The people in my neighborhood

Saturday morning I basically couldn't get out of bed. Lower back pain. Radiating down my left leg. So much for plans to get things done, we packed up the family and took me to the doctor.

The only funny that I could find out of the whole ordeal was when I took Dan Tan La, M.D.’s prescription to the local pharmacy, I was greeted by Pharmacy manager, Phat Du.

One very brave little girl

All the leaves are brown - And the sky is gray

Today was the perfect day to head up the coast, away from the super models, and “go see a client” in Santa Barbra. Three hours of beautiful coastline with windows down and radio up. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.

Stopped into a church I passed along the way

I've been for a walk On a winter's day

California Dreamin’ indeed.

what a SUPER view

a MODEL for others to envy

Well lady...

You’re at the right place.

The headline says it all: Mom Left Children Alone for Springer Show

A blog with 26 posts before noon...

Must be the ADD ADHD blog.

Update: It was taken down, but trust me it was really funny in that attention deficit, hyper active, blog every five minutes about ADHD kind of way.

Friday Foto

Dusty. Glass. Blue. Balls.

The party story

It’s good to have a party story. Sort of like a party joke. Something that is light, funny, a little self-deprecating, and can tell other people something about you.

For me, it’s this story:

Two days before my wedding, a dozen of my closest friends took me out for a bachelor party. We piled into the limo, and headed for Hollywood. As we were traveling, I was presented with a number of "gifts". I started opening packages. “Great, Vaseline” “Oh plastic handcuffs, funny” “Gold coin condoms... yeah you guys are too funny”. I kept shoving the stuff under the seat, back at my “friends”, anything to get it out of the way.

One condom was opened up, unrolled and inflated. Note: An inflated “balloon” will immediately fly out the open sunroof of a moving limousine. California Highway Patrol officers and limo drivers do not find this as funny as bachelor party revelers in said limo.

Once I had gotten through the embarrassing gifts, we thankfully arrived at our dinner destination. Dar Maghreb, a restaurant that is, “like dining in a fine Moroccan house” on a traditional Moroccan dinner (an place I highly recommend!)

Apparently, one of the “features” at a traditional Moroccan restaurant is a belly dancer. When the 20 something young lady came over and started dancing it was quickly pointed out to her that this was my bachelor party, and then decided that what really needed to happen was that I should dance with her.

Having more belly than dancing ability, I made a fool of myself for a minute or two and then thought that I was done. As a grand finale the dancer leaned way back as if doing a limbo shaking shoulders and hips and said, “ok, now you lean over me”. As I bent over the woman, out of my shirt pocket come half a dozen gold coin condoms that go bouncing off her bare midriff.

After the rain

This shot has a lot more photoshop than most, so if anybody is interested, here's my original.

Friday Foto

Same shot. Different point of views.

Selling out

Do you think Chewbacca gets a lot of crap from the other Wookies about this kind of thing?

I see all the Wookies having a big Wookie party, drinking spiked Wookie punch and Wookie beer, in the Wookie tree house. At some point in the evening, inevitably, somebody holds a lollypop up over their head and starts dancing around all crazy, and all the other Wookies laugh and start chanting “Chewy Pop!” “Chewy Pop!”.

Meanwhile, Chewbacca tries to drowned out the laughter wafting through the trees by recounting his royalty checks. But, it doesn’t really work.

my morning adventure in photos

Friday Foto

Can you please print that spam out for me

This post is not about junk faxes. I know you already hate them as much as me. No, this post is about misplaced marketing.

OK, side note. Have you seen the fax scam that asks you to vote on a controversial issue? It’s on of my favorite scams. We get these at work all the time: “Let your voice be heard!” “Should George W. Bush be impeached for war crimes?” or “Should Roe vs. Wade be overturned” or “Should people with blue eyes be rounded up and shot?” It doesn’t really matter what the issue is, as long as it is as inflammatory as possible. Then there are two big boxes “Check here for yes” and “Check here for no” and “Your answers will be tallied up and sent to the White House and the Congress!” “Vote as often as you like” and finally, “Fax your opinion back to 976-1234”. Down at the very bottom in small type is, “fax call is $4.95/min. applied to your phone bill, fax takes approximately 2-3 minutes”

So if you have something with enough universal appeal, some people must respond. The one that threw me today was this gem. If anybody needs 24 lacrosse helmets, I know this guy in Jersey...

As someone in the ad industry, It just makes me sad to see companies waste money like this. A half readable fax sent across the country. I wonder how may of these they sent out. I wonder how I got on the list. I wonder if anybody replied. And most of all, I wonder how they don’t know that badminton is the new lacrosse?

If I can’t Google it, did it really happen?

Yesterday I heard a brief report on the radio that made the point of yesterday’s post perfectly.

INS/Homeland Security denied visa’s to a group of Chinese gardeners who were coming to consult on The Huntington Library’s new traditional Chinese Garden. Apparently, it was not a “culturally significant” enough reason to visit.

The weird thing, and the reason I put off posting it, was that I can’t find another word about this anywhere. Maybe is was a hoax, or a story and I just heard a snippet. If it is true, we are on the lookout for the wrong things.

Urban legend or a real problem?

I've heard stories about perverts replacing kid's videos with porn, but I don't know if it's ever really happened. Google has no records.

Apparently Fisher-Price is concerned enough about it to place a safety seal sticker. This video was buried in about 5 layers of packaging. It was a throw-in with a toy, in a sealed box, the video itself was shrink-wrapped, and in it's own box. It took me scissors, a knife, and getting through a dozen twist-ties to get to it.

This is the parenting equivalent of TSA confiscating key-chain nail files at the airport. The likelihood of some old lady taking over the plane with a crochet hook it zero, but the people in charge need to look busy, like they are doing something about keeping us safe from terrorists*. I think there are people who feel safer on planes if they get hassled at the airport, "well... they seem very through, they made me take off my shoes".

I guess I can rest assured that Fisher-Price is looking out for the welfare of my child. "Wow... They really are concerned for my baby". Either that, or it's CYA.

*I actually do believe that the government is doing a good job of keeping us safe, but it's not from increased airport screenings.

OK, the moth was freaking me out