mimicry's Xanga

Alfredo "Sauce" Griffin

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:43:14 GMT

i like pre-dawn driving.
PRE-pre-dawn driving, even.
3:00am to 5:00am is the best.
the roads are clear, and the few drivers out there at that time are outstandingly brazen.
running red lights,
running stop signs,
doubling the speed limit,
driving on the wrong side of the road.
... okay, maybe that last one is just me.
but it's like a secret nighttime driving club. the roads are wide open, and people just need to get where they're going. no on-the-way errands, just destinations. and everybody gives everybody else a wide berth. even during road races.
not that i'd ever road race, especially if i'm driving the Escort. if you dropped it out of an airplane it might max out at 55 mph.

anyway, if you're having a fit of insomnia, or you want to be at work REALLY early, i'd recommend checking out wee-hour city street culture.

i am probably obliged to say something about the 2009 World Series.
there have been 105 World Series.
the Yankees have played in 40 of them.
domination is one thing, but domination over a hundred-year period is quite another.
second-most is the St. Louis Cardinals. they've been to 17 World Series.
Phillies have been to seven. they've won only two.
better factoid for the Phils: it's been eight years since a team made back-to-back World Series appearances. the last one, of course, were the 00-01 Yankees.

as far as the 09 Series, Chase Utley hit too many home runs (5, tying Reggie Jackson's WS record), but he was countered by Ryan Howard who whiffed too many strikeouts (13, setting the WS record). the equilibrium of sucktitude was maintained, and NY won it in six games (as wishy-washily predicted by myself -- i called it in "six or seven").

go to the Body Shop and buy some hand cream or something. a portion of the proceeds of certain products goes to Stop Sex Trafficking.
pertinent information.
human trafficking, for sex or otherwise, is a for-real problem, even in North America. especially in North America as most people assume it doesn't really exist here. it does exist. quite enormously. cricket could rattle off some stats if you ask her nicely.

i want to do more. i want to turn into Liam Neeson in the movie "Taken" and kill absolutely everybody. trafficking is one of the worst things i can think of, and i am not afraid to freaking murder somebody for perpetuating that crap.

...which is why organizations like these work together to formulate more effective solutions.

also, i do not have a very particular set of skills. skills i have not acquired over a very long career. skills that won't make me a nightmare for people like you. i will look for you. i will find you. and i will probably accidentally shoot myself in the face.

retail, retail, retail... chicken catcher?

before becoming a manager, Joe Torre was a catcher in the 1960s. Bobby Bragen, a Braves manager at the time, once said, "I can't understand why he hasn't been nicknamed 'Chicken.' Don't you get it? Chicken Catcher Torre?"

i thought it was funny.

rant, sans rave

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:33:14 GMT

the Canadian dollar is once again set to match/surpass the American dollar.
books are labeled with American and Canadian prices. in the States this is no big deal.
USA price < Canadian price
in Canada this isn't a big deal until the news tells people that the exchange rate is even.
so, in everybody's mind (a place where oversimplified logic dictates self-serving justice), the two prices should be the same. or, barring that, they should only have to pay the lower of the two prices. naturally.
on the surface, if you're not interested in giving the matter any real thought, it seems to make sense. if, at the bank, $1US = $1CD, then a $19.99US Jodi Picoult book should only cost you $19.99CD. Right? RIGHT??

nope. but you'll flip out and storm away angrily (leaving your $6 half-drank drink behind) before i have a chance to explain FOR THE ONE-HUNDREDTH TIME the inconveniences of simple economics.

here's what i offer as an explanation (in list form, because that's also how i talk in real life):

- the publishers, NOT THE STORE, NOT EVEN ME TO WHOM YOU ARE DIRECTING YOUR BORDERLINE VERBAL ABUSE, set the prices months ago. our company has to buy these books from the publishers too. don't you think we'd rather pay the American price? an irritated customer has even suggested that the bookstore is paying the lower price, charging the higher price, and making a devious profit. if that's true, it hasn't yet shown up in my paycheck.
- in America you pay the American price. in Canada you pay the Canadian price. dummy.
- the United States and Canada, despite your inability to perceive social, political, historical, and economical variances (and despite your inability to locate international borders on a map), ARE TWO DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. Ontario is not a state wedged between NY and MI. NY and MI are not neighboring provinces.
    -- i know this because it took me a butt-load of paperwork and one full year just to live here.
    -- i know this because, despite having a very good credit history in the States, they still wouldn't give me a credit card up here.
    -- i know this because kilometers and celsiuses don't mean that much to me.
- another if/then statement: IF the dollars are equal, and IF that entitles you to paying the American price in Canada, THEN when you go to the States tomorrow afternoon you'll be okay with paying the higher Canadian book price over there? since the dollars are equal and all? since the whole system is arbitrarily derived on whims, yeah?
- stuff's expensive in Canada. where i live, anyway. gas right now is about $0.99/Liter, which translates to about $3.75/gallon. if the dollars are equal, then we're gettin' boned up here.

i have no economics background. i don't know how the financial system works. i just know there are loons and beavers on our currency. i also know it is not unreasonable to pay the Canadian price for a book in Canada.

i also know it IS unreasonable for you to be so agitated. at me. at anything. regarding the lower-than-moderate variation in book pricing. buy "Fahrenheit 451", read it, then come back and thank me for not setting these books on fire.

we just closed down the CD & DVD department. that's a whole other set of customer-related issues right there.
and that place actually was a rip-off. buy your multimedia at Wal-Mart or, better yet, on-line. (far) lower prices, better selection.

me and my sweetawesome wife just celebrated our three-year anniversary. three years ago she said yes and i said yes (a few months prior, actually... i didn't pop the question on the altar in front of a church full of friends and family when, for some strange reason, we were in full wedding attire). it hasn't felt like three years. it's felt quite a bit shorter (thankfully).

okay. i am going to caffeinate myself heavily and NOT fall asleep and watch the Yankees clinch the American League championship. i am going to stay awake. i have a box of chocolate. i have half a chocolate bar. i have strong tea. i will ingest the tea bag, if necessary.

i slept through the end of the game last night. it was the NL clincher.
i slept through the end of the game the night before.
both times i said i wouldn't.
both times i lied to myself.

saturday, Missouri and Texas, football, on TV.
but i'll be celebrating cricket's birthday.
SO
i'm going to record it,
and you're not going to tell me who's winning,
or who's losing.
i will not check the score,
i will not check your facebook updates,
i will not read your texts.
for a few hours i will be off the grid,
and you will just have to deal with it.
i will come home,
i will pray that i know how to properly set a DVD-recorder timer, and
i will watch the game as if it were live.
well, i'll skip right over those commercials.
if i skip over commercials while actually watching live TV it means i've nodded off.
or i'm having an epileptic fit.
Go Tigers!

for now i have things to do.
and my hair looks awesome.

and brownplaidflannel is where it's at.
and there appears to be a gigantic albino slug on the couch.

p-p-p-poker face

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:09:46 GMT

looking over the highlights and stats, it was probably a good thing i wasn't able to watch the Missouri/Okie State game. hopefully the Tigers'll do better in next saturday's nationally televised homecoming game against... Texas? ah, nuts.

watching the Titans/Patriots game right now, i find football infinitely more entertaining when it's played on a thin layer of extremely slippery ice and snow. pratfalls galore. when one player tackles another, they both skid about fifteen yards down the field. this probably makes me the worst football fan ever, but i would like to see football become a winter olympic sport.

if i'm reading the label correctly, one tablet of this chewable vitamin C supplement contains 833% of my daily recommended Vitamin C intake. so healthy it's SUPER healthy.
eating everything in the bottle at once would probably kill me, but i suppose that's true of everything that comes in tablet form. except for placebos. oh, those sweet, sweet placebos.

anyway, i can keep a straight face while eating the hottest spices or sampling the hardest liquors, but i physically wince and cringe EVERY SINGLE TIME i take a vitamin C pill. it's the tanginess, i think. in other words, i'm a sour puss.

robinson cano looks like a ninja.

Storm Shadow, specifically.
which leads me to believe that ninjas dress like they do not for stealth reasons, but simply because they're cold.

fauxgee

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:18:43 GMT

i should be napping to rest up for double-decker baseball playoff action.
because i fell asleep before last night's game ended.
because i crash after 9pm.
because i'm an old fogey.
fogie?

everybody at work is sick/getting sick/dying. i was ill-ish last week, which either means my immunity is all built up or, and this is probably more likely, my system is weak and will magnetically attracts viruses.
viri?

i was in florida. it was hot and humid and disgusting. i perspired heavily every day.
i came back to ontario. there was frost on my car the next morning.
it SNOWED last night. last night was october 16th. not february whateverTH. not snow time.
whateverST?

georgia is not especially known for its sushi. this is something you should know.

"Can you name the World Series champion lineups (since 1987)?"
what? no. that's, like, almost two-hundred names.
but that doesn't mean i'm not going to try.
see you in thirteen minutes.
...

...

...

well that was awful and humiliating.
although the only reason i missed AJ Pierzynski was because i forgot how to spell his name.

i don't think i'm going to have time for a nap.
i think i will have time for perogies-for-dinner.

was that really a balloon? because it looked like somebody was cookin' up some Jiffy Pop, and the bag... got... too... big.

i love popcorn.

fever. scratch. cat.

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:39:20 GMT

too soon?
no.
that's CJ Wilson, by the way. he pitches for Texas, tweets, and is apparently straight edge. and a racer?

this time next week i'll be in North Carolina. or pushing a dead car through pennsylvania.
fun facts about NC:
- contains exactly 100 counties
- as a British colony it was originally called the Province of Carolina and was rather large, area-wise. there were two regions to the colony, a northern and southern Carolina, but technically it was all the same. in 1708 neither region could agree on governing leaders and in the mess that followed the entire province didn't have an official government for two years.
- NC has the largest native american population of any state east of the mississippi river.
- Super Mario Bros., the movie, was filmed in Wilmington.

the cat scratched the evermotherlovin' crap out of my right wrist. it's my own fault, though. i was holding her and punching her in the face and doing all those things that absolutely warrant cat revenge.

maybe today will be a catch-up-on-reading day.
or a nap day.
or a wednesday.

time for pre-lunch.

one of us cannot be wrong

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:25:11 GMT

i am always astounded at how closely 1960s Leonard Cohen resembles 1960s Dustin Hoffman, who resembles 1970s Al Pacino.

(it doesn't help that they all wore the same clothes.)

except here where Cohen looks like Bob Dylan.

and here where he looks like... Bob Dylan

ah, Jewishness.

anyway, i picked up the 2007 remastered re-issue of Songs of Leonard Cohen at Chapters this morning.
SELECT TITLES, 75% OFF. PURCHASE BEFORE I COME HOME FROM WORK TOMORROW WITH THE REST OF THEM, INCLUDING MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE SAME BO DIDDLY GREATEST HITS ALBUM.

here are the ingredients to a dang fine spicy egg burger:
one hamburger patty (or two if you feel like doubling up)
one egg
too much mayonnaise
one squirt of sweet chili sauce
several drops of El Yucateco's "Exxxtra picante" chile habanero sauce.
some hot and spicy (and sweet) mustard
one glob of barbecue sauce
one drop of Dave Gourmet's Insanity Sauce (be sure to spread it around. you do not want a saturated bite of this stuff.)
and the buns, of course.

OPTIONAL: bacon strips. i just didn't have any handy.

what results is a sweet atomic fireball burger that is extremely spicy, but also amazingly flavorful. it will clear you up and clear you out.

i'm eating mine right now.
and listening to my new CDs.
and debating whether or not to put pants on.

playing the songs again

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 20:14:19 GMT

i just scanned through six-and-a-half years of my old blogs. that stuff's dangerous. all kinds of bittersweetness.
a few things i noticed:
- my preoccupation with weather maps
- my preoccupation with lists (not unlike this one here)
- many more friends then. a thousand points for all of you who've stuck around.
- i'm as honest now as i was then, but my honesty now is more reserved.
- i don't understand how or why i was so prolific with my bloggings. i'd average one or two entries a day for weeks and weeks.
- so. many. tangents.
- overuse of the word "crap".

i think facebook and twitter are huge factors contributing to my recent typing gaps in the past year. before i would mentally gather up snippets of information during the day, then write about them. now, when something of note crosses my mind, it turns into a facebook status update or a tweet. the only thing left would be to say that i didn't have anything left, and that sounds like a suicide note.

what IS left is writing about writing. not even writing. fake and public internet journal entries. how drab.

i hate talking about myself.

[continues to talk about myself]

just brewed up some teas.
hot and iced.
the iced isn't cold yet.
the hot is still hot.

my hot tea: Fortnum & Mason Queen Anne "stronger tea" tea. in my baseball mug. i never take the bag out of the mug, even when i'm sipping on it half-an-hour later. i like it steeply STEEPED. i like my food strong, too. nuances are for suckers.

my iced tea: Tazo black. in a flowery pitcher prone to spills. lots of sugar.

i was thinking about sitting outside, but it's fairly moist out there. i don't see it raining, but there are hanging droplets of water accumulating everywhere.

i'll be in florida when baseball playoffs begin. canyousay "gluedtohotelTV"?
it has also come to my attention that Game 1 of the World Series is scheduled for the 28th of October, and Game 7 (if necessary) is scheduled for November 5th. that is insanely late. i have a hard time wrapping my mind around baseball in november, although i'm certainly not complaining.

if i had my way the season would never end. the regular season would continue through november, december, january, february, march... back into april to start all over again. there wouldn't be any playoffs, i guess. the winner could be determined to be the team with the best record when the apocalypse comes. (in Vin Scully voice: "And HEEEERE come the Horsemen!")

so anyway, be it in entries about entries, or just the mundanities of what i did today (watched football, watched baseball, made tea, made tea, did this, washed dishes, sat outside and got wet), i'm making an effort to be more regular. i won't even need to regulate my fiber intake!

also, i just discovered the Visual Bookshelf application, and in a severely roundabout way it instigated this whole mess.

it feels like an autumn.

happy birthday mister america

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 23:59:31 GMT

this is how i watch NASCAR:
(first of all, it has to be established that nothing better is on TV. we're talkin' laaaazy afternoons.)
1) check to see if Carl Edwards is racing.
2) do something else (nap, for example), leaving the TV on in the background.
3) perk up for wrecks.
4) pay close attention to the final 10 laps.
4b) unless Edwards isn't in contention, in which case i'll see if the Simpsons are on.

there's a race on now. Edwards is racing. i'm doing something else.

the last race i watched was the Aaron's 499 at the Talladega speedway where he DANG NEAR DIED... before doing his best Will Ferrell and crossing the line on foot. awesome.

i found an iPod in the parking lot at 6:30 this morning. obviously i have no idea whose it is. if somebody posts a "Lost Dog iPod" notice then naturally i'll return it. however i've already purchased a charger from ebay. the battery is dead and i'm more than a little curious to see what kind of crappy music is on this thing.

happy 4th of July. all the fireworks here have been spent from July 1st. the apartment faces westward, and maybe tonight, if i squint hard enough, i can see some sort of majestic display from... Port Huron, MI... 100km away... no.

MORE canadio/americano nuttiness:
google.ca is the default google, and when i do a search for "2009 all star game" i get all kinds of NHL nonsense. i want my MLB nonsense. canada, you undermine me once again.

also, "canadio americano nuttiness" will be a fall Starbucks drink.

cricket quite randomly got me a cell phone. i've never personally owned a cell phone in my life. i used to be proud of this. but now...
i'm already a twittering fiend.
message me (but don't massage me) if you need to know my digits. TEXTS.

short article -- Miami Ballpark: The Future Home of the Florida Marlins
this was written nearly a month ago. i'm being slow somewhere.

Coke Zero 400? that doesn't even make sense.

restrained rick rollery

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:07:43 GMT

first of alls, congratulations to vicky and matt for their marriage and for the cool ceremony (bagpipes!) and excellent reception (CAKE!).

secondly of all, i'm going to the States for another wedding. congratulations to bob and melanie, but more so after the deed is done.

thirdly of all, MY WATCH IS BROKEN.

three's a charm.
or a crowd. whatever.

one of the websites i write for, they provide you (me, not you) with a long and varied list of topics. pick a topic. write it.
these topics cover every imaginable subject ever imagined. one i saw today made me laugh.

that is either going to be the easiest or hardest $15 that writer's going to make.
Step 1: Grow pompadour
Step 2: Snap fingers with the beat
Step 3: Never give you up

short article: Target Field.
it's where the Minnesota Twins will play their games next season (and probably several seasons after that). outdoor baseball in April and October returns to Minnesota. bring a parka.

i'm going to see Angels & Demons tonight. i've heard it's a suck-a-saurus, but i mostly want to watch the movie for all of the italian landmarks.
also, tom hanks with his shirt off.
mee-YOW.

banking on "amateur" and "japan" tags

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:50:57 GMT

looks like it could rain. i hope it rains. there's bird poop all over the car.
but not before dinner. balcony grillin' for dinner.

other
than
that
not much else goin' on.
yep.
nope.

books. check 'em out.

we should really get a real life computer chair. we've been using a dining room chair. great for dining. not so great for the spine.

short article updates:
The Yankees' Ballparks. a short rundown of every stadium the Yankees have ever called their own.
and
The Early Days of Amateur Baseball in Japan. how's THAT for targeting a niche market?