Month: August 2005

Earlier in the week, The Ninja Team Video Project got listed on Podcast Alley.

Before we were listed, we had 3 subscribers… no doubt myself, John and Chu-Wan. But now, unbelieveably, we have 9 subscribers! That’s a 200% increase in subscriptions!

6 people I probably don’t know have probably seen one of the episodes and probably are sitting around going, “What were they thinking?” That’s the probability, anyway.

Today when I was driving home, I came up to a traffic light that was backed up about 2 stops. I was heading west. The light had just turned red, so the eastbound traffic had almost completely passed by. In my lane, we were just beginning to inch forward as we filled in the gaps left by the 5 people who actually managed to pay attention enough to creep past the last green light.

About this time, a pedestrian, with no regard for anyone, starts crossing the road without benefit of a crosswalk. He boldly walks in front of the last eastbound car, and then begins weaving in and out of the westbound cars that are trying to move forward. He holds his hand up to tell them to stop or just stands in front of them until he gets across the street.

By now he’s slightly behind me and I’m watching him in my rear-view mirror. I see him obstruct the last car in the westbound lane. I see the eastbound bicycle riding along the sidewalk, and then, in a moment of perfect comedic timing, the jaywalker, triumphant in his crossing of the road, facing east, steps onto the sidewalk squarely 2 feet in front of the bicycle. The bicycle plows him down.

I’d like to think they guy ahead of me at lunch today learned his lesson, but I know he didn’t.

He wanted 4 6″ sandwiches, three of them identical, he also wanted them to be “specials” – that is, sandwich, cookie, chips.

Pretty simple, eh? Yeah, you’d think.

Instead, our protagonist decided he was going to make things “simple” for the sandwich artists. Here’s how it goes:

Artist: What can I get for you, sir?
Knucklehead: I need four 6″ sandwich specials, one a tuna on wheat, the other three BMT’s on Italian. You can just make one of them a 12″ sandwich.

What do you think the artisan made? 4 sandwiches, 1 6″ tuna, 2 6″ BMTs and a 12″ BMT. Exactly as ordered. But of course, knucklehead was trying to get both the 6″ sandwich deal special and pay the price for a single 12″ sub instead of the price of 2 6″ subs. (To be fair, there’s no reason that a 12″ sub shouldn’t be exactly the cost of 2 6″ subs, but thoes are the breaks. I suppose there’s lower overhead on only topping one sandwich instead of two.)

The practical upstart is that I waited 5 minutes while they all tried to wrap their heads around Knucklehead’s poor language skills and their inability to comprehend beyond their script. Meantime, my toasted sandwich got cold.

I wish there’s been a giant octopus handy.

I wonder if this lends any more credence to stories of giant octopi attacking ships in the old days? Perhaps old sailing vessels looked like tasty sharks or whales passing by? Follow the digg story link back to a video of an octopus killing a shark at an aquarium in Seattle. Impressive!

From DIGG:

A giant octopus takes on a shark in a video like something from a horror movie, Octopuses are remarkable creatures, and are much more intelligent than you may think.

read more | digg story

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Originally uploaded by Gridman.

Chu-Wan and I had our first christmas tree in 1999. It was a live tree that was about 3 feet tall when we planted it.

Now it is about 12 feet tall and I noticed today while cleaning the pool that it is forming pine cones for the first time!

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Originally uploaded by Gridman.

This is not a review. This is a promise!

Manhattan Pizza & Subs has been on 7th Street in Phoenix since 1984. I’ve been eating there since 1987. In all that time, only once, in 1987, did I eat a pizza there, at lunch time on a work day. It took them so long to cook it that I got in trouble at work – I had to take it to go, and still I got back to the office late and had to hear about it. (They didn’t actually care that I worked 70 hours a week on unpaid overtime, all they cared was that I was back from lunch before 1:01.)

I didn’t get to enjoy the pizza and I’ve just not tried again. In the intervening 18 years, I’ve eaten hundreds of sandwiches there. I love ’em. Especially the #10, pictured here.

This is my promise to you. I will eat a pizza there in the month of August and review it.

Now that I’ve committed to it, I can’t back out. It’s a done deal.

I was just checking the statistics on my web site and I’m always surprised at what people are looking for: Here are the top search phrases that lead people to my page.

• kung fu I must have mentioned this somewhere but cannot remember where or why
• lee’s sandwich OK, fair enough, I like to eat there.
• rude costco employeeI don’t think I’ve ever met a rude Costco employee
• locust This one makes sense
• costco arizona Perhaps they’re looking to find that same rude Costco employee
• taipei Again, this makes sense – I’ve written enough about Taipei at The Lone Locust Travel Page
• singapore post Someone looking for a post office?
• taiwan underground shopping street Been there, done that
• toilet restaurant Been there, done that, too, but I’m not bragging about it

I guess it just goes to show… come to think of it, I’m not sure what it shows.