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No, not that.

I’m not talkin’ the crappy cholesterolly rich, heart cloggingly food I make and love.

I’m talkin’ about mining the fields of the foodie shows and plumbing the richness that is the Travel Channel and planning whole day trips and vacations around restaurants and food that looks so good that you maybe lay awake at night dreaming dreams of burgers and hoping and wanting and, OK, maybe even salivating just a little about. The yearn, baby, the burn.

I’m talking Foodycation. My word. You saw it here first, dudes.

And Miss Carol and me are gonna do it. Lots.

Instead of going somewhere and laying on another beach and drinking more rum drinks with cute little umbrellas in ’em, and getting sunburnt and walking wistfully holding hands down picturesque marinas docks, we’re gonna head out to obscure little places and eat and hang out with obscure little locals. And drink and eat what they drink and eat.

I think it’s cool beyond belief and can’t wait- the first is gonna be Louis Lunch in Connecticut- home of the cheeseburger. They make their burgers in vertical broilers the same way they’ve been doin’ it  since the beginning of time. I’m thinkin’ lunch and then hotel room fun ’cause it’s a Foodycation, baby.

There’s a saying, or maybe it’s me saying it, and if that’s the case I’ll gladly step up to the plate and accept credit, but, anyway, the saying is that there are writers and there are people who write books.

Audrey Niffenegger wrote a book. Which in and of itself is a truly amazing accomplishment. And I mean it. And having said that and at the expense of losing both my female readers I have to say- I don’t get it.

The whole book is a weird collage of Henry and Clare’s lives as he pops in and out of time and her life. I’m thinkin’ there’s supposed to be some kinda eternal, timeless love thing going on that I’m guessin’ chicks get teary and dreamy about?

But, really? I don’t get it.

Henry can’t or won’t control when and when he goes so he either doesn’t or can’t do cool time traveling stuff like fuck with people or win the lottery over and over again (although they do it, supposedly guiltily, one time, so Clare can buy her dream house and studio so she can keep creating her art and Henry can can keep working at a library which is the only place he could get away with his crap- but don’t get me worked up, OK?) or use his time traveling superpowers to do anything other than pop in and out of Clare’s life. Naked and embarrassed.

If I were Clare I’d of killed him.

What a pain in the ass- constantly disappearing and then showing up nude ’cause time travelers can’t carry their clothes. Give me a fat fucking break.

When I first finished the book I was just disappointed. I was like, WTF?  I’d heard such great things about it that I was like? what’d I miss? why am I too shallow to love this? what’s the matter with my sad ass? It’s gonna be a movie so it’s gotta be something I’m supposed to cuddle up with at night and love like I love my momma and Miss Carol. Right?

But it ain’t.

And the more I thought about it and wrote about it, the more I thinkin’ I’m getting really pissed off and hating it.

Burn it.

Man. This shit just kills me.

Miss Carol was watching this 20/20 show the other night and as soon as I walked out of the Me Only Room and heard BaBaWaWa’s voice I knew it couldn’t be a happy thing.

And it wasn’t.

Call me Mr. Sissypants but I don’t like sad. I know sad is out there lurking somewhere waiting for me but I don’t go looking for sad so I can cry like Miss Carol does.

Anyway. It was a story about these little kids that have some kind of weird disease, progeria, that makes them old at like 2 and dead at like 12.

That’s just not fucking fair.

I mean, I don’t even really like little kids, but honestly?

Kids should be allowed to be little annoying fucks, screaming for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and hating school and hating their parents and growing up and texting constantly and stealing their parent’s car and driving drunk and getting pregnant and getting abortions or getting married or going to college and becoming lawyers.

But a little kid hitting middle age at 6?

That’s just not fucking fair.

The overwhelming thing, according to Miss Carol ’cause I refused to watch it, was how HAPPY these doomed little kids were. It was almost as if, because of their condensed little lives they, and their families, packed in all the happiness they could without regard or concern to anything else.

And maybe, just maybe, wouldn’t THAT be a nice way to live? I hope?

Shit kills me.

Things are becoming sluggishly slurry in oceandoggy.com land. Or maybe not sluggishly slurry- maybe just slowly slipping and sliding in a slightly different direction.

Ya gotta realize- I started this blog thing as an exercise to make me write- if not daily- at least every other day or so. I wanted to write but wanting and doing are waaaaay different things. I needed regimen and my silly blog provided it.

I had thought that, once I finally STARTED writing, I’d go spiralling off into all the other stuff I’d wanted to do. That, once exercised, my fairly lazy brain would leap up onto higher and faster cars and novels would flow out of me like diarrhea.

Right? Right.

Dreams are awesomely cute little things in string bikini’s but what I’d thought would happen hasn’t happened yet and so instead, it seems I’ve hatched this blogging baby and since I’ve never had a baby, I’m awed by the responsibility and the time demands and not sure if I’m up to it or even any good at it.

Which is cool. Which is fine.

But because I’d long yearned for the diarrheal, I was surprised to find out that when I started this bloggy stuff (OK, maybe not RIGHT away but maybe after awhile) people were actually reading my goofiness and a few started to comment and more e-mailed and  before I knew it I was squeezed in tight between the lives of people I’d never met and yet care about.

And even though it wasn’t my diarrheal dream, it felt good.

Real good.

Check it- the peeps I’ve “met” because of oceandoggy.com are really some of the most wonderful people I’ve had the fortune to “meet”- since, you know, I’ve never actually “met” any of them, but they’re folks that I want to hold onto and keep in touch with. ‘Cause I LIKE ’em.

I’m constantly amazed.

This is some kinda good shit right here.

I don’t even ever really like collections of short stories ’cause they make me stop and start too much over the course of a single book, but this one is a goodin’.

Russell Banks has nailed his characters and their tawdry little trailerpark trashy lives (not that that’s a BAD thing so don’t email me about poor people and living in trailers, OK?) and the way they singly and collectively manage to get along and live amongst each other without killing one another.

Set in Catamount, New Hampshire, the stories loosely tie together the twelve trailers that constitute The Granite State Trailer Park sitting on a little lake outside of town and it’s quite possibly necessarily disparate and eccentric community of unfortunately knot-head personalities.

Most are without jobs and although easy and cool with one another, they are beset with all of the other problems that proximity normally forces on losers living in cheap ass rented aluminum trailers they consider their personal castles, assailable by none of the other losers surrounding them, and honestly? I loved them.

It’s a little visit into the little lives of little lost people living in a little trailerpark.

And it’s HUGELY good stuff.

It made me want to sell everything and buy a trailer on a little lake.

I’m thinkin’ Lakedoggy, maybe? Trailerdoggy?

Could happen.

This weekend my brother and his little cupcake came into town.

And all through the blur of beers and cocktails and wonderful food one thing stood out.

Seeing the two of them together makes me believe in hope again.

I hate to say anything bad about an author.

About someone who pours himself into his craft, who sweats blood spitting each word out hoping that someone, anyone, will read what they’ve written and hang on each word, and hold it clutched to their bosom, eyes tearing as they stare heavenward thanking the wordsmith gods for their BOOK. The BOOK that’ll see them through the hard times. The BOOK that’ll be the salve for the searing life they’re forced to live through. The BOOK. Can I hear a praise Jesus?

Unfortunately, this ain’t one of them.

In fact, it sucks. And I hate to say that about an author I normally really like.

But this one?

Not so much.

It’s good until the last third or so and then just explodes, going in directions that leave you wondering- was it Russo laziness or editor slashiness?

Either way, doesn’t matter too much.

Sucks.

Miss Carol suddenly got the idea yesterday that maybe we should go to ECSC (East Coast Surfing Championship) this weekend. It started out as, a like maybe? if we’re not doing anything else,  then maybe? we should check it out one of these years?, and slowly metastasized into us heading up to the strip.

So we did.

We parked the tractor trailer about ten blocks away, ’cause it’s hard to find parking for a tractor trailer and hoofed on out to the beach.

And we checked out the amateurs.

And then we watched the pros.

And then we split ’cause the meter was broken and we didn’t want to get a ticket. I’d like to say I’m cool enough to appreciate the surfer’s efforts or to say that it was way fun.

But I’m not and, honestly?, it wasn’t.

We had no idea what we were watching or how surfing is judged so we just kinda hung out, staring and mouth breathing.

We’re turds.

But it was pretty.

Honestly, give me a fucking break.

I mean really.

I was reading a newspaper yesterday- remember them? I don’t where I found it  or why I was reading it but get this-

Supposedly “scientists” have decided that all the oil spilled in the Gulf is being eaten by bacteria that seem to LOVE the spewing oil. And, get this- the oil is simply “disappearing” at the rate of half the TOTAL spill every three days or so. By Labor Day three months of wildly spewing oil shooting into the Gulf will all be gone.

Cool baby.

According to government funded academia, in just a coupla days, months and months of oil pollution will magically disappear. I am SO glad those oil loving little fuckers have their dinner bibs on.

It got or gets worse. Believe it or not, the article went on to say that 500 million barrels of oil “seep” into the Gulf each year anyway so it’s really no surprise that the cute little oil-loving bacteria would pony up to the salad bar and take care of the worst oil spill in the history of our planet. So hey.

Don’t get me wrong.

I’m not ranting ’cause I’m a green-licking-tree-hugger. I’m not. I drive a truck that could pull a house down and gets 10 miles a gallon. I use diesel like a 3 dollar hooker uses condoms.

I’m ranting because I think the only way we’re gonna push us into the Manhattan-style project needed to move us off of oil is to use it all up. I’m doing my part and so should you.

I’m ranting ’cause I’m being told millions and billions of gallons of crude oil are just gonna magically disappear.

I’m ranting ’cause I’m gettin’ tired of being lied to.

Holy bejeebus.

A better title for this book might have been The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest Then Stomped On It Then Set It On Fire Then Ran Over It With A Truck.

Hmmm. Longish?

Still.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Fortunately for us and our tired little attention spans, Lisbeth Salander doesn’t have the time or the patience to wait very long to wreak her retaliation and get even. And that’s what make these books so much fun to read.

In this, the third and final book of the series, waif-like heroine Lisbeth is forced to once again team up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist to haul her ashes out of the fire and punish the people who have wronged her in the past  and now want to put her away for the rest of her life.

Think elfin avenging angel. Think little babe kicking the shit out of everybody.

Vengeance is fun. And curiously satisfying.

There’s a bunch of political stuff in the book that probably only Swedish people know about or care about but it doesn’t detract from the retribution any so you just wade through it.

I don’t know how Stieg Larsson managed to hit three home runs on his first three at bats, but he did and it’s too bad he didn’t live long enough to see the ball sail over the fence.

It sucks that he isn’t around to see the success of his Lisbeth Salander series and it sucks even more that these three books are all there’ll ever be.

They’re fun. Read ’em.

Quick sidenote- if you’re reading the series get the swedish version of the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It’s great, even with the subtitles. Our local movie critic panned it but he’s old and bald and probably didn’t even read the book.

Next up on things I’ll bore you with? Maybe a crappy review of The Time Travelers Wife?

It could happen.