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]
If you're like most of us, you dislike poor people. They irritate you with their endless prattling about "mortgages" and "the high cost of day care" and "Girl Scout cookies." They drive their own cars and scratch their buttocks in public and their children live with them, instead of in Europe. They reek of sausages and domestic beer. Aren't they disgusting?
"I hate poor people!" you are saying. "There are so many of them that the only way to avoid their kind completely is to retreat to my 900-acre country estate and have my chauffeur drive me everywhere in the car with the mirrored windows."
Isolation can only partially solve your poor people problem. Suppose, for example, that on the way to the yacht club, your chauffeur runs over a poor child, and the poor parent insists on making a fuss. What now? You cannot throw the offending poor person into your dungeon or trample him with your horse, as you would on your own property. You can try to dismiss the poor person by saying, "Away with you, knave!" but -- strange as this may sound -- poor people legally do not have to do everything you say. You will have to deal with not just one poor person, but with a whole host of unsavory types: ambulance drivers, tow truck operators, gawking bystanders, and the police, who being poor themselves will side with the poor person and may require that you "make a statement" or even "appear in court." Keep reading to learn a unique set of strategies for surviving encounters like this one.
When dealing with poor people, you should avoid reminding them of their poverty, as doing so will only inflame them and make them more disagreeable. In the example above, you would not want to tell the angry parent that his child now resides in Heaven and/or Hell, either of which is preferable to the desperate, grinding destitution the child knew in corporeal life. Instead, pay the poor person a compliment, even if it's a lie -- you could tell the parent, "I like your Hard Rock Cafe sweatshirt" or "You smell like delicious Hamburger Helper."
On the flip side of the coin, you should never flaunt your normalcy in the face of a poor person. Our angry parent would not want to hear that you have seven cars just as good as the one his child wrecked, or that the accident has made you late for your roast giraffe luncheon. Instead, broach a topic likely to interest a poor person, such as professional wrestling, baloney sandwiches, or Pac-Man.
Consider giving the poor person some pasteurized process cheese food. Poor people love cheese.
In the case of an extreme intransigence, you should consider offering the poor person a job. For as little as $90,000, you can purchase a year's worth of loyalty and toil from nearly any poor person. Once on your payroll, the poor person will have to do whatever you say, like cleaning blood and hair from the grille of your automobile.
Next time you have an run-in with a poor person, follow these easy tips and remember: never let a poor person ruin your day!
Those of you who read this blog with slavish devotion will remember my "Backwards K" post from a while back, in which I detailed assorted misadventures in which I squandered, through incompetence and sloth, opportunities to talk to attractive women. (Automatic entry into the CNR Hall of Fame guaranteed to anyone who can explain why I titled that post "Backwards K." Morocco Man, I'm looking at you.)
One of those stories concerned a cute, very cute lady runner, complete with freckles and flat chest, who struck up a conversation with me at a stoplight near Wash Park -- a conversation in which I came off like the sort of tongue-tangled loser generally played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. That happened three months ago, and I swore if I saw her again I would avenge my defeat at the hands of cowardice.
I saw her at Wash Park last Sunday. I was running clockwise, she was running counter-clockwise (I don't usually date CCW runners, but for those freckles I'd make an exception). I glanced sideways as she passed to make sure it was her, then pulled to a stop and stared after her. I had two blocks left in my scheduled 14-mile run -- further than I'd run in several months, and I was tired, and my quads were asking if we could please go sit in the car now. Besides, what was I going to say? "You probably don't remember me, but..." Weak. Better to finish the run and head home for some Snacky Cakes and a hot shower and some self-abuse. Yeah.
Yeah.
I turned and ran after her. "Hello!" I said when I caught up. "You probably don't remember me, but..."
Pleasant chatter commenced. And then:
Me: So, did you move here for your job?
She: Well, for my husband's job.
Well, shit. That's okay, though. Sometimes you have to feel good about striking out swinging.
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a mathematics calendar given to me as a birthday present by a very kind and thoughtful friend. I had been doing pretty well working out the daily problems, but then came this question:
This surface area of this tetrahedron is 16√(3) square units. What is its volume?
A tetrahedron is a four-sided polygon where all the sides are equilateral triangles. (For those of you who sat at my lunch table at John Adams Middle School, the tetrahedron was the die we threw to determine the hit points of a Level 1 Magic-User.) The problem was on January 16, so the answer had to be 16. But I came up with 16√(2)/3. I frowned and checked my solution (see it here). I couldn't find any mistakes. I threw away my paper, waited until I got home that evening to allow my mind to clear, and reworked the problem from scratch. Same answer. I checked my solution against this website and found that I was right and the calendar was wrong.
Yippee! Yummy! Hip-hop hooray! I found a mistake! I love it when I'm right and someone else is wrong and I can prove it! Sure, that makes me a small, hateful man unworthy of even the briefest affections from the fairer sex, but holy smokes -- what a rush!
Let's say you need to make a sandwich. Maybe you're just hungry, or maybe you're entering a regional qualifying tournament for the World Series of Lunch, or maybe you met this hot girl and she's all like, "Oooooh, make me a sandwich, you big stud," while making her eyebrows go up and down. Well, here's how to make a sandwich that will not only make her moan with pleasure, but will make her call all of her hot friends so you can have sex with them!
You must start with the right bread. Bread is to sandwiches what a foundation is to a house, except bread isn't made out of concrete by sweaty workmen, but out of oats and honey and fairy dust by sweaty child laborers in Nicaragua. You should choose a bread with a name like "Harvest Hearth Artisan GoodWholesome Village Natural Stone-Ground." It should have a picture of a muscular man cutting wheat with a scythe and it should be made with no fewer than 37 grains. "But Kilgore Trout the most I can find is 14-grain bread!" you are saying. Well, I guess you're going to have to find 23 more grains to put in your bread, aintcha? You can usually find at least six or seven grains under the couch cushions or in the back of the glove compartment.
Now you're ready to make a sandwich! Lightly toast the bread, and then smush up half an avocado with some diced chipotle pepper and spread it on one slice of the bread. "Do you say it 'chi-POTE-lay' or 'chi-POLE-tee'?" you are asking. Gee, I don't know. Why don't you call the President of Mexico and ask him? I bet he has time to answer your stupid questions!
Now you fry some shrimp (known as "prawns" to Jerkoff-Americans) and onion in Italian dressing. Make sure you devein the shrimp, whatever that means. "But Kilgore Trout all I have is ranch dressing," you are saying. Well, then fry that shit in ranch dressing, motherfucker!
Put the fried shrimp and onion on the avocado-chipotle spread. Next you fry an egg, over hard. If you have the hot girl over at your house while you're making the sandwich, you should say, "Yeah, baby, I'm making it all hard for you," while you fry the egg, and you should sort of hump the stove while you say it. Make sure you wear a condom and don't hump the hot part of the stove.
Put the fried egg on top of the shrimp and the second slice of bread on top of that, and cut the sandwich on the diagonal. Hey -- what the hell is this? Did I say to cut the sandwich in quarters perpendicular to the edges? Does this look like a club sandwich to you, bitch? Good Christ!
I hereby revoke your right to make my special fried-egg-with-shrimp-and-onion-on-37-whole-grain-bread-with-avocado-chipotle-spread. Now get out of my kitchen!
INAUGURATION DAY: PRESIDENT BUSH PLEDGES TO DO
"WHATEVER THE FUCK I WANT"
WASHINGTON -- In an Inauguration Day ceremony featuring the sodomizing of a kindergarten student and the pipe wrench beating of an adorable golden retriever puppy, President George W. Bush promised the country he will spend his second term "doing whatever the fuck I want."
"The American people spoke on November 2," said Bush, "and they stated clearly that, in spite of the shocking incompetence and glaring cronyism that marred my first term, they wanted to give me and my administration of blind loyalists and ideological hacks a mandate to do... well, whatever we fucking well please."
As a symbol of his mandate, Bush spent the next several minutes laughing and throwing darts at an elderly woman chained to a wall.
"You see?" Bush said, wiping his ass with an American flag. "I did that just because I fucking felt like it. Now check this out: I hate Jews. I mean, I don't really, but it's kind of cool to be able to say things like that without fear of political consequences."
"Seriously, though," Bush added, "Jews are going to Hell."
Bush outlined his agenda for the coming year, which includes: urinating on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; conducting the State of the Union address entirely in farts; starring in an interracial pornographic movie; taking Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg as his mistress; writing homophobia into the Consitution; creating enormous deficits through out-of-control spending and irresponsible tax cuts; and starting a wasteful, destructive, counterproductive war on the flimsiest of evidence against a country only tenuously connected to the greater struggle against terror.
"God bless America," Bush concluded. "Oh, and I fucked your mom."
LOCAL MAN SURPRISED TO LEARN BIRTHDAY IS FEDERAL HOLIDAY
DENVER -- Kilgore Trout, who turns 31 today, was surprised to learn that the federal government, the state of Colorado, and the city and county of Denver have declared his birthday an official holiday, sources have reported.
"I went to the bank to deposit a check and was sort of taken aback to find it was closed," said Trout. "I always thought holidays were for dead famous people, like George Washington and Wilford Brimley."
Trout described having a holiday in his honor as "super neat."
"I think it's cool that they would make a holiday out of my birthday," Trout said. "But I would have thought there would be some kind of ceremony or announcement or reading of an official proclamation or something. You'd also think they'd give me a certificate that I could show to flat-chested girls with prominent noses. I bet it's way easy to score with chicks when you have your own holiday. Maybe the certificate is in the mail -- I wouldn't have gotten it, then, because of course they don't deliver mail on Kilgore Trout's Birthday."
"I hope the certificate is on parchment, in Old English lettering with the governor's seal stamped into red wax," Trout added. "I would even take down my Run Lola Run poster to make room for it."
Trout said that having his own holiday has not been without its trials.
"I wanted to renew my license, but the driver's license station was closed for my birthday," said Trout. "I was hoping they'd open it up just for me. That would have been a nice birthday present from the state."
"What do you mean, Wilford Brimley is still alive?" Trout added. "Jesus. He looked like he was holding the Grim Reaper's hand about 15 years ago, when he was making those Quaker Oats commercials."
Trout said "he has a dream" that people will spend his holiday in quiet meditation with friends and family, eating Pringles and discussing his blogging and ultrarunning accomplishments.
"As for me, I'm going to the Diamond Cabaret tonight," said Trout. "I sure hope the strip clubs aren't closed for Kilgore Trout's Birthday."
While waiting for G-Dog's flight to arrive at DIA this evening, I saw a sign celebrating the achievement of Erik Weihenmeyer, the first blind man to summit Mt. Everest. That's a great accomplishment, but why would a blind guy want to climb mountains? "Hey, Erik, this is a fantastic view from up here. Too bad you can't see it."
Come to think of it, how does he know for sure that he made it? Maybe some Sherpa guide just marched him around in circles at base camp for a couple of hours:
SHERPA: Okay, we're here.
WEIHENMEYER: Wow! I'm standing on top of the world! This is amazing!
SHERPA: Yup, congratulations. (Yawns.)
WEIHENMEYER: I thought the climb would take a lot longer!
SHERPA (unwrapping a Snickers bar): Yeah, it's not as hard as people think. Ready to head back?
If you're blind and you're reading this -- whoops, never mind.
Yesterday was a Tuesday. Got to work at 8:00, or at least that's what I put on my time card. Moved papers around in a not-entirely-stochastic fashion and thought about having a snack. Went to the john and picked my nose. Ate an apple. Started thinking about lunch. Made three desultory phone calls. Wandered the halls and smiled awkwardly at Cute HR Girl (Single Mom Remix). Ate lunch -- homemade chipotle chicken chili, by a wide margin the highlight of the day so far. "Worked" on TPS reports. Thought about having a snack. Ruminated on the utter hopelessness and emptiness of it all. Eavesdropped on coworker's cell phone conversation with ne'er-do-well son. Took a nap on the john. Ate some mixed nuts. Glanced impatiently at clock. Had strained conversation with visiting manager from Virginia. Left work at 5:20, wrote 5:30 on time card. Ate a Clif Bar while driving to gym. Aquajogged for 45 minutes while uselessly attempting, unassisted by corrective lenses, to ogle swimsuit-clad girls. Drove home. Affixed The Club to steering wheel. Pulled junk mail and bills out of mailbox.
You know: Tuesday.
But when I got to my front door, suddenly it wasn't Tuesday anymore. It was a Good Day! Somebody sent me an unexpected package! A large padded envelope decorated with silly stickers! What could it be? Unwashed underwear from Sadie? Saucy photos of The Maximum Leader's sister? Great green globs of greasy grimy gopher guts? It hardly mattered. Any time I get an unexpected package on a Tuesday, I'm walking on sunshine, whoaaaa oh.
I fumbled through the front door, dropped my credit card solicitations and auto insurance bill on the floor, and opened my unexpected package without removing my jacket. The booty:
A 2005 mathematics calendar, with a problem to work every day. Finding the solutions is sort of anticlimactic, because the answers always comes out the same as the dates (that is, the answer to August 15's problem will be 15), but an wonderful and challenging gift nonetheless. Click here to see a photo of January and here to see my solution of January 2's problem.
When I went to hang the calendar, though, I found that it had no hanging hole. I turned it this way and that, frowning and wondering whether I was just too stupid to own a mathematics calendar. In the end, however, I decided that the hole-punching guy at the calendar factory must have been hopped up on goofballs or flirting with his own Cute HR Girl at the time my calendar was printed. I considered leaving the calendar the way it was, thinking that maybe only a few holeless calendars had been printed, and it might be worth a lot of money someday, like the upside-down Jenny Biplane stamp. But finally I fetched my Leatherman tool and used the awl to punch my own hole. Given the calendar's subject matter, I considered using a compass and straightedge to find the exact midpoint, but I ended up just using a tape measure.
A The Nightmare Before Christmas illustrated children's book. Some of you might be surprised to learn that I like children's books -- I have The Giving Tree, The Cat in the Hat, and The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs, among others. Isn't it strange that I like children's books, but hate actual children?
A mix CD titled "Kilgore Trout: The White CD." Here's the thing: I have Very Bad Taste in music. I listen to Linkin Park rage-pop, 80's power ballads, and Caucasian-compatible hip-hop. The kind and thoughtful friend who compiled this CD, however, has Very Good Taste in music, so she stocked "The White CD" with dozens of songs by Bonnie Raitt, Meat Loaf, Elvis, Morrissey, Johnny Cash, Prince, Dean Martin, and some outfit called "The Pixies" -- tunes that make my favorite music sound like soft-drink jingles. Listening to this CD flashed me back to my days working at a 24-hour diner in San Francisco, where we were allowed to bring our own CDs to play on the restaurant's sound system. Everyone else brought their ultrahip Siouxsie and the Banshees, Monkey Cunt, and ironic Cyndi Lauper remix albums. I brought Christian pop music and Will Smith.
Like Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer using a pay phone, good music frightens and confuses me. I'm a sucker for catchy hooks, but complex musical themes make me adopt an expression like the one your dog makes when you pretend to throw a ball and palm it behind your back. Take Johnny Cash, for example, a man universally lauded as a musical powerhouse. I don't get it. All I hear when I listen to The Man in Black is the whooshing sound of allegedly great music cruising thousands of feet over my head.
Please -- no angry emails defending the musical genius of the man who penned "The Gambler."* This is all my fault, not Johnny's. So I've been listening to "The White CD" on repeat, hoping my brain will soak up some Very Good Taste. Wish me luck.
* I'm just kidding. I know Willie Nelson wrote "The Gambler."
UPDATE! Thursday turned into another Good Day, as I arrived home to find another unexpected package leaning against my door, this one courtesy of Motive Mayhem, my favoritest Utahan ever. Choosing not to lay up for himself treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, mM sent me an 18-oz. bag of Oreos and a toenail clipper. Thanks, mM!
DENVER -- Apprehension reigned in the apartment of Kilgore Trout yesterday, as the 30-year-old Washington Park resident found himself unsure whether his Swiss Army cologne (see photo), purchased at least seven years ago, was still suitable to wear on a first date, sources reported Saturday.
"Does this stuff have an expiration date?" said Trout, peering at the well-worn bottle, which has accompanied Trout on moves to California and Colorado since he purchased it at a Younkers store in Mason City, Iowa, in 1998. "I don't see one, but maybe they figured most guys would have enough success with women to use it all before it went bad. Jesus, this bottle is still 80 percent full."
"I don't usually wear cologne, even on dates," Trout explained. "I don't like strong odors, and it really irritates me when a woman wears too much perfume. If I go into one of those smelly soap stores, like The Body Shop, I get nauseous. But I was telling some women at work that I had a date this weekend, and they said I had to wear cologne, because it's 'so hot' when a man wears cologne. So I guess I have to."
"I bet they don't even make this anymore," Trout added. "I bought it on clearance, so it must not have been selling very well. Swiss Army cologne is pretty funny, when you think about it. Like you should be able to fold a vibrator and a condom out of the cap. Ha ha! I have to put that on my blog."
With time running out before his date's arrival, Trout took a chance and dabbed a small amount of the cologne on either side of his neck.
"It's not like there's milk or eggs in it, so I guess it's okay," said Trout, wrinkling his nose at the musky odor. "I guess it could still go bad, but fortune favors the bold, you know."
"I hope I didn't put too much on," said Trout, glancing nervously at the clock.
Early Saturday morning, a good thing happened. I can't tell you what it was, though.
On Saturday evening, another good thing happened. I can't tell you what that was, either. I will say that it was similar to the first good thing, only different.
Also on Saturday, the Colorado Mammoth opened their 2005 National Lacrosse League season by handing a 12-7 drubbing to the hated Calgary Roughnecks, who upset Colorado in the Champion's Cup semifinals last year. Retiring Mammoth captain (and consensus greatest lacrosse player ever) Gary Gait led all scorers with three goals, and 2004 Goaltender of the Year Gee Nash shut out the Roughnecks in the fourth quarter, stuffing 19 shots on goal in front of 16,397 rowdy fans. Keep it rolling, Mammoth!
The Negotiator and I took the train to the game. I took two homemade signs and my camera, with the intent of hanging the signs on the rail and taking photos of them from across the arena. We got off the train at the Pepsi Center, excited and happy to be going to the first lacrosse game of the season.
The excitement and happiness quickly subsided, however, when I realized I had left my Kodak EasyShare CX6330 digital camera on the train.
"Shit!" I said, frantically patting my pockets. "Shit!" I said again, to emphasize the point. I handed the signs to The Negotiator and ran back to the train, but it pulled away from the stop before I could reach the doors. I cut right and ran hard to the next stop at Union Station, where a very nice Regional Transportation District employee helped me search the train. No luck, no Kodak EasyShare CX6330 digital camera. Shit.
I jogged back to the Pepsi Center, trying not to be pissed off over the loss of what was, after all, just an object. A fairly expensive and particularly useful object, yes, but still -- just an object. Tsunamis and perspective and all that. Besides, I was going to the Mammoth game!
"Shit," I said.
I got back to the arena, hung my signs on the rail, and yelled myself hoarse as the Mammoth took a 6-5 lead into halftime. Then somebody poked me in the shoulder. I looked over to see a woman standing at the end of the row, waving. Incredibly, she was holding my Kodak EasyShare CX6330 digital camera.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" I said, a little befuddled as I took my camera back. "How did you find me?"
"I looked for the signs," she said.
I hope we all learned a little something from this story. That is, don't leave the house without making yourself easily identifiable by carrying some stupid homemade signs or, if you don't have the time to make signs, a blood-encrusted machete.
On Monday night, a not-so-good thing happened that sort of nullified the good thing that happened early Saturday morning. I can't tell you what it was, because to do that I would have to tell you what the good thing was that happened Saturday morning, and I said I wasn't going to do that, and you can't make me. But I will say that it wasn't so bad, just the sort of thing that happens from time to time, and so you just shrug your shoulders and say "Like, whatever, man," and play a little Pole Position on your Namco 5-in-1 game controller, and before you know it you've set a new qualifying lap personal record of 54.10 seconds, and in all the excitement you practically forget about the not-so-good thing. Practically.
On Tuesday night, a good thing happened that built on the good thing that happened Saturday night and sort of nullified the not-so-good thing that happened Monday night, that is, the thing that sort of nullified the good thing that happened early Saturday morning. I can't tell you what any of these things are, of course, for reasons stated above. But I will say that I'll be spending Saturday afternoon preemptively washing the sheets.
I only made two New Year's Resolutions this year. Making fewer resolutions is the way to go -- I think most people don't follow through on their resolutions because they disperse their energy trying to create too many new habits. Creating one new habit is hard enough, let alone pressuring yourself to simultaneously learn Italian, eat more fiber, call your mother once a week, master the Sicilian Defense, quit huffing Preparation H, and read the complete works of Dean R. Koontz.
Instead, pick out one or two realistic goals on which to focus your efforts. Let's say, for example, that you want to lose weight. So you start a sensible diet and exercise program that allows you to lose about a pound a week. Now suppose that your 2005 goes about the same way that your 2004 went, except that at the end of it you'll be 52 pounds lighter. You'd be happy about that, wouldn't you, Tubby?
It's possible, of course, that at any time you might fall into a grain thresher or torn to pieces by radioactive mutant grasshoppers, in which case you should have spent 2005 eating bacon cheeseburgers and chili-cheese fries. But we try to avoid that kind of negative thinking here at Chaotic Not Random.
Anyway, here are my resolutions:
Run a 100-mile ultramarathon. I was supposed to do this last October, but then I strained something in my ankle and spent most of May through September eating bacon cheeseburgers and chili-cheese fries and gaining 20 pounds. The ankle has healed slowly, allowing me to resume partial training -- three days of running a week plus two days walking plus two days Aquajogging.
For those of you who currently have a puzzled look on your face, Aquajogging is a rehab workout that involves strapping a foam belt around your waist and slipping foam shoes onto your feet, which allows you to stand straight up and "run" in the water, which nicely simulates a running workout without the impact. It also nicely simulates looking like a retard -- see self-portraits here and here. (WARNING:These are disturbing images including chest and back hair, budget swimwear, erect male nipples, and an underdeveloped torso. By viewing these photos, you forever waive your rights to legal redress against Chaotic Not Random, Inc., for any and all psychological disorders, permanent or temporary blindness, allergic reactions, or loss of stomach contents caused by viewing these images.)
Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll be lining up at the start of the Heartland 100 in Cassoday, Kansas, on October 8. The reward for finishing: a belt buckle. I'm not shitting you. Belt buckles are a very big deal in the ultrarunning community.
Publish something. Unfortunately, due to limited time, energy, and creative juice, writing for publication will mean posting less here -- probably just on Wednesdays and Sundays. I apologize for the gross violation of your rights under Article I of the Chaotic Not Random Reader's Bill of Rights, but you can use the time not wasted reading my drivel to call your mother or cram it up your ass, whichever excites you more.
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