Year: 2007

THE DAYTONA 500 MASTER RACE IS ON

“This number is very respected,” Earnhardt said. “Numbers have personalities. Numbers do talk. Numbers do kind of reach out and grab you. Some of the other options just didn’t do that.”

Junior’s taken the number 88, because his step-mom won’t give him Dad’s #8, and his grandfather had #88.

Comedy gold is about to ensue as NASCAR, Junior, and the press discover how much white supremacist neo-Nazi skinheads love that number.

The first time a gang of those guys dressed all in Juniorwear beats the hell out of gays/blacks/cops will be a fine moment for NASCAR, as they’re dragged back into the glorious past they’re trying to market their way out of.

thanks for the news item, trinnit!

My family is weird

Sometimes a series of things about us goes through my head and I just start giggling. This morning very early, lying awake and looking at the bookshelf of books signed by their authors, it was:

My father wrote a novel about an opera singer in the 1900s who could switch genders. Gender reversal or sudden gender-related surprises occur in two other novels of his.

When I was a kid, my brother made improbably huge kites out of PVC pipe and trash bags. They flew.

Because of my dad’s weird job my associations for literary figures are things like: I had to jump-start that guy’s car twice! Oh yeah, his wife called us at 3 am sobbing in Arabic about the water heater! That dude fed us lobster and played too much Eubie Blake at us! It’s not like name-dropping exactly because with a few exceptions the general public hasn’t heard of these people. But it makes me feel weird looking at book spines.

Our front door knocker is a bronze woman’s hand.

My father wrote a novel in which the love interest is a blowup doll.

My great aunt Zelda didn’t marry until retirement and was a doctor instead. She may well have been the first person to administer penicillin in Los Angeles.

My father wrote a novel in which someone is trying to complete the unfinished tenth symphony of the character in someone else’s novel.

Okay that’s enough for now. We’re weird.

My check card got owned

Noticed it by accident. There was a 1 cent charge to the amusingly named colon700.com

I called them up and they were freaking. Said they had thousands of 1 cent charges from god knows where and everyone was calling them. They promised to call me back. They didn’t sound like they were talking through their colons.

Called the bank and shut down the card before the damned Russians bought ingots, heffalumps etc with my money.

You might want to check your accounts, folks, because this one looks like a big “surge” of fraud. I bet they broke into some e-commerce outfit.

HAY GUYS REMEMBER ACADEMIC FREEDOM?

UCI UNHIRES LIBERAL LAW SCHOOL DEAN

The Chancellor thought the Regents would block it, so he said, and that the fight would somehow tarnish the new law school. Chancellor Drake, that’s your job. You are supposed to argue with the Regents on behalf of UCI. What is it, exactly, that you DO here?

Also, UCI is not Orange County University. It is an internationally known research institution and member of a statewide University. It doesn’t have to have a major in John Wayne or a Disneyland Institute. And don’t let Donald Bren tell you what to do because he gave you $20 million and you named the law school after him. What’s he gonna do, take it back?

Don’t worry, Mr. Chemerinsky. We’ll visit you on Sakhalin Island.

Bonus points: Chapman says they’ll hire him in an instant. And not just Chapman, but the Chapman legal dean, who’s a rightwinger and debates Chereminsky weekly on the radio. Oddly enough he’d very much enjoy having his debate opponent working in his office. Viva Chapman!

CAREERING notameme

The find your careers via careercruising.com thing that’s going around is fun.

1.Anthropologist
2.Historian
3.Computer Trainer
4.Electrician
5.Conservator
6.Biological Tech
7.Professor
8.Corporate Trainer
9.Cable Installer and Repairer
10.Activist
11.Writer
12.Optical / Ophthalmic Lab Technician
13.Print Journalist
14.Foreign Language Instructor
15.Critic
16.ESL Teacher
17.Public Policy Analyst
18.Musical Instrument Builder and Repairer
19.Bicycle Mechanic
20.Furniture Finisher
21.Picture Framer
22.Upholsterer
23.Translator
24.Lobbyist
25.Technical Writer
26.Automotive Painter
27.Archaeologist
28.Communications Specialist
29.Electrical Engineering Tech
30.Electronics Engineering Tech
31.Criminologist
32.Security Systems Technician
33.Pet Groomer
34.Glazier
35.Dental Lab Tech
36.Cabinetmaker
37.Plumber
38.Electronics Assembler
39.Autobody Repairer
40.Farm Equipment Mechanic

I’ve actually done some of these, so they’re not off too badly. In fact, I think I could do any of them. I should save this list.

Dear Hipster Bicyclists

Bicycles are a fine mode of transportation, excellent exercise, and an absorbing hobby. As such trends go, the current fashion for bicycling among the children of the rich is laudable. I greet you from my own bike as we pedal along! Ting ting!

However, I do have some nuggets of truth to share with you, in bullet point format:

  • Use a real bicycle. The fete champĂȘtre use of imitation 30-year-old bicycles is painfully precious. Good bicycles with more than three gears are available cheaply on the used market. The esthetic distinction between “retro” and “broke down rusty-ass old” eludes the Mexican gentleman pedaling to work on his 15-year-old Huffy. Conspicious consumption is for tools.
  • Use a helmet. If you manage to survive a severe head injury, you’ll wish you hadn’t.
  • Stop at stop signs. It’s totally uncool to do so. You lose your momentum, it feels way less Easy Rider, and you feel like your mom. However, when you blow through an intersection at full tilt out of my left blind spot as I’m pulling forward, I’ll hit you with my car, changing our lives forever for the worse.
  • Use lights. This is, again, uncool. Big dorky flashing lights on your messenger bag, headline in front, light in rear: christ, it’s like wearing black socks with shorts! Except that you get killed otherwise. Just do it.
  • If you are unwilling to follow rules 2, 3, and 4 above, stop already with the activism. Yes, cars hit bicyclists. It’s awful. Drivers should pay more attention, and better bike lanes and education are necessary. But if you’re gonna head out on Saturday night with no helmet, no lights, and no sense of traffic safety, your Paul Frank Tinkerbell Spanglebutt Special Cruisy Cruiser is gonna get wrapped around a Camry.

Open the drawer, give me the change you said would do me good

Middle class retail is so dead now.

Bob and I went on an expotition yesterday to get him some clothes. Off to Adventure 16 we went! He needed some swim trunks from Patagonia and a jacket and pants thing from Sierra Design that folds up into its own bag.

Because it’s September, the store had no swim trunks. They’re still in the Patagonia catalog, however. We asked if they could order them for us, and they indicated that this might be possible. They all stood there looking uncomfortable; we were the only customers in the store. It was clear that they just wanted us to leave.

One employee did find a jacket (but no pants) of the folds-into-its-own bag line. We again asked if they could be ordered for store delivery and there was another uncomfortable silence with mumbling. The manager had his back to us most of the time and was on the phone otherwise, and fiddling with pieces of paper.

We left. Expotition: failed.

Today we met at Panera and I fired up the laptop. The Patagonia website had the swim trunks he wanted at half price, $18 instead of $36. We got him three pair. The Sierra Designs site had the pants he wanted and referred us to the REI site, where we bought those as well.

The REI site wanted us to go to a store to pick up the stuff, and pointed out it was FREE! shipping this way. So we clicked that button, only to find out that “items for store pickup may have an extended delivery time compared to mail delivery.” Clearly they just wait for your item to show up in the regular weekly shipments and then at some time you get a phone call. Fuck that. We spent the shipping charge for Internet order.

When I was a kid, there were lots of stores. We had department stores, toy stores, specialty hobby stores, hardware stores, discount stores, all kinds! Some of the stores were in malls and others were not. Not all of them were chains.

That’s just gone now. The department stores were eaten by the big box chains. Same with toys and hardware. The discount stores became the big box stores. Everything is a chain.

Now it’s all poor folks or rich folks, no bourgeois. The middle-class shopping experience has disappeared. If you have a shitload of money you can go to Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus or some boutique place like Restoration Hardware and blow five bills on a few things. If not, you’re going to Target or Wal-Mart.

Bob is 60 so he finds this incomprehensible. But he likes the Internet. Click, click, done. He gave me $140 in cash to buy his shit with my laptop and then we had iced tea and bullshitted.