Year: 2003

My friend Kitty Karn and my new friend Julia Kay Laskowski have written an “opera farce” called Sold
Separately that is playing at Ovations in the Village tonight at 8pm, and again May 16 & 17 at 8 &
10 pm both nights. It is hilarious. I highly recommend it. It has been very well received, and they are already working on the sequel. Do not let this
gem pass you by!

Don’t know how I got on this one, but all of a sudden I had to know where the term ‘dibs’ came from (when a person has ‘dibs’ they have right of first refusal to
the subject at hand, eg “I’ve got dibs on the drumstick” means I have the right to eat the drumstick).

Googling gave me several websites that referenced a 17th centruy game called dibstones that was
played with sheep’s knucklebones (!), in which when a bone was captured, the player cried, “Dibs!” The first recorded American usage, though, isn’t until the
1930’s.

I want my own copy of the OED!

Was watching Dinner for Five, a show on IFC, with my buddy Tran after biking this
afternoon. We learned two new phrases, both very useful:


  • Cropdusting – From Jon Favreau, who says flight attendants use this phrase to refer to passing gas while
    walking up the aisle
  • Protien Spill – From Illeana Douglas, who says that folks working at Disneyland use this phrase to
    refer to vomit

So who said TV wasn’t educational?

Stopped in at Schlotzsky’s at Westheimer and Montrose (when will they get wireless???) for some lunch yesterday. I usually park on the back side to avoid the panhandlers, but this
time I parked in front, and am duly approached as I exit my vehicle by a guy asking if I can spare some change, “’cause I’m really hungry.” I say, “No, but I
can buy you a sandwich. Come on in.” He follows me in, says he wants beef, so I buy him a roast beef combo (he asks for it to go), and, for me, my standard #1 combo. I tell him that the combo includes the drink and some chips. We get our drinks and our chips,
and as I’m sitting down, I see him go back to the area where the prepared salads are, look around, then start to snag one. As I get up to tell him that that’s
not included, the manager chases him off. After he leaves, I apologize to the manager, but he says no problem…that guy pesters customers all the time, and
does that quite a bit.