Random thoughts of the day

I was driving in my car today and Youth Gone Wild by Skid Row came on the radio and it could not have made me any happier. I absolutely cranked it.

I cooked decent dinners at least three nights in a row this week and that is probably the first time I have ever been able to say that. Yes, I'm that bored.

I recently read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman and I was absolutely furious at myself for not picking it up sooner. I literally have held the book in my hand but I inexplicably never bought it. It's frickin' brilliant. I am absolutely his target audience, as the book addresses things like how the Celtics-Lakers rivalry can be applied to practically any competitive situation, the cultural significance of The Empire Strikes Back, and why John Cusack has potentially spoiled the chances of true love for nearly everyone. The book is subtitled "a low-culture manifesto," but that is selling itself short. It's the most brilliant insight into pop culture that I have ever read. It's so good, I wish I wrote it. Sheer genius.

Cool new TV show: No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (10 PM Monday on the Travel Channel, check your local listings). I loved Bourdain's book Kitchen Confidential, so I decided to check out this show, which is basically a cuisine-centric travelog, albeit one filtered through Bourdain's inimitable ballsy sensibility. Last week's episode saw him in Iceland in the dead of winter, eating shark meat fermented for months in lye--a product that he was implored not to touch with his hands, for fear that it might injure him...before eating it. "That is the worst thing I have ever put in my mouth," he stated afterwards. Coming from him, that means something. It also says a lot about him to add that he had more of that lovely shark dish later at a local watering hole, prefering to do that and quickly chase it with some Icelandic schanpps rather than offend his hosts.

I'm selling two tickets to a Sox-Yankees game on eBay, and you can imagine how much this pains me.

The NFL pre-season begins in less than three hours. Enough said.