So I leave work yesterday like any other day- half-asleep; my thoughts clouded in a dense fog from a normal day at work. I was heading from Times Square towards Grand Central Terminal, a 10-minute walk on 43rd Street. At some point between 6th Ave and Madison I notice a woman walking swiftly towards me, having a conversation on her cell phone while crying. I thought to myself, "Oh that sucks, something horrible must have happened to her." It's not the first time I've seen something like that in the city and that's my usual reaction. But as soon as I finished that thought, a crowd of about 20-50 people frantically ran towards me- some of them crying, most of them on their cell phones. I was beginning to think that something horrible did happen.

After I passed that crowd another, much larger, group of people were quickly making their way in my direction. I noticed that more and more of them were crying, some of them hysterical. I overheard someone say, "We gotta get out of the city, NOW!" When I asked someone what was going on, one of the women responded through her tears, "A bomb just went off on the 4-5-6 line!"

OH SHIT.

Avril Lavigne. I've seen ghosts with deeper skin complexions. Her name sounds like something you would find on a sail boat. And she makes Punky Brewster look like the Sex Pistols. But, I can forgive all of that. What I can't forgive is her new song & video "Girlfriend". It does a disservice to women everywhere.

I know, I know, why pick on poor Avril, right? Misogyny has been a part of music videos for longer than Avril's been alive. But, when the anti-female message is promoted by females, it is so much more powerful and damaging. And that's exactly what Avril's new song & video does.

With Hillary officially licking her chops over the White House, and President Bush stammering through yet another State of the Union -- this time before a House and Senate full of ravenous Democrats -- it's time to talk about healthcare again!!

"A future of hope and opportunity requires that all our citizens have affordable and available healthcare. When it comes to healthcare, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children. We will meet those responsibilities."

So I had my initial session with the trainer. It was uneventful, i tried to instill in her just how lazy and inert i was. that i know what to do i'm just unable to overcome inertia. I'm going to do 45 minutes of cardio 3x a week and lift under her direction 2x a week. So I guess we start on Wednesday.

Since this initial session was a waste of time (and money), I will instead focus on a more ancillary topic in this installment. That is, just how ungay the lockerroom was.

 I know what you're thinking. Isn't this the YMCA?

So let me explain. The last gym i belonged to had the gayest locker room ever. any time you walked in you felt like you were interrupting something. All these old men would walk around nekkid. If they were clothing I would rewash before ironing. One would famously use the hot air hand dryer on his crotch. (with his hands folded behind his head). We joined so we could play raquetball. I boycotted the lockerroom due to the gayness and would generally use the small lockerroom at work instead and drive over.

So I walked into the local Y armed with a credit card. The dulcet tones of Rod Stewart throbbed in the background as I completed the mountain of paperwork. Surprisingly little was required to join, most of the paperwork was for the personal trainer i also signed up for to ensure that I don't die while they're 'directing me'. Questions like.. "Is your cholesterol over 200?" "is your blood pressure so high you can hear it?" "is it so high other people can hear it?" "Have you ever had a heart attack?" "Are you having a heart attack right now?"

After a few minutes, I was done. I was ready. Fitness isn't that hard. It's just filling out forms. This is why you never see fat accountants. Now I just have to wait for the trainer to get back to me. Within "48 business hours". What does that mean? There's only 8 business hours in any given day. unless it's a weekend then it's 0. So does this mean I have to wait another week? And who were the people around me? They looked serious. The place was packed on a weekday afternoon. Don't these people have jobs? They seemed unconcerned that they were missing out on life.

I was out in Vegas visiting family over the holidays. Nine people out of the eleven staying at the house got a stomach virus. We all took turns spouting toxic fluids from alternating orifices. But you know what made me sicker? The host of the house welcoming me to feel free to check my e-mail from her computer with the following adage: "Good luck. We do have DSL, but good luck." OK, so I figure they have an old PC and it's slow. That happened to be true, but there was something precious going on in addition to that.

I booted up Windows, I think it was the Spirit of 76 version. I realized it was going to be a while, so I made a stop in the bathroom to make an e.-coli-infected deposit. Thanks for springing for the soft toilet paper, y'all! After 5-10 minutes, the systray finished filling up. It looked something like this.

Ok, this just came across the wire. 250 have been sickened after eating at Olive Garden in Indianapolis. As a caucasian, let me just say that I really like Italians and regard many of them as friends. I often defer to them in matters of style, love making, and food. The last of which is about which I will opine.

Every red blooded Italian I know bashes Olive Garden. They always laugh when I broach the subject and pronounce that they would not be caught dead there. Well, they just might be.

See, I believe many of these folks are covering something up. I think they flock to olive garden, come in through the side or back door, and rush to a table hoping not to be noticed. Like Fred Phelps at an adult bookstore.

This is what was in an envelope that conspicuously accompanied my paystub at work this week...

(The names have been changed to protect the guilty)

I was talking with a financial advisor, who I should mention is a really good guy, and he was advocating that I roll some money his way so that he can maximize my growth potential or something. As Financial advisors are supposed to be, he's a persistant chap and had asked me several times about getting the process rolling. So I started asking him about the different investment options he reccomended. He was explaining to me the risks and rewards and such and that's when I let him have it.

Growing up, we were fed a lot of things. Among them were oversimplified & seemingly outdated catch phrases intended to teach us life lessons. Things like..

"A stitch in time saves nine"

"The early bird catches the worm"

You were probably like me, and you rolled your eyes everytime your mother dispensed these little pearls of wisdom. You never really took it to heart, and you certainly didn't plan your life around them.

But, the more I experience life, the more I find truth in one of those McWisdom nuggets. No, not "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". I'm talking about "What goes around comes around". Karma. Let me tell ya. Karma doesn't just come around. It drives a fu@k!ng Mac Truck.