Always pre-paired

Hello and good morning to you all. Some people just say that, but I really mean it when I wish for your mornings to be good. Aren't I just the coolest? (For those of you scoring at home, the answer is Yes.) If you were visiting me here in this space last week, you might recall that it was my anniversary with my lovely wife. Earlier in the week, we had dinner with our family as a little celebration. When my loving mother-in-law brought out a cake with some candles on it, the family started singing the chart-topping single, "Happy Anniversary to You." (Not to get on too large of a tangent here, but is there a more versatile song than "Happy Birthday"? Are there any limits to the celebrations for which that song can be the soundtrack? "Happy Christening to You," "Happy Retirement to You," and "Happy St. Jean Baptiste Day in Quebec to You" all seem to work just fine.) At the crucial third line of the song, the group sang, "Happy Anniversary, dear Amber and Peeeeter." Yes, even my parents put our names in that order. Naturally, that got me re-thinking about a subject I've pondered several times in the past.

Think of all of the couples you know. When you're talking about them, whose name do you put first? When I go through my catalog of straight couples, it's almost exclusively the man's name first and then the woman's. Is that sexist? No, because the sex of the person has nothing to do with it. The name that comes first is of the person I knew first. I say "Greg and Ceil" or "Dave and Twilight" because I knew Greg and Dave first. For my lovely wife's friends, I knew the ladies first, and thus say "Candice and Scott" and "Sarah and Keith." For my aunts and uncles, the name of the sibling (male or female) comes first in each pairing. I guess that's because my parents knew their siblings before their brothers- and sisters-in law, so they started saying it that way and it trickled down to my generation. For the gay or lesbian couples, I'm pretty sure they all start with person I knew first too, so that helps solidify my theory.

So why did my mom sing "Amber and Peter" instead of her son's name first? I think it was a combination of peer pressure and the desire to make the song flow nicely instead of the awkward, "Happy Anniversary, dear Ampeberter and Ampeberterrrrr." I can't say I blame her for that.

Crap, I was just about to create a new theory about all of this, but it didn't pass the beta testing phase. My contention was going to be that when one meets both halves of a couple at the same time, the man's name comes first. This is true with our friends Jesse and Danielle, plus my parents' friends of Bob and Roberta and Steve and Sue. Then I remembered their friends Karen and Dean, and - pow! - there goes that theory. Whoops, Mickey and Cal further blow that one up. I'm going to stop thinking aloud now, because I imagine it's not much fun to see arbitrary people's names over and over again as part of the reading experience.

Here's a new topic that should get the kids buzzing in the streets: recipes! More specifically, I want to spend a few sentences writing about recipes that come on the boxes of food items. For example, if I have a bag of Kraft shredded cheddar cheese, there may be a receipe for some kind of nachos or casserole or something. My favorite part of these recipes is the inconspicuous placement of the company's own product in there. Ya know, when step 8 of the recipe is "Top with 1/2 cup of KRAFT SHREDDED CHEDDAR CHEESE." It always seems to be in caps too, as if they're saying to us, "Remember, we gave you this recipe, so you'd better use our product when making it or we'll be wicked pissed." They're all apparently from Boston in my version of the subtext. "Serve chilled, with 1 lb. TOSTITOS 'HINT OF LIME' TORTILLA STRIPS, and go Sox!"

Moving right along, my lovely wife and I wandered into a hat store within the past week. I wear baseball hats fairly often, and they fall into one of two categories: nasty, and not yet nasty. As far as the not yet nasty ones go, I try as long as I can to refrain from wearing them when I'm going to be sweating. They eventually transition to the nasty side, at which point they'll be in pictures with me hiking, at a baseball game, or helping someone move. Currently, I'd like to change things up a little, and keep my not yet nasty ones on that side of the aisle a little longer. Therefore, I entered that store in search of a new straight-to-nasty hat. It would have to be a very neutral color, and preferably one with either a team I like on it or something small and unobnoxious. I went over to the Dodger section, and immediately started looking for a cool Brooklyn one that I could be the only kid on the block to own. I picked one up, but then saw a stupid insignia on the back and returned it to its rightful location. There was a guy standing next me, and he reached for the one I'd just put back. So I spoke up: "Yeah, you can't go with the most common ones," I said, like we were already friends and agreed on this point. "Well I'm from Germany," he said in a very German accent, "so none of them are very common." I nodded, and added sarcastically, "Not too many Dodger hats running around there, eh?" "No. Not very many at all. Baseball is not as big there," he said, clearly not picking up what I was putting down. I checked out a few more hats, then left empty-handed (and -headed). I guess my current nasty hat o' choice will retain its spot at the top of the rotation for now.

I've seen ads around recently for the upcoming movie entitled "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." On one hand, I approve of their ad campaign, but on the other, it's really beginning to piss me off. The idea is that the notes we see are scribbled by the recently-dumped boyfriend. They say, to name two that come to mind first, "You Suck Sarah Marshall" and "I'm So Over You Sarah Marshall." Please note, I didn't leave out the commas, the genius ad wizards did. They're basically telling me that I am actively sucking someone named Sarah Marshall. What's so difficult about a comma? I like the idea of promoting the movie that way, but when an ad has only four words to it, can't they at least have those words placed in a grammatically correct fashion? I really don't ask for that much.

Ok, enough of the rambling and meaningless drivel that's taken up 1,110+ words of your time. Let's get to something that really matters in the grand scheme of things: Car Watch.

I saw a plate on the road a day or two ago from a bit of a distance. At first, I thought it said "PM SHAG." I laughed to myself, mainly because it made me think of the song "Afternoon Delight," which then got me thinking about Ron Burgundy and his fellow newsmen singing that song together in "Anchorman." But as I got closer, I saw that I'd read the letters correctly but misinterpreted the sentiment: it really said "PMS HAG." That's way different! I went from thinking about skyrockets in flight to a self-proclaimed bitch who I probably didn't want to drive too close to. I have a feeling she probably doesn't get many pm shags if that's the way she presents herself to strangers.

My homey Rockabye sent me a bumper sticker that I deemed fit for your eyes: "My horse bucked off your honor student." Let's see, where should I start with this one? I'll start in a broad sense: What's the big idea with bumper stickers targeting people who are proud of their kids' accomplishments? Shouldn't they be given a free pass, seeing as how they're trying to be supportive of kids who are more susceptible to being picked on? Second, that sticker's just a lie. That person's horse has probably never bucked off anyone's honor student, let alone the kid of the person in the car right behind them. Lastly, if I had a horse and someone's kid were riding him or her but got bucked off, I don't see why I'd be proud of that. I certainly wouldn't be proud enough to put that fact on my car. Sounds like a horse that needs to be whispered to a little more, if you ask me.

He also saw this sticker: "I'm sick of living without national health insurance." So death would be better? Look, I understand the merits of national health insurance, but I fail to see any situation in which not having it is worse than not living. I think that sentence had a triple negative in there, which reminds me of my favorite line from the "Family Ties" theme song: "And there ain't no nuthin' we can't love each other through." It starts with "and," has a triple or possibly quadruple negative, the word "ain't," and it ends in a proposition. That's just awesome. I suppose the right way to say that same sentence would've been, "We can love each other through anything." But where's the fun in that?

Lastly, I saw the popular "W" sticker from the president's campaign four years ago. Even though I've seen that literally countless times, something struck me this time. Is there any other person in history who has been known solely by his or her middle initial to a very large group? That's weird, right? I certainly can't think of anyone else who fits that description. The closest I can come up with, which really isn't that close at all, is a baseball player who is known simply by "Junior." That's impressive in its own right, considering I know who someone is talking about when they just mention his suffix instead of his first or last name. That's the best parallel I've got. Friends, what do you say?

Ok, that's it for me. You all have a lovely weekend, and I'll see you back here in April. During that intervening week, it's my co-worker Rob's birthday, so happy early birthday to him. And happy early April Fools' Day to you all. If the past is a good predictor of the future, I have a feeling my old elementary school principal might call my mom to say I'm in trouble again. Just a hunch. Shaloha, friends.

Overhear, over there

Top of the morning to you, folks. While every day is special and unique (like a snowflake) here at UOPTA, today is even more snowflakey than the rest. Yes, today is the fourth anniversary of my lovely wife becoming my lovely wife. It's been a wonderful four years, and she's been putting up with my oddities since we first started dating way back in '95, so she deserves heaps of praise and admiration. Happy Anniversary, honey. Oh yeah, and it's Good Friday and the Mexican holiday of Benito Juarez' Birthday today too. Bonus. Ready for random crap? Here goes:

Every once in a while, I'll hear a word that someone says and then tune out the rest of the sentence because I'm thinking about that word. It happens more often than "every once in a while," if I'm being honest here. This happened over the past weekend while in the car with my parents and my Aunt Judy en route to the Susan G. Komen breast cancer walk that we do each year. Judy was telling us about some remodeling they're doing in their house, and she said the word "upholstery" at one point. As she continued, I was somewhere else. Here was my thought process as she kept talking: "Hmmm, 'upholstery.' I saw that word somewhere with Amber recently and had a good thought about it. What was it? Something about the H being basically silent? No, that wasn't it. Oh! I know. It's the only word I can think of off-hand in which a PH doesn't make an F sound. I should email myself right now about this so I don't forget." So that's what I did. When I mentally rejoined the rest of the carload, Judy was saying something about buying a bag of grout. Grout apparently comes in bags.

(As a side note, I spent the first 15 minutes of the 5K walk trying to explain the "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" thing from last week to my friends Greg and Ceil. They understood it pretty quickly, which I credit more to them than to my skills of explanation.)

I know I probably say this a lot, but I thought something I dislike. This one's not too high on the list, but I thought of it, and I seem to have misplaced the filter that normally resides between my brain and my blog. (Hmmm, "My Brain and My Blog" by Peter Klein has a nice ring to it. Also, I just accidentally typed my name as Pewter before using that fancy backspace key. How many of you have accidentally typed a metal instead of your name? Yep, I'm special.) Here's what I don't like: Sometimes I will go and see a blockbuster comedy in the theaters. Not often, recently, but it's been known to happen. These films are promoted so much that it's virtually impossible for anyone in that theater not to be able to quote a few of the funny lines from the commercials. Yet, when that one line that has been on every commercial, in every preview, and on every billboard comes up in the movie, half the audience still laughs like they're hearing it for the first time. What's up with that shit? Really, you didn't know that character was going to say, "Don't let him near the kid, he wants to rear your child!" in "Knocked Up"? I find that hard to believe. Assholes.

I heard a radio commercial trying to encourage me to apply to be a deputy. I had no problem with the content of the ad, and if I read the copy instead of heard it, I wouldn't be writing about it now. The thing is, the dude doing the voiceover pronounced the most important word of the commercial as "deppity." And he said it about ten times in the thirty seconds. That bugged the hell out of me. My facial expression went from "Wait, did he say that wrong?" to "What the fuck is wrong with this person" in about 3.5 deppities. Maybe I should stick to listening to cds in the car to keep my blood pressure down.

When I was in Miami for work a wee bit ago, I passed a young woman on the street as she was in mid conversation. I heard her say, "Holy casserole!" to her friend, and it sounded like an honest reaction to something that surprised her. (In retrospect, it could've been the fact that I wasn't wearing any pants.) If you'd have given me 100 guesses on what noun followed "holy" as an exclamation, I never would've guessed it. 1000, and maybe, because I'm sure I'd allot at least fifty to types of meals (quiche, jambalaya, pilaf, fricassee, etc.). I enjoy hearing random bits of conversations, and I wish that happened more often. The best one I can recall right now was back in high school, when a fellow student walked past me while telling her friend, "And I was so stoned that I just put the cigarette out in my belly button." I'm pretty sure I got the best line of that entire conversation just with my perfectly-timed walking. Go me. (Somewhere, someone's telling a friend, "While walking a 5K, I heard some weirdo say 'buffalo' like ten times in a row.")

Here's something I overheard that I thought was funny. Actually, it definitely was funny, so if you don't at least smile, I'm pretty sure it's your fault. When I was on a plane next to a woman and her baby (as detailed a few weeks ago right here), a flight attendant came up to the mom right after we touched down. "They were so good," she said about the twin babies on either side of the aisle, "But I think one of them needs a changing!" "Really?" the mom said, sniffing around her daughter's butt. "Yeah, I smell a poopy diaper over here," she said, then turned and left. The mom turned to her husband and said, "I don't smell poop. I smell, like, pee. I mean, I don't smell like pee, but, oh never mind, you know what I mean." Quote of the flight, ladies and gentlemen.

I know I've already given you so much today, but in the spirit of the day before Easter Eve, I have more for you. Yes, it's time for the one, the weekly, Car Watch!

First off, I saw a bumper sticker that commented on the driver's position on a social issue. That stance itself is not important really, but rather the fact that it was preceded by, "I think, therefore..." You can fill in the blank however you like. Pick a side on abortion, the death penalty, same-sex marriage, etc., and you got the point. Personally, I didn't agree with the person's stance, thus, I apparently don't think. (Well, this would be a pretty stupid name for my blog then, eh?) I understand that people have different opinions on hot-button issues like those than I might, but I've never once thought that they came to those opinions by not thinking. If I don't vote for that woman's preferred candidate, does that mean I don't think too? Probably. I don't like that way of seeing opposing viewpoints, and I think (if I may be so bold) that many of you will agree.

That sticker reminded me of another from years ago, and I'll switch to that and unfurrow my brow. I saw, "I drink therefore I am" while in a car with Dusty the summer before starting college. I made some comment like, "Just because a word rhymes doesn't mean you can switch it out of an idiom and it will automatically make sense or be funny." Yeah, I actually did talk like that back then. Dusty, who was about to start at the University of Rochester, told me that in the campus bookstore, he saw a sticker that said, "I think therefore UR." Brilliant! I'm Peter Klein, and I approve that use of humor on a bumper sticker.

My loving mother-in-law sent me a license plate frame she saw and her accompanying thought process. It read, "Driver Reads Braille." Her first thought, as mine would undoubtedly have been, was that the driver was blind. Then she realized (hoped) that that most likely wasn't the case. Even though I know that sighted people also read Braille, I'm sure the two of us aren't alone in automatically associating it with blind people. See, I wouldn't assume for a second that the driver was deaf if it said "Driver Knows American Sign Language." I think that's because people use ASL to translate for the hearing impaired, while no one uses Braille to help the blind in quite the same fashion. I guess that leads to the $50,000 question: why do some people with sight choose to learn Braille? I can think of two legitimate reasons, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on the subject. First, someone with a blind relative or friend (especially a child) might learn it along with that person as a way of helping him or her learn to read. Second, there are strange people like me out there who like to learn things just for the sake of learning them sometimes. Wait, I thought of a third. When they make books in Braille, they're probably created by sighted people who know how to use the cool machines to make the right markings on the paper. That makes sense unless there are computer programs that do that all automatically. Damn, it's probably the latter. But it probably used to be people. Was this driver one of those original Braille transcribers before the machines took over? Wow, this paragraph got long as I started discussing this topic by myself.

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw "(Heart)2HEARU" on a plate. Maybe it's that last topic speaking, but doesn't that sound like someone rubbing their ability to hear in deaf people's faces? (Wow, I originally wrote "deaf people's feces" accidentally as I was typing while watching basketball on tv. That's a whole different - more worrisome - type of rubbing all together. Sorry about that mental image, folks.)

Ok, I've officially lost it. Me brain no worky no more. Have a lovely weekend (including Easter, if that sort of thing is your bag) and week until I see you here again next Friday. Once again, if you feel like sending anything at all to ptklein@gmail.com, I wouldn't be mad at you. Shaloha, and take care.

The day of sweet numbers

Today, my friends and friends of friends, is a very special day. Oh sure, it's the birthday of Einstein, Quincy Jones, Michael Caine, Billy Crystal, and Rick Dees, but that's not what I'm talking about. Check it out: Some people write a date with dashes in between the numbers. Others (like Ben and Juliet) use slashes between them. And then there are those who use dots or decimals to separate day from month. Let's all think like that last group for a second. With that format, today's date is 3.14. Yes, that same 3.14 that begins the glory of Pi. (I think I've mentioned this before, but my friend Dave and I once had a contest to see how many digits we could each remember. He got about 5 more than me. I still remember 3.141592653589 and I think 79 follows that and then maybe a 2, but I had about ten more digits memorized in my...prime. Ha!)

In honor of Pi Day, as I am calling it (and I'm 100% certain that others are as well even though I haven't heard of this celebration yet), I splurged and ordered a pie for the office along with a co-worker. The Sports Guy on espn.com once mentioned Porch Pies (http://www.porchpies.com/) for those in L.A. to check out. There was a little sticker shock at first, but with a couple of people going in, it wasn't so bad. Now, I'm not the biggest pie person in the world. That honor probably goes to Dom DeLuise. However, I like a good apple one from time to time, especially when it's got some crumble action going on, but I don't grab a dessert menu and immediately go to the pie section or anything. Still, believe me when I tell you that the $30 pie we ordered the time before in the office was a bargain. Seriously, it was that good, and I can't wait for today's. We got the buttermilk one, which I needed to be talked into since it sounded weird, and I can only describe it as tasting like "pureed goodness." Man, it's gonna be a good day. (By the way, if anyone from Porch Pies is reading this, I still have one sponsorship slot available for the right price. Although I guess you just got my glowing endorsement for free, so that wouldn't make the best business sense for you. Ah, I know, you should reward my word-spreading with a free pie. Yeah, that's the ticket.)

If you couldn't tell yet, today's post is going to be full of random crap. That's how I roll on Pi Day. After all, you can't spell "the number Pi" without Peter. (I love that I can add "the" to something to help with 40% of my name, by the way.) So here's another unrelated item: I spent literally 20 minutes trying to iron a new dress shirt this morning, not counting the set-up/heating-up time. One shirt! And I stopped at 20 minutes because I gave up and thought I could blame my seatbelt for the remaining creases. Here's the reason this is blogworthy in my opinion: In big letters on a tag attached to my new shirt, it said "Wrinkle Free!" I just don't understand how they can say that when the minute I take it out of the plastic and expertly remove all of the pins, a very wrinkled shirt is sitting in my hands. Are they saying that after I first take out all of the wrinkles, it will stay that way forever? That's not true either, because I've had other shirts that make the same claim. I'm very confused by this blatant and bold-faced fabric-ation. (Sorry.) It's the equivalent of selling someone a flat basketball with a "Never Loses Air!" sticker on it. Or a moldy loaf of bread with an expiration date two years from now on it. Or a $6 burger costing...oh don't get me started.

Ok, I'm gonna get a little strange on you right now, so be prepared. How many of you are familiar with the Greek Mythology story of Sisyphus? Basically, he's in Tartarus (the ancient Greek version of hell), condemned to constantly push a giant boulder up a hill all day every day. When he gets near the top, it rolls all the way back down and he has to start over. It's a story that I've always leapt to when in need of an example of futility, and it's made its way into a poem or two that I wrote in college. Here's my new thought with this old story: Where have we all seen a similar plight? Think about it for a second: we all know a character in a very similar situation. Give up? The Itsy Bitsy Spider. Seriously. He climbs up the water spout, gets tossed back down by the rain, waits a bit, then starts the same cycle over again. For eternity. (How many, "Holy shit, he might actually have a point here" thoughts did I just get from you?) Let it be known throughout the land: when you're in need of a link between Greek mythology and nursery rhymes, I'm your man. (I have a great Prometheus/Three Little Pigs theory brewing.)

Next item! My friend Dusty sent me something that many of you will undoubtedly not bother with, and I can't blame you. This is for the few of you who will like it. On this link (http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13120) it explains how "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is an actual, grammatically-correct sentence. Intrigued? If not, don't even click it because it won't be worth it. I have one guarantee for anyone who reads it: the word "buffalo" will look and sound like nonsense to you for a little while. I think it's really cool, and Dusty knows that I'm weird like that, so I greatly appreciated the forward.

Earlier this week, I looked up and saw the word "joy" in an email I was writing. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how that word got there, because while I knew it was a typo, I hadn't planned on writing anything even remotely similar in that part of that sentence. I went back and figured out that contextually, I meant to write the word "hit" there. That confused me even more at first, but then I looked at the keyboard. Go ahead, I'll give you a second. There, ya see what happened? I was off by one key to the right when I set my fingers up to type, and those three erroneous letters ended up forming their own word. It's kinda like a more modern version of IBM and HAL, if you know what I'm talking about. I'm glad I figured it out, because "in order to joy the target demographic" just wasn't going to make me sound competent enough.

Here's a hypothetical situation that's probably been an actual one for the majority of you. Say you're walking from your car to your front door, and you see some dog shit on your lawn. It's not from your dog, and you're unhappy that someone didn't clean up after his or her pet. What do you do? For me, the options are limited but all require little or no effort. I might leave it there and be pissed off, or I might clean it up next time I'm cleaning up my own pet's poop. In the category of "a little more effort," I can understand if some of you would then put up a sign that said "Please clean up after your pets" or a picture of a dog dumping with a red circle and line through it. To me, those are all perfectly acceptable responses. What my lovely wife found, on the other hand, was someone who went to a slightly more involved response to the shit. She took and sent me this picture:

Now, it's a little dark and a lot sideways, but it's a laminated color sign, three posts, and a shitload of effort to point at the poo. Yes, it's still there. Follow the big blue arrown. Can you believe the hassle that person went through? How incredibly pissed off was he (I'm assuming) to do all of that. What if it was gone by the time he got there with his whole project? Better yet, what if it was a stray dog that crapped on his lawn? How unbelievably misguided would his ire be then? Stylistically, I'm a little confused by some of the choices this person made. With the clear ability to print in color, he chose just "asshole" and "shit" to stand out, and in different colors of course. Clearly though, he wanted "clean" to stand out too, but he went with the underline instead of the color there. Why? I also want to know how he decided that the person being an asshole merited only one exclamation while the shit-cleaning earned two. Lastly, I want to know if he had all of these supplies already because this is a habit of his. "Hey Fuckwad! Leave the NEWSPAPER on my PORCH next time!!" He must be fun at parties.

And now, as if that isn't enough deep ruminating for one day, let's mosey our little booties over to the Car Watch. (I meant butts and not woven socks, by the way.)

My dad wrote me saying that he saw this bumper sticker: "Make brown rice not war." I never knew they were mutually exclusive. I'm glad to learn that though, because we made brown rice at home within the past week. At the time, I thought the lack of war was a coincidence, but now I know the true correlation. Brown Rice 08! (I don't mean Jerry Brown and Condi though, just to be clear. Bobby Brown and JerryRice? Jerry Brown and Jerry Rice? That's an interesting pair. Got more Browns and Rices? Comment away.)

My homey Rockabye sent me a bumper sticker as well: "Gnomes Unite," it said. I'm not going to go the obvious route and wax faux-poetically about what united gnomes might accomplish. Instead, I'm going to be practical with my question about this car adornment. Is that truly the best place to put a message intended to rally fictitious garden creatures? How many gnomes does that driver expect to be in the car behind him or her? Everyone is entitled to their own pet causes, but at least advertise them correctly. Gee whiz.

Did I just say "Gee whiz?" What happened there? Good gravy.

And finally, I saw a license plate that said, "PETITMD." I'm slightly confused by this. In my opinion as an expert Car Watcher, I see three possible meanings. Ahem:
1. "I'm short in stature, but I aced my way through med school. I'm a Petite MD, but oh yeah, I can't spell very well."
2. "In the veterinary clinic, I specialize on miniature computers to put in cats and dogs that tell us what ails our furry friends since they can't speak. It's a new field, but I'd say I'm a Pet Information Technology Medical Doctor."
3. "I like going into doctors' offices, exposing myself, and commanding them to touch me."

I'm pretty sure it's one of those three. Ok, enough fun for today. I had fun at least. Have a grand weekend and week, gentle readers. May all of your Ides of Marches be pleasant tomorrow. And please, when you come across anything I might find interesting, funny, disturbing, or confusing as hell, send it along to ptklein@gmail.com. Buffaloha.

Good expectations

Hello and good morning, mis amiguitos. Thanks for meeting me back here today for another installment of UOPTA. Time marches on and puts us in March. Some would call that ironic. They would be wrong.

As my ideas for posts are fewer and farther between, I look for inspiration wherever I can get it. (Did you ever realize that "farther" is "fart" + "her"? I sure as hell didn't. I think I just ruined that word for me. Just like I ruined "pumpkin" for my friend Melissa when I pointed out what two words that puts together. Manslaughter is another one of these if you make the first word possessive. Do I digress? Damn right I digress.) Therefore, when I knew I was flying cross-country and back for a conference in between blog posts, I was hopeful that one of those flights would be eventful enough to share with you all. That's been a good source for me in the past, so that hope wasn't an entirely unfounded one.

Unfortunately, the flight out was pretty standard. The most noteworthy thing about the five-hour flight was that I was in the middle seat, and I thought the guy next to me had gas. He later went to the lavatory for a whopping 15 minutes, so I was probably right. (Unless he was tampering with the smoke detector in the lavatory, that is. Of course I would never insinuate that anyone was committing a federal crime, so I'm going to assume he was shitting instead.) Needless to say, if that was the most noteworthy thing about the flight, it wasn't too exciting for me.

The return flight, on the other hand, gave me some more ammo. As I look at the notes I jotted down during those hours, they all fall under the umbrella of "changes and expectations." What, you guys don't have an umbrella like that? Weird. In any case, I'm going to break this down into sections to give off an air of preparedness.

Flight times:

Having completed everything we set out to accomplish earlier than expected, a co-worker and I found out that there was a flight leaving about an hour and half before our scheduled one. Excited by that prospect, we went early to the airport. Here's what I expected: We would get there, and the person at the desk would tell us that we could fly standby or change our flight for several hundred dollars. I would then realize that since I needed to check a bag (which my co-worker didn't), I wouldn't be able to do the standby thing. I thought he'd get on, and I'd sit around for a couple of hours, possibly trying to type a blog post about something. Instead, we got to an automated kiosk thingy, and it said that we could switch flights, secure our spots for only $25 each, and check my bag onto that new flight. Expectation exceeded!

Seat assignments:

I was in the middle again, and having survived it on the way over, I wasn't too upset about having to do that again. My co-worker stopped at the gate and asked if there was any way he could be moved to a window. "Well, it's a very full flight, but let's see here," the nice American Airlines employee told him. "And...yes, I found a window seat for you." I piped up, "Um, is there any chance that you can work your magic again for my middle seat?" Here's what I expected: "No. There was one possible change on this full flight, and I already made it for your friend here." Instead, she told me that there was on window seat available in the last row. "Hmmm, that doesn't recline, right?" I asked. She confirmed my suspicions. "Sure," I said, "why not? Reclining's overrated." I almost made some joke involving "Klein" and "recline," but I stopped myself. Expectation exceeded!

Seat assignments, part II:

I boarded with the rest of Boarding Group 2, and slowly made my way to the back of the plane. Here's what I expected: I would slide in to the window seat, be joined by two nice-enough people with whom I would have no interaction. That would be fine with me, I told myself. Instead, I arrived at the last row and slid in past a woman and a young baby in the aisle seat. "Uh oh," I thought. The baby smiled at me. "How old is she?" I asked. "They're 11 months," the mom answered, gesturing across the aisle. Sure enough, the dad was there holding a twin brother. "Double uh oh," I thought. Here's what I jotted down (discreetly) on my piece of paper: "Next to 11 month old who tired of her toys before take off. Another baby across the aisle. Fingers crossed. Smells like urine, hope that goes away. Have to crane my neck to see closest screen. That sucks. 'Reclining's overrated.' Ha!" Expectation...not quite met.

Seat assignments, part III:

As it turned out, no one took that middle seat in between me and the mom/baby combo in the aisle seat, so I had a little more room. Also, shockingly, the seat actually went back an inch or two. Not a full recline, but enough to encourage sleep and help me see the screen a little better. Most importantly, the babies were excellent. I did have music playing loudly in my ears, but even if I hadn't, they were very good. The boy cried once for just a couple of seconds, and the girl didn't make more than a couple of peeps. In truth, the parents were much louder, singing songs, squeaking toys, and reading loudly to the kids. Expectation exceeded (based on the extremely-lowered expectation of "seat assignments, part II).

In-flight entertainment:

Before takeoff, I flipped through the complimentary magazine located in the seat pocket in front of me. West-bound flights like mine, I was told, were showing "Alvin and the Chipmunks." Craptastic! Here's what I expected: I would listen to my iPod and watch occasional five-minute soundless sections of the movie. At other times, I would prefer to stare at the seat in front of me or do more sudoku or crossword puzzles rather than subject myself to what would certainly be a horrible movie. Here's what happened: I altered my own course of history. One flight attendant said to the other, "It's supposed to be this 'Alvin' one, but we also have one called 'Enchanted.' There aren't many young kids on this flight; should we switch it out?" I looked over to them and nodded as vehemently as a man can nod. "Yeah?" one said back to me. I nodded again. Someone else chimed in seconding my motion, and they agreed. Expectations exceeded!

In-flight entertainment, part II:

I'd heard good things about "Enchanted," even though I wasn't a huge fan of the songs I heard from it during the Oscar telecast. Still, I thought I remembered my lovely wife's friend Candice liking it, so I was happy to choose a potentially-good movie over an extended view of airplane seatback fabric. Here's what happened: I didn't like it. I kept waiting for the little winks to the adult audience, and they never really materialized. Instead, I found a few scenes made me literally shake my head in disapproval and look around to see if anyone else was doing the same. (They weren't.) Patrick Dempsey made his one face ("I'm-a-good-guy-but-I'm-conflicted-and-that-makes-me-sad"), and everything wrapped up even more neatly than "Good Will Hunting." That's saying something. Oh yeah, and this movie also had a talking chipmunk, so I wasn't able to avoid that genre all together. Expectations not met.

Celebrity encounter:
While waiting for the plane, I noticed that actor Nathan Fillion walked by and sat down near me. I knew him originally from "Two Guys and a Girl," but saw him in commercials for "Firefly," "Serenity," and the shortlived series, "Drive." (He was also Kate's policeman husband in one episode of "Lost.") Here's what I expected: I'd pass him as he sat in first class, and then maybe see him again at baggage claim hours later. Here's what happened: He and his lady friend sat directly in front of me. He watched "Enchanted" also, and I think I saw him express disapproval at one of the scenes. Of course, I may have been projecting. Everything was leading to a final verdict of "Expectations moderately exceeded" when something happened. It was about half an hour before we landed when a male flight attendant stopped in front of Mr. Fillion and started speaking. Ready for dialogue mode? Here goes.

Flight Attendant: Excuse me, were you in a movie called something like, "The New Country?"
Nathan: No, sorry.
Flight Attendant: (confused by not put-off) Hmmm. Were you in "Waitress?"
Nathan: Yes.
Flight Attendant: Oh! I knew it! You weren't in "The New Country?"
Nathan: No, sorry.
Flight Attendant: Filmed in Minnesota, I think.
Nathan: No, that wasn't me.
Flight Attendant: Really? I thought those two were the same actor. There's another actor that must look just like you!
Nathan: I was in "Waitress."
Flight Attendant: Wow, that's weird, I really thought that was you. You weren't in "The New Country?"
Nathan: (shakes his head)
Flight Attendant: Oh well. I thought those were the same person.

Now that conversation might not seem that awkward on the surface, but now add five seconds of silence after each line, and picture the flight attendant standing over Mr. Fillion and blocking the aisle. It was highly uncomfortable, and I loved it. Expectations highly exceeded.

So there you go. I was pleasantly surprised by how off all of my expectations of the flight ended up being. In total, they added up to a post, and I don't look that gift horse in the mouth. (I like that phrase and don't get to use it enough. Contrary to the belief of unpopular people who think about such things, it has nothing to do with the Trojan Horse. In that situation, they absolutely should've looked the gift horse in the mouth. Rather, you can supposedly tell a horse's age from its teeth, so it's rude to do that to a horse that someone just gave you as a present.)

And now, please return your seats and trays to their upright and locked positions, for we're heading on down to the Car Watch.

My homey Rockabye saw a bunch of good plates and the like over the past week, so this is going to be an entire Rockabye Edition. First off, he saw a license plate frame that read, "Addicted to..." Ya know, I'm gonna stop there for a second. I have a feeling that I could give you each 100 guesses and no one would get the answer. In fact, I could tell you that it's a person, hell, a movie star even, and still give you each 20 guesses. This driver is addicted to..."Jim Carrey." Addicted! That's mighty strong, don't you think? Does s/he suffer withdrawals after a time away from Jim Carrey's works and need to pop in an old VHS of "In Living Color" to stop the shakes? Would Dane Cook be the methadone to Jim Carrey's brand of smack? I have so many questions.

He also saw a plate that asked, "RUMYDOG." While many people call me "Dawg," I am certainly not that person's dog. In fact, I don't believe that anyone is answering affirmatively to that inquiry. How many times is his or her dog truly behind the car or in another similar position to say yes to that? Oh yeah, dogs can't say "yes." So never; never is the answer we're looking for.

Next off, he saw "BRAKE L8" on a plate. That car should never get rear ended, due to the fact that it gives people more than ample warning. "Well officer, I didn't see that the light was red until I was almost in the intersection, but in my defense, I told the car behind me non-stop that this was likely to happen." Case dismissed.

Last but not least, he saw a plate that told everyone in view, "MKMLAFF." I shall do my best, fellow Angelino, I shall do my best.

That's it, my peeps. Have a lovely weekend and entire week until we meet back here next Friday. During that time, my Cousin Carrie will turn a year older (Monday), and my fantasy baseball keeper team ("Stillwell Angels") will be complete after our hours-long auction (Wednesday night). Ok, shaloha my friends, and I'll see you back here soon.