FUF #20

You don't know what it's like. No, you don't know what it's like. To FUF somebody. To FUF somebody. The way I FUF you.

Hello, everyone. Some of my eagle-eyed gentle readers might notice that today is "FUF #20" when last week was "FUF #20" as well. As I noticed this morning, there never seemed to be a #19. I don't know how that happened, but I just skipped it somehow and jumped to 20. I changed it back so this could be an accurate FUF count. I'm not good at math, people.

And I doubt any of you are this eagle-eyed, but I neglected to mention yesterday that it was my 150th post. Crazy shit going down at the UOPTA pad. As always with the FUFfing, I have some random stuff to talk about before launching into the wildly popular Car Watch.

First off, some of you might remember that on Wednesday I wrote about the board game called "Apples to Apples." For those of you who don't remember: lay off the weed. Anyway, my good friend Lisa knows that my lovely wife and I enjoy that game, so she did what any one of you would've done: she bought us "Apples to Apples - Jewish Edition." We flipped through some of the noun cards because we were understandably curious, and it's the strangest thing. A lot of them are what we expected, being either names of people (like "Sarah") or Jewish things (like "matzos"). What we didn't see coming were cards like "Tyrannosaurus Rex" and "Zucchini." I think it goes without saying, but we're gonna be playing it very soon (i.e. tonight) to see what other surprises that box has in store.

Here's something that made me laugh aloud quite heartily. I was out to dinner on my birthday with a group of friends, and we were having a merry ole time. Near the end of the meal, the waiter came over to my chair and said, "Your birthday surprise will be out in just one minute." My initial reaction was a Jon Stewart-like "Whaaaaaaa?" But then I realized how funny that actually was and laughed pretty hard for a minute. Dusty suggested that the "surprise" part would come into play when the waiter would come back in two minutes instead of one.

Did you hear that sound? It was me forcefully switching gears. My mom sent me an email about one of the word things that I've subjected all of you to in the past. She pointed out that "boned" and "de-boned" confusingly mean the same thing. If I'm not mistaken, "veined" shrimp means that the veins have been taken out. Instead of launching into some rant about other words that either follow or dispel that pattern, I'm just going to say that those words are pretty messed up and I don't like them one bit.

Hey, what's the opposite of "dispel?" Let's try something: There were murmurs that Kobe Bryant was unhappy with the Laker organization, and his trade demand only served to pel those rumors. I like it!

Let it be known throughout the land: Peter cares so much about words that he whispers sweet somethings into his lovely wife's ears.

Car Watch! (Spoonerized, that's War Catch...eeenteresting.)

I saw a plate on the freeway that read "DRK SOUL." I had two thoughts about that. First, that's pretty sad, so I probably wouldn't want to advertise it. I guess "BLAKND (Heart)" was taken. Second, without a vowel in the first word, it could be "Dork Soul" or "Dirk Soul," in honor of either Mr. Diggler or Mr. Nowitzki. Maybe that guy isn't so bad after all.

Similarly, my co-worker Rob and I saw a plate that read "SATEN." I said, "Look, that car has 'Satan' on the plate." "How do you know they're not trying to say 'Satin' instead?" he asked. "Because A is closer to E than I is," I said. We both looked off into space for a second, and then he said, "No it's not." "No, it's the same amount of letters away, isn't it? Damn." My point was invalidated, but I still think I was right.

Within the course of two days, I saw cars for people who would hate each other. One had "PEAC PLZ" as a plate with similarly-themed bumper stickers. The other had "Give War a Chance" and "First Iraq, Then France" as bumper stickers. Ah, Los Angeles; truly something for everyone.

I saw a license plate frame yesterday on the 405 that really confused me: "Just What You're Looking For" was on the top. I can give you 100 guesses as to what the bottom said. Seriously, 100 and you wouldn't guess what it said unless it's referencing some movie or show I don't watch. "Basil," it said on the bottom. That's apparently what I'm looking for. If I actually were though, ya know, going to the market to make pesto or something, that frame would freak the shit out of me. Good thing that wasn't the case, because I wasn't in the mood for shit-freaking.

On my way home from work, I was behind a little coupe with "LITIJUS" as the plate. You bet your ass I kept a safe following distance from that guy. Nothing says "Don't tailgate" quite so clearly as "I like suing people." Nice touch, buddy.

My dad saw a plumbing truck with very professionally-done lettering and graphics on the side. It read, "Complicated Jobs Is Our Specialty." Really? I thought it would be "Grammer" like that tutoring company from last week.

My dad also saw a plate that read "ULBLAFN." It took me a long time to realize that it said "You'll be laughing." When I got it though, I wasn't laughing. I was thinking, "You're wrong, car; I'm not laughing. In fact, I think it's pretty egotistical of you to assume that you can predict my emotions."

Rockabye sent in "TRFKH8R" that he saw on a motorcycle. I hate traffic too, but I don't have the luxury of going in between stopped cars like that guy, so I would humbly suggest he stop his whining.

My lovely wife saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck that proudly proclaimed, "My Carbon Footprint is Bigger Than Yours." Now I'm not Al Gore or anything, but I'm pretty sure the whole point of that metaphor wasn't tied to boasting about size.

Last but not least, I saw my initials of "PTK" on a non-vanity plate. I hardly ever see that, and this time it happened on my birthday. That made me smile, so I'm giving it the prized anchor spot of this edition of Car Watch.

Really last but not least, Happy Birthday to Katy, the daughter of Sacky Kevin and Sacky Christi. She's 4 today, and if memory serves, 4 was a good year for me.

Have a great weekend, gentle readers. I hope June was good to you, and I'll see you back here on Monday as I continue my story from Thursday. If you think of anything worth sharing over the weekend, ptklein@gmail.com is just a click away. Then you have to type though, so it's not as easy as I first made it sound. Sorry if I led you on.

Fame-ish, Part 1

Good morning on this day of Thur. Today is my father's half-birthday, so everyone please wish him a "Hap Birt!" with me. A funny thing happened a week or two ago, and the time has come to share it with you all. What did you bring to share today? That's what I thought. Selfish bastards. Sharing is caring. Remember that.

I was in the car, which happens from time to time, and I turned on some local sports talk radio. It was the day after the Sopranos finale, and the two on-air personalities were discussing how all series finales seem to suck. They asked the listeners to call in if they knew of any good ones, and I picked up my cell phone and started dialing. It rang, and someone quickly picked up and said the station's name. "Hi, I have a good finale to talk about," I said. He asked me a couple of questions and then put me on hold with the show playing. Suddenly they said, "We have Peter on the line calling from a cell phone in traffic who says he has a good one for us. Hey, Peter." I talked with them for about ten seconds about how the finale of Six Feet Under was fantastic and after a small description, they agreed that it sounded very interesting. (I won't go into what made it so cool and possibly spoil something for those of you who might rent the whole series at some point. You can thank me later.)

As soon as I hung up, I turned the radio back on to see if I would hear myself due to the delay. Sure enough, I heard my voice for half a second. One full second later, my phone rang and it was my brother. "Did you hear me?" I asked, without saying a hello. "Yeah, I just heard you on the radio!" It turns out that he didn't hear them say my name but heard my voice and picked up his phone to call me. I was famous.

It got me thinking (uh oh): what's the most famous I've ever been? That's a tough one. I think the best way to decide is for me start listing my top famous times in what I believe to be an increasing order. At the end, maybe we'll all learn a little about each other...and ourselves. (Cue music)

6. UOPTA: a blog in which I share thoughts and stories with 8-10 people on the internets, many of whom are already related to me.

5. The Kevin and Bean Show: Another radio thing, but this one is definitely bigger. KROQ is very popular in these parts, and almost everyone in high school listened to that show in the morning. They were having a "celebrity spotting" segment, and I called in to say that I saw Donny Most of "Happy Days" at a theatre a couple of days prior. As I found out while on the air, the person before me had seen Anson Williams of "Happy Days." Kevin or Bean asked (probably rhetorically) which sighting was better. I answered. "Oh Ralph was way better," I said. "People laughed with Ralph; they just laughed at Potsie." They agreed with my logic and went to the next called, hoping it would be someone who saw Mr. Cunningham. When I got to school, I had a bunch of people telling me that they heard me on the radio and how cool that was. That's right: famous.

4. Solid Gold: I don't remember the circumstances surrounding this whatsoever, but I was on television in the mid 80s. My brother, my old friend Jason N. and I were all on Solid Gold together for about three seconds. Together, we lip synched (lip sunk?), "Schooooool's out for summer!" And that was it. Brief and forgettable, but television!

3. The 10 Spot: This was a daily list of ten items on the Sports Illustrated website (in the section that they stupidly renamed "Extra Mustard"). The items were all quick jokes about sports. There was a setup about something in the news and then a punchline - very opening monologue-ish. The first Friday of every month, it would be an all-reader edition. I wrote in a few times and actually made it in on the website three times. One of them was even better because he wrote on Monday that he "forgot to add what Peter in Los Angeles wrote" and published it then. That's fame you can't buy, gentle readers. I earned it, armed with nothing but my wit, sports knowledge, and a keyboard.

Well, I've covered my famous moments online, on the radio, and on television. How could I get any more famous than that? You'll have to tune in Monday to find out as I reveal the top two famous moments in Peter Klein history. Can you wait that long? Do you have another choice? I'm not skipping a FUF for you or anyone! Have a great day, folks, and remember to write in to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything.

Blind date

Gentle readers, today marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Today, your humble blogger bids a fond adieu to his 20s as he ushers in the big 3-0. I really don't mind the change one bit. After all, 30 rhymes with "dirty," while 20 either rhymes with "money" or "plenty," but I'm not sure which. Can we get a ruling on this?

I actually remember my 20th birthday quite well, even though several since then have blended together. I was a student worker for Orientation Programs at UCSB, and I worked from about 6:30am that day to 1:00am the next morning. Despite that, I actually had a fun and fulfilling day helping students transition to the university. I still remember one student writing on her evaluation, "Pete was a trooper! He stayed with us all night, even on his birthday!" I'm not sure who ok'd her calling me "Pete," but it was still very nice of her to acknowledge my sacrifice.

Anyway, this may come as a shock to many of you, but today is not just Peter Klein's birthday. I know, I know, but follow me for a second. Other well-known people in pre- through post-historic times have shared June 27th as a day of birth. One such notable person is Helen Keller, which directly leads me to a story.

By a show of hands, how many of you are familiar with the board game "Apples to Apples." Most of you, good. For the others, I'll give a brief synopsis. Everybody playing has around 7 cards in their hands, each with a different noun on it. The noun can be anything from "World War II" to "Firestorms" to "Skydiving" to "My bedroom." Every round, whoever's turn it is places an adjective card out there. The other players each put a noun card in (face down) that they think that person will choose. The guesser then mixes up the cards, reads them aloud, and then chooses one that they like the most. For some, it's a logical thing and they might choose "Violent" with "Hockey Players." Others might see that same adjective card and choose "Gandhi" since it's the opposite of what one might expect. Still others (like me), might think that "Violent" goes best with "Coffee" simply because I like coffee. If the guesser picks your card, you win that round. Sound good?

Since I share a birthday with Helen Keller (and my friends have heard that fact many times), they usually try to hold onto that card until it's my turn. They know that I'll choose that card almost 100% of the time. It has to be a very, very special combination of other cards for me to pass that up. Twice in our game-playing history though, people have rightly used the Helen Keller card before it got to me. I can't decide which is better, and I want your opinions. The adjectives were "Senseless" and "Touchy-Feely." They're both so good, and easily two of the best matches we've ever had. (I'm partial to the "Sweet" and "Baked Potato" match as well, but not everyone finds that one funny.) I think I prefer "Touchy-Feely" since she wasn't completely senseless. I mean, she still had 60% of her senses after all. But at the same time, there's not a better card in the deck to put with "Senseless." But oh, I keep picturing her being all "Touchy-Feely" with her miracle worker of a teacher. Tough call, tough call.

Lo and behold, today is shared as a birthday by other known names throughout history. That's right, none other than H. Ross Perot himself turns 77 today. I was born in '77...oooh. Freaky shit going on right there. I don't remember if Mr. Perot has his own "Apples to Apples" card or not, but he very well might in one of the booster packs. If so, it's hard to say what the best adjective card would be for him. "Giant-sucking-sound-ish?" "Consistently-interrupted-and-must-ask-for-permission-to-complete-his-thoughts?" Maybe "Rich" would be enough.

Lastly, I also share today as a birthday with Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo. I think a "Pseudo-military" card would be a good fit there. To recap, that's Helen Keller, Ross Perot, and Captain Kangaroo. Can you think of a more random collection of three real people? Seriously, I'd like to see you try in the comments section. The best I can do is Charlemagne, Ella Fitzgerald, and Kato Kaelin. Try it, it's fun.

Upon looking the date up on Wikipedia, it turns out I have an even more random assortment than I knew. Vera Wang, J.J. Abrams, and Tobey Maguire share the day too, along with some athletes that probably wouldn't interest too many of you. Hmmm, Tobey plays Spiderman whose real name is Peter...I may be onto something here. Anyway, what an eclectic group I'm a part of. I like it.

That's it for today, gentle readers. I look forward to your random trios. If you have any good shared birthday stories or anything else I might be interested in, ptklein@gmail.com is still just a click away. See you back here tomorrow.

Pros at cons

It's Tuesday, everybody, and you know what that means? Yeah, me neither. Too bad, I was kinda hoping you had an answer for that one. Oh well, maybe next time. I do know that it's my friend Jason Silver's birthday, so we've at least got that going for us.

In a post last week, I touched on a very special moment that sometimes shared between two people. It is the moment in which one person realizes that the other is gullible, and then immediately begins to take advantage of that fact. 'Tis a glorious moment indeed, and I hope you've all experienced that at some point in your lifetimes.

My homey Rockabye and I shared one of those moments with a poor, unsuspecting fellow freshman at UCSB. That, my friends, is the topic of the day. Rockabye is more outwardly friendly than I, and this came in handy during those first few awkward weeks of college. I was nervous to make the wrong friendship early and be stuck in an ill-fitting group for four years, not yet realizing that things didn't really work that way. Rockabye, on the other hand, was very good at saying hi to people, introducing us, and making contacts that may or may not turn into friendships. One such contact was Zoe, a nice young lady who lived in the same residence hall as us.

We met her in one of the common rooms of the building and started shooting the shit. (Man, that's an interesting phrase, isn't it?) After about a minute of chatting, she asked, "Are you guys brothers or something?" "Yep," I answered. "Cool," she said, foolishly choosing to believe me. We were very confused as to why she didn't follow up with a "Really?" or something of that nature. She didn't even ask the obvious question, "So, you guys are twins then?" Disirregardless, it was at that moment that we realized that if she bought that so easily, we could have some fun with this new relationship.

Rockabye...how shall I put this...sometimes isn't the most subtle communicator. I was as eager as he was to lead Zoe far down the path of deception, but I wanted to be a little more scientific with my approach. He, on the other hand, would say things like, "Hey, Mom called earlier," whenever she was nearby. Normally that could compromise the integrity of the bullshitting, but she just kept believing us. Naturally, that meant we could kick it up a notch.

The following week, we were playing ping pong in the rec room when Zoe came in. She laughed a little at our antics and commented on how siblings can be so competitive. "You have no idea," I said. "He used to make the varsity teams of all the sports in high school and then tell the coach not to let me on." "That's horrible!" she said. "It's ok," I said, making it out like I had convinced myself of that fact years earlier, "I found other stuff to keep me occupied." I was about to mention drama stuff that I actually did, but Rockabye beat me to the punch. "He's a chef," he interjected. "Really!" she said, clearly intrigued. I nodded. "How cool!" I was now a chef.

Another week went by, and we ran into Zoe and a friend of hers at the University Center. The "UCen" had the bookstore and a bunch of restaurants, and we had just come from picking up some Wendy's. "Hey guys," she said. Glancing at the fast food bag, she said, "I bet you can whip something better than that up." Before I could answer, Rockabye chimed in. "Are you kidding? He was on the cover of a magazine because of his creations." She turned me to me, very excited by this news. "What magazine?" she asked. Thinking quickly, I said, "Oh, it's called Kitchen Cuisine Quarterly...it's got a really small readership." No red flags whatsoever. "That's awesome!" she said. I shrugged it off, because the fame of being a known young chef didn't really get to my head. "Yeah, I really splashed onto the scene with my pastries, but I've branched out a little into the tart world," I added, just because I could. A minute later, Rockabye and I were walking back to our building, laughing at how easy this unnecessary lie was.

Then one day, we were really tested. My parents came up for the day to see me, have some lunch, and take in the beauty of SB. I was walking them through the UCen, and I saw a smiling Zoe walking toward us. "Oh shit," I thought. Without time to quickly explain to my parents (who would certainly have played along), I had to greet her. "Hey Zoe," I said. "Are these your parents?" she asked. "Yep. Mom and Dad, this is Zoe, she lives in the same building as us." I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but then Zoe spoke again: "Where's your brother?" she asked. "Your brother!" my mom repeated, laughing a little. Zoe's face turned confused. "He's busy doing something right now, but we're gonna catch up with him soon," I said quickly. "Ok," she said, still slightly confused. We left, and I explained the whole situation to my parents.

I told Rockabye what happened, and that our cover was probably blown. The next day though, he told me he'd taken care of it. He told Zoe that one of those two she met was actually a step-parent, and that he had been with the other set of parents. They didn't get along with each other, so we split up to show them all around. It all made sense to her, but I couldn't help but start to feel a little bad about all the deception.

A couple of more months passed, and the time finally came to tell her the truth. Sure, we could've gone on for our entire college careers, but it was getting less fun. Lo and behold, we ran into her on the second floor of the UCen, and with only a couple of days left before the break, we know it was time. "Hey guys!" she said. "Hey Zoe. We need to tell you something," I said. "We're not brothers," Rockabye blurted out. She stood there, staring at us for a second before smiling and saying, "Shut up! Very funny, guys." "No, seriously, we're not brothers," I said. "Right," she said dismissively. "We swear. Here, look at our drivers licenses. I'm six months older than him," Rockabye said. "And we have different last names too," I added. She looked at our birthdays and then back up to us. It suddenly occurred to me for the first time that she could be very pissed off about our months-long deceit and that possibility scared me. "Wow," she said. "You guys really fooled me. Great job. Seriously, you really pulled that off well. Nice job. You guys are good." We were surprised by this response. "Thanks, I guess," I said. She smiled, wished us a good break, and said she's see us later.

We did end up seeing her often throughout the next three years, and she was always very nice and pleasant. She was actually quite intelligent too, which I wouldn't have guessed from my initial interactions with her. It's not often that a long and evolving lie ends up just fine for both sides, so I realize how lucky we were with that. I wonder how the girls who thought my name was Peter Rabbit would feel if I came clean after 12 or 13 years...

So, that's the story of my longest con job. Gentle readers, what's the most ridunkulous thing you've ever convinced someone to believe about you? You're a deceitful bunch, so I'm sure you've got some good stories in there. Feel free to either comment or send the story to ptklein@gmail.com. Thanks, and have a great Tuesday, everyone.

Hearing it my way

Good morning, gentle readers. I hope that wherever you are, today has found you well. While I normally save all of my Car Watch items for Fridays, there were two in particular that had something in common. Therefore, I'm going to take those and stretch the topic out into an entire post.

Both license plates were sent by my homey Rockabye. The first one read "BLVNGOD." He liked it because he said it could be "Believe in God" or "Be Lovin' God." I read it as the former, although I think it's an interesting command that likely probably won't push too many Atheists to change their minds.

He called me a couple of days later to tell me about another plate. Rockabye, that is, not God. He read off the letters of the plate: "A-S-N-O-N-T-V." Then asked me what I thought about it. "Cool, 'As Seen on TV.' I like it," I said. "You see, I read it as 'A Snow Native,'" he replied. That had never crossed my mind, even though that might be clearer than what I saw. The one S messes with my theory a little, but I still think I'm right.

The point is, there are things out there that can easily be taken two very different ways. We've all seen those pictures that can be two things depending on one's perspective, right? The two versions of those that I've seen most often are the vases/faces one and the old woman/hottie with a feather one. You know what I'm talking about, right? My lovely wife said that her old calculus teacher used to show them those pictures and say that they were just like advanced math since you can think you have it figured out and then BAM it's something completely different. I don't know about you, but that might be the nerdiest thing I've heard all week (and I hear plenty o' nerdy stuff, much of it out of my own mouth).

I have two stories to tell about dual-possibility situations. Naturally, the first involves Bob Marley. For years, I heard his song "I Shot the Sheriff" and debated with myself over the meaning. "I shot the Sheriff, but I didn't shoot the Deputy" could - and did - mean two things in my head. It was either "Two guys were after me. I was only able to kill one of them, and that's why I'm captured" or "I admit to killing one person, but I'm being framed for a second murder as well." They both made a lot of sense in my head, and literally for years, I wondered about this every time I heard the song. Then I did a little thing called "actually listening to the lyrics," and I realized that I'd been a moron for those literal years. Upon reading the lyrics, it's pretty clear that his only beef was with the Sheriff, and he's confused that people are hunting him down for the Deputy's death. I really should've consulted those a long time ago.

I did the same exact thing with another Bob Marley song. This time, it was "No Woman No Cry." For years and years, I only thought it was him saying that having a woman in your life brings difficulty and pain, kinda like "Mo Money Mo Problems." Then my friend Jon said the he always thought Bob was telling a ladyfriend to refrain from weeping. I saw his point, but stuck with the meaning I'd "known" for a long time. Then I listened to the lyrics once, including parts I'd sung along to 100 times. Namely, "Oh little sister, don't shed no tears/No, woman, no cry." Oops. It would've been nice to put those commas before and after "woman" in the song title to help me out a little, Bob.

Now it's time for story #2, and I apologize in advance for the potty-mouth nature of this one. Remember, please cover your own eyes first before assisting someone else. Back in the mid 90s, the MTV Movie Awards had a sketch that was a parody of "Pulp Fiction." I can't remember too many details of it, but I know they were bleeping out a lot of swear words. One such word occurred in a sentence that one character said to the other. Being highly skilled at lip reading, my friends and I could all tell what was really being said: "Fuck you where you breathe!" Everyone agreed that that was a funny and memorable line, but that's where the agreement stopped.

Somehow the actual meaning of that phrase came into question. A group of us, including me, thought that the person was basically saying that he was going to forcefully make love to the other person's face. More specifically, the mouth region. The others (not to be confused with The Others), led by Dave and Greg, thought someting quite different. As Dave put it, he thought the character meant, "Fuck you wherever you happen to be right now." Basically it was a fight between the anatomical camp and the geographical camp. And naturally, each side thought the other was nuts. I would ask Dave, "So, if he happens to currently be in Italy, then fuck him there, right?" "Yes," he'd say, "unless you think the nose and the rest of the respiratory system is where he means." I think the answer is 100% clear on this one, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, gentle readers (if you're willing to stoop to my level, that is). I'm willing to admit that I was way wrong for a long time with the Bob Marley songs, and hopefully Greg and Dave will come around to realize their error as well.

That's it for now. I hope at the very least, this post got some good songs in your head and made you see the respiratory system in a whole new light. Who knows, maybe the next time you say, "Wow, you really look good today," to someone and they reply, "So I looked like shit yesterday?" you'll think back to this post and laugh to yourself. Then that person will think you're laughing at him or her and get even more upset. On second thought, leave me out of that one. Still have a good day though.

FUF #19

If I wrote this post in an indiscernible European accent, would you call me Arianna FUFfington? If you answered "No," then I'm proud of you for sticking to your guns and not being swayed by my melodic prose. It's another Follow Up Friday, ladies and gents, and I've got a whole bunch of disjointed shiznit to write about today. So in the immortal words of Tone Loc, "Let's do it."

I know this sounds crazy, but I'm still thinking about some of the word stuff I wrote about more than a week ago. And I'm not alone; I have my faithful and trusty readership out there thinking and overthinking as well. Rockabye wrote me and asked what the opposite of "infer" is. My initial response was "Fer." I then thought about it more and wanted to find an antonym that really captured the essence of "stating explicitly." So I wrote back, saying that the opposite is "exfer." Here is an example: I asked Stan if he was still angry with me. "I want to fucking kill you," he said, exferring that things hadn't blown over as I had hoped. Ya dig?

My most-favoritest brother called me about a word as well: prehistoric. That's a fantastic pull, Kev. It doesn't make any sense, and it's never popped up on my radar before. Dinosaurs existed a long ass time ago, granted, but they were still in history, right? We're not saying that they're premodernhistoric animals, after all. Since it doesn't make any sense, I can't come up with a reliable antonym for it either. Something posthistoric would have to occur on an entirely different plane of existence, I think, but I'm going to stop there before I start confusing myself.

Another word thing: Loyal reader Sue (who happily became a grandma again yesterday) wrote in to tell me about a large printed sign she and her husband Steve saw in the window of a tutoring service. It loudly and proudly proclaimed that they specialize in "Grammer." I so badly want to believe that they did that on purpose to be funny, but I can't quite convince myself that that's the case. I'll try to be more convincing to myself next time.

Speaking of signs, Dusty sent me a picture message of a store called "Candles & Things/Flowers." Oh come on! You can't choose to be as general as possible with "things" and then change your mind without changing the whole sign. Why not change it to "Flowers & Candles & Things" instead? Eeeeediots.

Some of you might recall from an earlier post that I send my family greeting cards for the wrong occasions. My Grandpa's Fathers' Day card congratulated him on his Bat Mitzvah, for example. Well my mom found a card in a drawer this week with a Christmas tree on the front and a greeting that said, "Happy Holidays from your staff!" "Ok," she thought before opening it, "is this going to be for my birthday or our anniversary?" She looked inside, and it was a Happy Holidays card to my dad from his staff at the office. That thought never crossed her mind. I think I should count that as a victory somehow.

Here's a random thought but a thought nonetheless: It's amazing how complete a conversation you can have with someone on opposing escalators. While at the conference in San Diego a little while ago, I had eight lines of conversation with an acquaintance. They were very brief lines, but still. I once had a sixer on a bike path with someone at UCSB before we passed each other. "Hey!" "What's up?" "Not much; you?" "Same." "See you tomorrow." "Sounds good, man." And I didn't even major in Communication!

Ok, we talked a lot about funny names yesterday, but there are people out there on the internets that have made a science out of this thing. My fellow Blogspotters at nameoftheyear.blogspot.com have kicked major ass on this topic. They even had a NCAA-type bracket of names in March. You can see the results at the link below, but I want to ruin the surprise by telling you that Vanilla Dong won. That might not even be my favorite though. Here's the link:

http://nameoftheyear.blogspot.com/2007/04/if-you-had-chantel-gemini-going-all-way.html

By the way, my lovely wife vetoed the name October "Toby" Klein in the comment section. While that sucks, it's not as bad as the government vetoing the name you want to give your child. Check this shit out: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/06/21/name.child.ap/index.html

Speaking of names, I can't type mine. Well, not fast at least. I type "Petre" so often that I made my email program automatically correct that to Peter. I swear it happens at least 40% of the time, and that's much more often than anyone should mis-type his or her name. Unless it's Vanilla Dong.

And it's finally Car Watch time! Gosh, what took you so long?

I saw a plate that read "PIRFECT1." Not to nitpick, but how 'bout you spell that correctly before making such claims?

One car over from that one was "KARPE K9" on the plate. "Seize the dog," I suppose. If it were on an animal control truck, I'd be hailing that as the Plate o' the Year, but it wasn't. It was a normal car, and therefore just a confusing statement.

Now here is some commitment. I'm going to break this down in three parts: the top of the license plate frame, the plate proper, then the bottom part of the frame.

1. How sweet it is

2. 2BE (heart) BYU

3. Poo Poo Pi Doo

You know what my favorite part of that is? Yes, it says "Poo Poo." How did you guess?

I spied an interesting plate on the 101 this week: "EMAYL ME." I can't unless you put your address somewhere on the car, dipshit.

Just yesterday, a guy boldly expresses a sentiment with which I agree but would not buy a frame saying it: "One Lucky Guy...My Wife Rocks." Do you think she bought that for him? If so, I bet the conversation went similarly to this: "Hey, look what I bought you today." "Oh, that's...nice." "Why don't you go put it on?" "Um...right now? Ok..."

Last but not least by any stretch of the imagination, my lovely wife saw a plate that read "RETALI8." Now that's someone I wouldn't feel comfortable tailgating or cutting off. It was a guy in a BMW, and he didn't say if it would be a proportional response or not, so I'm just going to steer clear and play it safe.

And with that, gentle readers, I'm off to enjoy this Friday before a weekend that I'm certain will be nothing short of glorious. As always, I am happy to receive email at ptklein@gmail.com from people about anything that strikes their respective fancies. I'm an equal-opportunity reader like that. Be well, all, and I'll see you back here next week.

Naming rights and wrongs

Hey hey hey, everyone. Today is not only Thursday, but it is also the first day of summer, so slap on your sunscreen and get out there. Not content to only be two things, today is also my buddy Rockabye's half birthday and my 3.25 wedding anniversary with my lovely wife. Wow, June 21st, you've really outdone yourself. Bravo.

Ooh, I love it when this happens. I was all set to write about something else, but my introductory ramblings have led me to a tangent that may sustain the entire post on its own. 'Tis a glorious Thursday indeed, gentle readers.

In honor of summer, I am compelled to mention a name from my past. I attended Pinecrest Elementary School in Van Nuys with one Summer Winters. A very nice young lady, her parents decided to make a statement when naming her. Namely, "We're hippies." I guess they mellowed slightly by the time her younger brother was born, because they opted for Cole as his name. I have a theory that they almost went with Cold, but someone talked them into altering it at the last minute.

Gentle readers, I'm going to be blunt: I expect a lot of comments on this post because everyone - everyone - knows or knows of people with strange or funny names. Just a week or so ago, I was sitting with some folks at dinner when one mentioned knowing a Paige Turner. That name could totally fly under the radar if you're not paying attention. Same with Alexa Kahn, who I've mentioned once before in this space. I'm not entirely sure that her parents know they named her after a reference book.

While working in the university system, occasionally boredom would lead me to look through the names of students who had passed through those halls before and after me. Two in particular stood out that I can still recall. One was someone of (I can only assume) Native American descent with the last name of Broken Leg. With a space and everything. The other was a guy named Klondike Steamboat Steadman. A Google search for that name tells me that I remember the spelling correctly too. To me, those are just cool names, and I'm sure you have some to share with the rest of the class.

There are many names that sound good in one's native language or country that don't quite work out so well here. Those are rather unfortunate and are not the faults of the parents at all. For example, who knew that upon moving to the U.S., the name Titiporn wouldn't sound as pretty? That's a real tough one, because I can't even think of a nickname she could go by to ease the transition.

Speaking of nicknames, there are some names out there that make you say, "Come on, you had an option to go by something else there. What the hell is wrong with you?" I worked peripherally with one Dick Bush, for example. You're telling me he couldn't save himself half the giggles at his expense by choosing "Richard" or any other nickname for it? Honestly, man.

Somewhat off topic but in the same ballpark, I've met a pretty high number of people named after months. There has been a January (who went by Jan), an April, May, June, August (a guy, which surprised me), and a December. A Julie too of course, but I don't think that counts. Can any of you fill in the gaps there? I know Valentine's Day is in February, but I sure hope people aren't named that because it's not the prettiest word out there. Hmmm, October Klein has a nice ring to it. He could go by Toby...I like it. Do people named after months have to be born in those months? It would seem so, but I can't imagine all of the Aprils in the world were born in that month. Then it just gets confusing. October "Toby" Klein though...I really think I'm on to something here.

Writing about this topic reminded me of something: I was one of those people with a weird name to some people. Please allow me to 'splain you. My junior year of high school, Dusty and I were somehow hanging out with a group of young women that were all friends of our friend Jon's friend. Basically, that means we didn't really know any of them at all. We were all hanging out and laughing, and somehow it led to one of the ladies asking what my last name was. "Rabbit," I said matter-of-factly. They all started to laugh. "Go ahead, laugh. I've heard all the jokes already. My parents were cruel, get over it," I said with a completely straight face. They stopped laughing immediately. One girl spoke: "Holy shit, your name is really Peter Rabbit." They dropped the subject after a minute, and seizing the opportunity of being in front of dumb and gullible people, Dusty and I proceeded to talk about his made-up movie career. It was a great night.

About six months later, I was telling that story to a small group of people. Afterwards, one person said, "Wait, I've heard about you." "What?" "I went to school with those girls; so you're the Peter Rabbit they talked about?" I was thrilled that they bought it so completely, and honored that they had been telling other people. Of course, being a teenage boy, I then immediately started worrying about what they were saying about me, but that's beside the point. I was famous, and with a fake name to boot.

So, my most gentle readers, have at it. Who knew a Candy Barr? Who knew a September Jones? I want double-digit comments with this one, because I just know you have a funny name in your brain dying to get out. Let it go, friend, let it go.

I'll see you here tomorrow for my (gasp) 20th FUF piece. And remember, ptklein@gmail.com is just a click away for anything about anything.

Wayne on my parade, Part 2

Good morning, everyone. I'm going to continue the story I began yesterday. I hope that in the end, you will put this post in the small category of sequels that bested the originals. To my knowledge, people usually include "Terminator 2," "Aliens," "The Empire Strikes Back," and maybe "The Godfather II" in that group. I'm sure if they ever made "Howard the Duck 2," it would also be better than the original. Rarefied air indeed.

When we left off, I had just met my new roommate Wayne in the elevator of San Nicolas Residence Hall at UCSB. Within a couple of minutes, I thought I knew everything I needed to about him. He was a 26 year-old native of Taiwan who was very serious about finishing his Finance degree so he could continue running his international trade company. Those facts were enough for me to size up the situation and determine that since we obviously had nothing in common, my final quarter of my freshman year would be horrible.

We got into the room, and I felt very strange that I would soon be sleeping in these small quarters very close to a complete stranger. I know most people have strangers for roommates their freshman years and experience this on day one, but this was my room and I was suddenly uncomfortable in it. Here's the main problem that Wayne posed: he was the anti-Rockabye. We weren't going to be putting off studying to laugh about Tom Chambers' funny slam dunk in the video game we played growing up. We weren't going to put on bandanas, create special moves and names, and wrestle in the lounge. It was going to be more of a business relationship, and that didn't fit with the freshman year I'd created up to that point. I now laugh a little about it, but 26 seemed ancient to me at the time, and I just couldn't see how it could possibly work out.

As it turns out, I was a pretty stupid 18 year-old. The good times started quickly with Wayne and escalated even more rapidly. The first good news was that he scheduled his massive load of units to be just Tuesday through Thursday so he could go to LA for long weekends every week. That not only meant that I'd essentially have a single for 57% of the week, but also that he'd be in class for most of the other three days. I was thrilled to hear that at first, figuring it would lessen the shock. After about a week though, I was already wishing that he stayed in SB the whole time because he was just that awesome.

It started with us just having fun. The day after I met him, I suggested that we leave a new outgoing message on our answering machine. We wrote out the lines and I explained that we would take turns saying them. Here's how the first trial went:

Peter: Hi, this is Peter.

Wayne: AND THIS IS WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't continue because I was laughing so hard. We tried it a few more times, but his exuberance still kept catching me off guard. Finally, I was able to keep it together long enough to successfully record the message after about 20 attempts. I can't transfer his energy into text, but trust me that all caps means yelling.

Peter: Hi, this is Peter.

Wayne: AND THIS IS WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peter: We can't come to the phone right now.

Wayne: SO! Leave a message.

Peter: And we'll call you back as soon as possib-

Wayne: BYYYYE!!!!!!!!!!!

(Beep)

Even after all of the takes, my voice was still quivering a little and bordering on losing it at any moment. It had only taken a couple of hours together for me to already be the straight man in our comedy duo.

Greg and I were eager to learn some Taiwanese from him, so he tried teaching us a little song. The only part that we ever memorized was (phonetically), "Suu ahhh, shung ahh keeee-EEEE, gum cha." We think that's the first line, but it could be the beginning of the second. According to Wayne, the song translated to, "When I stop to think about the sugar cane, it is sweet at both ends. Just like now that I am married, I shall have my wife and my mistress." I'd walk in singing it often and get a laugh 100% of the time.

That's another thing about Wayne: his laugh. It was as frickin' infectious as Ebola. It was a quick "Ha ha ha ha ha" that got bigger, faster, and higher pitched if you started laughing too. It made it impossible not to like hanging around with him. He'd laugh, you'd laugh, he'd laugh harder, you'd start laughing at his laugh, and this would go on for minutes at a time. I'll never forget one time when Wayne answered the phone. With his thick accent, I heard him say, "Hello? This is Peter. Ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA," as he thrust the phone into my hand. It was my dad, and he was cracking up so hard on the other end of the line that I was concerned he'd forget to breathe at some point.

Aside from just being fun to hang out with, Wayne would play along with my silly games. I had a classmate coming over to study, and we planned something for it. The young lady used to often say that bad things "sucked ass," so I wanted Wayne to casually come in and use that phrase while she was over. A little while later, I'm sitting there with her going over some Spanish literature, and Wayne comes in looking distraught. "What's up?" I asked. "I had a very hard test today," he said. "How'd it go?" I asked. Trying desperately to hold back a smile, Wayne shook his head and said, "It sucked my ass. It totally sucked my ass. Ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA HA HA!" It was his inclusion of "my" into the phrase that made me start laughing, which obviously made him laugh more. Meanwhile, my study partner just looked at us like we were morons. Fine by me.

On June 5 of that year, I dialed my future-wife's number and handed Wayne the phone. He sang her a slow, soulful, and almost entirely correct version of Happy Birthday before pausing and saying, "No, this is Wayne." He then laughed heartily and gave me the phone. She appreciated it and still does a pretty good imitation of his rendition.

The end of the year came, and I was sad to know that I'd be saying goodbye to my new buddy. He was in L.A. and thought he'd be coming back before I left, but things ran late so he called. He told me that I was a great roommate and that he had a lot of fun learning about the culture of the American youth from me. He was going to stick around next year and take some grad courses, so we would still be seeing each other. I had a phone number for him, and said that we'd talk over the summer.

Sadly, that was one of my last interactions with him. I saw him briefly on my way to class during the fall, but every time I tried the number he gave me, there was never an answer or a machine. I tried searching for him online and even sent some emails out a few years ago to other Wayne Lins, asking if they were my former roommates. I never heard back though from any of them. He said that he would be running for President of Taiwan in the year 2016, so I'll be following the international news around that time to see if that actually happens.

Even though we lost touch, the legend of Wayne grew. His was a story I could tell parents at Orientation who were scared about their kids' future roommates. They'd laugh when I'd start off by talking about our how different we were, and then they'd smile when I'd talk about how much fun we had learning from each other. In hindsight, when I stop to think about my freshman year, it was sweet at both ends. I started by learning within the safety of my comfort zone, then branched out and incorporated new perspectives into the environment. There's really nothing quite like a pleasant surprise coming from a place that once seemed hopeless. Maybe I should start on that "Howard the Duck 2" script myself...

Have a great day, gentle readers, and thanks for letting me talk about Wayne for two days. As I said yesterday, please send me any funny roommate stories at ptklein@gmail.com (or anything else about anything).

Wayne on my parade, Part 1

Good morning one and all. A little while ago, I was having lunch with my co-worker Rob when I stopped mid-sentence and immediately pulled out my cell phone to text message myself. I actually write to myself as often as I write to others. Fortunately, I still talk to others more than myself. It might be a problem if that ratio changes much. "What's going on?" he asked. "I just realized that I haven't written about something on my blog yet, and that's unacceptable," I told him. This is that story. I don't know why it's taken so long, and I apologize.

My freshman year of college, I lived in the residence halls and had the time of my life. A bunch of 18 year-olds from different places coming together to learn both in and out of the classroom and have fun along the way. Great times by all accounts. My buddy Rockabye was my roommate, and we had a frickin' blast for the first two quarters of the school year.

Near the very end of the second quarter, he told me that he was taking the next one off to be closer to his family during some difficult health times. This was very sad news indeed. Even though he said he'd be back for the following fall (which he was), it was still the end of an era. We'd had a lot of fun in that room, from making little skits to Vanilla Ice songs to randomly rearranging the furniture at 3 in the morning. After a couple of days of being sad that room 6214 would no longer be the same, I saw a silver lining. Since this was the very end of the quarter and the number of spring transfer students was very low, there was a high probability that I'd have a single for the rest of the school year. That was something I had no problem getting behind.

I spent some of Spring Break imagining how I could arrange my room. Should I put the twin beds together in the middle of the wall and have both desks side to side on the opposing one? With two closets, I can bring more of my "situational" attire (i.e. costumes) should the need arise. With more space, maybe my room would be the new "hang out room" for my friends for when the lounge was occupied by studiers. This was going to be awesome.

The first day back, I took the elevator up to the sixth floor and started walking over to my room. Just before I got there, I noticed something taped to the door. "Welcome, Wayne Lin!" said a newly cut sign. "Oh fuck," I said aloud. I hadn't really thought about getting a new roommate and sharing what had been my space with a stranger. With the quarter being only ten weeks, we'd probably just get around to really knowing each other and then the experiment would be over. What if we really didn't get along and he made my sunny freshman year suddenly lose its luster? I was not a happy camper.

Greg hung out with me that day for moral support. Noon came, and still no Wayne. We ran out to get a quick bite to eat and ran into the guy in charge of our building. "Are you sure he's coming?" I asked. "Yes, he'll be here, and you'll be fine," he told me. 3:00pm came, and it was still just me and Greg hanging out and getting ready for the new quarter. Dinner time rolled around, and I resigned myself to the fact that he might come while I was out, and that would have to be ok. One bed, closet, and desk were clearly mine, so he couldn't do much damage.

After dinner, we came back to find the room exactly as we left it. Going a little stir crazy, we headed down to the lobby to hang out with the desk attendant and see others from the building to talk about our respective breaks from school. At about 9:00pm, I overheard the desk attendant saying, "Well welcome to UCSB!" I walked over to the desk. "Are you Wayne?" I asked. "Yes," he said. "Hi, I'm your roommate, Peter. It's nice to meet you." My first impression was the he seemed nice enough; ya know, not giving off the mass-murderer vibe or anything.

Greg and I helped him with his stuff and got into the elevator. "I should probably start getting to know him now," I thought. "So," I started, "where are you transferring from?" "UCLA," he said. "Oh, cool. My mom went there, and so did my aunt, uncle, and two cousins," I told him. This was going well, and we already sort of had something in common. "I went there for three years," he said with a fairly thick Asian accent, "and then I took a few years off to start my international trade business, and then I went back and took a few more classes. I need to finish up here though because all of the remaining classes I need to graduate are offered this quarter." My head was spinning with this new information. "Um, how old are you?" I asked, carefully monitoring my tone. "26," he said.

Two things were for certain: One, I couldn't make eye contact with Greg or I might break into a nervous laughter. And two, I felt like my world had just come to a crashing halt, and I wasn't happy about it one bit.

Tune in tomorrow, gentle readers, as I continue and complete this tale. Also, if you have any interesting roommate stories, send them to ptklein@gmail.com. This could easily be a FUF in itself I believe.

Caught in a jam

In previous UOPTA posts, I've documented in great detail some of the menial jobs I've had in the past. One in particular was actually quite fun, despite being almost the definition of menial.

For two summers, I worked at a country club. One of my jobs there was to drive a golf cart continuously around the parking lot to see if anyone wanted a ride to the clubhouse. For four to six hours at a time, I basically drove in circles. When I'd find someone and ask if s/he wanted a ride, the usual response was a puzzled look accompanied by the line, "But it's right there!" True, it wasn't much of a walk, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

Why did I enjoy that job? Mainly, it was beautiful everywhere I went at the club. I find golf courses to be gorgeous, and one overlooking the Valley with majestic mountain views is my ideal scenery. I often tell people that playing golf can certainly be frustrating, but man, it's a beautiful place to be frustrated. Likewise, there's hardly a better place to be bored out of one's mind.

One morning, I was helping set up for a tournament by putting people's names on the line of golf carts out in the main area. I took one piece of paper over to a cart and saw that the gentleman's bag had a tag on it from another event with the number 941 hand-written on it. Immediately, I heard Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder's voice in my head singing, "Nine four one, yeah!" It was an instantaneous reaction, but then I couldn't think of what song it was or what the real words were that I was replacing with those numbers.

Fortunately, I had some time on my hands. While driving the cart around the parking lot for the next four hours, I also was driving myself crazy. I tried incredibly hard to figure out my musical mystery. I started by singing every single song from Pearl Jam's three albums (at the time) aloud to myself, listening for the 941 part. I was a big fan, so I knew every word to every song in order, and I was calling upon that skill to finally be useful. Nothing sounded like it. I then realized that it could've been Stone Temple Pilots, whose lead singer sometimes sounded quite a bit like Eddie Vedder. I sang every song on their two albums aloud while looking for people who didn't want a ride. Nothing doing there either.

I asked my friend Greg a couple of days later when I still didn't have any success, since he was an even bigger fan of the band than I. I sang him the "9-4-1," and he started thinking about it too. He had some b-sides that I hadn't gone through in my circles through the lots, so we listened to those while carefully trying to locate that particular part of whatever song we were seeking. Nothing.

Months (literally) went by, and we joked pretty frequently about the 941 song. It even got to the point that we talked about writing a song with that as a chorus just so the song would exist. It was a catchy tune, after all, and maybe Pearl Jam would sue us for stealing their song. At least we'd find out what song we had stolen, right?

And then one night, Greg came back to our place after working late with an excited look on his face. "I found it," he said. "What?" "941." "No fucking way!" He then told me the story, and I sat there with the same eager look that kids get when they're opening a present and already know what it is. (I made that face when opening Megatron for Hanukkah, I'm sure of it.) Someone at Greg's work put on some music while they were cleaning up the gym after some intramural basketball. He was going about his business when he noticed the song that came on was a rare live version of a rare Pearl Jam song called "Wash." In the chorus, Eddie sings, "Wash my love" a few times. Near the end of this particular version though, Eddie more emphatically started shouting something different than "Wash my love." Instead, it was something like, "Life on the run" in a tune very similar to my 941 tune. Greg excitedly looked around for anyone he could say, "This is the 941 song!" to without getting a blank stare in return, but no one fit that description. He hurried home to tell me, ecstatic to have an answer to a question that had plagued us for the better part of a year.

There was one problem with this answer though: I didn't know that live version of that song. I had heard the studio version of the song a few times, but didn't remember ever hearing that live one before in my life. We came up with a hypothetical situation that is probably how it really happened: My friend Maya's brother had a bunch or rare, live Pearl Jam cds that would sometimes be on in the background of us all hanging out. That song must have been on one of his cds, and I registered it somewhere in the recesses of my brain. Why did it come out so quickly upon seeing 941? We didn't have the slightest clue, nor did we care much. We'd found our answer at last.

About 4 or 5 years later, a group of us all managed to fit a Vegas trip into our busy schedules. We stopped by the sports book en route to the tables to see if anything caught our eye. Greg had been working in the horseracing field for a while and said that we should pick some ponies. It's not my thing at all, but I like looking at the names. "I want to find a race to pick the numbers 9, 4, and 1 horse in a trifecta," Greg said. That's when you pick which horses will finish exactly in that order in the top three, and the odds are obviously stacked heavily against that. "Sure," I said, "let me know when you find a good one." He spent a while looking, and we were all getting restless. After a few more minutes, everyone but Greg and his brother Bryan headed out. "Ok, we'll meet you at the tables," Greg said.

Sure enough, he did meet us at the tables. "Never doubt the power of 941," he said, smiling and holding a wad of money. "Are you serious?" I asked. He nodded victoriously. He and Bryan had each put down $1. Those $2 (see, I do math occasionally) yielded a payout of $460. Un-frickin-believable. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to lose money more quickly at the tables, I would've been wearing that same smile all night long. We were happy for them, and even happier for ourselves that we might have a horse-picking savant in our close group of friends.

To recap, I got paid a little to drive around a beautiful country club with good music in my head that ultimately led to my friends winning hundreds of dollars. There are far, far worse ways to be bored, gentle readers.

Got anything you want to share with me? You know where to go: ptklein@gmail.com.

FUF #18

I'm in the mood for FUF, simply because you're near me. So let's get right to it, eh?

First and foremost on this glorious Friday, I must wish a Happy Anniversary to my parents. 38 years is a long, long time, and it seems like only yesterday that they'd been married for just 37. Wow, time flies. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad; it really is wonderful and I'm looking forward to seeing you both days of this weekend.

Ok, enough mushy stuff. Let's get into the typical FUF stuff instead: related thoughts, random thoughts, and the latest Car Watch.

We spent a nice chunk of time in this space talking about words that seem to be opposites of other words that aren't used in our language. I referred to them as "untonyms," and my friend Melissa saw them online being called "lost positives." Since writing that, I've been hyper sensitive to anything that could possibly be one. I had a dream in which I came up with one and wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget. When I woke up, I tried very hard to remember it and finally did. One problem though: it sucked. Apparently my subconscious didn't get the point of the post, because it thought that "ternational" was one. You can't break up the prefix "inter," silly Sleeping Peter. Oh well.

Likewise, Awake Peter was pretty stoked when someone said "irrespective" in his presence. Then he realized that it actually is just the opposite of "respective" and therefore isn't interesting in the slightest.

However, I have two that I believe to be good ones. The first one came from my homey Rockabye, and I shall use it in a sentence: "The teacher explained the concept perfectly, saying just enough to get the point across and stopping the moment it was clear in all of the students' minds. Later, his evaluations praised him for being so dundant." Nice, very nice.

The second came to me in a conversation with a client. "Well," I told him, "we've had preliminary discussions with all of the parties involved so far, and as soon as the product comes in, we'll have...uh, liminary ones I guess." He thought that was funny, which is good because he could've just written me off as a weirdo. He would've had a solid argument too.

You wanna know why I love my friends so much? Check out this text message I got from Dusty a couple of nights ago: "Car names that can be interpreted as imperatives. I'll go first: Focus." Naturally, I had no choice but to respond. "Ram," I wrote. He countered with "Probe." I sent "Jimmy" over to him, and he replied with the brilliant "Sidekick." We went through some more for a little while, including "Outback," and "Baja" (Spanish commands are commands too). Then we shifted and wrote a couple that end in "er" (that we used as "her"), but we stopped those after a little bit because they got stale. I then got two final text messages from Dusty. The first: "The rest I have aren't funny. Golf, Escort, Contour, Dart." And the second: "Oh, except for the Lincoln Buttfuck."

My favorite brother called me to tell me that he saw an electrician advertising his business with the phone number 1-800-ELECTRICMAN. He acknowledged that this wasn't as long as 1-800-SAVETHECHILDREN, but the seventh letter in it is the I. Therefore, some sadist might be out there trying to call 1-800-ELECTRIFYMEPLEASE and accidentally get the serviceman. Meanwhile, there's a frustrated Condoleezza somewhere who can't get 1-800-ELECTRICE08.

Do you know what time it is? Super Hyper Colossal Car Watch Infinity! (For future FUFs, I think I'm going to have to revert to just calling it Car Watch because I'm running out of those adjectives. Unless someone wants to sponsor it and make it the Auto Zone Car Watch, for example. I'm accepting offers.)

After a round of golf with some friends, I saw a car parked next to me with a plate that read "GETACAT." What an odd thing to demand. I don't want a cat and you can't make me, fellow golfer. So there.

I saw a plate with "DS9*TRK" on it, as in "Deep Space 9, Star Trek." $10 says he was on his way home...to his parents' house.

Rockabye saw a license plate frame that said "Alumni...Univesity of Hard Knocks" with a plate that read "IBENTHR." I wish I had seen that so I could pull up next to it and do my "Ooooh, you're cooooool" look and gesture. I'll show you sometime.

You know how people sometimes write "Wash Me" in the dirt on a back windshield? Well I was behind a car yesterday in which someone had written something very different: "Can I touch that ass, Rich Boy? Bom Chicka Wow Wow. That's right!" Yes, I know that's a lot to write, but I assure you it was all there and in very nice fingermanship.

Lastly, remember when the "I Want to be Barbie, That Bitch has Everything" frame used to be funny? Yeah, me neither.

Have a great weekend, everyone. And all you fathers out there, I wish you the loveliest of Fathers' Days. Please write in to ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all, and I will be eternally thankful. Or for 60,000 miles, whichever comes first.

One (de)fine mess

Hey everyone, do you know what today is? That's right! Flag Day! It's really too bad that the NFL season isn't underway right now, because announcers would be falling all over themselves to make some joke about Flag Day after a yellow penalty flag is thrown. The other announcer in the booth would laugh heartily, and maybe even repeat the words "Flag Day" after he calmed down a bit. And I'd be sitting at home thinking, "Gee, I didn't see that one coming. Way to go, guys." Like I said, it's too bad that won't be happening.

Since we've had a somewhat-formed theme of "games" this week, the time has come to stretch it out a little more and make a whole week out of this bad boy. I've all but exhausted my supply of in-class games from high school, but there's a whole bunch of family game-playing experiences that are waiting to spew forth (in a non-messy way, don't worry). Today, I shall write about "The Dictionary Game."

For those of you familiar with "Balderdash," it's basically the same thing except better. We played this for years and years before we had ever heard of the commercial version. Someone chooses a word from the dictionary and writes down the real definition. Everyone else but the player whose turn it is writes down a fake definition that they want the guesser to choose. The main differences are that we don't "fudge" any of the real definitions to make them sound weirder and we choose words that no one knows. In Balderdash, it's possible that someone picks a card and a few people already know it. In The Dictionary Game, each round starts with, "Ok, does anybody know the word..."

This way of starting a round has provided two very memorable moments in gaming history. The first came when the Klein family was having a little game night. It's tough to find a word sometimes, because you want to find one that no one knows and has a good-sounding definition too. It was my lovely wife's turn, and she'd been searching for a while. "Aha!" she said, "I got one. Does anybody know the word 'elater?'" We all said no, but right before we started putting our fake definitions down, my mom said, "Can I just say...is it a click beetle?" Amber's jaw dropped. "A click beetle," Amber repeated, pointing to the verbatim definition in the dictionary. "I thought it maybe sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure," my mom explained. As to why she knew an obscure name for an obscure insect, I can't say. Come to think of it, she also knows that "pismire" is another word for an ant, so maybe she's been secretly doing entomology crossword puzzles.

The second time we got a lot of enjoyment out of the beginning of a round was years later. Amber and I were hanging out with a few of her grad school friends, and being a nerdy group, we naturally gravitated toward board games. We played a few rounds of The Dictionary Game and everyone had gotten the hang of it. It was then her friend Matt's turn to pick a word. He flipped through the dictionary for a while and then found something. "Cool, wow, ok, does anyone know the word...'coitus?'" We all started laughing and said that we did indeed know that word, and at least a couple people added "interruptus" to the conversation. He immediately tried backtracking and pretending that he knew all along, but it wasn't even close to convincing.

Normally, I'm a very competitive person and want to win at everything I attempt. This game is very different for me. I don't care at all about winning. I want to make up funny definitions or just write bizarre things that make people laugh instead of real-sounding definitions that someone might guess is the real one. Do I have examples? Only a couple come to mind right now, but hopefully my family remembers more and can email me them for a FUF piece.

Once, the word was pfennig. The reader said something like this: "Pfennig: a kiln used for pottery in Ireland. Pfennig: a copper-coated coin used in Germany. Pfennig: She didn't look Jewish! Or Phennig: an early growth stage of a plant's stamen." Can you guess which was mine?

How about this one. "Piaffe: a woodland sprite in fairytales. Piaffe: the soft underbelly of a mollusk. Piaffe: a type of trot with a well-elevated leg action. Or Piaffe: the F-shaped S used in old documents that can be so confusing that you accidentally read the Constitution aloud in History class as 'Life, liberty, and the purfuit of happyneff,' and everyone points and laughs at you and says 'The clown, the clown, look at the clown!'" As you might guess, I didn't receive any points that round for fooling anyone, but I couldn't care less.

Of course, sometimes I would just enjoy making people read things out loud. Usually at my mom's expense, I think. I can remember her trying to read, "I can not be defeated! I destroy all men!" as if it were possibly the real definition. Another time, she had mocked one of my definitions, so the next time she was reading, I had her say, "Me bad woman. Me make fun of Peter when me shouldn't. Me bad. Me very bad."

Saving one of the best for last, I can't help but mention another time that stands out. It was my turn to pick a definition and read everyone's made up ones to that round's guesser. I took the pieces of paper from my family members and read through them once to make sure I could read them all aloud fluidly. "Ok," I said, "I'm going to read these exactly as they appear on the paper." My dad immediately knew what I meant. "Oh, wait, no," he said. "I must've left a word out or something. Can I have mine back?" I shook my head. "Come on," he pleaded. "I'm going to read these exactly as they appear on the paper," I repeated, and he slumped back down in his chair, bracing himself and resigning himself to the fact that I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass. Here was the definition he had written: "An knapsack worn Aborigine." By my count, there are at least three errors there, which made it so much better. I think my mom kept that piece of paper somewhere, and I'll try to remember to look for it next time I'm there.

So there you go. The game theme for the week has been extended. We have to play The Dictionary Game again sometime soon, for it's been way too long. Of course, now everyone's going to be super careful so they don't end up in cyberspace, so that could take a lot of fun out of it. Anyway, have a great rest of your Thursday (or reft of your Thurfday, if you will), and I'll see you back here tomorrow for some FUFing. And hey, you can always write to ptklein@gmail.com in the meantime. No one's holding you back.

Remotely interesting

Top of the mornin' to ya, gentle readers. And how is everyone doing today? Good, I'm really glad to hear that. I know you were having a bit of a rough patch there, but I'm happy that's behind you now. (I'm stopping myself here before I turn this whole thing into a strange and ill-conceived one-sided conversation. Trust me, I'm making the right decision here.)

So check it out, yo. I've spent some time in this space talking about the way boredom led me and my friends to play little games in high school. I'm feeling comfortable in that category right now, so I'm going to continue unless there are any objections. Anyone? Sweet.

My junior year of high school, I took an Advanced Placement course in American History. For those of you not familiar with AP courses, they're designed to help the students take and pass the AP exam at the end of the year to earn college credits. Makes sense, right? Well, it makes sense if everyone understands that goal. We had a teacher who was a very nice man and was very likeable but had zero idea how to teach the class. It was his first AP experience after teaching the, uh, 'lower-level' courses in previous years, and he didn't really change his lesson plans at all. Other teachers in his position would have had us taking old versions of the test and using those as a basis of what to cover, but he stuck with his game plan. Sadly, I really mean "game plan." Let me explain:

One lesson plan involved us getting into groups and choosing if we wanted to invest fake money into wheat, corn, rice, barley, or a combination of those. He gave us five minutes to decide when we only needed about five seconds. Then, in Seacrest-like tones, he announced that...the price of corn's stock...has gone up! Rice...has fallen drastically! We then had five more minutes to discuss in our groups if we wanted to move our money or keep it where it was. This lasted a whole class period and taught us...nothing!

Another class began with him calling me and a few others up to the front of the room. I was a little scared at first since I had no idea what was going on. "These students, as you know, are a part of an improv group called Comedy Sportz," he said. "Today, though, they're going to be doing...History Sportz!" He was thoroughly pleased with himself, and that in itself was worth the price of admission. We spent the class period doing scenes that started off loosely based on American History but gradually moved into whatever we wanted them to be about. Some of the class paid attention while the others just talked to each other.

At the end of the year, the 80 students in the two AP classes took the test, and a whopping 8 passed. Dusty was one of them because he read the text book cover to cover the night before. I certainly wasn't one of them, but I knew that as soon as I opened the text booklet and realized that I didn't have a frickin' clue about anything on the first page.

As you might imagine, during the class periods in which we weren't playing the teacher's games, we were busy playing our own. The teacher's easy-going nature, the stupid lessons, and general hopelessness of actually learning something made us do it; it was a virtual perfect storm of fooling around and we needed to do it to survive.

During one particularly boring lesson, Dusty and I couldn't stand it any longer. What did we do? Why, play cards in class, naturally. I guess you could call it either "Extreme Card-Playing" or "High Degree of Difficulty Gaming" because there were certainly obstacles. Here were the main ones: we couldn't be seen playing cards for the obvious reasons, we couldn't talk loudly, our gestures had to be small and smooth to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, and - oh yeah - there was someone sitting in between us.

Our friend Margot, realizing that she really didn't have any choice but to play along, reluctantly agreed to be our intermediary. Here's how the game went:

Peter: Hey, ask Dusty if he has any fours.

Margot: Dusty, Peter wants to know if you have any fours.

Dusty: Tell him to go fish.

Margot: He said to go fish.

Peter: Damn, ok. Can you hand me a card?

Good times, good times. The greatest move in the history of our History antics came later though. Dusty, who had the power to become invisible to teachers, "permanently borrowed" the vcr remote control from the teacher's desk. The next time we watched a video, the highest of high comedy ensued. The teacher bent down and pushed play, and Dusty immediately hit the fast forward button on the remote hidden in his jacket sleeve. The teacher looked up at the screen, and confused, hit play again. Dusty hit pause. The teacher hit play. Dusty hit pause. He hit play again, then stood up, only to have Dusty fast forward again. The teacher pressed stop, and Dusty pressed the power button. This went on for a while until Dusty let it play correctly for several minutes. At the end of class, just as the teacher started to bend down to press stop, Dusty turned the vcr off right before he could get there. That confused the hell out of him, but he never put two and two together. It seriously may have been the highlight of my high school career.

Man, that was fun. Thank you all for letting me relive that moment. I will never forget the look on the teacher's face as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on with the vcr. Ok, gentle readers, I'm stopping now with this good feeling I've got going on. Have a great day, and shoot me an email at ptklein@gmail.com if you think of anything I might want to think about.

Senior moments

Yesterday, I wrote about the benign little games my friends and I would sometimes play in class in high school. There are more, gentle readers, and I doubt that comes as any surprise to you. I want to be clear about something first: we were all good kids. We did well in these classes and the teachers liked us. The little things we did to amuse ourselves and others were way under the radar.

That reminds me of a quick story related to that. As I believe is customary, my high school had end-of-the-year superlatives for the senior class. First, ballots came out to all seniors in which people had to write in names of who they thought should "win" these honors. Then, a revised ballot with the top three finalists went out. Basically, I used the first ballot to put cheerleader Jaime's name on all of the ones associated with looks and didn't pay much attention to the others. I think I put her down for "Best Looking," "Best Smile," "Best Body," and "Best All-Around." Ya know, just in case they later revealed who put what and she was so touched that she decided she could date someone from my social status. (As it turns out, she really was a nice and well-rounded person and Dusty and I ran into her a couple of years ago on a plane. She spoke to us and everything.) The "Best Buddies" category was tough because it was for just two people, and Jon, Dusty, and I were all super-tight.

When the next ballot came out with the top three choices, I was pretty shocked by the results. Not only did Jaime not appear in every single category, but I actually did in two of them. It was a big surprise to see my name and Dusty's in the "Class Clown" category along with a guy named David that we knew. I had never thought of myself like that at all, and I'm certain that my teachers were surprised to see us on there too. I always thought of class clowns as the loud, obnoxious guys who knocked books out of nerds' hands or something. The pun-making sneaky-funny guys didn't fit that bill at all for me. We saw David (who actually fit that bill a little - the loud part at least) in the hall later that day, and he told us in all seriousness that he wanted the crown badly and we were going to lose.

The other category I was in the top three for surprised me even more, come to think of it. It was "Most Talented," and I was unbelievably honored and humbled that even one person had thought to write my name on that line. At the time, I had been in a play and on the improv comedy team, but I thought of those activities as just having fun with my friends. I had written a lot of hopefully-comedic pieces for the yearbook, but that hadn't come out yet, so no one was taking that into consideration. I was pleasantly confused by the nomination though. Fellow actor Adam was in the top three with me, along with a guy whose name I didn't recognize.

Then the big day came. I know it's a cliché that is usually a lie, but I really was pleased to just be nominated. It would've felt good to "win" one of the categories, but I also would've felt a little out of place in either of them. If I "lost," I would've liked to see Dusty and Adam win their respective categories. The final results became public: Jaime only won for "Best Smile," and I thought about demanding a recount. My buddy Rockabye got "Best All-Around," which was fitting since he was on a bunch of sports teams, did well in school, and everybody liked him. For "Class Clown," David beat out the two of us, most likely because he'd been campaigning for the two days leading up to the final vote. For "Most Talented," the third guy beat out the acting duo. Oh well.

Dusty and I shrugged off our defeat, and upon leaving the class, ran into David who was celebrating like a madman. "Yeah! Take that!" he yelled. We looked at each other. "Really?" we asked ourselves. I guess it's good that David won, since I can only imagine the frustration and anger that would've come from a disappointing defeat at the hands of apparently unworthy adversaries. I asked a friend who the "Most Talented" guy was since I didn't know his name. "Oh, he's on the football team. He only has one arm and plays wide receiver." Yeah, I think that race was over before it even began.

So, gentle readers, that was my experience in the competitive world of senior superlatives. I really think I could've won if those pesky Swift Boat Veterans had stayed out of it. Oh wait, that wasn't me. Disirregardless, it really was an honor to be mentioned in the same breath as those who truly embodied their categories.

Happy Tuesday, folks. Enjoy the day, and remember to carve out 60-180 seconds to write to ptklein@gmail.com with salutations, thoughts, Car Watch items, recipes, superstitions, lyrics, jokes, monologues, descriptions, or even insults. Beggars can't be choosers, right?

Class systems

Hey look at that, it's a frickin' Monday again. There are worse things, I suppose. I mean, if suddenly there were no more Mondays, then it would only be a short matter of time before Tuesday inherited all of Monday's negative connotations. We humans are fickle that way.

A long, long time ago (also known as December, in UOPTA terms), I wrote about how I was often bored in high school. In order to make things a wee bit more interesting, my friends and I would resort to stupid little games. Often, these games were essentially harmless in nature, and I'll detail one of them right after this paragraph. Generally speaking, the little were for the sole amusement of a few people in the class to liven things up while the teacher repeated things for a third or fourth time. There were times that high school wasn't too challenging, and I have a feeling you're all nodding in agreement right now. Yes, even you. Ok, here goes:

My junior year of high school, a bunch of us were in Spanish 3 together. That level was the real make-or-break point in language, I think. It seemed like the first two years relied heavily on being able to regurgitate whatever was in the little yellow boxes in the textbooks while the following years required people to understand the language and its intricacies conceptually as well as simply memorizing them. The subjunctive mood was the biggest divider of them all, by the way. Therefore, about half the class was eating up the lessons, and the other half was overwhelmed but sticking it out for the college requirement. There was a very nice student in the class of Persian descent named Nazanin. On day one of the class, the teacher called her name for roll as "NAZZ-uh-neen." "It's NOZZ-uh-neen," she countered. I didn't make too much of this at the time.

A couple of weeks later, I was talking to two buddies of mine in the class named Mark and Ilya. Somehow I brought Nazanin up in the conversation and, at the same time, they both repeated, "NOZZ-uh-neen" with a heavy emphasis on the first syllable. They thought it was a funny interaction that she and the teacher had on the first day, and apparently they made eye contact in class with each other every time her name was said aloud.

Later that day in class, I was in the middle of doodling or something in class when I heard the teach call on Nazanin. It took a second to register, so I quickly popped my head up to look for Mark and Ilya. My eagerness to be involved in their game made them laugh a little. The next time her name was said, the both jokingly mocked my enthusiasm and excitedly popped up and looked around the classroom.

The days went by, and slowly a few more people started doing the same thing as us whenever Nazanin's name was said. I doubt they knew why, but we were clearly enjoying ourselves so they wanted in on the action. Someone would say "Nazanin," and five or six people would sit up straight and eagerly look around. The teacher, Ms. Hermosillo, noticed and pulled us aside after class to tell us to knock it off. We were all friendly with her, and she just didn't want Nazanin to feel like we were picking on her for any reason. The next day, the teacher called on Nazanin to answer a question. Immediately after, eight or nine students in the class coughed simultaneously (including your humble blogger, naturally). Ms. Hermosillo looked over at us and, trying to hold back a smile, said, "Come on guys, cut it out."

The next day, we were all sitting there in Spanish 3 again. The teacher asked a question, and Nazanin raised her hand. After the slightest hesitation, Ms. Hermosillo said, "Yes, Nazanin?" A dozen students ran their hands through their hair. The teacher just shook her head and laughed, basically telling us it was ok to continue doing that since it didn't cause a distraction. At least that's what we read into it.

Starting that next week until the end of the school year, here is how things would play out: Ms. Hermosillo would say "Nazanin," and then entire class (including Nazanin, by the way) would smile and run their hands through their hair. Occasionally the teacher would join in as well. It got to be so automatic for people that it became completely natural to see that classroom choreography a couple of times a day.

To this day, Jon, Dusty, Rockabye, Silver, me, and people who weren't even in the class (or at that school) will automatically start to raise their arms to their heads when Nazanin's name comes up. Usually it's in the context of, "Hey, remember Nazanin?" as a sort of reflex test. Good times, good times. In fact, just re-reading this made me have to consciously hold back from doing the action every time I read her name. Old (and silly) habits die hard, I guess.

Happy Monday, gentle readers. I hope you had a nice weekend, and I hope that you have little childish things that amuse you enough to make your day pass more quickly. I'm telling you, it's the only way to go.

FUF #17

This one goes out to the one I FUF.

If you couldn't tell, I was trying to recall REM's "The One I Love" there. With that real song, I usually make some joke about it being a song for an enamored Cyclops. My lovely wife then responds, "It's not 'one-eyed' love." I then feign surprise like that's what I thought it was all along. Alas, I guess there are no songs aimed right at Polyphemus or the rest of his lone-eyed clan.

Ready for loosely related stories, random shit, and Super Hydro Bionic Car Watch 12 Billion? What would a FUF be without those crucial components? Ok, it seems like ages ago, but I believe that it was just this past Monday that I wrote about facial hair and my different experiences with it. The end of each facial hair cycle always reminds me of a poem I once read by John Updike. With the amazing prowess of the internets, it was very easy to find for today's bit o' sharing:

"Upon Shaving Off One's Beard" by John Updike

The scissors cut the long-grown hair;

The razor scrapes the remnant fuzz.

Small-jawed, weak-chinned, big-eyed, I stare

At the forgotten boy I was.

I liked it when I first read it my junior year of college, and I like it now. Every single time I've shaved after a week or longer of putting it off, my eyes always look bigger and my chin weaker. That dude knew his shit.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the word "regardless" and its untonym "irregardless." I received some comments and quasi backlash from that, with some folks pointing out that "irregardless" is not a word. As I mentioned before, the chief concern with a linguist is usage, and that has been used enough that it now appears in some dictionaries. Sure, the definition is quick to point out that it's not proper, but that is somewhat immaterial at this point. I bring this up to tell a brief story. I once had a coworker whose former roommate used to say "irregardless" all the time. It bugged him so much since it wasn't really a word that he started using "disirregardless" around the roommate to point out the stupidity. I think that's really funny. Do you? Well then, there's no need to be rude about it.

Random thought: How sad is it that I can't write "disgruntled" without thinking of "postal worker" right after? I'm not alone in this, right? That sucks for postal workers to have that adjective permanently ascribed to them.

My mother-in-law wrote to ptklein@gmail.com and lived to tell about it, so maybe you all should try that out to. In her email, she mentioned her intense dislike for certain phrases. Being particular with words myself, this seemed right in line with some FUFfing. Many or all of us are aware of the term "June Gloom" for the overcast weather that sometimes happens in this month. However, she told me that she has now heard people refer to both "May Gray" and "July Fry." I can't decide, are those stupid or idiotic? It's definitely one of the two.

I wrote this week about professor Frank McConnell at UCSB. My brother wrote in saying that he pictures Dr. House when reading about him, and that's not a bad image at all. However, he was more portly and older than Sr. Casa. I don't know how many of you will catch my Harry Potter reference, but Professor McConnell was much more Mad-Eye Moody than Dr. House. In fact, I pictured him with every scene before the first movie that his character was in. They did a good casting job, because it's not super far off.

I had a conversation with a woman over the phone this week that will be hard to write about, but bear with me. I knew her name was Sara or Sarah. When writing down her contact information, I asked, "With an H?" "Yes, but I answer to both," she replied. I paused, and then said, "That's very funny - I'll have to remember that one." An hour later, I told my boss, and he said, "That's not very funny, but it sounds like your sense of humor." I said, "It's EXACTLY my sense of humor." "But still not funny," he added.

I was talking to my increasingly-lovely wife yesterday while she was driving home. "Where are you now?" I asked. "I just turned on Louise," she said. I made some joke inquiring about what she did to turn on Louise. She thought I meant that she "turned on" Louise in the sense that she was no longer on her side. Then she realized that I had meant it sexually, and it changed the tone of the conversation a little. It was cool to see how the phrase "turned on" took three different meanings in a matter of seconds. I might just love this language after all.

Happy Fun-Time Car Watch 3.141592653589!

Rockabye saw a puzzling bumper sticker: Sugar Happens. Well, I suppose so. Is that what real goody-goodies say when things go bad? Do those same people stub their toes and yell, "Fiddelsticks!"?

Our homey Riley wrote in after seeing, "Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost." I've seen it before, and it really rings true with me. Despite a very good memory for useless shit, it seems that I'm missing the directional gene. If there's a caravan of any sort, you won't find me in the lead.

Sacky Christi wrote in to tell me about something she spied in traffic. There were two lovely ladies who Christi estimates were in their late 60s or early 70s. The license plate frame on their 90s model Caddie: "Bingo Players Do It Til They Blackout." It's rare for something to be simultaneously clever and a bit off-putting, but this accomplished that feat with ease. It certainly wasn't on-putting, I can tell you that.

Speaking of "that," that's all for this week, folks. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and don't forget to write in with stuff about stuff for a FUF (or a whole post even).