“Mayo-nize your burger!”, my mayonnaise jar admonishes me.

No.

Can anyone explain this???

On the evening of Valentine’s Day, Julie fell while playing at her grandparents’ house, deeply cutting her forehead. Annette and I rushed over to the house and took Julie to the hospital, knowing she would almost certainly need stitches.

A screaming, pleading four-year-old doesn’t know and can’t understand that the person poking needles through her skin is trying to help her. It took me, Annette, and two nurses to hold Julie down, trying to keep her still while the doctor steady-handedly ran the needle in and out, expertly sewing up the wound with five stitches.

If I ever have to give a child stitches (an unlikely occurrence considering my career in computers), I’ll pretty much be done with work for that day. It’ll be time for me to take the rest of the day off and just relax… come home and pour myself a big glass of Coke. Actually, I think maybe you’d better get that Coke for me, Annette… I’ve had a hard day. I’m worn out… I’ve done my duty, you know?

But by the time Julie recovered enough to be ready to walk out to the car, the medical staff who had helped us had already moved on to other emergencies. That night, as I was getting in bed, that doctor was probably helping fix some other child’s injury. Or preparing to come out to tell some anxious family that, despite his best efforts, dad wasn’t gonna pull through — the injuries from the car wreck were just too severe.

Hmmmm, maybe something a bit stronger than Coke would be warranted.

Anyway, a big thank you to all those in the medical profession.

Here’s the patient after she got her stitches out. She’s doing very well.

The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket.

‘Vamonos, amigos,’ he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock.

And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.

— Eli Cash, The Royal Tenenbaums

You know how, when someone scratches your back, it starts itching somewhere else on your back?

I want a machine that scratches your entire back. Simultaneously. At the same time.

I’m just not sure what would happen. Maybe you’d start itching like in your leg or something.

Happy Darwin Day!

Thank you, Ms. Wendy Stankyback, for sending me an invitation to check out you and your teenage friends playing with your new vidcam.

One of these days I hope to get some spam that involves neither farm animals nor people with a surname of “Stankyback”. Hope springs eternal.

Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?

— unknown (and who cares?)

The pale blue flicker of the television reflecting off the fake wood paneling provides the perfect atmosphere in which to view all your favorite reality shows.

Obscene Interiors: an interior design critique set in the world of amateur male porn.

(Safe for work. Um, I guess.)

Mac OS X for Unix Geeks is a really great book if

• you are a Mac OS X user and
• you are a Unix geek.

(click here for an outline of the Mac OS X boot process, if you are a Mac OS X user and a Unix geek.)

I am surrounded by insane persons.

What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke and, just think, you can drink Coke too. A Coke is a Coke, and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

— Andy Warhol

IMPORTANT NOTICE: I went to Qdoba to try to get lunch today and the manager who had so grievously insulted my honor previously was standing there behind the counter.

I walked out.

We have always been at war with Qdoba. We are allies with Chipotle.

The War on Qdoba has ended in a stalemate.

Okay, you probably need some backstory on this.

Because we, as a people, no longer fight invading hordes coming for our women, many in our mostly peaceful society express their now excess warring urges by cheering for sports teams. Or fighting oppressive governments and the like. I instead express mine by fighting small (but oppressive) burrito stands.

Qdoba is a burrito restaurant here in Fort Worth. Their claim to fame, besides really tasty burritos with an excellent warm queso sauce, is an incompetent, hard-of-hearing staff and a Prime Directive of “Hassle the customer—who is willing to pay you $6.50 for an oversized tortilla with some rice and beans in it—any way you can.”

About a year ago, I went in and ordered my usual. The side dish section of their menu at the time looked something like this:

• $2.99 – Chips and Guacamolé
• $1.99 – Chips and Salsa
• $0.79 – Guacamolé

My usual was to order, with my burritos, a “chips and salsa” and a “side of guacamolé”, thus saving 21¢ over ordering “chips and guacamolé” — and getting myself a free cup of salsa to boot. Not to mention the extra side of smugness that came free with this act of sticking-it-to-the-man. Occasionally, they would try to charge me for a $2.99 “chips and guacamolé”, but I would always point out how that differed from what I had ordered. They had, until this fateful day, always eventually agreed. Usually with some muttering under their breath.

One day after ordering, the store manager—a fellow with a strangely bad “anchor” tattoo and a section of ear missing—rang me up and charged me for a “chips and guacamolé”. I pointed out that I had ordered a “chips and salsa” plus a “side of guacamolé”. His response was that he was, in fact, saving me money by not charging me for the salsa. No, I don’t get what that means, either.

Let me explain; no, there is too much; let me sum up.

He and I went around in circles for several minutes; his main objective being to try to convince me that, though charging me more than the prices listed on the menu, he was saving me money. I expressed my gratitude for this, but told him that I didn’t want him to do me any “favors”; I just wanted him to charge me the prices listed on the menu. When he stated that he could not do that (and that, someday, if I owned a business, I would understand), I mentioned that, if, someday, I were to own a business, I would make it a point not to screw my loyal customers over trivial matters where the customer was clearly right. A lady who was already seated voiced her opinion: “Yeah! They always try to do that to me!”

The confrontation ended with me saying that if he wouldn’t charge me the price listed right up there on the menu, that I wouldn’t be coming back into Qdoba. He told me that that was the way it goes, so I took my food and left.

Thus began the War on Qdoba.

Many of my friends and family have joined me in this crusade. Thank you to all of you. (No thanks to Mandy.)

Now, onto the “now” part of this story.

Lately there has started to be some grumbling amongst my fellow revolters. “I bet they’ve gotten new management,” I have started to hear with greater frequency. They have made it clear that it’s up to me to call off, or not, this War — my War. And, honestly, a big burrito with lots of habañero sauce has started to sound really good.

So, the other day, I went to Qdoba.

A quick glance around revealed that I had never seen any of the people behind the counter. So, when it came my turn, I stepped up and ordered.

I ordered a burrito for me, a burrito for my wife, and two bowls of just beans and rice for my kids.

Now, in the past, they had always charged me $1 each for these beans and rice “kid’s meals”, which are not listed on the menu. Perhaps you can see where this is going.

When it came time to pay, the man-with-a-professionally-tattooed-tattoo behind the counter rang up four burritos. I asked whether they had to charge those two bowls of beans and rice as full burritos; he pointed at the menu and said that a veggie burrito was the closest thing on there to a bowl of beans and rice. I couldn’t argue with the logic (or the irony), so I did the honorable thing and pulled out my credit card and paid for a $29 meal consisting of two tortillas and a couple of pints of beans and rice.

I had gotten what I had wanted: they had charged me for what was on the menu.

Thus, friends, the War has ended. Feel free to go back to Qdoba. I probably won’t be very often… I can’t afford it.