I suppose we do use our land line once in a while - Noah uses it to fax, I use it with my calling card when I'm too cheap to pay for daytime cell minutes, and Scooter uses it when she loses her cell phone three times per week. But nobody answers it, nobody checks the messages, and I'm not even completely sure all four roommates even know the number. If it wasn't so cheap, we probably wouldn't even have one.

Case in point: When I was in Chicago in late August, I called the house phone to see if anybody could get me from the airport. Obviously, nobody answered. But when the answering machine picked up, instead of the usual "Hey, you're reached Paul, Noah, Brian and Kolleen… Sam, Gabe and JD are dead to us. MOTED!" I got the following:

"[Screaming] Yo! [More screaming. Loud music]. This is Joann, Craig, Rufus… Whattup!... [Screaming]… and Some Other Guy. Leave a message! [Blood-curdling yell]."

Confused, I tried again, with the same result. When I later got a hold of Noah and asked about this, he explained.

"Oh yeah, some people did that during a party. I think they were drunk and just made up some names."

That made sense, as I didn't know anybody named Joann, Craig, Rufus, Whattup, or Some Other Guy. But one mystery remained.

"Now, I know nobody ever calls the house phone," I pursued. "But how long has that been our outgoing message? What party was this?"

"I think it was our 4th of July party," Noah replied, after a minute. "Yeah, that was the one."

No wonder nobody calls us.

T9Word Story - 10/4/05
The theme of this week's posts will be phones.

Anybody out there love text-messaging as an excuse not to talk to people, raise their hands. That's right, all of you. And anybody out there love T9Word, also known as Predictive Text, to make this process quicker and easier? OK, some of you.

Given the way predictive text works, sometimes you come across a word that T9 recognizes as something else, based on the duplicate letter layout. For example, IF always comes out HE. HE you want to type a conditional statement, it's very difficult. Another example is NIGHT coming out MIGHT. I stayed up all MIGHT trying to figure that one out.

I found another one today while I was waiting in line at the store. A rather obscure one, actually, though I still haven't broken the 6-letter barrier... GAMES comes out HANDS. "Damnit, cellphone!" I exclaimed. "Stop playing HANDS with me!"

Just then, former roommate Brian texted me (for foreshadowing purposes, Brian is half-Japanese). As he is an avid T9er himself, I thought I should let him in on my new little discovery. But when I looked up from my flurry of T9ing, I found another interesting discovery, waiting for me on the screen...

"Hey ASIAN, I found something cool that T9 does."

T9Word Challenge - 10/5/05
In light of yesterday's post about "Brian" being "Asian" in T9, I've received a slew of other suggestions about predictively-confused words. And of course, being a huge raging nerd, I uncovered a few more myself. Here's a sampling:

So here's the challenge - what's the longest pair of T9-identical words you can come up with? This challenge has two sub-points:

A) What's the longest pair, period? So far the record is "Ringing/Siinging". No proper names, please - otherwise I think there's a bar called the "Yardhouse" that would win with its T9 match to "Warehouse".

B) Since "Ringing/Singing" is obviously very cheap (so is "Biking/Bikini" for that matter, although I like the way the two go together), the other part of the challenge is to come up with the longest pair of T9-matching words that have a difference of at least three letters. For instance, "Games/Hands", which is currently the record.

Email me your answers! The winner will be proclaimed this month's Genius of the Month^TM.

T9Word Foiled - 10/7/05
So Jeremy, who's even more of a raging nerd than I am, has ruined my "Who Can Find the Longest T9 Word-Match" game by running it through a computer program that generates every T9 match ever. The longest one is "Claustrophobia/claustrophobic," weighing in at 14 letters. But, like most of the other top 100 words on the list, it's pretty lame - they don't start getting interesting until "Substation/starvation" and "September/sequences". Still, I like the ring some of them would make in a sentence, like "The victimizer victimizes" or "Surrender your suspenders!"

Thus, a new game: Who Can The Most Numerically Repetitive Word? As you may have noticed in typing certain words like "Noon" (6666), some words are very slick in T9. I guess this is a contest to no longer find the worst words for T9, but the best words. Some examples:

Tomorrow
86666769

Noon, Moon, or Mono
6666

Lighting
5444464

Abracadabra
22722232272

And this last one's not just a best word… it's a magic word.

T9Word... Out of Control - 10/9/05
It started out as just words. Numerically repetitive ones that were really good in T9.

Nightlight
6444854448

Then I started doing sentences.

Not now, tomorrow
668 669, 86667769

Then it spiraled out of control. I couldn't help myself. I did one for every number.

Mostly 2's
Can Bach grab a cab?
226 2224 4722 2 222?

Mostly 3's
We fed Ed beef
93 333 33 2333

Mostly 4's
Hi, I got in a fight tonight
44, 4 468 46 2 34448 8664448

Mostly 5's
Jill licks
5455 54257

Mostly 6's
No moons on my spoon!
66 66667 66 69 77666!

Mostly 7's
Sara sees a quasar at 7 parsecs
7272 7337 2 782727 28 7 7277327

Mostly 8's
U luv tv
8 588 88 (Sorry about that one)

Mostly 9's
Why Zzyzx Way?
949 99999 929?

Yes, this actually is a road. Here's proof, thanks to my friend Treem.

I think my obsession with T9 has now surpassed my obsession with bullet point song lyrics and people with the same name as me.

Just try to ruin my fun now, Jeremy.

Speaking of Phone Quirks... - 10/10/05
In addition to having T9 word-comprehension problems, my phone also has a voice-activated calling feature that is at times very convenient and at other times very annoying. For example, when I'm driving, I don't have to scroll through numbers or anything - I can just tap a button and say "Call Someone", and then say "Home". The robot-sounding voice with then ask me "Did you say (switching to deeper robot-voice) 'Home'?" Then I just say "Yes", and I'm connected.

Unfortunately, the robot in my phone could benefit from an intensive Hooked-On-Phonics program, because it seems unable to understand or pronounce certain names. For example, it pronounces "Greenspan" as "Greenspun", and "Verde" (VERD-ee) as simply "Verd".

So now I have to mispronounce all my friends' names if I want my phone to call them. And it's started to overlap into my everyday conversations with them. "Hey Gen-yuh (pronounced with a hard "G", instead of "Jenya", as it should be), have you talked to Eye-lana (Ilana) lately?"

At least is pronounces the name of my friend Wesche (WESH-ee) as "Wesh", which is what I call him anyway.

Hair's Your Post - 10/11/05
A friend Jen and I were involved in a rather tangential discussion yesterday when we came upon the subject of stupidly named Barbershops. Apparently, she gets her hairs trimmed at a place called Hair Is Us, which as near as I can tell is a lazy rip-off of another follicle-snipping joint I've seen called Hair We Are. It occured to us that perhaps as many as 50% of barbershops have such terrible, pun-ridden names as these... including, but not limited to

Barbershop Names I Have Actually Seen:
- Cost Cutters
- Hair We Are
- Hair Is Us
- Hairizons

I'm sure there are more. At least, I hope there are, because otherwise the barbering-industry has left out such potential gems as

Barbershop Names I Wish I Had Seen:
- Barber for pets: The Tortoise and the Hair
- Barber for victims of male-pattern baldness: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow (Credit to Jen for this one)
- Wedding-day barber: Hair Comes the Bride
- Extra-discount barber: Hair Goes Nothing
- Barbershops offering facials: Hair We Come
- Barbershop sponsored by early 1980's cartoons: Hairbear Stare
- Barbershop were they make inappropriate innuendos at you: Sexual Hairassment
- Use Your Imagination: Hairmaphrodite
- Barbershop/STD Clinic: I Have Hairpes

Yup. Wouldn't want those babies to go to waste.

Fast Fast Food Post - 10/13/05
I was sitting in line at the Drive-In at TBell last night (what else is new), when the guy in line ahead of me received his drink cup from the order window.

He then reached into his car, and handed an In'N'Out Burger cup to the drive-in woman. I guess to throw away, but perhaps there was still liquid inside.

I though it might have been barter at first... until he reached back into his car, and handed up a Carl's Junior cup.

Then he reached into his car a third time, and handed up a McDonald's cup.

What was this guy on, a tour or something?

Airplane Trail Mix - 10/14/05
I'm currently in Michigan for my college friend Kristian's wedding. First of all, congrats Kristian.

On the airplane here, while taking full advantage of the flight's complimentary budget service, I noticed that I hadn't gotten any snack. Thinking it merely an oversight, I waited patiently until the stewardess returned for a second go-round. Again, no snack. I realize the bag-of-peanuts has long been phased out by many airlines in favor of the more cost-effective bag-of-pretzels, but I didn't get any of the cheap cylindrical pretzel blobs they put in dishes at shitty bars. Nothing.

I spoke up. The stewardess informed me that despite the flight's four-hour duration, there would be no complimentary snack. The only option was, she told me, to buy trail mix for a dollar.

I guess times have been really tough on Northwest Airlines when they can't even fork out for pretzels on cross-country flights. I was really hungry, but being inherently stingy myself, I stared at her calculatingly.

"How MUCH trail mix?" I asked, stroking my chin.

But then it occurred to me that times haven't been nearly has hard on me as they have been on NWA, and I relented.

"You know what?" I reversed. "Nevermind. I'll TAKE that trail mix. I can spare it."

The stewardess looked almost grateful, and she went away with my dollar to get me my trail mix, which, I must admit, came in a satisfactorily large bag. And it had cashews.

Juxtaposition - 10/17/05
This weekend was my friend Kristian's wedding. Kris and I lived in the same hall freshman and sophomore year of college, were nearly roommates the latter year, and shared an apartment senior year with three other dorm friends, including our buddy Greg. After graduation, Greg introduced Kris to a high-school friend of his named Courtney, and it was love at first sight. On Saturday, Kris and Courtney were married.

My cousin Brennan's wedding this summer marked the first wedding of my adult life, but Kris's wedding was the first wedding of a friend. It was also something of a college reunion party. Thus, as you might imagine, the weekend was a pendulum of alcohol-fueled reminiscence of collegiate times, juxtaposed with the often-emotional realization that we're all starting to reach new places our lives, where we begin to leave such times behind. We're several years out of college now. We all have jobs, responsibilities, and real lives. And yet we're also still endlessly amused by poop jokes.

There were about eight of us from our freshman year dorm sitting at the same table at the reception, and we made it our mission to take more advantage of the open bar than any other table. Possibly combined. This we did, but what we drank served not only as fuel for later drunken dancing, but also as fuel for tears at one of the most touching set of wedding speeches we'd ever seen. The bride's and groom's fathers cried. Their older brothers cried. Kris cried, something I'd never seen before. We all cried. And we loved every second of it.

I've always been fascinated with the contrast between human emotion and human logic. Our logic is what makes us go to college, get jobs, and survive. But our emotion is what makes us make friends, fall in love, and cry at weddings. As someone who loves doing SAT math problems yet has abandoned economic security to pursue a career of telling the emotion stories of life through writing, this contrast has always been especially real to me. Call it Thinking vs. Feeling. Call it Head vs. Heart. It seems that in our information age, we'd sometimes rather have the head than the heart. A systematic thinker who masks emotion is preferable to an irrational romantic who relinquishes reason to the emotional eruption of their volcanic heart. And yet as we all sat there, a part of the roller coaster of two families' love and memories, goodbyes to old lives and hellos to new ones, all I could think of was how much I was enjoying the ride.

Kris and Corky, congratulations, and thank you for reminding us all why it's good to be human.

Pranks - 10/18/05
Among the inane topics of conversation that came up this weekend at Kristian's wedding was the subject of practical jokes. Thankfully, none were played: it would have been a bummer to endure the wedding reception with my head super-glued to a pillow. But the inspiration of Greg and all his Seaholm High cronies gave me an excuse to catalogue a few of the better practical jokes and pranks I've heard of/participated in. So here you go, in Top Ten List style:

#10 - The Garbage Can Full of Dirty Water Leaning Against the Door. It's pretty much what it sounds like - you fill a garbage bin (the bigger the better) full of filthy water (and/or urine) and lean it up against the outside of someone's dorm room or bedroom door. When they open their door (it only works for doors opening into the room), they get 30 gallons of sludgy liquid all over their feet/carpet. Some freshmen attempted to do this to me in my old fraternity days, but fortunately for them their balance was off, and the can tipped back up and righted itself in the middle of the night.
Clean-up Factor: 4; Hilarity Factor: 3

#9 - The Identical Computer Desktop Background. Inspired by my post on this back in March, my friend Sean did this to his friend Kristian, who spent an hour on the phone with tech support until Sean finally told him what the problem with his computer was..
Clean-up Factor: 5; Hilarity Factor: 2

#8 - The Upper Decker, or the Dry Dock. Greg claims this to be the perfect revenge when you're at someone's party and they're mean to you. Simply use their bathroom and let one loose, not in the regular toilet bowl, but in the toilet tank up back (the Upper Deck). Just remove the lid, go, replace the lid, and bolt… your housewarming present will never get flushed down, and will continue to stink and not be found until a plumber discovers it in 4-6 weeks. See, I told you still think poop-jokes are funny.
A variation is this is the Dry Dock, which is achieved by disconnecting the water supply to the toilet bowl, then pinching a loaf directly onto the porcelain of the now-empty bowl. My brothers and I almost did this on the last day of a cruise to avenge ourselves on the unfriendly house staff, but eventually decided the turd we left was unconstitutional. That is, it was so horrendously and unfairly foul that it actually violated the Constitution, on the basis of being cruel and unusual punishment. Too cruel to even inflict on someone who'd confiscated a quarter of our Vodka supply.
Clean-up Factor: 6/1; Hilarity Factor: 6

#7 - The Chicken Shower. I've never heard of anyone actually doing this, but apparently if you unscrew a showerhead and cram in a couple of chicken bouillon cubes, the next person in there will get a nice shower of chicken broth. Yummy. A variation involves cramming the showerhead with red Kool-Aid powder, which tends to stain.
Clean-up Factor: 3; Hilarity Factor: 6

#6 - The Tire Removal From a Parked Car. Self-explanatory. One of Greg's friends says they did this to some guy in college, then sent him on a treasure hunt to find his tires. Special note: Adding a treasure hunt to the end of any prank to make the person find whatever it is that's missing automatically adds two Hilarity Points.
Clean-up Factor: 6; Hilarity Factor: 7

#5 - The "Tons-of-Messy-Shit-in-Somebody's-Room". Gabe did this to Sam with packing peanuts when he left for winter break two years ago, and Greg's friend Pat had his room coated with flower when he went away for a weekend once in college. Really anything messy can work - other suggestions might include sand, cereal, or sugar (more expensive, but well worth it for the ensuing ant-problem).
Clean-up Factor: 9; Hilarity Factor: 4

#4 - The Fish Hunt. If someone hadn't squealed this one and ruined it, we would have pulled this off for our freshman prank on the fraternity in college. You hide a raw fish (or something else that will rot) in every guy's room in the house, preferably over spring break. So when they return, there's a rotting fish somewhere in their room… if they can find it. Greg's friend Jim said they once carried out a variation of this involving shellfish, at least one of which was screwed into a computer tower, never to be found, even to this day.
Clean-up Factor: 7; Hilarity Factor: 8

#3 - The Christmas Tree Sale. A variation on the "tons-of-messy-shit-in-somebody's-room" is the "cram-somebody's-room-full-of-shit". Jim and a few buddies once crammed a guy's room full of eighteen dead Christmas trees, which not only filled the room but also dropped roughly 6,000,000,000 dead pine needles all over the place. A legendary version of this I heard about took place at MIT where a couple guys disassembled a car over spring break and reassembled it in a guys' 5th floor fraternity room. The car even ran - it just couldn't get out the door.
Clean-up Factor: 9; Hilarity Factor: 8

#2 - The Ass-on-Stuff Photo Montage. An older guy in college did this as his freshman prank a couple year before I got there. Basically, he took pictures of himself putting his ass on different pieces of other guys' property, such as keyboards, hats, and tooth brushes, then mailed them the pictures… after a couple weeks of them using the stuff had gone by. Imagine using your toothbrush for two weeks and then receiving a back-dated photo of some dude putting his ass on it.
Clean-up Factor: NA; Hilarity Factor: 9

#1 - The Pig Race. In what I think is the greatest prank I've ever heard, Greg's Dad once brought two 200-lb pigs into his high school, coated them in Vaseline, painted a big racing number "1" on the side of one pig, and a big number "3" on the other. Then he let the panicked pigs loose during lunch. You can image in the chaos that ensued. When the janitors finally caught the pigs (not an easy task, considering the Vaseline), then they spent the next two days scouring the school… looking for Pig #2.
Clean-up Factor: 10; Hilarity Factor: 10

Any coincidence that half of these are frat-related?

Months - 10/20/05
The other day I came to a strange realization. You know how September, October, November and December are all mostly the same words except for the Sept, Oct, Nov and Dec prefixes? Well, these prefixes are the same as the Latin roots for the words Seven, Eight, Nine and Ten. Coincidence? Methinks not.

Turns out we stole at least the last four of our months from the Latin calendar. But wait a minute. Isn't December the twelfth month? That's the part I don't get. I guess the old Latin calendar only had ten months, but then why didn't we assign these names to the corresponding months 7-10, currently July through October, and then name the 11th and 12th months something else? And why are January and February so similar, but different from these others? Did we steal these from somebody else's calendar then get bored after two months and start making up our own?

Then I started thinking, why is it only September-December we ripped off from Latin? I mean, we already stole four, we might as well keep going, all the way back to Monember, Diember, Tritober, Quad-tember, etc. Quad-tember is clearly a way cooler name than April. Of course, then people with name April would have to be renamed Quad-tember. The only person I know named April really likes her name, and would probably be very disappointed by this. I've heard she also likes the months the way they are.

But progress is inevitable. America is finally starting the give on the metric system, and clearly having a nice, orderly month system as well would be a lot better than the random one we have now. Maybe in a few years, we'll have it figured out. Maybe Halloween will rightly take place in December, and Independence Day will be the Fourth of September. Maybe Los Angeles will be subject to Hextober Gloom, and those south of the border can celebrate Cinqo de Cinq-tember. What a glorious day that will be.

Quad-tember is going to be so disappointed.

Sky Mall - 10/21/05
Nothing as eventful as the trail mix episode occurred on my flight back from Kristian's wedding... which is sad, because the train mix episode wasn't really all that eventful.

I did have a good time, however, browsing through the Skymall catalogue in the seat pocket in front of me. For anyone who's never flown on a plane (go back to Uzbekistan), Skymall is this magazine full of ridiculously useless, overpriced stuff you can order from your seat phone and have shipped to your house, where it will sit in your garage and never ever be used. It's a marketing attempt aimed at the only audience who could possibly think about buying such useless crap - that is, people trapped in tiny airplane seats for five hours with nothing to do.

Reading Skymall is depressing in the way watching the Home Shopping Network is depressing; most of the stuff they sell is so pointless it makes you sad for humanity. But occasionally there are some real gems.

Item: Air Massager Headband Price: $69.95 I remember when I though massage chairs and airplane-neck-pillows were useless. Apparently this thing massages your temples by moving air around with its adjustable pump, while simultaneously keeping your head warm and making you look like the biggest retard ever. I feel really sorry for the model who had to smile for this picture.

Item: Air Travel Pillow Price: $29.95 Speaking of airplane-neck-pillows, this cumbersome beauty takes mid-flight slumber to the next level by compacting all the comfort of sleeping against a bus-seat into an object almost as big as one. I mean, if you're going to bring this on the plane, you might as well bring your waterbed. At least it funnels the drool right down into your crotch.

Item: PetPocket Price: $39.95 If there's one thing I'd like to see more of, it's products that encourage pet-obsessed people to take their fixations to the next level. PetPocket? I don't think a guinea pig would ride very well in there.

Item: Mock Rock Price: $79.95 OK, just stop. I know large rocks are a rare commodity in North America, but is this plastic blob really worth eighty dollars? I've heard of keeping a fake rock outside your door for the purpose of hiding a key inside, but you could hide a child inside this one. Or maybe that's the idea.

Item: Hot Dog Toaster 2000 Price: $89.95 What? I remember the days when you had to boil your hot dogs, or roast them over a fire, or God forbid throw them in the microwave for thirty seconds. Thanks the Hot Dog Toaster 2000, those caveman days are over. Now, you can enjoy your processed pig kidneys with the flick of a wrist and four minutes of waiting for your dog to pop. Fake mustard container not included.

Item: Mombasa, the Garden Giraffe Price: $895.00 I'm not even sure where to start on this. It's an eight-foot giraffe you put in your yard to show off to your neighbors what an unconscionable retard you are. I don't know what it's made of, and I don't care. It costs nine-hundred dollars! Who thought of this? What drugs were they on? Has anyone ever actually bought one of these? If so, I really want to meet them so I can punch them in the neck and ask what they're still doing alive. Seriously. Seeing this in a catalogue actually for purchase makes me want to vomit and then jump out a window.

OK, rant subsided. Hopefully my Mock Rock will be arriving soon, safely and in one piece.

Responses to Hair Post; Month Post - 10/23/05
Friend Scott emailed me recently with a couple additions to the stupid barbershop names post. Last time he was in Minnesota (which he proclaims to be the barbershop pun capital of the world), he saw hair cutteries with the names of "United Hairlines" and "Curl Up and Dye". The latter I've heard of; the former is just plain stupid.

Also a reader Claire emailed to shed a little more light on the mystery of month names. She writes:

"…one of my [college] teachers told me that when "they" were deciding on the months, I guess the Romans decided that Julius Ceasar and Augustus were really important and needed months named after them, however, they wanted all the others months to "surround" them, that's why July and August (sort of in the middle of the year) are named July and August after Julius and Augustus, not, Setember and October."

Thank you Claire. There are still a few issues I have with this, though:

First, July looks less like it was named after Julius and more like it was named after someone named Julie.

Second, did they miss the middle? If old Julius and Augustus wanted to be surrounded by the other months, shouldn't they have taken June and July? Maybe the Romans weren't as good at counting as they were at renaming months.

Third, a most annoyingly, this STILL doesn't explain why the rest of the months aren't named for numbers! Julius and Augustus could have had their months right in the middle (mostly) of the year, and still named the rest of them correctly. Just forget September and October, and start with November and December after August. Then finish with Onzember and Dozember or whatever (actually Whatever is starting to sound more and more like a viable month name). But no, everything is misordered, and the only months that have number names are the wrong numbers.

Oh, those Romans… (insert fist-shaking gesture here)

How the Months Got Their Names: Finally, Some Clarity - 10/24/05
Thanks to curiosity and Sunday with nothing to do, I finally got around to looking up the history of how the months are named. Here we go.

In way-back B.C. times, the Roman calendar only had ten months: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December. The sixty days of winter, which came between December and Martius, were not considered important enough to have months associated with them. Quintilis through December, obviously, were named for their numerical position in the year. Martius, Maius and Iunius (the letter "J" wasn't invented until the 16th century) were named after the Roman gods Mars, Maia and Juno; Aprilis was either named for the goddess Aphrodite, or else derived from the Latin word aperire which means "to open", probably referring to the "opening of the light in the days, the life of the leaves, the voices of the birds, and the hearts of men."

Then in 700 B.C., this king Numa Pompilius decided to add two new months at the beginning of the year to account for the nameless winter, to bring the calendar in line with the standard lunar year. The first month was appropriately named Ianuarius, after Janus, the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings. The second month was named Februarius for Februus, the god of purification. Martius, formerly the first month, was now third month, and all the other months moved back with it. Thus, September, "the seventh month," now comes ninth.

So all the month names now had versions of their current names, except Quintilis and Sextilis, which Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus renamed after themselves around the beginning of the Common Era.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Monster-Epic Ballads - 10/25/05
I'm obsessed with Monster Ballads right now. As I write this I'm listening to Every Rose Has Its Thorn, a classic Monster Ballad. I'm even obsessed with the term Monster Ballad. I just want to say it a bunch of times in a row. Monster Ballad Monster Ballad Monster Ballad. There, that's better.

The Monster Ballad, also known as the Power Ballad, was a genre of rock song spawned in the age of hard-rocking Hair Bands (a term I like almost much as Monster Ballad) like Poison, Def Leopard and Journey. Every once in a while, because their record company forced them to, or because they were attempting to make a Top-40 hit, bands like these would mix things up a bit and do a slower song about more sentimental subjects than their usual topics of hedonism and drug-use. Monster Ballads usually contain several of the following characteristics:

- They generally start with a softer instrument than the usual hard electric guitar, like a piano or an acoustic guitar.
- Throughout the song, there is typically a significantly lower level of overall rocking.
- The songs tend to be longer, and have more tempo changes.
- However, the bands still have huge hair and do rock hard during at least 50% of the song, once it gets warmed up.

The best part about Monster Ballads is that occasionally, the Hair Band involves becomes convinced that it's actually doing something meaningful. And that's when things turn awesome. Carried away by its own histrionic momentum, the song gets longer and longer, the shift between soft-beginning and hard-rocking chorus becomes more pronounced, and the lyrics start to stray into subjects utterly inappropriate for Hair Bands like true love, the meaning of life, and the nature of man. The greatest part is that the Hair Bands have no idea that they've gone too far; they're just so caught up in the epic-ness of their Monster Ballad.

Hair Bands are not the only ones guilty of songs like this. Other bands can go overboard as well, with the same result. And it's these songs I'm especially obsessed with right now. So much so, that I'm declaring a new genre: The Monster-Epic.

Monster-Epics are much like Monster Ballads, except they go a little further:

- A Monster Epic should be at least five-minutes in length, or as close to it as possible. The longer the song is, the more epic it is.
- The title of a Monster Epic should also be long, and feel free to use as much punctuation as it likes, for example "How Do You Talk To An Angel?" Like the song iteself, it doesn't matter how ridiculously long the title is, because the whole thing's just so goddamn epic.
- The slow parts of a Monster Epic should be as slow and soft as possible; the hard parts should rock as hard as possible. That way the full range of human emotion is covered.
- There should be many instruments involved in a Monster Epic, and possibly a background choir. No expense should be spared to convey the awesomeness of the song.
- The best Monster Epics involve a lead-singer who, convinced of the earth-moving meaning of his lyrics, nearly breaks down in sobs at some point during the song. The lyrics are, of course, NOT earth-moving, but the lead singer should be convinced that they are.
- The most important characteristic of a Monster Epic is that, from the emotive performance of the song, you can tell that whoever wrote the song knows, with utter certainly, that this is the greatest song that has ever been written, or will ever BE written. The fact that the song's eight minutes long, incorporates a full orchestra and has nine tempo changes... none of these things matter, because it's just so awesome. And the band knows this. For a fact.

Based on these characteristics, I've gone ahead and compiled a list of the top ten Monster Epics I know of, all of which have been playing on my computer while I write this. If possible, I highly recommend you download these songs yourself and listen to them as you read about each one. You will be weeping and laughing simultaneously.

#10 - REO Speedwagon - Keep On Loving You Good song, a little short, and never rocks quite as hard as some of the others... And of course, REO Speedwagon isn't really a heavy-metal band. But c'mon. Just look at that hair.

#9 - The Heights - How Do You Talk To An Angel?
This songs gains a lot of points for having a saxophone in it. Gotta love the choir at the end.

#8 - Poison - Every Rose Has Its Thorn
The first thing you hear in this song is Bret Michaels sighing. Great start. And through the entire thing, you kind of feel like he might break into tears at any moment. If only Every Rose could get past its slow, swaggering pace and rock out in a couple places, it could really be a contender.

#7 - Firehouse - Love of a Lifetime
Only Firehouse could sing the clichéd lyrics "I've Finally Found the Love... of a Lifetime" and really mean it.

#6 - Poison - Something to Believe In
Now we're really starting to rock, yet Poison still remembered to put the slow piano opening at the beginning. Ridiculously slow. Something to Believe In also does the great Monster Epic thing where it dies out to piano again at the end, as if to suggest that a band like Poison were capable of doing something poetic like "coming full-circle."

#5 - Guns 'N Roses - November Rain
November Rain makes it halfway up this list for sheer length, clocking in at a marathon eight minutes, fifty-seven seconds. I heard they had to wrestle Slash's guitar away from him just to keep it in single digits. Also gotta love the thunder sound effects.

#4 - The Scorpions - The Winds of Change
The Scorpions and The Winds of Change will always have a special place in my heart ever since Sam and I put them in a movie we wrote. A ballad that will have you whistling all the way down to Gorky Park, Winds of Change is a perfect example of the 90-second drums kick-in after the slow start. The second guy scream-echoeing the lyrics during the later refrains is also something we couldn't help but put in the movie.

#3 - Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Sister Christian has such a slow, soothing piano opening, you almost think you're listening to Billy Joel or something. But is Night Ranger worried about being perceived as weak? Fuck no. Because they know how hard they're about to rock. This song has a perfect build-up that starts at 49 seconds and kicks in exactly at one minute, and the song is exactly 5 minutes long, dying back down to just piano at the end... If there was a book how to write a Monster Epic (there should be), Night Ranger should author it.

#2 - Whitesnake - Here I Go Again On My Own
No Monster Epic band rocks as hard as Whitesnake. And there is no more audacious, meaty guitar solo than the one in this song. I'm not sure if the eventual fade-out takes something away, or if it just means that Whitesnake doesn't know how to stop rocking once they've started.

#1 - Meatloaf - I Would Do Anything For Love
OK, I'm sure I'll take some flack for this one, since Meatloaf is far from a Hair Band. But as I said, Monster Epics can be crafted by anyone as long as their delusional enough, and no song out there is more crammed full of "I'm the greatest musician who has ever lived and this is the greatest song that has ever been written" than this one. I Would Do Anything For Love has a full orchestra in it. There are wind sound effects. The song absolutely explodes at 1 minute. There are about thirty tempo changes, and a full choir serving no other purpose than to go "Oooooooo", and then "Aaaaaaaa" behind Meatloaf during certain parts. And I'm not sure if you've listened, but the lyrics basically don't make any sense, and yet Meatloaf is almost crying during every line of the song. Seriously, just listen to this song and try tell me that Meatloaf doesn't think it's the greatest musical accomplishment the world has ever seen. He might be the only one.

Snake v. Alligator - 10/26/05
A story from my friend Genya:

"Some people think the scariest animal is the lion. Other people thing the scariest animal is the snake. I think the scariest animal is a shark, riding around on the back of an elephant, just trampling and eating everything in sight."

- Deep Thoughts

BTW - 10/28/05
First, click here if you wanna see a picture of Genya's snake that exploded trying to eat an alligator. It's pretty gnarly.

Regarding my post about Monster Epic Ballads, a friend of mine accurately noted that it was both very long, and very full of errors. For instance, I originally had Bon Jovi attributed as singing "November Rain". You just can't steal reliable information off the web anymore.

He said he laughed at it anyway... but more AT it than WITH it... which made him realize with irony that the post, like the Monster Epic itself, was at the same time epic, ill-founded, and in dire need of being mocked.

Apparently I'm getting so self-aware that I'm not even aware of it.

Something I Haven't Written About In a While - 10/30/05
For those wondering (and I'm sure no one is), I still work as a security guard two nights a week. Though my business of teaching rich kids how to take the SAT has proven very successful, there's something about drinking Mountain Dew to stay up until 7am in a random office building that I'm just not ready to give up. I definitely plan to stick around at least until Christmas bonuses come out - last year I received a $75 gift certificate to Ralph's that kept me in Ramen and Eggo's for weeks.

My latest amusement at work is that my job title has recently ceased to be "security guard" or "night watchman" or even "guy who writes and listens to Green Day behind the front desk at 3am". In an ongoing effort to toady to the high-paying tenants who reside in our building, my title has been euphemistically upgraded to "Lobby Ambassador." Maybe it was just due for another name-change… you have to keep things moving in an industry where any job title eventually become synonymous with "one who sleeps."

The title change, which was accompanied by a high-rolling $8.75-to-$9.00-per-hour pay bump, raises the question of what, exactly, is a "Lobby Ambassador"? I get the "Lobby" part, as that is the room in which I do most of my sleeping/writing. But the "Ambassador"? Is this to imply that there are other lobbies out there with which I must maintain a stable diplomatic relationship? If so, what good am I doing if I'm never allowed to leave my building? Shouldn't I get a special escort and paid accommodations when I am needed for council on, say, equitable tariff rates between our delivery guys and theirs? Is it my job to learn the customs and rituals of these strange foreign lobbies, so that I might better fit in during my frequent visits and not embarrass myself or my lobby?

Also, what happens if I leave my lobby? Am I still the Ambassador if I go to the loading dock for a few minutes? Why is there no Loading Dock Ambassador? I guess the loading lock is a fairly savage frontier, and not worthy of having its own Ambassador; I should be more concerned with attacks from natives there and/or remembering to leave the door open for the garbage guys when they come at 6am.

Finally, and most importantly, do I get some kind of immunity for being Lobby Ambassador? If I were to, say, kill a man, would I be immune to legal repercussions as long as the killing occurred within the confines of our lobby? But not in, say, the broom closet? I suppose the Broom Closet Ambassador would have to be consulted for that one.

These are just some questions that confront me the Lobby Ambassador, in all My Might, when I'm awake Embassing (the verb form of Ambassador, I've decided) at 3am.

Jenn's Ass - 10/31/05
Why did roommate Jenn bust into my room a couple weeks ago and demand loudly that I sign the name "Xavier Roberts" on her ass with permanent marker? I don't know, but I unhesitantly obliged; if somebody is that belligerent about a request like that, there's probably a reason for it. It's probably better not to question them.

To this day I still don't know why I was needed to sign "Xavier Roberts" on Jenn's ass, and I'm pretty sure neither does she. But I think I did a pretty good job of it: look, I even swirled the "S".

Original Signature Medium: Cabbage Patch

My Imitation Medium: Ass and Sharpie

Book Smarts, Street Smarts - 11/2/05
Although I've had a reasonable amount of academic success in my life, no one has ever accused me of having too much common sense. Like the time I fell off our garage roof into the driveway… trying to throw a pinecone at my younger brother who was running below. Or the time on our trip to Africa that I videotaped myself grabbing the tail of a wild monkey… and then videotaped myself sprinting madly across a courtyard as the monkey chased me, hissing.

The other day I had a tutoring session where a student unexpectedly pulled out their Pre-Calculus book and asked if I could explain compound-inverse functions to them. Although I was pretty good at that kind of stuff once upon a time, "once upon a time" was in 10th grade, and inverse functions don't exactly have a lot of relevance to the life of someone aspiring to write poop jokes for a living. Nonetheless, I was able to reach deep into my ass and pull out what ended up being a moderately satisfactory explanation. Perhaps it was luck, or deeply-recessed math memory I still haven't managed to kill off with beer. Or maybe it's simply my nature of being a huge, raging nerd.

I walked out of the session feeling rather proud of myself… only to discover my car, parked sideways, directly across somebody's apartment garage entrance. There was no spot there; the curb wasn't painted red or anything… but that was only because there was no curb. It was as if someone had driven into your driveway, turned sideways, and left their car there, blocking your garage. What's worse, my car had been there for the entire ninety-minute tutoring session.

An angry woman was sitting in her car, waiting to get in, and a cop was there, writing me a ticket. Realizing my mistake, I quickly ran up to my car and offered to move it. The cop handed me my ticket and said I was lucky, the tow truck was on its way… and why had I parked there? I responded, quite honestly, that I guessed I hadn't realized it wasn't a spot. The woman, overhearing this, asked condescendingly how I could have not noticed it wasn't a spot; it was right in front of someone's driveway. Was I an idiot or something? I didn't like her brusque tone, but she had a point. So I simply apologized, jumped in my car and got the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

Once I got on the road and realized my tutoring session would way more than cover the $30 parking ticket, I had a good laugh at myself. Still, I acknowledged, it's a good thing I didn't live in caveman days, when common sense ruled and compound-inverse functions had no place in the law of the jungle. I would have been chased by a monkey into a tar pit a long time ago.

Costume Ideas - 11/4/05
In a week, I'm headed out to Rhode Island to watch my youngest brother Alex lead his Senior year Brown Football team to a disgusting obliteration of the Dartmouth Pansies. After the game, Team Jury will be attending an 80's party on campus.

In three months, my friend Treem (and others) will be heading to LA to compete in the annual Redondo 5K Run/Walk/Centipede Race. What is a Centipede Race? A 5K race where teams of 6 or more people tether themselves together and run in a pack, with some kind of theme.

What do these two athletic/social events have in common? Other than that they will both inevitably involve alcohol?

They both involve group-themed costumes. And that is where I need the help of you, the reader.

Three Jurys cannot attend an '80's party without a hilarious, three-part costume. So far, 80's-Trifecta ideas include:
- Tony Toni Tone
- Zack, Screech, and AC Slater. Although I'm not sure who would be who
- Three of the Ninja Turtles. Nobody wants to be Leonardo because he's a dork and katana blades would be more likely to cause trouble at a college party than Sais, Nun chucks, or a Bow Staff

Likewise, the six of us (or however many) require an award-winning multi-part costume in which to run the centipede race. Ideas so far include:
- A chain-gang of orange-jumper convicts, complete with sheriffs at each end
- Rock-Paper-Scissors… and then another Rock-Paper-Scissors
- All the Ninja Turtles, plus Splinter and Shredder, or possibly Krang, although running 5K in a giant brain-suit may be difficult while drunk
- A penis with five testicles
- The food chain: People --> Bears --> Smaller Bears --> Trout --> Flies --> Microbes
- A Boron atom (a nucleus with 5 electrons) (Because we're the biggest team of nerds ever)

Send your ideas to paul@paulspond.com. Good ideas (or bad ones, if they're funny) will be posted, and you will have the glory or having your idea read by several hundred people, most of whom don't know you.

More Costume Ideas - 11/7/05
From my brother Mark:
Centipede race idea: A big pink egg, being chased by a bunch of white-tailed sperm.

From Nick Sender:
80's party idea: The 3 Lawrence brothers, although that may start a fight over who gets to be Joey Lawrence. I mean, who even knows which is Andy or Matthew?
Or: Alex, Skippy, and Nick from Family Ties. Although it could lead to a lot of drunken AAAAaaaaaaas!!! from whoever is Nick.

Ones Treem and I came up with and forgot:
Centipede race idea: A cardboard-box actual train, with an engine and a caboose. We'd all have to carry washing-machine boxes or something, but they could say cool stuff like "Coal" and "Circus Lion" and "Nuclear Arms headed to North Korea" and other stuff that train cars say.
Or: A shish-kebob. Each person is a piece of meat or mushroom or something, connected by a giant skewer.

Only where to get the giant skewer? Perhaps we combine this last idea with Nick's Family Ties one, and have a "Skip-Kebob"?

Free Razor - 11/9/05
When my youngest brother Alex turned 18, the Gillette company send him a free shaving kit containing a free Sensor razor, shaving cream, and a few spare blades - basically everything shaving-related that Gillette makes, all for free, all in a nice black box labeled "Happy Birthday Alex!". Not long after, I discovered that Alex wasn't the only one. Gillette was trying out a new marketing scheme to send every eighteen-year-old male, at least in selected cities, the free shaving package.

The idea, at first, seemed like a terrible one - why would anybody buy Gillette products if they're just giving them away for free? But then I realized the wisdom - razor blade companies don't make any money on the shavers (which cost like 4 bucks a piece); they make all their money on the replacement blades (which also cost like 4 bucks a piece). So if a kid already has a Gillette razor, even if he didn't buy it, what kind of blades is he going to purchase when he runs out? Gillette, probably.

It's actually quite a diabolical strategy. Going on the familiarity principle, most guys are just going to stick with whatever brand of blade they started with. Because what's the different in shavers, really? Whether they have 8 or 9 blades, or whatever insane number they're up to these days? This technique also has the added effect of sinking the competition - how are you supposed to compete with a company who's just giving quality blades away? If I had been a Mom 'n Pop start-up razor company, I'd have been pretty pissed at Gillette about then.

The only problem with Gillette's attempt on our house was that Alex, being a beastly man-child, had been shaving since like age 14, so they were about 4 years too late. But you have to admire them for trying, and respect their business savvy - today, Gillette remains about the top-selling shaving company there is. Their stratagem seems to have worked.

Thus, I wasn't wholly surprised last week when I found a free Schick Midnight razor blade in my mailbox, possibly as a present for my up-coming 26th birthday. Apparently Schick got the memo.

Unfortunately, the Midnight came with neither extra blades, nor shaving cream, not even a memo wishing me a happy whatever. Too little, too late, Schick. Besides, I long ago stole Alex's free Sensor, and have been using Gillette ever since.

Surveys - 11/10/05
The other day I received a survey from my health insurance company, asking me to rate my satisfaction with their services.

Now, surveys and I go way back. My father has a small survey/consulting firm back in Minneapolis, so as a high-schooler (and, sadly, a recent college graduate), I spent many summer hours working for him designing, mailing, sorting, and interpreting exactly this type of survey. Needless to say, I was familiar with it; it was like a former McDonald's employee getting a hamburger in the mail. OK, maybe not exactly like that, but you get me.

Anyway, aside from being able to predict nearly every question on the survey, I also knew exactly where the survey was going to go once I sent it off. The multiple-choice responses would be scanned by a computer, and any open-ended comments would be transcribed by a low-paid human... possibly one related to the owner of the survey company.

There are two good ways to write open-ended comments. The first is not to write any - it makes my job easier, nobody reads them anyway, and they're usually boring as hell and just some lame rant about your boss. The second good type of open-ended responses are the funny ones. I once received a survey covered in profanity about a certain supervisor named Jim "[expletive deleted]" O'Neal. Another survey from a railroad engineer came back as a pile of ashes inside an envelope: an apparent not-so-subtle metaphor for the employee's feelings about the company. Another survey came back soaked in some yellow liquid, which wasn't so much funny as it was extremely gross.

I guess those last two weren't exactly open-ended comments, but the point I'm trying to make is that memorable open-ended comments are much more welcome to a typing office-monkey than dull ones. And so I made my best effort.

And no, I'm sure it wasn't my dad's company that made the survey. It was a competitor.

Organic Chemistry - 11/13/05
Before I get into recounting the weekend's trip to Providence for Alex's football game against Dartmouth, Thursday's Survey post reminds me of the time in college a buddy and I crashed an Orgo final.

I was a film major in college. On top of that, I've always hated chemistry, cheated my way through a horrible chemistry class in high school, and still nearly failed it. So Organic Chemistry is like kryptonite to me. As for an Organic Chemistry in Northwestern's Tech Program… well, that's like an ice cube flying into a furnace in Hell.

Nonetheless, a fellow non-Chemer by the name of Peter Johnson (I have to give Peter credit because this was his idea), drunkenly decided one night during finals week that we were going to crash an Orgo final at 8am the next morning. At the time I figured Peter would be hungover and forget about it, but there he was on my doorstep at 7:45 the next morning, and off we went, slogging through Chicago snow to the Tech building on North campus.

When we walked into the auditorium, about a hundred pre-meds and engineers were already in their seats, nervously clicking their mechanical pencils in anticipation of what was rumored to be one of the hardest finals on campus. Shrugging, Peter and I moved to opposite sides of the room to avoid arousing suspicion, and sat down as the TAs passed out the tests.

As I mentioned, Chemistry is not exactly my strong suit. I don't really even know how to balance a chemical equation, except that it somehow involves coefficients. So this test was like a foreign language to me. I didn't even know what format the answers were supposed to be in. Did they want a number? An element name? Some kind of picture? The capital of Sweden? I did the best I could. I listed long numbers and put the units as "green bananas". I wrote down as many synonyms for the verb "to vomit" as I could think of. I answered questions in French. For one question about the decay of a hydrogen atom, I drew a six-frame cartoon panel of a hydrogen particle turning into the Hindenberg and then blowing up. Across the room, Peter was doing the same; he answered a question about carbon molecule division by drawing a picture of a two-headed turtle, each head with a thought-bubble, one saying "I'm hungry" and the other saying "I'm not."

Things went on this way for about fifty minutes of the ninety-minute test, at which point we decided we'd been there long enough. Simultaneously, and to the shock of about a hundred frantically-scribbling pre-meds and engineers, Peter and I got up, walked to the front of the room, handed in our tests, looked at each other as if "Hey man, are you done too?" then proceeded to high-five each other and run yelling out the emergency exit. According to later accounts, the room stared in horror after us for a moment (because who finishes an Orgo final forty minutes early?), until the teacher sprinted up to the front, looked at our tests, and announced "Don't worry, everybody! These aren't real tests!" The class erupted into laughter, as we made our escape through the bowels of Tech and back to our beds.

Although a few of our engineering friends recognized us, the Chemistry department never discovered the identity of the two mystery crashers, for we had put our names down as Romancio SirTasty Maxibillion and Nutty McDinglebutters. But legend has it that Romancio and Nutty received two of the lowest scores ever to be turned in on an Orgo final.

Delta Airlines Vs. Paul's Way of Life - 11/15/05
Thursday morning I arrived at the airport for my weekend trip to New York... 28 minutes before my flight departed. A responsible move? Probably not, but something I've pulled off no less than forty times. The sad part is, it always works. One time I arrived at Chicago Midway a mere nine minutes before my flight was supposed to leave, and I still made it. Maybe because I was flying Sun Country, and Sun Country needs every passenger it can get. But the problem is that airlines keep encouraging my bad habit. If just one time I missed my flight, I'd learn my lesson and stop doing it.

Well, Thursday I finally learned that lesson. Part of the reason was that I was flying Delta, which is I guess only airline I've flown in a while that actually sticks to its half-hour lateness policy. Obviously, if you show up 3 minutes before your flight takes off, you're going to miss it; but at 28 minutes, most other airlines will at least let you give it a shot. If you don't have any bags to check, they'll let you make a run for it. If you make the gate before they close it, great; otherwise, too bad. I really like that approach; it's so sporting.

But unfortunately for my Thursday morning travel plans, it seems Delta has a "Give Up Hope Now" policy. Arriving 28 minutes ahead of time, the automatic e-ticket credit card machine wouldn't take my reservation, and the lady behind the carpet insisted that there was no way I could make my flight at this point.

"Why?" I asked. "Is the flight really full?"
"No."
"Is there a long line for security?"
"No."
"Is the gate really far away?"
"No."
"So couldn't you just check me in right now, I could run real quick to the gate, and still get there 20 minutes before the flight takes off?"
(Pause) "No."

Turns out Delta also has a strict policy of only hiring check-in people with advanced abilities in debate.

So I missed my flight, and had to pay a fee to switch it and get into New York late, slightly smudging my evenings' plans. All because of Delta's "No Lateness Policy", which, since I do practically everything by the skin of my teeth, should really be named its "No Paul Policy". Or, as I prefer to call it, its "No Paulicy".

Obviously, this whole thing was 100% my fault. I suppose I should learn something from it, start getting to the airport earlier, and perhaps even apply this valuable lesson to my life in general.

But I'll probably just stop flying Delta.

Trip to Brown - 11/15/05
The good news: Brown won their game over Dartmouth and Princeton lost, assuring the 5-1 Bears at least a share of this year's Ivy League Championship. If they beat Columbia (the worst team in not only the Ivy League, but also the world) next week, they'll be champs outright. Go Bears.

The bad news: There was no '80's party, so Tony Toni Tone; Zack, Screech, and AC; and three of the Ninja Turtles never got a chance to show their stuff.

The redeeming news:

BEARS
ABEX (our nickname for Alex)
STAR
BEX (our shorter nickname for Alex)
ARTS
ART
AR (pirate talk)
ABE
ARBES (an egregious misspelling of the delicious fast food chain)
TAR
AX
AT
AS
A
And, of course, TAX, which was a big hit with all the Econ major in the audience

What do these last 12 words have to do with a Brown football game? Not much, but the fans seemed to love it when we made everybody chant them. Abe! Abe! Abe! The best part was that I saw Brown students (real nerdy ones) writing down our letters and trying to figure out if there were any anagrams we'd missed. C'mon, people, didn't you read my T9 posts? Anagrams are my thing.

Originally, however, we'd had an even better plan. There were supposed to be five of us at the game - the three pictured above plus two of Alex's other friends - which would have given us the leverage to really get creative with our lettering. In another installment of "Things I've Done at Security When I'm Bored", I give you the following email:

TO: 'Mark Jury'; 'Jury, Gary' FROM: 'Paul@paulspond.com' SENT: Mon 11/7/2005 7:27 AM So if we have 5 people willing to paint their chests Saturday, and we paint the letters B-E-A-R-S on their fronts and the letters !-Y-U-T-J on their backs, in that order, we can make the following words: Bears Jury! Stab Beats Eats! Bras Stay! Yar! Jar! Bets Ears! BS Jet! Bust Busty Beast Stub Best Bars There are probably more, but I'd have to run a computer program on it. Clearly, we'll get the most use out of some of the obvious ones like "Bears" and "Jury!", but I'm especially looking forward to making use of "Eats!", "BS", "Yar!", and "Stab", for when we're feeling particularly pugnacious. Also, we can make "Breas", and then the B guy and R guy can quickly run to the other end, to make "Breast!" Looking forward to it... - Paul (the OCD one)

A real shame - those Brown fans would have loved it.

El Cholo (That's Spanish for "THE Cholo") - 11/17/05
When I was at the LA airport Sunday, I saw this restaurant.

Now, I didn't know exactly what the term "Cholo" meant, but I was pretty sure it wasn't a nice word. So I did a little research, and indeed, although Cholo has several definitions, none of them are exactly positive. These include a Mexican gangster, a simple-minded peasant, a Mexican-American low-life, or, at the very best, a half-breed.

Maybe there's an idiom translation I'm missing, but why name your restaurant after a term most people would use only to insult someone? That's like naming your place Gringo's Steakhouse, or Johnny Reb's, which actually is a restaurant where I ate a couple weeks ago. It wasn't half bad.

Maybe they were being purposely self-effacing. Still, if it was a joke, I missed it, and I didn't eat there either. Instead I enjoyed my LAX lunch around the corner at El Honkey's Bar & Grill. I guess I just wasn't feeling the Mexican.

PBR - 11/18/05
The fourth most popular beer at our house is none other than Pabst Blue Ribbon, named best beer at the 1878 Paris World's Fair. That's not why we buy it, though - we get it because occasionally it's the cheapest thing at Von's around the corner from our house.

This brings up an interesting question: whatever happened to the Pabst that didn't win the Blue Ribbon? I have, on occasion, seen Pabst Regular at Vons, sitting lonely next to PBR in the fridge, selling for a somewhat reduced price to compliment its somewhat reduced taste.

But it's nowhere near as common. And probably for good reason, for if one can purchase the Blue Ribbon winner, why settle for Pabst Runner-Up? That's assuming it even placed; maybe the copper-can-with-red-writing wonder can only be referred to as Pabst Also-Ran. Or Pabst Consolation Prize. Or Pabst Participant, which is really the most insulting of all self-esteem building ribbons, that green one you get just for showing up, even if you fall down on the first hundred yards of the 2K race and your mommy has to carry you back to the car. I guess the only thing more demeaning would be Pabst Short Bus.

Apparently Pabst Blue Ribbon used to be a pretty quality beer… at least according to my dad and other people who lived in the 1800's. Still, PSB must suffer from the worst case of interior-brother envy since Milwaukee's Middle-of-the-Pack.

Leftovers - 11/21/05
The other day I came home from tutoring and popped my head into Noah's room to say hello.

"Hey," he added upon my departing. "There's some leftover chow mien downstairs in the living room, if you want some."

Picturing a nice paper bag containing a few of those white chow mien cartons filled with still-hot beef lo mien and chicken almond ding and chow yung fat, I graciously accepted Noah's kind offer. Some chow mien might be just the thing after a long day of explaining to kids why it's important they learn the definition of "lugubrious". However, when I got to the living room, I found no paper bag, no white cartons, and no still-hot beef, chicken or Asian actors. What I did find was a cold, half-finished plate of rice and meat sitting on the arm on the sofa.

Now I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (whether or not that's what chow mien is made of), but I realized then that apparently a sliding scale of what constitutes "leftovers" these days. Back in my day, "leftovers" usually implied a fridge and Tupperware, or at least a countertop and some foil. But it these days, it seems, any of the following would be deemed appropriate expressions of leftover offering:

"Hey, I just bussed my dishes, but there are some leftovers in the sink for you."

"Hey, I just had popcorn in the living room. There might be some leftovers still under the couch."

"Hey, I just cooked Spaghetti sauce. You can probably get the leftovers off the oven with your tongue."

Anyone who knows me knows that the LAST thing I am is a food snob, but either Noah and I just have different definitions of "leftovers", or the paper bag and cartons he meant to left me had already been carried off by the possums who live in the alleyway next to our house.

I ate the chow mien: how did you expect this story to end? After all, I'll eat nearly anything that's not moving around or rotten. And in this latter case, sometimes I have to be talked out of it.

Jury Duty - 11/22/05
A could weeks ago I was summoned for jury duty, to be performed this week. This was highly ironic, considering my last name. My mother once got summoned for jury duty, and was actually made the foreman, but rumor has it the trial was marred by snickering every time the judge asked for a verdict from "Foreman of the Jury Mrs. Jury".

I was supposed to call in Sunday night to see if I needed to report Monday 8am, which would have been rather grueling considering Sunday nights I work security all night, and I wasn't about to give up my $9 per hour just to be more awake during somebody's drug trial. Thankfully for me - and for the poor lawyers who would have had to put up with my dozing off during their opening and closing statements - I did not have to report.

The same thing happened last night - I called to see about reporting today, and again was let off the hook. Another stroke of good luck - although I took a good hour-and-a-half nap last night at security, I was feeling pretty surly this morning from having to interrupt my snooze to go upstairs and unlock a door for a janitor. These five minute interruptions while I'm at work really need to stop.

So tonight I called for a third time, and the recording said that I've completed my service. Easiest jury duty ever. It probably had something to do with this being Thanksgiving week, my Jury number being in group 16 our of 17 to be called, but I prefer to believe that my name got me off the hook. I can just picture a bunch of lawyers sitting around with our forms, pre-selecting jurors for their trials, and coming across my form.

LAWYER 1: Paul Jury? What is this, a joke name?
LAWYER 2: Well, it's obviously someone with no respect for the legal system.
LAWYER 3: I agree. Let's take Nutty McDinglebutters instead.

Addendum to Leftovers Post - 11/27/05
Noah says he had no idea he was referring me to a half-eaten plate of chow mien. He claims he was told by someone else that there was food downstairs, someone whose identity he conveniently couldn't remember. So either Noah has a suspiciously poor memory about leftovers, or he's covering for the real leftovers culprit.

Or maybe he just knew that there's only one person in this house who'd eat a plate of lukewarm chow mien of unknown origins.

Thanksgiving - 11/29/05

Obviously, pictures speak louder than words. It was a lovely Thanksgiving in Redondo with brother Mark (the Cro-Magnon pictured above) in town. But I'll let the Picture Gallery tell the tale.

The only thing worth recounting in words is the story of how I toted a turkey down from Echo Park in a cooler because friend Aaron had somehow acquired a free one, and how I had to keep it packed in ice in my car overnight while I worked security. Actually, that's about all the story there is to it; the turkey turned out fine. There was just something very "smuggling a dead body in an ice-chest" about it.

Thanksgiving Quintathalon - 11/30/05
With surfing, Thanksgiving and the turkey-smuggling caper behind us by Day 2 of brother Mark's trip to LA, we had no choice but to invent our own fun for his remaining days in town. By the way, I think I really like the word "caper", especially in reference to heisting a turkey in a cooler overnight. Turkey caper. Just has a nice ring to it. Are turkeys good with capers?

This fun took the form of a Friday afternoon Quintathalon, as an excuse to get some exercise, sun, and beer into our systems.

	EVENT 1: 10-mile bike WINNER: Mark Although Paul was leading for most of the race (and in fact was the only one who knew where they were going), Mark had to ride a girl's bike, and thus got the sympathy points needed to vault him to victory.
	EVENT 2: 15-meter dash WINNER: Paul Hey, it's not like you can just jump off your bike and be immediately at the ocean.
	EVENT 3: Chug 2 beers WINNER: Our livers Everybody wins when you're chugging two lukewarm backpack beers on public property in broad daylight.
	EVENT 4: Beach Volleyball WINNER: Two guys we met Although Mark is extremely tall, his being white, being from Minnesota and having tiny little Tyranosaurus Rex arms made bumping a difficult task for him, and he lost most of the games. Paul, for his part, played OK volleyball, but nearly kicked his toenail off by tripping over his own feet and had to sit out for ten minutes.
	EVENT 5: Go in the Ocean WINNER: The Lifeguard who kicked us out after 3 minutes As you can see, the waves were so gigantic that only someone who really wanted to drown would try to go swimming on a day like this. We both did, but apparently the 5.0 didn't want to fish our pale bodies out of the freezing water, so she made us come out.