Weekend Worth Blogging About

Man, what a day. The first good news came a little before noon. I got a call from CBP saying that having successfully completed all pre-employment screening, I was being formally offered the job of Customs and Border Protection Officer at the GS-7 grade level.

A lot of emo bloggers quote song lyrics to convey emotions on blogs. I'm gonna do the same, but with a different song for some very different emotions. Fuck you, emo kids! Here's an old number you might remember:

"Hello boys and girls, this is your old pal, Stinky Wizzleteats
This is a song about a whale, NO this is a song about being happy
Thats right!
Its the happy happy, joy joy song!

Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy joy

I don't think your happy enough, thats right!
I'll teach you to be happy!
I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs!
Now boys and girls, lets try it again...

Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy joy!

If'n you ain`t the grandaddy of all liars!
The little critters of nature...they don't know that they're ugly.
Thats very funny! A fly marrying a bumble bee?
I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me!
WHY didn't you believe me?!?

Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy, joy joy
Happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy happy, joy joy joyyyy!"

Speaking of songs,

Dear Kid Rock,

Lately I've been hearing a lot of your* song, "All Summer Long" on radio, through cover bands (sweet sufferin' fuck, what irony!), at bars, etc. Warren Zevon must be rolling over in his grave. If you should ever be playing in london, I hope werewolves eat you. You are a fucking hack. You suck.

Sincerely, Me.

Ok back to business. I got the call. From receiving the call I was told that I had 24 hours to accept the job, and choose whether I wanted to be stationed in Nogales or San Luis, AZ. Nogales is about an hour south of Tuscon by the border, while San Luis is just outside of Yuma. I have accepted the offer, and chose Nogales. Tuscon is a fairly big city and I'd prefer living around that area than Yuma (where you're 150 miles from anywhere that matters). Nogales itself is pretty rough, but ideally I'll find housing north of there, hopefully equidistant between Nogales and Tuscon. I need to be there by November 24th, and find temporary housing for 3 weeks before shipping from there off to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center located in Brunswick, GA on December 18th. Assuming I pass training, my graduation will be April 8th. and on the 9th I ship back to Nogales to start work. That was the first good news.

The second set of good news came last night when the best candidate was elected President. I'm not gonna repeat the song, but I was very, VERY happy with the election results and John McCain's concession. Look's like I'll be working under President Barack Obama's Department of Homeland Security.

As if that weren't good enough, I had a real pleasant weekend leading up to all this. Friday afternoon I got a call from my friend Cruisin giving me a status update on her current whereabouts and life. Always cool to hear from her. After her call I got in a workout (gym was empty- awesome!) and some quality time in the hot tub. I went home, ate some quick dinner and changed into my scary movie killer costume. In short order my friend Roxy Arbordale came over dressed as a flapper, we picked up BHJ (dressed as Steve Zissou but commonly mistaken throughout the night for a smurf and the travelocity gnome) and drove to the Boneyard- a Dave-and-Busters-like place- where they were having this years Q104 Boo Bash. The party was great. Roxy Arbordale's friend from Willoughby joined us later in the evening, and at one point of the night, Red, Trojangirl, and Baldwin all stopped by. We drank, we danced, rocked out to a somewhat disturbing cover band, and played a lot of skeeball, leaving around 2 AM

Saturday I spent most of the daytime volunteering for Obama. Did some canvassing around a couple Solon Neighborhoods. Late afternoon I saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno with Roxy Arbordale, Red and BHJ. Hilarious movie; Justin Long makes the movie as a gay porn star. Following the movie I went over to Red's and had dinner with his family. Gotta say, his mom makes some pretty damn delicious pulled pork and mac&cheese. Roxy Arbordale with her friend from Willoughby we met fri night picked us up and we drove (with some difficulty) to Howl At The Moon downtown in the west bank of the flats. Sweet place- it's a dueling piano bar, which I'd never seen before. I spent a bit more than I probably should have trying to get the musicians to play songs, but ultimately I had a fantastic time, again staying out till roughly 2, then capping the night off with some tasty Steak and Shake.

So there you all have it. The excitement of the past few days, and my future plans. Since I only have a short time here I want to make it count, so expect me to take as much advantage of the next couple weekends as I can. Night folks. Drop comments.

The eternal question

Car Wars: Tuner vs. Muscle
It continues to be debated by car enthusiasts today so I thought I'd weigh in and ask my readers what they think.

So lets start by defining the two opponents. The criteria for a muscle car by common definition is pretty simple. 2 doors, midsize, rear-wheel-drive, and a large powerful engine with lots of low-end torque for straight-line acceleration. Good modern examples include (and are pretty much limited to) Ford Mustang, Chevy Camaro, and Dodge Challenger. Tuner is a bit more blurry. Wikipedia says the following: "A tuner car, often from an Asian or European manufacturer, is a car that combines comfort, practicality and decent gas mileage with the potential of becoming a high performance vehicle with modifications, primarily to the engine, as they normally provide decent handling due to their light weight and their more sophisticated suspensions." Good examples include the Honda Civic, Scion tC and Subaru Impreza among others.

So what's got what on what? Tuner cars usually have 4-cylinder engines, which, tho frugal, aren't high performance by any stretch of the imagination. The engine mods for tuners almost always take the form of superchargers- pumps or a crank driven directly by the engine to force air through it, or turbochargers- forced induction by means of a turbine powered by the engine's exhaust. The result is more power, but a charged V4 can't match the naturally smooth power delivery of a v8. Instead of explosive low-end torque rocketing you off the line, tuners have to contend with turbo-lag (the time it takes for boost to scroll up) and a non-linear torque curve. Acceleration and top speed? points 1 and 2 to muscle cars.

One thing tuner cars have going for them is handling. A vast majority of tuner cars are either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. While torque-steer sometimes makes hard acceleration annoying for FWDers, you don't need to worry near as much about fishtailing around the curves, which could come in handy, especially during bad weather. Additionally, tuners are light which helps cornering, and most have a tighter chassis than muscle cars (tho modern muscle cars chassis are much tighter than their classic predecessors who were generally large and loose), which equates to less body roll. Point for tuners.

Style? That's a toss-up. It's a matter of preference really. On one hand, I simply love the style of muscle cars. A big hood, wide grille, and flared out rear-haunches give the casual viewer a good idea of what that car should do to a wimpy 4-banger in the straights. One the other hand, visual modifications on a tuner from their stock appearance (vinyls, body kits, spoilers, etc) could give the impression that the owner put serious wrench-time into making their car look and perform better than when they left the dealership, which I find very respectable. Of course, they can also make the car look cheesier than most Burger King sandwiches and about as classy, while some people find muscle car styling outdated or tasteless.

Cost is a big factor. While stock tuners are generally cheap, performance parts and labor aren't so tuning one into a high performance vehicle can be an expensive hobby. That being said, even when super or turbo charged, your average tuner gets much better gas mileage than the big thirsty v8 of a muscle car. Also, a lot of manufacturers make 'pre-tuned' high performance variants of some of their more affordable cars- for instance the Mazdaspeed3, Honda Civic Si, VW GTI, etc. Even American automakers have jumped on this trend; modern offerings include the Chevy Cobalt SS and the Dodge Caliber SRT 4. These sport compacts are generally regarded as fantastic bargains for people interested in purchasing speed on the cheap. To get a really affordable muscle car, you'd either have to buy one used or settle for a smaller v6 engine.

If you asked me to chose which group I favor, I'd have to go with tuners. Sure, muscle cars have several good advantages; I can't get past the style of a muscle car, I'm one of those people that's really annoyed by torque steer- I don't like having to control the steering wheel as it saws in either direction when I'm accelerating, even to a relatively slow speed-, and I like how RWD feels on the highway. Tuners though are cheaper to own and operate, there are more of them available to choose from, and you don't need to put sandbags in the trunk during bad weather. Additionally I just don't trust American manual transmissions as much. I like driving stick, and in my experience European cars have the smoothest stickshift action. Interestingly enough, American sport compacts don't use American stickshifts; the 6-speed used on the Dodge Caliber SRT 4 is from Getrag- a German company- while the 5 speed sticks used on the Chevy SS compacts (Cobalt and HHR) are supplied by Saab, I guess maybe someone clued them in...

If I had to pick a favorite modern muscle car it'd be the new Camaro. I like the style of the Mustang best out of the 3 major models, but the style of the Camaro is still breathtaking, inside and out. Unlike the Mustang it's got an independent rear suspension which makes for better handling, while availability of a stickshift on the Dodge Challenger is limited to v8 models only which makes the Camaro more attractive to me at the more affordable v6 level.

Until pretty recently my favorite tuner car was a toss-up between the Volkswagen GTI and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. The GTI and I have a special bond (after I was born, I was driven home from the hospital in one), and I've taken a new one on a test drive and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I drove the Evo while working at a Mitsubishi dealership, and really had the time of my life. But there's been a disturbance in the force.

That disturbance is the new Chevy Cobalt SS turbo. You might be wondering wtf a cobalt is doing competing with the likes of an evo for my affection. I'm just as surprised. It's a COBALT; bottom of the class as far as economy cars go. Your basic cobalt has a fuel-efficienct engine but little else: sleepy styling, driving dynamics that can be summed up by saying "blah" really loudly, a cheap interior and uncomfortable seats. The SS trim fixes all that with a 260 hp turbo engine, sport suspension and steering, performance brakes and bolstered sport bucket seats. I pay attention to the big car magazines; Car and Driver, Motor Trend, and Road and Track, all of whom do regular comparative tests to figure out which car in a given class is the best value or gives the best performance for the money. In sport compact comparison tests across the board the Cobalt SS tore competition up.

In Car and Driver's Lightning Lap issue, where it puts sports cars ranging from cheap sport compacts to high-end six digit exotics through a comprehensive-that means twists, turns, climbs etc- 4.2 mile course, the little-Cobalt-that-could (dominate) posted lap times quicker than the evo but also, just for frame of reference, better than the likes of a BMW 1 series, Honda S2000, Lotus Elise, Audi S5 and the Lexus ISF among others- cars that are AT LEAST $10,000 more. C&D said of the Chevy, "Despite the explosive power and front weight bias, the Cobalt SS resisted the typical understeer found in front drive cars. The SS goes about its business with almost no drama. You only realize how quick it is when you arrive at start-finish and wonder, 'How'd I get here so fast?'" Road and Track compared it to a more class-conscious crowd of just the Cobalt SS, Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart (a diet evo), Subaru Impreza WRX, and the previous king-of-the-sport-compacts, the Mazdaspeed3, on an autocross course with skidpad and slolom tests. The Cobalt SS outperformed. They said the following: "...the Cobalt SS doesn't just compete with the foreign cars, it beats them. It is the hottest-performing sports compact you can buy in the U.S. for under $30,000." Disturbance indeed, looks like I'll have to go drive this one. The downside to the Cobalt SS, so everyone says, is its bland interior and exterior. But those same shortcomings to me seem like exactly what makes it a sleeper hit. As Han solo would say, "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts." The GTI and Evo may need to move over...

So let me pose this question to my readers which you can answer back in a comment- Tuner or muscle? What's your favorite of each and why?

Till next time guys

Addendum to the big hurdle

Fuck the gameplan. No reason for me to be losing a friend if I don't have to. I could ignore her online, cut her out of my life, the whole deal, but that would be just giving up and running away from my problems instead of dealing w/them. Which is something The Pyrokinetic does, not me. But how do I tell a close friend that I'm sick of their crap and theyve treated me like shit for a whole summer?

Free food and the big hurdle

If there's something I like more than food, it's free food. Hence my trip tonight. At about 6 my friend BHJ called me up and told me there was free pizza at the local bowling alley. I'm not the biggest fan of the bowling alley bar- there are a lot better places to go and c'mon it's a BOWLING ALLEY BAR- but free food is usually enough to sway me. So naturally, I saddled up.

I got there around 6:20, and met BHJ who told me our other friend Trojangirl and her boyfriend Baldwin were gonna join us in a bit. We went into the bar and ordered drinks, tall Great Lakes Oktoberfests with which to wash down the delicious free pizza. We didn't see any cheesy comestibles sitting around though so I asked the bartender if this free pizza thing was happening. No such luck :-( We all instead went to a Max and Ermas, where despite having to pay for the food, served some nice cookies.

I thought I should bring this up in my first real posting. Theres a huge roadblock in the way of me meeting people and trying to get a date; I already have feelings for someone, my friend The Pyrokinetic. These aren't feelings I really want to act upon, or even entertain at all: She lives further away than I like, and shoved me hard enough into the friend zone to break something important. It started this past spring, I went back to school to visit her and some other people and wound up catching feelings like a disease. I told her about it pretty soon after. We went for a while flirting online pretty much whenever we'd chat, but all through that time she had an on-again-off-again relationship with another guy who she'd routinely complain to me about (take that, balls!). When I went to Chicago over the summer in part to visit her for her birthday she and the guy were 'on' and she was practically waving him in front of my face -well from my perspective anyway, I admit it might've just seemed like that since I liked her. Interesting side note; after everyone fell asleep or passed out at The Pyrokinetic's birthday party he fuckin dumps her and leaves her in tears, which I'd warned her would happen sooner or later.

Roses are red
Violet's are blue
Karma's a bitch
And so are you

Ahem, sorry. Anyway she eventually comes to Ohio to visit, but she cuts it short (without letting me know before coming here) citing family troubles- her mom's gone nuts and she wasn't sure if her parents were going to stay together -and she needed to be home. Instead she brings her friend from Columbus back to Chicago, and while I'm sitting at home worrying about her family shit, I hear from her a week later saying how awesome he is and what a super-fun week she's had with the guy. Later on she visits Columbus again, looking for an apartment, and happens to be there one weekend when I'm down having a short vacation with BHJ and another friend, Red who's an OSU alum. We make a plan Saturday afternoon to meet up that night. But then time comes, Red BHJ and I are at the bar watching the game waiting for her to show up, she texts me to let me know she's bailing and also that instead of do what we'd intended to do I should jump ship and go find her in some other bar in the area. Fuck that! Why the hell should I have to chase her around Columbus?

Between all that, I think it's safe to say that even as a friend The Pyrokinetic's made it pretty clear she doesn't give a shit. I don't put a lot of stock in friends who take me about as seriously your average mime, take my time for granted and offer me next to none of theirs. If not for the fact that she's hot, I'dve recognized this pattern a while ago. See, I've had feelings before for people who clearly didn't deserve them, but usually I figure that part out after the feelings have dried up. Wish I could say that were the case here. My friend Red's advice? Forget her. That's the gameplan. Easier said than done.

Obligotory introduction restating that which most of you already know,,,

Let me rip some info from the first entry of my old blog which is now sadly devoid of purpose.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for reading this.

My name's Marshall. I'm 23 years old and from the greater Cleveland area. I graduated from Bradley University in 2007 with a double major in Criminal Justice and Sociology. I left school with a bunch of awards: Dr Martin Luther King Jr Award for student leadership, Bradley University's first ever Outstanding Contribution to Campus Unity award, the multicultural student services Outstanding Volunteer award, Habitat for Humanity (Bradley University Chapter) Pimpest Hat Award, etc. On top of my leadership and extracurriculars, I got good grades too. All in all I feel like I'd done pretty well for myself with education.

That's my story so far. I'm awesome. And modest of course.

So why did I start this blog?

The world needs to know what an awesome person like me is thinking about most of the time. To sum it up quickly and crudely, I spend most of the time thinking about women, food, cars, and my future (especially pertaining to women, food, and cars). You see, a cool person like me needs to think about cool things like those. And I need to talk about them, among other things. Now that's entirely too simplistic a summation. People who know me know there's far more to me than that, which I'm sure you'll get to know over this blog. But I wanted to give you a brief glimpse of what goes on in my head to let you know that I'm a pretty typical guy.

So lets start with girls and sex. Here's my deal. It's been a while. A long while. The last time I was actually in a relationship was nearly 22 months ago. Last time I got any substantive action was about 14 months ago (I call 'substantive action' that which involves MUTUAL sexual satisfaction) Not to say I want to throw myself into a relationship, far from it. I want to date around first, get to know people, have some fun. Possibly in the clothing-optional capacity if I can swing it. In any case something needs to happen. I'm bored. And I know I'm good enough to deserve a phone number, date, hookup, w/e. So I'll keep you all informed of my progress (using pseudonyms of all people to preserve anonymity of course).

I'm trying this new thing, it's called going out on weekends. Who knows? maybe I'll meet someone. I'll let you know how those exploits pan out, because despite being an extrovert, I've never been a really avid socialite before. Certainly haven't hit the bar scene heavily in my life. In college I did most of my drinking at dorm or apartment parties, and when I went to bars it was usually a more quiet place to sip beer and enjoy conversation. I am mostly a beer guy. But I also do whiskey-variant cocktails. Give me a whiskey, bourbon, or scotch and mix it with something carbonated on the rocks. Canadian whiskey is my favorite; Black Velvet and Canadian Club. I also like tequila, and the occasional mojito. There are a few moments where I've been spectacularly drunk in my life but those have been few and very far between, and even if I'm going out more I expect that to remain the same.

Cars? Expect me to geek out about cars on this blog from time to time. To me, a car is not just transportation. A person's car is their vessel, their flagship. It's tied intrinsically to one's being, and it reflects a lot about its driver. A car is the second biggest purchase a person will make in their life, next to a home, so I think they deserve all discussion and attention they get, and I want to contribute to that pool with my enthusiasm. I dream, I research, I drool, I test drive, and I'll write about it.

I promise not to get all emo and shit, but I do have problems like everyone else and I'll use my blog as a way to discuss 'em.

Finally, I've got a fair amount of wisdom and insight to share. To quote a washed up 90's pop singer; "you live, you learn". I doubt I'd be helping improve peoples lives if I was selfish with those lessons. Here's to a little living and learning, people. Viva la Marshall is up and running.