Saturday, February 16, 02002
zipcar is a great idea, and it's available in Ballston, apparently inches from my apartment building !
Posted at 11:33 AM EST [Link][Comment]
So it didn't take long for the Tar Baby Jesus to befriend the local skater punks. It didn't take much. Just changing a couple bottles of water into cheap wine, and eventually at the request of one particularly enterprising young punk named Peter, changing oregano into really good weed. So good, in fact that the smell of it would wake me up at night whe they smoked it in the patio six stories beneath me.
Last night was one such night. It was impossible to sleep through the unholy racket they were making, so I went out and sat on the deck taking in the sights and smells. It turns out the TB Jesus was a natural skater. He already developed a number of tricks. The Accension 360 and the Virgin Birth were my favorites. I won't even try describing them. And it was always interesting to see the Tar Baby wipe out.
Suddenly, out of the thick oregano smoke fog comes an old guy wearing a bright orange robe and riding a unicycle. He's holding a slip of paper on one hand, and a sugar packet in his other. He has a bowl balanced on his head. "TB, TB" he cries, very manicly. "The world is suffering and I have the cure. Nirvana through biotech ! Better living through chemistry ! I pulled the recipe off the Internet !". He shoves the scrap of paper in TB's hand. Then he takes the bowl off his head, rips open the sugar packet, and pours it in, all the time continuing the ride around in circles on the unicycle. "Change the sugar, TB, Change it ! Change ! I beg of you !"
The skater punks stop puffing on their joints and gather round. "Fuck off Sal", Peter says. "Last time you thought you found Nirvana my aparment building rose forty feel into the air. Everyone had to use one of those damn helicopter ladders to get in or out. It caused a huge jam in the morning. I was late for school four days in a row. Try explaining that to your homeroom teacher !"
Peter's comments make no difference. The TB Jesus reads the paper, and then there's that trademark twinkle in his eye. Sal cries out in joy and drops his head into the bowl and snorts up god knows what experimental designer drug.
This is bad. Really bad. You never now what's going to happen when the Salvador Dalai Lama starts doing drugs in your neighborhood. The last time, the Metro went all Tootle on me, chasing butterflys all over the Washington area and beyond. You never knew where you would turn up. I tried going to Foggy Bottom and I ended up in Assateague four days later. The fare was over $300 !
I quickly got dressed, and hopped on a train before things got any weirder.
Posted at 11:21 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Thursday, February 14, 02002
So I find myself walking around Ballston late at night, and low and behold, I see the Baby Jesus sitting on a park bench. I can tell it's the Baby Jesus from the halo action he's pulling off. So I think, ah, the Kid's father must around somewhere, and do I have a few words for him...
I walk up to Him, and ask "Hey, Kid, where's your Dad ?", but He just looks at me with this stupid grin, and says nothing. So I say again, "I'd like a few words with your Father, could you tell me where he is.", but still the Kid says nothing, and just keeps grinning at me. So I try being a little more forceful. "Kid, you're all powerful and all knowing Father let 3,000 people burn down to ash a while back. I'd like to ask him why he didn't do a thing. Not even an anonymous tip." There's a long, awkward moment of silence, and then I start getting a little worried. For here I am, after dark, talking to a strange kid with a halo without a parent in sight. And he just keeps staring at me without blinking with this stupid grin on his face.
He must be on drugs or something. I ask him if he's OK, and he still says nothing, and then I notice he's sort of leaning to one side with the hint of drool at one cornor of his mouth, and the halo's actually a bit tarnished and off-center. He's definitely tripping out on something. The last thing I want in the neighborhood is godhead addicts littering the park benches, doing petty miracles to support their habits and generally harassing the residents. So I shake his shoulder, hoping to wake him up and send him packing.
But much to my surprise, my hand ends up sinking deep into his shoulder. What the... . It's one thing for a cop to come along and see me talking to Halo Boy late at night. I could explain I was looking for his Dad, and all would be fine. Having my hand stuck in his shoulder is another matter. So I try to pull it out, but it's doesn't budge. His shoulder just stretches out like taffy. OK.... I grab onto his other shoulder, to get some leverage, but it also gets stuck. I'm really freaking out now, ignoring all those Metro ads I've been seeing lately, but I just end up getting more and more entangled. Eventually I try and pry him off with my foot, but I end up tripping and falling into the sticky gooey mess, and I can't get up.
And it's then that I realize that I've been attacked by the Tar Baby Jesus, and I awake with a start.
No more late night Thai food and horror stories for me...
Posted at 07:13 AM EST [Link][Comment]
The old school is suggesting feline pharmies.
Because "people feel distraught and helpless when animals they love are entangled in yowling, fur-flying brawls".
Posted at 12:33 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Tuesday, February 12, 02002
I'm sorry again, I suppose it's just the holiday season again, but I've been smitten by Nigella Lawson. Her ears look just fine to me.
However, I don't care for her Guardian columns. Some of them are downright horrible.
But not horrible enough to keep me from watching her make matzo balls.
Posted at 11:45 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Like Equinox, Altered States really has not aged well at all. And it's not the cheesy strobe light special effects. It's not even the questionable science. It's the amazingly unbelievable reactions of the characters.
One scene in particular stands out. Doc Jessup has just been found passed out naked in the zoo with a half eaten goat next to him. Understandably his wife, Emily, who's he's separated from, is having a hard time sleeping that night. You can only imagine what's going through her head: "My goodness, I've slept with that freak !. What if he shows up in the middle of the night in some sort of druggie daze looking for cash and fresh goat ! What if he hurts the girls !!" She gets up, checks on her kids, then calls the hubby, and asks him to come over. Eh ? She ends up asking him to spend the night because she's scared, and doesn't want to spend the night alone. My goodness, has he even brushed his teeth since scarfing down raw goat ? What's his breathe gonna smell like after something like that ?
Sorry. I had to get that out of my system. It probably had something to do with Valentines Day coming up.
Posted at 12:56 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Sunday, February 10, 02002
Sigh. There are two stories in today's post about the Virginia water supply.
The first deals with miscarriages caused by chlorination byproducts:
In a statement last month, the Environmental Protection Agency called the issue of chlorination byproducts in drinking water "an important health concern." The federal agency will be proposing new water quality reporting requirements for utilities this summer and plans to fund further research.
Meanwhile, however, millions of Americans are unaware of what their water utilities know: The levels of chlorination byproducts in their drinking water often spike higher than the EPA's allowable annual average.
This happens as well throughout the Washington area, utility records show, though the EPA does not require the information to be included in regular water quality reports from utilities.
The second story concerned
millions of gallons of sewage gushing into the Potomac because of an
unidentified chemical in the Hagerston city sewage plant which killed the beneficial microbes the plant uses to treat the sewage. What's this nonsense about 'unidentified chemicals' ? You take a sample, you send it to a lab, it gets identified. There are chemists who would jump up and down at the chance to identify your chemical for you. It's what they do.
Posted at 03:25 PM EST [Link][Comment]
