Does your cat pee in the toilet? MINE DOES.

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Max T Kramer

We have a cat. I’m not proud of this fact, and it is not one I generally broadcast, but at the risk of seeming like a weirdo, I want to tell you something about him. His name is MiniTruck III, but he also seems to enjoy ignoring us when called “Truck”, “MiniSucks”, “Sucks”, “SquintyTruck”, “SquintySucks”, “Squinty”, “Squeeeee”, and “Dumb Stupid Idiot.” When Mistress brought him home two years ago, I made my feelings clear about him on my old blog, which you can see HERE if you wish. As you may recall from an earlier post on this blog, I am not an animal person. Basically, I loathed the vile creature the instant I saw him. My initial feelings have only deepened and matured with time, like a finely crafted hate-wine.

I don’t like that animal.

I am one to give credit were credit is due however, and he does seem to be slightly more intelligent than say, lichen. He did teach himself to use the toilet after all. I’m not certain how, Lord knows I didn’t train him. My best guess is that we just let him hang out with us in the bathroom too often, and after repeatedly witnessing our habits, he has taken to using it by himself. If he is near his litterbox, that still gets a visit, and the majority of his business is done outside, but every now and then when nature calls, if he happens to be near a bathroom, he wanders on in and does his urinary thing. (He doesn’t crap in the toilet yet, thankfully, since he doesn’t seem interested in flushing, and coming home to floating cat turd deposits would ruin my day really quickly)

Here is the little jerk’s process. He wanders around the house, most likely annoying me in some way, and he realizes, man (cat?), I have to pee. So he lurks on over to the closest unoccupied bathroom, and hops up onto the seat, like so.

He then checks out the water with a few experimental paw taps, and when satisfied, slings himself spread eagle across the bowl, like one of those little water strider bugs. He then lowers his can down toward the water, carefully keeping his tail elevated, because everyone hates a wet tail, and once situated, he pees, like so.

The animal is clearly strange. This is a cat who hops into stranger’s cars because he enjoys going for rides, and climbs into the shower with us and runs outside during storms, because he likes the rain. Now we have the dubious pleasure of him pissing in our toilets and when he is done, he checks out his handiwork and wanders away, pleased as punch.

Look at that little cretin, so pleased with himself. God, I hate him.

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Rugged Maniac 5K, Southwick MA

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Max T Kramer

Over the past few years, the world of semi-competitive distance running has changed dramatically. Basically, it’s becoming popular. It’s shocking, I know. As anyone who knows anything about anything could, and should tell you, distance runners are a strange breed. They do, after all, subject their bodies to constant abuse, for no good reason. In this advanced day and age, there are much more efficient and infinitely less boring forms of transportation than simple bipedal parambulation. Like, instead of running, you could ride a bicycle. Or drive a car. Or ride on a bus. Or stay home and lie on your couch, because really, there’s nowhere you actually have to be.

So why is it that various running races are so popular all of a sudden? Why are they no longer populated exclusively by shaggy-headed, granola crunching, subaru driving, short-shorts wearing weirdos?

Simple. Obstacles. Within the past few years, various organizations have come into being that host obstacle course races, and their popularity has risen at an exponential rate, and really, why wouldn’t it? Instead of clogging up some poor city’s downtown street grid with a shuffling mass of wheezing, coughing, foul smelling fish-eyed humanity, races are moving off road, and incorporating various aspects designed to make the runner forget that they are running around in circles for no reason, and to trick them into thinking they are having fun. Let me tell you, it works.

First off, consider the names of these events. When I hear of something called “Mother Theresa’s 5K for change”, I think “Yeah, I’m not going to do that, that sounds like the worst thing ever.” Something named the “Tough Mudder”, or “Warrior Dash”, or “Spartan Race” or “Rugged Maniac”, or my personal favorite, “Run For Your Lives”  (A Zombie themed run) on the other hand, sounds epic, and like something I want to be involved in, regardless of the fact that all these events are obscenely expensive, and judging from their website photos, populated mostly by soccer moms and alcoholic fraternity types.

That is why, this past weekend, Mistress Kay and I took part in the second annual Southwick, Massachusetts Rugged Maniac 5K obstacle course race. The 3.1 mile course makes use of an actual dirtbike track, so the terrain is naturally hilly, confusing, and consists purely of thick, viscous mud and sasquatch poo, on top of which a series of US military designed and fabricated obstacles are thrown in for good measure to weed out the men from the boys. And girls. And old people. And everyone else who successfully completed the course. But, no, you’re totally a rugged maniac if you did it.

Mistress and I prepared ourselves differently for the big event. My training basically consisted of a month of looking at myself in the mirror and calling myself hurtful things, until I was sure I could complete the course fuelled entirely by rage and self-loathing. Mistress Kay actually made the effort to run a little bit beforehand, but I have a feeling that was mostly so she could lounge around the house for hours after every jog, demanding I rub her calves and whisper sweet nothings to her disgusting little toes.

The night before the race we made the excellent decision to go party in Boston, so after drinking all night, and spending an uncomfortable 3 hours trying to sleep on someone elses sofa, we drove to the event exhausted, malnourished, and violently hungover; which still made us healthier and better prepared than about 3/4 of the contestants there. There were, of course, a large amount of run-freaks looking to push themselves to the limit, but for the most part people just came out to get dirty, get some exercise, and have a good time. That’s the draw of events like this, and the reason they’re becoming so popular, so quickly. Whether you’re a washed up former athlete, trying to not vomit last night’s whiskey or crap your pants, like myself, or Grandma Ester, hoping to spend some quality time crawling under barbed wire with the gals from her church group, these things are fun, and completing them does leave you with a sense of accomplishment. Plus, afterward they throw a big party with live music, vendors, and free beer from craft brewers like Harpoon.

All in all, it was an excellent experience, and a fun day spent with my lady. My only complaint is that they have yet to post our run times online, despite having an electronic chip timing system, and my only concern is that i’m pretty sure Mistress now thinks she actually is a rugged maniac, and she’s become quite physically aggressive.

…help me.

 

You can check out the Rugged Maniac website HERE. If you want to check out any of the other cool races around New England, Google them yourselves you lazy schmucks.

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The Nature of Reality, and the Reality of Fiction

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Max T Kramer

What is the true nature of reality? Is reality simply the state of things, as they exist, discretely and objectively, separate from our potentially flawed perceptions of them? How then, can we know what is real, if in the act of perceiving such reality, we must admit that such subjective perception has created an infinite possibility for error? The data we receive from our senses is not always interpreted correctly. It often falls victim to certain cognitive biases, which distort the truth. Does this then change that which was real before we perceived it, once perceived, into something inevitably unreal? But then again, can something truly be real, if it has not yet been perceived? Does our reliance on our own simple individual minds to process reality guarantee that reality, therefore, simply cannot be guaranteed as really real? Or, miraculously, does our mind create true reality, wholly by perceiving it to be real? Can reality even exist, without a mind to perceive it? Perhaps perception IS reality. Perhaps illusions or even hallucinations are completely real, even though they exist solely within the minds of those who perceive them.

How much, then, is your reality dependent upon your ability to perceive it? Is a bug’s reality more simple than a humans being’s? Does the reality of a genius have more depth than the reality of an idiot? Is it more real?

Most beings burdened with consciousness would probably agree that any experiences they actively partake in are certainly real, as they occur. Say you were to fall down a flight of stairs. You trip over the laces of your untied Reebok Classics, miss the handrail and you are suddenly in free-fall, hurtling toward an unforgiving tile floor. This experience is certainly real, isn’t it? It feels real. All your senses are engaged as your body responds to an actual, ongoing, physical change. You feel things, like pain.

What about after the experience is over? You have stood up from the tile floor, brushed yourself off, and gone on about your day. The pain has faded. For all intents and purposes, that experience only exists now inside your mind, as a memory.

Are memories real? Surely, your memory of an event must be real, since the event was real. So then, must other peoples’ memories of events. So reality is not bound exclusively to the present. As historians love to remind us, the past is real. Memories are real.

What about false memories? Are they any less real once they have altered your perceptions, and dictated how we respond to subsequent experiences? If a false memory has the power to change the real future based upon how you react to it, mustn’t it then be real? Can the consequences of it make it real, yet still untrue?

Is reality truth? Is truth the only reality? What about true memories of non-real experiences? Are those memories real? I’ve never met Mona Lisa. Hell, I’ve never even seen the original painting. But I have seen pictures of the painting. I know what she looks like. If I actually saw her in person, as a person, I could identify her. So is my knowledge of her real? Technically, the Mona Lisa painting is just a smearing of product on a two-dimensional medium, and yet what we perceive when we gaze upon it is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Geniuses like Shakespeare, Proust, and Chaucer really only left behind near-arbitrary squiggles of ink on paper, and yet somehow in viewing those squiggles other humans recreate entire personal universes. Universes which some people devote their entire lives to, universes which can make us laugh, or cry as much as being tickled by a feather or kicked in the balls would. Great fiction, like great art, forces us to live outside the moment; it adds to our depth of experience, it makes us think and feel, and in affecting us so, it becomes real.

Many of the places I have read about do not exist in this universe, and yet in reading about them, I have travelled to them. While there, I have felt pain and hunger, heat and cold, joy and sorrow. I have taken part in glorious adventures. I have experienced epic successes, and wretched failures. I have wielded the powers of the gods themselves. Do not tell me that this is impossible. Do not tell me these experiences cannot be real.

My mind has made them real.

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My Girlfriend: The Worst Person I Know

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Max T Kramer

I often feel the need to tell my girlfriend “I love you”, and her response is invariably a surprised and incredulous, “why!?”. She has a point.

My girlfriend is a terrible person. She was a terrible person when I met her. She will be a terrible person long after she has murdered me to collect my expensive life insurance policy. That is why I like her so much.

She is self-indulgent, self-absorbed, self-centered and innately un-reliable. She is messy. She is lazy. She drinks too much. She beats me. She is flawed in every way possible. She is perfect for me.

She likes impressionist art and antique furniture. Her taste in music is uglier than a sumo’s butthole. She spends all her money, and usually smells strange. She wakes me up with her night terrors. She craves attention from other men, yet becomes insanely jealous if another woman makes the mistake of existing in the same hemisphere as me. I can’t get enough of her.

Why? She makes me smile. We understand each other. We get along amazingly well, and on the rare occassions where we disagree, we do it respectfully, and in a sensitive manner. We love spending time together. We also love spending time apart, because we trust in the inherent strength and goodness of our relationship. We definitely don’t smother each other, or allow our basic human insecurities to cramp each other’s style. Whatever we do wrong in the future, it is already forgiven. Basically, we go together like rama lama lama, ke dinga de ding ke dong.

But how is this possible? Gather round kiddies, it’s time for King Max to mind-fuck your brain pussies. Our secret really isn’t a secret at all. We just embrace our imperfections. When Mistress Kay and I met, we were already fully formed, reasonably functioning adults. We were people. We had our own personal histories, our own perspectives and world view, backed up entire lifetimes worth of experiences.

I think a lot of people in relationships forget that. Your partner is not you. They will never be you. They are a (an?) unique individual, with idiosyncracies and idiosyncrazies, and they will never change. You should not ask them to. It is on you to accept them for who they are. Get over the small stuff, and appreciate the time you have together. Don’t get me wrong, no relationship is all daffodils and unicorn farts. Sometimes she can be annoying as hell. Most times I can be annoying as hell. You’ll hear no complaints however, because a relationship is a commitment. Once you are in it, be in it to win it. Accept it, embrace it, take satisfaction in it. Don’t worry about how green the grass might be in your hot neighbor’s panties. You just concern yourself with the snaggly weeds growing from your girlfriend’s faded and threadbare burlap drawers. Because those are your weeds. You decided to love them, so love them damn it.

The fact that any woman can put up with me is a glorious miracle. I am complete garbage. The only times i’m not acting like an asshole are the times when i’m being a dick. I am always impatient. I am intolerant of weakness. I tug on strings and manipulate people. I appreciate a good bit of uber-violence. I flirt with every female I see. I mean it when I do. I’m shallow. I have an over-developed sense of self worth. I like jokes. I mean, I really like jokes. Like, if I had to chose between a big titty in my mouth, or an okay joke, i’d chose the joke. If, with all that, Mistress Kay is still content to crawl into bed beside me every night, how can I not return the favor? You know what? I like me. I wouldn’t change me for anyone. Can I, in good conscience, ask someone else to change for me? Easy answer. I can not.

I am not perfect. Neither is my girlfriend. That is why she is perfect for me.

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Motorcycling Vermont

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Max T Kramer

Frank approached me with the idea. This being my roomate Frank, who you might also know as Joe, depending on how he was feeling when he introduced himself. I don’t recall what name he was going by on that particular day. It doesn’t matter. The pertinent information is that Frank/Joe asked if I wanted to join him and a couple of friends on a weekend motorcycle trip to Killington, Vermont for the Killington Classic, Vermont’s premier motorcycle rally.

Frank/Joe rides a brand new Yamaha R1 (R-fun). I currently own a more…experienced steed, a 2003 Suzuki SV1000S. For those readers who know little about motorcycles, both of these machines are great at going a million miles an hour, and not at all designed for long-distance riding comfort or convenience. I immediately agreed to go.

Hurricane Irene must have read my blog post where I made fun of her for being a weak and inconsequential drizzling shit, because the very next day I received an email from rally coordinators stating that Irene had destroyed every road in Vermont, and completely levelled the Green Mountains, thus plunging the native population back into the stone age, and worst of all, cancelling the rally.

Frank was unimpressed when I told him the horrible news. His attitude was so what, we don’t need the rally, we can still go riding. And so we did. I packed my shoebox sized tank bag with clean underwear and socks, Joe dropped a few t-shirts into a backpack, and Saturday morning we were on the road at the altogether indecent hour of 8am.

The first leg of our trip was all about covering distance, as the two guys we were meeting up with had already ridden into Vermont the previous afternoon, and were eagerly waiting for us to join them. Since we weren’t yet sight-seeing, Frank and I stuck to I-91, and made it from Hartford Connecticut, through Massachusetts, and into Brattleboro Vermont in just under 26 minutes.

Here we filled up on gas, waited for the other guys to find us, and got our first taste of a recurring Vermont phenomenon. I’m talking about the HoBros. Smelly, bearded, and perennially drunk or high, these nomadic ambassadors eventually found us in every town we spent more than three minutes visiting. My reaction to the homeless is usually pretty uniform. I wrinkle my nose, I pretend to fish around in my bulging pockets for a moment, and then I walk on, explaining that the metallic clinking and jingling they can hear whenever I move is just their imagination, and definitely isn’t loose change. The Vermont subspecies of homeless however, seems to have evolved past the customary need for low denomination coinage, and instead subsists entirely on gossip. It’s true. Not one bum in all the land asked for money, all they seemed to want was to hang out and tell us rambling and uncomfortable stories about their lives. In my opinion, if somebody wants something for free, it’s my solemn duty to not give it to them, even if that something is just a little friendship and self-worth. They can get friendship just like everybody else. By buying it.

‘Merica.

After we got our gas, and semi-successfully avoided conversing with the local HoBro population, our two friends, Bob and Rob joined us. Bob and Rob are brothers. You can tell because they look alike. Except for a huge height difference. And one is philipino. And they look nothing alike. With our mini-gang complete, we hit the road for some serious recreational riding.

Our ride took us along rt.30, then rt.100, then 155, and then 103. The weather was perfect, and all the riding we did was at a leisurely enough pace that we could enjoy the fantastic beauty all around us. Everywhere we looked, we saw lovely forests and rivers and meadows and nature at its finest. It was the type of beauty that looks boring as fuck in photographs after the fact, but is truly awe-inspiring while you are experiencing it. We stopped briefly in Rutland to say hello to a friend of mine who happens to go to school in Vermont, and also happens to be a lovely young lady, who we hoped could introduce us to a million other lovely young ladies, preferably ones of ill-repute. After our completely reasonable demands were made and promptly ignored, we decided we were too hungry to hang around for long, so we headed back out onto the road.

For lunch we had planned to eat at the Long Trail Brewery, but unfortunately route 4 leading over to it was closed due to storm damage. This was a recurrent theme throughout our trip, Irene really had done significant damage to Vermont’s infrastructure. Usually we just had to detour around ruined bridges or washed out areas of roadway, but in some cases, like on route 4, there simply were no detours to be had, and instead we had to avoid the whole area entirely. The amount of work that had already been done to keep most roads open was very impressive, and highly appreciated by us, since we still had plenty of options for safe and scenic motorcycle travel. After being warned of more extensive damage further north, we decided to start heading back south, and travelled route 7 from Rutland down into Manchester. Rt. 7 is a lovely road, but is not quite twisty or technical enough to really satisfy an aggressive rider.

In Manchester we got a room at a hilarious place called the 1878 Carriage House
Motel. I shouldn’t poke fun, the rate was reasonable, and everything was clean. Its just that the proprietor was the world’s oldest lady, and it showed. Everything smelled like old lady, it was full of 1940s era decor, and there was even a small bowl of random bits of stale candy on the nighstand in our room. Basically we were spending a night at great-grandma’s house. After check in we walked into town for food, and to find the best place for some serious drinking. For the food we chose a local pizza joint, and for the drinking we were directed to “The Perfect Wife”, a restaurant/bar a mile up the road. Feeling lazy, we obtained the number to the town’s one taxi-cab, which when it arrived to pick us up we learned was just an old man in a buick sedan. There wasn’t even a meter. Perhaps he wasn’t actually the cab we had called. Maybe he really was just an old guy getting gas, and when we all climbed into his car he was only too happy to take twenty dollars from us to drive us a few hundred yards up the road.

The Perfect Wife gave us an enjoyable night (as she should). We drank and drank and then drank some more, then played fusball, and darts, and listened to live music provided by The Black Mountain Symphony, a band out of Albany NY, who rocked sack, and had a violin player, which was cool. At some point we confiscated Rob’s phone, because his wife kept calling and texting him, which was unacceptable because he has known her for 3 months, and he has known us for 3 million years, and this was our dude-weekend damn it, and really we were doing her a favor, because he was too drunk to function and
talking to her would have only made her angrier, so pretty much we are heros. She failed to see it that way. Come closing time, we paid our two-hundred dollar bar tab, collected our ladies of the night, and stumbled out to where the old fart in the Buick was waiting for us. He charged us 30 dollars to drive back down the road to the hotel. What a bastard.

Back at the motel I was kept awake all night by the cumulative effects of drunken snoring, drunken bro farts, the hookers, and Rob’s Wife’s incessant, and unanswered, texts and calls. The story does have a happy ending though. They are now getting a divorce.

Sunday morning came far to early, and yet not quick enough, and we were back on the road, this time heading for home on rt.7, rt.9, and rt.8, respectively, which, with periodic detours, and a moderate rain shower, brought us all the way back into CT, sore, hungover, exhausted, poor, and altogether satisfied with a weekend well spent.

Note: Some names may have been changed, and events altered, because i’m a liar.

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