Time burps: Cheap pizza and radio memories

I’ve got to stop giving into the Friday night temptation of $5 pizzas at Dominick's. But I can’t help myself.

It’s cheap. It’s easy. And it beats my usual strategy of driving around aimlessly past the mediocre array of places to eat until I give in. Oh sure, I could cook. But I findcooking for one more depressing than trying to find a date on the Internet. No that I would know anything about the latter.

Besides, the pizza is big enough to last all weekend. That’s how exciting my social life is. Truth be told, weather permitting, there are weekends when I have no contact with other human beings but for clerks, cashiers and whomever might be on the exercise machine next to me at the gym.

So I gave into the pizza again last night, trying to make it more edible with Louisiana Hot Sauce. Bad strategy, as I didn’t eat until after 9.

Despite a handful of Tums before bed, I couldn’t sleep (gee, what a surprise). And I had left the radio on to WXRT, which is a college rock station for people who went to college in the 80s, like me.

They were having one of their flashback weekends, where every hour focused on a specific year -- not chronologically, but jumping back and forth between eras. Usually they just do this for four hours on Saturday morning and keep it to one year. I listen then, too.

Anyway, when I woke upit was 1988, and they were playing Tracy Champman's Fast Car, a sad song about trying to get out of the hood. If you were a folk singer, you wouldn't want to be in the hood, either.

Half asleep, I pictured myself on a Slip-N-Slide, rolling too fast down a sloped lawn, my legs getting turf burn from the plastic sheet, my fat ass hopelessly heading toward a mud puddle called oblivion. Take that, Tracy, your morose Janis Ian-wannabe.

Next they played a song called Birth School Work Death by the Godfathers. Hey, I know 99.9 percent of the songs they play on XRT. And own most of them. I collect CDs. If I am ever a citizen like Kane, they will be known as my Rosebud.

As for the tune of the radio, the title pretty much gives away the grim topic of the punk song - you’re born, go to school, work, then die. Actually I break my typically underachieving years down by Christmas, the Super Bowl, maybe an award show or to (which I hate, but they’re on Sunday night and there’s usually nothing else to watch), Memorial Day, 4th of July, start of football season, Labor Day, a Notre Dame game, Thanksgiving. Throw in a vacation or two. Lather, rinse, repeat.

For a song, though, it would be hard to make any of that rhyme.

I go to the bathroom and wolf down more Tums (actually the generic ones from Target -- as if the pizza weren’t clue enough of my Trump like lifestyle) get back to bed and they’re playing Handle Me With Care, by the Traveling Wilburys.

Roy Orbison is crying that he’s so tired of being lonely. Welcome to my world, dude, and take off those stupid glasses. Who the hell do you think you are, that pompous ass Bono?

Of course, Orbison is long dead, so I guess I shouldn’t really complain.

Maybe I should stop listening to the flashback shows. I enjoy the music, as these oldies are hipster ones, not your usual Super Hits variety. But it still makes me feel old that I remember all these songs they play. Depending on which year they highlight, the tunes are sometimes older than the people I sit next to at work.

It scares me that I can remember these songs, but starting with the year after I got out of college, few of these years have any personal significance for me.

And, like a Twilight Zone episode, most of the people on the radio station have been working there at least since I was a college freshman. (I was so weird back then, the time before the Babylon that is the Internet made all human knowledge, porn and most radio stations available wherever, whenever. Sometimes in college in Denver I’d tune in the Chicago AM stations to get a bit of home. Now I don’t even want to be here.)

Maybe Atkins is right: I gotta stop eating cheap, leaden, carb-loaded pizza.

Sunday fun at Barnes & Noble

Eavesdropping on a conversation at the local Barnes & Noble coffee house, I oh so subtly took a seat near a table with three wannabe writers discussing their works in progress, pretending to read my Paste magazine.

I found their earnestness amusing, considering they were in a mall chain where they hold discussion groups on shit like He’s Just Not That Into You.

On the other hand, why not whittle away your time on a novel instead of typical suburban crap like overreaching home improvement projects or evangelical theatrical pageants.

And for me, it was more fun than anything on TV that afternoon.

Being a guy, I tip my hat to the male of the three, a nerdy looking guy who by playing the writer card at least got to spend part of a slushy day with two women. Judging by his looks, he would probably otherwise be home playing Dungeons and Dragons on the Internet or listening to Yes on vinyl or ironing his outfit for the Star Trek convention.

He was talking about how someone had told him his characters were too static.

Theories on that ran through my mind:

1. You live in the suburbs where progress is measured in subdivisions and new Home Depots. You’re in a place where, until this bookstore opened last year, there was just a mom and pop bookstore for at least a 15-mile stretch of the county -- and area that holds at least 150,000 people. The town of Elgin still only has the little place, and it has 100,000 of those. In other words. you live in a boring place.

2. People watch too much TV, and most novels are too slow for them. Ulysses is damn long and takes place on just one day. Hmm, maybe the people have a point.

3. You look like you smoke too much pot.

4. Has he thought about trying one of those static free strips. You just put it in the dryer.

Anyway, to cheer Mr. Stasis up, the alpha gal of the group tells the guy maybe he’s a man out of time, his writing better suited to the 70s, which leads one of them to bring up Harold and Maude.

That made me tune out, as do most discussions of 70s cult movies which substituted quirks as character development and, were indeed, boring, Unless you smoked pot.

Alpha lady then started reading from her own novel, some sort of Anne Rice crap with a Victorian/gothic type stretched out on a grave. Then she started harping about the research she did on tuberculosis treatment from 100 years ago.

Apparently she hadn’t got to the part about some trendy types thought it was cool to look like they had the ailment, an affect they could get from taking drugs.

Now that would spice up her story -- if the people who saw the goth on the grave started mocking her for being a T-B pretending drama queen.

That I would read.

I wanted to thank the fledgling writers for their conversation, but I didn’t want to creep them out. Yet, they need to learn dammit. Writers are thieves and spies.

Instead, I just paid for my magazine and went home to do some laundry.

When bad things happen to white people, part 43: the suburbs are scary

Like many false assumptions the United States has about itself, I’m guessing the stereotype of the suburban ideal grew to mythic proportions in the 1950s.

But even then writers such as John Cheever noticed the weird shit going on out there, too. Lately it ain’t exactly been Lake Wobegone out my way, despite the visit from Garrison Keillor to beautiful downtown Elgin.

For instance...

A couple Sundays ago a relative newcomer to one of those endless overpriced vinyl-sided subdivisions killed himself and his young son, allegedly because he was distraught over his impending divorce.

A weekend ago, an old-fashioned late night rumble took place, allegedly between factions from two high schools, which wasn’t exactly the case, as a lot of those apparently involved came from other places. And quite a few of the participants were at least two years out of high school.

Note to kids: if you are 20 and still hanging out with high school kids, it’s time to rethink things, big time. Note to kids showing up to a brawl: these days it is quite likely someone may have a very powerful gun or arsenal of
automatic weapons.

In this case, though, the weapons of choice were old school: beer bottles, two-by-fours, crowbars and the like.

One guy, 20, got killed, his skull bashed in with a bat or some other blunt force object.

Of course, this is nothing new, but for that someone died who apparently wasn’t involved in a gang. TV and certain newspapers love it when bad things happen to white people, because it’s just not supposed to happen to them, I guess.

But I’ve lived out in the Fox Valley long enough to know that there’s always been a bully subculture and a strange underbelly. Even back when I was in high school, there were jock assholes, some bold enough to physically bully teachers they knew they could.

The odd thing was the prison-like mentality was more prevalent at the so-called good high school than the “bad” one where I wound up graduating. With less snobs and I-am-better-than-you bullies, the school that was supposed to be so bad was in fact easier to navigate, friendly.

I bring this up because the brawl with the murder apparently stemmed from a feud that started between kids from two well-to-do areas.

In fact, a joke going around is kids from the one school, Saint Charles North, tried to get their butlers and gardeners to do their fighting for them.

Saint Charles, a very wealthy suburb, has the problems money can buy. It’s been reported that for a town its size it has a problem with heroin. Thrill seeker head to Chicago on the train, get off in Oak Park and hop the El train to the hood to buy drugs.

More than a year ago, a kid at Saint Charles North allegedly beat the crap out of another kid simply because the victim wore a pink shirt. The beater was homophobic and was calling the pink shirt names, which I am guessing included fag and cocksucker and all those witty word high school kids like to use.

The kid who wound up getting hurt mouthed back to the thug, which is what led to the beating.

At the other high school, Burlington Central, a group of wrestlers is alleged to have ganged up on another wrestler, and the beating may have included sexual humiliation/assault.

Newspapers can tell you all about bond issues and test scores, but talking to students and teachers to find out what’s going on in the hallways is far down the list of things they typically cover. I’m guessing if you go to a high school things like this don’t come as that big a surprise to you.

And by now, the aftermath has become a ritual -- the weeping teens, the TV cameras, the front page stories and interviews with family members. The teens lawyering up and clamming up. Though, teens being teens, and everybody working a media angle these days, that won’t last long I bet.

I’ll be surprised it doesn’t wind up as a Law and Order episode.

Maybe they can combine it with story of the punk-asses who were paying bums to fight and posting this form of snuff porn on the Internet. Only the twist could be some bum sobers up, takes to making money buying beer for suburban teens, then when he makes his drops he spreads rumors that lead to fights.

He tapes the fights which he sells on his Web site.

It makes about as much sense as what really happened.

Minor annoyances from an insignificant weekend

1. The Auto Show.

TV stations fawn all over the annual Chicago Auto Show, which cynical me guesses is in very large part to the fact that car companies are huge advertisers.

It’s all hicksville oohs and aahs at the pretty, shiny vehicles.

Why not use the time to take a look at things like how expensive it is to have a car in a big city anymore? or the cost of commuting? or the congestion troubles caused by regional growth that hardly considers public transportation?

Or how about, at a time we are at war, in the Middle East, a look at fuel efficiency, a stressing of it even. I mean, there’s even an SUV now that’s basically a converted semi. And have you ever met a civilian driving a Hummer who wasn’t a dick?

No, with the auto show, size matters. It’s held at the hideously huge McCormick Place, and the show billed itself -- at 1.2 million square feet - the biggest show of its kind.

Why so big?

Because we can, said a press release.

2. The new Burger King ad with the guy from Hootie and the Blowfish.

Darius Rucker must have spent all that money he made in the 90s fronting the most boring band ever, Hootie and the Blowfish, whose CD, Cracked Rear View Mirror was required listening at every white person’s barbecue about 10 years ago.

Now he’s in a Burger King ad, dressed as a cowboy, singing a version of Big Rock Candy Mountain, adjusted with lyrics about a bacon and cheddar melt.

The ad looks like the campy work of whoever puts out those super gay Old Navy spots.

Not to Darius: black people have even higher rates of heart disease than us white folks. And you look really cheesy in a cowboy outfit.


3. Downloading updates.

Am I the only one who this Apple is just a big a pain in the ass as Windows. I am downloading software updates. Because I am a Luddite and only have a phone line, it is going on four hours now.

I got disconnected and had to start over 90 minutes into it. Instead of picking up where it left off, it started ALL over.

There is a special layer of hell where Steve Jobs and Bill Gates live.


4. Sweaters.

There are a few really gross guys at the gym I go to who work out so hard on the aerobic equipment that they look like they’ve been in a wet T-shirt contest when they get done on the machines.

Then they go and use the weight machines all sweaty. Even if they wipe, which they only occasionally do, this is gross.

How fucking rude and/or stupid do you have to be not to realize you are drenched? How hard is it to bring an extra T-shirt with you and change?

I still play basketball with some friends, and they guys who sweat that much bring extra shirts and change into them.

Is this too much to ask of somebody?

Stupid Cupid

Valentine’s Day makes me feel like a lesbian folk singer. Janis Ian. Remember/ever heard of her?

Back in the day she had a song At Seventeen, at which age she learned the truth, that love was meant for beauty queens and high school girls with clear skinned smiles who married young and then retired.

The Valentines she never knew....

tell me about it, sister.

I honestly can’t remember getting a Valentine since a year or so out of college, working retail, when some high school freshman dropped off a flower for me at the store.

Not being Jerry Lee Lewis, I wrote her a note saying I was flattered, but she should try to find someone her age.

But I wallow, which is what single people are wont to due on a pseudo holiday - or any holiday as they force home the point that even though half of all marriages fail, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH SOMEONE, DAMMIT.

I liked Valentine’s Day when I was a kid, mostly because I enjoy candy. So, regressing whenever I can, I mark the day by buying those goofy cards and some treats and bringing them in to the office and giving them to all the women I work with.

By doing this I realized that guys sort of are idiots. Today it cost me not even $10 for the stuff and I got smiles and thank yous and hopefully built up collateral in case I need it when I’m a jerk, too.

What surprises me is I’ve been doing this for at least the last three or four Valentine’s Days, and no other guy has honed in on my shtick.

Then again, I’m home alone at 11 p.m. Valentine’s Night, so it’s not like somebody thought I was so sweet and hooked me up with one of her friends.

Still, it was sort of nice to be nice in a boyish sort of way (at least I hope no one interpreted gummy Lifesavers and a card with a “hot” dragon as sexual harassment.)

The best way to watch American Idol

With the sound off.

I was at the gym, and they had it on, with closed captions.

The night's theme was putting the wannabes in trios as the judges whittled them down to the final 12.

Without the sound the unintentional(?), cruel humor comes shining through: the smarminess of Abdul and Jackson, the poncer bitch-queen of Callow; the guilelessness of most of the contestants.

The best line: after blowing a lame-ass attempt at 40s music big time, this fat guy starts blubbering that the incident will be the last time he takes a chance with his music for the show.

They buy his sob story and ask him back. Encourage safe choices in shitty, over-emotive music -- that is what being an American Idol is all about.

I'm a tourist in my own life, part one: Mardi Gras at Popeyes Chicken

So yesterday, being Mardi Gras and all, I decided to go to Popeyes for lunch. It's the best I could come up with, as not many places around here serve anything remotely Cajun or NOLA -- not even gumbo.

We are definitely among the cuisine-challenged out in this part of the world, which, like most suburbs is home to every freaking chain under the sun, including the Jimmy Buffet-owned Cheeseburger in Paradise (a perfect fit of franchise ad fan base) and a Disney version of Irish pubs, the Claddagh.

Sure, there are lots of Mexican places, too, and Asian ones, and Italian ones and even a few sushi bars. But mostly it's bland. Bland is what people want in suburbs I guess.

Popeyes, though, felt sad, like most second-tier franchises do, a little run down and neglected -- which was pretty much how I felt yesterday anyway on another gray Tuesday in Illinois in February.

I had a bowl of jambalaya and some red beans and rice and lots of hot sauce. The beans coated my throat like some weird sort of cough syrup I couldn't shake, but otherwise it was an adequate meal. The other customers seemed enamored of the chicken strips, which hardly seemed a proper lunch for the holiday.

But it's Mardi Gras is just another Tuesday in Illinois. So I stared at the cheap purple, green and gold decorations on my Popeyes table wishing I was at a bar, drinking a hurricane, making fun of tourists showing their boobs for beads.

Then I went back to work and farted away the rest of the afternoon working on a story about an art exhibit I probably won't ever see.

At night I forgot a password to an Internet account -- it was that kind of day. Ever tried to call AOL? It's fun to talk with a computer voice. And online, the Java script sent would lock up my machine.

Two hours later, I remembered, which was a relief for my hypochondriac mind. Then I was bummed again because that's really all I had to occupy my time last night, trying to figure out the lost password (on the elliptical trainer at the gym, no less).

Today I lunched for another holiday, Chinese New Year and a Chinese buffet. I wasn't going to let the start of Lent get in the way of that. (Yeah, like I have ashes on my forehead. Like that wasn't the freakiest day of a young Catholic's life, having a guy rub dirt on your head and remind you you came from ashes and will one day return to the mud.)

I even wore a red shirt and red underwear for good luck, just like they said you should do on the news radio piece.

It was a nice time. Ran into a guy who claimed he used to do coke with the current governor of Illinois back in the day. Met the owner, who was chipper, as she was marking her husband's birthday. Her dead husband -- he died from cancer last November.

More journalists should eat at such places. It's where you find the better stories.

Anyway, there are a couple more sort-of holidays coming up, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day. I figure out things to distract me on days of forced conviviality (sometimes giving into the fray).

I'm giving blood Feb. 14. Ain't that romantic?

Still deciding what to do about the Irish thing. Maybe I'll pretend I'm another ethnicity and act out their stereotypes. Or I could just listen to some music. I'll let you know.

Immoral Kerry voters unphased by 9-11

Note to journalists. Stop playing the the 9-11 and “moral voters” cards. Those are old hands. To switch metaphors, you have strip-mined those clichés more than a quarry in McHenry County.

At Christmas time I read a story where the writer claimed the rise in the sale of Chia Pets was do to a post-9-11 baby boomer nostalgia for a simpler time.

How asinine is that? I thought people by them for the irony, as a joke. Not, “honey, I had a flashback to 2001 and I long for the days when I smoked a lot of pot and grew Chia Pets while listening to Pink Floyd.” Actually, I’m guessing most people who actually liked Chia Pets were Carpenters fans.

Last weekend I read a story about an an art exhibit at the MCA Chicago, Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist’s Eye. The Chicago Sun-Times writer claimed that although the presentation “makes no special effort to emphasize the effect of terrorism-related fears on international tourism, the memory of 9/11 casts a subtle but undeniable shadow over the exhibit.”

Maybe they should get better lighting.

Come on. To those of us without an understanding of physics, flying has always seemed more an act of faith, that science at work. And hijacking has been around a lot longer than 2001.

What I want to know is, when are the tsunami clichés gonna start? Couldn’t tourists and artists/tourists just as easily worry about impending natural disasters?

John Irving probably isn’t going to win a Pulitzer Prize, but back in the late 1970s he wrote on the them of being safe in an unsafe world.

Up-and-coming on the exasperating topic for hackneyed writers to explore is the “moral values” angle.

Here’s an AP guy’s take on Homer Simpson’s cartoon neighbor, Ned Flanders...”the values he embodies in exaggerated form now monopolize the political scene. In fact, one might say that Homer is Ned’s next-door neighbor, not the other way around, so clearly does Ned bask in the mainstream.”

(It’s OK to bug your eyes out and go, “whaaah?” like you’re animated too, upon reading the above.)

What bullshit.

Ned is no more or less mainstream after Bush’s reelection than he was before it. The right is just better in claiming W’s victory was primarily because of him.

How about the rich guy vote? (Or the vote of those voted for the more “likable” candidate? Or people who don’t like change?) Where are their pundit champions? Then again, cartoons often have more depth and nuance than political gab fest folks.

It’s interesting to watch how these things become part of the accepted way of thinking (and I use the term loosely).

This allows one side to claim a term - moral - all for itself. It becomes code for a narrow set of issues (abortion, sexuality, media content) at the exclusion of others (war, economic injustice, free speech).

And it allows newspapers to fill space otherwise devoted to the marital woes of Brad and Jen (poor guy - I mean, I saw the ad, and boy the lengths he has to go to to get a beer and call his new girlfriend) and Donald Trump’s exciting life as the planet’s biggest asshole.

Never mind the complexity, when we can broadly paint red and blue Americas, when in truth it’s a blend, not only in communities, but within each person: the Ned Flanders-type in my office voted for Kerry

Complexity means you have to shut up and listen, and do boring things like back up what you say with substance, not trade barbs and insults.

I got drunk because Bud supports our troops

The day after the Super Bowl, no matter how good the game, is always a let down for those of us who watch way too much TV sports. It’s a time to look back that we’ve just devoted six months of Sunday afternoons and Monday nights to football (more if we include college ball) -- and there is a lull until the NCAA basketball tournament, then the start of baseball season.

It’s perfect timing that the game is so close to Mardi Gras, then Lent.

Of course, a lot of the post-game reflecting is about commercials. Funny thing about them is the discussion rarely is about how well they communicated anything about the product. That’s old school.

And don’t think too much about what they might be saying. That is, if you enjoy Bud Light, you don’t want to know that a central theme seems to be that if you drink the stuff you’re such a dumb ass you’ll do stupid things for the product -- like get electric shocks from your roommate or jump out of an airplane without a parachute, to name but two.

Bud, of course, played a different card with their ads Sunday, too, the patriotism one. Some polls today voted the Anheuser-Busch’s spot the best one: the one where the soldiers in the airport are greeted by the building applause of other fliers.

What this has to do with beer, I don’t know. I would have liked the ad better if the people handed them brews. I sure as hell would want one after coming back from a war.

Am I supposed to want to drink Bud now, because the brewery made this ad. If I am a Miller man, does that mean I don’t support our troops?

It cost more than $2 million to run a spot in the game. If they support the troops maybe giving this money directly to a veteran’s group, or the VA hospital would have been a better gesture.

Let the game begin: Deconstructing lousy ads, Part I

With Super Bowl 39 (let's stop the stupid Roman numeral pompous ass shit once and for all) coming up Sunday, I thought I'd get a head start ripping on ads that have been bugging me lately. I figure there will be plenty more of these after the game, especially in light of agencies being afraid of offending anyone after America saw a nipple at halftime last year.

Mind you, in football, as a recent Sports Illustrated article pointed out, when there is a fumble and a dog-pile, the guy at the botton is having his nuts and balls grabbed by people he isn't dating and his eyes gouged as if he were taking part in some weird religious rite.

Speaking of crotches, topping my list are ads for US Cellular where a mid-level executive has a new phone attached to his belt. He keeps shoving his ass or package into the face of his coworkers and friends to show off his new toy.

I'm pretty sure in most work places this could be construed as sexual harassment. If not, it should be. I get uncomfortable just watching the ad, and I sure as hell don't want to buy one of the phones after seeing it.

Second on my list is a spot for Nike apparel. This one features famous male athletes, including Brian Urlacher, in tight-fitting warm-up gear, posing very artsy-fartsy, like they are in some forgotten video from an 80s new wave band.

The jocks all make surly faces and strike freakish poses. Then there are cuts to the jungle and shots of scary animals. Next the athletes all have weird masks on: one is some sort of metallic antelope, another looks like an updated Greek god, and Urlacher has a barbed wire box over his mug, like a horror movie character.

To be politically incorrect about it, the ad seems pretty gay boys in bondage. Not that there is anything wrong with that -- I mean, Nike knows how to niche market.

Next on my list is a radio ad for Monster Jobs, a testimonial from Alex Trebeck on the skill set needed to be a game show host. I bet there are a lot of postings for such a gig. And I'm pretty sure the Canadian quizmaster didn't use the Web to get his career jump started.

I could go on -- drug ads for conditions that effect very small portions of the population help drive the costs of medicine and health insurance up for all of us. And that I saw a commercial qualifies me to recommend to a doctor what drug he should prescribe?

But I am Rooney-ing. It is past my bedtime.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Trump

When, exactly did Donald Trump become "cool"? And when did ass-kissing a boorish rich guy become a national pastime?

Trump has the worst comb-ver in the free world, wears pink ties, and mouths such profundities as "sometimes when you're a leader you have to do think for yourself and do things the group might not like." Somebody call the Nobel Committee: I think we have another laureate on the loose!

The episode of this boring, boardroom version of Survivor I watched involved the interns competing in teams to come up with rival quickie marketing stunts for Tasteless Choice, I think it's called. the coffee product. So the show basically was an add for the stuff.

One team, the "street smart" bunch (oh yeah, real street, like NWA in the 90s) came up with a presidential debate theme, while the kids with the Ivy League degrees decided to give away iPods while giving away coffee.

They paid, say $50K a year for their educations, and this is the best they could come up with? I'd want my money back -- or probably more to the point Mom and Dad should demand the refund.

The college kids also had a guy on the team who had "immunity" from getting fired from Trump Island that week, and he was quite the asshole.

His behavior, though, made me once again question what, if anything, is "real" about so-called reality TV. The jack-ass's behavior tied way too neatly into a point Trump was trying to make earlier in the show about leadership: the goof's project boss didn't know how to handle him and wound up getting booted off the show.

The project guy was some sort of capitalist Beck wannabe who brought his guitar with him and was way too mellow and slow on the draw. I mean how hard was it to figure out to give the irritating guy the day off?

But then again, on reality shows, the first star was Richard Hatch, the obnoxious, fat, naked gay guy -- usually not a winning combination in any contest.

Anyway, before he got booted, the Beckish one tried to convince Trump to let the jerk with immunity go. Trump told him he couldn't because rules are rules.

Now that was funny! Because, as we all know, super rich people have all played fair and square to get to the top of the pile.

What added to the humor was that Tasteless Choice recently was succesfully sued by the guy they had on their label for a few million dollars. It seems the Nestle forgot to pay him for using his image, which they did without his permission.

The Thai model on the cutting room floor

Writers, like actors (or more like extras), often beef that their best work often gets left on the cutting room floor, so to speak, snipped out by an editor.

I recently wrote a story, chatting with computer repair guy who works for one of those "geek" services while he was out on a call at a local business. Most of the following got clipped, and I'm not going to make a big deal out if it but to post it here, mainly because I find it entertaining.

I'm assuming it is all true, but either way, that this guy told this story while working on computers in an otherwise mundane job (for him and me), made my day:

....said he had briefly acted, on a soap opera in New Zealand, playing a son of a banker who falls in love with a Thai woman. Before that, he was a fashion model in Thailand, where he moved from the Midwest after high school to live with his grandmother. He met his wife, also a model, on the catwalk during a runway show. He also appeared in some Asian rock videos before heading back to the United States to study computers.

Not exactly your pocket-protector wearing nerd, eh?