don't try to buy a hammer if you have a facial injury

On Saturday night I returned home around 9 pm after a 6 hour cleaning session at a friend's house (yes, my friends invite me over to clean their houses - your point is?). I was going to brush my teeth so I opened my medicine cabinet, which has a metal mirror door. I should also mention that it opens lefty side (much to the chagrin of my contractor who thinks I should have my new medicine cabinet open right side - maybe he has a point about that).

Anyway, my toothbrush, which flashes a smiley face at me when I've brushed for 2 minutes, needed a recharge, so I reached into my vanity cabinet to get the charger out.

That's when I discovered I had a leak in the pipe under the sink. I tightened the plastic, what ever it's called, thing that holds the pipe to the sink, and then pulled out a basket of lotions and soap I have that were mired in water.

As I stood up with the basket my forehead made contact with the edge of the mirror. I wasn't sure what happened at first because I felt no pain. There was, however, horror movie style blood gushing everywhere.

I hit the mirror hard enough that pieces of the mirror, which broke at the edge, are still coming out of the wound.

Sunday I had to go to home depot to buy a sledge hammer because I'm going to fix my fence, which was broken when my neighbor's tree fell on it, with this product called fence mender. Installation requires a sledge hammer.

There was a this hammer, that hammer, all kinds of hammers, but nothing that said "sledge hammer". A sales guy who must have noticed my bewildered expression inquired if I needed help. I was like "yeah, I'm looking for a sledge hammer".

He pulled something called an engineer's hammer (engineers are so awesome) and said "this would probably work for you". Then he must have interpreted the confused look on my face (I was thinking "but why wouldn't they say in the directions I needed an engineer's hammer instead of a sledge hammer?????") as doubt because he said "Well, we have bigger sledge hammers in gardening."

Then, looking at the still bleeding cut on my forehead:

"But, probably you should buy something smaller."

Fucking what ever.

My friend whose house I cleaned, who on Sunday found my wound amusing, suggested I use my "special jew healing powers" to heal the huge bloody knot on my forehead.

Worked. It's getting better.

Now I just look like a half ass Manson follower rather than someone with a huge bloody lump on the forehead.

In conclusion, I need my fucking bathroom redone like yesterday.

super taster meets fat viking

It's not easy being a super taster like I am. Your reputation tends to spread. Which is why a friend of a friend of a friend asked me to taste test his micro brew beer.

Skinny girls drink fat viking???

The beer was good. But not quite Caution or Wit's End breweries. And not just because I can't ride my bike there because there is no "there" yet for this dude (he hasn't officially opened yet).

In other news, if you go to Wit's End, the Italian invented a new drink. Mix Jean Claude Van Blonde with the Super FL (pronounced "fly) ipa. Guess it could be called the Italian Stallion. Make sure you stare at the Mr. T plate when you drink it.

opera Denver style

Last night my italian friend took me to see Don Giovanni. The opera got great reviews and I hadn't been to the opera house before so I was really excited.

My friend has abnormally long legs so he got us seats in the back because they have more leg room (it's where they put wheelchairs and stuff).

While the position of the seats was good, the seats themselves were broken. The seat part wouldn't lower down so my ass was semi squished between the seat and the seat back. Also, my feet couldn't touch the ground (considering I have a 33 inch inseam that's saying a lot). My friend started laughing because I looked stupid and then he sat down and his seat had the same fucking problem (though he could put his feet on the ground). I started laughing hysterically and couldn't stop (perhaps this was in part because we drank a bottle of wine before the show).

Then the opera started and our translators didn't work (the translator is mounted on the back of the seat in front). That made me laugh (silently) even harder. The woman sitting next to me was drinking nyquil out of a bottle and coughing. The guy sitting next to my Italian friend was wearing a "JC Penney's dress shirt" which he found "distasteful and horrible" so he was trying to not touch the dude's shirt.

My Italian friend was quietly trying to translate what was going on (I'm italian too but only know bad words) but obviously he couldn't explain everything. Towards the end of the first act he just said "it's almost intermission".

As soon as the lights went up the nyquil woman tried to get out of her seat but was having a hard time (she was not thin and her seat was broken too, just not as bad as mine). I started laughing again and couldn't stop. I also had to pee so we ran across the street to The Office and then my friend decided maybe he shouldn't take me back for the second act since I couldn't stop laughing.

Instead we walked home in the rain. It was fun.

herb garden bitches!

This weekend I planted an herb garden in my office.

Found this cool blue watering can and decided to buy some plants to water with it.

The garden includes chives, basil, um...cilantro...maybe parsley?...and....something else.

I'm going to use them for cooking, once I learn how. And I guess I can look up online what these plants are since I can't fucking remember and it's probably not good to add stuff to food when you don't know what it is...

faren't you glad I called?

I have a friend who purposely farts around me because he knows I will laugh like a four year old, especially when he farts on things he doesn't like (like when his tablet is running slow) or on dogs (it's not animal abuse, and when the dog runs away it trails the fart smell which makes me laugh even harder).

I have never talked to this friend on the phone. And I assumed, like me, he ignores all phone calls. One of the reasons we're friends is that we are both extremely anti-social. It's nice to have friends that don't expect you to do friend stuff. Like talk to each other in real life.

Anyway, my nephew was kind of gassy this evening after eating Indian food. I'm talking farts that sound like the fabric of the universe ripping. So I got the great idea to prank fart call my friend. Then my niece decided we should enhance the prank call with this app she has on her ipad called "big button box". The plan was, when voice mail picked up, for my niece to press the "incoming!" button and then after my nephew farted to play another button that made a toilet flushing sound.

Instead what happened is my friend answered the phone, but on my end we were all laughing so hard and my nephew was farting and my niece pressing all the buttons on the big button box that we didn't notice. Until he hung up and the line went dead.

Now, seriously. Who would have imagined my friend, who I never call, answering his phone when he sees it's me calling?

On speaker phone.

While with his family.

In a restaurant.

Oy vey.

tigers r us

My sister and her two kids are in town this week. So today I took them to the wild animal sanctuary today where there are (a running theme in my blog lately) lots of carnivores.

They aren't fucking around when it comes to tigers. They have like a billion tigers.

The, haha, cat house. These are new tigers being introduced to the sanctuary. Once they start to like their neighbors they get to be placed in an open environment. Where, hopefully, they won't kill each other. These tigers came from some facility that was shut down. They were being raised for their fur.

Cats sleep 18 hours a day. These tigers are like "fuck you non profit, I don't move around for less than $10,000 a day, raise your money some other way bitches."

Lions. "We're hanging out together because it's cold, but we don't like Ralph over there because he farts a lot." Disappointingly, lions smell like a public portable toilet. But, worse.

Okay, horrible picture, but this lion was standing around with 3 other lions when he decided to take a huge shit. Then he walked away from the group all like "Haha, smell that bitches!" My niece then recounted the time she saw an elephant pee and then shit at a zoo. And I quote: "One elephant shit is like the equivalent of what people shit in two months." The makings of an engineer because she's quantifying things? Perhaps.

Baby black bears. Yeah, I know they aren't black. But science says they're black bears and if you argue with Tony he'll spew facts at you until to freeze in the wind. The blond on the left has just fallen off those logs. The brown dude on the right is about to step into a water pond that isn't frozen. Kids, learning shit the hard way.

Oh, that's what happens when you step on thin ice. Quick, pretend you meant to do that so you could get a drink. Meanwhile blondie is about to tumble down the snow hill. Note to bear self: snow is kind of slippery.

This pic was taken in another cat house where 8 tigers rescued from a zoo that abused them are being socialized. Tiger on the left is pissed at tiger on the right, maybe because she has an exercise ball. Tiger on the right is under the hay bales shrieking like she's getting paid. Bitches starting shit and being passive aggressive. Never see THAT with humans.

 Sanctuary was a lot of fun but super cold to visit in the winter. Think I'll go back when it's warmer. I definitely recommend it for visitors. Tip: you can push them off the elevated walk way if they are annoying visitors. Pretty sure someone will eat them.

Speaking of eating:

In other news, my niece made mexican lasagna for dinner tonight under my tutelage. I let her do everything including browning the meat. It was pretty good (the lasagna). Though, I should NOT be teaching anyone to cook given my track record of ruining stoves and almost burning down apartment buildings. She also made oatmeal bars which were very good. No comment on whether she washed her hands before starting the cooking process (no). What does not kill us makes us stronger.

shit I didn't need to know about cow heads

On a related barn yard animal topic, I would like to mention a recent disturbing discovery.

In 2007 I was dating a guy who had a friend who was super rich because he designed the chairs used in the fast food place Chipotle. I had never heard of, much less been to, Chipotle so the dude I was dating insisted we go there post haste.

Initially I ordered a vegetarian burrito, which sucked. So the next time we went there he suggested I have the barbacoa burrito. It was good.

During the barbecuing of my egg rolls last week a conversation ensued between my friend, who is an amazing cook, and this red head dude (who can supposedly steal souls because he's a redhead) who does some great shit with game meat that he shoots himself and apparently drags out of the woods for miles with his dog named Doc who's never had sex (I know this because I watched him have "not have sex sex" with a female lab named Norma (after Marilyn Monroe)).

The conversation was about the soul stealer's new recipe for barbacoa beef made in a slow cooker (my friend and soul stealer are both foodies who talk non stop about food when they aren't talking about sex, motorcycles, and sex, oh, did I mention sex already, then, um, the third thing they talk about is micro brews).

I told my friend "you should totally get that recipe!" (for the barbacoa beef, not sex)

because I thought I liked barbacoa beef.

When I mentioned the need to procure the recipe again on Saturday (friend's initial response: "I cook you all kinds of shit and now you're telling me to get a recipe from a soul stealer?") someone mentioned that barbacoa is beef cheeks.

Not cow ass cheeks. Like. Their. Fucking. Cheeks. On their faces cheeks.

Who THE FUCK eats ANYONE'S cheeks?????? Besides SERIAL MURDERERS.

(fish excepted, they're just fucking fish, fish cheeks are good)

Apparently me.

Aforementioned so called friend had told me, when I asked about where on the cow was barbacoa beef, since he seems to have the anatomy down about all animals and what the parts you can eat are called, and I quote:

"Barbacoa is just a style of cooking beef. It's just steak with seasoning."

And then he took me out for some barbacoa tacos.

Which sucks because I was like "Bastard! You ordered me cow face tacos!" and he was like "And you loved them!"

I don't think I'm a serial murderer.

But, don't ask me to babysit your kids.

chickens and pigs

My group at work is using the scrum method to do some major reorganization. Basically scrum means you have 30 days to do a bunch of work and deliver stuff at the end of the 30 days instead of doing the normal project thing which is to dick around for 6 months and not get anything done. We'll see if it works.

There's a concept in scrum of chickens and pigs. It all stems from this stupid joke:

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.

The Chicken says: "Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!"

Pig replies: "Hm, maybe, what would we call it?"

The Chicken responds: "How about 'ham-n-eggs'?"

The Pig thinks for a moment and says: "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"

Um, yeah. I don't get it either. But it bugs the shit out of me because I have to sit in 3 hour meetings where people talk about pigs and chickens. Some software person will burn in hell for scrum.

So to make things more interesting to myself I had the following exchange with my scrum team:

Team Member 1: So, the pig will be signing off on the...
me: Excuse me. Is there a kosher version of scrum? I find the reference to pork offensive.
TM 1: Well, um, see the pig is supposed to...
TM 2 (from India): I don't like pork either. It's definitely offensive.
TM 1: Well maybe we could use goat instead.
me: I'm also a vegetarian.

And that's why we now use turnips and carrots instead of pigs and chickens. Fuck you who ever came up with scrum.

 

egg rolls, redneck style

I made egg rolls on Wednesday night. I started with a recipe and went a little rogue. The idea was egg rolls that had liquid in them like dumplings.

They looked good.

On Saturday night I took them over to a friend's house since he was having a pot-luck dinner and I can't cook the egg rolls because I'm afraid to fry things because I might burn my eyes. He had been trimming trees in his yard and was burning the branches in a fire pit. So dinner ended up being a barbecue.

Which is how the egg rolls ended up being...barbecued.

um...

...yum?

People seemed to like them and ate all of them.

Full disclosure: aforementioned people were drinking.

dating again - the list

A friend of mine recently entered the dating cess pool after being married for a long time. He asked me for some advice (yes, he's that desperate that he's asking me for dating advice). I sent him a list of rules and he suggested I post it on my blog.

Caveat: I've never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a year. Which means I'm either really experienced at dating or I have a lot of lessons learned from failed relationships...

The joys of being single...I guess it's not traumatic for me since I've never had a relationship that lasted longer than a year but I'd guess it's hard if you aren't used to it. I'd offer this advice on dating:

1. Don't. Just sleep with people and have fun with your friends.
2. If you have to date don't take advice from friends / acquaintances. They're usually wrong, especially the married ones.
3. Not kidding about the throw away year (i.e. the first year after getting out of a relationship is throw away - you won't have a meaningful relationship with someone else because you're adjusting to being out of your old relationship).
4. It's more important to figure out what you can't put up with than what you can and avoid women with that quality even if they have everything else going for them (fuckable tits, nice wax job, large inheritance). For example, lots of guys 86 their wives because the wife wants more kids - I've seen it first hand, the breeding instinct can turn women into sperm zombies. If that's something you don't like avoid interest in anyone who seems breeder-ish. Women will lie like fucking roadkill and once they have you trapped try to force you into having a kid with them or worse, as just happened to a friend of mine two weeks ago, they "accidentally" get pregnant. That dude is marrying someone he doesn't really love and having a kid he doesn't really want because he was too trusting. Women are scheming bitches (myself excepted) and they'll sense it if you're naive. Trust no one.
5. Also, shit that used to drive you crazy about your ex will be amplified in who ever you are dating. For example, if your wife shopped too much you'll notice every time the person you're with spends money. This is not fair to the person you're with (again, throw away year) but it's going to happen.
6. Keep your distance. I've seen a lot of friends jump right into a serious relationship because that's what they are used to. Then suddenly they're like "fuck this, I'm going to fuck a bunch of people!" or worse "fuck me, I'm in the same relationship I used to be in".
7. Keep any relationship you have in the hole. Friends and exes are good at creating drama which you do not want to deal with.
8. Never talk about your ex to anyone you are with. Bad things will happen.
9. Don't waste money trying to impress women. They're throw away at this point anyway so why bother with a financial investment.
10. Stay away from needy women or slacker women. They're the ones who are going to latch onto you and expect to be taken care of. They'll also boil your pet bunny and slash your tires when you dump them.
11. One break up and that's it. If you guys get into more than one huge fight it's just going to be drama down the line. Get out while it's still easy.
12. Be up front that you aren't looking for a serious relationship and if things start sliding towards that (e.g. you guys are practically living together) put on the brakes and reiterate that you are not looking for a serious relationship. Women are stupid but they eventually get the message.

what's going on in the kitchen these days...

Yes, I used a level when I was putting them up.

My spice rack finally came yesterday. And the company gave me 10% off because it was so late.

brain fog drink

I also made a brain fog drink:

2 cups of spinach
2 cups of cucumbers
1 bunch celery
1 ts ginger root
1 bunch parsley
2 apples
juice of 1 lime
juice of 1/2 lemon

Throw it in the blender. Not all at once because if your blender is like mine it won't do shit. Also, cut stuff up really tiny. Otherwise you'll be blending for forever. It's supposed to make you think better. Don't know if it's helping me with that but it's a cool color and doesn't taste horrible.

BTW, if you don't eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables it might make you fart a lot. Or so I've heard.

Finally, I made dinner for a friend:

Montreal steak in the slow cooker - it's been cooking for 12 hours now

But he decided to help a friend move or something like that instead of coming for dinner.

Hm. It smells good. How bad could steak in a slow cooker suck?

death by toy

And my mom was worried about me getting a motorcycle...

I needed to get a balance board for physical therapy for my knee. I tried a few but they were too easy (not bragging, I'm not coordinated as anyone who knows me will tell you). Then I found a Carrom balance board. Of course I ordered it.

There was only one piece of paper that came with the Carrom board. The top part explained how to put the Carrom board together. The bottom was a caution to wear knee pads, elbow pads, and a helmet. And not to use the board on hardwood floors or near furniture or shit that breaks easily or around sharp surfaces. And not to hold a knife or sharp object in hand while using the board.

It looks so innocent. It's fucking hard. That wheel underneath moves.

Guess I will not be chopping vegetables while on my Carrom board.

how much for the universe?

This is why I LOVE Neil DeGrasse Tyson. If you aren't inspired by this video you're a cyborg.

I wish I could cook things better so I could invite NDGT to my house for dinner.

pimp my shark

A few days ago a friend of mine was showing me his TV. It has a box attached to it that can go into the TV and find shows people like. Then it stores them and you can watch them later and fast forward through the commercials. The box keeps the shows in there for 30 days. I think.

I have to admit that when my friend was explaining all this shit to me he was also showing me how to do a search on TV shows because I had just finished saying that TV is stupid because you can't search it like the internet. So I asked him to do a search on sharks and a ton of TV shows came up. Most of them, unfortunately, were not about sharks. They were about people, lawyers and assholes for the most part. But he did find two documentaries on great white sharks that I hadn't seen before and a show called "shark therapy" about people who get attacked by sharks and then hang out with sharks to get over the attack. Or something like that. His dog was biting my sock so, again, I was distracted.

That's the coolest thing I've ever heard of a TV doing, besides blowing up.

The other day we watched the great white shark documentary. He isn't particularly interested in sharks but he was trying to be polite. The documentary was filmed in Isla Guadalupe, where I went in 2003 to tag great whites.

Immediately things went south (haha):

friend: (in a mexican accent) Yes, my boat can tag great whites. We'll bring my brother. He makes burrritos.
me: we make special shark tags, out of cinder blocks and recycled car parts
friend: we weld them to the sharks (at this point in the doc the scientists were drilling a hole into the great white's dorsal fin to insert the tag)
me: pimp my shark

sometimes gaming the system doesn't work because the system is fucking stupid

So, against part of the advice of a friend who's a professional athlete ("doing too much PT can exacerbate an injury"), but following other of his advice ("increase quantity before increasing resistence"), I doubled and then tripled up on my PT, which I started a month ago because my knee hurt so bad I could barely walk. I was initially given a green thera-band (easy) and told that I could get a blue band if I improved. Instead I decided I wanted the yellow band (the hardest thera-band) because I'm an over-achiever and wanted to skip blue (it's like the silver medal - no one wants to be #2), which is why I was doing extra PT exercises.

I was all ready last Friday to go in for my appointment and get my yellow band. Then my fucking therapist called in sick and my appointment was canceled. So I had it rescheduled for today and did a bunch more workouts in the mean time.

I get there, and it's not my therapist, it's some pipsqueak named April. She didn't even ask to see me do my exercises, just started tying blue thera-bands around my legs and shit. I was like "wait a minute, the blue is too easy, I think I need the yellow thera-band". She was like "what yellow thera-band?" and I was like "the hardest thera-band, the yellow one." I showed her how the blue thera-and was so easy for me that I could do my inverted plank and spread my knees wide enough to give birth (should only be able to pull them a few inches apart).

She looked at me for about a minute without speaking and then slowly said "the hardest thera-band IS the blue." I showed her on my tablet that it's yellow. She said "we don't have yellow here" and I realized I had somehow mistaken an orange thera-band (stupid easy) I had seen on the ground in my previous session for yellow.

Then April said "if you could do the exercises with the yellow thera-band you wouldn't be in therapy would you?"

Whatevah, bitch.

So, I didn't get my yellow thera-band and was instead given a sheet of paper instructing me how to build a wobble board. The bottom of the paper has a warning that I may get a concussion or serious injury if I fall off the wobble board or close my eyes while on the wobble board. And I have to wear two blue thera-bands for all my exercises since my PT office DOESN'T HAVE THE FUCKING YELLOW THERA-BAND.

Total. Suck.

I didn't make another appointment.

kid gloves...but made with real kids

One of my favorite movies these days is In The Loop. And a friend of mine just found one of our favorite scenes on YouTube. Among the other classic lines: "Shut up, Love Actually!" (to a character who looks like a character in the movie Love Actually).

He also found out that it's part of a series called In The Thick of It. Need to watch that too.

I love british humor.

Regina Dugan was right about geeks!

From NPR, 5 Nerds To Watch in 2013:

Regina Dugan says there's a lesson in that. As she told a TED conference last year, "You should be nice to nerds. In fact I'd go so far as to say if you don't already have a nerd in your life you should get one."

One of the reasons I've been slacking on my blog is because I've been hanging out with geeks (not to say I'm not a geek), including my brother Steve, who is in town for a mining conference. I am lucky to have plenty of nerds in my life.

Advantages of hanging out with geeks:

Situation 1: I bought some yogurt covered cherries. The yogurt is actually "chocolate yogurt" which doesn't even exist except in the Sunmaid laboratory. The cherries are near their expiration date and while the cherries are good the chocolate yogurt is not. A geek friend and I are doing experiments to determine the best way to remove the chocolate (yogurt, heating, lemon juice) so I don't have to throw the cherries away but can get rid of the disgusting yogurt.

Situation 2: I'm trying to get Steve to buy a TENS machine because I LOVE mine. He scanned something on my TENS machine and was able to look up the model and web site quicker than I could find the information on Google. He also scanned something on my friend's dishwasher because he wanted to know if it was a model that had been recalled because the dishwasher turned itself on and wouldn't turn off.

Situation 3: We had a massive snow storm on Sunday. A true geek has so many "toys", including snow blowers, that you never have to shovel snow manually.

To be fair, there are some disadvantages:

Situation 1: Eating a cherry that has been soaked in vinegar will probably make you throw up even if the vinegar is effective in removing the chocolate yogurt.

Situation 2: Having easy access to information about a dishwasher model may encourage geeks to take the dishwasher apart to see if they can fix it. Steve's girlfriend jokes that my family takes our friends' faulty machines apart, and, if unable to fix them, leaves. Then the friend has to buy a new dishwasher.

Situation 3: I discovered on Sunday that the snow blower has a tube on the top that you can move to change the direction the snow blows. If you happen to have a friend who is a mischievous geek he may aim the aforementioned snow blower tube at you while you are shoveling snow manually. And then you get a face full of snow. And then the geek friend laughs because you look like a human snow man.

hahaha

great idea or potential organ donor situation?

I haven't been posting much on my blog because I've been fucking off climbing and riding motorcycles. A friend of mine has 3 bikes. No, that's not a typo. Three bikes.

One is a dirt bike that is currently being worked on. Then he has a BMW touring bike and he just procured a Harley Davidson. Since the weekend was nice we had to take both out. He describes the BMW as a polite waiter who ensures that your dining experience is perfect. The Harley is more like the waitresses at Mercury Cafe, which is to say rude and obnoxious. And they don't corner really well.

His BMW has a radio so I suggested we blast NPR. He asked me not to say geeky things in front of his biker friends like that. Then he demonstrated to make sure I understood what he meant by bringing up some topics I might have brought up with him:

"So I was watching this DVD on chaos...GEEK!"
"Did you read about that meteor that crashed into...GEEK!"
"Hey, that license plate is an irregular num...GEEK!"

He and his biker friends are trying to talk me into getting a motorcycle. At first I was thinking no way. I'd spend all my free time fixing my bike or fucking it up on the trails...

...but, I do still have all my bike stuff from when I had a Yamaha TTR back in 2007 or was it 2008.

Quantitative analysis on whether or not I should get a dirt bike:

Cost of bike + insurance + having to deal with the fuckwits at the DMV (I have to subtract something otherwise this equation won't come out in favor of getting a dirt bike...hm...subtracting 1 is always safe) - 1
[I'm going to put some braces in here so this formula looks like some of that fucked up shit on wikipedia (then put in some parentheses to confuse people so they won't scrutinize my formula) * (how come you can't put things like exponentials in blogger posts?) - (doesn't anyone blog about math?) + (I should add some brackets too because I like them * once at 1 am when I was writing code I noticed they look like a pilgrim head {} / happy thanksgiving!)]  (this is the point in the equation where you put in a big dividing line)
________________________________________

(quick! think of something to divide!) FUN * (cool jacket + new boots)

= maybe I SHOULD by a motorcycle

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had friends that were good influences on me.

I'd die of boredom. Motorcycle is safer than that.

birthday bench

I guess all my worrying was for nothing. The cart I got for my dad arrived today.

My mom wrote:

The bench got here this morning and was all put together and on a skid.  I unwrapped it, put the skid under my boat to get it up off the floor (which is a really good thing), then proceeded to clean and rearrange the garage.  Bob is going to be so surprised and pleased.  He will probably change things around when he gets here Friday, but stuff is organized and up off the floor and in a condition that if he wants to change things it will not be a big deal and if he doesn't, everything is in an easy to get to place.  He's going to love it.

Doesn't look that insanely big. And my mom can move it.

That dude must have been a midget.

I'm not crazy, I'm creative - there's a difference

My new pantry has been driving me crazy because I couldn't find a way to neatly organize it. I am a bit A type about organization:

well organized

messy

even more organized

But then I got a great idea to stage a town in my pantry using my food:

This is main street. All the bottles in front are hanging out people watching and the stuff in the back is people walking down the street. The lasagna box is a bar. The salad dressing is a cop.

This is the bad part of town. The oatmeal is a fat gangster. The potatoes are a passed out homeless person. The bottles of olive oil are prostitutes. The packages in the back are drunk people holding each other up.

This is the jail. The eyeglass cleaning spray is the warden and the red thing of cat crap is where you get checked in to the jail. The large tea holder is the main jail and the smaller one is holding cells. The napkin holder is a barbed wire fence. The salt is solitary confinement and the band aid box is the infirmary where the inmates are taken when they get stabbed.

big guy, small fork

Way to go fuckwits at the Mercury Cafe...

What sense does it make to give the tallest guy in the restaurant the smallest fork? And, BTW, he has oversized hands from playing sports and stuff.

smallest fork EVER

This was the original pic I took but as you can see I was laughing too hard to hold my blackberry straight - you can see my normal sized fork on the plate

In case you're wondering what that is on the plate, it's a tofu chop and a potato and cheese thing.

it may not be the best present, but it's probably the biggest

My dad's birthday is tomorrow. I asked him what he wanted and he said for me to visit him when he's home. But he's not quite sure when that will be...

...so I asked my mom for an idea. She couldn't think of anything at first, and then she woke up last Friday at 330 in the morning and remembered my dad and my brother talking about a table he wanted to order for the garage where he could put manuals and what ever shit he was using for one of his many projects. She sent me the link to a store where he often buys things called Gempler's.

Went out on the web site, found the table I think my dad was referring to, and ordered it (I also had them add wheels so my dad can push it around).

nice, normal table

Just looking at it in the pic, it doesn't seem unreasonably big...

Then I decided to email a picture of the table to a male friend of mine who will be tres jealous. That's when I noticed that there was an additional picture of the table on the Gempler's web site. So I clicked on it:

Holy fuck. Is that guy a midget? The table is HUGE. SHIT.

I called my dad and said I got him a surprise for his birthday and he said "I hope you didn't get something over the top." Um, is a huge table over the top?

Gempler's called today and said the table is so heavy they need a special truck to deliver it and would they be able to fit the truck down my parents' drive way and did I need pneumatic lift services.

Fuck fuck fuck. The table has WHEELS. Can't they just push it down the driveway? I am now imagining that I bought my dad a huge table that weighs more than the state of West Virginia and that only godzilla can move.

Sigh.

I am art at the DEAD academy

Yesterday a sub group of my writer's group that loves movies did our movie night at the DEAD academy which is an art studio / training place for artists. Last Friday we did it in Mike's basement...it's my second movie night. I got invited back because I was able to name 10 movies that no one in the group had heard of (thanks to my friend Neil!!!!)

We were supposed to go to Mike's (my writing mentor) basement again for movie night but Thursday night he remembered he had promised to go to the DEAD academy to promote this year's digifest. I was sad because this week it was my turn to pick movies to watch. So Mike said "don't worry, we'll just do movie night at the DEAD academy."

Yesterday was first friday (DEAD is in the art district) and Sante Fe street was packed. DEAD was even more crowded and packed with people.

I realized when I got there that we (the movie night people) were one of the art installations. Unexpected but fun. I got to pretend to be a movie expert, said a bunch of insane shit that sounded academic about movies in general, and then I sat on the floor while everyone else sat on chairs. We watched demonlover. The artist who arranged us was enthralled with my TENS (best thing I've ever bought EVER - if you have joint pain GET ONE) so we decided to put it on Mike's knee instead of mine and then he was supposed to shake his leg like he was being electrocuted, which he did very realistically.

Mike's dirty from sitting on the floor with me. DEAD is, um, rustic? Industrial? actually it's dirty and half built...

When people came over to talk to us he said I was in the CIA and was torturing him. I was supposed to point out the technical flaws in the movie (e.g. the pillow smothering scene was so fake) and when there was a gun on screen a guy named Trinity had to say "Oh, a .45" and then I had to yell "that's a FUCKING 9 mil!" For our participation we all got 6 bottles of Oogave soda to take home, as much fat tire as we wanted (don't drink beer usually but that's okay), and pizza (I didn't eat it because it was from a chain).

DEAD doesn't have any heat and I am still freezing.

We were the most viewed installation. Fun!

Our installation...it was late so most of the movie people had left...Mike is sitting on the floor pretending to be me.

a free pizza isn't worth dying for

Last night I ate an entire pizza by myself (it took 3 hours but I did it). There’s a restaurant next to my hotel that serves the best brick oven pizza.

Then last night I had a dream that I was on the subway in DC with two women that were in their 20s. I was their mentor at work. We got off the metro and went to a shiny glass skyscraper that said “CIA/FBI HEADQUARTERS” on the side in silver letters.

I was like “You know what we should do? We should climb to the top of this skyscraper. There’s an antenna up there that you pull on and then you get a coupon for a free pizza. And when you get your free pizza it comes with a coupon for another free pizza. We’ll never have to pay for pizza again.” The women were like “COOL!” So we started free climbing. I had a climbing rope over my left arm and figured we could use that to rappel down after we got to the top.

The wind was blowing as we were climbing and it was even worse when I got to the top. I grabbed the antenna, pulled it towards me, and it started quivering. Then the pizza coupon came out of the base of the antenna. I put it in my pocket and then went back to the side of the building to see how close the two women were to the top.

I realized they were both in trouble because they couldn’t climb over this scaffolding thing that was just under the roof. So I climbed down and pulled the first woman over the scaffolding. Then it started raining so I lowered the climbing rope and pulled up the second woman because I was afraid she would slip and fall.

Then I looked out over the city and realized we had free climbed 100 stories up and that there was nothing on the roof to anchor the climbing rope on so we could rappel down. Then the wind started blowing really hard and the sky scraper started swaying violently. I almost fell off the building. I thought to myself “come on, you better start acting professional” because I didn’t want to scare the two women with me who were relying on me to be the expert climber.

We had to crawl around on the roof so we wouldn’t fall off the building. I had assumed that there would be a low wall around the edge of the roof so we wouldn’t fall off but there wasn’t. Then I realized the scaffolding was up because they (who ever “they” were) had been taking the wall down. The women were crying and holding on to other antennas on the roof. They kept asking how we were going to get down. Then it started lightning. All the antennas were buzzing from the electrical charge and we couldn’t hold on to them anymore because they were giving us shocks.

I thought “we are so fucked and my free pizza coupon is disintegrating in the rain.”

Then I woke up.

it's not a penis, it's a FUCKING VEGETABLE

SO ANNOYED!

My office has a cafeteria so I always go down there at lunch to get a salad (don't ever have time for a real lunch hour, just end up carrying my salad from meeting to meeting and it usually takes me 2 hours to finish it). Anyway, there's a TOTALLY ANNOYING little asian woman who works at the caf and she is always in my way at the salad bar. Like I'm trying to get some spinach and she starts fluffing the arugala in the bowl next to the spinach with her little tongs so I have to wait. Then I decide to get some tomatoes and she walks right next to me, reaches in front of me, and starts fluffing the shredded carrots so I can't get any tomatoes because her arm is in the way. She fluffs the cucumbers when I'm trying to get the red peppers. Etc.

Then I try to get some salad dressing and she starts re-arranging the salt and pepper packets that are above the salad dressing. It happens EVERY FUCKING TIME I go down there. I usually only have about 5 minutes to grab something to eat, which is a reasonable amount of time, except for the asian fluffer who causes huge delays. I've tried tricking her by building my salads in reverse order so she doesn't know which vegetable I'm going to get. Didn't work. I've tried faking her out by suddenly going to the sandwich bar but she just waits until I go back to the salad bar to continue her infernal fluffing.

I want to stomp on her glasses and set her hairnet on fire. I was late to a meeting today because of her.

Speaking of meetings, I had to leave our staff meeting today because the colleague I was with when the farting incident occurred sat across from me and was trying to make me laugh (it's the first time I've seen him face to face since the fart) but I was ignoring him. So he sent me an IM that said "what's up, fartner in crime?" I choked on my tea and pretended that's why I had to leave for a minute. I was coughing and laughing at the same time which hurt.

And also, I forgot to mention, they took the beets off the salad bar. I'm like "why don't we have any beets?" and they said "I don't know." I was like "are you going to order some more so we have beets?" and they were like "I don't know." So here's a question you might be able to answer fuck wits - how am I supposed to make a spinach and beet salad with no beets? Annoyed, part 2.

Other than that the day is going well.

if only peace were so easy in egypt

Althea has stopped attacking Otis. At least during nap time.

keep your friends close and your enemies closer

first dark matter discovery - Venus and Uranus

I know that sounds like the start to a sex or fart joke but it isn't. I swear.

So I'm almost done with my dark matter class and we're learning about quintessence which hurts even my creative head. Then Dr. Carroll told a story about the first dark matter discovery.

Back in 1618 Johannes Kepler came up with the third law of planetary motion (has to do with how planets orbit the sun and calculating their orbits). His calculations worked really well until he got to Uranus. Something was off with the orbit. So he surmised that there was another planet that couldn't be seen (i.e. dark matter - that's all dark matter is, something we know is there but can't see) with the telescope technology of the time that was fucking up Uranus' orbit. Not only was he right, he even was able to precisely (well, as precise as space can be) predict where it was.

Cool story and interesting when thinking about dark matter!

BTW, astronomy and astrology were not separate disciplines at that time so Kepler was called on to provide astrological advice to the emperor of Prague. And Kepler's mother, Katarina, was accused of being a witch after a dispute with Kepler's brother and some stupid cunt over money (cunt said Katarina made her sick with a witch's brew). Katarina was imprisoned for 14 months even though there was no evidence against her. During that time Kepler was working on his "harmonic theory", which explains the harmonic shape of things in our universe in terms of music. He thought the uniformity in nature was caused by musical tones of objects in space as they interacted with human souls. But that's how he discovered the third law of planetary motion, so maybe creative people aren't so insane.

Kepler died in 1630. He wrote his own epitaph:

Mensus eram coelos, nunc terrae metior umbras

Mens coelestis erat, corporis umbra iacet.

I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure

Skybound was the mind, earthbound the body rests

rocky mountain paint fumes high

My friend Camile and I painted her bathroom today. She's having it redone by the same contractor who did my kitchen (in fact, she's the one who introduced me to him).

The day started off with Camile's cat Althea (I bet I spelled that wrong) attacking my feet. She's the cutest kitten and cries to be picked up and when you pick her up she purrs loudly. She also loves to attack Otis, Cam's other cat, and to hide under plastic drop cloths, particularly the one over the bathtub (Cam kept checking to make sure Althea wasn't suffocating).

Camile, her daughter Kayla (who gave her Althea), and Althea. Look at Althea. She's obviously contemplating her next attack.

Otis, the Burmese cat that Althea attacks. He's like "why me god????"

The cats together. Althea is like "born to kill bitches! attack!!!!" Otis is like "for real dudes? get me the fuck out of here! need catnip like yesterday!"

We got the bathroom primed and then went to get the wall paint. On the way back to our little project we stopped at a furniture store called ModLivin. Very cool stuff! I saw a few things I liked but of course they were expensive...

Then we ate lebanese food.

Then we ran out of things to do instead of painting so we went back to Cam's house and finished painting. I think I'm a bit high from the paint fumes. In fact, when Cam took a pic of me painting I didn't realize it was out of focus until I just looked at it a minute ago.

Seriously, I am the best edger ever. I did the ceiling edging with no tape. I heart Purdy brushes!

Camile and I. I look stoned in this picture but I'm actually looking at my blackberry trying to figure out if I've pressed the take picture button or not.