Gonna give leggings a try

These are pretty cool, right?
 

 

Or what about these cool veggie burger styled leggings?

The milf

A couple years back I met some friends in Menomonie, WI for a winter bike race. It's a scavenger hunt, alleycat style bike race. You get a list of addresses and you have to ride your bike to each one, do something there, get a stamp, and then the first person back to the bar with all the stamps, wins. The fun part is that you eventually have to probably ride your bike across the hopefully frozen lake to get all the stops in a semi-timely manner.This race is generally on the boozier side of bike races I do. And it's about a 35 minute drive from my house. Always a hoot.

That said, I like to drive over by myself, hit the RAW VEGAN RESTAURANT THERE TO FUEL UP FOR THE BIG RACE BRO, have a coffee, and then meet up with the crew, the squad, the real ones ready to ride. Then I like to try to get a bite after the race if I am coherent enough to drive or whatever. Well what the hell does The Milf have to do with a boozey bike race in Menomonie. More like MILF NOM NOM NOMenie. Read on.

I went to the local wood fired pizza and brewery spot, called Lucette. I heard people were stoked about it, and I had time so I stopped off for a bite. It was pretty hoppin', so I was happy to get a seat at the bar. As luck would have it, three stools opened up next to me right after I ordered a beer. Oh, and who quickly grabbed the stool next to me? Take a guess.

Yep, "The Milf". 

 

Not like porn-milf, not like Maitland Ward, not like Kayden Kross, not like Brittney O'Connell, not like Lisa Ann, not like Julia Ann, not like Xev Bellringer, not like Kit Mercer, Not like Cory Chase, not like, well you get the idea.

 

But still kinda like northwestern Wisconsin-milf.

Then who quickly grabbed the other two stools? My guess is her husband and teenage son. Right away she was really chatty.

"What are you drinking?" - This is pretty normal. It was a dark beer FYI.

"What did you order?" - Also pretty reasonable.

"Why are you by yourself?" - Kinda weird, considering the situation here.

"Are you wearing looooongjohns under those pants?" - Woah. But no I wasn't (it was a warm day in February!)

If you know me at all, you probably know that I have a smallish streak of vanity. I like to have my good looks appreciated and I guess my personality too. But it got to the point where it was kinda awkward because her husband WAS RIGHT THERE. AND I THINK HER SON TOO.

But then it GOT REALLY WEIRD. Once her food came, she dug right in. Like DUG RIGHT IN, mid sentence, and robotically turned her head towards the pizza and started scarfing it. And this probably 45 year old woman who was able to confidently flirt with a 35 year old dude in front of her family, would eat each piece of pizza up until the crust, and put the uneaten crusts into a growing little pile of crusts!

 

What the heck where did you learn this is OK.

Haven't seen anybody do that since my three year old last week.

favorite albums of 2016

In no order, here are some of this year's albums that I enjoyed/listened to the most. Check the links in the band - album name if you are so inclined.

Nothing - Tired of Tomorrow
Really chill pop rock, catchy AF. Lead singer was apparently in jail for stabbing a dude, got out, and started this band.

Culture Abuse - Peach
This album is awesome. Catchy, poppy, sometimes Nirvana-y mid-tempo punk rock pop grunge. I don't know, I probably listened to this album the most this year.

Murder Made God - Enslaved
No idea that brutal death metal could be this catchy.

Angel Du$t - Rock the Fuck On Forever
Vocalist from a super tough hardcore band forms a super fun, super catchy punk rock group, and this is what happens.

Wormed - Krigsu
The vocals are unintelligible. FYI, this is death metal. That pseudo-horizon tho.

Cognitive - Deformity
If you ever wondered what brutal technical death metal should sound like, this might be it.

Destroyer 666 - Wildfire
Awesome heavy metal. Try not to get too PUMPED when listening to the linked up jam.

Joyce Manor - Cody
Another album of infinitely catchy pop punk indie rock from these guys.

And this is a last minute add:

Fury - Paramount
This reminds me of the first time I heard Have Heart, one of my favorite/most listened to bands of the this millennium. Powerful, modern hardcore, with a great throwback feel. The album smokes, and I see myself listening to this a lot.
 

Here are a couple awesome songs from 2016, where the whole albums didn't really grab me:

I thought this Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam jam was pretty fantastic. Apparently it's the lead singer of a band called The Walkmen working with a dude from Vampire Weekend. Don't know about The Walkmen, but Vampire Weekend is pretty sweet.




Wanted to like the new Regina Spektor album, but it is mostly meh. This song is great though. OK, and Bleeding Heart is pretty awesome too.



Biggest disappointment of 2016: No new Abominable Putridity album!

2016, wtf

The last couple weeks have brought one of the things I look forward to at the end of each year: albums of the year lists. It's a nice way for me to check out tunes I didn't hear over the course of the year. Each list generally contains a nice little synopsis of the jam, and then a link to further listening. Some gems I am now enjoying are new albums from Mithras, Insomnium, Asphyx, and a band called Crying. Seriously, Crying. My own list will be coming soonish.

Anyway, one thing i noticed in virtually every list I read was that a lot of musicians died in 2016. OK, that's legit, it is a list concerning music over the past year. Makes sense. But the other thing that I noticed in every list is that 2016 apparently has been a terrible year for the world...and then obviously Trump OMG. Just a couple months ago, we had Hillary Clinton telling us how awesome everything is. It was Trump that was apparently painting this dark picture of the world. Make up your minds, assholes.

Well, what do reasonable people with functioning brains think? SPOILER ALERT: we don't think that.

We like to look at the positives.

OK, but first the negative, a big one: Donald Trump is President. That's the reality, pretty shitty.

With that out of the way, let's focus on some of the good things a Donald Trump presidency means. The first thing that comes to mind is that Hillary Clinton is not President. There will likely NOT be a nuclear holocaust with Russia. This is a good thing. Second and third, neither Ted Cruz nor Bernie Sanders are president! Not one of those three shitheads will be the leader of the free world. Objectively, I think that's pretty awesome. And if you are a pro-equality, anti-war dickhead like me, you should agree.

Real talk though: The Republican candidate was Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Democrats and progressives should have been drooling over this election. Many probably already were anyway.

This should be a unanimous vote, or at least a goddamn landslide.

But then how does a Democrat manage to lose? By employing an election strategy that consisted of fucking up in probably the most epic manner ever, starting with (deceptively) presenting the only candidate that is more vile than the other one. And the Russian hacker stuff too, lol. That some WMDs-in-Iraq bullshit. If you were genuinely excited about Hillary Clinton, it might be best if you were no longer with us. At the very least, just shut the fuck up and go back to your seat at the kids table.

Aside from all the fake news, Trump, the hate crime hoaxes (wait, these hoaxes are actually good because that means that the hate crimes didn't actually happen, right?), the presidential election in general, 2016 was actually a pretty goddamn awesome year for me. I'd explain why, but you likely don't care. I'm not sure I do much either.

If you had a crappy 2016, we at HYM Corp all hope that your 2017 is marginally better.

Car Shopping

Heckyeahwoman and I discussed it, and we decided we are going to trade in my Dodge Charger for something, likely a vehicle. My first thought was a Subaru or a full suspension fat bike or a nice boutique titanium plus hardtail or a cross bike or an RV or a camper. She was 100% on board with the Subaru. The following words are a quick run through of our search for a new vehicle and the end result.

Current sitch: I drive a 2007 Dodge Charger, needs a little work, less than 90k miles. Heckyeahwoman drives a 2002 Honda Civic, 120k something miles, meticulously maintained. With a beautiful full grown German Shepherd (from a shelter, not a breeder), maybe a baby at some point, and our need to haul more stuff, we decided a Subaru Forester or something similar would be about right.

Quick run through of the vehicles we considered:

We didn't want to spend a shitload, so that meant used, probably 2013 to 2015, less than 30k miles, proven reliability, hopefully not a base model but if a deal came up then whatever. Ideally it would have a roof rack, maybe even a hitch. We both thought a backup camera would be sweet too.

• Subaru Forester - took one out for a test drive, wasn't super impressed. Looks cool, but I didn't get the "heck yeah" feeling I did with the eventually winner. Went to the local Chilson Subaru dealership, talked to a turd of a typical car salesman dude. He super lowballed me on the trade-in, and wouldn't budge on the price. When I was getting really close to buying, I even asked him what he can do to help me buy a car today. Lol, nothing.    

• Side note here about the Forester, we briefly considered a hail damaged one with a salvage title, but ultimately decided against it. There's a dealership in Minnesota that has some nice deals. But those idiots wouldn't email me a better picture of any of the vehicles.

• Nissan Rogue - didn't even get to take one for a test drive, as I was turned off by the transmission issues I kept reading about; their CVT seems to blow up earlier than it should. They look cool, similar to a Forester, but are a little better on the bells and whistles to price ratio.

• Honda CRV - another one I didn't take for a test drive. That's OK because even though HYW is biased towards Honda (I'm not mad either), neither of us love the look, and there just weren't any available locally that met our criteria.

• Toyota Rav4 - *spoiler alert* - this is the winner - a 2014, 23k miles, XLE trim, bought from Eau Claire Ford. It drives noticeably nicer and is a better value than the Forester. Peppy enough for a four cylinder, and it has a hitch and remote start! HYW saw it and agreed. So we took it down to our mechanic for an inspection, and it passed! It is exactly what we are looking for, at the price we wanted. The following is the play by play.

While lurking the internet, I saw the Rav4 on a Wednesday, emailed it to HYW, she approved. Nice. So I emailed the dealership about it, basically just told them my plan: I will test drive it on Thursday evening, if I like it and the price is right, I'll schedule an inspection for Saturday morning, and if it passes the inspection, I will buy the goddamn vehicle. So I drive it, like it, and let them know I will schedule the inspection in two days. The sales manager comes over and lets me know that there is an appointment on Friday morning to check out the vehicle - a lady coming from over an hour away! First thing in the morning too!

OMG!

So if I want to take it off the sales floor and have them hold it, I need to put a $500 deposit down! Sure, sounds good let me give you my credit card. WTF no I am not putting a fucking deposit down.

I called the sales manager early Friday morning to let him know I wouldn't be depositing a goddamn thing, and he gave me the runaround about "I can't hold the vehicle for you, we get dicked around all the time". Told him he's gotta do what he's gotta do. Sure enough, I talked to the sales guy on Friday afternoon and the appointment never showed. No shit.

The dealership is "no haggle", so I was not able to get anything on the price. It seems that sometimes "no haggle" really does mean "no haggle", sometimes not though. But the trade-in value they offered was high enough where I felt pretty good. Actually really good. All we really needed was the sale price minus the trade in value to be where we needed it to be.

Anyway, they wouldn't even throw in a second key. The sales guy even had some guy come over and explain why it's so expensive. Dude even said they tried really hard to get the second key from the previous owner. But when I handed over the single key for my trade-in, they never even asked about a second key. Fucking look me in the eye and say no, just like I did when I told you to throw in the key. So whatever, I left with almost exactly what we were looking for at the price we wanted, while maybe a little salty about the lack of concession on their end.

On the plus side, I have to thank the dealership for not dicking around with my time. Each interaction with them was pretty quick and easy. Even the Business/Finance Manger trying to sell me the lol warranties was painless. Aside from the amateur sales tactics, it was super easy to buy a car from them. Bonus, the dealership offers a lifetime powertrain warranty too.

Odds and ends:
- This was my first time buying a car from a dealership.
- Our credit scores are balling.