amkean pronunciation

Astute readers might have noticed that after claiming to be back on schedule with daily updates, I didn't post yesterday. There are two reasons for this.

First, I was way, way tired in the morning, and could not physically get up early when I knew there would be zero consequences for sleeping late. Not only that, but I somehow mostly slept through the alarm, which is unusual for me. So I must have been tired, which has been true for all of August.

The second reason begins with a story. When we were in junior high school, we patronized the Taco Bell restaurant on Robert Street in West St. Paul across from Signal Hills. It was around this era when Taco Bell gained some cachet among youth, probably through aggressive marketing or something. So we'd ride our bikes to get tacos, then throw the entire plastic tray into the trash can along with the trash and found that extremely funny. Once I got my license, the Taco Bell down by Rainbow was in range. For some reason, there were two Taco Bells on Robert Street within a couple miles of each other. The Rainbow one was newer and nicer, so we called it the "clean" Taco Bell vs. the "dirty" one that was walking distance from Grass Junior High. You couldn't beat 59 cent tacos, and Taco Bell food, as you know, is simultaneously the most disgusting and most awesome food in the fast food world.

One time I was at the dirty Taco Bell with Nick F and we were punchy and started kidding around with the staff there, who were adults as opposed to teenagers. After asking questions about unruly patrons, we begged the employees there to kick us out. They refused, no matter how much we begged. See, it would have been fun to say that you got kicked out of the dirty Taco Bell.

My lifelong dream was fulfilled yesterday when I was kicked out of the coffee shop before I could post. The experience nicely complements my ban for life from playing for the official UNC alumni team.

Sunday night we went to the fair for Fountains of Wayne. It was a cool show to see there because you could get right up close and the stage is designed to play for way more people than were there, so there was a ton of musical catchy pop power per capita at the show. The Suicide Commandos opened. I wasn't too much into punk when I was four years old, but I enjoyed their set. I was hard not to imagine that it was your dad up there, rocking the punk songs with your friends' dads.