"Ahoy, me haarrty!"

If you don't believe the world is coming to an end, then you haven't read this and this and this...

But then again there's this, so maybe there's hope after all.

Also, it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, matey! Arrrgh! Just the fact that it's "International" Talk Like a Pirate Day makes it all worth the cost of an eye-patch. Any excuse to enjoy a flagon of grog, I say.

There was a distant flicker of excitement today in the hood. Not actual "excitement' as in "surprise and alarm", but rather the lackluster hijinks of local teenagers. I could hear our neighbor on the phone with the police wafting all the way across the street and up into the office window, "...they lit a fire... out in the field... a couple boys..." So I figured I'd grab the Little Ditchman and get her out of the house for a few minutes, as she bores easily. (Takes after her dad.)

We went over to the neighbor's, "Any trouble?" Sure enough, there was a tiny fire about a quarter of a mile away out in the last undeveloped property in all Oceanside. "They ran off and hid behind those rocks!" I knew I could amble on down there and stamp the fire out with my flip-flop, but I thought I better leave this one to the authorities.

We had a good vantage point, as the neighbor's house stands atop a rise, and after ten minutes or so the fire was about knee-high. The land had been recently cleared of brush so there wasn't any obvious imminent danger, and soon enough we heard the sirens and then a few firetrucks pulled up to what amounts to the edge of the local prairie, off in the distance. The local heroes finished their sandwiches and hopped out, and made their way across the field. I nearly peed my pants from all of the excitement. What was cool, though, was the sound of all the coyotes howling down in the brush-filled gully. They got whipped up into a suburban frenzy from the sound of the sirens.

Anyway, I haven't heard if they caught the boys, but my money's on the neighbor kid who home-schools himself. The wife and I were having lunch out on the patio last week when a wine cooler bottle came flying over the fence and shattered into a million pieces on the pavers near us. I turned on the dad voice, and almost felt a bit guilty about it as it scares even me. Almost, that is, since I've got a little kid of my own now, and that changes things. Hey, I was young and stupid as a kid, too, and maybe if I'd been caught and held accountable more back then, it wouldn't have taken me so long to snap out of it. I made him clean it up, but not without intimidating him first.

And yes, I said "home-schools himself". This is the answer I got when I asked him why he wasn't in school. See? The world really is coming to an end. This is the generation that will be minding us in the Oceanside Old Folks' Home!

And three of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have arrived in Lake Elsinore. Seriously, have you ever been there? Lake Elsinore is a miserable place, I drive by it all the time. So if you find yourself stuck in Lake Elsinore and a few guys named "Turk", "McCabe", and "Wayne 'No-Nose' Gardner" stop to help, REFUSE -BY ALL MEANS- REFUSE! You'll recognize "No-Nose" because he- well... check it out for yourself.