Runs with Scissors

There's some sort of entity in my apartment, with a pair of shears. I'm serious here. It has an infatuation with trimming my cat's tail, and then arranging it out symmetrically on the floor as if it's laying railroad ties. This is the second time it's happened, and when both my wife and I were present.

I noticed Kaga was in the small washroom (it's a closet with a washer and dryer, really). He likes to climb behind the washing machine, where he gets stuck and calls for help. To keep track here, it seems to be Kenichi that's losing the hair. When i turned around from putting the next load in the dryer, there was the patch of fur - perpendicular to the hall, directly behind me. This being the second time i let out an audible "huh." Huh, indeed.

I called Chloe, she also recognized it right away. Huh. Kenichi was down the hall at this point, and i asked "Is that your hair?" He trotted to about 2 feet away, where he then went into "frightened" mode, slowly sneaking up on his wake of black shedding, freaking out and running to undeneath one of the barstools in the dining room.

I laid down next to him, inspecting his tail (the only area with hair long enough to match the patch on the floor). Huh. Intact. On top of that, it took quite a bit of pressure to get only a few strands out, let alone clumps large enough to cover the same surface area of my palm.

Prowling, he slithered his way back into the hall, stepping around the cord to the vacuum as if putting pressure in the wrong spot would unleash a flurry of arrows from the gaping maws of ancient Aztec protectors. "You throw me the idol, i throw you the whip." He was scared of that spot on the floor. I don't blame him. I'll be sure to turn the hall light every time I just pass by.

Next time he drops some of his coat we'll take a picture. This is weird shit. There are two things that have my genetics* concerned. Firstly, this complex was built on a past site of the insane asylum St. Agnews. Most of the campus is still across the street, but i think they currently do some R&D for the tech industry.

Perhaps some ectoplasmic entity, like a barber who went crazy from wanting to charge more than two bits for a shave and a haircut, has been cropping unkempt quaffs from beyond. That would actually be rad: maybe Sweeny Todd has been living somewhere between limbo and my laundry.

Secondly, Audra recently purchased us a brilliant gift. It's a red velvet canvas on which someone mounted a hammered brass Spanish Galleon. Words, nor this cellphone photo do it any sort of justice. My thinking says there's a clue to our groomer's motives behind that ship. I wonder if Chloe will notice if a couple of sails are gone?

*Being Mexican I have a predisposition to the supernatural, and have never heard of Will Ockham.

SciFi Ofelia

I saw Pan's Labyrinth.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, but not nearly as much as cheese or sex. (Don't worry, I rarely if ever mix the two. You'd think for as much as i like both I'd be eating wifey nachos every night, but it turns out I go into sensory overload and implode. That's not as painful as it sounds, but it's still a bit disorientating to pull myself back from the 5th dimension.)

This film reaffirmed the choice Chloe and I have made to name our son after the writer/director, Guillermo del Toro (no relation to Benicio. Both beautiful and brutal, it's in the realm of "non-accessible-to-all-audiences." This means "Go watch it - and in the theatre."

There were people who stormed out of our showing, upset. We laughed.

I don't doubt it'll get nominated for a few Oscars. Actually, i don't doubt it'll be overlooked by the Oscars, because they wont know what to do with it!

I'll wait to talk abou tthe story until after the few who read this blog have also seen it.

Absolute Zero!

Here's a straight-forward post. Nothing clever. Nothing to have you relish in deep thought for hours. Be warned if you're expecting a laugh.

I finally caught John Carpenter's first flick, Dark Star. I enjoyed it. Going into it with the expectation to see a college film, i was actually pleasantly surprised.

There are a number of scenes that have me wondering why they are not any more iconic. Like Doolittle surfing the upper atmosphere, or the alien mascot that looks like it somehow misplaced its beach.

The showdown between Doolittle and the bomb is challenging, even for today's "smarter" audiences.

I also watched Logan's Run this weekend. The miniatures remind me of the winding tubes in a gerbil cage. Speaking of gerbils, that movie has a lot of barely-hidden boobs. And I'm convinced there are few differences between Farrah Fawcett and Paris Hilton in their respective era's. I take that back; Farrah didn't look like a half-Charlton Heston, half-Billy Joel demon walking around on broom handles.

2nd place is only close in horseshoes and gambling

Not my best finish (2 of 430), but definitely the bigge$t win. I could get used to this. It's not retirement money, but i'm yet to take a risk and buy in for more than $3.

Gatos Cats

With a quick email, i invited a couple of old friends out to dinner in Los Gatos. There's a chow joint i've been intending to sample down there for quite some time, called "California Cafe." Funny how alliteration makes the name sound clever, yet "West Coast Restaurant" is equally as generic a title.

There were three generations of white Los Gatosians huddling outside the front entrance, blocking our passage. After a couple of polite "excuse me's" with no reaction, i puffed up my chest, dropped my voice an octave and approched each of them individually. "Excuse me." The older ladies were toughest to budge, not moving until i stooped over and put my mouth in their eyeline. I'm surprised we didnt have the po-po trying to hunt us down after that. I could go on and on about how money does not equal respect, etc etc, but i had too good a time to spoil it with a minor downer, especially on the part of someone else's pomposity and ignorance - i have a difficult enough time dealing with my own.

D&J looked great, as usual. Wifey was blindingly stunning in her t-shirt and jeans. Much like all of our previous restaurant experiences in the LG, Wifey knows someone working on the floor or behind the bar. Mr. Manager hooked us up with a couple of appetizers not on the menu. It's always nice to get free grub.

He surprised us a bit later with a "Gift Card," that they were giving away for a previous promotion. The value of the gift card was to remian unknown until the end of dinner, where you found out how much of your meal was comped. Funny thing, we recieved a full comp. On a $270 dinner. I have no more words for that. Maybe these, "I should have ordered the filet."