Random thoughts before the storm

I am awaiting the Maui pictures before I post much about the trip. Also, there will be a video cataloging the experience. You will be entertained.

Right now, let's go over some random thoughts of late. One of these was my friends telling me I would be a great stand up comic of sorts. I was musing about this because when the car/room/group is silent, I am constantly racking my brain for jokes. One liner, punch-line type jokes but I find I am not terribly brilliant at inventing these on my own, and reciting jokes created by others is somewhat less satisfying. For example ... "What is George W. Bush's stance on Roe vs. Wade? He doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans!". Brilliant, but not mine. The most I come up with is some elaborate pun. My friends though said, "Your funny bits are your stories, not your jokes." I think they are right. I began to tell them the story of how I went on a date with a dwarf. Not just a date either ... yeah, I went there. It's a true story too! My years in the military and in the goth scene have given me a lot of material of that sort. I don't even embellish the stories, it's just in how I tell them I guess. So I am going to think a little more about that. Not being a stand-up comic mind you, but maybe in what I think and talk about to be amusing. I'll drop the jokes and maybe work a little on the comedy style to slant toward story telling and do some reading on how to deliver that style of comedy well.

I was thinking about pizza lately. Did you like that segue? Here's the thing. When you are with a group of people and you are hungry, the worst thing you can do to make yourself happy is order a pizza. It arrives and for some reason, everyone thinks because it comes in convenient slices that don't require eating apparatus, it belongs to everyone. The really generous people will toss your $3 which seems to grant them free reign of your $28 + $5 tip pizza. In the end, you get to fight for maybe 4 slices of that bad boy while everyone else in the room is glad you were the one hungry enough to order pizza before they did. I have the solution! My friends Jeff, Kevin and Julio recently discovered that (edit)*extra cheese, jalapenos, mushrooms, kalamata olives and anchovies* go great together. It occurs to me however that the combination would probably send the average person running to barf in the nearest flower pot. Sprinkle some hot peppers on that pie and you can leave it out on the counter and safely refill your beer without fear that you'll come back to the last lonely slice mocking you from the middle of the greasy cardboard. I know I have done this with other forms of food as well, "Sure you can try my chili. It's made with 12 parts capsicum and one part love." The fact that not everyone likes Belgian style beers does not go unnoticed as one of its positive qualities. Is this perhaps why people eat fermented cabbage and goat testicles? I am starting to think so.

In other news, if I have this weekend free I am planning on doing Spring cleaning. I know it's not Spring but I can never tell the seasons apart in Santa Cruz. The goal is to:

A) Clean my filthy apartment.
B) Throw away, sell, give away or donate stuff that I don't need.
C) Put in storage or indefinitely lend out stuff that won't fit on a boat.

I should have a list of things in categories 'B' and 'C' posted up here after I am done so everyone can offer to buy or take stuff.

One major problem I am going to have is the Black Shenanigan. I am trading a fake boat for a real one and I don't know what to do with the four palettes, masts and sails, rebar and ropes that make her up. I would like people to mail me suggestions on how to resolve this situation. Be creative. Keep in mind I will have access to a real boat so there we might be able to work that into the next Santa Cruz Pirate Fest somehow. Does someone know of a private beach that can be rented? A public beach that can be camped on? Let me know!

-Aaron