The owners of my favorite coffee shop just expanded their empire with the purchase of Twin Castle, a small teriyaki-hambuger-milkshake stand. I have never before eaten at the Twin Castle, as it has always been a fairly sketchy place. So sketchy, in fact, that Eminem used it as a location in one of his videos. It perfectly conveyed the downwardly-mobile atmosphere that Em is so fond of. In the past couple of days, I noticed that the Twin Castle looked less skanky than usual, so I decided to chance ordering a BLT. Lo and behold, it was one of the best BLTs I've ever had! Here's wishing the new Twin Castle much success! 
The mystery of the guy who jumped over my fence has been solved. It turns out that he was an acquaintance of my nutty neighbor, Shawn. Apparently, Shawn has been counseling meth addicts in his spare time and the fence-jumper was one of his charges. I found this out from Mr. Flynn, who was out front doing yard work this morning. Mr. Flynn told me not to worry, as Shawn apparently told the meth addict that it was not appropriate to jump fences and run through other people's yards. It figures that Shawn had something to do with this. Years ago, when Shawn moved in, I asked him if he would mind me occasionally picking a lemon from his tree. He said "no problem," as it is a huge lemon tree that has more than enough fruit for the whole neighborhood and then some. It is such a monster tree that the lemons are quite often the size of grapefruits. Anyway, not too long ago, I went over to pluck a lemon or two and Shawn comes out of his house and says to me "You're lucky that I didn't shoot you." Now, he may have been kidding, but I don't know. He's off-kilter enough that you have to wonder. Mind you, I was never actually in his yard-- I could reach the tree from the sidewalk out front. I no longer pick lemons from his tree, but it really bothers me that now I have to pay 79¢ for a lemon at Ralphs. And Shawn thinks that I should be OK with meth addicts running through my yard? What kind of sense does that make?
From: Adam
Date: August 3, 2003 8:28 AM
Subject: The Death Bell Tolls--Casey Has Left the Friendster Building
Message: The Golden Age of Friendster is OVER. Casey has closed his account. Multiple people, including my good friend The Blair Witch, have had their photos deleted without any message from the programmers that be. I'm sure we'll all look back in six months to a year and say, "Hey, remember that Friendster thing . . . HA HA HA" In the meantime, prepare ye for the mass exodus.From: Adam
Date: August 3, 2003 4:35 PM
Subject: The Death Knoll Tolls AGAIN
Message: Apparently Tommie Sunshine's account was suspended by the "friendly" programmers of Friendster because they thought he was not a real person!!! #@$& off chickens!!! Let the war begin!!! Friendster "alpha" is going to be a GHOST TOWN. (btw I had to use a comic book style symbol-curse because the OVERLORDS of this obviously FRANZ JOSEF-run Nazi Machine deemed the f-word unacceptable!)
Some guy just crawled over my fence, leaped into my yard and jumped over the fence into Mr. Flynn's yard. I yelled out "Hey!" and he kept on going. No one was chasing him-- who was he? It was pretty scary. There's no point in calling the police-- what would they do? There have been many nights over the years where the LAPD was chasing some guy with a helicopter and focused the floodlights in my yard. That's always nerve-wracking, but thankfully no one was ever caught in my yard. And now some guy runs through my yard in BROAD DAYLIGHT! Maybe I should get a dog... 
