America's Tug Boats in Crisis

This is a cross-post from Best Recession Ever.



Friend of the blog Matt is a San Francisco Bay Area tugboat engineer, and he reports that: “When the economy or market was doing well, we would do five to six ship jobs a day. That`s four tractor tugboats doing five to six jobs a day. Right now each boat is doing two or maybe three on a busy day. “

We aren’t entirely sure what this indicates, because we are not actually economists but unpaid, under employeed bloggers who barely can make it out of the house to buy milk for our flocks of mewling children (hush, little ones. Daddy is blogging), but our guts find it alarming that even people in cool, tough guy professions are feeling it.

Are the rodeo clowns next?

It’s also our way to talk about tugboats and the fact that we know a real life tugboat guy, which blows our minds.

How many tugboat guys do YOU know?

How many can you even name, besides Hal Lindsey and Sterling Morrison?

Tugboats are AWESOME!

Me, doing more blogging, because what the hell else am I going to do?

I'm going to be blogging on occasion at Best Recession Ever, a blog that whistles cheerfully amid the collapse of the West.

I'll be cross-posting here, so, while you should be support Mac, Aaron and Jeremy, if you're in a hurry, you can just read my stuff over here.

I don't know how to say the above without sounding like an asshole.

I'm sorry.

Facebook/blogger synergy. Neat.

This is some horseshit thing from Facebook. Actually, it's pretty okay. You get "tagged" and you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. Only thing is more than one person tagged me, and because I enjoy needless guilt and anxiety over trivial things so darn more, I add more facts when more people tagged me -- BECAUSE I WANTED EVERYONE TO HAVE FRESH FACTS.

So I ended up with 50 facts. And, what the fuck, I'll make a blog entry. Hurray internet!

1. My wife was annoyed with me when we first met, then decided she liked me. Which is exactly the opposite of how my previous relationships worked.

2. My left hand can't rotate into a "slap me five" position. Makes it difficult to collect change at drive-thrus.

3. I won a ancient, feeble pony named Billy Blazer in a raffle when I was four. We kept him for all of two weeks. I was mostly scared of him.

4. I have auditioned for both Junior Tic-Tac-Dough and Jeopardy. I was too old for Junior Tic-Tac-Dough and I froze and smiled idiotically during the screen test portion of Jeopardy.

5. Christopher Guest once told me that I am a good straight man.

6. I am totally indifferent to the supposed charms of watching professional sports.

7. I was an exchange student in Japan in the summer of '87. I was in awe of the beer vending machines.

8. I got my driver's license at age 30. Funny story about that I'll tell you sometime.

9. I once miscalculated the distance between a conference center in Denver with the bus stop and ended up walking for about six hours.

10. I have been stung by a very wimpy jellyfish.

11. Got my wallet stolen in Heathrow, and as I was reporting it a kind and efficient Bobby, Stephen Hawking rode by.

12. I shook Gerald Ford's hand once.

13. I don't like having things draped over my face.

14. I once cut a tendon in my foot vacuuming.

15. In sixth grade, I got food poisoning and ended up vomiting at the crossing guard roller skating party. I handed in my badge that monday.

16. I wasn't entirely sure how my oldest sister was related to me until I was about six.

17. I recently found out that I'm part Swedish.

18. I used to wear karate pants to High School.

19. I inherited a huge and fabulous post card collection, which I subsequently tossed when I became old and respectable. I regret this act every day, though I suspect my wife is thankful it happened before we met.

20. My son invented a great joke: "Why did the turd cross the road? He wanted to go to the TURD sanctuary."

21. I can do a pretty good imitation of a water drop. (Sound imitation, just to be clear.)

22. I was very briefly a child star, doing impersonations at Sun Valley mall. I don't think I was that good, but I was paid, so who cares really?

23. It bothers me that I can read music only with great difficulty. And that I can't play guitar because of my gimp wrist.

24. I can't grow sideburns

25. I was once rolled by a mugger who jumped while I was barfing after drinking too much. Outside of Slim's. My friend Mark was befriended by skinheads who took us back to their apartment. That was a weird night.

26. If the stars are aligned just right, I am morbidly shy

27. I drink alcohol infrequently. It just doesn't come up that often.

28. Potted trees bum me out.

29. I like being near the ocean, because I always have a means of escaping in case giant ants come.

30. The best job I ever had was working in a bookstore.

31. I am a materialist, an empiricist, and a skeptic, though I try not to be an ass about it.

32. That said, I know that as a species we necessarily have a limited spectrum of things we CAN know about, so life is still mysterious and weird.

33. I wish I cooked more.

34. As crazy and f-upped as reality is, I like this world pretty okay.

35. My wife is having surgery soon, and I'm freaked out about it.

36. I am an orphan.

37. As a child, my family was possibly going to move to Saudi Arabia for my dad's work. It is hard to tell with my parents what was true vs. what was wishful thinking.

38. I saw Mao's Tomb, The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, ice bergs in Newfoundland, the Lake District, and the Berlin Wall all on someone else's dime.

39. I have distant cousins in Chile. (Not Nazis)

40. The more I think about, the more the notion of one generalized model of human belief and conduct being correct for everyone seems bizarre

41. Parenthood should be the most banal thing in the world, but man, it's not.

42. I'm comfortable with not talking to anyone for long stretches of time.

43. Marriage should be the most banal thing in the world, but man, it's not.

44. I liked Coraline more than I liked Slumdog Millionaire. There, I said it.

45. I have À la recherche du temps perdu-like prompting from very hoppy cheap beer. A can of Olympia beer I sprayed on the apple tree on the Fourth of July, 1976. I was 7.

46. Pickled herring is something I bought a lot of when I was a bachelor living on my own, and I would eat it with Akmak crackers and beer.

47. My wife, whom I love, once bought me a t-shirt featuring two unicorns making love, which I have never in public.

48. I once sat transfixed as John Doe performed "See You Later, Alligator" in a recording studio, while a small platoon of oblivious clients typed on their laptops the entire time. What is the goddamn point of existence people?

49. When I was 16, I went and saw Tom Wolfe talk and churlishly I asked him about Hunter S. Thompson, because I was 16.

50. I once interrupted an Alan Ginsburg poetry reading, and I don't really feel bad about it.

My GOD this a great podcast

The Cold Bath

This is really good. My friend Michael (who I really don’t know all that well, to tell you the truth. But he’s a nice chap) has another friend, a mysterious Luciferian gent who is a former political consultant. Michael has convinced this man, a man I guessing is in his sixties, to sit down a spiel about anything and everything. And it’s stunning.

Your parents may have had friend like this, a charming bastard who corners you at a dinner party and terrifies you by showing you the abyss before you even realized there was such a thing.

Mr. Anonymous is a hell of a storyteller, completely infuriating and hilarious.
It’s not probably for everyone, but if you’re a This American Life-loving sort of person, you’ll enjoy this.

It’s like This American Life crossed with Nietzsche.

So, here's a work thing.

The (relatively) fun lifestyle wing of my Brobdingnagian client has a kind of cool charity program where they give a portion of the advertising revenue generated from any email or text message you send via their web mail and messaging client to a charity you choose (of their ten charity partners).

We've done a strange marketing program for it, and it might be kind of cool once the momentum builds. The conceit is there is this guy who worked at some vaguely evil company, and he's making up for it by sending lots and lots of emails and text messages.

So there's a blog, with video entries and canned email responses and general silliness. The video entries follow a story arc, one with love, sex tapes, doppelgangers and transcendent redemption. It gets progressively weirder as the month progresses. I'll try to post the weirder episodes here when they go live.

Just warning you.

The web is a powerful collaboration tool for spazzes

A couple of years ago, blog chum Jack P. Toerson linked to the singular Mr. Baldo Has A Blog Now, a blog marketing the wonderful and spurious Mr. Baldo's Shiny Wax For Balds -- Now with Phlogiston®.

Well, Jack P. and I were possibly the only readers of this blog, and we both contributed a few jingles does in the style of various popular tunes. I visited the blog today, and it seems that sadly, Mr Baldo's blog has not updated since 2006.

Since it doesn't seem like a working concern, I thought I'd better grab my "work" before it disintegrated into dead photons. The web is filled with the ephemeral crap! Yay, the Web!

Here are the songs:

(To the tune of Back in Black)

Baldo Bald™, I hit the wax,
With Phlogiston®, I’ll share the facts!
Yes, I'm gleaming my dome,
Like Cadillac chrome!
I keep a-lookin' at my scalp 'cause it's gettin' me high,
Forget the wig 'cause I’m never shy!
I got Phlogiston®, like bomb,
That’s why my scalp is looking so fly!

'Cause I'm Bald! Yes, I'm Bald!
Well, I'm Bald! Yes, I'm Bald!
Well, I'm Ba-a-a-ald!Ba-a-a-ald!
Well, I'm Baldo Bald™!
Yes, I'm Baldo Bald™!

Ow!

Baldo Bald™, give my scalp a smack,
Going to go get a Baldo’s Family-Pac™!
Yes, I'm polished good, like I should
Going catch the next bus to Hollywood!
'Cause I'm back on the shine and my dome is so fine,
Perhaps one evening we go out and dine!
As a gentleman, you can be certain I’ll pay,
And I’ll be buffed the Phlogiston® way!

'Cause I'm Bald! Yes, I'm Bald!
Well, I'm Bald! Yeah, I'm Bald!
Well, I'm Ba-a-a-ald!
Ba-a-a-ald!
Well, I'm Baldo Bald™!
Yes, I'm Baldo Bald™!

Well, I'm Ba-a-a-ald! (I'm Bald!)
Ba-a-a-ald! (Well, I'm Bald!)
Ba-a-a-ald! (I'm Bald!)
Ba-a-a-ald! (I'm Bald!)
Ba-a-a-ald! (I'm Bald!)
Ba-a-a-ald!
Baldo Bald™!
Yes, I'm Baldo Bald™!

Remember: There’s Bald, and then there’s Baldo Bald.
Now with Phlogiston®‼
Baldo’s Shiny Wax™ for Balds. Available at your friendly neighborhood drugstore.

**

(To the "tune" of Baby Got Back)

[Intro]
Oh, my, god. Maurice, look at his BALD. It is so shiny. He looks like,someone who avails himself of Mr. Baldo’s Shiny Wax™ For Balds. But, y'know, who can’t help but admire shiny Balds? Woman only talk to him, because his gleaming dome exudes confidence, 'kay? I mean, his Bald, is just so polished. I can't believe it's just so burnished,, it's like,out there, I mean – my god. He's just so ... Bald!

[Sir Bald-o-Lot]

♪ I like Mr.Baldo’s and I cannot lie
♪ You other Baldie's can't deny
♪ That when Phlogiston® is applied as directed,
♪ Your scalp starts to get respected,
♪ And you GLEAM, wanna take off you cap
♪ And show that ra-di-ant dome
♪ And with the incandescent glow your wearing
♪ The masses can't stop staring
♪ Tia Carrera wants to get wit'cha
♪ And take your picture
♪ Before your dull pate made ya feel mourny…
♪ But with that Bald suddenly it’s pleasant to be so shorny
♪ Ooh, Baldo'-smooth-skin
♪ Now you admired by colleagues and friends
♪ Truly, Phlogiston® is meant
♪ To be an above average sol-vent
♪ I've seen them coruscate!
♪ Drop some science on that pate!
♪ It gleam with sheens,
♪ Like a Monet landscape scene
♪ I'm tired of magazines
♪ Sayin' soporific scalps are the thing
♪ Take the average Baldman and ask him
♪ The dome gotta pack much vim
♪ So, Baldos! (Yeah!) Baldos! (Yeah!)
♪ Has your Bald got Phlogiston®? (Hell yeah!)
♪ Tell 'em to buff it! (Buff it!) Buff it! (Buff it!)
♪ BUFF that healthy Bald!
♪ Baldo’s got scalp!(My Baldo’s Shiny Wax, with Phlogiston®)
♪ Baldo’s got scalp!
♪ (Apply just a drop to bust a gleam on top)
♪ (Apply just a drop to bust a gleam on top)
♪ (Apply just a drop to bust a gleam on top)
♪ (Apply just a drop to bust a gleam on top)

Now with Phlogiston®‼
Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds. Available at your friendly neighborhood drugstore.

**

(To the tune of Satisfaction)
♪ I can't get no Phlogiston®
♪ I can't get no Phlogiston®.
♪ 'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try.
♪ I can't get no, I can't get no.

♪ When I go to the grocery store
♪ And the idiot clerk in Aisle 6 (Bald care)
♪ Is tellin' me they don’t got no more
♪ Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds
♪ As he snickers at my occluded scalp,
♪ I can't get no Phlogiston®
♪ Hey hey hey, that's what I say.

♪ I need to get some Phlogiston®
♪ I need to get some Phlogiston®
♪ 'Cause I’m Bald and I’m Bald and I’m Bald and I’m Bald.
♪ I can't get no, I can't get no.

♪ When I'm tending to dome care
♪ And the tin bottom is shining through
♪ The leavings of Mr. Baldo’s magic goo
♪ And I’ve reached the end – my heart may rend
♪ At this cranial tragedy!
♪ I scream no, no oh Christ no!
♪ Hey hey hey, my scalp is dull.

♪ I can't get no Phlogiston®
♪ I need a tin, but I don’t got one.
♪ 'Cause I’m Bald and I’m Bald and I’m Bald and I’m Bald.
♪ I can't get no, I can't get no.

♪ When I'm walkin' round the block
♪ And I'm scrapin’ here and I'm beggin’ there
♪ Just tryin' to score some wax.
♪ The clerk tells me better come back later next week
♪ Seems you hit us at Bald season’s peak

♪ I can't get no, I can't get no,
♪ I can't get no Mr. Baldo’s® Shiny Wax™!
(Try our new Mentho-Phlog, No Tears wax. For children's tender Balds.)

Now with Phlogiston®‼
Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds. Available at your friendly neighborhood drugstore.

**

(To the Tune of Iron Man)

I. AM. BALD-O!

♪Has he lost his sheen?
♪What can he do to make it gleam?
♪Can he shine his dome?
♪With a dollop of Phlogiston® foam?
♪The la-bel has he read?
♪Will he apply to his head?
♪Just five minutes there
♪Is a priceless aid in Bald-o care.

♪He is polished now
♪The La-dies all shout out WOW!
♪Battling scalpie brine
♪For the future of mankind

♪Nobody mocks him
♪They just stare at his head
♪With Baldo’s Shiny Wax™
♪Any woman he can bed.

♪Now the time is here
♪To travel to your drugstore near
♪Pull it from the shelf
♪An essential tool for Bald-o health!

♪Nobody mocks him
♪They just stare at his head
♪With Baldo’s Shiny Wax™
♪Any woman he can bed.

♪Phlogiston® contains no lead
♪It’s a perfect balm for the Bald-o Head!
♪Run to the store as fast as you can
♪Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds lives again!

As advertised on the Shorn Hannity Radio Hour.
Now with Phlogiston®‼
Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds. Available at your friendly neighborhood drugstore.

**

(The Tune of "Blake's Jerusalem")

♪ And did this wax in ancient time
♪ Polish England's Baldies a-gleam?
♪ And did the waxie wax of Phlogiston®
♪ Giveth England's pleasant Baldie sheen?

♪ And did the Shiny Wax Divine
♪ Shine forth upon our smooth-ed domes?
♪ And was a Healthy Brill-i-ance buff-ed here
♪ Among these dark Satanic liver spots?

♪ Bring me my tub of wax!
♪ Bring me my lambswool shammy!
♪ Bring me my sealant!
♪ O clouds of Phlogiston®‼ Bring me my Baldo's Shiny Wax™!

♪ I will not cease from my buffing,
♪ Nor shall my shammy sleep in my hand
♪ Till Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds,
♪ Has smoothed and polish-ed my pate.

Now with Phlogiston®‼
Baldo's Shiny Wax™ for Balds. Available at your friendly neighborhood drugstore.

SO, uh, neat.

Here's a chappie with a well tempered blog

Citizen of the Month. He's a good writer.

I would like to work at your firm.

Offer me a job. At your work.

I will take it, by gum. I will bring my own lunch. I'll sit quietly, and cheerfully.

I could tidy, collate, bring in the elephants.

Got a waxing need? I'll wax it. Canvas need stretching? I'll get my gloves.

Can I plan an invasion for you? Please? I won't be any trouble. I have my own maps and a pen.

Will wear a tie. Or pasties.

Let me reheat the morning soup for you. I will punish your enemies, roll your oats, call the faithful to prayer.

All I need is a honest fair, salary and four weeks off.

You have reached the limits of your effectiveness, but I can extend for you. "Milk the cats! Ring the bells! Calculate the rate of decay! I'm busy, Mills!"

And I'm on it, my name tag a glisten and my hassock freshly pressed.

I will not complain when I am cut by paper, exposed to pathogens, or put next to the boring client in the Lear Jet.

I won't alphabetize, so don't ask. And I am leery of deep-fryers, since the accident.

But I will dress your windows like the fabled window dresser I know deep down that I am.

So, what do you say? Are we jake?

Hire me.

Bastard of Art Commerce: Rarely Asked Questions

The official BOAAC RAQ

1. Do you ever microwave eggs?

No. Wait. No. I don't.

2. If I were to call you on the telephone, would you be willing to talk to me?

Yes, of course. Contact me via this blog with a prepared list of topics you’d like to cover in our conversation and I will let you know either through electronic means or post (include SASE) the topic I feel are suitable. At that point we can schedule a time in which we can communicate via telephone and/or TTY. All costs shall be assumed by you.

3. If I were to draw your picture, what would it look like, Greg?

If you’re hand is steady and true, that picture would look handsome, if a little distant, like I had something really powerfully deep going on in my mind, because I usually do. I would also be wearing a green shirt.

4. What celebrity are you the most disappointed in?

Stephen Hawkings.

5. Given the choice would you rather spend time with Godzilla or Gamera?

Gamera, because Godzilla would kill me. Not on purpose, because I don’t Godzilla thinks of people in personal terms, but he would probably destroy the building or subway train I was in, or step on me. From his films, I get the sense that Gamera is capable of empathy, though in his films that empathy is usually directed to a small chubby Japanese boy in a tartan baseball cap and very tight shorts.

Come to think of it, Gamera might just be a pervert.

6. Would you frightened if you came across a shark in the high desert?

No, because in all likelihood, that shark would be dead.

7. Do you store anything under your house?

If you mean gold and treasure and jewels and money, I don't. I store those things on my porch.

8. Are there plans in the works for a Bastard of Art and Commerce theme park?

Yes, as soon as I buy a rollercoaster. So far, Jerkland looks to be the heart of the thing.

9. Have you ever destroyed objects using only your acid reflux?

Yes, and I regret it every time I do it.

10. Do you have a website?

Yes. It can be found at http://bastardofaandc.blogspot.com

Flower Travellin' Band

Roughly the Blue Cheer of Japan. Great Japanese acid rock.



Hat tip to the inimitable slickdpdx (a distant relation toMr. Mxyzptlk) of the even inimitabler-to-being-sui-generis Known Unknowns.

Okay, I laid it on a bit thick.

In case nothing makes sense anymore..

... at least Marmuduke will become a little less opaque. Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke in 500 words or less.

Oh, this the 401st post.

You know, maybe I should have used the past three years to write a book.

Nah.

You people are animals.

The most popular referring search term directing folks to Bastard of Art and Commerce, like, for months, is "Fat Men Fucking".

Monsters. Monsters, all of you.

There's this American woman who somehow lives in Norway.

Yeah, I don't know either. But here's her blog if you don't believe me: Sidestepping Real.

I like the writing. Jesus, get off my neck already.

Things I would pay US$20 to see.

* A vibrator applied to Bruce Valanch’s neck folds

* A 15-pound block of ground beef in a wind-tunnel
* A capuchin monkey dressed as a cowboy riding on the back of a Jack Russell terrier
* The facial expression of Gobi desert nomads coming across a nurse shark swimming in a free-standing tank somewhere in the wilds of Gobi
* Donald Trump being bound up in truss with the help of two small, swarthy bellmen with waxed moustaches
* A paint-bomb going off in the Pope Mobile, with Il Papa inside
* Live eels swimming in watery aspic
* A bowling ball going down an escalator full of flightless birds. Kiwis mostly.
* Two NFL players spontaneously making out during the coin toss
* A half-dozen or so eight year old girls making up Lemmy
* A drugged cat strapped into a first-class airplane seat, wearing a baby bonnet

If you can make any of these things, I got a Andy Jackson for you.

The question was: “Are you curious about She-Males?”

That was the title of the email in my inbox this morning. And I had to answer in the fuck affirmative, ie FUCK YEAH!

Because who isn’t curious about She-Males? Like what do they call ‘em in French? “Elle mâle”?

My run-ins with She Males have been sadly, few. A statesque she-male prostitute stopped me and my then girlfriend as we walked through the French quarter in New Orleans.

She put her big mitt on my chest and looked us up and down.

She looked up (or down) at me, and shook her head.

In a very sweet, feminine voice, she told me “Honey, that fe-male make you look good.”

She then threw back her head, and out came a deep, throaty barking laugh that set her adam's apple a-bobbin'.

We weren’t sure who she was insulting. I think it was me. It was interesting she was able to attack my masculinity, both as a woman and a man. An interesting super power that goes unconsidered by the society at large.

For my mother’s memorial service at the severely Russian Orthodox church from where she was to be buried, my mother-in-law had to run out to a tranny clothing store near her work to buy a skirt (no pants on ladies at this Russian Orthodox. Moustaches on ladies are somehow okay, though. It’s a russian thing).

I know what you want to ask: is my mother-in-law a tranny? No, she’s all biologically intact, but my in-law’s auto repair shop is the thick of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, which the neighborhood that Gay Pride Forgot. It’s sort of a Vale of She-Male Hookers. It’s also sort of retro, in a gays-pushed-to-the-very-edges-of-civilization sort of way.

Anyway, she managed to find something that wasn’t too whorish. She was probably the first client that particular shop had in a long time that wasn’t asked what side she wore her skirt on*.

When Paula was in the hospital, chilling postpartum with baby Ruby, several of the night nurses (or were they called something else, like attendants? I don’t know the hierarchy here) were all of the gender we are discussing here.

They were uniformly gentle and sweet, with a wonderful ability to comfort a yelping newborn into a drowsy quiet. They also had an uncanny ability to drop some science, vis-à-vis nursing technique, to exhausted women.

We asked a she-female nurse how it came to be that so many men who are becoming women were on the ward, and she explained that in the counseling that each candidate has to go through, they are encouraged to network with other transgendered folks to find working environments that were chill about their gender reassignment.

The nurse also suspect that these gals were so hyper-feminine that they sought out opportunities to act as nuturers. So, babies.

But still, plumbing is plumbing. I don't how I'd react as a woman to getting bosom coaching from someone with an adam's apple. But see? I'm merely a he-male, more or less. So I am left to imagine these things.

Anyway, these are my experiences with the She-Male community. Not an unpleasant bunch of folks. Maybe I’ll take up that chappy on the offer he so thoughtfully dropped into my inbox. There’s a whole world out there to discover: the world of The She-Male.


* This a joke about a practice that a gentleman experiences when shopping for a suit in haberdasheries of quality, regarding the proper fit of a gentleman’s trouser. Around the crotch.

Some sentences about a Grand Inquisitor that heretofore probably never existed.

“Buttocks,” the Grand Inquisitor hissed,”Buttocks wins again.”

The Grand Inquistor handled the radish apprenhensively, as its shape was far too close to that of the Shogun’s crest.

The Grand Inquisitor nervously made his introductions then waded through the mud bath, scanning for the lost chalice.

The Grand Inquisitor shrugged at the waitress, then sheepishly gestured to the coupon stapled to the mink collar of his caftan.

Somewhere over Pitcairn Island, the Grand Inquisitor dropped his contact lens into the blancmange.

With the unfamilar feel of burlap over his lower lip, the Grand Inquistor couldn’t sleep, even as the nurse primed a new IV bag.

So the conversation ping-ponged through the night, the Grand Inquisitor insisting that Father Bongo make the concession of flattening the hides, even as the priest made a pup-tent with the bear skin as if to mock the older man.

During the relatively smooth ride between the subway stations, Renaldo set the Grand Inquistor’s beard in curlers.

Watching the teargas canisters dropped into the center of the gallery, the Grand Inqusitor flicked the curtain tassles nervously.

The fried eggs burnt and unedible, the Grand Inquisitor wept openly.

The Grand Inquistor stared at the ceiling, avoiding looking Jaime, still in the pantyhose from the night previous.

The Grand Inquisitor kept spreading the talc over the surface of the hubcap, the stump of his thumb leaving a crimson track.

Earlier that afternoon, the Grand Inquisitor advised the game keepers to stay indoors, because there was something about this vole that made it different, dangerous, and possibly demon-driven.

Butterscotch pudding wasn’t something the Grand Inquistor had much experience with, but he knew the bus passengers had been told to expect something wonderful.

A blog meme thing from Stephanie

Stephanie made me do this.

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here’s my go:

1. I have a gimp wrist, specifically on my left arm. It only rotates 180 degrees, from thumb pointing straight up, to thumb pointing straight down. As a result I can’t put my left hand flat, like “slap me five” flat. Has prevented me from pursuing my dream of being a waiter. The Wife claims she fell for me when I showed her my malfunction, so I guess it worked out.

2. I tried out for the quiz show “Jeopardy”. I passed the written test, but performed miserably on the screen test portion.

3. The Wife has bandied about the figure of $150 per month as my Amazon allowance. I see this figure as sort of a baseline theoretical ideal, rather than an actual number per se.

4. I got my driver’s license at age 30. On the day of my first attempt at taking the test, The Wife drove me to the department of motor vehicles, and we pulled up to wait in the vehicle line. It was taking forever, so long in fact that The Wife had to leave to pick up our then infant daughter Ruby at daycare. I was left vehicle-less, standing in a long line of cars and trucks. In the Escalade in front of me, I could read the lips of the father of the 16 year-old kid in the passage seat, waiting to take his test. The man said “What is that motherfucker doing?”
A little functionary came waddling out and explained to me gently, as if I might flip out and kill him (because, let’s face it, I looked crazy standing in the drive with NO CAR) that “We don’t actually provide a car sir.”

I waited on the grass for The Wife to return from picking up the baby.

5. I get choked up by bagpipes. No idea why.

6. On the days I drive to work, I like to sing Hank Williams songs at the top of my lungs. And sometimes Nick Cave.

7. I have a prejudice against some types of southern American accents. I associate them with being disingenuous. I haven’t had any experiences with any southerners that were any more negative that with northerners. I have experienced more “Hell, you’re from San Francisco? How do you manage with all those fags out there?” coming from southern-accented voices. I dunno, it’s complicated and irrational.

8. My feet smell today.

Now, here’s my victims list of memed people:

G
Dave
Tracy
Kim
Marion
Jay
Kelly
Greg-who-is-not-me
Al: Cube mate and hug friend

Parse, or otherwise translate the grammatically correct sentence listed below:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

In this sentence, "buffalo" is a verb, a place name, and the animal.

You have 16 hours, starting.....NOW.

Merely a List

1. Catal Hyük
2. lintel
3. the black oak
4. Grace Jones
5. Corrugated Tin Roofing
6. agape
7. PEZ
8. Chili sauce
9. The male girdle
10. Michel de Montaigne
11. cats what have wee little glovesies
12. frying
13. geologic
14. fridge magnets shaped like wee fishes
15. polo
16. failed magicians
17. moo
18. hypertext mark up language
19. heat rash
20. live feed
21. radar range
22. The Living Planet
23. diacritic
24. sunglasses inside (as worn by douchebags)
25. invented television programs
26. lies told to bus drivers
27. Helium
28. reflective road bump thingies
29. the smell of a freshly cleaned cage
30. arroyo
31. lisp
32. kinky hair
33. Terra Haute, Indiana
34. demisemiquaver
35. “as-salamu ‘alaykum”
36. weinerdog sweaters
37. Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel
38. cats seen from a distance, causing distress
39. terra cotta vs. stucco as a surface for rollerskating
40. References to the color orange on the blog “Bastard of Art and Commerce”
41. snakes living in the liner of a beer cooler
42. Fellowship felt between unattractive people