CHANGE JAR STATS
++ As of February 7, 2005,
the change jar was 41.3% full.
++ I last emptied the change jar
on August 11, 2004.
++ The change jar is projected
to be full on October 21, 2005.
[See change jar photo here]
To: Kilgore Trout; Blonde Married Woman; Cute Girl On Whom Kilgore Has Sustained a Desperate, Pathetic Crush For Nearly Two Years; IT Guy Who Cracks Jokes Constantly; Muscular IT Guy; Stoner IT Guy; Kilgore's Bitterly Divorced and Slightly Overweight Boozehound Female Boss; Moderately Cute 39-Year-Old Divorcee With No Children
From: Redheaded Married Woman
Re: Night Out
It's been a while since we all went out. Who wants to meet in LoDo on Saturday the 31st at about 7:00? We could start at Old Chicago and maybe go somewhere else later. Let me know if you can go.
Redhead was right -- it had been a while since we had all gone out, because I had never been invited before. Actually, that's not true. Last spring, Blondie invited me to celebrate her birthday with a group of coworkers at a bar in downtown Denver. I called my friend G-Dog to request backup.
G-Dog thought the invitation smacked of ulterior motives. "Do you think this is a set-up?" he asked. "Is there someone that Blondie wants you to meet?"
"Maybe," I said. "I think she might want me to talk to Cute Girl."
"So... why do you need me along?"
"Because I suffer from crushing social anxiety and a conspicious lack of confidence, and I'm afraid that if I go alone I won't be able to think of anything to say and I'll end up just standing on the periphery of the group sipping at a microbrew and trying to conjure an excuse to leave, and I've helped you move three times in the last two years, you motherfucker, so if you're any kind of friend you'll help me out here," I said. (I didn't really say any of those things, of course. You kind of had to read between the lines.)
G-Dog agreed to come. When we arrived at the bar, Blondie rushed up immediately. "Kilgore!" she shouted, her face flushed with alcohol, "You're here!"
"I'm here," I agreed. G-Dog wandered off to obtain beers.
"Kilgore," she said, her face screwed up in drunken concentration, "how old are you?"
"I'm twenty-nine."
"Twenty-nine!" Blondie she yelled. "You don't look twenty-nine. Hey, Cute Girl! Come here for a minute."
Cute Girl did as she was told. Immediately my pulse accelerated, my mouth went dry, and my hands started to shake. I took a beer from G-Dog, who left to join a game of pool. The conversation that followed was nasty, brutish, and short. Well, no. It was actually pleasant small talk regarding my actual age versus my perceived age, exchanged between three people at varying levels of intoxication. The conversation ended abruptly -- I excused myself to hang with G-Dog, on whom I do not have a crush. I spent the rest of the evening standing with G-Dog on the periphery of the group, sipping at microbrews until I conjured an excuse to leave.
I had failed. Nobody invited me to any more after-work parties, although of course I knew they were happening -- whispered plans float easily over cubicle walls.
Are you coming out tonight? Good! We'll see you at the Wynkoop at six.
Joker got so drunk last time we went out... I don't know if his wife will let him go tomorrow night.
Two weeks ago, Blondie stopped into my cubicle and glanced around. "What are you doing Friday night?" she whispered.
"Uh, nothing."
"Some of us are going drinking after work at the Suites," she said. "Do you want to come?"
I wanted to come. This was a fairly open gathering -- only the office pariahs had been excluded -- so quite a few people showed up. I sat with Blondie on my left and Muscles on my right, and I drank glasses of Fat Tire and cracked jokes and talked with Cute Girl a little. When I left I felt I had acquitted myself well.
Tonight's gathering is not fairly open. The social elite of my company have invited me to join their reigning clique. They've given me that big promotion. They've called me up from the minors to The Show.
Right now you are rolling your eyes in disgust. "You make me sick, Kilgore," you are saying. "What is this, John Adams Middle School in Mason City, Iowa? You sound like a nerdy sixth grader bursting into tears of joy because some popular kids asked him to eat lunch at their table. Next you'll be blogging about how you spent $200 on Nike sneakers because Joker and Muscles were wearing them. Aren't you a little too old and a little too wise to worry so much about popularity and social strata and clique membership?"
Chaotic Not Random recorded its 5,000th hit today at 9:09:40 A.M. MST. Thanks to whoever checked in from the digitalteleport.com domain in the Mountain Time Zone. Hmm... that's interesting. Are you by chance a generously nosed Denverite with two X chromosomes and a flat chest? If so, you have just won a free tour of my apartment. (Notice, by the way, that I did not write, "9:09:40 A.M. MST in the morning", which seems to be the fashion lately. A.M. stands for "antemeridian", which means, roughly, "in the morning" -- this is an error of redundancy much like the wretched "$200 million dollars", "PIN number", and "ATM machine".)
My Google toolbar recently blocked its 2,000th pop-up ad. Take that, pop-up advertisers! Every time the Google toolbar blocks an ad, it sounds a single click to let me know it's doing its job. I would like it even better if it made an exploding sound, as if the pop-up ad had stepped on a mine, or a screaming sound, as if the pop-up ad was a mob informant getting worked over in a back room somewhere.
I made an unkind remark today in the comments section at Go Fish, a new daily read. I called supposed psychics Uri Geller and John Edward frauds -- because they are -- and wondered why psychics don't just make a fortune playing the stock market and betting on sports. Someone named Nick struck back with:
Kilgore,
There' [sic] a big diffrence [sic] big [sic] between a teller/clairvoyant and a sensitive.
And the voice of ignorance rears it's [sic] ugly head.
How sweet is it when someone accuses you of ignorance while making four spelling and syntax errors within a space of 21 words?
I learned how to degauss my computer monitor. Have you ever done this? Find the button/menu item on your monitor that says "DEGAUSS", or look for a symbol that looks like a U-magnet with a slash across it. Now hit that shit! Take your time -- I'll wait.
Wasn't that cool? Don't try it again quite yet or you'll be disappointed. Degaussing is like masturbation -- you have to wait a few minutes before you can do it again and get the full effect.
I successfully avoided talking to the Old Lady who waits in the breakroom at work and traps her unsuspecting coworkers in pointless, boring conversations (see 11/17). The Old Lady had defeated me easily in our last skirmish, but I had made many costly errors that allowed her to break my defenses. This time, when I entered the breakroom and caught sight of her in my peripheral vision, I immediately snapped my eyes to the right to avoid eye contact. (Previously, I had panicked and looked her in the eyes, and she struck like an angry cobra.) I could feel her eyes grasping for purchase at the back of my skull while I proceeded to the refrigerator and retrieved my Hot Pocket. I stood firm and resisted the temptation to glance backward as I inserted the Hot Pocket into its crisping sleeve and set the microwave to 90 seconds.
Then I executed a brilliant defensive maneuver. I knew she thought she had me pinned at the microwave, while I waited for my lunch to heat up. The Old Lady likes to use this time to launch multiple conversational attacks, from What's for lunch today? to My son has a shirt just like that. Instead, I took control by spinning right -- spinning left would have brought my line of vision across her table, giving her an opening -- and moving quickly to the door. I exited the room before The Old Lady could speak a single word. I wandered the office for a few minutes, and by the time I got back to the breakroom, the Old Lady had left.
Good evening, Carolina Panthers. Doubtless you are resting, preparing to contest Super Bowl 100110 against the New England Patriots. You have used this extra week off to nurse nagging injuries and to gather strength for the task ahead. You have been studying game film and practicing against the Patriots formations. Your coaches have devised ingenious schemes to disrupt Tom Brady's game and to establish the run -- and thus open up the passing game -- against the tough New England defense. I am sorry to tell you that all of your preparation and hard work will go for naught, because you are doomed to lose Super Bowl 12.095775π. You will lose because you wear teal.
It's not that there is anything wrong with teal per se. Teal is a fine color, suitable for dresses worn by elderly retired women in Miami or for a shirt you might wear to The Manhole for a few highballs with the boys. But teal and sports do not mix, unless we are talking about fifth-graders named Tiffany and Brianna playing pee-wee soccer in Edina, Minnesota. How insignificant is teal? It is not included among the 120 colors available for your custom Crayola 64-crayon box. Teal cannot compete with New England red, white, and blue.
How badly you lose the game will depend on how much teal you wear. If you prove defiant and show up in teal-dominant jerseys, you can expect to lose 38-3 or so. If you wear white or black jerseys with teal as an accent color only, you will likely contend for most of the game, only to lose on an Adam Vinatieri field goal as time expires. If you wear monochromatic teal jerseys and pants, the game will be called off when the scoreboard proves unable to count over 99 points for the Patriots. The highlight of the game will come when Jake Delhomme's arm gets torn off at the shoulder in a bizarre incident involving Kid Rock, Nelly's entourage, and a drunken Zamboni driver.
Right now you are saying, "What about the Diamondbacks and the Marlins? Their color schemes included teal, and both of those teams won the World Series!" You neglect to consider that both the Diamondbacks and Marlins won their championships against the cursed New York Yankees. Given the terrible choice between allowing the detestable Yankees to win more titles and allowing teams wearing teal to prevail, the Universe chose the lesser of the two evils and gave nods to teal-wearing teams in these two very extraordinary instances. You Panthers cannot claim any such special exemption.
You can only hope to win if you repent of your sin and repudiate the color teal in a public ceremony in which you and your fans must burn all teal paraphernalia. Do this, Carolina Panthers, and you may yet be crowned victors of Super Bowl 13.979418e.
Swingers (1996)
Starring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn.
Directed by Doug Liman.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)
Swingers tells the story of a young urban man -- Mikey -- who reeks of self-loathing, fails constantly with women, and is simultaneously awed by and jealous of his swaggering, socially successful best friend, (played brilliantly by Vince Vaughn, who stages a near-total takeover of the film.) The script, written by Jon Favreau, who plays Mikey, is a gold mine of catchphrases and one-liners, ("You are so money, and you don't even know it.") It's just fun to watch this movie and laugh at the horny young men, wince at Mikey's self-inflicted embarrassment and torment, and marvel at Vaughn's effortless domination of every scene in which he appears. He reminds me of Val Kilmer in Tombstone -- handsome, charming actor gets part of secondary character, somehow ends up with all the good lines, turns in a force-of-nature performance, and takes the next ten years off. Have you seen Vince Vaughn lately? He looks like someone beat him around the face with a rubber hose.
Can someone explain to me why Heather Graham is a sex symbol? To me she's just a half-step above Mena Suvari -- too skinny, buggy eyes, waxy pallor, can't act, zero charisma, looks like she should be eating a ketchup-and-onion sandwich and screaming at a couple of filthy kids in a trailer park outside of Gary, Indiana. I'll take ten minutes in a tool shed with Patricia Clarkson any day over a weekend in Cancun with a six-pack of Heather Grahams.
The Safety of Objects (2001)
Starring Glenn Close, Dermot Mulroney, Jessica Campbell, Patricia Clarkson, Joshua Jackson, Moira Kelly, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Kay Place, Kristen Stewart, Alex House, and God knows how many other people who should have known better.
Directed by Rose Troche.
Kilgore rates it: 2 (out of 10)
Pssst! Did you know that oftentimes, lurking beneath the calm surface of bland suburban life, there boils a cauldron of torment and despair normally associated with poetry written by high school freshmen? You didn't? Well, then, have a seat, partner, and watch this annoying, pretentious mess of a movie about four middle-class families and their -- surprise! -- intertwined lives. Divorce! Adulterous temptation! Death of a loved one! Guilt! Teenage sex! Career dissatisfaction! Marriages drained of love and passion! Autistic and/or homosexual children! Sibling rivalry! Frustration channeled into odd obsessions! It's all here in two hours of sloppy directing, irritating dialogue, and illogical plotting.
The very beautiful Patricia Clarkson is one of the few reasons to watch The Safety of Objects. Tall, lithe, red hair... yeah, I know she's 43, and you can kiss my ass. The only other positive aspect of this movie was the warm feeling I got, knowing I made the right decision to be a one-man vector of negative population growth. If you're looking for a movie about tragic lives tangled in the most unlikely ways, watch Amores Perros or some episodes of Seinfeld. If you're looking for a movie about white-bread suburban angst, watch American Beauty, or better yet, Happiness.
At my job, you see, everyone in the Finance and Human Resources departments puts their names and birthdates on a list. Whenever someone has a birthday, the person who had the previous birthday brings cake to share, and everyone stands around in the breakroom eating cake off of little paper plates and pestering the birthday boy or girl about what he or she plans to do that evening to celebrate the prolonging of his or her existence for 365 additional days. Lame jokes are made about diets. Additional japery is made if an age has been reached that ends in zero.
There are about fifteen people on the list. To clarify: there are fourteen women on the list, and me. This sort of thing seems to occur frequently in my life. Your cooperation in not using this fact as a basis for speculation about my sexual orientation is appreciated.
Anyway, my birthday was earlier this month, so last week it was my turn to bring cake for the next person on the list. I decided to bring cheesecake -- homemade cheesecake. So I dropped twenty-five dollars on ingredients and went over to G-Dog's place, where I spent several hours abusing his girlfriend's KitchenAid mixer, grating lemon peel, packing cookie crumbs mixed with melted butter into springform pans, fretting over whether the cakes were still raw in the middle, fretting still more over whether the cakes were overdone, and washing dishes.
I should point out that this was completely unnecessary. Most people take the safe 'n' easy route here and bring cakes from Safeway, (accompanied always by the stale wisecrack, "I was up all night baking this!"); or pies from Country Kitchen; or, on my birthday, cupcakes from Cakes by Karen. The one or two women who bring homemade cakes are the grandmotherly sort who, one suspects, can simply summon baked goods into being by using ancient spells and incantations.
On Monday afternoon I unveiled my handiwork: a chocolate-chip cheesecake and a raspberry swirl cheesecake, both with an Oreo crust. The Finance and Human Resources departments broke into ooohs and aaahs of varying types and degrees:
"Wow -- that looks homemade."
"This looks really good."
"Oh, Kilgore, this is really rich!"
"This is so good."
"I can't believe you made this, Kilgore. Did your mother teach you how to bake?"
And so on. I should have been pleased by the praise, of course, but in fact the compliments left me feeling self-conscious and strangely isolated. I was pretty sure that I had overdone it, as if I had worn a tuxedo to a frathouse toga party. I had spent more time and money than I could really afford baking cheesecakes in a straightforward attempt to impress my coworkers, and now they were impressed, and all I had gotten out of it was a heaping helping of anxiety with a side of disappointment, hold the satisfaction.
Right now you are pursing your lips in a wry smile. "You were trying to impress your coworkers?" you are saying. "Are you certain this wasn't a transparent attempt to impress a certain coworker, on whom you have had a desperate, pathetic crush for nearly two years now? Perhaps your lack of satisfaction from this episode stems from her failure to give you anything more than a standard-issue smile and a 'This is good, Kilgore.' Disappointment is a function of expectations, you know. What were you expecting, fellatio?"
BAD-ASS SQUAD LEADER WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU'RE FINISHED
OMEGA QUADRANT -- "Are you finished?" snarled tough-guy squad leader Sgt. Jack Kane, apparently having had enough of your whining that the swarm of mutant nanobots unleashed by the Vogons would need only minutes to eat through the hull of your starship, killing all of you. "Because we've got a lot to do if we're going to show these intergalactic fucksticks who's boss."
According to witnesses, Kane then dug a chunk of shrapnel out of his leg and shoved it into the card reader, causing sparks to fly out of the circuit board as the door to the airlock opened. "With a lungful of air, a normal man can survive for two minutes in the vacuum of space," said Kane, as he prepared to exit the ship without a protective suit and fight the nanobots with the experimental hyperquark pulse cannon. "I'll be back in three minutes."
Well, two of you are, anyway. All hail the winners of Chaotic Not Random Challenge No. 2: Walter Christensen and Jon Yankey. Walter supplied solutions to all four problems, (see Jan. 12), with a degree of mathematical rigor bordering on the psychotic. (He did, however, make one careless error. But he was sharp enough to catch a careless error I made in defining Problem C, so I'm willing to let it go.) Jon, a High School Classmate of Kilgore now working as a statistician in Iowa City, correctly answered the Detroit Tigers problem. I owe you a chocolate malt from Birdsall's, Jon.
I was going to provide the solutions, but probably nobody cares, so the hell with you. On the off chance that somebody does care, drop me a comment or an email and I will be happy to send you the answers.
The Battle against White Merlot has begun, and we need soldiers to heed the call. Boldly shall we go forth and reclaim vineyards of noble Merlot -- and Zinfandel and Shiraz -- grapes and return them to their intended purpose: production of dry red wines layered with character and complexity.
Perhaps you are wondering what the fuss is all about. Perhaps you are saying, "White Merlot? What's the big deal?" The big deal, mister, is one of destiny. Imagine that you are a young Merlot berry growing to maturity on a vine in Sonoma County. You spend your days basking in the sunshine and cool breezes, knowing that your place on this planet is no accident, knowing that you are here in this exact location due to the application of vast viticultural knowledge, acquired through centuries of painstaking trial and error and handed down through generations of master winemakers. You have a destiny -- to become part of a bottle of deep red Merlot wine, with its chocolatey aroma and plummy flavor. You wonder where you'll end up... served with a rare porterhouse at an exclusive New York steakhouse? Shared at home over a romantic, candlelit meal of pasta and garlic bread? Enjoyed in front of a crackling fire in an Aspen ski lodge?
Instead, you end up in a bottle of pink wine-like substance, get guzzled out of paper cups over Grilled Stuft Burritos from Taco Bell, and assist in lowering the inhibitions of a 16-year-old Arkansas girl so she can lose her virginity and get impregnated all in the same night. Some destiny, huh? Kind of like Luke Skywalker staying on as a moisture farmer on Tattoine.
"Okay, I'm in," you are saying. "What should I do?"
Well. You can click here to go to the official Pink Stinks website, designed entirely by the lovely and amazing Trillian. Take the Red Army Oath and click on the Cool Stuff link to pick up a button, banner, or image to install on your blog or website. You're in the army now, soldier! Want to become an officer? Write a post on your blog about the blasphemous evil of White Merlot, White Zinfandel, or White Shiraz, tell us about it, and receive an automatic promotion.
"But I'm a white wine drinker," you are saying, "so none of this matters to me, right?"
Wrong. White wine drinkers should be outraged that this lightweight hard grapeade -- I refuse to call it "wine" -- has appropriated the designation of "white wine". These bastardized fermented grape beverages can be referred to as pink, blush, or rosé, but they are not white. Doesn't it make you angry to think that somewhere people are polishing off a bottle of character-free White Merlot and deceiving themselves into believing that they are enjoying "white wine", the same way you enjoy your buttery Chardonnay, your spicy Gewürztraminer, your subtle Pinot Grigio?
Frida (2002)
Starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina.
Directed by Julie Taymor.
Kilgore rates it: 6 (out of 10)
Frida is a biopic of Frida Kahlo, the mustachioed Mexican-Jewish painter, communist, bisexual, amputee, morphine addict, and bedder of elderly exiled Soviet Leon Trotsky. Kahlo painted lots of grotesque and angst-filled self-portraits, and the film tries and mostly succeeds in connecting her grotesque work to her pain-filled life, concentrating mostly on her relationship with her philandering husband, the muralist Diego Rivera, as well her crippling in a trolley accident and the stillbirth of her son.
Salma Hayek does a wonderful job in the title role, (I guess -- I never met Frida Kahlo.), and has real chemistry with Alfred Molina, who also turns in a fine performance as Rivera, who was apparently the greatest mack-daddy ever. Hayek's breasts may well win Best Supporting Actor. I probably would have rated this movie higher, except I've never much cared for Frida Kahlo's art, and I wasn't much interested in finding out why she created it. Admirers of Kahlo's work will enjoy this film immensely, though.
Old School (2003)
Starring Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn.
Directed by Todd Phillips.
Kilgore rates it: 7 (out of 10)
Old School, an Animal House rip-off, (a fraternity full of party-hearty misfits has crazy misadventures while waging wacky war against a crusty old dean), was co-written and directed by Todd Phillips, who also co-wrote and directed Road Trip, the American Pie rip-off, (young attractive people have crazy misadventures while having sex and getting their precious bodily fluids all over each other). Todd Phillips' next two co-writing/directing projects are -- I'm not kidding -- movies based on the television series Starsky & Hutch and The Six Million Dollar Man. Um, Todd? Try thinking up something original, please.
Old School is actually pretty funny, although the laughs are ridiculously front-loaded into the first half of the movie, during which genuinely funny gags fly rapid-fire off the screen -- most notably Will Ferrell's hilarious streaking scene. I would have rated this movie higher if it could have sustained the pace, but the second half of the movie slows down considerably with the gags becoming more forced and less funny.
I noticed today that my company does business with a company located on West Friendly Avenue in Greensboro, North Carolina.
West Friendly Avenue sounds like a nice place to live. If I lived on West Friendly Avenue, I would look forward to each day so much that I would wake up the moment the alarm rang instead of hitting the snooze button for two hours. I would get out of bed immediately and go running on sidewalks that would be perfectly flat and even so I wouldn't trip on the cracks, and no mean men would drive by in rusty pickup trucks decorated with Confederate flag stickers and yell, "Hey faggot! Nice legs you got there!"
If I lived on West Friendly Avenue, I would take a stroll every day at noon and buy a hot dog and a bag of Fritos from Mr. Peña, who's been running a hot dog stand at the corner of West Friendly Avenue and South Happy Street for years and years. Every day Mr. Peña would tell a different joke, which would always be kind of dorky but funny anyway, and I would groan and ask him where he gets all of his jokes, and he would laugh and say, "I learned them all at hot dog college!" Then Mr. Peña would wink and give me a purple sucker and say, "Oh, I know you're not too old for one of these!", and I would take it sheepishly, because I still like purple suckers.
Then I would sit down on a bench to eat my lunch, and sometimes a pretty girl in a yellow skirt would walk past, and I wouldn't feel self-conscious at all -- I would just smile at her in a relaxed, natural fashion. She would smile back, and I wouldn't have to feel like a pussy because I failed to engage her in conversation or ask for her number or otherwise hit on her. We would just be two nice people smiling in sincere greeting, because that's the way people behave on West Friendly Avenue.
Every other building on West Friendly Avenue would be a free whorehouse, each one filled with happy, sassy hookers like the ones in Pretty Woman and Moulin Rouge. These would be the kind of hookers who just happen to hold postgraduate degrees in astrophysics and microbiology but sell sex for a living because it's liberating and empowering and they want to, dammit; not the kind of hookers who have sad eyes and suspicious bruises and infected track marks marching up and down their arms. Those kind of hookers would be across town on East Angry Avenue, and nobody from West Friendly Avenue would ever have any reason to go over there.
If I lived on West Friendly Avenue, there would be a good song on every time I turned on the radio in my car. The song would always be right at the beginning, and I would turn up the volume and sing along. Whenever I would stop at a stoplight, (hypothetically speaking, because the lights would never be red on West Friendly Avenue), I wouldn't have to be scrunch down in my seat, embarrassed for singing along with the radio, because the person next to me would have the same song turned up and would be singing along as well, and we would exchange neighborly nods. The good songs would always end right about when I got to my destination, so I would never have to sit in a parking lot just to hear the second half of "King of Pain" or "Toy Soldiers".
Chaotic Not Random's fearless Super Bowl prediction: Patriots 8, Panthers 4. I settled on this score after spending the entire day crunching reams of stats, scouring rosters and injury reports, watching game film and charting plays, and running endless game simulations on a Cray supercomputer, and I say the Patriots win 8-4 because:
I really like safeties. Don't you? Aren't they fun? The quarterback takes the ball on his own 2, drops back into his own end zone, and nobody's open, and then some pass rusher breaks through and levels him, and here comes the ref making that funny Pope's-hat signal over his head, and they put two points on the board. And the best part is that the team that got scored on now has to kick off to the team that scored. The kicker doesn't even get to kick off of a tee -- he has to do some emasculated free-kick thing that automatically gives up great field possession. Scoring a safety means that the offense has been completely dominated and humiliated, like the Nazis getting pushed back to Berlin. Safeties are awesome. If I ever become commissioner of the National Football League, my first act will be to make safeties worth 17 points.
Predicting exact final scores is a complete waste of time.
ATTENTION NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE AND NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION: Have you noticed what a tidy affair these NFL playoffs have been? From start to finish, the NFL playoffs will only take about a month, and will have featured eleven monster games between the twelve best teams in the league. Because only the best teams make the playoffs, the NFL regular season has great importance, with good teams fighting for playoff spots down to the final week. And each one of those teams has a chance to win the Super Bowl -- the worst teams to make the NFL postseason finished 10-6.
Compare this to the Bataan Death Marches that are the NBA and NHL playoffs. The 16 playoff teams in each league can play up to 105 games over two stultifying months to crown a champion. The NBA only has 29 teams, and the NHL only 30 teams, guaranteeing that mediocre and sometimes even sub-.500 teams will play in the postseason. (If the Stanley Cup playoffs started right now, they would include the 18-16-11 Rangers. If the NBA playoffs started right now, they would include the 18-22 Sixers.) By setting their playoff standards so low, the NBA and NHL render their regular seasons irrelevant -- the best teams clinch playoff qualification with weeks to go and spend the rest of the season in a desultory tussle for home court advantage, while the only teams actually fighting to make the playoffs have no chance to win the title anyway. The first rounds of these bloated playoffs are nearly unwatchable. Anyone looking forward to a best-of-7 series between the 31-11 Pacers and the 20-23 Celtics? I didn't think so.
The postseason of any sport should be like reading the final chapter of a good book. In the NBA and NHL, it's like slogging through Ulysses after you just read Finnegan's Wake*. Let's cut these playoffs down to eight teams apiece, please.
*Joycean scholars may substitute in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
LOCAL MAN TURNS 30, INSISTS HE'S ONLY 1E IN HEXADECIMAL
DENVER -- Kilgore Trout, born January 17, 1974, has been insisting that his 30th birthday is no big deal because he is really only 1E in hexadecimal notation, sources reported Friday.
"Yesterday I was 1D, today I'm 1E," said Trout, peering in the mirror and rubbing at the bald spots creeping up from the corners of his forehead. "What's the fuss? My sister's about to turn 100000 in binary. Now that's a milestone."
Trout will continue to reckon his age in hexadecimal until 2006, when he turns 20. At that time, experts predict he will start insisting that he is only 19 in triicosimal notation.
Well, not really. But I did get a letter from my second biggest fan on the African continent: Friend of Kilgore and Peace Corps volunteer Tim Shriver, who teaches English in Morocco. Tim wrote the letter on the backs of pages photocopied from the Peace Corps Handbook. These pages illustrate "Ways to Tell Whether a Home Remedy Works or Not". Among the remedies against which the Peace Corps cautions its volunteers:
Smearing the brains of a vulture on a goiter does not work. Neither does rubbing the goiter with the hand of a dead child, or tying a crab on the goiter, or smearing human feces on the goiter.
Taking a drink made of rotting snakes does not work to cure leprosy. Neither can syphilis be cured by eating a vulture.
Smearing cow dung on the head to fight ringworm does not work, and can cause tetanus or other dangerous infections, advises the Peace Corps.
If you are bitten by a dog, it does not work to drink tea made from the dog's tail.
Putting powdered rattlesnake's rattle in the ear does not work to cure deafness.
Tim also has this to say about the role of religion in Morocco: "I don't even think about all the times I mention God in a day here. Whenever anyone asks me how I am I have to thank God... a greeting could conceivably go like this:
Hassan: How are you? Everything good?
Khalid: Well, my eardrum burst and is leaking blood, my youngest child had her arm bitten off by a dog, my wife left me for a leper, and I have a rare virus that will kill me in 24 hours.
Hassan: Thanks be to God.
Khalid: Thanks be to God.
Tim also advises that grilled stomach is good. Thanks be to God!
Now is the time on Chaotic Not Random when we deal with the most difficult part of breaking up: the re-creation of the Match.com profile.
Sit down at computer with glass of milk and 1/3 cup of barbecue Corn Nuts. Go to Match.com. (Yeah, it's in my Favorites.) Ignore dreary pall of defeat and failure that has just settled in the room. Enter credit card number. Select 1-month subscription because I know that when I threaten to cancel my subscription at the end of the month, Match will offer me three more months for the price of one. Acknowledge obvious fact that it's pretty sad when you know all the tricks to getting your money's worth out of Match.com. Start filling out profile.
It's easy at first. Height, body type, age. I am looking for a WOMAN between the ages of (MY AGE - 10) and (MY AGE + 10) within 50 MILES of DENVER, COLORADO. Zodiac sign -- ignore impulse to select I DON'T BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY. Select SCORPIO. I'm not a Scorpio, but Scorpios are supposed to be good in the sack. Eye color, hair color, favorite NBA team. Favorite NBA team? That's new. Select DENVER NUGGETS. Entertain brief fantasy of The Big-Nosed And Small-Breasted Girl Who Is Everything I Ever Wanted In A Woman sitting at her computer across town, wearing a Sacramento Kings T-shirt and running a search to exclude Nuggets fans, upon whom she has sworn vengeance ever since her mother and father were mercilessly gunned down by a mugger wearing an Alex English throwback jersey. Change selection to NO ANSWER. I'm not that much of a Nuggets fan.
It's all pretty easy until it comes to the Dating Intro. Two thousand characters with which to craft an attention-grabbing opening, a middle section that balances cleverness and wit with honesty and sensitivity, and an intriguing conclusion. This takes two hours, minimum, plus a refill of milk and another 1/3 cup of barbecue Corn Nuts. Spend another half hour failing to come up with a clever title to headline my profile; settle for I'm not as pathetic as I look. Upload photos.
The hell with you if you think online dating is lame. Online dating has been a boon for guys like me, by which I mean guys who are Not Confident. I've made all kinds of excuses for my near-total failure in real-world romance -- I don't make enough money, my car looks like hell, I'm not good-looking enough, I'm not a hip dresser, I don't have the right kind of job or the right kind of friends to meet the sort of women I want to date. Et cetera. But the sad fact is that if you stole Mick Jagger's personality and attitude and stuffed it into my body, the new Mick Jagger/Kilgore Trout composite person would have to install a turnstile and a NOW SERVING sign outside my bedroom.
Ask any woman what kind of man she likes, and she will say many things. She will likely say she is attracted to men with a sense of humor, a man who is smart and kind and sensitive, a man who listens and appreciates her as a person and performs cunnilingus without having to be asked ten times. She will also say that she wants a man who is confident, and this is probably the only item on the list that is not nonsense, (in the sense that, given a choice between All Of The Above Except Confidence and None Of The Above But Really Confident, most women will choose the confident guy every time.) I'm not saying that this makes women bad or wrong or shallow. I am saying that women's desire for alpha-male confidence creates a strategic disadvantage for a beta-(maybe gamma)-male like me. Meeting women in bars and clubs? Out of the question. Women immediately detect and are turned off by my lack of confidence, which radiates off me like a bad odor.
Right now you are saying, "Well, Kilgore, if you know that women are attracted to confidence, then why don't you just become more confident?" Yes. And while I'm at it, I think I'll become Most Valuable Player of the National Football League, or maybe the Pope.
I think I started writing this post about online dating. Whatever.
People who don't get movie references. At poker night recently, in addition the the usual bunch of recreational players who just like to hang out and drink a couple of beers over some low-stakes cards, a bunch of smart-aleck young guys showed up and immediately tried to take over our game. The smart-alecks used esoteric poker lingo. The smart alecks criticized the recreational players' decisions. The smart-alecks talked trash when they won and complained about their bad luck when they lost.
At one point, the snottiest of the smart-alecks started fondling his chips and said, in his know-it-all voice, "Are these four millimeter chips?"
"Four millimeter, five millimeter," I said, "whatever it takes." (This is a brilliant adaptation of a line from Mr. Mom, where Michael Keaton pretends to be rewiring his house. Martin Mull, playing Keaton's wife's boss, asks if he's going to wire it all in 220 volts. "220, 221, whatever it takes," Keaton replies. Listen to it here.)
The smart alecks all stared at me as if I had started speaking Tagalog. I felt like an asshole. I don't think people should make you feel that way just because you're smarter than they are.
People who write things like "$200 million dollars". (I googled "$200 million dollars" and got 6,300 hits.) Look, you guys, the dollar sign means "dollars", so the word "dollars" at the end is redundant -- it's like you're saying, "two hundred million dollars dollars". Just pick one or the other and put, "$200 million" or "200 million dollars".
While we're at it, can we stop saying, "ATM machine", and "PIN number"? "ATM" stands for "automatic teller machine", and "PIN" stands for "personal identification number", so it's like you're saying, "automatic teller machine machine" and "personal identification number number". Just say "ATM" or "PIN".
People who are too short to be seen over cubicle walls. I walk pretty fast around the office, and I'm tired of having Close Encounters of the Irritating Kind with these people, who pop out of nowhere from cubicle entrances and around corners. Fire 'em all, I say, unless they hold really crucial positions, (like CEO or Accounts Receivable clerk), in which case they could simply be forced to walk on stilts or wear bells around their necks.
Those manipulative Duracell ads that show things like a little boy playing with a toy robot while we hear this voiceover: "You may think it's just a battery. But the battery that makes his robot work is the same battery that allows him to hear the rain." The camera shifts to show the side of the boy's head, revealing a prosthetic hearing device. As if that's not enough, the commercial ends with the boy's mother, near tears, embracing him and whispering, "You heard the rain."
Jesus. Let me write your next ad, Duracell: "You may think it's just a battery. But the battery that makes this flashlight work is the same battery that will save the life of this adorable little puppy." The camera shifts to show a whimpering puppy -- preferably a golden retriever -- on an operating table, about to have a beeping heart monitor hooked up to it. To really hammer the point home, the commercial will end with exuberant children picking up their healed puppy from a kindly veteranarian.
Rampant overcommercialization of every holiday on the goddam calendar. It's bad enough that Christmas decorations go on sale before Halloween, and Halloween costumes hit the shelves in mid-summer, but for sheer ridiculousness nothing beats a Guinness commercial I saw last Saturday that had a St. Patrick's Day theme. St. Patrick's Day isn't until March 17, so this commercial was 66 days early. Be on the lookout for Cinco de Mayo ads during the Super Bowl! I guess our corporate overlords won't be happy until all Americans are in frenzied holiday shopping mode 365 days a year.
Finding Nemo (2003)
Starring (voices) Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, and Alexander Gould.
Directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich.
Kilgore rates it: 8 (out of 10)
Another gem from Pixar, the outfit that brought you Toy Story and... uh... Toy Story 2. The plot is formulaic -- father loses son and embarks on amazing journey to find him, along the way encountering a motley crew of crazy characters, with whom he engages in a series of wacky misadventures, and everybody learns something in the end -- but hugely entertaining anyway. Go ahead and let yourself get suckered in to caring about the characters, although you know everything's going to turn out all right in the end. Go ahead and laugh at the silly shenanigans pulled by various minor characters, because they really are hilarious. Go ahead and enjoy a brilliant voice performance by Ellen DeGeneres as the chronically forgetful Dory.
Go ahead. You've been hip and ironically detached all week. Treat yourself to two hours of sincerity, for chrissake.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Starring Marilyn Burns and Gunnar Hansen.
Directed by Tobe Hooper.
Kilgore rates it: 5 (out of 10)
Classic slasher film, with several taut-skinned boys and girls running afoul of homicidal psychopaths. This movie has huge problems, though: endless boring exposition, random dialogue, whisper-thin characters, and lack of creativity in setting up the death scenes -- be prepared to shout, "Don't go into the house!" a lot.
I wanted to rate this movie much lower, but I couldn't ignore a powerful -- and mostly wasted -- performance by Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding maniac. Hansen created a genuinely creepy and menacing character with almost no dialogue and while wearing a hideous mask -- it's too bad he wasn't given more to do. The film did manage to be chilling at times, but I wouldn't recommend it for anyone except hardcore B-horror buffs.
The Iron Giant (1999)
Starring (voices) Eli Marienthal, Vin Diesel, Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr.
Directed by Brad Bird.
Kilgore rates it: 6 (out of 10)
If you decide to watch The Iron Giant, do it to see the giant. The rest of the movie is unremarkable: the animation is nothing you've never seen before, the writing is forgettable, and the voice acting is uninspired. (Question: why do so many big animated features star big-name actors as voice talent? This is okay when the actors really nail their parts -- think Tom Hanks and Tim Allen in Toy Story -- but mostly the results are no better than if no-name actors had performed, and I can't see Jennifer Aniston's tits when she's reading into a microphone.)
Anyway, the giant is wonderful. The animators did a fantastic job of putting expression into his face and gestures, without cheating by letting the metal parts bend when he smiles or recoils in surprise. The giant is easily the most complex and dynamic character in the movie -- in the end he's the only character you care about, and you care about him a lot.
Kudos also to the filmmakers for the unconventional ending and the hilarious "Duck and Cover" filmstrip showing 1950s kids how to survive a nuclear attack, (by kneeling under your desk with your arms over your head.) But for the most part the movie is humor-free and failed to capture the flavor of Cold War anti-Communist hysteria. It's too bad The Iron Giant was so diluted by mediocrity, because the giant himself was brilliant.
Answer: dumb. I asked this question on November 7 of last year and posed two puzzles to be solved, promising a McDonald's gift certificate to anyone who could answer both correctly. I received zero correct responses.
On the off chance that those of you who failed the first time around have gotten smarter since then, I am giving two new problems below. I have also included the two old problems on the off-off chance that smart people have started reading Chaotic Not Random since November 7. Email your solutions to me at call_me_kilgore@yahoo.com. If you're the kind of person who feels comfortable giving your address to a complete stranger you met on the Internet, then include your address, and I will reward correct answers with prizes of nominal value plus recognition here on CNR. Please email your solutions instead of posting them in the comments.
VERY IMPORTANT: correct answers must include a basic level of mathematical rigor. Mathematical rigor does not mean, "Whenever I do this, then this happens." It means, "Whenever I do this, then this happens, and here's why." This should not be a problem if you really understand the solutions -- with the exception of Problem D, the mathematics required to solve these problems is quite simple.
Right now you are saying, "I don't understand why you're saying that people who can't solve math problems are dumb. There are as many different kinds of intelligence as there are ways to understand this complex universe. I personally have many talents that would never help me solve these problems, including but not limited to: interpersonal communication skills, musical ability, eye/hand coordination, writing skills, spatial awareness, spiritual depth, adeptness at public speaking, money management skills, an ability to work with color and design, and a knack for organization and time management. Also, I'm pretty sure that I'm psychic. Don't you agree that a person with these talents would have to be considered intelligent, regardless of his or her ability to solve some math problems that nobody cares about anyway?"
No.
PUZZLE A
You are playing a game against a single opponent. The game starts with a pile of stones. The number of stones in the pile is a random number greater than 10. Both you and your opponent know how many stones are in the pile at all times.
You and your opponent take turns removing 1, 2, or 3 stones from the pile. No other moves are possible except for removing 1, 2, or 3 stones.
The player who removes the last stone loses.
You go first.
Is there a way to play this game so that you will always win? If so, how?
PUZZLE B Go here and check out the Flash Mind Reader. How does it work? (Yes, you can find the solution online. Have a little pride and solve it yourself.)
PUZZLE C
Choose any number. (A nonzero integer, please.)
Multiply by 3.
Multiply the result by itself.
Add all the digits together, then add the digits of that number together until you end up with a one-digit number. (Example: 561 >> 12 >> 3)
If the number is less than 6, then add 6. Otherwise subtract 6.
Multiply by 2.
Subtract 4.
Find the letter associated with this number. (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.)
Think of a fruit beginning with that letter.
Pick the third letter in that fruit's name, and think of a fruit starting with that letter.
You are thinking of bananas and nectarines!
Amazing, right? Not really -- but how does it work?
PUZZLE D With six games to go in the 2003 season, the Detroit Tigers had a 38-118 record. Two more losses would tie them with the 1962 Mets for most losses in a season. What is the probability that the Tigers would finish the season with fewer than 120 losses? Assume that the probability of the Tigers winning any one of the last six games remains constant at .244 (= 38/156).
(Historical note: the Tigers went on a 5-1 run to end the season at 43-119 and remained out of the record books entirely.)
CHECKLIST OF THINGS TO DO NOW THAT TERROR ALERT HAS BEEN LOWERED TO YELLOW
Remove cork from anus.
Cease continuous reading of the Book of Leviticus through a bullhorn in the town square.
Start mixing breakfast martini with Stoli Limon instead of Stoli Ohranj.
Celebrate the Yellow Alert by giving someone a Yellow Shower.
Remove duct tape from mouth and nostrils.
Start referring to terrorism as "The Yellow Peril".
Stand in front of an enormous world map -- centered on the USA, of course -- in your secret undersea lair and say, in a generic foreign accent, "Zee Americains... zay haff let down zair guard... and now zay vill suffer!" Then start laughing manaically.
Remember that it is no longer necessary to stop, drop, and roll every time you encounter a person of Middle Eastern descent.
Go back to working at your job, shopping for groceries, fighting traffic, eating fast food, masturbating, deleting spam, paying bills, and falling asleep on the couch while watching MTV Cribs... what's that? You were doing all those things during the Orange Alert? What's the matter with you? Do you hate freedom?
I have resolved to start thinking differently about money this year.
The hard truth is that I equate money with human worth. I look down on people who are poorer than I am, and I feel jealous and inferior when I'm around people who have more than I have. You do these same things, by the way, and don't try to convince me otherwise unless your name starts with Sister or ends in Piotrowski. Everyone feels this way and nobody admits it. Don't believe me? Watch what happens the next time a wealthy, powerful, or famous person enters a room. Observe the awe, the admiration, the fear, and the jealousy; and then try to tell me that people don't believe that wealth equals worth.
Still don't agree? Consider this: When NBA All-Star Alonzo Mourning announced that he needed a kidney transplant, dozens of strangers offered him their kidneys. Yet thousands of people die every year in this country because we, a nation of three hundred million people, can't scrape up enough organs for just plain folks.
I'm kicking the habit. I'm forcing myself to take a fresh look at the role money plays in my personal pursuit of happiness. I've pointed out before that the average American today enjoys wealth and convenience unimaginable to the average American just a century ago. We live longer and enjoy modern health care with anesthesia and antibiotics. We have nearly unlimited entertainment options and access to information. We can communicate at the speed of light. Obesity poses a greater threat than starvation. The average American owns or has access to: a television, a computer, an electric or gas stove, climate control, electric lights, a stereo system, a refrigerator, a car, a VCR or DVD player, and countless other gizmos and gadgets. If material wealth brought happiness, we should be the happiest people in the history of the planet. We should be constantly gibbering with glee, skipping in merry circles and exchanging high-fives, delirious with joy over our good fortune. But we're not.
So I've decided to stop feeling smug about the things I have. I've decided to stop feeling bad about the things I don't have. And I've decided that money serves three purposes in my life:
Basics: Housing, food, utilities, car, Netflix, etc.
Security: paying off debt, money in the bank for emergencies, saving for retirement.
Happiness: That is, I spend money to create genuine meaning in my life. For example: spending $95 on running shoes to train for an ultramarathon creates happiness. Spending $95 on dress shoes to impress my coworkers does not create happiness. Spending $1000 on a never-to-be-forgotten trip to visit my friend Tim in Morocco creates happiness. Spending $1000 to get my car repainted so I can avoid the disapproval of others does not create happiness. You get it.
BOULDER, CO -- Medical history was made Wednesday as medical researchers at the University of Colorado released a report on the amazing case of Richard Bosley, a man whose shit does not stink.
Bosley, 36, CEO of Unidyne Global InterCorp in Boulder, first caught the attention of CU medical researchers when his internist, Dr. David Henrick, reported that Bosley had given him some highly unusual stool samples during a routine physical examination.
"We were skeptical when we first heard about Richard Bosley and his odor-free bowel movements," said Dr. Stephen Ariazzi, head of gastroenterological research at CU. "But we were intrigued enough to ask him to come in for more testing."
"I had never given a second thought to my non-stinking shit," said Bosley during an interview conducted via cell phone from his daughter's soccer practice. "I always assumed that all upper-middle-class, churchgoing Americans with perfectly straight teeth and a firm handshake produced odorless excrement. [laughs] When the other kids would get diarrhea, they would call it 'the Hershey squirts'. I decided that if I ever got diarrhea, I would call it 'the marshmallow squirts'. [laughs again] But of course I never got diarrhea."
Bosley arrived at the CU Anshutz Center for Advanced Medicine on December 20 and immediately astouded researchers by producing "the most amazing turds we have ever seen," according to Dr. Ariazzi. "The stools were ivory-white and perfectly cylindrical," Dr. Ariazzi continued, "and upon further inspection, we discovered that the shit was not odorless at all, but possessed a fresh, pleasant scent."
According to the research team's report, attempts to describe the stools' scent ranged from "lilacs in the springtime" to "pine woods after a summer's rain."
Excrement experts from around the world have converged on CU in an attempt to discover the cause of Bosley's stinkless shit. The debate has broken down into classic nature-versus-nurture themes -- some scientists point to Bosley's diet, which is rich in sushi, Starbucks coffee, and herb-encrusted Chilean sea bass; while other researchers favor a genetic explanation, citing Bosley's WASP heritage, Nordic good looks, and impeccable family history, full of upstanding citizens who ate their peas, graduated from college, and never caused anyone any trouble. A group of Danish scientists have advanced an environmental theory which incorporates Bosley's frequent exposure to luxury SUVs, first-class air travel, tailored Italian suits, and skybox seating at Broncos football games.
A contestant who dislikes children will contend with a proud grandmother who brings her daughter's baby into the office.
The show opens with Contestant being interviewed by the show's host: a smart, hip, attractive woman who has been carefully cast and even more carefully outfitted by Wardrobe and Makeup to convey the image of an articulate, successful, happily married mother of multiple well-adjusted children.
Contestant has been carefully cast to convey the image of a bitter, single, socially awkward man who is neither hip nor attractive nor successful. Contestant needed no assistance from Wardrobe or Makeup because "he looked perfect the moment he walked in the door."
Host smiles in a way that is ostensibly intended to put Contestant at ease, but in reality reminds Contestant of Thea Andrews, a really beautiful Canadian co-host on ESPN2's awful morning show Cold Pizza, which Contestant watches every morning -- with the sound off -- while eating cereal. Contestant is immediately intimidated. Host asks Contestant how he feels about children.
"I don't like children very much," says Contestant, shrugging and half-smiling.
Host smiles in a condescending fashion and asks Contestant how he feels when children are around.
"I feel uncomfortable," says Contestant. "I don't know what to say. I..." Contestant suddenly realizes that he has just described the bulk of his social interactions. "I guess I just don't like kids," Contestant says, and attempts a fake laugh.
The scene changes to show Contestant at work, moving papers around in a not entirely random manner. Contestant suddenly hears, over the cubicle walls, murmurs and oooohs and aaaahs and female voices saying Look at you! and Oh, isn't he precious and Let me hold him now.
Contestant cringes. The camera zooms in on his pale visage, etched with fear and loathing. The murmurs and gratuitous compliments grow louder over the cubicle wall as more women join the orgy of baby-admiring. A small display in the lower left-hand corner of the screen shows that Contestant's body temperature, pulse rate, aspiration rate, and adrenaline/plasma ratio are rising steadily.
Whispered voiceover from Host explains that Contestant is experiencing physiological symptoms identical to those observed in mice trapped in corners by cats, and his body is preparing for fight or flight. A poll question pops up at the bottom of the screen: How will Contestant respond? Almost immediately, 73% of 114,286 respondents predict that Contestant will attempt an escape to the men's room, where he will stay until the baby is gone.
The scene cuts back to the interview room. Host asks Contestant why he didn't go admire the baby with his coworkers.
"I never know what to say when people bring babies around," Contestant admits, looking sheepish. "I guess I could say He's so cute or Isn't he darling! just like everyone else, but I don't really think that, so it would come out really phony and everyone would know. Usually I end up standing around with my hands in my pockets and a big fake smile on my face. I hate fake-smiling. It makes my cheeks hurt."
Host nods, brows knitted as if in deep concentration, and asks what Contestant was thinking at this point. What was his strategy?
"My immediate instinct was to flee to a safe place, probably the men's room, and hide there until the threat had passed," Contestant says. "But then it occurred to me that I was already in a safe place -- my cubicle -- and that if I just stayed there, I would be safe."
Cut back to the action. Contestant is hunched over his keyboard, with his chair pulled all the way up so that his belly brushes the table. Whispered voiceover by Host points out that Contestant is trying to blend into his environment by making himself as small as possible. A split screen opens to show how Contestant's posture mimicks that of a squirrel hiding under a bush from an eagle circling overhead.
Without warning, Proud Grandmother enters Contestant's cubicle holding the baby. Trailing her are a man and a woman in their mid-twenties.
Cut back to interview. Host asks, with a sly grin, if Contestant had anticipated this move.
Contestant admits that he hadn't. "I really didn't think she would feel the need to show me the baby, what with all the attention out in the hallway. Especially since I've told her I don't like children."
Host asks if Contestant knew that Proud Grandmother had a grandchild.
"Yeah," Contestant says. "It's her first, so she's pretty excited -- she brings a lot of pictures into the office to show everyone. I remember when she told me that her daughter was pregnant. I asked her, 'Is that a good thing?' I was being completely sincere. Proud Grandmother looked at me like I was nuts."
Cut back to the action.
Proud Grandmother holds up the baby and exclaims, "Here's the baby!"
"Yes!" says Contestant, idiotically. Contestant's mind has gone blank, and an awkward silence ensues. Text at the bottom of the screen notes that Contestant's physiological signs are now consistent with a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming Peterbilt.
Proud Grandmother breaks the silence by introducing Contestant to her companions. "This is my daughter, Holli Jo, and this is Dave," she says.
Contestant shakes hands, says "Nice to meet you," et cetera, although Contestant has never understood the point of performing these rituals with people he will never meet again.
Another awkward beat.
Proud Grandmother suddenly holds out the baby and commands, "Hold him!"
Contestant flinches visibly, as if Proud Grandmother had stuck both terminals of a 9-volt battery on his tongue. He holds up his hands in an instinctive protective gesture and moves his chair back an inch. "Uh, aiggh, owwr..." he stammers.
Another awkward beat passes while Proud Grandmother holds the baby out, then withdraws him in disappointment. "Well, I guess we better go," she says. Final action shot as Contestant exhales with relief and blood drains back into his face.
Years later, a new edition of TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes shows Host watching Contestant leaving the studio and muttering, into her still-live microphone, "No wonder that guy never gets laid."
(Reality Show Wednesday format shamelessly ripped off from Trillian, who does it much better.)
Like most people, I spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of graphics I would get painted on my mask if I were a hockey goaltender.
One thing I would not do is wear a mask with my team colors randomly splashed all over the place. Nor would I settle for my team's logo or some flaccid riffing thereupon. The hockey goaltender's mask is the greatest vehicle for personal expression in major league North American sports. Think about it: basketball players can wear headbands... that match their jerseys. Baseball players have the option of letting their socks show, or not. Woo-hoo. The NFL is so fussy that last year they fined Ravens quarterback Chris Redman $5,000 for wearing black high-tops to honor Johnny Unitas. But hockey goaltenders are allowed to take a vital piece of equipment and paint whatever the hell they want on it.
So I would want a mask painted to reflect my individuality. If people saw me in a police lineup with five other goaltenders, I would want them to point and say, "I'd recognize that mask anywhere! That's Kilgore Trout, the Hall of Fame goaltender known for his preternatural quickness and unorthodox sprawling style! He's the goaltender who was hiding in the bushes outside my wife's bedroom last night!"
I used to think it would be cool to get a feral animal painted in my mask with its mouth open in such a way that its jaws encircled my face, with its upper fangs just above my forehead and its lower fangs on the chin protector. But so manygoaltenders have used that idea that the design is now a cliche. Also, I wouldn't be able to use the chin protector as a design area to display my nickname or just a cool symbol of personal significance, like Jim Carey's four aces or Ed Belfour's Make-A-Wish Foundation logo.
I would avoid the use of incongruous iconography on my goaltender mask. For example, Curtis "Cujo" Joseph used some sort of weird blue wolf on his mask when he played for Toronto. But Cujo was a St. Bernard, not a wolf! And Rick Tabaracci, when he played for the Washington Capitals, had Mount Rushmore on the upper part of his mask. But Mount Rushmore is in South Dakota, not Washington!
Lots of great mask designs are based on the goaltender's name or nickname. Eddie "The Eagle" Belfour uses eagles on his classy masks. Blaine Lacher's awesome mask features a snarling Loch Ness Monster. Olaf "Godzilla" Kolzig's mask... well, just guess, for chrissake.
I think I'm onto something here. I will use a trout on my mask. But what kind of trout? An angry killer trout with glowing red eyes and glistening fangs? An intense trout in full goaltender regalia? A monster trout brandishing razor-sharp dorsal fins and shooting lightning from its gills? A sick-and-twisted, Tim Burtonesque Nightmare Before Christmas trout in black and shades of gray?
Whatever. As long as I can have Meredith Baxter-Birney on the chin protector.
I squealed on a coworker once. This happened when I worked at a UPS hub in Commerce City. (Yes, we have a Commerce City in Colorado. It's an industrial wasteland with a zoning board staffed by Scrooge McDuck's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. It's hilarious -- right here we have an oil refinery, and over there we have a diesel repair shop, and right between them we have a solitary one-story house with flower beds in the front yard. You should stop by sometime. Bring your own oxygen.)
Anyway, I was working at this UPS hub in a clerical capacity, which means that I spent ninety percent of my time staring off into space and the other ten percent of my time trying not to look as though I was just staring off into space. The coworker's name was Jimmy. Jimmy was a brash and confident young man, which is to say that we had nothing in common. I found him annoying because he didn't see himself as a total disgusting failure for working a pissant job at UPS. I further found him annoying because he regularly succeeded in convincing women to sleep with him.
One day, my boss Don called me aside. Don was a small, neat man in his thirties who wore fashionable eyewear and funky thick-soled Doc Martens. He was married and had a couple of kids, and I'm pretty sure he had a crush on me. He was Jimmy's boss too.
"Kilgore," said Don, "does Jimmy spend a lot of time in the office?"
Don had come to the right guy. I spent all of my time in the office, because that was my job. Jimmy was a supervisor of some kind -- his job was to walk around and make sure the people who were measuring and weighing parcels weren't, like, pissing in the corner or something.
"Yeah, Jimmy's in the office quite a bit," I said. This was true.
"Is he doing work in there?" asked Don, "Or is he just messing around, or..."
"He mostly messes around," I said. "He's on his cell phone a lot, talking to his girlfriend or whoever, or just, you know, sitting back with his feet on the desk." This was also true.
"How much time would you say he spends in there?" Don asked.
I considered. "I guess he's in there about half the time," I said. This was, if anything, an underestimation.
"Thank you, Kilgore," Don said.
Don and I went back into the office and I went back to pretending to not be just staring off into space. Soon Jimmy came into the office.
"Jimmy, can I speak to you for a minute?" said Don.
He and Jimmy left the room for a few minutes. When they came back in, Jimmy looked pissed off. I pretended to not be just staring off into space in a different direction. Jimmy was at work the next day, so I guessed he hadn't get fired. He didn't spend much time in the office from then on, though.
My next paycheck had a $200 bonus on it.
"Are you sure it wasn't thirty pieces of silver?" you are saying. "Isn't this the part of the story where you throw the money back in the temple and hang yourself from a tree?"
Your friend Kilgore has cashed in some good-karma chips over the last 24 hours. Among the good things that have happened:
I discovered today that if you stand at the intersection of 18th and Stout in downtown Denver, you can see three Starbucks, none of them more than two blocks away.
Friday night was the season opener for the Colorado Mammoth, our professional lacrosse team. DK and I arrived at the Pepsi Center, waited in line to get scanned by metal-detecting wands, (we're very serious about homeland security here in the Mile High City. If you ever hear about terrorist atrocities being committed at a lacrosse game, it didn't happen in Denver), and headed up the escalator to section 349, row 2, seats 1 and 2, where we hold season tickets. At the top of the escalator we were stopped by a healthy young woman tricked out in a tight pink sweater, short black skirt, and knee-high boots.
"Hi, guys!" she said brightly. "Would you be interested in entering a contest?"
"No," I said. Thirty years of harassment by telemarketers, panhandlers, Jehovah's Witnesses, and assorted other unnaturally friendly strangers has taught me to say no almost as well as a three-year-old at bedtime.
"Sure!" said DK, with an eyeful of pink sweater. I rolled my eyes. I didn't want to wait fifteen minutes while DK filled out a credit card application for a chance to win a million dollars or whatever. I just wanted to get to our seats. But Pink Sweater didn't have a credit card application. She explained that she wanted DK to participate in a dance competition at the end of the first quarter.
"It'll be you against two other guys," she said. "If you win, you and your friend get to sit in the Cal Spas hot tub until halftime!"
Now I was interested. Cal Spas is a local company that places a hot tub at Mammoth games, in one of the corner corridors just behind the glass. The exciting part is that the hot tub is stocked with healthy young women in bikinis.
"You have got to win," I told DK.
At the end of the first quarter, DK took the Pepsi Center floor against two Pi Kappa Alpha rejects. The first guy, obviously nervous, turned in a decent effort and received moderate applause. The second guy's routine consisted of several ill-advised moves, including bouncing off the glass and falling to the ground. The crowd booed him lustily. Then it was DK's turn.
DK rode the pony. DK smacked his ass. DK did The Worm. And ten minutes later, DK and I were drinking free Coors Light and watching sweaty Canadian men assault each other with sticks while submerged in hot water and surrounded by four exceedingly healthy young women in bikinis.
Yeah, it was heaven. But the problem with sitting in a hot tub with beautiful, half-naked models is that you want to stare. You want to leer. You want to ogle, gaze and gawk, downloading thousands of gigabytes of flawless female flesh into your brain for later recall and meditation.
But I am a gentleman, so instead of staring, leering, ogling, gazing and gawking, I mostly watched the game while stealing surreptitious glances at the models with my peripheral vision. Then I wondered if the models would think I was some kind of incredible limpdick for watching lacrosse instead of looking at their firm, perfect bodies. I can't win.
Still. Heaven.
The Mammoth beat the San Jose Stealth 17-8 behind strong goaltending from Gee Nash, our new goalie; and six goals and five assists from Gary Gait, the best lacrosse player ever. The announced attendance was 17,689. For a lacrosse game. (The NBA Denver Nuggets drew 17,230 the next night.) Look: if you live in Anaheim, Phoenix, San Jose, Buffalo, Calgary, Denver, Rochester, Philadelphia, Toronto, or Vancouver; I beg you to attend a National Lacrosse League game. Lacrosse is fast and furious and violent and the tickets are cheap. You will have fun.
I received an email today from Chaotic Not Random reader Ken, the text of which is reproduced below in its entirety:
Kilgore,
Love your blog -- excellent posts!
I also share a fascination with the
gorgeous Meredith Baxter-Birney.
Attached, please find two pictures
of her stunningly nice hooters.
Regards.
Attached to the email were three pictures of Meredith Baxter-Birney wearing a surgical gown and getting her fully exposed left breast palpated by a man in a white coat. That's right -- Ken sent me breast examination photos. (Do you ever hang out with Lawrence from Office Space, Ken? It seems you two have a lot in common.)
As far as I can tell, the pictures are captures from the 1994 made-for-TV movie My Breast. Once I got past the yuck-factor of looking at a 47-year-old woman getting a breast cancer examination, I had to admit that Ken was right -- Meredith Baxter-Birney really does have stunningly nice hooters. (The left one, anyway. For all Ken and I know, Meredith Baxter-Birney's right breast is hideously deformed and encrusted with mold.)
So, thanks for the pictures, Ken. You rock! Now if you could just find pictures of Meredith Baxter-Birney getting her breasts examined while Michael Gross peeks out from the medical-supply closet...
[The scene opens in a trendy downtown restaurant filled with hip, beautiful people. Happy conversation fills the air as urban sophisticates talk about their Hummer H2s and debate the merits of Patek Philippe versus Rolex. The camera focuses in on a table of four young, fashionably dressed professionals: STEVE, TRISH, HUGH, and BARB. The camera is positioned such that our view of BARB is obscured. Slowly we begin to be able to hear their conversation...]
STEVE: ... so the guy sitting in front of me actually turns around and asks me to turn off my cell phone during the movie. Can you believe that shit? So I told that asshole that these were very important calls I was taking, and just because he can afford to be inaccessible for two hours doesn't mean that my life is similarly pathetic.
[They all laugh.]
STEVE: I mean, it was the Aveda salon calling to confirm my appointment! What am I going to do, not take the call?
HUGH: I know exactly what you mean. One time I turned my cell phone off to go to a funeral, and I missed a call from the ski lodge, and Barb and I ended up not getting a room with a hot tub.
TRISH: Oh, that's awful! Was the trip ruined?
HUGH: Well, the skiing was fantastic, and the apres-ski in Aspen is always outstanding. But of course, things haven't been quite the same ever since Barb lost her soul.
[The camera focuses in on Barb's face. She has fashionably styled hair and is wearing expensive jewelry. Her eyes are completely whited out and she stares unseeing into the distance. Her face is deathly pale. Her mouth hangs open and her head tilts at a crazy angle. A plate of food and a full glass of wine sit untouched in front of her.]
STEVE: Oh yes, you had mentioned that. Has she been to the doctor?
HUGH: Yes, he put her on Zoloft. It doesn't seem to be having much effect, but it'll take a few weeks to reach therapeutic levels in her bloodstream.
TRISH: You poor thing! [She reaches across the table and sympathetically pats BARB's arm. BARB falls limply onto HUGH's shoulder. Unperturbed, he restores her to an upright position in her chair.]
STEVE: I bet a good yoga program would help.
HUGH: That's a really great idea. She's already enrolled in a Pilates class at Bally's, of course, but something a little more meditative and spiritual might be just the thing.
TRISH: I know an Ananda yoga instructor who is absolutely amazing. I take a class there every Wednesday before I go shoe-shopping, and I'm always so relaxed and at peace when I come out that nothing bothers me, not even once when the escalator was out at Lord & Taylor. I'd be happy to take Barb with me.
STEVE: How did this happen?
HUGH: Dr. Silverstein said that it's not unusual for people in our age and income bracket to suddenly lose our souls. Nobody is sure what causes it. I was with Barb when it happened -- we went to Starbucks to pick up a couple of Caramel Frappuccinos, and the only parking spaces open were way at the back of the lot. We were in a big hurry to get to the day spa, so she just parked the Escalade in the handicapped spot. The next thing I knew... [gestures toward BARB.]
TRISH: Wow, I've done that before.
STEVE: Well, we all have. That's what makes it so scary. [His cell phone rings.] Hold on, I gotta take this. [He answers the phone and starts talking in a loud, obnoxious voice.] Yeah. Well, what do you mean, the maid didn't make it in today? I don't care if her kid is sick... well, that's just great. Look, we're having a big loftwarming party on Saturday, so we'll just have to fire the maid and get a new one... [STEVE's voice fades into the background as TRISH and HUGH talk between themselves.]
TRISH: Have you had your feng shui specialist out? Maybe he can help.
HUGH: Yes, he's flying in from Tokyo on Thursday. He's very good. He...
[HUGH and TRISH suddenly realize that they can no longer hear STEVE's voice. They look over to notice that STEVE has lost his soul and is slumped in his chair, staring through whited-out eyes, etc. Neither HUGH nor TRISH seem especially worried about this.]
TRISH: Well, I guess that's two people I'll be taking to yoga class!
Water. Need water. Need bland food to calm churning stomach.
Here's some free advice: when you drink so much that you can no longer competently operate a beer mug, it is time to quit drinking. I wish someone had given me this advice yesterday, before I smacked my front tooth on a glass of beer and chipped it. The chip is hardly noticeable, although I imagine it will be immediately obvious to all small-breasted, large-nosed single women in the Denver metro area. Because I am stupid, I will spend the next few days compulsively rubbing my tongue against the rough chipped area until I develop a sore. Then I will rub the sore spot against the rough chipped area to see if it is still sore. It will be.
More free advice: when you drink so much that you consider smoking a Swisher Sweet, it is time to quit drinking. It is time, in fact, to ask your friends to handcuff you to the radiator. Better that than to spend New Year's Day with a mouth that tastes like burned lawn clippings.
Even more free advice: when you drink so much that you become unable to understand the rules to a board game called "Battle of the Sexes", it is time to quit drinking. Specifically, you should not drink three more glasses of champagne. Drinking three more glasses of champagne will cause you to get the spins when you lie down, and then you will have to puke, and then you will start the New Year with a mouth that tastes not only like burned lawn clippings, but regurgitated steak sandwich as well.
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