Faux pas

When I ran in the Pints to Pasta 10K a while back, one of the prizes was a gift certificate for a free entrée at Old Spaghetti Factory. Today I used it; it's been a while but between the combination of my being fairly broke, having a car, and getting a day free from counting calories due to having run a race today (the Run Like Hell 5K - see my unofficial results here) all led me to a gianormous, delicious, pasta lunch. I had the Half and Half - half spinach and cheese ravioli, and half spaghetti with meat sauce, along with delicious bread (I LOVE BREAD) and a salad. I passed on the ice cream because I was too stuffed full.

The waiter was a nice kid, and I knew that even though my dinner was paid for, I'd still leave a tip. When the check came, I had no cash, so I put down the gift certificate, and a credit card for the drink, and on which I'd add a nice little somethin' extra.

When the waiter returned (his name was Mo - can you believe it? Sounds like an old man's name, but this kid was barely old enough to shave) he said, "I didn't even need the card! I kinda forgot that you had the free meal." He set down the little black tray, with the receipt and my card and a pen.

"Oh?" I asked. "But the drink...?"

"No worries," he said, "I took care of it!" He seemed so proud. He wandered away. I looked in my wallet. Nope. No cash. And I looked at the receipt - sure enough, the total was $0.00. There wasn't any space to add a tip.

Damn if Mo wasn't so nice to me that he screwed himself out of a tip. • 2:16 PM 3 comments

Chickenbutt flirting

I was standing at the streetcar station at SW 6th and Mill, near the Pizzacato. As normal for a Saturday (or any day, really) I had my bright orange messenger bag slung across my back.

I heard a male voice behind me say "Guess what?" and before I could turn around, he finished the couplet in a loud, laughing voice: "Chickenbutt!"

Smiling, I finished turning around. But the guy, in his twenties, wearing hipster hair and a trendy nylon running jacket over his ironic t-shirt and jeans, was not speaking to me. He was speaking to a cute, pig-tail-haired brunette girl, wearing a puffy green down vest, long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans. She looked startled a moment and then laughed at the hipster-haired young man.

She had not seen the button on my bright orange messenger bag.


But apparently the boy had. They started talking, he explaining to her about the chickenbutt joke, she telling him how silly he was.

The streetcar came and I got on. I was smiling.

Chickenbutts are great for flirting, it seems. Maybe not for me, but for others. And that's OK. • 3:09 PM 3 comments

Rowr

I'm... um... damn.

Pic stolen from this post over at Blogtown. • 4:37 PM 3 comments

Updated links page

I added some new links to my links page (deleted some, too, but I won't mention those).

• Jim Thompson's blog - this man knows a lot about technology, and it shows. Plus he's kinda arrogant about it. Makes for great reading.
  
• Go Fug Yourself - A blog where two girls make fun of famous people's fashion mistakes. Kinda gossipy, but damned funny. I've been reading this one for a long time; not sure why it's taken me so long to add it to my permanent list.
  
• National Novel Writing Month - I figured, since I plan on participating, I might as well add it to my page.
  
• Outside.in - This is a new social site that lets people add reviews and items for a specific locality, like a mash-up of Google Maps and Citysearch, sort of. I'm going to play around with it. The link is to my own neighborhood but it will work anywhere.

...that it? Only four links added? Sorry, for some reason I thought it was more. • 7:09 AM 0 comments

Rocking

My national Congressional represenative rocks!

I know, this should go in my political blog, but that's been kinda defunct for a while. Maybe I'll start it up again, or start another one. • 9:14 PM 0 comments

Update: NaNoWriMo

I've totally come up with an idea that will let me write every day during the month of November, a.k.a. National Novel Writing Month. (I mentioned this a few days ago).

No, I'm not going to tell you what the idea is. You're just going to have to tune in, starting on November 1st, to see how it turns out.

I've got the main character, the setting, what he's trying to accomplish, and what the obstacles are. I've got a couple of different themes I want to explore. And beyond that (which I have, in fact, written down) I'm not going to think about it until November 1st, one day at a time after that. It's going to be entirely improvised.

Because it's improvised, I'm not going to be able to do a lot of research. So expect some mistakes and expect me to use a lot of locations and events from my own experience. You have been warned.

I will have a link in the sidebar to the novel, which will have a separate section of this site.

It's going to be so cool. • 8:44 PM 2 comments

Update

I see that my webhost's sysadmin was, in fact, on top of Mt. St. Helens, which clears up the mystery of which mountain he was on top of and what he was doing during the recent downtime, as I posted about previously.

So, congratulations, Caleb! Looks like you can now join the Mazamas! • 3:41 PM 0 comments

What I'm reading right now

• "The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915 to 1950" by E. Kimbark MacColl, 1979
  
• "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, 2006
  
• "Fragile Things" by Neil Gaiman, 2006
  
• "Breaking The Spell: Religion as a natural phenomenon" by Daniel Dennett, 2006

So... one history text, one fiction (short stories), and two atheistic books (the very definition of "non-fiction", heh). Quite a lot. And, yes, I tend to read more than one book at a time. It's a habit I've developed over the years and it serves me well. The above list is in the order in which I've added the books to my list.

I may at some point make this a regular feature, if only because they're easy to generate and I'm reading all the time.

I may also, at some other point, update this particular post, and any future posts, with actual book reviews or maybe short descriptions of what I think of the books I'm in the middle of, or more details, or something.

I may also, at some other other point, update these to reflect actual book citation conventions, if only to satisfy my own inner pedant.

I could come up with a separate list of books I've started but haven't been able to finish. I may do that, at some point that's different (probably) from the other, afore-mentioned other points. • 3:25 PM 1 comments

Apologies

My apologies for the downtime on Friday. My webhost's sysadmin was on top of a mountain. Perhaps he was searching for that lost boy? I'm not sure, since I don't know which mountain he was on top of. And he does crazy things like rock climbing as a hobby so he might have been up there for pleasure, not altruism.

At any rate, I have so much to write about that I can't write. It's a terrible, terrible state to be in. I could write about the craziness at work. Or the side-effects of my running... except that I've got another blog for that.

Today I planned on eating a modest breakfast or lunch, and then finding a quiet coffee shop with free WiFi, from which to write. I just wanted to enjoy some delicious caffeinated beverages and pour my thoughts out, and hopefully give greater shape to my vague idea of a novel. And maybe blog some (hey, like I'm doing right now! Yay!).

And in the course of walking around my neighborhood I walked past Wallace Books, a small independent bookstore. And, since my amorphous novel is set in and around Portland, I was thinking about the history of Portland, and that led me to think of books I know about Portland, and that led me to this series of books by E. Kimbark MacColl*, an historian and former adjunct instructor in the Graduate Program in Public History at Portland State University. Every time I go to Powell's to see if they have the books, they either don't have them, or they're used but fairly expensive. Of course that's to be expected since the books are both small-press and out of print, but it never hurts to shop around.

So into Wallace Books I stepped.

And was greeted by a graceful, slender, distracted but still beautiful brunette, in her 30s, wearing a dark brown long-sleeved form-fitting t-shirt, and a long skirt that appeared to be made of dark gray cotton candy. It was fleece-y and nappy and looked as if it would fall apart in a stiff wind or if it got wet. A young teenage (?) girl, blonde hair, was also behind the counter, but on the computer.

Sitting right next to the main counter was a table of books about Portland. How lucky is that? I scanned the titles but didn't see the one I wanted. So I asked the gray-skirted woman if they had other books about Portland. She then led me back into the recesses. The store occupies an old house, and every room has been fitted with bookshelves overflowing with books. It's a lot like my dream house, actually, except I'd want more comfy places to sit, and maybe a small kitchen, but otherwise perfect. The woman showed me the section on Portland and Oregon and pointed out the sub-sections, like fiction and local authors, or the books on hiking, biking and the outdoors.

I told her that I was looking for books by Professor MacColl, and spelled his name. She left me to browse and said she'd look him up to see if they had any record of his books.

Having worked in a bookstore many years ago, and just being generally familiar with such things, I can scan a bookshelf fairly quickly to find a specific author or title. And within just a few seconds, I had spotted the exact title I was looking for: "The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915 to 1950". It was the only title from MacColl on the shelf, but this was the volume that covered the time-frame I was most interested in! And it was a modestly-priced $17.95, a good $7 cheaper than the last copy I'd seen at Powell's. I scooped it up and brought it back up to the front, where I raised it triumphantly for the brunette and teenager.

"That's amazing! This is the exact book I was looking for!"

She smiled and murmured words of congratulations, and I dug out my debit card. While waiting, I leafed through the book, and the woman processed my payment, having to reach around the teenager to do so. When the brunette saw what the young girl was looking at, she said, "Oh, you got into your schoolwork?" I glanced up, and saw some webpage with bright primary colors displayed.

The girl agreed. The woman said, "Then you have no excuses for doing your homework! But..." she paused, smiling. "Are you going to go get me some coffee? You said you'd go in five minutes, and that was ten minutes ago!" The young girl mumbled something and smiled, pretending to be intent on her homework. The woman then playfully bumped the girl to the side, as if to knock her out of her chair and get her started towards the coffee shop. The girl grunted and giggled, and the woman repeated the bump.

I smiled and looked up, and the woman met my eyes. "Hey, if you can't beat your own children, who can you hit?" she asked me facetiously.

Hmm, that's her daughter, I thought, and they look nothing alike. Wonder where the father is? I stole a glance at the brunette's left hand and saw no ring. She may have seen me look, but since she was holding my debit card at the moment I had a perfect excuse.

I laughed and agreed. "I just have a nephew** to beat, and it's fun but not the same thing."

"Hey, you take what you can get!" she said, and handed me my receipt to sign.

I wandered out of the store, thinking that I'll have to shop there more often.

* I find it shocking that Professor MacColl does not (yet) have a page in the Wikipedia. I intend to fix that shortly.

** In fact, I have three nephews and a niece, of various ages. In the moment I was only thinking of Max because he's the only nephew with whom I could rough-house. Both of my other nephews are adult men and much taller than me (hi, oldest nephew!); yes, they're good sports but I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. And my niece is 6 years old. For this shameful lack of accuracy and omission, I plead forgiveness - I was flirting (ineffectively) and not in my right mind at the time. • 2:51 PM 0 comments

Blogwatch

12 days and counting since the last post on Erraberra's blog.

If you're reading this, click over and send Tracy some ideas on what you'd like her to post next.

Ask her about her headlight, for example.

This has been a service of Blogwatch. • 6:04 AM 2 comments

Balance

Just to balance out all my fanboy gushing over Apple, I'm linking to a huge oops from them.

Seems that some new iPods are shipping with Windows viruses on them.

Yeah. Dumb. That's not a good corporate citizen, Apple. First the funny accounting, and now this?

If they do a commercial for this, they should have the "I'm a Mac" guy bring out a cute little kid and introduce him as an iPod. And the kid has got a runny nose and fever and keeps sneezing without covering his mouth. And the "I'm a PC" guy will try to run away from the kid but the kid jumps up on him, and barfs all over the PC guy's suit. And then the Mac guy just laughs and laughs and laughs, and then suddenly stops, becomes serious, and apologizes. • 12:47 PM 1 comments

NaNoWriMo

Just a reminder, for any writer-ly leaning readers of mine.

National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo) begins on November 1st.

The idea is simple, really: write 1,667 words a day for one month (the organizers, if you can call them that, picked November), without editing or much advance thought at all, towards that novel that you've had in the back of your head for years, and get 'er done.

I, however, seem to have gotten started early. I'm so tempted to post pieces of my novel-in-progress on my blog. But even though I've got that Creative Commons badge in the left-hand sidebar, I'm still a bit spooked by the idea of people stealing my words and claiming them for their own.

I still might post bits and pieces of it... or I might make y'all beg me for it. I'm kinda mean (and needy) that way.

Or maybe not. • 6:32 PM 4 comments

iPod vs Zune

Everyone knows what an iPod is, right? Apple's music and movie player, iconic white (although the nano is available in colors now), easy to use, everywhere? Here's a link, just in case.

OK, now, how about the Zune? Microsoft's Zune? Anybody? Hello? I can hear you breathing out there, people!

The Zune is Microsoft's answer to the iPod. It hasn't shipped yet, so Microsoft has announced a bunch of features for their iPod killer*, like built-in WiFi so you can share songs wirelessly, and it comes in the blandest, most boring color of brown (yes, brown) that you've ever seen. Although if you're old enough, and you had one of those hand-held Mattel football games, you might recognize the color. So you just know that Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer had a personal say in the exact color they're using.

Yes, yes, and it's going to run on the batteries forever and a day, and you'll get laid, and it'll even julienne fries. Yawn.

So Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple and coolest guy in the tech industry, gets asked about the Zune. Specifically, if he's worried about it:

"In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable."

...Um, yeah. Is it any more obvious that Steve Jobs gets it? And Microsoft doesn't?

* Tee-hee! I have to giggle everytime someone uses that phrase, and not just for a Microsoft product! EVERY music player that comes out is described as an iPod killer. Except that, y'know... they don't kill anything, and Apple just keeps making money hand-over-fist with iPods. • 6:37 AM 2 comments

Everything can be perfected

If I could buy a loaf of bread that was all heels, I would.

Because I love the heels that much. • 6:03 PM 1 comments

Useless skill, defined

Another true tale of tech support.

B. and I were looking at a user's computer, trying to find where the user had saved the picture that had been displayed as the desktop wallpaper. Had been, that is, up until I changed the picture to something else and tried to change it back - tried and failed, because for some unknown reason choosing the picture's name from the list in the Display Properties control panel, "Desktop" tab, had resulted in an utterly blank black desktop, not the forest scene it was supposed to be.

The user had mentioned that her daughter had taken the picture, and emailed it to her, so B. and I were searching through the user's email trying to find the original picture, so we could put it back. Scanning through the Inbox and Deleted Items folders, I didn't see anything that looked like it came from a) outside the county, b) had a girl's name, and c) had an attachment. It took me only a fraction of a second to scan each folder.

One more place to check. I'm not sure how well-known this feature is, but Outlook saves deleted items for a while, and even after something is deleted it can be recovered. The option is under the Tools menu, and is called "Recover Deleted Items...", obviously enough. As I brought up the list, in less time than it takes for me to write this out, I had scanned the list and determined that the email we were looking for wasn't in there, either - and it only went back a week. We didn't know when the daughter had sent the picture but it must have been before that. Damn. I closed the window.

B. finally spoke up. "You could tell that quickly that it wasn't in there?"

"Sure," I said, and I opened up the window again. I pointed with the mouse as I rattled off what I saw. "These are obviously from other County folks, these are from outside the county but not female names, these don't have attachments, and these three are obviously spam."

She looked at the ones I thought were spam. All that could be seen was their names, "Alexina Esty", "Prince England", "Aniseed G. Ferrocious", and a generic subject line, the same one for each email, FW: About thatt date. "Those are all spam?"

"Uh, yeah." I looked at my co-worker. "You mean you can't just look at those and tell that they're spam? Between the names, and the fact that they all have the same subject line, misspelled in exactly the same way, they just stand out to me."

I smiled. "But, then, maybe I just get a lot more spam than you do. My filter is better."

PS: We couldn't find the picture again. It was gone. But the user had her daughter send her another copy, so it turned out OK in the end. • 4:20 PM 0 comments

This is how you know

I sat down at J's computer. She was getting her stuff ready to go out in the field, and I was here to hopefully solve a problem she'd been having getting into a database her work team used. I was here at the request of one of the County's application developers, who had first noticed the problem.

J was a tall, straightforward to the point of being blunt, black woman in her (I'm guessing here and I'm bad at ages) late 30s, who worked as a parole officer for Multnomah County. And I was the computer tech who was supposed to keep her desktop computer working.

My plan was to simply do exactly as the developer had said in the "trouble ticket" - uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Access 2002. But opening up the Add/Remove Programs control panel and scanning the list, Access wasn't a listed item. It's a part of the Office package.

Did I want to uninstall all of Office? What would that affect? Would it break something?

I was glad that J was leaving the office. When I have to poke around and guess and try different things, to the untrained eye it can look like I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm being... unprofessionall. So it's nice that she wasn't going to hang around, look over my shoulder, and ask a lot of questions.

Except she wasn't gone yet.

She reached past me to pick up a sheaf of papers, to stuff into her briefcase. "Pardon me" she said, after the fact, but with a smile in her voice.

It was well after lunchtime, and I had hardly gotten anything finished today. I had a list of things I wanted to get done, and hours ago it had seemed like a slam-dunk that I would get all these things finished or fixed and still have time left in the day. But now, that was very much in doubt. Things that should have been easy had magnified in complexity somehow, and missed communications with my teammates and a scarcity of resources, like, say, network cables or power cords or a freakin' hand truck, had imposed themselves between me and my job satisfaction at the end of the day.

It wasn't a huge deal. I mean, no one was going to die because I didn't get these things done. As far as I know, anyway. OK, actually, I try not to think about that. Except that now (now!), there I go, thinking about it.

I picked up the phone next to J's computer. I tried calling T, my friend and co-worker at the Help Desk. She takes these calls all day long, and does it with a smile, and I needed to talk out loud and ask her if what I was seeing was the norm.

I reached her voice mail. Damn. Hung up. Left no message.

I sat there for a moment, holding the phone halfway between my head and the cradle, wondering what to do.

J's voice interrupted my reverie. "Oh, are you done already?" She was putting on her bullet-proof vest.

"Hmm? Oh, no. I was..." just asking someone else for help but they're not there... "thinking about the next step. I need to uninstall Microsoft Access but it's not in the Add/Remove Programs list."

"OK" she said, "That sounds great." She paused. "Except I have no idea what you just said."

I laughed. "Oh! Sorry. I couldn't do your job, either!" I smiled. "It's just that I came here to do two things, and it looks like I can't do the first one, so I'm going to move on to the second thing now."

"OK, sounds good."

I got up and went back to my computer, hidden in the dark recesses of the buildings' server room. My next step was to set up a network install of Access. I hoped it would over-write what was already there, and do it cleanly. Y'know... without breaking anything. But one can't ever tell with Microsoft products. It's a crapshoot. But hey, it can't get more broken than it already is, right?

Computer techs hate rhetorical questions like that, and rarely ask (or answer) them.

I tried calling Terri again. No answer. I sent an on-screen message to her computer, asking her to call me at the number in the server room, just in case she was at her desk but on a call with another customer.

The phone next to me rang almost immediately.

"Sorry about that," T explained. "I was screening my calls. J was just trying to get a hold of me." I could hear the shudder in her voice from having to deal with one of our users.

"It's OK. Listen, I have a couple of questions for you. I'm trying to set up a push of Access, and..." What she'd just said half-registered on my distracted and stressed-out brain. "J? Why was she trying to call you? Have you been working with her on something?" All the folk on the Help Desk have Caller ID on their desk phones.

"I don't know! I talked to her month ago or so, and I thought she had saved my number and was calling me back about something."

"That's so weird. I was just up there." I thought Apps had put in this ticket?

Oh. Oh, right. I got it. "Hey!" I said. "That wasn't her calling you! That was me! I was calling you from her phone!"

T laughed. "Well, I didn't know that! What do you want?"

I started to explain, about the inability to remove Access, and having to push it out, and hoping it wouldn't break anything. I was frustrated from all the other troubles during the day, and from not knowing how to do this simple thing, and my stress must have shown in my voice, because T laughed at me.

"It's so funny, sitting here on the other side, hearing you panic. It's usually the other way around!" She was obviously enjoying this. "You're usually the calm one."

"See? Everyone's been pushed so hard, with layoffs and the changes and all the new technology," I said. "This! This is how you can tell! When I am the one freaking out!"

The sad part is, I don't even know if I fixed J's problem or not. I had to move on to the next ticket... • 6:30 AM 3 comments

New Word Monday Part Two

Just in case I forget to post something next Monday, I also used the new word "communicationiness" in a sentence today.

I was describing what my boss is failing to provide, if you need to know. • 4:24 PM 3 comments

New Word Monday

Tracy loves it when I make up new words.

Today, during a discussion of how bad Jessica Simpson looks lately, I suggested that maybe she's had her jaw enlargened.

Except, I actually thought that was a word. It's not.

Welcome to New Word Monday. • 11:02 AM 1 comments

Quiet again

My apologies. My thoughts lately have been... wordless and un-worded. Certainly they are un-wordable.

Or... y'know... something. • 5:04 PM 2 comments

Fairuza

I did something really simple tonight. I haven't done it in a long time. It felt good to do it.

I cooked dinner.

Oh, sure, lately I've been eating more meals at home. But throwing a frozen burrito in the microwave hardly counts as cooking.

See... I bought a wok last weekend. A 12", carbon steel, flat-bottomed, single-handled, wok. It was cheap, I guess ($19.99), but after doing some reading on buying a wok, it turns out that carbon steel beats so many other materials for the perfect wok. Yes, my wok is similar to something used by billions of other people on this planet, but as the Marines say about their guns - this wok is mine. There are many others like her, but this one is mine.

Yes - her. I've named her. I call my wok "Fairuza". Fairuza B. Wok.

This weekend I spent about an hour cleaning and seasoning her. I used canola oil because it's light and low-calorie (comparatively), even though if I'd been a traditionalist, I would have used peanut oil or sesame oil.

Cleaning was fun. The manufacturers ship it coated in oil to prevent rust, but you don't want to cook with that coating on it. I filled her about half full of water, brought it to a boil for about 10 minutes, and then scrubbed her down in hot soapy water.

After I wiped her dry, I started the seasoning. Again, heat applied while there was a small (about two tablespoons) of oil in it. I rotated and tilted the wok to make sure the sides were coated in the hot oil, and let it burn a bit, putting a nice dark black/brown coating on the bottom and up on the sides.

Woks are fun because to get the best performance out of them, they have to be used, and to look used, almost from the beginning.

Tonight, I started by putting 2 cups of brown rice and 3 1/3 cups of water into the rice cooker and let it do its job. The rice cooker cooked and then clicked into "Warm" mode while I prepared and cooked the main dish.

For the main dish, I had some sirloin, cut into strips; some mixed vegetables (frozen and bought in a package specifically for stir-frying; I wasn't being too experimental), some hot and spicy sauce, and the oil, of course. I first heated up the wok, on high heat on my burner, without any oil added, for about 10 minutes. When it was good and hot (I dropped a little water in it, and it beaded up immediately) I added the oil. It sizzled and sputtered and smoked a little. Perfect. I dropped in the beef, and it sizzled and sputtered, too. Let it sit for a minute or two (to brown), then poked and stirred it around (it's not stir-frying if you don't stir) for about 3-4 minutes, and then flipped all the pieces over.

At this point I added the vegetables. I first pushed all the meat up towards the sides, clearing a space in the middle. Then I lowered the heat a little bit, and dropped in the veggies, still frozen. Poked them around a bit but mostly let it sit. I noticed the rice was done; great! It would be ready when I actually wanted to eat.

I wished I had some garlic; I love things spicy. No garlic, but I dug around in the cupboard and found some of those really hot, small, thin red peppers. I tossed in a couple on top of the veggies and then stirred them in.

When the vegetables were getting done, I mixed everything together, meat and vegetables, and the nice sauce that was forming from the water, oil and juices from the beef. Once again I cleared out a space in the middle and poured in some hot and spicy sauce, stirring it into the juices and then making sure the meat and vegetables got covered in it.

And that was it. Almost takes longer to write it all out than it did to do. Almost. I tossed about a cup of my cooked rice into a bowl, then dished out some of the stir-fry into it, and had a hot, quick, healthy meal. I figured it's about 550 calories per serving.

And cleaning the wok is easy. I just run some hot water, and scour out the food and the top layer of grease, and then dry it off and put it away. I don't want to use soap or detergent because it will get rid of the seasoning.

I have lots of leftovers. I'll be eating steak and vegetables and rice for a while... but next time I'll be able to reduce the ingredients to make just enough for one or two servings.

Because it was so fun, I want to wok again soon. Does that seem crazy? • 7:13 PM 1 comments

Underage

The phone rang around 10 'til 8 PM, Saturday evening. When I ran into the living room and looked, my 14-year-old nephew's face and name were on the tiny cell phone screen.

I picked up. "Hello, Max!"

"Hello, uncle." He paused.

"What's up?"

"How would you like to go see a movie with me and some of my friends?" I could hear the combination of a smile and pleading in his voice.

"Uh..."

"We want to see 'Jackass 2'. Except the movie theater is being stupid."

"Oh, I'll bet that's really funny!" I said, but hesitantly. I see. They need an adult to get in to see it.

"Yeah!"

"...but I'm just getting ready to go out for the evening." I weighed in my mind a night out drinking vs. seeing a movie about crazy stunts and voilence with some teenage boys and surprised myself with how close the two seemed in entertainment value.

"You are?"

"Yeah, I'm meeting a friend."

"Oh." He seemed disappointed, but brightened as he added, "Would your friend want to see 'Jackass 2', too?"

I laughed. He was persistent. "Yeah. She... probably... wouldn't. Sorry." I thought a moment. "If you'd called me earlier, maybe."

"We didn't know until we got to the movie theater. We have someone who's 18, but the theater said we had to have someone over 21. Mom said you might want to see it, too and suggested I call."

"And your mom does not want to see 'Jackass 2'. Got it."

"...yeah."

"Well, sorry." I really was sorry, and felt a little bad, but... last-minute calls and all that. "Good luck!"

As I hung up, I remembered another nephew, years and years ago, and all the things I was able to get him into when he was underage. I hope the statute of limitations has expired by now, but I'll admit to getting him into bars and movies he "shouldn't" have been able to see.

I remember taking him to see "Blade Runner" on the opening weekend, waiting in line for what seemed like forever, and when we got to the ticket counter, the guy would not sell us a ticket for my nephew. In summer 1982, I was 17 and probably looked a little older (I was short, but hairy and probably wore a beard at the time; I don't remember now). My nephew was taller than me, though, and I thought he looked at least as old as I was, even though he was (exactly) 6 years younger. "Blade Runner" was rated "R" - under 17 not admitted without a parent or guardian. I argued a bit. I'm his uncle, I told him, which was true but looked unlikely. I finally gave in and bought two tickets to see "E.T." (rated "PG"), which was playing at the same time.

I stalked off, dragging my nephew behind me, and we found two seats. My nephew, who had been silent the entire time, turned to me and said, "Are we really going to see 'E.T.'?"

"No." I decided at that moment, but the way I said it made it seem like I had decided long ago. I really didn't want to see Spielberg's movie, though, and had my heart set on seeing Harrison Ford chase some androids. I'd been reading about this movie in "Starlog" magazine all spring and summer. It looked dark and moody, not sappy and funny like Spielberg's flick.

"Give it a minute," I said, checking my watch to see how long until the movie started. We waited a minute or two, then I got up. "Follow me, and act like you know what you're doing."

We headed out for the bathrooms, then instead of returning to the "E.T." theater we walked straight into the one showing "Blade Runner."

I'm still surprised at how easy it was. It was the first of many times I'd cheated the movie ratings system. And it was the first time (at least that I remember) including my nephew in my adventures.

And now, with this call from Max... it seems that I still can provide that kind of service. Although it's a bit more problematic these days. I don't have a jam-packed social calendar, but the few events I do have I like to enjoy... And wasn't it just a few weeks ago that I was the "guardian" who got both of us in to see "Snakes On A Plane"? I didn't even think that you needed an adult to get in to see that until the guy who tore the ticket gave you an odd look, then looked at me standing behind you. "Oh, right, I'm with him," I said.

So, sorry, Max, about Saturday night, if you're reading this. I need a little more notice, but I'll be happy to help you out in the future...

It's not like I haven't done that before. • 6:44 AM 4 comments