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November 30, 2004

Tritely Put: An Era Has Ended

Last night when I climbed into bed I was not alone. Nope.
My cat was there. She stayed there all night. She gave up ripping off the face of the cold air exhange and sleeping in the HYAC (that Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning for all you non-former HVAC installation types) ducts. The streak is over. Done, and I hope she realizes the error of her former ways.
I'm not sure why she does it, and it really doesn't bother me, except for the fact that I feel compelled to put the face back every day.

Yesterday also brought other good news for me. Yes. I visited the psychic barber. He's always an ego boost. Plus he gives a decent haircut for $8.10.

I walked into his shop and saw him there looking old an frail as usual, but it seemed for lunch he had something with mustard instead of pizza as usual - the corners of his mouth were caked with yellow. this change in diet may have caused his misfire, "How's the girlfriend?"
No girlfriend. We broke up.
Oh, that's too bad. She doesn't know what she's missing.
I broke up with her. She begged me to keep her.

What? A good looking guy like you with no girlfriend? It doesn't make sense...
(note: give him at least a dollar tip)
...And a nice personality too. (note: If any more potentially sarcastic pharases come from his mouth reduce tip)

Later on he stopped in the middle of the haircut with his ego boosting psychic stuff in full gear, "I see a couple ladies coming your way. Really nice looking ones."
(keep it coming) Really?
Yeah. I see a redhead. Do you know a redhead?
No.
Strawberry blonde?
(I must know at least one) Yeah.
You guys are going to get together soon. But I see a problem. You're not sure about it. There's somethings you like about her, but there's something you don't like about her.
(Humor the guy, Brian) Yeah. I think I know who you're talking about.
Well, I see you together. She really likes you, but you can't rush it, it'll take about six months.
(I lost it here. Come on psychic barber I don't come here for that kind of crap and a good, cheap haircut.) Six months? What? that's a long time.

Don't worry. In the meantime you're going to get together with another girl. Real pretty, with dark hair. Not black, but darker than yours. Maybe the strawberry blonde's girlfriend. Does she have a girlfriend with dark hair?
(I assume he meant old-timey type girlfriend, but I wasn't sure if my made-up friend with red/strawberry blonde hair should have a friend with dark hair.) I'm not sure. She might.
You should ask her. Next time you see her ask her, 'hey do you have a girlfriend with dark hair?'

Sure psychic barber, that's just the way to get with a girl, date her friends. Even I know better than that.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:34 PM | Comments (2)

November 29, 2004

Guns on the Highway

When I lived in Chicago I had a convenient, tool-free, interstate with which to drive through the city. I-90/94 cuts the city much like Pulaski highway/40 does here in Baltimore. (The difference being it is an interstate, 40 isn't. This makes it sort of like I-895 and I-95 except that it has no tolls in the city, and it actually goes through the city.)
Depending on the time of day you got on the interstate it would take much less or much more time to get where you're going than it does on route 40. While 40 has those annoying lights at every intersection (Which somehow I manage to hit while red. Every single one of them) I-90/94 has traffic as its only real speed impediment.
I occassionally needed to get where I was going during periods of heavy traffic (perhaps sarcastically) referred to as "rush hour."
One of these times my girlfriend at the time was behind the wheel while I sat in the passenger seat. Whether we were in a hurry or she just decided to change lanes to occupy the void in traffic in the neighboring lane is inconsequential. The fact that she did, however, is important.
She checked the lane, found it was open, put on her turn signal and entered the lane to the left.
This upset a driver two lanes to the left because it was his intention to enter the very same spot, without indicating as much with his turn signal a fraction of a second later.
Having entered the lane before him (even after courteously indicating her intention to do so with a turn signal) she decided she had precedence and completed the lane change.
The other driver, however, did not feel the same way. He sped up in his lane, cut over into the lane we no occupied, and slammed on his breaks.
He stayed stopped on the interstate, so she changed lanes one more time to get around him. That left me with a good view of the dilapidated old Buick as we passed. Wondering why the guy came to a dead stop on the highway I looked over at him. He made some sort of wild gesticulation and then started moving again. He stayed next to us and out of the corner of my eye I could see him motioning. It looked like he wanted me to roll down the window. Why not? He might need some help or something.
"Mother Fucker! I'm gonna fuckin' kill you!"
"What?"
"I'm gonna fuckin' kill you, you god damn honkie bitch."
"Whatever."
"Don't you fuckin' look away from me."
Then to his passenger, "Get my shortie out the glovebox."

To my driver, "What the hell is wrong with this guy?"
"I think he wanted to get into the same lane I did back there."
"Is that all? He's got a gun. He's waving it out the window. Check it out."

"Oh well. That lane's not moving anyway. He can have it."

Posted by calculatoronfire at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)

Who is This Guy?

I got this email in my inbox today:


I don't know the guy that sent it. I think. Maybe I do, but I don't remember him. Strange then that I had such an impact on this guy, an "individual impact" and I don't know him at all.

Still it could be another one of those heredity things. Last time I saw my dad (in person) he asked me how to spell my name.
I guess we sort of forget things.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

Poultry on Thanksgiving

I spent this thanksgiving adding some moderation to the country's diet: while everyone else was overeating and moving the belt one notch looser I fasted.
That wasn't my mission upon waking, but that's the way things ended up. I had practically no food in my house and when I scrounged through the empty cabinets and poked behind every half empty
condiment jar I didn't have much to make a meal. I had a few random non-perishibles that I had intentionally overlooked until then, and upon finding them unsuited for combining to make a meal I mixed them into a soup. Then I added some chicken livers.

Every once in a while when I go to the grocery store I get all adventurous and grab something by all indications I will not enjoy eating. Limberger cheese, rutabaga, various pickled items, etc. This last time it was chicken livers; a tub of chicken livers.
I have no idea what to do with chicken livers, and having never eaten them before I had a very good feeling they would not make a good meal.
I saw nothing but excitement and adventure in the white plastic tub of chicken entrails and I was not about to pass it up.

The chicken livers sat in my refigerator for quite some time basically because I was afraid of them. On Thanksgiving Day my hunger fought back the fear and I mixed them into the soup I was making.
Upon smelling the soup I recalled my brother's words when I told him I had a tub of chicken livers and was likely going to mix them in some sort of soup.
"Don't." He said. "It'll taste like shit."
I laughed it off as words from a guy that takes the safe route in all he does. I was an adventurer. I was not going to bow in the face of chicken livers.

I should have.
I'm not much of a cook and I often make some fairly disgusting food, but the chicken liver soup was by far the most disgusting thing I've ever made. I couldn't finish it. Unfortunately I had mixed in all
the food I had in the house. Still, I had to give it to the dogs.

The chicken liver soup was even worse than the pig arm I ate in a bar in Budapest. I was hanging out with my dad and he was reliving his old, wild days. "She got on her knees there."
"Dad. Stop."
"And there."
"I don't want to hear about it. Please."
"Oh, this bar always had good food. Do you want to eat here?"
I had a feeling food in his mouth would slow his tongue and agreed.
There was no English menu, but that was no matter, I had an expert in bar food with me and let him order.
He ordered me pig arm (or something to that efffect). He made a motion with one finger to the midpoint of his forearm and said, "It's the part from here down on a pig. They take out the bones and fry it."
"The foot too? I don't want that."
"I don't remember if it is the foot too."
"What does it taste like?"
"It's good. I don't remember what it tastes like, but it's good."

My plate came out and as promised it was topped with something deep fried. I bit in. "What the fuck is this? It's like deep fried fat."
"No. No. It's good. I remember it now. Yeah. It's good."

I started to doubt my first bite, maybe the good stuff was hidden beneath a layer of fat. I made a few more tries. "This is all fat. And it tastes nasty."
"Are you sure. I remember it was good. Let me try."
I passed the plate over to him. When I set it down it stuck to my fingers. I had to peel my fingers off the plate. I tried to wipe them off, but the napkin stuck to my fingers. Soon my hands were covered
with bits of paper napkin.

"Deep fried glue.You ordered me deep fried glue. Remind me never to trust you about food."
I still trust my brother. And please trust me, you don't want to eat deep fried pig arm, and you especially do not want to ever, ever try chicken liver soup.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:13 AM | Comments (2)

Burning Desire for Television

Growing up I didn't watch much TV. I think.Perhaps I did and all the TV watching rotted the part of the brain necessary for remembering watching TV. However, I've never heard any mention of television's surgical striking capability, so I'm going with the not much TV theory.

I didn't watch much TV mostly because my we didn't have cable in my house. We had antenna. Rabbit ear antenna - not the monsterous tower-type antenna, just regular-old standard issue antenna. This would have been plenty had we lived where I now live, but in the rather sparsely populated sections of the heartland rabbit ears just don't do much. We had 2 channels, ABC and CBS that came from a city over 30 miles yonder. (I never said yonder before, nor did anyone I ever met, but since I'm playing on the backwoods thing here, I figure it works.) Occassionaly, if the planets alligned in just the right way and the wind blew hard enough in just the right direction we got all the sound and half the picture of a PBS station that likely came from the same city half an inch farther north on the map. I guess on occassion I could have watched that too. But why?

All the kids at school talked about recent episodes of their favorite sitcoms and shows from previous nights that sounded really, really intriguing. Their exuberant discussions of plot twists, and comedic hijinx reminded me every day what it was I was missing without even NBC to passively absorb.
At some point I decided to join the discussions. I could go no longer being the outsider without any opinion about the important cultural events. I could tolerate no more to stand amongst my peers on the playground kicking rocks and obviously being looked at as the guy too uncool to watch television. I formulated opinions. I put them on the table. I was respected. I was cool.
Nevermind that the opinions were actually conglomerations of the opinions I heard previously expressed. I voiced something. I duped them, or at least I tried.
At some point I decided it was worthless to go on trying. I gave up. I talked no more about television shows I had never seen.
This did not mean, however, that I stopped watching television. That was by no means the case. I continued to watch television in small, but regular, amounts after school. Reruns of Cheers mostly.
So it still hurt when my mother punished my siblings and me by removing the plug to the television set. That's right. The plug. She left the TV as a constant reminder of what we were to go without and
only took the plug. The (probably already at that time) antique TV had a strange plug that could easily be removed rendering the thing useless.
Or so she thought.

The strange mix of Cheers deprivation and defiance coupled with absolutely no knowledge of electricity fueled me to rig up a makeshift plug and to then use it.
I went down into the basement and found some copper wiring. I cut two short pieces and bared each end. I twisted the wires to the cord left to taunt me and when my mom wasn't home I stuck it into the socket.
I was a little late for Cheers that first day, it started without me, but I was able to catch most of the show before my mom came home. At that point I hopped off the couch, hurriedly undid my invention,
slipped it into my pocket and ran upstairs to pretend I had been doing something non-Cheers related.

Another night my mom left the house during prime time for some rare reason or another and I rigged up the TV again. I grabbed the cord, twisted together some copper and slid under the couch to put the makeshift plug into the socket when a blue flame shot out. I flew back. I'm not sure if it was a result of the flame or if it was a result of my scared-shitlessness, but I flew. I didn't go too far,
however, because I was trapped under the sofa, something I changed in a hurry.
I emerged from the darkness under the couch to a dark house.
The plug I made wasn't something anyone would underwrite, it blew every fuse (and in my house they were fuses, making the situation that much more difficult to remedy) in the house.
When my mom came home she freaked out. She ran around the house frantically screaming both reprimands and worried exclamations, "the house could be on fire inside the walls!" She called up anyone she thought had even the tiniest bit of knowledge about electricity. They all assured her my plug was a stupid idea, but that the house was probably not on fire.
They also must have told her to quit torturing us and put the plug back on the TV, because it was back there in time for Cheers the next day.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:09 AM | Comments (3)

November 24, 2004

Here's to a Successful Year of School

I can't really figure out this whole marketing thing. For instance, why the sudden explosion in low-carb? I don't know anyone on a low carb diet. Of course, I don't know many people.
I also don't know why when I went to the liquor store the bottle of Wild Irish Rose was not only fortified with grain alcohol, but also with ginseng. Do they really think winos will be more likely to buy a bottle of Wild Irish Rose because of ginseng?

I bought two bottles.

I normally don't drink Wild Irish Rose. I drink MD 20/20.


Toward the end of my freshman year of college I made friends with a couple hard drinkers. They were rather unconcerned with school, due to the fact they both intended on dropping out and working on fishing boats in Alaska, and were therefore more fun than most of the kids that spent a modicum of their time in the company of open books.
Yet, that does not mean they were without goals. Aside from the previously mentioned dream of performing manual labor while cold and wet they were each working their way up to drinking an entire bottle of MD 20/20 (green flavor is for speed; "wine" flavor is for savoring) in less than 30 seconds without taking it from their lips once.

We went down to the local liquor store, pointed to the Mad Dog and pressed a fake ID up to the bullet-proof glass and we were on our way.
In the parking lot outside of their place Norm performed the feat in under 25 seconds and declared his year in college a success.
We went inside and began drinking with wanton abandon. Sometime during the course of the night a fraternity called the police on us (they lived next door to a frat house) and instead of living up to what we had done we chose to run. Our quick thinking led us to sneak into the school's makeshift movie theater (on weekends the school aired second run movies for a buck or two) in the auditorium of the student center. We figured we'd be safe in the dark, besides they were showing "Braveheart," and what kind of people would go from rambunctiousness of the sort we'd just employed ourselves to watching the nearly eternal "Braveheart?"
Somewhere along the way Brian (the other one) decided he'd head back to his place to sleep. I was about to go too when Norm tugged on my arm, "Dude. Stay. I'm gonna need help getting that thing down."
What thing?
The school seal (4' in diameter) hanging above the stage (about 16' up).
When the movie ended we tucked ourselves low in the seats and waited for the projectionist to turn out the lights and lock us in. Then we made our move.
We scurried up onto the stage and lept up at the seal. We tried to boost each other up to the seal. We tried to boost and jump. Things weren't looking good, we weren't even close to the thing.
Then Norm came out from behind the back curtain with a ten foot ladder. He climbed up the ladder but found the seal too strongly hung from the ceiling.
I tried next. Once up on the top step of the ladder (one up from the one that read "Do not use this step") I saw it was hung with some metal wires and we could probably cut them. I got down and ran back stage to find something to do the job.
I looked around, but found nothing, and emerged from the curtain just in time to watch Norm say, "I'm going Shaq Attack it" before he launched himself from the ladder and grabbed the top of the seal. The wires gave and he and the seal fell to the ground.
Are you OK?
Hell yeah, man! I got the seal!

Outside we heard what we both mentally pictured to be a security guard and made for the emergency exit. I knew a back way out of the building that took us to a loading dock on the dark side of the building. Once there we took turns hoisting the seal and sprinting down the unlight road to the far side of campus.
Once there we split up. I guarded the seal and he ran back to his place to get Brian's car. It barely fit, but we got it back to their dorm.
At the dorm everyone else was either asleep or studying and we were able to sneak the seal into Norm's room.
Again he loudly proclaimed his college year a success. Following that we made plans to meet up and cause more trouble the following day. After our hangovers wore off, of course.

We did.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 02:55 PM | Comments (0)

Holy Crap! I'm Old

I Recently found I'm old.
I made the mistake of dating myself with a Public Enemy reference in public; this keyed in everyone to age.
(If you find yourself asking, "Public enemy? John Dillinger? I thought he was dead?" I thank you very much. You make me feel young. Young like I felt yesterday, before my tragic slip of the tongue.)

Truth be told, I am getting older every day. I see it; it doesn't surprise me that others do too.

Yesterday I ate broccoli. I cleaned my plate. Without being told to do so.

I laughed at the childishness of the girl that closed her jacket in the door and tried to go down the steps to no avail.

I moved the ramp so that I wouldn't land in a pothole when I flew over it on my skateboard when hanging out with my 6 year old neighbor. Then I corrected his grammar. "You can drop the 'at' at the end of your sentence. It's superfluous" I said in a voice that rang in my ear remarkably like that of an adult's.
His cousin told me I'd be a "fun dad." Not a "fun guy." No. A fun "dad."
That could be because she was angling for me to hook up with her mom, so I'm not really too worried about it. Still, it makes me think. If I'd be a fun dad would I also be a fun tutor?
I hope so, because I just signed up for a tutor gig. I'm supposed to teach kids about stuff, and if there's anything worse than somebody trying to teach you something it is somebody boring and unfun trying to teach you something.
In my heavily biased opinion fun teachers are better than those of the unfun variety.
I remember virtually nothing of my differential equations class I took years back and haven't used a whit of since, but I recall with some fondness the professor that spent days telling us about giving wine to the Chicago's homeless in... what the hell was the name of the class?
Oh, yeah. Political Science.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 01:21 PM | Comments (2)

Getting Pulled Over in Front of My House

Last night I made plans to go out. In pubic.
As planned I did go out. And things, for the most part, went as planned. I got drunk, then my friend came to pick me up. We went out. Talking happened. Beers were consumed.

Things fell apart on the ride home. Not because she smacked me when I lunged at her with my tongue hanging out of my mouth. No. That never happened, so it wasn't that. It was that we were pulled over. She had one headlight out.

At an intersection we crossed paths with a police car, which, by the way, also had a headlight out. The same headlight. (I was tempted to throw out some Bible verses about casting stones, but I can't even recite biblical verses when I'm sober.) The officer in the car pulled us over and gave my friend a ticket. Or a repair order. Or something she (ie the officer) said she (ie my friend) could "just throw away."

When the cop went back to her car we parked. We didn't drive anywhere, just parallel parked right there. Then we went inside my house.

In my mind the police officer felt dumb.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 11:46 AM | Comments (7)

November 23, 2004

Email From My Dad

"It was alway an extreme effort to talk to you, it just ran out."

That's the first line of an email that landed in my inbox today. It was from my father.

Perhaps he thought it was a little to harsh; he followed it up with a one line email:

"Why do you covet the cot?"


I suppose there is some truth to this whole heredity business after all.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 03:08 PM | Comments (0)

The Phantom

I used to store my piffy writings on another server that mysteriously broke late last week. At first I held out hope that all would be well on Monday. It wasn't.
I started to think that all my accounts of times I ended up beaten about the head or naked were gone. I waxed nostalgic. Ah, those more-naked-than-now times.
That's when it came to me. A naked and bruised time I've never written about. Ah, those high school days.

The summer after my senior year in high school 6 female friends rented a house that just happened to be between my house and my place of work. If I steered my bicycle half a mile out of the way. Which I did. On a daily basis. I was 17; they were female.
I had to ride my bike because I didn't have a driver's license. (I got one at the end of the summer just in time to not drive a car for the next four years or so.) It's a good thing too, because there was a lot of alcohol in the house. Which I drank in copious amounts.

During the course of the previous year I had developed a mischievous alter-ego, the Phantom Humper. The Phantom Humper appeared at all sorts of occassions, but especially at late night parties. And, for the most part, he was welcomed (I hadn't yet hit the dinner party circuit). He was a strange character that ran around with a blanket over his head (if a blanket could be found, but a towel would also suffice). He would mount his prey, often after a flying tackle, and thrust his hips wildly proclaiming, "I am the Phantom Humper!" (It wasn't me, OK? It was my mischeivous alter-ego.) Then he would run off to another room, another victim.

I came to a party at the house after having worked all day. I picked up someone else's 7am opening shift at Taco Bell, worked all day, and closed as usual. I got off work at about 1 am and hopped on my bike, riding it as fast as I could over to my friends'. The 18 hour work day had taken its toll and I was a bit tired, but nothing was going to keep me from a good time.
By the time I got the the party things were in full swing, and I was woefully behind. I caught up quickly with vodka of the cheap variety.
I passed everyone else with vodka of the cheap variety and decided it was high time the Phantom Humper made an appearance. I ran upstairs into someone or another's room to get into costume. Ahh! I thought of something new I could he could add to his routine.

The Phantom Humper came drunkenly sprinting down the back stairs that lead to the kitchen, a blanket over his head, and absolutely nothing underneath.

Unfortunately, the doorway at the bottom of the stairs was a little too low for the Phantom Humper, my mishcievous alter-ego, and he cracked his head, on account of the blanket totally obscuring his vision. It knocked him out.
Other party-goers heard the commotion in the kitchen. They rushed in, perhaps expecting the Phantom and his hijinx, only to find me. Lying atop someone's comforter. Slightly bleeding from the head. Naked.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:35 AM | Comments (0)

My Boxer Friend

Last night I drove on down to the liquor store to pick up a box of the wine formerly known as "the Best Tasting Boxed Wine," Peter Vella's Delicious Red. (Sometime over the years he must have been forced to remove the claim, though as boxed wines go, it could very well be the best.)
I like wine, but I'm apparently not much of a connoisseur. I enjoy the box as much as a $9 bottle (that's about as high as I go). The $1 bottle I brought back from a recent trip, however, less than hit the spot. Still, the wine knew its job and didn't get uppity, and for that I respect it.

I bought my tickets for the trip via the American Airlines web site. They've got this option where you can search for the cheapest ticket. Being the kind of guy that buys $1 bottles of wine, I used it.
The trip went something like this. Fly from Baltimore Washington International to Laguardia. Run like hell to catch a bus to JFK. Check in at JFK 30 minutes before take-off and run like hell to the the gate to get on the plane just as they close the door. On the plane relax and wonder what the fuck happened. Oh yeah, it was that damn cheapskate button. Don't do that next time.

I checked the itinerary for the way back and found I flew back through Toronto. I arrived at 9 something and flew out at 9 something. Cool. It's not as fucked up on the way back. Wait. How can I arrive at 9:50 and depart at 9:25? Oh, shit. That's a 12 hour layover.

So I bought a couple bottles of $1 wine with the intent of drinking them during the layover, getting drunk and sleeping it off on a bench in some corner of the airport.
This plan was spoiled, however. Halfway through the first bottle some guy sat next to me and started talking. He extended a large, calloused hand for me to shake and explained that he was an amateur Canadian boxer into interracial dating chatlines. He was headed back to LA where he now lived with his girlfriend who has an "amazing booty." (If you've never heard a Canadian talk about booty you're missing one of life's great, simple pleasures.)
How could I pass this up? I had to talk to this guy. I offered him some wine. He accepted. He told me about glory of interracial dating chatlines, and how even though he found the girl he wanted to be with (the other marriages were just flukes) he still used them. Apparently women were (virtually) all about him, and he thought, since I seemed like such a nice guy, he'd pass a couple my way.
He told me that, then turned to look directly at me saying, "This is the best wine I've ever had." I could barely hold back my laughter, not because the wine was so cheap, but because his lips, teeth, and mouth were all dyed purple.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

Wine as Pain Killer

Well into last night's box of wine I was reminded of the time I was injured in a bullfight. (This is true, I only post fake comments)

I lived in Portugal and the village down the street had a street bullfight. (I lived on an island covered with small villages some only a few hundred yards/meters from each other and each one had a festival during the summer. During the festivals they would let bulls loose in the streets and the males from around the island would show their manliness by chasing the bull, slapping it as it ran past, using an umbrella as a makeshift matador's cape, etc.) One of the guys that worked for me lived in a house that overlooked the area closed off for the bullfight and was having a party. I grabbed a bottle of cooking wine and headed down.
I showed up, pretended someone else brought the cooking wine and dug into the food and the better tasting wine. We all got pretty drunk before the bullfight even started, per tradtion. Unfortunately that mean a few of the guys decided to "fight" the bull when the stret fight started.
That was not a good thing. We weren't supposed to participate in the bullfights because of the possibility of injury and could get in trouble at work if they found out we did. Then there was the fact that most of the guys worked for me. Somehow thefolks at work figured that made me liable. Still, we had dipped into the cooking wine about the time the fight started, so I wasn't really in any condition to worry.

Until one of the guys tripped, fell and was trampled by the bull.

Then I started to worry a little bit. I walked out into the street and told the guys not to taunt the bull, they could get into trouble.
The guy that was trampled, however, dramatically outdid me, "It's not big deal. I'm fine. All I got was this." He opened his shirt to show a huge puffy mark in the middle of his chest. It looked to me like it was turning purple, but he insisted it didn't hurt.

This reinvigorated the other guys and I. We hung out in the street yelling at the bull daring it to even think about messing with us.
It did.
It came charging at us and we scattered in all directions. I ran to the right. The guys that ran to the left were the unlucky ones. Especially Dave, the guy that slipped in a pile of bull shit.
He hit the ground pretty hard and grabbed the bull's attention fairly well. I guess the human flat on his back in the middle of the street looked vulnerable for some reason. The bull charged.
He somehow managed to squeeze between the bull's horns and throw his arms around the bulls horns. He held on in order to keep his body from being gouged, but the bull had another move in mind. It moved its head up and down slamming Dave to the ground each time until Dave finally let go. Then it moved on.
I got all the guys together and told them that they should stop messing with the bull, they were getting hurt, and we could all get some sort of reprimand once they found out at work. That's when the bull came back around the corner. We scattered.
This time it followed me.
I flew over a fence with grace I was previously unassociated. Then I landed on a discarded tire.
I fell to the ground in pain even through the liters of wine.
Thinking I had sprained my ankle for the first time I admonished myself for calling akle sprainers pussies all those other times. It hurt. I could barely walk.

Once the bullfight ended I rode my bike back to my house and wrapped it in an ace bandage, then went back to the party.
Once there someone asked me how my ankle was. I told him it hurt. He called me a wimp. I laughed, drank more wine and told him it wasn't all bad, I had a new, extended, range of movement.
Yeah, I know now that meant it was broken.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)

Abstinence

Yesterday I (e)told a friend of mine that I was celebrating a dubious anniversary. She told me it sounded like I was down, then went on to explain that just the night before she had watched "Spellbound" a movie about a spelling bee, and that one of the kids "could be [my] son."

Great.

She says she thinks I sound down and continues to say that some dorky kid in a movie reminded her of me. Is that supposed to make me feel good?
Hey, Brian. You sound down. Have I told you I think you're a big dork?

Truth is I wasn't down. Why would I be? Abstinence is a virtue, right?

Posted by calculatoronfire at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2004

Party Animal

In case you don't already know, I'm a cool guy. I must be, I get invited to parties left and right. Neighbors' birthday parties. Neighbors 6 years old and under. I think I've been invited to every toddler on the street's birthday party.
They love me for some reason. I think it is because I throw them up in the air and do other things that could potentially end with them injured and me forking over large amounts of cash.
This weekend my neighbor is turning two and having a party at the corner bar. I think it's a little early for her to be hanging out in bars and definitely to early for her to start drinking. I don't think I drank at my 2-year birthday party (I don't remember if I even had one).

When I turned 6 my parents threw me a birthday party. It was mostly an excuse for the extended family to get together and surround themselves with obnoxious hyperactive year olds from my neighborhood.
At some point during the party I was overcome with an intense need to urinate. I mean bad. I ran from the living room, where most people were gathered, over to the bathroom. To save time I undid my pants on the way. I dropped them far enough to give myself unhindered access to the equipment before I got to the door. The time saving manuever worked and in the bathroom all went as planned. When I crossed through the door again I was greeted by an upset extended family.
I was reprimanded for dropping my pants in front of the company and told to always keep my pants up until I got into the bathroom. I imagine now that it was intended to be only an admonishment, but I felt extremely put out. So badly put out that I hid behind the sofa for quite some time.
The other kids went outside to play and I stayed in my shelter from shame and the adults forgot about me. Without the kids around the conversation became laden with sexual innuendos. My Aunt told a story about my cousins, her daughters about my age, and their friends digging through some bins in their basement and then emerging clad in gawdy old lingerie.
Why was there a bin of gawdy old lingerie in my Aunt and Uncle's basement? Why for parties of course. The apparently frequented parties where couples showed up cross dressed in underwear only. Men in lingerie, the more hideous the better, and women in men's underwear.
Shocked my Grandmother asked, “What kind of parties is my daughter going to?” There was no reply. All conversation stopped on account of the newly turned six year old intensely giggling behing the couch. The embarrassed adults ushered me outside to play with the other kids.
There we stayed until it was time to clean up when the party was winding down. It was my job to pick up the beverage cans. I was picking up only empty cans until I got to my uncle's. His can wasn't full, so I asked him if he was done. He replied with something to the effect of, “I guess so.” So I took the can. I ditched the empties and ran outside with the half full can of beer.
The other kids and I huddled in the middle of the dead end street and passed it around nervously giggling and exclaiming how wretched it was. Somehow this attracted the attention of the adults inside and they came out in force. One of the kids (I like to think it was me) had the pressence of mind to drop the now empty can and kick it.
“What are you kids doing out here?”
“We're just playing kick the can.” Whatever the hell that game is.
Anyway, the quick thinking saved me from certain grounding. Still I did get another talking to for stealing my Uncle's beer – he claimed not to have told me to take it and it forced him to get up and grab a brand new beer.

Well, I learn from my mistakes and I tell you this. If I see a huddle of 2 year olds kicking a can of beer (or more likely a 40) in the street this weekend I know what they're up to, even if they only claim to only be kicking the can.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

Going to the Show

Last night I went out to a rock bar and drank some beer. This is not new. Nor is it funny. It is not worth writing home about (although I would never do it because my mother would be horribly disappointed to know that her son not only drank beer but did it in a bar, the seediest of all seedy places God forgot to strike from this earth during his work week). The thing is I showed up early.
I got all confused, what with the time change a month ago, and I showed up at the Talking Head before any of the bands started. I didn't want to go back home to wait it out, even though it would just take a me a few minutes, and I didn't want to sit in the empty bar. So I did what all guys all by themselves at night in downtown Baltimore do. I found and inhabited the nearest park bench.
There's a boulevard-type street downtown with lots of stone benches sheltered from the street by bushes. They all lie in the shadow of a statue on top of a high pillar. I headed over there and found the area lit well enough to read a book (A Farewell to Arms) and to see the rats scurry away.
I sat down, cracked my book and heard rats all around me. Determined to tough it out, I ignored them to the best of my ability. Then one popped out of the bushes less than a foot from my head.
I jumped up and he ran away. That's when I located the source of the other noise I had been trying to tune out. A crazy guy across the street yelling at the statue atop the pillar. As usual I couldn't tell exactly what he was saying, but it sounded like praise to me.

I decided it was time to go into the Saturday Looks Good to Me show(a band I recommend everyone see, even if they don't like the music, because the female vocalist is hot. Trust me. I know hot when I see it) . The musical quality of the show was not a good as their recordings, but they certainly do a good live show (as does Terror at the Opera).
Afterward in line to get a copy of their newest album I heard a woman saying to Fred (by all reports the mastermind behind the band), "You are really great."
Despite all my greateness strange women do not come up to me and say that.
Well, that's not true. I get it every once in a while when I inure myself in front of a crowd of people.

Wow. That fall looked so real. You're really good at that. Have you considered going pro?

It looked so natural when you hit your head on that. Did you practice that? Hello? Can you hear me?

Posted by calculatoronfire at 03:54 PM | Comments (2)

Creepy Guys

My neighbors must have gotten their electricity turned on just in time for their birthday/freak party (I was promised it would be a birthday party until about 8pm when the kids would all be sent to sleep. After that it would be a "freak" party - a party with many drunk adults dancing, several of them eager to "sex [me]"). I could tell they had their power back on because the same two songs came rumbling through the wall that divides the houses. There was one that went, "step in the name of love..." and another about sweat dripping down someone's balls. Even though the first song had a wholesome motowny sound, I hope the songs weren't played with such frequency because they were little Talleea's favorites.
After a while I got fed up with the same beat and headed on down to see Monger at the Talking Head. Somewhere along the way I decided that I didn't want to spend my entire weekend there (I saw Two if by Sea on Friday and would be going again on Sunday to see Saturday Looks Good to Me) and turned in the direction of the cafe in Little Italy where a friend was working.
It was 'round about closing time and I scored a couple free beers and a chance to meet the chef. He was from Italy and seemed rather creepy to me. Come to think of it, most guys I've met from Italy seem kind of creepy to me. I haven't met that many, but I did spend a few weeks in Rome a couple years back and met a few there.
I went with my sister and stayed with the unemployed son of a friend of a friend of someone (I didn't care, I got a free place to stay). He showered once while I was there, after a soccer game he played about 3/4 of the way through my visit. He and his friends were overly concerned with sex. They had a sleezy, groping, date-rapist demeanor about them. They constantly begged my sister to make out with them. Then whoever spoke English and didn't have his lips occupied would urge me to "make fuck with" our host's girlfriend's best female friend, Venessa. The joke was Venessa was contemplating becoming a nun and they all got slapped when they tried, so they wanted to watch someone else try.
From my calculations Italians men's obsessions with sex are inversely proportional to the amount of sex allowed them by Italian women. (Hence my hosts' array of travel stories.) The guys loved taking us out to a bar that served hamburgers, because we were Americans, and Americans love hamburgers. The hamburgers were like rawhide and smothered in mayonaise that tasted like tuna and
lemon. They were served by a hideously ugly, toothless, heroin addicted, bisexual bartender. In his best pigeon-English he told us he wanted to have our faces tattooed on his arms so he could see us
every time he shot up; apparently it would make his high angelic.
The next time we went for burgers (at our host's insistence, because American's love hamburgers) our bartender friend came around with free drinks for the table, and two for me. While asking if we wanted a second round he also asked the others' at my table to translate something for him.
He wanted to know if my sister and I would have sex with him. Seperately was fine, but he wanted it known that he would prefer together.
I tried to get my hosts to get us out of there with relative haste, but it wasn't that easy. My sister was making out with the bartender.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 01:01 PM | Comments (2)

Party Animal

In case you don't already know, I'm a cool guy. I must be, I get invited to parties left and right. Neighbors' birthday parties. Neighbors 6 years old and under. I think I've been invited to every toddler on the street's birthday party.
They love me for some reason. I think it is because I throw them up in the air and do other things that could potentially end with them injured and me forking over large amounts of cash.
This weekend my neighbor is turning two and having a party at the corner bar. I think it's a little early for her to be hanging out in bars and definitely to early for her to start drinking. I don't think I drank at my 2-year birthday party (I don't remember if I even had one).

When I turned 6 my parents threw me a birthday party. It was mostly an excuse for the extended family to get together and surround themselves with obnoxious hyperactive year olds from my neighborhood.
At some point during the party I was overcome with an intense need to urinate. I mean bad. I ran from the living room, where most people were gathered, over to the bathroom. To save time I undid my pants on the way. I dropped them far enough to give myself unhindered access to the equipment before I got to the door. The time saving manuever worked and in the bathroom all went as planned. When I crossed through the door again I was greeted by an upset extended family.
I was reprimanded for dropping my pants in front of the company and told to always keep my pants up until I got into the bathroom. I imagine now that it was intended to be only an admonishment, but I felt extremely put out. So badly put out that I hid behind the sofa for quite some time.
The other kids went outside to play and I stayed in my shelter from shame and the adults forgot about me. Without the kids around the conversation became laden with sexual innuendos. My Aunt told a story about my cousins, her daughters about my age, and their friends digging through some bins in their basement and then emerging clad in gawdy old lingerie.
Why was there a bin of gawdy old lingerie in my Aunt and Uncle's basement? Why for parties of course. The apparently frequented parties where couples showed up cross dressed in underwear only. Men in lingerie, the more hideous the better, and women in men's underwear.
Shocked my Grandmother asked, “What kind of parties is my daughter going to?” There was no reply. All conversation stopped on account of the newly turned six year old intensely giggling behing the couch. The embarrassed adults ushered me outside to play with the other kids.
There we stayed until it was time to clean up when the party was winding down. It was my job to pick up the beverage cans. I was picking up only empty cans until I got to my uncle's. His can wasn't full, so I asked him if he was done. He replied with something to the effect of, “I guess so.” So I took the can. I ditched the empties and ran outside with the half full can of beer.
The other kids and I huddled in the middle of the dead end street and passed it around nervously giggling and exclaiming how wretched it was. Somehow this attracted the attention of the adults inside and they came out in force. One of the kids (I like to think it was me) had the pressence of mind to drop the now empty can and kick it.
“What are you kids doing out here?”
“We're just playing kick the can.” Whatever the hell that game is.
Anyway, the quick thinking saved me from certain grounding. Still I did get another talking to for stealing my Uncle's beer – he claimed not to have told me to take it and it forced him to get up and grab a brand new beer.

Well, I learn from my mistakes and I tell you this. If I see a huddle of 2 year olds kicking a can of beer (or more likely a 40) in the street this weekend I know what they're up to, even if they only claim to only be kicking the can.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 12:59 PM | Comments (7)

November 18, 2004

Gifts Gifts Gifts

I came home from work and to my surprise buried amongst the credit card preapproval letters and flyers for stores I will never in my life shop in I found actual mail. Actually a package.
I thought about it for a second and couldn't figure out why I would have gotten a package. I didn't remember ordering anything since I ordered the Color Flash Holga, which I got last week. I took a look at the package and the stamps alerted me to the fact that it came from overseas. That's when I knew who sent it, but I still didn't know what it was. I excitedly ripped the package open and found the best postal-sent surprise since I got the dollar off on adult diapers coupon (if only I had occassion to use an adult diaper). I couldn't wait to get it(i.e. the surprise in my surprise package) in my mouth, but I held off.
Instead I went out to take my dogs for a walk.
I went out into the back yard where I was greeted by my excited dogs and my neighbor on the other side of the fence. She attempted to invite me to a Thanksgiving dinner, but I deftly avoid an actual invite, which I would have accepted while wishing I could figure a way to turn her down. But still she insisted I take a bowl of home cooked beef vegetable soup she cooked up early that day.
After I ate the surprisingly unbad soup I finally got around to taking my dogs for a walk. I got the the mouth of the alley with them when I saw someone digging in a mailbox across the street. Not only had I never seen the guy before, but he went about the task in a odd, and therefore suspicious, manner. So I slowed and watched.
Then he yelled something to me. I stopped and he yelled again, this time I was able to understand what he was yelling. It was the tried and true, "are you walking them or are they walking you." Ha Ha. Funny.
I've found that the best reponse to this is a reply (lest it be repeated) of something unintelligible. "Blah blah walk grumble." Their response, and usually the final volley, is a huge chuckle.
This time, however, he followed up. "That's a border collie, right."
No, she's half greater swiss mountain dog.
Oh. And border collie, right?

He hurried across the street to me and held out his fist saying his name was Troy. I got the impression he wanted me to touch his fist with mine, so I did. I mistakenly made contact. To me it was humoring this man. To him it was bonding.
He went on and on about how smart his dogs were(from childhood to present) and how he was watching his friend's lab. 90% lab, anyway.
Then he begged me to go see his puppies. He wanted me to take one of his puppies.
No, thanks.
It's free, no problem. Come see. I live right here.

He walked me around into the alley. I found he had a dog, but no puppies. He tried to give me a puppy some months in advance of their actual appearance. Then his pregnant dog tried attacking my dogs.
He ushered the dog inside and I tried to hurry away. He caught up with me and told me he worked two jobs, he was a mechanic. He liked the G Gordon Libby radio show. He was born at Johns Hopkins. He was the youngest of 8. The next youngest lived in Columbus, Ohio. Maybe. etc. All inside of the 5 minutes I spent trying to get my dogs to stop smelling things so we could get around him.

I did finally get away and spent an uneventful night waiting to use the surprise I got in the mail.
Finally, before I went to bed (again in a real bed, with a mattress and everything) I pulled out the gum massaging toothbrush, and spent several joyous minutes massaging my gums.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2004

Last Night I Slept with Trouble

Some people will try to make you believe that I spent all of last night chatting up strangers in a bar. This is not true. A good part of my night was spent sleeping in a bed.
Finally a bed.
After about a month or so I finally slipped between the sheets and set my head upon a pillow atop a real bed, thus concluding my longest bedless stint to date.
This however was not my most uncomfortable bedless stint by any means. There was the time I had to spend a couple weeks sleeping on the floor, and the time I, under the influence of Kerouac and cashlessness, spent a few weeks sleeping in the back of my beat up Toyota Corrola in Mississippi.
I started out cooking beans in a campfire by the beach then retiring to my car parked in the parking lot at the Bucaneer State Park on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In the sweltering heat. Getting eaten alive by mosquitos.
That is until I got kicked out by the park rangers. They threatened arrest and I moved to a nearby state park.
Well, I went to the park and found it was really a campground and I'd have to pay to enter. That would defeat the point, so I continued down the (gravel) county highway and turned into the first dark road into the woods and went to sleep.
I went to classes during the day, after returning to Bucaneer to take a "shower" in the sink in public bathroom. At night I would read books reinforcing my new lifestyle until the light dwindled.
That's when I would stuff myself into the cramped back seat and sleep constantly worrying that a crazed local with property rights would wake me by tapping a shotgun on my window.
That lasted about a week. Then I realized this whole sleeping on the streets stuff was nonsense. I needed a real shower. One where I could get totally naked without fear that some stranger would walk in and get me arrested for public nudity.
Honestly, what was I thinking?
Last night after leaving the bar, where I did chat up some strangers for a few hours, before sleeping in a luxurious Bed I went out looking for trouble.
Seems I can never find it when I look for it, it finds me when it wants to spend time together.

Like the night before Thanksgiving a couple years back when I hung out with my brother and my cousin in Madison, Wisconsin. After proving to our cousin that we could indeed over-indulge we decided to get some food: Burritos as big as our heads at La Bamba, a popular closing time destination.
We met a guy with "LOVE" and "HAT" tattooed on his fingers. My brother called him a pussy for not getting "HATE" tattooed on his hand. The stranger removed a large pinky ring and offered to show the tattoo to him up close. He declined, apologized, and then called the guy a pussy for not tattooing his hands himself. I eased him out the door.
On the street a car full of guys began cat calling toward my cousin. My brother told them they were being very rude.
Somehow things happened and I ended up dropping my pants, jumping up and landing my bare ass on their hood.
That's when they stepped on the gas and gave me a ride down the street, only to cut it short, slamming on the brakes, sending me flying, when the owner of the car, Mr LOVE & HAT, sauntered out of the restaurant.

The car emptied and everyone wanted to kick my ass, which at this point was re-covered. Somewhere in the crowd was trouble, but I wasn't looking for it.
I ran without looking back.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)

Stoop Night

I used to work with this guy that was a couple years older than me. We hung out outside of work and on one specific occassion my friend's girlfriend insulted him. I didn't think it was an insult, and neither did the alleged insulter, but he claimed to be insulted.
She simply said that she couldn't picture him at a rave.

He took it as a personal attack about his age and lack of "cool." So he demanded we all go some place he could show off his dancing skills. I didn't know where to go, since I don't dance. (I'm no John Ashcroft, I just don't do it), in fact only the offended guy and the offending girl knew where to go, and they bickered about it for several minutes.
Finally they settled things and dragged the rest of us out to some clubby type place. Most of us stood around drinking while a few went out to dance. The offended guy was dancing up a storm. He pulled out all the stops and the fake ball or something. Yeah, he was pretending to dance with a ball until suddenly he threw his back out.
It was pretty noticable, but he tried to play it off as a new dance move that could earn him "I guess I could see you at a rave" status, whatever that meant. He then slowly danced his way off the floor and over to a phone to call his wife to pick him up.

He was married. That's why I don't understand why when we went out he was always hitting on women. Especially at parties.
I brought him to a party and he chased a couple girls around all night. They kept running away from him, but he kept at it. I'm pretty oblivious when it comes to the ladies and all, but I saw things there. They tried everything short of "Get the hell away from me."
A couple female friends pulled me aside and asked me about the creepy guy I brought. Wasn't he married? Why would I bring such a creepy guy? Would he ever leave her alone?

The next time I was invited to a party at the same house I was specifically told not to bring the creepy guy. Luckily, I found an even more creepy guy. Miles.
Miles was my neighbor's half brother and really wanted to hang out with me before he went home to North Carolina or where ever it was he lived and stored his library of home movies. Yeah, you know the kind I'm talking about.
I went down to Cincinnati with Miles and my neighbor and Miles talked almost the entire time about filming first person pornos. He was a real sleazy looking guy, so I don't know how he found his co-stars, but he did. Apparently enough of them to fill a cabinet in his trailer in NC.
If he wasn't talking about filming the pornos he was talking about having sex with his step sister. How great it was, right in front of his step brother, her brother.
Hanging out in Cincinnati we stopped at a bar on the river. It was pretty empty, so the bartender stayed to chat with us much of the time. She told us about how much fun she had with, and how deeply in love she was with her new husband.
Miles took this to mean that he had a very good shot with her. That was what he talked about on the way home.
I decided he was perfect for the party I was going to that night.

Miles burst into the house behind me and quickly made the rounds, asking every woman to do body shots with him. A few were disgusted, others were concerned that it was only Tuesday. No body shots for Miles.
He moved on to talk of movies. He was looking for a co-star. When he was again turned down by every one of the dwindling number of ladies he came up to me and told me he wanted to leave. "This party sucks."
I said, "Miles this is a more refined crowd. Pick one girl and work on her."
He did, for as long as his attention span allowed, and I was again pulled to the side. Who is this creepy guy? He just told me about having sex with his sister. Can you get him to leave?
I thought it best, now that my reputation as the guy that brings creepy guys was solidly locked, to take him away.

As I escorted him out he announced we were hitting a strip club and asked if anyone wanted to come with. We didn't go to any strip club and Miles decided I was a loser. He didn't want to hang out with me anymore.
He left to NC soon after.

I still search for creepy folks to bring to parties.
I will be having a party of sorts rather soon and anyone and everyone is invited to come and to bring their creepiest friends.

Stoop Night. We'll be drinking forties on the stoop. And since a majority of my neighbors will be coming by begging for a sip, there'll already be plenty of creepy people, a few more wouldn't hurt.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2004

For Lack of Better Directions

I don't know who writes instructions for home improvement products, but I know this much: they should be fired. I've been doing a lot of remodeling of late and have come across some instructions that just baffle me.

Take the insulation I put up in my walls. The only type the home improvment superwarehouse sold in the size I needed was the "new and improved" type that "requires no staples." It says so on the front of the package and on the insulation itself.
No staples? Great! But is there some sort of trick to installing it? One should always check the directions. The installation directions on the back of the package read "Staple insulation to studs starting from the top, moving down."
What? No staples required, but you must staple to install? The front of the package department and the back of the package department should get together with the propaganda on the product itself department and hammer out a clear strategy.

Yesterday night's hardwood floor installation instructions weren't just stupid like the insulation directions, they left a lot out. I should have known something was amiss when the first step was to draw a chalkline on the floor and the chalk (for the chalkline) container read " ...chalks are permanent. There is no known way to remove them. ... This product contains silicone dioxide which, when inhaled, may be injurious to your health..." In addition to that it is impossible for one person to make perfectly square chalk lines on the floor like they say you should (but you can make several permanent non-square lines). So just forget the chalkline. In fact forget the directions they give you.

I'm going to help everybody out and rewrite the directions. This way everyone can benefit from my mistakes and things will be abundantly more clear.

1. Grab a drink now. Intoxication will come in handy later, especially if you don't follow step 2.
2. Remove your clothes. Seriously, get naked. I spent quite some time trying to take off the pants that I accidently glued to myself. If you're naked you're already down to the stuff that is supposed to be stuck to you. There'll be no need to spend hours trying to get the stuff unstuck.
3. Draw a line on the floor parallel to one wall at a distance of 24 1/2" with a pencil or a marker. The hardwood floor directions guy has a cousin in the chalkline business. That's the only reason that reference was in there. Pencil is the way to go. However, at no point should you put that pencil behind your ear. It will get stuck there because you will be using adhesive that claims to be specially formulated for wood floor installation, but is suspiciously good at adhering pencils and demin to human flesh.
4. See the wall at a right angle with the wall you just drew a line in front of? Do the same thing to that wall. Try to make the lines meet a right angle, but don't worry about it too much because your going to cover the lines with that demin & pencil to skin adhesive in just a second anyway.
5. Spread the adhesive and put the floor down along those lines your drew if you can still see them. If not, just place them along the wall and work your way across the floor.
6. Grab another drink, make it a double, because you're done and need to peel off the stuff you inadvertantly glued to your body.


It's that simple with good directions.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:21 PM | Comments (0)

Leave Your Clothes at the Border

They say, "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," but I'm here to tell you your clothes stay in New Orleans. It's not an officially endorsed message from the New Orleans tourism machine, but trust me, it's true.

I headed down to New Orleans (from Chicago) a couple times one summer: Memorial Day and Labor Day. I found, to my pleasure, that the spirit of Mardi Gras is exploited by the business community and the debauchery continues with only slightly less crowded streets.
On Memorial Day I headed to the Big Easy with two friends, one male, one female. Being in college we opted for a room in the less than glamorous, but entirely affordable, East New Orleans. We stayed in something called the Family Inn, a hotel that was seemingly untouched by skilled labor (save the addition of bullet proof glass) since the mid-seventies, or whenever it was that orange and brown were the only two colors with which hotels were outfitted. The trip from the Family Inn to the French Quarter is short enough, the three of us had to finish the bottle of MD 20/20 in the parking lot before heading down to Bourbon St.
We walked the street with drinks until we got a mental map of the place and we found a convenience/liquor store that sold bottles of booze.
See, there's two schools when it comes to drinking in bars.
1 The school that claims drinking at home or alone is an indication of alcoholism. I know a guy that graduated from that school. After graduation he moved into an apartment upstairs from a bar.
2 The school my dad went to. The "why drink in a bar when you can go to the store and buy a bottle for less and get totally smashed?" school. Like father like son, as they say.
We walked around passed the bottle of cheap store-bought booze passing the kids tap dancing and twirling bicycle tires on their heads until the breasts started popping out.
Then we goaded our female companion to show hers. She did. Over and over. She earned so many beads they covered her chest. I pressured her into going topless, covered by the Mr T-like amount of neckware.
Around that time our male companion started getting jealous he wasn't getting any beads, so he went to the end of Bourbon St to get some. (If you've been to New Orleans you know the end I'm talking about...) He started flashing the guys in the bars to no avail. He said some of the guys even demanded he pay them with beads after having seen what he had to show them.
While he was busy doing that the girl I was with put her shirt back on and we went around, most likely drinking even more.
That's when we were propositioned by a couple of parking garage employees. Apparently they were in town for a parking garage manager's conference (really, how hard can it be?) and were both married, but not to each other. The female admired my friend's daring topless stunt, and the guy, well he made it very clear that all four of us should head back to his hotel room so he could have sex with all of us. We declined, only his original partner accompanied him from that point on.
After that we paid and earned some beads for a couple hours without our friend. We were about to give up on him when he approached us and said, "Have you guys seen my underwear?"
Your underwear? Why would we have seen your underwear?
I lost it. I don't know where it went.

I'm not sure how he could have lost his underwear, he wasn't sure how he did, but we all agreed it was time to head back to the Family Inn.
The next morning we left New Orleans, without the underwear.

The same group went down to New Orleans again on Labor Day, but we were supposed to meet some other people who had reserved a couple rooms again at the Family Inn.
When we got there our friends hadn't shown up and we couldn't get a room because there was some hip hop family convention and all the rooms were full. So we waited by the pool.
After a couple hours of waiting in the hot sun I decided it was time for a bottle of grape MD 20/20. Then two.
Our friends finally showed up in the late afternoon and wanted to start drinking. So we out to the liquor store down past the old oil tanks and campgrounds and got beer, vodka, and a bottle of Night Train for me (What can I say, I'm a sucker for fortified wine).
The several bottles of grain-neutral-spirits-fortified wine and dehydration caused by hours in the hot sun mixed in just the right amounts.
I got naked.
I ran around the balcony of the hotel, across the parking lot and jumped into the pool
For some reason this upset the family oriented hip hop fanatics and they complained to the management loudly enough to be heard through the bullet proof glass.
The management searched the hotel for the "naked white kid." I don't think I was too hard for them to find.
And there I was, naked, without shelter in New Orleans.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2004

Conversations at Work

My office building is chock full of PhDs. It is correspondingly full of fairly dry conversation and a virtual abscence of music. Sure, I have a crappy little stereo on my desk, but I think I'm the only one. (There is a guy in the next office over that sometimes wears headphones. I imagine him listening to music, but he could be doing some sort of work, or blocking out the egregious harmonies that wander over from my desk.)
This is quite unlike jobs I've had in the past.
I once installed HVAC systems. The guys I worked with were constantly talking about getting trashed and beating people up over the (too loud) sound of the local country station. Well, they were the day I worked with them. I quit after one day for a couple good reasons. 1 I had not idea how to install an HVAC system, and 2 I got a call from my old job rehiring me for more an hour and promoting me to Shift Manager.
That's right I got a shiny faux metallic name tag at Taco Bell. I replaced Karl. I'm not sure why Karl left, he seemed like a natural at the fast food business.
If you asked any passer by what they thought Karl's long suit was I'm sure a majority of them would say fast food. That is unless he opened his mouth, then the response would probably be "dungeons and dragons."

When Karl still worked at "the Bell" I remember a little incident. I was in back washing dishes or firing off the meat gun or something, and heard a commotion out front. Which was rare. As hard as I tried not to, the rest of the employees forced me to listen to another bad country station (I listen to classic country, but this pop/rock/country is not my bag, baby) and that's basically all I could hear.
Someone passed me on their way to the break room and I asked them what was going on.
"Some guy insists on bringing his dog in the restaurant."
What a moron, I thought.
A couple minutes later Karl came back and said my parents were there and wanted to see me...."And tell them it's against the law to bring the dog in the restaurant...And that I like your dad's accent. It's real cool. Reminds me of a Norse god or something."
My dad wasn't born in the US, and he didn't grow up here either, so he has a bit of an accent. (The thing with the dog is just because, well, umm, parents. They have to do these sorts of things when you're growing up, or else you'd want to stay at home or something.) And growing up where people don't ask "What kind of name is that?" after he tells them his last name, I'm pretty confident he's pronouncing it right.

That's how one of the PhDs here fell out of favor with me.
He was actually in favor for a while.
He was the new guy on the block and when I was introduced to him I discovered that his bad suit and bow-tie was really a cover for a profanity machine.
The guy could throw out four letter words fast than an HVAC installation specialist. I was impressed, especially since the four letter words peppered (somewhat) non-boring conversation.
Then he asked my name. I told him. He asked me what kind of name it was. I refrained from saying "a last name," and instead told him the ethnic origin.
Then he told me I was pronouncing it wrong.
What? You don't know what kind of name it is, but you know I'm pronouncing it wrong? I told him that I was pronouncing it the right way.
Then your dad is pronouncing it wrong.
Karl wouldn't say anything of the sort. Karl would have told me it was a great name for a character in planet Zolgan. Then he would have lumbered and weazed off to the the back office to eat another burrito supreme and draw dragons on a napkin.
Where have you and your witty conversation gone Karl?

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2004

Things in the Dirt

I wrote my name in my carpet yesterday. Well, not really in my carpet, in the dust on the carpet. (I'm in the middle of remodeling, so this dust is not a sign of my slovenliness, but of my insisting on doing it myself.)
The ability to write my name in the dust with my foot made me decide to get rid of the old dust and make room for the new, after all the old dust wasn't really doing anything for me. Was it giving me winning lottery numbers? Was it drawing ladies over by the dozen? By the single? No. Of course not.
I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and gave my carpet a cleaning like it hadn't ever had one. When I angled to get that last spot and the thing exploded.
I'm not sure what happened mechanically or why the parts did what they did, all I know is there was a loud bang and then the top of the vacuum literaly flew off. The bag (full of dirt) ripped open spilling its contents on the floor producing a huge mushroom cloud of dust.
Luckily I had another vacuum (An industial, gagillion horse power shop vac I call Sweetie. That thing can suck vacuum like nobody's business.) and was able to clean things up pretty well.

The same can't be said about the outside of my house. When I left for work this morning the garbage pile across the street was larger than the day before. It spread farther out into the street, blocking off one lane of traffic, and grew a little bigger along the street: an old lawn mower, a coffee table, etc added to the pile.

On Wednesday when I came home from work I had to park next to the growing pile of trash. As I got out of my car some of the neighborhood boys were running around chasing each other, laughing and screaming, but they stopped when they saw me.
There were four of them, ages 11 to 14. One of them had something in his hand. He was the one chasing the rest around. "Hey Mr Brian. Look at this."
Where did you get that?
Over there.
Over there, in that pile?
Yeah. In that pile. Do you know what it is?
Umm. Yeah. I know what it is, but you're the one holding it. Do you know what it is?

One of the older boys answered. "Yeah. It's a vagina sticker."
A what?
A vagina sticker.
Ok. So you know what people do with it. Why are you chasing each other around with some stranger's used vibrator?
No, it's just the gel part, we threw away the hard part with the batteries.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)

My Neighbor Got in a Fight

I spent most of the weekend painting the new walls and ceiling in my bedroom. I couldn't find a yellow color I liked in the "oops" rack at the local home improvement superwarehouse, so I went with a orange-ish color I had in my basement already.
I try not to paint a room's walls one solid color, instead I paint designs on them and my design for the walls included a triangle/diamond pattern (like an argyle sock) in one part of the room. After I painted the two triangles of orange on my walls I stepped back and realized the color looked, well a lot more like pink than it did orange.
So I had two pink triangles at the top of my bedroom wall.
This won't really make a difference, as it seems no one else will ever see the bedroom, but I was a little concerned.
I went outside to see how the colors looked through the windows and was accosted by a group of my neighbrors drinking forties on the stoop. They asked me again to put their utilities in my name because the gas and elestric were shut off after they failed to pay their $1200 bill, and I again refused.
The one yelled out to me, "Mr Brian, where'd you go the other night? Why'd you leave me at the bar?"
I looked and noticed it was Derrick, the guy from two doors down. Last weekend I went with him and a female neighbor down to the corner lesbian (important later) bar for a beer while I waited for my friend to call and tell me where I should meet her for a night of whatever it was we were going to do.
When my friend did call I left (but not before gorging myself on the free vegetable spread), as did my female neighbor, but Derrick stayed behind. "I went to meet a friend. Why?"
"They tried to beat me up."
What?
Well, I was dancing with this girl and some other girl comes up to me and grabs me. Then she's like 'why you dancing with her? Why you touching her?' So's I tell her I can dance with whoever I want to and she gets all in my face like she wants to fight n' pushes me. And man I ain't about to be the laughing stock of the neighborhood because I got be up by a girl, so I push her back. You know, like get outta my face. She's real big like, and all in my face, so I pushed her and then she jumps up on the table and pulls out her badge. She's a cop. Bawldamore [Baltimore] city cop. And she pulls out her badge and says, 'I'm a cop. You can't touch me.'

Wait. She jumped up on the table. On top of the table?

Yeah. She jumped up on the table and pulled out her badge. Man I thought you were still there and I had back up, but then I didn't see you and she must have had a radio or something on her because then I heard sirens n' shit and I just ran, man. I ran down the ally and hopped my back fence and hid underneath my picnic table I got back there.

Something about the story sounds a little fishy, but I can't quite get my finger on it. He said they cleared the bar; he saw that from his front stoop less than a hundred yards from the bar (he must have gone there after waiting underneath his picnic table for a while). But why would they do that just because a guy pushed a drunk off duty cop away from him?
What I think is he did get his ass kicked.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2004

How I held Up Reagan

I was flying out of Reagan International Airport about a year ago. It was in pretty tight lock down because of its close proximity to the White House, the Capitol, Fox News, the Pentagon, the World Bank, The Pentagon Row Mall, the IMF, etc., so my friend and I figured it would be best to arrive early to be sure to get through security and still catch the plane.
The line wasn't as long as thought, and we got through rather quickly. We ate an overpriced meal and still had plenty of time to spare. So we bought some overpriced film. Still had time. I tried on every pair of overpriced sunglasses at the sunglasses stand. Still more time. So we hit the bar. I had a huge overpriced 32 oz beer and some overpriced whiskey and then came boarding time.
I had to pee. I was thinking about going straight back to the bathroom, but I just took my seat. After all, I could just go once we got to flying altitude.
Then the pilot came on, "Ladies and gentlemen, under federal law you are not allowed to leave your seat during taxiing or for the first half hour of flight."
I thought about dashing to the bathroom right then, but I mistakenly took this to mean we were about to take off.
I waited, but we didn't move. I had to pee worse, but I thought we were even closer to taking off, so I winced and shifted and held it in. Ten minutes or more passed.
Then the pilot came over the intercom again, "Ladies and gentlement, we appreciate your patience. Just to let you know we're waiting in line to take off. So the problem is ahead of us, and we'll be taking off as soon as they give us the green light."
He came on to tell us we'll have to wait. This is my chance!
I unbuckled and darted down the aisle. The flight attendants trying to stop me never had a chance. They yelled to me, "Sir, you have to be seated." but I kept going.
One blocked my way by the lavatory door. "Sir..."
"Look. I have to go. If I didn't have to do you think I'd be down here?"
She sighed and moved out of the way, then said, "Fine. But make it quick."
No sooner than I had opened my fly the pilot came over the intercom and announced, "They've given us a green light, but we need to have everyone seated in order to begin taxiing. Apparently there is one person that needs to take his seat."
As I hurried back to my seat all eyes were on me. I buckled in and the pilot annouced, "Now we can go."
I've never gotten so much attention for urinating, but I guess we all have our 15 minutes of fame.

Posted by calculatoronfire at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)