Saturday, December 21, 2002
I forgot to add one additional item to my list of seemingly obvious things I had to learn the hard way:
When in a very public campground, do not have sex in your tent with the camp light on.
Jim Parisi
Friday, December 20, 2002
I am getting quotes for new furnaces on the house. I'm pretty excited to be taking care of this. Our current furnace is 25 years old and quite frankly scares the living shit out of me. Ignition results in a rather startling BOOM that shakes most of the house and sends a flash of red flame out of the furnace closet and into the hallway. This explosion usually sucks all the air out of the closet and subsequently extinguishes the pilot light. So I have to hold a match to this contraption and risk my eyebrows if not a trip to the burn unit at least once a week. Needless to say, I think it's time for a furnace that doesn't double as a flame thrower. We have had this one fixed at least six times in three years, and we always end up with the same problems. It's possessed. We are heating our house with hellfire.
So a number of OC heating/plumbing/air conditioning/roofing specialists (how on earth is that specialization) are coming by today to provide me with estimates. They all give me a three to four hour window of time in which they can visit to my house. And usually they are late. "Thanks for calling Dante's Furnace Repair. We will be out there between one and five. Maybe later. We will be sure not to call you if we are running late. If you have plans please change them so you can sit around on your currently frozen ass all day with the false hope that we just might show up this millennium." One contractor told me they would be here between 9 and 12. It's currently 3:30. Since when is an "appointment" a seven hour range?
I wonder if I can use that same logic with the bill. "I'll pay you somewhere between $500 and $1000 for the work. Not sure where yet as I haven't finished paying for Christmas gifts, but you will know when you get the check. The check will arrive sometime between January and March, but I won't let you know when. We are really busy at the Parisi household. Sometimes we get a little bit behind. Hope you don't mind."
Jim Parisi
Happy Birthday Karli. I wish I was there to share it with you.
Jim Parisi
Thursday, December 19, 2002
I am SOOOO glad I'm not a woman. I'll never have to deal with this.
And again, more evidence that Dooce may very well be the best writer on the web.
Jim Parisi
Pop Tarts. "Part of this nutritious breakfast." Hmmm....at what point did sugar-coated, jelly-filled, toaster tarts become part of a nutritious breakfast? What about artificially colored, flavored and preserved sugar puffs? With stale, artificially flavored marshmallows? Who decided that was part of a nutritious breakfast too? Flavored maple style corn syrup? Processed, nitrate-filled, instant-coronary sausage patties from God-knows-what-part of a pig? All part of a "nutritious" breakfast? Please, somebody, precisely define "nutritious" for me.
Jim Parisi
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
Ten seemingly obvious things I had to learn the hard way:
1. Do not eat a whole bag of chips and salsa and wash it down with a big tumbler of orange juice.
2. Do not wash your privates with facial soap that includes concentrated tea tree and spearmint oil.
3. Do not fall face (read nose) first into the shallow end of a swimming pool.
4. Do not refer to your lover's social behavior as "unbecoming". Ever.
5. Do not order sushi in any state without an coastline.
6. Do not shave your head with an old razor. And do not leave the house before checking to see if you have missed any large patches hair on the back of your head.
7. Do not get on a plane with clogged sinuses.
8. Do not hang up on your Italian mother.
9. Do not work on your e-mail when your boss is giving a presentation in front of the VP. And the GM. And all your coworkers.
10. Do not pee off a cliff into a 20 MPH updraft.
Jim Parisi
Went out to Taco Tuesday at Fascist Island with everyone last night. I don't know why I keep going to this thing. I love my friends and all, but I really do wish they would pick a different venue. The crowd at the El Torrito is filled with a hyper-narcissistic, uber-rich, self-glorifying collection of plastic OC fashion drones. The men all have this smarmy, "hey baby" look to them. Especially the older ones with the hair plugs just starting to take. It's like they survey the crowd with this whole sexual predator, eye of the horny tiger attitude. Can you jingle the Porsche key chain any louder Chad? Or is it Chip? And don't get me started on the women. We sat next to a table of young Nordstrom clones - everyone of whom looked like they had spent $10K a piece at the offices of Dr. Frankenfuck in order to look like fully mobile Barbie Dolls - only without the happy expression. I swear they all looked like they might tip over. I don't know when OC made me so jaded. Sure, I admit, they all could in fact be very nice, very friendly, very giving people. But after ten years living in this place, I'm willing to take the bet that they, like far too many people in SoCal, are simply splashing around in the shallow end of the pool. Is it all the mirrors here? Does everything in SoCal have to be just like friggin' Fantasy Land? I need some perspective. I need a vacation. Or at least a some new scenery.
Jim Parisi
Tuesday, December 17, 2002
For the record, my mother did indeed ask Santa Jimbo for a handgun and shooting lessons. No joke there. In fact, she has been calling me near daily about it. I'm not sure from where this urge originated. Maybe it's some female mid life crisis thing. My dad gets a Mercedes sports car. My mother gets a 9mm. Personally I think my dad got the better deal. Regardless, I don't understand it. She tells me she wants to learn to shoot in order to defend herself. I just wonder from whom? She lives in upscale, suburban Dallas. One of those obnoxious gated communities. We aint talking Beirut here. She lives with my father - a serious little scrapper in his day, and a guy with a closet full of hunting rifles to boot. Let's not forget about the 80 pound Doberman running around the house and the 200 pound Mastiff plodding along behind her. I'm fairly certain that even without a sidearm, she is safe from nearly any intruder. Then again, they do live in Texas. Owning a sidearm may well be a state requirement. And she does own a couple horses. Could be some latent Annie Oakley fantasy bubbling to the surface. Either way, the prospect of my mother with a gun scares the hell out of me. She can't handle a Swiss Army knife without losing a finger or two. Besides, this is the woman who wouldn't even let me get a BB gun. And she thinks I'm gonna buy her a Glock. Hmmmph. Not a chance lady.
Jim Parisi
Did you ever get a random idea, write a note to yourself to remind you of the idea, and then forget what in the hell the note was about? I have a note on my palm pilot that reads, "Stretch Marks in Denver." Stretch Marks in Denver? I haven't a clue as to what I was trying to tell myself. Is everyone in Denver pregnant? Bloated? Is this some geological metaphor I made while flying over the front range? Suburban sprawl? I think I need to lay off the crack pipe for a while.
Jim Parisi
Monday, December 16, 2002
I have just about finished all my Christmas shopping. Haven't stepped foot in a mall to do any of it. If there's anything I like about the internet (other than the 24 hour supply of live nude teens and bukkake video) is the ability to avoid holiday shopping. I have completed all my Christmas shopping via the internet three years running. Yep, you guessed it. Porn for everyone! Ok, maybe not for everyone. Grandpa gets a sweater.
Still, I love e-commerce. I have climbed mountains with a full pack of gear and emerged less exhausted than after just two hours in a crowded Macys. I have negotiated 25 page software licensing agreements with surly, troglodytic corporate attorneys and emerged less frustrated than after an infuriatingly failed attempt to find one Orange County Botox Barbie during a holiday shopping stampede. Not sure rabid consumerism was precisely the message God intended when he sent his only begotten son. The true holiday trinity: Gluttony, Gold Cards, Greed. Christmas shopping makes me give serious consideration to Buddhism. Ugh.
Even the carolers make me crazy. One more banal version of The Little Drummer Boy and I look for the gun counter at the Wal Mart. Rum pa pum pum = rat a tat tat.
Speaking of guns, that's what my mother requested as her Christmas present: A handgun and shooting lessons. Yep. Nothing says Christmas like a warm, smoking Glock. I'm just curious in whose ass my mild mannered mother wants to bust a cap. That's all we need to make Christmas really, really festive at my house: Put everyone in one room and arm them. We might even make it to the Jerry Springer Christmas Special. Wouldn't be the first time someone in my family made it onto his little dysfunctional human rodeo. To be clear, I'm refering to my extended family, not, repeat, NOT my immediate family, and that, my friends, is a different story for a different time.
Jim Parisi
Sunday, December 15, 2002
Evidence that we all might just be going straight to hell. A good friend of mine confessed that when she was a kid she tricked the retarded kids next door that mud filled water was chocolate milk. I can't decide what was more appalling: Her confession or the number of my friends who laughed.
Jim Parisi
