Dude:  Listen B, you scratched my fender and busted out my taillight.  You did!




















"It’s this computer thing Nick found.  He just typed in your number and the computer called you and played the joke on you.”


"Okay, we’ll email you the recording.  It’s hilarious.”


To hear the entire drama unfold, visit http://www.prankdial.com/listen/993466803.  (And if you want to hear how they got my dad with a fake pizza delivery, check out http://www.prankdial.com/listen/993360865).

You might recall my unsuccessful efforts last year to sell my genius mystery ideas on ebay.  It turned out people didn't want to buy a "promise to tell you my really good idea" even though I included a 2 year warranty and claimed that "the right entrepreneur can make millions, if not billions." 

My most recent brainstorm, which I will share the business model for in a moment, came to me the other day as I listened to two little old ladies clucking about the declining quality of their “stories.”  (Stories are soap operas in granny speak.  Grannies refer to them as “my stories.”  For example, “Marisa, help me figure out your Grandpa’s stupid new remote.  My stories are about to start.”) 



  ·   General Hospice
  ·   The Old and the Zestless
  ·   One-Sixteenth of a Life Left to Live
  ·   The Last Few Days of Our Lives
  ·    Don’t Walk Toward the Guiding Light

For the Savvy Entrepreneur: Metal Detecting Sandals
Historically, many would-be millionaires have shied away from their dreams of combing the beaches for gold coins and forgotten Rolexes because they didn't want to look like a dork with one of those big clunky detecting rods. If you know someone who has lots of potential but just can't hold a job because they dream of bigger and better things, metal detecting sandals - with their perfect hybrid of style and function - may just be the long-awaited answer.



For the Busy Athlete: Toilet Bike
Talk about killing two birds with one stone.  These are all the rage.  Go the extra mile and have the bowl customized with a cute saying like "Drop it like it's hot." Toilet bikes come in a wide range of price points, from the less expensive older models to the more expensive luxury models.  Recipients of this thoughtful gift can wipe away their tears of surprise and gratitude with the toilet paper you'll cleverly plant in their stocking.

Vintage model suitable for hipsters. Optional duct tape comes in four colors.

Luxury model for the well-to-do person who wants to get from A to B without pulling over to P.

For the Health Nut: Ear Scope TV

You've probably all been freaking out that I went away and was never ever going to come back but chill the monkey because I'm never going away completely.  Like the Terminator, cockroaches, and herpes I will always come back.

I've not been slacking.  I've been working very hard at having me some good adventures to blog about - you know: running a marathon, being the victim of another hit-and-run, etc. 

I've also reconceptualized the blog.  Going forward my posts will probably be shorter but hopefully more frequent.  This is partly to make it more convenient for my readers but mostly because I'm working earnestly on a book version of the blog and if I keep giving away the milk for free no one is going to buy my cow.  The posts will be snippets from longer stories you will (hopefully) one day be able to read in my book. 

Hope you enjoy the new format!

I'm in the market for an iPad and have been doing some research.  I created a decision workbook in Excel, in which I entered the specs of all the different iPads I could buy, assigned each spec a score and weight of importance, then calculated the final score to help me determine which tablet I should buy.  Yes, I have issues making small decisions.  Oddly enough I can make big decisions in under a second.

I hate running – absolutely hate it.  So imagine my surprise and horror when I announced I would run the Chicago Marathon this October.  I was pretty peeved since, as I said, I hate running.  But I said I was going to do it and I even added it to my Bucket List (an interactive Excel workbook that links my goals to a series of action items and deadlines) so there was no turning back.

I jumped into action right away – that is, I did some major Lululemon shopping and put a lot of thought into an inspirational iPod playlist.  With these important milestones behind me I moved into the planning phase.  That is, I casually mentioned to my trainer Katie that I'd like some sort of help with a training schedule but added that there was no big rush.  Of course Katie emailed me a comprehensive plan that very afternoon so before I knew it I found myself in the visualization phase, in which I studied my schedule and spent several weeks visualizing myself running and receiving major accolades such as finisher’s medals and free water bottles.

Next I moved into the dreaded deployment phase.  Day 1 of this phase (in January) began with a four minute walk on the treadmill which led to a brief moment of walking away from the treadmill with the thought that this wasn’t for me, immediately followed by a sense of guilt that led me (annoyed and indignant) back to the treadmill.  I’d forgotten my iPod at home that day so I had a perfectly legitimate reason to skip my first run but, being the hardcore athlete that I am I turned on my machine’s little TV and ran to the beat of Maury which, in case you were wondering, is 32 ptpm (paternity tests per minute).

Twenty minutes or so into my run I again felt like calling it a day but just then Maury called a commercial break and if I wanted to find out the results of Princess’s paternity tests (was her husband Jose the father of her 8-week-old asthmatic twins or was it Jose’s father Miguel?) I would have to run through at least another four minute commercial break to find out.  I decided to hang in there, even though it meant sitting through another round of commercials for community colleges and personal injury lawyers and boy was I glad I stuck around – and not just because I was witness to the shocking revelation that neither Jose nor Miguel was the father (I personally was rooting for the unlikely but biologically feasible situation in which Jose would be the father of one and Miguel would be the father of the other so everybody in this story could be a winner) but because I discovered the valuable art of distraction.

As my runs grew longer I’ve had to refine my ability to entertain myself.  I found Maury was only good for about 30 minutes before the novelty of finding amusement in other people’s sad yet largely self-inflicted situations wore off. 

I eventually reached a point in my training when there was no such thing as a 30 minute run so I moved on to music.  I had a go-to playlist (titled “Oh Yeah Baby!”) for pumping myself up that included very homogenous artists such as Dwight Yoakam, Nicki Minaj, Korn, Tupac, and Men at Work. 

Now, I get really into a song when I’m by myself.  Like, I feel the song.  If it’s a female artist I always fantasize that I am up on stage in some cute themed outfit rocking the crowd and just being a general all-around badass. If it’s a male singing I always pretend he wrote the song about me and that he’s thinking about me as he sings it.  Sometimes the songs men sing about women are unflattering, though, so in those instances I pretend that the man is so bitter about losing me that he wrote an uncomplimentary, inaccurate song about me.

For now, music seems to be doing the trick.  If I ever need to switch it up I’ve got some ideas on the back burner including books on tape and performance drugs but I’m really hoping I won’t have to resort to books on tape.

I’ve come a long way since January.  The most important turning point in my running “career” came this past weekend when I ran in Chicago’s Shamrock Shuffle, an 8K through the Loop.  I was apprehensive beforehand - not because of the mileage; I’d done more than 5 miles before – but because I had yet to run outside.  Yeah, major oversight, but you try running in Chicago and let me know how it goes.  Option 1 is running along the lake, but since we’ve had an unseasonably warm March the path has become a landmine of dog turds, Segway tour groups, and pedestrians who don’t understand the concept of keeping to the right.  Option 2 is running through the city and stopping every 30 seconds for a traffic light which is not exactly a realistic representation of what running on a closed course will be like. 

I’d heard over and over again that running outside is so much harder than running on a treadmill so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I showed up for the Shuffle on March 25 in Grant Park.  It was a beautiful, warm day with a light breeze.  The weather was perfect.  I lined up in my corral and soon enough we were off. 

Because of all the warnings about the difficulty of running outdoors, I figured I’d play it safe and pace myself at a 10 minute mile for the first mile and see how I felt at the first marker.  I jogged along comfortably but when I glanced at my watch after the first mile I realized only 8 minutes and 30 seconds had passed.  I stepped it up a little, certain I’d miscalculated, but when I looked at my watch at mile 2 I realized my comfortable pace outdoors was much quicker than my comfortable pace on the treadmill.

Then it hit me: All the people who’d told me that running outside was harder than running on the treadmill were people who didn’t run.  Running outside was a walk in the park.  I loved it!  I felt comfortable and I didn’t need my music to keep me going – I had actual landmarks and changing scenery and beautiful weather and people to judge. 

“Hey there!” shouted the dorky fellow, waving giddily.

The blonde chick rolled her eyes.

The guy turned to his friend and said, “Wow, Chicagoans huh?  What a friendly bunch.”

Of course I immediately started thinking of all the things I would like to say to this guy but probably never would.  First of all we can’t be sure she’s a Chicagoan just because she’s in Chicago.  That would be like dropping your phone in the toilet and assuming your phone's a turd just because it's in the toilet.  Second, just where are you from sir?  Apparently a magical land where hot chicks fall for the old feverish grin-and-wave move from the sweaty guy who runs by in five inch neon shorts.

I was still fantasizing about how this conversation would go when a substantial non-Shamrock Shuffling woman, who I’m fairly certain was a Chicagoan based on the radar I have for this sort of thing, moseyed  across the street perpendicular to all us runners trying to get our exercise on just so she could get to the Dunkin’ Donuts.  You know the sort of mosey I’m talking about.  Nose up in the air, lips pursed like she doesn’t give two shamrocks about how rude she’s being, legs flipping forward like she’s some mega hot supermodel milking the runway…  In hindsight I should have purposely run into her but it would have been like a Smart Car hitting a Mack truck.  She’d probably feel a little thump, do a quick check to make sure I didn’t cause another dimple, then continue toward her donuts.

I finished the Shamrock Shuffle in 42:51 which is not a good time.  It was in the 89^th percentile of all female finishers but, honestly, a lot of people run this race just to have another excuse to dust the puke off their St. Patrick’s Day costumes and celebrate so I wasn't terribly proud about outperforming this particular crowd.

After crossing the finish line I took 7 or so of the goodie bags that we were supposed to grab one of and walked home feeling much better about this whole running thing.  I immediately logged my race miles in my exercise log – a multi-tab Excel workbook I created to keep track of my weight, miles run, miles walked, miles biked, minutes spent Ellipticalling, squats squatted, lunges lunged, planks planked, calf raises raised, and pushups pushed.  All this data feeds into a summary tab which tells me what my best-performing month for each category is, how many year-to-date miles/lunges/squats/etc. I’ve achieved, and how many more miles/lunges/squats/etc. I have to go before reaching my yearly goal.  There are also a few calculators including a BMI calculator that returns a response of “Ew! Stop eating!” for  BMI values in the overweight and obesity ranges.

In the week following the Shamrock Shuffle I decided to bite the bullet.  I signed up for the Lakeshore 10 Miler, the Door County Half-Marathon, and the Chicago Marathon.  The 10 miler is the weekend before the half marathon which could be a good thing (if I use it as a warm-up to the halfer) and a bad thing (if I try to break a record but end up breaking an ankle). 

The Chicago Marathon is a safe distance into the future (October) but it’s exactly one month after my 30^th birthday which means I might still be hung over.  Also, the Chicago Marathon was sold out when I decided to sign up for it so I signed up to run on a team for charity, which means I am now legally obligated to raise millions of dollars in exchange for my place on the team.  Kind of like when Ariel has to give up her voice to get legs except giving up her voice was probably a good thing because boys don’t like to listen to girls talk anyway.  Prince Eric was probably pissed when that sea shell broke and Ariel’s voice floated back into her throat.

So anyway I now have to raise an insane amount of capital ($750) for Children’s Memorial Hospital.  If I don’t raise $750 they’ll charge my credit card $750 and I only have a $250 limit. 

And you can’t forget the importance of social media in promoting yourself and your need for $750.  I’ve let all my fans know they can expect live tweets from the race – including up-to-the-minute announcements on how sweaty I am, how badly I have to pee, and how sore my joints are. 

The official logo of my need for $750.