One of the things I like about myself (and I have in common with my friends) is that if we aren't enjoying an experience, we are out. Doesn't matter where, or with whom, or how inebriated we happen to be - we are just gone. When great conversation turns dull, or when the hottie we wanted just left, sometimes it's time to just get the hell out - no matter what the guests left behind think.

It's rarely an impulse decision, but based on a through understanding of the best and worst case scenario. And when the worst case is bad and very likely, and the best case is not much better - then it is time to go.

I was out with a new group of Arabic and Hispanic folks the other night, and I was invited out by a girl who I never met face to face (it's a long story). It was a bit awkward, given I only knew two people (who didn't know anyone else), but I can handle awkward. Anyway, one of the girls there was this Columbian knockout - who looked like the final product back from when God took itemized orders from horny guys when he was making women. Great skin, hot face, sultry accent, huge tits, everything you want. Aside from the minor stretch marks indicating that she spent a hell of a lot of time in the gym to look the way she did - she was pretty much hotter than any girl I could reasonably expect to pick up at Twisted Taco or anywhere else0 in Midtown Atlanta. So after my friends left, I stuck around.

The conversation got a little insane... the Colombian turned out to be married to the guy next to her (although she wore no wedding ring, or had a visible shadow on her ring finger), and also turned out to be a stripper. Suddenly her admission that she had a thing for black guys, and the constant touching of my hands and my knees lost all material signficance. Another woman at the table was a tall white girl with huge tits and turned out to be a former stripper. She spoke with an air of a life fully lived, but with plenty of bruises inside and out from when life decided to kick her ass for a while. She steered the conversation at the table towards ideas that she picked up during her prize fight with life, with the expectation that those ideas count as wisdom. The biggest (and funniest) thing to come out was the magic formula to take home a girl from a bar (it involves a specific number of shots and lies), as well as why you should avoid complementing a girl on her period.

After the cigarette smoke that hung in the humid Atlanta air started giving me a headache, it was time to go. Especially since the Columbian started in on the speeches she gives to her marks in strip clubs about how she will never fuck them, yet they still pay her thousands just to talk. She even emphasized that she was treating me like the mark, only I didn't have to pay. Since I don't make a habit of seducing married women, especially when their husbands are sitting next to them; I didn't feel the need to break her down.

Some people feel the need to take on all comers when they are slighted. When it happens to me, I always do a quick reality check. A) Best/worse case scenario; B) Is it worth it. When a jackass tried to steal my parking spot on my first date with a hot girl, dammit I made it clear I will get out of the car and kick some ass. I got the space, and got the girl. I tend to never back down in bars, because too many guys are wanting to prove themselves, and too many drunk girls take stock in that kinda shit. At a table with no single women or guys I know, I am not gonna take down some girl if the best case scenario is having her sneak around her husband's back. It just isn't worth it.

I hope this made some sense.

Life Doesn't Just Happen

I have trouble dealing with people who go through life like they are driving a car without their hands on the wheel. Sure, you can speed up, slow down, and if the wheels are perfectly aligned - you are gonna mostly go in a straight line. But as soon as you hit a bump, until you grab the wheel you are careening towards disaster. The worst is when people think that since the bump wasn't their fault (it wasn't), that they are no longer responsible for what happens next (though they are).

The most vivid illustration of this is a story from High School. I was a junior taking lots of honors courses, and one day I come down with the chicken pox. Yes, I had the chicken pox in High School. One nasty little fact I learned about that disease is that the boils and symptoms are worse the older you get - so having it as 16 was pure hell. Boils and crusty pusey bumps literally covered me from head to toe. The itching sensation was so strong, in response my body developed a baseline of discomfort and ignored only the worse bouts of painful itching as just heat. My mom even resorted to clipping my nails and covering my hands with socks so I wouldn't scratch off the scabs and leave permanent scars. Up to that day, my skin was flawless.

After about a week, my Dad would come home with file folders filled with homework, including an assignment to write a one-act play. I protested, complaining of everything I mentioned above and more, and argued that I shouldn't have to bother until I got better. Dad simply pointed out that if I waited, it would take forever to catch up. It would be awful now, but I would be a lot happier if I returned to school healthy without having a ton of work waiting for me. And he was right.

The auto insurance commercials are right, "life comes at you fast." This summer I had two major customer presentations to develop in Powerpoint and present - even though my laptop with all my work was stolen the week before. While I thankfully have a Blackberry and a generously large email file quota to save me, simply cancelling the meetings was out of the question. Even though things may go to hell in handbasket, lines like "Get it done" or "just do it" aren't just sloganeering, it is a mindset that works through bad luck.

I am not a fan of people who refuse to be solution oriented - or who simply give up at the first roadblock they come across. It's one thing to avoid the wrong path, it's quite another to want something and give up just because it didn't come easy.

Coletrain.org: Rated M for Mature

Well, there seems to be a lot of high schoolers on my Facebook these days. And, to their credit, their parents have access to their children's profiles. Surprisingly enough, I have a good reputation in some circles and I plan to keep it that way.

So, I am no longer pushing Tales From the Dark Side to my Facebook profile and to your newsfeeds.

If you are interested in following the goings on of Coletrain, the Nati, Miss Daisy, and the missing MadAngler - you are going to just have to visit http://www.coletrain.org/blog.html . Or if you have RSS (inc. Google Reader and My Yahoo!) - then plug in http://feeds.feedburner.com/SoDoYouKnowMattCole .

Accept this incovenience, I ain't sorry.

Summer is almost overah... Thank God!

Well, I don't know about you - but this summer royally sucked wind. No brahsome foreign vacations with hot chicks with accents, no tense fencing at Summer Nationals, no Summer of George with 100% less employment and 100% more drinking, no giant fraternity conferences and the attending parties after dark. Just work, sleep, more work, and lots of "holy crap for crap" I need to hit the gym moments. Which also explains why you haven't seen a whole lot of very cool blog posts from me. Hell, here is a recap of the last six summers.





Summer 2002 - Ibiza, Spain


Summer 2003 - Dallas, TX


Summer 2004 - Minneapolis, MN


Summer 2005 - Myvatn, Iceland


Summer 2005 - New Orleans, LA


Summer 2006 - Atlanta, GA


Summer 2007 - Deadspin at Turner Field - Atlanta, GA


This summer (not me pictured, but representative)


Not to say the summer has been uneventful - Atlanta nightlife and party scene always offers something - but nothing too insane this time around. The biggest news this month for me is the discovery of a hip scene called Bricktown in Oklahoma City. Exciting! It even features a bar and grill owned by Toby Keith! But other than that, pretty much routine.

This is also not to say that I don't appreciate being a critical member of my team at work who finds it difficult to take even a single day of uninterrupted vacation. I get it, it is part of the life - a life I want to enjoy (the money helps too). And while I lived it up during the Summer of George (see link and above), the piper came calling that next winter and spring.

Still, I miss the days of half day Fridays where I could lay out by the pool at 2pm, or had the leisure time to work out three times a day during the week. These days, organization, self discipline, sacrifice, and the Blackberry rule the day. At least I am getting paid for it.

Better still, fall brings SEC football and the glory of the NFL, free booze parties, and patio events with women in sexy sundresses and weather that doesn't leave me dripping after five minutes. Autumn rules!

Killing My Tastebuds

Good taste is a delicate thing. The ability to taste the subtle notes in a 10 year old merlot, the interplay of cayenne and coconut in good Thai, or enjoy the homemade greens just like Mom used to make is a special thing.

Sometimes I wonder if I lost my sense of taste. I was at Dixie Tavern with friends last Thursday, and ordered the extra hot wings. Everyone warned me they were heavy duty, but I ignored them. The wings tasted mildy spicy to me, but not at all. Then I accidently touched my eye, and had visions of the drive-by pepperspraying I got in downtown Reykjavik. The intense itching, the sweating, the feeling of capsaicin and salty tears burning its way down my face. Thankfully, the eyes also lose their sensitivity to hot spices over time.

Even though the burning has subsided, it makes me wonder - is it really true you can have too much of a good thing? Would years of traffic cause the yellow brick road to lose its lustre? What a pity if it were possible to pan a well cooked filet or quality Beluga caviar because you've had it so many times before.

It Had To Happen Sometime

Everybody has dating dealbreakers. Even me. Rules that are in place to stop you from dealing with someone who has problems that you don't need to absorb. No matter how hot he/she is, these rules are immutable and are for your own protection.

There are the obvious ones... must look good, must have job, disease free, must not be nor ever have been a prostitute, must not be into anything overly weird like sounding or pegging, must not be uber duber super freak, etc.

But as a black man who dates all races, I never thought about adding this one: "must not be direct descendant of slave owners." I suppose it was only a matter of time given that I live and socialize in the South. Still, when I was looking over a magazine with a white woman I was out with and she pointed out a local as someone whose ancestor her family may have owned - I was kinda blindsided. It was the emotional equivalent of a major injury - the nerves deactivate themselves allowing you to get to help only to bring the pain once you are under care.

How do you process something like that? How do you bring it up again? Why, as a slave owner descendant, would you bring it up if you aren't proud of it? Even Strom Thurmond preferred to forget that he shares that sinister connection to Rev. Al Sharpton. It begs a lot of uncomfortable questions that have even less digestible answers.

Yikes.

I DON'T SEE NOTHING WRONG!!!! R KELLY ACQUITTED!

From Yahoo! News...

5 minutes ago

CHICAGO - A Chicago jury has acquitted R. Kelly on all counts at his child pornography trial.

Absolutely fantastic... FEEL IT for the R! I am dancing in my office right now... doing the love slide...

"My mind is telling me no, but my BODY, MY BODY IS TELLING ME YESS..." My body has a good lawyer, I must CON FESESSESSSSS, to you.