Last night, well... it sucked.

Not all of it, just the very end, to be exact. As I was getting ready for bed, I was flossing a particularly difficult place to reach (the very back two teeth on the bottom right) when the floss hit a snag. Rather than pull it up, I took one side and pulled it through. Bad move.

The floss stripped itself, leaving stray strands in the crevice. Wedged in the crevice, to put it accurately. It wasn't horribly painful, but there was some excess pressure there. More than anything, it was really uncomfortable. Definitely not something I could sleep with. I knew I would have to get it out, I just wasn't sure how. And since it was early AM on a Sunday, I knew finding a dentist would be hard and likely expensive.

Besides, that sort of thing requires, you know, insurance.

So for the next hour or so, I worked at it with anything I could: more floss, tweezers, the toothpick from my Swiss army knife, a pushpin. I tried anything. Eventually, I got it down to the point where it wasn't pushing on my teeth so much, but floss just kept snapping in two when I tried to work it between those two teeth. And the edges of my lips were getting raw (as were my fingers from all the floss wrapped tightly around them). But persistence (and a fear of the dentist's bill) won out. After nearly giving up and going to bed, I decided to give it one last shot, and heard a satisfying "pop!" when I pushed the floss down.

I'm still not sure where the little chunk of stray strands went, but at this point, who cares? I flossed some more to be sure (carefully this time), rinsed my mouth, brushed my teeth, iced my lip, and went to bed, exhausted.

It's almost enough to make a guy give up on flossing altogether!

The whole thing reminds me of an event from my childhood: A little girl up the street had gotten her head stuck between two of the decorative metal bars of the fence on the porch, and, naturally, she was somewhat freaked out by this. They brought in everyone: the fire department, the emergency medics, the police, even a plumber, I think. There was talk of rendering them apart with a torch, the jaws of life, you name it.

Finally, cooler heads prevailed. One man, a fireman I think, said simply, "If you can get it in, you can get it out." And quite calmly put his hands on her head and eased her back out.

Ironically, I was eating some Special K when I saw what these people named their baby. Cruel. Just cruel.

My buddy Rick is wicked with the Photoshop.

And now it's time for Make-Up-Your-Own-Grammar Movie Reviewer!

Equipment and Dudikoff and James fighting them of only to find a conspiracy so the plot is dry and tired that's not American Ninja's Problem neither is it's witless Acting Excepting James or it's Theme which Action Movie lovers will mind it's problem is that's it's not very Exciting with Tedious moments rearing it's Ugly Head . American Ninja Can't Hold Up with Today's Movies like The Matrix or Face/Off it's Lucky if it will get a 2 rentals a year cause it's So outdated but back then it did well, So it's Not Fair to hold that against this film but hey let's get Serious American Ninja was never a classic but it's stillSomewhat Entertaining so I will give American Ninja The Benefit of The Doubt that I Recomend it for those who Like older Action Movies

You gotta love the IMDB...

It appears that Mike Nelson and I think along the same lines:

Earlier this year, pioneering monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced what can only be described as the magnum opus of monkey literature. Five pages long, composed on a computer, it consisted of a whole lot of S's, a few A's, J's, L's and an M or two. Yet when it was completed, monkeys and monkey lovers everywhere hailed it as a major achievement. I hate to sound like a spoil sport, but I could do that. And in less time, I'll bet.

The monkeys, the often arrogant Sulawesi crested macaques, also urinated and defecated on the computer and hit it with a rock. Again, I could do that.

As a writer myself, and one who is unafraid to viciously defend his turf, I have a question for Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan: is that all you got? Huh? I thought so.

People will collect anything, apparently. Still, if I had the money, I would devote an entire room of my house to these. I like how the monkey in the filmmaking set appears to have his arrow aimed at the director's crotch:

Salon related:

It hasn't been like this since the death of Diana. Britain has been suffering from a national nervous breakdown ever since David Beckham, handsome icon of the Manchester United soccer team, announced last week that he was leaving to play for Real Madrid. The Sun, the most popular tabloid, set up a Beckham "grief helpline" and claims it has been swamped with calls from distressed fans. One caller said he was considering suicide, while several confessed that they were so upset they couldn't perform in bed. A man who has "Beckham" tattooed on his arm threatened to cut if off. "I cried myself to sleep after hearing the awful news," said grandmother Mary Richards, age 85.

I am so glad I'm not a sports fan...

Messed up link of the day: MobileAsses.

Excerpt from a chat session today:

Tiffany: maybe if I sit verrrrrrrrrrrry still I can just grow older without drawing attention to myself
Me: Nahh. Then you'll just grow fat and lonely.
Tiffany: ewwww
Tiffany: no thanks
Me: Yeah. Not the best fate.
Tiffany: I choose something else. Oh, I know! I want to be Lauren Bacall.
Me: I think that role is taken.
Me: I just want to be me, only richer.
Tiffany: I like that!
Me: I'm going to put it on T-shirts.
Me: Then the T-shirts sell a ton, and I get rich. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

From the MTV's-No-Fun Dept.:

MTV has announced that they won't be airing The Foo Fighters' new video for their song "Low" because of two controversial pieces. In the video, actor Jack Black and lead singer Dave Grohl dress up in women's clothes and dance around. The first objectionable part is when the two begin spanking each other. The second objectionable part sees Black and Grohl going horizontal and "intermingling with each other," i.e., implying sex. Because of the announcement, TFF says that they will release a DVD of the video on July 1.

The funniest sentences I have read today, thus far:

"Dave Eggers is really just a better-looking Hitler who doesn't hate Jews."

"My womb is a total spiritual danger zone."

If anyone's wondering what to get me for Christmas...

Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare

by Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan, Sulawesi Crested Macaques (Macaca Nigra) from Paignton Zoo Environmental Park (UK)

The book is the result of this study, perhaps the best use of science since, I don't know, since that study where they gave that monkey all the cocaine he could eat.

The media summed up the study thusly:

Monkey Theory Proven Wrong

LONDON - Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.

A group of faculty and students in the university's media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then, they waited.

At first, said researcher Mike Phillips, “the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

“Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard,” added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in — not quite literature.

The notion that monkeys typing at random will eventually produce literature is often attributed to Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century scientist who supported Charles Darwin's theories of evolution. Mathematicians have also used it to illustrate concepts of chance.

See, I happen to believe that their study is fundamentally flawed. The anecdote says you need infinite monkeys and an infinite amount of time. The learning curve for a monkey is fairly steep. We've had primates in captivity for years, and we still haven't taught them basic secretarial skills. (Then again, perhaps we're not really trying.) I see nothing in their methodology about whether they gave the monkeys a crash course in typing, or, indeed, English. Would you expect a person to speak perfect Esperanto if he had never encountered it before? No. Of course not.

Has anyone bothered asking Elmo, Gum, et al what they were trying to convey? No! Perhaps they were striving for avante garde verse, or perhaps macaques are more accustomed to left-handed keyboards. Or, more likely (in my opinion), perhaps they were merely protesting the defective nature of the experiment. When they type "ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss" and pee on the keyboard, they are really saying, "If you operate from a faulty premise, you get faulty results." Or, more simply, "Garbage in, garbage out."

Plymouth University, I challenge you to rethink your approach, and soon, before unfair monkey prejudices strike yet again, and set monkey rights back another century.

That said, I still want a copy of the book.

Models Nikki Ziering (L) and Angie Everhart pose for photographers at a news conference announcing plans for 'Lingerie Bowl 2004', a live pay per view event to be televised at halftime during the 2004 Super Bowl, June 25, 2003 in Hollywood. The event will feature two teams of models in custom lingerie taking part in a 7 on 7 tackle football game. Zierging and Everhart will be the quarterback the two teams at the event, to be held next February 1, 2004. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

Yes, but can she punt?

Who is the greatest American?

Homer Simpson 47.17% 
Abraham Lincoln 9.67% 
Martin Luther King, Jr 8.54%
Mr. T 7.83%
Thomas Jefferson 5.68%
George Washington  5.12% 
Bob Dylan  4.71%
Benjamin Franklin 4.10% 
Franklin D Roosevelt 3.65%
Bill Clinton  3.53% 

What, no Adam West?

It's a fake baby, folks.

Eminem, wearing a Jacko-esque surgical mask, didn't just dangle his dollie at the ArtHouse Hotel in Glasgow; he tossed the thing up in the air.

Genius.

Dave Grohl & Steve 4-evr:

"We're sad that we're not going to be there. We can't, I mean we got invites to all this stuff, but we can't, so it's sad for us because Dave's a good friend and that would be like a joyous party, because his fiancé Steven, is really a nice guy. He's totally hot. I'm going to buy him leather shorts, German leather shorts - real short, short shorts."

J2K:

The scenes did not flow well at all. There was no concept of time in this movie. It was sometimes unclear as to whether something was taking place at the same time as another scene. And out of nowhere it was their last day there.

C'mon. Is anyone really surprised that this sucked? The director was probably huffing gasoline between scenes in an attempt to forget he signed on for this.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the ballot box, it's Ninja Election Fraud!

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- A 21-year-old student was arrested for allegedly hacking into a university computer system during student elections to cast hundreds of votes for a made-up candidate he named American Ninja.

Shawn Nematbakhsh, a computer science major at the University of California, Riverside, was arrested Friday for investigation of drug possession and altering computer data without permission.

If convicted, he could face up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He was being held Saturday on $10,000 bail. Arraignment was set for Tuesday.

Couldn't they give the guy some sort of sentence break for being funny?

I just want to be the first to make the "Dude, Where's My Batmobile?" joke.

From The Dyslexic Webmaster Dep't:

our apologizes to Paramount. We had inadvertently listed one of their upcoming Yo MTV Cribs DVDs as Yo MTV Crips.

What the heck?

Gee, I never heard of any of these bands. Why would they did

make a movie from it then? Did you guys know who these bands

were because I never did. That guy who looked like the Father

from American Pie 2 was really stupid! Gosh he must have done

the drugs.

I love the Internet.

Today is my birthday, though, according to the birth certificate I received too late to go to Mexico for my brother's wedding, I wasn't born until 9:18 PM twenty-eight years ago. My mother never told me much about my birth, except that I had wide shoulders. I sometimes joke that, as the last of nine children, by the time I was born, my mother's birth canal was essentially a Slip 'N' Slide. I'm sure she appreciates that.

I am told I share a birthday with luminaries like Barry Manilow and Newt Gingrich, and if I were the type to believe in astrology and numerology, I might attribute more significance to this than there is. As it stands, the furthest I'm willing to go is that these men probably used up all the suck for people born on this day. To wit, I also share a birthday with Igor Stravinsky, M.C. Escher, Dean Martin and the Discovery Channel. From what I can tell, no one famous died on the day of my birth, so I can't claim to be the reincarnation of anyone. No one important, anyway. Besides, if I did happen to believe in such things, I would probably place more importance on the date of conception, and frankly, that's more than I want to know.

I suppose now would be a good time to take stock and all that, but I'm tired of contemplating my station in life. Not much to contemplate, really. Yes, my best friend is getting married, but I hardly feel pressured to undergo that sacrament. My parents have plenty of grandkids, and I am in no rush to have any children of my own. I'm too busy trying to figure out my own direction to worry about steering the direction of others. Plus, you know, it takes two to tango.

This seems to be about the age where people want to settle down, and I suppose, given the right partner, I would be willing, even eager to. But I've seen enough marriages of my contemporaries go bad already that I am sufficiently suspicious of the enterprise to believe what the palm reader told me: I should wait to get married until after 30. Besides, as I've pointed out, I'm not in much danger there.

I really love Portland, but I'm starting to lose faith that I'm going to be able to make it work. Or at least that I'm going to be able to make it work in any way that I'll be able to admit in public.

Still, that's all just aimless worry, and to quote a song I like, "Most things I worry about / never happen anyway." Today was pleasant, if nothing else. I was able to get outside, go for a nice bike ride, stopping to watch people play basketball in the park. I stopped at the Cork to have iced tea and read the paper, and then I dropped by the Jones place to visit with the baby and the dog. And the Joneses, too. Got an early run in, and so on. I can't say I got much accomplished, but I don't see any point in being too hard on myself just now.

So, anyway, happy birthday to me...

Remember those sneakers that you could pump full of air? This is cooler.

...after which, Secret Service agents wrestled the scooter to the ground.

This week disappeared. The baby and the dog certainly had something to do with it, but I also have to take at least some responsibility for letting it slip away. It's easy to feel guilty about it after the fact, but it's much harder to try not to do it again when the situation arises again.

To that end, I'm not sure what to do. I've tried reminding myself of how I'll feel when I realize I've lost another day/week/whatever, but I think that shame is a lousy motivator. A while ago, I was reading a book on why people procrastinate, and how to beat it, and I was doing well at applying those lessons to my life, but old habits die hard. I know I should probably pick the book up again (never did finish it) but... I keep putting it off.

Who just played that rimshot?

Anyway, the dog is back with his family at his proper home, so now I have no excuse, or at least less than I did when he was here. I spent the latter half of today with his family after they returned from the hospital, shopping and hanging out. You couldn't ask for a more pleasant baby than little Zadie. I know it's still early, but her general disposition seems to be fairly even-tempered so far. Not fussy at all. And Royal (the dog) is friendly but indifferent to her, which is nice. I suppose as long as he still gets some attention and has his needs taken care of, he's not going to notice much of a change.

It was both fun and frustrating having the dog here for those few days. On the one hand, he was mostly good company and well-behaved, and he provided a nice bit of responsibility that wasn't centered on myself. On the other hand, he isn't my dog and he had his own rhythms that had little or nothing to do with me. And though I know him pretty well, it was impossible to know everything, like how he would react to other animals, or what his patterns were. Zadie's birth was so unexpected that I didn't even have time for a crash course in when or how much he eats.

Regardless, that's in the past. In other news, today, my Onion Magnet Kit arrived in the mail, and I've had endless amounts of fun coming up with headlines. So far, my favorite is: "President Bush Caught In Inner City Homosexual Crack House With Islamic CEO & TV's The Golden Girls." It paints such a vivid picture.

I wish I had more to report, but right now I'm in the throes of indigestion from a late-night sandwich indulgence. Bed is beckoning...

Oh. My. God.

Well, today was quite eventful.

Not the least of which was the birth of my good friends' baby, Zadie, at about 2 PM. Both the mother and the baby are doing fine, though I wish I could say the same about the father. When I saw them, the baby was sleeping (of course) the mother was doting, and the father was grumpy. Perhaps this was due to the epidural she'd received (in fact, there's a hilarious sequence of pictures showing her before and after the epidural), but it was still a funny juxtaposition.

My contribution consisted of moral support (well, duh) and delivering some supplies a few hours after the baby was born. Their cell phone battery had died, and they had no way to contact me (my number was in the dead phone), so I just assumed they didn't call because nothing had happened. When five o'clock rolled around, I figured I should give them a visit, to see how things were going, and everything was over.

Oh, I'm also taking care of the family pooch, Royal, a 2-year-old Scottish terrier. He's a good dog, and we're getting on fine, though it's a bit of an adjustment for me, having never had a pet that wasn't aquarium-bound. I also feel like I should always be paying more attention to him, regardless of the amount of attention I'm giving him, which is difficult.

But the really big news is that, thanks to a wonderful promotion from the local cable company (six months for twenty bucks/mo., the same I pay for Earthlink. So why not? The guy showed up today at two (which, now that I think of it, is the same time as the baby was born), and now I have high-speed Internet access again. Now whether I'll still be here in six months...

Well, that sucked.

Woke up today and my computer decided to commit seppuku on me. It does this periodically, and I'm usually able to handle it with the aid of my CD-R drive and Norton Utilities, but this time I got cocky. Before I realized it, I'd passed that point of no return, past which I could no longer make a backup on CD-R and I was well and truly screwed. Hard.

So I spent the day driving around to various electronics stores, where I inevitably get treated like a soccer mom at a mechanic. Why these guys insist upon talking down to me, I have no idea. I know what I'm talking about, and, in fact, since I'm dealing with a Macintosh, I usually know more than the inevitably Windows-centric minimum wage salespeople do about the subject.

Eh.

So my day got shot. Taken out behind the barn and filled with lead. I had planned to look for some serviceable furniture, maybe some clothes, and other assorted crap that escapes my mind at the moment because I'm so fried from the chaos, but all I wound up doing was driving all over town and, eventually, well out-of-town as well. It's odd. Trying to explain it, it really doesn't sound like much, and it really isn't, but I'm exhausted anyway.

In other news, before this whole fiasco unfolded, my best friend growing up called this morning to tell me he's getting married next month. Hell of a rush, if you ask me. So it looks like I'll be going back to Iowa in July. I'm happy for him, but it's still feels awfully strange. I haven't even met the girl, though I'm sure she's very nice. And why the big hurry?

Anyway, I'm sure there's larger implications in all this, but I'm too tired to contemplate them right now...

I know I was supposed to write more on my Portland anniversary today, but something came up. What came up? I'm honestly not sure. The day kinda flew by, and I didn't get nearly enough accomplished. Sure, I got things done, and got my quota of exercise, but beyond that... what?

Anyway, this will have to wait. Besides, I'm now fairly convinced that the sixth was the real date I arrived. I'm not sure how to verify that. I'll have to think on it some more...

I should probably make note of the fact that today is my first anniversary in Portland. I think. This seems to be the date that sticks out, but it also could have been the sixth. I'll have to do some checking.

Cause for celebration? I'm not entirely sure. I'm not entirely unsure either.

More later.