I have been watching the Jersey Shore over the last few weeks, and I must say it’s been a roller coaster ride of thrills and excitement. I’ve developed emotional investment in the people on the show, which might represent a depth of character that they themselves can’t manage, but whatever. It’s not like I have to hang out with them in person.

Having said that, by far my favorite character is “The Situation”.

Among other names, at first he considered calling himself "The Dealio"

I’m not sure why, but I think it’s because he seems to have an approach to women that could be called dogged persistence. He’s not afraid to power through every number he gets, even when the rate of success is pretty low. He may even have picked some of them at random from the phone book on the off chance that a single girl will answer.

He seemed to take a sort of spokesman role for the other members of the house as well, whether they wanted him to or not. The Situation knows that effective leadership can not be burdened with things like consensus or the will of the people. A leadership role must be assumed or usurped — and then made into a mockery of itself.

He also avoided a lot of the legal drama that comes with involving one’s self in a physical altercation. The Situation doesn’t have time for fighting. Though one of the female cast members did knock him in the face, he never threw any blows himself despite serious provocation. He declined to walk her back to the hotel room in Atlantic City because he was busy chatting up a comely lass. Despite the fact that the cast member in question was a grown woman and could presumably walk herself anywhere, she saw his reluctance to leave the club as cause for violence.

In short, he embodies the “Lover not a fighter” ideal… which is why I was so upset to learn that The Situation made out with Snooki on the last regular episode of the show.

I call the "Situation" brewing in this hot tub "Mistake Soup"

Snooki, as you may recall, has been described as a cross between a goblin and another goblin, which is not a very nice way of talking about someone, especially since she was dealt her fair share of blows during the course of the show. She got hit once by a drunken man, and a second time by a large charging girl.

In the words of Dj Pauly D, “Someone needs to teach her how to fight, or duck”.

The world comes at you fast, I think we can all agree. We all need to learn to either fight or duck, but most importantly, we need to learn to never settle. Or at least not to do it when there is a camera crew around. Come on, The Situation… that’s rookie stuff!

And so, on a sad note we say goodbye to our Italian-American friends from the Jersey Shore, but the legal ramifications and tanning-bed-induced skin cancer live on.

That, plus whatever skin rashes and shame one contracts from romantic contact with a goblin.

I woke up this morning at 4:18 AM with a toothache. Soon after, wary thanks to my last toothache a few months ago, my wallet also began to throb with the pain of impending large unforseen expenditure.

No wonder dentists all have such nice bikes. As soon as you reach an age where you can start making some real money, your teeth all explode into an aurora borealis of pain.

So currently the pain management center in my brain has two emergencies to worry about what with my shoulder-based attack on a tree from Tuesday night and now this tooth fiasco.

I’m not a doctor, but is all that medical training they’re required to go through really necessary? I think you can just put a digital camera up to your ear and take a photo of the insides and get a fair idea of what your brain is working on. So, that’s what I did.

Who needs a medulla oblongata when you can have Dabney Coleman?

As you can see here, the tiny version of NORAD that makes up the control center of my brain is currently dealing with the pain threats in red text, in addition to the smaller standing concerns listed in green. I’ve also been thinking about cycling hottie Liz Hatch and television hottie Christina Hendricks lately it seems.

In fact I’m concerned for cycling hottie Liz Hatch because her twitter indicates as I type this that her legs and ass are looking “puffy”. This is not good. If there’s anything the world needs it is more cycling women, not less. How are we going to get more girls on bikes with you telling everyone it makes your legs and ass puffy, Liz? Come on!

It’s true, she’s saying that the condition was caused by being off the bike, not on it, but I still think its a bit of a marketing blunder for female cycling as a whole.

Now that I think of it I am without any good ideas on how to market cycling to women. I broached the subject of finding a bike for a previous girlfriend of mine and she impressed upon me that should we find one for her, she didn’t intend to ride it in the road, only on sidewalks or in the park. That’s like buying a private plane and only ever using it to taxi around a runway.

So, I gave up the bike-for-girlfriend idea altogether, and a few months later she gave up on the girlfriend-for-Jim idea. Such is life.

If only I could convince my tooth to give up on the incessant-hurting idea without spending money on the fee-for-dentist idea, life would be that much better!

I very much enjoy riding bikes, as anyone who reads my incoherent ravings surely knows, which is why I found myself putting on nearly every piece of warm cycling-related clothing I own last night despite the temperature. It was 42 degrees out, and dropping.

When I’m wearing my tight spandex cycling clothing, I refer to myself as the multicolored sausage, but the whole experience felt a bit more like a cycling burrito… from Hell!

Artist's conception. Not actual images of Hell or Burrito.

There are many layers of hell, an idea which has its roots in religious thought, not least of which being Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. First, you need cold weather. This is the tortilla of our hellish burrito, in which all other ingredients will be wrapped, or, to use more biblical-sounding language, swaddled.

Next, our Cycling Burrito from Hell (henceforth CBFH) needs the meat, which in this case would be cycling. Like meat, cycling is pretty great no matter what. It can me super awesome, or underwhelming, but most of the time I’d rather have it than not. I spent the meat of my evening with my friends Chris and Jason, swearing and falling off my mountain bike as the swaddling temperature dipped toward freezing and below.

Unknown to me previously, the city is crisscrossed with an underground network of mountain bike trails. Seemingly every patch of woods in town, no matter how small, has a trail scratched into it. Some follow the city’s drainage ditches and have the unmistakable odor of sewage. Some are meant to be walking and jogging trails, and some had the telltale footprints of recent urban outdoorsman passage, but due to the recent never-ending torrents of rain we’ve had, they were all muddy.

I wrecked trying to ride through an exceptionally muddy section, falling over with my lower body in freezing muddy water and delivering a solid hit to a nearby tree with my shoulder. At times like that, I wonder to myself “Am I enjoying this?”.

I did not realize it at the time, but I was experiencing the second and third most important CBFH layers, pain and humility.

Anyone considering riding a mountain bike on the in-town trails in Atlanta should be shown a photo of me cold, muddy, and pissed. If they still want to ride, they should be cracked on the shoulder with a frying pan to simulate my wreck.

If they still want to go after all that, they should be dressed warmly, wished good luck, and sent on their way lest their dementia spread.

After a hearty sample of the Cycling Burrito from Hell they’re about to chow down on, they may think twice next time.

Even though I work as a marketer, I dislike advertising. I could not be happier about being rescued from the clutches of commercial radio by MP3s because it means I don’t have to listen to the ridiculous ads. I get to listen to what I want to hear whenever I want to hear it. For instance, lately I only listen to Nickelback’s latest hit twice an hour instead of twenty times.

What a great liberty it is to finally have some ability as a consumer to control who can blab at me and who can’t!

I also can’t stand regular network TV for the same reasons. Whenever there’s a commercial break and the sponsors jack up the volume to make sure I hear their incisive jingle about panty liners, I start scanning the room for a blunt instrument with which to bludgeon the television, or a window to leap out of.

Still, every now and then when I find myself outside the warm and cozy recesses of Hodgson Compound during the morning hours, I tune in to my local radio station’s morning show. Such was the case this morning as I drove back from my 6am cycling workout. They were discussing the latest minor scandal of the executive office.

Apparently our president, Barack Obama, gave a speech at an elementary school in Virginia and brought in the whole ensemble, including a podium and teleprompters.

The next one of you who raises his hand is going to be shot dead by the man behind me. Got that? Good.

It seems that there are those who consider his use of the teleprompters excessive, even decrying his oratory abilities on the evidence that he needs such a crutch to give a speech to children. I think those people must have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid.

I try to think back to how I would have reacted when I was but a wee lad to the President visiting my school. This is fairly easy, since I mature emotionally in reverse dog years, or one year for every seven. So, I wonder: would I want Obama to come to my school as he did with all the trappings and trimmings, or would I want him to do it all informal-like and sit in a chair?

As far as I remember, the thing I most wanted when I was a kid was to be is older and bigger, and one of the things I hated most is being treated like a kid. If anything, I would want the President to bring in even more equipment, just like he might for the speeches the he might give to my parents. It couldn’t hurt to toss in some FBI guys in tactical gear with automatic machine guns prowling around as well.

Actually, scratch the FBI guys. Let’s make them Marines or Navy SEALs. Yeah. Hell yeah!

Nothing against you, FBI. You are awesome too, but for sheer coolness of gear the Marines and SEALs have you beat.

I remember Bush caught a lot of crap for the whole Mission Accomplished speech on the aircraft carrier thing, and I agree that it seemed a little hollow. His mistake was pulling that stunt for cynical skeptical adults. What he should have done is staged it in front of a sea of squirming kids, maybe shooting an automatic weapon in either hand as a nearby battleship fired a full broadside. Now that’s a speech I can get behind!

Hell, I don’t know. I’m not a political genius, but I do know that there’s plenty of time for being treated like a kid when you are one, and maybe not enough time for getting to see how the big boys do things before you’re too cynical to be awed by it.

I say well done, Mr President!

I am starting to wonder how much rain it will take before my apartment building slides off its muddy hill into the street like a pat of butter sliding on a hot skillet. Even the grass has given up.

The roof of my building features terra cotta tiles which are apparently prone to become dislodged occasionally. They are left with no alternative at this point but to plummet down into the yard. I know that they occasionally do this because there are two embedded out there. They struck the ground on their edges and now protrude from the earth like corn chips from a thick bowl of chili con carne.

I’ve been monitoring them for weeks, wondering who, if anyone, would remove them. No one has. I’ve never seen such a thing before and I was filled with delight when they weathered our recent snow storm still standing.

I took this as a sign from the universe that I should eat some chili and make some scientific observations about its effects. I know that chili gives me gas, but I also know that chili is delicious. What I needed to know for sure is how long after I consume chili am I, shall we say, best advised to not go out in public.

I knew it was going to be a rainy weekend so I wasn’t likely to emerge from my bunker until Sunday when I had a date planned, so on Friday afternoon I purchased some “Firehouse” style spicy chili at the grocery store. I brought it home and enjoyed a bowl of it.

Soon after, the show began. It must have sounded to my neighbors as though I was testing various duck calls. I can only hope that my closest neighbors, Upstairs Cutie and Smokey Hippie were not affected by the stench. Sometimes, certain allowances must be made in the name of Science.

I had to cancel my Friday night plans to meet my buddies and watch them drink beers, but I figured things would calm down soon. I was wrong.

On into the day on Saturday I was still emitting similar sounds to a trombone player being bear hugged during a solo. Saturday night came, and I again had to remain in my apartment lest I give anyone the impression that I have severe gastrointestinal issues which surely warrant a doctor’s attention. I began to experience concern that my Sunday date would have to be canceled as well.

I went for a run on Saturday night in hopes that the jostling of my organs would help to settle matters. I saw my friend Claire on the sidewalk while I was running and chose not to stop to talk. I just shouted a greeting as I ran by.

On Sunday I awoke wondering who was testing out their bagpipes with a ball peen hammer, only to discover that it was my own ass still under the effects of the chili. Things seemed to be quieting down, but there were still serious questions about my fitness for public consumption.

By this time, my stomach was making some percussive noises to accompany the horn section due to hunger. I had been drinking a lot of water in hopes that it would flush my system out, but I had eaten only small meals since my tasty but dangerous chili Friday afternoon. I didn’t want to introduce any more non-chili foods than necessary in order to remain as scientific as possible, but I was really, really hungry.

I went into the kitchen to survey food options. I opened the cupboard and there, like a plump delicious forbidden fruit, sat the other can of chili I bought Friday. Dang. I forgot about that two-for-one special.

“Okay,” I thought. “I’m hungry, and I have this can of delicious chili here, but I also have a first date with this girl later and if I eat it there is no way it can go well.”

The dilemma weighed upon me. Did I want to be full and happy, or potentially have a fun night with a lady friend? I went outside to consult the famous oracle Sidewalk Tomato, but it had dematerialized. Presumably someone somewhere else needs its guidance more than I. That, or a rat made off with it.

In time, after some sidewalk reflection, I decided that a bowl of chili now is better than an awkward first makeout session later.

“Fork it!” I exclaimed aloud to the neighborhood at large. I then rushed inside to make my chili. I hit it with a dash of cajun spices just for some extra kick, and it was glorious. So good!

Then the post-chili depression set in. What had I done? I could easily have made a tasty salad instead and saved myself the hassle of canceling a date. I fell to my knees in my living room, pausing briefly in the video game I was playing, and lamented to the heavens. “Why?” I pleaded. “Why?!”

Just then my phone booped and blorped that I had a message. My lady friend forgot she had a birthday party to attend, and wanted to know if we could reschedule.

I let fly with a horn solo that would have impressed even the legendary Dizzy Gillespie, un-paused my video game, and therein shot a terrorist square in the face.

Ah, the life of a single man. So many pleasures!