As a result of the recent release of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey’s book, which includes descriptions of his sexual escapades, and as a result of an innocous post I wrote in 2003, this site is now listed as No. 3 in Google for “parkway rest stop s*x”.

Sheesh. I try to run a pretty clean joint here.

I received this e-mail about a week ago, and, as a service to PRS readers, I thought I would pass it along just in case any of you are in the market for some quality processed piss from the Ukraine.

Dudes, check it out. It’s “pure white”, “anti-caking treated” and most definitely not radioactive (Whew!). This is some seriously good shit stuff – way better than that bottled-water-fueled domestic processed piss.

So, if the prospect of getting your hands on Premium Processed Pee puckers your nibbitz, Mr. Feng is definitely your guy.

To: jim
Subject: Urea 46

Dear Sir,
We are the sole agent of Ukraine urea , we supply following specification of urea with the favourable price CIF148/MT, if you have the demand, please contact us.

GDHX. IM & EX GROUP
Sales manager
Mr Feng
Fax: 86-662-3199738
Email: urea@21cn.com

Urea 46% Agricultural Prilled-shall conform with the following specifications and/or standard international specifications
NITROGEN – 46% MINIMUM
BIURET – 1.0% MAXIMUM
MOISTURE – 0.5% MAXIMUM BY METHOD OF DRYING
FISHER METHOD – 0.3% MAX
FREE AMMONIA -160 PXT PPM MAXIMUM
GRANULATION – 2-4MM, 90% MINIMUM
COLOR – PURE WHITE
FREE FLOWING – 100% ANTICAKING TREATED
MELTING POINT – 132 DEGREE CELSIUS
STATIC RESIST – 0.7%
RADIATION – CERTIFIED NON-RADIOACTIVE
PHYSICAL – FREE FROM HARMFUL SUBSTANCE, IMPURITIES & DUST
Packaging minimum 50kg per bag or heavier in three ply bags.

If bother you, please forgive and delete this mail.

I remember her name. It was Barbara.

Millennia ago when I was an undergraduate, the all-male college I attended offered upperclassmen the opportunity to take one course per semester at a nearby, affiliated all-women’s college. My longtime friend and roommate, Murph, and I decided to give it a shot, and we registered for some kind of psychology course – damned if I can remember which one. We figured it was a great opportunity to meet girls.

On the first day of class, it was apparent that there would not be more than a handful of males in the class. Sweet. We sat in the back of the large amphitheater-type classroom so we could survey the array. One girl immediately caught my eye.

She was a brunette who sat about four rows in front of us. She was not like many of the ditz-brain types who babbled on about last week’s mixer, wild fraternity parties or other mindless crap. Nor was she like the legions of hippies of the day, who prided themselves on seeing who could look most like an unmade bed and smell most like a hamper. No, this girl had class. I had come to learn that her name was Barbara, and I was quite taken with her.

After a few classes, I shared with Murph my infatuation with Barbara, and he would often say, “Yo, what the hell is wrong with you? Just walk up to her after class and introduce yourself.” This, of course, was so much bluster, because he would never have walked up and introduced himself to any girl. The fact is, we were both too shy to make such a bold move.

Still, during the semester, before each class, I would promise myself, “Dammit, today is the day I’m going to talk with that girl.”

Well, one day, after class, Murph and I had the following exchange:

Me: Waddya think? I finally talked to Barbara today.

Murph: You’re full of shit. You didn’t talk to her.

Me: Are you nuts? You were right there!

Murph: Asshole! She sneezed and you said “Bless you.” You call that talking to her?

Me: Well, she did say, “Thank you.”

Murph: You are such a sorry ass.

Me: I’m a sorry ass? Well you didn’t talk with anyone.

Murph: I still say you’re a sorry ass.

Me: Screw you.

Murph: Waddya say we have a beer?

Me: Excellent.

Epilogue
The semester finished without Barbara ever sneezing again, and that was that.

The End.

*** For the one or two of you who don’t know who George Costanza is, lookee here.

Being a native of New Jersey, I have learned to live with traffic jams, highway tolls, crowded everything, rude people, bone-crushing taxes, tropical and arctic weather, mobsters, and even a seemingly endless supply of crooked politicians, but this shit is downright intolerable.

Happy the Clown gazed over her red, glittery nose at the multitude of painted-on smiles gathered before her yesterday on the Seaside Heights boardwalk and paused for a moment of seriousness.

“This is your day,” she cried to her fellow clowns. “And there is no other day like it in the world.”

Yes, hundreds of these grotesquely painted, erratically behaving, personal space-invading adults swarmed the Jersey Shore inflicting their dumbshittery on the citizens of New Jersey, and scaring the dogshit out of hundreds of children in the process.

What’s next? A herd, pod, clutch, bevy, pride, band, troop, pack shit load of alligators prancing down the Seaside Heights Boardwalk?

I’m jus sayin’.

Apparently not, at least if you’re talking about corrupt New Jersey politicians.

Today’s thieving bastard is democrat State Senator Wayne Bryant, who is the chairman of the Budget and Appropriations Committee (i.e. the Money Committee). It seems that according to a Federal Monitor’s report, which will be formally issued tomorrow**, in 2003 Senator Bryant leaned on the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (“UMDNJ”) to have himself hired as a “Program Support Coordinator” (a position that did not exist prior to his hiring) for $35,000 per year. Link.

You might ask, what does a Program Support Coordinator for UMDNJ do?

In Senator Bryant’s case, the Program Support Coordinator didn’t do much of anything. The Star Ledger reported that:

No reports, memorandums, e-mail communication, correspondence or evidence of any work by the senator could be found or produced by the administration at the medical school in Stratford. No UMDNJ administrator could recall supervising what the senator was doing or what he was supposed to be doing.

Surely someone must have seen Senator Bryant around the University acting in his capacity as the Program Support Coordinator. Well, it turns out that some folks did see him around:

Most people interviewed by [the Federal Monitor’s] office said Bryant spent only three hours a week on campus, from 9 a.m. to noon on Tuesdays — and, even then, inconsistently.

.
OK, so the Senator was there for three hours per week — sometime. Maybe he really broke his ass for those three hours. Then again, maybe not:

While Bryant was in his university office, the only thing anyone observed him doing was reading newspapers.

It should be noted that from 2003, when Senator Bryant (remember, he’s Chairman of the Money Committee) was hired, to 2004 (during which time Bryant read the newspapers three hours per week, if he bothered to show at all), state funding of UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine near Camden (Bryant is from Camden) went from $2.7 million to $5.83 million, an increase of 115%.

The Federal Monitor’s report concludes:

Our conclusion is that UMDNJ created a no-work job for Senator Bryant so that he could use his political power in the state Senate to benefit his employer — UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine. In short, Senator Bryant was paid $35,000 per year by UMDNJ to lobby himself in his capacity as a state senator.

Notably, this is not the first time that State Senator Bryant has stuck it to the taxpayers. The Star Ledger notes:

The state’s Economic Development Authority recently approved $360,000 in rent subsidies for a Pennsylvania bank where Bryant served as a member of the board of trustees; Bryant’s law firm has done work for two bistate agencies; and Bryant has sponsored bills to help a Camden network of health clinics run by his younger brother, Mark. At one point, Bryant held four government jobs.

The arrogance of this man is positively stupefying. That said, his brazen corruption is perhaps understandable, given that he always has been able to rely on New Jersey’s voters’ not paying attention to his shameful antics, and, as for the voters in his district, he is solid as a rock, as long as he continues to keep the taxpayers’ money flowing into their pockets.

It is notable that this latest revelation has even resulted in Governor Corzine’s inability to pass the “Red Face Test,” for the Governor has “suggested” that Bryant step down from his post as Head of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, even while the federal investigations are pending.

Christ, haven’t we had enough?

The best way to send a real message to these cruds is to VOTE EVERY SINGLE STATE, COUNTY AND LOCAL INCUMBENT POLITICIAN OUT OF OFFICE. NO EXCEPTIONS.

** Earlier this year, UMDNJ agreed with the United States Attorney’s Office to having its activities monitored by the former United States District Court Judge Herbert Stern.

I’ll bet this white boy can jump too. Hell, he may even end up being a fighter pilot.

Thanks to my buddy Brian, the Air Force Vet.

If you have ever harbored thoughts of dealing with a difficult, aggravating, or even dangerous situation, by turning to the source of the difficulty, aggravation, or danger and saying, “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!” perhaps you should think again.

Holy crap! Another Jersey politician is guilty of corruption and income tax evasion. I’m shocked … SHOCKED!

The Crook of the Day is, former democrat State Senator, State Senate President, and infamous power broker, Joseph Lynch. On the eve of being indicted in federal court, Lynch pleaded guilty to fraud and income tax evasion. It seems that, while a State Senator, he, along with a co-defendant, sought and accepted payments of between $120,000 and $200,000 to their “consulting firms” from a contractor seeking state permission to buy and mine parkland in the state. The plea agreement requires that he spend between 33 and 41 months in prison.

What makes this case a bit different from our daily helpings of corruption convictions in Jersey is that Lynch is a big fish and one of the two or three top political bosses in the state. I have no doubt that he knows plenty about other players, and I would not be surprised if the government extracted a promise of cooperation from him in exchange for the plea.

As such, I agree with Jersey Blogger Roberto, of DynamoBuzz, when he stated yesterday, before the plea was officially taken, “A Lot of NJ Democrats are Going to Have Trouble Going to Sleep Tonight.”. Given the breadth and depth of corruption in Jersey, I suspect that Lynch’s plea may well keep a few republicans and a number of contractors awake as well.

Rogue’s Gallery
The Star Ledger published a Rogue’s Gallery of some of the crooked politicians and contractors who have been convicted of corruption-related charges.

Interestingly, the list is far from exhaustive. For example, it omits some of our more notable crooked politicians such as U.S. Senator Harrison “Pete” Williams, who was nailed in the Abscam investigation taking bribes from Federal agents posing as crooked contractors. He spent three years in a federal prison and enjoys the dubious distinction of having been the first U.S. Senator sentenced to jail in 80 years.

The list also failed to include former Atlantic City Mayor Michael Matthews, who in the eighties was convicted in federal court of extortion and ended up spending five years of a fifteen-year sentence in the slammer. Apparently, the current City Council President of Atlantic City, Craig Callaway, didn’t learn anything from Matthews’ conviction, because last week he pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges resigned his office.

Because the list only included convicted politicians, it made no mention of the infamous U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli who managed to avoid being indicted, but who had to drop out of the U.S. Senatorial race because even Jersey’s gullible voters weren’t buying his claims of innocence. Oh, and the list also does not include former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, who surrounded himself with crooks and who put his supremely unqualified boyfriend in charge of the State’s Homeland Security (and who has now done an interview with Oprah!).

Finally, the list makes no mention of the ongoing state and federal investigations of Sharpe James, former Mayor of Newark, and his curious use of taxpayer funds. Nor does it mention the federal investigation of Bob Menendez, New Jersey’s current U.S. Senator (appointed by Governor Corzine) and his highly suspect real estate arrangement as the landlord to a non-profit organization at the same time he was a congressman helping the non-profit organization obtain federal money, which, in part, went to pay the Menendez’s rent.

The list shows: (1) how stupid politicians can be (they don’t learn from the convictions of others), and (2) how even more stupid the voters of New Jersey are for regularly voting creeps like these into office.

Quite simply, New Jersey’s state, county and local governments are rotten to the core. It’s time to remove the rot.

VOTE EVERY SINGLE STATE, COUNTY, AND LOCAL INCUMBENT POLITICIAN OUT OF OFFICE. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I don’t do time changes well. I figure it has something to do with normally not sleeping all that much, so traveling abroad really knocks me completely off kilter. In fact, my internal clocks are still completely kaput. Anyway, I thought I’d share a couple travel observations while they are still relatively fresh in my cruller.

Let’s begin, shall we?

JFK Airport

“Getting there” is not “half the fun”. In fact, “getting there”, even from North Jersey, and even when you’re being driven, is a royal pain in the ass and adds an hour and half to an already long trip.

Queens
To get to JFK, we crossed Manhattan on, 36th Street and entered Queens. Oy! Now, I understand that the route to JFK might well give one the wrong impression of the Borough of Queens, much as the drive along the New Jersey Turnpike near Newark Airport gives a horrible impression of New Jersey. Having said that, the environs through which the roads pass between Manhattan and JFK – ACK!! Perhaps there are nice parts of Queens. I just didn’t see any.

Don’t Get There Too Early
Given the vagaries of traffic, weather, security lines and the like, I like to arrive at the airport at least three hours before the flight, particularly an international flight. I like to check in, read a book and chill before the flight – sometimes with a pre-flight cocktail or three.

Problem is, at least, for the airline on which I flew, the check-in-counter doesn’t even open until two and a half hours before the flight, which means one has to drag bags all over the airport, or just find a spot on the floor and sit waiting to check in. Not being much of an airport floor sitter, I dragged my bags off to buy some foreign currency, which worked out well, because it was next door to a cocktail lounge. A couple Maker’s Marks and sixteen bucks later, I went back upstairs to check in.

Da Business/First-Class Lounge
At the check-in, the lady directed me to the Business/First-Class Lounge. YOWZA!!

Complimentary cocktails – pour your own! Now, this is very goddamned civilized. I had a couple vodkas and a couple very excellent drinks of a bourbon I have never come across before called, Michter’s Ten-Year Old Bourbon. I’ll bet ya can’t drink just one. I’ll have to look for this stuff in the Mondo Liquor Store near here. Oh yeah, there was stuff to eat in the lounge too.

Snot-Blowing
Let me be perfectly clear about this. It is NOT OK to bend your head over one of the sinks in the men’s room and blow snots out of your nose. For all I know, this practice might be acceptable in your country (this particular gentleman wore sandals, baggy thin cotton pants and a matching cotton shirt that stopped a bit short of his ankles), but please not here. It’s farookin’ gross. OK?

Americans Abroad
I am an American to my bone marrow, and I suspect that most Americans feel the same way. But, people, when you’re in someone else’s country, please try not to act like an obnoxious ass. And, for that matter, spare us regular Americans your bullshit too.

I speak, of course, of cell phone usage and the latest bit of hi-tech weirdness – BlackBerry® devices (hereinafter, trademark usage be-damned “Blackberry”). And, I’m speaking of one particularly obnoxious self-important American putz I saw in the airport awaiting the flight back to the U.S.

Not only did this hard-charging, young, American businessman annoying asshole, decide to treat everyone within fifty feet of him to his swashbuckling business adventure, but he continuously paced about to make sure that everyone at the goddamned Gate to fully appreciated his importance to the global economy. He was so very brilliant that he appeared to not ever let the other party speak, which would have provided us captive spectators with a few seconds of respite.

This crap went on all the way down the jetway and continued even when his ass was finally in a seat (too close to mine). Of course, Mr. Seriously Important Guy ignored the flight attendant’s instruction to turn off all electronic devices, requiring that she provide him with specific instructions to turn the phone off (Bless her heart).

But as soon as the phone was off, out came the farookin’ Blackberry, and his well-practiced thumbs began clicking away and scrolling, clicking….scrolling, clicking….scrolling….clicking. That earned him a second bit of individualized instruction from the flight attendant.

After his second rebuke, and perhaps thinking that the world of commerce might well implode without his attention for even a minute, he insisted on being given a copy of the Wall Street Journal. When the flight attendant said she didn’t think she had any copies of the Wall Street Journal, he pointed to the cart and snottily said, “I see one right there in front of you on the cart!” She, having more class in here eyeteeth than this putz had in his entire body, graciously apologized for her oversight.

I silently wondered how long it would take once we landed for Mr. Business Critical to whip out his cell phone, and the jackoff didn’t let me down. No sooner did the wheels hit than he started in again on the telephone for all of us to hear.

If I had my way, we would have jettisoned his sorry ass somewhere over the Atlantic.

I will be away from the keyboard on a business trip until sometime on Thursday. Those peeps who have keys to the joint are invited to leave their droppings here, should they choose to do so.

In the meantime, play nice.