Thursday, March 27, 2008
Gleanings: Non-Twilight Related
It is Thursday for the rest of the world but it is Friday for me, because I am taking off tomorrow morning for a few days of high-altitude luxury on the shores of Lake Tahoe. (Side note: The thing about Tahoe is that it is amazingly, heartwrenchingly blue, without the chemical appearance of some limestone-laden, cupric or volcanic bodies of water. Seems like that’s on the way to being history, because changes in lake temperature are making the water “stratify” and it’s not mixing properly, so it’s likely to start growing green algae and to go from a turquoise gem to “another goddamn lake” pretty soon (though it’ll still be big enough to cover Texas to a depth of nine inches, to which I suggest, let’s get started already).)
ANYWAY. Busy long week, with upcoming indolent long weekend (and let’s not forget it’s Cesar Chavez day on Monday the 31st, so I’m off work for a full four!). I doubt I’ll have much cyberaccess while I’m roughing it up on the mountainside in my four-story hot-tub-enabled gourmet-kitchened 270-degree-lakeside-viewed pleasure tower, but I bet y’all get along just fine without me. No, no really. Don’t butter me up. My cardiologist hates that. Of course, the guy on the bus with the little moustache might be okay with it, but he’s not setting my priorities ever since the “sausage sandwich” debacle.
SO: instead of writing up a nice chewy piece of text for your enjoyment (or whatever it is you might get out of it), I am going to resort to a handful of notebook gleanings and you should be grateful for them. These are all gleanings having to do with things I’ve seen over the past few months which have somehow amused me. I am easily amused, of course, but let’s see if I can share the joy. Such as it is.
ITEM: A new Russian grocery is getting ready to open near my house on Geary, which would be great if we didn’t already have, like, five of them. There’s only so much discount caviar a man can (or should) eat. More saddening, though, is that the wooden construction barrier walls will soon be coming down, depriving me of poster advertisements for the following musical phenomena:
* The Spill Canvas, and their album “No Really I’m Fine”
* Serj Tankian, and his album “Elect the Dead”
* Silversun Pickups, and their album “Carnavas” (featuring the single, “Well Thought-Out Twinkles")
* Avenged Sevenfold, and their album “Avenged Sevenfold.”
I don’t know if any of the music is any good, but the posters sure are tasty.
ITEM (related to tasty posters): There’s a karaoke bar on Clement that’s been around for so long that it was almost invisible, with a blank windowless front wall featuring a faceless metal door and a photo of the Hong Kong skyline at night. Except they recently went and replaced that nice architectural photo with one of a skanky-looking female Caucasian lounging next to a glitzy ‘70s-style wetbar, wearing a slinky dress and holding a handful of strawberries - which, as it appears from the photo, she’s trying to snort. It is a very strange photo, but it arouses in me an unquenchable desire to sing along to unauthorized remixes of “Country Roads” and “Evergreen.” Strange how these things work.
ITEM: In my office building, restrooms have been thoughtfully provided on every floor. The restrooms have sinks, which I always thought were for doing laundry, draining abscesses, and quick cookery. Not so, it turns out: The new warning signs thereon warn as follows [with my comments in brackets]: “These sinks are for washing your hands and face. [So keep your ‘nads out of the sink, sicko mcstinknads.] For sanitary reasons and in consideration of your coworkers, please be sure to rinse your personal debris from the bowl and wipe the sink of any remains with a paper towel. [Personal debris: sounds unsanitary, all right. Then again, I got my debris from DeBrie and I’m on my way! “Remains”? You mean like, when we try to rinse some dead guy down the drain? And I wonder why you distinguish between the “sink” and the “bowl.” Is some debris sinkworthy but not bowl-appropriate, and are some remains bowl-okay but sink-counterindicated?] Tissues should be discarded in the appropriate waste receptacles. [I fell for the old inappropriate receptacles trick once too often, I’m ashamed to say!] Thank you for your consideration – Building Management.” Well thank you, building management! Things seem more sanitary already. But I am getting that sinking feeling.
ITEM: at a friend’s house, I encountered a German bubble-blowing product entitled “Pustefix Seifenblasen-Spiele.” I don’t know about the wisdom of marketing that out this-a-way. “Pustefix” just doesn’t sound like something I want my kids to play with. Even if the first one is free.
ITEM: Driving down to Monterey, we went past the old location of Fort Ord. With the decommission fever that’s swept the nation (catch it!), many forts are no longer forts. There’s Cal State Monterey, the Presidio National Recreation Area, Pendletonland (coming soon!), and - now my current favorite - The Ord Military Community. Because “fort” sounds a little, I don’t know, bellicose?
ITEM: I took an F-line streetcar a few days ago. It had been imported from Milan, complete with original Italian-language advertisements. That may seem sloppy from a marketing standpoint, but I personally appreciate the opportunity to check out the ad for the ladies’ eurospa, “Figurella.” If anyone speaks Milanese, can you tell me if that sounds as dumb there as it sounds here? Bonus: since seeing that ad, I have had the jingle for “Figurines“ diet bars playing in my head for days on end. Kill me now.
FINAL ITEM: A dialogue between myself and the Director of my department, just before our last full department meeting, when she’d distributed little easter-y sacks of candy, fluffbunnies, and an envelope of seeds:
Me: Are these delicious candy seeds?
Her: No, just for flowers, but I bet you could eat some of those flowers if you grew them from the seeds.
Me: I don’t know if I want to eat anything grown from a seed called “Burpee."
With this, I leave you to your evil devices. I will be back later. Until then, do me a favor and wipe up that personal debris, will ya? The community needs sanitary sinkage. Thaaaaanks....
