Grumpier than usual today:

Moved to a new part of the office building. Less privacy. More difficult to de-stress by throwing out random lines from Raiders of the Lost Ark ("You throw me the idol! I throw you the whip!") or old disco lyrics ("Le freak. C’est chic.")

Cat hair on a black shirt (which, as a trivia note, was a rejected title for an old Tennessee Williams play)

What did happen to Agent Cooper after Bob possessed him? I mean, yeah, Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring--hot. But let’s keep our focus here.

The Bush administration helped write the Middle East “Road Map to Peace.” That’s like hiring the Unabomber to stuff envelopes.

What’s up with kids today and these “emo” bands? Are they so numb from a decade of detached, ironic music that they have to label a musical style that has emotional conviction? In my day, we didn’t call that kind of music “emo.” We called it U goddamn 2.

It’s the kind of day when you’d really rather stay home and watch “Saved by the Bell: The True Hollywood Story.”

To say that I’m not attuned to fashion is like saying that the Titanic may have been somewhat ill-equipped to handle icebergs.

Therefore, whenever I find myself in need of new clothes, I take a break from my habitual scientific study of the females of our species and I look at men instead. What’s new? What’s nice? What could I wear without traumatizing young children?

In particular, I look at our sales guys. They’re type A personalities, they’re always in front of the public, and in general they all dress pretty well. As part of the marketing department, I sit in on the weekly sales meeting. So, a few Mondays each year I’m discreetly scanning the room while people are yammering on about revenue targets.

It’s also possible to talk to the guys and ask a few questions. For example: where did you get that shirt? When did you get it? Are there others like it? And so on. But this has to be done very carefully. Otherwise, you may end up with a scene like this one:

(I sit in meeting, then turn to my right.)

ME: Hey Bill.

BILL: Hey.

ME: Nice shirt.

BILL: Thanks.

ME: Would you say that you’re an ‘autumn’?

BILL: Uh…

ME: I’m totally an autumn, although I can wear some winter colors too. I think I’d go for a shirt like that if it was a little less orange-y.

BILL: Well, uh…

ME: I don’t mind the shirt being a little tight around the chest, though. I mean, it brings out the muscle tone, right? Am I right?

BILL: Here’s the thing, Greg. I’m going to move to the other side of the table, and I think it’s important that you don’t talk to me anymore.

(I sulk for a few moments, then turn to my left.)

ME: Hey Steve.

STEVE: Hey.

ME: Did you buy that shirt because it brings out the color of your eyes?

(Steve bursts into sudden tears.)

STEVE: God bless you, Greg. Even...even my wife didn’t notice.

Exactly one month ago today, I ranted about my Sprint bill being emailed to me in all caps.

Well, she* reads my blog, and she’s also part of a marketing/advertising firm that does some work with Sprint.  She commented, “The people I know at Sprint wouldn’t be happy that customers are being shouted at on their invoices.  Why don’t you forward the email to me? I’ll send it to someone who cares.”

So I did.

And yesterday?  My Sprint bill arrived in my inbox.

The text was all in lower-case.

This isn’t just a victory for me.  It’s a victory for thousands of Sprint customers with electronic billing, who month after month have opened up their email, saw the startling wall of capital letters, and shouted “Yaahhhhh!"** No one will ever have to go through that again.  People with heart conditions are no longer in danger.  Lives may have been saved.

On most days, I love the Internet.

And on some days, the Internet loves me back.

*Thanks Reecie!

**Actually, my name on the salutation line is still in all caps. But that’s as it should be, for I am fierce.

I hate the expression “the coast is clear.” The term is used in everyday life in the context of being chased by secret agents and the Russian mafia, but it should only be allowed when there’s actually a coast around. Otherwise, it makes no sense at all. And not just any coast. For example, anyone who uses the expression while standing on a beach in Santa Barbara is either blind or a high-ranking Chevron official.

My friend Meredith, in remarking on the Scooby Doo post below, mentioned that while watching the cartoon as a 4-year old, she thought the characters were actually saying “The ghost is clear.” Which makes complete sense. Her anecdote, coupled with the fact that children don’t pay income taxes, leads me to theorize that we all start out as geniuses but grow up to be incredibly stupid.

Natalie invited me to appear on her site’s feature, “Behind the Blog,” in which I answer some pre-set questions and then respond to questions throughout the day from her readers.  (And thanks to whomever nominated me for that...I think?) You can read my responses to Natalie’s questions by surfing over to her blog, Pickle Juice.

Of course, you might say “Big deal, if I had a question to ask you, I’d do it in your own damn comments.” Well, tough, because this is all I’ve got for today.  Ingrate.

One of my great lessons in the gulf that divides Man and Woman occurred when I was seeing this girl, and we found out that we both really liked “Scooby Doo” as kids, and we were glad to have this in common, until she said “I liked him because he was so cute!” and I said “I liked the fact that he fought a new and cool monster every week,” and then we stared at each other blankly for a few moments.

Browsing in a bookstore this weekend, I realized that it’s absolutely critical that all of us, everywhere, band together and get Joyce Carol Oates to stop writing.

I’m not exactly sure how.  Cutting off her fingers would be a little violent, but shouldn’t be dismissed from consideration.  The bottom line is: Joyce needs to shut up.

Do you know how much space she fills up in your average bookstore?  It must be a good 30% or so.  And who reads any of it?  I mean sure, many of us have read Oates because she’s had stuff like “The Lady with the Pet Dog” anthologized in textbooks.  But she’s not satisfied with that; she keeps churning out novels and essays and collections of novels and essays.

Joyce, think about the last time you sent a manuscript to your editor, which was added to the stack of 30 Oates manuscripts already in his office.  His assistant informed you that he had jumped from the top of the building.  How many more must die before you get the message?

I can hear your whiny response right now: “But gee, Charles Dickens and William Thackeray wrote dozens of suffocatingly long novels in their time, and nobody complained.  I’m a modern-day genius just like them.”

No, you’re a modern-day obsessive compulsive who needs to get a life.  I mean, sure, Dickens and Thackeray wrote a lot.  But you know what?  That was 19th-century Britain. Everyone sat around saying “You know, it’s going to be a really long time until we get DSL.  I don’t think we’ll be able to watch the special features on the Spirited Away DVD any time soon.  We can’t even watch the Learning channel, since not only is there no television but, well, we’re Victorians, which means we’re wrong about everything so there’s nothing to learn. I guess we might as well read another book about cute yet impertinent rapscallions making their way in British society.”

Since none of those factors are currently extent in the year 2003, I hereby entreat you to shut up for five lousy seconds.  Sit on your hands if you have to.  Just whatever you do--please--don’t write a response this post.  The Internet won’t have the bandwidth for it.

My parental units thought the whole web journal thing was weird when I started one.  They didn’t say anything specific, but they read my posts and then they read people’s comments and they seemed to think, “It’s one of those online community things.”

But I was adamant: “People who keep web journals are just like normal people.  There’s nothing strange about them.”

Well, I met several of them for dinner last night.  And now I know that’s a grotesque lie.

Take Helen Jane, whom I had met before and determined to be a beautiful, charming girl.  But last night, her complex series of plastic prosthetics, which she wears to fool everyone, fell off right into her Brazilian entree.  I...I can’t describe what was underneath.

Then there’s Ismat.  You might think she’s just as friendly and funny as her online journal, with the added bonus of an infectious laugh.  But no, she’s actually a truckdriver named Milo who crushes beer cans on his forehead.

And you might wonder if Dan is a good natured, easy-going guy with an arsenal of both amusing anecdotes and arcane vocabulary words.  Nope--he sits with his back as straight as a board and only communicates using a laptop.  If you snatch the computer away from him, he switches to hand puppets.

And Jennn might be thought of as being a nice, quiet girl who watches everyone carefully and laughs a lot.  No, she only came to dinner to sell everyone Amway products.

Others were there as well, such as Hilary, Davy, and Ismat’s host and roommate, but they couldn’t tip the balance.  I’m completely disillusioned.  I’m resolved to move on to more healthy, traditional activities.  Like...like chat rooms.

The world of The Matrix may be full of intelligent people and sophisticated technological advancements. But at least in our society, people go indoors and take their damn sunglasses off.

I was relieved to cart a trash sack full of clothes to the Salvation Army, until I walked past the front window and saw a sign that read “50% off sale!”

What’s up with that?  If one place in the world should be offering “everyday low prices,” it’s the Salvation Army.  I thought their slogan was “You can trust us to give you the absolute lowest price possible, because you know if we don’t we’re going straight to Hell.” What’s next, flashing blue lights?

Donating the clothes is weird too, because the guy smiles cheerfully at you and gives you a blank receipt that you can use for tax purposes.  I looked at the paper and my evil angel started chattering at me: “That suit you just donated wasn’t a battered old rag from J.C. Penney’s; it was a brand-new Armani.  Yeah, that’s the ticket.” But then you look up at the smiling man holding your clothes and you think, “Oh yeah, the honor system.” You can’t treat the transaction like a business expense reimbursement, where the taxi driver gives you a blank receipt and you later fill it out: “Cab driver did not understand quickest route from airport to hotel.  We took a long route, went through Oregon.  Took four days.  Full fare: $3,723.”

Completely unrelated: My friend Wendy and I hiked at Pt. Reyes and on the beach I saw the strangest thing--a moist, clearly alive sea anemone, surrounded by wet sand.  I said, “I’ve never seen one just sitting on land and away from the water,” and Wendy poked at me and I looked up and saw that there were hundreds of them, like little pulsating balls of moss, scattered across the entire shore.  The tide had withdrawn so far that they had no choice but to wait, collecting their moisture as best they could until the water returned six hours later.  The scene contained a sad kind of beauty.

Of course, I ruined it by talking about a new idea for a screenplay, a white-knuckle thriller about beleaguered beach organisms harassed by both the ocean tide and government agents, entitled “Anemone of the State.”

Sometimes I worry about my lack of imagination.  For example, I love to play air guitar, but I’m pretty sure that I only know three chords.

1. For the second time in a week, someone sent a 30-page document to the printer and then forgot about it, so when I printed my own two-page document I had to go and fill up the printer with paper, wait for the first job to finish, and then get my own document.  Hello, are you a complete moron?  Do you stuff your face with rubber cement on a regular basis?  Do you visit old buildings and inhale as much asbestos as possible?  Your parents despise you.  You are vermin.  Cats and dogs hate you in equal measure.

2. Graphic on CNN Headline News: “Viewers Decide: Should Iraq Choose It’s Own Government?” Why, this is “headline news” to me.  I had no idea that the rules of grammar had suddenly changed and now it’s acceptable to use an apostrophe in the word “its” to indicate a possessive.  How refreshing to receive my “headline news” from a pack of incompetent, illiterate troglodytes.  Would you care to play in traffic?  May I interest you in a rousing game of Russian Roulette using fully loaded pistols?  You are vomitous.

3. Car in front of me slows down to a crawl and then, finally, gradually, makes a left-hand turn.  Of course!  Because the turn signal is more of a “suggestion” than a “rule.” Especially when you’re too brain-dead to do two things at once, i.e. maneuver the steering wheel and then operate the complex machinery that powers the turning signal equipment.  Have silverfish eaten out your medulla oblongata?  Have you snacked on an exhaust pipe full of carbon monoxide?  You are a cretinous mass of protoplasm.  You are a gibbering nitwit.  You are Rick Santorum.

Other than that I had a pretty good day.

May is a good time of the year for geeks; the world almost becomes the kind of place that we’d create for ourselves if we were given the opportunity to colonize our own planet.  Everyone seems to like talking about geek stuff, mostly because Hollywood releases all of its geeky-yet-still-mainstream blockbusters like X2, Matrix, and so forth.

But it’s not always easy, and the month of May doesn’t tell the whole story.  Just because an oppressed minority marches in a parade or pushes through some legislation or gets a mutant superhero sequel doesn’t mean that life’s a cakewalk.  We often encounter difficult and challenging situations.  For example, the other day I was having some beers with a few co-workers, happily scarfing down mugs of Guiness.  The conversation covered work, politics, movies--and then it turned to sports.

I had lost my power.  I was Superman next to a slab of Kryptonite.  I was Wolverine without his claws.  I was Governor Gray Davis--well, just about anywhere, actually.

But it’s possible to go into survival mode at times like this and attempt to translate what’s being said so you can keep up on the conversation.

They say:
I hate watching my team when I’m in the other team’s home town.

I translate:
It sucks when you’re dressed in a Babylon 5 outfit and you accidentally wander into a Star Trek convention.

They say:
They’ve just been hobbling along since they traded all their best players.

I translate:
They’ve watered down the franchise with substandard sequels and spinoffs.

They say:
Tim Duncan will easily be the sixth player in NBA history to make the All-NBA team in his first six seasons. He and O’Neal will be the first teammates named to the First Team in consecutive seasons since Utah’s Karl Malone and John Stockton in 1994 and 1995. 

I translate:
Uh...uh...hobbits good.  Sauron bad.  Jeez, I need another beer.

You get 60 seconds of freefall when you tandem skydive from 13,000 feet.  They figure that’s enough time for you to collect yourself and handle parachute duties without the help of your instructor, who is hooked to your back.  You’re supposed to check the altimeter, a large gauge strapped to your wrist, and deploy something called a drogue chute when you reach 6,000 feet.

I said, “Listen, I’m the kind of guy who forgets to turn his car lights off, and that’s when I’m standing on the ground.  You expect me to remember to check this ‘altimeter’ thing and pull the cord--while in freefall?” I wasn’t trying to be a difficult.  I just wasn’t sure I’d have time to fit all this in between screaming for my life and showering the earth below with freshly-made urine.

“Dude, I can always do it for you.” My tandem instructor had a ponytail and multiple earrings, and looked like he went straight from the skydiving company to the beach.  In fact, he probably left work each day by parachuting to a waiting surfboard and then popping a Mountain Dew or something.

“No, that’s okay, I can handle it.” Note to self: Pull parachute at appropriate time.  Do not die.  I said to him, “So, how you feeling today?  Hangover or anything?”

He chuckled, then grew solemn and reflective.  “Actually, I didn’t drink at all last night.” If he had a beard and robe he could have been saying “Actually, I parted the Red Sea last night.” Sobriety seemed to be a new experience for him. I had only been joking, but now I felt good: he was teaching me how to skydive, and I was assisting him with his 12-step program.

Although they teach you how to kneel down and arch your back when you’re at the open door of the plane, the leap into the wide blue yonder is all about the instructor, who kicks off with his feet and shoves both of you into space.  My freefall was different than most: it was an overcast day, and we fell through clouds.  And you know what?  My mother was right.  Riding in airplanes as a kid, I would suggest that you could bounce up and down on clouds like a trampoline.  She said, no, you’d fall through them.  Mom wins again.  You do fall through them, and a band of freezing cold wraps around your head while streams of white shoot past you and seemingly through you like gusts of dry ice.

Even in freefall I did manage to check the altimeter.  In fact, I checked it two or three times.  11,000 feet, then 10,000 feet, then 8,000 feet--and I started feeling bad, like the instructor might think I was checking my watch out of boredom or something.  I thought, I’m not bored; I’m frickin’ freefalling.  It’s not like I’m flossing my teeth.  So I thought I’d give the altimeter a rest, and right that millisecond the instructor taps my wrist, a special signal that means Dude, you’ve hit 6,000 feet, pull the damn cord or we both DIE SCREAMING.  We had hit 6,000 feet?  So fast?  I looked down, saw a checkered green and brown landscape spiraling up to meet us.  Thanks for the welcoming committee, but I’m not quite ready for you yet. At least, not like this.

I pulled the cord, and suddenly the world was snatched away from me as the parachute seemed to yank us all the way up to where we started.  I wondered if I’d bang my head on the underside of the plane.

But no, a moment later we were quietly parachuting down to Earth.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see my friend Tuan above us; his parachute seemed to be working too, so bonus, we had at least survived freefall.  My instructor shouted, “Do you get motion sickness?” I thought about it, and realized I had seen The Blair Witch Project on the big screen with no ill effects, although it did give me kind of a disturbing dream a week later, but I figured that didn’t count so I said “Hell no.”

And he began steering our parachute so we turned and twisted and tumbled.  In mid-air!  Fun!  Except, well, I started getting motion sickness.  I wondered if the skydiving company would get sued if I threw up on someone’s lawn, house, or head. 

But then he let me steer the chute and I was a much more cautious driver.  My personal brand of parachute dancing turns out to be more “macarena” than “lambada.”

And then only a few minutes later we were heading towards the landing area, and I kept my feet up so the instructor could use his own his legs to break our fall.  We landed and I sat there on my butt in a pile of gravel, and the instructor said, “We need to move and clear the space so your friend can land too.” And I started to move, but my butt said, “Hold on, give me a damn second here; I didn’t expect to actually touch earth again unless I was splattered across it.” So I humored my butt by sitting a second longer, and above me the clouds curled around each other and moved swiftly onwards, completely indifferent to the fact that a boy had just tumbled through them.

I think I receive different spam emails from Classmates.com than everyone else does. Mine say: “Greg, you have dozens of classmates registered on Classmates.com! However, they have no more interest in talking to you now than they did in high school.”