It’s Turning Out to Be an Odd Day, Pt. 2

Do you think there is a market out there for providing translation services to Spam senders?  There is clearly a need.

In my inbox this morning:

From: sharon daff [mailto:eshqe@]
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 8:58 PM
Subject: It isn’t late to make the right choice! 

All kinds of gamblings here! 

Our life is so shot, and everyone should find the opportunity to provide the adequate life level. And its opportunity’s name is KING DICE CASINO! Only it can bring in stable return. 

You invest only few dollars and win up to $2500, whether or no! Not bad, isn’t it?

 

[link removed]

It’s Turning Out to Be an Odd Day, Pt. 1

I don’t really know what’s going on today, but I’ve been running in to some weird things I thought I should document.

The first sign something was amiss was the machine I found in my alley.

A Different Kind of Life Partner

Now, my neighbor gathers all sorts of cast-offs and sells them on weekends on one of the corners around 16th and Columbia, but this was a new one on me.

I was tempted, but too terrified, to open it and see what’s inside.

Como se dice “Con huevos”?

Things are still running summer-high here at The Shady Enterprise. (Yes, I know I’ve already mentioned it in the past month. I expect I’ll mention it at least twice more before the end of July.)

One of the unfortunate side effects is I tend to find myself spending too much time at the office and not enough time taking care of little things like grocery shopping, which frequently contributed to another unfortunate side effect I like to call “the drive-thru syndrome.” I tend to into a rut of getting home late, having a fistful of bourbon for dinner, waking up relatively late and starving, the obvious solution to which is hitting one of the fast food heavyweights’ drive-thrus on my way out to the office in West Virginia.

The Poker Privilege Applies

Damn, fellas. I hate June here at The Shady Enterprise. Days just get to runnin’, and the next thing you know, you’ve almost missed your 48 hour deadline.

So, Tuesday poker came online for the first time in months (at least, that I’ve made it to) in honor of Mylephnt’s triumphant red-eyed return to the our Nation’s Capital. Duderino made gracious overtures to host AND make gumbo and whatever it is gumbo is when there’s no mammal flesh in it.

Things got started off at 730PM sharp, with me, El D, and Myl sitting there eating sausage and talking about sweaty thighs sticking to the leather couch. Now that I think about it, I guess we were about a mesh tanktop away from another Pride Parade.

(Aw, hell…I just realized I don’t really know everyone’s Ramblename. I’m making up my own.) HeadCold showed up in a fashionably late fashion and joined in on the sausaging. Then, we waited for a while and GollyWhiz popped in. The five of us drank beer until SweatyBetty and ShockofHair (red, like the fires of hell) finally dragged it in an hour and a touch late. (Really? An hour?)

We played a few hands. Chips were lost. Chips were won. There were a handful of nice/heartbreaking suck-outs (where’s my tanktop?); some were mine. Then, we ate some breaded shrimp and gumbo and baguette and saltines. All in all, it was a pretty phat spread of the finest gumbo from a box until SB’s lack of protein in his diet got him all fired up about playing cards instead of eating.

So, we played some more cards. Some folks got some things. Some folks got some other things. I vaguely recall a three-way hand I stayed in because I liked how the cards looked in my hand. I think I brought a pair of 4s to a double-straight party. (Wow. That’s the first straight party I’ve even gotten close to talking about in this, and it’s double-straight. I must be overcompensating.) Whatever.

So, I won $13 because I made the flush. I like to believe I took most of that money off of Myl because I like to take advantage of the jet-lagged.

But, that gumbo was pretty damned good, and did you see the moon on the way home?

Full.

Stunning.

Tanktop.

Things to Put Up Your Nose

I still haven’t quite kicked this illness I picked up in the picturesque marshlands of coastal Georgia almost two weeks ago.

Most of the symptoms have subsided. The body aches are gone. The fever broke over a week ago. My gastrointestinal situation calmed down shortly thereafter. The only thing that is really hanging on this damned head congestion, and even that has been pretty well behaved for the past four days: no snot crust in the ‘stache, no leaky faucet action in the middle of conversations.

Nope, the only persistent issues have been a speaking voice that is perhaps a bit huskier than usual and an unfortunate reflexive tendency to inhale sharply from time to time to clear the nasal passages. (The latter generally results in a sound akin to that of a grunting hog.)

Oh, and my left ear has been plugged up for 96 hours.

Warms What Chills Ya…

Like so many people out there in the nonvirtual word, I have been sick for about a week now. It all started last Saturday morning when I woke up in Savannah. As is usually the case when I wake up in that town, I had a mild hangover. I promptly hopped in the car and started the long drive back to Our Nation’s Capital. Somewhere deep in to the Carolinas, I noticed that my mild hangover was worsening and soon figured out it was not, in fact, a hangover but something much more flu-like.

I’ll spare you the details of how this mystery illness pretty well laid me out for three days after I finally made it back to DC, thus sparing you all my own contribution to The Streak Continues series which, based on last year’s exploits in Austin, would have consisted of having a hearty breakfast and lunch of 1792 Ridgemont Reserve, getting 86ed from Antone’s before the sound check, and various (alleged) incidents of public indecency and drunken confessions to past bad behaviors.

Instead, I was in bed at 845PM on New Years Eve with a pleasant wreath of generic NyQuil-equivalent wrapped around my head.

Alas, my penchant for generic NyQuil-equivalent is on par with my penchant for bourbon. I stopped at the pharmacy on my way home last night because I was out of generic NyQuil-equivalent. In the interest of turning over a new leaf for a new year, I wound up picking up some TheraFlu Warming Relief. I don’t know if it worked better or worse than my generic NyQuil-equivalent because I generally sleep through most of the part where the active ingredients get active.

What I do know, however, is that one should not mistake TheraFlu Warming Relief with a completely separate product altogether.

You’ve been warmed. Er, warned.