I made the mistake of pointing out a spider that was running across the living room floor. Now my cat is obsessed with finding him.

Why is this a problem? Cats love bugs. They hunt them as if they are crack covered with catnip. My cat is particularly obsessed as he’s been trained that after he catches the bug he gets cookies as well. This lead to a completely bug free apartment until now. Somehow this ninja spider has survived long enough to grow into something very tempting to the cat. It has now become his mission to hunt down and eat him as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately I’m about to head to LA for 36 hours. I’m now guaranteed to return to find every pillow on the floor, everything pushed off the table, every shreddable item… shredded… every possible bit of damage caused by a cat is guaranteed. As I type he is now inspecting the blankets (under them).

cat + ninja spider = bad

Imagine this… you’re driving in traffic and right next to you is the hottest girl. She looks at you, you look at her, she sees you look at her so she looks away, you stare at her, she sees you stare, you look away, she looks away, you stare some more… you know how the story goes. So anyway, what do you do?

This was the topic of discussion last week at a friend’s house. Popular opinion was that the proper ettiquite for in-traffic flirting is to hit her then exchange phone numbers along with other insurance information when the police arrive. I however disagree… from first hand experience. This doesn’t work. My Insurance company however did love me.

So today as I walked to the local cafe I was passed a girl running. She smiled which as we all know means “stalk me” … so what next? How exactly do you holla at a girl running? Run after her?

These are the things I worry about.

I have 6 unopened rolls of Techpan… It’s 2009 and I just bought Techpan in a store. Holy wtf crap.

Okay so for those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about (probably all of you), Techpan is a B&W film from Kodak that hasn’t been manufactured since late 2004. It’s an absolutely awesome, high contrast, extremely slow film. I think it’s something ridiculous like ASA 25. You can’t find it anywhere because well, they don’t make it. Occasionally you can find a few rolls at a flea market or garage sale but they’re pretty much guaranteed to be expired. Right now there’s an auction on ebay for 4 rolls that will probably all go for $50+.

Due to a couple weird life events recently I’ve had this sudden urge to shoot B&W again. I’m pretty obsessed with TMAX and Ilford XP2 but for some reason I just can’t find either locally right now, all the local shops have Tri-X and BW400 which seems too bland. I made 1 last ditch stop at Pro Camera, a local repair and rental place. At the counter was a kinda cute girl so like always I said something without thinking… more like rambled without thinking… At least it wasn’t anything embarrassing, just nerdy.

“Do you have any Techpan? Woah I don’t know why I just asked that. There’s no way you have techpan. I mean, no one has techpan. I meant tmax. I mean, if you had techpan I’d be like WOW and you’d know why I’m rambling but I can tell you don’t. I mean you don’t have techpan I mean. <awkward silence> Do you have TMAX?”

Luckily at this point one of the manager or owners stepped in to tell me that yes he does have Techpan, in 36exp rolls, refrigerated, and that he’d sell all 6 rolls for a great price. I now wonder if I have the last 6 rolls in SF. If anyone knows of any other Techpan in SF let me know, I will horde ALL UR TECHPAN.

Hopefully I haven’t lost my eye for B&W. If anything comes out of it maybe I’ll post pictures. I doubt it though, I don’t usually share what I shoot. I’m just that critical of my own shooting I guess.

Yesterday was pretty much the most perfect SF day I can remember. 72 degrees, no breeze, not a cloud in the sky… I originally planned to catch the SJSU Lacrosse game vs. Santa Clara but not only was I running late but my buddy told me SJSU would likely be pummeled. I was definitely not going to let the day go to waste so I set 1 lofty goal… a blue bottle latte from the Linden St. kiosk.

Latte in hand I did some light shopping then decided to sit in the park for a few. I was immediately greeted by a nice man who offered to sell me some incense except he umm… he kinda fucked up his whole pitch and gave up.

“hey brotha how bout some incense?I mean Hispanic brotha. I mean you look like a brotha but I don’t know cuz you kinda brown.” my tweet

He then walked away sulking. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked at him with my fake “holy crap I’m offended” look.

BTW, what the fuck am I anyway?

If you could have 1 super power what would it be?

I hate that question. It’s such a stupid, lame, childish, annoying question. Everyone knows there’s only 1 right answer, time travel. Doy!

This morning on my drive to the office I started to zone and for some reason that question came into my mind. I started to wonder if I could chose 1 non-super power what it would be. I think of a non-super power as one that won’t neccesarily save the world but is still something pretty damn cool, something that won’t stop Santa from stealing the presents and leaving the milk carton open (at least that’s what happens at my house) but will still make all the girlies come a running. I was stumped… couldn’t think of a damn thing. Then when I got home it hit me.

The power to never lose just 1 sock.

You know that would be hot. Think about it, you could do laundry and know that no matter what your sock count will come out even. There would be compromises. My weakness would be that occasionally I would lose 2 socks, or a hole in a sock, or bleach a sock, but at least I would always have socks in pairs.

Damn that would be tight.

Both excited and annoyed that it’s girl scout cookie season.

Excited because girl scout cookies are awesome. I’m sure if they were available year round I wouldn’t enjoy them as much. It’s definitely smart to only push them seasonally. When I see those boxes all lined up on a folding table outside Safeway I instantly start to drool just like my cat does when I ring the bell. Yeah I know it’s supposed to be a dog drooling but I’m sure that’s only because Pavlov didn’t have a cat too, otherwise it would have been “Pavlov’s Pets.”

Annoyed because… well… It’s bad enough that I already crave the cookies but when those little devils look at me I suddenly feel obligated to buy buy BUY. Then I hear the siren call, “would you like to BUY some COOKIES?!?” Okay let’s be real son, we all know the hidden meaning behind their seemingly innocent question… “You want to buy our cookies and if you don’t then you’re BAD and karma is gonna bite you in the ass.” I’ve never heard them say those actual words but I can read between the lines. I know what’s going on. I will not be played a fool. I will not go to hell because I didn’t buy you’re delicious cookies you refuse to sell to me year round.

So you’ve been warned. I don’t have to worry about that. So far I’ve bought 2 boxes and I’m probably good for another 4 or 5 so I’m covered. As a Sprint operator once said to me, “Karma can be deadly.”

Rewind back to Wednesday night. I’m leaving the office at 8:30pm to make the 8:49 train home. That should give me plenty of time to get home and still order a buttload of chinese food for delivery (dinner of champions comapred to what I usually eat). Of course just as I’m about to leave Suzanne asks if I could walk her through the alley of death. That’s our little pet name for a local alley where death lives. Some people call it the parking lot but they just don’t know the truth.

This is where late-night-math meets my inability to tell time on a non-digital watch. I miss my train and end up stuck in Mountain View for an extra hour. Time is easily killed pretending to work at a local cafe surrounded by 2 local knitting groups (btw, hot women love knitting these days and they do it as a group… wtf?!?), hipster kids talking about K-Y Yours+Mine and whether or not you should use the “his” on “her” and vice-versa, and 3 girls freaking out because they all put their iphones down at the same time and now can’t figure out which phone belongs to who. Can you hear the collective “OH MY GOSH!!!” 45mins and a 1/2 gallon latte later I realize I must now literally RUN for the train. This gets me home at about 11pm, too late for ordering chinese for delivery but too early for sleep. I spend the next 30min foraging for food. I think I ended up eating 1 tortilla, 1 chai tea, and 2 bananas, and 4 peices of candy. I vowed to never leave my freezer empty again.

Now let’s jump ahead to last night. Once again I find myself at the office late, this time leaving at 11pm. As I drive home I realize there’s a Safeway just down the road. This is obviously my chance to score some decent food as well as stock up for the next week or so. Now most smart adults will tell you to never go grocery shopping hungry and never ever EVER go grocery shopping hungry and sleepy. My basket starts off as follows:

• Torillas
• Salsa
• El Pato (because sometimes salsa just doesn’t cut it)
• Cheese
• Chorizo
• Cheese (yes twice… will explain later)
• Eggs
• Bananas
• Beer

The moment I grab the beer I realize I have a problem and take stock of my basket. I realize I have now somehow mixed the shopping carts of a stereotypical mexican teenager and a frat boy on spring break. This will never do. Breakfast or beer, never the both. 3 rounds of revision and 5 laps around Safeway later I now finalize my selections minus 1 critical item, cat litter. As I grab the cat litter I realize that I’ve now somehow grabbed 2 bags of shredded cheese and neither will do so both must go. I’ve very picky when it comes to cheese you see, especially cheese that is to be used in a quessadilla. I’m a quessadilla perfectionist.As I return to the cheese aisle it just now hits me that they have an incredible selection of mozarella but really no good goat cheese. Great, now I’m neither mexican nor frat-boy, I’m just a normal snob. Ditch the cheese, grab the kitty litter, and get the fuck out of dodge so I can eat some mac’n'cheese. Final basket is:

• 1 package tortillas
• 1 jar salsa
• 1 bottle El Pato
• 6 Hungry Man frozen dinners
• 4 Safeway Select Frozen Pasta meals in a bag
• 1 bottle Clear Eyes
• 1 smelly candle (wtf)
• 1 cat toy
• 1 bag litter

The cashier stops at one point to notice I’ve now purchased 9 frozen, instant, single serving items. She actually stops for a moment as if to ask, “is this a joke?” I look up to notice the pause in her elegant grab-slide-beep-toss action and mumble, “yeah uh, sorry.” Why am I sorry? Not because I’ve now cleaned out their selection Hungry Man 1 lb. dinners, nor because she’s on item #14 out of 18 in a 9-items-or-less line (not my fault)… not even because I added 2 more items at the last second. I’m sorry because I’ve now realized that I have absolutely no shame for my skillful yet random selection of groceries at midnight on a Thursday night. I’m sorry that I’m not ashamed. I’m just really hungry.

Oh and if you’ve actually been paying attention and read this entire boring short story… Yes, I’ve somehow fucked up and forgot the cheese. I’m so screwed.

Have you seen that Acura commercial where the guy is sitting at this desk at home? He’s bored so he starts using his mouse to drag things in real life and drop them into his car in the driveway.

Maybe I’m really bored, maybe I’m just tired and drowsy, or maybe I’m losing it from being at work at almost midnight and am getting so hungry this guy is starting to look pretty damn tastey. It’s probably the boredom. I really wish Ustream had that sort of drag-and-drop technology. I really need to drag and drop a lion into this stream right now.

Alright. My blog started off as a bad idea turned good. Then I realized it was a wonderfully bad idea and a terribly good one at the same time. Then it morphed into a glorious embarrassment reflecting on society as a whole (or at least teenage girls on a diet).

After this impressive start my laziness compounded by the hacking efforts of bored Brazillians led to the demise of my beaultiful, beautiful blog.

Then it returned once more for a brief tour of the evening talk shows only to return to rehab once again.

I’m now proud to announce that the blog is back (for at least 5 minutes). It will remain up until I am either embarrassed or dead.

Okay I have to keep myself from writing too much about my cat. I definitely don’t want to seem like a crazy cat lady even though I’m a guy. Yes, if you’re a guy and you obsess over your cat you are a crazy cat lady.

So a couple nights ago I got home and was starving so I went straight for the kitchen and began cooking. I guess after smelling the crab cakes Tigi thought that he might be in for a treat so he decided it was a great time to… you know, make some room. Within minutes the smell from the litter box came wafting out. Since I was cooking and am pretty paranoid about keeping my hands clean I grabbed a paper towl and shut the door to the tiny room where his litter box is and figured I’d just take care of the problem later.

Fast forward to the next morning. I’m in the shower and in walks Tigi.

Tigi: MAO MAO MAO!
Me: What’s that Tigi? Timmy fell down a well and broke his leg?
Tigi: MAO MAO MAO!
Me: WHAT?!? I left the door to the litter box closed last night?!? FUCK

I grabbed my towel and run downstairs hoping he’s just pissed off and whining at me for doing something so heinous and evil as to lock him out of his own litter box. To my surprise the door is wide open. Now I’m really glad I taught him how to work door knobs as a kitten.

Tigi: MAO MAO MAO
Me: Yeah you’re hella smart. You get food now and a cookie.