A Visit with Doctor Whaaaa?

Yesterday I had an appointment with a new doctor, an optometrist. My mom had warned me he was a little ... odd. As usual, the devil's in the details. Note - the following remarks are taken mostly from memory and what I could scribble in my notebook before my eyes completely unfocused.

"So, I see here you're a transcriber - how the fuck do you do that without falling asleep? (pause) If you'll excuse the language.

He answered a phone call in middle of the exam, although it was a wrong number, then spent time trying to convince caller that it was not the number he had meant to call.

"Now this is the first milestone of age that you can't do anything about. The same thing happened to me while on vacation in Hawaii. I was traveling with 6 year old, an eighteen month old, and a wife I couldn't stand. At the airport the six year old ran head-first into the corner of a metal sign and got a cut right near his eye. I picked him up to check it out, only to discover I couldn't see how bad the cut was, even though he was a foot away from my face. So I ended up pulling the child closer then pushing him away to get my eyes to see the kid's injury in focus."

At one point, my pupils were dialated so he could see into the inside of them. While my eyes unfocused, I jokingly asked him 'Are you getting the wires to hold my eyes open like in 'A CLOCKWORK ORANGE'? He said, 'you know that is one .... sick sick movie. I went to see that movie at Grummons Chinese Theater when it came out. That must have been when I was in the Navy, and I walked out on that movie. Such a disgusting sick movie....". 

"You are going to have to spend a lot of money, this is going to be very expensive. All of ten, fifteen dollars at the drugstore."

Lost & Found

Between August 2007 and August 2008, four disembodied feet washed up on the shores of British Columbia. Then another right foot washed up, but that turned out to be a joke (an animal foot in a shoe). But while I was busy paying attention to other things,  a couple more feet floated in and now number seven just washed up in Richmond, B.C., on the banks of the Frasier River. This latest model is a left foot, casually clad in a New Balance sneaker, and it might be a match for one of the previous pieces of human flotsam. Or is that jetsam? Until more information comes in about how the feet are entering the river, I'll say 'flotsam'.

The Middle-Earth Hand Grenade

Man Used Hedgehog As Weapon

The Associated Press: 04/06/08, 09:07:30 PM PDT

Wellington, New Zealand - A New Zealand man has been accused of assault with a prickly weapon - a hedgehog.

Police allege that William Singalargh, 27,  picked up the hedgehog and threw it several yards to hit a 15-year-old boy in the North Island east coast town of Whakatane on February 9.

"It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks," police Senior Sgt. Bruce Jenkins said Monday. The teen did not need medical treatment, he added.

It was not known whether the hedgehog was dead or alive at the time of the attack, but that it was dead when it was collected as evidence.

Singalargh was arrested shortly after the incident and charged with assault with a weapon. His lawyer, Rebecca Plunket, said Singalargh intends to plead innocent when he appears in court on April 17. The maximum penalty for the charge is five years in prison.

Haiku Movie Reviews

ZOO (2007)

Dreamlike imagery

Versus heinous talking point:

Creepy horse fuckers

Law and Order - Bovine Crimes Unit

From the local news:

An Oakdale man has been convicted of stealing twenty cows. The man admitted stealing the cows from the ranch where he worked. He will do ninety days in jail. Cattle rustling has recently become a growing problem in California. 807 cows were reported missing in northern California from May to November of last year.

"I'm so happy that this nightmare is over!"

Greetings from CA

Take note of the super-cute bullet holes in the sign. They make me feel EXTRA welcome!

Freddie Mercury Should Be Ashamed of Himself

QUEENS
Cops are looking for the man pictured above and a second flimflam artist who ripped off an elderly Richmond Hill man for more than $40,000 in cash after offering to fix his chimney.
The duo, posing as father-and-son laborers, knocked on the door of the 85-year-old victim Tuesday at 11:15 a.m. and offered to make the repairs for a fee, police said.
The victim agreed and the con men made their way to the roof.
Later, when they came back for their pay, one of the suspects allegedly distracted the victim while the other went into his room and swiped the cash.
The crooks, both described as 5-foot-6 white men, fled the scene in a white pickup truck.
The older suspect, described as about 50 years old and weighing 190 pounds, sports a mustache, while his younger accomplice was described as 25 years old and clean-shaven, authorities said.