IT'S NOT MEAN IF IT'S TRUE

Tropical Fun

2011-10-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer of Lameness Bit

I'm sending this to a couple of new people, and someone told me the characters were getting to be too inside, so I made a cast of characters who appear here the most. It's kind of long and confusing, so I hope it helps instead of hinders. Hey I know! I need a cast of characters editor. As far as I can tell my VP has time on his hands.

Also I sent this to January for editing, she said it doesn't flow very well and I should fix it. See that's the kind of things she says that are mean. Now I'm all flustered and self conscious. However I think I have solved this in a genius fashion by deciding that there has to be a best and worst post, and this will be the worst. I recommend reading some old ones, they are pretty good.

Rambling Non Cohesive Part

This post is coming from Costa Rica, which is a different place than Seattle. All the ways different.

For one thing, you will notice in Seattle, and all of the United States really, people get their asses sued off, for all kinds of stupid things, by the people that believe Leave It To Beaver was a real thing and nothing in life is ever their fault and they should certainly never have a negative experience. This brings to mind a real lawsuit, someone is suing the state of Washington because their family member was pushed off a mountain by a mountain goat. Seriously. Somehow the State should have had control over the wild animals. Petting zoo's are acceptable, wild animals? No.

What made me think of this is, the other day we were stopped on a Seattle street at a red light next to a utility crew. One of the guys was staring down a man hole and he yelled "Oh SHIT". I still want to know what was going on, did he drop his wedding ring? Did he accidentally turn off the power to all of Seattle? We don't know. I wanted to just sit there til we found out, but the light turned green (so never mind about the power, that wasn't it) and the Comma Editor is just a bitch about blocking traffic and stuff. People can go around. Anyway, I said that I was going to report the guy, because we are in PC Seattle. I really wouldn't though, I have said a bad word myself when provoked enough. Also, make sure you keep reading, January made up a really good new word.

So then we started talking about the PC-ness of Seattle and somehow the conversation came around to the PC-ness as it concerns bikini baristas. When coffee stands started having girls in bikinis making coffee, it was a big scandal, a lot of people were horrified that their little kids were going to see a girl in a bikini as they rode by in their Volvo station wagon, and become traumatized. I don't know what they do about the magazine covers at the grocery store, but that's another issue. The point is, there is a new bikini barista stand in Seattle on Michigan and Fourth. I have actively been trying to get a look at one of the girls for weeks and you just can't see them from the street. You have to go buy a $5.00 latte, so shut up soccer mom and find a real thing to worry about. Like feeding your traumatized kid "food" from McDonald's.

In Costa Rica people won't look at you funny if you don't have any clothes on, that's all I'm saying.

Cost Rica Rambling Non Cohesive Part

The first day we got here The Comma Editor went into a closet and a bat flew out. I always thought bats were pretty good at finding their way out of places with their famous sonar and all, but it just flew around the house for about 15 minutes. In the bats defense, it was his middle of the night and he was startled awake. There is another one in the downstairs bedroom, but only sometimes, I find that nerve wracking.

Oh, and awesome news, I have a machete. It's very very sharp. Oscar, who takes care of the house sharpened it. He also insisted I get the leather sheath, which is all hand tooled, I'll bring it home and show it to you, you're going to be really jealous. January asked me if the sheath is made out of a dead cow, and I have to admit it is. Also it's pretty useless without a belt. Still one of my best things though.

We have some communication issues with Oscar from time to time. He was putting some new corrugated panels on the roof, clear ones to let in light in the outside bathroom because the bitch from hell renter made him replace the old ones, at our expense because the avocados were falling on them, and also the last renter racked up a $370 electric bill, I don't even know how that is possible. It's all complicated. Anyway Oscar kept saying he was replacing the zinc, and I could not figure out what the hell he was talking about, the metal ones are zinc. Anyway I finally figured out he just calls all the roofing stuff zinc, even the fiberglass and plastic ones. Sometimes we just stand there and stare at each other.

January's New Word Bit

Once again I will tell you about a really good podcast called Too Beautiful To Live, or TBTL. They have explained how to use the phrase "Tired and Emotional" What that is, is being drunk in England. The press uses it instead of "drunk" so they don't get their English asses sued off. The British clearly have way too many lawyers with not enough to do also. Good accents though.

Anyway back to the story, we were talking to January (who was slightly to pretty, tired and emotional) on Skype. I mentioned the water was really clear that day and that The Comma Editor had seen a crab, January said "You have to be careful, those motherfuckels will bite." I was laughing so hard I couldn't tell The Comma Editor what she had said. Fortunately I knew I wouldn't be able to remember it and I couldn't find a pen, so I wrote it on the bathroom mirror with an eyeliner pencil, it's still there too. (which at this point is getting embarrassing) I will use it in a sentence for you; The other day I was going into a coffee shop, well obviously, I was in Seattle, I pulled the door open and due to the flip flop situation whacked the crap out of my big toe, it hurt like a motherfuckel.

Educational Costa Rica Random Shit Bit

For one thing I don't know why I can never remember how Goddammit hot it is here.

There is a guy here named Liam who has a bar on the beach with cable and he gets NFL games, so Sundays you can watch foot ball and drink beer then turn your head and look at the tropical paradise of the water, and boats and guys with no clothes on, so this place is pretty great.

All of you folks who work in an office and have an IT guy who fixes your computer when it breaks down, if you feel like messing with him, say this: "Oscar was cutting some vines from the power lines, and his machete was too sharp and he cut the internet line, and then he put it back together with tape, and it's working really slow". That happened here.

This is a picture of some eggs we bought at the Saturday Market in Puerto Viejo, there are about 12 stalls, some chocolate, some vegetables and fruit, a couple of people with jewelry, there's a guy with what appears to be cheese, I usually only buy fruit and vegetables from one vendor because they have become used to me not speaking a word of Spanish. I really do speak a word of Spanish, but they don't sell beer so it doesn't come up. The egg lady doesn't speak English, and they just have a bunch of random eggs. She was trying to figure out how many I wanted. Let me tell you, next week I am going to know how to say twelve. Finally somehow we agreed on a number, so she put them in an egg holder cardboard thing and put another one on top, then she tied it up with twine and cut the excess egg carton off with a butcher knife. Whole Foods take a note, that's customer service.

All the ways different here.

2011-08-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

The I Told You So Bit

Remember the Twilight Zone episode where the kid had a whole town hostage because he could banish people "to the corn"? He could read minds, and if people thought anything about him he didn't like he would send them to the corn, (when I saw the episode and it all made sense, it occurs to me now that sending people to the corn is a little odd. Corn? There actually was a corn field, so he was a farm kid I guess) never to be heard from again. So the whole town spend their waking hours thinking inane thoughts such as; "I wonder if the geraniums need water?" and "Do we have any milk?" and "Here I am making a sandwich". The reason I ask is because the Torchlight Parade was last night in Seattle. (International Readers, it's just a parade at night). Drew Carey was the grand marshal. Have you seen him? He lost about 80 pounds, it's weird.

I remind you that I have made it clear that I think most social media is just stupid. Faceplant (drunk Facebook) is, although now that Microsoft bought Skype and we can now watch each other eat a sandwich it is much improved. Anyway, God this is taking forever, the reason I bring this up is, last night on TV during the parade they were displaying tweets on a crawl at the bottom of the screen.

An example;" Drew Carey is soooo funny!", "Wish I could be there, thanks channel 5 for having the parade!"
"Hi granny! Hope we get to see you in the crowd!", "Great job channel 5, keep up the good work!" This shit went on for hours. Seriously not one thought that needed to even come out of some ones head, got written down, sent, (I'm very close to refusing to use the word tweet anymore) and PUT ON GODDAMN TV. Just to clarify. The Torchlight Parade has been a tradition in Seattle as part of Seafair (International readers, it doesn't matter, except if you're ever in Seattle in August the Blue Angels are freaking awesome) for about 300 years, and some TV station has risen to the occasion and put it on the air every single year. I think it may behoove someone down at Channel 5, to stand back and think about whether having that idiot crawl at the bottom, proving that a large part of their audience can't put a thought together was a good idea. Lord knows I'm a big fan of writing whatever comes into my head, but the day I start verbally standing on my tiptoes and waving to my friend across the restaurant and expecting you to read it, you may feel free to unsubscribe.

It's worse. The hydro races were on yesterday, same thing, the crawl at the bottom of the screen announcing to all that; "I'm looking forward to the Blue Angels!" "Great job on the hydro races Channel 4 or 7 or whatever." "Sure is sunny and warm out!" If this keeps up I am going to kill my TV. Apostrophe Editor, I will need to borrow a gun.

The New Hire Bit

Well I don't even know what's been up with me. One thing, apparently The Other One has 1. Thrown a fit about the whole rapture thing in the last web log, by the way, Worst Rapture Ever 2. Retracted his fit after January pointed out the redeeming part of it, and 3. Appointed himself a Vice President. So all's well that ends well on that web log. I hope we don't have another round of fits when he finds out the Vice Presidency is an unpaid position. Also someone pointed out in a comment that the rapture has been rescheduled for October, so this will be revisited, the VP will just have to suck it up now that he works here.

The Months of New Material Bit

Aren't you excited about Michelle Bachman? She is almost as entertaining as Sarah Palin, and as a bonus she looks a little odd (see Newsweek cover) but her voice is the voice of an angel after Palin. Her husband is such a bonus. The clip on YouTube where he explains that The Barbarians must be punished is pretty good. By the way, The Barbarians are gay people. So he's got his head on straight. I thought about voting for her until she used the phrase "We got pregnant". Deal breaker.

Why Can't I Be In Charge Part

The Barbarians that need to be punished of course are taggers, who are making Seattle look like a New York subway, and the people who throw cigarette butts all over the ground. I wish they would let me do the punishing, I'm a bleeding heart liberal and I want to beat the crap out of them. I wrote to the Mayor, Mayor Mc Schwinn, (International Readers, he's really into bicycles, you remember the Sharrows from an early blog right?) he actually wrote back a thoughtful letter, or they have a kick ass form letter program, not sure which. Anyway, they know all about the taggers, apparently there used to be a cop who knows all the taggers and their tags so he went after them, but he retired or something so it's all a big mess again. Not helpful Mc Schwinn.

The, I Need Your Address Part

The whole debt ceiling debacle is getting interesting. I love Obama like a brother, but I have to say, "Get in there and be the President". How hard can that be? By the time this gets posted we all may be homeless. In fact let's just all make a list of who has spare bedrooms in case I need to come live with you. I have two cats, but on the upside I can trade time in Costa Rica.

What the Hell Was I Thinking Part, Juicing Is A Crazy Amount Of Work Area (I'm Tired of The Words Bit And Part)

The comma editor and I have been doing a juice fast/cleansing, it's going to last for 10 days. It's good for making you appreciate, well, food. It's kind of easy though not to have to think about what to eat. Although I knew it was getting to me a little when I was doing laundry the other day and I got a whiff of something that smelled delicious and realized that it was the bag of dry cat food. The most important thing I have learned is when this is over I will be able to make the best rum drinks ever. All the fruit juice is delightful. You know what isn't? Juiced kale.

Cute

This reminds me of a cute story. Don't you love cute grand children stories? I don't care, sit down. Roselator, who is 8 was making an avatar of me for the Xbox, she had the spiky white hair and big hoop earrings and we talked about whether I would wear various outfits. Her 4 year old brother, yet to be named, I mean he has a name, he's 4 for crying out loud, but for purposes of the web log he doesn't yet. Anyway he showed up in the middle of the construction of the avatar. You know how little kids stutter when they get really excited? He came up and said "And, and, and, and, you're FAT!" And he held up his hands to show me just how fat. See, the cute part is he thought of one all by himself, he wanted to get in on the avatar making action and Roselator had already taken all the obvious (and socially acceptable) identifying characteristics. A piece of technology we don't need by the way, is the thing in the Xbox they don't tell you about that takes a video of you playing the game.

I Might Be Senile Part

I just re-read this and I'm damned if I can figure out how juiced kale reminded me of a cute story.

I Know Where You Live Area

During the writing of this the debt limit got solved sort of, now the US rating has been downgraded and the stock market is nuts, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to be moving in with you. Make sure you have coffee in the morning, and we are good.

The End

2011-05-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

I was just looking at the last one of these and I'm damned if I can figure out what the name of that post was supposed to mean. There is usually a logical tie in eventually, but not this time.

I'm just letting you know, May 21st, is supposed to be the end of the world. One wonders if one should council not paying the bills, because let's face it, that takes time and it's boring and is that how we want to spend our last hours? Or should we buy a car or motor home that we can't pay for, or should we just be responsible until the very end? It's a puzzle. There is always a chance that we will all wake up on the 22nd. That could be embarrassing if we take the end of the world date seriously and it doesn't happen. But we are going to look real dumb if the end of the world happens and we spent the last hours taking out the recycling, and flossing. I don't know where the end of the world prediction came from and I don't think I care that much. It will either happen or it won't. Anyway, this web log should be the last thing you read. Or the first thing next time.

There was a whole bunch of good stuff written here last time I looked. I don't know what happened to it. Maybe the end is near. Or maybe I accidentally deleted it. Wish I could remember what it was.

That One sent me this great picture, about how you shouldn't fall off a cliff because if you do your feet will be torn off and when they come to get you up from the bottom you won't be able to walk back up the hill. This would be especially annoying if you only fell a few feet and got stuck on a branch Beetle Bailey style and weren't hurt at all. So be kind of careful around cliffs OK?

I just remembered what I was mad about when I wrote the part that's missing. Have you seen the ad on TV (again I know I must watch too much TV, but you have to admit that's where they keep a lot of the funny stuff. Can't help going back to Trump Hair). Anyway, there are these new pop up garbage can things, they are made out of plastic of course, and you can throw your keg cups in them and then throw the whole thing away! How great is that?! They also have one that has a recycle logo on it that you can use to put your recycling in. They were a little vague about that, although to be fair they did mention that you could use it again.Or throw it away! Because if you throw it away you will need a new one won't you? And furthermore, don't you dare buy one of those paper towel holders for your bathroom. Just use towels like normal people. Do you want your bathroom to look like a gas station rest room? I didn't think so.

Perfect solutions to problems you never knew you had right? Well, the advertisers have your back.

Thank heavens none of you would use a keg cup anymore, and if you still have some old ones we don't throw them away, we wash them and bring them on to the next picnic. Although I still don't know why everybody doesn't just go to Goodwill and buy some glasses that are just for events. Much more pleasant to use, and glass doesn't get broken nearly as easily or often as the plastic folks would like us to believe.

Bin Laden is no longer with us, he's in heaven with the virgins. One wonders what the virgins did to deserve that. Well let's just not think about it after all. The good news is if you guys have anything to hide, even something pretty big, Pakistan might be a good place, they don't seem to be real observant.

Breaking news, the world isn't going to end, it's just the Rapture. That is when all the Christians get called to heaven, there is going to be a weird minute or two where some of the people you know suddenly are airborne, and just keep going up like a helium balloon or Mary Poppins until you can't see them anymore. The rest of us will still be here, so it's going to be pretty much the same, with all the heathens and Jews and Buddhists and Islamic folks and, well everybody except the True Christians are going to be left. From what I can gather there is going to be a 7 year period when the devil will be running the show, not all that different from... Oh never mind, that's just lazy. Then, Jesus is coming back and there is going to be a thousand year run when he is in charge of Earth. Sounds like a really long two day insurance sales conference, but I'm not in the true believer Christian group, and therefore do not get to make comments. So, it's going to make more parking spaces for the rest of us, and getting a reservation for a wedding at St. Patrick's Cathedral is going to be a lot easier. Let's have fun for the next two days guessing who is going to be pulled up and who isn't. I say Newt Gingrich will still be here. Probably Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I'm confused about the 7 years of hellish Earth times, and then the 1000 year Jesus run, seems if it's to punish us non Christians it should be the other way around. And what's up with the actual times? Who knows this? Anyway, wouldn't it be funny if I got raptured? (Spell check wants that to be ruptured. I love spell check) Anyway, I don't want to be. I want to stay here with most of you.

You Think I'm Kidding?

2011-05-02T14:09:00.000-07:00

New Subject, I Don't Want To Talk About It

Thank God the Football Kick is over. It didn't go that well. The thing is I really did practice a lot. Now, I have been doing weights and I thought that would help, but it didn't. What is especially annoying is The Comma Editor and The Other One both did it without any practice or anything. I kicked it a little ways. But not that far. I thought I could leave it alone, but I have bet January that I can do it next year. I want my money back. Seriously, that shit cost me a $50 bill.

Advertising

Proctor and Gamble or possibly Gambel have raised the price of disposable diapers. Gas prices, don't you know. OK people, I have explained about how we don't want to put some undocumented (because the chemical people would rather not talk about it) chemical stuff on our babies body parts, but I'm still saying, don't. Baby Diaper Service is your friend, they have diapers. They bring them to you and take them away, and they have rags that are former diapers, technically still diapers, that are the best for cleaning.

The other thing I was wondering about. There was a commercial on about this fabric softener stuff, and the big excitement was that the smell on your sheets lasts for 4 days. I got to thinking about it and wondered if they did that on purpose, or if the chemical guys came into work after a long weekend and said, "Wow this still smells, what the hell" Then they kicked it over to the advertising department to make it something good. I do not trust the chemical people, AT ALL.

Running for President

Donald, Donald, Donald.

I know he's rich, and whatever, but do we really want a man who can't get a grip on his own hair running the country? Yes, Trump is going to throw his hat into the ring, but not yet. Apparently the founding fathers were more visionary than we have even give them credit for. They saw The Apprentice coming and adjusted for it. The Donald can't declare as long as he and his coif are on TV firing people. He is doing good work though; His People are making sure Obama wasn't born here. He has detectives and everything.

You know those puzzles where you have to figure out what the next number in the series is? After Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, looking to get the nod, I'm really afraid Carrot Top is the next one in the sequence.

Late breaking news, Obama produced his birth certificate. It's forged though, that's why it took so long.

You know what we should do? Make people who want to run for president fill out a form.

Red Light Cameras / Tim Eyeman

Now all you International Readers are just going to have to get a drink and sit down. Well, lets all do that really.

I have always thought the red, yellow; green light system of stop and go on our roadways was pretty good. Simple, easy to follow, plenty of warning, uncomplicated.

It seems like a pretty simple way to keep us from running into each other with our cars and killing us, am I right? Well, some of our fellow countrymen feel it's a system that they prefer not to participate in, as though it's optional. This brings us to Red Light Cameras. What happens when arrogant a-holes decide the red light doesn't mean them, is, people get run into in intersections, killed, maimed, fenders bent, pedestrians mowed down. But the red light runners don't care because they are more important than you. The running of red lights has become so rampant that some cities have put up cameras at some intersections where this happens the most, and send people tickets in the mail.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

But here in Washington we have a head A-hole, whose name is Tim Eyeman. He has found a cozy niche, he makes a fine living by introducing initiatives to put on the ballot. I don't like this guy. During his first initiative campaign, which was to lower the car tab tax to $30, he swore up and down it was to bring justice to the car driving citizens of Washington and he was doing it out of the kindness of his heart and his love of America and wanted nothing more than the rich satisfaction of helping his fellow Washingtonians. Turns out somebody looked at the books and there was some money missing, which turned up in Eyeman's pocket. "Oh", he said "you mean, that $200,000? His response? "Taxes are bad right?"

And all of his lemming-like followers said "Yes Tim, taxes are bad. All taxes." So this guy has to do nothing but go from one tax to the other every election season and people follow him like puppies. (Puppies historically are not the brightest).

If you ask a group "Is ice cream good? Are vacations fun? Do you hate taxes? You might reasonably expect a Hell Yeah.

The next part of the equation is that right wing talk radio has somehow, and I say brilliantly, scrambled taxes with THE POLITICIANS (all of whom are evil). Literally I have heard arguments that would indicate that politicians raise taxes and somehow the money ends up in their paycheck. I don't think that really happens.

The thing is, we all live here.

I think we can all agree that we pay taxes on things we would rather not. Say for me, the war in Iraq. Some people would like to have poor kids starve. I don't really want to pay for the baseball and soccer tickets that some companies use as a cost of doing business deduction. If you want to take a client to a baseball game knock yourself out, pull out your personal credit card, don't use mine. But on the flip side, I like libraries, and street lights, and cops, especially the horseback ones, and pothole fillers, and ferries and schools, and immunizations for little kids and a lot of things that taxes pay for, and I would like it if some of it got paid for by...( I'm bringing it around now) fines from Red Light Camera runners. Because you get to pick whether or not you pay the tax! America, America!

Well according to Eyeman and his genius followers the reason red light cameras shouldn't be allowed is the technology. Seriously, they are using the half assed reason that you get caught by a camera and not by an actual cop on the beat. So, apparently feel free to rob a 7-11, or a bank ATM, because the camera isn't a human. SERIOUSLY? Tim, this is what you're bringing? And you followers, look! Something shiny! Do you like ice cream?! We use technology in every single aspect of every single day, and suddenly this is the place where it can't be trusted? What?

The city of Redmond, (International Readers, this is where we bought our first house when there were still mostly horses there, recently brought to you by Bill Gates and Microsoft), has decided to put red light cameras up, the first three months it was all warning tickets. They sent out 16,000. OK then, I have proposed this before, and I think it's still the best idea so far, howbout we just take all the lights down, and remove the false sense of security we derive from them. Since we are at the mercy of jerks who are too busy to use the system, lets make it every man for himself I say.You there, guy in a hurry in the BMW, my Toyota Echo has nothing to lose in a an intersection battle. You probably have way better insurance, and I'm fixing to find out. OW, my neck!

The part I find most incredible about this is that if you don't want to pay this tax don't run a Goddammit red light. The cities even put up signs that say "This intersection is controlled by a red light camera". Really? How about the only warning you are going to get is the yellow light and if you can't handle it, pay the Goddammit fine and shut up?

You don't want red light cameras? OK, how about this? Put cops at the major intersections and when you get a ticket for running a red light the fine is $5000, and you lose your license for 6 months. Now we are getting somewhere.

Whew, that took it out of me. I'm good though.

Sports Bit

The Canucks are still in the playoffs. Everybody, the Canucks play hockey. The Canadians love that shit. They got through the first round winning in overtime in game 7, so that was exciting. That One was dressed up in a ensemble, a jersey, blue and green face paint, beads, the whole thing. As you know, our team wins or loses depending on what we are wearing at the time, so now he is going to have to dress up in the outfit until they win the Stanley Cup. That's the prize when you are the best hockey team. It's gigantic.

Wedding Bit

One of the Princes got married, good luck I say.

Radio Bit

At the very beginning of this web log I explained how I developed a love of talk radio from working alone in the plant nursery for years. I was listening to a Seattle radio guy named Dori Monson the other day, he claims to be a Libertarian, but really he's pretty right wing, anti union, really hates Mexicans, although he claims it's only the illegal ones, because they are all drug dealers and gang members. He is a big carnivore too. I wonder how he would reconcile the illegal Mexican workers who are the backbone of the factory farming industry. Anyway, of course he hates Obama too. Obama can't even go to church to suit this guys fancy. The minister who was preaching at Obama's church on Easter brought up some black history, and there was big doin's over that. Apparently the Negros should be over it. So anyway, this guy said that they have a new pastor in his church and she was preaching about how we should be showing more compassion for illegal Mexicans. He said, "I don't want to hear this in church, I want to hear her preach the gospel!"

I can't make that any funnier.

You Asked For It

2011-03-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Well hi again. First of all I am going to have to speak sharply to The Other One who apparently had some sort of fit and unfollowed himself, or do I mean unfollowed me? He made a big fuss about the fact that I haven't been writing for awhile, so now that he has had his fit he has to re-follow me, which isn't the best use of is time at work. I am trying to keep America productive.

My computer has been broken, but it seems to be working now, so yay.

Rich Guy

I was just watching TV for a minute and the question comes up again, don't you think if you had hair growing out of your forehead and you were as rich as Donald Trump you would get some plastic surgery or some tweezers or something?

New Career?

We were at dinner the other night and I said something hilarious, as usual. So Out Of The Will's wife said "you should do stand up." And Out Of The Will said "yeah, you could be the white Moms Mabley." See, this is why he is frequently out of the will. For those of you unfamiliar with Moms Mabley, she was a stand up comedian in the '80's, more or less. She was black, her two other significant identifying characteristics were that she was 104 years old and she didn't have any teeth. She was funny though.

It occurs to me that OOTW's wife (my daughter in law for now known as DIL) needs a name here. All these made up names came from January's paranoia about, somebody going to coming after me I think. Not Paula Deen, I was worried about Dr. Laura for awhile but that threat seems to be past (I hope). Anyway, that's why we don't use real names. But! What does one name one's daughter in law?

If you watch 30 Rock, you probably have seen Jack Donaghy's mother in a couple of episodes. The first time she showed up, she came and was a really awful person and ruined everybody's Christmas. I had not seen that one, so when DIL said that I really reminded her of Jack Donaghy's mother, I didn't think anything about it. I was a little blindsided when I finally saw it. Maybe the DIL is the one who should do stand up.

I still like her though, so we have to be thoughtful. Nurse Rached is OK with her name, I was a little worried about it but everyone seems to agree that it fits. Exceptional Wonderfulness basically bought her name. You still can too, there are a lot of good ones left. It's like buying the naming rights to Qwest Field, but a lot more affordable. Anyway, suggestions for Daughter In Law are welcome.

The Educational Bit

I was listening to the radio tonight, and I have to give a grammar lesson. This guy, whoever he was, was going on and on about how email was supposed to be formatted. In the first place, WTF? There are no rules pertaining to the way email is supposed to to be formatted. Well there might be but I'm not interested.

In retrospect this was boring as hell. He (a good reporter would know the guys name) will have no truck with people who use bold or italics and don't use what he considers to be proper paragraphs. However he is fine with saying out loud "There is two spaces between paragraphs."

OK, there is correct English and incorrect English: "There are two spaces between paragraphs if you are buying my Bull Shit theory that there is such a thing as correct formatting of email" would be correct. One does not say "There is two spaces between paragraphs."

Anyway using the contraction "there's" instead of "there are" incorrectly is becoming mainstream and it's a very bad thing, because it's freaking lazy. "There is" and "there are" have two different meanings and it behooves you to get it straight because the incorrect use is becoming rampant and I don't like it. You know why? Because it makes you sound stupid. You're welcome.

Snow

This is the last thing about watching TV. It's just so fun when the temperature drops below 50 here, I can't help it. Blizzard Watch 2011 is over. Jim Foreman saved us again Seattle. International Readers, Jim Foreman is a reporter, sort of. At the first hint of impending weather they dress him up in his yellow slicker and send him out with a film crew. Then he stands on the side of the road somewhere and points down to show us where the snow will land if there ever is any, or where the flood water will be if it floods, or where the air will be going real fast if it gets windy. We are usually hideously disappointed, because all that weather almost never happens. But it could. Then he goes away until the possible weather happens again. It seems to be his only job down at the TV station, but that's all he needs to do, because he is great at it. Like that groundhog Punxutawney Phil. He's a specialist.

Speaking of watching TV, I saw a commercial last night for a furniture company that is having a pre-season sale on patio furniture. It's February. This is the kind of go getter attitude I'm trying to convey to the Canadians. (It was February, my computer was broken I told you)

MISC

God, Sarah Palin's daughter is writing an autobiography.

Chickens

I'm sure by now you have all done your reading list. To refresh; Eating Animals, The Omnivores Dilemma, In Defense of Food, Animal Vegetable Miracle, that last one actually has a cheerful ending, but you know that because you read it right? There are a couple others but I can't think of them. Wait, Fast Food Nation is good, and you don't want to miss "Slow Death By Rubber Duck". The last one especially if you have kids.

I'm just reminding you because there is going to be an initiative on the ballot next election to make it a law that egg laying chickens can open their wings and turn around in their cages before they get eaten or whatever happens to them. It's hard to believe but, right now they can't. They are crammed together so tightly they can't move, and we don't want that. So I will need all of you all to sign the initiative. I know we all want to go to bed at night to sleep the sleep of the just, knowing the chickens of Washington can do the Hokey Pokey.

The End

I thought I was done with this one, but I'm suddenly pissed off again. I was just reading something on-line. It was an article about how goddamn difficult it is to feed your kids because everybody is so so busy because we have to drive them to 5 lessons a week, and there are two of them, so everybody eats a bunch of crap from McDonald's in the car. And you should try to eat dinner together three times a year, Christmas, Thanksgiving and somebody's birthday or some such shit. Somebody wrote a book about this. She is so proud that she figured out that you should sit down and eat with your family. Your kids don't need to do all those things. They probably don't even want to. Your child's piano teacher isn't going to make it to the opening night of Billy's concert at Carnegie Hall, you know why? Your kid isn't that good at the piano.

Unless your kid is begging for piano lessons you might want to consider sitting down to dinner and listening to some piano music while you talk instead of driving to lessons three times a week. Spend that field hockey practice time hanging out in the kitchen making gd a sandwich for dinner, then sit down at the table and eat it. I don't know who started this idiotic notion that it's OK to be too busy to feed your own kids decent food, never sitting down and talking to them, but it's not OK. What it is is, nobody likes to cook, so they act like it's impossible. No it isn't. And don't eat tortured chicken either. OK, now I'm done.

And I missed you too

2011-01-20T13:47:00.000-08:00

It's true I have been remiss in writing, but the fans clamor, and it's time to get back in the saddle so to speak. As a half assed excuse I have been to Costa Rica and have a job, which as we know can come and go. I get fired a lot, so I'm working this one as long as possible. It seems to be going pretty well, but I think it's because it's a writing job so I like it.

Hey I had pneumonia too!

The other thing is I have been putting off writing because I'm trying to spare you all the inevitable. I didn't mean for it to happen, but you all have to become vegetarians, or hunters. The thing is, this is totally not my fault. You know who's fault it is? The nuns. When I was a small child I went to a Catholic school, and just a word of advice, don't send your small child to a Catholic school where nuns are the teachers. Anyway, what happened is the nuns don't let kids go out of their class unless they have completed the curriculum, and learning how to read was the curriculum. If I didn't know how to read I wouldn't have all this disturbing information about how the meat here is grown, and you wouldn't have to be a vegetarian or hunter. Weird huh? And I probably should add that these were the '60's nun type that had the full on habit down to the ground, with the giant wimple (that white part around the face that the long black veil hangs off of) it's a technical term. And they had a crucifix that weighed one pound hanging around the neck. They may have been the last of a breed, but they were not a pleasant people. It might be ok to send your kids to a Catholic school full of nuns now, but check it out before you sign any contracts.

So I have already told you to read Fast Food Nation, Animal Vegetable Miracle, The Omnivores Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. I don't think you have, but it would be to the benefit of all if you did. Now the kicker, Eating Animals.The unfortunate take away is that most of the meat in this country is factory farmed. To keep it on the light side, lets just say the animals are abused beyond belief, fed things they wouldn't eat in real life, (there are some interesting stories about where the food comes from, That One told me one from a place he used to work.You don't want to know). So the animals have to be fed antibiotics because the conditions are so horrific they are sick all the time. Which means when people get sick the antibiotics don't work. This is the happy overview.

Then we turn our attention to chemicals. I am reading a book called Slow Death by Rubber Duck, which is not as much fun as it sounds. Don't ask. Just do not trust your government, or any chemical company. You know that stuff they found in the water in the movie Erin Brokovich? Turns out it's in a lot of water when tests are done to look for it. Giant sigh. You need to get a reverse osmosis water filter, I'm sorry about this too, just don't shoot the messenger. Because you will go to jail, and we don't want that.

So one of the things that happened while I was out of commission is the Chilean miners got out, which was pretty wow awesome bomb. What I want to know though as the greatest nation on earth, according to somebody, how come they have the really cool chant? Chi Chi Chi Le Le Le!

The midterm election happened at the wrong time, if the Democrats were still in power we would have funded a much needed "Department of Chant"

You know the life coach thing I was telling you about? Well here is a free coach. As soon as I get my certificate this is going to cost you.

Three things you don't want to say out loud during a Seahawks game.

1. Jesus God! I could have kicked a 25 yard field goal.

2 Of course I can.

3.Yes I will bet you $50.

So now here we are. Seriously, didn't everybody say that? Anyway, now there is a big hassle. January said I could just give her the $50, but I'm not. I'm going to go through a big bunch of trouble and then miss the gd field goal then give her $50. That ladies and gentlemen is how I roll.

That One sent this, apparently he sees something I'm missing, I don't know why he sent this really.

(Later) This is way harder than it looks, but as I told High School Friend football practice is going pretty good, the ball is going the required 25 yards if you count rolling.

January and I took a yoga class, that was fun. It gets you all stretched out, it's very calming, and there have been some comments on how that would be a good thing for some of us. The best part we get to wear our jammies in public. The only other time that is OK is when you are are Hugh Hefner, and that gig appears to be taken for at least another 75 years.

I have been meaning to point out a couple of things.

1. There is no such thing as a stemless wine glass, a stemless wine glass is called a tumbler, which can easily segue into a jelly jar. A wine glass has a stem. That is why when you say "Jethro, hand me a wine glass", Jethro doesn't reply, "Would you like the wine glass with The Flintstones or the Jetsons"? Even Jethro can identify a wineglass. By it's stem.

2. You know the whole Faceplant thing, (which I will remind you, is Facebook when you sign up a little bit drunk, and again, for once it wasn't me). Well I'm just saying, I don't care that it's Friday "Yay!" or Sad Face, "It's Monday, I have to go to work". Or hey, "I just ate a sandwich". This whole situation got out of hand somehow, I don't think this was the plan. "Hey, it might snow!" I don't know why I'm even bringing it up, I have no idea what my password is, I haven't looked at my Faceplant page in months, but I bet people are still having a sandwich on the way to work on Monday, sad face.

Life Stories

2010-10-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

I know I have been letting you all down with my lazy ass not writing thing and I apologize. Particularly to those of you who are paid up, and you, Supreme Wonderfulness, are getting the nod this week. I know it's a little past a week. I'm sorry you all had to wait. You will notice that your name in the web log can be purchased, Supreme Wonderfulness is my niece, and she is paid up. A cautionary tale.

I have to explain how the will works in my family. And don't worry, I know it seems a lot of times like this isn't going anywhere, but this time it kind of is.

Whenever I used to get irritated by one of my children, January or the Apostrophe Editor I would declare that whichever one was out of favor was also out of the will, and because we are pretty much floating in money that was a serious threat. It finally occurred to me that they never got particularity twanged out, no matter which one was on the good foot, which was suspicious.

It finally dawned on me that they had already decided to just divide up whatever there is, no matter who is in the will. That'll take the wind out of your sails, disinheriting your children-wise.

You may have noticed that one of the followers is "Out of the Will", it's the Apostrophe Editor, but being Out of The Will is mostly ceremonial at this point, like being the Queen of England.

Having said all that, and I realize it was a long way around, That One is currently out of the will. Ha! Didn't see that one coming did you? If you saw the comment from last week, you will probably want to cut him out of your will too, just for good measure.

The Apostrophe Editor was saying that he enjoys the personal stories that are sprinkled in, possibly he wants me to shut up about meat and plastic for awhile. Fair enough, a break from the hard work (on my part, lets be clear) can be good. I got to thinking, and almost instantly an event came to mind. It happened when I was about 10 or 11, in California, allow me to set the scene.

We were in a car, 58 Chevy as I recall, with my mother and one of the Stepfathers (there's no point going into names, there were a series of stepfathers). Anyway we were hurtling down a California freeway, that particular stepfather never did the speed limit, and I don't mean he never got up to it, I mean he left it in the dust. So we hurtled everywhere we went. And no stinking lane markers. Straight down the middle. It has never ceased to amaze me, then or now that we were never all in a horrific accident, because believe me it was at the forefront of my mind most of that part of my childhood.

My mother and the stepfather were in the front seat with me in the back. We were going to some event, (I don't remember where we ended up) I know we were traveling in a caravan situation because there was another car, also full of upstanding citizens hurtling along in a nearby car.

After we had been hurtling for awhile, one of the women in the car alongside us realized she was out of cigarettes, and pre-cellphone, managed to mime her dire situation to the occupants of our car. Well, smokers unite.

Of course what they did was, driving about 80-90 miles an hour, coordinated the satellites, synchronized their watches, they brought the cars close enough together that my mother was able to hand off a pack of cigarettes to the woman in the other car, by reaching through the window.

This was pre seat belts of course, and of course there was a cooler of beer in the back seat with me, but that's ok, beer wasn't considered actual alcohol, more like Methadone, it got you to the place you were going where there was the real deal.

Anyway, what I'm pissed about now is, my family invented Jackass! I should be rolling in royalties, and this proves once again, it's all about the timing.

A GOOD THING

Back to the preachy.

Baby Diaper Service

This only works for people in Seattle or a largish metropolitan area. You can buy used cloth diapers for cleaning really cheap, this doesn't sound all that exciting, but I'm saying, if you have to clean a thing, this works way faster than anything else.

They are fabulous for all types of cleaning.

Cloth diapers are what we used before the Advertising People got parents to believe that some plastic and chemicals (chemicals that they refuse to disclose by the way) would be the best way to go pressed against your kids reproductive areas. The advertised advantage of disposable diapers is that they can be on the kid for hours and hours and hours and the chemicals will soak up the situation, so it's easy. The other advantage is then you throw them in a landfill!

The occasional parent still uses the diaper service, which is expense wise, exactly the same cost as plastic diapers and exactly the same amount of trouble, (which is to say one hell of a lot less trouble than owning the diapers and washing them in your own machine, can I get an amen?), so when the kid is done with diapers from the diaper service and they are getting a little raggedy (the diapers not the kids), the diaper people sell them. I had my own for years and years but they finally caved in so I was pretty excited to find the used ones for sale. Baby Diaper Service is the name, there was no screwing around when it came time to name that business. A tip, only get the newborn size for inside cleaning. The big ones are too big unless you are detailing cars. I think they were $8.00 a pound, which is a lot of diapers. Damn, I'm the most helpful human I know right now.

BIT OUT OF NOWHERE

I'm kind of thinking, you saw the mask at the top of the post right? I'm hiding out from Dr. Laura and Sarah Palin for awhile longer. I'm not too worried about Sarah, I still haven't seen any reason to alter my opinion of her intelligence. Dr. Laura does concern me though, she is a Horrible Bitch, and I think she is probably just going alphabetically to get to her enemies. Anyway it's clear that the next logical step would be for me to be a mask maker. You would just be amazed at how that thing of beauty came together. If any of you are headed to a costume Halloween or Mardi Gras, I will be the mask maker to the stars. The only thing is, the mask was a little tipsy (well who wasn't)? It was pretty much taped together with, well, tape. When you order yours I will try glue and see how that works out. The feather ones at the costume store were $30. I can make you one for $4. Just don't wave it around with too much vigor.

Also I have decided to become a Life Coach. That seems like a pretty good gig doesn't it? How hard can it be? Because just to start with it's an entirely made up thing. Not that most jobs aren't as far as that goes, like for example Astronaut. Please.

I'm not as bossy as Nurse Rached, but I have lot of opinions about how people could be doing better. (See entire blog), so I think I could help you. I'm not that good at Feng Shue yet, the first thing I'm going to do is find out how to spell it. It's going to be an offshoot of my fundamental service, life coach.

The bed faces North I know that, there should be some plants and some water, something about fire, or is that Girl Scouts? And rocks, for serenity I think. Or for self defense, I'll look into it. Even without the Feng Shui which is really just icing on the cake I assure you I can and will be a great Life Coach.

I'm pretty sure I can get you straightened out. The initial rates are going to be pretty good. You are going to want to be a charter member.

Speaking of the entire blog, I have been reading some past posts and I have to say it's holding up pretty well. It's a good idea to go back and re-read
random pieces once in awhile to keep you inspired. See, Life Coach!

Digging Myself a Deeper Hole

2010-09-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

You will notice the picture at the top of the web log is different. I'm hiding from the wrath of Dr. Laura, and now Sarah Palin. I'm probably a goner.

January doesn't think Dr. Laura can hunt down everyone who thinks she is a Horrible Bitch and have said so out loud, but I think she has "people".

I have had reason to think about the internet lately, and how it works.

I mean I know about the elves and lasers and monkeys, so technically I get it. What I'm wondering about right now is how I can have had the same email address for years, but only in the last month I'm getting mail from strangers with offers (and tempting offers too) about how they can help me fix my penis situation. How do they even know about my penis situation one wonders? It's nice that there is all this interest from folks who have never even seen my penis (I like to believe) it's just odd that the subject comes up after all this time. My penis situation hasn't changed that much in the last little while.

Another thing, who reads Oprah magazine? I realize that one could reply and rightly so, "Well, apparently you do Mary" and it's true. I just wonder what people do for a living that makes them consider even briefly, paying $1000 for a pair of shoes. Oprah must pay well, I know she doesn't get it personally; she would probably pay $250,000 for a pair of shoes and not notice it. But her staff keeps coming up with this stuff. When I pay $1000 for an object I had better be able to drive it to Oregon.

That reminds me, the Paula Deen sightings are down, and so what we need is for all of you to send this to more people. I love you all like brothers, but you seem to be a little slow. So here's what we are going to do. Right now send this to one person. Just one. If you like it, you must know one other person that would.

I have been thinking this over, and realized that if you hate it, or hate someone who would hate it, that works too. We will revisit this plan from time to time. I really don't know what else to do with you people.

I'm starting to feel the pain of PBS.

During the hippie/pioneer phase I am currently in I have been looking for ways to get around plastic, you knew that, the other thing is high fructose corn syrup. I heard a broadcast on NPR's Things You Should Know about it and why it's bad.

Turns out the high fructose corn syrup ads we all saw, about how it's all just sugar, were a teeny bit misleading. I'm not accusing a giant multinational corporation of lying, as much as I would enjoy the publicity of being sued by them. I'm afraid they would just go to the more expedient solution and get a Mafia member, or Mexican (cheaper labor, see previous post) to "rub me out".

The science of high fructose corn syrup is interesting. It renders useless, or kills, (whatever, do I look like CSI Miami?), the chemical in your stomach that tells you when you have eaten enough. Hence you eat a whole bag of cookies instead of one or two. And it's everywhere, in all kinds of things you would never guess, like bread, so I'm kind of looking out for it. American ketchup has high fructose corn syrup. In Costa Rica ketchup is made with sugar and it's quite delicious. I decided to make my own ketchup here, in the United States of America.

The other thing about the internets is, they let anybody play with them. Therefore recipes you find on line are frequently half assed. One person will post a recipe and one thousand other people will comment on it, saying how they made it and it was good, except they put different things in it.

I looked at a bunch of ketchup recipes and finally settled on one that was half assed from the get go, so I wouldn't be surprised. For example there was a list of spices, but no thoughts or ideas on how much of each might be good. Also, in 30 minutes it was not starting to get thick, that chemistry happened about 4 hours into it.

For my first attempt I'm pretty happy, after the first several hours of cooking I didn't think it was sweet enough, so I threw in more brown sugar, which made it a drop too sweet, (some sort of measuring would have been good but I think I was high on the internet). I couldn't taste the cayenne pepper so I ended up putting in a little too much but overall the ketchup is pretty damn good. Of course it's in a glass jar in the fridge. In all its deliciousness.

And to come full circle both January (I'm not mad anymore) and The Apostrophe Editor looked at me like I'm slow and told me that the giant multinational corporation makes ketchup with sugar now. Well nobody told me. I bet the corn people are pissed.

Here is the recipe, in all its half assedness. I'm not kidding about the 4 hour cooking time; don't start this if you have to leave the house.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5602934_make-tomato-ketchup.html

BITCHY BIT

I'm rather enjoying the Sarah Palin deal, with her daughter and potential son in law breaking up. She actually said she never liked him anyway. Really, I would have thought this might have been a really good time for a prepared statement from someone who has presidential aspirations. "They have decided to remain friends... co-parent... blah blah blah.

Let's do word association.

Peanut butter
Jelly

Cold
Hot

Foot
Hand

Sarah Palin
White Trash

That was just totally uncalled for.

However, I seriously do not want this woman, who by the way is "taking lessons" in American history to get up to speed, and I'm not even kidding, representing me. Just to start with, we don't need her going to Israel or Iran and saying she never liked them anyway.

And, who, as the Governor of Alaska saw something shiny and just wandered away from her job.

Her daughter is going to be on Dancing With The Stars.

Chelsea Clinton went to Stanford and Oxford and Columbia.

PICKING ON ME BIT

I don't mean to complain, but.

The Other One's wife is going to have to come into the story here. She too was born in January we already have one of those so I'm sorry to say, her name is going to be Nurse Rached. I know we all thought it was Ratchet, but I looked it up and it isn't.

(Nurse Rached is the mother of the Princess that said I was a witch. Turns out it wasn't the insult I took it to be, I was just a character, like a cowboy, or a troll, but still.)

Anyway, Nurse Rached and The Other One said there aren't enough commas in the web log, which I am down with, I put in hundreds, I don't know where they go.

Then January said it's because my sentences run on and on. You would be appalled to know how often my children talk about me like I'm not in the room. I was standing right there and they are all just chatting away like they can't see me. At least I know what the little weasels are up to.

INFORMATIONAL BIT

You know how to tell if there are too many lawyers in the world?

When there is a disclaimer in a TV ad that says "Pictures are for illustrational purposes only". Spell check doesn't think "illustratonal" is a word and I concur

(The Comma Editor and I had a fight about this, apparently if you spell it right there is such a word. It still doesn't sound right, but who am I to argue with someone who actually checks facts?)

This came to my attention because there is a local mattress store going out of business and there are pictures of furniture in a showroom, for illustrational purposes. I have racked my brain trying to figure out what else a picture could be for. It would seem that the law profession, if that's what they want to call themselves, knows something we don't. So carry on with the illustrational pictures for now.

But watch yourself.

FINANCIAL BIT

I'm pleased to report that some of you, and you know who you are, are paid up and can sleep the sleep of the just.

2010-08-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

January is the meanest girl ever. She said the blog I wrote and now have had to scrap was terrible and it was hard to read and in order to fix it I had to make it funny. It's not mean if it's true. That's not true.

Well, I'm keeping the part at the end about the Mexicans.

Big News, first of all. The Comma Editor thought I was kidding about the pay pal link so you can send me the $3 for the Paula Deen sightings. He will have to fix that.https://personal.paypal.com/cgi-bin/marketingweb?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=marketing_us/send_money&nav=0.2.0

You send money to mfkjones@msn.com.

The news here is I am now a professional writer. We were having drinks with High School Friend and she was pretty horrified that I had not been getting the $3's from you all, so she threw in some dough. $2, so Stephen King has nothing to fear. That was all she had in cash, at least that was her story. I'm pretty sure I saw a $20 bill peeking out. I might have been able to make change. I'm going to just let that go because legally I'm a professional, so thank you High School Friend.

The moral of the story is the rest of you should be ashamed of yourselves. Feel free by the way to just hand it to me when you see me. International readers obviously will have to use Pay Pal.

Did you even know Dr. Laura was still on the radio? I love talk radio, but not her. The reason I don't like her is because she is a Horrible Bitch. She is a truly awful person, mean and arrogant and possibly the worst hypocrite on Earth. So her whole n-word thing was entertaining. I hope you got to hear some of it so you know that she is a Horrible Bitch etc. The happy result is that she is going off the air. She is spinning it that she wants her First Amendment rights, (which she actually still has, which is why she was able to put her foot in her mouth in such a flame out manner). It turns out that her sponsors are kind of not into her right now. Good riddance I say. The amusing thing about it is she's so full of herself she really doesn't get that she is wrong. I should sic January on her.

Obama was in Pioneer Freaking Square Tuesday. I am all the way pissed. We were there ONE HOUR before he walked into the Grand Central Bakery. Why was there no memo? I was right there!

Then came the sonic booms, which by the way scared the crap out of us. It sounded to me like something blew up, not like a sonic boom. The great part of this is so many people called 911 that the system went down.

For the International Readers I will catch you up. Obama is the President of the United States. Pioneer Square is the oldest part of Seattle, cool old buildings and a square (hence the name) dappled with homeless people for some ambiance.

Lake Washington is a lake in the city where there are quite a few float planes. One of them belongs to a couple who had been on vacation at Lake Chelan which is in Eastern Washington. They flew back, and landed in Lake Washington, which on every other day is a landing you can walk or swim away from and therefore successful. However Tuesday because Obama was in Seattle, Lake Washington was restricted air space. Oops.

This is where it gets pretty cool. Fighter jets were scrambled from Portland Oregon, and they were here in 11 MINUTES!!! Wow awesome bomb. That's where the sonic booms came from. For someone who is a bleeding heart liberal and not that into wars, and also not much of a fan of technology, at least the technology that refuses to bend to my will, I love that. It probably cost a half million dollars, but I don't care.

I do think the the couple should have to pick up litter in the orange vests though.

Back to the 911 calls.

And now that I think about how mean January is, I TOLD you I have ADD, This is short for Attention Deficit Disorder. Which means I spend a lot of time trying to remember what I was just doing. Like I put part of a load of laundry in the dryer yesterday, but not all of it.

How do you think the 911 call would go?

"What is your emergency?"
"I heard a noise"
"Is anyone hurt?"
"No"
"Is your house on fire?'
"No"
"Did you crash your car?"
"No"
"It was a real loud noise"

I don't know where it would go from there, but I bet the 911 dispatchers were ready to leap through the phone and strangle people after a few hundred of those.

Bitchy Bit

This isn't really bitchy, just my opinion. I am up to here with the debate over the Mexican immigration issue.

I'm excited because I'm going to use bullet points. There is a good chance I'm not going to be able to figure out how to use the bullet points and the apostrophe editor is going to have to deal with it. But there will be bullet points.

We in America are here because someone related to us got up the guts to leave their city, country and family.

This was pre Faceplant, (which is what happens to Facebook when you sign up drunk, for once it wasn't me). Most of these people never saw their families again. They were lucky to get a letter once a year. Think on that for a minute.

The difference between our ancestors and the Mexicans now is all our ancestors had to do was figure out how to get here. If they didn't have a clear case of Smallpox or Cholera they were allowed to walk in the front door and start looking for shit work. That's the way it always works for immigrants here, except for the Irish. They couldn't even apply for the shit work in a lot of places. Still pissed about that.

Mexicans just come here for the benefits. You must go out of your house never to say that. Who is taking your plates away at the restaurant? Cleaning your hotel room? Mowing your lawn? Building houses? These people are looking for work. And see the above paragraph? They are doing the shit work. I am amazed at the lack of anger at the companies that are employing illegals. A few years ago Walmart got busted for having illegal Mexicans working as cleaning crews in their stores. They got around it, or tried to by saying they contracted the cleaning crews and had no idea the workers were illegal. Yeah, Walmart had no idea. No idea.

Speak English. A lot of the folks who are foaming at the mouth over the Mexicans don't have a real firm grip on the language themselves. Once I hear "I seen them" as far as I'm concerned, you are no longer a player in the discussion. ALL SECOND GENERATION AMERICANS SPEAK ENGLISH. It's absolutely common for the first generation to depend on their English speaking kids to conduct business. Millions of first generation immigrants from all over the world never learned English, all of their kids did.

Mexicans are criminals and gang members. Well, no shit. But you know what? There are criminals and bad guys all over the place. I could be wrong, but the last time I checked the Mafia (not Mexican) is still numero uno in the crime department, maybe they just have a better publicist.

The notion that Mexicans are coming here to have "Anchor Babies". Now there's a Christian phrase. But it does bring us back to the whole who deserves to be here. When I hear people screaming about the whole immigration thing I become hyper aware that I didn't do a damn thing to become a American citizen and neither did they. We literally were born here before the door was slammed shut and furthermore I'm not sure I would have the guts to go through what the Mexicans are going through to get here.

There is no doubt that there are people coming here for the benefits, but most of them are coming for the benefit of being in America. I just think the racist vitriol should be damped down a little. We can figure out what should be done without all the name calling. The Mexicans have the same ratio of good guys and jerks as all the other ethnic groups

Ok, I wash my hands of the Mexicans.

I was right about the bullet points, the damn things are everywhere, a plethora. The Apostrophe Editor has his work cut out for him.

A Good Thing

As you may have heard, I am having a big ol' fight with plastic. I believe I am bringing plastic to its knees. At least single use plastic. One of the problems I have been having is running out of things like shampoo and liquid dish soap. (Turns out powdered laundry detergent does take a layer of skin off). So, I took an old shampoo bottle into PCC, (International readers, it's a hippy type organic store chain in Seattle), anyway, they have all this stuff in bulk.

I was all twanged out because the shampoo bottle was 32 ounces. WTF, we use the not metric system here in the US of A, and that means there should have been 36 ounces. I decided since I'm pretty rich, I'll just pay for the other 4 ounces, because the PCC bottles they sell are 36 ounces in the correct American style. But, they just charged me by the ounce, and now I am even more rich because they give you a 25 cent bonus for bringing in your own bottle!

The happy moral of the story is you have right now in your house, all the plastic bottles you need for the rest of your life. I know, it's exciting. You're welcome.

Another good thing, twice this week I have seen family members with waxed paper sandwich bags, one of whom was January and I'm still mad at her, so she isn't getting a shout out.

But Roselator is, she said she picked them out. She is 7, it's pretty intense having to justify this whole plastic thing to her. She will accept absolutely not one statement about plastic being bad at face value, she argues about it constantly and I'd better be able to document. It's because the Apostrophe Editor is her father.

There were no new Paula Deen sightings, so you still only owe me $3.

2010-07-30T20:23:00.000-07:00

I've been on vacation, but I'm back. It wasn't a real vacation. I didn't go anywhere much, but I wasn't hassling you about your plastic usage or bitching because you are not getting through your summer reading list, so, I think you had a bit of a vacation too.

One thing we did that is now really out of date, but still true, we went to the Pride parade in Seattle, mainly because it's about a 3 minute walk from here and it's historically worth the effort if it's sunny and a reasonable time of day. The folks that are in the parade and the folks that watch are a show, it's fun. This year for some reason I started wondering this; if a disproportionate number of hairdressers are gay, which is kind of true, (this is going to another place where a fact checking editor would come in handy because I just totally made that up) why is there so much bad hair running around in the gay community. Maybe it was just a bad day, but here are the pictures, you be the judge.

While I was spacing out/on vacation I took some stuff to Goodwill, I do from time to time. I was almost there with a bunch of books and I had a panic moment where I had to stop the car on the side of the road and page through all of the books to make sure there was nothing in there. This precipitated by an experience we had a couple of years ago. January and That One owed us $400 for some reason, and I was at their house reading The Hotel New Hampshire (I recommend Highly! by John Irving) on their couch, when That One handed me 4 one hundred dollar bills. Apparently I put them in the book as a kind of bookmark, then forgot all about it. At some point I realized there was a bunch of money missing from my life and had a fit that went on and off for months really. About 6 months later The Comma Editor was cleaning out his office at work and found the book in a bag of stuff that was supposed to be recycled.

The moral of the story is do not use $100 bills for bookmarks. I feel I should not have to say that out loud, if you have been paying attention you would know this whole story was meant to be a cautionary tale.

I know the political thing is a drag for you all, especially the International Readers, but the deal in Seattle right now is this tunnel proposal that sounds like a bit of a bad idea. It's the largest deep bore tunnel of it's kind ever attempted. In the world. The engineers are almost pretty positive it will work. Probably. They are going to have, and I'm not even kidding some sort of tilt meter, so if they tunnel under a 20 story building and it's not going all that great, a buzzer will go off, or something so they know they are too close. I'm not sure how that helps. I'm guessing they aren't going to stop the whole thing, but on the other hand I would think there would be some sort of outcry if a condo building was laying sideways in the street. I guess we will find out. I'm just hoping like hell it isn't my condo building. My bananas will become bruised.

Bitchy Bit

The goddammit plastic bag problem is still driving me mad, we have decided to attempt another quest, or whatever you call it. I'm pretty partial to questing.

The challenge will be to go to 10 stores, 3 times and buy one thing, that would have no reason to be put in a bag, and see if they put it in a plastic bag anyway. Then I will email the stores and tell them my results. That's been working like a charm. I swear, I have to practically hog tie a lot of clerks to make them not give me a bag.

As usual I haven't thought this all the way through. What can I buy 30 of ? It can't be a candy bar type thing, because in defense of clerks, if it looks like something you might eat right now they will usually ask about the bag. The only other thing I can think of is light bulbs, but I probably won't live long enough to use 30 of them. Cans of cat food? That could work. Cans of soup? that would be good, and I could donate them to a place where you donate soup. I guess there isn't any good reason why I couldn't just eat the soup as far as that goes. I don't know, anyway that's the thing. Plastic is bad.

I emailed QFC about their stupid bag policy, but they didn't seem to give much of a rip. Trader Joes either, this will continue, but I think I may need the help of the followers, all 24 of you.

I wrote a letter to QFC and told them all they had to do was put out a memo that said and I quote: "If it looks like a person doesn't need a bag ask them if they want one." Insert giant sigh here.

Good Thing

This is my favorite new idea, it's great. It's to make me make money. Every time there is a Paula Deen sighting, witnessed by a well, witness, you have to send me a dollar. This week there is a three dollar tab. This isn't like a chain letter where your name goes at the top or bottom or however that works, you will not be getting any money, only me. So to make sure we have it clear. Three dollars. Cash money. https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_home&mpch=ads

There is a deal on Blogspot where you can sign up to "monetize" your blog, something about ads, (since so far the Bud Light people aren't advertising so I don't think that whole thing is very legit), anyway, I said sure and was supposed to read a bunch of fine print, but you don't have to, you can hit "continue!"It's way easier. I'm guessing there is going to be a law suit down the road. So don't forget the 3 dollars.

Your weekly expense may increase, I need a haircut, and the longer it gets the more Paula Deen I look, so next week this could cost you more than three dollars. Get a part time job I guess.

Advertising!

2010-06-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

I know the International Reader's aren't going to get it (or WILL THEY??), but I'm being driven mad by a mattress company here in Seattle (probably it's really a national company) that advertises cheap deals on beds because the mattresses and box springs don't match. Well, at first it seemed sort of sweet that they were trying to give the mattresses and box springs a good home like mixed race puppies, but it just occurred to me that this has been going on for about 15 years and the fact that they can't seem to get their fabric situation going on is beginning to seem indicative of a lack of organizational skills.

I know it can't be easy getting the last mattress and the first box spring synced up, like trying to jump on a merry-go-round, but Jesus, maybe the 5 year goal down at the mattress/box spring factory should be fabric matching.

It's sad to listen to the commercials, the mattress people are clearly busted up about the problem and don't know what to do, other than to sell them cheap, because damn it, it happened again. Maybe they should scale back to one fabric until they get their sea legs.

WORLD CUP

You know how the World Cup has been going on for about a month? I'm not sure how it works but I think if your country can come up with a soccer ball you are in. Isn't it just tiresome? There are about a million teams, and all they do is play soccer. Soccer is boring as shit.

THINGS I HAVE DONE THIS WEEK THAT WERE LESS WEIRD THAN I THOUGHT THEY WOULD BE.

I went to the grocery store and brought a plastic container and had the person put some salad in it. The guy behind the counter was real confused. He put the price tag label on an empty plastic bag and handed it to me obviously unclear how to deal with a person who didn't want a new plastic thing. I peeled the tag off of the plastic bag and gave it back, then put the label on the top of my plastic container lid and it was fine. It was a little Laurel and Hardy there for a minute, but we got through it.

I did the same thing with a glass container I brought to QFC, the woman just zeroed out the scale and weighed the noodley stuff, and that was that.

I went to Starbucks with a cup, and I don't even know why it was just a ceramic mug and not a travel mug. I do really, but it would take a long time to tell you and it's not that interesting, so anyway. The Starbucks chick didn't bat an eye, and I didn't use plastic or paper. Try it. Just do it every time really. There is an argument that the travel mug is better, for one thing there is a lid.

NEW SUBJECT

There was a thing on the news about a kid at the zoo who was flapped at by a peacock. There are a bunch of peacocks that run around loose on the grounds of the zoo, they are pretty big birds, true. So this kid was running up to it repeatedly and the bird finally flew up and scratched the kid. I feel sorry for the little guy, but the parents (who were probably not watching until "The Incident" are "hoping for a new situation with the peacocks" or some such shit. Look at a peacock head, their brains are not very big, they have no problem solving abilities. Then look at the parents heads, well that didn't work. Keep the damn kid from hassling the damn bird, we don't need a lawsuit. Doesn't mean we aren't going to get one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpwW_aAeUyw

This is just a fact, a lot of places would be way more fun if they screened the mean, stupid little kids and didn't let them in. Here is how you start the screening process. If the parent say's for example "Jefferson The Third, are you using your sharing skills?" Little Jefferson is at that moment pushing, elbowing or taking something out of the hand of a smaller child. The parent should be saying "Knock it off, give it back, it's not your turn." And get a grip on the kid, literally if they don't straighten up. I am sick to death of little snots running around the Zoo, and Aquarium and other kid places and make it a miserable experience for the polite nice kids. My kids and grand kids are the nice ones. I also say "knock it off," if necessary.

International Readers, this part is just a rant about stupid people, I guess I didn't really need to say that, but it's very Seattle/Northwest so it may not be riveting for you. This is my blog I get to decide. It's not mean if it's true.

The question was whether to sign a petition to repeal taxes the legislature just passed on water in bottles, candy, and beer, all things that are unnecessary for life and probably actually life threatening.

The thing that pissed me off is, we were going to an event, (OK, Beer Festival, I wanted that to sound way more cultural. I don't know what happened I just couldn't leave it alone).

There is one initiative I signed, but it didn't involve undoing recent legislation. The one I won't sign does repeal legislation that just went into effect this month. It's not a great piece of legislation, and it's not going to work for long, but basic services are going to be cut if it's repealed. The guy at the booth was all over the reason. (These guys are now paid per signature) "No taxation without representation right?" I think I was pretty nice, I didn't say dumb ass out loud to my credit, but what the hell do people think the legislature is? There is your representation. Vote, Genius.

The part people don't know? The plastic bottle people are hysterical! They have $1,000,000 on the line, JUST IN THIS STATE, to make this tax go away. Coca Cola does not care if there are basic health care services for children. They care that you buy filtered tap water in a bottle for your journey across the parking lot

WORLD CUP UPDATE
I'm starting to get it, there are "Grades" Not sure what that means, more later.

BITCHY BIT

I know, you thought you had already successfully made it to the other side of the bitchy bit didn't you?

Driving AGAIN!

When you are driving along in Seattle, especially FIRST AVE, it is your JOB to turn your blinker light on at least by the middle of the block, if you are going to turn left. DO NOT SIT AT A RED LIGHT IN THE LEFT LANE, THEN WHEN THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN TURN YOUR GODDAMMIT SIGNAL ON. Now I'm stuck behind you for at least one light cycle, and one of these days I'm going to get out and punch you in the nose. DO NOT SAY YOU WERE NOT WARNED.

Hmmm, now for a good thing.

I feel slightly ridiculous, I am not immune to advertising, I just talk a good game. Since we are so into the no plastic thing, thinking about how to get around it is becoming automatic.The Comma Editor wanted a margarita at home so we got all the stuff, except the orange juice that he puts on top. We were at the second store and couldn't find the brand that's in a carton only. We finally gave up and got the one with the little plastic lid. We were all the way home when it finally occurred to me that a good way to get orange juice without any plastic is to squeeze it out of an orange.

Those advertisers are good.

I just re-read this, The Comma Editor may not let me have commas, but I have all the other punctuation parts!

2010-06-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

The Comma Editor was walking down the street the other day and a guy asked him if he could spare $1300.

What do you suppose that was all about? I bet it was a former WAMU exec who thinks he still has a boat payment.

I'm OK with occasionally giving a street person a buck or two, but I expect something for it. We were out once with the More Jokes and Everything Else Editor and a guy came up and asked her if she liked poetry. She said yes. There was an awkward deal where he spouted some indecipherable crap that was supposed to be a poem and we ended up having to give him a dollar, and she went stomping away saying "What the hell did I say that for?! I hate poetry." Well who doesn't? Hating poetry is a learned behavior, and I'm proud to say I may have been a little bit of an influence. I think it's good to pay your prejudices forward. After Ogdan Nash and Shel Silverstein I'm out of here.

When we first moved to Seattle we were walking around downtown one afternoon, when some guy came up with a rose and gave it to me. We gave him a dollar, then a few blocks later some other guy came up to us to let us know that the first guy had stolen the rose from a flower shop. Well, a couple of things, if you are enough of a bonehead to keep a vase of roses on the sidewalk in front of your shop in Belltown don't come crying to me, and second, is there a Dickensian (Dickensonian) style network of bums in Seattle? Homeless gentlemen, excuse me. How did the second guy know about the first guy and me?

You know what's starting to piss me off? One of the things.

Have you recently tried to pay a bill or get some information about a business or store or whatever and gone to the website but you can't find the information you need so you caved in and called the phone number?

Do you remember how annoying we used to think the elevator music on hold was? Or the hold music on the elevator for that matter.You know what is exactly one million times more annoying? The recording telling you that you can do this ONLINE! Just check out the website! http://www.kma.com/

LISTEN YOU GIANT STUPID PILE OF MORONS, WHERE DO YOU THINK I GOT YOUR PHONE NUMBER?

Goddammit.

Also, you know how when you call some one's phone and get the answering machine message? In 1970 having a phone answering machine was the BOMB, but nobody said that yet.

Nobody says that anymore either.

The point is, I do not need to hear, in 2010 that I can leave a message after the beep and that I can call dial 5 to call the person back or whatever it is. Alright, this is losing a little bit of focus because I can't actually remember what the whole horseshit recording says, but you know what I'm talking about. It would take way too much time to call someone and tell them not to answer the phone and then call them back, and listen to it, but I could. The message has been the same for YEARS, and by now we know how to leave a Goddammit phone message. It takes 5 MINUTES every time someone doesn't answer their phone, to get to the part where I say, and I quote, "call me" I'm sick of it. The thing is I can't even imagine who to call to leave a message about it.

Speaking of being unfocused, I was watching Last Comic Standing and I was reminded of a true story. I alluded to it before in a past blog, but I'm irritated to report that some people are not memorizing this web log like poetry. Right now is a great time to look up the phrase "Ahoist on your own petard" I'll give you a hint; It means you shot yourself in the foot.

It was the time I got from where I live in Seattle to where I worked in Woodinville in the wholesale (plant, not baby) nursery. International Readers, Woodinville is suburban town about 40 minutes away, so by the time you get there, it just makes no sense to turn back. I don't exactly remember how I got all the way to work without any shoes, but you know various things happen. Fortunately, there was a Target close enough to work, so that's where I went.

As a rule I'm pretty oblivious, but at 7:30 in the morning at that Target they were having some sort of rah-rah team building situation, like they used to show the Japanese doing when they ran the world for a few minutes in the '80's.What you don't want to do is walk into the pep rally with beige pants and a red tee shirt (what the hell are the chances?) barefoot.

It didn't turn out that badly. I quickly, with my genius brain assessed the situation and just went striding through the store until I found the flip flop department. I paid a kid who seemed oblivious to the fact that our outfits matched and got the hell out. It was James Bondesque.

I just offer this up as a cautionary tale. It's 6:30 AM; do you know where your shoes are? Socks?

Carry on.

Oh Man

Signs
Just when you think it's over, well let's just say, when a door closes a window opens, or another door could be anything opening.

It's just that I thought I had blown through all the good signs around Seattle, but the city never lets me down.

Now don't you feel like an idiot? I know, me too, now with the instruction booklet it seems so obvious.

Preachy Bit!

I was thinking about how in Costa Rica the water or power will just go off for an hour or two for whatever reason. You quickly learn to cope, and it isn't a big deal, to plan for no water between 9 and 11, or just get over it when it cuts out for no reason. Where did we get the idea that we are entitled to unlimited power and water? Just a thought. I know, we are Americans. We don't know where we got the idea, it just is. But Canadians and Mexicans don't have the right to unlimited water and power.

I am working on getting past the environmental subject. Hold the applause I said trying. I was reading the wrapper of the toilet paper called Seventh Generation. The name came from the notion from Native Americans that it's prudent to consider the consequences of your actions to the Seventh Generation. If we did that we would be done here and I'd be off your back.

The reason I was reading the wrapper in the first place is I thought it said post consumer paper at first, but after a while, I started to wonder if there were some post consumer wood chips going on, I can't figure out what that would even be, but damn. A happy by product is that if for some reason you need something to read through, this stuff is the deal. It's a weird combo I know. I'm just reporting here. One wonders what they were trying to make.

A Good Thing

It's farmer's market season, and every neighborhood has one within walking distance. The flower bouquets are a steal, and will make you happy for days. Happier.

2010-06-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

OK, maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't do the Hard Rock, that might have been Planet Hollywood. I bet that place is terrible too. Whatever. I liked Kindergarten Cop but don't tell anybody. I may have to consider bringing another editor on board for fact checking, but the editors I already have are underemployed. I can't get it together to send the web log to them early, which means the Comma Editor has it all on his shoulders. So how its working now is, I post the blog and then listen to the Editors tell me where I screwed up after it's in the world. I realize that is the role of an editor, it's my own fault. But it still stings.

I was just looking at last week's web log, I don't think that girl's bikini fits right.

Sometime last week I was listening to NPR, really I'm as intellectual as the next guy. (Spell check had to tell me how to spell intellectual), and there was a story about a woman who had a snake crawl out of her air conditioner vent. Someone asked her if she was afraid, and she said "Well, somebody crapped in my pants". I'm telling you this in case you think NPR is too full of serious reviews of The Middle East Situation and what not. They do have a lot of that, of course, the Middle East is going to blow it's damn self up before it's over with. If Jimmy Carter couldn't make a dent its just inevitable. They hate each other, and we should turn our attentions to problems that we can fix. Anyway, NPR has some good stuff. See it always gets back to radio somehow. I love radio.

Let us turn our attentions to problems we can solve. The Middle East? No. BP Oil?, No. Well that's not entirely true, Obama is going to kick their ass. Asses. The fact that there are people who would vote for Sarah Palin? Sadly, no. Well what then? I'm thinking, I'll let you know.

Here's one.

And I'm sorry to say, this is Not What Jesus Would Do

I called a perfect stranger a really bad word today. What happened was, we were walking up First Ave on our way home and some guy threw an empty cigarette box in the gutter. I think he was a taxi driver, (perhaps I should have been more careful), Anyway I turned around and picked up the box and held it out and said "You dropped this", he said "No I didn't" and I tried to hand it to him, and he wouldn't take it. That's where the bad, bad name came from. The Comma Editor was watching, he didn't hear the verbal exchange, so later when I told him what went on, he said "Well that explains the look on his face."

I am just up to here with a-holes doing that shit. People live in a Society. We have garbage cans, (and red lights) and worst case, say we didn't. We have garbage cans in our homes do we not? I have dragged garbage around for hours or days in order to not throw it on the ground. I expect you to do the same.

And just not that shit, we need to be civilized, which means being thoughtful outside of ourselves. Who is in charge of teaching fundamental manners, because that's all we are talking about?

Say please. Hold the door when there is obviously someone right after you. Use your Goddammit head. Do unto others. I have a tendency to ask if people were raised by wolves, but I understand that there is no reason to insult the child rearing skills of wolves. Humans, that's a different story.

Don't worry, to finish the story, at the next set of garbage/recycling cans I took the cellophane off the outside of the cigarette box, and the foil from the inside and recycled the box part. I know, I'm awesome. The true story is, I smoked for a long time and that routine got to be automatic.

The thing is, this is a microcosmic bit of what's going on. You can mess up your place, but you don't get to be a lazy bastardo in mine. Bastardo is bastard in Spanish, I looked it up

We went bowling last week, I realize this is a non-sequitur but most of this is, so let us not agonize over it. Point Is, I bowled the worst I ever have in my whole life and I finally realized why. The last time we went, I bowled the best game of my life. This morning I did the slap the forehead thing. I forgot to watch The Big Lebowski!

Stupid Stupid Stupid. Bowling, like any sport is just about training.

This is the long awaited picture of all the plastic we used in a month.

Pretty good huh? I'm pretty proud of us. The Comma Editor mainly, he has been dealing with shopping way more than I have. I wanted to put my hand in the picture so you could see how small the pile is, but the Comma Editor gets all pissy when I do that. He said one time that every Goddamn picture we took in Costa Rica has either my foot or my hand in it. Well of course they do, how else are you going to know how large the bug or how small the turtle? I have a pedicure for crying out loud, and a good ring. Shut up Comma Editor.

Okay. This is the comma editors foot. I made him do it.

.
I could make fun of people who drink water out of bottles right now, but I'm saving it.

Savoring.

Alright, I can't wait.

Someone did a study of pretty young kids and their ability to wait for rewards. The kids got so many M&M's right now, or more if they waited. The kids who waited for a reward actually did better later in life. Makes sense. I am not going to wait. What does that tell us? You can discuss this among yourselves later.

In the old days, about 15 years ago, (you might as well sit down, this gets a little complicated). You would be going about your day and it would enter your consciousness that some water would be good, because you were thirsty. Here's how we handled it then. You went into the kitchen, got a glass, turned on the water, put that in the glass, then drank it. I don't remember what happened after that, someone took care of the glass. We had people.

That's all I've got.

No plastic bottle that would end up in the ocean, just the glass of water. Sometimes you would go for several hours without access to water. Yeah, we were pioneers, it was intense. Say you were shopping or on a car ride.You would just have a glass of water when you got there. Nuts huh? I personally am not acquainted with anyone who died as a result of not having water in their hand at all times. But I heard it happened to the cousin of a girl I knew. The bottled water people clearly are waaaaay smarter than I am, so don't listen to me. I'm just saying how it was before the Coca Cola company brought us enlightenment. ENLIGHTENMENT, I meant to say. Thank you Jesus, and Coca Cola.

The Good Thing this week is, I was at a Mariners game last week with That One, and the opposing team hit a home run and the guy who caught it threw it back out onto the field. That just always makes me happy.

See you next week, forward this on. I know where you live.

A GOOD SPA

2010-06-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

I'm on a roll, of confusion. January accuses me of being unfocused, and one of the Canadians likes it, I'm not sure which Canadian, obviously That One and The Other One are messing with me.

The Plastic Diet is still a pain, but we are learning some things. Homemade sour cream and buttermilk biscuits are better than not homemade ones. The Comma Editor is going to try English Muffins, which I think could go either way really. Doesn't that seem hard? But it has to be tried since we can't figure out how to get around buying them without a plastic bag. So far all the things we have made, and by "we" I mean the Comma Editor, have been better than manufactured.

I have a problem with eating breakfast at home when I'm working. It kind of seems odd now that I see it in print, but I'm not making enough for a therapist so we are just living with it. Anyway, I eat in the car on the way, therefore I need a method of holding my food together. I've used English muffins up to now, but the homemade biscuits are better than factory English muffins. I haven't had the homemade English muffins yet, don't worry I'll keep you posted. I already knew about the homemade buttermilk biscuits being better of course, I'm not not Martha Stewart. But I admit I did not know you could make sour cream out of cream and sour.

The other night I was sitting around the place with my feet on the footstool, and noticed once again that my feet are all dried out. (The Comma Editor hates my feet. I can have all the pedicures I want as long as he gets to stay out of it.) As I sometimes do, I said to myself "What would Jesus do?" I'm not very religious, but the one thing the Catholics didn't ruin for me is the concept of Jesus being a good guy. I was started out with the Old Testament and the hair shirts and whatnot, we ran out of Catholic school money before I got to the non-scary part of Christianity.

The "anoint the feet with oil" popped into my head. (That is straight out of the Bible, I'm almost positive. I think Mary Magdalene was tangled up in it somehow.) I don't really know what anoint means, I'm thinking rub. Anyway I usually use suntan oil, which works fine, but it comes in a plastic bottle, of course, and I ran out a month or more ago. I was mulling it over and realized that Jesus was in the Jerusalem area and what grows there? Olives! And what do we make out of olives? Tapenade, I know, but try to focus. Olive oil is the correct answer.

All you have to do is get some, rub it on and you're done. It's fabulous! Why one wonders, would I pay eight dollars for a bottle of suntan oil, when I can use a twelve dollar bottle of olive oil? I'd rather wear it than eat it too, so that's a bonus.

Here comes the . . .

PREACHY BIT!

We were at the hippy grocery store that sells bulk dish washing detergent and other liquid things, the dish washing liquid seemed really expensive, because we are used to paying $1.69 for a 16 oz bottle more or less, and the hippy stuff is about $6.00. What we need to mull over is that perhaps we will value the more expensive product and waste less. I know this, and I know it isn't an original thought, yet I have to remind myself over and over. Cheap is not the same as good. And furthermore, maybe sometimes none is better. I know, I know. Pinko Commie.

This is here to keep the Canadians attention.

They like pictures.

Business schools teach that we have to sell each other stuff or we will perish from an economic meltdown, but it's starting to look a little bit like we may perish from an environmental one first. Or dead heat.

The hall of shame plastic picture will be published next week, we did pretty well I think. We have learned that plastic shows up when you least expect it. We have seriously agonized over how to avoid it, and still been blindsided. Straws in drinks? Dammit. Vegetarians understand this, when food comes with bacon bits on it, it's maddening. Who the hell does that?? You don't tell them not to because it never occurs to you that one would put a plastic thing in, or a bacon bit on. And the bacon bit people and the plastic people think they are doing you a favor. But they aren't.

OK enough of the PREACHY BIT, we move on to the. . .

BITCHY BIT.

The Hard Rock opened a place in Seattle a few months ago.

Do Not Go There
We went in because it is close to where we were walking around, near the Market, (International Readers The Pike Place Market is the best part of Seattle, Google it) and we thought we would check it out. Jesus God.

Seriously, we were in there for an hour and a half, I told the Comma Editor finally that this must be what being in a minimum security prison is like. Not that unpleasant, but finally you just feel like you've done your time and want out. The service was abysmal, the food was abysmal. It was just foul. I always thought Arnold Schwarzenegger is kind of a not Rhodes Scholar, but divorcing himself from that mess took a couple of IQ points, although now that I think about it, it was probably his version of our Kirk that told him to bail.

Shame on me, I knew better than to go into a giant corporate place, instead of supporting a small Seattle one, and I got what I deserved.

Bacon bits. I asked for no bacon bits and I got...

Cold bacon bits.

In my quest for non plastic we ventured into a store that has all good stuff for the planet, looking for toilet paper. Well, the Comma Editor believes that it's made out of recycled plastic, but it isn't. It's made out of 80% post consumer paper. How bad that could be was a surprise. I'm just saying that leaves would be a lateral move. And they are free.

A good thing, Roselator named this edition, and it's pretty apt. The part about the olive oil captured her attention.

This is late again, and it's full of Plastic Talk, the happy thing is you can't get fired from your own blog. HA!

Less Plastic next week, Canucks.

Hippier Than Thou

2010-05-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

In my picture at the top of the blog, (web log, let's practice what we preach!) you can see the paper towel dispenser. I like it quite a little, it goes with the stainless steel stuff. Well we have a NEW USE! I really haven't used a paper towel for weeks and for me it's a bit like quitting smoking or heroin so I'm pretty proud of myself. I took the roll of paper towels off and now I'm using it for a dryer for plastic bags. When you reuse plastic bags you must swish them around in soapy water and get them all clean, then what? Especially if you live in a tiny condo? You reduce re-use recycle!

One of the many fabulous things about this here web log is the Comma Editor is going to have it in black and white for the doctors when he needs to document the road I took to crazy ville.

The plastic diet is depressing. Go into a store, it doesn't even matter what kind and look around. The plastic surrounding you, I don't know, just think about it. I'm not sure what to say except don't buy it unless not buying it is life threatening. I guess not eating is kind of life threatening. But cooking food from scratch is an option even though the corporate types spend a ton of money to make us think otherwise.

Write to manufactures, they do listen, maybe a little. The new Sun Chips bags that compost is a start, in a measly fashion. Have you heard these new bags? They sound like thunder. I don't know why I find that amusing. There is even a note on the bags that explain exactly nothing except that you aren't hearing things. The bags are just crazy loud. I don't think even the people at the factory know what happened there. It's telling that the Frito Lay folks started with the composting bags with the relatively hippy dippy Sun Chip bags, I bet they are hoping the Pork Rind crowd and the Sun Chip group don't meet up. Fisticuffs!

The reason we are using and tossing all this plastic of course is because we now believe that easy is the same as happy.

PREACHY! I like it!

I'm adding a Preachy Bit to the lineup.

OK, how many of you are finished with your reading list? None of you? No surprise here. I never cease to be amazed by the lack of interest in our food chain. I'm just saying. I'm adding Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to the list. I haven't finished it yet but it's good. You might as well not read that one too.

WORDS

Irregardless, we must move on.

Hah, you know I wasn't really using the word IRREGARDLESS, because there is no such word!

Notate that.

There is some good news of course. The plastic diet is going to overlap in terms of thinking about what we are using and where it comes from. The hairspray made out of sugar actually works pretty well. I put lavender oil in it so it smells good, and so far not a sign of a bee. However it's only May, the bees may be gathering.

http://dkmommyspot.com/how-to-make-homemade-hairspray-that-really-works/

This part is really great. We made, well the Comma Editor did but I'm taking credit anyway, deodorant that works just dandy. A disclaimer already though. One of the family members had a reaction, probably to the tea tree oil. I haven't had any issues, but if you have sensitive skin, beware.

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Stick-Deodorant

Today was Ride Your Bike to Work Day, my favorite holiday as you know.

It's good that the churros are being utilized. In honor of the holiday I didn't run over any. Well of course I ran over the GD churros because they are everywhere. I didn't run over a bicyclist though. I would like to clarify that I am fine with people riding bikes. I'm not fine with them riding in Downtown Seattle in a Superior Way. The streets aren't built for them. Damn squirrels.

By the way, which one of you is working on my jet pack? I don't even have any drawings yet.

I'm introducing a new topic here. I'm giving you credit for keeping up with the changes.

As a card carrying bleeding heart liberal (as you know) of course I enjoy watching my tax money being thrown away. Sometimes on Saturday morning I get up early to watch my congressman Jim McDermott bring a sack of money to the beach and throw handfuls of dollar bills into Puget Sound. Imagine how much I am enjoying seeing these signs.

The beauty of this one is our tax money is actually being used brilliantly. You can turn this one upside down or sideways and it makes just as much sense. Four times the use for one price I say, go government! Do I want these people running my health care? NO, I'm not sure they are going to know where my gizzard is, in case it needs work.

Myrtle Edwards Park, you know really, it doesn't hurt to be extra clear.This one makes up for the last one.

Lowe's doors. Now see, it's just not the government, there is a lot of dumb to go around. I just wish they would stick to placing ads on automatic doors and stop drilling oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

I have no idea what they are advertising on these moving billboards, but it's nice that they remind us that we got all the way to the store and forgot our Goddammit bags again. Thanks QFC. Put the signs on the poles in the parking lot. I'm old, and I have ADD.

Actual run over tulips would be more attractive than this. Now that tulip season is over, shouldn't it say children or something?

We have had enormous technical difficulties this week, which explains why this is 2 days late.

The comma editor has figured out how to make it easier to make comments. There's a BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR if I ever saw one.

Be Nice!

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!

Oh Suzanna!

2010-05-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

Well, we are just pioneers here, not the kind that goes where no man has gone before. The kind that has a mule.

The plastic diet is truly a pain in the ass. You can't buy anything. Thank God for Happy Hour. We would have starved by now. Actually we have a lot of vegetables, and you can get a couple of kinds of cheese at Metropolitan Market wrapped in paper. If you want something besides cheddar or Swiss you are SOL, but you can make a living off of that as my Uncle Jerry used to say. We are noticing a dearth of Parmesan, but one suffers for ones principles.

I would like to report some victories. One of the readers, (not a follower however), cleaned out her fridge and washed the bottles of weirdness out and recycled the containers instead of throwing the whole thing in the trash, which is commendable, because as you know it's not that much fun cleaning out old mustard and whatnot. It seems like it's not that bad to throw it all away, but it is because we have to remember that our bad behavior is being replicated millions of times by other people who think it's not that much. Wow make that into a sentence if you dare Comma Editor.

Speaking of the Comma Editor, he made tortillas out of scratch that were wow awesome bomb. That is an expression that Roselator made up when she was about three. It means the best of the best. Now we aren't going to be able to buy tortillas from Rosarita or whatever she calls herself, anymore. Never mind the plastic, tortillas are just considerably better homemade. You can make some really good burritos without a hint of plastic, and now that we know the Comma Editor can make tortillas, well the sky's the limit, eh? (That was for the Canadians, I'm checking to see if they are reading). Sorry about the Canucks dudes. Now so you know whats up, the Chicago Blackhawks are the Yankees.

Furthermore! You can make hairspray and deodorant! Out of stuff!

Saturday morning the Comma Editor and our friend Other Grandma who had spent the night were up talking and running the damn coffee grinder and talking really loud and waking your corespondent up. I finally got up and wandered into the living room and sat around fuming in a sleepy way when the Comma Editor bounded up and just squirted my hair with a spray bottle, which as it turned out was the hair spray which was made out of sugar and water, cooked, so Simple Syrup! Rawther a rude way to wake up the rest of the way, but harmless ultimately. You need to put some lavender essential oil in to keep the bees from coming to your hair. Small price to pay I say. It actually works better than you would think. As I said before, I'm not that into my hair anyway. A side note. Doesn't putting lavender oil in seem counter intuitive? Don't bees love lavender? I guess we will find out as spring progresses.

The ingredients in a bottle of hairspray are pretty intimidating, I've never paid attention before. I guess I just thought it was sticky stuff and if I bought it in a spray bottle instead of an aerosol can that was enough, but now I see the error of my ways.

Now for the deodorant part. It is: baking soda, corn starch, shortening, and tea tree oil. Tea tree oil smells foul, just so you know but I guess it's antibacterial. (I'm not even sure there is such a thing as a tea tree.) That's it. Not sure what the proportions are since I haven't actually tried it yet, but someone on the internet said it's great, so how wrong can you go?

I know you can use baking soda to brush your teeth, so when we run out of tooth paste we will be fine.

Another side note. When I used to smoke I brushed my teeth with baking soda one time then lit a cigarette. The worst taste of all time. Really really awful. So let that be a lesson to you about brushing your teeth.

We had to buy light bulbs in the traditional corrugated cardboard package, the Comma editor couldn't buy the ones he wanted, the more energy efficient twirly type, because he said they were in the packages you have to open with scissors and dynamite. I asked him how that works, he said scissors first.

I would give you a good thing of the week but I think you might explode what with the tortillas and the hairspray and all the rest.

I haven't been paying much attention to politics this week, and what I have is Seattle based, so I'm taking the Apostrophe Editors word for it and leaving it alone.

Just one thing. I heard on the way home on the radio that BP Oil is giving Louisiana and Florida millions of dollars to promote tourism. Seriously. The new brochures are going to say "Just wipe it off, it's good as new!"

Plastic, yikes

2010-05-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

DON CHERRY EVERYBODY!

The good news is no matter how bad your week was, you probably haven't destroyed an entire eco-system. I suppose there is an argument that we all did collectively. In my defense I would have voted for more redundancy in safety equipment and then paid more for gas, but who wouldn't now? Like when someone falls down the stairs and then someone in the crowd says "Be careful!" Hey BP Oil, be careful!

The silver lining here for the liberal Dem's is of course the response to: (Sneering) "So, do you want the Government running health care?" NO, I want BP Oil, no wait, Goldman Sachs, no, no, WA MU. The free market obviously has our best interest at heart and strives to cut no corners.

This is week two of the Plastic Diet. Now that I'm here, let us talk about plastic spoons, and forks. And advertising.

Of course you don't want to use the family silver if you are camping or having an off site picnic, but using plastic seems silly since you can buy pieces of flatware at Goodwill for 20 cents if you're that worried about it. Therefore the sell becomes: if you use plastic you can throw it away! The part that makes no sense is throwing it away. Just toss it back in the bag at the end of the picnic and wash it when you get home for Christ's sake, you can put it in the dishwasher. How did we get to the place where we throw away perfectly functional things and get pissey when someone points out that it's STUPID? (Um, that would be me.)

I will explain. Companies like Dow Chemical (for example) have scientists and engineers and designers and all sorts or people who come up with new products. Most of the time these items aren't especially wonderful, but the Dow Chemical dudes have to make us think they are, otherwise we won't pay money for it. Plastic silverware and paper plates don't really make sense especially if you are in your own house. They are unpleasant to use really. But, if you somehow get it into your head that washing dishes is on par with coal mining or digging ditches, and you deserve better, well of course you are going to throw perfectly good stuff in the ocean, trash, whatever. And where do we get this idea? We become advertised into it.

Watch, the bad stuff happens in black and white, ( close up on a woman with huge icky sink full of dishes she never has good hair in fact she is doing that blow the bangs out of her eyes thing), then *!*!*! Color! Woman throwing plastic forks and paper plates in the trash and she is so GORGEOUS and she is wearing HIGH HEELS and she is YOUNG and her HUSBAND is so HANDSOME and so PROUD of how BEAUTIFUL and SMART she is, why would you not throw perfectly good stuff out!!!

Anyway, washing dishes, especially when there are a bunch of people in the kitchen to help is kind of pleasant, and even if you are all by yourself, it's not that hard. Think about it for a minute.

THINGS WE HAVE NOT PURCHASED THIS WEEK

AT COSTCO

Potatoes

Broccoli

Bananas

Onions

Asparagus

Coffee

Morning Star Farms Sausage

Orchid for Mothers Day, the pot was glass, but it was wrapped in plastic.

Everything else at Costco

THINGS WE DID PURCHASE AT COSTCO

Beer

Oranges in a Box

THINGS THAT MAY BE A PROBLEM THIS WEEK

Hair spray. January said she would get me some for Mothers Day, but that would be cheating.

Dish washing liquid. My mother used Cheer laundry detergent to wash dishes when I was a kid, and other than the fact that it will probably take a layer of skin off your hands I think it will work. It comes in cardboard.

HALL OF SHAME

On Cinco De Mayo the Comma Editor walked down to a Mexican bar and had a Margarita, which I guess because it was Cinco de Mayo they were serving them in plastic cups. So that was bad. The badder part was that he had another one, so our plastic diet has been cheated on. He brought them home at least, so we can reuse them for something. Turns out this isn't the only transgression. We are saving all the bits. A picture will be published at the end of the month.

The More Jokes and Everything Else Editor told me the whole blog couldn't be about plastic, but I say, I had a hard week, next week we will be more wide ranging.

HOCKEY

I told you I would tell you the two good things about the NHL. OK, the first one is Don Cherry, he is a Canadian announcer who wears the best outfits EVER. They are suits made out of fabric that you would think came from the planet Weird Fabric. He is great. They don't show him on the US channel, you have to tune into channel 99, the Canadian station. I think he was a player at one time, but who cares. It's about the outfit.

The other good thing about hockey is that the goalies each get to have the design they want on their hockey hat things, helmets. Some of them are quite good. Most of them aren't, but it's hockey, so once again who cares. Now I will know if That One and The Other One are reading, there will be blistering comments.

I am getting to the point where I can sort of watch a hockey game. I'm always awed by people being able to skate like that and play a game at the same time, and attempt to beat the shit out of each other in their spare time.

GOOD THING THIS WEEK

The Comma Editor and I were driving down Yesler and there was a kid about 15 or so walking down the sidewalk picking up random trash. He had an I Pod or whatever in his ears, and seemed to be doing it just to be doing it. That's what I want to believe.

Cool

2010-05-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

Good news everybody, we have an new editor, this one will specialize in the apostrophe. Only the best writers have this many editors, I bet Mark Twain only had four. Now I have to contract a lot of words so he has something to do.

The apostrophe editor gave me some advice about the blog. Apparently this is the sort of thing people will idly read at work because they don't want to be doing their work, so publishing it on Monday is the best time. And I should post it on Faceplant, and when I email it I should put a subject line so people know it isn't someone trying to sell them Viagra, it's only me complaining about Happy Hour and how people use too much plastic. So that's what I'm going to do. Another guest editor said I should post something every day and use more pictures. I could do that, but one wonders should I?

It's the first day of the Plastic Diet as it has become known. It's 9:30 and so far so good, the only one who has taken a hit is the cat. The canned food she has been eating comes in cans lined with plastic. I was doing some reading about that, I'm not sure why they started putting the plastic lining in cans but it sounds like it has some potential health issues for people I'm guessing cats are not immune either. I have already tried to stop buying it for humans, I just hadn't noticed it in the cat food. I'm going to take it away from her. She seems pretty unfazed by the news.

On the record, I haven't cheated by stocking up on things, I know I'm going to run out of hair spray, I have the little plastic pump bottle, I wonder how hard it can be to make? I'm not that crazy about my hair anyway, so I will cross that bridge when I get there. I will tell you this though, don't try to mix shampoo and conditioner in a bottle and shake it up to make Pert Plus. It makes some kind of mess that won't really come out of your hair and doesn't clean it either.

You know what? Speaking of complaining about Happy Hour, the Weekly or the Stranger, (I R's they are independent newspaper tabloids in Seattle) had a whole edition devoted to Happy Hours and only one out of about 50 even mentioned a vegetarian dish. Jesus people. Too much meat.

I just read another Happy Hour review and now I am mad. It said you could get chicken quesadillas and for a dollar more, mushroom ones. Goddammit. You know why meat is cheaper than mushrooms? All I'm saying is read Omnivores Dilemma, Fast Food Nation and In Defense of Food, and you will go "Huh" It may not make you stop eating meat, but it will sure as hell make you think twice about where you get it.

I have no luck turning people into vegetarians, (imagine how hard it must be to talk someone into being gay), which is fine, but folks should know how their food is produced, because the consequences actually do effect everybody. I wish PETA wasn't such a stupid group. The most famous vegetarian group is so annoying that if I ever start eating meat again it's going to be a PETA member first.

And further more speaking of I R's, January's husband That One is from Canada so I should have a bunch of Canadian IR's, but I'm not seeing them. He did tell me he wasn't going to read the blog, but he does once in awhile. The Other One, his cousin has some connections there too. Get cracking you two.

We were at January and That One's house the other night and we watched a show called Corner Gas, it's a sitcom from Canada, it's pretty good. They were talking about which episode to show us and they picked one about a guy who writes a blog, and people keep telling him to stop talking and to write it in his blog, it's funny, that happens to me too. January and That One were laughing and laughing, it was good but not that funny.

I have a paid advertisement and about time too, I expect to be paid in Bud Light, which is currency in my world.

Our awesome CPA / Financial Adviser Kirk Mills is someone you might want to get in touch with. The Comma Editor was doing the taxes because I made him, It didn't seem like the taxes should be that hard. It got quite tense as the Comma Editor hates doing taxes, which is where Kirk has always come in handy, so we finally caved and had Kirk do them. He literally got us a refund that was about 20 times what the Comma Editor figured out to that point. They were done in about 45 seconds too. Also, we are seeing our investments come back at a pretty snappy pace, so just in case you want to talk to someone about all your dough, here is your guy.

A good thing this week is, I needed some little pots to put bulbs in and at Fred Meyer of all places they have these little ones that are made out of bamboo and are meant to break down and compost after a couple of years, they come in cute colors and different sizes and they were pretty much the same price as any others, so we are getting somewhere there. Bamboo is supposed to be a very renewable resource, I know it's a bitch to get rid of in your yard, so I think this is good. I just hope we don't find out later it takes a bunch of chemical fertilizer or something, but we do what we can.

Next week I will tell you the two good things about hockey.

Go Canucks.

We Should Worry About the Big Things

2010-04-26T22:47:00.000-07:00

Mans inhumanity to man is our subject this week. This is a tiny capsule of why there are wars later on, there is a direct link, indirectly.

January and her husband live in a suburb in the City Without A Soul. Some guy in the cul-de-sac had a truck that was kind of a mess, admittedly, parked in front of their house on the street. Someone called the Parking Nosy Parkers (they are probably really some sort of cops, but as they are shooting fish in a barrel here, they aren't going to get actual cop respect) and the truck disappeared.

In the meantime the whole "Oh my god, someone's work truck is in VIEW of my eyes mentality took over and apparently the Parking Nosy Parkers got all fired up and kept on patrolling and now January and her husband who is probably dying of the flu and therefore didn't take his car to work got a goddammit $40 parking ticket in front of their own house.

Here is the mans inhumanity to mans part. The reason they got a ticket in the first place is because the neighborhood has one of those deals where you have to have a permit slapped on your windshield to park on the street where you live. Because, WHAT IF AN OUTSIDER PARKED ON MY STREET?! Well really, who gives a shit. In this neighborhood it's not going to be drug dealers, worst case (pretty bad case) Jehovah's Witnesses. In a neighborhood where it likely will be drug dealers there are no window permits. Where did this weird territorial street thing come from? If there are cars lining the street, so what? In this case the neighborhood is close to Bellevue Square, (Owned by Kemper Freeman, the wealthy non recycler). The potential problem in this case is that people who work at Bellevue Square would park their cars in the neighborhood during the day and walk to work so they don't have to pay to park, which is total bullshit, those people make a ton of money at Orange Julius.

Lets examine. Most houses have garages or carports, so the homeowners cars are taken care of. There are households who have kids so there will be the occasional teenager cars parked on the street. Then perhaps a birthday party once in awhile in the neighborhood so there may be cars parked for a block solid sometimes.The lesson is cars come and cars go and how exactly does that actually impact your life.

It doesn't unless you can't get out of your driveway.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course. One of the characters in this drama, owned, a car 40 years ago so ugly that I am still traumatized. It was a red and white Rambler, and the space it took up and turned ugly is still to this day indescribable. Rust is our friend sometimes.

And furthermore I am personally driving a car so old and raggedy assed that it could be a modern art instillation but I don't think I should have to pay $40 because it's no longer beautiful. It's reducing reusing and recycling, and bonus the radio works so I'm happy.

MY SERIOUS SACRIFICE FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY

Next on the agenda is the plastic situation that I wrote about last week concerning the month without plastic. I would just like to point out that I got ONE vote, and that was in person. The cry goes 'round What the Hell is Wrong With You People For God's sake? I am not slaving over this for you all to not participate, you call yourselves the 20. Shame on you.

The decision is thus, I am going to go for a month without using or buying any new plastic. January (the mean one) has put in her two cents worth with the rules. I'm not allowed to have the Comma Editor buy something to get around it, and I have to tell Roselator "No" if it comes to that. That has the potential to be difficult. For example, we can't make cupcakes out of a mix because the powdery part comes in plastic. I will start on May 1st, if I had my shit together I would have done it today, because it's Earth Day, however my shit is asunder.

Another rule, I'm not supposed to devote a whole blog to it. The Mean One doesn't like bad news environmentally. Nobody does so it would seem. The Gray whale that died in West Seattle last week that has all the plastic in it's stomach kind of spurs me on. I think it's a good idea to know what's going on with the place we have to live, but that's just me. I'm learning that most people keep their heads down, and go out of the way to not know whats up. Alright.

WORDS

I have been meaning to point out that the word Blog is just foul. It's a bone lazy contraction of web log. I'm just saying. Captain Kirk would never have stooped to this level. The Star Date never became State, the Ships Log didn't become the Slog. Lazy asses.

Also orientate? When did orient get to be too blah? Talk about a slippery slope.

ENVIRONMENTAL GENIUS IDEA

This isn't my idea, we were on Lopez Island last summer and the person in charge had a stack of fabric napkins or some sort of squares of fabric in her kitchen to use where I would grab a paper towel. It took about 8 months for the concept to trickle into my brain, but I finally figured out that that is the way to go. For being such a pain in the ass about environmental issues in the home I have to admit that paper towels are my favorite thing. I wish they weren't made out of trees that have been bleached with Dioxin which is about the most toxic chemical on Earth (I'm not kidding), but they are, and I know better. I really think we all need to just think about it as our days go along and throw things away, so I am happy to report that now we have a basket full of cloth towels that we can use to wipe up the black granite counter top,(which is like having a piece of mirror for your counter, I don't recommend it) and all the other kitchen things that come up. Then they go in the washer and come out and then we reuse them and I haven't used a whole roll of paper towels in a month. We will not discuss now how unusual that is. We are all a work in progress.

So what have we learned? 1.Take your own container for leftover at the restaurant

2. Have a bunch of cloths instead of paper towels.

We make progress.

2010-04-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

This week I would like to dedicate the blog to the long suffering Comma Editor and the More Jokes and the All the Rest Editor. Thank you for all your hard work.

Jeez.

The thing about having the editors is they are working harder at it than I am, now I have to go back and do a bunch of revising.

I have to say I'm feeling pretty vindicated about the blog right now, since a big part of it is on the topic of Who The Hell is Running the Show?

Indeed, how in the Sam Hill does one build a 25 story building so poorly in the 21st (I think that's right) century in Seattle WA that in 8 years you have to tear it down? International readers this is an apartment building with retail on the street level, that was so poorly constructed it has been determined that for safety reasons it will have to be torn down. IT IS 8 YEARS OLD, IT'S 25 STORIES IT IS IN DOWNTOWN SEATTLE.

A lot of people will lose their shirts and a lot of others will lose their pensions because it was built for the Carpenters Union Pension fund along with some other pension funds. We used to laugh and laugh at this kind of shoddy workmanship when it was in Communist Soviet Russia. This is just embarrassing for a whole bunch of people, but strengthens my point, which is, it's a bad idea to assume that smart people rise to the top. Obviously a lot of smart people do end up in a position of importance, but it does not appear to be across the board. It seems that a percentage of influential people ride to top based on their outfits. Hell if I know.

In this case once again, the rich white guys who will come out smelling like a rose are lawyers. They are suing everyone no matter how unrelated the work was to the fact that the building has the potential to fall down.

Anyway, the point of this whole comma ridden blog, the apex if you will is this: If this
is the best a bunch of rich white guys with all the marbles can come up with, one despairs.

WaMu executives are testifying before Congress this week, coincidentally, in a not so parallel universe. Not repentant really, just pissed off that they didn't get bailed out. They can't afford cable now.

MANNERS

As you know I have excellent problem solving skills. If you believe as I do that people who spit on the sidewalk are vermin I can fix them. Seriously, why would you think it's OK to leave revolting spit on the sidewalk after you?

The solution is easy, and two fold.

First, it has to be a primary offense, or whatever they call it, like talking on your cell phone while driving, so the cops can arrest you for it. Then, after the trial where the offender is found guilty, the convicted criminal is taken outside the courtroom right that minute by the bailiff and made to spit on the sidewalk. He then (not surprisingly the vast majority will be male) has to get down and lick it up. Sentence served. Cheap, quick, a little cruel, a little unusual maybe but I think the Supreme Court will uphold it.

If that doesn't solve the problem completely, for the second offense, the bailiff takes some random guy out of the County Jail and he spits on the sidewalk and the guilty guy has to lick that up. Then if the spitter is stupid enough to do it again you just give up and throw him in the Big House. The Republicans will like it because it's cheap, the Democrats may not love it, but I'm an almost bleeding heart liberal and I'd pay to watch. Then there is the bonus "Get Out of Jail to Spit Card" for the guy in jail. Pretty win win if you ask me. Problem solved.

RECYCLING

I have decided not to throw my plastic in the ocean after all. Although there is a floating bunch of plastic 1,000 miles wide across in the Pacific Ocean which is almost impossible to believe, but if you look it up it's true, so really what's the difference. And late breaking news, there has been a similar mass found in the Atlantic.

I get this email thing from the Seattle library every month about new books that are out, you can pick categories, like Do It Yourself or Biography, and somehow I have gotten a bunch of titles that involve "A Year Of..." One I read was by a woman who along with her husband went a whole year without buying anything they didn't actually need. It was OK, although the only thing I actually remember about it was the line about them going to some Frugal Meeting or whatever they call themselves and being fascinated with a guy who "had an apparently self inflicted haircut".

Anyway, where I was going with this is. I am thinking about trying to go for a period of time without buying or using any new plastic, not a year, but a month maybe? What do you think? I am already pretty intense about it, particularly packaging that is out of control but I still use it. This means I can't buy Bud Light in six packs because of the plastic rings, for example. You 20 take a vote and I will do what you decide.The great part is I haven't really thought this through. I didn't even think of the Bud Light thing, one of The Editors did, so it could be pretty interesting.

OK what else what else this week?

WORDS

There is no such word as NOTATE.

PRETTY GOOD THING

Anyway, there is good news all around, lets look. The Space Needle is great. When you go up to the Observation Level there are pictures and captions about building it. Turns out they didn't really know if it was going to work. They had to make prototypes of many pieces,well no kidding, you can't go to Granger and order Space Needle bolts. It's interesting that the engineers involved weren't that sure how it was going to work out and it is still perfect. Which brings me back to the 25 story building, oh never mind. Whatever. I love the Space Needle.

The More Jokes and All The Rest Editor has informed me that this will be the last time I'm going to get away with looking out the window to find a good thing, which takes the Arches of Science off the table for future use so I might as well throw them in now. (Really, doesn't it seem like there should have been a whole bunch of commas in that last sentence?)

Well what is so wonderful about the Arches is they light them up for special occasions, and we can see them from our living room. It's usually pretty easy to figure out what's going on, they were green for St. Patrick's day for example. The last time they were Husky colors, that was a little confusing. I think it was because the Women's Softball team won something. A softball game probably. I love the Arches and the Space Needle.

We have a new International Reader, he is stuck in Europe due to the volcano, hope to see you back here soon!

The More Jokes and Everything Else Editor said this one was unfocused. God shes mean. Dammit, it's not mean if it's true.

We Are Going To Call This A Bye Week

2010-04-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

Well this week is just a mess from the get go. Did you know it's Thursday? Not Wednesday? This isn't good news for the blog, you would probably be astonished at how much time I actually spend making it awesome.

Apparently the new color wasn't that popular, I got some complaints, it would seem I screwed up the link thing. It's back to black as far as I know. My son said he didn't read the blog last week because the link didn't work. He works at Microsoft, I'm almost positive he could have gotten into it. You can't buy that kind of loyalty I tell you what.

Then I have two editors, one wants more jokes and the other one wants fewer commas. I don't know, on top of everything else that's not working out this week I'm not furious about anything.

So to fill in the space for now I will tell you the story of the naming of the Blog, and some other stuff.

Once upon a time we were driving for a distance in the car with my then 5 year old granddaughter Roselator (Not her real name, thank God). Because I'm a nice guy and I knew it was going to be a long drive I started singing to keep her occupied. It was "You Are My Sunshine" as I recall. The reason I think so is because I can remember most of the words to it, also Jingle Bells and it was summer. Therefor by process of elimination it was probably 'You Are My Sunshine". So anyway I'm singing along and all of a suddenly from the back seat comes "You sing terrible."

The thing is of course this is not news to me, I can't sing in fact I sing terrible but I was hoping to get a couple years farther down the road before she put two and two together. I said "Well that was kind of mean, you sort of hurt my feelings". I could tell she felt bad, and that she was backtracking to get us all out of this in one piece, and she said "It's not mean if it's true."

Of course it is mean if it's true, meaner usually. So that's that part.

Now I will relate two stories about the GD Paula Deen thing. I seriously have had a bunch of people come up to me and say that we look alike. January and I were walking into the Georgetown Liquor Company, which is a really good vegetarian bar restaurant in Seattle and I really recommend it. The non vegetarians like it. Anyway there were two girls sitting outside because of the whole smoking thing, smoking, and one of them said to the other "She looks just like my favorite chef on the Food Network", so I said to January "Yeah I get that Paula Deen thing all the time and she said "How do you know she didn't mean Emeril?"

Then another one, I was talking to my son on the phone and he said something along the lines of "Guess who the grand kid, Roselator saw on TV and said you look like? (Not her real name) Well of course, I said "Paula Deen" and he said "Wrong gender" Well it was Jimmy Johnson from the pre game football show. So there you go.

I probably need a therapist just from hanging around my own offspring.

It's now Saturday, I refuse to give up on this week. You twenty deserve it.

Both grand kids spent the night last night. We live in a tiny condo, as most of you know. (you twenty followers) In order to make this all work The Comma Editor sleeps in the bed with the Three Year Old. We have a blow up bed that Roselator loves to sleep on, and I sleep on the couch. However this time we were watching The Prisoner of Azkaban when Roselator decided she was going to finish watching it with her eyes closed, and that was the end of her. She was sound asleep on the couch. I ended up on the blow up bed. I had had one other run in with it, which I guess is like childbirth if you give it long enough you decide it couldn't have been that bad.

To start with it's a twin size and about 3 feet tall so when you move it sways, if you have moved at all in your sleep you wake up clinging to it, so that you have to carefully slide back into the middle as to not fall out onto the floor. You can't actually turn over, you need to change position in place, which is good practice for spinning in your grave I suppose.

I don't understand the physics of it, but the air in the room is the Seattle indoor temperature, of 70 degrees more or less, but the air inside the blow up bed is actually from the North Pole. So the whole experience is as if you spent the night on a three foot high two foot wide slab of Jello.

The night wasn't going that well. But then all that changed. Hah, you wonder is it for the better?

We have a cat, named Gracie. She's a pretty good cat as they go. However she is nocturnal as cats are. One unfortunate habit she has is to hop up on the bed, purring and wanting to get under the covers. Which is pretty annoying, but whatever. The thing is I am perfectly happy to lift up the blankets so she can go under because once she is in she will go to sleep. However due to the fact that she isn't that smart she tends to stand on top of the blankets. When showed up in the middle of the night on the jello bed, I picked up the blanket so she could get under and she just stood there, which since I wasn't real well rested annoyed me. I picked her up to shove her under the blanket and damn near poked out my own eye with my cat. Somehow her back foot/claw got caught in my eyelid. I am fine though, thanks for asking.

I am kind of irritated about one thing. We went to Veg Fest, which is as hippie as you can get, it's a kind of Costco sample thing but with all vegetarian food. This year they finally had compostable waste containers. I have always been puzzled by the lack of common sense disposal options at this deal. Now this is the thing. Say Seattle is the base of the pyramid, which is Liberal Land, and as you go up to the top of the pyramid passing Goddammit bicyclers and Prius drivers and hikers and raw foodies and patchouli wearing old Deadheads and whatever the hell kind of hippie dippy types there are in the world, when you get to the top, it's just the freaking cream of the bunch of bleeding heart liberals at Veg Fest. (Comma editor here. See what I am up against?) So I have officially given up on the whole preaching about recycling. I am not kidding you, even in that venue people couldn't or wouldn't figure out how to take advantage of the 4 recycling options. I may rent a storage unit to save all my plastic and rent a truck to drive it to the ocean to dump it in myself.

OK, good, I seem to be getting a little cranky! See you next week.

Bad Times

2010-03-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

Getting bad reviews, from the under generation.

I have been working myself to the bone and getting bony fingers. Wait, I've been working my fingers to the bone and getting bony fingers, that's right.

Not that I'm bitter, but I think the fact that I'm working all by myself to straighten up the entire world, just beginning with Seattle is going over the heads of these tots. I don't care if you do have kids and mortgages, I will tell you when you leave totdom. Boy spell check didn't like that one.

One of my critics (January) said there should be more jokes, apparently the dire state of the world is a problem to be corrected without my help. Fine.

Dyslexic guy goes into a bra.

That just used up the only joke I can ever remember, I hope you're happy.

I am going to try a new format, instead of doing a long thought provoking informative incisive piece every week, I am going to chop it up into bits.

Traffic

Radio

Manners

Restaurants

Recycling/Environmental Shit

Politics

The bullet points are getting annoying. At any rate the idea is that there will be a list of shorter, yet still genius bits every week.

This week for example we will begin with TRAFFIC. I have been working a temp job this week in Renton so I was trying to get back to Seattle.

There was a Sounders game at Quest, so the Seattle cops were out in force screwing traffic up as fast as their little arms could fly.

Would you like to know what makes me mad about cops directing traffic? WE HAVE TRAFFIC LIGHTS FOR THAT. What the cops do is stand in the middle of the street occasionally strolling into the path of the car at the front of the line to make sure traffic can't flow, and randomly letting pedestrians cross the street. WE HAVE TRAFFIC LIGHTS FOR THAT. It took me 20 minutes to go 3 blocks.

RADIO

I am devastated to realize that the radio topic is going to be a non starter.

One of my family members who has lived in Seattle for years and years and years, (yes that was uncalled for, but I'm pissed about the radio thing) said she had never heard of Dori Monson. I found that hard to believe, but I sucked it up and decided that perhaps if it isn't going to play with Seattle natives it sure isn't going to work for the International Readers. But it hurts.

I LOVE radio, mainly talk radio probably due to years of working in the nursery alone. The plant kind, not the baby kind, I could go most of the day, most of the week without a human sighting, so I bonded in perhaps an unhealthy way with radio.

Dori Monson is a Seattle talk show host who is becoming hilarious by way of his creeping right wing crazy. I used to like him a lot of the time, but now he is way nuts and snotty too, so that's too bad He is following the Dr. Laura/Tom Lykus career path. Are they still on the radio?

There was a recent incident where the Superintendent of Public Instruction for Washington State was pulled over for speeding and got popped for a DUI. Dori Monson was foaming at the mouth. This Is An Outrage. This man is supposed to be a role model. He was at the forefront don't you worry. Without Dori Monson the irony would have been lost.

Anyway, radio is going to come up, but I'll try to keep it at a dull roar.

RECYCLING/ENVIRONMENTAL SHIT

You can bring your own Tupperware thing to a restaurant and you don't have to use a Styrofoam thing for leftovers. I just reread that and it said leftover instead of leftovers, it was funnier that way, try it.

The stupid thing about that paragraph is I wasn't trying to be funny so the whole thing doesn't make sense, but I'm leaving it in.

MANNERS

I smoked for a really long time so I'm extremely qualified to comment on this one. Why is it that bar owners and smokers between them (if you think about it there are thousands of brains involved), can't figure out that there are no ashtrays outside of bars and clubs? It's been years since the law prohibiting smoking inside has been in place. In fact there was some indication (it was in the newspaper) that the law was voted on and passed and we knew the date that is was going to take effect, so my question is, how is it that the best solution so far is to throw one million cigarette butts on the ground? Every weekend.

The smokers are like goldfish who have a 12 second memory, it's all new every time. "I just went out for a cigarette and there was no ashtray, maybe this time there will be".

If you walk down First Avenue on a Saturday morning it's pretty disgusting. In front of the clubs there are thousands of cigarette butts on the sidewalk.

Seriously, is there not a single problem solving skill in all of Seattle? What sort of pigs can't figure out where to put a cigarette butt? And Club Owners, you collection of Einsteins, buy a Goddammit bucket and put some sand in it. Or an actual ashtray. All this shit is going into the storm drains. Stop being dumb asses.

POLITICS

I heard a pretty interesting poll result (talk radio, Dave Ross, he is the most reasonable radio guy in Seattle. He is very smart and not crazy) it was a Harris Poll, so I think reasonably reliable.

It's pretty fun because apparently a huge number of Republicans believe: (Shit here come the bullet points again).

Barak Obama wasn't born here

Barak Obama is a Socialist

Barak Obama follows the tenets of the Nazis

Barak Obama is a Muslim

If we are at the point where a pinko Nazi (how does that even work?) Muslim Peruvian(?) Scandinavian(?) dude strolls in here and gets elected president we have some serious border control issues.

In the defense of the Republicans the pollster pointed out that if you take into account the education level of the polled, the results were skewed.

If you want to call that a defense.

The criticism, to get back to the main subject, is being taken seriously, us artists have to take some harsh business from time to time. I was listening to a podcast today, Luke Burbank (it's great, I highly recommend the show, it's called Too Beautiful To Live) http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=93 he had Sherman Alexei on, who is a Native American guy who is a wonderful writer and, (who knew?) basketball player. Alexei is a critic of the current atmosphere of free everything on the internet. His bottom line is that art that's good is in trouble, but the lowest common denominator type art will thrive. I feel real good about that.

Now the last thing. We need to get some more people reading this, 17 followers is a good start. Someone asked me how to become a follower, and I just would love to be able to answer that.

The reason you want to get this going around the globe, (really as far as I know there is only one international reader, but he is really far away), is in your own best interest.

At the rate we are going dudes and dudettes each tee-shirt is now going to cost you about $12,000. They aren't even done yet, but I'm here to tell you they aren't going to be that good.

GOOD AND BAD THINGS ABOUT RESTAURANTS

2010-03-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

The thing is I love restaurants, and I want to love them so it's just so goddamn wrong when they don't make me love them.

This whole blog started over Cafe Flora in Seattle. It's a place that has sometimes been wow awesome bomb on the one hand and terrible on the other. Since it's one of the few totally vegetarian places in Seattle it's calming and comforting for a vegetarian to be there. Carnivores hate it because the food is all weird, they don't know what anything is and no matter what there isn't going to be meat. It's payback for the refried beans made with lard and the soup with the chicken broth base, although that one is a rookie mistake.

So January and I have been looking forward to dinner there. When we got there it was fine. They seem to have some sort of farm/barn theme now, but it's cool. We were seated by the front window facing the street, so far so good.

The waitress brought the menus and I decided on one of the three beers that cost $4.5. There were some that were $9, which is just out of my league. I will pay that for Grey Goose vodka, but beer? No. Beer is more or less beer. Some beer is better than others (I will tolerate no But Light comments) but not that much better.

The first hint of trouble came when they were out of the beer I ordered. Seriously I know it's easy to say, but if you are in charge of wrangling beer and you can't keep track of three what does that say about your organizational skills?

I was on edge already because the last time we had been to this place it was January's birthday. It was a weeknight and we were expecting 10 people. Naturally we had reservations. We were mostly there on time, but there were a couple of stragglers. When you consider that we are in one of the most congested cities in the country it's a damn miracle anybody even bothers to go anywhere at night. The of 8 out of 10 present and accounted for it wasn't a bad average.

We sat there for 45 minutes without being able to order a drink or appetizers or anything. The waiter just hovered for a second then split. I was rendered testy.

As long as you have a captive audience the sensible thing to do is bring on the drinks. We are the ideal group. We don't start fights with the other vegetarians. We have a couple then leave. Losing money hand over fist to teach a lesson to the customers seems kind of stupid. What happens is, it teaches the customers that the employees are snots. I would add that the place was not full, there were no other parties waiting for a table. There was just horrible judgment and bad management.

So that's the background.

Back to the action. When the waitress left after taking my second choice beer order January said "They probably sold out at Happy Hour". The reason that joke is funny is Cafe Flora has had their new happy hour on their web site for about 6 weeks. When I called to find the details, hours etc. the guy on the phone said it wasn't really going on yet. I asked him when it got started was it going to be in the bar area only (the bar is microscopic) or what. He put me on hold and came back and said it was probably going to be all over the restaurant. He had no idea and nobody else did either. Soooo it would appear that they don't have a launch date.

Now here is the nice part. The reason I want happy hour is because they have the best thing. It's coconut tofu, deep fried. It comes with lettuce leaves and basil and you wrap the tofu in the lettuce with the basil inside and dip it in the dipping sauce and it's delicious. That's really all you need to eat, so imagine the happy hour, if they had beer (say). It's an idea they could develop. If they ever decided to give the happy hour concept a try.

So there we were, January and I next to the window and there is a window box situation that's new. It was part of the farm theme, I think. At any rate there were plants in the window box deal and here is the problem:

Plants are to make things look better, however you are not really supposed to notice them unless it's "My God have you ever seen such beautiful orchids!" or begonias or roses or whatever. Looking at the window display I couldn't help but think "You know if you are going to put plants in the window you should probably make it less obvious that they are still in the dirty gallon cans from the nursery and they are really out door grasses. It could have worked inside for awhile if there were three times the number so it didn't look sad and some sort of moss layer on top, however this is really a pitifully thin display". That isn't the look you want to cultivate. So to speak.

Then what happened was, we placed our orders. I wanted the french dip, they make them with portabello mushrooms and they are really good.

January ordered the spinach pizza, one of the three pizza choices, and you guessed it, wrong pizza. Honest to God.

I ended up with the pizza, because I'm a nice guy. The waitress was contrite up to a point. She ultimately took half off the pizza, which was a rock bottom compromise. I don't like pizza. The waitress kind of wandered off after that. I was going to order another beer, but she was having nothing more to do with us.

The point is, if you have a restaurant PAY ATTENTION. Walk around the place. Pretend like you have never been there before. Get off your goddamn high horse, and yes Cafe Flora I'm talking to you. You get to rest on your laurels for about 12 hours after a good review, then get back to work.

Now every one pay attention.

HAPPY HOUR

The correct way to have happy hour is to make all your appetizers half off, and then some lower drink prices and Bob's Your Uncle.

Do NOT make some minuscule ridiculous thing and charge $5 or $7 dollars for it and call it happy hour. Humus is good, but at $5 a tablespoon it does not make me happy. I'm talking to you Twist and a bunch of other places that I can't think of the names of right now.

The best happy hour of all is El Toreador in Redmond, they do it exactly right. You should go there a lot.

And furthermore you restaurants that have only one token vegetarian dish. Tom Douglass. Don't Make It Spicy. A lot of people can't tolerate spicy food. As long as we're on the subject I'm not impressed by how spicy your food is. Have 5 stars, I don't care.

You know where the best vegetarian thing in a non vegetarian restaurant is? Cyclops on First Ave. It's the Hippy Burger, it's great. It isn't good for you, I never said that. But it's fabulous.

What is up with the places that have a bunch of hamburgers and offer a vegetarian burger too, but the vegetarian one has lettuce on it sometimes a tomato. Just put on the menu that you can do it with a Boca Burger. And don't charge more, that just makes for a pissed off vegetarian.

I really didn't see the vegetarian sub plot coming, but it's good for all I think.

This is probably only the first installment of Restaurants. I'm kind of distracted.

GOOD THING OF THE WEEK

Cherry Street Coffee Company wraps up their pastries, bagels and whatever at the end of the day and they set them outside on the table or the newspaper box or wherever for homeless people. It's just a little quiet thing that's nice to do.

Now I'm only behind two!

Sharrows, sadly

2010-03-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

When we got back from Costa Rica in November there were inexplicably bicycle icons painted up and down the streets of Seattle. Since they aren't in bike lanes, the purpose was unclear to me. I started asking around and nobody really knew. One person thought they were bike lanes, but they're not. Someone else thought they indicated where some bike rider had been killed, then another one thought they are to show a biker where to stop. That theory went out the window when it was pointed out that some of the icons were in the middle of the street, and some blocks had three so that wouldn't make sense.

I've gotten some information from the City of Seattle, which in turn causes more questions. I am noticing that the responses I'm getting are downright perky. These people are giddy over their bike policy.

The pictures of bikes that the City has been painting all across Seattle have a name. Sharrows. I'm not even kidding. It's like share the road arrows, get it? The function briefly is: bike riders are supposed to ride on the sharrows. Thank you City of Seattle.

This is the city response to my inquiry:

"It is the city’s goal, as stated in the Bicycle Master Plan, to triple the amount of bicycling in Seattle 'between 2007 and 2017, and to also reduce the rate of crashed by one third during the same time period.Starting a year ago, we’ve added shared lane markings (sharrows) to provide a visual cue to both cyclists and motorists that bicycles are expected and welcomed on the roadway. We want people to share the road. We have typically used them on arterial roads where there is not enough space for standard width bicycle lanes. We have used them to connect gaps between road segments that have bicycle lanes. The painting of the sharrows has been incorporated into our regular contract for street markings, so the additional cost is relatively modest. Thanks for your inquiry and let me know if you need any additional information."

I officially refuse to call them sharrow, I will however call them churros.

Some of the additional information I would like, and requested (no answer) is about the cost. Because I don't believe there was no additional cost, of course there was. If they were dragging the stencil around when they re-stripped lanes and did the churros then, maybe there was a small cost. I could live with that, but these were done independently of other work and I don't believe for one minute that the cost is minimal. Unless it was done by volunteers it cost too much.

Outside our condo the sharrows are in the right side of the lane, and the bike riders are advised to ride far enough away from the parked cars so that they won't be cold cocked by an opening car door. I don't know why we can't continue to use the natural selection method of solving that problem, but as my son once said "I'm a liberal just not a bleeding heart liberal".

One of the most interesting things I think, besides the fact that there is a bike policy in the first place, is that as part of the bike policy there is an avowed goal to increase the bike ridership to three times the number of bikes on the streets downtown. I couldn't have been more surprised if the city council was devoted to tripling the number of squirrels in the city by 2017.

As part of this plan I would seriously, seriously suggest the City of Seattle contact a bike club and get some volunteers to pump up the number of bikes downtown by three times for an entire work week and see what happens. I predict carnage. An interesting part of the bike policy is the cutting down the percentage of bikes being run over, however ending the "crashes" clearly isn't a realistic goal. No kidding.

The problem is twofold. The streets were built for cars. The official response states there isn't enough room for a bike lane, that's just a fact. Spending a bunch of dough on goddamn pictures of bikes isn't going to make the cars go away at least in numbers that matter. If we could get in the Way Back Machine and make room for bikes I would be all for it, but what with the parked cars and buses and pedestrians and the occasional crazy guy wandering in the street focusing on bike riding safety seems kind of pie in the sky. The part of the official statement that says bikes are expected on the streets has a certain reality, but they are not welcome. It may be good manners to say so, but they aren't welcome at all.

I would vote for putting the financial expenditure toward jet pack technology. It seems overdue.

So to finish my thought about the two fold part of the problem, (ADD shows up when it shows up) the people who ride bikes downtown and (I'm not saying all of them, but enough to cause a stereotype) ignore traffic laws. They weave in and out of traffic and run red lights like a bunch of lunatics, and then when they ride in front of a car, or turn right from the left lane and get run over they don't care for it. Well who does, they are like freaking mice, you usually just have to hope they don't run up your pant leg until you can get away from them.

If the goal is to get cars off the streets how about this?

I once heard a guest on a radio show who was an expert on traffic and whatnot and he said that if we took some of the money earmarked for roads and used it on free public transportation it would be a financial wash. That part is a little hazy. I don't actually remember any numbers, but it does make sense. So how about the city buys some natural gas or solar or wind powered or french fry grease or some sort of hippie vans and paint them bright green and have them run up and down the streets like buses, but more frequently and free. So you hop on one for 6 or 10 blocks and hop off and then why would you fire up your car? I'm only talking about downtown now, and the busier neighborhoods so it wouldn't be that expensive.

Public transit works for distances, but it's incredibly inconvenient for short trips. Some focus on that would be nice.

And while we're here, who's brother-in-law got the contract on those stupid parking meter machines. Did it seriously not occur to anybody that taking dollar bills would have been a good idea. And I don't want to hear a bunch of crap about how the technology wouldn't work. Yes it would.

What We Have Learned. I am a liberal Democrat, but apparently there is a point when Democrats go so far off the rails that we get a peek at what Republicans are about. Seriously, this is not money well spent. We are in an economic situation where decisions are being made about people having to to go without life saving public services. This isn't the time for painting on the streets.
I appreciate you all reading this, my own daughter didn't like it, but to be fair she has heard this before. A couple of times. Her name in the blog will be January. She's worried about backlash.

Has anyone gotten in touch with Bud Lite or Paula Deen yet? I haven't heard anything from either camp, but it's been a busy week. Also you need to sign up as a follower so Bud Lite and Paula Deen will know that this isn't some fly by night untrustworthy blog.

Next week I will try to find more common ground if you live in, I don't know, Miami.

I am now 0 for 3 on the good news. I'm keeping track don't you worry. It's mostly a technical problem, I have some saved up.

Dogs In Shopping Carts

2010-03-05T13:58:00.001-08:00

OK, this week it's all about dogs where they shouldn't be. Don't get me wrong, I love the animals, pets, cats mostly, but I'm down with the dogs too. I have dog references, Finster and Abbey love me. Here is a dog tip for you, feed them the leftovers after the kid refuses all forms of nourishment. The dogs don't even know what they just swallowed, but they love that you thought of them. I know that's kind of "Dog 101" but it's fun every time.

When I was a kid my all time favorite book was called "Follow My Leader" it was about a kid who blew a firework up in his face and was blind, and then he went to a boarding school to learn how to function and got his seeing eye dog, a German Shepherd and it was great. So maybe I'm oversensitive to this new phenomenon, bringing your dogs with you everywhere.

I was in Trader Joes awhile back and there was a woman with her daughter of about 13 or 14 and they were pushing a shopping cart around where there was a dog firmly entrenched in the baby seat. It's disgusting dog ass in the cart where most of us put food. I didn't say anything to her, I should have, it's true. I was actually out in my car when I realized I was still pissed, (sometimes it takes me a minute to sort it out) so I went in to talk to the manager. What I learned is he isn't allowed to ask to see service dogs certificates, I looked into it further and can you believe it, a service dog doesn't even have to be certified.

Service dogs aren't required to be trained in any special way, or be able to prove that they can do anything they are just declared.

I was reading a web site about it, and the people who use service dogs are actually fighting against legislation setting some standards for service animals. They don't want to have certification standards but are upset that service dogs aren't always allowed in places. Well is it just me or is this backasswards? Wouldn't some sort of tag or collar or scarf that is universally recognized grease the skids much like a passport does at the airport, or a drivers license when you get pulled over? Just showing me your dog doesn't scream "service animal". Especially if you're carrying it.

I can tell you the manager at that Trader Joes isn't pleased about this either, he said he is so allergic to dogs that he can't be in the checkout line with one.

It seems to me the people who seriously need service animals are shooting themselves in the foot by not demanding some standards. The problem is the new gray area of dogs that are not to keep you from walking into traffic, but the ones who are for making you feel better. And I'm not saying that isn't legitimate, but these are the ones that confuse the issue. There is such a thing as a seizure dog for example, that does something I don't know what exactly, but I guess it's ok to bring it, I personally wouldn't want to depend on it calling 911, but if it's a service dog OK, I just want some proof. Still doesn't belong in the cart.

I personally have a self diagnosed case of ADD. My son mentioned one time that he thinks he has it, and after I thought about it for awhile it just explains all kinds of shit. Like why I can wander off with makeup on only one eye, (that's always as shock in the mirror later), or start to take a vitamin and not be able to complete the task. The fairly famous time I got all the way to Woodinville from Seattle to go to work and realized I was barefoot and had no shoes in the car. So I probably could bring the cat with me to the store a declared service animal if I wanted to.

Clearly the whole take your dog places started with Paris Hilton the Rhodes Scholar. Can you imagine how fast her great grandfather is spinning in his grave? He worked his whole life to make the Hilton name mean quality, and now this.

I am being kind of mean about it, I understand she rolls out of bed about nine and designs purses.

By the way, when you say someone is spinning in their grave do you think they are spinning like a weenie on a rotisserie, or like the spinner in Hi Ho Cherrio? I can't decide. The weenie way makes more sense.

People in stores and restaurants would prefer that you leave the dog at home. We don't think they are cute, we aren't charmed, we are irritated. It is rude and unpleasant all around for you to bring your dogs places that don't say "Dog Park" at the front. If it say's "Safeway" or "Red Robin" leave it at home. And by the way, how is it that most of these dogs are white, but not all the way sort of dirty and miserably ugly? They all seem to be the same breed, with base of poodle and a mess of something that didn't quite work out. Some of my problem is not only are their dog butts where my food is going to be, they look icky too.

Service animals should be on the floor, wearing their uniform and on a leash, so they can be proud of themselves as well they should be.

Another aspect of this whole mess is the people who are driving their dogs around in some sort of stroller. Jesus people stop it, you look legally insane and if you look closely the dogs are embarrassed to death. They are kind of slunk down hoping no one looks at them and just humiliated. Also I'm guessing the next logical screw up is all these dogs in strollers are going to get chubby, and that could be real bad. Richard Simmons might decide to get involved.

It occurred to me the other day that only women go places inappropriately with dogs. I seriously can't think of an instance when I've seen a man with a dog in a stroller. When men do it it's with some weird animal like a cat draped around their neck or a parrot. Not that I'm encouraging that either, it's just interesting. Personally I'm done trying to analyze it, but you are welcome to. So what have we learned?

Pets are to make us feel better at home. Service dogs are to get us there and back. A dog never never never goes into a shopping cart. Unless it's wrapped up in a Styrofoam tray and covered in Saran Wrap. OK, I take that back.

Hooray I'm Back!

2010-02-26T13:27:00.000-08:00

After many requests to resume my blog since we have been back in Seattle I’m ready to start back up.

Blogging from Costa Rica was easy because so much of what goes on there is just puzzling and odd. The culture is something to talk about. But back here it’s just the same old thing, and I couldn’t find a theme, a reason, what would my topics be?

Well you will be glad to know I have had an epiphany about what I’m good at I don't know what took me so long to figure it out. I’m pretty good at complaining.

My son once told me I’m the only person he’s ever known who gets grumpier when they smoke pot. I know that didn’t come out covering me with glory on any level. I really don’t smoke pot; it was peer pressure at a party. In my defense I have only smoked pot a few times in my life, and in his defense it hurt my throat which did make me grumpy for a minute.

On a similar note I once wrote into the Rant and Rave column in the Sunday Seattle Times, about how there is no way for people at Bellevue Square to recycle. (I realize that I am writing for an international audience now, so a brief explanation: it’s an upscale mall in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle. The City Without a Soul I like to call it.) Anyway there are no recycling bins anywhere which is just ridiculous. The Times printed my rant and I forgot about it, until the next time I saw my son about a month later, he said he had seen it and was pretty sure I had written it, but I didn't sound pissed off enough. Well they had taken out the part about how Kemper Freeman Jr, the owner of the mall should be ashamed of himself. I had been edited, which watered the whole thing down.

I was babysitting yesterday, a 3 year old princess. It takes a princess awhile to get dressed. First there is a dress, then a petticoat goes over that, on top of it all goes a fairy skirt deal with flowers and leaves, then you have to sort through the crowns, some are too tight. Then the jewelry, three bracelets on one arm, one on the other. And finally a ring and she was ready.

I was sitting on the floor helping choose among hundreds of pieces of jewelry, thinking I was pretty good at this lady in waiting business. She looked at me and said "You are a witch".

Clearly I'm qualified for this job, overqualified even.

So this is how it’s going to go. I will post a blog every Friday, and your job if you like it, is to send it on. You know, the more I think about it, just send it on. We need to have it reach about a million people, (does that seem like too many or not enough?) which will be interesting, because most of what I have to complain about is peculiar to Seattle, but we’ll see. If necessary I could go elsewhere and find stuff to bitch about, but really it’s the repetition of stupidity that finally puts the pearl in my oyster. So I’m not that cranky really. Most of the subject matter is universal anyway, running a red light is bad in Dallas too.

As those of you who know me know, I didn’t go to college. I have a great respect for higher education. But I have finally separated in my mind the difference between well educated people and people who are smart, there is such a thing as too much awe. I have gone along most of my life thinking “Hey that seems kind of stupid, but I know only smart people are in charge there, so it must be OK.” I have finally figured out that I ain’t no genius, but I’m at least fit to comment.

The thing is, most of what drives me nuts seems just so easy to fix. Somehow thoughtfulness has been replaced with a misguided sense of personal rights. I'm all for that, but as the saying goes "your right to swing your fist ends when it meets my face." Common manners, and common sense, that's all I'm asking.

We have goals here, and yes readers you have some work to do, well you have to put in an email address and push send, so not a lot of work, but it needs to be interactive. So, to make sure we are clear our goals are:

* Raise money through advertising and subscription, or a fund raiser, not sure yet. All of you who know me know that the logical sponsor is Bud Lite, so I’m hoping there will be a six degree of separation situation and that this gets this to them. You can tell them I liked the house made out of Bud Lite during the Super Bowl a lot, and the Real Men of Genius radio commercials are genius. Also I believe my rates will look verrrrry competitive.

* Become famous enough that someone goes up to Paula Dean and says “You look just like that blogger from Seattle."

I really don’t mean to complain about everything, and I promise to have a spot to point out something good every week too.

So, you want to know, what are some of the topics going to be?

The incident that sent me over the top happened last night at was what will likely be my last dinner at Café Flora in Seattle’s Madison Valley. International readers Café Flora is one of a handful of I guess you could say gourmet, high end vegetarian restaurants in Seattle.

Things that are wrong with restaurants

That's one topic. There will be a running theme restaurant wise, with an emphasis on Happy Hours.

Manners

Spitting on the sidewalk, cigarette butts outside clubs. Who raised you people?

Signage

Is there some Twilight Zone around here that makes the people in charge just not able to figure out what the point of a sign is, because it’s not that hard. Microsofties will be, raked over the coals then keelhauled.

Doc Martin

I was under the impression that if you’re old enough to remember the old PBS series Faulty Towers, which was hilarious, you were supposed to be old enough to think Doc Martin is funny. That isn’t really a complaint; I’m just real confused about it.

Government/Seattle City Council

Really? 500 bicycles painted on the streets of Seattle in the middle of a Depression? .

Words

I just don't like a lot of them, and people use some wrong and then sometimes they just make them up.

Dori Monson is the Grasshopper of Dr. Laura

International readers, Dori Monson is a local radio talk show host.

Running Red Lights

Recycling and how people need to stop being bone lazy and stupid

Kemper Freeman listen up.

The Seattle Downtown Library

I probably can't really do a whole thing on it, I just don't like it and I really wanted to.

Service Dogs

It’s kind of interesting there are forces at work I was surprised to learn.

Facebook and Twitter

Jesus. Not complaining about Jesus, I was just swearing.

This is the list I came up with between 6-7 this morning. I'm a little alarmed that it took so little time to assemble this many topics. As you can see it's just small things that irritate me. Well that isn't true, but we are going to start with the small things and work our way up. It's all pretty easy to fix, so I expect we will all be happier soon, I know I feel better already.

I may have been exaggerating a little about how the masses were clamoring for the return of my blog, but thanks you two!

The name of the blog is "It's Not Mean If It's True."

Tee shirts coming soon.