My wife was concerned that my undershirts were getting too… short - until I assured her they weren’t undershirts at all, but sports bras for my back fat*.

Though I haven’t yet cracked the 200 pound barrier (which some describe as liberating), I can no longer convince myself “that would never happen to me,” when I see my porky brothers-and-sisters-from-other-mothers-and-misters weighing in at 300, 400 and above. If only I’d started sooner, who knows?

I think I know how it happens:
Today, I’m a soft, doughy, unattractive, schlep. If I were to cut out all flavorful foods, frolic and sweat until I fainted several times a week, in several weeks time, I’d be a soft, doughy, unattractive, schlep. Conversely, if I were to pursue my pudding and bacon diet to the very gates of cardiac arrest, while lying on the floor watching television, by this time next month I’d be… a soft, doughy, unattractive, schlep. Once your signicant other finds you repulsive, we’re really only talking about degrees here, people.

So now I’m “doing something about it”. That’s positifproactifspeak for futilely pining for french fries. I’m comparing prices on beef jerky. When I stop in a little Mexican carnicería, I can’t help checking out their pork rind selection, to see if they’ve got a brand or flavor that I don’t already know for certain is repulsive. Atkins is some rough stuff, especially the way I do it. I may die from the cholesterol before I reach my target weight.

Incidentally, my target weight is “once again being able to look bad in my old clothes”. That’s really what it’s about… the clothes. It’s like the day I quit smoking, somebody broke into my house and stole all my bitchen threads.

So now I’m eating club house salads. Basically, anything without the bread. Or the potato, or the noodles, or the rice, or the couscous, or the stovetop stuffing. Hold the side orders.

I’m also a proud member of the Hollywood YMCA. But that’s a whole other story. Actually several.

*I have a theory that undershirts only come in one “size” but different lengths

there should be some vicious deterrent for spelling “ridiculous” as “rediculous”.

Or perhaps a lovely prize, like a golden dunce cap, to match the irony of how “rediculous” someone’s argument looks when they start by misspelling “ridiculous”.

In other news, what is my 6-year-old daughter’s new fascination with Chopin’s Funeral March? So creepy.

I quit smoking last June. Turns out I was actually addicted to putting things in my mouth, as evidenced by my sudden 30lb weight gain. What follows is my coming to terms with (and trying to get a laugh out of) my newfound mass.

FAT LIKE ME

1. A stain on a skinny guy’s shirt says “Oops! Is my goofy childlike charm showing again?”. Same stain on a fat guy says “Mmmff! Just can’t shovel it in fast enough! Yum yum. Moo!”

careful with the “earthlink” one below. It’s really really really long. And when you get to the end, you’re like “man that was long. Did that have to be so long?”

ha ha ha “when” you get to the end.

I got me a new interweb, cuz the old one was too slow, but the new one’s broke! Wow, what an educational week. I really learned a lot about DSL service, reading modem stats, line provisioning, etc; maybe I should send a thank you note to Earthlink.

I’ve been an Earthlink/Mindspring DSL customer for over seven years, (Earthlink for over 10; ever since it was that or ~shudder~ AOL), and it’s mostly just worked. It’s only this past week that I’ve been “motivated” to read and study well into the night, trying to figure out what the hell happened…

I was on my old “1.5″ package forever (that’s a download pipe of 1.5 megabits per second, for you ignorant noobs), right up until the last time I called threatening to leave; nothing official changed in my billing or the name of my service (that I’m aware of) but I’ve had 3.0 down since about that time (last year?).

When I saw the Home Phone package, with its tempting up to 8.0Mbps, I guess I got speed-greedy and signed up. An Earthlink-savvy friend was mortified that I would do such a thing to myself, suggesting that dumping AT&T for Earthlink was merely exchanging outright thievery for plain incompetence. I bit my nails some, but proceeded…

My first sign that something was wrong was in trying to track the status of the order (as I’d had no communication regarding it since the initial phone call), I noticed that they had my address wrong - at some point they’d omitted my apartment number… well surely they know where I live, they sent the last modem here… I updated the records, just to be safe (Friday, June 1st). On Monday the 4th, what should arrive, but my new modem (with 2 shipping labels, the newer of which had my complete address). The instructions indicated I would receive an email informing me of the service activation date. I had received no such communication (still haven’t, actually). I called, and was told that the next day, June 5th was my activiation date.

TUESDAY, activation day: nothing notable happened, except the lack of internet service from early that morning. My Phone service was not switched. Long waits on hold with EL support who claim that phone service has been switched over, and suggest in thick Indian accents that I “power cycle” (turn off, wait, then turn back on) the modem a few thousand more times.

WEDNESDAY: still no DSL, now no phone service. Long waits on hold - on my cel phone; at least now I have a “trouble ticket” number. Hurray!

THURSDAY: Covad (the actual company that runs the DSL line) comes out. He tests things, then gets put on hold for a while himself. Says AT&T will have to come out. Day 3 of no internet, day 2 of no phone. I’m burning discs and inconveniencing myself and clients to deliver work that could easily have been emailed. Plus I can’t access youtube.com to search for “face plant” or “busty japanese”. What if I have new myspace comments?

FRIDAY: AT&T calls - I’m surprised to hear my own phone ringing. I notice the DSL light on the modem is lit up; I’m online and I have a phone! There is much rejoicing… until wait… what’s this? Where’s my super-fast up to 8.0Mbps connection? Why this is downright… pokey.

Still, it’s a relief to be online, but I give them a piece of my mind anyway. Now that I have a “trouble ticket”, I’m talking to Americans about 50% of the time, but this particular call is to an Indian gentleman who contradicts himself several times about what my speed is, what it should be, and what I ought to be happy with. He pretends to set me back to 3.0 and tells me to monitor it for stability. I don’t believe him, but I’m sick of being on the phone, and I have to leave town overnight.

SATURDAY: I get home in the evening, and as chance would have it, speed tests still indicate 1.5 down. Shortly after midnight, I lose the “internet” light on the modem. I tell myself I’ll call and complain in the morning, and go to bed (then get up, watch movies until 6am, then go back to bed).

SUNDAY morning: I spend a fair amount of time on the phone with a US tech support expert who walks me through some tedious router maintenance to get my internet back, (proudly saying it’s “just that simple” if it should ever go out again - never mind that I had to unplug it from my wireless router, plug into my computer, take it out of bridged mode, jump through flaming hoops, etc etc). He then addresses the speed issue by saying that I’m on 3.0 or 1.5 or 3.0 (he’s got no clue, does he?) because of my distance to the CO (central office). “What is my distance to the CO?” He doesn’t know. “Who does?” He doesn’t know (but I bet they don’t work on Sunday). Now, I don’t know what my distance to the CO is, but I know what it isn’t. Since a little bird told me that it’s about 2000 feet as the little bird flies, I’m going to guess it’s not 7000+ feet of copper wire away (perhaps I’m naïve). He then pretends to set me to 6.0Mbps, and beats a hasty retreat.

At some point in the conversation I may have mentioned something about a “competing vendor’s cable internet package”, and the word “cancel” may have come up as well, because I got a frantic “follow-up call” a few hours later. However, I was not at home, and didn’t get home early enough to want to spend my evening on the phone with Earthlink.

Then I “checked my modem stats” (oh yeah, I’ve been doing my homework all right), and found something curious. Maybe one or two of my Indian friends weren’t lying after all…

Link Status: Up
Upstream Speed: 382 kbps
Downstream Speed: 3002 kbps

What’s it all mean Alfie? Basically it says that between the Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) and my modem, things are skipping along at a brisk pace. Somewhere else, though, somewhere out there… things are still not as they should be.

For example, online speed tests, and any “real world” test I could think of, all indicated a mere 1.5Mbps connection (from elevenish to thirteenish Mbps down, and 260-310 up). This is, unfortunately for Earthlink, how I determine my satisfaction level with my service. If I could just have faith with the follow who tells me I’m at 6.0, or believe my modem when it tells me it’s synced at 3.0, I could be happy - or at least not livid, compose-long-sarcastic-internet-posts enraged. But no, I have to go with my gut - and what my gut tells me is that stuff is taking a long time to upload and download. And somebody must pay.

I apologize profusely for making this such a long-winded mess; I’d originally wanted to include only enough detail to show that nothing has gone right or smoothly so far, but I obviously went off on many wild venting tangents. Another point I should clarify; this could easily have been much worse and gone on much longer, had I been less assertive.

MONDAY: my allegedly 6.0 connection which showed up at the modem as 3.0 and in real-world use at 1.5 slowed by half again. I’m now scoring in the 400’s-500’s on speed tests. I call again, but test the very limits of my technician’s mental capacities - he’s going to have to consult their “partner vendor” (Covad). Could I please call back?

At least on this latest call to Earthlink, they set my D.S.L. service to 6.0 for real this time, instead of their prior L.I.P. service.

Link Status: Up
Upstream Speed: 757 kbps
Downstream Speed: 6012 kbps

Those are mighty solid looking figures. I could include my line signal-to-noise stats too, if I wanted to brag… But they’re still just numbers; even after rebooting, resetting the modem, and clearing my mind of negative thoughts, I’m getting these pokey 768Kbps-like download speeds. And now the negative thoughts are coming back.

MONDAY night: In the interest of full disclosure and giving credit where credit is due, let me point out that the dsl forums at broadbandreports.com, and especially it’s helpful members were largely responsible for me having even the slightest clue (although I think you’ll admit that I’m a pretty quick study.) Something I read there gave me an idea, and I checked the My Account page at earthlink.net.

Now, they offer three flavors of DSL-slash-Home Phone down there at the Earthlink. Basic ($49.95), which as the name suggests, is cheap, and sucks; Ultimate ($64.95, which gives you unlimited local and long distance calling plus simmering-fast up to 1.5Mbps DSL speed; or Unlimited Premium ($69.95), the wise choice, the manly choice, with all the perks of Unlimited, plus lightning-quick up to 8.0Mbps downloads. There was, of course, no question in my mind which package to choose… hang on a minute! What if there were some question - in somebody else’s (tiny little) mind?

So at the accounts page, I click on Plan Details. I should be paying $69.95 for Unlimited Premium or whatever it’s called, but I can’t help noticing I’m paying $24.95 for EarthLink DSL & Home Phone Service, plus $40 for EarthLink DSL Internet; that’s $64.95, which is regular (loser) Unlimited (up to 1.5Mbps). Not what I wanted, not what I ordered, but at least consistent with the previously observed discrepancies. Now to fix it…

Oh look it’s been four hours! I get to call Earthlink again! (Anytime you call them with any question that involves one of their “partner vendors”, you have to wait four hours for your answer). By the time I’m off the phone with Installations, having been patched there by Tier3 Customer Support Navy Seals, I’ve learned that apparently I was being “throttled” at 1.5Mbps, in the erroneous belief that any sensible person would pick Unlimited over Unlimited Premium. They say my service should change automatically in 3 to 5 business days, but don’t be surprised if Customer Service gets a call from me much sooner than that.

TUESDAY: I put off calling until afternoon, then realize that if their head office is in Texas, I’d better get to bitching and moaning if I’m going to find a “supervisor” or “customer saves” type to fix everything before they go home for the day.

Unfortunately, I’m doing it from the road, and my cel drops the call as I’m telling the story for the thirtieth time and I have to start over. Fortunately that put me in just the right frame of mind to get what I wanted…

So remember kids, if somebody tells you they can’t give you something, today, well maybe the Cancellation Dept. can.

Thanks for listening… now to youtube (maybe somebody’s uploaded more episodes of Electra Woman and Dyna Girl).

PS I’m only at 6.0Mbps down (that’ll be another call, but I’m taking a break for now), but that’s pretty fast; more bandwidth than a lot of webservers can even take advantage of.

PPS If you’re so damn brave, crazy, or hungry for broadband and free long distance that this service still sounds tempting to you, email me and I’ll get you a promo code good for a $25 virtual Visa (with activation and 60 days of paid service). Me, I get one for $100, for signing you up.

But I have ƒu¢k1n9 earned it.

So anyway, I’ve got some wildly funny stuff coming very soon.

Very very soon. Soon.

Just saw Shaun of the Dead.

Yes, it came out in 2004 - I realize that.

But the simple fact is, I haven’t been watching a lot of movies lately, besides the G-rated fare mentioned in a previous entry. Lately, however (and well into the wee hours of the night, mind you), I’ve been on a bit of a slasher movie bender. Slasher movies and zombie movies that is… Actually, zombie movies and British comedies.

So the time was more than ripe, over-ripe, gone soft like the caved-in head of the walking dead, to finally experience the brilliant Shaun of the Dead. Fresh meat from writer/director Edgar Wright, and writer/star Simon Pegg, the team behind the cult series “Spaced” (which I watched all 14 episodes of, in the 2 nights leading up to my home video premiere of SotD), it was more than I’d hoped.

I’d just been telling my wife, as well as another equally disinterested party, that the reason George Romero’s movies work so well is that they’re not “about” zombies. They’re about people, and how they behave or misbehave when faced with an extreme, end-of-the-world-style crisis. I’d been musing about this for some time, but I was inspired to share it after seeing the very satisfying Land of the Dead, Romero’s latest installment of a series that began with 1968’s Night of the Living Dead.

On that count, Shaun of the Dead amply delivers. It is, like the best, a story not about zombies, but about people. However, in this case, the people are losers. Although Great Britain can lay no exclusive claim to this particular brand of dead-end loser, its “pub culture” is a perfect petri dish. Like a Montana meth den, only slower.

Losers though they may be, they are charming and (mostly) likable characters, and very true-to-life, right down to Shaun’s mum - who’s one of the disturbingly realistic elements that keeps the humor from becoming too absurd and the knife’s edge on the zombie mayhem. This is the only zombie movie I’ve ever seen that I will likely (and with futile insistence) recommend to my wife.

PS: yes I am aware of the typo in the title… of course it should read Teh. Best. Zombie. Movie. Evar.

PPS: and yes, I’m looking forward to Hot Fuzz, but I’d feel unpatriotic to see it before I get around to seeing Reno 911: Miami. Who’s up for a double feature? (you drive).

Once upon a time, I worked in a nightclub owned by a famous actor. During the day, I stocked the bar, fixed things broken by other movie stars the night before, and did odd jobs for the talent booker and the office manager.

One of the oddest jobs was answering the phones.

As private and exclusive and childishly secretive as the place was, they couldn’t have an unlisted phone number; there was Southern Wine and Spirits on Line 2 wondering where there money was. Someone from William Morris was on Line 4 with a band looking for a showcase - and they’re ready to pay! Of course Line 1 may very well be Renda R., escaped from the nuthouse again.

As the phone number was a matter of public record, so was it a strongly held belief among the delusional fanatics of the nation that it was a perfectly good contact number for the aforementioned movie star. As the low man on the totem pole, I had to field the calls from the freaks and froot loops. Along with Renda, Frank M. stands out in my memory.

Renda merely sucked me into her weird world; like a skilled telemarketer, she wouldn’t let you off the phone, yet never quite gave you cause to slam the receiver down; Frank, however, was downright terrifying.

Convinced that he was betrothed to be married to the famous owner, he would periodically call and ask why J––––– wasn’t returning his phone calls, why the credit card number he’d been given was refused by the airline, and that he was having a lot of trouble getting from New York to Los Angeles… for the wedding. Fortunately we knew that he was safely on the other side of the country, and that he’d never get it together to fly out to L.A., since he obviously couldn’t even afford his meds.

This was all a big (and creepy) joke until the calls started coming every day. Now he had a date: he’d be arriving Friday, and he was calling every day to make sure the wedding was all going according to plan; that there’d be someone to pick him up from the airport, etc etc. Also, he was concerned that his fiancé may be strung out again and didn’t want to spend their honeymoon nursing him back to health.

Now let me digress with a sidenote on our movie star and the day-to-day operation of the club. I’d met the owner years earlier, through a mutual acquaintance back in my rockabilly days. We’d run into each other many times before I started working at his club, and a few times since. But in the whole year that I worked there, I did not see him once. Not one single glimpse. And yet, his maniacal fans were, to a man, convinced that he worked there every day in a secret office downstairs.

And Frank was no exception. When one day, at the end of that nerve-wracking week, we saw a mysterious figure emerge from a taxi on the security camera pointed at the side door there was little doubt who it was. Especially when by mysterious figure I mean 6 foot 220 pound male in a back-flab displaying big-sleeve-hole muscle shirt, khaki shorts and a black cleopatra wig. With luggage, and two cat carriers.

Frank rang the downstairs doorbell for a good half-hour before Mako and I had to carry some boxes around the corner, and could ignore him no longer. Well, we did our best to ignore him the first time walking past, but as we returned to upstairs door, he asked if we worked there and asked to see J–––––. When told that his “fiance” was (as usual) not there, he became inconsolable, wondering what on earth he was going to do. I actually felt sorry for him, since in his fantasy, this was a serious snub; left at the altar, as it were. I merely took the position that he didn’t have to go home, but he couldn’t stay here…

By then the office manager had called management, who called the FBI, then Frank disappeared. A prominent fashion designer had been murdered only a week before, and tensions were high.

I made up my mind then and there, that though I may stay in show business, I’d do my best to avoid the glare of the spotlight. Since my daughter was born, I’m not even sure I’m far enough out of the public eye here in my dim corner Hollywood.

Watching (of course I watch, along with everybody else) Anna Nicole chased to the Bahamas, Britney shave her head - even David Spade can’t go shopping without a cloud of locusts with cameras following him - only reinforces my position. If you can manage rich & not-famous, that’s your best bet. God forbid you get famous but not rich; it takes a lot of bread to insulate yourself.

As for J–––––, he eventually married someone else, and left the country for good (can’t say I blame him). I don’t know if he ever thinks of Frank…

I’ve been watching an unusual amount of television lately, and by lately I mean for several months now, and by unusual amount I mean hours and hours per day.

Perhaps you’ll blame the internet, for failing to provide enough compelling content to keep me glued to the computer for days on end. But you’d be wrong. Again. There is nothing wrong with my information superhighway, and certainly nothing to actually drive me out of my seat and “back to the couch”.

In fact, it was my old friend the internet that got me back on the boob tube. Youtube (along with it’s smarter but nerdier little brother Google Video and others) is a fountain of recently deceased television, not to mention highlights from today’s brightest stars.

You see, I’ve been a little removed from the comings and goings in popular culture for the last six years or so, for reasons of sudden and irreversible fatherhood. Basically, if it happened since Clinton left office (and it’s not G-rated), I don’t know about it, or I’m just finding out now - thanks to youtube and its many copyright ignoring users.

That means Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim - Particularly Robot Chicken, and the late great Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. That means Comedy Central’s Reno 911. And speaking of Comedy Central, who knew that there was a Daily Show spinoff - the much more consistently funny Colbert Report? And speaking of Stephen Colbert (who, incidentally, lent his voice to more than one Harvey Birdman character), youtube is the only place you’ll find a trace of his brilliant first show Exit 57… watch enough Comedy Central and you’re bound to get lured in by ads enticing you to experience the Sarah Silverman program… Add in the occasional HBO (hell, sometimes I’ll watch anything without commercials) and I’ve become a full-on part-time television junkie.

And it’s awesome. I’ll stay up all damn night on my computer, working, studying, or just spinning my wheels, reading (or writing) some serious but meaningless something. Now, at least a couple nights a week, I’ll stay up all night catching up with the TiVo. And laughing. Cover your mouth so you don’t wake everybody up laughing. Laughter is good, and good for you - except for the staying up all night part.

Now the last time I checked, even Comedy Central didn’t have any comedy that was central to me; even old SNL reruns get, well, old. And the stuff I’m supposed to like - I can’t tell you how many people were sure that South Park would be right up my alley - didn’t exactly work either. But Reno 911, Sarah Silverman, this is my kind of funny. Push it right to the edge, then… bump it.

Sure a lot of the thrill of watching are those “I can’t believe they just said that” moments, but hey, that’s why I watch House MD, and that wins Emmys.

I’ve been kicking around the name for a while… after reading some inspiring stories about pioneers of self-trepanation such as Amanda Feilding.

All at once, I imagined a fantastic educational tool, wherewith I would bore a hole in my skull, pour out all the genius, digitize and upload it for all to behold.

I’m still looking for just the right drill. Patience!

There is, too, the opportunity for brand new twists in that most elevated form of humor, the pun. “It is with great trepanation…” Ha ha. Are you bored yet?

neither ezpkns.com, Joel Sigerson, nor Trepanning for Gold advocates self-trepanation - or even mutual trepanation with a trusted partner… in short, if you drill a hole in your head, well, it’s on you