Schreck's Photo Diary: $.99 Wines!*

*NO REFUNDS

Welcome to the official first part of our ongoing photo series here at MM: the Schreck's Photo Diary! On tap today is a fine selection of wines in a "Merlot" (I think), a grenadine and a strawberry margarita daiquiri. I'm not sure about the "wine" classification as it is applied here (those Jero things are clearly labeled "cocktail mix"...), but who are we to argue with professionals? I'm sure "wine" is just one of those industry jargon words that can be used as a blanket term in certain situations (like when selling jake-leg inducing swill for outrageously deep discounts).

Anyway, this sign would not have really caught my attention had it not proclaimed that there would be no refunds. Really? Who would think they could get a refund on shitty wine? And since there is no similar sign on other products in the store, could I expect to get a refund on one of them if they don't meet with my standards? I've never thought to demand repayment for something like cheap booze--or anything else, honestly. If you can't see for yourself what you're getting into with these types of products then I think you should just have to eat the 99 cents.

Mercy Missiles Presents: The Schreck's Photo Diary

Readers, it has long been a goal of us here at Mercy Missiles to find some sort of over-arching theme or vignette to include to our usual brand of hard-hitting posts about things like Louisville, Kentucky, libraries, baseball, food and drink, Abraham Lincoln, and other such exciting topics. So in the "spirit" of that sentiment, I present to you today our new, reoccurring and semi-regular column: the Schreck's Photo Diary!

Schreck's is by far my favorite place to shop for beer, wine and spirits in the city of Louisville. It's located on Newburg road, not far from where I attended college (Bellarmine University). It is the very place where I purchased, for myself, my first alcoholic beverage with my newly minted drivers license at the age of 21. It is the store that has the very best bargains on the craziest sounding, below-the-bottom-shelf potent potables that may or may not have been created, marketed and distributed in another dimension (ask me about the time I actually passed up the opportunity to purchase, for 99 cents, a 12 ounce plastic bottle of fluorescent orange "liqueur" called Television! and now, 9 years later, no amount of Googling will validate my claim that this stuff ever existed...). It is also the place that, no matter how frequently I shop there, seems to have a completely different selection of the absolute worst crap everytime I go in (think: black licorice flavoring, red dye #5, and high fructose corn syrup).

But also keep in mind that they have an astoundingly comprehensive and impressive selection of (very) fine bourbon and whiskey (they had a bottle of Sazerac rye whiskey from Buffalo Trace's elusive Antique Collection the other day), not to mention a very reliable and respectable chilled beer case selection (imports along with domestic micro brews--even some local ones). You can also watch a tiny flickering T.V., listen to the 20 year old radio, buy lottery tickets and novelty lighters and all the other accoutrement that you'd expect from a normal liquor store, but with the added excitement of finding something truly and remarkably outlandish and/or horrible for almost no money. All this in roughly the same amount of space as your average public restroom. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Schreck's Kentucky Liquor Store Drive-In!

Anyone Can, But Male Does!

Wow, I just found this pencil at work today. The inscription on it reads:

"Anyone Can, But Male Does!"

Now, before you get too excited, I should note that there is a local high school with the name "Male," which I am assuming this pencil is endorsing. Still, can you really call that a definitively positive proclamation? I spent part of my morning puzzling this one out:

if anyone can do something, isn't it setting the bar a little low for yourself to brag about your institution doing what any old somebody could do? The pencil seems to be implying that this mysterious thing that can be done by anyone is actually not being done by anyone, but is in fact being done by Male. So...is this thing worthwhile or not? It seems like if it was, than everyone would be doing it (since we are told that they are capable). So...maybe not something worth bragging about, then? But seriously: what the hell is that something? School spirit? Why be so cryptic? Sure, there's not much space to work with, but it seems to me that you'd want to get your point across in as unequivocal a way as possible--you know, if you're gonna go to all the trouble of having custom pencils printed up. I mean, this is a high school-aged audience this pencil is addressing: you don't want to open the door to snarky, teenage-brand sarcasm so easily, make 'em work for it!

Speaking of "Performance Enhancers..."

So I've been running pretty regularly for about 5 months or so, and (as is typical for me when I find myself getting habitual about something) I've become fixated on the various paraphernalia and minutia associated with the activity. Things like socks, for example, used to be a fairly cut-and-dried topic for me, but now it seems like a much deeper subject with myriad considerations, draw-backs, pros, cons, pitfalls and choices. I've read whole articles just about socks, and it was (en)gross(ing) stuff.

I thought running would be different from past fixations (see also: camping, knitting, biking) simply because it didn't seem to call for any extra stuff. I figured I could be spartan about the whole enterprise because it seemed like the most simple activity. "All you really need is a good pair of shoes," I says, "no fancy equipment or gym memberships or anything...you just go outside and, uh, start running." Well, theoretically, sure. But for me any activity worth pursuing is also worth reading up on, and everything I read about running entails having extra things, just for running--and after a few times out I found myself fantasizing about things like socks.

It all started when I visited a running specialty store to have myself fitted for those shoes. The weirdly friendly high school track kid who worked there informed me that I "supinate". I had never really thought about how I walk before, but of course, after a definitive diagnosis, now I think about it all the time. I read up on "pronating" (the tendency of the foot to roll either inwards or outwards during a stride); one thing lead to another and before long I was knee deep in information: interval training, electrolytes, "technical" clothing, hydration, proper form, singlets, pace, and "energy gel," among other things.

I immediately discounted any of the mathematics--I'm just not going to try and figure any of that pacing and interval stuff out (typical, everyday sorts of math tends to give me hives, so nevermind anything extra). But then I started wondering about the others, especially "energy gel." Initially I found the idea of eating something while running repugnant--I'd get nauseous during a run in those first couple of months, and weird viscous ooze in pretentious little pouches seemed not just ridiculous and unnecessary, but ill-advised. Still, Runner's World magazine is always going on about the stuff, so I was intrigued enough to buy one and keep it in my desk drawer.

About a month ago I finally took it out on a run with me in my pocket--it was another week before I got the nerve to actually try it. I hadn't eaten anything in a while before I left for a 6 mile run and I was actually getting hungry, so it seemed like the thing to do. It was Powerbar brand gel in a strawberry banana flavor that I can only describe as "obnoxious;" my first tentative taste nearly made me gag. I ran for a while with the resolution to not eat the remainder, but after a few minutes I actually felt a surge of energy! I gulped down the rest, and all that sugar (10 grams!), caffeine (25 mg!) and carbohydrates (27g!) were going to work, mainlining into my bloodstream, showing me a giddy vision of a performance-enhanced, ginseng-fueled, power trip-y Valhalla that turned the rest of my little run into a Mountain Dew commercial.

So needless to say, I'm hooked on the stuff now. I've also found better flavors, mostly in the "coffee" flavored realm, although the above-pictured GU brand "Chocolate Outrage" is both delicious (kind of like a cake frosting, in both taste and texture) and curiously named (I like when a product is given an ambiguous name that can be easily misinterpreted: "You call this chocolate, sir?? Outrageous!"). I'm limiting my intake of energy gel to longer runs only--I'm a bit nervous about developing a new co-dependency--and no more than 2 per week (although I'm planning on carrying 2 or 3 with me during my impending half-marathon in the Spring). Besides being nervous about eating too much of this stuff (and maybe elevating weird chemical levels in my body or something), I also want to avoid developing a tolerance, thus minimizing that beautiful, lookit-me-Imma-runnin'-machine! effect. Afterall, the last thing I need is to be out in the streets, chasing a dragon.

The Waning Days of Senator Jim Bunning

The news that Senator Jim Bunning (R-Ky) will be retiring after this term has put a serious dent in the frequency of our Crazy Jimmy B related postings here at MM. The truth is, there hasn't really been much to report on: he's been flying pretty much under the radar, laying low since the retirement announcement this summer. Very low. Like, he has apparently stopped showing up altogether. Remember the Christmas Eve vote on health care reform? Yeah, well, Jimmy was the only member of the U.S. Senate to flake out--everybody else seemed to think this whole health care thing is, like, a big deal or something, so they showed up for the vote. But not our Jimmy--his spokesman said it was because he had a "prior family commitment." Uh, huh. Apparently grandma Bunning's Christmas eggnog was more important than showing up to do his job. Or who knows, maybe he had a nap scheduled.

& speaking of naps: Joseph Gerth reported today on the state of relations between Jim-Bunning-replacement-hopeful Trey Grayson and the Republican Good Ol' Boy Dynamic Duo (McConnell/Bunning). Grayson's goofy response was priceless: "I've talked with them...they've been really busy with health care." Yeah, Trey: "really busy." Sure. Really busy not showing up to vote on it? Really busy falling asleep during Senate Finance Committee considerations?

Trey tried to make Bunning look like, well, something other than a total taxpayer-mocking dick. He started off by stating a fact: "He [Bunning] is on the finance committee." Yes, good. Keep going, Trey: "The Senate Finance Committee met from...was it October when they started?" (Nope--September) "...I know he fell asleep in one, but he was in those meetings and really engaged." Um ,"really engaged"? Dude, he was napping!

Can't wait til the Grayson for U.S. Senate teevee ads start airing.

Inane Best Sellers Now Read For You...

Since I work in a public library you may imagine I deal more with steamy pulp mysteries, Mormon vampire "literature" and hot cake chick-lit bestsellers than I do with "good" literature. You would be absolutely right about that. And while I really shouldn't pretend to be any better than those middle-aged housewives who get all glassy-eyed over Robert Pattinson--many of my past reads have been less than great art, after all (ask me about my shameful consumption of fan fiction and Star Trek "novels" sometime...)--I can't help but be a little judgmental.

Still, as part of my job at the library I am expected to provide guidance to our patrons in the form of what we in the library trade call "readers' advisory" service. I'd say 85-90% of the people I talk to in this capacity want to know what I thought about the latest Janet Evonovich mystery or whatever. Readers, I just can't bring myself to crack open those types of books, so I was extremely happy to stumble upon William Boot's new blog over at The Daily Beast wherein he reads these sorts of things for me, and then unloads the skinny in a quick, easily digested essay. I was especially impressed with his description of the new James Patterson phenom, and his observations about Patterson himself are pretty enlightening. As everyone knows, no other author this side of Danielle Steel cranks out more books in a year than Patterson, the fact of which leads one to wonder many things--all summed up nicely by Boot in his blog, which will be helping me immensely in dealing with my advisory shortcomings.

Baseball Steroid Scandal's Worst Kept Secret

Um, is ANYONE surprised at the news Monday about Mark McGwire finally admitting he used steroids and HGH during the '90s (including the year he hit 70 home runs)? I remember watching him lie, ahem, testify to Congress in 2005--I was on my lunch break back when I was delivering mail for the Post Office, and the horrible Lyndon BBQ joint I stopped at had their giant TV tuned to ESPN for the occasion. McGwire's comically huge head and rippled he-man shoulders filled the screen as crocodile tears streamed down his red, veiny cheeks and he promised that the tell-all book that the big, bad, attention whoring Jose Canseco wrote was nothing but an insidious web of lies.

Of course McGwire was the liar (could anyone have foreseen that Jose Canseco would ever be considered the most honest guy in baseball??). One by one, nearly every player Canseco outed for taking steroids and HGH has had to come forward and admit it, for one reason or another. McGwire's reason is that he wants to "come clean" so that St. Louis will hire him as a batting coach. Really, Mark? And why did you feel the need to do that? Maybe because he knew everyone saw through his embarrassing Congressional testimony for the blatant, transparent perjury that it was?

And now here he is looking for forgiveness in one of the most unforgiving organizations--baseball has doled out lifetime suspensions for criminal and/or shady behavior, and this situation should be no different (sorry, Pete Rose--I liked your hustle, but you turned out to be a pathetic lying bum, and there should be no awards for that). Additionally, his record breaker 1998 70 home runs should be expunged from the record books--an asterisk is too good for him--and all other known cheats (I'm looking at you, A-Fraud) should be tossed out in short order. Now let's hear what Barry Bonds has to say for himself (schmuck).