I like Mandy Moore’s cover of “Stupid Cupid” better than the Connie Francis original.

Mandy has a nice voice and the arrangement is just darn perky. Francis, on the other hand, sounds a bit like a female impersonator.

Oh, and also? All these trendy garage bands like the Strokes and the White Stripes? I liked you all better when you were called The Replacements.

No one gave me a vest for Christmas this year, but my brother Geoff did give me this bad boy:

I excitedly assembled it, rearranged the plants on my balcony, and prepared to sear the hell out of some turkey burgers. I poured the charcoal and stacked the briquettes, then squirted on some lighter fluid. I lit them using this cool “no match” lighter gun that was part of the gift.

As the flames roared to life, I shouted happily: “I am Prometheus! I bring this fire to all of mankind at the cost of my very soul! I bless thee with the gift of flames, and--”

Uh…

Er…

The flames died down. They had apparently been burning on the gas, but had completely been unable to ignite the charcoal. So I added some more briquettes and lighter fluid, and re-lit the grill.

As the flames sprang into blazing existence again, I screamed ecstatically: “I am Prospero, burning my books! I have given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak my own bolt--”

Uh…

Er…

The flames had vanished again. My first barbecue experience was an abject failure.

I suspect it’s because the rain hit me as I was carrying the charcoal from the market to the car, and some of the water seeped into the bag. Or maybe I shouldn’t have used generic-brand charcoal. In any case, I’m not finished yet. I’m prepared to escalate this conflict as far as it needs to go. If you see a mushroom cloud emanating from a balcony on Moss Avenue, it’s simply because I’m doing everything and anything in my power to light the damn grill. There’s no need to worry.

Much.

“Holy mother of God. How are we supposed to unwrap all of those presents?”
“We can work shifts.”
--------------
“What are you doing?”
“I’m putting a gift in Geoff’s stocking.”
“No, Geoff’s stocking is down there. That stocking is for the cats.”
--------------
“Those are wine charms, Greg. You put them on your wine glasses so your dinner guests know which glass is theirs.
“But Greg’s wine glasses already look completely different from one another.”
--------------
“I made your blog my home page.”
“Really?”
“But I haven’t had a chance to read it for a while.”
--------------
“Scientific studies indicate that all the races and ethnicities in the world are descended from five individuals.”
“That must have been a heck of an orgy.”
--------------
Bonus! Overhead expressions of endearment/affection:
“Love.”
“Dear.”
“Sweetheart.”
“My little muffin tin.”
“My little Krispy Kreme.”
“I’m your bitch.”

Twas the day before Christmas
And Greg gave blogging a rest
To spend time with the family
And hope he didn’t get a vest
(Nothing wrong with a shirt, or something that is polo
But a vest? Who am I, Han Solo?)
The blog will return, with plenty of geese
So Gap model lovers everywhere can tell me to cease
In the meantime, I wish you all joyous celebrations
And very happy holidays--regardless of your religious denominations.

Not to rip off my friend Anna’s marathon training journal, but I had the sweetest run today. The air had the brittle snap of an October in New England. The late afternoon sun backlit the trees. Drivers slowed their cars so they could admire the milky glare of my legs pumping up and down, keeping time to the beat of the world. (They did too. No, you shut up.) And what got me through the last mile? Not my normal gasoline of pain, frustration, and determination. It was wings of glory, my friends. Wings of glory.

There’s some stuff I really want for Christmas, so I thought we could take this moment to set the record straight on some of my alleged misdeeds over the past year.

1. First of all, there’s the See’s candy incident mentioned below. Just scratch that one off your list, because I’ve been punished enough. Who in their right mind came up with the idea that coconut should be something people want to eat?

2. All those times I blew off going to the gym. Like you’re one to talk. Take a good look in the mirror, fat boy.

3. Yes, I did kind of sleepwalk through the last press release I wrote. I used the word “solutions” about six times. But, y’know, we really do provide solutions. It’s all the other companies’ press releases that are full of meaningless, self-serving hyperbole--not mine.

4. When I wrote the check for my property taxes, I scribbled “For the Robber Barons” in the “memo” section. You have to admit, that’s pretty funny. Oh lighten up.

5. Instead of letting KQED keep the $65 honorarium that they give to their commentators, I’m using it to buy the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 3 DVD. I’m sure you’re about to get all self-righteous now, Mr. Run-the-Business-with-Illegal-Elf-Labor.

I hope we have an understanding. I expect to see quality loot this year, and none of those lump of coal shenanigans. Remember, I know where you live.

Love,
Greg

My co-worker had a box of See’s candy on her desk, and no one was around, so I snatched one. I ended up with the chocolate equivalent of a landmine: ugly, evil, coconut.

Let me get this straight. The Rwanda massacres happens and that’s just fine; the Middle East is in turmoil and the world keeps spinning. But I have one little moral lapse and suddenly the universe is all, “You see that? You see that? Unleash the karmic hounds!”

I was surprised when my friend (who is also manager of my department) wanted to see “Attack of the Clones” on opening night last May. He can geek out on occasion, but he also has a wife and two children to offset those impulses. Still, he really wanted to do this, so we took off from work several hours early to wait in line at the Corona theater in San Francisco.

The scene was predictable. Everywhere you looked, people dressed in outlandish costumes brandished space-age weaponry. They waved yellow and blue lightsabers frantically, as if trying to land passenger planes. A group of laughing friends drank cans of a mystery substance from a gigantic R2-D2 ice cooler.

The guy in front of us, though, was of a completely different caliber. At first glance he was nothing unusual--he was in his thirties, dressed in a Ben Kenobi brown cloak, and holding a large, powerful-looking lightsaber. (If I owned a lightsaber, I would have brought it too. Because that’s what you do when in Rome--or among the Jedi, as the case may be.) But the guy started talking to his friend about his toy, and we learned that it was a hard-to-find item that cost him $200. But that’s not all: “I made several of my own modifications to strengthen the metal plating around the handle, and to improve the bulb intensity. Isn’t it bright?” He waved it around for effect. In fact, I noticed that he always stood in a kind of half-crouching attack pose, as if fearful of being jumped by stormtroopers at any given moment.

My friend seemed to take inspiration from the rampant geekiness around him, and started talking about another friend’s stereo system. A high-end system costing thousands of dollars, it had rear speakers. And subwoofers for those speakers. And equalizers for those subwoofers. And hardware upon hardware designed to make every drop of sound as crystal-clear as possible.

As my friend talked, the guy in front of us started listening. He even arched his neck so he can hear. And, in the middle of my friend’s sentence, the guy suddenly turned around--still holding his prized lightsaber in front of him, still half-crouched in order to defend the universe--and looked my friend in the eye, and said, with an earnest voice that had never known a single shade of irony:

“Isn’t that just a little bit obssessive?”

The problem with living in California is that people aren’t used to storms. So when we face a little bad weather and rain, people blow it out of proportion.

I’ve lived in Boston, where I was late for a class I was teaching because I had to dig my car out of a solid block of ice and snow. I’ve visited Chicago, where the wind feels like an x-ray when it sweeps off the lake. And I was born in Alaska. (I was too young to remember anything about Alaska, but it makes a good rhetorical capper to my point, so I’m mentioning it anyway.)

In California, though, people get bent out of shape whenever the sun is gone for more than a few hours. Grim-faced newscasters forecast the weather as though they’re announcing casualty lists: “I wish the news were better, my friends.”

And across the Bay Area, people catch the cue and speak to each other like they’re in disaster movies. “I--I’m going to work now, sweetheart.”

“Oh my God.”

“If I don’t make it back--”

“No, don’t say that! Don’t say that!”

“Please--let me just get through this. If I don’t make it back...you can defrost the meatloaf that’s in the freezer.”

Overheard at the gym:
Teen girl employee #1: You looked tired.
Teen girl employee #2: I’m mad tired.
Teen girl employee #1: Sucks to be at work.
Teen girl employee #2: I can’t wait to grow up so I can just be a housewife.

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to order Acme-brand explosives, magnets, rockets, and other assorted paraphernalia, why didn’t he just have some steaks shipped in from Chicago?

I mean, even if he caught that damn skinny bird, he would have only found himself with a barely adequate mid-morning snack.

The newest Gap commercial shows lots of beautiful people singing “Love Train.” Despite their repeated insistence that “People all over the world [should] join hands [and] start a love train,” though, the models are American-looking and 80% white. I know what they’d say if a pygmy from Cameroon tried to join in: “Oh, gross. You just go start your own love train. But first buy a cheap-ass cotton scarf.”

When I was a teenager, acne splattered my face like machine-gun fire. It appeared without warning or reason, stayed to remove whatever shred of self dignity and confidence that high school may have deigned to leave me, and then often disappeared--sometimes for months at a time. Then it returned savagely, as if to say: “You’re getting closer to legal drinking age, but you’re going to have to suffer before you get there.”

As an adult I don’t get zits very often. But when I do (as I did yesterday), they don’t arrive in their old rat-a-tat-tat style; I only get a single one. And it’s enormous. What’s more, I know that it comes from stress. Anxiety and worry congeal themselves into an imposing crimson monument, like an angrier version of the 1939 World’s Fair Dome. It has its own unique architecture. I suspect it even has its own ecosystem.

When I’m forced to wear one of these magenta medallions, I don’t worry much about ironing my clothes. I barely comb my hair. I definitely don’t bother with cologne. Because none of that will matter--I know that in my interactions with people, their unspoken thoughts will be louder than their words:

“Hey Greg, are you dropping by the pub later?”
(I’M REALLY NOT SURE WHICH ONE OF YOU I SHOULD BE TALKING TO.)

“Greg, you did a great job on that press release.”
(I WONDER HOW RUDOLPH THE REINDEER’S NOSE GOT TRAPPED IN YOUR FOREHEAD.)

“Greg, what are your plans for the weekend?”
(DOES THAT THING HAVE ITS OWN GRAVITATIONAL PULL?)

But from now on I am going to treat my glowing companions with pride and respect. They attach themselves to me because I earn them. I acquire them by moving at blinding speed. They signify that I’m pouring tons of energy in my company’s ROI white paper project. They demonstrate that I’m concentrating on buying only the best Christmas presents for my friends and family. They’re proof that I’m managing my finances to the best of my ability. Their very existence means that I’m being active, energetic, and engaged.

It is, therefore, a complete coincidence that I’ll be wearing a Mexican sombrero for the next ten days or so.

I predict the new Star Trek movie, “Nemesis,” won’t fare well at the box office. Why? Their starship viewscreens have barely advanced in the last 30 years. From Captain Kirk’s ship to the new shows, it’s just been the same boring television set.

Even now, I suspect that children are watching the show with their parents in complete bewilderment. “So let me get this straight, Dad. Their living room--”

“It’s called a ‘bridge,’ son.”

“Whatever. Their living room with a bridge is smaller than ours, they’re sitting on a bunch of IKEA furniture, and they’re all talking to a Sony plasma flat panel display. I thought you said this show was set in the future. Is that thing even HDTV compatible?”

One Trek technology I don’t look forward to is the Holodeck. I’d wait patiently in line, get to the front, and the engineer would tell me: “You can be anyone and go anywhere. The only limit is your imagination. Just tell me the details and I’ll program the computer.”

And what would happen? I’d freeze like a jackrabbit in headlights. I’d stutter, I’d stammer, and then I’d blurt out: “I want to be in Marketing, have a thinning head of hair, and drive a Honda Civic. Make sure that I snore loudly when I sleep, and that it sounds like someone putting brass tacks in a blender. And absolutely under no circumstances should I be a published novelist.” I’d walk inside the room and my “D’OH!” would echo throughout the galaxy.

I’m looking forward to the movie despite all this, but I am concerned that the Next Generation crew is getting long in the tooth. I suspect that during the climatic space battle, they won’t be running around and punching control panels. They’ll have to fire photon torpedos using the clapper.

If you live in the Bay Area and would like to hear my mellifluous tones, KQED (88.5 FM) has set the dates for my two minute bit of blather. You kinda have to get up early or stay up late to catch it, though--it airs Monday, December 9 at 6:07 a.m. and 7:37 a.m., with a repeat that evening at 11:33 p.m, and Saturday, December 14, at 7:37 a.m. Check it.