What does it mean to be nice?

And now, a point of clarification, because some people don't seem to understand how 'being nice' works.
There are people who describe themselves as nice, but they do so in some variation of the following:
"I'm nice to everybody, but not to the people who piss me off."

If this is you, if you're the person who reserves niceness and manners towards only those who have not done things to make you feel slighted or wronged, I have some bad news for you.

You're not actually nice. Being mean towards those who are mean to you is basically par for the course. It's no nicer or meaner than average. Yes, there are people who are mean to others for no immediately discernible reason. That category is what we call mean people. Just because you're not one of them does not make you nice. It just makes you not a terrible person, and not being a terrible person isn't really that big of an accomplishment. It's like not being a murderer.

However, if you can find it in the goodness of your heart to be nice to even the people who have hurt you or made you feel bad about yourself, then you're actually a nice person. Congrats.

The time poison control was wrong

I'm sick. Not the kind of sick where I need round-the-clock supervision and one of those robes that's like a paper snuggie that exposes your butt to the world, but also not the kind where you can tell me to buck up and deal with it. I'm basically the healthiest you can be where if you showed up for work they'd send you home. Most of this is due to a spectacular kind of cough. I've got the sort of coughing fits that sound like my lungs are going to invert themselves if I'm not careful.

"So take some cough syrup" People say. "You'll feel better."
And this harmless idea of 'get some cough syrup you big dummy!' is what starts the story of the time I accidentally kind of poisoned myself.

Before I started taking the cough syrup, I was pretty functional. I could get through the day, do the things I needed to do. Sure, it sounded like I was smuggling a goose in my trachea every time I coughed but other than that, all was well. I didn't think too much about what I was getting. I went to the pharmacy, coughed, and was immediately lead to the aisle where the cough syrups live. I picked out the adult strength in grape flavor, and went on my merry way.

Of course I didn't check any of the warnings on the bottle when I bought it: it's cough syrup. I'm pretty sure I know how it works. Step 1: put it in your mouth. step 2: don't do anything dangerous. If symptoms persist, repeat step 1. Later that night, when I actually examine the bottle for the first time I see a warning label on the bottle saying that one ought not take this in conjunction with MAOIs.  I do a quick double-check about the medicine I'm taking. Wikipedia tells me that it's not a problem, but just to be on the safe side I call poison control.

I will say this much: I'm not sure how I feel about having to call poison control on myself. On one hand, it shows a level of responsibility of someone pretty adult. There was a problem, and I didn't panic. I also didn't do nothing and hope it would go away. I reacted in a rational and responsible way that was in proportion to the potential threat. On the other hand, Really? You just randomly slug back medicine without checking to see if there's going to be a possible dangerous interaction?

Pretty much.

Drug interactions are not something I really have presence of mind about. I mean, cough syrup is something they sell over the counter, it's not like I automatically assume it's dangerous or anything. There's a tendency to think that for some kinds of medicine, all they do is one simple task. Ibuprofin makes pain go bye bye. Cough syrup makes me not cough. These seem as inert as lip balm. They're like the perfect houseguest. Comes in, gets along great with everybody, makes things better but doesn't demand too much from you and doesn't stay too long.

This is opposed to anything I need a prescription for, which enters the realm of dangerous medicine. There's the big master list of all the things I've been proscribed in my lifetime ever and anytime I want to add something to the list, I need to check to see if it will get along with the others. There's more internal politics than the guest list for a 12 year old girl's birthday party.

In any event, poison control tells me there's nothing to worry about. So I don't worry. I take another shlug and continue on my merry way.

Cut to: me clutching the toilet bowl three hours later wondering what in god's name made me ill.

Some highly specific googling later and I learn that guess what, there is an interaction. Not of the gonna kill you dead kind, but of the you're not gonna metabolize the dxm in the cough syrup kind. Which is the kind that makes you feel worse than had you not taken the cough syrup in the first place.

The moral of this story? Google is my friend and just because I can buy it easily doesn't mean it is going to actually make things better.

The Bechdel, Crichton and Silverlake tests

NaNoWriMo update!
Let me just state the following: writing stuff that isn't present day non-jargony literature has its difficulties. For one, I have this book set in 1890s Paris. Which requires me to have a working knowledge of turn of the century science. As in I actually have to think "did they have phones at this time? What about radio?" I know television was ages away and cars existed albeit barely, but I can't exactly say 'The hero climbed aboard his horse because cars hadn't been invented yet, dummy.'
The other downside is that I set this in Paris, a city I have never been to, have absolutely no idea the geographical layout of, and is a place I have often referred to as "another bullshit town". Then again, this is a novel that exists just to be written as a VERY rough draft. If I wanted to actually publish it, I'd have to do all kinds of rewrites and research. The boring stuff.

But I am trying to make it count for something. The Bechdel test is a measure of female presence in movies (which can apply to other creative works too). It's three questions:
1. Are there two named female characters?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. Do they talk to each other about something that isn't a man?

And this seems like it's not that hard a thing to do. Which it totally isn't. (Did you hear that, screenplay writers?) It's the sort of thing that makes me realize that when I do all this writing, that the characters should do more than say snarky things at each other. Actually scripting motivations and dramatic interactions that address character arcs is nice. Still working on the whole 'have a unique voice/point of view for each character' thing, but that's for another month.

Then we get to the reason I'm doing so much research: the Crichton test. While not an official test per se, the idea is the creation of a false scientific research or conclusion which is sufficiently complex and accurate enough to fool someone not well-versed in the field. This is another thing I'm glossing over in the first draft, only inserting enough detail to convince myself that what I'm writing isn't totally full of crap.

Lastly, the Silverlake test. This is a test of mustache fortitude and it's about Movember instead of NaNoWriMo. 12 days is not enough to grow a 'stache sufficient to pass this test, but one could to it in a month. It will be interesting to see where it goes. In the process, I'm learning that I really cannot pull off a mustache. I might try and craft it into the Zappa, which is a far riskier variant of the goatee, and cousin of the soul patch.

The department of condescension

Hello, department of condescension

Hi, I'd like to buy a computer.

You'll need to fill out an application. We can do this over the phone if you'd like

Not a problem

Of course. How many are there in your family?

There are three of us.

Okay. And your annual income?

Twenty thousand

Hang on a second. You don't make enough to get a computer.

I don't?

You're borderline living in poverty. You're not allowed to have a computer

But I need a computer for my kids. They need to do research for class projects

That's what the library is for.

Because of budget cuts, the local library is over-crowded and isn't always open when we need it

Not my department, not my problem.

Is there anything else I can do?

I'll pull up your file, see if you have any credits remaining. You qualify for a fridge and microwave, and you have both of those. It says here you also have air conditioning. oof. That's a no-no.

But our apartment gets way too hot in the summer. I have to leave my kids at home when I'm working and they're not in school. I don't want them to overheat.

You know the rules. You're paid a living wage, it's not my fault if you can't afford all these luxuries. That's why we created the department of condescension: we got sick of these so-called "poor" families crying about not having enough money to go around. If you're not going to have the determination to make sacrifices, we're going to make sure you do. It's for your own good.

But this is a quality of life issue. Why can't I have certain things that make life easier, make it possible to keep up with all the other people who can afford things like computers? I mean, I don't want to sound ungrateful. The department was really being charitable when they allowed me to have a car so I didn't have to rely on buses to get to my jobs. But shouldn't people be allowed the freedom to have certain little things so that we can feel good about ourselves?

I'm sorry, but you don't make enough money to have 'dignity'. You're close, but not there yet.

I'm sick of being treated like a second-class citizen. How come anytime I buy something nice for my family, I'm being irresponsible, but anytime I even begin to question the excessive things the rich buy, I'm accused of class warfare?

Excuse me, ma'am, are you on a cell phone?

I'm on a cell phone, yes

I'm sorry ma'am, but a cell phone is a blatant violation of Department policy at your income level. We'll send agents over to your location to confiscate it immediately. Thank you for calling the Department of Condescension, and we hope you can soon earn enough to be allowed to have a nice day.

Tofu logic

I recently ate at a vegan restaurant with some friends. My dish was a tofu curry, with vegetables. I did not enjoy my dish, and I left about half of it uneaten.

The reason for my dislike of the dish can be summed up by the line repeated by many many tofu apologists: "The great thing about tofu is that it takes on the flavor of whatever you put it with." From this statement, a few key inferences may be drawn.

1. Tofu itself does not have that great of a flavor. If tofu were delicious, there wouldn't be a need to say how it doesn't detract from the surrounding flavors. So then, tofu is to food what the word 'basically' is to the English language: Add it in, and it doesn't actually contribute much to the sentence. Basically.

1.5 What is important to note is that the tofu must be incorporated into the dish for this effect to take place. The chunks of tofu in my dish were half the size of my fist. Tofu does not work by osmosis; you can't just toss a whole block into a curry and expect the block to taste like curry. Pieces the size of lego blocks would have been far more palatable.

2. The thing into which the tofu is introduced should be flavorful. Gelatinous protein dish plus flavorless slurry does not a good meal make. In this regard, the curry failed. Instead of being a spicy concoction to tempt my tastebuds, it was a weak, thin sauce with only the vaguest hints of curry. It's as though someone had only told the sauce what curry was supposed to taste like. For shame, vegans.

The ultimate failing of the meal is this: the best thing about my meal was that we ordered an appetizer platter of sweet potato fries. And going to a vegan restaurant to order sweet potato fries sounds.... well, that's actually a really good idea. If vegan restaurants went out of their way to show off the things which were vegan which most people would eat anyways, people wouldn't think vegans were so weird and cult-y. Things like chips with salsa, oreo's, nutter butters. Things like basic pasta dishes. Not things like smoothies made of spinach and bark.

The dance of the green arrow

I'm studying for my CA driver's license. The one challenge is that nobody in LA actually drives according to the manual. I think some changes need to be made. Please, let this be an official rule:

Drivers: In order to make a left turn in a busy intersection, you must wait until a green arrow is given. If you have a green arrow, you can turn. If you're one of the cars going on a yellow arrow, you may also make the turn. If your car is in motion, and you are in the intersection when the yellow arrow ends, you may complete your turn. It is not acceptable to caboose this turning train under the belief that nobody would want to hit your car. That makes you a terrorist and a bad person.

You may however use the rule of gridlock prevention. If at all possible to do this safely, move into the intersection. Once the light turns red, make your turn so you aren't blocking the soon to be oncoming traffic. Any car which is in the intersection as the light turns red is allowed to do this. If you attempt to game the system and caboose this train, you are stealing green arrow from the traffic headed perpendicularly to you. If you attempt to enter the intersection on a red light to make a left turn in this way, I propose the following rule: any car which chooses to do so may hit your car, and will do so without any fault. Furthermore, the city of Los Angeles will award $5000 dollars as a reward to that driver hitting your car.

Pedestrians: The City of Los Angeles reluctantly admits you have a right to be on the road as well. However, your green light and walk sign do not necessarily mean that the walkway will be free from cars. Do not enter the crosswalk until all cars have completed making their left turns. Yes, even you, guy in the blue polarfleece jacket and running shoes from last night.

NaNoWriMo-vember

November combines two middle-term goals for me.

1. NaNoWriMo

aka national novel writing month. You write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. For reference, that's 1,667-ish words per day. As of right now I've written 518. Only two of them are swear words, and one of those other 516 words is 'Spatchcock'. This should give you an idea about how this novel's going to turn out.

2. Movember

I learned about Movember when I was in Australia. In years past, friends of mine had made facebook posts about events such as 'No-shave November' 'Novem-beard', 'facial hair February' and 'manly month of March'. All excuses to grow beards just for the heck of it. Enter Movember, where men grow mustaches to raise awareness of men's health issues. It wasn't so much the idea of a bunch of men growing mustaches for the cause, it was that men in prominent positions like newscasters or cricketers were doing it. It wasn't just a joke, it was a real, legitimate endeavor. Also, it's going to make people think I'm even more of a hipster than I might secretly be.

I got 88 problems..

I want to find the man who decided that piano chords should only sound good when you hit notes that are like a foot apart from each other, and I want to make sure he starts singing a whole octave higher for a while. I don't have big, flexible man hands. Mine fall into the category of really soft and a little bit childlike. Super useful for backrubs, but for piano I'd be better off using something like boxing gloves. Or my face.

I bought a cheap-ish casio keyboard as part of a plan to achieve life goals. I'd established that I wanted to be able to play the intro to Don't Stop Believing, truly a classic composition of our time. I came into this with the idea that I could 'teach myself' how to play. It's a slow process, and along the way I've learned a few lessons.

1. My left hand is basically useless. One of my hands can glide over the keys fairly proficiently, doing a sort of somersault upon itself to hit scales in sequence. One of my hands exists solely so that I have a backup place to hold things at parties.

2. These two hands do not like working together. In movies, when the FBI rolls in to track down the killer, the local police force isn't happy with this decision. This is exactly how my hands operate together. Any situation where the left hand occasionally but not always has to play notes at the same time as the right hand (basically every song ever written) leads to a communication breakdown.The addition of the left hand to the right throws a giant spanner into the works.

3. Running before you can walk: Good idea? I have a large collection of beginner piano lesson books from a former girlfriend. These books are full of songs that you'd say were cute if your 6 year old cousin played. I haven't been six for a while, so I am loathe to spend time mastering them. It's like learning to be good at wii bowling. I mean, you *can* put in the effort to do it, but when you absolutely nail it, nobody's going to be impressed with your accomplishments in a meaningful way. I also have the sheet music to Blue Rondo a la Turk; a song where the time signature has a '+' in it. Worth the risk of irrevokably damaging tendons in my hand for? Absolutely.

4. Sheet music might as well be written in morse code. I went through 6 years of band, and I cannot actually read music. I learned what all the dots mean, just enough to learn what the starting notes are and when I shouldn't play. Everything else is guesswork. Making lucky guesses over and over again. This is kind of a metaphor for my life as well. I don't actually know what the word insidious means, but I know the times when I can use it.

But that's just how I roll. I don't always do things the smart way, but I try and do them MY way. Speaking of, I should try and learn to play Sinatra's "My Way". Anyone want to give me a hand with these boxing gloves?

Motivation Muffins

A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. These are excellent expectations of physics that apply to things that you can pick up and throw at people. Sadly, we're told that once you get down to the level of things that only people with PHDs in sciences get to see, these expectations don't apply. I'm talking sub-sub-sub particles at the point where something as seemingly simple as "motion" is hard to define. But I'm not a scientist. I know enough to know that I'm wrong as soon as anything more advanced than 8th grade chemistry is involved.

One thing I am good at is overthinking things and then applying a shoddy analogy based heavily in pop psychology to round the whole thought out. I'm the Half-bakery from The Phantom Tollbooth And today's special from the half-bakery is motivation muffins.

Motivation is very much like a muffin. Some people have the wherewithal to take raw ingredients and produce muffins themselves. Then there are the people who have muffin experience limited to what Starbucks is selling that day. Both metaphorically and literally I am at best a Starbucks muffiner. Give me the raw ingredients; some time, some experience and a goal to work towards and I choose the easy way out.

This is where I do my damndest to avoid mixing metaphors like batter for these muffins is similarly mixed. Some people are self-motivators. Tell them to make muffins and they will. Give them a goal to work towards, and they will push themselves to achieve the best possible outcome. The goal that gives them the most internal satisfaction, that builds character, that demonstrates value and a sense of self worth. They are bodies in motion, and they tend to stay in motion.

For others, Starbucks provides a tempting alternative. Using different energies, different types of skills, some people will get their muffins handed to them. They might not have the strong desire to take a hands-on role in achieving a goal, but they know people who are. And there isn't anything wrong with this. Some tasks are ones best left to people who are good at them. I might cook my own meals but nobody's expecting me to build my own car or mine my own baking soda.

I bring this analogy up as part of a point that though not very significant, might need mentioning. The point being that when I said that I'd worked hard to get where I am today, the fact of the matter is I really hadn't.

At least, not always. I spent 4 years as a Communication major - a major based heavily in theories that are quite obvious to anyone who's ever spent more than 10 minutes thinking about how people work. There's also a component of Communication theory that deals with questions about whether people in like-minded argumentative enclaves seal themselves off further as a response to attempts by argumentative interlocutors to argue in the Brockreidean ideal, but that's something only G. Thomas Goodnight would ever think about.

High school me spent many hours learning how to do things like read law cases and journal articles quickly and how to write compelling papers. High school me was the one who did all the work. High school me made mean motivation muffins. I was wound up like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's day off, but damn I could bake. This oven was running hot hot HOT. Needless to say, I got burned out.

So college me went from a body in motion to a body at rest. I didn't work as hard, and I didn't do as much. Some of this was because I didn't really have to. There were a lot of college freshman who spent time learning recipes for motivation muffins that I'd learned already. But as tendencies become habits become character traits, becoming a body at rest made me into a little bit of a slacker. Now that I'm working even less frequently, it's astounding how little I do with my day.

But I'm trying to make an effort to do more. I've got life goals, and the Brothers Mcelroy have tacitly granted me permission to lead a life as ridiculous as possible, which I will be sharing with you. Time to break out the recipe book.

I'd rather be occupying Wall Street

Being a college graduate in this economy is like being in the center of a bizarre hurricane of economic and psychological turmoil. Unemployment is high, the number of available jobs for recent grads is scarce and there is rightfully a lot of anger at those believed to be responsible for this (choose one: situation/calamity/clusterfuck).

As a recent graduate, I'm in a unique position to run headlong into this steaming pile of excrement called the economy. No safety net, no experience, just a 'So long, don't let the door doesn't hit your ass on the way out' attitude and a bundle of student loans.

You could say it's my fault. You could say, "What do you expect? You're a humanities major and all they ever amount to is grocery baggers and humanities professors. Worse, you're a communication major, which only exists to introduce business majors to someone hot to marry" And to an extent those are true. But I've done generic office work; something that a lot of Americans do. But try and find that now. Go on, try. I can either work for insultingly low pay/no pay or I can try and get a paying job where I don't have the experience to do it. Which is to say, The only options available to me are low/no paying jobs.

I grew up, spent my entire life believing that if I went to college, if I worked hard and got into a good school, that when all was said and done, that I'd have a job. I spent my entire school career believing that the harder I worked then, the better off things would be for me now. I don't believe that I deserve to have a job just because I went to college. I'll just say this: don't call me entitled for believing that I deserve a job. I worked my ass off to get here. Believing someone who works hard should be rewarded isn't entitlement; it's fairness.

It's fairness. It's justice. It's the idea underpinning the very capitalism that some claim the Occupy movement is undermining. In order to be a capitalist, in order to believe that there should be as few safety nets as possible, that the invisible hand of the market is a benevolent force that lifts and helps all who deserve it, you have to believe one fundamental tenet. You have to believe that those who work hardest at making the society the best will be rewarded the most.

If hard work towards good ends doesn't translate into a better reward for a person, then why in G-d's name should I abide by your system? If all are not equally treated, if some hard work is more equal than other hard work, then the system is flawed. If I can work hard, apply myself to a job so well that in 19 days I not only get offered a paid position, but wind up taking over my immediate superior's position - if I work that hard and yet my reward is a salary that's just pissing distance from the poverty line, then something is wrong.

I worked hard, I did all the "right" things, but I'm not able to get the reward I deserve. Someone who made the sorts of dangerous trades that brought the country and world to the brink of financial collapse - someone who did all the "wrong" things - is able to reap the benefits. But hey, that's the new reality. Screw over or be screwed over. So be it.

Anatomy of a phobia

From time to time, you'll hear of people with phobias of seemingly ridiculous things. People afraid of string, chins, the number thirteen - things that are not scary. Because there are things that are scary. The dark? Pretty terrifying under the right circumstances. Things of evil and danger lurk in the dark. Heights? they're apparently one of the things that we're born to be afraid of. Bugs to a lesser extent are scary. They're creepy, crawly and when they're in your space or up close and personal, they can be a little intimidating for something that you can easily crush with your foot. But how can somebody have a true phobia of something ridiculous? How is that even possible?

I'll do my best to explain what it's like being afraid of something that for all intents and purposes you shouldn't be afraid of. I'm afraid of mushrooms. Yes, mushrooms. It gives me a lot of anxiety when I come across them unexpectedly. Does the idea of avoiding mushrooms dominate my thoughts? Am I totally paralyzed by the thought of encountering mushrooms in my day to day life, even when there's no actual danger? Well no. I'm sure there are people who are afraid of other "normal" things in that way. But it's all a matter of degree. You can be more afraid of something, or less afraid of something.

I look at it like this: The degree to which a normal person should be afraid of mushrooms is so much smaller than the degree to which I am. I'm making a moderate issue out of something that to a normal person isn't even close to being an issue.

This fear of mushrooms wasn't something I was born with. It's a psychological stumbling block, and I can remember the moment when I developed my fear. I was probably 10, and I was at a family gathering for something on my mother's side. Once you get to cousins, and children of cousins on my mother's side, I'm not super familiar with them. It was also held at a little park/rec hall in the middle of nowhere, where there was a very inadequate playground. Between people who were close with each other, but whom I wasn't close with, and no other real distractions, I wasn't having fun at that gathering.

Someone suggested I try playing with a distant cousin's dog. Throw a stick for it. Dogs love fetch, dogs love sticks. But younger me didn't really like dogs. Younger me didn't like throwing sticks to dogs. Younger me was even really bad at selecting sticks for dogs. I selected a stick about the length of a soda can, but it was of a good thickness for fetch. I brought the stick up towards my face to toss the stick...

And there it was. It was about the size of a potsticker, and it was right in my face. Right. In. My. Face. All my dissatisfaction, all my unhappiness about being at this family gathering found a symbol, found a way to make themselves manifest.

I freaked out. I dropped the stick, flung it to the ground and probably let out a little scream. I don't remember anything beyond that. I wasn't in complete mental breakdown mode, I'm pretty sure. But I did not like it, not one little bit. Of course my younger brother and sister found out. And because all children are little shits when it comes to opportunities to traumatize their siblings, the rest of that summer was spent with small mushrooms shoved in my face. I dreaded the rain. I dreaded nature walks. Any chance that fungus would arise, and I did my best to avoid it.

I'm not sure what it is that I'm afraid of. With something like a fear of crossing a bridge over water, there's lots of tangible things that one could be afraid of. But for me, it's not as though I'm afraid I'll ingest a poisonous mushroom and die. What I'm "afraid" of is the mushroom itself. To me, the act of being in the close or unexpected proximity of a mushroom is as frightening as watching a horror film. My chest tenses up. I might let out an involuntary little yell. Most of all, the thought of getting to safety enters my mind. I want to get in my car, get back in my house, go someplace where I know that I'm free from mushrooms.

Time and repeated exposure to the real world have helped, thankfully. I'd like to say that I'm all better now, but that's not true. To me, "all better" means that I wouldn't have this negative reaction. I wouldn't react at all if I was "all better". But I can't do that. I just make accommodations. I know that mushrooms live in the produce section of the grocery store, so I draw a little 3-foot bubble around where they are and I avoid them. I don't make eye contact and I don't get too close. I read labels on soups, sauces. I read menus very carefully and ask if it's ambiguous. I ask to have things made without mushrooms if possible. If that's called into question, I phrase it as an allergy. Which is a real thing: I used to work near a woman who became allergic to mushrooms. If a restaurant can be expected to cater to a real food allergy, they should be able to cover my phobia.

To this day, I still react. Scenes from the remake of Alice in Wonderland made me sink low in my seat, gripping the armrests as though I were undergoing the Ludovico Technique. Recently, following a rare raining in Southern California, a house near where my car is parked had a lawn with maybe a dozen largish mushrooms. Again, I felt that panic, that tightness in my chest. I looked away quickly and instinctively as though I was being shown a real, live torture scene. To this day, I could not touch a portobello.¹ Even if you offered me money, I probably would not. If by some accident, or sufficiently large reward I did touch one, I would flinch, react as though it were a hot stove or festering wound. I'd immediately be filled with the urge to scrub that hand clean. To wash all of the mushroom away.

But I manage. I can live a normal life 99.99% of the time. Even when I do come across a mushroom, I think I'm getting better over time. Less anxious, less afraid. More normal I guess. I'm just glad that I don't have a fear of something more fundamental, something like driving.

1. I even refused to listen to the Dire Straits song "Portobello Belle"

The written word

I still know how to write cursive. It's one random and useless skill I picked up in elementary school that I still have in my head, along with other gems like long division or how to spell words without using spell check. I rarely use it. But this is because I go out of my way to avoid writing things on paper at all. My handwriting is abysmal. It sits on the page in tiny clusters, like a bundle of paranoid sticks cowering in the corner of the page. Letters are not of a consistent size, they bob and weave, or slowly slide off the edge of the page. Lined paper helps a little, but I crammed everything together without white space on the page. At the end of the year, the notebook would have 30 pages of an unrelenting barrage of scribbling in the front, and thirty blank pages that escaped the fury in the back.

This is why I like the computer. All the words I write come out clean, crisp, legible. Each one devoid of personality in and of itself as reading Times New Roman is wont to do. It's probably for the best that this happens. I'd rather that my words came across with clinical reassurance as opposed to the thought that they might have been written by a disturbed teenager. I don't need that negative energy. Times new roman is the double-blind; the great equalizer. All text becomes refreshingly similar, like fast food. It may not be a spectacle to behold but you know with certainty it will be adequate.

This must be why so many of the great philosophers and figures in history wrote letters to each other. Receiving a letter from Voltaire in a script that's flowing and a joy to behold must have made the experience that much better. I bet the thinkers with bad handwriting became lost to history because people didn't like receiving letters from them. As though the letters would be better, cleaner and more legible if the writer simply took more time. It might be an insult - how dare someone quickly slap together a letter and send it off in such haste, when I put forth so much effort into my letters?

Is it possible to just be bad at handwriting? Like how some people claim to be bad at math, so they don't get tasked with doing math-y things in groups. Maybe what I need is to write more, to get my hands used to the movements of cursive. You know, muscle memory. Then again, that's what I did in 3rd grade, and my handwriting sucked then too. The bad math person uses a calculator, I use times new roman.

And that's the joy of the computer. When I want to change the tone of my writing, I can do it on the fly. I can set the type in any font I choose, at any point without any need to re-do everything I've done. Of course, you lose the effect of immediacy. Something written in the moment of passion, anger, sadness carries with it that power, captured forever.

Ode to the dorm mattress

I remember the joys of dorm living. My experience might be a bit different than most dorm living: In exchange for paying through the nose for a meal plan and campus housing, I got to live in the brand-new and pretty swanky dorm. It wasn't all luxury, but it had some perks like air conditioning, bathrooms we didn't have to share with the whole floor and most importantly brand new mattresses. A good mattress is critical for so many things. You spend 1/3 of your day in bed. You also spend about half of your early morning class sessions in bed. So a good, firm, supportive mattress is key. Now your standard dorm mattress is wrapped in the kind of industrial plastic used by serial killers, and comes in the least useful size imaginable: your feet will not dangle over the edge, but no other accommodations are made for your comfort. Twin-XL is already a sort of specialty size, but why not make the mattresses even just 4 inches wider? Those are comfort inches. What matters most is that these were brand new. Unspoiled. Pure as the driven snow. Put a mattress in close proximity to a coed group barely post-pubescent, add alcohol and a certain joy of new found freedom, and things are gonna get freaky. After one year, this mattress will be saturated in easily a half-dozen fluids, usually of human origin. They say that doorknobs and phone receivers contain the most bacteria, but I doubt that. I challenge you to drunkenly hook up entirely supported on a doorknob. But my mattress and I had many fond memories. The times I slept alone. The times I slept also alone. The times I slept on the floor because I had passed out thereupon. I miss thee mattress. I should like to visit you again. But only after you've been soaked in hospital-grade sanitizer. Ew.

Let's kill some stupid people

It's hard to be purely original in standup comedy. I mean, it's very hard to cover truly original concepts and points of view that someone else has not done before. This means you see certain types of jokes come up more often than not. So here's one of those common gripes that pops up far more than it should: stupid people shouldn't be allowed to interact with the rest of us/have children/vote etc. Stupid people are an easy target, they're not defined by some sort of racial, gender, social class or other characteristic that makes the person telling the joke into a bigot or xenophobe. "Stupid" isn't even a code word for any of these classes of people that you aren't allowed to poke fun at without offending people. Feel free to say you don't like stupid people, because being stupid is a choice. It's a choice that transcends all barriers and doesn't affect the good people... only the ones who cause more problems than solutions. Stupid is a very lazy way of cutting around actual social commentary. It's like "bad". I don't like bad people. Or people who do bad things. Nobody is going to argue with statements like that. But as soon as you start asking what makes a person "bad" you open up a can of worms. It's not as though the things that make a person "stupid" are any more pleasant or simple to talk about. Stupid is usually the result of a lot more social factors than individual failings. My gripe is that as far as jokes go, pointing out that stupid people do stupid things that annoy you isn't a revolutionary statement. As a concept to base a series of jokes around, it's really kind of... well, you know.

Pseudonyms, Colbert and Google's death of the self

I blog as Nick Klaus. I do stand-up as Nick Klaus. I write things and sometimes even introduce myself to people as Nick Klaus.

But I can't use Google Plus as Nick Klaus. That is not allowed. For that, I must use my real name. And that is something which causes me great annoyance.

But let's get to the heart of the matter: why do I use a fake name from time to time? Sometimes it's convenience. My real last name is 12 letters long and is mostly unpronounceable to the uninitiated. If someone has to enter my name into their phone, I'll sometimes toss out Klaus as the last name to save them the trouble. Nick Klaus is a sort of shorthand in that way.

I also use Nick Klaus as a pseudonym because I want there to be a degree of separation from me as a person and me as a public figure. Granted, "public figure" is reeeeeally pushing it at this point but I don't want to have to reverse-engineer it later in life. If I start performing under this pseudonym now, should I ever become famous I'll always have this "real" identity that I can retreat to.

Think of it as Stephen Colbert. On The Colbert Report, he performs a character who satirically pushes a Republican agenda. He says things he doesn't truly mean. But Stephen Colbert is also his real name. The persona is so entrenched that he doesn't want his own children to watch the show because he doesn't want them to be confused about what it is he truly believes.

The idea is this: we all can be different things to different people. Nick Klaus on stage is separate from Nick (real last name) off-stage. There's a lot of overlap, but Nick Klaus is more outgoing and more of a hapless fool than I am in real life. Real me does things that are Nick Klaus-ish from time to time but Nick Klaus stage persona is always in that role. It's not a lie, it's not the Truth, but it's true enough.

Nick Klaus is a pseudonym that means something. It stands for an idea, and a person who in essence exists. But he doesn't exist to Google. And that is what will be Google+'s downfall. What google is saying is that you should only use G+ if you're comfortable with having only 1 identity, an identity which you share varying degrees of. But that's the Stephen Colbert problem. More people see public Colbert than private Colbert. They share a name, but are at odds with each other.

Comic Nick Klaus will tweet/say things that professional with a job Nick (real last name) probably shouldn't, and holds opinions that Interior design-y Nick Klaus thinks should be kept private. Separate blogs, separate fora, separate selves.

Only Nick (real last name) can use G+. And that will be its Achilles heel. I'm one of those people who can keep aspects of my life very separate from other facets. The internet should let me do that too. After all, on the internet nobody knows you're a dog.

Herman Cain doubles down

Part one in my Class Warfare 101 series: the funny things about business and taxes.

There are some things generally regarded as good in the business world: jobs, disposable income, and economic progress. So how do we get there? What's the path towards all three of those things?

It's complicated. A ridiculous oversimplification is that there's a vicious cycle between people buying things, leading to a need for more workers, leading to more people getting paid, leading to more people able to buy things.¹ It works in reverse too. As joblessness increases and people have to tighten beltstraps and don't spend as much, companies need to reduce their workforce.

Right now we're in one of those negative spirals. There are ways to get out of a down economy, and people with the power to do so (big business and government) have a vested interest in avoiding these recessions because both business and government need a consistent stream of income to function. The government has essentially two options: stimulus funds (which might also be called "throwing a bunch of money at a problem and hoping it goes away") or creating incentives for business to hire more. The latter take the form of tax cuts.

Enter Herman Cain. GOP hopeful, and businessman. In the recent GOP debate, he was asked the following:
"You -- you say that we can boost job creation by eliminating the tax on companies that bring back overseas profits to the U.S. But when we tried a tax break like this in 2004, companies didn't create jobs. They just paid bigger dividends to their shareholders. Why would it work this time?" (Source: LA Times)

Before I get into Mr. Cain's response, this brings up a very valid point. When government gives a tax break to companies, the companies *should* reciprocate by creating new jobs. Obviously, we can't force them to do it. But it is a real problem when you consider that it's not the jobless who are being helped.

Here's Mr. Cain's response:
"It'll work this time for a number of reasons, because I think you're only looking at a small piece of it. Remember, it is a combination of things that I indicated. If you just pick out one thing and try just to do that, no, that is not comprehensive.

When I talked about lowering the top corporate and personal tax rays to 25%, also taking capital gains rates to zero as well as suspending taxes on the repatriated profits. And here's the big one, make them permanent. Uncertainty is what is killing this company."

I'll break here for a bit to show what's going on. The line of reasoning is this:
1. The government gave a break to corporations, to help them make more jobs.
2. Corporations didn't make more jobs.
3. (Cain's response)I hear what you're saying, and I agree that both those things happened.
4. The reason is that corporations didn't make more jobs because there wasn't enough of a tax break given. The government wasn't business friendly enough.

That worries me. I understand that there is a tipping point for real effects to be seen, but the 2004 cuts were not insubstantial. We're talking about huge multi-national corporations here; even modest advantages should translate into job creation on a reasonable scale. I'll let Mr. Cain finish now.

"Now if a company were to decide that they want to take some of that money and pay a bigger dividend, so what, it is their money. The people receiving the dividends might be happy with that. Maybe that is the right thing to do."²

What should have been jobs for people in need was instead given back in money to people well-off enough to own stock. Not everyone has enough money to have a spare $5000, $10000 etc. to invest. In a recent survey, only 24% had more than 6 months salary saved up. That might sound like a lot, but we're talking emergency funds: the money you're only supposed to use when there's an emergency. Half of those surveyed didn't even have 3 months' salary saved up. (I do, but only because my salary is really low. Were I paid $24,000 a year, I'd be in that 50% who can't meet the 3 month's salary threshold)

As though it weren't a scary enough proposition, he wants to make this permanent. Immutable. A perpetual system which hasn't demonstrated it's going to help the people who need to be helped.

A better arrangement might be one where the government pays corporations only after they've created more jobs. The incentive is clear, the government can be held accountable, and everyone leaves happy: the corporations get their tax break equivalents, the unemployed get their jobs, the only loser is the taxpayer, right?

Er, no. This is one of those smart investments. People who need jobs in order to not just subsist, but to thrive will buy things. They'll put money in the bank. They'll consider buying houses, cars, TVs. The money goes back into the system, and makes people self-sufficient. Instead of a continuous stream of unemployment or welfare checks, a one-time investment ends that cycle. If anything, the taxpayer wins.³

Instead of backing a strong solution, Herman Cain is gambling with the economy, hoping that if he goes all in, that he'll be right. And he's playing with your money. The question is, is this a bet you can afford to lose?

1. You may ask, can that vicious cycle go on indefinitely? The answer is a qualified yes. Assuming there are more people to take these jobs, growth is easier. Looking at a world economy, the picture is ridiculously complex and is something I won't even begin to understand, and I won't pretend to be qualified to speak about it. In a hypothetical, sealed-off economy where there is population growth forever, the cycle *can* go on indefinitely. As population steadies, the way to "grow" the economy is in finding ways to keep the cycle flowing. If people keep spending what they earn, there isn't a "shortage" of funds holding the economy back. Left to its own devices, money will congregate in the hands of the people who are most advantaged by the system; this is only really a problem when there's minimal growth, or even negative growth.

2. I'm saying the real meat of his response ends here. The LA Times link shows more of his statement, but it's not anything that changes the tone of his answer

3. It's like this: Some one-time investments pay out over the long term. People who have real jobs that pay a real living wage become contributors, not recipients.

Nick Klaus: Live

Two upcoming shows:

Monday August 29, 8PM The Comedy Store, Los Angeles.

Wednesday September 7, 8PM The Comedy Store, Los Angeles.

Both shows are $5. It's highly worth it.

Is The Real Housewives fake?

One of my jobs is to very indirectly work for a Bravo network celebrity. (Or "Bravolebrity". Actual word) As a result, I came across the Bravo Network rulebook for blogging about their shows. One of the rules is interesting.

Stars aren't allowed to say "the show made it seem one way but THIS is what really happened". Ever. You're not allowed to "set the record straight". There's a really good reason for it, too.

Everything in the show has to be presented as real and as how it all went down. Letting stars say that the show didn't show what "actually happened" would undermine all credibility. So obviously, there's a little misdirection on the part of Bravo here.

But I wouldn't call it "fake". Sure, the events in the show are a little bit manufactured. The series finale has to be a little bit of a trainwreck. This means you've got to guarantee a trainwreck will happen. Bravo's not telling people to fake anything, but they are guiding things to a spectacular conclusion. Add in a little creative editing, and a horrific dinner party becomes an epic battle. Just pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Nothing is faked, nothing is scripted or planned out but some interactions are... finessed. And THAT's setting the record straight.

Um... Guys?

From the 'Didn't think this one all the way through' department:
Office Max has a motivational poster featuring a Roman aqueduct and the word Teamwork.

They do realize that that aqueduct was built by a tyrannical leader demanding things from slaves who had no say in the process. But that's also how Apple is run.

Good reasons to buy expensive clothes

Today, my very first Turnbull and Asser shirt arrived in the mail. A brand new shirt identical to the one I received retails for roughly $220. (135 pounds, if you want to be precise) This is certainly a lot of money. When you consider that I can walk into a target and buy a dress shirt for thirteen dollars and tax, I admit paying more than $200 for a shirt sounds excessive. But it's not always expensive.

There's a few different kinds of expensive. There's "good expensive". Things that cost a fair amount of money and are worth every penny. There's "Not-so-good expensive". Things where you pay a premium for some attribute like exclusivity or style, but where there isn't an equivalent in quality. A lot of expensive shirts fall into this category. They might be better than $20 dollar shirts, but they're not hundreds of dollars in quality better.

Then there's "hidden expensive". You *can* buy a used luxury car for a fraction of what it costs new, but you'll soon discover that the repair bills add up quickly. Heck, I drive a Volkswagen and I've put almost all of what I paid for it, into repairs. And my car doesn't have 12 cylinders or complicated computers to go wrong.

Similarly, you can buy a bunch of cheap things that will last you a little time. You could keep buying 5 dollar umbrellas and use them until they break. Or you could buy one quality umbrella and have it last a lifetime. Probably even longer than a lifetime. And sure, if each umbrella lasts two years, you might come ahead price-wise. But factor in all those little costs about environmental damage. One quality umbrella is going to be a whole lot greener than ten cheap ones.

Blah blah greener, right? Here's a little story to bring up the next point. I used to help out the USC ultimate frisbee team. We would sell frisbees to alumni at football games. I was really good at it. The trick? I asked them to hold the frisbee in their hands. We sold official, 175 gram frisbees. As soon as whomever I was selling the disks to held the frisbee, they could feel the difference. They knew they were getting a quality disk.

Trying this shirt on for the first time, it felt... good. It wasn't just a piece of cotton to put on my body. The sleeves fit my arms. I wasn't drowning in a sea of extra fabric around the hips and waist. Shouldn't the things you use make you feel like a person worthy of having little luxuries? You have to do so many mundane things, shouldn't you try and make them special?

The big confession is that I didn't actually spend $200 for the shirt. I was lucky enough to come across an ebay auction, and I scooped it up for under $50. This is the other side of the coin: Just because a quality shirt costs a lot of money doesn't mean that you have to pay full price

As the philosopher Smokey Robinson once said: my momma told me you better shop around.

Whose fault is the debt ceiling stalemate?

I've been following the debt ceiling talks. It's exactly as not-pretty as you've been lead to believe. it comes down to four players:

1. The so-called 'tea-vangelicals'. Newer members of the House primarily. Their position is absolute and uncompromising because they were elected on an ideological platform. On their own, they aren't a large enough voting bloc to get their way, but they've got the ability to tank legislation coming from the moderate right. Huge proponents of the 'Cut Cap and Balance' plan.

2. Moderate republicans. You've got McCain who isn't trying to court the Tea-vangelicals, and Boehner, who is.

3. President Obama. He's got veto power for anything that comes across his desk. He can also invoke Constitutional privilege and raise the ceiling himself.

4. Dems. Mostly in the Senate, but the House dems have some power.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: The ceiling must be raised AND there has to be a deficit reduction plan that will pass both a republican-held House and a Democratically controlled Senate. House Tea-vangelicals and Senate dems won't agree to the same plan.

This leaves moderate republicans. I'm laying the blame with them, but I'm giving them a major way out. They've been barking up the wrong tree, trying to court the tea-vangelicals. Boehner's new plan passed in the House, but lost the support of 22 moderate republicans, and it won't go anywhere in the Senate.

On one hand, if they try and court democrat's votes, it doesn't look good for their re-election chances. On the other hand, this could be their chance to spin themselves as the heroes who came forward and solved the debt crisis. Let's be honest, the dems have already agreed to give up a lot (massive cuts, raising no new taxes on the rich) so it wouldn't be too hard to craft a bill that GOP moderates will like. I'd gladly let the GOP moderates take the credit if it gets us out of this bickering.

Ideology is nice, but it shouldn't be an economic suicide pact. Pragmatic republicans and democrats should be able to see that.

And now, a white guy overthinks racism

Today, I came across an essay where the writer brings up something she calls 'hipster racism': people who say things perceived as racist who claim the comments aren't meant to be taken seriously. The writer's argument is that even ironic racism is bad, and that people who use it are horrible people whom we should look down upon.

In some ways, the essay has its own problems.
Claim: the hipster lifestyle is racist.
Reason: hipsters cause gentrification.
Why that's a load of crap: Is gentrification even racist? I mean, people have the right to buy houses and apartments wherever they want. It's not like hipsters are violently forcing people from their homes. It also bothers me to say that certain neighborhoods are supposed to be Mexican or African American or any other particular group. You only need two 'whys' to get to the truth. Allow me to demonstrate:
Why should hipsters not move into this neighborhood?
Because it's traditionally an African American neighborhood
But why did the African American community live there, as opposed to any other neighborhood?
Because white people wouldn't... oh my god. I'm enforcing segregation, aren't I?
Yuuuuuuuup.

Claim: hipsters are secretly racist
Reason: hipsters use reasons like “having black friends,” “dated an Asian girl once,” or “really liking Mexican food” as their reason why they're not racist.
Why that's a load of crap: Because that line is only used by idiots. I like Mexican food and my current girlfriend is (half) Asian, but the reason why I'm not racist is because I believe that people are fundamentally morally equal.

I admit this much: based on my own experiences, I cannot really actively engage in discussions about race. I don't feel comfortable using derogatory racial slurs, so I don't. But I'm also a standup comic, and I dislike the idea that people are allowed to tell me that there are certain topics I cannot ever use. Within a group of friends, (or even within the context of certain comedy programs) I think there's an understanding that people can (in good humor) make jokes that would appear offensive to an outside observer. When these jokes go beyond that close sphere of friends people not 'in the know' might take offense. The speaker has an obligation to listeners not in the know to tell them what's going on. But the listener has an obligation to not leap to conclusions.

Does racism exist even today? Absolutely. But I think we need a more nuanced approach than just 'no more talking about race ever again'. The essay writer makes the claim "The other favourite hipster defense is, of course, to claim that people are being “too politically correct” or “too sensitive.” [...] Saying that people deserve to be treated like human beings and that discourse should be respectful has nothing to do with being too sensitive, and everything to do with genuinely believing that people should be treated equally."

And I agree, to a certain point. People should be treated equally, but we should treat them as mature individuals who can recognize a joke, and who can laugh about it. I avoid making jokes that might be perceived as racist, but I will unconditionally defend anyone's right to make well-intentioned jokes on the subject of race.

Magazines for people like me

Los Angeles has a number of high-end fancy magazines: Genlux, Angeleno, Los Angeles, (now defunct) 944, and about four others. All of these are based around the central idea of "here's what rich people are buying this month". I just want to know where 'I'm broke and my apartment is a dump' magazine is. You'd think there's a pretty large market for that publication.

An effective deterrant

Happy Fourth of July, readers! (or as the rest of the world knows it, Monday) Despite the oppressive heat, I'm having a good one.

I believe that certain crimes should be punished more on holidays. Crimes like theft. Today's the day where you don't have to work, you get to drink beer and eat bbq all day and you get to watch things blow up at the end of the day. If that's not good enough for you, and you feel like you really need to go out and take someones TV, this is why you're getting the double punishment. Besides, someone else now has to remove themselves from bbq and beer to take you to jail.

Does Go the F**k To Sleep harm kids?

Sometimes, I think that there really are no truly stupid people in the world of journalism. Some people seem so mad, so moronic that you wonder if they spend their waking moments smearing peanut butter all over themselves and then shouting at traffic. I think that they might be putting on a facade, a farce to draw people in and gather clicks. There are a few people (and thankfully only a few) who believe that articles in The Onion are real, so why not believe that the people taking those journalists seriously are also being fooled?

Karen Spears-Zacharias, you are testing my belief to the breaking point.

In a recent opinion piece on CNN, she argues that the book 'Go the F**k to sleep' isn't funny. Which on its own is a valid opinion to have: after all, I think things like Hagar the Horrible and Wayans Brothers movies aren't funny either. But she didn't stop there. She kept on a train of thought that metaphorically ran right through the houses of the people you don't like: you want to laugh, but you just can't bring yourself to doing it.

The whole article reads like a cavalcade of stupid falling down a set of stairs. The logic has more leaps than Mario Brothers. Part of the painful realization is that she just doesn't get it.
"Nobody is suggesting that there's a connection between Adam Mansbach's book and child abuse or child neglect. Still, there's no denying the reason "Go the F*** to Sleep" should be kept out of reach of children is because of its violent language and because of the way it demeans children."

She is correct in saying that nobody conflated possession of a lighthearted humorous book about an uncooperative child with acts of immense cruelty deserving of some of the harshest penalties our society allows. But that's a notion so obvious that you don't even need to bring it up. The first clause of the second sentence is also painfully obvious. Yes, this is a book meant for adults. Of course we're not going to show it to our children. But we want to keep it out of the reach of children because they like to chew, rip and drool on things.

There is a truly unnecessary tangent that follows in which Karen plays the race card: If these same "demeaning" ideas were applied to minorities, wouldn't we all be up in arms? Children aren't a special minority class, seeing as 100% of the adult population had been a child for roughly eighteen years. And children - especially the younger ones at whom the book is centered around - are in absolute terms, quite dense. It isn't demeaning to treat a child like you know more than he or she does; you do.

In spite of all of my introspective qualities, as a child I was dumb. And I did not want to sleep. In fact, I would not sleep until all eighteen of my stuffed animals were in my crib with me. And if even one was missing, you could not try and mislead me by saying that the missing animal was in the pile somewhere: I knew. I was difficult, because I thought I knew better than my parents. Telling 4 year old me to go the F**k to sleep would have been one of the nicer options.

Topping it all off the article ends on an attempt to suck the joy out of life itself.
"The violent language of "Go the F*** to Sleep" is not the least bit funny, when one considers how many neglected children fall asleep each night praying for a parent who'd care enough to hold them, nurture them and read to them."
It is at this point that I realize that this woman is not an imbecile. She is a genius. How else do you explain the ability to find just the right way to spin this book into a feeling of incredible guilt? She probably fills piñatas with notes explaining that animal abuse is no laughing matter. Don't buy Nike shoes after she's been in the store.

So no, I don't think that the book Go the F**k to Sleep is harmful to kids any more than something like being human and having emotions like frustration is. We all get frustrated. We should just make sure we're not yelling at traffic.

HARO, PR and taking things with a grain of salt

I work for a firm that, among other things, does PR. And those things that we claim aren't PR are really just stepchildren of PR. We are public relations, and we have multiple horns to toot.

This brings us to a website called Help A Reporter Out (HARO). HARO is a site where journalists post the things they need help with. Almost always, it's a call out for someone to come forth who's had some specific thing happen to them, or people who are experts at some category. For example, right now one of the big things journos are looking for is businesses that have been given bad deals by Groupon-like sites. Not exactly something that you can look up in the phonebook, but ask for it online and the replies come flooding in.

Here's the catch: PR-folk are tasked with getting their clients out there. Exposure is everything. It's easy to claim to be an 'expert' once you've been published more than a couple places, and perceived expertise is a claim that pays huge dividends. Getting an expert to weigh in on a topic basically writes the bulk of the argument.

And now the perfect storm begins brewing. I'm a journalist writing a piece about some social trend, let's say an addiction to the popular app Angry Birds. I can get a couple reports from people about their experiences, but I need that key ingredient: an expert who says that there is a serious problem with this addiction to Angry Birds. I submit a query out into the world, where the PR-people come upon it.

The PR folk have just the perfect hypothetical client who needs exposure: a psychologist with a book deal, working on book 2. The psychologist can say one of two things:
1. there is actually something newsworthy or significant about the Angry birds addiction
2. There really is no such thing, except for a few outliers.

If exposure is all that matters, you HAVE to say answer one. A journalist working under tight constraints who NEEDS to get a source isn't going to re-write an article just because one expert says it isn't so. Besides, other unscrupulous PR folk will get THEIR clients to say whatever it is that needs to be said. At this point, it's easy to get the psychologist to get on the record saying that Angry Birds is a 'secret addiction' that may affect hundreds of thousands. Statements like "the majority of cases go unreported" can get thrown out there... a statement which is not technically false, but is fundamentally untestable without going through a whole lot of trouble.

A story is born. A client gets more publicity. A reading public swallows the article and the experts opinion.

I'm new to the PR world. Everyone whom I've been exposed to has been a decent person, and they don't use misrepresentation just to get publicity. But if people are going to read newspapers, magazines and other websites, I think they need to know that a good number of articles have HARO behind them. I just thank god I don't work in politics.

I like puns, ok?

The website for ugly cakes is called Cake Wrecks. But some buildings are so ugly you want to claw your own eyes out. The website for those buildings is called Edifice Wrecks.

more improbable chronicles

I work for a princess. Yes, really. Actual princess who gives me tasks to do, via email. Actual princess whom I have met.

We had us a little miscommunication between the princess and my boss. Emails were sent, calls were exchanged, royalty was peeved. The situation was rectified, though she spent a good amount of time mad at us.

We later asked for her to send us some shipping supplies, so that I might continue to ship out the things I'm tasked with shipping. She obliged, in a rather passive-aggressive manner.

So I can truly say that a princess sent me a ridiculously large amount of packing peanuts. Easily 36 cubic feet's worth (or for our metric readers, one assload).

Why Burn Notice will get you killed

The new season of Burn Notice is upon us. I don't have a television, so I'll watch it for free from some Chinese streaming site as soon as is possible.

It's a show that I enjoy, but I also always have to keep things in check. Throughout episodes, the main character Michael Westen offers helpful advice on common problems like 'how to defeat a knife-wielding thug' or 'how to break open a wall safe'.

It's advice like this that falls into the category of knowledge I refer to as 'the things you think you know, but you actually don't.' Advice on how to evade capture while driving isn't something you know until you've been trained and guided through how to do it. A bootlegger's turn isn't something you can just wing.

So when you're at the bank, only to have armed, masked robbers enter, the first words out of your mouth should not be "Hang on everybody, I got this". Because if nothing else the next words you'll be thinking are Dang, where can I get C4 at a time like this?


Burn Notice airs Thursdays at 9pm (8pm Central) on the USA Network.

I need to know some unusual things

One weird quirk about my job is that I don't get a company computer: I have to use my own computer while I'm at work. This means I'm signed in to the corporate google account for the workday. Sometimes I forget to sign out at the end of the day.

So when I use the computer at home for my personal use, the things I search for go in the corporate account's search history. And I search for some pretty weird things. Not in a pornographic sense, just in a comedic sense. I run ideas I have through google to see if someone else has come up with them.

So if anyone from corporate is curious to know why I've searched for "where to buy heroin in Los Angeles", that's why. Because that search is apparently how one person found my website and I'm trying to figure out how high in the google rankings Klaused comes for that idea. Not that I want to necessarily be the #1 site among heroin users, but winning is generally a nice thing.

A traffic fantasy

Driving down to an open mic today I got stuck in the 6 o'clock rush hour on the 405. It was intense driving down to Hermosa beach, not because the traffic was at all bad, but because I was forcing myself to drive in a very very exacting way.

I read somewhere that you can undo a traffic jam by driving at just the right speed where you don't have to hit the brakes. Tapping the brakes causes people to slow down and the cycle of speed up-brake-speed up-brake repeats over and over. So there I was, the traffic whisperer. The lone man who could win this traffic jam.

Overhead, the eye in the sky traffic reporter would notice me. He'd announce: "Folks, I can't believe what I'm seeing, but someone is driving conscientiously on the 405. This is truly amazing" And he'd cut over to the color commentator who'd say "In all my fifty years I've never seen driving like this. This is truly one for the ages folks."

All the listeners in their cars would lean forward, trying to hear more. Children not quite old enough to know *what* traffic was could tell that something special was about to happen. The traffic reporter would continue "Folks, I can't believe what I'm seeing here: the traffic jam is going away! This is incredible? How does he do that!?"

The color commentator would pipe in: "George, nowhere in the Drivers handbook does it say that you have to drive like a Californian." Someone would flip through the handbook, amazed that such an obvious loophole existed the entire time.

"All you folks listening at home, this is a day to remember. What a show he's putting on today. He's almost made it. Can he make it all the way? I can't bear to watch this folks, he's so -HE MADE IT! HE MADE IT! Ladies, gentlemen and children, someone has ACTUALLY DEFEATED a traffic jam. He's won. He's won!

Cars all around me would explode into cheering. Someone would throw confetti and a marching band would walk on to the Rosecrans off-ramp. I'd be hoisted on shoulders of an adoring public. Some guy with a fedora and a Speedball camera with the ridiculous flash would take my photo. Someone at the Los Angeles Times would yell 'stop the presses!' into a room full of whirring and whizzing machines.

Words would appear, and Morgan Freeman would read them. "Nick Klaus' incredible driving lead Southern Cal to its first victory over traffic. In the thirty years since, nobody else has ever been carried off the freeway'

A guy can dream, right?

I cannot be a foodie

I got into a bit of a disagreement with a TV chef on twitter. It was about pie, so at least it was about something important. I have pretty strong opinions on pie, and I don't think they're too extreme or radical that they deserve to be mocked.

Here's the gist of the disagreement. During this cook's show on apple pie he proposes a number of changes that I think betray the innate pie-ness of apple pie. The first alteration is to use a mix of 4 apples. I'm actually okay with this one but only because there are some pretty bad apples out there. I can't stand the really mushy red apples, and they kind of disintegrate when you make pie from them. A mix of apples works.

The next modification is to add something called applejack. It's an apple flavored brandy thing. I was hesitant, but when the tv chef pointed out that civil war era pies had this, I could see where he was coming from. Not something I'd automatically assume went into apple pie, but there's precedent for including it.

The modification that made me more than a little upset is something called Grains of Paradise. It's a Moroccan spice that has eight different kinds of flavor depth and all that jazz. It's also something you have to buy either online or in specialty stores. I don't want to have to wait 5 to 7 business days just so I can make pie. This isn't one of those ingredients that was traditionally in apple pie. It's just gratuitous. It's like truffle oil or duck fat; it's an ingredient added mostly to make food expensive.

I just want to eat a pie that's pretty darn good. That's all. I don't want to feel like I'm a food noob because my spinach isn't locally-sourced, because I can't pronounce açai, or because I don't own a Dutch oven. If it matters to you that much to have all of these things, go for it. Let me have recipes that make food good without adding pretentiousness to it.

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Do not play in dumpsters

On the dumpster in front of my apartment, there's a sign warning you to not play in or around the dumpster. Do we really need a sign telling us this? Is this information we could not have figured out on our own. Do you know what's a more effective deterrent? Dumpster smell.

The part where it says that you shouldn't play around it is unnecessary, too. It's not like they put them in places where you're supposed to be playing.
I'm sorry, Timmy but we can't go play T-ball today
Awww, Why not?
Some jerk left a dumpster on home plate.

ALL RIGHT! Everyone out of the pool! Who threw a dumpster in?

I am not as classy as my phone thinks I am

For some reason, my phone's one main feature - texting - isn't working properly. The dictionary has unlearned most of the English language, so predictive texting has become a really really bad guesser. If I cycle through the possible combinations, I get letters with accents that I think only exist in Hungarian before I get to the ones I need. Apparently, my phone thinks I need to go through all the European languages before giving me plain old English ones.

I wish there was like a sesame street program I could show my phone. So that way when my phone is like "today, I learned the word 'with'" things would be less embarrassing.

Still, only a couple more weeks before I can get a phone made in the last... year.

Low expectations

They finally fixed the light in my kitchen. Still on the list is three other things, not counting the gate out front which does not lock and has not locked for at least 3 months, I am told.

But my reaction to learning that I had a working kitchen light was along the lines of "yay! I have a light in my kitchen! And it works!" As though I was somehow special for having this.

My expectations are so low that when the landlord texted me, saying that the water would be off for a while today because of something involving plumbing, I was thinking to myself, "oh, today's a no water day. I can work with that"

San Francisco's ban on circumcision, or: trying to make intelligent dick jokes.

The city of San Francisco has a ballot initiative to ban circumcision. The Jewish community's response has been a resounding "MOHEL NO!" This is a very sensitive subject. Some people are really touchy about it and obviously, we should handle it with care. When you get down to it though, I think the debate has come to a head too soon. I'm going to do all I can to make sure the discussion won't get too messy.

I've got a pretty firm grasp on the issue, so I'll get right to the good stuff. The thrust of the argument by the people in favor of the ban is that circumcision is denying your child future pleasure. I think that line of reasoning is a little hard to swallow. You're already allowed to raise your kid to feel guilty about sex. A lot of the country thinks this is a virtuous thing to do.

I know my position and I won't take it sitting down. This is just government reaching around into other people's business. The members involved are trying to make it a government issue, and in recent weeks we've seen just how good people in the government are at handling their own penises. It's not enough to make me trust them with other people's.

You're not allowed to be an abusive parent, but you are allowed to be a bad one. And in terms of things that will rob your child of a satisfying life, circumcision hangs pretty low.

Nick vs Stove, round 3

This did not happen tonight, but there was another chapter of the neverending saga, the epic quest which is Nick vs Stove.

So I go to cook the potato hotdish that I'd been hoping to make this entire time. Gas on 175, hope for the best. The good news is that I got no smoke alarms. The bad news is that there was no fire either. While the ancients might have noted that there ain't no smoke without fire, where there's no fire there's gas. About fifteen minutes' worth. I discover this when I check inside the stove to discover that not only is the hotdish room temperature, it is also reeking of that rotten egg smell.

I very calmly and maturely go completely bananas, afraid that any spark whatsoever might cause the whole shebang to blow sky high. I call the gas company, hoping that they'll fix the problem. They'll send a guy right over they say. Also, stay away from the stove....
....
....
I live in a studio apartment. I can't get more than 15 feet from the stove at any time. I probably could have gone out in the hall, but I don't get wireless reception in there.

So the master of the gas stove arrives. Yes, he has a mullet. If I was an attractive female, I would have been totally convinced that an adult movie was about to begin. But I digress. The gas master relights the pilot light and leaves.

Satisfied that my stove will not explode, I turn the oven up to 350 and start the cooking.

Five minutes later, the smoke alarm goes off.

Now I'm scared

The elevator in the building where I work has a little plaque on the inside. It's designed to make you less worried, but it has the opposite effect. The plaque reads, more or less "In the event that the elevator becomes stuck, do not be alarmed. There is little chance of the air running out or the elevator plummeting to the bottom"

That's not helping. I know they legally can't put that there is no chance, but now I worry about the horrors of running out of air. This sign makes me more worried, not less. There's also a remote chance of elevator snakes, but they haven't made a sign for that either. But in the case of elevator snakes, you shouldn't be alarmed either...



... because snakes can smell fear.

What SPF 55 really means

I did it. After months of putting it off, I finally bought myself sunscreen. I did it because I really need to wear sunscreen daily: I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who can get sunburn indoors.
So I got the highest SPF that was also non-oily: At this particular target, it was SPF 55. If I were in charge of the world, I'd put a little card with every bottle of sunscreen that was above SPF 50 that reassured you that it was okay to never have a tan ever. Something like 'pale and pasty is the new look!' or 'you never know when you'd need your blindingly white chest to signal to rescue aircraft where you are'.
To be fair, there are also good reasons to wear sunscreen. I had a spot removed from my back once because they thought it might have been a melanoma. A scary thing like that happening to a guy who doesn't work outside much at all... this is why I'm not an outdoorsy person. The spot wasn't cancer, but they never told me what it was. It could have been a mole, it could have been spilled brown sauce.

My love-hate relationship with Consumerist

The consumer advocate website Consumerist is a site that stirs up mixed emotions with me. I love that they dole out information about how to deal with telemarketers, how to get through the tangled web that is calling customer service, and how to get results for your complaints.

I hate that sometimes, this leads to people who the rest of us would call clients and customers from hell. People who demand to have it their way, even when there's nothing anyone can do about it.

But this takes the cake. The customer in question is upset because her dress arrived early, so she missed out on a potential moment of family bonding.

The moral of the story is to never go above and beyond the call of duty.

Bad combination

I used to be bad at shaving. I'd always leave my skin raw, and then I'd get a flaky razor burn mustache. Then google taught me how to shave properly.

That's when I learned I just had really crappy skin for shaving. Or for being skin in general. Combination skin is oily AND dry. At the same time! It's like sweet and sour sauce, only this combination makes things less appetizing.¹
The problem is you can't put the lotion for dryness on the oily bits, and you can't put the astringent on the dry parts. So, after years of careful research, I've drawn up the lines on which is which. Honestly, it makes my face look like political gerrymandering. I also have one random wrinkle, or as I call it "The 11th district of California"

----------------
1. Its really all that keeps me from being eaten by cannibals.

Nick vs Stove, round 2

(Best when read in an old-timey radio announcers voice)
Last time, our brave and dashing hero was faced with quite a sticky predicament. It appeared that there was some sort of homemade napalm stuck to the bottom of the oven. It was causing all kinds of smoke and ruckus and fire alarms. So our intrepid hero scraped and scraped and scraped some more. Let me tell you folks, it was haaaaard business.

Our hero then broke out salt. Yes, salt; that spice favored by the ancients stops your oven from smoking by casting out the demons that live inside it. But our hero did not stop there, No-siree-bob. Yes he also blasted the unwholesome substance with the foulest and harshest chemicals known to man. And he let it sit overnight as acids and bases and other forms of science attacked the bottom of the stove. It was a sight to behold, truly a wonder of modern technology and progress.

So tonight, how will our hero fare? Will the twin dueling fists of salt and science be a match for the stove? Or will the oven overpower with its evil and cunning ways. Our hero checks the oven, staring deep into it like an athlete staring down a worthy opponent. And the gas is on! He checks, and rechecks! it looks like all is well. But wait. Whats that noise? Is it?! it is. The smoke alarm of shame has gone off again, and our hero has once again fallen to the stove. This is truly a calamity folks.

Tune in next week when our hero calls upon an old and trusted ally: Maintenance man!

How DO you get through AT&Ts Customer service lines?

The firm I work for has a problem. The bill for the phone is wrong. It's too high. And so we have to call AT&T and let them know we have a problem. As the monkey on the bottom of the tree, that job falls to me. And so every day I call the lovely folks at AT&T and ask them to fix the problem.

At this point, half of the phone bill is probably calls to AT&T. If it weren't for the fact that I can do simple tasks while on the phone, nothing would get done by me. But that isn't the worst bit.

The worst bit is hold music. I've heard some pretty cool stuff on the hold line, things like "the best of dentists offices" and "NOW that's what I call panflute!" It's jarringly bland, but the music frequently gets interrupted by the voice telling me to stay on the line. This voice must assume I have codependency issues. Anytime I can sort of pick up the faintest semblance of 'groove' in the music, the voice interrupts. I have been on hold long enough to actually time the sequence:

10 seconds of music
10 seconds telling me to stay on the line, they'll be with me
4 seconds of silence that makes you think that maybe this time they'll pick up the phone, but of course they won't.
Repeat until hopelessness and a sense of the absurdity of it all sets in.

We're trying to get ahold of someone called Wendy. From what I can piece together based on my experiences with AT&T and their promises that Wendy will indeed call back, I'm pretty sure that Wendy is a witch that lives in Quebec. You can only reach her by sending requests on parchment, and then attaching that request to a highly trained pigeon. The pigeon will fly for days at a time, over wild terrains and vast scenic landscapes. The pigeon will have to brave fierce winds and birds of prey and laser traps to get Wendy. Usually, the pigeon get there and when it does, Wendy reads the request and calls you back. Sometimes she then eats the pigeon if she's feeling peckish.

One of these days I will actually get a call from Wendy. At that point the entire office will stop. People not even affiliated with the company will rush to the door to see this. Cars driving on the streets five stories below will look up. One car will crash into the back of another, but neither driver will care, because someone will have actually gotten ahold of Wendy. Wendy, the witch with the power to rectify accounting errors on the part of AT&T.

That's what it feels like.

Cooking in a new apartment

When you've just moved into a new apartment, there's always one thing you should do first. Check to see that everything works. I learned this the hard way.

I decided to ceremonially prepare dinner my first night of living at the new place with my favorite recipe. I turned on the oven, and set about making dinner.
Smoke starts filling the apartment. Billowing from the stove. I turn the above the stove vent on, but to no avail. Why? Because there actually isn't a vent in the vent hood. Or a fan. There's a filter, but it's not hooked up to anything. It's a bit like discovering that your entire life is the part of some massive experiment where you're recorded 24/7 and the set designer forgot to make some of the parts of the set functional. Okay, it's a reeeaalllllly small bit like that.

Three smoke alarms later, I eventually get the situation under control. The culprit? A massive amount of... goop on the oven. A deep maroon and sticky puddle that might have been an attempt at making napalm. I could have used oven cleaner on it, but I don't have oven cleaner. I could have used salt, but I don't have that either. My pantry only contains 2 things, neither of which can make a meal, even if you combine them. I could have either made the spill spicier, or smell like Chinese takeaway.

So far this previous tenant is shaping up to be quite the character. It's like having a ghost in the apartment. They're gone but their spirit remains, and it exists solely to bother me.

More quick hits

I wonder if Gil Scott Heron's funeral will be televised

They say cell phones cause cancer. I just worry that feeling that your phone is vibrating, when it isn't, is a sign of something worse.

Things left behind in my apartment by the previous tenant:
-a drawer full of old newspapers.
-2 popsicles.
-a half-empty bottle of sprite. Under the bathroom sink.

Quick Hits

If larger people wear a shirt that says "I beat anorexia" it's funny. When I do it, it takes on a disturbing irony.

Can someone tell me the point at which American Apparel ads became softcore porn?

I switched over to listening to the local NPR station instead of the oldies station. Mostly because the NPR station has less ads that get stuck in my head. trust me, when you've heard the Keyes of Van Nuys jungle the 50th time, the urge to punch out your radio gets pretty high.

Groupon's IPO offering details

Groupon is going IPO, so says The New York Times. If they can find 75,000 people to buy the stock, the deal is on!

DIY auto repair is a trap, I'm sure part 2

So my car was broken. I did a little googling and found out that parts to fix the car were pretty cheap. Then I did a little more googling, and found out I could solve the problem with a $30 hose, and six screws. At that point, I got offended. I'd be less offended if they hacked my twitter account and sent photos of my genitals to my grandparents.

But I digress. I was driving to the bank today, and while exiting a parking ramp, I hopped a curb. Apparently, I was driving with enough gusto that I tripped the 'OH CRAP' warning light. But all was well. I got the car under control and..

Hey! The warning light went out. I fixed it! For free.

DIY auto repair is a trap, I'm sure

So the check engine light came on in my car. I checked the engine, and it was still there. The dealership had its own opinion on what was going on in my car.
Apparently, I need the following: one catalytic converter and one secondary air pump. The combined total for this? $2,000. $900 of that is the air pump.

This doesn't make sense. I can get a new-to-me air pump for about $200. (I'm not worried about used parts. I have a 10 year old car. Everything on it is used. And honestly, I don't love the car enough to give it the very best. At this point, it's earned "good enough") And I can see the pump from under the car. It's not even hard to get to. The DIY guide online doesn't make it sound too difficult, either.

But there has to be a catch. There has to be. Either this dealership is Satan, or the job is a lot harder than I think it is. Only one way to find out.

North Korea Town

When I was looking for an apartment, one of the neighborhoods I was looking in (because it was close to work and really cheap) was called Koreatown. However, in my haste to describe the particular region I was looking in, I referred to it as North Korea Town¹.

This was a mistake. Things that the north part of Koreatown has that North Korea does not include:
-Restaurants where you can actually buy food
-The occasional sign written in English
-A store called HI PUPPIES!
-Traffic (okay, you win this round North Korea)

Still, after looking at this gallery of photos of life in North Korea, I will say this much: there are definitely neighborhoods in LA that look a lot worse. Click through the gallery and you will agree that that is a sweet backhoe.

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1. Incidentally, it should unironically be called 'Best Koreatown' - prices are still low, but the buildings are nicer.

And now, another medical science report

According to a study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology,¹ whole milk might be as effective as barium shakes for people who have to take Gastrointestinal CT scans.

Two ways to interpret this one:
1. We've found a new way to improve a really unpleasant part of medicine, making treatment easier.
2. What the FUCK are we putting in whole milk?


----
1. I have diverse reading tastes, ok?

Another great mystery of life

The house I currently live in is only semi-occupied. Instead of 5 of us and a dog, there's only 2 full-time residents, one guy here on weekends and I'm only here to sleep and eat dinner.

And yet, the dishes pile up at the exact same rate as when there was a full house. Either I'm imagining things, or we have a Bad Ronald situation on our hands.

No animals were hurt, but my nose was.

I burn incense, so that my room smells good and not like I really need to vacuum. Today I noticed that the incense says it's not tested on animals. That's a damn shame, really. Have you ever smelled pet cages up close? If there's anything I wished smelled like jasmine and roses, it's a hamster cage.

The Star Wars Christmas Special

For those of you not in the know about geeky subjects, before Star Wars was a trilogy, there was a made-for-tv special that only aired once and everybody decided that it never needed to be seen or heard from again.

Well, it's on Google Video. And I watched it today. Well, I tried. I got 24 minutes in before I couldn't take it anymore. This is exactly the point when a bizarrely dressed chef comes on.

coming soon to haunting your dreams

And the thing is, I didn't even watch it as is: I had the rifftrax going. Even the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 couldn't make it tolerable. That's like being unable to finish a marathon even if you get to ride on a moped the entire way.

victory over inanimate objects

I come from a long line of guys. As a result, I'm stubborn when it comes to minor repairs. I *could* hand it off to the professionals, but that's wasteful when I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself. Of course "doing it myself" has to contain either the word eventually or the phrase "without injuring myself too badly"

Today, I tackled one such project. The office shredder was jammed. efforts to unstick it proved fruitless. So I took it upon myself to finish this task, despite the pleas of my co-workers that "we can take it to staples", "come on, staples is only like 3 blocks away", and "I mean, really, you DON'T have to do this". But those quotes were from a time when I was not repeatedly jamming a pair of scissors into a shredder.

Long story short, I fixed it. The shredder runs like a dream, but looks like somebody took a pair of scissors to it. I'm calling this a victory.

This explains so much

Driving home from work, I saw a homeless person with headphones. Now, I'm a charitable guy, but I don't really think that the worst part of homelessness is boredom.

Of course, it would make more sense if these weren't actually plugged in to anything.

Smartphone blues

I'm in the market for a smartphone. The phone I currently have is not up to the tasks of modern society. It's barely up to the tasks of Amish society.

I have two choices. I'm ignoring the blackberry out of principle because if I get one of those, I'd have to work in a real office and wear a tie. I'm ignoring a lot of other funkier phones because if I'm getting a smartphone, I'm going to get the best darn phone I can.

Option one? the iPhone. It's got style points, but people warn about how the contract is limiting and how Apple basically will watch everything I do and sell it to the Chinese. Okay, I'm paraphrasing a little bit but a lot of my friends are vouching against it. Apparently, owning an iPhone is tantamount to saying that you know nothing about computers and buy things based on how pretty they are. Well I do, so that's not like it's a big secret.

The other option is the Samsung Galaxy variants. These all have magic and are run on something called Android, which sounds made up. Apparently, you can customize them to make them whatever you want. However, I'm told there are limitations in the number of apps and that often the apps won't close properly, so I have to get software that does that for me. Which sounds like an elegant way to say 'it doesn't work'.

So I'm stuck. Apple, Google, if you give me a phone to try for free for a month or seven, I'll let you know which one I like better. Never hurts to ask, right?

In which I didn't get stabbed

Open mics are a lot of things; some bad but also some good. One good thing is that I guess you could say they're egalitarian. Anyone can show up. You never know if the next person to walk through the door is going to be Adam Sandler, or if it's going to be some guy fresh out of prison. As it turns out, the second option is a lot more likely.

Halfway through the show, a man came in with a burrito in a bag. Immediately, the part of me that had just been watching Sherlock Holmes right before the show kicked in to gear and thought that that was not only a burrito, but a suspicious burrito. The other clues were that this was at 10:30 at night and the guy looked like he was either drunk or on heroin.

The first problem with this fine upstanding audience member wasn't so much that he was eating a burrito, it was that he'd flick things off the table onto the floor. I tried to be nice and offer some of them back, as though he truly wanted his slice of lemon which had been on the floor. He flicked it off the table immediately. Now, he might have been a devotee of the five second rule, so I didn't take offense. But this pattern of flicking things off the table lead to a group consensus: he was an asshole.

But this gentleman (and I use that term so ironically it is in fact a pair of 1980s eyeglasses) was not content to being an asshole in one dimension. He was a many-faceted and complex asshole. The remnants of burrito were spread around the table. He kept re-arranging the mess he'd made, seemingly not content with the layout. Maybe it was a statement on the transcendent nature of art. Then again, maybe it wasn't.

And then he discovered the butter knife. Having never been murdered myself, I can't say whether that implement is considered a deadly weapon, or just an annoying one. But he was wielding it as though he meant business. I didn't want to find out. It was at that time when I noticed that he had a neck tattoo. Much like forehead tattoos, neck tattoos aren't found on gentle, kind souls. I've never seen a neck tattoo that said 'I love puppies'. I didn't really bother to read the tattoo, because it probably said 'If you can read this, I'm already shanking you.'

So, now that you have a picture of this guy, you can see the predicament I was in. He was causing a mild ruckus, and I was on stage and had the chance to take him down a peg and make the audience laugh. As the old adage goes, an adage I learned when it was written in my yearbook by a dear friend, "Don't die". I took this adage to heart instead of taking a butter knife to that same delicate area. So, I suppose we could call this a victory.

But to maintain the universe's karmic balance, next week Adam Sandler damn well better show up.