A Rough Golf Trip Was a Fore-gone Conclusion

There comes a time in a Minnesota man’s life when he gets tired of driving to work on something that more closely resembles a luge track than any sort of roadway infrastructure and he starts seeing visions of Mr. Tumnus scampering through the eternal winter snow.  This sort of mid-winter crisis occurs about the same time every February.  Even cutting across the lake to save ten minutes of driving time loses its exhilarating edge.  It is at this time that the Minnesota man must escape the bonds of sub-zero normalcy and, with The Queen Mother’s permission, take part in a ceremonious man-ritual known as “The Golf Trip.”

For those unfamiliar, The Golf Trip is a time set aside whereon a group of friends seek warmer climes and do nothing but play golf, pop Advil, and consume irrational amounts of red meat, as there are no primary spousal sources of authority about to chide one into acting responsibly and wasting time on things like hygiene or vegetables.  Sometimes, if there is time left over, sleep may occur. Continue reading →

Finally: Race Equality in Wisconsin

Despite all the prejudiced ignorant bigotry, it looks like we’re finally going to get some equal rights here in the Midwest. There is a group that has been discriminated against for some time now, tirelessly fighting for acceptance as they and their activities were being called everything from ‘illegal’ to ‘immoral’ to ‘yellow’. This week they are finally going to get their due and be recognized as legitimate, thanks to the forward-thinking and open-minded Wisconsin legislature, who have joined other states in their forbearing tolerance—my very own Minnesota among them.

Yes, amongst all the controversial talk about discrimination and the questions about moral decency, the Wisconsin legislature has finally stopped bickering about stupid time-wasting issues like state deficits, infrastructure, and unemployment and focused on something that its citizenry actually cares about: race. Specifically, the annual rubber duck race held in the city of Mishicot. Continue reading →

Check Out These Suite Hotel Tips

TIMe for another episodic episode of TIM’s Travel Tips, which are a lot like sirloin tips except they don’t go nearly as well with a port demiglaze.  Today’s topic is hotels.  I know there are a lot of questions out there regarding hotels like, How come desk clerks in foreign countries don’t speak better English? and, Do they replace those little shampoos every time or do they just fill them up for the next guy?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answers to these questions, but having spent the night in everything from a third-world 5-star resort where one square of lobby marble is more expensive than all the surrounding residences combined, to a roadside mom & pop motel where mom won’t use a vacuum because it upsets all the cats and pop left her months ago for the chick who lives in the dumpster behind the local Roquefort shop, I think I am qualified to attest as to what makes a decent place to stay and what places you should avoid like a Haitian prostitute. Continue reading →

How to Be an Award-Winning Blogger

I have been blogging now for exactly 18+ months or so (give or take) and I must say, I am all Baghdadified (that is, in shock and awe) that I have not received any smugly satisfactory and pretentiously praiseful honors from within my own pompous peer group such that I can properly puff myself up with conceited pride and self-important pomposity.  Nor have I even received a nomination!

But then I watched television last Sunday night and what I discovered via the Columbia Broadcasting System made me involuntarily exclaim, “Oh Lorde!  I have been doing it all wrong!”  I have been foolishly just sitting at my computer and writing, not at all using the obvious tactical strategery it takes to be an esteemed and celebrated success in one’s chosen field.  How could I have not seen it sooner?

Being the unselfish egoist I am, I will share what I learned the other night Continue reading →

Weighing in on Christie (pun intended)

I don’t usually get too excited about political scandals due to their inevitable and foreseeable nature, but this ‘Bridgegate’ thing has gotten me more worked up than a paleoista at a food court.  Specifically, I am more than shocked and dismayed that ‘Bridgegate’ is the best name the media could come up with for this nationwide local issue and frankly, whoever invented it should be made curator of the Lame Museum.

Really?  ‘Bridgegate’?  It’s like the creativity pipes got frozen in the polar vortex of banality and spewed liquid dull all over the floor of the triteroom.

Call me more progressive than my insurance company, but it’s about time we stopped putting ‘-gate’ at the end of anything that hints at the unethical or seemingly naughty-naughty.  Other stupid examples include Continue reading →