A brief entry today, just to remind everybody that I have a healthy work life, and that I am not workually repressed or frustrated, and that I work at least once a day. In fact, I've recently been trying Tantric working techniques that allow me to work for up to eight hours a day. Okay, that's enough out of me.

TODAY'S ROBINOPTICON

They keep the stir sticks in a drawer behind the counter. They hand them out by request only. In God's name, why? These are stir sticks, not the songs of Reba McIntyre. Is there a cabal of impoverished hobbyists stealing plastic stir sticks for their Golden Gate and Empire State models? Down at the Great Canadian Bagel on 13th Avenue they have a wildly oscillating policy on creamers - in the cooler? On the counter? Behind the counter? - but I've actually seen people pocket creamers at that place. I think I once pocketed some myself, back when I was slightly younger and a whole lot broker. Obviously I was part of the problem, although at the time creamer theft seemed like a great solution to the twin evils of poverty and unemployment. I also recall restaurant teabag and office toilet paper theft as handy solutions.

EAT AT IRONO'S

The Lotus and I came up with an enduring idea for a restaurant. It would specialize in recreating the atmosphere and cuisine of '70s suburbia. Its name: American Basement. Wood veneer walls, Hardy Boys posters, shag carpet (in certain sections), a box full of plastic toys and whatnot, and a menu featuring cereal and Kraft Dinner and grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. That kind of thing. Celery w/ peanut butter, celery w/ Cheese Whiz, hamburgers with crinkle cut fries and pale gravy. An old television hooked up to a Pong game. A stereo that looks like a wooden chest, back in the days when home entertainment doubled as ornamental furniture. An electric organ. Board games from youth, all the way from Hungry Hungry Hippos to the Game of Life. Yes, it's painfully campy vision, but it is ours. It endures. It is American Basement.

QUESTIONABLE CARTOONS

Around my work environment there's a Beta tape containing the unaired pilot of a British cartoon called Captain Pants. Our company briefly considered some kind of working relationship with the people who produced Captain Pants, but whatever negotiations happened ultimately fell through. The cartoon is about an old man who pulls objects out of a pair of magic pants and appears to have a relationship with a sponge. I'm not joking. He fights evil intelligent rat creatures. Nobody seems to have thought twice before including a scene in which the Captain has a conversation with "Spongey" in his bed.

parode - exode