we totally had to post it. And we did.

Flash forward two years. Rickey gets this mass email sent to him as well as a few other noted media outlets now informing everyone that the alleged sex offender has been cleared of all charges and that they damned well better take down the posts saying otherwise. It's not every day that your email address shows up next to the names of the editors from Pravda and the Boston Herald. So we're making the most of the experience.

Since the humorless prick who sent the email (presumably Jesse Levis, the alleged offender himself) seems hellbent on shutting down anyone who ever used his name and the phrase "sixteen year old girls" together in a single sentence, we're sad to report that this is your last chance to enjoy the blog post before we delete it forever. This Monday morning, Rickey will cast this delightful abomination into the ether. Wiped clean from the face of the earth as if it never existed. Casting aside a piece of writing like this.... It's as if Rickey's losing a piece of himself... Daisy, daisy... give me your answer do....

Ahem, anyway, this weekend, we give this post the proud viking funeral it deserves. Farewell brave little blog post. If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun in your face, do not be troubled! For you are in Elysium, and you are already dead! Enjoy, folks. Because hyperlinks befuddle some of you, here's the full-fledged link:

http://ridingwithricky.blogspot.com/2008/03/because-pedarests-are-hilarious.html

2010-07-14T15:25:00.021-04:00

This is where Rickey posts recommendations of noteworthy consumables, practices, and pastimes that have been deemed invaluable for the reader’s betterment. All products and pieces of advice listed herein have been Rickey tested and approved. Again, this is in no way shape or form a complete rip off of McSweeney’s (fa-la-la-la-la, lawyers, Rickey can’t hear you). Enjoy our latest installment of....

RICKEY RECOMMENDS

Bombadil. Come now, a quirky indie band named after a minor Tolkien character? How could we not recommend this? For those pressed for time, two of their better songs are “Matthew” and “Honeymoon,” and pretty much anything off their third album “A Buzz, A Buzz” is pure gold.

Getting your adult ADD under control. We don’t know about you, but modern technology is wreaking havoc on Rickey’s ability to function as a normal member of society. The smart phone, multiple email accounts, rss feeds, DVR schedule, Netflix queue, and online video gaming have taken a bit of a toll on Rickey's mental state over the years. But most alarming is what technology has done to Rickey’s porn viewing habits. Multiple tabbed browsing is the main culprit here. One window is never enough. No, Rickey needs sixteen Google Chrome windows simultaneously streaming the complete Sasha Grey oeuvre on his iMac like it’s like the goddamn control screen at CENTCOM. Yeah, that can’t be good… WHY HAS TECHNOLOGY RENDERED RICKEY SO UNABLE TO FOCUS IN THIS CRITICAL MATTER?!

“The Passage” by Justin Cronin. Hey, here’s a nifty change: an extremely well written piece of pop fiction about vampires! This first installment in an epic trilogy kicks off with mankind unwittingly unleashing a virus upon the population which turns anyone infected into crazy snarling vampires (although the book goes to great pains not to use the V-word, that’s pretty much what they are). Then, like in all great literature, the vampire apocalypse occurs. That’s the first 100 pages. Think of this book as an amalgam of Cormack McCarthy’s “The Road” and King’s “The Stand” and you’re on the right track. Extremely well written and entertaining, the book is a delight to read. We’re told that movie rights have already been snatched up by Ridley Scott. As you know, vampire stuff is insufferably popular right now, so if you’re dying to be trendy like all the other cool kids, but don’t want to rot your brain by reading Stephenie Meyer, this is definitely the way to go.

Kale Chips. Ever obsessed with maintaining regular bowel movements, Rickey is a big proponent of the dark leafy greens. Enter stage right: KALE. Despite being one of the most nutritious vegetables on the planet, kale also has the dubious distinction of tasting like broiled donkey grundle. Bummer, right? Here’s how to turn the tables back in your favor:

-Wash & dry kale leaves and lay them on a baking sheet
-Lightly brush leaves with oil of your choosing (vegetable or olive)
-Sprinkle sparingly with salt
-Bake kale for 10 minutes on each side at 350 degrees

Fairly easy no? The results are most excellent. Crispy and tasty like a potato chip yet healthy like a high colonic! And with this dish comes the assurance that your next bowel movement will be a wholly enjoyable one. One wipe and Rickey’s finished! Hey, look gang, here’s a picture:“Louie” on FX. Where in the blue blazes did this guy come from? From Rickey's id, that's where. Much like “Seinfeld,” his new show is a mix of standup and scripted comedy, yet delightfully profane. We assure you, this is a sure lock for your best new comedy of the season.

Arming yourself against the gathering Woodchuck menace. Rickey finally spotted him the other day. The little furry bastard that is devouring his garden. Last week he actually took one bite from three of Rickey’s eggplants. Taking a bite out of one wasn’t enough, no, that fuck needed to go from one eggplant to the next, chomping down then walking away, as if to say “nah, this large ripe black vegetable definitely isn’t for me, but I’m going to make goddamn certain that YOU don’t get to enjoy it!” And that’s why Rickey has become militant. There’s a BB gun in his parents’ house that will make short work of this foul beast. A soda can duct taped to the end of the barrel should do a decent job of suppressing the muzzle report and not alarming the neighbors. This is happening. We’ll toss up an image of Rickey standing over the vanquished beast in the coming days.

Not getting too nutty crunchy. While Rickey may proclaim to be eco-friendly with his organic garden and compost pile, there’s a point where everyone must draw the line. For Rickey, that point was when he was offered a book about picking and preserving produce, entitled “Putting Things Away.” They might as well have called it “Canning Your Dignity for the Winter!” Sure, we suppose that Rickey could spend hours sterilizing jars, concocting the proper solution, and pickling his cucumbers only to offer them to his guests a few weeks later and hear them say “hey, this tastes just like a Vlassic…” and revel in the awkward knowledge that Rickey just spent 140 man-hours replicating something readily available for $3.68. We’re sorry, but that’s time better spent on loftier pursuits. Like romancing oneself to a NORAD screen of Jenna Haze!

2010-07-14T06:12:00.003-04:00

George Steinbrenner:

1930 – It’s About Goddamned Time

You can tell a lot about the life a man lived by those who come forward to eulogize him. In the past 12 hours, Rickey has born witness to Bobby Knight, Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Jerry Jones, and other self-proclaimed pillars of STRENGTH and CAPITALISM sing the praise of the late Yankees owner. If possible, Nixon himself would've scurried out from under the woodshack to laud this man for those thoughtful campaign donations. Politics aside, the fact of the matter is that the imprint George Steinbrenner left on baseball has forever changed the game for the worse.

Steinbrenner’s defenders argue that his relentless acquisition of superstar players didn’t violate MLB’s free agency regulations and we should therefore just clamor down, because, hey, he’s allowed to do it. Well guess what? It also doesn’t say that you can’t grab 57 pieces of spicy yellowtail when you’re at the sushi buffet, but that still doesn’t make it an OK thing to do. Where’s the regard for the greater good? Now look what happens: Rickey’s stuck eating those disgusting salmon & cream cheese pieces of sushi because that’s all that’s left. Seriously: who puts cream cheese in sushi? What the fuck? (In this analogy, the salmon cream cheese sushi represents Oliver Perez).

Leveraging free agency for all it’s worth has cheapened baseball and undermined the balance of the game. Those who would proudly defend an unrepentant asshole like Steinbrenner’s right to act like an unrepentant asshole are also themselves… wait for it… Yep! Unrepentant assholes! They’re the same sort of people who cry foul when Con Ed remotely regulates air conditioners in times of peak energy demand because dwindling wattage be damned, Benny in the Bronx needs his basement masturbatorium humming at 57 degrees year round! They’re the people who demand the right to carry guns into places of worship for no ostensible reason other than they kind of liked that shoot out scene in the church in that John Woo movie with doves flying everywhere.

In short, we’re a greedy and belligerent country and for Rickey, George Steinbrenner is the embodiment of a lot of that ugliness. He won’t be missed.

And Now for Your Weekly Half-Assed Political Analysis...

2010-05-12T06:11:00.001-04:00

Apparently over the weekend, President Obama nominated someone for supreme Court Justice who looks an awful lot like Nathan Lane. (Because we don’t know a whole lot about Elena Kagan’s beliefs or agenda yet, we’re resorting to playing the “_____ looks like _____!” game). Kagan’s Nathan Lane similarity excites Rickey if for no other reason than the increased possibility of next week’s Senate hearings inexplicably erupting into Broadway show tunes.

“And Senators, if I may address the issue of gay rights by saying...”

I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright!
And I pity...
Any girl who isn't me tonight!

Fa la la laaaa la la la laaa!

Good times. But there’s still someone else whom Elana Kagan bears an even uncannier resemblance to. It took us a while to figure out, but then with the help of a delightfully irreverent law blog, Rickey finally placed it…. The nameless albino from “The Princess Bride!”

NO ONE WITHSTANDS THE MACHINE!

This Week, in Zombie News

2010-05-11T06:24:00.007-04:00

Rickey gets a little queasy when publishing companies start taking their cues from internet memes. What’s the latest hot trend in the fringe literary world? Zombies! More specifically, the zombification of cherished properties. While we do not debate the contributions that a novel such as “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” makes to society and we’re certainly a little curious about “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” we can’t help but wonder what the point in all this is. And that takes us to the latest installment in the zombie book craze: ZOMBIE BEATLES (the actual title is “Paul is Undead”).

Rickey’s going to venture a wild guess that the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison might have a thing or two to say about a novel featuring their rotting corpses ambling about. Paul probably heard the news and went back to strumming a mandolin and whistling. Ringo’s just happy anybody remembered to include him in the book. Not that Rickey is a big Beatle maniac or anything (their proto boy band was essentially a zombie operation of sorts) but still, this venture seems to be in fantastically bad taste.

So Rickey, no stranger to bad fantastically taste himself, will hop in the fray with a few zombie novel pitches of his own:

ZOMBIE SALIERI! 185 years since his passing, the oft overlooked musician’s reanimated corpse rises from the grave seeking much needed critical validation! Hungry for redemption, Zombie Salieri attempts to mimic the musical stylings of Ke$ha only to be met with lukewarm reception. Following a Z100 interview gone horrifically awry, Zombie Salieri is soon forgotten and suffers the indignity of playing second fiddle to the likes of La Roux and Timbaland! When will Zombie Salieri get the critical acclaim he so sorely desires???

ZOMBIE WINNIE THE POOH! When a global honey shortage strikes, the determined bear puts down the sweet stuff, roars “OH BOTHER!” and turns to brains for nourishment! You’ll look at this cherished children’s property in a whole new light when you read of Winnie playing “Poohsticks” with Piglet’s dismembered arms!

ZOMBIE BILL O’REILLY! Forsaking the terror of socialized healthcare, the famed television pundit neglects to schedule a prostate cancer screening and perishes shortly thereafter! Several months later, following a clandestine graveside summoning conducted by Anne Coulter, Michelle Bachmann, and Laura Ingraham, a vengeful ZOMBIE O’REILLY bursts free from the ground and slowly shuffles after the pinheads who have wronged him over the course of his corpulent former life! Lookout libs, ZOMBIE O’REILLY stalks the earth!

ZOMBIE ERNEST HEMINGWAY! It’s a farewell to arms indeed as the wrathful writer escapes his earthy confines and takes up residence in Key West, Florida to conclude his unfinished book! The bell tolls for any who dare approach the undead Hemingway and his army of zombie cats!

ZOMBIE WEREWOLVES! Thought you’d dealt with that werewolf problem in your basement? Think again, they’re back—as zombies! They’re the ultimate double threat! (Well, actually not really, since they’re zombies now and move pretty slowly and can’t catch you. But they do smell pretty bad so you’re probably going to want to go ahead and call Animal Control to take them away).

ZOMBIE MILLARD FILLMORE! Territorial neutrality, be damned! There can be no "great compromise" when the rotting corpse of President Millard Fillmore is on the prowl for brains! When there’s no more room in Hell, the Whigs shall walk the earth!

Cheers & Jeers: The Weekender Edition

2010-05-07T04:36:00.009-04:00

In this thrilling new column, Rickey shall award “cheers” to those exemplary parties deserving laudable mention, and “jeers” to those despicable individuals who have garnered his unfettered scorn. It’s a helluva lot like the weekly Daily Kos 'Cheers & Jeers' column, but minus the shallow and pedantic political diatribes. Enjoy our inaugural edition.

Update: oh hey, look! Rickey's sneering caused the loquacious libs at Daily Kos to actually feature this post! Awww, shucks Billy, Rickey thanks you from THE MODERATELY DECENT STATE OF NEW YORK!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled post:

Cheers to… John Favreau for filming "Iron Man 2," the most enjoyable superhero flick Rickey has seen to date. And don’t worry, as much as he wants to, Rickey promises he won't reach for a tenuous political allegory in this installment in the Iron Man franchise like he did last time. Free of all the burdens of the formulaic origin story that the first Iron Man movie was mired down in, this flick is a rollicking good time. As you may have heard, the plot isn’t all that great, but the brilliant dialogue and acting make up for it and the action scenes are mercifully sparse yet actually discernible. The film kicks off with our cocky prick of a superhero Tony Stark plummeting out of a whizzing plane in full red and gold metallic regalia, doing a bit of snazzy midair maneuvering, and landing prominently in the rejuvenated 1965 Queens World’s Fair grounds with a thunderous metal CLANG to a massive applauding crowd. Amazingly enough, the movie goes exponentially uphill from there. (Although Rickey would’ve loved to see Iron Man overshoot his landing zone and accidentally land in Citi Field to lukewarm applause and grumbles of “well, he can’t possibly be any worse than Oliver Perez” from sullen Mets fans). The people at the helm of this flick really nailed the tone of the Iron Man property. One day they're going to run out of raucous AC\DC songs to loop over the film's soundtrack. Happily, that day is far, far away. Rickey strongly urges you to go forth and enjoy Iron Man 2 this weekend in a heavily packed theater. Take the missus. It'll be serious fun.

Jeers to… 2K Sports for finding new and unique ways to rub it in to Mets fans. 2K Sports, publisher of a popular baseball video game franchise, offered a $1,000,000 prize to the gamer who could throw a perfect game in their new title MLB 2K10. And sure enough, somebody pulled it off and claimed the prize. The pitcher they used to win was Kenshin Kawakami. The team he pitched against? Ladies and gentlemen… your 2010 New York Mets!!!

Cheers to... Homeless people. Given the stock market's performance this week, Rickey is starting to suspect that you fellows are really ahead of the curve here. Rickey himself looks forward to his days as a homeless person and really making a good run of it. Why not have some fun with the experience? If Rickey was homeless, he'd breathe some life into this honored pastime by going into jewelery stores, picking out the most expensive necklaces, then reaching for his wallet only to loudly exclaim: "oh wait, I forgot, I'm fucking homless! Goddammit!" Rickey would also panhandle to pay for admission to museums so he could hop over the velvet rope and eat a famous painting such as a Monet. Rickey would totally scarf down that Water Lillies painting. He'd be the most expensive homeless person in the world!

Jeers to... Lawrence Taylor. Seriously, what the hell, dude? But hey, on the bright side, at least Rickey doesn't need to search as hard to get your signature on a football. He can just look up your name and address on a sex offender registry!

Cheers to… The good folks at BP Energy for making Rickey rich beyond measure. Now we all know that what’s happening in the Gulf Coast right now is a complete catastrophe, but that doesn’t mean somebody shouldn’t profit from it, right? That somebody is Rickey. You see, Rickey estimates that by the end of next week, the price of gulf coast shrimp will rival that of Bolivian nose candy. Rickey’s brilliant plan is to purchase up 10 metric tons of frozen shrimp from Costco tonight at discount prices and store it in a massive freezer in his basement and wait patiently. When the time is right and the public hungers for affordable shrimp, Rickey will spring into action and sell discount shrimp out of the back of his Saab 9-3 off the New Jersey Turnpike. Rickey’s gonna be rich, he tells you, rich!

Jeers to... The entire state of Massachusetts for continuing their proud tradition of wondrous incompetency. Rickey and Mrs. Henderson were in the greater Boston area last weekend when news flashes emerged that a major water main had ruptured nearby, leaving 2 million residents with no potable drinking water. (Why is it that wherever the Hendersons go, catastrophe follows them?) You know your weekend getaway has gone terribly awry when you witness Massholes in camouflage shorts and Red Sox hats lining up outside the local Kmart at 7AM to purchase cases of Poland Spring bottled water like the zombie apocalypse is upon them. The reason the Hendersons were up in the Boston was for a baptism for a friend’s newborn child. Were Rickey and Mrs. Henderson cracking jokes during the ceremony about the quality of the water the priest was dunking the kid in? Oh, you betcha.

Cheers to… Mothers everywhere. You gals are doing a heckuva job. Just stellar work all around. On this Mother’s Day weekend, Rickey just wanted you to know that.

Yeah, So Let's Try This YouTube Thing Again...

2010-04-30T17:44:00.008-04:00

To kick off the big Mets/Phillies series this weekend, Rickey has crafted something special for you: our very own Kraken-Mets video meme. And don't worry, we're pretty certain that it's the first of its kind. If Rickey needs to explain the humor behind THIS one to you, then we're sorry, but you're officially on your own. Enjoy:

In Which Rickey Attempts to go Viral and Exposes Himself to Multiple Lawsuits

2010-04-29T21:39:00.010-04:00

We give this post a shelf life of roughly 45 minutes before SNY, MLB, Paramount Pictures, the Raymond Scott Quintet, and anyone with a decent sense of humor shut it down for good. But until then, enjoy the frivolity! Below is a YouTube video that Rickey spent countless hours crafting. Because what do you do when everyone who reads your blog tells you that you should write a book? You stop writing your blog altogether and commence work on shitty YouTube videos! Brilliant!

Here's the premise behind the video (which becomes less humorous with each passing sentence Rickey devotes to explaining it): every Mets game, there is a "Play of the Game" which SNY announces. A while back, Rickey's buddy Adam, no stranger to viral videos, said something along the lines of "hey, what if we worked causality into this? What if we made a spoof of the "Play of the Game" called the "Causal Play of the Game?" Rickey loved the idea. You splice together a video beginning with a dinosaur stomping on a prehistoric fern leaf. Cut to the cliche video montage flash forwarding a few million years. Bam, there's Carlos Beltran getting caught looking to end the Mets 2007 season! Bingo, your Causal Moment of the Game!

Sounds nice, right? Yeah, well, below is that conversation taken to it's tragic and bewildering conclusion. We're sorry. So very sorry. Rest assured that the assets are now in place and the next installment will be better.

"I like Ike," get it? Ike Davis? Hello? Anyone? ...Bueller? Ahhhh, you're all humorless philistines. Pardon Rickey while he goes back to enjoying his first place Mets.

Adventures in Homeownership: In Which a Harmless Piece of Wall Art Goes Horrifically Awry

2010-04-11T17:41:00.012-04:00

Rickey enjoys decorating his new home. So much so that Rickey went so far as to find a local area map of his neighborhood, order a print of it online, and commission it framed to be framed and mounted on on a wall. A stylish frame was selected, the proper matte color was picked, and Rickey was content in the knowledge that this would make a great addition to the house. Rickey is nothing if not stylistically inclined. Behold:

And under normal circumstances, the story would have ended right here. But not today. Take a good look at the above picture.

But look carefully at the image. No, closer. Closer.

See it? Woo boy. No, your eyes do not deceive you. It looks exactly what you think it looks like. Man-cock. After all that effort picking out the map, framing it, and mounting it, Rickey suddenly realized that he had hung a gigantic 48" x 34" print of a male dong on his living room wall.

How did this chain of events come to pass? We're not entirely sure. But over $800 dollars later, that's what Rickey is stuck with: a textbook anatomy picture of the male reproductive organ front and center in Rickey's new house. Oh, joy. This will make for interesting conversation at the housewarming party.

You know what Rickey blames this on the breakdown of? SOCIETY.

First off, there was the cartographer circa 1819, sitting pretty in his aerial balloon, who went totally off the reservation and decided to sketch a map in the exact likeness of his own privates. Then, there was Rickey's realtor, who completely neglected to inform the Hendersons that they were purchasing a house in an area that geographically personifies a dude's penis. And finally, there was the guy at the framing store, who in good conscience, should have said something along the lines of "whoa there buddy, you're about to drop a shitload of money framing a massive print of a man's genitals." But he didn't.

And so every one of these safety nets failed Rickey, and now here he is, stuck with an enormous picture of a dude's dong on his wall. Well, fuck. At least Rickey didn't splurge on the UV resistant museum glass option for $400 more. Still, Rickey is stuck with a piece of wall art that looks like it came fresh from the Phallic Picture Emporium.

Where exactly is Rickey's house located on the map? Best as Rickey can figure, it's swimming around somewhere in the descending testicle. For comedic purposes alone, Rickey still hung the damn thing up on the wall.

Rickey is yours to mock in the comments section below.

Your Tuesday Turkey-Tinted Triviality (and other feats of tenuous alliteration)

2010-03-30T17:20:00.001-04:00

Well, we think we can file this story under the expansive header of "Things of Which Rickey had Heretofore Been Unaware." Since 2003, apparently there has been a wild turkey named Zelda inhabiting Manhattan's Battery Park. Rickey, on a lunch break from a meeting in the gloomy alien canyons of the financial district (seems like it rains every damned time Rickey's there) snapped a photo of the beastie in question. Behold:Park officials, being either big fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald's work or classic video games, decided to name the turkey Zelda. And we must admit, she seems pretty city-savvy, staying within the park confines and not recklessly venturing out into the busy street. Rickey would even go so far as to classify her as a jive turkey.

Your Official 2010 Mets Preview Thread of Rock Bottom Expectations, Rogue Thyroid Glands, and RAGE RAGE RAGE

2010-03-26T06:36:00.004-04:00

Because Rickey is wholly unable to discuss the New York Mets in commonplace prose format, we’re throwing this one up Q&A style, (now complete with superfluous cultural references!)

So Rickey, I read that Vegas has the odds of the Yankees winning the 2010 World Series at a formidable 14/5 after the line opened at 3/1. Has anyone calculated the odds for the Mets?

Uh, yeah, we’ll get Hank from accounting right on that little query… Dude’s not nearly miserable enough. Rickey heard that somebody actually tried to figure out the odds, but promptly committed seppuku when they learned that Luis “Meat Train” Castillo has another 734 games to go until he’s halfway through his contract as a New York Met.

Well what do you calculate the Mets odds of winning the World Series to be?

Haha, you’re cute. Rickey admires your doe-eyed tenacity. The odds are about as good as Mrs. Henderson successfully teaching Rickey how to correctly load the dishwasher. What? Why can’t Rickey place the dishes face down on the lower rack? The knives don’t get put in the utensil basket pointy end up? Wood objects don’t go in here? A thousand curses upon you and this infernal machine, you treacherous harpy!

But you’re still going to attend a few games at CitiField, right?

Let Rickey tell you a story. Last week, Rickey went into the office men’s room to relieve himself, opened an unlocked stall door, only to find a rather portly man (thankfully not a coworker) sitting on the john with no shirt on. Rickey bolted from the scene and has since avoided that bathroom like the plague. Why wouldn’t the door have been locked? Why did that rotund man feel the need to take his shirt off? What the hell? All Rickey knows is that there’s some seriously bad mojo going on in that bathroom and he hasn’t gone back in there since. The point of this story: Rickey feels pretty much the same way about venturing into CitiField this season. It’s like walking into what you thought was an unoccupied bathroom stall only to find a shirtless fat man sitting on the toilet.

Aren’t you at least excited about the Jason Bay acquisition?

Absolutely! And Rickey will be even more excited when he stubs his toe on opening day, blames his .198 batting average on that and sits out the second half of the 2010 season collecting millions of dollars!

But we can still expect you to blog about the Mets from time to time, right?

Uh, don’t count on it. Three years since the 2007 debacle, Rickey’s keen satirical eye has waned to tired exasperation. The challenge of mocking this team is gone. Want some amusement? You’re better off writing your own “Choose You Own Mets Adventure” book at this point. Turn to page 118 if Ike Davis gets traded for an injury plagued Orlando Hudson during the 2011 offseason! Turn to page 78 if Jose Reyes’ thyroid goes nuclear!

What is Reyes’ deal anyway? Is he better now?

Reports suggest that yes, his thyroid levels have normalized and he will be available for opening day. So that was an interesting little diversion. You know what’s fun? When a news story about the delightfully insane decision to place a shortstop with a .435 career slugging percentage third in the batting order actually gets dwarfed by an even more maddening news story about their thyroid acting up. But yes, Reyes is back, which is good, because as far as Rickey knows, the Mets’ two backup shortstops are Rey Ordonez and Corrado Soprano.

What of Carlos Beltran? How’s he doing?

More and more, his tenure as a New York Met resembles that of Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter’s jail stint. The poor guy is so terrified of the Mets’ medical staff that he had his own doctor perform knee surgery on his ailing leg. Not that Rickey doesn’t have the utmost of faith in the Civil War battlefield surgery level expertise of the Mets’ doctors… Ahem.

So it’s safe to say that the Mets’ fanbase is a little disgruntled?

Well yes, but that’s generally always the case. This year it’s just a little bit more pronounced. Also, it doesn’t help that 99.8% of Mets fans are completely out of their goddamned minds. It’s not unusual for call ins like this to transpire on Mike Francessa’s show on WFAN:

“Hey Mike, tanks fuh takin' my cawl. What do you think of trading Beltran to da Cawdnuls for Wainwright and Pujols? I think it's a slam dunk fuh da Mets, why doesn't Omah make dat trade? I'm gonna hang up and listen to youah response.”

Rickey’s always wondered, why do the WFAN callers always hang up so quickly? Those lunatics spend hours waiting on hold and then they hang up after spitting out 50 words of jibber jabber? Really?

So what’s your final prediction for the 2010 season?

If they make it over 76 wins, Rickey will be shocked. If they don't we've got the return of Bobby Valentine to look forward to. Now for that, Rickey will get excited.

What do you mean, "They cut the power"? How could they cut the power, man? They're animals!

2010-03-22T06:30:00.003-04:00

It was a gorgeous weekend in Rickey’s neck of the woods and he rose to the occasion by making good on his pledge to get working on his garden. Is there anything better than spending a sunny afternoon ferrying to-and-fro from Home Depot and nailing together pieces of wood in the back yard? Rickey suspects not. There’s no way you can help but to feel like an alpha male when doing this sort of thing. Behold, an engineering marvel second only to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon: What you’re looking are several 3’x6’raised beds filled with a mixture of garden soil and manure. (After spending a day watching Rickey handling cow dung, Mrs. Henderson has taken to refer to him as her “shitty husband.”) Rickey fully expects that this rich black dirt, darker than the volcanic ashes of Mt. Vesuvius, will yield a bountiful harvest this year. …Well, that’s assuming the local fauna decide to leave anything for Rickey.

See, the very first night after Rickey sowed a bed with cucumber and spinach seeds, ravenous animals descended under cover of darkness to root up Rickey’s labors.

AND SO IT BEGINS.

Sure, these critters were here well before Rickey moved in, but they don’t pay the taxes, and must therefore be subjugated to the will of man. Was the culprit the rabbit that Mrs. Henderson saw bounding under the shed out back, his hunger undeterred by her foolish Neville Chamberlainesque peace offering of baby carrots? We’re thinking yes, but other potential suspects include chipmunks, possums, and raccoons.

Rickey was considering arming himself against this menace, but purchasing a gun probably isn’t the best move here. Rickey has already bought a lot of fertilizer and is exploring the possibility of picking up high powered growlights as well. Add a firearm to that list, and well, we’ve got to believe that there’s some sort of FBI watch list that Rickey would be popping up in. So Rickey did the next best thing he could do—he installed chicken wire over the bed. Look at what Rickey hath wrought with his hands!
Now these babies are on LOCKDOWN. As impenetrable as a Russian gulag. There’s even a power outlet right next to the beds should Rickey feel the inclination to electrify them!

After this grueling work, Rickey celebrated with a BBQ. We think we’ll just let these pictures speak for themselves.

And Now, an Impassioned Oratory from Noted Psychotic Glenn Beck

2010-03-11T18:03:00.008-05:00

Good evening, dear sweet America. Last night I carefully explained to you how providing health care coverage to people who are uninsured is the same as pouring gasoline on them, lighting them with a match, and then pushing them down a flight of stairs. Tonight, we discuss something even more important. Something bowel-shakingly alarming. This morning, I was enjoying my customary breakfast of lard, rum, and scrambled eggs when I happened to stumble upon something very upsetting. Look at this box of eggs. Look closely.That's right people: PROGRESSIVE pastured eggs! Deviously hiding from the hormones and antibiotics that would otherwise compel them to grow up to be proud American fowl! When I saw this, I did the only responsible thing: I induced vomiting, then wrapped myself in a blanket and cried. I cried for America. Now, you might say, “Hey, Glenn, what’s the big deal here? They’re just eggs!” But let me tell you friends, this is a very serious threat to our way of life.

We all know that the progressive movement is a cancer in America and that it is eating our Constitution before our eyes. Make no mistake, socialist revolutionaries lurk amongst us and with this stunning development, it is clear to me that they are now knocking at our very barnyard doors.

Who knows what tiny feathered menaces are incubating in these progressive eggs? Who can possibly hope to contain Komrade Kluck when he breaks free of his eggshell confines and recruits others to his insidious Marxist cause? Friends, we need a national chicken registry, and we need it now. We need to know the whereabouts and agendas of these clucking menaces before it is too late. Socialist fowl present a clear and present danger to our fragile republic. These subversive chicks threaten to make cuckolds of us all. Who will take a stand against rampant tyranny such as this? In these dangerous times, when will someone finally give a voice to the aggrieved white male?

Who exactly is behind this insidious plot? Why, none other than our old friend Margaret Hamburg, head of the shadowy and mysterious arm of government known as the FDA. For months, Mrs. Hamburg has refused to denounce the gender confusion caused by that rancorous beast, the Cadbury Bunny. And as if living in a world where deviant rabbits could lay eggs wasn’t bad enough, now she’s taking things to the next level: the widespread indoctrination of millions of our nation’s chicks! With this development, the Obama administration moves one step closer to realizing its horrific progressive agenda—a Prius in every garage and a Marxist chicken in every pot.

Sweet tropical Jesus, the mere thought of this scares me. And when I'm scared, I cry. I cry a lot.This crisis ruffles my feathers. It ruffles them to my very core. Has no one learned the lessons from the classic conservative literary masterpiece that is Chicken Little? It was written by Horatio Alger and tells the story of one brave young chicken’s struggle to alert his barnyard friends and family of the looming socialist menace. Sadly, nobody listens to him and then, of course, the Rapture happens.

This book won many awards and was even presented to Margaret Thatcher by President Reagan as a gift for emerging victorious over the puffin menace in the Falkland Islands War. I highly recommend it. But let me tell you, if these progressive eggs become commonplace, we may never see the likes of courageous Chicken Little ever again, and that scares me. And it should scare you, my sweet precious America. Little by little, our freedoms, the principles of capitalism, the idea that we control our own lives and make our own decisions are all being stripped from us. Tonight, I ask you to join me in this fight and rise up against our leftist chicken overlords.

Good night and good luck to us all.

And now, a word from our proud upstanding sponsors, Eztense Penis-Enhancing Pills, the Baconwave Bacon Cooker, and Cash4Gold.com!

On Gardening and Its Discontents

2010-03-10T06:42:00.008-05:00

[In the spirit of full disclosure, we think it’s only fair that you be aware that you are now reading a blog penned by a man who becomes abnormally excited when discussing the topic of crown molding.]

Far pithier people than Rickey have said that the two most important items in any house are a library and a garden. And while Rickey’s “library” consists of a single svelte bookcase populated by the likes of Tom Wolfe (no big surprise there) and Kazuo Ishiguro (OK, maybe a slight surprise there), we’re fairly confident that this will quickly expand over time. But what of the garden? When the world wearies and ceases to satisfy, will Rickey turn to his plowshare and till the earth? Well, that’s kind of what we’re thinking.

See, Rickey possesses a nice level back yard that receives excellent light and would he be greatly remiss in not exploiting it for agrarian purposes. The fundamentals of this garden have already been laid out in Rickey’s mind: an environmentally responsible compost bin in the backyard brimming with wriggling red worms, and several raised beds populated with heirloom tomatoes, sorrel, cucumbers, carrots, string beans, chard, and eggplants (for eggplants are truly the most playful of all the vegetables). There will be a rabbit pen in the back yard. Each night, Mrs. Henderson will wait patiently by the window for Rickey to come from work and she will cook rabbit for him upon his arrival. There will be bountiful harvests in the fall, bushels filled with produce, and tributes offered to the gods in the name of rain. A maypole may even be procured.

But before Rickey can break ground on this venture, one issue must first be addressed: the deer problem. In the area where Rickey grew up, deer were a systemic problem for Papa Henderson’s garden. A combination of the use of sonic devices and coyote urine as well of the introduction of a natural predator (an 80 pound clinically insane Samoyed) into the environment now seems to be successfully keeping them at bay. You think Rickey’s kidding about that natural predator part, but you weren’t present to witness the dog carrying a bloody dismembered deer leg home in his jaw. Did the deer die a natural death or did the dog actually take it down? We’re not sure, but either way, Rickey hasn’t been able to look his dog straight in the eyes since. That canine now has BLOODLUST in him.

The deer in Rickey’s area are much less willing to roll over and die. The Hendersons’ backyard fence was damaged by a deer that, according to a neighbor, actually ran headfirst into it. Driving home from work the other night, a deer sprang out of the woods and charged at Rickey’s driver side door before skidding to a halt—that's right, the animal almost t-boned Rickey. They’re not so much deer as they are crystal meth junkies with hooves and antlers.

How to best keep these marauding deer out of the garden? Scarecrows clearly aren’t going to work on these lunatic deer. A dog isn’t in the cards just yet, and Rickey certainly doesn’t want to venture down the slippery slope of attempting to procure coyote urine. (Where in the hell would one even look for something like that? Does anyone have a coyote urine guy?) In the meantime, Rickey has received multiple alternative suggestions. Irish Spring soap shavings placed at the base of the plants are rumored to keep deer at bay, but what of the inevitable leprechaun infestation that would be attracted by this Gaelic brand of soap? The last thing anyone wants is small mythological figures rooting about in their backyard for bottles of Bushmills Irish Whiskey.

Hair sweepings from the local barbershop are another alleged home remedy, but Rickey’s not entirely certain that the ladies at the salon where Rickey receives his $30 haircuts would take kindly to him walking out the door with a garbage bag full of human hair. Rickey used to have a blow-dart gun (because when you’re 14 and working at the local library, a blow-dart gun seems like an entirely reasonable item to spend one's first paycheck on) but sadly it is nowhere to be found. Damn that blow-dart gun was awesome and it absolutely would’ve chased off the deer.

What remedies for this do you folks with deer problems have? Any gardening tips in general?

It's Been a Slow Simmer...

2010-03-07T09:02:00.007-05:00

This is where Rickey posts recommendations of noteworthy consumables, practices, and pastimes that have been deemed invaluable for the reader’s betterment. All products and pieces of advice listed herein have been Rickey tested and approved. Again, this is in no way shape or form a complete rip off of McSweeney’s (fa-la-la-la-la, lawyers, Rickey can’t hear you). Enjoy our latest installment of....

RICKEY RECOMMENDS

Night-Lights. Being in a new house is challenging enough. But stumbling around this wholly unfamiliar place in the dark bumping into things because you don't want to wake your spouse up by turning on the lights? Now that's brutal. "Now let's see... were there six steps here or eight...? Aughh crap, I've misjudged, and down I go!" The Hendersons need night-lights, badly.

That all email clients disable the "mark unread" function on their services. There are two varieties of people that this button is designed for: serial procrastinators and husbands who like to peek at their wives' messages when they inadvertently leave their email up. What? What's the problem here? Rickey just likes to know what's going on in Mrs. Henderson's life. Screw you people for judging!

Lubriderm Intense Skin Repair Lotion. The cold winter months have taken a toll on Rickey's skin and he now has dragon scales for skin around his hips. It's either the cold weather explanation or Rickey's skin is stretching out as his hips plumpen to accommodate his nascent pear-shaped physique. Whatever. Ever gone out in public with a grown man who scratches himself constantly and glares angrily at passers by while doing so? Yeah, well Mrs. Henderson doesn't much want to either. If you or a loved one suffer from similar symptoms, we recommend some skin lotion. It doesn't have to have that weird "it puts the lotion in the basket!" connotation if you don't let it...

Williams Sonoma Chili Starter. Look, sometimes you don't want to craft an entire chili from scratch, and that's where this jar comes in to play. You brown your meat, mix in a jar of this Texas chili sauce, and let the concoction simmer for a few hours. The results are alarmingly good. Cheating? Well, yeah, but nobody's ever got to know, right?

Chatroulette.com. Remember when the internet was still wonderfully untamed and exciting before we made it a boring place by imposing order on it with our categorized bookmarks and regimented RSS readers? Chatroulette harkens back to those heady days. It's the sputnik of the internet world, and it's terrific. We're talking some serious wild west stuff here. To attempt to describe it would ruin all the fun. We give it about another week before it's shut down for good.

Wolfmother. Jesus, how is it that none of you people have recommended this band to Rickey earlier? Sure, we've talked about mothers here. And we've also talked about wolves. But we have not talked about WOLFMOTHER, easily one of the best bands currently on the market. Do you enjoy Queens of the Stone Age? How about the White Stripes? If so, woo boy, do we have a band for you. If their song "Vagabond" doesn't screw your head on right then we're sorry, but there's simply no helping you and Rickey pities you for the pitiful fool that you are.

Gargling with mouthwash AFTER you brush your teeth. We know, it's crazy talk, but bear with Rickey would you please? Mrs. Henderson has been doing this for years and she's had pretty good results thus far.

The "500 Days of Summer" Soundtrack. For those of the indie persuasion we think you'll agree that there's not a weak song in it. Just great stuff.

The cheese counter at Whole Foods. At Rickey's nearby Whole Foods, within a space of 20 feet, there exists a gourmet olive bar, an artisinal beer section, and a fancy cheese counter. Rickey has taken to refer to this section of the supermarket as "THE HOT CORNER." In the world we inhabit, there's simply no way you can pass this area by and not purchase at least 5 items. Best of all, the cheese counter is one of those places where you can sample the goods before you buy 'em. Rickey and Ms. Henderson tasted a tangy goat cheese and a nice Italian sheep's milk cheese. The guy behind the counter called over the grocery stocker for a bite and all four of them had a nice pensive little moment together, enjoying their cheese and crackers like grown ups. Then Rickey left, purchasing a whopping 1/10th of a pound of each.

Restoration Hardware. Pricey? Yes. But godamned if they don't craft some of the finest window treatments (for you neophytes, that's a fancy phrase for curtains and rods) on the market. When the big guy upstairs draws back the curtains to reveal rosy fingered dawn each and every morning, we imagine he's using Restoration Hardware window treatments. But he's probably paying wholesale prices we're thinking.

FIRE. The Hendersons got the basement chimney working! (By the way, every post here at RwR will revolve around home improvement from now on. Fair warning.) Does it matter that opening the flue and starting a fire is effectively sucking all the warm air up the chimney and out of the house? Absolutely not. Look, it's FIRE!

Adventures in Homeownership Part II: "So, uh, When's Recycling Day?"

2010-02-01T06:57:00.001-05:00

(Rickey’s Hebrew ancestry totally comes in handy when it comes to stacking massive pyramids of boxes).

As you can tell from the above picture, as of this Saturday, the Hendersons are officially moved in and are thoroughly enjoying their new home. Not that the process leading up to this point has been painless… There have been Armenian carpet bandits who refused to refund Rickey for work they never did. There have been movers who ripped up a perfectly good couch and refused to honor the insurance policy Rickey purchased. There has been the landlady who won’t let the Hendersons off the hook for their lease and who Rickey secretly suspects was somehow involved in the Holocaust (as in, a relative of hers fell out of a guard tower and she was fairly broken up about it).

…And finally, there was the boiler that broke down THE FIRST NIGHT the Hendersons spent in the house. Rickey kids you not. They say that during your first night in a new house, you’ll stay awake all evening thinking of the things that need to be fixed. Well, the Hendersons spent their first night awake for a somewhat different reason: huddling for warmth with the outside temperate reading 9 degrees outside and the thermostat in the house plummeting to 44 degrees. It was a character-building experience.

After an emergency visit from the oil company, the boiler is now operational and things have normalized. Here are a few pics of where things stand at the moment:
Rickey only tossed up photos of the main floor, primarily beacuse its the only area where some semblance of order exists...

Lo, How the Mighty Have Fallen: Luke Wilson's Latest AT&T Commercial

2010-01-20T17:00:00.012-05:00

Who offers the best 3G experience? Let’s compare. AT&T runs the nation’s fastest 3G network, lets you talk and surf the web at the same time, offers the most popular smart phones, and access to over 100,000 apps. So when you compare, there’s really no comparison. Whew, just pointing at stuff is exhausting these days… Man, I really need to drop some of this weight. Anyway, just look at some of these nifty postcards from people who actually get service on our network! Crazy, right?

[long pause]

Ahem. Everybody still here? OK good, because the iPhone exclusive deal with AT&T will expire some day and when that happens, there’s a good chance the Mac cultists in Cupertino are going to want to sell their Jesus-Phone to a carrier that doesn’t trigger a singularity when Roy in Toledo attempts to check the local sports scores in Des Moines.
I’m not talking out of school when I tell you that things aren’t exactly being managed well in this company. Every wonder what the ‘A’ in AT&T stands for? It’s Algernon. No lie. What the hell is that shit? Doesn't even make any sense!

Do you think I enjoy shilling for a lousy phone company and being more hated than the Progressive Auto Insurance chick? Well, I don't.

Let me take you though a day in the life of Luke Wilson. I wake up, I have a good cry, then I drive to the studio and film 47 AT&T commercials, each one more insipid than the last. They give me 30 minutes for lunch which I’ll usually spend enjoying a nice egg salad sandwich and trying not to think about the fact that the phrase “Fat Luke Wilson” generates 179,000 Google page hits. A couple dozen more AT&T commercials in the afternoon, then I go home, resume my squinty-eyed weeping and wait patiently by the phone for Wes Anderson to call and ask me to star in one of his movies.

....Ole’ Wes doesn’t call as much these days.

Nobody does. My brother Owen "I'm So Talented Because I Was Cast in Night in the Museum II" Wilson switched over to Gmail like three months ago and never told me. That's just wrong, man. Wrong. I'll tell ya, being the Fredo Corleone of the family is even worse when your brother is more like Joe Piscopo than Al Pacino.

How’d I get this gig with AT&T? When I read the casting call looking for someone who possessed an aura of "completely irrelevant authority," and "excelled at making unspecified vague comparisons" I knew this was a perfect fit for me. Also, I happened to be washing the ad exec’s car that day.

Look, it’s not easy being known as the plumper and much less talented Tom Cruise and I had to take what I could get. I’d tell you that this gig was a well paying one, but my lawyer fell asleep at the wheel and missed the contract clause stipulating that AT&T pay me in rum and frozen hamburger patties. Damn you, Rick Cardozo, Esq!

Would you believe that RON LIVINGSTON actually turned this gig down?! Fuck my life. You think that I enjoy being the pitchman for a company with a network that operates via a slow moving raccoon carrying a basket of ones and zeros around its neck? Shit, there he goes! Just scurrying around like he's king of the world!

Would you believe that furry little prick grossed more last year than I did? Oh you gotta be kidding me, he just stole the egg salad sandwich I packed for lunch!

Sigh… it’s OK, I didn’t need it anyway…. I'll just have a chef's salad or something, I guess. So in conclusion, I’d just like to say that I feel honored to be an AT&T spokesman. We have, like, uh, telephone poles and wires and shit.

How Rickey Spent His Weekend: Adventures in Homeownership, Part I

2010-01-19T06:49:00.004-05:00

The Hendersons spent the weekend schlepping boxes and other assorted miscellany into their new home. Rickey’s back hurts but his spirits are high. We’ll put up a series of pictures as soon as the interior is in a little better shape, but not yet, because it is not yet finished and in its current condition is unworthy of your critical eyes. We’re talking hideous 70’s carpeting and a paint scheme badly in need of an update.

A quick peek under the carpet reveals…

PAY DIRT. You’re looking at oak hardwood floors. Red oak, to be precise. Study and rich enough to have been felled from the forbidden forests of Mirkwood. Rickey apologizes to you ginger tops out there, but this discovery represents the only time a red tinged variety of anything has possessed any measure of social worth.

It never ceases to amaze Rickey that people carpet over perfectly good hardwood. Yes, there’s the age old excuse of “they had kids,” but so what? Do the floors need to be covered in bubble wrap in order to safely raise a child? Rickey thinks not. Rickey looks forward to the day when he can sit his son on his lap and sagely advise him, “Boy, life is hard… and so are our floors.”

So the Hendersons are calling in a professional to finish these stunning timbers with a triple coat of semi gloss polyurethane. Then they find a painter in to work their magic on the walls. Before any of that can occur however, there was a little item to attend to.

Yeah, what the fuck indeed. Who puts a half wall directly to the left of an entryway? Yes, if the Hendersons were operating a Chinese takeout business from their house, this would be perfect, but they’re not, so this ugly bastard simply had to go. And so, a hammer was hefted and the proper attire was donned. That’s right, it’s Bob Villa time, bitches.
Just a half a year ago Rickey was telling wedding guests that he’d be mailing them tiny little cards with the web address of a flickr account to upload their photos of the wedding to. All together now, everyone: fuck. that. shit. That was not the sort kind of thing that Rickey was put on this earth to do. This demolition thing? Far more enjoyable. Drywall is a helluva lot easier (and fun) to punch through than one might suspect. It appears to be hard and yet it's spongy and gives way easily, much like Carlos Beltran's right knee.

Keeping up the intensity.

Sometimes, Rickey would peer at the wood like this, as if it would somehow give deeper insight on it's motivation and how it would best come apart.

What, you mean to tell Rickey that Calvin Kliens aren't appropriate attire for a work site? Note Rickey's wombat-like grasp on this piece of wood.

LOUD NOISES!

And here are the shots where Rickey looks like an 80 year old man:

Push, wench, push!

Yeah, you know what honey? Maybe it's not a such a hot idea to hammer that live 200 volt electrical outlet...

And here's your obligatory awkward concluding shot:

Just look at how much more space we have for ACTIVITIES!

The Mandatory Real Estate Closing Post Which I am Unable to Come Up with A Witty Title For

2010-01-15T06:10:00.002-05:00

I have done a great many things in my life.

I have swum with dolphins. I have been yelled at by Andy Rooney to quit smoking. I have been jailed for driving on a suspended driver's license. I have dyed my hair blond. I've climbed to the top of a frat house roof and yelled "you can't run off ugly!" at a passing jogger. I have read "Ulysses." I have wed, and shortly thereafter, I have traded my wife for a horse. I have grown a beard. I have worked in libraries, restaurants, materials testing companies, housing agencies, and government entities. I have picked the names for my two nonexistent sons. I have attended Palm Sundays and Passovers. I have been a recluse, a socialite, and a gleeful introvert. I have never once gotten through an entire issue of the New Yorker. I have seen Paul Oakenfold spin at the Ministry of Sound. I have broken my sibling's arm. I have learned how to tie a windsor knot. I have vomited consecutively in three adjacent bathroom sinks. I have watched Carlos Beltran get called out on strikes. I have seen old cats put down and young pups brought up. I have voted Democrat in every election save one instance when I crossed party lines to vote for the judge who officiated my wedding. I have clogged toilets 347 times in my life*. I have stood within thirty feet of Keanu Reeves and Katie Holmes. I have joined a gym. I have never knocked on wood. I have watched the sun set in the Valley of Fire. I have been three feet away from a moving propeller while scuba diving. I have played three instruments. I have plagiarized. I have been linked to by the New York Times. I have learned to enjoy eating swiss chard. I have dived headfirst into the water from the upper deck of a pirate ship. I have reached the rank of Master Mason. I have born witness to countless acts of deceit and love. I have seen the green flash. I have been called "Rickey," "Fluffer," and "The Phantom Shitter." I have donated blood. I have almost been struck by lightning at the summit of Mt. Helvellen. And I stand here before you, a moderately better man for it all.

But, friends, the one thing I have not done is purchase land. Today, all that changes. Today, the wifey and I acquire a third of an acre of 100% unadulterated manifest destiny Americana. Our very first plot of land. And hey, there just happens to be a nice little structure with four walls and a roof sitting on it! That's right, today, we buy our first house. Needless to say, I'm pretty goddamned excited. As we speak, things are being stowed away in boxes and naturally, I'm following the old adage of making certain that the corkscrew is readily accessible once we unpack. Priorities, people. And with that, I'm off to the closing to sign a million pieces of paper until my arm goes numb and my bank account runs dry. Wish us well.

*OK, that one is kind of a guesstimate really.

Rickey’s Film Corral: Round up Movies You Were too Damned Lazy to See

2010-01-14T06:50:00.020-05:00

[We know, you’re downright elated about Sarah Palin’s new media gig. Look at you, you’re practically bouncing up and down. But if you can pry yourself away from Fox News for juuuuuust a second, we think you’ll enjoy Rickey's in-depth analysis of the various cinematic offerings currently available for your viewing pleasure. In this column, Rickey will attempt to use his critical skills to weed out the dreck from the moderately watchable, thereby saving you money and vastly improving your quality of life. Don't say we never did anything for you, OK?]

Fitzcarraldo. This was one of those movies that Rickey has been informed by individuals far more cultured than himself that he simply must see. And sure enough, those individuals, despite being unbearably smarmy, were right. The movie revolves around one batshit crazy man (actor Klaus Kinski) and his quest to build an opera house in the heart of the Amazon jungle. The movie is filmed by another batshit crazy man (ahem, we mean noted Teutonic director Werner Herzog) who decided the centerpiece of his film would feature a 320 ton steamboat being dragged up the side of a mountain via an elaborate pulley system. No models, no camera tricks, no special effects. Just one crazy man’s film telling the story of a crazy man’s quixotic quest. People love to rave about James Cameron’s overbearing obsession and how his newfangled cinematic technique and plot in “Avatar” are so closely connected. To this, Rickey says, “have you not seen FITZCARRALLLLLDO?!” People were freaking injured making this movie. If possible, rent the version of the film with the director’s commentary on it. In it, Herzog talks about amputated body parts, tropical diseases, and threats of murder with an almost alarming nonchalance. Sure at one point, most of the film’s crew almost died while filming a crazy waterfall sequence, but hey, they got the shot! Who knew the Germans could be so cold-blooded?

Revolutionary Road. Rickey started watching this one lazy Sunday morning as Mrs. Henderson departed for work. And sweet fancy moses, Rickey wishes he hadn’t seen this movie alone. “Bleak” doesn’t quite begin to describe it. Directed by Sam Mendes, this movie, much like his “American Beauty” is a grim look into deep rooted suburban discontent. Leonardo DeCaprio plays the unhappy office drone who aspires to some vague career different from his current one while Kate Winslet plays the discontent wife whose dreams of acting have been sacrificed for the hausfrau lifestyle. With kids in tow, and in their 30s, the two slowly realize that they hate their jobs, themselves, and ultimately, each other. There’s talk of rekindling the spark from their earlier lives with an impulsive move to Paris, but then things turn seriously tragic and even more unimaginably bleak. The movie demands that we ask if it was society that doomed these two or if it was simply their own inability to adjust. Or maybe they just should’ve gone out for tacos and a movie every now and then. We’re sorry, but on the cusp of buying his first house, Rickey can’t relate to this sort of self-pitying melodrama. Suburban life may not be Sam Mendes’ cup of tea, but that doesn’t mean he needed to make a horror movie about it. Rickey supposes that the one good thing about this movie is that it caused “Titanic” fans rooting for a lovey dovey Jack and Rose reunion to storm out of the theater in tears. So, uh, there’s that at least.

Spartan. When Al Bundy storms into a dimly lit basement office in suit and tie and says “Where’s the girl?” in quick succession three different times using different inflection, you immediately know that you’re watching a David Mamet flick. This movie, Mamet’s take on the spy-thriller genre, is a serious treat for those who love modern day film noir. The criminally underrated Val Kilmer plays an unnamed government agent in search of the President’s kidnapped daughter. A guided missile of a man who utters witty cryptic comments, there is nothing Kilmer’s character won’t do to accomplish his mission. There is action. There are reversals. There is Mamet-speak. Rickey really enjoys the droll Mamet-speak. Here’s little excerpt:

Random Army Dude: Nice knife.
Val Kilmer: Yeah. Got it off an East German fella.
Random Army Dude: He give it to ya for a gift?
Kilmer: No. As I recall, he was... rather reluctant to part with it.

Reluctant, yes, BECAUSE HE KILLED HIM! HA! HA! How is it that no one writes sleek minimalist dialogue like this anymore? This movie harkens back to a time when meaning could be derived what characters didn’t say and do rather than what they did. Sure it’s a little hard to discern the meaning from all the minutia, but that’s half the fun. The implied meaning. It’s a helluva lot better than Jerry Bruckheimer angrily dangling his balls in your face for two hours. Go check this one out, pronto.

Tell No One (or "Ne le dis a Personne" for you cheese eating surrender monkeys out there) is another film that falls squarely the "noir" category. Mrs. Henderson, having read the book this movie is based on, recommended that Rickey check this one out and he's all the better for having done so. Without giving too much away, Rickey can tell you that the film's tagline reads "8 years ago, Alex's wife was MURDERED. Today... She e-mailed him." Think the French version of "The Fugitive" and you're on the right track. Particularly enjoyable is the film's soundtrack, which tosses in some great tracks from U2, Ottis Redding, and Groove Armada. There's one terrific scene following a harrowing chase where the protagonist unwinds in the backseat of a car driving through the outskirts of Paris with "Hands of Time" by Groove Armada playing in the background. A very chill breather scene. You don't see that sort of thing much in movies. This one comes highly recommended by Rickey.

Rickey's Letter to the Landlady Attempting to Break His Apartment Lease

2010-01-13T06:54:00.003-05:00

January 13, 2010

Dear Aged She-Wench of Indeterminate Eastern-Bloc Descent,

Rickey is writing to inform you that in the event a replacement tenant is not secured before March 15, 2010 to assume Rickey’s lease agreement with you, Rickey fully intends to terminate his lease on that date. While Rickey understands that his current lease agreement is binding through October of 2010, Rickey is simply unable to pay both the mortgage on his newly purchased house in addition to rent at your incomparably shitty property for a longer period of time than this. Rickey’s Xbox Live subscription fees and Warhammer 40K expenses are simply too high to accommodate both a mortgage and lease simultaneously, you see. Having been born under the reign of the Hapsburg Empire, one can safely assume that you are unfamiliar with these entities as well as modern concepts of property ownership altogether, however please rest assured that this does not negate their existence.

As per your request, Rickey provided you with two months notice on November 30, 2009 that he intended to vacate the premises on January 31, 2010. Granted, Rickey had indulged himself heavily in a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry at the time and was somewhat difficult to comprehend. Nonetheless, notice was given and to date, a replacement tenant has yet to be found.

Rickey understands that this is a difficult time of year to secure new tenants and therefore is willing to continue to pay rent to you for up to an additional two months after closing on his new house on January 15, 2010. Rickey will also forfeit his security deposit of one month’s rent in the event that a new tenant is not found. This constitutes a full three months rent. Rickey believes that in your unidentifiable yet vaguely Germanic country, one would refer to this offer as fair and reasonable and possibly even “das große Los ziehen!” Or something like that.

Rickey feel that this constitutes a perfectly acceptable offer and has been a tenant in good financial standing with you and pays his monthly rent in a timely fashion. Rickey has been tolerant of your decision to bake bread each and every calendar day of the year and you have been tolerant of Rickey’s reluctance to wear pants or draw the shades to the apartment, all the while bellowing “No-Pants Henderson!” at high volume.

Rickey is hopeful that a new tenant will be found prior to him vacating the premises and has made good faith efforts to facilitate this by placing an advertisement for your apartment rental on Craigslist with the permission of your realtor. Rickey’s also posted the ad under the “Casual Encounters” section of Craigslist, and apologizes in advance in the event that a burly man named George shows up at your doorstep and informs you that he is “seeking fellow grizzlies.”

Rickey will return the keys to the apartment on March 15, 2010. Prior to that, Rickey would appreciate it if you would schedule an inspection of the rental unit before he vacates to ensure that you are satisfied with its condition and that it meets your strict Teutonic standards. Rickey trusts that you will be tolerant of the maps of the Dharma facilities from “LOST” that Rickey painted on most of the walls. In Rickey’s defense, these maps are only visible in the event of a new tenant installing black lights throughout the apartment.

Rickey thanks you in advance for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Rickey "No-Pants" Henderson

Rickey’s Token Decade Retrospective!

2009-12-29T06:02:00.007-05:00

This week, we close out 2009 and the decade at large with something special: a fond look back at some of our greatest hits over the past several years here at Riding with Rickey. And while you’d think that a mere three years of blogging might not qualify somebody to post a decade retrospective about their blog posts, that most certainly will not stop Rickey. Not today.

Today, we give you the greatest holiday gift of all: yet more Rickey. Some posts are intentionally funny, while others… not so much intentionally. And now, without further delay, we present some of our greatest hits here at RwR, sorted categorically for your OCD-driven pleasure. Strap in folks, because from here on out, it’s hyperlinks a go-go!

Rickey’s Far-Flung Travels! Generally, whenever Rickey ventures out of the apartment, seriously horrific shit occurs. Witness:

In which Rickey barely escapes fiery death enroute to a Mets game
In which Rickey wreaks havoc at a a bat-mitzvah in Williamstown (the irony is that Rickey pretty much forecasted this turn of events the day before)
In which Rickey seeps himself in Americana in its finest in Las Vegas
In which Rickey travels to an Irish bar and is regaled with a rather shocking story about a deer
And of course, there’s the ultimate: In which Rickey gets stuck in the mud in Costa Rica. If you read just one story this year about getting stuck in the mud on the way to Mal Pais and having to trade your wife for a horse, make it this one!

Rickey’s Middling Movie Reviews! Hey kids, what does one college cinema theory class and the gift of gab give you? Some seriously uninformed movie criticism! Behold:

Rickey reviews Tom Hank’s crazy Catholic romp in “Angels & Demons”
Rickey attempts to spell M. Night Shyamalan’s name 25 times correctly while reviewing “The Happening”
Rickey tries to shoehorn “Iron Man” into a tenuous political argument
Rickey reviews “The Dark Knight” (our one and only positive movie review!)

Rickey’s Guide to Blogging! The internet is a lawless realm of fuckwitterey, and somebody’s got to enforce some order. That somebody is Rickey. Because it’s just plain old fun to make up rules for blogging, we give you:

Rickey’s Commandments of Blogging, Part I
Rickey’s Commandments of Blogging, Part II
Rickey’s Commandments of Blogging, Part III

Rickey’s Cutting Edge Sports Commentary! For a website revolving around a famed athlete, it’s rather ironic that we know relatively little about sports. However, this hasn’t stopped Rickey from churning out the following sports-centric rib-ticklers:

Rickey Previews the 2008 Shea Stadium Promotional Games
Rickey Reports from the Johan Santana Press Conference
Rickey Live Blogs the 2008 Superbowl
Rickey analyzes thrilling advancements in the world of heckling
In which Rickey previews the 2008 Subway Series!
In which Willie Randolph gives one of his last pep talks to the Mets
In which the effects of the recession are felt within the Mets locker room
In which Rickey brings news of Billy Joel crashing his car into the Mets clubhouse
In which Rickey attends a Mets game and sits next to Susan Sarandon and Tim Robins (even two years ago, Rickey saw the warning signs!)
In which Rickey noshes with Joe Girardy and Mike Francessa
A Boston Red Sox employee arrested for public indecency? Oh you better believe Rickey was gonna write a “Dateline NBC” spoof about it…

Rickey’s Prescient Political Punditry! Again, a field that Rickey knows scant little about, a trait that by no means has stopped him from reveling in the absurdity of American political theater. For those longing to relive the craziness the 2008 Election, we think you’ll get a kick out of:

Sarah Palin’s New York City Itinerary
Rickey foolishly attempts to find logic in the rantings of Joe the Plumber
Rickey’s preview of the Vice Presidential debate
Rickey’s Republican National Convention drinking game!
Henry Paulson to Wall Street: “Nothing is Fucked Here Dude” followed quickly by….
Henry Paulson to Wall Street: “Repent Fuckers, the End Times are Nigh”
To kick off a new era in politics, we give you Rickey’s Guide to the 2009 Presidential Inauguration
And wrapping things up is President Obama’s Pick for the next Surgeon General

Rickey’s Beard Bloviation! Nearly two years later, we’re still not entirely sure why Rickey felt the need to constantly blog about his beard. We’ll let future generations weigh the cultural merit of journaling one man’s relentless quest to grow scraggly facial hair. Judge for yourself:

Day 5 of Beard Watch 2007!
Day 18 of the Beard!
Day 25!
Day 89!
In which Rickey bloviates about famous bearded politicians
In which Rickey completely goes off the deep end with this beard thing and imagines himself as a modern day Ernest Shackleton

Cooking with Rickey! Want to know what Rickey’s most excited for in his new house? The nice big kitchen. Rickey can’t wait to spread his culinary wings in an area far larger than a galley kitchen. In the meantime, marvel at some of the most delicious man-food recipes you’ve ever seen crafted, courtesy of Rickey:

Rickey cooks his Recession Blues Chili
Rickey cooks Steak Diane, Dish of the Huntress
Rickey cooks Buffalo Chicken Tenders
Rickey cooks Matzo Ball Soup (this stuff will cure cancer)
Rickey cooks his Tasty Tamil Tenders
Rickey cooks Irish Stew

Rickey’s Potent Potpourri! Pretty much any random cultural item that Rickey blogged about goes here. Stuff like..

Rickey’s mishaps on the company softball team! And back by popular demand, here’s the second installment
Rickey’s expose on the thrilling world of Finger Jousting, complete with angry response to Rickey’s post from the “Lord of the Joust” himself!
That time Rickey made the mistake of hosting a blog carnival about “24”
That time Rickey bought a pair of aviator sunglasses and somehow wrote 5,000 words all about it
That brilliant post Rickey wrote about Indiana Jones’ accountant
That awkward post enumerating Rickey’s obsession with a children’s videogame about Piñata animals
That time Rickey reviewed a rather odd piece of food left in the second floor staff kitchen at work
In which Rickey tells you why the Sopranos finale was sheer genius and that you’re a philistine for disagreeing with him
And finally, there's that time Rickey went completely apeshit when his blog got a handful of negative reviews. Good times all around!

Wrapping things up, there’s the always enjoyable….

Rickey Recommends (The link will take you to a page containing all of ‘em. Every freaking 'Rickey Recommends' post. Every single piece of advice you need to live a life worth blogging about.)

Whew, well, that’s it we guess. Did we miss something? A funny post that Rickey omitted, perhaps? Feel free to let Rickey know in the comments section. Happy New Year’s everybody. See you all in 2010.

Your Obligatory "Avatar" Review (Now Complete with Christian Fundamentalism!)

2009-12-22T06:05:00.004-05:00

The Hendersons stepped out last night and caught an evening showing of this “Avatar” flick that the kids are talking about and we’re pleased to report that we had a pretty damned enjoyable time seeing it. It’s a helluva great spectacle, even if it can get a little overwhelming at times when the movie pretty much devolves into the “can you believe all the crazy shit we’re throwing at you?!!” trend of cinematography. A subtle movie this is not. It’s just a good rollicking epic with blue cat-like people set in a lush alien world.

Think "Lawrence of Arabia" in space and you’re on the right track. The prerequisite battle scene at the end of the flick is 20 minutes long and yes, it is assuredly mind-blowing. An immense and beautiful movie, “Avatar” is visually stunning—an experience probably very similar to what audiences felt seeing “Wizard of Oz” in Technicolor for the first time. Trust me, seeing this thing in IMAX 3D is absolutely the only way to watch this. Go check it out if you haven’t already. You'll be a far more entertained person for it and overall, a more valuable and productive member of society.

Speaking of productive, sometimes, after seeing a movie, I’ll scour the internet to get others’ takes on it just for giggles. There's an unwritten law that a movie this widely enjoyed absolutely has to attract the critical wrath of some recluse lunatics. This time, I’m pleased to report that I've hit the motherload of craziness. Via a site known as Movieguide, a Christian film review site that implores it’s visitors to “Help us bring God's light to an industry with much darkness,” I found this blurb:

AVATAR is a visually stunning, but slow, shallow and abhorrent, science fiction adventure pitting evil human capitalists against heroic, spiritually sensitive aliens on the planet Pandora, who worship a false diety and nature. Too graphically intense for children, AVATAR has an abhorrent New Age, pagan, anti-capitalist worldview that promotes goddess worship and the destruction of the human race.

Mmmmm, that's good crazy. I haven’t heard this sort of righteous indignation since “March of the Penguins” hit the theaters! Come on now, who wouldn’t enjoy watching blue aliens practice a religion that’s 50% Wiccan and 50% Al Gore? (humorless Christians, that’s who). I think we’d all benefit from a closer analysis of their review, don’t you agree? Continuing on…

If only someone had edited this movie, it may have been more interesting.

I’m pretty sure that after spending the better part of a decade making this movie, James Cameron took the time to edit it a few times. He’s the Howard Hughes of movie making for crying out loud. But it’s always enjoyable to learn that the full extent of Movieguide’s in depth cinematic criticism is: “just edit the freaking thing, that’ll fix it!”

Those who want to be blown away by special effects, or who are on drugs, may disagree.

Yes, and I most certainly do.

Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth, and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted. James Cameron, the writer and director of AVATAR, reverses this. And, all too often, when you put spectacle first, you turn a great little movie like KING KONG into KING BORE.

Ha ha! A pun! An atrocious pun! But seriously now folks, visuals are more than enough to sustain a movie. Have you not seen “2001”? Couldn’t make it past the "Dawn of Man" opening segment minutes with all the monkeys, I’m guessing?

The Na’vi have a special hair like sexual appendage that enables them to physically connect in a spiritual, mental, and even sexual bond with the creatures they ride or fly.

I, like most other moviegoers who saw this, was thinking “oh neat, USB cords in their hair!” but leave it to those wholesome god-fearing types to find the kinky subtext in all this!

There are Na’vi versions of prayer and worship throughout the movie, which are presented as if they’re something noble and beautiful. In contrast, the only use humans have for God is to spit out his name in profanities.

Pardon me while I petition 20th Century Fox to cast Nick Nolte in the sequel. There were not nearly enough belligerent exclamations of “aw, Jesus Christ!” in the script for my liking.

This is a huge Christmas season movie. What audiences need to know is that the God profaned in this movie is real.

As opposed to the make-believe fluorescent Gaiaesque deity who is clearly the biggest threat to core Christian beliefs since Henry VIII went apeshit. Really? You people don’t have better fish to fry? Moving on, this is where the movie review pretty much devolves into a full blown Catholic mass:

The goddess and the spiritual concepts presented in the movie are fiction. The Spirit we need is the Spirit of Almighty God, our Creator, who is only available when we accept the loving gift of His redemption in the name of Jesus Christ, who is God made flesh, who died to pay the penalty for our sins and was raised from the dead to secure eternal life for each of us who accept Him. While we remain here, we are to be stewards of the other living things on earth, not equals.

Hm, yes. I see your point. And it is interesting. Counterpoint: Zoe Saldana is smoking hot.

The reality of life on earth is that there are millions of Christians who worship a loving and compassionate God. Christians who engage in free enterprise are not brutal and greedy. Many of them are kind and generous. They also support missionaries around the world who help the poor and the suffering.

Yep, that’s exactly what “Avatar” needed: Christian missionaries! Kindly folks who tell the blue skinned Na’vi that “yes, those USB cords in your hair are snazzy, but listen guys, I’m here to talk about Jesus.”

The major problem with this movie is that Cameron tells a story that hates people. This self-loathing eventually has the group think natives triumph over the evil human corporations and sends the humans back to a dying earth where they can all die.

Well, let’s be honest now, we do kind of suck. Have you seen photos of that massive floating garbage island in the Pacific lately? It’s twice the size of Texas and it isn’t exactly the Sistine Chapel…

Aside from the theological and philosophical problems with the movie, it is amazing so little attention was made to the dialogue and characters of the alien natives.

Believe me bub, this will not discourage scores of nerds from painting themselves blue and walking around next year’s ComiCon speaking the Na’vi language.

Even the names of the exotic items are ridiculous. For instance, the rare mineral the earth needs to survive is called “unobtainium.” The planet AVATAR takes place on is Pandora. Pandora is a moon that orbits Polyphemus. Thus, most of the names sound like they came out of a midnight session where everyone was smoking dope.

As opposed to this insightful film review, which sounds as if it was penned by Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character from SNL.

Ultimately, AVATAR is bad news. What the people in the movie need to deliver them from their greed and the aliens in the movie need to deliver them from their severe group think is the loving salvation available only through the true God, Jesus Christ.

I get the feeling that 99.998% of this website’s visitors uttered a solemn “amen” under low breath after reading that last paragraph.

Cameron’s anti-capitalist ideology is more dangerous than Michael Moore, whose recent anti-capitalist documentary will be seen by far fewer people. The truth is that we live in amazing luxury today under capitalism, compared to what we’d have if we lived like Pandora’s aliens. Would you like to get up each morning from a hammock in a tree and hunt for food with a bow and arrow? Capitalism can be brutal and ugly if the capitalist is brutal and ugly, but so can every other economic system. Capitalism can be a beautiful thing in a nation where capitalists live by God’s golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Ugh, that last paragraph would’ve made even Regan cringe. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that modern Capitalism and the value system you’re preaching are essentially antithetical. And I’m assuming that your interpretation of capitalism doesn’t have as much to do with rewarding success as it does with “I don’t want to pay taxes. Ever.”

If you want to live in a kinder, gentler, more compassionate world, don’t go hug a tree or look for some earthly version of an Earth goddess. Give your life to God through Jesus Christy and let Him use you to reach out to those trapped in selfishness, greed, pride, and hatred.

As of this post, they still haven’t corrected the typo “Jesus Christy” which tells you pretty much all you need to know about these people. (Unless “Jesus Christy” is actually what they’re referring to him as these days).

2009-12-08T09:15:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, a real American hero attempted to throw tomatoes at Sarah Palin but missed by ten feet and hit two police officers in the face. His intentions were laudable, but his follow through was sadly lacking. Come on now, would a few practice tosses in the backyard have killed you?

If this guy isn't a candidate for 2010 Mets starting pitcher, I just don't know who is.

On Televisions, Trees, and the Joy of 30

2009-12-02T06:45:00.003-05:00

So because I am now married, I am also now by law mandated to blog about banal husband/wife exchanges that occur in the household. Behold:

Me: "So I ordered a TV online the other day through one of those Cyber-Monday deals."

Her: "Nice, was it pricey?"

Me: "Well for a Sharp 47” display that boasts 1080p and a 120hz refresh rate, I think I did pretty damned well. This is my last hurrah. A powerful crescendo to wrap up the chapter of my life when I still had meaningful disposable income and wasn’t chained to a mortgage like Prometheus to his rock." [editor’s note—perhaps I’m taking a bit of creative license here: my domestic conversations typically do not involve Greek mythical figures]

Her: "Uh huh, good. So you’re going to leave it in the box until we move into our new house, right?"

[sudden sound of a record needle scratching]

Now let me explain to you why this is ten wild flavors of unacceptable. A hulking behemoth like this is not to be contained within a box. This electronic monster has been engineered with one purpose and one purpose only: massive ocular assault. To bombard one’s rods and cones with an image so vivid that it leaves them a stuttering mess, sitting in a pool of their own flop sweat. Will I keep this in a box? Would Michelangelo have dared to leave “David” sitting in a crate somewhere while he waited to close on his new Italian villa? Methinks not.

Meanwhile, it bothers the wifey that I am reluctant to put up a Christmas tree this year due to the upcoming move. The reason for this is easy to understand really: compared to setting up a TV, decorating a Christmas tree takes multiple hours, and I’m sorry, but no matter how good the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas album is, once you hear it the seventh time while hanging glittery ornaments, the urge to stab things becomes rather strong.

In other news, I turn 30 next week. 30, people. 30. It sucks. And don’t bother telling me it doesn’t and that I should be glad that at least I’m not [insert whatever age you are here] because when I am, it’ll most certainly suck even more. Ugh.

Today, I received bedsheets yesterday for my birthday. Bedsheets. The only thing more depressing than getting bedsheets for your birthday is the fact that I ACTUALLY REQUESTED THEM. Because presumably, once you hit 30, this is the sort of thing you're supposed to ask for instead of mammoth TVs or fun stuff like this.

The Blog Post Where I Put Together a Half-Assed List and Wish Everybody a Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T06:33:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we give thanks to living in a country led by a president who spends more time thinking about how to resolve the situation in Afghanistan than which turkey to pardon on the White House lawn. (One gets the feeling that it was the other way around with the last guy).

We give thanks that this is one of few holidays where we can gorge ourselves silly and watch football without feeling obligated to offer some sort of tribute to Jesus (man that guy is a serious attention whore…)

We give thanks to the wondrous gastronomical opportunities provided by this holiday. I, for one, am a big fan of Rooster Tooth’s take on the Thanksgiving staple, the Turducken:

“Start off with a hummingbird, put that in a sparrow, stuff 'em both in a cornish hen, then put that in a chicken. Put all that in a duck, then in a turkey, then in a bigger turkey, put that in a penguin, stuff that in a peacock, then an eagle, shove it all in an albatross, then and emu, next comes an ostrich, then a leopard. Put all that in a pterodactyl, and stuff it in a Boeing 747.”

We give thanks to all those magnificent bastards who remain undeterred from deep frying their turkeys, despite the fact that they’ve set fire to their houses the last 87 times they’ve attempted it. Happy Thanksgiving you morons, please try to refrain from napalming your house this time, OK?

Most of all, we give thanks to cranberry sauce. Sweet sweet cranberry sauce. Some people like to screw around and make their own, but let me tell you: nothing beats a perfectly cylindrical blob of cranberry sauce retaining its natural can shape (complete with the ridges!) Thanksgiving isn’t complete unless I hear that slimy sloughing noise as the cranberry sauce slides free of its aluminum confines.

Have a safe & happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Your Weekly Nerdery

2009-11-24T06:16:00.001-05:00

So this unrepentantly shitty looking little fellow represents my first attempt at painting a Warhammer 40K miniature. Egad, I suck. Moral of the story, a Badab Black wash over a light colored basecoat yields some really fugly results. If these guys were supposed to be undead space zombies, this would all be good and fine. But they’re not. They’re supposed to be proud and angry Space Wolves. Space Wolves with sizeable cod pieces.

Just look at this poor guy, you can just tell that he's definitely going to have some sort of self-esteem issues. Kids are going to pick on him in Space Wolf school. A few more of these and I'm going to need to thumb through my SW codex to see if some sort of Space Wolf therapist class exists that I can add to my army. Anyhow, things improve notably from here. BEHOLD, THE AWESOME:
For these next two, I switched over to Space Wolf Grey for my primary color, which oddly, isn’t grey at all but actually blue (kind of like how “Nantucket Red” is actually pink). I’m pretty happy with the outcome so far on these guys. Still not impressed? Consider for a moment that these little dudes are only one inch tall. THAT’S 25 MILLIMETERS, PEOPLE!

On Turbinate Reductions and Real Estate Malfeasance

2009-11-23T06:50:00.002-05:00

So the wifey had surgery a few days ago to repair a deviated septum. Thanks to a steady diet of matzo ball soup and oxycontin, she’s recuperating nicely and hopes to be in ship shape for the coming Thanksgiving festivities (because if you’re going to be zonked out around this time of year, it damn well should be on wine and turkey rather than painkillers and antibiotics). Should it tickle your fancy, feel free to wish Erika a speedy recovery in the comments section below. Also feel free to express your sympathies for a man who has to sleep next to someone with splints in their nose and makes nighttime noises that sound like Darth Vader wrestling a wolverine in an earthquake. Goddamnit I miss my 7 hours of sleep.

The medical release form the hospital provided us advised Erika to avoid making any major financial decisions while recovering from the anesthesia for the next 48 hours. This however didn’t stop me from cajoling her drugged up carcass to sign her life away several dozen times on our mortgage application. Look, it had to be submitted promptly, OK? Don’t judge me.

Vital documents signed under duress? Er, I have no idea what you’re talking about…

I Promised Myself I Wouldn’t Blog About the Hiatus…

2009-11-18T06:13:00.002-05:00

And yet I still feel somewhat obligated to offer somewhat of an explanation to the five readers who stuck around…

What exactly compels a man to cease blogging? Many things: the perpetual give and take of busyness and laziness, a lack of inspiration, the siren call of the television, blah, blah, blah, but most of all, THIS: Well this can't end well. What you’re looking at here is a pack of miniature Warhammer 40K figurines (Space Wolf Grey Hunters, to be precise) intended for one purpose only: to conquer my tabletop gaming opponent. They may not look impressive, but bear in mind that these snarling fellows came completely unassembled and had to be painstakingly glued together piece by piece. They arrived looking like THIS:And I haven’t even primed or painted ‘em yet. And if you think that’s bad, it gets worse. Oh so much worse.

See, this cringe-worthy endeavor started a few weeks back. Driving to an annual fly fishing trip with a few buddies, a friend asked me if I was interested in an exceedingly geeky activity. Now let me tell you, this man is a total menace. He’s living every 13 year old’s dream: he’s 30, gainfully employed as a lawyer, and has more than enough spare cash to indulge himself in a myriad of hobbies. We’re talking R/C cars & planes, comic books, online gaming, modeling, etc. At one point he had even approached me about renting apartment space in Manhattan for the sole purpose of building a model railroad layout. Like I said, he’s a menace. No man should have this kind of freedom to indulge themselves.

And so he told me about Warhammer 40,000. For those not in the know, (99.99997% of the human population), Warhammer 40K is a British invention and is essentially a precursor to modern day RPG videogames. Only the Brits would come up with something as quirky as this. How does it work? One creates an army on paper, assigns each model attributes, carefully adhering to a set of rules governing each faction, then goes about physically assembling a battleforce consisting of a certain point value. Once you’re all done (this can take months or even years) you duke it out against an opponent’s army by rolling die, assigning hits, and tallying up damage. If you’re a stats freak, it’s an engaging endeavor, kind of like Strat-O-Matic baseball, because you’re essentially doing all the work that a computer would normally do. Oh joy.

It’s all very low-tech and brutally demanding of the participant. Just getting a 40K army builder software program to run involved actually downgrading to an old Pentium II computer that was collecting dust in the apartment. (shockingly, the program doesn’t run on Apple’s OSX).

But being the easily susceptible type, my buddy totally convinced me to get into it. For my army, I’ve selected Space Wolves, because let’s be honest here, if you’re going to build some sort of futuristic space army, it damned well better incorporate wolves somehow. Best as I can figure based on the literature I’ve come across, Space Wolves worship some dude named “Russ,” and like yelling a lot and attacking things. And also drinking lots of Space Wolf mead and presumably neglecting their Space Wolf wives.

If getting married makes a man seem attractive to women as some claim, then engaging in an activity like this completely negates whatever net gains I would’ve made. Here, I’ll break it down in 40K statistical terms:

Marital Viability: -2
Societal Worth: -7
Useless Esoteric Knowledge: +9
Relationship Saving Throw: -17

You get the idea. It’s nerdtacular. I’ve already been exchanging emails with a buddy who uses sentences like “and don’t even get me started on trying to pin down Eldar skimmers.”

Moreover, the stats side of it is just half of the picture. If you’re a hobbyist, this lets you go hog wild: filing down individual components, meticulously gluing them together, spending hours painting tiny details, etc… Anytime you can alarm your landlady by wandering around outside wearing a surgical mask and spraying a 1” tall figurine with an aerosol primer, it’s a good time.

[LENGHTY ASIDE: Things have been rather eventful in the apartment recently. I thought our landlady had died last week when I left the apartment Monday morning and noticed a terrible smell. It was as if a sewage line had ruptured in a Roman vomitorium. Fashioning myself as a bit of an expert on smells, unable to place this horrific one, and realizing that our landlady is of an advanced age, I made the seemingly logical conclusion that she had perished several days ago and her decomposing body was causing the terrible odor. I’ve seen enough police dramas to know how these sorts of things happen. I spent the entire commute to work rehearsing just the right tone of solemnity in which I would deliver my official statement to the police (“yes officer, she was a kind woman who lived an active and social life… I last saw her two days ago”) before I called Erika to ask that she investigate the rotting landlady problem. Meanwhile I weighed the ramifications of how this dead landlady issue would impact our search for a house. Erika of course knocked on her door at 7AM and totally startled our landlady out of the shower, and it was discovered that the smell emanated from the garbage outside. Never a dull moment. END LENGHTY ASIDE]

But getting back to my fledgling pack of space wolves, they’re coming along nicely. I’ll update you with their progress as I go, because I’m certain you’re just gagging for it…

Rickey Recommends

2009-11-17T06:53:00.011-05:00

RICKEY RECOMMENDS

Carefully reviewing your local zoning laws before purchasing a flock of domesticated fowl. No, sadly, I don’t have some zany news story involving rampaging fowl to link to. I’m just a man. A man who has an accepted offer on a house and is now one step closer to fulfilling his lifelong dream of raising guinea hens in his backyard. I hear their eggs consumed raw are delectable! (or so I’m told by a miscreant at work). Guinea hens, they’re like chickens but infinitely cooler! Perhaps I just like saying the name “guinea hens.” Guinea hens! They rank right up there with the Jewfish as “animals badly in need of nomenclature adjustment.”

Making your own pepper vodka. Take a handful of peppercorns, toss ‘em in a bottle of cheap vodka (perhaps that one with the robot on it) stick it in the freezer, wait 3 weeks and presto: a tasty adult beverage! Nice sipped straight or even better in a bloody mary.

The Droid. Now this is ~~podracing!~~ a phone. This bright touch screen wonder runs multiple applications simultaneously, it provides turn by turn voice-guided directions, it has wifi, it sports a full qwerty keyboard, it syncs up all your Facebook and Gmail contacts, and it even makes phone calls when you feel the inexplicable urge to have a live conversation with another human being. In 5 years, this thing will be doing your job for you. Apple may rave about its 100K apps for the iphone, but the applications for the Droid are also incredibly numerous and rather impressive to boot. The other day I downloaded an app that stores my bevy of account passwords and only unlocks them after a retinal scan via the 5mp camera on the phone. ‘nuff said. Best of all, it runs on a stable network, unlike AT&T’s, (which one might compare to a lethargic raccoon ambling back and forth from your phone to a cell tower with a basket of bytes tied around its neck). Viva Google and this wondrous device. Did I mention that I can now blog from directly this thing? The a few weeks ago, I saw a bohemian lady on the street with a bird in a cage strapped to her back--just imagine the possibilities had I been able to live blog about it!

“The Prisoner” on AMC. I haven’t seen it yet, but my mom says it’s good. She’s usually right about this sort of thing.

Sunrise Earth. I used to watch the news in the morning. I have officially evolved past that, primarily because the mere sight of Al Roker fills me with an uncontrollable urge to kick things. Now, every morning, I inaugurate the day with a good cup of coffee and imagery of the sun rising over an exotic locale. No music, no narration, just the natural sounds of wherever the camera is situated. It’s strangely mesmerizing and utterly relaxing. This morning’s installment: buffalo roaming across an expansive plain while rosy fingered dawn illuminated the horizon. Solid stuff!

Modern Warfare 2. And on the other end of the cultural spectrum, we have the most batshit intense videogame ever made. Ever wanted to repel a Russian invasion of Washington D.C. while a Hans Zimmer score blasts in the background? Or perhaps see the battlefield through the lens of a Lockheed AC-130 gunship and rain down molten death from above upon your online opponents? Well friend, this game is for you. Not a thinking man’s game by any means, but still a romping good time. In other news, the Mrs. has noticed a serious uptick in the use of the phrases "we're Oscar Mike," "pave low," and "Hooah" in the household as of late...

“Modern Family” on ABC. Are you watching this show? Why aren’t you watching this show? It’s like “Arrested Development” featuring Ed ‘O Neil. Go watch this show. It ranks up there with “Community” as one of my new fall favorite comedies.

They Might Be Giants. People aren't recommending this band as much as they used to, so I’m here to pick up the slack. Nothing says “hey, I know i'm a dork and, post-college, I’ve come lastingly to happy terms with it” quite like owning a few They Might Be Giants albums. Give ‘em a listen to sometime.

Goldcoast Maine Lobster Spread. Available NOW at your friendly neighborhood Costco, this delicious spread consist of 70% lobster, 30% whitefish, and 100% win. Academics and dilettantes may disagree, but in the end, you really don't miss the 30% void of lobster. And it goes without saying that I heartily approve of any seafood that comes in spreadable form. I could eat 17 pounds of this stuff and not even realize what had happened. If possible, I’d eat this stuff in the bathtub, societal conventions notwithstanding.

“Bring Out Yer Dead!”, AKA, Your Mets Update: The Obligatory Postmortem Edition

2009-08-28T06:32:00.004-04:00

Apparently the baseball gods were watching when I decided to heckle Joe Girardi about the Yankees' chances against the Mets. And they smote me. They smote me hard. The latest addition to the black hole that is the Mets DL? My trusty coffee mug. In a moment of weighty karmic reciprocity, the cup slipped from my hands as if it was nudged by some phantom force, and crashed to the floor, resulting in the handle shattering into several pieces.
Imagine it happening in slow motion, followed by me staring blankly at it for several minutes, wallowing in the not-so-subtle symbolism of the event. Yes, when stuff like this happens to me, it is usually this blunt (last night I was playing “Batman: Arkham Asylum” on the 360 and I kid you not, a freaking live bat showed up in the apartment and started flapping around).

I’d spent a helluva lotta time searching for that Mets mug online, so throwing it away wasn’t even briefly taken into consideration. No sir, repairing it became a top priority. And so with a little gorilla glue and some tender love, the mug was made whole once again.
Attention advertising companies: I heartily approve of any product involving gorillas. You slap a gorilla on the label and I will purchase it. For me, the addition of any kind of simian likeness will bolster a product’s appeal by roughly 145%. For example, did you know that there’s an airline company called Air Gorilla? This fascinates me to no end.

And so the mug was repaired. Could the glued together handle break apart mid sip, resulting in hot coffee scalding my face? Why yes, yes it could. Like any true pessimistic Mets fan worth their salt, I’m pretty much counting on that eventuality. The vortex of ineptitude and injuries is strong with this team. The Obama Health Plan damn well better have a clause discussing the Metropolitans, because right now, I’m thinking that wearing a Mets uniform is considered by most healthcare providers sufficient cause to deny coverage.

As others have pointed out, the extent and frequency of Mets injuries is downright spooky. It’s gotten to a point that the five people who still watch the Mets on TV feel like they’re watching a sports version of ‘Final Destination” unfold rather than an actual baseball game: “Oh dear god, what is that? Somebody left a glove on the dugout steps! Oh, I can’t look!”

Now I haven’t mustered the intestinal fortitude to visit the other Mets blogs lately, but if nobody has started up a “Next Met to be Injured” pool, then this needs to be looked into, pronto. Screw it, I’ll do it. As is the norm with my baseball commentary, this is completely free of thoughtful analysis, because far be it from this blogger to let niggling facts get in the way of wanton hyperbole. Here’s what my Mets injury pool looks like at the moment:

Brian Schneider. He has roughly five hits in the past three months. His bat speed rivals that of a medium sized cat. If he’s not already secretly playing hurt now, definitely look for him to sprain his thumb while updating his Wiki page to read “THE BEST DEFENSIVE CATCHER IN THE GAME OF BASEBALL.”

Lance Broadway. With a name like his, there’s absolutely no other way this guy can hurt himself other than in the midst of a frenzied porn shoot. No other way.

Johan Santana. True, he’s already on the DL. But don’t be too shocked when the ~~bastard witch doctors~~ seasoned medical professionals at the Hospital for Special Surgery misdiagnose him with gangrene and amputate his entire left arm.

Nick Evans. This promising young prospect’s career will come to an abrupt halt when he becomes the latest victim of gang violence incurred by Omar Minaya’s questionable decision to recruit members of the Latin Kings to play for the Mets.

The dude in the Mets front office whose job it is to report that Jose Reyes is slated to start rehab “any day now.” Two ways this guy can die: via severe alcohol poisoning or hysterically laughing himself to death.

Ken Takahashi. The victim of an unexpected ninja attack secretly orchestrated by Bobby Valentine. It’s complicated, but it will involve outstanding debts owed by Takahashi for a series of ballroom dancing classes taught by Bobby V. I’m telling you, the David Carradine conspiracy will pale in comparison to this.

Daniel Murphy. Listed as one of the missing passengers when Air Gorilla flight #618 disappears somewhere over the Pacific.

Luis Castillo. Lost for the season when an angry Gary Sheffield kidnaps him and holds him hostage, demanding a contract with the Mets for the 2010 season. An intense multi-state manhunt suddenly and unexpectedly culminates with Castillo professing his undying love for his captor Sheffield and deciding to live his life on the lam with the man of his dreams.

Angel Pagan. The guy’s name is “Angel Pagan.” If ever there was a candidate for “death by singularity,” this is it.

And of course….

The Entire Mets Training Staff. Look, I’m no athlete or anything, but it occurs to me that one can keep injuries curtailed a bit by STRETCHING OUT BEFORE THE GAME. How freaking tough is it to remind your players to do this?! This is something I was repeatedly told to do during 9th grade J.V. soccer for crying out loud. Because I’m feeling charitable, Mets training staff: death by auto-erotic asphyxiation. I know good ninjas.

2009-08-14T06:30:00.006-04:00

It occurred to me the other day that for nearly three years I’ve been writing a blog and most of you know remarkably little about me. Let’s be honest here, for all you know, I could be Carlos the Jackal. Sadly, I’m not, and that’s just the first of many misconceptions that I’ll attempt to clear up in this edition of…

Things You Heretofore Had Not Known About Me

While eating out at a restaurant, I cannot tolerate indecision. Picky folks who gaze at the menu for more than three minutes anger me beyond comprehension. Every time this happens, there’s an excellent chance that I'm really going to lose it. Like, violently lose my shit. On strangers, family, co-workers, the waiter, I don't care. It’s not a pretty sight. When it comes to this sort of thing, I am explosively misanthropic.

I’m a bit of a geek. I own one of these. I possess a large box of “Magic: The Gathering” cards. I traffic in assorted nerdery. On Monday, I scored two free tickets via quite possibly the biggest movie nerd website in existence to an advance screening of “District 9” in NYC. How was the movie? Pretty damned solid. A great indie sci-fi action flick. The last 20 minutes is awesome. It features an FX shot of combat mayhem unlike anything I've ever seen. Watch closely for it. It involves a pig. It is too awesome for words. As my buddy who saw it with me can attest, I was literally bouncing up and down. Yes, I am that dude who rocks back and forth in his seat and makes uncomfortably loud exclamations in a movie theater.

I consider myself to be a spiritual person, yet I’ve never actually picked up a bible and read it. I prefer to just imagine what I’d like the bible to say and I govern myself according to that. For example, did you know that Psalms 14:5 actually states “Check thyself lest thou wreck thyself”? True story.

I am determined. Allow me to provide an example. The other night, I was playing Uno on the Xbox. It’s a web camera enabled game where you play online against other people. It’s a family friendly game. Or at least that’s what I’d thought until I stumbled upon a game session where three dudes have got their junk out and are masturbating furiously. I see this on my tv. In a game of Uno. When they saw my horrified face and that I was wearing pants, I was immediately booted from the game. I quickly researched the matter and found incontrovertible evidence that this is a known issue with this game. Since then I have made a vow to search out these people like Chris Hansen. I will track down these avid maasturbaters and expose them for the weirdos they are. Point of the story is, that’s how determined a fellow I am. This is my white whale. This is why I haven’t had time to blog much recently. Does this teeter on the side of obsession? I’ll get back to you in a few days on that…

I am an exceedingly vain individual. I work out a lot and make a point of ensuring that others are aware of this. I iron my blue jeans. I like mirrors more than most people. You probably already knew of this vanity from those beard watch updates I provided a while back. As a matter of fact, I am debating growing my hair out in hopes of achieving the highly sought after “yacht hair.” I am using this fellow as my template: I will often torment others with intentionally bad suggestions. The current one? I am steadfastly demanding that Erika and I name our future children “Whipple” and “Spaulding.” The thinking behind this is similar to Johnny Cash’s “Boy Named Sue” logic—our kids will be toughened up by relentless tormenting from their peers, and they will certainly never ever receive any form of scholarship or financial aid, because names like “Whipple” and “Spaulding” are 100% white bread. They start off white and bleach themselves to transparency by the end. No, I will not budge on this issue. Do not attempt to debate me on this.

House Hunt... The Search Begins.

2009-08-10T06:53:00.002-04:00

Intent on buying into this “ownership society” thing we’ve heard a few things about, we have started to hunt for a house. A place to call our very own. The American Dream and all that good stuff. Given our price range and our refusal to end up stuck in a bland condo building up equity on a geological pace, we’re probably going to be purchasing what is commonly referred to as a “handyman special.” At first, this sounds appealing. It conjures up images of us donning overalls and frolicking around a charming old house painting the walls while a peppy 80’s song blasts in the background. After looking at a few “handyman specials” however, I can now report that substantially more work is involved. But we’re still pretty determined to shoot for it.

Now I’ll leave it to more knowledgeable economists to discuss the overall trends in the U.S. housing market. I’m hardly a real estate novelist. What I can tell you is that the area where we’re seeking a place to buy teeters on ludicrous in terms of affordability (which is to say, it isn’t). What makes matters worse is that there are some seriously delusional homeowners out there. Honest to goodness assholes.

Look, I don’t care how wonderful the local schools are—an 1,100 square foot one-level house with a creepy basement that looks like it was lived in by Jigsaw from those “Saw” movies SHOULD NOT cost $439K. Say, what model of house did you say this was? A cape? A colonial? Oh, "A Kaczynski," how charming.

I kid you not about the basement in this place. Something very wrong happened down there. “Oh look honey, there’s the workbench where he carved up his victims! And there’s the wood burning furnace where he tossed the dismembered body parts! And there’s the corner where the dog sat and told him to do it all!” This would be funny, if only we hadn’t seen five houses just like this. I’m pretty certain that the bathroom in one of them doubled as a meth lab (although that is a potential cash cow if we wanted to find a way to pay off our mortgage quicker).

Yeah, so the owners sanded and refinished all the hardwood floors in the house and put in some recessed lighting. In their minds these may be MAJOR SELLING POINTS, but that doesn’t entitle them to tack on $100K to the listing price. Would the homeowners be insulted if we submitted a bid at half that amount? Probably, but I felt offended that somebody out there thinks I’m stupid enough to pay that kind of cash for a house. Furthermore, I’ve played more than enough “Sim City” in my life to realize that residents don’t like to live directly next to a zoned industrial area. They'll leave, now matter how low you slide the bar to the left on the tax meter. And then you've gone and spent all that money building a virtual neighborhood with firehouses, police stations, and schools, all for nothing. And then the rolling blackouts hit, followed eventually by UFO attacks. I'm telling you, "Sim City" is a merciless bastard of a game. Never, ever get into it.

Also, I don’t mean to alarm you, but the taxes in the area we’re looking… well, they just might turn me into a Republican. After closing on the property, there is a substantial tax rebate you can apply for, but there’s a byzantine process involved in getting it and we wouldn’t be eligible to receive it until calendar year 2011. This of course begs the question: why not just eliminate the rebate program altogether and just lower everybody’s taxes across the board?

Yes, I’m familiar with the conventional wisdom: keep looking. We’ll know the place we want when we see it. However, I would like to go on the record and state that I’m giving serious thought to moving under the sea.

Rickey's Film Corral: Rounding up Moves You Were too Damned Lazy to See

2009-07-29T06:29:00.012-04:00

[Rickey's in-depth analysis of the various cinematic offerings currently showing at a movie theater near you. Rickey will use his critical skills to weed out the dreck from the moderately watchable, thereby saving you money and vastly improving your quality of life. Don't say we never did anything for you, OK?]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Erika and I saw this one overseas in San José (there’s very little to do in San José other than avoid being mugged) and paid roughly $5 for two tickets to an evening showing. Even that small amount felt like a rip-off. This movie isn’t just offensively dumb, it’s mean, manipulative and violent. Now, unfortunately, I’m on the record as having enjoyed the first Transformers movie for what it was: a mindless fun flick showcasing large robots punching each other. But this one expands upon everything that was bad in the first movie and runs with it full tilt. We’re talking terrible acting, overwhelming use of indiscernible CGI, shoddy editing, and a runtime that extends about 100 minutes too long. Want to save yourself ten bucks at the movies? Try eating paint chips while staring at a poster of Megan Fox—you’ll get pretty much the same effect.

Granted, nobody was expecting director Michael Bay to craft a modern day version of “The Seventh Seal” from a Saturday morning children’s cartoon, but still… something feels very unwholesome about watching flag draped coffins of U.S. soldiers being escorted off a plane by giant robots in a military base somewhere in the Middle East. Kitsch I can take, but perverted patriotism is another thing altogether. And the less said about the movie’s insinuation that the Obama Administration would attempt to negotiate peace with a villainous race of alien robots the better. Oh, and what are your feelings about paying to see a minstrel show in the year 2009? Because this movie features two gorilla shaped robots with gold teeth who “don’t read too good” talking jive to each other. It’s a pretty shocking thing to watch, especially when you consider that Steven Spielberg, the director of “Amistad,” and the upcoming biopic "Lincoln” is the executive producer on this film. I honestly can’t come up with a single reason to recommend this movie to anyone, and I liked “Armageddon” for crying out loud.

Brüno. (I just want you to know how difficult it was to get an umlaut symbol to appear in this post). Well I suppose that this movie attempts to push your buttons in a better way than the previous one we just reviewed. If you consider Sasha Baron Cohen attempting to lure Ron Paul to bed more sublimely enlightened than an alien robot humping Megan Fox’s leg, that is. Brüno operates in the same way that Borat did: it attempts to mine comedy from the conceit of an outsider illuminating our inner prejudices. The problem is that Cohen targets some very low hanging fruit – talk show audiences, a group of redneck hunters, Paula Abdul – and the movie comes off more as a series of cheap shots than a witty social commentary. While it’s true that all good comedy is born from a certain degree of derision, I feel the same way about this movie that I do about some of Andy Kaufman’s stuff: going to an extreme length to rile up and upset people just isn’t all that funny. Also, there’s serious full frontal male nudity in this one. Regardless of how enlightened you may consider yourself to be regarding alternative lifestyles, nothing can prepare you for the first twenty minutes of this movie and the sight of a singing dancing penis. Nothing.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Every year, I get dragged to one of these films about children magicians brandishing wands and saying funny made up words. I agree to this because sitting through these movies morally entitles me to pick the next eighteen films we watch together. This installment of the Potter franchise focuses on some sort of magical book, a talking sofa, and children magicians falling in love. Yay. Between these movies and “Twilight,” I’m seriously concerned about one day having “the talk” with my bewildered progeny and needing to explain that adolescent romance doesn’t necessarily include spells, potions, or general supernatural tomfoolery.

Bottom line, if you liked the last few Potter films, you’ll probably like this too. They’re all kind of a blur to me at this point. You’d think that after six semesters of sending their kids to this Hogwarts place, the parents would’ve sued the pants off anyone associated with a school that subjects it’s students to trolls, giant spiders, dragons, and similar outlandish dangers. (I’m assured that all this will be resolved in the upcoming “Harry Potter and the Order of the 2nd District Court”). Also, they’d better hurry up and make the final movie because the kid playing Ron Weasley looks like he’s about 30 in this one.

On the Docket !

[These are movies that I haven’t yet seen but after watching the last one, am COMPLETELY ENTITLED to see because they are undoubtedly incredible and cannot possibly be any worse than that Transformers train wreck that I convinced Erika was totally worth seeing. Ahem.]

District 9. A sci-fi action movie about aliens arriving on Earth then being rounded up in a ghetto in South Africa? Shot in documentary style by a newcomer director that nobody has ever heard of? I’m telling you, there’s absolutely no way this can fail. I am dead serious about this.

Public Enemies. This one shouldn’t take too much arm twisting to convince the Mrs. to go see. She gets to see Johnny Depp play the charming John Dillinger and I get to watch a slick Michael Mann movie about a bank robber. A win-win situation if I’ve ever heard of one.

500 Days of Summer. Hey look, the kid from “3rd Rock from the Sun” has resurfaced! That alone has me intrigued for this indie love movie. As does Zooey Deschanel. Yes, every now and then, I am capable of picking a sentimental date flick…

While You Were Out...

2009-07-27T19:15:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I’ve been lax with new material. I will now attempt to fabricate lame excuses for this. Turns out that returning to one’s job after a month hiatus doesn’t leave much time for blogging. And then there are the errands. The endless errands. (Those Netflix movies don’t just return themselves, you know?) But most importantly, the wifey and I are starting to search for a dwelling of some sort to purchase. We’re busy, got it? Also, we’re pretty much looking for excuses not to sit in a poorly air-conditioned apartment and write out several dozen heartfelt wedding thank you notes. Ugh. I do have several key updates worth mentioning however:

After much deliberation, we’ve decided to start talking in the first person (the editorial voice remains remarkably intact however). You’ll notice a noticeable increase of the use of pronoun “I” here at RwR. In order to better demonstrate this, here’s an example of how this will work, derived from a real life situation:

Under the old system: “This morning, while brewing his cup of coffee, Rickey bumped over his coffee press and spread shattered glass and hot coffee all over the kitchen floor. Rickey nearly scalded his genitals off.”

Under the new system: “This morning, while brewing my cup of coffee, I bumped over my coffee press and spread shattered glass and hot coffee all over the kitchen floor. I nearly scalded my genitals off.”

Because let’s be honest here, if you’re going to discuss the topic of horrific genital scalding, it’s far better to do it in the first person. Do not be alarmed by this first person speaking development. Change can be a terrifying thing, but fret not: I’m just as capable of blogging like an ignorant pompous schmuck in the first person as I was in the third person.

Judging by the modest uptick in Google hits (I can’t decide which keyword search I like better: “Rickey Henderson shirtless” or “Rickey Henderson batshit crazy”) something rather noteworthy happened to Rickey Henderson over the weekend. You’d think that after three years of pilfering someone’s good name, I’d take the time to honor their induction into Cooperstown, but you also forget how much of a magnificently lazy bastard I am. Maybe I’ll get around to writing a proper HOF speech in a few days, but I’m concerned it would deteriorate into one of those cliché life story speeches about how Rickey single handedly liberated a small Brazilian village using only a paperclip, some string, and his moral fortitude. As always, your input is greatly appreciated.

I am unmoved by the Mets’ current two game winning streak. After a month entirely removed from baseball, it’s difficult to get excited about an injury ravaged team with a lineup that I can only identify 12% of. I am however quite concerned that they’ve decided to steal one of my trademark maneuvers from this past softball season:
Damn you Francoeur, the “curl into the fetal position to avoid the ball” is MY MOVE, not yours. 14 RBIs in 12 games does not excuse you from this blatant theft!

I do however, approve of the Mets organization’s decision to foster a bit of off-field drama. It livens things up a bit when your VP of player development tears off his shirt and challenges minor league players to a fistfight. Who wants to watch a timid and mediocre team anyway? If you’re going to screw up, at least make it fun. Make it big. Hats off to Tony Bernazard for acknowledging the 2009 Mets season as what it really is: one massive episode of “Hell’s Kitchen.”

I, for one, was absolutely delighted by the Erin Andrews scandal and the resulting media uproar. For an entire week, we get to listen to the lunacy of sports experts telling us “Look, I don’t care what your reasons are, you SIMPLY CANNOT bore a hole into a locked hotel room and take photos of a woman undressing!” Uh, thank you very much professor. Way to take a stand there. Your Peabody is in the mail.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue Part VII: Manuel Antonio

2009-07-19T10:58:00.014-04:00

Our final stop in Costa Rica was a beach town named Quepos, home of some of Costa Rica's nicest beaches. Upon arriving in town, we wasted no time and headed directly for the Pacific shore. I found the waves to be most excellent, usually towering above my head. Tons of surfers at this beach. And then there was me, just kind of bobbing around and doing some bodysurfing. Later on, I haggled with a beach vendor who consented to rent me a boogie board (don't knock it--it's a lotta fun). Erika quickly retreated from the sea once she realized that waves were twice her height.A word of caution: the riptides were ridiculously strong--so powerful that a coast guard boast was sitting about a hundred meters off shore routinely fishing people out who got sucked out and dropping them off back on the beach. But hey, on the bright side, no sharks were sighted.
The next day, we made for a nearby park known as Manuel Antonio. It was much more remote and less touristy than the one at Quepos (the park officials only let a few hundred people in per day) and as an added bonus, it's chock full of monkeys. Monkeys that, according to the locals, would steal our belongings if we left them unattended. I eagerly looked forward to this possibility, for it was the final item on our Costa Rica travelogue checklist: to engage a simian in hand to hand combat. I estimate that I could take no less than 23 of them on at once before they overwhelmed me.

With this in mind, got into the park nice and early. This view awaited us:We set up our beach towels a few feet away from this fellow. Behold, the Lizard King:He hung out the whole time, watching us and sunning himself. Thinking whatever it is that lizards think of in their tiny lizard brains. We stayed by the beach, frolicking in the Pacific for quite some time and quickly achieved our most severe sunburn of the entire trip. You know, one of those "it hurts when I blink" sunburns. And still no monkeys or monkey attempts to abscond with our belongings. These little guys had most definitely let me down. To say the least, we were disappointed.

Feeling that it was time to make our exit, we packed our belongings and began to head out at around midday. Suddenly, a rustling was seen in the trees above us. This could only mean one thing: monkey business was afoot.Monkeys: so much like us and yet so untrustworthy. It's a well-known fact that they've been plotting against us for quite some time. I'm warning you, long gone are the days when monkeys would jovially wear ties and smoke cigars for our amusement. Just look in this guy's eyes and tell me he's not working things out.We encountered three distinct varieties of monkeys, these capuchins being the last. I'll admit, they are exceedingly cute. Almost cute enough for me to momentarily forget that monkeys pose a clear and present danger to Western Civilization. Almost.Sadly, the opportunity to wrestle a monkey did not present itself. Park regulations prohibit feeding the monkeys, so I'm pretty sure that engaging in fisticuffs with one of them is off limits as well. Fine, be that way park rangers. Just don't come crying to Rickey when Costa Rica is ground zero for the simian uprising.
The next day, we departed Quepos and drove North to the airport in San Jose. Driving along, we paid a toll for an incomplete highway that we had to exit two miles later. Apparently the highway project was behind schedule but the toll booths were finished right on time, so the authorities figured, "hey, let's open 'em anyway!" This sort of planning isn't uncommon in Costa Rica, a country badly in need of their own version of Robert Moses. This is what passes for a bridge:Rusty steel girders supporting wooden planks. And tractor trailers are driving over this. This is actually high tech compared to some of the other river crossings we were subjected to. I feel so much better about driving across the crumbling Tappan Zee after this. You don't really drive across the bridges in Costa Rica as much as hold your breath and make a mental checklist of places you want to see before you die.

We spent out last night in Costa Rica in a hotel outside of San Jose. San Jose is... well, the it's the capital of Costa Rica. A big poor city in Central America. Our decision not to spend much time there was a sound one. That evening, while outside smoking, I heard 5 or 6 popping noises in the distance. Suddenly, the hotel guard's radio starts going off and he starts talking loudly into it. Not having any knowledge of Spanish, I just tell myself that he's saying "it's those damn kids playing with firecrackers again" and I mosey inside. Then the sounds go off again. This time four quick shots followed by one more a few seconds later. I'm pretty sure it was gunfire. We don't sleep much that night. The following day, we got the hell out of San Jose, dropped off the rental car, and made for the airport.
What did I miss while I was gone? Ironically, it rained more back home than it did in Costa Rica, the Mets are in an injury plagued tailspin, Michael Jackson and pretty much everyone everyone else is dead, and I'm pretty certain that the Riddler is lurking in the comments section of this blog.

[OK, anonymous, I figured out that another word for tiered crown is 'tiara' but I can't rearrange the letters into a recognizable name, let alone figure out the consonant swapping thing you need me to do to learn your identity. Stop freaking toying with me damn you!]

Rickey’s Costa Rica Travelogue Part VI: The Monteverde Cloud Forest

2009-07-16T22:40:00.039-04:00

We know, you’re wondering where Part V of the travelogue disappeared to. You miss it dearly. Well you see, after a soul-searching discussion with Mrs. Henderson, it was agreed upon that posting a deranged swimsuit calendar spread of myself on the internet might have been somewhat of a poor decision. Needless to say, rum was involved at the time. As you can see, the decision has since been rectified. Those responsible have been sacked. If you were one of the individuals who saw the post in all its beefcakey glory, please be sure to send us the bill for your psychotherapy sessions and we’ll gladly reimburse you for your expenses.

Moving on…

Arenal was tough to leave behind. We spent our last day there once again hanging out in the springs and relaxing.When we get back home and start looking for a house to purchase in the Tri-State area, I fully plan on asking if it has pools heated by underground volcanic vents. This might lengthen our search somewhat.

Exiting the spa, we saw a guy petting something that looked like a large wooden log. Then the log moved. Quickly realizing that we were looking at a giant snake of some kind – some sort of python or boa colored black with diamond markings down its torso – we took a few steps back. The dude, who happened to work at the spa, told us he’d found this massive snake trying to eat one of his chickens at his home, so naturally, he did what anyone in his situation would have done: he adopted it as a pet. Uh, cute.

A brief aside: one time back in college, after a few too many libations, I stumbled out of my frat house and saw a stray cat in the back parking lot. Not being altogether lucid, I figured I’d bring the cat inside and adopt it as my own. It was generally (and quickly) decided by my fellow brethren living in the frat house that that was an exceedingly bad idea and the cat was cast back outside. End of story.

And yet THIS GUY, this crazy Costa Rican bastard, thinks it wise to adopt a massive wild serpent that he caught swallowing one of his chickens. I quickly decide that the time has come to depart Arenal.

From Arenal, we headed back around the lake, and drove southeast to Monteverde, home of Costa Rica’s famed cloud forests.
We passed by many wind farms—occasional urban sprawl aside, Costa Rica prides itself for being a very green country. I approve of this. I'm certain that Thomas Friedman also does.

Lush countryside abounds. (by the way, did you know that you can click on any of these images to vastly embiggen them? yes mom, I'm talking directly to you).
We drove up and up and looked out the car windows at high elevation cows dotting the countryside. Behold, the Chuck Yeagers of the bovine family:
Have I mentioned that the beef here is delicious?

Once we arrived in Monteverde, we got an interesting tour of a coffee plantation. Mmmmm, sweet sweet nectar of consciousness.... The process by which you enjoy your morning cup of joe is elaborate and fraught with labor concerns, but the bottom line is that if you want to do it properly and humanely (like they do here) then coffee is ridiculously hard to obtain. And hot damn, does it taste good. Needless to say, roughly 95 pounds of Costa Rican coffee beans are returning home with us to the U.S.The next day, we spent a full morning hiking around a biological preserve. They call this a cloud forest for obvious reasons: it’s a lush environment that thrives in the upper atmosphere. Back in suburbia, a homeowner would give his right arm to have just one of these massive trees sitting on his front lawn. Here, there are hundreds of millions of them, and if anyone so much as thinks about hacking off a limb of one of these beauties, they’ll incur a government fine too large to even fathom.

This is for good reason. I’m just going to let these pictures speak for themselves. Please note that the lens flare/glare is entirely intentional and in no way a reflection of my mediocre camera equipment. (argh, I need an SLR). Anyway, National Geographic, eat your heart out.
Stunning. Hiking through the jungle, we weren’t simply exploring a rainforest, we were also in the clouds. The wind was strong but warm and the air was thin. Immense billows of clouds drifted through the trees. The temperature felt about 60 degrees, a welcome change from the 90 degree heat we’d found in Costa Rica’s lower elevations. These are only a handful of the pictures I snapped and they don't even come close to capturing how incredible it was here.

After a while, we finally reached the summit. Apparently it's kind of a big deal up here. Something about a continental divide of some sort...Later on in the hike, the oxygen deprivation finally got to me and I found a walking stick and did my very best Gandalf impression. Behold the alarming photographic evidence that will almost surely prevent me from attaining gainful employment should I decide to switch jobs:You shall not pass! (just be glad I'm wearing a shirt this time, OK?)

We debated doing the zipline thing again in Monteverde, but our hike kind of wore us out. Later, our decision to shun the ziplines was validated by an intense rain that lasted all afternoon. Rain pelting the face at 45mph probably doesn't feel all that good I'm guessing. Trapped inside in the hotel room, we did what any red-blooded Americans staying in a hotel room with a fireplace would have done: we started a fire, a damn good one. Marvel at three years of Boy Scout training finally paying off!Please note that these photos do not portray the aftermath of smoke flooding into the hotel room and us spending 30 minutes attempting to fan the fumes outside using pillowcases. Good times all around.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue Part IV: The Quest for Arenal

2009-07-07T21:22:00.042-04:00

Editor's note: fair warning, there is absolutely no way this post could ever be as entertaining as the last one. The only way we could top it would be by driving back to that farm, piling the farmer and his family into the car, and taking them with us for the rest of the trip.

The same day we came upon that washed out road that prevented us to getting to Mal Pais (I remember Erika saying "just so we're absolutely clear, we ARE NOT driving through that") we turned North and drove to the Arenal region, home of the world’s most active volcano. Along the way, we enjoyed a pleasant and thankfully uneventful drive through some of the country’s seemingly endless scenic areas. We drove around Lake Arenal to get to the volcano and marveled at this sight: I swear, I'm really a very mediocre photographer. This country just makes it too damned easy. Anyhow, upon arriving in the Arenal region, we found out that the place we wanted to stay was completely booked, and ended up crashing in a place called Linda’s, a mountain resort overlooking the volcano. That night, we feel asleep in our hotel room watching glowing red lava trickle down the side of the volcano. Sometimes lava rocks came tumbling down the side, leaving smoking trails as they went. Even from our distance of 10 kilometers away, we could still hear them crackle and tumble. They snaked down the side of the volcano like fiery caterpillars. Some as big as school buses, traveling at 70mph. It’s times like this when I’m kicking myself for not splurging on a digital SLR.

When travel guides say that you’re paying for the view, they had places like this hotel in mind. We could feel the mattress springs, the food wasn’t great, and there were tons of bugs in the room. But hey, you can put me in a 50 gallon barrel full of hissing cockroaches, and if I get to wake up to this view, then it’s well worth the $102 we paid for the night.The following morning, our adventurous nature got the better of us yet again and we went for a grueling hike in the Arenal Volcano national park. It took us a few minutes to realize that the fine gray dust that fell through the trees and irritated our eyes was volcanic ash.The sound of lava boulders rolling down the volcano was even closer than we'd heard last night. There were bugs like you wouldn’t believe, but the foliage was awesome. Birds and lizards were everywhere. We hiked up to a lava flow and walked around on it for a bit. I saw some sort of gopher-like creature dart across the trail in front of me. Must've been a jungle gopher. Hiking for those two hours, I saw a greater variety of shades of green then I’ve ever seen in my life. Just spectacular stuff.
Around midday, we collectively lost our minds and decided to go zip lining in a nearby preserve. This is the obligatory "before" picture. As you can see, things are relatively calm. The "after" picture shall go unpublished because it features me rigorously chain smoking in the parking lot. I heartily approve of any activity that requires one to look like this much of a doofus.

What zip lining entails is taking a sky tram up above the tree canopy, then flying high across a series of valleys on high tension cables held up by pulleys. You’d think that after the mud incident, we’d be toning things back a bit, but not so much. See, if we’d been terminally marooned in that awful mud patch, it wouldn’t have made much of an impact. People would just assume that we’d become agrarians or that the earth has simply swallowed us up. But plummeting to our deaths on a zipline suspended 800 meters above the tree line on a harness moving at 50mph? That would most definitely make the next installment of ‘When Shit Goes Wrong” on Spike TV.

So we signed the waiver and away we zipped down a series of 6 lines, each one more terrifying and exhilarating than the last. You know that unsettled feeling you get when your plane takes off or lands? This is similar to that feeling ...if you were hanging on to the wing of the plane. One line was over a half mile long. My mother will most likely have a heart attack when she sees these pictures.Just so we’re all clear on this, that posture you see me in is actually SOP for this crazy activity. In order to slow your 50mph approach, you do that air-braking thing to slow down and prevent yourself from slamming into the poll. Do it too early and you’ll get stuck in the middle of the line, dangling helplessly above the trees. The only thing holding you up is the high tension zipline, extending hundreds of meters and tied around a tree at each end. I shudder to think what kind of insurance policy a place like this has.

We capped off the exciting day with a trip to Fortuna, a funky little town that’s very gringo friendly, and grabbed a bite to eat at a local café. Erika even made a new friend. Sure he looks cute, but when Erika didn’t give him a bite of her food, he swiped his claws across her back and sulked off, no doubt to sew his wild feline seed. Even the cats in this county are dangerous. Such is the plight of the third world--in the absence of a Latino Bob Barker, nobody thinks to neuter or spay their pets.

That night, we checked in to a neat joint on the other side of the volcano called Montana De Fuego. Lava flows aren’t visible on this side of the volcano, but the digs are much cushier.

We started off the next day by timidly venturing into the car rental agency to discuss the possibility getting some sort of replacement car. Perhaps even one with functioning breaks and the ability back up, two features sorely missing on our Grand Vitara. Now I completely expected them to hold my balls over an open flame for the variety of mechanical problems that this car was experiencing following the mud incident, but no, they simply swapped us out for a new car and assured us that our rental deposit wasn’t in jeopardy. No questions asked. Life is good.

It's... ...A NEW CAR!!!We spent the afternoon at Arenal’s other big attraction: the hot springs. We found this amazing spa/hotel simply known as “The Springs” that takes sulfuric water heated by volcanic vents and pumps it out into a series of pools, ranging in temperature from 90 to 103 degrees and chock full of minerals and all sorts of good stuff. The rules here are simple: you sit in the pools and under soothing warm waterfalls, letting yourself get massaged by the force of water for an undetermined amount of time until the worries of the world are erased. Now I’m not one to make dubious medical claims, but had FDR vacationed here instead of Warm Springs, there’s a good chance his polio would’ve been cured and he’d be President of the United States this very day. This stuff is that good. Imagine sitting in a warm soothing bath for 6 hours—it’s phenomenal, and yes, it definitely does aid the circulation and help to reduce stress levels. If I was any more relaxed, I’d be back in the womb.We’re definitely going back tomorrow, because honestly, this is how a honeymoon is SUPPOSED to be, right?

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Mal Pais...

2009-07-05T21:24:00.024-04:00

So let me tell you how this happened. Let me tell you how WE spent our Fourth of July. We checked out of Villas Sol in the morning, picked up our rental car from Liberia, and started driving south to Mal Pais. The paved roads were scenic, lovely, and very relaxing. Then the GPS told us to go on to some gravelly roads, which we did. They were still marked, but pretty hairy and bumpy, even for a 4WD vehicle. Then the GPS told us to go on an unnamed road, simply called “unpaved road,” which again, we did.We went up and down and were jostled around but the scenery was phenomenal. We were completely on our own in the jungle. This was the real Costa Rica, we told ourselves. Ever see that Eco Challenge show on the Discovery Channel where they race Land Rovers through the jungle? That’s exactly what this was: exhilarating. Would you be surprised if I told you that Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” was blasting through the car stereo? Probably, not, right? (it was).
And then, somewhere about 50 kilometers South of Jicarel, at around 5PM, we got stuck in the mud. The worst mud I’ve ever seen in my life. It was my own damned fault—the 4WD was engaged, but I didn’t have enough momentum to make it up that lousy soggy hill. And I don’t just mean a little stuck, I mean the entire right side of the car was sinking into a pool of reddish clay mud and the car was tilting at a 30 degree angle. A trickle of mud was running down the road, making digging out the car pretty much impossible.

Now let me tell you something about being stuck in the mud in Costa Rica—it isn’t like back home. There, you pull out the cell phone, make a call, and a bit later some schlub shows up and pulls you out. Things were a little bit different for us. All Frommers says about getting stuck in this part of Costa Rica is “good luck asshole.” We were absolutely in the middle of nowhere, rural Central America, 50 kilometers from any vestige of civilization sitting in an immobile rental car, we speak barely any Spanish, our phones don’t work, nobody was coming, and oh yeah, it’s getting dark and we’re in a freaking jungle. Suddenly, that “charming and rustic” side of Costa Rica that you’ve been searching for doesn’t seem all that great.

Now by the sheer grace of god, we just happen to have gotten stuck right in front of a farm. So I yell for help. A farmer and his wife and child approach us. So does their pig. I remind myself to stay respectful and that I am not only a stranded traveler, but also an ambassador for my country. I also try to remember the Prime Directive from "Star Trek."

Now our basic Spanish is absolutely worthless, and to make matters worse, the farmer, his wife and kid speak an entirely different dialect. Using hand gestures, it is communicated to us that the farmer will attempt to pull our SUV weighing a bazillion pounds out of the mud using his horse. Shockingly enough, this proves fruitless. We try digging out, the farmer and I taking turns shoveling while Erika is up to her knees in mud scooping it out with her hands. We’re completely covered in mud. The pig comes over and watches us. That fat bastard is the only one enjoying this.

When it finally dawns on everyone that our medieval era equipment isn’t suited to remove the behemoth from the muck, we decide to split up. I convince the farmer to let me borrow one of his horses while Erika waited inside to their small shack with the farmer’s wife. Yes, you're reading this correctly, I left my wife as collateral for a horse on our honeymoon. Erika spent the next few hours awaiting my return while I rode 4 kilometers down the road to get help. Before departing, Erika asks me “can you even ride a horse?!” I coolly nod yes, say ‘hiyaa’ and head off down the darkening road to get help.

Yeah, it turns out I have absolutely no idea how to ride a horse. The bastard is all over the place and naturally, he’s been trained to respond to a Spanish dialect of which I have absolutely no knowledge. If not for the farmer riding next to me guiding the horse, I’d probably have ended up in Venezuela. I would have had time to enjoy the scenery and the sun setting behind the mountains if I wasn’t freaking out of my mind about the variety of bad shit that can happen to some jackass gringo riding a horse down a dirt road in the middle of the jungle at night.

Now I’m separated from Erika at this point and wasn’t around to witness her awkwardly sitting in a tin roofed house with the wife and son who she has no means of communicating with. There are Winnie the Pooh and Jesus coloring books. There’s an outhouse. There’s a wood-burning stove. Erika washes off her feet in a barrel of rainwater. The pig comes into the house and is yelled at and chased off with a stone hurled by the wife. Apparently, this pig has a knack for getting into trouble. Somehow, the wife asks Erika if she has kids. I’m assuming that the insinuation here was something along the lines of “you morons need to get your shit together before you even consider spawning offspring.”

Meanwhile, the farmer and I get to the house of a guy with a pickup truck and things are starting to finally look up. This fellow not only can tow us out, but he speaks passable English (a shitload better than my Spanish). And so we hop in his pickup and head back to our car, my spirits decidedly lifted. Then HIS car breaks down. So he tells me he’s going to get another one from a nearby farmer and that I should hoof it back to our car. Alone.

So it’s completely dark at this point and I’m walking solo for about a kilometer trying to find my way back to the car. The moon is out, but it doesn’t do very much to light up the road. The jungle makes weird noises. Things rustle. I hear monkeys in the trees making hooting and growling noises. It's pretty intense stuff. Fortunately, I'm carrying an extra pack of cigarettes with me.

Finally, I find my way back to the farmer’s house and call for Erika who comes out, looking very relieved to see me. Now I’ve got to give credit where it’s due—the girl really kept it together the whole time. She’d later tell me that she was seriously freaking out, but you wouldn’t know it looking at her. While stuck in the mud for three hours, in sweltering heat with flies buzzing all around us, I learned more about Erika and her determination than I did during an entire year of wedding planning. She’s an incredibly strong person and I'm a lucky bastard to have her. I would have taken some photos of this whole ordeal, but in situations like this, you’re usually more interested in resolving the harrowing experience rather than snapping a few photos for the blog. Sorry folks.

As promised, the guy from down the road shows up with a new truck, we hook it to our car, put both of ‘em in reverse, and give it a shot. Erika guns the engine while we push from the front. No dice. The car still doesn’t budge. We try pushing, rocking, pulling, pretty much everything. Mud goes everywhere. The car headlights make it seem like it’s raining mud.

Suddenly, everybody looks at me with a “what now?” expression. I honestly have no idea. If possible, I’d rather not spend the night stranded in the jungle. All I can think of is ask the guy to back the truck up and have it pull our car in drive rather than reverse. I guess the phrase “more torque!” popped into my mind. So we do it, and holy fucking shit, on the first try, it works. Our car pops free leaving a massive crater of mud 7 feet deep where it was trapped. We are officially un-fucked.

The only way I have of thanking the farmer and his friend with the pickup truck is a few thousand colones. Was paying them for their help rude? Probably, but it was the only way I had of thanking them. The farmer’s name is Renaldo and the pickup truck owner’s is Freddie. If they hadn’t been around to help us, we would have been absolutely screwed. Money and internet praise is the only thing I can offer as a means of thanks to these kind generous people.

After much handshaking, we hop back in the car, pretty much in shock at this point, drive back the way we came, and navigate the dark bumpy road until we find a tiny hotel in Playa Coyote to crash for the night. The hotel manager sees us caked head to toe in mud, is horrified to hear our story, and brings us water and food. Ice cream and flan never tasted so damned good. We wake up the next morning, walk out to the deck to this view:
Pretty damned miraculous if you ask me. Having regained our courage, we make a second effort to drive to Mal Pais, using a hand drawn map provided by the hotel manager. Things are looking good until we stumble upon this:
Well, OK, that’s a naked dude bathing in a river. Erika took that photo, not me. Apparently she's unfamiliar with the belief held by many folks around here that photos steal their souls. But just 10 feet to the left of the guy bathing, we saw THIS:
See that small dirt area on the other side of the river? That’s the other side of the road. What I estimate to be a 6 foot deep river stands between us and Mal Pais. Now I’ll freely admit that I’m a bit of a crazy guy. I bite my fingernails a lot. I walk up stairs two at a time. Sometimes I wear my socks two days in a row. But there’s harmless crazy, and then there’s the kind of crazy that tells you it’s a good idea to ford a 6 foot river in a car that has a 3 foot engine block clearance. 4WD SUVs don’t cut it on these roads, you need a goddamned Sherman tank to get around this country.

There’s another way to Mal Pais, but it’s on equally poor roads and lest we forget, this is the rainy season. I loved the idea of big surf in Mal Pais and having a free place to crash for four nights at our friend's place, but I know when to call it quits. So we got the hell out of this part of Costa Rica. We’re driving North to the volcano in Arenal. Looking at the map, the roads are paved there. They’d better be anyway—I’m no mechanic, but I’m guessing there’s only so much more a rental car can take.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue, Part III

2009-07-03T17:26:00.000-04:00

You’re probably wondering: why the hell is this prick blogging from his honeymoon instead of doing, ahem, other things? Well first off, the afternoon rain provides ample time for writing, and secondly, I’m doing all this mainly so I can remember this, not you (the rum down here is alarmingly plentiful). And with that cleared up, we move forward to…
Day 5. Marvel at rosy fingered dawn! Or is that sunset? I'm actually not completely sure (this goes back to the rum comment above).

The morning is consumed by a timeshare presentation. In order to snag two free days of comped meals and drinks at Villa Sol, the Hendersons have subjected themselves to something just a few steps removed from water boarding: a timeshare pitch. Jimmy, the guy who runs the presentation is nice enough. He’s animated, engaging, and quite topical. But let me tell you something about Jimmy: he’s undoubtedly stuffing Columbia’s national export into his nose on a regular basis. The dude fidgets, he wipes his nose constantly, and he bumps over a cup of coffee in the middle of his pitch. He’s making me nervous just looking at him.

A brief aside: one summer, I was looking for work and remember applying for a job selling CutCo knives door to door. I passed the initial exam with flying colors. When the regional manager in charge of new hires called me into his office, told me I’d got the job and started cutting through a beefy piece of leather with a CutCo knife to demonstrate the effectiveness of his product, I knew that sales just wasn’t for me. But hey, somebody’s gotta do the job I suppose. Today that somebody is Jimmy.

Because I was feeling frisky, I decided to turn the tables on Jimmy's timeshare pitch and ask him a bit about HIS background. He’s a Boston ex-pat who was born into a family restaurant business, then worked for Four Seasons for a while and was dating an occupational therapist. Now he’s single and hawking timeshares at the humid ass end of the universe. Jimmy has most definitely come down in the world. I feel a little bad for the guy saying no to him repeatedly after a 90 minute presentation (he even makes a little sad puppy dog face after we reject him) but hey, I’m pretty conservative when it comes to plopping down 80K for a timeshare that I’ll rarely use. I'm weird like that.

After being thoroughly tested, we head for lunch and enjoy some good eats and drinks. The salsa down here is a green tangy sauce that is absolutely incredible. I’ve been pouring it over rice and beans, eggs, toast, and pretty much every other solid food I can find.

Then we make for the beach in the afternoon, plop down in a nice shady spot and relax. After some soothing time doing the dead man’s float in the Pacific Ocean, I head towards land, decidedly hungry. A guy on the beach is selling ceviche for 5,000 colones. Having no idea whatsoever what that equates to in dollars, I gladly pay him and walk back to Mrs. Henderson with a Tupperware container of raw marinated seafood. She is at best apprehensive.Sweet fancy moses, is this stuff good. It consists of octopus, clams, some sort of raw fish, all marinated in lemon juice, cilantro, and hot sauce. I plan on putting this in a blender and feeding it to my unborn kid. Two doses and they’ll be lifting aircraft carriers above their head.

Then thunder sounds in the distance and we hastily head back from the beach to the hotel bar. Once there and having consumed many more drinks, we forge what will undoubtedly be a life long friendship with a verbose lady from Staten Island. She has flesh eating disease (a minor detail that she tells me after I’ve shaken her hand) and loves to gripe about pretty much everything in her life. It’s funny how listening to somebody else bitching makes you feel instantly better about yourself. The best I can tell her is that she should be very happy with her tap water back home.

After watching all we can bear of the Mets/Yanks Sunday night game on ESPN Deportes, we’re heading off for dinner. The beisbol world is too much with us. Same goes for this resort too. We’re pretty much counting down the days until we hop back in a rental car and start legitimately enjoying Costa Rica again. Don't get me wrong, it's nice ...just a little to sterile for us, you know? As much as we love staying in a highly regimented resort that’s governed more strictly than Leavenworth Penitentiary, we think that the more rustic funky parts of Costa Rica appeal more to us. On July 4th, we’re heading further south to a tiny little town on the cost known as Malpais. The surf at the beach down there is strong (it’s where they filmed “Endless Summer 2”) and the locale is wonderfully remote. It’s inhabited by absolutely no one and we’re fortunate enough to know somebody who is letting us use their beach house there. Coordinating the details via email, we're informed that someone named Preston will be staying at the house with us. I assumed that Preston is some sort of monkey butler, until I read that he also likes to surf in the mornings. Still, he could definitely be a surfing monkey butler, which is undoubedtly the coolest kind of monkey butler of all.

Day 6: To the fellow resort-goers, our rallying against the time share pitch has reached an almost evangelical tone. We watched the bartender, with no regard for secrecy, water down the booze by pouring equal parts water and no name brand rum back into a liquor bottle. We’re just a few steps removed from ordering t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “never submit.”

Amenities at the resort are plentiful. Cigarettes cost less than $2 in USD. If you run over somebody in your rental car, you’re not obligated to stop. You just drive to the rental car company office and report the incident. Life here in Costa Rica is cheap. Several hundred years ago, the locals dropped to their knees and bowed down before the conquistadors who weighed anchor in their gulf. Three hundred years later, this area is pockmarked by beach resorts. Go figure.

To their credit, the Costa Rican government will only allow you to purchase an acre of land if you also purchase an acre of land in the rainforest and agree not to develop it for 100 years. I like that ethos. The founder of AOL wanted to buy some land down here and is finding it to be cost prohibitive. As of now, he still is reluctant to close the deal. Good riddance—there should be some places on this planet that are still wild, untamed and not governed by rampant greed.

Days 7-8. (I think... I've pretty much lost track of time at this point) Here’s where things get rather interesting. We go snorkeling in the morning. I get the hell stung out of me by a jellyfish.(At least I hope that's a jellyfish sting and not the onset of flesh eating disease). While lounging in the pool, I’m asked to join an impromptu volleyball game by a resort staff member. Choosing to ignore the fact that this is the same guy who just hours earlier led us on the snorkeling tour that resulted in me getting by jellyfish, I say yes, I’d love to play some volleyball, and enter the game.

When it comes to be my time to serve, my competitive streak takes over and I’m completely dialed in. I toss the ball up, push off and smack two rockets to the other side. Both of ‘em are perfectly places spikes, landing between a terrified 13 year old girl and a listless old man whose mind clearly isn't in the game. There may have even been some spin on the ball. I am officially dialed into this game. Ancient spirits of evil, transform this decayed form to Volleyball-Ra, the Ever-Living! Behold, Rickey in action:
Yeah, I’m a pasty white dude. Leave me alone. And hey, if you had a weird looking mole surgically removed from your back three years ago that resulted in a scar that looked like you were involved in a vicious knife fight, you’d be piling on the 60 SPF sunscreen too.

On the third serve, I get even more cocky and push off way too hard on my toes. Instantly, I feel something give. It feels like a tear in my right leg, like a piano cord snapping. I’ve seen enough Mets hobbling off the field to know what this means: some sort of leg injury has transpired. Yes, you're reading this correctly, I have managed to hurt myself playing pool volleyball. Hotel staff are dispatched to pick up anti-inflammatory medicine and I get to spend the rest of my time here gimping around and smiling sheepishly whenever somebody asks me how my leg is feeling. But on the bright side, while spending the next few lying days on my ass recovering, I get to make friends with the local wildlife:Now that's one big bastard of a bug. While lounging by the beach, we also race hermit crabs. I call the big one "Pinchy."

Anyway, the leg injury seems to be just a pulled calf and not a complete tear, so I should be good as new for when we head down to Malpais on Saturday. I'm able to put a little more weight on it now and feel like a full recovery is iminent. I have no idea if there's any sort of internet connection at this place in Mapais or not, so if we go into radio silence, you'll know why.

Cheers,
~Rickey

Rickey's Search for a New Outfielder

2009-07-01T10:17:00.004-04:00

You’d think that being on one’s honeymoon in Costa Rica would exempt them from worrying about the Mets. And in anyone else’s case other than Rickey’s you’d be absolutely correct. But no, we wanted you to know that despite being roughly five feet from the sun, the Mets are very much still on Rickey’s mind. In fact, while vacationing down here in Costa Rica, Rickey has been conducting a thorough and exhaustive search for a replacement outfielder for the New York Mets.

Now despite being completely removed from the tri-state sports buzz, we are just barely up to speed enough to know that Carlos Beltran is woefully injured. Some anonymous mook is playing in left field. And not having any idea of that the recent box scores are, we’re pretty certain that Gary Sheffield is NOT performing up to the expectations that Mike Francessa has piled upon him:

“He’s a solid hitter. A solid hitter. He’ll get you 25 home runs, no problem. [30 second pause] He’s a solid hitter. I’d go to war with this guy any time.”

Yeah, thanks Mike. So Rickey has been searching around down here in Costa Rica for a new outfielder. After much foraging, we think we’ve finally found out candidate. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Pepe:Rickey’s not totally sure if this is a cow, or an ox, or some sort of water buffalo, but goddamnit, this magnificent bastard has intangible baseball talent. Once Rickey figures out how to smuggle a 1,276 pound land mammal past U.S. customs, we are officially in business.
The scouting report on this wondrous beast tells us that he’s surprisingly nimble footed, and should have no problem stretching singles out into doubles. He’s a bit sluggish tracking fly balls in the outfield and has yet to figure out how to hit a changeup, but we’re confident that a few weeks in AAA assignment should straighten out these minor issues. Also, there’s a slight issue involving Pepe wanting to gore Luis Castillo on sight (apparently Castillo resembles a rodeo clown that Pepe faced a few months back) but frankly, we don’t see much of a problem with this.

As an added bonus, just think of the money this will save the Citified grounds keeping crew. This guy trims the field for em! And hey, if things don’t pan out, he makes for a delicious tenderloin! Pick up the phone Omar, this is destiny calling.

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue: Part II

2009-06-28T10:25:00.013-04:00

Day 4. We still haven’t adjusted to the time difference and keep on waking up at 5:30 in the morning and going to bed at 9PM. Who the hell gets jet lagged from a puny two hour time difference? (The Hendersons, that’s who).

Departing from Liberia, we head towards Playa Hermosa, a gorgeous beach resort town on the Pacific coast. Driving west, I’m struck by how much flatter the land is here. It’s almost like the Serengeti—squat trees punctuate vast fields and large mountains loom in the distance. The car GPS does a decent job with straight roads, but once you venture off them, things quickly devolve into a greek tragedy. There are lots of unmarked rutted dirt roads here that the folks at Garmin have absolutely no idea how to classify. But on the plus side, the GPS does helpfully alert you whenever you’re about to cross over a speed bump. I wonder who the miserable schmuck is who has to drive around every country marking speed bumps on satellite maps. That poor bastard definitely drew a karmic short straw. One could safely assume that an ancient ancestor of his raw dogged Magellan’s daughter.

We’re settling in for seven days in Playa Hermosa at a lovely resort known as Villas Sol. It’s one of those all-inclusive packages that removes all worries and replaces ‘em with unlimited drinks, helpful smiles, and terrific spreads. Mmmmm, the white man’s burden never tasted so good. The resort is built entirely on a sloping hill with levels upon levels of houses with of cylinder clay tile roofs—the kind that Buster Keaton would scramble up on and cause an avalanche of roofing materials to cascade down after him. Looking at how vertically situated everything is, I try my damndest not to let the word “mudslide” enter my vocabulary. We’re just a short hike from the beach. I probably won’t be updating much over the next few days since essentially all there is to do here is relax and enjoy the incredible views. By no means is this a bad thing.

Promptly after checking in, we make for the beach with due haste. The sand is a black volcanic ash color that stains the skin and massages the feet. Looking for a spot to set up camp on the beach, we’re quickly accosted by an ex-pat named A.J. selling timeshares. He hands us two scratch off cards and informs us that if we scratch off three monkey symbols, we get a free car rental for a week. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this guy was working on commission. I swear these people would give up their first born for an opportunity to sell a condo. Uh, thanks but no thanks bub, the Hendersons would like to purchase a home stateside before they seek to expand their international realty holdings.We spend a while at the beach marveling at our surroundings. The surf is gentile and the sunbathers are friendly. We pick up our books and let the sun soak into our lanky Yankee bones. A guy wheels a cart down the beach selling cerviche. After careful deliberation, I decide to let my stomach settle with the normal local fare before diving into a cup of raw marinated fish (if no blog posts appear for a few days midweek, you’ll know why—I’ll have sampled cerviche and Erika will be attending to my foodsick stricken carcass).

There’s actually a good deal of stuff to do here. Tomorrow we’re doing pretty much the same thing: heading back to the beach followed by some pool action, but on Monday we’re going snorkeling. Tuesday is sailing. Wednesday is kayaking. In case you hadn’t already surmised, rolling Hendersons gather no moss. Back in a few days with updates.

Best,
~Rickey

Rickey's Costa Rica Travelogue

2009-06-26T18:27:00.006-04:00

Hey folks, this is Rickey checking in from Costa Rica. The next few weeks will be an interesting experiment for this blog. Internet connection willing, I’ll be live blogging from the road on our experiences down here. Also, you get the talented Young Henderson keeping dibs on all things Mets-related. And if that’s not enough, you get Adam’s quirky writings as well (no, he doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll get the memo shortly). Act now and we’ll toss in a complimentary set of steak knives! So ironically, Rickey going on his three-week honeymoon will actually INCREASE the frequency of posts here at RwR. And so, without further delay, we present our first installment of:

Rickey’s Costa Rica Travelogue

Moooo. There are fuckload of cows down here. It’s no exaggeration to say they outnumber the people.

Day 1. We touch down in Costa Rica, specifically San Jose Airport, where we spotted Josh Hartnett disembarking the plane with us. He’s accompanied by a blonde female who he dispatches to pick up his luggage from baggage claim. Apparently when you’re Josh Hartnett and have starred in cinematic masterpieces such as “Pearl Harbor,” you get sullen aneorexic blondes to grab your suitcase for you. We would have taken a photo of him, but this is Rickey's honeymoon, not Josh Harnett's, goddamnit.

A hasty exodus was made from San Jose via rental car (not much to see there) and we headed for Alajuela, a small town south of the central mountains of Costa Rica. The landscape is breathtaking, the roads treacherous, and the drivers maniacal. We booked a room for two nights in Vista del Valle Plantation Inn, an awesome collection of bungalows featuring thatched roofs, cozy mosquito netted beds, outdoor showers, and awesome views of the jungle. (In case you can't tell, we're quite eager to be on our honeymoon). Getting back to the digs, you walk out onto the deck of the bungalow and there’s the jungle, rich green canyons and all. Layers upon layers of dense green vegetation. Promptly after checking in to the hotel on Wednesday, we got ambitious and hiked down an insanely treacherous path to a nearby waterfall. The flume of water fell from a height seemingly half the height of the empire State Building and a hawk lazily circled high above the summit.As night sets in, the bats fly about and chirp. Fireflies blink three times at once while the river roars below and thunder sounds in the distance over the mountains. Trees are gnarled and covered with moss. The ground is soft and entire hillsides have sloughed off, only to be replaced by yet more vegetation. Inside every hollowed out tree trunk some creature undoubtedly dwells. Nature leaves no surface untouched or barren. Every morning the sun rises just slightly off to the left of the bungalow deck and basks the entire landscape in vibrant yellows and oranges. It’s a living depiction of “Dawn in the Amazon.” In the afternoon, a cool rain falls from the sky, and we peacefully read books on the deck, a biography for her and David Sedaris for me, while the soothing drops pitter patter down.

We discovered the food at the hotel to be fresh and new as we ate in an open air dining space resembling a tree house overlooking the valley. It takes the taste buds a little while to adjust to eating meat that hasn’t been injected with hormones and steroids. At first you think the steak is too gamey, but then it occurs to you that’s how beef is SUPPOSED to taste. The coffee here is the bar none the best I’ve ever had, something I’m told that is thanks to the sunny and moist Costa Rican climate. The company was excellent as well. We chatted with two Colorado natives who were seriously considering permanently relocating to Costa Rica. This seems to be a common refrain around here.

Day 2. Thursday, we started off with the traditional Tico breakfast of plantains, scrambled eggs, rice and beans, and an artisinal tangy spicy green sauce (yeah, I know, three days here and I already sound like freaking Frommers). While eating we peered through binoculars at goats grazing on a distant hillside. Then we hopped back in the rental car, a beefy 4WD SUV, (Costa Rica is one of those places where they’re actually useful) and made for the Poas Volcano. The drive up was incredible as we went through tiny villages, past sleepy farms, and up into the clouds. Farmers driving tractors smile and wave and tiny dogs yap at us as we drive by. Imagine that Tintin book set in Peru and you’re on the right track. You go up and down 25% grades, navigate crazy s-turns, while the rolling green countryside flies by and you totally love it. Just absolutely stunning stuff. The volcano was a massive smoking crater emitting enough toxic sulphiric gas to put the GOP minority to shame. After taking in the crater, we wandered around the grounds a bit more, winding our way up wooded spooky paths that seemed torn from some Tim Burton movie. Everything is rich here and teeming with life.
Afterwards, we headed to La Paz Waterfalls and Gardens, a touristy spot with a butterfly garden and some animal exhibits. A yellow beaked bird ate from my hand. Monkeys were fascinated by us. The jungle cats couldn’t be bothered to wake from their sleep. Overall it wasn’t much to write home about really, the star of the trip was the drive up there. Tomorrow we check out of the hotel and head towards Liberia for a one night stay before we settle in for seven days of beach relaxation at Playa Hermosa on the Pacific side.

Day 3. After killing a bug the size of my cell phone last night, it’s safe to say that we’re officially over the "charming rustic nature" of this lodge. The bastard was slamming itself against the bungalow door and emitting high pitched shrieks. Given enough time, he probably would’ve figured out a way to open the door. I swear to god, the insect actually screamed like a baby when I swatted him to death.And so we headed west towards Liberia, where we’re staying the night before embarking for Playa Hermosa. The drive was incredible, but fairly slow. In Costa Rica, it takes 4 hours to travel 80 miles. The roads are that twisty. Also, police set up checkpoints every few miles to nab speeders. If possible, Rickey would like to keep his honeymoon free of incarceration. Driving by scattered villages, we’re struck by how little in this country people have. They mostly live in cobbled together houses under sheet metal roofs. When a storm comes, they don’t file an insurance claim, they just rebuild, and somehow they’re always smiling.

We’re in Liberia now and wanted to go lounge by the pool but then the rain came. So we're hanging out in the room for the moment. The Ticos like to peek through the hotel windows at us. Not much to do in Liberia other than gamble at the hotel casino and catch a movie. We looked into seeing “Transformers” but were informed that it was dubbed in Spanish. I argued that this would only IMPROVE the experience of watching Shia LeBeouf attempt to act, but unfortunately, Erika felt otherwise. So it’ll have to wait until we get back in three weeks. Drat.

Logging on to the internet for the first time in a few days, I see that Michael Jackson has died?! The only english speaking tv channel we get in the hotel is Fox News (oh joy). Somebody fill us in, just what the hell are you people up to back home?

Meet the Mets (again)

2009-06-25T22:20:00.006-04:00

Yes, that’s right folks: it’s time for a long overdue Mets update. But how is this Mets update different from all other Mets updates you ask? Because it’s being written by Rickey Jr., Rickey’s younger brother! You see after Rickey got married, his selfish side took over and he departed on a honeymoon to some tropical paradise other than the tri-state area (see previous post). Well, rather than deprive the blogosphere of quality reading, Rickey asked me, Rickey Jr., to step in and fill his shoes. A word of caution: Rickey Jr. will most likely disappoint and alienate all of you but will try to make the process an enjoyable one by writing in the 3^rd person. And now, let’s talk Mets…

…Even the casual follower of the Metropolitans is surely aware of the shitstorm of activity swirling around the team in recent weeks. And it’s mainly due to the injuries. Apparently, the Wilpons signed players with bones weaker than Sam Jacksons’ in Unbreakable. As a result, 40% of the starting team is injured and on the DL. Awesome. The only thing keeping Mets fans from putting garbage bags over their heads and jumping off the Whitestone bridge is the fact that the Phillies have also been stinking equally. It’s times like these that Rickey Jr. is thankful that he didn’t shell out money on the MLB package just to see the Mets (sidenote: Rickey Jr. lives in Orlando where baseball is frowned upon because it is a skilled sport….as opposed to turning left for 3 hours straight. As a result, Rickey Jr. doesn’t follow baseball as much as he should so pardon any errors in this post). But just as Mets fans begin to give up, the team shows some resolve and character in recent days. They took 2 out of 3 from the Cardinals and newbie pitcher Fernando Nieve had a great 1^st outing. Is this reason to be hopeful as we enter the subway series? Who knows, maybe the Steinbrenners will spontaneously fire both Cashman and Girardi in one fell swoop and the Mets will trounce them. Eh, probably not. But let’s go with it and hope for the best. Whether relying on 3^rd string players or using the ones with multi-million dollar contracts, one thing is for sure: the Mets will take us on some sort of journey this season and it’s better to come along for the ride than to idly watch it pass you by. Especially if you’re standing on the Whitestone and thinking about jumping. Don’t do that. Rickey Jr. prefers the blogging community alive and reading these fantastic posts.

OK, that does it for now. Stay tuned for more senseless news and analysis.

(Probably) The Last Wedding Post You'll Read on this Blog

2009-06-20T07:53:00.015-04:00

Quite the adorable couple, no? Rickey on the left sporting the 'Lil Slugger baseball cap, (clearly foreshadowing his illustrious softball career) and Mrs. Henderson on the right rocking the bangs and pigtails. This little locket just happens to be Mrs. Henderson's wedding gift. Cutting up those photos to fit into the locket got me wondering: what would things have been like had I met my wife Erika when we were wee kids? She'd probably have beaten me up a couple times for hogging the swings at the playground, I'd tease her for her love of pigs, she'd laugh at my irrational fear of raisins, and maybe, just maybe, I'd get a little peck on the cheek at the end of the day.

How'd the wedding go? In a sentence, everything went wrong and then everything went right. There were flat tires, dead car batteries, late shuttle buses, house fires, malfunctioning ovens, broken collar bones, rainy weather, and cash registers that spat out a price of $6.66 for two bagels and a cup of coffee, but once we exchanged vows, all was well. There's a book waiting to be written about everything that's happened over the past week, and yet all that craziness was quickly forgotten once "The Only Living Boy in New York" started playing. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we danced, and I got to wake up next morning with a ring on my hand and a beautiful woman next to me who I have the incredible honor of calling my wife. Life is good.

2009-06-17T13:29:00.000-04:00

Listen, we know, you don’t want to hear about Rickey’s wedding. You care not about the fact that Rickey spent the past few days affixing custom designed wedding monograms to gift bags, water bottles, and funnel shaped pieces of cardstock designed to hold rose petals. So we’ll skip over that topic altogether and discuss something a bit less alienating and more engaging: the honeymoon. Following the wedding, Rickey and the newly minted Mrs. Henderson will depart for Costa Rica, a strange and mysterious country of which Rickey knows relatively little (this will become quickly apparent as you read onwards). And so, dear reader, we proudly present:

Rickey’s Comprehensive Costa Rica Travel Guide

Costa Rica! A country of natural beauty and splendor! Home of primo coffee beans, world class sport fishing, and the hit TV series “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!” Costa Rica: the Switzerland of Latin America! Rickey and Ms. Henderson are thrilled to be spending three weeks in this virtually untouched Eden and yet there are most definitely several issues that those who travel to this exotic land must be aware of. For your enlightenment, we’ve listed them below.

Bandits. Here’s where Rickey sets the bar for this honeymoon’s success: NOT GETTING KIDNAPPED. If bandits kidnap the Hendersons and call their families demanding some sort of ransom, things will not go well. Rickey’s parents will kindly inform the bandits that they’re all tapped out after the wedding and recommend that the bandits have Rickey do some manual labor because he could use some sun and exercise.

Dengue Fever. We didn’t even know what this still existed until a day ago. This curious flu like disease has killed off no less than 35 supporting characters in various Hemmingway novels and now looms large over the Hendersons. Rickey and Ms. Henderson aren’t getting shots for any diseases, so wish ‘em luck with this one. Symptoms include high fever, severe headache, joint and muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, rash, and everyone’s favorite ailment: hysterical blindness.

Local Food. Is actually pretty good stuff from what Rickey’s read. Mmmm fish tacos…. We’re sure that one day the Costa Ricans will submit to our greasy American fast food legacy, but until then, Rickey’s got bigger things to worry about while on his honeymoon such as…

Mel Gibson. Apparently he dwells somewhere on the Pacific side. He moved his family there a few months back, presumably in an attempt to live in a country where there are no Jews. Well guess what Mr. Gibson? The Hendersons are inbound, and they’re bringing the Hebrew horde with ‘em. Before you know it, you’ll be up to your eyeballs in skilled lawyers, amiable accountants, and doctors with excellent bedside manner. Tremble, Mel, tremble!

Volcanoes. Coasta Rica has a whopping five volcanoes, one of which is very much alive and erupts every day. Should a full scale eruption occur, Rickey will have mere seconds to react, because lava travels faster than the speed of sound. Or something like that anyway. (Rickey snoozed through 8th grade Geology).

Roads. Apparently navigating the roads in Costa Rica is treacherous enough as it is, let alone for a guy who plans on administering himself a liter of rum daily while he’s down there. But hey, Rickey drove up Mt. Washington, so he should be adequately prepared. We hope.

Snakes. Look, Rickey freaked out when he saw a tiny garden snake last weekend. Costa Rica has angry pit vipers and other serpents that conceal themselves in trees. Rickey has briefed Ms. Henderson that in the event of a snake sighting she is not to tell Rickey about it. Should Rickey see a snake then he is to make good use of the rape whistle around his neck. The plan is ironclad.

Bees. All honey bees in Costa Rica are of the Africanized variety, which is to say that they’re killer bees. Terrific. In hopes of fending them off, Rickey fully plans on bringing a few Wu-Tang Clan albums along with him. That should placate them, yes?

Monkeys. If a coworker’s advice is to be believed (and really, who doesn’t heed 30 second tidbits of advice from coworkers in the elevator?) then the monkeys in Costa Rica are force to be reckoned with. They’re smart. They’ll steal your belongings if you leave them unattended. Let those simians try and pull something with Rickey--he looks forward to wrestling a monkey. Rickey estimates that he could easily best at least 13 monkeys before they overwhelmed him.

Velociraptors. Based on everything we’ve heard, these guys are a real menace. They're the complete package: lethal yet devious. They’ll break in to your hotel room, figure out the combination to your luggage and completely rearrange your socks. Lousy raptors. If Rickey sees a can of Barbasol in the jungle, you'd damn well better believe he's steering clear of it.

2009-06-16T06:09:00.001-04:00

With a mere four days to go until the wedding, today we turn our attention to the important stuff: moichandizing. Some people call designing a wedding monogram “personalizing your wedding” but Rickey knows better. This is branding at its finest. Squeamish readers should probably look away at this point. We warn you: not since the reign of Louis XIV has anyone witnessed such a level of self promotion and self aggrandizement. (We shudder to think what would’ve happened had le Roi Soleil had access to Adobe Photoshop and a Michaels craft store). Behold:

Nick and Erika: The Beverage Coaster!

Nick and Erika: The Out of Town Gift Bag Monogram!

Nick and Erika: The Bottled Water! (this is even funnier if you know where Rickey works)

Nick and Erika: The Paper Funnel Thingy that Holds Rose Petals for the Guests to Throw!

Nick and Erika: The Cake Topper!

Nick and Erika: The Toilet Paper!

Nick and Erika: The Flamethrower! (the kids love these)

Nick and Erika: The Signal!

Wedding Update #756

2009-06-11T18:18:00.003-04:00

Something called a "vegetable bowl" showed up on the doorstop yesterday, via the Hendersons' wedding registry. Rickey wonders: what exactly makes a vegetable bowl a vegetable bowl? Would something cataclysmic occur were one to put something other than a vegetable in the vegetable bowl? Would the earth tremble, the mountains sway, and a thousand norse gods of war emerge from their slumber to render the Hendersons' marriage null and void if Rickey was to put pasta in the vegetable bowl?

We have no clue. Ask the people at Waterford. Rickey's going outside for a smoke.

9 days...

Your Weekly Softball Report: On Gender Politics, The Zen of Right Field, and The Glorious Mercy Rule

2009-06-04T06:22:00.003-04:00

Perhaps Rickey is reading into things too much, but there is a certain degree of sexism present in any coed softball league. League regulations call for a minimum of three females on a team, otherwise the team can’t take the field. Furthermore, if you add more females to your lineup, you can also expand your roster to include more men as well. The insinuation here seems to be that women are an inherent handicap and adding one more entitles a team to compensate for this by adding a dude. Call Rickey nuts, but this seems a rather bad message to send. Also, it potentially exposes an office to multiple EEO violations when the coach of your company softball team belligerently stampedes down the hallway bellowing “Broads! I need BROADS for the game tonight!”

We can’t help but wonder what Emmeline Pankhurst would’ve thought about all this. She’d probably travel through time and organize her own feminist all-star softball team consisting of Abigal Adams pitching, Susan B. Anthony at first base, Elizabeth Blackwell playing second, Margaret Sanger at shortstop, Gloria Steinem at third, and Ruth Ginsberg catching behind the plate with Mary Wollstonecraft, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth manning the outfield. They’d be called the Bra Burning Betties and they’d totally fucking win.

Rickey ponders about this sort of stuff while sitting peacefully in right field.

Right field is actually a terrific place to do lots of thinking like this. Right Field: home of Shawn Green! Right Field: inspiration for the classic Peter, Paul, and Mary song! Right field: where nobody’s expecting very much of you! As you can imagine, Rickey likes to keep a low profile in right field, and will dutifully (and happily) switch with the center fielder whenever a lefty batter comes to the plate. In fact, the only physical activity that’s required of Rickey in the outfield is to move to the edge of the infield when a lady comes to bat. This, friends, is yet another instance of odious sexism in softball. Whenever a female comes to the plate, like clockwork, Rickey’s team’s pitcher will turn his back on the batter and slyly motion for the outfielders to come in like it’s all part of some top secret and brilliant baseball strategy. Yes friend, you truly are the Tony La Russa of beer league softball! (deep down, Rickey’s totally rooting for the girl at bat to blast one into the center field gap).

Occasionally, a member of the opposing team will get wind of Rickey’s lackadaisical approach to right field. Either he’ll have noticed Rickey tossing a few warm up throws prior to the game or he’ll have simply sized Rickey up as the sort of person who has no business playing a competitive sport of any kind. Whatever the reason may be, Rickey’s stomach will turn whenever a righty batter looks right at him, pivots his body in mid pitch, and attempts to smack the ball into right field.

Oh no, he’s trying to pull it my way. He KNOWS I’m terrible. He can sense my fear. Something wicked this way comes.

In this situation, Rickey quickly weighs his options. Yes, Rickey could immediately bolt off the field, run to the parking lot, hop in his car, and hastily drive to the bar and get a head start on the aftergame drinking, but that sort of thing is probably frowned upon in recreational softball leagues. So Rickey will man up and tough it out. Nine times out of ten, the batter trying to hit the ball into right field will screw it up and ground out, so in a way Rickey is actually serving his team by indirectly contributing to some nice defense. Rickey’s mere presence causes ground outs!

Rickey’s presence, however did not prevent his team from getting whomped and the mercy rule being invoked. Turns out the ladies on the opposing team were freaking powerhouses. The oft heard comment from Rickey’s team: “their girls are better than some of our guys.” Uh yeah, we’re pretty sure that Rickey is one of those guys. His team’s record: now 1-4.

Afterwards, the team regrouped at a local pub. Bud Light and a burger after a 13-2 softball loss taste …well, honestly, pretty much the same as they normally do. Back next week with a thrilling edition of: The Softball Report.

Your Obligatory Wedding Update: The "Groom Under Pressure" Edition

2009-06-02T06:45:00.002-04:00

Weddings make already crazy people do even crazier things than they normally would. Take last night for example—Rickey was stuck in a traffic jam on the highway and running late for a wedding-related task. Rather than wait for the traffic to subside like a normal person, Rickey drove onto the shoulder and gunned it (those rumble strips feel fun when you continuously drive over ‘em at 45mph). In his hasty and highly illegal detour, Rickey drove past an ambulance, and a whole lotta pissed off commuters, including one guy who hollered: “you’re a bad person!” Well that fellow clearly wasn't in possession of all the facts. Good… bad… Rickey’s the guy with the tuxedo ties that need to be picked up. This sort of thing transcends good and evil.

In case you weren’t aware, Rickey takes this whole wedding thing quite seriously. Why should Ms. Henderson be the sole decision maker here? The poor girl is already busy enough responding to everyone on the face of the planet asking her if she’s eager for her wedding (this happens so frequently that she’s debating creating a t-shirt stating “yes, I’m excited about my wedding, now piss off you bastards.”) And this is where Rickey steps in, fine-tuning the playlist, finalizing the rental order, typing up escort cards, and generally doing things that you wouldn’t expect a guy who plays 35 hours of Halo a week to do. But let’s be honest now, if Rickey is unable to pick out a suitable color for the goddamned cocktail napkins at a wedding, then what possible chance does he have of purchasing a house and raising a family?

And so Rickey springs into action, studiously taking every boxed wedding gift inside the apartment and stacking them neatly (the Henderson’s living room now resembles the warehouse at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”). Other tasks prove challenging. Sweet fancy moses, has Ms. Henderson neglected to write a thank you card to the person who bought that crucial All-Clad cheese grater off the registry? That shit needs to be looked into pronto! Was that ballroom dancing class scheduled for tonight or is tonight the night the Hendersons are meeting with their caterer? Does a mic stand at a wedding ceremony look tacky? Is powder blue the right hue for the tuxedo ties for Rickey’s groomsmen? Questions like this keep Rickey up at night. Quick, time to consult this wayward fucker.

All in all, you get the picture. Rickey’s got 18 days left before he gets hitched and, as they say… shit just got real.

Reggie Speaks!

2009-05-23T10:01:00.002-04:00

For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the fellow whose likeness has replaced Rickey’s for the weekend, here’s a brief introduction to this charming gentleman, courtesy of J.D. Smith:

David Hirshey, a now ex-sportswriter for the New York Daily News, tells about his departure, as recounted by Alan Richman in "The Death of Sportswriting": Hirshey had heard that Reggie Jackson of the NY Yankees fantasized about harmonizing with the O Jays and decided it was worth a column. "I walked up to him at his locker, and asked, 'Reggie, I know you can carry a team. Can you carry a tune?' He was facing me. He turned around lifted a leg, farted, and said, 'How's this tune?' It was shortly thereafter that I left sportswriting."

In Reggie’s defense, that was a seriously terrible question for a sportswriter to ask. And now a few words from our proud pinstriped paterfamilias. Your mouthpiece for all things Yankee-related. Take it away, Reggie:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey there Yankee fans, Reggie here. Reggie Tittyfucking Jackson. I don’t know much about the uptight clown who’s been writing this blog for the last two years, but let’s get one thing straight: I don’t like big words. I don’t like words at all. You won’t see me using words like “monumental” or “equivocate.” Fuck, no. I’d rather just use my mind to lift heavy objects and toss them at Yogi Berra. Holy fuck I hate Yogi Berra.

By the way, you blogging weasels should be glad that the internet didn’t exist when I was in my prime. If it did, you’d be blogging about my antics 24/7 like they were the goddamned Tet Offensive.

Now, I’ve been called in to clear up a few errors that people make when talking about the Yankees. Things that you Yanks fans need to know about me and the Yankee Tradition. The first lie that the newspapers love to tell is that George Steinbrenner is a mean and tough guy to work for. Complete horseshit. When George was being investigated on those bogus campaign contribution charges, I went to him to comfort him. It was at that moment he told me that he’d always wanted to be a farmer. A farmer in the 18th Century who owned a cotton plantation with several thousand indentured servants who did his bidding. God bless that kind man.

Also, if anyone has seen George Steinbrenner lately, please let me know. Seriously, he’s been missing for 8 days now. His family is… well, I wouldn’t say they’re concerned, but Hank does seem to be bumping into walls a lot more than usual. Somebody said that George wandered into right field and disappeared like that “Field of Dreams” movie, but I had no idea what they were talking about because I only watch movies about the Yankees winning or Rommel in the desert. Rommel you magnificent bastard--you deserved to win that war.

The second flat out lie about me is that I dislike Jews. Again, complete garbage. I have no problems with the Hebrew people. Wait, what’s that? The author of this blog is a Jew? Holy shit I hate Jews. I bet he’s one of those fake-ass half Jews, you know the kind that just pretends to be Jewish so he can get away with making bad Jew jokes. Pop quiz: whats the difference between a Jew and a canoe? A canoe tips.

People love to gossip about how “hot-headed” I am. Bullshit. Let’s get this straight: I’m a totally respectful and polite man. Until you cross me. Like that one time when Yogi Berra tried to tell me how to swing against lefty pitchers and I threw him out of the team bus while it was traveling to Boston. That wrinkly old prick has never walked right since. Don't believe a word that fucker says about me. That man is a total liar. One time I caught him calling the traffic and weather radio station and reporting traffic jams that hadn't happened. Who does that shit? Yogi fucking Berra, that's who.

History books have gotten Billy Martin all wrong. The guy wasn’t a drunk or a mean spirited man. Let me tell you, Billy Martin was a prince and a gentleman. One time, on a long road trip in Oakland, I was feeling sick and Billy stayed up with me all night, cradling me in his arms and nursing me back to health with a bottle of his sweet sweet whiskey laced breast milk. Let's see that know nothing punk Joe Girardi do something like that.

The most annoying rumor of all is that I am a primadonna who doesn’t care about his fans. Total crap. Look, I was in an elevator a few years ago and a kid asked me for my autograph. I ignored him and told him I was going to the fifth floor and to push the button. Pushing the elevator button for that kid was a special enough moment for him. I’ll bet that little shit still shares that story with his whole family of shits every Thanksgiving. So no, stories about me being a bastard are totally untrue.

I do however moisturize my entire body with baboon's milk.*

It is true that all Yankee players are required to keep their hair a certain length. But did you also know that George Steinbrenner keeps these hair clippings in a large bag in his office for talismanic purposes? True story. One night, I snuck into his office to take a peek. I found the bag of hair, opened it, and inhaled deeply. The grease of Randy Johnson’s mullet, Thurman Munson’s mustache, and Don Mattingly’s thick sideburns blended together into a powerful aroma. It smelled of the No. 4 Subway, of 26 World Series rings, of old hot dog water. It smelled like…. victory.

I’m pretty sure that Yogi Berra is the Son of Sam killer.

I will say this much, after that Babington Plot mess, I’m no longer allowed to set foot in England. Shit, I can’t even be in the same town when the QE2 comes into port. Fucking limeys.

*h/t Adam for the baboon milk moisturizing joke. Adam's lewdness knows no bounds.

Announcing a Slight Change Here at RwR...

2009-05-21T17:42:00.005-04:00

This weekend, the baseball apocalypse looms. Thanks to the scheduling devilry of interleague play, Yankees fans will root for the Mets (uh yeah, good luck with that guys) and Mets fans will root for the Yankees. And so in honor of this weekend, we become…Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Riding With Reggie, a thrilling new sports blog which pays homage to all things Yankees! It’s two day mission:

To explore strange new worlds of smugness and baseball illiteracy

To pay homage to each and every Yankee tradition, no matter how minuscule or trivial

To provide regular updates on Chien-Ming Wang’s thrilling single-A career

To commission a YouTube tribute video commemorating the life and times of Suzyn Waldman, set to the theme of “God Bless America” and featuring meerkats

To celebrate the Yankees, regardless of the actual outcome of any game. 10-0 loss? No biggie—they committed zero errors! Johnny Damon’s uniform was nice and clean!

To introduce the adjective “Jeterian” into the English lexicon

To compliment C.C. Sabathia’s masterful ability to pitch despite being 24 months pregnant

To create a needlepoint cushion bearing Joba Chamberlain’s face for Ms. Henderson (this counts as your wedding gift sweetie)

To talk like John Sterling for 48 hours straight, employing the following phrases on a regular basis: “azure blue skies,” “them’s the breaks,” and “cut on and missed!”

To not fixate on the fact that the Mets could’ve signed Orlando Hudson, Jose Reyes’ calf is shredded, Carlos Delgado needs hip replacement surgery, the entire lineup is in shambles, Jerry Manuel is shaping up to be an even worse coach than Willie Randolph, or that GARY SHEFFIED IS NOW THE EVERYDAY LEFT FIELDER FOR THE NEW YORK METS... GOD FUCKING DAMNIT THE PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE GODDAMNED MOUNTAIN.

Did we miss anything in that last one? No? Enjoy the shitty interleague weekend folks. Give serious thought to going outside.