Global Leap Day

Every fourth February the world celebrates Global Leap Day. Originally created by calendar stores in malls with the purpose of making their products add up correctly, Global Leap Day has become something more. Traditions have changed, and the day is no longer used merely for calendar calculation. February 29th mantra is simple: what happens on Leap Day, stays on Leap Day. Observers are free to throw caution to the wind and ignore all inhibitions. The day happens once every four years, so do it without remorse.

Given the opportunity to live a day without regret, here was my Global Leap Day in review...

The alarm clock took the day off. I slept in and felt little regret for allowing my internal clock to naturally wake me. My razor joined the alarm. Fuck shaving. I'm down with the clean cut look if the reward is a raise or a blow job. Next was the wardrobe. Pants are for suckers. Dress shirts are confining. Ties don't make sense. I slid into my finest silk bathrobe.

Before heading out, I packed provisions. Recognizing the key to any successful day is the occasional pull of hard alcohol, I filled my flask with high quality bourbon. Liquid courage has it's place in any situation. So do Ritz crackers. Fucking delicious. They came, too.

No Global Leap Day would be complete without a little gaming. The Xbox was carefully bundled in bubble wrap and loaded into a man-satchel filled with packing peanuts. My employer's conference room with projector was commandeered for the afternoon. The room was made available by canceling all the previously scheduled client meetings. Once I had my fill of video games on the big screen, and my tummy starting grumbling from hunger pangs, I called it quits in the office and ventured out for some food.

Lunch was served at the local steakhouse/gentlemen's club. The establishment happens to dish a succulent filet mignon. The naked ladies are a pleasant secondary attraction, but I find they are typically only interested in my money. Fortunately the meal gave me terrible gas, and after flatulating the hell out of my pants, I had to do little more to protect the Benjamins in my wallet.

Steak and tits weren't enough. I was craving a new adventure. A new high. Bath salts. Not sure who the first fucker was that chowed down on bath salt, but I can confirm it will fuck you. The ill-advised abuse of bathing product left me in a zombie trance. I lost a few hours. High as a kite and thirsty as hell, I was in desperate need of a beer.

Quick! To the local bar! More like a restaurant. Whatever the establishment classifies itself as, they serve tall, frosty beers. With my bath salty mouth quenched, I turned my attention to the hostess. She was smokin' hot. Hot hostess's looks and my intoxication led to my solicitation of her company for the evening. Ordinarily, local hangout etiquette dictates you avoid ruining bars by propositioning the staff, but today was Global Leap Day, so I could do no wrong. Despite this explanation, she turned me down outright.

After hot hostess broke my heart, I hurried to the next bar over and drastically lowered my standards. Fortunately my eyes found the drunkest, fat bar skeeze and after two shots and some begging I dragged her back to the bachelor pad. We made love. Or at least had sex. At a minimum it was heavy foreplay. Regardless, I was unapologetically premature. I had my two minutes of fun and it was time for her to leave. I politely asked her to get the fuck out.

My two minutes in heaven had made my tummy grumble. I was starving. Dinner was in order. Sushi was on the brain, and with a plethora of choices in the area, I decided to try a new restaurant. Roll after roll. I had about seven in all. I imagined the bill arriving and cringed. In celebration of Global Leap Day, I made the decision to dine and dash. I politely thanked the waitress and told her to pass my regards to the chef. I bolted into the night.

By now you know I'm full of shit. I didn't do half this crap...though...there's some truth to the flask thing. I spent Global Leap Day doing exactly what I always do on Wednesday: working, drinking, blogging, gaming. The weight of regret and consequence bind me to a reality that is instead of a reality that could be.

I could chew bath salts, but the consequence is brain damage. I could fart on a stripper, but the consequence is an abbreviated lap dance. I could fuck skeezey bar fatties, but the consequence is any number of venerable diseases.

It's the risk/reward of life. Game theory. Simple calculation. Probability decision making. Pick the situations with the highest chance of success. Stretch in the situations with the greatest reward.

Life is a game won only by calculated moves, strong resolve, and luck. Get to work.

xoxo,
ShavedGolf

Love Notes to Xbox

If Oregon is my first love, the Xbox would be my mistress. The romance is a passionate one. When that saucy box plays it's sultry turned on noise and sexy X-ball motif, I get a gaming hard on. We aren't sneaky about the affair. I tell my friends. My coworkers are in. The neighbors can hear us go at it every night. So it's safe to say, Oregon knows.

With any adulterous transgression, it's important to take stock of where you've been, where you are, and where you're going. A reflection. What's working and what's not.

Xbox, we're doing so much right, but I think we have room for improvement.

Things We're Doing Right:

Halo
If I was gay, Master Chief would be my boyfriend. The evolution in combat brought me to the Xbox. This decade old franchise remains the ultimate in first person shooters. As Star Wars is to the movie industry, Halo is the video game industry. Sleek and silky smooth, the quality development shows. Let us hope that Microsoft Studios can pick up where Bungie left off.

Assassin's Creed
I am Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Master Assassin, leader of the Assassin's Guild, stalking my prey in the streets of 15th century Rome. The target is a corrupt politician, in bed with the Templars, the ones responsible for murdering my family. Blending with the crowd. Aware of the surroundings within the bustling bazaar. Vigilant of the guards presence. I wait for the right moment. Swiftly I pass undetected through the swarming market. In one move, I reveal my hidden blade, slice into the fat politician's belly, and walk away. Unnoticed. I just creamed my pants.

Battlefield 3
This shit cray! Ain't it Jay? This franchise feels like it skipped a game; that's how much of an improvement DICE made over Battlefield 2. Implementation of Frostbite 2 is to thank for the sharpened graphics and smoother game play of Battlefield 3. The game provides the dirt and grit feel of real war...I assume...because I've never been.

Elder Scrolls
They say we've reached Morrowind. I'm sure they'll let us go. I picked up this franchise when my prison ship reached the shores of Morrowind. Then I was called to aid Cyrodiil during the Oblivion crisis. Mostly recently I walked the Nordic homeland, Skyrim, and fought ferocious fucking dragons. Simply put, Bethesda makes the best role playing games. Anyone who disagrees can go back to their questing and gold hoarding in WoW.


Things We Could Do Better:

Fable
The franchise was promising from the start. Despite Fable's shortcoming in game length, the solid game play, decent story line, and fun leveling system made the original very enjoyable. Then things went south. The downfall started with a lesser story line and tweaks to the leveling system and ended up with a blown attempt at a noob-friendly role playing game. I suggest you keep that $60, run down to redbox, rent it for a few bucks and beat it in a weekend.

Knights of the Old Republic

Dear Bioware,

I know you've been really fucking busy with the development, production and launch of your recent massive multiplayer online role playing game. However, those of us who don't have the time to invest in an MMORPG would like you to release another KOTOR already. The first game's story line made me wet myself. The second game saw many improvements to game play. The third game will be epic. Get to work. You have one year.

Sincerely,
Everyone

Modern Warfare
There is nothing worse than an anonymous, adolescent boy hopped up on sugar and wielding foul language via microphone. That is exactly what you can expect from the Modern Warfare franchise. The disturbing nuisance is to be expected in any game that rewards players with special weapons for eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew. Those little fuckers will drive you bat shit crazy until you mute them. But the reward for listening to their bitch ass banter is the occasional mom telling her brat child it's time for bed. Priceless.

Pokemon
Where the shit is my Pokemon for Xbox?! As a Master Pokemon Trainer, I demand the video game industry revamp Gameboy's Pokemon Red/Blue so I can pwn Gary's bitch ass and send Team Rocket into flight. With my pumped up Mew Two and his powerful psychic attack, I'll sweep every gym and own any online bitch. Meoweth, that's right!


Xbox, I love you. We've done so much right together, and I'm so hopeful for the future. Sure...there are a couple things we could work on. No affair is perfect. But I'm confident with your nurturing guidance and stellar video game titles, I'll become the man I was meant to be.

xoxo,
ShavedGolf

Love Notes to Oregon

Oregon's statehood birthday often goes without notice due to a certain capitalist manufactured, fake holiday. Indeed February 14th is Oregon's birthday. Yesterday marked the 153 year in the union for our great state.

Because yesterday was Oregon's birthday and Hallmarks' holiday, and because my one true love is the great state I live in, I wanted to reflect on this twenty year relationship. I was a mere five year-old when I first graced your green lands, and you were a budding 133 year-old, willing to raise me and love me, you sick fuck pedophile!

In any great relationship, one must take stock of where you've been, where you are, and where you're going. A reflection. What's working and what's not.

Oregon, we're doing so much right, but I think we have room for improvement.

Things We're Doing Right:

Brews
Micros. Macros. And the shit in between. Oregon has them all. Best part is they're all good. Slurp, slurp. Herp, herp. Derp, derp. Drink the Oregon brewskies...they always go down smooth. *sip* Ahhh...that's some refreshing drank.

Geography
Oregon is a pristine playground for big kids. From beautiful beaches to white-capped mountains. From the lush valley to the high desert. Whatever your outdoor activity of choice, Oregon has it. Hiking. Camping. Backpacking. Rafting. Kayaking. Canoeing. Snowboarding. Skiing. Snowshoeing. Windsurfing. Kitesurfing. Spelunking. Climbing. Name it. Oregon has it.

Strip Clubs
We do this shit well. Really well. Portland contains the most strip clubs per capita. Additionally, OR law allows the service of adult beverages during a full nude review - something our neighbors to the north and south cannot boast. Bottom line: we have the most with the least and we're drunk when we do it.

Major League Sports
This is Rip City. Oregon is home to two major league franchises: Portland Trailblazers of the NBA and the Portland Timbers of MLS. While the teams may not bring home national titles, they both boast a healthy fan base. Oregon, and Portland specifically, has some fantastic fandom. Fans will make or break any franchise and, recognizing this, Oregonians show up to support their state representatives in the national sports arena.

Casinos
You'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. My own personal bias of casinos comes from spending too much time in Washington state. Like pimples marring a teenagers face, WA is dotted with an overabundance of casinos. They're ugly. They're a waste. They're few and far between in Oregon. Kudos.


Things We Need To Work On:

Education
Children our are most precious resource...yadda yadda yadda. While I might not buy into that crap, you at least need to educate the little fuckers. Schools are now faced with annual budget cuts. I cannot recall the last time I heard of a district with a windfall. This reduced funding obviously impacts the children of Oregon directly, so stop calling it school budget cuts and refer to it as education pillaging.

Hipsters
These people are the result of education pillaging. OK. Maybe not. But they fuggin' seem like it. Put down the PBR and the American Spirits. Instagram isn't that cool. And for God's sake, take a fucking shower. The lack of motivation scares me. Perhaps it's the jaded perspective of a forward thinking, white collar drone. But more likely, hipsters suck.

Infrastructure
We have bridges. We have lots of bridges. Portland is known as Bridge City. Some of them seem ready to fall in. The Sellwood Bridge received a safety rating of 2. 2 out of 100. Quick math puts that at 2%. Not even sure that qualifies as an F-. Additionally, the Interstate 5 OR/WA crossing is a fucking nightmare. While I know both of these projects are in the works, it shouldn't take complete dysfunction before infrastructure is paid some attention.

Taxes
Complaints regarding education funding and infrastructure spending beg for a state budget rebuttal. The income and property tax duality doesn't cut it. We need the third option in the tax triforce. We need a sales tax. Put down your torches and pitchforks. Hear me out. It just seems logical. Why heavily tax two items when moderate taxation on three would do? The current taxation policy seems to open us up to the possibility of imbalance and inconsistency of revenue from year to year based on the economy. This goal is a major reach - sales tax talk is the career death knell of any OR politician.

Oregon, I love you. We've done so much right together, and I'm so hopeful for the future. Sure...there are a couple things we could work on. No relationship is perfect. But I'm confident with your nurturing guidance and abundance of strip clubs, I'll become the man I was meant to be. So I raise my micro brew to the last 153 years, Oregon, and offer a toast for the next 153...

May your ocean waters stay blue.
May your valleys stay green.
May you mountains stay snowed.
May your high deserts stay high deserty.

May your micros stay tasty and your macros stay true.
May your strippers stay nude and patrons boozed.
May your children stay bright and your hipsters stay clean.
May your bridges stay safe and your coffers stay full.

May you stay the state I fell in love with.
May you stay my true love for life.

xoxo,
ShavedGolf

Amusing Searches: The Second

Blogs are best when they write themselves. When they flow from my mind, through the keyboard, and into the ethereal interwebs. Well...that shit ain't happenin' tonight. The creative juices aren't flowing. I'm in desperate need of a topic. And so I turn to you. My muse. My entertainment. My audience.

Much like the original search post, Amusing Searches: The First, I've poured over the data, scrapped the stats, and plucked the most inane shit you bitches are searching.

Here now, for your viewing pleasure, seven stupid searches accompanied by smart ass ShavedGolf commentary.

inappropriate jedi mind tricks
How cool would it be to walk into a bar, find the hottest chick, wave your hand and say, "This is the dick you've been looking for." Then you hop in your Jedi speeder, cruise back to the Jedi bachelor pad, and Jedi-fuck the shit out of her. Just one problem. Jedi's wouldn't do that. Only a Sith would. Fucking noob.

bath room of colege [sic]
Dude...you got of right. That's it. Everything else in this search is wrong. You may want to bone up on your spelling because you're never gonna find the bathroom at your college with spelling mistakes in your search bar.

hippie facehole
A hippie's facehole is fun-loving and free-spirited. Their facehole isn't down with The Man. A hippie's hole loves poetry and spouts it often. A hippie facehole is all about experimenting with free love and mind-altering drugs. Male faceholes are adorned with unkempt facial hair. They like rainbows. Goals of a hippie facehole: world peace, unity, equality.

awesome guy with awesome mustache
Interesting search technique. Does the awesome adjective aid in locating what you're looking for? I'm gonna test it out. Awesome chick with awesome tits. Confirmed. The inclusion of awesome drastically improved the quality of chicks and tits in the search results.

i taste pain and regret in your sweat
Said by the same guy that eats shit like me for breakfast? Pretty sick, dude. Not sure why you're tasting my sweat. If you're not down with the pain and regret, try the semen, it tastes like winning and success.

speed sticks testicular
No no no. You're doing it all wrong. The Speed Stick isn't meant to go on your balls. Sure there's a pleasant cool feeling the instant that goopy gel hits the testicles, and sure your balls are gonna smell like Cool Sport for the rest of the day, but fuck, that shit's sticky! Your nuts would be doing the Spider Man between your thighs. In the end, I suppose it's up to the individual...if your nuts smell that bad, do what you gotta do.

champagne pussy ass
WTF? So many questions. What's a pussy ass? Is that some mutant combination? Sounds terrible. I can only assume that a pussy ass's drink of choice is champagne. What would prompt a person to search for a champagne pussy ass? Suggestion for all: DO NOT Google image search this one.

Entry topics are hard to come by. They don't just grow on topic trees. It's tricky shit. The blogging process is polishing a turd, dressing it up nice, and squeezing it out into the blogging world. Tonight, you helped in that process.

Thanks for searching. I hope you find what you're looking for, you champagne pussy ass.

xoxo,
ShavedGolf

Swordfish

The menu of Seattle's famed restaurant, The Pink Door, loomed large. A restaurant known for it's decedent fare and ornate atmosphere was just the location to celebrate our friend's 23rd birthday. But what to have? What to have? The Lasagna Pink Door? Naw...too common. Boar Stew? Pass. Don and Joe's Sweet Italian Sausages. Too much innuendo.

"I'll have the swordfish, please."

Swordfish happened to be the special of the day, and as I'd never tasted the fencer fish, this occasion seemed perfect.

When the plate arrived, I was faced with a precisely cut, beautifully pink, slice of swordfish. The meat was lightly drizzled with a sweet sauce and accompanied by a forest of tender asparagus. The first fork-full of the flaky fish filled my mouth with a burst of flavor. The texture was a melt-in-your-mouth experience. Delicious. Exquisite. Succulent. I savored the fish, enjoying the steak slowly so as to appreciate the tasty experience of each bite.

Regrettably, the meal came to an end. The fish was devoured, and it was time for our party to change venues. To the bars! The name and location of the bar escapes me, as do many other details of the evening past that point. We drank. Heavily. Mixing beers and liquors without hesitation. My stomach became a gurgling ocean of brews, spirits, and fish bits.

We were all feeling the sauce when the party bounced yet again. Dancing. There is no hope of escaping the call of the dance at a young female's birthday celebration. Even if I had been in a condition to object, I would have been overruled.

Fortunately, it turns out I am a remarkably rhythmic individual when highly intoxicated. Exceptional moves. Legitimate confidence. Impressive tempo. Descriptors a sober ShavedGolf may only dream of.

Motion of my fancy feet kicked the churning of the aforementioned stomach ocean into high gear. The contents were colliding like drunk twenty-somethings on a dance floor. My stomach groaned. I was doing the Charleston when I let the first one slip.

*phssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*

Light and airy with little force behind it. While the flatulence had lasted longer than the norm, I gave it little thought and had no personal qualm with my dancing crop-dust of the floor and the individuals on it.

BOOM. Like an explosion had occurred in the middle of the packed dance floor, party-goers vacated the area of egg lay with haste. The floor was shoulder-to-shoulder, but somehow they sardined into the corners in an effort to escape the noxious fumes that had taken center stage.

*phsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*

I let another go. This time on the other side of the dance floor. Longer and potentially with greater potency. Lingering in the vicinity for far too long, I caught wiff of my handiwork. It was vile. It was putrid. It was awesome.

*phsssssssssssssssssssssssss*

The flatulence had become a maleficent game of gas-and-run. With intoxicants fueling my brain and innocent victims swirling unsuspectingly before me, I released the furry of the swordfish upon them.

*phsssssssssssssssssss*

Pure panic. Dancers couldn't escape fast enough. Huge holes would open on the floor wherever I'd been.

*phsssssssssssssss*

It was simple. Dancing crowd. Insidious asshole. Comedic relief.

*phsssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*


*phssssssss*



*phsss* *phssss* *phssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss*



....



*phss*

The control. The power. It was...intoxicating. But all good tyrants eventually fall. After twenty minutes of episodic flatulence, my stomach finished processing the fish stomach stew, and my intestines refused to back me in my attempts at clearing the floor.

I haven't had swordfish since. Not out of desire to avoid the possible aftermath, but merely because I have not happened upon a menu graced with the farty fish. If I could do it all over again, I would.

So my advice. Avoid the pedestrian lasagna. Order the swordfish. Go dance.

xoxo,
ShavedGolf