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.Blog Archives............ |
. 2003 |
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Dec 31 2003 We've finally left San Francisco and are home after a ten hour drive. What did I miss most while away from home? Broadband. Life on dial-up made me want to slam my head into a wall until I was confabulated and thought dial-up was acceptable. One hour till 2004 and all I want to do is hang out with the one I love: my big fat internet pipe, ironically provided by a company named Cox. If I slow down neighborhood performance by downloading massive files on multiple machines, am I technically a Cox sucker? Thought so. Dec 27 2003 Above my mom's fireplace is where East meets West. What we have here are three Chinese "wise men" � Longevity, Prosperity and Felicity � who are standing in front of a motel-quality painting of some grizzly bear's stomping ground in Alaska. This is the type of decor you get when two cultures are invited into the home for the long haul. You get a figurine of Mickey Mouse sitting on the bookshelf next to a statue of Buddha. You get a framed jigsaw puzzle collage of Elvis sharing the wall with black and white photos of long dead ancestors. This house could be a movie set for a John Waters film. Dec 25 2003 Bummer. A death in the family today. The fish � not sure what kind it was � stiffed out. It didn't go belly up in the traditional manner but instead was pointed nose down into the rocks at the bottom. Maybe it was pretending to look for food while snoozing, but it didn't move all day and the gills weren't flapping so my mom (technically her fish) gave it a burial at sea (i.e., The Final Flush). If, indeed, it was still alive and playing possum, it is now trying to swim its way around Christmas excrement under the streets of Petaluma. Dec 24 2003 Chris and I made the ten hour pilgrimage up to the Bay Area. I drove most of the way while Chris watched DVDs on his laptop. Unfortunately, I only seem to come up here during the holidays, which means it's winter and the weather is usually crap. Right now it's raining mightily and I'm glad we didn't cart up Pogo in hopes of going for some rides. Although I was born and raised here, I'm not sure I'd ever be able to return. After you spend a long enough time in San Diego your blood thins out to the viscosity of rubbing alcohol. When it gets down to around 55 I lock myself in my bedroom and start crying out of fear. Dec 21 2003 Anybody out there watch the Today Show in the morning? (I guess you have to be unemployed or self-employed to be able to do that.) Willard Scott is one embarrassingly patronizing coot. He does a segment where he wishes people over 100 years of age a happy birthday. He says things like "Gorgeous lady!" or "What a beauty!" We're talking about really old and wrinkled women. They may be wonderful grandmothers or brilliant spinsters, but attractive they are not. When and if I'm 100, if someone calls me gorgeous I'm going to ask for some of what he or she is smoking. And I'll also lick the residue from the pipe. Dec 20 2003 People often reflect on childhood as being the best part of their lives. Eff that. Even though as an adult I have to work to pay the mortgage, click here to find out why it rocks to be emancipated. Yeah, what you see is a box of high quality See's chocolates with one bite taken out of almost every single one. The "Soft Centers" selection sucks (lemon truffle?!) so I was trying to find one candy I liked. If I were eight and did that, my grandmother would've rapped me hard on top of my head with her knuckle. But I am an adult and I am LIVING LIFE LARGE with my selectively fondled See's Candies. Dec 19 2003 Have you ever been to a health clinic run by the county? I went to one for the first time today to get some shots: In summary, it's the DMV wearing white lab coats and holding needles. Same governmental staff, same '50s-era building, same multi-language clientele. While I was getting my shots, one of the doctors comes in and says to an indifferent woman, "I've got small ones, I've got medium ones, but I've got no large ones. I'll find one around here somewhere, but I need you to order some large ones!" When she exits the room the three female employees start gabbing: "A large speculum? We never use those...it'll tear you up!" The difference between county clinics and private practice is that county employees are there to execute a job, not coddle the patient and hope you go away happy and send referrals. I'm not saying this is bad, just that it is the way it is. I know one thing: I'm never going there to get any part of my girly bits poked. You know a few months from now they're going to have too many large speculums and I don't need them burning up the inventory at my expense. (Guys, if you don't know what a speculum is, it's because you don't have The Configuration that requires you to know.) Dec 17 2003 This has to be one of the most out-of-left-field Christmas gift campaigns I've seen: a tv commerical hawking Scarface. To quote the voice-over: "Time is running out to get the perfect holiday gift. Scarface. Own it. Give it. On DVD now." Yeah, when I think of holiday gifts, I always forget to consider 20-year-old movies about violent Cuban druglords. What a terrific and thoughtful stocking stuffer for my nephew who already has too many Fisher Price toys. Dec 16 2003 Strom Thurmond. What a hypocrite. He boinks the 16-year-old African American maid when he was 22 and then he goes on to become an arch segregationist. Later on he changes his strident racist stand, but probably because times were changing and if wanted to maintain a political career he had better show some flexibility. I don't know all that much about the man, but anyone who sanctioned inequality to the point of hostility like he did is another Bad Citizen. Sure, not as bad as The Dirty Santa, but I still give Strom super low marks. I grew up in a monochromatic town and I know all about the unpleasantries of racism. To all the folks who got on me every Dec 7: I'm Chinese. Get yer facts straight. Back in the day, the Japanese killed millions of opium-stoned Chinamen so if you want to get technical, the Chinese have a way bigger ax to grind with their Asian neighbor. If you want to get even more technical, I'm an American who happens to look like I'm from China, so feel free not to ship me back to my genetic homeland. I couldn't order a bowl of rice there to save my life. Dec 13 2003 How timely that they just caught Saddam Hussein. He looks like a dirty Santa Claus. Or maybe Mrs. Claus's brother who drinks too much and likes hookers. They showed tv footage of someone picking through his hair like he was a monkey, which is an insult to the ever-charismatic monkey. He is what one would call a Bad Citizen. Last I checked, genocidal tendencies was not a favorable human trait. A word to the Iraqi people: Go ahead and celebrate, but don't shoot them guns into the air. Really, the bullets have to come down somewhere. Regimes may come and go, but gravity is an unassailable constant. Dec 12 2003 You ever notice how the noise of the fans screaming in a stadium is identical? Doesn't matter what country or what sport. The collective noise of people yelling, screaming, cursing, etc., sounds totally the same. Dec 10 2003 We have a grocery store strike going on out here and, man, is the stock picked over. Today I went to a supermarket that's not even being picketed. What I encountered were empty shelves where the yogurt should be. Actually, there were some strawberry-banana yogurts left; apparently I'm not the only one who knows that those two fruits don't mate in the wild and therefore don't belong gene-spliced in a yogurt. Sometimes I have to go to the store being picketed to get what I need. The workers are striking for several reasons, all of which fall on the deaf ears of the self-employed. They want tough? Try having no dental, no vision, and health insurance that effectively only covers catastrophic incidents. Job security? That's being secure in the fact that you'll be paid late for the jobs you've done. And that pension? Hope you married someone with lots of money and no pre-nup. Don't get me wrong; I don't mind the picketing, but nobody better shove one of them big paper popsicles up my nose or there will be a loud confrontation with someone who really hates bullies. Dec 6 2003 Here's a story straight out of a cartoon: I used to live on the outskirts of Escondido. The coyotes were always roaming around the property getting the dogs all pissed off. So one day I'm in the front yard with Lucky, the collie, and he proceeds to haul ass after a coyote he spots down the steep hill. I watch him chase the coyote and disappear around a corner. A few seconds later he comes running back around the corner with the coyote chasing after him. I grab a shovel and start running after the both of them hoping to reach them before the coyote tears Lucky in half. When the coyote sees me coming, flailing a shovel and screaming at the top of my lungs, it cuts off the chase. Let me tell you something about Lucky: He has delusions of warrioring grandeur. He would lose a fight to a three-legged, declawed, toothless hamster. File this one under "What the hell was he thinking?" Dec 5 2003 Your geek moment: multiply 111111111 x 111111111 on your calculator. Whee! Dec 2 2003 I just heard on the news that half of Americans are still paying off their credit card expenses from last Christmas season. wOw! Whattup wif dat? If you want to cut down your shopping list, do what I do: Alienate your friends and family. If people don't want to talk to you, you don't have to buy them anything. At least that's how it traditionally works. Start working on your bad manners now and you'll really trim that list down for next year! Dec 1 2003 Is anybody else out there baffled by how fast search engines work? I use Google and I type in a phrase like "wheelchair dreeben highside ass" � one surely no one else has typed in � and my page, and only my page, incredibly appears. There are millions and millions of web pages in this world. This is a needle in a haystack � how can it possibly work so fast? Should I not admit to being so easily impressed? Ever think of something as fundamentally bland as electricity? If it were left up to liberal arts types like me trying to evolve mankind, we'd still be reading by candlelight, if we even figured that one out. (For the record, my degree is in Technical Writing. "What the f#ck does that mean?" is a valid response.) The upside of clueless people like me spearheading technological advancements is that we would've never become industrialized and we'd still have virginal air quality, a phat ozone layer, and no bad tv shows like Walker Texas Ranger. Nov 28 2003 "No nose hairs. Ever." That's what Kyan, Grooming Guy, of QE says. However, the problem with such a hygiene command is that nose hairs have a function and that is to be the first line of defense against airborne particulate matter. If you use the rotary trimmer and remove all your nose hairs, you lose a pollution control device. Clear-cutting isn't good for the rainforest so I suspect it's not good for your nose. This is of timely importance because we're having Santa Ana winds that have carried a massive, dirty dust cloud over San Diego from all the charred acres of earth. Might I suggest a compromise? Use a pair of scissors � blunt tip if you're lame � and trim the long nose hairs that stick out and cause people at the dinner table stare. Leave the rest of of the ones out of sight happily executing their biological assignment. Nov 27 2003 It's Thanksgiving. Of all the in-laws, only my mom is alive and she's 534.26 miles away so we're geographical orphans for the holidays. I think it's macaroni and cheese for dinner. By the way, who started this deep-frying turkey business? The average American will probably overconsume a few thousand calories for the day. Is a deep fried turkey the new haute and oily exclamation point? And can someone tell me why the Detroit Lions always play on Thanksgiving Day? Seems like as long as I've been alive it's the Lions on astroturf on this particular Thursday. Nov 25 2003 Today's topic is homelessness. Just before I divorced my first husband, I didn't want to be around him any more so I left. Thing is, I didn't have anywhere to go. I took my dog and my truck with a camper shell and lived out of it for a few weeks. I really wanted to find an apartment to live in, but nobody would allow dogs over 20 pounds so I didn't have much of a choice but to spend excessive quality time with my GMC Sonoma. To this day, I empathize with the homeless. When you're on the streets, all you do is wait for someone to come along and harass you. One day I was parked outside an RV park and the next morning there's pounding on my vehicle. I stick my head out and some guy yells at me, "You can't park here!" I guess he was just pissed I wasn't parked inside his establishment and paying him money. I liked parking there because it felt safe having other "campers" so near; if I had to run screaming from my truck chances are good someone would hear me. After that episode I tried the parking lot at work, which was fine until someone pulled up next to me at 2 am. The parking lot was empty and I thought for sure they were going to break into my truck. Luckily for me, they ended up leaving, but once again I realized that life on the streets was not easy. For a while I parked in an area near a friend's townhouse, but the danger of that was overly watchful neighbors. I had to make sure they didn't see me living out of my truck. I'd show up late at night and leave early in the morning to avoid suspicion. I eventually got a bit of break when a co-worker let me park in the garage of a condo he was selling. It was great parking in a safe place. He did warn me that on one particular Saturday morning people would be walking around looking at the condo. I got up that morning and was outside of my truck pulling my pants up when a couple of prospective buyers walked in. "Oops!" they said and walked out. I'll bet I lost that sale for my co-worker. I eventually found a crappy little place that would allow dogs; and no wonder, the place reeked of cat urine. After I complained a few times and told them to take a hard sniff for themselves, they took out a piece of soiled carpeting to get rid of the stench. Ironically, Chris lived only a few blocks away and we ended up dating; not too long after I bought the proverbial cow who wrenches like a mo-fo. As for my ex, he's a good guy but we just weren't meant for each other. He had a fit when I bought my first Ducati and, well, that was the beginning of the end... Nov 23 2003 It's NFL Sunday. Can you imagine how many pants would get pulled down if the guys didn't wear spandex? It really just dawned on me why they wear such a feminine aerobics work-out fabric. Speaking about feminine, Christmas is coming up and I feel sorry for all you guys who have traditionally feminine significant others and have to buy things like jewelry to make them happy. I think the whole concept of judging someone's love based on the value of the gem you present is a cartload of horse shit. In the case of the diamond, being the hardest substance known to mankind, I think it's great for many productive applications like cutting windows and quietly breaking into people's houses. However, I don't believe that going into debt just to get something to perch on a finger so you can watch it sparkle is a good application. Disco balls have insane sparkle, so why don't manufacturers charge a few grand for that? Let's face it, our value system is really screwed up. Fight the traditional marketing propaganda. Go buy that fun S4R, tell your bi-zatch to get one for herself, and then go for a fabulous ride as the fun-loving couple you should be. You'll be so energized by this true expression of love that all you'll want to do is eat undercooked red meat and shag like minks. Eff the diamond and eff companies like De Beers! Nov 20 2003 I had my MRI today. Since my neck damage probably began with my highside, I'll record the medical events on my Life As A Highsided Racer page so I don't have to fill my blog with medical details. I was reading a TV critic's column today and he listed the shows he liked. Here are two I have to completely agree with: "Cops." Fox. Don't get all high-brow. You know it's fun. All these years and people still take off running. Have they learned nothing? Oh, well, it's better for us when they do. "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." Bravo. Overexposed? Sure. But with the country relentlessly fascinated with makeover shows, this one at least makes you smile instead of wince. What is there not to love about Cops? Now these are real examples of people who were put on earth to serve as a warning to others. You can bet I am not going to drive through Barrio Logan at 3:00 a.m. with my crack pipe in my sock. Cops has taught me that the crack pipe stays home when I go try to score. I'm not stupid. I watch these people and I learn. As for Queer Eye? I don't care if the cast is perpetuating a stereotype or not; they make me want to take a gay man home to meet Mom (although admittedly I'm a little bitter that they ruined rainbows and bandanas for us straight people). Nov 19 2003 Ever wonder why dogs get so damn excited about their food? Is it really that good? No matter what dog food I've ever purchased, they go apeshit over it. Not too long ago, curiosity got the better of me and I had to find out for myself what they got so worked up about. Here is my review of several products I sampled: � Dry dog food: Tastes like dried bread that was stored with liver, and this was the allegedly lamb-flavored product. Has the texture of something really dense, really stale and slightly greasy. Not crunchy, not chewy; stuck in the dentally curious land of nowhere. � Wet dog food: The beef-flavored variety tasted like cheap bratwurst. If the brown gelatinous coating doesn't turn you off, all you need is a spoon and an eating disorder. It's a notch better than the dry food, but maybe that's because I have one less tooth now and all things soft appeal to me. � "Beef jerky" treat: If you love bitter reconstituted cardboard that smells like used socks, I have found the ultimate snack for you. I can summarize this exercise by saying: Dogs have NO taste buds. Nov 18 2003 I saw a neurologist today. I've had a neck/back pain for over a month now but figured I'd get over it. I thought it was a standard dance card you got handed when you turned the big four-oh. Only until I started losing feeling in my hand � my clutch hand � did I really care. I told him I had been doing push-ups up until about two weeks ago and he said, "No way. Let me see you do one." I dropped down and was gonna give him twenty but collapsed right onto my face. I had no idea I had lost so much strength. I laughed and asked if I could demonstrate that move to Chris when I got home; he said only if I wore a helmet so I wouldn't brain myself again. One of my bicuspids also fell out last week. Just snapped off. Didn't want to be a part of my head any more. It'll cost me a grand to fix; that's several sets of tires. I might just leave the gap. I have 31 other teeth. I seem to be chewing ok without it. Nov 17 2003 It was another race weekend but I couldn't ride because I have a pinched nerve. The Kelleys have had a string of bad luck on the track this year. Between the crashing and the engine failures, many races have been missed. This month was no different: Chris had a lowside at upwards of 100 mph. I was scoring and from the start/finish line I saw a body with one very long leg sticking straight up in the air sliding all the way through turn 9. When 667 didn't come over the line, my incredible deductive abilities told me it was Chris. I eventually saw him get up so I didn't freak out. Chris got off easy; except for the expected all-over ache, only his ankle's a little dorked. His helmet is badly scraped up but he didn't end up with a concussion. Monday Night Football is on right now. Watching guys pound each other into the turf is giving my cervical vertebrae the willies. Nov 14 2003 I got a few emails yesterday from people who actually read, or try to read, all this stuff: Hey, This Bud's For You. And for those of you who read my site while you're at work � mad props! It's an American tradition and I, too, surfed the World Whacky Web when I was trapped in my nine-to-five job. Today's topic for you to think about as you avoid writing up your weekly report for your boss: Which way would you prefer to get your head trauma: football vs. motorcycle racing? I like football. There's an incredible amount of strategy: It's just like warfare, except with a lot more rules, a lot more body contact, and a lot more spandex. In this form of war, people take hits; sometimes very hard ones, sometimes very hard ones to the head. That got me to thinking: Would I rather have my exposure risk come from getting blindsided and slammed to the ground by a 300 lb. linebacker or would I rather have it come from my bike catapulting me at 100 mph? Although the correct answer is "neither," there seems to be something a little more comforting about having a bike pitch me off. Maybe it seems less personal than having a guy with constricted pupils and the hatred for two alimony-leeching ex-wives projecting his problems on me. I think more QBs have been forced into retirement by head injuries than professional racers. But professional racers make up for it by snapping more shit in half. This is definitely a case of "pick your poison." And just why is it pronounced "farv" instead of "fav-ree," or at least "favor"? If I have to explain this, you haven't been watching enough football. Nov 13 2003 I think I write too much. There's shit all over this site. How can anyone read all this? Nov 12 2003 I just came across a 35-paged document I had written on my eight months of living in Mexico with my ex-husband. Of the nine lives I have, I think I used up a bunch of them in Mexico. Maybe I'll get around to putting the diary online. Even though it's 10 years old, it's still pretty entertaining (at least to me). Here's the background: Two climbers travel through Mexico in a VW van and spend a lot of time getting shaken down by cops and meeting lots of weird people. One of the most memorable events of our entire stay in Mexico was a two-day hike from hell through insect-filled brush requiring a machete to penetrate just to reach the goal of a pitiful little summit. Here is an excerpt: "Everybody rappelled down without incident. As we hiked out, we had to pass through the pot farm again. A man lurked through the field and nodded as we bid him a good morning. I was nervous that he was going to plug us the minute we had our backs turned, but my fear was unsubstantiated, especially since I later learned that while Bill and I were delayed as we were getting the rig down, the others had been passing the time chatting with a couple of the pot farmers. Although armed with rifles, they were relaxed with our presence. During our hike up the hill the night before they had been tracking our approach. We had seen their flashlights off in the distance but they were extinguished as we came into shouting distance. Although they could've taken us all out with less than a clip of ammo, we had done an excellent job at demonstrating ourselves to be nothing more than the poorly prepared hikers we were with all our shouts of "THIS WAY!" answered by opposing shouts of "NO, THAT WAY!" I think the pot farmers were sufficiently impressed by our naivet� to come up through the jungle. Even if any one of us could've ran back down to the nearest police headquarters to draw them a direct map to the nearest pot plot, they were on the verge of harvesting anyways and would've been gone by the time the feds got their act together. In a great show of cross-socioeconomic relations, they offered the goofy city slickers from Morelia a limb from any of their prized plants. We thanked the farmers profusely for their kindness but declined their offer, stating that our packs were already overladened." Nov 10 2003 There's a saying that goes something like: "It could be that the only purpose of your existence is to serve as a warning to others." I now realize I'm one of those people. For example, let me tell you what not to do: If you use a shower caddy that hangs from your showerhead, do not put the razor blade in the holder with the blade facing you. If you have long hair, when you throw your hair back it'll catch on the razor and cut a swatch of hair off. And if you're transporting empty oil buckets with lids on them, don't assume the lids are tight even after you press on them. Even if the lids don't fall off, if the buckets tip over, oil will ooze out and if you're driving, it will spatter all over the rear window and bedliner like you've been cooking fried chicken for a nation. And when you clean up the mess, don't wear a white shirt you like because when you spray the bedliner, oil will inevitably kick up onto your beloved white shirt. And don't add insult to injury by spraying Simple Green on your beloved white shirt and leaving it on all night because Simple Green is, well, green, and it will leave a green spot. However, I don't know what crazy nuclear shit is in OxyClean, but it will ungreen Simple Green. And for god's sake, definitely don't eat a salmon burrito that's been sitting in your fridge for a week and has had plenty of time to turn into an e-coli bomb. Ask me how I know on any of these. Nov 9 2003 I did some clean-up work on my Radian yesterday. It was the bike I learned to ride on and I just got it back from the friend I gave it to over a decade ago. She thought I might have a sentimental attachment to it. I sort of did until I saw how badly time had treated it. It's encrusted with an oily black funk. My plan now is to clean it up and sell it as a beginner's bike. There will be a whole page dedicated to the rehab of this beast. Nov 7 2003 Hey cowboy, when friends laugh at friends, isn't it over stuff like this? To follow up on my previous Botox concerns, I've come up with two free solutions for a slouching forehead: Cover It Up or Distract The Public. The first one is sure not to offend anyone and might even give you a schoolgirl look that will attract 60-year-old men in chat rooms posing as 17-year-olds looking for early blooming 15-year-olds. As for the latter, it's an incredible opportunity for self-expression. With the right artwork, I can guarantee you nobody will remember your collagen deficit. Nov 6 2003 The other day Chris and I had a conversation about doing something this weekend. I mentioned going on a ride alone since Pongo, his Monster, was still in pieces. He asked, "Would you rather go riding by yourself than be with the one who loves you most in this world?" My hand shot up to his face like a crossing guard halting traffic and said, "Don't go there!" and sure enough, he didn't go there. Ladies, always go for men much younger than you � they are very trainable. Nov 5 2003 Let's talk about Botox since it's being pitched to chicks in my age group. Botox is "botulinum toxin A" and is related to botulism, a neurotoxin that attaches to nerve endings and blocks the neurotransmitter responsible for triggering muscle contractions. That's how Botox works: it paralyzes. I want to know how does Botox know to stay in the injection site and not make its way around your body? I'd get these injections if I had painful medical problems, but to do this just because I have some lines on my face? No way. I'm saving up my money for a good old fashioned organic face lift where they just cut the meat, pull it back, and sew it up. My dad was a butcher; taking a knife to flesh has always been an art form. But these whacky chemicals? What next, curare for my droopy ass? Nov 4 2003 You know what's great about dogs? They won't leave the room when you start singing. Unless you've got a fantastic voice, see how long your significant other sits next to you when you do lead duties on some unsingable song (e.g., Boston's "More Than a Feeling" Go ahead, try it...you know you want to). Cat lovers often say dogs are stupid � like that's so bad? I don't want a dog who knows how to perch up on his back legs and open the fridge with his front legs. Do you want your cold beer supply hijacked by a mensa canine? A smart dog is a problem dog. I just want the stupid ones who don't know I'm not hitting the high notes. Nov 1 2003 Rolling the clock back in this blog, I want to note that the massive wildfires hit San Diego last weekend. The day before The Armageddon Was Upon Us, Chris and I picked up my mother at the airport. She hadn�t visited in maybe three years. The next day we woke up to ash and growing darkness and the grim realization that we�d be stuck in the house with my mom indefinitely. (We did load the uninsured race bikes and hitched up the trailer just in case.) I like my mom, but she�s a traditional Chinese immigrant who was put on this planet exclusively to browbeat me. I�m used to it; in fact, over the years it�s turned into a bit of a sporting event to yank her chain. Here are excerpts from some conversations we had, and I am not exaggerating. Oct 28 2003 Turned 40 today so why not start a blog documenting the slow decline? Forty will seem old to a lot of you young�ns still trying to perfect the killer vertical stoppie on your gixxers, but trust me, advanced age is just around the corner for everyone. My underlying philosophy is: Time is the great equalizer. This means I don�t worry about much because we�re all dead in the end. If you can adopt this philosophy, you will quit worrying about stuff like knocking your plugged-in hairdryer into the sink, and perhaps even start tempting fate like sitting in your jacuzzi with a live toaster in your lap. Live for today. But do try to avoid heavy stuff like crystal meth; dependency has a way of ruining true independence. |
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