In Honor Of Becka

In honor of Becka, who's movin' ta Brooklyn, a story on Jersey.

Forget "Garden State, " New Jersey. Go with "come to New Jersey for the contaminated ground water and stay for the squirrel." I'm only goofing, my sister-in-law lives in Edison...well, kind of goofing.

No, not really...well, yeah, I'm kinda joking.

Petaluma, WTF?

Just a couple of counties north of San Francisco, is a city called Petaluma, which means "hill backside" in Coastal Miwok. A bucolic-type of place that in the span of a day, just turned into one big episode of the Jerry Springer show. Draw your own conclusions as to what the Miwok were just trying to say.

Movie Quotes

I was going to do a post that was basically going to bag on this insane elderly woman that came into Popeye's Chicken, as we were picking up dinner tonight. But in the end, I found it a little too insensitive for my taste and I bet inevitably that you would find it that way too.

Instead? Oooh, Reel Life Wisdom! Movie quotes that you can apply to your own life for inspiration...or demanding elderly women at Popeye's Chicken.

The Godfather of Noir

Here's an article, ladies and gentlemen, on Eddie Muller. San Francisco's Godfather, of all things Noir and a pretty damn good author too.

Ask Not, What Your Procrastinator Can Do For You

My laptop's wireless card slot is still kaput, the house is mess, the shop is neglected with a slogan just lounging in the pipeline. The blog is on the verge of neglect, but dammit, "I've rid the land of Cao Pei!"

You'll have to take care of the sheep and goat pee yourself. Or is that pronounced "pay?" Why would you pay a cow? The milk is free and...I don't know where I'm going with this.

P.S. The video game spells it "Pi," so maybe I defeated 3.14...etcetera.

P.P.S. I also won the battle of Shi Ting. No, I'm serious, it was 228 A.D.

Is Martha Starting Rumors?

I heard about this on the radio on the way home from work and I don't believe it. The timing is off and it's way too late to bring it up, even if the rumor was remotely credible. I guess this means that "Miss E-V-Oh-Oh" has finally made the big time when the rumors are coming out of left field, like a giant space steer was slinging them.

I will tell you what was funny though, someone texted into the radio station and said, "Rachael Ray looks like a garden gnome."

Ponder that for a minute...
















is her favorite movie "Amelie?" Will she send a certain statue and the person who does his voiceover to the unemployment line, when she becomes the new spokesgnome for Travelocity? How's about her calling up the house of Vuitton and having them design for her, a line of red conical hats and boots to match? Or a whole show devoted to standing in the garden and trying to keep that same grin, while dogs use you as a urinal. The life of a garden gnome, is intense, Emilio.

We're out of Beta!

Yeah, you are, Blogger! Me? I just tried to get a new blog going and all I have to show for it, is a template.

We're out of Beta!

And, I, am King of the Pirates!

There was enough great responses, that I just wanted to provide a seperate venue for them. Big (expletive) sigh...

P.S. Fifteen minutes later and now I can't even sign into the thing.

We're out of Beta!

And now I'm out of time.

"The Bad Lieutenant's Wife," The Game

A friend of mine and I had a conversation years ago, where we came up with a word-slash-title game. You combine two disparate movie titles into one, as if it was a natural thing all along. Thus, "The Bad Lieutenant's Wife" was born.

So, using the aforemention as an example:

"The Bad Lieutenant" and "The French Lieutenant's Woman," become "The Bad Lieutenant's Wife." Capisce?

"Three Men And A Little Lady" + "The Lady In The Lake" = "Three Men And The Lady In The Lake."

This was before Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I think, but I'm not entirely sure. So using a movie with Kevin Bacon, "The River Wild" and couple that with "A River Runs Through It." You get the "The River Runs Wild Through It."

Any movie with "Friday" in the title is too easy. "The Friday The 13th After Next," right?

You can mix eras up, by taking something older and combining it with something a little more recent. Thus, "Bad Santa At Black Rock."

Surely, you the reader can do better, "Jude Law, The Obscure"...well, that's not really a movie title compliation, but you get the idea.

Ladies And Gentlemen!...

...the return of Is That So Wrong! I for one, am all geeked up! Get geeked up too, go over there and wish one of my favorite blogs ever, a Happy Blogiversary.

What, are you waiting for me to draw you a map? Click the link, jeez! Honestly!

"Palms, Harry Palms," As I Google Myself

You ever Google yourself and wonder, "how the hell did I get on this site?"

http://cleveland.city.biz/Exterior/Exterior-Paint.html

Sixth link from the bottom of the text entry. And really, how did I get here?

P.S. I'm not in the second link anymore, I guess they rotate links.

Post.Post.Scriptum. I've never been to Cleveland, or anywhere else in the Midwest except in transit.

Post.Post.Post.Scriptum. Does Cleveland really "rock?"

I Didn't Look Down And I Stepped In Meme

Ah, gadzooks! I asked Katie something and she in turn, asked me in kind.

You see, Katie brought this up (note the picture of Louie, the Super Dog. He only stood still for a second before he saved twenty children from a burning bus) and then, that up. So I said "what about 10 things you need to know about your Katie?....I'm waiting."

So I opened my mouth and got memed.

I'm not passing this one on, mostly because I brought this upon myself. So without further ado, fither ado, even, Snagglepuss, here it is...

1) I've got a temper. Damn, I mean, I've got a temper. Having Procrastinator Jr. in the car has saved me from many a fight or even worse things. I have to be an example for my kid, which brings me to...

2) It's easy for me to stay drug and alcohol free, but not swear free. I try to keep it clean on my blog and I steer away from racier issues because I don't want the in-laws or specifically, my nieces and nephews to get the wrong impression. My Sitemeter sez that they don't come here, but some search engines keep everything you say up there, for nearly an eternity.

F**king Internet B*st*rds! Once I start cussing, it doesn't stop and I even make people with Tourette's wince.

So, in person with Junior around, you will hear me say "Mother Hubbard!" and "Jiminey Cricket!" more than an adult should (like any adult should talk like that). He hears enough f-bombs when walking past the bus stop from kids who are oblivious to young ears, just like I was at that age.

3) I am a person of color, many colors actually and I'm not saying which, at this time. If you saw me, you wouldn't get half of my racial makeup correct and if someone comes off at me, a little narrow-minded, I will make it a point not to tell them just what those races are. The worst example of this was back in '89 when I was a checker at Safeway and a woman asked me, "what are you?"

Me: I'm a human being.
Odd Woman: I know that, what are you?
Me: I'm an American. (to the Head Checker) I'm going on break.
Odd Woman: No, where were you born?
Me: San Francisco.
Odd Woman: No, where were your parents born?
Me: In America.

The Odd Woman followed me back to just short of the break room and I didn't say another word to her. It seems insensitive now, but you have to realize that she wasn't gonna be happy until she put me into a category. I don't fall into a category, not for the census and not for her with that tone. Hey, speaking of narrow-minded people wasting my time...

4) I've still got more issues than the back catlogue of Nation Geographic for a certain suburb east of Oakland. You know your "happy place?" All I've got to do is hear the name of that suburb and I get to my "psycho place," real fast. There's about eight years of my life that they owe me and hell yeah, I still got that grudge.

5) Loyal readers of this blog know that I'm a big kid, but now everybody knows. In my family, it's okay to watch cartoons well into retirement age and I see myself playing video games well past my time of passing. So be forewarned, keep whatever the future incarnations of Playstation and Xbox outside of your house or in a sound-proof room. Because that ghost that will be keeping you up by racking up the high score at four in the morning, will be me.

6) There are crappy songs that I love, but I'm too embarassed to buy or I never get around to buying. "Poison" by Britney Spears, "Rock Your Body," by Justin Timberlake, "I Belive In A Thing Called Love" by The Darkness, off the top of my head, because I was going to do a guilty pleasures post like Beth. If vinyl singles were still around, I would own songs like that in my collection. I'm not paying five or six dollars plus shipping for the CD singles and I won't download them, so your ears are safe when you come by my house or ride in my car. Speaking of cars...

7) I listen to the radio, even though the selection of music and the constant commercials aggravate me to no end. I could afford a satellite radio, but I won't pay for one. I could burn CDs from my collection that would keep my happy and would surprise me probably more often than the radio, but I keep listening to the radio.

What makes it worse is that in the San Fransisco Bay Area, most of the stations are owned by only three corporations. So they collude together and time their commercial breaks within seconds of each other so that it's virtually impossible to tune in any music. You'd think I'd learn by now, rather than telling the radio to S.T.F.U. all the way up and down my presets. Go fig'.

Remember what Einstein said, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

8) If some of the things listed above make me seem cheap, I'll let you in on where a lot of my money goes. Women have shopping, some guys have boats or cars that they like to drop a fortune on. Me? Food. I bought a jar of mustard infused with tarragon and didn't even blink at the nearly seven dollar price. I get a craving for crab cakes or prime rib? So be it.

I don't go clubbing anymore, I get drunk only about four times a year, if that. I don't gamble and I'm not the clotheshorse that I was back in my clubbing days. So food eats up most of my free income and some income that really should be going to more important things. But my stomach is happy.

9) Speaking of not gambling, I drop about nine dollars a month on the lotto and that's it. The Missus and I were explaining to Procrastinator Jr. that Vegas didn't like us the one time we went, because both bowed out after we lost $50. Gambling is in my family, not as bad as my Grandfather used to do it and my family stays away from it for the most part, but they have a hard time stopping once they start.

My Grandfather used to play the ponies, the numbers, football pools, anything he could. He used to take me to summer fairs, just so that he could hit the horse tracks they had there. He provided well for the family, but he had to hustle here and there, just to stay ahead of his vice. We're talking selling fireworks out of the trunk, magazines that should've been shipped back to their publishers and those are the things that I can remember now, or that I figured out at the time.

I confine my vices to my screeplays and short stories because no one ever beats the house.

10) I learned Italian from living off and on there, for about a year and a half. That was over some twenty years ago and I find myself speaking Spanish more frequently (I'm not complaining), even though I can barely order a burrito. The problem is that I can't think in both languages and I find that for each word of Spanish that I learn, I forget two words of Italian.

Figura ti, che peccato.

Hone Yer iPhone

When I said in my previous post that I had just found out about the iPhone, I wasn't completely in the dark. I knew with a seventy percent certainty that it would be announced at Macworld and what it was. I just had no idea what it would look like or what features it would have. I still really don't, as I've been catching up on other things and haven't had time to study up on it.

It's a nice "accessory," but unfortunately I work for a living and me carrying that thing around would leave it more jacked up then a scratching post at a kitten farm.

Nokia has a little booth at one of the few malls in San Francisco and they have a phone that doesn't have any buttons either. One day soon, all cell phones will be voice-activated and you won't be able to mention anyone's name, without fear of accidentally calling them.

The Missus bought me a prepaid cell phone for Christmas because I don't like to worry about minutes and the flat-rate company that was my former carrier, was always leaving me flat-out pissed off. Amongst other things, their coverage doesn't extend to my workplace and the phone's battery would wind down, looking for a signal. I never turned the damn thing off because once I did that, I would never remember to turn it back on until I had to make a call.

Not to mention that every time I went into any restaurant, I would get no reception, which did not bode well for the Missus when she wanted to change her take-out order with me.

The original phone and my first cell phone ever, was the Nokia 2270. It is still sold in some places, even though it is as old as dirt in cell years. Forget about downloadable ringtones, games or anything. We're talking a no-frills, candybar design that is tougher than sophisticated, as mine has been dropped hard over a dozen times.

The Old Faithful of cell phones in terms of durablity, people. And mine was dilapidated like that Ford Pinto you see every time you drive past the trailer park and you know rust is the only thing keeping it together (though not as flammable). The last four months I had that phone carrier, I had to pay my bill in person as their online paying service allegedly has/had security problems and my keypad was worn out, so I couldn't type in my debit card number anymore to their phone paying service.

How worn out was your keypad?

Thanks for asking! You can only read the numbers 2, 5, 8, and 0.

I used it as a PDA. Keying in my shopping list, appointments, script notes, and Procrastinator Jr. would play the pinball game whenever we were stuck waiting on his appointments, and whatnot. Well, the pre-paid phone wasn't going to work out because I couldn't transfer my phone over, so now I went with a plan where I have to pay attention somewhat to my minutes and I chose a Nokia 6133.

It's a perfect phone and as soon as I get the an adaptor to port over MP3 files, I'll be all set. Hopefully it's going to be easy to transfer MP3 files over to the ringtones, as so far, only Virgin Mobile as Mooney Suzuki's "Alive & Amplified" available as a ringtone.

Here I Am, For The Moment

Here I am, as out of touch as can be. I literally just found out about the iPhone, three hours ago < : 0

I've got up to my email to a lesser degree and I've got up on all of my Get Fuzzy reading. I refuse to look at my Sitemeter, that's one obsession that I don't want to get caught up in again. A watched pot never boils, ya know?

Coming to this blog soon, my version of a meme that isn't a meme, but a game. You'll see what I mean and it something that even Prez-a-bent Shrub could do with out too much effort.

Sorry About The Hiatus

College football and video crack are partially the cause of my online absence. Not to mention I managed to burn myself out on blogging and blog-hopping, so I've traded one social-avoidance obsession for another. That's about it.