There are only a few days left until Armageddon. By this time next week, Subway restaurants will stop accepting Sub Club cards. I never imagined one of the four horsemen would be named Jared.

Subway has never made exceptionally good sandwiches. But I enjoyed eating there for three reasons. One, the sub card. Who wouldn't want to get a free mediocre tasting sub every eight meals? Two, they're ubiquitous. It's become easier to find a Subway restaurant in any city than an actual subway in New York. Three, no talking baby. Quiznos has some good tasting subs, but that baby gives me nightmares. They should run those commercials on Telemundo since that little possessed baby can probably speak in tongues.

But my main reason was the sub card. Every time I ordered eight mediocre tasting subs, I got a free one. I loved the sub card. I carried the sub card in my wallet, unlike any other rewards program I was in.

I fly a few times each month, and I have never earned a free ticket (I'm close on 7 different airlines). I stay at hotels 100 nights a year, and I've never come close to earning a free stay. And almost all my clothes are from stores I have affinity credit cards from, and yet I rarely use them. But every 9th tuna wrap was always on the house.

Maybe my desire for free food dates back to when I was in college. A free piece of pizza made me show up to an hour long hall meeting, even though I refused a job shelving books for $10 an hour. Now as a comedian, I'm extra impressed when a gig offers free dinner, even if the pay is $50 less than normal.

Subway has lost me. I'm not boycotting, but they're no longer my first choice. There are many other places to get a sub, right? Well, D'Angelo's, Sargo's, Big Town, and Lenny's are all confined to a few states a piece. I'm a traveler - I need a sub shop that I can consistently find anywhere. Jimmy Johns and Charley's make some tasty subs, but there are less than 300 of each in the world. What about Blimpie? Mmmm"¦all the taste of eating food straight out of the garbage with none of the dirty looks.

Blimpie is so budget, the franchise fee to open a Blimpie is less than half of the cost of most of the other stores I mentioned. I looked into doing it, but I decided to spend the money on a combo meal instead.

So that pretty much leaves Subway and Quiznos, each with over 3,000 stores. But Quiznos has 3,000 stores that will accept a sub card. In fact, you get stamped for any $5 purchase at Quiznos. So if you eat 15 bags of chips, that counts, too.

Unless they bring back the card, Subway has lost my allegiance, and probably the allegiance of many others. This was a business decision worse than those commercials with Clay Henry. I hope I'm not the only one who remembers that week when they tried to build a second Jared out of some firefighter named Clay. Sign it with me now - "He's Henry, Clay Henry"¦" I don't understand why a company whose spokesman looks that much like an account would be this bad at business.

So now I turn to Quiznos. And frankly, I like it. They've got Q shaped dishes. How can you not like that? Actually, they've got any dishes. Subway gives everything to you in a bag. I don't know why Subway bothers to ask if your order is to stay or to go.

"You're eating here? Well, here's a tray for your bag."

Quiznos, talking baby excepted, has great commercials. They had those cool cartoon ratty things from the internet, and the commercial where the guy discovers pants. Which is ironic, since many Blimpie customers haven't been let in on that discovery yet.

Subway is still honoring the cards for the next few days, so make sure to use yours. Even if you haven't finished the card, they'll give you 40 cents off for each stamp you do have. While you're there, make sure to tell them how upset you are that they got rid of their best feature. And make sure to say hi to Clay Henry.

He's probably working behind the counter.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

I don't what it is about the open road that makes it so appealing. Maybe it's because when you're headed somewhere, you don't have to be where you've already been.

In other words, the road represents potential. Usually that potential translates to fast food induced heartburn, a messy car, and lots of gas money, but the potential is there.

We all love road trips. We get three of our closest friends together and yell, "road trip!" which is code for, "let's all go somewhere and do the same stuff we do here, but in a different place!" At first glance, that makes about as much sense as spending $2.50 for a gallon of gas.

It's now Sunday in Indianapolis, towards the beginning of a 10-day trip that includes a few other stops in Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. It makes sense that I write about the road from Indianapolis though - the city advertises itself as "the crossroads of America." I know every city needs a nickname, but I laugh every time I hear that. That may as well mean, "Indianapolis - we're on the way to stuff."

There is some stuff actually in Indianapolis this weekend: there's a huge music convention and a meeting of a local Thunderbird club. I can't afford the music convention, and the T-Birds were cool for the ten minutes it took me to see all of them. So I have spent most of the weekend doing exactly what I would have at home - writing and sitting in traffic.

Being adventurous, I tried taking a different way home from lunch yesterday. I ended up spending an hour in one lane of a four lane highway, watching the other lanes being fixed. I guess the open road has got to be paved sometime.

What could go wrong this weekend has. At the rental car place, I came down with an illness known as "Kia Rio." Symptoms include little to no shocks and the horsepower of a unicycle.

Thursday, I performed in Lancaster, Ohio. The show was largely populated with rotund men and women with no necks and all the political open-mindedness of a general in the Crusades. My material about America getting dumber and fatter went over real well. Actually, one couple really liked me. They weren't from Lancaster.

Ironically, I had trouble finding parking for my terrible car. I choose the word "ironic" not because the car was already as terrible as the parking, but because the crowd was made up of people who usually park in their yard. Luckily, the open road beckoned the next morning, and I was on my way to a place with much more potential.

I was thrilled to get to Indianapolis Friday. I was less thrilled when the DSL in the hotel was down the entire weekend, when it took me 42 minutes to get a tuna sandwich, and when only four people showed up for the first show. Yesterday, my dinner was prepared incorrectly, a woman yelled at me for no apparent reason, and the second show was cancelled. The first show had four people again. But it's okay because tomorrow I go somewhere new. Somewhere with potential.

There was one show I actually enjoyed - Friday's late show. Within the crowd, there were three friends who were on a road trip. I asked them why they didn't go to Vegas or New Orleans or a more typical destination. They said that Indianapolis was easy to get to. In other words, "Indianapolis - it's on the way to stuff."

The craziest part of this whole trip is not the problems I've had with food or audiences or travel or rude people - it's that I'm enjoying myself despite all that. I'm enjoying myself because I took this trip to experience something different. And while I could have any of these problems in Los Angeles, it wouldn't be quite the same. So yes, there's not much potential for anything else here. But I still have that for tomorrow.

And the allure of the road is not just potential - it's that things will always be a little different. Jack Kerouac even wrote that the allure of the road is based on experiencing ridiculous things that will help you write columns. Of course I'm paraphrasing here.

When I'm in Los Angeles, I hang out at the same few places, eat at the same few restaurants, and spend time with the same few people. But here, I experienced something different. Sucky, but different. And that's why I enjoyed it.

I recommend you take a trip whenever you get the chance. If you can take a trip across the world, do it. If you take a trip across the street, do it. Just break out of the routine you have established for yourself every now and then. You might get caught in traffic, but you'll have a story to tell. You might even be able to squeeze 800 words out of it.

Speaking of which, this column is just about done. Which is perfect, because the desert I ordered yesterday is almost ready. Potentially.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

Hi, my name is Steve, and I'm single. And for those of you like me, this column is for you.

I feel like I have to say I'm single in the way a meeting of alcohol anonymous starts. I do enjoy being single most days. Of course on most days, drunks enjoy the bottle.

I've been single since June of 2003. That's the longest streak I've had sans girlfriend since I was 15. I've been dating the whole time, but nothing has ever materialized into promoting me to boyfriend status. Twice I was called in for an evaluation interview, but turns out they decided to hire another applicant.

My pattern is simple: I meet a girl, we like each other, I leave town, she likes someone else. I've gotten the "I'm seeing someone" call so often I can tell before she even says anything. And most of the time, I don't even get that call - I'm left to figure it out on my own. Once was able to call a girl and say "the least you could do is tell me you have a boyfriend," before she said anything. I'm kidding. I was able to do that twice.

I know I'm in a unique situation in that I travel often, but there are many commonalities of being single we can all relate to, and we have all experienced being single. When you are single, you alternate between loving your freedom and wishing you had less of it. And no one is immune. Even the girls that seem born with boyfriends have had a few days of "will I ever find someone?" syndrome.

There are good days - days when we're positive about our prospects. Days when we clean up our apartment in case anyone comes over. Days when our hair falls perfectly where it's supposed to, and the style happens to go with what we're wearing. Days when we wear the nice underwear. (Yes, guys do that, too). Those usually turn out to be terrible nights, but the anticipation is awesome. Ironically, the nights that work out are typically those when you're apartment is a mess, your hair has that one patch that keeps sticking up, and you desperately need to do laundry. That Murphy guy makes fun laws.

There are also bad days - days when it looks like you have no prospects at all. Days when your date cancels inexplicably five minutes after you finished getting ready. Days when you get three wedding announcements and every song you hear is about someone being happier than you. Days when your roommate brings home a moaner. Those are the tough days - the days that make you wish you hadn't taken your ex's number out of your phone.

Some of you are reading this and are glad it doesn't currently apply to you. But it might. Roughly half of all marriages end in divorce. And the VAST majority of all relationships end with a group of friends splitting a carton of Rocky Road or a six pack of Coors. But this one is THE one, you say. You might be right, and congratulations if you are. But you're probably wrong. And if you are wrong, when you look back at this column after the one turns out to be the wrong one, this paragraph will be particularly hysterical.

Living in LA, I have met a cadre of terrible women. Women who like me for my car or my job or who don't like me because my car isn't nice enough or they wished I had a better job. In the same respect, I live amongst a cadre of terrible men who use their cars and jobs to get these terrible women.

But I have a feeling if I lived anywhere, I'd run into something similar. My problems are not unique to southern California. Life is a quest to pair off with someone as equally wonderful and terrible as you are. And that's why dating is so difficult. Very few people know where they stand on those two supply and demand curves, let alone the status of anyone else.

While I spend my twenty-something years trying to find myself, I might accidentally find someone else at the same time. But for now, I'll continue to periodically clean my apartment, hope my hair comes out right, and wear the good underwear (which, for guys, is much less complicated to do than for girls). And when my dates cancel, my friends get married, and my roommate brings home a moaner, it might be a rough night. But I'll laugh about it the next morning. And hope that the next girl I end up with is even louder.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

There are some celebrities that are good at poker. Ben Affleck earned a seat at the World Poker Tour by winning the California State Poker Championship. And Jennifer Tilly just beat 600 other players to win the ladies no-limit Texas Hold-em at the World Series of Poker. But the next time I see a retired super model bet fifty grand on a straight flush of shovels, I'm going to stab myself in the eye with a croupier wand.

I love poker. It's fun to play, and it's exciting to watch. But I don't know why seeing celebrities bet makes it any better. I should correct that - seeing people we're told are celebrities bet. The producers of "The Celebrity Poker Tour" should change the name to "The People Who are On TV That You May or May Not Recognize Poker Tour." I'm not excited to turn on Bravo and say, "hey, isn't that the guy from"¦oh, you know who I mean!" We shouldn't need IMDB to know who a celebrity is.

Real celebrities have an unfair advantage when they play against everyone else. The $10,000 buy-in to the tournament Ben Affleck won is nothing to him - I'd be great at poker if money didn't mean anything. Also, the man bluffs for a living. Not as an actor, but as a person. When you can convince the world that "Gigli," "Reindeer Games," and "Daredevil" are good flicks, going all in on a pair of sevens is cake.

Nevertheless, watching poker is exciting. It's fun to see a guy push all his chips forward and either take them back or get wiped out, it's fun to see an unpredictable hand settled on the final card, and it's fun to imagine what you'd do if money were no object. I've been playing games with a $20 buy in since I was 15 - it'd be much more exciting if my friends and I were playing for the box office receipts of Gigli. You know, $50.

But soon we may not just have household names playing poker, but poker players becoming household names. Interpoker.com is running commercials to garner support to place poker in the Olympics. The commercials are probably just a way around the rule that a gaming website can't buy advertising time for itself. But it begs an interesting question. What would happen if poker were played between countries? I'd love to see how the economic disparity played out.

The French representative could lead off with a bet of 10,000 Euros. After everyone finished laughing at him for having purple money, the bet would come to the representative from Burundi.

"I see your 10,000 Euros, and I raise you this baby."

Not to be backed off, the American would see both those bets.

"I'm in for 10,000 Euros, which is about $12,000 US now because our currency is worthless. And the baby - I guess that's the price of a cup of coffee per day, right?"

Of course, the American wouldn't raise. He would just watch what the other countries do, judge them later, and wait to hear what the Saudis have to say.

The Saudi representative would have to bet - he'd be playing with the most cash of anyone on the table. He'd be able to easily see the 10,000 Euros, and the baby, and also raise everything in his pocket. Which, by coincidence, would be the American's politicians.

So everybody would be in - well, not everybody because the French guy would fold. But everyone else would be in. First, the guy from Burundi would get disqualified for eating the king of spades. And the guy from Saudi Arabia would get arrested for BEING the King of Spades. So the only one even eligible to win would be the American, who would throw down a full house. Actually, it would be a pair of threes, but the American would swear it was a full house.

"We thought we had a full house on the table. There was documentation of a full house. British intelligence told us there was a full house! And we're going to keep playing until we find one."

So poker fans, do you know who would be the big winner? No, not the American - the baby. Or maybe the Canadian because he would still have good health care.

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.

Two years ago, I wrote a column about how much I love America. Last year, I wrote another about the silly things that happen in other countries. This year, it's only fair that I address some of the silliness we find within our own borders.

A new comic book entitled, "Hell, Michigan," recently debuted with stories of ax murderers and divine retribution fictitiously taking place in the real town. Residents of the real Hell, Michigan say the stories are nothing like their town, and remind them much more of Detroit.

The Redneck Games, featuring events like bobbing for pig feet, the mud-pit belly flop, and the armpit serenade, are currently in their tenth year in Georgia. For the last three years, organizers have had to keep track of the anniversaries by counting the fingers on the hands of two of the participants. The event is covered by Redneck World Magazine, estimated to have 350,000 subscribers and 27 readers.

A Pennsylvania teenager was arrested for riding a bicycle in nothing but sandals. Cops later discovered the bike to be stolen, though I'm guessing the original owner doesn't want it back.

In Santa Barbara, A 14-year-old pedigreed Chinese crested named Sam won the annual World's Ugliest Dog contest for the third straight year. Sam's only hair is on his head, his snout is equipped with a line of warts, his blind eyes are white, and his teeth jut out at all angles. However, Sam's friends insist he has a great personality.

South Carolina barbecue chain "Sticky Fingers" purchased stickyfingers.com for $6,000 from pornographers in order to prevent patrons from accidentally stumbling onto the nude pictures. Several patrons were outraged at the purchase saying, "that was the only reason I ate there."

A Salt Lake City woman sold a tattoo on her forehead for $10,000 in order to pay for her child's private school. The Utah child, who now has a mother with a forehead that reads "GoldenPalace.com," is choosing between private schools in Maine and Alaska.

A West Virginia woman pleaded guilty to smuggling pot to her jailed fiancé in their baby's diaper. Prison guards were alerted to the scam when the man proclaimed, "this pot smells like crap!"

A New York City school teacher resigned after it was discovered that his sick days were used to tour with the WWE instead of caring for an ill sister, like he claimed. The wrestler says it didn't hurt his job and the kids tested well "because I taught them!," while investigators allege the kids scored high because "they knew he could eat them!"

An man's bid of $351,100 won him a private lunch with Omaha's billionaire investor Warren Buffet. Buffet's first piece of investment advice to the bidder will be how to get lunch for under a quarter of a million dollars.

A Kentucky man was arrested for the second time in two months for DUI, both times while on horseback. A third strike could force the man to relinquish his horse and return to the 1830s.

And in more driving news, authorities arrested a repeat offender in Minnesota for driving his motorcycle over 205 miles per hour. Police charged him with speeding, reckless driving, violating his probation, and being totally badass.

In recently declassified documents, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger referred to Indira Ghandi as a "bitch" and the Indian people "bastards." The remarkable thing is not the comments or the apology Kissinger made thereafter, it's that anyone could understand anything Kissinger said.

And so that Americans don't feel completely responsible for the world's problems, I should tell you about Sanjai Shah, a Kenyon man who has been living at an airport in Nairobi for the last year while waiting for British citizenship. Shah said his ordeal wasn't easy, having to sleep on uncomfortable chairs and eat bad food. He is looking forward to starting a life in England, where they have very comfortable chairs.

Happy 4th!

Steve Hofstetter is the author of the Student Body Shots books, which are available at SteveHofstetter.com. He can be e-mailed at steve@stevehofstetter.com.