'Going on for centuries'

By ART MCGREGOR
Blog on the Run editor

My cousin Evan dropped by yesterday to talk sports, girls, rap music and drugs.

Born of the 20th century, these are topics that most of us discuss. You see, he's 8. His date of birth is December 1999.

He opined that Lil' Wayne definitely does drugs, but Jay-Z doesn't because "Jay-Z doesn't swear as much."

He thinks the Pirates stink but understands why they traded Xavier Nady. "Those two younger guys they got could ONE DAY become really good, right?"

He still wonders about this little girl that sat next to him this past October during the Michigan State-Ohio State game. "What was her name again? Ashley?"

I like that he knows his shit about sports. I mean, he really knows it. Knows the players and the uniforms and wonders "where Beanie Wells lives?"

But he gets that knowledge from playing hours and hours of video games. He doesn't usually go to bed until 3 a.m. and drinks Red Bull after midnight.

He'll be in the third grade later this month.

We had a good time. Went to this park next to my sister's place in Lower Arlington, 43220.

But it's a park. They have slides and swings and weird bars and climbing mechanisms. So when you have kids, you work all day, come home to a wife that doesn't let you do many fun things, and take your kids to a park where they do pointless activities and beg you to watch them when you'd rather be checking your cell phone for baseball scores? Wow. And this has been going on for centuries?

Sometimes I just think I'm smarter than everyone else.

I had to get fitted for a tux for my sister's wedding, so she can have kids and take them "to the park" during her only two hours of free time per day. I haven't worn a tux since July 31, 1987. True story.

I missed out on bowling with McCampus, The Godfather and NJAG. That's a shame.

Overall, a good week thus far. Haven't had a beer since Saturday night at the Street Festival in Chicago. That's a really good run for me. A better run would be from Chicago to Columbus. Even if that run was to Columbus, Indiana, it'd still be fucking far.

I had spaghetti last night for the first time in about three months. Holy tasty. Back when we used to go to the EGG or I took dates to Easy Street Cafe, I'd order up some pasta with grilled chicken. Tryin' to be all classy and shit. Hmm ... I had pasta a couple Fridays ago at Betty's but it didn't have red sauce, so technically that's not spaghetti in my book.

One thing I forgot to bring up about Chicago was that a lot of people go on dates. Like real dates. Like, "pick you up at 8!" George _ Bush TF?!??! Who does that? I knew we were in trouble when we got to The Doctor's apartment and his roomie AMOS, said "I am GOING OUT ON A DATE." And actually was serious. When we got back a little after 1 a.m., he was on the couch watching something lame on television.

Probably thinking about a future that holds taking his future kids to the park on Wednesday evenings in August.

Milking some lemonade

You don't miss much while tooling around Schiller Park about 7 p.m. Bored before watching a lil' home run derby, I decided to go for a few laps around the .8 mile course. Ran into The Italian Guy with the Same Name as the Truth who We Always See at 185 and chatted with him a little, saw Tug and Sis (not dead!) at a distance and even ran into nine, 10 people that I yelled (in my head) "MayOR" as they ran past me. Anytime I see someone running, I think of my buddy The Mayor. Except black dudes running from the law.

Speaking of The Mayor, I got a text from him about 5:30 p.m. that just said, "670-iger." I thought that was fitting as he must have seen me driving on 670.

As you know, I don't get to the grocery store very often if at all. But I went last night and checked out at 9:35 p.m. Self check out. I was getting a 14-pack of SUGAR FREE CRYSTAL LIGHT ON THE GOD LEMONADE NATURAL FLAVOR and a 12-pack of GIANT EAGLE GENERIC WATER BOTTLES (with water inside). Naturally, I'll have to double up on the packets two times (two times). My rooomie made fun of me for buying water. (What ... is this 1995?) And claimed we had a Brita. It's a fair claim because we do have a Brita but bottled water is way better. And easier. Unlike women because the easy women aren't hardly ever the better women.

I found out about these nifty little portable lemonade packets over at my sister's house. When I lived with her, I routinely would drink her water bottles or have her chips or eat her bread and/or peanut butter. Sometimes her ice cream. Definitely her Diet 7-Up. And yeah, if she had cheese for a grilled cheese. She'd get pissed.I should have asked.

Now when I go over to her house, I'm a GUEST and no longer a roommate. I can pretty much have whatever I want and just say, "GUEST" whenever I'm there. It's a sweet gig. Other than the fact they live in Lower Arlington, it takes about 50 minutes to get there and their neighbor has a BHO sign.

When ya having me over for dinner again? :)

Thought HR Derby was pretty cool last night. I can't believe the Reds traded Josh Hamilton. Whatever with this pitcher they got, Hamilton is the deal. I think the NL gets off the snide tonight. Since they haven't won an All-Star game since 1996 (!!), I think "tonight's the night" in the words of Phil Collins. Last year's All-Star Game was pretty fun.

Glad to see the American League stick it to Quad-A once again. I don't know how the American League ever wins considering the masterminds over in the National League that can bunt and appreciate the double-switch.

The Sports Writer will be here in a little less than 60 hours. He's driving from Washington State to Cape Fear. Any and all are invited to get stupid Thursday at a possible Skully's/Arena District evening.

To my sister ...

By ART MCGREGOR
Blog on the Run editor

Hung out with a future roomie last night. (July 8 through August 15.) Everything went well. The Godfather today dubbed her "Miss July" because I lived with "Miss June" in, you guessed it, June.

Miss July is a champ. She reminds me of this television reporter that The Sports Writer dated in Washington/Idaho. A law student (trendy!) that actually wants to go to court, represent the poor and change the world. That'll last long. She likes working in a public defender's office!! Probable BHO voter.

(NOTE: If I may dote on myself for a few, I love that I said the phrase, "definite Clinton voters on that team." I think 94 percent of the dudes playing in our softball league are "definite Clinton voters." That's Hillary. You ever wonder why Hillary won Ohio? Check out the Thursday night league at Berliner Park. There's your answer. Lots of them gun owning, tobacco chewing, union Democrats. They ain't votin' for no black fellow.)

So back to Miss July. While we chatted last night, I kept referring to my former space cadet roommate Miss June. Miss June moved in on June 1. Left on June 27. Her forever vacant look has been replaced with a vacancy sign. I gander I said about 27 words to her. (Counting the two text messages I sent her.) That's like one per day. "Hey" counts as one.

I now know what it's like to have lived with a bad roommate. I now know what it's like to have lived with me. Sorry, missestrendy.

Miss June leads the nation in hair left in a sink. I'm not sure how she did it. I think she plucked out hairs from her own head and lined them up like guitar chords in our sink. She also believed in hanging four towels on the four-towel rack. Most towels were between one and two feet long. Miss June also liked open windows. With the AC on. She also liked to turn off the AC at various times. Her closing cabinets percentage hoovered around 18 percent. That means for every 100 doors/cabinets she opened, she closed 18 of them. From time to time, she'd leave the keys in the door overnight. She increased the amount of flies in my apartment from zero to 22 in less than a month. She outright refused to empty anything from the dishwasher. That's about it.

I wasn't that bad, but still. Every bad roommate should have to live with a Miss June.

Even in like March.

It'll probably get them in step with living as a decent rommate.