Panera and Starbucks Joined Forces to Piss Me Off

Untill the other day i was under the impression that all the pseudo intellectual poets congregated at starbucks and that was their hub. All of them in some persuit to be unique or some other "finding themselves" bullshit. How fucking unique are you when you hang around with people who are exactly the same as you. Think about that while you sip your double almond latte venti or whatever size chart starbucks has so you can sound even dumber when you make an order like that. I shouldn't be suprising anyone yet with any of this, however i think im onto something and the town of Amherst, Massachusetts will never be the same again. I think that their is a bitter war between Panera bread and Starbucks coffee to gain market share in the "early 20's to mid 43ish pseudo intellectual tortured artist theater major" demographic. This may get pretty ugly. IFC may go off the air, concert posters will get torn down, alternative brand cigarettes will fly off the shelves, there will be a shortage of laptop computers and books that no one has ever heard of. Both sides will gather loyal customers all in an effort to piss me off. And those customers will always be present when ever i go to either place. If i am at starbucks i will be plauged with 2 people at a table on laptops while listening to music and reading a book at the same time while having a conversation about the politics of guam or some other country that i couldn't point out on a map without a lucky dart throw. If i was at panera there would be hippies around the fireplace taking all the good seats and reading books. Half the time these assholes aren't even eating or drinking anything, just sitting there reading. Here is an idea, i know this great place that you don't eat or drink at and you can read your book in peace.....its called the public fucking library. The best is that these places post all that "fair trade" propaganda everywhere making you feel good for consuming the products of a starving people just as long as starbucks gives them Nike sneakers and Coca-Cola Classic in return. What underdeveloped country needs books when you can just stock up on trendy shoes and soda? This probably isn't how fair trade works but either way im sure that somehow through american greed the "shoes for coffee" plan will be implemented. And you want to talk "fair trade" how the fuck is 8 dollars for a panera sandwich meal a fair trade? I could have bought 7 Jr. bacon cheeseburgers and still had enough money to make a 20 minute phone call to those third world countries to discuss if they really felt that they were getting a "fair trade" for their coffee beans. While i am at it i will ask them how their Nike's fit.

BEWARE! These are the type of people that frequent starbucks and panera bread.

Skateboarding: So HOT right now!

As most of you know yes, I am a skateboarder. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of my scars. Im proud of my skateboard shoes, i'm proud of my skateboard clothing. Read this entry and the comments below from a fan. http://www.blogger.com/app/post.pyra?blogID=8708529

Skateboarding isn't about being flashy, it isn't about endzone dances, or last second heroics. Its about devotion. I truly think skateboarding is probably one of the hardest sports you can take up. Consider this...when people come up to you in the street and ask you "How does the board stay attached to your feet" you know that you are doing something challenging. Think about it; if people can't understand the sheer physics of your sport, thats impressive. Most people can't even stand on a skateboard without doing a graceful dismount onto their ass. If i see a staircase.....i want to jump down in on my skateboard. I want to ride at the staircase faster than i can run, that way i am guarenteed to either land the trick or get really hurt. Oh yeah plus falling down like 10 stairs. People use handrails for balance when walking down stairs. I want to balance on the handrail and slide down the stairs. The truth of the matter is that most skateboarders land their tricks very rarely but will never give up on a trick till they land it. I will go to the hospital before i go home if i can't land a trick. Thats my mentality and always has been. Right here would be a perfect place to insert a link to "Welcome to the World of Men" haha. Like i said, its all about principle. Here is the dilema (<---probably mispelled) (<---probably mispelled, mispelled) anyways......aparently skateboarding IS a crime. Everywhere i go i see signs "No skateboarding!" or my favorite is "Skateboarders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law!" THE LAW OF WHAT!!!?? I used to love when i was just sitting on my skateboard on a sidewalk in like downtown hartford. The cops would pull up and put on their lights and like call for backup and me and my friends would just be sitting there eating chips. The hartford police force is one of the most understaffed in the nation for a major city...hence, gang violence is everywhere. But god forbid if my skateboard makes a good seat to relax on while i eat chips. Im obviously plotting a bank robbery. No, i just want to skate. I love the reasoning they give skateboarders for the need for police intervention......these are quotes from actual cops that i have either been told or heard about skateboarding: "You KNOW what you were doing wrong!" "I can't believe you kids!" "People use those stairs!!" (what the fuck is that supposed to mean?) and my alltime favorite: "Why don't you kids do something constuctive like play football?" wow, i could go so many ways to criticize this sentence. I mean everyone knows that being constructive means playing with legos or doing arts and crafts shit, not fucking playing football. Football and constructive should never be used in a sentence....ever. Its a good thing that they gave this guy a gun to keep the streets safer. So i guess in a way im an outlaw, not welcome anywhere i want to partake in my practice. Skateboarding is the best thing that ever happened to me when i was younger. It gave me a reason to wake up in the morning. If you can find one escape that puts all your problems at home aside you do it. Skateboarding has always been that escape. Like they say "Skate or die"

What else do you need?

Backyard Fun

This is a continuation of my previous entry http://ryanmcbride.blogspot.com/2004/12/turning-over-whole-pile-of-leaves.html

Yeah so i mean my childhood was a little different per se.....ok, a lot different. Maybe thats why i can slap a guarentee on the fact that you don't know anyone like me. My childhood was seriously manditory fun. People always use that cliche: "If your life was a book, would anyone want to read it?" Well my life is a blog and yes, people do read it--thanks for your support by the way. Now that that taster's choice moment is over, i want to introduce you to the hub of my childhood. The swingset. Most kids in the neighborhood had or knew of kids that had bigger, better swingsets than mine but none of that mattered. In the word of swingsets, mine was king. The best part is that it didn't even have swings on it or really anything for that matter except one ring at the end of a chain. It had monkey bars and the bars where normal people hang swings from. We hung a birdfeeder. The swingset was dark green and covered in rust. I would put money on the fact that the swingset contained lead paint. This is a blog about how to make the best out of being poor and having a shitty swingset.

One of the uses of the swingset was as a soccer goal. If you kicked the ball just right, you could hit the bird feeder and it would just spray seeds in the goalies face. Behind our soccer goal was a "net" and by net i mean rusty fence with pricker bushes climbing up it. Behind the fense was compost pile and lines of ugly bushes. Basically all the glory of scoring a goal was negated when you had to wipe rotten egg shells and prickers off the ball afterwards. I remember this other game that we would play. You would ride your bike as fast as you could toward the swingset. Right before you hit the fence behind the swingset you would jump off and grab onto the monkey bars and watch your bike slam into pricker bushes and other things that suck. This was a modified and "safer version of the original game where instead of grabbing onto the monkeybars, you would grab onto the ring and just swing really high into the air. This game ended when the chain on the ring broke when he swung on it and ended up flying into the compost heap. Everyone laughed at him because laughter heals all wounds. Actually we just laughed cause he got hurt. When we would play football in the backyard, the swingset was our field goal. This worked great except for the fact that every time you kicked a fieldgoal the ball would slam off our neighbors alluminum shed making the loudest noise ever. Either that or it would land in the neighbors garden taking a few tomato plants with it. We also played basketball on grass in the backyard and used the gaps in the monkey bars as our hoop. It had no backboard cause everyone knows shooting bank shots is for pussies. Another game that we played on it was we would time people on how fast they could run across the monkey bars. Yes, i did just say that. The best is when peoples' foot slipped and they landed on their nuts on the bar.....oh yeah and then they fell like 6 feet. hahaha. But don't worry, we stopped after the first kid got a bruised spine and went to the hospital. I mean c'mon, we knew our limits. When we finally did get a swing for the swingset (re-read that sentence) oh the irony......anyways......It was short lived, we had a fat kid that sat on it and the bar broke and he fell on his ass and rust just poured out of the broken pipe above and onto his face and in his hair. His face was orange for like a week and he probably got lead poisoning. I drive by my old house every now and then and as far as i know, the "swingset" still exists. It has to be about 25 years old by now if not older cause it it was built before i was born. If for some reason it was torn down, it was because of these reasons A) board of safety took it down B) The new residents of 17 hayes road couldn't handle how much their new swingset ruled! C) They took it down so it would become marytr like. Basically the moral value you can take away from this is just try to make the best out of a bad situation. Kinda seems like my life story.

Kind of like this except without the swings and add monkey-bars, danger and rust.

Deciphering the Clues

Sometimes even the most direct words really mean the exact opposite. They shouldn't but trust me....they do. I think both guys and girls will agree with me on this one. See everyone is always taught no means no and this philosophy works great in nearly every situation except when girls want things but try to be modest and pretend that they are content. A great example happens at the movie theatre. Girls are so indecisive it hurts, like right now they are wondering if they are offended by me saying that. See with girls there is usually a right or wrong answer and its up to the guy to find that out. So when a guy brings a girl to the movies its like pulling teeth. Here is a fake conversation between our happy movie-going couple and my commentary.

Insert girls name, hey would you rather see "Assault on Precinct 13" or that new "Phantom of the Opera" movie. Um....i don't care.

(of course she cares, pic the girlier of the movie in any situation and that is the right answer)

Would you like any popcorn or candy? Um....no im ok.

(this is what happens when a girl says this. All this means is that we will get 40 min into the movie and she will realize that she does infact want candy and or popcorn and will make you go get it. That is why like halfway through every movie a bunch of guys just get up and leave for 10 min and come back with food.)

How was the movie? It wasn't bad.

(All this means is that you picked "Assault on Precinct 13 from the first question and that was the wrong answer. When girls say that it wasn't bad, it means that everything is your fault.)





To be honest with you i really think that girls don't give guys direct answers for reasons. I know this really must not be a revelation for the girls reading this but most guys haven't really figured out why you don't just say that you want popcorn from the start. I can only assume that girls do this stuff to really see what their man knows about their patterns and see how much their man pays attention to their likes and dislikes. Girls just kind of give guys clues and hints as to what they want and like and its up to the guys to make a decision for them based on that information. Makes sense in a way. Except for this major flaw.....Guys work the complete opposite way. Guys are upfront and blunt about just about everything. What you see is what you get most of the time with a guy. Guys are deep like a kiddy pool so i mean signals and messages are usually wasted on us. But honestly, if you can decipher a girls puzzle they will love you for it. Its just how it is, nothing will change. Sometimes you just have to dump like 50 dollars on a chick flick and the popcorn that she will realize she wants halfway through the movie. Lets face it..... Love is free, you just have to buy it first.




People thought the movies were a good place to bring a date untill they read my blog.

Welcome to the World of Men

Women who are reading this right now think they know what i am about to type. Men however know differently. A man's man knows that women are clueless about our world and will never know. The reason they don't know is that a man's world only manifests when it's just you and your boys or just you by yourself. No girls around. Kind of like the YMCA except not even close. Pretty much the complete opposite. Welcome.

Guys when they are in the man's world are all about honor, pride, and principle. Guys do things cause it makes them feel like a man. Not cause it tastes good, not cause it feels good, but sheerly out of principle. A man can go out into the woods alone with an axe. Wearing plaid and flannel and scuffed boots.....wait hold on.....it doesn't even matter what he does. I'll leave you in suspense cause right now every single guy that is reading this is getting a hard on out of excitement. It's the same way as when a man gets a hole in his jeans. He is proud of his hole cause he earned it when he fell off his motorcycle. I get excited about the thought of putting in an airconditioner or going out and shoveling 3 feet of snow. Steak excites me. A woman can eat a huge meal and feel guiltly. I will eat a 5 pound steak if it means that i win a bet with another man. Thats how we work. Some things are manditory. Dares are one of them. That is why it is called manning-up. Women will never understand the joy i get from using a cicular saw. I also know that the more dirty my shirt is, the more of a man i am. Scars are tattoos with better stories. Guys will just go out with a shovel and dig a hole for no reason just to use a shovel. Then they will take the dirt into a wheelbarrel and dump it and make a mound. Then measure how deep the hole is just so they can use measuring tape. I just got a cell phone and i'm disapointed in myself. Men want to paint their house, even if it doesn't need painting. Guys know that cutting down trees with axes or even a hacket is manlier than using a chainsaw. However if you cut the tree up into little pieces with the chainsaw that that is pretty manly. Especially if you use old worn out gloves when you use the chainsaw. I can change a flat tire and i am proud of this. I once went out with a bunch of real men to wendy's and we got triple cheeseburgers with extra bacon, extra cheese, and extra mayo, biggie sized with a milkshake. Just because of the principle of the matter. I hate mayo, but that day. I ate everything. Just because i had to. And to guys, this all made perfect sense. I want to learn how to shave with a straight edge, not cause its a cleaner shave but just because i would take such pride in that talent. Anything that any of our grandfather's did was manly. Until the day that he died, my grandfather was a manlier man than i will ever be. I will eat with a knife when i need a spoon if a guy tells me that it would be funny if i did so. The less you bring camping, the better the camping trip. Especially if you are camping on a jagged cliffside or teasing bears. You would also have to have alcohol and build fires and shower in rivers. If i were ever able to wrestle a crocodile, you guys would have already known about it. If i could build a toolshed....I would. I drink beers while i mow my lawn with my shirt off and i get sweaty and i think im sexy. Sorting trash sucks but its worth getting to ride on the back of a dumptruck cause that is awesome. I bought a car that had a standard transmission even though i didn't know how to drive stick. I taught myself and i felt like a man. Playing cards is pretty manly but only if you place bets and are drinking and there are no girls around so you can swear and smoke cigars in the house. Real men are drinking cheap alcohol right now out of principle. I would touch a hot burner right now if a man dared me to do it. I wish i could cook everything on a charcoal grill. I have seen a man put cigarettes out in his arm because he knew other guys were impressed. Men feel accomplishment out of installing anything. Even more accomplishment out of fixing things. Men split wood for fun and cause its dangerous. If i was named Earl, i wouldn't get laid but i would feel like more of a man. When i told other men that my name was earl, they would step down from my male superiority.

GIRLS ENDING
The truth of the matter is that all this doesn't make a man. A man is a mix of all of this plus the compassion and love that they find so hard to show at times. Men are simple yes, however they complex themselves with all of this-- making it tough to balance the urge to fit into a new metrosexual culture with the manly roots that were laid by his grandfather. Through life everyman finds his place. A real man knows that his place is where he finds most comfortable. i found mine as a mix of blood, sweat, and tears.

GUYS ENDING
Just know that the woman of your dreams will love your manly stubble and or beard. There still are girls that are impressed by a good old fashioned bar fight. Women still loved to be swept off their feet....literally. Keep up the good work. Im so proud of us that i could cry but i won't cause that would be girly. So instead i will just end with the fact that i kicked this blogs ass cause i am a real man and thats what we do. Send this to every real man that you know. Spread the good word and in the words of James Brown "It's a mans' world."