We took a few of our partners to a dinner at a brewery called “The Ram”. This place has, I kid you not, a challenge.

I guess they are the best at being stupid because you don’t challenge fat people to an eatoff. You challenge them to a pushup or a jumping rope competition. I digress.

Anyhow. I had to beat this beast. In case you’re curious about the proportions, the thing on the left is half a rack of ribs. The thing on the right is a burger.

In case you are STILL thinking – 5lb, I bet I could eat that – consider the OWN marketing girl. The burger is bigger than her head.

Think I could finish it?

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I earned that tshirt.

Out and about….

Yesterday I got to have a little fun with my marketing girls. Jessica (blonde) does marketing for my company and pretty much runs our media stuff. Stephanie (brunette) does just about everything else related to marketing of OWN and ExchangeDefender.

The Al Bundy Fountain (actually, Beckingham Fountain, from the opening scene for Married With Children).

Sitting at the sky deck, 103 floors above ground at the observation deck on top of The Sears (Willis) Tower.

Rubbing the lions tail is supposed to be good luck!

Chicago Candy: Bacon dipped into chocolate. Yes, really. No, I didn’t eat it.

And perhaps the two of the greatest contributions to American culture and my lifestyle in particular: The place where Playboy Enterprises was started. And the best Chicago hot dog in Chicago (Gold Coast Dogs). I can vouch for both and highly recommend them.

You can’t make this stuff up…

Last night we were coming back from Downtown Chicago on the Blue Line and apparently someone jumped on the train tracks and the “L” was down. Props to Chicago, they evacuated us from the train and took us to each stop on a bus. Roughly 2 hours later, we were back on the L and back at O’Hare.

It was certainly an adventure.

As is every day.

Live life to the fullest, have fun, make the best out of every situation.. and eat a 5lb burger at least once in your life.

There are a couple of new hot dogs on the menu, and I tried 2/3 of them. Mostly because I’ve never heard of Wendy Williams and the thought of mixing hot dogs with jalapeno’s is just painful.

But this one I couldn’t wait for. The Shrek & Fiona dog!

The other two.

Love the shameless marketing. Graduating? Eat a hot dog. Dad? Eat a hot dog!

There is now even a petition to open a Pink’s at the LAX! This way I don’t even have to get off the airport to hit Pinks.

So between me and Travis, this was the total damage.

The Hoff dog and Shrek dog!

I did wuss out, completely, on this one. I just couldn’t handle the pastrami. Plus there was no physically feasible way to eat this hot dog. So having started from the top left and right I eventually had to just get rid of the pastrami. Not a fan apparently.

So there goes another awesome visit to Los Angeles, always worth it.

As for the diet, that’s still on the map and still working on it. But how, how is that possible with this much food? Well, I completely gave up alcohol and deserts. I also watch out to space these things out – so I will likely have very little to eat today and I had very little to eat the day before – not perfect, but it’s working.

Oh, also got a purple suit. But more on that later tomorrow!

On the positive side, I did discover a new feature in my Vette!

I live in a very nice neighborhood in Orlando. Price of living in paradise is that it’s also a tourist hotspot. There is only one way out, and it involves crossing 2 lanes of traffic to get to the northbound side (towards Lake Buena Vista). Naturally, the left hand lane for the northbound turn is filled with “Yours to discover” license plates and there are times I wish they spent more time discovering Ontario instead of getting lost in Florida. Anyhow, I just pull all the way up front in the right hand lane towards Kissimmee because lord knows don’t nobody want to go to Kissimmee! as Martin Lawrence would put it.

Apparently there is some sort of Canadian law against merging into moving traffic. There isn’t one in America. You are allowed to merge into a moving line of traffic if one of the lanes is not occupied. You do not need both lines to be empty for your full line of sight. Trust me on this one.

Anyhow. I do this daily.

Right hand lane, to the full stop.

First gear, punch it, once half way through the traffic shift up, cut the wheel, punch it again and no more cars for half a mile.

Today I must have been a little off my game. I took the left lane.

So about a minute into it, and four cars deep, I looked up and yup. Clean lines, north and south. So I just left my lane, pushed forward and rolled straight to the intersection.

Now, apparently the 20-30 extra yards make a difference in a Z06

I ended up shifting at my usual spot but this time the car must have been going a little bit faster. Instead of just punching it and drifting through the curve, the tail spun and “Active Handling” sign came on.

It did not seem to affect performance at all, because apparently “Active Handling” means “We’ll turn this car on the dime because your dumb ass can’t drive”

Earlier this evening I went back to see what I had done. It looked like a 90 degree turn painted on in Michelin’s.

Now, the 20 year old Vlad would have snickered at that and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

The 30 year old Vlad actually said “Shit, that’s at least $100 right there.”

At least I gave them quite  a show

"You will now be blamed for anything you have ever done."

To which I responded:

"Dude, I have been an ISP for longer than you have. Do you have any doubt in my ability to deal and apologize for shit that is not my fault?

To be honest, I have been getting a lot of "oh man, it is so different" from my business world friends. I put up with crying, whining, guilt trips, conspiracy theories and the like all day long. What is the kid going to throw at me that the monkeys haven’t? Poop? Been there.

It’s not really a halftime show anymore…

It’s a halftime tribute to people that have managed to survive despite their dependance on heroin. Consider the past four years: Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince and Tom Petty.

These are the headlines over the past four years, not the first four years of 1980’s.

NFL seems to be stuck 20 years in the past, and frankly, as marketers, they are fucking up. They are showcasing geezers that have faded in popularity before most of the todays lucrative advertising age group has even been born.

There is a time and place for people like this, and it’s called Las Vegas. Stick them somewhere in the back of a casino where the elderly can blow their retirement money on something other than slot machines.

For the rest, for the love of god, pick someone that had a hit record THIS CENTURY!

I’ll give him credit for the figurines though, thats bound to attract kids to the car and the tinted windows take care of the rest

All jokes aside, this freak has two cars and drives them around I-drive in Orlando in circles all day long from the convention center down to the Central Florida Parkway – every day. We used to see him on the weekends when we’d go to Costco but now he seems to be out there every day… spreading some sort of a… message… about Jesus.. and toys.. .and figuines… and bible quotes.

It’s people like this that give religion a bad reputation as a bunch of lunatics out of touch with the rest of the society.

Vlad: Hey, want to go to Vegas?

Katie: Sure, when?

Vlad: January, 6–10

Katie: What’s then?

Vlad: CES, the consumer el… <cut off>

Katie: What, want to go find the cell phone of your dreams?

Oooooffff. Now a few hours later I did think of a response (“Yes, so I can call my dream girl when you’re being a smartass!”) but at that moment I was pretty much totally pwned.

But by lunch time the work sucked worse than any pain I could have imagined so I went to the gym and just walked @ 4mph for the first mile which is all I hoped to do.. but then I went on for the second mine. Then the bridge fell down in MN so I went on for the third mile.. by the time I looked down I was already on the treadmill for almost 50 minutes.

Feel much better today than yesterday, definitely starting to feel a little more power (less daily homicidal tendancies too)

And no, Katie doesn’t know about this blog.