don't hassel the birthday boy

One week and 55 years ago, David Hasselhoff shot down to earth, riding on the tails of a dazzling comet of love and musical diplomacy and feathered hair.

I forgot to celebrate.

The Hoff is, according to the Guinness World Records, the most watched TV star in the world, thanks to his leading roles in Knight Rider in the 1980s and Baywatch in the 1990s (at its peak Baywatch was shown in 142 countries to an audience of more than one billion people).

Regarding his popularity, David Hasselhoff has said: “There are many dying children out there whose last wish is to meet me.”

So, while I was at work today, I listened to a 25 minute interview he did with the BBC last September. The first really great moment came when he was discussing a visit he made to the Massai tribe in Africa. Of them, he said, 'these guys were amazing. Skinnier legs than me. But I was floored - they'd never heard of me! I was going through fame withdrawal, and I went around asking if they'd ever seen Baywatch or Knight Rider. I finally found some workers at a hotel who had - what a relief."

Later in the interview, this priceless exchange:
BBC guy: Do you think most people in the world know who you are? More than half?
The Hoff: Yes. Absolutely.
How many people are there in the world?
6 billion or so.
You think more than 3 billion know who you are?
I don't know! it sure seems that way, wherever I go.
Who's as famous as you?
Princess Diana, #1. Mohammad Ali. Probably Elvis is in that category.
But you're in the top 10, you reckon?
Absolutely.

Here's to 55 more years of this.

three in metropolis

this is the film that kenny, sara, and i made. people liked it. we were happy.

Dapper Cadaver: for all your execution needs.

a phone call made last week at work:

BJ: "Dapper Cadaver, this is BJ. How can I help?"
WC: "I wonder if you have any guillotines to rent?"
BJ: "Yes, we do!"
WC: "Tell me more!"
[pricing, custom building, etc, discussed]
WC: "oh, you also have stocks?"
BJ: "Yes! Stocks run $50. But if you're interested in any of the torture and execution items we have here in our warehouse, let me tell you - we have an electric chair for $75, gallows & nooses, a gibbet (these were used for pirate executions back in the day - man-sized steel cage that allows you to kill a person by starving them or irritating them. can be set on the floor or hung from a sturdy cable), a cross with a skeleton on it. Oh, i forgot to tell you, the gibbet comes with a skeleton inside. [list continues, wendy starts to laugh...]. Well, yeah, that's a pretty good summary of our torture and execution devices. Just let me know!"

I had a good reason for making the phone call. Saturday was Bastille Day, and also the day of our annual film festival, which took a French revolutionary theme this year. It was desired that there be a dark corner with a guillotine in order to behead the creator of the festival's worst film - so, I went searching. And Friday afternoon, I made a long trek to Hollywood to see BJ at the Dapper Cadaver - while he did not have a guillotine available (we managed to construct one ourselves on Saturday nevertheless!), he did have stocks, and so much else. It was one of the weirder excursions I've made in the last month.
This, for instance, is the severed body parts area. One bin for severed arms, another for severed legs....
And these are the stocks. With a Wendy in them.

july happiness is

...a rooftop sleepover in honor of Sniar's birth, with sparklers used as wands to fire off jinxes at each other.
...lighting my first match (yes, true) to subsequently light my first firework. Buying fireworks in Inglewood to set off in Santa Monica was a sweet idea.
...lots and lots of Blue WooHoo Vanilla Squishees following ultimate frisbee.
...finding Bumblebee at the Kwik-e Mart!
...Indian-restaurants-on-Venice hopping prior to watching 'Ratatouille' with Sniar. The above dessert delight is carrot halva. Hooray for food adventures.
...thinking of all the reasons why kat is The Best. There are many.
....looking over lots of really bad self-portraiture efforts. Kat and I make a good team, despite our photographic untalent.
...celebrating 27 years of Kat by sharing a big metrorail adventure with lots of friends.
...making a pyramid on Hollywood Blvd and having a huge group of people stop to check us out.
...having a cartwheel competition in the middle of Union Station (right after Kat was temporarily arrested).
...learning to play 'That's Amore' and 'Yo Ho Yo Ho (a Pirate's Life for Me)' on the accordion I bought on Olvera St. Enthusiastically serenading unfortunate bystanders.
...swordplay and a swarm of people sharing Mexican culinary delights at El Cholo.
...helping Kat finish off her list of 27 things to accomplish before her bday dawned.
....watching Kat climb the telephone pole outside our apartment to tag her name. Climbing up the same telephone pole the next day to add my own 'happy birthday'.

...grocery shopping. it had been a while....and using the ingredients purchased to make myself a meat cake! The birth of CompTron happened a year ago last week - small protein-packed celebrations were necessary!

So: life is fine and good.

There is a mystical bond between man and machine.

(I, CompTron, LOVED Transformers, by the way - the superhammerawesomeness of the transforming robots totally overshadowed the michaelbayness of the film. A later blog will explain how my grandpa and Optimus Prime are the same being).

There is a mystical bond between Comptron and her RAZR.

I've lost the phone in Provo. I've lost the phone in Switzerland. It has survived international boat mail, countless drops and, uh, throws, and plenty else. By all accounts, I have treated it very poorly, and I do not deserve its loyalty.

But somehow, it stays with me. This morning, I went on an early bike ride up Mandeville Canyon. Usually I keep my phone tucked in one of the back pockets on my jersey. I wore a pocketless shirt this time, so I shoved the phone elsewhere. This proved to be a bad idea - by the time I'd made it back down the hill and returned to Mazdatron, I realized the phone had made an early departure from my sports bra somewhere along the way. So, I got in my truck and made my way up the hill very slowly, looking for whatever busted remnants of my cellular roadkill remained.

At the top of the hill, I spotted it....lying open, face up, in the gutter, with sprinklers raining water all over it. The battery cover was shivering and wet a few yards away. Well....at least I'll have my SIM card and a corpse to bury, I thought. The phone was soaked, the screen was blank. I dried it off in my truck as best I could. On the way home, though, I decided I'd put the battery back in and just see if it'd turn on. Lo and behold: it did! Glory hallelujah, the phone works, the screen works, the keys work, and I can cellularly communicate as well as ever! Aside from some scotch tape now keeping the battery and its cover in place, my little phone is the posterchild for mechanical health. A Thursday miracle. I would say something about this phone being 'more than meets the eye'....

Thank you. Come again.

Fox came up with the funnest marketing scheme EVER to promote the Simpsons movie coming out at the end of the month. They've hijacked twelve 7-11s across the country and turned them into bona fide Kwik-E Marts! Reason #141 why I'm happy this week: I live within a mile of one of 'em.
I've been twice already - once Monday night (waiting in line 30 minutes to get in, I was given the unparalleled opportunity to buy myself a six-pack of Buzz Cola and a box of Krusty-Os), and once yesterday with Kat to get Squishees. Never mind that the Squishee maching was half-open and had a sign on it that said 'out of order for 20 minutes'...we determined that the Blue Vanilla Squishee consistency looked good enough for our consumption, so we filled up two cups inconspicuously (though some kids saw us walking away with them, and we almost started a mini-riot. the Indian man tending the machine reprimanded us and questioned our literacy, and we...well, laughed. He took the sign off and reopened the machine for customer use, so no harm done.).

Sing with me now: who needs the Kwik-E Mart? I do!

how not to make friends on the freeway: the story of a birthday present gone bad

If you scroll down a few posts, you'll see a picture of me lounging in a truck bed full of shredded paper. Ah, the naive joy I felt that warm summer day, basking in the glow of a humorous birthday surprise.

When I drove down to San Diego several weeks ago to go rock climbing, I bagged up all the paper so it wouldn't go flying all over the freeway. The 4 massive trash bags remained in my room in the space on my floor where I normally sleep. I decided I'd put all of it back in the bed after 1. purchasing a net to hold it down and 2. taking Mazdatron for a long overdue washing...so I was very pleased when I got to leave work early on Tuesday and managed to accomplish thing 1 AND thing 2. Joyfully triumphant, I returned all the paper to the bed, secured the bungee net over it, and began turning over ideas in my mind for what Fun Adventures could be had with Mazdatron: the Deluxe Superclean Pimped-out Hamster-cage Edition.

Yesterday, Our Great United Day of Freedom, took me all over the city. From early morning celebrations at Manhattan Beach to late-evening Marina Del Rey firework excursions, the day was filled with driving. Midday, I drove downtown to Sammy Sam Farrell's sister's new apartment for a birthday barbeque. After much merriment and consumption of some really really great food, I took off, hopped on the freeway, and headed west. En route, a massive chunk of the paper got free of the net and started flying all over the road. I was 4 exits away from my house; I tried to slow down a bit to prevent the situation from getting worse. Imagine my delight, then, when a police car pulled behind me suddenly, lights flashing. I got off the freeway, laughing. I've never been pulled over before. I hear some people cry in these situations. I had a hard time not laughing out loud when the cop came up to the window.

Long story short, I had to put all the paper inside my (freshly-vacuumed) truck under the watchful eye of the (very nice) policeman who told me how he drives an electric car and is a huge environmentalist. I explained my bemusement to him; I am a Recycling Queen who fishes recyclables out of my friends' trash cans, just in the name of keeping mother earth tidy and healthy. I received my first ticket (fortunately, not a littering violation...something to do with not having a proper cover on my truck). For this, I assume I'll have to pay a fine (I'm waiting for the actual ticket to come in the mail), and I will definitely have to do online traffic school.

It's all fun and games until your shredded paper blows into the Windshield of the Law. Dang it.