A little madness

Hello, good morning, happy holidays, and every other appropriate greeting. First and foremost, I want to wish my dad a very happy 60th birthday today. It seems like only yesterday that he was 59. Man, time flies. As my brother and I told my dad at his birthday roast, 60 is the new 50...if by "new" we mean "the same, but waaaaaaaay older." In truth, I can't believe how young 60 is now. I'm sure it was the same for each of you, but 60 (and even 50) seemed so ancient to me when I was a kid. Hell, even 40 seemed old back then and used to be "over the hill." That's nothing now. Anyway, happy birthday Pop. I'm sorry I was calling you and old geezer 20 years ago when you're just now deserving of that moniker.

So we had the annual Klein Christmas Party Extravaganza since I last wrote. I mentioned that I would be full of Aunt Lynn's kick-ass spicy chicken casserole thingy, and I did not lie. In fact, since I mentioned how much I loved it in the blog, she brought me a special container of the casserole just for me. Ah, the lure of publicity. By the way, Aunt Lynn, I just love your new high def t.v.

The annual grab bag was fun as always, even though I didn't manage to get number one this time. I still don't know how that happened. My lovely wife ended up with one of the best gifts (a dvd player of all things in the $15 range), and I got a cool little digital picture holder gadget thing. If I may be so bold, I think the highlight of the event was from a gift that we brought. I'll give you a little play-by-play to set the scene, and then I'll explain afterwards.

Early in the game, it was longtime-family-friend Doug's turn to either pick from the table or steal from someone. He studied the table and selected one of the gifts that my lovely wife and I had brought. (Nothing is labeled, by the way, so he had no knowledge of who brought what.) He opened it and was delighted to find a cool one-touch wine bottle opener thing. We aren't sure how it works, but it looks cool and says you just have to push a button for this thing to open your wine. He liked it, and if he had his druthers, he wanted to hold onto it for the whole game. Others liked it too, however, and it was stolen from him just a couple of turns later. The maximum number of steals for that round had already occurred, so he had to pick from the table again. There, amongst the rest of the gifts, he spied one in the same wrapping paper as the one he previously selected. I knew he had made that connection, and I cringed just a little as he reached for it.

Doug opened the gift, peered into the bag that had been hiding under the paper, and then pulled out a teddy bear. But wait, there was something attached to it by means of a rubber band. It looked like...a remote of some kind. Being the investigative type, Doug pushed the lone button on the little remote, and the bear responded by ripping an electronic fart. He did it again to make sure he heard it correctly, and that's when the confused faces started showing up. Yes, I brought a farting bear. Allow me to explain: we've had a dozen throw rugs, two dozen candles, and a few handfuls of little electronic gadgets over the years. I felt it was time to shake things up a little and introduce the element of surprise to the game. Well, technically, that element was already there, so I introduced "dismayed surprise." My abso-f'n-lutely adorable nephew Shawn loved pushing the bear's button over and over again, and that made it worth the confused looks. In the end, my Grandma Mu stole the bear from Doug so that Shawn could keep it and Doug could get something he wanted more than a farting teddy bear. He ended up with the wine opener, so no harm no foul.

I was shocked by two things from that entire experience. First, I can't believe that my lovely wife agreed to have that gift represent us. She agreed that it would be very funny to see someone open it and watch him figure out what the remote did. Second, I thought the gift would piss my mom off a little since it was clearly something no one would want to end up with. She just smiled and shook her head though, resigned to the fact that she created a strange individual who occasionally does strange things. Overall, it was a fun time, and I already have my eye on a gift for next year. Everyone likes He-Man action figures, right?

Over the course of the last two weeks, I've had Chinese food four times. It just happens. In any case, these eating sessions reminded me that in my year-plus of this blogspedition, I haven't yet written about the goldmine that is...the fortune cookie. More specifically, I mean the fortune proper inside the cookie. I only remember (or kept) three of the four fortunes. With two of the three, the fortunes just didn't make enough sense. "The calling that has sounded will not be the lasting call," one told me. Ok, I'll be sure to keep an ear out for the soundings of the lasting calls instead of those of the silly non-lasting variety. The other read, "Good opportunities: make up your mind to grasp the next." I think someone needs some syntax and subject-verb agreement lessons. The third one told me, "Some say hope is nowhere; others say hope is now here." My response was, "Yeah, right, like Confucius sat around making puns in English."

Throughout my life, I've always made a point of reading my fortunes, specifically to see if they'd either make me laugh or anger me. I haven't been too disappointed. There was a time in which every cookie I opened had something closer to a description of personality traits than what you would call a fortune. "You are good at sports," one told me. What the hell kind of "fortune" is that crap? I remember three in particular that have stood out through the years. The first one came from when I was in high school: "A little madness, a little kindness, makes for happiness." I put it in my wallet and kept it there for years and years, mainly because I was a teen and no one could possibly understand my complexity. The second one said, "You are the man and your word is law." I remember opening that one and saying, "Um, mom, I think I got yours by accident." And lastly, I once got this fortune that cracked my shit up: "You have tasted the bitterness and the sweetness of coffee." How did they know? I really found that funny, because the last thing I was expecting at the end of that phrase was "of coffee." I taped that to my monitor at work, and there it remained for my entire career at UCSB. I think it may be in that one unpacked box of office stuff still. If so, it needs to come out again and show the world all of its gloriousness. (Oh sure, some would've just said "glory" there, but they're probably the same kind of people who think before they type. Weirdos.)

I was in Blockbuster a few weeks ago, and I had to text myself something I heard a woman say to her husband: "Get a fucking love story then. Crap, I don't know any of this shit!" After that, they got in line right behind me. I didn't see what they ended up selecting, but I couldn't help but notice that the woman was practically standing right on me. I tried subtly moving a little closer to the person in front of me, and she moved too. I was very uncomfortable, especially since she spent that entire time yelling at her kid to stop touching the candy bars. I'm sure they had a lovely evening.

I have a serious question, and unfortunately, it's one that I don't think will ever be answered. When I have a dream and there are strangers there, from where did my mind come up with those faces? Are they people I've passed on the street before, or did I just randomly assemble facial features into a combination that looks unfamiliar? I've wondered this for a long time, and it comes up now because I had a weird dream this week that had some strangers in it. Greg (The Pigh) and I were being tailed - poorly - by FBI agents. They were so bad at being inconspicuous that we were openly laughing at their attempts. One even came up to Greg with a piece of paper and asked if they had the correct spelling of his Hebrew name. Way to stay undercover, guys. We knew that we hadn't done anything wrong, so we weren't paranoid at all. On the contrary, we started making things up because we knew they were listening to us. "So I took the diamond," I told him in fake-hushed tones, "and I hid it in my ass." We laughed for a while about that one. When I woke up and remembered that part, I realized what a stupid lie that was, since it would almost certainly lead to a cavity search. That reminds me, I need to make a dentist appointment.

I have another very serious question, but I hold out hope that one of you may know someone who knows someone who can answer it. When my lovely wife and I were in Mexico last May, we stopped by the little store in town to get some food for the week. I don't typically eat breakfast at all (besides the vital life juice called coffee that flows through my veins and turns me from a zombie to a functional member of society), but I find that I often change that up on vacations. We stopped by the refrigerated section to look at the yogurt. (I'm sorry, but I need to insert a side note here. "Refrigerator" doesn't have a D in it? "Fridge" does! We add a letter when abbreviating? What's up with that shit? It makes the correct sound just fine in the whole version of the word without the D, but someone somewhere thought that we wouldn't be able to pronounce "frige" unless they added and additional letter. Or maybe, just maybe, the first abbreviator thought refrigerator had a D in it and was therefore properly abbreviating. If so, what a shitty abbreviator. Seriously, what are the job qualifications there? Item 1: Know how to spell the word you wish to abbreviate. Item 2: See Item 1. Either the incorrect abbreviator or the superfluous D adder messed up, and I want an apology. Sorry, let's get back to the matter at hand.) We grabbed some raspberry, strawberry, and peach, and then I saw it: apple yogurt. We got a couple, and as you'd expect, it had little pieces of apple in it and was delicious. My question, therefore, is this: Why haven't I ever seen apple yogurt in the U.S.? It's only, like, our most popular fruit. We're supposed to have one a day, remember? It's the most patriotic fruit too. Have I just been looking in the wrong section all these years or does it really not exist here? I need to know, because I fear it would be expensive and possibly unhealthful to have some shipped here from Mexico.

Lastly, before I get all Car Watchy on you, there are two advertisements that have been bothering me of late. One is for the Dodge "Event of a Lifetime." Come on. How can they possibly say that? All they're doing is saying to the public, "Our previous sales were all crap, and our future ones will be too when compared to this one!" Do they really expect someone to say, "Well, I don't need a new car, but I guess it's now or never if I want a Dodge," or something similarly retardiculous? Why can't they just tell me to grab life by its metaphorical horns and call it a day? The second ad is for a casino not too far from here called Pechanga. That sounds 100% like a slang term for a vagina to me, but I don't often agree with the names they choose. (There's also Morongo, which I always read as "Moron go.") In Pechanga's ad, they say that it's "the undisputed best place to play and stay." Um, I dispute that, therefore it is not undisputed. I would rather gamble in Vegas, and if I'm gambling there, I'd like to stay there rather than drive back to Vajonga. Sorry, Pechanga. I have no problem with companies saying that they're the best at something, but I draw the line when they go that far and basically lie. My goat is sufficiently gotten.

Ok, now grab a partner and let's boogie on down to the Car Watch, shall we? I have two (count them, two) items from my 60 year-old dad. First off, he sent me a plate that read "PKD LST." Although it could be referring to the Peter Klein Dominance List (which clearly states the ways in which I rock), I'm pretty sure it's short for "picked last." How sad is it that being picked last is apparently a large enough part of this person's life to get it on his or her license plate?

The other one from my dad caused a little confusion. He spelled it out to me over the phone: "KNT MARE." "Can't marry?" I asked. "No, I thought it was supposed to be 'nightmare' but spelled with the wrong kind of night," he said. His makes more sense, even though it would be wrong and confusing gender-wise. As for my first thought with it, why wouldn't someone be able to marry? The top reasons I can think of are someone already being married (which would cause a problem in most situations) and someone having to fulfill some ancient ritual from their heritage and remain at home with aging parents instead of living their own lives. What am I missing?

My homey Rockabye saw a plate that boasted, "MR E 2U." Ooh, you're so fucking cool. You're out there, man, and I dig that but I totally can't read you 'cause you're so dark and swimming in your enigmatic ways. You are indeed a mystery, man, and I salute you. (I typed those last three sentences while saying them aloud with my eyes closed and my head moving back and forth. I suggest you try that to maximize the effect.)

I saw "LIVE 8UP" on a plate. Yeah, not quite buddy. Way to fuck 8 up.

I also saw one that I really feel like I should be able to decipher but can't confidently. Help a brother out, yo. It said, "USALIL8." You's a little late? Anything with "little late" is missing an L, so I'm not sold on that. "You salilate" works, ya know, if we can make that a word. Use a little eight? USA'll elate? You sally late? I'm lost.

Last, and possibly least in my book, I saw a plate that proudly stated, "HOT AARP." It was parked, so I sadly didn't get to see the driver. I'm guessing it was either a man with slicked back gray hair and a turtleneck or a woman with died blonde hair, big jewelry, and a newly Botoxed forehead.

And so, gentle readers, that's it for now. Even though none of you wished me a happy half-birthday yesterday, I'm selfless enough to still extend my warm wishes to all of you for this new year. Have a fun and safe holiday, folks, and I'll see you in 20...oh wait. Ha ha, 08 sounds like "oh wait." Man, I am firing on all cylinders today. I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year, friends.

Playing doubles

Good morning, my fellow computer-owners. See, yet another thing we have in common. I hope this post finds you all well and in good spirits. Today, December 21st, is special for a pair of reasons. First, it is my grandparents' anniversary, and I want to very publicly wish them a happy one. (By "very publicly," I mean, "tell a dozen or so people, many of whom already know this fact.") Second, it's my homey Rockabye's birthday. As a supreme contributor to Car Watch every week, he gets First Paragraph Status today. I don't give out FPS willy nilly, mind you. Also, he pointed out that I didn't mention his birthday last 12/21, so that bumps him up a little. Oddly enough, I mentioned his half-birthday in June. I guess I felt that was more important or something. We'll never know.

Speaking of things in pairs, I'm going to see if I can stick to that as a very loose theme of this week's edition of UOPTA. To start things off, I'd like to take you back in time to when I was in elementary school. You there yet? Good. One morning back then, the teachers organized a little breakfast gathering for the whole grade. The day before, they told us that they would be serving "Green Eggs and Ham." Come to think of it, it might've been for St. Patrick's Day. That would make sense. In any case, I was excited about this, and eager to see their use of food coloring in action. The morning came, and I distinctly remember walking up to where the food was and being very confused. There before me sat light green eggs...and regular ham. I asked a teacher why the ham wasn't green also, and I then learned the valuable lesson of misleading modifiers. I was pissed off about this and felt like they were cheating us out of green ham just to save money or something. That night, I looked at our home copy of the Seuss classic, and the illustrations clearly showed that I was wrong all along. Still, it's very confusing to have it like that.

I thought of this story because of a holiday newsletter we received from our friends Danielle and Jesse who live back east. In it, they wrote that they visited "Honorary Aunt Amber and Uncle Peter." "So we're honorary," my lovely wife said. "I'm not," I said. "What?" "Honorary aunt...and uncle," I said, "just like Green Eggs...and Ham." She understood my point but still disagreed (which was wise because neither Jesse nor Danielle is my actual sibling). I was proud of myself for so quickly coming up with support for my theory, even if the support was the same thing that pissed me off as a little kid. My ire is apparently quite flexible.

Last week, my co-worker Jamie and I were in a nearby restaurant waiting for our take out order of breakfast burritos. Mmmm, burritos. So we were sitting at one of the vacant tables, watching the muted news on tv and reading the closed caption on the bottom. After a few seconds, they broke into a very sad story about two window washers in NYC whose scaffolding had broken and they fell 60 stories. They went on to say that one had already died, the other was in critical condition, and that the two were apparently brothers. While reading these awful facts and feeling horrible about the event, guess what song was playing in the restaurant. "Jingle Bell Rock," of course. So picture this scene: we're sitting there with pained looks on our faces and we watch the screen, and "Giddy up, jingle horse, pick up your feet" is our soundtrack. I asked Jamie if she'd been a part of a more incongruous pairing in the recent past, and she couldn't think of one. It was such an odd situation that it easily could've been a scene from a Tarantino movie.

Speaking of television and keeping with the topic of pairs, I had a thought and ran it by a few people who agreed with me. Therefore, I deem it appropriate to share. Here is my bold statement: Every single sitcom from the 80s (and an extremely high percentage of those before and after that decade) had two scenes somewhere in their catalog. The first one involves a person saying bad things about someone else - a boss, an ex, etc. - without knowing that the subject of the discussion is right there. The person goes on and on, eventually ending with, "He's right behind me, isn't he?" I can't tell you how many times I've seen that, so I'm quite certain it's in all of them. The second one involves a character apologizing to someone. He or she (usually a he) ends up saying something very close to, "I was an idiot, I was selfish, unreasonable, inconsiderate, you can stop me any time..." Hahahahahaha.. I don't think that was ever funny, yet I've seen that same scene play out more times that I can count. Why is that? Were these all the same writers just getting different gigs, or was it just the fact that formulaic sitcoms can only have so many unique situations?

That leads me to another topic that just came to mind. I find sitcom pilots to often be excruciating. Unless it's something very untraditional in nature (which there are some and I'm eternally thankful), then it always plays out the same way. It's not really their fault, since they have to introduce the characters someway, but it just comes off so awkward more often than not. "Hey everyone, I'm the wacky friend who says funny quips and appears shallow. The opposite sex digs me, but I sure treat them differently than the star does. Don't worry, if the show gets picked up, I'll prove to have more layers and may even have a few episodes centered around me!" "Hi viewers, I'm the unattainable love interest. Oh don't worry, I won't be with my current partner very long, and then we can draw out the whole process of me and the main character maybe getting together. Don't tell anyone, but we might even kiss in the season finale." There are obvious exceptions to this, and uncoincidentally, they're shows that I enjoy. There was nothing formulaic about either "Arrested Development" or "Extras," for example, and they're among the funniest things on tv. Yeah, I know neither are still on, but I'd rather sit and think about their old episodes than watch new ones of "According to Jim" any day of the week.

I have another little story about pairs to share if you care (or dare), so beware. Years ago, I was at an Italian restaurant with my lovely wife. After being served our food, we were approached simultaneously by the fresh ground pepper guy and the parmesan cheese guy. After they left, I asked her which job she would rather have. "The cheese," she stated fairly quickly. "Really? That surprises me," I said. "I would choose the pepper for a few reasons. Mainly, it's all about customer service to me. With the pepper, when someone says to stop, you can just stop turning the grinder and the pepper stops coming out almost immediately. With the cheese, once you say it's enough, they usually have one more grate coming (due to inertia), plus the final pat of the cheese against the grater that drops some more on there. I want to give them the exact amount they desire. Why would you choose the parm?" "I like cheese more than pepper," she said.

I mentioned this interaction to my boss, and he suddenly got very animated. "The pepper job is WAY better than the parmesan cheese one," he said. I told him my reasoning, and he said, "It's not even about that though. With the cheese, you get messy and smelly and probably go home smelling like parmesan cheese every night. With the pepper, you just have the cool grinder that you turn." He had very valid points, and it only strengthened my position on the matter. I've seen some automatic parm graters that lessen some of the negative side effects, but they can't sway me. For the record, I like cheese more than pepper too, but sometimes my lovely wife and I just can't see eye to eye on key issues.

I had a somewhat similar interaction with my Bratty Kid Sister via IM earlier this week. It's very common for me to start quoting "Anchorman" with anyone who will allow me to do so, and this conversation was no exception. After going back and forth a few times, I mentioned one of my favorite Ron Burgundy/Veronica Corningstone interactions. (They're a famous pair and therefore appropriate for this post as well, dontchaknow.) During their love scene, they're magically transported to Pleasure Town. Ron points and says, "Look, it's the most glorious rainbow ever!" She replies, "Do me on it!" BKS said, "Oh man that one is amazing. It's like the sleeper hit. I didn't even notice that line till you pointed it out to me." I replied, "It really gets me because I would expect her character to either ignore his line or shoot him down somehow, but she shows the audience why they're such a good match." "Very English student of you; I just think it's funny," she said. So there I go with my over-thought reasons of liking or disliking things again versus "I like cheese more than pepper" and "I just think it's funny."

My birthday homey Rockabye wrote me and asked what the opposite of "inept" is. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "do I go with 'ept' or 'outept?'" I think I like "outept" more. You know why? Outeptitude: Kobe's outeptitude at getting to the free throw line helped the Lakers close out the game with a victory. See what I mean? It's cool, no? Oh, and if you think outeptitude's not going to be one of the tags at the bottom of this post, you're only fooling yourself.

I got a corned beef sandwich last week, and something occurred to me. Although it's one of my favorite things to eat, I don't think I ever would have said, "I like to have my beef corned." I don't know what the process of "corning" is, but whenever someone does that to my beef, I tend to enjoy it. Why is it "roast beef" and not "roasted beef" to match its corned counterpart? It was roasted, in theory, correct? Ah, so many questions swirl around the mystical world of deli meats.

And my final item dealing with pairs today come from the medium of radio. Starbucks put out what I'm sure they thought was a cute little Christmas jingle with the names of their drinks as some of the lyrics. Early on, they ended a line with "latte." I had enough time to think to myself, "Hmmm, what are they going to pair with that in two lines to make a rhyme? 'I want it very hot-eh,' 'When at a Christmas pahtay,' or 'If you've been nice, not naughtay?'" The line came, and I got angry. They rhymed "latte" with..."latte." Bravo, Starbucks, bravo.

On that (sour) note, let's see what's in store down at the Car Watch.

Longtime, loyal reader Sue sent an email to ptklein@gmail.com (because it's just so darn easy to do so) saying the following: "I just saw a personalized plate on a black BMW speeding by on the freeway, 'WH84NO1.' Going about 95 MPH cutting people off. Pretty apt huh?" That is quite apt, Sue. I guess "W84NO1" and "IW84NO1" were taken, so s/he created the word "whait." It's fun to say. Or...maybe this person has "W hate" for the "number 1" person in our country. WH84NO1. Doubtful, but if I can read it that way, others are bound to also, right? Right? Hello?

My dad wrote me about a bumper sticker he saw: "Unless you're a hemorrhoid, get off my ass." I think you probably see my issue with this. This driver appears to want hemorrhoids. "If you are one, feel free to hop aboard my ass," basically. "If not, I'm sorry, that seat is reserved."

My favorite brother called me with a license plate he saw. He prefaced it first, and rightfully so: "I've thought about how easy it would be to remember your plate if you just chose a random seven-letter word, like 'Tuesday' or something. I just saw one, and it's kinda strange. I'm not sure if this is blogworthy, but it said 'SADNESS' on it." Yes, Kevin, I think that's blogworthy. I'm having a hard time thinking of reasons why someone would have that word on his or her license plate. Here are the two I came up with. One, the person wrote a book or sang a song by that name, and it was the only hit to his or her credit. Therefore, to honor that success, s/he "named" the car after it. Two, it's a real new-agey person who feels that by focusing all of her sadness onto those plates, it will free the rest of her spirit to concentrate on positive emotions. Or some crap like that. That's it though. Folks, ya got any other possibilities? Comment away!

I saw a license plate frame that made me chuckle: "My grandson excels at everything." Oh really? Not setting the bar too high there, are you? Everything! I hope this kid's like four years old, because I'd walk up to him and say, "Hey buddy, can you do me a favor and change my tire while reciting the names of the 86 Celtics in reverse alphabetical order? Oh, and I need that 1,472nd digit of pi when you get a sec. And write me a sonnet in Portuguese with one hand as you make tiramisu with the other." Everything, my ass.

I was in the car with my co-worker Rob, and I saw something and started emailing it to myself from my phone to remember. He chimed in, "That's a windshield decal and not a bumper sticker," holding me to a high level of accuracy. So, I saw a windshield decal that said, "Get Money or Die." I think that's a little overly simplistic. I understand the premise, but I don't quite agree for two reasons. First, there are many people who do not get money and still live due to either being attached to someone wealthy or by virtue of being a kid. Second, not to be too morbid, but no matter how much money one "gets," death is probably still going to be in the cards at some point. Hate to break it to you.

My homey Rockabye sent me a plate: "IWERK4U." No, actually, you don't. F'n liar.

Lastly, Rockabue texted me with another plate, and we may be making UOPTA history here. It read "KBE 81." If you recall from last week, I saw "KOBE 8Y1," and marveled that someone still wanted to commemorate one particular basketball game, even though "KOBE 81" was apparently already taken. Looks like that first guy has company. Who knew?

Ok, folks. That's it for now. We have a busy weekend and week ahead of us. Winter begins, Kwanzaa begins, my half-birthday comes and goes, as do the full birthdays of my friend Tricia and, ya know, Jesus. Speaking of which, by the time we meet up again, I will have attended the annual Klein Christmas Party. Maybe I'll get number one again in the grab bag and be obnoxious about it. One thing's for certain: I will have eaten a good amount of Aunt Lynn's delicious and spicy casserole thing. Mmmm. Happy Holidays everyone, and please comment to your heart's delight and email me with anything at all. Shaloha to you and yours.

The new animal kingdom

Howdy, folks, and welcome yet again to another word-filled edition of UOPTA. I won't be so bold as to assume it's "fun-filled," but you can't really argue about it having words. Now I know I've said this a couple of times in the past, but I really mean it this time: When I made a list of potential blog topics about a year ago, one item was near the very top of the list and still remains unscratched out because I felt it would take too long to write up. Today, I shall finally get to it and hopefully do it justice.

It should be no news flash that my circle of friends and I are strange individuals. Sometimes without much rhyme or reason, we attach ourselves to things and spin them a little out of control. Well, gentle readers, this is one of those situations. I'll attempt to start at a starting point.

When my homey Rockabye and I started our college careers at UCSB, we shared an eight-by-nothing room in good ole San Nicolas Residence Hall. The day our parents dropped us off, we transformed into meerkats with the widest-eyed looks you can imagine. Why's that? The possibilities, man! While neither of us came from households that mandated our every action, this was a new level of freedom: absolute freedom. (I don't believe that corrupts absolutely, for the record.) Within a week, we had a banner up in our room that read, "Because We Can." Burger King at 2am? Because we can. A weekly basketball league that starts at 11pm? Because we can. Why does a Doberman lick his own balls? Oh wait, I got sidetracked.

The first task was decorating. As a teen, I put up pictures of friends from graduation and all that crap. The real question though was what we were going to put on the whiteboard adorning our "front door." I thought about a quote from the British band called Half Man Half Biscuit: "You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be Lead." That didn't work out though. Instead, we went with nicknames. Rockabye (who wasn't "Rockabye" to me yet) had worked at a camp in which everyone had nicknames. His was Spud, so we thought that sticking to a food theme wasn't the worst idea in the world. "What do I like eating that also sounds ok?" I wondered. Boom - got it: Corndog. And so our door was set. Room 6214, Corndog and Spud. I did a pretty good impression of a corndog as well, which came in handy. It was pretty much just putting my hands at my side, raising one leg, and making a blank expression, but it got the point across.

A couple of weeks passed, and it didn't really catch on. I tried just going by "C-Dog" for a little, but that didn't help the cause. So, I finally gave in and gave up on that idea. (I never gave out or gave down on it though.)

Let's fast-forward a bit, shall we? It was near the end of that year that our friend Greg continued a fun tradition that he, Dusty, and I had begun earlier that year: the drunken email. After a night on the town, we got back to our respective residence hall rooms, and I got an email from him telling me, "You is da dawg of dem all." Quite a compliment, if you ask me. It was not intentionally related to the whole Corndog incident, but I think there may have been some subconscious connection. We didn't make too much of it, but we laughed about it with friends and it stayed in the back of our minds.

The following year, while chilling in our sophomore-year pad on Camino del Sur, my friend Jon started to freestyle rap for some reason that nobody knows. He kept repeating this: "Who is da dawg, da dawg of dem all? P-Dawg! Who is da dawg, da dawg of dem all? P-Dawg!" Fast-forward a little bit more, and my friends were all calling me Dawg now. I didn't mind one bit, for I love dogs more than the average human, and let's be honest, it was much cooler nickname than a skinny white boy from the Valley deserved.

Time passed, and the name stuck more and more. When Dusty came and lived with us for a quarter, he picked it up right away. And then something magical happened. Greg and I got ourselves a little whiteboard for outside of our room, and we wanted to put our names up. "Dawg and...hmmm." Greg was an absolute slob back in the day, so the answer was clear: Pig. There was one problem though: Dawg was not spelled like the animal, so Pig shouldn't be either. Naturally, we added a silent H to the end, and Greg became The Pigh.

Now things were catching on, and we turned to our roommates to start figuring out their misspelled animal names as well. Dusty, while technically at UCSB for a quarter to do research, generally just laid around and did nothing. After some back and forth, we agreed on Slug. "Should we add another G?" we wondered. Nope, we found a better way to do it, and Tslug was born.

With our sample size at three, we noticed something. Not only did we have misspelled animal names as nicknames, but they were also all monosyllabic and not rhyming with one another. We wanted to keep those parameters in effect, even if that raised the degree of difficulty a little. We turned to our roommate Dave. He had a shirt that said "Byrd" on it, so that was very easy. He didn't really like that one too much though, and quickly became Toade instead. He bought a stuffed animal of a toad and it was cemented. Our roommate Jason was probably the easiest name to come up with. He was a huge fan of the band Phish, but that misspelling was already taken. Therefore, we huddled and came out with Fisch. For reasons I don't recall, Rockabye/Spud became Krab. It might have been because of his bony elbows, but that's the closest I can come to anything resembling logic with that one. Ben, who spent a lot of time scrunching his nose and being hunched over his computer, had the distinct pleasure of being named Wrat. I like that spelling quite a bit, I must say. Jon was a bit of a problem. After a good amount of healthy debate, we decided that the ox should be his animal namesake. But how to spell it? I'm actually not positive, but I think we settled on Auks for him. Years later, he petitioned to switch to Ramb, which was granted by the committee. My bro got involved as well. First, since his butt is a lot bigger than mine (which is more a reflection of my lack of ass than his large one), I suggested that he be Asss. I even created a slogan for him: "The Extra S for the Extra Ass." He didn't like that one, and I can't really blame him, so we gladly moved him over to a much cooler-sounding Snayke.

And then the ladies got involved. It was fun coming up with these and toying with ways to spell them, so we took it all very seriously. My lovely wife became Deare, which allowed me the comfort of saying "Yes Deare" without sounding like I was putting her off. Dusty still greets her with "Hey Deare," and that's obviously fine with me since that's her name and all. Dusty's girlfriend, known to us as The Mills, was really the first to secure a less common animal. She is, and has been consistently since the day it was decided, known as The Minque to us. When it came to Twilight, we agreed upon Fox even though it rhymed with Auks. Jon had never used his name at all and ended up switching it anyway, so we didn't feel bad doubling up on that sound. After some deliberation, Faux (pronounced "fox" still) was born. One of my favorite nicknames was for an ex of one of the boys. She was kind of small in stature, and so Maus (complete with umlauts over the U and everything) was perfect for her.

About a year ago, our friends Lisa and Paul realized that they had never been given names. Lisa had a kid (and now has two), so some variation of Hen seemed to be appropriate. I suggest Chen, pronounced all throaty and Yiddish-like, but that didn't gain enough approval of the group. After much deliberation, we decided that Gen, with a Spanish pronunciation in a nod to her half-Mexican status, made the most sense. We tried making her Caulk, but she managed to wiggle out of that one. Lisa told us that she sometimes referred to Paul as "her bear." As a Midwestern boy, he says that animal name more like "Bayer," and poof - his name was born.

And then there's the problem with Ceil. Greg's girlfriend Ceil already has a monosyllabic misspelled animal name, but it happens to be her real name already, so that's a no-no. Most often, I call her "Foca," which is "seal" in Spanish, but that doesn't fit the bill. To date, she's still nameless. I don't like that, but I can't come up with an adequate solution. She could be Chark, Hock, Whirm, or any other great name just sitting out there, but nothing seems right.

In the category of "Possibly Too Much Information," I think my lovely wife and I have the animal names that would look the least silly trying to mate. A dog could definitely manage with a dear, don't you think? A slug might have a hard time with a mink, as would a toad with a fox or a bear with a poor little hen. A pig and a seal would be second, but once again, that's her real name. Grrrr.

But oh, my friends, the story doesn't end there. You see, over the years, these nicknames have become just as used - or more - as our real names. Therefore, we've since adopted nicknames for the nicknames. This confuses the hell out of most people, by the way. For example, I may refer to Greg as "The Ghlit" (pronounced "Glit") from time to time. Naturally, that's short for Pighlet, and he responds to it accordingly. Krab is sometimes "K-Rab," or even "K-Rab the A-Rab," even though he isn't of Arab descent. It's just catchy, and catchiness trumps true ethnicity in my book. (My book, by the way, is called "What Beats What: Beyond the Holy Triumvirate of Rock, Paper, and Scissors.")

There are two more bizarre nicknames of nicknames though. I'll go with Dusty's story first because I expect it to be briefer. He has a bunch of nicknames, come to think of his. I'll call him "Tsluggywuggs" or "The Tslug Monstrosity" for time to time, but that's amazingly not the bizarre nickname of which I spake. Here goes: I was hanging out the Toade, Tsulg, and Pigh one evening and playing a drinking game that involved throwing bottle caps into a glass. Actually, that's pretty much the whole game. Anyway, The Pigh had just been telling us about someone he worked with whose Korean name was something like "Sukmo." I don't know the spelling or even if I have the right phonemes for sure, but that's what I'm going with. In any case, Greg started making a face and saying, "Sukmo!" right as we'd toss the cap in an effort to distract us. It worked reasonably well, I'll have you know. By the end of the night though, Dusty was no longer just Tslug, he was also Tslugmo. To this day, The Minque almost exclusively calls him "Mo," and it all came from that night.

In the early Os, the phenomenon of Pokemon was alive and well. My friends and I were briefly infatuated with it for obvious reasons. The most compelling aspect of that cartoon was the fact that the creatures could only say their names or variations thereof. Pikachu, the most popular one by far, would say, "Pika pika, Pikachu!" sometimes, for example. (Oh, to be a script writer on that show!) Even though we were in our 20s and gainfully employed, we still thought it would be a good idea to give ourselves Pokemon-style names. Mine ended up being Dawgazar, because that's what obviously made the most sense to us at the time. To this day, Dusty will call me "Gazar." This has led to some very interesting conversations. "What did you just call him?" someone will ask upon overhearing that greeting. "Gazar," he'll reply, knowing full well that he hadn't answered their true question. "What's that?" "Short for 'Dawgazar,'" he'll say matter-of-factly. "And what's that?" "Ya know, the Pokemon name for his monosyllabic misspelled non-rhyming animal nickname." That usually clears things up.

All of this has now been going on for a decade, and that blows my mind. Looking back on the entire animal name thing, I can only find two regrets. First, I wish that we had referred to our apartment or our collective group as something like "The Farm" or "The Barn." Second, I really wish we'd decided on some ceremonial words or gestures that went along with bestowing a name upon someone. A whole anointing ceremony may have been a bit much, but I would've liked something more than, "How about this name? Cool."

I'm still hung up on Ceil though, and I'd like suggestions on what we should do. Should she: A, have another spelling of "seal" to really confuse things; B, be granted a different monosyllabic misspelled animal; or C, be granted a reprieve from this ridiculous ritual? I will see her on New Year's Eve, along with The Pigh, Tslug, Minque, Toade, Faux, Gen, Bayer, and my lovely Deare, so comment away with your thoughts on this highly important matter. Please vote in the poll at the top right of the page. It'll be up until next Friday. If you vote for B, I'm taking suggestions in the comments section.

And with that, I shall end this naming segment and move on to the wond'rous joy that is the Car Watch. Once again, this will be comprised solely of items I've received from my homey Rockabye and myself, because I guess the rest of you either don't see interesting things on the road or you just like keeping them to yourselves. Remember, sharing is caring.

First off, Rockabye saw a bumper sticker that read, "A day without sunshine, is like, the night." Without the commas, I might think that this person was serious and trying to be deep in some way. With them though, they're just being silly. I approve of the silliness, even though I feel like I'm missing any larger joke that may be there.

He also saw a plate that said, "RRRIFLE." He pointed out that just having a type of gun on your plate is probably enough on its own. To that point, I said that this one is just way more fun to say. He agreed. Go ahead folks: say it. See? It adds a little frustration or anger to it rather than just leaving the deadly weapon there by itself. I don't know exactly what that driver is going for, but I wouldn't feel totally comfortable driving next to him or her.

Lastly for the Rockabye section, he was behind a van labeled "All Valley Electrical Works." The plate? "LITU UP." I approve wholeheartedly.

My turn! I saw a plate-and-frame combo that I thought was worth reporting. First, the frame: "Life's more fun between the sheets." The plate in the middle of that frame read, "YLD STRK." The young lady driving the car looked nice enough, but she's being very clear with her message: "I may look ordinary, but make no mistake: I like to have fun and I'm in touch with my sexuality." No problem here with that. I wonder though how many guys (or gals, depending on her preference) have gone out to her car with her after meeting in a club or bar, spied that frame, and then mentally high-fived themselves.

Next, I saw a plate on my way into work that read, "KOBE 8Y1." Granted, I'm in Los Angeles. Also granted, Kobe scoring 81 points against the Raptors was one of the greatest individual NBA performances of all time. If I had been there at that game, I would want to talk about it very often. That said, I have a hard time making the leap from watching that game (either live or on tv) to wanting it for a license plate. Still, it's fathomable. But when he saw that "KOBE 81" was already taken by another die-hard fan, he opted to distort it to a way that doesn't really make sense instead of thinking, "Oh, that's too bad that someone already thought of that. Oh well, maybe I'll get something else then." That's where I have the problem. He may as well have gone with "COB 8EE1."

Lastly, I saw a plate that read, "PHOTGRP." No, no, no! How many times do I have to say this, people? If you can't put what you want in a way that makes sense, then choose another idea. All I can get from that plate is that the driver wants us to know that s/he likes or works somehow with either photography or photographers. I doubt that's all the driver wanted us to take away from that statement, and it really angers me. Let me be perfectly clear: I love personalized plates, but if you're going to get one, at least run it by a small sampling of people first to see if they pick it what you're putting down. If it's not an overwhelming majority, maybe try mixing it up a little. "PHOTGRP." Honestly.

Ok folks. Thanks for letting me get that long and retardiculous story of our animal names off my chest. It would've taken a week to tell in my old daily format rather than...well, I guess it took a week in this format also. Depending on how you felt about this, it'll either be good news or bad news that I think I'll be switching to the more disjointed posts of things I've thought about and little stories. We'll see, I guess. In the meantime, please vote in the poll, comment away on any reactions to this post, and email ptklein@gmail.com with Car Watch items, thoughts, questions, jokes, love letters, hate mail, puns, song lyrics, recipes, book suggestions, movie quotes, or dirty words in foreign languages. Until then my friends, have a great weekend and week.

(Between now and next Friday, we'll be skipping over the birthdays of my favorite brother, my great friend Jon, and my lovely wife's bestest friend Riley, so I want to wish them all very happy ones here and now. Raise a glass for them all, gentle readers.)

Breaking new ground

Hello and good morning, everyone. It's good to see you again after such a long time apart. Here we are with the first installment of my weekly UOPTA posts. As I mentioned last week, I'm not sure of the form that these Friday posts will take quite yet, but hopefully you don't mind us finding out together. My basic plan is to use this space as a weekly download of thoughts I've had, interesting encounters, and stories from my past. I'll have a Car Watch at the end, and...who knows what else at this point? Let's get into the meat of it, shall we?

One morning about four or five years ago, I was sitting at my desk in the Orientation office of UCSB. As was customary, I had been there too early and alone for about an hour when the first of my co-workers arrived. Leslie, who I've now known for almost 11 years, came in and we exchanged our normal greetings. She then paused and said, "Wow, you look really tired." "Really? I don't feel especially tired," I said. "Well, you still have a line on your face from sleeping, so maybe that's just it," she replied. I was intrigued, so I went down the hall to the bathroom to check myself out in the mirror. Sure enough, I had a line on my right cheek. Four hours later, it was still there. The next day, it hadn't moved an inch. Days went on, and I still had that same stupid line on my face that appeared out of nowhere. It wasn't a wrinkle, wasn't some optical illusion from a 5 o'clock shadow or anything, just a line that made me look sleepy. My friend Dusty loved this and enjoyed making fun of it to no end, so he was especially sad when I realized about two weeks later that it was gone. I never got any logical explanation for it coming or going, and it remains one my body's most interesting unsolved mysteries (right behind the Mystery of the Second Butt from '94). I ask you, gentle readers, have you ever had something like that happen to you or someone you love?

Ooh, I have another story that's somewhat related! I expected this post just to be a big blob of scattered words without any semblance of cohesion, but not anymore! Watch this almost seamless transition: But talking to Leslie about the mysterious line on my face was nothing compared to a shared experience we had back in the summer of '98. It was that summer that I was one of the two Student Coordinators for the program, and I therefore worked closely with the professional staff members in the office on all sorts of things. I was in the middle of helping Leslie with something when a parent from that particular session walked in. "Sorry to bother you," she said, "but I found this wallet on the way out of the last presentation, so I'm pretty sure it belongs to another participant." We thanked her for her good samaritanism, and she turned and left.

Leslie managed all of the databases and reservations for the program, so once we found the owner's name, she would be able to tell us where he or she was staying that night, who the student's advisor was, etc. She opened it, and saw a man's name - we'll call him Bob. She typed the last name into the system, but nothing came up. She tried a couple of other ways, but he wasn't in there. She tried that last name in the student database but came up empty yet again. We surmised that he was therefore not a part of the program, but we still wanted to find a way to get a hold of him.

We discussed our options, and thought that maybe something else in the wallet would have a phone number or some other identifying information that would help us track him down. Leslie looked behind the license and pulled out two things. She gasped, and I naturally hurried over. In her hand was a snapshot of a topless woman and, I shit you not, a prescription for Viagra. She stuffed them back where they came from and we spent the ten minutes trying to shake the disturbing feeling off of us. More determined than ever, we went back into the database and searched by zip code this time. This time, we found him. His last name had been entered incorrectly and his daughter had a different one, otherwise we would've found him the first time around without any problem (and without the need to dig any deeper).

Now the hard part came: How do we keep a straight (and not creeped-out) face when handing him his wallet? I decided to just use Stanislavsky's "Magic If" principle and pretend that we had only seen his license. We put his name on a white board at the entrance to the dining commons, wrote that we found his wallet, and described where we were sitting. Partway through the meal, he approached and greeted us. We nonchalantly handed it to him (although I was feeling very chalant on the inside) and after thanking us, we didn't see him again the rest of the session. Despite his lackluster performance in the final act, that experience was still a highlight of the summer that we discussed many a time after that.

Did you hear that sound? It was me violently shifting gears without the proper transition. Almost a year ago, my lovely wife's friend visited us from Equatorial Guinea. I mean, honestly, who doesn't have a friend from the EG? Anyway, a bunch of other friends came over too and we were all hanging out and shooting the proverbial shit. Somehow the topic of searching for things on the internet came up. I told them about a very recent experience I had when trying to find a picture for one of my posts: "I just wanted the poster from the movie Swingers, but when I typed in 'swingers' into the image search, I was greeted by some very different images." They laughed and imagined correctly that it had been rather explicit. Our friend Scott said that a similar thing had happened to him when he wanted to find the closest Dick's Sporting Goods and hadn't searched specifically enough. "Oh yeah," I said, "there was a very nice woman working at Dick's and I wanted to find her name, but when I typed in 'chicks with dicks,' all sorts of weird things came up.'" Big laughs, big laughs.

The reason I mention that is because of an article and caption I saw in the L.A. Business Journal earlier this week. Here's what the caption said: "New name: Chick's stores, such as this one in West Covina, soon will be renamed Dick's." I showed my co-worker Rob and our boss. "The joke practically writes itself," I said. And then I was about to add, "You just can't make this shit up," but I remembered the story above and realized that I actually could make that shit up. The article should've just gone all the way and had "Sports Store Gender Reassignment Surgery?" as the headline.

New topic! There's a sandwich place that I'd been meaning to try for months in our neighborhood. I kept driving by and thinking, "Man, I really need to check that place out." It's called Mick's Subs, and I finally went there this past weekend. I ordered their "pizza steak" sandwich, which is just a Philly cheesesteak but with some marinara sauce, and I looked around the place while they cooked it. There were lots of pictures of actors and athletes up, and two things really struck me about it all. First, not all of the pictures were signed. Some were, meaning that they actually had been there and/or knew the owner. The others, I guess, were just people that they liked or something. To say that the signed ones were "C-list celebrities" would be an exaggeration, by the way. For example, actor Danny Wells was up there twice. What, that name doesn't ring a bell? He played Luigi in the live action kids show based on the Super Mario video games. I only knew that because I went to school with his son, by the way. His IMDB page also tells me that he played "Street Person" in "The Growing Pains Movie," so at least he's got that going for him. In all fairness, he's had a pretty solid career as a character actor since the early 70s, but he still shouldn't be anyone's top-billed famous customer.

I'm sorry, I'll get to the second of the two things that struck me in a minute. First, I have to have this little aside. Danny Wells' page says that in "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show," his character was "Luigi Mario." "That's weird," I thought, "although if they really are the Mario Brothers, then I guess that would be their last names. But the other one is named Mario, right?" I clicked on that show, and sure enough, Lou Albano (of wrestling fame) played "Mario Mario" on that show. I'm not too happy about that development. I guess someone in a script-writing session early on said, "But wait, if they're 'Mario Brothers,' that means that their last names have to be Mario." At that point, the other people in the room had a decision to make. Either say, "Technically you're right, but I think people will let it slide if we don't do that, since it would make the main character Mario Mario," or go along with that idea. They chose poorly, and I'm retroactively outraged.

The second thing that struck me as I looked around Mick's Subs at all of the pictures, etc., was that everything was addressed to "Nick." Ya know, "Dear Nick, thanks for the great food!" for example. This confused me a bit, but I have three possible resolutions I've come up with. One, the owner is Nick, but he named it after a partner or family member for some reason. Two, the original owner was Mick, but he sold the store to someone who coincidentally had a very similar name. Three, Nick is the original owner but "Nick's Subs" was already taken, so he took a very stupid alternative. What else could it be? Maybe it's a situation like when a Vons market was bought and just changed to Jons because they only wanted to buy one new neon letter (at least that's the story I came up with for that one as a kid). I don't know, but as I walked around and saw more and more things written to Nick at Mick's by C-minus-level celebrities, I got more and more perturbed. And yes, you can't spell "perturbed" without Peter.

And now, hang on tight my friends, for we're embarking on a journey known throughout the land as...Car Watch.

My homey Rockabye has sent in a bunch of Car Watch items over the past week, and I shall include a smattering of them here. Therefore, they will soon be smattered all over your screens. Consider yourselves warned. First off, he saw a license plate frame that read, "Caution: Driver is famished." Well the fucking eat something already. Seriously, that's probably a tell-tale sign that your diet is too intense or restrictive if you take the time to get that frame made and attached to your car for the world to see. Caution: Blogger is angry at you.

He also saw a plate that said, "4GTFUL 1." Damn, I had something funny I wanted to say about that. Nevermind.

Next, he sent me "IOU ZRO" that he saw on a license plate. Yikes, that person doesn't sound like that happiest pup of the litter, now does he? What do you think would cause a person to have that on a plate? Being successful and frequently approached by charities? I honestly can't think of a single answer to that question that doesn't make the driver seem like a complete asshole. Any thoughts, my friends? Ooh, just came up with one. How's this: He lent a friend a pretty small amount of money years and years ago, and he kept waiting for the friend to pay him back. Obviously this friend was doing well for himself now, having bought a new house and a few new cars, so why hadn't he repaid his debt? He asked every once in a while but was always brushed off. Then, one day, the lender walked out of his front door and saw that car and that plate in his driveway. On it, a note said, "We're even now." He'd like to change the plate because he knows he looks like a dick, but he keeps it there to keep his friend happy. There, that's probably what happened.

My turn. I saw a plate that told the world, "WLUVSAI." I read it, and then asked myself aloud, "President Bush loves Allen Iverson?" Usually, I'll try to think of funny people who fit the initials when I see them on plates, but this one is different. I can only think of one person who just goes by "W," and Iverson is known throughout the NBA (and the larger sports community) as just "AI." Considering that I laughed out loud when I pictured those two having a conversation, I think it's a great pairing.

I was behind a car on my way home from work this week that read, "ICE (Heart) MOM." I'm not sure I get what they're going for there, because I just get the impression that she's a cold-hearted, unloving mother. That's sad. Unless her kid's initials are ICE (or her kid's a rapper with that moniker), of course. Then it would make sense and not be sad. What else could it be? I don't think it's a mom who loves ice, because if anything, the ice is doing the loving. And there's no way in hell I've ever written the phrase "the ice is doing the loving" before in my life. I like it when that happens.

Lastly, I saw a license plate in a parking lot last week that said, "IM WANTD." For his or her sake, I sure hope not. I can just see the police report now: "I was patrolling the lot because of the loitering complaint from the previous night, and I came across a car, license plate India Mike Whiskey Alpha November Tango Delta. On a hunch, I ran the plates and VIN (not 'VIN number,' because that would be like saying 'Vehicle Identification Number Number,' mind you), and sure enough, there's a warrant out for his arrest in three different states. I waited around, and detained the perp at approximately 1700 hours." Yeah, I had to look up the official call letters. I only would've guessed correctly on four of the seven. India? Really?

That's it, folks. I hope you all had lovely weeks. Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish brethren, and happy early birthdays to my friend Twilight (Sat) and my loving mother-in-law (Thurs). As always, please email ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. If you see or hear anything interesting, drop me a line. If you touch, smell, or taste anything interesting, feel free to send that along as well. Car Watch items, funny happenings, jokes, ads you love or hate - really, just email me so I can have nice, robust posts coming every Friday. Shaloha, my peeps, and I'll see you next Friday.