Ok . . . been a while. This is simply a post to demonstrate that I haven't forgotten about this blog and that I intend to return to regular writing soon. Hold on to your hats (and sides, lest they split.)

I poop on your "new price"!

A Glimpse Into My Weekend

After a Saturday morning's-worth of reading, I decided I needed some lunch. But where to go? I didn't want Subway, I knew that. In fact, I spent an inordinate amount of time not wanting Subway because I couldn't think of a better option. After entertaining the idea that I might hop into the Beastlet [for those of you who don't know, the Beastlet is the name of my trusty jeep - tt] and drive to Whole Foods in Glendale when I have about twenty restaurants within shambling distance from my house, a brainwave hit me. I was feeling sandwichy, but I wanted something fresh and hearty, not processed and mealy. I grabbed my sweatshirt and walked out the door. The sun was shining and a steady cool wind blew in my face as I made my way down Riverside Drive to a place that was guaranteed to have what I was looking for. Namely this:



A meat on meat sandwich from Honeybaked Ham - that's the ticket. I took a place by the window to watch the passersby. As I slowly devoured my layer-ed feast, I began to notice something. There were plenty of pedestrians out and about, but the only variety who seemed to be coming into the restaurant were of the male variety. Not just the male variety, but the (sweat/tee)shirted male variety. Males conspicuously devoid of female companionship. I turned around in my seat to look behind me into the dining area. I then quickly turned back around because I needed to grab my cameraphone, but then I turned around once again to snap a picture.



All guys. All with their heads hanging down or with their hands in their pockets. Normally, I would have found this immensely depressing. However, considering the fact that I, too, was unshaven and wearing a smelly sweatshirt, I had to laugh. Where do you go when you find yourself in Toluca Lake and hungry, and you are bereft of your lady-friend? Why, Honeybaked Ham, of course! Nourishing the body and soul for over 40 years.

Thornbeam strikes again! Mwaa ha ha ha ha!!! This time, the boys examine an unusual roadside attraction.

For all you Halloweenies out there . . .

There's a site that allows you to carve a pumpkin right on your very own computer screen - no messy pumpkin guts scooping or burnt pumpkin seeds because you forgot about them when "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" came on TV required! Yes, it's one more thing to distract me from real life. Some would say, why play bowling on your Wii when you can bowl at an actual bowling alley? and I would say,

"I don't own a Wii."

You can visit the site here. If any of you feel like you have a masterpiece, print screen and post it in the comments.

Here's my contribution to the Art-O-Lantern fracas.


I call him "Cool Guy McPumpkin." See how happy he is to eat . . . I mean meet you?

Your Humble Narrator Got a Boo Boo.

Really, I'm somewhat incredulous about the whole thing. Nonplussed? Perplexed? Perhaps. It all began on Tuesday. I was jazzed about our first D-League softball game. See, the Legion of Doom graduated from our tenure in the E-League to the more-competitive, less forgiving D-League. Honestly, I can't imagine what the A-League must be like.
Anyway, I was rarin' to go. I'd prepped and stretched and warmed up, I visited the batting cages and swatted a few balls to the moon - well, not exactly - I swatted a few balls REALLY HARD into the net at the back of the cage. Felt good. Felt strong. Felt comfortable. Felt relaxed.

I wanted to win in our debut.

Our opponents, the Lockouts, were recently demoted from the C-League so they came ready to prove that there must have been some sort of gross scheduling error and they still deserved to be in the C-League. Interesting thing about the lockouts, they have a sponsor. He happens to be a locksmith. What he gets out of it for his investment, I have no idea.

Anyway, as the we warmed up for the game, we played a little infield. I stopped some balls from getting past me, made good throws . . . why, I could play any position! I'll do well tonight.

Or so I thought.

In the last few minutes of warm-ups, the outfielders gathered to catch a few fly balls hit by Eric. I was feeling good, so I wasn't trying too hard for very many. However, there was one that was hit to me that I couldn't deny. I made an attempt at it somewhat belatedly and came up just shy of the catch.

And I mean, just shy. The ball missed my glove by a millimeter and smacked into my toe. Yes, my big toe. I lunged forward in an effort to make the catch so my foot was way out in front of me. The ball, arching toward the ground as balls do, hit me in the toe and went flying off to who knows where.

I howled and hopped, but I was convinced that I would be ok after the initial pain subsided. No go. It continued to hurt and swell. Couldn't play in the field, but I batted anyway. I'd hobble to first and then get a pinch runner. The toe continued to ache. Probably a bad idea. I took my shoe off to take a look at the damage. The nail was black and the toe was red. Hmm. Guess I'll lose the nail. No big deal. Should feel fine in a couple days.

Last night, the ol' toe blew up like an overstuffed sausage and hurt at about a 6 on the pain o' meter you see hanging on the wall at the doctor's office. Odd. I decided at that point to go to the doctor if there was no improvement today.

I woke up and the toe felt pretty good. Ok. Should be fine then. But as the day wore on, it felt worse and worse. Finally, I took my shoe off to take a look at it. My bosses asked to see it and said, "You need to go to the doctor right now." Ok ok ok. I'm going.

Got to Urgent Care. They were able to see me almost right away. Doc took one look at my toe and said,
"Well, that definitely needs to be drained."
My face dropped. "Really?" I said. "Isn't the blood dry by now?" "Not likely," he replied as he walked back into the room carrying what appeared to be a travel canister for a toothbrush.

"You gonna drill?" I asked, trying to sound as manly and disinterested as I could.
"With this?" he said as he removed the cap. "Naw, this burns red hot, see?" He flicked a switch on the side of the case and a small element at the tip lit with a sudden, angry glow.
"Oh, great," I choked. "Does it hurt?" I felt like I was five years old.
"Only if I hit anything other than the toe," he replied lightly.
"Jiminy Christmas," I breathed.
He laughed and said, "Why don't you just lay back? This'll be over in a second."
"You're sure it doesn't hurt?"
"You'll be fine."
"Ok."
"Try to relax now."
My leg was as rigid as possum in a meat locker. I did my best to relax, but my body rebelled. Just. Get. It. Over. With. And . . .
He daubed my toe with some gauze. "All done."
"What?"
"All done."
"But I didn't feel anything!"
"I must have done a good job then."
"I guess so."

We discussed my toe. It should have been feeling better with the pressure off, but I still couldn't bend it without pain. It needed X-Rays. As the blood drained from my nail, he left the room to fetch the X-Ray tech. I heard him telling some nurses about my "Jiminy Christmas" exclamation and laughing. "How cute!" someone said.

I felt like I was five AND a wuss. Thanks doc. Guess it's my own fault, but still, that's harsh.

The X-Ray tech came in shortly after and pointed me into the room with the machinery et al.

"In here?" I asked.
"Yes yes, please go in," he said.
"Alri-ight."
This is why I was skeptical.

I got my foot x-rayed in, what appears to be, the file cabinet. And no, that blue item isn't a fashionable silk cravat; it is, in fact, a lead-filled thyroid shield. He couldn't get my toe to lay down on the film so I sat up and hunched next to the machine to get my foot flat for the image. Always a pleasant feeling, covering up your sensitive bits with lead and leaning toward a machine that buzzes and clicks and spews invisible death rays. A real treat.

After that, we discovered that the bone is broken. The tip is chipped. No fractures, no severing, no surgery required. Just a clean chip which my body will eventually absorb. In the meantime, I have a sore toe, I'm on antibiotics and I won't be running or playing any softball any time soon.

Does this mean more time for blogging? I know that I hope so.


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Now playing: Wax Tailor - Am I Free
via FoxyTunes

Disturbing Trends

I've noticed a disturbing trend in the blog-o-sphere. Perhaps it's that Halloween is drawing nigh. Perhaps it's because the weather is changing and it's making people act squirrelly. Whatever the case may be, the bloggers are showing us "See Food."

This is Steve from thesneeze.com demonstrating to his faithful readers that he did indeed eat the tree brain! We were, of course, thrilled to hear that he would be eating the tree brain. After all, there have been rumors circulating about that it's edible. Experts writing in, mysterious strangers sneaking tastes from the brain and then the brain "happens" to disappear the next day - intrigue! The entire brain timeline is here. Well, he ate it, and to prove it, he posted the intimate, semi-gruesome pics of his stubbly, masticating maw. I have to admit, I was a bit put out by the photo above, but whatevs! It's all part of the schtick, right? Surely, I won't be subjected to this on a daily basis.

But then today, as I perused another favorite site, I stumbled upon this . . .
Roger Barr, the webmaster of i-mockery.com, presents his bestubbled pie hole to the world, candy tattoos emblazoned on his tastebuds. (The entire Halloween candy review can be found here.) Again gruesome.

What in the name of Google is going on here?! Unshaven Gen Y blog ninjas are snapping photos of their befooded tongues and posting them on the internet, that's what, and I'll be consarned if I let them start an internet trend without me.


Here I am demonstrating what happens after you enjoy a starlight mint for ten minutes. Aren't you thrilled at the close-up, intimate portrait of a twenty-something and his culinary adventures? Yeah, I thought so.

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Now playing: Carly Simon - You're So Vain
via FoxyTunes

Mixed Messages

I really don't know what to make of this. The "Kids Funtown NAPA AutoCare Center" in Montrose, CA. Really, who thought this signage combo was a good idea?

The mind could stretch to the possibility of a NAPA AutoCare Center WITH a Kids Funtown attached - gotta keep the kids occupied whilst getting the struts restrutted, and there's only so many times Junior can leaf through "4x4 Aficionado" before he becomes mutinously bored. Send him to the NAPA Funtown Kids AutoCare Center Happytime Park and Bagel Bakery! There he can put together 70 of the pieces that still exist from the 500 piece jigsaw puzzle or move around the multicolored beads on the much-sneezed-upon activity center that rests in the middle of the room on the foam-rubber KidMats. Now that's a Funtown. In all honesty, though, I never understood those activity centers. I remember being very young and asking myself, "Now what am I supposed to do with this thing exactly? I don't want to follow the prescribed path for these beads." Ok, so I didn't use the word "prescribed" in my 2-year-old internal monologue, so sue me. Nevertheless, I had no interest in moving wooden shapes on a thick, crayola-colored wire - back and forth, back and forth - with no freedom of movement, and no payoff. Inevitably, I would be shifted from my tenuous attention to the activity c. by some largish, 3-yr-old devotee who was thrilled as a tick at the Westminster Dog Show to be sliding beads on a wire. No thanks.
One of those things resides in the waiting room of my "favorite" Pep Boys mechanic; I usually end up casting sidelong glances at it while I sit in the waiting room. I still don't get it. Why is it such a ubiquitous item in the most miserable of places? - doctor's offices, mechanics, & pathetic, paperback-strewn public libraries.


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Now playing: David Bowie - Starman
via FoxyTunes

And now for the coup de grace . . . the one video that has haunted me for over two decades before the universality of the internet granted me the ability to seek it out and destroy the power of its memory. Behold the awesome fright of . . .



The Bloodhound Gang and the Case of the Cackling Ghost! Oh my stars, this one stuck with me like no other television experience in the history of television experiences. Supposedly, I was deathly afraid of an "Open Pit BBQ" commercial in which a large man faces the screen and utters a deep, serious "Open. Pit." to the audience, but I was too young to maintain that memory. However, being the young nerd that I was (am?), I was (am?) a fan of the PBS kids' science series "3-2-1 Contact." People familiar with this show are also familiar with The Bloodhound Gang (not to be confused with the hard rock band of the same name), a group of kids who solve benign mysteries with the combined might of deductive reasoning and SCIENCE!
In this particular episode, the details of which were blocked from my mind until I revisited it, an elderly woman is the victim of the scare tactics of her ne'er-do-well nephew as he attempts to steal the supposedly-cursed Darjeeling Necklace that is in her possession. What are the scare tactics he used? On the surface, they are simply the recordings of cartoonish, maniacal laughter played through her radio and light shining upon moths in the woods (You say, "What's that now?" Just go with me on this). But in reality, it's a horror that tapped into some primeval fear center in many kids' brains. Note the comments associated with this video on youtube. The Cackling Ghost has a sobering effect on everyone, even the most idiotic of our society - the YouTube Commentor.

Here's part three for your enjoyment, in case you can't leave this unresolved.



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Now playing: DJ Vadim - Who Me - DJ Vadim, Demolition Man
via FoxyTunes

10-23-00

Alright . . . rain, big city, people, the Tokyo Hotel on State and Ohio. Tourists and stock brokers, umbrella-wielding data-entry thirty-somethings looking smug as they saunter down the street, dry in the rain, alternateens walking briskly in their Ragstock, Belmont best, city-dwelling trail devils apparently oblivious to their sopping wet Kelty packs, d.i.n.k.s with Old Navy bags, limos and leather jackets, couriers internally screaming "BANZAI" as they steam the streets with their blazing wheels.

There is a frozen drink beside me which gives me a headache when I drink it. It cost me $3.75. How often do we consider it a pleasure to pay for pain? The Gap just walked by, all tight sweater and nylon, urban-styled, navy attache case/bag/thingy, hair shaved and spiked like an ad campaign on legs.

The rain has stopped. Smiles are appearing - a large, black woman and a small Asian man are laughing together. They're behind me, ordering some form of caffeine. Who are the unique? The homeless. All dignity has been stripped and abused and drugged and frozen and cooked out of them . . . human beings whose outer shell is paradoxically both fragile and calloused. Hopeless and hardened. Fences made of communion wafers - how many people care?

I keep drinking my $3.75 Tiazzi.

How long has that fragile girl been in a wheelchair? She handles it well. I need paint. Guess I'd better get going before it starts to rain again.

Installment Three of Tyler's Tot Terrors:

When I first saw this movie, I teetered on the precipice of abject terror, barely daring to breathe lest each breath become a scream. I give you . . .



The Secret of Nimh. I know. It's rated G. I saw it during the Fall Party at Bethany Fellowship in Bloomington, MN. This was the same Fall Party in which I got my neck zipped into my Wrangler jean jacket by my Auntie Carrie. I think I was four.
The culmination of the evening, after all of the kids were nearing maximum sugar saturation, was the movie in the community dining room. They set up a screen and a projector in the corner of the room. I was so excited to watch a cartoon that would last longer than a Bugs Bunny short - I imagined how much fun it would be - but then the movie began. Eerie, creepy . . . a gnarled hand, claws clutching a quill, moves slowly toward an inkwell - an inkwell that produces sparkling gold ink! A breathy, ethereal voice narrates as, not beautiful gold ink, but mysterious ink drifts from the well. Ink is black or blue. Not swirling and golden. And it CERTAINLY doesn't make the page you are writing on flash like fire! What kind of movie is this?!
The mysterious clawed hand then produces a strange medallion with a red gem in the middle. How odd.
That's when the title comes up. "The Secret of Nimh."

In this movie, there are many vicious and frightening characters, and all of them seem bent on some sort of mad destruction of something. Even the good guys are scary. Especially that Owl. If you've seen the movie, you know what I mean. Downright diabolical. I have sense memory of clenching my jaw shut in a grimace and averting my eyes to find something . . . anything! . . in the dark on which to devote my attention. Good luck when the only light source is the very thing that I'm trying NOT to look at.

Not too long after I was traumatized by that movie, I discovered my own little secret. In my mom's jewelry box, I found a gold medallion with a red gem in the middle. To my young eyes, that was the very same necklace as the one in the movie. I used to sneak into my parent's bedroom and pull the necklace out to look at it. It would give me a terrific thrill, and I would place it back into its spot, my heart fluttering wildly. As I grew older and the memory of the movie faded, I stopped looking at the necklace. It no longer made sense. The second I realized that it wasn't from the movie, it became uninteresting, even a little bit embarrassing, to think that the jewelry box held any secrets at all. It was just jewelry, not magic.

Part 2 of the Films/Videos that scared the snot out of me as a kid.

It's tough to decide which one to share next. Having found so many of my childhood nightmare videos online, I just want to post them all. Patience . . . patience . . . So here's the next installment:



Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. I remember hiding behind the black vinyl rolling chair in my dad's den while my siblings watched this during some sort of Saturday matinee. Occasionally, I'd need to dart into the living room to escape, but I'd keep coming back. I wanted to be cool like my brother and sister, but I was acting about as uncool as could be . . . and for good reason. Conflicting emotions!
Listen to the sound that the smog monster makes - a psychedelic wheeze with some sound engineer in Kyoto manhandling the phase knob. Absolutely frightening. And look at that! All it has to do is fly over the people and they drop down, polluted and dead. No warning. No fighting back. Very scary to a three year old.
Even the way that thing moves; its lurching, slouchy gliding was not ok with me. Nothing should move like that.

I'm on a mission. An exorcising mission. I'm searching online for all of the videos that used to scare me as a little boy. Someone's bound to have posted a few of them, at least. Here's a good start:


The part that would get me in this cartoon was when the skeletons' skulls remain stationary while their bodies do a weird, gravity-defying, synchronized sweeping motion on the ground. This freaked. me. out. It just seemed wrong. Not only are dancing skeletons scary, but the fact that they are not bound by the same laws of physics that we are gave them a femur up on us young fleshy types.

When I first saw this, I was at the Decathlon Athletic Club during a brunch of some sort. There was a kiddie room/holding pen with a TV. This was on it. I remember bolting from the room when those skeletons started waving around. I would have none of that.

Here's an interesting online calculator. It determines how much you would need to consume of your favorite caffeinated beverage for it to kill you.

Apparently, I am 1/50th of the way to kicking the bucket. Why, it would only take 98.31 more cups - mere gallons - to cause my demise!
Of course, it only takes a few pints of sea water to drown, but that's not the point. I don't willingly ingest sea water on a daily basis. I guess if I ate 12 whole turkeys, that'd probably kill me too. So you there, with your seventieth cup of espresso - you've got one foot in the grave already. Put it down!

I know that this is a couple days after the fact, but I wanted to share this with y'all. Our nation recently celebrated National Night Out. I'll let the website explain what it is. The purpose of the day is tertiary to my reason for this blog.

On the left, you may behold the Night Out Knight! After all, what would a national community building/edumacational program be without a mascot, eh? The following, then, is my ode to the Night Out Knight.










"Knight Out"

Lights out!
When the Night Out Knight's out.
Why pout?
Tout the Night Out lout
When you're out
At night.

He's the Night's Knight.
A nice Knight.
Give a shout out loud
For the Night Out Lout
Whose clout's about right
For a Knight out now.

Bridges

Today's one of those days where I can't get a particular event out of my head, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Even though I'm halfway across the country, I feel a certain resonance with yesterday's bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

Maybe it's because I still have many friends there and I was concerned about their safety.
Maybe it's because it's where I grew up; a great tragedy like this usually strikes a blow at happy memories of innocent days, driving home the fact that we live in a world that is constantly changing (read: decaying and in need of repair) - a vessel that is unable to hold the soup of our nostalgia due to the incessantly developing cracks.
Maybe it's because I've been driving across legendary bridges today - The Bay Bridge (which has recently suffered a collapse of its own), The Golden Gate - and one cannot help but think of plunging down into the water . . . not in a nervous, "it could happen to me" sort of way, but to look out at the water and for a moment understand how truly terrifying it must have felt to have the world simply drop out from underneath the tires of the 50 or so cars that fell along with the I-35W bridge.
I'm not sure I would have enough time to comprehend what had happened. That's probably a good thing - there's no time to be upset. One survivor said that one second he was driving along as usual and seconds later he was staring at the ground forty feet below through his windshield. His one thought was, "I'm going to die" but would you know why? Would you have time to think, "Well, I guess the bridge collapsed. What are the chances?"

There's an excellent vlog of the aftermath here. It does well at capturing the atmosphere surrounding the event - incredulity, morbid curiosity, and relief. Keep your eyes peeled for the little boy who glances off of the bridge at the Mississippi below. You know exactly what he's thinking, what we're all thinking.

Heidi's never been this close to such a high concentration of nerds in her entire life . . . and it shows.

Guess where I've been?



That's right. I've been at one of the world's only Kwik-E-Marts. Now, I'm not a die-hard fan of the Simpsons, though there are few things that have made me laugh harder than the 4th Annual Halloween Special of theirs. I saw it in college with a group of my dorm mates. We howled.

But that's not the point. You will never see a 7-Eleven store with a line that goes out the door and around the corner unless you visit one of the few Kwik-E-Marts in existence. They give you things to look at, though, while you're standing in line for what is, apparently, an IN-convenience store. Like-a so . . .



Wow! Real graffitti! You NEVER see THAT in Los Angeles!

After a whirlwind tour inside, I decided to get a "movie" donut and a Blue Vanilla Squishee (at the promptings of Roger Barr at i-mockery.com). The donut was quite good, and yes, I shared it with Heidi.



Buy why do you look so furious, Tyler? I'll tell you why. Because all of that sugar ramped my heartbeat up to that of a shrew . . . felt like I was vibrating. Sadly, I had to dump the rest of my delicious squishee into the garbage disposal lest I rattle the enamel off of my teeth.
Still, it was a fun visit. The 7-Eleven guys were hamming it up - saying "Thank you! Come again." to everyone as they left. People were in good spirits, taking photos. Who knew 7-Eleven could bring such joy to the world? I thought that was McDonald'ses job.

I had a lot of fun with this today. It's too bad I can't save my mix - clicking instruments on and off - to share with you all, but it should entertain you for about five minutes.

Chick chick boom chick-achicka boom!

Imagine how echo-ey it is in here. For scale, dig those doorways on the bottom right and bottom left of the photo.

Now imagine letting loose with a giant sneeze right in the middle of the room. I already thought sneezes were enjoyable, but I've never experienced one in as massive an echo chamber as this. I think my sneeze lasted about 23 seconds by the time it disappeared into the nether realms of the building where only ghosties and stray echos are kept.
This is Union Station in Kansas City and boy is it huge. I mean HUGE! Imagine if airport terminals looked like this. Why, it would almost make waiting for your overdue flight a joy. I dare say that it would . . . if you could sneeze every once in a while.