Din Din

Tonight I had an artichoke, some turbot, and some potatoes au gratin.

I realized much too late, i.e. after I had everything on my plate, that I don't like potatoes au gratin.

I guess I'll have to have cereal for breakfast.

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Yet another droplet in the ocean of evidence that points to the fact that Will Ferrell is not funny.

Steve Carell needs to avoid making any more movies with Will "Weasel Eyes" Ferrell so I don't have to subject myself to anymore of his crapitudes.

Everyone else in the movie did a fine job.

Sniff

Today a lady used my pen to sign a whole stack of paperwork. Before I got there I think she let her hand soak in a bowl of perfume.

Now every time I use my pen my hand smells like Chanel Number over 55 until I wash it. So I'm either going to have to throw away then pen or get used to inquisitive looks from older gentlemen. And I really like that pen.

Creeping Prices

This weekend I decided I'd augment my entertainment center. And by entertainment center I mean the Ikea coffee table on which my TV sits and under which my various TV related electronics live.

My plan was to make a cage thing for my TV to sit on while my electronics live underneath, thereby leaving room under the table for my vacuum to hide. And I thought I'd get all showy and build the whole business out of copper tube.

The whole thing should have cost me about $40, but I underestimated the girth of my CD player and had to buy another 10 feet of tube. Then I realized that my TV would fall down if I didn't solder the tubes together, so I bought a propane torch, some solder, and some flux. Finally I realized the legs would slide off the table, so I needed some caps and screws. At this point the thing is approaching the $80 mark, although $26 of that is tools, and tools don't count.

Today I soldered it all together. I hadn't previously soldered anything, so here's what I've newly learned:
- Use flux on both the pipe and the inside of the fitting.
- Heat ONLY the fitting, not the pipe.
- Don't solder one side of a fitting then come back to the other side later. It doesn't work.
- Don't learn to solder on your project. Figure it out on your extra bits. (I'll have to go ahead an apply that one next time.)

But all and all I'm reasonably happy with it. It creaks a little more than I'm comfortable with, so it's going to get some plywood tomorrow to help distribute my TV's fatness.

Here's an inadequate picture so you know what I'm being so boring about:

Cutting

After an initially exuberant response about my pocket knives, I've managed to sell none of them. I had a number of inquiries, and now nothing. Maybe people thought they were new? I may have to move my operation to either eBay, or to a blanket at South Van Ness and 24th near the Cala Foods. That's where everybody else sells their crap.

In other cutting news, here's a picture of the gas station with the best name in the business:



Notice, if you will, the "#2 diesel." Classic.

Knives Travel In Packs

They've arrived, all 57 of my pocket knife stock. I'm now the largest seller of miniature cutlery on my block* ... that I know of. I guess I don't know that for sure.

I had originally said that I was getting 56 knives in the mail, but the guy I bought 52 from threw an extra one in for being a good customer.

Of the 57, I've sold 3 to coworkers, and kept 4 for myself. Of the 50 remaining knives, I have 12 Leatherman Micra(s?), a whole boat load of plier things, and a small number of weird, foldable, ill-conceived, nearly useless pincher things. I think I'll throw those in with the Leatherman.

Being the huge nerd that I am, I've made a spreadsheet keeping track of my total price paid, the money I've made back, and the price per knife I've kept for myself. So far each knife I've kept is costing me $24.88, which is actually pretty good for only having sold 3. A brand new Leatherman Micra is $23.95, so I'm almost there. Which of course leads me to more pressing business:

Does anyone need a pocket knife? I'm selling them for $5 each. And for you, that includes the postage. And if you leave positive comments I'll throw in the undercoating. Lets step inside my office and we can go over some numbers.



* When I initially typed that sentence it came out "I'm the largest sell of miniature cutlery on my blog." And that, my friends, is absolutely true.

BYOBW

Today I went to the 6th annual BYOBW (Bring Your Own Big Wheel), a big wheel race down Lombard street which happens every year on Easter Sunday.

I really didn't know much about it before I went, and today was the first time I had been. Suffice it to say, it was really excellent. It's organized by Jon Brumit, a local, um, interactive(?) artist.

I can't describe it any better than these pictures can:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/67126793@N00/sets/72057594108990528/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwajkid/sets/72057594108990891/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolio/sets/72057594108946134/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/trulydoolally/sets/72057594108953265/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theorem/sets/72057594109037439/

Pub Quiz Update

We knew we were in for trouble when we spent the entire first round answering questions with words which were already stated in the question. For example:

What is the principle ore in iron?

They always say "iron ore" right? So ... Iron?

Which felt like material is most often used to cover pool tables?

Felt. Definitely felt.

And such was the performance we put in throughout the night. That's why we, Mushu Porkistra, came in 7th, i.e. last.

Ouch.

Rambling

I seem to be on a big shopping binge of late. I just bought a new TiVo, 2 CDs, a book, 56 pocketknives, a video card (computer thing), and I'm looking for a USB network adapter to hook my TiVo to my home network. I'm unstoppable.

And now I'm thinking about getting a new car. Well, not new, new. But a different, smaller, used car. Right now I drive a 97 Camry CE. CE stands for "this Car doesn't have any fEatures" - no power locks, no power windows, a manual transmission (I like this), no cruise control, and no intermittent wipers. And most frustratingly, it's enormous. I didn't used to think it was enormous when I lived in an apartment with a garage, but now I have to park it on the street amongst the tightly clustered driveways of Ocean View.

Parking near my house is one thing, but going out to some of the other parkingly challenged neighborhoods is terrible. On Friday I went to see Pedalsped with Sheila at the Tongue and Groove on Van Ness at Union. I drove around for 45 minutes looking for a place to park before giving up and going to Mitchell's instead. I saw several spaces meant for more petit cars, but the ones sized for my tubby Camry were snatched up right before our eyes (3 in total). It was extremely frustrating.

And I know, I have a scooter, the ultimate parking machine. But it's no good when the rain is coming down in drops big enough to drown in.

The surprising front runner in my car research so far: The Ford Focus ZX3. Small, cheapish, good horsepower, and ELECTRIC LOCKS. Yes, I long for remote keyless entry like most people wish for, well, I don't know. I drew a blank there and went to Google some wishes. Apparently some people wish to "gorge on porn," while others wish "all the Mexicans would speak English." I wonder if they're including the ones who still live in Mexico. Maybe for ease of vacationing?

It would be nice to learn some Spanish.

How's that for a meandering post?

Riiing

I own a very nice pair of earplugs. They are made of yellow flexible plastic and come in a handy, round, white case. A blue plastic cord stretches between them so I can hang them around my neck when they aren't busy protecting my hearing.

And yet I never remember to bring them to concerts.

I went to see Elbow last night and when the opening band, Earlimart, started playing I realized what I had forgotten to bring. I was standing right up next to the stage, so when the lead singer played his guitar my hair blew back.

I weighed my chances of being able to get back to the stage if I left in search of improvisational earplug material, and decided against it, so I searched my pockets and scanned the area around me.

When the song ended I asked the woman next to me if I could have her drink napkin. She handed it over and I ripped it up into External Auditory Meatus sized chunks. Since the napkin was wet with drink condensation, the paper molded to the shape of my ear canal quite nicely, and when the concert was over I had some perfectly formed ear canal molds, which I decided I wouldn't keep.

And in case anyone was wondering, Elbow was excellent. I got a pick and a set list which says at the bottom: "This is only genuine if this is written on it." So I guess it is.



[I am currently reading a book which is narrated by an autistic teenager. I'm a little worried that I'm absorbing the writing style]

That's a Whole Lot of Sharp

I always carry a Leatherman Micra around on my key ring. It's just the most useful thing ever. It has scissors, a knife, a nail file, screwdrivers, and tweezers. I use it constantly at work.

But as the M-Line was approaching to take me to the airport last week, I noticed I hadn't taken it off my keys. Weighing the relative chances of getting it through security twice, I decided I'd hang it on a branch of the bush by the train stop in hopes that nobody would notice it before I came back. Alas, when I returned, it was gone.

I've spent the last week bidding on Leatherman Micras on eBay, and losing out at the last second to other people. So yesterday at 6am, in a moment of frustration, I made the minimum bid on a lot of 42, a lot of 10, and a lot of 4, thinking somebody would most likely out bid me in the remaining 10 hours of the auctions. Well, $114 and a day later, I have 56 pocketknives headed my way from all over the country.

I think I'm going to be heavily involved with eBay over the next couple weeks getting rid of all but maybe 4 of these things.

Anyone want a knife?

Bzzzzip!

While I was driving back from Reno today, I saw a smallish girl riding her sport bike down the freeway wearing some very low-rise jeans. Because it was a sport bike she was crouched forward, and because she was wearing low rise-jeans, I could see quite a lot of her butt-crack.

And it made me wonder, does she get a lot of bugs caught in her pants?

A Number of Things

I went to the Pacific Super on Sunday to pick up some more fancy quality squid, and whatever else looked interesting, for Cate. While I was there I got some seedless red grapes on sale for 69 cents per pound. I think they were on sale because they aren't very seedless. About every third grape is a little crunchier than I'm comfortable with.

A combination of being on East Coast time, Daylight Savings, and trouble sleeping last night has made me very tired, but oddly awake. I'd like to crawl into bed right now, but I'm afraid my brain might get up and aimlessly wander around my apartment for hours yet.

The Chicago Midway airport is a surprisingly religious place. While I was eating some airport food I overheard a lady on her cell phone talking to somebody about her church, their congregation, and her praying for somebody about something. She wrapped up the call with a request that the person on the other end pray for her to make the flight, as she happened to be on the standby list. Possibly relatedly, I was reading an article about how some people in, of all places, Chicago, did a study on the effects of praying for people who underwent heart surgery. The two most interesting groups where those who were prayed for, and those who weren't, both groups having been told that people may or may not pray for them. The people who were prayed for had a slightly higher rate of complications than those who had received no prayers. The people conducting the study couldn't explain it, but I think it's because people like the lady in Midway are using up all the prayer bandwidth by asking if the holy trinity can scoot her up the standby list.

In addition to all the praying and studying of praying, there were several announcements about the Catholic mass to be held in Terminal C at 4pm, and how everyone was invited. It was, oddly enough, a Saturday.

My next door neighbors seem to be having urinal for dinner. It's very unpleasant. Speaking of which ...

When you drive this truck at the airport,



never confuse this nozzle



with this one.



You'll probably get fired. Or possibly set fire to a toilet. Neither of which makes for a good week.

Ever So Quickly

The problem with addressing and stamping envelopes while wearing only boxer shorts is that you may drop a stamp on your gut. And then when you try to peel off said stamp, you might remove some gut hair. And then you might be in pain and slightly grossed out at the fact that you have gut hair.

And then you'll have to worry about whether or not the stamp has retained enough sticky to get the envelope where it needs to go.

Life can be so difficult sometimes.



(I typed this whole post with not a single misspelling. When I pushed the spell check button I got a gray screen that said:

Spell Check Complete
(No Errors Found)

And I thought the spell check was broken because I had never before seen that screen.)

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I went to pick up a mattress recently at a Nursing home in Antioch. There were two driveways close together and I almost pulled into the one next door, which I noticed belonged to a funeral parlor. Of all the businesses to put next to a nursing home, the funeral parlor has to be the one which instills the least amount of confidence in the families of the elderly.

Silver Oaks Care Center
"Where 'moving on' just means going next door."

It's like seeing a Chinese food restaurant next to a pet hospital: It has a kind of morbid, creepy convenience. I'm sure they are only neighbors by coincidence, but it's still uncomfortable.

Blooop

Today, after taking pictures of a project for work, and taking pictures of the bear, I made some burritos. As I've mentioned before, my burritos call for cooking some ground beef, adding refried beans and salsa, and serving.



Before I added the beans, I made a little grease tub out of the meat container and some aluminum foil. Then I held the beef in place with the spatula and poured what grease I could into the tub while trying to avoid the inevitable beefalanche. I guess it's not totally inevitable, it didn't happen today.

After I drained my beef, I set about opening my can of refried beans. (The Rosarita 98% fat free vegetarian variety.) I opened the top of the can and took the lid off, then turned the can over and held it above its intended destination. When I punched a hole in the bottom of the can to let the air in, schlooop, pop, out came the cylinder of beans ... right into my grease tub.



Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. Any way you look at it, it was a bad idea to dump my beans into a tub of grease, but it was an even worse idea to do it from such a height. My beans did the edible version of a cannon ball. So much for 98% fat free.
And now my slippers need a bath. Next time I'll add the ingredients to the food and not to the garbage.

Projects
((c)2006 Michael Kadel. No stealing my ideas! What do you mean nobody would steal these ideas?!)

I've been making some very slow progress on my various projects tonight.

My most recent project is to make a shirt with a big picture of a cinnamon bear on the front. I don't think there will be any text involved, just a big 4x8 inch bear. I'm trying to decide if I should go for an iron-on t-shirt transfer or try Kinko's print right on the shirt deal. The problem with printing on the shirt is that it requires a white shirt, and I don't wear white shirts very much. Does anyone have access to some t-shirt technology of which I'm unaware?

I found my bear model yesterday. Or, more accurately, I bought my bear model yesterday and found him (her?) this morning. I ate the first package of bears without doing a casting call. The second package involved selecting the perfect bear march madness style. Each two bears compete to move onto the semifinals. Then each of the semifinalists compete and so on and so forth until a single bear remains. The Ambearican Idol. Or maybe just a bear which didn't get mangled by the bear stamper. I have a photo shoot scheduled for tomorrow. Cinnamon is on a strict diet of diet Coke and cigarettes until then.

My second project moved along quickly at first, but then hit a road block. I've been making a lamp where the bulb will shine through a whole bunch of shattered tempered glass. The lamp bit is all done, switch and all, but finding tempered glass to break for less than $60 is proving difficult. But today I parked my van in an alley behind a facility, and when I got out I noticed a whole bunch of shattered tempered glass on the sidewalk and in the gutter. I guess each stolen stereo brings my lamp one step closer to fruition.

I don't think I'll keep collecting glass that way though. It took me a half hour to clean the who-knows-what out of the glass shards, leaving me a quarter inch less lamp to fill and a sore back. All that combined with the pee smell emanating from the gutter, and I think it might be time for a trip to a junk yard.

If anyone lives near by and your shower door explodes, please let me know. I'll be by momentarily to clean up the glass, free of charge. That's just the kind of helpful guy I am.

Momma Don't Want No Waffle-Stompers 'Round Here

Yesterday while I was driving to Sacramento I saw an old 5th wheel trailer sitting alone beside a river. It was old and falling apart, and missing a wheel so it was leaning off toward the water. The windows were broken and it had sunk noticeably down into the mud. The stairs where down and the door hung open so I could see that someone had spray painted, for the benefit of all those who dared enter: "Please take your shoes off."

The Problem with Work Trips

Is that they pay for my food. I've been trying to make some better choices at home, while also keeping it cheap. There are certainly a limited number of food items from which to choose that come in near $5 and aren't gross. But here in Tempe I just need to come in under $50 a day, which is really no problem. And I feel like I should aim for my limit since there isn't really any other advantage of travelling for work. The result is that I'm slowly being engulfed by my ever expanding waistline.

And why is it so hard to find healthful food which tastes good? It's not like it's an oxymoron or anything. There are lots of dishes which taste good and won't warp my belt, but none of them are for sale in a restaurant setting. The closest I've come to that ideal here was with a Caribbean salmon dish. And yeah, I know, fish in the desert is never recommended. And this was no exception. It was a Salmon steak, burned lightly on both sides, covered in a sickeningly sweet purple sauce, and surrounded by some intricately bitter broccoli and packing-peanut flavored rice. It arrived simultaneously with a garden salad: Ranch dressing, iceberg lettuce, and a single cherry tomato.

My dinner was not improved by the table of happily screaming kids, one of which shot a spitball at my booth. She wasn't very covert about it. I was reading my book and waiting for my food to arrive and I heard a phoof, a swish, and a sort of a squishy thud near my left shoulder. I looked over to find a rather sizable spitball adhered to the red vinyl. I flicked it off with the drink menu then looked up at the kids table to 5 kids looking elsewhere and 1 girl slowly edging her face up over the booth to see if the coast was clear. It was not, I was looking at her, so she popped back down. Another peak, then back down, and repeat. Eventually her pizza came and she forgot about my oppressive eyeballs and innate targetness.

Yay Tempe!

Moooo

Yesterday I had dinner at Rustler's Roost, which was billed as a steak house, but was actually more of a steak theme park. It's perched up on the only hill in Tempe, looking out over the infinite sprawl.

As you walk in there's a bull in a little tiny pen to lend the place the authentic smell of cow. The hostesses all have dark hair with blond streaks and wear red and white plaid shirts. On the way to my table I walked by a real, live, authentic country band who played a number of songs I didn't recognize, and one by Johnny Cash that I did. Descending to the eating area I had the choice of stairs or a slide. Since the slide was full of 8 year olds, I chose the stairs.

The floor was covered in wood shavings, the tables where lit by oil lamps, and the menu was full of creatively named food items. I got a 10oz Filet with mixed vegetables, corn on the cobb, rolls with 2 kinds of butter, and cowboy beans. I ate my Filet medium, since, according to the menu, that's a how a tenderfoot orders it.

The cowboy beans were a little on the disgusting side, but the rest of it was excellent. Unfortunately it was a little dark, so I had some trouble with the rolls. I grabbed roll #1 and buttered it. It was so dark, though, that I couldn't tell what kind of butter I was using, and ended up with my pre-dinner roll covered in honey cinnamon butter. Kind of weird as an appetizer. Luckily I have a Cate-like sense of smell and was able to sniff each tub of butter until I found one that wasn't oddly flavored. With the butter problem solved I triumphantly sat back and wiped the butter off my nose, picked up a second roll, and promptly dropped it on the floor. The third one was the charm.

And tonight I went to the Cheesecake Factory and ate my tradition Chicken Madera. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Chicken Madera.