Do not, under any circumstances, listen to a book on tape for 15 hours in 2 days. It makes your brain feel murky.

For What?

Today I delivered a hospital bed to a guy who wasn't expecting it. His wife knew it was coming, and his son had arranged the whole thing, but nobody had let the guy in on the secret. From what I could gather, the man is not a big fan of change.

As a lugged 275 pounds of stuff up the stairs (why does nobody live on the ground floor?) I could hear the guy spouting fury from his bedroom.

I set the foot section down and, "What they hell are they bringing up here, God damned sons of bitches!"

The head section goes into place: "What's all this stuff?! Are they trying to build a new house?! Stupid bastards!"

I set the mattress in the hall and, "Why is he doing this now? God, damn him! God, damn his soul to hell!"

When somebody tells God to damn me, and really means it, I see that as being a little mean. And I know where he would like God to damn me. I'm not assuming he means that I should be damned to Dairy Queen. But even so, to carry the thought to conclusion, to damn my soul to hell out loud, that's just uncalled for.

Though to be fair, all this yelling was conducted inside the bedroom while I was stacking bed parts in the hallway and while he was struggling with his pants. When he finally achieved a full state of dress and made it outside to the hallway, he didn't seem to hold any malice toward me. "Who's that?" He asked. "Somebody you've hired to do something?"

Maybe he's just in a bad mood in the morning until after his first cup of pants.

All the News that's Fit to Print

I've been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to come up with a publishable tid bit. But I can't make anything come to mind.

Sure there are things I'd like to write about. I had a great Sunday that I don't really want to get into. I heard an extremely entertaining story involving a celebrity croquet tournament, Joan Rivers, and the Cheshire Cat, but it isn't my story to tell.

I can, I suppose, tell you that if you see somebody who is just so cute that you need to say hello, but because you are a San Francisco male and are too much of a woos to do it, myspace is always an option. Sure it may seem creepy to look somebody up and send them a message when you've chickened out mere hours beforehand, but what's the worst that could happen? She could set her profile to private - there are far worse fates. What's the best that could happen? You might get a first date with an awesome somebody. Or so I hear.

In a totally unrelated note, somebody one floor up from me is singing a song from their native land and they are waaaay off key. And it's distracting enough that I'm going to give up writing this post and go brush my teeth.

Beef, It's What's for Breakfast

I came home tonight to find all my stuff where I'd left it. The Cantonese speaking, PG&E impersonating, landlord's mother's name knowing con artists have been thwarted yet again.

In an unrelated development, I've decided that most quick breakfast food is overrated and I'm not going to buy it anymore. I can't find any cereal that piques my interest. I've never told anybody to leggo of my Eggo. They're welcome to it. Bagels still hold some gastrointestinal motivation, but my toaster oven is mostly on the fritz. So instead I've decided to each dinner for breakfast. Last night I made some chicken and put in the fridge. When I got up this morning I nuked it next to a bowl of peas - Breakfast of champions. Then on my way to my first delivery I stopped for a mint cookie ice cream sandwich - Breakfast of champions part II. I really need to quit with this ice cream sandwich/cookie business.

And lastly, the San Francisco Public Library refuses to deliver the book I requested to my sullen local branch. I requested both it and it's sequel and only the sequel has arrived, which, as you can imagine, does nothing to help me pass the time during lunch. So while I wait for my book I chose to reread something I own. I'm currently reading The Watermelon King, by Daniel Wallace. I've read all the Daniel Wallace books, and they are all excellent. But it's stuff like this, stuff that makes me laugh out loud (which I rarely do), which makes me hope he'll write something else soon.

"And Zeus, well, you know how it happens. He seduced her behind the barn. The pregnancy was mystically accelerated, and you plopped out of her a few weeks later. In the old days that would have made you a demigod, but unfortunately all the traces of any kind of supernatural power were eradicated in the public school system."

So good.

Super

My landlady just called to tell me that somebody posing as a Cantonese speaking PG&E guy called to say he'd be coming by for an inspection tomorrow. She called PG&E and they hadn't scheduled any inspections.

So not only do I live someplace with obvious* drug deals going on up the street, but I have oddly informed con-artists trying to inspect the house.

I keep perusing Craigslist for other apartments in this price range, but I apparently have the best deal in all of San Francisco. So if there's no blog post tomorrow, you'll know that PG&E came by and stole my computer. Or I was struck by a debilitating attack of lazy.

Maybe I can write a letter to the city requesting some immediate gentrification.

*And I do mean obvious. A car stops right, smack, in the middle of the street and somebody walks over to it. Window goes down, baggy goes in, money comes out, window goes up, everybody goes on their way. For goodness sake. Could you guys at least pull over so I don't get stuck behind you on my way home from work. Jerks.

Enough with the Help

Today I was plagued by the overly helpful. It's a nice gesture when people decide they are going to help me carry whatever it is I happen to be delivering, but usually they are less helpful than they expect to be.

My first delivery today involved setting up a hospital bed in the Mission. A little, tiny, woman in her 70s decided she was going to carry the mattress down to the room where I was to set up the bed. I rolled the bed frame down to where it was going to go, and when I walked back to get the mattress the woman was still trying to wrestle it off the ground. Gravity showed her no mercy. When I picked it up she marveled, "Oooooh, you are veeeeery strong!"

After my delivery I went to pick up a bed frame and the same thing happened except with a woman of more average size and age. She decided she wanted me out quick, so she chose a portion of bed frame and tried to carry it outside. She couldn't get it off the ground either.

On my last delivery, also a bed frame, the patient himself managed to actually help me carry things up the stairs. I tried to communicate that I had it covered, but he only spoke Spanish and I only speak English. His deep and productive coughs, however, were in the universal language of yuck. He carried 40lbs of handrails up the stairs at a speed slower than a slinky, but just fast enough so I could see that he was making actual progress. It's nice to not have to make another trip, but then again I had to follow him up the stairs holding 50lbs of headboard. And his coughing and wheezing made me worry that we were all going to end up in a pile at the bottom of the stairwell.

I think I need a multi-language card I can pass out that says:

1) Tell me where it goes.
2) Sit back and relax while I carry things in and set them up.
3) I'll come get you when it's time to show you how it works.

Thanks for not hurting yourself with our products.

On a mostly unrelated note, I went to a guy's house today who sounds exactly like Morgan Freeman. EXACTLY. I kept expecting him to say something along the lines of "Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane." But he kept saying stuff like "Call me when you get here and I'll buzz you in." And, "thanks for being on time." The disconnect between what I was seeing and what I was hearing was kind of disconcerting.

Eyeball Exfoliation

Have you ever had your eyes open when taking off your shirt? Have you ever rubbed an open eyeball on the inside of a polo shirt?

If you have, I share your pain. If you haven't, I'd try to avoid it. It's kind of unpleasant, even if the shirt does say "Participation Committee 2004."

Onion Famine

Nobody has looked at my profile on the Onion Personals for 10 days now. I'm not sure what happened. This does not bode well. I wait for somebody to show interest, then pounce.

See, I don't send out emails asking anyone out. That's never worked. It costs 200 points to send out an email, and I'm not wild about spending my points on asking out a cold and unanswering universe. It's just as useful and much cheaper to pray for a date.

"Please god, send me a girl who likes travel, fine dining, to have a good time* but also likes a chill night at home watching a movie*."


* Are there people who dislike having a good time?
** Is she implying that watching a movie at home isn't fun?

Car

- I washed it for the first time today. I managed to get the spot right in front of my house this weekend. But my Saturday was full of Yuba City, my Sunday took me to Pacifica, and the other days this week have been plagued by gloomy dark clouds and cold air. But since street cleaning happens on Thursday on my side of the street, tonight was my last chance to take advantage of my proximity to the hose. So my car is shiny and clean again, but I may catch my death of cold after repeated self hosings in the cold gloomy Southern edge of San Francisco weather.

- My previously neglected emails were all getting answered this evening when I got distracted by researching cold air intakes. But upon discovering that the horsepower boost is up at 5400 RPM and that they can cause vapor lock, I switched to investigating my auto loan. And holy crap does sales tax suck. It added something along the lines of $1317.50 to the price of my car. I should have bought it in Oregon. It's going to take me a little longer that I was expecting to pay it off.

- My gigantic mirror left its mark; literally. While I was washing the car I found a divot on the top edge of my bumper. I guess that's what I ran the mirror into when I broke the bottom while getting it out of the car. I kind of felt vindicated on behalf of the car that there was only a small divot in the paint and the mirror sustained far more damage. But then I realized that both of them belong to me and that in the end I've lost both ways.

Girlfriend

On Friday night I had a girlfriend dream. I hate girlfriend dreams. I'm happily snuggling with somebody when I wake up to find my pillow and I having a tender moment. Not to take anything away from my pillow, the soft, squishy vixen that it is. It's just that I like my significant others to be less rectangular and pillowcased.

This particular girlfriend dream was actually just an anxiety dream. I was trying to make it home from Brazil (my dream didn't bother to explain that one) and at some point I ended up at a movie theater trying to get to my seat with my girlfriend. (This girlfriend happened to be a friend's ex-girlfriend in real life.) This was not, however, your average movie theater. Imagine a 6 story office building with a great big screen in the parking lot. Now imagine that the wall facing the screen has been removed and the seats go all the way up to the edge. As in there's no walkway to get to a front row seat. You have to climb over the other seats to get into a front row seat, and when I did my feet hung over the edge into 6 stories of nothingness. Also, the seats were too close together, so as everybody moved around and tried to get comfortable, their shoulders would touch mine and they all seemed to be forcing me forward toward the drop off. But despite my eminent death by falling 6 stories, and the fact that I was still trying to escape from Brazil, it was nice to snuggle with my friend's ex.

When I woke up I was relieved to be secure in my bed, but depressed that I have nobody to cling too incase the situation comes up in real life.

Things I saw on Saturday

-Little Miss Sunshine. It was excellent.

-A guy on the street juggling 2 flaming sticks in front of a bar. He stopped to let me pass.

-People stopping on the freeway to read those big signs that let you know about accidents and road closures. Seriously people, we need to work on our freeway literacy. I was in stop and go traffic 3 times and each time was because people were slowing down to read the sign that said the Bay Bridge would be closed over Labor Day weekend. Admittedly it's a big deal, but after you've read the sign once maybe we could just cruise on by the next 2 times.

-A nerd/punk gang from the 80s. Standing in line in front of me while trying to buy a ticket for Little Miss Sunshine were a group of 5 kids who had completely embraced their nerdatude. They ranged in age from 13 to maybe 16. And the strangest thing about this particular group was that they got their bad-ass rebellious look right out of Pretty in Pink. The youngest kid had curly blond hair hanging over his eye, a rimmed hat tipped back on his head like Duckie, one REALLY large fake diamond earring, a white undershirt, and the very sunglasses from risky business. And while they started out in front of me in line, an argument broke out about who was paying for tickets, and several of us normal people from the 2000's cut in front of them. They didn't seem to mind, or even notice.

And may God bless me this evening as much as I would bless Him if I were He and He were Charles Dalrymple.*

In my old apartment I had a Brigadoon fly. Once in a while he would show up, fully grown, and buzz around the apartment until he died, all big and ungainly, in the track of the sliding glass door. He never appeared small and grew large. He was full size or he wasn't there at all.

In my new apartment I seem to have a Brigadoon daddy long legs. He appears every so often fully grown in my shower. If he were to appear fully grown by my front door, he might get politely ushered into the garage. But if you're a spider, and I'm naked when I discover you, you are going to die.

I have a theory on why and how the Brigadoon spiders keep appearing. I think that there is an alternate dimension ruled by Spider Command and they happen to have access to an interdimensional portal. Alas, spider world is running out of food, and their plan to combat hunger is to capture a fully grown person. The clothes would be too much trouble to get off when feeding the multitudes, so they send their biggest, best, and brightest into my shower to bag me when I'm clean, fresh, and without indigestible clothing. Unfortunately they keep losing contact with their recruits. Before they can send a message back to headquarters they've been summarily sprayed with raid and flushed down the toilet. Spider Command is baffled but keeps pushing willing daddies long legs through the portal while assuring the population that everything is going smoothly.

Hooray for raid. Some of these suckers have a leg-span which is too big to safely corral inside a wad of toilet paper. Raid makes them a lot more compact, though it does make my shower time quite a bit less pleasant.



*In case you were wondering, it's a quote from Brigadoon.

The Fastest Way to Lose a Cleaning Deposit

I was looking through the 1 bedroom listings just now and stumbled upon an apartment I was in just this afternoon. It's only $300 a month and it's in Marin, so the rent is about $900 less than your average 1 bedroom in the area. However, there are a few reasons why I can't/won't live there.

-You have to be confined to a wheelchair to rent a unit.
-The whole place smells like (and is filled with) stubbed out cigarettes.
-There's a large bag of pee in the bedroom.

In all of my travels, today was the first time I had ever seen a big bag of pee not attached to the person who was filling it up. I happen to know this guy moved across the country, so he can't have been in such a big hurry that he couldn't properly dispose of his pee bag. Abandoned pee bags really give a room an extra jolt of creepy.

And that, my friends, is just the kind of story I find to be so plentiful in my life, and exactly the kind of story which I could never tell a date.

Fail Safe Diet Reminder

I just put an 80x42 inch mirror in my living room. And I managed to squeeze it into my xB. Go xB. (I also just managed to squeeze it into my living room with only has an 84 inch ceiling.)

It really makes my living room look bigger and brighter. Unfortunately I now have a full body reminder of my enormity as I walk around my apartment in my undies. I'm either going to have to wear more clothing at home or keep up the jogging.

In Search of The One

I've been updating my Onion Personals profile this evening. I've added a picture of the top half of me in a suit (the bottom half has a suit on too, it just isn't showing), a pumpkin wearing my sunglasses, and of me standing in front of a taqueria. Girls like pumpkins and taquerias right?

I've also tweaked the stuff I've written under the prompts. For instance:

The word or phrase that best describes my personality: Quaint

My most humbling moment:
P.E. class, the 7th grade. There was one day when we were all forced to take a shower, perhaps to promote good personal hygiene. Not being comfortable with public nudity at 13, I moved a little too quickly on my way back to my locker, slipped, fell, and landed hard enough on my elbow that I couldn't get myself back up to my feet. My P.E. teacher, Mr. Everheart, had to help me back to my towel. Wasn't middle school just the best?

The best or worst lie I've ever told
This is the best question ever!

I'll have to wait and see whether any of that scores me a place on anybody's hot list.

In unrelated news, I seem to have a small infestation of fruit flies. This is odd because it's been quite some time since there's been any fruit in here. And while fruit flies are right up there with the most annoying creatures on earth, I do enjoy feeling like a Ninja when I reach out and snatch one out of the air. I'm thinking about practicing with some chopsticks.

Get a Move On

I need some exercise. I've needed some for a while, but my problem with exercise is that I hate it. Moving for the sake of moving isn't fun and makes me feel terrible afterward.

This is not to say that I want to remain stationary on my couch until the end of days. If somebody wanted to go on a hike, I'd go with them. If somebody wanted to play frisbee, I'd play with them. If somebody wanted to go running, I'd remain stationary on my couch. I hate running. Running is awful.

And yet ...

Today I went running. Turns out that running is the only exercise I can get without driving someplace and/or meeting a bunch of new people. I can open my door and run down the block until my lungs threaten to fall out, then I can walk back. Doing anything else takes too long. Running takes 13 minutes of running and 17 minutes of walking back.

If I had a membership to Baly's Total Fitness, I might go there and use their various workout equipment. It's walkable. Unfortunately health club memberships cost roughly a trillion dollars a month.

So alas, the only thing I can think of that will get my out from under my genetic gut of Damocles is running. If anybody has any special techniques that avoid the burning in my chest, the faint taste of blood, shoulder cramps, and the resulting woosey feeling that I suppose is my bad-trip version of a runner's high, then please let me know. I'd love my love handles to go away, but I don't want my cardiovascular system to leave with them.

Constellation Under My Chin

I've decided to try shaving with a razor again. For years now I've been shaving with an electric razor, and it's been fine. But the blade has been getting dull for longer than I've lived in San Francisco, and I thought I'd give manual razoring another go.

I shaved this morning, and didn't cut myself at all. However, when I got home it looked as though I was about to spout cat whiskers, and my chin had little hair oases all over it. So I reshaved just now and managed to create 19 tiny cuts under my chin and on my upper lip.

So far I'm leaning toward old buzzy.

MySpace

Ah MySpace. What a pain. It's annoying that's so useful.

I greatly dislike when my email lets me know I have a message and friend request waiting for me at MySpace, but when I get there it turns out to be some hip hop group who would really like me to give their songs a whirl. Carlos, of BigSexy Ent for instance. No Carlos, no matter how big or sexy you may be, I do not want to be your friend nor attend any of your promotional events.

There's also a fair bit of porn spam on MySpace. If I get a friend request from a girl who is kind of mediumly attractive, I click on it to see who she might be. If I get a friend request from a girl who's the hottest thing since building hospital beds in the sunshine, I delete it because I don't need other peoples porn foisted on me when I'm not expecting it.

All this with the added benefit of being the slowest site on the interweb, you'd think nobody would visit. But alas, it has its uses. What do you do, for instance, if you meet somebody at a party but mistakenly come away with the impression that she is a lesbian? You look her up on MySpace, that's what.

If only I wasn't such a social Olympian*, I'd see if she wanted to get some coffee or something**.

*Olympian of the special variety.

**Something being any of the fantastic Ideas in the comments of the last post. Well, fantastic apart from the Joo's.

Ideas

OK people. I know it's been a while, and I hate to ask you for things when I've been such a bad poster, but I beseech you: I need second date ideas.

Things to keep in mind:
-I'm not overflowing with wealth. Reasonably nice meals are a go, but renting helicopters is out.
-I don't drink. So while going for drinks might work in theory, it might be creepy for me to hand her a Jack and Coke while I sip my Shirley Temple.
-A date which stimulates conversation, or requires some non-talking time would be great. I'm not so good at keeping the conversation flow going until I get to know somebody better.

And ... brainstorm!

Snickers Chords

You never know what's going to get a big response. Figuring out the Snickers song seems to be a shared experience though. So here's the chords, at least as close as I'm willing to make them. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

This is pretty close:

As near as I can tell it's kind of a walk down from G to Em. I'll make
up a name for the middle chord and tab it out. Say G/F#.

G/F#
e-3
B-3
G-0
D-0
A-X
E-2

G-------------------G/F#
Happy peanuts soar
-------C---------------------D
Over chocolate covered mountaintops
------G---------------G/F#-C
And waterfalls of caramel
-------------G-----------------G/F#
Prancing nougat in the meadow
-----------C--------------D
Sings a song of satisfaction
---------G
To the world

A Good Reason to Lose Sleep?

Probably not, but when the urge comes I can't deny it.

The snickers commercial came on where a guy in a carpet store is sitting at his desk about to eat a snickers when another guys comes up and says, "let me help you enjoy that snickers." Guy #2 then pulls out a guitar and sings the following:

Happy peanuts soar
Over chocolate covered mountaintops
And waterfalls of caramel
Prancing nougat* in the meadow
Sings a song of satisfaction
To the world

And they harmonize "To the world." Then guy #1, obviously touched by the song looks at his snickers bar and whispers, "The world!" As the scene fades to black guy #2 pats guy #1 on the shoulder and says, "That's right."

Well, that commercial came on and I had to spend 10 minutes writing down the lyrics and figuring out the chords. I did, and now I can go to bed satisfied, as it were.

Monday, Stupid Monday

I had a hard time functioning today, and I have no idea why.

-I took 20 minutes to fax 25 pages of paperwork to corporate, and when it was finished corporate called me and told me I'd faxed them the back of 25 pages. When I faxed it again the fax machine told me I'd sent 26 pages. Better extra than not enough I guess.

-The email was screwed up so my Gmail dispatching system wasn't keeping up. I hate when email doesn't work. Customer service kept asking if I was ignoring them. Yes, all of a sudden I've decided to ignore you. That makes a lot of sense.

-I tried to give a little demonstration of a new product to a customer and couldn't make it work. I'd press the power button and some random lights would flash, then it would turn itself off. Power, nothing. Power, beep, nothing. I walked away to check the plug and it turned itself on and started behaving. Fine, give your own demonstration Alternating Wheelchair Cushion!

I think this was all caused by the successful baking of a loaf of banana bread. I even improvised a little in the cooking time, shelf placement, and the addition of an extra banana. I didn't burn it AND it tastes good. I should put bananas in the bottom of my shopping basket more often.

Anyway, the banana bread used up my all smooth-week karma on Sunday. It may be a long week. But a long week full of short days. I need to get caught up on my email, but when you get up at 5am, get home at 6pm or even later, and go to bed at 9pm, that leaves very little time for writing email. Or doing much of anything. I'm looking forward to both the end of radiation and next week when I get a week off from being my own supervisor. It takes a lot of work to keep track of myself, to say nothing of everybody else in my depot.

I've just noticed that for three weeks straight on my calendar I've written "Radioation."

More programs need spell check.

The Glow of my Belly Button

As it turns out, I'm not a big fan of this radiation thing. I have a map of California drawn on to my tummy in permanent marker and I get to feel nauseated all day.

Surgery I can handle. You hurt, and day by day you hurt less until you're fine. But radiation makes you feel progressively worse until you're done. Suhweeet! This is day 2 and I'm already losing my cookies.

My anti-barf pills help a lot. So I'm hoping that my nausea won't get too much worse as I work my way through days 3 through 15. You know what doesn't help? Watching the Dirty Jobs episode featuring Mike Rowe's tour of a skull cleaning business.

Also, taking a bite of spicy processed cheese when I was expecting a bite of pepper jack cheese was just another in a long list of whammies today. Hooray for bed time. (7?! Yes. 7.)

Dawn's Fissure

Tomorrow's my big day. I get to be radiated for the first time. And the best part of the whole deal is that my appointments, Monday through Friday for the next 3 weeks, are at 6:45am. This makes it early enough so I won't miss work, but late enough so I have to get ready for work before I go. Hello 5am.

I haven't visited 5am much recently, but I'm pretty sure any time pre the already ugly 6am is not my friend.

This weekend I went to a wedding which was almost entirely a good time. The single part that wasn't was when a guy at my table came over for what I thought was a friendly conversation. We talked about U.C. Davis, jobs, and post-school debt. I guess we both managed to not really have any after college, but he related that after he got married he and his wife found their way into the red. His plan was to be all paid off in 5 years. They planned to do this, he explained, through he and his wife's business.

Me: What kind of business do you run?
Him: I'm an internet franchise owner.
Me: What does the franchise do?
Him: Sets up online communities.
Me: So how do you make money?
Him: Well, most people spend half their budget on advertising, and we don't have to. So we've doubled our money right there.
Me: Well, that's money you don't have to spend, but how does the money come in?
Him: We sell the rights to set up online communities.

Ah. So it's a pyramid scheme. He then went on to explain the he and his wife had just met with the guy who founded the company. Apparently this guy has 9 Corvettes and earns 90K a month in passive income. And through the seminars that this guy puts on he and his wife plan to retire in 3 years. And didn't that sound good to me?

No.

I'm not sure he's going to do well in the pyramid scheme of things. You can't go around telling people that you plan to get out of debt in 5 years and retire in 3. I'm pretty sure that retiring while you're still in debt makes it both hard to retire and hard to get out of debt.

Also, who wants 9 Corvettes? How about spending some of your passive income on a little variety?

Pub Quiz Update

Amos came to visit this weekend/week and so the old pub quiz team was in full force on Wednesday. Our team name was So Tiramisu Me, but there were so few teams that the best team name category didn't happen. It didn't matter, however, because we won. Go us!

I don't know how it came up, but we were talking about how Aer Lingus is a bad name for an airline. As badly named as it is, a great safety-oriented slogan comes to mind: Aer Lingus - We won't go down on you.

Potpourri
(As opposed to Potent Potables)

I know it's been too long since I've posted when blogger forgets who I am. If only my life were more exciting, or entertaining, or something. I think I need another pet to drive me nuts.

We have this patient at work that drives us nuts. Actually, the patient is very nice; it's her daughter that drives us nuts. She (the daughter) has tried every single one of our mattresses and deemed them unacceptable. And yet she demands we give her something else. It's not like we're holding out on her. It would behoove use to make her happy so she would go away.

The most exasperating part of the whole thing is that each time we give her another mattress to try she calls us up with some phantom problem that she wants me, and me only, to come over and investigate. And no, it's not because she likes me or anything. It's just I'm the only person who will take the time to crap out answers to her ridiculous questions.

And all her supposed problems with the mattress are things that I can neither see happen at the time, nor recreate later. She might as well call me up and ask me if I can get the aliens to stop giving her visions of the mother ship. Or if I can please do something about the kitchen elves stealing her pasta. No. I can't. Because these problems aren't real.

And now she's demanding a mattress that I know she'll hate. In fact she's already tried it and hated it and she's demanding it anyhow.

With a startling lack of transition, I don't think I'm cut out for this online dating thing. I don't know if my emails come on too strong, or not strong enough, or if I'm perhaps boring potential girlfriends to pieces. Whatever the issue may be, the result is that after an email or two they all disappear. In fact, the less I write the longer the correspondence will last. The only time I can get to the point of an actual first date is if I'm ambivalent about writing back in the first place. If I put in just the bare minimum effort so that I can come across as polite, I'm almost guaranteed a coffee date, which will go badly. I need to find a different method.

There needs to be some sort of monkdom that involves tinkering and does not involve religion.

No More Food

They're closing my Albertsons. Who closes an Albertsons?

And it's really the only grocery store within walking distance. Now the two closest fooderies are the Pacific Super, which is like Asian Albertsons and an Albertsons on Ocean Ave, which takes 10 or so minutes to reach by car. The problem with the Pacific Super is that they often don't have quite what I'm looking for. Grass jello? No problem. Cans of squid? The end cap on aisle 3. Bullion cube? Nope, they don't have those. Ground turkey? Sorry.

So I think for the most part I'll shop at the other Albertsons, which I'm not entirely unhappy about. I mean, it's a pain to have to drive to the store because I don't usually buy more than 2 or 3 little bags worth of stuff. But this other Albertsons is MUCH nicer:
- The Aisles are clean.
- There is a BofA inside which is open until 7 where I can take out my rent in cash.
- Both clerks and customers are more attractive than the clerks and customers at the old store.
- Nobody is shucking corn in the vegetable department.
- All the self checkout lines work.

I'm hoping that some other grocery store will go in where the old Albertsons used to be. Perhaps a Trader Joes. Or, if I'm really lucky, a cinnamonbearatorium.

Pentadotted

My radiation hasn't started, but I did just go in for my simulation appointment. I'm not sure why they call it that. It's more like a mapping and drawing appointment.

I was under the impression that the simulation appointment would show me what a regular radiation appointment would be like, would tell me when and for how long my appointments would go on, and that I would have a firm idea of how the rest of my treatment would go. But no, that's not how doctors work.

In preparation for my simulation I went into the bathroom to put on the robe the nurse gave me. Since all this stuff is happening in my abdomen area I left my shirt on, took off my pants, and unfolded the robe. This robe, however, simply would not do. It turned out to be the shirt half only, and would have made my stay in the waiting room a little drafty. I'm just not comfortable in public wearing only black socks and a hospital robe halter top. So I put my pants back on and went to find a more suitable robe.

After a couple minutes a nurse and a doctor in training came to show me to my x-ray table. On the x-ray table they projected a grid of light on my abdomen and then drew on me with 3 or 4 colors of permanent marker, took 2 x-rays, and went off to consult the doctor. When they came back they were happy with their map of my innards so they made some permanent landmarks so the radiation people could radiate me with some measure of accuracy.

Yep, that's right, I got tattooed. I have 5 whole tattoos. I'm finally cool like Cate, except hers are quite a bit more ornate than mine are. Mine, boringly enough, are just little dots. Just a drop of ink and a poke with a needle in a 3 dot line an inch to the right of my bellybutton and a dot on each love handle. If you connected the dots you'd get a big sideways cross. Or if you used my moles and freckles you might get the Mona Lisa.

When I was leaving they told me they'd call me the next day to tell me when I'd have my month or so of treatments. When I called them two days later they said that they'd call me in a week or maybe a week and a half. When I asked how long my treatments would go the nurse told me it would be between 2 and 5 weeks. It's hard to pin doctors down on things.

Washing Advice

Do not combine rinsing your mouth with Listerine and washing your face into the same activity. If you happen to spit at the same time you're bringing a hand full of water up to your face you're liable to rub Listerine-spit-water into your eyes.

At least I'm secure in the knowledge that my nose won't develop gingivitis.

Home Sweet Home?

I need more space. I'd like room for people to sleep when they visit. I'd like to have a spot to build things. I'd like to not ram my knuckles into my light fixture when I'm putting on my shirt in the morning. Oh, and I'd like more than one window.

On the other hand, I hate moving, and there are no places available that are so obviously better yet still affordable that I would go through the horror of moving out.

With that in mind I was cruising along on craigslist when I saw two houses for sale: One for $175K and one for $160K. Those are reasonable home prices in most places, but they are a steal in the bay area, especially because they are both in Marin. So here are the catches. The first is a floating home, and the second is a mobile home.

I'm still interested in the idea of a floating home. It's just that this particular floating home wasn't my cup of tea. When I went to look at it there was quite a bit of water cascading off the roof, which was odd since it hadn't been raining. Then there was the fact that when the tide goes out the home sits in the mud. Stinky mud. And to top it off the road that leads to the dock floods every time there's a big rain storm. No thanks.

Now the mobile home had a little more promise, at least as far as homey things are concerned. For $160K I would get 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a little back yard, new parquet floor, granite counter tops, and access to the pool and tennis court. Then again, at the end of any given date I'd be left with the problem of how to phrase the question "would you like to come back to my trailer?"

I think I'd still consider the mobile home if I got the ground underneath for my $160K. But I don't trust people to not sell the dirt out from under my house if I'm be renting it. What would I do with a $160,000 house with no place to put it? It's not like it has wheels. Maybe I could sneak it into Golden Gate Park. Ending a date with "would you like to come back to my house in Golden Gate Park?" would probably work wonders. Or she'd think I was homeless.

Pub Quiz Update

The team name: It's Called Soccer.
Our place: 4th.
Skittles flavored gum: Gross. They're just like regular Skittles, except you chew them twice as long and spit them out instead of swallowing.
Winner of funniest name: Quadravag. (A team of 4 girls.)

Not to Change the Subject

But I'm not sure I have any more thrilling or entertaining stories of cancer with which to entertain you at the moment.

What I will talk about briefly is that I've just gotten an email for a girl on a personals site. And that's great; I don't get a lot of emails. (And I don't get a lot of replies to my emails which makes for some pretty slow going.)

Anyhow, she's awfully good looking, and that worries me. It's not that attractive girls cause me great dismay, but I'm worried she isn't real, or who knows – just that something is wrong. I've been fooled before. I once had a very nice email from a girl telling me I could contact her for free via her profile on her "friend's" website. Since you have to pay to email people I thought it was really nice that she'd tell me how to contact her for free. No such luck. It was all an evil ploy to get me to sign up for another dating site.

I've also had messages from little cute pictures of girls who, when clicked, turned into bigger pictures of girls with Adam's apples and big, hairy, man-hands. Not things I'm looking for in a relationship.

But all her pictures confirm that she's a cute girl with regular sized girl-hands and a bulge-free neck. And she hasn't asked me to go sign up at a website or anything. So I'm just going to go ahead, cross my fingers, and hope she's a real person who just happens to think the picture of me in my plaid hat is worthy of an email.

At the Hospital

The Friday I had my surgery I arrived at St. Luke's at around 4pm. Eventually, after I had signed in, and then wandered around the hospital trying to find the recovery room, I was lead to where I needed to be by a nurse. They brought me over to my gurney, I undressed and got under some preheated blankets, and another nurse fished around under my skin looking for a vein and trying to insert the IV.

In general, any time I have given blood for any reason the blood taker says, "oh my, you have such nice, big veins." And the first nurse said exactly that, but apparently the second nurse didn't see what the first nurse saw. She had a hard time, and I did too.

After I was all IVed, prepped, and ready to go, the anesthesiologist came in to explain the stuff he was about to give me. "This first thing is just to relax you." He said, injecting some stuff into my IV. "It'll be like having a couple of margaritas."

"Oh. Um, I don't drink."

"Ah, well, it'll be like having 6 or 7 margaritas then."

And I was off to the operating room. The anesthesiologist put a mask on me and said he was going to give me some oxygen. I remember thinking that the mask didn't fit very well because a lot of the gas was shooting over my right cheek. Then I was out.

When I woke up I was back in the recovery room, and after some odd hospital apple juice, they wheeled me up to my room.

All through the night attractive nurses came in to see what my pain level was. (Generally I said 3 or 4, which I guess is what one aims for on a 10-scale pain chart. 3 or 4 corresponds to the smiley face who looks like he just knocked over somebody's favorite lamp.) Then they'd ask to look at my incision and draw on the dressing with permanent marker, or in one case, with a ballpoint pen. (If you ever find yourself as a nurse in this situation, use the permanent marker. You don't have to press as hard.) I'm certainly not used to attractive women asking to look at my crotch.

I only spent the one night in the hospital, but it was a toughy. I had to stay on my back, and I don't sleep well, or at all, on my back. In addition, the nurse's station was right out my front door and there was a lot of noise from out there. Lastly, even though I was 10 floors up, I could still hear through my window things like screeching tires, sirens, and cops yelling "Stop! Police! Stop or I'll shoot!." Finally, the bit that was most responsible for keeping me awake was the fact that I'd had an IV in me since 4pm, and I had to pee roughly every half hour. And there were a number of things making peeing difficult:

1) Having to pee in a jug.
2) Having to pee in a jug while lying down, on my back, unable to roll over very far onto my side.
3) Trying to relax to pee into a jug while my mother slept mere inches away on a fold-out bed/chair on the floor.
4) Trying to fit in a pee between nurse visits.

Although I do have to give the pee jug people credit for the curved neck design. Kudos for reducing spillage.

In the morning I was up and hobbling around, and decided to sit in a chair for a while while a nurse came in to take my vitals. As she was doing so I was watching a bubble travel down my IV into my arm, and I asked her if that was ok. My understanding was that bubbles and blood vessels don't mix. She said she didn't know and would ask another nurse.

15 minutes or so passed and another nurse came in and checked my vitals. I asked her the same question and she said it was fine. This, of course, begs another, and possibly more serious question: Who was the first nurse? Does she even work there? Does she just go around checking people's vitals and not telling anyone?

Finally it was breakfast time and the real nurse told me she'd ask the nutritionist to organize some breakfast for me. I wasn't looking forward to a breakfast designed by a nutritionist, but I didn't have much choice. When breakfast arrived it consisted of pancakes with maple syrup, sausage links, coffee, cranberry juice, and milk. Basically a fatty version of the stuff that surrounds the cereal bowl in the fruit loops commercial. I could totally be a nutritionist.

After breakfast it was time to go home, so my mom helped me put on my underwear, socks, and pants. I was a little worried about the taxi ride to my apartment because the pharmacy had been closed so all my pain meds were still at Rite Aid waiting to be bought. I asked the nurse how much pain medication I was getting through my IV, and she said, "None. Do you want some?" Little did I know that I had just had right testicle removed the day before, and from the point of waking up to walking in my front door I had taken no pain medication at all. I'm not sure who should get the credit for that: The Surgeon? Me? But somebody should.

The last obstacle for the day was getting from the hospital to my apartment. I had contemplated asking a friend to pick me up, but it was early and I didn't want to explain that I had cancer, surgery, ask for a ride home, and apologize for waking them up all in the same phone call. So we called a cab.

You know how people are made up of something like 60% water? Well, this cab driver was someplace near 75% amphetamine. He was simultaneously adjusting the radio, asking where we wanted to go, asking for directions on how to get there, explaining his 6 months absence from driving, and assuring me that telling him to drive smoothly was a good move on my part. And he was doing all that and driving at warp speed. He was also breaking at warp speed.

When I got out of the cab the driver jumped out and offered me his arm. I decided I'd rather not take any help from Mr Jitters, so I took hold of the door instead.

"Oh man! I hope you feel better man!" He said, shuffling back and forth. "Maybe you should get a cane or something!"

And by Monday I was back at work.

Oh, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mattress for being awesome. I slept on my stomach that Saturday night. The 4" Eurotop was totally worth the extra money. You go Serta.

Back

Well, not back really. It's not like I went someplace.

So here's the deal - the reason I haven't been writing: The day after my last post I found out I had testicular cancer. Then I had the right one* out on Friday. I'm fine now, though I need to undergo some radiation therapy just to be sure they got it all.

So for a while there all the stories I could think of were hospital related. And you can't very well tell a bunch of hospital stories without explaining why you were in the hospital. Well, maybe I could have, but not stories that involve attractive nurses coming in every hour or so to draw on my crotch with magic marker, or hearing an-only-barely-avoided shootout below my hospital window at 2am. Mattress delivery rarely involves either of those things.

Then, as non-hospital related stories came up, I felt like I couldn't just jump right in after 2 weeks with, "today I went to Arbuckle California and saw a coffee shop called Starbuckles Coffee." Or "Today I delivered a mattress to a guy named "Charlie Brown." I needed to explain my absence first. One can't follow a post about Arbuckle Coffee with a post about cancer. I think people who do that are called blog fouls.

Anyhow, I decided I should just write about it, then it'd be out there and I could talk about hospital stories or what ever else happened to be going on. I could even post another math joke if the mood struck. (Don't worry, I don't have one.)

So yeah, there it is. And I'm fine, so nobody worry. I wasn't using the right one anyhow. Really, for the other people I know who have had cancer, it was really a much more traumatic thing. I feel like my experience has been much more low-key. My experience was the medical equivalent of having a spider on your back, saying "Eek! Get it off!", and then not being able to lift anything heavy for 2 months. Ok, so the lifting thing doesn't fit with the metaphor, but you get the picture. The spider's gone, and on August 1st I'll be able to heave 72 lb boxes of gel mattress pad around just like I used to.


*As opposed to the left one. Not as opposed to the wrong one.

Nothing to Write

I can't think of a single thing to write. So I'll tell a math joke:

An asymptote is driving a friend home after spending a long night drinking in a bar. All of a sudden a siren blips and his car is filled with flashing red and blue lights. The asymptote calmly pulls over, rolls down his window, and causally leans back in the seat. His friend, amazed at the asymptote's level of calm, asks, "why are you not panicking right now? We've been drinking for hours!"

The asymptote looks at his friend and says, "I know my limit, and I'm approaching it, but I'll certainly never get there."

Some (4) Things

I saw a lady jogging in Golden Gate Park in full workout regalia smoking a cigarette. She hadn't stopped to take a break, she was jogging and smoking at the same time. Just based on how my lungs feel when I run, it has to be really terrible for you to smoke and run at the same time. Sort of like painting with lead based paint when you don't have your skin on.

In San Rafael I saw a fair skinned homeless man with red hair. Of all the complexions for a homeless person to have, I have to think being a redhead is the worst. It's awfully hard to stay out of the sun when you have no place to live, and sun screen is ridiculously expensive.

In beautiful, scenic Richmond I watched a girl pick out her hair extensions and throw them in the street as she moseyed along with her friends. Just ew.

And lastly, I'm worried the NSA is going to see that I tend to call old people shortly before they die. So if I stop posting abruptly, you'll know what happened.

In other news, I just boug

Personals Part II

Speaking of which, people found my blog by searching for

"physically unattractive" dating women

and

weasel phrases personal ad

Ouch.

Picture Page it's Picture Page

First of all, you guys are swell for being so positive about my banjitar song in comment land.

OK ladies, we're going to have to have a little talk about your personals pictures. There are a number of picture no-nos that you keep sticking in your ads:

- "Guess who I am!" This is where you post 4 different pictures of you and your friends. This can go wrong two different ways. The first and most common way is that when I look at your pictures I can't figure out who the common person is in all of them. Which one are you? It's often much harder to tell than you'd think. The second is that you may compare really unfavorably to one or all of your friends. I wonder how many girls get emails saying something along the lines of "Hi. I was wondering if the girl in your first picture with the pink shirt is single. She's really hot."

- "I'm 1000 miles away on the beach!" You have your arms up in glee, maybe you're jumping for joy, there are palm trees and blue skies, and the person with the camera is just disappearing behind the curvature of the earth. It's probably a great picture when it's an 8x10, but when it's 2x3 on a personal ad I can only tell that you are smaller than a building.

- "Meet the imposing men in my life!" This is the picture where you are hanging all over a huge and probably easily angered frat guy. Unless I look just like he does, it doesn't inspire me to whip up a love letter.

- "Me in a bikini on a fire truck!" I'm not against this picture per se, but I imagine it attracts the wrong sort of guy. While I like the picture itself, I'm not sure I want to date somebody who regularly hangs out on fire trucks wearing a bikini. (In that sentence the girl is wearing the bikini, not the fire truck. I may, in fact, be more inclined to date a girl with a picture of a fire truck in a bikini.)

- "It's a leaf!" No pictures of scenery! Unless I recognize that particular portion of forest floor, it's not going to make me any more likely to email you.

With that said, perhaps I'm not who you're trying to attract. After all, you never return my emails.

Lazy

I've had ideas for posts, but the motivation hasn't materialized. I thought of some things to write about on Friday, then I switched to writing one on personal ads, then I was going to write about the picture on the front of the pop tart box, which is basically a frosted strawberry pop tart wearing a bemused expression, a tank top, and no pants. Alas, none of them made it to the page (although I think the pop tart one is sufficiently explained at this point.)

Anyhow, instead of a post, I'll put a link to a song I finally recorded with my newish banjitar. It's called Three Stories. And they're all true.

Today I was flipping through on of those free real-estate listings for the bay area. Ridiculous.

My calculations tell me that for a really cheap house located someplace not very nice, I'd have a mortgage payment upwards of $4000 a month. Prices aren't going up, so it's not a very good investment in that regard, and even if I could afford $2000 a month, I can't rent the other bedroom for the other $2000 a month. The market simply has to crash. Or at least deflate a little. Nobody's going to pay $500,000 to get murdered every 6 seconds.

One of my coworkers is going to sell his house in Richmond. He figures that after a little spiffing up it'll fetch around $500,000. Why is he selling his house? There's a bullet mark in his work van. A guy tried to rob a small nursing home next door with knife, but one of the people running the home had a gun. Knife man got shot, and gun man got stabbed, and they both went to the hospital. And on the corner of his street somebody got shot and didn't make it to the hospital.

Makes trailer parks look down right appealing.

I've Become Accustomed to Living Alone

I made the realization as I was flipping over some broiled turbot and I got burning fish grease in my bellybutton.

It's okay to walk around in one's underpants when living alone, but not while cooking. Which reminds me, I need to put my smoke detector back up.

Reach Out and Tush Someone

First off, let me just say hooray for wrong numbers. (Not really.) I was right in the middle of going to the bathroom this weekend when my phone started to ring. I had apparently been eating well because my initial doubt about reaching the phone before the answering machine picked up was exchanged for a hearty "good job, Ass!" and a leap toward my living room, pants clutched up in front, ass hanging out the back. (It's hard to run like that.) I picked up the phone at ring three and a half, and in response to my hello got a, "Nwin shwee foo twan nah?"

"Sorry?"

"Nwin shwee foo twan nah?"

"Oh," I said, pants sagging a little with disappointment, "I think you have the wrong number."

"Oh. Sorry. Bye."

And speaking of communicating with strangers, I've sent out another email on The Onion Personals. I'm really hoping I get a reply, though my batting average thus far is something along the lines of 0%. Generally I wait for girls to contact me, and to that end I'm experimenting with this as my picture:



So far it hasn't worked. I'm going to need to go on a photo shoot.

But as I sent the email there was a little blurb in the instructions that says specifically not to solicit the person to which you're sending a message to send you email outside the personals system. Are you supposed to communicate back and forth for money until you finally meet for the first time and only exchange email addresses in person? They can't be serious.

So keep your collective fingers crossed for me. Hopefully she'll write back and I won't get kicked off the system for offering her my email address.

Friendly Neighbors

Today, while walking back from the mall, I found a note on my car that said, "move your car it been theair a week."

I'm not entirely sure if it's actually an "a" in theair. It could be theetir, or therir.

One way or the other, it's only been there since Monday night. I'm a full day short of it being there a week. And who cares? I'm in a perfectly legal parking place. Jerks.

The Cure

I've discovered a sure fire way to avoid my massive headaches! Or at the very least I've avoided a massive headache twice with this particular remedy.

When the headache rears it's ugly ... um, head, which is usually in the late after noon or early evening, I slow its course with a steady stream of water and continue this throughout the evening.

When I get home I take 3 Advil and drink (this seems to be the important bit) a 23.5 oz can of Arizona Green Tea. (What a weird size for a can.) When I've had other massive headaches I've varied the number of Advil and stuck with the water, but they always get really nasty as bedtime approaches. The green tea seems to be the key.

My theory is that it contains the perfect amount of caffeine. Not so much that it'll give me the runs, but just enough to make my head feel ok. (Too much information?)

I'm not sure this would work for anyone else. Generally a 23.5 oz green tea is all the caffeine I've had in my system for days and days. So I can be sure of the dosage.

And no, it's not the green tea's fault that I'm up at midnight. It's pub quiz's fault. We, Cheese Quiz, came in 2nd. Unfortunately another team also came in second, and two teams came in first, so in reality we came in 3rd or 4th, depending on your point of view.

Speaking of bedtime ...

Helpers

Today I delivered three bed frames, and had to dismantle another. The one I dismantled was a strange spring and pulley design circa 1986, and it took me a half hour just to figure out how to START taking it apart. And let me just take a moment here to thank technology for creating better, smaller, and most importantly, lighter stuff. The portion of the 80's frame with the motors on it was nearly the same weight as Greenland. Luckily I had a helper.

My helper's name was Bill, and I'd guess he was 3. When I was bringing my bed frame into the house (it comes in 5 pieces: Head, foot, knee, back, rails), he would announce each new piece as I came through the door. And each time I would step outside he would announce that as well. At least I think that's what he was doing.

He seemed to have his own little toddler language. When I walked up the stairs with the headboard he said, "Orph mas displader!" To which I replied, "Yep, it's a brand new bed." "Brand new bed!" he confirmed. He did this over and over. He'd say something in his native baby tongue, and I say something uninteresting like, "Yep, it comes in five pieces. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5." Then he would magically regain his command of the English language and perfectly repeat the phrase, "Five pieces."

After I had my frame unloaded Bill decided he should go help get grandma out of her ancient hospital bed. Bill's mom was using a Hoyer lift* to accomplish this, and Bill was a little over eager to pump the lift up to full height. His mom kept having to ask him to wait.

I stepped outside the bedroom until grandma was safely in the chair. (I like to wait out of eye-shot of the lifting process in case the patient is wearing something risqué, like just the plastic ring around their waist where the diaper used to be.) Grandma having been successfully transferred, Bill wandered out of the room, affected the most causal pose a 3 year old can affect, and asked, "how you doing?"

"Good," I replied, thinking that he had maybe watched too many episodes of Friends. "How you doing?"

"I'm doing cool," replied Bill, and went down stairs to color.

When I finished constructing my bed frame and was ready to take the old one down to the garage, Bill reappeared to help. His first inclination was to lift up the portion of bed which weighed 2 or 3 times what he did. I took that section instead and handed him the controller handset, which he was overjoyed to bring down stairs. As we hefted our loads down to the garage I complimented him on the amoeba he had drawn on his forehead while he was coloring. His mom was also impressed with his handiwork.

My final delivery of the day was another bed frame to a facility in San Francisco. I usually have pretty good luck with parking when I'm in my work van, but not today. Had I delivered the bed at 2pm, as I had wanted to, I would have been fine. But the nurse I talked to requested I wait until after the shift change, and consequently after the time when you aren't allowed to park in front of the facility anymore. As a result I had to roll 250 pounds of bed frame and railings, (long ungainly railings), and a large, unfoldable, mattress-sized mattress 1.5 blocks down a very steep hill. About half way down the hill a homeless guy asked if I needed help. Since I did, he got the job of steering, and I held onto the mattress and slowed our descent.

The whole reason I was delivering this setup was because the patient's family was being difficult and the facility asked us to bring some really nice, clean, new-looking stuff for her to use. So we carefully set aside our finest mattress, frame, and brand, spanking, new, not-previously-died-upon mattress cover. Everything was perfect as I started down the hill. But inexplicably, even though he was steering the far side of the bed, and the only thing he hung across the bed frame on his far side was a grungy sport jacket, he somehow managed to make a puddle of hamburger juice on the headboard.

Having no other option, I transferred the puddle of hamburger juice from the headboard to my shirt, thereby returning the bed to its previous pristine condition, and making it look like I'd dripped hamburger juice on my gut sometime within the preceding 10 minutes.

Of the two, I'm going to give the MVH award to Bill for his artistic ability and innocent but disconcerting use of sitcom pickup lines.


* I do not work for Planet Mobility.

Personal Ads

I've noticed that most girls who list ads on Onion Personals are over 5'8". And many are close to 6'.

It strikes me as a bad idea to express yourself in a personal ad on craigslist by copying down the lyrics to a Metallica song and posting a picture of a lily pad.

I steer away from ads which use the phrase "I work hard, and I play hard." These people might be worn out by now.

I'm disappointed when a profile I've bookmarked is deleted, even though I've never gotten around to emailing her.

If I make a solid online connection, then the best case scenario is that we'll go on a date. I hate dates.

I wonder how mail order brides work.

Din Din

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

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

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

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

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

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

Everyone else in the movie did a fine job.

Sniff

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

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

Creeping Prices

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cutting

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

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



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

Knives Travel In Packs

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

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

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

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

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



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

BYOBW

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

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

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

Pub Quiz Update

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

What is the principle ore in iron?

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

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

Felt. Definitely felt.

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

Ouch.

Rambling

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

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

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

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

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

It would be nice to learn some Spanish.

How's that for a meandering post?

Riiing

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

And yet I never remember to bring them to concerts.

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

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

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

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



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

That's a Whole Lot of Sharp

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

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

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

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

Anyone want a knife?

Bzzzzip!

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

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

A Number of Things

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

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

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

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

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

When you drive this truck at the airport,



never confuse this nozzle



with this one.



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

Ever So Quickly

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

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

Life can be so difficult sometimes.



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

Spell Check Complete
(No Errors Found)

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

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

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

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

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

Blooop

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



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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Problem with Work Trips

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

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

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

Yay Tempe!

Moooo

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

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

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

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

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

Tech Support

Since the wireless signal in my room hovers between 32% and 7%, (depended apparently on how uncomfortable the work surface is: high table and broken chair = 32, sofa = 7) I stopped by the front desk to ask if they had the handy data port adapters that the other Comfort Inn has.

They guy behind the counter looked up from his file-o-fax and said, in the thickest New York accent this side of New York:

"Yeah, it doesn't work so good in this weather. [Which is totally wrong.] Those security guys come out here and they mess with the wireless bowl, and now it's under the desk, and I know it don't belong there. So we keeps calling them up, and they keeps telling us that it works fine, but it don't, especially not in this weather. And we had those boxes but people keep checkin' 'em out and then they don't come back at 225 a pop. So we don't know what to do, ya know? Come down here and get a lock on the signal and then go back to your room. Easy as pie. If I were a computer guy, I don't know. What a racket they got."

I started to back away at about "225 a pop," and said thanks anyway from about half way up the stairs.

The front desk people are really just a wealth of information.

When I checked in the desk was manned by a pale, white, mouth-breather with bleached white hair and a soul-patch. As I walked in his friend was walking out and he called after him, "You not comin' to the party dawg?!? Don't be playin' me like dat! Are you playin'? Nah, you still comin'. You still my dawg, dawg."

When I asked about checking in he said I had to wait until 3 o'clock, so I sat in the lobby and read my book.

20 minutes later he slipped out from behind the desk to procure some reece's pieces from the candy machine. He put is quarter in and turned the crank, and nothing happened. He looked at me and yelled, "Oh hell no! Can you believe dis shit? This machine tryin' to burn me fo' a quarter. I ain't havin' none of dat shit." And he shook it until his reeses pieces came out. "Hell yeah!" He exclaimed, now totally satisfied. "I got me my handful of pieces."

The Joys of Tempe

I left an iced over San Francisco on an 8am flight to Tempe. On my way to the airport I listened to a traffic report warning that 101N was closed at Marin City because of a 31 car pile up due to rain, ice, and hail. The perfect time to go to Tempe.

My flight was delayed on arrival because of torrential rains. It hasn't rained in 4 months, but it rained today, and Tempe has terrible drainage. There are some serious puddles around here.

Now I'm checked into my Hotel which has "Free WiFi throughout." I may have to walk down to the lobby to post this.

And I learned today that I will definitely be sharing this room with the other guy who is out here covering the Tempe area. He should feel right at home though, being a smoker, as my room smells very much like an ashtray.

Since it's Saturday night I've been combing the internet for stuff to do and I've come up with 2 options:

1) Go see Minus The Bear. Minus is one of two bands that are playing in Tempe tonight. Their website hints that they may be a pretty cool band, but there are a number of problems with tonight's venue. The first is that it's on E. Broadway Rd. Broadway, as you follow it from West to East, starts as West Broadway, becomes East Broadway at 7th Ave, goes back to West at 52nd Street, and finely stays East after Highway 87. I drove around for a very long time trying to find the particular stretch of E. Broadway Rd that contained the club, and when I did it was bursting at the seams with high school kids. I guess it's an all ages show.

2) Go see a movie. The only one I want to see is Fun with Dick and Jane. We'll see how I feel at 9:15pm. I figure I should give myself at least a half hour to find the theater.

Pub Quiz Part Deux

Last night we went to a different and far more crowded pub quiz. There was something like 30 teams, most of them named on a religious pun or in recognition of South Dakota's abortion ban. There were at least 3 teams with names involving South Dakota and coat hangers.

The religious ones were only slightly more varied. There was "Jesus is coming, look busy" which was I'm sure stolen earlier that day from a coffee mug. I thought "Preparation H. Christ" was much better and a lot more creative. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Skanks" won best team name.

We, as "Spanish Groove Armada", earned embarrassingly few points, but I was proud of myself for knowing that the country where some MacDonalds changed the red background of their sign from red to blue was Israel.

The strangest team name, in my opinion, was "Fresno: The only city in America where a Puerto Rican can be called white trash." I don't even know what that means, but it sounds like they don't like Fresno very much. It's beyond me what their opinion of Puerto Ricans might be. The guy running pub quiz, after reading that teams name, said, "From now on team names have to come in under 3 paragraphs."

Off to the Napper Tandy.

One Awsome Monday

I should probably be making phone calls or sending emails or something, but I'm just not in the mood.

I started out my day driving alllll the way to Fairfield to do a pickup. When I got there a service call came in for Suisun City, which is right around the corner. Perfect, I thought. Unfortunately the people weren't going to be there for me to fix the mattress for another 3 hours, so I drove the 50 miles back to San Rafael.

10 minutes from the Depot, the people called back and said I could come right now if I wanted. I told them it was too late and that I'd have to come back at 1. I did and I fixed their mattress.

On the way back to the depot for a second time, I came down 80 to 37 through Vallejo, and then down 101 to San Rafael. 5 minutes from the depot I got a service call to Vallejo. I called the lady to try to figure out what the problem was in hopes of not having to actually drive all the way back:

Lady: We havin' trouble with grandma's bed.
Me: What's the problem?
Lady: It don't work.
Me: What doesn't work? The whole thing?
Lady: The head don't go up and down.
Me: Just the head? Do the rest of the buttons work?
Lady: It don't work.
Me: Is it plugged in?
Lady: Of course it plugged in. It don't work.

I gave up and told her I would be there at 4:45.

I pulled up to the house with some of the most likely parts in hand. On my approach to the front door I had to weave through 5 dead cars and slog through some deep, wet, muddy grass, to get to the rickety wooden wheel chair ramp.

When they answered the door I was greeted with a little, tiny, grungy room filled with two kids doing homework on the noticeably filthy floor, a blind old woman with no visible pupils screaming incoherently from a wheelchair (I'm assuming this was grandma), and a guy watching TV on the couch. The heat was on and the fireplace held a raging fire so it was roughly 1,000,000 degrees, and the TV was on loud enough to be easily heard over grandma's rampage.

I went into an even filthier back room where I discovered that they guy who had delivered the bed hadn't specified which kind it was and I had brought the wrong parts. Not that the right parts would have helped as the frame was severely bent out of shape. I don't even know how one would bend a frame like that, but these people seem to have solved that particular challenge.

Luckily there's a possibility I won't have to go back tomorrow. Instead I have to find a place to park in the heart of China Town and drag 250 pounds of bed frame up to some section 8 housing. I'm psyched. If I play my cards right maybe I can do both. Keep your fingers crossed for me.