Not A Dollarshort

Subject: Remove

Once, long ago, after receiving a particularly personal, dramatic, too-much-information type of email from an acquaintance, I was about 87% tempted to reply with a blank email with "Remove" as the subject. Since that time, however, I have nourished that 13% strength into a good 30-35% tolerance for inbox melodramatics.

Resisting the urge to respond to personal emails with "remove" or "unsubscribe" has been the gauge I use to measure my humanity.

I think I'm doing well.

Dinner and a Movie

Only recently have I begun to truly realize that the King of Thai Noodle House near our house is really bizarre.

For those unfamiliar with the restaurant, King of Thai Noodle House is part of a chain of very casual and inexpensive noodle houses throughout San Francisco and, I believe, the East Bay. None of these restaurants have the same name and the subtle variations are responsible for confusion among friends; no one can ever be completely certain that they've eaten at the restaurant we refer to wrongly as King of Thai Noodles. There's a King of Thai Noodle House I, King of Thai Noodle House II, King of Thai Noodles House No. 5 (the one we eat at), King of Thai Noodle Cuisine, etc... When we ask if the menu is "purple and busy" and they agree, we realize we're all on the same page.

So why is the one near where we live so odd? Well, if you asked me before tonight I would say it had something to do with the fact that it seems to want to be a sports bar -- if by sports bar you meant, a thai restaurant decorated with soccer and football posters and a lone soccer ball lying behind a table.

Another weird thing: In one part of the restaurant, there is a sign that says "gifts for sale" and below this sign is some children's drawings and an empty picture frame. This area of the restaurant sort of creeps me out.

And then the kicker: There's a television in the restaurant too -- which, if King of Thai Noodle truly wanted to be a sports bar -- wouldn't be weird. But sports are never on. Instead, the staff plays any sort of show they'd want to watch in their own living rooms. Once they were watching Antiques Roadshow, another time the news. And tonight...

American Psycho.

And the volume was really loud. And it wasn't even the funny part (as says Ben) of the movie -- it was the part with the chainsaw. I wouldn't know what parts are funny since I refuse to watch the thing.

But, I know about the chainsaw.

So I'm eating my noodles, with my back turned to the television and I'm yelling at Ben to make some conversation so I don't think about what I'm hearing on the television. I repeatedly tell Ben to "ask me a question," figuring that the best distraction comes from me being puzzled. So Ben says "when does the next season of The Sopranos start?" And I'm like, "how the fuck do I know? Ask me something I could possibly answer!"

And then, on the television, I hear a cat meowing and Patrick Bateman is saying "here kitty kitty" and I've reached the point where I want to plug my ears but I don't because I don't want to be conspicuous and make the staff at the restaurant feel like they have to change the channel. Sure, I think they're completely insane for not realizing that they shouldn't be playing American Psycho at a restaurant, but I also realize that they're really invested in the movie -- the waitstaff and the cook are staring at the screen with their mouths dropped open.

I mean really, I don't want to be the bitch customer that makes an entire staff miss the last 15 minutes of the movie that they've been watching for two hours.

So instead of contemplating about when the new season of The Sopranos is going to start, I'm blocking out the sounds of a Patrick Bateman screaming about all the people he's murdered and watching our waitress flinch and partially cover her eyes.

And then, I can't help but think how much better the people at the other King of Thai Noodle House No. 2 have it:

"Yellow hanging lights in woven straw lampshades and purple walls covered with photographs add a warm, homey glow to the small room."

But our King of Thai Noodle House has the soccer ball.

Disneyland Stuff

Some links:Disney Paper Resource Center Updates to Yesterland: Disneyland in 1955 and Sub Lagoon Still Empty. (links via scrubbles.net)

Color tweaks.

I'm turning down the vibrancy on dollarshort to give my eyes a break. If you're not noticing any changes, view the stylesheet and reload.

Free Passes to SXSW

Greg Storey, a nominee for the best weblog at the SXSW web awards, has requested that I mention that he wants to give away his two free passes to SXSW Interactive because he will be unable to attend. If he wins the award I volunteered to go up and accept in behalf because you know I really want the opportunity to win over the crowd with my extreme cuteness two years in a row. I'm like a little pixie of optimism and delight.

Vagabonding

Vagabonding "chronicles the solo, one year, round-the-world journey of Mike Pugh, an optimist from Chicago, USA" I selected Vagabonding as a Movable Type site because of Mike Pugh's mastery of the system. He knows how to use the tool and make a beautiful, engaging and easily-navigable site. It's a great site that MT's capabilities. But beyond that endorsement, it's just a fantastic site, period. You can read his photo and travel ephemera-illustrated travelogue entries, watch edited video of the sights he visits and people he meets (View an intro about the trip), track his route, view his photos, and even sponsor his trip (and get a physical something in return). Pugh even provides a press kit and possible story angles for those looking to write a story about what he's doing. After seeing Vagabonding, I know that if I ever have the opportunity to travel the world, I need a site like this. Knowing me however, I'd wait until the night before the trip to even begin working on the thing. At least someone has the motivation to do it right. It's truly a testament to personal publishing.

Commercial Music

This is a living, breathing weblog entry. Actually, it's the never-ending comments that make this so. I actually wrote about this post here. Well, my disbelief that a thread could continue so long after its initial creation has diminished and I too have a question for those who find that post: "Does anyone know the title of the piece featured in the American Express commercial with the two robotic arms bending and twisting the Blue card? It's a classical piece of music that may have featured predominantly in a movie. It sounds incredibly familiar, but I can't place it." Update: Peter J. sends a link to the actual commercial. There is, however, no song credit. Do you know the answer?

Reorganization

I made a couple of changes around dollarshort.org tonight. Namely, I consolidated the styles of this version of the weblog and the older version from 2001-2002. Also, I tidied up the archives page. Finally, the location of the RSS feed for this site has returned back to dollarshort.org/index.rdf. This replaces the hiatus feed.

Mickey Mouse

I was digging around in my archives tonight and stumbled upon this old post. People, you've got to appreciate the cleverness that went into creating that photo. Well, I at least do.

Paypal problems

Can you connect to paypal.com? We haven't been able to reach the site for the past two days. However, others can. Let me know.