Slish slice slish slash presto!

Dr. Lehman’s scalpel flew through boiled, unfertilized chicken eggs with great dexterity and speed. By the second drink I knew where she was going, and before I finished the third drink she was done.

“Deviled eggs!” I exclaimed. “I haven’t had those since I was a kid!”

I was surprised when my seemingly innocuous remark made Dr. Lehman furrow her brow and frown.

“I suppose it’s true, isn’t it?” she replied. “Deviled eggs really are the forgotten hors d’oeuvres.”

Kiss noise,
Penelope

And so it was that I was taken back when Mr. Bowen walked up to me and said, “You’re absolutely right about Krispy Kremes; I could tell by the holes.”

“Tell what by what holes?” I asked.

“Krispy Kremes!” Mr. Bowen replied authoritatively. “You can spot Krispy Kremes across the room because of the big holes. You don’t have to pay for the air in holes, that’s why Krispy Kremes are so profitable.”

“Really?” I said in order to fill the hole in the conversation.

“You bet!” Mr. Bowen enthused. “There’s money in holes!”

?!

On the way back to the lab, I saw a man blowing a whistle into a coin-operated telephone. I think he was crazy, in the negative sense. The crazy guy blew the whistle repeatedly; he blew the whistle enough to annoy a deaf person.

The crazy guy reminded me of John Draper, also known as Cap’n Crunch, but only because of Draper’s familiarity with the amazing power of 2,600 Hertz.

Once upon a time, sending a 2,600 Hertz signal down a phone line opened up the entire network like a technogeek smorgasbord. Since Draper was such a technogeek, he figured out that the free plastic whistles included in boxes of Cap’n Crunch breakfast cereal generated a 2,600 Hertz signal. All Draper/Crunch had to do was blow the whistle into a phone, and the entire telecommunications network rolled over like a slobbering, idiot dog.

I’d wager the crazy guy never heard of Cap’n Crunch, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the breakfast cereal of the same name contributed to his dementia.

What shall I do today? I shall take the day off from writing daily entries. If my calculations are correct, I won’t have another opportunity for another thousandth-entry vacation until 18 March 2004.

I smell Rainier Ail.

“I’ve looked at hundreds of artists’ work, and this is what I’ve concluded,” I began. “For the first decade or two, one copies the work of every ‘great’ artist whose work they’ve seen. After that, they probably give up. Or, they become a hack, imitating the same crap ad nauseam. Or, in the happy-ending scenario, they find their own voice and produce good work that’s their own.”

That’s when Charles suggested a fourth possibility. “I’d guess that when most people find their own voice, it’s the voice of a hack.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

When we sleep in a San Francisco home, she gets all the flea bites. Scottish flies feast on her, not me. Chiggers, ticks, and other bloodsucking parasites always head for her, not me. And so on.

I’d always assumed the reason I was spared was professional courtesy: what respectable bloodsucking parasite would attack another bloodsucking parasite?

And then I heard about the Dutch researchers and mosquitos. It turns out that the reason mosquitos prefer one human to another is the smell of the feet. And, since the researchers were Dutch, they also found that mosquitos were attracted to the smell of Limburger cheese.

Limburger cheese?! Like most scientific breakthroughs, that doesn’t explain much of anything.

About the only problem I’ve had with English is the lack of expletives. What’s left to say after you’ve said, “Fuck that shit?”

Not darn much, that’s what.

And so it was that I was delighted to learn about “meecrog,” a word so obscene that I cannot begin to define it.

This should be fun.