Terrible Analogies

Here’s hoping that you had a nice, relaxing Valentine’s Day.  

It appears that the weatherman couldn’t have been more wrong about the forecast.  The weather was actually quite comfortable in southern California.  In between celebrating the wife’s birthday and Valentine’s Day I managed to squeeze in two trail runs in as many days.   When the rain does finally arrive I plan to spend my days in the gym, so it’s all good.

Not to get all non-sequitur on you, but for no apparent reason reason I’m been thinking about The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air recently, and something’s been bothering me about the show’s premise for the past three days.  If the Fresh Prince and his mother lived in the projects, and the Fresh Prince had an extraordinarily rich aunt who lived in a wealthy and prominent neighborhood of Los Angeles, why would his aunt let her sister live in such a squalid, dangerous location?  

It seemed that his mother and her sister were on good enough terms to let the Fresh Prince live with the aunt apparently with no conditions attached.  If they were on such good terms, why couldn’t his aunt kick a few bucks his way, helping he and his mother escape from a strangling life of targeted, criminal, gang-related violence?

I mean, here’s the aunt who’s dripping with jewelry, three self-centered kids, a powerfully-connected husband who happens to be a well-respected high-ranking judge, a smarmy butler, gardener, and an unknown number of servants lurking in the background performing a variety of tedious tasks all in an effort to keep her comfortable in the lifestyle to which she’s accustomed.  Floating in a pretentious sea of haute culture and callous celebrity, his aunt couldn’t lift the three fingers it takes to write a check that could change the life of an extremely intelligent, grounded, good-natured child that deserves the opportunity to excel beyond his wildest dreams, breaking the cycle of turbulence and strife that his family has no doubt experienced for generations?

This is, after all, family.  No?

Please tell me I’m not the only one…

Go outside during a sunny day and close you left eye. Look around.

Okay, now open your left eye and close your right. Look around again.

Left.  Right.  Left.  Right. Rinse. Repeat.

Now tell me, do you notice a slight tint of blue when looking through your left eye, and a slight tint of brown when looking through your right eye?  I’ve noticed this phenomena for I don’t know how many years now, and have often wondered if I’m the only one who’s experienced it.

…Speaking of seeing things slightly askew, try to imagine the tenth dimension:

Now try to imagine the tenth dimension as being ruled entirely by kittens riding a Roomba:

I’m sure you’ve all seen David After Dentist:

Well…here’s Chad Vader After Dentist:

This week Karin and I took a quick trip to Mitsuwa, an amazingly large and well stocked shop specializing in all things asian.  Admittedly, I like to go to this store because they stock a drink called “Calpico”.  It’s something that looks like watered down milk but tastes like an Orange Julius.  Tucked inside Mitsuwa is a cool little alcove filled with nifty Japanese baubles and doohickies, reminding me of the stores on Green Pole Road in Misawa, Japan, where I spent a fantastic three years (’92-’94) of my life and made some great friends that will forever be an important part of me (a shout out to James, Dain, smooth Kev, R. Bone, Scott, John Daley, a crazy guy called RJ, the DJ “what’s his name?”, and everyone else on the 2nd floor of the Intel dorms…).

A few doors down from Mitsuwa is what I like to consider their sister store which stocks Japanese Manga, imported CDs, and movies.  It’s quite easy to lose an hour or two wandering the isles here.

Looks like they had a run on Calpico. I don't blame them. 'Tis the nectar of the Gods. I'm a bit hesitate about their "Aloe" flavor though...

I'm still unsure what this is. Perhaps some sort of salad dressing? For whatever reason they seemed to be fascinated with eggplant and pickles at this store.

For all your pickle and chinaware needs...

Who knew Octopuses could sweat?

The candy isle! A sugar connoisseurs dream...

"Its translucent color so alluring and taste and aroma so gentle and mellow offer admiring feelings of a graceful lady." IMHO, there is no better candy description.

They're really big on the Domokuns here...

Pac-Man (?!), DragonballZ, and Domokun energy drinks. They unfortunately appeared to have been sold out of the Resident Evil drinks.

More manga books than you could shake a tentacle at...

What'd I tell ya? This is just a small portion of their book store.

Awww...sweet! They have a dedicated Toto section!

If you didn’t already know, I’m currently in the market for a new car.  The wife and I are thinking about having kids and I need to find something bigger than my Honda S2000 two-seater.

As luck would have it, while walking through the parking lot on my way to get a haircut today, I think I located the perfect vehicle.  The long search is over!  

What I stumbled across was a vehicle that holds more than four, has ample room for lugging items, would be perfect for a family getaway, and has a custom paint job.  

This vehicle was, to put it mildly, a work of art.  It’s a shame I was unable to track down the owner to offer cash-in-hand for this custom ride…

It was obvious that the owner poured his heart and soul into this creation

I'm assuming that the owner of this van is of Spanish descent, loves rock-n-roll, and has a penchant for gnawing on license plates. Ya know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this van belongs to my old high school prom date...

Have you seen this suspect?  If so, contact the authorities immediately!  Rodney Stanger is to be considered armed and…dangerous?

…and before I forget, congrats go out to the Steelers on winning Super Bowl 43.  It’s lucky that the final sack of Warner wasn’t reviewed.  To me it looked like his arm was going forward.  Why this play didn’t warrant a second look from the officials I couldn’t say.  Seemed a bit odd, that’s all.  But when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro, eh?