Also: The day my life became a non fiction scat joke.

Well reader, I don’t know what directed you here or how well you know me so I’ll say for the record that I’m not a huge fan of scatological humor. I enjoy the occasional fart joke as much as anyone, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. For me, that line comes somewhere after the telling but before the practice. On the day of April 5th, in an effort to make a healthier change in my lifestyle, I discovered to my dismay exactly WHY fart jokes are funny. You see, on this day my life became one long (humorous in the retelling but humiliating and degrading at the time) brutally drawn out lesson in coprology. On that day I had my first, and therefrom only, experience with a product with which I’m sure you’ve seen one (or likely more) of their prolific commercials… the miraculous, nutritious, and let us not forget uber-rich in fiber, Fiber One bar. It is the waking nightmare my life became that day that stirs me to put pen to paper now. Be warned. I will pontificate bluntly and at length in this post about a subject most will find detestable. But the words written here, while disgusting and humiliating are, nearly the exact truth of events as they occured. I pillory myself here before you to share this horrible experience. Not to drive you away or fill you with revulsion, but to hopefully spare you from suffering the same slings and arrows.

To be fair, the extremety of my reaction can not entirely be laid at the feet of the beneficent people at the General Mills corporation. You see, I’ve had experience with Fiber before. I enjoy whole grain bread, granola bars, and have even been known to use a fiber additive in my drink on occasion. So, having decided to start eating SOMETHING in the mornings, every morning, I picked up some Fiber One bars on sale at the supermarket and, seeing that they were only 90 calories each, ate three of them while driving to the office. I didn’t consider that there may be adverse effect from consuming one bar, much less three.

The day began like any other. Phones ringing, emails coming in, sipping coffee while catching up on what piled up overnight. It wasn’t until about 2 hours into the day that the first rumblings, in retrospect such ominious sounds, could be heard from deep within my abdomen. Rather than subside with time, the rumblings grew louder and louder until eventually the gaseous pressure building up in my bowels not only demanded but rioted towards the nearest possible exit, with the sadly expected results. This continued throughout the entire morning. It seemed that every time I lowered myself to my seat another pocket of gas would be released. At one point it was so bad you would have thought an entire colony of elephant seals was stalking me. During breeding season.

The saddest part of this entire situation is that even though the words above are hyperbole, they are only just barely so.

Now the warning.

This advice can spare you untold agony. Following it will help your love life. It will help your career. It will DEFINITELY make your ride on the bus or BART more bearable. It’s a simple suggestion, and if you absolutely MUST eat Fiber One will only take you a day. The first time you sample one of those chewy, crispy little packages of condensed evil make sure you have the entire day to yourself. Alone. At home preferably with an open restroom that is well stocked with the softest, gentlest toilet paper you can find. After my experience, I did a little research (okay, so by research I mean I googled “fiber one flatulence”) and discovered that while not everyone who eats a Fiber One bar has this problem, the number of those who do is not insignificant.

And now the rant.

Why the hell isn’t there a HUGE warning on the box that gives SOME indication that deafening flatulence and explosive (painfully so) diarrhoea? I realize that this is not the kind of notice that any sane marketer or sales person would want associated with their product, but really… The consequences of unknowingly suffering the effects of this product during a presentation or business meeting would be disastrous.

I know who I’ll be referred to. From now on when people talk about me around the water cooler, I’m afraid that it’s going to be a while before there is a Lonepieman again. For the forseeable future I’m fairly certain any reference to this blog will be in reference to “The Fiber One Fart Guy”.

And the lesson learned.

So why do we laugh at fart jokes? It’s really quite straightforward. If we don’t laugh, we cry.

Until next time, from a throne that isn’t porcelain, it’s the Lonepieman saying “Watch what you eat. Sometimes it’ll bite you back in the end.”

So cutting straight to the meat of the matter, today at the dogpark there was an issue.  It wasn’t a big issue.  Basically a bigger dog and a smaller dog had a disagreement.  All said and done it lasted about four seconds before it was over.  The reason it became a big issue is that apparently the owner of the smaller dog, a boston terrier, was freaking out because his dog had a little cut in the back corner of his mouth…  could have been from the bigger dog, could have bitten it himself.  The entire thing was over almost before it started, and happened so fast that by the time I looked over all I saw was a little dog making savage noises while a big dog looked puzzled while being pulled away.

I’ve seen situations like this dozens of times.  It’s really no big deal.  The dogs got excited, pulled apart, and you just let them settle down.  The drama comes into play because Mr. Little Dog Owner started spazzing out and called animal control and reported a vicious dog.  Then this little douche gives the like to his own report by manhandling the dog he’s reporting to be able to see the dog’s registration number…  not subtly mind you, but quite agressively he twisted the dog around, jerking it here and there, to which the dog, the vicious dog, just stood there patiently with a very puzzled look on its face.

I’m at this dog park 5+ times a week for over an hour each day.  Yes, I’m a little biased because the owner of the big dog is there almost as often as Sharpie and I whereas this was the first time any of us who regularly take our dogs to the park who had seen this guy or his dog.

Okay, now that that’s out, no more ranting.  Just had to vent a little because I still get a little pissed thinking of how self-righteous people can be without the slightest grounds.  Hopefully he won’t be back, and if he does, well, definitely I will keep Sharpie away from his dog and will call animal control if he can’t keep his dog away from mine…  it’s what he would do if Sharpie looked at his dog sideways, isn’t it?

Goodnight all.

Lonepieman out

The latest news is that I go under the knife tomorrow morning for an orthopedic surgeon to reconstruct the bone in my pinkie.  You see, in a one in a million chance, Sharpie managed to shatter the proximal phalange of my left pinkie…  and when i say shatter this is not, as I am prone to do in order to make a point, an example of hyperbole.  The bone is completely sheared through and is broken into at least three pieces.  I’m not an orthopedic doctor, but even my tyro’s eyes could see that the shards and jutting protusions of bone in the xray showed something really wrong. 

I won’t go into the pain which has been my boon companion through this ordeal, or how discomfitted I am to have missed another rockfishing trip, but I will relate the story of what happened and hopefully spare you a similar experience.

Saturday afternoon, on May 22, I had taken Sharpie to the dog park.  No big deal, right?  We were there earlier than usual because the plan was to be on the road by 3:30am the next morning to meet for some fishing south of Carmel around 5am.  That was the plan, but the reality was 4 hours spent in the emergency room and non-stop irritation when it wasn’t at its worst.  Of course I have leared my lesson about trying to grab Sharpie by the collar when he is misbehaving in the future.  Scruff of the neck only now.  See, there was a puppy in the dog park on that lazy Saturday afternoon, and for whatever reason Sharpie has a habit of turning into a bully around puppies.  So when I saw him starting to go after the puppy, I grabbed for his collar, catching it with my pinkie only…  and at that exact moment he decided to twist around, his collar twisting my pinkie with it at an unnatural angle, a direction no finger should ever face, and twisting on the bone like you see in movies where the use a wet towel to bend the bars of a jail cell.  The worst thing through all this is that I actually heard the bones breaking like you woud snap a stick over your knee…

Sharpie, of course, is completely okay, and for whatever reason I never even got upset with him about this.  I think he knows, though, that he is partly to blame because whenever his ees catch my cast he quickly looks away and his ears go down.

My surgery is an out-patient procedure, but I’m still nervous about it.  I’ve never been under general anesthia before.  Oh, and for any who have tried to have a conversation with me since the day this happened, please feel free to cal me back if I didn’t make much sense.  The pain meds I was on made me really sleepy and disoriented, and the pain itself was a constant source of distraction.

I’ll post an update here when I’m out of surgery, or at least as soon as I’m capable afterwards.  Until then, watch your fingers everyone!

Lonepieman out.

Sharpie is always ready to go!

Pulling out of the parking lot getting on the road

The best laid plans of mice and men, as they say…  of course I forgot something major.  You see, I didn’t actually bring anything to use in the event that I actually CAUGHT some fish, much less a 27 or 28 inch Lingcod within the first hour of fishing.  It was, to say the least, an adventure.  But then, I’m getting ahead of myself here.  Let’s go back to the beginning and I’ll pick up from where I left off.

Once the decision to get out had crystallized I thought I would head over to Fort Baker to meet Sofa King from pierfishing.com and some of the other members of that site who were planning an impromptu get together for some fun, sun, and fishing (but since the sun wasn’t cooperating 2 out of 3 would have to do.  Of course, everybody had planned on meeting there between 9 and 10, so I was hoping to catch them still there.  As 11 was striking on the clock, the ignition of my car turned over and off we went. 

I had some Frank playing on the CD player and was singing along as I cruised up the 880, planning on getting away from the sights and sounds of the city.  There was a small snag at the toll plaza for the Bay Bridge, but I thought nothing of it.  Long lines are not unheard of and it was the one major drawback of going through the city to get out the other side.  Somehow, instead of following the signs and going straight over the Golden Gate, I wound up driving through Golden Gate Park and driving up the Great Highway from Ocean Beach!  What should have been a 20 or 30 minute drive through the city wound up taking close to two hours until I had finally found my bearings and figured out how to get to the bridge I wanted!  By the time I was rolling up at Fort Baker it was after 2pm and my chances of meeting up with anyone were slim to none, and of course I found out later that slim wasn’t even in the cards for that day.

Overcast and hazy, looking out across the bay

Looking out over the bay at the Golden Gate

Loathe to start my epic journey without at least dipping a line in the water, I got my trusty Shimano (which I still have a nasty habit of birdsnesting on random casts) out of the trunk, hooked up a jig head, and started walking down the jetty with Sharpie’s leash attached to a belt loop with a carabineer.  A few random retrieves later, and the little beastie was about done.  The wind was coming in, cold and chill, and even with his jacket he was not the most comfortable pup in the world.  Off to the car for him, with a cracked down window, bowl full of water, and his favorite horse’s hoof to chew on.  Without the little dog in tow, I made much better time and got more casts in.  I lost one lure to a snag, tied up a new leader, and started strolling down the rocks and casting out a couple times for a slow retrieve every 10 to 15 feet.  I would get bound up on some kelp every so often, but a quick tug and my lure was free.  It seemed like this would be typical of the day so I was debating whether to keep going or to head up the coast to the next spot.  Then, out of nowhere, what at first I thought was another snag suddenly made my rod go bendo and started peeling out line! 

It was a struggle, but I managed to get the fish to the surface and quickly grabbed him with a lip gripper…  man was he one tooth SOB!  This is the first fish I’ve ever caught on artificials, not to mention the first Lingcod I have ever caught…  and not only was he a keeper, but he was at least 3 inches on the plus side!  After landing him, of course, the real problems arose.  You see, I had neglected to pack anything in which to store and transport Mr. Lingcod around with me for the weekend!  So onto the stringer he went while I tried to figure out what to do. 

Holding the Ling

Holding the Ling

Eventually I wound up putting him in a soft-sided ice box I had in my trunk and dumped some seawater in to keep him comfy.  He was curled up about as much as possible and for a second I thought I had an Oroborous in there. 

Sorry, no pictures of the fillets this bad boy yielded

On a side note here, I have to point out that Lingcod are pretty feisty, and if this guy had been a little smarter he wouldn’t have been a dinner guest…  I had him hooked on one of the metal stringers with the clips and he had managed to pull on it so hard that it had popped open!  Definitely don’t rely on this type of stringer for your Lings in the future!  Anyway, with no way to keep my unexpected dinner guest comfortable on the trip up the coast, it was homeward bound.  Next time I’ll make sure that I have an ice chest in the trunk capable of keeping an ichthyine friend well chilled.

One more post script and then I’m really done…  I got Sharpie a new t-shirt for when its too bright out and he seems to like it.  What do you think?  Is he a lucky dog or not?

Sharpie wearing his new T-shirt

Sharpie in his new T-Shirt

Posing... dang, he looks buff!

We rolled in around 10:00am and apparently had just missed the morning bite by a few minutes, but the main point was to be out of the house and enjoying the scenery so we got set up and prepared for a long, quiet day.  I had my new rod and reel out, thinking that at the very least I would be able to get some more practice in with it, and my second rod was a little telescoping portable rod that I have and keep around because it’s really portable.  I think the largest thing I’ve ever caught with it is a little planter trout or bluegill, maybe a 1/2 pound fish at the largest.

The majority of the day pretty much followed our expectations, and it was very quite from 10 to about 2:30 or 3:00 pm when the bite started to pick up.  I reeled in my Claris to check the bait (yeah I’d gotten tired of pulling what used to be the shore-side greenery out of the water with it so set it up with a Carolina for some trout), cast it back out, and turned around to check on my little 4’ portable pole… and noticed that the bobber I’d hung on the line to take out some of the tension was resting on the ground…  I unhooked it, picked up the rod, and prepared to set the hook.  A quick pull, and BENDO!  Fish-on!  Took about 2 minutes to reel in the fish, and was really iffy there for a bit trying to land this bruiser with such flimsy gear, and he started peeling out drag a couple times but eventually I got him to the shore and got the hook out of him.  Upon weigh-in it turns out he was a 5-lb rainbow monster.  This is actually the first fish I’ve ever caught at this lake despite more than 10 trips there. 

Just a note when I got him home and was cleaning him, his gut was packed full of chartreuse and red/white candy-stripe powerbait.  I think that’s the primary food of the trout here because aside from an old cigarette butt that’s all that was in his belly.  Speaking of the cigarette butt, it just goes to highlight how important it is for those of us who use these places to take out everything we bring in.  I smoke, but I either put my butts in my tackle box or in a tin that I carry around in my pocket just for that purpose.  Digging the filter from an old smoke from a fish’s belly was really the only downer on an otherwise really good day. 

You can see the pictures below for the graphic goodness of this trout. 

Have fun all and tight lines!  Until then,  Lonepieman out!

Bruiser trout hanging from my stringer.

5lb Trout sitting in the kitchen sink prior to being cleaned. You can see the size of the fish vs the size of the equipment used to bring him in...

Bean Hollow, rock formations

Tidepools at Bean Hollow

The rocks here are weathered into very different shapes, and adhere to an odd almost otherworldly cast.

Bean Hollow, yet more weathered rock features.

Bean Hollow, weathered canyon fractured in the bedrock

Bean Hollow, weathered and desolate rock formations

Bean Hollow, more fractured and twisted rock formations.

The conditions today were nearly ideal, warm sun, slight breeze, and calm seas… mostly!  There were a few rogue waves (nothing like the monster that wiped out half the spectators at Mavericks in February) casting up some spray, but you really couldn’t ask for a nicer day to be out on the coast.

Bean Hollow, gentle surf in a cove

I met up with Paul (redonix76) and my friend Gerry actually made it out today as well.  We met up at the southern side of Bean Hollow.  I’d never fished this side before and have to say that it looked fishy as could be at low tide.  I really wished that I had brought some really big hooks to collect mussels and barnacles with (I should have taken a picture of them but it didn’t cross my mind at the time unfortunately) as they were all over the place and the more I stared at them, the better they looked like they would taste.

Paul fishing the southern rocks at Bean HollowThe area looked as fishy as could be, but no luck...Looks like it's about as fishy as fishy could be...

It's a beautiful day, sunny, warm, and some really fishy looking rocks.

It seemed that almost every other cast here was a snag.  It was really very surprising to me.  I’ve fished other parts of the beach here and lost maybe 2 weights the whole time I was fishing (and I was only using 20lb mono at the time!).  This time I was losing my weight every other cast, and this was with 65 lbs Power Pro braid and 50 lbs Mono leader.  I lost maybe 2 hooks the entire day, but at least 10 torpedo sinkers!  Eventually we packed up and moved over to more familiar ground.  We had gotten there around 8:30 and by 12:30 still hadn’t had a single nibble (of course there could have been entire schools of fish feasting on our lost rigging).  Not ready to concede defeat we went up to the part of the beach I was more familiar with.

This channel is between the ledge we are on and some rocky outcroppings further out.

The rocks here face the open sea if you change your facing just a little bit.

This area is more of a hike to reach, but it’s more sheltered and, even better, far less prone to snags!  Of course, Sharpie loves it here.  I’m convinced that he’s part mountain goat.  He scrambles up and down the rocks with a facility that is simply amazing.  Ironically, the one mis-step he did take was into a pool of foul smelling water that had algae growing on it… and looked solid!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him scramble that quickly. 

Sharpie is curious about everything here

Sharpie examines every nook and cranny in the area we are set up.

He gets around much easier on the rocks here than any of us could. I think he may be part mountain goat...

Sharpie scrambles over the rocks and up the cliffs with ease

Lets load him up with all this gear and see him scramble around then!

While calmer than the first area, there were still occasional rogue waves here.  I was standing on the ledge checking out the structure and had Sharpie on his leash to get a little walking around and BOOM, spray and soaked to just above my knees and the dog… well, COMPLETELY soaked.  Oh, and now he jumps every time he hears a wave break.  Kind of funny, and wish I had a picture of it, but not going to subject myself and definitely not going to torture the dog by putting him through that intentionally.  One time by accident was enough. 

You can see the water flowing out after a larger swell had broken against the ledge right in front of us.

You can see the wave about to wash onto the lower reaches of the ledge we are set up on here.

Water spraying up into the air from a larger rogue swell that rolled in

Wave breaking on the ledge and showering us with spray.

Ideal as the conditions were, we were just unable to induce the fish to cooperate.  Squid, anchovies, artificial bait, they just were not biting.  There were a few crabs, but really not many to speak of, and the ones that were there were feisty as sin.  The little bugger you see Paul holding here just didn’t want to let go of my hook.  He was dipped in and out of the water 3 times before being pulled up onto the rocks where we were set up, and even then he tried to run off WITH the bait rather than just escape himself.

Paul holding the feisty little rock crab that just would't let go of my hook.

Despite the dearth of fishy accompaniment, it was an awesome day.  Friends old and new, warm sun, cool breeze…  what more can you ask for?  Besides a couple of fish that is…

The graphics and gameplay of this new Pacman offering will transport you back to the heyday of the original Pacman. From what I played on the floor models it’s all pretty straightforward… Avoid the ghosts and eat the dots. The multiplayer aspect adds a new and, I have to admit, addicting twist to the game. Eat more dots faster than the other players, and as soon as a power pellet appears eat it (and now the other players as well) before they do the same to you. Sounds simple enough, but well… Feed a few dollars into this machine and see if you can stop then. Depending on the per game price point I think this may very well be the next great social game of the year. It would be perfect to replace boring old tables in the pub with something you can really interact with. I wouldn’t be surprised to see league nights start popping up with this just like you see with pool and darts.

Pics are below. This whole thing was typed on my iPhone so I have just posted all the pics I had since I can’t really see the quality of them on this device. The gentlemen near the machine in th photo are as follows: Kunito Komori, Game Design Section; Ryuta Kato, Game Design Section; and not pictured is Kunihisa Yagishita, General Manager. Please note that the order of the names doesn’t necessarily match up with where people are standing in the picture. Enjoy all!

Scott