THE FIRST SWALLOW OF SPRING?

Well, maybe not. But this past weekend, I did see another annual rite of spring -- the first drink shirtless guy sitting in an idling Trans-Camero-Firebird in the fire lane of a certain retail establishment I've mentioned in this space from time to time.

This was during a typically bizarre shopping sojourn, during which I stood behind this bickering couple in the checkout line. You see, the guy had just given the girl a chocolate rabbit as a present, conveniently just a month or so after Easter. (Who knows -- maybe it was a Whitmonday present?)

But I digress. Anyway, they were asking the cashier whether he thought the gift was weird.

Well... no. No weirder than usual.

DEATH IN A SAD LITTLE CIRCLE

Okay, so maybe I fixate on this one stupid cartoon, but study last Sunday's offering below:





I realize that not all cartoons have to be funny, but doesn't this seem like the lonely ramblings of a desperate old man, bitter and estranged from his children, realizing the tragic futility of his existence as death whispers in his ear a little more loudly, a little more clearly with each passing day?

On the plus side, the Marmaduke cartoon that ran just below it was a real hoot.

CONSTRUCTION, CONSTRUCTION... WHAT'S YOUR FUNCTION?

I'm sure regular readers of this log (thanks, Mom!) have been waiting with bated breath to hear the fate of the mysterious midnight construction at our friendly neighborhood grocery store last week. The work site itself was apparently a pretty impressive sight -- a neighbor told us it was noisy as hell, and when we drove by the store the night the work was being done, there were these ominous giant crates sitting in the parking lot. Were they full of groceries.. or pod people? You be the judge.

So a few days later, I walk in, eagerly anticipating an entirely new, but still freakishly odd, grocery store. Boy, was I in for a surprise. A casual walk around the store revealed... well, nothing. Nothing, that is, until I wandered into the store’s notorious produce section -- so frequently stocked with rotting fruit that even employees fear to wander its aisles. I once heard two checkers getting into a fight over whose turn it was to do produce duty, but that’s another story for another day.

But I digress. It turned out that they replaced all the metal, vaguely communist-looking stands upon which they place the aforementioned rotting fruit with these newfangled plastic stands (with fake, unpainted wood grain -- classy!) As a side effect, they apparently threw away all the old fruit because everything looked relatively edible.

However. The changes I saw don't reflect the size and scope of the machinery I saw in front of the store on Tuesday night, nor the loud noises our neighbors reported. So I suspect something more nefarious is afoot. Maybe they dug an underground tunnel to a nearby store from a competing chain. That would certainly explain the assortment of suspiciously fresh fruit. Or maybe it has something to do with the odd connection to the Canadian military (which I’m still not prepared to discuss publicly in this space, out of fear for the well-being of my loved ones).

More frightening yet, I was back the other night, and I heard an announcement over the PA that made my heart stop. The store was closing early for... more construction.

The plot thickens.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Looks like I'm no longer the only family member who's been written up in The Washington Post. Believe it or not, this guy's actually my cousin.

Good thing I'm already married -- if I wasn't, something tells me I wouldn't get access to the Rose Garden to pop the question. Of course, I could always pull the ring out of a piece of rotten fruit in a certain grocery store that's enjoyed a few mentions in this space.

AT LONG LAST, A REASON TO GO ON

Finally, a longstanding void in my life has been filled. Drop by, and help fight the real enemy.

LET THE SHOW BEGIN!

So it's been a few weeks since my last report on the friendly neighborhood grocery store-turned-performance-art-piece (and one of these days when I walk in, I'm going to shout at the top of my lungs, "LET THE SHOW BEGIN!") Aside from an invasion by advance troops from the Canadian military (which I'll write about once I recover from the shock), Bizarro ----way's been a bit quiet of late. Normal, almost.

But as they say in the movies, trouble's afoot.

The subtle clue? A tiny sign taped to the front door saying the store would close two hours early Tuesday night... "for construction." Yes, construction... construction that begins at 10 in the evening and presumably is finished before the store reopens the following morning. I can't quite shake the mental image of little gnomes, or dwarves, or something, tinkering into the wee hours of the night.

Of course, Occam's Razor applies perfectly here. The most logical explanation? They're going to burn the place down for the insurance money. I mean, I would if I owned the place, though that might disturb the previously mentioned portal to East Baltimore. And who would want an angry Egg Man on your doorstep at 10 at night?

DEAL OF THE CENTURY

I know ragging on spam e-mail is just about as old as the Internet itself, but once in a blue moon I get something that surprises even jaded old me.

Consider this message that found its way to my work e-mail address (natch, since it's a Serious Business Opportunity for Serious Businesspeople):

> From: Lisa --------
> To: -----------
> Sent: Thursday, April 5, 2001 1:14 PM
> Subject: www.AirbrushingEquipment
>
> airbrushingequipment.com is for sale.
>
> The price for this domain name is $499.
>
> This is a limited time offer. Available on a first
> come first served basis.
>
> Sam ------
> 708-XXX-XXXX

>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
> http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/?.refer=text
>

Lucrative, yes. And to clinch the deal, nothing says "professional business opportunity" like that plug for free e-mail at the bottom of the message.

Fortunately, even though the message is more than a month old, I checked and the URL is still available. But be warned -- if you want the domain name, brace yourself for a bidding war. I'm prepared to go as high as $499.01 for it.

REVIEW HAIKU

So I'm flipping through The New York Times, and I stumble across what's got to be the world's best writing gig -- unless it pays by the word.

Along with times and channels, the Times' TV grid includes short, staccatto bits of commentary that manage to convey in a handful of words what takes most writers 1,500 words of tedious plot summary and half-hearted criticism. It's almost like haiku -- dissonant words that add up to more than the sum of their parts. More importantly, they're bitchy as hell.

Consider the following mini-reviews:

Armageddon, one of approximately 45 killer asteroid movies that came out a few years ago -- "Not a believable moment in it."

Wild Wild West, the Will Smith masterwork -- "Acid indigestion for the soul."

No Time for Sergeants, a 1950s-era Andy Griffith comedy vehicle -- "One belabored joke."

Big Momma's House, a showcase for the talents of master comedian Martin Lawrence -- "Not much here."

Air America, some feel-good '80s movie about the CIA and the contras, or something -- "Muddled bore."

And perhaps my favorites, for Pyromaniac's Love Story, about which I know nothing except that it stars one of the off-brand Baldwin brothers -- "Dreadful." Better yet, the comment for Nightwatch, some lame thriller -- "Preposterous."

Sure, It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power (tm). But sometimes it's the simple, thesaurus-free Everyman approach that works best. Consider the mini-review for the Kevin Costner epic The Postman -- "Truly awful."

Of course, to be fair, they don't hate everything. One of my all-time favorites, Airplane, gets a compacted rave -- "Hilarious Spoof. Truly."

I think I have the critical chops to make these kinds of gutsy judgement calls (that, or I'd just program a Word macro that spits out the phrase "festooned with manure.") But look at the average length of these weblog entries. If I did this for the Times, the TV grid would be longer than the Sunday magazine.

IDA KNOW!

As anyone who's read my earlier rants about such vital concerns as the neighborhood grocery store or obscure political conspiracies would know, I'm not the kind to fixate. Well, at least until I flip through the paper to the comics, where the nefarious Family Circus (to quote the movie Go) "is just sitting there in the corner, waiting to suck."

Friends have called the cartoon's treacley, octogenerian author, one Mr. Bil (that's with one "l") Keane, the "anti-Toner" -- perhaps the highest complement I have ever been paid.

But I digress. My favorite Web site for many years was the Dysfunctional Family Circus, which let the well-balanced, emotionally healthy populace of the Web rewrite the cartoon's captions -- with predictable results, right down to the spelling ("daddy i poopd on the flor"). But as the Internet was transformed into the strip mall it is today, the lawyers shut it down with equally predictable speed, leaving concerned citizens like myself to digest the following cartoon alone:

Let's stop for a moment to consider this tableau. Bil looks like he hasn't slept in days (the black-and-white version that ran in the paper shows a nice growth of stubble). Judging by the stains on his clothing, he appears to have awoken in a pool of his own essence. He's holding a crumpled bag, which appears to conceal a bottle or other cylindrical object.

Questions... questions. Why are he and Dolly (yes, I know the random kids' names) wandering out of an alley? Did Thel, awakening from her own herion-induced stupor in an empty bed, send her daughter downtown to check the dumpsters for Bil's naked corpse? And who is this mystery Mrs. Clarke, and why exactly does Dolly want her to meet her father?

The mind boggles. Maybe there's more to Mr. Keane’s "art" than initially meets the eye. After all, art imitates life, and in life there are no easy answers. We've all awoken in a pile of our own sick (metaphorically speaking, of course), and we all have our Mrs. Clarkes that we'd rather not see in our moments of weakness.

Or then again, maybe Bil's just a really crappy artist.

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

So I get a roll of film developed, and while flipping through the pictures, I come across one I didn't recall taking (probably because I, in fact, didn't take it in the first place):

Good times! (Obviously, I need to get out more.)

Suffice it to say I don't know how these people are or where they live, but I suspect we're not looking at the latest charity fete at the Guggenheim.

But as always, I digress. I checked the back of the two errant prints, and sure enough, they came from someone else's roll. Which means they probably got an errant print or two of mine. And what would they think of my stunning photography (these days, mostly blurry pictures of toddlers)?

I think the reaction of the woman in the picture probably says it all.

SCARF FACE

Time for another update from our favorite neighborhood grocery. You may remember my earlier rantings about the life-size cutout of a friendly neighborhood pharmacist that was beheaded, taped back together and ultimately pushed to the back of the store.

Well, he's back. Back with a vengeance, in fact, front and center near the "best-sellers" rack (whose contents suggest that the best-sellers list comes not from The New York Times, but the Weekly World News).

Sure, the cutout still looks like it was the recipient of a Columbian necktie (which, come to think of it, must be the dramatic end nebbish pharmacists the world over dream for, like accountants who secretly dream of going to an audit armed with ninja-style throwing stars). But in an effort to soften the effect, or at least not frighten small children, a thoughtful store employee placed a tasteful lepoard-print scarf over the badly-taped trach job. So, as the kids today like to say, it's all good.

WHATSUNDAY?

So I'm looking through my planner the other day, and I notice a couple of holidays I've never heard of before -- Whitsunday and Whitmonday.

At first, I thought maybe it was one of those wacky Canadian holidays, or one of those random bank holidays they like to take in countries with long dole lines. But since I subscribe religiously to Reader's Digest and all it's fun right-wing theories (plus the College Chuckles are a laff riot), I know it Pays to Increase My Word Power (tm).

So it's off to Google to search for Whitsunday; I get mostly links for some resort in Australia. So I start looking for Whitmonday and get the following helpful definition:

The day after Whitsunday.

And who says that dictionary editors have no sense of humor?

PS. I finally found out that Whitsunday is apparently the same thing as Pentecost. If it makes it easier to remember, just think of it as the day before Whitmonday.

BIZARRO UPDATE

Just a quick update from my last report from the front line of the grocery wars -- the headless pharmacist was temporarily fixed with some clear electrical tape. Then it got moved to a spot of shame, near the back and next to a display of vaguely suspect bananas and the swinging doors leading to the back of the store.

But now it's gone altogether. Maybe behind that "employees only" sign is some sort of elephant graveyard, where defaced promotional cutouts go to die.

Or maybe there's just more rotting bananas.

BACK TO BIZARRO ----WAY

Okay, back to the original point of this sorry excuse for an edgy, postironic log -- namely recording for all posterity the strange goings-on at our decidedly creepy neighborhood grocery store.

So it's Saturday night, a few minutes before close, and I'm wandering the aisles of the store. And I come upon one of the many life-size cardboard cutouts of pharmacists they've scattered throughout the Bizarro ----way. Presumably the idea is that when you're standing in the crackers aisle, trying to decide whether the Triscuits are worth 89 cents more than the house-brand Woven Wheat Thins(tm), you see the pharmacist cutout out of the corner of your eye and suddenly remember, "Oh! Almost forgot to pick up a spare refill of Prozac." It's what they call the "impulse buy" in the action-packed retail world, and let me tell you, nothing screams "impulse" more than federally regulated medications that require a prescription from a licensed medical professional.

But as always, I digress. So I catch the cutout out of the corner of my eye, and I notice one little thing, no big deal: It doesn't have a head. Okay, so maybe I'm a grownup and that shouldn't freak me out. But then, you haven't been in this particular store a few minutes before close when the only other person in the store is standing in front of the wine section, jaw agape, and hasn't moved in about 5 minutes.

All in all, it was about par for the course for a Saturday night.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Who says you can't learn anything from the 'Net? Here's an excellent example of a piece of business correspondence. Note the opening and closing sentences, which I plan to append to all of my voluminous correspondence with the Columbia House Record Club and other financial interests.

ERRATA

A while back, I offered a link to an architect’s drawing of the eerily phallocentric Clinton library. It’s been brought to my attention that a number of revised architectual sketches have since been posted [1] [2].

We regret the errors.

EH-OH.

Um... I'm not saying I did this or anything, but this site has been updated a bit.

FWD: FWD: PERSONAL TRIVIA

Okay, I generally don't forward these suckers, but there's enough of a
personal (read narcissistic) element to this that I'll break my own rule.
---

Subject: Okay, here's what you're supposed to do. COPY (don't forward) this
entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you will send. Change all
of the answers so that they apply to you. Then, send this to a whole bunch
of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to you. The theory is
that you will learn a lot of little known facts about your friends.

1. LIVING ARRANGEMENT?
Rented townhaus, though the rats in the backyard are free. We keep trying to
move, but there appears to be a global conspiracy to keep us put.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
Didn't you know? I can't read.
Happily, a volunteer trying to fulfill their community service obligation is
reading me The Professor and the Madman and Confederacy of Dunces (for the
third, maybe fourth time).

3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
I use a Powerbook G3 laptop, so no mousepad.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Don't think I have one.

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE
TechNews, the NAA Magazine of Newspaper Operations. The cartoon in the
back's always a hoot.

6a. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Napalm in the morning. Alternately, gingerbread.

6b. LEAST FAVORITE SMELLS?
Gingerbread. Alternately, napalm in the morning.

7. FAVORITE SOUND?
"Mark, they optioned your novel!"

8. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Dealing with people with no sense of humor.

9. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
"Is this the rapture?"

10. FAVORITE COLOR?
Silver, which come to think of it is kind of an absence of color. That
probably speaks volumes about me.

11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
Yeah, right. Like anyone ever calls me.

12. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
Junior -- and not "Mark Toner Jr." but "Junior Toner."

13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
Sharing laughter with friends and loved ones (cue cheesy music).

14. FAVORITE FOODS?
Sushi. Gnocchi. Just about anything else that ends with an "i" (except maybe
kimchi).

15. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Sure.

16. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
Yep. And upside down, too.

17. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Depends on whether Aimee's decided to stack all of hers in our bed that
evening.

18. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Cool.

19. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
1980 Ford Mustang, with bitchin' mag wheels (not my choice, but hey --
chicks dug 'em)

20. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE?
Maybe James Joyce. Maybe David Letterman. Definitely Werner Klemperer (may
he rest in peace).

21. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
A good Oregon pinot noir. God, that sounds pretentious.

22. WHAT IS YOUR ZODIAC SIGN?
Taurus. But as they used to say in the 70s, I was "born on the cusp," baby.

23. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
Anything that George Bush the Elder doesn't like couldn't be half bad.

24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB YOU WANTED WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Game show host.

25. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR?
Purple. I wouldn't want to be conspicuous.

26. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?
Yep. (cue sitcom-like "Awwwwww......")

27. IS THE GLASS HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL?
What glass?

28. FAVORITE MOVIES:
Movies? Is that where you go in the big dark room and they show the pictures
on the wall?
Sorry -- having a toddler can do that to you. Let's see... Raising Arizona,
Heathers, Monty Python and the Holy Grail (my Geek Trilogy). More recently
("recently" being a relative term), the Opposite of Sex, Waiting for
Guffman, Run Lola Run. Classics? Patton, Citizen Kane, Fritz Lang stuff, and
I'm probably forgetting about a million others (again, credit the
toddler/short-term memory thing). And Tangerine (though only Sheila will get
that one).

29. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS?
My coworkers are convinced I type with my fists -- I manage to be noisy and
inaccurate at the same time.

30. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
My clown suit and art supplies.

31. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
INT (a*b)2 + cos(pi)2, to the 14th decimal place

32. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH?
Live, curling. On television, women's billiards (on very late at night on
ESPN2).

33. SAY ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU:
Sheila -- for a lawyer and a Reston native, she turned out alright.

34. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
fifi@bustynuns.com

35. PERSON YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
president@whitehouse.gov

36. FAVORITE THING TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME.
Fill out and forward chain e-mails to my friends.

37. LAST BIG TICKET ITEM YOU PURCHASED
Big honkin' SUV. I'm embarrassed by this, but with W. in power it won't be
long before we have another Gulf War and gas prices plummet again. Then I'll
be driving to national parks and leaving the thing idling for weeks at a
time.

38. FAVORITE PLACE YOU'VE VISITED.
Paris. I hear the one that isn't in Nevada is nice, too.

39. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. I KNOW I'M GETTING OLD WHEN.......
...I actually take the time to fill out and forward chain e-mails to my
friends.

BEER AND TP

So we're supposed to get a monster snowstorm here on the East Coast, and as usual the local TV stations are tweaking it up, interrupting their regularly scheduled programming for what I call the "beep of death," a high pitched series of beeps followed by a crawl that says something like WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY -- SNOW IS IMMINENT -- 40 PERCENT CHANCE OF HEAVY WINDS, DRIFTING AND CRACKS OF MOLTEN LAVA FORMING IN THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. 30 PERCENT CHANCE OF DOGS AND CATS LIVING TOGETHER, END OF HUMANITY AS WE KNOW IT. STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS FOLLOWING "WILL AND GRACE."

So I'm sure when I go to our friendly neighborhood Bizarro ----way later today, there might actually be more than a half-dozen lost-looking souls wandering the aisles. Of course, I half think that one of the reasons people flood the stores right before a big snowstorm is because somewhere in the back of their minds, they think they might get to be on TV. After all, back in the unenlightened days before reality programming, just about the only way to become fleetingly famous was getting filmed standing in line at a grocery store, arms filled with bread, milk and toilet paper. Well, you could also take your shirt off and hope for a guest shot on "Cops," but that's more of a long shot.

And what an opportunity to share your unique worldview with your fellow global citizens. Here's a quote from a pre-snow grocery store interview a month or so back -- "We got beer, and we got toilet paper."

Hmm. Why not just tell the world, "Hi! We're going to drink, and then we're going to crap."

Paging Dr. Freud

Okay, I'm getting used to this genius style of writing... and who doesn't like beets? Charlene Tilton is a marvelous actress... I say that George W. is coming into his own... I could watch reruns of Who's the Boss? all night and all day, if sleep wasn't a biological requirement.

Enough, enough. Just a random thought about our lately departed president. Say what you will about the man, but he's got some giant cojones -- and I mean that literally. Check out the architect's drawing for his proposed presidential library.

Distinguishing characteristics, indeed.

Bizarro ----way

One of my reasons for doing this blog (and I have to come up with a better term for it, since to me a "blog" sounds like an intestinal dysfunction) is to archive the various attrocities that take place at our friendly neighborhood grocery store -- which is neither friendly nor, in the true sense of the word, a neighborhood place.

Let me explain. The people who shop there aren't from our neighborhood -- or any neighborhood on this side of the culture gap. And the, uh...amenities offered by this particular store doesn't exactly prompt people to say, "Honey? Let's hop in the car and drive across town in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get a gallon of milk." Which is good, because on the average day, they'll be completely out of milk. Or all meat. Or, say, all canned items with a picture of a tomato on them.

Between the grocery store's lack of... well, food, and the bizarre clientele (we joke that there must be a portal leading directly to some East Baltimore neighborhood), it's a pretty singular experience. We've taken to calling it Bizarro S---way ("ungh! Me no want food! Me go shopping!") and view our regular trips there as a sort of performance art. I'll start sharing stories soon.

Consider yourselves warned, especially if you're faint of heart -- or stomach.