Since Kristin and I have been dating for a few months now, I figure it’s only fair to feature her in the “How I Annoy People” section of my web site. In all honesty I don’t remember any significant “moments” that defined our relationship. There was that one time I stood in the driveway holding up a stereo playing romantic Peter Gabriel music in the middle of the night. Had I actually been at the correct address at the time I think Kristin would have been impressed with the gesture. And I’m not just saying that– it’s part of the official police report. I guess things got serious somewhere in between meeting Kristin and her friend for a movie and getting put on the “A list” for her recent moving party.

One of the constant sources of conflict in our relationship revolves around the television series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” To say Kristin is obsessed with this show would be quite an understatement. She likes Buffy in much the same way I enjoy, say, breathing.

I wasn’t at all surprised when I realized Kristin created a “Sim” on her computer that revolved around some of the main Buffy characters. For anyone not familiar with the computer game “The Sims,” it allows the user to create character simulations who interact with each other based on various user input. The entire experience is quite similar to playing God, but with a convenient graphical interface.

In addition to Buffy, Kristin created characters for two male vampires named Spike and Angel. While Kristin was otherwise occupied, I decided to see what would happen when Spike and Angel met face to face. I expected some surreal bloody vampire battle, but it turned out the software did not understand the television-based nature of the simulation. Spike and Angel just stood around talking to each other. To make things more interesting, I had Spike flirt with and tickle Angel. Next I had Angel return the favor. Both characters seemed to enjoy the experience. When Kristin came back into the room I saved the game and closed the program on her computer.

Thanks to my intervention, Spike and Angel became, well, quite close. Kristin was very upset when her plans to build a relationship between Buffy and Spike were thwarted by my meddling. Spike and Angel spend the weekends antiquing while Buffy sits at home wondering why (quite literally) all the men in her world are gay. Even though I think of Kristin as a tolerant and understanding individual, it turns out she categorically draws the line at computer-generated vampire homo-eroticism.

In addition to Buffy, I firmly believe that as long as Kristin and I are both alive (and possibly longer) we are never going to agree on the topic of Rush Limbaugh. Now don’t get me wrong here– I quite admire the accomplishments of this man. Kristin, for some reason, sees him as a future political leader, where I think of Rush as a heavier-set republican version of Dennis Miller.

So while I would like to see Rush Limbaugh use his abilities to provide commentary for high-profile sporting events, Kristin is waiting for the day when she can vote him into political office. Kristin firmly believes we would all be better off if this man was running the country. These “spirited conversations” we have usually end up with Kristin giving me a cold stare when I concede the point that Rush has been married more than enough times to understand the Republican Party’s family values stance.

Kristin’s anal-retentive nature is always a source of entertainment for me. The easiest way I’ve found to annoy Kristin is to take one of her CDs and rotate it in the jewel case so the disc isn’t aligned correctly. I have determined that a clockwise rotation of eighty-seven degrees provides the maximum effectiveness to drive Kristin crazy. Of course after I rotate the disc, I hold it up to make sure Kristin can see what I’ve done. This is followed by about twenty seconds of Kristin pretending not to care. Finally she lunges for the CD and will not rest until the situation is resolved.

While I try to be considerate of Kristin’s needs, I find it almost impossible to resist sneaking into her kitchen and shuffling the packets of Kool-Aid. I started this little hobby after watching Kristin alphabetize them while unpacking the groceries. I’m not sure what difference it makes to have the Lemonade packet sitting in front of the Black Cherry packet, but Kristin doesn’t want to take the chance on the matter. I have no doubt in my mind that this severely annoys Kristin and I suspect it explains her fantasies involving the eight foot tall pitcher-shaped Kool-Aid man breaking through her kitchen wall and beating the crap out of me.

Despite all my deficiencies, Kristin still seems to enjoy my company. Even though I tend to annoy Kristin on a surprisingly regular basis, she still wants to spend time with me. All of this leads up to the $64,000 question: Who repairs all the structural damage when the Kool-Aid man comes over for a visit?

Now that I’ve lived in Loveland for a month, I feel a much stronger connection with the town. To be honest, when I first moved in, I knew little more than the two main streets in the area. Depending on my starting point, finding my way back home was at times quite a challenge. Thanks to my technique of randomly driving around town for little or no specific reason I have identified many, if not all, of the points of interest Loveland, Colorado has to offer.

One of the first things I did after moving in was to locate the nearest Walmart. Fortunately for me, it was only a few blocks away from the house. I drove over and stocked up on soda and other random items that seem to find their way into my shopping basket whenever I enter the store. Unfortunately for me, I drove to the exact same location a week later only to find it was gone. Well, the building didn’t go anywhere, but the essence of the company was nowhere to be found. After a few minutes of playing Columbo, I discovered a large note on the door, explaining that a new store had opened up on the other side of town.

But this wasn’t just any Walmart—- the new building housed a “Super” Walmart. Which means it is basically a traditional Walmart with a complete grocery store stuck on the side. And it stays open all the time. Given my well-documented erratic sleeping habits, this schedule was quite a welcomed change. To test things out, I drove over at midnight to examine the new structure. It literally has tons of stuff. I can’t say offhand exactly how many tons, but everywhere I looked I just saw more stuff. Having just moved all my stuff from Boulder, I was not really in the mood to acquire more stuff. But I did feel the need to buy something, just to be courteous to the Walmart establishment.

In order to make everyone happy, I bought a ninety-seven cent bottle of hair gel. While I’m still not sure if my hair needs the “ultra hold” or “maximum goo” style, the bottle I purchased does seem to be functioning within the expected parameters. And now I have one more item to add to my “ways to entertain myself at two in the morning” list. (Going to Walmart that is, not contemplating my hair gel needs.)

Now that Scott and I have cleared out all the unwanted vegetation from the yard, I have taken on the responsibility of mowing the lawn. For one thing, I haven’t had a lawn to mow since I was in high school. Secondly, the area covered by the lawn is so small it is not a big deal to fire up the lawn mower once a week. The lawn mower is one that mulches the grass instead of collecting it in a bag. In addition to being environmentally better for the planet, it keeps me in a much better mood since I don’t have to spend time hauling bags of dead grass all over the place.

One of my favorite aspects of living in Colorado are the two seasons. Winter and summer both make their presence felt throughout the year—- but not in any particular order. Sure, in December it is more likely to be winter and in June, odds favor the summer. I was mowing the lawn a few days ago when the sun was shining and all the other meteorological signs pointed to summer. By the time I had finished, the situation had completely reversed and it was quite clear that winter was stopping by for a visit. A few hours later it started snowing. If I had postponed mowing the lawn I might have had to shovel snow off it first. Fortunately, winter didn’t want to stay very long and things were back to summer status the next day.

After holding a brief funeral service to honor the premature demise of the raspberry bushes, Scott and I planted some new seeds in the garden. It turns out that world of genetic engineering hasn’t advanced to the point of being able to produce “seven-layer burrito” seeds. Given that limitation, I went back to the Super Walmart (which hadn’t been moved since my last visit to buy the hair gel) and bought various packages of seeds. According to the instructions, if planted correctly, the seeds will grow into various forms of vegetables. My specialty seems to be more in the area of killing vegetation, so I’m sure an attempt to grow a useful garden will be quite an adventure. (NOTE TO SELF: don’t run over the garden with the lawn mower.) But at least now I know where I can buy gardening equipment in the middle of the night.

After moving all my belongings to Loveland, I started the whole process of getting settled into my new surroundings. It was at this point in time I really became jealous of Scott’s dog. When Henry moves somewhere his entire settling process consists of figuring out where to go to relieve himself, sniffing everything in the area two or three times, and then falling asleep in the middle of the floor for the rest of the day. Henry doesn’t worry about hooking up stereo speakers or rifling through boxes trying to find a clean pair of underwear.

Over the years Scott has put a fair amount of effort into landscaping around the house. While it is not quite ready to be featured in “Better Homes and Gardens,” the yard is completely free of unmarked sinkholes and nonfunctioning automobiles. The one area I thought needed the most work was the garden on the side of the house. The area has been overtaken by trash, weeds, and, on occasion, a small band of street hardened juvenile delinquents. One night I told Scott I was going to attack the garden and clean it up a bit.

Before I go any further here, I have to ask the rhetorical question “How was I supposed to know the difference between weeds and a series of dormant but healthy raspberry bushes?” Needless to say, Scott overestimated my abilities to identify “good” versus “bad” plant life and we are not going to have any fresh raspberry pie in August. But on a positive note, the efforts produced a large pile of dead plants that had to be thrown away and we now had a good reason to go visit the city dump. We attached the wooden side rails on Scott’s pickup truck and started piling trash in the bed.

The next piece of vegetation that got loaded into the truck was a sickly looking tree that was living in the back yard. I’m not really sure what Scott did to it, because the tree looked quite healthy and vibrant propped up in the living room when I stopped by for his Christmas party. I honestly suspect Scott didn’t talk to the tree enough. In an attempt to revive the tree, I dug a small hole in the back yard and stood the tree up. My theory was the tree stump would sense the connection with Mother Earth and grow a complete new set of roots in a few days. Everything was going fine until these small gusts of wind kept tipping the tree over. Of course by then the self esteem of the tree was too depleted and we were forced to give up and throw it in the back of the truck.

The next item on the list was an old beat up desk that Scott’s previous roommate conveniently left in the room that was going to become my office. At first glance it appeared to be a simple wooden desk that could be easily carried down the stairs and given to Goodwill. Upon closer inspection, however, the desk was a monster. The entire structure was built from solid inch thick particle board and held together with generous quantities of screws, wood glue, and some sort of futuristic “Star Trek” force field. After a solid hour of attacking the beast, we carried its dismembered corpse outside and prepared it for final burial.

Once all the trash was loaded up, we tied a tarp over everything as best we could and headed out to the dump. While everything seemed to be securely tied down before we left, I suspect the air flow dynamics of traveling fifty miles an hour altered the stress forces in the back of the truck. About half way through our journey, the wooden side railings decided to spontaneously shatter into several pieces. The down side to this event was that half the junk we were hauling flew out on the road. The up side was… well, I don’t think there really was one.

The really funny thing (and by “funny” I really mean “pain in the ass”) was that with the side rails broken there was no way we could fit everything back into the truck. After some deliberation, we left some of the junk on the side of the road and took what we could to the dump. Once the first trip was completed, we went back and got the rest of the stuff off the side of the road. It really helped prolong the “going to the dump” experience into an entire afternoon ordeal.

Despite the setback, our goal was eventually achieved. We made it home in one piece and without any of the garbage we left with. Just to make us feel a little bit better about the whole situation, we checked the mail when we got back and found a coupon that would have saved us the twenty dollar fee at the dump.

And, of course, the dog was still sleeping on the floor when we got home.

Goodbye Boulder, hello Loveland. Well, that sums up what I have been up to over the past week or so. For various reasons, I decided to move out of my apartment in Boulder and into a house in Loveland. The most important reason revolves around a drunken late night conversation with Miss Cleo where she said, and I quote, “You have drawn the happy squirrel card. You need to make some big changes in your life, my friend.” The part about change really convinced me to move out of town. That, and I have completely exhausted my supply of wildly inappropriate JonBenet Ramsey jokes.

The first step in the moving process is to decide where to move. I have known my friend Scott since I was three and I have even gone so far as to travel to Germany with him to visit his parents. Scott lives in Loveland and he mentioned how he needed a new roommate. I thought about it for a few days, and eventually I called Scott back and asked if there was any way I could move in with his parents in Germany. Don’t get me wrong– I think Scott is a great guy, but his mom is a way better cook and most experts agree that Germany has a much better ultra-high speed train network than, say, Loveland, Colorado.

One of the keys to a successful move is to be disciplined and organized. Unfortunately for me, both of these attributes were permanently damaged in a prepubescent winter sledding accident. Despite this handicap, I tried my best to prioritize my belongings to make packing as efficient as possible. Here is a list of actual items I found during the inventory process:

One half eaten box of Total cereal with an expiration date of May 1997.
One empty bottle of shampoo with instructions in some foreign language.
A set of used check carbons from SIX addresses ago.
A zip-lock bag full of obsolete Dutch coins with an estimated value of seven dollars (minus the cost of transporting them back to Holland)

These items were carefully packed first using liberal quantities of crumpled up newspaper and bubble wrap. Once that was complete and double checked, I addressed the rest of my stuff.

One of the problems with packing is that I started with the things I cared about the most. All my clothes and electronic equipment were carefully packed and labeled in boxes to make sure nothing was thrown away or misplaced. On moving day all of this was ready to go. First we picked up the couch and placed it in the truck. The next two trips took care of my bedroom furniture. After twenty minutes all of my furniture, clothes, and electronic equipment was loaded up and ready to go. The problem, of course, was the rest of the crap that had accumulated in my apartment over the past three years– stuff that I didn’t want to throw away, but I didn’t care enough to actually pack. The good intentions I had at the beginning of the process gave way to me running around my apartment haphazardly throwing random objects into garbage bags so I could deal with it all later. The last bag I packed contained– and I am being totally honest here– a Harley Davidson calendar, a handful of razor blades, and my Fred and Barney Fruity Pebbles cardboard cutout.

Most fine wines improve with age. The same is not true for U-Haul trucks. I’m guessing the monster I rented reached its peak somewhere around 1977 based on the painting on the side of the truck of an old fashioned American flag and the phrase “U-Haul: Helping American celebrate her bicentennial.” Now I see why it was the only truck in Boulder available to rent. Everything squeaked and rattled in exactly the way I thought it shouldn’t. On the way to Loveland I looked on the dash and noticed the vehicle had been driven 116,000 miles. Of course there were only six digits on the odometer. I strongly suspect it had been flipped three, if not four, times. And by “it” I mean the entire truck.

Despite the truck’s best efforts to spontaneously disassemble into its 40,000 original parts in the middle of Highway 287, we made it to Loveland without any problems. I even got the hang of the odd standard transmission which had reverse where first gear should be, overdrive where reverse usually is, and third gear crammed into the glove compartment with a hastily written note saying, “Don’t use this until we get it back into the transmission box. Have a nice day.”

Unpacking everything in Loveland went pretty smoothly. The biggest problem was by the time we unpacked all the crap I didn’t really care about, we were all pretty much exhausted. No matter how much I think about it, I couldn’t find a way to unload the front and bottom most section of the truck first. Having survived the move, I would recommend the following simple two step process to anyone else who plans on changing their residency in the near future. 1. Spend half an hour moving the most important things into the moving truck. 2. Unfortunately, the state of Colorado still considers things like “lighting your apartment on fire” and “insurance fraud” to be “illegal”, but I’m sure you can connect the dots.

Since my pursuit of a traditional computer geek job has been about as successful as Paula Jones’ television boxing career, I’ve decided to expand my horizons and offer my creative talents to one of my favorite things in the world. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there thinking, “Reality check here Omar, nobody is going to pay you money for your stupid Taco Bell song!” I’m not abandoning my dream of writing meaningful burrito music, but rather putting it under the warming lamps until the right customer comes along to order it. In the mean time, I’ve decided to offer my creative talents to television networks in the form my new high priced consulting service.

How high priced? Well, lets just say I’m booked solid through the next 5 television seasons. Yes, I know that has absolutely nothing to do with my fee. My goal here is to alter the traditional logic of supply and demand by creating the perception I am incredibly busy. If anyone wants to actually pay me money, I’ll have a last minute and suspiciously convenient cancellation in my schedule. Hey, it worked wonders for Cabbage Patch Kids and Tickle Me Elmo, so I don’t see why the same principles can’t be applied to my life.

As much as I would like to, I can’t just say I’m a high priced television consultant and have the networks start shoving hundred dollar bills down my pants. So, to demonstrate some of my talents I’ve decided to put a few of my creative visions on the Internet so the network executives can feel comfortable when handing over briefcases full of money.

My first recommendation is for the Fox network and show “King of the Hill”. While this has proven to be a moderately successful animated cartoon, turning the show turned into a live action situation comedy for a season or two would improve ratings in the key demographics. Which, of course, is the “eighteen to thirty year old short attention span but attracted to anything that gets labeled as gimmicky” group.

Getting back to the “King of the Hill” proposal: Finding actual people who look and sound like the cartoon characters might be a challenge, but the end result would be worth the effort. After a full season of using live actors, other mediums could be considered. This includes—but is not limited to—claymation, Japanese Anime, interpretive Irish folk dance, and, of course, marionette puppets.

When MTV decided to stop playing music videos and instead started filming a house full of unemployed whiny people a lot of viewers were quite upset and annoyed—especially those interested in watching actual music videos. While this approach is exactly the opposite of what many “idealists” thought a cable channel called “Music Television” should be doing, the producers unknowingly lit a fire under the bandwagon of “reality” television and proceeded to give it a healthy shove down the road of good intentions.

Shows such as “The Real World” created a lucrative market for doing little more than going around and filming people in their daily lives. As the competition increased, the gimmickry factor was pushed to it’s limit. To succeed in this genre of television programming these days require, at an absolute minimum, a tropical island, a half dozen Playboy Bunnies, a medium sized team of professional pyrotechnics, and the threat that some or all contestants might lose one of their kidneys. And that is just for the promotions.

The next logical step in this progression is to have a reality show ABOUT reality shows. The title of the show would need to clearly identify itself with its predecessor—current working titles include “The Really Real World”, “The Meta Real World”, and “MTV’s Sex-o-rama Voyeur Cam.” Imagine all the creative potential in having a television crew following around the original television crew following around five young adults in their jobs as entry level accountants. Just kidding—they would really be in an elite group of disco rollerblading fire fighters patrolling the streets of a major metropolitan area.

Finally the general public could get a glimpse into the high paced world of reality television programming. Sure, it may look easy, but getting these kids to open up to the cameras can be a real challenge when they spend most of their free time discussing delicate issues such as the best way to download pornography from the Internet and planning spontaneous week long free trips to the Bahamas.

Making television not suck cannot be accomplished by any single person. We all have to do our part and work constructively together to accomplish this goal in peace and goodwill. If someone wants to go track down and savagely pummel the guy running around in the question mark suit explaining how to get free money from the government, well, I just can’t see how that would do the world any harm either.

I’ve been writing weekly stories for a year now on my website, so I thought now would be a good time to stop and examine what I’ve accomplished over the past year. To achieve this goal, I’ve chosen the standard “situation comedy flashback” idiom. Let the dog out, grab a soda, and get comfortable before the show starts.

The scene: Omar is sitting on the couch of the living room wrapped up in a warm blanket drinking hot chocolate. Behind the couch is a fake window with large quantities of fake snow falling. The television set it tuned to the weather channel.

Television Set: A cold front has moved in and stalled over the state of Colorado. They have already received 6 inches of snow, and the satellite images indicate the situation is only going to get worse. Schools, businesses, and taco stands across the state have all shut down until further notice. The best advise is to stay home and wait for the snow to stop falling. Preferably with a warm beverage.

Omar: Wow, that really sucks. I guess I can’t look for a job today.

Kathleen enters through the front door to mild applause.

Omar: I thought you were going skiing. How come you are back so soon?

Kathleen: They closed the highway because of the blizzard. We had to turn back and… hey, what’s going on here? First of all, we don’t live together. And this doesn’t look anything like your apartment. In fact, it reminds me of a bad UPN sit-com. And where is that clapping sound coming from?

Omar: Yeah, that darned snow. I guess we are stuck here for the night. Sit down on the couch—I’ll go make some more hot chocolate before I start rambling on endlessly about my web site.

Kathleen: What? I don’t want to hear about your stupid web site. I don’t know how I got here, but I want to leave.

Kathleen gets up and tries to open the front door. It won’t budge. She pulls frantically to get it open. Omar looks over from the couch and smiles.

Omar: Of course I’ll put extra marshmallows in your hot chocolate.

Omar walks into the kitchen and Kathleen reluctantly sits on the couch. Omar comes back out with another cup of hot chocolate.

Omar: This should warm you up. You know, this reminds me of the time I wrote about you entering the Kinetics race in the spring. Ah, those were the days.

Kathleen: Umm.. I suppose so. Look Omar, the only time we ever talk to each other is in the parking lot. You make it seem like we are best friends. I think its pretty creepy that you write about me so much on your stupid little web site.

Omar: Actually, its just the powder mix. I’m glad you like it though.

Kathleen: Are you even listening to what I’m saying?

Omar: Hopefully by tomorrow morning, according to the weather channel.

Ertok the Evil Alien Overlord comes walking in through the kitchen door covered in snow and quite irritated.

Omar: What’s the matter Ertok? Did you get snow in your ship’s plasma couplings?

Ertok: Be quiet little Earth mammal. Unless you know anything about cleaning plasma couplings I would suggest you… Wait a minute—how did you know what is wrong with my ship?

Omar: It’s been so long since we have sat down and just talked about things…. Like my web site. By the way, Ertok, this is Kathleen. Kathleen, meet Ertok.

Kathleen: So Ertok, does Omar follow you around writing strange stories about you too? Aren’t there laws against doing stuff like that?

Ertok: If that is all he did I would be damned lucky. Omar made me travel half way across the galaxy for some poorly thought out scheme where I take over the world. As if there is any logical reason for me to take over such a pitiful little planet in the first place. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he hasn’t written about me for the better part of a planetary rotation cycle. So instead of going home to my family back on Barrius 5, I am forced to endlessly orbit the planet waiting for Omar to make up his mind.

Omar: You are right Kathleen—Ertok is one wacky alien overlord. I just never know when he is going to next. It reminds me of the time he tried to take over the world. Ha ha ha.

Ertok: You idiot! You never got around to writing that episode!

Kathleen: Well, Ertok, I’m sorry to hear that Omar dragged you here from so far away. But it is good to know I’m not the only one who is suffering here. Can we do anything to stop all this?

Ertok: For reasons I don’t quite understand, I can only access objects he has written about on his web site. Omar stopped writing about me before he got to anything useful.

Omar: That’s a good question, Ertok. Investigating obscure but unsolved mathematical problems has always been a hobby of mine. I guess I figure one day I’ll wake up and magically come up with a polynomial time solution to the NP-complete set of algorithms. When I go to bed each night I try and convince myself to dream about them.

Ertok: Wait a minute, that gives me an idea.

Kathleen: What, about the “Traveling Salesman” problem?

Ertok: You amuse me, Earth female. That math problem is a trivial homework assignment for young offspring on my home planet. I was actually thinking about the XR-2300 neural interface.

Kathleen: Isn’t that muffler bracket for a 79 pinto?

Ertok: Silence! This is no time to steal jokes from “Airplane 2.” Besides, it wasn’t even very funny the first time around. If I remember correctly, I might be able to make Omar’s head explode.

Omar: I have to agree with you there Kathleen—a lot of people think I am just too funny. But the “toofunny.com” domain name was already registered. How can I make so many jokes when millions of children in the world don’t even know how to make a simple “Three’s Company” joke about Chrissy being pregnant, much less understand the political and sociological ramifications? Which reminds me of episode 49 of “The A Team” where Murdoch and Face go on about….

Kathleen: The sooner Omar’s head explodes, the better.

Ertok: I found the remote detonation device. Lets see if it works.

Ertok presses the button. Omar’s head blows up leaving blood and brain matter all over the room. The lights slowly fade out and polite clapping can be heard along with the theme music.