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Monday, September 17, 2007

So there was the weekend, and what a weekend it was! Set up a nice patio cover at the Harbor Days Festival down at the old Oceanside Wharf. A nice little table, a couple of palm trees, and we handed out flyers. It was a corner space, about 30 feet from the water, right near the main stage, just next to the Oceanside Ale Works, beautiful weather. Families, dogs, military bands, pirates. It was a festival!

We sold the family wares. That is to say, Mrs. Ditchman did most (all) of the selling. She is the entire Sales/Marketing Division of the operation. I build the things. Give me a hammer and some aluminum and I'll bang some shade out of it in no time. Ask me what it costs and I wince and stammer, stroke my bald forehead and inevitably blurt out some number. That smacking sound you hear in the background will be my wife hitting her own forehead.

But the shows generally mean it's Daddy time, and I don't mind one bit! We play in the yard, chase each other around, the usual happy stuff. Today she fell asleep in my lap as I read the new book, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish which I hadn't read in, oh, 33 years. It's a pretty funny one. Much recommended. Best Seuss since Mister Brown Can Moo, Can You?

The show went okay. 60,000 people scheduled to attend! Why, if we sold a patio cover to each of those people, made a thousand dollars profit on each one... hold on... doing the math... that'd be sixty million dollars! Or something. Mrs. Ditchman said she handed out less than 50 flyers. But she made a few appointments. That's business.

We came home tired, and she was beat. Real beat, too, banged up and sickly. The kid is finally back to her old self, even joking around a bit now, but the mom, well, she's a mess. Aluminum poisoning, no doubt. I know the sickness. The cure is not what we had for dinner: beer sausage, grilled onions, and um, beer. She claimed it was her idea, which is fine by me. I loved every bit of it. Just like the bachelor days of my youth! With a side of mustard! Drew the curtains on the weekend by rubbing eucalyptus oil into her shoulder.

And O.J.'s in jail. Why, that'd perk up any Monday. The streets are safer! Seems he was trying to steal back some of his stuff, valuable souvenirs and such with his autograph, at gunpoint! I find this a fascinating metaphor for his pathetic life. His massive ego, long since tainted by his pop-criminality, has deteriorated to the point where he is effectively stealing back his own identity and he gets caught and arrested for it! It's as if his powerful ego alone convicted him! Maybe I'm reaching. You're right. The guy was just minding his own business in Vegas, just in town for a wedding for one of his buddies. He was the best man. I hate it when the best man ends up in jail at my wedding.

O.J. Simpson has buddies? By the way, someone please try and convince me that he was not guilty in the murders of Ron and Nicole. Remember O.J.'s glove found at the crime scene? The one that was in O.J.'s blood found at the crime scene? The size twelve Bruno Magli shoes and the bloody footprints? The cut on O.J.'s hand? Kato's and the limo driver's eyewitness accounts placing him returning right after the time of death? The blood of Ron and Nicole in O.J's car, house, etc.? And who could forget the slow-speed chase in the white Bronco and the thousands of dollars and fake beard he had in the glove compartment? Wow, what a ripe bastard. They say he could get thirty years for armed robbery. He's sixty. I'll live to see that release date when he's 90!

But I still say he's going to kill himself one of these days. I said it after the trial (the first one) and I still say it. You read it here first, folks. That ego will reach critical mass, one of these days. Looks like it did today, actually. What entertainment. Give that guy an Emmy. And did you hear about the book where he admits it all? Okay, well sort of. Anyway, it was number one on Amazon last I checked. Read the Amazon reader reviews and you can save yourself the time bothering with the book.

By the way, Al Gore won an Emmy last night. This is no big deal, however. Did you know that hundreds of Emmys are handed out each year? No one even knows the exact amount that are handed out, there are so many. Seriously. See if you can find out how many on the internet. No one knows. When I worked at Disney, it seemed every other person had an Emmy in his office. When I went to my ten year high school reunion, there were multiple Emmy winners in attendance. I was beginning to feel left out.

"What good amid these, oh me, oh life?" Man, what a low point in American Pop culture, the O.J trial was. Come to think of it, what was the high point of American Pop Culture? Season 1 of Firefly, no doubt.

Firefly- Emmy Award: Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series, 2003