I did something today that I haven’t done at all in my adult life: I didn’t leave a tip at a restaurant.

As someone who has worked in a variety of restaurant jobs over the course of my teens and twenties, I cut a lot of slack for a lot of the standard crap that goes on in the course of someone serving you your meal. I understand, to some degree, that omissions and substitutions can sometimes wreck havoc on the kitchen and I also realize that a ten table station is downright ludicrous.

What happened to me today at lunch was just a snowball effect of horrible management and apathetic self-victimization.

I’ve been going to a Thai joint near my office every week or so for the past five years: my first time being about a week after they opened their doors. It’s a pretty simple place with a mere dozen menu items for lunch that comes standard with a little cup of soup and a tiny eggroll. On most days, about half of the fifteen or so tables are filled and the whole lunching experience takes about thirty minutes and it’s right back to the office again.

Not today.

Today I walked in and everything seemed moderately normal: about ten of the tables were seated and the normal Asian server/manager was hustling around from table to table. I sat in the corner and she immediately came over to get my usual order: Thai fried rice with beef, medium spicy and an iced tea. She shuffled off and sent the other girl who typically acts as food runner over with my iced tea.

From there, the circus began.

As is typical with most days I’m out at lunch, I had my Kindle with me and was reading the latest crap novel that I crave so much, so I don’t often pay attention to much of what is going on around me. After five minutes of reading with no sign of soup, I started to look around. I would guess that more than half of the ten tables had their food and were throwing down the nom while the rest of us waited. A table near me who, I’m guessing, had recently ordered, flagged down the server/manager type who was standing in the corner opposite me. From their gestures I gathered that they were curious as to where their soup was. At that point I was curious as to where mine was, so I made the “inquisitive” face towards the server/manager. Rather than wander over to see what I needed, she merely yelled across the room “No soup yet?”

She hadn’t brought me the soup, and her runner had made herself scarce in the kitchen, so yes, she knew damn well that I had no soup. She proceeded to take three more tables of orders and, as an afterthought five or so minutes later, brought me my damn soup.

When the soup was dropped off at my table I asked her if I could get a refill of my tea. She motioned to the other end of the dining room and told me it was over there. Not once in my five years of going to this place have I ever refilled my own drink. I looked her in the eye and said “Seriously?” and her reply was “Yes, it’s over there.”

At this point I was already starting to get a tad pissed off.

Another twenty minutes passed and Thai fried rice with beef, medium spicy, was still not in front of me. The remainder of people without food around me were also wondering where their dishes were and started signalling to the server/manager that they needed to get their food out now or packed up to-go. The server/manager would make these exasperating huffs and then go back into the kitchen only to return a few seconds later explaining that she told the cook(s) to make the order. She proceeded to do this five or six more times for five or six more customers.

Finally, someone who had been seated before I got there got up and said forget the order and he was going to have to leave to get back to work. The server/manager got really indignant and said that the customer couldn’t do that because the food was finished. The guy gave a little chuckle and then walked out the door.

I was still without my Thai fried rice with beef, medium spicy.

Two more tables say they either need to cancel or have the food packed to-go right now and stood up. The server/manager began scurrying around the restaurant like ants after someone upsets an anthill; and, like those ants, it seemed that nothing was being done.

Suddenly, a plate of pad Thai came out of the kitchen and was delivered to a table where three gentlemen were seated. I’m not sure where the other two dishes were, but the other two guys got up and left.  After another couple of minutes another plate came out and the food runner angled towards my table. “Fried rice?” she asked. “Yes,” I responded and she plopped the most lacklustre plate of greasy fried rice I’d ever seen in this joint down in front of me and scurried off. Sure, it was Thai fried rice, but it was chicken instead of beef and had a spicy factor of zero.

It had been about forty-five minutes since I had sat down, so, instead of sending the plate back and trying my luck with another hour of waiting, I began eating.

Another plate emerged from the kitchen and it was another plate of Thai fried rice; a plate that looked suspiciously like beef. “I ordered chicken,” said the gentleman server/manager tried to put the plate down in front of. “He took yours,” said the server/manager pointing in my direction.

That was it.

I shovelled a few more forks full of rice into my gullet and gathered up my stuff. As I headed towards the counter where the cash register was the server/manager scurried over to find my check. We didn’t exchange a single word as I gave her my best head-shaking stink eye and paid for my failure of a lunch. I’m pretty sure she knows that I’ll never be back in there again.

There is a special place in my heart for the relationship between the microwave oven and the potato. Such an innocuous combination was responsible for the beginning of an amazing friendship and the formation of the Forkers.

With that in mind, I approached the melding of microwaves and starchy tuber after reading Savory Sweet Life’s article on “How To Make Potato Chips In The Microwave” for a new approach on things to make with potatoes in a magnetron environment.

Unlike most endeavors I undertake, I actually wanted to follow the instructions on this one. The last thing I needed to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon was to have to explain to squeezle why and how I’d managed to blow up the kitchen and set the microwave on fire. I realize most modern microwaves are smarter than I am, but I’ve been very wary of them since the incident I had with the microwave that was in our house when we first bought it that operated just fine with the door open. It took one good burn on my hand to figure out that I probably wasn’t smart enough to operate that particular machine.

We’ve since replaced that oven (a couple times, I think), and our current microwave presented me with a few “challenges” when approached from the chip-makers perspective.

First and foremost, the instructions say to turn off the rotation in your oven if it does that. Since mine rotates and doesn’t have the ability to disable the rotation, I pulled out the gigantic glass tray and elevated it using some prep bowls to inhibit the rotations. From there I was able to follow the instructions: putting down parchment paper, covering the paper in thinly sliced potatoes (thank you scary mandolin cutter), spraying the mess with cooking spray and applying a sprinkle of sea salt.

Now came the scary part. I was about 50/50 convinced that the microwave was going to implode when run for five minutes with not much other than a quarter of a potato and a sheet of paper in it. To my surprise, it did not. What it also did not do, however, was crisp up those chips. I had to add an additional two and a half minutes to the time in order to get crispy chips with the stationary setup. It was vitally important to monitor the chips after the first three minutes because they all pretty much cooked at different rates.

For the second run (you honestly don’t get that many chips down in a standard-sized microwave), squeezle suggested I yoink out the elevator bowls and let the stupid oven rotate. This worked infinitely better than the stationary chips. After about three minutes, chips were crisping up and my speed to delivery (aka, squeezle’s belly) was way faster.

One potato about the size of a pint glass generated four and a half runs through the microwave and a pretty normal serving size to go with sammiches that squeezle made for dinner. We were about to embark on a second potato, but figured the oven could use a bit of a rest since the glass tray was close to lava hot and the kitchen reeked of potato steam.

That being said, I found it a bit too easy to make these chips. They were a snap to make and remarkably tasty. Usually when I set out on a “project” such as this, I make a huge mess and usually end up hurting myself or causing some sort of trouble that I, then, have to resolve.

None of that was true with this. Even with my liberal applications of cooking spray (a potential for me seriously injuring myself in a plethora of ways), nothing bad happened. I didn’t start any fires, I didn’t cut myself on the razor-sharp mandolin, and I didn’t leave the kitchen looking like the Swedish Chef had done a guest spot.

I guess there is always next time.

Something to consider each and every day is your level of preparedness when the zombie apocalypse comes.

This may sound farcical, but being ready to not be overcome by flesh-eating masses of the undead will pretty much make you ready for anything. To this end, I spend more than my fair share of time thinking about how best to defend myself if set upon by shamblers, runners or both.

Several weeks ago a friend and I came up with what could be one of the best zombie survial tools to date; a device we simply call the “zombie hammer”.

The construction of the zombie hammer is quite simple. Cast a pretty decent sized sledge hammer in titanium with a slightly over-sized head that is hollow. Fill the hollow head with mercury and you are all set to swing for the bleachers.

When considering a zombie weapon it is important to think about upkeep and portability. Guns will run out of ammo, and swords/knives will probably lose their edge (ever de-bone a chicken?), but hammers and/or maces seem pretty solid. Putting a spike on one end may provide for some more damage, but if you get stuck while a horde is on you, a spike could be a problem.

Let’s talk about the power behind the zombie hammer: a head half-full of mercury.

When I was a kid my brother and I had one of those over-sized plastic baseball bats that we used to smack all manner of objects around our backyard.  Quite by accident we discovered that filling the bat a bit with water allowed us to smack the crap we were swinging at a lot farther. The weight to power ratio was pretty damn amazing.

I was further able to test the power of the zombie hammer this past Friday when I managed to smack myself in the eye giving myself a slight concussion. The offending object? A half-filled Camelbak water bottle.

That’s right, I conked the crap out of my face and managed to give myself a black eye in the name of science! I can say, from firsthand experience, that the zombie hammer is quite effective against human flesh. Please don’t try this testing at home, I’m a pseudo-professional.

My embarrassment of concussing myself while standing in my bedroom were only compounded by the fact that America’s Funniest Videos was on the television. Oh the humanity.

As many of you know, April Fool’s Day also coincides with my birthday. I’m sure many of you who weren’t previously “in the know” are now smacking your heads and thinking “that explains so much.”

That’s right, every time Mr. T utters “I pity the fool” he’s talking about me.

The life of a fool is relatively simple. People don’t expect much out of us, so we traipse through this world unawares of the dangers that await us at every turn: a.k.a. life.

Generally I avoid overt April Fool’s pranks since everyone expects them from me. It’s a lot funnier to have people wait in suspense for a punchline that never comes than to cave into expectations and actually do something stupid that people can say “I expected that from you” for.  Some of my best pranks come in the “off season,” well away from my accepted day of glory.

In fact, the last really good April Fool’s prank I pulled was way back when I was a kid and taped down the sprayer handle on the kitchen sink; soaking my mother when she came in to wash something off.

That is, until this year.

The most important thing to remember when pulling off an epic prank is that everyone expects it on April first. The key is to lay down the groundwork several days, if not a week, in advance. On top of that, an epic prank is subtle in its nature rather than right up in your face. If executed correctly, the epic prank could stay in place for weeks or even months before discovered.

The poster to the right is my prank of the decade. (click to see a bigger version).

Around my office we have a fair number of multi-function printing devices. They print, they scan, they even copy and collate all of your documents in a zippy-quick fashion. They are part of everyone’s mundanity yet just a little mysterious. That is what makes them ripe for the pranking.

I’d like to say that my prank was an original idea, but I stole the basis of it from a picture I saw on the internets of a similar sign put on an HP printer/copier. It’s always good to give credit where credit is due.

The pieces I needed to put my prank into action were simply a copy of photoshop, a list of model numbers for the MFP’s we use around here, a SHARP logo and a small illustration of the said device. The rest is creative genius.

The important thing to remember is that most people in an office are conditioned to respond to “official” looking documents. By putting a notice at the top of the poster demanding that the poster get posted and putting something mystical like a QRcode, a document number and, most importantly, a revision date on it, I effectively made this poster a missive from the copier gods. By using clever shapes and multiple colors, I lure the observer into thinking that important people took hours and hours to make sure this document was as clear and concise as possible so the observer would understand the cryptic instructions as easily as possible.

All that’s left to do is print up a couple of these and post them near the devices.

I typically get into work at least 30 minutes before most everyone, so wandering around to the various printer/copy stations with a pile of papers and a roll of tape was a breeze. Quite actually, having these signs show up when you aren’t around actually lends to the official-ness of it.

The ultimate kicker is that I actually signed this “document” in two places. See if you can find them.

This one is for Markoff Chaney.

This next week marks my achievement of making yet another complete rotation around the sun on this ferro-nickel rock ball we call home. Coinciding with my annual trek, I have recently become painfully aware of the limits of my quickly dilapidating frame.

Two factors contribute to my current tales of woe. First, in a matter of freak genetics, the males of my immediate family have unusually long torsos. This, sadly, gives us no advantages other than the ability to see over short people and the propensity for lower back issues. Second, I am horribly accident prone. Combine my bad back with my ability to injure myself in even the most safe environments and you have the perfect recipe for my current run with organized sports.

In an attempt to justify the amount of beer I drink each week, I started playing soccer (again) several years ago. When the league started up most of the teams were like-minded and saw the matches as a way to justify going to the bar afterwards. As the players started getting that false sense of pride and hope that comes with scoring goals and winning games, the league got a lot more competitive. By the time our team fell by the wayside (D-Burn/Brewsers R.I.P.!), we had managed to very successfully fill the coffers of many a medical specialist in the DFW area. I, myself, had managed to jack up both knees, tweak my back horribly, break an uncountable number of toes and even break my own rib in a fall worthy of a Warner Bros. cartoon. Did I mention I was accident prone?

In the aftermath of soccer (not dead, just on hiatus), I mistakenly thought it would be a good idea to partake in a 3-on-3 basketball season/tournament with some fellows at work. The season started roughly a month ago and I managed to get a good eight minutes in before I was crushed backwards (oddly enough by an HR specialist) and sent to the floor with my back spasming. Thus ends my current basketball career. That’s right LeBron, you’re off the hook. Three weeks later and I still have to be very wary of my horrible slouching posture lest I not be able to walk out of my office. Boy howdy that’s fun.

So that leaves me with more pedestrian methods of keeping my shattered corpse in good enough shape to keep upright for the time being. I’ll keep doing individual activities where the chance of me being folded, spindled or mutilated are slim (though I probably will find a way). My next hope at damaging myself falls this summer when work has been toying with a badminton tourney. Yes, I am, in the first time since college, going to find a way to injure myself playing a game made popular by British aristocracy whilst subjugating India. Kudos to me.

In the meantime, does anyone know of a good herbal muscle relaxer? My prescription of Flexeril is running out.

I’d like to preface this entry with a disclaimer. If you are at all religious and/or are offended easily, you’d better stop reading right here.

Are they gone yet? OK, I’ll proceed.

This weekend I had the very fortunate opportunity to attend the wedding of two friends. It was a lovely small service in a quaint wedding chapel and that got me to thinking (uh-oh).

As a rule, I tend to steer clear of Christian-oriented locales. I was going to write that I steer clear of religious-oriented locales, but that’s just too inclusive. As a general rule, religions other than Christianity don’t try to cram their doctrine down my throat. Never once have I been proselytized to by a Muslim or Jew (except for that wacky Jew for Jesus a few years ago, but they are an entirely different kind of animal entirely), and I actually know quite a few Muslims and Jews.

Anyway, sitting in this chapel waiting for the show to kick off, I was struck by something that actually tickled my funny bone: the universal symbol of Christianity is a device of execution.

I understand that over the past couple of millennia the meaning of the cross has been turned around to a symbolic representation of redemption, etc., and I’m just fine with that, but that doesn’t change the fact that it took Constantine I to abolish it’s use as a method of execution in 337 AD. That’s a full 300 years after it was used on Jesus. Scarily enough, that date is one of the few things that has stuck with me from the formal courses in “Christian History” I took almost ten years ago.

At this point you are probably trying to figure out how I derived humor from my observation of a cross in a wedding chapel on a Saturday morning. Fine, I’ll get to my punchline.

If the time/technology for the events of the New Testament had been shifted by two thousand years or so, it is entirely feasible that the symbol at the altars of Christian churches could be a gas chamber gurney or even the electric chair. That’s what I found funny.

Can you imagine baroquely jewelled and gilded “old sparkys” adorning sacred space. How many people between 0 AD and 337 AD found the cross as repulsive?

These are the things that humor me. Oh, and for all of you who didn’t heed my disclaimer, yes, I do indeed know that I’m going to burn in your “Hell,” but I’ll keep a seat warm for you.

As I’ve stated before, I’m set to “run” a five kilometer “thing” tomorrow morning (a mere nine hours as of this writing).

As is expected, I’ve got a few whiskeys in me, so I’m both at the pinnacle of my athletic prowess and about ready to be done with this at the same time. I’m a soccer player; I run for about sixty yards at a go and I sprint that sixty. I’m not saying I’m fast or anything, but I can beat that diabetic kid down the block with no problem.

Anyhoo, I’ve just come to the realization that my motivation for running is vastly different from my motivation for playing soccer. Before a typical soccer match, I juke myself up with a nasty mix of old 70’s and 80’s punk tracks with an average length of about fifty seconds.  This is fantastic for the quick blast down the field followed by an elbow to some poor chump’s jaw, but does nothing for a 3.1 mile gerbil wheel.

That means it’s crisis time.

As I said before, I’ve got a few of John Jameson’s finest blends in me, so I’m in perfect shape to think about motivation relating to a run that goes in conjunction with Dallas’ “Irish Season.” For that reason, I’ve beefed my playlist up with the Dropkick Murphys, Flogging Molly and The Pogues. For added motivation, I threw in some live No Use For A Name, Tiger Army and a mess of the Old 97’s. For some reason I can always get motivated to move my sorry ass around Dallas when I’m listening to the Old 97’s:  I think it’s in the water.

Next comes the self-control. To my poor wife’s dismay, I tend to make an utter fool of myself in public. I’d like to do something about that, but it’s honestly my nature. If she’s lucky, I’ll be concentrating on my next drink/smoke and paying no attention to the hundreds of people around me, but I’m not sure which side I’m going to fall on. More than likely, I’ll zone out on the heels in front of me and forget all about being a total ass and just work my way around the course. That’s the best I can hope for, but I’m not promising anything.

So, dear readers, if you see a guy wearing his green on his skin (and not just the tattoos up his left arm) jamming out to some unknown tunes while a gorgeous woman scowls at him tomorrow while you are running the 5K around Greenville Ave. in Dallas, TX tomorrow morning, give me a shout. At the very least, give me something tasty to drink because you know what they say about that hair of the dog…

For all that is holy, not all modified folk are gang members and criminals. After reading this article over at BME’s ModBlog, I’m reminded at how irate I get at narrow-minded simple folk.

Sure, I realize that tattooing is a major part of gang culture these days and that identity through ink has semiological implications in the underworld cultures of many nations, but situations like what is mentioned in the article are inexcusable. I realize that most plainskins™ aren’t morons and that most are very understanding and deal with things outside of their comfort zone quite well, but discrimination like this boils my blood.

Here’s a simple guideline, and, by simple, I mean that it’s one simple step: look at the content of the damn tattoo before you throw a person out. Gang and hate tattoos are pretty easy to identify. For the most part, they tend to duplicate a common set of characters, symbols or themes. On top of that, the majority of gang tattoos I’ve seen over the past decade or so tend to be black and grey work. A lot of gang tattoos also don’t tend to be professionally done. From the picture in the article I can’t see much of the guy’s tattoos, but that throat-piece alone tells me he’s had some serious professional work done.

I’m trying not to get too preachy, but I’m pretty pissed off. I think BME has set the situation up nicely and has provided people with the right contact information to have their opinion heard well. I just hope the restaurant in question reevaluates their policy and pulls their heads out of their asses.

Sorry about that last part, I feel a tad better now.

I’m vulgar.  Well, that’s moderately common knowledge, but, according to the State of Texas, I’m officially vulgar.

This all started a few weeks ago. A company by the name of MyPlates.com was given a renewal by Texas to handle vanity license plates with a whole bevy of new designs that look about a bajillion times better than the piece of crap that Texas decided on in this last round (don’t even get me started on the new “look” the driver’s license has). Since I have a little website and associate myself with a gang of miscreant ne’er-do-wells called the Forkers, I thought it would be clever to have “Forker” on my plates (since they only allow six characters).

I should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.  MyPlates has you by the balls.  All of their legalese lays out that once you click the submit with your payment, that payment is gone.  The State may still reject your request, but you are still out the amount of money you’ve just paid.  Bogus bullshits. Any legitimate company where “I want a refund” is not an option is not a company but, rather, organized crime.

So, now I have to come up with something unvulgar to put on my car since they already have my money hostage.  Bastards.

They can just go fork themselves.

It’s been well over a week since I last provided some advice to plainskins™ from a modified perspective, and I really thought I’d give it a break for a bit to let it all soak in. After all, it’s the holiday season and there is only so much harsh reality a person can absorb: especially with so much dogma in the air.

Breakfast with the family over Thanksgiving weekend in a crowded restaurant with tightly packed tables made me change my mind.

I live in Dallas, Texas. There are a certain amount of stares that I have gotten used to over the years: especially in certain parts of town. Don’t get me wrong, Dallas is actually more tolerant of the modified than many other places I’ve been in the world, but there is still a fair share of ogling. The phenomenon in question today, however, is the state of the modified’s hearing.

I am the first to admit that I don’t hear the best. Years and years in front of concert speakers with no ear protection coupled with my selective ADD has made me rather oblivious. Other people I know have had their ears so modified that it is a wonder that their pinna can direct enough sound into their auditory canals. Like a wise doctor once told me, “Those piercings are nothing more than obstructions awaiting infection and rejection.” (no shits, this was actually told to me by a real M.D.).

However, the patented plainskin™ gawk, especially in a restaurant or bar, has a 60% chance of the plainskins™ erupting into a discussion with their party. More often than not, the discussion tends towards the “I’d never get a tattoo,” or “How do you think she got her ears stretched so big,” or (my favorite) “he’ll never get a real job looking like that.” Opinions are like assholes, most need to be cleaned up before public presentation. To that regard, I don’t fault these people for what they think: it’s beyond the realm of their experience, and, tacitly “scary” by human nature.

What I can’t stand is that most of these conversations happen right bloody next to me. The big kicker is that while these people talk at normal or above typical volume levels, they still think that their furtive glances are what is going to give them away.

Unlike other situations with plainskins™, however, I think a proactive approach is appropriate in this case. I suggest coming up with some generic card that says “Body Modification Ambassador,” or something similar, and a link to BME on it. I would then suggest politely stating that you couldn’t help but overhear their discussion and would be happy to answer any and all questions: however candid they might be.

I see two potential outcomes from such a confrontation: gratitude or indignation. In either case, the parties involved will learn something. If all goes well, they’ll learn that many of the modified are rather pleasant and more than willing to talk about just about anything. If it goes poorly, perhaps they’ll learn to keep the damn volume down. After all, I just want to eat my sammich in peace.