A pre-existing condition

Good morning, everyone, and I'm glad to see you back here for another installment of UOPTA: America's Favorite Weekly Blog of Random Thoughts and Stories by Someone Named Peter Klein in Los Angeles Who is Lefthanded. Ya know, just in case all of the weekly blogging righthanded Peter Kleins in L.A. are reading this, I don't want to come off as too presumptuous. Today's post is a special one, friends, and it has nothing to do with today's content whatsoever. Rather, this is the 300th post on this here site, and that's a much higher number than I ever expected to reach in this endeavor. To commemorate this nice round number, I'm going to unload some topics that have been sitting on my List of Standalone Items that Could Maybe Each Yield a Few Paragraphs if I Don't Have an Overarching Theme. Gotta love that LSICMEYFPIDHOT.

Ah, here's one that might even turn into a whole post if I babble enough. We'll have to wait and see. There's a phenomenon I've found that is a real double-edged sword for me, and I don't know if others feel the same way or not. I'll call it "The Daunting Pre-Existing Inventory Conundrum." Ooh, that's catchy. My first example comes from the world of music via the world of video games. I shall explain. More and more often, musicians are finding interesting ways to get their music out to fans/potential consumers. On "So You Think You Can Dance," they always list the artist and song name for the backing music to each dance performance, and I guarantee that the labels see big spikes from people who learn of their product that way. Additionally, songs are featured in video game soundtracks to play in the background of menu screens or the gameplay itself. For example, my co-worker Rob accompanied me to a concert for one of my favorite bands, Sloan. He didn't know any of their songs, but since my lovely wife declined the invitation, Rob said he was always down for a good show. When they came out for the encore, Rob turned to me and said, "Wait, I know this song!" That seemed unlikely to me since I've never heard a single song of theirs on any American radio station (they're Canucks). A few seconds later, he said, "I totally know this." He then remembered from where he knew it: one of his football video games. And like that: two forms of media converged.

Ok, back to my ever-expanding story: I heard a song on a baseball video game that I used to play fairly often, and I enjoyed it. It came on again the next time I played, and I said to myself, "Ok, I've gotta look these guys up and maybe even buy their album." The band is called Guided By Voices, and when I looked them up on Wikipedia, I was shocked at what I saw: 16 studio albums over 17 years. "Never mind then," I said (probably aloud). And that was that. You see, I was too daunted by the large body of work to even dip my toe in. "What if you bought an album and really liked it?" you might ask. That's precisely the problem. You see, I don't like doing things halfway at all. In fact, it feels wrong and unsettling to me. It's hard to explain, but I think it boils down to liking something, wanting more, and being bothered by the fact that there's more of the good stuff out there that I'm just leaving on the table. If I bought one cd of theirs and liked it, I'd want to learn more songs by them, and then it could easily and quickly spiral out of control. In this instance, I chose instead to be blissfully ignorant.

Yeah, I know that sounds a little strange, seeing as how I'm basically denying myself things from which I would likely get enjoyment. Fortunately, my lovely wife doesn't see things in such black-and-white-and-ridiculous terms as I do. Here's an example of that: While visiting our friend Melissa a while ago, she put on an episode of the British comedy, "Coupling." (There was a disastrous American version of the same show that didn't make it though its first season.) It was very funny, which struck me as odd since I hadn't enjoyed a half-hour sitcom for quite a while. So months later when my lovely wife and I saw it airing on BBC America, we recorded an episode. Even though it was in season 2 and there were some references to previous happenings on the show, we still enjoyed it quite a bit. That's when The Daunting Pre-Existing Inventory Conundrum set in for me. When I looked up the series and saw that there were four seasons, there were only two possible solutions in my mind. Either we go out and buy all four of them and watch them in order and in a relatively short amount of time or we never watch another episode ever again. My lovely wife stepped in and offered another solution. She found that the On Demand feature of our cable had some additional episodes from Season 2 on there for us to watch at our leisure. We did, and since we enjoyed them so much, she purchased the DVD of Season 1. We watched that too, and all was fine. Now though, I'm back to feeling the pressure of being back in the middle of an unfinished task. On Demand adds a new episode every week or so, but the Pre-Existing Inventory is sitting out there somewhere, waiting for me to laugh with it and it leaves me smack dab in the middle of Enjoyment Purgatory. Is the world ending because I have more episodes of a British comedy to watch? No, it certainly isn't, and I recognize that. Still, it's unsettling enough, and Seasons 3 and 4 might magically appear in an online shopping cart soon.

So what are the treatments for The Daunting Pre-Existing Inventory Conundrum? The first is simple, as illustrated by the Guided By Voices example: stop right there and do not proceed any further. It's admittedly not the healthiest way to deal with the situation, but it works. The second treatment, as I've learned, is to try to very slowly expand the selection and constantly monitor the enjoyment level. Sounds like a bit of a killjoy, eh? It's necessary though, and here's why: I'm fiercely loyal to things that bring me enjoyment. It took a whole crappy season and a half of Prison Break for me to give up on it. It took two crappy Everclear albums before I pulled the plug on them. I liked a book by an author, so I bought three more by him at the same time since it was a series. After the third of those three, I realized that I hadn't really enjoyed the last two enough to buy the next few. These things take time for me, and so if I'm going to continue on with something that initially gave me some level of diversion, I need to monitor how long that fun lasts or find myself twelve books or episodes into something that more closely resembles a habit than a hobby.

So for everyone out there who has told me that I need to watch House, The Wire, 30 Rock, or The Office, I understand your rationale. I'm sure they're all great, but The Daunting Pre-Existing Inventory Conundrum is preventing me from just jumping right in. Maybe, just maybe, with my lovely wife's assistance I'll be able to dabble a little instead of my current all-or-nothing approach and not worry about all of the unwatched episodes. Maybe I'll be alright turning the potential enjoyment into kinetic enjoyment at my own leisure and pop in a DVD when the opportunities present themselves. Yeah, and maybe I'll start trusting that my alarm clock will go off on its own and sleep all the way to the predetermined time. I'm not holding my breath.

And with that, an entire post was born. I love it when that happens. Before we go though, let's reconvene in the next paragraph for the always-thrilling Car Watch!

Longtime family friend and faithful UOPTA reader Sue sent me an email. (You see, she could tell that when I asked people to write to ptklein@gmail.com at the end of the previous 299 posts that I really meant it and wasn't just being polite.) Here's what she had to say: "I saw this plate today and had to share. It was a lime green Lotus sportscar with the plate 'ZEN DUDE'. Cute huh? And the other day while pumping gas I saw a Toyota 4Runner, '1NSTYSS' which I inserted the A's into and came up with 'one nasty ass.' Both ends of the spectrum huh?" Those are great, Sue. I'd expect the "ZEN DUDE" dude to be in an old VW Bug or maybe a Prius, but I still admire that he not only captured a belief of his on the plate, but also managed to tell us in a way that drove the point home. "ZEN MAN" or "ZEN PRSN" really doesn't do the trick, ya know? As for the second one...I guess that's what he was going for. (I almost said "he or she," but let's be honest here.) What else could it be? "One nasty sis?" Then I suppose the "she" would need to get back into the equation. There's a lesson here, folks: think through something fully before writing whatever pops into your mind.

My homey Rockabye saw a plate that will probably elicit the same response from you that it did me. It read, "POORBOX," and it was on a gray Porsche Boxster. What response was I expecting? "Oh fuck you, man!" How close was I?

Lastly, I saw this plate earlier this week, and I literally did a tripletake: "B A4KLFT." Yep, the driver is commanding each and every one of us to turn into a frickin' forklift. The English major in me is trying to make it a functional metaphor for lifting people up and helping them reach new heights, but that's clearly not working. Instead, I think this person just really wants me to come over and move some heavy palettes of inventory to a higher elevation. Sorry, sir or madam, but I just don't see that happening.

Do you know what I do see happening? I see us meeting back here next Friday for post #301. Some stuff's going to happen during that time though, and I'm compelled to address it. Happy birthday to our good friend Ceil tomorrow, happy Labor Day on Monday, and for those of you who celebrate it, happy First of Ramadan on Tuesday. Have a happy and healthy weekend and week, everyone, and I'll see you in September. Hey, that's catchy too! As always, please feel free to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. Take care, friends, and shaloha.

In-jury of my peers

Oh boy, here we are again. It seems like just a week ago that I was jotting down some thoughts and stories, but I guess time has a way of messing with us like that. Good morning, friends, friends of friends, and people who found this blog by searching for some term I mentioned over a year ago. I don't care how you got here; I appreciate your time.

For those of you who have been visiting UOPTA for a while, you may recall a story I told about playing softball in P.E. during high school. The post was called, "The Old Ball Game," and I recounted the time that a big dude hit a softball that wasn't so soft when it found my nuts at 60 miles per hour. While it was a painful experience that still makes me cringe a bit, it at least gave me the chance to use the phrase "Pete-seeking missile" in a sentence. In any case, something this week reminded me that I have a couple of other sport-related injuries that I haven't yet mentioned in this space. Some might be humorous, so here goes.

I have about a half-inch long scar on my arm. It's located in a tough spot to describe. It's not quite my forearm because it's close to my hand, but it's just after the wrist so that's out. I'll call it my beforearm. Anyway, it's not very noticeable at all now, but it was after I received it late in high school. The short version of how I got it sounds pretty cool: "Yeah, I sliced it open on the underside of the backboard while I was dunking on someone in a basketball game." See, doesn't that sound cool? And it's true, unless you're into that "whole truth" thing. Here's how it would go if I were being questioned on the stand in a t.v. courtroom drama.

Sexy Actress Who Thinks Glasses are Enough to Make Her Believable in a Prosecutor Role: Please describe the details of how you got your injury, Mr. Klein.

Me: I sliced it open on the underside of the backboard while I was dunking on someone in a basketball game, ma'am.

SAWTGEMHBPR: Was this in a league game? Five on five?

Me: Uh, no, it was at my parents' house...in their driveway. Two on two.

SAWTGEMHBPR: I see. And how was that game going?

Me: Fine, I guess.

SAWTGEMHBPR: (to the judge) Your Honor, permission to treat as a hostile witness?

Judge Who is Sassy Sometimes Just to Keep the Plot Moving: Oh you know I'll allow that!

SAWTGEMHBPR: Isn't it true that you were losing 10 to 2 in that game?

Me: Yes, but we were making a come-

SAWTGEMHBPR: Just answer the question.

Me: Yes.

SAWTGEMHBPR: Thank you. And what was the point total that would equal victory for the other team?

Me: (murmuring) Eleven.

SAWTGEMHBPR: Can you speak up please?

Me: ELEVEN!

SAWTGEMHBPR: Thank you, Mr. Klein. How did the rest of the game go after your injury?

Me: Um, well, it didn't. My arm hurt enough that I couldn't keep playing.

SAWTGEMHBPR: So you denied them their victory?

Me: 'Denied' is such a harsh word.

SAWTGEMHBPR: Well how do you think they felt?

My Lawyer Who Looks Suave But is Actually a Moron: Objection, Your Honor. Speculative!

JWSSJKPM: Overruled. I think I like where this is going!
MLWLSBAM: Shucks.

Me: I suppose they would've preferred an official victory.

SAWTGEMHBPR: Yes, I suppose they would've too, Mr. Klein. Oh, one last thing. I was very impressed with your earlier statement about dunking the basketball. I have several character witnesses who are willing to testify that you don't have much jumping ability. Can you please explain to the jury how this dunk happened?

Me: Oh man. Yeah, I can explain that. My parents' basket can be lowered a little.

SAWTGEMHBPR: I see. So it wasn't a standard 10-foot rim that you were playing on. Was it lowered to 9 feet?

Me: 8.

SAWTGEMHBPR: 8?

Me: Yeah, 8. Can I go now?

SAWTGEMHBPR: I have nothing further.

JWSSJKPM: You may be seated. Do you need the bailiff's help stepping down from the stand?

(The courtroom erupts in laughter.) And...scene.

Maybe I've been watching too many "Law and Order" reruns. Hmm.

The next injury is sports-related solely by its venue. As a tot, either age 3 or 4 (I can never remember), I was at the bowling alley with my parents and my favorite brother, Kevin. He swears he didn't push me, so the story holds that I just tripped by myself and went headfirst into the corner of a drinking fountain. It wasn't good, and I still tip my cap to the doctors because the scar today is much less visible than it probably should be. Who knew that being a spectator at a bowling alley was so dangerous?

I've had other, smaller injuries even more-loosely connected with sports. There was a time that had a baby tooth knocked out in a vicious game of "Throw the Spiky Thing from the Tree at Peter," another scar on my arm from playing basketball and not really seeing a brick wall until it was too late, and several jammed or sprained fingers from simply not catching things correctly.

I saw an article this week about Daniel Radcliffe (the actor who plays Harry Potter) having dyspraxia, a condition that affects motor skills and often makes people appear clumsy. I have to admit, I immediately looked it up online to see if the symptoms sounded like me. They didn't (and are much more severe), so I guess I'm just a little off sometimes without any official reason. There are worse things.

The reason this topic came up is because of an injury I witnessed on Monday night. While playing basketball in Ventura (a playoff game in which we won, I'll have you know), our friend Dusty took an accidental elbow to the nose in the first half. It didn't stop bleeding for way too long, and he eventually came back out to watch the second half...with a tampon up his right nostril. I thought that sitting in gum after getting hit in the nuts by a softball was the definition of "adding insult to injury," but he may have surpassed me with that move. The tampon did the trick, as one might expect, and I showed exceptional restraint by not making any jokes whatsoever until the next day when he said he was doing better. If his nose were broken, I might've had to (gulp) take the high road. Thankfully, he's fine and making fun of himself like a champion: "If I had a pad, with some sort of wings, I’d have re-entered the game. I was just nervous about going in there with only the tampon for protection," Dusty said heroically. I understand, man, I understand.

Ok, enough of all this pain and suffering bullshit, let's get to what's really important: Car Watch!

I saw a license plate that confused me a little bit. It read, "SAILNBM." I only came up with two possible meanings, and I'm sure neither are correct: "Sailing...BAM!" and "Sailing Bowel Movement." I suppose it could be someone whose initials are B.M. and enjoys sailing, but where's the fun in that?

Next, I was behind a truck on the always-enjoyable 405. In big and obviously proud stenciling, it told us that they're "cerdafied." It also said, "Hiring." For what? A copy editor? Ooh, things just got more interesting. Before moving onto the next paragraph, I was suddenly struck with the notion that "cerda" sounded familiar to me as a word in Spanish. "Maybe it's a pun and they're actually being very clever here," I thought. "Then I'd be a royal dick for making fun of something that I ended up admiring." So I went to Google to find a Spanish-English dictionary, and sure enough, it took me to http://www.spanishdict.com/. Who'd've thunk it? In any case, it gives me five definitions:

cerda
noun

1. Strong hair in a horse's tail or mane; a bristle. (f)
2. Corn just cut and formed into sheaves. (Province; Provinicial) (f)
3. Bundle of flax broken but not yet hackled. (Province; Provinicial) (f)
4. Sow. (f)
Cerda de puerco -> hog's bristle
5. Slut, whore. (f)

The reason it looked familiar to me is because I think I've seen it on a menu, which in hindsight makes me glad I didn't order it. I wish I remembered exactly what kind of business the truck was advertising, but I'm pretty sure it was either electric work or plumbing. Therefore, I don't think there's any pun going on with the first four definitions. The fifth though...probably not, but I wish I had thought of this back in high school because I totally would've used it. How? Easily, friends. Dusty (or anyone else in our AP Spanish class) might've said to me, "Hey, that girl over there seems pretty slutty." "Yeah, but I think it's all an act to get attention," I might reply, willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. "Not an act, man. I heard firsthand stories from Mark, the other Mark, Jason, and Darren, so it's confirmed." "You mean it's been...cerda-fied?" I'd ask, and then we'd laugh for the next two weeks. Ah, high school.

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw this on a license plate: "ONMYWAA." I approve wholeheartedly. It's not easy to impose inflection in the perilous world of platespeak, but this person accomplished it with flying colors. I tip my cap to you, sir or madam. (For those of you scoring at home, that's two imaginary cap tips in one post. It might be a UOPTA record.)

And this concludes this week's installment of things I think about and share with whomever lands on this page. I'll be back here next week with more things to ramble about and maybe make you either smile or shake your head in disgust. During that intervening week, I'd like to wish very happy anniversary Sunday to my favorite brother and sister-in-law and a happy half-birthday to our friend Robin. Homepeople, please feel free to write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything you see fit to send. Car Watch items, funny stories, good jokes, bad jokes, movie/book/music recommendations, pick up lines, food allergies, or anything else that strikes your fancy. I have an equal opportunity inbox. Have a happy and healthy next several days, my friends.

Eastern musings

Greetings and salutations, my homepeople. I almost called you "my brothers from other mothers and sisters from other misters," but felt that it was too cumbersome. Also, unless my favorite brother wasn't lying all those years about me being adopted, the phrase would be factually inaccurate. It's all about quality control, people. So I've got a bunch of random crap to discuss with myself today. Are you ready? I'll take your silence as a yes.

My lovely wife and I were on vacation for a good chunk of this week, and normally I get a ton of material from the flights alone. This time, not so much. I only have a few highlights from the plane rides - or flylights, if you will - and none of them are spectacular. Here's one: I was sitting next to a nice woman who I would say was about 60-65 years old. People that age...(I'm going to choose my words carefully here so as to not offend my loyal readers in or near that bracket) are old enough to know about all that they're going to before they start to lose some of their mental faculties. I don't think the word "doddering" applies until a little while later. Therefore, I was suprised when this able-minded woman asked me if Texas was in the same time zone as Boston. Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but that just seemed like something that adults should know to me. Texas clearly isn't on the east coast, and it's far enough west that many easterners consider it "the West." I didn't make a face or anything when I replied, "No, Boston is an hour ahead of Texas." Wasn't that nice of me? (And if that's my best story from my four flights, you can probably tell how uneventful they were.)

Our actual trip was lovely and relaxing. We were staying with some friends at a beach house in Gloucester, Massachusetts. We saw a shirt or bumper sticker at one point that said, "Glosta," which we thought was appropriate. Know what else we saw? Scores and scores of signs that read, "We're for Tony Verga" for State Representative. I don't know about the rest of you, but my dad is laughing right now. Why? Because "verga" is Mexican vulgar slang for "penis." Let me put it this way: any phrases that non-Spanish speakers learn that refer to the male anatomy include "verga" instead of the biological "pene." I know I'm immature, but even days after seeing the first sign, I couldn't help but say, "We're for Verga!" every time we passed a sign. Being a responsible citizen, I looked this guy up on the series of tubes that make up the internets. On http://www.repverga.com/, there are four things that I can't help but notice. First, "Join Team Verga" in a bold blue box happens to stand out. Next, there are these three actual headlines:

1. "Verga Leads Effort to Protect Fishing Industry"

2. "Verga Announces Successful Passage of Funds for Libraries"

3. "Hill, Tarr, Verga Plot Course for Disaster Aid for Clammers"

If you're like me, you're wondering how a hill, some tar, and a dick can join forces to help clammers. And if you're like me, I'm sorry, but you're one sick individual and should seek professional help.

While in the two-syllable Gloucester, we did a whole lot of nothing and it was wonderful. We spent time just relaxing, hanging out with our friends, and taking a couple of trips to the beach to walk around, play some Frisbee, and watch little Tyler try conversing with the waves. Isn't that setting just completely relaxing? No, evidently, not to everyone. To one man in particular, the beach at Cape Ann is for one thing: showing people how masculine you are. Yep, as dozens of happy and relaxed people crossed a sandbar over to an island, most of us stood around and splashed a bit in the water. Not this dude. He dropped and gave us twenty. That's right, just off to the side of the main throng of folks, he did push-ups and then looked around to make sure everyone saw how fucking awesome he was. Please note, this wasn't some Adonis either, but rather some middle aged, not particularly fit man who was showing off for us. On the walk back from the island, we were apparently all being giant wusses because he showed us all up by walking backwards in the slightly-deeper water. It was such a display of manhood that I asked my lovely wife if I needed to do some workout routine of my own right then and there to prove my own male-ness. She said it was unnecessary, which was probably a good thing. I have a feeling that this guy would've run up next to me and done the same thing I was doing but faster. "Seet ups? I can do ze seet ups! 1,2,3,4,5! Unh! Vut, ah you steel on 3? I crush you!" (I just gave him an accent even though I never heard him speak, and hopefully that translated onto the printed page...or whatever this is.) Instead of exercise, I opted for a beer and some poker. I consider that a victory.

Ok, I'm tired, so let's move on over to the Car Watch section, shall we?

My favorite brother saw a license plate that he thought might irk me. He wrote:
"I thought this might challenge your rules of license plate etiquette - IM2HAPY. Can '2' symbolize 'too'. I think it should be reserved for only 'two' substitution duty. After all, it is a number, right? Are homophones allowed? Or are they homonyms? I always forget that. I would have issue with '2' as 'too' meaning 'also' as well, like ILUVU2." He then said that he was very tired, which might explain his rambling to the point of sounding like me. Here's my verdict: I have zero problem with license plates using the number 2 for "to" or "too." My whole thing with platespeak is that I want it to work; I want people to be able to get what you're putting out there. That's why I have a problem with things like "JOYRYID," as my homey Rockabye sent me. It just doesn't quite work, and so I feel like they should've either found a better way to express that sentiment or abandon it altogether. So no, Kevin, that didn't challenge my rules of plate etiquette. However, I do question what "too happy" means. Is s/he bipolar with much larger manic swings than depressed ones? Does s/he giggle uncontrollably at somber events? Do people see him or her smiling on Monday mornings and think, "God I hate that person"? Those are the questions that that plate makes me ask myself, and it saddens me to know I'll never find my answers.

Our dear friend Melissa sent me this email: "Pot reference or not? The license plate on a light green Prius: 'LYTN UP.' Or maybe they just want me to be happy? Or reduce my carbon footprint? Hmmm...Go UOPTA! You are my mixed up utopia. Well, once 'I' am there." I guess you can see why I like her. My first thought with that plate is that the driver just wants us all to chill a little. However, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that this person enjoys "lightin' up" as well. Therefore, I'm going to say it's both of those meaning, and s/he did a great job finding a double meaning to fit a positive outlook with an illegal habit. I'm not feeling the carbon footprint interpretation. However, if the plate said, "LIL C USE," I would expect Melissa to ask if there was a cocaine reference in there. Ah, how Puff the Magic Dragon shaped a generation by making us look closer into things for possible drug references. (It's so clear now - whose last name is Paper? Honestly.)

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw a Lexus SC400 with this plate: "DEPRVD1." If it's "depraved one," then I think it's pretty ballsy to put that out there in the public. According to our friends at Merriam Webster, depraved means, "Marked by corruption or evil, especially: PERVERTED." If I were hitchhiking and that plate drove up, I'm pretty sure I'd try to come up with an excuse pretty quickly to get out of getting into that car. However, if it's "deprived one," well I think I speak for all of us when I say, ahem, "Fuck you."

On that family-friendly note, I'm outstro. Happy half-birthday next week to my Bratty Kid Sister (if I'm doing month math correctly). For everyone else, have a great weekend and week ahead of you, and I'll meet you back here next Friday. As always, please feel free to email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. Shaloha, brothers and sisters of the real and fake varieties.

Idle thoughts

Good morning, homepeople of the internets. I probably mentioned this a year ago, but the band NOFX has a song called "August 8th" in which they frequently say, "August 8th is a beautiful day." So it has to be, right? I mean, punk bands don't lie. Oh crap! I just thought of something that may not seem like a big deal to you but bothers me to a rather large extent. In a song by David Garza, he sings, "Honest words/are like August 3rds/they just both come maybe once a year." It's an interesting rhyme, although the "maybe" doesn't apply to the date which certainly only comes once a year. Still, my point is that I just let August 3rd go by without listening to that song. It's on my iTunes at work so I had no excuse and now have to wait an entire year before I'm able to listen to that song on the most appropriate day of the year. Damn I hate when I do that. That said, good morning everyone. Here's to August 8th!

I did something for the first time in my life last weekend: I went to a movie by myself. I realize that many people do this every single day, but being the first time for me, it was a new and fairly interesting experience. When I stepped to the counter and asked for one ticket, I almost expected the young (and completely disinterested) man to say, "Just one? Why? That's kinda depressing, don't ya think?" And I had my response all set: "Oh no, I'm just meeting my friends in there; they're saving a seat for me since I was running late." Notice I said "friends" in the plural, because I totally have more than one. If he was smart, he'd point out that I couldn't be simultaneously "running late" and standing in front of him a full forty minutes before the movie's start time. Good thing I made him extra dumb in this scenario.

Well, he didn't say anything, and after walking around the mall for a while, I entered the theater by myself. I debated putting something on a seat next to me, but I thought that might be silly (and I didn't have anything to put there anyway except for my cell phone or keys). "What if someone asks if I'm saving a seat?" I thought to myself. "I could say that I just got a message saying my friend couldn't make it, so no, I guess I'm not saving it anymore." Was it really better to look like I got stood up? Then I got a better idea. If someone asked anything that had to do with me being alone, I'd proudly own up to every bit of it. Why? Because maybe they'd think I was some sort of film critic or something, purposely alone so as to avoid being distracted (by my lovely wife's beauty, for example).

This probably says a lot about me - and isn't terribly flattering either - but this falls right into a pattern of behavior that I've noticed about myself. When alone, I always jump to people looking at me and figuring that I must be brilliant. This happens at conferences often when I'm up and ready to go an hour before my first meeting of the day. I sit at a cafe with a large black coffee and...want to look important. That's not easy, especially when Pre-Coffee Peter's involved. Therefore, I usually take out a pen and pad of paper and put a "deep in thought" look on my face, pausing every so often to jot something down. This leads to many pieces of paper with such intellectual musings as, "Peter Klein," "My name is Peter Klein," and "How does this pen write?" Do I really expect acquaintances to walk by and think, "Wow, that guy's deep in thought and is probably coming up with ways to revolutionize business as we know it"? No, but something close to that would be nice. I figure it's better to avoid looking like I'm just sitting there, praying for the caffeine to work in double-time.

Come to think of it, I did a very similar thing during boring lectures in college. The pen poised ever-so-gently against my bottom lip, I'd employ a slight squint and give a barely-perceptible nodding motion to say, "Yes, that's very interesting, but I think I could do even more with that. I might just blow your mind if your give me a minute to fully think through this concept I'm working on." The important part of that look was the subtext: "Don't call on me, don't call on me, don't call on me."

What can I take away from all of this self-realization? If you said, "You're a lot smarter and deeper when you don't open your mouth," that's a good guess but not quite what I was looking for. I guess the real lesson is that I don't fully know how to behave when alone in public. I don't want to be the annoying stranger who is eerily chatty with people, but I also don't want to be the creepy guy sitting alone in the corner. From when I entered the movie theater until I was in my car driving away, I didn't speak even one word, and that felt very not-me. Even when my lovely wife is out of town for a couple of days, I'm talking to our pup or on the phone or seeing family or friends. So this was (as previously billed) a fairly interesting experience for me. I can see myself doing it again at some point too, because there were many others just like me in the theater. Did they find the same comfort as I did when leaving in one mass of crowd so onlookers couldn't tell who was with whom? I don't know, but I bet they didn't look as insightful as I did either.

I was listening to a song recently called "Have You Forgotten" by Red House Painters. It's ok, I hadn't heard of them either until my friend Jon put it on one of his infamous mixes. In any case, there's a line in there that says, "When we were kids, we hated things our parents did." Even by listening to all of the other lyrics, I can't decide which of the two possible meanings the lead singer is going for. Is it, "We hated the actions of our parents" or "We hated the same things that our parents hated"? Growing up, I experienced both of those potential meanings. I hated when my mom brushed my fro-y hair since it hurt a lot (and I'm told I "screamed bloody murder"). At the same time, my parents and I were unified in our hatred for the Boston Celtics. Tough call, eh?

That reminds me of something else that had two potential meanings, although this time I was just clearly wrong. A little while ago, I stayed in a rented house with some friends for a weekend away. In our instructions for how to check-out, I read that we were supposed to make sure that the broom was clean. "That's weird, but sounds pretty easy to me," I thought. When other people read it, they pointed out that I was, in fact, a moron. It stated, "Please leave the house broom clean." Maybe if they had put a hyphen or quotes around the "broom clean" part (or if I'd been familiar with that term), I would've correctly assessed the situation. Instead, I was left thinking, "Ok, the house broom, like the house refrigerator. Makes sense to me!" I tend to enjoy ambiguous phrasings a little more when they don't result in me looking or sounding stupid, but what the hell. Ok friends, it's time once again for everybody's favorite (and only) running UOPTA segment: Car Watch!

My homey Rockabye saw this license plate frame: "Have you hugged your race car today?" Well, the first problem with that is fairly obvious: an extremely small percentage of people who view that frame (or "piece of car flair" as I feel like calling it right now) actually have race cars. I'm gonna go with about 0.5%, and I think that figure's a little high. The second problem involves the delicate timing of hugging said race car. Certainly one would want to make sure it wasn't currently, ya know, racing. The third problem is simply logistical: how does one hug a race car (or any car for that matter)? I'm picturing my chest against the driver-side window and my arms outstretched in an attempt to touch the front and back windshields. I don't know how large my imaginary race car is, so it's hard to really see this in my mind's eye. I can tell you one thing though: it's not sponsored by those marketing bastards at Carl's Jr. I'd sooner drive the Viagra car than that one.

Next, I saw a plate that read, "LUVMYDUK." While that's very interesting, I'm more intrigued by the fact that someone in L.A. owns a duck. For that person, it doesn't seem like a big leap that s/he would love the pet duck enough to put that on a personalized plate. I'd say the same thing would probably go for anyone with a bumper sticker saying, "I love my life-size J. Edgar Hoover circa 1970 wax figurine."

Lastly, I saw a license plate frame that I'm sure meant well, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me. It read, "Stop bitching. Start a revolution." Here's the thing with that: there's an incredibly different amount of activation energy required to perform those two tasks. I'll explain further (in case I'm being too obtuse). In chemistry, for a chemical reaction to take place, a certain amount of energy is required. It's called "activation energy" since it's needed to activate the reaction. This always seemed to be diagrammed with a hill of sorts, if I recall, and that's an apt analogy. (A catalyst, for those of you in a sciencey mood, lowers the required activation energy or "makes that hill smaller" so that the reaction takes place more easily.) So here's my point: there is an extremely low amount of activation energy required for someone who wants to stop bitching. He or she just stops talking or gets distracted or laid or something. Starting a revolution is on the extreme opposite end of that spectrum. That hill of activation energy is more like Mount Everest. Oh sure, you think I'm being hyperbolic by using the tallest mountain on Earth. But think about what it takes to literally start a revolution. It's a crazy amount of grass roots organizing, igniting the will of the people, strategic planning, weapon purchasing (often), and much much more. So, all things being equal, I'm a hell of a lot more likely to just stop bitching and say, "Have a nice day."

So have a nice day, everybody. Happy Birthday today (August 8th, the beautiful day) to our friend Laura. And this upcoming Wednesday is International Lefthanders' Day, so raise a glass (with the appropriate hand, of course) to your humble blogger and all of his southpaw brethren. Lefty power! As always, drop me a line at ptklein@gmail.com with anything that crosses your mind. Then it will cross mine too, and we'll be mind-crossing pals or something. Sweet.

Whole lotta shakin'

Welcome, and what a glorious Friday it is over here at UOPTA central. Today is my one and only mother's birthday, and since she recently won the completely made-up Commenter of the Year award, her birthday totally deserves first paragraph status. Happy Birthday, Mom. I won't tell the readers what number you turned today, but let's just say it rhymes with "meally meally mold."

Hey, guess what happened in this past week. The earth kind of moved a little for us. Or to coin a phrase that I hope not to use very often: it quoke. Being a native Californian, this was not my first experience with the entire world around me jolting. Oh no, friends, there have been several by now, and I've developed my own internal sense of magnitude, comparative duration, etc. I guess you could say I have...quadar. (I'm coining phrases left and right this morning!) This particular quake was different for me for one particular reason: Comedy! Here's what transpired:

I was sitting in my boss's office chatting with him, when I cocked my head like our dog does when she thinks we said "walk" or "treat." For me, it meant, "Is that the earth moving?" Our office tends to creak and shake a bit if someone runs down the hall or if there's a particularly large truck outside, so usually that head motion of mine is for no good reason. After a second though, a co-worker said, "Do you guys feel that?" "Yeah," we replied, and we sat there for another two seconds or so while it kept shaking. During that time, I was thinking, "Should I stand up and move to the doorway? My boss isn't moving at all, so would that make me look like a wimp? It's still going, so maybe I should. Yeah, I guess I will." I then stood up and took the four or five steps over to the door of his office. I looked down the hallway and saw the big potted plant in the lobby swaying back and forth. "Huh, this one's pretty strong," I thought, quickly comparing it to my previous experiences. My boss then spoke up, saying, "Wow, this is long." "That's what she said," I responded. He laughed. As the shaking finally subsided, I said, "Let the record show that I just made a 'That's what she said' joke during an earthquake." He smiled, and I'm just going to assume that meant that he was impressed.

My boss turned on the news, and after hearing a few reports about fun words like "magnitude" and "epicenter," we went back to work. I emailed my lovely wife to make sure everything was fine over at her work, and that was that. Life in L.A., ladies and gentlemen. I awoke, it quoke, we spoke, and you must acquit. Wait, that last part didn't work.

I just remembered another brief earthquake story that involved a little humor as well. Let's keep the theme alive! I was working at UCSB, and as I'm likely to do a couple of times a day, I went to the restroom. I stood at the urinal for a little bit, and upon completing my task, I flushed and turned around to walk toward the sink. As I took that first step, I felt like I suddenly got very dizzy. My first thought was, "Did I stand up too quickly? No, I was standing the whole time." As I was washing my hands, I wondered if I peed so much that it made my blood pressure drop or something like that. Before I could fully grasp the absurdity of that hypothesis, I heard lots of voices out in the hall. I stepped out, and sure enough, they were all discussing the quick jolt of an earthquake we'd all just experienced. "Ah, that makes much more sense," I thought to myself. Much like that time I thought a cat was speaking to me, I probably should've gathered a little more information before leaping to nonsensical conclusions. (The Nonsensical Conclusions could be a band name, eh? They sound like they'd be either from Berkeley or Scotland to me, but that might just be an illogical association. And yes, the Illogical Associations are from Philly.)

That leads us to the granddaddy of them all (to date...knock on wood): The Northridge Quake. And come to think of it, there ended up being comedy related to this one as well. That's interesting. Anyway, I was 16 years old back in January of '94, and I spent the night at my friend Dusty's house. Our friend Jon slept there that night as well, and the thing we all remember when going to bed was Jon making some strange pun relating the word "derriere" to a cow's "dairy area." Oh how we laughed. We fell asleep, and everything was going just dandy until a television landed about a foot from Jon's head. Yeah, Earth did that. Jon and Dusty sprung to their feet and ran to the doorway. Being a rule follower, I was busy lying on the ground, with one arm on my forehead and the other covering the back of my neck. This is precisely what we were instructed to do if unable to get under a desk. "Peter, get up!" they yelled. "I'm making a head sandwich!" I yelled back. They reached down and pulled me to my feet, and I joined them in one of the nearby doorways.

The shaking eventually stopped, and we spent the next little while sitting in doorways, chatting with Dusty's dad and his now-wife, and commenting on the noticeable aftershocks. At one point, one of us ventured downstairs to assess the damage and get some cans of Sprite. A glass broke, but that was about it. A little bit later, figuring that the drama was over, we went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter, the house phone rang, and it was my parents. They were shocked and a little upset that I hadn't called them, but more prominent was their wonder at the fact that we went back to sleep. What I hadn't realized until that point was that Dusty's dad's house was cushioned by the hills on which it was built. My parents' house (and the house my lovely wife grew up in, I later learned) didn't have that luxury and the damage was extensive. When I got home later that morning, I understood why they thought I should've called. Everything that had been in a cupboard was now broken and on the floor, there were cracks in walls, and all sorts of damage. "A glass broke at Dusty's," I said, but no one found that juxtaposition of havoc as interesting as I did.

Here's where the comedy comes into this story (unless you found the "head sandwich" part humorous): later that year, Dusty, Jon, and I acted out that entire scene during a practice session for our improvisational comedy team. We were playing a game in which people are doing a scene, a fellow teammate watching the scene yells, "Freeze!" and then takes the place of one of the actors. He or she is to take the exact position of the person who was released, and then change the scene to something else. I don't remember if it was Jon or Dusty, but one of them tagged in, and then said, "Oh my god, it's an earthquake!" We spent the next half-hour acting out everything that happened that early-morning, and a whole bunch of stuff that never happened. The rest of the teammates were enjoying it so much that no one yelled "Freeze!" to interrupt us or stop the scene. They just let us keep going, and so we did for a long, long time. Ah, isn't it great when natural disasters can yield laughter? (Hint: The answer is yes.)

Ok, this is getting long (that's what she said), so I'm going to jump right into this week's fantabulous edition of...Car Watch!

I saw a license plate frame on the freeway this week that said, "After 40...Life is Good." Does that mean that life totally sucked for that woman for the first 39 years? Or was life excellent before and now it's just...good? If this were a word problem in a math class, I'd look for the "Not enough information" answer. You know what I'm talking about, right? They'd always throw something in there like, "Bobby is taller than Billy. Sheila is taller than Sally. Billy is taller than Sally. Who is the tallest one of the group?" The answers would be Bobby, Billy, Sheila, Sally, and Not Enough Information. If Billy were taller than Sheila, then we'd know for sure, but nothing tells us how Bobby and Sheila compare to each other. It would help if they said it was in sixth grade, because then I'd choose Sheila every time.

Not to veer too far off course, but sometimes those types of questions would be laughable. Something as obvious as: "If Ricardo can make ten free throws in thirty seconds, how long does it take him to eat a roast beef sandwich?" And you just know some kids read that and think, "Well, let's see...ten free throws in thirty seconds...roast beef...probably about 90 seconds." I like those kids; they made my percentiles higher.

My homey Rockabye saw this plate and sent it over to me: "SML 4ME." Granted, it's probably a photographer or maybe a dentist. However, there's nothing there that makes "smile" any more represented by those letters than "smell" would be. If I were driving past that person, I'd either sniff around like a drug- or bomb-detecting pooch or I'd raise one arm, sniff my armpit, and give the dude a thumbs-up. "I did it for you man!" I'd manage to convey.

Last but certainly not least, I was a couple of cars away from a truck that had a peculiar license plate frame. On the bottom, it said "Paris Hilton." And on the top...I don't know. I couldn't catch up to it and it turned before I could see the beginning of the thought. Naturally, it was killing me. What could that have said? "I want to be?" "God hates?" "Honk if you're?" "My other ride is?" Any thoughts on this, friends? If so, fire away in comments section and let your voice be heard (or more appropriately, let your words be seen).

Ok people, that's it for me. Since I know a lot of you are current or former Angelinos, feel free to share any earthquake stories you have in the comments section - preferably ones with some sort of humor. (I'm looking at you, my favorite brother Kevin.) Or if anything else comes to mind about any subject whatsoever, ptklein@gmail.com is there for you to sound off. I want to once again wish my mom a very happy birthday today. I've also got some other happies going out to our friend Scott M's birthday tomorrow, our friend Kareem's half-birthday tomorrow as well, and my old colleague and friend Leslie's birthday on Monday. Have a happy and healthy weekend and week, friends, and I'll see you here next Friday.