ding ding!

Someone emailed me a picture of a cable car near where I live. It's long gone now, along with most of the stores you can see in the picture. On my morning walk, we sit nearby here and drink coffee and eat blueberry muffins, which, if I'm lucky enough, will get a little piece of. They sure do taste great. Anyway, apart from the stupidly loud Harler-Davidson choppers that race by, and the busted up pickup trucks running on only 5 cylinders pumping out noxious fumes and crazy music, and the signs that have been painted over 79 times, and the permanent layer of smog in the mountains, and the sound of the police helicopter overhead, and the weird odor eminating from the guy that sells the chickens up the road, and the police/fire/ambulance sirens in the distance, and the Mexican lady hosing the barf off the pavement from last night at the bar next door, I imagine it feels much the same as it did when this picture was taken 56 years ago.

Phil

p.s. If you are the copyright owner if this image, thanks for scanning it and making it available for my blog.

stuff I ate, and a haircut Kanye West would be proud of!

As promised, here are some photos of the things I ate last week. The cash tasted good, but the hat was delicious. Red is my favorite new flavor, next to dirt that is, which I'm sure you can see by the photo. Speaking of which, you'll notice my great new hairstyle. So great is it in fact, that when Mommy came by to pick me up from the groomers, she didn't even recognize me until I peed all over her and the floor of the butcher salon. All I needed was a few dreadlocks cut out, and my apparently too scruffy for the white couch beard trimmed up, but when Edward Scissor-hands arrived on the scene all hope was lost. My guess is that when my Dad said to the people, "trim here" and pointed to the underside of his jaw, he inadvertently stumbled across the unwritten dog groomers secret code for "Cut without looking!". Everyone's been really nice about the fact that they destroyed my trademark shaggy eyebrows and that it'll grow back eventually, but I just don't feel like myself anymore.

Philip

I'm Back!!!!

yes it's true folks, I'm back, well at least the computer is back. Dad took it with him to Mexico so I haven't been able to tell you what I've been up to. Lets just say however, that I got up to all sorts of shenanigans when the two jet-setters were gone. I escaped, I found that money tastes great, I chewed up a hat, I found a hammock to hang out on, and I can now say that I love oranges. I promise to put some photos up tomorrow because the camera is charging at the moment, another device critical to my blog that he had with him. Oh, and the stray cats in the neighbourhood are having kittens. I'll try to get some photos of them but they are ridiculously fast!

Tree-1, Car-0

It was really windy today, and cold, even though the sun was out. On my walk this afternoon I saw this. I think it is a paper-bark eucalyptus tree, on a mid 90's purple and red douche-mobile. Actually you can just see that it also sports some fancy green and orange stripes down the side under the tinted fiber-glass camper thing. When we got there, my Dad asked the man who was standing there if everyone was OK, but he just gave him a funny look as if to say "What are you looking at?", and so it is for these reason's I have concluded it is a douche-mobile. I wonder why you would take a perfectly good mid sized pickup truck, and then alter it in a way that says 'Hey everyone, I'm a total loser!!', not to mention the fact that danger is most likely always lurking around the corner when your choices impact negatively on the rest of society. I realize that everyone parks under trees from time to time without any thought, but I'm guessing the owner of this rootin' tootin' boot scootin' mc shootin' wagon has had his fair share of messages from the universe. So it is with this vision in mind that I have decided to change my ways, and only put my best paw forward, to never bark at a stranger for no good reason, to always purposely lose the tug-of-war game, to give all humans the benefit of the doubt, and lots of other good stuff that I can't think of right now. Anyway, I just really wanted to get that off my chest.

Phil.

"Shake!!!!"

I learnt how to shake hands last night. It was a pretty easy trick to master, and the treats didn't taste bad either. I actually new how to do it by the second try, but I pretended not to know to get more faux meat sticks. I always wondered what the deal was with shaking someones paw, although I'm sure there's some scientific historical explanation for it. Normally, we sniff butts to meet each other, which makes sense to me, but I just can't understand the paw shaking business. Then there's the high five thing, or the fist bump, or when you see two guys greet each other with a half-arsed hug and kind of lean in to each others shoulder. I wonder what you would think if you came from say, Mars, and saw people doing all these strange greeting manouvers to each other. Would a martian think it's weird? or would he just wink his three eyes and extend his green hand?

Phil

california dreaming

I'm dreaming of California. Dry, warm, sunny, breezy, fun, but it rained most of today, so I guess I'm dreaming of the California from the postcards. They say it never rains in California, but they don't know what they are talking about. I spent most of today inside because of the rain, except for when my new dad took me for a ride in his car. It's an old Cadillac, big and white and nothing but cool. I think everyone should take a ride at least once in their life in a Caddy, if only for the land yacht feeling and the bowling alley hood length. I felt like the king of the road, except everyone else was passing us on the hills.

Anyway, I wish I had more to say but the rain and gloom is just so depressing, so I'm posting a picture of me waking my lazy dad up at 9:00 this morning, and no, it's not how it looks, he had a pillow on his head and I had just finished kicking it off.

Phil

bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do?

Today, awesome, some guy came up the street yelling all sorts of abuse at everyone, really nasty stuff, stuff I can't repeat here. It turns out he's the husband of the the girl who's housesitting the place across the road. Charming family really, and even a small girl was involved, don't you just love meth addicts? He was trying to fight one of the other neighbors, who we'll refer to as Reginald Farnsworth winterbottom the third, until Ol' Reg stood up and he realized that Reg towered over him, so he started to talk to him about land rights and the homeless. I'm sure that was a riveting conversation. Then the police showed up and cuffed him and took him away in the black and white. Just in time too I might add, had he have come up to me it would have turned real ugly, real fast! Hey, I lived on the street too you know, and I can look after myself if I have to, just check out my guns! I guess the lady called the police first because one of the other neighbors did also, but he got a message saying that 911 was too busy at the moment to take the call. 911 too busy? I wonder who you'd call then? I've heard those messages that say "If this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911" but what happens at 911? "If this is an emergency, hang up and pray?"

Anyway, this stuff rarely happens on my street they tell me, and I can only assume they're telling the truth, I guess it's all part of living in L.A.