I don’t have time to blog and also fix the bugs in my new site, so I’m going to debug for a bit and not post.  However, since I don’t know anything about anything, I’ll probably end up launching with bugs intact.  Check back for the URL if you like.

In the meantime, pop quiz.  Below is a picture of a basset hound named Mr. Jefferies, who was just admitted into the Guiness Book of World Records.  How did he earn this honor?

a. Dumbest name for a dog ever
b. Mutant dog: secretes adhesive in his ears, causing his owner to become permanently attached to him
c. Only dog to have an owner that looks like a genetic combination of Lou Ferrigno and the guy from “Airwolf”

Answer below!

Answer: Trick question; it’s none of the above. Mr. Jeffries has the longest ears of any dog currently alive on the planet: nearly twelve inches.  Ross Perot is reportedly very upset and not a little insecure.

We often forget about “the skull beneath the skin,” but quickly remember it when we see our dental x-rays.  Not that my first reaction was to quote T.S. Eliot.  Rather, I said something along the lines of “YAAAAHHHHH!”

I also had the urge to tell the girl bearing my oral nudity that my teeth are usually much bigger than that; it’s just that the x-ray machine was kind of chilly.

Holy jesus, look at Arnie’s face.  It’s not even a face.  It’s a mask of death.  I’d like to hit it with a crowbar; I bet I could turn the crowbar into an excellent modern art sculpture.  He’d better hope Mary Cook doesn’t win, because after she gets done taxing breast implants she’s likely to go after face lifts.

Arianna is annoying me.  She dodges every question to go off on some tangential rant or personal attack.  I get the feeling that she’s planning to make back her campaign costs in increased book sales, and that’s the name of her game.

Maybe Cruz Bustamante and Arnie will switch careers.  Arnie becomes governor; Bustamante becomes an action star.  He can co-star in the next Mission Impossible movie.  I can see the poster now: CRUISE.  CRUZ.  No wait, people might think it’s Penelope Cruz.  Well, until they see him.

Only in California: a green candidate in a televised debate.  It’s so cute.  Peter Camejo is like a little baby seal.  Oh look!  He just got clubbed.

Okay, if Tom McClintock says one more time that California’s worker’s comp system should be as low as Arizona’s, I’m going to forward all my junk mail to his house.  California is crammed full of dangerous industries, and that means more workplace hazards.  To say nothing about natural and environmental hazards. Of course our worker’s comp insurance is higher.  What the hell happens in Arizona--people accidentally walk into a cactus?

Dear God.  I don’t want to mark a box next to Shall Gray Davis be recalled?  I want to mark a box next to Is this all a bad dream?

Geese Aplenty: I’m here with my studio audience, and I’m looking forward to help each and every one of them “cross over” into a better place.

Audience: Hooray!

Geese Aplenty: First, I’d like to explain my qualifications.  That other “Crossing Over” show is hosted by John Edward.  He has two first names.  I also have two first names.

Audience: Uh…

Geese Aplenty: It’s clear that people with two first names have special abilities that normal people don’t have.

Audience: Hooray!

Geese Aplenty: Incidentally, we also spend a lot of time correcting people who switch our names around. But that’s neither here nor there.

Audience: So you’re going to help us speak to our dead loved ones?

Geese Aplenty: Well, no.

Audience: What?!

Geese Aplenty: That’s the other show.  This show is about helping you “cross over” into reality.  You know, the place that’s real.  Where you understand that dead people can’t talk.  And people who say they can channel the dead are insane, or charlatans, or both.  Where you watch real television programs full of education, intelligence, and culture.  Like...like Smallville.

(An audience member stands up.  She is a sad looking woman who appears to have been kicked around ever since she was a child.)

Woman: But the dead want to talk to me.  You must help me hear their words!

Geese Aplenty: Oh, okay.  Let’s see.  The name of your deceased loved one begins with a consonant…

Woman: Yes!  “R” for Richard!  That’s amazing!

Geese Aplenty: And you were very close to him…

Woman: Yes!  My God!

Geese Aplenty: He was your relative…

Woman: Well, no…

Geese Aplenty: I mean, not your relative…

Woman: Yes!  My dead husband! 

Geese Aplenty: And he was special in some way…

Woman: Yes!  He was a color-blind idiot savant who could sing ‘Havah Nagilah’ while throwing salmon at random passerbys!  You are amazing and prescient!  Please tell me...what does he have to say?

Geese Aplenty: He says...he says…

Woman: Yes?  Yes?

Geese Aplenty: He says I’m frickin’ dead.  Losing a loved one is hard, but here’s something to remember: death really limits one’s ability to make small talk.  So see if you can deal with it in some way other than watching crap TV and giving yourself carpal tunnel with ouija boards.

(Woman forlornly sits down again and begins fondling a salmon.)

Audience: So wait...the dead have nothing to tell us?

Geese Aplenty: Well, not quite.  Here’s what the Dead have to tell us:

Sometimes the light’s all shinin’ on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me
What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Audience: It’s a miracle!  He’s channeling Jerry Garcia now!

(Taping is interrupted as host of show starts throwing flower pots at studio audience. Carnage ensues.)

Cool: Taking a bottle of wine to a restaurant because you believe your selection may match the food better than the restaurant’s own wine list.

Not Cool: Not really having done this before, and therefore having no idea what to do when the waiter opens the bottle and shoves the cork under your nose.

Cool: Restraining the urge to do a sudden, impromptu puppet show starring a hitherto unknown but soon to be world-famous comic icon known as “Mr. Corky.”

Me: I think I’ve been watching too many episodes of The West Wing on Bravo.

He: How so?

Me: Whenever I’m done talking with the CEO, I have to stifle an urge to say “Thank you, Mr. President.”

He: Right.

Me: Also, remember my proposed West Wing drinking game, where you take a drink whenever a character says “Okay”?  I figured out a way to up the ante.  You take a drink whenever a character says “Sir.”

He: Oh sure, that would work.  As long as you had no interest in making it to the first commercial break. 

Things I’m better at than attempting to learn cascading style sheets so I can redo this site on a new host with new software:

Watching West Wing reruns on Bravo

Hanging out in a bar that has a piano with microphones on it, which is known by all the locals--it’s not unusual when a pot-bellied, 40-year old man walks in, sits down, and starts singing Andrew Sisters songs (with a beautiful voice, no less)

Looking at furniture catalogs and slobbering

Beating myself about the head with a croquet mallet

I can tell that I’m on the verge of dreaming about CSS.  And I can tell that the dreams are going to be scary.  If you’re a professional coder, you tend to dream in code; lines of binary stream down before you just like the green torrents that begin the Matrix movies.

In my case?  I’ll dream of running for my life while a 10-foot Sasquatch with the head of Ethel Merman comes bounding after me.  The creature will tackle me, sit on my chest, and snarl “You’re not going anywhere until you learn the difference between a class selector and an ID selector.”

One thing people don’t think about often enough is how strange it would be to be friends with a movie star.  We usually say “Salma Hayek” this and “Salma Hayek” that...I think it would be odd to walk up to someone and say “Hey, Salma.”

Try it out for yourself: imagine saying “Check out my new galoshes, Salma.” Or “Salma, let’s go shopping at IKEA.” Or “Salma, I feel as though you’re not as emotionally giving to me as you used to be.”

See?  Strange.

(I also think that Salma’s friends know not to walk up to her and say ”Salaam Salma!” And that Salma would punch anyone in the nose who did.  And I wouldn’t blame her.)

The issue of strange first names could result in some awkward social situations.  For example, let’s say you’re at a party at Salma’s house and you’re telling your friend how much you hate seafood.  Just as she walks by, you exclaim “I hate salmon most of all.”

She looks at you, mortified.  And you freeze.  You can’t get the words out to explain.  Because this is just like that time last month when you were at a party at Winona Ryder’s, and the hostess walked by just as you were saying that on your next vacation, you really wanted to “do Wyoming.”

She: I’m afraid of dogs.

Me: But this dog is so nice.

She: Nice?  It’s 145 pounds.

Me: I think the chances of the dog falling on top of you are fairly slim.

(Blank stare)
----
They: I can’t believe J. Lo and Ben broke up.

Me: Hey, it’s rough when you’re in a committed, serious relationship and then you make a big budget movie that flops.  We’ve all been there, am I right?

(Blinking)
---
Me: Did someone close that door?

Her: There’s diaper changing going on in the room.

Me: I see.  And are there also babies in there?

(Crickets)
----
Made some others, similar reaction.  So I gave up.  And I was petty enough not to laugh at anyone else’s jokes for the rest of the day, either.

Yesterday I received a disturbing email at work.  It was from a colleague on maternity leave.  She sent attachments containing pictures of her baby.

The baby looked older than its years.  It scowled.  Its eyes were beady, and they seemed to peer into the depths of my soul.  Evil radiated off its face in thick, pungent waves.

I caught my breath.  I took a step back.  I pondered what I should do.  I thought about it long and hard.

Then I sat down at my keyboard and wrote a response: “Your baby is sooooooooooo CUTE!  ”

I hit “Send.”

And then I leaned back in my chair.

And I prayed to God I haven’t helped to doom the world.

The next time someone tells me I’m “throwing my vote away” for not supporting a major candidate I’m going to dump a big bowl of fruit salad on his or her head.

The logic is always the same: by voting for [LITTLE KNOWN CANDIDATE AND/OR PARTY WITH COOL VIEWS] (let’s call it orange juice) you divert votes away from [BIG FAMOUS CANDIDATE AND/OR PARTY THAT CLAIMS TO HAVE SIMILAR VIEWS BUT IS ACTUALLY A HUGE BIG CORPORATE PUPPET] (let’s call it Pepsi).  And by doing so, you allow [BIG EVIL CANDIDATE AND/OR PARTY] (let’s call it Coke) to win the election.

- Well, wouldn’t you rather have Pepsi than Coke?  I mean, Pepsi isn’t much.  But at least it’s not Coke.

- No.  I’d rather have orange juice.

- But you can’t have orange juice.  You’ll never have orange juice.  The country isn’t ready for orange juice.  Most of the country hasn’t even heard of orange juice.  It’s either Coke or Pepsi.

- I don’t care.  I’m going to vote for orange juice because I want it.  I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t vote for what I wanted.  Whether I get it is irrelevant.

- But if you don’t vote for Pepsi, you’ll allow Coke to take over the world.

- Yeah?  Good.  Because if orange juice doesn’t win, that means we get the world we deserve.  So let Coke take over.  Or Pepsi.  I don’t give a damn.  Because, as Berkeley Breathed memorably put it, both of them taste like malted battery acid.

Let me be clear about this.  Voting for a little-known candidate is not futile.  The following things, in contrast, are futile:

Watching Seabiscuit and hoping the horse just dies so you can go do something else with the day.

Waiting to be discovered by a model talent agency.

Teaching a cat to play gin rummy.

Pouring milk into your cereal then running to take a phone call and running back to the kitchen in a vain hope that the cereal hasn’t gone soggy.

Waiting for the Talking Heads to reform.

Getting in an ATM line behind someone who has ever actually used one before.

These things are futile.  Voting for an obscure candidate is, in contrast, a powerful expression of personal belief and determination.

Now I don’t want to hear any more wisecracks about my voting for Mary Cook in the California governor recall.

I am excited!  A violent shoot-’em-up movie on cable TV!  I will sit down in a comfy chair to watch it!

THE FOLLOWING PRESENTATION HAS BEEN FORMATTED TO FIT YOUR SCREEN

Uh, okay.  I mean, I think it’s important that it’s been formatted to fit my screen--as opposed to, say, my toaster oven or something.

THE FOLLOWING PRESENTATION HAS BEEN EDITED FOR TIME

Hmmm, well, okay, but--

THE FOLLOWING PRESENTATION HAS BEEN EDITED FOR CONTENT

So, when you say content, you mean the actual movie itself, right?

SWEAR WORDS HAVE BEEN REPLACED BY WEIRD VOICES SAYING SURREAL, NON-OFFENSIVE THINGS LIKE “JERK” AND “DILLWEED.” VIOLENCE HAS BEEN ELIMINATED; PEOPLE BEING SHOT ARE NOW SHOWN TO BE GIVING EACH OTHER HIGH FIVES AND BACKRUBS.  SCENES HAVE BEEN SO HACKED UP THAT THE MOVIE NOW FOLLOWS NO LOGICAL ORDER.  NO ONE GETS NAKED.

You know, I think I’ll go read a book.

I’m grateful for:

A female friend so cool that when we all crash a campsite at the last minute because the campsite of our choice was full for the night, and the new site is tended by a pretty, friendly park ranger, my friend will say “I bet she gets lonely out here in the park by herself,” thus proving that she thinks more like a man than the men she’s with (who were too busy giving thanks that we found a campsite to consider porn movie scenarios).

The ability to crash a campsite at the last minute because it’s only for Hewlett Packard employees and one of our traveling companions works for HP. It’s a great site, but HP logos plastered everywhere constantly remind the inhabitants of the hand that feeds them. In five years, I believe that visitors to the site will be greeted by a giant hologram of Carla Fiorini that solemnly intones: “Welcome to your campsite. Checkout is by Sunday at noon or we release the hounds. Dell sucks.”

A narrow escape from the Blair Witch. When we came back to the beginning of our starting point for a hike, we saw a deserted, run-down shack--which we could have sworn wasn’t there before. I forced us to backtrack and make sure we hadn’t accidentally taken the wrong trail, and when we came back the shack was still there. I’m pretty sure we were just in a hairsbreadth of having dark powers wreak vengeance upon us.

Overconscientious friends, so that everyone brings too much food and wine and beer and a lot of it is still unconsumed by two in the morning when everyone is still awake and talking and the campfire is a furious mass of orange embers and red coals.

A shower at the end of two days of not showering. A twig flaked off my head, and a chunk of dirt, and a raccoon, and a large shrubbery. And at the end of the shower I put on deodorant and cologne, even though I wasn’t going anywhere that evening, because my body had to learn: “It was all well and good for the weekend since you stunk so bad that you scared off the bears, but you may have to talk to people in a normal setting this week.”

The other day I found a shirt I liked in Banana Republic.  But it was a little tight around my chest, and I wondered if it looked a bit off for my usual style of dress.  I thought it might make me look as though I belonged to a certain subculture.

There’s nothing wrong with gay men wearing tight shirts that make their arms stick out like hamhocks.  It’s just not my personal aesthetic.

So I asked a nearby salesman if he thought the shirt was too small.  He said, with a prounounced lisp, “The size is fine, but you should wear a slightly darker color.”

And I suddenly amused myself by realizing what I had tried to do.  I mean, this was Banana Republic.  Staffed by the people who normally work at Banana Republic.  They’re all about the tight shirt aesthetic.

But I decided that I was being silly and that his personal orientation wasn’t skewing his advice, especially since he was dead-on about the darker color. So I bought the shirt, and I’m glad I did because I like it.

The moral: You can ask any question you want in Banana Republic, but don’t expect a straight answer.

I hate when you’re tooling along, living your life, and you sudden realize that one of your eyebrow hairs has grown so large that it’s curling down in front of your peripheral vision.

You think you can easily find it and root it out, but you grasp at it with your fingers and you can’t seem to touch it.  It’s like a desert mirage.

So you look in a mirror and discover that the mutant hair has reverted to its secret identity.  Part of the flock.  Just hanging out with lots of other nondescript, normal-sized hairs.

And then you leave and go do something else and what happens?  That’s right.  The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is back on the job.  Other eyebrow hairs run screaming from its monstrous presence.  The eyebrow army fires high-impact weapons at it, but the serpentine creature breathes radioactive fire and blows them all away.

Unfortunately, you have to go to a meeting.  And you sit in the meeting.  And you don’t look at anybody.  Because you’re scared of someone getting smart and saying, “Hey, no one gave me a handout of the agenda.  Greg, could you use your eyebrow hair to lasso me a copy?”

And then you’ll suffer the humiliation of being defended by HR: “Excuse me, I’m going to have to ask you not to make those sort of jokes.  Greg can’t help what he is.  According to recent federal rulings, protected classes in the workplace are not limited to age, sex, gender, and race, but now include people who suffer from lycanthropy.”