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Monkey Match Game

Remember Match Game? The players would get a word or expression with a blank in front or behind it, then try to match their answer with those of six celebrity guests.

If I was ever on that game, and the clue was Monkey ______, I would be toast. What to do?

Monkey shit?
Monkey poo?
Monkey butt?
Monkey feet?
Monkey see?
Monkey do?
Monkey brains?
Monkey pushing buttons?

I would maybe get one match.

Dog Size Correlation

I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule, but lately, I've noticed that the skankier you are, the smaller your dog is.  Example Number One.  Example Number Two

Classy ladies prefer larger dogs.  Example Number One.

My Jack Russell Terrier points out that good people don't necessarily have to whack their small dogs, but, to protect my wife's reputation, she might have to go.

It [Almost] Never Rains in Southern California

I've been watching the weather in Pullman, Washington. At the moment, the forecast for Saturday is "Windy with rain at times. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the mid 30s." The Trojans have no ranked teams left on their schedule, and the game this Saturday against Washington State, in bad weather, on artificial turf, looks as dangerous as anything remaining.

USC has a 19-21-2 record in games in which it rained during a major portion of the contest. The first USC game I ever attended was a rainy game that USC lost to Notre Dame. But the Trojans have won 27 of their last 28 games since losing in Pullman in 2002.

At least the Trojans have had the chance to practice in rainy weather this week. Southern California is in the middle of a long drought, but October has been very wet. This week, the 48-hour rainfall totals exceeded 10 inches in a few mountain and foothill locations. Santa Ana (where I keep my office and where Matt Leinart and Matt Grootegoed went to high school) got 3.15 inches of rain on October 20, which was more than the prior record (1.89 inches in 1957) for the entire month of October. It followed up with 1.85 inches on Tuesday. The weather was still dark for much of today. Cloudy with a few showers. Thunder possible. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.

But this weather is still nowhere near as bad as some of the forecasts I read for Florida last month, like this one during Hurricane Jeanne:

Sunday: A wind driven heavy rain. High around 85F. Winds NNE at 60 to 80 mph. Rainfall over two inches. Winds could occasionally gust over 100 mph.

So, it does rain in Southern California after all. But I won't complain about the weather this week unless it rains in Pullman and USC loses to the Cougars.

Rednecks

If I was Jeff Foxworthy, my first joke on Halloween would be this:

If you think pumpkin is something you do in the privacy of your own bedroom, you might be a redneck.

If you are from Kentucky or Tennessee, that shed ain't funny, I know.

Famous Birthdays

Hillary Duff turned 17 today. Actor and convicted child porn aficionado Jeffrey Jones turned 58. They could celebrate their birthdays together, I suppose, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea. On the other hand, Jones is only accused of collecting boy erotica, so maybe it would be okay.

Bad Art

There have been many terrible bits of art in the news lately, but I have never seen a better example than this of artwork that can come back to bite you in the ass.

The Isadora Scarf

The Vidiot pointed me to Broken, which in turn, pointed me to the J. Jill catalog. J. Jill has long been one of my favorite companies....to sue. Now, they are one of my favorite companies to laugh at.

Check out this Isadora Scarf. Would you like to wear Isadora's scarf?

Hint: it would be kind of like buying a James Dean convertible, or a Mama Cass ham sandwich.

For those of you still not quite following along, Isadora Duncan, who is generally known as the mother of "modern dance," died in 1927 when her scarf accidentally became tangled in the wheels of a Bugatti sports car.

Do you still want to buy that Isadora scarf?

Re/Max Su/cks

Re/Max must truly suck. In West Los Angeles sits a Re/Max Realtor's office in a great big ugly orange building with hideous green windows. Would you hire them to find you a piece of property? If orange stone and green glass is their idea of urban chic, I would not.

But what about selling your property? Not that, either. Their landlord has a big sign out front advertising available space, being brokered by Richard Ellis real estate brokers. If their landlord doesn't trust them, neither do I.

Against All Odds

Your very existence depended upon your parents getting together at exactly the right time. And their parents. And their parents. Go back 20 generations, and you have over a million direct ancestors* whose timing had to be just perfect to result in the eventual creation of you.

It's enough to really make a person feel special, until you realize that there are more than six billion other people alive right now who overcame those same odds.

* Unless you live in Kentucky or West Virginia, in which case the number could be as low as 100.

News Photos Worth a Double Take; With a Quiz To Follow

I have a survey/quiz to share with you all. It reportedly yields a 98% identical response from all participants. But, first, check out these photos, which are worth a double take:
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First, there is a picture of a massive wave from Typhoon Dianmu pummeling a fishing port in Aki, Japan.
Contrast that with this picture of a boat, balancing on a rock, wishing it was being pummeled by a massive wave.
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Everyone knows that chicks dig the piercing eyes of men like Rasputin. But this picture shows that pretty chicks with very clean skin and perfect blonde hair might dig the pickled member even more.
What those type of girls don't dig is the unwashed (for six years) 20 foot length of single strand dreadlock.
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Chicks always dig the tiger cubs. Or are they tiger kittens? For some reason, they don't seem to dig the koalas as much. The picture says they are identical twins. I don't know. Any two random koalas look like twins to me.
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Finally, you know the old saying, "lucky in love, unlucky in cards." Ben Affleck has turned that saying on its end. Affleck is lucky in love. He rode J.Lo for a good long time, then escaped just in time, before J. Lo. walked down the aisle anyway, with Marc Anthony. And now, he has found luck in cards. He took the California State Poker Championship on Sunday at the Commerce Club (a club I play) against some very good players, like Stan Goldstein, Chuck Pacheco, Jimmy Tran, Amir Vahedi and former World Champion John Esposito. As Dominican baseball players used to say "You can't walk off the island." Nor can you call and check your way to a poker title. Affleck is an aggressive player. And he's becoming a successful one.
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Anyhow, now that you've looked at and read the pictures and comments on the links, here is the imagination and creativity test. Prepare to join the 2% or the 98%. It will only take a minute. You need no pen or paper.

Follow the instructions, and answer the questions one at a time, but as quickly as you can.

1. Pick a number from 1 to 10.
2. Multiply that number by 9.
3. If the number is a 2-digit number, add the digits together.
4. Now subtract 5
5. Take what is left, and choose the letter than goes with that number: (i.e. 1=a, 2=b, 3=c, 4=d, 5=e....)
6. Think of a country that starts with that letter.
7. Remember the last letter of the name of that country.
8. Think of the name of an animal that starts with that last letter from the country.
9. Remember the last letter in the name of that animal.
10. Think of the name of a fruit that starts with that last letter from the animal's name.

Now picture your animal eating that fruit, in the country. What did you get?

[See comments]

Separated at Birth?

In addition to the Evil Senator Palpatine and American Senator Lieberman,

Dallas Mavericks All-Star Steve Nash and Kelly Leak from the Bad News Bears;

USC basketball coach Henry Bibby and Nosferatu;

Actor Will Smith and basketball player Robert Horry;

Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy and the actor who played that freaky spirit in Ghost;

South Carolina football coach Lou Holtz and Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies;

Army Ranger Pat Tillman and punk rocker Henry Rollins; and

Army Pfc. Lynndie England and Alfred E. Neuman.

It's Got Excedrin™ Written All Over It

The Laker game is over. My wife, who did not watch the game, but apparently heard the final score, knew better than to ask if it was a good game.

No, it was not a good game. My definition of a good game is "one the Lakers win." Examples given: the Lakers build a 36 point lead, bring the scrubs in halfway through the third quarter, commit 18 turnovers in the final 8 minutes, and hang on to win by 17. That is a good game. Conversely, if the Lakers trail by 6 with a minute to go, tie it on back-to-back three-pointers by Kobe, go to overtime, and lose by a basket when Derek Fisher's potential game winner rims in and out, that was not a good game. That was a bad game.

So tonight, after their second straight dismal fourth quarter performance, I am feeling down, down, down, down. The next home game is on Mother's Day. I'm not blowing off the family on Mother's Day, so those tickets are on eBay. Now the first game I might make it to is game four, by which time the Lakers could be down 0-3.

As a general rule, I do not attend home games which could result in the opposing team partying on my team's home field/court, unless my team will be partying if they win. Thus, for example, I skipped game six of the 2002 World Series, but went to game seven. I made an exception for the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals. But game four of the second round of the NBA playoffs is not the same thing as my first chance to attend a Stanley Cup Finals game. It's not even close.

So I'm sitting on the couch, wallowing in Laker pity, when I start developing a headache. I go online to check the commentary on the game, and this news story pops onto my screen: a construction worker had six nails driven into his head in an accident with a high-powered nail gun. Complete with x-rays.

And, just like that, my headache is gone.

The Myriad Uses of a Palm Pilot

Although I still can't install the software, I found another use for my Palm Pilot this evening: overnight package drop box illuminator. I had a package to send tonight, but I got to the drop box about two or three minutes after the "last pickup time" posted on the side. The box has a side flap for dropping tubes, and you can see into it well enough to tell if there are packages inside the box. I assumed that, if the truck had been there two minutes earlier, the box would be empty. But it was dark. And I had no flashlight. I had just resigned myself to sitting and waiting, for an hour, if necessary, to see if the truck would show up, when the inspiration hit me. I turned the Palm Pilot on, maxed the brightness, and stuck it into the flap. It revealed about five packages at the bottom. I made it six and left.

7-Up and the Six-Pack of Lies

Remember the uncola's slogan from the 70s?

"Crisp and clean, and no caffeine. Never had it, never will."

Never? Bullshit. They now sell caffeinated 7-Up.

What's the statute of limitations on false advertising?

Supposably a Doctor Thoughts

I like this website: The English language's 100 most mispronounced words. I won't repeat them all. But I want to share a few of them, such as...

The one I hate most: supposably. There is no "b" sound in supposedly.

The one they should have listed, but didn't: woof or woofs (rather than wolf or wolves).

The one I screw up myself: barbituate. Hey, over 3,000 websites make the same mistake. But Google it, and you will be asked "Did you mean: barbiturate?" And you might answer: "Bar bitch I what?"

And finally, the one I used to mess up, but don't anymore: zu-ology rather than zo-ology. I learned the correct usage when I obtained a lien foreclosure judgment against the San Diego Zoo, which is owned by the San Diego Zoological Society, but would have been owned by my client if they hadn't paid the judgment immediately.

Check out the site yourself if you want to see the other 97.

That frog with three heads that I told you about? It mmmmight be a hoax. I should have called it a three-headed, six-legged pile of frogs. Sorry.

Can you spot the lawyer in this crowd? That is the punch line of my favorite newspaper cartoon ever. I wish I could find it online. The drawing showed a pool and deck filled with sunbathing hotties, while one curmudgeonly briefcase-toting old man grimaces and plods past the crowd. It's an old stereotype, almost, but not quite yet, replaced by images of Ally McBeal and Bobby Donnell.

I don't think I look like a lawyer most of the time. In the courtroom, I handle million dollar cases. Dress me up in a suit and I am quite the business-like litigator. But away from work, I don't think most strangers would guess I was a lawyer if you gave them 50 guesses.

Part of the reason is that lawyers do not have labels in every day social contexts. I could call myself "esquire," but that is rather pretentious, and, besides, ever since Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure came out, the "esquire" label has lost much of its mystique.

My law degree is a juris doctorate. That makes me a juris doctor. But no one refers to me as a "doctor." When I call to make dinner reservations, I can't call myself "doctor." If I had a PhD in, say, extinct languages, I could be called "doctor", but I was a couple of units short there. So I'll have to settle for knowing that I am a juris doctor, while simply touting myself as a "mister."

I saw the article on clichés that suck. I'm not sure these clichés were included in the survey, but I know I hate them:

1. "It will only cost a few minutes of your time." Arnold Schwarzenegger was on the Tonight Show once, and a magician "borrowed" a $100 dollar bill from him and set it on fire or something. I don't recall exactly. But I recall Arnold's retort: "Hey, I work one minute for that!" When someone tells me that something with only take a minute of my time, I'm tempted to say, "Hey, asshole, a minute of my time is valuable." In fact, I do say that.

2. "It's only money." Bullshit. Time is money. If I lose money, it means I am going to have to sacrifice part of my remaining lifespan to earn money to recoup that loss. "Just money," my ass. It's my lifespan.

Arnold announced this week that John Muir, Half Dome and a California Condor will be pictured on California's new quarter. As stupid as this sounds, I have mixed feelings. I've rooted for this design since stumbling upon a photo op outside the Ahwahnee Hotel last year. However, given the odd run of bad luck associated with state quarter subjects, along with my desire to climb Half Dome this summer, I am strangely apprehensive about the design. You see, I don't want to be standing on the edge of Half Dome when it comes tumbling to the valley floor.

Can't happen, you say? Not true. Rock falls in Yosemite are common. And the subject of the New Hampshire state quarter -- the Old Man of the Mountain -- crumbled and fell last year. It could happen. I now feel pressured to finish my Half Dome climb before the new quarter comes out in 2005.

That's okay. I work best when a deadline looms.

Post Birthday Thoughts (3-21-2004)

Well, the birthday is over. I am older yet again. It's been all downhill since my 21st birthday. Actually, because I had a fake ID when I was 17, it's been all downhill since then.

Although I most certainly do not want to outlive my children, I would love to live for a long, long time. 700 years? Sure. But the sad reality is that, 700 years from now, I probably won't even look as good as these 700-year-old Incan mummies. And if I can't look any better than that, I might as well just go to sleep.

But not yet.

I was hoping for a perfect bracket to ease the aging process, but I suffered some devastating blows on Saturday. I had Stanford losing soon anyway, but Gonzaga? At least I still have Texas and Xavier to set my bracket apart from the others, I hope.

The Ninth Annual 29th Birthday Celebration was pretty low key. A little sleep, some Disneyland, dinner at the ESPN Zone with family. It was nothing like Louis Paul Kadlecek's recent birthday. Kadlecek, an unemployed tree-cutter, celebrated by breaking into more than a dozen hangars at a Texas airport, stealing two planes and flying one, with the operator's manual open on the seat beside him, into a power line, knocking out electricity in two cities. The stolen Cessna plunged 100 feet and crashed into a muddy field near a local prison. Kadlecek walked away from the incident. In fact, he walked three miles home. That's quite a birthday.

I just found out that my birthday fell on National Corn Dog Day this year. Holy great battered phallic symbols, Batman!

Now, although it doesn't help, having a birthday does not, in and of itself, make me feel old. But one thing that does make me feel old is listening to the radio. Having grown up in Southern California in the 1980s as a KROQ junkie, I thought alternative music was always great, fresh, with talented new bands popping up every month. When I was in college, KROQ music was good enough to lose sleep over. I went to a zillion concerts, and there were always great new records to buy.

Lately, when I listened to the radio stations I used to love, and when I heard music that I didn't like -- stuff that drives me into the waiting arms of talk radio -- I pragmatically concluded that music hadn't changed. It was me. I was getting....old.

That happens to every generation, doesn't it? You long for the music of your youth, and when the radio starts playing new stuff that you hate, you just accept the fact that, the older you get, the worse the music seems to suck. I feared that I was slowly transforming into a curmudgeon. I thought that the music industry sucked. So...

Is it just me?
Am I getting old?
Or does music really suck?

The answer, it turns out, is "none of the above."

It isn't just me.
I am not old.
Music does not suck.

KROQ sucks. It has become KLOS. The Roq'ers have become the Los'ers.

I've found Indie 103.1, which has taught me that good music is not as hard to find as I used to think. You can even listen to it online, all around the planet. Bands like The Postal Service, the Shins and Modest Mouse get regular airplay. Who are they? If you don't know, it's a shame, because they are fresh and innovative. "Some Great Heights" is one of the best songs I've heard in years.

Blink 182 and Earl Slick have new songs featuring vocals by Robert Smith. Love Song has been remade by 311. The Cure is all over the place right now. I need to go to the record store and find out what's up.

Boy, do I feel young again!

T.G.I. Wednesday

With all due respect to T.G.I. Friday's (which is due absolutely no respect whatsoever),

Thank God It's Wednesday!

Do you ever listen to the Smashing Pumpkins? They have a song (played at my wedding reception) called "Today". It has this uplifting lyric: "Today is ... the greatest ... day that I have ever known."

I feel that way about this whole weekend. My incredible weekend, which began tonight, includes:

1. St. Patrick's Day: corned beef, green beer and Irish rock by the Fenians, the Young Dubliners and Flogging Molly. Sobriety? That's for other guys. Did I mention that I am primarily Irish? No one can hold their liquor like the Irish. It's genetic. We are all descended from men who could wield an axe even after drinking a pint or two of whiskey. Those who couldn't, didn't survive to reproduce. My people survived. Just like good ol' Maewyn.

2. March Madness: the greatest event the sports world has to offer. Over a four day period, there are 48 amazing and meaningful basketball games, leaving 16 lucky teams eligible to compete for a spot in the "One Shining Moment" video on April 5th. My team isn't in the dance this year, but I will still be glued to the set.

3. My 9th Annual 29th Birthday Bonanza: for the eighth straight year, I refuse to turn 30, but I'm going to celebrate anyway.

4. Big Cash Settlements: oh, I plan to show up at the office during the "weekend." I have a meeting tomorrow that might result in a settlement of several million (picture Dr. Evil flinging his erect pinky toward the corner of his wicked mouth) dollars. And I have a $1,500,000 deal closing on Friday. So I'll pop in briefly for these things. But my mind will be elsewhere whenever possible.

And...the spa, waterfall and fountain are all working and running clean water.

Oh, yes. It's all good, folks.

The Art of Timing

Last night, I took my Dad and my oldest daughter to the Laker game. As we were awaiting our security check, my dad gave some sorry-looking dude outside a buck or two. Or five, or ten. I don't really know how much. I never asked.

I felt touched. Maybe even a bit guilty. I hadn't even noticed the guy. I decided that I would shed a few bucks the next time I saw someone less fortunate than me on the street.

On the way out of Staples Center, the same dude approached us, acting like he hadn't seen a dollar since Clinton was the governor of Arkansas, and he hit Dad up for some more cabbage. I felt jaded.

This morning, in court, I saw a wheelchair-bound attorney (I see her quite often) arguing her case and talking to her client after the hearing. Then, this afternoon, I saw a clean-shaven man, about my age, wearing clean clothes and shoes that were better than mine. He wore a knee brace and carried a sign that read "Disabled and hungry. Please help." I've seen him more than a few times, too. Nope, I didn't give him anything.

Meeting Linguistics

If you mix the term "quarrel" with the term "qualm," you get something that sounds a lot like "quorum." Now you are ready for your big meeting.

Why We Need More Female Cops

A disappointed single friend reports that traffic school is not a good place to pick up attractive women. Why? I have a theory.

You probably have the same theory.

Cleaning Dentures

I brushed my teeth probably four or five times today. It's a tedious, if brief, chore. And it defies any attempts at multi-tasking. You can't do anything else while brushing your teeth. You can't talk, dress, brush your hair, nothing.

Denture wearers must feel so lucky. It's much easier to clean dentures than to brush teeth. You just drop two tablets into a glass of water and *presto*, your dentures are clean.

It occurred to me that this principal might apply to tooth cleaning, too. I figure, why not just fill your mouth with water, suck in a couple of denture cleaning tablets and see what happens?

Give it a try and let me know how it went.

Name Those Dwellers

Residents of New York City are New Yorkers. People from Los Angeles are called Angelinos. Citizens of Moscow are Muscovites.

Island dwellers from Lesbos are known as Lesbosians. (No, that wasn't my first guess, either.)

I don't know what people who live in Coxsackie, New York, call themselves. I'd vote for Coxsackers, but I don't get a vote.

I hope I didn't offend any Coxsackers out there.

Discrimination Is Everywhere

The typical right-handed person outlives the typical left-handed person by nine years, according to one study. Why? Discrimination, that's why.

Green - The Color of Envy

I'm tired of hearing about how wicked my people are, and how harmonious every other society is with nature. The next time you hear an environmentalist romanticize about the Native American's respect for nature, ask him why he thinks the woolly mammoth and mastodon are extinct.

Technically, They Like Us

I've noticed that the guys who hate lawyers the most are the same guys who wouldn't think twice about cornering me at a party and asking me how to get out of a drunk driving case on a technicality.

Let's Call It Ex-LAX

Does anyone other than me feel a bit nervous about the security at an airport that calls itself "LAX"?

Overeaters Onymous

Overeaters Anonymous: This is a concept I do not understand.

Where is the anonymity? Like we couldn't pick these people out of a crowd? It's one thing to put on a suit and tie, head over to a Friends of Bill W meeting and say "Hi! My name is Jack, and I'm an alcoholic." After all, unless he's already a few drinks into the evening, Jack probably doesn't look like he's an alcoholic.

It's quite another thing, however, to draw your 425 pound carcass up from your aching chair and say "Hi! My name is Jack and I am an overeater."

No kidding, Jack. Without the big admission, we would never have guessed that you eat too much.

Air Travel and Relativity

So, I'm flying home and I'm staring out the window, and I know we're going some 500 miles an hour. The screen in the headrest in front of me says so. Yet, looking out the window, it seems like we're barely moving.

So I turn the air vent to full blast, aim it at my face and close my eyes.

Damn! Now we're going FAST!

If I Knew Then What I Know Now...

This knowledge is worthless to me now, but the Mariposa Women's & Family Counseling Center in Orange, California, hosts a weekly support group calling itself "Women's Sex Addicts Anonymous." Add that to my list of things I know now, but didn't know as a teenager.

In fact, move that straight to the top of the list.