Attention hurricane victims.

Funundrum will attempt to increase blogging frequency, now that 60% of my readership has electricity again.

Rock on, Fort Lauderdale. Rock on.

Quote of the day.

When asked why she recently got her boobs embiggened, Sharon Osbourne replied that it was because "I don't want my nipples looking for coins on the street."

Hey Astros and White Sox.

FINISH THIS GAME, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. I am very very tired, but need to support the Pale Hose.

Update: Sox just scored in the top of the 14th. The World Series gods have heard my plea.

Yay Sox, for you are not from Texas.

Next Door Neighbor Update

It appears that Mikey and Stephanie have moved out, and his cousin, Bryce, and Bryce's girlfriend, Verdose, have moved in. This is the apartment from whence came the fence-pisser, for those of you keeping score.

Bryce just about lost it when I told him about the fence-pisser. "Yeah, that sounds like Mikey's dirtbag friends." We chatted a while about the crime in the neighborhood, including recent car break-ins and the fact that all four of Verdose's tires got slashed when she parked in the alley one time. And they've only lived here for a few weeks, so that's a nice welcome.

But he seemed very nice, and not a standard PB tool. I was able to give him the Chris and Liz Official Noise Ordinances with no arguments. And he listens to Coldplay really loud, so he can't be all bad. And he used to live in the apartments next to Taco Surf, where the reggae guy from Hennessey's lives. And he's friends with The Dude on the corner.

I'm just hoping that he turns out to be cool, and not another total douchebag. If he continues to be cool, then Jeffty Jeff and Heidi will be the only official douchebags in the area. Tuberculosis Stoner Girl might qualify, but she's so darn entertaining I can't take issue with her.

Too much time on your hands?

Why not create a scale model of San Francisco? In Jell-o?

Elizabeth Hickok did.

Best design request ever.

Today a client called a designer I work with, and made what I'm sure you'll agree is the most entertainingly bizarre design request ever.

He wanted the background color on his site to be a different color. What color, you ask?

"Can you make the background the same color as a Lebanese girl's skin?"

This is what's wrong with America.

We went to Dave & Buster's on Saturday night with the intention of having a few beers, playing a little Skee-Ball, and possibly allowing Chris to avenge his previous bitter defeat at that one racing game.

We ordered some appetizers and a round of pints at the bar; as we were finishing them, a different bartender came around, pointed at our empty pint glasses (fig. 1), and asked us if we wanted more. "Yes," we said, "please bring us two more pints of Bass."

Based on the above exchange, one would think that our request was pretty clear. What she brought us were two 20-ounce cider glasses (fig. 2) of Bass. Now, I didn't think much of it, as the switchification of glass types like this is pretty common in other civilized countries. But when we got the bill, they had charged us a dollar more for the bigger pints.

After protesting that we hadn't asked for the extra 4 ounces, he did the right thing: apologized for the misunderstanding and told us to enjoy our evening.

Ha ha! Of course he didn't! He's a cog in the capitalistic machine. What he did do is take away our beers and pour them into pint glasses. Seriously. We watched him. He took away our 20 ounce beers and poured them into 16 ounce glasses. I don't even have a snarky comment for how stupid this was.

I wasn't going to actually hit them.

On Saturday night, when Chris and I were driving home from my parents' house, I was proceeding down Diamond St. at a safe speed. Ahead of me, I saw two PB Girls® walking across the middle of the street, totally not paying attention. The way their logic works, they are Pretty, so they don't have to. It's the same logic that means my neighbors are welcome to come home at 3am, screeching like Yoko Ono on fire.

Under normal circumstances, I'd slow down well in advance of anyone crossing the street in this jaywalker-friendly town. But I figured these girls needed a little jumpstart in the common sense department.

I'd like to reiterate, for the parents in the audience, that I was going a safe speed and at no time endangered any lives, stupid or otherwise. I just decided that I wasn't going to slow down gradually.

Anyway, once I was about 50 feet away from them, they both looked up and did the Dance of Girly Terror. Jazz hands, stomping feet, and all. Their screams were so high-pitched that dogs probably started barking somewhere. By this time I had come to a full stop, somewhat so they could get out of the way, mostly because Chris and I were sobbing with laughter.

Part II: As I drove past them, I got pelted with the epithet of "Fucking bitch!" and a half-hearted, open palmed slap on the roof of my car (so as to not damage her nails). I lived off the glory of that moment for the rest of the night.

Yay!

I cheated a little at the end, and left some of our vacation to the imagination, but the Argentina blog is done. This means that I can get back to sorting out the pictures to a manageable size (apologies to my parents and grandma for having to sit through all of them) and producing Funundrum full time.

Any requests for further pictures are encouraged, but other people's travel photos are never much fun. I appreciate everyone's interest this far.

Tomayto, tomahto.

From the same coworker who brought us "Why don't all the poor people in Africa just go get jobs?", Funundrum now proudly presents:

"Huh. This paternity lawsuit website says that the word 'paternity' is sexist and should be replaced with the word 'parentage.' I kind of see their point. I mean, it doesn't always have to be about determining the father."

Funundrum: "Yes, dude, actually it does. Establishing paternity means determining the father of a child. So the word 'paternity' is correct 100% of the time. End of story."

Coworker: "But, I don't know, in certain cases you might have to establish the mother."

To graciously borrow from Mark Twain: let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene.

Neighbor update.

I bet while I was gone, everyone was wondering what happened to my obnoxious neighbor, the stoner girl with tuberculosis who lives in the apartment outside my bathroom (to distinguish from Jeffty Jeff and Heidi.)

Well, I'm here to let you know.

Apparently, she has chosen this very special day to crank Chris Isaak. Seriously. She's even singing along. My counterstrike is Orchestra Baobab. I'm hoping that foreign words, plus horns, minus corporate commercial crap = neighbor's head exploding.

Funundrum will keep you updated with any forthcoming details.

Alright, I'm back.

And I'm still way behind on email and sleep and stuff. But Chris and I had a great time, and we've started a new blog to document it and put up some of the more compelling pictures. While I'm doing that, Funundrum will be a bit thin. It may take about a week, so you can either read as I go, or wait until it's all done.

Check out Argentina 2005!