the early HNT from Guam ... and a contest

As per usual, I present my Half-Nekkid Thursday just before MY Thursday, which is Wednesday for most of ya'll. It's a bit scruffy, but what the hell.

But this time, there is a little twist.

I am offering up the hat I'm wearing in the photo above — worn only once, for this photo — in a little bit of contest for anyone out there who reads DZER's Diatribe. Yes, all 13 of you qualify!

Contest Rules

1. Eligibility: Anyone with a mailing address who enters the contest. Must be at least 18 years of age.

2. Tell me, in an e-mail sent to dzer@teleguam.net, what you are willing to give in exchange for the hat. Items must be able to be sent by U.S. mail or other delivery service.

3. I, and I alone, will choose the winning entry, based solely on what I think is the coolest offer.

4. By sending said e-mail, you consent to me publishing your name, or your nom de blog (your choice), and your offer — even if you don't win! Heh. The winner will, of course, be identified, as will his or her winning bid. So be very careful about how feckless and risque your offer is ... LOL

5. The hat will only be sent out once the winning bid is received.

6. Should the winner so choose, he or she can post an HNT featuring him or her in the hat, once it is in his or her possession. This isn't mandatory, but it sure would be pretty cool.

7. Everyone has one week in which to submit their bids. The winner will be announced with my next early HNT.

And now for something completely different
This is definitely not my best week ever. Why not, you ask?

• I waited to long to renew my driver's license. Now I have to retake the written test on Friday, along with a bunch of punk kids.

• I have oral surgery scheduled for Monday. 'Nuff said there.

• I've had to wake up early (for me) twice this week. Bleah.

• The power went out in my part of the village last night for several hours, so I left the house and stumbled upon a poker game, at which I lost $60. If the power hadn't gone out, I'd have $60 more than I do now! Crikey!

• My right big toe is infected after I ripped out part of an ingrown toenail. It hurts, it's flaming red and all the soaking and antibiotic creams haven't helped a bit. I have a appointment with a podiatrist in the morning. Gross, I know, but true.

• My VCR was killed by the power outage yesterday, which meant I had to go get a new one today. Worse, my favorite porno compilation tape was stuck inside, which meant I had to rip apart the old one. Hmmm ... OK, so that was actually a bit fun and involved tools. LOL

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• The Random Guam Fact Of The Day is on vacation. We instead present you with a Random Fact About Randomness For The Day: random.org "offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet." Check it out!

I'm so tired of hearing about ...

I don't know about you people (yes you, there in the back row! you too!), but there are certain food phrases and ingredients with which I'm totally fed up! (Pun intended ... heh).

First of all: ciabatta bread. There isn't a bread that's more "now," more "it," more "hot" than ciabatta. Why? What does ciabatta bread have that's missing from a French baguette, a hoagie roll, a kaiser roll, sourdough, rye or even multi-grain bread? Oh, of course. It's Italian! And it's spelled different than it looks — looks like "see-uh-bat-tuh," pronounced "chuh-bah-tuh." Fancy! Must be good! I don't know about you, but this bread really just goes against my grain. (Heh. There it is yet again!)

And then there's ranch. Now, don't get me wrong — I LOVE ranch. It's one of my very favorite salad dressings of all time. Of the garden-variety (punnery once more! heh!) salad dressings that all restaurants usually have — vinaigrette, bleu cheese, French, Italian, Japanese (a regularity here, in not where you are) — I would usually choose ranch. I like that it's creamy and ... well, ranchy. But fuck. There are bacon-ranch burgers, ranch chicken sandwiches, ranch bread ... bread! It's overexposed and half baked! (Zing! Does he ever stop?) Time to pull back on the use of ranch.

The same goes for mushroom-Swiss anything. All the major fast-food restaurants seem to have a mushroom-Swiss sandwich of one kind or another — and often it also includes ranch! Ranch-mushroom-Swiss burger! Arg! Swiss used to be exotic for the American palate. We used to only know American, cheddar (mild, medium and sharp). Swiss was "fancy" cheese, for that deli sandwich you ordered. No one really had it in their homes. And you can't seemingly have mushrooms unless it comes with Swiss. But why not mushrooms and goat cheese? Or Muenster? Frankly, my dear, I don't give Edam! (Heh! Ze punster strikes again!)

And, finally, the ingredient that I despise the most for overuse and overexposure and over-everyting.

Chipotle. I curse thee, chipotle, with every fiber of my being, with every ounce of my soul. Foul pepper, thine name be "chipotle!"

And I blame Bobby fucking Flay for the rise of the chipotle. No one outside of the Southwest or Mexico knew what a chipotle was five years ago. They just knew "hot peppers." The more knowledgeable know they were called chiles, and that there were many varieties, though most only knew of jalepeños. So why is chipotle so hot? (Punditry at its finest, ladies and germs!)

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• One of the Chamorro words for "food" is "inakpa'an."

cell phones and jury duty ...

I was all excited today. A cell phone company representative came into the office to sign up and upgrade customers for a new GSM service (new for Guam, anyway). I signed up, adding on to my package bundle I already have with the company — residential phone, DSL, long-distance. It was a GREAT deal.

Even better was that the sales rep was/is willing to come to us and work with us in the office, instead of us having to go to their main office or even the new satellite office.

This is the phone that came as part of my package. It's a Motorola V220. Camera with 4X zoom. Customized ring tones. External caller ID. Games. Plan included 3,000 local minutes, 10 cents a minute for long-distance phone calls. Voicemail, conference calling, call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting.

Only problem: I have zero signal in my apartment. I'd signed up for service with the company before, on their TDMA cell phone deal, but got no signal at home. That was all supposed to change with the GSM system. It hasn't.

So tomorrow I have to return the cool and neat and pretty phone, unless they can guarantee me the problem will be fixed within the next month. I have to stick with my old company and the old service. Bleah.

Jury duty
So I went to the orientation for jury duty. There's an hour of my life I'll never get back.

Oh well ... there is a slight chance they might actually excuse me from duty because of the job — when you work for a newspaper, you can't NOT read the newspaper. It's a part of my job — in fact I look at, read and edit the news and opinion commentary and letters the day before it comes out. For most criminal trials, we usually cover and report on it. That definitely makes it hard to be a juror. I've done the duty before and never had a lawyer from either side willing to put enpanel me as a juror.

I gotta drop off a letter explaining the whole thing tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me!

Random Guam Fact Of The Day:
• It's been raining way too much on Guam lately. We need a few days of clear weather and sunshine.