Good evening. We are here to serve you. As you may have noticed, we don't have the plumbling fixtures, nor the window glass installed in your hotel room yet, but...the weather is getting warmer, so ventilation through your room should be pretty good. You'll have to take the stairs until we straighten the elevator shafts, and we'll give you flashlights so you can see at night. We suggest that you stay away from the outside walls in case lightning hits the construction crane atop the Hotel. Frankly, we're surprised the contractors from Singapore didn't take that down.
1. What is it about cat food? How come cat food costs twice as much as dog food? It all tastes the same to me. My cat loves mice and birds, but how come I can't find rodent and yardbird variety cat food? I see the seafood and tuna entree specials. If I'm not mistaken, housecats just plain and simply are not above in the foodchain over salmon, tuna, etc. In fact, they're scared of water! I can understand this if my pet was a Kodiak bear, but this is just a little cat! The rest of the flavors are chicken, beef, pork...blah blah blah. C'mon now, these are FARM ANIMALS. My cat isn't foaming at the mouth while stalking a barn full of these creatures.
2. I went into the Hobby Habit. Really cool store with lots of models in particular. They used to have this cool slotcare racetrack, and people would race in there something like once a week. And in the window is a decent model railroad layout. "You guys sell toy trains, right? Well, do you guys have any toy train schedules? What?!? You don't?!? How can one construct and operate a model railroad with any clout or credibility, and not adhere to some some kind of a reliable schedule?"
Wal*Mart has a tower filled with all kinds of varieties of artifical flowers...right next to their arts/crafts section. I was in there one time, and some kid tried to sniff one of the flowers. Can't blame him really...those little fabric ones really do look like the real McCoy until you get up close and see the miniature weave construction. Sure looks a lot better than the old plastic! The kids retracts with a look of disappointment as to not smelling any fragrance. I felt like saying to him "better be careful! an artificial bee might come out and sting you on the nose"...Wal*Mart sells artificial plants, but doesn't sell artificial dirt. You see these rubber artificial slabs of steak that are doggie chew toys, and you wonder how more expensive these things are than the real thing.
3. Dr. Pepper has come out with this new kind of "cherry vanilla" flavor. Why did they shoot themselves in the foot by marketing this swill to the masses? I saw a website that mentioned there are something like 90 documented knock-off Dr. Pepper clones. Y'know--like Dr. A+ is Albertson's store brand, Safeway has their Select version, Fred Meyer, Shasta, and so on. This Dr. Pepper Cherry-Vanilla tastes just like one of those knock-off brands. It's interesting how people either hate or love Dr. Pepper. There are no in-betweens.
4. What's the deal with the phone books? This spring, we must have received over 400 local directories. The last one was the best--this really cool thick, easy-to-read, gorgeous novel-looking paperback book. "The NorthEastern Oregon 2005 Phone Directory" boats comprehensive yellow pages, city maps, and goes well beyond the tri-county area. Great cover, too by J. F. Policky, renown American West artist. This one wound up in everyone's front year like it was dropped from a helicopter. Even though they were encased in a plastic bag, the wet spring swelled the directories that weren't plucked from the tall grass into twice their original thickness. I kind of miss the old Telfax directory--just for the place name histories. "Fox, Oregon...this town was named after something that had to do with a fox." Brilliant. Shows dogged tireless in-depth research.
You look up Les Schwab Tire Service. It says..."see Schwab, Les: Tire Service". Aw, come on. Doesn't it save a little less ink just to print their phone number anyway? You know you got time to kill when you start looking up celeb and rock star names in your home town. Yep, there's a Jimmy Page, Jon Anderson, Grace Jones, and on and on. One year, in the Portland directory, the header at the top of one page said Farrah-Fawcett...the last names of the first and last entries on that particular page. That was around 1976.
5. Well, it's been going on for weeks now...the marquees between Dairy Queen and Wendy's on the Strip. Wendy's can handle the word Mediterranean, but the DQ can't with Arctic. Wendy's dad Dave gave her a subscription to National Geographic, but the Dairy Queen (whoever she is) thought it was more important to get the little curly cue on the top of an ice cream cone just right. Well, you could always go a little further towards town, and stop at where Klondike's was, and get a PIZZ. That always made me wonder too--what is it with an Italian food (pizza) that didn't really even catch on until 40-50 years ago in the USA, and the pizza establishments all seemed to have taken on this rootin' tootin' Wild West honky-tonk gold rush saloon theme. It started with Shakey's Pizza and just snowballed from there.
6. Why do people say "VW" instead of Volkswagen? VW Has one more syllable, for chrissakes. People think they're saving precious vocal energy by doing so in these ecologically conscious times...well, they're NOT.
Why is the letter called "double u". It looks like two connected v's to me.
Remember when people used to say "as common as a red Volkswagen"? This day and age I'd be tempted to say "as common as a white minivan". I saw this article saying that drug dealers and pimps like white minivans by choice, because it's the most difficult vehicle to recognise by make, model, and year if in case someone witnesses a crime committed by someone driving one. They're probably right...especially if it's a child trying to describe the vehicle of someone trying to coax or kidnap them...
"Volkswagens make the perfect first car for a teen driver--they're cheap on gas, easy to fix, and you can't make love in the back seat"
I might know a Caravan from an Aerostar...but that's just about it. The good ol' days you knew a Ford from a Chevy...throw in a VW or a Chrysler and maybe a few European or Japanese imports, and that's your only challenge.
Minute Maid beverages--
Is it pronounced "my noot"- like small...or "minnit" like sixty seconds? Of course the answer is quite obvious...but when you call the folks who are the distributors, they wind up unsure of themselves. They can't be sure 100%. Remember the rumor about Union 76 gasoline being 100% oil from the United States? When I inquired about that one--no echelon figures at the company could say true or false. Noting that Union 76 invests quite a bit in foriegn oil exploration--I think that's your answer right there.
How come I can heat two pieces of chicken in the microwave in 20 seconds, but it takes a minute and a half to heat a couple spoonfuls of mashed potatoes?
John Denver was so enamored and taken aback with the scope and beauty of the Rocky Mountains; that many of the songs he wrote about the region were originally penned on sheets of paper shaped like Colorado and Wyoming. In fact, I've got one of those rough drafts right here..."take me home/Country Roads/mountain mama...West Virginia....what?!??...West Virginia???
Isn't it ironic that a guy who lived pretty much most of his life a mile to three miles above sea level dies in the ocean? What did his relatives think when the mortuary returned his body with salt water in his hair?
I got really bored today, but the weather was okay--so I took a walk out past Island City...just past where the homes end, and where the farmland begins. I was just past the rock quarry along the little trail by the river, and looked up. I saw a zeppelin, and shot it down. I went up to look at the wreckage, and I said to myself "Now--who in the hell is going to clean up this damn mess?! There were pieces of cockpit instrument glass, crescent fragments of structural framing, scalded helium canisters, and landing gear that reminded me of on old Santa Cruz skateboard I once had back in the days when Mountain Dew was actually carbonated, and all the countries in Africa had different names. The gear looked like a couple 96 durometer center bearing OJ Street Juice quadros mounted onto Indy 169 trucks without cell blocks. I guess I was glad it wasn't a lead zeppelin that came down nose first, or it would have started a volcano.
You know I've been thinking about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina and all that--and other cities that are below sea level behind sea walls and levees built by man to hold back the ocean--like parts of Venice, Hong Kong, Copenhagen--and much of Holland. When you think of The Netherlands, you think of windmills and tulips, and bands like Shocking Blue and Golden Earring, and how refreshingly loose the culture is in Amsterdam, yet Holland is much more prepared than those around the delta of the mighty Mississippi. The Dutch have those wooden shoes; you can pretty much walk on water if a storm surge comes to town. Uncomfortable? Perhaps--and the rest of the time they're a damn fire hazard.
And then there's the United States Navy. The pants of a seaman's uniform can be tied at the leg cuffs and at the waist, and thus are designed to be a floatation device when you blow air into them--great to know if you need to abandon ship. But what about the women's uniform? The skirts are useless! So much for the seafarer's adage "women and children first!" when the vessel is sinking.
I was watching the David Letterman show the other night, and during an episode of "Studpid Human Tricks", one of the three contestants balanced a genuine $20 bill on his nose. The guy tipped his head back, and pit the flat bill on his nose. I couldn't help but think the guy probably started out with ones, then a five dollar bill...then a ten...and worked his way up to a twenty. And Oprah is going to appear tonight on his show for the first time in over fifteen years; so I wonder if Letterman is going to give everyone in the studio audience something, living up to the Oprah tradition, and it being the holidays and all. As often as he talks about NYC rats and the hookers in Manhattan and given his left of center humor and all...I wouldn't be surprised if he gave everyone a package of D-Con & gift certificates.
If there was any game show I'd want to be on -- it would have to be Wheel Of Furtune. And I wouldn't be the typical contenstant who wears black pants and calls out "s" as the first letter, either. I'd shout a letter like "Q" or "X" with a very optimistic glowing expression on my face, only to be totally crestfallen when Vanna does not move. Y'know something they ought to do with the show's set--is lower the ceilings down to eight feet & install tons of ceiling fans so that when puzzle solvers start jumping up and down with excitement--off go their heads. You ever notice how shiney the floors are on Wheel Of Fortune? I think it's to camouflage pee when nervous players wet themselves.
I'm glad I don't live in China. I bet they can't play Wheel Of Fortune over there. I bet they can't play Scrabble or attempt the Sunday paper crossword puzzle either.
What makes a woman a diva? Martha Stewart is a diva. I've always thought a diva was kind of snoot from the royalty, glamorous, uppity crop, but then you look at Martha Stewart, and she's no slave to fashion or rolls around in a Benz with the top down or is the headline attraction for some sleazy Las Vegas style cabaret. But she's up on me because she has more of an eye for arranging flowers and cooking stuff without setting it on fire...and she does this graciously. Yeah, that's it--the word "gracious" has got to be in there, or Diva you will be not.
When I was real young we had this huge clawfoot bathtub in the main bathroom. It was Olympic size, had more cast iron in it than a Sherman tank, and more porcelain than all the commodes in a locker room. A full size adult could pull her arms and legs in, and be completely buoyant without touching the sides or bottom. But one day when I was a little kid, I pulled the plug to let the water out, and several of my favorite bathtub toys were sucked in by the monstrous vortex of a whirlpool. I cried so hard, the tub nearly filled up again. Gone was the rubber duckie and some cool boats from boxes of cereal boasting warning labels that claimed the contents could settle during shipping.
A few days later, we all took a drive out to North Powder the back way through Union to see relatives, and I noticed a couple toy boats floating out in the septic ponds next to the rifle range by the freeway overpass. The tall military fencing topped with rolls of barbed wire pretty much shot down my instinctual retrieval desires to reclaim scale vessels I knew indeed belonged to me. Yet in the fleeting blur of a vehicle exceeding the speed limit by just a few miles per hour, I happened to catch out of the corner of my eye a hole in the fencing just to the left of the "No Fishing" sign. I felt I could slip out of the house after sundown and pedal my bike on down there and coax the boats to the shore using compassionate language and spiritual messages to the Gods of The Ladd Canyon winds. And sure enough as luck would have it the boats both beached themselves amidst the turds and balls of floating tissue, stealing out into the warm thick putrid summer night. The rubber duckie was nowhere to be found; I clapped twice, and nothing happened. I figured duckie went nearby into the Ladd Marsh and teamed up with a few of his buddies hunkered down for the night.
I couldn't believe what I found over the Holidays while doing my extensive annual housecleaning...a Sony Discman from around 1985...first generation! It was totally heavy metal (no plastic), ran on 4 AAA batteries, but broke a long time ago..the little lid latch button and the "play" button was all schmooshed in, and the little volume thumbwheel spun freely like it was on a loose axle.
I couldn't believe how solid this old thing was. No shuffle play, no individual song programming, time remaining function or any bells and whistles like that...just play, stop, pause, fast forward, next song and that was about it. The thing that used to irritate me about these $195 units was that they were soooo sensitive to shocks and sudden movements. Nowadays, your cheapo Wal*Mart portable CD player for ten bucks you can go jogging with...and when you bump them, they may pause for a second or two, but they begin playing where they left off. The old ones used to just go back to the beginning of the first song!
The other day I was driving a 1985 Chrysler New Yorker in Portland. I hit a chuckhole...
Ugh! I *hate* grocery store club and preferred cards! They seem so invasive, inconvenient and unnecessary! It must be a hassle for the checkout clerk to have to ask for them from everyone, and scan them in. And at Safeway, when using your card prints out your name on the register, the cashier always tries to make the transaction personal by mentioning your name as a "thank you". Well, I have a really weird last name, and they always either mispronounce it, or ask me how it is pronouned...followed by what nationality it is from...and other crap that holds up the line. I just wanna jump over the counter and purse their lips at each end with the fingers of both hands and articulately pronounce my last name syllable by syllable and shout repeat louder and louder until they get it right. Give 'em the treatment like teaching a little kid how to pronounce a word correctly, but with the drill sergeant approach.
Yet lately I've come up got a better idea. I'll just come up with something like
"Ima shawpliphter" or "Iliketagophuckmyself"...and let them pronounce that, with hopes their supervisor is nearby and can overhear it...
Well, it's President's Day today. One of those marginal holidays where you don't know quite what's open and what's not. Yeah! President's Day! And what is it with President's Day--every furniture store has mattresses for sale at the best discount prices of the year--always on President's Day! I just don't get the connection between George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and mattresses except maybe the old "George Washington slept here..." moniker. A friend of mine this morning piped up and made the connection with Clinton, however...
I noticed the flag flying at half-mast again
Someone else must have died in that retarted war
The only good thing about war is that the price of scrap metal goes up
My dog dug a deep hole out in the back yard
I hope he strikes oil instead of starts a volcano
And if he breaks the natural gas line, it better be on the other side of the gas meter and at least fifteen feet from the house
No one smokes in my household, but my cat grinds her teeth in her sleep
The only sparks in the house are the ron and russell mael record collection
I'll be roasting marshmallows and hot dogs
It brings back memories of the great Bohnenkamp fire
I've never known furniture to be fireproof
The hot dogs had a hickory taste to them
I hear the super Wal*Mart's will take out the automotive service bays
That means Poindexter in Hermiston won't change the oil on my truck again
Poindexter with those thick glasses who was such a perfectionist
Five quarts of oil exactly, not four point nine nine nine
So you get your money's worth
I didn't have to explain why the hood doesn't open on alternating Mondays
I didn't have to explain the fred flintstone braking system
Or why the cab smokes up if you don't have the windows rolled down
I couldn't get the potato out of the tailpipe with needlenose pliers
And why pugs and Boston terriers sneeze when they get excited to see you
And why cats only kneed with their front paws
And why the wind chill factor isn't reversed when the wind blows backwards
And why angels aren't compelled to shoplift when no one can see them above the clouds
And why gelatin gels at 50 degrees, but won't melt until it's 80 degrees
And why frozen water when thawed doesn't taste the same as before
And why when you plug the flow through a vaccuum cleaner hose, the motor speeds up
And if The Observer had a braille version of their daily paper, would they still call it The Observer?
