Some jokes on me

Howdy, pardners, and welcome to another week of things of which I think. Sit back, kick up your feet (if you can still reach your mouse from that position), and settle in. I have a few loosely related topics I'm planning on sharing, and depending on how much I ramble, we just might get to all of them.

I thought of a story from my youth recently that I hadn't thought of in at least a decade. Therefore, if I don't write it out now, it might go away and never be thought of again. First, I shall provide a little back-story, since that seems the polite thing to do. Even though I'm often accused of being strange, I had some fairly standard aspects of my life growing up. For instance, I used to go to the mall and hang out with my friends when we were early teens. My parents lived about a mile from the mall, and so walking there and back became the thing to do when we weren't in school. In hindsight, "hanging out" at the mall meant walking around, eating, looking at cute girls, never talking to cute girls, looking at the new cassette singles out that week, and playing video games in the arcade.

In any case, it was one such afternoon in my 13th or 14th year that a friend and I were leaving the mall for the short jaunt back to my parents' place. As soon as we started crossing one of the parking lots to get to the street, I heard a voice say, "Hey!" I looked up, and there were two cute girls, probably 16 or 17 looking right at me. I'm sorry, I didn't say that right. I meant, LOOKING RIGHT AT ME! I somehow managed to say hi back (or at least mouth it), when the strangest thing happened. "It's your old boyfriend!" one of the girls said to the other. "You're right!" the second one said, and she walked all the way up to me and gave me a hug. "How are you?" she asked. "Good," I said, knowing that I was probably beet red with my eyes open wider than Delta Burke. (Why'd I go with Delta Burke? I have no idea, but she came to mind first, so it was either going with that or sitting and thinking more. I chose the former and stand by that decision with all the conviction of...the Menendez brothers. What, they were convicted, right? Maybe I should stop now.) Then, noticing my strained silence, I felt rude and asked, "Um, how are you?" She said she was good, and the two of them had big silly grins on their faces. I knew they were just messing with me, not just because I can detect tomfoolery from miles away, but mainly because I had a pretty clear recollection of all zero of my girlfriends up to that point. "Do you guys need a ride home?" my not-ex asked. Trying to play it as cool as possible, I said that we were fine walking. She gave me another hug, told me to take care, and they got in her car and drove off. We stood there for a while watching them, and they must've been cracking up with that image in the rearview mirror.

Here's what gets me about that story. It's not that they had some fun at the expense of a young, unsure, nervous version of me. I bet it was really funny for them to see my shocked face, and I wouldn't be surprised if they spent their whole car ride (or even the next five years) imitating my botched attempts at looking comfortable with the situation. What gets me is how many other things I could've done in hindsight. As my friend and I walked back, we went over those options (after he asked me about thirty times if I was positive that she wasn't really an ex-girlfriend of mine). I so easily could've foiled their plans and made them the ones with the awkward pauses and confused glances. The first thing we came up with was fairly simple: grab her ass when she hugged me. "Hey you - yeah, it's been a while. You're still lookin' fine." Or I could've called her bluff even more, my friend said, by asking her to make out with me right there "for old time's sake." Of course, adult Peter has better suggestions.

Girl 1: It's your old boyfriend!

Peter: Stop right there. You know as well as I do that you're not allowed within 50 feet of me. Please tell me you didn't bring a knife with you again this time.

I have several more suggestions of what I could've said, but in the interest of leaving this blog at least mildly family-friendly, I'll just move onto another topic.

Around seven or eight years ago, a woman with whom I worked at UCSB purchased a new BMW convertible. It was beautiful, and she drove me to lunch one afternoon to show me all of its features. "Did I tell you about the voice-activated stereo system?" she asked. "No way," I said, since this was before similar things were common in even less luxurious vehicles. "Watch this," she said: "103.3 please." In a split second, the radio changed. "That's amazing!" I said. "You try it," she offered, "but I programmed it to only recognize the stations with 'please' after them." I went through the three or four most popular stations, and it switched to all of them right away. I tried not using "please" once just to see, and it didn't switch. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and when her side-view mirrors tilted down automatically when she went into reverse, I was convinced that I was in the most advanced car ever built.

I got back to the office, and still shaking my head a bit, I went to say hi to another co-worker. "Did Lynn show you her car?" she asked me. "Sure did; man that thing's cool," I responded. "Did she try fooling you with the radio trick?" she asked. I stared at her for a second dumbfounded, which pretty much answered her question. "There's a control on the left side of the steering wheel. I guess you didn't notice that she was pushing things there. It took me a minute to figure it out, so don't feel bad." Here's the thing: I did feel bad. I was the one who did those things to people, not the other way around. I did very similar things, in fact. I knew a girl in high school who spent a whole year thinking that the inside light of my car was turned on and off by her tapping it. Sure, she also thought that I wouldn't celebrate Thanksgiving because I was Jewish, but that's beside the point. I was supposed to be the joker instead of the jokee, and so it took me a little while to appreciate her masterful execution of the trick. I eventually did, and she confessed that she felt a little bad when she saw how into it I was getting.

Now, some people might think that there would be a moral to this story. Something nice and wrapped up in a little bow like, "Once I felt first-hand what it was like to be the butt of the joke, I took others' feelings into consideration when making jokes of my own." No, fuck that. I wasn't about to change my ways just because someone got me good. On the contrary, it renewed my faith in how funny those situations can be when they're at the expense of others. I just vowed to be a little more skeptical of technology in the future.

I'm sure it's related to that last story, but the word "comeuppance" just popped into my head. That's a weird one, isn't it? Are there any other words similar to that? I don't feel like really thinking about this right now, so give me a holler if you think of anything. Isn't delegating great?

And now, for the last time in July 2008, it's Car Watch time! (I put an exclamation there because I hoped to infuse a little excitement into this running segment. Did it work?)

My favorite brother saw this license plate and sent it to me right away: "4PETER7." Peter the 7th? If so, I guess that could be the plate on the car that my great great great grandson gives to my great great great great grandson on his 16th birthday. We'll just have to wait and see.

I saw two plates in a row that made it into the same text message to myself. Therefore, it's only fitting to have them in the same Car Watch as well. The first one was a standard issue plate, but it still caught my eye and made me laugh. It was, "5AKA272." I tried thinking of a situation in which the number 5 might go by the pseudonym of 272. Then I pictured a 5 walking into a bar and telling a very curvy 86 that his name was 272. I stopped that scene there, because sometimes even I get weirded out by my strangeness. (Oh boy, I just did it again. I was about to write something about me getting "increasingly odd," which led to me thinking, "Kind of like 1,3,5." What's wrong with me?)

The second plate I saw was, "ESSO B." Like S.O.B.? Why would anyone want that for a personalized plate? Part of me really hopes that it's an accident and the person is unknowingly driving around and proclaiming that s/he is a son of a bitch, but I doubt that's the case. I don't know what else to say about that one except that it left me confused and as close to speechless as I get.

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw this: "FABUL(Heart)S." No, no, no! I'm a strong proponent of using the heart symbol only for "heart" or "love." If someone wants to use it in place of a letter instead, I might be ok with it on rare occasions, but I have a really hard time seeing a heart and thinking, "Oh yeah, that totally takes the place of an O and a U." Unless the person really meant to capture the word "fabulloves," I'm gonna have to disapprove of that plate.

Ok folks, I'm outstro. Have one hell of a weekend and week. During that time, Happy Half-Birthdays to our friends The Mills, Melissa, Bryan, and little Emma (who will be 0.5 on Thursday). Please email me with anything at all at ptklein@gmail.com. Shaloha, friends.

Fax and fiction

Good morning yet again, and welcome to UOPTA. No, it's not the Upper Oregon Parent-Teacher Association, but I can see why you'd make that mistake. Rather, this is the place in which your friendly neighborhood Peter rambles somewhat coherently about the topics arbitrarily chosen for this week. Are you ready for the disjointed shiznit that I'm about to throw down? No? Ok, um, are you ready to...read stuff? Ok, cool, I'm glad we cleared that up.

There are certain mediums (media?) of mass solicitation to which I've become fully accustomed. For example, when I check our mailbox and see an advertisement for a realtor, a tree-trimmer, or someone who can service our nonexistent swimming pool, I'm not surprised. Likewise, spam in the email form doesn't surprise me at all, and neither do cold calls from people peddling various wares. There is one distribution channel that still makes me shake my head a little though: cold faxes. Being an early bird, I'm the first one who arrives in my office every morning. Occasionally, I see that a fax came in during the evening hours, and I always check to see if it's anything important. It almost never is.

I'll give these people credit for the most part because they clearly try hard to fool people. There are fake memos from "Human Resources" asking us to circulate this amazing vacation deal that they found. Sometimes it's in an email format, saying something like, "Hey buddy, here's the information on that stock tip I was telling you about. It's gonna go through the roof!" I guess they expect someone to say, "That's right, I was talking to someone recently about a stock tip. I guess this is how that person chose to follow up with me. I'll take a gajillion shares please." Sometimes they got the name of the company or an individual from some other list. That's problematic, especially when someone who passed away months ago gets invited to various fundraising dinners.

One unsolicited fax caught my eye this week and reminded me that I hadn't yet talked about this topic. This one isn't trying to fool anyone with underhanded trickery or subterfuge, but rather just a good old fashioned "too good to be true" deal. What do I mean by that? Well, here is the offer and I swear I'm not making any of this up: "2 children free with 2 paid adults! 5 days and 4 nights in Orlando, 3 days and 2 nights in Daytona Beach and Ft. Lauderdale. Plus: 3 day 2 night Bahamas cruise. Bonus: 5 day Cancun or 7 day Puerto Vallarta. Mini Excursion: 3/2 Las Vegas. For the FIRST 100 callers! No Blackout Dates! All this for only $99." Ok, so I can get a 19-21 day vacation for under a hundred bucks, but only if I act right now? I can't see why not. Oh yeah, because they're lying liars with big fat lie-heads. I'd rather punch myself repeatedly in the face for four hours than give those people my credit card information. (And I don't have a high pain tolerance, so that really means something.)

I barbecued some turkey burgers at our house within the past week, and I had the most interesting conversation in my head. Well, it was interesting to me at least, and that's all that really matters here. I wanted to wash my hands after handling the raw meat, but I didn't want to get raw meat residue on the soap dispenser, so I used my forearm to push it down a few times. Then, for reasons unbeknownst to me (or anyone for that matter), I created a dialogue in my head between two made-up characters, who naturally happened to be British. The scene went something like this:

Two British men stand in a kitchen. We'll call them Nigel and Colin, because those names totally sound British. Colin walks up to the kitchen sink and with an open hand, pushed down on the soap dispenser several times. Nigel stands looking aghast.

Colin: What?
Nigel: You just touched the soap dispenser with raw meat on your hands!
Colin: Yeah, I did. So what?
Nigel: (getting a little agitated) So what? Now every time someone else touches that, they're touching all of the bacteria and germs that were on the uncooked meat.
Colin: Yeah. So?
Nigel: (getting much more agitated) SO? That's incredibly unsanitary, mind you.
Colin: Ah, yes, but you see, every time someone touches it, they're about to wash their hands, aren't they?
(Nigel stairs at Colin for a minute, and we see his emotions change from angry to contemplative to persnickety, and finally to resigned.)
Nigel: Bugger.

And...scene. Believe me, folks, I'm almost as weirded out as you are that I have spontaneous British scenes appearing in my head. Still, that Colin has a point. I mean, it really doesn't matter how filthy the top of a soap dispenser is when touching leads to washing one's hands 100% of the time. God save the Queen!

Speaking of the British persuasion, is there any doubt in anyone's mind that "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" was written by someone from the U.K.? Seriously, who else calls anything "jolly good," and who else refers to people as "fellows" (unless some kind of grant is involved)? Why not make it, "I Fancy He's a Bloody Brilliant Bloke and my Best Mate. Cheers!" and remove all doubt?

You know what word I recently realized that I really liked? Laughingstock. What a great noun. We need more just like it. Seriously, do we have any other words with that construction? If someone has mono, are they going to be a sleepingstock for the next two weeks? Does anyone ever say, "Man, I'm so f'n hungry. I'm gonna be the eatingstock of the party"? We should! Why waste that cool word style just on one word?

I just re-read that paragraph, and instead of deleting most of it and starting over, I want to share my thought process with you all (as scary as that may be). You see, I realized that my examples of sleepingstock, etc. aren't really the same exact thing. The "laughing" in "laughingstock" is directed at the person instead of being an action that the person is initiating. Simply put, a laughingstock isn't someone who does a lot of laughing, and that's the way my examples turned out. Instead, I want to come up with some truer examples. Let's see...here: "Rocky, you don't stand a chance against Drago. You're going to be a punchingstock!" I think that works. "Oh sure, go ahead and boo Derek Jeter in Yankee Stadium while wearing a Red Sox jersey, but you'll be the hatingstock of the game." I guess "punchingstock" works there as well. Since I'm the one trying to get this word construction out there, I'm going to say that we should be able to use it for both direct and indirect actions, thereby making all of my examples valid. If you have strong feelings that it should be only one way or the other, the comment section is all yours, gentle readers.

And now, if you can muster the energy in your post-Bastille Day stupor, come meet me over in the Car Watch section.

You made it! Sweet. First off, my favorite brother saw a Prius with this plate: "L8R 4 GAS." I suppose that since "I NEED GAS LESS FREQUENTLY" wouldn't fit, that'll do just fine. I applaud the effort, because the point still got across, even if I would mock the driver endlessly if I saw them at a gas station. "So I guess by 'later' you really mean 'right now' then," I'd ask. Maybe I'd make some joke about the space-time continuum getting messed up because he or she is doing something both now and later at the same time. That's the kind of humor I bring to those situations, for better or (more likely) for worse.

I was behind a car on my way home a couple of days ago, and I saw that the plate read, "WRLS MVN." "World's moving?" I thought to myself. I started going through more options in my head but stopped when I saw the bottom of the license plate frame. "Wireless Maven," it said. Well why get the plate then? If you know that you need a supplementary way to convey the message because the abbreviated one would still leave it confusing or ambiguous at best, then why not just get the frame, tell everyone plainly what your message is, and move on without the personalized plate? Geez, some people's priorities are way messed up.

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw this license plate frame: "Why be pretty when you can be gorgeous?" It's a good question. Wait, scratch that: it's a fucking retardiculous question. Let's come up with some equivalent frames along the same lines of irrational logic. "Why eat a steak when you can eat five steaks?" "Why win $20 from the lottery when you can win $3.8 million?" "Why be moderately stupid when you can be a total and complete imbecile?"

Deep breath in...hold it...and release. Ah, that's better. And that's also it for now, homeys. Thanks for visiting Urban Outfitters Part-Time Assistance or whatever this blog is called. Happy 2.5 b-day to my little homey T-roy tomorrow, happy 1.5 to the Ty-baby on Sunday, and happy whole first birthdays to both little Keira (on Wed) and Rio (on Thurs). Wow, the children really are our future. Have a lovely weekend and week, and I'll see you all here next Friday. As always, please comment and/or email ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all.

Could you repeat that?

Oh Friday, how you please me with your end-of-week-ness. Hey, that sounds like "end of weakness." Cool. Maybe I can turn that pun into a timely phrase sometime, like, "Well that certainly was a weak end to a weekend" on a boring Sunday night. I'll have to store that one in the recesses of my brain for later use. Hey, "recesses of my brain" sounds like...just kidding. I know what it's like to have to hear those kinds of thoughts all day long, so I'll spare you from the looniness. So yes, it's Friday, and I'm here to write about some random things that have made their way into the "Possibly Blogworthy" category on my internal list.

I've spent some time in this space discussing music and lyrics before, but I have a new topic I want to touch on: not understanding them. Please allow me to clarify. I don't mean "not understanding" in the sense of "what the hell is he talking about?" If so, I'd have plenty of fodder with Bob Dylan alone, not to mention the entire "Magical Mystery Tour" album. Nor do I mean, "Oh, he says that? I always thought he said something else." That's a whole other post waiting to happen. No friends, but "not understanding," I mean literally not being able to make out what the person says and just throwing one's hands up in defeat. I have two recent examples to illustrate the point I'm so cloudily trying to make.

First off, my good friend Jon made me a mix cd with a song called "Hum Hallelujah" by Fall Out Boy on it. I listened to it a few times and liked the tune, but I could barely make out any of the words (besides "hum" and "hallelujah"). I knew it was in English, so I expected to be able to decipher them with repeated listens. No such luck. If I wanted to sing along, I'd have to speak Gibberish to attempt to mimic the meaningless sounds I was hearing. The main problem is that the lead singer has no regard for meter whatsoever. I thought I made out one line (at around 1:15 in the song) to be the nonsensical, "Two two, a deal was born," but it turned out to be, "Til tonight do us part." Read those two sentences aloud and see how very different they sound in terms of meter. He sings the word "tonight" with the emphasis on the first syllable (TOO-night), and it's hard to recover from that. The most indecipherable line comes a little later (at around the 1:40 mark), and I played it over and over again in the car with my lovely wife until we were able to form our best guess. We came up with, "We'll blow your ears out just to shine his shorts." We didn't really think that was what he was saying, but that was our best guess in an attempt to make the sounds match up with words. So when I looked it up, I expected to have a few of the words right. We did, if we all agree that "a few" can mean "three." The real line? "We're a bull; your ears are just a china shop." Dr. Mr. Lead Singer of Fall Out Boy: Please make your lyrics either obtuse and cryptic or hard to audibly decipher. Choose one. Both is unfair to your listeners. Oh well, I guess I can't blame him for his thick Scottish accent. What's that? They're from Illinois with no discernible accent? Oh that's right; there's no excuse whatsoever for singing in made-up sounds purported to be real English words. If you're interested, here's the song with some pictures of the band serving as a makeshift video:

The second example is more dire. I subscribe to Paste Magazine, largely because each issue comes with a cd of around 20 songs of new music that they like and feel like sharing. They're almost exclusively from bands I've never heard of, and it's expanding my horizons. Well, in this most recent issue, there's a song calling "Standing Bird" by a band called LOVE PSYCHEDELICO. Yeah, they capitalize their name for some reason. Anyway, I listened to the song, and while it's not right-on with the type of music I normally enjoy, I liked it and thought it was a cool and different sound. There was one problem with it though. I said to my lovely wife, "Honey, there's one song on here that I honestly can't tell if it's in English." There were definitely some English words, but the rest of it really just sounded like...not a language. I tried again, and eventually gave up and searched online for the lyrics. What I found was indeed surprising: I was right. The song is a mix of Japanese and English, which I learned is fairly common in Japanese pop music (or J-Pop, as it's called). I'll include the video below that has subtitles so you can see what I'm talking about and why I was so damn confused.

That's different, isn't it? I found the lyrics written out phonetically somewhere, but I have a feeling I'm not going to spend the time learning them in order to sing along. The most confusing part of all of it is in the English word choice. For instance, the chorus ends with "somewhat of ride and roll." Now I speak English - fluently even - and I have no idea what that means. Oh well, now we're being bilingually obtuse.

One quick and random thought before moving on: I realized something very, very distressing, and therefore I must share it with you all. For those of you who have visited this site more than once, you may know that I occasionally wish people I know Happy Half-Birthdays. It's not an important thing by any means, but when I remember to do it, I do. Well, I realized that my sweet little pup Hallie (gulp) doesn't have a half-birthday. Her "birthday" is Halloween, and there is no April 31st. That sucks. Everyone should be entitled to a half-birthday. Who can fix this? I'd write to my Congressperson, but I'd first have to know who that is, and even then, I bet s/he would claim that s/he had "more important things to do." Let's see if s/he gets my vote again...whenever we vote for those people.

Car Watch time, boys and girls! (Insert excited "Yay" here.)

My Aunt Lynn is on the cusp of becoming a regular Car Watch contributor, and I wish to support that new hobby. She saw a bumper sticker that told people, "Life is short..play naked." Play what exactly? Scrabble? Music? Doctor? Ice hockey? Or is "naked" the name of a game of which I'm currently unaware? Since I'm left to guess, I'll have to go with...ice hockey. That way it be both a fun sporting event and double as an anatomy lesson.

My favorite brother Kevin called me one morning this week to report a car item as well. It was a red Corvette with the plate, "JOE'S EGO." Yes, he'd hand-drawn the apostrophe. I applaud your self-awareness, Joe. Most people in your position might opt for the "Damn I'm good" or even the "Sit down, hold on, shut up" sticker to let us know of their egomaniacal ways. But not you, Joe; you are clear in your motives, and I'm quite proud.

Lastly, my homey Rockabye texted me with a plate: "SOLM8S" it said. "That's cute," I said as I showed it to my own beloved, but I didn't think it was anything particularly special. Five seconds later, I got another text from him saying that he'd accidentally forgotten a letter. The plate actually said, "SOLM8TS." "Ah, now I see why he sent it," I said. The case of the superfluous T. Soul matets? Mateys? Amber suggested that it could be "s.o.l. for shit out of luck," which caused me to use my pirate voice and say, "Ay, you're shit out of luck, mateys. Arrrrr." I've said it countless times, folks: If the plate message you want isn't available, either find another variation that still gets the point or simply let it go.

Before we end this session, I have to publicly offer gigantic congratulations out to my friends Dusty and The Mills, who got engaged during this past week. We very happy and excited for them, and you all should be too. That's right, I'm dictating your emotions now. Mazel tov, my friends. Ok that's it for now. Happy 7/11, everybody. May you all be open 24 hours today, and may your weekends avoid weak ends. Damn that's a good one. In all seriousness, be happy and healthy. See you next week, and remember to email ptklein@gmail.com with whatever takes your fancy and strikes it.

Court reporter

Good morning, and Happy 4th of July to one and all. It really is quite a date in American history aside from the whole independence thing. I knew that both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on 7/4 (same year too), but I didn't realize that both Presidents Coolidge and Grant were born on this date as well. That's pretty impressive, don't you agree? When you throw in the birth of Rube Goldberg and the death of Barry White on this same date...well I just don't think you can get much more American than that.

In the almost 300-post history of UOPTA, I've had two offerings that would classify as "prediction pieces." By that, I mean that I've laid out all of my predictions before an event (a Vegas trip and then a Dodger game), and then gone back afterward to show what a horrible clairvoyant I am. This time is different, my friends. I'm totally going to nail a solid 80% of my predictions (including that one). My mind's eye is working overtime, and I must act when the spirit moves me. And hey, you can't spell "prediction piece" without Peter.

First, allow me to set up the event before I start my divining. Growing up, I played organized sports very, very often. I tried soccer as a tot, but unless the object of the game is to stay far away from the action at all times, I don't think I exactly excelled. In sixth grade, I was on my elementary school's baseball, basketball, flag football, and track teams. Objectively, I was decent at all and great at none. That didn't bother me though, for I had a good time playing and hanging out with my friends. Once flag football turned into tackle football, I was long gone. Fast-pitch baseball was too fast for me as well, and track...well, I probably wouldn't have even made the 6th grade track team if there had been more than a dozen boys trying out. So that left basketball.

I shot baskets with my favorite brother, my friends, and his friends in our driveway all the time, and I got to know my limitations fairly quickly. I'll never be mistaken for a "bruiser," but since I was the tallest of my friends, I always ended up having to play down low and use my nonexistent ass to "muscle" people out of the way. Fortunately, bony hips are just as effective.

At age 15, I had my most dominant period in Peter Klein sports history. I was in a park league for ages 13-15, and I showed no mercy when it came to driving on pre-pubescent shorties. Despite a few standout games, the height of my dominance wasn't rewarded with an All-Star selection. That still stings, by the way. Maybe I shouldn't have smiled so much out there. College came, and with it came another forum for me to show off my mediocre skills at my most skilled sport (excluding bowling, naturally). My homey Rockabye, my friend Greg, and others from our floor played all freshman year in the intramural B and C leagues, and I was a fair contributor off the bench. I had one good game (thanks to Rockabye's passes that only required me to make two-foot bank shots), and the rest of my performances fell perfectly into the average range.

A couple of years after college, I joined a co-ed intramural league with Dusty, the Mills, and our friends Kareem and Laura. It was great, because I felt like I was so aware of my limitations that I never tried to do anything outside of my skill-set. Wide open outside jumpers? Sure, I'll try a couple of those and see my success rate. Contested outside jumpers? That's just stupid. So I'd play defense to the best of my ability, get some rebounds, and try making some good passes. We had fun, and I don't think I ever hurt our team (aside from missing two crucial free throws at the end of one game).

When my lovely wife and I moved back down to L.A., Dusty and the Mills stayed in Santa Barbara for a while before moving a bit south to Ventura. It was there that they started playing in a rec league, and Dusty asked if I wanted to join them ever. Since it's about 45 minutes from home (which is an additional hour from work), it never made sense timewise. Sure, I could make a 9:30pm game, but going to bed at/after midnight when I wake up in the 5s is a bad idea. Therefore, my only contribution over the past couple of years has been in helping Dusty name his teams. This year, I'm proud to say that I came up with "Dunk in Public," and I thought that alone would be my legacy.

But no, my friends. This week's game is at 8:30, and when Rockabye said he was going to try to attend and wanted my company, I bit the bullet and said yes. I'm frightened for a couple of key reasons. First, I haven't exercised much of late, and I expect to get winded early and sore for a long time after. Second, I haven't shot a basketball in probably two years. It's gonna be super ugly out there. Or is it? Let's check out the Mega Predictor 8000 HD!

Prediction: I told Rockabye that I want to get there early to warm up and hopefully get my least graceful moves out before people are watching. I predict that he'll be at my house very early due to lighter-than-expected traffic, and I will have had just enough time to change and wolf down a few bites of food. We'll arrive in Ventura a little over an hour before the game and shoot enough baskets that I'll have two thoughts: "Maybe I haven't dropped much in ability during my hiatus after all," and "Why did I just exert so much energy before the game? I need a nap."

What Actually Happened: Well, I was close on this one. Rockabye did indeed get to my house very early, I had just wolfed down some food, and we arrived about an hour before the game. Here's where I was wrong though. There was only one court and another game already in progress, so I took a mere three shots before our appointed warm-up time between games. While I made two of them, they were hideous and did nothing to boost my confidence. Therefore, I didn't have either of the predicted thoughts.

Prediction: I asked Dusty what to wear, and as expected, he said to bring both a light- and dark-colored shirt. That way, one team can be each and it won't be confusing. I predict that we will be...the darker-colored shirts!

What Actually Happened: Light-colored shirts. Damn 50-50 odds.

Prediction: I don't know how many people are on the team, but I'm going to guess that (counting me and Rockabye) there will be eight of us. I will gladly start on the bench and let the regulars play until enough people are tired and want to sub that I get in. I'll be the final player to enter the game for the team, but I'll play the remainder of the first half. I'll come in partway through the second half, and then sub back out for the final few minutes to let the actual teammates decide the outcome of the game.

What Actually Happened: Again, not too shabby on my part. There were seven of us instead of eight, but one player couldn't make it so I should've been right. I gladly started on the bench and was the final player to enter the game. I was winded enough that I very happily subbed out before the end of the first half. (As it turns out, my normal level of exercise isn't a tenth of the workout I get from full-court basketball.) I started the second half, left partway through content to let the guys play the remainder of the game, but then returned for the final 15 seconds as more of a joke than a strategic move. (Looking back, the prediction actually was shabby on my part. I was only right on about a third of the predictions in that paragraph. Damn, I thought I'd have that one locked up.)

Prediction: While on the court, I won't do very much good or bad. I'll get my hands on a couple of passes to create a turnover or two, grab a couple of rebounds, and partially block two shots. On the offensive end, I'll have two baskets (a lay-up and a short bank-shot after a pass from Rockabye), and I'll miss a wide-open jumper from around the free throw line. Come to think of it, I'll miss a baseline jumper too from about 12 feet away. I'll make one bad pass but a few good ones too. Overall, I'll kind of be "just there."

What Actually Happened: I was better and worse than I imagined. I was better in the sense that I took and made one baseline jumper and didn't have any bad passes. I was worse in that I didn't get my hands on passes and didn't block any shots. I was "just there," as predicted, but with a hint of "too afraid to try anything but pass the ball immediately upon receiving it."

Prediction: Dunk in Public will be victorious! People whose names I don't know will play well, but it will mostly be a function of the other team sucking, Dusty making some good driving layups, and Rockabye hitting a few threes. Go us!

What Actually Happened: We were indeed victorious! Rockabye hit a slew of threes, Dusty played well, and some guys whose names I now know helped the cause in various ways. The other team didn't suck, but they just weren't collectively as good as the team for which I clapped heartily and shouted encouragement. (You can't spell "team player" without Peter, after all. Yes, I've used that one before, but this is damn appropriate.)

Prediction: I'll arrive home at 10:45pm, eat a cold tortilla, hop in the shower, and climb into bed. When my head hits the pillow, my body will be 95% exhausted but my mind will be wide awake for another half hour. And maybe the boldest prediction of all: I will wake up to my alarm instead of getting out of bed ten minutes before it.

What Actually Happened: We arrived back at my place at 10:30 which, despite driving through Burger King, was earlier than I anticipated. Therefore, no cold tortilla. I showered, but was much more awake physically and mentally than I'd expected, so I read a magazine for a while before heading to bed and falling asleep fairly quickly. My bold prediction was indeed foolish; I woke up several times in the hour preceding my alarm, and got out of bed ten minutes before it was set to sound.

So, the verdict is in, and I still suck at predicting events. I had a very good time hanging out with those folks and playing some ball, and with any scheduling luck, I'll do it again sometime soon. I'll drink more water next time though. I thought I'd hydrated myself enough, but since I woke up with something similar to a hangover, I'd say that's a valid counter-argument.

Wow, that was much longer than I expected. That's what she said. (Hey look, everyone, it was an appearance by 15 year-old Peter!) I apologize for my longwindedness, but when the almighty spirit of prognostication speaks, I am compelled to listen. And I apparently need to get my hearing checked. But now, let's mosey our proverbial buttocks (buttockses?) on down to the Car Watch.

My Aunt Lynn saw a license plate frame that was indeed blogworthy. I often poke fun at the "X do it Y" statements unless they truly make me smile. As I've noted several times in this space (but will continue to do so), my favorite one of these to date is, "Makeup artists do it on your face." Aunt Lynn's isn't up to that standard, but nicely done nonetheless: "Electricians do it without shorts." Bravo, Mr. or Mrs. Electrician, and thanks for passing it along, Aunt Lynn.

My homey (and long range specialist) Rockabye saw this plate: "4ARETVO." He asked if there's any chance that they just love their Tivo. Yes, there's a chance, but that's not what troubles me. Let's say that their message truly is "For our Tivo." Riddle me this: how the hell is their car "for" their Tivo? I'm at a loss. Maybe the owners do voiceover work for Entertainment Tonight and need that car to take them to the studio. Then it could rightfully be "for our E.T. v/o." Or maybe they supplied the "Ell-ee-ott" for Spielberg's 1982 classic. We may never know.

Lastly, I saw a plate that read, "K9TDLRS." I hope I'm just reading this one incorrectly, and that one of you will set me straight in the comments section. Then I can comment on your comment and say something like, "You're absolutely right. That makes so much more sense. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways. Have a great weekend, (insert name here)." Because otherwise, we're talking about dog-kids here, and I don't even know what that means. Are those a few of the driver's favorite things? "Hmmm, let's see here, I enjoy our young kids very much, but I also love our dog. 'KDSNDOG' is taken, but I'll figure something out." And there aren't even canine toddlers really. They're pretty much puppies until they're dogs, right? I'm starting to hate that plate, so I'd better move on to the grand finale.

Welcome to the grand finale. I know - simply breathtaking. That's it for now, mis amiguitos. Happy 4th of July to everyone. Happy 3rd birthday to my favorite nephew Shawn tomorrow; he's officially leaving the title of "World's Cutest 2 Year-Old Vacant" until his baby sister gets there. Have a wonderful weekend and week, friends, and please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything.