I held Snappy (but I wouldn't buy his t-shirt)

There is nothing like being a tourist. This dramatic shot was from a tour we went on in the Everglades. I think I paid three dollars to hold Snappy and get my picture taken. Then, in the gift shop, you could buy a t-shirt that boldly stated, "I held Snappy!" Now, taken out of context, this type of shirt could get the crap beat out of you in certain places, so I passed on the t-shirt and settled for the brief, but memorable experience of holding Snappy.

I have a similar photo somewhere of me holding an Iquana in Cozemel. I also have a photo of me in Grand Cayman holding a Stingray. Then there is the shot in Puerta Vallarta being kissed by a dolphin. Perhaps someday I will scan them and share them with you, too. Because, god knows what else I can do with them. They would be a nice companion exhibit to go along with my series of photos pointing at the various trash cans in Disneyland and Californian Adventure. Each land has it's own themed trash can.

As I said, there is nothing like being a tourist.

All I am saying

The first record album I ever bought was Revolver by the Beatles. I was in first grade. I'd play it over and over before I went to school and sing along with all of the songs....Tax Man, Tomorrow Never Knows, I'm Only Sleeping, She Said She Said, Love You Too, Eleanor Rigby, Got To Get You Into My Life, Yellow Submarine, Doctor Robert, And Your Bird Can Sing and last but not least For No One. I wanted to be a Beatle (primarily because I watched them being incessantly chased by girls on television and in their early movies such as Hard Days Night). For reasons I didn't quite understand in first grade, I wanted to be chased by girls, too. I just didn't quite know what I expected to happen once they caught me. It just seemed like a pleasant thing to happen.

Regardless, I went on to buy all of the Beatle's albums and lament when they broke up after Let it be was released. Suffice it to say, I was and am a major Beatles fan. And all Beatles fans have a favorite Beatle and I can safely say that John is my favorite Beatle. I was in college at Seattle University and sitting in the school newspaper office when the word came out that John had been killed. It's pointless to even rant about how senseless that was. All killing is senseless. Let's pray for Karma and that the lunatic who shot John receives his.

I suppose my point is that you can tell something about a person's personality by their favorite Beatle. John was the rebellious Beatle, the bad boy, the man with the message. He believed in using his fame to try and make things better. Paul was the cute sell out. He was all about image and money. George was quiet and introspective, the spiritual Beatle. Ringo, well Ringo was the comic relieve of the Beatles. He couldn't sing and he could barely play the drums, but everyone liked him because he was goofy.

Ok, it's not astrology or anything, but it works. Think about it. Who's your favorite Beatle?

Just when you thought it was safe -- Log Blog III

When I got home last night, there was a large chipper parked in front of it. To those of you who followed my saga of cutting down the trees, it is no surprise that I found this to be an ominous sign. I had immediate visions that the disgruntled tree service had returned to cause more damage after following my now infamous blog expose. Sure enough, my backyard was once again littered with branches and tree removal equipment. Debris was covering my new twin-burner gas grill that I'd left the cover off. On closer examination, I discovered that my neighbors were removing two trees that stand (soon to be stood) on our property line. And being the socially inept people that they are, they failed to warn me that they were doing it and that the tree service would be using my property as a staging ground for the assault on the trees.

Okay, I won't miss these trees. For years they have showered my roof with needles and pitch. Every winter they drop major branches that smash the fence between my twitty neighbor and I (if they fall in his yard, he has this nasty habit of chucking them into my yard and it's his stinking tree). But, you can't blame me for feeling a little dread after my experience with removing trees and the subsequent curse. Nothing but trouble can come from it and I hope the curse moves blithely over to my neighbor and he gets to deal with plagues of yellowjackets, leaking roofs and dead animals in his crawlspace. He, after all, deserves it.

I've never claimed to be a good neighbor. I believe in privacy. I mind my own business and the neighbors can just mind theirs. I'm cordial, mind you, just not effusive when it comes to dealing with my neighbors. This guy and his family, however, haven't said boo to me since they moved in several years ago. So, we've been engaged in a "Cold War" of sorts. And he goads me every chance he gets. In addition to chucking his stinking branches into my yard he puts these stupid artificial sheep in his front yard next to this large black bear made out of some plastic material. Okay, a man wants to purchase artificial sheep, that's one thing, but they should be confined to the privacy of his bedroom and not displayed in the front yard.

He also has a son who plays in a crappy garage band. They had a big birthday party a few months ago and his son's band played in the backyard like it was a park or something. This is a neighborhood, not an amphitheater. They didn't have the courtesy to invite me nor warn me about the party, either. I'm glad it rained on them.

Okay, here's where the tree thing gets weird. As I'm getting into my truck this morning to drive to the park-and-ride lot, the tree service truck pulls up and, get this, it's the SAME tree service that did such a crappy job removing my trees and bringing down a curse on me! And as the kid driving the truck gets out, he gives me a sheepish (no pun intended) grin and a weak wave. The schmuck neighbor must have seen them working in my backyard and hired them to cut down his trees just to tweak me kicker is that they are the neighbor's trees and I've got the evil tree service working in my yard to remove them. So, I'll get the brunt of the debris.

Will this madness never end?

Bless me Father for I have sinned, I use a Blackberry

For the unhip (this pun is intended), a Blackberry is a PDA crossed with a cell phone -- a mutant so to speak. Yes, it connects me at the hip, 24/7 to both the telephone and e-mail. And that is why it makes me a major hypocrite because I have made it very clear that I hate the phone and I haven't even confessed to you that I find the misuse of e-mail a major evil that is fast approaching replacing both the telephone and Epinions.com as the number one DEVIL in my book.

In my defense, I have it for work. Because, being a man on the go, it is important that they be able to track me down at all times like the miserable corporate toady that I am. And it is extra important that I be able to read e-mails while I'm in the men's room (the stall near the window that catches the morning sun just right and warms the seat) about the financial tracking software being temporarily unavailable between 2 and 3 a.m.

The worst part about it is that I can't put the damned thing down. Every 2 minutes I pop it up and check my latest Spam. I can't help it. I tell myself that I'm being productive and staying one step ahead of my inbox. Bull pucky. They don't call it Crackberry for nothing.

But what really chaps my hide is that I haven't read a book on the bus since I got the thing. If I'm not checking my e-mail, I'm playing Brickbreaker -- the only stinkin' game the thing comes with. I play it over and over and over. At first I thought the levels would go on and on forever. But one day, I managed to get beyond the tricky wall of steel that you have to bounce your ball at an angle to wing over and break the bricks. It took me to a simple field of bricks thay you leisurely break. That's the last level. And do you know what happens after the last level? No, it doesn't try to get you to buy additional levels. I'd be okay with that. All it does is pop up a window that says, "Congratulations." Then you start over. Can you say, Sisyphean? Probably not, but it's something that is "incessantly reoccuring."

So, basically I'm stuck with my Blackberry obsession (which I imagine got its name because it invades your life like nasty blackberry vines complete with thorns) until the next trendy bit of technology comes along. My bet is that it will be an implant or something that you ingest that actually turns you into an organic PDA. And if I'm any judge of the people that come up with these things, it won't be ingested orally. Just some food for thought.

I've got to get back to my Blackberry.

The satellite installer always rings twice

I'm sure you are all curious about how the installation of my second satellite television receiver went yesterday. Well, while I waited patiently yesterday during the 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. window of opportunity DirectTV graciously provided me, the phone rang at 3:30 p.m. and I was informed that my window of opportunity had just expanded to between 5 and 5:30 p.m. Nevermind that I had to take a half day off work to be there (though the housepainter did stop by to give me an estimate on painting my house, but I'm sure that will be the subject of another, more dramatic blog because I've become very jaded when it comes to hiring contractors these days).

Being the pragmatic person that I am, I took the service delay with a grain of salt and went to the store to buy some new Fabreze air spray to cut down on the decaying animal smell that continues to come up through the air vents from my contaminated crawl space. But I've decided to spare you all and lay that subject to rest.

So, the satellite installer arrives at about 5:45 p.m. and apologizes for stealing from me four hours of my life that I will never see again. He is a nice enough fellow and doesn't mention the smell as he outlines his plans for installing my new TIVO system and shifting my old receiver to the den. This proceeds relatively smoothly until he gets everything pretty much hooked up and I'm still not receiving the premium channels that I am paying through the nose for because the signal is too weak from the satellite dish. Then Mel, or whatever his name is, proceeds to blame it on my neighbors lilac bush that has presumably sprung up to block the dish after I, yes, may the lord have mercy on my soul, had the two trees cut down in my back yard. His suggestion was that I do some covert pruning to eliminated the problem.

Well, not being too keen on neighbors, I've never really got to know any of them and especially the ones that live behind me. So, faced with the prospect of pixilated premium channels and being a fairly resourceful chap, I grab a hoe (garden implement for those thinking I'm using street slang) and a pruning shears. I hook the offending lilac bush over my fence and give it a crewcut that I hope my neighbor will not notice.

And Mel tells me that the signal is still weak. He then suggests I might have to shimmy up my Cedar tree and trim some of the upper branches. Okay, I've had enough bad karma for butchering trees lately, so I suggest to Mel, that it could indeed be a problem with the dish being misaligned, perhaps, and I only suggest this a possibility, perhaps the tree service crew did knock it about a bit while they were killing my conifer trees. Because they did pull apart one of the cables after all.

So skeptical Mel gets some equipment and messes with the dish for awhile and low and behold a miracle! The signal is restore and HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz return in all their glory to my television. I feel the rapture! I shake Mel's hand and thank him for his genius (though it was my idea to actually check the dish). I wasn't even upset that I then had to spend another 45 minutes on the phone with DirectTV on hold waiting to talk to a technical representative to iron out bugs with the access card (I ended up having to talk them through what they needed to do, by the way).

Thus ends that saga. I spent the rest of the night walking back and forth between my family room and my den changing channels just to make sure I was getting all 210 of them and my money's worth.

I live a full and productive life.

My crawl space

The Tony-winning director still finds those shivery, spidery openings into other worlds mysterious and attractive.
'The image of the crawl space is very important to me because it's emblematic of the hole in our heart that we try to fill up, with kings and queens and theater and images," she says. "It's not the 'just fine' part of us. It's the dirty, dark source of the creative drive.'"

--San Francisco Chronicle article by Annie Nakao about Director/Writer Mary Zimmerman

"As a child in Lincoln, Neb., Mary Zimmerman saw the crawl space in the basement of her house as "the most terrifying, enchanting, seductive and horrible place on earth."

Okay, it never ceases to amaze me the things people can romanticize about. A crawl space  is a "spidery opening into other worlds," but they sure aren't mysterious and attractive, that is unless you find a nasty, dark space under your house full of pipes, ducts, spiders, cat urine and in my case, some dead animal, attractive.

I know that I harped on something dying under my house in my "The Curse" blog. But it has driven home to me how helpless we can be in dealing with stupid little things in life like removing some dead animal from under your house. Sure, my dad probably would have just crawled under there and drug it out with a rake. But then again, our crawl space growing up was in the basement and as far as I know, nothing ever died in it (though my brothers did threaten to stuff me in it a few times).

So, it leaves me with this dilemma of how to deal with it in a logical and sensible manner that doesn't involve me crawling on my belly in filth and putting my hand in god knows what to try and find the source of the smell under my house. Much as I love Google and it's amazing ability to find anything, it didn't quite cut it in my search locally to find someone who actually removes dead animals from under your house.

A search for "dead animal under my house" didn't yield anything. "Dead animal removal" brought up a few businesses that haul away dead animals, but these were primarily dead farm animals. There were "varmint removers" who humanely removed wild animals from your house or yard. And there were "pest controllers" who woul help you kill animals in your crawl space. Thus the crux of my dilemma: the animal is already dead and can't be humanely removed. And being already dead, it could pose a further dilemma for the pest controllers when faced with killing a dead animal. I don't think it's in their manuals.

Further searches turned up some useful information about having dead animals under you house and the length of time it would take for them to decay (a couple of weeks for a small dead animal and a couple of months for a larger dead animal...let's pray a stray elephant didn't wander in there to die). The article concluded that in order to stop the smell of the dead animal under your house, you had to find it and remove it. So, basically it puts me back at square one.

I would think some enterprising young person could make quite the business out of crawling under houses and removing errant dead things. As far as I can tell, there wouldn't be any competition. You could call it clever names, like: "Removing dead animals from under your house-R-Us," or "Ye Olde Removing Dead Animals Shoppe" or better, yet, "What died under your house, let us find out for you!"

But barring someone picking up on this breakthrough business idea, the best advice people at work seem to be able to give me is to hire some kid in the neighborhood to crawl in there and retrieve it. But, I question the wisdom of approaching neighborhood kids and telling them I'll pay them to crawl around under my house looking for dead things. It could be misinterpreted.

I've thought about asking the satellite television installer (who I am waiting for as I write this) to run the cable for my second receiver under the house. "And oh, while you are under there, could you look for a dead animal and kind of chuck it out here?" I think they'd be wise to that ploy.

So, I'm stuck. All of the technology in the world at my fingertips and I can't figure out a single way to remove a dead animal from under my house that doesn't actually involve me, personally physically going under the house to do it and tossing my cookies at the prospect.

And then I'd have that smell to contend with.

Sigh...

My dish is full

When I was growing up, when it came to television, you pretty much had three choices: NBC, ABC and CBS. Though, in Boise, as I recall, there were initially only two channels, Channel 2 and Channel 7. So, I'm a bit confused as to what happened to one of the major networks. Eventually we had Channel 4, but that was PBS and not really worthy of recalling (I never got into Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers and I don't really care how goat cheese is made). But I digress.

My point, if there is indeed a point in any of my blogs, is that now I have a satellite dish with more than 210 channels to choose from (unless it is raining or the dish is blocked by the branches of a tree) and am I really any happier?

Damn right, I am. I am in television hog heaven. And with Ultimate TV and TIVO, I have actually bypassed hog heaven and entered hog nirvana (not the grunge group). Because, although I'm not big on technology when it comes to phones, I live for television that I control. And by being able to freeze live TV and go to the John, I can truly say that opposable thumbs actually do make us superior creatures when it comes to using a remote control.

But despite being enamored with the prospect of 30 premium channels with almost first run movies (something I could only dream of as a boy while I watched reruns of old Tarzan flicks hoping to catch a glimpse of Jane), I have to express my displeasure with DirectTV, the company that offers satellite television to the masses.

Now, I've been a customer of DirectTV for at least five years now forking over lots of cash for the convenience of not having to deal with cable or antennas. So, you'd think that, being a valued customer, they'd be open to me wanting to expand my satellite system to other rooms of my house. After all, new customers can waltz in and get three rooms installed for next to nothing. I however, am not a new customer.

First, their Web site is baffling. You supposedly can order services and equipment online, but only if you have simple needs. I am not a simple man and my television needs are a bit more complex than the options provided online. So I attempt to call their customer service line. Foolish mortal. Four times I waded through their telephone maze of "press 1 if you've seen the Eiffel Tower" prompts and whining attempts to get you to hang up and deal with their Web site. Finally they send you into the holding cue with a prompt that you can expect to wait an average of ten minutes to speak to a representative. So I hung up three times in frustration. Finally, after desperately needing that second hook up for my newly remodeled den (I can't bear the thought of having a second television that can only play tapes, DVD's and video games) I settled in with a basket of laundry to sort and fold and waited for a representative to help me.

Okay, there must be a consultant out there who designs customer service phone systems from hell and really sold DirectTV on one. First you listen to bad 70s porn movie music that is interrupted by commercials for free movie week and a voice pleading with you not to hang up, someone will eventually come back from their break and take your call. And after folding all of my socks that matched and a few that didn't a live person came on the line.

Chelsea sounded as if she was about 17 and was really trying hard at the whole customer service thing. She asked me how she could help me and told her I simply wanted an additional receiver for my den. After 45 minutes of careful negotiating with Chelsea, I was able to get a new TIVO DVR receiver for my family room, convince her to swap my old receiver into the den (because each customer is only allowed to order one additional receiver every six months...probably because they think you'll sell them on eBay), switch my existing channel package for the "ultimate premium channel package" with the same number of channels as I had before (but for $5 a month more than I had been paying and a requirement that I commit to a one-year contract even though I've been a customer of theirs for six years...go figure) plus pay an addition $4.95 a month for having an additional satellite receiver. The downside is that I had to give up my Ultimate TV (the Microsoft version of TIVO that charges you $9.95 a month to pause and record live television) and the wireless keyboard to get the TIVO system (which will freeze live television and record it for free as long as you subscribe toe the "ultimate premium channel package).

In retrospect, I think Chelsea pulled a fast one on me.

But, get this, they are going to install it tomorrow within the traditional 4-hour window that installers love to give you just so you can't plan anything else while waiting for them to arrive. I guess I'll have to fold some more laundry. But it will be worth the wait. Because now I can run from room to room watching 210 channels of satellite television (including local channels which are basically network crap).

It don't get no better than that. That is until six months from now when I'm eligible to order another receiver and then the sky is the limit.

The Curse

Okay, if I were a religious man (which I'm not) and believed in signs (other than the standard traffic ones you have to know to get your driver's license) I'd say I have been cursed. I base this on standard Biblical standards of plague and pestilence and on some major motion picture references to curses. I think it has something to do with cutting down the trees (if you've been following me up to now, you know more about the trees than you wanted to know...and by the way, I still have plenty of free firewood if you are interested...if you don't know about the trees, see my archives).

Right after the first tree was cut down, I was attacked by Yellowjackets while cleaning out my gutters and stung four times. Okay, it wasn't a plague of locust, but it hurt like hell. That was the first sign that something was amiss.

Next I went to the doctor (who I've neglected to visit for a couple of years due to schedule conflicts and a basic lack of faith in the medical profession) because my Yellowjacket stung arm had swollen to the size of Rhode Island (not big for a state, but pretty big for a swollen arm). As usual, the doctor gave me advice that pretty much matched most of my co-workers advice, take Benedryl. He then took a sharpie and outlined the red part of my arm and told me that if the red spread much further I should return because that would indicate that the infection was spreading. This is the best a man with a medical degree could come up with.

So, how was the trip to the doctor a curse? It reminded the doctor that I hadn't been in to see him for some time and that I was in need of a full physical. Suffice it to say, that, although it may be recreation for some, having a full body cavity search is not my idea of fun.

It gets better

It was an unusually dry summer for Seattle, and then, a few days after the corpses of the trees reclined pitifully in my backyard, the rains returned. I woke up with a large puddle of water on my kitchen floor dripping from the light fixture. I'm no expert, but this is a sign of a leaking roof...a roof that is only six years old. For those who know roofs, six years should be the equivalent to the roof being in elementary school...well maybe middle school, but it certainly shouldn't be ready to retire. Thus began the saga of the roofers. The bids ranged from $300-$8,000 depending upon how serious I was about actually stopping the leak.

So, I called up the pest control place I'd asked to come out and deal with the Yellowjackets and cancelled, because I didn't want to pay $480 to kill wasps when I was faced with a potential $8,000 roof bill (on top of the $6500 I'd just shelled out for all new windows and the $700 I'd paid the tree service to kill the trees that cursed me in the first place). The pest control people were not happy. Not a curse, you say? Well it gets better.

Then I decide to refinance to get some cash to pay for the roof. Rates are still low, and I find a pretty decent deal on a 15 year mortgage. It still hasn't closed, so I'll let you know if it becomes part of the curse.

Anyway, I come home this weekend and the house smells like something died in it. My cat was still wandering around looking very much alive and her litterbox was relatively clean, so I ruled her out. But still, the stench was disgusting. I finally figure out that something has apparently crawled under my house and died. On top of this, flies begin showing up inside my house in major numbers, apparently hatching from whatever has died under my house. It is very much like that scene in Amityville Horror (the original, not the many sequels) in which flies plague the home.

My solution? I bough a flyswatter and a can of vanilla air spray. Now, I could crawl under the house looking for whatever died under there, but a) I'm claustrophobic, b) I've been under there before to fix the dryer vent hose years ago and I still have nightmares and c) I'm not sure I want to find out whatever died under there in case it has friends or relatives. I figure I only have to put up with the smell for a couple more weeks and nature should take care of it.

Okay, so the night I come home to discover that something has died under the house, my girlfriend broke out in a major rash while vacuuming my living room. Let's see, a plague of insects, flood, putrid odors, flys, and now pestilence. Can you say, "Curse."

I'm not sure what caused the rash, but I have a theory about the dead thing under my house. I think the pissed-off pest control people came by anyway and planted a dead rat or opossum under there to get back at me for cancelling my order. And I would have cancelled the pest control if my roof wouldn't have leaked. And I wouldn't have needed the pest control if I hadn't been on my roof cleaning out gutters and been attacked by a nest of Yellowjackets (which by the way laugh at those cans of spray you buy at Fred Meyers). And I wouldn't have needed to clean out the gutters if the damned trees I'd had cut down wouldn't have dumped some many fir needles in them in the first place.

So, it comes full circle to me having the trees "removed." But then again the tree service guys could have been in cahoots with the pest control company and planted the Yellowjacket nest while they were "removing" the trees. For that matter they could have poked a few holes in the roof while they were at it to get their buddies, the roofers, some business too. For all I know, my doctor is related to them all.

Bottom line is that I can't help but believe there is a curse here and it started with those trees (but I'm not ruling out the devils at Epinions.com or the telephone company seeking retribution after I unmasked them). But, at least it forced me to stop procrastinating and refinance. Because if Bush gets re-elected the rates are going back up and the economy will tank. Now that's a real curse.

I see a pattern here...

Occasionally, I browse through Blogger's list of noteble blogs and then wander through the endless list of blogs that have recently been published (though I never see my blog in either) and I've begun to see a pattern. Blogger's seem to go through 5 stages very similar to the five stages of grief: 1) Denial 2) Anger 3) Bargaining 4) Depression and 5) Acceptance.

We begin by posting our fledgling blogs with our witty reparte and profound wisdom and sitting back to bask in the glory of the masses as we are discovered and thought to be visionary and the funniest thing in the world since Beavis and Butthead left the scene. We wait for a few days for the e-mails and comments and most importantly, the page hits. And nothing. Then we enter that first phase of denial (it's not just a river in Egypt). "It just takes time to be discovered. There are a lot of pages out there and I just need a few people to visit and perceive my comic genius." So, we submit our sites to a few search engines and wait a few more days.

Then we enter that second phase: Anger. "Why is it that the blog about toenail clippings has received 40,000 hits in three days and I've got 3?" So we write blogs about Epinions being the devil. We spew bile at the Web world that has rejected us. We express anger that no one buys our crap on eBay.

But then we take a new approach and enter that third phase: Bargaining. "If I offer people tidbits about my life and free things, they'll read my blogs and link to me." So we write blogs about cutting down trees and offer free firewood. But still, nothing happens. Maybe a few friends drop by and read your blog and mention some obscure thing.

But its not enough and you enter stage 4: depression. "My blogs are not worthy blogs. I was never cut out to be a blogger. After all, I'm not a 17 year old teenaged girl with various piercings. What could I have to say that anyone really wants to hear?" So, you turn away from the blog. But it's still there, waiting patiently, watching and whispering gently, "Come on back, you know you can't stop trying." So you write blogs about mechanical monkeys. Because you've entered the....no, not the Twilight Zone..you've entered the 5th and final stage: acceptance.

Yes, now you really don't give a rip whether anyone reads your drivel or not. Because, darn it, it's your blog and it's one of the only things in your life that no one gets to edit or suggest how it can be improved.

Personally, I like it that my blog sucks and has no apparently point. It's my pointless blog and that just about says it all.

Have you ever noticed

....how attention spans on the Internet are incredibly short...

Kill your telephone

Okay, I would have started this blog with "Alexander Graham Bell is the Devil" but I've already established that Epinions.com is the devil. I didn't want to cause too much confusion (though I think there is room for more than one devil in the world...but that is another blog). Suffice to say, I think that the telephone is one of the most evil inventions that was ever made.

Oh, Tim-Elvis is just being obsessive compulsive or having paranoid delusions, you say. No, I just hate telephones. I can't stand it when they ring. Now most of you (go ahead and admit it) must answer your phone when it rings, don't you. Not me. That's why the antidote to the phone, the answering machine or voice mail, was invented. It allows those of us who have not succumb to the Pavlavian ring of the telephone to screen our calls. Because the "Do Not Call" list is basically a load of horse pucky, excuse my French. Telemarketers, while not the devil, are basically damned to h-e-double toothpicks. The answering machine short circuits their little plot to come between me and my hard earned money. If I want to throw my money away, I'll just go to eBay, thank you very much. So bless who ever it is that invented the answering machine.

What else do I hate about phones? They rob your voice of any feeling or inflection. They are not quite as bad as e-mail when it comes to being misinterpreted, but they are running a very close second. The term, "What do you mean by that?" originated with the first phone call. That and, "you are breaking up" when the cell phone came along (though this may have been used when the Hindenburg went down, too). Oh, and "I'll call you." Love that one. When? When will you call me? And why? I'm standing in front of you right now. Talk.

Cell phones are the most unholiest of the telephone family. When did it become imperative to have to talk to someone while you are grocery shopping or sitting on the crapper. And take your cute little bell tones and shove them, okay. They have a vibrate mode and it's much less intrusive and a heck of a lot more fun.

So, now you know about my hang ups when it comes to phones (that cracks me up).

Why won't you buy my crap on Ebay?

You know, with all the crap I've bought on Ebay, I find it frustrating that people aren't jumping at the chance to buy my crap. Okay, that's not entirely true. I sold my 1953 copy of Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys right out of the chute. But now my 5 x 7 autographed black-and-white photo of Christopher Lee is just sitting there waiting for a bid. Were talking a major star here and he's being dissed by the Ebay community.

Come on people, this is my bid (no pun intended) for freedom here. I'm tired of working. It has just led to accumulating crap...much of it from Ebay. Now, I figure if I can unload that crap on other workers, I can quit my day job and watch satellite television (once it has been restored after the tree service screwed it up) all day and rake in the dough (money for those not versed in American idioms and slang).

I mean, I've got tons of this odd accumulation of garbage that for some reason I figured would be worth something someday. When I was 19, I bought two boxes of Star Wars trading cards and hung onto them thinking they'd be worth something someday. Log on to Ebay and see how many of the stinking things are out there.

I've got a World War II tank periscope (don't ask). Someone is already selling one on Ebay.

I've got an autographed copy of a TV Guide featuring Robert Blake as Baretta. I figured this was money in the bank if he ever pulled an OJ and drove around in a White Ford Bronco. But no, he just sits there in jail not making himself anything but pitiful and I'm stuck with his worthless autograph.

I won't even go into all of the worthless Elvis junk I've accumulated. And then there are the troll dolls...I've even got a two-headed one.

Want deco cocktail shakers? I've got about ten. How about restaurant ware? Tons of it.

Ever hankered to own a coyote skull? I've got four.

You see, I'm tired of collecting things. So please, got to Ebay and buy. I'm about to put my swizzle stick collection up for sale and you definitely don't want to miss that.

Log blog II: Got wood?

No, this isn't an ad for Viagra.

Just to show you how powerful this blog is, when I got home last night the tree service had returned and finished cutting up the logs in question. No note, no word of apology, but at least I now have 40 or so 18-inch rounds of wood instead of a log the size of Michigan. But as they say, the bark is worse than the bite.

Seriously, if you come by, split it up and haul it away, it's yours. Oh, and if you fix my satellite television reception (the tree people pulled the cable apart while they were killing the trees), I'll throw in an autographed photo of Burl Ives.

The log blog

First, let me get this right up front, I like trees. I say this, because when I tell you that I hired someone to cut down a couple of trees in my backyard, you could misconstrue that I have a grudge against nature. Not so. It's just that these two particular trees...Conifers I believe...have plagued my patio for years with an endless supply of needles, sap and debris. I've scrubbed and painted that damned patio for years trying to keep it clean and along comes wind and rain and it's covered with crap again.

So, I decided to put a stop to the madness. But getting trees removed is not as simple as it sounds. You don't just call lumberjacks.com and have a bunch of guys with chainsaws swoop down and carve cute little bears out of the logs. You have to call trained tree engineers or arborists and coax them into driving all the way out to the suburbs and giving you an estimate. It's not unlike looking for a relationship in the personals. I called one person three times trying to get them to come out and give me an estimate. But nope. Apparently tree removers are pretty busy and can be real selective. It's like, "Sorry, your trees just don't sound interesting to me. It's not you, it's me."

Finally, out of nowhere one day I get a spam e-mail from a tree service in my area. A sign, I thought. I went to the guy's Web site and sent him an e-mail asking for an estimate. I like Web sites with e-mail contact forms. I don't like to talk on the telephone, especially with strangers. It's one of my quirks, but that's for another blog.

Okay, the guy responds and says he'll drive by and leave an estimate. I'm hopeful, almost giddy at the thought of actually having someone respond. So I wait. He stands me up. Then another e-mail apologizing and a promise to show up in a couple of days. And true to his word, he drops by and leaves an estimate. He'll cut down both trees, cut the wood into 18-inch rounds for firewood and chip and remove the branches plus clean up! All this for $750. Okay, it sounded reasonable to me. At no time did I stop to consider that a). 18-inch rounds of wood are pretty horking big and b). My fireplace is gas. This was stupid mistake on my part number 1.

The tree remover asks that I leave a check for the tree removal for them when they arrive the next day to remove the trees. I do so. This was stupid mistake on my part number 2.

Now I live in Seattle and this summer has been unusually dry. We went without our signature rain for months. So, ironically the day they are scheduled to work on the trees, it begins to rain. I come home expecting no trees and instead find a large chipper parked in my driveway and a tree and a half still standing. I'm assuming the rain has made it more difficult to cut down trees so I am patient. Day two, one tree was down but number two is still holding fast to life. Finally I come home on day three and both trees were gone, the chipper had been removed and my patio was swept clean. The corpses of my former conifers lay where the trees fell and appeared to be cut in the 18-inch rounds. On closer inspection, only one of the trees had actually been cut into 18-inch rounds. Only half of the other tree seemed to be cut up into sections. I was left with a backyard full of wood rounds and an eight-foot log that would require a burley Scotsman to pick up and move. Having no plans to hold Highlander's Games in my backyard and not having easy access to a chainsaw, I was left with a dilemma and lots of wood. Add insult to injury, the wood was covered with thick vines of ivy that had been choking the poor trees for years, ivy that one assumed would have been chipped with the branches and hauled away.

Okay, so I'm assuming that there has been some misunderstanding and I e-mail the unnamed tree service and ask why the wood wasn't cut up as promised and the debris hauled away. I get an apologetic e-mail saying a crew would be dispatched that week to finish up. This was two weeks ago. He won't return my e-mails now. I can't call because of that issue I have with telephones. So, basically, I'm screwed.

Bottom line is that you shouldn't trust people who remove trees for a living (especially ones who spam you) and never pay for things until the job is complete. So I'm a sap in this scenario (ha ha ha ha...at least I can laugh at myself).

By the way, anybody out there want some free wood or an eight-foot confer log? They make great Christmas presents.

Don’t mess with the monkey

There is something about a mechanical monkey with cymbals that both cracks me up and kind of disturbs me. This monkey sits above my computer screen and glares at me. I found him on sale at an antique mall. Even with batteries, he doesn’t play the cymbals anymore, unless you manually push on his head. Unfortunately, over the years one too many people have pushed on his head and the fake fur on his forehead has slipped a bit, giving him this kind of demented look of someone who has had a lobotomy.

And why do I keep a demented, non-functional mechanical monkey sitting above my computer screen? Heck if I know. He kind of grows on you.

I tried finding out the history of my mechanical monkey on Google. You can find out an amazing amount of minutia on the Web. I half way expected to find a mechanical-monkey-playing-the-cymbals.com or the unofficial mechanical-monkey-playing-the-cymbals Web site, but nope. Not this time. There were tons of pages about mechanical monkeys. I did find out that my monkey (well, one like him anyway) was featured in a bad 1984 scary picture called “The Devil’s Gift.” It was about a little boy who receives a mechanical, cymbal-playing monkey as a gift (nice thing to give a little kid). Every time the monkey plays the cymbals, someone dies. It was rumored that the movie was loosely based on a Stephan King short story with the same plot. And we all know how well Stephan King stories do when they are turned into movies. Yes, the movie bombed and was re-cut into a 1996 movie about Merlin’s Toy Shop. I gather that, too, bombed and is probably out there somewhere on DVD. But the bottom line is I’m not the only one who thinks the mechanical monkey is kind of demonic looking (not unlike the people who write reviews at Epinions.com).

My search for the monkey’s history did trigger a memory of seeing one on television way back in the days of black-and-white TVs (yes, I’m that old). I think it was on a rerun of an old Ernie Kovak show (and no, I’m not old enough to have seen the original). They used to do this disturbing skit with what was called, the Nairobi Trio. Actors dressed as monkeys would play this song and one of them would always use the other one’s head as a drum. And somewhere in there I think was my mechanical monkey banging his cymbals and grinning his obscene little grimace.

So, there you have it. From somewhere in my subconscious mind, a memory from early television, surfaced when I walked through the antique mall and saw my mechanical monkey. And now he sits watching me, frozen in time.

But on this blog, he will bang his cymbals forever every time the pages is refreshed and never have to worry about dead batteries again.

Engaging the enemy: the spam wars

I realize it isn't terribly original to respond to spammers. Some guy actually scammed a book out of his replies to spammers. But I just couldn't resist sharing my most recent experience with the ultimate in annoying spam scams.

FIRST E-MAIL, SUBJECT:Attention

Dear H****

I am Ray Morgan a Business Partner to Mr. Emmanuel H**** a national of your
country, who lived in Dubai United Arab Emirate.

Here in after shall be referred to as my client. On the 30th of June 2002, my client, was involved in a car accident along sagbama express road.All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost there lives.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits was lodged.

Particularly, where the deceased had an account valued at about 2.6 million dollars has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confisicated within the next 30 official working days.

Since I have been unsuccesfull in locating the relatives for over 2 years now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last name so that the proceeds of this account valued at 2.6 million dollars can be paid to you. If you agree we can discuss your percentage.

I have all necessary legal documents that can be used to back up any claim we may make. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from anybreach of the law. Awaiting your response.

Best
regards, RAY mORGAN

MY FIRST RESPONSE: The insult

Dear Ray (You don’t mind if I call you Ray do you?)

Come on now, Emmanuel H****? H**** is an Irish name. If you are going to make up a name at least call him Sean H**** or Patrick H****y or Mick H****. Those are Irish names. But you are too stupid to know that aren’t you.

And why is it spammers can’t type worth crap? This is your job isn’t it? Take some pride man! If you are going to write me an obviously fraudulent letter using a hoax that’s been around as long as e-mail, at least type the damned thing nicely.

I hope your private parts, small as they are, fall off.

Sincerely, T

SECOND E-MAIL, SUBJECT: Urgent Reply Needed

Dear H****,

Thanks very much for your mail,

take note I contacted you because you have the same last name with my client mr Emmanuel H**** who is a U S citizen but have been living in Dubia for over 21 years now,

the Finance Company were this money was Deposited has informed me to look for the Relative but I cannot find them that was why I contacted you,

I am a British by birth but have been living in Dubia for over 27 years now , I and late Mr Emmanuel H**** are Business Partner for over 12 years ,

you have nothing to fear about ,and this transaction is 100% risk free,and also you have to keep it confidential ,and also this transaction required Honesty and
Truth.

Two ways of claming this money,

1) You have to come down to Dubia to sign the necessary Documents from the Finance Company and also open an Account with one of the Apex Bank here in
Dubai.

2) You can been in your Country and I will look for an Attoney here who can do every thing over here,what you have to do is to send your Account information then the money will be transfered to your Account in your home Country,

then I will fly over there for my 60% ,you will be having 40% of the total fund , I lived in Dare U A E ,I will like you to give me your number for me to communicate with you or you call me so that we talk,

am now in Africa for a Confrence 234-8033266267 or dial 011-234-8033266267 call me now so that we will discuss more.

Waiting for your fast response

Thanks
Ray Morgan.

MY SECOND RESPONSE: Okay, let's play ball

Hey Ray!

Good to hear from you. Okay, here's the plan. I'm coming
to Dubai. Here's the flight information:

Mon, Aug 30
1:15pm Depart -
Seattle/Tacoma, WA (SEA) Northwest Airlines 34
Tue, Aug 31
7:50am Arrive - Amsterdam, Netherlands
(AMS) Nonstop
Tue, Aug 31
2:20pm Depart - Amsterdam, Netherlands
(AMS) Northwest Airlines 8371 operated by KLM ROYAL
DUTCH AIRLINES
10:45pm Arrive - Dubai, United Arab Emirates
(DXB) Nonstop

Can you pick me up at the airport? I'll probably be pretty wasted after that layover in Amsterdam if you know what I mean! ;)

Anyway, after I get there and catch some zzz's we can wrap up the business at hand. In the meantime, can you spot me the cash for the ticket? It's $2795 US dollars. Maybe you could send it to me via Paypal, okay?

Oh and while I'm in Dubai, can I bunk with you? You don't know any hot
chicks, do you? Let's party and use some of that dough ray me!

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Tim

The Third E-Mail -- RE: Urgent Reply Needed

Are you ready to contacted the finance institution for the release of this money, so that I myself can fly to you there in the State. Thanks Ray Morgan.

My Reply: Can you hear me now, Ray?

Ray,

I was beginning to think that we had really made a connection. I felt we had something special and your last e-mail seemed so brusk...even distant. Have I done something wrong? Maybe you got scared when I said I'd booked a flight to Dubai to meet you. Is that it? Are you shy? Are you afraid I won't like you because you are horribly disfigured from that terrible acne you had as a kid. Don't worry. I see the inner Ray anyway. Don't reject me, because if I lose you now, I'm not sure what I'd do.

Let's just start over. I'm ready to contacted the finance instituion for the release of this money. Just say the word, Ray. But let's split it 50/50, okay. We're partners, right?

Waiting breathlessly for your reply

--T

SENSITIVE RAY REPLIES: HELLO HONEST BROTHER

Dear Honest Brother,

Thank you for your prompt response, I want you to know that I am not that worried when you say you are coming or booked for the flight coming to dubai, because for now i am not presently in dubai, I am here in one of the africa country for a conference and it Nigeria, so after that I do not know when the programme will be ending and the conference, so I think you do not have to travel for now to dubai.

I will love to meet you also, I am not scared like you want to know and not shy if you say you want to see me as who I am to be. No you have not done wrong simply that you ask me something okay, I want you to know that i am considering what I am offering you here and i do not want whereby situation I will be pay back with nothing when this money as been finaly transfer to you in the state.

I am not rejecting you okay, I am wanting you to contact the finance institution now so that you can get their email in dubai what their requesting you to bring and do for now so that we know how their are going to get this money transferred into your bank account in the state where you now.

I am giving you now the contact of the finance institution and get in touched withthem to ask them what you need to do that i Mr.Ray Morgan the business friend partner with late Mr.Emmanuel and that you are the next person to him and the relative and only brother that their where told about that will aplly in for the release and transference of the funds.

Here is the finance institution contact email address. Name Of Finance: Central Finance & Securities Limited Email Address: http://webmail.nwlink.com/src/compose.php?send_to=customerservice_cfsl%40mail2banker.com

Please send to the finance institution an email and I need you presently to provide me with you telephone number I need to call you so that we can talk better more on the telephone, it always add for me to get on internet all the time when busy. Await your soonest response after you have contacted the finance institution and response to me when you hear from them, in case their write you back okay.

Kindest Regards.

Mr. Ray Morgan.

MY FINAL REPLY: DEAR RAY

Dear Ray,

This is a very hard letter for me to write. Since I hadn't heard from you, I assumed it was over between us. I well, let me just say it, I responded to another bogus e-mail from a guy in Nigeria, maybe you know him, Barrister Ihaza Williams,the Personal Attorney to late Engineer A. H****. Anyway, one thing led to another and well, I'm taking his $12 million dollars. I'm having it transferred to that account you set up for me at Central Finance & Securities Limited. I hope you don't mind.

Anyway, I hope you don't take this personally. I know how sensitive you are. It's not you, it's me. Ihaza just has a better spam scheme than you do.

So, here's looking at you Ray. We'll always have Dubai. Good bye forever!

--T

We've come a long way, baby!

Once you start shaving, you're doomed to one of those endless tasks like making the bed or mowing the lawn. You've got to do it over and over for the rest of your life. Sure, you can grow a beard and pray that nature and genetics gives a full, heavy, manly beard instead of something that looks like moss growing on the north side of tree that's been mauled by a bear. But trust me, very few guys can grow a beard that looks decent and hides our double chins. So, we shave. And, I for one am always looking for a razer that rises above the hype and actually gives you a close, clean shave without a trip to the emergency room.

So, when Gillette introduced Mach 3 with it's macho body armor look and three blades, I had to toss my disposible blades and try it. It was okay, but despite the hype it was still just a shave with a shaver that got dull quickly and charged you an arm and a leg for replacement blades. And then, low and behold, along came M3Power-- a souped up version of the Mach 3 that Gillette's blades and razors division president Peter Hoffman called "a new system for men that delivers the best shave, and the best shaving experience."

Okay, like I said, I'm always look for the ultimate shaving experience. It's my holy grail. The power in the M3 Power comes from a battery and tiny motor, which Hoffman goes on to say,
"stimulates whiskers up and away from the skin, so the blades cut in just one stroke." Got to have it, got to have it! Plus, the blades are coated with a "thin uniform telomer" that isn't affected by use (don't have a clue what a telomer is, but smack my ass and call me Sally, it sounds good.) All this and, your face gets a gentle massage.

Come to papa M3 Power! Sounds so good, you'd think you'd need to smoke a cigarette after you shave.

So I put the Mach 3 in the cupboard and bought me a M3 Power. I mean, we're talking about being turned lose in the shower with a vibrating razor without being branded a pervert. This is marketing at its finest.

Bottom line...it was okay. It basically was a Mach 3 that vibrated. The shave wasn't noticeably different. It didn't stay sharp long and replacement blades cost even more if you can find them.

So now I'm waiting for SonicCare toothbrushes to come out with a razor that uses sound waves. Now that would be a razor.

When coconuts go bad

Enough said?

The ghosts of Union Station

I work in a haunted building. At least there are stories of it being haunted. It is an old train station in downtown Seattle that opened in May, 1911 and closed its doors in 1971. It remained derelict until it was restored in 1999.
Union Station in 1911

Union Station today.

Many of the reports of hauntings come from our 24-hour security people. Lights mysteriously turn on and off. Doors open and close. Sounds of children playing are heard in the great hall. Shadowy figures are glimpsed on survellence cameras, but aren't captured on tape. In particular, a woman dressed in a white Victorian dress has been seen several times at what was once the baggage level of the old station. She is seen pacing in aggitation and disappears when approached. A more sensitive security guard claims that the woman communicated with her and haunts the station because she was raped and killed there years ago.
Another frequent visitor is a former railroad security officer killed by a train in the distant past. A grim reminder of the station's violent past are bullet holes in one of the old benches that line the great hall.

Photos taken by security reportedly show misty figures sitting on this very bench.

Haunted? You be the judge.

Free Willie

I like Willie Nelson. He's no Elvis, mind you, but he is living proof that you don't need to sing particularily well to make it in the music biz. And hell, his most famous song, Whiskey River, really only has about three or four lines repeated over and over:

Whiskey River take my mind,
Don't let her mem'ry torture me.
Whiskey River don't run dry,
You're all I've got, take care of me.

Whiskey River take my mind,
Don't let her mem'ry torture me.
Whiskey River don't run dry,
You're all I've got, take care of me.

I'm drowning in a whiskey river,
Bathing my mem'ried mind in the wetness of its soul.
Feeling the amber current flowin' from my mind.
And warm an empty heart you left so cold.

Whiskey River take my mind,
Don't let her mem'ry torture me.
Whiskey River don't run dry,
You're all I've got, take care of me.

It's a good song, though. It's the kind of song you holler out requests for while you are sitting at a lounge in Reno drinking whiskey and feeling pretty darn good. It's better than hollering out requests for Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks after drinking tequila. House bands in Reno don't take too kindly to that, especially at Fitzgeralds. Trust me on this one.

I actually like Willie's My heroes have always been cowboys and Momma, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys better than Whiskey River. Those are classic country. It's none of that crap that Billy Ray Cyrus dumped on the country music scene. Achy Breaky Heart will go down in history as one of the worst pieces of crap ever to hit the air waves. Never trust a former Chippendale with a mullet is my motto.

Anyway, I digress. Here's to Willie! Long may he sing in whatever key he manages to croak out!