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]
Ten thousand years of human creative expression ground to a halt last weekend, as the species' millions of writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, actors, poets, photographers, and other artists just plumb ran out of ideas, sources reported Monday.
"I guess it's all been done," said a morose Brad Shockley, formerly lead guitarist of the now-defunct New York-based band Monkey Cunt. "I remember just a few months ago we had all these ideas about taking our music in some really radical directions, but that all sort of fizzled out. We haven't written an original song in weeks. On Saturday we were jamming and thought we had something fresh, but it turned out to be 'Louie, Louie.'"
"I guess we're all cover bands now," Shockley sighed. "Maybe I'll go get a welding certificate or something."
Some artists continue to struggle and fail to produce original work. Chicago painter Stanley Wills, known for filling huge canvases with nightmarish landscapes rendered in shocking reds and cobalt blues, now spends his days filling sketchbooks with stick figures and tracings of "Prince Valiant" cartoons. Most of the planet's creative minds, however, have accepted the surprising truth that the supply of artistic ideas is not infinite as previously thought.
"It's not so bad," said author Shirley Kunz, staring at the blank first page of her latest project, tentatively titled A Very Clever Groundbreaking Novel. "I'm just glad I had some of the good ideas before we used them all up."
In response to these developments, The U.S. Senate will vote today on a bill to abolish all arts programs and divert the funds to urban pothole maintenance. The bill has incurred little protest and is expected to pass both houses of Congress unanimously. Museums, theaters, and opera houses will remain open to display artworks already created, but galleries will slowly close their doors as they sell their inventories of original works. Movie ticket prices will fall as cineplexes either close or show recycled films.
"I don't see what the big deal is," said Las Vegas attorney Kevin Taylor. "We've got plenty of art already. It's not like there's anyone who's seen all the movies, or read all the books, or listened to every record, or looked at every painting. Why do we need new art?"
My company held a birthday party for itself last Friday. For about an hour we were released from our toils to eat some very tasty barbecued meats, exchange awkward banter with our coworkers, and listen to our president congratulate us for not landing the outfit in bankruptcy court over the last year. His speech was pretty boring, but I kept my face pointed in his direction and nodded occasionally so as to avoid the fate of Smitty, a guy I worked with at a collection agency in San Francisco.
The collection agency was owned by The Boss, a small man who wore sharp suits and looked like he should be doing cartoon voice work as a hyena in a straight-to-video sequel of The Lion King. The Boss liked to drag us all into meetings and motivate us. "You gotta get fired up!" he would say, smacking his fist into his palm. "You gotta be fired up when you're on the phone! You gotta fire yourself up, and fire up everyone else on your team!"
One time, during one of these harangues, Smitty got so fired up that he yawned audibly. The Boss stopped and stared at Smitty like he was a fresh zebra carcass. "Excuse me?" he said.
"Huh?" said Smitty.
"Do you need to get more sleep?" asked The Boss, his face reddening.
"Uh... no," said Smitty, nervous now. He had a wife and a kid and probably did need more sleep.
"Well, it sounds to me like you need some more fucking sleep!" The Boss snapped, and went back to motivating us. When he was finished, he took Smitty into his office and fired him.
So I didn't yawn during the president's birthday speech. When he was finished, he told us we could pick up our presents. My company gives its employees presents on its birthday. Two years ago, we got digital watch/compass combos emblazoned with the company name. Last year, we got bright blue duffel bags emblazoned with the company name. This year, we got barbecue tool sets emblazoned with the company name.
The barbecue tool sets are quite cunning. They fold up into a neat rectangular case, so we all looked like extras from The Color of Money. The tools are impressive, shiny stainless steel with black accents. Their size indicates that my company thinks its employees like to grill ostriches in their spare time. The spatula measures 17½ inches long and has weird ridges and spines on its edges. What am I supposed to do with this -- play tennis? Torture an Iraqi?
I also got a barbecue fork that looks like one of Poseidon's more ostentatious tridents, a pair of tongs that I now keep in the trunk of my car in case I get into a car accident and need the Jaws of Life, and a basting brush that will come in handy if I ever need baste something in the kitchen without getting out of the shower. (Click on the links to see photos of the tools next to normal-sized implements I already own.)
The set also came with eight small objects I couldn't identify. "They're corn thingies," the accounts payable girl explained. "You stick them in the ends of corn cobs and turn them while you eat."
I grew up in Iowa and I've eaten plenty of sweet corn, so I should know corn thingies when I see them. But what's the point of using them? If the corn is too hot to pick up with your fingers, it's too hot to put in your mouth. And half the fun of eating corn on the cob is drenching each ear in butter and salt, devouring it, and licking the greasy, salty mess off your fingers. If you just scrubbed down to perform a kidney transplant and you want to eat some corn before entering the operating room, then go ahead and use the corn thingies. Otherwise, skip 'em.
I don't own a barbecue grill. I guess I'll toss this on the slag heap of small failures that compose my life. We own barbecue grills 'round here, my company's gift announces. We own big barbecue grills that call for big barbecue tools. This implies that we own homes with yards and patios and stained-wood decks, or that we at least rent apartments with balconies. On weekends, we have friends and neighbors over and grill hamburgers and cheese brats and T-bone steaks. We play croquet and avoid coveting one another's wives. We drink beers as the warm afternoon drifts into cool evening, and we talk about our John Deere lawn tractors and the Broncos' chances this year.
I put the barbecue tool set in the closet. It's too nice to throw away. Besides, maybe I'll own a barbecue grill someday.
I had a date tonight and didn't get home till late, so I wasn't able to write a proper post. Instead I scanned the cover of a magazine I got in the mail and made a little cartoon out of it. You can look at it here. I hope you like it. If you don't, feel free to make your own suggestions for dialogue in the comments.
I stole a marker from work today. I'm sorry. I know it's wrong, but I... I had to have it. I had to have the bright red Avery Marks-A-Lot Jumbo Chisel Tip marker.
This ain't no Sharpie you carry around in your pretty pink dress for making lemonade stand signs, Alice. This is a man's marker: six throbbing inches of crimson ink with a 5/8" chisel point. Lumberjacks use this marker to designate trees for clear-cutting. Our troops overseas use this marker to write snappy slogans on bombs ("INSURGENTS HAVE POOP IN THEIR PANTS"). Christians use this marker to brand the foreheads of adulterers with scarlet letters. What's that, Hester? The "A" won't come out no matter how hard you scrub? Oh, I'm sorry -- that ink is permanent, beeyatch!
My favorite marker used to be the Sanford Mr. Sketch Scented Instant Water Color. I liked the blue one best. It smelled pretty, like fresh mountain blueberries grown by chemical engineers at Dow Corning. The Marks-A-Lot, by contrast, smells like a pint bottle of Five O'Clock vodka left in the trunk of your car for a couple of summers. Doesn't sound so good to you? Go get a Y chromosome and try again, sister.
People will take me seriously when I wield the Marks-A-Lot. "Ordinarily, I wouldn't give a guy like that my shoe size, let alone my phone number," attractive women will say. "But when he pulled out that big red marker, I found myself helpless to resist its pulsing charms." President Bush will ask to borrow my Marks-A-Lot to veto some commie pinko fake-war-hero freedom-hating Democrat legislation. "I'm gonna draw a big red 'X' across it and write 'Try again, fellas' on the front, and that marker of yours would be just the thing," the president will say. I will politely decline unless he sets me up with Barbara (his daughter, not his mom, of course, although if Barbara's busy I could make do with her cousin Lauren).
Comes now the brilliant and intrepid Ethan Hahn, who sent me the above photo and the following email:
I was visiting friends in Greensboro, North Carolina last winter, and as I'm a devout ChaoticNotRandom lurker, I was happily surprised to drive past West Friendly Avenue. Here's your post about it from last January.
I snapped a few pictures for you, but promptly lost my CompactFlash card reader and was too lazy to do anything about it until I borrowed one from a friend tonight. So here's a picture of West Friendly Avenue for you - a picture which, incidentally, clearly corroborates your hypothesis that the lights on West Friendly Avenue are never red.
Love your writing, thanks for blogging, and all that yap yap...
Well, Ethan, Article IV of the Chaotic Not Random Reader's Bill of Rights specifies that you should be sending me naked pictures of your sister, not pictures of traffic lights, but I guess I'll take what I can get. And I'll admit it's pretty cool to blog about something totally obscure in January and get an email and a photo about in in August. So: thanks much, Ethan! May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Egged on by a group of giggling legislators, a blushing U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) asked openly gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) if he was a "homo," sources reported Thursday.
The incident took place Thursday afternoon during lunch in the Capitol cafeteria. Witnesses reported hearing a group of Republican lawmakers laughing and making lewd references to Frank's sexual orientation.
"I heard he's a huge fag," U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) said. "I heard he likes to, like, kiss guys with his tongue, and do weird stuff with them that you're only supposed to do with girls."
U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) then said that he has caught Frank "staring at my butt when I go up to speak."
"He likes guys' butts," Hyde reportedly elaborated. "He wants to pull your pants down and, like, get a boner and stick it in your butt."
At this point, observers reported that the group dissolved into shrieks and laughter. U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Ia.) and U.S. Rep. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) pretended to kiss while saying "Oh, Barney!" in falsetto voices. U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) got up from his seat and started "humping" the table in a crude simulation of anal sex.
Santorum, according to witnesses, did not participate in the fun, but stared in shock at his tater tots and sloppy joe sandwich. "Can guys really do that with each other?" he asked.
Santorum's esteemed colleagues immediately began to encourage the junior senator from Pennsylvania to approach Frank, who was eating lunch with a group of Democrats across the cafeteria. Santorum refused, even when "dared" and "double dared," but relented under pressure when Nussle called him a "pussy" and U.S. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) "double-dog dared" him and offered a half-pint of chocolate milk as a reward.
Santorum walked slowly across the room, stopping twice to look back at his fellow Republican legislators, who urged him forward. Santorum finally reached Frank's table, where he stood blushing until Frank noticed him and said, "Hello, Rick. Can I help you with something?"
"Hey, Barney," Santorum said, "um... are you, like, a homo?"
"Well, 'homo' is a derogatory term," said Frank, "but I am a gay man, yes."
"Do you like to make your dick all hard and stick in guys' butts and mouths and stuff?" blurted Santorum.
"That's not any of your business," replied Frank, "but I will say that my partner and I have a normal sex life for gay men our age."
Santorum then turned around and ran back to his table with his hands clapped over his mouth. "He is! He is! He said he's gay! He says he does it in guys' butts! He called some guy his 'partner'!" he said.
The table erupted into giggles, with several of the lawmakers miming fellatio by moving their fists near their open mouths and poking their tongues into their cheeks. A lively debate ensued about the identity of Frank's "partner," with U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.) a popular suspect.
As of press time, it could not be confirmed that Lott had promised Hyde a nickel if he walked right up to Harkin and said, "Hi, Mrs. Frank."
Imagine my pleasure and surprise this evening when I received this email from a Ronnie Ellis in Austin, Texas:
I just stumbled onto your blog from last month on Marvin Gudat. In case you wanted to know what he looked like (or maybe didn't), I just happened to have a photo of his tombstone with picture. I have no relation, but he is buried in the same cemetery, Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Cemetery in Meyersville, TX, where many of my wife's ancestors are.
While doing genealogical research there, I noticed this interesting tombstone and photographed it. As it says, Gone but not forgotten, as he comes up again 50 years after his death.
Thank you, Ronnie! Click here to see a photo of the entire tombstone. Click here to read an article arguing that Marv Gudat's 1934 team, the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, was the "best minor league team ever." The article says that Gudat was "a line-drive hitter, fast and had an excellent arm ... was frequently injured because of his aggressive style on the field," and once broke up a no-hitter by singling with two outs in the ninth inning. As I noted in my July post, Marvin Gudat only hit one major league home run, but in 2,103 minor league games he batted .306 with 2,211 hits and 214 stolen bases.
Rest easy, Mr. Gudat. You kicked ass and took some names.
When I'm trying to impress women by bragging about how many countries I've visited, am I allowed to include countries where I've only been to the airport? For example, if I were taking a trip to Morocco in September that included stops in Madrid and Amsterdam, could I later brag about having visited Spain and Holland? If so, what about countries where I've flown through their airspace? How about countries whose capitals and principal exports I can identify with only a few hints?
What is the line of demarcation between an apartment and a condominium? Is a condominium just a nice apartment, or is it an apartment that you own? At the age of thirty, should I be outgrowing apartments the way I outgrew breastfeeding and my security blanket? At what point should I consider myself a failure for not owning property?
When I pass somebody walking the opposite direction in the hallway at work, and I nod and smile, how much longer do I have to keep smiling after the other person passes? If I stop smiling right away, is that merely circumstantial evidence that I'm a phony, or does that clinch the case? But if I walk around the office smiling for no apparent reason, will my colleagues think I'm a "space cadet" or a "spazz"? Can a person in my barely-higher-than-yard-waste position genuinely have "colleagues," or does that require a college degree?
Who makes up jokes? By "jokes," I don't mean "wry commentary" -- I mean How do you pick up women in Waco, Texas?* or A priest, a rabbi, and a Hare Krishna walk into a bar... Have you ever created one of these jokes from scratch? Have any of your friends ever called you up and said, "Hey! I just made up this new joke! What's the difference between a woman and mashed potatoes?**" Me neither, so what is the source of this endless supply of jokes?
*With a Dustbuster. **Mashed potatoes don't make their own gravy.
Why do I claim to enjoy meeting smart, clever, funny people, but when I actually meet such people, I feel threatened and inadequate? On a related note: why do I claim to enjoy reading smart, funny, well-written blogs, but when I actually read such blogs, I'm overwhelmed by feelings of envy and ineptitude?
Why do some people attach battering rams to the grills of their already hulking trucks and SUVs? Do these people plan to use their vehicles as seige weapons in case Al Qaeda commandeers the Denver Public Library? Or do they hope that, in a head-on collision with my Honda Accord with flawless leather interior, I will end up completely decapitated instead of only paralyzed from the neck down?
When I go into my apartment building's laundry room, and some apparently svelte young lady leaves her clothes on top of one of the dryers, and I take an extra moment to visually examine her thong constructed of maybe 2½ square inches of fabric, is that wrong, or merely creepy?
Muslims are supposed to face Mecca when they pray, but in which direction do they pray when they're in Mecca? No matter which direction they face, their line of sight passes through Mecca, so do they get to face any way they please? Do other Muslims envy the Muslims who live in Mecca for the ease with which they pray? Do Muslims who live in Mecca get embarrassed when they travel outside of Mecca because they're unused to locating Mecca, and have to fumble with a compass or GPS locator or whatever? And what happens when Muslims pray in the wrong direction? Do you get the opposite of what you pray for? Or does Allah just shake his head and say, "You know, I can't understand a word this guy is saying"?
Was I saying Scott Rolen was the NL MVP leader? I meant teammate Albert Pujols, who hit his MLB-leading 37th HR last night (his 5th in 4 games). With the Cards up 14 games, one of 'em is going to win it.
Let's dispel this madness immediately. Any list of National League MVP candidates including names other than "Barry Bonds" is blasphemous nonsense. Sure, Pujols has hit 6 more home runs and Rolen has driven in 32 more runs. But that's because nobody will pitch to Bonds -- he has taken more walks (171) this year than Rolen and Pujols combined (115). It's hard to hit home runs and accumulate RBI (a mostly meaningless stat anyway) when most of the pitches you see land in the dirt or cruise by two feet outside the plate. And when pitchers dare to put the ball in the strike zone, Bonds punishes them for their vanity. Compare Bonds' on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) to those of Rolen and Pujols:
If the season ended today, Bonds would have the highest single-season on-base percentage ever, as well as the sixth-highest slugging percentage and the fourth-highest OPS. Only Babe Ruth and Bonds himself have done better in either category.
Some will say that either Rolen or Pujols have earned the MVP because they play for the Cardinals, a team comfortably ensconced in first place, while Bonds' Giants are scrapping for the wild card. This is the same specious argument used in years past to rob Alex Rodriguez of multiple deserved MVP awards, and I'm too tired to point out its flaws tonight. I will only say that we baseball fans have the rare treat of watching Barry Bonds compile one of the great offensive seasons in the history of the game. Much like the Clinton impeachment looks sillier with every passing year, so a decision to deprive Bonds of the 2004 MVP award will be ridiculed by future baseball fans.
Don't take Barry Bonds for granted. With each season he plays, he solidifies his place in the pantheon of baseball greats. In terms of total career Win Shares, Bonds this season has passed Tris Speaker, Cy Young, and Hank Aaron on the all-time list. Barring injury, he will by the end of the season pass Honus Wagner to settle in third place. If he remains healthy and productive through 2006, he could well pass Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and make a strong claim for the title of Greatest Baseball Player Ever.
Speaking of all-time greats, we have had the privilege over the last two decades -- modestly dubbed the "ESPN Era" by a certain television network -- of enjoying the careers of some of the greatest athletes of all time. Every era has its great athletes, of course, but I'm talking about athletes who transcend era and have claimed a place among the very best their sports have seen.
In addition to Bonds, we baseball fans have gotten to see Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux, two of the greatest pitchers ever. We've gotten to see Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time. We've witnessed the careers of hockey immortals Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, and Patrick Roy. I don't follow football that closely, but the names "Barry Sanders," "Emmitt Smith," and "Jerry Rice" seem to crop up a lot on short lists of great running backs and wide receivers. We saw Carl Lewis win ten Olympic medals and Jackie Joyner-Kersee win five, establishing themselves among the greatest track and field athletes ever. We got to watch Pete Sampras and Steffi Graf win 14 and 22 Grand Slam singles titles, more than any man or woman, respectively, in tennis history. This year we cheered Lance Armstrong to his mind-boggling record sixth consecutive Tour de France victory. And all of these athletes wrought their amazing feats against far deeper competition from more nations and races than their predecessors.
We've already had a Golden Age of sports, so what to call the current epoch? The Platinum Age? The Age of Immortals? The Most Fucking-A Kickin'est Ass-est Age of Sports Ever and Stuff? Whatever -- it's a lot of fun.
To the ignorant observer, the scene in a certain apartment in Denver's Washington Park neighborhood yesterday might have looked like a 30-year-old man eating chicken wings, drinking light beer, and desultorily masturbating to grainy VHS freeze-frames of Catherine Keener's scenes in Being John Malkovich. More savvy folks would have recognized these festivities as the Chaotic Not Random One Year Blogoversary party. Sorry you weren't invited, but chicken wings are expensive.
CNR recorded 22,533 hits in its first year of existence. That's not a lot of hits, but it's about 20,000 more hits than I had any business to expect, and I'm proud and happy to have made this place for myself in the back alleys of the bloghetto. Thanks to all of you who read my scribblings when you could spend that time on more constructive pursuits, like throwing rocks at stray cats or letting the air out of your ex-girlfriend's tires. Many thanks to those of you who leave comments, send emails, or link to CNR from your own sites.
Below I've made a list of some of my favorite posts. If you haven't seen them before, take a look. If you have, I hope you like them the second time around.
A few years ago, when I had this night job at UPS, I worked with a cool African guy named Cosmos. One day I remarked that he had an unusual name, and he replied, "Yes. Many people tell me this. Did you know the name Cosmos is also the name of a flower?"
"Really?" I said. "I didn't know that." And I didn't. I had never, not in my entire life, heard of the cosmos flower.
The very next day, when I went to my day job, one of the old ladies who worked in the office was wearing a sweatshirt screen-printed with various flowers: the rose, the sunflower, the columbine... and the cosmos. I soon ran across more references to the cosmos flower -- in a magazine, overheard conversation in a coffee shop, on some nature program while flipping channels. It took me twenty-six years to learn of the cosmos flower's existence, and two weeks later I was ready to give university lectures on the thing.
I've always found this sort of thing fascinating, so a few months ago I started keeping track every time it happened:
On May 24, I read an article on Slate by George Saunders called "Exit Strategy: How To Leave Iraq In Three Simple Steps." Appended to the article was a note that George Saunders had written a collection of short stories called Pastoralia.
I had never before heard of George Saunders or Pastoralia.
Later that day, I was reading a post by Mac at Pesky Apostrophe about her summer reading list. Do you think George Saunders' Pastoralia was on there?
Discussion Question: Why do adults make summer reading lists? Every day is pretty much the same when you're a working adult, whether it's July or January: Wake up, down a shot of whiskey to get rid of the shakes, feign productive work, get home, read for a while, sob uncontrollably in the corner till bedtime. It's not like we're schoolkids who need something to do from June through August besides watching Nickelodeon and getting each other pregnant.
I visited a friend recently at his new house. When he gave me the grand tour, he pointed out the flooring, which would have looked remarkably like hardwood flooring to a person with thumbtacks stuck in his eyes. "It's that Pergo fake wood flooring," my friend explained.
I had never before heard of Pergo fake wood flooring.
The next day, I was talking to my boss about some improvements she was making in her townhouse. "I'm putting in that Pergo stuff," she said.
Discussion Question: Why is it that when people show off their new house/condo/apartment/trailer, they always say, "Let me give you the grand tour"? When did we all agree to call it "the grand tour"? And the tours are never that "grand" anyway -- mostly you just take a regular tour of the bathrooms and the basement and stuff. If you're going to give me a "grand tour," I want to see the bathrooms and the basement plus all-I-can-eat chicken wings or fellatio from your barely legal daughter.
On July 26, I read an article on Slate about the Man vs. Horse Marathon, a man-against-beast race held in the Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells.
I had never heard of the Man vs. Horse Marathon.
Two days later, while idly reading the "marathon" entry at Wikipedia, I noticed at the very bottom of the page a link to Wikipedia's Man vs. Horse Marathon article.
Discussion Question: Does anybody want this IndyCar racing PC game I found in the Cheerios box? I'm serious -- the first person to email me an address gets the game, no charge for postage.
On July 28, an "editorial" at The Onion titled "Where The Fuck Is Diane With My Fair Trade Coffee?" included a reference to Working Assets Long Distance.
I had never before heard of Working Assets Long Distance.
Ten minutes later, I clicked on a blog link to a website called WorkingForChange.com that featured a banner ad for Working Assets Long Distance.
Discussion Question: Working Assets offers a competitive long-distance plan, charging $5.95 per month and 5¢ per minute for interstate calls. Working Assets donates 1% of phone charges to progressive organizations such as the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the ACLU, and Planned Parenthood. They reimburse your switch fees, print their bills on 100% recycled paper, and give you 12 free pints of delicious Ben & Jerry's ice cream for signing up! Yet I haven't signed up, and probably won't. Could I be any more of a lazy bitch?
A few weeks ago, my company received a check from a company called Hilti.
I had never before heard of Hilti.
That evening, while driving west on I-70 to get home, I noticed a building along the side of the highway with a large sign reading HILTI.
Discussion Question: When New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey said, "I am a gay American," why did he put it that way? Why didn't he just say, "I'm gay"? If I were gay, I wouldn't go around saying, "I'm a gay accounts receivable clerk" or "I'm a gay baseball fan." And why did he bother putting on a suit and tie for his resignation speech? He was resigning, for chrissake. Why not show up 20 minutes late, wearing faded blue jeans with a stained UCLA sweatshirt, and swilling from a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam?
That last example is particularly strange. I drive both ways on I-70 to get to and from a job I've held for two years, so I've passed that HILTI sign roughly a thousand times. I had to have seen that sign -- I just never noticed it.
The vending machine guy didn't stock any Hostess Chocolate Frosted Donettes today. He stocked a Mrs. Freshley's Carrot Cake and some Mrs. Freshley's Golden Cakes instead. I think I saw some Hostess Suzy-Q's -- acceptable substitutes for the Chocolate Frosted Donettes -- lurking behind the Golden Cakes, but I'll have to wait until somebody buys the Golden Cakes to be sure.
That was all very important background information, because if I had bought Chocolate Frosted Donettes or Suzy-Q's, I would have spent an entire dollar. Instead, I bought a Snickers bar and came home with some change in my pocket. I put the coins in my change jar and squatted until my eyes were level with the top of the jar. I shook the jar to make the coins even on top and squinted, like a B-movie mad scientist frowning at a bubbling beaker of Monster Serum. I saw no daylight between the coins and the lowest screw thread on the jar's neck -- the minimum level at which I'm allowed to take the change jar to the Coinstar machine at Safeway.
I'm excited. I picture myself pushing the change into the Coinstar machine's whirring maw, listening to the coins clink and rattle and watching the total on the counter climb. People will fidget impatiently behind me.
"Sorry," I'll say. "I have a lot of coins to count here, so it's going to be a couple of minutes."
"Geez," some lawyer-type guy with a cell phone will say, "have you been saving that change for two years, or what?" And everyone will laugh.
"Actually, yes," I'll say, and everyone will stop laughing and marvel at the patience and discipline it took to hold off for such a long time.
After the Coinstar machine takes its cut, I'll probably net at least fifty dollars out of that jar -- a lot of money in the tight world of Kilgore Trout. (It would be more, but I don't put quarters in the jar; I need those for laundry, obviously!) I'll take my receipt to the Customer Service desk and hand it to the cashier. Maybe she'll be cute and have red hair.
"Goodness," she'll say, and smile. "That's a lot of change you brought in. What are you going to do with all this money?"
"Oh, I don't know," I'll say, blushing and shuffling my feet. Then: "I suppose I could spend some of it on coffee for us, if you'd care to join me."
Then it will be her turn to blush. She'll giggle and say, "Well, I'd love to, but I don't get off work for another couple of hours."
"That's okay," I'll say. "I'm going to go over to The Tattered Cover, across the street, and look at some books. Why don't you come by when you're done?"
"You got it!" she'll say. And I'll turn and walk out the door and across the street to The Tattered Cover, where I'll browse and wander with the happy knowledge that I have money to buy something. I'll look at the hardcovers, and although I'll end up buying paperbacks, it will have been nice to pretend for a while that I'm the sort of person who can afford hardcover books.
I'll buy my books and an iced mocha and get lost in both. I'll barely notice when the Safeway girl arrives.
"I see you got started without me!" she'll say, with a smile that registers somewhere between brash and coy. "Do you have any money left?"
"Just enough," I'll say, and I'll get her an iced mocha and a blueberry scone for us to share. We'll talk and laugh for a bit, and just after I crack my funniest joke, I'll glance at my watch and say, "Well, I'd better get going," because Leaving 'Em Wanting More is Kilgore Trout's strongest Power Move. She'll write her number on a Tattered Cover bookmark, and after we part ways on the sidewalk, I'll glance back and notice her glancing back at me. That's a good omen, I'll think, but I saw it coming all along, because good things happen when the change jar fills up.
When I get home, I'll dig two dimes, a nickel, and three pennies out of my pocket. I'll drop them one at a time into the empty jar, enjoying the sound of metal clattering on glass.
I don't usually look forward to Thursday. But it's not every Thursday you get to cash in the change jar.
LOS ANGELES -- Kevin Smith, the writer and director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, announced Monday his next movie will have no leading actors or central plot, but will consist entirely of a series of cameos by more than 300 celebrities from Kevin Bacon to Snoop Dogg.
"Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back included cameos by Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, George Carlin, Wes Craven, Shannen Doherty, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jon Stewart, Gus Van Sant, Jason Biggs, and James Van Der Beek, among others," said Smith. "Everybody loved the cameos so much that I decided my next movie would be two solid hours of cameos by all my favorite pop-culture figures, especially those from the 80s and early 90s."
Smith then laughed hysterically at his own cleverness for nearly five minutes.
Smith released sample dialogue from the film, tentatively titled Kevin Smith's Cameos:
MAN (Emmanuel Lewis): [wakes up, stretches, looks at WOMAN] Aaaah! I fucked Mrs. Brady! [jumps out of bed, runs down stairs]
DRUNK (Lou Ferrigno): [sleeping in stairwell, wakes up as MAN rushes past] Can't you see I'm trying to get some sleep here?
CAT (Morris the Cat): Meow.
[MAN opens door to outside, runs down street into distance.]
WOMAN 2 (Dana Plato): Dog with sauerkraut, please.
HOT DOG VENDOR (Jack Palance): You got it.
[HOT DOG VENDOR hands hot dog to WOMAN 2, who walks away. The camera follows her briefly as she passes MAN 2 (Mike Tyson) who is repeatedly punching a brick wall.]
MAN 3 (Mick Jagger): Taxi!
TAXI DRIVER (Jimmy Carter): Where to?
MAN 3: Anywhere but Jersey!
[Taxi lurches forward, knocks down MAN 4 (Burt Reynolds), and drives away.]
MAN 4: What the fuck, man!
WOMAN 3 (Suzanne Somers): I can't believe it!
MAN 4: [brushing off plaid jacket] Me neither! This is a new suit!
WOMAN 3: Can you come help me install a shower rod?
SHOESHINE MAN (Jim Brown): Look at your shoes! Why don't you get some pride in your stride?
When told that Dana Plato died from an overdose in 1999, Smith said, "Well, shit. I guess we better get filming before Don Knotts kicks off."
Other celebrities who have accepted parts in Kevin Smith's Cameos include Sheryl Lee, Bob Costas, Walter Mondale, Susan Lucci, Todd Bridges, the dog from Frasier, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Larry Bird, William Shatner, O.J. Simpson, Ron Jeremy, John Glenn, Chris Berman, Dr. J, Bernhard Goetz, Steven Tyler, John Ratzenberger, Gerald Ford, Too Tall Jones, the Black Stallion, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nina Hartley, Gary Coleman, Ted Danson, Leonard Nimoy, Dick Butkus, Lee Iacocca, Oprah Winfrey, the Dalai Lama, Alex Gross, the Dahm triplets, Arsenio Hall, Magic Johnson, Meredith Baxter-Birney, Judith Light, Jermaine Jackson, Jim Bakker, Gallagher, Eddie Van Halen, John Madden, Tony Danza, George Takei, Michael Jordan, Big Bird, Barry Williams, Michael Richards, Mary Lou Retton, Alex Winter, John Cleese, Donnie Wahlberg, Nichelle Nichols, George Wendt, Stephen King, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, Mikhail Gorbechev, Beavis and Butt-head, and Shadoe Stevens.
Witness all those T-shirted "Fire Fighters for Kerry" you saw at the convention. A little soft around the middle some of them were, weren't they? Do you think some of them could haul a hose pack up 50 flights of stairs? I'm not betting on it. ...
Granted, some firefighters, even some who actually fight fires, will no doubt vote for Kerry. So will some cops. But most will vote for President Bush. ... Unlike John Kerry, they don't find "nuance" in every question that confronts them. ...
Second, cops and firefighters are, if the women in the ranks will forgive the expression, Regular Guys. They drink beer, not wine, and certainly not French wine. They played football and baseball in high school, not lacrosse. ... Regular Guys do not blame Secret Service agents (who are Regular Guys) for knocking them down on the ski slopes, especially when those agents are there to take bullets for them. And Regular Guys relate to and prefer the company of other Regular Guys; they do not invite people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck to their conventions.
Even with the piles of dough they're sitting on, both George Bush and Dick Cheney still come across as Regular Guys, the kind of men you might find hanging around the fire station or the detective squad room. And with his recent suggestion to Pat Leahy on how he might spend his idle time, the vice president climbed several notches on the Regular Guy scale. And whatever tenuous grip [Kerry] may have had on Regular Guy status since [Vietnam] was lost when he married his current wife. ...Regular Guys do not under any circumstances marry women like Teresa Heinz Kerry.
There's a table below with a bunch of silly stuff in it. I'm too stupid to make all these blank lines go away. You try making a table out of raw HTML code, asshole.
KILGORE TROUT: REGULAR GUY?
Evidence Against
Evidence For
Drinks wine, occasionally even French wine.
Drinks Budweiser straight from the bottle.
Wants to sleep with French actresses Nathalie Baye and Sophie Marceau, who are automatically evil, being from France.
Would make French actresses Nathalie Baye and Sophie Marceau sleep in the wet spot and cook breakfast in the morning. Would tell Mme. Baye "I said I wanted this bacon crisp, beeyotch!"
Ran cross-country in high school instead of playing football.
Played Little League baseball. Once hit a pseudo-home-run when opposing fielders overthrew all four bases. Also played youth hockey and served time in the penalty box.
Finds "nuance" in complex questions of foreign policy. Advocates thinking of better answers to these questions than reflexively launching balls-to-the-wall invasions costing hundreds of American lives plus tens of billions of dollars tacked onto the national debt.
Dismisses out of hand the possibility that Meet The Fockers will be a watchable movie.
Says "fuck" a lot, just like Regular Guy Dick Cheney.
Desperately wants to fuck Teresa Heinz Kerry.
Desperately wants a messy ménage à trois with the Bush twins while the First Lady watches and reads out loud from the Book of Leviticus.
Lacrosse fan. Wonders if the writer of the above article wants to explain to 6-foot-2, 220-pound Colorado Mammoth defenseman Dave Stilley that this seemingly rough-and-tumble contact sport is actually a game for sissies.
Baseball fan. Takes his glove to Colorado Rockies games.
Is a bit skeptical that firefighters carry hose packs up 50 flights of stairs. Don't these guys have ladders? Also wants to see the sophisticated statistical analysis establishing the negative correlation between "number of fires actually fought" and "support for John Kerry."
Has run 50 miles.
If ever knocked down on the ski slopes by Secret Service agents, will sue those motherfuckers for everything they've got.
Does not actually ski.
Was previously unaware that Regular Guys not employed by the fire department or the police department were allowed to hang around the fire station or detective squad room. Is thinking about stopping by the detective squad room after work tomorrow to check out the action. Will make sure to take a case of beer and some footballs to toss around, seeing as how all those Regular Guys spent time on the gridiron in high school.
Hangs around elementary school playgrounds. You know, in case any of the kids need help with their homework.
Thinks that human beings are too complicated to divide into neat groups like "Regular Guys" and "Fuckin' Pussies." Supposes that firefighters and police officers make political decisions based on factors other than preferred alcoholic beverage, and will display a diversity of political opinion on Election Day.
Hates everybody.
Is Kilgore Trout a Regular Guy or a Fuckin' Pussy? Cast your votes in the comments!
Last week, someone at my job printed out an inspiring story and posted it on the bulletin board. The inspiring story was about a poor Scottish farmer who saved a nobleman's son from drowning. The Scotsman refused the nobleman's offer of a reward, so the nobleman insisted on paying for the education of the farmer's son. The Scotsman's son grew up to be Sir Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, which years later saved the life of the nobleman's son -- Sir Winston Churchill.
I immediately spotted this story for a fake. So I went to Urban Legends Reference Pages, printed out the well-researched and well-written refutation, and posted it on the bulletin board beneath the spurious story. When I walked past the bulletin board an hour later, both the story and the refutation had disappeared.
Last week, I was reading this post at Mirthful Ones, in which Sadie mentioned quadratic equations. I know a thing or two about quadratic equations, so I posted this comment:
...to solve an quadratic equation of the form ax² + bx + c = 0, use this formula: x = [-b ± √(b² - 4ac)] / 2a.
Irish Lad, amorous associate of Sadie, responded with:
ax² + bx + c = 0 is not a "solvable quadratic equation". It is a second degree polynomial equation. The quadratic equation is x = [-b ± √(b² - 4ac)] / 2a. Just technicalities, but surely you were just wanting to see if anyone noticed the transposition. Or maybe you did some Friday sex including 69 and are just ass-backwards as a result.
I lashed back with:
According to Wikipedia and Math World, "quadratic equation" and "second degree polynomial equation" are synonymous. The formula x = [-b ± √(b² - 4ac)] / 2a is the quadratic formula.
I was drinking beer and playing poker on Friday with the young adult group from my church (great church, the Unitarians -- they let you drink and gamble!), when somebody was dealt a natural straight. "What are the odds of that?" the lucky girl wondered as she raked in her chips.
Well, let's figure it out!
There are 10 different straights: A2345, 23456, 34567, et cetera, up to TJQKA. Each straight has 5 cards, each of which can be dealt in 4 suits. That means there are
10 × 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 = 10,240 ways to deal a straight including straight flushes, which we should subtract out. There is 1 straight flush for each of 4 suits for each of the 10 different straights. That leaves us with
10,240 - 1 × 4 × 10 = 10,200 ways to deal a straight. There are
52 × 51 × 50 × 49 × 48 / 5! = 2,598,960 ways to deal 5 cards from a 52-card deck, so the odds of getting a straight are
10,200 / 2,598,960 = 1 in 254.8 deals.
PART 2 I've always liked being right. When I was a kid, my parents bought me a book titled Encyclopedia Brown's Book of Weird and Wonderful Facts. That was maybe the biggest mistake Mr. and Mrs. Trout ever made. For the next few years, the most common phrase to emerge from my mouth was "But my book says..."
"But my book says Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier, not Satchel Paige."
"But my book says 'A.D.' stands for Anno Domini, not 'After Death.'"
"But my book says the North Star is only near the Big Dipper, not part of it."
I corrected my parents, my sister, my teachers, and the pastor at church. I had the steel-trap memory of a seven-year-old with no weightier concerns in life than the Little League schedule. Resistance was futile. If anyone dared contradict me for a second time, I would march to my room in a huff and return moments later with My Book, pointing to the relevant passage.
No need to call Dr. Freud to decipher my behavior. I was an skinny, awkward kid who didn't play well with others, and proving that I knew more than other people was a cheap and easy way to obtain approval and feel better about myself.
As I grew older and developed the desire to fuck girls, I learned to control my impulse for correcting other people's mistakes. Mostly. My friends who read this will chuckle and say:
"What about the time my girlfriend said Tommy Hilfiger went on Oprah and said he didn't want blacks wearing his clothes, and you took her email address and sent her a refutation the next day?"
"What about the time we went camping, and you wouldn't shut up because the Hershey's bars I bought were the wrong thickness for s'mores?"
"What about that time I brought the new guy to poker night, and he thought his 6-3 beat my 8-4 in Texas Hold 'Em with a board of KK776, and you posted about it at the Recpoker bulletin board to prove I won the hand?"
Yeah, I still like being right, and I still like to show off that I'm right. I'm a skinny, awkward man who feels uneasy around others, and trying to impress people by proving that I know more than they do is a cheap and easy way to feel better about myself. Never mind that years of experience have taught me how pathetic and unsatisfying it is to behave this way.
I flaunt my command of intellectual flotsam and jetsam because I think it makes me better than other people. But I'm wrong.
PRESIDENT INGA-FE# REFUSES ACCOLADES
FOR SUCCESSFUL WAR IN H7'§AKK
------------------
"Our intelligence agencies deserve all the credit."
------------------
PARALLEL UNIVERSE -- At a press conference yesterday, President Vvt Inga-Fe# deflected praise for the successful invasion and reconstruction of H7'§AKK, saying "Our intelligence agencies deserve all the credit."
"Mission accomplished," said Inga-Fe#. "Today, H7'§akk, once blighted by the tyranny of the dictator ¥¥ H:arrg, is blooming under democracy. Today, H7'§AKK, once a mortal threat to L,jyi¶pku freedom and a friend to terrorists, is a beacon of hope where hope is needed most. And we owe this success to the timely and accurate intelligence that alerted us the time had come to act."
Inga-Fe# was referring to reports produced by the ΦMMMM and the Q® showing that ¥¥ H:arrg, then-president of H7'§akk, was purchasing and producing weapons of mass destruction for use in acts of terrorism against L,jyi¶p. Although the reports were widely disputed at the time, and although the B*W rejected a resolution to send international troops, President Inga-Fe# did not hesitate to declare war on H7'§akk, a decision bitterly opposed and protested by many at the time.
Ultimately, the president's decision was vindicated, as military forces from an international coalition of countries led by L,jyi¶p found huge stockpiles of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Coalition forces also unearthed documents proving H:arrg had earmarked the weapons for use in terrorist acts in major cities around the world, including cities in L,jyi¶p. Other documents showed that H:arrg had assisted the terrorist organization Xoow±y in executing the Jer-Ükko 17th atrocity, the worst terrorist attack yet on L,jyi¶pku soil.
The president asked for a moment of silence to remember the 43 L,jyi¶pku soldiers who had given their lives to remove H:arrg from power, and stated that "the people of H7'§akk will not forget your sacrifice."
"With the yoke of tyranny removed," said Inga-Fe#, "H7'§akkuz from all religious and ethnic backgrounds have united to make their country a peaceful, democratic, self-governing nation with the fastest-growing economy in the world. Following their example, other nations in the region have purged radical theocratic elements from their governments and have announced free elections to take place in the coming months. Terrorist networks are falling to pieces for lack of funding and recruits. Truly we stand at the dawn of a new age of prosperity and security not just for L,jyi¶p, but for all the world."
"I would love to take the credit for these successes," chuckled the president, "but if the intelligence provided to me had been faulty, and if it had turned out that we had gone to war and sacrificed L,jyi¶pku lives when really there were no weapons of mass destruction at all, and if the reconstruction of H7'§akk had turned out to be an expensive disaster, I would certainly have blamed everything on the intelligence agencies. So really, I have no choice but to give all the credit to the ΦMMMM and the Q®."
Phone Pholly I. Unnecessarily long voicemail greetings, such as:
Hello, you've reached Jane Doe in the accounts payable department at ABC Company. I am currently either away from my desk or on the phone at this time. If you leave your name, number, your company's name, and the time you called, I will return your call at my earliest convenience. Thank you, and have a blessed day.
Thank you, Jane, for telling me you are either away from your desk or on the phone. But are you sure you've covered all the possibilities? Why not specify that you might be picking your nose, or flirting with the printer repairman, or bidding on Precious Moments figurines on eBay? I don't care why you didn't answer the phone. Just let me get to the beep without having to listen to your flimsy excuses.
And you don't need to instruct me to leave my name and number and whatever else. What did you think I was going to say -- "Hi, Jane, this is some guy. Call me."? Answering machines have been around for a few decades, so most everybody understands the proper content of a voicemail message by now.
I might remind you that "currently" and "at this time" mean the same thing, so you don't need both. In fact, you don't need either -- you are speaking in the present tense, so "currently" is implied.
You can also strike "I will return your call at my earliest convenience." This means "I'll call you back whenever the hell I feel like it," which means I might get a return call in five minutes, or two Wednesdays from now, or never. The phrase conveys no useful information and will not be missed.
Finally, Jane, I'm not the kind of militant atheist who takes umbrage at being told to have a blessed day. But even if I believed in God, wouldn't the blessedness of my day be out of my control?
Need an example, Jane? Here is the marvel of economy that is my voicemail message:
Hello, you've reached Kilgore Trout in the accounts receivable department at XYZ Company. Please leave a message at the tone. Thank you.
Phone Pholly II. This happens at least once a month:
Operator: ABC Company, how can I direct your call?
KT: Hello, Jane, this is Kilgore Trout from XYZ Company.
[Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah]
KT: Thanks for your help, Jane. Oh, and can I get your direct phone number?
JD: Well, it's the same number you just dialed.
I admit that I'm no Gregory Peck or James Earl Jones, with a deep voice that commands instant respect. But I don't sound like a retard, either, which is what I would have to be to call someone directly and then ask for her phone number. And even if I did do something that stupid, why not take three seconds and give me the number? "303-867-5309" -- was that so hard? Is your direct number some kind of national treasure that you have to protect from the prying eyes of Al Qaeda?
People who paint their brick houses. Why would anyone do this? Brick looks great by itself, but painted brick looks awful, and besides, isn't one of the advantages of owning a brick house that it doesn't require painting? Think of all the other things you could do with your time that would be fun and good and worth remembering when you're 90 and rotting in a nursing home. Why would you waste any more of your life on house painting than absolutely necessary?
Apple's insistence on selling music files through its iTunes service in M4P format only. These files play just fine on Apple's own iPod, but I don't own an iPod. I've heard that iPods are quite nice, but I don't need to store 10,000 songs, and I need a very small player that I can wear comfortably on long runs lasting six hours or more. So I use an MPIO player that meets my needs. It weighs about one ounce, holds ten hours of music, and plays MP3, WAV, and WMP files -- but not M4P files. And when I try to use the iTunes music management software to convert the M4P file to MP3, it politely declines.
Doubtless Apple wants to push their iPods, but do they really think I'm going to spend extra money on a player that's too heavy and has ten times more capacity than I need? I'll get my tunes for free from Kazaa, thanks.
I've been converting the M4P files to MP3 via the backdoor method of burning them to a CD and then extracting them, but that's a pain in the ass. If Apple wants to promote legal music downloading -- an idea I support and would like to use -- wouldn't it make sense to make that process as simple as possible by selling tracks in a variety of formats? Maybe a service exists that does just that. I would do some research and find one if I weren't such a lazy piece of shit.
Right now you are preparing to rip me for all the technical errors I've made in this post. But that's my point -- I'm just a regular asshole who wants to buy some music, and I shouldn't have to be a tech-tard to pull it off.
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