The Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory

In 1977, Jimmy Carter used the Philadelphia Experiment to travel back in time and take two dinosaur eggs from fellow Illuminatus Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home. He put one of the eggs on the Roswell UFO and sent it to England and stored the other one in a janitorial closet in the basement of the Washington Monument. One of the eggs hatched in 1926 and became Queen Elizabeth II.

Years later, Franklin Roosevelt and the Bilderberg Group engineered Pearl Harbor to benefit International Paper, who would make the ration books used during the war. It was around this time that Moses appeared to L. Ron Hubbard and gave him a microfilm that contained all Scientific Knowledge in the Universe. Unfortunately, Hubbard ate part of the microfilm, thinking it was blotter acid, and mistranslated the rest. This would be the basis of Scientology.

After the war, David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission invented Jell-O as a mind control substance. When Jell-O proved ineffective, they switched tactics and began implanting subliminal messages in episodes of “Gunsmoke” and in Petula Clark albums. John F. Kennedy accidentally learned of the backward making operation and so Dean Martin was sent to kill him. Dean Martin is an alien. Lee Harvey Oswald just happened to be there. Jack Ruby accidentally shot Lee Harvey Oswald when he was supposed to shoot the startled-looking guy next to him, who was also an alien. This has nothing to do with the rest of this stuff; it was just some unrelated alien-on-alien violence.

Whoops.

In 1961, the second dinosaur egg hatched and Obama was born. Ironically, the egg had just been with Rockefeller in Kenya when Rockefeller was there on safari, but the egg actually hatched in the main galley of a TWA flight from Kinshasa to Montreal. When it was later learned that there may have been some alien egg residue left on the plane, it was shot down when it was flying as TWA Flight 800. The Masons decided to have a Hawaiian birth certificate prepared because the original plan was to make Hawaii and independent kingdom and Obama would be the King of Waikiki. This plan was abandoned when that title was used for a 1978 Burt Reynolds comedy that flopped at the box office.

The moon landing actually happened just as NASA reported. However, Neil Armstrong lost the film on the way home and the whole thing had to be recreated. To do this, all the Apollo 11 astronauts actually went right back to the moon and filmed the whole thing over again. There were also some aliens there too.

Most of the main Illuminati and aliens were running AT&T. They wanted AT&T broken up because one of the aliens spilled a full glass of wine on Nikola Tesla at a party in Hoboken in 1981 and there was a whole big thing about it and everyone was pissed. This ruined Tesla’s plan for him and Regis Philbin to control people by using high-intensity microbursts. Later, Tesla and Philbin invented a new people control technology, but it has only a short effective range. They are currently planning to install 726 mind control boxes in San Francisco to test the new technology.

Caution: Mind Control Box. (Photo courtesy of the SF Appeal, which is controlled by the Bohemian Club and Italian Freemasons.)

Flouride is perfectly harmless and is effective at reducing tooth decay. However, the Council on Foreign Relations spread rumors that it is harmful pretty much just for kicks.

In 1982, Obama died in a Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks accident. He was replaced by an identical, but slightly less cool, copy.

Tupac Shakur faked his own death to pursue his real interest in professional football scouting. He actually died under mysterious circumstances in 2007 after advising the San Francisco 49ers to draft Alex Smith with the first overall pick of the 2005 NFL draft.

What the hell is the deal with Rolling Stone magazine? It's for old people, right?

There's this "music" magazine called Rolling Stone. I think it was popular with kids in the 1960's. I picked one up in the airport because I only had 2 magazines on me and a long plane flight and neither Muscle & Fitness nor Penthouse Letters looked good. I also bought a $5 water.

Let's take a look at this very odd publication. This issue is called "Special Issue: Best of Rock 2011."
Adele's on the cover. She's the "Best Soul Superstar" in the "Best of Rock" edition. I guess that's cool. Adele is one of those people that everyone likes, right? Not me, especially, but everyone else in the world, apparently.

"Best Anniversary" is Pearl Jam, because it's the 20th anniversary of "Ten." I think the last time I listened to a Pearl Jam song was in 1994. But hey, an anniversary's an anniversary.

The weird thing about Rolling Stone is that it's full of rock acts that no one under 45 has thought about in 20 years. Check this out:

Page 26: "Buffalo Springfield Book First Tour Since 1968." That pretty much says it all. I don't even need to make a joke about that.

NEXT PAGE! Page 28: "Seger Turns the Page With Spring Tour." That's Bob Seger. Not counting truck commercials, he was last heard from around 1985. But if you judge music by Rolling Stone magazine, he is an incredibly Viable and Important Figure in Music.

Page 36: The "Q&A" column is with Ray Davies, who co-founded The Kinks in 1937. He appears to be about 158 years old and wants his brother to know they can still tour if they patch things up. They've been fighting about whether talkies are good for the film industry.

Page 62: In our "Best Of" package, Stevie Nicks is recognized as the "Best Hippie-Queen Earth Mother," apparently just to feature a picture of Stevie Nicks. They left off "Who Once Had People Blow Cocaine Up Her Rectum Because Her Septum Was Too Destroyed to Snort Anymore." That would get more readers I bet!

Page 66: "Best Reunion." Who do you think? Pavement, right? Guided by Voices? Gotta be Soundgarden, right? Nope. It's Rod Stewart & Jeff Beck. If this tour isn't sponsored by Polident, something has gone terribly wrong.

Page 71: One ONE PAGE, both Buddy Miller ("Best Sideman") and Jackson Browne ("Best New Roots") are featured. If you don't know who those people are, don't worry.

Now, in all fairness, the issue also has pieces on Panda Bear, the Fleet Foxes, and Odd Future, but I guess what cracked me up was that it exists in some kind of fantasy world where Bob Seger is relevant in some way.

I had a much more successful air travel experience yesterday.

As you may have gathered from my Twitter stream, I am currently traveling and therefore may not be posting as much. Two things, though:

1. Kind of an amazing overheard in the Hudson bookstore in the Denver International Airport yesterday. I first noticed this chick because she was holding a book and reading the ENTIRE BACK COVER to someone on the phone. Then she finished and waited for input, apparently, about whether this book would be a suitable read. I guess her confidante advised against it, because she didn't buy the book.

She got in line behind me and I got a look at her. Tall, maybe 5'10" or 5'11", blonde, not especially attractive, wearing glitter on her face, no joke. This is not at 4 am at a club on Ibiza. This is at 6 pm at the Denver International Airport. Is there a Rave Area at DEN that I don't know about?

She's still on the phone. "Oh, this is so cool. One of the directors of the movie I'm doing is going on tour with Atmosphere and filming a video for them. He's not, like, the main director. He's the other director. You've met him. I know one of the singers in Atmosphere so that's cool."

I gotta see the movie that Face Glitter Chick is in. Also, what movie has more than one director? Maybe he's the First AD.

Also, Atmosphere turns out to be an American hip hop group from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I did not know that.

2. After my permanently traumatizing, PTSD-inducing, borderline-suicide-causing trip on United Airlines last month, I just want to say that FRONTIER AIRLINES IS THE SHIT and I will never cheat on you with another airline again Frontier. Somewhere over the Great Plains, happily ensconced in the entire bulkhead row which I had to myself, enjoying my third complimentary vodka, I realized how wonderful Frontier Airlines has made modern travel. We got there early. Fuck you, United.

Insomnia, what a pain in the fucking ass

I had terrible insomnia last night. I almost never have problems sleeping. This was the worst case I've ever had. Could a second cup of coffee at 9 a.m. really render me unable to sleep at 11:30 p.m.? Is that even possible? Because that's the only thing I can think of that could have caused it. I must have the caffeine sensitivity of a white rat.

Anyway, the thing that sucks so much about insomnia is that it's SO BORING. There's nothing to do but lie there and think. I tried my usual falling asleep games:

Cities A-Z: Albuquerque, Butte, Coral Gables, Denver, El Paso.... I feel like I've played this one so many times that I keep using the same cities and it gets too repetitive. So I switched to:

Movies A-Z: Apocalypse Now, Bad News Bears, Chinatown, Death of a Salesman (that must have been a movie at some point, right? I gave myself credit for that).

At around 1:30 a.m., the dog got fed up with my tossing and turning and left to go sleep in the front room.

At around the same time, the bar down the street and around the corner had last call, I guess, so a group of about 8 guys was gathered on the sidewalk near my house smoking and YELLING at each other. Does this happen every night and I just sleep through it?

At 2:00 a.m., I turned the light on and read for a while.

At 2:30, I turned the light off. "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People was now stuck in my head on infinite replay. It's an insanely catchy song, but not exactly what you want running through your head OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER when you want to go to sleep. Just hearing it right now is making me feel kind of queasy and desperate.

At 3:00, I started rationalizing. "If I can fall asleep by 3:30, that'll give me 3 hours of sleep. That should be fine. People with new babies get less than that all the time and nobody dies."

Around 4:00, the dog came back in and got back in bed with me.

I fell asleep sometime after 4:00 and had a dream that I was helping a girl pour champagne for a party in my rec room. I lived in a house with a rec room in this dream.

I woke up at 6:20, 10 minutes before the alarm went off.

Other than some clearly noticeable bags under my eyes, I actually don't feel that bad. But I cannot figure out WTF happened. Weird.

It's not a party without American Red Cups

Because of the crumbling Irish economy, each Irish citizen living in the US is required, by Irish law, to take in another Irish citizen and support him or her until conditions improve. Thus, we have a Girl From Ireland staying with us in our house.

Nah, I'm just shitting you. The GFI is actually The Wife's oldest friend since childhood, and she's staying with us voluntarily. Actually, I agreed to it when I was drunk and would never have otherwise consented to having a houseguest for 5 weeks but The Wife is good at taking advantage of me. I'm sorta kidding. I mean, GFI is perfectly nice and just as plucky and charming as you might imagine but having anyone in your house for 5 weeks is kind of a drag. Whatever, they're in Vegas right now and I'm revelling in the time alone.

Wait, this had a point. Oh yeah. So one of the benefits of having the GFI around is hearing about the Strange and Bizarre Customs of Her Land, and the one I'm impressed with most so far is the deep Irish need for American Red Cups at parties. (In all fairness, this seems to be a British-Isles-wide phenomenon, and not restricted to Ireland alone.) You know what I'm talking about:

So apparently having red Solo cups is the key to having a successful party in Ireland or Britain because, I don't know, they're American or something. Check it out:

You do see them in every American high school film! That's true! Anyway, as capitalism teaches, every untapped market will eventually be filled. And to fill the American Red Cup market, there's Redcups.ie, your premiere Irish source for American Red Cups! Behold:

The Red Cup has been made world famous by its appearence in films and sitcoms such as Desperate Housewives, Superbad, Roadtrip, American Pie, The Social Network, The Hills and music videos by Black Eyed Peas, Fergie, Pharrell Williams, Asher Roth and Ke$ha.

20 cups for €4.50 (plus €2 delivery). That's right, for only about $9.20, your Irish pals can party like Desperate Housewives!

Note that the same plastic cups are widely available in white in Britain. White's no good! Remember this whenever people say Americans are weird.

The Debra Saunders Leap of Logic Watch

Sometimes I feel like I need to start a different blog just to deal with the inanities Debra Saunders spews forth on a regular basis. I will call it something like "Oh, Debra Saunders" or "You Are Such a Fucking Idiot, Debra Saunders" or "Debra Saunders is Wrong Again" or something like that but I would have to do every single column (with certain exceptions) and I don't have the time.

(The exceptions are that she and I are both opposed to draconian drug sentences, so I guess we can agree on one thing.)

Yesterday's column - "Obama tries to obstruct executions" - promised a bombshell! You mean the President of the United States is trying to keep individual states from enforcing the death penalty within their borders? WOW.

Except there is nothing in the story like that. Here's how it starts:

President Obama well may have begun another undeclared war - this time on states that try to enforce their own death penalty laws - on the dubious grounds that the Food and Drug Administration has not approved drugs intended to kill convicted killers.

Oh, hold on a second. "Well may have begun"? What the fuck does that mean? Did Obama begin a war on states trying to enforce their own death penalty laws? MAYBE! Does Debra Saunders drink childrens' blood from a chalice made from a piece of the True Cross? MAYBE!

Here's the evidence:

On March 15, the Drug Enforcement Administration seized Georgia's supply of sodium thiopental, the first drug given under the three-drug lethal injection protocol used in most of the country's 34 death-penalty states. The DEA also asked Kentucky and Tennessee for their sodium thiopental to aid its investigation. Why? The DEA referred me to the Department of Justice, which sent an e-mail declining to comment. News reports indicate that the feds had concerns that the drugs were imported improperly.

A-HA!!! That Bad Old Obama must have called up the FDA and told them not to let anyone have sodium thiopental, right? Because he secretly hates the death penalty, right?

Wait, what's this? "FDA helped two states get scarce execution drug"?

The Food and Drug Administration, which has long maintained that it has nothing to do with drugs used in executions, has quietly helped Arizona and California obtain a scarce type of anesthetic so the states could continue putting inmates to death.

The shortage of sodium thiopental has disrupted executions around the country. But newly released documents show the FDA helped import it from Britain.

Huh, so maybe the FDA was just doing its job with the shipment in Georgia, and meanwhile was actively helping other states get the drug. I guess Obama forgot to call the FDA when they were busy helping Arizona and California get the same thing.

The point is, when your worldview is that everything the president does is wrong and evil, you see all kinds of conspiracies where none exist. Never mind that Obama supports the death penalty. Why let facts like that get in the way when you can construct a fictional account of Obama somehow reaching down from the White House to stop executions in Georgia because he's secretly against the death penalty, I suppose, just like he's secretly a Muslim and secretly whatever else you want to ascribe to him.

If you object to the FDA's concerns about the importation of lethal injection drugs, that's fine. State your objections and the factual basis for them and move on. But for God's sake, Debra, no need to invent conspiracies that you can't support with actual facts. You "may well have" to stop listening to your Lizard Creature Overlords if they're feeding you this shit.

Misadventures in ocean travel, starring a no-bail warrant parolee

Think YOU'RE having a rough morning? Think again:

SAN FRANCISCO -- A parolee with a no-bail warrant was taken into custody Friday morning after authorities found him on a stolen boat that had run around on Ocean Beach.

KTVU spoke with a U.S. Parks police officer from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area who had some details about how the boat had ended up on shore.

The officer said a jogger reported the boat to park police at around 5:45 a.m. Once officers arrived, they found a man on the boat and questioned him regarding the name of the boat and how it had run aground.

The man had no answers and seemed unsteady on his feet. Authorities determined that he was a parolee with no bail warrant.

It was later determined that the boat had been stolen in Vallejo.

Officers said that it was not clear if man had sailing experience, but it appeared that he had passed out while behind the wheel and drifted for a period of time before running aground at Ocean Beach.

Every day's a good day when you're out on your failboat! (Thanks, KTVU, for the pic.)

OMG I love this story so much. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because it represents the culmination of a series of bad decisions. Back in college, we used the term SLAGIATT (pronounced just like it looks) as shorthand for "seemed like a good idea at the time." The fact that we had an acronym for that, and used it, tells you a lot about my college experience. In fact, that tells you a lot about my life experience, now that I think about it.

So you're Mr. No-Bail Warrant Parolee and you're out and about in lovely Vallejo and need some quick transpo to the city. Do you:

(a) Take the Baylink bus?

(b) Fuck that, I'm a Man of the Sea! I'll take the Baylink Ferry!

(c) I'M FUCKING STEALING THIS BOAT.

Duh. Which is more fun, riding on a boat or driving the motherfucking boat?!?

Also, this made me laugh: "Officers said that it was not clear if man had sailing experience." SIR! SIR! DO YOU HAVE SAILING EXPERIENCE? REPEAT, DO YOU HAVE SAILING EXPERIENCE?

Anyway. It's Friday. Partyin' partyin'. Partyin' partyin'.

40goingon28 PSA: Benefit for Mission Neighborhood Center GED program

This Saturday, the Mission Community Center is doing a fundraiser for its GED program. The money they make is going towards their students' testing fees. I'm basically a smug asshole with a Blogger account but once in a while I try to do something good to make up for it, and this is one of those times.



Here's more info. Support your local kids. They're going to be paying for your Social Security one day, so it's in your best interest that they be smart and get good jobs. That Rascal scooter isn't gonna pay for itself.

(It just occurred to me that in 30 years, Pops will once again be an old man bar if all the same people keep going there. There'll be a whole line of tricked-out Rascals and Larks parked in front with bumper stickers that say "SCOOT OR DIE" and "FUCK THE YOUTH" and stuff like that. Looking forward to trading oxygen tank tips w/ you guys!)

The Early Season Report

Nobody liked The Mystery of the Sad Bike? Man, you people are cold fucking automatons.

Anyway. Went to my first Giants game of the year last night. Got a couple of thoughts on that topic:

1. Fucking ENOUGH with the World Series We Are the Champions Yay Look at Us Let's Cheer for Us Again World Series World Series shit. I KNOW it's a big deal. I've been a Giants fan for 20 years. But really, you know that expression "Act like you've been there before?"[*] That's actually kind of spot-on. I mean, you don't see the Yankees - or even the fucking Marlins, for that matter - wearing caps and jerseys with fucking GOLD LETTERING on them when they present their WS rings in a FIVE-HOUR ONFIELD CEREMONY which includes Carlos from the Doggie Diner behind section 128 getting a ring and Duane Kuiper babbling incoherently and crying and Lou Seal borne aloft by a Choir of Angels while the organ player kicks in with Ave Maria, do you? No, you don't. OK. WE WON. NOW LET'S GET ON WITH THIS SEASON WHICH, IF YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED, ISN'T GOING SO SWIMMINGLY.

[*] In case you don't know, it means that when you achieve a goal, typically in an athletic event, such as scoring a touchdown or, in this case, winning a championship, there is a school of thought that teaches that one should affect a sort of blasé mien, as if to announce to the world "Achieving this means very little to me, because I often achieve my goals, so I will refrain from jumping around and behaving like a 5-year-old who just won a stuffed zebra at the county fair and instead will walk away with a studied calmness." This is highly regarded and shows that you are a Winner who is Used to Winning and not some yokel who accidentally pushed the right button and fell ass-backwards into a victory. This school of thought is summed up by the phrase "Act like you've been there before."

2. That being said, I like the fact that Lou Seal is wearing a big pimp-style WS ring.

You think Lou Seal doesn't get mad tail? (Photo courtesy of, inevitably, Lou Seal's Facebook page.)

3. Oh yeah, there was a game being played, the less said about the better. It was around the time that Pat Burrell charged the ball and it went past him like he was a bloated copier salesman at a company BBQ that I decided defense may be an issue for this team.

4. Also: for all the hue and cry about not beating up on Dodger fans in the wake of the horrible beatdown in LA last week, nothing really happened that I saw. Well, before the game, there was one guy wearing Dodgers gear and another guy walking behind him wearing Giants gear kept yelling, inexplicably, "The Botox section is back here! Go back to the Botox section!" I guess, because people in LA use Botox? Or something? If that's the best heckle we've got, we need to convene a Heckle Roundtable and brainstorm this shit.

5. Cold? FUCKING FREEZING.

6. Ended up a 6-1 loss. Bumgarner gave up, like, 20 consecutive hits in the 5th but finished the inning and then CAME TO BAT because you CANNOT SACRIFICE BUMGARNER'S BAT. Seriously, he's one of the best hitters on the team. I'm not joking.

The Mystery of the Sad Bike

About a month and a half ago (I want to say mid-February; it was close to then) somebody locked this bike to a pole in front of my house:


They never came back for it. There is sat, sadly, through the pounding rains of March and into April. Sometimes it would slide down the pole and sort of go cross-ways sticking out into the street and somebody would push it back up again. After a while, I started to idly wonder if I should do something about it, but it wasn't really bothering me and then it sort of seemed like a good experiment: What happens to a bike that is locked to a pole and then forgotten forever? I was wondering if it would slowly rust and degrade and eventually melt into the ground, like a very slow-motion ice sculpture or something.

Plus, I was hoping that it was bothering my parking-space hogging, garage-renting ridiculous request making neighbors, since it's more in front of their garage than my house. A man can dream!

And so it went, until this past Saturday. Whilst cleaning my house, I happened to glance out the window and THERE WAS A GIRL RIDING AWAY ON THE BIKE. I told The Wife excitedly about this development and she was all "What bike?" and I was all "You know, the bike that's been locked in front of the house for the past month and a half" and she gave me one of those looks that she gives me that looks like how you would look at someone who told you they were being abducted by aliens and subjected to strange tests. "Oh," she said.

I thought it was a pretty big development.

BUT WAIT. It gets better. Yesterday, I come outside and THE BIKE IS BACK. Locked to its customary pole.

WHAT THE FUCK. First of all, who leaves a bike chained to a pole for a month and a half, through pouring rain and freezing temperatures, comes back, rides it around for one day, and then locks it back to the same pole? WHO DOES THAT. Is that weird?

(Also, it's kind of amazing that no part of the bike has yet to be stolen. I live in a pretty safe neighborhood, but I didn't think it was THAT SAFE. Some places, this bike wouldn't last 15 minutes, let alone 7 weeks.)

Things that infuriated me today

1. Tickets for TV on the Radio at The Independent went on sale at noon today. (Well, actually they went on sale a few days ago if you have an American Express card. I'm a normal person and don't have one so I had to wait until today.) At 12:00:01 I clicked "Purchase tickets" and it was ALREADY FUCKING SOLD OUT. FUCK YOU SCALPERS I HOPE YOU ALL DROWN IN A TUB OF HUMAN FECES AND VOMIT.

2. My ongoing War with United Airlines has now escalated, because today they told me I am NOT, in fact, getting the refund that they promised they would give me. I WILL NOT REST UNTIL UNITED AIRLINES IS BANKRUPTED AND THEIR CHAIRMAN IS FORCED TO HANDWASH EVERY URINAL AT CHICAGO-O'HARE. Anyway, now my credit card company is involved. This is not over, United Airlines. I shall see to it that you are destroyed, your offices razed to the ground, and the land where they were is sown with salt so nothing ever grows there again.

3. I'm not at the Giants' home opener. I am going Monday, though.

4. Not really THAT infuriating but my dog is undergoing dental treatment right now and I am embarrassed to say how much it is costing us for our dog to have a shiny white smile that will knock the ladeez out.

5. What, what, WHAT is it about the restaurant industry that makes EVERY GODDAM RESTAURANT think I want music to autoplay when I go to their fucking website? Is there just one web designer for the entire restaurant industry and he or she just fucking loves autoplaying shitty lounge music? Why don't, say, auto dealers or local news sites autoplay music instead of restaurants? Just fucking cut it out. You have GOT to believe us when we say: WE DO NOT WANT MUSIC TO AUTOPLAY WHEN WE COME TO YOUR WEBSITE.

There was something else but I forgot.

OK, I feel better now! Maybe writing a blog is therapeutic. I hope you have a good weekend! The Wife and The Chick Who's Visiting Us from Ireland are going to the Wiener Nationals tomorrow. What a world.

Today in Privacy Invasion News

In today's Chron, "Stanford's top scorer suspended":

(04-06) 22:16 PDT -- Jeremy Green, Stanford's leading scorer last basketball season, has been suspended from school for academic reasons, a school spokesman said Wednesday.

Green's status for next season would not be affected, and the first-team All-Pac-10 selectee is expected to take part in the Cardinal's preseason trip to Spain in September, school spokesman Brian Risso said.

It's possible that the 6-foot-4 junior from Austin, Texas - who has exceptional shooting range - could apply for early entry in the June 23 NBA draft. An NBA spokesman would not say whether Green has applied. A list of the early-entry candidates would not be issued until the April 24 deadline has passed.

"My sense is that he will be back," coach Johnny Dawkins said.

Green could not be reached for comment. A phone message left at his parents' home in Texas was not immediately returned.

Oh Jesus Christ. Thank God they only publish this wildly intrusive information for ATHLETES and not regular kids, or else you could have opened your morning paper to read:

TK, the school's leading gravity bong user last season, has been suspended from school for academic reasons. And also for carrying an open beer into class. And also for driving his car into a ditch next to U Lot. And also for not paying the Activities Fee. And also for saying "I told you I don't do any fucking activities so why should I pay the Activities Fee." And also for maybe being the person who took Leslie's sliding door off its track and put it in her bathtub.

It's possible that the 6-foot-4 junior - who has exceptional sarcasm range - could apply for early entry into the Togo's immediately adjacent to campus. A Togo's spokesman would not say whether TK has applied. A list of the sandwiches Togo's offers was observed next to his phone, however.

"My sense is that we kinda hope he doesn't come back," the Dean of Academics said.

TK could not be reached for comments. "What the fuck - are you fucking kidding me?" a man who identified himself as TK's father said when reached at home. "Is this some kind of fucking joke? This better be some kind of sick joke. Is he there? Is he standing right there? You can tell him I have better things to do than to listen to this shit."

Adventures in Dentistry

I'm pretty loyal to my service providers and if I find something that works, or at least is unobjectionable, I stuck with it, which explains why I had been going to the same dentist for like 18 years. Well, really, just the same dentist's office, since the actual dentist has changed maybe 3 times and the entire staff has turned over except for one receptionist who always calls me by name and who, come to think of it, I guess I have one of the longest relationships of my adult life with.

But after 18 years I got restless and decided to take a walk on the wild side and see what else was out there. BIG MISTAKE. I went to this other dentist in the Mission who was actually kind of cute but I felt like she was kinda phoning it in. I mean, if it doesn't hurt, they can't be doing a good job, right? Plus the receptionist didn't habla Ingles all that well and I was never 100% sure when my next appointment would be because I didn't want keep saying "Excuse me?" or "I'm sorry?" with my head cocked to the side like an idiot.

So I went back to Old Dentist after like a year and a half. Old Dentist took me back but decided that I MUST BE PUNISHED FOR MY TRANSGRESSION.

Old Dentist took a look at the X-Rays and did that thing where they stick the probe up under your gums and go "3-2-3, 3-3-3, 3-4-3" and then when they say "4-5-4" the dentist and the hygienist look at each other and cluck disapprovingly. It seems that I needed a DEEP CLEANING. If you're unfamiliar, a deep cleaning is where they peel your gums back and hammer away in there with a diamond bladed chisel and also a stick made out of wolverine teeth and a radioactive gun that shoots gamma rays and pain-water into the roots of your teeth.

A deep cleaning is also a useful way of learning valuable information from a rival!

It takes two sessions because they can't novocaine your whole face at once or you'll wander into the street and die or else starve to death because you can't put food into your mouth without it falling out. So each session's like an hour and a half and the Russian hygienist is going SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE and you can feel it in your skull even if you can't in your mouth because they hit you with 4 novocaine injections - no shit, FOUR - and on the whole it's not a particularly satisfying experience.

SO YESTERDAY I go back for the followup and that Russian is "You are flossing daily, no?" and I was like "YOU BET YOUR ASS I'M FLOSSING DAILY SVETLANA" and then I go "You know, that deep cleaning was like 3 weeks ago and I'm not even sure why I'm here" and she says "After deep cleaning, some patient need to return every 4 month," and I was like "NOT THIS PATIENT, YOU CRAZY RUSSKIE." She strapped on her gear and went to work for another 40 minutes with the saw and the high-pressure radioactive Water Pic and then pronounced me GOOD TO GO for another 6 months.

The moral of the story is: if you like your dentist - and by that, I mean if your dentist isn't psychotic or molesting you while you're unconscious - for God's sake, don't cheat on him/her. It's not worth it.

(Oh, one ironic note: Guess who needs a deep cleaning now? MY DOG. I wish I had gotten to be fully anesthetized like he does! Lucky sonofabitch. LITERALLY. KA-POW!)

Area resident gives nutshell review of one of our two local daily newspapers

I was out walking the dog yesterday afternoon (beautiful day, no? Until around 6:30 when it suddenly became very, very cold) when, to my surprise and dismay, the dog crapped for the second time. I only brought one poop bag because my dog is generally a reliable One Time Only shitter but this time he was all "Fuck it, it's nice out, I'm gonna drop another as long as we're out and about."

ANYWAY, I didn't have another bag or anything and it is totally uncool to leave dog shit on the sidewalk (or anywhere else, for that matter) so I was sort of looking around for something to pick it up with when a Fellow Dog Owner came strolling by with his dog.

"Excuse me," I said. "You wouldn't happen to have another poop bag on you, would you?"

He was happy to oblige. "Yeah, absolutely," he said, pulling out Said Bag and handing it to me. "She surprised me one time too many," he continued, nodding at his dog,"so I started taking extras. Before that, I'd get caught and have to look around for an Examiner."

"Monarch of the Dailies," indeed.

Happy AFD. A Story.

On the occasion of this April Fools' Day, allow me to recount my favorite - and maybe the only - AFD joke I ever did.

Back in Ye Olde Mid 90's, The Sister was graduating from All-Girl Preppy Prep School and looking at colleges. She had expressed an interest in New York University, which alarmed Dad to no end, as the thought of his daughter wandering around New York basically scared the shit out of him. Little did he know, but that's another story and I also promised The Sister I wouldn't say too much about her on this blog. The Sister applied to NYU but Dad basically let it be known that the whole thing was a nonstarter and she would not be going to NYU.

SO ANYWAY on April 1, 19__, I got my friend David, who sounds like a New York Jew because he is a New York Jew, to call my Dad up.

"Good morning, Sir!" David said. "I'm with the Admissions Office at New York University. I'm calling to tell you that we have decided to award your daughter a full scholarship here at NYU, including room and board."

There was no pause at all, "SHE'LL TAKE IT!!!" Dad said.

After about an hour we finally stopped laughing. Dad still cracks up about it to this day.

The Sister did not go to NYU.

Have a good weekend.