Random Observations

Strange Oddities And Scurrilous Behaviors

Ate dinner at my favorite hole-in-the-wall taco shack last night. My cholesterol levels were too near normal levels, so a plate of chicken nachos and a brace of carnitas tacos seemed in order.

A couple of spoonfuls of queso served to glue the carnitas, (crispy grilled pork nuggets) to the tortilla, and kept them from falling out the opposite end of the taco. To be denied carnitas is a fate worse than death, which is why I will resist the encroachment of Dar Al Islam with every fiber of my being.

This is not to say that carnitas are completely without peril. In my haste to overload my tastebuds with grilled piggy goodness, I stuffed about a third of a taco in my gob, and within a bite discovered that the chef hadn't trimmed the pork as well as he might have...

You know those jumbo-sized marshmallows? Imagine biting into one that's lukewarm and composed entirely of pig fat. I can only imagine what the look on my face was at that moment, distorted as it was by a mouthful of semi-rendered lard and tortilla. Since the only napkins available were these Kleenex-sized tissue papers, there was no suitable receptacle for spitting out the offending bite.

So, I powered through it on sheer willpower, each reluctant mastication sending jets of warm lard to the far corners of my pie-hole. Fortunately, there was sufficient fiery salsa to cut through the grease layer afterwards and get me back on the path to normalcy.



I witnessed a pigeon menage a trois yesterday. While waiting for the shuttle to take me in to work, I noticed a couple of pigeons doing some sort of mating dance up in the rafters of the bus shelter. While they did their Mambo of Mating, another male pigeon was mimicking their maneuvers on a higher rafter.

Eventually, Bachelor Pigeon #1 sealed the deal, and the mating pair quit doing the kissy-beak dance and the male clambered up on the back of the female. Oh, joy. Pigeon P()rn before work. I'm puzzling how the male pigeon is actually accomplishing the mechanics of the maneuver, given that he's on top, and birds have just the one hole on the bottom, and there's about a pound of feathers 'twixt the power & the glory.

Watching from above, Bachelor Pigeon #2 is overcome with lust, and swoops down to land atop Bachelor Pigeon #1, and commences to thrust away like a coke-crazed chipmunk. Bachelor Pigeon #1 seemed strangely OK with the deal, but the scene weirded out the female, and she departed in a flurry of pinfeathers for parts unknown. The two males sat there, heads bobbing to & fro, and I could swear I could hear the faint sounds of Haddaway's 'What Is Love' playing in the distance...



One of the reasons I drive a full-sized extended-cab pickup is simply to have enough room to safely & comfortably drive. This morning I saw a guy with a forearm the size of a Smithfield ham hanging out a truck window. He had to be about as large as I am, yet somehow he's stuffed into a Chevy Silverado standard-cab pickup. Wondering how this beefalo was managing to drive, I pulled up alongside to take a look-see.

The problem with the equation (Standard Cab + Big Gut)/Pudgy Arms is that there's just not enough room between belly & steering wheel to operate the vehicle. Sure enough, this guy was mashed in between the wheel and the bench seat, and each motion of the wheel required him to force the wheel past the friction caused by it sliding against his Buddha-like gut. Ever had your power steering go out, and you get to re-learn how much effort it really takes to steer a big car at low speeds? That's the kind of force this guy had to use just to change lanes.

There's just no way that's safe. I really felt the need to force him off the road, and make him apply a fistful of axle grease to his gut, just to make the wheel turn easier.

Personally, I can't wait for joystick controls. How much nicer will it be to drive a car when all the controls are on one stick, and you just rest your hand in a natural position to your side? It'll also mean the end of your girlfriend's head ever getting stuck underneath the steering wheel, but that's a story best told at a blogmeet...