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

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

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

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

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.

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 incontrovertibleevidence 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.

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

[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...

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

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

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

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...

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 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

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

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

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

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)

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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...

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.

Your Oligatory Wedding Update

And now for a discussion of weighty matters. With the Henderson’s June 20th wedding just a mere month away, Rickey has much on his mind at the moment. With each passing day, the monumental day grows larger on the horizon. Exciting and wonderful things such as buying a house and starting a family together await Rickey and Ms. Henderson, but today we must discuss an even bigger and more pressing issue: Rickey’s wedding band.

Now, Rickey isn’t one to wear a lot of jewelry, but when it comes to purchasing a symbol of his love and devotion for the most important person in his life, you damn well better believe he’s going to splurge on a little bling. After all, Ms. Henderson got to rock the ice for over a year, and we feel that it’s Rickey’s turn now.

For months, online wedding band vendors have dogged Rickey with offers of free tungsten carbide rings in exchange for advertising space here on Riding With Rickey. This never ceases to amuse Rickey because four of our readers are already married and our other seven single readers seem to be perfectly content staying in on a Friday night and masturbating angrily to reruns of the Bob Newhart Show. Also, tungsten carbide is about as valuable as Carlos Beltran’s mole excretions. So needless to say, Rickey turned down the offer.

And so Rickey headed to his trusty Libyan jeweler to shop for a wedding band and/or some plutonium. Quickly realizing that gold is a fairly boring metal and adamantium wedding bands don’t exist and even if they did, they’d probably be ridiculously pricey, Rickey finally settled upon a platinum ring. Nothing too gaudy, just a plain classic band. Behold, the precious:Note the heavenly ethereal glow basking the ring. That, friends, is no accident. Yes, we know, Rickey has weird looking hands. If we sold advertising space here at RwR we could probably have afforded to hire a professional hand model, but we didn’t so deal with it.

Rickey’s had the ring for a few weeks now, and he’s been extremely curious what it feels like to wear it for a day. You know, a sort of test run. Ms. Henderson has flatly ordered him not to put it on until the wedding, but then again, she also told Rickey not to watch “Angels & Demons” without her and look how well that turned out. No, Rickey had to know what it felt like to wear the ring for a day. Rickey is a curious cat, you see. And so, in the name of bold experimentation, Rickey carefully slipped the ring on. Below follows a running diary of the events that followed.

7:05AM: Nothing happened. Rickey didn’t turn invisible, Nazgul didn’t shriek in the distance, and there was a notable lack of hobbit-related shenanigans in the Henderson abode. For a moment, the room did seem to turn a sepia hue, but upon close analysis, this turned out to be the morning light. Well this was a whole shitload of money well spent.

8:34AM: Here’s a fun fact about platinum—it’s ridiculously heavy. So heavy that while walking, you need to adjust your posture to compensate for it or your left hand will drop to the ground and you’ll be stuck walking in circles around it.

11:15AM: Rickey leaves the apartment and hops in the car, ever mindful to steer carefully, lest his leaden left hand cause the vehicle to swerve off the road.

11:30AM: Rickey lends assistance to a deep sea underwater mining facility. Shortly thereafter, a series of calamities occur and the facility is quickly flooded with water. Rickey is able to avoid being trapped in a chamber flooding with water by jamming his hand in front of a closing door—the ring on his hand being the only thing preventing the door from slamming shut and trapping him. Rickey bravely escapes his watery confines.

[editor’s note: our bad, none of this actually happened. While driving, Rickey often likes to daydream that he is the lead character in major summer blockbuster movies -- in this case, Ed Harris in “The Abyss” -- this probably goes a long way to explain why Rickey failed his first two road tests]

12:09PM: Huzzah, the investment pays off! Somebody notices the damn thing! While on the supermarket checkout line, a fellow next to Rickey comments on the ring and says “aren’t you a little young to be married?” Rickey takes this in stride and calmly informs the gentleman that back on the compound where Rickey grew up, it’s not unusual for juveniles as young as seven to marry their special betrothed. The dude takes a step back.

3:34:PM: Rickey arrives home, deems the ring test run successful and attempts to remove the ring.

3:35PM: Uh, it’s not coming off.

3:36PM: Fuck.

4:15PM: How the hell is it that after 4.6 billion years of evolution, people like Rickey are afflicted with joints that are larger than the rest of their fingers? Damn you Charles Darwin, and your little pet beagle too.

4:20: Darkness closes in.

4:30PM: After little Vaseline and a whole lotta twisting, the ring finally comes off. Whew. Rickey won’t be trying that again anytime soon.

And now for your obligatory sappy photo to wrap up the post:

Watching Bad Movies So You Don't Have To: Rickey Reviews "Angels & Demons"

"To pay to see this movie would be an affront unto God, Man, and Good Taste" -The Gospel of Rickey, 5:18

Pop quiz moviegoers: what do you get when you make a movie featuring a lead actor who hasn't made a good film since "Bonfire of the Vanities," shot by a director who hasn't made a good film since "Apollo 13," based on a book by a guy who hasn't written a good novel since... well ever? You get one seriously terrible movie.

"Angels & Demons" kicks off much like any other subtle intellectual movie about the conflict between science and religion: with a member of the Illuminati breaking into a particle collider facility using the old "gouge out somebody's eyeball to get past the retinal scanner" trick, making off with a vial of highly destructive anti-matter, and then planning to annihilate the Vatican and all of Rome in a 5 kiloton anti-matter fueled cataclysmic blast. The Vatican gets word of this and a closed door meeting is convened consisting of a lot of billowing red robes and incense and a consensus is reached along the lines of "Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, we're having a tough enough time getting our priests to keep their hands off altar boys--we ARE NOT equipped to prevent the detonation of an anti-matter bomb." And so the Catholic Church does what any other organization would do in these sorts of situations, they hire a consultant.

Enter stage right, Tom Hanks as Professor Robert Langdon. A man whose intelligence the movie goes to strenuous lengths to point out. Marvel as Tom Hanks mumbles aloud in Latin! He stares pensively at marble statues! He turns pieces of parchment upside down! He sees symbols and icons that non-academics like us could never perceive! He can detect when people are jetlagged! He went to Exeter! (Rickey can totally testify to the intellectual capabilities of Exeter men, by the way. A college buddy of Rickey's who attended Exeter once got rip-roaring drunk and tumbled down a flight of stairs and upon reaching the bottom immediately and correctly proclaimed that he had fractured his fifth metacarpal. Let's see one of you public school lackeys try to pull that off). Tom Hank’s character at first refuses the Vatican’s plea for help, because they’ve been denying him access to their library resources which he needs to complete his book about religious iconography. Even worse, he continues to gripe about his incomplete book throughout the entire damned movie, presumably because he’s worried about losing his tenure at whatever university he teaches at that’s cool with him squinting a lot and walking around like a complete prick.

After some cajoling, Tom Hanks finally agrees to aid the Vatican and sets off for Rome, the location in which both the Illuminati and director Ron Howard have chosen to hold their audience hostage for two agonizing hours. Hanks, with a sassy female scientist in tow, scurries around Rome trying to track down an Illuminati terrorist whose nefarious plan is unraveled by his ill advised decision to commit his crimes in easily discovered locations marked by Renaissance statues pointing directly at them. There's enough sweeping camera angles, flowing red robes, and pageantry in this film that one has a tough time believing that the Catholic Church didn't make the movie themselves. In actuality, the Catholic Church forbade Ron Howard from shooting "Angels & Demons" in Vatican City, apparently unaware of the benefits of any media coverage that distracts the public that we live in a day and age in which it's necessary for a religious organization to buy an insurance policy for pedaresty.

The action in “Angels & Demons” is completely uninspired. Trust us, you’ve seen enough movies shot in Italy with small European cars whizzing through crowded streets not to be impressed by this one. One thrilling scene even features Hanks trying to escape from the hallowed Vatican archives as oxygen is drained from an airtight reading room (and you thought senior citizens breaking wind at your local library was bad). The main bad guy is a bespectacled member of the Illuminati, a secret society introduced into the movie’s plot to pander to the highly coveted tinfoil hat/ten sided die owning demographic.
After much scurrying about the prominent tourist spots of Rome, the movie climaxes with a heroic priest played by Ewan McGregor grabbing the anti-matter bomb right as it’s about to detonate, hopping in a helicopter and flying it way the hell up into the sky, then parachuting out at the last moment as the bomb goes off. Call us nuts, but a movie that takes itself so seriously really shouldn't have parachuting priests in it. McGregor then lands in St. Peter’s Square and the amazed crowd promptly demands that he be anointed as the next Pope (the previous one was murdered—don’t ask). And this was when Rickey stopped watching. Twenty minutes remained in the movie, so we’re assuming that Ewan McGregor turns out to be the bad guy and that Clint Howard is made Pope, thus ushering in a brave new era for creepy pederasts everywhere.

To refer to the themes that “Angels & Demons” plays with as actual ideas would be an insult to sentient thought, but the central conceit of the movie seems to revolve around the conflict between science and religion. Kudos to Dan Brown and Ron Howard for dredging up a debate that’s every bit as fresh as Galileo’s corpse and continues to rage on to this day in yawn inducing poorly attended core curriculum courses across the nation. People refer to the “controversy” surrounding this Dan Brown nonsense and it irritates Rickey. Just like the Da Vinci Code, it’s all manufactured nonsense originating from a poorly written and misinformed book. Rickey was far more hyped and buzzed when Gillette added a fifth blade to their razors. If this movie actually was controversial, it might be interesting to watch, but no, it’s far worse than that. It’s a bore.

CNN ran a story this morning about how this movie was No. 1 at the Box Office, then they ran a story about a car bomb exploding in Iraq. Both stories elicited the same response from Rickey. Rickey’s verdict: avoid this one at all costs. And if you're one of the folks who contributed to this movie's $48 million opening weekend at the box office, say 56 Hail Marys and smack yourself upside the head.

Your Weekly Softball Report: The First Three Games

Ah coed softball, amateur sporting at it's most mediocre. A game that requires very little athletic prowess--just a $50 check, a pair of cleats and glove, and a willingness to subject yourself to the ridicule of others. Granted, Rickey has joined a beer league and the stakes are completely nonexistent, but that doesn't preclude him him from taking this venture quite seriously. Now, you'd think that hours spent watching professional baseball on television would transfer over into some sort of knowledge of how to actually play the damn game. And in Rickey's case, you'd be completely mistaken. Rickey is... how do you say... well... very not good.

The good news for Rickey's struggling softball team is that they haven't yet played a game that has necessitated the umpire to invoke the mercy rule. But at 0-3 with 9 games remaining in the regular season, there's still plenty of time for that. Below follows a brief summary of the relevant events from the first three games in which Rickey's softball team has participated.

Game 1: In which the season gets off to a most inauspicious start. Rickey, completely unaware that his team's color is red, shows up in a white logoed t-shirt. No jerseys are worn--everybody just wears red shirts like a motley crew of expendable Star Trek characters. Amongst the team members, there are murmurs of some season long ago when everybody was organized enough to design and purchase nice jerseys with their names on them, but those halcyon days are apparently long gone.

While creating the lineup, Rickey's coach had a complete lapse in judgment and decided to put Rickey at third base. For most of the game, Rickey channeled his inner D-Wright and performed reasonably adequately. The highlights of the game include Rickey expertly fielding a ground ball on a hop and proceeding to throw it 25 feet to the right of first base directly into the woods, resulting in a double, and another play in which Rickey deftly stopped a bullet of a hit by placing his upper torso directly in the path of the oncoming ball, with complete disregard for his physical well being (and the fact that he was wearing a glove on his left hand). Apparently the sternum makes a loud hollow thumping noise when hit with a ball travelling at 45mph. Rickey had every other part of the play right -- charge the ball and get your body in front of it -- but had simply forgotten to catch the damn ball, instead opting to bring it to a complete stop by blocking it with his chest like it was a soccer ball.

Judging by the complete silence that overtook the field following this play, we can tell you that Rickey's patented "sternum blocking maneuver" is a helluva great intimidation technique if you're trying to convince people how much of a softball badass you are. Next Mets game, we'd love to see Ryan Church pull this move on a hard hit ball and then let loose a sustained primal roar.

At bat, Rickey performed surprisingly well, even getting a nice base hit resulting in a single. With one out and his team trailing in the bottom of the seventh inning, Rickey realized that this was his time to pounce. Choosing to interpret the first base coach's advice to not get caught off base on an infield fly ball as "take 10 steps to second base and remain perfectly motionless between first and second base when the batter pops out" Rickey got caught in an embarrassing game ending double play. In Rickey's defense:

1) Even without that error, there's absolutely no way his team would've overcome their seven run deficit, and,

2) Were a tyrannosaurus rex to suddenly appear to the field, Rickey would've been perfectly safe (their vision is movement based).

Game 2: Citing a "conflicting obligation," and then gazing distantly away, Rickey weasels his way out of the game. Reports come in that the game was a close one, with Rickey's team losing 8 to 9. Under no circumstances are we willing to attribute the team's improved performance to Rickey's absence.

Game 3: This game showcased some marked improvement on Rickey's part as he landed a solid hit directly to the pitcher and somehow managed to beat out the throw to first base. The ump, apparently perfectly content with calling the play from behind home plate, yelled "safe" and lo and behold, Rickey was standing proud at first. Several hits later from his team and Rickey was sent scampering home, deciding curiously to not stop running until he had made back it to his team's bench. Rickey's time spent in the highly coveted and physically demanding position of right field was mercifully uneventful. Rickey's second at bat before he voluntarily removed himself from the game consisted of a weak dribbler following by the opposing team sarcastically congratulating their pitcher, "way to squeeze him, Jerry!" Ouch--that's gonna make Rickey drink extra tonight.

Then, following a barrage of runs from the opposing team, their coach pulls the ultimate indignity: he pulls the pitcher and replaces him with a ringer (because tossing underhand is so physically taxing). For a moment, some poor pitching from the opposing team's bullpen looks like it just might let Rickey's softball team back in the game, a development that Rickey sagely commented on while sitting on the bench and removing his cleats and getting ready to head towards the parking lot. To the surprise of no one, the rally is short-lived and Rickey's team loses the game.

And this recaps the first three softball outings of the season. As you can imagine, Rickey has yet to ask Ms. Henderson to attend one of his games. We'll be back next week with another edition of ...The Softball Report.

The Teabag Zone

[h/t to Adam for lending his photoshop skills to the post]

(music) Da da da da .......da da da da.

"You're traveling to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound... but of mind. You're on a journey into a wondrous land, whose boundaries are only that of the imagination. You're entering a place where socialist re-education centers are sprouting across the land like mushrooms, where federal police are raiding trailer camps to confiscate assault weapons from the gun racks of law-abiding hunters, where right-thinking patriot vigilantes patrol the streets "armed and dangerous" to protect themselves from social activists and homosexuals infiltrating the schools and the voting ballots, where activist judges are bending the laws in the dead of night to serve their liberal agendas, where armies of IRS agents are stealing taxes from hard-working citizens and corporate billionaires. You're in a world of a million "what ifs?" and a billion "who knows?" where the sun goes around the earth, Charles Darwin never existed, and a zillion new life forms are created out of the blue by supernatural intervention, a world of dangerous aliens and terrorists behind every tree. You're about to enter right-wing talk show America and the Teabag Zone."

Your Obligatory "Star Trek" Review: Of Warp Core Ejections, Sandwiches, Ostentatious Lens Flares, and General Space-Related Tomfoolery

Hot damn, Star Trek is watchable again. Cool, even. This popcorn movie is a breath of fresh air for those of us who have suffered through an endless stream of uninspired and downright terrible Trek television series and film adaptations (they made an entire movie about rescuing humpback whales for christssakes). This one is an out and out crowd pleaser. Fans of the series will be delighted by the movie's faithfulness to the core sentiments and ideas of the Star Trek universe as well as the many nods to the original series. Casual moviegoers will have a blast with the pacing and action. And for the rabid Trekkies who nitpick stuff like the nacelles on the Enterprise not looking quite right, well quite frankly, this is a better movie than you deserve. You jackasses can live long and prosper in your mother's basement for all Rickey cares.

Whereas past Trek movies have felt like plodding exercises rehashing hackneyed plots about androids trying to be human or whether or not to disrupt the once peaceful lives of creepy space Mormons in order to save them from an interstellar mist, this movie just feels fun and original. Space is once again full of wonder and weird beasties. We're talking really good pulp science fiction--everything the Star Wars prequels should have been.

The film captures the excitement of a young crew hopping aboard a newly minted Enterprise and venturing into the interstellar void together. It's exactly what enthusiast of the property have been clamoring for: a handful of brave and cocky explorers in space, trading quips and playing fast and loose with the laws of physics, all rough and tumble and whatnot. The movie really gets the spirit of the franchise right. For example, one scene showcases the crew tinkering around with the engines of the Enterprise or something and somehow piloting a starship at faster than light speeds smack into into Titan's atmosphere, because they pretty much figured: golly, think of what what fun we'll all have!

Now normally, Rickey's not a huge fan of origin stories and their need to retell everything from scratch, but in this case, it was necessary and it works wonderfully. Is it a reboot? Technically, no. In a very clever plot twist, the movie's villain Nero travels back in time from the Next Generation era to the Federation's formative years, hell-bent on altering history. And he does, thereby effectively giving the studio carte blanche to do what they want with the characters in future sequels. What was once canon is now reborn anew. Yes, there are a few supernova sized plot holes in the script, but they're completely redeemed by the acting. The characters are very much the ones we all know and love: Chris Pine perfectly captures the cockiness of Jim Kirk, Karl Urban's impression of Dr. McCoy is so pitch perfect it's scary, and much to Rickey's pleasant surprise, Zachary Quinto's Spock shines as the real star of the movie. It's terrific fun to watch the movie fire on all cylinders as rejuvenated versions of Sulu, Chekov, and Montgomery Scott all shine. Another hour could've been tacked on to the movie's 120 minute run time and that would've been just fine with Rickey.

To give any plot elements away would be a great disservice to those of you who haven't seen the movie yet, so we'll boil down the important stuff for you into pithy bullet point format:

- In the future, there are sandwiches.

- Spock is a straight up pimp.

- James T. Kirk owns a copy of "Ill Communication" by the Beastie Boys. (h/t to Adam for the funny)

- Fencing actually has practical real world applications, thereby completely validating Rickey's jaunt on the high school fencing team.

- Director J.J. Abrahms LOVES lens flares. They're in every goddamned shot. The artistic insinuation being that the future is so brilliant and bright that it practically shines off the screen at the audience. It's a little grating, but we're assuming it was done primarily to render the pirated camcorder versions over at TV Shack nigh unviewable (not that Rickey would know anything about that. Ahem).

-Dudes wearing red shirts have cruelly short life spans.

Rickey's final verdict: go see it, pronto. It's most likely the best summer flick you'll see this year that doesn't involve giant robots punching each other.

Your (un)Official Guide to the Swine Flu

Because we'll be damned if we let this swine flu thing kill our sense of humor, below in handy Q&A format is a compendium of everything you need to know about this alarming outbreak.

So this swine flu, what is it?

This is the big one people. H1N1. The virus is a mix of human virus, bird virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia. Rumor has it that it was created on a small and uninhabited volcanic island. And now, Prendick, once we have eaten and drunk, Rickey will explain how all this came to pass...

Rickey, how concerned are you about this outbreak?

Ms. Henderson has a well-documented love for pigs. By Rickey's count, there are no less than 23 pig-related tchotkes in the apartment. Suffice to say, Rickey is severely concerned.

But wait, how is this a big deal when HIV/AIDS kills over 5,000 people every day?

Because Lou Dobbs WARNED US about this swine flu thing a decade ago and we didn't build that wall along the border of Mexico like he told us to. Also because CNN has a whole lot of stock footage of pigs lying around. Got it?

I'm feeling ill tempered and am prone to fits of honking and hissing. Am I infected with swine flu?

No, that's actually swan flu, a different yet equally dangerous disease.

How can an animal that tastes so good be so deadly?

An excellent question. The big guy upstairs seems to have a rather morbid sense of humor, doesn't he?

What can I do to keep from catching swine flu?

Not going to Mexico City would be a good start. Also, as a rule, never kiss a sneezing pig. Additionally, consider temporarily switching to turkey bacon--it tastes absolutely terrible, but it just might save your life. Most importantly, avoid large crowds of sneezing, coughing people, they are all zombies. Shoot them from a distance.

So can I use this as an excuse to call out sick from work this week?

Absolutely! (just don't blame Rickey when you actually do come down with it and have already exhausted your sick leave)

What's the U.S. government doing to combat this epidemic?

Very little. They're urging everyone not to panic. This of course raises the question of what to do when we're told that it is time to panic. We recommend panicking.

Do you have any snazzy resources to help underscore the pants shitting terror I should be feeling right now?

Indeed. Take a gander at this Google Map indicating cases of swine flu throughout the U.S. Watch the dots multiply in real time. Proceed to freak right the hell out.

Is there any helpful literature I can peruse to further educate myself about this menace?

Sure, there's a good deal of stuff out there. But your best bet is picking up a copy of "The Stand" by Stephen King. It will give you an excellent idea of what to expect in the days ahead. In the meantime, Rickey urges you to remain panicked and keep refreshing this blog every 15 minutes. It's for your own good.

What else can I do?

It's important to remain optimistic. Look on the bright side, if the flu wipes out a large portion of the population, it will slow down climate change.