One Bad Random

As you should probably be able to guess from the title, this is almost an exciting story. Lisa and I went to her family's for Christmas. One of her uncles on her mom's side has his own used car dealership. He typically buys cars from police auctions, cleans them up a bit, and resells them for a profit. He also has his own little financing setup to provide auto loans to people. Inevitably, someone can't pay and the car has to be repossessed. A different uncle, also on her mom's side, has been repo'ing cars for the original uncle.

Christmas night we headed over to the repo-man's house to drop off some papers the other uncle had asked us to deliver. Her uncle said he was going to repo a car that night and asked if we would mind giving him a ride to the lady's house and waiting in our car until we confirmed he had gotten the repo'ed car running. Are you asking me if I want to go repo someone's car on Christmas? Oh, hell yes. He briefly mentioned that we could get a police assisted repo if we would feel more comfortable. Lisa assured him we wouldn't need to get the cops involved. I, of course, agree. What kind of chickenshits would that make us?

We got near her house and dropped to drive by speed. Unfortunately there was no car in the driveway. While I'm running the spectrum of emotions (relieved not to get shot at, disappointed at the lost opportunity for adventure, another form of relief at not having to take someone's car on Christmas) the uncle said we could run by the lady's job–McDonald's. Ok. So now we're headed to McDonald's on Christmas night to see if some poor woman had to go in to work and get popped in the face with fry grease for $0.25 over minimum wage (did I mention it's Christmas?) so we can take her one means of transportation. She'll then incorrectly conclude that the car has been stolen, call the sheriff, and be told that it has in fact been repossessed–happy Christmahannukwanzica. She'll then have to walk home 4 miles, uphill, in the unforgiving Texas winter with nothing but a McRib stuffed down her pants to keep her warm–which she'll have to eat when she gets home.

Luckily, even McDonald's is closed on Christmas. But wait! The uncle suggests we drive by the town's only theater (which is open) to see if she is watching a movie (that costs her 2 hours wages, 4 if she buys a soda) so we can swipe her car there. At this point I don't know what to hope for. Can't I just follow the lady later and break her thumbs or something? But again, mercifully, she is not at the movies. That part of the night ends with us dropping the uncle back off at his house. Almost exciting. Maybe next time.

Lisa forwarded me this entry of a guy that gets an unusual birthday cake made for their mother. You'll have to scroll down to see the picture, but the entry is worth reading.

If you know me, you know I've got a couple of Mr. Potato Heads. Well, there's another nice Star Wars themed toy on the market. That's right, the Spud Trooper is available, complete with a little potato masher instead of a blaster. Does it get any more brilliant?

Here's a the blog of a contractor in the IT industry that I mentioned to a few of my co-workers at lunch today. In particular, I liked the bath tub and the candy entry in particular. It's refreshing to get a different perspective on things.

There I am, minding my own business in the company kitchen when suddenly I see this year's "Toys for Tots" promotional poster hanging right there in plain sight on the refrigerator. Exhibit A:

What's wrong with that, you ask? Well take a closer look at the photo I snapped:

That's right, that's baby Hitler and his jack-booted hound dog riding up on his rocking horse ready to lasso his racist ass a veritable plethora of toys possibly including Dora the Explorer, Bratz, or even Teddy Ruxpin (he's making a comeback). Those cold, hate-filled shark eyes on baby Hitler completely ruined my day.

I'm sure someone has already come up with it independently, but I just came up with some new slang–jams my caps lock. As in, something that gets you angry or causes you to overreact. As you can probably already guess, it comes from people in IM or chat that have their caps lock on all the time. It "feels" like they're shouting. For example, "You know what really jams my caps lock? Those fucking Swedes and their chocolate houses."

I ran across a photo of my mother recently that leads me to believe I must have had a rougher childhood than I remembered:

Mom's sportin' a fucking AK!! Okay, I think it's actually a toy, but that look on her face says she's not playing…

This blog is read mostly by people I work with (who have already heard this joke multiple times), but I'll try to give a brief overview before getting right to the punchline. This will also give me a chance to over-explain a joke, which I think only makes it funnier. I'll warn you now that most people will find it pretty tasteless (although tame by my standards).

You can skip this if you know what foosball, stuffed shots, and facials are. We have a foosball table at work. It's a great deal of fun and a very nice stress reliever. Now, in foosball, when the goalie has the ball (typically after blocking a shot) they try to clear it past the opposing offense. Sometimes, the opposing offense manages to get in the way and shoot the ball back into the goal. Some people call this a stuffed shot. We happen to call it a facial around these parts. Now, if you're being clean minded you can imagine that the phrase comes from something like a volleyball term used when you spike the ball into the opposing player's face. (You can learn more about fun and exciting volleyball terms here. If you're not clean minded you can find a couple of alternate definitions over on Urban Dictionary. Good old Matt, who is leaving us, happens to hand out facials of the foosball variety on a regular basis.

Next we have the home run derby. This is where a pitcher throws easy pitches to a batter who then tries to hit a home run. It's a fun little contest to see who could hit more home runs if they got their ideal pitch.

And finally, we have my idea for Matt's going away thingee. He gets on the foosball table and repeatedly tries to clear the ball from his goalie in a very slow manner (right in front of the goal). The rest of his coworkers line up and take turns stuffing the shot, also known as giving him a facial. I call it foos-kake (after the particularly un-appetizing concept of bukake.

Enjoy.

I was playing online poker last night while watching television. I usually don't chat much while playing online, but occasionally I get all kooky and/or goofy like a man insane. Here's my recollection of the worthless chat I had:

Player A: way to make your hand on the river
Player B: thats how i roll
Player A: roll on this
Player B: i dont get it
Me: i think he's saying you can roll around on his erect penis
Me: basically saying, 'fuck you'
Me: with the 'i' being implied in that statement
Me: reminiscent of the way primates assert dominance
Me: now do you get it?
Player C: even domesticated ones?
Me: yes. which is why i fuck the living shit out of my monkey every day when i get home
Me: to show that little motherfucker who's boss
Player C: is it a chimp? or an orangutan?
Me: those aren't monkeys. they're both apes. great apes in fact.
Player C: a spider monkey then?
Me: colubus. most monkeys have tails btw
Player C: it's monkies btw
Me: in fact, it is not.
Player C: ok. you're the primate expert, i guess
Me: now, the monkees were a 'band'
Player C: and a terrible band at that
Me: well, mike nesmith's mother invented liquid paper, so you've got to cut them some slack
Player C: i love liquid paper, especially with some scotch
Me: is that a 'mistake eraser?' similar to a 'mind eraser?'

And that is all I have to say about that. The table finished the rest of the game in silence, unfortunately.

Well, I stretched this one out long enough I guess. My five installment trip summary of an eight day trip took two months to write. Will it be worth the wait? Hell no. Did most of you forget I even had a blog? Probably so.

Day Eight – The Catch All

As is usually the case, the last day was the "Oh shit, we never got around to <blank>. Maybe we can do that today." We got up and thought it'd be great to go eat a lunchy type of breakfast in North Beach (the Italian area of San Francisco). Unfortunately, we were smack dab in the middle of 4th of July weekend (the start of tourist season), so our plan to take the street car was foiled by the droves of sightseers that were hanging off the street cars like the Turnbull A.C.s in the Warriors. We walked to the next stop thinking we could get on there…and then to the next stop…and to the next stop…look honey, we walked all the way to fucking North Beach. We thought about eating at the Stinking Rose but the restaurant next to it, Mona Lisa, had a selection that was three times bigger. They didn't have garlic ice cream, but I really don't think I was going to try it anyway. Lisa and I continued our epic battle of portrait versus landscape as can be seen here:

After eating we walked to the bus stop that would take us to our next destination: Coit Tower. As is the problem with public transportation, we waited quite a while before the bus finally arrived. When we got to the tower, there was a line of approximately twenty people waiting to take the elevator ride to the top. I stood in line while Lisa ran off to buy our tickets. There are a lot of murals on the walls of the ground floor. They're interesting enough to look at while you wait. Roughly thirty minutes later, we were riding to the top. The elevator was one of those old pieces of shit that require an elevator operator. I noticed that he had a container for tips (as everyone seemingly does these days) and that he missed the floor by six inches. Since I'm a tightwad, an asshole, and a ceaseless bitcher/complainer/critic I decided that if I tipped him he would never learn.

The view from the tower is great. I would definitely recommend visitors to the San Francisco area to go to the top once–and only once. After you've looked around and snapped a few pictures, you're done, which is about what I expected. Still a good view, though. We waited in line for the elevator again, reached the ground floor, and waited for the bus back down the hill. The amount of traffic coming up the hill was crazy, so we started walking. About fifty yards down the hill, we ran across our bus and hopped on. It took another twenty minutes or so for the driver to get crazy enough to just use the oncoming traffic lane to reach the top of the hill so we could, um, go back down the hill.

The bus we rode down the hill took us right to Fisherman's Wharf. Again, since it was a holiday weekend, the whole wharf area was super crowded. This of course brought out more street entertainers and con men, which is always entertaining. We grabbed a bite to eat and headed over to a nearby shopping area called the Cannery so we could pick up a bear for one of Lisa's friends at the Basic Brown Bear Factory. This seemingly innocent trip to what I thought was a toy store lead me down the rabbit hole into an entire dark, teddy bear centric subculture that operated as a strict gynocracy in which I was nothing but their sperm filled plaything. But that's a story for another time. For now, suffice it to say that if you've seen the build a bear things in the mall then you'll know what I'm talking about.

We did some last minute souvenir shopping in Chinatown and headed back to the hotel. Once there we had a pizza and had the traditional "see if we can drink the remaining alcohol we bought" challenge. Ultimately we failed but had a good time trying. Up in the morning, cab to airport, shitty breakfast in airport, and presto! We're back in the civilized world.

And thus ends the great San Francisco trip of 2005.