I hate Voicemails

1. Dentists call and leave voicemails as reminders for appointments.
2. I had a dentist appointment scheduled for Monday.

A. Sidekick mobile phones "pop" open, with a strong magnet that keeps the keyboard covered until you press it just so.
B. I have a Sidekick mobile phone.

I. I have Jack Burton-like reflexes.

This morning I was getting ready to go into the office (doing a bit of contract work to stave off the inevitable starving/homelessness). I was on autopilot, planning my day and gathering my accessories (keys, water bottle, etc.) when I came back into my bedroom and saw that my Sidekick (see: B., above) had a message waiting.

I decided to multitask and check my phone and get my wallet from the jeans I wore last night. Crazy, I know.

I unlocked my phone and saw it was a voice mail, rather than a txt, so I (keeping the phone closed) called my voice mail and held the phone up to my left ear/cheek. I reached down to get my wallet, and then disaster struck.

Evidently, I moved my face too far from my left shoulder, because the phone started to fall down. Using my incredible dexterity (see: I., above) I reached up with my left hand, while keeping my right one in the pocket of the jeans on my dresser.

Unfortunately, this maneuver was too complicated. My left hand successfully pushed my phone back up against my left cheek, and I was able to continue to listen to the voicemail from my dentist's office (see: 1. and 2., above)... BUT I also triggered my phone to open (see: A., above).

The cover of the phone flipped open with some force... directly into my left eye.

Ouch. My eye is still hurting and watering and I'm reminded, once again, that I hate voicemails (see: Subject for this blog entry).

Twenty Star Town

I like spicy food. Spicy food is something that seems self-perpetuating, insofar as once one starts to eat spicy foods, milder food seems bland. Whether it's because of damage to taste buds, some sort of restructuring of the synapses or because of a decree of the Capscaicin Gods... it just seems to be a lobster trap (you can go in, but you can't get out).

I wasn't raised eating Korean food or spicy homemade chili. I enjoyed (and still do) Americanized Mexican food. I don't know where my penchant for spicy food came from. But it exists.

Maybe, actually, it's because I have a poor sense of taste and smell... non-spicy food just isn't strong enough. On the other hand, maybe my sense of taste and smell is poor because I've eaten so much spicy stuff over the decades of my existence. (It's like how I think... do I think as an attorney because I went to law school or did I go to law school because thinking as an attorney does was something I already did?)

Last night I was at a birthday dinner party for ... in Belltown. I had the distinct pleasure of being seated between ... , the birthday girl, and LOL. It was like Speed Dating all over again, with chicken satay with peanut sauce substituted for an awkward conversation with a female Coast Guard member.

When it was time to order food, the waitress was working her way (in an oddly unstructured order) around the table. LOL asked me the star/spiciness scale. I assumed it was up to five stars, but I promised her I'd ask... and after breaking the promise I made to attend HER birthday get-together some weeks back, I dared not let her down again.

I had planned to order n+1 stars, where n=max number of stars on the scale. There's a thrill involved (at least for me... maybe only for me) in getting slightly spicier than is the normal max. Plus I usually am able to consume it without a problem.

It was my turn to order, and the waitress and I had this exchange:

Me: What's the maximum stars in terms of spiciness?
Her: One to four star.
Me: Is it possible to get spicier? Like five stars? [Note to readers: solve for 3n/(n-2)]
Her: Oh, yes. You want more star?
Me: Sure. Like how high does it go?
Her: As high as you want to go.
Me: Like what? A hundred stars? Ten thousand?
Her: Oh... ten, twenty star.
Me: Well, however hot you can make it, thanks.
Her: Twenty star?
Me: Sure. Sounds good.

I've never been a person who says that he has no regrets in life. I make innumerable mistakes--great and small--on a fortnightly basis. It's rare, though, that I make this kind of mistake.

That shit was hot. One bite in and I knew I was in trouble. Strike that. Once glance at the seed-laden plate of pad see ew and I knew I was going to be in for some pain.

I think I got through about a seventh of it before I threw in the towel... not literally, because the napkin I had was too tear- and sweat-soaked to actually throw without risk of damaging a fellow restaurant patron.

I commandeered a second water glass and consumed about 10,000 fluid ounces of H2O to wash away the pain. My lips burned for the rest of the night (at least until the rum kicked in). I have the leftovers in my fridge, but they've got to be laughing their collective Thai-accented, noodle-based ass off, knowing that if and when I take another crack at it I'll just be putting myself through pain.

Best Thai food experience ever.

A first (taking a request)

It's 2:37 AM on Friday morning. I went out with some of my boys on Thursday night... starting with a prefunk of Sparks and Absolut 100 at my place, leading to Chopstix and ending at Ozzies.

Towards the end of the night, I found myself, essentially, alone. I have alcohol coursing through my veins but I had seen TM2000 and Thor leave me, and Buddy 1 elsewhere (consistent with his 86'ing from Ozzies). I was drinking water after a pair of $1 Jamison shots to cap the night, and I was sharing a table with a 21st birthday party.

The girl's name was Britanny. Given her age, "Brittany" would have been a good guess for her name, behind "Jennifer" and "Katherine", or some version thereof.

Brittany was turning 21, you see, and had the paper crown to prove it. My first experience with her was an inane one:

Me: You turning 21 today?
Her: (With a "duh" look on her face) Uh, yeah.
Me: I almost wore that crown tonight.
Her: Good thing you didn't. ("Retard" was understood.)
Me: You have many guys buy you drink tonight?
Her: Some. You wanna buy me one?
Me: No.
Her: ... uh. OK, then. Later.

That was about 15 minutes before I found myself sitting at their table. The birthday girl was singing a song, and the dudes started swarming, as they tend to do at around 1:15.

As the dudes swarmed, I remained seated and tried to be respectful by not leering at her. I started talking to her friends and a woman sitting across from me revealed to me that she was the birthday girl's mother.

I'm getting old. I had to break out my driver's license twice tonight to prove that I'm not a liar. But I'm getting to the point where women almost my age are capable of having women that I find attractive as children.

Not sure that the sentence structure is solid. But I'm drunk. And I promised the birthday party I'd make a blog entry tonight. So this will have to do.

The birthday girl was adorable and I still find it hard it to believe that her mom was her mom. BUT... it is what it is. :)

Cardio + Animal Planet = No Bueno

Since I am no longer gainfully employed, I have been going to the gym more. It serves the purpose of working off the Taco Bell I consume on a regular basis and it also serves the purpose of punishing me for not having a job.

A key part to the time I spend in the gym is doing cardio. Many people run around town for free, but I've paid for a three year membership so I can have lower impact exercise in front of televisions.

And it was the television directly in front of me that is the catalyst for this blog entry.

There are about a dozen TVs scattered about the cardio area of my local 24 Hour Fitness Express, and about four of them were visible from where I was exercising. Evidently there are things called "remote controls" that allow for the channels to be changed, but I am not one to rock the boat, so even if I'm the only one who can see a TV, I leave it on the channel it's on.

Sometimes it works out well, if one of the ESPN family of networks is on. I can live with E! and CNN and most of the regular ones (for some reason, one of my favorites (History International) does not appear very often).

But today? Today I found one that does NOT work for me. That channel? Animal Planet.

I like animals. I like pets. I like pets and animals too much to watch Animal Planet, especially when I'm sweating in public.

I caught the end of one show about veterinarians learn on the job. "Whatever," I thought as I kicked off my cardio workout, "it might be interesting, and in any case since yesterday was their holiday I might as well celebrate Veterinarian Day with them by watching this."

Well, seven minutes later there was a gibbon with a badly broken arm that was going under the knife. Even under the best of circumstances, I am not a big fan of monkey innards, and when I was just breaking a sweat it was no less appealing. By the time the other case study, involving a cute puppy that needed some sort of surgery for eye trauma, I was feeling a bit queasy but I didn't want to interrupt my workout so I averted my eyes and crossed my fingers (not literally; they were grasping the elliptical machine in ever-growing weariness) that the next show would be better.

It wasn't.

Now, I know dogs are loyal. And I know that some people treat dogs like horseshit. What I don't need to see, as I gazed around, wistfully looking for a cute butt to stare at for the remainder of my cardio time, is for a dog to be super-loyal after being treated like horseshit.

Animal Planet clearly disagreed.

In "San Francisco Animal Cops" or some such, there was a case of a dude keeping a little dog named Sexy outside on a SHORT chain (not even a collar) with an open dog house and feeding him scraps for his entire life. Sexy's life. Not the owner's.

Never had taken the dog for a walk. Never had let the dog inside.

When the Animal Cop took possession of the pooch, he had to cut the chain off from around the dog's neck. And Sexy made a bee-line for the owner that had neglected him so thoroughly and for so long.

Maybe it's that time of the month for me, or maybe it was the sweat getting into my eyes, but I felt like crying, it was so sad.

Crying in the middle of a 24 Hour Fitness is no bueno, though, so I bit my lip and cursed Animal Planet for making my cardio so emotionally difficult as well as physically taxing.

A short story

Buddy One and I were in Peso's on Thursday night. The night before Halloween. I think there were like five people dressed up in the city of Seattle. I was a vampire, Buddy One was a zombie.

We got our drinks and a waitress interacted with us. Her mistake.

Waitress: You guys look good.
Buddy One: Oh, yeah?
Waitress: Yeah, you look scary, but...
Buddy One: But what?
Waitress: But you are too nice. You have to be meaner.
Me: (Waiting for the waitress to start to walk away) Shut up, bitch!
Waitress: ...
Me: Like that?

I don't know that she liked it. At least I didn't get us tossed out.