fistful of plooble

You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings

Kind of hard to find a tasteful image for this post.

So as you may have heard, Wal-Mart heir John Walton died yesterday when his ultralight aircraft crashed in Grand Teton National Park. I don't think I ever met the man, but I'm sure his friends and family miss him terribly, and if you're one of them you should probably stop reading.

I understand that the Associated Press needs to respond quickly when things like this happen and they may not have time to edit for much more than spelling and grammar — but still, don't you think they should have caught this:

Wal-Mart heir John T. Walton, who died in the crash of his experimental, ultralight aircraft, was remembered as a down-to-earth man...

Oh, dear.

The article goes on to quote a spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park:

She said Walton, "well-known and much-loved in this valley, died doing something that he loved to do."

I think I might have rephrased that, too, unless Walton was known for his love of plummeting.

Um, I'll Just Have a Sprite, Thanks

Happy New Goat

As we all know, the Internet is a strange and terrifying place. If you ever need to have that confirmed, go to Google, turn off the "SafeSearch" feature, and then do an image search for, well, anything. Pretty much the first hundred hits are going to be porn.

I first learned about SafeSearch when, for reasons too mundane to catalog, I had a legitimate business reason to search for a picture that could be used to illustrate the concept of hairiness. I did a Google image search for "hairy," then saw the SafeSearch button. I turned it off. I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of images the new search returned. Well, the same thing happened when I searched for that picture of a goat. Let's just say I'd heard that kind of stuff went on, but I didn't need to see it. My two new New Year's resolutions:

1. Never turn off SafeSearch.

2. Never leave the house again.

Anyhoo, the goat thing:

I went into our local Wholefoods-which-used-to-be-Wellspring on Wednesday to buy some cheese for a party. My friend Jon was working in the cheese section (which used to have a sign that read "What a friend we have in cheeses") and I asked him what he thought of a particular goat gouda that caught my eye. Jon said, "It's mild, but it still has that goaty tang." I said, "I'm going to buy it just because you said goaty tang."

Yeah, that's it. Welcome to Fistful of Plooble 2005, now featuring nothing but infrequent random slightly amusing things.

Happy New Year!

Still, you have to admit that's one handsome goat.

The Albert A. Gore, Jr. Internet Chutzpah Award

Last week sometime I was in the office of my co-workers Jen and Jerry. Jen has a houseplant (or I suppose, officeplant) on her windowsill that could use a little more room. She asked where she could get a plant stand. I offered my three standard responses:

a. Plant Stands 'R' Us
b. I'm Not Gonna Pay a Lot for This Plant Stand
c. www.plantstands.com

But it turns out there really is a plantstands.com. I suppose it shouldn't come as much of a surprise. It was the first place we thought to look for a plant stand, so it was probably a smart decision on the part of the owner. But that's not the reason I'm giving them the award. They're getting the award because of the link in the menu bar that says, "Make Us Your Homepage." Now that takes some chutzpah. Forget Yahoo, MSN and The New York Times. Now you can get the latest information on plant stands whenever you open your browser! At last!

And you know what? It's not even a very good place to buy a plant stand.

I Don't Doubt It for a Moment

Knights in White Pickups

Last Friday on my way to work, a large American station wagon of indeterminate make and vintage (it may actually have had fake wood panels on the side) attempted to change lanes, notwithstanding the presence of a significant impediment to this particular endeavor, i.e., me. I hit my brakes and my horn, and gave the driver the raised-palm, "What the hell were you thinking?" gesture, which I like to think is more witheringly opprobrious than the traditional bird flip. Then I pretty much stopped thinking about the whole thing, as it wasn’t exactly an uncommon commuting experience.

A few moments later, a white, full-sized American pickup truck passed me and pulled right up to the bumper of the station wagon, blowing his horn. The wagon changed lanes, and the pickup driver passed him, and then intentionally cut him off, missing the wagon’s front bumper by inches. I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. Then it occurred to me: The pickup truck driver was avenging me.

Perhaps he thought I was a damsel in distress, because at the time, Plooblewagon being in the shop, I was driving a rented Toyota Matrix, which anyone can see is not nearly as macho as a Mazda Protégé5. Not nearly as macho. Anyway, just for the record, I don’t want to be avenged. I considered the whole thing settled by my “you’re a moron” grimace. Road rage is bad enough without forming alliances, coalitions and mutual defense pacts.

Some friend of mine, possibly Bryon, once proposed a course of action for dealing with fellow motorists too stupid to share the public roadway. Everybody would be issued with a dart gun, with a dart marked “IDIOT.” (I think the idea was you get one dart a year, so you’d want to be selective in its use.) When you see somebody doing something incredibly stupid, you shoot a dart at his car, which would stick with an indelible adhesive. Once you accumulate five darts stuck to your car, you lose your license.

Are You a Morning Person, or a People Person?

One of the nicest things about having a job is not having to interview anymore. I chronicled my annoyances with the job search process pretty extensively while I was in it, and I’m very happy to be out of it. I’m also happy that my current employers didn’t ask me any of the stupid b.s. questions that I had heard from so many other HR types, including my all-time favorite, “What would you say is your biggest fault?”, which as I believe I pointed out at the time may have cost me two jobs in a month.

I’m thinking about all of this because Jean has a phone interview this afternoon and asked me to throw some questions at her last night. It took quite a while before I could think of any but the annoying ones, and then I started thinking of amusing variations. Well, amusing to me anyway. Not necessarily to someone who was trying to prepare for an interview.

Where do you see yourself in the next five minutes?

What would you say is your biggest arm?

Think back to a recent conflict with a colleague and describe how you resolved it — using only facial expressions.

Would you describe yourself as a person?

Do you consider yourself a self-starter? Would you be willing to help start others?

What did I mean by that last question?

We want to get to know you as a person, not just as an employee. What are you like in the sack?

What makes you so goddamn special?

Irreconcizzable Diffizzles

snoop dog

According to the Washington Post, Snoop Dogg is getting a divizzle. For those of you who modeled your romantic lives after the example set by Snoop (I’m going to be like a real journalist here and say “born Calvin Broadus”) and Shante, this must come as a shock. I wonder if Shante will get to keep the house profiled on MTV Cribs. I continue to watch that show in the vain hope of seeing something as rewarding as Snoop walking into the dining room and announcing, “This is where we get our eat on at.”

IQuizzle Tizzle:

Snoop Dogg and Shante have three children: Cordell, Corde and Cori. If they were to have another child, what would his or her name be?

a) Corill
b) Cordeli
c) Cardillo
d) Cov
e) Co

W61.49

yes, I know I've used this photo before

I went to Atlanta last week for a conference and stayed in the Westin Peachtree, which unfortunately is a lot less Blade-Runneresque than this photo would indicate. It did have the distinction, however, of being the only hotel I’ve ever stayed where my room actually looked like the room pictured on the web site (albeit less dramatically lit).

The entire outside wall of the room — wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling — is one big window, which allowed me a bird’s eye view of the CNN Center and Olympic Centennial Park or Centennial Olympic Park. Whatever. The park where the bomb went off. Since my room faced west, it also meant that every afternoon the sun bore in like an angry deity, causing the A/C to work frantically and continuously to keep the room from reaching sauna levels. It does seem a bit hubristic to build a giant glass sunlight-collecting structure in a state known for being, you know, really hot.

The hotel also has a bar on the 74th floor that revolves, which sounds like a good idea until you hop on. After one beer you think you’re about to hurl.

Forget all that, though. The hotel featured the smartest thing I’ve ever seen in a rented room: a shower curtain rod that bends outward. Perhaps there are people who enjoy the sensation of a plastic shower curtain blowing against their wet legs as they bathe, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know whether it was Mr. Westin or Mr. Peachtree who thought of this, but whoever it was deserves the Nobel Prize for Bathroom Fixtures.

I was in Atlanta for work, at a convention of people who do medical coding for a living. I didn’t know anything about coding before I started my new job, and I know precious little a whole lot more about it now, but suffice it to say that everything that goes on your chart (and your bill) at a doctor’s office or in a hospital — your medical history, your symptoms, your diagnosis, the treatment — has a code assigned to it. In addition to coming up with several potential band names (Coxsackie Virus, Glasgow Coma Scale) I learned about the next iteration of the international medical coding schema the U.S. is considering, which depending on who you believe is either right around the corner or never gonna happen.

“If I had to use one word to describe it,” said the presenter, “that word would be specificity.” I’ll say. Suppose you go to the doctor’s office having been “struck by a hit or thrown ball.” Of course they would want to put that down on your chart (W21.0). But is it really necessary to distinguish which type of ball – football (W21.01), soccer ball (W21.02), baseball (W21.03), golf ball (W21.04) or basketball (W21.05)?

There are also codes to describe observations made by the admitting nurse or physician. Do you know anyone who could be described with:

R46.0 – Very low level of personal hygiene

R46.1 – Bizarre personal appearance

R46.2 – Strange and inexplicable behavior

Hell, do you know anyone who can't? That pretty much covers your average Saturday night in Chapel Hill.

My favorite codes are ones that probably aren’t going to get used very often, but I promise you, they really do exist:

W61.4 – Contact with turkey (domestic) (wild)

W61.42 – Struck by turkey (domestic) (wild)

W61.43 – Pecked by turkey (domestic) (wild)

W61.49 – Other contact with turkey (domestic) (wild)

(The instructor read the last one and said, “I don’t even want to go there.”)

After the session I asked the instructor if you would still use W61.42 if someone struck someone else using a turkey as the weapon. Then we had one of those uncomfortable moments when you’ve just said something really odd assuming the other person would know you were kidding and in fact the other person thought you were serious and you don’t know if it would be better to interrupt and tell them you were kidding or just act like you were serious. Or at least I had one of those moments.

I'm Sorry. I Do Understand.

We’ve often heard that English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, and not just because “ghoti” can be pronounced “fish,” or because we say things like “Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes” when we mean “Let’s see if people think this is a good idea,” or “weapons of mass destruction” when we mean “fabricated excuse to use those bombs that have been lying around.”

English is a rich language, which is nice for poets, but can often be a hazard when clarity is desired. I got a phone call Saturday afternoon from what sounded like a very nice woman looking for the YMCA. I said, “You have the wrong number.” She said, “I’m sorry,” only I thought she was saying it in the interrogative, “I’m sorry?” way, instead of the “I apologize” way. So I said it again, more slowly and deliberately: “You have the wrong number.” Which I’m sure she took to mean, “How dare you disturb me.” When she said “I’m sorry” again, I realized she had in fact been apologizing, so I apologized, too. I think we were both on the same page and singing from the same hymnal when the rubber met the road, and that no bad blood had passed over the dam.

I studied Japanese when I lived in Tokyo, and people always ask me if it’s a hard language to learn. It’s a hard language to read, because you have to memorize something like 500 characters to even be able to read a newspaper, but it’s not as hard to speak, and mostly because Japanese seemed to my unscientific analysis to have less variation than English. For instance, if you’re explaining something to someone in English and the concept begins to dawn, your interlocutor might say, “Oh, I get it” or “That makes sense” or “Now I understand.” In Japanese, at least in my experience, 90 percent of the time the other person will say “naruhodo,” which means something like “it becomes clearer.” Much easier for the language student.

That doesn’t mean Japanese is without its pitfalls, of course. My ex-wife knew of one unlucky gaijin exchange student at a Japanese high school who was required to give a speech to the student body at the end of the term – in Japanese. He took the stage and came out with his opening line, which was supposed to be, “Because I am an exchange student I see much of the Japanese lifestyle.” Due to three very simple mistakes in that one sentence (he drew out one vowel sound too long, transposed a consonant sound and paused where he shouldn’t have) he instead said, “Because my crotch stinks, I meet many Japanese policemen.” Imagine how that would have gone over in your high school. He left the stage before his classmates had picked themselves up off the floor.

My Kind of News

Ever since I worked for the imaginatively-named Chapel Hill Newspaper (which made a bold lean forward several years ago and became The Chapel Hill News), I've had a soft spot for local papers. When I'm in a small town I occasionally pick up the paper and see how well their reporters fare at covering the Rotary Club meetings and high school athletic contests and giant tomato sightings which make up the core of community journalism.

If you really want to get the measure of a small town though, the best place to look is the police blotter. (When I worked for the CHN, I was surprised to find that the local perps liked to read of their own exploits, a circumstance which nearly got our police reporter into trouble when she mixed up the street names of two local bon vivants and reported that Heavy D had been caught performing crimes against nature in an alley with another man, when in fact it was Baby D. Heavy D was not pleased.)

Many thanks to Carla, a commentarian over at One Good Thing, for hipping me to The Arcata Eye. It's a newspaper in Humboldt County, California that has the best police blotter I've ever read. Here are a few:

1:41 a.m.
A man and his beige leisure suit were asked to leave a Plaza tavern.

2:34 a.m.
After yelling his way up and down the 600 block of Shirley Boulevard, a man was arrested on a charge of cocktail abundance.

5:25 p.m.
Several frequent flyers got into a hissy-spat over he-looked-at-me-funny-related issues on South H.

12:33 p.m.
A man and his dawg, a big yellow Lab, couldn’t be persuaded to leave the Intermodal Transient Facility so that regular folks could use it for, y’know, catching buses and stuff.

6:25 p.m.
A Valley West motel offered weary travelers all the amenities - cable TV, drinking glasses sanitized for your protection and a dark-hooded freak panhandling for spare change in the lobby.

2:33 p.m.
Everyone loves your dog, lady, but not loose downtown.

7:32 a.m.
A bicyclist wearing a denim jacket nipped into a G Street gas station, snatched a container of fuel injection cleaner and scrammed on his two-wheeled steed. Must getcha high or something.

12:49 a.m.
Cultural festivities on Stewart Avenue were highlighted by a crowbar fight in the street.

3:14 p.m.
Duck or goose hunters turned out to be even less discriminating house-shooters, wounding a home on Larry Street. They agreed to be more careful, but that was of little solace to area waterfowl.

1:02 a.m.
Another adventurer who, armed with naught but a passel of adult beverages, had successfully repulsed sobriety for the night and was determined to share news of his condition with others in the never-a-dull-moment 2200 block of Alliance Road, was defeated by an even sterner foe - the cops, who took him to an unforgiving place of hard right-angles.

I'll Load, But I Won't Unload

I obviously don’t know much about finding a job, but I do know this: when someone calls you on the phone and says in a rapid, practiced monotone that she saw your resume on Monster.com and wants to schedule an interview in a hotel room the next day and seems reluctant to answer any questions or provide additional information, this is probably not Destiny calling. But hey, maybe I should give it a try. Do you feel that you have adequate insurance coverage? Are you sure? Who would provide for your loved ones in the event of some tragic unforeseen circumstance, like, say, me shooting you and taking all your stuff? Let me tell you a little bit about our policy.

I used to search only the “Advertising/Marketing/Public Relations” category on the various job boards, but I’ve branched out. “Drilling” sounds like fun, but I’m sure you need experience, and putting up shelves probably isn't what they're looking for. So far I haven’t had to search in the “Loading/Unloading” category, but that day may not be far off. And, amazingly, the opportunities that show up under “Writer” usually aren’t very appealing.

So many of the listings are incredibly specific, and I guess that’s not surprising with so many applicants for every job. So I’m not going to bother to apply to the ad that reads “the world leader in clamp-together ducting seeks a Dust Collection Professional.” (Although anyone who has been to Plooble HQ knows that I’m a world leader in collecting dust.) And if I don’t know what a “thin client” is, I probably shouldn’t apply for the position of Thin Client Product Manager. Besides, most of my clients have been a little on the heavy side.

A lot of the ads try to make the job sound like a party with Outkast on a Gulfstream V headed for the Cannes Film Festival. (“Throw away your suit and tie and come to work in a rock ‘n’ roll atmosphere!”) I figure if anybody is trying to convince me I want the job, then I probably don’t want the job. Then there are the ones that seem to be written in an attempt to actively discourage applicants:

This position works with marketing groups to execute on interactive and direct marketing strategies that deliver on the utilization of interactive technology, customer insights and the application and utilization of customer information and behavior.

I’m sorry, what? Who do you want me to execute?

The best item I’ve seen in a job description was probably a placeholder from an earlier draft that never got corrected. Even so, I loved the idea that I would “work closely with Harriet.”

All Aboard the SS Miscellany

I’m feeling a bit random today, and luckily the random absurdity has been piling up. I saw the sign pictured above during a recent visit to UNC Hospitals. I thought it was a bit zen for a traditional western medicine establishment. (Actually, I first noticed “Remember 3C” and thought, “There must be a ‘Remember 2B,’” and drove around until I found it. My apologies to anyone who had recently had a major organ removed who might have been waiting on the sidewalk in a wheelchair.)

At the hospital, I also saw this, on a Mustang. I will make no further comment other than to direct your attention to the handcuffs hanging from the rearview mirror.

There’s a banner ad that keeps popping up on Yahoo aimed at people who suffer from acid reflux (or GERD, which will always sound like an East German weightlifter to me). It reads, “Bowl of pasta, or bowl of pain?” Bowl of Pain needs to be the name of a band right now. Get on it, people.

The Hardback Café used to put a chalkboard out front with the specials on it. One day it read, “Gazpacho – the cold soup of Spain,” a quote from the Pepper’s Pizza menu. Later in the day someone changed it to “the cold soup of pain,” and still later it read, “the cold soup of space.” I can never hear gazpacho mentioned without thinking of that and telling the story, often to people who have heard it four or five times.

Finally, randomly, I got an email from a friend the other day who is a highly-accomplished professional in his field. He was mortified to notice that he had let the Microsoft Word autocorrect feature get a bit away from him. In a proposal to a client, he meant to say he would “provide coaching and feedback to others.” What he actually proposed was that he would “provide coaching and feedback to otters.”

If that’s a real job, I want it.

Meatwad

One of the problems with exposing myself to reality TV is that I also expose myself to TV commericials, and I will buy anything anyone tells me to. As a result, I found myself on Wednesday driving about 20 minutes round trip to pick up a Hardee’s Low Carb Thickburger. “How did they make a fast-food hamburger with so few carbohydrates?” I asked myself. I got it home and found the secret: no bun - it’s wrapped in lettuce. It’s not bad, really. It’s kind of like a giant ground beef spring roll. But I don’t think I’ll be making any more 20 minute round trips to get one. (Mike and Chris have promised that at their next brunch, in consideration of any low-carb dieters, they’re going to make meat waffles. I can hardly wait.)

While finishing off the No Bun Weirdburger, I remembered another time I went considerably out of my way to eat something ultimately disappointing. When I lived in Tokyo, my aunt and uncle came to visit and we went to Kyoto. My aunt went out for a walk one morning and returned to the hotel unable to talk about anything but the cinnamon rolls she had smelled from a small bakery. She went on about it all day long, and made me promise that I would go with her the next day to negotiate the purchase of these items, since I had been in Japan for several months by that point, honing my smiling and pointing skills.

We set out the next morning at roughly the crack of dawn (she really was like a kid on Christmas day) and found the “bakery” in question, which looked more like a machine shop. But there was no denying the intense aroma of cinnamon baked goods. I found someone who worked there, who reacted the way many Japanese do when they encounter a foreigner, which is roughly the way they do when they encounter Godzilla. I finally managed to convince him that we weren’t there to step on cars, but wanted to buy what they were baking. The delight on my aunt’s face when I emerged holding a bag of goodies was almost spiritual. We each removed one item from the bag, and took a big bite of … something with the consistency of a building material. Perhaps a wood laminate, or polycarbonate. It was undeniably cinnamon, but to this day I’m not entirely certain it was food. Somewhere I have a picture of my aunt trying in vain to bite through hers, with a there-is-no-Santa look on her face.

Rude Oaf, the Red-Nosed Wino

okay, I might have arranged this just a little

You know how you’ll go for a month with nothing going on, and then three good bands all play on the same night? It’s the same thing with end-of-the-year parties. We need to spread them out a bit more, people. I’m going to have my holiday party in April.

Saturday night I went to Joe and Andrea's in Hillsborough. The crowd was roughly divided between librarians and musicians. Half the people I’ve met in the last year are librarians, so it did not surprise me that they were the ones getting jiggy while the rock ‘n’ rollers stood around quietly admiring Joe’s home studio.

My friend Kelly celebrated her birthday last night, and she got a pretty good turnout, considering it was a Monday in the middle of the recovery zone between Christmas and New Year’s. (Photos from Kelly’s birthday and Joe and Andrea’s party are in the holiday gallery.)

We met at the West End Wine Bar in Chapel Hill (voted by CitySearch the best spot in the Triangle to bring a date, and I can’t argue with that). I suppose I’m more used to sitting around a smoky bar drinking draft beer than I am to sitting on a velvet sofa discussing the connection between syrah and shiraz. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I like it, and I love it when the bar snack is a cheese platter rather than a bag of pretzels. (In addition to two blue cheeses and one ass cheese, the platter included a chunk of manchego. As Ryan cut a piece he proclaimed, “Manchego is everywhere these days,” and didn’t miss a beat when it slipped off the knife: “On Dave’s shoe, for instance.”)

And guess who else had her birthday yesterday?

The Loneliness of the Karaoke DJ

Gotta keep the crowd happy. Gotta get ‘em up on their feet. I am a professional entertainer. I am a professional entertainer. I am a professional entertainer. And all this equipment ain’t gonna pay for itself.

What the hell is wrong with these people? I have never seen a crowd that didn’t react to “Who Let the Dogs Out.” Is it time for “Born in the USA” yet? Too soon. Gotta save that one.

Damn, my hair is looking good. I am so glad I didn’t listen to that dude at Supercuts. This never goes out of style. And I’ll bet nobody ever tells Tom Selleck that his mustache is “too ‘70s.” Up yours, Tammy. I was tired of her anyway. Let her keep the damn truck, see if I care. Once the karaoke takes off, I’m gonna quit my job at Radio Shack and buy me a PT Cruiser, put some flames on the side. It’ll be a business expense, too.

What do these two clowns think they’re doing? “Our Lips Are Sealed” ain’t no damn Devo song. I hate it when people don’t respect the karaoke. I don’t want to get all “Karate Kid” here, but if you don’t respect the karaoke, the karaoke will not respect you.

Oh, yeah. “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” all right. I’ll bet you girls like to have some fun, don’t you? Oh, yeah. I don’t see no wedding rings, neither. Oh, yeah. These two will be perfect for singing backup for me on “Summer Lovin’.” Dang, I wish I had a video camera. That short one’s kinda heavy, but she sure can move.

Okay, here we go, people. Let a master show you how it’s done.

Look at ‘em. They can’t take their eyes off me. I know I shouldn’t do this, because lots of times guys don’t want to get up and sing after I’ve sung. Sometimes, after I do a Bob Seger number, people just stand there and stare. Sometimes it even kills the party. I’m a tough act to follow, I guess. But hell, I’m a professional entertainer.

Man, I hope there’s some meatballs left.

Peevish

I don’t think I need to say anything clever here to establish that lots of little things tick me off, do I? Good. Here’s one that really frosts my oatmeal, or whatever. People don’t pay attention. Several months ago, after my car had been hit-and-ran from, I was spending a lot of time on the phone with various insurance company functionaries, and I was forced to learn a new style of communication: make some premonitory noise to let them know you’re about to impart information, then impart the information, then repeat it. For instance, I called my agent’s office once and said to the person who answered the phone, “Hi, I have my car insurance with you guys and I’m in the middle of a claim. The adjuster asked me to fax her some documents and I don’t have a fax machine at home. She suggested I come to your office to do that and I wanted to know if now would be a good time.” From the response I got, you would have thought I had asked her to please make me a weasel sandwich with fries and deliver it to the White House.

I’m thinking about this now because I awoke this morning to a strange chemical smell in my house. I came downstairs to find my kitchen sink emitting a cloud of steam. I stood there thinking “Huh” and “Whuh?” and “Damn” for a while, then I remembered that there was utility work going on in my neighborhood. I went outside and sure enough, a crew from the Orange Water and Sewer Authority were crouched in my parking lot, ministering to what was clearly an Acme Strange-Smelling Steam Generator. Still, I figured I’d make sure. As I crossed the parking lot toward the Head Walkie-Talkie In Charge, I was expecting this to be a fairly simple conversation. Surely by this point HWTIC had figured out why an unshaven homeowner in slippers was walking purposefully toward him. He awaited me with what I fancied to be a look of understanding, and I was confident that we would soon have one of those “Ha ha, yes indeed, nothing to worry about” exchanges – one that might even end in a hearty holiday sentiment. I’m quite certain my matey face was already affixed when I said, “Are you guys doing anything that might cause funny-smelling steam to come out of my sink?” His response?

“What?”

What, what? What do you mean, what? You’re pumping steam into the ground that’s coming out in people’s houses, and you weren’t anticipating that question? What the hell did you think I was going to ask? “Those sure are some spiffy hard hats. Where did you get them? I think my mom would like one for Christmas.”

I repeated the question verbatim, and the second time it sunk in. Yes, he responded, we’re checking the sewer lines for leaks. Run your faucet and it will keep the steam down. Okay, fine, and thank you, and we’ll leave aside for the time being any question of why you didn’t see fit to warn people that you were about to do something that could easily be misinterpreted as, oh, I don’t know, deadly.

On pondering the lack of attention phenomenon, it occurs to me that the first thing you say is not important. It’s just a throat-clearing, an “ahem,” a way to attract attention. Maybe we could have some fun with it.

“Excuse me, would any of you like a back rub?”
"What?"
"Are you making steam come out of my sink?”

“I'm afraid. Will you hold me?”
“What?”
“I’d like to deposit this check.”

“The voices have started again, and they’re very angry.”
“What?”
“Roll of stamps, please.”

Zen and Powerlessness

Phil Marsupialtuxedo has a blog now, which is nice, since he had started to blogjack other people’s via their comments, and something was going to have to be done about it. In a previous entry he mentioned he would be writing his one-year reminiscences of the big ice storm that shut down the Triangle, most of North Carolina, and probably some places I don't care about. My first thought was, “Oh, great. Why would I want to read about that? I lived through it and it was a total pain in the neck.” But he did a pretty good job. His picturesque description of chopping ice with a Chinese cleaver to melt in a Japanese tub has actually made me nostalgic for the week I spent without power in a 40-degree house.

Maybe I focus too much on the negative here at Fistful of Plooble. Maybe I would be happier, and help make the world a better place, if I too could see the beauty to be found all around us, even in moments of adversity. With that in mind, here are my memories of the ice storm.

The soft grey light filtered in through the blinds as I awoke on Day Seven to find my house still enveloped in the tranquility of powerlessness. Clouds of steam swirled about my head as I yawned and stretched, recoiling as my hand touched the metal bedstead, lest it stick there. Hastings roused himself slowly, squinted his eyes, then dug his claws into my chest in terror when he realized I intended to get out of bed. Stuffing him back under the covers, I stood up, wearing everything I owned, and waddled into the bathroom, passing the shower, unused for a week. I drew a deep breath and filled my lungs with crisp, bracing air mixed with the warm, heady aroma of sweatpant and ass. How peaceful, I thought. How calm it is to be released from the tyranny of power, the yoke of electricity, and return to a more honest, natural state of … itching… constantly… all over. Later, opening a can of mackerel for breakfast and settling down to read a book by goddamn candlelight, I smiled at the simplicity…

Oh, never mind.

I Guess I’m Just a Perfectionist Workaholic Who Doesn’t Know the Meaning of the Word “Can’t”

maybe I should have worn the plain blouse

I was feeling normal enough today to go out for more unguents and elixirs of the cough-suppression variety, although I’m sure I looked pretty rough, judging by the number of people who let me have an aisle to myself in Harris Teeter. However it didn’t deter one older woman who practically stood in my shoes while I was comparing generic and branded Dayquil. I think that’s so rude, but one little shove and I’m the one everybody gets mad at.

For anyone in my condition, I have discovered the ultimate sinus clearer. We already know the psychosomatic as well as scientific benefits of chicken soup, but try adding a teaspoon of Texas Pete and a tablespoon of Inglehoffer’s Extra Hot Horseradish. It brought up stuff that had been there since the Carter administration. In fact, I just found a mood ring in my tissue.

Thanks. I'm here all week. Try the soup.

Due in part to the Cream of Drano, I felt pretty good for my phone interview this afternoon, but not so good afterward. Let me just say that I am sick and tired of being asked, “What are you worst at?” Does anyone answer that question honestly, or does everyone just say, “I guess I’m too much of a perfectionist,” or “I’m a workaholic”? I’ve answered that question by saying that I like to brainstorm and do the creative aspects of a project, but I used to bog down in the details and have learned many ways to overcome that. It’s an honest answer that I suspect has cost me two jobs in the last month. Maybe I should just be totally honest.

Q: What attracted you to our company?

A: You’re hiring.

Q: Where do you see yourself in five years?

A: Five years? How the hell should I know? I could be onstage at the Oscars or running through the streets with a rifle trying to find food.

Q: What are you best at?

A: Blogging on company time and creating humorous PowerPoint presentations that lampoon corporate executives.

Q: What are you worst at?

A: Masking my contempt.

Ol' Buttermilk Pie

experts predict busy Thanksgiving for the finger thing

I’m aware that readers of this blog may see me as a prick bastard incisive social commentator. Looking back over my recent posts, I’ve called people dorks, dipshits and morons. If you’ve come to the conclusion that I am cold and cynical, I offer this.

There. Now I feel I can insult people with impunity for another six months at least.

I was privileged to spend Thanksgiving with the Prices, who along with having a highly admirable family tradition involving buttermilk pie (and yes Dad, we sang that to the tune of the Hoagie Carmichael song), are one of the most pleasant groups of conversationalists you could hope to meet. In addition to a whole lot of just darned smart and funny people, our group of turkey worriers included an esteemed author and an eminent historian. So what did we discuss ‘round the table?

Michael Jackson.

Consensus: whether or not he’s guilty, he probably should have stopped inviting kids for sleepovers a long time ago.

And as far as the finger thing goes:

I’m declaring it a full-fledged meme.

I May Be A Jerk, But I'm A Clean Jerk

is this too much to ask for?

I’m in danger of straying deeper than ever into bad stand-up territory here, but what is it with women and soap? First of all, don’t get me wrong; I love being in women’s bathrooms, whether it’s at a party, or at a friend’s house for dinner, or just dashing in to hide a web cam. Many of my male friends, it has to be said, are musicians, so it’s always a treat to be in a bathroom where I don’t want to wash my face again immediately after drying it on the sole all-purpose towel, and the shower curtain doesn’t try to hold a conversation.

But ladies, where’s the soap? No, the soap. I can’t tell you how often I’ve nearly washed with a candle or a seashell, or how much time I’ve spent with hands in the air like a surgeon, trying to determine which blue glass bottle might contain something vaguely soap-like. I don’t want to tone. I don’t want to exfoliate. I just want to wash my hands after I micturate. And don’t you want me to, too? (When I stayed with Adda, I found this in the bathroom, and I still have no idea what it is. If it had been in the fridge, I probably would have eaten it.) If I do find a bottle that looks like it could have soapish characteristics, it often turns out to be lavender comfrey ylang ylang astringent pore lotion with extract of Tibetan monk. Not only do I not want to waste your expensive product, but I don’t want to come out smelling like Richard Gere’s linen cupboard.

And if there is soap in bar form, it is often made from something unimaginably bizarre, or it looks like a gummi bear, or it has some cute shape that would be ruined after one use, or it looks like it cost eighty bucks a bar and carving it was the life’s work of elderly French nuns. Am I really supposed to wash my hands on the soap model of Notre Dame cathedral, lather until the flying buttresses are gone, then toss it back all wet into the decorative basket?

Maybe I should just take a cue from Ryan, soap-wise. His theory is that all bottled items for use in a bathroom are basically the same, and I can’t argue authoritatively against that. Hand soap, face soap, body wash, shampoo, conditioner – interchangeable according to him. Please keep that in mind if you catch me washing my hands with your toothpaste.

We Are Now Ready to Begin Commencing the Pre-Boarding Procedure

there is something oddly compelling about this picture

There’s a TV show called “Airport” on the Discovery Wings Channel (a.k.a. the World War II Airplane Channel - not to be confused with the plain ol' Discovery Channel, the Discovery Times Channel, the Discovery Mountain-Biking-and-Faux-Finishing Channel, the Discovery Animals-Doing-It Channel or the Hitler Channel). The show follows people through the course of a day at Heathrow (abbreviation LHR – I like to know these things. In fact, you can look them all up and construct your ideal itinerary; I’d like to fly from MMM to OOH by way of HUH.)

What in the hell was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, the show. I love airports and I love traveling, but even so I’m not sure why I like watching it. Obviously they aren’t going to follow someone around who is having a pleasant and uneventful experience. It’s always things like the bridesmaid who has forgotten her passport and is begging the duty manager for Sri Lankan Air to hold the plane another ten minutes while she waits for someone to bring it (he did) or a group of Ethiopian athletes who don’t speak English and the airport information officer who has to try to make them understand they are a day early and in the wrong terminal (he didn’t). Any given episode perfectly recreates the tension you’ve felt during your worst airport experience, and then gives you new stuff to worry about, like the fact that people apparently are shipping big bags full of baby crocodiles all over the world.

The show demonstrates that while English is the lingua franca of air travel, it isn’t American English or British English - it’s Airport English. Soon everyone in the world will be speaking in cadences simultaneously sing-songy and robotic and using impossibly overblown and obfuscatory phrases. (The title of this post is an announcement I heard at some small airport in the US. What does it really mean other than "testing"?) There will be a term to describe the moment when an airline official stops smiling and being conciliatory and becomes matter-of-fact and unapologetic. (On practically every show you get to watch the Cyprus Airways duty manager go through this transition 20 times as she explains to passengers that their flight is overbooked and they have the choice of going the hell home or accepting these peanuts and a Tom Clancy novel found in a seatback pocket and maybe there’s some room available in the hold.)

In the US, the style seems to remain faux-friendly longer. The last time I flew, I forgot to take my little pocket knife off my keyring. Obviously this raised some concerns among the security staff, and I was taken aside by an officer who explained very thoroughly and even cheerfully that I could not bring my knife onto the plane. Honestly, if he had just said, “What in the hell were you thinking, you moron?” I would have been fine with that.

In other countries, airline employees seem to reach the moron-naming stage more quickly. On last night’s episode, the camera followed the activities surrounding, coincidentally, an Icelandair flight from LHR to KEF. (Hey, I gave you a link. Look it up.) Four of the dorkiest young men you could possibly imagine were checking in and discussing how they had chosen their destination. The alpha dork says, “Iceland's got quite a good reputation for women.” His friend, the second-biggest dork on the planet, grins broadly under his bowl haircut and says, “Definitely.” There's a brief pause while all four dorks dork dorkily into the camera, radiating their fervent hope that they will have better luck with the ladies of Reykjavík than they have traditionally enjoyed in Staines or Barking or whatever suburban dorkhole they usually dork around in. (Possibly Dorking.) Then you hear the ticket agent say, “I don't fancy your chances.”

I Never Thought These Stories Were True, Until This Happened to Me

there comes a point in the evening when Carmen Miranda has a mustache

Halloween, Shmalloween.

That might be a little harsh, but Halloween in Chapel Hill can be a real pain in the ass. The town is invaded by thousands of dipshits in the lamest excuse for costumes, turning Franklin Street into a sea of, well, dipshits in lame costumes. I suppose my antipathy for this particular holiday stems from my days as a newspaper photographer, when I was forced to wade in neck deep and try to get a decent picture for the front page. (Whenever anything happened downtown, I had to be there. If it was a protest march, it meant I would basically be running backwards from Chapel Hill to Carrboro.) My search for one good photo became four hours of "hey, nice photographer costume," interspersed with entreaties from drunken sorority girls in football jerseys to take their picture and mail it to them.

Okay, yeah, sure, it's fun, but it doesn't exactly bring out the best in the student population. On my way home tonight, in and around dodging costumed or shirtless inebriates lurching into the street, I saw a kid in a pink rabbit suit run out in front of a police car, apparently to alert the officer to the presence of an overturned shopping cart on the sidewalk. Thanks, Crimestopper Bunny! And it's 3:30 a.m. and I can still hear the occasional "woohoo!" through my open window, not to mention revving engines and squealing tires. (Ah, that's probably just Primo.) Oh, hey! I just heard an explosion! Terrific.

I suppose all this is making me sound even more curmudgeonly than usual, but I did have a good time tonight. I made the right decision, and spent the evening in Durham at a Halloween/birthday party for Mae West. I really do have a lot of very clever friends. Check out the costumes in the Halloween photo gallery, located over there. See? There. No, there.

I managed to sneak back into town without running down anybody in a cat suit, and dropped off the Tiki God and Goddess in Carrboro. On the way to my house I stopped at a light and noticed two women on the sidewalk, dressed as a naughty nurse and a naughty schoolgirl. (Okay, maybe Halloween isn't so bad.) When I looked up again, they were walking toward my car with beseeching looks on their faces. I rolled down my window, with an exchange from "Detroit Rock City" running through my mind. ("This is how horror movies start." "Yeah, but this is also how porno movies start!") But since this is my public blog and not my private fantasy journal, they turned out to be two students from Charlotte who had gotten separated from their friends, and all they wanted was a ride to the house where they were staying.

Or was it?

"Gosh, it's such a nice night," the nubile nurse said in a husky voice, "and this uniform is awfully warm..."

My Other Car Cancels Windsurfing, Too

It should be no secret by now if you’ve looked at the archives that I love absurdity, especially found absurdity. The subtitle of this blog comes from the side of a waxed-paper takeout beer container we handed out in the pub where I worked in London, back when I was young enough for that to be fun. When I left England, I cut the slogan out and brought it back with me. It’s been taped to my computer monitor for as long as I’ve had one. “Keep upright, avoid shaking” has always seemed like an admirable goal toward which to strive. Some days it seems more ambitious than others.

Anyway, absurdity-wise, today was a good day.

This afternoon I was behind a pickup truck with a sticker that said, “Windsurfing Has Been Cancelled.” Hmm. Enigmatic. I like. I have no idea what that might mean in a, you know, tailgate context. I love it when a bumper sticker puzzles me. My friend Bryon wanted to make one that said, “I’m Thinking About Robots.” If anyone had asked him to explain what the hell that was supposed to mean, their guess would have been as good as his, which is what made it so pleasingly bizarre. I much prefer that to seeing a car with the driver’s every opinion chronicled on the back. (Hey, if you want to impose your thoughts on a disinterested world, get a blog.) And dammit, I still take “Kill Your Television” personally. You can mess with me. You can mess with my friends. But don’t mess with my TV.

Speaking of TV, Speed Channel has a show at 8:00 featuring “midgets on the asphalt at Indianapolis Raceway Park.” I love the Time Warner on-screen guide. In addition to having ridiculous movie synopses, they sometimes truncate the show title to fit the space. One night I had the choice of watching “Mario Eats It” or “Solid Gold Jew.”

Huh. Something on or around my desk just made a little beeping noise I’ve never heard before. So far the candidates are a switched-off mobile phone, a tape measure and my new laptop. It’s probably the laptop. It loves to confuse me. The motto for the 21st century should be, “Where’s that noise coming from?”

After seeing the windsurfer-hating truck, I came home to find an email from Deborah, who signs her name "Joan Cambel" (the Cambels are one of the lesser known Scottish clans, a sept of the McCantspells). The subject line reads, “I suppose today he fatefully has thorny snags!” Gee, Deborah-Joan, I’m not sure who you mean. The only person I know with fatefully thorny snags is Mike Backon. Oh, wait! Look at the text!

Hello Dbt! I guess you know Mike Backon? I'm sure he alas has solid hitchs! Test this homepage to help him!

Well, if Mike Backon needs my help, I’m there for him. And yes, alas, he does have solid hitchs. In fact, we used to call him Hitch back in school. Not to his face, of course.

Oh, dear. I knew things were tough with Mike, what with the thorny snags and the hitch situation and all, but this is worse than I thought. Oh, Mike, Mike, Mike. Not a porn site, Mike. Couldn’t you have done something decent and honorable, something that would live up to your potential? What about refilling inkjet cartridges, Mike? You always loved doing that!

Man, this has really shaken me up. I hope I don’t run into Mr. and Mrs. Backon tomorrow at the Parents and Friends of People Living with Solid Hitchs picnic. I wonder if they know. Deborah-Joan, if you’re reading this, give me a call. We need to talk.

Company Directory

"Hello, Heidi? You don't know me, but..."

Resume Speak

"Thank you for your recent application. We have notified the proper authorities."