My Radially Symmetric Trip to the Pizza Joint

About an hour ago, I left my house to get some pizza. It was delicious. Greasy as all hell, but still really good. I'm getting ahead of myself already, though.

On the walk there, I was cut off by this girl in her car as she turned left. I was walking across the intersection, and I heard her come to a halt behind me, saw the mass of her car out of the corner of my eye. Then she changed her mind, apparently, as the car lurched forward and turned a foot in front of me. I leaned over and gave her a wave and a smile, but her head was tilted such that I couldn't possibly exist in her field of vision, and the muscles of her jaw were nothing if not resolute. I laughed uneasily, and turned to watch her drive off. She was looking left now, if only to avoid seeing me in the rear view mirror.

Then I had some pizza. Did I mention it was delicious? A couple at the table next to me was speaking animatedly in Japanese, which was exciting, but I couldn't make out a word of it.

On the way back, I heard someone shouting in a sing-song voice, although it took me a moment to locate the source. A wild-haired old man was sitting against a convenience store in the shade. He spotted me, or perhaps he saw someone else I couldn't, and had this to sing:

"Hey, fucker... get the fuck out my street, now. Seeing is believing!...Hey, now..."

I came to a stop at an intersection, on the opposite corner from where I was cut off earlier. A SUV pulled up, and stopped well into the crosswalk. Both the men inside watched me, as I stepped into the crosswalk to walk around their car. They continued to look over at me as they turned right, cutting off my progress abruptly. Somebody in the next lane over shook his head sadly at the scene, and I cheerily informed him it was my second time today.

I made it home without further incident.

A-sop says, "Whether you're turning right or left, you need to ignore what's going on around you if there is going to be Progress."

The Legend of T-Town

I responded to an ad for a cheap scanner/copier today. "Eight bucks," said the ad. It said plenty of other things, too: in great condition, comes with all the necessary cables, software, and etceratia. So into my car I hopped, and off I went to the region of Tierrasanta, aka T-Town, in eastern San Diego, to pick up this scanner.

Tierrasanta, although difficult to translate from the ancient Spaniard tongue, can be translated loosely as "Earth-Santa." Earth-Santa was one of the five Elemental Santas, a race of powerful, jolly beings that constantly fought each other for power, and the right to give out the most presents. These "presents" were actually talismans of power themselves, which granted the bearers limited amounts of ability from their Elemental Santa of choice. In return, the mortals who received these gifts fought as pawns of the Santas, though many were fooled into believing that if they received enough gifts, they would be strong enough to overthrow their Santa and take the Throne of Power.

For all the destruction wrought by the Elemental Santas in the name of conquest, it was actually a weak outsider, Coca-Cola Santa, that won the Santa Wars by playing on the greed of the mortals. But that is another story for another time. Only two of the Elemental Santas, Void-Santa and Earth-Santa, survived the Wars, but they disappeared into obscurity, and it is unknown whether they live on today. T-Town legend has it that Earth-Santa still broods on his Throne of Power, which is buried just under the playground of Tierrasanta Elementary, waiting for his chance to regain power and the city of San Diego.

Anyway, I managed to use the scanner twice before it broke.