3 Things
(Including the blog equivalent of a forward)

First off, I've been nominated, or tagged, or forced because of my craving for Cate attention to write a MEME. After that I'll get to what I sat down to post about in the first place. So here it goes:

If I could be a doctor… I would change my name to Claw and find a nemesis named Gadget.

If I could be a missionary… I'd probably get fired for not meeting my quota. Either that or I would constantly be harassing myself to read the bible. Man that would be annoying.

If I could be a librarian… I would have a Masters Degree in Library and Information Studies (MLS/MLIS) from a college or university accredited by the American Library Association. When I was unemployed I applied for EVERYTHING.

If I could be a bonnie pirate… I would apparently go and pillage all the bonnies. What's a bonnie?

If I could be married to any current famous political figure… I would probably live in an apartment with heat.

Ok, so now I guess I have to tag 3 people. Let's say Peter, Brandon, and Amy, all of whom haven't posted anything in more than 15 days.

Ok, now on to more stuff nobody wants to read.

Here's a word of advice in case you ever find yourself in this situation: Sliding a huge plastic mattress bag over a vinyl bottomed mattress produces static electricity. I was well aware of this fact, but today I learned that I should be more careful when unsheathing a mattress. Today, whilst debagging an AirCell, the first part of my body to get close to a grounding bedrail was my crotch. If somebody had been standing behind me I would have assed them into the next room.

Also, a second word of advice: Don't let your dog poop near the parking place of a guy with a large and readily available supply of rubber gloves. Especially not when he's been trying to write a post while your dog's barking approaches the frequency of squeaky toys.

Go Outlook

Here I was planning to spend a non-social* night in front of my T.V., whenI called up my friend and wished her a happy birthday at the prompting of Outlook. Now I have an invitation to hang out with her, her brother, and her boyfriend at a bar someplace later tonight.

And that, my friends, is the magic of the calendar function.

*DRTING vocab word. (Awesome. I've just realized that the acronym for my blog is Dr. Ting.
"I need to see my Doctor. Tang anyone?"
"What?"
"Oh sorry, I said doctor and Tang, not Doctor Ting."
"No trouble, it happens on the time.")

Wahuh?

I just watched a lady pull up in front of SF General Hospital and parallel park her forest green Mitsubishi Montero. She got out of the car, got her dog out of the back seat, walked up three cars, and got into a black Montero, in which she promptly drove away.

I wonder if she has 2 just to mess with her neighbors:

"Don't they have a green Montero too?"
"I've never seen two Monteros parked outside. And why would they have 2 colors of the same car but never bring them both home at the same time?
"I guess you're right. I must be losing my mind."

Gripe

I loaded my scooter into my van last night, and this morning I drove up to Corte Madera to take my motorcycle skills test. I got to the DMV a half hour before it opened, unloaded my scooter, got in line, and waited for the doors to open. When they did I walked up to a counter and announced that I would like someone to watch me ride in a little circle and pronounce me motorcycle safe. They asked if I had an appointment and I allowed as to how I did not. They told me to wait at another desk to make one.

Apparently people who have jobs and are not psychic are not allowed to get the motorcycle endorsement in a timely fashion. All the Saturday appointments for all the DMVs in my area are booked up next month, and the earliest morning weekday appointments are at 9am, requiring me to take time off work. My other option was to take a motorcycle safety course, thereby relieving myself of $200, a Thursday night, and a whole weekend, but also thereby avoiding the DMV. However, it turns out you have to camp out for a spot in one of those things. All the classes for the next month and a half are full, and the ones that aren't full haven't started registration yet. It looks like I'll have to take a half day eventually for the privilege of riding at night and/or with a lady/passenger.

The DMV hassle was followed by a whole day of work, which is neither here nor there, except that my scooter kept asking politely for me to ride it someplace. Turns out that I would much rather scoot than work, but the scooter will wait and the job will not.

My Friday still held hope though, for my plan was to pack up my scooter, drive home, and meet my roommate and his friends at Molly Magee's in Mountain View at 9pm, then see a 10:30pm showing of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I tried to wait as long as I could to avoid sitting around at my roommate's job for an hour while he "finished up." But being compulsively on time (or early) I could wait no longer, and at 7:45pm I called to see if he wanted to get some food before going to the bar. He said, "Oh, we're meeting at an Indian place here at 8:30pm if you can make it in time."

I'm never sure when I'm being purposefully not invited to things, but in this case it struck me that I had stumbled into secret dinner plans and was only being offered a spot at the table because I had found them out. None the less, I said I would get gas (as my roommate knew I would have to do, I was driving his car down) and call when I got close. I called at 8:35pm which was, as it turns out, right as they had been seated at a table for 4. I, being the 5th person of the group, astutely caught hint number 2, and ate a container of fruit salad alone in the parking lot of Safeway, then had an Oreo cookie shake for desert. Because the Indian food thing happened, the bar thing didn't, and I went to the movie theater to read my book in the car and wait for the rest of the group to show up.

On the bright side I liked the movie. On the dark side, tonight had to be the most accidentally non-social night ever.*

*It must be said that I've spend many an anti-social** Friday night in my apartment watching TV. I've also spent non-social*** nights in my apartment watching TV. However, hoping for dinner, planning on hanging out for an hour in a bar, and then going to a movie should have netted me more than my accumulated 10 minutes of face-to-face social interaction tonight. Hence the title of accidentally non-social: I had made an effort and made plans.

**Anti-social - Staying at home when there are people to hang out with.
***Non-social - Staying at home when there are no people to hang out with.

Try, Try Again

With the lines of the San Francisco DMV confronting me, I've decided to try my luck in Corte Madera. I've loaded my scooter into my mattress van, and I hope to unload it in Marin, take my test, reload it, go to work, unload it, work, reload it, drive home, and unload it. Alternatively, I might unload it at the DMV, take my test, and then come back for it on Saturday. Then I'll take a loooong scoot home via the back roads of the North Bay.

Or, worst case scenario, I'll have to move to Marin because I won't be able to get my scooter back to San Francisco by myself.

Leprecan'ts (We Really Can't)
...the pub quiz update...

We slowly showed up
First just me, then two, three, four
And we end up fifth

P.S. (Pee Seat)

I tried to go get my scooter license today, and locked up my apartment shortly after 7:30am in hopes of arriving at the DMV before a huge line formed. Unfortunately, after I took the cover off my scooter I was confronted with a small puddle of very yellow pee on my seat. I was forced to leave a little late due to a clean up effort involving several napkins and liberal squirts of hand sanitizer.

What I'm hoping is that some small animal crawled up under the cover and slept warm and comfortable on my scooter seat, peed, and left. However, after I got back from the DMV* I discovered that there was pee on the outside of the cover as well. I'm hoping with all my might that one of my neighbors didn't pee on it. I'm also hoping that the dog torturers in 204 don't let their dogs pee on the vehicles in the garage, though nobody would notice even the slightest tic of reaction on my face if I caught them at it. I have less than zero respect for them. They actually suck cool points away from anyone who has any association with them. I'm glad I'm moving soon so I don't get sucked into their black hole of exuberant idiocy and inconsiderateness. (BHOEIAI)

As you may have noticed, I don't like the people in 204, nor do I like pee on my personal possessions. And I only jump to the conclusion that they may be involved because I know they let their dogs poop in the garage. They've stopped doing so recently, but next time I see a little dog present sitting around in there I'm going to get some gloves out of my van and put the poops on her windshield wipers.


*When I got to the DMV at 7:58am the line outside resembled a line for a rock concert. I guess I'm going to have to camp out to get a good spot.

Books, Badguys, and BISI

First off, I've just finished a book on CD that I feel took great strength of character to get through. It was ostensibly a thriller about a serial killer, his lawyer, and a woman the lawyer meets whose sister may or may not have been taken by the killer.

In the book's defense, it was a little bit about those things, but it was mostly about the enduring strength of love and the power of family. There were many moments where the level of schlock made me shout "oh dear god I have to switch to Forum." The author wrote of children with bright eyes shining so brightly Cate's* heart felt like it would burst with love, and of Cate's river-stone eyes that stirred something deep within John's chest like a nervous butterfly with wings of velvet and blechablugerflug...

I can't even make it up as bad as that lady can write. Even her action scenes were lifted from b movie scripts. At the end, John, one of the main characters, is talking to the guy who turns out to be the head psycho. The psycho is saying that his psycho protégé never had the patience to torture somebody satisfactorily, and John takes a swing at the guy saying, "patience this!"

If you get hired to record a book on tape, I wonder if you get to read the book first. I'd have trouble getting that line out in a studio environment without wasting many a take. (This is not to say that I'm picky about the books on CD I check out. Next up in my front seat is a book about the history of coal.)

Anyhow, finishing that book was the last bright point of my day. The first bright point was discovering that the cause of the traffic on my way to work was 2 police motorcycles and a police car surrounding a black bmw which had run into the embankment on the right side of 101N. The police had the driver of the car handcuffed and seated on his mangled hood.

Normally, if everyone seems okay in an accident, I'm angry with them for holding up traffic. But this guy got what was coming to him. 100s of people drove by and got to see him sitting, handcuffed, on his freshly wrecked car … not wearing any pants. Yep, he was pantless. He was, however, wearing shoes.

And finally here, as was requested, is my SYPBISI picture:




*Not that Cate.

Personals

On April 16th somebody in Sacramento actually went to Google and looked up SYPBISI, found my SYPBISI page, and went to it. I didn't get an email, but I'm glad somebody out there has the wherewithal to Google text included in pictures for the express purpose of looking up somebody's identity.

Special thanks to Google, ping.exe, eXTReMe Tracking, and ip2location.com for making this post possible.

Update: Crap. I've just discovered that the person in question is not a girl at all, but Anthony.

Backlog

Today I learned that singing in the shower is fine, but not when washing my face. Irish Spring tastes terrible.

Pub Quiz Update - I got to pub quiz about an hour late and so limited my historically limited help to the last 3 rounds. Even so, it was an exciting finish. Here is the most confusing way I can think of to explain how it ended up:

We came into the last round in a 3 way tie for first after just rebounding from second place. We answered the last round's questions to the best of our ability and waited for the scores to be tallied. After the standings were out, we had dropped into a 2 way tie for 2nd place, "First Place" having taken over the top spot. We sent my roommate up for the quiz-off, tie-breaker round, and he blew the other team away with his answer of 300. The correct answer was 400, and the other team guessed 6. Dumbies. (The question was something about the number of episodes of some show filmed at some location over a span of something along the lines of 20 years.) And so it was, we, the Leprecant's, took 2nd place and a $20 voucher for the Napper Tandy.

On Friday a storm was abrewin' in the North Bay. While driving across the parking lot to load up a bed frame I looked out the window to see a cardboard box keeping pace with me. It looked like it on little wheels, or perhaps being carried by the world's fastest ants.

I'm having an excellent Sunday, full to the brim with getting nothing done. I woke up at 9am (9am! Which means I had both 9.5 hours of sleep and a completely uneventful Saturday night.), watched some Scrubs, ate half a frozen chocolate bar, watched more scrubs, took a shower, ate some Top Ramen, and wrote this. Bliss I tell you. Boring to read about, but bliss none the less.

I didn't title this "don't read this, it's not good" for nothing.

About Jury Duty

I've been called in for jury duty several times. The first few times I kept delaying it by pointing out that if I showed up for a two week trial I wouldn't be able to pay rent. Finally I could put it off no longer and I was assigned to a jury. We heard the case, deliberated, and hung on 2 out of 3 charges. There was a mistrial and I was done for a little over a year.

I was worried the cycle was starting all over again Monday, but things went fairly smoothly. I showed up at 1:30pm, the jury wrangler guy did a little speech about how things work, where to park, how much you get a day if you are selected ($17.50), and what we are supposed to do while we wait. Then he put on a video.

It was a terrible, terrible video featuring real former jurors. I guess they had trouble finding jurors who were both articulate and enjoyed their stint on a jury, because the 3 people they had talking to the camera were a disturbing combination of irritating and cheese-ball. There was one guy who was trying to say how he felt he added some common sense to his jury, but it took him 3 or 4 tries to say it. For the sake of the judicial system, I hope he was not the only bearer of sense. Maybe he just forgot to bring it with him to the filming.

Besides featuring real multiethnic jurors, they also blatantly cast a person of every race and gender* in every scene. The African-American, female judge respectfully asks the male Latin-American defense attorney to offer his closing statement to the multiethnic, Mervin's-dressy, overly-attentive jury.

The voiceover was also excellent. They used such gems as "... and we live in California, the best state in the union" and "Usually we live in a peaceful and harmonious society, but sometimes we have disputes. When such disputes arise, they must be settled with justice."

Despite all this, we, the prospective jurors, all paid attention to the video. Well, all but one short, slightly thugged-out, Asian guy with gargantuan headphones. He wasn't listening to the video because he was listening to opera at such a volume that it could be heard by me, over the sound of the TV, from 20 feet away.

After the video was over they called about half the people in the room into a courtroom for jury selection. Happily, I wasn't one of them. There was one guy who was selected who I'm almost positive will not get on an actual jury. Not to judge on appearances, but he was wearing two hats (a baseball cap with a knit cap on top), a floor length, black, nylon trench coat, a bright blue t-shirt covered with cartoon cats, and a florescent green fanny-pack. He also had veeeeeeery long fingernails and kept talking to himself. (Until his friend the gigantic, punk, transvestite came and sat at his table. Then fanny-pack man talked to him/her.) I'm pretty sure Captain Kitty-T is the textbook example of someone you eliminate from your jury pool.

Maybe dressed like that on purpose. Maybe I should try that. Either way, I didn't need to go to such lengths. At 2:15pm, right after I bought some red vines and a 7up, they said everyone left in the waiting room could go home. So I hopped on my scooter and drove home to inadequately prepare for open mic night. Not a bad way to get out of work for half a day.

* I realize that "a person of every race and gender" insinuates that I think there might be 3 or 4 genders, but I do realize there are only 2. Though in defense of that sentence, I’m not sure either gender would fall all over themselves to include the huge punk transvestite as part of their team.

Not About Jury Duty

In lieu of a long post about jury duty, here's a short post about open mic:

It had been quite a while since I last played at open mic, and I was hoping to come back with something interesting, namely a song I wrote called Ordinary, where I use the words transubstantiate and elucidate (without rhyming them), and a cover of Criminal, by Fiona Apple. Both of the songs are available on my songs page, though the live version of Ordinary is better but the recording of Criminal is MUCH, MUCH better.

I tried to start Criminal with the signature bass riff, and failed. Then I completely stopped and started over. This time I just played it badly. Then, about a quarter of the way through the song, the part of my brain in charge of remembering chords went on vacation. Generally the rule is to keep playing and no one will notice, but I chose a different route. In the middle of my screw-up I said, "Ugh!" I'm currently fighting the urge to curl up in a fetal position under my bed.

On the brighter side I saw a friend from school I hadn't seen in since graduation. Also, there was an excellent duo with a 4-string guitar and a snare drum who covered Stuck in the Middle with You.

And now, since it's 11pm, I think it's high time I get into bed and bask in the embarrassment of thoroughly screwing up a song in front of 25 people.

How Did You Get Here?

According to my stats thingy, some 623 unique people visited my blog last month. With dynamic IP addresses and automated search engines the actual number is probably more like 2, but none the less, seeing those stats made me feel a little cooler (he writes on a planless Friday night.)

Here's how other people found me:

Google: vienetta to sell
Google: "pub quiz team names"
Google: good frickin chicken
Google: my signature in outlook is loosing my logo
Google: dmv voice reading for oregon drivers manual
Google: good frickin chicken
Google: company car with sonicare
Google: coat hanger nipples
Yahoo: chocolate meringue cookies + trader joes
Google: good frickin chicken
Yahoo: bowl of mash potatoes picture
Google: good frickin chicken
Google: Travis AFB Unit 36 pictures Air Traffic Controllers 2004
Yahoo: scooter mike
Google: blue plastic snow saucers
Google: Never get hiccups
Google: good frickin chicken
Google: blog working at bestbuy
Google: keaton simons girlfriend
Google: dealsonic sucks

My favorite one is "company car with sonicare." I have both a company car and a Sonicare toothbrush, but I don’t think I could safely combine them. Also, apparently nobody is searching for SYPBISI. That particular plan seems to have failed.

Zero Sum Day

I started my day as I normally do, by stumbling out of bed and into the bathroom. As I was sitting on the toilet reading Newsweek, I got an inkling of how the rest of my day would go when I drooled on myself for the second time in as many days.

Yep, just like yesterday morning, a longish string of drool jumped off my lower lip and landed on my arm. Drool on me once, shame on the drool. Drool on me twice, well, don't drool on me twice.

After taking my shower to wash off both my nightly accumulated funk and my fresh drool, I went to work where I put together 4 mattresses. (Yeah, when we sell them they come in pieces, and it's not exciting enough to go into more detail.) At that point I was sent to Alameda to check on a mattress another tech (the one that sets his car alarm off every time he enters his vehicle) was having trouble setting up.

So I drove the 45 minutes to Alameda to find the tech gone, the bed made, and the patient asleep. There was no way to check on the mattress, so I went to lunch and came back to the depot.

When I got there, my supervisor told me that the foam inserts weren't coated with fire-retardant material and I had to take them apart. By 5pm I had officially undone everything I had done for the day.

For anyone keeping score, my accomplishments for the day are as follows:

1) Going to the bathroom
2) Keeping up my daily drool routine for the second day running
3) Showering
4) Eating a bagel
5) Eating lunch

That's it. That's every single thing I've accomplished today. And now, to top it off, I plan to go undercook some 4-cheese ravioli, sprinkle some parmesan cheese over it (the kind in the green can), and go to sleep. Not an exciting day, but I'm liking where my night is going.

We Won! ((Most-)Weekly Pub Quiz Update)

As the title suggests, we won. We were "H&R Blokes", and we came in first with 60 points. Second place was "Bain of Your Existence" with 57. Best name: Martha's LoJack which I feel, since we were taken out of the running for best name by coming in first, was a good choice for the bottle of champagne.

Sooner or later I'm going to need some sleep this week.

(Boring) Itty Bits

I'm training a new guy at work which involves a lot of driving around with him. It turns out we have very little to talk about. He's a nice guy, but we can't seem to fill much more than 5% of our time with talking. I actually listened to a baseball game on the radio yesterday because I felt bad for making so little noise.

The new guy and I delivered a mattress today to a really nice old lady who lives all by herself in a HUGE house in San Francisco. It's kind of sad really. She mostly stays in a little hospital bed in a little room in back. The only time she's out of bed is when her mattress gets a hole in it and I have to come replace it, which is more often than you might think. (I'm starting to suspect that she has spines or thorns or something.) Anyhow, she was grateful to us for coming out to fix her mattress, so she decided to become a stereotype and opened a big tin of hard candy. She then closed the tin of hard candy, and vigorously shook it to try to break a few pieces off from the solid candy-mass. Some broke free and we each took a piece. Then I finished up the paperwork, left the house, and we both immediately threw our candy in the trash. I try to be polite, but I'm not a big fan of amputated candy.

All restaurant chairs are exactly the same and it's starting to freak me out. A Subway in Santa Rosa, a little place in Albuquerque, The Olive Garden in San Francisco, and countless other eateries all have chairs of the same design. Seat material and finishes come in several varieties, but they are all, in essence, exactly the same chair. Maybe I'll try to take pictures. Or invest in the company that makes them.

They're everywhere I tell you. Everywhere.

A Sharp Stick in the Eye

Yesterday I saw a woman driving along on the freeway and eating her lunch ... with chopsticks. Eating with chopsticks wins second prize for method of eating least compatible with driving. The first, I think, would be fondue (which I feel is both a style of food and method of eating.)

Let's compare:

-Chopsticks are hard and sharp enough that they could impale you with the help of an airbag.
-Fondue forks are harder and sharper and designed with stabbing in mind.

-Eating a bowl of whatever with chopsticks requires two hands and driving requires at least one, for a total hand-discrepancy of one.
-The Sterno employed to heat the chocolate/cheese/oil for the fondue could set your lap on fire.

Food attained at drive through is soft and non-flammable for a reason.

Costco Sample Slinger

The sample lady: These raviolis take only 10 minutes to coooooook. They have four cheeses and come with a packet of seaaaaaaaaasoning. Just boil them for 10 minutes and coat them with some olive oiiiiiil.

Customer: How much are they?

TSL: Thirteen ninety niiiiine.

Customer: And where are they?

TSL: In the freezers on the left almost at the eeeeeend.

She was very strange, but made some good ravioli.

Down with Toes

I've discovered that my little soap container, when full of a new bar of soap, is surprisingly heavy and vindictive. It seems to be single mindedly determined to rid my feet of toes. It leaps down upon my feet from wherever I set it. The soap container particularly enjoys the inside shower door rail as it has an extra 2 feet to pick up speed before both crashing into my toes and giving me a heart attack. (It cunningly waits to dive-bomb until I have shampoo running down over my eyelids.)

The soap container may have misunderstood my own hatred of feet. It's true - I find feet extremely unappealing. Feet range on a beauty scale from hoarkingly disgusting to meh. I've yet to see a foot older than a year that has achieved a ranking of cute or even okay. Even so, I understand their usefulness in actives like walking, driving, and keeping me from falling over when I come to a stop on my scooter.

You have no comrade in me, soap container. You may find yourself trapped between the shampoo and that wall before the week is out.

Terrible Music

I came home to Piranha Man (my neighbor across the fire-escape) blasting Matchbox 20. Listening to Matchbox 20 (whom I hesitate to even capitalize) at a reasonable volume is bad. Blasting them is like being eaten by a shark and requesting that it chews on you slowly, savoring each bite.

By the way, if anyone is looking for other professional, quality similes, my services are always available.

IRS?*

I've apparently just completed my 2004 taxes. I finished the federal bit with the help of turbo tax and my accountant (pronounced Mom), and I just did the State bit online.

Turbo tax seemed like a good program. They included some weird, convoluted sentences, but the sentences were required in describing the weird convoluted tax code. However, the online California tax filing system outsourced some of their copy writing to Yoda. The second sentence said something along the lines of, "Did all include your form(s) W-2 income any dark side of force bring you?" After consulting my momcountant, we decided that my W-2s were indeed part of the dark side. I hope that's what the IRS wants to hear.

The upshot is that I'm getting money back. I'm a little skeptical about this refund, because my federal tax return kicked my ass for collecting unemployment. Now my state return sidles up playing the good cop and gives me a whopping refund for being all poor and unemployed from February through July.

I think the government is bipolar or passive aggressive or something.

*This post was brought to you by Internet Explorer, which I haven't used in quite some time. I guess Blogger is having a little tiff with Firefox at the moment. I hope they settle their differences soon. And if whoever took the data from the document would kindly put it back, I would sincerely appreciate it.

No See Ums

I'd like to warn all those who find themselves on Highway 37 or 101 to pack extra windshield wiper fluid. Both today and yesterday were filled with a fusillade* of large, yellow-dusted, suicidal butterflies. Err, let's say moths. Nobody wants to hear about a view completely obscured by butterfly bits.

* It took me literally 5 whole minutes of cruising around on Google and then M-W.com to figure out how to spell fusillade. This is the problem with a) not being able to spell, and b) picking up new vocabulary via books on CD.

Flight of the Bajaj Legend

I've done it. I got my permit, I bought my insurance, I purchased my scooter, and yesterday I picked it up. You are currently reading the typings of one happy guy.

After the San Francisco Scooter Center closed, Barry, the owner, loaded me onto the back of my scooter and we drove to Pac Bell Park so I could putter around in the parking lot without fear of getting hit by a truck. Alas, there had been a game earlier in the day, so there were still a few cars in the lot, and what pavement wasn't covered by cars was covered by glass beer bottles. Does nobody take canned beer to games?

In addition to contending with parked cars (not a big deal) and beer bottles, both broken and not (sort of a big deal as they tend to sneak up you), I also had to avoid being run down by the mini dirt-bike stunt rider brigade. There were 4 or 5 guys and 1 girl riding around on little tiny dirt bikes perfecting their wheelies and doughnuts. They also very much enjoyed zooming down to the minute square of parking lot I was using to figure out where the friction point on my clutch is, and scaring the crap out of me. But after a little less than an hour, I was more comfortable with making my scooter go, stop, and turn corners and was ready to get out on the open road. (That and it was getting dark, and I'm not aloud to ride after dark until I get a real license.)

I became a passenger for the second time on the way back to the shop, then switched back to driver for my trip home. Barry followed me home on his own scooter to make sure I didn't immediately fall off and die. It was very thoughtful.

All in all, I'm thoroughly happy with buying my scooter from SF Scooter Center. And apart from the fact that my right blinker doesn't work (which I plan to get fixed on Saturday), I'm very happy with my scooter.

Which is not to say that I don't need more practice. Tonight I took my maiden voyage (by maiden I mean leaving from and returning to my house) to Trader Joe's. I only made 3 mistakes. Not bad for only my second time on a scooter.

1) I took a turn waaaay too wide, but on an empty street. No cars no foul.
2) At a stop sign with cars on all sides, when my turn came I killed the engine. Everyone else took their turn, and then I tried again, this time successfully.
3) This was the most exciting mistake. The ramp into the parking lot at TJ's is at a slight incline. I had forgotten this, and probably should have entered through the other side since I hadn't practiced starting on a hill yet. None the less, 2 small wheelies later, I made it into the parking lot followed by the frightened eyes of the car at which I had inadvertently aimed my wheelies. Apparently the Bajaj is not without its fair share of pep.

Anyone who would like to more accurately picture my scooting can see what a silver Bajaj Legend looks like here.

Praying for the JP part Duex

I keep hearing on the radio how everyone is holding mass and praying for John Paul II. I'm not a big religious guy, so maybe I'm misunderstanding the reason to pray for people, but it seems to me that the Pope would be the very last person who would need to be prayed for.

Am I wrong? Isn't the point of praying for someone to increase their chances of getting into heaven? After they're done praying for the Pope they can switch to praying for Jesus. I hear he may be having some trouble slipping by St. Peter.

Blurbs


Things in the bathroom may seem more important than they are

While I was in the airport waiting for my flight back to San Francisco, I went into the bathroom right as a TSA guy was leaving. My first thought was that he was checking for some security breach. However, it quickly dawned on me that he was probably just peeing.

Yet another downside of smoking

On my way to get a burrito today, I saw a girl stopped in the center lane of Potrero, which is a 3 lane, none-too-quiet street at 6pm on a Monday. She had her rear door open and she was crouched down on the street looking around on the floor of her back seats. People honked and swerved around her, but she was undeterred. After about a minute she emerged triumphant bearing the fruits of her adventure: A lit, but almost entirely new cigarette.

No good things

In my quest to reduce the amount my pager stabs me in the love handles (and to avoid getting diabetes) I'm trying to cut down on my sugar intake. I did an excellent job today by not stopping for m&ms or milkshakes, and opting for a diet 7up during lunch. Unfortunately I had a burrito for dinner, and the law clearly states that burritos require a cup of strawberry juice. However, the guy behind the counter (who is very nice but has the most gargantuan man boobs (moobs) ever to grace this earth) said they only had watermelon juice. Fine by me, I thought, give me a cup of that. So I walked home with only the slightest sugar infraction: my cup of cantaloupe juice. Yes, cantaloupe. Still good, but twice removed from what I was expecting.

Scootering Apparel

I'm looking around for a motorcycle jacket because I just got a scooter, and if I fall off, I'd prefer to retain some of my skin. However, I'm not wild about spending $200 on such a jacket, so I was perusing Amazon.com for some cheaper alternatives. I did a search for scooter, then clicked on apparel, then on men's. What I got, apart from some pictures of portly, goateed men in leather jackets, was a picture of a guy in a white terrycloth monk-robe in a bathroom sitting on what I assume is a toilet.

What a strange way to sell a product.

Pick N Yank

Yesterday I required a raspberry hot chocolate, so I went to the little drive up stand across the street from Travis Air Force Base. (Which is apparently home to any number of things which entertain me.)

Normally I like going to the little stand - They make good raspberry hot chocolate, and the girl that works there is both nice and fairly attractive. However, when I pulled up yesterday she failed to notice me as she was totally engrossed in tweezing out her armpit hairs with the help of a very small mirror.

I sat there for maybe 30 seconds, thinking that she was maybe just in the middle of a particularly exacting pluck, but she still didn't notice me so I knocked on the window. I did so quietly in hopes that she wouldn't start and impale her milk steaming arm with the tweezers.

To keep what should be a short story from getting overly long, it all worked out, I got my raspberry hot chocolate (not too hot and therefore not chunky) with whipped cream and drove away. I wasn't even terribly grossed out. I mean, she was in the half of the little room away from the food. Very sanitary.

Death of a Sealsman

This weekend a bunch of friends and I went to Ano Nuevo reserve to look at the elephant seal weaners. (When baby seals are born they are pups, then when mom cuts off their milk supply the pups are known as weaners. I suppose after they go out to sea for the first time they become young adults, but I'm just guessing about the last bit.) If you've ever been to Pier 39 to look at the harbor seals, then you've seen weaner sized elephant seals. I suppose if one is going to grow up to be between 3 and 5 tons, one doesn't want to start out too small.



During the walk we had to stay at least 25 feet from any given seal. This rule wasn't to save the seals from us, nor was it to protect us from attacking seals. Apparently, according to our initial park ranger, elephant seals can move surprisingly fast for about 15 feet. Nobody likes to be in the way of 3 tons of motivated animal. (According to our tour guide, elephant seals get squished by other elephant seals too. When we passed a particularly stinky ex-seal, we asked how it had died. Our guide said that she had probably been crushed during "some particularly enthusiastic mating.")




Because of the 25 foot rule, taking pictures of the seals would have been difficult without my realization that I can take pictures through my binoculars. It works surprisingly well, and I'm told that I should try to market the idea to Cannon or to binocular companies. I was continually impressed with the image quality, though i was awfully hard to zoom the camera, focus the binoculars, and press the shutter button with only two hands. The strain of concentration shows on my face.




Unfortunately the fact that I didn't wear any sunscreen also shows on my face. It was overcast and ever so slightly chilly all day. I guess the UV rays were going incognito. I have some rosacea on my cheeks, and I've been trying to put this cream on it to make it go away. The instructions say to put it on the affected areas, but at this point it's a little hard to tell where those areas are. It looks like someone has put a giant flashlight behind my head, or perhaps like I'm lit from the interior.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll peel. What better way to woo the ladies than by looking like a tomato who fell in a bowl of parmesan cheese.

Talking

I'm not a big talker. If I don't know you I might not talk at all, and if I do know you I may only talk slightly more than if I didn't know you at all. I recognize that not all people are this way. Some people like to talk, as was illustrated by my final 5pm delivery today.

Generally delivering something takes about a half hour. I got to his place at 5 and didn't leave until 6:30pm. This lady seemed very nice, but I really just wanted to get home. During "our talk" we covered:

-Healthcare
-The U.C. System
-Guns on campus
-Students of the U.C. system both former and current
-Professors at the U.C. system
-Terry Schiavo (Whose last name, by they way, comes up with 5,170,000 search results in Google. Yikes.)
-Insurance companies
-The FBI
-Why I should join the FBI to fill their diminishing ranks of agents
-My future career goals
-Continuing education
-The Pacific Northwest
-The pronunciation of Oregon (Or ah gun)
-The pronunciation of the Willamette Valley (will am it)
-California Politics
-The differences in weather between Syracuse, New York and Irvine, California
-The history of the founding of Irvine, California
-Various friends and family members who have ever been in or near a hospital
-The ledged of the Best Visiting Nurse Ever
-The fact that she hates Mexicans

Yeah, the last one threw me off too. As I was trying to escape to my van, she followed me out. I commented that the apartment complex seemed very child oriented. (I.E. there were a ton of kids running around.) She opined that it was a dump and infested with Mexicans.

Earlier in the ordeal she told me I was very nice and seemed very smart. It was akin to having someone compliment your cooking and then nibble on some cat poop.

Dude

I remain besieged by messages from dudes.

My Yahoo! personals profile says that I am a man in search of a woman. It goes not say "and by women I mean dudes." The fact that I want to date women is pretty straight forward. (No pun intended.) If I were in the market for transgendered people, I probably wouldn't be on Yahoo! where that isn't a check box.

The first dude that emailed me actually looks a little like a lady in his picture. I would have though he was just an unattractive girl if his profile hadn't included that phrase "trans gurl from SF."

The second dude said nothing about his dudeness. He hadn't posted a picture before sending me an icebreaker, and I read through his profile where he announces that he's 5'11", athletic, and a woman. 5'11" is a tad tall for my scant 5'10" frame (unless the bond is strong and you sell things on eBay), but all in all she looked like she might be fun to hang out with from reading her profile. Then she posted a picture.

When the picture is small, she looks like a girl. When the picture is bigger, one starts to become suspicious of the jaw-line and broad shoulders. When the full body picture comes up, one becomes suspicious of the fact that he is obviously a dude with long hair, lipstick, nail polish, and uggs.

Maybe I need to take another look at my profile. Maybe I have a typo someplace that says I'd like to meet someone with a sense of humor and a penis. Strange though, I don't usually accidentally type the word penis.

Horking in a Field

Today I saw a cow with the dry heaves on my way to Travis Air Force Base. At first I thought she was nibbling the fence, but as I drove closer I noticed she had her head down, her tongue out, and her diaphragm was heaving. She was trying to chunder near the fence so it wouldn't mess up all the nice grass. What a thoughtful cow.

Also, Travis AFB requires a printed order to get on base. Our orders are paged to us, so I stayed at the depot until the order was paged, and then sent it to my email and printed it out. When presented with a printed email order, the guard said, "I'll let you in this time, but we usually don't let anyone in with an order that looks like it came from a computer."

Um, how do you get a printed order that doesn't come from a computer? Our individually placed letters typesetting printing press is on the fritz. The military is very strange.

What Happened to the Last Week?
(The Longest Post Ever)

I'll tell you:

All those who read this were probably relieved to see that there was no pub quiz update on Wednesday. I didn't not post one to save you the boredom, it turns out that I went through the whole of Wednesday thinking it was Thursday. Since none of the other pub quizzers heard from me, they assumed I didn't want to go and didn't go either. So when Thursday actually arrived it was triply disappointing to discover that I had missed pub quiz, that it wasn't Friday yet, and that I had to do Thursday all over again.

Thursday (which was distinctly not Friday) and Saint Patrick's Day mostly involved an enormous headache and the discovery that Louis Rich (which is now Oscar Meyer) turkey-dogs wait until 2am, and then mount an all out war on my digestive system. Though to be fair, it wasn't entirely Thursday's fault. I accumulated evidence over the rest of the week's turkey-dog and stomach cramp jag.

Friday was spent driving to Lake Tahoe, or to be more specific, Truckee. Since we left San Francisco at 8:30pm, there isn't much to in the way of Friday news. Mostly it involved packing, driving, arriving, and playing the guitar. My one moment of note was somebody requesting that I play Contemplating Banana Bread. It is always fun when somebody requests an original song.

Saturday began by taking the world's coldest shower. I usually take slow showers, so I was trying to take this shower super, extra quick since 6 of the 9 other people in the house hadn't showered yet. (And I wasn't sure how many planned to.) So I turned on the water all the way to hot, waited a minute, and climbed in. It remained cold. I flipped the dial all the way to the right thinking that maybe this was some crazy backwards knob. The water switched to ice. So I went back to the left and took the most comprehensive shower possible keeping in mind that every time a droplet of water touched my skin it would make me twitch and gasp for breath.

The rest of my Saturday was divided fairly evenly between skiing (9-12) and hiding in the lodge from the weather (12-4.) I hadn't skied in something like 10 or 12 years, and I was surprised to find that I didn't immediately slide down the mountain on my face. In fact I remembered how to turn, wedge (pizza), and go straight (French fries) almost immediately. However, after lunch the weather grew windy, snowy, and icy. Having paid almost $100 for the equipment and lift ticket, I was bound and determined to ski some more. But the ice on the snow made me slide down the mountain on my face twice, and it was waaaay too stressful trying to avoid all my fellow bunny-slopers who had given up and were sitting in the middle of the run waiting for the weather to clear.

Sunday involved cleaning up the rental house, sledding, and driving home which I shall talk about in three corresponding sections.

Cleaning: We cleaned the house and made a bag for random things which no one had claimed including: a set of keys, a towel, 3 toothbrushes, quite a lot of change, a swim suit, and a pair of very small socks.

Sledding: Being all skied out, a friend and I went out in search of a sledding hill. We found such a hill behind the Tahoe City Superior Court building in amongst the trees overlooking a stream. Since the snow was fresh and undisturbed, I went down the hill first on a river tube, trying to blaze a high-speed sled trail of excellence. Unfortunately, river tubes have quite a lot of traction on the bottom, so what I actually did was build up a big pile of snow in front of me as I slowly scooted down the hill, butt dragging through the center of the inner tube. The plastic snow saucers were much faster, though the numerous trees and trail butt-lumps made the trail both overly exciting and jostling. When sledding got to be too bruising, we switched to playing stack the snowballs and then I played shake all the show off a tree. All in all it was an excellent time.

Driving home: We left Tahoe City at 5:30pm and arrived in San Francisco at 12:30pm. That's 3.5 hours to get to Truckee (15 miles), and 4.5 hours to get to San Francisco (187 miles.) Oddly enough, a cooler of beer saved us an hour or two between Tahoe City and Truckee. Our friends behind us decided they wanted the cooler of beer in my trunk. They had jumped out of their car to come look for us in the (mostly) stop (and hardly ever) go traffic, but hadn't realized we were in front of them. So my roommate jumped out and brought the cooler back. On his way, he saw what looked like their silver car and waved. The people in the car waved back, rolled down their windows, and said hello. It turned out to be some friends of my roommate from work. They happened to know the cause of the traffic jam, and a short cut to avoid it that was coming up in less than 50 feet. It was a very King's Quest way to save 2 hours driving home.

Monday was mostly spent being tired because of Sunday.

Tuesday, today, was only eventful because I really had to go to the bathroom. I was kind of dehydrated from the amount of alcohol available over the weekend. (Not what you think: I don't drink, and because there wasn't anything but alcohol to drink, I only had a little tiny bit of tap water and a 16oz bottle of squirt.) So today I bought two big bottles of water and tried to consume them throughout the day. My last pickup was in Napa, and I had to go a little bit when I got there. But I didn't, and drank more water as I set off on the hour or so drive back home. As I approached the bridge my bladder was at about maximum capacity, at which point traffic slowed to a crawl. Drumming on the steering wheel, pushing my legs together, and loosing my seat belt weren't reducing my panic, so I started to look for other alternatives. The only one available: my empty water bottle. I didn't want to use it, I didn't want people in SUVs to be able to look in my window on the Bay Bridge and be able to see me relieving myself into a Safeway Select Refreshe bottle, but it came down to that or wet myself. My choice became clear.

Unfortunately one can only tip a water bottle at a very shallow angle when driving, so I had to stop before I was done for fear of over filling and having to deal with slosh. (A fear made all the more real by the stop and go traffic.) Luckily I seem to have sufficient control, and the operation was completed successfully, complete with still having the water bottle's cap.

The lesson to be taken away from this? Do not take water bottles out of the trash to recycle them. Somebody threw them away for a reason.

Land of the Camouflaged

Starting at 1pm today I had to be at Travis Air Force Base to help show off our fine suite of products to all the doctors and nurses in the various oddly acronymed medical units in the med center on base. (MICU, NICU, SICU, Pediatrics. What the hell is pediatrics?)

Before going through security*, I had lunch at the Subway across the street from the base entrance. Since it as 12:15 when I got there, everyone else was getting lunch there too, but I was one of only a very few not dressed in fatigues.

While I was waiting in line, a huge guy gets in line behind me. He was sporting the very model of a military hair cut, he was wearing combat boots, and he was standing waaaay too close to me. Every time he crept forward, I would do the same, sometimes throwing in a little creep sideways to keep my distance.

Anyway, while the line was oozing forward, I hear a little, but surprisingly loud, midi version of assembly coming from this guy's pocket. On most phones you can press almost any exterior button, and the ring will stop while you check the readout to see who it is. This guy didn't want to do that. It played the song once, then he realized it was him that was ringing, so he picked it up and perused the caller ID to see who was calling while assembly played through again. Finally he answered:

HELLO? WHAT? NO, NOT RIGHT NOW. NO, I'LL HAVE TO DISCUSS IT WITH YOU LATER. I'M GETTING SOME SUBWAYS. WHAT? YEAH, I'M GETTING SOME SUBWAYS. YEAH, I'LL CALL YOU BACK.

1 minute later:

Assembly plays twice through while he rummages for his phone and then inspects the front display. Then,

HELLO? WHAT? WHO? OH, CELINE DION? YEAH, I LIKE HER VOICE A LOT. SURE, THAT SOUNDS GOOD. LETS SEE THAT TONIGHT.


* Getting through security involves showing the begunned guards at the gate my ID (which is a little card with my name typed on it, my signature, my company logo, and a picture I took (and cut with scissors to the right dimension) which is all laminated and hung on a lanyard) and showing a printout of an order (which in that case was a screen shot of corporate's ordering software. Since it's a demo, it wasn't even a real order). I hope they aren't doing anything super secret there, because the security regime is terrible. My company ID is real, but I feel I could make a much more professional looking ID by going to office depot armed with $50. My company ID would look a lot more professional if I was wearing my uniform in my picture and not a gray t-shirt that says South Wales Borderers Scooter Club.

I Have Great News

I just saved $250 every six months on my car insurance. No, Geico had nothing to do with it. Apparently driving a company car to work has more benefits than I thought.

In other news, if I can pry myself out of bed in time, take a fast enough shower, and propel myself out the door by 7:30am, I shall try to get my scooter learner's permit. It's actually a Motorcycle learner's permit, but my intent is to get a scooter.

I'm sure this news will vastly disappoint all those people who think motorcycles are the best thing ever, but I don't have any great urge to be prescribed any of my company's fine family of products just yet.

Other disappointments for readers who talk to me in person: Having a learner's permit means that I can't take any passengers or ride around at night. Or at least not until I can demonstrate to the DMV that I won't fall off if I go around corners really slowly.

Cell phone Safety Tip

Don't stash your phone behind the sun visor. When you accelerate it might jump out and land on your nuts.

Not Now

At some point I plan to:
-Do my taxes.
-Switch some bank stuff around.
-Write an overly detailed account of my trip to Albuquerque and post it here (with pictures and everything.)
-Do laundry.

But not right now. I've just worn myself out by writing and recording a song ("Ordinary"), posting it on the internet, fixing my blog sidebar to link to my solo music, and bracing myself for the embarrassment of having the outside world hear me croak out my songs.

If you'd like to send me money for the pleasure of downloading them I accept paypal. Also acceptable: Pink elephants, dreams, Heffalumps And Woozles.

Yikes

Since I'm at work, I thought I would post a quick work related snippet:

I delivered a mattress today to someone in the Napa Valley on hospice. From past experience, I know that when I deliver things to people on hospice in Napa, they don't last very long.

So I set up the mattress and had the caregiver sign for it. I culdn't read her signature, so I asked what her last name is and she responds, "Graves."

Yikes.

Thirsty for Third

... was our pub quiz name tonight, yet we came in second. This might be an accomplishment if there had been more than 3 teams. But alas, there was not, and so there was no prize for best name nor was there a prize for second place.

In other news, leaving me in charge of picking bathroom colors is perhaps not a good idea. Light blue was voted for, and light blue was what I thought I chose. But when put all over that walls and ceiling, the blue was not as light as I thought it would be. We may need a reading lamp on the toilet tank. (And in regard to the voting for a new toothbrush, mine is a Sonicare and is therefore far too expensive to not suffer through a little tile dust for.)

And lastly, being the swell roommate that I am, volunteered to get my roommate from the Oakland airport tonight from his late-ass 11:50pm flight. But since it's him, his plane has been delayed and is now coming in at 12:52am (3 minutes later than when I checked 5 minutes ago. Bad sign.) I'm going to be one tired guy tomorrow.

I'm only glad that I'm not going to be two tired guys.

(Since spell checking this post his plane has gained a minute. Go Jet Blue! Fly like the wind!)

Color?

I have some exciting news for me, and some boring news for everyone who isn't me and/or my roommate: my bathroom is getting remodeled. The tile that I poked through the shower wall has turned into brand new tile work, the showerhead moving a foot and a half higher up, and the bathroom being repainted.

So here's what I need: you all to vote on what color my bathroom should be. If I finally hear from my roommate, you'll all be ignored, but since I'm having such trouble getting through to him, there's a good chance democracy will rule. Please vote for solid and reasonable colors. My landlord will not do stripes nor polka dots, and he probably won't paint it black. With that said, vote away.

I’m voting for I-don’t-care-urple but my landlord wants me to choose a different color. And we already have one vote for light blue, for calming, soothing trips to make a poopie.

(And all votes must be in by 8am west coast time. I'm sure this means I'll get no votes, but I didn't get a whole lot of warning.)

Update (8:45pm): I've just realized that they pulled up my nice caulking job. I guess the moral of the story is that if you are a good tenant and scrub the black stuff off the tub once a year, the third time you do it you get a brand new bathroom. However this must be weighed against the issue of having your toothbrush covered in tile dust. (I washed it and put it in the refrigerator, which I feel is probably safe from dust.)

The Amazingness of my Landlords

Because I just got back from Albuquerque and want to go to bed, I shall give everyone a super quick wall update (See a couple of posts back).

That's it. You have the whole update: Nothing happened.

When conjecturing with my Mom about the possible wall outcomes when I arrived home, she asked if I had any duct tape and plastic sheeting in the event that nothing had been done. I said that I didn't, but I did have packaging tape and plastic bags. However, when I arrived home there was a small pile outside my door consisting of 2 rolls of duct tape, a utility knife*, and a square of plastic sheeting.

My theory is that my landlord brought stuff over to do a patch job but couldn't get past my cunningly locked door. I guess I could live here forever rent free as long as I didn't let him in.

* I pondered whether to put an or a in front of utility knife. I seems like an is technically correct, but a sounds better and spell/grammar check agrees.

Empathy? No?

Have you ever tried to take a shower using the tub spigot, but only with equivalent water flow of a lackadaisical drinking fountain? I just did, and I don't feel very clean.

I couldn't take a shower because a) I re-caulked the door last night and b) there's a big hole in the shower wall. I couldn't take a bath because the drain plug doesn't work and the only other thing I could think of to clog the drain has food bits on it.

With no other course of action available, I turned on the tube faucet to a trickle and mashed my face up against the drain handle to try to get water to run over my hair. This of course made my hair a little wet, and the rest of me slightly damp and very cold. I often bring the space heater into the bathroom with me, and why I didn't do it today is a mystery for the ages.

Caulking Up the Bathroom

I decided that this weekend I was going to be a good tenant and re-caulk around the shower door.

The shower door leaked when I moved in, but during one of my Mom's visits* she filled in the holes with caulk. Alas, after a few months it started to leak just a little bit. So this weekend was going to be the big repair weekend. I'm going to Albuquerque tomorrow, so I won't be taking another shower until Monday, and my roommate is in New York doing pre-law school things. That gives the caulk the full recommended 48 hours to set.

With all these big plans, I decided to take things a step further and scrub my tub. (After eating grub, going to the pub, and examining my chub.)

I'm going to skip to the end of the story here and tell you that the caulking came out swell. I did a masterful job, and no water shall leak under the shower door ever again.


(The lines you can see on top are on the metal door guide. The pure and excellent slope of the caulk bead is imperceptible in the picture.)

Back to the middle of the story: While I was leaning on the wall scrubbing my tub, the wall gave up. It decided that the years of mildew and soakage were too much for it, and the drywall quit and walked off the job leaving the ill-grouted tile to fend for itself. The tile did a commendable job of pretending to be a wall for quite a while, but my leaning on it was simply too much to bear.

The end result is that my shower door is water tight, but the gaping hole in my wall may leak just a bit.



* vis•it (vĭz'ĭt) pronunciation
v., -it•ed, -it•ing, -its.
v.tr.
1. My Mom coming to San Francisco to see me.
2. The prime opportunity to buy me shirts/slacks/sweaters
3. To fix and clean my apartment. (Including doing dishes which may or may not be mine.)
4. To try to instill in me the knowledge and motivation to cook.

Curiosity Killed the Cat

I think my ass is too small for my work pants. Err, I suppose I should say that my work pants are too big for my ass since I'm not working on any ass increases at the moment.

I was noticing today that during the best of times it looks like I have no ass. Like I lost it in the war or something. But during the worst pant arrangements, it looks like a have short tail, or perhaps an extremely curious turtle.

What I need are low rise Dickies, but I don't think they make those. What more can I expect from wearing a pair of pants below my belly button that are designed to sit just below my eyelids.

On the subject of things that are sure to gross you out (extremely curious turtles), click below if you want to be weirded out for the rest of the week, and possibly most of next week. I almost didn't have a personal Trader Joe's pizza (with added olives) after I saw it. But then again, I see some disturbing stuff what with all my visits to hospice patients and nursing homes, and I was hungry.

I warned you.

Who Flung Poo?

That's what my t-shirt decided our pub quiz name should be. I still voted for Marissa, Queen of the Irish, but alas, everyone else thought the words on the front of my shirt were best.

And how's this for nerdy? Before the last round we graphed our points per round vs round and came up with kind of a sine wave. It turned out to be a fairly good graph. We looked at what it predicted for the final round and were dismayed to the graph's suggestion that we would do abysmally. We did abysmally, but still came out in 5th place.

I need a shirt that says "Marissa, Queen of the Irish." I guess then everyone might start calling me Marissa, and I'm not sure how funny I would think that was.

I'll Let You Know

When I'm at home I'm either in my room, where I can see my computer, or in the living room, where I can hear my computer. So whenever I get an email I get the little outlook noise (or the gmail notifier noise depending on the email address) and I wander in to see who emailed me. As a result, I'm often the first person to reply to Evites.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Being the first one at the party seems like a bad thing. But do others worry about being the first to respond to an Evite? Maybe I'm getting the ball rolling. Then again, maybe others decide whether or not to attend on the basis of my response. "Will Mike be there? Yes? Oh, then I have someplace else to be. I can't stand another evening of watching him get all drunk on sprite and shuffle around not talking to anyone."

Whatever. The party in question will have food made by one of the party throwers which fully justifies my yes response showing up within mere seconds of the Evite going out.

A Moment at Joe's

While I was waiting to buy 3 personal pizzas and a tub of lemon meringue cookies at Trader Joes tonight, the couple in front of me was looking at the pet food display while waiting to buy their chickenless nuggets. The boyfriend joked about getting one of the prominently displayed chewy things for their dog. I think the blatant disgustingness of the chewy thing was the thrust of his joke. That concept, however, was completely lost on his girlfriend who started to cry and get snippy with him.

She told him that it was not appropriate to even joke about buying her dog something that contained meat, and if he ever did feed him meat, even if he thought it would be "funny," she would kill him. The boyfriend countered that the dog probably didn't have a vegetarian philosophy, but she was far too upset to let logic prevail. Her dog will NEVER eat meat.

Really, why buy a dog? Dogs are pretty carnivorous. It's like buying a chicken and being offended when someone offers it chicken feed. Or taking offence at offering a duck stale bread, or at offering me a tub of lemon meringue cookies. I’m very cookivorous.

One More for the Road

I saw the dead penguin again today, but this time it was joined about a mile up the road, by what I thought was a turkey. It was a big round bird with brown feathers sticking up in back, though it had kind of a longish neck.

Upon consulting a friend that has a BS in animal science and works for the LA zoo, I came to realize it was probably a peahen, or girl peacock for those of you who didn't know (like me) that all peacocks are dudes.

Peahens, like penguins, are not the most nimble creatures ever to roam the earth. How do all these things get into the fast lane? I'm starting to think that some Pinole, California resident has a lot of weird pets, and he is getting sick of said pets pecking at the carpet. Or maybe, in the case of the penguin, sick of finding fish in his slippers. I think he entices the birds into the car with the offer of a trip to Berkeley, and then a few miles down the road the window comes down and out they go.

Everyone wants to make jokes, but animal cruelty is a serious matter. However, being the understanding guy I am, I'll start you out:

Why did the penguin and peahen cross the road?

or

A peahen and a penguin walk into a freeway and the freeway tender says...

Thinning the Population at the Zoo

Whist driving this week I saw what looked like a squished penguin. Or, to be perfectly accurate, half a squished penguin.

There have been a lot of dead skunks along the free way recently, and they do have the same color scheme. (No, this isn't the beginning of an elaborate "what's black and white and red all over" joke.) But it really looked like this particular 2 dimensional creature had flippers. And a beak.

I realize this doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not like a penguin could get tired of flying and land for a short but ill placed nap on the freeway. There's no water on the freeway for a penguin to swim itself through. And even if the penguin escaped from a zoo someplace, it's highly unlikely that it would have made it across 3 lanes of traffic only to get killed on the left side of the left lane. I mean, one more step and he would have been a happy and successful median penguin.

And as we all know, median penguins are invincible. (I think there is a pub quiz name in here someplace.)

Yum

A friend is having a birthday/new house dinner on Monday. I asked if I should bring anything and she said I could bring some dessert if I wanted to. If I can find any, I think I'll bring the quintessential 90s desert - Vienetta. Do they still sell it? I haven't seen it recently, but I'm always looking for Ben and Jerry's when I go down that isle.

Ah Vienetta. So good, so sliceable, so very 90s.

Fashion Nugget Part II

Today I went to get a burrito wearing my big gray work pants, a black t-shirt, and my gray jacket. It was cold out but I didn't zip up my jacket for fear of being mistaken for Dr. Evil.

On the way back, however, zipping up was the only way to go. I was cold and I had a burrito riding in my inside pocket, so I zipped up and started on the long road home with a burrito living close to my heart and warming my soul. I think there's a greeting card in there someplace.

Where Did That Come From?

I seem to have developed a bruise on my right leg as if somebody half bit me. Or bit me all the way, but had no bottom teeth. Or perhaps no top teeth, depending on their biting orientation.

One way or the other, I'm going to be on the lookout for crazed people with removable sets of teeth. Unfortunately I see a lot of those kind of people, so I'll have to be vigilant.

Fashion Nugget

Today I made some deliveries in the South Bay. I'm glad I don't go there very often.

On the way down I got stuck TWICE behind a street cleaner. Street cleaners are fine in their natural habitat – on a city street in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn. But cleaning the freeway at 2pm on a Tuesday is not cool, though the caravan of public works trucks made it a little more bearable. In order from back to front it went: A big truck with an 8 foot bumper and blinking merge sign crapping out a constant stream of lit flares, street cleaner #1, street cleaner #2, and the lead truck with a guy hanging out the side, grabbing the big stuff and flinging it into the back.

Eventually I made it to San Leandro: Clad exclusively in sweatpants since 1654. I saw 5 people wearing sweatpants in a span of 20 minutes.

Not that I can judge. Today I went to the store and library wearing big, battleship gray, polyester pants, a green nylon windbreaker, white socks, and a t-shirt that says "Who Flung Poo" featuring a picture of a monkey with a baseball glove. If anyone wants to back my fashion line let me know. I'll round up some portly models.

Finally, totally unrelated to fashion, the open mic went pretty well. I did "Been Thinking About You" by Radiohead during which I only goofed up the lyrics once, and "Falling Down" by Muse, during which I screwed up the lyrics once and the chords twice. I only have myself to blame as 2 out of the 3 people who would have made the audience truly eclectic didn't show up.

Open Mic - Last Minute Announcement

For all those interested, I'll be playing the Dylan's open mic tomorrow. I hope to play at 9:40pm. It's at 19th and Folsom - be there or be someplace else.

I think I'll play a cover each from Radiohead and Muse. All I have to do now is memorize the songs before tomorrow so I don't embarrass myself terribly in front of an extremely eclectic group.

Some Things Unrelated For Free (STUFF)

*I have two actual things scheduled for this weekend, and then a number of tentative things that are already falling through. Apparently, to me two things is a lot. I was worrying that I wouldn't have time to do my laundry before Monday. But as I sit here on this, my run of the mill Friday night, I realize that I could do laundry now, or tomorrow between my scheduled activities, or during any portion of my extremely tentative Sunday. I need to learn that two events on either end of a Saturday does not a weekend fill.

*Today my supervisor was telling me stories of living in San Francisco in the late 60s. Apparently he was in a house right at Haight and Ashbury with something like 9 rooms which became available when this really big, nasty, mean guy with a beard was evicted, and the big, mean, nasty landlord let them move in. Eventually the BNM guy moved back in, and when the BNM landlord saw him, the landlord stabbed the guy in the knee with the huge screwdriver he liked to carry around. The stabbee's girlfriend pulled her gun on the landlord and the police were called to sort it out. Eventually the situation calmed down and no more damage was done beyond the hole in the guy's knee which lined up nicely with the hole in his leather pants. They were all evicted, but managed to fight it for 3 rent-free months on the argument that "the landlord was stabbing people with screwdrivers."

At that point one of the roommates moved into a cave near the Cliff House Restaurant, and most of the rest found an empty house in Novato. They moved all their stuff in and lived there for a few months before a man walked up the driveway.

Man: Who the hell are you people?!
Them: Who the hell are you?
Man: I'm the guy that owns this house.
Them: Oh. We'd like to rent it from you.
Man: Ok. $200 a month.
Them: Done.

Between 10 and 20 people lived in the house until the man died and the house was left to his kids who decided to sell it.

*Falling Down by Muse is just an excellent song. If I could figure out the chords for the chorus I might attempt it at open mic.

*I'm thinking I should put all the crap I don't want on eBay. One of those auction-off-my-life things. (Although all the crap I don't want is no where near all my crap.)

Too Much Stuff

I've been peering around my room lately marveling at the sheer volume of crap I own. I'm going to need to go through it pretty soon so I don't end up packing it up and filling up what will probably be a little tiny studio apartment. At some point I'm going to post quite the free stuff ad on Craigslist.

Does anyone want several blank notebooks with most of the pages ripped out? A hula girl cradling some plastic swords? An IO port card that goes to a computer predating SCSI, ISA and PCI? A thrustmaster throttle controller with an old style pc keyboard connection? My failed attempt to create a remote control for a furby? The furby that refused to be controlled? A more entertaining post to read?

Yeah, me too.

Old Homework

I was going through a pile of old homework and notes in my closet tonight in preparation for moving. (Which is a ways of just yet.) I realized several things:

-I spent a fortune on binders
-I generally only filled notebooks halfway
-I'm not going to be able to relearn stuff from my notes on a subject which I only had a tenuous grasp of in the first place.

I also found some old homework assignments such as the one from Communications 134, were we all had to go out and have a conversation with a stranger. I shall post it here because my old essays entertain me.

Michael Kadel
CMN 134
Homework #3

Conversation Reaction

The only stranger I managed to have a conversation with during the time span of this assignment was this girl named Amanda at the G Street pub. The reason I approached her was, I’ll admit it, that she was attractive. She was sitting across the table from me. I was sitting next to someone I knew, but the rest of the table was occupied by friends of the person I was sitting next to.

The reason for the interaction was that I was quite simply looking for a date, well that and I needed a conversation for this assignment. I’m a terribly shy person who doesn’t just wander around having conversations with strangers. I don’t form sentences very well when I’m trying to carry on a conversation with someone I don’t know. This was the case when I had my conversation with Amanda.

I did my best to engage in small talk, but the lack of even flow seemed to make her, as well as me, a little uncomfortable. Many of the rules of conversation were broken, some on accident, some by necessity. One such broken rule was number five: Be efficient. Due to my lack of sentence forming ability when I’m nervous, I tend to restate things several times. I’ll leave out words, and then try again when I realize what I’ve said so far doesn’t make sense. Hardly the picture of efficiency. Another rule I broke was number three: Be clear. For some reason I seemed to have what seemed like millions of obscure movie references to draw from, none of which she had seen. Jokes go over so poorly when the receiving party doesn’t get it. The last rule which was broken was number ten: Be articulate. We were in a bar, and there was a band playing, so shouting was the only way to carry on any sort of conversation at all. In addition, my voice does not carry well, so articulation was not in the cards.

Over all I’m not that satisfied with the interaction. Just the fact that I tried to have the conversation at all is commendable for me, but the result was not as I had hoped it would be. Amanda seemed uninterested in the conversation which made it especially hard to keep it going. Even if she had been more interested, it was difficult to hear over the band. To file the dialog, I would categorize it two ways. On my end, it was Genuine Dialog. I was trying to talk to her as an individual and was concerned with trying to begin a relationship. From her end I would categorize the conversation as Monologic. She wasn’t so much talking to me as she was trying not to seem rude.

Next time I think I’ll try to find someone who seems more interested in a conversation to begin with, instead of picking someone uninterested who is near by. I will also try to start these thing when the background noise is at a reasonable volume. Other than those two improvements, I need to improve me ability to converse with strangers. But I can’t necessarily change that for “next time.” Improvement in that area will only come with practice, and with many more uncomfortable conversations.

Proof of My Rotten Core

Super Bowl Sunday mostly involved me standing around in the kitchen, not doing a good job eating olives, and talking to friends. I watched 0 commercials, and only looked at the game a couple of times when shouts came up from the people in the living room. During these crucial moments I would look to see what was going on, remember that I didn't care, and go back to dipping home-made chocolate chip cookies in whipped cream.

However, I did see a bit of the pre-game show. When I turned on the TV they had just started singing the national anthem and maybe one or two other patriotic songs. All the country performers were wandering around on stage in their sleeveless flag motif shirts singing about how swell America is. Then the camera cut to a close up of a girl.

The girl in question was looking both off to the left and off to the right at the same time. She was seriously walleyed. I've noticed that during televised sporting events the camera will often cut into the crowd to some attractive or entertaining person, this girl obviously fitting into group #2. I started to laugh.

I mean, she must have THE BEST peripheral vision, possibly over 180 degrees worth. But as I'm laughing the camera starts to zoom out and pan, and I realize that the producers of the pre-game show have surrounded the stage with legions of the singing mentally challenged. Initially I was laughing at the close up shot of the girl, and with the realization of what I was actually laughing at, I started to laugh harder.

There I was, sitting on the couch having a hearty laugh at the expense of patriotic, mentally challenged kids, when my roommate notices and inquires, "Michael (the roommate equivalent of using somebody's full name)?! Are you laughing at the handicapped?!"

Yes. Yes I am.

2 Things

1) My post counter seems to have started working again. It looks like I've posted 171 times. That's a whole lotta nothin’.

2) I met my 4th Yahoo person on Sunday, and saw her again tonight. As per usual, I have no idea how it's going, though I'm getting the impression that she'd just like to be friends from her many and varied statements about how it's too bad that everyone on Yahoo Personals is looking for a relationship. Whatever. I could probably due with more friends. I could also due with more sleep. Where does the day go, and how does the morning sneak up so fast? Frickin morning. Geez.

The Date

Not so good. Not terrible, just not great.

Since I had some vague idea what to expect with Thai food, we went to a Thai place for dinner. During dinner we had some halting and uncomfortable conversation.

During the drive to pick her up I made a mental list of all the conversation topics I could think of: School, music, jewelry making, where we hail from, etcetera. Unfortunately we exhausted all my prepackaged conversation questions on the way to the restaurant.

Part way through dinner I started to think, "This is going poorly, but that's ok, it's only dinner. I can go home and do laundry after this." But as we stepped outside she said, "So what do you want to do now? Want to catch a movie?"

I thought, "Um, er. Not really."
I said, "Um, er. Sure."

In the immortal words of Oklahoma, "I'm just a girl who can't say no." Or something like that.

So we went to see A Very Long Engagement. Which was a very long movie starting Audrey Tautou. The highlight of the movie was seeing Audrey Tautou's butt, and the lowlight of the movie was the rest of the movie. It had a ton of characters who switched identities from time to time, and I'm not good with names, especially when I'm reading them from subtitles. It was also surprisingly gory. I read a review (which I remembered after I saw the movie) that summarized it well. He called it Amelie Goes to War. That about sums it up, except that it's less funny and cute and a lot more bloody.

So much for that. I'm meeting someone else tonight at a bar to see a band, but I'm not holding my breath.

Holy Crap

I was worried once again that a Yahoo girl had given up on me. But low and behold, an email has just arrived countering my offer of coffee with a casual Friday dinner. The dinner choices: Thai or Cambodian.

So now I have to choose between spilling stuff all over myself (Thai) or wondering what I'm eating (and quite possibly displaying my astounding lack of worldliness: Thai.)

AND she suggested that I pick her up. What if she hates me? I certainly wouldn't ask me to pick me up on our first date. I'd want to meet me someplace so we could go my own separate ways. (At which point there would be 2 of me running around having embarrassing dates, and nobody wants that.)

Questions Answered

Since nothing interesting happened today, I shall answer comment questions.

Lighting the votive: Shoot 2 squirts of binaca as close to the wick as possible. Then stand back 6 or so inches from the candle (making sure nothing flammable is near by) and shoot a 3rd squirt of binaca over a lit lighter into the candle. This creates a fireball which, in turn, lights the binaca gathered below the wick. For some reason the binaca residue hangs out in votive wax for longer than it does on other things, which happens to be just enough time to get the candle going.

Killing flies: Same idea as lighting the candle, except no candle, and aim the fireball at the fly.

Here's a question of my own: Why are skunks so depressed right now? I see (and/or smell) 3 or 4 dead skunks a day. Why are the skunks crossing the road? To get hit by a semi? To make the Bay Area smell bad? The point certainly doesn't seem to be to get to the other side. I think they walk half way across the street, stop, turn, stand up on their hind legs, put one paw on a hip and stretch the other paw out front in the universal sign for stop. We don't stop, and now the freeways smell. Cheer up little buddies. You've so much to live for.

Some Things

- My Yahoo profile has just come back online after the Personals staff deemed it fit for public consumption, and I've just gotten my first icebreaker. From looking at her profile, I can see myself dating her, but I'm not sure that she can see herself dating me. I'm not sure if she's looked at her profile, but it says that she wants someone who is 2 inches taller and makes $40,000 more a year than me. I don't think either of those things are going to happen between now and when I email her.

- Votive candles are tall and skinny and hard to light when the wick burns down to more than 3 inches below the rim. But I've come up with a solution. (And it doesn't involve buying one of those long lighters. Be creative people.) Since candles burn they way they do, the wick is always the lowest point. So any binaca sprayed into the candle collects under the wick. Then when a fireball of binaca is sprayed down into the candle, it usually sputters for a bit, and then jumps merrily to life. Binaca has soooo many uses. Freshens breath, helps me breath fire, kills flies, and lights those hard to reach places. It also removes the hair from my fingers from time to time, but that's more than worth a good fireball.

- Because of an ill-advised purchasing decision on the part of my roommate, we now have roughly a pound and a half of olives in our fridge. I'm did my part to get rid of them by ordering an 18" mushroom pizza, and when it arrived, covering it in olives. Turns out that an 18" pizza only took care of the little tiny Tupperware of olives in the fridge. The gigantic Tupperware full of olives lives on.

- Last night I got in bed at 8:30 and was asleep by 9:30. Why, you ask? Because I'm an old, old man who wishes his neighbors would "turn that racket down." Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to a book on tape.

What a Place to Poop

On the way home from work I saw a very small dog taking a crap in the middle of a crosswalk while his owner looked back and forth between his wee, squatting dog and the countdown to green for the oncoming traffic. I now understand how many uses those crosswalk countdown things have:

1) They tell you how much time you have to get across the street.
2) When in a car, they tell you how much time you have before the light turns yellow.
3) They add artificial suspense to pooping.

As I watched as the counter went down from 7 seconds, to 6, then to 5, I really did feel a little tense. Would he finish up in time? Would there be a last-second problem with the plastic collection-bag, using up precious crossing seconds?

It turned out that the dog finished at about 3, the owner deftly scooped with his baggie at 2, and they had safely made it to the curb by 0.

Who says I didn't have an exciting day?

Googling for Dates

Since it worked so well for the girl on Yahoo, I've now put a picture on my personals listing that includes the words "Photo by Sypbisi." Now all I have to do is let Google work its magic, and when eligible web savvy ladies search for the mysterious Sypbisi, they'll get Sypbisi. Muh ha ha ha ha ha! (Or they'll get this post which works too.)

Goodbye Post

As much as I hate to delete a post (especially one with comments attached) I'm now playing it safe. I shall just say that I was worried for nothing, but am not going to take any chances.

How's that for vague? Booya!

Dining in Healdsburg

As I drive around in the little towns of California, I tend to fool myself into thinking that the restaurants I see are all undiscovered treasures. That I'll be able to say to all the girls I'm currently not managing to date that "I know this great Italian place in Healdsburg," and that she'll be all impressed with my knowledge of obscure eateries.

But it's just not true. All these places are terrible.

This week I went to the afore mentioned Italian place in Healdsburg for lunch. I got there at 11:30am, and was a little worried they wouldn't be open yet. Their sign said they opened for lunch at 11am, but their door communicated a certain indisputable lockedness. But after jiggling the handle, the waitress / chef / hostess / girl-still-on-high school-winter-break opened the door and told me I could sit wherever I liked. (She was decked out in the lasted Healdsburg fashions: Pink studded belt, pink shirt, matching pink eye shadow, and expertly crimped hair.)

I wandered through 3 rooms of empty seats and finally settled on a booth near a window in the back. Unfortunately the booth wasn't wild about me sitting there, and the bench tipped up and tried to dump me onto the floor. I chose a different booth.

When presented with the menu, I decided on a chef salad with ranch dressing (the greatest condiment in the universe), and a lemonade.

Let's define some things before I go on.

Chef Salad: A salad containing lettuce, ham, turkey, cheese, and tomatoes. Optional ingredients include mushrooms, carrots, sprouts, and pickled beats.

Lemonade: A translucent yellow drink coming from either a can, a bottle, from squeezing lemons and adding sugar, or from country time brand lemonade powder.

Agreed?

The chef salad that arrived on my table included the following: Lettuce (good), carrots (still on the right track), ham (they sure know how to make a salad), salami (no!), garbanzo beans (seriously, no!), kidney beans (this is now 2 too many beans), 2 pepperincinis (these I like but was not expecting), and NO cheese. Where's my turkey?

Then there was my lemonade. I have never seen something in a glass that opaque which didn't include ice cream as a main ingredient. My theory is that it was made from putting lemon flavored spice drops through a juicer. Then they added a little water so the ice in the glass would have something to float in. Refreshing.

Since I was the only person in the restaurant, the service was still pretty good despite the fact that 5 calls came in during the half hour I sat there, all of which were for the waitress. My favorite call was one where she told the person, "I want to go to Thailand and hug a lemur. Yeah, lemurs are super cute. Or maybe a sloth. Sloths are just so chill."

Instead of being able to explain the wide variety of undiscovered culinary delights in Northern California, I can explain where subways are in San Rafael, San Francisco, Oakland, Napa, American Canyon, Kentfield, Cloverdale, Davis, Sacramento, and Vallejo, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

For the Curious Ones

Just a short bit about the date.

Mostly it went well, but there were two small snafus.

The first was when I tipped my tea cup back toward my mouth to take a sip not realizing that it wasn't anywhere near my lips. I righted my cup, but not before I dribbled hot tea onto my crotch which ended up feeling neither magic nor minty, as the tea bag had advertised.

The second was kind of a realization. I realized, halfway down the isle at the Value Mart on Mission Street, that this particular portion of the date was a really dumb idea. My original thought was that I would point out all the entertaining knock-off items, and we could bond over the bins of weird crap. But it occurred to me, while pointing out the Herbal Shampoo (written in the same font as Herbal Essence and with a picture of a flower behind it), that our time might be better spent discussing the origin of my Grim Reaper of Napa Valley nickname.

In conclusion, despite my inadvertent best efforts to sabotage the date, it ended up going okay.

How Many BTU's is Your Jesus?

A while back I was walking through Walgreen’s and saw one of those Jesus candles in the glass tube. I had never seen one before so I bought it.

They cost in the neighborhood of a dollar, and they have a picture of Jesus, or the Virgin Mary, or in the case of the one I'm looking at, a huge hand reaching up from the earth. A man with a glowing head stands on each finger, and a child in a white robe and glowing head stands on the thumb. On closer inspection, two of the men might be women. They have some pink in amongst their garb. It says Mano Poderosa on the bottom.

I've discovered that these candles do a surprisingly excellent job of heating my room. If I light one and leave my door closed it gets noticeably warmer than the living room. I may not bask in the light of the lord, but I have been known to rub my hands over a toasty glass of Jesus.

(Upon researching Mano Poderosa, I’ve discovered what I have here is a votive candle. In 2006 many congressmen and senators are going to be running for their seats. We need to get out and rock the votive.)

Preparations for a Date

1. Wash all the weird goo out of the car. What was the stuff on my shifter and where did it come from? One way or the other I'm glad it's gone.

2. Go to the car wash to get the outside as nice as the inside. I went to one of those quarter washes with the brush, the squirt gun, and the selector knob where the hoses are never quite long enough to let me aim just how I'd like. And who was the genius who decided to mount the scrub brush with the foam excreting side up? When I took it off the wall an extremely large chunk of foam went down my jacket sleeve and ended up in my arm pit. I'm glad I did it yesterday and not on the way to picking her up. The squirt gun was also pretty leaky, but maybe that's on purpose. All the water coming out the back ran down my arm and washed away the pit suds. Great system.

3. Vacuum the floor mats. For this I took my regular vacuum downstairs and set the floor mats out in the garage, running the vacuum over them as I would my apartment carpet. The whole time I was worried someone would come down and think I was nuts for vacuuming the garage floor.

My car is all set. The huge Toyota symbol in the front is dirt free, the Darwin, Shark, and Alien fish on my trunk gleam in the sunlight, my thank you sign is ready to be courteous to anyone who lets me merge, and my rearview monkey head is on the lookout for oncoming traffic. Beware the Camry, ladies. It's an unstoppable dating machine.

I Hate Dating

I'm sure that's been a title before, but it remains true.

The law school girl emailed and said she and her friends were going to an art opening at The Canvas Gallery tonight and that I should give her a call and let her know if I was coming, and if we could schedule some coffee time.

I chickened out of meeting her there. I tend to feel like I'm in over my head when I meet one person for the first time. If I have to meet a whole group I feel like someone's holding me under.

So I called, and it really went fine, but I'm still stressed out a full 2 hours later. The call lasted under 4 minutes and my brain was only functioning for maybe 30 seconds of that.

[Talking about going to coffee on Sunday.]
Her: So, how do you want to do this? Do you have a car? Do you want to pick me up?
Me: Uh, yeah. I have a car. I can pick you up. Do you want to email me your address?
Her: I could do that. I could also give it to you now too if you'd like.
Me: [Brain has totally shut down at this point.] Yeah, I think email is good.

Was I saying that it would be good for her to email me her address, or was I expressing my opinion that, in general, email is good?

Me: Where do you want to go for coffee?
Her: I haven't lived in the city that long. You should pick.
Me: How about starbucks?

This is San Francisco and there are roughly 1000000 coffee shops around. It's kind of embarrassing to pick starbucks.

And what time are we going to coffee? I guess the time didn't make the list as something I should figure out before a date.

I really am grateful that girls will slog through my interactions with them, unencumbered by thinking as they are. I literally stumble into relationships by accident. I can't keep my wits about me long enough to do it on purpose.

Weekly Pub Quiz Update

This week we came in 2nd, but due to lack of teams (there were only 6) we didn't win a gift certificate. Our name was "Is in third."

It was especially fun to hear our team name the first time. "And in first place with 9 points ... is in third."

Winner of funniest name: "Jesus did it for the chicks." I have to give it to them, that's a great name.