AI Fit

In less than two weeks, we will convene AI-XV. As Gordon has repeatedly said over the years, "who am I and why I am I here?" He also has stressed that the AI is more than golf, more than a game, it is a test of endurance, an event that demands one be in peak physical condition in order to successfully compete. Ask Reefer what a slight deviation in preparation can do to one's ability to perform at the level necessary to corral the coveted championship. There is a big difference between fit and AI fit. A fine line between kidding oneself that one is ready for the unrelenting pressure and actually being ready. And we're not just talking about golf here. This is an event that demands much from its attendees, which brings to mind the AI creed: "from whom much is demanded, little is ever actually produced."

To that end, the AI steering committee, sometimes confused with the steerage committee, has undertaken to insure that all attendees, regardless of gender, purpose, or wardrobe, are in the requisite condition to participate fully in AI-XV. Thus, and ergo, we have worked tirelessly with the finest trainers in the world to provide a conditioning program that will insure that everyone has the tool they need to prepare properly.

We know that most participants have been diligently following a rigorous regimen as they ready themselves for what can only be described as 4 grueling days. For those disciplined individuals we say 'bravo' and hope that the attached will be the final touch you need to get you to the mountain top. For those who may have put their program off (who could be so disorganized?) we cannot stress enough the importance of following this AI sanctioned physical fitness program in the short time remaining.

We have tailored the program specifically to help both men (first demonstration) and women (2nd demonstration).

Godspeed, John Glenn.

To wit:

I Don't Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling

As those who follow the ramblings on the AI Blog know, bowling is my life; if you call this living. As clearly the worst bowler in the history of Bowling For Sotweeds, if not in the history of bowling (perhaps Reef could add such a course to his departmental offerings: "The History of Bowling: Why? No, Really, Why?) my attitude toward this 'sport' has become somewhat, shall we say, cynical, nay, dismissive, or some might say, jealously cloying.
Thus, I have embarked on a mission to improve my technique. This quest, as demonstrated by the inanest award in sport (the Comeback Player of the Year), is predicated on first being an abject failure. Part One - Success!! For Part Two, I had wanted to meet the only two bowlers I ever knew: Andy Varipapa and, oh, you know, that other guy who used to be on ABC with Chris Schenkel and a seemingly autonomous hand with a giant marker filling in the scores with perfect penmanship. But, they're all dead. So it goes.

I thus put myself in the hands of this modern day bowling savant; there are two words that have never been uttered in sequence before. If I had a father like this kid, I would have been great, too. Soon I will love bowling. Or maybe not.

Stan IS the Man

Looking dapper in his Apartment Invitational Blazer (although his has obviously washed too much as it is a bit lighter than when new), our muse, STAN, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom this week. Now we wait, as it is certainly only a matter of time until the rest of the AI joins Stan in this elite club. Or, we could simply claim joint ownership of the award as fellow Stans.

Stansian Economics

The economic crisis that began with the unraveling of Bear Stearns in the spring of 2008 and continued with the stunning, nearly paralyzing failure of Lehman Brothers 6 months later, an investment bank that dated back to 1850, transformed everyone in the industrialized world into amateur, albeit expert, economists. Suddenly we learned new words like credit default swap and mortgage tranche and why they led the world's credit markets to seize up like Reef's back at the AI. Everyone knew they should have had their retirement money somewhere else when the DJIA was at 6,547 in March of 2009 and should have sold their house before we found out that it was worth 50% of what it used to be 'worth' a couple of weeks earlier. Then we forgot about it, because Obama is a socialist Kenyan who wants to take our guns away and have sex with our wives or even gay sex with our husbands. Plus, he's half black, which is a minimum of 50% too much.

Everyone was freaked out that George W. Bush's term of near genius economic management was coming to an end and Barack Obama, the radical, Commie, Muslim whose parents, during the year and a half they were married, devised a cunning plan upon his birth to make him President 47 years later. Yes, the Stepford Manchurian candidate baby Obama was going to be President. So everyone got fired. Something like 8 million fucking people lost their jobs just because their companies were panicked that Obama or that pants-suited bitch on wheels, Hilary, was coming into office and was going to change all the great economic policies that W had instituted and might pull the plug on those really fun wars, force health insurance companies to insure sick people or insist that research be conducted by actual scientists instead of Christian 'scientists.'

Anyway, fun times. However, as always, the bulwark AI maintained its fierce sense of community and altruistic bent throughout this and the ensuing terrible time of stimulus and common sense. Our charitable work with the Peyronie's Institute has been well documented, but not many are aware of the public relations campaign we have mounted to help restore economic dignity and good old fashioned easy credit to the American people. Jobs, salaries, no taxes, more services, shopping and great credit scores. We are bull-shittish on America.

What is the Internet?

I don't want to name names (Gordon, Reef, Paze), but the AI is not only, like patriotism, a last refuge of scoundrels but also a gathering place for the technologically inept. Until recently, nearly half the field did not own a cell phone. One player was forced to return his iPhone because he could not get it to work. It bears noting that this player has a Ph.D. Others are infamously incapable of visiting a blog or surfing the web while the idea of communicating via Twitter or Facebook is as unlikely as the idea of conquering Everest. Not Mt. Everest. Everest Kuenhackel - world Chutes & Ladders champion.

The attached video depicts the former cast of NBC's Today Show reenacting a typical conversation at the AI.