Ironying

At the ripe old age of 28, there are still several life skills I haven't mastered, among them tying a tie, driving stick, and ironing a shirt in under 3o minutes. All of these deficiencies owe directly to a lack of necessity to practice. I've learned to tie a tie and drive stick several times each now, but I don't really ever have occasion to do either, so in a few months it gets tossed when I defrag my brain.

I'm fortunate enough to have a job that doesn't require me to wear a tie or nice clothes or even much beyond shorts, a shirt, and sometimes closed-toe shoes. This is nice, to put it plainly. There are a few downsides though. One is that I wear through my gym socks a lot faster through daily use. The other is that when it comes time to iron something, I'm useless.


Holy guacamole I hate ironing. Specifically, I hate ironing boards. They tip, they don't fit anywhere, they have that stupid string hanging off the end that gets in the way of everything, and I can never find an edge in the shape that I actually need. What do the professionals use, maybe I need one of those. No, strike that - what do other incompetent men-children looking to buy gadgets to relieve them of tedious tasks use? I need one of those. Seriously though, why aren't ironing boards 5-sided with shapes to fit each part of the shirt? Somebody hurry up and invent me a swiss army board, or I'll be forced to do it myself. No. I will invent a steam suit, put it on, put my to-be-ironed clothes on over it, activate the steam, remove both suits, don the freshly ironed suit (fitted to my very dimensions, plus the thickness of the steam suit) and do the hokey pokey. I can't believe you're still reading this

One of those days

Today was one of those days that started out fine, but by around 10pm I was ready to club somebody to death with their own stupid fucking no good dismembered leg. However, I was also hungry. So, Safeway trip first, then limb-tearing and severe beating.

It was at this point that I discovered something: It's impossible to stay pissed off about your day while browsing through the produce aisle. You can only go around muttering "goddam baby carrots, what the fuck did you ever do for anybody? And you, arugula, what are you looking at? That's what I thought" for about 20 seconds before some sort of absurdity switch flips and you end up quietly picking out 4 ripe looking fuji's and a hand of bananas and moving on.

However, screw onions still. blegh

Trickery: picking on CL

http://sacramento.craigslist.org/bik/1637023952.html

Provided that you broke your leg doing the Macarena in 1996, this is probably a true statement.

brand new novara that was originally purchased for 600 dollars before i broke my leg. So its gatta go, and please serious callers only.(916)583-****

Not helping

What total bastard decided to print the directions for how many excedrin migraine to take in 1 point font? The whole bottle should be a picture of 2 pills and then a pillow. Possibly raised lettering, if my eyes have quit completely. It should also be packaged with earplugs and those disposable sunglasses they give you at the optometrist.

Costume Ideas

OK, so I already have my costume picked out for the year, but maybe you don't. I offer you these suggestions, some of which I'm kicking myself for not thinking of earlier.

1. Dress up in a cardboard box. When you walk into the party, release a balloon somewhere and ignore it for the rest of the evening. When people ask what you are: Balloon boy!

2. Dress as a possibly-pregnant-but can't-really-tell woman. like, extra 2 layers right above the belt. Have fun watching people puzzle over whether to ask or not.

more TBD as I think of them. suggestions welcome.

What happened?

It's been 2 months since I posted, and 3 since I really actually posted. Here's sort of why.

As the more eagle-eyed among you might have noticed, I spend a lot of time picking on other people's bike choices. Like, a lot of time. Too much time, even. It was starting to progress from good natured observation of goofy shit toward being immediately critical of anything set up differently than how I would've done it. No idea why, but no good.

So, as shock therapy to myself, I decided to build a bike that made very little practical sense. I came across a nice aluminum/carbon road frame on ebay, bought a singlespeed kit and some bars for it, and built it up with things I had lying around. Behold: The fastest cruiser on the 2300 block!

It was good times, but short lived. Those who haven't managed to glaze over by now may notice that one of the crank arms, uh, fell off. That was a problem. Too bad really, because if it had lived the next step was to add some clip on TT bars. The bike is currently being stripped to make way for something else, but tolerance regained. Or, if stupid people start pissing me off again, I have a cheap crank-arm to huck at them.

Stuck in the Loop - Reruns!

It's time for another posting, although that's never really consistently meant that another posting was forthcoming. However, my phone is broken and I lost my camera so I have no way to relieve the tedium of my musings with pretty pictures of mildly stupid decisions. So instead I link again to my earlier postings on how to navigate traffic circles and other intersections, which to my dismay remain overly topical and under-utilized. Dang.