Had a meeting today with the rest of my work-at-home coworkers. We're in the planning stages of a new project so it was a good time to take a day and do some planning, design, and grab-ass. Since our homes are scattered across Northern California, rather than meet at our soul-sucking corporate office, we picked a convenient house to meet at, in San Ramon, which is about 45 miles outside of San Francisco.

It was foggy here in my San Francisco neighborhood when Jay came by to pick me up for the meeting. I was dressed in cozy warm jeans and a thick polo shirt. Jay was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. "Shorts, eh" I said mockingly.

"Did you look at the weather report?" Jay asked, "It's going to be 80 degrees in San Ramon today."

"Hmmph," I parried smugly. (It is one of my few regrets that I was never on the debate team in high school.)

We got about one mile outside of my neighborhood when the fog cleared and I began to sweat. San Francisco is crazy with micro-climates and my little neighborhood tends to be foggy. Being an oblivious idiot, it hadn't really occurred to me that inland cities might be a tad warmer in the middle of summer.

(Mark Twain was rumored to have once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.")

I was sweating like a pig within minutes, but I battled the heat with a poorly thought-out strategy of gulping hot coffee. Surprisingly, this did not help. We got to San Ramon about an hour later and it was hot. Africa hot.

Naturally, our host had set up a meeting area for us outside. Granted, it was a shady area outside, but still outside. I suggested that perhaps we should meet inside where it wasn't surface-of-the-sun hot, but since I'm known as a joker and a surly complainer, that comment was taken lightly.

Let me give you all a history lesson. About, say, a million years ago, man was primitive. He grunted, had poor table manners, and generally was not very sophisticated or knowledgeable. These beings are anecdotally referred to as "cavemen". Do you know why they are called cavemen? I'll tell you why. It's because one of the very first things that cavemen figured out was TO GO INSIDE THE DAMN CAVE!

Anyway, my coworkers took pity on me and we held our meeting inside. When lunch arrived, however, they were unable to restrain their more primitive urges, and they lurched outside, knuckles dragging on the ground. It was nuts, I tell you. Nuts! The temperature was, and I am not exaggerating, 2 million degrees. I am serious. Although I had planned wisely for the hot weather by ordering spicy Kung Pao chicken (extra Pao please!), I still sweated like a pig.

Thankfully, we adjourned back inside for the remainder of the meeting and I slowly recovered.

The meeting itself went pretty well. A design meeting for our group is 25% fiddling with our laptops, 25% dick jokes, 25% mocking the rest of the company, and 25% tickle fight. Somewhere in there we actually got some work done too. I kick ass at tickle fights though.

An Open Letter to Webvan

Dear Webvan,

God, I miss you.

I still think of you often. I miss how you cared for me. I miss the friendly demeanor of your big strong delivery men and women. I miss how you made my life better.

Why did you have to leave me? How could a company be so damn good and so damn stupid at the same time? Webvan, you were a sexy little enigma.

I've tried to fill the void you left in my life. I tried using another delivery service, but they didn't have your commitment to being on time, nor your svelte little delivery window, nor your tight IT integration, and certainly not your delicious gourmet goods. Oh, you had the goods alright.

My daughter is growing up in a world without Webvan. The weekly drudgery of going to the grocery store is becoming a fixture in her life and it saddens me. She no longer even remembers what Webvan was. She hears me cry out, "I miss Webvaaaaaaaaan!" every now and then, and she mimics it, but I can tell that her heart isn't in it. She was too young to understand.

I've heard people say a lot of bad things about you in the last few years. They've mocked your high-tech warehouses and the hubris of your ambitious plans. I never begrudged you those things, Webvan. It was a different time back then, a more romantic time, filled with dashing heroes driving handsome delivery trucks.

There is one thing I don't understand though. I heard that you were losing money on every delivery here in San Francisco. Is that true, baby? Why didn't you come to me and ask for delivery fees? Don't you know how much you meant to me? I would have paid more. I'm hurt that you never asked. Maybe I'm partially to blame. I should have let you know how much I cared. I know it wasn't all about the money, but you should know that just as I opened my heart to you, I would have gladly opened my wallet as well.

I don't know what you're up to now. I mean, I know about the bankruptcy and all, and I'm not a spiritual man, but I do feel that somewhere the soul of Webvan still exists. Maybe it's in the hearts of your now-elsewhere-employed delivery people, or perhaps embedded in your long-abandoned $1,000,000,000 warehouses, but I feel like it's out there. Somewhere.

I'll never forget you, baby.

That's all I wanted to say.

Love,
Mike
Account #1852809

I haven't been running very regularly since the Boston Marathon, which was about 10 weeks ago. Since I retired from marathoning upon crossing the finish line that day, I haven't had a running goal, and thus haven't been motivated to run.

I still fit into my pants, and my man-boobs haven't gotten noticeably bigger, so it's hard to convince myself to run on a regular schedule. I'm not one of those people who exercises due to the love of...geez, I don't know how that sentence would even end. What is it that those people love about exercising? The stench of sweat? The out-of-breathness? Freaks! (I'm looking at you, Dolface).

Consequently, it's been hard to get out of the house for some mid-week runs. The last couple that I did actually felt ok ("ok" being a relative term. Let's say it was "ok" for exercising, but not "ok" for making your days enjoyable and worth living). In fact, they felt downright speedy.

I've been keeping a log of all my runs for years now. I find it satisfying to enter my run data in a spreadsheet and see the calculations about how many miles I've run in a given month, or how fast I ran. So, after those last couple speedy mid-week runs, I rushed to the spreadsheet (a phrase one rarely hears) and enthusiastically entered the data (again, a rare phrase). I was bummed to see that not only were these runs not-speedy, they were, in fact, the slowest I had run those courses in years.

Ugh. Time is everything to me. In this case, slow times equal declining physical fitness.

It's depressing to have actual evidence of my physical disintegration. I mean, sure, I still look in the mirror and say, "Mmmmmmmm" while licking my lips and winking, but still.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this. I COULD run more, but, ick. I could do some other sort of exercise, but, again, ick.

I think the moral of this story is: spreadsheets bad.

All of a sudden, in the last week or so, Google has been sending dozens of people to my blog who were searching for Swanson's unwritten rules of management. Considering that I'm not near the top of the search results for that query, I think it's safe to say that these poor searchers have not found what they're looking for. So, although I may not technically be an expert on the topic of Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management, I think I do have one or two important things to say on the matter. As long as people are being sent here, allow me to give them what they want.

So, without further ado, here are Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management.

1) Suggest to your employees that they should eat a LOT of Swanson's Hungry Man dinners.

2) Don't screw stuff up. No one likes a screw-up.

3) Give all your employees laughably small raises that are less than the inflation rate, even the employees who get good reviews. Also give them teensy-tiny bonuses and slowly take away their benefits. Remind them that if they're going to complain about this in their blog, they should find an indirect way to do it.

4) Before big meetings, practice saying "NOT IT!" as quickly as possible.

5) Don't set 5 or more people on fire in a single fiscal quarter.

6) When meeting your employees for the first time, regale them with stories filled with racial slurs. See how many you can put in one sentence! Remind them again to blog this carefully.

7) Consider catering your lunch-time meetings with delicious Swanson's Hungry Man dinners.

8) Never write down important rules.

I'm pretty sure that's all of them.

Went to Reno on Tuesday with my coworkers for our semi-annual day of bonding.

The first order of business was playing in a Texas Hold 'Em No Limit poker tournament at the Peppermill casino. Successful poker is part skill, part luck, and part attitude. Since my attitude tends more towards smart-ass than bad-ass, I'm not so good at that part. I got a good lesson in attitude within minutes of arriving in Reno though.

Coming through the airport, the man in front of me on the escalator was a pretty tough looking guy. He had a shaved head, muscley arms, and what appeared to be a tattoo on the outside edge of his ear. HIS FREAKIN' EAR! (Note that I just spent a few minutes trying to google a picture of a similar tattoo location, but no luck. This tattoo type is a rarity.)

The tattoo looked like writing, but I couldn't quite make out the letters, so I leaned as far forward as I could without being obvious. Slowly, it came into focus... First an 'E', then an 'A'... and then what looked like a 'T'...

Holy crap!

"EAT SHIT" His tattoo on his FREAKIN EAR said, "EAT SHIT". Charming.

I wasn't sure why he deemed that an appropriate sentiment to permanently etch on his body, or why he chose to use the rim of his ear as his canvas, but there it was, and it spoke to me. Inspiration has come from stranger places. I would follow in this gentleman's earsteps and be a poker bad-ass.

My buddies and I made our way to the Peppermill casino. This used to be my favorite place to gamble, but ever since being banned from blackjack there, I have avoided the place like the plague. Unfortunately, they offered the most convenient poker tournament that day, so I swallowed my pride and strutted/skulked/minced into the 'Mill.

We had an hour to kill before the tournament, so we hit the craps tables where my buddy Pablo was an unstoppable dice-throwing machine. By tournament time, I was up $170. It was a good omen.

56 people signed up for the tournament and soon I sat down at a table with 9 other players. Within the first 20 minutes I landed a good hand (three 9s) and became the chip leader at our table. I was also doing my best to analyze the other players and categorize them (e.g. bluffer, conservative, by-the-book, idiot, etc). In general I suck at looking for visual "tells" that would indicate if someone has a strong hand or not, but I'm perfectly capable of constructing a simplistic profile of the other players.

I tried to keep up some friendly chatter while maintaining my inner "bad-ass" attitude. Some new guy sat down next to me and started doing fancy chip tricks, shuffling them and rolling them from one hand to another. "Ok, I'm intimidated by your chip handling," I said warmly to him.

"Well, that's what ADD will do for you," he pleasantly replied. I smiled but I was secretly pretending that my ears were commanding him to consume feces.

Poker-wise, things were going pretty smoothly. I used my "big stack" to push around the other players a bit and made a few successful bluffs. I also did a superb job of guessing when some folks were bluffing based on their betting patterns. I was getting decent cards and I was playing them solidly.

After about two hours, I found myself at the final table with about 7 other players. The top 5 spots were going to get paid and it looked like I had the fewest chips of anyone. Things looked grim.

I went "all-in" at my first opportunity with a J-10 (suited) and got lucky when several other people called it and I ended up with the best hand. I now had a medium-sized chip stack. The very next hand the guy to my right called all-in. I looked down at my cards and was pleasantly surprised to see my best hand of the night, pocket aces. I called him and won again. Now, I had a pretty big stack.

Things went poorly from there, but I held on to get 4th place, which earned me about $100 on top of my entry fee. Not bad! Out of the 3 guys who beat me, one will be attending the World Series of Poker this year for the 2nd time, and the other guy was a very strong player who apparently makes his living playing video poker (which astonished me, but is apparently possible). I didn't feel so bad about losing to those guys.

So, I strolled/pranced out of the Peppermill with $270 of profit! Hoo hoo! My buddies and I went over to the Atlantis to spend the rest of the day playing blackjack and carousing.

Of course the remainder of my gambling was abysmal. I had, perhaps, the worst blackjack experience of life. The dealers were unable to bust and it made me (irrationally?) fear that I've been spotted as a card-counter in this casino too. Although my hands didn't seem overly horrible, the dealers would routinely turn a 5 or a 6 into 20 or 21. This happened A LOT. I don't know if casinos actually manipulate decks to cheat, but it suuuure seemed suspicious. I'll chalk this up to bad luck, but if it happens again next time at the Atlantis, it'll be my last time there.

Between the craps, poker, horrendous blackjack, and a few good baseball bets, I ended up a little more than $100 down. I've done worse.

Yay for poker. I am a bad-ass.

Diggity dang!

Blogger started doing weird crap. Suddenly, my recent posts were WAAAAY down the page and required much scrolling. Kudos to you all who have successfully navigated your way down to see my posts. The problem just got worse when I republished my blog, thus propagating their nonsense to every post I had ever written.

Me smart.

So, if anyone else has been affected, here's how to fix it (Many thanks to Dolface for spotting this and helping me fix it!):

1) Go edit your template
2) Stick this line in the "style" section near the top:

div { clear: none !important; }

3) Republish your blog

That should counteract the crap that they're inserting into our pages. Blog on.

One last Steve Genard related anecdote.

One of my tasks during my senior year of high school was to come up with a suitable quote to appear under my picture in the yearbook. Each senior had space to put about 25 words and most folks used that space to try and sum up their high school experience.

It's kind of like if you only got to put 25 words in your entire blog. Just one post, ever. 25 words or less. What would you say? Similarly, it's hard to sum up 4 years of schooling and comraderie in 25 words. Most folks took one of the following approaches:

- Sappy Hallmark-inspired sentiment (e.g. "I love my friends and my friends are love")
- Bible quote (e.g. "Jesus says he who throws stones mustn't...uh...love thy neighbor?" - Crap, ok, surprise surprise, I'm not a Bible scholar)
- Music lyric, usually heavy metal (e.g. "Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii - Robert Plant")
- A secret message to friends (e.g. "MCQZZ 8 Cinnamon buns!! FREEBIRD! 1987 Bazongas!! DZTDGLNIF forever!!!"
- Philosophy quote (I recall at least one Nietzsche and one Hitler quote)

Obviously none of those themes were right for me. I wanted something humorous, but I couldn't for the life of me think of the right words. I ignored this to-do item for months until the final day arrived and I had mere hours to write my high school epitaph.

Panicked, I decided to seek out help. I called the smartest and most literary guy I knew, Steve Genard, who was a sophomore at UCLA at this time. I told him what I needed and how much time we had. He promised to call me back within the hour.

He called back about 30 minutes later holding a book of Far Side cartoons by Gary Larson. This was a pretty good idea. Far Side cartoons are single-panel comics that are often science or biology-related and usually have a nice little edge to them. Steve rifled through the book, reading punchlines to me. After a few tries, he got to one that seemed appropriately inappropriate.

The picture in the comic showed three cows grazing in a pasture. One cow lifts his head and indignantly declares, "Hey, wait a minute! This is grass! We've been eating grass!"

This worked for me on a number of levels. First, the actual sentiment describes stupid animals suddenly realizing that they've been duped. This satisfied me as an appropriately subversive statement about high school. Second, if you're unfamiliar with the comic, then it just seems random, and that's good too. I like random. Mostly it was a quote that people could read what they wanted into. Seemed like a fine idea all the way around.

That was my senior quote and I was pleased.

Within days I was called to the yearbook office to explain my quote. The yearbook staff members suspected it was a diabolical marijuana reference. Considering that I was one of the squeekiest clean kids in the school, this was an amusing allegation. I explained where the quote came from and what it meant. They nodded vigorously in agreement.

Weeks later when the yearbooks came out, my picture was unadorned with a quote. There was a conspicuously blank spot where the quote belonged. Apparently, the powers that be had concluded that I was celebrating pot, and they censored my absurd quote. I guess they thought I was recommending smoking grass... instead of eating it...? Maybe? Geez, I don't know.

That's the peril of an ambiguous quote, I guess.

Regardless, it was a damn good quote and I will always remember that when I needed something witty and I needed it fast, Steve Genard was my go-to guy. Thanks, Steve.

Got a haircut today. Although it's not quite the debacle of my recent 80's haircut, it's still pretty gruesome. I'm back from 80's freak to standard geek. Feels like home.

My little neighborhood, which doesn't even have a grocery store, somehow supports 5 or 6 hair salons. I went to one of the newer ones that I had never visited before. The hairdresser seemed to be the proprietor and she was pleased to have a new customer. She showered me with compliments but since English wasn't her first language, most of her compliments kind of missed the mark. I won't attempt to imitate her accent here, not because of political correctness, but rather because I'm just horrible at doing accents. I'm still offensive, I'm just not good at it.

For example:

1) When I started off by complaining that my hair was WAAY too long, she stopped me and said, "Oh, but you are so handsome!". Ok, lady, you've lost all credibility in less than 30 seconds.

2) Soon into the haircut, she was clipping and shaving and was suddenly overcome with the health of my hair, "Oh, your hair is so beautiful and healthy! It is very healthy hair. I can tell you don't go outside much."

Wow, even the very nature of my hair gives away the fact that I'm a troll.

3) After most of my locks had been removed (and who the hell put all the grey hairs on my head. Very funny, bastards), the hairdresser noted, "Ohhhh! You look 10 years younger now!"

I contemplated this for a moment and then asked, "So, how old did I look when I walked in here today?"

"You looked 25!" she cheerfully exclaimed, unaware of the nearly catastrophic time paradox she was creating

"So... I look 15 now?" I asked?

She stopped dead in her tracks, double-checking my math, and then just busted up.

Sweet. I'm no longer a missing Thompson Twin. Now, I'm back to being a 15 year-old geek.

Just to sum up on the Mother's Day shopping fiasco of yesterday's post, here's the tally:

Sandals: RETURN

Although she agreed that they were perfectly attractive shoes, they were not what she was looking for. Something about the Feng Shui, or the flux capacitor, or something like that was off the mark.


Pink flip flops: KEEP

Despite the girly girly color, they were sturdy and cute: a keeper!


Green shirt: KEEP

Not something she would have bought for herself, but a good addition to her wardrobe.


OVERALL SCORE: 2 of 3

Many people would regard a score of 66% as a D, but we grade on a curve at this house. That's a solid B 'round these parts, my friends. So if any of you ladies require a personal shopper, you know where to reach me....

"Father's Day is tomorrow," said the wife, "Let's go to the mall so that I can shop for you." I agreed, having the need to buy myself a pair of office (home) pants (jeans), but something nagged at me. What was it?

"I've got a lot of things to buy, some for you and some for Daisy, so let's split up. What do you need to get?" asked my lovely and considerate wife.

"Jeans. I need a good pair of jeans," I replied, wondering what else I was forgetting.

We walked into the mall and it hit me. MOTHER'S DAY! Over a month had passed since Mother's Day and I still hadn't bought her anything. I don't like to get more than one holiday behind in my shopping, so I realized that now was the time. I quickly assessed the situation and came up with a competent plan.

"OhcrapMothersDay!" I blurted out in pure panic, "Jesus, what the hell do you want for Mother's Day?!?!" She thought for a moment.

"Well, I'd really like a new refrigerator...", she started while my eyes began to roll, "but I know you won't buy me one of those, so how about some cute sandals for summer?"

Sandals? This was maybe the worst idea ever. Although I have a vague idea about how big my wife's feet are, I have no concept of what distinguishes the world's nicest sandals from the world's ugliest sandals. Buckles? Glow in the dark fur? No clue.

"Babe, I can't buy you shoes!" I whined, "What other ideas do you have?"

"Well, I need some new sunglasses."

"Oh, man" I lamented, "Ok, imagine this. Imagine there's a huge rack of sunglasses in front of you, but you're forced to pick a pair with your eyes closed. What are the odds that you'll like those sunglasses?"

"Hmmm, probably not too good."

"Ok, well, I'm not an idiot, so you can probably double those odds, but still, odds are that you're going to end up with sunglasses that you hate. What else you got?"

She dug a little deeper. "I need new shirts. Every day I go into that closet and I can't find shirts to wear. I know you can buy me a shirt!"

This was a possibility. I have, in the past, come home with acceptable shirts for the wife. I needed more data though. "Tell me what kind of shirt!"

"I need shirts that I can wear with jeans. My shirts don't go well with jeans. And they need to have a feminine collar. It should be obvious to someone whether the shirt goes on your side of the closet or mine."

Ok, I've bought feminine products before. Obviously she wanted a shirt with wings or some similar feminine artifact.

We went our separate ways and I made a beeline for the shoe department at Nordstrom. Although I'd never bought my wife non-sneaker-shoes, extra effort was required here considering that this gift was 5 weeks late. I was pleased to see that Nordstrom was having a huge sale with tons of discounted merchandise.

Ok, cute sandals, cute sandals, cute sandals. I browsed the many display tables and quickly realized that not only was I unable to distinguish the cute sandals from the ugly ones, I couldn't even tell which shoes were sandals.

In the mens department this is a no-brainer. The sandals are the things that don't completely cover your feet. They have straps of some sort. My programmer brain had long ago come up with the If-There-Are-Straps-Then-They-Are-Sandals algorithm. In the women's department, however, like 80% of the shoes are strappy. What the hell? I ruled out anything with high heels, but that still left about 50% of the merchandise to consider.

I pondered the half-inch-heels strappy things with bows, and the flat-soled strappy things with buckles, and the flip-flop-esque ones, and then my brain broke. So, I sought out a salesperson and gave her my sob story.

"I need sandals, but how can anyone really tell which ones are sandals, and which ones are just strappy shoes? So, I need the sandal kind of shoe, but cute ones, but not Hello Kitty cute, because I don't think she'd dig sparkles or mouthless cats, but cute nontheless. Do you have shoes like that, please?"

The sales lady/savior showed me several pairs of shoes that she assured me were sandals. Eventually we found a pair that looked like my wife MIGHT like them. Naturally, they didn't have her size in stock, so I bought a different pair instead, essentially dooming this mission to failure. In an attempt to throw good money after bad, I also tossed some pink flip-flops on the tab. I'm not sure what made me think that my wife might like pink flip-flops, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now I had two things that I was certain she'd return, but really three is the magic number, so I went to the shirt department and tried to pick out a feminine shirt. I found one that seemed acceptable and showed it to the nearest female shopper. "Are these sleeves ugly?" I asked.

She grimaced and nodded. "Also, I don't like the fabric although the color is nice," she added.

What? Nice? Woohoo! It's nice! I promptly marched the shirt up to the register.

Soon afterwards I met up with my wife, each of us with our gifts in tow. We walked past a sunglass rack and I stopped her. "Cover your eyes and point at the sunglass rack, " I commanded. She humored me and did what I asked, pointing at a hideous pair of bejeweled glasses.

"Seeeeeee?" I said, proud that I had proved my point about my own shopping incomptence.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm 0 for 3 on this holiday. I'll let you know the official score soon

Just got off the phone with a telemarketer. We had this conversation:

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring

Me: Hello
Telemarketer:....
Me: HELLO!?!?
Telemarketer: Hello, may I please speak to Michael ?
Me: That's me.
Telemarketer: I'm calling today from and we're conducting a survey on local issues. Are you available to answer a few questions?
Me: Lady, I'll give you a choice. We can either end this conversation now, or I can waste your time by giving you meaningless answers to your questions. Which would you prefer?
Telemarketer: It's your choice, sir.
Me: Huh? You don't have any preference?
Telemarketer: No, sir.
Me: You don't care if I just give silly answers to your questions?
Telemarketer: No, sir. It's your decision.
Me: Oh...well...heck, let's go for it.
Telemarketer: Thank you, sir. Sir, do you currently work for a newspaper, television station, radio station or some other form of media?
Me: 3!
Telemarketer: Pardon me?
Me: 3!
Telemarketer: I don't understand.
Me: See, this is what I was talking about. This is where I give you silly and meaningless answers to your questions.
Telemarketer: So, would your answer be that you don't know?
Me: If that's the way you choose to interpret it.
Telemarketer: Those are all the questions I have for today, sir. Have a nice day.

Hey, I warned her.

These days I expect to be able to find information on anything on the web.

Which animals can see in color?
Google's top result has a decent answer at this page.

Who will historians say is the worst U.S President of all time?
Once again, Google's top result has an answer. (Clearly they've misunderestimated him)

Which blog is seemingly the best place to go for information on the URL www.suckme.com ?
Who knew?

Other things can't be found on the web. Sometimes I google for people of importance in my life and I'm aghast at how little information I can find. I had that experience today while searching for the name of one of my best friends in high school, Steve Genard. Steve died in 1992 and I think of him often. Here's my tiny contribution to making his presence on the web a wee bit larger.

My high school was a fairly conservative place with traditional cliques and the usual reasons why some jock might beat the crap out of you. Like most high schools, it wasn't a very good place to be different from the crowd.

Steve was different though. He was, I believe, the only gay boy in that school who made no attempt to hide it. Even though we lived in a suburb of San Francisco, being openly gay in high school in the mid 80's was tough business. Steve, however, was talented, brilliant, and outgoing enough to engender respect or at least grudging tolerance from his classmates.

My favorite memory of Steve was when he auditioned to be on Wheel of Fortune. This game show, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Vanna White, is basically a souped-up version of Hang-man. Contestants take turns trying to figure out a mystery phrase by guessing which letters appear in it. It's not rocket science, unless your rockets are made out of playdoh.

Steve, being a word aficionado, took an analytical approach to his audition. He decided to become the most-skilled Wheel of Fortune contestant of all time, and he had the intensity and drive to pull it off. Steve spent weeks amassing huge lists of possible answers to Wheel of Fortune puzzles. For example, many of the answers are phrases, so he gathered lists of common phrases from phrase books and other sources. He then organized his lists of phrases into groups based on the number of words in each phrase. Next, he'd memorize them, noting the number of letters in each word.

It got to the point where you'd quiz him and say something like "3 words. 4 letters, 5 letters, 4 letters" and he'd respond with "Home sweet home!" It was remarkable.

Sadly, he came down with a terrible cold on the day of his audition and despite doing very well at the mock-game, was not able display his usual exuberance. He did not appear on the show. Some have theorized that he was too dominating at the game during the audition, while others believe that he just seemed too sniffly. We'll never know for sure.

Steve's main interest was singing. He was an accomplished vocalist who had appeared in a number of community musicals. Anytime I went somewhere in his car, he was blasting music by either Karen Carpenter (whose voice he thought was pretty much perfect) or the Manhattan Transfer or something similar. This sounds like hell on earth, but it was pretty entertaining. He'd constantly be listening, rewinding, imitating, rewinding, practicing, etc. He paid far more attention to the stereo than driving the car. For him the steering wheel was mostly a percussion instrument.

I sometimes wondered why Steve liked to hang out with me. He seemed so vibrant and unique and I felt so very ordinary next to him. There were plenty of zanier people than me in his life, and certainly some gayer ones, but somehow I got blessed to be his friend. Man, I hate that word "blessed", but there it is. Can't find the backspace key.

Steven A. Genard died of AIDS at the age of 25. I hated Hated HATED seeing him in the hospital in the months before he died, but those images haven't replaced the plethora of vivid memories I have of him. I'm thrilled to report that his memorial service is the only one I've ever had to attend. Somehow, amazingly, in my nearly 40 years of life, he's the only person who died on me. None of my other close friends and family members have put me through that. (Thank you!)

After Steve's death, his mother, Marsha, helped create The Genard AIDS Foundation which provides hospice care for people with AIDS. Nowhere on their website, however, will you find Steve's Boggle secrets. I'll take those to my grave.

Went with the wife and kid on Sunday to see our first baseball game of the year. The San Francisco Giants, thanks to injuries, steroid-deprivation, and a bizarre managerial fixation on "veteran savvy", are one of the worst teams in baseball this year, but that did not deter us. Thanks to a pre-season loyalty lecture by fellow blogger, Gary, I am sticking by this crappy and imploding team.

Although one would be hard-pressed to describe my daughter as a sports fan, there are several things about going to the ballpark that she enjoys: cotton candy, grilled hot dogs, the "playground" area, and cheering. My daughter LOVES to scream out the names of the B-list baseball players that populate the Giants' roster.

"LANCE NIEKRO, YOU CAN DO IT! GO-O-O-O LANCE NIEKROOOOOOO!!"

Five year-old girls seem to have two nearly-self-cancelling qualities: adorableness and volume. We got a look of sideways glances from nearby fans that seemed to say, "GAH, WHAT IS THAT SHRILL NOISE?!?....Oh, how cute!....OH, THE PIERCING PAIN!...Awwwwww...."

Meanwhile, my daughter is shrieking at the top of her lungs, "GO MIKE MATHENY! HIT A HOME RUN, MIKE MATHEEEEEEEEEENYYYYYYY!"

Astonishingly, Mike Matheny did hit a home run. I don't know what they're putting into Geritol these days, but it must be potent. Not potent enough to prevent the Giants from losing, of course, but potent.

We did have a lovely day at the ballpark.

Go Giants!

I had to go into the actual office on Friday, which is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. I summoned my peeps for company and emotional support, and together we made the trek into the valley of geeks.

After making our token appearance in the office (where we are like rock stars), we made our pilgrimage to the Geek Mecca, also known as Fry's Electronics. Despite Fry's's's's's crappy website, they are the best retail store for electronics in all of Silicon Valley. It's a warehouse-sized store whose product line is a virtual weekly shopping list for nerds:

- Magazine porn
- Computer parts
- Robots
- Blow-up dolls
- Electronic gadgets
- Video games
- Electronic parts
- Candy & Soda
- DVD porn

(Only one item on that list is a joke. It is an exercise for the reader to determine which one.)

So, as we're walking into Fry's, a tour bus pulls up and a gaggle of geeks (pride of lions, school of fish, it's "gaggle of geeks", right?) emerges from the bus, blinking painfully as though they'd never before seen sunshine. They lurch and shuffle into the store, where most of them stop at the manager's desk to have their bags searched. Many of them are carrying cameras.

What is this?

Are there really tours for geeks? Where on earth, outside of Silicon Valley, can you gather enough nerds to fill a tour? Are they really going to take photos of themselves in front of aisles of disk drives? "Look, ma! That's where I peed on myself in front of a petabyte of storage! *snort*"

This parade of geeks reminded me of a snippet of a tremendously amusing show I saw on TV earlier this month, "Beauty and the Geek". This cheesy reality show takes a group of nerds and pairs them with a group of not-so-bright cuties. The geeks were great. They spanned the often-overlooked geek spectrum. I recognized the following distinct species of geek:

Classic geek - Socially awkward computer nerd
Shy geek - Very quiet. Blushes constantly around beautiful women
Medical geek - Both arrogant and insecure
Spastic geek - Outgoing in an arms-flailing, squeaky-voiced manner
Nose bleed geek - Seemingly normal, but gets nose bleeds at the slightest bit of excitement

(I'm the classic geek!)

This show was great. They had the ditzy women perform elementary-grade academics while the men had to dance. Brilliant! Dancing geeks! Let us never mock reality TV again.

Some poor schmo got to my blog today by searching on "teach the steps to give myself a hand job on my penis"

Dude.

You have come to the wrong place.

Alright, I don't profess to be the Dr. Ruth of the blogosphere, but I'm going to do my good deed of the day and help out this poor sod. He's obviously hurting if he got to my site because I'm not even in the top page of results for this fine query (although, oddly, I do currently appear in Yahoo's top 20 for it). So, this post is dedicated to that guy who can't figure out how to jerk off. The rest of you? Please give us a moment.

Hombre, give this a shot.

Step 1) Wrap your dominant hand around your wiener. Grasp it firmly. Whoa, cowboy! Not that firmly!

Step 2) Make with the uppy-downy motion.

Step 3) Improvise with your other hand. Some guys love the nipples while others are all about the testicles. Many use their other hand to operate the mouse. Additional options include making the sign of the cross or doing nothing.

Step 4) Repeat.

Step 5) Repeat lots more.

Ta freakin' dah! Eat your heart out, WebMD.

Some blogs are totally narcissistic. Not mine. I'm all about helping people. I'm so proud.

I used to post long involved stories about amusing things that happened to me when I was younger. These days all I seem to have time for is "Hey, here are three weird things that my daughter barfed up."

Barf is funny.

You know what else is funny? Butts. Butts are funny. So when I saw the headline on the left of this magazine cover, I was amused.



I'd LOVE to remodel my butt! I'm thinking something hairless, maybe in a tan color. Also, as long as I'm remodeling, might as well build a half-bath in there. I'd save a TON of time if I had a toilet built right into my ass.

Thank goodness for magazines like this. Journalism is alive and well in America. See their article next month on how lobotomies save pounds!

(Update: I suck at including pictures in my blog!)

We hosted our monthly poker game last Saturday night.

In many ways our poker game is non-traditional. There's no cigar smoking and we even allow dames to play. However, there are limits and they've now been reached. I think you'll agree.

Anyway, I'm a pretty crappy host, as it turns out. I'm not so good at the whole "Do you want a goddamn drink or what?" thing that hosts are supposed to do. Guests bring drinks and snacks and pretty much fend for themselves in my kitchen. Often, I'm not even aware of what beverages people have brought.

So, imagine my surprise when I look in the fridge the next day, and find...

Hang on. This is hard to say. Let me gather myself here.

So, the next day I open the refrigerator and what beverage do I see? What fine liquid has one of my guests brought to drink?

O'Doul's Premium "beer"!

Do you know what this is? It's near beer. I don't even know which one of my guests brought this atrocity to our poker game, BUT IT'S A POKER GAME! I mean, if you don't want to drink booze, then don't. Have a soda, or some water, or a bucket of your own urine. Whatever, I'm cool with it. But, for god sakes, don't drink near beer at a poker game! It's like going to an orgy and bringing balloons instead of condoms!

The worst part of it is that I think the guy who brought the near beer is also the guy who won. How embarrassing for everyone. We've all been shamed.

* Moments in Parenting

1) I was driving across the Bay Bridge with my daughter in the back seat, when suddenly traffic came to a grinding halt. "Hmmmm, looks like we're stuck in traffic for a bit," I complained.

"It's ok," said my daughter, bopping around in her car seat, "We've got good tunes!"

"Yeah," I said, joining in the glass-is-half-full spirit, "And good company!"

I turned around to smile at my daughter in the back seat. She smiled warmly back at me while simultaneously furiously digging a booger out of her nose.

2) Took my daughter to the mall on Saturday. We strolled through Nordstrom, a fine department store, which often has a piano player to soothe their customers. My daughter planted herself in front of the piano and put on a dance show to accompany the live music. It was a mix of ballet, Irish jigging, and modern dance. My favorite move was where she crossed her right foot in front of the left, and then folded herself down into a ball, covering her head with her hands. She would then open back up, like a flower blooming. I found the whole show to be endearing. Most everyone else just wanted to get past her to buy their damn shoes. They do have a nice shoe selection at Nordstrom.

3) Celebrated my niece's 9th birthday this weekend. One of her presents was an origami instruction book, so I sat down with my daughter and two nieces to try and do some origami. The instructions and accompanying diagrams were completely befuddling. There were 3D folds, 2D folds, reverse folds, and at one point, something simply referred to as a Half Brontosaur fold.

Did I sleep through folding class? What the hell are these things?

In an effort to show the kids how to deal with adversity, I wadded up my deformed creation, angrily threw it to the ground and screamed, "THERE'S YOUR GODDAMN CRANE, YOU LITTLE BRATS!" **

4) My extended family went to go see my nieces perform in a ballet show this weekend. We got to the theater early and had about 20 minutes to kill while sitting in our theater seats. My mother, daughter, and I decided to play 20 Questions. My daughter likes to be the one to think of the "thing" and I usually get to do the guessing. Without fail, my daughter would pick something that was right there in the theater. Out of sight, out of mind, it appears. She'd whisper her choice to my mother and together they'd answer my questions. However, each time my daughter looked away, my mother would either point to the object in question or mouth the answer to me. Every time this happened, I'd respond by tattling on mom, explaining to my daughter that her grandmother had been secretly giving me clues. This exchange gave me the distinct pleasure of frustrating both my daughter and my mother in one fell swoop. God, I love efficiency.


* Fill in your own damn adjective
** A slight exaggeration

A few weeks ago, my friend, whom we'll call Jay, went to go see Dean Karnazes speak. Dean Karnazes, for those of you who have better things to do with your time than contemplate running a 100-mile race, is probably the top ultramarathon runner in the world. He has done things in the past like run 10 consecutive marathons in one outing. His current goal is to run 326.2 miles (that's 300 miles, plus a marathon thrown in) without stopping to sleep.

He's a top athlete, an author, a successful businessman, a philanthropist, and a devoted family man. Is there anything that Dean Karnazes doesn't do well? Apparently, yes!

"So, Jay," I says to Jay, remembering that he had seen Mr. Karnazes at a speaking event earlier that week, "How was Dean?"

"Well! I'll say this. Mike, you are funnier than Dean Karnazes." Jay went on to explain that Dean lacked both good material and a snappy delivery.

Did you catch that? I'm funnier than a man whose idea of a good time is to spend an entire weekend running.

TAKE THAT, DEAN KARNAZES, YOU WORTHLESS BASTARD! I OWN YOU!

Was driving around town with the family this weekend. Participants included me, the wife, the sister-in-law, and my darling five year-old daughter. Had this awkward conversation:

Sister-In-Law: Have you guys heard the Viagra news?
Me: (Grimacing. Waiting for the inevitable...)
Wife: No, what's the news?
Sister-In-Law: It causes blindness.
Me: (Waiting....wait for it....)
Daughter: What's Viagra?

Who didn't see that coming? Go stand in the stupid corner.

Sister-In-Law: It's a medicine.
Daughter: What does it do?

My daughter asks this for several reasons. First, she's curious. Second, usually when she hears about a medicine it's because she's about to get it. In her mind, she's already concerned that we're on our way to the Viagra store and it's just a matter of time before she's blind. Now my task is to both reassure her that she doesn't need Viagra while at the same time completely skirting the all too phallic looming climax of this conversation.

Me: (Not liking where this is going) It's a medicine for old men.
Daughter: But what does it do?
Me: It makes old men feel better, maybe stronger.
Daughter: Do I need Viagra?
Me: No! No! Little girls do not take Viagra.
Daughter: Just old men?
Me: LOOK, A MONKEY! A MONKEY SQUIRTING CANDY OUT OF ITS ASS!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, A PINATA MONKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!

And we escaped. I am the master of indirection.