A Side of Death - An Exaggeration

Do you ever get an ominous feeling when you go to a restaurant? Like your life depends on you not eating there? The violins from Psycho play in your head as they slide the food onto your table?

That's how hungry I was today that I ignored that feeling.

Restaurant's a bit generous. It was a food shack, which is one step away from being a food cart only by virtue of it being cemented to the ground. Service so mean the staff is likely add you to the menu. It's not a matter of whether or not they'll spit in your food. It's a matter of how many and in what order.

But I skipped breakfast and I was starving.

This may be my last blog.

Avenge me.

In a Hidden Corner

Tucked away in a secluded part of San Francisco is where I found this graffiti of the Mona Lisa. It's just barely there and it is beautiful. Wonder if whoever made this intended for it to be so subtle or has the weather made it so?

Web Translator Fun! - Just Do It!

"Just Do It!" translated via internet translation tools. Everything has been translated from English to another language and then back to English.

Russian: Exactly make it!

Portuguese: It only makes it!

Japanese: Do that exactly!

Greek: Precisely him you make!

German: Straight it! (I'm putting this on a T-Shirt)

Korean: It only!

Chinese simplified: Please make it!

English to Russian to Portuguese to Japanese to Greek to German back to English:
This forms this exactly!

The Difference is Substance

What’s the difference between a Hollywood film, an independent film and a foreign film?

Simple! Let’s look at three different versions of the same story.

The Hollywood version:
A lovable alcoholic (played by Nicolas Cage) alienates everyone in his life and beats alcoholism (in a week, during a montage) to regain the love of his wife and kids.

The indie version:
A loveable wife-beating alcoholic (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) alienates everyone in his life but comes to the conclusion that, “Hey, maybe I do have a problem.” The wife tentatively agrees to give him a second chance if he gets help.

The foreign version:
A wife-beating alcoholic (played by Gerard Depardieu) alienates everyone in his life and comes to the conclusion that everyone around him is a son of a bitch while looking for loose change to buy his next beer with.

Fortune Cookie

Open any fortune cookie, any one single fortune cookie and you'll get a fortune. Duh...Anyone knows that, but the point is, all those well-wishes are nothing if you don't put in the effort yourself to make sure they come true.

Every fortune cookie lies if you don't make the effort.

The last one said, "Your fondest wish will come true this year."

So I'm going to work extra hard to make sure people that annoy me
fall into a deep, deep well.

So Unfair...

Kurt Vonnegut died this year. Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman died within the same week this year as well.

In my local newspaper, these men got honored with blurbs. A certain professional football coach (who shall remain nameless), upon death, received a full front page article and an entire sports section devoted just to him.

Think about that one, a full front page. Not a blurb in the front page. The whole front page. Plus, several pages devoted to him in the sports section. All for a man who coached football. Not to knock his accomplishments (which were many) but isn't that overkill?

Three men whose cultural accomplishments spanned the whole world get less ink than a man who coaches a sport that only this country takes seriously.

So it goes...

Night Walks

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Originally uploaded by hypno_bedhead.

The night's good to me. Gives me no reason to complain. At night, I can think; whereas in the morning I am so useless I'm practically furniture. Walking at night's when all the best ideas come out. My brain's digested the day and put in context and I can see it for what it was, a day.

The day's too bright, at night, we illuminate what matters.

Not that different from writing. A story could be about anything. You take all the possibilities and narrow it down to a certain one that catches your imagination.

We illuminate what matters.
Like shadow puppets in reverse.

My Life Measured in Shoes

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Originally uploaded by hypno_bedhead.

They were brand new Nike shoes. The kind that cost more than his daddy makes in a year. Oh, he had to have 'em. Day in and day out, it was, "Daddy, can I please?" Promises were made involving cleaning dishes and taking out the garbage. Simple, easy things the village idiot scoffs at.

The shoes arrived weeks later since they were so expensive there was no convincing Daddy to pay for 2nd day delivery. Don't even think about Next Day. Two weeks and four days, that's what it took for the shoes to get there.

The boy misjudged how much he was likely to grow in two weeks and four days and when he tried the shoes, they fit, barely. He was in pain, but he had Nike shoes. Daddy meanwhile, worked extra hours to pay for those damn shoes. Well, not just the shoes, but the Xbox, the car, the gas, the bills.

But the dishes stayed dirty and the trash was still inside.

And a few days after getting the shoes, a brand new style came out. The boy started up again, "Daddy, daddy, please." All daddy could do to not smack the boy was throw the old pair of shoes onto the power line.

For those shoes, by his count, had cost him, twelve hours of his life.

Madam, Last Time I Checked, I'm the Mad Scientist Here

I'm not crazy, I'm a mad scientist. Which is like crazy but with a degree.

This excuses me from all sorts of things that crazy people do. So for example, I tell you that I've replaced your spouse's brain with a potato, you're supposed to bow down before my superior intellect. Not whack me in the head with whatever is handy.

And no, I can't bring him back from the dead. Water to wine, yes. Bringing back the dead, not so much...But give me a week, the march of Mad Science is a frightening, unpredictable V.I.P. party.

So call me next week, who knows?

Mea Culpa of Sorts

Been accused of not writing enough in my blog. Not in the sense that there's not enough entries, but in the sense that the entries are too short. Oh, and it was not so much "accused" as "strongly hinted with a side of back handedness."

Sometimes, you just want to make your point and get off the stage.

Really, what else can you do sometimes?