Observing

Funny how the overlap is kind’a girthy.  Here’s the crossover.

1. Eminem
2. Pulling a weapon on your neighbor
3. Carrying firearms in your car
4. Walking on the freeway with a red gas can
5. You’ve seen it at the ’swap meet’ for cheaper
6. Speaker wire is hidden along your floorboard with duct tape
7. Having 99 cent store cup holders in your car, because the ones that came with it are broken
8. Committing felony grade arson on the 4th of July
9. Know the rules of ECW
10. Angry dog in yard to match angry owner

Let me set the situation. Student in the classroom has everyone attention. He is telling such an amazing and ginormous story about his ‘youth’. I thought the story too important to free into the ether. Opening notepad, I jotted everything down word for word, including the questions. As I started half way into the story, here’s a quick Catch-up.

This student had gone ‘Jet Skiing’ in some Texas lake. Through some misfortune, he found himself lost and alone for hours as the rope he was holding onto was pulled into the motor and torn. He doesn’t say why his step-father, operating the jet ski, hasn’t come around looking for him. It is now night, hours later, and he has just been found. Enjoy.
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I remember hearing somewhere that Alcohol and Entertainment were generally unaffected by the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The idea being that people were still spending money on things that provided relief from day-to-day woes.

So I get’s ta thinkin’.  What sort of things would people hold onto nowadays? Drinking would surely stick around, but I don’t think Grey Goose will continue selling as before. Malt Liquor on the other hand. I do a bit of research (read: I looked it up on wikipedia) and found that Old English has taken a dive since October.

Then I start plugging random things. Things that I imagine are strong. Walmart? Down. Halliburton? Down. McDonalds, Verizon, Apple, Down, Down, Down.

Then a light in the fog. 99 cent store, almost tripled since October. What? Lets try Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree? Doubled.

I guess it makes sense. Even with their recent price increase, 99 cent store is slowly becoming a one stop savings shop for anything you need from household items to food. If they manage to keep their prices low and follow through on ideas like a ‘gourmet section‘ and wine/beer sales, they will probably take a hefty chunk of Walmart customers and make it through these times on top.

Of course, as I am clearly well versed with all the in’s and out’s of investing, you should forget the grain of salt and jump at my financial advice immediately.

My storytelling uncle told a yarn yesterday that while amusing, loses all value when translated. Those who know ‘the code’, please enjoy. Sorry for my rotten code scripting.

Fui a ese teatro ‘edwards’ y tuve que ir al bano. Pos, entre, me sente y empeze mis cosas. En unos momentos va entrando un vato y lo oigo decir.

“Ey! Como estas buey!”

Ma? Pos me reconizio las botas o que? le respondí.

“Pos aqui cabron.”

Y luego fue y se sento en el bano al lado de mi.

“Todavia vives en la misma casa?”
“Pos, si, todavia.”
“Y ahora cuantos niños tienes?”
“Pos, cuatro mano.”
“Orale, esta bien, ay te llamo al rato pues.”

yeah, turns out the guy was on the phone. Sorry I couldnt recreate the upside down question marks.

The year is now 2007(ish[ism]) and I’ve left Berkeley, I’m now back in Lynwood and apparently still quite obsessed with bizarre signage. At the same time, I’m working my BA in Film and managed to wrangle myself a highly prestigious position as a local substitute teacher. My new obsession? Elementary kids bad grammar and just bad writing. I go over, read their work, give them a bit of support and then ’snap snap’ on my cameraphone. I also seem to be more conscious of having the camera on me all the time and snap a couple of once in a lifetime ‘Impressionistic’ photos. Oh, I also got far too drunk and threatened to take some theater usher to court while snapping pictures of him in my stupor. (more…)

I love digital cameras. I try to keep one with me at all times, but obviously sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Conversely, I ALWAYS have my phone with me. I cannot function socially if ‘function socially’ isn’t checked off daily on my todo list. Now, the phone has a camera, but I use it sparingly, usually when I need to record information or my regular camera is nowhere to be found. Although I generally save these photos and never return to them, I recently went through them and found many of them to be a far better reflection of my day to day life than the usual digital photos. Ladies & Gentlemen, won’t you follow me on the first part of a two part series…No? Come on it’ll take just a little while…No seriously there’s only like 10 photos…Nah, not allot of writing at all…Ok, cool. (more…)

Originally, this was going to be a couple of updates to my substitute Twitter, but it seemed to merit a bit more attention than that. Yesterday (Friday) I covered a small sized Spanish class for a period. As the high school has a considerable portion of Samoan and other Polynesian students, every year they have a Polynesian dance assembly. My kids wanted to go, so we went. I sat the kids down, and we waited quietly for the show to start. All except the two Cholas who sat next to me and loudly opined about anything and everything during the show. Here are the jewels I plucked from my ethnographic adventure. I apologize for my likely horrible Spanish spelling and the lack of translation. I really think all the humor is lost when translated. (more…)

That’s right, I’m fighting through a horrible vicious cold. I can barely muster the energy to plop this post onto the interweb. Yet, there’s something peculiar about being sick this time around. No it’s not the new colors my body can generate, or the fact that I keep seeing people come in that aren’t here. For some bizarre reason, I’m having the time of my life. (more…)

When I first started as a substitute teacher, I was horrified. I was covering a stereotypical inner city high school with a bunch of jaded students. Amazingly, one year later, I can walk into any classroom and hold it down for the two hour period. The following is a brief list of the tricks and tips I’ve learned which allow me to keep the room from falling apart. (more…)

I hate paying premium on things that I know I can find at a lower cost. This runs through every product from bleach to Cd’s. After talking with Mocherz about it for a while, I realized that I have a whole process to assessing a products worth or where I can find it for less. (more…)

Probably caused by last weeks CalArts madness, I had a dream last night that I discovered a prison with very minimal security. It was actually attached to a tire shop and if you managed it, you could just walk out the front.

In the dream, I had already been arrested and escaped once. I had so much fun that I invited all my friends to come and escape with me. When I returned to prison, it turned out that no one accepted my invitation.

Sadly, I walked out of the jail and made my way home. This time, the escape wasn’t fun at all.