Just a little postlet this evening, as I have been out doing various things:

1. Watching our car hork out incredible blats of terrible grey smoke from the tailpipe. Because the wife and I are hopeless fools when it comes to complicated machines like cars, computers, inclined planes and simple hinges, it is entirely possible that we overfilled the car with oil. Currently, it is parked up on 12th Street, where it will sit forlornly until we can locate someone technically sophisticated enough to help us figure out where the oil drain is. I'm guessing it's somewhere tricky, like perhaps in the hatch door, or maybe Flin Flon, Canada.

2. Despite our vehicular titty-twister, we still managed to make it to Safeco Field, where we watched our Ms do the Frug on the crotches of the hopeless Detroit Tigers, a team which has a small, humble prayer of actually achieving 60 wins this season. If they make this arm-pumpless goal, expect them to thank the beneficient voodoo gods and sacrifice a vole to Papa Legba on home plate. STAT OF THE GAME: Detroit's starting pitcher lasted 2/3 of an inning, and left with 9 Seattle runs on the board, 8 earned. Meanwhile in the stands, certain unnamed spectators guzzled 24-ounce beers (at eight bucks a pop) filled with peanut shrapnel (flung there by malicious friends who deserve only sharp jabs to the throat).

3. But before any of that happened, there was my Convenience Store Experience. My local convenience store is owned by, it is almost embarrassing to say just because of its stereotypicality, a genial Korean man. He greets me with a stock array of blandosities: "It is hot!" "Hello Skot!" "It is the helpful man!" (I once helped him decipher a bullshit threatening letter that turned out to be an extortionate missive that implied baseless lawsuit.) But my favorite is, "You need cigarettes!" Which is of course true, but you'd never hear that from your butcher. "You need flank steak!" Maybe I just love unpredictable, confident declaratives.

Today when I walked in to buy smokes, there was such a strange din coming from his stereo behind the counter. For a moment, I couldn't figure it out. It seemed to be some racket (not musical) with a guy babbling strangely, and then raucous laughter. Then I finally got it: it was a CD of Korean stand-up comedy.

I thought: "What the fuck? Koreans don't do stand-up." Then I felt exceedingly stupid: that's like saying Koreans don't bathe or something. And then I thought: "Man, I wish I could understand this Korean stand-up." And then I thought, "Man, I wish I could do Korean stand-up."

Wouldn't that be fucking great? I mean, I love making Americans laugh. But how cool would it be to make Koreans laugh, and then stare at the rest of the non-Korean world and think, "Yeah, sorry. This one's just for the Koreans." And then the icing on the cake, your tax return. Occupation? "Korean Stand-Up Comic."

I'd actually anticipate the audit, just to see their faces.