Chaotic Not Random
Sunday, November 30, 2003


I am good at setting clocks and watches. Ask anyone! If you have a device that keeps time, I can set it to whatever time you want. You say you need this Timex Ironman Triathlon set to 12:17:44 P.M.? You got it, hoss. Like all of my talents, my clock-setting ability never gets me laid, and I don't get to show it off much, except around Daylight Saving Time changeovers or if a friend gets the battery replaced in his car. But a gift is a gift.

I have a little fantasy that someone someday might make a movie based on me and my gift for setting clocks. In the movie, I would be a character with a past shrouded in mystery, and I would be known only as the Clock Setter. A typical scene from the movie would go something like this:

Harry and Marge are a married couple in their mid-60s, recently retired. A few months ago, Harry bought a new digital alarm clock from Sam's Club to replace the old, worn-out analog clock they had used for years. When the Daylight Saving changeover came along last month, Harry went to change the time on the clock, but found that he had lost the instruction booklet that came with the clock. Dadgummit! Harry and Marge tried to figure out how to change the time without the instructions but only managed to make things worse. So many buttons! Harry and Marge bicker over what to do about the clock, and then start to really argue and fight. Harry "forgets" to rake the leaves in the yard and stays out all night playing poker with his buddies. Marge retaliates by "accidentally" undercooking breakfast and hiding Harry's Viagra. Harry leaves the Yellow Pages out on the kitchen table opened to the "Divorce Attorneys" page. Could forty years of martial bliss be coming to an ugly end?

One night, during the season's first snowfall, Harry and Marge once again are fighting over the digital clock. Ideas are advanced and ridiculed. Accusations are flung. Harry is just about to tell Marge that he always thought her sister was the prettier one when a knock is heard at the door. Harry opens the door to reveal a stranger, tall and wiry, clad in a worn cowboy hat, a beaten leather jacket with fringe on the sleeves, frayed blue jeans, and well-worn boots. He seems oblivious to the wind and snow, and his features and gestures exude a gentle strength and warmth. "Who are you?" Harry starts to ask, but the stranger holds up a hand, and Harry steps back, awed by his quiet authority. The stranger enters the room and strides to the digital clock. He manipulates the buttons with expert ease, and in a moment the clock reads the correct time. The stranger also sets the alarm to 8:00 the next morning so Harry and Marge can attend church together. He touches the brim of his hat and moves toward the door, still held open by the dumbstruck Harry.

Marge seizes her purse and touches the Clock Setter on the shoulder. "How can we repay you?" she asks.

The Clock Setter smiles crookedly, embarrassed by the suggestion that he would seek profit from his God-given talent. "Be kind to one another," he says, and then he is gone.

Harry closes the door and takes Marge into his arms for the first time in weeks. "Thank God for that man," he says.

"Yes," says Marge, returning his embrace. "He doesn't just change clocks. He changes lives."


+posted by Lawrence @ 11/30/2003 11:11:00 PM


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Saturday, November 29, 2003


I had a very nice Thanksgiving, thank you. I have no relatives in Colorado, so I spent the day at my best friend's girlfriend's aunt's house. (I took E with me, meaning that she had Thanksgiving at her boyfriend's best friend's girlfriend's aunt's house.)

We had an absolutely wonderful time. Celebrating a holiday at a stranger's home full of people you've just met is very cool and surreal. Hello, I'm Kilgore. We've never met, but our society's vestigial laws of hospitality require you to feed me turkey and stuffing and to ply me with free alcoholic beverages. And don't skimp on the gravy. Have you forgotten my name yet?

Society's vestigial laws of hospitality also, unfortunately, required me to take wine, and so E and I showed up with two bottles: a very nice Chardonnay and a very nice Italian red that I won't name for fear of making you feel weak and ignorant, you Pabst-swilling barbarian. The wine did not get opened that night, so I considered going back the next day. Hello, it's Kilgore. Remember me? Um... I noticed that nobody drank the wine we brought yesterday, so I was wondering if I could have it back. Of course I'm serious. It was supposed to be for Thanksgiving -- it's not as though it was a present for you to drunk on any time you felt like it.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/29/2003 06:03:00 PM


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Thursday, November 27, 2003

ICE CAPADES PRODUCTION OF WAITING FOR GODOT FOLDS IN THREE WEEKS

NEW YORK -- Billed as "meaningless fun for the entire family!" the Ice Capades production of Waiting for Godot... on Ice! opened three weeks ago with high expectations. Based on the play by Samuel Beckett, it boasted a cast of former Olympians: Brian Boitano and Elvis Stojko as Vladimir and Estragon, Scott Hamilton and Katarina Witt as Pozzo and Lucky, and Oksana Baiul as Winky, a talking penguin. Investors bet heavily that the all-star cast, skating to music written by hitmaker Tim Rice and performed by Elton John, would generate a box office bonanza. They lost their bets -- the production closed its doors yesterday, citing dismal ticket sales and savage reviews.

"I'm very disappointed," said executive producer Jason Reynolds. "It seemed like a natural -- Beckett's brilliant analysis of the absurdity of man's existence... on ice! We added Winky to appeal to younger children, and the songs were terrific: 'Where Did You Go, Godot?', 'We're Pozzo and Lucky, We Are!', and 'Our Inability to Communicate Symbolizes Man's Isolation in This Meaningless Universe (Estragon's Theme).' I don't know how anyone could resist."

"I didn't get it," said Dave Crawford, a Queens plumber who attended the final performance with his wife and two children. "My kids liked the penguin, but mostly it was three hours of people skating around and talking nonsense. I can't believe I missed the Jets game for that shit."

"'Waiting for Godot' is Beckett's most powerful statement on man's inability to know God, or even himself," said Scott Heasty, an NYU drama student. "The contrast and tension it creates between poignancy and nonsense epitomizes the Theater of the Absurd. So they go and add a talking penguin and some pop music. I'm gonna go smoke some weed."

Despite the spectacular failure, Mr. Reynolds remains optimistic about future projects. "I'm working with Disney on an animated version of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis," he said, "and I'm very excited about a Claymation production of The Death of Ivan Ilyich."

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/27/2003 12:15:00 PM


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Tuesday, November 25, 2003


My sister works for a small software company in Miami. One day recently, an official order came down from management that employees were no longer to bring lunches containing garlic or cumin. The word got out when the employees would heat their lunches in the tiny breakroom, the owner's wife found the garlic and/or cumin odor offensive and asked that the owner put an end to the madness. (One imagines she made this suggestion while administering a particularly vigorous handjob.) The funny thing is that most of this company's employees are from Cuba or India, countries where people put garlic and cumin on their Cheerios.

I found it hilarious that a company would go so far as to specify which spices employees may use to season their lunches. I suggested that she come in early one morning and post a fake memo all around the office, something like this:

MEMORANDUM

From: Thomas T. Thompson III, President and CEO
To: All Employees
Re: Acceptable office conduct

It has come to my attention that many employees have continued to bring lunches to the office liberally seasoned with garlic and cumin, despite the new Luncheon Seasonings Policy distributed last week. Further measures are apparently necessary to curb the menace of eating smelly ethnic food on company property. Effective immediately, only the following foods will be acceptable for consumption during lunchtime:

Ham & Cheese Hot Pockets
Ketchup sandwiches on Wonder Bread
Corn Flakes
Communion wafers
Cream of asparagus soup
Tapioca pudding
Ice
Plain yogurt
Saltines


It has also come to my attention that employees have been heard arguing over the merits of one professional sports club as opposed to another, creating a hostile, unproductive work environment. Therefore, in order to foster copmpany unity, all employees will immediately adopt the Arizona Cardinals as their favorite team. Employees will not root for any other teams, even teams that compete in completely different sports.

Finally, some employees have been observed reading books during their lunch breaks that are too hard for other employees to understand. This undermines the team philosophy that is central to our company's success. Starting tomorrow, employees will only be allowed to read John Grisham legal thrillers on company property.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/25/2003 10:57:00 PM


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I just got back from a weeklong vacation visiting my sister in Miami, where the people are insane. You can tell they're insane because they all paint their houses peach and pink and aqua, which makes you think they are peaceful and happy until you try to drive on the interstate with them. Insanity isn't all bad, though, especially the kind of insanity that causes women to remove their tops at the beach.

I walked around the beach a lot and picked up shells, which is kind of macabre when you think about it. I mean, these shells used to be homes for living creatures that are now dead. When I got home I spread my shells out and tried to imagine what happened to the animals that had been living inside them. Probably they had been minding their own business and going about their productive shellfish lives when suddenly they were torn screaming from their shells by moray eels or groupers or whatever. The more I thought about it, my shells didn't seem like reminders of a fun-filled, carefree week at the beach as much as symbols of pain and death and slow, gory dismemberment.

Which is kind of cool.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/25/2003 02:27:00 AM


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STACEY SCOWLEY SIGHTING!

Stacey is appearing in a new, (to me, anyway), commercial for Taco Bell's Fajita Grilled Stuft Burrito. In the spot, Stacey is standing on the sidewalk holding a bouquet of flowers, apparently a gift from the man standing next to her. A man walks past munching on a Fajita Grilled Stuft Burrito, prompting Stacey's eyes to get wide as she hands the flowers back, saying, "You should have gotten fajitas!"

Questions: Can a Fajita Grilled Stuft Burrito be used as a corsage or boutonniere? If I am giving Fajita Grilled Stuft Burritos to a bereaved family to display at the funeral, which is more appropriate -- chicken or steak?

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/25/2003 01:50:00 AM


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Friday, November 21, 2003


I get a strange feeling sometimes when I'm in close proximity to other people. When I got on the plane on Saturday, for example, I looked around at the fifty-odd other passengers on the plane and wondered. How did they all happen to be going to Fort Lauderdale on the same day as me? Do they all have sisters in Miami? Well, of course not, but then I wonder at how maybe this person sitting in front of me just happened to schedule a business trip on the exact same day that I scheduled a vacation to South Florida. I realize that the coincidence is statistically trivial, but it still kills me.

I get the same feeling sometimes when I'm at Taco Bell and there's someone waiting in front of me. How is it that this guy decided to come to Taco Bell at the exact same time that I did? When I get to feeling that way, I want to buy the guy ahead of me a soft chicken taco and ask him a few questions. Where was he born? Where did he live as a kid? Where did he go to college? Where does he live now? When today did he decide to go to Taco Bell? Was there traffic on the way, or red lights? I want to know about each one of the uncountable, exasperating coincidences that led him to be at the Taco Bell at Broadway and Alameda in Denver, Colorado, at 2:27 p.m. on Saturday, November 8, 2003, just in time to stand two feet in front of me and order a ground beef supreme chalupa.

I'll probably never do that, though.


+posted by Lawrence @ 11/21/2003 03:46:00 PM


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Tuesday, November 18, 2003


Remember those $300 tax relief checks we got from the federal government a year or two ago? Those were cool. What did you do with yours? I took myself out for a nice dinner -- something involving veal and a spicy Zinfandel -- and sent the rest to the credit card company. Tonight I am hungry and I still owe $9,000 in credit card debt, so if you're reading my blog, federal government, I could use another one of those checks.

I always wondered what Bill Gates did when he received his check. I want to think that, just like me, he looked forward to receiving his check in the mail and daydreamed what he would do with the precious little windfall. Did he linger outside shop windows, peering in at mp3 players and digital cameras? Or maybe he wandered into a jewelry store and found a perfect little diamond pendant for his wife, and it was $329.95, and he talked the merchant down -- Look, I'll have $300 in just like a week or so. I'll be able to give you $300 even, cash. Come on, man, I'm just asking for 9.077132899% off. My wife would love that pendant. I can see Bill getting home from work, and finding the check in the mailbox, and getting in his car and hurrying to the bank to cash the check just before closing time. Then he ran to the jewelry store and handed the surprised merchant a stack of twenties -- See? I told you! Three hundred dollars and not a penny less! -- and took the pendant home to surprise Melinda, who kissed him and said Oh, it's beautiful, Bill, and then she wore the pendant to the dinner table, even though they were only having Sloppy Joes.

None of this happened, of course. One of Bill Gates' army of accountants and tax lawyers took the check and dumped in with his other $34 billion or whatever, which increased his wealth in roughly the same way that you would increase the volume of the Atlantic Ocean by pissing off the side of a cruise ship. Or maybe Bill got hold of the check and let his kids color all over it, or maybe he threw a party for all his rich friends and they used their $300 checks as rolling papers for doobies, and then they all sat around and laughed like hyenas while they smoked their tax relief checks.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/18/2003 09:56:00 PM


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Monday, November 17, 2003


On Tuesday last week, I went to the employee breakroom with the intention of retrieving my lunch -- two slices of pizza -- from the employee refrigerator, heating it for 90 seconds in the employee microwave, and carrying it back to my desk for consumption. Everyone at my company eats lunch this way -- alone, at our desks. I don't know why. I guess we don't like each other very much.

When I entered the breakroom, I noticed the Old Lady sitting alone at a table, finishing her Burger King lunch. The Old Lady is really not that old -- about sixty or so -- and she has worked in Fabrication at my company for nearly forty years. I am going to make fun of her in this post. If you are one of those people who think that we should treasure older people for their knowledge and wisdom gleaned from their vast experience, then let me hasten to assure you that the Old Lady has not gleaned a goddam thing in six decades on this planet. Her only conspicious talent is her ability to trap people in pointless, boring, unsolicited conversation, usually about her son in Maine, who I suspect left home at the age of sixteen and never gave his mother his new phone number.

I hadn't expected to see the Old Lady when I entered the breakroom, so I accidentally made eye contact. This was a mistake. The Old Lady feeds on eye contact like a vulture feeds on carrion. I recovered as best I could and implemented the Alpha Phase of my defense by flicking my eyes to the floor and walking straight to the refrigerator.

"Well, how are you today?" she said. Blast! She had penetrated my Alpha Defense easily.

"I'm fine. How are you?" Two more mistakes, neither of them excusable by surprise. My first mistake had been answering the question. The second had been asking her a question -- purely a mental error, a rookie's mistake. Correct responses could have included: feigning deafness, plunging a butter knife into my eye, or lighting myself on fire.

"Well, I'm doing pretty good," she replied, delighted to have found an eager young conversation partner. Panicking, I launched the Beta Phase of my defense and only grunted in response while I pretended to root around in the depths of the refrigerator, hoping she would leave the lunchroom quickly.

"That's pretty good," she said, sidestepping Beta Phase like a veteran running back faking a young linebacker out of his shoes. I grunted again and continued to root around in the back of the refrigerator, gamely sticking with my shattered defensive scheme.

"Doncha think?" she asked, louder this time. I was simultaneously impressed and horrified with the witlessness of this conversation. She had told me she was doing pretty good, had observed that it was pretty good that she was doing pretty good, and was now demanding confirmation from me. I knew there was no way I could successfully heat my lunch for 90 seconds. By the time I got the microwave set, she would have launched into a story about how she sent a shirt just like the one I was wearing to her son in Maine last Christmas. I had no choice but to deploy the Gamma Phase of my defense: ABORT.

I smiled tightly, grabbed a yogurt, and scurried from the lunch room, beaten.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/17/2003 10:27:00 PM


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Thursday, November 13, 2003


I wish I had a scar.

I mean, I do have a scar, but it's a really wimpy one and hardly worth showing to attractive young women in bars. I got it when I was six and pestering my older sister as she played Stratego with our cousin.

"Hey, Kilgore," she said. "Look at that." She pointed to the top of one of the Stratego pieces, which were shaped like the top of a rook in chess.

I peered down at the board. "What? I don't see anything."

"Don't you see it? You have to look closer," my sister said. My cousin giggled and looked away.

"Where is it? I don't see anything."

"You have to look really close. You have to get your face right down there."

So I got my face right down there, trying to find the wonderful invisible something that the older kids could see and I couldn't, and my beautiful, sweet, loving older sister smashed her hand down on the back of my head, slamming my forehead into one of the pieces.

There was squalling. There was bleeding on my aunt's clean kitchen floor. There was motherly panic. Stitches occurred. Tears were dried with the help of sugary treats. Stiff punishments were meted out to guilty parties. And all I have to show for it today is a near-invisible line on my forehead, just below the hairline. Sometimes I try to show it to people. "See it?" I say, pulling my hair back and pointing. "Do you see it?"

"No," people say, glancing at their watches.

So I wish I had a better scar. I wish I had a scar like Jack, a man who went to the same church as I did as a child. Jack was a kind man, a family man, a handsome man, and he had a deep scar carved into his left side of his face. It was a vertical slash starting less than an inch below his eye and cutting straight down across the cheekbone, ending above the corner of his mouth. It looked too awesome to be real, as though Jack got up early every morning and spent hours putting on pirate-movie makeup.

That scar gave Jack's face character and mystery. Maybe Jack had been a prisoner of war and had taken a bayonet across the face rather than tell the filthy Cong where his unit was camped. Maybe Jack had been mugged by some guy waving a knife, and Jack had given up his wallet, no big deal, but then the mugger had demanded Jack's watch, and that's when Jack just went berserk, because his father had given him that watch on his deathbed. Or maybe Jack took his family camping once, and a grizzly bear attacked, and Jack grabbed his hunting knife and sent that grizzly bear packing back into the woods, but not before the grizzly tore his face open with a swipe of its claws. I always considered asking Jack the real story behind the scar, and I imagined him getting a flinty look in his eyes and saying, That's not something a boy your age should have to hear about.

A scar like Jack's demands respect. Consider if you were in a bar, causing trouble as usual, and I came up with my dinky Stratego scar and asked you to knock it off. You gonna make me? you would say, grinning and posturing and looking for a fight. But what if Jack came up with his POW/mugger/grizzly bear scar and said, Hey, cool it, okay, fellas? You would shut up and sit down, quiet like a bunch of kindergarteners at naptime. Oh yes, you would. You just don't mess with a guy who's gotten his face hacked up like that and lived.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/13/2003 10:33:00 PM


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Friday, November 07, 2003


READER CHALLENGE

Are Chaotic Not Random readers smart or dumb? Let's find out!

Below you'll find two puzzles. You have one week to email both correct answers to call_me_kilgore@yahoo.com and receive a cornucopia of valuable prizes, including... well... recognition here on my blog, for one thing, and... uh... if you're brave enough to include your address, I'll send you some McDonald's gift certificates. I am totally serious. Mere days from now you could be enjoying a Big Mac and World Famous Fries on me.

PUZZLE A
  1. Choose any number.
  2. Multiply by 3.
  3. Multiply the result by itself.
  4. Add all the digits together, then add the digits of that number together until you end up with a one-digit number. (Example: 561 >> 12 >> 3)
  5. If the number is less than 6, then add 6. Otherwise subtract 6.
  6. Multiply by 2.
  7. Subtract 4.
  8. Find the letter associated with this number. (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.)
  9. Think of a fruit beginning with that letter.
  10. Pick the third letter in that fruit's name, and think of a fruit starting with that letter.
  11. You are thinking of bananas and nectarines!
Amazing, right? Not really -- but how does it work? Note: The correct answer is not, "I tried it a bunch of times and it always came out the same way." Correct answers must include some level of mathematical rigor. There is a difference between noticing a pattern and explaining that pattern.


PUZZLE B
  1. You are playing a game against a single opponent. The game starts with a pile of stones. The number of stones in the pile is a random number greater than 10. Both you and your opponent know how many stones are in the pile at all times.
  2. You and your opponent take turns removing 1, 2, or 3 stones from the pile. No other moves are possible except for removing 1, 2, or 3 stones.
  3. The player who removes the last stone loses.
  4. You go first.
Is there a way to play this game so that you will always win? If so, how?

Good luck!

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/07/2003 04:04:00 PM


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Thursday, November 06, 2003


Below please find the entire text of Initiative 101, on which we Denverites voted this Tuesday last (emphasis added):

Shall the voters for the City and County of Denver adopt an Initiated Ordinance to require the city to help ensure public safety by increasing peacefulness -- that is, by defusing political, religious and ethnic tensions, both locally and globally -- through the identification and implementation of any systematic, stress-reducing techniques or programs, whether mental, physical, etc., that are (1) scientifically shown to reduce society-wide stress, as measured by reduced crime, accidents, warfare and terrorism, and also (2) shown to be of net financial benefit for the city?

In the end, the deep pockets of the pro-warfare-and-terrorism lobbies prevailed, and the measure was defeated by a 2-to-1 margin. But still: 30,911 people voted to change "Hey, chill out, man," from a friendly suggestion to a city law, punishable, one supposes, by fines, imprisonment and mandatory yoga. I can imagine the court proceedings:

Judge: Mr. Trout, you stand accused of Tripping the Fuck Out in the Second Degree. How do you plead?
Prosecutor (interrupting): Your Honor, the People wish to offer the Defendant an opportunity to plead guilty to the lesser offense of First Degree Failing to Cool It.
Judge: Very well. How do you plead, Mr. Trout?
Me (very, very calmly): I plead guilty, Your Honor.
Judge: In that case, because this is your first offense, I sentence you to groove on sunsets and sunrises for the next 90 days, plus 100 hours of running in delirious circles in a court-appointed field of posies. You are also ordered to complete a "Relaxation Through Masturbation" program.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/06/2003 05:22:00 PM


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Wednesday, November 05, 2003

THINGS THAT NEED TO GO AWAY RIGHT NOW, VOL. 2



  • Those Nextel commercials in which people use their neat-o Nextel walkie talkie phones to communicate, despite being in each other's actual physical presence. (There are three of these: a couple getting married, a job candidate negotiating his salary with his new boss, and a group of people at a business meeting.) I will never understand why some advertisers choose to accentuate the most annoying and alienating features of their products. Why would these commercials make me want to sign up with Nextel? Who is the target audience: people who already hold high-volume conversations on the bus, at the grocery store, and in the art museum, and now want the chance to become even more irritating by talking on their cell phones with people standing three feet away?
  • The Village People's "Y.M.C.A." as the most inexplicable stadium anthem ever. Look at the lyrics! Don't you people get it? This song is about easy access to gay sex. Not that there's anything wrong with that -- but gay sex isn't what I want to be thinking about while cheering on the Rockies or the Broncos. (On a more local note: can we stop playing Todd Rundgren's"Bang on the Drum All Day" when my beloved Colorado Mammoth score? We can do better than that. My suggestions: 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready 4 This" or "Unbelievable" by EMF.)
  • People who try to tailgate their way up the left lane of a busy highway. You know what I'm talking about. You're driving along your local interstate, both lanes are clogged and moving slowly, and some jerkoff in an Audi talking on his cell phone, (probably a Nextel), pulls right up behind you and rides your bumper, trying to intimidate you into changing lanes so he can... zoom 10 feet ahead and ride the next guy's bumper. I used to pull over for these guys, but now I say the hell with them.
  • Any comic device that juxtaposes stuffy white people with hip, jive-talkin' black people, (or any other unbearably hip subculture, such as dudespeaking surfers, skateboarders, or snowboarders.) Hasn't this been beaten to death? Recent examples include Steve Martin and Queen Latifah in their awful movie Bringing Down the House; a McDonald's radio commercial in which a white man with a nasal voice "translates" for a rapper; and anything starring Martin Lawrence. Acceptable exceptions: the "excuse me, stewardess, I speak jive" sequence in Airplane!; Eddie Murphy's brilliant "Mr. White" skit on "Saturday Night Live"; and Herbert Kornfeld in The Onion.
  • People who won't try sushi. "I won't try sushi," these people say, "because blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah." (I'm not a very good listener.) But it doesn't matter -- there is no good reason for not trying sushi, because sushi is delicious. Just because the fish is raw doesn't mean it's still alive, for chrissake; it's not like it's going to jump up off the plate and attack you. I would understand if a person said, "Sushi? I tried that once, and it was awful, so no sushi for me, thank you." But nobody ever says that. I have introduced several people to sushi, most of whom were apprehensive about eating raw fish, and all of them loved it, because everybody loves sushi who actually has the balls to try it.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/05/2003 05:11:00 PM


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Tuesday, November 04, 2003


I hate cosmetic surgery. Won't somebody please agree that there is something rotten about a society that encourages its members to endure painful, expensive surgery for the sake of becoming marginally more attractive? (I am excepting surgery performed to correct genuine defects, such as burn scars, birthmarks, or cleft palates.) Every year hundreds of thousands of American women voluntarily pay thousands of dollars to have saline bags shoved into their breasts for the purpose of appearing more attractive to the sort of men who stare at women with huge, artificial tits. Nothing could be more bizarre, right?

Wrong. Click here to see fairly disturbing photos of women who, driven to the brink of madness by a lifetime of having oversized, misshapen, or asymmetical labia, underwent surgery to enhance the appearance of their genitalia. Any person willing to pay a doctor an exhorbitant fee to slice up the most sensitive flesh on her body for dubious cosmetic reasons needs to be seeing a psychiatrist, not a surgeon.

Let's do an experiment. Stand up, drop your drawers, and look at your genitals. (This can wait until later, if you are at work or hosting a cocktail party.) Let me guess: your genitals are wrinkled and hairy, right? Well, so are mine, and so are everybody else's. What model of genital perfection are these labiaplasty patients chasing? Are they hoping to make their labia look like a mountain sunset, or perhaps the Mona Lisa? Look at the "after" photos again. The surgically enhanced labia might look more normal, but they still look bizarre and ridiculous, just like everybody else's.

People don't like to look at genitals because they are pretty -- they aren't -- but because when you're looking at genitals, you're about to get laid. It's a pure Pavlovian response. Try this, women: go into a bar and chat up some lonely-looking fellow. Have him buy you a couple of drinks, and then suggest that the two of you retire to his place for some fun and games. On the way out the door, say, "Oh, by the way, I do hope that during the course of the next several hours of sweaty, messy, blistering-hot sex, you won't be turned off by the fact that I have asymmetrical labia."

You will not get turned down. Trust me on this.

If you're a woman who really does have misshapen labia, and your boyfriend or husband is stupid enough to mention it, you should inform him that you are sorry that your deformity disgusts him so, and that he won't have to worry about it as he won't be seeing your vulva for quite some time. Then go fuck his best friend, who will be more than happy to accommodate your hideous genitalia. Your boyfriend or husband won't like it, but the hell with him. He'll keep his mouth shut from now on, I guess.

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/04/2003 10:32:00 PM


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UPDATES

  • Stacey Scowley: I received an email today informing me that Kia Spectra/Sony Vaio/Progressive Insurance pitchcutie Stacey Scowley -- see 10/10 -- has launched her official website. Hooray! You can watch four of Stacey's commercials, read about her bicycle ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS research, and learn about her "Special Skills", (softball, waterskiing, yoga, kickboxing, and speaking in Southern, Swedish, or Boston accents.)
  • McDonald's Monopoly game: I wish I hadn't been fibbing when I said I had the B&O, Pennsylvania, and Short Line Railroad game pieces, because I found Reading Railroad this morning on my hash browns. Note to Gary: You are now officially useless. (See 10/21 and 10/30.)


+posted by Lawrence @ 11/04/2003 08:30:00 PM


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Monday, November 03, 2003


COUNT THE ANTOINES!

National Football League
Antoine Winfield (Bills)
Antowain Smith (Patriots)
Antwaan Randle El (Steelers)
Antwan Peek (Texans)
Antoineo Harris (Chargers)
Antuan Edwards (Packers)
Honorable Mention: Anquan Boldin (Cardinals)
Honorable Mention: Twan Russell (Falcons)

National Basketball League
Antawn Jamison (Mavericks)
Antoine Walker (Mavericks)

National Hockey League
Antoine Vermette (Senators)

Major League Baseball
(none)

Total Antoines in the four major American sports leagues: 11
Number of spelling variations for "Antoine": 9

+posted by Lawrence @ 11/03/2003 10:51:00 PM


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