Pedal Power

I recently have become obsessed with riding my bike. I'm on it almost daily now, and as a result have dropped just over 30lbs. Being as big as i was to start off with, 30lbs is only a small fraction of the mass i need to lose, and was hardly noticeable... that is until my marathon sex session with the wife. (Moms- you can stop reading this blog now. I'll make sure the next post is rated "G".) It was the best sex of our entire relationship together.

I pulled out a boxed time capsule of clothes i havent worn in years to discover i now fit into the other half of my wardorbe. Gone are the days of skin-tight Tees that show off my love handles, hello to the days of wearing a kilt, Chuck Taylors and a T-Shirt that says "I put the laughter back into Manslaughter." (Davey Boy likes that one.)

I've many adventures on the 20 mile round trek to work, and i plan to start sharinging them, at least semi-regularly. Like nearly running over a furry giant mutant geese, to crushing my way through a mountain of bleached-white snails.

I thought I'd also share my dream bike - the Kona "Hoss Dee-lux." It's a clydesdale class for "the big man." and oh yes, I am big.

I hope my knees don' explode

The regiment is working. One day i woke up and decided it was time to exercise. This is after about 10 years, mind you.

So after the first 2.5 weeks i'm down 12lbs.

The first few days were from a mapped out guide to beginner's runnning. That idea was shot after the third time out because it now feels like my knees are going to explode like a whitehead. It'll have to be biking from now on.

Once i get down to a respectable weight, i'll post the "before" picture. Right now i look like King Kong Bundy, for reference.

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."

I bring good tidings to all...

HO! HO! Hopen your mind to me...

This is Goramn Shiny!

I'll keep tabs on this guy. Looks like I'll have a new addiction in about, oh, 3 years once development is over.

The Blumenator Rides Again

The "D"

This was the opener for Tenacious D on Monday.


This is the encore of the D's show.


The greatest rock concert i have ever been to. Imagine Rose McGowan giving you a hand party while feeding you whipped cream from between her breasts.

Next Phase

A few updates:

I saw the Shining at a midnight showing in downtown San Jose. Good stuff. This "going out" concept has to be re-introduced slowly, but ogling hot chicks for most of the evening pushes enough incentive to get me off my ass and out of the house. It really does feel good to be alive. I know I'm alive because my penis tells me so. Hooray to cleavage, and hooray to my penis.

The show had a surprisingly quiet crowd. I think I'll do more of those. Next week is Fight Club; in a few weeks I'll most definitely be dropping by for the Big Lebowski.

Which reminds me; I have a couple of pictures from Halloween to share. Chloe and I dressed up as the Dude and Walter Sobchak, respectively. I'll drop some pictures into this post at random, for your viewing enjoyment (as well as to satisfy the inner-braggart).

On a completely different subject - Earlier last week, the big Davie B snuck (sneaked?) me out to an indoor rock climbing facility up the street. I think I'll be dropping some weight so i can join him. "Some" in my case, is the weight of an entire person. You can say I'm twice the man Brad Pitt is, simply because he weighs only half as much as I do.

Another change of subject - Mikel recently introduced me to Cowboy Action Shooting. This will fill that "Sergio Leone" void that has been gaping like James Woods' stomach in Videodrome. I'm not a gun nut in any variation of the connotation, but there is an unexplainable allure to dressing up in era-specific clothing and blasting a 6-shooter. As rediculous as it sounds, just reading about it makes me feel like a kid again.

Ketching Up

Since "Hell Week" a number of things have happened in my head. I'm still trying to get them all in a row so i can figure out what's going on. There are issues that i've never even comtemplated comtemplating that have pushed their way to the forefront. Like "do i like Granny Smith or Pippin apples more?" Or something a close friend said to my wife when she opened her store; "If you make a career of the things you love, you never have to work a day in your life" and such. I'll need some time to flush most of them out before i can effectively share. Right now i'm still in the "I don't know what it means, nor what I'm talking about" stage. It consists of excessive sighs and rhetorical questions.

To help solidify this foundation of new thought, there are a number of things of note that i know wont change in the next month or so.

My wife, for one, is a rock. While i was lying in the hospital bed she only shed a tear once, when she saw in my eyes that I truly thought i was going to leave her alone on this Earth. She's the real deal.

Two, World of Warcraft is an immense timesink. I officially quit today, with my account cancellation taking effect (i believe) on the 22nd. The worst aspect of the game was that it catered to my obbsessive compulsive and addictive tendencies. The valued aspect would most definitely be all the wonderful friends i've made online over the last two years. As i'm writing this i can't believe i've spent at least half of my free time over the last 22 months in the alternate world of a video game. There was a time where i'd mentally left-mouse click on everyone i met in real life to figure out their stats and/or item bonuses.

Three, there are many things due to change. I can feel it, i'm on the cusp of something big. Don't confuse this with dellusions of grandeaur, "big" is a relative term and for me simply means a shift is in the works. And I'm going to set forth these changes, not a diabolical unseen force. (So with that i can at least attempt to convince you sanity has not yet left the building).

More to come... I still have to post some Halloween pics!

God Hates Me

So i finally felt well enough to head back into work on Wednesday. I was still under a significant amount of pain and discomfort, but the doctor provided drugs that really softened the blow. I popped the pills after stopping for a couple of Breakfast Jacks.

After my boss found out the perscription i was on, he asked me to hide in my cube and not to post anything publicly on our corporate webboard. Good call. It's a much different experience to be hopped up on medication at home, than it is to be hopped up and try to interact with people all day long. I think i made the "drunken" fool of myself and hopefully didn't offend anyone who came by to visit. I think i lectured Nick a bit too long for a topic i don't recall. Sorry, Nick.

On Thursday, i thought it would be a good idea to not take anything, as i was going in for the follow up appointment and wanted to see how well i actually was without being under the influence of any narcotics. OK i'd say. Mostly just pressure and discomfort, and if i aggravated it by bending or twisting the wrong way i only had a sharp jab, as opposed to "Oh God, Oh God, I'm going to die."

Which brings me back to the title of today's blog. Yesterday i had a bit of a sniffle, nothing to worry about. All through the night and this morning, it decided to grow into an irritated cough and sneeze fest. Not the best conditions of a ribcage injury. Can you say, "Ow"?

So today i'm just going to lie down, take some pills, and do nothing. I even have to cancel a scheduled lunch i've been planning for about two weeks. Well, I'm sure the team would be more than happy to ditch me for some freshly grilled sausage.

Aliens 5: So That's What It Feels Like

Yesterday my internal clock woke me up around 7:30. I pretended to sleep in for a while longer, and then like i would on any other Sunday, plopped down at my computer to check some email and get an hour or so of video games in before i started my day. By 12 noon i found myself in the emergency room fearing a heart attack.

I'm 30, much too young to be worrying about this sort of thing. I sat in front of my computer for an hour waiting for the pain to go away before i realized it wasn't leaving. Everyone gets sharp pains every so often, be it a cramp, or a headache, or a kink in the neck - but this was inside my chest, an unusual and frightening place to feel any sort of discomfort.

For a moment i thought my pectoral muscle was in a cramp. I rubbed the heel of my hand between my sternum and left armpit to feel where the muscle was bunching up. It took two passes to confirm the pain was BEHIND my ribs. Normally this would queue the adreneline rush, yet for some reason i didnt panic. I think i knew that if i did, my heart would stop altogether from the abrupt change of pace. I slowly got up from my desk to put myself back into bed, and close to my wife. I'd let her know calmly that something was wrong. I wasn't light-headed or dizzy at all, so i knew at least for the moment the pump was still getting oxygen through my system.

I noticed Chloe had made her way to the shower. I could groan without question. I'd let her know i wasn't "feeling well" when she was drying off. The pain didn't subside, and when i bent over to crawl under the sheets, something tried to punch its way out of my ribcage. This must be what the John Hurt character went through in Alien. It felt like my heart had suddenly sprouted thorns, turning into a burr that you usually have to pluck from your socks after walking through a country field, except this time it was my insides that had latched on to every adjascent organ. I tried to scream, but my body wouldn't let me. I collapsed face first into bed, my legs hanging off the edge below the knees.

I managed to roll myself onto my back and sit up. I saw stars and flashes of white light. Funny those cartoons i grew up on were based on some reals experiences of pain from the animators. Thankfully, for some reason sitting straight up allowed for the least intense pain. I talked to myself, "This sucks. I'd better talk to Chloe before i can't anymore."

I somehow made my way into the restroom, feigning like i had to pee. "Honey, don't be startled, but my chest hurts pretty bad." She stared back at me with her mouth agape through the fogged glass. Even while fighting off pain as if my heart had burst into flame while in a vice, i couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was.

I don't remember much of what happened in the next half hour or so. I do remember trying to be as funny and charming as possible, so my wife didn't panic, and i think it worked. I also remember knowing that I needed her to take me to the emergency room and right away. Our first hospital stop was at the wrong hospital! One without an emergency room and more of a medical center - Good Samaritan Mission Oaks. 15 minutes later, i was in the Emergency room of Good Samaritan Hospital being wheeled back to get an EKG.

The triage nurse pasted the sensors to 12 points over my body, including my calves. The glue was ice cold and felt like jelly. "Now i know how you revive a heartbeat with those paddles. You shock the patient by freezing them." She laughed. Chloe got pissed, i could tell she was scared.

"Stop cracking jokes and just be a patient." There's something to be said for the disarming power of humor. And although i was in the worst pain i have ever experienced, i still had a smile, and wasn't freaking out. I winked at her, i dont think she saw.

They ruled out my heart almost immediately. Heart OK. Good. What the hell is going on then?

I spent the next 6 hours being wheeled around in a hospital bed hooked up to countless tubes and machines going through a number of tests to rule out virus, broken bones, weird growths, trauma, anxiety, allergic reaction to medication, yadda yadda yadda and on and on and on. "Would someone PLEASE give me a pill or shot or SOMETHING to kill the pain. Cut me open and get it out!" The Radiology technician made a mistake on his first run of x-rays, so i had to do double duty of getting up and lying back down. He's not on my favorite persons list.

At the end of the day, the doctor didn't know exactly what it was. He had a few diagnosis', a number of possibilities, and most of them had to do with tearing and or inflamation of musculature on the inside of my ribcage, the membrane around my heart and lungs, or the flesh between my ribs. Painful? Yes. Kill me? Not likely. Since it isn't anything life threatening but it still feels like i'm going to die, he was sure to discharge me with a prescription strong enough to make Tim Leary and Hunter S. Thompson feel like college freshmen trying pot for the first time.

My favortie part of the day was leaving, not because i was finally getting out of there, but a funny predicament i found myself in while removing the EKG sensors. Here i was, lying in a prone position, naked in my hospital robe and in the worst pain i've ever experienced. The doctor had just given me some drugs, and they were starting to take, brushing the edge off so it didn't feel like a ball of barbed wire lodged between my lungs. The nusre started to remove the sensors as i was signing my release papers. I didn't think anything could top the pain i was already in. "YEEEEOUCH!" i yelped. I then laughed. "OWWWW!" Again. The impomptu chest wax wasn't expected, thus the laugh. BOTH of these things intesified my already existing pain. She left them on and i finally pulled them entirely off later that evening. Funny Stuff.

I'll be out of it the next couple of days, convelescing and doped up so much i dont even recognize my own face in the mirror. If at any point it gets worse, i go directly back to the hospital. Right now the pain is only moderate, but then again i'm sure that's due the heroic doses of industrial strength drugs. There's more warning labels on the bottles than there were on my TV.

Shitty Kitty - Chapter 2: Attack of the Sphincter

Early in the morning, i can feel the kittens climbing up the side of the bed and tugging at the comforter. They slowly make thier way up to our heads, purring softly and being oh so cutesey. "Meeyowr."

They prod at my face, purring and burying thier heads into my chest and shoulders. Their masks of black fur, their white whiskers jutting out like silken threads, and thier dirty assholes exposed and stinking of shit.

I need to purchase them some kitty underwear. Chloe mentioned we can wipe their little shitty kitty sphincters with baby wipes. We could just train them to walk around with their tails down. In any case, i cannot forgive it. I can only comprimise the kitty ass with their cuteness, and live with it.

Shitty Kitty - Chapter 1

My kittens are damned cute. I hate them. I'm not much of a cat guy, but i can't resist their tactical cuteness - taking the indirect path to my heart.

For example, the velociraptor attack - when they clench down on your hand and wrist with their teeth and front paws, while they attempt to gut your forearm by slicing at you repeatedly with razor sharp thrusting rear kicks. Most would be prone to taking swift action to prevent this behavior. I on the other hand, support and promote it. Who am i to stop a million years of instinct? Besides, rewarding their behavior with treats or simple petting will help me feel secure against possible intruders. After taking a look at my arms I know Kitty will fuckem up.

Or Kaga, this morning pushing her way into the restroom while i was relieving myself of a load. I saw her opening the door and didnt think much of it. I went back behind my magazine to fantasize over the centerfold. When i set down Miss October this is the view i had. Insert any number of "pussy" + "my underwear" jokes or puns here. It's too easy for me to make the effort.

More Shitty Kitty coming soon. Next time, Attack of the Sphincter.

Kimberlyn Ann... McGinty?

Kim got married!

I can't express in words how happy i am that she tied the knot, and to someone who truly loves her. So i won't.

The food was good, and i need to find the baker because the cake kicked arse.

I'm glad i finally got to know Kim's friend Millie a bit better, that's one rad chick. She's even more outlandish than i am. And when we were attempting to leave, she just continued to tell us how rad we were. I don't know where that came from - i was drunk and am sure i insulted everyone at the table at least once.

Her date looked just like the guy who played Tom Collins in Rent.

Jason and Eric were both there, so the conversation inevitably turned to sex. I talked about Kim deep-throating an ice-cream sandwich. Chloe talked about her mentor Ms. Satanica pressing her naked breasts into broken glass. And Jason topped it all off with his Japanese experience which consisted of a nine-story porn video empire, Manga characters, two dogs and diarrhea.

Putrescence Yams

Opening day for wifey's store was awesome. There were no fewer than 20 people in the store for the whole 6 hours I was there. I just sat in the front window and watched the flow of knit heads.

I missed Bruce, who came in just after i left for home to take a shit and get ready for a wedding.

The Reverend Dan, Sulekha and Eduardo all came in to give their respective blessings.

Only good things are going to happen for those girls.

(This edit is to give D.B. credit for the title. Thanks DB!)

The blog that didnt make it.

I deleted the previous entry here. It seems that i may have been a bit honest with the internal workings of my brain. In reading it again after a good night's sleep, i could see where men in all white would be at my front door on monday, waiting to fit me for a jacket that fastened up the back locked together with the sleeves.

Whoops.

It also helps that my wife has this uncanny ability to put things into persepctive. A skill she's honed in her marraige to me. I read her a short passage i thought was especially clever, and she gave me "the Look."

"Um, my mom is going to read this."

"Oh yeah, huh."

I'm prone to being a bit odd. But with this ability to now sit and stew in it for a bit before it finds it's way into a written form of communication, it's festered into a giant boil of misunderstanding and chaos. It's OK to be critical of the mundane and nonchalant about the unthinkable, but once it's in print someone is bound to use it against you in a court of law, or to get you commited.

Here's the only portion tame enough to survive for public consumption. Fill in the rest however you wish. I assure you it wont even come close to what followed. Enjoy.

The full moon keeps pace with the car. Lunatics. Eddie is with his wife, late on a Saturday and wonders who or what is going to come out of a random dimensional rift opening on the overpass ahead of them. Maybe it'll be pre-Charmed Rose McGowan. He thinks of his mom and her tales of superstition. "Don't look at a full moon through a closed window." He accepts this with no question, and still doesn't have an explanation as the expected underlying analogy escapes him. He thinks about a woman on a gurney at the turn of the century with a doctor applying a vibrator between her legs. It cures hysteria. His mind is all over the place. Something is going to happen. The moon is still in tow, like a balloon tied to his wrist.