The Grocery Store
A Play in Two Acts

Act I
Doth thy carte offend thee?

I just returned from the grocery store, which for brevity I shall simply call The Really Overpriced Grocery Store That's On The Way Home. On the way inside, I stopped to grab a cart (because I'm a thinker, see?), when something strange caught my eye.

This store has a dispenser of sanitary cart handle wipes.

Ha! I thought. These pathetic snobs can't even touch a shoppping cart that someone before them has handled? What kind of hyper-sensitive society are we living in, anyway? I mean, sure, the last shopper may have had some fingernail fungus or other similar fingernail life-forms going on, but is it really necessary to sanitize the cart handle?

What's the worst that could be breeding on there? Well. Hepatitis C, maybe?

I looked around the store entrance furtively. These shoppers looked clean, but who can really tell? They might be infested with sores, or maybe the scurvy. Honestly, there's some class-A whack-jobs out here. It's like a damn Fellini film.

I grabbed a wipe and wiped that cart for all it was worth. I didn't stop at the handle, either. I sanitized the crap out of that cart, even lubing up the little squeaky cart-tires for good measure. The pina-colada cart-freshener I threw in at no extra charge.

Intermission —Snacks and frozen treats in the lobby
A complex man!

Why is it that the idea of Domino's Cheeseburger pizza fills me with revulsion and cynicism for the future of mankind, and yet I love with a deep and abiding passion the tiny grill-marked burgers of Chunky Sirloin Burger Soup?

Act II
The Manne of Meate Is Surlye

It's my turn. Yes, it's my turn. I know there's an old lady here, but I was here before her. I'm not making some sort of judgment call that I am better then her, although it is important to note that she will probably not be around as long as I will and shouldn't really be eating meat at her advanced age anyway. It's not like I'm taking her seat on the bus. I was here a good 70-80 seconds before she was.

So, the red snapper, please.

Thank you.

But wait, there is more meat that I want from you. Please, do not look at me exasperatedly, as if you had far better things you could be doing. You're either getting me two one-pound packages of ground turkey —the dark meat if you please (I care about my health but only in a token sort of way)— or you're going to be slinging meat for someone else. Maybe breaking a crab's knees with that silver hammer thing, which I will grant you looks kind of fun. The choice here is not "get Kaf his meat or gaily skip through a field barefoot". Okay?

Did you just roll your eyes at me?

Look, I told you I wanted the Rocky Junior chicken. Not Rocky Senior! I don't know what the difference is, either, but I'm already coughing up some serious dough for this chicken because someone thoughtfully slapped a Free Range sticker on it, so I think I should get the choice. Frankly, I'm reluctant to eat a Senior range chicken with this elderly woman standing next to me and eyeing me as if to say "Why, why must you order so much meat, young man?"

Yes, that's all. Thank you for being so surly, Meat Man. You really made my day.

exeunt all

Cingularly Unfunctional

You know what? I'm getting a great deal on my nationwide calling plan! For the ten minutes of each day that my phone actually has a connection, it's great!

But I must say that I'm paying a mere 60 dollars a month for two phones! 60 dollars! That's such a great deal that I don't mind the fact that the phone works neither at my office nor my home. And it has a really cute picture of a smiling panda on the display. And that's worth thirty dollars a month right there. I'm not sure why it has a panda, or how to get rid of it, but I must say that Cingular Wireless gave me a really great deal on this phone.

Nine dollars I paid for this phone! Can you believe it? This phone, that doesn't seem to have a volume control, is awkward, unwieldy, and uncomfortable to use, and whose battery leaps from its protective sheath like a lemming from a cliff every time the phone is more than softly placed on a pile of papers. It is very, very good at holding down papers, by the way, as it displays the comforting message "Network Search" for 23 out of the day's 24 hours.

In fact, this wonderful phone that I am paying only 60 dollars a month for only functions while I am driving to and from work. As we all know, that is the best and safest time for any important and potentially distracting conversations that will take your mind off less pleasant things like, I don't know, brake lights.

I hate talking on the phone while I'm driving. I have enough trouble avoiding the fleet of white minivans going sixty in the fast lane and Johnny Acura Integra going eight thousand miles an hour in the slow lane without worrying about the phone. In fact, I don't even like having a cellphone. I don't want to be reachable, and I also don't want to have to worry about my cellphone popularity.

Everyone else seems to be talking on their phone all the time. They must know a lot of people. And those people must be really interested in everything the phone people are doing. I only got my cellphone so I could call my wife, or she could call me. In case there's some sort of invasion and we can't be near each other. Then we can call each other and spend those last few hours crying into the phone, waiting for our painful deaths.

But, of course, all I really use the phone for is this sort of thing:

"Honey? It's me. What kind of pickles do we buy again?"

So, in the interest of furthering the pickle discourse and to avoid the potentially disastrous mis-purchase of any and all condiments, I called Cingular Wireless. If you've never called them, I highly recommend it. The best thing about calling them is that you have to navigate through a button pressing menu so esoteric and torturously labyrinthine that you have to trick them into talking to you. The only way I managed to get an actual sentient (and I use the term in its broadest sense) human on the line was to press the button for "report a lost or stolen phone". I mentioned this to the being on the other end of the line, complimenting him on his company's dedication to customer service and he said "Oh. Yeah. You have to do that."

"Well, I was wondering if there's a reason I don't get any reception at work, or at home, unless I am in one particular area of the kitchen, hanging out the window where my soft flesh is exposed to nature and may, in all likelihood, be nibbled by ambitious raccoons."

"Where do you live?" he asked speculatively, and I told him.

"Oh. That's a really bad coverage area. Have you tried climbing on the roof, or holding a lightning rod in your teeth?"

Encouraged, I asked him if their merger with AT&T would help my reception in any way.

I think he may have giggled at that. "I, um, I don't think so. Have you considered moving?"

"It hadn't, honestly, occurred to me."

"Well, you do have the panda, right?"

I had to agree that the panda really made it all OK. I should really be glad they aren't charging me more for that little scamp.

"Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

No, Cingular, I guess not.

What?

What's that? Am I still here?

Yes, I'm still here. I was not here for a while. I was even in Hawaii for a while there. But now, resolutely and steadfastly, I am here.

And what knowledge do I bring you from Hawaii? Not much, really. But I brought you chocolate covered macadamia nuts. Everyone brings chocolate covered macadamia nuts. I think you can probably buy them here. But in Hawaii, or in Maui anyway, which is where I was for a while of the while I was not here, they sure have a lot of them. The nuts. With the chocolate. It's a little known fact that you are legally required to buy at least three (3) boxes during your stay on the islands. If you don't, then you anger The God of The Volcano. And then there's trouble.

The God of The Volcano has some sort of royalty deal going with Hawaiian Host, maybe.

Where did we go, exactly? To Hana, which is the best place you can go, if you are going. It's only accessible by driving a menacingly small road that clings to the edge of cliffs and features locals driving very fast over one-lane bridges. But it's nice and mellow and relatively untouristy, after the day-tripper types have returned to Lahaina for the evening. There is only one hotel in town, the Hana-Maui, which is crazy, crazy expensive, so we didn't stay there. We did, however, partake of their extremely good Mai Tais and Pina Coladas. Highly recommended.

As is the Heavenly Hana Inn, a Japanese style bed and breakfast where we spent a couple of nights.

We also stayed in a treehouse for a couple of nights, which was slightly less deluxe and more oh-man-I'm-in-the-middle-of-rainforest. It had exciting features like giant spiders and mosquito netting with holes in it over the bed. The giant spiders didn't seem to be doing that great of a job of combatting the eight million mosquitos, but they assured me they were trying their best. The treehouse also featured an outdoor toilet and shower which made us feel very adventurous and tough, so that was nice. The tree that the treehouse was built in was a guava tree so we'd be sleeping fitfully, dreaming of ungodly predators nibbling our soft underbellies, when we'd be woken by a giant crash as a guava, filled with ennui, finally leapt to its death on the jungle floor below.

All in all, a good trip.



I promise to be slightly less silent in the coming months.

By the way, if anyone has emailed me in the last, say, three months, at the nachtopus.net address, I won't have gotten it. Address any concerns or frippery to kafkascampi AT gmail DOT com. See how I did that there, with the capital letters and all? Smart like a whip.

No Longer at Large

Dave Allen passed away last night at age 68. I grew up watching his very old-school one-man show "Dave Allen at Large" late at night on PBS. When my parents would let me stay up late enough, that is.

Good night, thank you, and may your God go with you.

Some collected Dave Allen quotes

Music to Start a Cult To

You should be downloading Gram Rabbit mp3s.

Cool, kooky, hypnotic music from a little Joshua Tree band.

Also, bunny ears.

Physical Fits

Once again, we have begun to plunge healthward in the Kafkaesque household. Roughly every other day, we wake up at five thirty in the morning (or even earlier, depending on who we are trying to impress with the story) and go for a half-hour jog.

And we are not even being chased by bears or anything.

I've discovered something fantastic about jogging, and I think it's probably why most joggers jog: you can complain about it whenever you want. And any time is the right time to complain about jogging, I assure you. Any lull in the conversation is ideal to issue a low groan and say pathetically (yet impressively) "Ohhh. I woke up at five-thirty this morning to go jogging." [obviously, you may embellish with any time up to 3 am. Earlier than three may stretch plausibility.]

On the days we don't go jogging, I do exercises in the morning. These exercises consist entirely of pushups and crunches, ensuring a minimum of actual results. I call them "crunches" because it sounds really important and rough and tumble. "Situps" doesn't sound anywhere near impressive enough.

I do fifty of each in our guest room, choosing to perform the mighty crunches with my toes hooked under one of our Ikea Billy bookcases with really heavy glass doors. A couple of factors make this placement enjoyable:

1. Each time I struggle to a near-sitting position, I am eye-level with the philosophy and religion shelf, so my thought process is kind of like this: "Aaaaaaagh - oh, the Baghavad Gita As It Is - Aaaaaaagh - I should really finish Violence and the Sacred - Aaaaaaagh - I bet Joseph Campbell can't do fifty crunches - Aaaaaaagh - If he were alive I mean - Aaaaaaagh!" and so on.

2. Every crunch exerts a little more upward force on the heavy bookshelf, and makes me wonder if I correctly installed the little safety strap to the wall. By about crunch #43, I secretly wish for the sweet release of death, crushed under a weighty pile of New German Cinema texts and travel guides for places we haven't been yet.

All of this madcap exercising is occasioned by our desire to be slightly less flabby when we go to Maui next month. I feel confident I won't be much less flabby but at least, when I am gazing at the sunrise from Haleakala, I can groan and say "Ohhhh man. I was up at three am jogging," and put all the other tourists to shame.

The Squeegee Incident

This weekend we drove down to Orange County for reasons which I assure you were perfectly valid, and I just wanted to share a small magical moment that occurred in a 76 gas station in the town of Grapevine: an elderly gentleman cringed before me.

Now I should begin by saying that I am not a particularly threatening looking kind of guy. Goofy and somewhat slow-witted, yes. Threatening, no.

While I was gassing up the car, I looked for a squeegee to shift some of the truly impressive weight of bug parts from my windshield. In the fine tradition of Interstate 5 gas stations, there was but one squeegee to be had, and it was not at my pump. So I grabbed the squeegee from the next row of pumps.

As I toted my squeegee carwards, an elderly gentleman and his wife pulled in to that row of pumps. I washed my windshield. Then, when the tank was full, I glanced over at the elderly guy, who was looking futilely for the squeegee.

Being the helpful sort that I am, I walked towards him, holding out the squeegee for him to use.

Now I don't know what this guy thought I was going to do with the squeegee, but he flinched and took a couple of steps back. In his mind, perhaps, he saw me standing over him, raining sanitary blows upon him, as his blood slowly mixed with Windex, running off into the drain. Perhaps he thought I would restrain him and squeegee his glasses against his will. I don't know.

Anyway, in the end I just kicked him in the shins and took his wallet, so he wouldn't feel he cringed for nothing.

That's all I have to say about that. I would like to close by saying "squeegee" a few more times.

Squeegee squeegee squeegee






squeegee

Things Have Happened

So many dramatic things. I now have an actual job where I have to do actual work. And actually commute. So as a result I've been a little busy.

Gone are the halcyon days of Purgatory Inc, where I labored for so many years. I know I will always miss the excitement of working with people who sold Avon on the side and had Tupperware parties. And will I ever see Captain Porno again?

Maybe not.

Or the guy who liked to shove a handkerchief way, way into his nose while he was talking to you? So deep that you wondered if it would result in an exit wound? That guy? Ah well, things move on.

We've moved away from Orange County and are now up here on the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula. It's coming home in a way, since the wifely friend and I are both from the Bay Area. Actually, we're from the South Bay, which looks a lot like Orange County these days anyway, but has maybe three less Jamba Juices per square mile. Now we live on a hill by the airport, and are surrounded by varying degrees of weirdness.

Some happy weirdness I can report is that we live a few blocks away from a Samurai. No, really.

Every time we drive to the grocery store, we pass a house whose front yard is just immaculate. Every last little blade of grass is clipped, just so. The house itself is painted a soothing grey, the trim just setting off the main color of the house. And there is nothing in this yard besides grass and a couple of perfectly shaped hedges.

I have a particular liking for complete absence of clutter, so I feel good every time I see this house. It stands out all the more in our neighborhood of relative weirdness, where some houses seem to be vomiting stuff like old sofas and small dogs into the street via their porches or garage doors. The house has a neat and tidy, very Japanese look about it, so pleasing and austere.

Then, one day recently, we were on the way to the grocery store, and we saw a Samurai on the corner, right by the house. He was sort of a middle-aged, balding, portly Samurai, smoking a cigarette, but other than that, he sure looked the part. He had a kimono on, and sported the requisite ponytail so popular in Kurosawa movies. I could almost picture him with a little flag on his back, sweeping down the plain to meet his almost certain death on the color-coded battlefield.

I wondered if this was what happened to Ronin when they don't commit seppuku. They come hang out on the peninsula, smoking cigarettes and looking down the hill to see if the neighbors' garage sale has anything they might be interested in, like maybe a breadmaker.

The wifely friend and I looked at each other in awe.

"He must live in that perfect house!" I said.

"Yeah," said the wifely friend "Or the house with tinfoil all over the windows."

Maybe it's better not to know.

Decorations of Doom

In years past, I was your average Christmas decoration kind of guy. I had a few strands of your garden variety yellow, red, blue, green lights with which humans have adorned their houses since man first began walking erect. Some of my lights looked a little the worse for wear, with the color beginning to scrape off in spots. I'd string them on the eaves of my house and revel in their somewhat kitschy charm. I employed a philosophy of elegant restraint.

I eschewed the blinking bulbs. I spurned the fad of those "icicle" lights which look really terrible when the sun is out.

Then, I moved to the community in which I now reside, and I was faced with some rather serious pressure in the Christmas-decoration arena. My neighbors have mechanical reindeer. There are Nativity scenes being acted out by plastic penguins. They have inflatable Santas and neon presents. Giant candy canes. The whole place looks like a seedy car lot.

That's when I decided to take the law into my own hands and vanquish this tawdry assemblage of cheer.

My robotic death-elves are, as we speak, massing in my yard, and will soon sweep over the yards and chimneys of San Bruno, bringing tears and valuable lessons to the Lowe's shoppers of the community. Lasers. There will be lasers.

Merry Christmas, and I will be on hiatus for a while.

Christmas Carding

I am in charge of the majority of the Christmas card duties here at Team Kafka HQ. I know you may not call them Christmas cards. You may call them Holiday cards, or Solstice Missives or Death of Nature Fliers. I don't know. Anyway, some thoughts:

- The decay of enthusiasm
I always start out the Christmas cards with a great attitude. I compile the list of worthy recipients and go somewhere like Cost Plus and pick out the right cards for the wifely friend and I. We need cards that will adequately express our caring and artful sensibilities, and inspire the recipient to new levels of gratitude and potential guilt, if they haven't remembered us this year.

It's important to have a card that stands out, too, so you can act wounded if you visit the recipient's home and see that your card is in the B-team display, over behind one of the potted plants.

I start out with our overseas cards, and I'm writing letters in each card. I'm telling relatives things they probably don't need or want to know about trivial details of our personal lives. About our cat. About the newts I find in our back yard from time to time.

But inevitably, after this outpouring of card-filling, I am spent. The domestic cards cannot help but suffer, and end up getting only terse little Merry Christmas!es. After writing fifty Merry Christmas!es and Hope to see you soon!s I end up speaking that way for days.

"Going to store! Hope lunch good! Have run over pedestrian! Have malaria!"

- The baby card
Lately people we know have been reproducing at an alarming rate, so we've been getting those "here's a picture of us with the babies pretending we're not really annoyed and tired every single moment" cards. That is, of course, just fine. They're actually handy, in that I can't tell the difference between the gaggle of babies that are being produced, so the cards function as little flashcards, preventing awkwardness at social gatherings.

"Hello friends who have reproduced!"
"Hello, Kaf! Here is our baby!"
"Ah yes! Your baby! Whose name is...umm...give me a minute here"

And then I quickly rifle through my stack of baby-cards until I find the right one, and I am the champion of baby-name-remembering. It's small things like this that ensure a place in people's wills.

- The love question
I have a hard time saying I love you. Not to the wifely friend of course. I say that to her all the time, especially if I suspect she has become peeved with me in some small way.

I have a problem with the Christmas card love. I mean, do I put "love, kaf and wifely friend" on every card? I mean I like my friends plenty, but love may frankly be a little strong. I don't want to feel like I'm subjecting people to some sort of emotional blackmail with my signature. I don't want anyone thinking I'm going to want to spend the weekend at a hippie drum circle retreat with them or anything.

Maybe I should try Sociopathologically Yours?

Fishing 101

Every year, I forget to buy a fishing license until about September. Then, all of a sudden, I feel a deep and abiding inner need to sit by a lake not catching any fish, so I spring into action. I race to the nearest sporting goods store, drop 40 dollars on a license, and buy a variety of shiny, smelly or otherwise disturbing items that will help ensure the safety of the fish in my chosen body of water.

It's not as though I've never caught a fish. I should make that clear. There was even a time my friend Chimichanga and I went pier-fishing and caught 30 or so mackerel. That doesn't really count, though. Those fish were suicidal. We would drop a baited hook into the drink, and they would be falling all over for the chance to get killed. What really transpired was that we happened to be right in the middle of a passing school. This was evident when every single other fisherman descended on our location when they spied us bringing up four mackerel at once. In the ensuing frenzy of hooks, reminiscent of a cross between Bassmasters and Hellraiser, five men lost eyes.

So I have in fact caught fish in the past. But usually, I sit there by the side of a lake, contemplating the fact that I got 3 hours of sleep and have consumed too much coffee, and do a really inspiring job of not catching any fish. This time, I decided things would be different. My friends set up a trip to the delta ("the delta" in case you are wondering, is the Sacramento River delta) to not catch some impressive prey: Striped Bass or "stripers". Clearly this is the big time. This is the fish to not catch, if you want to not catch a really impressive fish.

Stripers of thirty pounds or more are caught every season in the delta. I have been told that, at least. On our fishing trip, only one of the six of us who went actually caught a fish, and I have no photographic evidence that even happened. Routinely, in the days leading up to a fishing trip, my friends and I will banter back and forth, firing email salvos proclaiming our illusory fishing prowess.

"Thirty pound striper, huh? I guess that'd be ok."

"Maybe I'll go for sturgeon."

"I am planning on catching an eight foot striped bass and riding him like a dolphin around the delta, waving at you poor saps on the shore."

In reality, I'd be at a loss what to do if I ever reeled a thirty pound striper in. I am confident this will never happen, though.

As I said, I assembled a truly astonishing array of lures for this trip. I had shads. I had Rebel Runners. I had Spinners With Vibrax Action, Rapalas, Hula Poppers, ridiculously large spoon lures, even a tiny rubber diplodocus I picked up in case anything Paleozoic was lurking in the deeps. I should mention that I stopped short of buying a bait that advertised "sex scent". Frankly, I don't want to encourage that sort of thing and wouldn't want to not catch the kind of fish that would respond to such perversion.

We made it out to the delta pretty early in the morning. Early for me, anyway: around seven o'clock. (Of course no matter what time you start fishing, it will be marginally "too late". After the first forty-five minutes or so with no-one so much as tugging your Spinner with Vibrax Action, you will probably get the idea that you should have been there at 5 am. Realistically, if you had gotten there at 5am, you'd just be colder and grumpier, but it is nice to comfort yourself with this sort of self-loathing.)

To summarize the results of the trip, I managed to not catch some really frighteningly large fish. Not that they were ever on my line, you understand. My fishing tactics included casting out a fair distance, and then reeling in my lure with the nagging feeling that I should probably switch to something else. Something more expensive. Then, about ten yards from shore, the lure would get caught on some hazard beneath the surface. Rocks, weeds, logs, dumped bodies. I don't know what. Then I would spend the next five minutes tugging pathetically at the line, trying to free it.

I managed to lose about five lures that day.

The most spectacular lure loss of the day came as we were getting ready to leave. I had decided that what I really needed to do was make a leap of faith. So I reached into my tackle box and pulled out a lure I'd had sitting in there for a good ten years: The Krokodile. The Krokodile is a ridiculously large lure that is advertised as good for stripers. I don't know why I bought the lure in the first place, but it's been with me so long, it's like an old friend. I'd be fishing at some lake, not catching some small trout or blue gill, and I'd see the Krokodile there in the box, and be reminded that one day I'd go for the big game.

I joked to my friend Bindlestick Billy as I tied the lure on my line that I'd probably cast it out and instantly get it snagged.

So, I don't have my Krokodile anymore.

Oh well, maybe I should have used the Sex Scent.



epilogue: The day was not a complete loss, as we stopped at Foster's Big Horn on the way home. Foster's Big Horn has a huge collection of slowly decaying game heads on the walls. The sight of a mounted Dik-Dik really makes you hungry for a patty melt was apparently the owner's business philosophy. So, we may not have caught fish, but we sure ate lunch in a place that had dead animals all over the walls. That's showing those stripers.

Mess Update

Yes, I deleted the links. But they will be back again one day, kind of like Frosty the Snowman. What the hell was the idea there? Look, kids, snowmen melt. It's unrealistic to expect them to stick around forever, and no way can they procreate. I know that's harsh, but I'm all about the tough love.

Anyway, the links will one day return, so don't despair.

Also, I got a kind of bad haircut today, which was made worse by an old guy sitting next to me while we were waiting, who was watching a Viking movie with Lloyd Bridges and Anthony Quinn on the teevee. Now, normally, I am all in favor of weirdness, especially technicolor weirdness that features flabby actors covered in fake tan, but this guy had THE VOLUME TURNED WAY UP! Way, way up. And the guy gave me this look when I walked in that said either "You got a problem with my incredibly loud Viking movie?!" or "You cannot possibly appreciate the subtleties of this film and I will not deign to educate you." Either way, not good, old guy.

Also also, I stopped by the Golden Gate National Cemetery to take some pictures today and had an internal fight with myself about whether I was trying to Make a Statement by taking pictures of a military cemetery. I am not sure who won.

God Bless This Mess

As you can see, the sixth seal has been broken. The lion is laying down with the lamb, the guinea pig is consorting with the hermit crab unabashedly, and I have changed the layout of this site. My efforts so far involve randomly deleting things and seeing what happens, so you'll just have to bear with me. This may lead to an extremely minimalist look. So minimalist, in fact, that this site may just disappear. Wink out like Roy Batty turning four.

If so, tell my wife I love her very much.

World AIDS Day

What Part Is This Again?

This is the part where I get all contrite about the not-posting-to-the-blog for days and days. Please. I am on my knees here. I beg and beseech. Sometimes at the same time. Let's not pretend this isn't going to happen again. Because we know that it will. Weeks will go by with no sign of me, and then suddenly, here I am again, back in your life and expecting a nutritious, though not too filling, breakfast.

Well, the hell with me.

This time, you should break it off. Tell me that you can't handle this sort of neglect anymore. You should get on your 1982 Puch moped and putt your butt right on out of here. You will have to ask me for a push though.

And that's all it will take.

I will gaze into your eyes and promise you I will never again leave you gazing at the back door as I travel the country, following my dream of eating pie in all of the contiguous states. And Guam. And you will take me back, like you always do, thinking that this time, just maybe, it'll be different.

It's all lies, baby. Lies.

Eary

Something deeply troubling happened yesterday. I noticed that I am developing long and luxurious -- I would even say Fu Manchu-esque -- ear hair.

For those of you who haven't already clicked away, let me just say that this isn't the "growing out of the earhole" sort of ear hair. That, while disgusting and disconcerting in a very real way, is to be expected. This is the "growing off the sides of my ears" ear hair.

I don't know what this means, but the really deeply frightening thought I had yesterday, as I stared at this new development in the mirror, with roughly the same expression as the guy had when he had just torn his face off in Poltergeist, was that I will never have less ear hair than at this precise moment in time.

I wonder if Hallmark makes a card for that?

To my darling husband
On our anniversary
The leaves have blown across our lives
We have weathered many storms
And your ear hair is creeping me out.

or

Happy birthday
Please keep your
demented ear hair
contained within a hat
Or perhaps muffs.

Here, Have Some Links

I don't do this very often, because frankly there are a million other places where you can get your RDA of Wacky Linkage. But a voice told me out of nowhere that I needed to put some links on my site. I looked at the cat and asked pointedly "Was that you just then? About the links?"

He ignored me.

AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes - Read their list of 400 nominees! Argue with your friends that Buckaroo Bonzai should be included! Take a nice warm bath and reconsider! Use exclamation points where none are really needed!

Hermits around the Web - I was reading this page for no good reason. Hermits seem charming when you read about them on the net. They might be a little smelly in real life, though.

Alien v. Predator v. Mario - Face sucking.

Perry Bible Fellowship Archive - Consistently amusing web comic. Read that and Achewood, and you are probably done with all the sometimes funny stuff for a while.

Blatant Self-Interest

Today is the day. The day when Neil Young was born, and Booker T of Booker T and the MGs fame. And me, too. I am thirty-three today. As far as our contributions to society and art in general go, I would probably come in third on that particular list. But no matter!

Today I will venture, as I did in my youth, to the Hundred Acre Wood, where the happy animals will caper and cavort, and bring me vodka-tonics. The birds will sing merrily. Perhaps they will break into Green Onions or The Needle and The Damage Done, just to keep continuity. Piglet will perform a duet with Eddie Vedder, but will grow disenchanted with his monotony, and attack him mid-song. Eddie will lie bleeding on the loamy earth as the animated toys dance around his cooling body.

Sorry. Getting a little weird there.

Thirty-three is nice in a numerological sense. It's nice to be divisible by eleven, I have to say.

Also, Jesus was allegedly crucified when he was thirty-three, so I'd better 1. get busy, and 2.be on my guard for Romans.

Brain Hurt

Please go and have a look at this very pleasing and brain-painful Dragon Illusion. Best viewed on the video, so make with the downloading. Also, print out your own!

[thanks Johnny13]

I Am Running

Not for office. No. I am running from the Dog Police. You've got to help me.

I have the song Dog Police stuck in my head, and I only know the line "You've got me running from the Dog Police!"

I guess that's enough.

The only cure known to mankind.

Also, as an addendum to that last fancy post with all the pictures, the wifely friend wanted me to share that I did, in fact, fall off a ladder while working on our guest room. I was scraping the acoustic off the ceiling and standing on one of those little metal folding stepstools. I was leaning out over one of the bookcases to get the last bit of acoustic off the corner, when the things just collapsed under me.

But the strangest thing happened.

I was totally uninjured. I went down instantly, from perching on the stool to flat on my stomach, my chin lightly settling on the hardwood floor. I remember as I fell that I was sure the really heavy bookcase would topple over on me and maim me for life. But somehow, not even a bruise.

Also, the wifely friend was filled with sympathy, when she stopped laughing. And she was quick to point out that it only happened because I managed, in my expert fashion, to assemble the stepstool wrong.

There. I hope you're happy.

Expert-ese

"I am an expert." It's the phrase I use to allay my wife's concerns that I am about to hurt myself really badly in an act of home improvement. I am not what is known in the common parlance as "handy". And yet I must soldier on, because in spite of the fact that I will probably knock myself unconscious at least once during my chosen task, I must not let my fellow experts down.

Exchanges like this are fairly commonplace:

*WHAM!*
Wifely friend: Are you OK in there?
Kafkaesque: I--I am fine.
WF: What was that WHAM! sound?
K: What do you mean? I heard nothing, and I am an expert so I should know.
WF: OK then. Don't make any holes in the wall or in your extremities.
K: Ha. Very funny. Being an expert, I am unconcerned with my own personal safet--
....
K:
WF: Husband?
K: Ahg.
WF: Husband?
K: I will be fine. Where is the tourniquet?

This sort of high-level experting is best exhibited when working with either really heavy things, like particle board furniture or really dangerous things, like your larger saws. My friend Chimichanga proved himself a lifetime expert a few years back when he cut his thumb almost entirely off in an inspired run-in with a table saw (and was heard to say later: "I had the situation under control. I am, after all, an expert.") *

I recently managed to put my expert skills to work, peeling multiple layers of wood paneling off the walls in our guest bedroom. One of the previous owners of our new house was obviously a paneling enthusiast. Such a paneling enthusiast, in fact, that he would not settle for just one layer of ugly, crappy paneling. No! He had two layers of paneling!

This is the same guy that put rock walls everywhere in our house. The rock hearth he made around the fireplace is great. I have to give him that. The rock wall he put up in the living room? OK. Not one of the features I was actively seeking when shopping for real estate, but OK.

But the rock wall in the bathroom? The line should have been drawn is what I'm saying. Sure, sometimes after one of those really big bran muffins and three cups of coffee on a lazy Sunday, I'm in the mood for a little rock climbing target practice in the lavatory, but not every day.

Anyway, back to the paneling.

I had to get this paneling off the walls. It was mocking me. Also, I couldn't unpack any of our 8,000 books (approximately 60% of which seem to be copies of Black Elk Speaks and Crime and Punishment -- I blame liberal arts degrees) until the walls were freed from their paneling bondage. So I began prying the paneling off the walls with a small scraping knife. Or putty knife. I am too much of an expert to bother knowing the accurate names of the myriad tools I have at my disposal, so vast is my arsenal. Let's call it a scraper.

I started prying the first panel off, which was not easy. To begin with, the installer of the paneling had used lots of nails. Lots and lots. There were so many nails in my wall that frankly I began to suspect the paneling guy had an eye to this eventual return to sanity when he installed it in the first place. BAM! BAM! BAM! Yep BAM! BAM! BAM! They may BAM! BAM! BAM! take off BAM! BAM! BAM! my paneling BAM! BAM! BAM! but not BAM! BAM! BAM! without BAM! a BAM! BAM! fight.

Incidentally, all that BAM! stuff was supposed to be the guy hammering.

I finally pried off the first panel. I accomplished this by prying a small section off the wall and then pulling the panel really, really hard, until it came off the wall with a pop. This resulted in me staggering around the room, which was now covered in dust and nails, with about a 4 foot by eight foot wood panel with nails sticking out of it. Opportunities for injury abounded, needless to say. But, oddly, and despite my expert status, I remained unharmed. Apart stepping on a few nails, but I figure that is par for the course.

When the first layer came off, I was of course very happy to see the second layer. The second layer was heavier, and yes, uglier, wood than the first.



But I persevered and kept tearing the paneling down, revealing big holes in the wall, and some creative wiring.



It turned out there was also some creative writing. Paneling man had written his esoteric and enigmatic calculations on the wall before he began installation.



I was starting to hate the installer of the paneling. But I needed a name. A target for my wrath. Who had knocked holes in my wall? As I pulled off the last panel, I found my answer.



So. Steve. I don't know what to say to you, Steve, except that you were sick. A sick, putting-up-two-layers-of-paneling, writing-on-the-wall, day-glo-sticker-sticking freak. But I salute you, Steve, because I know, deep down, you were an expert too.

To wrap up this overly long tale, I finally finished the room. This included not just fun with paneling, but acoustic ceiling scraping and ceiling fan removal. My injuries, surprisingly, were only slight. And now, I can look at my guest bedroom, feast my eyes on my inadequate spackling job, and know that I will forever be an expert.





* This is not to say that particle board furniture is not inherently dangerous in and of itself. Especially when one considers those pointy little allen wrenches supplied with your IKEA furniture by crafty IKEA Swedes who secretly want to kill America with the slow poison of modular storage and funny looking lamps.

Despair

So, it seems to be over, and Bush will continue as our nation's puppet for four more years. Though, with the electronic voting machines now so widespread, who really knows if he won? It occurred to me as we watched Dan Rather call the election "Closer than two hickory sticks stuck together with ground-up earthworms", or something to that effect, that the republicans might just have learned to cheat better.

Also, Bush won because MORAL VALUES were so important to voters? It's nice to know that moral values are defined by fear and hatred. That moral values include the invasion of a woman's womb, and the hateful oppression of gay people in this country.

I can't help but think the wool is still being pulled over our eyes. How is it possible that middle America is voting for the administration that is killing their children for no reason? Can we as a nation tolerate the evil done in our name over this whole planet? I hope everyone who voted for Bush feels some sense of responsibility the next time he or she sees a flag draped coffin (if they let the pictures out, that is), or a journalist being beheaded or a gay person beaten or killed in the name of hatred, ignorance and fear.

Time for a dandelion break.

Vote, Ye Mighty

Hi again. It seems that there is going to be an election tomorrow. We will come together as a nation (those of us that can be bothered, I guess), and appoint a new Grand High Poobah. I hope against hope that Bush loses. Anyway, like everyone else, I'm advising you to vote.

Michael Moore's Election Eve Note Sure, he can be kind of an annoying turd, but sometimes he hits the right note.

JESUS IS MY _________

I was driving behind an elderly lady in what I believe could accurately be called a "monkeyshit brown" late seventies Buick. Or maybe metallic monkeyshit brown is better. Maybe this particular monkey had been snacking on some metal chips or something. I don't know. But the point is that here on the peninsula, there are many, many such elderly folks whose schedule is a little less hectic than most. Hence, with the slow driving. This gave me plenty of time to see that her license plate frame declared proudly JESUS IS MY MAGNET.

Wait, I thought, being the sharp individual that I am. JESUS IS MY MAGNET makes little or no sense, though it does sound kind of cool. Maybe she means that JESUS is the center of her life, and in that way like a MAGNET? She would be the iron filings that scientist types sprinkle on magnets to show you the concept of flux, which is really, really important to your everday life. Or maybe she was expressing a subversive atheist view wherein JESUS was indeed her MAGNET, but they were approaching each other from opposite poles, forever doomed to repel each other in a fragile dance of longing and impossible salvation.

I sped up to seventeen miles an hour on Junipero Serra Boulevard, edging up on her bumper, and realized the MAGNET portion of the message only looked like MAGNET. Now it looked more like WAGNER. That's better...JESUS IS MY WAGNER.

Hang on. That's not right either. Was she some crazed, confused, classical music listener?

JESUS IS MY HANGER? BANGER? ORANGUTANGER? LAPLANDER?

It was no use. She sped up to twenty-one miles an hour, and I was left wondering what JESUS IS, as she disappeared over the horizon.

Dispatch from a Pile of Boxes

I speak to you (figuratively of course. I don't sit at the desk and speak out loud, addressing you as if you were here. Not often, at least.) from the study of my new house, having fought my way through piles of boxes and detritus so impressive they should be featured in a new and exciting video game where you shoot stuff while jumping from crate to crate. You know, like that one game? With all the crates?

Anyway, I know the posting has been slow, even essentially non-existent for a while, but be strong! Read a book or something.

And have a look at Dungeon Majesty, which features movies of young ladies playing D&D. You may think that the concepts of young ladies and D&D don't really go together, and that this is merely a cruel joke designed to bring out your inner 18th level Fighter/Magic-User, but don't worry, mighty kobold-hassler! It's no joke. The ladies flock to you when your sword is vorpal, or so I hear. Good news for every spotty teenager whose Crushing Hand is getting a little too much action.

Oh! I Forgot this Existed!

Hello again. I know I've been away for a while. Did you water the plants like I asked you? I only ask because the hydrangeas are looking a little peaked. I'd even say dead.

Here are some possible explanations for my absence:

a. Evacuation due to Florida hurricanes - While it is true that I live in California, one can never be too safe in the face of an angry Mother Nature. This is also true when confronted by vengeful sharks or repeated telemarketing calls. Pack up the Country Squire and just go! GO!

So that's what I did. I saw the whirling deathballs on the horizon and loaded up the Country Squire. I made it to Taos, New Mexico before I realized I was actually heading closer to the whirling deathballs. That's the tricky thing about Mother Nature. Just when you think that you are speeding away from her in a late Seventies wood-paneled station wagon, Bam! There she is in all her glory, throwing frogs at you.

Shamed, I decided the trip shouldn't be a complete loss, so I enrolled in a pottery class and learned the ancient craft of lawn goose sculpture.

b. Inserted cotton swab into ear canal - Believe the warning.

c. Bought house near San Francisco, fended off attackers - After months of dithering, we finally found a place just south of the city, with fog that sweeps in majestically when it's of a mind. Also, some no-goodniks broke into my house in Southern California, and I chased them off. I mention that only to let you know what a badass I am.

It's Like the TB Ward in Here

The guy next to me sounds like he has the whooping cough. The woman a few cubes away sneezes every five minutes or so, and follows that up immediately with a groan which suggests she's thinking "Is that part of my brain that came out just then?"

These undead shamblers come by every now and then, dragging themselves to the restroom to eject some lymph into the plumbing, and cast their rheumy gaze upon me.

"Don't cub neah be. I'b sick."

"Really?" I inquire. The line of mucus dangling from his nose had already tipped me off. I try to breathe shallowly.

He gets a little nearer. "Really. Can't --RASP!-- see by desk. "

I back up against the wall of my cubicle. "Why are you here?"

"Can't leave. Too --AAAAAGGUUUHHH!-- buch work. "

"Go home! Why are you here infecting me?"

"Dark angel --SNNNNNKKK!-- calling be. Mother! --RASP!-- I see you! I'b cubbing home!"

"Is that a death-rattle? I'm calling HR, you bastard. You shouldn't be here phlegming up the place."

...

"Oh at least go die in your own cubicle!"

And so it goes. Listen to me, people of Earth. If you're sick, stay home! You're spreading germs and frankly you're putting me off my food.

The Kicking of the Nuts

Kicked In the Nuts movies. So stupid, yet so funny.

You know, for years I have have been toying with the idea of the ultimate in horror: a movie that's nothing but 90 minutes of people's expressions when they realize they've just tipped their chair back too far and are certainly doomed. You won't see that kind of reality in the mainstream, my friend. Can you imagine it? The outright panic of knowing you were going to tip over backwards, possibly in the middle of crowded cafe? When you know for certain your mother's repeated entreatied to not tip your chair back were so true, so bitterly true. It's like a snuff film, but without the dying.

And that's good for America.

Chico Rainmaker



I don't think there are enough truly scarring shows on the teevee today.

Let me give you a little background here. Every once in a while, out of the blue, I get a flash of a despicable earworm that goes a little something like this:

Chico, Chico Rainmaker

And that's it. I can't remember any more of the song. And the worst thing is that any of the following teevee memories can bring it on: Zoom, Electric Company, Big Blue Marble, the peculiar Vegetable Soup or Villa Allegre. In some way, all of these programs are linked to the hideous reality of Chico, Chico Rainmaker. They were all PBS shows in my younger days.

You can imagine it as an episode of $25,000 Pyramid where the "giver" says "Zoom. Electric Company."

The answerer is blank. He spent his younger days playing in the warm sun, surrounded by friends.

"Big Blue Marble. Vegetable Soup."

He doesn't have an answer. The feel of the grass beneath his warm, small feet and his butterfly collection have clouded hs mind.

"Villa Allegre...Villa....Allegre."

Nothing.

"Da-Dada-Dadada-Da-Dada-Duh Da-Duh Da!"

Nothing.

"Oh forget it."

And Dick Clark would come over and console the losers, finally making the answerer feel inadequate for not saying "Shows on PBS when Kafkaesque was a child." And the celebrity would be pissed. Like you've never seen Nipsey Russell get pissed. He'd break that little railing, and using one of the cheap plastic bars that probably arent wrought iron, he would leap to the display board, the board that will forever mock him, and beat the hell out of it.

Where was I?

Yeah, Chico Rainmaker. It was a 70s series actually called "The Boy with Two Heads", about a little boy who had a disembodied shrunken head in a little box. And the little head talked. And...it would make it rain.

Did I mention its name was Chico? It all makes sense if you think about it that way.

But my point is kids today with their Teletubbies and their Olsen Twins will never know the pleasure of waking up screaming that a little head in a box was going to make it rain. That's what I'm saying.

Anyhow, here's the trauma for you:

IMDB listing
Les Amis de Chico (French Chico appreciation page)
Discussion Site for Survivors of Chico

Little Person Ping Pong

I once played ping pong with a little person, and lost. I have been reminded of this incident by all the white-hot ping pong action that has been on display in the Olympics.

[By the way, I've been watching the Olympics pretty much constantly. My votes for most super-boring of Olympic sports:

Air Rifle - You'd think someone shooting a gun would have an inherent excitement to it. It doesn't.
Beach Volleyball - I can't watch more than a point of this, in spite of the bikinis.
Dressage - Dancing horses were just fine for Ian McCullogh, but man, there comes a point when you realize you're watching a hoofed mammal prancing, and you have to question your judgment.]

When I lived in Santa Cruz these many years ago, there was a bar near my apartment, and it had a ping pong table. This table was used in the same way that bar pool tables are used: you'd put your name up on the chalkboard, and whoever won the last match would call you to play. I was OK at ping pong, and after a few weeks of playing quite a bit, I thought I could hold my own.

There were a few true ping pong masters in that bar. The baddest ass ping pong master was an old guy with a pot belly that owned a Chinese restaurant across the street. No-one looked forward to playing him. He'd gesture with his paddle, and the ball would be a white blur, bouncing off the table in the very corner, before rolling under the Arkanoid cocktail machine.

And you would hear only his derisive laughter as you swung your paddle impotently.

Needless to say, I never dethroned this ping pong master. I like to think that he preened, shirtless, in the men's room before a match, maybe with Foreigner playing in the background. It makes me feel better.

One night I was in the bar, which my friend and I had imaginatively dubbed The Ping Pong Bar [I'd like to point out that at no time did we refer to the place as The Table Tennis Bar. That would have been wrong and against God's plan.] and I had won a few games. I was getting to that level of ping pong where you can stand back from the table a little bit and really put a good swing on the ball. I was thinking about spin. I was pondering the efficacy of coquettish drop shots. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was ready to challenge the Chinese Restaurant owner, and eventually represent my country as some kind of ping pong savant.

Flush with pride, I called the next name on the chalkboard.

From a barstool strode a little person. He was probably about four feet tall, and wearing a Gold's Gym tee shirt. Little big muscles bulged on his considerable biceps. He was grinning at me, a gold chain flashing from his chest.

I felt in a bit of an ethical dilemma. This guy has no chance, I thought. But I didn't want to shame him. It was a no-win situation. If I trounced him, I'd just be another almost-six-foot liberal arts major taking advantage of a vertically challenged opponent. I would be reviled as a bully. If he beat me, of course, it would be certain humiliation.

I approached him to introduce myself and shake hands, but he was having none of it. There were to be no friendly exchanges. He looked at my proffered hand with scorn. We took up our positions, only his head visible over the table.

We rallied for serve in the time-honored and complex "Ping- Pong - Rally's - On" ritual, first developed by the ancient Minoans in the eleventh century BC, and I won the serve.

I pondered how to approach the serve. I could go for my normal spin serve, and bamboozle him, leaving him begging for mercy, or I could just tap it lightly over the net, taking advantage of his minimal reach. But I wanted to feel out my opponent, so I served it straight to him.

He reached up, and swung an overhead smash. He hit the little ping pong ball as hard as he could, right at my head.

The ball rebounded off my forehead, and my diminutive opponent laughed. "Your point," he said. There was no doubt in my mind that he had done that on purpose.

The game continued, with him sometimes aiming a smash directly at my face. I was getting a little flustered, and my game started to suffer. Gone were my plans for delicate backspins and beautifully executed drop shots. This was serious. I played hard, pausing for beer only at service changeovers.

The game continued, with the lead seesawing back and forth, but in the end, he beat me. I put my paddle down on the table and left my dreams of Olympic glory there at the Ping Pong Bar.

Months later, the little person came into the bagel shop in the Capitola Mall where I clung to a small shred of dignity, weighing out portions of lox shmear and baking bialies for the uncaring masses. If anything, his big little muscles had increased in size. He greeted me and we reminisced about our battle, in a touching scene that would not have been out of place in My Bodyguard if that film had taken place in a bagel shop and involved ping pong in any way at all.

So go the days of our lives.

Tex! George Bush and the Fine Art of Character Assassination
Buy your George Bush Superhero comic today!
[warning - sound and Flash]

Flash trailer from my good friend jpoulos.

Zack, Eater of Bugs

Just to keep going with the general entomological theme I'm sure you have been so richly enjoying of late, here is Zack's Bug Feasting Page. I should also point out that Zack (who I like to refer to in my own mind as Zack, Zack, the Bug Eating Maniac) spells his name two ways on the same page, so don't go correcting me.

Including such crowd-pleasers as:

The giant silkworm

and

The predaceous diving beetle

I'm not entirely sure why you would want to eat a predaceous diving beetle, or why you wouldn't want to eat a predaceous diving beetle, or what predaceous actually means. So if you want to eat some bugs, go on ahead. There are lots of bugs, after all, and they aren't provably dirtier than a sheep or pig. Also, more drumsticks!

Bee Update

I was not the only Southern California resident having bee problems. Knowing my luck, they'll probably show up at my place.

Infantile

I warned you, you people. If we were not vigilant, it would happen again. We were naive, thinking that after the last time, mankind would have learned its lesson, and would never again tread the paths that led us to this pit of despair the first time.

And yet here it is, another talking baby movie! Can we stop with the talking baby movies? What is wrong with the world?

That was rhetorical.

Also, please stop putting spaghetti on babies' heads. I know it's tempting. If you really want to put food items on your baby's head, try to branch out a little bit. Maybe pie would be nice. Or calamari.

Bees

I have written here before about bees. And here. Recently, I had a bee experience no man should have to endure. Now listen, any bees who may be out there reading this, cut it out.

I have always been one who got along with the bee. I watched Ulee's Gold and everything. I have seen photos in the Guinness Book of World Records with people with beards made of bees, and instead of merely thinking "What kind of a turd would do that?" I would instead think "What kind of a turd would do that, and is it safe for the bees?"

When I was ten years old, I bought from The Scholastic Book Club a copy of the novel The Swarm, and did at times root for the bees.

Bees and I were sympatico.

I should also state that I myself have never once been stung by a bee. For years, I would brag about it. "Thirty-two!" I'd say, sometimes slapping my palm on the table for emphasis. "And not one sting! Not one!"

Now, I'm starting to get a little offended. Am I not good enough for their sting?

I wonder if bees know that they're going to die after they sting someone. You'd think they would have figured that out by now, having seen a few of their bee chums go all crazy with the stinging, and immediately die, maybe with inspirational last bee words. This would, I would think, make them pretty selective about who would get their payload. If I were a bee, and I'd like to point out that I am not a bee, I'd have to really mean it. That's all I'm saying. You'd really have to menace my queen to get my sting. Now, if you want to mess around, shake up the hive a little bit, I'm cool with that. I'm not going to kill myself over it. But imagine that moment, when you've really made up your central nervous system that you're going to sting someone and end your bee life. I'd probably hum something dramatic. And I'd make sure there were a lot of other bees around, too. You don't want to sting your One Sting and have no-one around to see it. Actually, in that case, maybe I could talk one of the other drones into stinging for me.

Anyway, back to the story.

One day last week, I came home from work to about five hundred dead and dying bees in my house. They were piled by the sliding glass doors, in some spots five deep, like some hideous bee Jonestown. The first thought that went through my head was of course "Oh great. We're possessed." Because years of horror movie viewing have taught me that there is no good explanation for five hundred of your closest bee friends dropping by unannounced and keeling over en masse. Not unless your home is a portal to the Netherworld, of course.

So I had five hundred bees variously wriggling and being dead on my floor. I did what any rational person would do. I vacuumed them up. I should say that I felt kind of bad that the not-yet-dead bees would spend their remaining moments in a vacuum bag filled with cat hair, but it was a pragmatic solution.

I looked out at into our atrium and noticed there were quite a few bees doodling around out there. As I have stated I am usually a friend to bees, but I noticed they were milling about a hole in the stucco wall where a length of PVC pipe comes through from the garage, a drain for the A/C unit. Most people don't have such a drain in their atrium, but I wisely employed The World's Cheapest A/C Guy to install my air conditioning. I did this in hopes that I would get bees in my wall, obviously.

I sprang into action, grabbed some Raid Flying Insect Painful Death and Armageddon Spray, and leapt into the atrium. I'm sure I presented a pretty intimidating figure to my bee interlopers, as I held the can as far away from me as possible, shielded my face, and made little "don't sting me" noises. "Don't sting me" noises sound a lot like terror-stricken squeaks, by the way.

I doused the little hole in the wall with Raid, and the bees turned to me and said as one: "dude!"

I knew I had transgressed the unspoken law of bee-human interaction, and it was, as the kids say, on. The bees started to buzz around angrily, quite clearly not being even inconvenienced by the bug spray. But I did not, in fact, get stung. I yelped and retreated inside the house, though what safety the house offered was unclear, since five hundred bees had already found their way inside.

And bees started pouring out of the hole in the wall, into the atrium. They crawled out in orderly lines, with very little pushing and shoving. One thing was very clear: I had a beehive in the wall of my house.

To make this long and tedious story a little less tedious, let me say that I called the exterminator, who informed me that he couldn't get out to deal with the beehive until the next morning. I told him I had sprayed them with Raid and he said "That wasn't a good idea. Now you got angry bees."

"Angry bees?"

"Yep. See you tomorrow."

So I slept fitfully that night, my dreams filled with visions of ghost bees. But I survived. And he came out the next day and sprayed some stuff which actually does something into my wall.

To sum up, I still have not ever been stung by a bee. I feel like the beehive in the wall may have been my best chance, and I somehow missed out.

In a strange twist, a few days after that I was at a shop in San Francisco that sold dead bees. I'm not making that up. It's on Valencia next to Dave Eggers' place. They were selling dead bees for about ten dollars a pop.

I have five thousand dollars in my vacuum bag.

The Stabbing Room

We've been house-hunting in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last couple of months. "House-hunting in the San Francisco Bay Area" is another way of saying "ensuring that we will never have any money again ever".

House-hunting is kind of a curious pastime, and one that I encourage everyone out there to indulge in. Or "in which to indulge", to be prepositionally accurate, I suppose. The best thing about it is that you get to go into people's houses and totally check out all their stuff. Also, you can make assumptions about their general level of cleanliness and worthiness as human beings. Assess their stain quotient! Is that patch on the hardwood floor a big pee stain?

Yes. Yes it is.

We've seen a few sci-fi houses. Sci-fi houses are ubiquitous, apparently. We saw quite a few when we were looking for our first house, and they are all about the same. These places reek of smoke, and their living rooms are lined with bookcases, usually of the homemade variety, that are stuffed with sci-fi paperbacks. The entire Shannara series will be there, in the order the books were released, of course. Piers Anthony will be lurking by Zelazny. Harlan Ellison will be self-congratulatorily reclining over there by Asimov.

And these places are just stuffed full of crap. There are books everywhere. There are plants everywhere, that seem to call to you as you pass: "Dear God, buy this house! Take us away from here! We beg you! I haven't photosynthesized since the early nineties!" And they probably haven't.

The air is thick with dust. The broken and bent blinds are thick with dust. Strange knick-knacks litter the omnipresent shelves: a trio of big-eyed ceramic dogs, several Hallmark "World's Greatest Dad/Grandpa/Borderline Psychotic" figurines, innumerable bowling/wrestling/lawn darts trophies which were patently not won by the owner of the house, forty-seven six inch plastic m-and-m guys (arranged by color), even Weeples. For the love of all that is holy, Weeples! The Weeples, even, are thick with dust.

And invariably, these places are huge, have a toilet in the backyard that may or may not have started a new career as a planter, and are listed at a remarkably high price. Three quarters of a million dollars somehow seems like too much for a place that has all the atmosphere of a diseased lung.

What you learn looking at peole's houses is that they are crazy. Of course, if these people looked through your house, they'd probably think you were crazy too. That's the charm of it. "Jesus, honey!" they'd whisper to their spouse. "These people have a giant collection of Red Rose tea animals!" or "That's an external modem for a Mac Classic! What is wrong with these people!?" And they are right.

But to the stabbing room.

We looked at enough mildly disturbing homes to have a quick codeword signifying we'd probably not be offering on that particular place. The word is "stabbers". Certain parts of the Peninsula in the Bay Area seem to be havens for stabbers. You can imagine the owners of the house luring their victims in for a little recreational stabbing is what I'm saying.

The wife and I concocted an elaborate scenario, which we found terribly funny, in which the owner of the house meets you wandering through his home and greets you with a rusty kitchen (or Stanley) knife in his slightly trembling hand. "Hey there!" he warmly extends his non-knife-wielding hand. "You like the place? I made them bookshelves myself."

His voice is a low rumble. He is vaguely threatening. He has forty years of Oakland A's memorabilia pushpinned to his garage wall.

He appraises you with red-streaked eyes. At this point, he may light a cheroot, just before he extends the knife to you, handle first, and softly says "Now stab me. Come on! Then I'll stab you! Just a little. It won't hurt much!"

You back away.

"Don't you want to stab me even a little? I'll start!"

You run away.

To make things even better for the stabbing scenario, most of the houses we've been looking at have full basements. In most houses I've lived in in California, there's at most a crawlspace. After looking at over a million homes in the greater San Francisco area, the wife and I now turn to each other when presented with a particularly large such basement, and say "Now this'd be a good stabbing room. We could put the bodies over there in the corner."

I recommend this sort of thing to everyone. Just make sure your little "stabbing room" joke isn't overheard by the listing agent.

Or the owner, even now creeping toward you, saying "Come on now! Stab me!"

Incidentally, if anyone with a bigger brain than myself can help me figure out how to fix the bottom of the table on those archive links, I would be forever in your debt. I would buy you candy. Good candy, too, not those Circus Peanuts or anything.

What Was Forgotten

I forgot my long standing tradition of squirm-inducing "favorite posts" links. The cards and leters have been pouring in, beseeching me to indulge in this disgusting display of navel-gazing.

I cannot disappoint all of these beseechers. So here are my favorite posts of the year. I can say with confidence that quantity certainly went down this year, but...well. Let's just leave it at that.

We Remember the Light

The Worst Thing

Ernie First!

The Teevee

Every Day Is a Little Song

Public Speaking

The Sizzler Seduction Scenario

Airlines

On the Loss of Opportunity

Cabbies I Have Known

There now, aren't you glad that's over?

The Difficult Year

And lo, it was My Life as an American Gladiator's third birthday.

All the animals of the forest gathered to mark this special day. All except the squirrels. They were demonstrating that the site was unfair to the squirrel population as a whole and never gave them nuts or acorns to help them through the hard winter months, when squirrels live in fear of hypothermia, due to their failure to understand the principles of polar fleece.

The squirrels eventually drifted to the periphery of the big shindig, feeling a little silly that their principled stand was keeping them from what looked like really, really good punch, if the drunken antics of the pine martens were anything to go by. They discussed whether it would be in their best interests to give up the protest and go have a little well deserved fun, or to try to lure some of the more easily led woodland creatures over to their side.

A compromise was reached whereby the squirrels would join the party, but not have any fun. And that's what My Life as an American Gladiator's Third Birthday is all about: squirrels pretending not to have fun.

So yes, now we are three. We've lived and laughed and loved. We're on solid food and almost potty-trained. If we were Scotch, we'd have a few years to go to be worthwhile.

Also, I'm turning the comments on for one (1) day.

Update: That day is now over. Thanks for your input and ideas about synergy and the future role of this blog as a leading provider of twenty-first century solutions for small businesses and large conglomerates both.

Rock 'n' Roll Holiday Escape! [warning: atrocious midi]

Don't miss your chance to spend a week cruising the Caribbean with 3 of rock's biggest artists: Journey, REO Speedwagon and Styx.

Check out the What's Included page for this awesome perk: 2 complimentary Rock and Roll cocktail parties with open bar and hot and cold hors d'oeuvres. That's right. Hot AND cold hors d'oeuvres.

It just don't rock no harder than that.

I picture a Flying Dutchman scenario, with a ghost-ship crewed by frightening 70s and 80s hair bands. Steve Perry would be clambering up to the crow's nest, a knife clutched in his teeth, still mumbling "Oh Sherrie".

Also, failure to pay an additional fee will result in one or all of the bands showing up at your home and demanding to be housed in your basement.

[via Rory]

The Birds and They Heads

You may remember, if you are of that ilk, that I have a nest on my patio. I am pleased to report that there are now three baby birdheads in said nest, making me a bird grandfather (though not in a biological or legally binding sense).

Panic!
 
The wife just called me and asked in rushed tone: "What's your Social Security Number?" I told her and she said "thanks." and hung up, leaving my "Wait. Why?" hanging in the air.
 
It's a fun project that only married people can participate in (unlike so many other things that only single people get to do, like blowing a paycheck on a big date and still not getting any action): call your spouse and ask them potentially alarming things like that and then just hang up.

For instance:

1. What's your checking account number, mother's maiden name and blood type?
2. What would you like your obituary to say?
3. You were never convicted of a felony, right?
4. What's the major export of Bolivia?
5. Why do owls make owl noises?
 
Maybe it's not that great of an idea, but man, I haven't had very many Great Ideas lately. For a while back there, a few years ago, I was The Idea Man. The Endless Spaghetti Idea, and subsequent Endless Spaghetti Debate and Endless Spaghetti Council of 2002, leading to The Endless Spaghetti Manifesto that paved the way for the subdivision of Pasta Studies known as Endless Spaghetti Theory? That was one of my best.
 
Now, nothing.

Senate Scuttles Gay Marriage Amendment

By a whopping landslide of 50-48. They needed 60 to get it past the Senate.

Here's a handy list where you can see your local senator's vote.

Contractions

We've been dealing with contractors of late. Specifically, cement contractors.

Everyone I talk to about contractors gets this look on their face, like they've just realized what's on their toothbrush isn't toothpaste.

"Contractors," they say. "Oh yeah. We had some work done."

Cement contractors seem to have a certain look to them. They are generally leathery-skinned, kind of like deshelled tortoises, at least here in Southern California, one can only assume from years of basking in the sun, taking people's cash.

We have had about five contractors in, bidding our job. The job is pretty straightforward: we want them to take out the horrendously ugly cement and tile in our atrium, and build a deck in there*. We also want them to take out the horrendously broken concrete that is our patio and replace it with non-horrendous, non-broken concrete.

Pretty simple, right?

But contractors can't just come to your house, take a look at the job, and say something normal like "five grand." No. They have to give you more. They have to deride their competition and make it clear that they are not to be trusted.

First, they try to worm out of you the names of the other contractors that have been there before them. Then, when you say "Well, Western Gutbusters was here, but their quote was a little high..." they get quiet for a moment.

"Kafkaesque," they say conspiratorially, "I don't like to say things about the other guys," and it is clear that there exists a bond among concrete contractors. There is a secret ceremony where they swear allegiance to each other. They go fishing together on weekends. They raise their children in large cement contractor groups on an island somewhere, the location of which can never be known by the common customer. In the darkness, a candle flame burning between them, they pledge to never, ever, say things about the other guys.

"But..." and then it comes out. The dark secrets they don't want to tell you, the very telling of which will damn them to a hideous and eternal punishment.

"Don't get me wrong. Gutbusters are a great operation. But, you know."

"Yes?" I ask.

"They're not licensed. They're not bonded. They hire guys off the street. They hire children off the street. Old ladies. They've got old ladies carrying their cement. I hear they like old ladies a lot, if you know what I mean."

The contractor looks at you as if you are now part of a circle of silence. You cannot tell anyone the knowledge that he has given you, on pain of death.

Or "The guy that runs Gutbusters? He's a great guy. I went school with him. But he changed a little, you know?"

"Yes? Changed how?"

"Remember the Fantastic Four?"

"Oh yeah, The Human Torch, The Thing. He's not The Thing, is he?"

"Don't joke."

"Sorry."

"He's a supervillain. He's like Dr. Doom, the guy that runs Gutbusters. He's fashioning an iron mask, several floors below his home. He means to take over the world with a Doomsday Machine."

"A Doomsday Machine?"

"Something about freezing the world. Look, it doesn't matter. But all he needs is $6500, and he can finish his machine, enslaving the Earth. I know he might undercut my bid, but what I'm saying is that you and your wife and your family will spend the rest of your lives like deer in the winter, snuffling for roots under layers of snow, and eventually, you will succumb to the cold."

"So I shouldn't use him, then?"

"It's up to you. I'm not going to say a word against him."

Another tactic one of the contractors employed was to describe how he was basically a reanimated corpse, willing himself to stay alive only to do my concrete. And I'm not making this part up. The other, Dr. Doom part, I may have embellished.

I had been talking with the guy for all of about two minutes when he came out with "I've only got half a liver."

I was nonplussed.

"Yep. Used to have a problem with the hooch."

First off, I didn't know anyone said "hooch" anymore. This guy was like one of those Stephen King characters that appear in the first hundred pages and sell the protagonist a possessed car or something. I could tell because all during our conversation, he was having an italicized internal monologue.

"I used to have a problem with the hooch"

Why'd you tell him that? Why --

"But I don't touch a drop any more."

You know you touched a drop. You drank an aerosol can of Lemon Pledge this morn--

"No sir, but my medication, it costs a lot. It costs eight thousand dollars a month."

Maybe we should get burgers for lunch. But you always get cheese. I don't like chee--

"And my eyes? They're made of wood."

No cheeseburgers no cheeseburgers no cheeseburg--

He starts to cry. "I got no eyes, man! No eyes!"

And so on.

The crux of the matter is that all these freaks have come to my home and bid on my job. And, really, there's not that much difference in the bids. They give me the bid and they leave, some of them making it clear that their very existence depends on getting this job, intimating that the bid is in fact so low that it will mean that they will spend the rest of their lives on the streets, telling the story of how this one guy with an atrium ripped him off.

And what happened, in each case? They flaked out on me. Every single one. I want to give these people my money, because frankly I'm too pretty and weak to remove cement myself, but they won't take it. I've called them repeatedly, and been assured that they are all ready to go with the job, and then they never call back. I can't figure it out. I want to give them my money.

Why will no-one take my money?

Because they all hate you and you're pretty and weak.

Shut up.




*This is only if they are multi-classed contractors. If they had D&D style character sheets, they would be Cement-Deck Contractors, kind of like Fighter-Magic Users. I don't know what level you have to get to before you can start learning Tensor's Floating Disk as a contractor.

Take Action!
Tell your Senators to Oppose the Discriminatory Federal Marriage Amendment

Lego desk!

[via jedi]

The Nest Menace

Hello everyone, and I hope you enjoyed the unannounced and long-enduring hiatus. What happened was that I went on vacation. Madagascar sure is nice this time of year. But them lemurs pack a punch, I tell you what.

Something unnerving happened here at the Kafkaesque homestead though, while I was cavorting with the lower mammals in "The Land That Time Almost Forgot, But Then Saw a Documentary on Snakes and Was All Like 'Oh Hell! Madagascar!'"

What happened was that the birds made a nest.

The wifely friend and I have an ongoing pitched battle with a pair of morning doves. The previous owners of our house, in a fit of extremely eclectic outdoor decorating sensibility, placed an old empty stereo cabinet in the yard. It fit in nicely with the rusted out hot water heater, I guess. When we viewed the house originally, we noticed that there was a bird's nest on top of this cabinet. In general, I have always been one of those people who say "Aw, a bird's nest!", visions dancing in my head of happy tweeting baby birdies perching on my fingers, and perhaps producing an elegant frock for me to wear to the prince's ball that evening.

But I learned my lesson a few years back, when a very similar bird's nest appeared on our balcony while we were living in an apartment whose main features were the gigantic Paleozoic-era roaches and the downstairs neighbors who a couple of times a week barbecued what I can only refer to as Stinkfish. The wifely friend and I were delighted to see the nest, and had ourselves a little tender moment looking at the mommy bird warming her precious eggs. Onto this little bird mother we projected all the wonderful ideas and hopes we had for future progeny, since neither of us really wanted to mention human children all that much.

The morning dove squatted there for a while, and we would creep out to the balcony every few days and look for the baby birds, fearful that they would end up smashed on the floor in some hideous learning-to-fly episode gone wrong. I don't know if the possiblity of the baby birds squishing themselves or the fact that for about a month I had Pink Floyd's craptacular "Learning to Fly" stuck in my head was worse. It's debatable.

Then, one day, we heard small chirps from outside, and our family had grown. Three little birdies were in the nest, cheeping like there was no tomorrow. In fact, since they had only been alive for that one day, I feel confident in saying they weren't comfortable with the whole "tomorrow" concept, and they had to worry about learning to fly and getting squished and all that, so we let them squawk.

In a few days, they started hopping around our balcony, which was extrememly cute. But they kept hopping around, and as you may have guessed, pooping around. These guys were all over that balcony. All over our chairs. All over our table. All over our plants. All over our rare and expensive collection of gnomes.

And thus, their poop was all over everything.

We began to hate the cute little baby birds. They never shut up. If it wasn't the cheeping of the babies, it was the prrroooo-ing of the mother and father. At least I think he was the father. I didn't perform any Montel Williams style paternity tests. We were afraid to disturb the loud and messy miracle taking place on the balcony, so we didn't go out there very much. In the end of it, we were left with the Empty Nest Syndrome, and also the Poopy Balcony Syndrome.

Just clearing up the nest is no picnic. The guys didn't kindly disassemble their stinky, poop-encrusted domicile, but instead left it to us to demolish the structure. Some gratitude.

So pretty much since we've moved into our house, we've had a pair of morning doves hanging around. A morning ritual established itself, wherein the wifely friend would hear the telltale prooo-ing and leap to her feet, grab a broom from the kitchen, and cavort around the yard shouting invective at the avian interlopers. She despises the morning doves, and seems to take sadistic pleasure in frightening them with new and exciting gesticulations and slurs about the pigeon community as a whole.

But the birds grew wise.

After a few months of them swooping in with twigs and sticks, and attempting to invoke their squatter's rights in our eaves, they would wait until we went to work, and when I came home I would find a primitive beginning of a nest, and a sheepish looking morning dove eyeing me from the roof. I would dismantle the birds' efforts, and plead with them to find somewhere else to raise their family. And, for the last month or so, they've been gone. I thought of them moving next door, to my neighbor's house. Maybe the neighbors are more into having flying poop machines roaming the yard. Across the road is a nice European couple who play piano music at concert hall volume. I'm sure they'd like a nice bird family to provide accompaniment.

But now, they are back. We were gone for eight days, and when we returned I found a complete nest, with the mother sitting nervously atop her little brood of eggs. She's out there right now, fearing that any minute we'll come jumping out and force her away from her potential children. And I don't have the heart to shoo her off. Deep down I still get the "Aw, a bird's nest!" thoughts.

And in a few weeks, we'll have little baby birds hopping around the yard, and I'll start worrying about them falling from the nest. Maybe I'll put a little safety net out there.

Just don't poop on my gnomes.

Bush & Zombie-Reagan 2004!

I want to start this next hiatus off on the right foot, so I give you:

Another Cabbie I Have Known


This guy drove me to the airport to get on a flight to Sacramento. I was there to meet up with friends and drive to Reno. This was a cabbie of the gambler type. I got in his cab at ten to six in the morning, told him I was flying on Southwest, and he instinctively said "Ah...You go to Vegas."

It is true that I was not, in fact, going to Vegas, but it was an inspired guess. I had spotted a Racing Form sitting beside him in the front seat. I have had a lot of cab drivers who are really into gambling. Another guy drove my wife and I to a benefit casino night, and when he found out where we were going, tried unsuccessfully to convince us to let him come along and wipe the floor with all the pathetic, would-be faux gamblers. I'm sure it would have been very enjoyable, as we introduced everyone to our cabbie friend at the benefit. Sadly, we declined his fervent pleas.

This guy was pleased I was going to be gambling and launched into another long and tedious cabbie blather about how he was perhaps the greatest gambler on this or any other planet, but due to the fickle nature of fate and circumstances beyond his control, he was forced to drive a cab for a living.

As I said, it was ten to six in the morning and this guy had been early to pick me up. As a result, I had only been able to drink half of my coffee before leaving, and I mentioned this to him. He said "Coffee..." rather wistfully, and I knew he would expand on the subject if I but held my tongue.

"I can't drink the coffee."

"No?" I asked.

"Coffee ate all my stomach muscles!" he spat bitterly.

Now I know a thing or two about coffee (including this hard learned lesson: do not, under any circumstances, use patterned paper towels when you run out of coffee filters, unless you really enjoy drinking perfumey chemicals) and I had never heard of coffee actually eating your stomach muscles. "You mean it's destroyed your stomach lining, right?" I asked hopefully.

"No! It has eaten all my muscles! I used to drink so much coffee, it just ate all of them!" he rubbed his poor gut, which was estimable if totally atrophied.

I was pretty much at a loss.

We were quiet for a moment, the two of us. We listened to the pre-dawn sounds of the road, the cab bouncing over cat-eyes, and pulled into the airport. The cabbie turned to me and said "You know, when you see these old people, and they're walking on their hands?"

No, I thought, in all my years, I don't think I've ever seen an old person walking on their hands. I thought maybe they would make seal noises.

"They drank too much coffee, these people. Now they have no muscles."

I tipped him, walked into the airport, and got a really awful cup of coffee at Cinnabon. But I didn't get one of the herculean cinnamon buns. Those things really will eat your muscles.

Doubly Avuncular

I hereby end this hiatus, this long dark teatime of the soul, to announce that my sister and her partner have made of me a double uncle. Eleanor was born this weekend (she had to be there for Palace making the Premiership), and weighed in at a quite perfect eight pounds.

I don't want to give you the idea that the Kafkaesque family at large is building some sort of secret army of superhuman cuteness, but my is she cute. And has a full head of hair, I might add. So all you babies out there better get your act together, because Eleanor and my nephew Max are way ahead of you.

To the both of you, and the new baby, you've made me and all of the family very proud.

Going Up



From the who cares but me department, here's to Crystal Palace, my family's local team in England, who beat West Ham 1-0 this weekend to earn promotion to the Premiership. Palace are a gang of lovable ne'er-do-wells who've made it to the top-flight three times, only to be relegated the next season.

Relegation is a concept which might have a future in American sports. What it means is the worst three teams in the league are demoted to the first division (like minor league ball), while the best from the first division are promoted to the top division. Can you imagine if the San Diego Chargers couldn't tank the second half of the year in quest of a draft pick, or end up playing semi-pro ball the next year?

Never happen, I know. But here's to Palace. Hope we stay up.