25 posts tagged “mental chex mix”

• From the weird dream file: I was imprisoned in Nazi Germany, although (thank God) not in one of the concentration camps.  Apparently, I was incarcerated for something dumb, like drunk & disorderly conduct, or peeing on a dumpster.  Anyway, I was in a special prison in Hitler's personal tent compound.  Hitler, a lonely maniac, kept calling me to his office tent to talk about movies.  He liked that I was conversant with Leni Riefenstahl's work, and he really liked the film version of "Die Bleichstrommel," even though it wouldn't come out till 40 years after he died.  I got along with him fine, but I was working against him, stealing food and movie passes from his office and passing them out to my fellow prisoners.
• I didn't feel bad for my subterfuge and theft.  I mean, I liked talking film with the guy--and his office tent was warmer than my prison tent--but I certainly disliked all the Hitlery things he did. 
• But he had pralines, which I love, and which I stole and gave to my fellow prisoners.
• Disclaimer: There is no historical documentation that Hitler ever ate a praline, much less stocked them in his office tent.  Hitler didn't seem like a praline kind of guy.
• Wednesday, I had to travel the mile to my local Winn-Dixie supermarket.  People visit their supermarkets every day, and yet I HATE going to the store.  It's too big and bright and crowded.  And yet, they have some great things, like pre-made meatloafs.  So I was headed to the store, and the oldies station inexplicably--and completely without provocation--played Olivia Newton-John's, "I Honestly Love You."  Gah!
• So I'm walking down the pre-made meatloaf aisle, and what does the "Winn-Dixie Radio" muzak thing play? Olivia Newton-John's "Please Mister Please." GAH, again!
• Ironically, "Please Mister Please" figures in the film "Primary Colors," which stars Olivia Newton-John's "Grease" co-star John Travolta. 
• Even more ironically, John Travolta is a Scientologist.  Tom Cruise is a Scientologist.  Mr Cruise recently starred in the film "Valkyrie," about a plot to kill my former dream captor and film buddy, Adolf Hitler.
• Okay, that's a stretch even for me.
• So I had my pre-made meatloaf, a bottle of Diet store-brand Chek Cola (which I prefer to Diet Pepsi), and some cat fuel, and I was ready to check out.  Both of the checkout lanes were busy, so I went to the customer service counter.  On a shelf behind the customer service lady were three displays: condoms, cigarettes, and Clint Eastwood DVD's. It seemed an odd trifecta of awesome.  I asked her why these three items were together, and she said "I guess people just like to steal cigarettes, condoms, and Clint Eastwood movies."
• Sounds like a helluva date to me. 
• Her answer displeased me for its lack of imagination.  Seriously.  It's so rare the Universe throws you a hanging comedy curveball, and I gave her one.  And she responds with that? Bah.
• Her senses were probably addled by the dreadful Olivia Newton-John song.
• I watched a movie the other night--I forget which one (which movie, not which night (although...))--and there was a certificate in the credits showing that the American Humane Society had monitored filming, and no animals were harmed.  Great! I'm all for animals not being harmed, unless they're being converted to pre-made meatloaf.  The thing is, there had been people blown to bits, stabbed, burned, beaten--you name it--but there was no such disclaimer certifying that the actors hadn't been harmed. 
• I guess most people know that actors are acting, and they aren't being shot with real bullets, but then we do live in a world that requires "Warning: Contains Peanuts" notices on bags of peanuts.  Also, people shoot and beat and blow up each other all the time, but the most talked-about newspaper story this past week was that a golden retriever was eaten by an alligator.
• Okay, that is sad.  Golden retrievers are great dogs.  Even a bad golden retriever--my brother calls my parents' short bus dog a "golden non-retriever"--is preferable company to most humans. 
• Alligators are certainly not good company, although they really don't do very much except lay in the sun.
• There's a new Facebook app called "Island Paradise," wherein you have your own little island, and you plant things and hang-out with whatever animals you buy or are given.  The most disturbing thing about this game is that your "friends" can visit your island and STEAL from you! Seriously. What kind of low-life steals a friend's yams, or absconds with a pint of ill-gotten goat milk?
• I think there should be a Facebook app called "Scumbag Trailer Park." You could have your own meth lab, knocked-up girlfriend, pet python, pit bull, and rusted Chevy up on blocks.  Lord only knows what unsavory things your "friends" (and, doubtless, obnoxious relatives) would be able to do to your trailer.  "Your friend Bob visited your trailer in Scumbag Trailer Park, and shot your prize fighting cock after mounting your girlfriend.  Click HERE to visit Bob's trailer, and shoot his dog."
• It's a good thing I can't design apps, or Facebook would be a verrrrrry different place.
• Hope all is well with you, heading into this weekend, and that you--as I--have 10 fingers, 10 toes, one belly button, and a steady pulse.

• It's the SPRINT TO THE FINISH for my Saturday night shift, and I have been incredibly remiss about voxing.  Ergo, I shall smack out as many thoughts as I can in the next 75 minutes (not that I'm counting).
• The worst line in recent fiction has to be, "Don't lie to me.  I can tell you were with that whore Cecile, because your junk smells like the Mariner's Platter at Red Lobster."
• I didn't really read this anywhere, but if I had, it really would be terrible. 
• Honestly, I don't know where that line came from.  Certainly not from Cecile.
• For years, I've inadvertantly seen jetliners as having gender based on their engine placement. 
• Boy plane:
  

  Boy plane
• Girl plane:
  

  Girl plane
• I've been taking a home Interweb sabbatical, meaning I'll use the net at work, but not at home.  One result of this is that I have read about a novel a night.  One result of THAT is that I've had some bizarre dreams. 
•  Last night, I had one that I was dating Mary Lou Retton, who was a champion ice skater (not a gymnast), and she and I were flying to Australia with my grandmother.  We flew on a giant 747-Tom (which is like a regular 747, except that the interior looks more like a sofa and recliner showroom, and--apparently--this 747 travels on Interstate highways).  At one point back in the USA, Mary Lou and I were driving down SR 20 outside Tallahassee, and we encountered a giant mountain of garbage on the road.  Try as I might, I just couldn't maneuver the USS Nimitz over the garbage mountain.  I remember thinking, as I sat there, wheels spinning futilely, "Well, THIS is a hella obvious dream image!"
• I've met Mary Lou Retton, by the way.  Somewhere, there is (or was) a picture of Mary Lou and I smiling together.  She's a good 20 inches shorter than I am.  I wish I had that pic.
• She was very nice in person (and in my dream), although she was a lot sexier as an ice skater than a gymnast. 
• She'd probably tell you I'm a lot sexier in my dream than in the U-92 lobby.
• Knowing that no-see-ums are genus Culecoides doesn't make their bites suck any less. 
• Like airplanes, mosquito gender is determined by whether the engines are on the wings or aft, next to the tail.
• Okay, that's not completely true.  You can tell gender because female mosquitoes have the last three abdominal segments inverted, which is where eggs are produced. 
• And they shave their legs.
• Not really. 
• The hairiest legs I've ever seen on a female were on a Psorophora ciliata who was sucking a quart of blood from my leg.
• The second-hairiest were on this girl named Anna H, whom I dated for a week and a half at FSU. 
• (This space left free for your own hairy-legged female/sucking comments:                                                                                                                                          )
• Thank you for your participation.
• It's been crazy here, but I'm pleased to report, 10 fingers, 10 toes, one belly button, and a steady pulse.
• Alas, I seem to have run out of workday.  Have a great and safe Labor Day Weekend.

I've been working like a kabillion extra hours the past few weeks, just trying to get ahead.  Or catch up.  Or something else entirely--I'm too frazzled and frappeed to know.  Anyway, herewith a few updates:

• Weird Dream #1 (prologue): As you know, my former partner in crime Ann Marie moved far, far away, specifically to South Park, as I call her new tiny California mountain town.  She sent me a picture of her new California driver's license, sort of a "Can you believe I actually live here now?" joke.  She's very happy, despite the hairy-legged hippie women who lead the Saturday library reading circle, reading to children books about commune life.  Okay, this is all reality.  The dream:
• Weird Dream #1 (really): Ann Marie and I were standing by our desks at Job #1, and she said something about how her husband was only "this tall" (her hand up to her breasts).  I said something suave like, "But you were made this tall for a reason" and kissed her.  Her face was just a little bit below mine. 
  
• It was a weird kiss, though, not at all romantic.  First off, we've never kissed, nor been tempted to do so.  A good partner-in-crime relationship transcends nookie.  Plus, she's happily married, and I respect that.  Secondly, she's just not that tall.  She must have been five-ten in this dream, then even taller with the high-heeled boots she was wearing.
  
• No, that's not some sort of ideation on my part: she did used to wear some high-heeled boots.  She probably only wears hemp Birkenstocks now, but back in the day... ;-) 
  
• Weird Dream #2: I was driving Carrie home from the airport, and we stopped at a little convenience store.  They had the new Minnie Mouse Florida Lottery scratch-off ticket, and I wanted to buy her one. (C is a big Minnie Mouse fan)  The girl behind the counter refused to sell me one unless I gave her my Social Security number.  Even though I saw this girl all the time--apparently, I'm a regular at this particular convenience store--I got very angry.  I asked why she needed my SSN, and she said it's because I might win up to a million bucks, so they'd need it for tax purposes.  I told her it was far more likely I wouldn't win shit, and that she didn't need my SSN for that.  She refused.  I wanted that damn ticket, but not enough to give out my SSN.  I huffed out and left, stealing a Diet Mountain Dew from the cooler en route.
• Things change.  This convenience store was at the corner of Swift and Wilkinson Roads in Sarasota, my hometown.  There is a small mechanic's shop there--or there used to be, at least--but I've never stopped there.  Swift and Wilkinson used to be tiny, quiet two-laned country roads.  Now Swift is a bustling traffic artery, and Wilkinson has been widened to four lanes. 
  
• My grandparents lived on Wilkinson.  Their house, which my grandfather built, sat on five acres of land.  The house and yard were two acres, I think, then there was a fenced-in pasture behind.  Now, it's a subdivision.  Their house is still there, but there are little cookie-cutter cinderblock starter homes all through their yard--where the orange grove and garden used to be--and the back pasture, where people used to board horses. 
  
• Things change. 
• I had some errands to run down Fourth Street here in Gomorrah today, and things had changed here.  Not the road itself--it was six lanes when I moved here 20 years ago, and it'll be six lanes when I die (or leave of my own volition)--but some of the businesses had changed. 
  
• Fourth Street had the bars I used to frequent--Bennigan's, Gamble's/Brophy's Dugout, Wannabee's--and the liquor stores I visited between bar stops.  There were places I always associate with my street, and they have changed.
  
• There are some places that are just perfect if you're drinking.  One of these was on Fourth: a combination Long John Silver's/KFC.  No combined fast-food joint I can imagine could provide more soothing, nutrient-negative grease  than this place.  One drive-thru, one endless choice of hangover-relief fried crap.  It's gone.  Now it's a freakin' Starbucks.
• Time was, this would have bothered me, but today, I'm more apt to visit a Starbucks than a KFC or a Long John Silver's anyway.
• Hap's Military Surplus? Not really a place I'd visit either drunk or sober, but I always liked that it was there.  One never knows when the need will arise for a set of jungle camouflage and a bayonet. Now, it's "Colors Coffehouse and Cafe."  Wha??? Could you make a bigger 180 than that?
  
• Hap, whoever he was, must be spinning in his military surplus grave somewhere.
• Then there's the Cow Store.  Okay, it's called The Farm Store, if you want to get technical.  It's a double drive-thru convenience store where you pay exorbitant prices not to have to get out of your car.  They have the basics--beer, cigarettes, milk, munchies, cat and dog fuel, bread, condoms, lottery tickets (no Minnie Mouse scratch-offs, though), and overpriced packets of medicines.  Need a bottle of NyQuil at 10:30 at night, but you feel too horrible to get out of your car? The Cow Store is your place.
• Anyway, I stopped there for a Diet Mountain Dew today.  Most things change; the Cow Store doesn't.
• However, adjacent to the Cow Store is a strange gypsy fortune-teller/crystal shop kind of store.  When I'd be returning from a long evening down Fourth at Wannabee's, this place freaked me out a bit.  In the window was a giant, red neon hand with an eye in the palm.  (shivers)  The gypsies, or whoever they were, have moved on. 
  
• The palm-reading/crystal store place is now gone.  Coming soon: a smoke shop. 
  
• I can only imagine the bong-peddlers insisted on retaining the neon eye-hand sign when they bought the joint.
• One last change.  Several years ago, Florida passed an amendment banning smoking in restaurants and some bars.  One last bastion of being able to smoke was the Family Billiard Center on Fourth, just north of the Cow Store.  They were proud of their status, even posting on their lighted sign, "Smokers still welcome here!" I never visited it when it was open.  It's been bought and remodeled.  What became of this unapologetic smoker's sanctuary?
• A damned health club.
  
• Things change.
  
• Also, weekends end.  I hope yours was a good one, and that you have a pleasant week.  Now let me hop in my Prius and go out for tofu.
  
• Just kidding.  You see, some things on Fourth Street will never change. 
  

• From the "The Crazy Shit you Remember" file: Brother Marky used to play baseball.  Quite well, actually.  Anyway, he had a Babe Ruth League game one Wednesday evening back in the day, and I rode to the ballpark with my parents.  My buddy Mike had just played a game before Mark's, and he was all excited to try out his new screwball.  Fernando Valenzuela was the new thing then, and he had a wicked screwgie.  Anyway, Mike and I were off throwing screwballs to each other.  It was a warm spring night, and the air smelled like a ballpark, one of nature's most perfect aromas--grass, clay, sweat, burgers cooking, peanut shells, dirt, and adrenaline.  The next morning at school, Mike and I were playing basketball with a bunch of our friends.  This jackass kid nobody liked tripped me when I was going for a lay-up, and I fell and broke the hell out of my right wrist.  The things you remember.
• I didn't like Fernando Valenzuela after that.
• I have always liked the Gin Blossoms, though.
• The Gin Blossoms' guitarist is Jesse Valenzuela.
• I don't know whether A) he's related to Fernando Valenzuela, or B) he can throw a screwball.
• Gin blossoms refer to the ruptured capillaries on the nose of one who drinks excessively (see: Fields, W.C.)
• The Gin Blossoms were formed in 1987 in Tempe.
• In 1987, I was in Tallahassee, and I didn't have any gin blossoms, although I could throw a pretty good screwball.
• Now, I have some gin blossoms; I like the proper noun Gin Blossoms, can't throw a screwball, and stopped drinking gin.
• Though you'd never know it from reading this blog.
• In honor of Independence Day, we've had a potluck type thing here at work.  As always, we're a bit dessert-heavy, with a couple of cheesecakes, an Italian Dream Cake, a fruit platter, a giganto birthday cake, a coconut custard pie, and other things my pancreas wouldn't allow me to examine. 
• One lady brought a huge crock pot full of Cuban black bean chili.  Woo-hoo!!! My plan was to eat about four bowls of that, then go home and create my own fireworks.
• Damn the luck, though, that masterful chili was all gone before I even got a spoonful.  However, big props to Linda for making the absolute greatest deviled eggs in the history of either the devil or eggs.
• Seriously, if Satan made these while preparing for a picnic, he'd call them Linda'd eggs in respectful tribute.
• Linda doesn't have any obvious gin blossoms.
• Her eggs, though.  OY!
• Okay, not her personal ova, but the deviled eggs she made.
• She said they were the easiest thing ever, containing horsey sauce, bacon, salt & pepper, and did I mention bacon?
• Adding bacon to eggs seems like a subtle perfecting of the existing chicken egg, and I mean no offense to chickens.  God forbid I offend the poultry-American community on Independence Day.  We damage human-poultry relations enough as it is.
• Another one from both the "Human-Poultry Relations Snafu" and "The Shit You Remember" files: One year, my family was in Ft Oglethorpe, Georgia, for Independence Day.  There was a big celebration in the Chickamauga National Battlefield.  My grandmother packed a picnic of fried severed chicken parts, Golden Flake potato chips, and Coca-Cola in those little 6.5 oz glass bottles.  The Chattanooga Symphony Orchestra played, and there were fireworks.  Being there on that blood-hallowed ground, Civil War cannons still scattered throughout verdant fields, eating that quintessentially Southern American meal while fireworks exploded and patriotic melodies soared, my patriotism swelled.
• My greatest fireworks experience was after the U-92 Tenth Anniversary Beach Blast, a big concert we staged on Clearwater Beach.  Predictably for an August concert, a giant thunderstorm came blasting through before the headliners were able to play, thus ruining our giant fireworks finale over the Gulf.  Well, here's the problem.  With all the lightning and ozone in the air (so the tetchy pyrotechnics guy said), the fireworks were unstable, and there was "No damn way (he was) driving them sumbitches back across the bridge in (his) truck.  That shit could explode at any time."  By this point, the crowd was gone, and Digger the promotions guy and I had taken down all our stuff.  Mike the Engineer, aka "Gorgonzola Monster Boy," asked Mr Tetchy 'Splosion Guy what we should do.  "Best thing is just blow the fuckers up." 
• I should mention that Mike the Engineer had given two weeks notice two weeks before that night.  He didn't really care if the lingering dozen or so station VIP's and sponsors snootily lolling about the hospitality tent would be scared.  In fact, all the better. 
• "Go right ahead!"
• The fireworks display was to have been twelve minutes long.  I know this, because I had spent a few hours Friday painstakingly editing together a 12 minute musical montage to accompany it.  The annoying station brass and sponsors didn't know what hit them, and somehow we'd neglected to give them a heads-up.  The 12-minutes worth of fireworks were launched and exploded in about 25 seconds. 
• The Apocalypse will have to work mighty hard to outdo this.  It was jarringly, violently beautiful, like nuclear explosions.
• Thank God I don't have any nuclear explosion stories to share.
• I should note that my buddy Mike from school and baseball is NOT Mike the Engineer, aka "Gorgonzola Monster Boy."
• My buddy Mike went on to coach high school baseball, and there are few greater motherlodes of colorful language than baseball people.  Their expressions transcend the narrow ballet of ball and bat, forging into every facet of life, including meteorology.  For example:

The Weather Channel: "There were heavy downpours."

Baseball people: "It rained like a cow pissing on a flat rock."

• That night, my buddy Mike would have told Gorgonzola Monster Boy Mike that "It's raining like piss from a boot."
• States I've been in: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Colorado, California, Hawaii, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Indiana, and Michigan.
• Maybe Ohio, too: I'm not sure.
• Things change.  Many of the states I've been to were once fighting each other right on that Civil War battlefield where we had that picnic long ago.  My grandmother and grandfather are buried maybe fifteen miles north of there, in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. 
• The Chattanooga National Cemetery was established Christmas Day in 1863.  By 1870, more than 12,800 folks had taken up residence there, 4189 of whom were unknown.  There are actual German POWs buried there, too: 183 of them from World War 1 and World War 2. 
• Just to be clear, my grandfather was a World War 2 veteran from the United States Army, and NOT a German POW.
• The last time I was at the Chattanooga National Cemetery was when we buried my grandmother on April 1, 1993.  It was ridiculously cold (Baseball term: "Cold as a witch's tit"), and I'd left the houseful of mourners by myself, just so I could hot-box a few cigarettes before the funeral.  I parked next to this beautiful valley, and all at once it started to snow.  Just a tiny flurry that didn't stick to anything, but I smiled through my misery.  This was just how my grandmother would've said "howdy" when I was sneaking cigarettes before her funeral.
• Today there are over 43,000 bodies buried in the Chattanooga National Cemetery.  Watching over them since 1879 is a large monument erected by the State of Ohio.
• Ohio is next to Indiana, which is where my buddy Mike now lives.
• Ohio was also the home of a judge with the impressive name Kenesaw Mountain Landis.  Judge Landis was named after Kennesaw Mountain, from which his father and fellow Ohioan was shot during the Civil War. Landis pere was extremely pissed off that he left most of one leg in the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain, thus he named his son after it, just as sort of a sick memorial.
• I suppose it would be like me naming my son "Fournier's Gangrene Melancholy Socially Retarded Drunkard" (Biff, for short).  
• Anyway, Kenesaw Mountain Landis went on to be one of the most revered and influential baseball commissioners in history.  His biggest achievement was maintaining the game's integrity following the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. 
• His second? The phrase, "busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."
• Happy Birthday America, and I hope everyone has a safe, happy weekend.

• I've determined that it's neither NyQuil nor spicy food that produces my odd dreams.  It's my odd brain.
• The other night, I read a friend's post about her loyal, long-suffering Subaru finally needing to be replaced.  It has served her well, and she wrote a lovely remembrance of her vehicle, and despaired of having to find a new car with as much coolness.
• This led me to think about the Spudmobile, Mustard Monster, Rice Rocket, Stealth Car, Bubba, and the current USS Nimitz, and how well each of those vehicles carried me safely through my various adventures.
  
• Then I went to sleep, and had a dream that I'd taken my Grandfather's loyal, long-suffering, and tragically unnamed Toyota wagon to the mechanic for some work.  The mechanic and I were scheming how best to take the car away from my Grandfather, so that I could enjoy the 35 mpg and reliability instead when I went back to FSU next semester.  At the core was the mechanic's inability to fix the car before I needed to leave.  This is because the fan belt was made largely of mercury, and had to be replaced with another, which would require a week or more to acquire.  The mechanic and I both agreed that Grandpa shouldn't be driving it anymore.  Grandpa, after all, was prone to getting lost and driving hundreds of miles with his turn-signal flashing disingenuously.  Also, in my reasoning, Grandpa shouldn't be driving the car anymore since he's been dead nearly a decade.
  
• Weird dream.  Good car, though.
• I'd probably have named it Blackie 2, because it's black, and Eric Clapton already used Blackie for his 1970's and 80's Fender Stratocaster.
  
• A new Toyota Venzi station wagon starts at around $26,000.
• Eric Clapton's Blackie sold at auction for $959,500.
• My brother's car was named "Thundersnow," until a nagging mechanical problem caused him to revoke that proud moniker, and rename it "The Former Thundersnow."
• I don't even know what color The Former Thundersnow is.
• I do remember that, after eating a bunch of really good chili, I once farted so loudly that it awakened my brother in another room.  He wouldn't care that I don't know what color Thundersnow is, but he'd be mortified if I forgot my own legendary case of butt-thunder.
  
• This says lots about the nature of the brotherly relationship.
  
• I also had a dream that I was under the gun writing a paper on how big businesses work.  This struck me as odd, because in my current job, I'm learning lot about how Job #1--a truly big business--works. 
  
• It was also odd because Mrs. McCormick was teaching this class, and she taught Political Science.  She's a wise woman, but I wouldn't think she'd be teaching about big businesses. 
  
• My friend Ali had Mrs McCormick imbue her with social studies wisdom five days a week, then when she went to Sunday School, there was Mrs McCormick teaching Bible stories and catechism.  I told Ali she should have taken tap-dancing lessons, just to see if Mrs McCormick taught that as well.
• Actually, once, back in seventh grade, a bunch of the girls were doing Double-Dutch jump rope.  Mrs McCormick jumped right in, and was just double-Dutching the hell out of it.  We were all shocked and awed.  Although the thought kinda weirds me out, it wouldn't surprise me if Mrs McCormick could teach jazz-tap.
  
• Mrs McCormick was also the first person I heard who said "Warshington" instead of "Washington." She was still okay in my book, especially after seeing her jump rope.
• She didn't have a Jesus fish on her car, though.  I mention this, because I saw a Jesus fish on somebody's car yesterday, and I noticed that there was a little Cross where the eye would be.  I don't know if these have always been there and I couldn't focus on them, or if this is a special design Jesus fish. 
  
• Either way, all I could think was that Jesus would likely hate his representative fish symbol being Cross-eyed. (rimshot)
• None of my vehicles have ever had Jesus fishes on them, nor the Darwin footed-fish, or even a simple bumper sticker.  People are sufficiently dumb-assed while driving without me giving them anything more to distract them.
  
• In the spirit of full disclosure, I HAVE eaten fish sandwiches in each of my cars.
  
• This wasn't an actual nightmare, but it would be: we've all seen how IM-text has invaded our written language.  There are zillions of kids who have to be reminded not to use OMG and brb and lol, etc, in proper scholarly writing.  What if it goes beyond  English papers? What if you get a bunch of text-headed twitterers in taxonomy? Instead of a tiger being family Felidae, it would end up being family Stripey.  Instead of Panthera tigris, the great cat could end up being RAWR omfg. 
  
• Well, this would probably bother me more  than most people, just because I had to learn the existing Linnean taxonomy system for a previous job. 
  
• I'd like to see somebody try to slap a Jesus fish on a tiger, be it  Panthera tigris  or RAWR omfg. 
  
• Just because we change the name of an animal doesn't change its nature.
  
• I'm sure the tiger would prefer NOT to be classified as RAWR omfg, though.
• Finally, here's another lovely installment of our ongoing "Cool Places in Washington (or Warshington) State" photo series, this one from the northern Washington area called "Victoria British Columbia."  Have a great weekend. 

• 

  Japanese Maple and Creek, Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

  3 comments
  
  

• I just woke up from a lovely nap, wherein I had another strange dream.  Apparently, my dreamstate Tom is stuck in these X-Files type things, even without NyQuil.  This one involved the search for an engagement ring.  Actually, we'd found the ring, Scully and I, and we knew that the presumptive groom wanted to give said ring to his woman.  However, there was all kinds of subterfuge and intrigue.  The guy had given her the ring before, see, right before some act of flimflammerous fuckery occurred.  Then, after time had passed, healing her bitterness and allowing their love to respark, he wanted to give her the ring.  But he couldn't find the right ring! So, he was going to give her a different ring that looked like the original.
• So why was I investigating this? And why was Rachel Dratch from SNL my Agent Scully for this dream?
• The problem is that the replacement ring violated California's Prop 65.  There was a chance the fiancee would go to California with that ring on, and it would've caused the entire state to break out in tumors.  So we had to chase him down, which involved go-carts on a dirt track, but the go-carts managed to reveal the real ring.  Rachel Dratch Scully found it, actually.  We took it to the lab, which confirmed its cornthenticity. 
  
• We did get the ring back to the weasel, and he had it in plenty of time to get engaged before the world ended.  That's the other part.  If we didn't facilitate this engagement with the correct ring, the Mayan 2012 doomsday would have moved up, and we'd all be toast.
• What 2012 doomsday?
  
• Why, the one that will destroy the entire planet and all of its inhabitants, thank you very much.  This film trailer will explain it all.
• Or, actually, it doesn't.  It seems like a couple of mountain-dwelling monks destroy earth by ringing a giant bell.  This causes the oceans to overspill the mountains, thus screwing all of us non-gilled animals out of our dotages.
• The Mayan Long Count Calendar has December 21, 2012 penciled in as the last day. 
  
• I encounter sufficient semi-annual trauma with the change to Daylight Saving Time.  Imagine how screwed up I'll be when the Cosmic Year ends. 
  
• I speak, of course, of the 26,000 year long Precession of the Equinoxes, which ends on 21 December, 2012.
• And I thought the procession at my college graduation was long.
  
• To summarize, really bad things could happen (movie trailer scenario, various doomsday theories, religious apocalypse), or we could simply be transcending into a more advanced level of being, perhaps with a return of psychic abilities and universal health care.
• Or nothing unusual will happen.
  
• Either way, instead of Prop 65, I recommend Funk 49.  I put more credence in 35 year old Joe Walsh songs than in millenia old calendars. 
  
• Speaking of rocks, I started my new supervisor position at Job #1 on Sunday.  The people are very nice, the work interesting and challenging, and I was given a "work wife," a lovely 5'11" tall Wiccan with lots of tattoos and a scathing sense of humor.  She's very nice, and has a real-life husband she adores.  My purpose is to provide hugs and dancing partnership as needed, this since I'm the only one on the team taller than she is.  This is fine with me.
• So my work wife collects rocks.  Not in the geological geeky way I did as a sprat, but she collects rocks from different places in the world.  If you have a stone you'd like to contribute, please PM me for my address.  Thanks in advance.
• Life is good tonight: ten fingers, ten toes, one belly button, and a steady pulse.  I'm glad.
  
• After all, if there are only about 44 months left on this ride, I'm damn sure going to ac-cent-chu-ate the positive.
• And keep taking my meds.  ;-)   Happy Thursday.
  

• I hate allergies.  Everyone does, but I swear to Mr Greenthumb, plants the world over visit Florida to spew pollen all over everything.
• Come to think of it, college students and tourists the world over visit Florida and spew pollen all over everything.
• So I've been alternating Bendadryl and NyQuil, trying to beat the sneezysnottyticklecoughiness, and this has produced some, um, odd dreams.
• I keep having weird mystery dreams.  I'm tossed into odd situations, and characters disappear and reappear over time.  Also, there will be snakes in the swimming pool, and strange, Dick Tracy movie colors.  Plus, of course, the typical scene where I have to climb up a telephone pole.  Why? Well, why else? I have to go through the little opening into the air-duct, because that's the only way to enter the loft where the party is.  Only--duh!--Keith Richards is there, and whenever I meet up with Keef, we end up shooting the shit for awhile.  He was asking about the gay couple who lived in the loft, specifically whether "that bloke's boy" will ever turn up alive.  Then he aked me who my cell-phone provider is (T-Mobile) and when I start my new job (Sunday).  I asked him something about Rickie Lee Jones, and he said, "Never made that bird." I rolled my eyes, said goodbye, and moved on into the loft.
• "That bloke's boy" did show up, and Agent Scully (played by the girl who played Cassie on "Buffy" (Azura Skye is her name)) and I had blueberry scones with the happy couple, then left through the front door.  I don't know why Keith Richards had told me we had to enter through the air duct.  He was probably high, I suppose.
  
• I swear, it's like the old NBC Sunday Mystery lineup, where it was "McCloud" one week, then "McMillan and Wife" the next, then "Columbo."  Only I end up with Keith Richards in an air duct, garish colors, and a different Agent Scully every week (sadly, it's never Gillian Anderson). 
  
• Then again, maybe all the sneezysnottyticklecoughiness results from all the mowing.  Specifically...

• I know animals use their "displays" of plumage and colors and whatnot to attract mates, but I wonder if their appreciation goes beyond that
• I wonder if ducks ever think, "Damn, Frank.  That was a helluva graceful landing," or if gaggles of peahens cluck cattily to each other, "Did you see those dilapidated tail feathers on Mike? As IF I'd let his cloaca near my eggs!"
• It's been proven that various foods cause our urine to smell odd (asparagus, eg). 
  
• Dogs communicate through smell.
• Thus, if we switch our dogs' food, could that screw up their communication? "No, Fifi! I DO love you! It's just that my human started feeding me Beneful, and the shit has asparagus in it! No, FIFI! COME BACK!"
• Also, do whipoorwills ever listen and think, "Wow.  Earline over in the mangrove stand has a killer set of pipes?"
• What about mockingbirds mocking each other: "Good Lord, Herb.  You're FLAT! Always flat! You sound like that human, Bob Dylan."
• After mating, does a female duck still look at male ducks and think, "You know? Before I squeezed out three clutches of eggs, I could've had a guy with neck plumage like that."
  
• Does her husband look at younger female ducks, and lament the stretched out cloaca on his mate?
• Eagles mate for life.  Do they ever hire Peregrine Falcons to kack their mates? "Just another week, Bill.  I had my brother talk to some friends of his, and they'll get rid of Irving soon.  Then we'll be together forever."
• If I were a vulture, but then again no.  Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show.
• Sorry.  I get up to fetch a glass of water, and Elton John takes over my keyboard.
• Seriously, if I were a vulture, I'd mess with people.  I'd circle overhead at their picnics and such.  Or sit on the fence and stare at their elderly folks and little kids.  Just to creep them out.
• I wonder if vultures know how much they creep people out.
  
• I have no doubt kittens know they're cute.  They use their cuteness.  If they didn't, they'd have been eliminated long ago.
• Brussels Sprouts not only look like tiny cabbages, they have all of the vitamins and flatulence-producing power of cabbages, only in a tiny package.
• This "fun size mini-cabbage" would be great, except that people typically eat more than just one Brussels Sprout at a time. 
  
• When I was, um, "on vacation" a few years ago, they made the most delicious Brussels Sprouts I've ever encountered.  The meds I was on made it seem like a good plan to eat a large plateful of these oven-roasted, tender, slightly sweet delights.
• A couple hours later, I was napping in my room, when I heard a loud trumpet sound, and an Apocalyptic demon flew out of my ass, picked me up, and tossed me across the room.  It then went all Buffy the Vampire Slayer on me.
• The demon kicked me in the stomach, then ran out the door.  A fire alarm went off, and haz-mat teams rushed in wearing full protective white suits.  I was thrown down on the floor, and firefighters sprayed foam all over my smoldering ass.  Police riot squads evacuated a half-mile radius from my room, and the President was scrambled  aboard Air Force One as a protective measure.  The bomb squad gingerly carried me out into their bomb-truck, and I was carefully transported to an abandoned airstrip outside town.  The Army Corps of Engineers put up a protective shield for the munitions crew to hide behind, and a man in full armor wheeled me about 300 yards down the empty runway.  He trailed wire behind him.  I didn't know why.  When he got back behind the protective shield, a loud horn sounded, then I heard a spark from behind me.  All at once, a hundred foot high jet of blue fire shot out of my ass, followed by a giant cloud of noxious green smoke.  For two hours, this smoke billowed, before it gradually abated.  When the smoke was mostly gone, a fire crew rushed up and doused me with water.  An ambulance transported me back to my room.  During that afternoon's thermogenic nightmare, most of my cellular fluids had evaporated, thus leaving me dessicated and rattly like a dried seed pod.  When I was carried back to my room--they used a pair of barbecue tongs, since I only weighed 8 oz, and nobody wanted to touch me--a nurse gently placed an IV into my charred shell of an arm.  They ran about 200 gallons of fluids back into me, and when I woke up, I was back to normal. 
  
• Well, the Brussels Sprouts did give me a bunch of gas, but I'm skeptical the previous paragraph actually occurred.
• I think that instead of being selected as a Saint, God allows certain people to forego the whole celestial prefect thing, and instead allows people to create a plant or animal of their choosing. 
  
• This would explain the Venus Flytrap and Duck-Billed Platypus.

"No, Boss.  Instead of being a Saint, I'd like to design a mammal that lays eggs."
"Check."
"And it has a bill like a duck."
"Um, okay."
"And a giant poisonous spur."
"Done."
"And it can fly."
"Don't get carried away there, Chucky."

• I think I'd blow-off Sainthood and design a Cheetos tree.  Those who harvested them would have perpetually orange fingers, and probably get some sort of cheesy tumor from inhaling Cheetos dust all day.
  

• Actually, my ideal afterlife would be a giganto resort.  If you were selfless in your life--like Mother Teresa--you'd get a kick-ass suite, tickets for all the best shows, and an American Express Black Card.  If you were mostly a bastard, you'd get a crappy room next to the ice machine, and you'd be on waitlists for even lousy tickets.  And food? Hah.  An afterlifetime of vending machine snacks.  If you really sucked during your life, you'd end up working at the resort doing landscaping or busing tables, or you'd be a barback in the tiki lounge.  You'd have to wear a uniform, and you wouldn't make enough to stay at the resort.  You'd have to live in some dive-ass apartment nearby, probably with a roommate who smoked generic cigarettes.
  

•  And if you were truly evil, that roommate would eat nothing but Brussels Sprouts.
• Happy Friday.
  

First off, I want to post this image, which I've used before, but which sums up rather nicely what's going on in my snot-packed brain right now:

NyquilBG

• I think there's a correlation between ugliness and guitar skills.  The uglier the guitarist, the better he or she plays.  Hendrix? Keith Richards? Great guitarists, but ugly.  Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles? Cute as a bug, but not a great guitarist. 
  
• That said, the most impressive rock guitarist to me is Brian May from Queen.  He played very well, including some beautiful solos.  He made a freakin' fortune.  Also? He has a PhD in Astronomy.  A real, honest-to-God dissertation and all Doctorate.  Nobody called him "Slowhand," but the man is a genius.
• I'm typically scared of women named Polly.
• This is partially because the only two Polly's who come to mind are Underdog's girlfriend and Polly Holliday, who played Flo on "Alice," neither of whom especially did anything positive for me. 
  
• The other reason is because of Polycillin, a horrible pink medicine I used to have to take as a kid. 
  
• If Satan were a woman, Her breast milk would taste like Polycillin.
• Imagine a puddle of the most horrific stuff you can imagine.
• Polycillin tastes like the mold that grows on it.
• Plus, did I mention it was a garish pink? 
  
• *shudders*
• If Polycillin had been named "Jessicacillin," it wouldn't have affected me this way.  There are plenty of lovely Jessicas (Alba, Lange, and Rabbit, eg) who would preclude the negative association. 
  
• Pollys are doomed, though.
• One of the funniest things I've heard was that Mary Tyler Moore's nickname for Dick van Dyke was "Penis von Lesbian." They are still good friends.
• His nickname for her is "Mary Tyler Annoying bitch."
• Just kidding.
• Seriously, though.  I don't trust Mary Tyler Moore.  Not after I saw her in "Ordinary People."  She was icy and evil.
  
• She may as well be named Polly.
• This is an Aedes aegyptii mosquito:

Aedes

• I can't help but think that if it had been designed by a corporation, it would be covered not in lovely iridescent scale patches, but in sponsorship decals like a NASCAR racecar.

Petty43

• That's the Pontiac King Richard Petty--the Tiger Woods of 1970's and 80's stock car racing--used to win at Talladega in 1984.
• Richard Petty would've kicked Ricky Bobby's ass.
• Come to think of it, an Aedes aegyptii could kick Ricky Bobby's ass, if it were infected with yellow fever.
  
• (note: if the Aedes aegyptii were infected with yellow fever; not if Ricky Bobby's ass were infected with yellow fever)
• irony: Stock cars use tires.  Aedes aegyptii breed in old tires from cars.
  
• NASCAR fans breed in the back seats of cars.
• Thankfully, nothing I've done in the back seats of cars has resulted in actual spawning.  
• When I was in the Abyss over the weekend, I watched a few Fantasy Island reruns on hulu.com. 
  
• This brought to mind three observations.  First, Fantasy Island was a much better show when I was a kid than it is now. 
  
• That said...second, Ricardo Montalban is suaver on his worst day than I'll ever be on my best.
  
• Third, I was 100% correct to have a crush on Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary Ingalls in "Little House on the Prairie"):

Mary-ingalls-in-dress

1 comment

• Meow. 
  
• note: She was a grown-up on the Fantasy Island episode.  This is how I remember her when I was a little kid and loved her. 
  
• I would gladly have taken Melissa Suecillin for whatever ailment I had.
  
• When I was having my taxes done yesterday, the lady asked me four different times if I was in the military.  After the third time, I said, "Did you see me enlist in the three minutes since last you asked me?"
• She didn't detect my sarcasm.
• This might have cost me $100 in refunds.
• Her name was most certainly Polly.
• Happy Tuesday.