.Blog Archives.........................

. 2005

December 31, 2024
2005 wasn't so bad, was it? Who amongst us was smote down by the flesh-eating bacteria? None, I do hope. I raise a toast to all my cyber friends out there: Here's to all your emails that have entertained me throughout the year. And may none of you experience this pwn4g3 in 2006. If you do, scream "I'm a Pirate Monkey!" and you will immediately invoke the Cloak of Invisibility: You cannot receive a ticket if you cannot be seen. I have yet to actually try it out, but the Cult Handbook indicates in Chapter 3, "Special Powers," that it will work.       

December 30, 2024
I took the red-eye from SF to Detroit. My gear bag was 50.9 lbs, with 50 being the limit before they charge you extra. Northwest was in a generous mood and didn't slap me with a penalty. The gear bag's excessive weight is mainly owed to motorcycle gear as I'm hoping to ice ride while I'm here. I need to burn incense to honor whichever entity might make that happen. Maybe Saint Potawatomi, Native American Patron Saint of Michiganders Dallying Upon on Frozen Lakes.

December 29, 2024
On the news I saw footage of some of the attendees of the funeral for James Dungy, son of Indianapolis Colts' coach, Tony Dungy. There was a woman wearing a blazer over a lowcut shirt; as she walked along, her mammarian units jiggled a happy "Hello there!" Now how does someone become so self-promotionally vain that they would wear something so breastacular to a funeral? Is there something I missed in school about boobies and their role at funerals?

December 28, 2024
I put up the "Popo" story to refresh myself on why I shouldn't go up Mt. Whitney, but I think I've got a chance with the latter since it's shorter by 3,500 feet. If anyone out there has done it, please write to me and tell me how it went. I'll consider both the regular trail and the North Fork "mountaineering" trail. I'm encountering conflicting reports on the ease/difficulty of the trails and could use some first-hand accounts.

December 27, 2024
About a decade ago I climbed Popocat�petl in Mexico. Here's an excerpt about it from my Mexico diary and tomorrow I'll tell you why I've bothered to post it. 

December 26, 2024
It's an annual tradition: My mother sends me onto the roof to clean out the gutters. Only today I also had to hammer in the gutter anchors since many had pulled out. At first I was super cautious near the edge but that got old fast. I understand why roofers fall off now and then; you figure that if you haven't launched in the first ten minutes your balance and judgment are probably pretty good so don't worry about it. And even if you do misstep, you're pretty sure you can grab the gutter and slow your descent. And, even if you can't slow your descent, the ground doesn't look that far away. And even if the ground is far away, someone will dial 911 in very short order. And since in my case that "someone" is my mom, who originally sent me up there, I doubt I'll ever be asked to go up on the roof ever again. It all works out in my favor.

P.S. I hate dial-up. Maybe I should've fallen off the roof so I could be unconscious and not on a 36.6 connection, which is like a form of unconsciousness in itself.

December 25, 2024
My beanbag friends piled onto the Pirate Monkey Cult company car to wish you all a Merry Xmas.

December 24, 2024
Got my last motorcycle ride in for the year. Chris/Linda, Matt and I went up to Palomar and then stopped at Lake Henshaw for lunch. Chris picked up a used Monster 1000 yesterday but for some reason it wasn't turning well with two people on it so I rode that while he and Linda used my S2R. Matt was on Pongo since both his bikes are out of commission. No one rode a bike home that they owned, which I don't think caused any of us to ride any more politely than normal. 

I'm heading for Petaluma around 8 p.m. tonight and will show up around 7 a.m. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the throngs of travelers will have preferred to do their driving in the daylight hours. As for me falling asleep at the wheel? Lucky and I are trading off. Yes, his cataracts are bad but he assures me he can still see tail lights if they're close enough.     

December 23, 2024
Are you a guy and a hot dancer? You should be pulling down the bitches with your moves. My favorite part of the story: "Why is symmetry so important? 'We do not know,' writes Brown. "Perhaps it indicates good coordination or good health, including freedom from parasites." Yes, you cannot bust a move with a pound of tapeworms in your drawers.  

December 22, 2024
As a lifelong Californian I know droughts are bad � remember when watering plants wasn't allowed and people spray painted their dead lawns green? Thing is, a dry year enables this greedy fun for motorcyclists in all through winter. During a normal year about 10-20% of San Diego's water supply is made up of local rainfall. Seeing how we don't have many normal years, let's set that figure to 0%. The remaining 80-90% (ok, 100%) is imported from two separate sources: a 242 mile-long aqueduct brings Colorado River water and a 444 mile-long aqueduct lets us pilfer Northern California water. If you've ever wondered why there's sometimes talk about California splitting into two states, that's one big reason why NorCal would like to jettison us. They've had some blustery, soaking weather while we've been playing frisbee on the beach and going riding. The cheekiest part is that Southern California doesn't even try to conserve. We can't find enough desert real estate on which to build golf courses and housing tracts with big front lawns (people talk about xeriscaping, but only because it's an interesting word, not because we want to actually do it). If you're a Southern Californian with a big lawn, you can join the Pirate Monkey Cult and immediately be absolved of all sins.   

December 21, 2024
Employed full-time and hate your job? Let me once again share with you the downside of self-employment. I pay for my own health insurance. It has a $2,500 annual deductible and I still get to pay 30% of the tab. My recent surgery will cost me $5,000 out-of-pocket. That's a used motorcycle. The hospital bill is still on my desk waiting to get paid. I keep thinking that if I ignore it, it will disappear and I will have no obligation to pay it. It's still there. How annoying. My new fiscal plan-of-attack is to never get an annual exam so nothing can ever be found.

December 20, 2024
Did you name your dog "Max"? It's the most popular male dog name three years in a row based on a pet insurance company's data. I'm naming my next dog either "Lt. Jim Dangle" or "I'm Wearing No Underwear." The latter would make for more fun in public settings.

December 19, 2024
I'm watching a college basketball game the other night and I see a player whose parents named him "Gyno." Yes, ladies, we are all tittering over that one! Never mind that his parents thought it should be pronounced "JEE-noh" � we all know he's running around with a pooter doctor's code name.

December 18, 2024
The Pirate Monkey Cult die cut stickers are in. They're approximately 3" wide by 3.5" tall and are available in black or white. Here's the white version on Romeo. Cost is $3.75 each. If you're interested in making a purchase, write to me at...
  

December 17, 2024
My perverse annual pleasure: On the last full shopping weekend before Xmas I like to get on my motorcycle and go to the mall. I don't go there to shop; I go there to watch the cagers blow a cork from the traffic. All the roads leading to the mall were gridlocked and once people got to the mall, there wasn't a space to be found, legal or illegal. The Fashion Valley management figured if they gave this guy a stop sign, traffic would magically work better regardless of what the traffic lights did – they were resoundingly, unmitigatingly wrong. The day lane-splitting is no longer legal around here is the day my fun ends.        

December 16, 2024
I got an F in spelling once in school and I was pretty scared to show my parents my report card. Why didn't I think of this as an option? Sure would've saved me some stress.    

December 15, 2024
64-year-old Phil Spector's courtroom-ready hair. Discuss.

December 14, 2024
My old poll broke so I'm trying this new online one. Topic: Max Biaggi.

December 13, 2025
Faithful blog readers, do you remember what happened a year ago today? That's right, I broke the news to you that I was getting a divorce and made some of you spit your coffee onto your monitors. I can't believe I didn't remarry in '05; I must be losing my touch for ensnarement.

December 12, 2025
People following the Stanley "Tookie" Williams case are waiting to hear whether or not the Governator will grant him clemency. Here's where I stand on the death penalty: If someone killed a loved one of mine, I'd want him or her dead. I guess I'm just primitive mean like that. However, I'd be willing to compromise with the anti-death penalty camp: We can abolish it as long as the victim's family has the option to shoot at the murderer with a paintball gun for one hour, every single week, as long as the murderer lives. So that it's not inhumane, the murderer gets a set of goggles and he doesn't have to strip naked. The more sensitive people can give the murderer a small plastic lid so he or she can try to deflect some of the shots.

December 11, 2025
Normally I'm up on the movies I rent, but for some reason I brainfarted on "Hidalgo" and thought it was going to be about one of Mexico's founding fathers. It was actually about a horse. Had I known it was a Touchstone picture I would've been clued in to its potential for contrived dialogue and manipulative musical scoring, but I must've been asleep at the Netflix wheel on that queuing day. Anyways, if you're looking for a movie based on the guy with the impressively long name of Miguel Gregorio Antonio Hidalgo y Costilla Gallaga Mandarte y Villase�or, this ain't it.      

December 10, 2025
Have you seen the Thomasville TV commercial for the Hemingway furniture collection? It's been around for a while and every time I see it I am just dumbstruck by someone's decision to base a furniture collection on a man who was alcoholic, severely depressed, had electroshock therapy, and put the terminal punctuation on his life with a shotgun to the head. I've got no problems with peoples' dark sides, but for Thomasville to act like Hemingway was just a spirited adventurer and a manly man's writer is weird. Guys, everybody and their mother knows he blew his head off. When you show me the sleigh bed with faux zebra skin throws on it, I don't think "That's adventurous!" I think, "I wonder if brain matter will stick to the headboard?" What next, the Virginia Woolf collection in which every piece comes with a big-ass stone?         

December 9, 2025
This story interests me because it involves motorcycles..right, anyways...25-year-old Debra Lafave (yes, on the bike) got caught boinking a 14-year-old boy and her attorney tried for a plea bargain that would keep her out of jail. He said, "To place Debbie into a Florida state women's penitentiary, to place an attractive young woman in that kind of hell hole, is like putting a piece of raw meat in with the lions." He's right: Pretty people should not go to jail � it's too dangerous for them! Only ugly people are born with the forcefield that protects them against prison rape. I'm not sure what happens to average-looking people in jail. They might get unfairly jostled in the food line or tripped more often in the exercise yard. Having this Est�e Lauder mugshot is enough of a cross to bear... Free Lafave!

December 8, 2025
Rhinoplasty. You know that one, right? Well what about blepharoplasty? That's surgery on the eyelids. I'm not sure how much of a trend it is, but we Asians can get our slanty eyes made more appealing, less sinister looking, by having a fold put in. As in the case of the top photo, a lot of the patients end up looking stoned. But I suppose if it makes someone happy to have a place to put eye shadow, who am I to judge? Some day I'm going to have a giant booty-licious ass grafted on and I don't want to get any grief about it. Maybe that's where I'll put my eye shadow.     

December 7, 2025
The driver of a gasoline tanker truck was going a teensy bit too fast on a turn and his back tanker flipped over and burst into flames. This happened just outside of Qualcomm Stadium and burning gasoline is now flowing into the parking lot. What does this plume tell you? It tells you that without watching TV I know every time the Chargers score because I can see the fireworks as well as I see this respiratory-hating cloud. A special request to the firemen: Please don't let the fire get anywhere near Costco because I need to go buy another  jumbo pack of Trident gum and I don't want their inventory incinerated. If you think you smokers have an addiction, you should see me chew gum.  

December 6, 2025
The Saddam Hussein trial is on Court TV, which means I'm not getting the usual fix of our generic domestic-bred murderers, manslaughterers and various other transgressors. Can't they give us a nice dog-mauling case and just occasionally cut in with reports of Hussein yet again going off the deep end? Although his mania should be riveting, too much is lost through dubbing. It just doesn't work like it does in a Bruce Lee kung fu flick.  

December 5, 2025
I really can't believe no one has purchased the Pirate Monkey thong yet. Remember, gents, any of you who buys one and has your picture taken whilst your manhood is lovingly cradled by the good karma of the PMC will go to the top of the Hall of Fame page. Ladies, you'll go in too, but you'll have to go in chronological order because girls in thongs just aren't as much of a car wreck as guys in thongs. A pet sporting the thong will likewise be moved to the front of the line. 

December 4, 2025
NFL Sunday and here's your bit of trivia: Did you know the Cleveland Browns is the only team named after a person? Coach Paul Brown was the first to hire a full-time, year-round coaching staff. And what do you get for that? The most boring helmet in all of NFL, if not the most boring mascot (i.e., none) in all of sports history. Even the Pittsburgh Steelers managed to conjure up something for steel.  

December 3, 2025
A few days ago I mentioned the concept of staging one's house for sale. A columnist had something rather entertaining to say about phonyfying a house.

December 2, 2025
Single-wide mobile home: $12,500. Non-running little truck with camper shell: $200. Mineral-stained shower door: $13. Weathered patio furniture ensemble: $10. Rusted Webber kettle: $8. Cracked gas can: $4. Leaky dog house: $3. Urine-soaked cattery: $2. Mildewed plastic cooler: $1. Wooden pallets: $0. Discarded tires: $-5. Cabin cruiser in your front yard that says "Meth makes me go on weird shopping sprees": Priceless.

(Today's showcase property is available for viewing on Lyons Valley Road.)

December 1, 2025
Here's a just-picked mutant starfish lemon from my tree. My house was probably built on a secret toxic dump and I'm lucky my only problem is excessive sleeping, hair loss, and freak lemons.

November 30, 2025
Some of you are absolutely incredulous that I would travel to Michigan from San Diego in January. I have no illusions that I will escape suffering. I have every expectation of being pwn3d. It's just that if I don't show up now and then, Mr. Michigan gets some other bitch to iron his shirts and I feel marginalized.  

November 29, 2025
The MLS listing of my home was officially cancelled today and before noon I had received a dozen calls from other realtors trying to woo me. My realtor had warned me this would happen, but I was still stupid enough to answer the first call upon which I received a grilling about how I chose my realtor, why I thought my house didn't sell, where was I moving to, when will I go back on the market, etc. Analysts would have you believe that my house didn't sell because the real estate market has cooled off dramatically, but I think it's because I forgot to hide this guy. No wonder my brother was hinting at me about moving all my stuff out and having the house professionally "staged" for sale. He just didn't have the heart to come out and tell me I had the interior design sense of a fukctard, bless him. 

November 28, 2025
I just set up another tree in my office. This tree is one whole feet of bitchin. I'm particularly proud of the beer can and the person on the swing who has lost his head.

November 27, 2025
I bought my ticket to Michigan. I'll be there most of January. This Californian will undoubtedly be cowed by her first Midwest winter. I don't even know what kind of footwear one dons to trudge around in snow. Probably not any of the shoes I own. 

November 26, 2025
It's my tree and it's two whole feet of bitchin.

November 25, 2025
A termite inspection guy came by this morning and had some bad news for me: because my house was on the market, instead of a free inspection I'd have to pay $350. It's a policy that helps discourage them from be hired to inspect houses that may soon change hands, when unhappy buyers/sellers are predisposed to dragging various companies into court. He said as soon as my house was officially off the market he'd come right back and inspect it for free. I was disappointed not because I didn't get my inspection right away, but because our country is so litigious. It's a wonder more toilet paper companies aren't sued over asses not getting wiped thoroughly enough.

November 24, 2025
I hadn't planned on going on a Thanksgiving ride, but the sun was out and it was much too hard to pass up a trip up Sunrise Highway. I don't usually listen to music unless I'm doing the long SF trip, but I felt like listening to something today. For those of you who paint you'll know why I christened this the "Scotch Blue" mounting method for my Nano. It might look like a cheesy arrangement but the placement made it easy to adjust volume and skip songs, even with big fat gloved fingers. This mounting method also means that a Caltrans worker will probably get a free iPod some day, run over a few thousand times.

November 23, 2025
In case you don't have a Thanksgiving get-together to attend, why not hit the bottle? But wait, just when you thought that was gross, here's something possibly grosserer.

November 22, 2025
Tell me this new form of socializing wasn't invented for me. Along that vein, once again, I can't tell you how much I hate my home and cell phones. My despise of them has not yet reached pathological, but I really should be concerned it's going to get there. During my recent medical down-turn I wouldn't even call my doctor; I faxed her and said that if what I was describing was a problem to let me know. Does anybody else have this "quirk"? When do I seek professional help? Is preferring to die rather than dialing 911 an indication that I've let it go too far?

November 21, 2025
If anybody has words of wisdom on working with a pest control company (to get rid of termites), a hardwood floor refinishing business, or a company to replace a leaking gravel and tar roof, let me know. I have to deal with all of these and I'm just wondering if anybody has any tips. At the moment I have one estimate on the roof for $2,800. I have yet to get estimates on the other two. 

November 20, 2025
If any of you caught the Chargers game on TV you saw the misters going on the sidelines; high temp was around 85. It's not autumnlike around here, and that disappoints me not one bit. I had an interesting conversation not too long ago with someone returning to the east coast; he said he was looking forward to not being cold during winter any more. He went on to explain that back east people know it will be cold so houses are built to deal with that and are appropriately heated. He said he didn't want to spend another winter in a drafty California house. He had a point. My curtains flap on any windy day because the casement windows don't seal all the way. And the only insulation in the walls is air. And what's weatherstripping? Is that how much clothes you seductively peel off based on the weather?    

November 19, 2025
I added some new Pirate Monkey Cult merchandise. The holidays are coming and the PMC thong and PMC dog t-shirt are musts for everyone's shopping lists! For those of you who have purchased items, please write to me and let me know how they turned out. If they're highly disappointing I'll consider making the effort to do something else. 

November 18, 2025
Thanksgiving is next week. I'll bring the prison loaf if you bring a good wine for it.  

November 17, 2025
The ad campaign to convince people with accrued vacation hours to head south is: "Mexico. Beyond your expectations." Let me translate that for you: "Mexico. You think you'll get diarrhea, robbed by banditos, or caught in the crossfire of a drug war, but odds are you won't so take a chance on us and you may be surprised by a decent time. We at least promise none of the stuff you saw in Hotel Rwanda, with the exception of maybe some stuff going down in Chiapas."

November 16, 2025
My girly problems haven't entirely sorted themselves out yet so I had to get an ultrasound. Check out this awesome button on the high-tech machine. I think if the guy presses it, it makes a hot chick appear. The one above it pipes in Country & Western music. Really, though, the machine is useless without this button. 

November 15, 2025
I threw some items up on CafePress to help you be one with the Pirate Monkey Cult. There's small mark-up on the items in case somebody wants to rip off the monkey and sell it as his or her own. I don't know crap about business law but I figured if I treated the monkey with a modicum of business respect, I'd have better legal standing down the road against someone who may have stolen our cult mascot. I'm still working on getting the die cut stickers made in both black and white.

One word of warning: I have no idea how the image will look on the CafePress items. I uploaded a large high-res image, but I don't know what will happen when it gets shrunk down a little. I hope it's not all "digi-fukced" looking. I'm going to order a tank top and some vinyl stickers to see how they look. You can always wait for my product report if you like. For those who want a black t-shirt, they're supposed to be available sometime soon. Comments on logo size are welcome; I control how big the Pirate Monkey appears on the shirt. I'm also thinking about "Avast ye, pri-matey" or "Pirate Monkey Cult" on there somewhere, but I haven't gotten that far. It broke my ass as it was to figure out how to get the logo on there. Yes, I feel pretty stupid. 

By the way, don't waste your time joining this religion. The PMC is the only way to go. There will be no doubt for you. You will know with unflagging certainty that your life's goal will be to get me off the roadside some day and offer me a hot chocolate. Of course, your good mojo towards the Chief Executive Primate will reap you incredible karmic rewards: every day you don't die is a day the power of the Pirate Monkey protected you.         

November 14, 2025
I've received tips about helping Lucky control his farts, but I think I've tried them all. Lucky is around 90 years old and my extensive veteregetarianary knowledge tells me his colon is just plain tuckered. I suppose I shouldn't feed him delicious bricks of dark chocolate, and maybe we should cut way back on our favorite mother-son activity of roasting marshmallows on oleander skewers, but why deny him joy in his final years? Some doctor needs to specialize in "colon lifts" to rejuvenate old colons, pretty much like a face lift. Let there be beauty from the inside out.          

November 13, 2025
Will a cork stay wedged in a dog's ass? And can anybody's dog possibly fart as much as mine? I set up a baby barrier on my office door so Lucky can no longer gas me all day; it was to the point of nausea. Even though he can see me I think the separation is making him neurotically pull out his hair again, but it's either me or him in the war of comfort, and guess what? The one who figured out how to use tools and walk upright won. 

November 12, 2025
Why are toilet scrub brushes with the heads that pop off and are flushable needed? So what if a bacteria-ladened brush goes back into its purpose-built holster – was anybody planning to stir the chili with it?

November 11, 2025
Work is stressing me out badly, which is why I haven't written in a couple of days. I've never been so stressed out that I've had stabbing pains throughout my body, the worst one being the "ice pick" in the ear. I'm living on Maalox and ibuprofen. I need new goals for 2006; I think I want to be a professional pen-pal. I can charge $5 per email that features a harmonious blend of humor, disdain, compassion, objectivisiveness, motivationality, and general monkey piracy. JPG attachments of random, meaningful photos to brighten your day just $1 extra. Having many years on this planet and being a she-man who sees both sides of the gender issue, I know I can personally help you sort your life out. At $5 a shot, think of how much more you'll get out of me than some psychotherapists who wants $100+. I won't even make you pose dolls or write an essay on what your "perfect day" would be. I'll just be here for you.

And although I don't work in an office, I recommend that all you white collar sufferers watch a fine movie called "Office Space."      

November 8, 2025
The military likes to assign thematic names to certain undertakings: Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Steel Curtain, Operation Desert Storm, etc. I and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog would like to propose just one name for all campaigns: Operation Schtupping the Enemy. Just add a I, II, III for different versions.

November 7, 2025
Chris and I took our bikes to the big track at Willow today. There were lots of people who hadn't seen us since we divorced so they were quite shocked to a) hear the news and b) see us at the track together. I said to the guy running the track day, "Did you know Chris and I divorced?" -look of shock- "Everything's the same though; we still do all the bike stuff and have fun. We just don't boink any more." -look of shock-

Chris brought his girlfriend to the track, with whom I get along quite well (not the previous one; I must admit if I ever met her I'd pull her hair and try to scratch her eyes out). I know this arrangement probably all sounds exceedingly weird to most  people, but life is too short not to have fun however and whenever you can. Don't get hung up on the past; it's a waste of time.

I'll do a write-up on the track day for the 749S page. It was a good day until my radiator took a piss. 

November 6, 2025
Did you catch the news about the pirates? They had to have been pirates of the monkey genre, who are usually pretty bad at the rape and pillage scenario, which is why the cruise ship won and you didn't see this.  

Speaking of pirates, vote in the new Pirate Monkey sticker color poll.

November 5, 2025
Here's a quote from Carlos Checa after today's MotoGP qualifying session in Valencia, Spain. "It was a big highside, I was flying like a bird, my hands the only part of me still holding onto the bike. I hit my 'jewels' really hard and went white like a candle. Otherwise today was positive..."

My pappy used to always tell me after a hard day's work: "Any day when you just rack your nuts but don't tear them off is a positive one."

November 4, 2025
Human Radio's song "Me and Elvis" has the best buddy lyrics ever written (audio sample here). Here's a deal to expand our musical horizons: If you send me the names of 10 songs currently in high rotation on your music list, I'll send you a list of 30 songs currently on my iPod. You probably haven't heard a lot of these songs; I think they're worth your audience at least once unless our music preferences are way off.

November 3, 2025
I've gotten a lot of email about the Pirate Monkey cult. I am pleased that so many of you are prepared to pledge allegiance to me. I didn't totally get into the details, but it does involve me taking over your soul and riding you around like a donkey in the afterlife. Rest assured that it will not be humiliating because we will all be free of shame when we're dead. Reader Tom sent this message from the spokesperson of the dissed lemur group.

On an unrelated note, I'm looking for someone to redo a tar and gravel roof. I came across this company's testimonial page. That's some impressive client support they've got lined up there. I wonder if it's not up yet because the secretary is still making them up. Here, let me help: "Fucking awesome job!" Bob Q., Hidden Meadows

November 2, 2025
The Pirate Monkey cult is taking shape. Read the mini-manifesto.

November 1, 2025
Two questions: 1. You seen the movie "The Missing"? 2. You ever have a bad episode with a drug that starts with H? Then you must recognize the scene where Tommy Lee Jones gets that voodoo dust blown up his nose and his visual color palette is stripped down to just a few colors.    

October 31, 2025
It's Halloween. Today I have to dress up as a patient and go see my doctor for a follow-up exam. I think as a joke I'm going to make my face chalky looking and walk into the office with blood-soaked pants. I hear doctors love jokes that involve either blood or being served malpractice papers. 

October 30, 2025
Hate guns? Better skip today's read.

A few of us took Alex out to the desert to shoot a variety of firearms. We had been making noise for about an hour when the po-po showed up. I figured we were about to get lectured, maybe get our weapons taken from us, but it turned out that they also showed up to shoot. Phew. Later the border patrol came by, but he didn't scare us since we had a "get out of jail" free pass in the form of the other cops. I brought a bunch of junk from home to shoot at and it made for a very attractive gallery. If you'd like to see the AR-15 in action, save this 4MB file to your hard drive and take a look. Even though it packs a punch, it only moved me a little. I'm not a firearms freaknik, but that weapon impresses me every time I handle it. If you look hard in the long-distance shot, you can see a twinkle – that's a CD getting hit.     

October 29, 2025
Ok, you dependents win this round. There was enough concern about me stopping the blog that I will postpone its demise. If it's my role to decrease productivity in offices throughout the US, then I must accept my current assignment. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," said a dying Spock to outerspace's greatest blowhard, James T. Kirk.     

October 28, 2025
Well, what could make a better birthday than a dirt ride in perfect weather conditions? Maybe coming across a huge bag of unmarked bills along the way, but short of that I can't complain. It's been a good day. Thanks to John C for reminding me of the better days of youth, and also to the rest of you for your well wishes. Thanks also to Mr. Michigan who says he'll sit there all night and IM with me on my special day if necessary. Ya'll make my life entertaining. 

October 27, 2025
An internet motorcycle friend is visiting from the East Coast. He got a chance to sample our San Diego roads and he gave them a pretty big thumbs up. Now I know you're thinking, "Gee Zina, you seem to let any random male stranger from back east stay at your place, don't you?" What can I say, when I'm not busy hating people I'm just down-home friendly. And Mr. Michigan, don't you worry your fine bald head; Alex has his own futon and bathroom, so don't bitch-slap me about being a filthy strumpet next time I see you.   

October 26, 2025
Things are getting busy. Just picked up a freelance job with a local start-up so the spare time I've been using to carefully remove, read and return my neighbors' mail will be gone. I might need to think about putting my site "on vacation," ignore it for a while.

October 25, 2025
Game 3 of the World Series and the Astros couldn't get it done. You know why? The Curse of the Uniform. Witness what happens when an Atari 400 humps a McDonald's sign on polyester sheets. You get the 70s-era "coed softball" sartorial blunder. The Curse of the Bambino lasted more than eight decades, so I believe, based loosely on temporal science, the Astros will need another six decades to shake off their self-woven curse. 

October 24, 2025
Holidays are interesting with their seasonal food products. Pumpkin-flavored anything is all over the place, and once the magic date of 31 comes to pass, pumpkin-flavored anything will be viewed as savory as a dog turd. You don't have to sit down and think for long to come to the conclusion that society and its "traditions" (be it marketing-driven or not) are fairly silly. There's no reason why eggnog ice cream shouldn't be available in June. None.       

October 23, 2025
Matt had a get-off on his Monster yesterday when an electrical malfunction cut his power as he was entering a turn. We got his bike uprighted as soon as possible (it was perched at the edge of a ravine); in case the CHP came along we wanted to look like we were just addressing a mechanical problem. Within a very short time I heard sirens but didn't believe they were actually coming to us, but, yep, there they were. They asked if someone had a crash and Chris was evasively talking about a technical problem he was fixing. The cops asked if anybody was hurt and we all acted like "How can anyone get hurt from just a mechanical problem?" They asked again if someone needed an ambulance. Finally I said, "He had a tip-over, but he's ok." Look, cops are trained to notice things, like dirt and grass all over the historically shiny parts of a motorcycle. The charade was just too painful to continue. They were happy to go away as soon as they were assured no one was dying.

Chris got the bike running again so we headed home. I stayed behind Matt and watched his slightly bent front end bounce him the 50 miles home, which must've felt great with the chipped bone he had in his arm (in spite of the sock-and-electrical-tape compression bandage I gave him). 

October 22, 2025
I added a new Racer Recipe. I know some of you wonder which ones I've really eaten. Almost all of them ended up in my stomach, and I'm pretty sure none were painfully nor hurriedly shat out. The newest recipe was my lunch yesterday and I went back for seconds.  

October 21, 2025
Finally...a new poll! And just in time to wrap up a racing season full of dinged up riders in MotoGP and SBK.

October 20, 2025
The surgery went swimmingly. I was sleeping off the anesthesia at home when I got a call from my brother, who was on his way to the Oakland airport, bound for San Diego. Oops. I thought he was flying in the next day. Fortunately, I had almost no ill effects from the surgery so I napped some more and went to get him late last night. I did do the adult thing and asked my doc about dirtbiking and after a hesitant look over at the nurse, she gave me the green light.

We need to talk about the NBA's new dress code. If Ernst Young can tell their entry-level $50k employees they have to wear suits to work every day (with no clothing allowance), why are multi-millionaire players crying? From the article: Marcus Camby of the Denver Nuggets, whose contract will pay him nearly $50 million over the next five years, told an interviewer before the code was imposed, "I don't see it happening unless every NBA player is given a stipend to buy clothes." Me? I can barely make it by on $70 million over the next two years. Zebra-skin couches, exotic vacations, child support to all those mamas, new sport utes with chrome spinny wheels...I just don't know how Marcus will manage – I know I barely can!  

October 18, 2025
I'm back from Vegas. Despite the fact that I could really use the married status to avoid capital gains taxes if I sell the house, I resisted. It would've been so easy since the Flamingo Hotel has their own chapel. They also have penguins on display; I'm sure management would've let us use one as a witness and/or ring bearer. Want to know what is quintessentially Vegas? Watching a guy puke over the railing outside of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville in the heart of The Strip on Saturday night. What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Unless your buddies brought their video camera. Then it goes back to Duluth in color and with voice-over commentary. 

I go in for surgery tomorrow. It's unrelated from anything that happened in Vegas. I don't want to TMI you, especially since most of my readers are male, so let me just broadly say that I have to get some girl parts fixed. Since general anesthesia has its risks, I decided to indulge myself and have a Slurpee this afternoon. It was a sugary burst of heaven and in about fifteen minutes I should be able to type twice as fast as I am now.

I have a friend coming out to dirtbike next weekend and I'm not going to even bother asking the doc if I should or not. The worst that can happen is that I crash and internally bleed. Isn't that what peeing is for? So you can pass the excess through? I'm no doctor, but I think I know how most of that stuff works: You piss, puke or bleed until all the poisons leave your body. Someone bring back phlebotomy, already.

October 11, 2025
Many of you sent in info on ways to get the sticker done without that billion-quantity order. Thanks for the info; I'll follow up next week as tomorrow I leave for a weekend bender in Vegas. Mr. Michigan will be there and the Flamingo Hotel has a wedding chapel. Will the serial marryer sink her claws into another victim? Find out Monday.

October 10, 2025
The monkey sticker is ready for die cutting. Now I just need to get someone to do it who doesn't require a minimum order of a billion.

October 9, 2025
My realtor had an open house today so I had to disappear for four hours. I think open houses, like the flyers that are provided with the realtor's sign, are really only useful for satisfying the neighbors' curiosity.

October 8, 2025
The company that wants the public to buy this geneology crap neglected to have a set of photos made up for us "foreign types." Granted, I don't see my relatives all that much, but with the exception of a few Caucasians who married into the black-haired, narrow-eyed Yee clan (usually courtesy of me), none of us look like these 19th century Wyoming homesteaders.

October 7, 2025
Here's a very timely article about someone who waived a home inspection before buying. Moral of this story: Don't be as dumb as them. 

October 6, 2025
It's a bark-y wonderland. All it needs now are some tasteful plants, hopefully to be provided by the future owners. I finished the project today under burning, mid-day sun duress, as a realtor wanted to come by in the afternoon to show it.

October 5, 2025
Last night when I came home from my run, I found this sign in my front yard. I had no idea it was going to be installed that evening so I was pretty shocked to see it when I drove up. I think the neighbors were shocked too since I only forewarned one couple about the possible sale.  

The backyard is almost all bark covered. Today my flatbed cart was stacked so high with bark that an elderly couple thought I was an employee and asked for three of my bags. I placed it in their cart. I figured that when I was old and needed help maybe someone would cut me some slack and not just shove me into the cactus display for being demanding. Only later did they realize I was not an employee and apologized. No big deal. I've purchased 100 bags of bark so far so I almost feel like a Home Depot employee.      

October 4, 2025
If you recall, Chris has a Z tattoo on his chest. If I had a C tattoo I probably would've taken a disc sander shortly after the divorce and sanded it off. But Chris doesn't have my predisposition for cutting off his nose to spite his face, so he's actually left it. He is, however, finally planning to alter it and the letter will be hidden in this design (Chris was respectful enough to check with me first). I fully endorse his decision because as a chick, and not even a particularly jealous one, I wouldn't want to be staring at some skin shrine for an ex-flame on my boyfriend.   

October 3, 2025
The realtor came by with paperwork so it's official. Now I will have to dig up those ex-beaus I've been "storing" in my crawlspace as personal trophies. I told you this whole moving thing was a hassle.

October 2, 2025
Getting your place cleaned up to show is a sizeable pain in the ass. Chris and I moved the MH900e out of the living room to his shop (as requested by the realtor). Now, between everything being put away and the bike being gone, the house looks empty. I'm assuming that people will open closet doors so everything that was thrown in helter skelter got organized. I suppose a sale wouldn't be lost just because towels are balled up and not folded, but why take the chance that the buyer willing to pay the most has a raging phobia of unstructured terry cloth?

October 1, 2025
I'm buying bags of bark to put down in the denuded backyard. So far I've purchased 15 bags and they've covered maybe 1/6th of the lot. Had I known I was selling, I wouldn't have done all that work to remove the plants. But hindsight is 20/20 and foresight is 20/400, with astigmatism and pink eye on top of that. 

September 30, 2025
I've decided for sure to put the house up for sale. Given the cooling off of the real estate market, there's no guarantee it's going to sell for what I want anyways, so I may very well remain a San Diegan. On a related note, I have the initial layout of the van done. I've decided to leave space for a motorcycle. When there's no bike inside, that space will be used for storage. Or maybe I'll set up Mr. Michigan's favorite video game, Dance Dance Revolution, so when he visits the van he'll have something to do.     

September 29, 2025
My realtor just left. He gave me a number to work with and now I just have to decide yes or no. I've spent almost eight great years here and while a part of me is sad to go, another part of me looks forward to the next unknown stage. Well, it's not totally unknown since it's going to have this in it. I've been obsessively visiting that site trying to build the ideal vehicle so I can travel all across the country to promote my Pirate Monkey cult.

September 28, 2025
Reader Robb sent me a link to this cartoon. Now you know: in addition to being a cult leader, a dabbler of DIY, a media critic, and a mild narcoleptic, I am also a fortune teller. I could've told you that by mid-season Sete was going to wish he had as much media attention as Ruben Xaus. Confuscious say: "He with no expectations can fail nothing." Or did he actually say: "He who has the name which means 'thirst' in Italian is doomed to forever feel it"? I can't remember which.

By the way, it's exactly one month until my birthday. Please schedule your gift shopping accordingly.

September 27, 2025
Before there was Pee Wee Herman, there was my brother. Can he get royalties for every time that trademark suit appeared on Pee Wee, or was the fact that he was an Asian wearing that suit negate all likeness?

September 26, 2025
Why are chicks always spinning in commercials? Bras. Tampons. Yogurt. Shoes. Diet programs. Vacation spots. It doesn't seem to matter what's being sold. Ad agencies think woman are into twirling, and if we see our sisters doing it we'll buy into the product because it's wonderfully airy and feminine. When was the last time you spun in a circle? I think mine was when I got highsided. The last guy I saw twirl was Carson Kressley, and we sure all know he's not trying to sell anyone chewing tobacco, baseball bats, or big-block engines. Pink with your tux, anyone?      

September 25, 2025
I'm going to make die cut stickers out of my new Pirate Monkey of Isla Wrench design. Problem is, it needs to be worked on by someone with graphic design talent. If you can do that for me and I make a bunch of stickers, I will send you some completed product. Feel free to make it cuter or meaner or something. More monkey and less bear or hippo looking also encouraged. I took all the stickers off my S2R so it's a canvas waiting for artwork. Avast ye pri-matey!  

September 24, 2025
Parents, try not to be too offended, but let's face it, this bumper sticker is funny.    

September 23, 2025
These rock roofs are the best. It's like a little piece of Mars over your head. My only question is, does a complimentary Rover come with each roof job?

September 22, 2025
I forgot to tell ya'll that I'm back in San Diego. I made the ten-hour drive from Petaluma Tuesday night. My Canadian-flavored Michigan "fiance" has now been officially returned to his status of being 2,500 miles away. How can a relationship not stay fresh with so much personal space? He can lie on his couch all day letting his nuts air out while watching soap operas instead of being at the IT job he claims to have. I can smear peanut butter on my pictures of Troy Bayliss and lick them until my tongue is raw. See what we can get away with thanks to so many states interrupting the relationship flow? A note about my hematite pre-nup ring: hematite is iron oxide. Iron oxide is rust. What better way to say "You're my forever, baby" than to say it with rust?

I sold Pogo today. While I was sad to see him go, I'm glad he won't have to languish in the garage playing second fiddle to Romeo.    

September 21, 2025
Pretty Soon iWon't Hear You. That's a story in SFGate.com about earbuds and hearing loss. People who are concerned about hearing loss are not loners. We loners would like nothing more than to have the world STFU. I don't like airline travel for this reason: You're forced to be really near to people having inane conversations. That's why I never go anywhere without earplugs. I also have a sound file of rain on my MP3 player that I crank up really loud to drown people out when the earplugs aren't enough. Hearing loss is a misanthrope's friend. Maybe iWant to be deaf.    

September 20, 2025
I flew back to SF on Northwest Airlines. They just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last Wednesday. The flight attendants had flat affects, but then again, it's NWA. Reader Melissa pointed out their slogan a while back and I think they're sticking with it: "We're not happy till you're not happy!"

September 19, 2025
Niagara Falls was pleasant enough of a destination. Not sure I'll ever need to go back but I'm glad I saw it once. I was warned in advance of its touristy nature so I wasn't surprised to see all the crap on the Canadian side. In case you don't know, there's the Canadian Falls and the American Falls. The Canadian one is bigger and that's the one people like to take their barrels over. The American Falls is not "rideable" because of the rocks at the base. We hadn't originally planned on going over to the American side, but while on a boat tour we saw that it was possible to get near the American Falls for a wildly wet hammering. It was impossible to resist.

After the boat tour (if you have a choice, take it from the American side because their boats were far less packed), we walked over the border to the US side. We were really surprised to find that on the American side of the falls was a large, beautiful park instead of souvenir shops and hotels right on the water.

The Cave of the Winds tour supplied us with cheap raincoats and sandals. We were warned ahead of time by someone that you get drenched so we knotted up our sleeves and the base of our ponchos to keep water from being blown in; we still had a bit of drying out to do afterwards, but not nearly as much as our skivvies-soaked peers. The Hurricane Deck is the wettest part of the walk. The pelting was heavy enough that I couldn't even look up at the falls. Mr. Michigan, the only guy in blue plastic (he used the one from our boat ride, which was a little longer), is making his way to the top of the deck. Notice the No (S)moking sign...that's a fact, not a suggestion.

We really enjoyed getting up close to the falls and would recommend it to anyone who's been yearning for an aqueous slapping about.

September 18, 2025
Mr. Michigan bought me an Alaskan Black Diamond ring at Niagara Falls so we're engaged. Legally speaking, the engagement is only valid when we're both in Canada, and quite possibly only valid at Niagara Falls, and quite even more possibly only valid at the souvenir shop where the metallic gray hematite finger doughnut was purchased for $2.95 USD. Still, it's great having a fianc� and we're thinking about a marriage ten years out from now so we have time to make friends in Canada so someone will show up at the wedding. We don't want to inconvenience American friends by making them drive across the border into a foreign territory where the bacon is ham and a leaf is the mascot.

Speaking about borders, when we were returning to the US, the hard-as-nails border agent we got asked if we had anything to declare. Mr. Michigan says after a pause, "Uh, we got a two dollar backscratcher." Well, I snorted pretty good at hearing him declare a backscratcher but the agent was not humored. He told us to pop the trunk so he could take a look. If you plan to use the backscratcher red herring to get yourself over the border with your 50 cases of Labatts, don't. We've ruined that decoy for you.

I'll tell you about the one thing at Niagara Falls you must do if you visit. Here's a preview.        

September 16, 2025
Today's topic is aging. It's my brother's birthday today and he turns 44. I'm not that far behind him so for him to have yet another birthday is a slap in my face, Three Stooges style. I suppose most of you had siblings. Remember what turds they were? Given the acrimonious relationships kids often have, it's a wonder more of us aren't estranged. If I held a one-year grudge for every time he punched me, we wouldn't be talking well into the afterlife. But we get along great now and he tears out my teeth and puts fake ones in for a discount. I've got two new ones waiting for installation upon my return to California. My current crown count is around 12 and considering we have 32 teeth, you can see I'm making fabulous progress towards a very fake mouth.

September 15, 2025
Reader Paul sent me something I think we can all get behind: "Some people are like Slinkies...Not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs."

September 14, 2025
Anybody out there been to Niagara Falls and have comments on specific things to see or avoid? One of two people to have ever survived a trip over the falls without protection was from Canton, Michigan, and darned if I didn't happen to dine in that fine city last night. Tell me that's not a sign from some divine force that He wants me to go over the falls with nothing more than my underwear and a blood alcohol level of 0.35.   

September 13, 2025
Parents, I have just read about the most awesome way to keep your kids in line. Tell them they were adopted from a third world country, that the legalization papers were never finalized, and if they get arrested just
once – that's 1 time if your kids need clarification – they face deportation to a land where they know no one and don't speak the language. How awesome is that for a threat? If my parents would've told me I was one court appearance away from getting dropped off in the Guangdong province, I would've thought twice about shoplifting and herbal experimentation.   

September 12, 2025
I've been thinking about doing freelance work for someone else and was looking in the Craiglist job ads. I came across this Toilet Team ad which had to have been written specifically for me.

September 11, 2025
I tried out soaring (same as gliding) for the first time. I'm afraid every activity gets compared to motorcycling and what I've determined is that while flying has its charms, it's way too slow. The acrobatic moves were great for shifting my stomach into my shoes, but the rest of the time was like using Google Earth since I was just staring at what was below. And regarding boating: Until I really ratchet up the urge to fish or drink or get sunburned, I'm going to hold off on buying the Sea Ray 290 Select EX sport boat that I haven't had my eye on. To date, motorcycling is the one thing worth repeatedly molesting my retirement nest egg over. Secret Mr. Michigan pic here. 
September 8, 2025
It's the first NSL (National Spandex League) game of the season. The reason football is so popular with men? Safe release for homoerotic desires. It's a warriors' game! It's tights! It's head-to-head action! It's shimmering tights!

September 7, 2025
Hello, I am now in Michigan, land of potholes and carbonated beverages they call "pop." I flew Northwest Airlines, the very carrier whose mechanics are on strike. Being a bit of an adrenaline junkie, I found the take-offs and landings extra invigorating not knowing if the tires would blow out or if a wing would flop off. I live for a good story, but alas, have none from my red-eye flight other than that my seat smelled like vomit and that the lady next to me apologized beforehand if she seemed freaky because she was really nervous.  

September 6, 2025
Is it just me or does the Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts always looks like he's going to burst into tears? You really need to see him in video footage to get the full effect. He and Deputy Trudy Wiegel are related, I'm sure.

September 5, 2025
You like NICE FOOD? Me too. And this Chinatown purveyor of dim sum believes all people do, otherwise they wouldn't flaunt it in all caps. I appreciate the fact that the employee is taking his smoke break and cleaning his nails away from the ingestibles.

The reason I went to Chinatown was not to feel one with My People, but to search for this elusive treat (yes Mother, from "the clean" Taiwan). I face the same problems with the clerks that I do with my mom: I understand them but I can't respond since my Chinese is half-baked. So the lady is rappin' away at me in Cantonese when I hand her my three bags. "Hey Little Sister (common form of address to a younger woman), you sure like these don't you?" she says. I smile and give her an enthusiastic "Uh huh!" It doesn't take her long to figure out I'm one of those Americanized retards. She hands me my change and switches to English for the parting "Thank you!"

About Chinese relatives: We don't just call someone brother or sister. You specifically refer to a sibling with the word that indicates if they're older or younger than you. To my younger brother I was "Dee Dee" and to my older brother I was "Moi Moi." Don't ask me why Chinese like to repeat words, but it seems to work for the panda bears. For other relatives you use the word that indicates if they're from your mom or dad's side of the family; it's not Uncle Joe, it's Uncle Joe From Mom's Side.  

September 4, 2025
Why do men go into gynecology? Isn't that like working on a cars with automatic transmissions when you only know about stick-shifting manuals?

September 3, 2025
I'm working on a website for my brother the dentist. While doing some research I came across this awesome site...Budapest Dental. When I think of root canals, I always think about combining it with an extended vacation to Hungary. Budapest Dental is greeting you! One of the most elite dental offices of Hungary welcomes its dear English patients...Present yourself with perfect juvenile smile in the frame of a pleasant vacation in Budapest! By the way, if you want a top-notch dentist, go to my brother Lyle Yee (707-794-9995). He's by Sonoma State University, which is closer for most of you than Budapest. 

September 2, 2025
Mr. Michigan has informed me that I better start learning how to say "pop" instead of "soda." If you check out the site, be sure to take a tour through the answer for "others" so you don't miss gems like this one: "Toona dan is such a hick and he always says 'pop', so i must conclude that everyone who says pop are hicks. Toona's roommate is very gay also, so if your roommate says pop, then the logic suggests that you are gay."      

September 1, 2025
Tip to the wise food shopper: If you plan to eat anything made in China, make sure it's from the Taiwan version of China. My mom won't touch food packaged in mainland China, and if an immigrant with a generous "five second rule" for food dropped on the ground won't touch it, it must be bad. Them commies might not think passing off rodent feces as chocolate sprinkles is a big deal, but the Taiwanese allegedly do. When it comes to who has more quality control processes implemented, put your money down on the little capitalist island.

August 31, 2025
I rode a Monster S4 today up the coast from SF to Mendocino. This bike had been knocked over by a Fedex truck and dragged down the road a ways so it had to be repaired. It handled quite well even though its frame had to be straightened. At one point I was leaving from a stoplight and the front half of the bike took off without me. Imagine my confusion as I ended up laid out on the tank holding onto a bike that suddenly became bipolar...Stay? Go? Turned out the seat latch came undone and the whole seat slid back with me on it, thus creating the sensation that the bike had split in half. It came undone again later in the ride, but at least that time I was prepared for it and shoved the seat back onto the bike. My recommendation on trying this out at least once in your life: Low. You can probably enjoy life fully without ever having this surprise.  

August 30, 2025
Chris worked on a motor (it was "Pongo-fied") for this guy who lives in San Mateo, so he asked if I'd transport it since I was heading the 600+ miles north. I swung by his shop Sunday night to get it and I was rather shocked at what a fine looking piece of artwork it was. 

August 29, 2025
Today I make the 11-hour drive to Petaluma with "Agent Orange," as Reader Jeff refers to my mom. I'm taking aspirin now as a pre-emptive strike.

August 28, 2025
Here's a before and after of the scorched-earth policy thoroughly executed. You're probably thinking, "Zina, that landscaping didn't look too bad. Kind of feral, but unpretentious and entirely accessible to the common man." That was after a time-consuming weeding. I've done an artist's rendition to show you how it normally looked when the dandelion were left to grow several feet high. Looks about as attractive as a gal's stubbly, unshaven legs, no? The bare earth has now been covered with weed block, held down by nearly 300 "gardening staples." I'm sure a good windy day will have that all ripped out by the time I return home in three weeks.            

August 27, 2025
Since my mom is here, I thought it was timely that this article came out on SFGate.com today. Notice how I used the word "browbeating" a few days ago and how this article uses "browbeat" in the very first sentence. Asian immigrant parents excel at ballbusting. The great thing about being an adult is returning all the volleys you get, sometimes with a nasty topspin. Today's lecture was on how I needed to make my bed. I told her I lived alone and nobody sees my bed so who cares? She said I should care, have some respect for myself. I told her that specifically because she nagged me about it, I will probably never, ever make my bed again. I'm beginning to think that she gets on my case just to see what type of outrageous response she can get. Who is playing whom, I wonder...     

August 26, 2025
Racing is back in swing with AMA at Virginia and MotoGP at the one-vowel-short Brno this weekend. It's been so long I've almost forgotten how to do that part of my job...correct, the one I'm still waiting to be compensated for after six lunar/menstrual cycles. Just to make things extra suspenseful, they're having problems with my name change since Italian women do not take their husbands' names. I think they now believe I'm two separate people trying to scam money out of them. Not only am I a masterful con artist, but I'm also a superior prestidigitator, so tuck that wallet down the front of your pants or else it's mine. And if your grandmother is anywhere nearby, I'll be more than glad to knock her down and take her purse, too. 

August 25, 2025
The cheeky bit about forcing my mom to be Hoe Master? Jokes on me. I've had to make several trips to the dump and I've had to wrestle with about five times the amount of crap you see here. And we ain't done yet. It's probably not pc to say this, but I hate plants. Mr. Michigan says I'm fighting a losing battle against the second law of thermodynamics, but I just might win this time because I'm putting down ground cover and rocks. Whatever thermodynamicking of the second sort that happens in my backyard will now get squirted with Round Up.

August 24, 2025
I'm making my mom pay for a lifetime of browbeating by forcing her to remove all the weeds in my backyard. She works pretty hard for someone with almost seven decades under her belt, but I am a little perturbed she needs a lunch break.

Looking for a bike that has been straddled by a woman its entire life? Here's my Pogo sales page.

August 23, 2025
I finally got my certification from the IRS that I'm a U.S. taxpayer (see July 27). Get ready to be underwhelmed by the documentation. My Exalted Taxpayer Status diploma was far more official looking. 

August 22, 2025
This is the occasional posting in which I apologize for not responding to all email in a timely fashion, sometimes if at all. I do get a lot of email and I often have a hard time keeping up. The next month will be particularly busy for me. My mom is here for a week; then I'll be in SF for a week when I unload her. After that I fly to Michigan for two weeks. I'll do my best, but don't get offended if I can't reply. I'm one of those types of people who maintain a running To Do list and I still struggle to get my tasks done.   

August 21, 2025
I picked up my mom in Long Beach today. She went on a weeklong cruise down to Mexico with a bunch of relatives. I learned that disgorging the Love Boat takes a whole hell of a lot longer than unloading an airplane. Maybe it has something to do with the extra 3,000 or so people. She's here for a week and then I drive her back up to San Francisco. Let the 2005 Olympic Nagging Games begin! First on her verbal hitlist was my motorcycle inventory. Like any of us are surprised.

August 20, 2025
The Monster is getting prepped for sale. I'm returning it to mostly stock trim so I can bring the sale price down. Blue book is $6,200 but I'll start under 6k because I've put 38k miles on it.

August 19, 2025
All the maintenance is done and all the bikes are running. Here's the family, with the exception of the MH900e, which lives in the house. Reader Paul asks, "A bike for every day of the week or a bike for every mood...?" Since I have two moods, awake and asleep, it's not that, so I reckon I'm working towards a bike for every day of the week.

With regards to my future business, Everything Estrogen Repair Shop, Reader Mike poo-poos the idea that a profusion of pink and free Hello Kitty stickers slapped on every tank will scare all the men away. He offers this as evidence. Would I like to see these guys? You needn't ask me twice!

You readers may have noticed that pictures are no longer opening in pop-ups. I got tired of making the html file that goes with each and the code I have to add. Say hello to your Back button.  

August 18, 2025
I have no control.

August 17, 2025
Reader Robert came up with a great idea for my future shop: "It's not hard to discriminate and get away with it. Just paint your whole shop pink and put up pictures of flowers and Care Bears. No man would be caught dead taking his bike in there." I won't do Care Bears, but I will do Hello Kitty. I will also have a television hooked up and permanently set on the Lifetime channel. People and Glamour magazines will litter the waiting area. Feminine protection will be readily available in the restroom. Reader Gary says that women and minorities don't have a lock on being treated poorly by The Good Ol' Boys network: to you, I give the first discount oil change coupon at Everything Estrogen Repair Shop. Robert, for your design idea, you get a free oil change and one of my outstanding rim polishing jobs (no double entendre so keep the pants on, cowboy).

I changed the chains on the DRZs yesterday. That was an interesting lesson in specialized tools and the disturbing tenacity of lithium grease. Then I changed the oil on the 749S. Who doesn't love fishing through the oil pan for the bolt that dropped in? The warm oil is like a wonderful skin softener. For us ADD types, wrenching beats sitting at a computer any day.       

August 16, 2025
I've been doing maintenance work on the DRZ400s. After a month of waiting I finally got the factory service manual so I could check the valve clearances. I took the bike over to Chris's shop and did the work there so I could ask for assistance when needed. Turns out that I really enjoy wrenching and maybe if I get good at it some day I could work on other women's bikes. The problem with being a woman in the automotive world is that it's pretty easy to get taken advantage of since we usually don't know up from down. I wonder, though, if it's illegal to work on only one gender's bike. Isn't that discrimination? It's just that guys already have it too easy, what with their ability to stand and urinate against anything they damn well please. That inequity will chafe me till the day I die.  

August 15, 2025
After five years of putting it off, I got my teeth cleaned. It's refreshing getting your gums ripped off every now and then. The even better news is that I've got almost $2k of dental work on two teeth that needs to be done and I don't have dental coverage. Buy a used dirtbike or fix my teeth? I can tell you one thing that factors in: My teeth don't hurt right now and I've got 30 good ones to take up the slack.

August 14, 2025
If you ever remove your sidestand, thoroughly clean the bolts and the holes, and Loctite it before putting it back on. Last week I ran an errand and when I parked I thought the bike seemed more leaned over than normal. When I came back to the bike and uprighted it to check the bolts, they were both half backed out. I was told that the bolts could've cracked the motor because of the stress, which is worse than the bike just falling over.

August 13, 2025
The 749S and I got to know each other today. Here's what I thought.

August 12, 2025
I didn't take Bike-To-Be-Named out yet. I had too many tasks to deal with today, including getting insurance coverage on it. I'm paying $400/year for the 749S through USAA and I feel lucky to get that rate for a sportbike after some of the insurance horror stories I've read on bike forums. For a young male, I can't see how it could be cheaper owning a bike than a car after they factor in the insurance rates they're asked to pay. For once, it pays to be a not-too-young female.

August 11, 2025
The bike's home! Pic and poll result. 

August 10, 2025
A friend recently asked me why I'm such a recluse and I told her that exposure to racists beginning from childhood taught me that people suck. Tonight Chris and I were running at Balboa Park and this guy we pass by looks at me and says something about why all us gooks are in San Diego and can't we go somewhere else. Chris screams something about bigots and after I realized all that has transpired, for a fleeting moment I want to run back and kick the guy's teeth in. Yeah, he's a random knob, but after you hear this enough times over the years you get tired of it and the ugly mouths they come out of. Your skin doesn't get thicker with age, but maturity at least tells you that your life is probably happier than theirs, so you let it go. People suck, except my blog readers and the few friends I never see because I'm a recluse.  

August 9, 2025
Dog shoes. I don't know what to say except dogs seemed to have survived all of earth's history up till now without booties. Fine for if your dog is in the Iditarod but if its tootsies are hobbled by a walk on the local nature trail, you might want to find out if your pet is channeling Paris Hilton. Lucky would be rolling around in the chaparral trying to tear these off before any other dog caught him and kicked his already sissy-looking ass.

August 8, 2025
Italy is off for the month. I'll wager that only the flunkies work, so you better hope your appendix doesn't burst in ol' Boot town unless you want Alessandro The Orderly to cut you open and Giovanni The Janitor to vacuum out anything that's loose.    

August 7, 2025
I added Alex Barros to the Separated at Birth page.

August 6, 2025
I don't know how new or old this ad campaign is, but based on their choice of garb for Marco Melandri and Sete Gibernau, XPD feels that they are the best footwear for those who like to ride and feel the wind caress their cargo.

August 5, 2025
A new poll is up. What bike am I getting?

August 4, 2025
What I have learned about a child's vocabulary in two days: It consists only of WHY? and NO! What I have learned about my vocabulary for children: It consists only of BECAUSE and [ignore...it's the parent's problem].

August 3, 2025
A friend with a five-year-old is visiting me for a few days. The precocious tyke has provided me with concrete evidence that tubal ligation cannot happen to me fast enough. 

August 2, 2025
Whenever I see former MLB player John Kruk on ESPN, I always ask myself, "Where is his neck?" I really think he has none. Check out my Cervical Vertebrae Scoreboard and you'll see what I mean. So how is it that we're all supposed to have seven cervical vertebrae, yet neck lengths can vary so much? The answer is that we don't all have seven. It's a lie that the medical community perpetuates because they don't like keeping track of all the possible variations. That's just being lazy.

August 1, 2025
What better way to welcome a new month then to also welcome a new bike into my life. It's at the dealer's getting prepped so it's not home yet. What is it? I won't tell you until I have it in my clammy hands.  

July 31, 2025
We've had thunderstorm and flash flood warnings in the mountains every day for the past week. I debated whether or not to ride this morning so as I was driving home from a trip to the grocery store I said to myself, "If the light at the intersection stays green and I make it through, it's a sign for me to go." It stayed green so that settled the debate. I got over to Sunrise Highway and the skies were blue so I ran up and down it a few times to satisfy the pent-up urges to tilt. I decided to cut over to Highway 94 to come home, but as I approached the border checkpoint on Old Hwy 80, rain was falling from an isolated cloud. Uh oh, time to make a straight line for home on I-8. The shit was hitting the fan early today.

Heading west on I-8 I drove into the worst deluge. Suddenly, fuzzy red tail lights burst everywhere through the gray spray of water. I had time to bring down my speed but I didn't have the extra bandwidth to look behind me to see if someone was about to smear me; it's times like this that the hairs really stand on the back of my neck. About a dozen cars were parked on both sides of the shoulder and a few people were peering down a ravine. Later I learned that someone had launched off the freeway and a passenger was killed. Today's philosophical lesson was "Do your living today" because you never know when you're going to end up inverted in a ravine, Game Over, out of coins.        

July 30, 2025
A side benefit of the no-sugar diet is that my eyesight has returned to 20/20. Even though I had eye surgery (did I ever talk about how painful it was?), my vision would usually be a bit blurry, especially after I ran. Now it's sharp almost all the time. I am rather amazed. Don't get me wrong about my attitude towards sugar: If I could consume it at will without obvious detriment to my daily functioning, I would. There's an unopened box of Hot Tamales in my cupboard just waiting for me to fall off the wagon. I could very well remove the temptation, but torment is the ideal fuel for artists.      

July 29, 2025
Happy Friday! The poll results are up.

July 28, 2025
I went downtown to the IRS office to inquire about the Exalted Taxpayer Status form. First, let me tell you that federal buildings don't like people bringing in any type of recording devices. Since I always have my digital camera with me, I had to walk back to my bike and leave it there. When I returned, the guard asked me if I had a cell phone. I showed it to him and he pointed to the little camera lens on it and said I couldn't bring it in. Second trip to the bike. Do yourself a favor and leave your electronics at home if you go near the feds.

When I was finally allowed in I went over to the IRS office and waited with all the other sad looking people. After about forty minutes my number was called and I explained to the woman what I needed, fully expecting her to look at me with disinterest overlayed with irritation. Much to my surprise, she said she had researched this recently and that I was lucky to get her because probably no one else would've known what to do. The answer? IRS Form 8802. (Per the IRS: "Use Form 8802 to request certification of U.S. residency for purposes of claiming benefits under a tax treaty.") This form can only be faxed or sent to the office in Philadelphia and I have no idea how long it will be before I get a response. Could be a week, could be a month. In the meantime, I wait and wonder, with the August break that the Europeans always take, if I will actually end up going half a year without getting paid. If anybody out there has worked longer for a company without compensation, let me know and I'll send you a prize out of solidarity.  

July 27, 2025
Ducati in Italy hasn't paid me in months and months and months over some issue with taxes. At first they wanted to withhold 30% of my pay for Italian taxes and then they decided they could give me my full amount if I sent them "an official paper from my tax office" that I am a U.S. taxpayer. I'm pretty sure the IRS has this certificate on hand for this exact occasion.

July 26, 2025
Want to be a professional photographer with absolutely no training? Use black and white film because it looks really artistic and no one would know your favorite camera is the Kodak Advantix. Case in point: Check out the  photo from my Michigan road trip. In color, it's just another big, green dinosaur. In black and white, it's the incongruous placement of time and space, an evocative portrait of stolid individualism on a metaphorical lonely road. It's the choices we make when faced with an emptiness yet to be filled. Yes � you get all that just for using black and white! But wait, there's more: It's simply the hippest dinosaur in all of South Dakota and you captured the moment in its purest, most unfettered glory. Just try to do all that with silly color. (If you really want to get laid as an artist, be sure to throw some negative images into your portfolio.)  

July 25, 2025
My no-sugar diet is going well, thanks for asking. It's really been fun eating nothing but weeds, chicken flavored only with chicken, and water. Do I feel a change yet? Yes, I have less energy than normal because my body has no idea how to convert anything currently in my body into fuel. And I love feeling dizzy every time I stand up; it's like a carnival ride without the risk of getting gum stuck on my ass. They (by "they" I mean the variously-educated medical pundits scattered all over the Internet) say this initially happens to sugar junkies. What I love are the supernazis who warn you against eating stuff like too many carrots because it has a rather high sugar content for a vegetable. Like America is breaking down locked doors to get at carrots. What next? We learn that celery is the devil's Pixie Stix?

July 24, 2025
Lance Armstrong won a seventh consecutive Tour de France by cheating: he has one testicle. What about all the other guys who endured the discomfort of two smashed balls for 2,109.56 miles? While Lance could coolly shift his stuff from one side to the other with all the spare room, his competitors had no choice but to deal with the pinching and sweating and crowding of the unaltered trinity of manhood. I bet a few of those guys could use the spam I got yesterday to repair some of the "truncation damage" twenty days of hell in the saddle must cause. (See May 21 for more fun with bikes and broken private parts.)

July 23, 2025
Fresh outta the inbox: this spam (adult in nature for you easily frightened folks). I only have one question: Why would anyone need two? Actually, I have way more than one question, but that's the most urgent one at the moment.

July 22, 2025
I learned today caffeine withdrawal is no joke. As a part of my hypoglycemia test, I'm supposed to cut out caffeine. So I did. I woke up, did some work, faded hard, and went back to sleep for five hours before re-awakening with the most massive headache this side of continental Europe. I've been drinking coffee for 23 years � going cold turkey was a tactical error. When I finally got the strength to stay upright, I went to the store and bought some decaf so I could mix it with the caffeinated stuff as a compromise. No coffee, no energy, no blogging, no life. Looks like I have two vices I'm willing to live with: coffee and "pedophilia lite" (FBI, refer to July 14).

July 21, 2025
I have exercise-induced hypoglycemia. It sucks. I have to jog with glucose tablets because when I crater, I'm reduced to a quivering mass, sometimes to the point where I can't walk. I've decided to try a test for the next week and follow a diet that might better control my blood sugar. Unfortunately, what I learned in my research is that I can't eat anything that makes my life worth living. Nevertheless, I will give it the old college try and see if it helps. I'm going to have to guess that the food nazis would not approve of a 44 oz Slurpee. Fukcers.

July 20, 2025
The poll is up. My hosting company did something to dork up emailing of forms so I had to put my ASP file on Chris's site. Like you care. Anyways, cast your vote!

July 19, 2025
I was going to put up a new poll today, but it's broken and I can't debug it so I have to give up. Maybe I'll just upload it and whoever wants to manually send in his or her vote can.

July 18, 2025
I went for a run in Balboa Park yesterday and while jogging along I heard these guys talking really loud in my direction. I didn't think they were talking to me; this is a section of the park where gay guys usually troll for anonymous sex (I love it when they pop out of the bushes!) so we femmes are the least interesting thing around. I eventually heard one of the guys yelling "Hey you running...stop before you hurt yourself!" I think they were goofing on how I look when I run, which is a form I can only describe as "wounded animal." Still, it doesn't mean I deserve to get harassed. These guys embody what I have always disliked about people: cowardice as individuals. Were either of them alone, I probably wouldn't have heard a word. But put people together and suddenly they're empowered to be jerks. Shame on mean people.         

July 17, 2025
It's the hurricane season. The hammering upon Florida has begun. I'm no structural engineer, but isn't it obvious that there should be a new building code in Florida?

July 16, 2025
All I ever wear are running shoes. I bought two more yesterday and I decided to gather together every pair I had in the house and see what the population count was. You are looking at 11 pairs of running shoes, two pairs of court shoes, and one pair of black generic sneakers for formal events. Thirty years from now I'll probably have some awesome form of dementia from too much cooking on teflon pans and these will be cats instead of shoes. 

July 15, 2025
I worked on fixing Pogo's tach today. It's almost finished. I'll see tomorrow if everything works correctly.

July 14, 2025
Pedophile alert: Mr. Michigan is ten years my junior. I swore to myself the next time around I'd date someone more "age appropriate," but the problem is that men my age tend to be married or divorced with kids. Or they're in their 40s and have never been married for a good reason ("Comic-Con is in town � will you dress up as Princess Ayeka and go with me?") If ever I feel like a cradle-robbing perimenopausal perv, I need only read this article that my young muse sent me so I can delight in the mere gap of a decade.      

July 13, 2025
Here's your DMV tip of the day: If you live in a city and you want to make an appointment online but you can't get anything sooner than a month (which is always the case in San Diego), try a neighboring city. I managed to get an appointment in El Cajon just ten days out.

So today I walked in with the Dissolution* of Marriage paperwork the court had sent me. The lady at the help desk thought I might not get an ok since I didn't change my info with the Social Security Administration first, but the lady at the second counter � the one that mattered � didn't care. I paid my twenty, got my picture taken, and I should be getting the new license in a few weeks. Did I mention that I changed my mind on Powers and went with Zina al Akbar Muhammad? I wanted to make sure I never got through airport security ever again without getting hassled. Like a Chinawoman with a Russian + Irish name didn't get me pulled aside enough during international travel.  

*Isn't this word suspiciously close to "Disillusion"? Doh!

July 12, 2025
"Indirect potable reuse." "Reservoir augmentation." "Toilet to tap." Call the project what you want, but water is precious here and one of the options we have is to recycle our wastewater. The water that whisked your digested beef stroganoff dinner away not too long ago has now been reincarnated into my coffee. Then I'm gonna piss it out and someone's going to make ice cubes with it and enjoy a Long Island ice tea with a twist of me. Congratulations northern Virginia for being the only other place in the nation willing to give the Turd-Extracto� drinking water system a try. Read Dune, see the future.  

July 11, 2025
Thanks to reader Stuart for pointing out that today is 7-11, a day that should be set aside to honor the temple from where Slurpees flow. I failed to have one today, but I did enjoy Nature's Most Perfect Food over the weekend. My favorite flavor? Coke and cherry. It's old school, but so am I.  

July 10, 2025
MotoGP Spoiler: It wasn't a great race in the sense of drama, but it was a great race because Nicky Hayden won his first MotoGP race on home turf. Is it just jingoism that makes me care? No, it's really an Asian American thing. Look at Nicky's eyes and tell me one of his ancestors didn't bone a Mongoloid somewhere along the way. He's one of my people and if I ever get knocked up and make me a half-n-half that looks like Nicky, I'm going to force that boy to dirt ride at 4 and then race at 8. If mama has to get stretchmarks, mama wants to retire rich on the sweat of that which gave her the stretchmarks.    

July 9, 2025
It's true: I watch Cheaters. People report on cheating significant others and the PI team tracks the unfaithful subject and then they bust the person in public with the spurned lover in tow. The confrontations don't always end up with a fight, but when they do, the best ones are the girls slapping and crying and hair-pulling...meeoow! The deer-in-the-headlights look of the person caught is priceless. You gotta watch it at least once.

July 8, 2025
Reader Robert queried: "Have you ever considered marrying someone you've never met? We could exchange vows over email. If you wanted to run away at the altar, you'd only have to change your email address. We'll honeymoon with weblinks." I have additional questions about cyber marriages: Would my new last require "www" as a prefix or ".com" as a suffix? If we met on something like YahooGroups, are we obligated to invite the group administrator to the Chat Room reception? Would it be domestic violence if one of us intentionally sent the other a virus? Can we divorce just by exchanging completed Dissolution of Marriage PDF files? Who keeps the immaculately conceived children?

July 7, 2025
As of today, the state of California says I can legally remarry. Having had three different last names in my lifetime and many years ahead for more, I'm thinking about just going with Zina "Your Last Name Here" for the time being.

July 6, 2025
London got the 2012 Summer Olympics. Good on them. Anywhere but San Diego. All events that would make the line at Baja Fresh get longer is not welcome in the Sphere of Zina.

I've actually got a great idea for the Olympics: overlap it with Burning Man. Quit moving it around and just have it at Black Rock City, NV every four years. Mix the Burning Man attendees in with the elite athletes. I can personally guarantee that viewership will double as everyone tunes in to see a couple of naked, sunburned gen-Xers do the 400 meter hurdles against the world's most ripped specimens. Do not underestimate the temporary athletic abilities of people fueled by eclectic art � I've been known to jump pretty high after cranking out a dozen life-sized figures of Edvard Munch's subject in "The Scream" using only superglue, white rice, and a smidgen of JB Weld.   

July 5, 2025
Nathan's Hotdog Eating Contest was yesterday. In case you're not up on this sport (use the term loosely, if you like), Takeru Kobayashi has won it five years in a row (49 dogs in the 12-minute time limit; 53.5 is the record, held by him). He actually "bulked up" ten pounds this year to a massive 140 pounds. He wasn't the star as far as I'm concerned; a 105-pound Asian woman finished second with 37 dogs. You only need look at her and be stunned. Are Asians 30% bone, 30% connective tissue, and 40% stomach acid? What could possibly happen to all that food in such small people if it's not being vaporized by a vicious pouch of gastric juices? Do we have enzymes that convert sodium nitrite into pure adrenaline?

Mr. Michigan is a hamburger eating contest survivor. He downed 12 burgers in 12 minutes, which was ahead of the pack, but since it was a half hour contest, he couldn't maintain his momentum. It took him the rest of the time to finish another 5. The winner ate 21, but had it not been St. Patty's Day and had Mr. Michigan not been wasted when he entered, he might've had a fighting chance...although, one must ask if having your gut painfully distended with the most burgers is really being a winner. I hope all the entrants got coupons for free high colonics.

July 4, 2025
Happy Emergency Room Day. Today, people across this patriotic nation will hold onto firecrackers for just a second too long, get shitfaced and plow their jet skis into each other, and eat potato salad seven hours after it's been sitting under the cruel sun. A hearty thanks to my parents for leaving China and making me an American; I love this place. Had I been born and raised in China, this Xingyue bike with a rippin' top speed of 43 mph would probably be my one and only ride (the text is what appears on the web site; maybe "Unsophisticated" is extremely honorable to communists).          

July 3, 2025
I ate at Baja Fresh tonight with my younger brother who's visiting from SF. It was near closing time and one of the workers picked up the big mat by the door and shook it out...while facing the salsa bar. So that's where the speckles in the medium-grade salsa come from? 

July 2, 2025
Rode up to Palomar for the first time in a couple of months. You know you've been gone for a while when a new paved parking area on the mountainside appears out of nowhere. This particular scenic overlook offers a nice view of Lake Henshaw. I'm not against vista points, but I would've preferred they spend the money on repaving the fast side of Palomar, or at least the part with sunken patches that make Pogo act out his name.        

July 1, 2025
A California law banning smoking in prisons took effect today. Why does making a group of incarcerated people � many already knotted up with anger management issues � go cold turkey sound like a bad idea? If I were Mayor of the Prison World, I would allow inmates not only to smoke, but I'd be handing out opium. What could make a prison safer than a bunch of doped-up, docile inmates? So what if the floors aren't mopped very well. At least they're not scheming to shank rival gang members and then take a few guards hostage.

June 30, 2025
I hopped on Bito to run errands and he stiffed out a mile from home. Dead battery. I knew it was getting to be time to change it, but I didn't think it was that far gone. I hiked the mile home, helmet in hand. I threw the new battery into the truck, loaded my toolbox, and headed back. Off went the old battery and on went the new aftermarket one...sort of. It was too tall by a few millimeters and no amount of shoving was going to force it in. Sigh. I phoned Chris up with my plight and he told me to make it fit however I could since all I had to do was get the bike home. So I did. I guess I'm going back to the stock battery. I don't really feel like cutting up the battery housing to make the aftermarket one fit, even if it is better. Bito better not be getting smart with me. I forgot to mention that the plastic chain guard lost a screw during my solo ride and was getting chewed up by the chain. I wanted to remove the guard entirely but the remaining screw was so tight I couldn't budge it. Luckily a guy came along in a truck; he and his son were looking for jackrabbits to shoot. The dad gripped the screwdriver with a set of pliers and with just the faintest of grunts showed the little bastard who was boss. I'm telling you, it's the magic wand that enables men to be Masters of the Universe. Why didn't I think of the pliers trick? Because I am wandless. I was not given the right playbook at birth. I know not the secret handshakes of brothers. I cannot write my name in the snow. What a gyp!      

June 29, 2025
I was looking for a company that sells landscaping rocks in our area. While doing my research, I found a landscaping company called Le Perv. I'm thinking to myself, "Certainly this must mean something in French, non?" so I went to an online dictionary and found no translation for Perv. My initial reaction was "What were these dumbchucks thinking?" but then I realized how awesome of a name it is. Who will forget a name like Le Perv? Not I, not in a million years. So genius is it that when I get my own business going, I'm going to name it Le Dirty Whore. I don't know yet what the business will be, but that's the name because like Le Perv, it'll be disturbingly unforgettable.

June 28, 2025
Since I tend to lag on email, I would like to respond to several reader inquiries here:

1. My name reverts back to the name of my first husband. I informed him of this and he wrote: "Even among shanty Irish (where it really counts) Powers is preferred over Kelley every time." My maiden name will become my middle name. Zina Yee Powers will yield the zippy monogram of ZYP. Why not drop all that male-dominated brainwashing and go back to my maiden name? Because since Yee was my father's name, it's still a patriarchal drill. And I never did like the name Yee because non-Asians had a hard time with it. I'd get mail spelled Ee, Eey, Ye, Eyee, etc. Thanks to Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, everyone knows how to spell that surname.

2. I'm not going to Laguna Seca; I will be publishing the MotoGP and AMA news from home. The tickets were hard to get for fans and the situation is no more generous for press people. Although I would've liked to have seen a MotoGP event live, I'm not disappointed that I will skip the suffering that is the press tent at Laguna. Nothing like a hundred hot laptops churning away inside an unventilated, sealed-up plastic hut. I do have a request for any unshy reader out there going to the race: Please slip Troy the tongue for me and tell him that the Warrior Princess says "We'll always have Imola..."        

June 27, 2025
I went down to the San Diego Superior Court to submit my name change form. Something in my motorcycle jacket vexed the sheriff as he stared at the x-ray machine before calling another sheriff over. He finally sent the jacket through and asked me if I was carrying pepper spray. I reached into the pocket and broke out my allen wrench combo, flaring out the different sizes like a proud swiss army knife owner. It must not rank up there in danger with carotid-stabbing tweezers because they didn't take it from me. Of course, the important part of the story is if they thought it was pepper spray, why did they let me reach into my pocket for it? I could've blinded the lot of them and then ran into a courtroom and concussed a judge with my helmet. 

It took being pointed in several directions by several clerks before I got to the right department. There I was told to stick two copies of my form in a drop box. I only had one so I went home, copied it, and mailed it in. I wouldn't say the trip was a waste of time because if you haven't been to your local Superior Court lately, you should check it out. It was obvious who the lawyers were, all tidy in their suits. The rest of us were looking at each other like, "Why are you a fukc-up?" I had everyone pegged for drugs or larceny. They probably thought I was there for domestic battery against a live-in girlfriend. We motorcycle riding women are all violent lesbians, and don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.   

June 26, 2025
I did my first solo dirt ride on Bito today. I was much stiffer than normal; it really is hard to get into the right groove when a get-off would mean standing around for a while watching gas dribble out of your prostrate steed as you waited for someone to come along to help you lift it. I may need to find a smaller bike for solo riding.

Although I didn't crash, I did manage to drop Bito while loading it onto the Versahaul after my ride. I had it up on the ramp, almost in its final position, and it started tipping over on me. I kept it from flopping all the way to the ground, but I was stuck in a position of just holding it there. Did Newton ever talk about "gravity assist" vs "gravity resist"? The former helps bikes fall over; the latter keeps feeble women from righting fallen bikes. A guy saw me struggling and came over to relieve me of my loading duties. It sucks being a weakling. It's days like today that I feel totally cheated out of a penis, that magic wand that helps you do stuff like drink an entire six-pack before you're impaired and load your own bike without dropping it.     

June 24, 2025
My next-door neighbor got his truck broken into. He works for the San Diego police department as a forensic entomologist so I wonder if someone stole a bunch of maggot samples or fuzzy pupae. I'm lucky I emptied my truck out the day before because I still hadn't unpacked from my Michigan trip yet. The $1,300 custom leathers alone would've been enough to weep over.     

June 23, 2025
Some guy wants to buy the 125 that's already been sold. Read our email exchange which is currently ongoing...

June 22, 2025
Late yesterday afternoon I was deep in thought with a noisy, vibrating hedge clipper in hand when I looked up and was startled. Out of nowhere, two Mormons materialized and were standing a few feet from me. I unplugged the hedge clipper and greeted them. The timing was actually good: During my drive home I had listened to the book "Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith," and I had learned the history of the Mormon religion. The lead boy did his usual speech and I told him that I was not religious. He asked if he could leave some reading materials and I told him there wouldn't be much point since I was old and set in my ways. Ever curious, I asked them how they could afford to do their missionary work in a pricey place like SD. They explained that everyone, no matter where they go, contribute the same amount of money towards missionary work. The amount that's needed to live is then allocated to the missionary. This means a guy working in Mosquito Town, Brazil would contribute more but get less back since he needs less; likewise, the guys in SD contribute less but get more since they need more. One boy asked me about the dirtbikes in my garage and the topic went to that for a bit. They eventually left, but I had wished I would've pried more into their lives while I had the chance � not to be rude, but to learn more about what made them tick. They don't live too far from me so maybe they'll swing by again since I was chatty. I want to see a pair of the special undergarments, but I'm not sure I want to get baptized just to test drive a set.   

June 21, 2025
In this entire road trip, no moment was more poignant than when I drove across the state line and saw the Welcome to California sign. I'd been gone for 51 days, almost two months. Frankly, I was surprised that it had any impact on me because I've never been maudlin about any concept of "home." By chance I was born here, but I could've just as well have been born and raised in Arizona, and it could've been the sight of the Arizona flag giving me pause. Home � where you think you belong, not where your possessions are � is a very soft and squishy concept. When we geographical pragmatists think about home and have any sort of visceral reaction to it, it catches us off guard. Maybe it was the drawing of the California poppies that put me over the sentimental edge � who can resist a small bouquet of flowers symbolically extended to them? It's like being asked out on a date by an entire state.

I arrived at my house at 2:30 a.m. last night. After a full track day at Thunderhill Raceway (extremely well run by Cal-Sportbike), I drove ten hours to go 600 miles. There was no way I'd sleep at another truck stop, not because it was unpleasant, but just because I was so "close" to home. Instead of feeling fried from wrestling the Monster all day, I was wound up all the way down I-5. Not until I was just a few miles from home did my eyelids hint of being weighted.

Today my only goals are to unload the truck, sort through a monstrous stack of mail, and deal with the landscaping gone mad.           

June 19, 2025
Reno is way way way huger than I remembered. That's what happens when you don't revisit a place for two decades. I didn't end up going into the city to look for Lt. Dangle; I was sufficiently shocked by the Vegas-style sprawl that I blew on by. Unsure when the next major rest stop would be where I could blend in and not be harrassed, I saw a sign that said "Boca Reservoir" with a little tent icon so I followed it. I ended up at a place with primitive campgrounds and pulled in. There was nowhere to perform the perfunctory pre-bed routine so I brushed my teeth in the cab of the truck and then went out to take a leak in the bushes. The night was cool and it was only going to get a good deal colder in the mountains, so I put on a few layers of clothes � two pairs of sox, even � and made my bed.

I froze my diaper-rashed ass off last night.

Between moments of sleep, I did my best to curl into the tightest fetal ball possible. The less moving I did, the less air movement there would be around my body. I put the hood on my jacket over my head and protected my face with my thin blanket. As the cold continued to make sleep difficult, I pulled out a small rug I use for lying on when I'm under the truck; I threw it on top of me and that created a decent barrier against the chill radiating off the window. I fell back into a tenuous sleep when something disturbed me back into the world. At first I couldn't figure out what it was. It dawns on me grimly and a mild anger rises: Lucky farted. Dammit! Like it wasn't a tough enough night. I was ready, though, matches within reach since he had fouled up the truck a few nights before. I struck three matches to combat his special smell of aged, intestinal death and eventually fell back asleep.

In the morning I got up to look for the ranger and pay him for my camping spot. He asked if I was the one who showed up late and I said yes. He said it didn't appear I had made any use of the campground so he waived the $13 park fee. It was a nice salve-like gesture for the night's cold wounding. 

June 18, 2025
Still on the road, still sleeping out of the truck. I've grown fond of the Flying J travel plazas because I'm guaranteed a clean restroom and they offer wifi to boot. Once you've used an impromptu "unisex" bathroom  (turned into such because the women's bathroom is broken) and have seen the overflowing garbage, smelled the piss-filled bucket under the urinal, and dealt with the patterned toilet seat, you just can't go back to average gas stations. For those of us who sleep out of our vehicles, all we wish for is a clean little oasis where matters of personal hygiene can be conducted. It's hard to feel like you've done a good job brushing your teeth when everything smells like ass.  

I'm enjoying the tour of America. Yeah, it's a long road with stretches of nothingness, but it's still interesting. Every time I come across a town in the middle of butt-fukc nowhere, I can't help but ask myself, "How did these people end up here?" I wonder if they're happy or just stuck. I wonder if they want to escape to a "big city" like Casper, Wyoming. Oddly enough, when I was in Casper getting gas, a rice rocket pulled up next to me blasting rap music. Where they hell have all the cowboys gone? When I'm in the midwest, I want to hear country music and see cowboy hats. I don't want more of the faux-ghetto-urban attitude that I saw too much of in Michigan and will go back to plenty of in California. C'mon midwestern states, we tourists want to see the Heartlanders in action. Take back the night and put your rifles on your gun racks already!

There's not much else to report except I seem to have a case of diaper rash from all this sitting and I pulled a tick off my neck this morning. How the hell it got there I haven't a clue. I saved it in a sandwich bag and it's my pet now. I think I will call it "Wyo" since I picked it up somewhere in Wyoming. I'd be more disgusted at finding a tick on me if it had been filled with my blood. As it stands, it had not yet had the chance to start giving me Lyme's Disease. Wyo probably jumped on me when I was in that nasty "unisex" bathroom; there's probably also a few roaches in my pockets that I haven't come across yet. 

It's noon now and I suppose I'll get to Reno, Nevada sometime this evening. I'm going to speed through town in hopes of getting pulled over by Lt. Jim Dangle... 

June 16, 2025
The front seat of a truck actually feels fantastic when you're trashed. I must've slept ten hours.

I hope I can see Mt. Rushmore ok. I woke up to heavy winds and lots of clouds. It would suck if everything above their chins were blanked out by a white cumulous wall. I need to hit the road and find coffee. I hope I can find wifi again before the trip's out.  

June 15, 2025
I found a campground with wifi � America is just too fukcing beautiful for words. 

Ok, so yesterday I left Mr. Michigan's house at around 1:00 pm. The trip was fine until I hit Chicago and it took me three hours to get through that bulging urban hell. One of those hours was spent eeking out maybe a total of five miles. As a tourist, I could at least appreciate gridlock because it gave me ample time to read the road signs. If I worked in Chicago, I'd just poke my eyes out so my license would get taken away from me and I could never drive again; that would take care of the commuting hell. 

I didn't get tired of driving till after midnight. When it seemed like a good idea to get a little sleep, I pulled into a truck stop, parked the truck, and closed my eyes. As soon as the sun was up, so was I; truck sleeping just doesn't lend itself to luxuriating in a semi-somnolent state. Maybe it's the half-upright position and all the hard plastic every which way you turn.

I got to the Badlands in South Dakota in the afternoon and drove through the park. It was a lot smaller than I had imagined. I thought it would've been an expansive wasteland like the Southern California desert. Still, it was worth driving through, especially since Mr. Michigan's ancestral homeland is South Dakota so maybe his family can claim they have some rights to the Badlands so we can one day take our DRZ400s out there and leave treadmarks all over the already-eroded hillsides and do some donuts on the fossil beds. I just don't think you've lived until you've been arrested by a ranger wearing one of those super cute hats. 

I was going to head over to Mt. Rushmore before the sun went down, but since I wasn't sure how long it would take for me to get there, I decided to stop for the day. That's when I came across this campground with the wifi on the edge of Rapid City. Now I can get my heavy fix of email.  

June 14, 2025
I leave tomorrow. I can't believe I've been a Michigander for six weeks. Mr. Michigan thinks Lucky has had a great time crapping in his backyard so I guess we'll have to come back soon.   

June 13, 2025
You can't get away from the big news, not even here: Michael Jackson was found not guilty of child molestation and various other charges. He was found not guilty because he went on trial for the wrong crime: He should've been put on trial for mutilation crimes, the victim being his face.

June 12, 2025
I looked at some home prices in Ukiah; not that great of a bargain for being so far from SF. Maybe I'll just sell my house and live out of a camper van. Sportsmobile had a display area at the SD Auto Show and I was really impressed by what they can do to a Ford van. After I left my first husband I lived out of the VW van (Westphalia camper model) for a while and I liked having my home follow me around. I figured I could keep my bikes at my mom's house and then park in the driveways of various friends who would have me. As long as I have a wired Starbucks I can work out of, I'm good to go with my job. Something about the lack of geographical commitment sounds fantastically liberating. No husband, no kids, no office-based job � just me slowly schlepping towards death. Why not see the U.S. in a van before the lights go out? 

June 11, 2025
Move away from San Diego? I entertain that notion yet again. Anybody live in Ukiah? I'm interested in the area because there are dirtbiking opportunities nearby. And if I lose my internet job, I'm sure I can easily get a job smashing grapes with my wide feet at one of the many local wineries. Ukiah also has the benefit of being just a little too far from Petaluma for my mom to show up unannounced on my doorstep. I'm partially motivated to sell my San Diego canyon home before a landslide takes care of it and it's worth nothing, or worse, I'm also somehow liable for the house that gets buried down below me. I suppose it's unlikely that my backyard will collapse, but then again I'm sure those people in Laguna Beach had no reason to believe their homes would ever take a ride.

June 9, 2025
I did a Michigan triathlon today: shooting, bowling, and drinking.

The highlight of shooting was getting off one round of a .50 caliber. The force twisted the gun half out of my hand and pivoted me 90 degrees � this after really having braced myself for the recoil. I suppose if I hadn't prepared myself, I'd have no front teeth right now. I hadn't bowled in a decade so that was a specific entertainment request on my part. Since Michigan sees snow five months out of the year, they've erected many bowling alleys to appease the God of Winter; it was hard to drive by so many of them and not enter one of these shrines while I was here. Finally, we closed out the night by drinking in a bar and watching the Pistons lose game 1 to the Spurs. At the bar one guy invited another gent out for a spirited round of fisticuffs in the parking lot, and even though they went outside, followed by a minor train of people, I believe blows were never exchanged. They both came back in bloodless and continued a verbal display with disregard for personal space. Eventually, it all quieted down and we were left to marvel at the rest of the intriguing clientele, particularly the she-man who was squeezed into a micro-skirt and cropped tee. I don't know what kind of guy she was trolling for, but I'm sure someone out there has a fetish for underclad burly women with shoulders as broad as the summer day is long.  

People who say that triathlons are physically challenging are just trying to fool you.

June 8, 2025
I just reset the clock on my departure date. It's going to be a week from today. I plan to do Thunderhill on June 20, so if I leave Wednesday I can drive casually west and get there Sunday night. I wouldn't mind actually seeing a tourist attraction or two on the trip home, like maybe that mountain with the enormogantical faces on it.

June 7, 2025
Virgin no more. I ate it. I had to take a pic of the packaging, which was the cutest damn thing. I put a quarter in the pic to show the size of the box; they're the premature babies of hamburger. Taste? I enjoyed it, but I also drink saccharin mixed into ice water. They could've served me moistened particle board with onions and I wouldn't have balked. If I may make a sweeping racist statement, I don't think Chinese have very good taste buds because famine is status quo in so many parts of China; hence, for our own good, our taste buds have not evolved to register a range of flavors. Case in point: the 1,000-year-old-egg. It's great for people with no refrigeration but need a way to store eggs for weeks and weeks and weeks. Just bury it in the ground and eat much, much later... like about when you're starving to death! Smells and tastes like ass, but we're feast-or-famine folks so thank god we have no taste buds! I rest my case.

June 6, 2025
The one-week countdown starts. I leave next Monday. I had a bunch of routine maintenance done on the truck and I even cleaned the Slurpee spooge I somehow flung down the inside of the windshield � I get pretty excited when I drink Slurpees. Yesterday there was this dad and his two kids lollygagging in front of the machine. The kid was taking forever to get his Slurpee and the dad wasn't doing anything to move things along. It was over 90 degrees and 60% humidity and I had just finished a run; I had severe, painful lust in my heart for a Slurpee. And that kid...he was the only thing standing between me and Nature's Most Perfect Food. It was about the closest I had ever come to knocking a kid over. Kids might be cute if they're yours, but put one between a stranger and a Slurpee machine on a hot day and there's probably going to be a police report involved.         

June 5, 2025
I've seen more thunderstorms in the past five weeks then I have in the past decade of living in California. This meteorology shit is entertaining, so imagine my delight at learning there was a tornado warning today. Bring it on! I don't live here so it's not my roof getting torn off. This evening when I was walking Lucky, we only made it a block from the house when the weather turned upside-down. A calm, balmy evening was obliterated by a sudden turbulent and directionless wind that insta-sucked the black clouds from the distance to right over my head. Lightning began to strike and I thought about aborting the walk until I realized what a fantabulistic blog entry I'd have if I got zapped! It might hurt to type with blackened nubs instead of fingers, but I'd be doing it for all of you out there.  

June 4, 2025
I don't understand why putting your elbows on the table while you're eating is bad. Leaning into your food and enjoying it seems like the most natural thing to do. But I suppose etiquette is all about stifling what is natural to prove we're better than a dirty lower order animal who doesn't know how smashing a silk ascot looks with a smoking jacket.

June 3, 2025
Plodding of dialogue it had, Return of the Sith. But finally, saw how his face got fukced up, Anakin Skywalker, my delight to it was. My grandmother, like Yoda, she looked; but with green skin and pointy ears not � everything else, yes. And Padm� Amidala? Name of a Thai dish, that is.

June 2, 2025
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia created by the Internet community, can be edited by people like me. I can go in and change the meaning of "ethnic cleansing" from "forcibly removing people of another ethnic group" to "a bunch of Chinese people showering." The horror: People putting their intellectual trust in people like me.

June 1, 2025
From today's news: Apollo moon mission astronaut Neil Armstrong has threatened to sue a barbershop owner who collected Armstrong's hair after a trim and sold it for $3,000.

That's why I haven't had anyone cut my hair in 15 years; I've been living in fear that someone will profit from my mane, which has superpowers such as the Cloak of Invisibility and Ogre Enchantment. But, as I get older and feel more charitable about sharing my gift, I no longer feel a deep fear of someone profiting from my protein cast-offs. In fact, I think I'd like to profit from it. Who wants to buy a lock of my hair? Just a small clutch of it and a 12-sided die will give you powers of abjuration, divination, transmutation...more! Bidding begins at a bag of M&Ms, and I'm talking about that huge bag from Costco. E-mail me now and submit a bid � be the necromancer you've always wanted to be!

May 31, 2025
I've been asked if I'm ever returning to California. The answer is yes and the current departure date is Monday June 13. It's longer than I had originally planned to stay, but since I drove all this way and Mr. Michigan hasn't dropped any hints about too many feminine protection products in his bathroom, I'm going to overstay my welcome. Let's all see how he deals with the suffocating presence of a woman at the one month milestone. Good luck Mr. Michigan � my six-week plan to suck your soul dry is right on track.

May 30, 2025
My laptop took a dump on me and I'm getting things sorted out. In the meantime, I offer you a shot from downtown Detroit where there are a lot of abandoned buildings. I really like the one where someone(s) painted artwork on the plywood that boards up all the windows. In total, it's a pretty impressive visual piece.

May 25, 2025
Reader Robb told me my blog was losing its edge. Is Michigan making me soft? Ok, just to show that life continues to be a dangerous challenge for me despite the protective male presence, here's a pic of my bloody heel, which I tore open yesterday by ramming the office chair into it. To keep your continued attention, next week I'm going to show you how my eye looks dangling from its socket; as a by-product you'll also learn another use for an ice cream scooper.    

May 24, 2025
How do you know you're in Car Country? When the American manufacturers' regional TV commercials feature buying incentives for employees and their families. Doesn't seem like a bad idea to target a market who would benefit from the company's success; seems to me they'd be predisposed to accepting the offer. Maybe San Diego Zoo should offer employees 0% financing on the exotic animal of their choice. Might free up some room for new and more interesting animals.   

May 23, 2025
I got up at 4:00 this morning to drive to Grattan Raceway, about three hours from here if you stick to the speed limit. Rain was expected today, but when I got to the track, the sky was fantastically blue. I had heard the track was tight and technical, but I wasn't prepared for all the blind turns. The first session was the usual "head up the ass" exercise: you try to sort out the lines, the entry speeds and the turning points, which was made all that much spookier by not being able to see where you'd end up. The second session was much better but I started dragging the sidestand through a left-hander so I removed it for the third session. In the third session I thought I was dragging the footpegs, but after finding no grind marks on them I looked at the Staintunes, which were scraped at the front. I've never dragged the cans and I suspect the off-camber turns were a huge contributor. For the next session I was going to work on later turn-ins to try to stay off the exhausts, but the rain came with a vengeance and ended the day. Too bad, as I went from thinking this track was pure evil to very entertaining.

Here's a shot of Pogo leaned up against the wall waiting for his next session. I really like the contrast of the red on the gray, as well as the contrast of new against old. It's wallpaper size just in case you really really needed to have Pogo on your desktop so you could live another day feeling fulfilled. 

May 22, 2025
Went out with some sportbikers for a ride in the Pinckney area. If there's one thing I learned today, it's that when I get home I need to ride up to Palomar, get off my bike, and lick the ground to pay homage. Although today's ride was enjoyable, the action wasn't sustained. We'd go through a few fun curves and then ride a straight line for a while until we hit another few turns. We did have to turn back early because of impending rain, but I doubt anything I missed today could have compared to the rider's all-you-can-eat buffet of eastern San Diego county. No more complaints about cops, cows, gravel, Sunday drivers or whatever out of me; I am now officially grateful for the selection we have.

May 21, 2025
I went to load my mountain bike and found that the rear tire was flat. See? I'm not always a pathetic girl; even the guy at the bike shop pinched the tube. I brought it back and he fixed it straightaway. I learned that the guy was legally blind and has to wear $1,300 telescopic eyeglasses to drive. That explains why he pinched the tube: He probably couldn't see where the tire ended and the rim started.  

So they close a part of Hines Road (a park/flood zone like the Sepulveda basin in LA) every Saturday. I thought, "Great, I'm going to do it end-to-end." I'm not sure, but a round trip is something like 40 miles. With my street-friendly tires, I set out on my mission. A few hours later, my pooter was broken. My legs were ok, but I could barely sit for the last five miles. Mr. Michigan had written something a while back that I find very appropriate:

You may have heard of bike seats making your junk numb. This is not a rumor. This past summer I rode my bike a lot. When I first got my new bike the seat was poorly adjusted and after about an hour of riding I had NO feeling in my most intimate of areas. For several days when I urinated I got the disturbing sensation that I was clutching somebody else's hog.

I actually wish I had just gone numb. Instead, the intersection of my legs enjoyed an impressive blend of numbness, burning, and bruising pain. My only consolation is that I don't have to hold anything to urinate, so I won't have to think I'm "clutching somebody else's hog."    

May 20, 2025
I tried swapping out my knobby tires on my mountain bike for street tires since I've only been doing pavement lately. Mountain bike tires plain suck ass, and the lower profile street tires are even suck assier. I pinched the tube trying to get it on so I gave up and took the wheels to a nearby shop and told them to do it. Why hasn't bike tire technology advanced to the point where they make something you can get on and off without having to say FUKC FUKC FUKC and throwing tire irons across the garage?  

May 19, 2025
I'm not sure how other states are, but in California, we tend to mark property boundary lines fairly clearly, usually with fences or hedges. In other states I've visited, I've noticed the need to demarcate is not as severe. Is it because California property is so expensive and you want to make sure you've claimed every inch of it? Or do we tend to have more aggressive dogs (Cracker!) that need to be fenced in? Anyhoo, I like erecting fences to keep people out of my personal space. I think Mexico actually has it right with the enclosed compounds they build with nasty shards from broken bottles embedded on top of the walls. I'm not misanthropic, I'm just introspectively solitary and easily annoyed by humans.  

May 18, 2025
I'm riding the Monster at Grattan Raceway on Monday. Problem is, they don't allow dogs so I need to figure out what to do with Lucky. I suppose I could leave him in Mr. Michigan's backyard all day, but I'm a little worried he'll go off on one of his stupid barking jags. I did bring his shock collar so maybe he'll just have to wear that all day and mind his p's and q's. Or maybe if I left him in the back of my covered truck all day no one will notice he's there. When I wrap a sheet around his head he could easily be mistaken for a hairy woman wearing a burka. 

May 17, 2025
Californians, we are here.

May 16, 2025
People from Michigan like to point out where a city is by using an open hand. This is how I learned Michigan is shaped like an oven mitt. So where is San Diego on one's body? Find out tomorrow.

May 15, 2025
I fixed my mileage chart. Although I am Asian, I had my Mathematics Skill License revoked at a fairly young age so my prowess with numbers is not so good. I thought it was odd that the average gas cost was under two bucks a gallon, but I did not have the wherewithal to ferret out the errant numbers. Anyway, the email I got on my error reassures me that there are people out there scrutinizing this blog, so I need to either keep my lies to a minimum, or write them down so I remember them. 

May 14, 2025
I don't know about other states in which it snows, but Michigan is resplendent with potholes because of the damage the freeze-thaw process causes. I got car sick during a 45 minute straight-line drive thanks to the endless jostling. Our destination was Rochester Hills on Mother's Day to have dinner with Mr. Michigan's parents. During the drive he was talking to me and at some point his voice was going blah blah blah woof woof woof and I knew I was in trouble. I told him I didn't feel well, leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I thought there was a chance I'd get out of the car and vomit on his parents' front lawn. Citizens of the PRK, and especially Petalumans who thought they had it bad, by comparison we live in a land where our vehicles skim across a glass surface.   

May 13, 2025
I didn't end up driving the route I showed in my April 30 entry. At the very last minute I had this weird gut feeling that told me to take the southern route (I-15, I-40, I-35, I-80, I-94). The first night I slept at a Motel 6 in Kingman, AZ and on the second night I slept at a gas station for a few hours in Tonkawa, OK. Here's the final mileage analysis. Of course, no road trip is complete without an awards ceremony:

Bumpiest Freeway: I-40 through Oklahoma City. Fortunately I drove through there at midnight and could drop down to 50 mph so I wouldn't lose the Monster. If ever the truck and I thought we had died and become a basketball, that was it. I wasn't the only one suffering; a truck towing a small trailer was going no faster.

Worst Freeway: I-80 through Chicago. Ten miles of hellish road construction filled with semis using up every inch of their narrowed lanes. Bumpy, too, but I wasn't too worried about losing the Monster since it would most likely get run over by several semis and not hurt anyone.

Prettiest Stretch: I-40 through the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico, and that's because hostile desolation is my preferred landscape.

State of Despair: Michigan. I drove I-94 totally in the dark and I thought I would never reach my destination, as midnight gained on me and repeated calls to Mr. Michigan resulted in the assessment, "Um, you're still a ways off." I was only excited by the site of Battle Creek, MI, home of Tony the Tiger and the best/worst cereal ever created: Frosted Flakes. A little sucrose-aided hyperactivity to start your day, sweetheart?

Biggest Surprise: Not a single person mistreated the Chinaman On The Loose through the midwest. Having encountered racial issues on other road trips, I was pleased that people were nice to me.

Biggest Surprise, II: I enjoyed the drive. I saw a lot of America, and it was surprisingly bereft of cops and people.  

May 12, 2025
Road trip moment: I was stopped at a "travel center" in Kansas taking a break. I let Lucky out of the truck and we walked over to a grassy area where he sniffed around and took a leak. As we were walking back to the truck, he decided to stop at the McDonald's, squat, and take a dump right in front of the drive-thru pick-up window. I must admit I was too embarrassed to see if someone was in the window watching him make his own McNuggets. Maybe that's Lucky's way of saying he prefers Burger King?  

May 11, 2025
Mr. Michigan is always goofing on Chinese restaurant names so I made up this Chinese dish generator to show how fun and easy it is to create your own names for dishes you should be able to order from your nearest Lucky Wok or Imperial Peking House. And thank you Mr. Michigan for pointing out my lopsided Kmart picture. What's it to you if I really do have an inner-ear problem?

May 10, 2025
Garden City, where I am staying, is home to the very first Kmart. Being a proud Kmart shopper � through the bankruptcy and through the Martha Stewart hiccup � I had to go in and feel the history. I thought the store would be a little shabby having been open since 1962, but it turned out to be in even better shape than the one near my home. And the cars in the lot? All American except for one Hyundai. I'm willing to bet that particular shopper was assessed a special foreign-car-in-parking-lot surcharge.    

May 9, 2025
I just learned from the local news that if a Michigan county has a population over 130k, it's illegal to sell automobiles on Sunday in that county. It's some law on the books that originated in the 50s and there were a few reasons given on why it existed (nobody knows for sure) but they were all lame. You'd think the Big Three would be fighting to be able to sell cars every second of every day. If I were president of Ford, I'd get my cronies in D.C. to pass a law whereby only Fords could be purchased on days ending in Y. Not enough clever protectionist lawyers at work in Detroit.    

May 5, 2025
Still can't tell you much about Michigan. I've been sitting at my laptop working most of my days away, playing catch-up on some projects. I do have a question about sidewalks. When they disappear like this, can I keep walking straight � presumably across someone's lawn � or am I supposed to go out into the street? I already had to flip off a car driver because we didn't agree on merging protocol; I don't need a homeowner filling me with buckshot because they have different sidewalk protocol.

May 4, 2025
Friends, I arrived safely in Michigan. I am buried in work and have a lot of catching up to do so here's a brief summary: I drove for 2.5 days. In total I may have slept eight hours; I was just so wound up from the whole experience I wasn't sleepy so I kept driving and driving and driving. I rarely exceeded the speed limit because the freeways were surprisingly unsmooth and I spent half the trip staring in the rearview to see where in our great nation the Monster would hurl to its death. You don't really appreciate the art of road maintenance until you have 400+ pounds suspended on a trailer hitch, stress-testing bolts, welds, and tie-downs. One comment about the distance: Objects on a map ARE MOST DEFINITELY NOT closer than they may appear...

April 30, 2025
I'm almost all packed and ready for my road trip. I have no worries because any journey in an enclosed vehicle is easy; even if the truck breaks down I still have shelter. All I need are my maps and a case of No Doz to make it a pleasant drive. 

April 29, 2025
Would you buy your pεnsion plan from somεonε unwilling to buy εxtra Es for thεir businεss mεssagε? How about lεtting thεm anywhεrε nεar your mortgagε? I don't think I'd εvεn lεt thεsε clowns pull my wεεds. 

April 28, 2025
Is there a single person out there who owns the album "I Want Too Much" by A House? If you do, I'll pencil you in for future ex-husband #4. Think that's silly? I married my first husband because he had The Replacement's "All Shook Down." You telling me you got a better way of picking spouses? I'd like to hear it. While we're talking about music, are you looking for a change of pace? Check out Hayseed Dixie's "A Hillbilly Tribute to AC/DC." Fantabulous, particularly for those of us who live for interesting covers.   

April 27, 2025
I went to AAA to get a tour guide so I could look up places to stay along my route. Since they didn't have one comprehensive book for the US, the woman asked me which states I'd be traveling through. It was a pop quiz! I got an F because I didn't have a clue. The only thing that came into my head was "flat," "corn" and "rectangular-shaped." I've looked at my US map a bunch of times and I still couldn't remember which states I was going to drive through, that's the type of mental block I have for geography.

In defense of my ignorance, Reader Mike was kind enough to own up to this: "I live in Richmond, Va and anything other than the original 13 colonies is out west and anything above Virginia might as well be Canada." I'm not the only one who applies the mathematical approach of "rounding up" to all aspects of life so that it's tidy and manageable. Frankly, it works! I've made it this far in life without a single nervous breakdown. The less you force yourself to know, the less stress you have to deal with.  

April 26, 2025
You know how the rest of the world goofs on Americans because we don't know crap about where anything is on the globe? That's kind of like how the rest of America views Californians. Reader Paul, PRK resident originally from MA wrote: "Now I know you weren't insinuating that Michigan is actually on the Atlantic, but whenever I hear someone from CA talk about heading east, I get the impression they think anything past the California state line is on the east coast." Paul, that is a damn close observation, but not quite correct: Anything on the other side of the Rockies is the east coast. Nevada and Arizona for sure are not the east coast because they have cactus. To be brutally, self-humiliatingly honest with you, these are the only states I don't have to consult a map to know where they are: Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Probably New Mexico, but I can't commit. I am by no means proud of my ignorance, but time-consuming tasks like eating tofu, working on my tan, and packing my belongings in anticipation of the next wildfire preclude me from having extra time to learn things that normal people should know.

April 25, 2025
Hello from "Enron by the sea," where our beleaguered mayor resigned today amidst a financial crisis. What do I think of his resignation? As long as I can still buy coffee somewhere in this town, I don't care.

Cracker is spending her first night at Chris's place. Ordinarily, such a transition would not be an issue, but Chris's girlfriend has a dog and Cracker despises other quadrupeds; that is, until she was put on the recent mental readjustment program. The other dog is around two and a little overly enthusiastic, which has a tendency to set off dogs recovering from aggression issues. I gotta say I felt a bit sad leaving Cracker behind. Just when I think I've got this cold and heartless routine down, I'm reminded that my insides are made out of cotton candy and that I can get as weepy as the next girl. I do have strong maternal instincts...just not for my own species!

April 24, 2025
Did anybody else notice that the new pope was "installed" today? Installed? That's a pretty undignified verb. Kings are coronated, presidents are inaugurated, ambassadors are appointed, hall-of-famers are inducted...even debutantes are debuted. Per all the news reports, the pope was installed, not unlike a common car stereo or water faucet. Maybe "install" lost its translation from something glorious in Latin like, "celestially anointed by His own very sizzling fingertip of divineness." If so, it got really, really lost.    

April 23, 2025
Chris and I finished the airbag installation on my truck late Friday night (quite rightfully, he had me do as much of the crap work as possible). Today I reattached the Versahauler and with the airbag psi at 30, the truck rides well. I think the Monster will be ok hanging off the truck on my road trip. I guess now's as good a time as any to let ya'll know I'm heading back east for a month. Mr. Michigan is showing promise as a future ex-husband so I'm extending him the courtesy of a second interview. I know, you're all thinking that I'm not even divorced from the current one yet, but why put off till tomorrow what you can take care of today? Marriage kicks ass because once you legally latch on to someone, you can totally let yourself go and they're obligated to stick it out with you as long as possible. Sweet.            

April 22, 2025
Happy Earth Day. I suppose some good stuff like increased awareness of not putting used car batteries upside-down in your neighbor's compost pile can be credited to this day, but the only real important thing is that this day inspired "What are we gonna do?" by Dramarama.

It's April 21st and everybody knows today is Earth Day
Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday to whoever's being born.
And now I'm trying hard to think of something
meaningful and worthy, kind of earthy
to make everybody ask themselves just
What are we doing here?
And what are we doing to her?
I don't know
What are we gonna do?

What I don't know is why the band has Earth Day on April 21st. I think it's some pick-your-time-zone thing like Chinese New Year. 

April 21, 2025
Chris and I started installing the airbags on my truck this afternoon. What a shit job! It's 9:30 and I'm about to return to his shop for round 2. Not sure if we'll get it done tonight. 

April 20, 2025
The latest Las Vegas "What happens here, stays here" TV commercial shows a woman introducing herself to a variety of men using different names. In one instance she introduces herself as "Zina" and the guy incredulously asks "Zina?" Of course she means Xena, Warrior Princess, but it's still phonetically the same so I always stop and watch that commercial just to hear her say my name. One of the first radio commercials for the show Xena had some angry brute bellowing out "Xena must die!" Imagine going from never hearing your name to having someone say you must die.      

April 19, 2025
I've been asked why the cigarette logos on the Ducati Marlb*ro Team bikes and leathers are whited out. Marlb*ro is sensitive to the fact that what they sell is villified. They want to reach an audience, but they have to do it in a way that doesn't attract undue attention in the wrong quarters. That's tricky. They don't want to be in everyone's face saying, "We're here, we're good with beer, get used to it!" But they also have a product to sell.

On the web site we're allowed to show the Marlb*ro logo as long as it's run with a news story, a "just the facts, ma'am" presentation of events that occurred based on the press release. However, the photogallery that we create is not technically a news story; it's something created for entertainment/archival purposes and therefore Marlb*ro requires us to remove their logo from the images.

Why would a company pay millions for their product to be exposed, but then ask for their name to be removed? It's an incredibly delicate blend of marketing, money, politics, and public opinion. Too deep for me to get into here.

Race fans know that cigarette advertising is banned in certain countries like England, France and the US, so that makes our job a little easier when building those galleries. Intead of blanking out their name in those countries, Gauloises chooses to put "Go!!!!!!!" on their bikes (same number of characters). I think the blank space should not go to waste. Everyone should do what Ben did for me in those countries where the logo is not allowed.

April 18, 2025
Chris and I are working on transitioning Cracker back into his life. Reader Greg recommended I read "The Dog Listener" for some insight into Cracker's malfunction and I think it's really helped. Chris hangs out at his shop all day and all she wants to do is stare at him anyways, so today I dropped her and her crate off at his work so she could start getting used to her new environment. Not having Cracker also gives me the chance to let Lucky have a little more fun in his downhill years. Cracker made it impossible for me to take him to the dog park since all she wanted to do was eviscerate everything that came near her pack.     

April 17, 2025
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, "I'm with you, kid. Let's go." -Maya Angelou. Happy birthday Ox Boy... grab that lapel and gO!

April 16, 2025
Hot damn, there are tryouts going on right now for a women's pro football league just a couple of miles from my house (18 teams across the country!). The local team is called So Cal Scorpions and since I'm a Scorpio I think I'm entitled to play QB. The women are paid $25 per game. That's not a typo; there are no zeros on that number. However, they do get a bonus based on results at the end of the season...maybe $100 and a handful of tokens for Boomers so they can use the batting cages? Watching the tryouts has given me a burning desire to throw the ball. Anybody in SD want to play catch? Male or female ok as long as you can throw so we don't have to stand ten feet apart. While I'm trolling, can anybody out there hit a tennis ball?

April 15, 2025
A moment of silence for tax day...if I had a flag I'd fly it at half staff for all the money that flies away from me this day every year. I would also like to take this time to apologize to everyone who has written me email and not received a response. I was good about answering everything when the volume wasn't too heavy, but there's just enough flow now that I can't seem to keep up with that, this site, work, and all the other tasks that demand my attention. Don't be surprised if you've written me and get a reply a few months later.   

April 14, 2025
Wanna buy a 125 race bike?

April 13, 2025
This morning a trucker fell asleep at the wheel and flipped his truck on the I-8 to I-805 transition, dumping 80,000 pounds of frozen chicken. My question is, do they throw out all that chicken? I live pretty close to that interchange and I would've been glad to hop on my bike, go to the scene, and take a couple of those whole fryers off their hands for them. Even if they had dirt on them, I would've rinsed them off and worked with them.

April 12, 2025
Dasani's latest ad slogan is lame: "Water that makes your mouth water." C'mon. Coffee makes my mouth water. Slurpees make my mouth water. Pretty boys make my mouth water. Water? Water is for rinsing shit out of my teeth or for staving off renal failure. Dasani, and all the other frou-frou water bottlers, can take their overpriced tap water and shove it in their reverse osmosis holes.    

April 10, 2025
The MotoGP season started. I didn't see the race but I know the outcome. Congratulations to Ducati for starting out the season with two injured riders. The series is too easy to begin with; only real men do it with fractures. Ok, maybe Rossi could still win with his skull split in half and his brains held on by the stem (whether he needs to do a last-lap punt or not) but I'll bet none of the other bride's maids could. 

April 9, 2025
Corral Canyon is rain-eroded evil in spots. I spent the ride trying to keep up with Mr. Michigan until we got to the hard section, when I asked him to stay behind me so he could pick up the bike when I dumped it. This isn't any sort of crap about self-fulfilling prophecy where if I think I will dump it, of course I will. It is merely an acknowledgement of the Vegas odds. I flopped the bike on one particular stretch that resulted in a slightly damaged radiator. It didn't leak, but the little heat dissipation thingies (Suzuki tech term) were dorked up. I don't believe Mr. Michigan dropped it once, despite his velocitied fervor. It disturbs me that men are born with dirtbiking genes and women aren't. Why do feminists care about salary inequality but not blatant dirtbiking biological favoritism?

April 8, 2025
A friend is visiting from Michigan. Our plan is to ride DRZs at Corral Canyon tomorrow so I went to Britt and John-Mark's place to pick up their trailer. After we had dinner, John-Mark looked at my truck and asked me where the ballmount is. Okay, so here is the point where my "hopeless single female" status hits me: I don't have a ballmount. I didn't think to get one. Chris always handled the towing needs. I figured since I managed to use a Versauler, the trailer would just hook to the rear some way or another. Wow, what a fukctard moment.

April 7, 2025
Thanks to the readers who clarified that Monaco is a principality and not a kingdom; therefore they can't have a king, although if I were a prince of a municipality wouldn't I be at the top of the food chain and couldn't I just proclaim my place to be a kingdom and make myself king? Like what army is going to come into Monaco and rough it up?

April 6, 2025
Prince Rainier of Monaco died. First, I want to know why he was just prince and never king. There was no one ahead of him; he succeeded his grandfather, who also had the title of prince. Is it more romantic to use the underdog's title? Now, onto the real problem with his death: How will this affect the MotoGP race on Sunday? Thanks to the absence of income tax, several rich MotoGP racers have made their home there. Will the loss of their leader cause an emptiness in their heart that will result in diminished focus at the Jerez season opener? I'm especially worried about Troy; I'll bet he needs some canoodling right now to ease his pain.

April 5, 2025
Why should I wash my hair if I don't leave the house for days?

April 4, 2025
I pointed out a big spider walking across the floor and tried to get Cracker to eat it but she wouldn't. She likes smashing flies on the window and eating those. Why the selectivity? Does one insect taste like chicken while another doesn't?

April 3, 2025
I don't know what pope requirements are, but if nobody minds, I'd like to throw my hat into the ring. Here are my qualifications:

•  I am compassionate. If you were a leper and needed a hug, I'd do it. With the last name of Powers and I am shielded from mortal diseases that afflict average people with average names.
�  I can wave. I know an important part of the pontiff's role is to wave at people. I have a super-crisp, positive wave and I will also give the thumbs up, at least in countries where that doesn't mean "Shove it up your ass."
�  I will spread the word of the bible. But first, I need to figure out if I'm supposed to capitalize bible or not. After that I'll read it and then spread the word. Has it been made into a movie yet? Maybe I'll watch it and recount the action scenes.
�  I can wear white. I noticed the pope wore a lot of white. I prefer black but I can definitely learn to wear white if there's interesting embroidery on it.
�  My mother is Catholic. I think it buys me something, like dual-citizenship. My father was Buddhist Lite, but since he claimed to be other stuff like a Freemason, his influence is easily cancelled out.      
•  I have deep faith. I especially believe that with the way I ride I am long overdue for a ticket.

April 2, 2025
I rode up to Palomar today; the people at Mother's are accustomed to seeing Chris and me together. One of the ladies asked if I was alone today and I said, "Yes, Chris had to work." It just seems so much easier to lie than tell people I'm marginally acquainted with that I got a divorce. I don't care in the least about the "divorce stigma," but I do care about having to deal with people's awkwardness as they stumble for the right words to say. The first time I got asked about Chris was at Baja Fresh a few months back and I was so caught off guard that I think I blushed and stuttered pretty hard before coming up with the "too much work" excuse.  

April 1, 2025
The test results are back on my ethnic background: I'm part Southern Chinese and part Shar-Pei. The Shar-Pei part explains why I've been such a poor pack leader and why Cracker is misbehaving. Who can relinquish alpha control to a dog whose key features are wrinkles and a blue tongue? I sure wouldn't.

March 31, 2025
Just about every week I go to lunch with a friend. We go to the same place and eat the same french toast for lunch. This week there was a table of girls nearby. One had the thong thing going and the funny part was that she had a thumb hooked in her pants trying to get them to ride down even lower. Unfortunately, the show was wasted on me and not a rich young La Jolla man who was looking for sexual semaphores via string underwear.

March 30, 2025
Happy Birthday, Troy Bayliss, you snaggle-toothed devil. I don't care if you're on a H*nda; beat the shit out of them all. Alex P and I will smoke all the Camels we can to make sure you have replacement fairings throughout the year. 

March 29, 2025
I'm sure I covered this topic before, but I'm going to cover it again: I hate phones. I don't answer my home phone, and I don't usually answer my cell phone. Both are for emergencies or pseudo-emergencies or heavy obligations. If someone wants to contact me, they usually have to go through email. According to all the TV commercials I see for phone services, people love talking! Endlessly! I must have some personality disorder. I think I will call it "Zina Thinks People Don't Get To The Point Fast Enough So She Hates The Phone" disorder.  

March 28, 2025
My first ex contacted me out of the blue with a motorcycle question on behalf of a friend. I wrote back and told him about my marital status and that I was reverting back to his potato-farming surname for aesthetic reasons. His comment was "Even among shanty Irish (where it really counts) Powers is preferred over Kelley every time." I may not have always selected the right men in my life, but damned if they didn't at least all have a sense of humor.

March 27, 2025
It's Easter and people are having get-togethers all around this fine country. For this occasion, I present to you a new recipe.

March 26, 2025
I almost got my windows removed yesterday. There's this problem with my house number. It's the same number as another house with the exact same street name except mine is DRIVE and the other is PLACE. So everybody looking for that house comes to mine because it's the first one you come across; the other one is a half block away at the end of the cul-de-sac. I have a note on my door telling delivery people and workmen to double check the address because odds are they have it wrong. This usually sends them off in the right direction. But yesterday a work truck pulls up, moves my garbage cans out of the way, and pulls into the driveway. They start unloading tools from their truck. I go out and say, "You want Place, don't you?" The answer, of course, was yes. The workman apologized profusely and said, "You almost got new windows!"

March 25, 2025
What do Marty Feldman, the San Francisco State University gator mascot and a drugged-up Cracker have in common? Look here for the answer. If it's not totally apparent to you what's up, ask yourself, "Which eyeball should I be looking at when I talk to him or her?" In Cracker's case, the two big brown spots usually point forward, but it appears the meds anaesthetized her eye-pointing muscles.   

March 24, 2025
I feel terrible. I had to be away from home a few hours this morning so I gave Cracker a vet-prescribed sedative. When I got home, she fell off the dog couch and staggered over to me, making equal amounts of lateral-to-forward progress. I had only given her half a pill with some dog food, so I was taken aback by her condition. I'd think twice about using sedatives on her, but the anti-anxiety meds alone aren't working and she recently bloodied her feet up trying to escape. She's done it a few times and one day she'll probably put out an eye or disembowel herself trying to get over the fence. I'll need to find a medication balance point where she's not suicidally crazy, but also not Johnny Depp-channeling-Keith Richards. 

March 23, 2025
With regards to Terri Schiavo, some folks say we can't play God and pull her feeding tube. Isn't it actually more playing God to be inserting a feeding tube? I don't recall being born with one, myself. With all you as my witnesses, I do hereby declare now should the day come: Pull my feeding tube. I don't drink stuff like Ensure and I sure don't want it pumped in through my belly button when there's no more motorcycle riding or snorting at Reno 911 to be had in my lifetime.      

March 22, 2025
I finally did the write-up on American Supercamp. This is what happens when you don't have kids; you document things ad nauseum because no one will tell fantastic oral stories about you after you're dead. It's your job to write it down yourself.

March 21, 2025
Cracker did this to my front door. She and I go to the vet's today to see what type of Class III sedative I can put her on. I hope Chris can step up and love and adopt her (she adores him and I think the divorce has caused her mental problems) because I am this close to clubbing her like a baby harp seal.  

March 20, 2025
And the honesty award goes to the just-deceased John DeLorean: "I enjoy the company of attractive women. I've always had a tendency to associate with women who were dramatically less educated than I."

March 19, 2025
When you're speeding in one direction and a cop going in the other direction points at you, is he telling you to speed up even more because if you don't, he'll turn around and come after you? Thought so. And god bless whoever decided we needed Caprice-unfriendly concrete medians on Montezuma Road.

March 18, 2025
The postal carrier suspects that something is up. He normally says, "Hello Mrs. Kelley," but yesterday he greeted me as "Ma'am." He's probably noticed the lack of Chris Kelley mail and didn't want to traumatize me by saying the name. If he ever says "Mrs. Kelley" again maybe I'll burst out in tears to see what he does. Although if I do that I'm sure he'll save up my mail so he only has to come near my house once a week. 

March 17, 2025
Only 71 days after I first had a burning desire to do it, I returned to the batting cages today. As you can see, it was another brutally harsh winter day in the land of palm trees and unaffordable homes.  

March 16, 2025
Why do female news anchors like to poof up the back part of their hair? You're not going to fake us out and make us think your brain is bigger than normal and your hair is growing over some large cranial "power hump." And I'm not sure about the rest of the country, but we've got a few anchorwomen chunking their hair. It's distracting. I don't see a newsperson delivering the news; I see a box of Loreal F�ria "Bleach Blast" home haircoloring kit talking at me. 

March 15, 2025
Esteemed colleagues, I am behind on my life. Lots of work and personal web site pages to catch up on. I'd like to do a separate page on American Supercamp because I found it very interesting, so details on that will be forthcoming. Because you rely on me daily for something thoughtful, I ask this: Why do inmates who go before the judge stick their handcuffed hands down the front of their pants? We know you're shackled so give it up. It looks worse with your hands there, like you're a fondler. Just be all the arrested suspect you can be and show those cuffs – it's haute couture in some circles.      

March 13, 2025
I'm attending American Supercamp today. The class starts at 3:00 and runs till 11:00 pm. After that I'll pound the Vivarin and make the two-hour drive back to San Diego. If my heart hasn't exploded by then, I'll get some sleep and do it again on Monday. 

March 12, 2025
The first AMA Superbike race of the season was today. I won't say much about it except [semi-spoiler coming...] Eboz must be the most depressed guy in the paddock right now. Here's my advice to the lad: Get yourself a big bowl of popcorn, sit down in front of the TV, watch some 2004 MotoGP reruns in which Neil never even gets into the points (there's many to choose from!), and shake it off. Life is too short to go mental. Especially when you're paid good money not to.

March 11, 2025
In response to the March 8 entry, Reader Greg wrote the following: "Who knew there was free shwag involved in giving you a ride from the airport? At least give others an opportunity; I�m sure there are some of us who are the same size as your ex and could use free stuff. I mean, I�m in Seattle, so I�d need a few days notice before picking you up at the airport. Hey, for free shwag, sometimes it can be worth it." Ok, so next time I need a ride home from the airport around midnight, I'm going to throw this opportunity wide open to all of you. If you have any hint of being an entertaining chauffeur, I will not only drag back a sweatshirt, but a Ducati Corse pen and pencil set.

March 10, 2025
Yesterday I was driving on a surface street when I heard a funky clunk and rattle rattle rattle. I looked over at this generic Honda going by and thought, "Hey dopey, I think your hubcap just took a walk!" As I was washing my truck today guess who was missing her hubcap. So much for being a smug bastard who thinks her shit is tight. Now if only I can remember where that clunk-and-rattle occurred, I might be able to find my hubcap nesting in some pampas grass in a median strip.

March 9, 2025
Reader Melissa, who lives in Minneapolis, home base of Northwest, enlightened me about that airline's slogan: "We're not happy till you're not happy!" Now I see why that woman became unglued. I thought it was just because she had personal problems at home, but now I understand her conduct was corporate policy.

In airplane-related news, a Cessna crashed while taking off from Bologna airport, killing all five on board. I'm no actuarial type, but after that happened, I felt there was no way two planes could crash out of the same airport within days of each other so I was completely ready for the hardcore KLM pilots to take off in the most vicious snowstorm, should they have felt so compelled.

March 8, 2025
Chris picked me up from the airport last night; in exchange for a ride home I bought him a Ducati pullover. We might not be married, but damned if we don't know how to barter for services. Walking into my own home was great after a two week absence except for one thing: the place smelled like it was inhabited by a hundred hamsters. I left the back door to the house open so the dogs could wander in and out, but there had been monsoon-style rains while I was gone and all that dampness worked its way into the house. You need to have owned a rodent to appreciate that particular urine-and-sawdust smell. It's still better than cat piss, but not by all that much. Excuse me while I go light a stick of incense.

March 7, 2025
I'm at the Minneapolis airport right now on my way home. I just had a Northwest Airlines employee complain to me about my eating pumpkin seeds. I'm sitting near a ticket counter in an area that's empty and she comes up to me and says she has to work at her counter and it sounds like I'm chewing gum or doing something really loud and she just goes on and on about the seeds and how distracting they are and she can't concentrate. Never mind the fact that she's one of a couple of Northwest employees who've been talking really loudly, and that a TV is playing in the background, and that p.a. announcements regularly burst overhead. The funny part is that after she yaps at me, she disappears for a while and then comes back and reads the paper. If you think I'm writing a letter to Northwest about her, you'd be correct.

March 6, 2025
Elena took me on a tour of Bologna. Over the past five or so visits I've made to Italy, not once have I had the chance to tour Bologna, so I was really glad to have finally seen what's here, other than the hot prostitutes in thigh-high vinyl boots on Borgo Panigale. For some reason I had been led to believe it was a drab industrial town, but it's actually a very nice city. The first thing we did was walk up to San Luca, which overlooks the entire city. Then we went to have lunch at an unmarked restaurant in the mountains that served traditional Bolognese fair. We sat next to this guy who went on and on about something; I simply had to sneak a picture of him. After the meal, I asked Elena if he was just chatty or totally crazy. She said he was a former soldier and professional soccer player and had a bunch of stories to tell; too bad the language barrier caused me to miss out. He had the greatest old man voice, like all his teeth were gone because they had been knocked out in fights and/or rotted out by alcohol. To finish our day we took the bus into the town center, which is closed to vehicular traffic on Sundays. I bought myself a silver ring from a street vendor for my wedding ring finger (I've worn one for 12 years and it's been peculiar without one), so now I am officially betrothed to Bologna.

Speaking about betrothed, Tuesday is "Women's Day" and in Italy the guy is "required" to buy his woman this little flower called the mimosa. I think failure to properly provide this flower on the appointed day will result in an iciness that would rival the freezing temps of late.

March 5, 2025
I spent this Saturday walking around Imola. It's the first time I've done it in the daylight during this trip and I felt like a vampire because the light was so bright, which was probably exacerbated by the reflection off the snow. I must've looked extra Chinese with all my squinting. I wanted to see the Imola circuit in the snow and here it is, specifically at my favorite turn, Acque Minerale. While I was standing there I watched two cars go back and forth repeatedly through this turn; I suppose they liked it too. If you look hard you can see one stopped at the top of the hill waiting for his buddy.

March 4, 2025
This morning I opened my eyes, noticed it was rather light out and looked at my watch: 6:45. That's exactly the time my boss comes by the hotel to pick me up. At first I thought I was mistaken because a week ago I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at my watch and saw that it was 7:30. My heart rate tripled and I bolted upright in the bed. It seemed dark outside so I looked at the watch again. And then I turned the watch over and looked once more. It was 2:00 am, not 7:30. I thought maybe today I was having another remedial time-telling session, but, sadly, I wasn't. Either neither of my two watches had gone off, or somehow I slept through them. I ran a small circle around the room as if that would magically make things better, and then I just realized I was fukced and had better get dressed and shove all my stuff into my backpack. No shower. No washing of the oily Asian hair. Nothing but getting out of my pajamas. The phone rang and it was my boss in the lobby. I told him I woke up late and to give me a minute. True to my word, only a minute later I was out the door. I was flustered, but ready.

The first thing I did when I got to work was use the bathroom to make sure I still didn't have sleep snot in my eyes. And even though few people were in the building, three guys were already glued to the coffee machine of yesterday's fame so I had to zig-zag to get past them. 

Tonight I went to the store to buy some things. The cashier said the total so fast I didn't understand her. I tried to look for the total on the register, but they don't have big green display numbers like we do in the U.S. All I could do was hold open my hands with my euro bill and euro coins and let her count it out. She counted until the money ran out and I said, "Pi�?" More? I fished around for a bigger bill in my wallet. The people behind me in line must've thought my childlike need for cash-counting assistance was either so cute they wanted to hug me or so stupid they wanted to deport me.       

March 3, 2025
This coffee machine sits right outside the women's bathroom. Italians don't buy a coffee and head back to their desks. They buy their coffee and loiter about the machine until the cup has been drained and the empty vessels have been well waved about in conversation. This particular machine seems to attract a lot of men. Quite often I have to weave my way through a cluster, an event made worse by the fact that they like to scrutinize the female outsider. Perhaps I should look every one of those guys in the eyes as I walk past as if to say, "It's true, we foreigners eat our young so we piss hot lava!" I'm not super modest, but I do think urinating is something everybody should be allowed to do without pre-inspection by a committee.

March 2, 2025
As has been the past week's pattern, I ate lunch in the Ducati cafeteria today. Every day I eat the same thing: a salad, a couple of slices of cheese, and some prosciutto. I never eat any of the cooked entrees, only because being a sufferer of food comas, I don't like to eat too much for lunch (if you recall, Sunday's lunch nearly killed me). My big meal works best at dinner, so I can go straight to bed and digest, unmolested, for the next eight hours. Anyways, today I decide to get two little plates of meat; we put more meat in an average American sandwich than what I got. I think lunches are subsidized by Ducati; you get a certain amount and anything extra you pay for. So the check-out woman says something to my boss about my selection. Turns out I had inappropriately selected two first courses � the meat, skimpy as it was � which was not technically allowed. Never mind the fact that I didn't select a second course. I offered to return a plate, but she let me get away with it this time. It amuses me that I'm having so many interesting food experiences this time around. If I had a piece of decorative lettuce on my meat plate, I would've eaten it right in front of her to horrify her.        

March 1, 2025
The dot com group had a meeting today, conducted in English for their foreign dignitary. I answered some questions at the beginning of the meeting and then shut up...finally. I think my boss said something to the department manager about how she must be sorry she ever asked me a question. Of course nothing comes out of me that either doesn't sound or smell great.

February 28, 2025
It was another work day in the office so I don't have anything particularly special to report. As such, I will post a pic of the balcony in Verona that inspired one of Shakespeare's most famous scenes. Like Juliet, I am a hopeless romantic.

February 27, 2025
I went to Lognago today with Elena and met her parents, Giorgio and Roberta. We sit down for lunch and the first dish is an antipasta. I'm hungry and plowing through the whole thing when Elena says to me, "You don't have to eat the lettuce." I look up and see that everyone else's big, pretty leaves of romaine are untouched. Oops, I was eating the decoration. I think that's sort of like eating a cupcake and then swallowing the paper cup it came in. Rather than stop, I declare the lettuce to be excellent and finish it. What can you do once you've shown that you're a coarse American? You follow the role to its logical conclusion, naturally.

After the antipasta plates are cleared, Roberta serves us lasagna. Elena only wants a small piece, but I'm more than glad to eat all of my cheesy superslab. When Elena finishes her tiny portion I ask her if she's really had enough food. She said she wanted to save some space because more was coming. More? Oh yes, we had only eaten the primo piatto, the first plate. Elena goes into the kitchen and returns with a salad. Moments later Roberta comes out with a plate of veal, soon followed by potatoes and a plate of cheese. I'm a guest. I don't say No to anything and insult the host. I eat it all, even if there's so much food in my stomach that my uterus has been overrun and flattened. I eat and eat and eat and chase it down with white wine, "black" wine, and sparkling wine. Everything is beyond excellent; Roberta is the Italian mom of culinary lore. I am so full I think there's a chance I'll just slump over the table and die, but before I can lose consciousness, a piece of pie is set down before me. I'm feeling like the guy who's being murdered for the sin "gluttony" in the movie Seven.

When we finally finish eating, we chat a little and then Elena and I head over to Verona, a beautiful city as all cities seem to be in Italy. I could post my photos of Verona, but I think plenty have already been shown of that very fair city. I will, however, share this one "only in Italy" pic: a Ferrari waiting to get into the McDonald's parking structure. This is what happens when you're in a country where the car is not so unusual: you will eventually find a Ferrari driver who will be into slumming at fast food restaurants.

February 26, 2025
The first Superbike race of the season took place in Qatar today. The umbrella girls weren't allowed to show bare arms, which meant any chance you had of counting the freckles on some honey's cleavage was completely out. Sorry for any pain you may have experienced.            

February 25, 2025
I walked home from my boss's house after dinner last night. Rather than taking the known route, I decided to turn down a street and then turn again so I could walk parallel to the street I know, giving myself the chance to check out a different block. I should know this about Imola by now but I never seem to learn: the streets don't run straight. They meander and the idiot tourist usually ends up somewhere she didn't mean to be. I eventually made a few lucky moves and found myself at a castle I recognized, and on the other side of it was the hotel. Tonight I told my boss, "I'm walking a straight route back," but of course being the fukctard that I am, the first thing I did was try a new street because I figured I'd get it right this time. Nearly an hour into a walk that should've lasted no more than fifteen minutes, I take stock in my problem: I do not recognize a thing, it's below freezing, and it's getting on towards midnight. I eventually see someone walking on the other side of the street. I cross over to see that the bundled-up person is a woman and she's looking at me warily so I give her a very friendly "Buona sera!" and immediately ask her in my Sunday-best Spitalian, "Quale � la direcci�n a il centro?" She points behind her, not taking her eyes off me lest I pull out a butcher knife and cut the buttons from her overcoat so I could steal her superiorly warm jacket, and says, "Diritto." Thank god I asked because I had been walking in the wrong direction. Not sure where I would've ended up � France? Anyways, the moral of this story is don't be a fukctard.     

February 24, 2025
It's my first day in the new offices here on the Ducati factory compound. The Ducati.com crew used to be a few blocks away in separate offices, but they got integrated with the rest of the company early this year.

We went over to the cafe for a midmorning boost and while there my boss says, "Hey, there's Max. Sam [a designer here who recently left] told him you were the women's AMA motocross champion." Whhaat? He calls Max over and introduces me. We're all hoping to get a session in at a dirt track before I go. Max says, "You'll be faster than all of us." HahahHAHAHahah. I tell him that I am the Champion of Nothing and that all my dirtbiking skills have been developed for a dualsport bike, not a taut little dirtbike. I said, "Sure I can do jumps; they usually happen right before I crash." At that point I should've rolled up my sleeve and showed him the scabs/bruise I still have from my last crash in the desert, but then he'd probably think I was some superhero with no fear. Here's hoping the snow keeps up so I won't have to shame myself in front of a bunch of hotshot Italian boys. 

February 23, 2025
I made it here to Bologna. Flights coming in were getting cancelled so I was lucky my flight left. Upon reading my blog from yeserday, I thought I was sounding a bit retarded post-medication and I was going to erase all that, but I then figured the point of that whole exercise is to document just how odd I am while medicated. Fairies and hemlines? What up wif dat?

February 22, 2025
Friends, I am currently trapped on an airplane for eleven hours en route to Amsterdam (see Aug 24 2004 for Amsterdam comment). After that I wait a couple of hours and go on to Bologna. I am fukcing bored. I have music, videos, books, and my computer and all I can think about is being stuck on this plane for the next decade. I brought my prescription of Oxycondone (from my foot surgery) and if I get any more restless from boredom I'm gonna slide one down and go to fairyland for a while. Wine wears off too fast so I decided to bring the heavy artillery this time. ~~~ Ok, did you notice I was gone? I just took part of a pill. I'm going to keep working on my laptop until I'm so high I tell every one of you I've been in love with you since the day we never met, girls included. I didn't want to take a whole one because I did have some wine and while it would be fun to be able to tell a great story about knocking the drink tray out of the flight attendant's hand as I staggered down the aisle pounding on my chest to get my own heart restarted, it's a little too dramatic for someone as shy and retiring as me. ~~~ I think something's happening but it's not really strong. Where are those damn fairies? The ones in really pretty blue-green diaphanous gowns with the jagged hem lines because they live amongst the briar patches and sometimes the flowing ends get caught on thorny branches and ripped. And you thought that romantic bohemian look was by design � it's just fairies being too lazy to float higher over the foliage. Well, since I seem to know so much about fairies right now, mayhaps they are here. I think I'll switch to writing email for a while. Don't be surprised if one of you ends up getting emailed my Last Will & Testament whereby I bequeath you my racing leathers, fingernail clippers, and whatever food is left in the pantry. 

February 21, 2025
A few things to cover today. First, Hunter S. Thompson shot himself dead yesterday. I never really knew it until I read a quote of his that more than anything else I was a gonzo journalist: "Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist. You have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it." Those of you who know me know that I'll try anything once, and that's because somehow, somewhere, someday, I'll do something so weird, it'll be a story really worth writing about. It's the HST way. 

I went to see Collective Soul last night. I didn't know how I'd feel about schlepping down to a club alone, but at around 8:00 I was feeling skippy (yes, I love that adjective so back off) and headed down. I showed up and was pleased that there were still tickets. The band was great live. I suppose they could still suck and I'd like the show, but really, Ed Roland is a passionate showman. His hair is long and sloppy again, which is a relief because that GQ look on Blender had me worried he was going to go the way of corporate-product pretty boy. When I was divorcing my first husband I'd listen to some of their songs over and over and boo-hoo. It's like they've been my friends for a long time so I'm extremely fond of them. Critics often like to tear up their lyrics, but unless someone writes something like "Pour some sugar on me/ooh, in the name of love" I think you just need to let the songwriters express themselves in peace. One of my favorite lines comes from She Said: "She said that time is unfair/To a woman her age/Now that wisdom has come/Everything else fades." Sound like anybody you know?            

February 20, 2025
I just found out that Collective Soul is playing at 4th and B tonight. I think I have to go.

February 19, 2025
Raid bug killer comes in a great "Clean Fresh Scent." No lie, it smells good. But isn't that wrong? Shouldn't pesticides smell like slow death because we're not supposed to inhaling it deeply with a satisfied smile? That's like adding patchouli oil to natural gas instead of the fart-smelling mercaptan.

February 18, 2025
It's official: I got the judgment in the mail yesterday and I'm single as of this date. I don't know about other states, but if you've been married for longer than five years in PRK (People's Republic of Kalifornia), there's a mandatory six-month waiting period between the judgment from the court and the day you can remarry without being a bigamist. This is because Kalifornia does not trust unhappily married people and their silly, juvenile emotions. They believe that a certain number of us will sit bolt-upright from a sound sleep, screaming, "I'm making a mistake! Who will rotate the tires?!?!" as we frantically grope around the empty side of the bed. If you're one of those people who actually reversed your decision during this "cooling off" period, let me know because I want to reward you with $20 for being this century's hugest anomaly.  

February 16, 2025
I don't do enough for my female readers out there, so here's a gratuitous topless pic from the dirtbiking weekend. My friend is single and lives in the Bay Area and needs a woman who rides and works out like a robot. If that sounds like you, let me know and I'll forward your email address. Yes, that's mud all over him and his bike, but it's partly my fault because I thought his tires could handle the uncomplicated terrain we'd be on and I think it would've been ok had it not rained the entire day before.

February 15, 2025
Now that the heavy pressure is off, I can wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day. And while I had fun being cynical about the occasion, don't get me wrong � I still adore men. In fact, a friend of mine wrote yesterday and apologized for not having been in contact for a while as he thought I probably hated men at the moment. How wrong. The hairier of the species is endlessly entertaining and inspiring. In fact, I went dirtbiking this weekend and took this self-portrait while thinking of [you]...

February 14, 2025
No H***y V********s Day to anyone. That's just acknowledging a day on which the single people are devalued. For one specific day, we are unlovable. We have bad hygiene. We laugh at socially inappropriate moments. We wear brown belts with black shoes. We cut meat at the dinner table with our left hand because we refuse to relinquish the fork from the right one. Something is wrong with us that makes us unsuitable for pairing. My specific problem that officially removes me from acceptance? Imperfect teeth. As one gets older, the jaw slowly shrinks and the teeth start misaligning. Mine look like a picket fence that got backed into. And those crowns? Almost all my molars and bicuspids are rebuilt thanks to bad genetics. They used to be all gold, very bling-like, until the older ones were replaced by porcelain because my last two dentists refused to allow me to look like a Chinky be-yotch gangstah. Instead of wishing you all a H***y V********s Day, I'd like to wish you a Happy Bunny Day, because HB speaks only the truth. Sometimes the words hurt, but HB only wants to make this world a more real place.

February 10, 2025
Chris, I know you read this regularly. I have an admission to make: I have your latest issue of Racer magazine. I could've given it to you today, but I was calculating and kept it. I'll give it back to you after I'm done licking any pictures of Troy. 

February 9, 2025
For those of you scratching at my faux-Chinese veneer by saying that today, not yesterday, was Chinese New Year, here's an explanation on the date(s): "Lunar New Year is 8 February 2025 in USA time zones, 9 February 2025 in Asia." Translation: "You white people bang gong and dance in Lion costume on Tuesday and we yellow people wait until Wednesday. But any day good to light firecracker and scare evil spirit!" Also, my mom was trying to force my younger brother to come over for Chinese New Year dinner on Tuesday night, so that's what I was gauging it by.   

February 8, 2025
That funny feeling you have in your stomach? Yeah, that's you all forgetting to send me a Chinese New Year gift. Your favorite newly single Chinese Internet lady friend got ZERO gifts today. But in your defense, I'm as white as a Georgia cracker on the inside so I culturally cancel myself out. Oh, and never mind the fact that we don't give gifts on Chinese New Year...pffffft...details!  Just remember that Valentine's Day is coming up and I will accept your touching acknowledgement of my existence in the form of a 999.  

February 7, 2025
Ok, I figured out how you can attend classes at the best universities for free. Remember those college courses conducted in auditoriums with over a hundred students? Just pick any big class like that and show up. How will the teacher ever know that you don't belong there? Roll call? Like he or she will remember after the hundredth name whether you've been called or not? You won't get credit, but if you enjoy the subject matter, who cares? That's your "cheat the system" tip of the day.       

February 6, 2025
Valentine's Day comes early for this lizard. It found the rear Michelin on my Monster and it was in love, canoodling with it like until death they would part. And if he's not gone by the time I go on my next ride, so it shall be.

February 5, 2025
My mom called tonight. I can usually dodge her for a few calls but then I have to pick up or she'll think I've been murdered. She said she wanted to visit me after I return from my upcoming trip to Italy. She wants to stay here for ONE MONTH so she can help remodel my kitchen. Thing is, I didn't have any plans to remodel my kitchen and for sure I'm not ever going to do it if it means she lives with me for 44,640 continuous minutes.          

February 3, 2025
Since almost all the tools were Chris', now that he's gone so are they. I had to buy a torque wrench today and if you've never priced them, get ready for some sticker shock. I bought the cheapest one I could find at Sears for $30, but the going rate is around $70 for a non-klunky one and god knows how much a Snap-on one runs. No wonder people shoplift and no wonder places like Home Depot have controlled-access areas for certain tools.

February 2, 2025
I went to my first Italian class last night. I haven't been to school in 19 years and what a culture shock that was. I thought at least if I went to night school I'd be with an older crowd, but other than three other people who obviously had a decade on me, most everyone was in the I-shop-at-Hot-Topic demographic. Now being young isn't a problem with me, but being young and dumb does bring my skippy level down a notch. (Old and dumb is a little different; that means you somehow made it through all those years touching electrical objects without killing yourself, so I am moderately impressed by your tenacity.) The teacher wrote a few phrases on the board for us to repeat. She'd ask a question in Italian with the answer written right below it and some of the students still didn't know how to answer. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The youth of today are attractive, but the sample size I was exposed to had an inverse correlation of beauty to intelligence so I'm dropping the class and I'll just keep studying here in the dark hole of my home.

Now about my ass: I did also post censored ass pics from my highside, so it might seem like I'm ass-happy, but it just turns out that I like to collect bruise pictures like other people collect little crystal animals. Here's a polaroid I took from a different snowboarding day. And no, it's not going to get any wackier than what you've already seen so there's no need to brace yourself for some scary shaved pooter shot that will make you spit your coffee up on your work monitor. 

February 1, 2025
Britt, John-Mark and I went up to Snow Summit to test out our post-surgery bodies on the slopes (my rebuilt foot, Britt's rebuilt compound-fractured leg, and John-Mark's repaired disc in his lower back). We didn't exactly know what to expect from ourselves; however, I can sum up their skill levels by saying that it must just suck to have the burden of being gifted at whatever you do because where you can you go but down? Me on the other hand...although I'm an ok snowboarder, I started crashing a lot in the afternoon and it got to the point where my ass hurt so bad from a contusion* that the last time I fell on it I just stared at the sky for a while and decided that my only goal was to limp back down to the truck and change my clothes. Don't get me wrong; I had a great time and I'm ready to go again, but not without some type of huge pad in my pants and maybe a neck brace. This ass bruising happens to me every time I go snowboarding. I just conveniently forget because I wait so long between outings.

*Please note that I covered my ass crack. This means that I want to share my story as a blog abuser, but I don't want too much attention from pervs with a thing for ass cracks. There's tons of porn out there much more interesting than my sorry crack.

January 29 2005
Being an exemplary carnivore, I like to sample different kinds of jerky. Let me tell you one you have to try at least once: ostrich. And you have to try it not because it tastes good, but because the first thing I thought was, "This must be what dog tastes like." Gamey and funky. I may have to pass on that other large bird, the emu, and move right on to reptiles.   

January 28 2005
Lucky likes to chew off patches of fur every now and then; this latest episode is the worst I've ever seen it. It pleases me not at all to be able to see the birthmarks on his skin, but it pleases me even less when I catch Cracker contributing to the problem by standing behind him and licking at the raw spot like he's some meat popsicle.

January 27 2005
I was doing some research on tracks, with Shanghai being the latest addition to the MotoGP schedule. I love English as a second language: check out their "use at your own risk" map.

January 26 2005
Here's how my Versahaul is currently stored. I'm too weak to pull it out from the hitch without dropping it so I backed the truck into the garage, hooked tie downs to each corner, and then slipped it out. The tie downs hold the unit up until I can get the jacks and buckets underneath it. When I have to put it back on, I'll just tighten up the tie downs and slide it back in. Yeah, it's a waste of garage space, but for those of us who are a) solo, and b) predisposed to pulling back muscles, we do whatever we can to make life easy on our lower lumbar.   

January 25 2005
Poll results have been posted.

January 23 2005
Here are some pics from my Ocotillo weekend. I had a great time and I love Bito more than ever for the places he takes me.

January 21 2005
Here's the new set-up for transporting a bike. I'm heading out to the desert this weekend so now I can bring my bike and camp out in the truck bed. The ass is sagging a little so Chris might help me install airbags on the rear. I once moved a hot tub in my GMC Sonoma and it turned the truck into an unattractively angled lowrider; don't really want to do that to this truck. The dirtbike is 300 lbs and the Monster will outweigh it by another 100+ pounds. There's just something sad looking about a truck with a permanently droopy rear.   

January 19 2005
California held its first execution in three years last night. The condemned can ask for anything for his last meal and I have always wondered how anyone can have a shred of appetite when faced with death. Unlike most others who ask for lobster or steak or fried chicken or whatever, this guy skipped the traditional meal and just wanted grapefruit juice. Finally, someone with a situationally-appropriate lack of appetite. I personally would request Baskin Robbins' Toasted Coconut ice cream, but I suspect I'd just watch it melt while I sat there wondering what it was going to feel like to be thoroughly dead. I'll bet it feels very...irreversible.

January 18 2005
I keep toying with the idea of moving out of San Diego and heading back towards my ancestral homeland of Northern California. I'd sell the house, sell off most everything I own, keep my bikes at my mom's house, and then hang out with friends or in my truck with the cool new camper shell. My motorcycle mentor wants me to do Infineon, my brother in SF is having his 40th birthday party, I'm helping a friend in Marin with a her new web site...just seems like all the action is up there. I need to decide why I would want to stay down here. Um, other than the best weather on the planet.

January 17 2005
I don't know how single parents of juvenile delinquents manage. I have two dogs constantly testing my patience, and they're just dogs, not even humanoids always trying to get their hands on the car keys and a six pack. While I was gone at the track on Saturday, Cracker did this. Tomorrow we have a vet appointment so I can put her on anti-anxiety medication. I think she's unraveling from the divorce.  

January 16 2005
The good news: I didn't wad the bike. The bad news: I had a hard time riding it so I didn't race on Sunday (today). Details to come on the race page. Not being at the track today not only gave me the chance to watch Tom Brady in spandex in the playoff game, but also the chance to call my mom on the phone and let her know I'm getting a divorce. "Again?" was her first comment, followed by a whole bunch of non-supportive statements about how I am "too much" and how I'd have to change if I ever expected to keep a man. You don't bother getting mad at a Chinese immigrant with highly sexist views. You can only say, "Hey, you don't hear me crying, do you?" Sometimes they need help understanding that your divorce is not about their feelings and expectations. Sheesh. 

January 13 2005
I love gummi bears so I decided to read the ingredients today and find out what's in it other than corn syrup. One ingredient: carnauba wax. Hi, yeah, that's the shit people wax their cars with and I'm passing it through my intestines [insert shiny excrement jokes here].

January 12 2005
The 125 is loaded. I hope to hell I don't wad $6k worth of uninsured bike my first weekend out.

January 11 2005
Fabrizio Meoni, two-time Dakar rally winner, died in stage 11 of this year's race. When he said he was going to retire last January, I was saddened. The smile he always had for the camera, the love of the race that he always seemed to convey � even on his frustratingly worst of days � made him my favorite to watch. So I was surprised to read he was racing again this year. But now, like that � ultimately, this is a binary world of life and death � he's gone. He was 47 and, along with all the other Dakar warriors, the hardest of the hard men. I dedicate my return to the racetrack this weekend to this inspirational Italian. (KTM's press release here.)

January 10 2005
Check out where I found the orange juice this morning after I had made myself a screwdriver last night. If I'm not mistaken, people who aren't senile or drunk usually put perishable fruit beverages back in the refrigerator.  

January 9 2005
I may need to lay off the blog and start working on other sections of this site. I haven't been putting enough creative energy into it. The blog is making me lazy; I write a few sentences about whatever and call it a day. I used to do some good stuff. Now that my life has been ruined by the realization that the "soul mate" is a myth forced upon us by poets and screenplay writers, I am living in the shadow world. Most days I wake and I am so empty I can't feel myself. Just kidding, people! I actually need to work on the race page since the race weekend is coming up, but I'm not sure how to cleverly put into words "Watch me put petrol into my radiator because a hole is a hole..." Today I promise I will get over the Attention Deficit hump and put some work into it.         

January 7 2005
I got an email that said, "Remove your debt the Christian way." Does having God on your side when digging your way out of the financial hole make it go more quickly? I've also been getting "Meet Christian singles" email, which is fairly timely. I wonder if the excess Christian-themed email is a sign to me from God to join his club. Then again, the devil lead me to race with his number so I think I'm caught right in the middle of a battle for my soul. If I'm the type of person who can trip on the sidewalk at night while jogging and it didn't happen because nobody saw it, can I possibly have a soul?   

January 6 2005
I was thinking about going snowboarding today but last night's search for snow chains was futile. Recent snows in our local mountains has depleted the small inventory the retailers had; let's face it, the auto parts stores in San Diego just don't stock up on them like they do in Minnesota. Can't say I blame them. I decided I'd try to return to the batting cages but this time called ahead; no luck, the balls were squirting out ok in the morning but by the time I called the machine puked again. It was as if today was meant to be a No Sports zone. I did venture out for a run after dark and tripped on the sidewalk. Nobody saw me so technically it didn't happen. Other than that, all I did today was drop off signed divorce papers. Maybe tomorrow will be more fun.  

January 5 2005
I'm going to the batting cages today at 11:00. If anybody wants to see my form for possible future recruitment, come to Boomers on Clairmont Mesa. [Just got back. The batting cages were too wet and would not be in operation until this evening. Talk about thinking you were going on a date with a hooker and ending up with a nun...I am not feeling satisfied...]

January 4 2005
Cadillac is using Led Zep and Buick is using Aerosmith to hawk their wares. First, if "Break Through" is Cadillac's key marketing phrase, shouldn't they be using The Doors to pimp their stuff? Imagine the Lizard King in a 70s Coupe de Ville with shag carpeting on the dash; the style-conscious youth would be flocking to recapture that vibe. And congrats to Cadillac for actually securing a share of the market under 70. I never thought it would happen but the bling crowd is all over the Escalade. Now if Buick can also get a slice of the non-golden-years market, I will eat my hat. My very own immigrant parents owned a Buick and their Century had a ride that was equivalent to a rotting pumpkin on loose casters. Yes, sloppy. And the sorry-ass bucket always smelled like melted crayons. I believe that not even Tiger Woods could sell a Buick to a thirty-something; I don't care if he personally drove it and left his DNA all over the interior. At least Cadillac has the elitist lore working for it, in spite of their efforts to reverse it with the Cimarron. Maybe Buick makes great cars now, but unfortunately for them the name still has "ick" in it. (Note: The Gran National seems to be the exception, not the rule.)       

January 3 2005
Okay, so now I'm thinking about buying an open trailer to haul my bikes and a camper shell for the truck. This will allow me to tow my bikes where I want and sleep in the truck bed whenever I want. I am now accepting recommendations on either items (I'd like to be able to tow my Monster and DRZ400 at the same time). I know it will cost me some coin, but it's still cheaper than buying the newest BMW Z4 to ameliorate the mid-life crisis I may or may not be having. Technically I think I am not having a mid-life crisis because I haven't cut all my hair off, nor am I researching plastic surgeons. Yet.

January 2 2005
Picked up Troy B from the auto show today.

January 1 2005
I celebrated the arrival of 2005 by flossing my teeth. I only knew it was the special moment when I heard the gunfire ring out. Rather than having overly high expectations for the new year, I decided to let it slide in however it pleased (hey, I think I can also use that sentence to describe the men I date in the future...).
 

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