Category: Flotsam and Jetsam

Larry and I were at the deli counter at the grocery store procuring some lunch meat. We’d ordered up a half pound of Primo Taglio turkey breast when one of the other deli workers came over and informed us that if we bought a pound of Primo Taglio we would get a free calculator in our choice of red, green or purple. We were buying another half pound of ham anyway, so we did indeed get our free calculator. Not only was it a calculator, but it was a clip on calculator! The top was a spring loaded clip like those carabiner keychains! Wow! I could take my meat calculator everywhere!
This exchange pretty much had us puzzled for the rest of the day. Somewhere, someone had had to come up with this bizarre promotion.
“Hey, I’ve got it! Let’s give away calculators if people buy a pound our meat!”
I mean really, who doesn’t associate meat and calculators? It’s a classic duo, like Spaghetti and Ice Cream! We started theorizing how this might have come about. Perhaps some company had somehow ended up with a surplus of clip on calculators, and one day, the manager of this company had lunch with his pal, the manager of Primo Taglio.
“Damn, what the hell am I gonna do with 10,000 clip on calculators!”
“Don’t ask me, I just sell meat.”
“Say! You could have a promotion! I’ll sell you all these calculators, dirt cheap, and you can give ’em away if people buy a pound of meat!”
“Brilliant!”
And here I am with a pound of lunch meat and a bitchin’ purple clip on calculator.

The burrito of opportunity is bigger than your face.
This has nothing to do with anything, but is just a bit of wisdom that I spouted the other day and I thought I would relate it to you completely free of context.

I was trying the ever futile task of growing my hair out long, which I’ve never been able to successfully do as it starts bothering me and I always end up cutting it off. I was trying to weather the storm, but then it was suggested that I might get a bald wig to be Lex Luthor in a segment for Austin Movie Show. That was all the inspiration I needed. I figured I would buzz my head with clippers, then next month when it is time for the shoot, I’ll go full on cueball for a night. I figured I’d think about it a little more though.
Today was the day when I’d finally had enough of my hair. I got out the clippers, and had Larry start buzzing me. Then I figured, since it was only the second time I’d ever buzzed my head, and something I wouldn’t likely do many more times, if at all, I might as well buzz it into a mohawk just for fun to see what it looked like. I had planned on just taking pictures, then buzzing the rest of my head too, but Larry and Jess convinced me to at least keep the mohawk for a day or so.
So there ya go.

Today at work someone asked what came after a trillion. I realized that I didn’t know, so I found this mind bending web page.
Then Neal asked “how far do numbers go before we get to start just making up names?” Well since it’s all just based on numeric prefixes, I suppose we’ve got names covered infinitely, but I did express my surprise that corporate sponsorship hadn’t tried to get in on this. Just be thankful we don’t have to deal with a “Pepsilion”, or maybe a “Verizonillion.” They could also take the route of naming numbers in honor of celebrities, scientists, politicians, and such. You could end up with a “Cruiseillion” or worse yet, a “Bushillion”.
I’ll stick with the good old traditionals, as I can remember first being told about a “googol plex” by my childhood friend, Chris. Thats 10 to the power of a googol (a googol being 10 to the 100th power). We carried that little factoid around proudly and would whip it out as out brainiac weapon whenever we needed it.
“Well you’re dumb times a million!”
“You’re dumb times a googol plex!”
No using infinity, because that’s just cheap and cheating. If only we’d known that 10 to the 201st power is a sexsexagintillion, we would have had a very childish laugh. In fact I just did.

Two Star Wars related skits that made me laugh.
Here and here.

I think Mitch’s Spirit once again paid me a visit this morning. This is what he said:

My friend gave me some toast. I said “Hey, is this ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ on this toast? He said “No.” I said “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it’s not ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter.'”

I’ve had several conversations recently about the subject of attraction, so I decided to collect many of the interesting points here (some direct quotes from emails, blog discussions and such). I’ve always been very happy that Jess and I are completely on the same page regarding attraction. Most people have completely unreasonable expectations of relationships and think that when someone falls in love with you, this turns off some magical brain switch and they are never supposed to find anyone else attractive again. I think Soupytwist wrote a great article about it here. Relationships are a choice. They don’t mean you stop being human, and stop finding people attractive, they just mean that you commit to that one person and choose to be with only them (of course there are some who believe in “open marriages”, polygamy, etc., but that is outside the scope of this particular discussion).

Continue reading…

So my friend, Larry, who works on the Austin Movie Show with me had this idea for a Quentin Tarantino Musical, featuring the Rodgers and Hammerstein composition, “Don’t Fuck With Us!” Naturally, I decided I needed to record this song so we could film this piece. The results amused me.
I present, “Don’t F$@# With Us!”
And while I think it’s funnier when bleeped (and that’s how it will air) we had to have the unedited version just for fun.

I must have a helpful looking face. On Sunday, I was outside playing guitar, waiting for my friend Larry to get here. Over the course of the next half hour or so, about 5 different older people stopped to ask me if I could tell them where apartment 127 was. Larry witnessed 3 of them I think.
Then, tonight, we were in the grocery store. Now keep in mind, I was wearing a wildly colored and patterned paisley kind of shirt. This lady stops me and asks “do you work here?” I said “No, but maybe I can help you anyway.” She proceeded to try and relay her request to me in her heavily accented voice, but I couldn’t quite understand what she was looking for. She kept saying what sounded like “cooler”. She was searching for something in dairy I think and we were right in front of the dairy cooler, but I could not decipher her need. I thought I’d nailed it with “Cool Whip”, but that proved to be wrong. Eventually she smiled and said she would go find the employee who had directed her over in this general direction and get them to help her. As we walked on, wondering what it is about me that seems to make people want to ask me for assistance, we were extra amused that anyone could see me in the shirt I was wearing and wonder if I worked at Randalls.
The strangest part is that this happens to me fairly frequently when I’m in a shop or wherever. People often seem to think I work there regardless of how much my clothes may not at all resemble employee clothes. Maybe I just always look like I confidently know what I’m doing.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like any “flavor” (and I use the term loosely) of Listerine is nummylicious or anything, but “Arctic Mint” is downright vile. It’s bright blue hue should be your first indicator that using it is like what I imagine gargling with anti-freeze might be like. Then, as if you haven’t been through enough in that 30 seconds of swishing this rancid concoction around in your mouth like some drunken alien’s urine sample, it also leaves a strange taste and dry feeling as a long lasting reminder of the violation that just traumatized your poor orifice.
The green “Fresh Mint” is tolerable, though.