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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Author: Karel Kerezman

  • The Great Olive And Mushroom Pizza Debacle

    While reminiscing about the arcade of my youth (Lindsey’s Drive In, Brewster, Washington) I remembered this little story that I haven’t yet committed to journal…

    In those early years after moving to middle-of-nowhere, Washington state, our little family spent a lot of time with Mom’s mother and stepfather, probably because they had a reasonable amount of money on hand and we, er, didn’t. (When Mom was married to one particular sleazeball, however, we didn’t spend a lot of time with the grandparents. I won’t name names, ’cause Sis may read this and her blood pressure will go up enough just thinking about it.) My step-grandparent, one Mr. Dobson, joined us for dinner at Lindsey’s one day. I’m fairly certain that Mom, Sis, Grandma and “Grandpa” and I were the dinner party, but I won’t swear to that on a Bible or anything.

    Hey, who’s going to turn down pizza? But, wait! What’s all of this icky garbage on top? Olives? They make my stomach turn, and that’s just from the smell. Mushrooms? I can tolerate the fungus occasionally, nowadays, but back then it was another icky foodstuff I tried to avoid. So, being something under the age of ten years old, I childishly voiced my disdain for the selected toppings.

    What was Mr. Dobson’s rational, reasoned response? He scraped every last olive and mushroom off of the entire pizza… and placed this unwanted bounty on my plate. That’s right, folks. Everyone else got to eat plain sauce-and-cheese pizzas while I choked down what I could of the disgusting glop in front of me. One child complains, everybody suffers. Perhaps there was supposed to be a lesson for me in the experience, but if there was, I didn’t take away what he’d hoped for. Mostly I left the table with the devout belief that my “grandpa” was a complete asshole. Not that I had the words for such a sentiment for a few years yet, but you get the picture.

    Oddly enough, this experience didn’t turn me off to pizza entirely. We never invited “grandpa” to dinner at a restaurant after that, though…

  • Gone Completely (Map)Loco

    Well, everyone else is jumping off the cliff doing one of these so I might as well join in. Mind you I will probably just leave the silly thing in this entry so eventually it’ll scroll right off the main page…

    Visitor Map
    Create your own visitor map!

    I have some non-meme content in the works, but I’m not promising a delivery time. Thank you for your patience while I get my life back in order.

  • Marvel, yes. Modern, not even!

    Dear Producers of the History Channel series, “Modern Marvels”:

    Pack it up and go home. You’re done. There’s nothing left. The well is completely dry.

    It’s funny I should mention wells, because the show I saw earlier tonight is the one which convinced me that you guys have totally run out of ideas. You started out with some interesting stuff, and later on I could tell you were reaching a bit, but I think with this one episode you’ve moved as far away from the original premise as possible.

    In case nobody clued you in before now, please allow me. Water is not a modern marvel. It’s a great substance to be sure, with many marvelous properties worth describing in detail. Modern, however, it ain’t.

    You’re done. Seriously. Give it up, move on to something better and brighter. Do it now. Please.

  • And this post makes… ten.

    You know I’m having a bad month when I can barely eke out ten posts from 1st to 31st. As it is, my son wrote most of the previous one… two weeks ago. Ouch. As anyone who knows me could tell you, I haven’t been doing so well lately, a time period defined as “since I lost my job last March.” You’d think that being employed for over six months would have given me the time and money needed to get back on my feet, but apparently you’d be wrong in my case. I’m sleeping poorly, getting sick more often, and generally have very little energy or enthusiasm. Even the things I could usually handle with grace and a smile are getting to me, such as getting thoroughly trounced in a game of Munchkin.

    That’s not to say I’m living in some kind of hell. Drama levels are generally down, my bills are paid, the basic necessities are covered. I enjoy the company of people who care about me, we share laughter fairly often, and nobody’s currently in what I would define as a serious crisis situation, nor are there any active feuds that I know of. Life could be so very much worse, indeed.

    And yet.

    I’m searching for something that will help lift my spirits again, without falling into the trap of thinking, “As soon as I find [whatever] then I’ll be happy!” That was always Mom’s problem, her persistent belief that there was something or someone Out There(tm) and all she had to do for her “happily ever after” was to find it or them. So, no, there is no wonderful fix-it-all waiting for me. (I’ve been fixed, thanks.)

    I’ll figure something out. Unlike some people, I don’t like wallowing in misery and I don’t like using pity ploys to gain attention. Hell, that’s why I’ve not been writing very much lately: You don’t want to read a continual string of depressing posts, and I don’t want to write them. See? I’m always thinking of you, my loyal and devoted readers. That’s what kind of a great guy I am.

    There are a few amusing things to write about and link to which I plan on getting posted over the next few days. I’ll even go so far to say that “I’m back, baby.”

    I know, I know. I’ve claimed to be “back” several times over the last few months. Time will tell, as usual…

  • Spud Rides The Floating Twinkies

    Apparently, part of my son’s evening activities yesterday included leaving the surface of the planet for a few minutes… here, I’ll let him tell you all about it:

    So, yes, I rode the OHSU tram. Both ways, in fact. Before I describe my acrophobia at the time, I must say that there was an amazing view of downtown Portland about halfway up the hill. Absolutely amazing.

    I must admit, however, that my fear of heights had kicked in long before we had even left the station on the ground. They must have anticipated my acrophobia long before, though, because there were many bars to hold onto on the way up. Four vertical ones in the “corners”, and two long horizontal ones running along the curved ends. So I had TWO bars to hold onto. Security at its finest.

    Enough about me. Anyway, we had ridden it during the night, so I got to see the brightened city from a bird’s-eye view, so to speak. I would love to ride it in the day, but I’d need to ask Steve, who works at OHSU and was gracious enough to give us the tour that night. That is, I think
    we need to be accompanied by someone who has an OHSU ID.

    So, one way or another, the tram ride was an incredibly interesting experience… overall. Only my fear of heights got in the way of my enjoyment.

    ~Spud

  • Some kind of new-age voodoo curse.

    Define funny:

    I leave work at 5pm and step onto the snowy streets of Hillsboro, Oregon with my little iRiver portable music player going and a jaunty spring in my step, and the second song I hear is Dada’s “Spinning My Wheels.”

    See, it’s funny because I don’t have any wheels, and because I watched a lot of wheels spinning in futility on the roadways and in the parking lots.

    (The first song? New Order’s “Guilt Is A Useless Emotion.” Make of this what you will.)

    And then there’s the advertisement I heard a couple of times on Friday:

    “Feel like curling up on the couch and watching a movie tonight? Go buy The Illusionist, coming out Tuesday on DVD.” Wait, what? Do they assume everyone’s got a blue, dimensionally transcendental police box stashed away so they can hop a few days into the future to make a shiny-disk purchase?

    Crazy, I tell you.

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