U NO ME?

Feel free to contact me

I get texts sent to my Google Voice account by mistake once in a while. Here I share with you how I respond to these.

Unknown participant: So wyd

Me: I am. And this is my faithful servant, Patsy.

Unknown participant: ?

Me: Whose castle is this?

Unknown participant: Who is this?

Me: really?

Unknown participant: Yes

Me: I'm the captain of the gravy train

Unknown participant: Your not funny

Me: You can't spell

Repentant soul: Mark im really really sorry for everything I have done! I feel so bad. Can you please forgive me?

Me: Who is this?

Repentant soul: Nevermind

Repentant soul: U probably wouldn't forgive me anyways

Me: What did you do?

Repentant soul: I said nevermind

Me: Ha! Ok. Check this out: >KO)-> USB Dongle Goblin! Woot!

Repentant soul: Thats pretty tight

Three days later...

Repentant soul: Hey!:)

Me: Word!

Repentant soul: Whats up homey!

Me: G dog slice skillet of my biscuit!

Repentant soul: Huh dawg?

Me: what's the flava?

Repentant soul: Chocolate. Wht abot u homey? And why cant u get pictures G?

Me: s'coo bro. I can't get pictures?

Repentant soul: I was goin with your G status talking. Im a gurl:P

Me: no one said otherwise. Watch dis -> :@P Fat nose! Dats me lawl

Repentant soul: Yeah u do hve a big nose;)

Me: ok, i'm thinking of a person. you have 20 questions (yes/no) to figure out who

Repentant soul: K

90 minutes later...

Repentant soul: I just had an ice cream fight at golden corral!!! It was awesome!

Me: new!

Repentant soul: U should try!

Me: I just got to the golden corral (nick of time! they close at 10 i think). I hope this ice cream fighting is all it's cracked up to be

Me: I got kicked out of the GC! I asked them where the ice cream fight was and they asked me to leave.

Crime and Punishment (but mostly crime)

Mmm, raspberries.

Growing up, there was a woman in our neighborhood whose self-appointed duty was to make life miserable for anyone younger than 18. She was a rumor-monger and loved to pass on gossipy bits to anyone who would listen regardless of how unlikely the rumors were. If she caught you doorbell-ditching her house, she would make you come pull weeds out of her garden. Apparently she didn't realize that by affixing a punishment she drew many more ditching attempts because now there was an actual thrill involved - to avoid the danger of being caught. Gordon and Seth and I came up with the world's greatest doorbell ditching method and we used it on her numerous times without repercussion. We each took a large crab-apple from a nearby tree and threw them one after another. The crab-apples arrived at her door within a fraction of a second of each other and gave the appearance of someone knocking on the door. But now we had the advantage of already being 50 feet away from the door, providing us additional valuable seconds in our escape. We did this at every opportunity.

One day I was at home alone and the phone rang. When I answered, it was this woman. She asked to speak to my mother. I told her she was not home. She called back very soon thereafter and asked to speak to my mother again. I told her she still wasn't home and I didn't know when she would be back. Within ten minutes, she called back again. I told her that no, my mother STILL wasn't home and she asked me to take a message. She asked me to tell my mother that she had seen Gordon behind Storehouse Market throwing dirt clods at the fence. I nodded to myself. Dirt clods. At an old wooden fence. Crisis. It's really no wonder she was desperate to get through to my mother. I hung up after assuring her that I would indeed pass along the vital information. Which I did not.

Aiding and abetting, it's what I do.

Three and a half books

My library is customer service oriented

Among the benefits of living in a small town is the delight of using a small town public library. Let me tell you about mine. When you first approach the doors to the library there are better than even odds you will be met by a sign saying that the computer system is down and the library is closed. Due to the frequency with which I've seen this sign, I believe what it really means is "We're tired of your crap and are taking the rest of the day off."

I've gathered that the prevailing attitude of library employees is "irritated" because there are signs plastered all over the interior of the library with such aggressive statements as "NO CELL PHONES IN THE LIBRARY!!!!" (Really? Will they interfere with your delicate electronics? Gotta be bugged by cell phones. You are not dumb!) and "DO NOT LEAVE CHILDREN UNATTENDED!!!!" For the benefit of you, the reader, I have been conservative with my usage of exclamation points. In actuality there are many more.

I hope you are getting an idea of how RN this place is. My daughter was preparing a bibliography for a school report and had neglected to get the page count from a book at the library that she had used as a reference. I don't know why the page count is required, but I called the library to ask for help. I told the librarian the name of the reference book and asked if she would tell me how many pages were in it. Here is her response: "Let me get this straight. You want me to count every single page in that book so I can tell you how many pages are in it?!"

Attention Payson City Library employees: There is this new contraption they've started using in books. It's called "page numbers." It's kinda neat because you can tell your friends "Look on page 347 for some interesting bit of info" and your friends no longer have to count all the pages starting at one on up to 347 to know which page you're talking about. They merely scan through the book until they find the page with the number 347 at the bottom and then they know they have found the page they were after. Here's a fascinating trick: If you go to the last page in the book and look at that page number, that's how many pages are in the book! Cool, huh?

"Yes. Please count all the pages in this encyclopedia for me. I'll wait right here."

Does the title of a post matter?

What the crap is this?

Have you ever been in a Doctor's office? Have you ever read a magazine article? Do you have a magazine subscription of your very own? Have you ever noticed that sometimes articles have a title which is phrased as a question? Have you ever read an article with a question for a title that didn't end up asking more questions than it answered? Would you believe that I haven't? Can you guess how I feel about these kinds of articles?

Does Obama eat fried pork skins in private? Is computer AI on the verge of enslaving humanity? Is the moon a giant space creature's skull? Does eating granulated flax unguent increase one's lifespan? Does it? Do you have to read the article to know that when you're finished reading, you still won't know the truth?

Can anyone point me to an article of this kind that does anything but manipulate its readers into a certain point of view? Or that consists of any amount of substance? What is the point of reading an article with a question for a title? Am I the only one who prefers enlightenment to fear, uncertainty and doubt?

Blood Sausage

Slop is good food

One time I was on a mission to the Dominican Republic. My companion and I went to visit a recent convert and her mother was in the "kitchen" making blood sausage. This is how it is made. Take a pig's poop chute and everything attached to it and put it in an enormous bowl on the floor. Add some water of questionable potability. Slosh the intestines around in the water for a while in a vain attempt to remove things that are disgusting. Now take the open end of the intestines and place the opening around your mouth. If this is starting to sound revolting to you, just relax, breathe deeply and keep in mind that the end product will be blood sausage. That should keep you going. Now that you have the opening of a pigs intestine wrapped around your lips, inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth into the intestine in order to inflate it like a balloon. Continue this process for a while. Soon you will have inflated intestines leading from your mouth, to the large bowl on the floor which still has approximately 43 miles of intestines to fill with air (depending on your height). Now, take the blood which came from the pig as it was being slaughtered and which any sane individual would recognize as being worth collecting. Pour this blood into the open end of the intestine which you have now peeled away from your mouth. It will go into the air-filled intestine where it will soon clot. Yes, clot. Tie off the ends of the intestine. Once clotted, you can put your soon to be delicious blood sausage in hot water and boil it. Please, now enjoy your homemade treat. You were following along, right?

I thought it would make a fantastic photograph with me pretending to blow air into a pig intestine, so, with the permission of the woman making the treat, I took the intestine in my hands and brought it near (not touching) my face. (Okay, I accidentally did get a tiny bit on my face.) My companion took the photo and I handed the previously manure filled flesh sack back to its owner. It stunk. It really stunk. Have you been around pigs? If not you have no understanding of the degree to which it stunk. And now it was on my hands. I went to a water source with some soap and I washed my hands. They still stunk. I ended up washing my hands about 8 times. But that stink would not leave my hands for 4 days.

Fame

I don't know how you feel about emoticons. My guess is that you despise them or have no idea what I'm talking about. I realize that there is a strong pre-pubescent stigma associated with emoticons but I know their true history and armed with that knowledge I use them to help communicate. For instance, if I were to mention to you that I had just eaten some guacamole by accident then I would want you to understand that doing so makes me feel slant-mouthed so I would type this.. :/
I can't believe you don't know what emoticons are. OK, I'll tell you, but I feel like I'm tooting my own horn here because if you didn't know, Paul and I invented emoticons. Emoticons are typed characters that represent a face in the attitude of expressing an emotion. Also, the face is turned on its side. Turn your head to the left 90 degrees to read the next few lines:

:) <- happy
:( <- sad
:P <- poking my tongue out at you
:/ <- slant mouthed

There aren't any more than that because think about it. Slant mouth says it all, really. Ok, so you've probably already heard about how Paul and I put a big white letter "Y" on the side of a mountain in Provo when we got confused trying to write "Cool guys" on the mountain. You've also probably heard about how we invented instant messaging. I imagine you've had quite a few moments of smug superiority telling people "I know the guys that invented IM." I don't blame you. Well, since you've never heard of emoticons, I'm guessing you also haven't heard about how they were invented by Paul and me. And since you don't know what they are, you're still probably more pleased with yourself for knowing the inventors of IM (and maybe a little bit as the guys who put the Y up there on that mountain). I'll fill you in. So after we invented IM we were messaging each other and Paul said something that made me smile so I typed back to him "<smile>". That happened several times before I responded, "<smile> is too many characters. I need a shortcut. So from now on, this means <smile> -> :)" He thought the arrow pointing to the smile was part of the smile and for a while there was some miscommunication because he thought the smile looked rather evil. see? >:) <- Evil smile. Once we got that cleared up he really liked the idea and added the frowny face to the collection. Now we could always quickly notify the other how his previous statement made us feel. But then one time he told me he was eating nachos and I couldn't have any. This made me feel sad, but also a little cheeky, so I invented the tongue poking out emoticon and sent it to him. At first he thought it meant that I was drooling over his nachos. Next came slant mouth which we believe is self-evident. So there you have it. The history of emoticons in a nutshell. So the mere fact that sloppy and uneducated children use emoticons fervently should not dissuade you from accepting them for their ability to convey feelings via an emotionally neutral medium like text.

Book Review: Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Is he very bad? Is he very tough? Is he very formidable? Is he very? No, not very.

When I got this book I felt anticipation to begin reading it because it is long and I tend to like long novels. The paperback is 1152 pages. It was soon after I began reading that I realized the mistake I had made in thinking the length of the book somehow contributed to its enjoyability and value.

Six pages are dedicated to describing the mathematics involved when one of the characters calculates precisely how long he can ride his bicycle before a broken spoke will interfere with a weak link in the bicycle chain. Is that very interesting? Are six full pages required to convey the importance of this issue which is never referenced at any time later in the book?

Ten pages are used when some of the characters succeed in hacking a colleague's laptop and read a document about the victim's passion for women's stockings. Ten pages of the victim describing how important stockings are to his libido. Ten. Again, this distraction is of the utmost unimportance. It is never referenced again.

Mr. Stephenson fills six pages describing a main character's interaction with his favorite food, Cap'n Crunch, and provides arduous detail about the use of ice cold milk in conjunction with the cereal. Six pages.

How interested am I in doing complex math problems in my leisure time? Lots, if Neal Stephenson doesn't miss his guess. There are significant and numerous formulas included throughout the book.

Does this clear some things up for you? Next time you're looking for the better deal between two options at the grocery store, pull this handy formula out. You're welcome.

Summary: Neat things happen to some people in WWII. Alternating chapters describe neat things that happen to the descendants of the WWII characters. It all comes together in the end for a hearty conclusion with RN things happening to the RN people you have come to... uh... distinguish.

But at the end of the day, you can open the back flap of the book and see the author's awesome photograph and realize.

Numba One Fan

My niece Sienna is my number one fan. She thoroughly enjoys the Low Quality Theme song. While Sasha was babysitting her on New Years Eve Sienna led Sasha to the computer and requested the Low Quality Theme repeatedly but unfortunately for Sienna, Sasha didn't understand her at first. Finally Sasha realized and was able to record Sienna saying "quality." Here, I incorporate that snippet into the original for a fun remix:

I am a musician

I found this fun site that makes it easy to create cool little songs. With this, my second song, I am now what I consider a full blown musician. (Click unmute to hear)

St. Croix - Day 2

Tiffany called the airport to find out whether our flight was cancelled and was told it was still scheduled. We checked out of the mart with Anne asking for and receiving the "Stuck-in-the-elevator discount" of ten dollars. Thumbs up, Miami Mart. I'm looking forward to our next evening together. While we were waiting for the shuttle to depart, Tiffany called home to check on her little ladies. She greeted them with an exuberant "Hi!" which our shuttle driver mistook as being directed at him. He responded with a "hello" and when Tiffany asked her girls with gusto "How are you?" the driver responded that he was fine, thank you. Then he made his way away from the bus and we all laughed.

We took the Shuttle Mart back to the Airport Mart where we intended to find a McDonald's Mart for breakfast since the Miami Mart restaurant was so incredibly priced. So we checked our bags and went through security yet again only to discover that the American Airlines terminal at Airport Mart offered the options of Au Bon Pain and Au Bon Pain as places to purchase food at stupefying prices. I think Au Bon Pain is French for "To The Great Pain." I feel confident in this assesment.

After boarding the plane to St. Croix, Anne and I watched "50 First Dates" on Tiffany's DVD player while Tiffany and Ryan probably made out or something. That reminds me of the time when Sasha drove us to the airport in SLC the day before and I will relate that story now: Anne was excited with the prospect that we would all be sitting near each other on the plane so that if we became bored with the conversation of one of us, we could merely turn to someone else and initiate a (hopefully) better conversation. Ryan referred to this as being "verbal swingers." Then we passed a sign that said "Road Closed" but the word "Road" was on a sticker that had been pasted to the sign. I wondered aloud why such a thing might have happened and the general consensus was that "Road" been misspelled on the sign originally and UDOT had created a sticker to fix it. That set me off on an imaginary dialog between the people involved in the misspelling fiasco: "You'd better order some more of those 'Road' stickers. JimBob is making signs again."

Back on the airplane, we rode it for somewhere in the vicinity of 2 hours and then arrived in St. Croix. When Tiffany called Gordon from Miami to tell him our flight information, he told her that he wouldn't be able to pick us up at the airport because the hurricane had blown trees and branches down all along the road that leads to his house on the hill. But with the use of his machete and an exceptional amount of diligence, Gordon managed to clear the road and make it to the airport to get us.

Erin models a coconut. Gordon enjoys.

He took us to the supermarket to pick up some essentials because a curfew was going into effect at 6:00 that night. The curfew was in place to prevent looting in the aftermath of the hurricane. We got a few things and then we were on our way to The Pink Fancy. The hurricane had done some damage to the hotel and there was no power. Furthermore, some kind of state of emergency had been declared and hotels were being urged to provide rooms to people displaced by the hurricane. This all added up to the four of us sharing a room. Anne and I got the air mattress.

The coconut is presented to a willing participant

The coconut makes another appearance, this time making bunny ears behind my head. Ridiculous.

Dinner that night was provided by the Pink Fancy - kind of a spontaneous pulling together of the community to take care of each other. It was lots of fun. Anne and I met Gordon's fiancée Erin for the first time. She is very nice and took great care of us. She was at the hotel helping to prepare a room for us while Gordon was getting us at the airport.

Anne does "The Robot" in fulfillment of her "Dare"

Playing cards in our shared room.

After dinner we went to our room and played Truth or Dare by gas lamp light. Playing this game as adults is somewhat not as intriguing as it was when I was a teenager. That lasted about 2 rounds and then we played cards. It was hot. I was reminded strongly of my time in the D.R. Gordon and Erin went home well after the curfew went into place. I was concerned for them because we weren't sure what would happen if they were stopped by the police. But they made it home without encountering anyone. We slept to the enchanting sound of stray roosters crowing into the warm tropical night, each successive rooster doing his best to ensure our understanding that his crow was superior to that of his predecessor.

St. Croix - Day 1

St. Croix

I went to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands with my wife and Tiffany and her husband Ryan. Gordon lives there so we decided it would be great to visit with him there and let him show us his world.

Day 1

We left on Wednesday, Oct 15. This day turned out to coincide with hurricane Omar, which passed directly over St. Croix. After checking our luggage at the airport we received a frantic phone call from Haylee. The airline had called her and told her our flights had been cancelled due to the hurricane. We told her not to worry about it since we were at the airport and would figure it out. We were surprised the woman who checked our bags hadn't mentioned anything about our flights being cancelled. At security Anne and I learned that we had been given receipts for our luggage in lieu of boarding passes so we had to go back to the ticket counter to get boarding passes. We asked her about our cancelled flights and she told us that we would be staying the night in Dallas and we'd get flights throughout the next days that would put us in St. Croix on Friday. When we got to the gate we talked to the woman there about our cancelled flights. It's all a blur now, but in essence we talked to three people at two different airports before we came up with a satisfactory solution. The side-effect of all this was that we would have to claim and re-check our baggage at all stops on our way to St. Croix. This meant going through security at each stop as well. We flew from SLC to Dallas to Miami where we would spend the night hoping the hurricane would pass. When we arrived in Miami we were given discount vouchers to spend the night at Miami Mart. Let me say that again: Miami Mart. We figured we might be spending the night in aisle 14, next to the breakfast cereals and Slurpee dispenser. To our surprise, Miami Mart turned out to be a hotel rather than a convenience store. I didn't see even a hint of a fuel pump. We checked in and began the process of enjoying the "hospitality" of $3/bottle of water, non-complimentary internet access, non-complimentary local phone calls and non-complimentary continental breakfast. The breakfast menu listed a glass of OJ at $5. In Florida. We called a local pizza joint and ordered a pizza and some Key Lime pie and a few minutes later we got a call from the lobby telling us the pizza had arrived. Anne went down to pick it up and the rest of us waited. And waited. After about 30 minutes we decided something must be wrong and where the heck was our pizza? Ryan went in search of Anne and came back a few moments later with the surprising news that Anne was stuck in the elevator.

Anne is victorious over the subjugating elevator car

I ran to the elevator to find that Anne was inside the elevator and the doors were open about 1/2 inch. She was sitting down in the elevator car and eating a piece of pizza. She told me that the staff was working on resetting the elevator, that they had tried once before and failed. A few seconds later the elevator started moving up and I thought "Oh, no. What's happening now?" Then Anne came out of another elevator. It was like magic! We went back to the room to discover that we had been given cheesecake instead of key lime pie. So we called the pizza place again and they said they would bring two pieces of key lime pie. They never did. We watched the Weather Channel for news about the hurricane which had by then been upgraded to a Category 3. Then we went to bed. Note: Queen size beds at the Miami Mart aren't really queen size. They are full.

Pancakes (Episode 3)

Written and directed by Emma

My very first musical composition

You'll want to put these on before you listen

Clear out your playlist and make room for awesome. I just finished my first ever musical composition and I want to share it with my loyal fans. Download this and put your music player on repeat and you will never need to worry again about what to listen to next.

There is potential for blogging this under "Low Quality" but it took far too much of my time to be relegated to that hotspot. After listening, I think you will agree that I chose wisely by placing it here.

Greeting Card

Tonight I took my family out for fun times and good... times. I invited Mandi and her family to join us for awesome times, but she made up a quick lie and declined. She missed out on more than just outstanding company. After some errands we went out to dinner at Burger Supreme. I had the cheeseburger with fries. Then we went to Nickelcade which I have been told is for losers. Perhaps, but there is something about that hippety frog race game that keeps me going back for more. After we each shelled out a couple dollars in nickels and exchanged our hard earned tickets for trinkets of abiding value, we headed off to Coney's Frozen Custard with high hopes for a non-terrible daily flavor. I have a theory that Coney's saves their awful flavors for the weekend when they know people are going to come in anyway. If you are unaware of Coney's, here's the deal: They sell frozen custard and it is really good. Each day you have your choice of Chocolate, Vanilla or the flavor of the day. Some days they have awesome flavors like Dreamsicle or Lemon Chiffon and some days they have terrible flavors like Banana cream pie or Grodelated Walnut. Today's flavor was Caramel Cashew. I would have preferred raspberry or coconut cream but caramel cashew was acceptable. Inside the store we saw that their freezer had some strawberry cheesecake frozen custard from a few days before and we decided to purchase a quart of that instead of the caramel cashew. While Anne was paying for the custard, I filled my cup with water and a man came into

It's fortunate I had my cell phone so I could snap this shot

Coney's and was waiting behind Anne in line. When we sat down to eat the custard, I told Anne I thought the man in line was Orson Scott Card and she immediately got up and went over to him and asked him if he was. He acknowledged that he was indeed! I went over to talk to him for a moment and he said that I made his day by recognizing him. He was very kind and I tried to be courteous of his time by not gushing and telling him how much I love everything he's ever written. It was an exciting experience for me and I'm happy to have met him, even if it was briefly.

I'm the only one

This is a video of Emma eating breakfast. Isn't she adorable? Please focus on the dialog between Haylee and myself. Children are the best!

Spring Break 2008

On our way to Pagosa Springs we were attacked by this gigantic spider. It was a portent.

While in Pagosa, we dwelt in this architecturally ambiguous "house." The kids called it the mushroom.

I found this squirrel stealing bird food. He and I shared a good chuckle.

We shared the pool with the local swim team which meant that we got kicked out at different times each day for different lengths of time. Oh, also we were given a limited number of passes for pool use, which meant that when we got kicked out we couldn't come back later. Hospitality.

I swear there was a plague of geese. This pair had learned to honk some song by Patsy Cline. I can't recall the name of it. Weird!

Pagosa Springs, as everyone knows, is just plain famous for its hot mineral springs. Oh, excuse me - its hot, therapeutic, healing mineral springs. The look on my kids faces is indicative of how much they enjoyed the smell and the anticipation they felt at the prospect of bathing in the springs.

We went to Mesa Verde to view the cliff dwellings there. That's me in the red hat.

To exit the cliff dwelling area we used these wooden ladders.

We were allowed to climb down into this reconstructed kiva. That ladder was seriously about 8 feet tall.

The P (Part 1)

Thank you for calling Cineplex-Odeon/Plitt's Paramount Theater located at 61 East Center in Provo

My first job was in a theater in Provo called The Paramount. We affectionately referred to it as "The P." It was built as a playhouse and was later turned into a movie theater and so it had incredible character. It had a balcony, a stage, dressing rooms, catwalks, a basement, and trap doors. This building was fantastic. My duties included selling and taking tickets, selling concessions, cleaning, and preventing a grubby gypsy child from stealing candy. Paul worked there too, under the nom de plume "Bar." Though he wasn't an "official" employee that, say, "took home a paycheck," Paul worked for the sheer satisfaction of being inside the magnificent structure. And for free popcorn, admittance, and movie posters.

On Thursday nights it was often necessary to change the marquee after closing. We used a very wobbly ladder which was too short and required that another person be at the bottom to hold it steady and which also required the disregard for the strong warning encouraging users to "NEVER STAND ON THE TOP TWO RUNGS." Upstairs, beside the office, was a large room full of big plastic red letters. Most of them were useless having had their hooks broken off years before. Once while I was trying to come up with an ingenious way to spell "Empire of the Sun" (two times, one for each side of the marquee) with the abridged collection of available letters, I came upon a miniature letter-sign that said "IN COLOR" and I promptly incorporated it. The manager failed to see the humor and made me take it down.

I believe that The P truly imbued me with superhuman abilities. For instance, one time I had been talking to the ticket sales person and turned around to walk back to the concessions counter. The ticket salesman threw a broken crayon at my back and that very instant I turned around and in a split second I noticed the projectile coming toward me and grabbed it from the air.

Please, shed a tear with me now in remembrance of that noble structure which has since been torn down and turned into a parking lot.

Tune in next time for part 2 when Paul drinks straight from the soda fountain and I ingest a half pound of melted butter!

Update

Nacho Libre is my favorite movie. What do I know about roller derby? Coconuts do not reside on ocean floors. Sherri is slightly older than me. Ok, I updated.

Six or Seven generally unknown things about me - IN MULTIMEDIA!

1) It bugs me when people use the word "download" improperly. Download means to copy from a remote computer to a local computer. It is not synonymous with "install", "transfer", "copy", "eat", "defecate" or "pounce upon" and those who use it as such stink on toast.

2) Sometimes I say "stink on toast."

3) I'm not a bad singer. Take a listen to this and this as evidence. Furthermore, I've never had a lesson.

4) I do not get headaches. But I have had Scabies. If you think that's gross,

5) I watch porn (if you consider Flight of the Conchords pornographic). Visit this link if you think you have the stomach for it. (Hint: Not porn)

6) This is what I will look like when I am bald.



7) I'm pretty much the best person I know at Photoshop.

I tag Big Jason and Sasha.



You can read the post where I got tagged here.

Movie Night

If you are easily upset by the sight of blood then do not look at any blood while reading this blog entry. Caution: The previous statement. You have been warned.

One day Paul invited me to go see the film The Count of Monte Cristo at the dollar theater. He even offered to pay. Thanks Paul. The End. Except that it isn't. If that were the end then this story would be not dumb and I assure you that this story IS NOT DUMB. This story occurred on a Friday night. Friday nights at the dollar movie theater are circumnavigational in that you have to drive around the parking lot numerous times (if you are a dork-o-matic lazy good for nothing crybaby) in order to find a good parking spot (instead of just parking further away and walking - lamquen! exercise!). Apparently Paul is a dork-o-matic lazy good for nothing crybaby because rather than parking further away he decided to park his car in the parking lot of the rock climbing establishment next door taking special care to disregard the numerous (many) and threatening signs posted at 4 foot intervals stating that cars parked here by movie-going patrons would be towed. I pointed out that he stood a good chance of getting towed if he left his car there, for the signs had not gone unnoticed by myself. He assured me that he had seen the signs and was aware of the risk but felt that it was minor. I tried (honestly, Mandi, I TRIED) to convince him that this was a bad idea and that I certainly didn't mind walking 200 extra yards in order to park in the safety of the somewhere else. Paul would have none of it and proceeded to the ticket booth. This was the opening night of Count of Monte Cristo at the dollar theater and it being a college town, it was not surprising to note that the show had sold out. It was surprising however to hear Paul ask the ticket attendant for two tickets to A Walk to Remember, a heartwarming film starring the appropriately named Mandy Moore which had the only benefit of not being sold out. I thought Paul had lost his mind. I was certainly not interested in spending a lovely evening cuddling with the present company and crying into each other's shoulders. When I asked Paul what the devil was going on he told me to shut it off and walked purposefully toward the ticket taker who told us our film was being shown in theater 3. Paul walked directly and in the opposite direction toward theater 5 where The Count of Monte Cristo was showing and where another theater employee was stationed to check tickets and ensure that no one snuck into the show. Paul gladly showed him his ticket as he walked past him quickly into the theater and as I passed the sentryman I mumbled "I'm with him." Phew! We watched and enjoyed the movie from this point onward until it ended.

Afterward, we walked back to the car to discover that it had been booted. I looked at Paul's face and laughed and laughed until he finally admitted he was so not cool. The tow company employee who had placed the boot on the car approached us. Apparently he had been waiting in his car for us to show up. He explained that he would remove the boot after being paid a certain sum of money which neither Paul nor I had. Paul decided to call Mandi to have her come pick us up, but we didn't even have enough money for change for the pay phone, so Paul wandered around the still populated theater asking people for change. When he had accumulated enough money to place the call Mandi gratefully answered. She agreed to help, but either Paul didn't tell her to bring the checkbook or she didn't know where the checkbook was because we had to go back to Paul's house, get the checkbook and then come back to pay off the hatchet man. Mandi was unhappy about having to drive back to the theater again so I offered to drive back in my car so she could go back to bed (Yes, that's another thing. Mandi had been asleep in bed). As we drove back I tried to convince Paul that he should offer the fella a bribe, tell him he'd write a $40 check to hatchet man himself. Paul thought it would be funny but figured that it would be a bad idea since it is illegal to bribe people. oh. I kept encouraging him and explaining that bribery is not illegal until finally he agreed to give it a try. Paul tried (not very earnestly, in my opinion) to bribe tow-truck Sally, but failed. Thanks for the movie, Paul. Let's do it again soon.