Creepy, right?
My gut reaction to this image is whatever the typed version of the noise for “shudder of disgust” is.
Okay: so is my shudder coming from a universal, lizard brain response that something here is chafing against the natural order of things, or am I just the culturally conditioned product of a California upbringing in the late 20th century that happens to disapprove of a kid that old still hanging on the teat? (or am I maybe just a little bit jealous of that kid?)
3 Comments on Hey Mommy, I'm Starving After Our Afternoon At Habitot. Mind Taking Out The Boob?
In middle school I was pretty good at solving Rubik’s Cubes. All I needed was a dull knife and a bit of torque applied by my wrist in a sharp, upward motion. I would snap off one corner square, and the rest I could pry apart pretty easily. Probably took me about five minutes to “solve” the cube.
The current world champion, Feliks Zemdegs, solved it in 5.66 seconds at the Melbourne Winter Open in 2011, apparently without a butter knife… but nobody likes a showboat.
Recently it was announced that a Rubik’s Cube museum exhibition will open in April 2014 in Jersey City, New Jersey, in honor of the puzzle’s 40th anniversary. No word on whether any future episodes of the Jersey Shore will feature Snookie or Pauly D. trying to solve the puzzle, with or without a butter knife.
Math was my favorite subject in high school. I loved algebra and trig (as much as trig can be loved), and even made it through calculus.
But today? I can add, subtract, multiply and divide – sometimes – just to make sure I can pay my employees and balance my checkbook, but that’s about it.
The rest of my math muscle has atrophied.
And then one recent evening, while I was watching in disbelief as both of my beloved Spanish soccer teams were being eliminated from the European Club finals, my 11 year old son walked into the room holding his math textbook and some scratch paper.
“Dad, can you help me?”
“I’m pretty much Buddhist,” Dean told me the first day we worked together at the St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen in downtown Oakland. “I was a therapist before I retired, and in the service before then, but now I mostly garden and read.”
We chatted as we faced each other on the serving line. Dean is a tall, thin, white man, in his late 50’s or early 60’s, I’m guessing, and he indeed looks like he would’ve been a therapist, possibly of the touchy feely Berkeley variety, or perhaps a junior college professor. In any case, he is soft spoken and has an easygoing, gentle manner, and curly gray sideburns.
3 Comments on You Don't Mind If I Tamper With The Bible A Little, Do You?
Greasy hamburgers. Beer. Red Bull. Water. Sweating it out.
None of it works. Not really. The only cure I know of for that most dreaded of fatigues – the hangover – is…wait for it….time.
But in Las Vegas, Dr. Jason Burke is trying a capital S “scientific” approach to beating time, and he’s put it on wheels: the Hangover Heaven bus.
Burke, an anesthesiologist, had an “a-ha” moment when he realized that the symptoms of a hangover – the nausea, the headaches, the aches and pains, the disorientation, the desire for a quick death – were not so different from the symptoms of patients recovering in the post-anesthesia care unit.
I’m not good with compliments: giving or receiving them. I don’t know why. But that’s not the point. The point is that, five years ago, I decided I had to do something about it. I had to let Richard Levinson and William Link, the creators of the television show “Columbo,” know exactly how I felt about their work before it was too late.
Levinson had already passed away in 1987, and Link was 74. So I asked my agent to get me Link’s address, which he did, and I sent him this letter:
April 11, 2007
Mr. William Link
xxxxxxxx
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
Dear Mr. Link,
An acquaintance of mine from high school, someone I reconnected with at our reunion this last summer, forwarded me an article from the British newspaper The Guardian entitled
“Top Five Regrets of the Dying.”
I was riveted.
My friends and I – most of us in the midst of raising families and in the middle of our careers – have been comparing notes on things like “meaningfulness,” “boredom,” “regret,” “legacy,” “enthusiasm,” “peace of mind,” etc.
Y’know, mid-life shit.
The natural buoyancy of youth is gone, the bemused contentment (at least that’s how I picture it) of old age isn’t here yet, but we still have lots of fight left in us. We’re just trying to figure out what’s worth fighting for.
From today’s Oakland Tribune newspaper:
“A 24 year old Colombian prostitute told The New York Times that the (secret service) agent agreed to pay her $800 for a night of sex but the next morning offered her only $30. She eventually left the hotel, she told the newspaper, after she was paid $225.”
Trying to chisel an $800 oral contract (and at that price, I’m sure he got just about everything he wanted in addition to oral) - after the fact - down to 30 bucks?
What’s this slimebag doing, trying to give America a bad name?
And power to you, my Colombian sister, for at least not letting this douche leave without coughing up 28 cents on the dollar.
1 Comment on Just In Case You Weren't 100% Sure I Was A Creep
I once bought a Thomas Kinkade jigsaw puzzle at Target. I hated the painting, but enjoyed the puzzle.
His paintings hang in an estimated one out of every 20 homes in America (I don’t think one out of every twenty homes in America has central heating!).
Kinkade, 54, died at his home in Northern California two Saturdays ago, according to his family, of “natural causes.” His wife Nanette said in a statement “Thom provided a wonderful life for his family. We are shocked and saddened by his death.”
That’s one view.
There’s a big difference between this…
…and this…
I texted Miguel, who manages one of my bars, an hour before his shift was to start.
“Payroll?”
Payroll was due, and I needed everyone’s hours and tips. Miguel is rarely late with payroll and normally texts me back “will send in next fifteen” or something like that.
This time, however, my phone rang right away.
Miguel: Sorry Fredo, it’s been crazy hectic today. Can I get it to you after my shift?
Alfredo: yeah, I won’t send it off until late tomorrow morning.
Miguel: Annie’s late, so I’ve kind of been seriously distracted today.
Comment on There's "trying" to get pregnant, and then there's "TRYING" to get pregnant.
I check the voice mail at the bars I co-own every week or so: 10% are robo calls swearing up and down that they can improve my credit card processing fees, 10% are robo calls swearing up and down that they have instant cash for my business, and 80% are hungover customers calling in to say they think they forget their…credit card, cell phones, scarves, purses, wallets, keys, etc., at the bar…wondering – hoping, praying – that we’ve found them.
The calls always sound a little apologetic and desperate, and I always erase the messages without checking for the lost stuff, and without returning the calls.
Forgot something in a bar?
How cruel is this? Neuroscientist Ulrike Heberlein and her colleagues, bored, and in an apparently sadistic mood, put horny male fruit flies in a container with females who had just mated, and who therefore weren’t in the mood.
Not able to tell their prospective suitors that “they had headaches” or were feeling “bloated and unsexy,” the female flies simply ran away, kicked the guys, or stuck out their egg-laying organs to hold them at bay (that last one, especially, does sound like a turn off).
The scientists did this for four days straight, in three hour sessions, until the poor frustrated males turned to one of the same salves favored by their human counterparts: booze!
