call girls, little caesars, and a pain in the neck

my neck has been killing me all week. i usually like to think i have a high tolerance for pain; but when i have to grab my hair in order to physically lift my head off the pillow in the morning - there's a problem.

so i took a little trip to yellowpages.com and typed in 'massage'. here's what i got:



escort services. apparently you can't get a decent massage around here without first taking a call girl out for a "night on the town" before she'll perform said massage.

(since my grandmothers are frequent readers of my blog it should be noted: my neck still hurts)


this evening i decided mask my pain with some crazy bread® from little caesars®. as i sat and waited for the 'hot and ready...in about ten minutes' bread i found myself staring at their logo.



besides the fact that the emperor's chest hair is in all likelihood a health-code violation, my eyes were drawn to his left hand. why on earth does he have wolverine claws coming out of his knuckles?

perhaps he's about to perform an eponymous 'caesarian section' (in which case i am no longer in the mood for anything covered in red sauce).

and why does he need the spear, when he could have just conveniently hooked the entire pizza on the metal rods jetting out of his fist?

his right hand is one-quarter the size of his left and his nose has roughly the same shape/diameter of a large pepperoni pizza. which leads me to believe that the artist may have accidentally confused the great julius caesar with the elephant man.

wheel of fortune, retards, and flipper

i was watching wheel of fortune today before work (while knitting a cardigan for my grandson Kenny). it was a celebrity edition from the late 80's/early 90's featuring richard karn and two other celebrities i didn't recognize. pat sajak asked one of the female celebrities what her charity was. she looked like a deer in headlights; she had forgotten the name of her charity. she awkwardly chuckled until sajak looked at his card and read the name of her charity. as soon as he said it, she excitedly blurted out, "oh yeah! it's a housing project for retards!"

silence. the other two celebrities awkwardly stare at the ground while sajak stumbles to say, "okay...well that's...great."

i wonder why she's not famous anymore? we need to get that woman a reality TV show STAT.

i have the theme song to 'flipper' stuck in my head. i've never seen an episode of that show in my life and yet the song keeps carouselling around in my brain. it doesn't help that i only know two lines:

They call him flipper, flipper, faster than lighting!
No one you see, is smarter than he!

then something about him being the king of the ocean in a world full of wonder or some nonsense. i just want it to stop. it's like getting a christmas song stuck in your head mid-july. it's out of place, annoying, and creates an unhealthy craving for eggnog.

escape scenarios, natural disasters, and my toothbrush

my sister (her name is michelle) and i recently discovered we both have some things in common.

1. if we were on board an airplane that was hurtling to the ground, we are 100% certain we would survive the impact.

2. if we were to be involved in some sort of disaster scenario (fire, flood, random sniper rampage, terrorist explosion, etc.) we are 100% certain we would survive.

3. all day every day we create escape scenarios in our heads.

how can i be 100% positive i'll survive? i don't know, it's just an overwhelming feeling of certainty. over-confidence? perhaps. does my body contain adamantium? perhaps. is it logical? absolutely not. but in our minds it's an indisputable and absolute truth.

as for the escape scenarios; it's not as if we're obsessing and living in a constant state of paranoia. let's say a red light happens to place my car under an overpass or bridge. while i wait for the light to change, my mind wanders to what i would do if there was an earthquake at that moment.

"okay. these cars have me blocked in, so i should lay flat across the seats so that when the falling debris lands on my roof i won't be crushed to death."

when i'm in the drive through at starbucks my mind wanders to:

"what if the guy behind me were to leap out of his truck with a gun and approach my car? normally i could easily swerve over that median and speed away; but since there's a streetlight blocking my path - i'll swing open my door, throw the car in reverse, and bash him into the ground. while he's stunned/unconscious, i'll get out of the car and run across the street."

jihadist bomb in the movie theater? not a problem. armed robbery at the bank? no worries. gang motivated drive-by shooting on my block? well, i'm working on that one.

i usually remain calm during emergencies, but have never really been put to the test in a real-world situation. i've always wondered if i would buckle under the pressure or would my über-confidence kick in and save my life as i've come to expect?

i found out last week when we had a 5.4 earthquake. here's how it went down:

i'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth, getting ready for work. i hear a loud rumbling and at first think it's a garbage truck outside. it wasn't garbage day. as i felt the ground slip underneath my feet i casually opened the bathroom door, held onto the door frame with one hand and continued to brush my teeth with the other - and watched as the entire living room violently swayed back and forth. items were now falling onto the ground and for the full 30 seconds i just continued to brush my teeth and observe. my main concern was not staying alive, it was getting ready so i wouldn't be late for work. i'm not going to let some earthquake put a kink in my schedule. the rumbling stops, i spit in the sink, and go iron my shirt.

i'm ready for the next disaster. living near LA, i know it's just a matter of time. come on, mother nature. bring it.