Monkey C-Note

Seen on Promenade on Sunday: A man peddling a monkey.

Well, that's not right. He was peddling monkey favors.

That sounds even worse. And there wasn't even a bicycle involved.

(Incidentally, a couple weeks ago a drove by a girl on a bike who I'm fairly certain is the same girl I may or may not have run into and almost knocked over w/my old car a couple years back. Is the irony of running her down again worth a lawsuit? Probably, but I passed -- her and the opportunity.)

Biggish guy has monkey on leash. Monkey is wearing silly suit, as monkeys being forced into servitude often are prone to do. Passerby hands dollar bill to monkey, who takes it and puts it in his pocket. In exchange, monkey offers his hand (paw?) so that aforementioned passerby can shake it.

Pay a dollar. Shake a monkey's hand. (I don't know who the guy in that pic above is. Neither does the monkey. Looks very slightly like De Niro, no? I mean the monkey, not the random dude.)

(Pretty sure nobody is allowed to actually buy the monkey, however.)

This greatly amused my niece and nephew, as do so many things. This did not greatly amuse the fine security folk at the L.A. Zoo when I tried something similar last summer. Anyway...

This week I may set up shop down there and offer, for just $1, to shake people's hands. Who knows where that monkey's hand (paw?) has been?! Well, aside from the monkey? Maybe I'll wear a glove. Or a giant foam finger, just to add novelty. Friend of mom's added a good twist: they have to pay more to get me to stop shaking their hands. It's like an early termination fee.

Maybe I'll even offer a squirt of hand sanitizer for another 50 cents.

Other ideas:

There are plenty of street performers, some with drums or buckets for drums. I could go down there and pound a drum incessantly (I am trained for this).
Again, passersby must pay me to stop hitting the drum, at a rate of, say, $1 for 30 seconds of silence?

There also are break dancers down there, who probably weren't even born when that art form was popular. I could go down there with a baseball bat or golf club and, for a small fee (which hopefully will cover the legal costs), offer to break dancers. You know, with the bat. Kerrigan-style.

Sometimes this evangelical sets up a slideshow and, with a microphone, proceeds to tell the rest of the world why he's right any everyone else is wrong. Most recently he was ripping atheists. Look, believe (or don't) whatever you want, but leave everyone else alone. So along those lines, I may bring down a slideshow and start worshipping Satan (the hockey player) and trying to make people join my cause. Just to piss that one guy off.

But holding grudges isn't healthy, so we'll settle our differences, shake hands (for a $1) and break dance.

I don't have an iPhone ...

... but this makes me want one: EWB Baseball.

In other words, a "new" iPhone version of what still might be the greatest baseball computer simulation ever made: Earl Weaver Baseball.

Long before Jason Lee hit NBC, "Earl" represented silly graphics but awesome stats, all part of a game that wasted happily filled countless hours of my 8th grade and high school years -- you know, a time period during which I could have been ... um ... leaving the house at some point.

Actually, one or two many friends of mine and my bro's were addicted to this. We held drafts long before roto was a quasi-household word, creating leagues with franchises full of fake players. The greatest closer in the history of the league? Sorry Mo, it's New Jersey's Tyrone Jackson. Best pitcher in the league? Might be Chris Stuart of Sacramento.

Yes, our league had a team in Sacto. Not to mention the New Mexico Flying Rhinos (incidentally, during freshman year of college I asked a kid from NM if there were rhinos there. Clearly not getting the joke -- and why would he? -- he got annoyed and said no. I laughed and wondered, "did he ever look up?").

The vid contains a screenshot and, more importantly, the beautifully composed EWB theme song:


Really, the tune deserves a place right behind Brass Bonanza in sports theme lore. As for the game, the High Heat series might have perfected the PC baseball sim, but that series faded out years ago and really has never been replaced. There are solid console options, but it ain't the same.

Earl Weaver Baseball is (well, was) dead. Long live Earl Weaver (EWB) Baseball!

Oh, and if you really are a fake fantasy sports geek enthusiast, Court Rivals also is a good time suck. As for the EWB/Whalers fans -- you know, more like me who live in the past -- my latest toy, World Series the Season arcade game, is a nice flashback...

"Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much."

Meanwhile, there was a parrot festival on Wilshire Blvd. on Saturday (seriously). I think it even was intentional. Also worth noting: tonight my mother asked a soap opera star whether someone stole from us an item we thought we won at an auction.

There's really no other way to explain it.

Blog blog

Trying to help my sister set up a blog. It's taking a while. Program has been extracting forever. I may be here late.

So in meantime, figured I'd start arduous process of resurrecting this blog. Because I thought it'd be funny to toss up a few posts while we waited to do just one in the new blog.

Random thoughts:
*Pirated captain's plane back to Vermont home hijacked and redirected to Cuba. Not really, but would be funny in an unfortunate way.

*Fox better not cancel Dollhouse. Would be nice to keep Sarah Connor Chronicles, too. Otherwise, they join the list of all the other good shows Fox never gave a chance to, including Firefly, Wonderfalls, Andy Richter ... and just blame them for Pushing Daisies, too, even though they have nothing to do with it.

(Can't Fox cancel Fox News instead?)

*Brother in law is all fired up about something political. He wants a blog, too. I may be here all night.

*If Facebook is useful but ultimately an underachiever, what does that make twitter?

*If I am useful but ultimately an underachiever, what does that make [insert person I wish to mock here]?

*If you worked for a company that was owned by another company that was run by your father, would that be your parent's parent company? Or would that be the company that owns the company your father works for? What if it was the same company?

*I have 14 minutes left, according to my computer. No way I'll complete my bucket list in that little time -- especially considering item no. 1 is "create bucket list."

*Ever go to sportsjournalists.com? If 75 percent of the folks on there make up the braintrust of newspapers, it's no surprise that industry is imploding. Too bad, because there are so, so many great people in newspapers. And great newspapers.

*Brother in law says he checks google news every morning. He's not getting my help with any blog.

*Had turkey burgers made from ground turkey meat. Wonder if air turkey meat tastes different.

*"You bought a record player just to store in the desert?" -- something I just overheard. Can't really imagine what it means.

*Is planning a trip for the primary purpose of being able to blog it a worthy motivation? Methinks perhaps.

*Me: "Is this your Coke Zero?" Sis: "I don't do that!"

*Extracting (not the military kind, fortunately -- or the vanilla kind, unfortunately) finally done. Time to post this and get back to work on sister's blog.

Next time: EWB Baseball for iPhone -- coolest thing ever in the history of everything?

It pays to procrastinate

Waiting to vote here in a local nursing home. Volunteer says line now (10:40) shortest it has been all day.

Those motivated and responsible early birds who showed up at 7 were greeted by a line halfway down the block.

Suckers.

One of those suckers who waited 90 minutes to vote made an Albertson's run and brought chocolate for everyone. This election brought to you by Hershey's Bliss.

On today's for this establishment's residents? A coffee social, bingo/stimulation and group chatter. Oh, and presidential triva, of course.

Overheard while in line...

Person A: Do they check ID?
Person B: I'm sure they do.
A: OK, I wasn't sure. Almost left home without it.
B: At least I hope they do. Otherwise someone might have voted for me.
A: Someone dead.

Nice comment, especially considering where we are right now.

Meanwhile, I get my ballot, but another poll worker accidentally almost rips my receipt part off prematurely. She said, "It's dangling, but it's OK." My reply: "Dangling? I've already been disenfranchised!" Laughing, she said, "It's OK, I trust you.

Her mistake.

By the way, that chocolate was insanely good. Appropriately named, indeed.

Oh, and voting was pretty damn fulfilling, too.