I like to get out and stretch my legs a little bit at lunch every day. Today, I decided to walk down the street to Quizno's for lunch, which is maybe a 20 minute round trip. I make it about halfway there today, when I see this little green Civic that had, crammed into it, an enormous buffalo of a man with a shaved head and a crazy long goatee. I'm walking right past this car and I peek in to see this man going absolutely insane. You know how sometimes they do a close-up of an athlete's mouth and you can just tell he's dropping f-bombs all over this place? That's what this dude was doing and, as an slightly bystander, I was enjoying the hell out of it.

Right as I'm maybe six feet away from the driver side door, he bursts out of his car. Did he, in any way, censor the incredible series of f words, mf's, and effing mf effer butts coming out of his mouth? Oh no; it was an incredible committment to loud profanity.

Even more interesting is that, during this torrent of swear words, he starts slamming his car door, opening it back up, and slamming it again, as hard as possible. His pants are covered in rips and about to fall off. Let me tell you this: it was pretty tough to ignore the giganic, nearly nude dude having the violent mental collapse in the parking lot. At the same time, I was the only other person in the parking lot and I really did not want to draw his ire. I was fully in my "keep head down, make notes for later" mode.

I thought I was going to make it safely through all of this as an observer when I hear his footsteps quicken. For just a second, I imagined him running up to me with a brick or a Wiimote and chunking it at my head. I was scared enough to actually take a running start across the parking lot. Thankfully, he was screaming and sprinting towards the drycleaners in the strip mall.

If anybody has that security camera footage, I would absolutely love to see him. Assuming he really did go into the drycleaners, I am just going to guess that I missed the most terrifying argument ever over somebody accidentally putting a crease into a pair of jeans.

Asafa Powell, it's been a while, friend. Remember how, a few years back, I wrote that entry about my favorite Jamaican track and field athlete, ie you, and I started getting all of this email from people who thought I knew you? You and I share last names, I write about you on the internet, and I loudly claim to be your bodyguard/chef/masseuse on several message boards, and then people start coming up with these strange ideas!

Asafa, I saw the article on you in Sports Illustrated. Apparently you, like all Powells, have prodigious physical talents but are slightly cuckoo in the head. Dude, I completely sympathize; ever heard of a little something called the Powell curse? Nevertheless, at some point in the history of the universe, a Powell is going to win a medal for something. I don't see why it can't be you.

Chinese gymnast girls, you ladies are seriously old enough to compete in the Olympics? I'd send you to bed without your Hannah Montana fix for this little stunt.

Here's the deal with public speaking. Yes, it is scary to speak in front of large groups of strangers. Think of something reasonably bad that could happen: you could forget what you're talking about, skip a slide or two, and accidentally curse. That actually qualifies as a total success in public speaking! People are so terrified that anything besides mind-numbing, pants-wetting fear is an incredible success.

I think that philosophy actually works well whenever you're trying anything new. Nervous about asking a girl out? Just do it; there's no way your slightly inept approach will compare to the time some random dude grabbed her chest and then started doing pelvic thrusts. Same thing with writing a story. Your story's not about a plucky Klansman, right? Then it's not even that bad a story, so just write it anyway.

In closing, Olympics anyone? The past few days are almost enough to make me want to give up the doggy paddle and learn some real strokes.

I'm kind of an adult though, and adults have to wake up and do stuff in the mornings; I've watched enough sitcoms to understand this. Occasionally, I consistently get this idea that I'm just not trying hard enough to wake up early. I think that if I could just wake up at 6:30 every day, even on weekends, I'd unlock this huge chunk of time in which I could exercise, pen my memoirs, and perhaps dabble in meteorology.

I put this plan in action and then I have to stop. It's not because it's too hard to get up early; once I commit to my plan, I can live with the pain. I stop because, after a day or two, everyone else thinks I've suddenly turned into Stalin. Engage me in argument? You will get screamed at. Drink the last Coke in the fridge? You will be threatened. Dispute the supremacy of Die Hard II over Die Hard with a Vengeance? You will get sentenced to my own personal gulag.

In my own defense, it is hard to adequately scheme for the coming day and sublimate all potential weirdness without ample beauty sleep.

Tomorrow, I go back on this plan and I am determined to try it for a week this time, no matter what my friends and family think. I'd like to think by that point, I'll be settled in and living the productive life. In the meantime, prepare for several lengthy, ultra-serious, misinformed screeds about the postal service, Kabbalah lore, and offshore drilling.

Goulash historians will be pleased to know that I made the necessary corrections. Please reread yesterday's entry several times and enjoy it many times over with this new information in mind.

Similarly, I get mail addressed to Cody [Laura's Last Name]. I'm a sophisticated man and I handle this subtle emasculation with a giggle.

Recently, I received something addressed to that name and I could tell just by looking at the envelope that it was from a charity and the letter contained free address labels. I hate to write and I think that, generally, the world hates it when I write, so I hoard address labels. This was an unpleasant discovery then; finally I get some address labels for my new address, only to discover they had the wrong name on them.

I opened the envelope to make sure. I realized something when I saw the labels in question: I am willing to use address labels with a clearly wrong name IF AND ONLY IF the greatness of the label artwork outweighs the whole wrong name aspect.

What are the odds of that happening, though? Your typical address label, if it has artwork at all, features a flower or maybe a smiley face. Rarely do I see anything on an address label that makes me want to stand up and celebrate. In fact, has it ever happened? Before today, I would've said no. Today, I scream yes!

Inside of the envelope, I found address label after address label featuring... Ziggy. What was he doing? Rollerblading.

It didn't just stop at Ziggy rollerblading, either; I have Ziggy dancing in a rainbow jumpsuit, Ziggy going camping, Ziggy with his raincoat on, and Ziggy leaping into the air in a moment of high spirits.

Leukemia Society of Central Texas, you don't know my name, but you definitely know my tastes. I will now begin to mail many more letters.

I think you get points for originality when it comes to pets. Yeah sure, golden retrievers named Ginger are sweet and wonderful and will provide several happy moments. The world's full of pets like that, though, and thus they do not impress me. There's only one fat, one-eyed, awesome cat named Octopussy, which is why I'm glad to have her. I think Orson will fit into this scheme pretty well too. First, his name is excellent. Second, he's a little crazy looking from his alley cat days. Third and most important, he likes me and Laura so much that I'm pretty sure he'd marry us, if it were an option.

Unfortunately, we can't let him inside the house just yet because he doesn't have all of his vaccinations. As much as I like him, I cannot expose Octo to an exploding cat butt virus. Wait for us, Orson!

In other news, enjoyed the crap out of the Dark Knight. I know everybody's saying this, but how sad is it that Heath Ledger is dead? It's been years since a movie villain actually scared me but the Joker... yowza. It's got to be really tough as an actor to get a role like that, where your portrayal is competing with Jack Nicholson in goofy make-up, prancing around to Prince song. Excellent, excellent stuff. I still think that Christian Bale's Batman voice is kind of laughable, though. He sounds kinda like tough Harvey Fierstein.

Sure I want to see it and Christian Bale and Heath Ledger and blah blah blah, but I had another movie on my must-see list with a little more seniority. What was it? Uhh, it was only a little flick about an adorable robot's intergalactic romp!! Finally saw it tonight, and WALL-E is excellent. Is there an dismissive term like Trekkie for people who really like Pixar movies? Pixarinas, maybe? I'm one of those guys.

Now that I'm thinking about it, wouldn't it be cool if every little subculture had a term for it, much like Trekkie? For example, I like the Lord of the Rings books, Pixar movies, and Otis Redding. I'm sure there are at least 100 other similar people, so maybe we could all call ourselves HobbiToon Soulbrothers. What do you think? (Please note that this is our term for ourselves, and you may not use it.)

(Secret note to fellow HTSBs: the domain name is hobbittoonsoulbrothers.com is NOT yet taken. Shall we organize a funddrive to pay for this? I call dibs on email address theladiescallmegandalf@hobbitoonsoulbrothers.com.)

Tomorrow night, the lady and I are hitting the Dark Knight. And when I say hitting the Dark Knight, I don't mean seeing the movie; I mean we'll blindside Christian Bale in an alley and sock him in the nose. Maybe I'll shout something along the lines of, "This is what happens, Christian Bale, when you steal all of Michael Caine's lines!" I don't know, I probably need to see the movie before I plan the attack.

I think I'm old enough to have adult parties, and that's pretty much what this was. In case you're wondering, adult parties start earlier, they have veggie trays, and the beer is better. The nudity is more infrequent, thankfully, and more disturbing.

Now that's out of the way, I need to start tearing this place to pieces with idiotic home improvement projects. Paddy did buy me some books of this nature over the weekend, but someone forgot to tell him that the only instructions I need are what the power tools tell me to do.

The two big projects are speaker wiring and installing some fans. I know a fair amount about wiring, and I'm just going to arrogantly declare success before the work even starts here. I'm not so sure about installing fans. Pretty much every room in the known world has a ceiling fan in it, and that would indicate, to me, that I stand a fair shot of pulling this off. At the same time, fan blades are sharp, and could very well chop my toes off.

When I say get down to business, I mean the actual business that feeds the crocodiles of Castle Powellskull's moat. As some of you may know, I work for a startup called GotVMail. We just unveiled a big marketing campaign that revolves around one of the leading business minds of this century, and, probably, of all time. I'm speaking, of course, about Mr. Gary Freaking Busey.

We're doing a company challenge to see who can get the most traffic on a particular clip. I'm handling the following little nugget of fried gold:

If you like it, I don't know, send it around or something. Confused Chinese ladies who make up the readers of Goulash, do your thing!

Pssssssst: there are a whole lot more of these at GaryBuseyOnBusiness.com.

Actually, the Halloween costume is a topic of some importance. Laura and I are getting married on November 1, and we're having our rehearsal dinner the day before, which happens to be Halloween. It's going to be a costume rehearsal dinner. As the groom and, I suppose, person of importance at this shindig, I need a killer costume.

I've actually already come up with the greatest costume in the world, I just can't pull it off. I'm going to go ahead and share it here, simply because I could die happy if I actually saw someone dressed as this.

Here it is: the greatest costume in the world is Zombie Michael Jackson from the Thriller music video.

Unfortunately, I don't even know where to start here. I'd have to get made up to look like Michael Jackson, and then apply zombie make up on top of that. I'm not sure I could do either one of those steps on their own, much less combine the two while keeping this under a $10,000 budget. I just know that I'd look like some sort of smudgefaced lunatic, and that all of that makeup would sink into my skin overnight. Who wants to get married to the bargain-bin Zombie Michael Jackson? That's a hard sell.

I have come up with a good alternative, which, for better or worse, doesn't relate to Michael Jackson at all. And no, it's not Zombie Rod Stewart.

In case you're wondering, ICU waiting rooms are really, really depressing. We were at my mom's hospital on Sunday and I noticed that some people had made up some beds in the corner. "Wow, something bad must've happened last night," I thought.

While making polite conversation with these folks, they mentioned they'd actually been sleeping in the waiting room for three weeks now. Three weeks! I wouldn't even want to go on vacation for three weeks; I'd miss the Q-tips and sock selection I have at home. Prison might even be better, since you get a real bed. There are lots of white supremacists in prison though, so that comparison may be a wash.

Anyway, what's even worse is that the relative they were waiting on had been in a coma all of that time. What can you say to something like that? Equally impressive is how friendly they were to us and everyone else in there. If anyone deserves some good karma, it's those folks. I'm rooting for you, ICU buddies.

Since I've been thinking about it, let me just make this clear: if I'm in a coma, I don't expect any of you to wait for three weeks in the waiting room. In fact, don't even wait three days, just pop by a couple of times a week. First of all, I'd have no idea how to repay that kind of devotion. Imagine you wait for three weeks, I wake up, and then a week later, you need a ride to the airport. However, I have a doctor's appointment. I really don't think I could allow myself not to take you to the airport, but at the same time, a man who just awakened from a coma shouldn't be skipping doctor's appointments.

Second, there's a good chance I'd be faking my coma just to get a nice vacation. No point in sticking around for that.

Sports at a company outing are always a little dangerous for me. Do I want to try hard and win, thus proving my dominance and, in the process, establishing my reputation as the office violent lunatic? Or do I want to take it easy out there and lose, thus displaying my carefree attitude while also showing everyone that I don't care about anything in the world, even something as pure and true as team touch football?

Luckily for me, some of the other guys set the tone for this game right away. We were lining up to get started and I looked over at the guy next to me; he had a beer in his hand and a cigar in his mouth. Maybe you could get away with that on defense, but we were on offense and this guy was running pass routes. Maybe it was a little tricky to catch with all of that, but at the same time, who wants to tackle the glass-wielding dude with fire in his mouth?

My point here is that I had a good time, and I found work-related sporting to be much more relaxed when I'm playing with very diverse competitors. Maybe I'm advocating for some football affirmative action here. (Clarence Thomas just unsubscribed from my RSS feed in disgust.)

Alright, the Fourth of July is on Friday and I'm now having a hard time remembering back when I used to enjoy four day weeks. I know this happened at some point, probably just a few years ago. I'd go in to work, shout, "Four day work week!", and high five the janitor. Now, I'm a fully-fledged adult and whenever I'm deprived of a work day, I wake up in a cold sweat, screaming, "AGHGHHGHGG WHERE ARE THE REPORTS??!!!"

Nevertheless, I'm going to eat some hot dogs and light some fireworks. This is still America, damn it.

The trip was for work; all four of us from the Austin office had come up for the company bbq. For Friday night, we had nothing to do so we decided to get adventurous and somewhere in the vast megapolis that is the Boston area.

After numerous wrong turns and run red rights, we finally found ourselves at this little pizza place. I'll be charitable and say that this place had five tables. All of these tables were taken. Most were inside of the restaurant, but a couple were out on the patio of the restaurant. A quartet of older ladies sat at those tables, and it was clear that they were finishing up their meal.

We're no dummies; we spotted the telltale signs of a nearly-finished dinner date and we started loitering around the tables. We'd all been traveling for a while now, so we were just standing around, talking and zoning out. In the midst of all of this, one of the older ladies gets up from the table and heads back into the restaurant. Her hands are full with some napkins and whatnot, and like I said, we were all zoning out after the travel, so she had to do a bit of shuffling to open the door.

As soon as she did that, one of the other ladies at her table looks over with absolute venom and shouts, "You don't help a woman open the door? You're clueless, Jack!" Had murder been legal, she would've massacred all of us right there with plastic flatware.

The best part of this whole thing is that there was other dude milling about, and all of us Austin folk just assumed she knew him, that the dude was named Jack, and that she was giving him a hard time. We didn't say anything or even shrug, we just continued to watch for that open table. Eventually, "Jack" walked away without any further interaction from the screaming meanie.

In the act of waiting, someone brought up the idea that hey, maybe that lady had been bitching us out? Great debate ensued. Do people really just scream at perfect strangers like that in a civilized society? Is this a New England welcome ritual, right up there with pelted with rotting lobsters? After a while, I found myself back in the restaurant with "Jack" and he leaned over and said, "Wow, she really tore you guys a new one, huh?"

The trip went up from there, fortunately. Still, there's nothing like that Yankee hospitality.