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One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other…
It am important to elect Bizarro Obama in 2012!
He do exact opposite of regular Obama!
Instead of him not turn economy around, him turn economy around!
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Delightfully Anachronistic Package De– Wait, No, Nevermind!
As you know, when I happen across a product with delightfully anachronistic package design, why, I just feel as though I’m going to bust, I get so excited, and–You know, if I’m ever going to win the respect of the rest of the internet, I’d better play by the rules, and in this case that means joining hands in solidarity with my online peers, my sister sites, you might call them – Wikipedia, and Reddit, and all the rest, sure – and louvering the site today. I was going to say “shuttering” but I know you hate that term as much as I do.
…And yet, I have to ask: Doesn’t it seem odd that on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard Day, we celebrated Betty White, and now today, we’re going black?
Will we ever go back? They say you don’t.
But I think we will.
You’re probably wondering what all of this is about. It’s about SOPA. Which, if I remember my decades-old junior high Spanish, as well as my right-now living-in-Southern-California Spanish, means “soup.”
I think that about says it all.
So I hope that all five or six of you that may visit the site today understand that this is bigger than just some delightfully anachronistic package design (every example of which I find makes me more giddy than you can possibly imagine).
This is about Spanish – or quite possibly Mexican – soup.
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Welcome to MY Gym, Muthabutlers!
I THOUGHT we’d cleared this all up the other day, but I can see after today’s workout that we haven’t.
To review: The gym I go to…? Where I got these guns…?
It melded with another gym, and now what used to be LA Fitness is now Ballys or vice-versa, or something – who can really say for sure? The upshot of all this is that people who used to go to some other gym now feel compelled to come to my gym, when really there’s no reason for this whatsoever.
So about that: I had a good thing going at my gym, a regular routine, a way of doing things, with no problems. Now with all you people coming there, you’re liable to queer the deal.
To make this an easy transition for all of us (even though I shouldn’t have to transition anything, since I’ve been going here for years) I want to let you know what’s expected of you at my gym, so there’s no problems later. Follow these guidelines, and your (wholly unnecessary) changeover to my gym will be as smooth as the balls of that guy who shaves them at the row of sinks in the men’s locker room.
• Parking: The signs say it’s an unsecured lot and the gym’s not responsible for loss or damage to your car or your belongings, but you’ll want to go ahead and leave your valuables in plain sight on the front seat. That way, during the at-least-once-weekly break-in, they’re targeting your car, not mine.
• Reception: Don’t stop to flirt with whoever scans your card if I happen to be behind you. You’re not getting anywhere with her (or him); there’s a hundred better looking, more built guys who work out here, and one of them is losing his patience trying to just get in the gym.
• Cardio Room: All of our Precor elliptical machines are fairly new and in good working order except for the one on the far right of the room by the door which makes a sort of shuddering thump if you push it up beyond Level 4. This is the Precor elliptical machine you may use.
• Men’s Lavatories: Make sure to throw your used toilet paper into the toilet and flush it along with whatever bodily waste you’ve expelled. Throwing filthy used toilet paper on the floor behind the toilet is a privilege reserved solely for our members who are recent transplants from nearby nations with primitive or non-existent plumbing facilities. Look, we’re as surprised as you are that they can afford gym memberships; regardless, they were here before you. I mean in this gym, not this country.
• Weight Room: Our advanced weight training center can be pretty intimidating, so you’d probably best just stay out of here altogether. But if you insist on working out with the big boys, remember: We’re a pretty tight-knit group with a very specific pecking order and it takes a while for us to warm up to outsiders.
Your best bet is to show respect to everyone working out here, be they serious body-builders or smaller, skinnier guys like yourself. However, if I’m wrong here, if you yourself are particularly well-built, go ahead and beat the crap out of the biggest guy (Frank; usually there from 11 am to 2 pm, calls everyone ’bro’ and always seems intent on engaging me in a conversation about the goddamn Lakers) and we’ll throw our collective allegiance behind you. We may be fickle, but we’re not stupid.
And finally…
• Treadmill Area: I do a heart-pounding twenty minutes at a steady 7 mph at the end of my workout. When I have five minutes left, I will nod to you. Then you run next door to Jamba Juice and get me a 24-ounce Pomegranate Pick-Me-Up which you will hand to me as I step off the treadmill, paper wrapper still on end of straw, please.
What? You want to fit in here, don’t you?
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Alleged Arson Suspect Guy Allegedly Caught!
AS YOU KNOW, we’ve had a harrowing few days here in the disgusting cesspool that is Los Angeles thanks to some guy running around lighting fires!
Thankfully, he’s allegedly been caught but given the LAPD’s recent track record with alleged suspects (cough cough Dodger Stadium beating cough cough), who can really say for sure?
Now, the first thing they tell you in the continuing education class “Blogging: The Wave of the Future But Is It Right For Me And How Much Money Do I Stand To Lose Doing It?” at Oxnard Community College (best $145 I ever spent and definitely worth the two-hour drive to Ventura during rush hour on Tuesday and Thursday evenings!) is unless you’re specifically going to blog about local politics and news, stay the hell away from local politics and news, so’s not to limit your blog’s appeal.
See, the last thing you want is a blog whose content is so esoteric that it’s only relevant to a tiny percentage of everyone on earth who has internet access, insists our professor, Sylvia Haynes-Darden, of Random Musings and Ramblings of A Militant Christadelphian Organic Pistachio Farmer Who Collects Vintage 70s Dannon Yogurt Lid Inserts. And evidently, she should know!
Where the hell was I?
Oh! Anyway, I must have clicked on something accidentally last night and ended up on the website of Los Angeles’ worst newspaper ever, the cesspoolular, to coin a word, Los Angeles Times.
They had an article about “social media” and its role in this whole story:
Credit: The venerable Los Angeles Times
You’ll get the gist of the story from the quote I’ve included below, despite my attorney’s admonitions:
Above: A quote from the LA Times story by Matt Stevens and Richard Winton, and that oughta satisfy my goddamn attorney.And despite what you just read, I’m here to insist that the way Twitter is designed may have, in fact, prevented the cops from catching that guy sooner!
You see, two nights ago, yes, New Year’s Eve!, aware of the situation, I was extra vigilant, keeping a wary eye out for anything unusual. And as luck would have it, I did see something suspicious. So I got on my Twitter account (which you’d know if you actually followed me, which you don’t unless you’re User QuakerChewy or User Nevada, my two goddamn followers, and I love them both) and posted it immediately:
Or at least I tried to! That’s as far as I got before that ridiculous 140-character limit kicked in.However!
As it turns out – and I found this out later – the smoke wasn’t from a car fire as I suspected, but rather someone grilling fresh feral cat on a hibachi. (This was, after all, in the “Little Czechoslovakia” section of L.A. – enough said there!)
So, at least in this one instance, it was probably fortunate I didn’t waste the police or fire department’s time, and just as well that I was limited in my Twitter message (or “Tweet”) and never got the full address out.
But I want you all to know – Sylvia Haynes-Darden, the others in my class, my attorney, the attorneys for the LA Times, and the rest of you who have access to the internet all over our home we call Earth:
Even if I had managed to finish typing out the address, rest assured, I’d have made up for the mishap by treating all emergency personnel who’d have responded to this false alarm to the best feline kapustnika they’ve ever had from an unlicensed street vendor this side of Prague!
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Hello 2012!
IT’S NOW 2012 and could there be a better time than the first of the year to discuss the whole gym situation? No, I think not.
As you know, recently, the giant corporate-run gym chain I go to was bought up by another giant corporate-run gym chain. Or maybe my chain bought out the other chain. Well, it was one or the other. Oh, it was all so fast, who can really say what happened?
Regardless of who did what to whom, the fact is that because of this buyout, or merger, or whatever, and also because it’s the beginning of a new year, suddenly I’m going to be seeing a lot of new faces and fat sweaty asses at my gym. Some of you will be from the other chain, others will be completely new to the world of fitness, having decided (somewhat foolishly if you ask me) that 2012 is going to be the year you finally get in shape.
But listen: You don’t have to come to my gym! Seriously! You do not have to!
To you buyout people: Your membership is still good at your old gym! There’s really no reason whatsoever to switch locations.
Our equipment is all notoriously outdated (check Yelp!), most of it’s broken, and none of the machines are the same brand you’re used to working out on.
Sure, you could do 120 pounds easy on the inclined lateral pelvic row extension at your old gym, but try using our inclined lateral pelvic row extension set at the same weight – with the stirrups set farther back a full two inches then your body is used to and the handgrips way up over your head – and you are going to wrench your back something awful, guaranteed! I’m telling you! But what can you do? You’re used to safe, modern, routinely-serviced BioStrength equipment! We’ve got nothing but Aero-Fitt dinosaurs from the early 80s here, half of which are missing important parts!
One of the weight plates on our isometric reticulated groin fly is gone and do you know what they replaced it with? An old plastic milk jug filled with sand and duct-taped to the plate below. Yes. Who wants to work out on that? Not you, brother. Not you!
And as to you New Year’s Resolutioners: Come on. Why waste your time? Do you know how difficult it is trying to get started on even a moderate exercise regimen after, what has it been, years of inactivity? Have you any idea the pain you’ll be in for?
Instead, focus your energy on something that won’t compel you to pilfer Vicodin from that aunt of yours who is recovering from back surgery; something you can achieve. Hey, why not finally get cracking on that family history project you’ve been meaning to start?
It’s sedennnnntarrrry…!
You can peruse genealogy websites to your heart’s content and do it all in front of your computer without breaking a sweat. And look at it this way: Instead of ramping up the elliptical at the gym to a breakneck Level 2 pace, suffering a massive heart attack and dying an ignominious death right there on the cardio room floor, you could instead be researching your ancestors and uncovering fascinating details such as the startling number of relatives who passed away at a young age due to health problems associated with morbid obesity.
And to both groups – you gym rats from the other chain and you who are contemplating just getting started, let me try one more approach:
For God’s sake, please just stay the hell out of my already over-crowded gym. There’s too many goddamn people there as it is!
I’m glad we had this little talk.
Stay away.
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Goodbye 2011!
EACH December 31st finds me, in the late afternoon, slathered head to toe with Veet, ritually denuding myself of all body hair.
The reason is two-fold: First, it wouldn’t be Charlie and Anne Bishop’s New Year’s Eve party – an annual tradition here in our little cul-de-sac – if I didn’t show up dressed as a smooth, pink Baby New Year, complete with top hat, diaper, and sash. (And speaking of dual purposes, that diaper comes in handy when the wait for the bathroom becomes a little too long, given the amount of alcohol I’ll be consuming – so don’t worry, Anne, your precious indoor dwarf Meyer Lemon tree in the corner of the sun porch is safe this year, I promise!).
Oh, and second, like you, I like to give myself a fresh, hairless start each year, and what’s fresher and more hairless than a completely smooth man-baby?
And as I let the thioglycolic acid work its depilatory magic on my person (Tingly!) it gives me a chance to reflect back upon the past twelve months, as we close the books on yet another year, this particular year being 2011, and as we peer ahead forward towards the oncoming year, in this case 2012, and consider the possibilities, the hopes we have for it, and the things we hope to do and accomplish, and anticipation, with a sense of hopefulness, so that a year from now, we can look back on a year rife with accomplishment and promise…and maybe even dreams.
Now, many of you have called, sent postcards and in some cases emailed me, wondering, perhaps aloud as you wrote the cards and emails, and definitely aloud if we spoke, “Ted, what have you planned for 2012? Have you any resolutions, Ted?”
Well, as I tell Latreece, my probation officer (she’s cool), each Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., “You can’t improve on perfection!”
But to be fair, I think there are things we can all do to improve ourselves. And so my gift to you, this New Year’s Eve, is a list of ten things – call them resolutions if that makes it easier – that we should all strive to do, to make the world a better place in 2012. I’m going to do them, and I encourage you to, as well:
1. I will no longer go to Souplantation barefoot. (Note: If you live in a beach community, you can of course disregard this one. It’s more for us “inlanders.”)
2. I will increase the weights I work with at the gym to whatever the next size up from the pink vinyl-covered ones is.
3. I will intend to make a reasonable effort to try not to back out of volunteering for Meals-on-Wheels at the last minute just because “something better came up” unless it’s something really cool. (Or, even better: I will no longer volunteer for delivering Meals on Wheels at all – that’s probably a more realistic one, and when you think about it, it’s actually a more positive change we can make for all the hungry shut-ins.)
4. I will try those new Hot Pockets Side Shots.
5. I will not curse in public: Not at the library, not picking up Kaylee at daycare when she “dawdles” despite me laying on the horn for twenty seconds at a stretch, and definitely not on this blog.
6. I will keep my clothes on when–
…Actually, that’s going to have to be it because I was only supposed to leave this crap on for six minutes but I lost track of time writing this shit for you and it’s been about three-quarters of an hour now and suddenly it feels like my entire body is on fire so even if I manage to get in the shower right now and scrape it off (and it’s dried now, caked on, so I’ll have to scrape it off!), it looks I’m going to be a red, tender mess again this year for the party.
Jesus H. Christ! Perfect fucking ending to 2011! Good fucking riddance to this piece of shit year!
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Merry Christmas!
EVERY family has its own Christmas traditions, some time-honored and serious, others light-hearted and goofy. We Parsnips are no different.
However, this is the third year in a row where one of us has ended up on a [never-private-enough] emergency room bed while the rest of us, bedecked in our goofiest Christmas sweaters, is left trying to explain to the attending physician how a popcorn ball still wrapped in green cellophane got where it did.
So perhaps this is one annual (not a typo!) tradition that we’ll be retiring this year. Maybe the ol’ air cannon is best used outdoors to launch corn dogs and individual spare ribs at the family reunion each August.
This does not necessarily preclude us from using Pop-Pop’s x-ray of the mishap for next year’s holiday card.
Merry Christmas!
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A Startling Discovery!
Recently, I had to replace a broken headlight on my car.
I know, I know – you’re wondering just where in hell I’m going with all of this. Oh, I’ll tie it all together soon. But first allow me to add yet another element to this most curious puzzle:
The other day CNN ran a great story about some guy named “Al Jaffee,” who is an artist and writer for some magazine called “Mad.”
What’s even more fascinating than the article itself is that I scrolled through about the first fifty comments below the piece and no one wrote “Mad hasn’t been funny in years” – a comment you always see below any article about Mad. Could it be that people have finally begun to respect the American institution that is Mad magazine, or in this case, at least the focus of the piece – one of Mad’s elder geniuses?
Naaah!
Soon I realized, of course!, the lack of negative comments is simply due to the fact that you’ve got to be invested enough in your disdain of Mad to take the time to register if you want to leave a comment, and who the hell’s got time for that?
But what’s even more fascinating than that is the article itself.
And while the article gives a very interesting and detailed overview of Mr. Jaffee’s life and career it’s not complete.
Indeed, nowhere in the entire article does it mention the wonderful work that I recently discovered, completely by accident, that Mr. Jaffee did in the mid-1990s…for Toyota.
You see, as luck would have it, it was the driver’s side headlight that went out – oh, no – not the passenger’s side headlight where you just pop a new bulb in and you’re done. Oh God forbid my life should be easy! God forbid!
No, for the driver’s side you’ve got a whole afternoon ordeal ahead of you that involves scraping your knuckles raw trying to blindly wedge your hand into a tiny, dark recess full of sharp metal corners and pointy metal bolt ends before finally accepting that you’re going to have to disconnect and remove the damn battery to get to the bulb, and in doing so splash battery acid in all those scrapes since you refuse to let those crooks at Pep Boys install it for you, because the last time they did it, they also fast-talked you into getting four new tires, new shocks, a new motor for the sun roof and a new transfer case despite the fact that your car has neither a sun roof nor four-wheel drive! At least that’s been my experience with them.
So not only do you have to pull out the battery, you’ve also got to remove the air cleaner duct (Christ!) and to do so, you’ve got to turn to page 171 of your owner’s manual.
Wake up! This is where it all comes together, folks.
Look at the illustration from said owner’s manual for removing the air cleaning duct clip:
Now tell me Al Jaffee didn’t draw that! Tell me he didn’t draw that!
Okay, my attorney is telling me he didn’t draw that. Or that I shouldn’t imply that he did just because I think it looks like an Al Jaffee drawing. But it does look like a Jaffee drawing, right? It totally does! Right?! And the weird thing is, it’s one of only two drawings in the entire owner’s manual drawn in that style. The rest are drawn differently – more owner’s manual-like and less Jaffeesque. But this little diagram…? It looks exactly like something out of one of Al’s ’inventions’ pieces for Mad, doesn’t it? Of course it does! Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m basing this only on a hand, but it looks like an Al Jaffee hand!
Okay, I guess it’s unlikely Al Jaffee drew that, but it’s fun to pretend, right?
On a possibly related note, Antonio “Spy Vs. Spy” Prohias totally designed the logo for this marvelous little café in Monrovia – I just know it!
It’s clearly his work, somehow commissioned and drawn by him after his death, for a café that opened just a few years ago.
Pardon, there’s the phone. My attorney! Now what the devil could he want?
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Whole or Broken?
WITH THE HOLIDAY SEASON UPON US, you’re sure to attend a handful of parties and perhaps even host your own over the weeks to come. And while some party-goers are happy just getting bombed and hooking up, starting fist fights, or vomiting, or all three, there are always those looking for a little non-sexual, non-violent, non-regurgitorial diversion, God only knows why.
It’s for these people I offer a fast-paced game guaranteed to liven up any get-together. Without further delay, on with the fun!
Whole or Broken?
The Loud, Frantic Game of Bluffs and Cookie Crumbs
You Will Need:
One package of oatmeal cookies
A table
Some guestsThe Gameplay:
1. Have everyone who’s playing sit at the table.
2. Okay now you give everyone an oatmeal cookie.
3. Next everyone takes his or her oatmeal cookie and puts it under the table and either snaps it in half or doesn’t.
4. Then everyone brings his or her oatmeal cookie back above the table, holding it carefully, and challenges those sitting nearby, “Whole or broken? Whole or broken?”
5. Now it’s up to the others to decide whether the cookie they’re looking at is indeed whole, or has been broken but is being held together carefully to appear unbroken, all the while impatiently calling out to other guests to look at their cookies and make the same judgment.Ready for a few practice rounds? We’ll start with an easy one:
Whole or broken? Whole or broken?!
You got it – it’s broken.
Okay, now try this one:
Whole or broken? Whole or broken? Look look look! Whole or broken?
It’s broken. No, I’m just kidding, it’s whole. But you said broken so you lose!
Okay, my turn! My turn! My turn again! Whole or broken, whole or broken?
You said whole. It’s…um…broken.
Now, see, what I did there was I used a little strategy. You answered “whole” and you were right, but then just as I said it was broken, I gently snapped it right in front of you, but you thought I broke it under the table.
It’s not really cheating if you don’t get caught, but you might want to practice a bit with some cookies at home before you try it at the party, especially after six shots of Jaeger and half a bottle of that disgusting Two-Buck Chuck.
If as the host (or for you ladies, the “hostess”) you introduce Whole or Broken? when your party starts to lag, your guests will always look back on your little shindig with a certain amount of fondness, perhaps even contacting you in the days and weeks after to tell you so, and ask if you found their Android as well as to apologize for spewing Spaghettios on your white leather couch and trying to get your Boston Terrier to eat it before anyone noticed (and then embarrassingly denying that they actually were Spaghettios, but come on, we all saw it. Even an hour and a half in one’s stomach doesn’t change the telltale size and shape of the neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon).
Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I haven’t played Whole or Broken? since snack time at nursery school in 1974, but I remember it being particularly compelling – a game that everyone enjoyed – so I can only presume it holds up today. Also, if you’re like me, and you are, your circle of friends isn’t exactly an Algonquin Round Table of wits so any of those twenty-five dollar “adult party games” with the wacky rhyming names and box art by Shag wannabes are going to be too intellectually taxing for your guests and they’re going to end up swallowing the pieces.
At least with Whole or Broken?, your guests are less likely to choke.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
AS YOU WILL probably recall, our daughter Melinda lost the thumb on her left hand when we drove up to Solvang for a day trip this past summer and stopped to feed the emus. She was holding the bowl wrong (there’s a sign telling you how to hold it and, well, there’s a reason she’s in the slow reading group in her class) and instead of a mouthful of pellets, one frisky flightless bird got a taste for meat.
Many of you were kind enough to point out that at least she’s right-handed, and it was her left thumb. Others sent in hand-knitted mittens with the thumb on the left mitten thoughtfully omitted. (Elaine H. from Marbleton, Wyoming mentioned she used a regular mitten pattern for the right, but just a sock pattern for the left. Clever!) And we even got a few well-intentioned notes suggesting that surgeons may be able to take her left big toe and transplant it to her hand. (Too late. She lost that to a bicycle chain when riding her two-wheeler barefoot the summer before. And this was right after she proudly asked us to take off the training wheels – talk about your good day/bad days!)
But we’re happy to say she’s adjusted well, although her cat’s cradle days are over. It’s sort of a blessing that her older brother Mark lost a couple of fingers to the fireworks we bought in Ventura County and snuck back here – she looks up to him and a missing digit or two to her is now something of a badge of honor. That is, it was until art class this week when young Miss Casarin, all of twenty-three, right out of college, and somehow responsible for over two dozen children, callously decided the perfect Thanksgiving project for all her pupils – even those without all their fingers (and we hardly believe Melinda is the only one in a class of 26) – would be the traditional turkey hand-tracing.
Look at the hideous monstrosity Melinda came home with:
After supper that night, we convened in the living room for an emergency family meeting to discuss whether or not it deserved a space on the Sub-Zero. It was unanimous: Absolutely not. Melinda was right to be upset, we told her, it really was horrible, but we assured our sensitive progeny: We don’t blame her, or her disfigurement, we blame the teacher. (More on that later.) The awful art was consigned to the kindling pile by the fireplace. By the next day, it would be nothing but ashes and bad memories.
Enter Uncle Frank. He and Berta came up for the holiday weekend, and seeing the drawing and noticing Little Nine-Fingers moping around, put two and two together.
He picked her up, plopped her down on his lap and explained that in fact, her drawing was perhaps the most accurate of all those her classmates had drawn. “What do you mean, Uncle Frank?” she asked, childlike wonderment in her good eye.
“Well, Melinda, all turkeys destined for the dinner table this Thursday – every single one – is going to have its head lopped off – chop!” he smiled, using the side of his hand to pantomime an axe to her neck.
“And then, why, ol’ Mr. Turkey will have as much as a head as you have a thumb!”
With those words, as though by magic, this disgusting agglutination of construction paper and crayon suddenly had some worth, (most of) the family decided. Up went the drawing on the fridge (despite my objections).
Still, I think that Uncle Frank’s message kind of put it all into perspective for us – something that we’re all too often guilty of losing sight of especially during this time of year, as the days grow shorter, and, by degrees, the weather turns colder, when it seems we’re beginning to have to rush around busier than ever, with more and more to do, and less time to do it all, all the while the season changing all around us from the refreshing cool of mid-autumn to the crispness of late autumn, and eventually, even winter’s chill – the spirit of giving.
It’s true, the turkey drawing will never have a permanent place in the Parsnips family scrapbook – somehow it ended up in the fire anyway – but that which it represented transcends mere cheap school-grade art supplies anyway: a message of thanks.
As to Miss Casarin, I hope she had a nice Thanksgiving weekend, no doubt shopping for her little belted pencil skirts at Dress Barn on Black Friday, and then it was off to DSW, probably, for a pair of black Sofft Sorrento peep toes or those Franco Sarto Ravel over-the-knee boots (also black) with the zipper up the back. Because come Monday, I’m going in there, alone, because it looks like once again, I’m going to have to have a talk with her.
Ted Parsnips
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