Love, presidents, and other random things

Hello and good morning, friends. Well, crap. I have no idea what to write about. I have a bunch of smaller items on my list of single-paragraph thoughts, but I don't know if I should just bust those out (and empty the reservoir, if you will). I know, I'll start with two timely thoughts I had, see how much space those take up, and then proceed from there. Feel free to jump in at any time with any questions that might arise during this session.

Oh, I thought of another thing. Cool, even if it's quite brief. Yesterday, as many of you are likely aware, was Valentine's Day. (At least that's how my calendar writes it. I understand that it's the day of Saint Valentine, and so the apostrophe is technically correct there. Still, I can't help but think of "valentine" as the noun of someone's sweetheart, which I'm fairly certain is the most common usage of the word. Second, if I had to guess, would be the paper a kid gives to another on that day. Anyway, since I don't think of the saint first, I want to write the holiday as "Valentines' Day." That way, it is the day of more than one Valentine. I'm confusing myself though, because my calendar says "Veterans Day" without any apostrophe at all I would expect that to be an s-then-apostrophe one as well. Maybe I'm just way to liberal with my plural possessive usage. I really would like your opinions on this, even though it's not exactly the most important current issue in the world. I believe that would be, "Should Josiah have made the final 24 of American Idol this season?" The correct answer to that one is no, by the way.) Earlier in the week, I was asked two separate times about my plans for the night of the 14th. I told both my friend Greg and my homey Rockabye that I was going to be making my lovely wife dinner that night. Both of them had the same response: "Oh, quesadillas?" To me, the funny thing isn't that they both said that. It's the fact that if I were to tell my friends Dusty, Dave, and Jon, my favorite brother Kevin, or either of my parents that I was making dinner, I'm certain that it would've elicited the same response. I guess you can't spell "predictable" without Peter.

(Man, side notes sure to add words to a post, eh?) Sticking with yesterday's faux-but-nice-nonetheless holiday, I was waiting in line at a store to buy a Valentine's day card earlier in the week. A man in his 50s or so started walking toward me, shaking his head in a manner that clearly said, "I can't believe what I just saw." He was dressed pretty nicely, and as he started moving toward me, I noticed that he held a copy of the National Enquirer in his hand. Still smiling and shaking his head, he came right into my personal space and said, "Will you get a load of this?" He pointed to the cover. "What's, uh, what's her name again?" he asked me. "Oprah Winfrey," I said, not concealing a slight "Are you fucking serious?" tone to my voice. "Her husband or boyfriend, Stedman-" I quickly looked down, and sure enough, Stedman's name appeared on the cover. Thank God. Seriously, if this guy knew Stedman's name but not Oprah's, my head might have exploded. He continued, "Stedman told her that she needs to choose him or him." On the second "him," he was pointing to a picture of Barack Obama. Yes, the paper was alleging an illicit love triangle. And yes, this guy thought it was all true and it blew his mind. "Uh, yeah, that's something," I said before being thankfully called over to an open register. I don't know what part of that interaction I found most astonishing: not knowing Oprah, wholly swallowing that bullshit story, or the need he felt to share that story with the first person who came into his line of sight. Actually, I think I figured out what confused me the most about the whole scene. If he didn't even know Oprah's name (which is retardiculous in its own right), then how could that story be so earth-shattering to him? We'll never know, I guess. (A lone tear falls on the trusty blogger's keyboard.)

Yesterday, my Bratty Kid Sister told me that Yahoo Radio had a station of all 80s love songs. Naturally, I had it on for a few hours. It was hilarious as I went through Journey, REO Speedwagon, Bryan Adams, and the duet of all duets, "Endless Love." While I was laughing at the vast majority of the songs, one made me sit up, say "Ooh ooh!" and turn the volume a lot higher: "Someone" by Depeche Mode. It had been a long time since I'd heard that song, and it sounded great. Here's the thing about this song: it spoke to me when I was a teen boy yearning for a deep relationship with a girl (preferably a smoking hot one). It was one of those rare instances (not incidences) in which it seemed like someone understood me. I was deeply entrenched in the "nobody understands me" phase, so that's really saying something. To commemorate how moved I was by this song, I actually wrote the initials to some of the lyrics on one of my bookcovers next to an eye with a teardrop below it. It was obscured a little by my drawings of "Sphincterman, The Contracting Muscle of Justice," but it was on there nonetheless. I think part of me hoped that some hot chick felt the same way about the song, glimpsed the initials on my bookcover, saw the tear representing a feeling but vulnerable young man, and then starting making out with me. If memory serves, that never ended up happening.

(A side note that may or may not be interesting whatsoever: I also wrote the initials of "Under the Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on another bookcover at some point. It probably had to do with the opening lines of "Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner/Sometimes I feel like my only friend." Ah, gotta love the teen years. In any case, I distinctly remember briefly thinking that I had found a secret message or code in the initials of the lyrics. I wish I could remember what I believed that message was, because "SIFLIDHAP SIFLMOF ITCILI TCOA LAIA TWC" means absolutely nothing to 30 year-old Peter.

Ok, enough with that holiday. Let's move on to next Monday: Presidents' Day. Ah, the calendar got the apostrophe right there. Good thing too, because I probably would've been pretty angry at such a clear-cut call for the plural possessive there. I mean, seriously, that holiday was specifically created so that we didn't get days off for both Washington and Lincoln. Good job, calendar. So, with the topic of presidents, I always like to think of the most obscure ones. To me, Millard Fillmore is mentioned often enough as the default obscure president that he no longer fits the description. (That, my friends, is irony.) So I just looked up the list of presidents, and there are a few that I would like to nominate for the most obscure POTUS. At first glance, I was going to say John Tyler, but then Zachary Taylor caught my eye. His name may be more familiar, but the fact that he died of natural causes in office just a year or so after being sworn in caught my eye. How did I not know that? I know about William Henry Harrison dying of pneumonia a few months after taking office, but Taylor somehow slipped though the cracks. Those two presidential deaths of natural causes were within a decade of each other. I wonder if that had an effect on the number of people who ran for that office, seeing as how it greatly reduced one's lifespan. Rutherford B. Hayes is another fairly obscure one, as is James K. Polk. If Martin Van Buren didn't have kick-ass sideburns, I'm sure that he'd be in this discussion as well. So tell me, folks, who do you nominate? Did you just learn of any president from this paragraph? How many people out there do you think named their kids Taylor or Tyler without knowing that there was a president with that name? Sadly, I estimate that number to be in the hundreds of thousands. Yikes.

Hey, I just did a quick search for something irrelevant about presidents, and I spotted a very funny comment. Apparently, Zachary Taylor has another noteworthy distinction: he's the only president who shares his name with two-thirds of the band Hanson. You learn something new every day, my friends.

Ok, now I'm going to go through a few of the smaller items I have on my List o' Things to Write About When You're Fresh Out of Ideas. Yes, the fabled LTWAWYFOI really does exist. Some dreams really do come true. First off, I saw what has to be one of the nerdiest items of all time. While bowling in my league with my fellow Sweep the Leg teammates, I noticed a very peculiar looking ball that a fellow bowler had. Granted, bowling itself is fairly nerdy. I'll agree to that fact, even though I enjoy it immensely. However, the nerdiness factor increases exponentially when a clear bowling ball has a big twelve-sided die in the middle of it. For those of you unfamiliar with that object, it's what's used in Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, we found something unequivocally nerdier than bowling. When combined, it's an almost unspeakable level of geekdom. (That totally sounds like a book title. Keep your eyes out for "An Unspeakable Level of Geekdom" by Peter Klein, hitting bookstores this summer!)

Here's another quick hit of things I've thought. A co-worker of mine was talking about dressing up for Halloween when she was a little girl. She said that it was one costume and one costume only for years: a princess. She went on to describe the wand, the dress, and, in her words, "the dunce cap and everything." She's totally right. I'd never noticed how extremely similar a princess's headwear and a dunce cap are. Why is that ok? I mean, I know fairy tail princesses aren't always making the wisest decisions, but they're a model of purity and goodness, not unintelligence so extreme that one is forced into a corner with a special "I'm dumb" hat. Do you think they're from the same origin somehow? Too bad I gave up internet research for Lent.

And like that - poof! - I'm already to the Car Watch portion of this post. It's almost like magic when that happens.

My friend Dusty sent me a text message yesterday with a bumper sticker he saw: "I dyslexia (heart)." Brilliant! All this time, I thought I was such a genius for singing Paul Westerberg's "Dyslexic Heart" as "Cixelsyd Traeh" with my friend Adam. It just got us confused looks though. With that bumper sticker, however, the owner clearly and concisely makes fun of the learning disability. And I applaud him for it.

My dad saw a plate that read, "MRXITMT." Maybe it's just me, but I think "Mr. Excitement" is a title one should have bestowed upon him and not self-proclaimed. Oh yeah, and either fit it on a plate in a way that makes sense or abandon the idea. It took me longer than it should've to realize that it's not Mr. Exit Mountain. (I also toyed with a mis-spelled 'excrement' somewhere in there. Um, please don't let me ever write that sentence again.)

My homey Rockabye saw "NOOMAAS" on a plate. That's great...if you're being tortured in Spain. It's not easy to incorporate a complex emotion like anguish in just seven characters, but I really feel it in that one. Well done?

He also saw a plate that made me laugh quite a bit. "IHVNOIQ," it told us. While I certainly hope that's not the case (especially since that person's driving and all), it's more self-deprecating than I'm used to seeing in that medium. And we all know the Klein formula of humor: Self-deprecation + unexpected situation = big laughs. Rinse and repeat.

Last, but oh-so-not-least, is a license plate frame I saw on my way home from work on Wednesday. "Voice over artists...Do it with a boom." Now what kind of lame sexual innuendo is that? How about "Voice over artists...Do it while you're picturing someone else" instead? Nope, they went with "Do it with a boom." Does that mean very quickly and forcefully? Do they really want that to be what they're known for? Can I have another question in this paragraph? Why not?

And like that, I'm out of here. My Bratty Kid Sister's birthday is next Tuesday, so I'm wishing her an early happy one here and now. I suggest you all do the same...in your minds. Have a great weekend, Presidents' Day, and work week until I see you back here next Friday. I'm interested in all of your thoughts about obscure presidents, so comment away. And as always, please feel free to email ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. I need ideas and thoughts, folks, so please keep sending me anything about anything. Thanks, and see you soon.

Musician fruition

Good morning, my homemen and homewomen. I hope that this morning finds you all well, and that you're not too tired from all of the Lunar New Year parties last night. My calendar tells me such interesting things sometimes. I have a topic on which to write today, so I may as well launch right into it, eh?

When the powers that be were handing out various talents, the one assigned to dole out musical ability somehow passed me by completely. I can moderately carry a tune, but no one will ever turn and say, "Wow, you have a good singing voice." It's not horrible (I think), but I know my limitations. If I pick up a guitar, it's as awkward as if I were holding a baby alligator. A bass guitar looks a little more comfortable, but only if I keep from touching the strings at all times. I've always been partial to the percussion family, and I'd say I excel more at "steering wheel drumming" than any other musical activity. And even though I was once told that I have "piano player fingers" by a musician, I'm limited to "When the Saints Go Marching In," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," "Chopsticks," and a couple of tunes I don't know the names of that my mom taught me. None of which require using more than one or two fingers at the same time, naturally.

Meanwhile, my friends Jon and Dusty started playing guitar regularly (and well), and Greg and Dave each tried picking it up. It didn't really catch on for those two, but they can still pick up a guitar, fiddle around, and not look like a complete moron. I do look like a moron, and I can only blame so much of the awkwardness on being left-handed.

So, when I learned about the video game "Guitar Hero," I thought it would make perfect sense to stay the hell away from it. Why set myself up for certain failure and humiliation? I heard great things about how much fun it was from my co-worker Rob, but I still was far from interested. From what I could tell, it involved having to look like you knew what you were doing: hitting the right buttons and strumming at the right time. Both activities, to the best of my knowledge, were far beyond my abilities (let alone simultaneously). "South Park" had a very funny episode about the game, in which Stan's father Randy said something to the effect of, "If the kids spent half as much time with real instrument as they do with this video game, they might actually accomplish something." I concurred.

I walked around Best Buy with Rob and saw people playing the demo versions, and it looked even harder than I expected. If I were ever to try it, I told myself, it would probably have to be with absolutely no one else around.

As it turned out, there was one other scenario in which I would allow myself to look foolish: surrounded by people I've known for at least a decade (or three decades in one case). Dave and Twilight had a party, and Dave was borrowing his brother Seth's Wii console and Guitar Hero game. After watching a few songs, I meekly inquired about how it would work for a lefty. Seth showed us the very easy way to put it on lefty mode. "Watch out for the whammy bar though - it's kinda in the way for lefties." I saw what he meant, as it was obviously designed for the majority, but I thought, "What the hell," and selected a "beginner" song on the easiest level.

The indicators of what note to hit started coming, and it took me a little while to find the right timing. After I missed a large percentage of the first twenty notes or so, the fake crowd starting booing me. The real crowd of my friends shouted a little encouragement, and I bounced back to get through the entire song. (They boo you off stage if you don't shape up. Way to build confidence, eh?) And I'll tell you something: it was pretty fucking fun.

I probably played another ten songs that night, and my inner rock god was having a hell of a time. I was punctuating notes with leg kicks, channeling a little Pete Townshend with my arm whirling around, and even inappropriately thrusting my pelvis with the guitar. I can't really explain it, but I was totally buying into the cheering crowd's enthusiasm, and hamming it up accordingly. Every few songs, Greg and I would poke our heads back into the main room where the rest of the party was taking place. Each time, we heard people loudly singing karaoke versions of Rent songs, so we quickly ducked back into the Wii room.

Here's what I realized: playing Guitar Hero has very little to do with actual guitar-playing skills. Instead, I just had to have good hand-eye coordination and know when to hit the denoted buttons on the guitar. I grew up playing a good deal of video games, so this was well within my skill set. And by doing those things with which I was already familiar, I ended up feeling something completely foreign: I was making music.

I made some joke to my friends about "French Horn Hero" not selling as well as its creators had hoped, and one of them told me about something new coming out. It was called Rock Band, and it was very similar to Guitar Hero, but it came with a guitar, a drum set, and a microphone. "No fucking way!" I said, clearly more excited than anyone expected that news to make me. I've always liked the drums, and the thought of drumming along to some kick-ass rock songs sounded far cooler than anything I'd done for a long time. Yes, I realize I'm 30 and talking about a video game.

A couple of months passed, and I saw someone drumming along to a display version of Rock Band in Best Buy. Yep, it was as cool as I thought. I asked my lovely wife, "I'm too old to buy that for myself, right?" "Yeah, probably," she said. Damn. If she had said either, "Not really" or "Maybe not," I might've run to the store right then. Instead, a little time passed and my desire waned. Then, something happened and changed that a little. We went up to visit Dusty and Mills, who had recently purchased Guitar Hero. I mentioned Rock Band, and Dusty said that he was going to get it the minute they came out with it for Wii (I have an XBox 360, for which the game already existed). Dusty's 31, by the way. While that changed my perception a little (i.e. I wasn't going to be laughed at by my friends), the bigger deal was when my lovely wife picked up the guitar and started rocking out to a song. I was struck by a vision: my beloved playing a song on guitar, and me banging away on the drums right next to her. We could be a band!

I looked at the included song list online, and I mentally salivated at the thought of playing along with Nirvana, Weezer, Foo Fighters, and even a Bon Jovi song. I had a little willpower left in me, but then the price went down $30 or $40. The final straw happened when I realized that my lovely wife was going to be out of town from Wednesday morning until Saturday (tomorrow) night. I would be able to play with the Hallie pup for a good amount of time, but it sure would be cool to be playing the drums, guitar, and singing that whole time. So we got it last Saturday. By the end of the day, I think we already got our money's worth. We played a bunch of songs together and had some genuine fun. We know we probably looked dorky, but we were having a good time. My goal is to get through all of the songs on the easy level by the time she returns. That way, all of the songs will be "unlocked," and we'll be able to play whatever we want from the entire catalog. Are we too old for this? Most likely, but I'm also too old to laugh at the word "duty" every single time, and that's not going away any time soon. (By the way, when I texted Dusty that I bought Rock Band, he wrote back "So jealous.")

I'm still too nervous to do much of the singing, especially since I tried it out twice. Not good, friends, not good. However, I'm encouraged enough by another cool feature that I may give it another go. In certain parts of songs in which there aren't any words, the vocalist can hit the mic against his or her hand to use as a tambourine. They thought of everything!

There are two big upsides to having this game. One, as I already mentioned, is being able to do something different and fun with my wife from time to time. We started dating a dozen years ago, and until this past week, we'd never played musical instruments together (real or fake). Two, unlike the guitar part of the game, the drums actually would prepare me to know what to do with a real drum set. Therefore, I'm actually kind of learning how to play a musical instrument for the first time in my life. That's an exciting new trick for this old Dawg.

I just re-read everything I've written up to this point, and I acknowledge that some of this might seem a little pathetic for someone who's supposed to be a grown up. I tell ya though, it's pretty damn fun. If you enjoy music on any level, I have to believe that there's a part of you that thinks this sounds cool. And you're right. I think it just might be the coolest video game of all time. There, I said it.

One quick side story for you that has nothing at all to do with Rock Band: My lovely wife and I went to vote on Super Tuesday, and we got to the polling place a few minutes before they opened at 7am. There were a few others waiting, and about four or five volunteers. The leader of the group (and I know he was the leader because he kept touting his election experience) told us that we unfortunately had to wait until 7 and he couldn't let us vote earlier. "Yeah, we wouldn't want to be extra enfranchised," I said. Amber started to nod in approval of my pun, but two others felt the need to correct me. "Disenfranchised, you mean. Yeah, we wouldn't want that." I let it go, but it bothered me that instead of getting my joke, they thought I was an idiot. It wasn't worth the effort in explaining myself, especially since that would've just made the joke considerably less funny. Still, I thought it was worth sharing with you all.

And with that, it is now time for us to gather our belongings, check the seat pockets in front of us, and head on down to the Car Watch.

I saw a hybrid on the 405 yesterday with a license plate that read, "NRG + GAS." How true, how true. I think it may have been the first time I'd seen the plus sign on a plate not being used for two sets of initials of people who love each other. Or add up to something.

Also yesterday, I saw a car with two of the same stickers on its bumper. "Proud Parent of a Student with Perfect Attendance," they each told me. I have a couple of thoughts on this, as you might imagine. First, I wonder if it's the same kid who has had perfect attendance twice or two kids who each had perfect attendance once. If it's the former, then that truly is a parent who is proud of that accomplishment. Second, aren't we setting the bar a little low here? To me, that sticker is saying, "My kid may not be the smartest one in the group, but damn, her immune system is strong! I mean, seriously, do you know how many germs she comes in contact with on a daily basis? Yet, through all of that, not one missed day due to sickness all fucking year! Not only that, she didn't miss a day due to injury either. She's active, you know. We saw this coming, so we made sure not to take any vacations during the year either. Had to keep the streak alive." Do I read too much into these things? Nah.

My loving mother-in-law saw a plate that told us to "OPN WHYD." It's gotta be a dentist, right? Anything else I think of would make this not a family-friendly blog. Here's why I like this one. It appears that "OPN WIDE" and other variations were taken. Instead of choosing something that didn't get the point across well enough (like "OPEN WID"), s/he found a homophone to help out. Not only that, the H makes me say the word in a way that actually opens my mouth wider. How's that for unintentional cleverness on their part?

My pops saw "OYVEY LA" on a plate. Presumably, he was sitting in traffic, since that's the unofficial pastime of this lovely city. I feel that person's pain, with as much Yiddish angst as I can muster. Muster, that's a weird word. I hate it in the past tense. Yucky.

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw a plate that said, "JEDI 2BE." Somewhere in Vegas, a bookie is laying 4 to1 odds that that guy still lives with his parents. I'd take that bet.

Ok, people, I'm outa here. Have a good rest of your day, weekend, and week. If you are celebrating Valentine's Day, have a lovely one. Oh, I just looked at today's date again. I love it, it sounds like someone getting interrupted while attempting to make a toast. "To...oh wait! Oh wait!" What, don't look at me like that. See you next week, everyone.

The fury and the sound

Good morning, and Happy February to one and all. I think it's strange that my desk calendar has no problem telling me when Administrative Professionals Day is, but they don't tell me that tomorrow is Groundhog Day. What gives? I have to know when United Nations Day and Canada's Civic Holiday are, but Punxsutawney Phil gets left out in the cold? I've seen my calendar's shadow, and it sucks.

The movie named after (and starring) that holiday has some fantastically quotable lines, by the way. The one that I say most often is Andie MacDowell's, "I bought you, I own you" from the last few minutes. I actually said that to my dog a few weeks ago, and I was delighted by the veracity of the statement. (Technically, we "donated" the fee to the shelter, but money exchanged hands, so I consider it a purchase of sorts still.) Oh sure, there are glaring plot holes in the movie - like that party/bachelor auction that only happened on that final incarnation of the day for some reason - but it's an enjoyable movie that I've seen way too many times. Not for a little while though, so I'll have to do something about that.

Today's post is not about what lines I like of what movies, however. I had a conversation with my favorite brother recently, and it led to some comments just meaty enough to warrant a post, I believe. We were talking about people with poor grammar and spelling, and he said this: "Oh, and I hate when people say 'acrosst' for some reason instead of just 'across.'" "I hate that too, and I hear it way more often than I should - from a lot of intelligent people too."

Before I get too far into this, please allow me to remind you that I am far from infallible in the world of grammar and proper usage. As I've said in this space before, I boldly split infinitives, end sentences with prepositions, use "I" instead of "me" when it's not the subject, use "they" instead of "he or she" often because it's less cumbersome, and write "Guess what?" even though it's a command and not a question. However, when I know something is wrong, hearing or seeing other people use it bothers me to a greater extent than it should. It angers me, and I don't think I can do anything about that fact. Grrrr. See? That's me being angry.

And so it was, in that conversation with my brother, than I continued talking about things that people say erroneously. I came up with three others off the top of my head that seemed to fit in the same category as "acrosst." That category which I've created is for things that intelligent people say incorrectly for no reason whatsoever. So let me be clear, gentle readers: if you say any of these next three things that I'm going to write, I do not think you're dumb. It's just that you've probably heard these things said and never stopped to wonder if they were correct or not. (I never thought twice about writing "Guess what?" until my friend Dusty texted me asking if it pissed me off when people did that.)

"The people who say 'acrosst' are the same people who say 'heighth' probably," I told him. "Huh?" "Instead of just 'height,' they put an H at the end so it sounds similar to length and width." He was quiet for a second, trying to figure out if he was one of the people of which I spake. He concluded that it may have slipped out from time to time. I told him that was ok, and that he wasn't alone. I can say with 100% certainty that I have never used that, but I may have accidentally typed it at some point since my fingers do weird things on their own (like typing Amberica instead of America).

"Oh, and you know what else those people say? 'Incidences.'" "What's wrong with that one?" "I know, I was guilty of this one at some point too." I went on to explain that an event is an incident. The plural is incidents. Incidence, while sounding extremely similar, is the "rate of occurrence or influence," such as "a high incidence of crime." Thank you yet again, Merriam Webster. So when people say that something happened on "several incidences," they're just wrong. Still sound right to you? That's probably because "instance" and "instances" are right and have a similar sound. Confused? Well, just try to remember that "incidents" is probably what you mean if you hear yourself accidentally saying "incidences."

Lastly in this category, I come to one that I definitely said incorrectly throughout the majority of my high school career. Once again, it was Dusty who pointed out the error of my ways. If a teacher or office wanted to see a student who was currently in a class, they (he or she?) would issue a yellow piece of paper called a summons. We all got very used to that noun, so much so that we turned it into a verb when there was a perfectly good verb waiting there already. "He summonsed me during fourth period," I'd say. "No, he summoned you," Dusty would reply. "He chose to summon you with a summons." I saw his point, and the verb is actually "to summon." Isn't language just grand?

So, my friends, how many of you say how many of those things? Don't be shy; English is freaky and it would be even weirder if you always spoke completely correctly.

Knowing that I find things about words of great interest, my loving mother-in-law sent me some fun facts to look over. One that I had heard before but appreciated greatly was this: "If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find that letter A?" The answer (which I guessed correctly upon first hearing this and thinking about it for a bit) is "one thousand." I find that to be pretty cool.

Switching topics now, we have the Superbowel game coming up this weekend. If they're gonna be sticklers with their copyright of putting "bowl" and "super" together, I'm going to liken it to a massive shit and still get my point across just fine. In any case, I saw former player Howie Long on t.v. talking about the Superbowel. At one point, he said that something was "the white elephant in the room." Really? There's a gag gift in the room? I thought that was a great combination of phrases and worthy of a mention.

Here's something that I was going to save for another post, but it's bothering me enough that I wish to mention it now instead. While flipping around out of boredom on the tube, my lovely wife and I came acrosst (just kidding) a celebrity dating show called "Rock of Love" starring former Poison frontman Bret Michaels. Oops, my bad, it was "Rock of Love 2." And that is what gets my goat, people. I have heard of three (count them, three) dating shows now that are sequels to the original. Please allow me to clarify: I don't mean like another season of "The Bachelor" in which they find another shockingly-single dude and surround him with shockingly-single chicks to find true love. No, I'm talking about the shows like "Rock of Love 2," "I Love New York 2," and the newly announced "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequlia 2." These are programs that have already happened with the same protagonist and presumably already terminated with the formation of a happy couple.

By having sequels, they are sending two loud and clear signals. One, we clearly failed our "main objective" of finding true love for this person. Two, this is all bullshit and more for entertainment value than anything we purport it to be about. Now that I have seen about two minutes of one of these shows, I know what I missed the first time around, and I sure as hell know what I'll be intentionally missing going forward. The WGA strike needs to end soon, because if they can't even come up with enough original reality crap to keep something on the airwaves, then our television future is looking even bleaker than I imagined.

Here's a random thought I had recently: does anyone get "on the schneid?" (I've never spelled that word before, so I'm using my Jewish heritage to guess to the best of my ability.) Are we all born on thousands of unique schneids, just waiting to get off of them? Or do the individual schneids come along with the beginning of new things? Sorry, I know those are heavy philosophical questions, but they're ones I feel are begging to be asked.

Ok folks, it's time to get the Car Watch party started.

My dad saw a plate and sent me a text message about it. "GRLYBOI," it read. To me, there are only three reasonable explanations for this. One, the young man is gay and proud to announce that to the world. Two, it's an odd nickname that has stuck throughout the years. Or three, someone's fucking with him. I'm gonna go with door number one, although my dad didn't report whether there was an accompanying rainbow sticker or not. (I can't help but mention the incredible difference in public perception between a young girl who enjoys more typically-male activities and a young boy who enjoys more typically-female activities. For the girl, it's cute and she's a tomboy. For a boy, well, there really aren't any cute or nice-sounding names for that situation. I guess that's where GRLYBOI comes into play.)

I'm not the best with identifying makes and models of cars, but I'm pretty sure it was a red Camaro that passed me with a plate reading, "AN EZ A." Maybe I jump to conclusions, but that sounds a lot like a professor who is willing to change someone's grade for a little dough on the side. Seriously, what else could that be? Did someone's dad promise him or her a new car for a 4.0 semester? That's all I've got. Comment away if you think it's anything else.

I also saw a license plate frame that read on the top, "Have you seen our..." I took a second to ponder what the bottom might be, but I came up blank. After a second, I gave up and looked: "Dad's new car?" I don't know, have I? If that's it, then yes. More importantly, you know I have because how else would I be reading that? If that's not his car, then how the hell do I know if I've seen it or not? Is there something easily identifiable about said car that would cause me to remember having glanced upon it? Here's one for you: Have you seen my...middle finger?

My homey Rockabye saw either a sticker or a frame that caught me off guard: "My other car is my feet." At first this angered me and I was all set to launch into a rant about how that's technically impossible. But then I thought more about it and realized that this person might actually be making fun of everyone else's sticker by saying, "I only have one car. If it breaks, I'm shit out of luck and walking to work. So suck it." If that's the reason behind it, then I applaud instead of curse.

Lastly, my Bratty Kid Sister called to tell me about a special American flag license plate that said, "ME 4 GOD" on it. My first response was that it seemed very egotistical to me. Like, "Wow, I really want to get something good for God this year, but I'm out of ideas. Oh, I know: Me, baby, me." BKS said that to her, it looked like the person was campaigning. "Vote for me in the next election for God," if you will. I think that's awesome. Aim high, right? Good eye, fake sis.

And that is all for me, my friends. Happy Birthday tomorrow to my friend Kareem, and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and week until we meet up here again. As always, please write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all. Shaloha, and good luck seeing your shadows.

The doctor is in...song

Good morning, and Happy Late January. I just looked at the calendar and saw that February 29th lands on a Friday, so I'm pretty happy about that. For a day that only appears when elections and Olympics are in the air to fall on the one day out of seven that I post something, well, I think we can all agree that it's definitive proof that fate is real. Much like last week's post, I don't have any over-arching theme going on today (at least not yet). So I'm just going to write about some random crap without any real transitions between them. (Now that I've read the entire post, it appears that a loose theme is "doctors," because I mention that title three different times. It's cool being from the future.)

So we had MLK Jr. Day this past Monday. While I had to work, hopefully some of you had the day off in honor of that great man. When most people think of him, they immediately jump to his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, and rightfully so. For me, though, I think of something else first, and I hope this story just makes me seem just odd and not a bad person. Sophomore or junior year of college, I mentioned to my friends that I really liked the way "Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard" sounded. It was rhythmic, but more so it was hilarious to think of someone saying that whole thing while giving directions. "Yeah, so continue another half mile or so, then make a right on Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. Take Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard for a couple of blocks, and it'll be on the right. 2133 Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard." You see what I mean? It's the same reason I like the word for "unfortunately" in Spanish (desafortunadamente). It's just fun to work in.

My friends agreed with the joy I found in saying those six words. Go ahead, say it five times out loud and tell me that there isn't a nice, natural rhythm to the words. I'll wait. Good. One afternoon, I got a little carried away and just kept saying it over and over again. A couple of friends joined in, and pretty soon, we'd been chanting Dr. King's name (and street) close to fifty times. Then more joined in, but rather than just going along with us, they added different layers to it. (We had done "vocal jams" as a way to warm up for improv matches, and we'd learned how to add components to simple baselines and how to build a song together rather than just make distracting sounds.) Someone started yelling "Doctor!" in between "boulevard" and the next "doctor." Another added a refrain of "He's got a PhD in Civil Rights" that acted like a little guitar section over the baseline of the repeated phrase. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I honestly think we made a good song there for a solid ten minutes. And after all, isn't bringing people together exactly what Dr. King was all about? Yes, yes it was. So that's what I first think of with MLK, quickly followed by his great deeds, and I wanted to share that with you all.

Oh, I thought of another MLK-related topic. Who knew he'd be so inspirational? Oh, yeah, everyone knew that. I meant in regards to my post this week. Back in high school, I was taking some test in a history class, and I read a question as such: "What movement did Martin Luther King create?" Here's the problem: it actually said "Martin Luther" sans the "King," but I didn't read it right. So I looked down at the multiple choice options, and there wasn't anything about Civil Rights there, which left me greatly confused. None of the four options made any sense to me, so I started doing what I did in those situations: make arguments for each of them. After a little while, this one made the most sense to me: "Well, let's see, he did lead some protests, so technically I guess he could've been involved in the Protest-ant movement." I chose that one, even though I was 100% sure that it was wrong. After the test, I asked someone about the "Martin Luther King" question on it. "You mean the Martin Luther question - you said Martin Luther King." "Oh, yeah, that's what I meant." "Yeah, even though we never went over that stuff, I'm a Protestant so I knew that one already." I pretended like I pulled that answer out of careful consideration and by crossing off a couple of definitely wrong answers, but it was just a serendipitous end to a stupid situation.

I woke up feeling a little sniffly a few days ago. When I got to work, I dropped a tablet of Airborne into a glass, waited for the fizzing to subside, and then pounded that shit. I have two problems with Airborne, and I wish to share those with you. First off, when I hear "airborne," I think "virus." I know that's what they claim to be defending us from, but I still feel like I'm putting something with a bad connotation into my body. It's almost an Auto Follower to me actually. The only reason it's not is because Chris Knight calls the guy at the military base's guard gate "Airborne" in "Real Genius."

My second issue with this product (which I actually like and take for the reasons it says to) is what it says on the bottle and packaging. "Created by a School Teacher!" it proudly tells us. That's great, and I understand why a teacher would want a product like this since he or she is faced with more germs than the average person. However, I would prefer that a scientist or doctor created it. I don't want this thing to help me write book reports or do long division. I want it to fend off the germs attempting to take over my body. That makes sense, right? To me, it seems like an athlete's foot medication saying that it was created by a football player. I see why that would make sense on some level, but it doesn't instill the same confidence in me regarding the efficacy of the product. That's all I'm saying.

No, that's not all I'm saying. I have some other random things to put out there now. On the radio either this week or last, I heard an ad for a monster truck rally happening somewhere in or around Los Angeles. It listed who would be there, and then said, "And the most legendary monster truck of them all..." I started nodding, because I actually know of one - and only one - monster truck from my entire lifetime of being immersed in society: Bigfoot. It was a big blue truck that had some kind of crossover appeal because I remember seeing toys for it when I was young. Hell, I might have even had one. The announcer continued. "...Grave Digger!" What? How is it that Grave Digger is "the most legendary monster truck of them all?" I just went to Wikipedia and typed in "monster truck." Guess what picture is at the top? Yep, Bigfoot. I read on, and it does say that Grave Digger is extremely popular. Later on, it says that there are "often accusations of rigged races, as some trucks (including Bigfoot and Grave Digger) are seen as winning more often in order to please the crowd." So maybe it's the second most legendary monster truck of all time. Still, I was taken aback because I was really expecting to hear that only thing I knew about that entire...sport? Activity? Actually, I know one other thing about whatever it is: it tends to happen on SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

At bowling last week, there was a guy who was wearing a shirt on the lane next to us. I caught a glimpse and saw that it said "Sorry" in big letters with smaller writing under it. I had to look closer (but inconspicuously) to read the fine print, and a minute later, I got my chance. It read, "About your face." I thought that was pretty funny, and definitely unexpected.

Also unexpected was a sign that my favorite brother saw a week or so ago. It said, "ALL AMERICAN ELF STORAGE." Now, it's obvious that a letter just fell off, but it was the only letter that could change the business name into something really funny. Are they really small lockers? Do they have air holes punched in them? Do they have referrals for people who wish to store European elves?

Lastly before our illustrious Car Watch section, I was driving in the rain a couple of weeks ago, and it was really coming down hard. I know I'm in L.A. and have no right to ever complain about the weather, but this felt like the clouds were actually angry at the ground. It was so hard, in fact, that I checked to see if my windshield wipers had a faster speed when I was already on the fastest. I don't think I'd ever done that before in my life. Two minutes later, I checked again. That's the type of rain I'm talking about.

Ok, really lastly, on my way into work yesterday, I somehow thought of Jim Henson. I remembered that when he sadly (and prematurely) passed away years ago, it was on the same day as someone else famous. It was really bothering me that I couldn't place who that was, and I had to look it up to keep from going crazy. Do any of you remember that off-hand? If so, comment and let the world know your amazing memory skills. (By the way, "off-hand" wasn't an intentional deceased-puppeteer joke, it just happened on its own.)

And now, the most legendary UOPTA section of all time: Car Watch!

My homey Rockabye saw a plate that read, "ILLWT4U." You know what I find tragic about that? Say this is a really nice person who lets a lot of other cars in during times of heavy traffic. The other car gets in that lane, presumably thanks the first person, and then never sees the plate. Conversely, if s/he doesn't let someone in and that merger gets in behind him/her, the plate has to piss the merger off, right? "Oh really, you'll wait for me? Well, I'll be waiting for you...in a dark alley." Or something similarly sinister. (Ok, maybe "tragic" was overstating it a little.)

By a show of hands, how many of you remember me seeing this bumper sticker a while ago: "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup"? Well, I don't remember what kind of car that was, but I'm going to guess that it was the same person when I saw that sticker again this week. However, there was a new addition to the bumper right next to that sage advice. "UFOs are real, the Air Force doesn't exist." Now, while I count myself among the non-believers for the vast majority of alien-related topics, I can sometimes see why people get all X-Filey. I don't know where crop circles come from, for example. However, the Air Force exists. It's kinda hard to argue that it doesn't. I admire the dragon-non-meddler for taking a bold stance, but there's really no substantiation that's going to earn him/her any Peter Points. (That's too bad too, because 10,000 PPs and you can send away for your very own UOPTA oven mitt. It's left-handed and everything.)

My loving mother-in-law saw a car with the plate, "2BZY2P." If that's true, it's not only sad, but extremely unheathful for the entire renal system. It leads me to a very important question though: is this person also too busy to poo? If not, I would humbly offer the suggestion of trying to take care of the whole "not enough time to urinate/micturate" problem by multi-tasking during the regularly allotted defecation time. S/he can thank me later.

I saw a bumper sticker that made me laugh, even though it's really not all that funny. "I (Heart) a Croatian." I said, "Just one?" aloud in my car, but none of my other personalities answered back.

Lastly, and in the fashion of saving the best for this spot, my lovely wife saw a "Blank do it Blank" sticker that requires a mention here. I like these when they're cleverly crafted double-entendres, but something's missing from this one: "Veterinarians do it doggy style." Um, that doesn't really work. I can break down why it doesn't work into two reasons (although the second of the two has two parts). First, it's waaaay too blunt. It couldn't pass as a real statement from a vet and only comes across dirty. Volleyball players, meanwhile, actually do it on the hardwood. You see what I mean?

Second, it's waaaay too specific. Twice over, in fact. 2A: Dogs are just one of the many species that a vet may assist. By singling that one out, it's as if vets are solely dog doctors. Or "dogtors," if you will. (Oh yes, that's a tag for this post. You best recognize.) 2B: They always do it doggy style? All of them? I didn't see that on the major requirement sheet.

On that highly mature note, I'm outa here. Have a great week everyone, and may the rest of your January be lovely. As always, I humbly request that you comment and/or send emails to ptklein@gmail.com. Take your time. I'll wait for you. Bwa ha ha.

p.s. Crap - I forgot to address the birthdays happening in this upcoming week. Happy early birthday to my good friend The Mills, fellow English nerd and loyal reader Melissa, and my life-long buddy Bryan. Enjoy!

Goin' with the flow

Hi everybody. In the sprit of shaloha, I welcome you to another weekly installment of UOPTA. In the past couple of weeks, I've had stories or themes that have taken up the majority of my posts (before skillfully transitioning to the stupendous Car Watch section), but today will be a little different. I've got a bunch of random things on my mind, and I feel like just getting 'em out there. I hope that's fine with you.

As you know, I typically save the license plates that I've spied for that last section of my musings, but one that I saw leads directly to a little story, so I'm breaking form a bit. The plate read, "GIGL H2O." I saw that and thought (or possibly said out loud to myself - hey, it happens), "Giggle water? Water that makes you laugh? What could be so funny about water?" And then, I answered my own question.

You see, we have a friend named Jane. (There's a remarkably small number of Janes out there, even though it's used as a placeholder for a generic name. I believe that would be irony.) Jane is a grad student who actually works with water. More specifically, she does something with testing the chemicals in tap water and/or rating the healthfulness and drinkability. I find that very interesting. Not necessarily the research itself, per se, but the fact that I know someone who does that research. Does that make any sense? It does to me, so hopefully I'm not alone.

Anyway, I can't help but make stupid comments sometimes. For a while, whenever I saw Jane, I'd ask, "Water you up to?" I found this to be hilarious, and Jane usually just smiled politely and nodded in a way that let me know she was picking up what I was putting down. After about a dozen of these interactions, she said, "I wish I had a good answer to that." I started thinking about it, and the best I came up with was, "Goin' with the flow." Not bad, but not stellar either. The next time I saw her, I inevitably asked again. She started to do the whole smile-and-nod thing, but then she paused and said, "Distillin'." I loved it! That was hands down the best possible response I could think of, and I defy you to come up with a better one. She said it perfectly too, with an "oh, not much" vibe. "Water you up to?" "Distillin'." Game over; check mate.

I just thought of something else involving water that makes me laugh (besides Evian being 'naive' backwards). Thanks for the inspiration, GIGL H2O! Back in high school, I took various science courses with varying degrees of success. Physiology was fun and interesting, while chemistry (especially Chapter 8, stoichiometry) sucked ass. Yes, I remember the chapter number because it was that awful. (Random side note: I enjoyed the biological sciences quite a bit. So much so, in fact, that I looked at the requirements for being a Biological Sciences major when I first got my General Catalog at UCSB. "Ok, let's see, Chemistry, Calculus, and Physics? Fuck that shit." So I became an English major.) In one such high school science class, each student had to do an experiment and make a poster board showing the whole scientific process. My mom, I mean, I did an experiment involving bread, mold, and how different substances either encouraged or discouraged the spread of the mold. It was pretty cool, even if my hypotheses were based on absolutely nothing other than wild guesses. The point is, I spent some time on that bad boy. Weeks, in fact. I used enough dot matrix printer ink and rubber cement to make Ralph Nader wince, but the final product was a pretty cool display.

Dusty, on the other hand, remembered this assignment the night before it was due. He showed up the next day with a poster that read, "Aqua Oddities" on the top. His whole "experiment" was based on things we already knew about water from either that class or another one. It expands when it's frozen, and its frozen state is actually less dense than the liquid one (i.e. ice floats in water). It wasn't earth-shattering by any means, but he made it look nice enough. Naturally, he got a better grade on it than I did. I attribute that almost entirely to the name "Aqua Oddities." If he had just put, "The Strange Properties of Water," I think his grade would've suffered. In hindsight, I should've titled mine, "The Mold and the Beautiful" or "Let's Grow Mold Together." Words are powerful, friends.

Some of you might recall that months back, I had some negative things to say about a nearby restaurant called Fast Taco. At the time, my order took a lot longer than I thought it should've, ya know, considering the inherent promise of their name. The food was quite good, mind you, but I was put off by that. After a couple more trips there, I printed a retraction saying that they had noticeably sped up, thereby making their name not nearly as worrisome. However, I am now troubled once more. I shall explain. Please meet me in the next paragraph.

Hello. When I went to Fast Taco a couple of weeks ago with my co-worker Rob, he called me over to the salsa bar. "Um, does 'gringo' mean anything other than what I think it does?" he asked. "What?" "Look," he said, and he pointed to the salsa in front of him. "Salsa gringa," the top line of a little display said. Below it, they translated for us: "Mild." Sure enough, it was just pieces of tomato. As a gringo who enjoys spicy food (especially my Aunt Lynn's spicy chicken casserole thing), I was offended by that translation. I should not be relegated to the mild stuff just because of the color of my skin, and that bothers me. Naturally, I defy them and get two to-go containers of the salsa verde. Despite that transgression, I did not soil their name another time in my personal blogosphere.

Tuesday of this week though, something else happened. I went in there, placed my order, and then paid. I stood off to the side to wait for my tacos (which weren't especially fast, but they were busy). There, in front of me, was an ATM that told people to swipe their cards and then enter their "PIN number." That redundancy always chaps my hide, but I still decided to give them a pass since it's not like they own that machine. But then, folks, then I looked over at the counter. On a laminated sheet of paper, this was typed: "Try our 'new' lentil soup." "New?" Why the quotes? What the hell? Is it really old but they're trying to pass it off as new? Is it a recipe so ancient that they felt like liars when they referred to it as the un-quoted new? I don't know the answer, but I do know that it pushed me over the edge and I had to speak out. They're lucky their food tastes so good, because this gringo counts cuatro strikes against them.

Something funny happened this week that I's just gots to share with you. I got an email in my ptklein@gmail.com inbox (which is newsworthy in itself, hint hint) from a guy named Mike who lives in Texas. He wrote

I entered "Tommy Fuckerfaster' into google being curious about how this joke had morphed over the decades (centuries?) Your blog came up and, since you are a student of such things, you might be interesting in something I saw in a book called "Texas Crude," basically a lexicon of texas language. "Older than Tommy Fuckerfaster's Grandmother." Really Really Old.

One of my postings apparently came up because I once wrote about jokes involving "Johnny Fuckerfaster," and how hilarious it was that we were just supposed to accept that as his name. I wrote back to Mike, telling him that he made my day. Seriously, how many times in your life has someone found you by searching for "Fuckerfaster" online? On second thought, don't answer that.

A few months ago, I signed up with a site called Statcounter. It's amazing, especially since it's free. It will tell me how many people viewed my site on a given day, break it down by city, state, and country, and even tell me how they found me. For example, I went there after receiving Mike's email and it showed me that someone in Waco, Texas searched for "Tommy Fuckerfaster" and then clicked on a link for my site. That's crazy, isn't it? The geography's not perfect, but it's usually pretty close.

The strangest thing is seeing what Google (or other search engine) entries lead people to me. For some reason, someone out there searches for my old high school classmate Jason Barbanell on a weekly basis. The only reason I know this is because he or she clicks on the link to my blog that often and gets there by searching for his name. That strikes me as quite odd, because I have to figure that they know what they're going to get when they click on the same link that they have for months.

Someone keeps searching for "grown up dress up games" also, for reasons that would probably make me feel uncomfortable. They find my post about Halloween costumes and click on it a few times a week. I have no idea why, and I can't find the person to ask (nor would I want to). The other most popular searches that lead people to me are "Bastian say my name" from The Neverending Story and "maltese bark sounds." Weird stuff, friends. And I fully acknowledge that by writing all of these phrases again in this space, it only increases the likelihood that my site will continue to pop up for these searches.

(The most disturbing one so far that I saw was someone who searched for "jungfrau porn" and came to my site. Specifically, it's a post that my Bratty Kid Sister wrote called "Like a Jungfrau" about being in Germany, in which she explains that "jungfrau" means "virgin." I'm pretty sure she didn't have the word "porn" anywhere in there, but it still led this person right to UOPTA. Ah, isn't technology grand?)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together (but then separate them, put them together again, and repeat) for the one, the only...Car Watch!

I saw a bumper sticker that told me, "Cowgirls are more than an 8 second ride." I guess that's an alternate version of the "Blank do it blank" stickers, and I'll give her credit for that. The only reason I understand the reference to eight seconds (which is the time a bull rider needs to stay on for his score to count) is because Luke Perry was in a movie called "8 Seconds" about bull riding. Without that knowledge, I may have gone on some ignorant tirade asking what the hell that meant, who thought that cowgirls jumped ship after seven seconds, yadda yadda yadda. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Thank God for Luke Perry. (What's that? I've never said that before? Well I should've.)

On my way to work during the week, I saw a license plate frame that made me laugh out loud. Then, questioning if what I saw was accurate, I sped up to look again for confirmation. Sure enough, the top said, "Keep your paws off," and the bottom said, "TRUCK!" Yes, please keep your paws off truck. I put foot on gas pedal, then went to office and called parents. Seriously dude, you need to proofread something like that before letting it represent you to the world. The only possible explanation that would make me take back my mocking sentences is if the guy's nickname is Truck and dogs (who can read English) keep inappropriately touching him. If that's the case, then he has every right to tell those dogs to keep their paws off Truck, and I will humbly apologize. Anything short of that, and I'm afraid he's just a moron.

(Sorry for the random sidenote in the middle of Car Watch, but I reminded myself of something. My favorite brother and I used to have our own line in our parents' house growing up, and every once in a while, someone would call on it asking for my dad. I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that he would never give anyone our number as a way to reach him, so the person was a solicitor. I would politely say, "I'm sorry, but this isn't his number. This is his kids' line." They would inevitably ask for his number, to which I'd always reply, "I'm afraid I'm not going to give that out." Dusty found that hilarious. "You're afraid? Why would you be afraid?" Sometimes I'd add a "Yeah..." to the beginning, which he thought was even funnier. So am I really afraid that "paws off Truck" guy is a moron? Truthfully, a little, because I share the road with him, and we don't need any additional morons out there.)

Sticking with me (since I am the first person - or I is the first person, to be more accurate), I saw a plate that read, "EZ NRVUS." Those two adjectives don't seem to go together to me. It's like having "HAPY MAD" on a plate. In fact, I have trouble seeing how they make sense next to each other at all. "Oh yeah, I'm nervous alright, but I've done this a thousand times, so it's kind of an easy nervous." That's all I got. Any thoughts, folks?

Lastly, my homey Rockabye saw a plate that read, "KISSING." I don't get it. It seems more like a clue on the Pyramid game show than a license plate to me. "Um, things that can be French? Uh, uh, things cousins do? Um, what people apparently do while sitting in a tree?" Maybe it's just his or her hobby, but I find that proclamation more disturbing than my game show idea. I tend to side with myself fairly often.

Ok, gentle readers, I'm off. I've got some cute kids' birthdays coming up this weekend as my homeboy T-roy turns two tomorrow and my favorite kid in Maryland, the Ty-baby, turns one on Sunday. Have a great week, everyone, and please write to ptklein@gmail.com with anything about anything. Seriously, that's a pretty accommodating request, don't you think? Take care, everyone.

Might I suggest

Happy Friday and good morning to one and all. I hope the week has treated you well. I heard on Tuesday that it was the birthdays of both Stephen Hawking and R&B singer R. Kelly, and I just couldn't let that pass without comment. It's very difficult to come up with two greater extremes sharing a birthday, although they're both geniuses in their own ways. Ya know, if self-indulgent, repetitive songs about everyone shooting at/cheating on each other coupled with videos of urinating on underage girls makes someone a genius. That crazy physicist.

I've written several times in this tiny corner of the internets about my travails in improvisational comedy from back in my last two high school years. Being the typical self-centered artist type, I've left out a very important component of those times: the audience. (Here's a random side note: since our British and Canadian friends spell center as "centre" - including a kick-ass song by Sloan called "Left of Centre" - how do they spell "centered" or "centering'? Are pompous Canadians "self-centred"? That's a trick question of course, because all Canadians are cool. And that's not a jab at their weather. Zing! I'm sure this comes up, because I think hockey players "centre the puck" in the course of their national pastime. "In that Penguins game, eh, Lemieux centred it to Roenick for the shot, eh?" for example. We need to find a reliable Canuck to help us out. Maybe we could start an "Ask a Canadian" segment of UOPTA just for occasions like this. I should probably get back to the story now.)

Now where was I? The audience! Yes, those improv games are all a hell of a lot more difficult without a willing and participatory crowd. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the time that we tried bringing our improv group to different classrooms at our school to give them a taste of what they could come and see (and pay for) later that week. Most of the students didn't give a shit and would've rather chat amongst themselves than watch us play our little games. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but for some reason, I only went to one or two classrooms while Dusty and Jon went to a bunch each. There was a fantastic phenomenon that each group came across in every classroom, and I don't know what's taken me so long to share it with you.

"Ok," one of us would say after introducing a game, "can we get a relationship between two people that-" "GAY LOVERS!" someone would yell, much to the delight of everyone else in the class. "No, um, I was going to say, a relationship between two people that doesn't involve kissing please." "GAY LOVERS!" "I'm pretty sure they kiss. Anyone else? What's that? Doctor and patient? Thank you very much. Ok, can I get an object now that-" "A BURRITO!" "Fine, a burrito." I can't explain it, and I'm not sure I'd even want to if I could, but every single class suggested "gay lovers" and "a burrito." It's like they all got together one day and decided that, should anyone ever ask them for a relationship between two people, they had to yell "gay lovers" under penalty of death. I don't know what they had in mind when combining those two suggestions, but I'm glad to report that we always took the high ground and refrained from giving the audience what they wanted. Wait, that didn't sound right. In any case, I never thought I'd have to say to a group, "Can I have an object please that isn't a burrito?" High school was very educational indeed.

My friends and I were somewhat drama-geeky for a little while, but at least we had a lot of fun. For example, we went to the Los Angeles Comedy Sportz' performances almost every weekend for a little while. They were brilliant, and it was a great way for us to continue striving to get better at making shit up. There was one aspect of going to the shows that combined almost everything that makes me tick: at the end of the show, they selected the best suggestion of the night and gave that person a free ticket to come back. Therefore, I could potentially say something funny in a crowd, be publicly acknowledged as a winner, and then get something free. It was like a perfect storm of Peterkleinicity. I think that's an album by the Police, by the way.

As luck (or immensely potent skill) would have it, I won the free ticket a few times. I can remember one quite clearly: It was a game in which one actor (or "laughlete," if I recall) would go into a back room, and then the referee would get five or six funny sentences from the audience. The actor would come back, and they'd all do a scene. The others would have to work those lines in, and the one who had left would have to guess which lines were from the audience and which were his/her fellow actors just messing around trying to elicit a wrong guess. If that doesn't make any sense to you, it's ok, this is a judge-free zone here and everyone is special in his or her own way. Unless they're complete fucking morons, then we mock the hell out of them. In any case, the ref had gotten a few lines from the audience but needed some more. "Let's see, how about something your mother always told you?" "You're not my son!" I yelled from the back. Big laughs, my friends, big laughs. An hour later, the golden ticket was mine! Bwa ha ha.

Another memorable suggestion story requires quite a bit of backstory, but you guys have some time, right? Sweet. One of my friends was in an awkward stage back in his teen years. Jon, I mean, "this friend" had learned that the Persian/Farsi word for whore is "gendeh." I just looked it up too; it's scary easy to learn things nowadays. So Jon started saying "gendeh" (which we pronounced as 'jen-day,' in case you want to use it at home) all the time. His mom would ask when he'd be home, and he'd say, "In an hour or two...gendeh." We thought that was really funny, but then again, we didn't have the most refined tastes back then.

One day, Jon called out to his mom. "Gendeh!" he yelled. His dad turned to him and said, "You know, I know why you say that." We both were silent for a second, waiting for his dad to keep speaking so that we didn't have to. "It's for Captain Genda, right?" "Wha, what?" Jon asked. "Yeah, Captain Genda was second in command to Admiral Yamamoto and was the mastermind behind the whole Pearl Harbor attack," he said extremely matter-of-factly. (He was right with the history lesson, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Genda.) We were dumbfounded. How could that be true without us knowing for so long? At the very least, we could've called each other "Captain Gendeh" and giggled like the schoolboys we were.

Well, you can probably guess what happened. Fast-forward to our next Comedy Sportz show, and there was a beat of silence after the ref asked for a historical situation. "Captain Genda planning the attack on Pearl Harbor," Jon said. The ref looked around for a second to see if anyone else would say anything - anything! - that he could use instead of that, but everyone was too busy looking over at the giggling schoolboys. "Captain...who?" the ref asked tentatively. "Genda," Jon said. "He was second in command to Yamamoto," I added. "Ok...Captain Genda and Pearl Harbor." I don't remember much about the scene, but I feel ok about that.

I have two more improv suggestion stories, if you'll permit me. First off, we would travel to different schools to have improv competitions against their teams. One guy, "Mike from El Dorado" was fucking hilarious. We always liked watching him perform whenever he was a part of that event, and he always killed up there. I wish I knew his last name so I could see if he got rich and famous for being such a funny f'er. Anyway, one night my group of friends and I went to Comedy Sportz for a special musical version, and lo and behold, Mike from El Dorado was in the crowd with us. At the beginning of the show, they asked for five suggestions of titles for the full-length musical. They would then choose one of them and immediately start. The ref took a few suggestions from the crowd, and then he pointed to Mike from El Dorado. Mike stood up to say his suggestion, and I was giddy with anticipation. I had enough time to think, "Oh my god, this is going to be the funniest thing anyone's ever said, and then they'll do a whole musical based on that funniest thing." Dusty was actually thinking the same thing too, I later learned. So MfED stood, and with a half-smile said, "The Airy Foot-Race!" "Excuse me? The what foot-race?" the ref asked. "The Airy Foot-Race!" he repeated in a grand tone. "A-i-r-y." "Ok, The Airy - Airy? - ok, Airy Foot-Race." I didn't know what to make of it, but he was so funny that I felt like it was probably my fault for not getting his supreme humor.

Apparently the actors didn't either, and they chose "Tigers and Toddlers" instead, which proved to be pretty funny. I still bring up "The Airy Foot-Race" to Dusty from time to time, and we shake our heads and wonder what the hell he was talking about. In something that I will dare to call irony, Mike from El Dorado's least funny comment ended up being his most memorable one.

The final story of this topic involves me going to the Groundlings Theater with my friend Alissa for a night of improv. One of the main performers was some guy named Will Ferrell, but I had no idea that one day in the future, my entire vocabulary would be based solely on quotes from his movies. For their first game, their equivalent of a referee said, "Ok, I need an object please." "Silly putty!" I yelled out loudly and proudly. "Uh, no, we need an actual object to use as a prop," he said, and everyone turned and looked at me like the obvious first-timer I was. Yeah, I didn't exactly bring home any kind of golden ticket that night :(

I'm pretty sure that's my first sad face in over a year of this blog. I just thought it was particular fitting. You know what else is fitting? This week's installment of the kickasstastic Car Watch!

First off, my lovely wife saw a plate and texted it to me before she forgot: "XQZAMOI." It took me a second, but maybe that's just because I'm not used to people being polite in their cars...or pseudo French. Definitely not both at the same time.

She also saw a candidate for the top five of all "Blanks do it Blank" bumper stickers. Are you ready for this? "Ultrasound techs do it with frequency." Nice, nice. I gotta say that it's right behind "Makeup artists do it on your face" on my list o' favorites.

My homey Rockabye saw a plate that I almost passed on, but then decided to share it with you all at the last minute. It read, "MANPIG." Let's see, what's the best comment I can anticipate from my heavily-female readership? Either "I don't know why he had to specify - of course the pig is a man" or "It was only a matter of time before those two species merged completely." Got better ones? Comment away and show me how it's done.

Dusty wrote me with a sticker he saw. "Draft SUV drivers first." Normally, I'd just kinda nod and accept that as an interesting way for one to disapprove of larger vehicles. It's not often that we recommend that our enemies serve our country. Here's the weird part though (in case it wasn't weird yet): It was on an SUV. Now what the fuck is that all about? My mom thinks that the driver might have meant to draft them first in sports leagues, but I think, as bizarre as this sentence sounds, that it's more likely that it was just a self-loathing SUV owner. I never expected that to be more likely that anything really.

I saw a plate that told me, "U L(Heart)VE ME." No, no I don't. I don't just rush to love like that, weirdo. I don't even greatly esteem that car's driver, mainly because it's a stranger. How ballsy is that to tell everyone who looks at you that they love you. Something like "PLS (Heart) ME" would be pretty pathetic, but at least it wouldn't be overly presumptuous. What's the purpose of the plate - to further piss people off after swerving in front of them? I don't even like you, let alone like-like you.

On the freeway yesterday morning, there was a guy in a Lexus convertible with the top down who passed me on the left. I glanced over, and I saw that he had neon yellow earplugs in. First of all, I think that might be illegal, but I'm not doing the research to find out. (Oh sure, I only post once a week now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start supporting my claims. I had a month to do some papers in college, and if I didn't bother doing research for those, I'm probably not going to change my tune too much now.) Secondly, and more important to me than the possible illegality of his actions: what the hell, man? Is the sound of driving too loud for you? If so, here's a tip: don't get a fucking convertible. Seriously, either keep the top up or learn to accept the decibel level that accompanies your choice of (expensive) car. Earplugs. Asshole.

Last but not least, I saw a plate that asked me a very deep question: "R YU MI." Oh wait, did I say "deep question?" I meant "stupid question." Of course I'm not you, moron. That's so retardiculous that I hope I'm reading it wrong and that it has some point besides angering me. "Are you MI" doesn't make any sense to me with any already-established M.I. abbreviations. I'm not Mission Impossible, for example. Nor am I 1001, come to think of it. Hold on a sec; if someone chose that plate, does that mean that the other - more normal - spellings of those words were all already taken? "ARE U ME," "R YOU ME," and several others that make more sense were either already selected or just passed over in favor of this version. I don't even know which one I hope is the answer. One thing's clear, Mr. or Ms. Driver: I'm not you, and I'm feeling pretty happy about that fact right now.

Wow, I really ended angrily with those last three. I need to lighten up a little, eh? Here, this'll help: My boss took the office and plus-ones out to a nice dinner on Monday night. For dessert, my lovely wife got a delicious pear sorbet. I tried it and said it was good, then without being able to stop myself, told the table, "You can't spell 'pear sorbet' without 'Peter.'" My boss looked at me strangely (and rightfully), then said, "Wait, what about the T?" I made a gesture that signified the end of something, and he said, "Oh yeah. Wow. You're weird." Everyone agreed.

Ok, I feel better now. Have a wonderful week, my friends and friends of friends. I'm still not exactly overflowing with emails and comments, so please don't hesitate to drop me a line with anything at all that you feel like sharing. In case you forgot how, it's ptklein@gmail.com. Take care, and I'll see you again next Friday.

Very high fidelity

Why hello there, good people of the internets. Happy New Year to you all, and I hope 2008 is treating you well so far. I didn't shave between Christmas and January 2nd, so when I finally got rid of my mini beard, I said goodbye to my last remaining piece of 07. Unless you count the hair on my head that was grown in 07 or skin cells that are yet to be desquamated. I should stop talking now.

Ok, so in the interest of starting the new year out clean and open with everything, I want to disclose a problem I have. No, it doesn't involve my manhood, although someone clearly thinks I have that problem based on the hundreds of emails I get on a weekly basis promising to solve that issue. I have a problem with being faithful. I'm too faithful. With music. Now I shall explain.

When I get a new cd, I feel like I owe it a certain amount of my attention. I'm trying to forge a relationship with it, give the artists their due, and really learn what it's all about. I'll keep it - and it alone - in my car's cd player for a week or two, and then make sure it's back in there again shortly thereafter. I've run into a few problems with this, namely when I receive more than one cd at a time. I actually worried about this once when two bands that I liked were coming out with new music at the same time for much of the preceding month. I ended up choosing one and leaving the other unopened in my car for two weeks until I felt I had given the first a fair shake. Another time, I tried learning two at a time, but then I liked one more and felt bad that I didn't spend enough time with the other. Yes, I know I'm odd.

Here's my current situation/dilemma: I spend a lot of time in my car due to the joy that is L.A. traffic. I've found that I really like a particular sports talk show for the drive home, and that cuts directly into my learn-new-music time. I also like one particular segment of the KROQ morning show that happens usually near the beginning of my drive. So, instead of having potentially 8.75 hours of music learning each week, I end up having closer to 2.5 unless I pass on some of the radio stuff. (I have a bit of a man-crush on one of the sports talk guys, so I don't want to miss much of the brilliant and witty things he says.) I can listen to music on my computer at work, but it's a very different experience. It's in the background, so I'm not really hearing the intricacies of the songs, let alone the lyrics. Also, I'm frequently up and moving around, so I miss entire songs at a time.

In late November, I got two cds at the same time. One was "Rockin' the Suburbs" by Ben Folds, and the other was a mix from my friend Jon. I left the Ben Folds one in my car and played the mix a bunch at work until I knew them better. I still hadn't gotten nearly as familiar as I'd like (knowing what song is next, waking up with one of them in my head, etc.) when I made a foolish decision. I purchased three new cds online. Then, before they even arrived, I saw Jon and got an Alkaline Trio cd and a new mix cd from him. Crap.

Here's the only good news in this situation (not counting the fact that I obtained new and good music): one cd didn't arrive. I bought a book by Nick Hornby (of "High Fidelity" and "About a Boy" fame) about pop music that he likes. According to the description on Amazon's website, it came with a cd of some of the songs about which he wrote. I've read "How to be Good" and "A Long Way Down" by him, and I was really looking forward to this one (entitled "Songbook," by the way). When it arrived, it was just a book without an accompanying cd. I called Amazon's customer service, and they apologized and sent another one out to me. Days later, I received a book and no cd again. I called, and they apologized and said that the review (by Amazon, I should add) is referring to an older version of it and no cd comes with it anymore. That's actually fine by me, seeing as how I have this musical faithfulness problem and all. So I sent one of the books back, and I actually received an email from Amazon saying that they'll credit me for the purchase even though I received (and am currently reading) the book. Look at that, customer service doing more than the bare minimum! Maybe things really will be different in 08.

So here's where things currently stand and my plan of action. I listened to my new Interpol cd all the way through three times, as well as three times for the Spoon cd. Those two will be on constantly at work so that I will recognize them as distinct songs when they finally get their time to shine in my car. I'm going to keep Jon's new mix in my car for the time being, even though I haven't fully gotten his Thanksgiving Mix into the fold. I'm going to limit my KROQ listening drastically in the mornings to further my music's progression. The Alkaline Trio cd is just going to have to wait for now. It's about 20 songs long, and although I already know and really like 5 of them, my docket's full. I feel like a baseball GM deciding to keep a prospect in the minors for an extra month to get more seasoning. Its day will come, but that day may very well be in February. I know, life is so hard sometimes.

Onto another story! My lovely wife and I went to Home Depot recently, and I saw something that reminded me of something which reminded me of something else. I'll start with one of the somethings. For the first year that we lived in our house and went to that particular Home Depot, there would always be a group of men at one corner of the lot looking for people who needed help with work. Any time a car would slowly pull up in that area, they would run over to see if they could be of assistance. I don't know how it is in other parts of the country, but it's a fairly common occurrence here in L.A. In any case, a few times ago on a trip to that Home Depot, we noticed a new structure right there in that corner of the lot. It was for Labor Ready, whose slogan is "Dependable Temporary Labor" according to www.laborready.com. I couldn't decide how to view that chain of events. On one hand, it's sad if that was profitable for some of the people who had been taking on odd jobs there. Many are most likely not U.S. citizens, so they can't just get a job at Labor Ready and continue doing what they were. I don't know if they would make more or less working there, since the rates are probably higher but they'd only get a percentage of them or an hourly wage. So their jobs were basically taken from them by The Man. On the other hand, it also shows that the business responded to the needs of their clientèle. They saw that people needed help with projects when they went to Home Depot, so they privatized it in order to guarantee a certain level of skill and dependability. I'm still conflicted as to what I actually think about the whole thing. It's rare for me to see clear positives and negatives on both sides of something and not make up my mind. Usually it's much easier. (Ketchup is yummy; mustard is the work of the devil, for example.)

It reminded me of a situation from back in college. There was one spot on campus in which the concrete path winded a little (wound?) instead of going straight. The grass around the path was green and healthy...except for that straight line. It was consistently dead, due to countless feet and bike tires traversing it on a daily basis. One day, there were cones blocking the straight path. Where the dead grass had been was wet cement, and it was opened up the following day for public use. I was walking with my friend Suzanne when I saw the cones and wet cement, and I said, "Look at that, the will of the people has prevailed! How cool is that?" "I was thinking the exact opposite," Suzanne said. "I thought it was a sad commentary on how nature always loses to convenience. I mean, it only took two extra seconds to take the already paved road." I saw her point, and to some degree, she saw mine too. I guess a combined view on it would be, "The will of the people has prevailed, and they care about two seconds more than nature." I think we could both agree on that.

Lastly before our weekly Car Watch, I wrote a week ago about the lack of apple yogurt in this fine country and my consternation over that fact. My consternation in this monster nation, if you will. I did a search for apple yogurt, and I found a bunch of recipes to make your own, but no company just selling it along with their normal flavors. I found my way onto the Stonyfield website and looked at all of their flavors. Sure enough, no apple in sight. So I wrote them and asked what the deal was. I got this form letter reply:

Hello Peter,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We always welcome comments and questions from our yogurt lovers and are grateful when someone takes the time to let us know what they think of our products. We have passed on your suggestion to our Product Development Team.
We are passionately committed to producing the best tasting, healthiest yogurts available, and trying to do some good in the world while we’re at it. Visit our web site at http://www.stonyfield.com/ to learn more.
Sincerely,
The folks at Stonyfield Farm

I'll let you know if I hear anything back from them, but I'm not exactly holding my breath. Ok, I actually held my breath while typing "not exactly holding my breath" just to see if it made them write me any faster, and they didn't. I just wanted to make sure that wouldn't be of any help. Now I will officially continue to breathe.

I just checked, and Dannon has an Apple Cinnamon variety! Yes, I realize I just used an exclamation for a yogurt flavor. Yoplait didn't (unless you count pine-apple), but they have the breast cancer awareness lids, so I'll give them a pass...this time.

With that inanity under our belts, let's head on over to the Car Watch.

Righter Lady, my favorite reader from the Garden State, sent me this email: "Here's a great one for your blog I saw on the way to work today - very expensive 4x4 driven by teenage boy (not yet college age) -- said 'FRTSRLE.' Gotta love it - I had to drop everything and call my husband, he's still chuckling about it." This is one of those rare occasions in which a plate can speak to many different age groups. To young boys, forts do indeed rule. Once they get a little older, forts lose their magic, but farts become the funniest thing in the world. Some years pass, and then fraternities are the new cool. They graduate college, become functional members of society, and then farts become really funny again.

My homey Rockabye sent in a plate that read, "JRK 3." Is he the third in a long line of jerks, or is this the third car that one jerk has owned? We'll never know, and such is the way of this mysterious world.

Rockabye also saw a plate that boldly stated, "NOBUICK." It wasn't lying, seeing as how it was a Toyota Camry. To me, there's one very clear reason why someone would get that plate: S/he owned a Buick and had nothing but problems. It was so refreshing to have a reliable car that every time it started, all the owner could think was, "Thank God this isn't a Buick!" Or... it belongs to someone who tried the sushi restaurant Nobu and hated it so much that they got a plate to commemorate the disastrous event. Yeah, that's probably it.

My dad called me after seeing this plate: "I AM HA." I said that it might be a philosopher commenting on what s/he sees as the fallacy of existence and is using the plate as a way to say, "Up your ass, Descartes!" Or someone's initials. Definitely one of the two though.

Lastly, I saw a plate proudly proclaimed, "YARN (Heart)R." Wow, that wasn't already taken by another yarn enthusiast? That's crazy talk! I guess everyone has things that they love...and this person loves yarn. Do you think "YARN LVR" was taken and they had to settle with the heart icon? What about the simpler statement of "I (Heart) YARN" instead? There's no way I'll be able to accurately predict what goes on in that person's mind, so I'll stop trying now.

And with that, my friends, I'm off to enjoy 08 some more. Tomorrow is my favorite nephew's half birthday, so everyone picture the cutest kid you've ever seen and send happy half-birthday thoughts his way. Also, yesterday was Sacky Kevin's birthday, so send happy belated birthday thoughts over to the cutest little 39 year-old you can imagine. Have a wonderful week, everyone, and please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything at all that you feel like sharing.

p.s. Wasn't Descartes simply dashing? That's the best picture I could find of him. I almost made "Descartes" a tag on the bottom and had a picture for "frats," but apparently there's a lot of gay porn about frats that comes up when you search for that. Word to the wise, folks.