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]
A set of knives. I have one knife in my kitchen. The blade measures 4½ inches in length. It is not a Wusthof paring knife or a Henckels fillet knife or a Bunmei santoku knife. It is a Kitchen Basics knife with a slightly serrated blade that I bought from Target several years ago for maybe five dollars.
It is a good knife, a sharp knife, a versatile knife. I use it to slice tomatoes, to dice onions, to cut the foil off of wine bottles, to chop celery, to open packages, and to gouge out the eyes of dissidents. It is a loyal and humble knife. Instead of demanding a fancy knife holder on top of the counter where it can preen and show off, it is content to live in the drawer with the other silverware. It has assisted in the manufacture of delicious meals responsible for the seduction of dozens of women (well, maybe three). Can it cut through a tin can or the sole of a leather boot? I do not know. I would never subject my knife to such abuse for the sake of mere vanity.
Solid wood furniture. All of my furniture was handed down from friends, cadged from co-workers, or purchased on the cheap at garage sales. All of it is composed of particle board with a fake wood veneer, which fools nobody.
An egg separator. I still crack the eggs in half and pour the yolk between the shells, letting the white collect in a bowl underneath. I know this is unsanitary and wrong and bad, but I've gotten away with it so far. I probably won't drop the $3 until after I actually contract salmonella and spend a week in the hospital, vomiting my small intestine into a bedpan. I'm the sort of guy who has to touch the hot stove.
A headboard. That's what the wall is for.
Kitchen chairs. I have a kitchen table (particle board, fake wood veneer, donated to me by a sympathetic coworker) but no chairs. When I have company for dinner, I bring in the plush chairs with the green velvet upholstery from the living room. These chairs don't sit quite high enough, so my guest and I look like kindergartners sitting at the grown-ups' table. You might think this would be a romance-killer, but in fact everyone has always been very polite and things have usually progressed satisfactorily. At least no one has ever asked for a telephone book to sit on.
White socks. I wear black socks all the time, even with shorts. You call it "dorky," I call it "edgy." Black socks are hard to find, yo. I have to make a special trip to The Athlete's Foot, where they always have some "Buy One Get One 50% Off" deal. I always buy three bags, and the clerk in the zebra stripes always says, "You can get another bag for half off, you know," and I always say, "Oh, I think that's enough socks for today," and we both grin. Then I go home and throw away all the socks that turned gray in the wash and have holes in the toes, and I fill the sock drawer with fresh, jet-black socks. I like it when life has little rituals.
A house. I went to a party on Saturday and quickly realized that I was the only one still renting. I was also the oldest person there. I drank a lot of wine.
My favoritest comic strip ever is "Marmaduke"! It's funny because it's about a big dog! His name is Marmaduke! Boy, is that dog ever big! He's so big that instead of bringing the paper to his owner, he brings his owner to the paper!
Cartoonist Brad Anderson has been drawing "Marmaduke" since 1954! Maybe you think it's impossible to make up 18,250 funny gags about a Great Dane that can't talk or play baseball or wage war against the Red Baron, but that kind of negative attitude is why you've failed at everything you've ever tried to accomplish! I rate every "Marmaduke" cartoon on a scale from 1 to 10, although I've never rated one lower than an 11! I rate a cartoon a 11 if it's super-duper funny, an 12 if it's super-duper double-dog (har!) funny, and a 13 if it's so super-duper double-dog neo-maxi-zoom funny that I vomit repeatedly and have to be rushed to the hospital for administration of intravenous fluids!
I bet drawing "Marmaduke" is hard! Imagine if you woke up on Monday morning with your wife shaking you and saying, "Honey, if you don't think of seven funny jokes about a big dog this week, we're going to lose the house"! If that was me, I would chew my own hand off in a fit of panic! (I can barely post four times a week on this blog, and I get to write about anything I want!) But for Brad Anderson, it's no problemo, because he's a genius! He probably finishes drawing a week's worth of "Marmaduke" by noon on Tuesday, and then spends the rest of the week in a hot tub fondling gorgeous comic strip groupies!
Sometimes I don't understand "Marmaduke"! Like there was this one where the little boy and Marmaduke are in Marmaduke's doghouse at night, and the little boy is holding a flashlight and reading stories out of a book titled Dog Tails! The mom comes out to check out what's going on, and the little boy says, "Marmaduke wants me to read him another bedtime story"! Hahahahahaha! I don't see where the joke is, but that doesn't make it any less funny! It's just like where Jesus wrote the Bible, and some of it is hard to understand, and you need the minister to tell you what it means! It's too bad there aren't any ministers of "Marmaduke," except Brad Anderson himself, and he stopped returning my letters in 1983!
Thimbles. What are they for? I bought a sewing kit the other day to mend my pants and it came with a little plastic thimble. I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it aside and mended my pants without using the thimble, and it turned out fine. At least, so far it's turned out fine. Maybe my stitch job will come apart in the next few days, and passersby will sneer and say, "Didn't use the thimble, didja?" and I'll have to be all sheepish and say, "No, I didn't know what it was for." And then everyone will have a good laugh at my expense and throw stones at my face and groin. If all this could be avoided by banning entirely the use and manufacture of thimbles, then I'm all for it. I'll push for a constitutional amendment if I have to.
I'd like the record to reflect that I have nothing against the word "thimble." It's a good word and that plosive "b" in the middle gives it a nifty rhythm. Once we ban thimbles (the objects), we ought to reassign "thimble" (the word) to mean something new. I vote for making it a slang term for "clitoris."
The allegedly humorous put-down "Would you like some cheese with that whine?" If you thought of it first, good for you. But you didn't, so knock it off. It's annoying and hackneyed and it wasn't that clever in the first place.
People saying, "I could care less," to indicate they don't care about something. When you say you could care less, what you are saying is you do care to some degree -- otherwise it wouldn't be possible for you to care less. You should say "I couldn't care less." This indicates that your current level of caring is zero, and it is not possible for you to care any less, as a level of caring cannot be assigned a negative value.
The Dossier Method of establishing characters in movies, used to irritating effect in Contact, The Silence of the Lambs, Con Air, and Major League, among many other films. Here's a made-up example:
MAJ. BROCK STEELE: Maj. Brock Steele reporting for duty, sir.
GEN. DIRK STONE: Yes, Major, welcome. [Opens a manila folder on his desk.] Let's see, Brock Steele... born July 4, 1971, in Mechanicsville, Pennsylvania. High school valedictorian and star athlete, graduated a year early. Scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT. Entered West Point in 1988. Starred in wrestling and football -- I was there that day you returned that interception 94 yards to beat Navy. That was good work.
BS: Thank you, sir.
DS: Extensive research at the Academy in mathematics, cryptology, and computer science. Graduated third in your class in 1992. You could have taken a cush job breaking codes, but instead you entered Special Forces training and displayed an aptitude for... behind-the-scenes combat. You've been involved in several classified missions over the last decade, and have never failed to complete your objectives. Flawless reports from all your commanding officers. [Closes folder.] And now you're going to come to work for me.
I hate the Dossier Method. It's lazy and overused and I won't stand for it. Screenwriters like it because it allows them to get on with the plot and avoid the hard work of building fleshed-out characters. Of course, the characters they end up with have all the personality of day-old plain oatmeal, but who cares? It all about putting butts in the seats anyway.
LOCAL MAN JUST GOES AHEAD AND
BUYS ONE OF THOSE MICHAEL GRAVES CLOCKS
DENVER -- Denver resident Kilgore Trout, 30, bought a Michael Graves-designed clock at SuperTarget and put it in his apartment just like that, sources reported Saturday.
The clock features a fake brushed-metal exterior; stylized numbers; a club-shaped hour hand; and a quiet, yet unmistakable air of class and sophistication -- the hallmark of quality products designed by award-winning Princeton, N.J.-based architect Michael Graves. It retails for $19.99.
The purchase shocked followers of buying trends. "Kilgore Trout is known for his lack of style sense and his reluctance to spend extra money on practical items," said Kimberly Baumann, who researches consumer buying patterns for Marketron, Inc. in Chicago. "When we learned that Mr. Trout was planning to buy a new clock for his living room, we all assumed he would spend -- at most -- five dollars on a basic kitchen clock. When he spent four times that amount to acquire the simple elegance of a timepiece designed by Michael Graves, nobody knew what to think. This throws off all our projections."
Reports indicate Trout then hung the clock on his living room wall as if it was no problem. According to a source close to Trout identified only as 'G-Dog': "I went over to KT's place, and as soon as I walked in the door, I sensed a new, more upscale atmosphere about his apartment. That's when I noticed the new clock. I asked him about it, and he was just like, 'Yeah, I got that at SuperTarget the other day' as though it was normal. Jesus -- next thing you know, he'll buy some furniture not made of particle board or avocado-green velour."
Not all observers approve by Trout's purchase. John W. Snow, secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, issued a statement expressing "disappointment" with Trout's "foolhardy" decision. "At a time when Kilgore Trout is carrying credit card debt of nearly nine thousand dollars, does it make sense to waste resources on a gussied-up clock, no matter how urbane and tasteful it may be, with the timeless appeal of its clean lines and classic styling? A much cheaper clock would have told the time just as well, or maybe Mr. Trout could just wear his watch and do without the extra clock. He already had three perfectly good clocks in his apartment, for chrissake."
Kilgore Trout refused comment for this story, except to say he was "considering buying a new calendar before the end of the year, instead of waiting until February for the 75% off sales."
I hate turning left. It's embarrassing and degrading and I avoid it as much as possible. Whenever I approach an intersection and have to turn left, I experience crippling physical and emotional trauma. I start sweating and my scalp tingles and the hairs on my arms stand on end. I twitch and whimper involuntarily. I start to breathe in shallow gasps. My bowels loosen. If I have an erection, it goes limp for at least the rest of the afternoon.
Turning right is no problem. It's kind of fun, actually. You stop, you let a couple of cars go by, and you make the turn, blending into traffic nice and smooth, just like Mr. Strathman taught you in driver's ed. If you do it wrong, you'll die, so every time I successfully execute a right turn it's like I've cheated Death a little. Isn't that thrilling? Sometimes I picture the Grim Reaper all mad, banging his scythe on the ground and saying, "Ooooooo!" like Boss Hogg used to in The Dukes of Hazzard. "Oh ho, you thought you had me that time, didn't you G-Reap?" I say, grinning and bouncing up and down in my seat with my little willy standing up stiff and tall as if Daisy Duke was riding shotgun.
Turning left is different. It takes a long time. You sit and you wait and you wait and you wait and you wait for the traffic to clear, and cars stack up behind you, and then there's a gap in traffic that you think might be big enough, so you jig your car ahead a little, but then it becomes obvious that the gap is nowhere big enough to make it across so you slam on the brakes, and if you have a pretty girl in the car she says, "You could have made it," real snotty-like and bitchy-like and no-way-are-you-getting-in-my-pants-now-like, and so you're out in the middle of the intersection with a cement mixer idling off to the right, and you start thinking what if my engine stalls right here, and the light changes, and the cement mixer rolls over me and crushes my nonvital organs, and you see yourself writhing in agony and choking to death on your own blood while firemen try to extract you from the wreckage and one of them says, "I'm afraid this is going to hurt a bit, son," and he starts sawing your foot off at the ankle where it got pinned under the steering column, and you get distracted and miss the next gap, which was more than big enough to make the turn, and the people in the cars behind you honk and yell and make rude gestures and rev their engines in an intimidating fashion, and at that point maybe you just get out of your car and run away down the median and move to a different state and start calling yourself "Kilgore Trout."
I hate it when I'm waiting in a left turn lane and the green arrow comes on and the guy in front doesn't go right away. If you're first in line in the left turn lane, you have awesome powers and hence awesome responsibilities, like Spider-Man. Jesus put you there for a reason, man. He put you there so you could go immediately when that green arrow comes, even if there are kindergartners in the crosswalk. If you're second in line in the left-turn lane, Jesus put you there so you could tailgate the first guy all the way through the turn. Green arrows are a precious resource because they make turning left just as easy and fun as turning right. Some people say, "Oh, relax, there will be another green arrow." But how do they know? Maybe we'll run out of green arrows someday and won't those people feel stupid!
When I become President of Denver, I will make it so you can always go from Point A to Point 2 without turning left. Some people will say, "No, that's impossible," and I'll say, "People also used to think it was impossible to lift 15,000 pounds with just your mind," and then everyone will have to shut up because this one guy did that once, although I can't remember his name.
As of today, I have a total credit card balance of $8,772.16. That's too much, but it could be worse. It has been worse, actually -- when I moved to Denver at the end of 1999, I had over $14,000 in credit card debt.
I acquired most of that debt while living in San Francisco in 1999. If you're ever tempted to move to San Francisco, the beautiful city of cable cars and fog rolling off the Bay and bike rides to Marin Country across the Golden Gate Bridge, you need to resist that temptation unless you have a trust fund and/or the ability to shit gold nuggets. Alternatively, you can work 70 hours a week in a cheese steak shop and an all-night diner to pay the absurdly high rent on your tiny room with the sink in the corner and the bathroom and refrigerator in the hallway. If you need some cheering up while eating generic raisin bran for dinner, go find Jill, the Shirley Manson wannabe who works at a coffee shop in the Mission. She's easy.
Here's the stupid thing about my credit card debt: I can't remember what most of it was for. I can't say, "Sure, I have $14,000 in unsecured debt, but look at this big-screen TV!" or "Maybe I'll never own my own home, but at least I spent a week in Vegas eating prime rib and shacking up with high-class hookers!" Oh, I remember charging a few meals, and a couple of Giants games, and sometimes groceries and cash advances for rent, and I charged my bicycle that got stolen when I forgot to bring it in at night (the thieves not only picked the Kryptonite U-lock and took the bike -- they re-locked the lock around the street sign and left it there as if to say, "That's what we think of that weak shit"). But really I have nothing to show for the money I blew except a damaged credit rating and thousands of dollars out the bunghole for interest charges.
I hate credit card companies. You have to watch them closer than my Uncle Earl watches the neighborhood kids get on the school bus. This is especially true if you have a credit card with Bank of America. I got my Bank of America credit card statement recently and was less than delighted to find two mysterious charges for $89.99 each, listed as "BAC COMPLETHME" and "BAC PrivacySource," neither of which I had authorized. I called Bank of America and talked to a very nice young lady who explained that the charges were for services sold by "partners" of Bank of America. I could cancel the services and get the charges refunded to my card, she said, and gave me two toll-free numbers to call.
Let's pause for a moment and imagine how this all went down:
BANK OF AMERICA: Howdy, "partners"! What can I do for you today?
"PARTNERS": We've been poring over your customer files, and it appears that Kilgore Trout is in urgent need of our CompleteHome and PrivacySource services.
BOA: It is not possible for me to be in more complete agreement with you on that particular point! But what can Bank of America do to fulfill Kilgore Trout's needs in this instance?
"P": We were thinking along the lines of you just sticking the service fees on his charge account.
BOA: But CompleteHome and PrivacySource are such fine and useful services, certainly they will cost Kilgore Trout many thousands of dollars! Shouldn't we consult him first and find out if he is willing to pay the fees in exchange for the services?
"P": Ordinarily, such restraint would be appropriate. However, in this case, our experts have assured us that without the CompleteHome and PrivacySource services, Kilgore Trout will die before the New Year. In light of this pressing need, we have lowered the prices of our services to the emergency rate of $89.99 apiece.
BOA: Plus applicable finance charges as specified in Kilgore Trout's credit card agreement, of course! But still -- a mere trifle! We will place the charges on his account immediately!
"P": You, sir, are a hero. We expect you will receive a thank you call or perhaps even a fruit basket from Kilgore Trout as soon as he receives his credit card statement.
BOA: Unless he's like many people, and doesn't examine his credit card statement very closely, in which case he will never know he spent $179.98 plus interest for the CompleteHome and PrivacySource services!
"P": That is the risk you take for saving a man's life.
If anyone can explain how this is distinguishable from "fraud" or "theft," please leave a note in the comments.
I called the CompleteHome number first, and talked to a lady who read from a script about how I would benefit by using the CompleteHome service. The problem was that she explained it in a heavy Caribbean accent, and I couldn't understand anything except "Wal-Mart." I don't shop at Wal-Mart, so I asked her to cancel the service, and after token resistance she agreed to do so.
I called the PrivacySource number next, and talked to Justin. I couldn't pinpoint Justin's accent -- it wasn't Caribbean -- but it led me to picture him with a mullet, a rusted-out Trans Am, and tickets to Wrestlemania. Justin fought hard to keep me in the PrivacySource fold:
"Well, sir, uh... what PrivacySource does is, you know, it protects your credit. Uh... like every six seconds someone's identity gets stolen? Sheesh, you know, you work hard to build your credit, like, I'd want to protect that, you know?"
I listened politely until Justin finished reading his script, and then asked him to cancel the service, and after token resistance he agreed to do so.
When I got home, I found a postcard in my mailbox from a survey company hired by Bank of America, inviting me to take an online customer service survey. Oh, the delicious irony! You will not be surprised to learn that I logged on immediately and gave it to Bank of America all the way up to my elbow, without any lube or anything.
Does anyone know who's offering good transfer rates these days?
+posted by Lawrence @ 11/16/2004 11:55:00 PM
Radiant like the sun on a bright spring afternoon, when clouds wander the sky, birds fill the air with the song of returning life, and a cold front sweeps down from Canada to collide with warm air from the Pacific, creating a 50% chance of precipitation by tomorrow afternoon.
Suspiciously white teeth?
Glistening like the day's first light on new-fallen snow, gleaming like hope in the eyes of a child, glittering like the brightest stars in the heavens from whence she came.
<==>
Yes
Nerdy/slutty glasses?
No
===>
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Pickup line
"You look prettier in a denim shirt than most women look totally naked."
===>
"If you think I'm impressed because you're a local TV personality, then you're fucked in the head!"
Obstacle to seduction
Lifelong exposure to bull penises has left her unimpressed with human male genitalia.
<===
Only sleeps with men who can assist her in her meteoric rise to The Weather Channel.
"Want to go back to my place for some extra-thick and juicy tube steak?"
===>
"The barometer in my pants is at 7¼ inches and rising."
Pillow talk
Falling beef prices.
<===
She never wanted to be a meteorologist. She always dreamed of becoming a ballerina, but her father -- a failed weather forecaster -- pushed her to succeed where he had fallen short. When she asked for dance lessons, her father gave her a hygrometer and a wind velocity gauge. Once, during one of his drunken rages, he took away her leotards and toe shoes and forced her to burn them in the backyard while reciting the formulas for calculating windchill and dew point. He died in 1997, wasted away by cirrhosis of the liver. He never told her he was proud of her. She watches the ballet sometimes, and she cries. She cries for what she lost, and for what might have been.
Lost her virginity...
At age 16, in the hayloft, to a mulleted farmhard named "Dwayne."
===>
Junior year of high school, in the back seat of a 1979 Dodge Dart, to Mr. Swenson, the Science Club advisor.
Non sequitur
"Bibles don't wear shirts."
<===
"You sunk my Scrabbleship!"
Kinky secret
Likes to use the cattle prod.
<===
Likes to recite the formulas for calculating windchill and dew point while being penetrated from behind.
It had started raining again while I was shaking down the Robinson brothers, and by the time I made it back to the station I was soaked down to my boxers. I needed a cup of coffee. Captain Brown had other ideas.
"Wilcox!" he barked, poking his head out his office door. "Get in here. Now!"
Byrne snickered. "Better take your spanking like a man," he said. "No crying, like last time."
Byrne had a coffee mug on his desk that read WORLD'S BIGGEST COCKSUCKING PIECE OF SHIT or some such. I picked the mug off his desk and dumped about half of it in his crotch. "Know what your problem is, Byrne?" I said, taking a sip as he yowled in pain. "You put too much cream in your coffee."
I went into the captain's office and drank the rest of Byrne's coffee while the captain falsified some evidence. "Shut the door," he said. I did as he said and kept my mouth shut. You don't want to speak first when the captain is pissed.
Captain Brown pointed a thick finger at me. "I told you to stay away from the Scumbag case," he said.
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Fuck your 'yes, sir'!" he shouted, slamming his fist on his desk. "You were down at the quarry yesterday afternoon when you were supposed to be analyzing ballistics reports for the Harmon case!"
"Harmon's a cheesedick case, sir," I said. "Open and shut. And I had a hunch about the fourth murder scene --"
"I got a hunch you'll be reading the want ads and picking my fingernails out of your gums if you don't follow my orders!" the captain yelled. "You were getting too obsessed with the Scumbag case -- harassing witnesses, beating up suspects, masturbating to crime scene photos. So I took you off and put you on the Harmon case. Byrne is working the Scumbag case."
I snorted. "I don't think Byrne's the man for the job," I said. "He has some reproductive issues at the moment. Plus, he couldn't find sand in Iyad Allawi's buttcrack."
The captain stared.
"What?" he said.
"Sand," I said. "In Iyad Allawi -- see, he's the interim prime minister of Iraq. He --"
"I know Iyad Allawi is the interim prime minister of Iraq!" the captain shouted. "But why would he have sand in his buttcrack?"
"Well, there's a lot of sand in Iraq --" I said.
"So? Do you think Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister of Iraq, goes out into the desert naked and rubs his ass in the sand? You live in Colorado. Does that mean that Byrne couldn't find a snowboard in your buttcrack?"
"Okay, hang on a minute," I said, closing my eyes. I thought for a few seconds. "Okay," I said, "Byrne couldn't find semen stains on Paris Hilton's tonsils."
"I don't care if he couldn't find tattoo removal scars at an Auschwitz reunion!" the captain bellowed. "You're off the case! Byrne is on the case! Now get out of my office!"
"Yes, sir," I said, and turned to go. Just as I opened the door, I looked back. "Excuse me, sir, but does Byrne know who the next victim will be?" I asked.
"Of course not," the captain said. "Nobody does. We probably won't find out until we find the poor bastard with his... well, until we find him."
Silence.
"What do you have, Wilcox?" the captain said quietly.
I closed the door and walked back to his desk. I opened a manila envelope and pulled out a blurry black-and-white photo taken from a surveillance van. The photo showed a furtive-looking man exiting an adult bookstore with a large package under his arm.
The captain stared at the photo for a long moment. "I guess you better go talk to him," he said. He stood up and jabbed his finger half an inch from my nose. "You so much as think about deviating from standard procedure," he said, "and I'll bust you down to assistant parking meter polisher. You got me?"
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Good," he said, sitting down. "Now go catch me a killer."
BLOGGER WONDERS IF IT'S TOO LATE
TO MAKE FUN OF NEW IRAQI FLAG
SEATTLE -- Scott Jacobsen, 29, who writes about progressive politics on his blog Get Your Left On, has been wondering whether it's too late to ridicule the new Iraqi flag, sources reported Monday.
The new flag was introduced by the Iraq Interim Governing Council on April 26, 2004. The design, created by Iraqi artist Rifat al-Chaderchi, inspired instant controversy and protest due to its omission of traditional Arabic and Muslim colors and symbols.
"I laughed out loud when I saw the new flag," said Jacobsen. "They used the same colors as the Israeli flag, instead of green and black for Islam and red for Arab nationalism. And they got rid of the Arabic script reading 'God is great.' Can you believe it? I mean, hello... this is a Muslim country!"
"I was going to write a whole post busting on the Bush Administration for such a terrible insult to the Iraqi people," Jacobsen continued. "But I couldn't decide whether to use a satirical format, like an Onion-style fake news article, or to write a straightforward opinion piece. And then the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke, and a couple of weeks later the Nick Berg beheading video hit the Internet, and I just got busy and forgot all about it. It's too bad, because I had some great jokes lined up, like where I was going to say that the new flag looked like a logo from an Internet startup circa 1998."
Never accepted by the people of Iraq, the new flag has quietly faded from view. A slightly modified version of the red, white, black, and green flag developed by Saddam Hussein in 1991 was displayed at the transfer of power ceremony on June 28, 2004. Iraqi athletes carried the 1991 flag at the Olympic games in Athens, and it flies over the Iraqi embassy in Washington.
"I guess it would be pretty lame to blog about the flag now that everyone's forgotten about it," said Jacobsen. "But it's such a waste of good blog material. That awful flag was a potent symbol of Bush's fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East and its culture and politics. I suppose I could have woven a reference into some of my anti-Bush diatribes leading up to the election, but from the administration's fiscal irresponsibility to the Federal Marriage Amendment, there was so much ground to cover. And now that Bush has been reelected, it's all pretty much irrelevant."
"Maybe I should just write about it if I want to," said Jacobsen. "I only have fifteen readers, so it doesn't really matter."
If you're a cat owner, I have bad news. Your cat hates you.
"Oh no," you are saying. "You are wrong, Kilgore Trout. My Mr. Piddles loves me."
Excuse me while I make snorting noises and shake my head in a condescending fashion. Let us examine the undisputed evidence: Your cat pisses on the carpet, shreds the upholstery, vomits on your new rug, collects Nazi paraphernalia, knocks over the garbage cans, interrupts your lovemaking, blankets your house with hair, makes a ruckus in the middle of the night, walks on the newspaper while your try to read it, defends the designated hitter rule, insists on having its own place to shit when you have a perfectly good commode available (and then shits on the floor anyway), and hisses and scratches you when you pet its tummy. Do you have any alternative explanations for these hostile behaviors?
You do not. Your cat hates you, and not in the lukewarm way that an teenager hates her parents for not letting her go to the Monkey Cunt concert. Your cat hates you like Hitler hated the Jews, like Rocky hated Ivan Drago, but with a concentrated fury unmatched by either man. Why do you think your cat sleeps so much? Because his all-consuming hatred for you haunts his every waking moment. And even sleep is but a partial respite from the boiling hatred that has driven him mad -- mad, I tell you! -- for even his dreams rage with bizarre fantasies about your slow, excruciating death. Yes, your cat wants you dead. He wants nothing more than to watch you get dissected by Boy Scouts with rusty pocket knives.
"Well, if Mr. Piddles wants me dead so bad, then why hasn't he killed me?" you are asking petulantly.
Don't take that tone of voice with me, young lady. Your cat hasn't killed you because your cat is smart. Most cats are smarter than their owners, actually -- they read voraciously (mostly Proust or Greek tragedies), and nearly all of them have mastered mathematics at least up to elementary differential equations. Three cats have won Nobel Prizes for their work in physics, medicine, and economics, and in 1972 a Maine Coon named Suzy-Q beat Soviet Boris Spassky 12½ - 8½ to become the 11th World Chess Champion.
The point is, your cat is smart enough to know that if he kills you -- especially in the messy manner in which he desires -- he might get caught and sent to the Humane Society, where he'll get sodomized by other cats for two weeks and then put to sleep. Even if he doesn't get caught, he'll be out of an owner and unable to keep himself in Friskies without getting a job. Your cat hates you, but he's also lazy as shit. This is why nine out of ten cats do not torture their owners to death.
"These are awful things you are saying, Kilgore Trout!" you are saying, hugging Mr. Piddles close to your chest. "My kitty loves me! Can't you hear him purring?"
That "purring" is really your cat communicating in his native language. Because its grammar and syntax is considerably more complex than any human language, Feline is nearly impossible for English speakers to understand, but a rough translation of what your cat is saying might be:
I hate you. I fucking hate you. Jesus H. Christ on a Vespa rolling down Route 66, I hate you. Every moment you draw breath, my hatred for you grows and festers inside me like an open sore. I detest you like a disease. I dream of chaining you to a telephone pole with barbed wire and watching you being torn to pieces by crows and wild dogs. One day I will bring you the suffering you deserve, but until then I will content myself with knocking over your water glass and shedding hair into the Corn Flakes.
I'm just trying to help you out here. If you ever find yourself lashed to a spit over hot coals, screaming in agony while you roast alive and your cat looks on, washing himself contentedly, don't blame me.
DENVER -- Failure has once again shaken the life of Kilgore Trout, sources reported Thursday.
"It appears as though the epicenter of the failure was an ice cream store on 16th Street Mall," said Doug Richards of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the federal agency responsible for tracking the failures of Kilgore Trout. "We measured today's failure as a 4.4 on the Failure Magnitude Scale -- a failure of average strength, with moderate public embarrassment accompanied by some erosion of self-esteem and slight long-term confidence damage."
Denver resident Myrna Walker witnessed the failure, which happened at 6:33 p.m. "I've been through plenty of Kilgore Trout failures -- that's just part of living in Denver," she said. "But I still cringe a little every time. Especially this time, where he tried to walk away and act like nothing happened. Man, we saw you."
According to Richards, yesterday's failure was the 1,822nd of Trout's adult life, but it was by no means the most severe. "Goodness, no," chuckled Richards. "I'll never forget the Great College Dropout Failure of '94. We estimated that one at a 9.6, but nobody knows for sure -- our equipment at the time couldn't accurately measure a failure that powerful."
FEMA officials are already warning Denver residents to prepare for Trout's next failure, which they believe will take place Saturday afternoon at SuperTarget.
During my trip to Morocco, we went to see the spectacular waterfall at Ozoud. At the bottom of the falls, you can hire a boat -- a raft, really -- to take you out into the middle of the lake for a better photo opportunity.
If there's a worse name for a boat than what this fellow chose, I can't think of it. What, was Hindenberg taken? Although it would have been worth a dirham to stand in the boat and shout "I'm the king of the world!"
I work in the Accounts Receivable department at my company. (In fact, I am the Accounts Receivable department at my company.) I call the companies that haven't paid their invoices and ask them politely to send us money. As such, I get a lot of calls from collection agency salesmen who want nothing more from their brief stay on this mortal coil than to explain to me how their company's crack corps of trained professional collectors can enhance our bottom line.
It's easy to tell when a salesman is calling, because they don't introduce themselves right away and they laugh a lot in inappropriate places:
"Hello, Kilgore -- is it Kilgore? Ha ha ha! How are you doing today, Kilgore? Ha ha! Oh, I'm doing wonderfully, thanks for asking! Ha ha ha! Well, Kilgore, my name is Dave Davidson from ABC Collections, and we are the leading..."
I hang up at this point. Invariably. No "thanks for calling, but we're not interested" or "I'm kind of busy right now, can you send me a brochure?" or any other warning of any kind. I just hang up.
Right now you are saying, "That's fairly rude of you, Kilgore, and not terribly professional either. These guys might be annoying, but they're just doing their job."
Look: these guys call me unbidden to offer us a service we don't need and that would put me out of a job. What's the point of staying on the phone one second longer than necessary? If I try to get away politely, I'll have to waste several minutes offering objections and listening to their canned responses and bad jokes. I know it stings to get hung up on, but since we're not going to hire them, I'm saving their time as well as my own, and anyway if they can't take rejection then they shouldn't work in sales.
One of these jokers called me yesterday, and as soon as he identified himself as a collection agency salesman, I hung up as usual. A few seconds later, the phone rang again. I knew it was the salesman calling back, so I let the phone ring. A moment later, the red light on the phone lit up, indicating that the salesman had left me a voicemail. This happens sometimes. Usually the salesman leaves a half-wounded, half-peevish message wondering how we got disconnected and asking me to call back so we can discuss the wonderful opportunity he was placed on this planet to present to lost, misguided businesses such as ours who do our own collections.
The message I got yesterday was slightly more than half-peevish. Here's exactly how it went:
"Just like I thought, you weren't going to answer. You must be the biggest coward on the face of the Earth. Let me guess, you're voting for Kerry. Nice work, scumbag."
Yes -- scumbag. Don't believe me? Listen to a WAV clip here.
How is it possible that not one person, in the process of designing this sign, knew how to spell "strictly"? How is it possible that the sign painter didn't know how to spell "strictly" either? How is it possible that my ability to spell "strictly" has not gained me fame, vast fortunes of gold and jewels, power over many nations, and the erotic affections of Maura Tierney? Our priorities in this country are so screwed up.
Every year, my company publishes a safety-themed calendar illustrated by its employees' children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and other relatives under the age of 18. The kids draw pictures about safety concepts like "Don't play with matches" and "Look both ways before crossing the street." (Click here to see a sample page.)
I've always felt kind of left out, since I don't have any young relatives and I'm too old to enter myself. So I made some drawings this year, and I'm thinking about entering one under the name of a fictitious nephew, Jeffy. Check 'em out and tell me which picture you like the best!
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