Say hi.

After the death of Patches, Mom waited about a week. Then she went and got a new kitten. That's him shortly thereafter. He's cute and frisky. Forgot his name, though, because I am dumb sometimes. I'll ask Mom.

Sorry, kids. Better luck next time.

There's a fairly large college campus down the street from my workplace. Thus, you can always tell when classes have started up again because you start seeing newer, younger faces... and the occasional fake ID from some kid who hasn't heard from his buddies that hey, that stores will keep your shit so don't bother. I've confiscated two in the last four days alone, which is pretty unusual considering we can go a couple of months without seeing one. One of them was flawed but very good as far as these things go and would probably pass muster in 98 of 100 tries. The other... well, not so good. One of the shitty cheap-looking "Non-Government ID Card" dealies you can pick up on the streets of NYC for fifty to a hundred bucks. I always feel sorry for kids who carry those around -- it's like they didn't realize they were buying a big sticker for their forehead that reads SUCKER in big red print.

Nostalgia

I purchased Slayer's Reign in Blood on CD the other day. Hadn't heard it since my days as a metal-shirt-wearing pimple-faced teenager, so I was impressed to realize it's even better than I remember it being -- an exemplary example of music as blunt-force trauma. Nice to know the things you liked as a kid don't always end up sucking. (Counterpoint: "Lightning Crashes" is playing on XM radio right now. I used to like this song. What an idiot I was.)

Ups and downs

Replace "car" with "guy" and you'll have what I did over the Labor Day Weekend. Five hours up, four hours down. Pretty good for someone who hadn't hiked anywhere in about ten years.



This is an old picture of my cat Patches. I got home from New Hampshire to find a message on my cell phone from my mother saying that she (the cat, not Mom) had gone into renal failure. She died on Tuesday at the age of 11.

It's not "DRINK COKE," but...

Shmaltz Brewing, the guys behind HeBrew beer (kosher and delicious!), have started a new venture called Coney Island Lager. I'm sure the beer is great, and I admire their reasons for doing it -- some of the proceeds are going to a charitable organization dedicated to supporting, as they put it, "lost forms of American popular arts and culture." But... well, take a look at the labels. When I look at the one in the middle and the one on the right, I'm suddenly not thinking about beer anymore.

Holiday snaps

During my two weeks in California recently, I...

* Toured Santa Barbara wine country, hit five wineries in two days and spent way more money than I really should have spent.

* Finished two books.

* Went to Disneyland for the first time in ten years and was reminded of how much fun that place is.

* Performed best-man duties at a wedding, including a well-received toast that mentioned coffee shops, missing cufflinks and largemouth bass juggling.

* Ate more burgers in two weeks than I have in the last five years. (I'm so glad that there are no In-N-Out Burger locations in New York, otherwise I'd weigh 400 pounds.)

* Turned one year older and celebrated by catching up with family while consuming my grandmother's spectacularly tasty key lime pie.

* Encountered the elusive Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon in public. Twice.

* Got my wife hooked on cheese plates.

* Walked around Ventura in a half-drunk stupor at 2 AM looking for something to eat before realizing that nothing in Ventura is open past midnight.

* Helped arrange/attended a bachelor party in which I witnessed a man vomiting on a stripper. Which was kind of the most amazing thing ever, even more so because she shrugged it off and hung out to dance some more.

All in all, a decent time was had.

That'll stick.

I just realized that the woman who cuts my hair has a daughter who works with her. Her daughter looks like Sativa Rose. Thinking about this while her mother has scissors to your head is just a cornucopia of mixed emotions.