Steppin' out

Here we are, folks: the last UOPTA post of 2008. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope yesterday's was especially jolly for you. Hopefully everyone has at least a couple of workdays off to enjoy sleeping in a little. My internal clock doesn't really let me do that, but I've heard it's fun. Ok, enough pleasantries. Let's jump right into some random crap and end this year off right.

Aside from his back going out every so often, my dad is usually quite healthy. Therefore it was very strange to have a stomach bug hit him so hard that he didn't join us for dinner on my favorite brother's birthday last week. Two days later, he was back to 95% and sent me this email (at ptklein@gmail.com) in an effort to give me some additional blog fodder: "So, on Saturday when 'I was feeling like shit' (nice mental image), 'was as sick as a dog,' 'felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck,' so chilled that I was 'colder than a witch's tit'.....I started to think about these 'sick' sayings. Anything there for you?" Well, Pops, not exactly, but it did get me (uh oh) thinking about something similar.

Before I dive into that though, please allow me to comment on the selections he made in his email. "Feeling like shit" is interesting to me, because I don't know if it was intended to mean "feeling as bad as shit smells" or "feeling like the consistency of shit." I know, that's quite repulsive, but where else can you get this in depth idiom analysis? "Sick as a dog" puzzles me, because I don't think of dogs as sick at all. I mean sure, they have diseases and illnesses, but I see many more humans far more often with colds, hurt muscles, scrapes and bruises, etc. It could just be that humans live so much longer than dogs that we have many more opportunities to get sick. Or, now that I've given this additional thought, are they using "sick" in the vomiting sense? I will agree that I see or hear of dogs throwing up more often than non-infant humans. Of course, they tend to eat grass a little more often than the average adult human, so that's not too strange. Therefore, if "sick as a dog" really means "vomiting, like a dog does from time to time," then that one could make more sense. That means that in order to use that phrase correctly then, people would need to be nauseous and making good on that nausea, if you know what I mean. "Felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck," I'll assume is simply hyperbole. First off, how many people really know what that feels like and have been around long enough to communicate that sentiment? Also, while Mack trucks are rather large, I would venture to say that getting run over by any truck feels relatively the same. I think "run over" is an interesting choice of simply "hit by." Do they mean "flattened?" Peter Klein: he asks the tough questions. And finally, "colder than a witch's tit" has always struck me as odd. Is there anything in any story or fable that tells us witches must live in cold climates? Certainly Oz seemed to be pleasant weather-wise, making The Wicked Witch of the West's tit(s) roughly the same temperature as non-witch Dorothy's, right? (And Dorothy was very clear in saying that she was not a witch at all.) If there's any reason why one part of a witch's anatomy would have a lower temperature than the rest, I'm all ears. If the phrase were, "colder than an Eskimo's tit" or that of a person in Greenland, I could maybe let that slide. Otherwise, I think it's just an excuse to say "tit." Tee hee.

As someone who cares an awful lot about language and word choice, I'm remarkably haphazard with some of my utterances. For example, I nitpick like a crazy nitpicking person at those phrases listed above, yet I've heard myself say, "It's cold as hell in here." That simply doesn't make any sense. "Hot as hell," surely, but cold? I'm just wrong with that one, unlike "duh" and "no duh" which both making sense. (Or being "up for" something and "down with" it at the same time.) I think this is all a function of trying to have interesting similes to express ourselves and occasionally coming up short in that endeavor.

Ooh, I just remembered a very interesting lesson from a linguistics class I took in the Fall of '98. (Crap, was it really that long ago? Getting old is baffling.) My professor told us a story about these types of phrases in another language: French. I shall paraphrase from memory and probably skip over some key points: While we might say that something didn't "budge/move an inch," this language used "a step" instead. Over time, "a step" was used to emphasize more and more negative statements. "Did you eat anything?" "No, not a step." Nowadays, "ne pas" is used for every negative, and the "ne" has almost disappeared completely in spoken French. There was a French student in the class, and the professor asked him to say a sentence to illustrate his point. Sure enough, there was only the slightest hint of an "n" sound in there, basically leaving "step" to carry the entire negative aspect of the sentence. I was very pleased with that lesson, and I was equally amazed to see many of my fellow students doodling or falling asleep during that same lecture that had fascinated the hell out of me. Hey, French-speakers out there: how would you say, "That is not a step" in reference to the top part of a ladder? I imagine it would fairly redundant sounding but necessary. Enlighten me please. Anyway, I think of that lesson every time I say "faux pas" or (less often) hear "pas de deux." Speaking of which, when does "So You Think You Can Dance" come back on?

Ok, this is unrelated to the major theme of this post but I felt like I should include it here since it's another cool foreign language thing. In Spanish, there's an intriguing lack of a verb. "To drop" does not exist. Instead, "to let fall" is used (dejar caer, for those of you scoring at home). It totally takes the mistake part out of the action. For example, in English, "I dropped the soap, which resulted in a new level of friendship with my cellmate." In Spanish though, "I let the soap fall." That sounds like I wanted it, right? Believe me, I didn't. I suppose one could "accidentally let something fall" to convey the same point, but that then becomes three words to describe the one we have in English. I might try to use that in my everyday life more often. "Oh no, you dropped the vase!" "Nope, I just let it fall." That should work out well. After all, you can't spell "dropped" without Pedro.

Back to that specific type of simile we were discussing a paragraph or two ago: my friend Dave has a very interesting take on this. I don't know what started it, but he began ending sentences with "as/like China" all the frickin' time. "It's as crowded as China in here" might actually make sense, but "That gumball was as sour as China" or "My bike seat's as rusted as China" doesn't. I'd love to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe he was trying to be like the French and eventually have "China" signify a negation, but I know in my heart of hearts that he was just being a weirdo. After all, this is the same guy who decided to call part of the carpet in the room I shared with Greg and Dusty, "The Strait of Gibraltar." I don't think the room resembled the meeting of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, but maybe he did somehow.

If you had an alarm clock set to tell you when it was time for the Car Watch section of this post, it would be beeping its head off right now.

My homey Rockabye sent me a license plate along with his best guess for what it's attempting to say: "WLDDNUT ??? Wild donut?" I wish I had a better guess than that, but I truly believe that "Wild donut" or "doughnut" is fairly accurate. If there were only one D, I'd suggest, "Wild in Utah," but that's not too likely either I suppose. What would make a doughnut wild? Extra sprinkles? Not conforming to the normal round shape? Being made of neither dough nor nuts? I'm confused by this, but also a little hungry. Any other thoughts on what this person is trying to communicate?

My mom saw a plate that pleases me quite a bit: "LO IM VE." It took me a second, but it's quite clearly one of those word puzzles. In this case, it's "I'm in love." What I like so much about this is how few of these puzzles can fit in the constraining space of a license plate. Seven characters, all in the same row. That last point is crucial, since many of those puzzles rely on being "over" or "under" to get their message across. You know, like "Stand/I" is "I understand," etc. Therefore, this driver makes an excellent use of limited space. Bravo, sir or madam; a tip of the imaginary cap to you.

Lastly, I saw a plate that made me yell at the car's driver. "ILV2W84," it said. I checked the plate frame, but there were no other words to help me out. "What are you waiting for?" I asked loudly. If the driver had heard me, he may have thought that there was a green light or something, but I was solely interested in the license plate. I don't care if they "love" or "live" to wait for something - I just want to know what that something is. Being a hyperpunctual person, I wait a lot for a lot of different things. It's not fun. It sucks, to be frank. Maybe it's never been explicitly made a rule, but I'd like to add, "License plate messages must be complete thoughts" to the DMV books somewhere. If I ever met that driver in person, I'd have a good mind to.

And now we've reached the final paragraph. Let's get some happies out there for today through next Thursday. Today, my friends, is the always-festive Boxing Day and my good friend Silver's half-birthday. Tomorrow is your humble blogger's half-birthday. Sunday is my dad's birthday, and it hopefully won't be a step colder than Glinda's tit in China on that day. Dad, I hope you're as happy as a clam on that day (because that makes oh so much sense). Monday is little Sacky Katy's half-birthday. Wednesday is New Year's Eve, and Thursday brings us to 2009. I welcome '09 and all of its '09ness. In fact, March of next year will be 3/09, which is probably the month/year combination that sounds closest to my name. It's almost close enough that you could probably say, "Hey, three-oh-nine" and get me to look up. Ok, maybe not that close, but still. Happy holidays, my homepeople. Have a safe and fun New Year's Eve, and I hope '09 is healthy and prosperous for you all.

The great fire debate

It is morning and it is good, therefore I feel completely justified is wishing you all a good morning. We are now more than halfway through December, so the frenzy should peak and fizzle within the next week or so. And drizzle. Fo shizzle.

I've got a story to tell, so I'm just going to jump right into it, ok? About a week ago, a colleague was telling me about a Victorian home that he's renovating back east. During one part of his monologue, I (uh oh) thought of something. He said that there was a problem with the chimney, and that the company he's using employs a "little person" to get in there and fix some of the masonry. Instead of getting stuck on the more fascinating part of that story, I posed another question to myself: How many times a day must a chimney worker put up with Santa Claus references? I thought about it for a while and concluded that it must be very, very often. "Gotta make sure Santa can get down," "Maybe Santa got caught up there," etc. Especially during this time of year, I imagined the number to be quite high.

I posed this question to the folks in my office, and there was a pretty wide scope of opinions. First, a young lady named Jamie said that it probably only comes up once a week. I got visibly frustrated with her answer and told her that we "just fundamentally disagree on this issue." I asked another co-worker, and he said, "Well, let's say they go on eight house calls a day per day...I'd say five or six of those mention Santa Claus." I went to my boss and asked him how often he thought St. Nick came up to a chimney professional. He thought for a moment and said, "Fifty." "Fifty?" I asked. "Think about it," he continued. "Every time they talk to someone on the phone, every time they tell people at a dinner party what they do, Santa Claus comes up because that's what people associate with chimneys." "Or Mary Poppins," Jamie added. I argued that if someone specifically said that they were a "chimney sweep," then yes, Mary Poppins might come up. However, during December in particular, Santa was the main man. In fact, when Jamie found the California Chimney Sweep Guild website, two of the five men in the photograph actually look like Santa Claus. That's gotta help the odds, right?

I brought this up to a few friends over dinner, who promptly called me an adjective that rhymes with "metarded." I asked them what percent of business interactions involve a Santa Claus reference for chimney professionals. "Fifteen," one said. I said I thought it was closer to eighty, and they so violently responded to that suggestion that I probably put my hands up in self defense. We talked about making a wager on it, setting the over/under line at 50%. I said I would call three east coast chimney companies and average their numbers. I was the only one of the four of us to take the over, while the other three looked at me like I was crazy and took the under. What did we bet? Nothing. The food came, and we dropped the discussion and forgot to get back to it.

It's a good thing too, because when I'm wrong, I'm very wrong. A couple of days ago, I called three different chimney companies, and here is what transpired:

1. New England Chimney Sweeps, NY:

Peter: Hi, I have a rather odd question. I was wondering how often Santa Claus comes up in your daily interactions with clients or potential clients.

NECS: Not too much.

Peter: Oh. If you had to put a percentage on it, what do you think that would be?

NECS: Maybe about 5%.

2. Mr. Chimney, NY:

Peter: (same opening question)

MC: Never.

Peter: Never?

MC: (more emphatically) Never.

3. American Heritage Fireplace, Chicago

Peter: (same opening questions)

AHF: No, people don't like Santa this time of year.

Peter: (incredulous) They don't?

AHF: Nope, it reminds them of spending money. He doesn't come up at all.

Peter: Nothing about, "So Santa can make his way down the chimney?"

AHF: Nope.

I don't know how I could be so far off. If I were anywhere close to my projections, I'd wonder if I needed to tweak the way I was asking. But these numbers don't lie (at least with this small sample size). If my math is right, that's an average of 1.67% of the time that St. Nick comes up. I was shocked, disappointed, and even a little saddened by this. "People don't like Santa this time of year" is the biggest crock of shit I've heard all week. Are the chimney professionals all tired of the nonstop Santa references and have unilaterally agreed to pretend that they don't exist? That seems like a very involved scheme, so probably not. I'm puzzled though. My boss suggested that the sample size was not statistically relevant and that we should hire a team of fifty people to make outbound calls to 20,000 chimney workers. Jamie, of course, wants to call those same three companies back and ask them about Mary Poppins. Dear readers, what do you make of all of this? Am I that out of touch with reality or is there some master plan to keep Santa references hidden from non-chimney workers? It's gotta be one of the two, right?

Here's a random item before I move on to the penultimate Car Watch of '08. It's been long known in my circle of family and friends that I enjoy making faces in the mirror. In fact, I've often said in the past that if I could get paid to make faces in the mirror for eight hours a day, that would pretty much be my dream job. I have some good ones, I assure you. Anyway, one thing bothers me about a few of the faces I've made, and I'm here to share that with you. Whenever I have a face in either the angry or perplexed category, I furrow my brow. I get a crease between my eyes when I do that, which is fine, but it's not centered. It's closer to my right eye than my left, and that lack of symmetry really bugs me. Oh sure, one might argue that it makes the face better because it adds a little character, but I'm a big fan of symmetry and prefer it when it comes to my face. If I'm squinting one eye or curling one side of my upper lip, those moves are partially defined by the other side not being affected. I realize I'm trying to apply something resembling a scientific method to making faces in the mirror, but should I ever get the call from some billionaire who wants a big screen of someone constantly making faces in the background of his/her home office, I want to be as prepared as possible. Maybe that would even be considered art, and visitors to the office would then commission me for side projects or themed parties. I really think I'm onto something here. Ya know, once that billionaire calls.

Now it's time to gather 'round the fire and see what the Car Watch put in our proverbial stockings.

First off, I was next to a truck on the always-exciting 405 freeway, and I did at least a double take at the company's name: Wide Awake Roofing. I almost don't know where to start with this. I mean, is that really their unique selling proposition? I can hear the commercials now: "Are you tired of hiring people to put a new roof on your house, only to find that they spend most of their time with heavy eyelids? Here at Wide Awake Roofing, our workers are not just awake - they're wide awake! Every roofing professional on our staff has demonstrated the ability to be - and stay - awake for hours at a time! You'll never catch our guys sleeping on the job. You won't even find them sleeping at night. With the advent of energy drinks and caffeinated water, being wide awake is more than a job - it's a way of life. Wide Awake Roofing - not sleeping while putting on shingles since 2005. Call now!"

My homey Rockabye sent me a license plate that he saw: "NODUMY." At first, I was rather ho-hum about it. Then he told me it was on a Smart Car. Ah, I see. Now it makes sense, and good sense at that. I like it. It took a little thought and was executed well enough that no one is (hopefully) sitting there think, "What's a nod umee?" Therefore, it's a-ok in my book. Hell, it's even b-ok.

My friend Dusty got in on the action and sent me this license plate that he spied: "BUY JUNK." I wasn't sure which way to take this. My best guess is that this person purchases things that others no longer want and somehow turns a profit on them. If that's the case, then why would this person command the rest of us to do the same? Isn't that just unnecessarily creating competition? And maybe I'm in the minority here, but I prefer to purchase quality items so stop telling me what to do. Geez.

Last but certainly not least, here's a link for you to check out in your spare time. My Bratty Kid Sister sent it to me, and it's an article that explores possible "modesty plates" (instead of vanity ones - get it?). It's rather amusing, so take a look: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/13LucasKlauss.html

And with that, we're outa here. I'll be back here next Friday, but in that intervening week, we have a whole lotta stuff going on. Let's attack this chronologically, shall we? Tomorrow is my favorite brother's birthday and my good friend Jon's birthday. Sunday is not only my homey Rockabye's birthday, but also my grandparents' anniversary, the beginning of winter, and the beginning of Hanukkah at sundown. Wednesday is my friend Ozzie's half-birthday, and Thursday is both Christmas and the annual Klein Christmas Day Gathering (complete with grab bag). Get your rest folks, for that week's a doozy. Maybe even two doozies. As always, you can write me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. Happy everything to everyone, and I wish you all very warm and healthy holidays. I'll be back here on the 26th if I can tear myself away from all my new toys. Shaloha.

Twinkle twinkle

Good morning, and thanks for coming back for another dose of random thoughts and stories. It's hard to believe that we're already so close to the end of the year, but I guess I should just accept it and move on. That is, unless I have latent time-altering powers that may save the world sometime in the future, of course. Who knows? In any case, it's good to see you here again.

I'm going to try to have a theme two weeks in a row. I'm sorry, I should've started with, "Are you sitting down?" While I enjoy the free-flowing nature of most of these posts, a little cohesiveness never hurt anyone. The theme of this one: Eyetwinklers. Yep, I'm coining a new phrase. These are things that give me a sudden spark of creative excitement. You'll hopefully see what I mean.

About two weeks ago, I was chatting with some office folk about the December holidays. As is often the case, certain traditional Jewish dishes came up in our conversation. Out of nowhere, my boss turned to me and asked, "Hey, can you write a joke with God-felt-a-fish as the punchline?" It sounded very close to "gefilte fish," so I could see where he was going with it. I eagerly said, "Sure!" and started making notes on a piece of paper I had in my hand. He started laughing. "Did you see the twinkle he got in his eye?" he asked a coworker (hence my newly-coined phrase). It's true, I thoroughly enjoy things like that, and so the next morning I sent him an email with the following:

It was the third or fourth day of existence, and God was creating plants and animals to fill the new world. He’d think of one, wave His hand, and – poof! – there it was. He was getting tired after over twelve hours of this, so He did the last batch while standing knee-deep in the new ocean to soothe His feet a little. “Hmmm,” He thought, and then He waved His hand and new kind of bird appeared. “Hmmm,” He thought again, but right as He started to wave His hand, a slimy sea creature caressed His foot, surprising Him and turning His normally smooth motion into an erratic one. When He looked back at His creation, it was no more than a mushy, shapeless, foul smelling lump oozing with jelly. A nearby angel saw this and turned to his angel friend. “All of His other creations are so beautiful; what happened to that one?” The other angel leaned in and said, “Godfeltafish.”

It's not great, but I think it works. If you can come up with versions of your own, I'd love to hear them, so please comment away.

In recounting that tale, another Eyetwinkler from my past popped into my head. (You ever notice how "recounting a story" and "recanting" it sound similar but mean very different things? Of course you have.) This Eyetwinkler is special because it's a generational one. Ahem: In junior high (or middle school, as it's now known), my science teacher probably had no idea what she was getting into when she handed the class an assignment due at the end of the week. We were asked to come up with as many animal names as possible just by using the atomic symbols of the periodic table of elements as our letters. At first, this might sound simple since many letters are represented in the 100+ element names. However, if you dig deeper, you'll find that you can't spell "dog" with the element abbreviations since there's no D, Do, Og, or G. Sadly, you can't spell Peter either. How awful is that? We were to count up the atomic numbers of the elements we used as well, so for example, Amber can be spelled with Am (Americium, #95), B (Boron, #5) , and Er (Erbium, #68), giving her a grand total of 168. (Well done, honey.) We got bonus points for using the most elements, having the longest animal name, and having the highest grand total.

If you've read this blog before, you know that something like that would absolutely be an Eyetwinkler for me. I came home and told my mom about the assignment, and she got the same exact look in her eyes that I must have upon hearing it. Before I knew it, she was in my room flipping through encyclopedia pages to have the periodic table and the animal kingdom in front of her. This was our assignment now.

We were strategic as hell, let me tell you. We evaluated the best way to spell things, choosing the Co of Cobalt and its 27 "points" instead of combining the C of Carbon (6) and the O of Oxygen (8). Unless it was a long word already and had the potential for our longest name entry, of course. The next day in class, I slyly and privately asked if we were allowed to use plurals in our animal names. She said we were, and there was no way in hell I was sharing that information with my competitors. So while some students were using Li (Lithium), O (Oxygen), and N (Nitrogen) for "lion," we not only had "lioness," but "lionesses" too. Put that in your Bunsen burner and smoke it.

When the dust settled, we kicked major ass. Technically, I kicked major ass since my mom didn't receive a grade for the assignment. The encyclopedia set got more attention from that assignment than any other. We consulted the entries on reptiles, insects, birds, and anything else that might possibly be spellable with those letter constructions. Yes, spellable. Leave me alone. Our favorite one at the end of the day was a bird (or multiple birds): Brown Thrashers. I don't know what that is, but who the hell cares? Put Bromine, Oxygen, Tungsten, Nitrogen, Thorium, Radium, Sulfur, Hydrogen, Erbium, and another Sulfur together, and there you go. Brown f'n thrashers, man. I'm pretty sure my mom and I high-fived after that.

(By the way, if you're interested in seeing what you too can spell with the periodic table of elements, http://www.webelements.com/ can provide hours of fun. Or seconds. I always get those two confused.)

I'm often on the lookout for new Eyetwinklers, but I don't think it really works that way. From past experience, it seems like the idea must be presented to me for my creative excitement levels to reach the twinkling stage. That doesn't stop me from trying though. In fact, I came close to one just yesterday morning. Somehow, the phrase, "You learn something new every day" popped into my head. "Ooh," I thought, "I can write down something new that I learn each day of 2009." Then I thought about it more and realized that it would be a difficult task. I don't doubt that I truly acquire new information every day, but how would I choose that one item to write down? If faced with, "The Suns traded for Jason Richardson," "I don't mind seaweed in miso soup as much as I thought," and "Based on an SNL sketch, you can apparently say 'jizz' on network television," which one would make the cut? They might all be equally important. Still, despite that challenge, I just may give that exercise a try. Wish me luck.

Hear that sound, boys and girls? That means it's time for the Car Watch! Ok, calm down, it's not quite that exciting. I'll try to use my exclamations more sparingly in the future.

First off, I saw a license plate on the lovely 405 that read, "LAMB (Heart)R." I can't tell, are they farm animal activists or Greek? That is, do they love lambs as pets or as food? If we weren't in Los Angeles or another large metropolitan area, I'd assume the living animal option, but I'm really not sure. Do people love a certain kind of meat enough to proclaim it on their license plates?

This plate reminds me of a quick story. I recently mentioned that my lovely wife and I took a Canadian vacation a few years back, and one of our stops was in Quebec. In the old town of Quebec City, we saw a door sign with cute little bunny rabbits painted on it. We walked over to see what it was, and it turned out to be a restaurant largely featuring rabbit on the menu. It's safe to say that our warm fuzzy count during those two minutes rose and fell sharply.

Next off, my homey Rockabye send me a plate. It read, "GASHRTZ." Oh sure, it was on a Prius and they were trying to make a statement about the rising fuel costs and the high efficiency of their vehicle that allows them to escape the pain of shelling out more dollars than one is accustomed to, but I don't think it works. You see, gas can hurt. In fact, there are hundreds of companies whose sole purposes are to relieve people of said gas pains. Therefore, while this person probably settled on this plate after all of the "MORE MPG" type plates were taken, s/he instead comes across like s/he needs to fart. Big difference? Yeah, I'd say so.

And lastly, the same homey Rockabye sent me a bumper sticker. "BOOYAA MIXED MARTIAL ARTS," it says. I like it. Name your company after something someone might say directly after using/partaking in whatever you sell/provide. What else could follow this model? Yum Yum Donuts already exists, and I'd say that's similar. She'd Better Love It Engagement Ring Store? My Crotch Hurts Horseback Riding? That Was Crap, the new album by Britney Spears? Help me out here, folks. I always tell people that I have the smartest and wittiest readers in the western blogosphere. Show me what you got.

And now that I've officially given you homework, I'm calling it a day. Speaking of days, I have some happies to dish out. My loving mother-in-law's birthday is tomorrow, which is also our friend Wendy's half-birthday. Coincidence? Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure it is. Monday is my parents' half-anniversary (39.5 - holy crap!), and Tuesday is our friend Candice's birthday. Happy all of that to all of them. I will return next Friday for my penultimate UOPTA post of 2008. Until then, please comment away and/or email me at ptklein@gmail.com. Take care, friends.

Stumbling to conclusions

Good morning, homepeople of the internets. It's a pleasure to see you here again today, even though technically neither of us is really seeing each other. I'm willing to let that slide. So, what's new with you? I feel like our relationship is pretty one-sided, so I'll just sit and listen for once.

Wow, that was fascinating. I never knew. Ok, time to talk about me. I was speaking with someone from Montreal recently, and it reminded me of a story. (That, in turn, reminded me of another story. You smell that, folks? There may be a theme brewing.) When my lovely wife and I took a Canadian vacation a few years ago, we had a great time seeing the sights, meeting the friendly people, and trying the occasional new thing. One of our stops was in Montreal, and upon learning that there was a nearby casino, I suggested that we check it out. Being of the agreeable sort, my lovely wife agreed. It was a pretty quick trip, and before long we were walking the casino floor and watching the table games.

The first sign that things were different was the felt at the blackjack table. The circle for where to place your bet was in a different location, and there were some extra circles and boxes that didn't quite make sense to me. "It's blackjack though, how different could it be?" I thought. We watched a hand, and I learned a big difference immediately: it was in French. I don't speak French, but as I watched I realized that I didn't need to. I understood blackjack just fine, and as long as the hand signals were universal for hitting and staying, I should be able to manage. The only other big difference was that there seemed to be an entire second row of bettors, constantly leaning in to place their chips on top of other people's bets. On any given hand, there could be ten to twelve people with some action. I've seen one person do that on a friend's bet from time to time in Vegas, but not an entire row of strangers doing it. But I could handle that, should the time come.

A seat opened up and I nabbed it. I cashed in for some chips and nodded when the dealer said something to me in French. I assumed it was wishing me luck, but for all I know, he could've been saying, "I took 5% as an exchanging fee, I hope you don't mind." During the first hand, I noticed a third difference: the cards were in French. "What the hell does that mean?" you may be wondering. Well, I got a picture card emblazoned with an R. I cocked my head sideways for a second like my dog does when a sentence starts with "Wanna." "Oh, that must be a king," I told myself, proving that I knew at least one French word. My hand signals held up, and I hit and stayed with the best of them. I was a little daunted when a stranger put money on top of my bet, but I rolled with it. I played by the book and lost the hand, so I turned to the stranger and shrugged, but he didn't acknowledge me at all. Sorry for trying to make you money, dude.

The funniest thing about the whole experience to me was my interaction with the dealer. He would point to my cards and say something. While I knew that he was probably just telling me what my cards added up to, it got in the way of my own internal math. This was compounded by the fact that it sounded like he said, "douche," "cans," and "deez nuts" while pointing at me. I have since learned that those were twelve, fifteen, and nineteen, respectively. (You can go to http://french.about.com/library/begin/bl-numbers05.htm to hear what I'm talking about, if you so choose.) I stayed for about 15 minutes and left close to even. Not bad, but it required a lot more thought than I'd anticipated because I'd wrongfully assumed that blackjack would be blackjack anywhere in the world.

Where else have I made a false assumption? 1989. Not specific enough for you? Fine, I'll tell the whole story. As I've happily written about in this space before, I'm currently in a bowling league with some friends. My parents are bowlers, and when I was eager to join a league as a little kid, it was clear that I'd inherited the gene. A few years into the league (and after winning the whole thing one year), my teammates and I became friendly with a team of four young ladies. We were all about 12 years old, so naturally it was an awkward combination of being fascinated by girls and utterly frightened by them. For reasons not quite clear to me, my friends and I gave each girl a nickname...that corresponded with a Central or South American capital. We must have just learned them in school, but that's still no excuse for quite possibly the nerdiest flirting mechanism in the history of the planet. In any case, it seemed like Tegucigalpa maybe liked me a little, so I gravitated toward her more than Belmopan, Paramaribo, and Montevideo. Her name was Jennifer, and after weeks or months of our weekly chats, she took the first step and gave me her phone number. I must've looked a little shocked because she followed it with something along the lines of, "Now you're supposed to give me yours." I did, and she said she'd probably call me sometime before our next bowling session to say hi.

Even though I wasn't sure if I "like liked" her, I was still in a constant state of anticipation for the phone to ring. When it did the next night, I cleared my throat and almost-confidently said, "Hello?" "Hi, is Peter there?" a young woman asked. "Hi!" I answered, "This is Peter!" "Do you know who this is?" she asked. "Yeah, Jennifer, right?" "Just making sure," she replied. We had a very interesting conversation. It started with us talking about movies and music we liked, and it was extremely comfortable. She said she forgot where I went to school, so I told her. "Oh, I know someone there," she said surprised. "Do you know Mandy?" I told her I did and that Mandy was one of my best friends at school. She had met her once at a birthday party, and it turned out that she knew a couple of Mandy's friends too. I said nice things about them all, and she agreed that they seemed nice to her too. We hung up after about 20 minutes, and I felt good about how that giant leap went.

The next day at school, I noticed Mandy and a couple of friends laughing a little when they saw me. "Crap," I thought, "Jennifer called them and now they're going to tease me about having a girlfriend." But no, it was worse than that. "Did you have a good conversation with Jennifer last night?" Mandy asked. Trying to appear confident, I said, "Yes, I did. It was very nice." They laughed even more. Shit. "Um, that...wasn't Jennifer. That was me." The two minions behind her started laughing their heads off. I tried very hard to have it sink in and make sense, but it didn't. How could that have happened? She explained: the three of them were having a sleepover the night before and played some girly board game. One of them pulled a card that said, "Call a boy from school." 99% of the time, this results in a five second long conversation replete with giggles. But no, my friends, this time Peter Klein was involved. "Do you know who this is?" she had asked me on the phone. Instead of saying that I didn't (since I clearly didn't), I leapt to the conclusion that it must be the person who said she might call me sometime during the entire week. You can't spell "complete moron" without Peter, after all.

(At least I only said nice things about the three girls giggling on the other end of the line. It could've been worse. And when Jennifer actually did call, it wasn't nearly as good of a conversation as our fake one. )

Ok, enough shenanigans. Let's go see what the Car Watch has in store for us today.

I was behind a car a couple of weeks ago with this plate: "ASKADOG." Now I have some experience with this, and I can tell you firsthand that one rarely gets the answer he or she seeks in this situation. Almost daily, my lovely wife will say to our pup, "Hallie, what should I wear today?" Not a single time has Hallie stated a preference. Similarly, I've asked Hallie somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000 times, "Who's my girl?" Guess how many times she's answered, "I am" or "Me." Zero. Ask a dog? Not if you want an answer, my friends.

A few months ago, I was parked near the airport and waiting for my lovely wife to call and say that she'd landed. A car pulled up in front of me and was waiting for a break in the action to turn right onto a busy street. The plate read, "MYSPACE." It was an old California plate, and I thought, "That's funny. They probably had no idea when they got that that it would end up being something hugely popular on something called the internet." I decided that while it was interesting, it didn't make the cut in my mind as blogworthy. Another car pulled up behind it, also waiting to turn right. The second car's passenger door opened, and a teenage girl got out holding something in her hand. Just as the MYSPACE car started to turn, the girl ran up close to it and held out what I could now see was a camera. "I got it!" she yelled to her car and got back inside, clearly happy with herself. As they pulled away I thought, "Ok, now that probably counts as blogworthy."

Lastly, my homey Rockabye sent me a plate that will probably elicit the same response from many of you. On a Porsche Turbo, it read, "SLUMING." My response: "Fuck you, man." I would also accept, "Fuck you, dude." I'm feeling accommodating today. Seriously though, the guy has to know that he's going to inspire some ire with that car/plate combo, right? Why not add a frame that says, "Happiness is...Being Rich - Duh!" and go for the trifecta?

Ok, that's it for now. I hope this regular-sized work week went just fine for you all. As always, I'll be back next Friday with more of whatever comes to mind. That'll be 12/12, or Douche/Douche in the way I hear French. Shall we toast to some happies in the meantime? Happy Half-Birthday today to my lovely wife (who is still 22 days older than I am). Happy Birthday to our dear friend Twilight on Monday. If you wish to share a license plate, bumper sticker, or your thoughts on anything, ptklein@gmail.com is there for you. Have a safe and healthy weekend and week, friends.

Playing a night game

Bienvenidos, mis amiguitos. It's good to see you here again, and I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. What an odd construction of a word. It's not like we call Christmas Presentsopening or wish people a Happy Eggshunting for Easter. I just wonder how someone settled on that. Oh sure, I could look it up, but it's much more fun to imagine it...

Pilgrim 1: What a kick-ass feast. Let's make this an annual thingamajig, ya dig?
Pilgrim 2: Totally with you, dawg. It's also frickin' sweet to be all thankful and shit for the cool things in our lives, like my new Blackberry Storm.

Pilgrim 1: Word, word. Maybe our descendants will even get this day off of work in the future. Then they'll get a brief respite from that shitty traffic on the 405.

Pilgrim 2: Yeah man, they're gonna love us for this. What should we call today? It's gotta have a name so it can be on their Outlook calendars.

Pilgrim 1: How about Thanking Day? That way it fits the mold of all of the other key holidays, like Independence Day, Presidents' Day, and Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

Pilgrim 2: I like where you're going with this. But this one should be, like, specialer or something. Why conform to the societal pressures, man?

Pilgrim 1: Ite, ite. So what, something like Givingthanks Day instead?

Pilgrim 2: No, man, even more outside the box. Let's just take the plural noun, add a present progressive verb construction on the end, and chop off the "Day" part to really f with 'em.

Pilgrim 1: Wow, you're one hell of a holiday maker, Pilgrim 2. People are going to remember this conversation forever and write about it in their weekly blogs.

Pilgrim 2: (in Borat voice) High five!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it went down similar to that. Any online research would surely back me up, so there's no reason to even look.

So now we're headed into December this week. Get ready to hear "A Long December" by Counting Crows in heavy rotation on your adult contemporary radio stations. That's fine by me. I went from absolutely loving them to "Just eh" pretty quickly, but that's what happens when you take about six years to produce an album that sounds like you mailed it in. Sorry, I'm still a little bitter.

So, wanna hear how strange I am? Some of you might recall from an older post that half-asleep Peter inexplicably named the ten-minute window before his alarm goes off "The Shed." I still have no idea about that, but it's come in handy. I won't allow myself to get up before The Shed, which used to be a problem for me. In the past, I'd spend a lot of time trying to convince myself that I should go back to sleep, but then I'd eventually give up and get out of bed. Now, I either spend the last hour waking up every two minutes until The Shed hits or wide awake, staring at the clock for that amount of time. It gets a little boring, I'll have you know. So recently, I created three spur-of-the-moment games.

The first one is called The Internal Klein Clock. I wait for the digital clock to hit a new minute, and then I count to sixty in my head. The goal is to be so spot on that the number changes again right as I say "Sixty" to myself. I've gotten quite good at it, if I do say so myself. I'm usually around one to two seconds off, and I've hit it exactly a few times. The funny part (or least tragic part) is my inner monologue during the counting. It's something like this, "Ok, this is a good pace so far, I think I'm right on target. Uh oh, did I just do that one a little too quickly? Maybe I should slow the next one down a little to compensate. Hmm, that might not have been enough. I'll slow another one down a little too. Yeah, now get back into groove." I don't always err the same way. That is, I've had the clock change while I'm saying "59...." and I've done the whole, "And sixty...come on...there" thing. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel really good to hit it right on the head.

The second one is related but probably not as strange. Well, I'll let you be the judge of that. I'll call this game The Thumb Detective. I look at the clock, and then depending on what number is farther to the right, I cover up part of it with my thumb. I don't actually reach out and touch the clock (because my dog would take that as a sign that I'm getting up), but rather hold my thumb somewhere between my face and the clock to block it out. The point of this is to see if I can tell when it turns to the next number. For example, the digital 2 and the digital 3 have some digital segments in common. In fact, the top three lines are the same on each. So if I cover the bottom, I have a guessing game between me and my thumb as to when that two became a three. Some don't have much overlap, but 7, 8, 9, and 0 all have the same top-right section in play, so the fun can go on for...well, four minutes I guess.

The final game came to me out of nowhere. I looked at the clock and for reasons beyond me thought, "I wonder how many NBA players' names I could spell upside down on a calculator." Really, that's the best explanation I've got. So I thought about the numbers and corresponding letters and concluded that I'm working with I, E, H, S, L, B, O, and maybe G (the 9 is suspect). Immediately, I got Bosh from the Toronto Raptors. That led me to wondering if he ever uses 4508 as a PIN for anything. Then I thought of Bell, as in Raja Bell on the Phoenix Suns. For my third one, I wanted to find one not starting with a B to add diversity to my list. I came up with a former player (Mario Ellie), but that wasn't going to cut it. Monta Ellis came next, which worked just fine. With more deliberation, I came up with Grant Hill and David Lee. Here's where I go from quirky to possible crazy. Monta Ellis can play point guard, Raja Bell plays shooting guard, Grant Hill's a small forward, David Lee plays the power forward position, and Chris Bosh plays center. My first five guys would actually be a very good starting five, with scorers and role-players complementing each other nicely. In fact, Bell and Hill are teammates - do you think that's a coincidence? Or did the owner specifically seek out players whose surnames could be represented upside down on calculators? We may never know.

(When I confessed to my lovely wife that I'd been playing that last game, she said, "Like Bosh?" Man I love that woman.)

Ok, one final thing before the Car Watch. If you recall, I spent some time last week writing about words that show up way more often in song lyrics than in our everyday speech out of laziness. I cited both "romance" and "strife" in my argument, and I have one more to add to the pile. "Shelf." What do I mean? Countless songs out there end a line in "myself," and then force a line about either putting a book back on or taking one off a shelf. I think that's lazy, and I think that those three words should be stricken from the songwriting record, Your Honor.

And if you're not still full from yesterday's feast, here's some Car Watch for you to chew on.

I saw a license plate during this past week that confused me, and I'm hoping there's a simple explanation that you'll reveal to me and remove this extra and unnecessary confusion from my already confuse-infused brain. The plate read, "FLAISLA." My first attempt at making sense of this was, "Florida is Los Angeles." Since I know firsthand that it's not, I tossed that theory out. The next guess was, "Florida Island...in Spanish." Yeah, that doesn't make much sense either. I know Florida has a bunch of little islands, but that makes it sound like the whole state is an island. Or maybe it's a mis-spelled take on humankind having original sin: "Flaw is Law." I honestly don't know what's up there, so fill me in if you're picking up what that driver's putting down.

Next up, my homey Rockabye saw this bumper sticker and sent it to ptklein@gmail.com: "Where's DeButts Terrace?" I think I know what they're trying to do here, and I refuse to play along. They want me to find out exactly where DeButts Terrace is by searching for it online, thereby expanding its popularity. Nay, I say. I shall not play your game.

Crap, I just played their game. I'd like to say it's not all my fault, but I'd be lying. Here's the thing: It was bothering me not knowing whether there was supposed to be an apostrophe in DeButts in not. Of course I expected that my homey Rockabye sent it in to me correctly, but I wanted to make sure. So I did a Google search, and the brief descriptions alone told me the entire story. Debutts Terrace is not a restaurant or any other kind of establishment that I may have been picturing. Instead, it was a street in Malibu. The residents were tired of being laughed at, so they formally changed it to Murphy Way two years ago. (If I were in that city council meeting, I totally would've said something like, "Yes, it's been embarrassing and a hardship for us all. So we propose an overdue name change to either DeButts Road or DeButts Circle. Enough is enough.") So, if you had some people's old address and were trying to find them, you very well may be wondering where the hell DeButts Terrace is.

Lastly, I saw a bumper sticker that proudly proclaimed, "I love airplane noise." Somehow, that seems more like a fetish to me, but I was certainly intrigued. Why would someone love airplane noise so much that s/he got a bumper sticker stating it? Is it a former pilot or air traffic controller who misses the job and looks up wistfully every time a plane soars overhead? Is it someone who used to live right under the LAX flight path but recently moved and now finds it hard to fall asleep without the intermittent roars of jet engines? Is it sarcastic? Oh life is such a mystery sometimes.

Alrighty folks, that's enough musings for now. You have yourselves (and your shelves) a great weekend and week, and I'll be back on the first Friday of December. During that time, Monday is my friend and former boss Kim's half-birthday, and Tuesday is my France-dwelling friend Devon's half-birthday. If you want to say hi or send me any thoughts, questions, stories, jokes, recipes, diatribes, or directions to a buried treasure, my inbox is there for you. Shaloha, and see you next time.

Words of the day

Good morning, and welcome once more to your weekly installment of UOPTA. "Installment" sounds so boring, but I doubt I'm hip enough to pull off "dish" or "download." Maybe I should use "serving" so that I can say, "The FDA recommends one serving of UOPTA every week." 'Cause nothing's cooler than government agency suggestions. Forget it, "installment" will suffice. In any case, last week's post dealt with some word things that had been on my mind for a while, and as it turns out, I didn't completely exhaust that list. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to get into some more word things this time around.

I've discussed my strong feelings toward song lyrics in the past and how a well- or poorly-placed line can truly make or break a song for me. For example, I just heard "Solisbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel on the radio, and I thoroughly enjoyed his choice of rhyming "scenery" and "machinery." That took some thought and I appreciate it. On the other side of the coin, I'm tired of how many songs use "romance" in proportion to the word's actual usage in our language. Way too many songs (especially in the 60s) end a line with "dance" or "chance" and then throw in an awkward "make a romance" line to rhyme with it. (Except "And Then He Kissed Me," which just keeps "dance" and "chance" together.)

And then there's "Meet Virginia" by the band called Train. They've had a few hit songs, but that was their first and probably biggest. Guess what the chorus does. I'll write it out as a hint:

Well she wants to live her life
Then she thinks about her life
Pulls her hair back as she screams
I don't really wanna live this life

Yes, they not only rhyme "life" with "life," but two lines later they branch out and rhyme it with "life." Pardon my English, but what the fuck is up with that? (Damn, I know I'm about two years late with this, but "Pardon My English" would've been a good name for this blog. Oh well.) Here's where I get super hard to please: I'd be railing just as hard on Train if it were two "life" rhymes and a "strife." That's just like "romance" but worse. Seriously, how often do you use "strife" in your everyday speech? And yet, many a songwriter out there stares at a line on the page ending in "life" and thinks, "Huh, maybe I should change this line around. Or I could just end the next one with 'strife' like a million other songs out there and move on to the fifth chorus." Man that pisses me off. Sorry, I know you probably don't care about this kind of thing like I do, but that's my name in the url so I call the shots around here.

And now I'll get to the item I meant to write about first in this post. As a teenager, I uncovered a way that musicians can artfully make forced rhymes not seem bad at all. I was listening to "Positively 4th Street" by The Great Mumbler (Bob Dylan), and here's what happens in the song: He ends a line with, "If I was a master thief, perhaps I'd rob them." The next line ends with, "Can't you understand, it's not my problem." The way it's set up, the listening audience thinks, "Wow, I guess 'problem' is a good rhyme for 'rob them.'" However, if the lines were reversed, we'd be thinking that it sounded forced and not quite right. There's no doubt in my mind that he came up with the "problem" line first, then chose the forced "rob them" rhyme (and the entire forced line that goes along with it), and then switched the order of them to cover his rhyme-forcing tracks.

So imagine my utter shock years later when listening to a new Sloan album. As stated before here, I really like Sloan, and often especially for their witty lyrics. I was only two songs into the new album I'd just purchased when I heard this line: "And we can help you clear this little problem." Before the next line came, I actually thought to myself, "Ooh, I wonder what they're going to rhyme that with." (Yes, I end sentence with propositions when speaking to myself.) Then the next line came: "Put on your leather jacket so you can rob them." I was thoroughly displeased and disappointed. How did that offend me? Let me count the ways:

1. I held them to a high lyrical standard going into the song.
2. "Problem" and "rob them" is a bad rhyme
3. "Problem" and "rob them" isn't even their bad rhyme
4. They didn't have the good sense to steal the line completely and keep the lines in the same order.

With all of that said, they truly are amazing songwriters, and I wouldn't put it past them to have done that intentionally for some reason. After all, these are the same guys who wrote, "But I don't know what I would stoop to/Have you got another jump I could hoop through." Oh yeah, that was in song one of that same album.

Switching from music words to other words of the world, something caught my eye while I was out with my lovely wife last weekend. We went to the Camarillo outlets to do a little shopping. Neither of us really likes that activity, but the outlets are convenient enough when we go early and beat the crowds that we'll do that from time to time. Anyway, we stopped in Ann Taylor for a few minutes, and a sign above a rack caught my eye. It said, "Denim Pants," referring to the rack full of jeans. Now I understand when car dealerships advertise "pre-owned vehicles" instead of calling them "used." Something "used" has a far worse connotation, and I remember hearing "pre-owned" for the first time and being impressed with that distinction. On a smaller level, I remember when the fast food chain of Jack in the Box started describing their burgers and sandwiches as having "melting cheese" instead of "melted." It caught my ear, and after thinking about it for a second, I agreed with the likely opinion of their ad agency that the active verb makes the food sound hotter and fresher. "Melted" makes it sound like it happened in the past and it's somehow not as fresh. I know that's all subconscious, but I can see why they made that distinction. But, and it's a big but, what the hell is wrong with "jeans"? Were they just trying to make them sound classier? To me, they just sound assier. (You see what I did there? And it almost worked too.)

I have one more item before we bump and grind on over to the Car Watch. That same lovely wife and I went out to a sushi restaurant a few weeks back. I took a look at the specialty drink menu. Some restaurants are cute with their names, and I've been known to order something that I don't even feel like just because of the name. (That happened earlier this week, in fact, when I ordered a chili burger I didn't completely feel like. But hey, it was named "The Kurt Vonnegut Jr." What was I supposed to do?) At this sushi restaurant, one drink name caught my eye and had the opposite effect. It was called the Bananagasm. The ingredients could've been Anti-Aging Serum and Athletic Prowess Juice and I still would never order one.

And now, the moment that at least my homey Rockabye has been waiting for, it's time for the Car Watch! (Insert game show type music here.)

First off, it is known throughout the land that I'm a hyperpunctual lad. I'm early nearly everywhere, and it's something hardwired inside me. So when I got not one but two plates in the same day about tardiness, I thought they deserved to share a paragraph in the blog. First, my loving mother-in-law saw "RUNAN L8." A few short hours later, my homey Rockabye sent me, "SO L8." Please help me understand this: These people apparently know that they're habitually late, but they don't seem to think this is a problem. In fact, they're embracing this tardiness and seem to think it's cute. What the hell, people? Being late is a problem - nay, a sickness - and you need to move past the acceptance stage and do something about it.

Please note, the previous angry paragraph was written by someone who has spent a cumulative total of approximately three years of his life peering out windows while waiting for his late friends. But hey, you can't spell "pent up aggression" without Peter.

Next, my homey Rockabye also sent me this plate: "LVPB+J." I'm all for people having hobbies or things that have special meanings to them, but...a sandwich? If it's someone with kids named Phil, Bart, and Jonas who happen to have the same initials as this kiddie staple, then I kind of apologize. Hey, there's a band called Peter, Bjorn, and John. I never thought about it before, but I guess they'd be nicknamed the same thing. Very interesting. (Ok fine, somewhat interesting.)

Lastly, I saw a plate near my office that read, "9th EYE." Wow, they're going way beyond the norm with that one. What happened to eyes three through eight? And why single out the ninth one? "Mississippi River, Mississippi" has nine Is, but I don't think that's what they were going for. Did the Rat Pack have a total of nine eyes? When Sandy Duncan took over for Valerie Harper in "Valerie," I believe the Hogan family had nine eyes total. Is it mean for me to make fun of the only two one-eyed celebrities I'm aware of? Sure, but it's all in the spirit of finding out the truth behind that plate. Right now, I'm leaning toward the Hogan Family Theory Hypothesis.

And with that, I'm outstro. Before I depart, let's talk about a particular day next week. Thursday is a big ass day, folks. Sure, it's Thanksgiving, but you all knew that already. It's also my 5/12ths birthday, my longtime friend Adam's half-birthday, and my favorite niece's actual half-birthday as she turns six months old. You know what, take that day off. You deserve it. Have a great weekend and week, my homepeople. Eat food, give thanks, and be merry. You can always reach me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything that's on your minds. See you next week.

A little something for my word nerds

Hello, and welcome to another weekly installment of UOPTA. We're about halfway through November now, and I don't think I've heard a single Christmas carol yet. That's weird, right? Every year over the past decade, I've felt like that's started earlier and earlier, but not this one. Maybe the whole Change in 08 thing is really happening. In any case, I have a random assortment of word-related things to write about today, and I feel like jumping right into it. Here goes.

As it's been well documented in this space, I care a whole hell of a lot about words. They often perplex me with their adamant refusal to adhere to rules. In fact, there are very few rules at all that are absolute. I love the English language, but I doubt that would be the case if I had to learn it in a classroom setting. I have a couple of examples of recent head-scratchers for you.

First off, my boss had sent my co-worker Rob an email that Rob was reading on his Blackberry. (Hmmm, this will be hard to tell via the written word...oh well, bear with me.) He looked up and said to our boss, "Is that how you spell 'cognizant?'" Our boss turned to me and said, "How would you spell it?" I said, "C-o-g-n-i-z-e-n-t, or actually, maybe a-n-t." "I wrote it the same way you first spelled it," he said, "but my spell checker said it was wrong and changed it to 'cognoscente.'" "What's that?" I asked. We all agreed that it didn't sound right at all to us, but maybe we'd just been wrong all this time. It bothered me enough that I went to the trusty Merriam Webster site to check it out. Sure enough, spell checker ended up with egg on its...monitor, I suppose. 'Cognizant' is the adjective meaning, "knowledgeable of something especially through personal experience." The word 'cognoscente' exists as well (which was new to me), and it's a noun meaning, "a person who has expert knowledge in a subject; connoisseur." Therefore, instead of realizing that he just had the wrong vowel in the word, it completely changed it to a different part of speech and ruined the sentence. Don't you hate it when that happens? You're there to protect us, spell checker. Maybe this is the first sign that the machines are readying themselves to take over. Let's hope not.

Ok, if that last story was the definition of 'boring' for you, then you may want to skip this next one, because it's similar but more involved. I'm giving you fair warning. And don't worry, I'll talk about monkeys later to lighten the mood. So, I made a little note to myself a few weeks back saying, "Regimen - I probably thought there was a T at the end for a long time." I don't specifically recall thinking that, but I can just hear myself saying that someone was "on a strict regiment." So I looked it up, and now I'm confused and a bit frustrated. Yay! Here's what I found out. 'Regimen' (which is starting to look like nonsense to me) is "a systematic plan (as of diet, therapy, or medication) especially when designed to improve and maintain the health of a patient." That makes sense to me, and that's how I use the word. 'Regiment' is "a military unit consisting usually of a number of battalions." So that word exists, and it is notably different from the T-less version. "But wait," I thought, "what about the adjective 'regimented'? Why is there a T in that?" Good question, Peter. So I looked it up and was directed to the verb, "to regiment." "Uh oh, this looks like it might be muddying the waters. I don't like to muddy," I thought. There were two definitions of the verb, incidentally. The first was, "To form into or assign to a regiment." Ok, so that's clearly related to the military version with the T on the end. Got it. Then the second definition: "To organize rigidly especially for the sake or regulation or control." Crap. That sounds like 'regimen' to me, which is the only way I've ever used it. So basically, the dictionary is telling me that the verb can represent either 'regimen' or 'regiment' even though those words are clearly different. I can't get behind that; it makes absolutely zero sense to me. It's like saying that even though 'air' and 'heir' are completely different words, the verb 'to air' could mean both "to ventilate" and "to inherit." And poof - my brain is now mush.

(Apparently it wasn't mushy enough to stop myself from making a connection from my last example. I can't hear "to inherit" without thinking of the kick-ass play, "Inherit the Wind." Then I realized that wind is a form of air, so by using synonyms, that play could be called "To Heir the Air." And you wonder why I have trouble sleeping.)

If you skipped that last section, I apologize, but you'll likely want to skip this one too. Hey, I've got a theme and I feel compelled to see it all the way through. So, the same co-worker Rob asked me how to spell a word because it was coming up as misspelled on his Word document. "D-i-s-p-e-r-s-a-l," I answered. He looked very confused. "It's not b-u-r in the middle?" he asked. Then I looked confused. Being a resourceful young man, I consulted the Internets. As you may suspect from the morals of my previous parables, my victory in the knowledge category was nullified by my loss in the sanity column. I learned that to 'disperse' is "to cause to break up" or "cause to become spread widely." You know, like to disperse a crowd. Well, 'disburse' is "to pay out...especially from a fund." This may be common knowledge to people who deal with paying bills from a corporation, but it was news to me. Here are two words that sound exactly the same and can mean similar things. If I have a wad of cash and give some of it to several recipients, I feel like I've just dispersed my funds. However, I have technically disbursed them instead (or possibly done both at the same time). In my humble opinion, that's just stupid. If you don't make the words sound exactly the same then we're in the clear, but make them indistinguishable to the ear, and you get two people making confused faces. Nobody wants that.

My last example of wordnerdiness is a curious example of how the human brain prefers things to be neat and symmetrical. Let's take a look at the word "orangutang." Guess what - it doesn't really exist outside of being a band name. A Google search for "orangutang" comes back with, "Did you mean orangutan?" That's the real name of the animal - orangutan - but our ears prefer the matching sound at the end. It's the same reason some people say "heighth" instead of "height"; so it will match length and width (and depth for that matter). I wish I still had examples from the linguistics courses I took in college, because there were a few more that I found fascinating. Oh well, maybe they'll come to me at a later date. Let's look on the bright side though: I wrote about monkeys as promised.

And before we get to the Car Watch, I have one more word thing that is different from the previous items. Which do you think is a crueler word: stutterer or lisp? Tough call, right? I debated this with my Bratty Kid Sister recently, and I settled on lisp being the bigger slap in the face. If someone has a stuttering problem, there's nothing that says they'll automatically stutter on any given word. Someone with a lisp though will lisp on 'lisp' each time because that doesn't come and go like a stutter, right? Don't get me wrong, it would be awful to hear a stutterer stuttering on 'stutterer,' but I think it's the lesser of the two evils there. Please weigh in if you have a vote either way.

And with that, we've arrived at our destination of the Car Watch. Please remain seated until the captain has turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.

I was behind a car with a license plate frame a day or two ago, and it left me unsettled. It read, "Young lust" on the top and, "Which one's pink?" on the bottom. While I'm 99% sure that there's something R-rated going on there, I can't exactly figure it out. What am I missing here? My brain is trying to leap to a conclusion, but the closest I got was some half-baked theory about lust being a "red emotion" that is still pink in its earliest stages. Right now, the color green has really cornered the market on symbolizing newness, so maybe pink's trying to encroach on that territory. If so, then it's not really dirty. Why the question mark though? Ok, you now have two assignments: Stutterer or lisp, and what the hell does that frame mean?

My homey Rockabye sent me a license plate he saw: "JNKY." Wow, that's not something I would expect a person to advertise so publicly. How would you like to have a daughter picked up for a date by a dude with that plate? How'd you like to close a business deal with someone and then walk him out to his car, only to see that license plate? Do you think "MTH ADCT" was taken and this was the next logical choice? I can understand when people say that they're coffee junkies or soap opera junkies, but by not getting more specific, I'm gonna have to go with drugs on this one, Bob.

Lastly, I saw the same car two days in a row on my way to work. The plate read, "OMG SHOE." It made me laugh both times, so I had to put it in here. Of all the things that I would expect to see after the shortened version of "Oh my God," that's not in the top 500. Now I can understand that there are many people (mostly women) who go gaga over shopping, especially for shoes. But who exclaims over one shoe? Unless the driver is referencing Woody Harrelson's character in "Wag the Dog," I think it has to be one of three things. The first is that it's an inside joke that no one else would ever guess. Aside from that, it's either for someone whose nickname is Shoe for some reason (like they made a bong out of one in college once and the name just stuck after that), or the driver loves shoes but couldn't think of a way to make it plural and still get the point across. I think I'd prefer the inside joke to the other two (although a picture of the bong would satisfy my curiosity).

Ok, I've started weirding myself out and should stop typing now. That's it for this week, folks. I'll be back next Friday with more stuff, and I welcome your comments and emails (ptklein@gmail.com) in the meantime. During that week, we have some happies to dish out: Happy Half-Birthday to our friend Lisa on Sunday and Happy Full Birthday to our friend Suzanne on Monday. And lastly, Wednesday is the old dating anniversary for my lovely wife and myself, bringing us all the way to the gaudy number of 13 years that she's been putting up with my oddities. A round of applause for the lady! Have a great weekend and week, friends. Shaloha.

History lessons

Hello and good morning, homepeople. It's good to see you again. November looks good on you. Speaking of November, Happy Birthday today to my friend Greg, aka The Pigh. Since I've known him for all of his 31 years, he totally deserves top-paragraph status. Are the rest of you jealous? You should be; this is prime internet space, yo. Ok. ready for some random thoughts and stories? (I hope you said yes, 'cause I can't hold off much longer.)

So, what's happened since we last crossed paths? Oh yeah, that election thing. I've got a big problem with the election coverage, especially after the final results were announced: Why do many people say "an historic?" The H is pronounced, but the vast majority of pundits were putting "an" in there as if it were silent. I mentioned this, and my lovely wife said, "Yeah, it's not like 'hour.'" Do we say, "I saw a zebra and an hyena at the zoo?" How about, "I called to wish you an Happy Birthday?" No, because the H is pronounced. Now some of you might be thinking, "Yeah, but with that soft I sound, the H is hardly in there at all." Ok then, so are you signing up for an history class next semester or currently reading an history book? Hell no! But why would "history" and "historic" be treated any differently? The thing that bugs me the most about this is that some esteemed speaker probably said it that way once, and then others heard it and thought, "Well, s/he's smart, so maybe I've been saying it wrong this whole time." And then it grew from there. I know I get more worked up about these things than most people, but that's a pretty hard and fast rule, and English doesn't have many of them. Therefore, I prefer to see it enforced.

(By the way, I tried this argument out on my boss. When I mentioned "an historic," he said, "I think that's actually right." I made my case, ending with "an history book," and he said, "You're totally right. I've changed my mind. Those people are wrong." Yes, I completely changed someone's position with just a well-placed example. It's a good thing I only use this power for good, because in the wrong hands, it could cause quite the societal uproar. We don't need any of that, so I'll keep it on the down low for now.)

Another interesting thing happened last week: I had a near-death experience. I'm ok now, calm down. So check it out: I was sitting in our office conference room with a business associate, and I was bored out of my mind listening to him talk about how great he is. Eager to do something to pass the time, I frequently took sips of water. It's not much of a diversion, but I felt like I'd at least stay awake if I was drinking water. During one sip in particular, something happened. I don't know what caused it exactly, but I felt a little water go down where it isn't supposed to. I had enough time to think, "Uh oh, this could be bad" before I began to cough. And cough I did, friends. I tried gasping for air in between the big hacks, but none seemed to be coming. My colleague looked concerned, so I held up a finger to say, "I'll be fine in a minute." The coughs kept coming, and I felt my face getting redder and my eyes more watery. It was then that I thought, "It would be really stupid if I died from drinking water incorrectly." One more second passed and I righted the ship. I wiped the tears from my face and said that I was ok. It took a while for me to be able to speak without a big tickle tempting me to cough more, but that all subsided eventually. But do you know what struck me most from that experience? The story that others would have to tell if I hadn't made it through:

Acquaintance: Oh my god, I just heard about Peter. What happened?
Friend/Family Member: Yeah, he drowned.
Acquaintance: Drowned? Where?
Friend/Family Member: In his office.
Acquaintance: What? Was there a flash flood or something?
Friend/Family Member: No, he just forgot how to drink water.

Hopefully my epiglottis learned its lesson and will go back to successfully covering my trachea while I'm ingesting things. That lapse wasn't fun at all.

Random aside: Here's a one-liner that you all will have too many opportunities to use. "Yeah, they were so far behind on their mortgage payments that they didn't just foreclose, they fiveclosed!" That's a little gift from me to you. No thanks needed.

I don't remember why, but a story from my past popped into my head recently and made it onto my ever-expanding list of short topics to someday include in a post. Here 'tis: My friend Dusty and I were walking on State Street in Santa Barbara years ago, probably on our way to Sharkeez to watch a Laker game (based on the direction and side of the street I'm picturing). A young man with a clipboard approached us. Now, there's a normal scope of things I'd expect to be asked from a person like this: sign a petition, free passes to a movie screening, etc. This was not that. "Excuse me, I'm taking a poll. Who is your favorite fascist dictator?" "Mussolini," I said. "Franco," said Dusty. The man looked genuinely surprised and said, "Uh, thank you" before jotting down some notes while we walked past him. "How many people do you think have actually answered him, done so quickly, and not said Hitler or Stalin?" Dusty asked me. "We may have been the first," I said. We talked about it a little more, and figured that the pollster was probably trying to be edgy and catch people off guard with his wacky question. We spoiled all of his fun by not being rattled, answering quickly and confidently, and never acknowledging that there was anything unique to that interaction. Yeah man, we were rebels. Put that in your quasi-eccentric-polling pipe and smoke it. (If you happen to have one of those hanging around.)

And lastly before we get into the automotive section of this post, I wanted to document part of a phone call I had yesterday with my mother.

Ring...Ring.

Mom: Hello?
Peter: Hey.
Mom: Hi!
(awkward silence)
Peter: How are you?
(awkward silence)
Peter: What's wrong?
Mom: Who is this?
Peter: Peter!

Here's the thing. I have a cold right now. I thought I knew all of the side effects: difficulty breathing, congestion, watery eyes, frickin' annoying throat tickle, unpleasant honking sounds coming from the nose region, etc. I wasn't keenly aware of the "loss of family recognition" part to it all. Oh sure, she blamed it all on the fact that normally I call earlier instead of when I'm sitting at my desk at work, but her line had been busy earlier. (Yes, you read that correctly. They don't have call waiting, so I still get to interact occasionally with that relic from the past known as "the busy signal.") And yes, I'm sure my voice sounds different because of the nasal congestion and hoarse throat, but I always thought that knowing your kid's voice was like animals knowing their parents by scent or something. I'd better get healthy soon, lest I further alienate myself from my family.

With that, let's blow our noses on over to the Car Watch!

My homey Rockabye sent me this plate: "D UNIK1." Wow, that is a costly failure in knowing what works and what doesn't. I can only assume that this person was trying to say that s/he is unique. However, due to either already-taken plates or just a poor choice of letter assembly, we instead get a person who has been castrated. Come to think of it, those are far from mutually exclusive. I mean, if I met a eunuch, it would be the only one I'd know, thereby making him clearly unique. I sure hope that's not the case here though, because I'd probably have my legs crossed and a pained look on my face for the rest of the day. I'd rather the driver was just stupid in the ways of platespeak.

Conversely, I saw a plate that offered a remarkable amount of information in the limited space provided. It read, "H8NY(Heart)LA." Bravo, sir or madam. I don't really care what s/he doesn't like about the Big Apple or why L.A. is a better fit, but I appreciate the fact that those two practically complete sentences were captured in such a restricting place. I tip my imaginary cap to you, fellow Angelino.

Lastly, I saw a plate that didn't really work in my opinion. It read, "2VEGN4U." Yes, I can understand that someone being a vegan might be way crazy and difficult to please culinarily for the average American. That said, the whole "too (blank) for you" thing usually applies to something...cooler or at least more dangerous, right? You know, the reckless teen warning that she's too wild for the city boy. The new Kawasaki motorcycle is too fast for you. That mixed drink is too strong for you. The amateur roller hockey game is too violent for you. Get the point? Somehow, "that driver is too committed to not eating any meat or animal byproducts for you" loses something.

And I'm spent. I hope that's enough random overanalysis for you for one day. If not, I apologize, but I'll be back here next week with some more. Alrighty, now it's time to get even happier than normal. As I mentioned, today is the Pighet's birthday. In this coming week though, we not only also have the Tslug (Dusty) and Toade (Dave) celebrating their birthdays too, but also loyal reader Aunt Lynn and my Grandma Zelda. I'm just overflowing with Scorpios. Happy Birthday to them all. Have a great weekend and week, mis amiguitos. If you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or even imagine anything worth sharing, ptklein@gmail.com is there for you. Shaloha.

Insert funny Halloween pun here

Good evening. I know it's actually morning for many of you, but it's much easier to say "Good evening" in a spooky voice than "Good morning." Go ahead, try saying "Good morning" and making it half as creepy as "Good evening." It's rather difficult. Why am I being spooky? Duh, it's Halloween. Therefore, it is also our appropriately-named dog Hallie's birthday today. Hallie, if you're reading this, HOLY SHIT, YOU CAN READ?!?

I have nothing even close to resembling a theme for this week's UOPTA post, so if you get motion sickness from stories jumping around violently, then I suggest you take your Dramamine now and settle in for this rocky ride.

I wrote last week about a strange backwards phrase that I know and sometimes say if prompted by the circumstances. I thought of another odd thing that I say from time to time as well. As is the case with phonetically saying "Wing Commander" backwards, this one is also often quoted by friends and family who weren't present at its inception. About 20 years ago (which blows my mind to be able to say that), I was at sleepaway camp with a few friends. A counselor and a counselor-in-training kept saying the same thing over and over again and cracking up. It always started with a second of Gibberish that wasn't much more than waggling their tongues against their lips to produce a weird version of "la la la" that sounded like it had Bs in it. (I'm 100% certain I didn't explain that right, so just say "blah blah blah" in your head and you'll be close enough.) After about five of those syllables, they'd yell in a strange accent, "Lee's barstools and dinettes!" Then they'd laugh and do it again. Naturally, we asked what the hell was so funny. Apparently, they had earlier been standing near two people speaking Spanish. According to them, it was a full on conversation in Spanish for minutes straight, until one of them said, "La la la la la LEE'S BARSTOOLS AND DINETTES!" It was so unexpected (both the language switch and the words themselves) that they couldn't stop reenacting it and laughing...the entire week of camp. So naturally, two decades later, I say that every single time (complete with the Gibberish intro) that either "barstool" or "dinette" comes up. It isn't often, but it's good to have waiting just in case.

Let's move a little closer to recent times. About 15 years ago, I was in a chemistry class in high school. I hated it. I enjoy the biological sciences quite a bit, but chemistry and physics just aren't my thing. In fact, my bookcover (wow, remember those?) for the class said, "CHEM IS TRYing my patience." I was proud of that. In any case, we were told to break into groups for some stupid assignment and meet at the lab tables around the room. My friend Dusty and I ended up with a young lady we didn't know very well but had chatted with occasionally in the past. She agreed to be the one taking notes, and she started writing all of our names on the top-right corner of the lab report. She wrote her name, then Dusty's, and then paused after my first name. "How do you spell your last name?" she asked me. "K-l..." I started, but then Dusty jumped in: "O-w-n." She wrote it on the paper, then looked up bewildered. "Klown?" she asked. I decided to play along. "Well, it's actually pronounced Klon, but yeah, that's how it's spelled." "Wow, I always thought that the teacher was saying Klein," she said. We laughed and said that happens a lot. At the end of the period, we turned the paper in as is, wondering what the teacher would think. When it came back, there wasn't a single marking on my name, so she either didn't notice or just thought, "God, that guy's an idiot." Either way, our lab mate probably went the rest of the year (or longer) thinking that she was in a class with Peter Klown. It's not quite up there with the time that I got a whole group of girls to think I was Peter Rabbit for years, but it's in the same ballpark.

Speaking of ballparks, I watched a good deal of the World Series, even after my hometown Dodgers were eliminated by the unoriginally-named Philadelphia Phillies. That's even worse than the NFL's Houston Texans. Congrats to them for winning the championship though, in spite of their uninspired name. Anyway, for one of the games held in Tampa Bay, a cameraman briefly stopped on a fan holding a sign that said, "Puck Fhilly." No, no, no! It doesn't work if one of the words sounds the same after the switcheroo. The sounds have to be different for a spoonerism to be effective. "Nucking futs" works, right? So does Gene Wilder's immortal question, "What are you trying to do, give me fart hailure?" So "Puck Fhilly" tried to be effective but...mailed fiserably.

My lovely wife was eating pancakes sometime in the past couple of weeks. As is often the case, I started (uh oh) thinking about the word "pancake." "It's kind of like a cake made in a pan," she said. "But not a cakepan," I added. "That's true." "Shouldn't a pancake be made in a cakepan?" I asked. She shrugged, and then she made the face that means, "I'm going to be reading about this conversation, aren't I?" Yes, my love, you certainly are.

While we're on the topic of words, here's a mini tale of one more that stuck in my head for a bit. A co-worker was on the phone and he said, "I think that's what caused the disconnect in the first place." I don't often use that phrasing, but I'm certainly accustomed to hearing "disconnect" used as a noun like that. Here's what got me though: Why isn't it disconnection? The noun of the antonym is connection, right? I'd never say, "On their first date, there was a palpable connect." I know English is all messed up at times, but I just ask for some consistency in these things. What's next, a fight breaking out over a little misunderstand?

And lastly, I saw an ad for a Mercedes Benz dealership. At the end, the screen told me to call 1-800 For Mercedes. At first, I started counting the letters in "Mercedes" to see if it was more than seven or not. Then I realized that the "For" was in there too, thereby making it eleven frickin' letters. That's a big problem. Let's say, for example, that your country was in all sorts of turmoil and your only way to save yourself and your family was to make a run for the airstrip under cover of gunfire. You don't know people who own automatic (or even semi-automatic) weapons, so you want to hire some help for this dangerous and likely murderous task. Where to find these folks though... You pick up the phone and take a stab at it. 1-800 For Mercenaries. After a couple of minutes of hold music that seems oddly pleasant compared to the subject matter, a human voice greets you. "Thank you for calling Mercedes Benz. Would you like to hear about our brand new S-class or some of our certified pre-owned vehicles?" By that time, the rebels have surrounded your village and you barely talk yourself out of being killed by offering your legal services pro bono. That was a close call. Good thing I made you a lawyer at the last second. Thanks for nothing, Mercedes.

And with that, let's scurry on over to the Car Watch, eh?

My Dad sent me a message about a license plate on a Prius that he saw. "MOE MPG" it read. It's true, and I gotta think that we're almost out of ways that people can tout this on their hybrids. I've seen (and documented) a good number of these so far, so there can't be that many left, right? (Ha, left right. That's funny.) I doubt it's the case, but I hope that driver's name is Moe, because that would be even better. Hmm, do you think any Moe has the plate "FLMNG MO" for that Simpsons episode? It has to be taken, right?

I was behind a car a couple of days ago, and I did a genuine double-take. It was a Kia Rio, and the plate read, "KIA RIO." What possible additional purpose could that plate accomplish? It must just be the novelty of being able to fully fit your car's make and model within the confines of a license plate, because there's absoultely zero other reason for that. We know it's a Kia Rio. How? It already says it on the fucking car, dipshit. All that does is confuse a hotel front desk staffer when parking in their lot. "Ok, so what kind of car are you parking here?" "It's a Kia Rio." "Ok, and the plate?" "Kia Rio." "Yeah, I got that. The license plate though?" Hours of fun, right? I bet on insurance forms, it looks like the equivalent to repeating something louder for a non-native English speaker to maybe understand you better. "Model: Kia Rio. Plate: KIA RIO." To me, that means, "I already told you, moron." Oh there's just so much that I don't like about that plate. (If I get an email from that car's owner telling me that it's commemorating a family member who was Killed In Action in Rio de Janeiro, I'm gonna feel really bad about the whole "dipshit" part.)

Let's end on a more pleasant one, shall we? My homey Rockabye sent me this plate: "VERY (Heart)LY." I like this, because you could use the heart as "love" or even "heart" and it'll still make sense. I'm sure they're going for "lovely," but it gives us two possible and viable reading options. Thank you for making your plate interactive, kind sir or madam. (See how pleasant that was?)

And with that, I'm out. Ready to get happy? Happy Halloween today - get some good candy, avoid creepy penny-giver-outers, and wash off your makeup before going to bed, no matter how drunk you are. Happy Half-Birthday to our friend Jesse tomorrow, farewell to Daylight Savings Time on Sunday, and Happy Half-Birthdays to our friends Jen and Debbie on Wednesday. Last but not least, have a good Election Day on Tuesday. If you're 18 or older, please vote. If you're not, maybe your parents should block this website due to its occasional naughty language. As always, friends, you can email me at ptklein@gmail.com with absolutely anything that crosses your mind. Take care, and I'll see you wext neek.

Fortune of reversal

Good morning, and Happy United Nations Day. May all your days be multicultural and full of varied perspectives. And food - lots of good, different food. Is it lunchtime yet? Damn.

There's a topic that I've had on my list of Things I Should Write About Someday, and since nothing else has struck me this week as a topic, why the hell not? That's the entire reason for having a TISWAS, right? So here goes.

Back when computers were just coming out and well before Al Gore's invention made it to the mainstream, my friend Jason S. seemed to know absolutely all there was to know about the new-fangled technology. Typewriters were so old-fangled. Jason knew how to play games on his computer, which if you recall, was a big old pain in the ass. Most games seemed to require inserting a series of big floppy disks and typing the correct commands into the DOS prompt. I can't for the life of me remember those exact commands, but I recall a lot of colons and needing to know what drive corresponded with what letter. It was stupid-complicated.

One afternoon, I went over to Jason's house. He eagerly beckoned me to the office/computer room and said he wanted to show me a new program. We waited the five minutes or so for the big box to turn all the way on, and then he did the requisite typing to pull up the program. Something that looked like an EKG appeared on the screen, and trying to contain his smile, Jason pulled a little microphone toward him. "Hello, Peter," he said into the microphone before reaching down and pressing a button. "Watch this," he said next, and after some more button-pushing and mouse-clicking, the computer speakers came to life. "HelloPeterHelloPeterHelloPeter," the computer said in a high-pitched and very parrot-like voice. He typed and clicked more, to which the computer replied, "Helllllllllllllllooooooooooooo Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeterrrrrrrrrrrrrr." He tried showing me how the controls allowed him to manipulate pitch, speed, the ability to loop the file, etc., but I only understood about a third of it.

It still felt like he was holding back a little though, and my hunch proved to be accurate. "And then there's this," he said as pushed a few more buttons and clicked the Record icon. "Urrrd nay mock niew," he said. "What?" I asked (and rightfully so, I believe). Still smiling and not answering, he clicked a new button that I hadn't seen utilized yet. The speakers spoke again, and in Jason's voice, they said, "Wing Commander." It took me a second to realize what he had just done, but I got it. He taught himself how to say the name of his favorite computer game backwards. We had played the game a lot over the previous months, so it's understandable why it was on his mind. He played the sound again for me, backwards and forwards. He had it down perfectly. It wasn't like it was saying, "WIng COMMandER," but rather in perfect English.

Naturally, I had to get in on the action. My whole life, I'd said my name backwards as "Reh-tep," never paying attention to the actual sounds involved. So I was surprised when "Peter"backwards actually came back to me as something closer to, "Urrr deep!" I thought about it and realized that the T in my name really did function as a D. I almost felt like I'd been cheating myself, but I got over it quickly. Within a minute, I was pretty good at turning, "Niiilk urrr deep!" into something very close to "Peter Klein." My "Wing Commander" still sounded funny, but I didn't have the hours of practice under my belt that Jason did.

This program remained our favorite pastime at his parents' house for a little while. We looped things, said dirty things, and made high- and low-pitched voices tell us how cool we were. We toyed with the idea of calling someone and having a deep voice say funny things, but it was too hard to predetermine the course of the conversation. We also tried recording parts of Beatles songs that were backwards in an effort to hear them forwards (by playing them backwards). As it turns out, "Miss him miss him" (in regards to Paul being "dead") sounds the same both frontwards and backwards. Tell a friend.

As a side note, if Ringo is the next Beatle to pass away, then my irony radar will certainly go off. Because then, the only remaining member of the band is the one who they pretended was dead decades ago. I'm just sayin'.

Fast-forward about 8 years. You there yet? Cool. I'm a senior in college, living with five of my best friends in a shitbox that happens to be right on the ocean. Our friend Dave is a big computer guy who had earlier blown our minds when he brought home a cd burner. "Wow," I thought, "it's like copying a cassette tape but with cds instead!" It's hard to imagine how revolutionary that was for me back then, but trust me when I say that it was. On another day, he casually brought out a microphone and mentioned that he had a program that could do funny things with sound files. Naturally, I was all over this.

"Watch this," I said. I leaned in, pushed the red dot signifying "Record" and said, "Urrrd nay mock niew." I clicked a few buttons, and out came, "Wing Commander." I started laughing, but no one else joined me. "Uh, why do you know how to say 'Wing Commander' backwards?" So I told them, figuring that would clear everything up. "But that was, like, 1990! Why do you still remember that?" Ah, good question. The only response I had was that...well, I remember things. And honestly, what's weirder, the fact that I still knew that or the fact that both my friend Dusty and my lovely wife would be able to say "Wing Commander" backwards upon request in 2008? They weren't even there, but this is a part of their vocabulary too because of the many times I've said it aloud.

We had some more fun with Dave's more modern version of Jason's sound recording program. One of our roommates named Scott James was in the room with us. I thought for a couple of seconds, leaned in to the mic, and said, "Smayj Tocks!" "SCOTT Jamessssssssss," it replied. Nailed it. I think it's a good thing that I didn't own the program, because it's highly likely that I would have done nothing but play around with it for days on end. I'm pretty confident that I would've learned entire sentences backwards, eventually leading to the preamble of the Constitution or something similarly nerdy. That's how I roll.

And I also roll myself on down to the Car Watch!

I was behind a car this week that had this plate: "JUPETR." I'm going to give the driver the benefit of the doubt and say that this is regarding the fifth planet from the Sun and not in fact a way to differentiate me from similarly-named gentiles. "Which Peter learned the Gettysburg Address backwards?" "Jew Peter."

My homey Rockabye sent me a very interesting license plate: "I(Heart)AJEDI." How sad is that? It's a very easy way to tell the world, "I'm not only a geek, but a delusional one at that." It's like the high schoolers who claim they're dating someone who none of their friends have met or spoken to. "Oh, he lives in Canada," they say. Actually, I once knew someone who took this way too far. She said her boyfriend was a model, and she cut out pictures of him from magazines. No real pictures of him, of course, just magazine ones. Then she had a party at her house and the boyfriend was supposed to attend. Everyone was excited because no one believed her. As the hours went by, the guests became more eager to hear what her excuse would be. She "called him" around 10 and he "said" he was running late. It was getting tense, and the Cuban Missile Crisis parallels are so evident that I'm sure I don't even have to spell them out for you. At around 1:30am, we left without getting to meet the illustrious "boyfriend." Sure enough, she told us the next day that he had stopped by around 3am. We turned to a friend who had spent the night over there. "Did you meet him?" we asked excitedly. "No," she said through gritted teeth, "He came over right after I fell asleep." Riiiight.

The same homey Rockabye also saw a car with a "UCLA School of Dentistry" frame and a plate that read, "HPPYDDS." Now it's probably supposed to denote "happy," but it's much more fun for me to imagine a hippy dentist. "Whoa man, when you breathe in this gas, man, you'll totally see all the, like, colors and stuff man. It's far out, man. Open wider please."

Ok folks, that's it for your friendly neighborhood Peter. Let's dole out some happies, shall we? Happy Birthday on Sunday to my friend Alicia, Happy Half-Anniversary on that same day to our friends Candice and Scott, Happy Birthday on Wednesday to my friend and former colleague Regina, and Happy Half-Birthday to my Grandma Mu on Thursday. I'll be back here next Friday with more words formed together to represent my thoughts. You can't spell "represent" without Peter, after all. Have a great weekend and week, friends. You can always reach me at ptklein@gmail.com in the meantime.