Palisades Trail (Greenwater, WA) - June 26, 2004

That is Ed. Those are stairs. Yes, you'd be a fool to huck it.

Good Night

Boo Boo Cakes

So I'm sitting on the porch enjoying the remains of the day when a crazy lady walks up. She is walking heavily down the street. Her right foot is in a soft cast.
She sits down on the stoop. I have no idea who she is, but I'm in Seattle and this isn't my porch so I ask her a question.
"What happened to your leg?"
She picks at her nose distractedly. "I got a twisted ligament and the doctor put my foot in a cast. It kept bothering me and bothering me, and I got big blisters on my foot. Turns out I was allergic to the tape on the cast." She giggles. "Want to see a picture of my dog?"
She pulls out a crumpled photograph about 3 1/2" by 8". It is the size of photographs used in Christmas cards. The picture is of a dog sitting on a brown velvet beanbag. Two toys, each the size of her head, flank the dog. On the far left side of the photograph is an unmade bed. The carpet is the same shade of brown as the beanbag. The dog looks impishly up at the camera.
"Her name is Muffin, but I called her Boo Boo Cakes. We used this picture for our Christmas card."
Boo Boo Cakes. Christmas card. I look at Ed. He looks at me.
"Where is she?"
She picks her nose again. "I had to put her down."
"I'm sorry to hear that. How old was she?"
"She was seventeen. I had her for twelve years."
"Oh, so you got her when she was five?"
"No, I got her when she was three."
"But you had her for twelve years, and she died when she was seventeen."
"Right."
"She was my bestest friend. When I was sad and cried she would come and lick my tears."
"She always liked salty things. One time I made stir fry and overpoured the soy sauce. The sauce ran onto the floor and Boo Boo Cakes ran over and licked it up." The crazy lady wrinkles her nose and makes lapping noises. "'Boo Boo Cakes,' I said, 'that's too salty for you!'"
Man, she really likes to pick her nose.
"She even liked to lick up the stuff that ran from my nose when I had a cold." She makes more lapping noises and giggles again.
I look over at Ed, who is visibly getting queasy.
"So why did you call her Boo Boo Cakes?"
"It's what we used to call poo when I was a little kid. Every time my grandfather heard us swear he'd say 'What you just had in your mouth I wouldn't put in my hands.'"
Ah.
We talk for a few more minutes about why she doesn't like hippies and Valley girls.
Ed points to me. "JP over there is a hippie."
She looks at me closely. "He's not a hippie. Hippies have pony tails and say weird things like 'Peace, dude.'"
Ed nods his head vigorously. "No really, he is. Just on the inside."
She looks at me closely again. A wayward finger inches its way to a nostril.
"You're not a hippie, are you?"
I have to admit it. I am not a hippie.

On the stereo: Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine"

Devil's Gulch (Cashmere, WA) – June 27, 2004

Bill Gates' Blog

The Seattle Times reported on Friday that not only is Bill Gates "enthusiastic about blogging," he may start his own blog. What the Seattle Times doesn't know is that he has been blogging for quite some time. While for privacy reasons I can't reveal his blog's URL, Mr. Gates graciously permitted me to post one of his entries.

June 10, 2004
Me and Melinda saw Madonna in San Jose last night. That show was HOTT!!!! OMG, she's like, what, 60 or something and she still looks AMAZING!!! And she totally sang all my faves. I mean, when she sang "Hanky Panky" I just about DIED!! I was screaming all night.
When M and me found out that Madonna was on tour, we thought, "Cool!" She can come to Seattle and we'll build her a stadium. We'll call it the MadonnaDome or something. But then we found out she wasn't coming to Seattle at all. :-(
Anyways, we were super lucky to get tickets. The morning they were selling tickets I was being deposed by a bunch of lawyer dudes from Oracle about the PeopleSoft merger. Whatevs. But Melinda was on Ticketmaster like stizzink on shizznit. Plus Jeff said that if he got tickets and we didn't, he'd sell some to us. What a guy.
We ended up getting some of the $150 seats. They were pretty good, in the center back by the mixing booth.
I called my friend Frank to see if we could crash at his pad. He's got a seriously sweet place in Seacliff, with a spare bedroom AND bathroom. I knew he had been convicted and everything, but I was pretty sure they hadn't hauled him off to jail yet. When I called him, he said that the whole thing was on appeal and that if he did go to jail it wouldn't be for years. I wasn't going to ask, but he even volunteered to pick us up from the airport. What a bro! I owe him big time. I woulda bought CSFB for him if it would have made him feel better, but it's not as if he works for them anymore. So I dunno. I'm not real good with this kind of stuff. Maybe I'll take him out to Chili's.
Melinda scored some cheap tix on Alaska and we were set. But Melinda, I love that gal but she ain't too good with directions. She got us tix to San Jose, NOT Frisco. And San Jose is like hella down there. In bad traffic it's a total beeyotch of a drive. AND the flight was at 6:15 AM. But she saved $20. (sigh)
When I called Frankie I thought he'd be hella pissed and stuff, but he was soooo cool about it. Forget Chili's. I'm taking him to PF Chang's.
So the big day rolls around and we sleep right through the alarm. We were up pretty late the night before at the Mandonna concert. Mandonna is this all-male Madonna cover band. We were rocking to "Lucky Star" and other faves and having a REALLY good time, if you catch my drift.
We call Frank as we're busting tail down to the airport. Turns out it's a good thing we were late, cuz Super Diamond was playing at Bimbo's and he got pretty hammered.
So to make a long story short, Frankie was a total stud and got us to the concert.
When we got there we found our seats and I went looking for Steve. I knew that he was gonna be there but he was only able to score some of the $90 tix. At least they were good seats near the front of the upper section. When I called him earlier he told me to be on the lookout cuz he had something for me. When I heard that my ears pricked up, cuz Steve always has the best shit. And sure enough when I found him he he drops this GYNORMOUS joint in my hand. He looks at me real serious and says, "You know the 'i' in iPod? It stands for 'indica.'"
Then Larry calls me up. What a doucher. Turns out he's in the $750 VIP section with Scott and Carly (rrowr!). Bitch knows he owes me BIG TIME for this PeopleSoft stuff, but does he invite me to sit with him in the VIP section? Nooooooooo. I mean, it's so painfully obvious he wants a piece of Carly's (totally HOTT) bidness.
Whatevs. Madonna is such a STAR that none of Larry's buttwipe attitude matters. She sang all the hits and gave 'em to you FIERCE!!! I wanna have her babies. LOL.
Well, G2G.

Bill

My Trip To Assateague Island

Next month I'm flying out to DC to see my buddy Greg. We're going to spend the weekend camping on Assateague Island, which I'm totally psyched about. See, "Assateague" is an old Chippewa word for "Teague's Ass." Which is kind of funny if you think about it, since the Chippewa didn't live anywhere near Assateague Island and probably wouldn't know Assateague Island if it came up and bit 'em in the... Anyway. What's really funny is that Assateague Island really does look like Teague's ass. I looked it up on a map.
Teague was this dude I knew from Weiss College who was always being a ballbag about something. He was the kind of guy who'd crash your party and drain your keg. You know how when joeys are born they gotta climb out of the uterus, up the momma kangaroo's stomach, somehow find the pouch and then clamp onto a nipple for like 3 months straight? That was Teague.
And it's not like I'm bitter about the beer or anything, 'cause I'm all about the love. But man, you don't go crashing our keggers, drain the keg until it's spitting foam and then decide it's a really good idea to shout "Team Weiss!" in my face until it's soaking wet from your beer spit. Because you knew that as a member of the Hanszen College Student Council I had no choice but to shout "Sucks!" back until you stopped. And as much as I loved to do that, I was usually talking to a girl at the time. A girl like Patty Brizendine, who played Powderpuff football and who was really stacked. You know, a pretty girl. Not like the skeezy chicks you were always hitting on, Teague.
Fortunately, though, Teague was kind of asthmatic. He could only keep it up for so long, then he'd get all wheezy and have to stumble into the bathroom where he'd suck on his huffer for a while. That usually shut him up.
The reason I'm telling you this is because Teague had a weird ass. For a total ballbag he was a pretty normal looking guy, except he had this weird ass, all big and womanly. It always made me wonder whether Teague was gay. Which is totally cool and everything. But childbearing hips on a dude is kind of queer.
Where was I going with this again? Oh yeah, Assateague Island. I'm totally looking forward to it.

I'd Like To Thank the Little People

Today I'd like to thank the little people who have made it all possible. Without Charles, how would I have retrieved those peas that rolled underneath the refrigerator the last time I tried to make linguine? And without Betsy, how would I have gotten to those corn nuts that Kent sprayed underneath the car seat like he always does? I'd also like to give a special shout out to my homegirl, who at this very moment is in my left ear canal, diligently chipping out the ear wax with a tiny pick. You know who you are.

But I'd like to thank more than just the itty bitty people. I want to thank those who are just really short, the kind of people you can pick up and swing over your shoulder like a gunnysack full of turnips. Like Sammy, who balances on my shoulders and gets those cans of protein powder that are way in the back of the cabinet over the fridge, or those cans of motor oil that are in that weird crawlspace in the garage. Thanks, Sammy! You're the greatest.

But most of all, I'd like to thank Paul, who's really good about wearing brightly colored hats so I don't lose him in a crowd. You da man, Paul. You da man.

Old Man Hands

My 35th birthday is rapidly approaching, and I'm beginning to wonder when the other shoe will drop. I mean, I'm in the prime of my life. I'm a kick-butt mountain biker. I'm about to join a triathlon training group. I have inscrutable eating habits that enhance my physique. While others around me are losing the Battle of the Bulge (actually, more like the Droop Over the Dockers), my waistline is shrinking. I even know how to buy pants. In short, boys, I'm a Darn Good Catch.
But in spite of all my boundless energy and charming good looks, I'm worried that some day it all will end. That the radiantly handsome man you see before you will in the not so distant future turn into a half-senile old coot who spends his days trying to run down neighborhood pets on his Lark.
I mean, how does that happen? I don't think that I look significantly older today than I did six years ago. Sure, I now have a hint of gray around the temples, but that only highlights how distinguished I look. And I've got disturbing patches of chin fuzz popping up all over my body. But I prefer to think of that as a second puberty, except this time it's happening on my shoulders.
So I've been scouring my body for signs of impending decrepitude. And I think I may have found my Achilles heel (or should I say, "Achilles palm"). That's right: Old Man Hands.
I worry that my hands have lost their luster, that the years of joy and success have imprinted laugh lines on my once-smooth hands. And that's just not acceptable. If I'm going to have Old Man Hands, I want them to look like I've spent a lifetime rassling dogies rather than a lifetime of rassling databases and cranky end users.
But who am I kidding? My hands are fine. I just like to wash them a lot, that's all. Did you know that taking public transportation is a risk factor in contracting tuberculosis? And as a radiantly handsome person, I don't have no time to be catchin' bugs from no scrubs.
You know what I'm saying?

Fun Jugs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AMERICAN SPECIALTY SUBSCRIPTIONS ANNNOUNCES PLANS FOR NEW MAGAZINE AIMED AT JUG ENTHUSIASTS

SAN FRANCISCO, JUNE 24, 2004
American Specialty Subscriptions proudly announces the debut of its newest magazine, Fun Jugs. Fun Jugs is designed to create a welcoming forum aimed at casual and serious jug enthusiasts alike. The magazine will showcase jugs from around the world. From pointy jugs to sturdy jugs to just plain ol' nice jugs, Fun Jugs celebrates them all. But don't think that Fun Jugs will focus solely on jugs. As every jug fancier knows, it's not enough to have the nicest jugs in town. Presentation is equally important. That's why Fun Jugs devotes its "Nice Rack" column to the multitudes of ways people show off their jugs.

American Specialty Subscriptions did extensive research in developing the name of its new magazine. While Big Jugs and Nice Jugs were considered, the editors ultimately decided that the title Fun Jugs best expressed the joy people felt in owning, admiring and showing off their jugs.

American Specialty Subscriptions plans to offer an online version of Fun Jugs once domain name rights are established.

A Shank Of the Insured Ones Loads Noncontributory the Cashes

German spam recently received by a co-worker and translated by Google's Language Tools:

The discreet reasons of the cost explosion: Recently the chairman of the Bavarian family doctor federation, expressed Dr. Wolfgang Hoppenthaller that a large number takes more foreign ' health tourists up ' with the smart cards of their members and friends with us the medical supply. The damage is certainly as high according to Dr. Hoppenthaller ' as the current deficit of the health insurance companies '. But the costs of this smart card fraud, which the community of all statutory insurees has to carry, are only one reason appearing of the collapse of social and health supply security. When consequence of so-called bilateral and multilateral social security agreements (contracts with particulars or several states) amounts of millions at foreigners become paid by the health insurance companies, who are in the FRG, independently of it, whether these work here, unemployed or people on social security are. Coinsured is also their member, even if these live in the long term separately from the under obligation to pay alimony one and in their homeland. The circle of the rightful ones depends thereby not after the Germans, but on the legislation of the countries of origin of the under obligation to pay alimony ones. In some countries the extended family circle refers among other things. Parents and brothers and sisters also, e.g. in Turkey. The as well known large child number and if necessary several wives form problems. An additional problem saves the generous gesture of our government to promote by insuring documents of identification without photo the abuse. A further, extraordinary load results besides from the partly substantial medical Unterversorgung in the countries of origin. Agreements were met so far with the following countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Israel, Croatia, Morocco, Macedonia, Poland, Switzerland, Slovenia, Turkey, Tunesien, Hungary, Tschechien. Even if the present agreements should be based on mutuality, here free of doubts a clear inclination can be recognized. Of the Ministry of Health with the entry into force of the health reform for the physicians ' ordered ' medicine caper list plans only using up of cheap medicines. This regulation applies only to the cash patients, not however to those, always depositing into the Solidarkassen, whose disease costs the state pays, to convicts, asylum-seekers and people on social security! The physician can use up these further expensive ' original medicines ', these can without reductions or additional payments medical/tooth-medical achievements, hospital supply, operations, accommodation in nursing homes etc. in requirement take. Reason: In the medicine caper list the national krankenhilfe ' was forgotten ' directly! The statistic yearbooks prove that in the year 1989 256,000 German citizens received, 270,000 foreigners and in the year 1993 250,000 German citizens and 577,000 foreigners unrestricted krankenhilfe from the pension schemes - except the ' other ' social welfare assistance achievements -. This means more than a duplication with the Germans in four years a small decrease, with the foreigners. Today the million-number will be already far exceeded rightful. > > > > no miracle that the numbers are not no more published since 1994 < < < < which to conclude we from it? There is priority not the insured ones, which provide for the increasing deficit, but those depositing into the obligation health insurance companies, which at expense the solvent bad A shank of the insured ones loads noncontributory the cashes. An equal treatment of all insured ones in the medical case is prevented by the legislator. Paying cash patients are medically clearly more badly placed than free of charge rightful ones. It is typical that the citizen is not informed about such actions, wrongly or only insufficiently and no Bundestag party such causes of the cost explosion to criticize dares.

You know what? I've read through this thing three times already and I still can't figure out where to send my money for the herbal Viagra. I really need to complain to Google about the poor translation.

I Breed Prizewinning Clams

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/%7Esusan/joke/essay.htm

This link is from The Black Table via Gawker and prior to that swirled about the Internet like that plastic bag in American Beauty. So by this point I assume I'm the only person who hadn't read it. It's a mock college admissions essay that easily bests whatever I wrote.

I don't remember anything about my essay except that it asked me to include something personal. I attached a coaster from a beer garden in Munich. Hey, I was an impressionable 16-year-old youth from Phoenix. That month in Europe with my Mom meant something to me. I

(1) saw (didn't read, just saw) my first male nudie mag in Paris,
(2) on the way to the Vatican nearly got pickpocketed by dirty gypsy kids who diverted your attention by kissing their hands and then pressing those hands all over your body,
(3) passed through Checkpoint Charlie for a daytrip to East Berlin, and
(4) in London tried unsuccessfully to get my Mom to buy tickets for "No Sex, Please, We're British!" which I thought was the FUNNIEST TITLE EVER.

As an added bonus, you also get TWO (count 'em), TWO gratuitous Whitney Houston jokes:

when his swinging stops your singing...
giving back

Morning Commute No. 2

Location: Carl & Cole
Time: 9:40 a.m.
Cast of Characters:

MAN (20s, obviously cracked out, smoking a cigarette, sitting on skateboard)
WOMAN (Cole Valley yuppie power mom, pushing a stroller)
HOMELESS MAN (male, homeless)
VARIOUS COMMUTERS (waiting for N Judah)

Scene opens with HOMELESS MAN rambling incoherently about people who refuse to give him money. VARIOUS COMMUTERS studiously ignore HOMELESS MAN.

WOMAN pushes stroller up street.
MAN: Excuse me, ma'am. Where did you get that stroller?
WOMAN: My husband got the stroller. I don't know where he got it.
MAN: It's a nice stroller. It's got the big rubber wheels, the shocks.

NOTE: MAN was right on the money with the stroller. It was obviously expensive and European. It looked like a stroller that Swedish triathletes would use while trail running.

WOMAN: Yeah, well he (pointing to baby) seems to like it. He's sleeping in it.
WOMAN continues up street
MAN (calling after her): That's a nice stroller.
MAN (shaking his head): Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Later, MAN gets on N Judah. At the next stop, two commuters get on. MAN announces that he's getting off at the next stop and bullies his way to the spot right in front of the door. He sits hunched over on the skateboard, staring at the door. It's obvious the stop can't come soon enough for him.

He exits at Church & Duboce, gets on his skateboard and rides off towards the Safeway.

Morning Commute No. 1

Glutamine Or Pants

Never let it be said that I shy from the big decisions. Today's dilemma: I needed to pick up a couple of things (glutamine AND pants) but had time to pick up only one (glutamine OR pants). Without hesitation I proceeded to take the easy way out and get the glutamine.

Now in my defense there are a number of good reasons why getting the glutamine was the wiser decision. Like, I've got TWO (2) other pairs of pants I can wear to work but I'm OUT of glutamine (0). 2 > 0. See? The logic is irrefutable.

But who am I kidding? If you know me but at all you know that I hate to go shopping for clothes. Strike that. I don't "Shop For Clothes." I "Pick a Couple Things Up From the Store." "Shopping" implies browsing and comparing items and long discussions with sales associates. "Picking Things Up" implies a laser-guided surgical strike on pre-identified items.

I've been trained well enough to know that if I'm going to pick up some pants, I'm going to do it at either J Crew OR Banana Republic. But I also know that there is much that I don't know about those fine establishments. So there's a little game I play with myself called "What Color Is That?" I may think I'm buying "Tan" khaki pants, but I'm really buying "Stone" khaki pants or "Putty" khaki pants or maybe even "Heath Bar Crunch" khaki pants. And that's only with pants. At least their names are only slightly out of control. With shirts, Lord only knows what Marketing Department name I've just purchased: "Periwinkle Mist." "Cantaloupe Sunset." "Nordic Bisque."

I can't blame 'em for trying, though. I mean, if you're going to pay 148 fudging dollars for a pair of pants -- sorry, "dress trousers" -- they had dang well better be Nordic Bisque, hadn't they?

On the stereo: Fila Brazillia, Luck Be a Weirdo Tonight

Stop This Man Before He Designs Again

Few things in the automotive world have been as depressing as the rise of Chris Bangle. Mr. Bangle was recently promoted to Grand Design Poobah of the BMW group, which includes BMW, Mini and Rolls Royce. Whatever. The point is that under Mr. Bangle, BMW has transformed itself from a vendor of mostly attractive vehicles to a vendor of decidedly unattractive vehicles.

No BMW designed under his watchful eye looks better than its predecessor. You wanna run through the list? See, e.g., the 7 series bustle trunk, the 7 series Dame Edna eyebrows, the 5 series Funky Librarian cat-eye headlamps, the More Is More school of Z4 design. Add to that the all-new 1 series. And don't even get me started on iDrive. The only new design that escaped relatively unscathed is the new X3. Its design brief apparently was to be a slightly smaller, slightly uglier version of the X5. This allows the next-generation X5 to be a larger, more expensive 7 seater hyper-mega-über land yacht.

I understand Mr. Bangle's motivation. He's tired of the retro-future-retro movement of automotive design (Ford Thunderbird, Chrysler 300M), and Audi beat him to the punch in clean, modern design (although the jury is still out on the virtue of the new corporate honker). So he wants to do something new. You know, futuristic. Although why he wants to make his cars look like they are permanently lodged in a rift of the space-time continuum is beyond me.

BMW, like Subaru, has always been an engineering-driven company. Each company does conservative designs well (BMW 3 series, Subaru Outback). Each tends to stumble on more aggressive design (BMW Z3, Subaru XT). So why mess with a good thing? At least in Subaru's case it makes sense.

At an annual volume of approximately 500,000 cars they simply were unable to generate the cash flow needed to stay competitive in the marketplace. Hence GM taking a 20% stake in Subaru's parent company, Fuji Heavy Industry. So they get a heavy-hitting equity investor, make a strategic alliance with sister company Saab (Saab 9-2X) and hire Andreas Zapatinas, former director of the Centro Stile design center for Alfa Romeo, a car company that knows how to design a beautiful car.

But it doesn't make as much sense in BMW's case. Their sales volume is over 1,000,000 cars per year, which is more than enough to let them remain independent and competitive. Ignoring the Isetta for a moment, their cars were never as ungainly as Subaru's (Subaru 360 anybody?). It's not enough to say that Mr. Bangle is merely justifying his salary. Somebody (and by that I mean the Quandt family) must approve of his work or he would have been kicked to the curb a long time ago.

Maybe, then, it's just the pursuit of excellence. Nothing wrong with that. Except when it's horribly, horribly misguided.

So please. STOP. CHRIS. BANGLE. NOW.

When You Put It That Way...

Six meals a day doesn't look so hard.

Well, It's Better Than a Road Biker Being Attacked By a Road Lion

So it seems I didn't escape unscathed from Mt. Tam after all. This morning I woke up with an itchy right leg. I didn't bother to examine it, since I assumed it was poison oak. Although where I would have run into poison oak on Mt. Tam is unclear. The trails we rode were veritable mountain bike superhighways. Along some parts one could endo, roll a couple of times and still not hit the edge of the trail.

Upon examination of said itchy spot, I realized that it doesn't appear to be poison oak at all. It's red and itchy all right, but there's no blistering. Which leads me to wonder what could possibly cause the itchiness. Chiggers? Noseeums? Eensy weensy mountain lions? The possiblities are endless.

On the stereo: Beulah, The Coast Is Never Clear

Fa Sheezy Ma Neezy

It's offizzle: Izzle is over. Once Snoop heard that Fran Drescher was rockin' the Izzle in an Old Navy ad, he put a stop to the madness. Too bad he wasn't around to kill off "Don't go there!" It was one thing to hear it from Wanda Sykes. But when your dad started using it too, you know it had jumped a whole mess of sharks.

Hip Hop Dork Completist Update: OK OK...Snoop just popularized the Izzle. E-40 created it. As 40 states in his viceland interview:

I was the first one who put it out there real tough in 1996 on my song “Rappers Ball.” We were saying “fo’ sheezy,” and “fo’ shizzle.” [...] Then I took it to “fo’ shiggedy”, to “fo’ shiggadough” and now “fo’ shiggadale,” that’s the newest. You know, it don’t stop. [...] Even before this rap game my ear’s always been to the street. I’ve been making up slang words since the first grade, you smell me? I stay coming with something to keep the game interesting. I tell ’em the rap game without 40 is like old folks without bingo.

Don't worry, dude, we're smelling ya.

On the stereo: De La Soul, "Buddy" (Native Tongues Decision); Stetsasonic, "Talking All That Jazz" (12" Version)

Mt. Tam (Not So) Death March

Kent and I rode up Mt. Tam yesterday. It's the only ride I know where you climb 2000 vertical feet to a snack bar. Kent had Gatorade and an ice cream bar. The gods punished me for getting bored and doing stupid tricks on the Eldridge Grade descent. Result: one flat tire. Later on, they slapped me around for daring to remove my pedals (in preparation for the Thursday trip to Seattle). But 20 minutes, one quick visit to the Internet later (to remind myself exactly how the jacked-up pedal threads worked) and many mental reminders to grease the threads before I install 'em again, the pedals were off.

The fog yesterday was grim, but at night it made the city pretty again. Something about the fog reminded me of Stereolab.

On the stereo: Beck, Midnite Vultures; Stereolab, Dots & Loops