I’m sorry to have fallen short of my goal to blog more frequently. That was a wild two weeks, wasn’t it?!

I’ve been in Orlando for the past week, and that’s kept me borderline busy. Busy and sweaty. But thanks to gridlock and roads that look like they’ll lead somewhere but then end suddenly at a lake, I’ve had the opportunity to take a look around.

For instance, on my daily drive that covers about five miles but would normally last about an hour, I would pass this establishment.

Listen, bar owners, entrepreneurs have been trying to combine delicious word play and rhymes since the beginning of time (Imagine a guy named Grog telling his wife he was going to go grab a beer at the Rave Cave. His wife would respond, “That’s fine. I can do some shopping at the Posh Loincloth.”

But Gnarly Barley doesn’t make the beer sound appetizing.

It sounds like a something a horticulturalist cooked up in the back room of his horticulture lab… and then the Gnarly Barley became sentient and devoured the horticulturalist.

“Man, talk about gnarly!” the horticulturalist would say as he hung partly out of the Gnarly Barley’s mouth, winking at the camera as the credits started playing. Gnarly Barley would then make a slurping sound.

Just imagine if other restaurants started adopting language that makes them seem unpleasant:

…would then become:

Sure, it looks great on a banner, but doesn’t that sound less appetizing?

During the president’s visit, I parked in a garage a few blocks from the Amway Center.

“You’re parked in the Middle of Level Three,” I said to myself as I left, confident that I would have no trouble finding the car on my way back.

Then, on my way back, I stepped into an elevator with these options:

“Am I, let me see here, am I on the Dolphin Level?” I said to myself. “I feel like there was a red background painted around the three, but I’ve got to be a Dolphin or a Turtle.”

So I pressed 3. That seemed like the right decision to make. But listen to me: Orlando doesn’t much cotton to tourists telling them how to number dolphins. Obviously, I was on the butterfly level, or whatever that red thing is.

During the president’s visit, the media was corralled across the street from the Amway Center. After the president met with victims and families, the motorcade was lining up to head back to the airport.

At this point, a woman outside would faint. Paramedics staged with the motorcade came running out to help, but here’s the thing: the ambulance was part of the motorcade. So the paramedics had to call a freakin’ ambulance!

The woman didn’t have to go to the hospital. At one point, I would ask her husband how she was doing. He waved his hand and said, “Ah, she’s better.”

He still seemed a bit miffed at the civics lesson, though, so take note, students in American Government classes in high school: if you pass out in full view of paramedics sitting in an ambulance, it’s probably a good idea to be the president.

One more quick note, Orlando: Your dumpsters are grammatically incorrect.

They should read, “Take it to the curb [COMMA] Orlando.” Drivers wouldn’t have time to notice this if your roads led somewhere.