This morning while waiting for the train I was minding my own business, reading an article in the latest Time about Richard Clark, President Bush, and 9/11. Evidently a picture on the back of the folded page made it obvious what I was reading about. An older, possibly homeless, man began talking in my direction.

"Man, God bless us! God bless us all! Except Bush!" I smiled politely. "I mean, there weren't no weapons of mass destruction!" I looked around. He was talking to me. "We gotta get someone else in there. Martin Sheen for President! You ever seen that West Wing show?" I shook my head no. "Well it's about the President. Oh well, I'm going to get off my soapbox now." I go back to reading my magazine. "Martin Sheen for President!" pause "Maybe even Hillary and Oprah for President. The woman vote and the black vote." I pretend not to listen. "Man, there sure are some fine women here in Chicago." I sigh. "What am I sayin? There's fine women everywhere!" I hold the magazine closer to my face. "Martin Sheen! Ha ha!"

This morning at the post office a man was waiting in line with his 3-year-old daughter. She was standing around, smiling at me and the other guy standing in the line, and every once in a while she would swing herself around on one of those poles that held up the things that defined where the line was. Between the flirting with the men and the swinging in circles around a poll, I couldn't help but think about what this girl's future career might be.

Supposedly the prep-time for the world to exist only took a week. Since then there have been many things that have also only lasted a week. Bush's approval ratings being above 55%. Oprah staying skinny. Most Jason Bateman sitcoms. And now, I'm proud to say that my blog contest has joined those ranks. After what can only technically be considered a contest (non-technically it's considered a waste of text) the "polls" have closed. Most of the e-mail I received was angry at mightygirl (which I will not condone), and the rest was telling me that now was the time to refinance my mortgage or enlarge my penis (junkmail, in other words). So, with the contest (and I use that word lightly) officially over, I will kindly return you to your regularly scheduled blog. Thank you for your patronage.

This morning I got an e-mail from my dad reading:

Contest? You want me to design your web site? Go to mine for ideas. wellspringchiro.com.

Is my own father trying to plug his site at my blog? Sigh. If this contest doesn't pick up soon...well, I don't have to tell you what's going to happen.

Today, Harvey Hopkins (who sounds like a private eye, no?) writes:

Mighty girl's request would be a lot less annoying if she didn't thank you in advance for your understanding. It's lame, but whateva.

While I don't know if I necessarily agree with Harvey, I love the fact that he actually wrote out the word "whateva."

Sigh...this contest is loosing steam faster than a hot air balloon with a lot of holes.

Point of revision:

Carla e-mailed me again to say that, "In the interest of accuracy, I bought you a lemonade, but you get creative license on that. If you think a sundae plays better go for it!" I do remember now that it was a lemonade, but it was pretty huge. When the waitress brought it to the table I actually exclaimed something about how huge it seemed. My stomach didn't even have the capacity for it!

Also, in the first sight of angry letters, Brett writes, "She 'made' this? Does she have some sort of monopoly on red font and white backgrounds with a picture on the left? Put your picture on the right, and tell her get over it. But if you really want to go for a big change, make your big happy josh face the wallpaper, with black, and then green font... always liked the black and green."

Black and green? Then maybe I could start the X-Files fan site I always wanted to.

Let the games begin...

I have received my first e-mail (from Carla), stating:

In your 'defense' I can tell mightygirl that ethics was neer your strongest quality...oh and good move on having the prize come from someone who will actually send it ...but don't get me started on that!

So clearly, the reason that I steal other people's templates is because ethics was never really my best quality. Then again, Carla bought me an ice cream sundae when I was 16 because I had gone three months without telling my dad that I got my license suspended. Mixed signals? So really, to quote West Side Story "Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, you gotta understand: it's just our bringing upke that gets us outta hand!...Golly! Moses! Naturally we're punks!" Preach it Stephen Sondheim!

Today, in my little Bergwithfries e-mail inbox I received a letter from mightygirl.net. It reads:

One of my readers sent me a note to let me know that you were using my site design. I'm flattered that you like it, but I'm writing to request that you redesign or use one of the many publicly available templates available through blogging services.

I know you didn't mean any harm, but I don't want other people to think that I'm using a template when I actually took quite a bit of time to design my own site. Thanks in advance for understanding.

And while I feel for mightygirl, clearly I'm not that creative of an individual (as if my stealing her template wasn't proof enough of that). So I've been forced to propose a contest. Anyone can send in their ideas to change my blog, and the person with the best ideas wins a jar of strawberry mustard compliments of StrawberryMustard.com. So send your ideas to bergwithfries@yahoo.com, and within the next few weeks you'll see some changes around this place! ...Or else I'll have no ideas and mightygirl.net will sue me. And sure, I'll claim that I was just sampling her site (like the P. Diddy of blogging or something), but I'll lose that case once it's reaches Supreme Court level. Damn you Ruth Bader Ginsberg! ...Please e-mail me.

scene: Maggie and I at work behind the circulation desk. An intern from Prints & Drawings comes up to ask a question, and is wearing earrings with three tiny greens balls hanging from each ear.

Maggie: I just kinda want to flick those.
(Maggie taps the earrings with a pen. The intern laughs.)
Intern: Go ahead. I just had a question, but I have to go check something out first.
(The intern walks away)
Maggie: Are you dissapointed with me?
Me: Why?
Maggie: For playing with her earrings.
Me: No. I kinda wanted to do that too.
Maggie: (Laughs)Yeah you did.

This afternoon during the train ride home there was an Asian woman in her 60's sitting across from me reading a Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel. It was kind of a funny sight and I thought to myself, "I guess you can't judge a book by it's cover." ...Unless that cover has a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar in a karate pose with a wooden stake in her hand.

I'd like to believe her grandchildren got her hooked on it.

Well, it's primary election voting day here in Illinois, and you know what that means! ...you vote in the primary election. What? You were expecting something else?

As some people know there's a horrible show on E! or VH1 titled The Fabulous Life of... and each week they profile a rich person like Britney Spears, or Madonna, or...whoever, and the proceed to talk about their cars and how much they spend on alcohol in a month. Well the other day at the library I came across a book about early 20th century Mexican artist Diego Rivera titled The Fabulous Life of Diego Rivera (Stein and Day New York, 1963). I like to imagine that the show would go over something like: "When Diego travels, he does it in style! In 1914 he drove down to his house in Mexico in his brand new Model-T!" Oh Diego, you're all about the benjamins.

This history of the world, as told by Me and Abigail.

Abigail: Why don't you just e-mail me the file?
Me: I despise e-mailing files. That's why God created Direct Connect.
Abigail: That was God? I thought it was Al Gore.
Me: Al Gore just invented e-mail. (pause) And the frappuccino.
Abigail: Also, the spotted owl.
Me: And the element boron.
Abigail: And...um, shit...er...the lockbox?
Me: And five minutes later, the lockbox key.
Abigail: But then 5 minutes later Tipper decided that having the lock and the key in the same room was obscene, so she had to invent the parental advisory label.
Me: But Al disagreed, and Tipper got mad, and Tipper was forced to invent 'making your husband sleep on the sofa.'
Abigail: Which was all okay, because Al definitely hadn't invented sex yet. And, God willing, he won't ever discover it. Eww....those perfect blond children must be the result of asexual propagation, like a whole bunch of potatoes.
Me: And then Al said "let there be light."
Me: And it was good.
Abigail: And he divided the heavens, from the earth, but he forgot to divide the Judiciary branch far enough from the Executive branch, and thus he lost an election.
Me: Fo' shizzle!

The End

Overheard this afternoon while walking through a gallery in the museum:

4-year-old: Daddy, which are good and which are bad?
Dad: No honey, they're all art, and all different.
4-year-old: (slightly aggravated)I knooow! But which are good and which are bad?

Aww. I just know she's going to grow up and write scathing reviews in Art Forum.

Would someone tell me how this happened? When I was about 11 I typed up something titled "The Calvin & Hobbes Directory" which...well, is exactly what it sounds like. Lets say you wanted to read a strip where Calvin was playing with Susie...in the book Scientific Progress Going Boink? Well, that's on page 19. Or what about the very first time Calvin is the superhero Stupendous Man? Well that's in Weirdos From Another Planet on page 115. I worked damn hard on it, and I was the toast of the town! But *now* I've stumbled across a page that's stolen my entire operation! The Calvin and Hobbes Extensive Strip Search (is that supposed to be funny? Am I supposed to laugh at their little double entendre? Cause that ain't hap'nin slick!) is a searchable database of every Calvin & Hobbes strip, including it's original publication date. Now I'm standing around with my cock in my hand, holding a little 20 page booklet that was typed on an Apple LCII, and Table of Contents or not, suddenly I'm the chump. Well, fuck it. I'm going to create an even better Calvin & Hobbes search site! You think it's crazy? It is crazy. But I don't give a shit. From now on, I'm going to be the leader in this little comic searching game! They think they're hot stuff because they have an interview with Bill Watterson? Fuck no. I got the passion baby! What part of this don't you understand? I'm going to make the best fucking Calvin & Hobbes search site that ever existed. Comprende? I know what you're thinking now: What'll people say? Mew mew mew. Oh, no, what will people say?! Grow the fuck up. When you're on top, people talk. That's the price you pay for being on top. Which my Calvin & Hobbes search site will be! Amen, Calvin & Hobbes, sweet Jesus in heaven. God damnit! I've got to start patenting my ideas.

Today, on CNN.com, an overview is given on the attacks and criticism facing Bush in his election campaign.

"From the left, Bush gets hit by the Media Fund, which is spending almost $5.1 million to air a new ad throwing everything at the president but the kitchen sink -- job losses, tax cuts, health care, special interests and corporate corruption."

Am I the only one amused by the thought of someone throwing a kitchen sink at Dubya? I didn't think so.

From a questionnaire on Ashley's blog:

14. Favorite Outkast lyric?
Arrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarrightarright

If only every page of a magazine were as entertaining as the back page.

Today, the back page from February's GQ: Possible campaign slogans for Dubya's re-election (or as some believe, election).

*Reviving the economy to where it had already been.
*Osama: We'll find him, we swear. Vote Bush.
*Oh, what's a few million jobs lost?
*No regime change here! Bush '04.
*The environment is for pussies. Bush for president.
*Hey, don't forget that check for $600 we sent you "for working families" in 2001! Bush '04.
*The man who got us into this mess is the only man who can get us out of it.
*Keep W. employed.
*Bush: This time he wants to win fair and square.
*A dangerous man for a dangerous world!

Scene: Nik and I talking, after I had told her our friend Kellie is upset that she's not in my blog.
Me: You have a blog?
Nik: I do! (viewable here)
Me: I had no idea. I'm gonna link you at my site.
Nik: Eeee!
Me: Just don't tell Kellie.
Nik: Okay.
Me: 'Cause she'll probably have a breakdown. Start yelling "No wire hangers!" or something.
Nik: Is there a reference there that I'm supposed to get?
Me: Yeah, from Mommy Dearest. When Joan Crawford flips out at her daughter, cause she only wants her using wooden hangers.
(pause)
Me: I'm not gay, I swear.

Scene: Maggie and I talking at work
Maggie: So what's going on with Josh?
Me: Eh, not much.
Maggie: I suppose if I really wanted to know I could just read your blog.
Me: Not that you do.
Maggie: No.
Me: Of course not.
Maggie: You could be writing mean things about me and I wouldn't even know it.
Me: "Maggie kicks people in the shins!"
Maggie: "Maggie kicks people where it hurts!"
Me: It hurts when you get kicked anywhere.
Maggie: But usually that means the crotch.
Me: I guess.
Maggie: More for boys, when they get kicked in (whispered) the balls.
Me: Well, it hurts when anyone gets kicked in that area.
Maggie: It can hurt a girl if she falls on a bike and hits that bar there.
Me: Eech, yeah. That area in general.
Maggie: Yeah.
pause
Me: How did we go from talking about my blog to...crotch issues?
Maggie: (laughing) I don't know.
Me: But this is going in my blog.

At the Cosi I regularly go to break at, there's a guy who I have affectionately named 'Derrick the Clumsy Bagel Guy'. He has been given this name because, well, he's clumsy. Cream cheese is slopped onto bagels, trays are dropped, spreaders slip through his fingers and land on the floor, and boxes are tripped over. Only this morning he dropped several bowls of cream cheese into one another, tried to stop them, and sent a gloved hand flying into the cream cheese. Needless to say, he had to change the glove. More than anything I'm simply amused by this. It's as if Derrick were trying to reinact some hypothetical movie from 1963 in which Jerry Lewis played a bagel maker. "Laaady! With the cream cheese! And the spreading! And the heeey!"

This morning on our way to break there was a guy standing on Michigan avenue in a sweatshirt, no shoes, and a long beard. "Hello, my name is Timothy. I want to tell you about Jesus," he said. "Oh Jesus," I said under my breath, and all of us ignored him.

I personally don't find barefoot people any more religious and/or spiritual than those of us who wear shoes. That's just me.