Living in the Scoot Utopia

KCTV's web site currently has the following headline:

Students Report Alleged Sex Pervert

A "sex pervert", huh? I didn't know there was any other kind. Perhaps one of these?

Students Report Alleged _Brick_ Pervert
Students Report Alleged _Eye Color_ Pervert
Students Report Alleged _Hoof-and-Mouth Disease_ Pervert
Students Report Alleged _Fettucinni Alfredo_ Pervert
Students Report Alleged _Bowling_ Pervert
Students Report Alleged _Chaste_ Pervert
Students Report Alleged _Botanical_ Pervert

Posted by ScooterJ at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seth's blog entry about bunnies reminded me of something I had been meaning to post for a while but kept forgetting. This past weekend would have been the perfect time to post it.

What follows is the second-oldest drawing I ever made. I drew this on April 14, 1974. Easter Sunday. It's on the back side of a letter I wrote to my grandma at the age of 4-1/2 that she saved and returned to me a few years ago.

The most prominent feature is the two chimneys at the bottom center. For whatever reason I was obsessed with chimneys at that time and drew them frequently. If you follow the snoke that spews out of them you see that it all goes to the upper left corner. I am not entirely sure what is going on in that corner. The sun is present, but if you trace the lines of smoke, they all connect into some sort of rectangle. I do not know what that rectangle was supposed to represent. What I do know, though, is that additional lines pour out of that rectangle and flow right where they enter the TV antenna on the roof of the house I drew.

That was the house I lived in at the time, on the west side of Cambrian Way in Bremerton, WA. Note the flowers in the yard and the doghouse out back. My dog was a beagle named Popcorn who bit me one day so I put him in the trash bin so that the trash men could have him. Fortunately for the dog the neighbor lady saw me and ratted me out to my mom. I feel guilty about that to this day even though I was frikkin' four years old. :)

In the bottom right I drew the Solar System. The Sun is at center Mercury and Venus are in the upper left. Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, are in the upper center. Earth and The Moon are in the upper right. In the lower left we have Jupiter, then Saturn. In the lower right is Uranus. I evidently forgot to draw Neptune and Pluto. The little dots are the asteroids.

The other wide of this page is a private letter whose contents are between me and my Grandma. So there. :)

So what's the oldest surviving picture I drew? It is inside the back cover of my favorite book when I was a kid, My Brimful Book. The final section of that book contained animal stories. Two pages before the back cover was a page that contained only a picture of a bull. I wrote my own animal story on that page titled "Bulls". The text of the story read as follows:

"Bulls kill you."

The next page was totally blank so I drew a crude bird and wrote an animal story titled "Birds" that read as follows:

"Birds are lovely."

That sketch of the bird is my oldest surviving drawing, predating the Easter letter by about 2-3 months. I do not have it anymore, though, having given that book to my goddaughter a couple of Christmases ago.

Posted by ScooterJ at 06:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I noticed this "No Smoking" sign in one of the men's restrooms at the City Market tonight:

A "No Smoking" sign is of course a perfectly normal thing to see in a restroom. What cracked me up, however, was what I noticed on closer inspection:

This of course led me to a thought:

How would a blind person know to feel for a sign there?

Before I could think that through, however, my pondering was interrupted by a terrifying/amusing and somewhat offensive thought:

A blind person attempting to use one of these urinals

Now I know why public restrooms always have a drain on the floor. :)

(My apologies to any blind person who reads this has this read to them.

Posted by ScooterJ at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Yesterday at a company lunch I was getting picked on for my eating habits. I am an extremely finnicky eater and the rules that determine my food selections are, to many, borderline absurd. The only thing people can truly rely on when feeding me is...

You can't go wrong with cow.

Unless, of course, you mix it with onions and ketchup and breadcrumbs and turn it into nasty-ass meatloaf. Cooking it improperly will also cause me to pass on it. Basically, anything from medium on up is improperly cooked. When it comes to hamburger, the only way I'll eat one that's cooked above medium-rare is if it's taken all the way to black-charred and served with a heaping helping of a jus.

When it comes to meats, just about any will do. Any critter with a spinal column is fair game for a sampling. Though of the vast array of wildlife I have consumed so far, I don't really care for alligator... and frogs just gross me out altogether.

When it comes to invertebrates, however, my tastes are more limited. Limited pretty much to shrimp. Lots of shrimp. Any way Bubba can cook it, I can eat it.

Fried clams rock. Calimari is ok of it's deep fried and tossed with peppers and I can't see any of the suckers. Lobster is also okay from time to time. Crab is tasty but I preper imitation crab -- real crab is too much work for too little meat payoff. Oysters and Crawdads are gross.

One of my main rules on meat is that it must be distinguishable as the muscular tissue of a critter. If it's processed in any way, I won't eat it. Exceptions: sausage and pepperoni.

Now lets move beyond the animal kingdom into the world of plants. Here is a list of all the fruits I will eat:

.

Now lets move on to vegetables. I will eat the following vegetables cooked:

Broccoli.

Corn on the cob.

That's it. And the "on the cob" part is key. If the corn has been scraped off the cob, I won't eat it.

For raw vegetables, my list is slightly longer:

Broccoli.

Spinach.

Lettuce.

Peas.

That is the extent of the plants I eat.

Breadwise, I'll only eat whole whole wheat or rye bread, and it must be fresh and warm. White bread I do not consider to be fit for human consumption, unless it's sourdough. I won't eat sliced bread and do not eat sandwiches made with it. (Sandwiches made with rolls are ok, but I will not eat hamburger or hot dog buns.) I prefer the crust over the bready part.

In the world of cheese my rule is simple: I only eat white cheese. And don't try fool me with white versions of traditionally orange cheeses... I can see past your white cheddar and white american tricks. (American cheese is another food I do not consider hit for human consumption.)

All condiments are disgusting to me and I do not use them... except for dry seasonings. Ketchup, mustard, mayo, and pickes are the absolute worst offenders. Apart from salsa (which must be served at room temperature or warmer and must be spicy hot), the only wet condiment I ever use is BBQ sauce, and it must be a spicy, low-sweetness variety, cannot be cold, and must come in contact only with the meat. I will not eat bread or fries that touch the sauce. All salad dressings must stay far away from my food.

Speaking of fries... do not crisp my fries. They must be wriggly.

I do not like white gravy or any sort of cream sauce. This includes pesto and alfredo. Blech. I do not like chunks in my salsa nor onions in my tomato sauce. I will not eat spaghetti nor linguini but will eat pasta made with larger noodles.

"I do not drink Doctors or Misters." Meaning, no Dr. Pepper, no Mr. Pibb. I also cannot stand the taste of cola. When it comes to soda, I prefer Diet Sprite but will drink regular Sprite, 7-Up, root beer, orange soda, and grape soda. I prefer my beer dark but in a pinch I'll drink Miller Light. I cannot stand milk and seeing anyone drinking it makes me feel queasy.

I do not like nuts or potato chips. Actually any chips, for that matter, except for plain or spicy tortilla chips. My popcorn must be either plain or buttered and served hot.

Dessert-wise, the number one thing that shocks people is that I do not like ice cream. I'll sometimes eat soft-serve but only iof it's chocolate. I don't like the texture of frozen treats and I cannot stand knowing I'm eating basically frozen milk. I also don't like glazed donuts. I don't like the flavors vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, or coconut.

That pretty much covers the basic set of rules. Now for some fun contradictions:

• Though I will not eat any fruit and find the taste of most of them to be godawful, I love 100% pure unsweetened grape juice and, if I'm extremely thirsty, I'll rarely drink apple juice.
  
• I like tea and I like the taste of lemon but I cannot stand lemon in my tea.
  
• I do not like nots but I love Smokehouse almonds. I also like sunflower seeds but only if they are salted and already out of the shell. I like pistacios too but they must be served in the shell.
  
• I do not like the taste of bee vomit so honey is right out. However if I am eating sopapillas, bring on the honey!
  
• I detest tomatoes but I love tomato sauce.
  
• I cannot stand milk and I do not like ice cream. But combine them into the form of a shake (or even better a malt) and I love it.
  
• I do not like vanilla. Vanilla is my favorite icing on cake donuts.
  
• I don't like chocolate milk but I like hot chocolate made with milk.
  
• Though I cannot stand to eat them, I use peppers and onions in most of my cooking at home. (I make some of the hottest food you could ever taste!)

Now you know the main rules governing what I eat. So feed me, dammit! :)

Posted by ScooterJ at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was 18 I had a temporary night job working in the sign shop of the basement of a hospital. All the staff were getting new engraved name badges and I was working the engraving machine, making all of the several hundred badges that were needed.

One night I got a call from upstairs. They needed me to go up and assist with a patient. I was terrified -- not that they wanted my help, but wondering why they wanted my help. With all the doctors and nurses and so forth upstairs, why would they call the temp guy from the basement? What was so horrible about this patient that nobody else could/would do it?

I went upstairs and immediately noticed that every patient door was closed... a red flag that something was up. I inquired at the Nurses Station and was directed to a triple room at the end of the hall.

I stepped inside the room where I spotted three things immediately:

• A dozen hospital staff and a couple of paramedics
• Two beds strapped together in the middle of the room, no other furniture.
• Jabba the Hutt looking at me on the bed.

I then learned that this was not in fact Jabba, but a 740+ pound woman. She was naked and looked like a massive lump of melting silly putty... an oversized half-filled pink water balloon... a pool of fat. Lying on her back, her knees and part of her calves were hidden by the massive stomach and each enourmous tit sagged a foot and a half out to each side. There were folds that went only God knows how deep, and what would otherwise be a delicious aroma of bread eminated from them. A catheter tube came out from under her stomach down by her ankles slowly dripping urine into a foley bag, and I felt sorrow for whomever had to insert that.

She was being transfered to another facility. They needed my help moving her.

The paramedics brought in two gurneys and strapped them together, but her weight was beyond the capacity of them so we could not raise them to an elevated position. That left us with the additional problem of not only having to get her from the bed to the gurney, but also having to lower her to the floor at a speed slower than the speed of gravity.

First we tried lifting her by hand from all sides, but it was like trying to lift a waterbed mattress -- lifting the fat in one place just cased it to slide somewhere else. Next we tried lifting the sheets themselves with her on them, but the sheets began to tear.

We finally realized that the only way we were going to accomplish this task short of a forklift was to slide her to the edge of the bed and then roll her down onto the gurney. But how to ensure we would not drop her? After a short discussion we realized we had only one viable option available.

The three youngest, fittest guys in the room -- of which I naturally just had to be one- - knelt down beside the bed, arching our backs. The remaining staff hoisted the woman uo, then slid her down our backs as we used our arms and shoulders to push up into her to keep her from falling.

I still shudder to this day, nearly two decades later.

Once it was accomplished, a crew of four slowly pushed the gurney through the halls to the freight elevator, which took her to a waiting ambulance backed up to a loading dock.

I think I need to go shower again, I feel unclean.

(PS - The woman above is NOT her, that's just the result of a Google Image Search for "700 pound woman".)

Posted by ScooterJ at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This past weekend I was reminiscing with my younger brothers about the various ways I used to scare them when they were young. (One brother is 3 years younger than me, the other is 13 years younger.) I was an E-V-I-L big brother. There's nothing like scaring little kids. Especially younger siblings and cousins.

• When I was still small enough to hide in very confined spaces I turned on a couple of flashlights and tossed one into the washing machine and one in a dryer. I rigged the doors to both with fishing line and crawled behind the machines to wait. Eventually one of my brothers walked by. I yanked the strings and started banging on the backs of the machines, causing the doors to flap open and closed with an eerie glow and making a terrible racket that made the poor boy hit the ceiling.
• Nothing keeps a newly-crawling baby out of trouble more than putting a scary halloween mask behind every cabinet door you don't want him to open.
• I played a sound effects recording of sirens and convinced a young cousin it was a tornado warning. I made her hide in a closet and said there wasn't room for me and that I'd have to hide in a different one. I then switched to a sound effects recording of howling wind and played it at full blast as I threw clutter all over the house, occasionally stopping by to bang loudly on the door of the closet she was in. I faded the wind sounds and then came and got her and told her the tornado was over. Thanks to the mess (which I then had to pick up before Mom found out) she believed it for a while.
• One day I knew that another cousin was about to drop by to play so I covered my neck and chest in fake blood (which I always kept on hand) and then collapsed just inside the front door with a steak knife on top of me.
• I am a firm believer in providing a good science education at an early age. So when my youngest brother was three I gave him his first anatomy lesson. "Kurt, I have bad news for you," I said. "There's a SKELETON living inside of you!"
  
  The beauty of this was that when he went running screaming in tears to Dad to find out if this was true, Dad's answer was, of course, "Yes." :)
  
  On another day I pointed out that he was filled with BLOOD! and got a similar reaction.

• The older of my brothers had the misfortune of having a bedroom where the light switch was on the opposite wall from the door. His bedtime was earlier than mine. For several nights in a row I turned off the light and hid in his closet just before bedtime. As he'd walk across the room to get to the light switch I'd start growling or moaning like a ghost, terrifying him.
  
  After about 4 nights of this he expected it, so when he reached his bedroom door and heard the low ghastly moan coming from the closet, he refused to enter the room and stood there demanding that I stop because he knew it was me. That was when I walked up behind him from the living room and asked him what he was talking about. He turned around with eyes wide as saucers and then ran screaming to the opposite end of the house. Ah, yes, that tape recorder of pre-recorded ghost sounds I planted in his closet worked great!

The fact that I have had a nightmare every night for the past 20+ years must be payback.

Posted by ScooterJ at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Two years ago when the lease ended on my old car, I decided that since my commute is measured in blocks rather than miles and that I drive about 20 miles in an average week, that I didn't need anything special and really didn't want to have a car payment. So I set out in search of a car that I could purchase outright for the cash I happened to have in my wallet. About four hours later I owned The Hoop and have been driving it ever since.

The Hoop is a beat up old 1992 Chevy Cavalier. It looks like this:

...except, picture that with a dull and scratched up paint job, dents, rusted out spots, spots where a dent has been pulled out and the holes filled with tar, worn suspension, scratched and permanently stained windows, the spoiler broken off, the finish all chipped off the wheels, a quarter of the trim gone, the center arm rest broken, stains on the seats, a chunk missing from the steering wheel, a detachable driver's side window roller handle, a warped dashboard, a gaping hole where the stereo used to be, and a horn that has been known to fly off if the wheel is turned too sharply.

But, it gets me where I need to go.

This week The Hoop gave me quite a scare. While rounding the corner at 11th & Grand the other night I heard a loud pop under the chassis. Ever since then it has made a low rumble whenever I go over bumps, slow down, or make a left turn.

My main worry was that the repair would be urgent and tremendously expensive, because I can neither afford that right now nor afford replacing The Hoop. Though I can walk to work no problem, there are/i> a few places I go to each week where neither walking nor the bus are an option and I did not want to become a burden on my friends.