Year: 2007

I am now living in a peaceful, gorgeous house as part of my very last house-sitting gig. You would not believe the loveliness of this place. There is a pomegranate tree in the front yard, and pears and apples galore in the backyard. Anyhow, once I leave here, i will be living, temporarily, in a smallish tool shed. It will be cozy in there (six by four feet!) and there are lawnmowers and things in there, so it’s going to be a bit of a tight squeeze but it should be ok. By the way, I am temporarily in Silicon Valley, and, as far as I’m concerned, the place gets a bad rap. I had no idea that the place had so many forests, hiking trails, etc. They have a lovely open-space area called Rancho San Antonio — rolling chaparral foothills, hawks, deer everywhere, quail squeaking around in the bushes,…

Given that i misspelled Ms. Lohan’s first name in that last post, here’s another go at it: ‘Lyndsay Lohan arrested again’anagrams to … ‘Dastardly as annoying healer.’ Not quite as snappy. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I believe in the power of anagrams. Whenever I’m feeling confused about a current event, a scandal or a situation in my life, I try to enter that situation into an anagram-generating machine that will puzzle out the hidden meaning within. Here are a few anagrams for your consumption: The anagram for ‘Lyndsey Lohan arrested again’ is: ‘Rantingly analysed sorehead.’ The anagram for ‘Should senator Larry Craig resign” is … ‘Harlot’s coarse-grained slurrying.’ more to follow! http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Hi everyone. I want to direct you to a very funny blog, http://semprelaltracosa.blogspot.com/ Take a look at the list of blind-date-evasion excuses in the latest post. If you want to learn about life in the Bay Area, this is the blog for you. I also dig “dogpoet” (which is extremely well-written, and makes me feel kind of bad about the fact that I write my own blog entries in about two and a half minutes, tops.) and the shocking but very funny “stereolabrat” blog. I am jealous of the fancy fonts in some of these blogs, and the fact that the bloggers are technologically savvy and know how to put slide shows and films and three-dimensional twirly-swirly decorative stuff while my blog is just blocks of text, with the exception of the “Today Show” entry, in which you get to see me on television for about nine and a half…

My wife and I have started our ‘house search.’ Sometimes the listings are too good to be true. Yesterday we took a four-hour round trip slog in Memorial Day traffic to see an allegedly “nice” space with an ocean view. It sure sounded cool in the advertisement. Anyhow, the carpets had some sort of organic scunge on them. The whole place looked scraped up. Dingy. Stinky. Dark as a dungeon. I should have known by the thousand-dollar price tag. That’s how much Jennifer Connelly paid for her apartment in “Dark Water.” http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Hi everyone. Last week, I discovered an ant colony living in my car. How is that even possible? I close my car windows all the time when I’m not using it. Did the ants spring to live spontaneously? It seems supernatural to me. Anyhow, Windex took care of ’em. I haven’t seen a single ant in a couple of days. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Enjoying California but the bagels here are, basically, circles of air with ropes of mealy dough around them. I’m sorry, Noah, but this is not a bagel. This is a dinner role with a bellybutton in the middle of it. California needs artisanal bagels. Maybe I’ll have to open up my own store. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I live (temporarily) near an ice cream parlor in Santa Cruz. It’s called Marianne’s, and it’s probably my favorite ice cream parlor anywhere. Fresh. Great flavors. Prompt service. The only problem is, it’s literally right across the street from my house, which means that I’m eating trough-loads of ice cream for every meal. This is bad news for me, especially in light of the article that my friend Sam sent me about porcine authors who never leave their homes and weigh 500 pounds. Tomorrow we’re moving to another location just to get away from the ice cream parlor. I’ll keep you posted. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

I was standing in line at Rite-Aid, just minding my own business, reading the Us magazine article about Britney Spears and the sleazy college student in the hot tub, when I looked up and saw that a guy in another line was staring at me in a very threatening manner. I am not sure why he was staring at me in this way. Anyhow, I had a friend with me in the line who stink-eyed him right back. I’m wondering if the starer is the same person who has been texting all those NFL scores into my cell phone. In other news, I watched two DVD movies in the past two weeks. One was “The Host,” about a man-eating slime monster in Korea. The other was “The Pursuit of Happyness,” starring Will Smith as a guy who spends the whole movie chasing people up steep hills and hauling machinery around…

Some bozo keeps texting NFL scores into my cellphone. http://cactuseaters.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default