Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 05:44:34 -0500
Subject: Re: My day with Fert and Kibo
Status: RO

In alt.religion.kibology, kibo@world.std.com wrote:

Paula (mmmtoblerone@earthlink.net) wrote:
>
>  After a horrendous Friday spent being thrown up on and comforting a sick
>  Mimi (who had started off this nasty flu by climbing into bed with me in
>  the middle of the night and promptly peeing all over the place), I sent
>  my kids off with their dad and determined to get some things done today
>  that I had been putting off for a while.
>  
>  First stop:  Mailboxes Etc. to mail the Hmas and other packages I should
>  have mailed long ago.  It was not until I got there that I realized that
>  Kibo's Tommy's t-shirt had disappeared from the container full of stuff
>  that I was going to mail to various people.  I figured it had to be in
>  the car somewhere.  It was.  In the back seat with chocolate stains on
>  it.  Or at least they looked like chocolate stains.  Since I have a
>  three year old who, although potty trained has recently shown me that
>  said potty training can be unreliable at times, and a dog who snuck into
>  the car recently and ate the crayons from Anna's backpack and heaven
>  only knows what else, I decided I would not mail that one and would
>  instead get him a new one.

Somehow I get the feeling that RIGHT NOW David Pacheco is making some
sort of comment like "It can't be a real Tommy's shirt unless it's
covered with authentic Tommy's chili!" and then he'll drive over there
so he can inspect it and after 53 hours of scientific analysus he'll
determine whether the brown stuff is diaper gravy, Tommy's chili, or
some intermediate stage.

I'm starting to think he doesn't really like Tommy's chili.

Or diaper gravy.

>  [...]
>
>  On to Tommy's Burgers, which is not all that close to where I live, but,
>  hey, I'm a Southern Californian and this is for Kibo, so I can handle
>  it.  Or so I think.  I get to Tommy's and realize that I forgot to go to
>  the bank and get more cash and they do not take anything but cash
>  (unlike all the other fast food joints around here, who have figured out
>  how to make even more money by putting machines that will take your ATM
>  card in their places).  The kind cashier informed me that there was an
>  Arco station with an ATM "just over there" and I started walking in the
>  direction she pointed.  I may be a Southern Californian, but that
>  doesn't mean I feel the need to take my car *everywhere* plus being
>  around the Tommy's chili burgers was making me feel fat even though I
>  hadn't eaten anything so exercise seemed like a good idea.

Being around Tommy's chili burgers just makes me feel _hungry_.

And being around Fatburger just makes me feel like I have an above-average
ability to pick non-stupid names for restaurants.  If I opened up a
"Skinnyburger", Fatburger would go out of business within ten seconds.

I like Fatburger's burgers a lot, but you gotta admit it would be hard
to choose a less healthy-sounding name for a fast food chain.  In places
where people like real meat (such as western Canada) "Fatburger" might
be okay, but in southern California the name really needs to have
"Arugula" or "Ecru" or "Sunglasses" in it.  Even if the burgers don't
contain ground-up sunglasses every single time.

>  Gasping for breath after a lengthy hike, I finally found the ATM to
>  which the chyk had been referring.  Apparently she was thinking in
>  Californian terms --- that I would be driving --- when she made it sound
>  so close.  The ATM had a big red velvet bow on it strategically placed
>  to hide the disclosure of the exorbitant fee charged at this ATM, so I
>  didn't see it until it came out on my little receipt.

Watch out!  Piranhas like to hide behind big red bows stuck to the
front of things.

Rambo (the piranha at work) likes to hide behind things.  Every
Christmas he gets a red bow to hide behind.  He looks like he's
wearing a comically oversize bow tie, sort of like a clown that
could skeletonize a cow.

He is currently co-habitating with about twelve and two-thirds
live goldfish.  The two-thirds is because the tail of one of the
goldfish mysteriously disappeared.  However, the fish doesn't care,
and keeps swimming around happily even though he's now symmetrical
and his portrait can be drawn as a closed curve composed of only
two Bezier splines.

>  Fortunately, the guy waiting behind me was munching on what must
>  have been a hot dog but was so covered with mustard, relish and onions
>  that I couldn't be sure.

Oh no!  You walked to Philadelphia!  It's one of those hot-dog-shaped
soft pretzels covered with 58 kinds of fluorescent yellow 'tard!
Run away before you get Legionairre's Disease and wind up in the
Mutter Museum!  And whatever you do, don't run in the direction of
the Franklin Institute's cafeteria which has REALLY gross food,
even by science museum standards!  (If it's too gross to go on display
at the Mutter Museum they send it over to the Franklin Institute,
which cooks it.)

>  The smell kept me from fainting dead away at the exorbitant fee as I
>  walked away from the machine, anyway, and Kibo's Hmas was halfway saved.
>  
>  As I turned to go out and hike back to the Tommy's, yelling erupted from
>  behind me and I thought I'd managed to be caught in a convenience store
>  robbery or something.  It turned out that the manager had caught some
>  lady leaving the bathroom light on after she used the facilities.  She
>  was ignoring him, so he felt the need to yell over and over again about
>  turning off the lights.  Oooookay.  I thought I should mention to him
>  that if he wanted to move to Riverside, he could have all the free
>  electricity he wanted simply by stringing up Christmas lights and
>  joining the downtown celebration of lights sponsored by our electrical
>  utility folks, but the thought of that whole thing just made me mad and
>  he was already mad, so I figured it was best not to pass along that
>  little helpful hint.  Since I came home to my exorbitant electrical
>  bill, it was better that way.  But I digress.

I like how the manager is going out of his way to watch women come out of
the restroom.  I mean, he had to be looking in through the open door
as she came out, which is a little weird, unless he was just using
a hidden camera while she was inside, in which case he's just Chuck Berry.

Speaking of Chuck Berry, is anyone else disturbed by the new Pepsi
commercial where that creepy too-cute girl (Hallie Eisenberg)
UNZIPS THE MIDDLE OF HER FACE and Hallie Berry is inside her, and
the Hallie Berry peels off her skin and she's Barry Bostwick?
This is the most disturbing surprise Barry Bostwick has pulled on
us since that robot dragonfly came out of his nose on "Lexx".
At least the Pepsi explains why he had to get those wooden teeth
in that other movie.

In any case, I don't understand why Hallie Eisenberg having Barry
Bostwick inside her is supposed to be cute or funny or make me thirsty.
It just reminded me of the scene in "Naked Lunch" where whats-her-name
peeled off her skin and Roy Scheider was inside her smoking a cigar
and the inside of her skin had hexagons printed on it just like
the skin around those hamburgers at science museum cafeterias.

The only way they could make the Pepsi commercial more of an hommage
to "Naked Lunch" would be if a flying robot dragonfly typewriter came out
of Barry Bostwick's nose.  And I don't think that would make the
commercial any more effective, or any less effective, at selling me Pepsi.

>  After a hike back to Tommy's, it turned out that they only had one size
>  of t-shirt left, so I hope it fits Kibo.  If it doesn't, I don't want to
>  hear about it.  You will either be gracious about this gift I have
>  suffered so much to get for you or you will die, and I don't mean
>  software tool and die.  I was going to get some chili to add to the
>  package, but they wouldn't freeze dry it for me.  I was also going to
>  get a nifty hat to go with it, but they didn't have any left.  What the
>  hell, Kibo's a graphic artist, right?  He should be able to get his own
>  red baseball cap and write the Tommy's logo on it.  Of course I don't
>  know what font it's in, but it's on the shirt, fer cryin' out loud!  And
>  it would be nice if you would post about how you follow each curve by
>  hand as you write Tommy's on your cap to light up my dreary nights,
>  okay?

I should warn you that the "Time Tunnel" episode guide I'm going to
post soon not only includes a cover hand-lettered in the same style
as the original "Time Tunnel" logo but the book is also typeset in
a family of four fonts I just designed with the "Time Tunnel" logo
as inspiration, except not so sloppy and spastic.  I think I have
now done more graphic design work for "The Time Tunnel" than even
the people who made "The Time Tunnel" did.  (MEMO TO IRWIN ALLEN:
THE LETTER "A" LOOKS STUPID IF YOU MAKE IT A RECTANGLE.)

>  Anyway, it was finally time to head toward home with only one more quick
>  stop at the Mailboxes Etc.  You know those huge tire tread pieces that
>  you see on the sides of the highways all the time and you know that they
>  must come off big trucks and you wish they'd stop leaving them all over
>  the roads?  Well, on the way back to Riverside, I got to see first hand
>  how those huge treads come to be on the side of the road.  The
>  18-wheeler to my left threw a piece of that stuff right at my car,
>  bouncing it off my door and then down to the road for me to run over
>  with my rear wheels.  This is not a fun thing to experience.  The sight
>  and sound together are especially unpleasant, to say the least. Since I
>  was hit and almost killed by a big truck a few years back and I still
>  have nightmares about that, this particular experience brought on a
>  full-blown flashback and panic attack episode for me.  Given the
>  aftermath of the whole truck totalling my car episode, I am no stranger
>  to the ways of flashbacks and panic attacks, so I was able to get off
>  the next onramp without killing myself or anyone else and pull over.  I
>  popped a klonopin and did my breathing and meditation thing and finally
>  calmed down enough to realize that there was a mall right near there.  I
>  drove there and parked by the movie theater.  Since I can't really drive
>  safely on klonopin nor did I want to be anywhere near a freeway again
>  for a while, that was as far as I went.  I took enough more klonopin to
>  calm me completely and slept through a movie.  When that was over, not
>  enough time had passed yet for me to be able to drive home safely, so I
>  walked to the mall and shopped for a few hours.
>  
>  So I have another Tommy's t-shirt for Kibo, more Christmas presents for
>  my kids, a belly full of chocolate, and a new bracelet I impulse bought
>  for myself.  I also have a whole lot of nightmare material for tonight
>  between the old memories stirred up and the new ones just made.

Oops. 

I apologize for mentioning Hallie Eisenberg and her Pepsi-powered zipperface.

>  I wish you weren't just imaginary friends so you could hold me close while
>  I cry myself to sleep tonight.  Klonopin is great, but klonopin and
>  someone to make you feel safe and protected is better.

Tell you what.  Just pretend I'm tracing curves around the outline of
your body as you sleep, and I'm talking about how you can make a defective
goldfish out of only two Bezier spline segments but it really takes at
least two twelfh-degree polynomial spines to make a good "O", and then
you'll be asleep before I even get to the part about how Irwin Allen
thought his last name didn't have any pointy letters in it.

I really liked the "M" in the "Time Tunnel" logo, though.  It reminds
me of Albertus, which reminds me of "The Prisoner", which reminds me
of "Secret Agent Man", which reminds me of "Danger Man", which reminds
me of "Danger Mouse", which reminds me I hate most Nickelodeon cartoons,
which reminds me that I'm still surprised that "Invader Zim" is so good,
which reminds me of "Zim's Crack Creme" at the drugstore, which reminds
me of "Bag Balm" next to it, which reminds me that that drugstore just
went out of business because another drugstore opened directly in front
of it, which reminds me that the new drugstore used to be the Calumet
market, which reminds me that Calumet used to smell like rancid meat,
which reminds me of the Franklin Institute's cafeteria, which reminds
me of Philadelphia, which reminds me that I'm still sad that the
Pretzel Museum turned into a costume store, which reminds me that
I should blow up all the costume stores in the world before they
start stocking Hallie Eisenberg costumes with zippers down the front.

                                        -- K.

                                           I'd do it, too, if only I
                                           could make a bug bomb come
                                           out of my nose.

                                           BUG BOMB LOST HEAD!

                                           GOLDFISH LOST TAIL!