old aches and pains/pajamagram

I have reached a point where my body has become so tight that I need a Thai massage instead of a regular one. This is not "tight" in a good way. This is "tight" in the "my muscles are stiff and I'm walking around like Scatman Crothers after he got the axe in 'The Shining'".  Therefore I am left to resort to the use of a tiny Asian woman who sticks her foot into the small of my back.

I actually don't consider myself an incredibly stressed person. However, my body begs to differ, as I have shoulders that feel like two stone tablets, and hamstrings that could be used to play a violin concerto. I know this because the masseuse I had continued to tell me as such throughout the hour-long session (not in those words; more like "you are tiiiiiight"). Have you ever had your legs made into the number four and then lifted so that your chin is the only thing touching the table? I have. Considering the number of times my body was lifted from the table, I'm thinking that she must have seen my penis at least three times, as my sheet seemed to think independently of me and didn't always follow my lead. Good for her, I guess, if that's her thing.

Overall, I feel much more relaxed, but I wish I could afford a more-regular massage. My body seems to be asking for it.

***

One other thing - who are the men that think that buying your wife a "Pajamagram" is the perfect Christmas gift? First off, none of the pajamas are even that sexy, unless you're looking for something that you could also wear to Wal-Mart if you don't feel like showering. Second, maybe it's just the women I've been around, but sleepwear is one of those gifts that's more for the man than the woman - and you know how much women love that concept. Why not just throw in NFL Sunday Ticket, as well? Lastly, the ad suggests that buying a Pajamagram makes you look like you spent a long time on choosing your gift. Excuse me? Is this because they come in a box? Because of the clever "Do Not Disturb" sign (another "this gift is for my needs, not hers")? The fact that the commercial mentions that is a problem in itself, because women are most likely seeing this spot as well. Now that they know how easy it is, so now you're cheap and too lazy to leave the house. Well done, Casanova.

never possess a lobster during off-season

I had to go to traffic court this morning to get an arraignment hearing for an (alleged) illegal U-turn in front of my house. I've never had to be in court for anything other than jury duty, so this was a new experience for me, although one of which I was looking forward.

There were about 40 of us in a room, and we had a judge that was so old that instead of reading the instructions for the people coming up for their arraignment, he just played a tape recorder. Dude was old. It almost made me want to start visiting courts to see who these judges are whom I'm giving votes.

The first person up to the judge couldn't speak English and had to have a translator for him. He was charged with (and I certainly didn't see this coming) possession of a lobster while not in season. Seeing that I was in traffic court, I was trying to figure out how this jibed. Was the lobster in the accused person's car? Was it bound and gagged in the back seat? Was there any chance he was walking the lobster around on a leash?

Because of several measures that the state legislature has put in to add service charges to every fine, the guy's $120 fine ($100 + $20 for each lobster in his possession) came out to actually $430 dollars approximately. Stiff fine, and the guy probably didn't even get to eat the lobster. 

As for me, I thought about pleading guilty and just paying the fine, but the two people before me both pled "not guilty", so I never got to hear the fine. Instead of asking before my plea what the fine would be, I took my chances and said "not guilty". Afterwards I was told it would have been $35, which in this legislative world, would've been about $154, and that's before traffic school. Better to fight for my freedom, right?

a brief period of hellishness

So, I'm at the UCLA-USC football game yesterday, which was bad enough considering that I am a UCLA alumnus and their football team is not too good right now and the results proved it. No, that wasn't my problem. The real problem was the halftime show.

Three things that I hate:

1) USC.

2) The USC marching band.

3) The Offspring.

Well, the halftime show combined all three of those things, with the band playing "three of your favorite Offspring songs", and conducted by the lead singer of the band. Since the aisle to get in and out of the stadium was completely packed, I had to grit my teeth and sit through about nine minutes of blaring staccato riffs and marching. Forget the fact that the Bruins were down 21-7, I now had to put up with THIS? 

To make matters worse, the UCLA band then followed. How do we follow a punk band's music to get the crowd riled up and put the fans back on our side? Why not three songs from "West Side Story"? Yeah, THAT will get them amped! You want to get things rocking? Let's pull out the "Gee Officer Krupke" card!

Maybe it's time that UCLA needs to take the angrier personality. We've always been the cute side of the rivalry, the "gutty little Bruins". Maybe we got to get a little more edge (although The Offspring doesn't necessarily represent "edgy", but I digress). Let's start with the band. Play some Dead Kennedys or Metallica or something with a little more bite. Follow USC and bring strippers in to be our cheerleaders (okay, maybe that's not true, but strippers are always looking for an education, let's do our part). Maybe we need to go back to having a real bear on the field instead of cartoon characters. Image is the first step in many cases. 

starter blog/busted pinball machine

So I moved from My Space to Facebook to here, and for all 4.5 of you that read my blogs in those previous places, things won't change too much. Sometimes, they'll be funny; sometimes, they'll be serious. Sometimes, they'll be complete gibberish, I won't lie to you. That being said, I welcome any and all comments.

BUSTED PINBALL MACHINE

The one thing that sticks with me from my parents' divorce is not any kind of animosity or resentment or anything like that. It's a busted pinball machine. 

In the drastic life change of my father's move into a singles' apartment in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, he decided somewhere in the process that he needed a Fireball pinball machine in his living room. I'm not sure whether he got the pinball machine for his twin sons or for himself. I lean toward it being for himself, because he also had a waterbed and Playboy centerfolds hanging on the walls of his bedroom.

In regard to Fireball, he said that "the motor didn't work", but that he was looking to fix it, so whenever my brother and I would go over to his apartment to spend the night, we'd get to pretend that the pinball machine worked. A large, Satanic creature appeared front and center, throwing three fireballs at the player, highlighting the "multi-ball" feature on the game, and probably becoming a source for nightmares since we slept in the same room as the fire-spewing demon. Since my dad lived in one of those large apartment complexes with dimly-lit hallway following dimly-lit hallway, there wasn't much of a chance to go explore, except to go shoot on a 10-foot basketball court where I wasn't getting the ball higher than eight. Therefore, we were pretty much confined to the apartment, and the waterbed, and the busted pinball machine. 

At my grandmother's house, where my mom lived while she was going through nursing school, we had a large backyard where we played baseball and rode our bikes and, frankly, just used to walk the neighborhood (kids, for better or worse, weren't on the same leash they are now). But at my dad's place, we were pretty much locked in. It's probably the reason we didn't stay there too often, and, considering the decor, it's pretty clear that we were probably cutting into our dad's action.

My dad soon got remarried, which meant that the pinball machine was soon to leave the estate. But my dad made up for it by buying me and my brother a minibike - in which the motor didn't work. We never got to ride that minibike. 

I guess there's a large metaphor here about my dad, but to simply put it, he was 22 when he got married and thrown into fatherhood, and in his mid-twenties when he was already divorced. He still was a kid, in effect, and his bachelor pad screamed of a kid's first place of his own. I'm shocked he didn't have a black leather couch, a staple of the bachelor's first home, to be honest.

Maybe when I see him next, we'll have to get into the car and knock down a few mailboxes, just to give him a chance to give him some of his youth back that was taken away. Either that, or just play some pinball.