Playing a night game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pilgrim 2: (in Borat voice) High five!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Words of the day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A little something for my word nerds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

History lessons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ring...Ring.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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