Random Esquire

1.  I plan on getting the Blackberry Storm tomorrow despite the ridicule I will face from the iPhone gang (Lynchseattle, Bev, Avitania).  I fully admit to being just nerdy enough to have been reading the forums at crackberry.com.  It’s a problem.

One of the strange things cell phone technology addicts do when a phone comes out is to video themselves actually opening the box. Yes, that sounds odd.  It’s like the nerd equivalent of filming the birth of a child that you’ll be fascinated with for about 6 months before you look forward to the next one so you can ditch the one you currently have.

Vodaphone released the phone a week ago and this guy from the UK filmed his “unboxing”.  The great part is that he did it in front of his wife, who refused to help as he tried to unbox the thing one handed, holding the camera in the other hand.  As he struggles, he says, “Come on, open, you bastard!”  She yells, “Start again!” to which he barks, “SHUT IT!”

People crack me up.

2.  Sitcom and I attended Food and Wine Magazine’s annual Entertaining Showcase at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art.  These events have a tendency to be over-impressed with themselves and stuffy.  This one, though, was really quite nice and put Chicago Gourmet to shame.  I dared Sitcom to throw up in the middle of the black high heals and wine glasses.  (No, I don’t know why – I just have a weird sense of humor sometimes.) She then got on a tangent about bulimic food tasters that had me practically crying from laughing.

3.  Walking to work yesterday, I disturbed myself by thinking about how well my eyes work together.  This came about when I imagined each of them as a camera lens taking pictures from two slightly different positions/angles and how well that picture merged into one.  It’s a little jacked up.

Well, this is probably going to be the most inappropriate entry I’ve ever done.  Let me set the scene.

Besos and I were at dinner last night and we were talking about our friends, Chris and Bev (LynchSeattle and Blynch).  Besos said, “When I saw Chris in bed…”

*Blink*

I said, “What?”

She said, “When I saw Chris in bed…”

I said, “What?”

She said, “When. I. Saw. Chris. And. Bev….”

I said, “Ohhh…”

I told her what I’d been hearing and she laughed and we sent a text message to Bev relaying the story.  Bev relayed the message to Chris and we all laughed and then Bev and I decided we should have an affair to even out the score.

So, Besos and I went home and made with the whoopie pancakes and then fell asleep.  I woke up around 3 in the morning and could distinctly remember having two dreams:

1)  I had a dream that I absolutely had to go get the Amazon Kindle.  In fact, in my dream, you could watch television on it as well as download books from Amazon.

2)  In my other dream…I was making out with Bev in bed.  Oy!  I decided to keep that one to myself.

I got up to take out my contacts and brush my teeth before I silently slipped back into bed.  It was then that Besos spoke:

“You talk in your sleep.”

I froze.

“What?”

She said, “You talk in your sleep.”

I said slowly, “Ohhh? Uhhhhh…what did I say?”

She sat up and turned toward me and said, “You were having a good time.  You were moaning.  And then you said something.”

I couldn’t help it.  I started to laugh out of nervous embarrassment.  “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘That feels good, baby.’”

At this point, I couldn’t stop laughing and I burst out, “I had a dream I was making out with Bev in bed!”

Besos started to laugh and said, “You were not fucking making out!”

We laughed and curled up back in bed and I began to grab at her some more and she warned me to behave and brushed my hands away a little.

I couldn’t help it.

I whispered, “Bev lets me.”

Let’s pause in the story to fully appreciate my stupidity.  In the course of a few hours, I’d suggested an affair with another woman, had a dream in which I made out with said woman, apparently gave verbal indication of said dream and then made a stupid comment about my imaginary affair with the woman.

Besos let out a “Rraaawwwwrrrr!!” at me and I was banished to the other side of the bed.

But she was giggling the entire time so I snuck back over and behaved myself.

Dude.

WTF.

Good thing Besos can laugh about my goofiness.

But seriously, Bev…how you doin’?

1.  My niece saw raisins for the first time last week.  She picked up the bowl and took it to my sister and said, “These grapes are dead.”

My sister called me two nights ago.  I answered the phone and heard my niece say, “Hello!”  My sister said, in the background, “Tell Random what you did today.”  Niece said, “I got a haircut.”  I said, “Oh! That’s great. Getting a haircut is great!”  My sister said, “Tell Random who cut your hair.”

She said, “I did.”

I burst out laughing.  I said, “Ohhh, that’s just for grownups.  Only grownups cut hair.  You’re not going to do that again, are you?”

She paused and said, “I don’t know.  I might.”

God, I love how honest kids are.

2.  I had bacon in my fridge so I decided to make breakfast for dinner last night.  Except I didn’t want eggs.  Then it hit me…I had tomato and some Boston lettuce.  BLT!  I’m a dry sandwich eater.  No mayo or mustard or whatever.  But on a BLT?  You need mayo.  I found a squeeze bottle of Hellman’s that had about one tablespoon used out of the entire thing.  Anddddd it expired 8 months ago.   Then I found some Miracle Whip.  Guess what?  November 5, 2008!  TWO MORE DAYS!

And it occurs to me…BLTs are the only sandwich on which I’m not tempted to slap on a slice of cheese.  I wonder why that is?  That made me think of hamburgers and how I really don’t understand the point unless it has a slice of cheese on it.  I’ve never had cheese on a slice of apple pie.  Who the hell came up with that one?  Though, now that I think about it, I do normally have slices of apples or pears to serve along with bread and cheese when drinking wine.  Still, cheese on apple pie seems odd to me.

3.  You know who isn’t impressed with this Standard Time?  Little Filthy.  He began protesting at 3 o’clock yesterday.  By 4:30, he was still demonstrating so I gave in and fed him.  He’s in for a harsh reality today when I get home after 5.  Of course, he’s going to watch the polls all day so he may not notice.

1.  You may recall that The Ballerina is known for saying things no one else would say.  The other day, we were talking about bosses and managing people and how it can be difficult and she said this:

“Yeah…you gotta own that shit…

…like a lazy eye.”

*Blink*

I think I coughed on my coffee.

2.  The Italian and his girlfriend have parted ways.  We were discussing this and somehow, the topic of faces came up.  (You know…like, how women have 75 different looks and 73 of them mean stop what you’re doing right now.)  The Italian said he has a face.  I asked what it was.  He said, “The please fuck me face.  It’s a look that says, ‘Please fuck me. I would be oh-so-appreciative if you would.’”  Then he laughed until he coughed.

3.  I think I’m finally ready to date seriously.  Those of you who know me know that I’ve sort of fought it tooth and nail but that’s over.  And I’m pretty damn happy about that.  Obviously, though, my behavior had to change.  While on the phone with Besos tonight, we were laughing about how I’ve just become comfortable with the idea of dating seriously.

I said, “You broke me!”

She said, with a fair bit of indignation, “What did you say?”

I said, “I said you broke me!”

She snorted and said, “No…I fixed you.”

1.  Those wildfires are hard to watch.  Especially when you learn that someone started it.  For some reason, it’s almost worse to me when someone accidentally starts it – like a kid who plays with a match and ends up burning down 50 houses.  It’s like someone coughed without covering their mouth and caused a tornado.

2.  Since I’m on the topic of murder, Drew Peterson is still kickin’ it, isn’t he?

3.  I walked into the kitchen today to find Little Filthy sitting and staring at the kitchen island.  As soon as he spotted me, he started to jump so his head would peek up over the counter.  I’d eaten part of a banana earlier and left the other half on the counter.  He’s banana crazy.

That just reminded me of something.  When the Seattle Peeps were here and they actually met Little Filthy, it occured to me how many times I had to say, “Oh…he [does this] when [this happens].”  Examples (all of which they witnessed, save maybe the banana thing):

a) He goes nuts when you open that cupboard.  (There is one particular kitchen cupboard that causes Little Filthy to lose his shit when it’s opened.)

b) He humps his toys the moment you try to take them.

c) He jumps (literally – he jumps up and down) if you move the rug that he’s standing on.  He pounces straight up and down, staring at the ground.  If I do this to him, I can walk into the room an hour later and he’s still jumping and staring.

d) He falls asleep when you file his nails.  (I file them every so often since he tends to jump on me and snag my pants otherwise.)  If you put him on his back with his legs sticking straight up, you could file his nails all day and he’ll sleep the entire time.

e) He loses his mind if he smells a banana.  He can smell you reaching for a banana.

4.  I cracked my patio door open last night so cool air would come in during the night. I woke up and it was 55 degrees in my place.  And I sort of loved it while I was in bed, anyway.  But it occurred to me that a woman might really find the whole practice odd.  I like chilly air when I sleep.

5.  That brings up another cold-weather practice: Wearing socks in bed.  Do you do it?

I don’t think I could do it.  It feels like going to bed with shoes on.  Just… odd.  And besides, don’t your feet get too warm?  It’s kind of gross, too, if you’ve been wearing the socks all day, right?  Hell, I think it’s sort of gross that people get into their beds after collecting dirt on their skin all day.  Those people only wash their sheets once a month and always have a rash.

It just occurred to me that I’m going to be single forever because I’m a weirdo and my dog is, too.

I’d been feeling unsettled lately because my place was in a bit of disarray.  Too many evenings away from home sometimes leave me feeling like this and I could tell my place needed a thorough scrub down.  I groused about it earlier via instant message to the Ballerina earlier today.  A few hours later, I reported in that I had just cleaned the floor and felt measurably better.  Here’s how the conversation went:

RandomEsq:  “Dude, floors are disgusting.”

The Ballerina: “scrubbing floors periodicially is so soothing.

…it’s like masturbation.”

*Blink*

Do you ever hear a song and for some odd reason, you recognize it and it strikes you right then as awesome?  And you want to play it for your friends and say, “Remember this song? It’s awesome.”  And you go purchase it on iTunes and then a month later, you’re like, “Seriously?”

Seriously.  Welcome to my latest download: Kenny Loggin’s  Whenever I call you “friend”

Sweet love’s showin’ us a heavenly light
Never seen such a beautiful sight
See love glowing on us every night
I know forever we’ll be doing it, doing it

WTF.

Skip to 1:06 or 2:57 to see what’s going through my head.  Is that the most ridiculous video you’ve ever seen?

Honestly, I might have been better off pondering toothpaste and Dolly Parton.

1.  Have you heard the 911 call of the young woman working at a City Laundry & Cleaners?  The store was robbed and the robber shot her in the back of the head.  Miraculously, she was able to drag herself to a phone and call 911.  I am ashamed to say that there is a part of the call that makes me laugh.  Here’s a transcript:

911 Operator:  Hello 911, What is your emergency?

Young woman:  I’ve been shot and I just got robbed.

911 Operator:  You’ve been shot and robbed??

Okay, it’s how the Operator says, “You’ve been shot AND robbed?!”  Like she can’t believe this woman’s bad luck.  First, she gets shot but then they robbed her on top of it?  I know it shouldn’t make me laugh.  I’m not sure it can be helped.

2.  For some reason, I was thinking about Dolly Parton today.  I know, I can’t explain why I get these thoughts.  That just reminded of me of the time I pondered what would happen if all the tubes of toothpaste were sold out.  I know it seems like I should have better things to think about but you know what?  Not so much.  Anyway, it sort of amazes me that so many people love Dolly Parton that she has her own theme park.  That’s sort of outrageous, right?  It’s like backwoods Tennessee threw up all over Disney.  How many banjos do you think are in Dollywood right now?  It’s like trying to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar.  Man, I wish there was a way to get that answer.

3.  The monster was smelling like a cross between corn chips and dirt.  It was time for a bath.  While I scrubbed him down, I calmly explained to him that it was perfectly okay that his skin was nourished with oatmeal extracts, that the girls like a good smelling fellow and it doesn’t matter if some people think it’s odd.  What matters is that he likes it and it makes him feel good.

Little Filthy licking water off his nose.

I smell good. Don't be a hater.

1.  The Italian likes to impersonate his girlfriend’s accent.  This isn’t so bad but he likes to do it while repeating things she said to him in bed. I’ll pick up the phone and he’ll break out in an accent and say, “Ohhh, jess enjoyyyy eet!”  And, I admit, I usually bust out in a laugh.  Earlier in the week, he said, “Ooohhh, do you feeeeeel deee freak-shoooow?”  I said, “Wait,… freak show?”  He said, “Freak-showwwn.”Oh.

Friction.

Dude is just wrong.   Don’t get me wrong.  We laughed at ourselves for a good five minutes.

2.  If you’ve been reading QTMama, you know that she has a crush on “Chicago Man”, a guy she met while visiting Chicago last month.  As it happens, I frequently have occasion to cross paths with Chicago Man and I knew I would be doing so tonight.  I let QTMama know this and before I knew what happened, she was trying to get me to go to a florist to pick up a flower to bring to this dude so I could say it was from her and wasn’t that romantic?

You know what?  Didn’t happen.

3.   I’m going to bed.  While the clock still says ‘p.m.’  It’s the first time in weeks.

1.  Have you ever seen a Halibut?  It’s ugly.  When it’s born (hatched? wtf do I know), the eyes are on either side of the fish but then one slowly migrates to the other side as the fish rests flat on the ocean floor…so that both eyes are facing up.  That’s really jacked up, isn’t it? Picture here, at the bottom of the page.  No clue why it’s on the dog breed info page.  That’s jacked up, too.

2.   Speaking of ugly fish, here’s a monkfish.  Tell me you wouldn’t crap yourself if that bumped you in the water.

3.  Discovery Channel has this new show called Tuna Wranglers.  It’s pretty interesting to watch to see how they catch tuna (with a plane flying overhead to spot the school and boat that circles the school in a huge ass net that cinches at the bottom).  It’s no Deadliest Catch, though.  Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so because this blog (er,…called Pisstakers) did an entry on how tuna fishing is to crab fishing as catching a koala bear is to catching a black bear. Here are my favorite lines: “The only things they have in common are, they are all in a boat, all on the water, all after fish and all enjoy feeding false info to their competitors. Oh, and they all like a beer and return to port smelling like a whore’s drawers. ”

4.  I’m reading Moby Dick.