I bought a new coat with so much velcro that I'm always accidentally
snagging people sweaters and clothes when I brush by them in a crowd. It's
embarassing.

 I was at starbucks sitting in a booth. I was using an extra chair for my
bag and books, they were just sitting there. It was a crowded starbucks so
there were few chairs. Some guy asks me if I needed my chair, he apparently
needed it. He takes it over by his booth and sets his briefcase on it, he
just needed it for his books. This really pissed me off. I sat there
trying to build up the courage to ask for the chair back.

i saw a baby in a stroller playing with a palmV.

i heard one musician say to another, "i sleep better on the bus than i do in the hotel."

i saw this picture.
http://www.wa.gov.au/tiac/forum/2000/luketin/pioneer.gif

i heard a mother say to her kid, "it's not bestiss. it's bess."

at work:

"so you mean you're not my indentured servant?"

"so what do they do if you have canda down there, i mean chronic?"

glen,

your picture is traveling at over 60,000 miles per hour somewhere past pluto on voyager. one big debate was over whether to put clothes on the people (first message to aliens is pornography). another was that the line showing voyager's path has no arrow head. it was decided that the arrow concept may not be shared by other alien species (though every culture in the world independently developed some sort of arrow). carl sagan help design the message.

guess it was pioneer (not voyager)

Edited by author 08-10-2001 11:39 PM
1. the heatwave broke and my friend and i stood at her window cheering the thunder and watching people below relax their shoulders -- new york de-stressing in the rain.

a. i indulged cravings for hard-boiled eggs and iced tea and buttered grits. i wondered if i'm secretly homesick for a place where heat is kinder. that may be a third thing that happened.

1. i wished a stranger with his index finger in the middle, goodluck with the atlas shrugged in his hand, which i sir, have not read.
he happily shared with me the bright enthusiasms i didnt yet have for it.
for five minutes i nodded.

2. in the hot tiny dance club i handed eric a 2x3.5" card folded which said "please put your shirt on." he handed it to the sweaty guy behind him with no shirt.

i recently bought a rental property in venice, in the middle of the hood. i disconnected my toilets so i could fix the bathrooms, and one of the toilets was placed in a bedroom to get it out of the way. a month or so into the fixit project, after i had the bathroom drywalled, the odor from the general area was strange. drywall joint compound, i imagined. about a week later i had the whole place tented so the pest exterminators could 'heat' the building to get rid of termites (i didn't want to use the poison gas.) afterwards, the smell from the bathroom area seemed worse. i searched for the cause, and thought i'd better open the toilet lid. there was a dump in it, a loose one, sitting in about 3 inches of standing water. this dump had just been heated for about 2 hours at 180 degrees. i threw the toilet away.

part 2: about a week after this horrifying discovery, i noticed some pieces of drywall, which i had placed alongside my house, had been moved slightly askance. i went to move them back, and looked down in the process: someone had taken a dump on the side of my house, a messy one, and left toilet paper with it.

what is with people crapping on my property? does this happen to everyone, or am i special in some way?

1. for six weeks I have been finding tiny mysterious cuts on my hands, strange bruises up my arms and down. they are of absorbing interest to me in the instant of discovery, and then they're forgotten. they disappear quickly.

A. the barista at the local coffeeshop remembered my usual order incorrectly, quoting the order i had substituted on a whim last week. i am charmed by a man who can simultaneously forget and remember, as it seems to me a great survival skill.

1. visit to babysitter after not seeing her for 27 years turned out to be "positive"

2. visit to person i've never seen turned out to be "negative"

Edited by author 01-23-2002 09:45 PM
a. I ran over (and killed) a cat on my way to a funeral.

b. the owner asked me to please cremate the body and return it to him...of course I couldn't say "no".

i. I attempted to converse knowledgeably about the Sir John Soane Museum despite the fact that I have the alien mother of all hangovers.

ii. Two years ago, Stephen Soderbergh cut me off in traffic. A few days ago, he passed by me in a restaurant and all I could think was, there's that guy who cut me off in traffic.

A friend of mine likes to wear knitted hats, but since we're in Thailand and its really hot, he has to modify them by making them smaller. He said it was really zen-like to cut and sew up knitted hats. So I gave it a try. But I made it too small and the hat ended up looking like a yamulke. But it's okay cause he's jewish.

Where I live there's a cat called Dr. Evil because he has a skin disease and his hair is falling out. Also, he looks evil. People are afraid of him. But he's not really evil. Actually he's very nice and sad and his illness is non-contagious. He's been gone for a week now and everyone thinks he's dead. Now when people talk about him they say "Dr. Evil sure was a nice cat." I guess "evil" is a relative term.

i received a brief observation about norway via email tonight. then i received another.

--- Oliver Benjamin <ollylama@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Norway's cold. And beer is ten dollars.

--- tyler <tylerfenn@yahoo.com> wrote:
> i can tell you that norway is a fascist state
> according
> to the norwegian that i got drunk with thursday
> night.

Thirty-one years into its five-year mission, Pioneer 10 broadcasts no more. It has been gradually failing in recent years. One by one its experiments were turned off. Then a key component in its transmitter failed. It could only transmit when it received a strong reference signal from the Earth. Finally, the power levels dropped so low that the final experiment was shut down. With nothing to report, there’s no point in transmitting the reference signal. Pioneer 10 will drift silently into interstellar space, toward the constellation of Taurus the Bull.


Perhaps, someday, Pioneer 10 will speak again, but not to Earth. Attached to the side of the spacecraft is a plaque showing a human man and woman, and the location of the Earth, a message from our planet to whatever space-faring civilization might find the spacecraft. No longer the distant correspondent, P10 has become Earth’s silent courier to distant worlds in its final phase of life.

space.com 3/6/03

1. I realized that I really don't want to have children
of my own because there are so many kids in my life
that need attention.

2. I also realize that I am no where close to having
my own children because I've never met a man that I really
thought was into a fun, serious, intimate mature relationship.

at starbucks, out the window on the patio, i saw a black girl show the other black girl she was sitting with, the book she just bought: Stupid White Men.

i ate meringue made from an ostrich egg.

part 2 of the story:
because there was a long queue, the barristress started calling back in the line, seeing what folks wanted. "grande drip" i said. then she asked him, "refill?" the man behind me hesitated, as if he wasnt listening. but it was a fake hesitation. i could tell. and he said, "uh- yup."
he took a last swig and handed her his cup.

part 3 of the story:
outside, my coffee in hand, i got back in the car and backed out. i shifted into D, and before taking my foot off the brake, noticed this guy with his coffee, sort of loitering around his own car... until i left?
as i left the lot, i saw him get in.
then i remembered part 1 of this story.

part 1 of the story:
i, and a man with a weathered face and car, pulled into starbucks at the same time. he hesitated while i got out, went inside, and got in line. he got in line behind me.

I was riding my motorcycle in LA and making a right turn at Pico and 4th. As I turned, the light switched and the fat, drunk Baldwin brother, who was timing the lights, roared into the intersection. He coudn't see me till the last minute because he was blocke by the car that was turning left in front of him, which he almost hit. Lucky for me he saw me at the last minute and slammed on the brakes. His bumper hit my foot peg. It broke off and stuck in his bumper. I didn't sue him. I should have. It was his fault, but the cop was so star struck he didn't even remember to talk to me till I made him. It tore the new stitches I had on my hand open because when he hit me I flew about 10 feet in the air and went about 20 yards beore I landed on my hand and shoulder. I couldn't believe I wasn't more hurt. I had a leather jacket, boots and a helmet on, or I would probably be dead and he'd be in jail. That is why he should have had his god damn assistant call me and see if I was ok and if I would like to co star in a movie with him. But, he kinda cheesed me out. Yeuch.

went to testdrive cars.
got the following compliments:

"i like your glasses"
"you got that cool, laid back look. are you in the entertainment industry?"
(to my wife) "you look like a porche customer."
"i can tell by your comments that you are a person that knows what they want."

Edited by author 10-17-2004 01:51 AM
2 things i really loved about our team building, dated 101004.
  1. i could never be an "introvert"! thanx to glen, for giving us the opportunity to take the longer form of Myers-Briggs Test. at least now, i have confirmed that i am an "extro" one.
  2. "Actions speaks louder than words but you need confirmation." seeing this line in this website really rocks!