Eastern musings

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

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

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

1. "Verga Leads Effort to Protect Fishing Industry"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Idle thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whole lotta shakin'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some jokes on me

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

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

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

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

Girl 1: It's your old boyfriend!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fax and fiction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Could you repeat that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Court reporter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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