I seem to be completely incapable of figuring out which is the "open door" button and which is the "close door" button when they are only identified by two triangles and a vertical line. So I'm sure more and more people who work in the same building as I do are thinking I'm either a jerk who closes elevator doors on people, or a complete idiot.

Tennessee Tuxedo made frequent appearances on "Sucks to Yer Az-Mar." Why, I can almost hear the dulcet tones of Siggy Llama, or perhaps Hugh Jasper, imitating Don Adams' Tennessee Tuxedo voice...

On Monday, I was doing some errands after work and passed a billboard for the NBC show "My Name Is Earl." The billboard was in Sherman Oaks, California, and yet the logo in the bottom right-hand corner was of the NBC affiliate in Dallas, Texas. I didn't notice whether or not the billboard had the wrong time listed for the show as well.

I didn't get a chance to go back with a camera until today, and the billboard was fixed! It now shows the logo for the correct station and the correct time. The lesson here, I guess, is to always have a camera, just in case.

The power was out at my office from 12:30 to 1:50, but the company network (which I need to do my work) and the Internet were down until about 3:00. I passed most of the time playing solitaire on my iPod. No big deal, unlike certain other power outages.

I tried out for "Jeopardy!" today. As in 2002, 2003, and 2004, I passed the 50-question test, participated in a mock game, and will now wait by the phone for the next year or so to see if they call me to actually be a contestant on the show.

During the mock game, for which we were randomly divided into groups of three, I was standing between the guy who works as a pizza delivery driver so he can take care of his elderly mother, and the guy who came over to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia at the age of 6 and then went back to (what is now) Slovakia 15 years ago to start a modern dance troupe. How can I compete with that?

Then again, one of the people who passed the test at my audition in 2004 worked for the Uncle Milton ant farm company, and I was sure he was going to be called to be on the show, but I don't think he ever was.

Ypsilanti, Michigan, September 2, 2005...



(Photo by Stacey Shintani)