80s Memory Unlocked: Crocodile Mile Injury

After being heavily marketed to in the late 80s during cartoons and kid shows we begged and finally got our parents to get us Crocodile Mile.  I'm sure it was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of Crocodile Dundee.  It was a crocodile themed slip-n-slide with an inflatable part at the end that formed a bump to launch off and a pool of water you splash into. The "Splashdown Pool"  was way to shallow and the "Boomerang Bump" didn't really launch you into the air at all. The whole thing ended up being 80% less cool as they made it look in the commercials but it was still a slip-n-slide.  At the bump at the end that "launches" you into the pool had a curtain of thin plastic sheeting with the mouth of a crocodile printed on it that you launch through. The curtain was held up with a tube of rigid plastic bent in a hoop which was inserted into hard plastic cups that had stakes that also held it all in place which you pushed into the grass like a plastic tent stake.  

Here's the TV spot that had us so excited. This song is gonna be stuck in my head all day now. 

The hoop fell off every time you went through it so we just left it off. The fun was starting to wear off after using it for about an hour and for one last go at it my younger brother got a running start, slid down the slide but veered off course slightly missing the Boomerang Bump and slid his bare, wet chest across one of the cup stakes that protruded up at lease 3 inches from the ground. He ended up getting a 10" gash across his chest and was bleeding everywhere. I'm sure parents were summoned and friends went home but I don't have any recollection of the rest of that day. 

 I guess getting attacked and drawing blood was more realistic to being attacked by a crocodile than the part the kept falling off.  What's funny is that I found a commercial for something I didn't remember existing but it was "Super Crocodile Mile". What's so super about it you ask? It came with an inflatable surfboard mat thing you used to slide down on.  While marketed as a way to go faster, I wonder if kids were getting cut by the stakes and they had to put something between them and the dangerous plastic parts.  

PYMYM: The Gnar-Maiden

Back in 2008 I drew a couple versions of a mutated Narwhal for no reason.  It was around the same time I had drawn this full-figured skateboarder for a skateboard company and sort of merged them together in my brain and created this bit of silly fiction. Mostly as an excuse to fuck around in photoshop at work. 

 Which brings us to this installment of "Posts You Might Have Missed" from April of 2008.  

The Tale of the Gnar-Maiden

There once was a beautiful skateboarder named Lisa, who loved to ride her skateboard. She also liked to swim in the Arctic seas. 

Lisa knew of a magical sea creature that liked to swim in these waters but was never too concerned as it was mostly just old stories told by the local people.  The North Alaskan Mutated Narwhal or "Gnarwhal" to the local Inuit tribes was said to be a docile creature known for it's giant tusk and tasty secretions. As the story goes the secretions were once harvested by the natives in the olden times and used for medicinal and ceremonial purposes.



One day while swimming in the frigid waters Lisa got caught in a freak storm that carried her out to sea. She nearly drowned when her body sank to the depths. Deep down with the Gnarwhal.

In this same storm, a military cargo ship carrying top secret government radioactive material took a phantom wave and cracked its hull spilling gallons of this experimental substance into the sea.

The substance made its way down to the depths with Lisa who was struggling to swim to the surface and –the Gnarwhal. As the glowing ooze made contact something miraculous and strange happened. Lisa suddenly was able to breath under water and a giant tusk started to grow and came out of her forehead! She then realized that her and one of the sea mammals of lore were starting to meld together and become one.

Once the transformation was complete she, in her new form made her way back to land.  Like the Gnarwhal, Lisa now secreted this rare and delicious jelly. A special gelatinous ooze now imbued with special energy increasing properties from the toxic spill.  

Leaving out a ton of really important stuff here but long-story-short, she went on to market and sell with the help of her marketing exec. brother, Joaquin and became a very successful business woman/mutant sea creature hybrid.  The End. 

Sorry, Kids.

I was thinking the other day about kids growing up in the Internet age.  When i was a kid there were things- Cultural things that only existed in the adult world.  Office culture, locker room culture, after work culture... That all happens more or less on the Internet. On social media. Tiktok creates cultural language now. And kids see all of it.  If anything what ends up being in the zeitgeist of the week, kids picked-up on it first.  

Not a care in the world other than trying to ollie more than 4 inches.
Me and my skate crew 1986 probably? 

Grown up things were like another world to me.  The News was boring and I avoided it.  But now I wonder how much of that is part of kids' media. And now that I'm a grown up I know it sucks.  Being ignorant of politics, bills, stress and everything else was magical.  I just saw a thing about giving toddlers a credit card or not... And kids having debit cards is a real thing.  I guess this is normal now? Is that just the equivalent of giving a kid a $20bill before not seeing them for 7 hours? I guess it's hard for me to wrap my head around. I don't have kids and I'm not around kids very often so if this isn't some revelation then color me out of touch.  

Pepsi: the choice of the new generation. 
Very little me. 

Now kids have mini computers with a shopping mall and video arcade in their pockets.  You used to have to leave the house and depend on adults to get to these places. 

rock candy and confederate war money.  not a cell phone in sight!
Me and Jeremy at Fort Point San Francisco probably around 1989  

I dunno where I'm going with this.  I just kinda feel bad for these kids who have to grow up so fast because of technology putting real life in their faces 24-7.  To never truly be free.  To be blissfully ignorant of reality for at least a few years.  My earliest exposure to social issues and real life problems was probably from the thrash metal bands I listened to.  Their lyrics were more informative to my stupid kid brain than anything the morons who voted for Trump are getting from Fox News.  

At The Bottom Of The Sea... (OceanGate Sub Implosion)

Anyone watching the OceanGate sub documentary? There's one on Max/Discovery and a new one on Netflix but they both pretty much tell the same story. Even my homeboy Josh Gates did an episode of his adventure show on the sub and talked to Stockton Rush about how it was all going. Josh had to go to Discovery brass and tell them to not air the episode because he felt it was dangerous to promote this guy and that he thought people were going to get hurt. Boy was he right. Everyone around him with a brain and an ounce of courage told him it was gonna fail and kill people and he fired them or they quit because they didn't want to be responsible for killing people. Holy shit what a dick that guy was.

Anyone who didn't kiss his ass he fired. And then he was crushed to death in his little stupid submarine.

Stockton Rush: Certified asshole

I wrote some lyrics about this after it happened.

You paid to see

 Where the wealthy lay deceased

...At the bottom of the sea 

I find it hard to think

 This was a tragedy

...At the bottom of the sea. 

People struggle to be 

While you struggled to breathe

...At the bottom of the sea. 

You built a submarine 

Ignored their expertise 

Now you're dead.

Crushed to death.

...At the bottom of the sea.  

Just a tarnished legacy

and a pile of debris

...At the bottom of the sea.

It sucks those innocent people fell for his bullshit and died but fuck that Stockton Rush and people like him forever.
Almost like an allegory for what's happening in the White House... just a matter of how many of us he takes down in his death submarine.

Some Stories About Me and My Butthole

Dramatic artistic reenactment 

I'm sure I have had to have mentioned my poop stories in the past here but I don't think I've shared these stories here.  I could have sworn I had but I searched and couldn't find anything.  So for your entertainment: 2 new poop stories and one old one.  Well, they're all old but 2 are new to you I guess. 

The Quiche Incident
This was at my new at the time girlfriend's aunt's house for a party with her aunt's neighbors. She lived in a cool but not huge house in a nice little neighborhood and had cool but kind of hip/snobby friends/neighbors. Or at least that was my impression because I was a young bad ass and insecure.  

There were various plates of fancy foods to much on. There was a plate of mini quiche that were fucking delicious. I wolfed down several of the mini quiches because all of the other food frightened me.  I wrote a whole post about foods I wont eat. You should go check it out.  Now, I am lactose intolerant but it's not like shit-my-pants-if-I-smell-dairy intolerant. I can eat pizza and ice cream most of the time and I'm fine but there was something about these mini quiches that fucking destroyed my guts. I felt it coming and tried to wait it out. I didn't want to take a shit in her house. It wasn't a huge house and she only had one bathroom. I went outside and let out some farts to relive the pressure. Then I went to my car to try to let it pass. It didn't. I had to go. I tried to be sly. The bathroom shared a wall with the open concept kitchen. I casually ducked away into the bathroom when people weren't looking and proceeded to fucking unleash hell on that toilet. I felt better immediately but I had to deal with the smell. I opened the window. I sprayed anything I could spray. I lit the candle and thought it was ok. I mean it smelled but it's the bathroom. I felt bad if someone was waiting for me and used it right after me but for the most part I felt I was in the clear. I went back to the party and had the typical awkward time with people I didn't know. Went home and other than my girlfriend making jokes about me not being able to eat quiche, I mostly forgot about it.

Almost 20 years later I'm still with the same woman and have had many, many visits, vacations and good times with the very same aunt of hers. While on a recent trip with the aunt and girlfriend the quiche incident comes up in conversation. Her aunt laughs and says something about how bad it smelled. Wait what? You knew? You could smell it? Still laughing she informed me that everyone at the party could smell it and wondered what it was. At one point there was concern of a sewer or gas leak. It ended up just being a funny moment for her and her guests but NO ONE EVER TOLD ME.  For 20 years I thought I had gotten away with it. I thought the window and candle and spritzes covered up the smell. Oh well. I haven't eaten quiche since.

The Panamanian Shuffle
Not long after moving to a small rural city 5 hours away from the bay area a neighbor we had made friends with was flying out of Oakland Airport the same weekend we were driving down to see family.  On the way to the airport we stopped at Chili's for dinner.  Normal, safe mediocre Chili's.   I should note that this friend had never been to a real "city" before and she was excited to be flying out of the Oakland. The airport isn't' in the best part of Oakland. It's not all bad along the normal route Google tells you to take,  but a traffic detour... or should I say, the police closing a whole-ass major intersection for reasons we could only speculate on, took us through a part of East Oakland that people passing through on the way to the airport don't usually go.  And since it was after dinner the sun was starting to go down and it was becoming– well it was getting to be night time in the hood. I was driving and while our friend was "ooh"ing and "ahh"ing at things happening out the windows she'd only seen in movies and TV, my guts were starting to bubble. It came on quick and I tried to play it cool. There was nowhere to stop and find a bathroom so I kept quiet and clinched. hard. Once we got closer to the outer airport area there were gas stations and fast food places. I blurted out "I gotta shit bad" and abruptly turned into a gas station that had a Starbucks on one side of the parking lot and a Wendys inside of a gas station situation on the other side. I parked haphazardly kind of in the middle next to the air and water station and carefully glided to the Starbucks. The one bathroom they had was occupied and I waited for like 10 seconds and looked up - the brightly lit Wendy's sign across the parking lot came into focus. I then, trying to be casual and not shit my pants booked it past my car and to the Wendy's/Gas station. The Men's was occupied but the women's was open and I said fuck it. While I was in there my GF was texting me that they saw me fly by them in the parking lot and later made fun of my butt-clench, straight leg waddle at hypers peed.  Since I'm 1/4 Panamanian for some reason they coined it "the Panamanian Shuffle"  Now any time I have to poo or am running to the bathroom she says "Panamanian Shuffle"  
Fucking Chili's.

Friday Night Poops
This is kind of a PYMHM but it fits the theme.  
Late December 2006.  This is an old one folks from the glory days of the noggins. Italics is 2025 me talking about 2006.
We got this new heater/ceiling fan thing for xmas that wasn't working so my dad and I switched out the light switch and checked all the breakers to make it work... it still doesn't work. The whole time we were rushing because it was Celeste's 12th birthday and we were supposed to meet at the Mexican restaurant down the street. We got there just in time. I got a carnitas burrito which was hella good but had more cheese in it/on it than I expected. I didn't take a Lactaid (here's that lactose intolerance again) but didn't think it would be a big deal. (because it never is right?) after I finished I started to get the bubble guts and knew I needed a toilet fast. No one at the table realized how serious my situation was.They kept saying "were almost ready we're leaving soon" but they hadn't even got the check yet.
So I'm sitting there with a crazy stomach and bubbling insides, in a cold sweat ready to shoot hot shit all over the place. Finally we pay and get up to leave. My ass is clinched tighter than a nuns cunt on Easter as I try to walk to the car. (pre-Panamanian shuffle!) we only live 2 blocks away thankfully. We get to the house and before the car stops I'm halfway to the stairs. Running trying hard to keep the shit in. I must have taken too wide a stride while running and about three of my steps were accompanied by a squirt, squiiiirrrt. oh fuck "Meg I think I shit my pants" she only laughs. before I could think about the implications of shitting myself I get on the toilet and unleash like Eisenhower on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was in there for a good 30 minutes. and another 15 cleaning myself. After that, exhausted, I joined the rest of the family just in time for present opening and cake.  I passed on the cake.

After all hullabaloo from the party we went back up to our room to call it a night. Meg walks in first and hits the newly installed light switch. At that split second the lights turn on then we hear a pop and then everything goes black. Our first thought was oh shit we wired it wrong and it blew the power to the whole house. Then meg saw a blue flash and we turned around then realized the power was out on the whole street.. Then after we walked around in the moonlight realized that it was all of down town. I talked to my dad the next day who lives on the other side of town and he said his power was out too. It was out for like 2 hours. Pretty eerie when everything is off. It was complete silence other than the sirens of EMT's and Ambulances going to the old folks home down the street. Thats gotta suck. We tried to read a book by flashlight but Meg kept talking about shadow people and freaking me out. Then all the sudden zzhhhhhoooom everything came back on. still haven't heard what caused it...maybe a squirrel chewed a wire or something... I guess it happens tho.  I think this actually ended up being a possum that got fried at the power station.  I also have a memory of hearing what sounded like a raccoon dying in the bushes across the street during the silence when the power was out. Maybe that was another time. 

Waffle Party Conception. Severance Fan Fiction.

I know this post will have a very narrow audience.  Even narrower considering literally no one reads my blog anymore. If you haven't seen the hit AppleTVplus show, Severance. Go watch it. 

If you have seen it you'll kind of get what I'm riffing on here.  I was pondering the bonkers work incentive for the MDR team known as a "Waffle Party"  It comes totally out of nowhere but sort of tracks with the culty vibes at Lumon Industries.  I had this mental image of two low-level Lumon execs sitting around thinking of ways to try to impress their bosses.  As if they were tasked to come up with ideas for incentives to keep the innies in MDR meeting quota.  So far they already had pencil erasers and the caricature drawings but they thought bigger.  What if they let the innies have sex as a reward?

Setting: Breakfast meeting at Pips with two Lumon executive employees.

–Hey, weird thought- how about as an incentive, maybe we should let the innies have sex?
I bet they'd love that! haha. 

-No, I'm serious.  

Okay... but we can't just make it like sex with a hooker or whatever, it has to be tied to work somehow.
–what if the innie is taming the tempers?
Like have the innie fuck woe, dread, malice and frolic?
–yea we could get sexy costumes made...
how do you make Dread sexy?
–anything can be sexy, Steve haven't you been to the Halloween Store?
Good point. So it will be like an orgy with hot chicks dressed as the tempers.

(awkwardly stops talking as the server brings their food. Attractive 20something waitress remarks at their order as she sets it down "Waffles all around eh?" Roger replies "yea so what we like waffles, mind your own business" said with the confident arrogance of a Lumon exec inside Pips in the town named after their founder.  She leaves and they carefully continue with the orgy discussion) 

Wait so, what if it's a woman.... the innie? for the orgy I mean, should there be a guy?
–Ok make one of them a dude. 

Wait will the male innie think they have to fuck the dude temper?
–If they want to I guess? Maybe some of them are gay...Maybe the woman wants to fuck the other women tempers. Who knows what those innies get up to. Maybe they will think they have to and not want to ... fuck it. If it's for Kier they probably will. We can just make the goat a dude.
Ok settled. (he says mouth full of waffles) What should we call it?
–lol how about a 'waffle party'
(spits out waffles) what!?
–yea we could have the innie eat a stack of waffles while they dance.
This is getting out of hand, wont they think that's weird?
–Dude this whole place is weird and they don't even blink and eye. Have you BEEN to the Mamalian's Nurturible? Those weirdo's outies think they work in a corporate records department. They won't even care. They'll be like "sweet, waffles and sex! this is the best job ever"
Ok -'Waffle Party' it is. OMG this place is fucking crazy. I can't wait to tell Jaime. 
–Praise Kier
(together) PRAISE KIER!!!
ahh dammit. (dunks napkin in water to dab syrup off his tie)
–(waives down server who laughs under her breath at him spilling on himself) For Kier's-sake can we get the bill please?

aaaaand... scene. 

Get Lumon Frozen Waffles from your favorite grocery store- and you can have your own Waffle Party... AT HOME! 

These Trying Times... PYMHM

 I called it the "new normal" in the original post and it was mostly about Covid times but with Trump's very authoritarian dictator or petty bitch style of governing.  Where if you don't like him he retaliates like a fucking child with access to nuclear codes.  It's exactly like that old Twilight Zone episode "The Good Life" about a kid with unlimited powers and everyone around him just kisses his ass.  

But you know?... it's real fucking life.  And while we're comparing reality to bleak science fiction I'm starting to see a lot of similarities to the recent season of the Star Wars series, Andor.  Even if you aren't into Star Wars I highly recommend this series.  There's not one single light saber or Jedi knight in it.  

Back to the old post you might have missed.  I wrote a short fictional scene of the future. 

I had a vision of a small child in front of a tent fashioned from torn tarps,  cardboard with faint Amazon.com logos and various salvaged materials.  She is a girl of about nine or ten years old with short hair wearing a bulky sweater with holes in it that revealed layers of dirty clothing underneath and a crude respirator mask. She's standing around a burning pile of trash with a few other children of varying ages.  There's also a much older man with dirty white hair under a floppy knit cap.  He has wire rimmed glasses which are repaired with tape and a paper clip.  He's sporting a tattered cloth scarf which was wrapped around his neck mouth and nose. The child looks up and asks "Grandpa, can you tell us the story about the  movie theaters?" The old man clears his throat with a few small coughs, adjusts his scarf and replies "Well, child, there were places where people would go and sit shoulder to shoulder in a small room watching a movie on a big screen the size of house..." Before he could finish his sentence there was an audible gasp from the children standing near by to keep warm. "and no one was scared to get sick grandpa?" Then moisture welled up in the old man's eyes. He coughed again.  A single tear fell down his cheek paving a weaving, clean path on through the soot and dirt on his wrinkled skin. He pulled up his make-shift mask to wipe his tear.  Adjusted it again, and for a moment remembered what it was like before the "new normal" began.  He muttered under his breath "all they had to do was follow simple guidelines...just wear a mask"   Then visibly upset now, slightly louder "All they had to do was wear a damn mask!" The excitement put him into a brief coughing fit.   The children, startled, all turned their heads towards the old man.  The child inquired "Who didn't wear a mask grandpa?"  The old man then heard the sound of synchronized, booted footsteps in the mud approaching.  "quiet children" the grandpa whispered as the Trumpguard patrol officers approached.  The old man huddled the children in his arms and watched the guardsmen carefully as they passed hoping they hadn't heard him talking of people not wanting to wear masks, and movie theaters.  The old man's grip on the children loosened once the officers were gone.  A sense of relief came over him. The children sensed this even thought they didn't fully understand.   One of the younger children looked up to the old man, pulled down his surplus respirator mask and verbalized as best he could  "what  a... moo vee?   The old man quickly peeked out into the road and made sure the men were gone while he gently moved the child's mask back into place.  He then put the child on his knee and in between wheezing coughs, constantly adjusting his face scarf, the old man proceeded to explain movies to the children of 2042 by trash fire light.

Obviously most of this pertains to a future where Covid was never controlled and Trump won the 2020 election but the way things are going I could see something like this.  The synchronized boots of Trumpguard patrol officers.  Not far off from the Stormtroopers in Starwars. 

Fuck something's gonna have to change and fast.  

Old White Dude vs My Take-Out order

I ordered Chinese food at the place near my house.  I noticed theres no street parking in front of the restaurant but it's totally wide open across the street.  So I'm planning on making a u-turn to park.  Then this old fuck in a crappy old pickup driving behind me just whips the wrong way in the area I was gonna park.  I end up just parallel parking in front. As I'm parking I see that he leaves his hazards on as he walks across the street. Like leaving the hazards on makes it less illegal. I wish a cop would enforce this.  So because I had to actually park legally he beat me inside. He kinda pushes his way passed everyone who's already in there and is like "I wanna place an order to go" great. Fucking gramps is leaving his truck parked illegally to browse the menu... The cashier tells him it could be up to 30 minutes wait, which is totally the norm for places like this. Anyway, he then scoffs, throws the menu down and leaves. Storms across the road in a huff and drives off revving his motor loudly so everyone can hear his disdain. I preordered on the app and I'm still waiting. It's fine tho because I can tell they're busy. 

So many boomer white dudes think the world revolves around them. 

The Great Italian Gas Station Sandwich- PYMHM with a Twist...

The little cafe that's inside the store I work at has sandwiches and other fresh deli items as well as pastries and coffee.  They have this one sandwich that I totally love but refuse to pay full price for so whenever they have it in the "2nd Day Fresh" aka, yesterday's leftovers section I pick one up.  It's a salami baguette sandwich and it's just perfect.  I was wondering, as I munch on one right now; why do I love it so much?  And I remembered my old favorite pre-packaged sandwich I used to get from the convenience store.  It was called "The Great Italian" and was almost exactly like the sandwich I get from the cafe.  I hadn't seen one in a while so what does any other bored and curious person do? I Googled "Great Italian gas station sandwich" and the only result that looked like what I wanted turns out...  was my very own Noggins post about it from 2006.  HA!!!! 

I didn't intend on making a new Post You Might Have Missed but it was thrust upon me by the internet gods.   

In my original post ... the one I just found on Google, was me in 2006 complaining that my beloved Great Italian sandwich no longer came with pepperoncini in the package.  It was written as a complaint and plea to the Rel's Foods company who made and distributed them.  I just Googled Rel's and they seem to be an Oakland Ca based company but the reason why I haven't seen my sandwich in a while is because they got slammed hard by the FDA in 2009. Not long after I posted that Noggin. Maybe they knew they were being looked at and the problem was contaminated pepperoncinis so they switched to black olives, which I also complained about in that post. 

According to Google AI: 

"The FDA filed a complaint against Rel's Foods Inc. in 2009, alleging that the company was manufacturing and selling adulterated food products, including sandwiches contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. The complaint also named several Rel's Foods employees. While the company is still listed on Yelp with a location in Oakland, CA, the FDA's complaint suggests they are under scrutiny and may be facing challenges in their operations" 

then there's this little disclaimer under it "AI responses may contain mistakes"  thanks I guess. 

Here's an article from SF Weekly about it.  And a sad attempt at a clever headline.  

Oakland Sandwich Maker REL's Shut Down for Selling Creepy Crawlies on Rye

Damn. 

During my research (2 google searches) I also found out they made the Red Hot burritos too. I've been looking for those as well and have had to get The Bomb or El Monterrey which are just not the same.  Red Hot burritos and Great Italians were part of my childhood and teen years growing up in the East Bay.  Sad to see they're fucking up and probably not a company any more.  Now if I could only find a damn pre packaged Piroshki up here behind the Redwood Curtain. 

Hey, Assholes: Photo Friday.

 Here's a splattery cumshot of photos.  Nothing is in chronological order. 

Benny got big.  

Birds

I drew in my sketchbook that I had to find for a "Drunk & Draw" event at a bar. 

'Tilda tillin'  

Grr Norman. (More about that later) 

Benny & Norman. 
Norman's first walk outside. 

Painted a couple of skateboards for the SkateboardArt Charity Show

ahhoooooo basset sticker! 

Fucking amazing carpet in this old victorian Open house that we popped into

Norman!

So that iPad I ended up getting, I finally got a compatible Apple Pencil and I've been using it. Made this digital painting. 

Sunny nap time. 

New band, Northern Blight had a show. 

Made with the iPad! 

Norman. 

Benny (note the drool) 

Sleepy time 

Baby Norman after we picked him up.  From fucking Madera. 

Pencil doodle of an old lady from the future. 

Frankenstien. Derping it up. 

Bruce went over the rainbow bridge.  RIP sticky boo-boo jam hands.
this is what led to us getting Norman.  

Got new heads on this kit.  I had the same old heads on it from like 2001

Franks and Benny

Franks and our friend's puppy, Obi-wan-Potato 

Severance Premier Waffle Party.  Praise Kier.