The not-delayed delayed flight.

Monday night saw me traveling back home from San Diego. I was flying Southwest so the boarding procedure was the "group system". I printed out my boarding pass the night before, so I got to stand in the "A" line. In front of me was a woman, probably in her 50s, who was talking loudly on her cel phone. She sort of reminded me of Dame Judi Dench, only not British.


Not-Dame Judi also kept fidgeting with her two bags that she could never seem to balance correctly. I wondered why she insisted on keeping them stacked together as opposed to letting them lie on the ground separately while we waited to board.

But it wasn't her bag-fidgetiness that bothered me, it was more the fact that she really had no consideration for the people around her as she yapped away loudly on her phone. I don't know who she was talking to, but when she told the person on the other line, "...my flight has been delayed about a half hour," my hatred for her was sealed.

Of course the flight wasn't delayed. She was staring right at the sign on the gate that said "Flight 979, 8:25pm, ON TIME."

What a freakin' LIAR. She stayed on the phone with the person up until we boarded the plane and then finished her call with, "...gotta go, I'm getting on the plane now." What? Didn't you just tell the person your flight was delayed a half hour?

I can only hope the people she was supposed to be visiting weren't too jazzed about seeing her anyway.

Champion of the Day: Circuit Breaker Dude

There's a new 24 Hour Fitness Lite on Piedmont Ave. That name is deceiving -- this is one of those circuit training gyms and there's nothing "lite" about constantly moving from station to station in non-stop intervals. The gym itself is pretty small, just workout equipment, a bathroom, and lockers. No pool, aerobics, weights, or locker rooms. You just show up, work the circuit and leave.

First you start by warming up on a treadmill or elliptical machine, then after about seven minutes you move on to the equipment. There are machines that work every part of your body -- I really hate the bosu ball, by the way.


So the object is to move from station to station and go all out at each machine for about a minute. A chime goes off on the overhead loudspeaker to let you know when to move on to the next exercise. I've done this a couple of times already and it kicks your ass pretty good. So last night, I was getting into the swing of the circuit when all of a sudden there's this guy sitting at the bench press machine and he wasn't moving. He was doing regular sets of presses. I was like, "...umm...excuse me, are you doing the circuit?"

And he goes, "...nah...the place is pretty empty so I figured..."

Figured what? You'd just screw up everyone else's workout by doing whatever the hell you want? Nice, jerk. I just moved past him to the next machine and watched the other people get annoyed when they came up on this guy using random machines. Finally an employee went up to the guy to set him straight. Dummy.

Clever boy.

One of the regular occurences on Piedmont Avenue is seeing people asking for donations. Not panhandling (but there's plenty of that, too), but people looking for you to contribute to whatever cause they're out there for. It's admirable work, but hitting up Piedmont Avenue is like shooting fish in a barrel considering all the richie rich and bleeding hearts walking around (not a knock, just an observation). I however, am just a man trying to make it in the universe (just like Jango), so my most important worthy causes include rent and groceries.


Last week on a grocery run, I stopped on a corner where some high-school kid was signing people up for something. He saw me getting ready to cross the street and said, "Excuse me sir, can I talk to you for a little bit?"

I looked at him and threw out, "I have to get going, sorry," and then started to cross the street. I got about halfway across when I heard him say just loud enough for me to hear, "...sorry people help."

Wow. He hit me with that like a pro. Well-timed and well-delivered. I wonder how many people actually turned back from the guilt and gave him money?

The dead-neighbor scare adventure.

I was sitting at my computer waiting for my laundry to finish when there was a knock at my door. It was CanadaGirl from the apartment upstairs. She explained she needed my help to check on the elderly woman next door to her. The old woman had left her keys in her door and they'd been there for two days. CanadaGirl called the building manager and he asked her to check what was going on, but to bring someone with her.

So I put on my beanie and my jacket and headed upstairs in my pajamas with CanadaGirl. As I made my way to the door I could see the keys in the deadbolt. CanadaGirl threw out a warning, "...watch out for the spider." She wasn't kidding. Hanging down from above the front of the door was a GIANT SPIDER. Kind of like Kumonga, the spider on Monster Island that spit out all that random webbing into the air and somehow managed to trap Godzilla.


We acutally had to duck under Kumonga's web to get to the door. So there we were stuck between two horrors. A giant spider behind us and a possibly very dead neighbor in front of us. So not cool.

CanadaGirl had made an attempt earlier at knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell, but got no answer. It was my turn to do that, too, and I got the same results. Next I nervously turned the key in the deadbolt to unlock it. I pulled out the key trying to make as much noise as possible with the hope that if anyone was alive on the other side that they'd come and answer the door--or we would stupidly get shot for breaking in to someone's apartment.

After moving the key to the doorknob and unlocking it, I turned the knob and threw out a "Hello?" into the open crack. I quickly found that I couldn't open the door all the way because as CanadaGirl put it, "...THERE'S SOMETHING ON THE GROUND BLOCKING THE DOOR..."

I just about pooped my pants.

It was at that point we both started yelling into the apartment to make sure somebody was in there, and I slowly kept pushing the door open to move whatever was on the ground--and really really hoping an arm or a leg didn't plop down on the floor.

I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw the old woman come shuffling down her hallway from inside the apartment towards us. CanadaGirl let out a huge, "There you are! We were so worried!" And we saw that it was a bag of groceries that was blocking the door. After some apologies, we gave the old woman her keys and I headed back down to my place--just in time to catch the beginning of the Lex-mas episode of Smallville.

The hungry Ektorp delivery man.

I hate when you're given a ridiculous window of time when waiting for a delivery or some sort of service. In my case I had to be home today from noon to 4pm to wait for my Ektorp couch from Ikea.

So I came home from work early and waited. I started some laundry and made some lunch. Then I threw Batman Begins in my DVD player so I could watch it for like the fifth time. Finally around 2pm my doorbell rang to herald the arrival of my 3-piece sofa.

I opened the door and told the guy this was the place -- he was sort of the big Biz Markie type. So i shuffled some of my existing furniture out of the way and waited for the couch to come up the stairs. After a little while I noticed that the delivery guy was by himself -- what the hell was that? What company sends its furniture delivery guys out by themselves? So there's my new 7-foot long couch wrapped in plastic teetering precariously on a hand-truck -- the couch was stood up so that it towered over the lone delivery guy.

After some fancy hand-truck work, the couch was finally in my apartment. I knew the etiquitte was to offer the delivery guy a drink, but before I could even do that he asked, "...are you baking some tasty treats?"

Wha?

That really caught me off guard. I took a whiff of the air and confusingly said, "...umm...no, I just had some leftover chili for lunch. Do you want a bottled water?"

After he left I figured out he was probably smelling the snickerdoodle candle I had lit earlier.

Old ladies in cars hate me.

I was driving home one night and looking for parking on my street. After driving around for about ten minutes I was starting to get frustrated. Seriously, I could settle and park two or three blocks away - the walk isn't bad - but I'm totally spoiled because it's usually very easy to find a spot within 50 yards from my apartment.

There's a long strip of sidewalk in front of an apartment complex across from my place, five cars can easily fit along that curb. I noticed a mini-van pulling in to the end of the line, I groaned that I missed my chance at the spot, BUT WAIT! There's actually TWO SPOTS AVAILABLE! I pulled up a little behind, but alongside, the van to wait for the old lady inside to finish her parallel parking, but all of a sudden I see her stepping out of her car! SHE PARKED RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TWO EMPTY SPACES!!! WHAT THE HELL!

I rolled down my window and asked her if she could move her car forward a couple of feet so I can fit in behind her, but she looked at me and said, "I'm not leaving..." and nodded her head.

"No, I mean you're taking up two spots, if you move ahead a little I can park" I said back.

"You want to park? I'm not leaving!"

"That's not what I'm saying -- PLEASE move your car ahead a little!"

And then a woman who was sitting out on her second floor balcony joined in to try and help me, "Ma'am," she said, "you can move ahead a little and then he can park right behind you! You're in two spots!"

The old lady was either not getting it or just being a dumb bitch, "I can't--I have an appointment," she scowled and then stormed off.

"LAZY ASS!" I yelled. The lady on the balcony laughed at that comment and then shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

Wow. I forgot I had this.

That's not true at all. But I do admit I have been negligent. Maybe I could just pull a Billy Joel and list a bunch of stuff that's happened to me lately and let you decipher what's going on. Umm, just don't try singing - -this is free form.

Freelancing. Hash browns at Ruth's Chris. Morning coffee runs -- large with 3 splenda and non-fat, and a medium iced with a shot of bittersweet. Absolute Watchmen. Wine and dinner with Big Cherry. Macworld dreams. A tub of Vietnamese fried rice and a phone number. QT with the nephew. Trick or treating in the rich neighborhood --full-size candy bars, bitches. Pecan pancakes. The desert island game and defending my choices of who I'd want to be stranded with.

Hittin' the Piedmont trail.

I've started taking long walks around my neighborhood to keep myself in fighting trim (what I'm fighting for is debateable, but it's the walking that's important). And these aren't casual walks, mind you. These are brisk walks. And when I say "brisk," I don't mean super-gay jog-walking, I mean a good, normal, fast walk.

But it's not even that easy. While I'm admiring the scenery of million dollar homes I'll never afford, I'm also navigating the rough, uneven sidewalks of Piedmont. Y'see, the area may have it's richie-rich parts, but it's been around a while so the sidewalks and streets can be a little rough. And did I mention the 75-degree incline hills? I'm just glad I don't have to push boulders up these neighborhood mountains.

I saw a lady pushing a baby carriage up one of the hills today and all I could think of was hoping that her baby wasn't too heavy and that she doesn't lose control or I'd have to chase a carriage down a hill in slow motion -- like that staircase scene in The Untouchables, only without bullets flying everywhere and Andy Garcia sliding in with the last minute save.

That's about right.

I made a call the other day to a girl I'd dated a couple of times.

"Hey, Cute Betty, did you want to maybe catch Corpse Bride sometime next week?"

"...um. That would be cool, but I live in Philadelphia now."

"--you didn't answer the question."

I really need to stay on top of these things.

Worlds collide.

I saw a weird thing the other day while driving home on 40th the other night. There were some kids at a bus stop waving toy lightsabers at each other. But these weren't your run of the mill lightsabers mind you, the handles were made up to look like Spider-man's head.

So you've got Spider-man's head with a laser sword extending and pulsating out the top of it. What kind of boot-legging GENIUS came up with this concept? And what kind of backstory would explain the need for Spider-man lightsabers?

In the future is there some mystical order of knights who's teachings are based on the lesson that "with great power comes great responsibility" - is that it? That actually makes perfect sense.

My mind is blown.

Butt-ugly German DJs.

The art director at the magazine I work at was on leave because his wife just had a baby. So I had to pick up the art director duties in his absence. This was kind of exciting because I got to design my very first cover.

Unfortunately, the cover artist was fugly.

The photo shoot took place on some island off the coast of Spain, so I'm sure there was plenty of partying to be had. When the photos came in, they were all ...how should I put it? ...NOT cover-worthy.

For some reason the shoot was at some old run-down mission and everything looked all rocky and craggy. And that was just the DJ's face. The landscape was pretty rough-looking to match.

The DJ himself wasn't even dressed for a cover shoot. That is, unless Germans think being on the cover of an American magazine means you have to look like a redneck with your hair in a mullet, a sleeveless muscle-T, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. I'm sure he just wanted to pose against a few rocks for an hour and then go back to chasin' rave tail.

Race to the finish.

I needed to get a haircut today. For some reason, every few months I go through a phase where I think I want to grow my hair out -- my hair is usually cut close on the sides and back, and then short and spiky up top -- but whenever I hit three or four weeks of growth the hair hits a sort of awkward stage where I can't just spike it up with gel, but I can't quite just comb it down either. It's almost like hair puberty.

I have no idea what that means.

So I drove over to the Great Clips in the strip mall a couple of miles from my place, and had to park in a spot a fair walk away. As I got out of my car and started walking, a guy popped out between a couple of cars and cut me off without even an "excuse me". What a dick. I guess he had been doing that thing where you cut across a lot by walking between parked cars. Anyway, it looked like he was making a bee line towards Great Clips.

I thought, "F***, if he gets there before me, I'll end up waiting forever," so I picked up my pace and did my best to catch up. I didn't want to run, or it'd look obvious I was trying to beat this guy to the shop. And in case I was wrong and he was going somewhere else, I didn't want to look like an idiot rushing to get my $14 haircut.

I watched the guy trying to gauge his intent. As he walked he kept looking around, which confused me even more. Then I stared at the back of his head trying to figure out if his hair was long enough that he would want it cut. I couldn't believe all this drama was going through my mind just because I didn't want to be stuck waiting in a chair reading old magazines for 20 minutes.

And then the greatest thing happened. He stopped to pull out a piece of gum from his pocket and then throw away the wrapper! Victory was mine! Why did he stop for the gum? Did he want to have fresh breath for the Vietnamese lady that was going to cut his hair? No matter, I got through the door first! Unbelievable! Go me!

He walked in two seconds after me, but ended up waiting about ten minutes before someone could take him. That had to suck.

Champion of the Day: Jealous Canasta Boyfriend

The other night the cafe filled up with stranded train passengers. They came over from the Amtrak station because there was a 4-hour delay before their train arrived to take them all to Seattle. I can think of a lot of things to do in 4 hours, but playing canasta doesn't even register at the bottom of my list. No insult to canasta players, but I just wouldn't think to whip out the cards and get a game going.

The only other time I heard of canasta was an old Warner Brothers cartoon where a little mouse, playing head games with a cat, wrote a letter to the cat asking him to come over and play canasta. Only it was signed, "the dog." Thinking the dog was ready to put aside their differences and be friends, the cat strolled out to the doghouse with a table, a deck of cards, and some lemonade. --the dog beat the shit out of him.

So it was kind of weird when I saw a young college-aged couple playing canasta at the tall table in the center of our cafe. At one point Canasta Girl came over to order drinks, she was the friendly type and kept asking about different drinks and making small talk. Occasionally, I'd glance up to see Canasta Boy staring intently in my direction -- it took me a little bit to realize this, but that sumbitch was giving the evil eye!

We've all seen this before. The insecure boyfriend who quickly clings to his girlfriend in public as soon as he realizes there are other men in the room. But C'MON, when your keepin' your pimp hand strong by displaying your canasta skills, that evil eye is about as threatening as a weak 3-card meld. (wha?)

...the swing of things.

So I'm back at the cafe after about a month and a half's abscence. Practically the entire crew is different and they've added a new blended drink. A lot of customers don't realize this, but cafe workers HATE making the cold drinks. Whether it's a shake or one of the ice-blended dealios, anything that involves the blender sucks ass.

Why you ask? Next time you're in line waiting to get just a cup of coffee, see how it feels when the group in front of you orders three blended drinks. You think that wait bites? Try being the guy or gal having to make those three drinks while watching the orders pile up and the line get longer and longer.

It's a vicious cycle. It's like the sound of the blender draws more customers into line for more blended drinks, but it creates longer and longer waits. Then customers either avoid getting in line, or just leave the line altogether. When it finally slows down, someone orders a blended drink, and it starts all over.

Bank pain.

I hate standing in line at the bank. I especially hate standing in line with old people at the bank. I have this theory that older you get, the less aware you are of other people's "personal space."

You're all familiar with the concept of "personal space," right? That sort of invisible zone of intimacy that you allow only a select few to cross. Normally when I feel the heat of someone's breath on the back of my neck, I'll have hoped she (it better be a "she") had at least bought me a drink first.

Back to the bank... I needed to ask for a new card because the magnetic strip on mine wearing out. So I'm standing in line with no one behind me, and I can see myself in the TV monitor.

At my bank, when you get to the front of the line you end up facing a TV showing the feed of some security cam filming whoever's next to see a teller. I really don't see the purpose of this other than to give the tellers some form of entertainment as they watch customers either trying to figure out where the camera is OR pretend not to be looking at themselves. I fall into the latter category, stealing sideways glances at myself to make sure I haven't got a giant hot sauce stain on my shirt or something.

Anyway, in the monitor I noticed that someone was getting in line behind me. As he approached closer, I thought, "...he's not stopping. Oh crap. Old person." So there he was - a whole THREE INCHES behind me. I shook my head as I looked into the TV monitor to see the sight of two idiots doing their best "packed elevator" imitation in an empty line.

Champion of the Day: Not-Paying-Attention Bike Guy

So are you a vehicle or a pedestrian? When all the cars stopped to let me cross the street, little did I know you’d ignore the stopped traffic and come blazing past them headed in my direction. Apparently the rules of neither man nor machine applied to whatever metallic/biological douche bag you’d become. Luckily, I was cognizant enough to freeze in my tracks to let you whizz past me, thus avoiding a collision I’m sure you would have ended up on the better side of. Still, why even ride down a busy street like Piedmont Ave. when any of the sidestreets would have proven easier to navigate?

Freefall Jones, the friendly jerk.

One of the things that really gives me a slow burn is unprepared people at the post office. These are the people who get up to the window and never have any idea what they're doing. They never know what forms they need filled out. They're mailing a shitload of packages, but don't know any of the zip codes. The list of ingorance goes on and on.

This morning I got caught behind three of these idiots. Dumbass #1 had a pile of about 10 small packages he needed to insure, but waited to find out how much it cost to mail the packages before he added the insurance -- so he got stuck standing at the window filling out one form for each package.

Dumbass #2 had some unwrapped items she had no idea how she wanted to send. She asked to see her shipping options, and after choosing Priority shipping, she asked the cashier to go ahead and wrap those up! What the F? You could feel the whole line of waiting customers burning a hole that lady's back with our imaginary heat vision. The cashier pointed her to the forms table where she could stuff the items in the FREE PRIORITY ENVELOPES that were available. The girl gave an embarrassed "oh" and then made the walk of shame past the line to the table -- but of course they let her cut straight back to the front of the line after she finished getting her shit together.

As for Dumbass #3 -- I had no idea what was going on there. It was some lady standing there filling out some form while the casher just sat there waiting. The dumbass was there when I got there, and she was there when I left.

By the time I worked my way up to the front, I was lucky to have a new cashier come out to open up another window. She smiled and asked how I was doing. I said I was great and that I just wanted to mail my package Priority with Delivery Confirmation. She said, "That's easy enough," with a big smile.

I could kind of feel what she was getting at, so I said, "Yeah I try to be prepared when I come here so things go smoothly."

Then she said, "We love that kind of customer," and she didn't stop rubbing it in, "...sometimes people come up here and just hand us their stuff expecting us to do everything for them," but she said it very friendly with a big grin. That was hilarious. The cashiers must have had a to deal with a bunch of idiots that morning for her to vent like that.

When I left, the three other Dumbasses were still stuck at their windows, and it felt good helping to make them look like idiots.

ER Adventure, Pt. 2: Tap that knee.

To read Part 1, go here, or just scroll down to see the previous entry.

When I got into the ER, I was lucky to get a doctor who had seen my problem before and had her own knee problems in the past, so she was sensitive to my situation. She was sure I had something called “reactionary arthritis,” where some sort of virus had gotten into my system and caused all the pain and swelling in my joints. Finally! Some sort of diagnosis! It was such a relief to know that I wasn’t some sort of “patient zero” with a new disease that they would name after me.

The doctor suggested draining the fluid from both my knees and then injecting them with cortisone. (Cortisone is a steroid and very aggressive anti-inflammatory.) Hey, anything that will let me walk again. So the nurse came in and started prepping for my procedure. I saw her pulling out syringes and needles and bandages and vials of liquid and whatever else they needed to make me stronger, faster, ...better.

When the doctor came back she started with my right knee by rubbing some sort of sterilizer on it that looked like BBQ sauce. Then I felt a sharp pinch as she stuck me with a needle filled with some sort of numbing agent. I'm glad she did that because the needle she used next to drain my knee was freakin' HUGE. It was like she took the Space Needle and stuck it at the end of a syringe. That big needle hurt like nobody's business - once it was in, the draining began. I could actually feel the fluid rushing out of my knee. The doctor then said surprisingly, "I'm going to need another syringe."

I almost freaked out at the thought of having to go through needle insertion again, but what happened actually seemed worse. She popped off the syringe - LEAVING THE NEEDLE IN MY LEG. Oh man, I could have passed out right there. Then she put on an empty syringe and continued draining. She held up the filled syringe and asked me, "What color is that?" The only thing I could think of was, "...it looks like chicken broth." So gross.

When it was done, the right knee had a syringe and a half of fluid taken out. The left knee not as much (whew). The cortisone pretty much worked right away - I was able to bend my knees and walk (not quite normally, though) in about an hour. I was prescribed some awesome anti-inflammatories and by the next day I was walking like nothing was ever wrong.

ER Adventure, Pt. 1: Painful baby steps.

Last week my physical condition had definitely gotten worse. I talked about it a little here. I took off from work Wednesday and Thursday because I could barely stand and walking was extremely painful on my knees and ankles. At first it was just my right knee and ankle, but my left knee and ankle started to ache, too — I assumed because I had been limping on one side for so long. I’d probably been in pain like this for about five weeks.

My doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with me beyond the joint pain, but there was something definitely odd about my condition. She had me only taking over-the-counter medication. Which did NOTHING for the pain .

The problem with staying home sick was the parking situation in my neighborhood. Since my car could only be in one spot for two hours at a time during business hours, I had to figure out what to do. I definitely didn’t want my car to get towed away, so I had to call a co-worker to come get my car and bring it to the employee parking lot at work.

So for two days I suffered and shuffled painfully around my apartment. It’s amazing how quickly my place got trashed – water bottles and granola bar wrappers were everywhere.

By the time Friday came around, my condition hadn’t gotten any better. I could barely bend my knees and definitely couldn’t walk comfortably. Walking was a great physical strain and traveling even ten feet would leave me winded and sweaty. I was pitiful. I couldn’t go another day like this, so I called my co-worker again and asked her if she’d be kind enough to take me to the emergency room.

The cruel joke of this situation is that I LIVE RIGHT NEXT TO A HOSPITAL. But since it’s Kaiser, they don’t take my insurance. I’m sure if I was dying I could walk into their emergency room, but since I was just in excruciating pain, I had to go to Alta Bates across town.

This looks like a good place to leave off -- I'll continue the rest of my ER adventure next time.

I found the taco truck.

I’d always heard about an elusive taco truck in Emeryville. A few friends and co-workers had mentioned it, and although none of them had ever gotten food from it, they’d heard through other friends that the food was actually quite good considering it came from a “roach coach.” They're probably called roach coaches because their arrival is heralded by their horns blaring the tune of La Cucaracha.

I’d never seen the taco truck, but I’d seen the various other food trucks peddling their cold drinks, snacks, and fried meat goodies. But one day after running errands, I was driving back to work on 40th Ave. and noticed a food truck on the side of the road with a crowd of people standing alongside of it. My eyes bulged. Was this it? Was this the legendary taco truck?

I quickly looked for parking -- all the spaces on the curb next to the truck were taken, so I had to park around the corner. This had to be it, right? I mean, why were there so many people here? Construction workers, office people, Home Depot employees... it was weird to see people converging on one food truck. And when I saw people ordering enchiladas and burritos, I knew this was the right truck. I quickly scanned the menu, --food trucks are great because the food is cheap-- and placed my order.

There was something kind of cool about standing in front of a taco truck waiting for my $4 carne asada quesadilla. No fancy lunch, just a bunch of office grunts standing around waiting for their order to be called. I felt like starting up some sort of water cooler-type conversation, but I wasn't sure if anyone would want to talk about those jerky hunks showing up on Average Joe.

The restraining order.

I stepped out of my apartment the other day to see a sign taped to the stairway near my door. It wasn't a usual place for someone to hang a sign, so it caught my attention. I looked at it and made out the words, "RESTRAINING ORDER."

Holy shit. Someone in my apartment complex is apparently some kind of stalker. That's just great.

And how fucked up was it to tape the restraining order next to a staircase where everybody in the building can read it?

Makin' toys.

Check out my DJ CHICKEN LITTLE!!!

...and check out the other chickens in the show in this art gallery.

Champion of the Day: Office Nail Clipper

As I sat working at my desk, I couldn’t believe the familiar, yet out of place, noise I heard. It was a clicking. But not just any clicking — it was a clicking sound normally reserved for the privacy of your own home or bathroom. It was clearly the sound of someone in the office clipping their nails.

Fingernails , I hoped.

But still, WHY AT THE OFFICE??? I was too horrifed and disgusted to get up and find out who had no qualms sending nail clippings flying all over their cubicle.

It's only ONE minute.

The parking on my street is heinous. During the day it’s always busy because I live right next to Kaiser hospital. Kaiser has its own parking garage (which is free on the weekends, btw), but a lot of people will drive up and down my block for that ever-elusive free two-hour parking spot. Or they’ll double-park next to a row of meters waiting for someone to leave — the meters are $2 for two hours, but you don’t have to move your car after two hours, you can just plunk more coins into the meter. Luckily after 6pm, meter and parking enforcement ends. Then it’s all Lord of the Flies up in there — cars are all over the place zig-zagging and u-turning just to get a good spot for the night. It’s car anarchy. It’s carnarchy .

This morning as I walked across the street to my car, I saw a car moving towards me, obviously waiting to see if I was going to leave. I got in my car and signaled to the waiting driver that I need one minute to warm up my car. I did this by holding up my index finger in the "one" sign. I got no reaction. The guy just stared at me. After about 30 seconds I saw the waiting car start to creep up alongside my car. When I looked over at the other driver, he had an annoyed look on his face as he stared at me with his mouth open and one hand in the air -- it was the universal sign for, "Are you leaving or what?"

Are you kidding me? Wasn't my signaling for "one minute" obvious? And it was 8-fucking-o'clock in the morning, who's NOT going to warm up their car at that time? I furrowed my brow and rolled down my window, then I held up one finger (not the finger I wanted to hold up, though), and said, "I NEED ONE MINUTE TO WARM UP MY CAR."

The guy's eyes bulged like he just realized what I was trying to signal to him earlier, he nodded and waved before backing his ass up to get out of my way and wait like he should have.

X-rays suck.

So my doctor wanted me to get some chest x-rays. It’s nothing serious, my blood work was negative, but she just wanted to make sure my circulation was fine, too. This is all a residual effect of a nightmare weekend at the café two weeks ago. We were severely undermanned for the entire weekend and I had to work an eight-hour shift behind the counter alone. By the end of the weekend I was physically drained – I aggravated an old knee and ankle injury, bursitis in my elbow, and tendonitis in my hand.

Anyway, I took my doctor’s note to the x-ray lab and saw a lobby full of people waiting for x-rays. I needed to get back to work, so I asked the receptionist what their hours were for the next day. She told me that the wait wasn’t too bad, so I decided to stay and gave her my note. That was a fuckin’ mistake. Apparently “wasn’t too bad” is a relative term, because I was in that waiting room for TWO HOURS.

Not knowing the arduous wait I had ahead of me, I ran outside and fed an hour’s worth of coins into a parking meter and then returned to the lobbby to wait. I picked up an old Entertainment Weekly with Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet on the cover that reminded me I needed to rent Finding Neverland, and one of the movie reviews inside confirmed my suspicion that the Fat Albert movie was terrible.

The guy sitting next to me was a very fidgety fellow. He was tall and lanky, and looked like he had some sort of middle-eastern ethnicity. His legs were crossed and he kept shaking his raised foot every few seconds. He’d get up every couple of minutes to see how soon he’d be called and to add to his annoyance factor he pulled out his noisy phone and started playing video games on it. I really wanted to hit this guy.

The guy sitting diagonally on the other side of me was a quiet middle-aged guy. He looked like the cool english high-school teacher with the gray hair and ponytail that all the students liked. He was reading a Fortune magazine, but when I took a closer look at him I could see he was occassionally glancing up over the top of the pages to stare at a girl sitting straight across from him. She was a tall redhead wearing a pink top and black skirt, her pasty white legs were crossed, and she kept running her hands up and down her leg as she read a copy of Dwell. I could tell she was driving the middle-aged guy crazy as his eyes strained to get a peek upskirt .

Sitting directly across from me was a large latina woman and her baby. The poor kid was the one getting x-rayed and he sounded terribly congested. The baby was understandably cranky, so the mother started to breast feed him. Then she pulled out her cell phone and started calling people. Great. That’s just what a crowded lobby of people needed, a loudmouth on a cell phone with a baby at her teat.

I needed to change seats, so I got up to get a drink of water and then sat back down on the other side of the lobby away from Fidgety Abdul and Cell Phone Mamacita. After an hour of waiting I realized my parking meter had expired — but I didn’t want to run outside and miss getting called. So now I had to sit there with the added stress of worrying about getting a parking ticket.

When I finally got called, the x-ray technician was no treat. She was a short curmudgeonly woman who looked like she’d seen too many stupid patients that day. And why is it that x-ray techs have to know why you’re getting x-rayed? She looked me over and asked in a judgmental tone, “...so you’ve got right-side swelling and your doctor wants chest x-rays?”

I told her that my doctor just wanted to be safe and check my ciruculation, so she wanted to see my heart and lungs. JUST TAKE THE DAMN X-RAYS, BITCH! That’s what I was thinking. I wanted to get out of there so bad. When it was finally done I headed out and saw that, luckily, I didn’t have a parking ticket.

Champion of the Day: Hungry Bleached Hair Dude

It was hot today. And I was grumpy. My hand hurt from an aggravated injury, and I was limping because my ankle was sore. All I wanted to do was go into Longs, pick up some water and go home.

As I hobbled to the cash registers with my gallon of Alhambra, I was abruptly cut off by a fat guy carrying two large bags of peanut M&Ms and a big bag of Pecan Sandies. I was literally less than ten feet from lining up when this bloated wonder swooped in unapologetically and stood in front of me -- I felt his mass come up and pass me from behind, I was afraid I'd get caught in his gravity well and hurtle downwards toward the black hole that was his belly button.

Did you ever notice that whenver fat slobby people wear t-shirts, you can always make out the shape of their huge belly buttons?

I stood there in awe of his rudeness. I could hear him breathing as he waited to pay for his crunchy snack treats. I couldn't discern, however, whether those were breaths of anticipation or breaths of fatigue from exerting the energy needed to "turbo boost" past a limping man. I noticed the roll of hot dogs that made up the back of his neck, it led upwards to a patch of spiked, bleached hair -- obviously cut short to give that "slimming" effect. I wondered to myself if there was any strategic logic to his platinum blonde hair, whether it was supposed to distract people from noticing his size 48 waist.

It apparently didn't work since I was able to easily read the tag on the back of his Levi's. That leather patch on the waist of his jeans stood out like a billboard, boldly advertising the statistics: W48 L30.

Uh, you can't use that yet.

File this as a Great Moment in Corporate Incompetence. We got a new color printer installed in the office today - which is great because the old printer was on its last legs. This new printer is HUGE. It's like one of those monoliths that shows up every few billion years to help man make the next evolutionary leap.

The problem is that the new color printer isn't hooked up to the network yet.

A technician came in today to take down the old color printer and remove it from the network, then he installed the new printer. BUT apparently he wasn't the guy that's supposed to hook the new printer up to the network. That guy won't be in the office until later this week. Pure genius.

"That really doesn't go into your nose."

I'm at my desk working on a layout when one of my friends comes up to see how things are going. She points at a little wooden toy at my desk - it's a chain of a multi-colored cubes linked by a string of elastic that runs through their centers. Everyone picks it up to play with it, the cubes snap all around to form different shapes and it's actually kind of relaxing to play with.

So I hand my friend the toy and she starts playing with it. I look back at monitor to work, when I hear, "...how's this?"

She had stuck one of the cubes into her nose , while the rest dangled out from below her nostril.

The beauty of that move was that I had no way of knowing which cube had now been tainted. But I'm pretty sure it was red.

Champion of the Day: Cafe Poseur Lady

One of the things that annoys me about cafe customers is that they'll make up drinks. They'll just pull some sort of concoction out of their asses. A lot of this is because of Starbucks. Their tall/grande/venti bullshit has people brainwashed. I always give people a sideways look when they ask for a "tall latte" as opposed to a "small". Oh, and don't be fooled by their "caramel machiatto" -- it's really a caramel latte. A real machiatto is a shot or two of espresso with a dab of steamed milk foam on top - that's all.

So this lady walked in the other day and said to me, "I'll have an iced double espresso with foam." Iced? With foam? I repeated her order and she nodded, and when I brought up that I'd have to steam some milk, she said, "...no steamed milk please."

My eye twitched.

That had to be the stupidest order I ever heard. I wanted to jump over the counter and shake this lady. Instead I explained that in order to make foam, I would have to steam some milk. I didn't even go into how pointless it was to have foam AND ice in the same drink. She just sort of stared at me and said, "Oh yeah." So I made her little drink and made her watch me add the foam so she could tell me the "right amount."

After I gave her the drink, she walked over to the condiment bar and proceeded to fill the rest of her cup with non-fat milk. Nice, dumbass. You just made an iced non-fat latte. I really wish people would just stick to the menu instead of trying to make up a drink -- you just end up looking stupid, and all the cafe workers know you're an idiot.

At least making fun of dumb customers with my co-workers makes this part-time job semi-worthwhile.

The coming of toe.

One of the indicators that summer is coming is that you see more people wearing open-toe footwear. Other than special corporate mandated "fun" wardrobe days, men in my office pretty much have to stick to semi-business casual.

The women, however, can get away with wearing sandals and/or flip-flops. I have no problem with this, but as general rule -- I believe that if you're going to walk around with an exposed body part, that body part should NOT be grotesque to look at.

At a staff meeting last week, one of my co-workers showed up wearing sandals. The room we were in was small with chairs along the outside wall of the room (we were basically all sitting facing each other). The woman in sandals had her legs crossed, therefore dangling one of her feet in the middle of the room. And holy shit, was that an ugly foot.

It was like a man's foot. There was nothing feminine about this crusty brick of flesh wrapped in leather straps. Every hardened crevice was visible as the leg that held it bounced it up and down. Occasionally, Manfoot would vigorously shake her five-toed appendage -- the resulting sound was reminiscent of sandpaper on a rough surface. Good lord, woman, a little Lubriderm goes a long way.

The toes themselves were another type of horror. Every toenail was overgrown, cracked, and YELLOW. I imagined that some sort of endangered fungus had taken residence under Manfoot's toenails, and that she was forbidden to wash her feet for fear that the fungus would become extinct.

And the overgrown nails were also rounded. Now, how fucking lax do you have to be at personal hygiene that you allow your toenails to grow so thick and long enough that they curve along the shape of your toe?

The Hitchhiker's Guide and almond soap.

I tweaked my knee while at the gym yesterday so it was a little tender to walk on today. I showed up at Bay Street Mall and parked over by the theater. I was still early for the movie, so I wanted to swing by the Body Shoppe and pick up some soap. Really, I'm being serious - a few weeks ago I tried out some of their face wash for men and I really liked it, so I wanted to go back for some soap. Not the foo-foo stuff, I went to the tiny little men's section and picked up some almond soap. There was a 5 for $12 special going on, so I made sure to stock up.

I think the soap stacking policy is pretty stupid at the Body Shoppe. The soaps looked nice, wrapped only in Saran-style plastic wrap, but they were displayed in an unstable pyramid formation. I swear I barely touched the top bar when half the stack came tumbling down. Just great. I made a mental note to remember to complain to somebody at Body Shoppe corporate about the lack of training their staff had at stacking non-square shapes into a pyramid.

After picking up the fallen soap, but purposely not restacking them into a pyramid, I paid for my items (all the while fending off the cashier's attempts to get me to join their discount card program --"No! I don't want the card. It's already bad enough I'm a guy in a foo-foo store, just please let me pay for my soap so I can hobble out of here on my bad knee!")

I was still early for the movie so I put the stuff I bought in my car and then headed to the theater to meet my friends. After a few minutes of waiting I get a call on my cell from one of my friends. She was aggravated. There was a blur of words to the effect that her boyfriend forgot about the movie. She was supposed to pick him up at BART, but instead he was on a bus and she was headed on an intercept course to pick him up. That sounded pretty excitng to me - I was hoping he'd jump out the bus window onto the roof of her car, and then he'd just car surf all the way down the street. So while they played out their very cool real life action movie, I went ahead into the theater to wait for them there.

How was the movie? Eh. It really made me want to read the book, because it felt like I was missing a lot of the story. It was like the script for this movie was actually the CliffsNotes version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sam Rockwell was great, and Mos Def did okay, too - but the whole thing seemed a little "cutesy" when I expected something a little darker.

The grind is getting to me.

Tacking on an extra 25 hours to your regular full-time week can really make you feel overworked. After I get done with my regular job on Friday, I slap on an apron and head over to the cafe to work a full closing shift. Then, I work another full closing shift on Saturday night. And I top off my weekend of work by working an 8 hour mid-day shift on Sunday. How do I get through it?

It's the grinds.

There's coffee beans and grinds everywhere. I'm smelling coffee, I'm breathing coffee, there's coffee dust in the air. I'm convinced that my body is absorbing caffeine through osmosis. That's how I get through the weekend - the grind is getting to me.

Another thing about working at a cafe - there's a lot of cute customers that come by for coffee, but the difficulty level at flirting is pretty high. The problem is bringing into conversation the fact that this isn't my real job. That's not really something you can just blurt out...

"Hi, I'd like a medium latte."

"Sure, no problem. So how's the studying?"

"Oh, it's hard. But finals are almost done..."

"That's good. ...uh...I'm glad I don't have finals at my REAL JOB, where I'm an Associate Art Director of two magazines."

See? Not very smooth.

Champion of the Day: "Cell Phone at the Wedding" Lady

Wow. What can I say? That was really brilliant of you to not turn off your ringer during our friends' wedding. When the bride and groom were staring lovingly into each other's eyes as they recited their vows, I thought there was nothing in the world that could ruin that perfect moment. Boy, was I wrong.

What was that polyphonic melody that echoed through the chapel? Was it Bouganville? Or Futuristico? Retroverse, maybe? At least it wasn't the cell phone version of Baby Got Back.

Even more classy than your cell phone ringing was the fact that you let it ring TWICE. Simply amazing. Who could possibly be calling you that didn't know you were OUT OF TOWN AT A WEDDING? Seriously, screw you lady.

MySpace Cowboy: Fat and Needles

These are the stories of a hapless MySpace junkie and his efforts to meet women. As told by the people who have to listen to his "bragging."

When last we saw the MySpace Cowboy, he was attempting to worm his way into Cousin Jailbait's spring break get-away. To continue that story -- he didn't go. So CJ and her friends were free to enjoy some fun in the sun without the creepy older guy who wanted to get them drunk.

Meanwhile, back at home, Mama Jailbait found out that CJ's current boyfriend was 26 years old. That couldn't be a very good development.

And it wasn't. Outraged, Mama Jailbait called CJ and basically told her she was kicking her out of the house and pulling her out of private school. In a panic, Cousin Jailbait decided to call... the MySpace Cowboy??? If you're an underage teen, the last person you should be calling for help is the Master of Ulterior Motives.

Obviously "worried" by his cousin/ex-girlfriend's predicament - the Cowboy quickly made plans to travel to Cousin Jailbait's hometown to ...uh... to ...ummm... to talk to the mother? Nope. To offer support as Cousin Jailbait talks to her mother herself? Nope. To hopefully bring Cousin Jailbait back to live with him? You betcha.

Seriously. What kind of letch is this guy? His "cover" was that he was going to go to her hometown to help enroll her in public school -- I don't know if that's necessary or even legal, and his other plan was to point out how her current boyfriend isn't any good for her. Then, with Cousin Jailbait not being able to go home, the MSC would move her into his place -- effectively becoming Daddy Cousinfucka.

One of the good things about the MySpace Cowboy's plans is that they really never come to fruition. This time was no different. Cousin Jailbait moved in with her boyfriend and the MSC stayed home with no one to help him hang his harajuku girl posters.

So you're wondering about the "Fat and Needles" promised in the title? The Cowboy had bragged complained the other day about how sore he was. Without being asked about it, he volunteered the info that he "had his first non-surgical liposuction procedure... called mesotherapy."

Mesotherapy uses hundreds of tiny needles to inject a fat-eating fluid into the targeted area. Then the fluid goes to work and turns unwanted fat into waste.

Still no confirmation as to whether MSC will be having the procedure done on his head.

Champion of the Day: Full Force Man

Congratulations to that guy I saw walking his dog on 40th. Your pit bull looked very tough and menacing, but you, sir, were anything but. That macho 80s look you were sporting made you stick out more than a camel toe sticks in. Your shiny jheri curl, your Gargoyle sunglasses, your puffy white shirt, and baggy super-tapered pants had me thinking you were getting ready to meet up with the other members of Full Force.

For making me hope you were dressed that way because you, Ozone, and Special K were putting on a breakdance show to save the local youth center, you are the champion of the day.

Drunken karaoke.

How did it come to me standing with a microphone yelling "Hey you - who said that? - baby how you been?"

I remember a few shots of tequilla and then an aborted attempt by me and some friends to shoot pool. Someone suggested "karaoke" - and it was on.

We found a place on Telegraph and 44th that had private party booths. Wisely, the manager stuck us all in the booth farthest away from the front desk. After noticing their "no alcohol" policy, half of us trekked over to the liquor store to buy some liquid courage and sneak it in.

All I have left to say is that you really form a bond with people when all of you are belting out Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of your lungs.

Coin slots and vegetable medley.

I needed to do laundry the other day, so I threw a pile of clothes into a basket and headed to the laundry room directly below my apartment. I totally slammed the laundry room door by accident, by the way. I threw the clothes into the washer, put in my 75 cents, and headed to the Piedmont Grocery to pick up some veggies for dinner.

I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to picking vegetables or fruit. When I got to the market, I loaded up the easy stuff first – garlic, ginger, shallots (I went with shallots because they’re small, if I got an onion, I’d end up wasting half of it). And then I went for the frozen bag of vegetable “medley” because pre-cut carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and baby corn are easier to swallow than the Mexican version of KISS. (Okay, that was a little forced, but there really isn’t a smooth way to ease that horrible album cover into a conversation. Better to just hammer it in there.)

After the grocery store, I put away the stuff I bought and ran downstairs to move my clothes to the dryer. After loading my wet clothes in the machine, I noticed the coin mech to the dryer was jammed. Mother “F”!!! You have GOT to be kidding me. But there it was – the slot-loading, quarter-eating, coin mech was as broken as boken gets. I stood there and stared at it, hoping my Jedi mind tricks would miraculously unhinge whatever was jamming the slot – thus, making me the hero of the apartment complex and entitling me to a huge ceremony where Princess Leia awards me the medal of laundri-tude and then I turn and roar at the crowd to make them stand up and cheer. (I know, I know, Chewie didn't get a medal - but he should have.)

When that didn’t work, I had take my wet clothes out of the dryer, load them into a basket, and then drive down to the nearest laundromat. This totally sucked because I had rockstar parking right in front of my building, and I knew there was no way the karma of the parking gods would shine on me twice in one night – especially during the dinner rush on Piedmont Avenue. ...and in an even bigger gyp, drying your clothes for 45 minutes cost $1.25.

Crotchety Joe and the leaky pipe.

I’ve got this friend that lives in an apartment building. The kind that’s got five flights of stairs and no elevator – so of course she lives on the top floor. The building is pretty old, and you can expect it to have some “old building” problems. One of them, apparently, is with the plumbing.

When I heard she had plumbing troubles, my first reaction was, “What’d you do to the toilet?” But it turned out the pipes in the shower were leaking.

Right now, I want to interrupt my story because I’d like to say that the funniest thing you can do after moving your bowels is to walk out of the bathroom and announce, “If anyone’s looking for the prime rib... It’s in there,” and point back over your shoulder with a thumbs up. You can substitute “prime rib” with any food of your choice. Okay, back to the story...

The leaky shower pipe wasn’t causing any problems in her apartment. It was, however, causing a bit of a drip in the apartment below. And the crotchety old man who lived down there wasn’t going to have it. Everytime my friend or her roommate would run the water, Crotchety Joe would bang on his ceiling accusing them of trying to flood him out of his apartment.

I'll admit that a wet patch on your ceiling is a sign of a leak - especially if it's causing some dripping when the people upstairs run the shower, but you've got to be pretty deluded to freak out and believe that they're systematically building up a swell of water that's going to crash down and turn your apartment into an aquarium.

How are the people upstairs supposed to know their shower pipes are leaking? Well, Crotchety Joe's solution was to go up and terrorize them. He banged on the door of my friend's place and demanded they stop trying to flood him out. When my friend opened her door, things got ugly -- there was a shouting match and Crotchety Joe actually PUSHED HER. I can imagine all this happening in slow motion, because it actually was that slow.

Sure, he's old, but he's angry old. And the angry old are scary. What was she supposed to do? Push back? He'd probably shatter his hip, because that's what seems to happen to old people when they get pushed. Or, they die. ...like Mick in Rocky III.

She tried to close the door on him, but Joe wasn't having any of that. He stood there leaning on the door, yelling as dead skin flakes and old man musk dusted the air. But Crotchety Joe was frail, and she was able to calculate and apply the right amount of strength to close the door forcefully, but without sending his skeletal frame hurtling down the hallway.

Poor Crotchety Joe, if he had just called a plumber -- like my friend did -- this whole thing could have been avoided and he would have been kicking back in his recliner eating creamed corn or whatever other soft, mushy foods old people eat.

MySpace Cowboy: Spring Break Fiasco

These are the stories of a hapless MySpace junkie and his efforts to meet women. As told by the people who have to listen to his "bragging."

This time the MySpace Cowboy has managed to rustle up some trouble without getting on the internet. For the quick background story - the 30-something cowboy was dating a girl who was still in high school. Hold on ...it gets worse. The girl is related to him. They’re cousins -- they may be once or twice removed, but still -- he’s a cousinfucka.

Of course there was some ugliness, and it ended, but the MSC wanted to “remain friends.” Anyway, in conversation with some other friends, MSC brought up that Cousin Jailbait had invited him on her spring break trip. --Yeah right, more like he invited himself.-- Now MSC’s latest dilemma has to do with where he’s going to stay during this spring break trip. Apparently, Cousin Jailbait hasn’t made accomodations for him AND one of her friends hates him. --Probably because of the COUSIN THING, ya think?

So the Cowboy is all stressed out because he’s got nowhere to stay and can’t get any love from Cousin Jailbait (seriously, there’s a story about a phone conversation between the two of them where he threw out the “I love you” bomb and she refused to reciprocate), and he’s whining to his friends how his “ex” is being wishy-washy about the whole thing. --Dude! We know she’s your cousin! But you just keep living a lie.

Here's his attitude towards the situation, “...if she doesn’t straighten this out, that’s it. I’ll wash my hands of her and be done.”

NOBODY was buying that steaming pile. He also had an answer for every question:

But Cowboy, it’ll probably be her last spring break with her friends before she goes off for school. “Most of her friends are older and they love me.”

Nobody loves you, Cowboy. What about her boyfriend? “Her boyfriend is real cool with me.”

Seriously, dude, boyfriends are NOT cool with that shit. Who wants the “ex” hanging around? Especially if it’s her COUSIN?

(I should probably include right here that Cousin Jailbait’s current boyfriend is 26. --but at least they’re not related.)

Well if you insist on going to spring break, why can’t you find your own place to stay? “Oh I could find a place to stay myself. Not a problem. I just feel like that shouldn’t be my job when she invited me and made arrangements for everyone else. I dont like being treated differently than her other friends.”

So she made arrangements for everyone else but you, and you can’t understand why you’re being treated differently? That’s it. I’m outta here...(brain flies out of head accompanied by slide whistle sound effect).

Finally the Spring Break Fiasco ended with the Cowboy staying home, BUT that doesn’t mean the story’s over. It actually gets more intriguing. I’ll have to save that for the next installment of the MySpace Cowboy.

Mad barista skills.

I've had to go through drink-making training at the cafe I just started working at. The first few drinks didn't really go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

The trick with all of these espresso drinks is in steaming the milk. I can say, however, that right off the bat my boss told me, "...that's a perfect cappuccino."

Too bad I was supposed to be making a latte. D'oh!

It turns to rocks.

I'm always getting busted by my friends for spitting gum on the ground. "Stop littering!" they say. But I can't help it, gum is just one of those things you can't wait to spit out once all the flavor is gone. Besides, "...it turns to rocks," is what I like to respond with.

Of course it doesn't, but I think it's a funny thing to say. And plus, it would be great to think that some archaeologist 500 years from now would be confused as hell as to why he can't figure out the sedimentary composition of some chewed up Big Red.

The regrettable art project.

The wall in my dining room is kind of weird. It's a big white wall, and right in the middle of it is a phone jack. Weird spot, huh? I guess if I had a wall phone it would be fine -- I'm imagining it being one of those old school ones like on I Love Lucy, where Lucy would pick up the phone and say, "Hello operator? Get me KLondike 5-1212."

Instead, I've opted to hang some of my artwork. I really don't have anything to fill the wall so I came up with the genius idea of hanging three same-size canvases all painted red. And since I needed to do it on the cheap, I went back home and dug up out of my closet some crappy old paintings I did in college.

These were serious crap paintings. In college, I treated a lot of the painting assignments like term papers -- rushed and done the night before they were due. The three I pulled out of the closet were no exception.

One was of a beach scene where I had a can of SPAM under an umbrella. What the hell?

Another was of a "plant-woman" growing out of a vase. It looked like a poor man's Swamp Thing with tits.

And the last one was of a desert landscape that ended up looking like a background to a Roadrunner cartoon.

So what I did was take those paintings and wrapped pieces of duct tape across each of them. And then I spray painted each one red.

They look horrible.

Well ...so far. The spray painting was just a base coat to cover up the old paint and tape. Next I'm going to buy some red acrylics and paint over the canvases by hand to get a really rich red color on top of the underlying textures.

It'll probably still look horrible. But I'm determined to see this project through and hang those three canvases on my wall to cover up that stupid phone jack.

Second jobs and scavenger hunts.

I started a second job today. The new apartment has been quite the drain on my finances, so I figured a part-time job on the side wouldn't hurt. Plus, it'll keep me busy and I can meet new people.

So far, the "new people" thing is great. This new job is really diverse. And by "diverse", I mean "I'm not the only minority in the building".

At this part-time job, I'll be working in the cafe of a bookstore. Today was my orientation - I did the requisite paperwork and sat through a couple of videos about the company. One was full of employee testimonials about how great it is to work there. Seriously, there was a full two minute montage of employees saying, "...it's about the people..." And when they said it, there was always this short dramatic pause between "about" and "the people."

You know what I'm talkin' about. I know you can picture it. There's a person on the screen and they say, "Working here is great, it's really about..." and then they stop to look away from the camera for a moment (meanwhile, you're on the edge of your seat like, "What? What's it about? The books? The music? The incredibly overpriced DVDs?"), and when they finally turn back towards the camera there's always this thoughtful smile on their face as they give that confident nod and say, "...the people."

The second video I had to watch was about sexual harassment. Did you just read that as "huh-RASS-ment" or "HAIR-ess-ment"? I'm sure both are correct, but one totally makes you sound like a pompous douche. I'm not saying which. Anyway, as soon as the video starts, there's the president of the company with a very dour look on his face. No more screwing around, people. The first thing he said was that the company had a "ZERO-tolerance policy on sexual harassment."

Wow. There's a shocker. I'd like to know what company has a 50%-tolerance policy on sexual harassment. Where's the company where the guys can grab half an ass-cheek and have it be okay?

After the videos we got sent on a "scavenger hunt." ("We" being me and the other trainees.) We were each given a list of about 50 categories (stuff like Linguistics, Tarot Cards, Death & Dying, Parenthood, etc.) and had to go find what shelves they were on. It wasn't supposed to be taken too seriously, they just wanted us to wander the floor and get familiar with the different book departments.

Stupidly, I took a clipboard with me. So there I was walking the floor with a clipboard and a pen - next thing you know I had customers coming up to me looking for "Investors Digest Weekly" and "Studio-In-A-Box". Luckily, leading these customers on a wild goose chase helped me find a few of those book categories from my list.

After lunch, I finally did some time behind the cafe counter. The cafe manager wasn't working today so I just stood back there and sampled different coffees (the green tea latte is excellent - it's oriental AND supercaffeinated!). Every now and then I would help a customer, but after knocking down a bunch of labels in the dessert display, my co-workers figured it would be better if I just wiped down some counters and stocked the cups.

The "sexy" factory.

Has anyone noticed how ABC has figured out the formula for bringing back forgotten celebrities and "sexing" them up? Teri Hatcher and John Stamos have benefited from whatever deal they've made with the devil. And now it looks like Tim Daly is going to get his shot at sexiness-dom. What will the gang at Tom Nevers Field think?

What's going on at that network? And what do I have to do to get Princess Caraboo: The Series on the air?

Beef sticks and sundae cups.

I have a friend who loves beef sticks. Get your mind out of the gutter - I’m talkin’ Hickory Farms-style beef sticks. I’ve always been fascinated with the whole Hickory Farms thing. Those big sausage shaped logs of smoked meat are like some kind of ultra-sized Slim Jim --only you can’t really snap into it. Have you tried walking around while gnawing away at one of those? Watching someone wrap their mouths around the end of a beef stick would be pretty vulgar.

Anyway, my friend and her boyfriend (on a trip back home) were at a supermarket for a snack run before gathering with the family to watch DVDs. They picked up some ice cream sundae cups and then noticed a “buy one get one” offer on beef sticks. No way! ...a BOGO on beef sticks???

Now here’s the dilemma: beef sticks are friggin’ gi-normous. You can barely stomach one, much less two. So my friend decides to just buy one and forego the BOGO. This, of course caused a big ruckus back at the family home - “How could you NOT get the free beef stick?” “...you need to go back and get that beef stick...” “...it’ll keep.”

It’ll keep. Ain’t that the truth. Your bomb shelter should be loaded with Twinkies and beef sticks.

So a little later in the evening the family discovered that one of the sundae cups had leaked, so it was time to head back to the supermarket for replacement ice cream. --AND, ... “Hey! Now you can get that other beef stick!” Bowing to peer pressure, my friend headed back to the supermarket for a new sundae and the unwanted, but rightfully hers, beef stick.

There she was - 9:30 on a Friday night running around a supermarket in her pajama bottoms carrying a sundae cup in one hand and a beef stick in the other. All she could think of was, “...please don’t let that guy I had a crush on in high school show up right now.” Had her life been Must-See TV, surely the town hunk would have came around the corner, or worse - her bitchy high school rival could have seen her and made some pompous snarky remark about how she would never put “that kind of junk in my body.” Well screw you, Betty, this is a BOGO.

MySpace Cowboy: An Introduction

These are the stories of a hapless MySpace junkie and his efforts to meet women. As told by the people who have to listen to his "bragging."

I’ve decided to add a recurring feature to the blog. These will be the stories of the MySpace Cowboy. We all know someone like this — a guy using internet social gathering places like Friendster, Everyone’s Connected, or MySpace to meet women. There’s nothing wrong with meeting new friends – but the MySpace Cowboy roams the range, lassoing in the profiles of all the cute phillies he wants to hogtie. Or, to put that in a non-rodeo vernacular -- he stalks girls on the internet.

And by “girls,” I mean in the 19-22 age range. And what’s the MSC’s age, you ask? He’s in his 30s. Not quite old enough to be a dirty old man, but old enough to know better. I should probably add that these girls aren’t exactly that smart, either. When a guy 10 years older than you likes Jojo’s music as much as you do, ...alarms better be going off in your head.

The Cowboy’s latest adventure had him driving over an hour and a half to meet a 20-year old at her mall job. I’d feel sorry for him, but his attitude really makes it hard. “God must love me, they’re falling right into my lap,” was how MSC felt about meeting up with this girl during her 15 minute break.

When I first heard this, I was outraged, “He travelled almost two hours to meet a girl for 15 minutes???” But no worries, it turned out he got his money’s worth – he loitered in her store pretending to be a customer for the rest of her shift. The bad news was (actually, this is ALL bad news, isn’t it?) she worked at a girlie shop. And that’s the end of the story.

No, really. Her shift ended and then he drove all the way back home. But apparently our deluded zero was under the impression everything went well. He said she seemed to be impressed by his pop references to the O.C. -- really? What about Veronica Mars? At least she solves mysteries. Maybe she can get to the bottom of what kind of spin-doctoring filter MySpace Cowboy has got in his brain.

The band name formula.

You know how sometimes you hear or read a phrase and think to yourself, "That would be a great name for a band," but then you forget it later on? Well I didn't forget, so here are some great band names -- they just need a band to go with them.

Pinata Montage
Andy P. Salzman is a Dick
Ghost Man on Second
Lollipop Cowboy

There you go. As you can see, the formula for making a great band name is just pull random phrases out of the air. See? Even "Random Phrases" would be a great band name.

But here's a great band name that's actually a product you can make -- check out the Duct Tape Wallet.

Tryptophan attack.

Every year for St. Patrick’s Day, people from my work go out to Brennan’s for corn beef and cabbage. Brennan’s is a hof brau/Irish pub place in Berkeley. It looks just like Cheers on the inside, but with the addition of a cafeteria-style food line. If you’re in the mood for beer and tender, slow-roasted meat, then this is the place you want to be.

So about ten of us showed up and the line was practically out the door. On a normal day, Brennan’s at lunch time would be populated mostly by old people. I think probably because the food is soft and chewy, making it easy to digest. But for St. Patty’s - the entire room was packed with professional people gnawing away at salt-brine cured meat.

While waiting in line, I noticed a guy at the bar wearing about 20 or so green-beaded necklaces. Y’know, like Mardis Gras-style necklaces. What was this guy trying to pull? I just sort of stared at him trying to figure out how he was going to get business women to show him their tits during lunch hour.

When I got up to the front of the line I wasn’t in the mood for corned beef, so I ordered the turkey platter. Not “plate,” but “platter”. It’s like comfort food overkill - mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, and thin slices of oven-roasted turkey. The problem with hof brau food, is that the meat is so tender and so thin, it melts in your mouth and makes it too easy to finish your plate. So yes, I ate all my turkey. And I then I had to spend the rest of the afternoon trying not to fall asleep at my desk.

An A's fan strikes out.

The baseball season is coming. So on TV they're starting to show commercials about getting out to the park or buying season tickets or whatever. I saw one last night that sort of confused the hell out of me.

It's got Oakland A's pitcher Dave Stewart on the mound getting ready to pitch to some guy. There's a close-up on his face - and he looks mean. I'm serious. You may not think pitchers look intimidating, but I'm convinced Dave Stewart could stare you down so hard, you'd be making trail mix in your underwear. Anyway, the footage is obviously from some old game because you see and hear the crowd as he gets ready to wind up.

So, cut to the edited-in footage of a guy at the plate. It's just some regular dude pretending to be waiting for the pitch. There's a really tight close-up on this guy because they don't want you to see the throngs of empty seats behind him. BUT, you do hear crowd noise nonetheless.

The commercial keeps cutting back between the Stewart stock footage and the dude at bat. After Stewart pitches and the guy pretends to strike out, you see Stewart jump up and down while the crowd cheers. Then I realize the guy at bat was wearing an A's hat. Wait, so Dave Stewart was staring down and striking out one of his own fans? And people are cheering this?

Even if this was a fantasy, why would the fan want to be struck out by his favorite team? Wouldn't a better fantasy be the fan pitching and striking out someone from a different team? ...or the fan hitting a home run against a different team?

Drinks and furniture construction.

Friday proved to be a very busy day. After cashing in a half-day at work I met up with a friend for lunch. She came up from the city to check out my new place and neighborhood. I dazzled her with my one big chair, mystery rummage-sale tray, and TV that sat on the ground because I didn't have a TV stand. I really needed to get something to set the TV on because the remote control beam was always getting blocked by my beanbag or whatever object was on the floor in front of the TV.

So after a drink at Cato's, and getting kicked out of Kotobuki because we didn't know they closed for a few hours after lunch, we grabbed food at a different place and then headed to Ikea. I went to Ikea with a goal in mind - get a TV stand. I didn't do too bad, my only additional purchases were an endtable for $10 and a six-pack of chardonnay glasses for $4. My friend actually seemed disappointed in how quickly I was able to breeze through the store - she made me promise to bring her back when I was ready to do some real shopping. Little did she know real shopping to me meant blowing $100 at Dr. Comics.

After saying goodbye to her it was about 5pm and I had about an hour and a half to get home, assemble the new furniture and get ready to meet up with my cousin and her husband. After dragging the boxes in to my living room, I opened up the TV stand and laid all the pieces out on the floor. Ikea instructions are the easiest thing in the world for me to read because it's just like a comic book. There aren't even any words, just pictures of screws and furniture pieces that fly around in the air and magically form an object sturdy enough to hold a television set.

And the best thing is, what you see is what you get. Unlike many aborted model kits from my youth, the TV stand I assembled looked like the one on the last page of the instruction booklet. Thank you, Ikea! And screw you Rodan Model Kit from the Polar Lights Godzilla Monster Series (mine looked nothing like that).

It took about a half hour to put together the stand and endtable, so I had plenty of time to shower and get ready. When I got done, my cousin and her husband hadn't shown up yet, so I grabbed a book and sat on my front stairs to wait for them. And guess who I saw? My upstairs neighbor who's clunky shoes had woken me up that morning. We talked for a few minutes but I couldn't help myself from making quick glances at her feet to check out her clunky shoes.

When my friends (yes, I've shortened "my cousin and her husband" to "my friends" for the remainder of the story) showed up they brought me an awesome bottle of wine and some huge red wine glasses that made my Ikea wine glasses look like paper cups. I gave them the quick tour of the place and we broke open the bottle of wine and finished it off before heading out for a walk on Piedmont Ave.

After that we ended up heading to Jupiter on Shattuck in Berkeley for some pizza and big ol' glasses of IPA. The place was super packed and super loud. I think I got pretty drunk because my cousin kept giving me the "beer goggles" signal whenever I started checking out any girls.

When the other shoe drops... over and over.

Today's "wake up call" in my apartment came by way of my upstairs neighbor. I've met her, she's very nice, and Canadian, eh. Not that being Canadian automatically makes her nice, but I was a little disappointed she didn't have a weird flapping head and wore shirts that displayed her first initial on them.

So this morning, I'm lying in bed when I hear the clomping of shoes on a hardwood floor coming from my ceiling. Normally, that's not a problem, but today, she kept clomping - over and over. What was she doing? I could hear her move from one side of the room to the other. My best guess was - she was trying to figure out what shoes to wear with whatever outfit she had on.

I could be completely wrong, but that was the only way I could justify the sounds of "heel-toe, heel-toe, heel-toe" knocking around above me. I totally pictured a Family Circus style dotted-line map of her trail around her apartment. What was she getting ready for? Was there an important meeting at work? Did she have a hot lunch date? Was she naked while putting on this shoe fashion show? I don't know - but the thoughts were enough to prevent me from sleeping in until 8am.

Luckily - the weather outside was perfect. So I got up, got ready, and took a nice stroll down to Gaylord's on Piedmont for some coffee before heading to work.

The funniest thing I saw last night.

On The Amazing Race, contestants had to give shoeshines to the locals in Santiago, Chile. One contestant, Gretchen - from the obligatory "old couple" team - was giving the worst shines EVER. Whenever the camera showed a close-up of her work, there was always black shoe polish on the customer's sock.

Those customers had the saddest looks on their faces.

Bric-a-brac Department

Last Sunday I went with some friends to check out the big White Elephant Sale to benefit the Oakland Museum -- it's touted as "the Bay Area's biggest and best rummage sale," and they weren't kidding. The sale was located in some out-of-the-way warehouse on the Oakland/Alameda border. It wasn't the easiest thing to find, and parking was difficult, but the hordes of rummage sale zombies walking in the same general direction helped point the way.

Oh, I wanted to add that some of the residents and other businesses in the area were holding their own "white elephant" sales. TRICKERY, I SAY! The old lady on the corner selling cracked dinner plates and broken sewing machines wasn't going to fool me. I knew if I trudged on to the REAL white elephant sale, there'd be plenty more cracked plates and broken machinery awaiting me.

We finally got inside and the place was HUGE. I'm talking "the Spruce Goose could fit in here" huge. And they had everything. If you were looking for used books, toys, clothes, furniture, appliances, hardware, dinnerware, arts & crafts, etc., it was there. I kept trying to find the little old Asian man selling mogwai, but the place was so packed I'm sure I must have walked right past him.

Anyway, after some initial wandering, we headed for the big sign that said "Bric-a-brac" - I was thinking, "isn't this ALL just bric-a-brac? Why is this bottle bric-a-brac, but this glass is dinnerware?" I spent the most time in here, and after checking out desk blotters, miscellaneous wood items (seriously, my friend bought a little stump of wood that didn't look like it had any function at all), and woven baskets, I settled on two items.

The first was an empty frosted bottle. The kind you stick messages in and toss into the sea in the hopes that destiny will lead it to your one true love who will happen to be in the right place at the right time to find it. But then you can never throw it out far enough and the current just brings it back the next day and you feel really stupid when one of your friends finds it on the beach. Man, why DID I buy that stupid bottle?

The second item I bought was a tray. A simple skinny black tray. I'm not sure what it's used for, but it looked cool. If anyone knows what it's for, please let me know. The only identifying mark on it is an "L" logo on the underside. The "L" looks like the kind Laverne stitched on to all her clothes so you'd know she was "Laverne."

And how much did I spend on the bric-a-brac you ask? Well, since Sunday was 1/2 off day, I spent a whopping 65 cents.

Laundry BOOM.

I recently moved in to a great apartment - it's plenty big for one person, and it's in a really good location. The only problem I can see is with the laundry room. It's right underneath my apartment and people in my building do laundry at really odd hours. I'm talkin' 5am odd.

There's a big steel security door to let you in and out of the laundry room and for some reason EVERYBODY slams it. I'm sure it's not intentional - they open the door, walk in or out and the door slams behind them. So that's why I'm tired this morning. The slam of heavy steel smashing up against a wooden door frame - BOOM. I kind of want to put up a sign saying, "Please don't slam door," but I'm the new guy so I'm not sure if it would be cool ruffle feathers so early in my lease.