substitute

1. How to get extra treats:



2. How to deflate to one half inch thick and grow to nine feet long and still remain cute:



3. How to be firm yet cute in demanding that various apes do exactly as you require:

I just spent the four hours from midnight until now waiting for a large technology company to fix their end of the giant mechanical badger we're building together so that could start it up again. Waiting for someone else to do something for four hours is much more annoying than working for this amount of time.

During this time my eyes started to really tear up and I decided to remove my disposable contacts. When I went to do so I couldn't find the left one and thought it had fallen out when I was rubbing my eyes in an irritated way earlier.

Just now, hours later, I discovered that this rogue contact had been hiding in one corner of my eye which is why I still couldn't see too well and was itchy and wondered if I had Eyeball Rot. But no, there was a small piece of plastic stuck up in a corner there somewhere.

I'd give all of you an eczema update but I think I've been erotic enough what with the giant mechanical badger and the eyeball issues.

Good night!

I got the #1 buzz with shave the dumb stuff on top option again this time. Remind me to keep it this way; feels so much better than tangly greasy fringe.


Aerial View
( A couple more, some salad, and then dessert. )

Early in my computer stuff career I worked for a small dotcom outfit that did work for entertainment companies. There were four principals who ran the place, each of which deserves his own article. Today I'm going to talk about Barry (not his real name).

Barry was a smallish, delicately built man with a careful tan. He wore Entertainment Executive Casual clothing of the 90s: those priest collar shirts, khakis, expensive loafers. He had been an exec at a big movie studio and this was his first independent company.

In most ways he was a stereotypical New York entertainment Jew transplanted to L.A., and like most smart people who are stereotypes he played it up. The result was a near-perfect reenactment of Woody Allen in Annie Hall most of the time. When I first started working there he took me out to lunch, and over a Reuben and home fries I got to hear a 90 minute oration on tap water. The tap water in New York was good, but then he came here, and he put a glass of tap water next to his bed and in the morning he saw all the disgusting sediment, and he only drank bottled water now. Yes, 90 minutes.

Barry was halting, diffident, nebbishy in conversation. He salted his sentences with "uh you know" and "if you see what I mean" and "okay, so, okay, so" and pulled his hands up to his face pointed down, like a chipmunk. He'd then rub them together rapidly, changing animals to become a grape-washing raccoon. His eyes darted around the room and he frequently turned away from people while speaking to them, or looked fixedly at some object while he talked.

He loved privilege and perks, and was careful to make sure that he got them all. When any swag or free tickets arrived in the office he was sure to be there to spirit them away. If one of the underlings managed to score something Barry would appear at the desk: "Uh, yeah, hello. So. Yeah, the items, that came from Paramount. Yes. Those are, um. I'll need to, yes, thanks, take them."

When something was on deadline (which was always), Barry would succumb to terrible anxieties. Often he would end up behind some hapless employee's desk, mincing back and forth between two blind spots. "Hi, yes. Not wanting to um bother you! Just, I am trying to. If you could. Um, how is the timing looking for this. The agent, is, you know, waiting. Okay. Okay yes." He could stand there, slightly too close, and wait for someone to complete a writing or graphics task for a good solid hour. If he felt especially worked up he might actually come up and poke someone unexpectedly, which caused at least one employee to snap and scream "BARRY DO NOT EVER DO THAT AGAIN GODDAMNIT".

Barry was an aficionado of humor. The Simpsons were in their prime and we all had sound clips, which since he didn't know how to do sound he envied. I remember him making me play the Harry Shearer Springfield Police Department Rescu-Fone thing over and over and over while he rocked back and forth giggling at my desk.

Barry was single and in great need of a date. And we had many beautiful women come through the office, some of whom were actors and others just pretty people in the business. One time in particular I was doing a kind of online interview thing with an unknown but steaming hot actress. She and I were BSing and horsing around joking with her agent person before we did this event, and Barry was back in the executive office. He kept leaning way, way over to get around his monitor so he could look at her breasts through his office window. Just as she left he rushed up and shook her hand and gave her his card. He then came over to my desk and talked to me about her "rack" for about 15 minutes while making chipmunk hands.

He had great confidence in his own comic skills and loved to do little impressions. One of his favorites was a disheartening racist Ching Chong Chinaman accent act which would make everyone in the room stare silently at nothing and the record player skip and all the cowboys turn around and look, every time he did it. At the time we were having trouble getting enough business from our clients and Barry was the man assigned to go lunch with people and get us gigs. At one Santa Monica soirée with moguls, he did the full Charlie Chan routine over drinks. The president of [redacted], an important movie studio, was his big target that night. Unfortunately the guy was married to a Japanese-American woman and took Extreme Offense. We lost the big account.

Barry made millions when the company was sold. He'd promised equity stakes for underpaid early employees but he lied. I hear he's married now, and running some other internet thing. I bet his hands are still really, really sweaty.

I hope he at least gets laid once or twice because of it; they're interesting and fun.

( humor. nazis. quizzes. cut. )

I saw someone I have a lame crush on today. Later on she was in the same area I was, but kind of away and behind things with her friends. Every time I looked over there the sun was hitting her only and making her all shiny, because she was the saint in the painting.

vickajew and I gave friendly_bandit a short walk through the geopolitics of the last 25 years, but I don't think he was grateful. In fact, he looked like he wanted to go live under his bed afterwards, which is sort of understandable considering the material at hand.

DZ came and talked at me for a bit. He claims his health is good and he hasn't had a seizure in over a year and a half but he looks like a corpse. He sort of talked around the huge fights he's had with his property manager, and the fact that his aunt and uncle bailed him out of his trailer purchase. He mostly made sense but sometime the digressions were pretty hard to follow. I seriously wonder how long he has on Earth, looking at him and hearing him talk. It's hard to watch.

When I watch a Hollywood movie, you know with a hero and heroine and villain and sidekicks., I can never put myself in the hero's role. Even as a fantasy, I haven't cast myself as the lead before. I'm no villain either, because Evil is just lame, nor can I be the wacky sidekick for longer than about an hour. I think I'm the sacrificial guy who eats it in the last reel so that others may live. I always sympathized with that guy, the one who gets to say "It's too late for me. I'll stay here. RUN!" Even if he doesn't get whacked, he has to stay behind and deal with all the bullshit. I am Claude Rains in Casablanca, or if I'm feeling especially butch maybe Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles. No ride into the sunset, but if I take one for the team people will think highly of me later.

I spent the day sweating. Partly this was because it was over 80 F and unusually humid, although I have no right to complain; just about the rest of the nation had Suicide Weather.

I'm a sweaty guy to start with (helllooo, ladies!), and the happy helmet pills make it worse. When I was on Paxil it was almost humorous, and the current regimen is a lot less perspiratory. But wow, today. My alarm for "too sweaty" is when the waistband of my jeans is damp, and that hit about 1 pm.

I saw actual people I know tonight, which was nice. It was also really nice to get the hell out of the house and be somewhere with a breeze after making spaghetti & meatballs for 4, eating it, and then cleaning up the kitchen for a meal for 4. It's nice to see my brother & nephew, but I forget each time what it's like to be the cook for more than one or two people. My meatball-fu improved this time, though.

I just finished paying my Apple loan late (oops), on MBNA's website. I was annoyed by two things. First, the online payments are delayed a few days, so that even though I had it in time it won't be in time. It should be instantaneous, come on guys. Second, the slogan for the bank, which is the title of their webpage, is: If You're Into It, We're Into It. What. The. Hey? First Bank of Easy Rider?

Three more at my Flickr page.

The brickwork in my garden does cool stuff at the end of the day in summer.