From CNN.com:

"The Pentagon announced Wednesday that a bundle of humanitarian relief supplies dropped in Afghanistan hit a house, killing a woman."

Oops. Add this to the list of oxymorons, military intelligence division: humanitarian death.

Another addition to the Weird Dream Files: Last night, I dreamt that I called TV and game-show celebrity Joyce Bulifant out of the blue and struck up a long and interesting conversation, even though I was a complete stranger to her. After much self-reflection of both Freudian and Jungian varieties, I've come to the following conclusions:

1. Eating pizza dipped in bleu cheese dressing and fresh-baked Mrs. Field's cookies for dinner produces a mild psychotic effect in dreamland
2. I need to spend more of my waking life out of doors and away from reruns of Match Game.
3. My new life mantra will be: Bigger bucks, fewer whammies!

Later on, I dreamt that I was enjoying a fulfilling relationship with Deborah Harry, which led me to the following conclusions:

1. More pizza
2. More bleu cheese
3. More cookies
4. More sleep

So last weekend, I finally purchased a new automobile. It's the culmination of about 3 months of research and test driving. I sent faxes to 21 dealerships to see what kind of offers I could get. After 2-3 weeks of winnowing down the offers, I got a great deal and jumped on it. Now I have 5 years to pay the freakin' thing off.

New life mantra: I love my job, please don't fire me!

This is the first adult-type purchase I've made in my life. My family's thrilled. My friends have yet to see the chariot, but they'll like it, I think. The lovely, brilliant and vivacious Hanne is anticipating the next time she crosses the continent. But me an "excellent driver"? Maybe in the Rain Man sense. Anyone who's been with me when I've attempted parallel parking has ample evidence to refute her assertion. But I'll go along with the "sensual and reassuring" way I drive. I didn't know I was such a sultry motorist. And yet it goes to waste 'cause I don't carpool.

New life mantra: Hey good lookin', I'll be back to pick you up later!

The last few days have been as exhilirating as the days before them were a dog's dinner. A brief rundown:

On Friday, I stepped blindly into a trivia challenge, a charity event for an adult literacy program called Project Read. Little did I know it was a big event – 29 teams of 3 people each – and a big fundraiser – cost was $350 to enter a team, and $25 a head for the accompanying dinner, generously paid for me by Molloy's Tavern of Colma, CA (slogan: "Since Before You Were Born"). I was recommended by my pal Mike, owner of Roy's Deli in South San Francisco. He was on Molloy's team the last few years but decided to branch out with his own team this year, so he vouched for me to be on the Molloy's team. And the team – two gregarious big guys, Cody (a musical instrument restorer) and Bill (a retired newspaperman) – was itching to avenge its bogus 2nd place finish from last year's event; in a Gore-like denouement, the final question was thrown out on a weenie semantic technicality, thus eliminating their 1st place finish and putting them in a sudden death tiebreaker which they lost.

The contest was broken into two rounds - a preliminary 30-question round, with the top 45th percentile moving on to the final round of 15 questions, winners decided on final round score. We got 25 of 30 right in the first round, then finished strong with 13 of 15 in the final round.

Vengeance was ours! We were trivia lords of Northern San Mateo County!

Cody and Bill are really sharp dudes, and they were able to cover my trivia deficiencies, like geography – Which strait separates Spain from Morocco? And other stuff, too, like who wrote the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne and who was the Birdman of Alcatraz? I was able to fill their knowledge gaps, too, with answers to such arcana as the author of the "Goosebumps" series of books, the author of "Charlotte's Web", and tech questions right up my alley, such as what the HT in HTML stands for and the name of the Internet's predecessor. Unfortunately, some stuff we just didn't know, like the animal that has fingerprints most similar to humans.

After the victory, we took the trophy back to Molloy's, where the proprietors bought a couple of black-and-tans and a mineral water for me and gave me a dark green Molloy's t-shirt. I had a fuckin' blast. Can't wait for next year. I'll be back to Molloy's soon to buy drinks.

Monday night in acting class, I just had a great, freeing experience in my improvised scene. Hard to qualify it or describe it, but I was in the zone, the moment, whatever you care to call it. I was on the edge of a live wire, being spontaneous and ebullient and vital, and it was great fun. The scene ended, and I looked at my classmates and teacher, who to a person had this bowled-over expression on their faces. They were surprised to see what I did. Pleasantly so.

In the span of a half-hour or so, every good reason as to why I want to act mainfested itself. I can't tell you how gratifying that is. My animal-style Double Meat and vanilla shake from In-N-Out was a well-deserved post-class dinner.

And now I'm thisclose to buying a new car. Holy shit. Whee!