Everyday Stupidities

[originally written 11/18/06]
Greetings from a motel room in Puyallup! I'm watching Food Network's All-Star Thanksgiving Special now that both Comic Relief 2006 (or: "Comedy Without Punchlines" due to a lot of unnecessary bleeping) and Iron Chef: Battle Cranberry (or: "Who is hotter, Giada DeLaurentiis or Rachael Ray?") are done. There's plenty of stupidity and simple rediculousness to report, but I'm a bear of little brain so I'm not remembering most of them now that I'm sitting here typing. This first image is of a pulltab game at the Jason's restaurant (a sports bar without the bar part) where I always get deep-fried mushrooms. They have over 20 pulltabs yet this one caught my eye: it features noses, padlocks, and for the big money donkeys, and is titled... Pick Your Ass. As Daffy Duck said, "Ho ho, very funny. Ha ha, it is to laugh."

The holiday shopping season has deluged us once again, but this year I'm trying to keep it simple. Paige and I have more or less decided that we're not going to shop for anyone but each other and valued friends. Okay, I'm sure it won't really be so narrow, since she spoils everyone in her family stinking rotten no matter how little return she receives from them and how much they criticize her for having a life of her own. If I were working I'd be shopping hard and heavy through the Lee Valley catalog, to me it's the greatest thing since tire dealers had gift catalogs and comes off as far more interesting/practical than what you find at your local True Value Hardware. (Not dissing on True Value; any day now their 41st annual Christmas album should be up for sale, and I appreciate that this is a continuing tradition started by Firestone dealerships long ago. Lee Valley is low on recorded musical offerings.) As it is, I'm not as yet working. I did put in some time last week doing temp computer work for a janitorial sourcer, and last week I received two unemployment checks (one was overdue). I'm giving this Jobdango.com site which has been heavily advertised in the Seattle, Tacoma, and Portland markets a try, and curiously the position with a Tacoma business that seeks out and shuts down scam/phishing websites [for a fee] which I applied for today wasn't listed in the daily email of available tech jobs but has been on the site for a week.

I'm still not going to explain what's been happening with me lately, but I have this report to make about some facets of the recent past. Last week I was in room 216, which has a kitchenette and is a good-sized room. I took a liking to the motel for that reason. The motel offers WiFi but my Win98-running Pentium 166MHz computer does not, and the ancient phone system allows me to connect on dialup at a maximum of 28.8kbps. This week that room was occupied, so I was offered 219. Okay, sure. I drag my bags up the stairs, turn the key in the lock -- and the bed is messed up, there's a Big Gulp on the turned-on television, and I sense that someone's in the bathroom. Er, quietly close the door, drag everything back down the stairs, and the counterperson is walking around trying to find me because she just discovered (gee, as did I) that the room was already booked. So now I'm given 226, which is just up the stairs and overlooks my car. It's a small room, there's no kitchenette (not an issue since I'm not going to use it), turning on the heater brings a distinct urine smell and there's this inexplicable stain in the middle of the desk chair (fill in the blank as to what it may have been and how it got there), and this room too lets me connect at late-1980's high of 28.8kbps through dialup. I've decided to do the trick Shelley Berman proposed and put the "Sanitized for your protection" paper ring back on the toilet seat before I leave to make them wonder whether I held it all in. Also, before I leave I'll stop by their continental breakfast -- hey, do lodgings in Europe offer bagels and quarter-muffins and call it 'complimentary American breakfast'? -- and wonder out loud why Twinkies™ would be found on the tray. Checkout is at 11am and I've got some cemetaries to haunt (hehehe!) to take photos of old and unusual stones, plus I need to follow my new holiday tradition, my annual visit to Holland Nursery (near 86th & 144th in South Hill) to see their Christmas clutter; I appreciate they have tasteful and sedate style and somehow don't come off as containing kitch. [postscript¹: nursery not open on Sundays, must go Monday. postscript²: a shout out to CJD... loose lips sink ships and stay the hell out of other people's private business!] Today was the Pacific Lutheran University Yulefest, which seemed smaller than usual but was still as delightful, and as every year the thing that brought me wonder was outside the door: how the hell do they keep their violets healthy and blooming in late autumn?!

The Xmas-themed December update to Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul has been posted.