Jersey Blogger, Mr. Snitch, laid this one on me. I have been asked to identify five “quirks” or “eccentricities” that I have. I have previously revealed five of my “habits,” but I suppose that this calls for something a bit different from things like teeth clicking and pen flicking. While I like to think that I do not harbor any eccentricities, I suspect if this question were asked of people who know me, it would elicit a rather comprehensive (and possibly unsettling) list.

Let’s see:

I have absolutely no sense of direction. It’s true. I have gone through life not knowing whether I am traveling north, south, east or west. If the sign says “West,” I figure I’m going west. The only time I can ever get a handle on the whole north, south, east and west thing is when I am literally close enough to the ocean to see it. I look at the ocean and know, “that’s East” and the other directions sort of follow from that. Unfortunately on a West Coast Beach, the “that’s East” thing becomes “that’s West.” I cannot process that, and my mind goes into completion Direction Lock.

Here’s the other thing. I know how to get: from my house to Point A and from my house to Point B. However, if you ask me to get from Point A to Point B, instant Direction Lock. On more occasions than I care to admit, I’ve gotten from Point A to Point B by going home first.

Obviously, I get lost a lot.

As a general rule, I will not wait on line for anything for more than five minutes. Perhaps this is a long-lived reaction to having been in the Army, where it seems one has to wait in line to do any damned thing. Wait on a long line to get into a restaurant? Nope. I figure that no food in the world is worth standing on a line for more than five minutes. Of course, waiting in the bar is perfectly fine with me.

I like to show up at airports way, way before my flight is scheduled to leave.. There is nothing more nerve wracking than scrambling through airports and waiting on (yes) lines, all the while having your stomach tie itself in knots as a result of worrying that you’ll miss the damned plane. I prefer to mosey along at a leisurely pace and bring a book to read at the gate.

Here are a few of what some rat finks might call “eccentricities” that I’ve bloviated about previously, some of which may be new to some of you.

I farookin’ HATE clowns.

I don’t like basketball.

I hate seafood.

I’m scared shitless of alligators.

I’m also afraid of crabs.

I’m a hopeless peanut butter junkie.

OK, so I listed more than five, but I sort of cheated by referring to prior posts in which I discussed my eccentricities perfectly normal likes, dislikes and perfectly rational fears..

Because some people get cranky when “tagged,” I’ll just invite anyone who feels like quirk-sharing to play along.

Hey, it’s not exactly up there with phrases such “Axis of Weasels” or words like “blogosphere,” but THIS is pretty farookin’ cool.

About two years ago, a good friend (one of the Usual Suspects) told me that, as a result of an “online shopping accident” (She was new to online shopping then), she ended up ordering two of those high-powered, infomercial juicers. She asked whether I might be interested in buying one of them, thereby saving her the hassle of returning the extra juicer. (Take it on faith that, given the nature of the “online shopping accident,” returning one of the juicers would have been a hassle.)

Being the gott-damned Prince that I am, I agreed to pony up and take one of the juicers off her hands. At first, I wasn’t terribly interested in owning a juicer, but I was happy about the opportunity to have performed a mitzvah (Did I use the term correctly, Elisson?)

However, in anticipation of its delivery, I began to think that owning one of those infomercial juicers might be a good thing. After all, that bushy-eyebrowed guy on the infomercial for his juicer is probably 105 years old, and he looks damned good from drinking all that freshly extracted juice. Hell, then there’s Jack La Lanne, the other infomercial Juice Guy, who is probably in his nineties. The last I saw him, he was dragging a freight train or some such thing with his bare hands (Maybe he was dragging it with his sharona; I can’t recall).

Dammit World, Jimbo’s ready to JUICE!

Anyway, when Da Juicer finally arrived, I went out and bought a nice, ripe pineapple. I was eager to make some fresh, wholesome, full-of-nutrients pineapple juice. Indeed, I figured that I was only scant moments away from a Taste of the Islands (Cue the ukulele). I was ready to toss that pineapple into the juicer and watch juice rush like a raging river out the bottom thingy.

Then I took a look at the instructions.

Turns out that, before Da Juicer would spew Aloha Juice I would have to peel, core, and slice the pineapple into fairly small pieces before it could be dropped into the machine and turned into juice. OK, so I spent ten minutes peeling, coring, and slicing the pineapple, but, more than ever, I was ready to create the delicious life-extendingr elixir. I was poised with my large glass for drinking and a container for storing some juice for later.

Let’s rock!

After about four or five minutes of the sound and fury that results from feeding pineapple chunks into the machine, I ended up with about 2/3 of a glass of juice. Hell, I was ready to really do some serious juice drinking – like a couple 16-ouncers. (Flashback to the infomercial — They always catch the juice in a little piss-ass glass! What was I thinking?)

Turns out that in order to make all the juice I wanted, I would need a crate of pineapples, plus I would have to be prepared for 45 minutes of peeling, coring, and slicing and anther ten minutes of sound and fury “juicing” time.

After washing down the juice with one gulp, it was time to begin the “easy cleanup” that was promised in the infomercial. Let me just say that I would have preferred to clean all the rifles in an infantry squad.

Let’s summarize, so far, shall we?

1. Did I mention that the instructions recommend that Da Juicer not be used with oranges or tomatoes. What?? You gotta be nuts! No oranges or tomatoes? Does anyone really buy these things to make lima bean juice?

2. If you would like to make a sufficient amount of juice for a family of – I don’t know — more than one, consider buying a pickup truck to haul the necessary-produce.

3. The “Easy-to-Clean” stuff is 100% prime, certified bullshit.

Anyway, as a result of my experience with the maiden voyage of Da Juicer, it has been languishing in its original box in my basement for more than two years, while I buy Tropicana orange juice with lots of pulp (Up yours, Bushy-Eyebrow Guy!) and Dole pineapple juice.

I’ve decided that, rather than let Da Juicer sit in my basement collecting dust, I would think of Ten Things I could do with the damned thing, other than making juice, and here’s the List:

Ten Things One Can Do with a Juicer, Other than Making Juice.

1. Lawn ornament.

2. Paper weight.

3. Door stop.

4. Donation to a time capsule project dedicated to stupid shit from the 90’s.

5. Rifle target.

6. Token for use in a really, really big Monopoly Game.

7. A thing that can be dressed up to look like R2D2.

8. Airplane sound effects generator.

9. Consolation prize for the sorry ass who comes in third on Jeopardy.

10. In the spirit of the Stanley Cup, a trophy that is awarded annually to the Douchebag of the Year.

FOR SALE: One Useless Piece of Crap. Cheap.

First, let me say, ewwwwwwww.

As I noted here, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to eat that stuff, but we at PRS are mindful that a few of our readers actually do eat farookin’ fish eggs. And, as a service to those readers, we offer the following advice.

Go NOW — LIKE IMMEDIATELY — to your caviar store and snap up all the sturgeon eggs you can before the already ridiculous price for the stuff goes intergalactic.

The reason is that the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has ordered that the export of sturgeon eggs be immediately stopped at least until the countries who export sturgeon eggs can demonstrate that their fishing practices are not contributing to the extinction of sturgeon. The countries affected by the prohibition are: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, China, Iran, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia, Serbia-Montenegro, Turkmenistan and Ukraine. Interestingly, the ban also prohibits the United States, as a party to the 169-nation convention, from importing sturgeon.

The announcement coincided with official holidays in Russia, and, as such, Russian trade officials have not commented, but it is not difficult to imagine that the shitsky will hit the fansky once the Russian holidays are over.

So, to you folks who like to eat that that fishy glop and who don’t want to go broke satisfying your glop Jones, I suggest that this might a good time for a peanut butter on a Ritz.

This morning, I walked past a local hair salon and slowed down to be sure that I was correctly reading a printed sign in the window. The sign read:
EyebroW
Threading

I spent the better part of the remainder of my walk trying to figure out what the heck “EyebroW Threading” might be.

I found that, before I could focus on the big picture, I had to give a bit of thought to the use of the capital “W” on the sign. Accidental? Purposeful? If purposeful, to what end? Could it be a subtle reference to the President? Was it an attempt at a sort of graphic balance, with the letter “b” serving as the balance point in the word? After a few minutes, I decided that the use of the capital “W” was just plain dumb and that a small “w” would be more appropriate (and not dumb).

Having resolved the Capital “W” issue to my satisfaction, I lumbered along trying to divine what “Eyebrow Threading” might be. Here’s a disturbing peek into what goes on in my cruller on occasions such as this:

Jimbo asks Himself: “Might Eyebrow Threading describe the process of weaving someone’s eyebrows into cornrows or something similar?”

Jimbo answers Himself: ”Cornrows? Are you nuts? Some people have pretty bushy eyebrows, but no-damned-body has eyebrows long enough to weave them into cornrows. Besides, if that were the case, the sign would say ‘Eyebrow Weaving.’”

Jimbo asks Himself: “Wait a minute, dammit. I’ve seen Andy Rooney’s eyebrows, and I’ve seen where a guy carved the Lord’s Prayer on the head of a farookin’ pin. I’ll bet that a guy like that could weave cornrows in ol’ Andy’s eyebrows?”

Jimbo answers Himself: ”Yo, first of all, nobody has eyebrows as bushy as Andy Rooney’s, and second, you’re talking about a sign in a local hair salon in this bullshit town, fer Chrissakes. You think they would search the world to find the Head of a Pin Carving Guy and hire him to come here to weave farookin’ eyebrows? Sheesh.”

Jimbo asks Himself: “Well then, maybe Eyebrow Threading involves weaving decorative threads through people’s eyebrows? Maybe they hang decorative stuff from the threads?”

Jimbo answers Himself: ”Decorative threads? Man, sometimes you slay me. Have you ever seen anyone walking around with threads in his or her eyebrows? I didn’t think so, which means that you damned well never have seen anybody with little ornaments dangling from eyebrow threads. I think you need oxygen.”

Based on the foregoing admittedly unsettling schizoid conversation, I decided that neither one of knew what “EyebroW Threading” is. So, promptly upon my return to the House by the Parkway, I checked it out.

The straight skinny is that Eyebro[w] Threading is a form of cosmetic hair removal torture that originated in Arabia and Africa. The practitioner of this black art uses a special thread as a mini-lasso to ensnare eyebrow hairs (or hairs anywhere on the face or hands) and yank them out by the roots!

I have three observations concerning this practice:

1. Are you shitting me?

2. I had no idea my town was so … well… chic.

3. I wonder if they charge extra for a unibrow.

I have spent just about all of today alternating between reading Vince Flynn’s latest page-turner and thinking about how much I would like to find the guy who invented vodka and kick his ass.

That is all.