'Bred Crumbs

Good Night, You Prince of Sealab

Johnny Cash and John Ritter are gone, but frankly, I'm more bummed that the voice of Sealab 2021's Captain Murphy, Harry Goz, has died. It's hard to imagine anyone else will fill that character's angry, demented, funny funny vocal shoes so well.

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No-power Hours

Living in California, you learn not to be surprised when the power goes out. But when it goes out at 2 a.m. and the date happens to be Sept. 11, well, it can be a little spooky.

My first, reflexive thought was, Make all the beeping stop. Meaning, two universal power supplies, connected to my computer and the newly arrived PVR, both chirping repeatedly to announce that their batteries had kicked in as intended, like a 5-year-old telling everyone in earshot that he's helping when mommy lets him open the Rice-A-Roni.

As I shut the UPCs down, though, awareness of the date grew. So, though it seemed unlikely that shutting off power to a residential area in the middle of the night would be a useful terrorist tactic, the rational part of my brain decided to humor the paranoid back corner, and I sought a way to check the news. An idea to plug a TV into a UPS proved too intricate to complete successfully by flashlight, so I finally dug out the earthquake pack (a nice reminder of a more likely trauma than the one I was half-assedly imagining), robbed two batteries from the fleet of remotes to replace the expired ones in the pack, and got the two-buck AM radio going. I got no information about any emergency, just the reassurance of lots and lots of bad, crackly music. I tried to go to sleep, and electricity returned in an hour.

When the beeping returned last night to wake me a second time, my reflexes this time were (1) stop the beeping and (2) call PG&E and find out what the hell's going on. Turns out cordless phones, which I switched to just a year ago, don't work without power (emergency prep note to self No. 2: get old corded phone out of storage), but the cell did. The automated menu on the outage-report line was a bitch, inexplicably rejecting my punched-in phone number and insisting I enter my PG&E account number. Of course, since rooting around your old bills in the darkness is such a priority in an outage. I defied the voice, and eventually she put me through to a human, who told me both outages were scheduled maintenance shutdowns.

"Was I given any notification of this?" I asked far more politely than I wanted to. She said there should have been a notice in the mail or "posted to my door." Well, if it was mailed, I didn't get it, and there was no note on the condo bulletin board. Someone had put the no in notification.

So I'll shut down everything before bedtime for a few nights, until I'm sure this bout of maintenance has passed. Meanwhile, with my sleep broken two consecutive nights, I muddle through a power outage of my own.

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News from the Front

PANACEA, Ill. – Empowered by its $2000 victory over a 12-year-old girl, the Recording Industry Association of America on Tuesday announced a $2 million lawsuit against the students of the Happy Time Day Care Center.

The suit claims a computer at the day care center contains so many files of songs by "Sesame Street" recording artist Elmo that illegal downloading is certain.

"Our records clearly show that no one has ever intentionally purchased this many Elmo songs," said Field Marshal Klaus Fabricate, head of the RIAA's Enforcement Squadron. "At least not without almost immediately committing suicide."

Facing a steep decline in sales fueled by shoddy output, flagrant overpricing and a complete failure to meet the needs of its market, the recording industry has decided to blame everything on digital file traders.

"When we ask our marketing people what we can do to better serve music buyers, they just stare into space and drool," said RIAA vice president Üter D. Nile. "Meanwhile, our lawyers assure us that a massive, capricious attack on our consumer base is the wisest course of action. And that alienating children, who haven't yet learned to despise us, is particularly vital."

RIAA lawyers also filed suit against 6-month-old Denver Amber Hastings, accusing the infant of burbling in a manner that "suspiciously resembles" the diatribes of critically praised hate advocate Eminem; and against the unborn fetus of Andrew and Leslie Simmons, which "has been downloading life-giving nutrients without the written consent of the RIAA."

Nile noted that puppies and kittens would likely also be crushed by the industry's death throes.

"Whether biped, quadruped, or as multi-limbed and arachnoid as a music executive, consumers must come to understand they must do things our way," Nile said. "By even thinking about downloading music, they disrespect the artists we treat like shit. And, after all, isn't it all about enriching our lives with great music?"

Also on Tuesday, the record industry released new albums by Seal, Sir Mix-A-Lot, the Romantics and Iron Maiden, as well as the Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star soundtrack.

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Lies My Coupon Tells

My demanding brand of liquid coffee creamer has resorted to fuzzy logic in its unquenchable thirst for all my money. After tonight's grocery run, the register spat out a coupon for the unappealing, ineffective powder version of the creamer, attached to a manifesto that began as follows:

IF YOU LOVE COFFEE-MATE® LIQUID COFFEE CREAMER

THEN YOU'LL LOVE

COFFEE-MATE® POWDER

COFFEE CREAMER!

A leap of logic, to say the least. And you can tell they know their sales pitch is flimsy, because the assertion is followed by possibly the lamest rationalization outside a Dubya policy statement:

USE COFFEE-MATE® WHILE ON-THE-GO, AT WORK OR AS A BACK-UP WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF YOUR LIQUID CREAMER.

"Honey, how many bottles of creamer should I get, one or two?"

"Don't get two! We'll just go to a completely different aisle and grab some of that awful powdery stuff as a backup."

The sales pitch went on even farther, but let's not even address the "velvety texture" claim.

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Stores That Have Wronged Me, Part 2

[I knew I was forgetting someone in my last rant ...]

There is a national sandwich chain that has much, much better food than Jared's place. Problem is, the local franchise of this chain is The Store That Basic Deli Procedures Forgot.

The staffing goes like this: one person "takes" your order (which is to say, halfway listens to what you're telling her and proceeds to do whatever she wants), builds part of your sandwich, and loads it into the Magic Toaster Pedway. At the other end of that, another worker adds more fixin's, and a third works the register.

And none of these people talk to each other, or communicate your order to each other in any way. No computer tracking, no order slips on tear-off pads, nothin'. Which means you have to repeat your order to every one of them, and monitor each one as closely as your dog watches you unwrap candy, because otherwise they will completely ignore what you've said five times already.

Throw in the fact that sandwich-shop workers tend to be a vacant lot – I half expect to see Jessica Simpson behind the counter one of these days* – and the whole process takes ten minutes if there's no one else in line.

All in all, if the food choices near my workplace weren't so few, the tastiness wouldn't be worth the annoyance of the service. Not even the Honey Mustard Chicken with Bacon. Salty and crumbly though it is.

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* Which would be acceptable only if hubby Nick were there too. Shirtless. Not singing.

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