I'm at a place called vertigo

Over my Christmas break I spent some time up in Portland, Oregon, where,on a lark, I finally visited the local mall, the Lloyd Center. Actually, I went there twice, and both times I mysteriously suffered bizarre psychological events. Thankfully, a little research on my part has turned up the culprit behind all this, but first let me explain what happened while at the Lloyd Center.

The first event occurred when I visited the mall with my friend Ross, where our explicit purpose was for me to visit the restrooms. He wouldn't tell me why I had to see them, but only indicated I had to experience it for myself. As I walked into the restroom, there was a small hallway that to your left that you have to walk down before making a right into the bathroom proper, and when I first came into the bathroom it looked as if the hallway went up an incline and continued moving up as it bent towards the right. And when I finally made it into the main restroom, I was struck even more dizzy.The reason for this is a curious tile pattern that they use on the floor in the restrooms, with small alternating black and white tiles that make the floor look electric and full of motion. Ross theorized, quite rightly I suspect, that this is purposeful in an effort to keep junkies from hanging out in the bathroom and shooting up.

As an aside, I would like to make brief mention of my experience using the urinal in the men's room at the Lloyd Center. I ended up using the middle of the three urinals, and soon after a guy showed up to use the one directly to my left. What was so odd about this guy was that he was visibily uncomfortable using the urinals, but was forced to because the stalls were full. To compensate for his embarassment, he ended up standing at a 45 degree angle to the urinal, with his back turned full towards me, in an effort to completely shield his wiener from view. The bloke who came in right after this chap and used the urinal to my right, and obviously had no problem using the whizzer in a public restroom. In fact, he was so comfortable he actually leaned forward against the wall and braced himself by placing one hand high up on the wall. Cool like Juneau, he was.

A few later days later- after recovering from the disconcerting effects of the restroom- I decided to share the experience with my friend Richard, so we went to the mall. We parked a level or so up in the parking garage, which meant that we needed to take the elevator down to the mall itself. As we walked across the garage, there appeared before us a gal in a wonderful pair of tight jeans, and her fanny utterly dominated our attention. We got into the elevator with her, which we soon learned didn't actually go to the mall, but rather to other levels of the parking garage. Whoops. The three of us found some stairs. Okay, that makes it sound like Richard and I were part of some Hardy Boys quest. The reality was that that girl found the stairs to the mall, and we ended up following her butt.

Once inside the mall, we parted ways with this girl's rear and went about our business. When it was time to leave, however, we suddenly realized we had no idea where we had parked or what door we came in. You see, the Lloyd Center has several parking lots and garages, none of which actually link up to each other. Click here and scroll down to the bottom of the page to see what I mean. Hypnotized. We had been hypnotized. Hypnotized by that curvy butt, and no we had no idea which lot the car was in.

That made two trips to the mall, and two times that some sort of mind game had been played on me. And there is only one person devious enough to employ these kind of dirty tricks, and you will find that person right here. Yes, that's right, the nefarious Dr. Mindbender from GI Joe fame apparently now works for the Lloyd Center Mall, as apparently Cobra is now out of business, so he is scrapping for work in Portland these days. (I do have to mention that I think it is hilarious that they have updated the new Dr. Mindbender toy to look less like a gay fetish creep and more like a nu-metal singer. Awesome.)

So, if you're ever at the Lloyd Center, and you start to feel a little dizzy or confused, or if you see something fishy involved a guy with a monocle, just yell out YO JOE!! Then just start shooting the holy living hell out of everything in sight.

Satan is my new employer

Today I went in search of rubbing alcohol. Wow, the excitement never stops in London, right? Well, despite living in a city of over 7 million people, you would not believe how hard it is to find things I need. Shoelaces, for instance, I ended up buying in Idaho over Christmas. And now I need rubbing alcohol, and neither of the grocery stores near me has it, nor do the local drug stores. Say what you will about the big stores in the US, at least you can find what you need there.

Anyway, part of living in central London is putting up with people ask you to take part in surveys or give money to various causes all day long. In my time here I've fabricated many ways to deal with these people. A favorite is the "opposition lie" that I use for various causes. When Amnesty International asks me to join, I tell them I support torture, for example. But by far the most effective method is simply to ignore people and act as if they aren't even there.

Well, on my way to search for rubbing alcohol, I saw a guy with a clipboard on the sidewalk, so I immediately put on my most unapproachable face and tried to look as badass as possible so he wouldn't bother me. This, alas, had the opposite effect. He didn't bother either of the two ladies walking in front of me, but instead pounced on me as I walked by and asked, "Do you have a minute to talk to..." I didn't catch that last part because I was well on my way past him at this point, but at no time did I look at him, speak to him, or acknowledge his existence. Awesome.

After leaving the store, I say him again, and he certainly saw me. But I think I actually crushed a little bit of his spirit today. That is a pretty crappy job to have, constantly trying to stop people who don't want to talk to you, so I already have a bit of pity for these people. But when I passed him the second time, his tone of voiced and whole demeanor had changed, and this time he just sort of quietly and pitifully said, "Hello", obviously just trying to get me to acknowledge that he is a human being and shouldn't be flatly ignored.

Which is, of course, what I did. Again I didn't say anything to him, and I'd like to think that I killed a bit of his soul today. If so, then I think Satan owes me, so I'm looking for something deliciously sinful and good to happen to me in the near future as Satan will be paying back the debt he owes me after destoying a good man's soul.

How the guy next to me on the plane leapt into the future to copy me

So I finally flew back to London on Saturday, and anyone who has flown long distances eastwise knows that can be a disorienting experience. This is due, I would venture, to the fact that a person is travelling in all four dimensions during the trip. Not only are you going through all three physical dimensions, a person is also travelling through the fourth dimension of time because of the time zones. For instance, I left Utah at 3:30 pm and arrived in London at 11 am the next day. Fair enough, seems pretty straightforward, right? Well, read on...

Flying long distances is something I've grown used to, but something about this trip was amiss from the beginning. On my first flight, from Salt Lake City to Atlanta, I think there was actually a Twilight Zone effect in play. Not only did the time of day jump forward, but I think the guy next to me was actually a time traveller. I mean, while the rest of us were only skirting the fringes of the fourth dimension by going through time zones, he was quite literally jumping around in time and using his foreknowledge to his advantage. Eek.

It went something like this. I was in the outside seat in the middle section of the plane, while he was sitting just across the aisle from me and occupied the outer seat of the section near the bulkhead of the plane. This meant that when the refreshment services came by, he was asked what he wanted right before I was. No problem there, yeah? Well, the first time they came by and asked about beverages, I had decided on apple juice. Apparently, too, had this guy, because he ordered that same juice right before me. Later in the flight, they came by with an assortment of snacks, such as pretzels, cheese and crackers, and cookies. I had internally committed to the crackers and cheese, but was given a slight moment of pause when this guy asked for the cheese and crackers right before me.

Still, I figured this was just chance. Surely he wouldn't read my mind and order the same thing when the final beverage service came around. As I unwrapped by cheese and crackers, I began to look forward to the ginger ale that I was about to order, when I heard this guy ask for the ginger ale! Confound him! Faced with the prospect of asking for the same thing as him one more time, I decided to zig where he had zagged and ask for another apple juice instead of the ginger ale that I so very much craved.

This whole operation has given me considerable discomfort over the past day, and has actually given me something of an existential crisis. Who could have predicted the correct order of Apple Juice, Cheese Crackers, and then Ginger Ale.? Maybe that was the secret code, and he was some operative recruited to make contact with me and I blew it by not ordering that ginger ale?

More troubling is the prospect that this guy actually did travel just a few seconds into the future each time and saw what I ordered, and decided to pre-empt me with the exact same order each time. If this is true, then it brings up some troubling questions about free will versus determinism. If he knew I was going to order what I did, did I really have a choice in the matter? Did his perfect foreknowledge of what I was going to order mean that there was no way I could have ordered anything else? Yes, I seemingly foiled him by ordering apple juice instead of ginger ale, but did he know I was going to do that? The other day Gregg and I had a conversation about God's omniscience extending to foreknowledge, and the implications that would have for free will. At the time I thought it was a bit of an abstract conversation, but here I was faced with a real world example of it. Shudder...
Ultimately, I put my mind to ease by trying to make the best out of this situation. I like to think that I actually sat next to Kang the Conqueror, the time travelling supervillian. Perhaps in between, well, you know, conquering, he decided to toy with me a bit. Damn you Kang!!