• HEY @KeithAlberstadt I’m watching Florida play football.. turns out Vanderbilt has sports teams?! Thought you’d like to know. #
• Back in Atlanta. What’s fun to do at 2am here? Hook it up somebody. #
• so far I’m hearing ‘hookers’ and ‘blow’ both of which requires money in amounts that I do not have, but are otherwise fine suggestions. #
• @ChadRiden no money if you do it right. (via @JaneHaze) #
• @JaneHaze I’ve read all the Iceberg Slim books, but my pimp game is terribly insufficient for such an endeavor. in reply to JaneHaze #
• Dragged to super douche nightclub.. It smells like Red Bull and sweat. Also many girls with great personalities! Ugh. (via @azizansari) #
• “My stand-up career started sluggish—then tapered off.” Zane Sickle, Comic/Adventurer For Hire (via @veinarmor) #
• Make a marketing post; it trips some keyword auto-follow thing the marketers use. Try it—don’t follow back! (via @veinarmor) #
• Tonight’s my last night in Atlanta for a while: 8pm @ the Punchline w/ Larry Miller & Patti Vasquez http://tinyurl.com/yetmoce #
• Listening to Marc Maron rant about his “validate me!” ‘status updates’ on WTF ep.3 #
• …and relating completely. Listen to his podcast, it’s fantastic. #
• Mississippi has declared a State of Emergency. It’s not the tropical storm coming.. they just realized that they live in Mississippi. #
• I’m at Zanies in Chicago tonight. I lived in DuPage county as a kid.. It feels like going back to a home i’ve never been to. #
• I had fun in Atlanta this weekend, but not the “bust in your house with Katt Williams and rob you” kinda fun: http://tinyurl.com/y8a8tbh #
• crashed at the Chicago NashvilleStandUp.com Outpost near Wrigley Field w/ Damian Anaya, @AlexKendig & @BenBergman. On to Wausau, WI tonight. #
• I don’t want to jinx it, but so far all signs point to this being a horrific disaster of a night. I smell “nightmare one nighter.” #
• Warning sign #1: instead of hotel info, bookers instructions say to call the club mgr’s cell when i get close. #
• Bad sign #2: managers phone rings and rings and goes to voicemail. #
• Oh shit #3: at the venue, nobody to be found, but chippendales promo posters outnumber comedy night stuff 30:1 #
• #4: bartender says, “oh there probably won’t be anyone here tonight. we just changed the night we do comedy. Last week we had seven people.” #
• #5: 20 minutes pass.. manager does not call back. bartender calls him, he picks right up. He’ll be there in 10 min. #
• #6: the key to the hotel room is an actual key. Make that motel.. And not a nice one. #
• #7: I didn’t even need the key. My motel room door is slightly ajar and extremely murdery! Room is gross, old, dirty, and smelly. #
• #8 the mattresses are covered in plastic. They are the ONLY things in the room that are not filthy. #
• BTW, while I appreciate everyones comments and whatnot, I (for one) do NOT “like” my status. It is unfavorable. #
• #9: comics pay full price for drinks #
• #10: showtime was 10 minutes ago, the mic isn’t even set up yet. #
• #11: no mic stand! no stool. #
• #12: “club” lighting – purple gels on spotlights, spinny Saturday night fever lights #
• 13: 7 people in the crowd. I ask, “how did you promote the show?” and the staff looked confused at the question. #
• Comics Should ALWAYS Eat And Drink For Free Update: comics drink for free only while on stage here? I need a funnel. #
• #14: one of the bartenders was in the back of the room talking LOUDLY to two dudes she is involved with and got thrown out. #
• #15: bartender chick is back. Minus one dude, plus crying and attitude. #
• #16: here’s what I was waiting for: manager says I don’t get paid here, the booker will mail a check. Perfect. #
• It was nothing short of magic. // RT @Anundson: @ChadRiden sounds like a great night #
• A couple that runs the motel were at the show: “anything we can get you?” me:”2 hookers and a case of champagne.” “we can’t do that, but..” #
• Completely undeterred, tonight I’ll be dropping in for a quick set at the Comedy Club on State Street in Madison,WI 53703 @ 8:30 #
• @ a coffee place in Madison, WI called “In The Company Of Thieves” – I knew I’d like this place just from the name. I feel right at home. #
• @nambucom in the iphone app, when composing for ping.fm please add a character count like when composing for twitter. thanks #
• #CHADRIDEN1K started on Oct. 8 with 388 followers. I’m now at 408. The response has been overwhelming, everybody. What a roller coaster! #
• Woah! Define “hipster beard”-mines a “loser beard”// RT @ChristFinnegan It’s official-hipster beards r the Members Only jackets of this era. #
• “the comedy club on state st.” in Madison isn’t the most creative name for a comedy club, but it’s a nice joint full of funny local comics. #
• No! Do it!//RT @DrFunkhole: had been toying with the idea of trying my hand at stand up. EVIL SPIRITS COME OUT! Hallelujah! You’ve cured me. #
• I’m gonna be extra funny and stuff tonight thru Saturday at Jokerz in Milwaukee, WI. Come laugh at my gut! #
• Isnt this a Simpsons episode? // Radioactive water creeps deep under vast Nevada Test Site http://bit.ly/494vv1 via @LATimesNation #
• On the road again…I just can’t wait to get on the road again…Willie’s right, its an addiction (via @billmaher) #
• Every time I see someone in a turtleneck I think “you should get that circumcised.” #
• I’ve been giving myself the slow, sarcastic clap all day. Everybody, stand-by for Gonorrhea jokes.. #
• Do I hear the theme from “Superfly”? In Milwaukee tonight, doing two shows with Sinbad. http://tinyurl.com/sinbadWI #

It snowed seven inches in Nashville the other day. In many parts of the world this isn’t a big deal. In Tennessee, forecasts of light flurries are like air-raid sirens foretelling our unavoidable total annihilation.

Law abiding, civil citizens are reduced to chaotic maniacs without logic or the driving skills of a sixteen-year-old girl. Store shelves are emptied of all bread and milk as if this would be the last chance to go to a store until the tribulation is over. Schools close (Not the day before.. or early enough in the morning for parents to make plans.. no, no. That would make sense.) once the kids are all on campus. Therefore, business offices empty as mom and dad scramble to make arrangements. This means the roads are full of frantic parents terrified that their offspring will freeze to death if they don’t spin their tires in the snow as they fishtail their way thru the red light.

I’ve never seen driving quite like that which you find in the South when it has snowed. The majority of my youth was spent a few minutes west of Chicago in DuPage county. I wasn’t anywhere near old enough to drive when we moved, but I knew to shift into low gear; to drive slow and steady without spinning my tires; to turn the wheel and gun it when I want to turn; to counter-steer my way out of a skid; to park the car somewhere other than in the middle of the road facing the wrong direction.

While waiting about an hour for my chance to drive up an off ramp, a man actually walked down the line of cars telling people, “the Department Of Transportation guy says to try it one at a time.” Really? ‘Cause I thought maybe the best thing to do would be to pass these people waiting so I can floor it about a third of the way up the hill until I meet the car ahead. That way, I have to stop on an ice covered incline, slide to the bottom and start all over. Either that, or just sit there spinning my tires so people who know what they’re doing can’t make a run for it.

To me, the funniest sights on a snow day are the guys driving the classic big ass trucks. I’m not sure what it’s like in your town, but in Nashville we have many “cowboys” (most of whom have never, ever touched a cow) who drive monster pickups with giant lifts and enormous mud tires. Much like their SUV-driving soccer mom counterparts, their off-road vehicles never leave the pavement. I’ve seen trucks big enough to crush a hatchback spinning in circles and on their sides in ditches. How embarrassing it must be to walk home after such a disgraceful display of ineptitude. How do they face their friends and families? “Uh, you know that super-sized truck I overextended our budget for? Yeah. It snowed a few inches, and.. ehh.. I got it stuck.”

At least the kids here know what to do – sled.. make snowmen.. throw snowballs at cars. While they’re out having fun, where are their parents? Boarding up the windows.. cracking open the Y2K stockpiles.. loading up in their rear-wheel-drive piece of crap so they can slide around the road, blocking my way.

Some things never cease to amaze me.. most all of them involve stupid people. OK, I understand that it doesn’t snow here often. I realize that everybody doesn’t have much experience driving in the snow.. but common sense would tell you to either: A) practice driving in the snow in a safe parking lot, or B) stay the hell off the road. Every time it snows here it’s like it’s the first time ever.

Maybe I’m too harsh. Maybe I’m an impatient jerk. Or maybe it’s just that I’m just not a complete moron.

The World Series is over. The Denver Dingleberries beat out the Austin Egomaniacs 4 – 3.. or something. I don’t know. Honestly, I haven’t given a crap about baseball in years. It’s like wrestling – it’s something you love when you’re a kid, but eventually find better things to do with your time. I used to watch the WWF, but at some point you realize you’re staring at enormous oily men wearing really tight clothing roll around on each other. Some men are ok with this, and continue to watch. The rest of us date women.

Baseball is kind of the same way with me. When I was a young little smart ass, the only thing that kept me in school every day was the perfect attendance incentive program. I grew up in the Chicagoland area, and the school system would give you tickets to any professional baseball game in Chicago every semester as long as you didn’t miss a day. I spent most of those days in the Principal’s office, but I was in school just the same.

While other kids were learning silly things like math and science, I was learning to hate authority figures and steal clay from the supply room. I’ve kept in touch with some of my elementary school buddies, and they’re all well-educated intellectuals with important, high-paying jobs in respected fields. I’m a jackass comedian with lame mean-spirited jokes who gets thru the day by scamming free meals and drinks.

If I’d have known then what I know now.. I.. I woulda.. well, I guess I would have started performing comedy a lot sooner. Heck, by now my career could have already run its course. I could’ve done the “live fast, die young” thing and already be a legend! Then again, I could’ve done the “live fast, get old” thing and become Chevy Chase.. so maybe I should just take my time with this. I’ve digressed.

Baseball strikes me as one of those things that has forgotten why people liked it in the first place. Fat asses like Babe Ruth used to play good enough to rule the game.. now the sport is full of enormous cyborgs who, by this point, are more of a product of steroids and pampering than they are well-trained, talented athletes.

Remember jocks in high school? Dipshits, right? I recall losers who banked their futures.. their entire existence on the possibilities sports could offer. Players who were mediocre – even at the highschool level – who thought maybe they had a chance. Sad thing is.. some of them did! All it takes is a ton of highly concentrated hormone supplements and a little bit of practice, and you too could be in the next home-run-race. That is, until you take that one swing that causes all your back zits to pop simultaneously.. creating a spine-crushing blast that leaves your uniform flapping in the wind atop your vaporized, drug-riddled carcass.

I don’t know.. maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I’m just a jealous punk who’s lashing out. Yeah, perhaps Darryl Strawberry isn’t a crack head.. maybe he’s just misunderstood. Maybe they don’t drug-test within Major League Baseball because if they did, there wouldn’t BE Major League Baseball.

I just can’t watch it. I don’t have time. If they removed all the crotch scratching, jock adjusting, and spitting.. maybe they could play a game in less than four hours (but would it be as fun?). Baseball could learn something from Basketball and Football: put a timer on the scoreboard. You’ve got 10 seconds allowed for each pitch. If the batter isn’t ready, he’s out. If the pitcher is still shaking no to a signal, it’s a run. Speed it up, keep the energy going and get John Tesh to write some riveting theme music.