Have You Ever Seen a Quimp?

"Ten Names of Things You Didn't Know Had Names," at least according to the third volume of The Book of Lists.

• "columella nasi," or the little flap of skin between the nostrils
• "dragées," or the hard little candies you use for decorating cakes
• "fuerrule," or the metal part of the pencil that hold the eraser
• "keeper," or the band on a belt that holds the end in place after you've buckled it
• "rowel," the pointed, round thing on the back of a cowboy's spurs
• "saddle," for the rounded part on a matchbook where you strike the match

And, finally, four different words for the gibberish symbols used in place of swear words. And for God's sake, these were hard dealybobs to find images of.


These symbols, which look like a modified at sign and number sign, are apparently called "jarns."


These, which look like explosive little hatchmarks, apparently are called "nittles."


This sort of pseudo-cursive scrawl is referred to as "grawlix." Good to know. This is what I thought actual handwriting was for my childhood preceding third grade.


And, finally, we have the "quimp." It looks like a crudely drawn man in a sombrero, but I think it's actually supposed to be a planet or something. Like Saturn, with the rings. In any case, I'm fairly certain I've never seen these before in any comic strip I've ever read. But that's what the Book of Lists says, anyway.

Okey-Dokey Doki Doki

The below image compares concept art for Super Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic, the Japanese game that the former was based on. And when I say “based on,” I mean “hacked from,” if by a more legitimate crew than is normally responsible for hacking. I wish I could find the Doki Doki Panic image in higher resolution, but so far this is all the internet has yielded. What’s especially curious about these two images is that they’re both hand-drawn art, but for whatever reason the artist who drew the left panel, which depicts the American version of the game, decided to preserve the design of the right one almost perfectly.

Whoever drew the Super Mario Bros. art posed all the characters almost exactly as they appeared in the Doki Doki Panic art, just with a thicker line style. Mario, for example, is about to throw a turnip in the same way that Imajin, the turbaned fellow who starred in the Japanese game, is about to throw a mask — an African tribal mask, no less. You know, like you throw at people. Same with the rest of the cast.

What strikes me as even odder about these pieces is that the artist could have easily traced everything on the right side of the river for the Super Mario Bros. 2 art, as those characters did not change. Or if not trace, than they could easily have just pieced in the new art using whatever people in the 80s used before Photoshop. They didn’t. They re-drew it all, sometimes in poses that are almost jus barely different. Look at Birdo, for example. She’s just slightly in a different pose, her snout is shaped differently and her bow is a different color.

Another note: For whatever reason, the American art doesn’t change the sound effect of the bomb exploding from the Japanese “BOM” to how it appears in the American game, “BOMB.” Even the hills in the background appear similarly, just with different swirls on them.

Odd. To me, anyway.

EDIT: Long after this went up, I stumbled across this absolutely beautiful promo artwork that kind of makes me want to see a Doki Doki Panic realized in such a gloriously colorful fashion.

Or at least a hint that Nintendo hasn’t completely forgotten these characters.

Tiny World Destroyer

An indulgence: As a kid, I loved "Tiny Toons" and mentally catalogued the various kiddie mutations of the "Looney Tunes" cast. One of the rarest of these characters — alongside the tater tot version of Witch Hazel — was Marcia the Martian. She's the daughter of Marvin the Martian, who I always liked. Marcia the Martian only appeared once in the series, in a take-off on "Duck Dodgers." This, it seems, is the only image of her available on the internet, though it can now be found in quite a few places.

Like Leopold and Loeb, Only Meaner

A touching image of "Home Movies" characters Walter and Perry that I found at Brendon Small's website. Isn't it just touching? I feel like it's touching.

Making Us Look Better by Comparison

Things I know about my downstairs neighbors:

• They have a healthy sex life.
• They have sex in the living room in such a manner that the sound channels up from their window and into various parts of my apartment.
• She’s a talker during sex.
• He, curiously, is a sneezer and is sometimes prone to burst of nasal activity sometimes five or six sneezes long.
• I heard her once say “Don’t stop” during the sneezing.
• They watch really intense movies
• Just tonight, in fact, they are watching something that has screams and gun shots being played against some foreign-language lullaby-sounding song.
• Another time the movie involved what I imagine to be a mother screaming about a dead child, then, curiously, what sounded like a car crash.
• Sometimes they have sex during the movies and it is difficult to differentiate their moans from those of the characters in the intense movies they watch.
• Don’t stop.
• Don’t stop.
• Yes. Like that.
• I’m gonna fucking blow your head off.
• My baby! My baby!
• Don’t stop.
• Ah-choo.
• Despite the fact that they drive reasonably nice cars, they have “no money,” if I’m to believe the telephone conversations I hear.
• They have various money accounts.
• All of them have “no money.”
• No money in this account.
• No money in that account.
• Seriously, dude, I got no money. I’m fucking broke. You can come see the paperwork if you want.
• Also, if you don’t want the responsibility, come over and take your name off the account.
• Oh, so you don’t want to take your name off the account, but you don’t want any of the responsibility. Why don’t you call your dad and tell him that.
• They’re willing to go to court.
• They have a son.
• He is a bit of a tattletale and the dad doesn’t like that.
• If it’s not your business, stay out of it.
• If people here you talking about other people, what do you think they’re going to do to you?
• That’s right — they’re going to tell everyone else what a bad person you are.
• Is that what you want?
• Seriously no money.
• She looks like she might have recently started having a hard life.
• He looks like a primary factor in those problems.
• If you’re not going to come over here and see the proof, you have to take my word for it.
• Fine, don’t sign it.
• She wishes they had more money to do nice thing.
• Like move.
• Allegedly, she’s pissing all the money away.
• Don’t stop.
• Yes.
• Yes.
• Yes.
• I don’t know which wire to cut.
• No money in this account. No money in that account.
• If it smells bad then don’t eat it.
• Yes, it’s clean.
• I just cleaned it.
• Ah-choo. Ah-choo. Ah-choo.
• She talks to her sister about being “not not happy.”
• If I’m to believe what I hear, various members of the family “need to grow up.”
• Who is that?! Who is that?!
• It’s the killer! He’s behind you!
• Don’t stop.

The moral: even a healthy sex life won’t cure all your problems.

The Owls Go

Vintage, whereabouts unknown. Cool though.

That Drew, He’s a Modern Day Hardy Boy

Twice in the past month I have taken my life into my own hands and gone to explore some part of the world that once was inhabited happily by humans but has since been rendered unlivable by natural disaster. All in a very small way, I’ll admit, but the statement is irrefutably true.

A few weeks ago, I headed home to Hollister and while there went waterskiing at the O’Neil Forebay, an artificial body of water important enough to California history that the great Joan Didion even once mentioned it in a book. (This, really, doesn’t speak all that highly of the forebay, as Joan Didion mentions everything about California.) Nonetheless, I was there. After a few hours of soaking in the famous Los Banos heat, we headed home, the duration of which I slept, save one key point: The Don Pacheco Y. This happy spot of California asphalt marks the intersection of Highways 152 and 156. Anyone who’s been through the area and passed the strange Casa de Fruta complex on the side of the road has probably crossed this very intersection. It’s also near what used to be the Sugar Plum Farm, a restaurant that I loved as a kid and was owned by the family of my sophomore year roommate, oddly enough. To the frustration — and, often, danger — of many travelers, these two highways meet each other in an especially awkward way that results in one line of cars, sailing towards Hollister with fairly little traffic back-up, jutting into a second, that is very often stalled as it inches away. We’d often been stopped there, crawling on a road that should rightfully permit normal highway speeds, and as a child I always marveled at what looked the ruins to some local castle, where surely presents and candy awaited me, if only my parents would stop the car.

Not so.

The place, in fact, was a Mexican restaurant — the Don Pacheco — that burned to the ground in the 1970s. For whatever reason, the owners chose not to rebuilt. A baffling decision — considering how many cars slow to a stop there, it would be an easy place to pull over for food. Nonetheless, the ruins have sat there my entire life, slowly decaying and filling with thistles.

Realizing how much the place appealed to me and cleverly noting that I am now technically an adult and can do what I want, I drove back out to the Don Pacheco later that day. No surprises. No murderous vagrants either, presumably because the homeless and mean-spirited hate merciless sun and thistles as much as anybody. The whole experience gave me the creeps, though, and I was constantly worried that anyone I might bump into would have less noble motivation to be there than I did.

I’m not sure the pictures really do the place justice, but they — and this text — represent the limit of what I could convey.


This above is technically the front entrance, though you can honestly walk in any way that you'd like, since most of the walls burned down.



Oh look! A lovely fountain! Ful of... weeds! And a snake! And — ooh! — a condom!


As if to really date these ruins — at least in the span of my life — the sign advertising that the restaurant accepts credits cards still stands. To me knowledge, Master Charge became MasterCard years ago.


Also, someone felt the need to paint pro-America graffiti on the walls of a place that probably only gets a dozen or so visitors a year. Mission accomplished.



Quite overgrown with weeds, as you can see. Sad to think this was probably once a nice place to pull over, eat a taco and watch other motorists get in accidents. You can view the rest of the photos of the Don Pacheco restaurant on my Flickr account.

[ link: more of the same — but possibly even better! ]

I'm a little shocked this wreckage has remained here longer than I've been alive. You'd think someone would do something with a plot of land in such a heavily trafficked area. Then again, this is Hollister, so one day my grandkids might see it.