Par King

It’s sad when you’re really good at something and then it’s not needed anymore. For instance, I feel bad for the people who don’t get to use their beautiful handwriting anymore. Bummer. 

One of my talents as many of you know is parallel parking. The new self-driving cars will eliminate the need for that talent unfortunately. But yeah, for the time being, I’m pretty good at it. So good that I received an unsolicited compliment from a stranger eating at a sidewalk diner earlier this week after I backed my car into a tight spot on one attempt. It’s a beautiful art when you do it right. And it makes for fun, inexpensive entertainment for sidewalk diners. They can place bets as to whether you’re going to get the car into the spot, how many moves it’ll take, whether you hit one of the cars or maybe a meter, etc. I suspect the woman who complimented me had won a bet of some sort.

I, like the good race horse jockeys in yesterday's Preakness Stakes, don’t mind being the subject of an occasional bet. But look out you talented jockeys! Are jockey-free race horses the next thing?     

Ear Piercing for Dogs

I saw a sign today along the highway for dog ear piercings. Yikes! So I looked up ear piercings for dogs on the internet. I found a vet’s column about it. As you might expect, he was not in favor of the piercings. Nor was he in favor of dog tattoos. Dog tattoos? That was new to me as well. As the vet pointed out in his article, most dogs have hair so you cannot even see the tattoos. What should a dog tattoo say or convey? “I love Mom”? If you insist on tattooing your dog, I suppose a good message might be, “Stamp out ear piercings for dogs!"

I did not find any articles regarding clip on earrings for dogs so you’re on your own on that one.

Dog Rental

Where I live it costs about $23 per day to take your dog to doggie day care. That’s $115 per week. $500+ per month. That’s less than it would cost to re-carpet your house every month, but that’s still a lot of money! I think I’ve found a way to lower the cost to board a dog for a day, and not cut into the kennel’s profit. Why not make your dog available for daily rental from the kennel? Let’s say you’re a family with small children and you’re not sure about getting a dog. Why not do a test run by renting a dog for a day? Or, let’s say you know that there is a salesman in your neighborhood selling siding. Rent a dog! The dog owner and the kennel would split the proceeds from the rent, thus lowering your boarding costs and increasing the profit at the kennel. This makes waaay too much sense…

I know you’re not s’posed to leave a dog in your car, but if I had one of those self-driving cars could I dazzle my neighbors and send it out with my dog behind the wheel and no people in it? I can’t wait for these self-driving cars…

Self-Driving Me Crazy

My friend at work said that he thought he saw a driverless car go by him on the freeway last week. He said the car went by him pretty fast and it looked like no one was in the driver’s seat. That made me think.  On these driverless cars, if there IS someone behind the wheel, and the car speeds by us and the guy behind the wheel is like reading a magazine or something, how will we know whether this is a self-driving car or if the driver is just being careless? Or asleep? Will it be that guy’s duty to roll down his window and tell us it’s a self-driving car? Should we demand he hold his hands up through his open sun roof to indicate the car is driving itself?

Let’s take this one step at a time. Maybe make each potential owner of self-driving car be required to have some prior experience - like having maybe a self-cleaning oven or a player piano. One step at a time…

Handout

I like to hold my hand up to stop traffic when I cross a busy street. I saw Mickey Rourke do it in a movie once and I thought it was cool. My wife thinks it’s arrogant – I usually respond to her with something like, “Well, we got across the street and they didn’t hit us, did they honey?” It’s not like I’m yelling at the cars or anything. I don’t do that. Mickey Rourke doesn’t do that…

In the past year or two, I’ve seen two other guys hold up their hands to stop traffic when crossing the street. So I had some confirmation, initially. One was in New York City. Using the hand in the Big Apple is the ultimate traffic stoppage. That’s where Mickey did it in the movie. The other was closer to home. Upon further observation however, it appeared that both of the guys I observed were homeless (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and after holding up their hand, they did indeed yell at the car.

I’m not sure I will keep up this practice when everyone switches to self-driving cars. I’m gonna at least wait ‘til Mickey does it in a movie… 

Loose Foot

I enjoy the theater. But I like going to see the plays “cold”, without knowing the story beforehand. They’re much fresher that way. A couple of years ago our local high school put on the play “Footloose”. My wife got us tickets and we went to see it. It was an excellent production but it was nothing like I expected. Because of the name “Footloose”, I had expected it to be about leprosy, or maybe about finding a cure for leprosy. Frankly, I went out of curiosity more than anything else. I wanted to see how they could make a musical about leprosy. I mean, what rhymes with “leprosy”? Boy was I surprised!

Indeed, these titles can fool you. Another play I got fooled on was “Annie Get Your Gun”. I had always thought that this was a sequel to the play “Annie”, where maybe the little red haired orphan girl packs heat and gets revenge on that orphanage. Maybe like a West Side Story for kids. Wrong again!

I wonder if Lady Gaga ever has played the lead in “My Fair Lady”…