Ok, so this is the first time I've ever felt the need to put a disclaimer in front of one of my posts. A few people have asked recently how I ended up with the nickname Diesel, and as the truth is not particularly interesting in this case, I decided to do what I always do: Make something up. The idea was to come up with a story that explained the nickname yet was so absurd and out of character for me that there's absolutely no way anyone would ever believe it. But, as generally happens, I completely lost control over the direction of the post about a sentence and a half in, and the result is something like an abbreviated version of Cool Hand Luke as imagined by Quentin Tarantino. Not only is it thematically divergent from pretty much everything else I've ever written, well, it's just plain divergent. So if you’re easily offended, maybe skip this one. Also, it’s about four times as long as a typical post. And if you do end up reading it, please remember that this is a work of fiction, and does not in anyway reflect my actual views or correspond in any way to reality, except for the facts that:
I am a male
I once drove through Texas
Some people really do call me "Diesel"
Clear enough? Ok, so there's no lifeguard beyond this point. Proceed at your own risk. No children under 18 admitted, and all that.
The Legend of Diesel
There wasn't much to do in the tiny West Texas town I grew up in 'cept throw rocks at crows and rip off car stereos, so I was bound to get busted for the second one eventually. At the time I was runnin' with a couple of other no-good dead-enders, who went by the names Skeet and Colt. "Skeet" because his daddy was always shootin' at him, and "Colt" because he kicked so hard that his momma died two months before he was born. Me? Hell, nobody even thought I deserved a name. They all just called me "kid," usually with a "good-for-nothing" in front of it. Skeet and Colt were sixteen. I was only fifteen, but they let me run with them cuz I was good in a fight and could out-smoke and out-drink the both of them combined.
So after they busted us we got hauled before the judge, all dressed in our Sunday best. The judge was probably just gonna send us to the juvie camp, cuz that's what they do around there to kids what ain't got no future. But then our no-good fat-ass public defender opens his pie hole and says, "Yer honor, these is just three messed up kids." He meant it to be helpful, but wouldn't you know that right then and there was when I got all fed up to here being called kid, so I says to the judge, "Yer honor, I ain't no kid." Which is how Skeet and Colt got sent to the juvie camp, but me, the youngest one, got seven years hard labor.
I ain't gonna lie to you, that work farm wasn't no fun. We spent fourteen hours a day breakin' rocks with picks. They didn't tell us why, and we didn't ask. We ain't never seen anybody pick up any of them rocks we broke, so we figgered we was breakin' rocks to build character or some such nonsense. Well, my character got built into a mean-ass sonofobitch with hands like leather and arms like steel cables. The guards was hard on us, but the way the Texas sun beat down on us there weren't no question whose bitches we really were.
They labelled me "uncooperative" on account of that's what I was. The other convicts took a break every couple hours to have a cigarette, but not me, cuz to have a cigarette you had to say "Please boss can I get a light?" and I wasn't please-bossin' nobody. I went for six months without a cigarette, which was tough, cuz I started smoking when I was four. Then one day it got so hot that an old dead oak tree caught on fire, and I ran right over there and lit my cigarette. The other convicts was mighty upset that the one shade tree for a hundred miles around got burnt down, but I was happy as a pig in shit to get a light that I didn't have to please-boss for. I chain-smoked from that one cigarette for the next six and a half years, and never once had to ask for a light.
Once I had my cigarette goin', them other convicts expected I was gonna join them for their breaks, but my daddy always told me not to fraternize with no-good reprobates, cuz that's how he became one. Well I shore as hell wasn't gonna turn into a no-good reprobate like my daddy, so I just kept on breakin' rocks and chain smokin' while they was chattin' up the guards at their cute little ten minute convict picnic. Only reason I ever came over there was to fill up my drinkin' bottle from the big water tank on the back of the prison truck. The water tasted like iron and pesticides, but I figured I was gettin' my minerals and keepin' my insides clean of bugs, so I didn't mind.
This went on for awhile, but pretty soon the other convicts got sick of me actin' like I was better than they was, and breakin' six times as much rocks as they was breakin', and the guards were itchin' for a please-boss, cuz please-bosses are what prison guards get instead of the love of a good woman. So they was makin' fun of me and callin' me a bitch for workin' through my break, and then somebody says, "Man, he must have gasoline in that bottle, the way he's workin.'" And then another guy, the biggest, meanest guy in the place, who they called Tex on account of he was from Oklahoma, spoke up. He says, "Naw, the way he smokes, he's a diesel engine." And then they started callin' me Diesel, and saying, "Hey Diesel, come get some more fuel" and dumbass shit like that. When I just kept breaking rocks, they says to the guard, "Boss, make him come over here." Boss didn't want to, but then they started sayin', "I bet you couldn't get old Diesel to come over here if you tried." And Boss didn't like that. They kept on him until finally he says, "Boy, get yer ass over here." And he put a period on it by spittin' his Skoal juice in my direction.
Well I figured I was there to break rocks, not to entertain Boss and the no-good reprobates, so that's what I kept doin.' Boss told me two more times, but I just kept on breakin' rocks. Finally he says to the no-good reprobates, "You grab that sorry sumbitch and bring him over here." And it took eight of them, but that's what they did. I fought like a wildcat, but Tex socked me good in the gut, and I went down. The rest of them piled on, and pretty quick I was flatter on the ground than roadkill. Somehow I still had my cigarette in my mouth, and Boss came over and plucked it out with his soft little pudgy fingertips.
Boss was one sorry excuse for a man. He used to tell us how he'd punish his dog when he misbehaved by whuppin' him til he bled, and then tyin' him to a tree and puttin' hamburger patties out on the ground just out of the dog's reach, so the poor mutt would spend all day cuttin' up his neck just to get a sniff of that meat. It wasn't long after the day I got named Diesel that we heard that Boss's wife left him for a ballet dancer, and he had to quit because he couldn't get no respect any more from the convicts. Even a pansy-ass ballet dancer was more of a man than him, the convicts would say.
But we didn't know about the dancing fruit that day he got the convicts to hold me down and he plucked the cigarette from my mouth. After that he spat a big wad of chaw juice in my face, which was bad enough, but what he did next marked the both of us for life. He ripped my shirt open and started burnin' me with that cigarette. It hurt so bad I didn't notice what he was doin' at first, but then I saw that we was making letters. That must have been the slowest burnin' cigarette in the history of Injun tobacco, cuz it felt like it took him an hour to burn D-E-S-E-L into my skin. It smelled like hamburgers, and made me think of Boss's sorry-ass dog. No dog deserves to be treated like that, I thought. And right then and there I swore some day Boss was going to know what it felt like to be hamburger.
After he was done burnin' me, he flicked the cigarette away and the convicts let me go. I just lay there for a spell, restin' up and smellin' the hamburger smell. If they figgered I didn't have no fight left in me, boy was they wrong. I got to my feet, brushed myself off, then laid the biggest haymaker you ever seen across Tex's jaw. There was a POP! that they must have heard in El Paso, and Tex fell to his knees, his jaw hangin' down three inches farther than the Almighty intended, so he looked like one sorry-ass dumbfounded okie, which is what he was.
Then, while the rest of them were still standin' there doin’ their best impressions of a dumbfounded okie with a busted jaw, I reached down and picked up my cigarette, which still had about a quarter inch of life in it, took another cigarette from the pack in my sleeve and lit it from the dying butt. I got a real nice cherry goin' on it and then planted that red hot tip on my chest, right between the D and the E. When I had torched a real purdy letter I, I took a nice long drag and said, "I before E, shitheads." Then I went back to breakin' rocks. Nobody laid a finger on me after that, and six and a half years of rock-breakin' later, I was a free man.
First thing I did when I got out was look up that sorry-ass pudgy-fingered prison guard, who wasn't a prison guard no more on account of gettin' his ass fired for havin' a cheatin' whore ballet-dancer-lover for a wife. He lived in a dirty old trailer that smelled like onions and sweaty feet. When I came by, he was up to his old tricks, teasin' his mutt with hamburger. The dog was chained up to a tree out back, and a nice big pancake of ground beef lay on the dirt just out of his reach. Boss was sittin' there in a lawn chair, drinkin’ a Blue Ribbon and laughin' at the poor starving mutt. That dog was the ugliest damn creature God ever put on this planet, and I ain't entirely sure God's the one what did it. He looked like he was half doberman, half rottweiler, and half demon from the pit of hell, cuz that's just how big and mean he was. Boss had drawn a line that marked how far the dog could get from the tree, so he could tease him all he wanted without gettin' bit. Boss kept sayin', "Come 'n' get it, Duke! Come and get it!" And all I could think of is what kind of sorry ass pansy you have to be to give your dog a fag name like Duke. When Duke got too close, Boss would spit a wad of Skoal juice in his eyes.
I was about to walk up and give that jackass what-for when a phone rang and he high-tailed it back into his trailer. I strolled right up to the demon-mutt, picked up the hamburger patty he'd probably been eyein' since last Tuesday, and tossed it where he could reach it. The dog gave me no mind and went to work on that meat. I had just enough time to scrub out that line Boss had drawn and make another one with my boot. Then I went back and sat down under a tree, where I'd have a good view of the show.
Soon enough Boss came back out the trailer and got back to his fun. He pulled his lawn chair up to the line I'd drawn and said, "Dammit, Duke, you better not’ve ate my hamburger!" Now I know dogs can't smile, but I swear that demon dog looked over at me for a split second and gave me the evillest fang-filled grin you ever saw. Then he launched hisself toward that sorry-ass dipshit and sunk about sixty of those teeth into the right side of Boss's face. Boss screamed like a little bitch, but that dog held on like it was the one thing he was put on earth for. Finally he ripped half the meat off Boss's face like chicken from a bone, and Boss fell back on his lawn chair, sobbing and trying to hold on what was left of his face.
That's when I walked up and threw another hamburger patty to the dog. He dropped Boss's cheek and gobbled up the hamburger. I picked up the bloody chunk of flesh and tossed it at Boss. "You're lucky your face tastes as bad as that shit you chew," I said.
Boss looked at me with the same look he probably used when he walked in on his wife gettin' friendly with the candy-ass dancer. "You...?" was all he could muster.
"Yeah, me." I said. "I'm takin' yer dog." I gave the demon-mutt a rub under the chin and unsnapped his chain. The dog licked me real friendly-like.
"No!" Boss yelled. He was so worked up that I thought he musta figgered I was gonna let that demon-mutt at him, which I probly shoulda, but it turned out that he was just worried about losin' his damn dog. Here he was with blood gushin' out of where the right side of his face used to be, and he was cryin' about losin' a dog he'd probably never said a kind word to. "You can't take Duke from me!" he whined, like the dog had just been sucklin' at his teat or somethin.'
"His name ain't Duke," I said, lookin' over the dog. I could see one of his eyes was all fucked up, probably from gettin' chaw juice spat in it. Poor dog was scarred and half-blind for life. I said, "His name is Skoal now."
For some reason that made Boss real mad. He started to say, "Listen to me, kid...."
But something in my eyes must have scared him pretty good, cuz he never got past the word kid. "Name's Diesel," I said, lightin' a cigarette. "Now why don't you go get yer face put back on?"
Skoal and me got in my truck and took off, and we've been together ever since. We don't talk much, but the two of us have a bond – the kind of bond that only two mean-ass animals can have.
Last night I had a dream that vermin that looked like little black plastic boxes with electrical cords for tails had infested our home, having attached themselves to various electrical outlets throughout the house. Apparently some sort of animal had adapted itself, through the wonders of natural selection, to take advantage of the plentiful supply of electricity in the house. They weren't really doing anything to bother me, if you don't count the minor increase in my electric bill, but they kind of creeped me out so I went around the house unplugging them. You have to nip these things in the bud.
I woke up this morning relieved to find that the electricity gophers were gone, but a little disappointed that the giant spiders were not. We live out in the country, and the spiders who reside in our house are impressive, both in size and in number. I don't think they're poisonous, mainly because I'm still alive, but occasionally their smoking is a problem. And then there are the times when they drink too much and try to carry off the children, but to be fair that's happened only a few times, and I think the kids provoked them.
Another thing I don't like about the spiders in my house is that they all share my name. I don't even know how my wife knows their names, but without fail every time she sees a spider she screams the same name -- mine. Even the girl spiders who erupt into a flurry of little baby spiders when you smash them are apparently named Robert. It's especially confusing because this is also what she yells when she comes across credit card bills with unexplained purchases on them. I've tried to get her to shriek "Tally Ho!" or "Timber!", but she insist on sticking with "Robert!" So it's hardly my fault when I rush into a room where she's paying bills and crush the Visa bill with a phone book.
I didn't used to kill spiders, out of principle. Partly the principle that spiders are good because they eat insects, but mostly the principle that there's a slight chance that any spider I kill might be have been exposed to some mysterious radioactivity and thereby been imbued with the power to infuse me with superhuman strength and agility, not to mention spider-sense. Where would Peter Parker be today if he had been a little quicker to smash that radioactive spider? He'd have had to come by his powers honestly, through training and determination fueled by a childhood tragedy, like Batman. And I'm pretty sure Peter Parker's parents were killed in a car accident, so he'd have ended up becoming a champion for stricter automotive safety standards and probably eventually costing Al Gore the presidential election, which is heroic in itself, but not quite up there with defeating Doc Ock in terms of sheer excitement.
And not only that, but the other day the pump for our well stopped working, which seems entirely unrelated, but stick with me. It turns out the culprit was an ant stuck in the contacts of the motor. It cost me a hundred dollars to have someone come out and remove the ant, which is more than it would cost me to have a rivet removed from my foot (not that I would know), because my insurance doesn't cover ants. If I'd have left the spiders alone, they might have eaten the ant and saved me a hundred dollars. But apparently I didn't learn my lesson, because when my wife saw the bill she screamed so loud that I immediately went for the phone book.
I recently invented a fun game that those of you with young children can play. All you need is a vacuum cleaner and a blindfold. The game is called "Lego or Small Rock?"
Recently my wife and I went to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Tom Petty's music is considered to be "classic rock," a genre which has mysteriously grown to include pretty much everything I listened to in college. We didn't know it was classic back then, so we just called it "regular rock." They were great, of course. Petty even hauled out Stevie Nicks for a couple of numbers, which was cool, although it did make me wonder what kind of box he keeps her in off-stage. Petty and Nicks both look the same as they did 30 years ago, but I suppose that's true of most people who are 200 yards away.
We were seated in section G1, seats 32 and 33, which is a very precise way to describe "anywhere you can find five square feet on the lawn that's not already covered by somebody's blanket." Actually, "lawn" isn't a very accurate description either. "Grass-covered cliff" is probably closer. Our seats weren't that good at the start of the show, but had gotten quite a bit better by the end, thanks to erosion. The crowd sang along on most of Petty's songs, and those of us clinging for our lives to clumps of vegetation gave added gusto to the chorus of "Free Fallin'." By the time they got to "Learning to Fly," several of us who had foolishly attempted to return to basecamp for provisions had already taken a trip into the great wide open. We lost a lot of good men that night.
We had a great time anyway, although not being stoned at an outdoor Tom Petty concert in Berkeley makes one feel a little like Ronald McDonald at a PETA rally. (Why is everyone looking at me funny? Is it the hair?) By the end of the evening I was walking around with a flashlight, telling the ushers, "Hey, you can't sit there." It's cool, though, because I made a lot of money on parking. And who knew that you could sell oregano for $20 a bag?
I have to apologize for the caption on the picture. It's not very nice, I know, but I'm trying to balance out the relative lack of snarkiness of this post. It's hard to be snarky about a legend like Tom Petty -- unless you bring up his performance as the mayor in the soporific sci-fi epic The Postman, and that's really reaching (I should make a joke here about it being a "post-apocalyptic" movie, but I'm already bored talking about it). Besides, I think there was some kind of contract that you had to sign to be a rock star in the 80s that committed you to a role as either a villain or the leader of a post-apocalyptic civilization in a big budget sci-fi movie.*
Anyway, in order to fill my snarkiness quota and to keep from breaking my tradition of ragging on Nickelback at least once a week, let me add this otherwise unrelated comment:
I'm disappointed that they cancelled the TV show Smith, starring Ray Liotta and Virginia Madsen. Why? Because the show earned my loyalty in an episode where one of the main characters, played by Simon Baker**, notices that a Nickelback CD is playing in the Hummer he has just stolen. He ejects the CD, throws it out the window, and puts in another CD. Brilliant. How much chutzpah does it take to pay a band for the rights to use their music in a TV show for the express purpose of dissing the band? And what kind of money-grubbing whores are Nickelback to go along with it? Oh yeah, the multi-platinum kind of money-grubbing whores.
Anyway, I need to get back to my screenplay. It's about a renegade loner who turns out to be the salvation of a society whose existence is threatened by Chad Kroeger. It's semi-autobiographical.
*10 points if you can name three other movies/rock stars in this category. And David Bowie in Labyrinth doesn't count, but I'll give it to you if you can name the sci-fi movie he was in. By the way, I can come up with four other examples off the top of my head, but that's because I'm a freak. **5 more points if you can also name a sci-fi movie starring each of the following: Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, and Simon Baker. No, not the same movie, smart guy. Three different movies.
When I was a kid, I spent a fair amount of time being scolded for doing things I wasn't supposed to do. Like maybe I talked back to a teacher, or lost my homework, or nearly burned down our neighborhood, for example.
One thing I don't remember having to be told was to wear clothes that fit me. I was never tempted to wear pants that were 6 sizes too big so that they had to be held up with an elaborate system of safety pins and duct tape. Maybe I was brainwashed by "the man," but my teenage rebellion never reached the level where I felt like everybody needed to see my Rocky and Bulwinkle boxers. For that matter, I always put my arms through both shirt sleeves and wore my shoes on the correct feet. I know, I'm a sheep.
So let me just come out and say it: I don't understand kids these days. I try to stay up on what's "hip" and "cool." I make a real effort to drive like an idiot while listening to loud music with my windows rolled down so that I'll stay young at heart and/or die in an exciting explosion. I've always believed that it's better to burn out than to fade away, and my health plan confirms this fact. But I just don't understand this generation.
I mean, what's with music these days? I'll grant you that my generation will have to answer for Tone Loc and Debbie (sorry, Deborah!) Gibson. But have you listened to some of the crap on the radio today? And I'm not just talking about Fifty Cent's admonitions to lick his "lollipop," or Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas singing about her "lovely lady lumps." (Am I the only one who finds the use of the word "lump" in a pop song about the female anatomy profoundly disturbing? I'm militantly heterosexual, and even the lollipop sounds more appetizing to me. Shudder...).*
Sickeningly graphic lyrics aside, what really bothers me about these songs is the horrifically bad writing. For example, these are the lyrics to an actual pop song by something called "Cascada":
Your arms are my castle Your heart is my sky They wipe away tears that I cry
I'm not sure what I should expect from a group whose name sounds more like a brand of bottled water than a pop act, but do I actually need to make the point that Mad Libs are not an adequate inspiration for song lyrics? I imagine the group working feverishly on earlier versions of the song, something like:
Your spleen is my pillow Your scalp is my hat They scare the hell out of my cat.
Don't get me wrong, I'm ok with the arms = castle metaphor. It's a little harder to figure out how heart = sky, but I could let that go as a standard bad pop song lyric. But when in the history of humankind has anyone ever wiped their tears away with ANY of those things? If you made me list every possible thing that I might conceivably wipe my face with, the only one of these items that would be in the top 500 is "arms." The other three would fall below just about anything that isn't sharp or poisonous.
And don't get me started on Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back." No, the song is not about Justin's fuzz-covered back. Rather, it's what he's going to bring, to wit:
I'm bringing sexy back Them other boys don't know how to act I think you're special whats behind your back So turn around and I'll pick up the slack.
That's right, he had to rhyme "back" with "back" because he couldn't think of another word that fit. I know, how about hack?
What really bothers me about "Sexy Back", however, is that while it sounds like it probably had about 28 producers, not one of them remembered to bring the melody. The song is like a ragtag collection of sound samples that showed up at the recording studio and waited as long as they could for the melody to show up, and then finally decided to go on without it. The result is about as interesting as The Doors without Jim Morrison. Or talent. The first time I heard this song I spent a minute and a half wondering when it was going to start, and then, when I realized it wasn't, spent another minute and a half praying desperately for it to end.
In any case, does sexy really need to be brought back? Where has it been, and what Justin was doing with it while he was out?
To be honest, I hadn't noticed sexy had even gone missing, but then I'm pretty old.
*A Slate article on the Black Eyed Peas song notes: "It isolates sectors of the female anatomy that obsessive young men have been inventing language for since their skulls fused, and yet it emerges only with 'humps' and 'lumps'—at least 'Milkshake' sounded delicious." The author goes on to characterize the song as 'so bad as to veer toward evil.'" More here....
Even I Can Double-Click, and I'm Only in Kitty-Garten!
My wife used to teach computers to kindergarteners. One day she was trying to teach a slightly challenged boy how to double-click. She told him, "Put your mouse over the picture and double-click."
The little boy's brow furrowed and he pressed his finger to the mouse button.
Click.
"You need to double-click. That means click two times, right in a row."
Click.
"I said 'click two times.' Can you click two times for me?"
Click.
"How many times did I say to click?"
"Two times."
"And how many times did you click?"
"Once."
"Ok, so I need you to click twice. Two times, as fast as you can."
Click.
"Two times. I need you to click two times."
Click.
"Did you hear me say to click two times?
"Yes."
"So why aren't you clicking two times?"
"I don't know."
"Ok, so I need you to click two times, right in a row. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Ok, go ahead."
Click.
This apparently went on for another ten minutes, by which point my wife was nearly in tears. Finally she said, "Ok, I just want you to click a whole bunch of times. Just go click-click-click-click-click."
Which seemed to work, more-or-less, but God help this kid if he's ever got to do anything more advanced than Reader Rabbit. I hear he's working for WinSave these days.
I'm currently using a hosting provider named WinSave. They charge me $8 a month, and I actually feel like I'm getting ripped off. I've been trying to switch to a company that doesn't use Fisher Price servers, but am meeting with some resistance. So I've decided to keep you posted on my correspondence with this delightful company.
First I called them to ask them to transer my domain, and they said I had to fax them a form, along with a photo ID. So I did this, making sure to include a copy of my driver's license. After a few weeks, nothing had happened, so I sent them an email. The following exchanged ensued:
WinSave -
I faxed a request to modify this domain's WHOIS record several weeks ago and have received no response. Please apprise me of the status ASAP.
Rob K
-----------------------------
Dear Robert
Thank you for contacting WinSave Technical Support. The fax to update the Registrant and Administrative contact information was voided. The fax was missing some authentication information. An e mail was sent to inform you of this [I never received said email - RK], but unfortunately there has been no communication since. Please re-fax document and include an ID or utility bill for Kroese, Rob. If there are any further issues we can be of assistance with, or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us anytime. For "Frequently Asked Questions" visit, http://support.winsave.com.
Sincerely, WinSave Tech Support
-----------------------------
WinSave,
I recently re-faxed this information, including a photo ID, several days ago. Can you please give me an update on the status?
Thanks, Rob
-----------------------------
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for contacting WinSave. We are unable to discuss anything on any account with out the proper verification. Please send the domain name and proper verification which can can be one of the following:
1.last 4 digits of the credit card on file
2. username and password
If you have any more questions please feel free to call 954-334-8460 or e-mail us again.
Thanks again, Dora C. WinSave Customer Support
-----------------------------
WinSave,
The username and password are: *******/********
Rob K
-----------------------------
Dear Valued Customer,
Thank you for contacting WinSave. In response to your e-mail, as of right now we have not received any fax from you in regards to your account. If possible, please advise us of when you sent the fax or re-send the fax to 954-334-8420
If you would like to speak to a representative, please contact us at 1-954-334-8480.
Thank you for contacting WinSave.
Jason J. Customer Service Representative WinSave
-----------------------------
WinSave,
Yeah, how about if I send it a THIRD time. Because that will probably work.
Rob K.
I also tried to call them, but they're on Eastern Lazy Time, so there was no answer. I'll let you know what happens next.
People who don't know me very well, who consider me to be a quiet, sensitive person, are always surprised to learn that I am in fact an insufferable smartass. I tend to keep my snarky comments to myself when I'm around people I don't know that well, partly because a lot of people tend to assume that I'm making fun of them, but mostly because even more people don't realize I am making fun of them. Then I'm in the awkward position of having to explain that I'm a jerk who thinks they are stupid, and I usually don't stop talking until I've proven at least one of those points. For example, the conversation might go like this:
Diesel: What did you have for lunch today, Tom? Tom: I went to this great vegan place that makes these fabulous corn dogs from eggplant and sawdust. Diesel: What, and you didn't bring me back any?! Tom: Well, actually I was saving one for dinner, but you can have it if you want. Diesel: Nah. Look at you, you're like a rail. You need all the sawdust you can get. Tom: No, seriously, it's ok. I still have some frozen lasagna made from acorns and peat moss. I could eat that stuff every night of the week. Diesel: No, really, I couldn't. Tom: I insist. I saw how your eyes lit up when I mentioned it, and I wouldn't dream of denying you the pleasure. Please, have one of my vegan corn dogs. Diesel: Yeah.... Well, the thing is, I don't really like food that doesn't have bacon in it. Tom: Really? Then why did you say you did? Diesel: I was kind of making fun of you. Tom: Wow. You're kind of an a******. Diesel: Yes, I really am.
So usually I keep my mouth shut, unless I know my audience. And you'd think that it would be ok to make fun of yourself, but even that's not safe. Like this morning, I was at the post office, waiting at the counter, and one postal worker said to another, "Have you seen my name tag? I think I lost it." It took all my willpower not to say, in my best Dumb Guy voice, "Maybe you should put your name on it." It would have amused me, but from that point on I would have been either known as That Idiot Who Comes in Every Friday or That Jerk Who Comes in Every Wednesday, and I don't think they were even going to let me pick which one.
Actually part of the problem is that I'm too nice a guy to make good on my malicious intentions. I like making fun of people, but I lack follow-through. For instance there was the time that I got a phone call at work, which was strange in itself, because they don't usually let me talk to people outside the building. I answered with a timid "Hello?", and was greeted by a woman asking if I was Dr. Wong. I said, "You have the wrong number," and hung up. I was pretty sure that it was a co-worker of mine known for her dry sense of humor, so I wasn't surprised when she called back.
"Is this Dr. Wong's office?" she asked. "Sorry, wrong number," I said, and hung up. Where is Karen going with this? I thought to myself, as the phone rang again.
I answered with a chipper "Dr. Wong's office. How can I help you?"
Of course this seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Anyone in my position would have done the same thing, I know. Still, I began to rethink my decision when the woman began to go into excruciating detail about her husband's medical problems and his urgent need for a rectal exam. (I swear to you, I am not making this up.)
Now if I were a character on Seinfeld, I would have made the appointment for next Tuesday at 10:30, and then been repaid by some horrible karmic retribution, like an unpleasant encounter with fusilli Jerry. But rather than face that prospect, I broke down. "I'm sorry, this isn't Dr. Wong's office." I said. "You have the wrong number. You've called me three times now, and I just couldn't take it any more."
She said, "Oh." And I apologized and said goodbye. But when I replay the incident in my mind it goes more like this:
Not Karen: What do you mean, this isn't Dr. Wong's office? Diesel: I was just playing a joke. I thought it would be funny. Not Karen: So you were pretending to be a proctologist for fun? Diesel: Yeah. Not Karen: Wow. You're kind of an a******. Diesel: Yes, I really am.
You may have noticed there have been some changes around here. The Mattress Police are getting organized.
In an effort to further the cause of unfettered mattress inspection and ultimate world domination, we are establishing a strict organizational hierarchy of mattress inspection-related offices, effective immediately. The policies and procedures regarding this new organizational structure are spelled out in exquisite detail here. If you have more questions you would like answered after reading that, well, then you're way more interested in this little project than I am. Maybe get a hobby.
I am, and will remain, the sole Chief Mattress Inspector, as long as I have two cerebral hemispheres to rub together.* I am the decider.
The highest ranking non-hereditary office in the MP organization is that of Adjutant Inspector. Currently there is only a single Adjutant Inspector, that honor belonging to Central Snark. Why? Because I find them amusing, mainly. Also, they were the first non-porn related site to link to me.
The importance of the Deputy Inquisitors is evidenced by the fact that while they are technically outranked by the Adjutant Inspectors, they receive exactly the same salary. The Deputy Inquisitors act as friendly emissaries of the Mattress Police, like Angelina Jolie or the Nazgul. Currently this role is filled by:
Kinda Kitschy - Horrifically bad "Christian" merchandise. Basically why people hate Christians.
Crummy Church Signs - Wait, maybe this is why people hate Christians. "Stop By and Bring the Kids" - God.
Dan's Blah Blah Blog - Also a bit too similar to this site for my tastes. Release the hounds!
puppytoes - She's being modest. There are other puppy parts as well.
The thankless work of the Matress Police would be marginally more difficult were it not for a bevy of Cooperative Citizens. In order to protect their identies, I will not list them all here, but rather refer you to the link list to the right. Also, check out the Colluding Coteries, organizations which are part of the shadowy underworld of mattress inspection.
To view the complete list of officials and/or review the ranking guidelines, please visit the Mattress Police Academy. If you think you should be on this list and you aren't, let me know. I'm kind of an idiot sometimes.
This web page will self destruct in 5...4...3...
Dammit, stupid JavaScript. Give me a minute.
*An interesting side note: My shame spiral moves clockwise in the southern hemisphere, and counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere.
What do you get when you mix Blink 182, Queen and a marching band, set it to some hella creepy imagery, and throw in former child actor Lukas Haas? Well, THIS, as a matter of fact. I've mentioned this to a few of you already, but HOLY CRAP is this awesome. The first time I heard this song, I was like, "Man, that's a crazy-a** song." And that was before the choir and crashing cymbals started about two thirds of the way through. Over the course of a few more hearings, I came to love the song more than, say, ice cream or sunlight. And then I saw this video. I don't know what it is they're selling, but I want a hundred of them delivered to my house COD tomorrow.
This morning I was struck by a piercing, insistent pain in my temples that lasted for about 3 minutes. I passed out briefly, and fortunately when I woke up the James Blunt song was over.
James Blunt, in case you live in a cave in pre-glacial Spain, is a hot new pop music import from England, who is remarkable in that his testicles are apparently still across the Atlantic. He has actually been around for a while, but for the first few years of his career only dogs could hear him singing.
His latest song appears to be the culmination of some sort of elaborate joke, which began with a track that rips off the sad walking away music from the 70s TV show The Incredible Hulk and ends with an auditory assault that is reminiscent of a trip to the dentist. It's a rare song that makes me drool blood onto a paper napkin pinned under my chin.
To make matters worse, I was also just subjected to the latest Nick Lachey song, which is - surprise! - apparently about exactly the same thig as his last song: breaking up with Jessica Simpson. Dude, I cried too when my mom threw away my copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, but I got over it. Somebody needs to tell this guy there are more chickens in the sea.
Why am I listening to this crap? Well, I listen to music all day while I'm working, and there is no longer any kind of rock or alternative music station in the entire Central Valley. Somehow this area can support 16 Spanish language stations but not a single station that plays Audioslave, which tells me that either the immigration problem has really gotten out of hand, or that Latinos have a lot more disposable income, per capita, than 16 year old boys do.
The station I'm listening to right now has taken to calling itself "the New [station name here]," even though they've been around for like 10 years, presumably because they recently tweaked their format to sound more exactly like another station right next to it on the dial. They just played Nickelback and Three Doors Down back to back, and I'm rocking so hard I can hardly stay awake. If the gods of rock knew they were being represented in this area solely by the likes of Nickelback and 3DD, they would probably feel the way that Russian people do about Yakov Smirnoff.
The Best Things in Life Are Free (Unless You Are Stupid)
Look, I'm not going to be guilted into writing a blog entry every day, just to amuse you. I'm just not. If my employer can't get me to show up before 10:30am on a regular basis with what they're paying me, then I don't see how you can expect me to cater to your blog addiction for free.
They say the best things in life are free, but that sounds more like a lousy business model than a viable worldview to me. If they were really the best things, they would cost a lot more. Just try going to Best Buy and loading a 62" plasma into your car without paying for it. What kind of twisted worldview doesn't consider a top of the line Hi-Def Plasma TV as one of the best things in life? (I have to admit, though, that the police car ride was pretty fun and technically didn't cost me anything.)
Oh, I know, there's sunshine and oxygen and blah blah blah. But it's all supply and demand. You'd pay for oxygen if I was holding a plastic bag over your head, and if you don't believe me you can ask my little brother. (I just hope you have more money.) And if you've never paid for sunshine, you've obviously never lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Do you know how desperate for sunshine you have to be to pay someone $50 so you can lie in a coffin and be showered in cancer-causing radiation? There were days in January in Michigan when I would have paid someone to shove my face into a frying pan and call it a sunburn.
Some day I'm going to find a way to bottle sunshine. They already charge stupid people a dollar for a little bottle of water. And while people who can't figure out how to get water into a bottle apparently comprise a pretty big market, I'm willing to bet that the market for bottled sunshine is even bigger. The bottled water people are so stupid they don't even realize that Evian is "naive" spelled backwards. I'm going to call my bottled sunshine KramYsae or Ssabmud. Or maybe I should name it after the mystical source of the product, in the manner of Crystal Geyser or Ice Mountain. I'll call it, um, The Sun. Ooh, I know! I'll combine the two methods and call it "The Sun, Ssabmud."
You'll be happy to know that I did some intense research* for this blog entry, and I discovered that "All over the world, water is one of the most popular drinks." That's a bold statement. I'd like some additional supporting information. For example, do thirsty people drink more than non-thirsty people? Do people prefer to drink their water in liquid form, or inhale it as steam? How do people feel about drinking very dirty water, say, with cat urine and mercury in it?
I also learned that the difference between tap water and bottled water is that tap water comes out of a "tap," whereas bottled water is generally surrounded by a plastic container known as a "bottle." According to some reliable website that I don't feel like giving credit to, "Aquafina is municipal water from spots like Wichita, Kansas. Coke's Dasani (with minerals added) is taken from the taps of Queens, New York, Jacksonville, Florida, and elsewhere. Everest bottled water originates from southern Texas, while Yosemite brand is drawn from the Los Angeles suburbs."
So if you're a health conscious Glendale resident breaking open a bottle of Yosemite, keep in mind that you've just paid someone a dollar to fill up a bottle with water from your kitchen sink. That's like paying a dollar for a little mirror so that you can go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Hey, that gives me an idea....
That Would Explain Why They're Not Returning My Calls
A friend recently forwarded me an IM conversation he had with his boss regarding the difficulty he was having getting cooperation from the director of another department. At one point in the exchange, his boss made this remark:
The feeling right now between the two departments is mutually agnostic.
...which, you have to admit, would explain why things aren't going so well between them. I think interdepartmental relations will improve once at least one of the departments comes to acknowledge the other's existence.
So I can explain that void you've been feeling. It's caused by me not blogging for several hours in a row. Sorry about that. I have a good excuse, though: I was abducted by aliens. Or, to be politically correct, "undocumented beings." Alien is such a harsh, and overly descriptive word. No need to hurt anyone's feelings, even if they do have six stomaches and plan to turn earth into a petting zoo.
I think it's admirable how the news media, flummoxed in their attempt to come up with a word describing people whose existence in this country is against the law, have seized upon undocumented as a reasonable approximation. It's the political equivalent of calling fat people "big-boned." Undocumented immigrant has become one of those cultural code phrases that sounds innocuous but actually hides an ugly reality, like "states' rights," "reproductive freedom," or "Rob Schneider comedy." Nor is the word undocumented limited to immigrants any more. I have to admit that I've resorted to using the term occasionally myself. My extensive MP3 collection, for example, is no longer comprised of "pirated songs," but rather "undocumented recordings." Just the other day a crate of undocumented cigarettes fell off a truck near my house. And that guy on the corner isn't a drug dealer, he's an undocumented pharmacist.
I do find it odd that a group of people who have received so much news coverage can remain "undocumented." I mean, when I see someone mowing a lawn on CNN, I consider them to be documented. It's like, dude, we got you on tape, ok? You're documented. I don't have that kind of documentation to prove that I'm doing my job. I have almost no evidence at all, to tell you the truth. Maybe I'm undocumented.
They've even done documentaries about undocumented immigrants. How is that possible? "Tonight: A documentary on undocumented immigrants, brought to you by the producer of "A Spotlight on Shadows."
In California we had the inspired idea of giving undocumented immigrants driver's licenses. When people objected that this was a form of "back-door amnesty", proponents of the idea assured us that the driver's licenses would be distinguishable from regular driver's licenses, so that they could not legally be used for identification purposes. These driver's licenses would, in other words, be documented proof of being undocumented.
The proposal ran into trouble when it was pointed out that it's hard enough to drive on California's roads even without being legally required to be out of the country while doing it. Conservatives countered with a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the country legally as long as they didn't leave their cars, but it died in committee. The issue was a political disaster for the governor, and Californians demonstrated their xenophobia en masse by electing a man who can't pronounce the name of the state.
Personally, I never understood the furor over the driver's license issue. I mean, when the state is already giving driver's licenses to millions of people who apparently don't know how to drive, it seems silly to complain about some of them not being able to read the street signs. I was all for the idea, although I have to admit that I assumed it was one of those deals where they send postcards out to criminals in the hopes that they'll show up to claim the yacht they've won. Congratulations, you've won a free trip to Mazatlan!
I don't want you to get the idea that I'm anti-immigrant. My grandparents were immigrants from Holland, as were my great-grandparents before them (we're an indecisive people). If I hated immigrants, then I would be a "self-hating Dutch person," which I'm pretty sure is redundant. Anyway, sorry if i'm coming off like Pat Buchanan on a bad day (or maybe Rob Schneider on a good day). I'm still a little sore from the undocumented prostate exam on the spacecraft.
Antisocial? Me? I'm not antisocial, am I? Maybe I am antisocial.
I just noticed something really cool. Being an antisocial person, I spend a lot of time on the internet and one thing that I compulsively and antisocially do is check my traffic statistics, including where my various antisocial visitors are coming from. It turns out that recently some antisocial people have gotten to my site by googling the word "antisocial." So I tried it myself, and sure enough I turn up ninth on the results for "antisocial." So while I don't necessarily want to be known as the most antisocial person on the internet, I was wondering if it would be possible to move up a notch or two by using the word "antisocial" as many times as I possibly could in a particularly antisocial blog entry. Hey, it's worth a try.
What would be even more helpful, though not particularly antisocial, is if you could link to this post with the word "antisocial" in the link text. Or maybe post an antisocial comment or two.
...Because the wankers at Winsave gave up running ASP scripts. Yeah, just like that. Cold turkey. You have to admire that kind of decisiveness and discipline.
Time to fax over my request to transfer this domain. Again. This will be the third time, so I'm sure they'll hop on it. If not, every post from here on is going to be titled "Winsave fondles little boys."
Stumble it!
Digg it!
So after they busted us we got hauled before the judge, all dressed in our Sunday best. The judge was probably just gonna send us to the juvie camp, cuz that's what they do around there to kids what ain't got no future. But then our no-good fat-ass public defender opens his pie hole and says, "Yer honor, these is just three messed up kids." He meant it to be helpful, but wouldn't you know that right then and there was when I got all fed up to here being called kid, so I says to the judge, "Yer honor, I ain't no kid." Which is how Skeet and Colt got sent to the juvie camp, but me, the youngest one, got seven years hard labor.
Boss was one sorry excuse for a man. He used to tell us how he'd punish his dog when he misbehaved by whuppin' him til he bled, and then tyin' him to a tree and puttin' hamburger patties out on the ground just out of the dog's reach, so the poor mutt would spend all day cuttin' up his neck just to get a sniff of that meat. It wasn't long after the day I got named Diesel that we heard that Boss's wife left him for a ballet dancer, and he had to quit because he couldn't get no respect any more from the convicts. Even a pansy-ass ballet dancer was more of a man than him, the convicts would say.
Recently my wife and I went to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley. Tom Petty's music is considered to be "classic rock," a genre which has mysteriously grown to include pretty much everything I listened to in college. We didn't know it was classic back then, so we just called it "regular rock." They were great, of course. Petty even hauled out Stevie Nicks for a couple of numbers, which was cool, although it did make me wonder what kind of box he keeps her in off-stage. Petty and Nicks both look the same as they did 30 years ago, but I suppose that's true of most people who are 200 yards away.
When I was a kid, I spent a fair amount of time being scolded for doing things I wasn't supposed to do. Like maybe I talked back to a teacher, or lost my homework, or nearly burned down our neighborhood, for example.
My wife used to teach computers to kindergarteners. One day she was trying to teach a slightly challenged boy how to double-click. She told him, "Put your mouse over the picture and double-click."
I'm currently using a hosting provider named WinSave. They charge me $8 a month, and I actually feel like I'm getting ripped off. I've been trying to switch to a company that doesn't use Fisher Price servers, but am meeting with some resistance. So I've decided to keep you posted on my correspondence with this delightful company.
People who don't know me very well, who consider me to be a quiet, sensitive person, are always surprised to learn that I am in fact an insufferable smartass. I tend to keep my snarky comments to myself when I'm around people I don't know that well, partly because a lot of people tend to assume that I'm making fun of them, but mostly because even more people don't realize I am making fun of them. Then I'm in the awkward position of having to explain that I'm a jerk who thinks they are stupid, and I usually don't stop talking until I've proven at least one of those points. For example, the conversation might go like this:
